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From  the  collection  of  the 

7   n 
m 

o  Prefinger 

i     a 

Uibrary 


San  Francisco,  California 
2006 


1845  1C47  1- 


LIBRARY 

ESTABLISHED   1112 

LAWRENCE,  MASS. 


THE    DIAL 


A  FORTNIGHTLY 


VOLUME    LXVI 

December  28,  1918,  to  July  12,  1919 


NEW  YORK 
THE  DIAL  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 


INDEX  TO  VOLUME  LXVI 

MM 

ABBOZZO,  THE  LITERARY Conrad  Aiken 83 

AIKEN,  CONRAD — METAPHYSICAL  POET John  Gould  Fletcher 558 

1    AMERICAN  ART? Maxwell  Bodenheim 544 

AMERICANIZATION  AND  WALT  WHITMAN Winifred  Kirkland 537 

AMERICANIZING  THE  IMMIGRANTS Carl  H.  Grabo 539 

AMERICAN  NOTE,  THE Percy  H.  Boynton 306 

AMERICAN  PERSONALITY,  A  TYPICALLY      .      .      .      .  (    .      .      .      .  William  Ellery  Leonard     ....     26 

AMERICAN  STATESMAN  SERIES,  A  NEW «...  William  E.  Dodd    ......  243 

ARMY  AND  THE  LAW,  THE Charles  Recht 461 

BALFOUR'S  CHARM,  MR.  . Norman  Hapgood 169 

BENELLI,  SEM,  THE  REAL Robert  Morss  Lovett    .'....  534 

BOLSHEVISM  Is  A  MENACE — TO  WHOM? TV/or -stein  Veblen     .      .     .      .'.     .   174^ 

BRUTALITY,  THE  CULT  OF Louis   Untermeyer   .......   562 

CARUS,   PAUL William  Ellery  Leonard     ....   452 

CITIES  AND  SEA  COASTS  AND  ISLANDS Stark  Young 296 

CLASSICISM,  THE  PASSING  OF Richard  Offner 460 

CLASSICS,  UNIVERSITY  RECONSTRUCTION  AND  THE Royal  Case  Nemiah 390 

COBDEN,  THE  INTERNATIONALIST •    .  Robert  Morss  Lovett 399 

CONRAD,  THE  VOYAGES  OF E.  Preston  Dargan 638 

CONVERSATION,  A  SECOND  IMAGINARY:  Gosse  and  Moore    .      .      .  George  Moore    ....  287,  347,  394 

COUPERUS,   LOUIS,  AND  THE   FAMILY  NOVEL Robert  MorsS   Lovett 184 

COVENANT,  THE — AND  AFTER Robert  Morss  Lovett 219 

DEATH,  A  PERSPECTIVE  OF w .  .  .  .  H.  M.  Kallen 415 

DIRECT  ACTION,  DEMOCRACY  AND Bertrand  Russell 445 

DUBLIN,  MARCH  6 Ernest  A.  Boyd 358 

ECONOMIC  UNITY  AND  POLITICAL  DIVISION Bertrand  Russell 629 

EDUCATED  HEART,  AN Claude  Bragdon 14 

EMERGENCY,  REVERSING  AN Benjamin  C.  Gruenberg  .  .  .  .221 

EMPTY  BALLOONS James  Weber  Linn  .  .  .  ,  .  .  .87 

ENGINEERS,  THE  CAPTAINS  OF  FINANCE  AND  THE Thorstein  Veblen 599 

ESPIONAGE  LAW,  REPEAL  THE  .  .  .  .  >  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  Gilbert  E.  Roe 8 

EUGENICS— MADE  IN  GERMANY .  .  H.  M.  Kallen 28 

FACTUALIST  VERSUS  IMPRESSIONIST Wilson  Follett 449 

FICTION,  THE  THEORY  OF Henry  B.  Fuller 193 

FIELDING,  A  VINDICATION  OF ,  .  Helen  Sard  Hughes 407 

FINLAND — A  BULWARK  AGAINST  BOLSHEVISM Lewis  Muniford  .  .  '.  .  .  .  590 

FRANCE,  ANATOLE,  AND  THE  IMP  OF  THE  PERVERSE- E.  Preston  Dargan  .  .  .  .  .  .126 

FRANCE  AND  A  WILSONIAN  PEACE Ferdinand  Schevill  .......  303 

FRANCE,  THE  RUIN  OF  BOURGEOIS Robert  Dell 632 

GENIUS,  THE  WAYS  OF Clarence  Britten 651 

GERMANY,  How  TO  TREAT Norman  Angell 279 

GREAT  HUNGER,  THE Robert  Morss  Lovett 299 

GUNS  IN  SURREY,  THE:  A  MEREDITH  REMEMBRANCE  ....  Fullerton  L.  Waldo 67 

HAMLETS,  Two  LATTER-DAY Lid  a  C.  Schem 228 

HARRIS,  JOEL  CHANDLER,  AND  NEGRO  FOLKLORE Elsie  Cleivs  Parsons 491 

HISTORY,  THE  ECONOMIC  INTERPRETATION  OF:  A  FOOTNOTE:  .  .  Robert  H.  Lowie 35 

HYPHEN,  LIVING  DOWN  THE Anonymous 401 

IMAGINATION  AND  VISION Ernest  A.  Boyd 31 

INDEMNITY,  How  TO  SECURE  THE  GERMAN  ........  John  S.  Codman 385 

INDEPENDENTS,  THE Walter  Pack 307 

INDIAN,  THE,  AS  POET J Louis  Untermeyer 240 

INDIA'S  REVOLUTION .  Sailendra  nath  Ghose  .  .  .  .  .  595 

INDUSTRIAL  COUNCILS  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN,  THE G.  D.  H.  Cole 171 

-  INDUSTRIAL  CRISIS,  THE  IMPENDING Walton  H.  Hamilton 496 

INDUSTRY  AND  THE  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY Thorstein  Veblen 552 

INTERNATIONAL  ANGLING Lewis  Mumford 298 

IRELAND  BETWEEN  Two  STOOLS "Dnbliner" 503 

ITALY,  THE  IMPENDING  REVOLUTION  IN Flavio  Venanzi 455 

IVAN  SPEAKS ~ H.  M.  Kallen  .  .  .  .  .  .  .507 

JAPAN  AND  AMERICA  . John  Dewey ,  .  501 

"  KEEP  THE  FAITH" The  Editors- 533 

KREYMBORG'S  MARIONETTES Lola  Ridge 29 

v  LABOR  AT  THE  CROSSWAYS Helen  Marot  .  .  .  .  '  .  .  .  165 

LABOR  CONTROL  OF  GOVERNMENT  INDUSTRIES Helen  Marot 411 

LAISSEZ-FAIRE,  THE  LAPSE  TO Walton  H.  Hamilton ^37 

LAMARTINE,  THE  PATRIOT  OF  THE  FEBRUARY  REVOLUTION  .  .  .  William  A.  Nitze 73 

LAUGHTER  OF  DETACHMENT,  THE Marvin  M.,Lowenthal  .  .  .  .133 


iv  INDEX 

PAGE 

LEAGUE,  THE,  AND  THE  INSTINCT  FOR  COMPETITION      ..../.  George  Frederick     .     .     .     f     .187 

LETTERS  TO  UNKNOWN  WOMEN Richard  Aldington      ....  '183,  510 

To  the  Amaryllis  of  Theocritus 183 

To  La  Grosse  Margot 510 

LIBERALISM    INVINCIBLE Harold  Stearns •    .  409 

LONDON,  DECEMBER  9 Edward  Shanks 37 

LONDON,  JANUARY  30 Edward  Shanks 195 

LONDON,  FEBRUARY  4 *.....     Robert  Dell 244 

LONDON,  FEBRUARY  20 Edward  Shanks 417 

LONDON,  APRIL  10 Robert  Dell 465 

LONDON,  MAY  10 Edward  Shanks 563 

MARY  IN  WONDERLAND Robert  Morss  Lovett 463 

MILITARY  TRAINING  AS  EDUCATION George  Soule 71 

MODERN  POINT  OF  VIEW  AND  THE  NEW  ORDER,  THE     ....      Thorstein  Veblen 19,  75 

MONTAGU-CHELMSFORD  REFORM  PROPOSALS,  THE Sailendra  nath  Ghose 457 

NATIONALISM Franz  Boas 232 

NEWSPAPER  CONTROL - A.  Vernon  Thomas 121 

NORMAL  MADNESS,  A Katharine  Anthony •    .     15 

ORTHODOXY,  GOOD  FORM  AND George  Donlin 282 

PAPER  WAR,  THE .' Robert  Herrick  .      .      .      .     .     .      .113 

PARASITIC  NOVEL,  A «      .      .      Robert  Morss  Lovett 641 

PAST,  REMAKING  THE •  •     •     •     Walton  H.  Hamilton 135 

PATRIOTISM  AND  ITS  CONSEQUENCES     .     .      .     .     .     ™  .     .     .     Lewis  Mumford 406 

PEACE Thorstein    Veblen 485 

PEACE  IN  ITS  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS H.  J.  Davenport '  388 

PELLEAS  ET  MELISANDE Paul  Rosen f eld 138 

PENDENNIS,  AN  AMERICAN Robert  Morss  Lovett 86 

POETIC  REVOLT,  AN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD Rollo  Britten 545 

POLITICAL  CRIMINALS,  THE  TRIAL  OF,  HERE  AND  ABROAD    .     .     .     Robert  Ferrari' 647 

POLITICAL  PRISONERS,  RELEASE The  Editors 5 

POSSESSOR  AND  POSSESSED Conrad  Aiken     .     .     .     .     .•     .     .189 

POSTPROGRAMISM   AND   RECONSTRUCTION Rollo    Britten 24! 

PRESS,  THE  AMERICAN,  SINCE  THE  ARMISTICE Harold  Stearns 129 

PRINCIPLES,  BACK  TO Robert  Dell 587 

PUCCINI,  THE  NEW  WORK  OF S.  Foster  Damon 25 

QUILL,  THE  UNRELEGATED Lisle  Bell 140 

Quo  VADIS? Norman  Angell 488 

REALISM,  A  WORD  ABOUT Nancy  Barr  Mavity 635 

REALISTS,  THE  ROMANCE  OF  THE Babette  Deutsch 560 

REDON,  THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF Walter  Pack 191 

REFORM — WHY  IT  Is  FUTILE Helen  Mar'ot 293 

REVOLUTION,  THE  UNENDING Harold  Stearns 301 

RILKE,  RAINER  MARIA Martin  Schiitze  ....           .     .   559 

ROADS  TO  FREEDOM Will  Durant 354 

ROGUE'S  MARCH:  To  A  FLEMISH  AIR James  Branch  Cabell    .     .     .     .     .181 

ROOSEVELT,  THEODORE John  Dewey 115 

ROSTAND,  EDMOND,  THE  POETRY  OF William  A.  Nitze 179 

RUSSIA,  A  VOICE  OUT  OF George  V.  Lomonossoff                       .     61 

SABOTAGE,  ON  THE  NATURE  AND  USES  OF Thorstein  Veblen 341 

SCHAMBERG  EXHIBITION,  THE Walter   Pack         .       .       ^      .       .       .       .    505 

SCHOOLS,  EXPERIMENTAL Caroline  Pratt 413 

SCHOOLS,  PROPAGANDA  IN Charles  A.  Beard    ......  598 

SELF-DECEPTION,  THE  DRAMA  OF Katharine  Anthony     .....     238 

SOCIALISM,  THE  FUTURE  OF  AMERICAN Will  Durant 494 

SOLDIER,  THE  AMERICAN Robert  Morss  Lovett    .      .      . /  .      .33 

SOLOGUB,   FEODAR Katharine  Keith 643 

SPAIN,  TURMOIL  IN Arthur  Livingston 593 

SUFFRAGE  AMENDMENT,  THE  FEDERAL Harold  J.  Laski      ...     .     .     . ;    .  541 

TEN  TIMES  TEN  MAKE  ONE  . ,    .     >     '. Wilson  Follett 225 

TRADITION,  THE  GREAT  .....* Ashley  H.  Thorndike 118 

TRANSLATIONS,  BELATED Edith  Borie 650 

"  UNSKILLED,"  THE  RISE  OF  THE G.  D.  H.  Cole 17 

VERS  LIBRE,  A  RATIONAL  EXPLANATION  OF John  Gould  Fletcher 11 

Vox — ET  PRAETEREA? Conrad  Aiken 356 

WAR,  THE  BIOLOGY  OF Will  Durant 84 

WAR,  THE  MORAL  DEVASTATION  OF Frank  Tannenbaum 333 

WEST,  THE  HISTORICAL Howard  Mumford  Jones  ....  508 


INDEX  v 

VERSE 

MM 

BRIDGES Annette  Wynne 182 

COQ  D'OR Amy  Lowell  ..." 549 

DEBUSSY H.  H,  Bellamann 125 

DISPATCH Wallace  Gould 487 

END  OF  APRIL,  THE Allen  Tucker 387 

EXILES Babette  Deutsch        .:....   305 

EXPRESSIONS  NEAR  THE  END  OF  WINTER -  .    •.     .  Stephen    Vincent    Benet     ....  248 

FIRST  SNOW  ON  THE  HiLLS Leonora  Speyer 500 

FROM  A  HILL  IN  FRANCE Cuthbert  Wright 336 

HARBINGERS  OF  SPRING Donald  B.  Clark 300 

IN  MY  ROOM  I  READ  AND  WRITE Mary  Carolyn  Davies 606 

I  WATCH  ONE  WOMAN  KNITTING David  Morton 418 

LUFBERY Mabel  Kingsley  Richardson     .-  .      .66 

MOOD Maxwell  Bodenheim 549 

MORNING     .            ...."...  Catharine  Warren   .      .      .      .      .      .   589 

NIGHT  SMELL  ,". Josephine  Bell 224 

NOCTURNE Mildred  Johnston  Murphy       .      .      .168 

ON  THE  HILLS Eden  Phillpotts 551 

ON  THE  ROAD  TO  EDEN Elizabeth  J.  Coatsworth     ....   634 

OUT  OF  A  DAY      ...  * Herbert  J.  Seligmann 70 

PLAINT  OF  COMPLEXITY,  A Eunice   Tietjens 550 

RANDOLPH  BOURNE James  Oppenheim    ......       7 

REVEILLE Lola  Ridge 551 

SEA-HOARDINGS Cale  Young  Rice     .     .     .     .     .     .  448 

STEAMBOAT  NIGHTS Carl  Sandburg    .      .      .      .   \      .      .   549 

SUN  GLAMOUR Hazel  Hall 564 

SYNGE'S  PLAYBOY  OF  THE  WESTERN  WORLD:  Variation  ....     Emanuel  Carnevali 340 

To  ONE  DEAD t  Rose  Henderson 237 

To  ONE  WHO  Woos  FAME  WITH  ME Ralph  Block       .     .     .     .      .     .     .196 

VISITANTS Leslie  Nelson  Jennings       ....   360 

WAR   Music Helen  Hoyt 637 


INDEX 


AUTHORS  AND  TITLES  OF  BOOKS  REVIEWED 


PAGE 

Abbot,    Eleanor   Hallowell.      Old-Dad 366 

Adams,  George  Burton.     The  British  Empire  and  a  League 

of  Peace 668 

Adams,  Henry  C.     American  Railway  Accounting ISO 

"  A.  E."     See  Russell,  George  W. 

Agate,  James  E.     Buzz  !    Buzz  ! 37 

Aiken,  Conrad.     The  Charnel  Rose. — Senlin :  A  Biography.   558 

Aldington^  Richard.     War  and  Love 576 

Aldington,    Richard,    and    John    Cournos,    translators.      The 

Little  Demon,  by  Feodar  Sologub 643 

American  Problems  of  Reconstruction 258 

Allen,  James  Lane.     The  Emblems  of  Fidelity 664 

Anderson,  Sherwood.     Winesburg,  Ohio 544,  666 

Andrews,  C.  E.     The  Writing  and  Reading  of  Verse 574 

Andrews,     Roy     Chapman,     and     Yvette     Borup     Andrews. 

Camps  and  Trails  in  China 150  . 

Angell,    Norman.      The    British    Revolution    and    American 

Democracy 409 

Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse:   1918 574 

Archer,  C.,  and  W.  J.  Alexander  Worster,  translators.     The 

Great   Hunger,  by  Johan   Bojer 299 

Atkinson,  Caroline  P.,  editor.     Letters  of  Susan  Hale 314 

Babbitt,  Irving.     Rousseau  and  Romanticisim 668 

Bacon,  Josephine  Daskam.     On  Our  Hill 52 

Bailey,  S..   C.     The   Gamesters 657 

Balfour,    Arthur   James :    Wilfred    M.    Shprt,    editor.      Non- 
political   Writings,   Speeches  and  Addresses,    1879-1917.    169 

Barclay,   Sir  Thomas.      Collapse  and  Reconstruction 580 

Barrie,  J.   M.     Alice  Sit-by-the-Fire 524 

Barrott,    Elizabeth    Kemper,   The    Baronne    Moncheur    and, 

translators.     The  Vocational   Re-Education  of   Maimed 

Soldiers,  by  Leon  de  Paeuw 424 

Bassett,  John  Spencer.     The  Lost  Fruits  of  Waterloo......   668 

Baudelaire,   Charles.      F.   P.   Sturm,  translator.     Poems  and 

Prose  Poems    576 

Beaumont,  C.  W.,  and  M.  H.  Sadler,  editors.     New  Paths.   668 
Beazley,    Raymond,    Nevill    Forbes,     and     G.     A.     Birkett. 

Russia  Prom  the  Varangians  to  the  Bolsheviks 517 

Becker,  Carl.     The  Eve  of  the  Revolution 135 

Beebe,  William.     Jungle  Peace '. 203 

Begbie,   Harold.     The  Convictions  of  Christopher  Sterling.    666 

Beith,  Ian  Hay  ("Ian  Hay").     The  Last  Million 620 

Benelli,   Sem.     La   Cena  delle   Beffe   (The  Jest). — L'Amore 

dei  Tre  Re   (The  Love  of  the  Three  Kings). — II  Man- 

tellaccio. — La  Maschera  di  Bruto  (The  Mask  of  Brutus)   534 

Ben6t,   Stephen   Vincent.      Young  Adventure 96 

Bennett,    Arnold.       Clayhanger. — The    Old    Wives'    Tale. — 

The  Pretty  Lady.— The  Roll-Call 659 

Best,  Harry.     The  Blind , 670 

'Bion.     Winifred  Bryher,  translator.     Lament  for  Adonis....    158 
Birkett,     G.     A.,     Raymond     Beazley,    and    Nevill     Forbes. 

Russia  From  the  Varangians  to  the  Bolsheviks 517 

Blacam,  Aodh  de.     See  de  Blacam. 

Blackwood,  Algernon.     The  Garden  of  Survival 148 

Blades,    Leslie    Burton.      Claire 578 

Bleackley,  Horace.     Any  moon 666 

Bloomfield,  Meyer.      Management  and   Men 580 

Bodenheim,  Maxwell.     Minna  and  Myself 358 

Boerker,  Richard  H.  D.     Our  National  Forests 204 

Boethius.      H.    E.    Stewart    and    E.    K.    Rand,    translators. 

The   Theological   Tractates 438 

Bojer,   Johan.      W.    J.    Alexander   Worster   and    C.   Archer, 

translators.     The  Great  Hunger 299 

Book  of  the  Sea,  A 582 

Booth,   Evangeline,   and   Grace  Livingston   Hill.      The   War 

Romance   of  the   Salvation  Army 620 

Botchkareva,  Maria.     Yashka :  My  Life  as  Peasant,  Officer 

and  Exile   366 

Bottome,   Phyllis.     .Helen  of  Troy,  and  Rose 366 

Boulnois,  Helen.     Some  Soldiers  and  Little  Mamma 622 

Boyd,  John.     Sir  George  Etienne  Cartier,   Bart 580 

Boy  Scouts'  Book  of  Stories,  The 664 

Bradley,  Mary  Hastings.     The  Wine  of  Astonishment 374 

Braithwaite,   William   Stanley,   editor.     Anthology   of  Mag- 
azine   Verse:    1918 574 

Braithwaite,   William    Stanley,    editor.      Victory! 582 

Brawley,    Benjamin.     Africa  and    the   War 370 

Brebner,   Percy  James.     A   Gallant   Lady 657 

Brevoort,   Henry.      George  S.   Hellman,   editor.      Letters   to 

Washington    Irving 436 

Bridges,  Horace  J.     On  Becoming  an  American   539 

Bridges,  Robert,  editor.     Poems,  by  Gerard  Manley  Hopkins  572 


Brissenden,    Paul   Frederick.      The   I.   W.    W. :    A    Study   of 

American    Syndicalism 524 

Broadhurst,  Jean,  and  Clara  L.   Rhodes,  editors.     Verse   for 

Patriots 1 582 

Brody,  Alter.     A  Family  Album 561 

Brooks,   Charles  S.     Chimney-Pot   Papers 578,  618 

Brougham,   Eleanor  M.,  editor.      Corn   from   Olde   Fieldes.  .    582 
Bruce,  William  Cabell.     Benjamin  Franklin  Self-Revealed..     46 

Brunner,  Emma  Beatrice.     Bits  of  Background 478 

Bryher,  Winifred,  translator.      Bion's  Lament  for   Adonis.  .    158 

Buchanan,  Meriel.     The  City  of  Trouble 522 

Bureau  of  American  Ethnology.     Annual  Report,    1910-1911   620 

Burke,  Thomas.  Nights  in   London 54 

Burt,   Maxwell   Struthers.      John    O'May 49 

Bynner,  Witter.      The   Beloved   Stranger    576 

Byrd,  John  Walter.     The  Born  Fool 666 

Cabell,  James  Branch.     Beyond  Life. — The  Certain  Hour. — 

Chivalry. — The    Cords    of    Vanity.— The    Cream    of    the 

Jest. — Gallantry. — The    Line   of   Love 224 

Cabot,  Richard   C.      Social  Work 580 

Cambridge    History   of   American    Literature,   The:    Vol.    II   428 

Canby,  Henry  Seidel.      Our  House 578 

Cannan,    Gilbert.      Everybody's    Husband ' 576 

Chambers,   Robert   W.      In   Secret 666 

Chapin,   Maud.     Rushlight   Stories 262 

Chapman,  Charles  E.     A  History  of  Spain 152 

Cheney,  Sheldon.     The  Open- Air  Theatre 313 

Ch6radame,  Andre.     The  Essentials  of  an  Enduring  Victory  303 

Chesterton,  Cecil.     A  History  of  the  United  States 580 

Christian,      Bertram,      Lisle      March-Phillips     and,     editors. 

Some   Hawarden    Letters:    1878-1913 87 

Cicero.     E.  O.  Winstedt,  translator.     Letters  to  Atticus....    438 
Clemens,   Samuel   L.    ("  Mark  Twain  ").      The   Curious   Re- 
public of   Gondour 668 

Clemens,    Samuel    L.     ("  Mark    Twain  ").       Letters,    Albert 

Bigelow  Paine,  editor 134 

Cleveland,  Frederick  A.,   and  Joseph   Schaefer.      Democracy 

in    Reconstruction 524 

Coates,  Archie  Austin.     City   Tides 154 

Cobb,  Irvin  S.     Eating  in  Two  or  Throe  Languages 326 

Cobb,  Irvin   S.     The   Life  of  the   Party 668 

Colcord,  Joanna  C.      Broken   Homes 670 

Colson,  Ethel  M.     How  to  Read  Poetry 574 

Comfort,  Will  Levington.     The  Yellow  Lord 666 

Comstock,  Sarah.     The  Valley  of  Vision A  ...    474 

Connor,  Ralph.     The  Sky  Pilot  in  No  Man's  Land 370 

Conrad,   Joseph.     Almayer's   Folly. — The  Arrow  of   Gold. — 

The   End   of  the   Tether. — Heart   of   Darkness. — Karain. 

— Lord  Tim. — The  Nigger  of  the  Narcissus. — Romance. 

— Typhoon. — Under   Western    Eyes. — Victory. — Youth.   638 

Conrad,  Joseph.     Chance 417,  638 

Cooper,   Clayton   Sedgwick.      Understanding  South  America  256 

Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  Jr.     Afterglow 372 

Corn    from    Olde    Fieldes". 582 

Coster,    Charles   de.      See   de   Coster. 

Couch,   Sir  Arthur  Quiller-.      See  Quiller-Couch. 

Couperus,  Louis.     Alexander  Teixeira  de  Mattos,  translator. 

Dr.  Adriaan. — -The  Later  Life. — Old  People  and  Things 

That  Pass. — Small  Souls. — Twilight  of  Souls 184 

Cournos,  John,  translator.     The  Created  Legend. — The  Old 

House.      By   Feodar  Sologub 643 

Cournos,    John,    and    Richard    Aldington,    translators.      The 

Little    Demon,   by    Feodar    Sologub 643 

Courtney,  W.  L.     Old  Saws  and  Modern  Instances 524 

Cox   Kenyon.      Concerning    Painting 460 

Crapsey,  Adelaide.     A  Study  of  English  Metrics 571 

Crees,  J.  .H.  E.     George  Meredith:  A  Study  of  His  Works 

and    Personality 258 

Cronyn,  George  W.,  editor.     The  Path  on  the  Rainbow  240,  569 

Crosby,    Oscar  T.      International   War 620 

Cross,  Wilbur  L.     The  History  of  Henry   Fielding 407 

D'Annunzio,  Gabriele.     The  Flame  of  Life 662 

Davies,  Mary  Carolyn.     The  Drums  in  Our  Street 573 

Davies,   Mary   Carolyn.     The  Slave  with  Two  Faces 368 

Davignon,  Henri.     The  Two  Crossings  of  Madge  Swalue.  .   666 

Dearmer,    Geoffrey.      Poems ; 572 

de  Blacam,  Aodh.     Towards   the   Republic 670 

Debussy,  Claude.     L'Apresmidi  d'un   Faune. — Le  Plus   Oue 

Lent. — Pell6as  et  M61isande 138 

de   Coster,   Charles.      Geoffrey   Whitworth,   translator.      The 

Legend  of  the  Glorious  Adventures  of  Tyl  Ulenspiegel.    181 
Delafield,  E.   M.     The  Pelicans.— The  War  Workers.— Zella 

Sees     Herself .   238 


INDEX 


PAGE 

de  Mattos,  Alexander  Teixeira,  translator.  The  Burgo- 
master of  Stillemonde,  by  Maurice  Maeterlinck 312 

de   Mattos,  Alexander  Teixeira,  translator.     Dr.   Adriaan. — 
The  Later  Life. — Old  People  and  Things  That  Pass. — 
Small  Souls. — Twilight  of  Souls.     By  Louis  Couperus.    184 
de    Maupassant,    Guy.      Mrs.    John    Galsworthy,    translator. 

Yvette     660 

Densmore,    Frances.      Teton    Sioux    Music. •  •  •  •    518 

de  Paeuw,  Leon.  The  Baronne  Moncheur  and  Elizabeth 
Kemper  Barrott,  translators.  The  Vocational  Re-Edu- 
cation of  Maimed  Soldiers  424 

Desmond,    Shaw.      Democracy    ....'.... 620 

Deutsch,    Babettc.       Banners.  ..'.... 524 

de  Vigriy,  Alfred.  Frances  Wilson  Huard,  translator.  Mil- 
itary Servitude  and  Grandeur 614 

Dillon,   Mary.     The  American 526 

Dixon,   Thomas.      The   Way   of  a   Man 312 

Doren,  Carl  Van.     See  Van  Doren. 

Dostoevsky,  Feodor.     The  Brothers  Karamazov. — The  Idiot. 

— The   Possessed 643 

Doubleday,  James  Stewart.     Songs  and  Sea  Voices 158 

Dransficld,  Jane.     The  Lost  Pleiad 478 

Drown,  Edward  S.     God's  Responsibility  for  the  War 206 

Duhamel,    Georges.      Civilization 472 

Duhamel,  Georges.     The  New  Book  of  Martyrs 668 

Dunbar,    Ruth.      The    Swallow 622 

Dunsany,    Lord.      Nowadays 578 

Dyke,   Henry.  Van.      See  Van  Dyke. 

Eastman,   Max.      Colors   of   Life 146,  202 

Eaton,  Walter  Prichard.     Echoes  and   Realities..' 210 

Cgan,    Eleanor    Franklin.      The    War    in    the    Cradle    of    the 

World    256  " 

Emerson,  Edward  Waldo.  The  Early  Years  of  the  Satur- 
day Club 472 

Emperle,   A.    Mircea,   translator.      The   Lucky    Mill,   by    loan 

Slavici     578 

Encyclopaedia  of   Religion  and   Ethics:   Vol.   X .  . ." 436 

English  Poets,  The,  Vol.  V:   Browning  to  Rupert  Brooke..    430 
Erskine,  John,  William  Peterfield  Trent,  Stuart  P.  Sherman, 
Carl    Van    Doren,   editors.      The    Cambridge    History    of 

American    Literature :    Vol.    II 428 

Erzberger,    Mathias.      The   League   of   Nations 578 

Evans.    Caradoc.      Capel    Sion. — My    People 154 

Fabre,  J.   Henri.     The  Sacred  Beetle,  and  Others 96 

Fairclough,    H.    Rushton,    translator.      Virgil's    Aeneid,    and 

the    Minor    Poems 438 

Faris,  John  T.     The  Romance  of  Old  Philadelphia 47 

Farmer,    Jean.       Cesar    Napoleon     Gaillard 658 

Faulkner,    J.    A.      Wesley    as    Sociologist,    Theologian    and 

Churchman     54 

Ferrero,   Guglielmo.     Problems  of  Peace 524 

Fielding,  Henry.     James  T.  Hillhouse,  editor.     The  Tragedy 

of    Tragedies 426 

Finley,   John.      A    Pilgrim   in   Palestine 526 

Fisher,    Fred    B.      India's    Silent    Revolution 578 

Fisherman's   Verse 582 

Fletcher,  John   Gould.      The   Tree   of  Life 189 

Flint,   George   Elliott.     The   Whole  Truth  About  Alcohol..   657 

Foley,  James   W.      Friendly    Rhymes 54 

Follett,    Wilson.      The    Modern    Novel , 193 

Forbes,     Nevill,     Raymond     Beazley,    and     G.     A.     Birkett. 

Russia  From  the  Varangians  to  the  Bolsheviks 517 

Fox,    Marion.      The    Mystery  '  Keepers 666 

Foxcroft,    Frank,   editor.      War   Verse 50 

Fraina,    Louis.      Revolutionary    Socialism 494 

France,  Anatole.  Abbe  Coignarcl. — Histoire  Comique. — La 
Lys  Rouge. — Les  Dieux  Out  Soif.— The  Man  Who 
Married  a  Dumb  Wife. — Revolte  des  Anges. — Thais..  126 

France,   Anatole.      The  Amethyst    Ring 650 

Frank,  Glenn,  and  Lothrop  Stoddard.     Stakes  of  the  War.  .    208 

Frankau,    Gilbert.      The   Other    Side 154 

Freeman,    Mary    E.    Wilkins.       Edgewater    People 316' 

Fribourg,   Andr£.      The   Flaming   Crucible 98 

Friedman,    Elisha    M.,    editor.      American    Problems    of    Re- 
construction        258 

Froehlich,  Hugo  B.,  and  Bonnie  E.  Snow.     The  Theory  and 

Practice    of    Color 436 

Frothingham,    Robert,    editor.      Songs    of    Men 582 

Fuessle,  Newton  A.     The  Flail 424 

Fuessle,   Newton  A.      Flesh  and   Phantasy 660 

Gale.    Zona.       Birth 203 

Gallatin,  A.  E.     Portraits  of  Whistler :  A  Critical  Study  and 

an    Iconography 370 

Galsworthy,   John.      Another   Sheaf 253 

Galsworthy,    John.      Saint's    Progress 666 

Galsworthy,    Mrs.    John,     translator.       Vvctte,    by     Guy    de 

Maupassant     ,  .   660 


George,   W.    L.      Blind   Alley 658 

Gibbon,  Thomas  E.     Mexico  Under  Carranza 524 

Gibbons,  Floyd.     And  They  Thought  We  Wouldn't  Fight..      33 
Gilchrist,    Ann.      Thomas    B.    Harned,    editor.      Letters    to 

Walt  Whitman 15 

Gleason,  Arthur,  and  Paul  U.  Kellogg.     British  Labor  and 

the     War : 580 

Glenn,  Gerrard.     The  Army  and  the  Law 461 

Glyn,   Elinor.      Family 657 

Goldberg,    Isaac,    translator.       Luna    Benamor,    by    Vicente 

Blasco    Ibanez    620 

Good  Old  Stories  for  Boys  and  Girls .' 664 

Gordon,  Armistead  C.     Jefferson  Pavis 243 

Gordon,   George   Byron.      In  the  Alaskan   Wilderness 618 

Gordon,  Leon.      The  Gentleman  Ranker,  and  Other   Plays.   478 

Gordon,  Mrs.  Will.     Roumania :   Yesterday  and  Today 48 

Gosse,  Edmund,  and  C.  B.  and  Thomas  James  Wise,  editors. 

The  Letters  of  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne 612 

Gourko,  Basil.     War  and  Revolution  in  Russia 612 

Graham,    Stephen,    translator.      The    Sweet    Scented    Name, 

by   Feodar  Sologub 643 

Grandgent,  Charles  Hall.     The  Power  of  Dante 472 

Great   European   Treaties   of  the   Nineteenth   Century 438 

Great   Modern  English   Short  Stories,  The 666 

Gregory,  Lady.     Kiltartan  Poetry  Book 358 

Grenfell,    Wilfred    T.      Labrador   Days ....   668 

Gretton,  R.  H.     The  English  Middle  Class 48 

.Haigh,   Richmond.     An  Ethiopian   Saga 657 

Haines,    Henry   S.      Efficient   Railway   Operation 620 

Hale,  Susan.     Caroline  P.  Atkinson,  editor.     Letters 314 

Hall,  Florence  Howe.     Memories  Grave  and  Gay 314 

Hall,    Leland.      Sinister    House 314 

Hamilton,   Clayton.     A  Manual  of  the  Art  of  Fiction 193 

Handbook  of  Travel '50 

Hare,  Maude  Cuney,  editor.     The   Message  of  the"  Trees..    582 
.Harned,  Thomas  B.,  editor.     The  Letters  of  Ann   Gilchrist 

to  Walt  Whitman 15 

Harraden,   Beatrice!     Where  Your  .Heart  Is 212 

Harris,  Joel  Chandler.     Uncle  Remus  Returns. — Letters....    491 
Harris,  Julia  Collier.     The  Life  and  Letters  of  Joel  Chand- 
ler    Harris.  . 491 

Harrison,    Joseph    LeRoy,    and    Williams    Haynes,    editors. 

Fisherman's     Verse 582 

Harry,   Myriam.     The  Little  Daughter  of  Jerusalem 666. 

.Hart,  Walter  Morris.     Kipling  the  Story  Writer 204 

Harvard   Travelers   Club.      Handbook   of  Travel 50 

Hastings,    James,    editor.       Encyclopedia    of    Religion    and 

Ethics  :    Vol.    X 436 

Hawley,   Walter  A.      Asia   Minor 313 

"  Hay,   Ian."      See   Beith,    Ian   Hay. 

Haynes,    Williams,    and    Joseph    LeRoy    Harrison,    editors. 

Fisherman's     Verse ' 582 

Hellman,   George  S.,  editor.      Letters  of  Washington  Irving 

to     Henry     Brevoort. — Letters    of    .Henry     Brevoort    to 

Washington    Irving 436 

Helps,  E.  A.,  editor.     Correspondence  of  Sir  Arthur  Helps     87 
Hennessy,    Mrs.    Pope-.      See    Pope-Hennessy. 
Hergesheimer,   Joseph.      Gold    and    Iron. — Java    Head.-r-The 

Lay     Anthony. — Mountain     Blood. — The     Three     Black 

Pennys     449 

Hewlett,  Maurice.     The  Village  Wife's  Lament 260 

Hill,   Grace    Livingston,  and   Evangeline   Booth.      The   War 

Romance    of    the    Salvation    Army 620 

Hillhouse,  James  T.,  editor.     The  Tragedy  of  Tragedies,  by 

1        Henry    Fielding 426 

Hobbs,   William    Herbert.      The    World   War   and    Its   Con- 
sequences      • 406 

Hobson,  J.  A.     Richard  Cobden,  The  International  Man...   399 
Holliday,    Robert    Cortes,    editor.      Joyce    Kilmer :     Poems, 

Essays,   and   Letters 573 

Holmes,  Roy  J.,  and  A.  Starbuck,  editors.     War  Stories...   666 

Hooker,   Katharine.     Byways  in  Southern  Tuscany 318 

Hopkins,  Gerard  Manley.     Robert  Bridges,  editor.     Poems.   572 

Housman,  Laurence.     The  Heart  of  Peace 522 

How,   Louis.     Nursery   Rhymes  of  New   York   City 576 

Howard,    Kathleen.      Confessions    of   an    Opera    Singer 98 

Huard,   Frances  Wilson,   translator.     Military   Servitude  apd 

Grandeur,    by    Alfred    de    Vigny '  614 

Hughes,  Rupert.     The  Cup  of  Fury 578 

"  Ian   Hay."     See   Beith,   Ian   Hay. 

Ibafiez,       Blasco.         Isaac      Goldberg,      translator.         Luna 

Benamor     620 

Irving,    Washington.      George   S.    Hellman,   editor.      Letters 

to   Henry    Brevoort    436 

Isham,  Frederic  S.      Three  Live  Ghosts 260 

Jacob,  Gary  F.     The  Foundations  and  Nature  of  Verse....     98 
James,   Henry.     Gabrielle  de   Bergerac 47 


vm 


INDEX 


PAGE 

James,  Henry.     The  Sacred  Fount 450 

James,    Henry.      Travelling    Companions 524 

Jenks,  Edward.     The  Government  of  the  British  Empire..   284 

Jenks,   Edward.      The   State  and  the  Nation 668 

Johnson,   William.      The   Apartment   Next    Door 326 

Johnson,  Sir  Harry.     The  Gay-Dombeys. . . 641 

Jones,    Howard    Mumford.      Gargoyles 210 

Jones,    W.    H.    S.,    translator.      Description    of    Greece,    by 

Pausanias     438 

Jordan,  Kate.     Against  the  Winds 662 

Jourdain,    Phillip   E.    B.      The   Philosophy   of    Mr.    B*rtr*nd 

R*ss*ll   670 

Kauffman,    Reginald   Wright.      Victorious 526 

"  Kay,   D.    L."     Glamour  of  Dublin -258 

Kellogg,  Paul  U.,  and  Arthur  Gleason.     British  Labor  and 

the    War    580 

Kellogg,  Walter  Guest.     The   Conscientious   Objector 614 

Kelly,   Eleanor   Marcein.      Why   Joan? 664 

Kemp,   Harry.      The  Passing   God 576 

Kendall,  Ralph  S.     Benton  of  the  Royal  Mounted 154 

Kerensky,  A.   F.     The  Prelude  to  Bolshevism 578 

Kerr,  Alexander,  translator.     The  Republic  of  Plato... 423,  478 

Kilmer,  Aline.      Candles  that   Burn 574 

Kilmer,    Joyce.      Robert    Cortes    Holliday,    editor.      Poems, 

Essays,   and   Letters 573 

King,   Basil.     The   City  of  Comrades 526 

Kipling,  Rudyard.     The  Years  Between 571 

Krapp,   George  Philip.     Pronunciati6n  of  Standard  English 

in    America .' 436 

Kreymborg,  Alfred.      Plays   for  Poem-Mimes 29 

Kummer,  Frederic  Arnold.     The  Web. 253 

Lake,  Harold.     Campaigning  in  the  Balkans    210 

Latzko,   Andreas.     Men   in  War. 326 

Lavell,  Cecil  Fairfield.  Reconstruction  and  National  Life..  620 
Leake,  Albert  H.  The  Vocational  Education  of  Girls  and 

Women     424 

Ledoux,   Louis   V.     The   Poetry  of  George   Edward   Wood- 
berry      203 

Leith,  W.   Compton.     Domus  Doloris 476 

Lemont,  Jessie,  translator.     Poems,  by  Rainer  Maria  Rilke  559 

Leonard,    Irene,   editor.      The    Poetry   of   Peace..- 582 

Leonard,    William    Ellery,    translator.      Of    the    Nature    of 

Things,   by   Lucretius 415 

Le  Roy,  Eugene.     Jacquou  the  Rebel 520 

Leverhulme,  Lord.     Tie  Six-Hour  Day •  .   580 

Levine,  Louis.     The  Taxation  of  Mines  in  Montana 251 

Lewisohn,  Ludwig.     The  Poets  of  Modern  France 46 

Lippincott,  Horace  Mather.    The  University  of  Pennsylvania  670 

Lippincott,  Isaac.     Problems  of  Reconstruction 524 

Loeb,  Jacques.      Forced   Movements :   Tropism   and   Animal 

Conduct    428 

Long,   Robert   Crozier.      Russian   Revolution   Aspects 301 

Longstreth,   T.    Morris.      The   Catskills 152 

Love  of  an  Unknown  Soldier,  The 141 

Low,  Benjamin  R.   C.     The  Pursuit  of  Happiness 576 

Lowes,  John  Livingston.     Convention  and  Revolt  in  Poetry  544 

Lucas,  E.  V.     A  Wanderer  in  London 54 

Lucretius,     William     Ellery     Leonard,     translator.       Of    the 

Nature   of   Things 415 

MacCathmhaoil,   Seosamh.      The   Mountainy   Singer 576 

Macfarlane,    John    Muirhead.      The    Causes    and    Course    of 

Organic     Evolution 48 

MacKaye,  James.     Americanized  Socialism 494 

Mackinder,  H.  J.     Democratic  Ideals  and  Reality 620 

MacMillan,  Donald  B.  Four  Years  in  the  White  North..  96 
MacNamara,  Brinsley.  The  Valley  of  Squinting  Windows  620 
Maeterlinck,  Maurice.  Alexander  Teixeira  de  Mattos, 

translator.      The    Burgomaster   of   Stillemonde 312 

Mann,    Thomas.      Buddenbrooks .  .  , 184 

March-Phillipps,     Lisle,     and     Bertram     Christian,     editors. 

Some  .Hawarden   Letters  :    1878-1913 87 

"  Mark  Twain."     See   Clemens,   Samuel   L. 

Marquis,   Don.      Prefaces 668 

Marshall,   Archibald.      The  Clintons,  and   Others 578 

Marvin,   F.   S.     The  Century  of  Hope 578 

Masefield,   John.      Daffodil   Fields. — Dauber. — The   Everlast- 
ing   Mercy. — Good    Friday. — Philip    the    King. — Poems 

and    Plays. — Salt- Water    Ballads 119 

Mason,  Daniel  Gregory.     Contemporary  Composers   241 

Mathiews,    Franklin    K.,   editor.      The    Boy    Scouts'    Book   of 

Stories     664 

Mattos,  Alexander  Teixeira   de.     See  de   Mattos. 
Maupassant,   Guy   de.      See  de  Maupassant. 

Maxwell,  W.   B.     The  Mirror  and   the  Lamp 313 

McKenna,  Stephen.     Midas  and  Son. — Sonia 662 

McLaughlin,  Dr.  Andrew.     America  and  Britain 298 

Menge,  Edward  J.     Backgrounds  for  Social  Workers 205 


PACK 

Mercier,  Charles.     Crime  and  Criminals 580 

Merrick,     Leonard.     The  Actor  Manager. — Conrad  in  Quest 

of   His   Youth. — Cynthia 666 

Merrill,   Wainwright.     A   College   Man   in   Khaki 140 

Merrill,    William   Pierson.      Christian    Internationalism 478 

Message   of   the    Trees,    The 582 

Michaud,  Regis.     Mystiques  et  Realistes  Anglo-Saxons.  .  .  .    436 
Millard,  Thomas  F.     Democracy  and  the  Eastern   Question  578 

Mitchell,    George    Winter.      Anthropology    Up-to-Date 206 

Moncheur,    The    Baronne,    and    Elizabeth    Kemper    Barrott, 
translators.       The    Physical    Re-Education    of    Maimed 

Soldiers,   by  Leon  de  Paeuw 424 

Moore,  James   T.     American    Business   in   World   Markets.  .    620 

Moore,  Wiliam  H.     The  Clash 578 

Morley,   Christopher.      The   Rocking   Horse. — Shandygaff.  .  .   478 

Morrow,  Dwight  W.     The  Society  of  Free  States 524 

Morse,  Edwin  W.     The  Vanguard  of  American  Volunteers.      50 

Muirhead,   Findlay.     London   and   Its    Environs 326 

Mundy,  Talbot.      Hira   Singh 47 

Munro,  H.  H.     The  Toys  of  Peace 524 

Munro,  Wilfrid  Harold.     Tales  of  an  Old  Sea  Port 372 

Munro,  William  Bennett.     Crusaders  of  New  France 508 

Muzzey,    David    Saville.      Thomas   Jefferson 243 

Mygatt,  Tracy  D.      Good  Friday 668 

Neilson,  William  Allan.     The  Essentials  of  Poetry 547 

New    Municipal    Program 620 

New  Paths   668 

Newbolt,  Sir  .Henry.     A  New  Study  of  English  Poetry 546 

Nicholson,   Meredith.      Lady   Larkspur 622 

Nicolai,   G.   F.     The  Biology  of  War 84 

Nordhoff,    Charles    Bernard.      The    Fledgling T.   668 

Norton,   S.   V.     The   Motor  Truck  As  an  Aid   to   Business 

Profits     214 

Noyes,  Alfred.     The  New  Morning 524 

Oakes,    Sir   Augustus,   and    Sir    H.    Erie    Richards,    editors. 

Great  European  Treaties  of  the  Nineteenth  Century...   438 
O'Brien,    Edward   J.,    editor.      The    Great    Modern    English 

Stories 666 

O'Brien,  Seumas.     Blind 368 

O'Byrne,   Dermot.      A    Ballad   of   Dublin. — Children   of   the 

Hills. — Wrack     353 

O'Neill,  Eugene.     The  Moon  of  the  Caribbees 524 

Oppenheim,  E.   Phillips.     The  Curious  Quest 372 

Ormerod,   Frank.      Wool 670 

Osborn,  Henry  Fairfield.     Men  of  the  Old  Stone  Age 150 

Oxford    History   of   India,   The 668 

Paeuw,   Leon  de.     See  de   Paeuw. 

Paine,  Albert  Bigelow.     The  Letters  of  Mark  Twain 134 

Palgrave,    Sir   Francis.      The    History   of   Normandy    and   of 

England 668 

Palmer,   Frederick.     America  in   France 33 

Palmer,    George    Herbert.       Formative    Types    in    English 

Poetry      253 

"  Pan."     See  Preston,  Keith. 

Parker,  Cora  Stratton.     An  American  Idyll 668 

Parker,   Gilbert.      Wild   Youth  and  Another 253 

Path  on  the  Rainbow,  The 240,  569 

Paton,    W.    A.,    and   R.    A.    Stevenson.      Principles    in    Ac- 
counting       150 

Patton,  Julia.     The  English  Village '.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.'.    518 

Pausanias.      W.    H.    S.    Jones,    translator.       Description    of 

Greece   >. .  .   438 

Payne,  John,  translator.     Poems  of  Francois  Villon 158 

Pearson,  Sir  Arthur.     Victory  Over  Blindness 670 

Pennypacker,   Samuel  W.      The  Autobiography   of  a   Penn- 

sylvanian    36 

Perrin,  Bernadotte,  translator.     Plutarch's  Lives '.  . .  .    438 

Perry,  Bliss.     The  American  Spirit  in  Literature 306 

Perry,  Ralph  Barton.     The  Present  Conflict  of  Ideals.  616 

Pertwee,   Roland.      Our  Wonderful    Selves 666 

Petrie,    M.    D.,    and    James    Walker.      State    Morality    and 

the   League   of  Nations 670 

Pezet,   A.   Washington.     Aristokia .    575 

Phelps,   William   Lyon.      Reading  the   Bible '.'.   620 

Phillips,  Lisle  March-.     See  March-Phillips. 

Phillpotts,    Eden.      The   Spinners 316 

Pinski,    David.      Temptations ." . .      '.'.','.'.'.   660 

Plato.    Alexander  Kerr,  translator.     The  Republic .423,  478 

Plutarch.      Bernadotte    Perrin,    translator.      Lives 438 

Poetry   of   Peace,    The 532 

Poets  of  the  Future,  The 432 

Pollard,  Alfred  W.     A  History  of  the  Decoration  and  Illus- 
tration of  Books  in  the   15th  and   16th  Centuries 374 

Pope-HennesSy,  Mrs.  Madame  Roland.     A  Study  in  Revolu- 
tion         148 

Porter,   Eleanor.      Dawn .   622 

Porter,  Laura  Spencer.     Adventures  in  Indigence .      49 


INDEX 


Preston,    Keith.      Types    of   Pan 576  Some  Hawarden  Letters 87 

Price,  M.  Philips.     War  and  Revolution  in  Asiatic  Russia.   254  Songs  of  Men 582 

Puccini,    Giacomo.      Anima    Allegri. — Edgar. — The    Girl    of  Spargo,    John.      Bolshevism 612 

the     Golden     West — Gianni     Schicchi. — I     Due     Zocco-  Starbuck,  A.,  and  Roy  J.   Holmes,  editors.     War  Stories..   666 

letti. — II     Tabarro. — La     Boheme. — La     Rondine. — Ma-  Starr,   Frederick.      Korean   Buddhism 49 

dame     Butterfly. — Manon     Lescaut. — Suor     Angelica. —  Starrett,   Vincent.     Arthur  Machen 374 

Tosca : 25  Stebbing,  E.  P.     From  Czar  to  Bolshevik 522 

Quiller-Couch,  Sir  Arthur.      Studies  in   Literature 282  Stevenson.    R.    A.,   and    W.    A.    Paton.      Principles    in    Ac- 
Rand,  E.  K.,  and  H.  E.  Stewart,  translators.     The  Theolog-  counting 150 

ical   Tractates   of   Boethius 438  Stewart,  H.  E.,  and  E.  K.  Rand,  translators.     The  Theolog- 

Ransom,  John  Crowe.     Poems  About  God 562  ical  Tractates  of  Boethius 438 

Reconstruction    Bibliography 374  Stoddard,  Lothrop,  and  Glenn  Frank.     Stakes  of  the  War.  .  208 

Reed,  John.     Ten  Days  That  Shook  the  World 301  Stoddard,  William  Leavitt.     The  Shop  Committee:  A  Hand- 
Reid,  Forest.     The  Bracknels. — At  the  Door  of  the  Gate. —  book  for  Employer  and  Employee 580 

Following  Darkness. — A   Garden  by  the   Sea 358  Stone,    Wiliam    Macey.      The    Divine   and    Moral    Songs    of 

Reischauer,  August  Karl.     Studies  in  Japanese  Buddhism.  .     49  Isaac    Watts 374 

Religion  and  the  War :  A  Series  of  Essays  on  the  War  and  Strange,    Michael.      Poems 572 

Reconstruction 254  Sturm,    F.    P.,    translator.      Baudelaire's    Poems  .and    Prose 

Rhodes,  Clara  L.,  and  Jean  Broadhurst,  editors.     Verse  for  Poems 576 

Patriots     582  Sudermann,    Hermann.      lolanthe's   Wedding 517 

Richards,    Sir  .H.    Erie,   and    Sir  Augustus    Oakes,    editors.  Sudermann,   Hermann.     The  Silent   Mill 578 

Great  European  Treaties  of  the  Nineteenth  Century...   438  Summey,  George,  Jr.,  Modern  Punctuation 436 

Rickard,  Mrs.  Victor.     The  Fire  of  Green   Boughs.., 622  Sweetser,  Arthur.     The  American  Air  Service 578 

Rickenbacker,    Captain    Edward    V.       Fighting    the    Flying  Swinburne,  Algernon   Charles.      Edmund  Gosse,   and   C.    B. 

Circus     578  and  Thomas  James   Wise,   editors.      Letters 612 

Rideout,  Henry  Milner.     Tin  Cowrie  Dass 203  Swinnerton,   Frank.      Shops  and  Houses .- 517 

Ridge,  Lola.     The  Ghetto,  and  Other  Poems 83  Symons,  Arthur.     Cities  and  Sea  Coasts  and  Islands 296 

Rilke,  Rainer  Maria.     Jessie  Lemont,   translator.     Poems..    559  Tagore,  Sir  Rabindranath.     The  Home  and  the  World....   620 

Rinehart,  Mary  Roberts.     Love  Stories 657  Tarkington,  Booth.     The  Magnificent  Ambersons 86 

Robbins,  Tod.     Red  of  Surley 662  Terhune,  Albert  Payson.     Lad :  A  Dog 657 

Roberts,    Charles   G.   D.     Jim,   The   Story   of  a   Backwoods  Thompson,    Laura    A.,    compiler.      Reconstruction    Bibliog- 

Police    Dog 659  raphy     < 374 

Robertson,  William  Spence.     Rise  of  the  Spanish-American  Thorp,  C.  Hamilton.     A  Handful  of  Ausseys 622 

Republics    368  Towne,   Charles   Hanson.     Shaking  Hands   with  England..   298 

Rogers,  Jason.     Newspaper   Building 148  Tree,    Iris.     Poems . . .' 668 

"  Romer  Wilson."     See  "  Wilson,  Romer."  Trent,  William  Peterfield,  John  Erskine,  Stuart  P.  Sherman, 
Rostand,  Edmond.     L'Aiglon. — Chantecler. — Cyrano  de  Ber-  Carl  Van  Doren,   editors.      The   Cambridge   History   of 

gerac. — Les  Musardises. — La  Princesse  Lointaine. — Les  American  Literature:   Vol.   II 4 428 

Romanesques.— -  La  Samaritaine 179  Tudor,  Marie.     The  Winged  Spirit 210 

Roupnel,   Gaston.     Nono :  Love  and  the  Soil 520  Turner,   George  Kibbe.     Red  Friday 666 

Roy,  Jean.     Fields  of  the  Fatherless 616  Turrell,  Charles  Alfred.     Contemporary  Spanish  Dramatists  576 

Russell,    Bertrand.      Introduction    to    Mathematical    Philos-  "  Twain,  Mark."     See  Clemens,  Samuel  L. 

ophy 670  Untermeyer,  Jean  Starr.     Growing  Pains 560 

Russell,  Bertrand.     Proposed  Roads  to  Freedom:  Socialism,  Vachell,    Horace    Annesley.      Some    Happenings 100 

Anarchism,   and   Syndicalism 355,  611  Vand<5rem,  Fernand.     Two  Banks  of  the  Seine 622 

Russell,  George  W.     ("A.  E.").     The  Candle  of  Vision. 31,  374  Van   Doren,   Carl,  William  Peterfield   Trent,  John  Erskine, 
Russell,    George    W.     ("A.    E.").       The    Earth    Breath. —  Stuart   P.    Sherman,    editors.      The   Cambridge    History 

Homeward. — Imaginations   and   Reveries 31-  of  American  Literature:   Vol.   II 428 

Sadler,  M.  H.,  and  C.  W.  Beaumont,  editors.     New  Paths.   668  Van   Dyke,    Henry.      The   Valley   of   Vision 474 

Sartorio,   Enrico  C.      Social  and   Religious   Life  of   Italians  Van  Vechten,  Carl.     Music  and  Bad  Manners. — The  Music 

in    America 539  of    Spain. — The    Merry-Go-Round 262 

Schaefer,    Joseph,    and    Frederick    A.    Cleveland.      Democ-  Veblen,    Thorstein.      The   Modern    Point   of   View   and   the 

racy   in    Reconstruction 524  New    Order 252 

Schevill,   Rudolph.      Cervantes 576  Vechten,   Carl   Van.      See  Van  Vechten. 

Schleiter,   Frederick.     Religion   and   Culture 670  Verse  for   Patriots 582 

Schlesinger,    Arthur    Meier.      Colonial    Merchants    and    the  Victory! 582 

American    Revolution 205  Vigny,   Alfred  de.     See  de  Vigny. 

Schnittkind,  Henry  T.,  editor.     The  Poets  of  the  Future...   432  Villon,   Frangois.     John   Payne,   translator.      Poems 158 

Schoenrich,   Otto.      Santo  Domingo 368  Virgil.      H.    Rushton    Fairclough,    translator.      The   Aeneid, 

Scott,  Lady  Sybil,  editor.     A  Book  of  the  Sea 582   '  and   the   Minor   Poems 438 

Shanks,  Lewis  Piaget.     Anatole  France 620  Vorse,  Mary  Heaton.     I've  Come  to  Stay 526 

Shelton,   William   Henry.     The   Salmagundi   Club -. .  .   472  Waley,     Arthur,     translator.       A     Hundred     and     Seventy 

Sherman,  Stuart  P.,  John  Erskine,  William  Peterfield  Trent,  Chinese     Poems 576 

Carl  Van   Doren,   editors.      The   Cambridge    History   of  Walker,  James,  and  M.   D.   Petrie.     State  Morality  and  the 

American    Literature:    Vol.    II 428  League   of   Nations , 670 

Short,  Wilfred  M.,  editor.     Non-political  Writings,  Speeches  Wallace,   Edgar.      Tamo'   the   Scoots 312 

and  Addresses  of  Arthur  James   Balfour 169  Waller,   Mary   E.      Out  of  the   Silences 100 

Slavici,  loan.     A.   Mircea  Emperlfi,  translator.     The  Lucky  Walpole,   Hugh.     The  Secret  City 658 

.Mill 578  War   Stories 666 

Smith,   David   Nichol.      Characters   from   the   Histories   and  War  Verse    ." , 50 

Memoirs  of  the   Seventeenth  Century 524  Ward,   Mary  .Humphry.     A  Writer's  Recollections 463 

Smith,   Elva    S.,    editor.      Good    Old    Stories   for    Boys    and  Ward,     Thomas     Humphry,     editor.       The    English    Poets, 

Girls     664  Vol.    V. :    Browning   to   Rupert   Brooke 430 

Smith,  J.  Thome.     Out  o'  Luck 668  Wattles,    Willard.      Lanterns    in    Gethsemane 571 

Smith,  Vincent.     The  Oxford  History  of  India 668  Weaving,   Willoughby.      Heard   Melodies 370 

Smyth,   Clifford.      The  Gilded  Man 476  Welch,  Alden  W.     Wolves \..   666 

Snaith,   J.    C.      The    Undefeated 526  Wells,  H.  G.     The  Undying  Fire 576 

Sneath,   Hasbey,   editor.      Religion   and   the  War :   A   Series  Welsh,  James  G.     Songs  of  a  Miner 262 

of  Essays  on  the  War  and  Reconstruction.      By   Mem-  Wharton,    Edith.      The    Marne 46 

bers   of   the    Faculty    of   the    School    of    Religion,    Yale  White,  Edward  Lucas.     The  Song  of  the  Sirens 660 

University    254  Whitehouse,  H.  Remsen.     The  Life  of  Lamartine 73 

Snow,  Bonnie  E.,  and  .Hugo  B.  Froehlich.     The  Theory  and  Whitlock,    Brand.      Belgium 578 

Practice    of    Color 436  Whittaker,   Joseph.      Tumblefold 616 

Sologub,  Feodar.     The  Created  Legend  (translated  by  John  Whittemore,   Thomas,   translator.      Ivan    Speaks 507 

Cournos). — The     Little     Demon     (translated     by     John  Whitworth,  Geoffrey,  translator.     The  Legend  of  the  Glor- 
Cournos    and    Richard    Aldington). — The     Old     House  ious    Adventures    of    Tyl    Ulenspiegel,    by    Charles    de 

(translated    by    John    Cournos). — The    Sweet    Scented  Coster    181 

Name  (translated  by  Stephen  Graham) 643  Wile,  Frederick  William.     Explaining  the  Britishers 298 


INDEX 


Wiley,  Harvey  W.  Beverages  and  Their  Adulteration 657 

Wilkinson,  Spenser.  Government  and  the  War 474 

Willcocks,  M.  P.  Towards  New  Horizons 620 

Williams,  Ben  Ames.  All  the  Brothers  Were  Valiant 666 

Willoughby,  W.  F.  An  Introduction  to  the  Government  of 

Modern  States 616 

Wilsqn,  Harry  Leon.  Ma  Pettengill 520 

''  Wilson,  Romer."  Martin  Schiiler 651 

Wilson,  Woodrow.  A  History  of  the  American  People...  436 
Wilson,  Woodrow.  The  State :  Elements  of  Historical  and 

Practical  Politics 158 

Wilton,  Robert.  Russia's  Agony 301 

Wines,  Frederick  .Howard.  Punishment  and  Reformation .  .  620 
Winstedt,  E.  O.,  translator.  Cicero's  Letters  to  Atticus...  438 

Winter,  William.  The  Ltife  of  David  Belasco 254 

Wise,  Thomas  James  and  C.  B.,  and  Edmund  Gosse,  editors. 

The    Letters    of   Algernon    Charles    Swinburne 612 


Wolcott,    Laura.       A    Gray    Dream 517 

Wood,  Charles  W.     The  Great  Change 208 

Wood,  Clement.     The  Earth  Turns   South 524 

Woodruff,   Clinton   Rogers,   editor.      A   New   Municipal   Pro- 
gram     620 

Worster,    W.    J.    Alexander,    and    C.    Archer,    translators. 

The  Gre'at  Hunger,  by  johan  Bojer 299 

Wright,    H.    G.      The   Life   arid   Works   of   Arthur    Hall    of 

Grantham     ' 668 

Wright,  Jack.     A  Poet  of  the  Air 140 

Wrong,  George  M.     The  Conquest  of  New  France 508 

Yale  University,  Members  of  the  Faculty  of  the   School  of 
Religion.      Religion  and   the  War :   A   Series  of  Essays 

on  the  War  and  Reconstruction 254 

Yeats,   John    Butler.      Essays    Irish    and    American 374 


EDITORIALS 


America  Has  Won  the  War,  but   Has  Lost  the   Peace....   511 

America,   The   Reasons   for   the   Defeat   of 511 

American  Federation  of  Labor,  The,  and  the  Future  of  the 

State    608 

American  Federation  of  Labor,   The  Annual  Convention  of 

the    654 

Archangel   Expedition,  The   Military   Futility   of  the 199 

Armenian   and   Syrian    Relief 91 

Armistice,  The,  and  the  Fourteen   Points 466 

Atrocities    Committed    by    Soldiers    Against    Their    Fellow 

Citizens 567 

Bolsheviki,   The — President  Wilson's   Choice  of   Representa- 
tives to  M^et  Them 199 

Bolshevism  Is  a  Menace  to  the  Vested  Interests 360 

Bourne,   Randolph 41 

British    Elections,    The    Results    of    the 40 

China  and  the  Need  for  a  League  of  Nations 144 

Community  Houses  as  War  Memorials 40 

Conscientious    Objectors    Tempted    to     Deny     Their     Con- 
sciences        311 

Covenant,    The,    Purchased    by    the    Abandonment    of    the 

Fourteen     Points 512 

Demobilization  of  Hate,  The 143 

Deportation  of  Political   Refugees,   The , 249 

Deportees,   A   Monstrous    Injustice   Against   Released 567 

Du  Maurier,  Mr.   Gerald,  THE  DIAL  Apologizes  to..' 199 

Education,   The   Democratic    Control   of 418 

Espionage   Act,    Injustice   Under    the 311 

Espionage  Act,  The,  and  Self-Contempt  of  Court 251 

Espionage  Act,  The  Repeal  of  the 199 

Espionage   Habit,    The '. 145 

Fiction — Why    Does    America    Produce    so    Little    of    Good 

Quality?     655 

Fourteen    Points,    The — Mr.    Wilson    Either    Meant    Them 

•Honestly  or  He  Did  Not 513 

French  Foreign  Policy,   Contemporary,  The   Background  of  197 

German   Repentance   Is   Not   to    Be   Expected •'.  .    309 

Glassberg,    Benjamin — His    Dismissal   from    the    New   York 

Public     Schools 609 

Glassberg,  Benjamin — His  Suspension  by  the  School  Board 

of    New    York 250 

History  Versus  Science  in  Politics 469 

King  Anti-Radical    Bill,   The 655 

Kolchak,    The    Recognition    of,    Is    a    Final    Challenge    to 

Liberals    , 654 

League  of  Nations,  The,  and  Reconciliation   with   Germany  309 

League    of    Nations,    The,    and    State    Sovereignty 144 

League  of  Nations,  The  Chief  Use  of  a 566 

League  of   Nations,    The — Its    Priority   in    the    Peace    Con- 
ference      .     90 


Levine,      Louis— ^His      Suspension      by      the     University     of 

Montana 251 

Literature,    Democratic    Changes    in    the    Ideals    and    Prac- 
tices    of 

Lynching,  A  National   Conference  on 

Lynching  as  an   Expression  of   Patriotic   Sentiment 

Military    Training   and    Armament   Are    Two    of    the    Most 

.  Immediate   Causes   of   War 420 

New  School  for  Social  Research,  The  Program  of  the 90 

Overman    Committee,    The,    as    a    Smoke-Screen    for    Our 

Blunders  in  Russia " 

Paderewski  Faction,  The,  an  Invisible   Government 

Panem  et  Circenses :  The  Breadline  and  the  Movies 

Peace   Conference,   The,   and   Labor 

Peace  Conference,  The — Its  Proceedings  Weaken  Confidence 

in  Our  Good  Faith 467 

Peace,  The  Great — Its  Terms  Were  Drawn  to  Secure  Two 

Objects 565 

Peace,  Perpetual,  Immanuel  Kant  on 469 

Peace,  The  Responsibility  for  a  Predatory 362 

Peace  Treaty,  The,  Will  Be  the  First  Test  of  Our  Sincerity  251 
Poetry — Why  Should  Nearly  Everybody   Indulge  a  Convic- 
tion That  He  Can  Write  It? 567 

Political     Prisoners — The     Humiliating     Contrast     Between 

Their  Treatment  in  Europe  and  in  America 198 

Political  Prisoners,  The  Release  of 91 

Prefaces     to     Textbooks 420 

Prices,  The,  of  Books  Reviewed  Now  Omitted 567 

Prohibition   and   the  Arts 197 

Russian   Intervention — .How   Much   Longer   Will   the  Amer- 
ican Public  Endure  It  ? 89 

Russian  Revolution,  The,  Is  of  the  Classic  Type 250 

Russia — On  What  Terms  Will   She   Be   Permitted   to  Enter 

the    League  ? 38 

Russia,  The  Attitude  of  THE  DIAL  in   Regard  to 41 

"  Sabotage  "    363 

Sabotage,     Congressional 363 

Social   Unrest — Certain   Champions  of  Strong-Arm   Methods 

in    Its    Treatment 311 

Treaties   with    Germany   and   Austria,   The 607 

Treaty    with    Austria,    The,    Approaches    the    Brest- Litovsk 

Model     *  ...   607 

Treaty  with  Germany,  The,  Should  Be  Summarily  Rejected  365 
University,    The,    Promises   to    Be    the    Last    Citadel   of   Sex 

Privilege      421 

Victory   Loan,   The,   Should   Exhibit  a  New  Spirit 420 

Violence,    The    Ritual   of 468 

Whitman,   Walt,  As   Prophet 566 

Wilson,    President — His   Recent    Speeches   in    Paris 607 


FOREIGN  COMMENT 


Barbusse's   View   of   President   Wilson 92 

Last  Paradox,  The 200 

Long  Live  the   German   Republic !    200 

New    Statesman   on   the   Soviets,    The 43 


Open    Diplomacy    in    Russia 42 

Peace   or    War? 93 

Questions     93 

Soviets,   The,    and   the   Schools 422 


INDEX 


COMMUNICATIONS 

PAGE 

Allied     Rubles      George  J.   Kwasha 43 

Automatic    vs.    Autocratic James    G.    Stevens 146 

Banishment    or    Death E.  C.  Ross 202 

Blood   of    the    Martyrs,    The , .  .Annie   Wetmore  Haseltinc 93 

Brutes  in   Uniform William    J.    Robinson 570 

Change    of    Name,    A. .  .„ Lillian  A.  Turner 423 

Concerning    the    Defense    of    Soviet    Government C.  Oberoutcheff 514 

Dignity    of    Labor,    The Willis  A ndrews 44 

Freedom    of   the    Seas Louis   H.   Mischkind 45 

German    Indemnity,    The A.    B.   Bigler 471 

How    to    Dispose    of    Intellectuals A.  L.  Bigler 365 

Humanity    in    the    University "  Cornell  '05  " 45 

Inter    Arma    Silet    Labor Joel    Henry    Greene 6 1 1 

Lance    for   Max    Eastman,    A Arturo  Giovannitti 146 

Military    Training    as    Education John  J.  McSwain 470 

Mr.   Untermeyer   Raises   His   Shield Louis    Untermeyer 202 

Nationalities    or    Nations W.  D.  S 252 

Noble    Translation,    A : '. M.    C.    Otto 423 

One    Future   for   American    Poetry Maxwell  Anderson 568 

O    Tempora,    O    Mores! Walter  C.  Hunter — Ramon  P.  Coffman — 

i  Geo.  F.   Wallace 6 1  o 

'  Path   on   the    Rainbow,    The  " Mary    Austin 569 

Poetry   in    the    Laboratory Amelia  Dorothy  Deffies 146 

"  Point    of    View  " H.  S.  Trecartin 516 

Professor    Lomonossoff    Replies G.  Lomonossoff 515 

Question    of    Nationalism,    The 7.  Richmond ; . . . .   656 

Randolph    Bourne  ' Edward  Sapir — William  S.   Knickerbocker 45 

Roads    to    Freedom Gordon  King 611 

School    Problem    in    Russia,    The Theresa  Bach 570 

Soviet    Russia   and   the   American    Constitution Arthur  C.  Cole 201 

Test    of    Democracy,    The Mary    Winsor 200 

To    the    Secretary    of    War Blanche   Watson — F.   P.  Keppel — Jean  Sounders.   364 

When    LVeams    Come    True M.  T.  Seymour .V 201 

Withdraw     From     Russia • Julia  Ellsworth  Ford '. 470 


DEPARTMENTS 

PAGE 

BOOKS   OF   THE   FORTNIGHT 52,   100,   156,  212,  260,  318,   372,  432,  476,  524,  576,   620,  666 

CASUAL    COMMENT 657 

COMMUNICATIONS     43,  93,    146,  200,  252,  364,  423,  470,  514,  568,  610,  656 

CONTRIBUTORS    54,   102,  158,  214,  262,  326,  374,  438,  478,  526,  582,  622,  656 

CURRENT    NEWS 54,  102,  158,  214,  262,  326,  374,  436,  478,  526,  582,  622 

DUBLIN    LETTER > 35& 

EDITORIALS    v 39,  89,  143,  197,  249,  309,  361,  419,  467,  5"t  565,  607,  653 

FOREIGN    COMMENT 42,   92,    200,    422 

LONDON    LETTERS 37,   195,  244,  417,  465,  563 

NOTES  ON  NEW  BOOKS 46,  96,   148,  203,  253,  312,  366,  424,  472,  517,  571,  612,  658 

SELECTED  LIST  OF  FICTION,  A 670 

SELECTED  LIST  OF  POETRY,  A ; 580 

SPRING  ANNOUNCEMENT  LIST • 320 

SPRING    EDUCATIONAL    LIST.  .  . 434 


se  Political  Prisoners 


DIAL 


A  FORTNIGHTLY 


VOL.  LXVI  NEW  YORK  NO.  781 


JANUARY    11,    1919 

RELEASE  POLITICAL  PRISONERS The  Editors  5 

RANDOLPH  BOURNE.    Verse James  Oppenheim  7 

REPEAL  THE  ESPIONAGE  LAW Gilbert  E.  Roe  8 

A  RATIONAL  EXPLANATION  OF  VERS  LIBRE    .     .     .      John  Gould  Fletcher  11 

AN  EDUCATED  HEART Claude  Brag  don  14 

A  NORMAL  MADNESS Katharine  Anthony  15 

THE  RISE  OF  THE  "UNSKILLED" G.  D.  H.  Cole  17 

THE  MODERN  POINT  OF  VIEW  AND  THE  NEW  ORDER     .      Thorstein  Veblen  19 

VII.     Live  and  Let  Live. 

THE  NEW  WORK  OF  PUCCINI    ' S.  Foster  Damon  25 

A  TYPICALLY  AMERICAN  PERSONALITY    .     .     .      William  Ellery  Leonard  26 

EUGENICS — MADE  IN  GERMANY      . H.  M.  Kallen  28 

KREYMBORG'S  MARIONETTES Lola  Ridge  29 

IMAGINATION  AND  VISION Ernest  A.  Boyd  31 

THE  AMERICAN  SOLDIER    . Robert  Morss  Lovett  33 

THE  ECONOMIC  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY  :  A 

FOOTNOTE Robert  H.  Lowie  35 

LONDON,  DECEMBER  9 Edward  Shanks  37 

EDITORIALS     ....'... 39 

FOREIGN   COMMENT  :     Open  Diplomacy  in  Russia.— The  New  Statesman  on  the  Soviets.  42 

COMMUNICATIONS  :   Allied  Rubles.— The  Dignity  of  Labor.— Freedom  of  the  Seas.— Humanity  43 
<in  the  University. — Randolph  Bourne. 

NOTES  ON  NEW  BOOKS:  The  Marne.— Benjamin  Franklin  Self-Revealed.— The  Poets  of  46 
Modern  France. — The  Romance  of  Old  Philadelphia. — Gabrielle  de  Bergerac. — Hira  Singh. — 
The  English  Middle  Class. — Roumania :  Yesterday  and  Today. — The  Causes  and  Course 
of  Organic  Evolution. — Adventures  in  Indigence. — John  O'May. — Studies  in  Japanese 
Buddhism. — Korean  Buddhism. — The  Vanguard  of  American  Volunteers. — Handbook  of 
Travel.— War  \>  On  Our  Hill. 


THE  DIAL  (founded  in  1880  by  Francis  F.  Browne)  is  published  every  other  Saturday  by  The  Dial  Publishing 
Company,  Inc. — Martyn  Johnson,  President — at  152  West  Thirteenth  Street,  New  York,  N.  Y.  Entered  aj  Second- 
Class  matter  at  the  Post  Office  at  New  York,  N.  Y.,  August  3,  1918,  under  the  act  of  March  3,  1897.  Coi-yright, 
1919,  by  The  Dial  Publishing  Company,  Inc.  Foreign  Postage,  50  cents. 

$3.00  a  Year  »  15  Cents  a  Copy 


THE   DIAL  January  1 1 


Fiction 

By  the  author  of  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the" Apocalypse 
THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  CATHEDRAL    By  VICENTE  BLASCO  IBANEZ. 

Translated  by  Mrs.  W.  A.  GILLESPIE,  with  an  Introduction  by  W.  D.  HOWELLS. 

A  biting  analysis  of  the  feelings  of  a  long  passive  people  stirring  with  the  awakening  of  modern 
ideas  against  the  pressure  of  a  long  dominant  church  and  monarchy.  Of  its  author's  standing  as  a  novel- 
ist, Mr.  Howells  says: 

"There  is  no  Frenchman,  Englishman  or  Scandinavian  who  counts  with  Ibanez,  and,  of  course,  no 
Italian,  American,  and  unspeakably  no  German."  $1.90 

THE  CHALLENGE  TO  SIRIUS    By  SHEILA  KAYE-SMITH. 

The  story  covers  a  wide  range  of  scene  and  incident  moving  from  a  quiet  Sussex  farm  to  London 
— Victorian  London  where  young  men  fought  wordy  battles  over  Thackeray  and  Dickens — to  America's 
Civil  War,  to  a  dim  forest  in  Yucatan  and  back  to  Sussex.  Besides  its  value  as  a  study  of  human  emo- 
tion it  has  a  significance  possibly  unintended  in  that  just  at  this  time  when  genuine  understanding  is 
needed,  it  makes  clear  the  way  in  which  England  looked  at  the  strife  between  North  and  South. 

THE  CRESCENT  MOON    By  FRANCIS  BRETT  YOUNG. 

The  Times  (London)  calls  this  novel  by  the  author  of  "Marching  on  Tanga"  a  first-rate  yarn  .  .  . 
full  of  the  incredible  strangeness  of  Africa  and  African  life.  .  .  .  Mr.  Brett  Young  has  achieved  a  fine 
work  of  imagination  and  made  horror  and  beauty  the  servants  of  his  art."  $1.75 

AMALIA    A  Romance  of  the  Argentine.    Fr°m  the  Spanish  of  JOSE  MARMOL. 

Translated  by  MARY  J.  SERRANO,  translator  of  "The  Journal  of  Marie  Bashkirtseff,"  "Pepita  Xime- 
nez,"  etc.  A  novel  of  the  exciting  period  in  which  the  city  of  Buenos  Ayres  and  half  the  provinces  were 
seething  with  conspiracy  to  throw  off  the  tyranny  of  the  Dictator  Rosas,  of  whom  W.  H.  Hudson  gave 
so  striking  a  sketch  in  "Far  Away  and  Long  Ago." 

AMERICA  and  BRITAIN   By  ANDREW  CUNNINGHAM  MCLAUGHLIN,  LL.D.,  F.R.Hist.s. 

Lectures  delivered  by  the  author,  Head  of  the  Department  of  History,  Chicago  University,  at  the 
University  of  London,  in  the  Spring  of  1918,  on  America's  Entry  into  the  War,  British  and  American 
Relations,  etc.,  to  which  he  adds  a  paper  read  before  the  Royal  Historical  Society  on  "The  Background  of 
American  Federalism." 

LEAVES  IN  THE  WIND    By  "ALPHA  OF  THE  PLOUGH." 

"Alpha  of  the  Plough,"  it  is  said,  has  another  name  under  which  serious  articles  are  written,  weighty 
with  responsibility,  from  which  it  is  a  relief  now  and  then  to  turn  and  play  with  any  subject  that  may 
chance  to  catch  an  errant  fancy.  And  since  they  were  no  part  of  a  task,  they  seem  especially  restful, 
little  with  a  quiet  humor  and  in  sympathy  with  the  interests  of  everyday  life. 

THE  DAREDEVIL  OF  THE  ARMY    By  CAPTAIN  A.  P.  CORCORAN. 

Incidents  in  the  experience  of  a  "Buzzer"  and  Dispatch  Rider — men  who  supply  the  "nerves"  and 
much  of  the  "Nerve"  of  a  modern  army,  earning  the  name  of  "daredevil"  early  in  the  war  when  cred- 
ited by  General  French  with  the  salvation  of  the  British  forces. 

CHARLOTTE  BRONTE    A  Centenary  Memorial 

Edited  by  BUTLER  WOOD.  With  an  Introduction  by  MRS.  HUMPHRY  WARD. 

A  commemorative  volume  of  the  Bronte  Society  of  England,  containing  papers,  addresses,  reminis- 
cences, etc.,  concerning  the  Brontes. 

Miscellaneous  New  "Books 
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A  study  of  the  Educational  System  in  each  of  six  representative  countries — United  States  by  Dr. 
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and  Canada  by  the  Editor ;  Denmark  by  HAROLD  W.  FOGHT,  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Education. 

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MODERN   RUSSIAN  POETRY      Selected  and  translated  by  P.  SELVER. 

A  carefully  selected  anthology  of  representative  Russian  poetry  of  the  last  quarter-century  given 
in  the  original  as  well  as  in  a  close  English  verse  translation  in  similar  metre.  Now  ready.  $1.25  net 

RUSSIA'S  AGONY     By  ROBERT  WILTON,  Correspondent  of  The  Times  at  Petrograd. 

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tury. The  men  who  figured  in  Russian  affairs  during  many  years  past  are  personally  known  to  the 
author  and  he  was  able  to  study  at  first-hand  the  manifold  aspects  of  Reaction  and  Revolution,  as  each 
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1919 


THE  DIAL 


Important  January  Publications 

From  Putnam's  List 


IN  FLANDERS'  FIELDS 

By  John  McCrae 

In  Flanders'  fields,  the  poppies  blow 
Between  the  crosses,  row  on  row, 
That  mark  our  place ;  and  in  the  sky 
The  larks,  still  bravely  singing,  fly 
Scarce  heard  amid  the  guns  below. 

We  are  the  dead.     Short  days  ago 
We  lived,  felt  dawn,  saw  sunset  glow, 
Loved  and  were  loved ;  and  now  we  lie 
In  Flanders'  fields. 

Take  up  our  quarrel  with  the  foe ! 
To  you,  from  failing  hands,  we  throw 
The  torch.     Be  yours  to  lift  it  high ! 
If  ye  break  faith  with  us  who  die 
We  shall  not  sleep,  though  poppies  grow 
In  Flanders'  fields. 

John  McCrae  was  a  physician,  soldier, 
and  poet,  and  died  in  France  a  Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel with  the  Canadian  forces. 

This  first  collection  of  his  lovely  verse 
contains,  as  well,  a  striking  essay  in  char- 
acter by  his  friend,  Sir  Andrew  Macphail. 

SONGS  OF  A  MINER 

By  James  C.  Welsh 

The  author  of  these  vigorous  poems  is 
himself  a  miner,  for  twenty-four  years 
working  in  the  pits  of  Lanarkshire. 
Here  are  deep-toned  poems  of  the  soul, 
and  robust  poems  of  action. 


The  Cambridge  History  of  American  Literature 

Editors:  William  Peterfield  Trent,  M.A.,  LL.D.;  John 
Erskine,  Ph.D.;  Stuart  Pratt  Sherman,  Ph.D.;  Carl  Van 
Doren,  Ph.D. 

To  be  published  in  3  volumes.    Royal  8°.    $3.50  per  volume. 
Volume  I.    Colonial  and  Revolutionary  Literature — and  Early 
National  Literature  Part  I. 
-.r  ,          TT  j  Early  National  Literature  Part  II. 

1  )  Later  National  Literature  Part  I. 
Uniform  with  The  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature. 

BOOK  II.  JUST  OUT 

Travellers  and  Observers,  1763-1846,  Lane  Cooper;  The  Early 
Drama,  1756-1860,  Arthur  Hobson  Quinn;  Early  Essayists, 
George  F.  Whicher;  Irving,  George  Haven  Putnam;  Bryant 
and  the  Minor  Poets,  W..E.  Leonard;  Fiction  I:  Brown, 
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Cairns;  Newspapers,  1776-1850,  Frank  W.  Scott. 

The  Chaos  in  Europe 

A  Consideration  of  the  Political  Destruction  that  has  taken 
nlace  in  Russia  and  Elsewhere  and  of  the  International 
Policies  of  America. 

By  FREDERICK  MOORE 

Author  of  "The  Balkan  Trail"  and  "The  Passing  of  Morocco" 

Introduction  by  Charles  W.  Eliot 

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the  future  foreign  policy  of  the  United  States  merit  the  care- 
ful attention  of  leaders  of  opinion. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  wrote :  "Mr.  Frederick  Moore  has 
made  a  real  study  of  Russia  and  is  an  exceptionally  clear 
sighted  and  fearless  man." 


Not  a  January  Publication,  but  One  to  Remember 
The  Destinies  of  the  Stars 

By  Svante  Arrhenius 

Author  of  "Worlds  in  the  Making,"  etc.      12°.    30  Illustrations.    $1.50. 

"Much  has  been  written  on  this  subject,  but  nothing  with    the    profoundness    of    thought    and    literary 
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"One  of  the  Great  American  Novels" 

IN  THE  HEART  OF  A  FOOL 

William  Allen  White's  New  Novel 

1  'The  big  forces  behind  this  story  come  over  the  reader  like  the 
heart-beat  of  the  nation.  .  .  .  Here  is  America,  with  its  births  and 
deaths,  its  laughter  and  tears,  its  mushroom  growths  and  speedily 
acquired  culture,  its  selfish  moments  and  big  generous  impulses,  and 
throughout  it  all  the  scramble  for  the  almighty  dollar.  Yet  America 
marching  over  its  blunders  to  a  more  humane  and  righteous  stand- 
ard of  living".— N.  Y.  E.  Post. 

66  Tremendously   human    and   eloquent9 

"A  vivid  glimpse  of  our  own  land,  of  the  deeds  and  dreams  of 
America  today  ....  an  absorbing  book  filled  with  love,  adven- 
ture, pathos,  humor  and  drama." — Chicago  Post. 

"An    intensely  dramatic    story9 

"A  big  novel— a  book  that  will  profoundly  affect  the  thoughts  and 
the  feelings  of  the  many  who  will  read  it .  ...  Behind  this  chronicle 
lies  the  secret  of  the  next  fifty  years  of  American  history."— N.  Y.  Sun. 

"A    great    novel    destined    to    endure9 

Third  Edition  Now  at  all  Bookstores.     $1.60 


William  Allen  White's  Travels  Abroad 

THE  MARTIAL  ADVENTURES  OF  HENRY  AND  ME 

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scheme  and  laughter."  -N.  Y.  Sun.  "A  jolly  book,  truly  one  of  the 
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Many  clever  illustrations  by  Tony  Sarg  Now  Tenth  Edition  $1 .50 

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THE  DIAL 

A    FORTNIGHTLY 


Release  Political  Prisoners 


.HERE  ARE  NOW  in  prison  in  this  country  several 
hundred  persons  convicted  according  to  law  on 
various  charges,  most  of  which  may  be  summarized 
as  obstructing  the  United  States  in  the  conduct  of 
the  war.  Whether  their  status  is  technically  to  be 
defined  as  that  of  political  prisoners  is  a  legal  ques- 
tion upon  which  the  Department  of  Justice  is  under- 
stood to  be  engaged.  In  fact  they  are  such.  All  are 
victims  of  an  interpretation  of  the  'necessary  means 
of  securing  the  welfare  and  success  of  the  nation  in 
war.  Some  of  them,  indeed,  are  suffering  as  the 
result  of  a  devotion  to  an  interpretation  of  such 
means  differing  from  that  of  the  majority,  but  pre- 
sumably no  less  high-minded  and  unselfish. 

The  war  is  over.  The  nation  should  follow  the 
historic  example  offered  even  by  autocracies  in  the 
past,  and  set  free  those  prisoners  for  whose  detention 
a  national  crisis  no  longer  offers  excuse.  It  should 
act  fully,  generously,  immediately. 

These  political  prisoners  fall  into  various  classes 
according  to  legal  definition,  but  in  the  popular  mind 
they  form  two  groups — the  victims  of  the  Selective 
Service  Law  and  of  the  Espionage  Act — the  first 
being  known  as  conscientious  objectors.  There  is  no 
question  connected  with  the  subject  of  democracy  at 
war  more  perplexing  than  theirs.  The  attitude  of 
the  Secretary  of  War  was  from  the  first  reasonable 
and  sympathetic,  and  on  his  initiative  there  have 
been  conspicuous  instances  of  wise  dealing  with  this 
problem.  But  against  these  must  be  set  the  terrible 
stories  of  torture  and  ignominy  which  emanate  from 
Camp  Funston  and  Fort  Leavenworth.  Reports  are 
received  of  atrocities  that  defy  description,  and  the 
tardy  action  of  the  War  Office  in  forbidding  certain 
brutal  practices  and  in  dismissing  and  even  holding 
for  trial  certain  officers  charged  with  special  cruel- 
ties, shows  that  these  reports  are  not  without  founda- 
tion. The  Secretary  of  War  is  not  able  to  control 
his  subordinates;  the  authority  of  the  President,  as 
Commander-in-Chief,  has  been  defied.  And  it  will 
always  be  defied  when  conscientious  objectors  are 
placed  at  the  mercy  of  military  authorities.  The 
United  States  army  has  boasted  of  its  record  in 
banishing  the  effects  of  one  form  of  vice  from  its 


camps:  it  has  deliberately  introduced  the  temptation 
to  another — and  one  (by  virtue  of  its  example)  not 
less  dangerous.  In  the  account  of  the  treatment  of 
conscientious  objectors  at  Camp  Funston  it  is  re- 
corded: "Most  of  the  mistreatment  took  place  out- 
side, with  large  groups  watching  this  sorry  and 
revolting  spectacle."  Surely  nothing  could  have 
been  worse  for  the  morale  of  a  democratic  army,  an 
army  which  came  from  the  people  and  must  return 
to  it,  or  for  the  morale  of  a  people  among  whom  the 
custom  of  lynching  assumes  almost  the  character  of 
a  national  vice.  For  the  sake  of  our  future  citizen- 
ship as  affected  by  the  return  of  the  soldiers  to  our 
population  the  temptation  to  lawless  violence  should 
be  removed  from  our  military  camps  and  prisons, 
and  the  example  of  it  repudiated.  The  Secretary  of 
War  will  probably  not  be  able  to  secure  the  punish- 
ment of  the  officers  and  men  responsible  for  the 
treatment  of  conscientious  objectors.  The  most  effect- 
ive way  of  marking  the  disapproval  which  all  true 
Americans  cognizant  with  the  facts  must  feel  at 
their  savagery  is  in  the  release  of  the  men  whom 
they  have  abused. 

The  problem  of  the  individual  and  the  state, 
raised  by  the  demand  for  military  service,  will  not  be 
solved  in  a  military  camp  or  prison.  Indeed 
its  solution  has  ceased  to  be  of  instant  im- 
portance. If  the  United  States  has  truly  won  the 
war,  this  problem  need  never  be  solved.  At  all 
events  we  protest  against  further  attempt  to  solve 
it  through  the  sufferings  of  the  present  group  of 
conscientious  objectors.  They  have  given  of  their 
bodies  and  souls  in  this  terrible  dilemma.  Granted 
that  they  caused  an  appreciable  loss  to  the  energy  of 
this  country  as  mobilized  for  war,  they  are  many 
of  them  ready  and  able  to  render  the  highest  and 
most  devoted  service  in  peace.  Their  withdrawal 
from  the  life  of  the  community  will  remain  a  mark 
of  the  weakness  of  our  Government,  not  of  its 
strength.  As  an  initial  measure  of  reconstruction 
we'ask  for  the  release  of  the  conscientious  objectors. 

The  cases  of  persons  convicted  under  the  Espion- 
age Act  are  various,  ranging  from  that  of  the  college 
boy  who  was  provoked  into  saying  that  "he  would 


THE  DIAL 


January  1 1 


like  to  stick  a  knife  into  Wilson,"  to  that  of  Eugene 
Debs  and  other  Socialists  who  have  seriously  chal- 
lenged the  interpretation  placed  on  the  war  by 
American  patriotic  idealism.  These  cases  for  the 
most  part  arise  out  of  limitations  placed  on  freedom 
of  speech.  Whether  such  limitations  were  desirable 
or  necessary  is  not  now  the  question.  In  any  case 
they  have  done  their  work.  No  further  gain  can 
be  anticipated  by  keeping  their  violators  in  prison 
or,  in  case  they  are  still  free  on  pending  appeals,  by 
sending  them  there. 

All  of  these  persons  were  convicted  in  circum- 
stances of  popular  excitement  when  the  public  mind 
was  concerned  with  the  question  of  national  de- 
fense, and  when,  further,  it  may  be  noted,  the  in- 
dividuals and  interests  which  depend  directly  upon 
public  opinion — the  press,  the  politicians,  the  officials 
— were  subject  to  the  temptation  to  use  this  popular 
excitement  for  their  own  purposes — to  profiteer  in 
patriotism.  The  question  whether  those  convicted 
had,  or  could  have,  a  fair  trial  may  therefore  be 
raised.  It  has  been  charged  that  representatives  of 
the  Department  of  Justice  and  the  Post  Office  De- 
partment interfered  with  measures  taken  in  defense 
of  the  accused,  notably  in  the  case  of  the  I.  W.  W. 
leaders  convicted  in  Chicago  last  September,  pre- 
venting the  raising  of  defense  funds,  and  intimidat- 
ing witnesses.  The  whole  effort  of  the  machinery  of 
justice  and  of  public  opinion  has  been  to  secure  con- 
viction— and  too  often  the  heavy  sentence  has  re- 
vealed the  judicial  practice  of  registering  patriotism 
in  terms  of  the  penal  servitude  of  others.  In  view 
of  the  inequalities  attending  the  administration  of 
justice  in  these  cases  we  demand  the  release  of  the 
prisoners. 

There  is  another  reason  for  the  pardon  of  these 
political  prisoners — one  of  which  every  American  is 
aware  and  yet  of  which  he  must  speak  with  reserve. 
Granted  that  these  men  have  made  difficult  the 
conduct  of  the  war,  that  they  have  embarrassed  the 
Government  by  diminishing  confidence  in  its  plat- 
form, they  do  not  stand  alone  in  their  offense.  It 
may  well  be  questioned  whether  all  offenders  against 
the  Espionage  Act  have  done  as  much  to  shake  the 
foundations  of  democracy  as  the  advocates  and  prac- 
ticers  of  mob  law  who  have  pursued  them.  Granted 
that  the  I.W.W.  leaders  have  been  guilty  of 
offenses  as  charged,  it  remains  to  be  considered 
whether  the  net  result  of  their  damage  to  our  insti- 
tutions approximates  that  of  the  mobs  at  Bisbee 
and  at  Tulsa.  If  the  Government  found  it  necessary 
to  punish  with  extreme  severity  in  one  case,  it  should 
have  found  means  to  do  so  in  the  other.  Contrast 
the  overzealous  pursuit  of  the  I.W.W.  leaders  by 
the  Department  of  Justice  with  its  tardy  and  languid 


proceedings  against  Sheriff  Wheeler  and  the  Bisbee 
deporters.  The  plea  that  no  federal  law  exists  to 
insure  a  citizen  the  peaceful  possession  of  his  life 
and  property  must  seem  to  the  victim  of  deportation 
an  evasion  when  he  sees  the  Espionage  Act  created 
to  meet  an  emergency  of  another  kind. 

As  in  the  case  of  the  conscientious  objectors,  the 
attitude  of  the  Administration  has  been  a  futile 
gesture.  President  Wilson  has  called  the  violators  of 
public  order  traitors  to  the  cause  for  which  we  went 
to  war.  Undoubtedly  in  the  crisis  the  belligerent 
zeal  which  found  vent  in  verbal  violence  on  the  part 
of  those  compelled  by  age  or  ecclesiastical  position 
to  abstain  from  actual  fighting  constituted  a  re- 
serve of  the  will  to  war  too  valuable  to  be  dissi- 
pated. Undoubtedly  the  initiative,  strategy,  and  ex- 
perience involved  in  the  conduct  of  mob  war  made 
younger  and  more  secular  leaders  like  Sheriff 
Wheeler  of  Bisbee  ideal  army  officers,  with  whose 
services  it  would  have  been  foolish  to  ask  the  Gov- 
ernment to  dispense.  But  the  period  of  war,  in 
which  such  inconsistencies  and  incongruities  were 
difficult  to  avoid,  has  passed.  In  the  period  of 
reconstruction  the  affirmation,  of  the  equality  of  men 
before  the  law  requires  amnesty  On  the  one  hand  to 
balance  immunity  on  the  other. 

The  United  States  is  entering  the  Congress  of 
Nations  with  a  program  of  justice  and  freedom  for 
all  nationalities  and  of  a  better  world  for  all  man- 
kind. Already  it  is  clear  that  its  strength  in  these 
councils  is  due  to  the  support  of  democratic  masses 
the  world  over.  What  better  foundation  for  its 
work  can  be  established  than  by  act  of  amnesty  to 
release  those  whose  imprisonment  is  a  scandal  and 
rock  of  offense  to  democracy  everywhere?  Not  a 
few  of  them  fell  beneath  the  law  as  the  result  of 
their  efforts  to  plead  the  cause  of  self-determination 
in  behalf  of  this  or  that  nation  whose  claims  will  be 
considered  by  the  world  court — of  Ireland  or  of 
Russia.  What  more  striking  evidence  of  belief  in 
its  own  cause  could  our  country  give  than  to  set 
them  free?  We  look  forward  to  a  new  world 
dominated  by  a  league  of  free  nations  from  which 
not  even  our  late  enemies  shall  be  excluded.  As  the 
President  has  said,  such  a  creation  must  depend 
fundamentally  upon  an  act  of  faith  in  humanity. 
What  greater  token  of  faith  can  we  give  than  by 
granting  pardon  even  to  those  who  have  been  against 
us  in  the  struggle  of  nationalities,  now  happily  con- 
cluded ? 

We  demand  as  a  matter  of  essential  justice  to  our 
citizens,  of  faith  in  our  historic  democracy,  and  of 
loyalty  to  our  own  cause  of  a  better  world  that  our 
political  prisoners  be  set  free. 

THE  EDITORS. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


Randolph  Bourne 


DIED  DECEMBER  22,  1918 


1 


We  wind  wreaths  of  holly 

For  Randolph  Bourne, 

We  hang  bitter-sweet  for  remembrance; 

We  make  a  song  of  wind  in  pines.     .     . 

Wind  in  pines 

Is  winter's  song,  anthem  of  death, 

And  winter's  child 

Is  gathered  in  the  green  hemlock  arms 

And  sung  to  rest.     .     . 

Sung  to  rest     .     .     . 

Waif  of  the  storm 

And  world-bruised  wanderer     .     .     . 

Sung  to  rest.     .     . 

Sung  to  rest  in  our  living  hearts, 

We  receive  him, 

Winding  our  wreaths  of  holly 

For  Randolph  Bourne. 

2 

Winter  lasts  long 

And  Death  is  our  midnight  sun 

Rayless  and  red.     .     . 

Peoples  are  dying,  and  the  world 

Crumbles  grayly.     .     . 

Autumn  of  civilization, 

Gorgeous  with  fruit, 

Dissolves  in  storm.     .     . 

And  we, 

Our  dead  about  us, 

Know  the  great  darkening  of  the  sun 

And  the  frozen  months, 

Sounding  our  hemlock  anthem,. 

Hanging  our  bitter-sweet.     .     . 

We  walk  in  ruined  woods 

And  among  graves: 

Earth  is  a  burying  ground.     .     . 

Nations  ge  down,  and  dreams 

And  myths  of  peoples 

And  the  forlorn  hopes 

Make  one  burial.     .     . 

And  we 

Came  from  the  darkness,  never  to  see 

A  Shakespeare's  England, 

A  Sophocles'  Athens, 

But  to  live  in  the  world's  latter  days, 

In  the  great  Age  of  Death, 

Sons  of  Doomsday.     .     . 

He  also  came, 

And  walked  this  crooked  world, 

Its  image. 

3 

In  him  the  world's  winter, 

Ruined  boughs  and  disheveled  cornfields, 


And  the  hunchback  rocks 

Gray  on  the  hills, 

Passed  down  our  streets.     .     . 

Passed  and  is  gone;  and  for  him  and  the  dying 

world 
Our  dirge  sounds.     .     . 

4 

Yet  suddenly  the  wind  catches  up  with  glory 
Our  anthem,  and. peals  wild  hope, 
Blowing  of  scattered  bugles.     .     . 

And  the  wind  cries:  Look, 

Pierce  to  the  soul  of  the  cripple 

Where,  immortal, 

The  spirit  of  youth  goes  on, 

Which  dies  never,  but  shall  be 

The  green  and  the  garland  of  the  Spring. 

And  the  wind  cries:  Down 

To  the  dissolution  of  the  grave 

The  crippled  body  of  the  world  must  go 

And  die  utterly, 

That  the  seed  may  take  April's  rain 

And  bring  Earth's  blooming  back. 

5 

Bitter-sweet,  and  a  northwest  wind 

To  sing  his  requiem, 

Who  was 

Our  Age, 

And  who  becomes 

An  imperishable  symbol  of  our  ongoing, 

For  in  himself 

He  rose  above  his  body  and  came  among  us 

Prophetic  of  the  race, 

The  great  hater 

Of  the  dark  human  deformity 

Which  is  our  dying  world, 

The  great  lover 

Of  the  spirit  of  youth 

Which  is  our  future's  seed.     .     . 

In  forced  blooming  we  saw 
Glimpses  of  awaited  Spring. 

6 

And  so,  lifting  our  eyes,  we  hang 
Bitter-sweet  for  remembrance 
Of  Randolph   Bourne. 

And  winter's  child 

Is  gathered  in  the  green  hemlock  arms 

And  sung  to  rest.     .     . 

Sung  to  rest  in  our  living  hearts; 

We  receive  the  rejected, 

Weaving  a  wreath  of  triumph 

For  Randolph  Bourne.         JAMEJJ  OppENHEIM. 


8 


THE  DIAL 


January  11 


Repeal  the  Espionage  Law 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  Civic  CLUB  OF  NEW  YORK,  DECEMBER  3,  1918 


IHE  PRESIDENT  told  us  yesterday  that  the  moment 
the  armistice  was  signed  he  took  the  harness  off 
from  business,  but  he  did  not  say  anything  about 
taking  the  halter  off  from  free  speech.  Industry,  he 
tells  us,  is  unshackled;  but  the  embargo  on  ideas 
remains,  and  we  may  as  well  acknowledge  that  it 
will  remain  unless  the  people  themselves  take  what- 
ever steps  are  necessary  to  remove  it.  I  venture  the 
opinion  that  for  more  than  a  year  past  there  has  not 
been  a  member  of  this  club  who  has  dared  to  say 
what  he  or  she  thought  about  the  most  vital  policies 
of  the  Government  of  this  country  in  those  partic- 
ulars most  intimately  affecting  the  lives  of  all  the 
people.  The  President  spoke  eloquently  yesterday 
concerning  the  wrongs  of  the  unfortunate  people  of 
Belgium  and  France,  but  I  did  not  observe  that  he 
said  anything  about  the  wrongs  of  our  own  people. 
When  the  President  arrives  in  Europe  let  us  hope 
that  he  will  learn  that  political  prisoners  have  been 
freed  over  there,  and  this  may  perhaps  remind  him 
of  hundreds  of  his  fellow  countrymen  who  are  de- 
prived of  their  liberty  here  for  political  offenses. 
He  may  perhaps  even  learn  that,  of  all  the  warring 
countries,  this  is  the  only  one  that  treats  political 
offenders  like  common  criminals — except  that  it 
treats  them  more  harshly. 

But  you  have  asked  me  to  speak  on  the  Espionage 
Law.  I  have  the  law  here.  Both  the  Act  of  June 
15,  1917,  and  the  Amendment  of  May  16,  1918. 
But  its  enumeration  of  the  things  you  cannot  say, 
or  do,  or  write  is  so  long  that  if  I  took  time  to  read 
the  whole  law  I  should  not  have  time  to  say  any- 
thing else.  So  I  am  just  going  to  read  Section  3 
of  Title  I,  the  section  under  which  most,  although 
not  all,  the  prosecutions  have  been  conducted  and 
the  section  which,  in  conjunction  with  Title  XII,  is 
relied  upon  to  give  the  Post  Office  Department  the 
right  to  censor  your  mail  and  suppress  radical  pub- 
lications. 

Section  3  of  Title  I  is  as  follows: 

Whoever,  when  the  United  States  is  at  war,  shall  wil- 
fully make  or  convey  false  reports  or  false  statements 
with  intent  to  interfere  with  the  operation  or  success  of 
the  military  or  naval  forces  of  the  United  States  or  to 
promote  the  success  of  its  enemies  and  whoever,  when  the 
United  States  is  at  war,  shall  wilfully  cause  or  attempt 
to  cause  insubordination,  disloyalty,  mutiny,  or  refusal  of 
duty,  in  the  military  or  naval  forces  of  the  United  States, 
or  shall  wilfully  obstruct  the  recruiting  or  enlistment 
service  of  the  United  States,  shall  be  punished  by  a  fine 
of  not  more  than  $10,000  or  imprisonment  for  not  more- 
twenty  years,  or  both. 


Now  that  is  rather  a  harmless  sounding  law.  But 
the  way  it  works  is  this:  some  pacifist  says  he  does 
not  believe  in  war;  that  all  war  is  murder.  Im- 
mediately a  Federal  District  Attorney  is  directed  to 
take  the  case  of  this  malefactor  before  a  grand  jury 
and  have  him  indicted.  The  indictment  is  returned 
almost  as  a  matter  of  course  upon  the  demand  of  the 
law  officer  of  the  Government.  Then  this  enemy  of 
the  people  is  hailed  before  the  trial  jury,  and  right 
here  is  where  you  become  aware  of  how  smoothly 
the  system  works.  The  mind  of  the  jury  has  been 
carefully  prepared  for  months  in  advance,  by  a  con- 
trolled press,  to  find  the  defendant  guilty.  The 
mails  have  been  closed  to  radical  and  independent 
publications  which  might  suggest  that  one  had  the 
right  to  opinions  even  in  war  time.  The  vigilante 
committees  have  terrorized  the  community  from 
which  the  jury  is  drawn.  The  officers  of  the  In- 
telligence Service  (so-called)  of  the  Army  and  Navy 
have  raided  the  homes  of  citizens,  seizing  their 
papers  and  their  effects,  and  even  their  persons,  with- 
out a  warrant  and  without  the  least  legal  authority, 
and  have  thereby  demonstrated  that  they  are  above 
the  law.  The  patriotic  organizations  and  the  Creel 
Bureau  have  flooded  the  country,  at  the  expense  of 
the  people,  with  fantastic  tales  calculated  to  excite 
the  passions  and  inflame  the  imagination  of  the  ordi- 
nary citizen,  until  impartial  judgment  has  become 
impossible  on  questions  relating  to  the  war.  Finally, 
and  not  the  least  important,  a  Federal  Judge,  who 
holds  his  job  by  appointment  of  the  President,  often 
charges  the  jury  on  the  law,  and  sometimes  on  the 
facts  as  well,  in  such  way  that  conviction  is  prac- 
tically certain.  When  the  humble  and  unsophisti- 
cated citizen,  whose  only  offense  was  that  he  hated 
war  and  abhorred  its  bloodshed  and  its  cruelties, 
comes  out  of  the  hurly-burly  of  the  trial  and  has 
time  to  catch  his  breath,  he  finds  himself  duly 
branded  as  a  criminal  and  sentenced  to  a  punishment 
more  severe  than  is  often  inflicted  for  robbery,  rape, 
or  murder. 

Again,  some  Socialist,  dreaming  of  the  brother- 
hood of  man,  the  federation  of  the  world,  when  the 
war-drums  shall  throb  no  longer,  ventures  to  say 
that  he  sees  no  good  in  the  workers'  of  one  country 
killing  those  of  another.  Forthwith  he  is  appre- 
hended as  a  German  propagandist,  as  an  agent  of 
the  Kaiser,  and  a  tool  of  autocracy.  And  he  gets 
very  short  shrift  in  the  courts,  if  for  no  other  reason 


THE  DIAL 


than  that  he  is  a  Socialist.  I  will  take  time  here 
to  call  your  attention  to  the  case  of  just  one  Socialist, 
of  which  I  speak  from  personal  knowledge.  Last 
summer  I  defended  a  young  man  before  a  Court 
Martial  at.  Camp  Dix  who  was  charged  with  violat- 
ing the  Ninety-Sixth  Article  of  War.  The  charge 
was  as  follows: 

Charge  1 :     Violation  of  the  96th  Article  of  War. 

Specification  1:  In  that  Americo  V.  Alexander  (No. 
1773144)  Private,  Medical  Detachment,  Base  Hospital, 
Camp  Dix,  N.  J.,  did,  at  New  York  City,  N.  Y.,  on  or 
about  the  28th  day  of  May,  1918,  with  intent  to  interfere 
with  the  successful  operation  of  the  military  forces  of  the 
United  States,  make  the  following  statements  in  the  pres- 
ence and  hearing  of  various  persons:  "You  can  get  out 
of  active  service  when  drafted  by  refusing  to  do  any 
military  duty  on  ground  of  conscientious  scruples.  Your 
failure  to  register  as  such  on  Questionnaire  would  not 
prevent  your  now  asserting  your  rights.  You  might  be 
put  in  the  guard  house  and  even  court-martialed  and  sen- 
tenced to  twenty  years,  but  you  would  never  be  forced  to 
serve.  You  might  expect  pretty  rough  treatment  but  if 
you  were  a  true  objector  and  stuck  they  would  do  nothing 
to  you.  One  objector  at  Camp  Dix  had  been  beaten, 
gagged,  kicked  and  gassed,  while  in  the  guard  house,  but 
having  stuck,  he  was  alright  now;  this  matter  was  being 
kept  very  secret.  He  got  a  job  in  the  Base  Hospital  and 
the  Army  was  very  glad  to  get  him  to  do  anything,  as 
the  other  objectors  did  not  work  and  were  only  an  ex- 
pense," or  words  to  that  effect. 

Specification  2:  In  that  Americo  V.  Alexander  (No. 
1773144)  Private,  Medical  Detachment,  Base  Hospital, 
Camp  Dix,  N.  J.,  while  holding  himself  out  to  be  a  con- 
scientious objector,  was  at  New  York  City,  N.  Y.,  on  or 
about  the  twenty-eighth  day  of  May,  1918,  active  in  pro- 
paganda to  the  prejudice  of  the  successful  operations  of 
the  military  forces  of  the  United  States  in  that  he  advised, 
counseled  and  attempted  to  persuade  various  persons  to 
state  that  they  were  conscientious  objectors  when  the  said 
persons  would  be  inducted  into  the  military  service  of  the 
United  States  under  the  provisions  of  the  Selective  Service 
Act. 

This,  you  see,  in  military  language,  charged  a 
violation  of  the  Espionage  Law.  We  took  about  a 
week  to  try  the  case  and  substantially  the  entire 
contest  centered  about  the  truth  or  falsity  of  those 
charges.  There  were  some  minor  charges  involving 
the  young  man's  temporary  refusal  to  work  while 
seeking  advice  from  superior  officers  immediately 
following  his  arrest,  thinking  that  it  might  interfere 
with  his  rights  as  a  conscientious  objector.  But  when 
reassured  upon  this  point,  he  promptly  abandoned 
that  position  and  thereafter  was  a  model  prisoner. 
I  will  say  also  that  he  accepted  non-combatant  ser- 
vice upon  his  induction  into  the  service  as  a  con- 
scientious objector.  He  had  managed  the  Supply 
Department  of  the  Base  Hospital  at  Camp  Dix  so 
effectively  as  to  be  complimented  by  officials  at 
Washington  and  had  been  suggested  for  a  commis- 
sion by  his  commanding  officer,  which  he  had  refused 
because  he  was  a  conscientious  objector.  Now  the 


singular  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  unprecedented  thing 
about  this  trial  was  that  the  Court  Martial  found 
the  young  man  "not  guilty"  of  the  charge  I  have  just 
read  to  you,  and  the  record  which  I  hold  in  my  hand 
so  shows.  But  when  the  record  came  to  me  after  it 
had  gone  to  Washington  and  passed  through  the 
hands  of  a  reviewing  officer,  it  showed  that  the  find- 
ing of  the  Court  Martial  in  this  respect  had  been 
reversed.  As  the  members  of  the  Court  Martial, 
which  consisted  of  eight  officers,  heard  all  the  testi- 
mony and  were  the  only  officers  who  ever  did  hear 
the  testimony  or  any  portion  of  it,  I  was  curious  to 
know  who  it  was  that  had  decided  that  he  could 
render  a  better  decision  on  the  facts  without  hearing 
the  testimony  than  the  members  of  the  Court 
Martial  could  who  did  hear  it.  And  so  I  went  to 
Washington,  and  af te-  a  day's  inquiry  from  Depart- 
ment to  Department  I  was  able  to  locate  the  record 
in  one  of  the  innumerable  offices  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment and  was  allowed  even  to  look  at  it,  although 
told  that  it  was  a  private  record  and  that  I  could 
not  take  a  cppy  of  it.  I  did  however  examine  it 
sufficiently  under  the  eye  of  the  officer,  who  kept 
both  the  record  and  myself  in  sight,  to  find  out  that 
the  person  who  discovered  that  the  Court  Martial 
had  been  all  wrong  in  its  findings  was  a  first  lieu- 
tenant named  William  J.  Martin.  I  have  not  the 
remotest  idea  who  Mr.  Martin  is  in  private  life, 
but  he  seems  to  have  signed  himself  "Judge  Advo- 
cate" at  Camp  Dix,  although  Iknow  he  had  abso- 
lutely nothing  to  do  with  the  trial  of  the  case,  for  I 
know  well  Captain  Lilly  of  the  New  York  bar,  the 
Judge  Advocate  who  did  try  it,  and  who  tried  it 
most  ably  for  the  prosecution.  But  this  Lieutenant 
Martin  wrote  the  opinion — endorsed  by  the  General 
who,  like  himself,  had  never  heard  any  of  the  testi- 
mony— which  reversed  the  findings  of  "not  guilty" 
by  the  Court  Martial;  and  the  point  of  my  calling 
your  attention  to  this  is  the  reason  assigned  for  the 
reversal.  I  quote  two  sentences  which  I  was  able 
to  copy  from  the  opinion  'of  Lieutenant  Martin. 
They  are  as  follows: 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  this  man  is  a  Socialist  and  as 
such  opposed  to  all  law  and  order,  I  cannot  see  how  he 
could  have  been  classed  as  a  conscientious  objector.  .  . 
The  testimony  shows  that  he  is  not  opposed  to  war  as  a 
conscientious  objector  but  is  opposed  for  the  same  reason 
that  th%  Russian  Government  is  opposed  to  it  and  belongs 
to  an  organization  that  is  opposed  to  all  forms  of  order 
and  systems  of  Government. 

The  word  "organization"  has  a  line  lightly  drawn 
through  it,  done  apparently  after  the  opinion  had 
been  filed,  and  the  words  "radical  element"  written 
above.  Read  either  way,  the  statement  is  wholly 


IO 


THE  DIAL 


January  11, 


false.  And  the  finding  of  "not  guilty"  of  the  Court 
Martial  on  the  charge  I  have  read  was  reversed,  and 
Mr.  Alexander,  whose  crime  appears  to  have  been 
that  he  is  a  Socialist,  is  undergoing  twenty  years' 
imprisonment.  I  wonder  how  many  other  men  and 
women  are  undergoing  punishment  fn  this  country 
today  because  they  are  Socialists.  Why,  if  this  had 
occurred  in  Belgium  during  the  German  occupation 
and  had  been  perpetrated  by  a  German  Court 
Martial,  we  should  dramatize  it,  and  put  it  in  the 
movies  as  an  illustration  of  German  atrocities.  If 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  composed 
of  nine  great  judges,  presumed  to  reverse  the  find- 
ing of  a  jury  in  a  criminal  case  on  conflicting  testi- 
mony, it  would  be  a  ground  for  impeaching  the  mem- 
bers of 'that  court. 

But  suppose  the  worst  of  all — assume  that  some 
citizen,  misguided  if  you  please,  had  a  doubt  about 
this  war's  being  altogether  a  war  for  democracy,  or 
even  had  a  suspicion  that  trade  rivalries  and  ambi- 
tions between  European  nations  were  at  the  bottom 
of  the  war  and  that  perhaps  it  might  have  been  just 
as  well  if  we  had  kept  out  of  it,  and*  having  such 
doubt  or  suspicion,  had  expressed  it  in  a  speech  or 
in  a  publication — you  know  what  would  have  hap- 
pened to  such  a  person  without  my  reciting  it.  Such 
a  one  were  lucky  if  he  only  went  to  prison  for  ten 
or  twenty  years.  Just  to  contrast  the  condition  into 
which  we  have  allowed  ourselves  to  sink  with  con- 
ditions where  at  least  some  freedom  of  speech  exists, 
I  am  going  to  read  you  a  few  sentences  from  Pro- 
fessor Shapiro's  Modern  and  Contemporary  Euro- 
pean History  [Houghton  Mifflin;  $3.50].  It  has 
been  off  the  press  only  a  few  _  weeks.  Professor 
Shapiro  is  known  to  many  of  you.  He  is  an  Asso- 
ciate Professor  of  History  in  the  College  of  the  City 
of  New  York  and  one  of  the  foremost  historians  of 
the  world.  At  page  338  he  says: 

The  Boer  War  was  fought  during  the  Salisbury  Min- 
istry. The  war  was  opposed  by  the  Liberals  but  was  en- 
thusiastically supported  by  the  overwhelming  majority  of 
the  English  people,  and  in  the  general  election  of  1900, 
the  Conservatives  were  returned  to  power  on  the  war 
issue  with  a  majority  of  134. 

It  is  fair  to  say  that  the  Boer  War,  in  the  opinion 
of  many  Englishmen,  involved  the  fate  of  the  Em- 
pire, for  if  Great  Britain  had  shown  herself  unable  to 
crush  the  Boers,  it  would  have  been  a  signal  for  every 
colony  she  had  in  the  world  to  throw  off  her  rule. 
But  of  the  opposition  to  the  war  by  the  Liberals,  of 
which  Lloyd  George  was  the  leader,  the  author 
reports : 

They  denounced  it  as  an  act  of  aggression  against  the 
inoffensive  Boers  in  the  interest  of  South  African  capi- 
talists. 


Think  of  that,  a  capitalistic  war.    I  quote  again : 

Large  mass  meetings  of  pro-Boers  were  held  all  over 
England,  at  which  the  Conservative  Ministry  was  severely 
criticised  for  being  the  tool  of  interested  financiers. 

And  nobody  was  prosecuted  for  sedition.  But  the 
author  also  tells  us  the  result  of  this  freedom  of  dis- 
cussion ;  for  he  says,  referring  to  a  period  of  two  or 
three  years  later: 

There  was  great  disgust  in  England  with  the  Conserva- 
tive Party  because  of  its  conduct  of  the  Boer  War,  and  in 
the  election  of  1906,  the  Liberals  were  overwhelmingly 
successful. 

If  I  should  read  you  even  a  portion  of  what  Lloyd 
George  said  about  his  Government  during  that  war, 
I  suppose  I  might  be  arrested  in  this  country  today 
for  slandering  Great  Britain. 

Here  is  the  point  I  wish  to  make  very  clear.  The 
Espionage  Law  can  just  as  well  be  applied  in  peace 
as  in  war,  and  just  as  good  reasons  can  be  given  for 
its  application  in  peace  as  in  war.  Practically,  we 
are  not  at  war  now ;  but  who  of  the  Administration 
suggests  the  repeal  of  the  Espionage  Law?  Who, 
when  exercising  arbitrary  power,  ever  proposes  to 
repeal  the  law  which  silences  criticism  of  the  man- 
ner in  which  such  power  is  exercised  ?  I  am  not 
concerned  about  the  right  of  the  soap-box  orator  to 
make  a  speech  because  he  feels  good  while  he  is  doing 
it,  and  feels  better  after  he  has  done  it,  although  I 
think  that  is  rather  wholesome;  but  if  a  people  are 
capable  of  self-government,  they  must  be  capable  of 
contributing  some  ideas  of  value  to  the  government 
if  they  are  allowed  free  expression.  If  a  people  have 
self-government,  they  must  have  freedom  of  expres- 
sion respecting  it,  or  theirs  will  become  the  worst 
government  in  the  world.  Far  better  take  away 
the  vote  than  take  away  free  speech  and  a  free  press ; 
and  far  better  take  away  free  speech  and  a  free 
press  than  allow  freedom  to  discuss  only  one  side 
of  a  subject. 

President  Wilson  is  going  abroad  today  dis- 
credited— that  is,  without  the  support  of  the  Con- 
gress— in  my  opinion,  because  of  the  Espionage  Law. 
Whatever  could  have  been  said  for  his  fourteen 
points — in  behalf  of  their  making  for  peace  and 
progress — remained  unsaid  because  of  the  ruthless 
suppression  by  means  of  the  Espionage  Law  of  all 
discussion  of  the  causes  of  the  war,  and  of  our  ob- 
jects and  aims  in  the  war.  The  Republicans,  taking 
advantage  of  the  suppression  of  all  discussion  which 
could  be  classed  as  anti-war,  cleverly  whipped  to 
frenzy  the  war  sentiment,  and  by  announcing  more 
drastic  war  aims  than  the  President  himself  they  at- 
tracted the  support  of  the  war  extremists  throughout 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


1 1 


the  country,  while  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
citizens  whose  votes  had  elected  President  Wilson 
because  "he  kept  us  out  of  war"  no  longer  trusted 
him  for  any  purpose,  and  voted  the  Socialist  or  some 
other  ticket,  or  did  not  vote  at  all.  If  it  is  a  mis- 
fortune that  the  President  stands  today  repudiated 
by  the  voters  of  the  country  at  the  recent  election,  it 
is  a  misfortune  that  has  been  brought  about  by  the 
suppression  of  all  discussion  of  the  war,  except  that 
which  was  intended  to  excite  and  inflame  the  people 
to  go  to  any  length  in  its  prosecution. 

But,  someone  says,  civil  liberties  were  invaded 
during  the  time  of  our  great  Civil  War  and  were 
later  recovered.  The  comparison  is  entirely  falla- 
cious. Civil  liberty,  so  far  as  it  was  denied  during 
the  Civil  War,  was  not  denied  because  of  any  Es- 
pionage Law.  The  Post  Office  Department  never 
claimed  or  exercised  the  power  to  suppress  publica- 
tions during  the  Civil  War.  Indeed  the  men  in 
control  of  the  country  during  that  war  had  taken 
the  position  that  the  exercise  of  any  such  power  by 
the  Post  Office  Department  would*  be  unconstitu- 
tional. The  slave-holding  states  had  sought  to  inr 
voke  such  power  to  protect  themselves  against  a  flood 
of  anti-slave  literature,  and  it  had  been  ably  argued 
and  held  by  the  leaders  of  the  North  that  any  such 
law  would  be  unconstitutional.  Every  arrest  made 
without  warrant  during  the  Civil  War  was  an  arrest 
by  the  military  authorities.  Every  paper  that  was 
suppressed  was  suppressed  by  the  military  authori- 
ties, and  in  most  cases  President  Lincoln  immedi- 


ately ordered  the  restoration  of  mailing  privileges 
to  such  a  paper.  Every  suppression  of  civil  liberty 
during  that  war  came  from  the  military  arm  of  the 
Government  and  it  had  to  disappear  as  soon  as  the 
army  was  disbanded.  The  great  Milligan  Case, 
following  upon  the  heels  of  the  war,  in  which  the 
Supreme  Court  decided  that  the  military  arrests  had 
been  unlawful,  promptly  restored  the  people  once 
more  to  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  liberties  which  the 
Constitution  had  been  held  to  guarantee.  But  now 
all  this  is  changed:  The  Espionage  Law  is  not  going 
to  be  repealed  unless  the  people  resolutely  take  the 
matter  in  hand ;  instead  it  will  be  skilfully  extended 
to  suppress  discussion  which  may  be  said  to  be  an 
incitement  to  war,  or  to  disturbance,  or  to  violence. 
The  Post  Office  Department  will,  unless  the  people 
are  aroused,  continue  to  exercise  a  censorship  more 
arbitrary  and  irresponsible  than  ever  existed,  either 
in  war  or  in  peace,  in  any  country  which  made  a  pre- 
tense of  being  free. 

There  is  just  one  thing,  in  my  opinion,  for  the 
citizens  to  do  who  believe  in  liberty  and  desire  to 
preserve  at  least  some  measure  of  freedom:  that  is 
to  organize  .for  the  repeal  of  this  obnoxious  law,  and 
never  to  disband  their  organization  or  cease  their 
agitation  until  the  law  has  been  discredited  and  re- 
pealed, and  until  every  person  convicted  under  it — 
and  not  shown  to  be  guilty  of  some  act  in  aid  of  the 
enemy — has  been  pardoned,  and  every  fine  collected 
under  it  repaid  by  the  Government. 

GILBERT  E.  ROE. 


A  Rational  Explanation  of  Vers  Libre 


IHE  WORLD  is  in  need  of  a  reasonable  explanation 
of  the  perplexing  phenomenon  known  as  vers  libre. 
Since  the  Imagists  came  upon  the  scene  about  five 
years  ago,  with  their  talk  about  cadence  and  their 
disposition  to  experiment  freely  in  all  sorts  of  forms, 
a  great  deal  has  been  written  for  and  against  vers 
libre,  and  a  great  many  writers — good,  bad,  and  in- 
different— in  England  and  America,  have  shown  a 
disposition  to  revolt  from  the  old  forms  of  metrical 
verse.  But  no  one  has  yet  attempted  to  explain 
clearly  and  simply,  for  the  benefit  of  the  man  in  the 
street,  just  what  "free  verse"  is. 

The  latest  theory  that  holds  the  field  in  America 
merely  leaves  the  confusion  worse  confounded.  This 
is  the  theory  of  Professor  William  Morrison  Patter- 
son, which  has  now  the  backing  of  no  less  a  person 


than  Miss  Amy  Lowell.  Miss  Lowell's  earlier 
theory — of  the  strophe's  being  in  itself  a  complete 
circle,  part  of  which  could  be  taken  rapidly  and 
part  slowly  at  will — was  difficult  enough  for  the 
uninitiated  to  grasp ;  but  this  new  theory  of  Doctor 
Patterson's  is  worse.  We  are  told  that  verse  contains 
no  less  than  six  species :  metrical  verse,  unitary  verse, 
spaced  prose,  polyphonic  prose,  mosaics,  and  blends. 
In  the  future  the  public  will  apparently  have  to 
recite  every  poem  they  like  into  a  phonograph  in 
order  to  find  out  what7  it  is.  Having  examined  and 
registered  its  time-intervals,  syncopations,  and  so 
forth,  they  will  classify  it  by  one  or  the  other  of  the 
above  labels.  The  idea  is  ingenious,  but  one  won- 
ders if  anyone  will  take  the  trouble  to  waste  so  much 
time  in  these  hurried  days. 


12 


THE  DIAL 


January  1 1 


Let  us  then  leave  this  atmosphere  of 'the  labora- 
tory, and  try  to  find  out  for  ourselves  what  the  poets 
mean  when  they  talk  about  vers  libre.  The  first 
point  to  be  noted  is  that,  logically,  there  can  be  no 
such  a  thing  as  absolutely  free  verse,  any  more  than 
there  can  be  such  a  thing  as  absolutely  free  prose.  A 
piece  of  verse  must  have  a  certain  form  and  rhythm, 
and  this  form  and  rhythm  must  be  more  rounded, 
more  heightened,  more  apparent  to  both  eye  and  ear, 
than  the  form  and  the  rhythm  of  prose.  Take  a 
corresponding  instance  from  the  art  of  music.  An 
aria  by  Mozart  may  contain  two  or  more  distinct 
melodies,  but  these  are  combined  together,  repeated, 
ornamented,  and  finally  summed  up  in  such  a  way 
that  the  aria  is  in  itself  a  distinct  and  separate  whole. 
On  the  other  hand,  any  long  stretch  out  of  Wag- 
ner's Ring  reveals  the  fact  that  there  is  nothing  but 
a  series  of  linked  musical  phrases — motives  we  may 
call  them — in  constant  progression.  Mozart's 
method  is,  then,  the  method  of  the  poet:  Wagner's 
is  the  method  of  the  prose  writer. 

This  distinction  being  made,  and  it  is  an  important 
one,  we  may  next  ask  ourselves  the  question:  Why 
do  poets  "speak  of  vers  libre  at  all?  If  there  can 
be  no  verse  logically  free — except  verse  written  with- 
out form,  without  rhythm,  without  balance,  which 
is  impossible — then  why  all  this  fuss  over  something 
that  does  not  exist?  This  very  same  argument,  by 
the  way,  appeared  in  an  English  journal  about  a  year 
ago,  and  I  happened  to  be  the  only  man  to  reply  to 
it.  My  reply  was  that  the  importance  of  vers  libre 
was  that  it  permitted  verse  to  be  not  absolutely  but 
relatively  free.  It  gave  scope  for  the  poet's  own 
form-constructing  ability,  but  did  not  hamper  him 
with  a  stereotyped  mold,  like  the  sonnet.  It  per- 
mitted him  to  vary  the  rhythm  at  discretion,  so  long 
as  the  essential  rhythm  was  preserved. 

To  illustrate.  Here  is  a  short  piece  of  free  verse, 
the  structure  of  which  is  comparatively  simple.  I 
have  set  the  accents  above  the  lines  in  order  to  show 
how  they  fall: 

I  have  fled  away  into  deserts, 

I  have  hidden  myself  from  you, 

Lo,  you  always  at  my  side ! 

1'^  cannot  shake  myself  free. 

In  the  frosty  evening 

With  your  cold  eyes  you  sit  watching, 

Laughing,  hungering  still  for  me; 

I  will  open  my  heart  and  give  you 

All  of  my  blood,  at  last. 

The  first  thing  to  be  noticed  about  this  is  that 
there  are  exactly  the  same  number  of  beats  in  every 
line — that  is  to  say,  three.  The  number  of  syllables 
between  the  beats  varies — so  that  the  incidence  of 


the  beat  is  different,  sometimes  iambic,  sometimes 
trochaic,  sometimes  anapaestic,  and  so  on — but  the 
first  principle  of  unity,  that  the  number  of  beats 
should  be  the  same  throughout,  is  preserved. 

Now  to  take  each  line  separately.  The  first  is 
comparatively  simple,  and  gives  the  main  beat  of  the 
poem.  This  is  repeated  with  slight  variation  in  the 
second  line,  and  again  repeated  in  the  next  to  the 
last  line: 

I  have  fled  away  into  deserts, 

I  have  hidden  myself  from  you     .     .     . 

I  will  open  my  heart  and  give  you. 

These  lines  give  an  effect  practically  identical;  and 
herein  we  have  the  second  principle  of  unity,  the 
principle  of  basic  rhythm,  displayed. 

But  what,  one  may  ask,  is  to  be  made  of  the  rest 
of  the  poem  ?  Here  in  lines  three  to  eight,  and  again 
in  the  last  line  of  all,  there  is  a  group  as  definitely 
trochaic  and  dactylic  in  formation  as  the  others  are 
iambic  and  anapaestic.  Does  this  not  destroy  the 
unity  of  which  you  make  so  much? 

Not  at  all.  With  this  second  group  we  come  pre- 
cisely to  the  most  important  law  of  vers  libre — the 
law  of  balanced  contrast.  Lines  of  different  metrical 
origin  are  used  in  vers  libre  precisely  as  the  first  and 
second  subjects  of  a  symphony  by  Beethoven  or 
Mozart.  Let  us  examine. 

The  first  line  which  announces  the  second  subject 
of  the  poem  is  as  follows : 

Lo !  you  always  at  my  side ! 

This  line  is  the  exact  opposite,  not  only  in  metrical 
form,  but  in  mood,  to  the  line  announcing  the  first 
subject : 

I  have  fled  away  into  deserts. 

These  two  lines  between  them  contain  the  essence  of 
the  poem.  The  rest  is  variation,  amplification,  orna- 
ment. For  instance: 

Lo!  you  always  at  my  side     .     .    . 
Laughing,  hungering  still  for  me. 

Are  not  these  two  lines,  separated  from  each  other 
by  four  lines  of  text,  of  exactly  the  same  metrical 
pattern  ?  And  is  not  the  same  theme,  with  a  slightly 
different  middle,  repeated  in  the  line  "I  cannot 
shake  myself  free,"  and  also  with  a  different  close 
in  "In  the  frosty  evening,"  and  also  in  "All  of  my 
blood  at  last"? 
If  I  had  written: 

In  the  frosty  evening 
All  of  my  blood  at  last 
Sorrowing  and  grieving 
For  the  vanished  past. 

I  should  have  been  writing  doggerel  doubtless,  but 


1919 


THE  DIAI 


I  should  have  been  doing  just  what  the  metrists  ask 
poets  to  do — I  should  have  preserved  the  regularity 
of  incidence  which  they  regard  as  necessary  to  poetry. 
How,  then,  can  anyone  say,  as  some  have  said,  that 
there  is  no  metrical  unity  to  vers  libre,  no  basis  of 
regularity  upon  which  the  poem  stands?  The 'basis  is 
there,  but  it  is  concealed.  Ars  est  celare  artem.  We 
cannot  measure  poetry  with  a  metronome,  or  even 
classify  it  with  a  phonograph,  as  Dr.  Patterson 
would  have  us  do. 

There  remains  one  more  line  to  be  considered. 
This  is: 

With  your  cold  eyes  you  sit  watching. 

I  have  marked  this  line  above  as  having  three  beats, 
but  it  is  obvious  that  this  way  of  reading  it  may 
be  unpleasant  to  some  people.  "With"  is  that  phe- 
nomenon, not  uncommon  in  English  verse,  of  a  long 
syllable  which  is  unaccented  in  itself  but  which 
obtains  a  light  stress  from  the  fact  that  the  voice 
dwells  upon  it.  "Cold"  is  probably  the  same  thing. 
One  recalls  the  celebrated  line  of  Macbeth: 

Toad  that  under  cold  stone. 

"Eyes"  is  probably  accented  also,  like  "stone"  in  the 
line  just  quoted.  We  therefore  have: 

With  your  cold  eyes  you  sit  watching, 

a  reading  which  gives  us  four  beats — or  three  and 
a  half,  if  we  recognize  that  the  stress  upon  "with" 
is  not  so  important  as  that  upon  "cold"  or  "eyes" 
or  "watching" — and  a  reading  which  probably  will 
be  more  satisfactory  to  most  readers. 

What  is  important  for  us  to  know  is  that  this  line 
is,  in  a  sense,  a  suspended  line,  that  it  partakes  some- 
what of  the  characteristics  of  both  the  first  group — 
comprising  the  first,  second,  ancf  next  to  the  last 
lines — and  also  of  the  second  group,  comprising  the 
rest  of  the  poem.  It  is  especially  allied  to  the  next 
to  the  last  line: 

I  will  open  my  heart  and  give  you. 

It  needs  no  expert  in  verbal  music  to  see  that  the 
movement  of  this  is  closely  paralleled  by  the  move- 
ment of: 

With  your  cold  eyes  you  sit  watching. 

We  have  here,  then,  what  might  be  called  in  musical 
phrases,  a  resolution.  The  line: 

With  your  cold  eyes  you  sit  watching 

is  the  keystone  of  the  verbal  arch  we  have  con- 
structed. It  binds  the  two  contrasting  subjects, 
moods,  musical  phrases,  of  the  poem  together  and 
welds  them  into  one. 

We  may  therefore  deduce  from  this  analysis  the 


following  laws  governing  the  writing  of  any  piece 
of  vers  libre : 

( 1 )  A  vers  libre  poem  depends,  just  as  a  metri- 
cal  poem   does,   upon   uniformity   and   equality   of 
rhythm;  but  this  uniformity  is  not  to  be  sought  in 
an  even  metronomic  succession  of  beats,  but  in  the 
contrasted  juxtaposition  of  lines  of  equal  beat  value, 
but  of  different  metrical  origin. 

(2)  When  a  meter  in  a  vers  libre  poem  is  re- 
peated it  is  usually  varied,  like  the  thematic  ma- 
terial of  a  symphony.    These  variations  and  nuances 
are  designed  largely  to   take  the  place  of   rhyme. 
Rhyme  therefore  in  most  cases  is  undesirable,  as  it 
interferes  with,  rather  than  assists,  the  proper  ap- 
preciation of  these  nuances.    But  occasionally  it  may 
be  necessary  to  stress  some  complex  variation,  or  to 
hold  together  the  pattern  of  the  poem. 

(3)  Suspensions   and    resolutions   are   common. 
The  poet  writing  in  vers  libre  is  guided  not  by  any 
fixed  stanza  form  but  by  the  poem  as  a  whole  (if  the 
poem  consists  of  one  strophe,  as  in  the  case  discussed 
above)  or  by  each  strophe  (if  the  poem  consists  of  a 
number  of  strophes).     Unity  within  the  bounds  of 
the  strophe  is  his  main  consideration.     It  will  be 
found  in  almost  every  case  that  the  strophe  consists 
of  two  parts :  a  rise  and  a  return. 

(4)  Every  poet  will  treat  these  laws  differently. 
Since  in  English  it  is  open  to  the  poet  to  write,  with 
equal  facility,  verses  of  two,  three,  four,  and  five 
.beats,  so  vers  libre  in  English  must  necessarily  be  a 
more  complex  and  more  difficult  art  than  in  French, 
where  so  much  current  vers  libre  is  merely  modified 
Alexandrines.     Every  poet  will  therefore  construct 
his  strophes  somewhat  differently  according  to  his 
own  taste.    That  is  what  we  mean  when  we  speak 
of  "free  verse." 

(5)  As  for  "spaced  prose,"  "polyphonic  prose," 
"mosaics,"  "blends" — -and  all  the  other  more  or  less 
experimental   forms  which   I   and  others  have  at- 
tempted— they  are  not  and  should  not  be  called  verse 
at  all.    The  difference  between  them  and  true  vers 
libre  is  this:  vers  libre  derives  from  metrical  verse 
and  from  the  old  stanza  forms.    Throughout  all  its 
variations,  unity  of  rhythmical  swing  and  the  dy- 
namic balance  of  the  strophe  is  preserved.     These 
other  forms  derive  from  prose,  which  does  not  pos- 
sess unity  of  swing  and  which  substitutes  for  the 
strophe  the  paragraph.     These  forms  may  be  con- 
fused with  true  vers  libre,  but  the  fact  remains  that 
the  origin  of  each  is  different.     With  vers  libre  the 
starting-point    is    the    repeated    rhythmical    phrase; 
with  these  other  forms  the  starting-point  is  the  prose 

sentence. 

JOHN  GOULD  FLETCHER. 


THE  DIAL 


January  u 


An  Educated  Heart 


I 


F  ONE  CARED  to  do  so  it  would  be  easy  to  classify 
Visits  to  Walt  Whitman  (Arens;  $2)  as  a  partic- 
ularly aggravated  case  of  Whitmania.  The  signs 
and  symptoms  are  everywhere  in  evidence :  the  Pious 
Pilgrimage,  the  Dazzling  Presence,  the  Exchange 
of  Tokens,  the  Inscription  of  Volumes,  the  Visit 
to  the  Birthplace,  the  Friends,  and  the  Friends  of 
the  Friends — all  intermixed  with  those  chronicles  of 
conversational  small  beer  which  appear  to  constitute 
the  technique  of  latter-day  hero  worship.  But  to 
dwell  solely  on  this  aspect  of  the  book  would  be  to 
betray  a  callousness  to  human  values  of  a  particularly 
rare  and  precious  sort.  Not  often  are  we  intro- 
duced into  such  a  company  of  educated  hearts,  nor 
permitted  glimpses  of  the  beauty  and  dignity  of  meek 
and  obscure  lives. 

Aside  from  any  positive  value  the  book  may  have 
as  a  contribution  to  our  knowledge  and  understand- 
ing of  one  of  the  few  great  figures  which  our  un- 
kempt civilization  has  produced,  it  has  the  merit 
of  vividly  rendering  that  civilization  itself,  or  rather 
that  segment  of  it  to  which  Whitman  belonged  dur- 
ing the  latter  part  of  his  life.  In  other  words  the 
figure  of  the  man  is  shown  against  its  appropriate 
background,  and  though  that  background  contains 
such  things  as  a  sheet-iron  stove,  a  stuffed  canary 
under  glass,  and  two  miniature  statues  of  Grover 
Cleveland  by  an  unknown  hand,  these  and  other 
horrors  only  assure  us  of  the  authenticity  of  the 
portrait — give  it  perfect  verisimilitude.  In  contrast 
with  such  esthetic  squalor  the  human  kindliness  and 
spiritual  grandeur  of  Whitman  stand  out  in  just 
such  dramatic  relief  as  Lincoln's  black  frock  coat 
and  stovepipe  hat  must  have  imparted  to  his  seamed 
and  sad  face.  Such  things  make  us  thrillingly 
aware  of  the  grotesque  lacunae  to  which  greatness  as 
well  as  littleness  is  subject — like  Emerson's  love  of 
pie  for  breakfast,  and  the  Hawthornes'  cherishing 
of  their  haircloth  sofa. 

Whitman  and  his  circle  are  focused  for  us  in 
binocular  vision,  as  it  were,  by  two  Englishmen, 
Dr.  John  Johnston  and  J.  W.  Wallace,  drawn  to 
our  shores  in  quest  of  the  great  adventure  of  meet- 
ing face  to  face  one  known  already  mind  to  mind 
and  heart  to  heart.  The  journey  was  undertaken 
in  the  spirit  of  those  pilgrimages  made  by  Eastern 
religious  devotees  to  the  ashrama  of  some  Master, 
and  the  two  men  appear  to  have  derived  from  it 
the  same  order  of  spiritual  refreshment.  They 
describe  Whitman's  environment,  his  dress,  his  ap- 
pearance, his  moods,  aod  his  conversation  with 


meticulous  and  loving  care,  omitting  nothing.  Al- 
though the  performance  is  without  conscious  art,  no 
master  realist  could  better  it.  The  frail,  wise, 
tender  old  man  in  his  wheel  chair  lives  before  us; 
Mickle  street,  Camden  town,  and  the  little  clap- 
boarded  house  shouldered  in  between  its  loftier 
neighbors  assume,  with  the  aid  of  photographs, 
extraordinary  distinctness,  and  the  people  who  go 
in  and  out  acquire  the  interest  of  characters  in  a 
play  or  in  a  tale. 

Whitman's  recorded  talk  is  not  remarkable,  being 
largely  made  up  of  the  ordinary  small  change  of 
conversation,  but  he  possessed  the  power  of  vign- 
etting with  a  few  telling  strokes  a  whole  life 
history,  so  that  we  seem  to  know  all  that  is  neces- 
sary for  complete  understanding.  His  account  of 
his  friend  Mrs.  Gilchrist's  daughter  Beatrice  is  an 
example  of  this  power : 

She  decided  that  Beatrice,  the  daughter,  should  be  a 
doctor — a  lady,  woman  doctor.  There  were  no  colleges 
for  women  in  England,  and  she  brought  her  over  along 
with  the  rest  of  the  family  to  Philadelphia,  where  there 
was  the  best  medical  college  for  women  in  the  country. 
In  time,  however,  Beatrice  came  to  dislike  her  pro- 
fession. Her  weakness  had  always  been  what  may  be 
called  an  excess  of  veracity.  She  would  not  do,  or  be, 
or  seem  anything  that  was  not  strictly  true  or  veracious. 
And  she  declared  that  doctors  could  not,  as  a  rule,  find 
out  what  really  ailed  people,  and  she  would  not  be  one. 
One  night  she  disappeared,  and,  from  certain  indica- 
tions, it  was  feared  that  she  had  committed  suicide  or 
something.  A  search  was  made,  but  no  trace  was  found. 
At  last,  some  months  after,  her  body  was  found  in  a 
wood,  with  her  clothes  and  fixings  much  battered  and 
decayed. 

Another  instance  of  this  ability  to  condense  the 
content  of  what  might  be  a  book  into  the  limits  of  a 
paragraph  is  seen  in  Whitman's  story  of  the  life  of 
Peter  Doyle,  the  baggageman,  up  to  the  time  when 
his  visits  suddenly  and  mysteriously  ceased: 

He  is  a  good  friend  of  mine.  He  was  born  in  Ireland. 
His  mother  and  father  came  out  here  when  he  was  a  little 
chap  of  four  or  five — a  bright-eyed  little  fellow — and 
the  sailors  took  to  him  a  good  deal,  as  sailors  do.  They 
went  to  Richmond  and  lived  there.  His  father  was  a 
machinist.  His  mother  was  a  good  specimen,  I  guess, 
of  an  Irish  woman  of  that  class.  Pete  grew  up  there 
till  he  was  a  young  fellow,  a  big  boy  of  sixteen  or 
seventeen.  When  the  War  broke  out  he  joined  the 
Southern  army  and  was  a  rebel  soldier.  He  was  wounded 
by  our  troops  and  made  prisoner,  and  brought  to  Wash- 
ington. The  doctors  got  him  over  his  wound,  and  he 
went  out  and  got  a  job  as  tram-conductor.  And  it  was 
then  that  I  met  him  first. 

I  don't  know  whether  you  know  or  not  the  horrible 
monotony  and  irksomeness  of  the  hospital — to  a  young 
fellow  recovering.  So,  as  soon  as  they  can,  the  doctors 
let  them  out,  and  they  have  to  report  themselves  till 
they  are  quite  well.  Well,  Pete  was  out  in  this  way. 
We  became  acquainted  and  very  good  friends.  The 
house  in  Washington  was  broken  up.  His  father  didn't 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


get  work,  didn't  get  success:  so  he  went  away  to  New 
York  where  he  thought  he  would  succeed,  and  that  was 
the  last  that  was  heard  of  him.  No  doubt  he  was 
drowned  or  killed.  His  mother  died  a  year  or  two  ago. 
And  his  uncle,  his  mother's  brother — Nash — whom  I  used 
to  know  is  dead.  So  I  don't  know  where  Pete  is  now. 

Whitman's  comments  on  the  great  figures  of  liter- 
ature are  unfailingly  shrewd:  Carlyle  "lacks  amor- 
ousness"; Arnold  is  "more  demonstrable,  genial, 
than  the  typical  John  Bull";  Shakespeare  is  "the 
poet  of  great  personalities" — but  it  is  only  when  he 
comes  to  speak  of  the  people  of  "these  states"  that 
he  becomes  truly  clairvoyant: 

The  Americans  are  given  to  smartness  and  money-getting, 
and  there  is  danger  of  over-smartness.  I'm  not  afraid 
of  it,  it  will  come  out  all  right,  but  the  tendency  is  to 
become  daemonic,  to  cheat  one's  own  father  and  mother, 
to  be  damned  smart,  to  gouge.  .  .  Our  leading  men 
are  not  of  much  account,  and  never  have  been,  but  the 
average  of  the  people  is  immense,  beyond  all  History. 

This  is  his  comment  on  the  American  boys.  Let 
us  hope  that  the  war  may  have  saved  the  present 
generation  of  them  from  the  "gentility"  that  he 
deplores : 

Have   you   noticed   what  fine   boys   the   American   boys 


are?  Their  distinguishing  feature  is  their  good- 
naturedness  and  good  temper  with  each  other.  You 
never  hear  them  quarrel,  nor  even  get  to  high  words. 
Given  a  chance,  they  would  develop  the  heroic  and 
manly;  but  they  will  be  spoiled  by  civilization,  religion, 
and  damnable  conventions.  Their  parents  want  them  to 
grow  up  genteel — everybody  wants  to  be  genteel  in 
America — and  thus  their  heroic  qualities  will  simply 
be  crushed  out  of  them. 

His  estimate  of  the  power  and  influence  of  Leaves 
of  Grass  is  high,  but  who  shall  say  that  it  is  exag- 
gerated ? 

If  the  book  lives  and  becomes  a  power,  it  will  be  under- 
stood better  in  fifty  or  a  hundred  years  than  now.  For 
it  needs  people  to  grow  up  with  it.  .  .  As  to  the 
Leaves,  their  aim  is  Character:  what  I  sometimes  call 
Heroism — Heroicism.  Some  of  my  friends  say  it  is  a  sane, 
strong  physiology;  I  hope  it  is.  But  physiology  is  a 
secondary  matter.  Not  to  depict  great  personalities,  .or 
to  describe  events  and  passions,  but  to  arouse  that  some- 
thing in  the  reader  which  we  call  Character. 

No  truer  estimate  than  the  above  has  ever  been 
made  of  Whitman's  unique  force  and  function.  We 
do  not  go  to  him  for  pleasure,  for  amusement,  for 
solace  'or  instruction,  but  for  inspiration  to  become 
what  we  are!  CLAUDE  BRAGDON. 


A  Normal  Madness 


7  WAS  AN  unfortunate  inspiration  which  led  the 
daughter  of  Anne  Gilchrist  to  write  in  advance  to 
the  London  Nation  a  letter  protesting  against  the 
title  of  the  forthcoming  publication  of  her  mother's 
correspondence  with  Walt  Whitman.  Her  mistake 
consisted  literally  in  the  fact  that  she  was  speaking 
without  the  book.  In  the  first  place  the  volume  is 
neutrally  entitled  The  Letters  of  Anne  Gilchrist 
and  Walt  Whitman  (Doubleday,  Page;  $2),  and 
not  the  "Love  Letters,"  as  she  has  heard  it  was  to  be 
headed ;  and  in  the  second  place,  so  far  as  her 
mother's  letters  are  concerned — and  they  practically 
compose  the  volume — to  call  them  merely  "love- 
letters"  is  to  understate  the  case.  Yet  with  a  strange 
confidence  the  daughter  of  Mrs.  Gilchrist  risked  this 
positive  statement  concerning  letters  she  had  never 
seen:  "I  can  safely  say  that  though  my  mother 
was  a  warm  admirer  of  Whitman's  writings,  .the 
poet  himself  entertaining  a  hearty  regard  and  friend- 
ship for  her,  the  correspondence  which  passed  be^ 
tween  the  two  would  in  no  sense^lend  itself  to  the 
suggestion  of  the  title  of  the  proposed  book."  The 
episode  might  well  serve  as  a  warning  to  all  daugh- 
ters that  they  can  not  safely  say  anything  about 
their  mothers'  love  affairs  until  all  the  returns  are  in. 
The  mothers  of  this  generation  are  wisely  beginning 
to  learn  that  the  adolescent  daughter  has  her  own 
private  soul ;  but  it  remains  for  the  next  generation 
to  learn  that  middle  age  too  has  its  secrets.  "I  wrote 


that  long  letter  out  in  the  Autumn  fields  for  dear 
life's  sake,"  wrote  Anne  Gilchrist  to  Walt  Whitman 
of  her  first  message  to  him.  It  was  indeed  no  mere 
demand  but  an  ultimate  compulsion  that  moved  her. 
Mrs.  Gilchrist's  letters  need  no  apologist.  She 
takes  her  place  beside  those  vivid  spirits  like  Mary 
Wollstonecraft  and  Madame  Curie  in  whom  in- 
tellect and  passion  strive  equally  for  fulfillment. 
Her  emotionalism  is  always  clear-sighted.  Like 
Mary  Wollstonecraft,  who  during  her  most  infatu- 
ated pursuit  of  Imlay  still  remained  a  keen  daily 
observer  of  the  economics  of  the  French  Revolution, 
Anne  Gilchrist's  obsessional  attachment  to  Whitman 
had  its  rational  counterpart  in  her  faithful  devotion 
to  science  and  the  scientific  point  of  view  which  for 
her  the  poet  represented/  She  was  in  love  with 
reality  as  she  was  in  love  with  the  poet  whose  words 
"indicate  the  path  between  reality  and  the  soul." 
Throughout  all  the  storm  and  stress  of  personal 
yearnings  and  disappointments  she  remained  a  dis- 
cerning analyst  of  the  work  of  the  beloved.  It  is 
interesting  to  compare  the  two  essays  on  Walt  Whit- 
man reprinted  in  this  volume.  The  first  was  written 
in  1869  just  after  the  poems  had  fallen  into  Mrs. 
Gilchrist's  hands  for  the  first  time;  the  second 
fifteen  years  later,  and  after  the  Gilchrists'  sojourn 
in  America.  Though  the  fiery  enthusiasm  of  the 
first  is  lacking  at  fifty-six,  the  fidelity  of  the  later 
to  the  earlier  impressions  is  truly  remarkable. 


i6 


THE  DIAL 


January  n 


By  far  the  most  interesting  part  of  this  book 
consists  of  the  letters  written  between  the  fall  of 
1871  and  the  fall  of  1876,  beginning  with  the  one 
which  was  written  in  the  "Autumn  fields  for  dear 
life's  sake."  Here  you  may  study  at  a  safe  dis- 
tance what  Freud  describes  as  "the  state  of  being 
in  love,  so  remarkable  psychologically,  and  the  nor- 
mal prototype  of  the  psychoses."  Anne  Gilchrist 
had  been  a  widow  for  eight  years,  absorbed  in  do- 
mestic cares,  in  the  upbringing  of  four  young  chil- 
dren, and  in  the  completion  of  her  husband's  unfin- 
ished literary  tasks,  when  she  first  met  Whitman's 
poems.  "I  had  not  dreamed  that  words  could  cease 
to  be  words,  and  become  electric  streams  like  these," 
she  wrote  to  Michael  Rossetti,  who  had  loaned  her 
the  book.  And  from  that  time  forth  the  spell  did 
not  abate. 

With  great  accuracy  and  genuine  poetical  abandon 
this  patient  is  able  to  describe  the  symptoms. 

For  that  I  have  never  set  eyes  upon  thee,  all  the  Atlantic 
flowing  between  us,  yet  cleave  closer  than  those  that 
stand  nearest  and  dearest  around  thee — love  thee  day 
and  night — last  thoughts,  first  thoughts,  my  soul's  pas- 
sionate yearning  towards  thy  divine  soul,  every  hour, 
every  deed  and  thought — my  love  for  my 'children,  my 
hopes,  aspirations  for  them,  all  taking  new  shape,  new 
height  through  this  great  love.  My  soul  has  staked  all 
upon  it. 

Whitman's  kind  but  discouraging  responses  only 
served  to  fan  the  flame.  She  offers  her  all  to  him; 
she  prays  to  minister  to  his  wants,  to  shafe  her 
income  with  him,  to  take  upon  herself  the  attacks 
of  his  def amers,  to  bear  him  children ;  she  covets  the 
Liebestod  with  him. 

If  God  were  to  say  to  me,  "See,  he  that  you  love  you 
shall  not  be  given  to  in  this  life — he  is  going  to  set  sail 
on  the  unknown  sea — will  you  go  with  him?"  never  yet 
has  bride  sprung  into  her  husband's  arms  with  the  joy 
with  which  I  would  take  thy  hand  and  spring  from  the 
shore. 

In  return  she  demands  nothing,  not  even  replies 
to  her  letters.  Pathetically  she  hits  upon  an  expedi- 
ent to  relieve  her  wistful  longing  to  know  whether 
her  letters  are  received  or  not.  He  is  to  post  her 
an  American  newspaper  on  receipt  of  each  letter. 
Whitman  seems  to  have  committed  himself  to  this 
extent. 

As  time  went  on  the  passionate  letter  writer  was 
visited  by  moments  of  insight. 

It  may  be  that  this  shaping  of  my  life  course  toward 
you  will  have  to  be  all  inward,  that  .  .  .  the  grate- 
ful, tender  love  growing  ever  deeper  and  stronger  out 
of  that  will  have  to  go  dumb  and  actionless  all  my 
days  here. 

There  were  letters  that  she  destroyed  after  re- 
lieving her  ardent  soul  in  writing  them — a  method 
which,  by  the  way,  is  highly  recommended  by  Crete 
Meissel-Hess  in  The  Sexual  Crisis.  But  such  mo- 


ments were  all  too  rare  for  the  lady's  own  good. 
The  erotic  spell  persisted  for  seven  long  years, 
leading  her  at  last  to  America,  against  Whitman's 
emphatic  disapproval  and  determined  efforts  to  pre- 
vent the  journey.  It  turned  out  much  better  than 
Whitman  evidently,  and  with  reason,  feared.  Dur- 
ing her  residence  in  Philadelphia  the  relation  settled 
down  into  one  of  permanent  and  loyal  friendship, 
and  this  is  the  tone  which  characterized  the  cor- 
respondence following  that  period.  The  letters  give 
us  no.  clue  as  to  why  Mrs.  Gilchrist  spent  the  latter 
half  of  her  American  sojourn  in  Boston  and  New 
York  instead  of  in  Philadelphia,  nor  can  we  discover 
from  them  the  real  reason  for  her  return  to  England. 
Perhaps  "the  children"  did  not  like  it,  after  all,  in 
the  Promised  Land  which  failed  to  realize  the  ideals 
of  democracy  expressed  in  Whitman's  poetry;  per- 
haps Anne  Gilchrist  learned  of  her  rival  in  the 
poet's  affections;  but  most  likely  of  all  she  realized 
that  the  cycle  was  complete.  She  died  in  1885, 
seven  years  before  the  invalid  poet  made  an  end. 
She  did  not  live  to  see  old  age;  probably  her  emo- 
tional struggles,  as  was  the  case  with  Mary  Woll- 
stonecraft,  helped  to  shorten  her  life. 

The  volume  contains  very  few  letters  from  Walt 
Whitman.  All  the  others,  as  Mrs.  Gilchrist's 
daughter  communicates,  are  in  her  possession.  On 
the  whole,  one  does  not  regret  that  they  have 
escaped  publication.  The  few  specimens  givep,  as 
the  editor  remarks,  probably  reflect  the  tone  of  them 
all.  While  no  man  could  be  expected  to  do  anything 
but  retreat  before  such  ecstasies  of  self-surrender, 
the  human  male  who  would  not  feel  some  com- 
placency in  such  a  situation  probably  does  not  exist. 
All  things  considered,  Whitman  seems  to  have  borne 
himself  admirably  throughout  the  long  ordeal.  A 
delicate  obligation  to  him  was  involved  in  the  pub- 
lication of  these  letters,  of  which  the  literary  exec- 
utor seems  to  have  been  happily  unconscious.  Other- 
wise he  would  not  insist  that  the  chief  value  of 
the  collection  lies  in  its  being  a  "tribute"  to  the 
personality  of  "America's  most  unique  man  of 
genius."  The  letters  have  a  value  in  themselves 
quite  apart  from  the  genius  of  the  man  who  in- 
spired them.  Emotions  of  the  kind  that  possessed 
Anne  Gilchrist  have  the  power  to  convert  almost  any 
person  of  the  opposite  sex  into  a  "most  unique" 
object.  After  all,  these  letters  contribute  nothing 
very  important  or  significant  to  the  biography  of 
Walt  Whitman;  but  they  do  contribute  a  great 
deal  to  the  psychology  of  romantic  love  and  to  the 
biography  of  the  romantic  lover  who  resides  some- 
where is  the  psyche  of  each  of  us. 

KATHARINE  ANTHONY. 


1919 


The  Rise  of  the  "Unskilled 


IHERE  ARE  MANY  reasons  which  make  the  organi- 
zation of  skilled  workers  in  Trade  Unions  far  easier 
than  that  of  the  less  skilled.  The  skilled  workmen 
are  better  paid  and  can  therefore  more  easily  afford 
to  make  a  regular  contribution.  Moreover  they 
often  pay  a  high  contribution,  receiving  in  return 
not  only  dispute  benefit  but  also  insurance  against 
unemployment,  sickness,  and  old  age ;  and  whatever 
the  disadvantages  of  the  mingling  of  "friendly"  and 
fighting  activities  may  be,  it  undoubtedly  conduces 
to  stability  and  permanence  of  organization,  as  well 
as  to  conservatism  of  spirit.  Yet  again,  the  skilled 
workers  have  a  closer  bond  of  craft  pride  and  craft 
interest  than  is  possible  for  the  less  skilled  workers. 

This  of  course  is  commonplace.  What  needs  ex- 
plaining is  not  the  fact  that  organization  has  usually 
been  weak  among  the  less  skilled  workers,  but  the 
fact  that  during  the  years  preceding  the  war  and 
still  more  during  the  war  period  it  has  made  remark- 
able strides.  The  number  of  members  in  the  "gen- 
eral labor"  Unions  in  Great  Britain,  which  rep- 
resent principally  this  type  of  workers,  rose 
from  118,000  in  1910  to  366,000  in  1914,  and  the 
total  is  now  something-  like  800,000.  Why  has 
this  extraordinary  growth  taken  place? 

The  principal  explanation  of  the  pre-war  growth 
lies  in  the  increasing  prevalence  of  industrial  unrest 
during  the  years  preceding  the  war.  Industrial  un- 
rest, which  some  call  "the  swing  of  the  pendulum" 
of  public  opinion  from  political  to  industrial  action, 
always  means,  naturally,  a  large  accession  to  Trade 
Union  membership.  To  this  must  be  added  as  a 
further  cause  the  fact  that  the  sharp  line  of  cleavage 
between  the  skilled  and  the  unskilled  was  gradually 
being  blurred,  and  that  the  tendency  of  machinery 
and  management  was  towards  the  creation  of  a 
growing  body  of  semi-skilled  workers,  recruited  from 
the  ranks  of  the  unskilled,  who  encroached  on  the 
trades  of  the  skilled  workers  and  at  the  same  time 
very  greatly  reduced  the  proportion  of  really  un- 
skilled workers  in  industry.  Together  with  the 
growth  of  "semi-skill,"  went  a  tendency  towards 
organization,  not  so  strong  as  that  of  the  skilled 
workers,  but  still  appreciable  and  definite. 

The  creation  of  "semi-skill"  was,  of  course,  a  proc- 
ess enormously  accelerated  by  the  war.  Practically 
all  the  pre-war  workers  in  the  war  industries  were 
absorbed  into  jobs  which  were  at  least  semi-skilled, 
and  the  lower  ranges  of  jobs  were  more  and  more 
filled  either  by  newcomers  to  industry,  whether  girls 
or  adults,  or  by  workers  transferred  from  inessential 
or  "sweated"  trades.  The  whole  body  of  semi- 


skilled and  unskilled  workers  gained  greatly  in  status 
as  a  result  of  war  conditions.  Also  their  pay  in 
most  cases  increased ;  and  even  where  this  increase 
was  offset  by  the  rise  in  the  cost  of  living,  the  ex- 
penditure of  a  few  pence  weekly  on  Trade  Union 
membership  seemed  a  far  smaller  thing  than  before. 

At  the  same  time  a  common  consciousness  began 
to  grow  up  among  the  less  skilled  workers.  They 
found  the  attitude  of  the  old-established  Unions 
toward  them  often  hard  and  unsympathetic,  because 
the  skilled  men  often  felt  that  the  less  skilled  were 
doing  them  out  of  their  jobs,  and  feared  the  cutting 
of  rates  by  their  competition  in  the  crafts.  The 
general  labor  Unions  therefore  grew,  as  it  were,  fac- 
ing both  ways.  They  confronted  the  employers  with 
demands  for  better  conditions,  but  they  also  con- 
fronted the  skilled  Unions  with  claims  for  better 
consideration.  Their  consciousness  of  their  common 
opportunity  and  their  common  danger  in  industry 
took  the  place  of  craft  spirit  and  acted  as  a  powerful 
incentive  to  combination. 

It  is  still  an  open  question  how  far  this  conscious- 
ness, and  the  organization  which  has  sprung  from 
it,  will  survive  the  shock  of  the  return  to  peace-time 
conditions.  Severe  unemployment  or  dislocation  is 
likely  at  once  to  show  its  effect  in  a  reduced  mem- 
bership in  the  general  labor  Unions.  This  type  of 
membership  has  always  been  peculiarly  unstable,  and 
there  are  many  who  prophesy  that  it  will  not  outlast 
the  special  conditions  which  called  it  into  being.  I 
do  not  know,  but  I  believe  that  enough  of  it  will 
survive  to  be  a  powerful  factor  during  the  coming 
years  of  reconstruction. 

What,  then,  is  the  relation  which  this  mass  of 
newly  organized  workers  bears,  and  is  likely  to  bear, 
to  the  older  established  Trade  Unions,  and  to  the 
rank  and  file  movements  which  I  discussed  in  my 
last  article?  Clearly,  there  are  large  possible  diver- 
gences of  attitude  between  them,  and  these  di- 
vergences, without  wise  handling,  may  easily  become 
divergences  of  actual  policy. 

The  official  Trade  Unionism  of  the  skilled 
workers  is  apt  to  ignore,  if  not  to  repudiate,  the 
claims  of  the  less  skilled.  Its  members  have  patri- 
otically suspended  during  the  war  their  customs  and 
regulations,  which  it  had  cost  them  more  than  half  a 
century  of  struggle  to  establish.  They  have  received 
in  return  an  absolute  promise  from  the  Government 
that  these  customs  and  regulations  will  be  restored 
intact  at  the  end  of  the  war.  To  the  redemption  of 
that  pledge  they  are  clearly  entitled;  but  their  rea- 
soning is  apt  to  stop  at  that  point,  and  to  pay  too 


i8 


THE  DIAL 


January  11 


little  regard  to  the  practical  expediencies  and 
exigencies  of  the  situation. 

The  less  skilled  workers,  on  the  other  hand,  con- 
scious both  of  pre-war  repression  and  of  war-time 
service,  are  likely  to  adopt  the  standpoint  of  mean- 
ing to  hold  their  gains,  J'y  suis:  j'y  reste.  Some 
of  them  say  in  effect  to  the  skilled  workers:  "We 
could  not  trust  our  interests  in  your  hands  before 
the  war,  and  we  cannot  trust  them  now.  The  war 
has  brought  us  into  a  position  from  which  you  self- 
ishly excluded  us  before  the  war,  and  we  are  not 
prepared,  because  pledges  have  been  given  which  do 
not  bind  us,  to  revert  to  our  pre-war  condition  of 
servitude  and  inferiority."  The  case  is  not  always 
so  plainly  stated,  but  that  is  the  case,  reduced  to  its 
essential  elements. 

Clearly  this  is  a  position  which  presents  consider- 
able dangers  to  the  Trade  Union  movement.  If  the 
skilled  and  the  less  skilled  workers  spend  time  and 
effort  in  these  internal  struggles,  the  employers  will 
reconstruct  industry  according  to  their  own  plans, 
and  Labor  will  have  no  effective  voice  in  its  recon- 
struction. 

This  point  however  must  not  be  pressed  too  far. 
It  is  still  possible,  and  even  likely,  that  the  official 
Trade  Unionism  of  the  skilled  workers  and  the 
official  Trade  Unionism  of  the  less  skilled,  realizing 
their  common  danger,  will  reach  at  least  a  temporary 
agreement  and  meet  the  employers  with  a  common 
program,  in  which  each  will  concede  something  to 
the  other.  This  is  strongly  to  be  hoped ;  and  for 
this  the  best  elements  in  both  sections  are  working. 
But  even  if  a  temporary  agreement  is  reached,  and 
skilled  and  less  skilled  cooperate  effectively  in  deal- 
ing with  the  problems  of  reconstruction,  there  will 
still  remain  big  differences  between  them  which  it  is 
essential  to  transcend  if  the  recurrence  of  trouble  is 
to  be  avoided. 

The  plain  fact  is  that  while  the  Trade  Unionism 
of  the  skilled  workers  is  built  upon  a  basis  of  craft 
which  excludes  and  antagonizes  the  unskilled,  the 
Trade  Unionism  of  the  less  skilled  workers  is  largely 
based  upon  this  antagonism,  at  least  in  the  minds  of 
many  of  the  leaders.  To  mention  only  two  of  the 
most  prominent,  Mr.  J.  R.  Clynes  of  the  General 
Workers  and  Mr.  J.  N.  Bell  of  the  National  Amal- 
gamated Union  of  Labor  have  both  dwelt  frequently 
upon  the  function  of  the  general  labor  Union  in 
protecting  the  less  skilled  workers,  not  only  against 
the  employers,  but  against  the  skilled  workers.  The 
two  forms  of  organization  are  thus  built  upon  ideas 
which  are  mutually  exclusive  and  partly  antagonistic. 

This  means  that  in  neither  is  there  any  resting 
place.  The  idea  of  craft  and  the  idea  of  "no-craft" 
are  alike  inadequate  to  fit  modern  industrial  condi- 


tions or  to  combine  into  a  common  program  of  a 
lasting  kind.  The  need  is  for  a  bigger  idea,  and  for 
a  bigger  basis  of  combination,  to  replace  both  alike. 

We  saw,  in  the  last  article,  that  the  "rank  and 
file"  movement,  which  has  its  origin  and  its  main 
strength  among  the  skilled  workers,  is  largely  based 
on  the  repudiation  of  the  "craft"  principle  and  on 
the  assertion  of  the  rival  principles  of  class  and  in- 
dustry. We  saw  also  that  a  considerable  "rank  and 
file"  movement  exists  among  the  less  skilled  workers, 
though  it  is  not  so  strongly  organized  as  are  the  shop 
stewards  of  the  skilled  trades.  The  main  difference  is 
that,  whereas  the  younger  skilled  workers  tend  to 
favor  the  combination  in  one  Union  of  all  the  work- 
ers in  a  particular  industry,  whatever  their  degree  of 
skill,  the  unskilled  are  led  by  their  present  form  of 
association,  which  extends  over  most  industries,  to 
look  forward  rather  to  the  combination  in  one  Union 
of  all  workers,  without  regard  to  skill  or  industry. 
Reconciliation  of  these  two  problems  is  by  no  means 
impossible ;  but  the  difference  of  attitude  is  at  present 
a  barrier  to  effective  common  action  and  to  the  unity 
of  all  -the  advanced  forces. 

Union  by  class — the  One  Big  Union  idea — in- 
volves too  sharp  a  break  with  the  present  to  be  im- 
mediately practicable.  Union  by  industry  can  hardly 
be  accomplished,  in  some  industries  at  least,  in  face 
of  the  present  strength  of  the  general  labor  Unions. 
The  moral  seems  to  be  that  the  process  of  consolida- 
tion must  be  pushed  as  far  as  possible  in  each  camp 
separately  on  the  official  side,  and  that  in  the  shop 
steward  and  workshop  committee  movement  the  two 
must  find  their  immediate  field  for  common  action 
and  for  propaganda.  In  the  end,  I  believe  that  the 
One  Big  Union  idea  will  prove  to  be  the  only  way 
of  straightening  out  the  tangle  of  British  Trade 
Union  organization;  but  the  time  for  that  is 
not  yet. 

It  may  be  a  matter  for  surprise  that  in  this  article 
I  have  said  nothing  about  the  women  workers  as  a 
distinct  factor.  The  truth  is  that  only  in  one  respect 
can  they  be  regarded  as  a  distinct  factor:  generally 
speaking  the  women  in  the  war  trades  count  mainly 
as  a  section  of  the  less-skilled  workers,  a  majority  of 
those  who  are  organized  being  found  in  the  general 
labor  Unions  which  admit  both  sexes,  and  only  a 
minority,  though  an  active  one,  in  the  National  Fed- 
eration of  Women  Workers.  The  respect  in  which 
the  position  of  some  women  is  different  from  that 
of  the  less  skilled  men  is  that,  as  the  men  have  passed 
from  the  unskilled  to  the  semi-skilled  grades,  the 
women  have  in  many  cases  taken  their  place  on  un- 
skilled work,  though  many  women  have  of  course 
been  employed  on  semi-skilled  and  even  on  skilled 
jobs.  The  unskilled  women  and  girls  hold  their 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


position  in  the  vital  industries  only  precariously,  and 
are  unlikely  to  count  for  much  as  a  factor  in  recon- 
struction. They  must  be  considered  and  provided 
for ;  but  they  will  not  exercise  any  considerable  force. 
Men's  and  women's  interests  will  not  diverge  in  any 
important  respect:  the  real  cleavage  that  needs  heal- 


ing is  that  between  the  skilled  and  the  less  skilled 
workers.  This  I  believe  can  and  will  be  temporarily 
met  by  mutual  concessions;  but  it  can  only  be  met 
permanently  by  the  emergence  of  a  broader  spirit 
and  the  achievement  of  a  more  comprehensive  form 
of  organization.  G  D  H  CQLE 


The  Modern  Point  of  View  and  the  New  Order 


VII 

LIVE  AND  LET  LIVE 


IHE  NATION'S  inalienable  right  of  self-direction 
and  self-help  is  of  the  same  nature  and  derivation 
as  the  like  inalienable  right  of  self-help  vested  in  an 
irresponsible  king  by  the  grace  of  God.  In  both 
cases  alike  it  is  a  divine  right,  in  the  sense  that  it  is 
irresponsible  and  will  not  bear  scrutiny,  being  an 
arbitrary  right  of  self-help  at  the  cost  of  any  whom 
it  may  concern.  There  is  the  further  parallel  that 
in  both  cases  alike  the  ordinary  exercise  of  these 
rights  confers  no  material  benefit  on  the  underlying 
community.  In  practical  effect  the  exercise  of  such 
divine  rights,  whether  by  a  sovereign  monarch  or 
by  the  officials  of  a  sovereign  nation,  works  damage 
and  discomfort  to  one  and  another,  within  the  na- 
tional frontiers  or  beyond  them,  with  nothing  better 
to  show  for  it  than  some  relatively  slight  gain  in 
prestige  or  in  wealth  for  some  relatively  small  group 
of  privileged  persons  or  vested  interests.  And  the 
gain  of  those  who  profit  by  this  means  is  always  got 
at  the  cost  of  the  common  man  at  home  and  abroad. 
These  inalienable  rights  are  an  abundant  source  of 
grievances  to  be  redressed  at  the  cost  of  the  common 
man. 

It  has  long  been  a  stale  commonplace  that  the 
quarrels  of  competitive  kings  in  pursuit  of  their  di- 
vine rights  have  brought  nothing  but  damage  and 
discomfort  to  the  peoples  whose  material  wealth  and 
man  power  have  been  made  use  of  for  national  enter- 
prise of  this  kind.  And  it  is  no  less  evident,  though 
perhaps  less  notorious,  that  the  pursuit  of  national 
advantages  by  competitive  nations  by  use  of  the  same 
material  wealth  and  man  power  unavoidably  brings 
nothing  better  than  the  same  net  output  of  damage 
and  discomfort  to  all  the  peoples  concerned.  There 
is  of  course  the  reservation  that  in  the  one  case  the 
kings  and  their  accomplices  and  pensioners  have 
come  in  for  some  gain  in  prestige  and  in  perquisites, 
while  in  the  case  of  the  competitive  nations  certain 
vested  interests  and  certain  groups  of  the  kept  classes 
stand  to  gain  something  in  the  way  of  perquisites  and 
free  income ;  but  always  and  in  the  nature  of  the  case 


the  total  gain  is  less  than  the  cost,  and  always  the 
gain  goes  to  the  kept  classes  and  the  cost  falls  on  the 
common  man.  So  much  is  notorious,  particularly 
so  far  as  it  is  a  question  of  material  gain  and  loss. 
So  far  as  it  is  an  immaterial  question  of  jealousy  and 
prestige,  the  line  of  division  runs  between  nations, 
but  as  regards  material  gain  and  loss  it  is  always  a 
division  between  the  kept  classes  and  the  common 
man ;  and  always  the  common  man  has  more  to  lose 
than  the  kept  classes  stand  to  gain. 

The  war  is  now  concluded,  provisionally,  and 
peace  is  in  prospect  for  the  immediate  future,  also 
provisionally.  As  is  true  between  individuals,  so 
also  among  the  nations,  peace  means  the  same  thing 
as  Live  and  Let  Live,  which  also  means  the  same 
thing  as  a  world  made  safe  for  democracy.  And  the 
rule  of  Live  and  Let  Live  means  the  discontinuance 
of  animosity  and  discrimination  between  the  nations. 
Therefore  it  involves  the  disallowance  of  such  in- 
compatible national  pretensions  as  are  likely  to  afford 
ground  for  international  grievances — which  comes 
near  involving  the  disallowance  of  all  those  claims 
and  perquisites  that  habitually  go  in  under  the 
captions  of  "national  self-determination"  and  "na- 
tional integrity,"  as  these  phrases  are  employed  in 
diplomatic  intercourse.  At  the  same  time  it  involves 
the  disallowance  of  all  those  class  pretensions  and 
vested  interests  that  make  for  dissension  within  the 
nation.  Ill  will  is  not  a  practicable  basis  of  peace, 
whether  within  the  nation  or  between  the  nations. 
So  much  is  plain  matter  of  course.  What  may  be  the 
chances  of  peace  and  war,  at  home  and  abroad,  in 
the  light  of  these  blunt  and  obvious  principles  taken 
in  conjunction  with  the  diplomatic  negotiations  now 
going  forward  at  home  and  abroad — all  that  is 
sufficiently  perplexing. 

At  home  in  America  for  the  transient  time  being, 
the  war  administration  has  under  pressure  of  neces- 
sity somewhat  loosened  the  strangle-hold  of  the 
vested  interests  on  the  country's  industry ;  and  in  so 
doing  it  has  shocked  the  safe  and  sane  business  men 


THE  DIAL 


January  n 


into  a  state  of  indignant  trepidation  and  has  at  the 
same  time  doubled  the  country's  industrial  output. 
But  all  that  has  avowedly  been  only  for  the  transient 
time  being,  "for  the  period  of  the  war,"  as  a  dis- 
tasteful concession  to  demands  that  would  not  wait. 
So  that  the  country  now  faces  a  return  to  the  pre- 
carious conditions  of  a  provisional  peace  on  the  lines 
of  the  status  quo  ante.  Already  the  vested  interests 
are  again  tightening  their  hold  and  are  busily  ar- 
ranging for  a  return  to  business  as  usual;  which 
means  working  at  cross-purposes  as  usual,  waste  of 
work  and  materials  as  usual,  restriction  of  output  as 
usual,  unemployment  as  usual,  labor  quarrels  as 
usual,  competitive  selling  as  usual,  mendacious  ad- 
vertising as  usual,  waste  of  superfluities  as  usual  by 
the  kept  classes,  and  privation  as  usual  for  the  com- 
mon man.  All  of  which  may  conceivably  be  put  up 
with  by  this  people  "lest  a  worse  evil  befall."  All 
this  runs  blamelessly  in  under  the  rule  of  Live  and 
Let  Live  as  interpreted  in  the  light  of  those  en- 
lightened principles  of  self-help  that  go  to  make  up 
the  modern  point  of  view  and  the  established  scheme 
of  law  and  order,  although  it  does  not  meet  the 
needs  of  the  same  rule  as  it  would  be  enforced  by 
the  exigencies  of  the  new  order  in  industry. 

Meanwhile,  abroad,  the  gentlemen  of  the  old 
school  who  direct  the  affairs  of  the  nations  are  laying 
down  the  lines  on  which  peace  is  to  be  established 
and  maintained,  with  a  painstaking  regard  for  all 
those  national  pretensions  and  discriminations  that 
have  always  made  for  international  embroilment, 
and  with  an  equally  painstaking  disregard  for,  all 
those  exigencies  of  the  new  order  that  call  for  a 
de  facto  observance  of  the  rule  of  Live  and  Let  Live. 
It  is  notorious  beyond  need  of  specification  that  the 
new  order  in  industry,  even  more  insistently  than 
any  industrial  situation  that  has  gone  before,  calls 
for  a  wide  and  free  intercourse  in  trade  and  in- 
dustry, regardless  of  national  frontiers  and  national 
jealousies.  In  this  connection  a  national  frontier, 
as  it  is  commonly  made  use  of  in  current  state- 
craft, is  a  line  of  demarkation  for  working  at  cross- 
purposes,  for  mutual  obstruction  and  distrust.  It 
is  only  necessary  to  recall  that  the  erection  of  a  new 
national  frontier  across  any  community  which  has 
previously  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  free  intercourse 
unburdened  with  customs  frontiers  will  be  felt  to 
be  a  grievous  burden,  and  that  the  erection  of  such 
a  line  of  demarkation  for  other  diplomatic  work  at 
mutual  cross-purposes  is  likewise  an  unmistakable 
nuisance. 

Yet  in  the  peace  negotiations  now  going  forward 
the  gentlemen  of  the  old  school  to  whom  the  affairs 
of  the  nations  have  been  "entrusted" — by  shrewd 
management  on  their  own  part — continue  to  safe- 


guard all  this  apparatus  of  mutual  defeat  and  dis- 
trust— and  indeed  this  is  the  chief  or  sole  object  of 
their  solicitude,  as  it  also  is  the  chief  or  sole  object 
of  these  vested  interests  for  whose  benefit  the  diplo- 
matic gentlemen  of  the  old  school  continue  to 
manage  the  affairs  of  the  nations. 

The  state  of  the  case  is  plainly  to  be  seen  in  the 
proposals  of  those  nationalities  that  are  now  coming 
forward  with  a  new  claim  to  national  self-determina- 
tion. Invariably  any  examination  of  the  bill  of 
particulars  set  up  by  the  spokesmen  of  these  proposed 
new  national  establishments  will  show  that  the 
material  point  of  it  all  is  an  endeavor  to  set  up  a 
national  apparatus  for  working  at  mutual  cross- 
purposes  with  their  neighbors,  to  add  something  to 
the  waste  and  confusion  caused  by  the  national  dis- 
criminations already  in  force,  to  violate  the  rule  of 
Live  and  Let  Live  at  some  n^ew  point  and  by  some 
further  apparatus  of  discomfort. 

There  are  nationalities  that  get  along  well 
enough,  to  all  appearance,  without  being  "nations" 
in  that  militant  and  obstructive  fashion  that  is  aimed 
at  in  these  projected  creations  of  the  diplomatic 
nation-makers.  Such  are  the  Welsh  and  the  Scotch, 
for  instance.  But  it  is  not  the  object-lesson  of 
Welsh  or  Scottish  experience  that  guides  the  new 
projects.  The  nationalities  which  are  now  escaping 
from  a  rapacious  imperialism  of  the  old  order  are 
being  organized  and  managed  by  the  safe  and  sane 
gentlemen  of  the  old  school,  who  have  got  their 
notions  of  safety  and  sanity  from  the  diplomatic 
intrigue  of  that  outworn  imperialism  out  of  which 
these  oppressed  nationalities  aim  to  escape.  And 
these  gentlemen  of  the  old  school  are  making  no 
move  in  the  direction  of  tolerance  and  good  will- 
as  how  should  they  when  all  their  conceptions  of 
what  is  right  and  expedient  are  the  diplomatic  pre- 
conceptions of  the  old  regime.  They,  being  gentle- 
men of  the  old  school,  will  have  none  of  that  amica- 
ble and  unassuming  nationality  which  contents  the 
Welsh  and  the  Scotch,  who  have  tried  out  this  mat- 
ter and  have  in  the  end  come  to  hold  fast  only  so 
much  of  their  national  pretensions  as  will  do  no 
material  harm.  What  is  aimed  at  is  not  a  disallow- 
ance of  bootless  national  jealousies,  but  only  a  shift 
from  an  intolerable  imperialism  on  a  large  scale  to 
an  ersatz-emperialism  drawn  on  a  smaller  scale,  con- 
ducted on  the  same  general  lines  of  competitive 
diplomacy  and  serving  interests  of  the  same  general 
kind — vested  interests  of  business  or  of  privilege. 

The  projected  new  nations  are  not  patterned  on 
the  Welsh  or  the  Scottish  model,  but  for  all  that 
there  is  nothing  novel  in  their  design;  and  how 
should  there  be  when  they  are  the  offspring  of  the 
imagination  of  these  safe  and  sane  gentlemen  of 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


21 


the  old  school  fertilized  with  the  ancient  concep- 
tions of  imperialistic  diplomacy  and  national  pres- 
tige? In  effect  it  is  all  drawn  to  the  scale  and 
pattern  already  made  famous  by  the  Balkan  states. 
It  should  also  be  safe  to  presume  that  the  place  and 
value  of  these  newly  emerging  nations  in  the  comity 
of  peoples  under  the  prospective  regime  of  pro- 
visional peace  will  be  something  not  notably  different 
from  what  the  Balkan  states  have  habitually  placed 
on  view — which  may  be  deprecated  by  many  well- 
meaning  persons,  but  which  is  scarcely  to  be  undone 
by  well-wishing.  The  chances  of  war  and  politics 
have  thrown  the  fortunes  of  these  projected  new 
nations  into  the  hands  of  these  politic  gentlemen  of 
the  old  school,  and  by  force  of  inveterate  habit  these 
very  .practical  persons  are  unable  to  conceive  that 
anything  else  than  a  Balkan  state  is  fit  to  take  the 
place  of  that  imperial  rule  that  has  now  fallen  into 
decay.  So  Balkan-state  national  establishments  ap- 
pear to  be  the  best  there  is  in  prospect  in  the  new 
world  of  safe  democracy. 

So  true  is  this  that  even  in  those  instances,  such 
as  the  Finns  and  other  fragments  of  the  Russian  im- 
perial dominions,  where  a' newly  emerging  nation  has 
set  out  to  go  on  its  way  without  taking  pains  to 
safeguard  the  grievances  of  the  old  order — even  in 
these  instances  that  should  seem  to  concern  no  one 
but  themselves,  the  gentlemen  of  the  old  school  who 
guard  the  political  institutions  of  the  old  order  in 
the  world  at  large  find  it  impossible  to  keep  their 
hands  off  and  to  let  these  adventurous  pilgrims  of 
hope  go  about  their  own  business  in  their  own  way. 
Self-determination  proves  to  be  insufferable  if  it 
partakes  of  the  new  order  rather  than  of  the  old, 
at  least  so  long  as  the  safe  and  sane  gentlemen  of 
the  old  school  can  hinder  it  by  any  means  at  their 
command.  It  is  felt  that  the  vested  interests  which 
underlie  the  gentlemen  of  the  old  school  would  not 
be  sufficiently  secure  in  the  keeping  of  these  unshorn 
and  unshaven  pilgrims  of  hope,  and  the  doubt  may 
be  well  taken.  So  that,  within  the  intellectual  hori- 
zon of  the  practical  statesmen,  the  only  safe,  sane, 
and  profitable  manner  of  national  establishment  and 
national  policy  for  these  newcomers  is  something 
after  the  familiar  fashion  of  the  Balkan  states;  and 
it  may  also  be  admitted  quite  broadly  that  these 
newly  arriving  peoples  commonly  are  content  to  seek 
their  national  fortunes  along  precisely  these  Balkan- 
state  lines,  though  the  Finns  and  their  like  are  per- 
haps to  be  counted  as  an  unruly  exception  to  the  rule. 

These  Balkan  states,  whose  spirit,  aims,  and  ways 
are  so  admirable  in  the  eyes  of  the  gentlemanly 
keepers  of  the  old  political  and  economic  order,  are 
simply  a  case  of  imperialism  in  the  raw.  They  are 
all  and  several  still  in  the  pickpocket  stage  of  dynas- 


tic statemaking,  comparable  with  the  state  of  Prus- 
sia before  Frederick  the  Great  Pickpocket  came  to 
the  throne.  And  now,  with  much  sage  counsel  from 
the  safe  and  sane  statesmen  of  the  status  quo  ante, 
Czechs,  Slovaks,  Slovenes,  Ruthenians,  Ukrainians, 
Croats,  Poles  and  Polaks  are  breathlessly  elbowing 
their  way  into  line  with  these  minuscular  Machiavel- 
lians. Quite  unchastened  by'  their  age-long  experi- 
ence in  adversity  they  are  all  alike  clamoring  for 
national  establishments  stocked  up  with  all  the 
time-tried  contrivances  for  discomfort  and  defeat. 
With  one  hand  they  are  making  frantic  gestures  of 
distress  for  an  "outlet  to  the  sea"  by  means  of 
which  to  escape  obstruction  of  their  over-seas  trade 
by  their  nationally  minded  neighbors,  while  with  the 
other  hand  they  are  feverishly  at  work  to  contrive 
a  customs  frontier  of  their  own  together  with  other 
devices  for  obstructing  their  neighbors'  trade  and 
their  own,  so  soon  as  they  shall  have  any  trade  to 
obstruct.  Such  is  the  force  of  habit  and  tradition. 
In  other  words,  these  peoples  are  aiming  to  become 
nations  in  full  standing. 

And  all  the  while  it  is  plain  to  all  men  that  a 
national  "outlet  to  the  sea"  has  no  meaning  in  time 
of  peace  and  in  the  absence  of  national  governments 
working  at  cross-purposes.  Which  comes  near  to 
saying  that  the  sole  material  object  of  these  new 
projects  in  nation-making  is  to  work  at  cross-pur- 
poses with  their  neighbors  across  the  new-found 
national  frontiers.  So  also  it  is  plain  that  this 
mutual  working  at  cross-purposes  between  the  na- 
tions hinders  the  keeping  of  the  peace,  even  when  it 
is  all  mitigated  with  all  the  approved  apparatus  of 
diplomatic  make-believe,  compromise,  and  intrigue — 
just  as  it  is  plain  that  the  peace  is  not  to  be  kept  by 
use  of  armaments,  but  all  the  while  national  arma- 
ments are  also  included  as  an  indispensable  adjunct 
of  national  life,  in  the  projects  of  these  new  nations 
of  the  Balkan  pattern.  The  right  to  carry  arms  is 
an  inalienable  right  of  national  self-determination 
and  an  indispensable  means  of  self-help,  as  under- 
stood by  these  nation-makers  of  the  old  school.  So 
also  it  is  plain  that  national  pretensions  in  the  field 
of  foreign  trade  and  investment,  and  all  the  diver- 
sified expedients  for  furthering  and  protecting  the 
profitable  enterprise  of  the  vested  interests  in  foreign 
parts,  run  consistently  at  cross-purposes  with  the 
keeping  of  the  peace. 

And  all  the  while  the  rule  of  Live  and  Le't  Live, 
as  it  works  out  within  the  framework  of  the  new 
industrial  order,  will  not  tolerate  these  things.  But 
the  rule  of  Live  and  Let  Live,  which  embodies  the 
world's  hope  of  peace  on  earth  and  a  practicable 
modicum  of  good  will  among  men,  is  not  of  the 
essence  of  that  timeworn  statesmanship  which  is 


22 


THE  DIAL 


January  1 1 


now  busily  making  the  world  safe  for  the  vested 
interests.  Neglect  and  disallowance  of  those  things 
that  make  for  embroilment  does  not  enter  into  the 
counsels  of  the  nation-makers  or  of  those  stupendous 
figures  of  veiled  statecraft  that  now  move  in  the 
background  and  are  shaping  the  destinies  of  these 
and  other  nations  with  a  view  to  the  status  quo  ante. 

All  these  peoples  that  now  hope  to  be  nations  have 
long  been  nationalities.  A  nation  is  an  organization 
for  collective  offense  and  defense,  in  peace  and  war 
— essentially  based  on  hate  and  fear  of  other  na- 
tions; a  nationality  is  a  cultural  group,  bound  to- 
gether by  home-bred  affinities  of  language,  tradition, 
use  and  wont,  and  commonly  also  by  a  supposed 
community  of  race — essentially  based  on  sympathies 
and  sentiments  of  self-complacency  within  itself. 
The  Welsh  and  the  Scotch  are  nationalities,  more 
or  less  well  defined,  although  they  are  not  nations 
in  the  ordinary  meaning  of  the  word ;  so  also  are  the 
Irish,  with  a  difference,  and  such  others  as  the  Finns 
and  the  Armenians.  The  American  republic  is  a 
nation,  but  not  a  nationality  in  any  full  measure. 
The  Welsh  and  the  Scotch  have  learned  the  wisdom 
of  Live  and  Let  Live,  within  the  peace  of  the  Em- 
pire, and  they  are  not  moving  to  break  bounds  and 
set  up  a  national  integrity  after  the  Balkan  pattern. 

The  case  of  the  Irish  is  peculiar;  at  least  so  they 
say.  They,  that  is  to  say  the  Irish  by  sentiment 
rather  than  by  domicile,  the  Irish  people  as  con- 
trasted with  the  vested  interests  of  Ulster,  of  the 
landlords,  of  the  Church,  and  of  the  bureaucracy — 
these  Irish  have  long  been  a  nationality  and  are  now 
mobilizing  all  their  force  to  set  up  a  Balkan  state, 
autonomous  and  defensible,  within  the  formal 
bounds  of  the  Empire  or  without.  Their  case  is 
peculiar  and  instructive.  It  throws  a  light  on  the 
margin  of  tolerance,  of  what  the  traffic  will  bear, 
beyond  which  an  increased  pressure  on  a  subject 
population  will  bring  no  added  profit  to  the  vested 
interests  for  whose  benefit  the  pressure  is  brought 
to  bear.  It  is  a  case  of  the  Common  Man  hard 
ridden  in  due  legal  form  by  the  vested  interests  of 
the  Island,  and  of  the  neighboring  island,  which 
are  duly  backed  by  an  alien  and  biased  bureaucracy 
aided  and  abetted  by  the  priestly  pickpockets  of  the 
poor.  So  caught  in  this  way  between  the  devil  and 
the  deep  sea,  it  is  small  wonder  if  they  choose  in  the 
end  to  follow  counsels  of  desperation  and  are  mov- 
ing to  throw  their  lot  into  the  deep  sea  of  national 
self-help  and  international  intrigue.  They  have 
reached  the  point  where  they  have  ceased  to  say: 
"It  might  have  been  worse."  The  case  of  the  Finns, 
Jews,  and  Armenians  is  not  greatly  different  in  gen- 
eral effect. 


It  is  easy  to  fall  into  a  state  of  perturbation  about 
the  evil  case  of  the  submerged,  exploited,  and  op- 
pressed minor  nationalities;  and  it  is  not  unusual  to 
jump  to  the  conclusion  that  national  self-determina- 
tion will  surely  mend  their  evil  case.  National  self- 
determination  and  national  integrity  are  words  to 
conjure  with,  and  there  is  no  denying  that  very 
substantial  results  have  been  known  to  follow  from 
such  conjuring.  But  self-determination  is  not  a 
sovereign  remedy,  particularly  not  as  regards  the 
material  conditions  of  life  for  the  common  man,  for 
that  somewhat  more  than  nine-tenths  of  the  popula- 
tion who  always  finally  have  to  bear  the  cost  of  any 
national  establishment.  It  has  been  tried,  and  the 
point  is  left  in  doubt.  So  the  case  of  Belgium  or  of 
Serbia  during  the  past  four  years  has  been  scarcely 
less  evil  than  that  of  the  Armenians  or  the  Poles. 
Belgium  and  Serbia  were  nations,  in  due  form,  very 
much  after  the  pattern  aimed  at  in  the  new  pro- 
jected nations  already  spoken  of,  whereas  the  Ar- 
menians and  the  Poles  have  been  subject  minor 
nationalities.  Belgium,  Serbia,  and  Poland  have 
been  subject  to  the  ravages  of  an  imperial  power 
which  claims  rank  as  a  civilized  people,  whereas  the 
Armenians  have  been  manhandled  by  the  Turks. 
So  again,  the  Irish  are  a  subject  minor  nationality, 
whereas  the  Roumanians  are  a  nation  in  due  form. 
In  fact  the  Roumanians  are  just  such  a  Balkan  state 
as  the  Irish  aspire  to  become.  But  no  doubt  the 
common  man  is  appreciably  worse  off  in  his  ma- 
terial circumstances  in  Roumania  than  in  Ireland. 
Japan,  too,  is  not  only  a  self-determining  nation 
with  a  full  charge  of  national  integrity,  but  it  is  a 
Great  Power;  yet  the  common  man — the  somewhat 
more  than  nine-tenths  of  the  population — is  doubt- 
less worse  off  in  point  of  hard  usage  and  privation 
in  Japan  than  in  Ireland. 

In  further  illustration  of  this  doubt  and  per- 
plexity with  regard  to  the  material  value  of  national 
self-determination,  the  case  of  the  three  Scandinavian 
countries  may  be  worth  citing.  They  are  all  and 
several  self-determining  nations,  in  that  Pickwickian 
sense  in  which  any  country  which  is  not  a  Great 
Power  may  be  self-determining  in  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury. But  they  differ  in  size,  population,  wealth, 
power,  and  political  consequence.  In  these  respects 
the  sequence  runs:  Sweden,  Denmark,  Norway,  the 
latter  being  the  smallest,  poorest,  least  self-determin- 
ing, and  altogether  the  most  spectacularly  foolish 
of  the  lot.  But  so  far  as  concerns  the  material  con- 
ditions of  life  for  the  common  man,  they  are  un- 
mistakably the  most  favorable,  or  the  most  nearly 
tolerable,  in  Norway,  and  the  least  so  in  Sweden. 
The  upshot  of  evidence  from  these,  and  from  other 
instances  that  might  be  cited,  is  to  leave  the  point 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


in  doubt.  It  is  not  evident  that  the  common  man  has 
anything  to  gain  by  national  self-determination,  so 
far  as  regards  his  material  conditions  of  life;  nor 
does  it  appear,  on  the  evidence  of  these  instances, 
that  he  has  much  to  lose  by  that  means. 

These  Scandinavians  differ  from  the  Balkan 
states  in  that  they  perforce  have  no  imperialistic 
ambitions.  There  may  of  course  be  a  question  on 
this  head  so  far  as  concerns  the  frame  of  mind  of 
the  royal  establishment  in  the  greater  one  of  the 
Scandinavian  kingdoms;  there  is  not  much  that  is 
worth  saying  about  that  matter,  and  the  less  that  is 
said,  the  less  annoyance.  It  is  a  matter  of  no  sig- 
nificance, anyway.  The  Scandinavians  are  in  effect 
not  imperialistic,  perforce.  Which  means  that  in 
their  international  relations  they  formally  adhere 
to  the  rule  of  Live  and  Let  Live.  Not  so  in  their 
domestic  policy,  however.  They  have  all  endowed 
themselves  with  all  the  encumbrances  of  national 
pretensions  and  discrimination  which  their  circum- 
stances will  admit.  Apart  from  a  court  and  church 
which  foot  up  to  nothing  more  comfortable  than  a 
gratuitious  bill  of  expense,  they  are  also  content  to 
carry  the  burden  of  a  national  armament,  a  pro- 
tective tariff,  a  national  consular  service,  and  a 
diplomatic  service  which  takes  care  of  a  moderately 
burdensome  series  of  treaty  agreements  governing 
the  trade  relations  of  Scandinavian  business  com- 
munity— all  designed  for  the  benefit  of  the  vested 
interests  and  the  kept  classes,  and  all  at  the  cost  of 
the  common  man. 

The  case  of  these  relatively  free,  relatively  un- 
assuming, and  relatively  equitable  national  estab- 
lishments is  also  instructive.  They  come  as  near  the 
rule  of  Live  and  Let  Live  as  any  national  establish- 
ment well  can  and  still  remain  a  national  estab- 
lishment actuated  by  notions  of  competitive  self-help. 
But  all  the  while  the  national  administration  runs 
along,  with  nothing  better  to  show  to  any  impartial 
scrutiny  than  a  considerable  fiscal  burden  and  a 
moderate  volume  of  hindrance  to  the  country's  in- 
dustry, together  with  some  incidental  benefit  to  the 
vested  interests  and  the  kept  classes  at  the  cost  of  the 
underlying  community.  These  Scandinavians  oc- 
cupy a  peculiar  position  in  the  industrial  world. 
They  are  each  and  several  too  small  to  make  up 
anything  like  a  self-contained  industrial  community, 
even  under  the  most  unreserved  pressure  of  national 
exclusiveness.  Their  industries  necessarily  are  part 
and  parcel  of  the  industrial  system  at  large,  with 
which  they  are  bound  in  relations  of  give  and  take 
at  every  point.  Yet  they  are  content  to  carry  a 
customs  tariff  of  fairly  grotesque  dimensions  and  a 
national  consular  service  of  more  grotesque  dimen- 
sions still.  This  situation  is  heightened  by  their 


relatively  sterile  soil,  their  somewhat  special  and 
narrow  range  of  natural  resources,  and  their  high 
latitude,  which  precludes  any  home  growth  of  many 
of  the  indispensable  materials  of  industry  under  the 
new  order.  Yet  they  are  content  to  carry  their 
customs  tariff,  their  special  commercial  treaties,  and 
their  consular  service — for  the  benefit  of  their  vested 
interests. 

It  should  seem  that  this  elaborate  superfluity  of 
national  outlay  and  obstruction  should  work  great 
hardship  to  the  underlying  community  whose  in- 
dustry is  called  on  to  carry  this  burden  of  lag,  leak, 
and  friction.  And  doubtless  the  burden  is  suffici- 
ently real.  It  amounts  of  course  to  the  nation's 
working  at  cross-purposes  with  itself,  for  the  benefit 
of  those  special  interests  that  stand  to  gain  a  little 
something  by  it  all.  But  in  this  as  in  other  works 
of  sabotage  there  are  compensating  effects,  and  these 
should  not  be  overlooked ;  particularly  since  the  case 
is  fairly  typical  of  what  commonly  happens.  The 
waste  and  sabotage  of  the  national  establishment  and 
its  obstructive  policy  works  no  intolerable  hardship, 
because  it  all  runs  its  course  and  eats  its  fill  within 
that  margin  of  sabotage  and  wasteful  consumption 
that  would  have  to  be  taken  care  of  by  some  other 
agency  in  the  absence  of  this  one.  That  is  to  say, 
something  like  the  same  volume  of  sabotage  and 
waste  is  indispensable  to  the  prosperity  'of  business 
under  the  conditions  of  the  new  order,  so  long  as 
business  and  industry  are  managed  under  the  con- 
ditions imposed  by  the  price  system.  By  one  means 
or  another  prices  must  be  maintained  at  a  profitable 
level;  therefore  the  output  must  be  restricted  to  a 
reasonable  rate  and  volume,  and  wasteful  consump- 
tion must  be  provided  for  on  pain  of  a  failing  mar- 
ket. And  all  this  may  as  well  be  taken  care  of  by  use 
of  a  princely  court,  an  otiose  church,  a  picturesque 
army,  a  well-fed  diplomatic  and  consular  service, 
and  a  customs  frontier.  In  the  absence  of  all  this 
national  apparatus  of  sabotage  substantially  the  same 
results  would  have  to  be  got  at  by  the  less  seemly 
means  of  a  furtive  conspiracy  in  restraint  of  trade 
among  the  vested  interests.  There  is  always  some- 
thing to  be  said  for  the  national  integrity. 

The  case  of  these  Scandinavian  nations,  taken  in 
connection  and  comparison  with  what  is  to  be  seen 
elsewhere,  appears  to  say  that  a  national  establish- 
ment which  has  no  pretensions  to  power  and  no  im- 
perialistic ambitions  is  preferable,  in  point  of'  econ- 
omy and  peaceable  behavior,  to  an  establishment 
which  carries  these  attributes  of  self-determination 
and  self-help.  The  more  nearly  the  national  in- 
tegrity and  self-determination  approaches  to  make- 
believe  the  less  mischief  is  it  likely  to  work  at  home  < 
and  the  more  nearly  will  it  be  compatible  with  the 


THE  DIAL 


January  n 


rule  of  Live  and  Let  Live  in  dealing  with  its 
neighbors.  And  the  further  implication  is  plain 
without  argument,  that  the  most  beneficent  change 
that  can  conceivably  overtake  any  national  establish- 
ment would  be  to  let  it  fall  into  "innocuous 
desuetude."  Apparently,  the  less  the  better,  with 
no  apparent  limit  short  of  the  vanishing  point. 

Such  appears  to  be  the  object-lesson  enforced  by 
recent  and  current  events,  in  so  far  as  concerns  the 
material  fortunes  of  the  underlying  community  at 
large  as  well  as  the  keeping  of  the  peace.  But  it 
does  not  therefore  follow  that  all  men  and  classes 
will  have  the  same  interest  in  so  neutralizing  the 
nation's  powers  and  disallowing  the  national  pre- 
tensions. The  existing  nations  are  not  of  a  homo- 
geneous make-up  within  themselves — perhaps  less  so 
in  proportion  as  they  have  progressively  come  under 
the  rule  of  the  new  order  in  industry  and  in  busi- 
ness. There  is  an  increasingly  evident  cleavage  of 
interest  between  industry  and  business,  or  between 
production  and  ownership,  or  between  tangible  per- 
formance and  free  income — one  phrase  may  serve  as 
well  as  another,  and  neither  is  quite  satisfactory  to 
mark  the  contrast  of  interest  between  the  common 
man  on  the  one  hand  and  the  vested  interests  and 
kept  classes  on  the  other  hand.  But  it  should  be 
sufficiently  plain  that  the  national  establishment  and 
its  control  of  affairs  has  a  value  for  the  vested  in- 
terests different  from  what  it  has  for  the  underlying 
community. 

Quite  plainly,  the  new  order  in  industry  has  no 
use  or  place  for  national  discrimination  or  national 
pretensions  of  any  kind ;  and  quite  plainly  such  a 
phrase  as  "national  integrity"  has  no  shadow  of  . 
meaning  for  this  new  industrial  order  which  over- 
runs national  frontiers  and  overcomes  national  dis- 
crimination as  best  it  can,  in  all  directions  and  all 
the  time.  For  industry  as  carried  on  under  the  new 
order,  the  overcoming  of  national  discrimination  is 
part  of  the  ordinary  day's  work.  But  it  is  otherwise 
with  the  new  order  of  business  enterprise — large- 
scale,  corporate,  resting  on  intangible  assets,  and 
turning  on  free  income  which  flows  from  managerial 
sabotage;  The  business  community  has  urgent  need 
of  an  efficient  national  establishment  both  at  home 
and  abroad.  A  settled  government,  duly  equipped 
with  national  pretensions,  and  with  legal  and  mili- 
tary power  to  maintain  the  sacredness  of  contracts 
at  home  and  to  enforce  the  claims  of  its  business  men 
aboard — such  an  establishment  is  invaluable  for  the 
conduct  of  business,  though  its  industrial  value  may 
not  unusually  be  less  than  nothing. 

Industry  is  a  matter  of  tangible  performance  in 
the  way  of  producing  goods  and  services.  And  in 
this  connection  it  is  well  to  recall  that  a  vested  in- 


terest is  a  prescriptive  right  to  get  something  for 
nothing.  Now  any  project  of  reconstruction  the 
scope  and  method  of  which  are  governed  by  consid- 
erations of  tangible  performance  is  likely  to  allow 
only  a  subsidiary  consideration  or  something  less  to 
the  legitimate  claims  of  the  vested  interests,  whether 
they  are  vested  interests  of  business  or  of  privilege. 
It  is  more  than  probable  that  in  such  a  case  national 
pretensions  in  the  way  of  preferential  concessions  in 
commerce  and  investment  will  be  allowed  to  fall  into 
neglect,  so  far  as  to  lose  all  value  to  any  vested  in- 
terest whose  fortunes  they  touch.  These  things  have 
no  effect  in  the  way  of  net  tangible  performance. 
They  only  afford  ground  for  preferential  pecuniary 
rights,  always  at  the  cost  of  someone  else;  but  they 
are  of  the  essence  of  things  in  that  pecuniary  order 
within  which  the  vested  interests  of  business  live 
and  move.  So  also  such  a  matter-of-fact  project  of 
reconstruction  will  be  likely  materially  to  revise  out- 
standing credit  obligations,  including  corporation 
securities,  or  perhaps  even  to  disallow  claims  of  this 
character  to  free  income  on  the  part  of  beneficiaries 
who  can  show  no  claim  on  grounds  of  current  tangi- 
ble performance.  All  of  which  is  inimical  to  the  best 
good  of  the  vested  interests  and  the  kept  classes. 

Reconstruction  which  partakes  of  this  character 
in  any  sensible  degree  will  necessarily  be  viewed  with 
the  liveliest  apprehension  by  the  gentlemanly  states- 
men of  the  old  school,  by  the  kept  classes,  and  by  the 
captains  of  finance.  It  will  be  deplored  as  a  sub- 
version of  the  economic  order,  a  destruction  of  the 
country's  wealth,  a  disorganization  of  industry,  and 
a  sure  way  to  poverty,  bloodshed,  and  pestilence.  In 
point  of  fact,  of  course,  what  such  a  project  may  be 
counted  on  to  subvert  is  the  dominion  of  ownership 
by  which  the  vested  interests  control  and  retard  the 
rate  and  volume  of  production.  The  destruction  of 
wealth  in  such  a  case  will  touch,  directly,  only  the 
value  of  the  securities,  not  the  material  objects  to 
which  these  securities  have  given  title  of  ownership  ; 
it  would  be  a  disallowance  of  ownership,  not  a  de- 
struction of  useful  goods.  Nor  need  any  disorgani- 
zation or  disability  of  productive  industry  follow 
from  such- a  move;  indeed,  the  apprehended  cancel- 
ment  of  the  claims  to  income  covered  by  negotiable 
securities  would  by  that  much  cancel  the  fixed  over- 
head charges  resting  on  industrial  enterprise,  and  so 
further  production  by  that  much.  But  for  those 
persons  and  classes  whose  keep  is  drawn  from  pre- 
scriptive rights  of  ownership  or  of  privilege  the  con- 
sequences of  such  a  shifting  of  ground  from  vested 
interest  to  tangible  performance  would  doubtless  be 
deplorable.  In  short,  "Bolshevism  is  a  menace"; 
and  the  wayfaring  man  is  likely  to  ask:  A  menace 
to  whom?  THORSTEIN  VEBLEN. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


The  New  Work  of  Puccini 


1  ROBABLY  the  most  interesting  musical  event  of  the 
year  was  the  world  premiere  of  Puccini'si  three  one- 
act  operas — at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  in 
New  York  December  14,  1918.  During  eight  years 
we  have  been  waiting  for  new  work  from  Puccini, 
for  since  The  Girl  of  the  Golden  West  he  has  pro- 
duced only  La  Rondine  (Monte  Carlo,  April  1917), 
which  is  equally  uninteresting  in  words  and  music. 

Puccini  is  the  most  popular  living  composer  for 
the  stage;  and  he  deserves  his  place.  He  has  always 
remained  himself,  yet  he  has  always  felt  the  wider 
movements  of  musical  development.  He  is  never  a 
pioneer,  but  he  always  profits  by  the  advanced 
idioms.  Nor  is  he  ever  the  last  to  lay  the  old  aside. 
He  has  kept  to  the  middle  path. 

A  bigger  reason  yet  is  that  he  never  forgets  that 
an  opera  should  be  an  evening's  entertainment. 
Therefore  he  wisely  goes  to  dramatists  for  librettos. 
Edgar  was  a  revision  of  Musset's  La  Coupe  et  les 
Levres;  Manon  Lescaut  had  already  been  success- 
fully treated  as  an  opera  by  Massenet;  Tosca  was 
by  Sardou,  Madame  Butterfly  by  Long  and  Belasco, 
and  The  Girl  of  the  Golden  West  by  Belasco.  He 
established  his  own  theory  of  opera  (or  "musical 
drama,"  as  he  prefers  to  call  it)  long  before  Caval- 
leria  Rusticana  and  I  Pagliacci  popularized  it.  He 
avoids  the  choppy  effect  of  the  old  recitative-aria- 
scena  style ;  he  also  escapes  the  monotony  of  Teu- 
tonic leit-motif  elaborations.  Instead  Puccini  has 
solved  the  problem  by  combining  the  aria  with  the 
never-ending  melody.  His  drama  flows  unin- 
terrupted, but  the  higher  moments  are  formalized 
into  conventional  melodies.  Thus  he  adapts  the 
W'agnerian  method  to  the  spirit  of  Bizet,  sacrificing 
neither  action  nor  song. 

Nor  is  this  so  much  theory  as  instinct,  for  Puccini 
actually  possesses  that  rare  combination,  the  lyric 
plus  the  dramatic  sense.  He  can  write  tunes  that 
everybody  likes  to  hum  and  he  can  make  a  climax 
all  the  more  exciting  by  his  orchestral  accompani- 
ment. Moreover  he  is  a  great  scene  painter.  The 
exterior  of  the  Cafe  Momus  in  La  Boheme,  the  slow 
snow  of  the  opening  of  the  third  act,  Madame  But- 
terfly's ascent  of  the  hill,  the  flight  of  her  relatives 
in  the  twilight,  Johnson  and  Minnie's  departure 
through  the  great  cedars,  the  homesick  minstrel  in 
the  saloon :  all  these  and  more  are  to  be  remembered 
musically. 

His  new  works  sustain  his  reputation,  though  they 
may  not  add  to  it.  They  are  three:  a.  tragedy,  a 
romance,  and  a  comedy,  all  centered  about  death. 

The  first,  II  Tabarro,  is  the  most  sophisticated,  the 


most  ambitious.  Puccini  has  been  working  on  it  for 
some  time.  There  were  rumors  of  it  as  far  back  as 
1914,  and  the  play  from  which  it  is  built  (Didier 
Gold's  La  Houppelande)  was  performed  in  Paris 
about  1910.  The  story  is  simple — the  aging  hus- 
band kills  the  lover.  The  scene  is  strikingly  set 
upon  a  barge  on  the  Seine  in  Paris.  Of  course  the 
people  are  not  French :  neither  is  Minnie  American, 
nor  Madame  Butterfly  Japanese.  The  music  is 
thoroughly  interesting:  Puccini  has  made  a  number 
of  harmonic  experiments,  and  has  succeeded  with 
them ;  and  the  orchestration  is  sensitive  and  daring. 
Melodically,  however,  the  opera  is  not  so  successful, 
for  the  composer  has  yet  to  learn  that  exotic  har- 
monies will  not  enrich  a  cheap  tune.  (I  am  not 
referring,  it  will  be  understood,  to  tunes  whose  color 
is  intentionally  that  of  the  streets.)  Especially  bad 
in  this  respect  is  the  climax  of  a  duet  to  Paris, 
Ma  chi  Ifiscia  il  sobborgo,  made  still  more  irritating 
by  the  succeeding  pause  for  applause.  The  employ- 
ment of  the  hand-organ  is  amusing  and  clever,  and 
compares  favorably  with  Strawinsky's  use  of  it  in 
Petrushka;  and  after  the  exit  of  Talpa  and  Frugola 
there  is  excellent  suspense,  but  it  is  sustained  too 
long,  and  the  husband's  extended  aria  to  the  river  is 
bad  dramatically  and  not  quite  successful  musically. 
The  final  curtain,  however — the  husband  madly 
flinging  his  wife  at  her  lover's  corpse — is  unfor- 
gettable. 

Suor  Angelica,  the  second  of  the  trio,  is,  I  feel,  a 
distinct  failure.  The  music  is  far  too  unsophisti- 
cated to  be  natural  ;  there  is  too  much  repetition  of 
phrases  ;v  and  the  climaxes  are  not  adequate.  As  for 
the  libretto,  the  plot  does  not  seem  very  natural ; 
the  action  is  padded  with  irrelevant  semi-episodes; 
and  the  end  is  operatic  in  the  worst  sense.  In  II 
Tabarro  Puccini  made  the  modern  mistake  of  elim- 
inating all  sympathy  for  the  characters;  in  Suor 
Angelica  he  goes  to  the 'other  extreme  of  too  much 
sentimentalizing.  The  story  is  that  of  a  daughter 
of  a  patrician  family  who  fell  and  was  forced  to 
enter  a  convent.  Seven  years  later  she  hears  of  the 
death  of  her  son,  takes  poison,  and  is  rewarded  with 
a  vision  of  the  Virgin.  The  effect  of  the  white  robes 
of  the  nuns  floating  about  in  the  garden  is  pretty; 
but  only  the  excitement  of  the  evening  and  the  per- 
sonality of  Farrar  made  the  performance  a  success. 

Gianni  Schicchi,  however,  more  than  redeemed  it. 
As  an  entertainment  this  piece  is  by  far  the  most 
successful  of  the  three.  It  is  a  story  out  of  the  In- 
ferno, retold  in  the  spirit  of  Boccaccio.  Gianni  is  of 
essentially  the  same  stock  as  Buffulmacchio.  A  ras- 


26 


THE  DIAL 


January  n 


cally  lawyer,  he  is  called  in  to  break  the  will  of  a 
rich  Florentine  merchant,  for  the  relatives  have  dis- 
covered that  most  of  the  property  has  been  left  to 
the  Church.  There  is  only  one  way  to  do  it:  they 
bundle  the  corpse  out;  Gianni  takes  the  dead  man's 
place  (his  death  has  not  yet  been  made  public)  ;  the 
notary  is  called  in ;  and  a  new  will  is  dictated. 
Gianni  gives  each  of  the  relatives  a  generous  in- 
heritance; but  the  richest  of  all  he  calmly  leaves  to 
himself,  knowing  that  the  relatives  dare  not  inter- 
fere. As  soon  as  the  notary  is  gone,  they  set  upon 
him ;  but  he  arms  himself  with  a  stick  and  drives 
them  all  out  of  the  palace — his  palace  now! 

The  music  throughout  is  carefully  subordinated  to 
the  action,  as  it  should  be,  though  without  losing  its 
own  interest.  It  is  fairly  modern,  yet  unaffected; 
and  it  is  packed  with  color  and  vitality.  A  chorus 
of  "poisoned  laughter"  is  especially  good.  Yet  there 
are  weak  spots — notably  Lauretta's  sweet  little  song, 
O  mio  babbino,  which  is  as  cheap  a  song  as  Puccini 
has  ever  written,  and  which  was  duly  encored. 

An  enjoyable  evening,  if  not  epoch-making.  Puc- 
cini has  reached  his  maturity:  his  orchestration  is 
perfected,  his  harmonies  nearly  so,  though  his  melo- 


dies have  not  kept  pace.  The  influences  of  other 
composers  are  less  noticeable;  Puccini  is  more  than 
ever  himself.  The  greatest  faults  were  perhaps  the 
moments  of  unsustained  suspense,  the  occasional 
cheap  tunes,  and  the  set  places  for  applause.  A  pos- 
sible effect  of  the  evening  may  well  be  the  establish- 
ment of  the  trilogy  of  one-act  operas,  which  would 
be  a  fashion  both  fresh  and  satisfactory.  As  we  have 
moved  from  the  epic  through  the  novel  to  the  short 
story,  so  we  may  come  to  prefer  three  brief  musical 
tales  to  the  older,  ponderous  forms. 

More  is  to  be  expected  from  Puccini,  for  there 
have  been  rumors  of  other  one-act  operas:  Anima 
Allegri,  from  Guntero's  comedy  of  the  same  name; 
I  Due  Zoccoletti  from  Ouida's  Two  Little  Wooden 
Shoes;  and  a  third,  a  farce  about  a  party  of  Euro- 
peans captured  by  cannibals.  These  cannibals  had 
once  been  captured  by  Europeans  and  made  to  build 
a  model  village  at  a  World's  Fair ;  so  they  now  re- 
tort in  kind  upon  the  Europeans.  There  may  be  still 
other  operas  in  store  for  us:  II  Tabarro  and  Gianni 
Schicchi  must  make  us  hope  there  are. 

S.  FOSTER  DAMON. 


A  Typically  American  Personality 


IHESE  UNITED  STATES  have  not  lacked  powerful 
and  picturesque  leaders  among  their  governors. 
But  sometimes  they  fail  to  write  their  autobiog- 
raphies, and  sometimes  they  become  senators  or  presi- 
dents; and  the  strength  and  individuality  of  the 
provincial  ruler,  dowered  with  the  strength  and  indi- 
viduality of  his  own  province,  becomes  a  fading 
tradition  or  is  merged  with  national  qualities,  inter- 
ests, and  events.  In  The  Autobiography  of  a  Penn- 
sylvanian  (John  C.  Winston;  Philadelphia;  $3) 
Governor  Pennypacker  has  recorded  himself — "un- 
altered, unexpurgated,  and  unedited"  by  his  execu- 
tors, according  to  the  published  request  of  distin- 
guished friends,  who  knowing 

The  whims  are  many 
Of  Governor  Penny — 
Pennypacker  of  Penn 

doubtless  conjectured  a  manuscript  disconcerting  in 
its  honesty,  keenness,  and  mirth.  And  he  has  re- 
corded himself  as  a  Pennsylvanian  to  whom  his 
state,  with  a  vaster  population  than  the  England 
of  Elizabeth,  and  with  traditions  of  indisputable 
leadership  in  American  ideas  and  ideals,  was  the 
greatest  of  our  commonwealths. 

There  is  something  vital  for  America  in  this  note 
— something  that,  in  these  days  when  the  federal  idea 
is  all  in  all  (except  as  it  too  is  merging  into  some- 


thing still  more  big  as  a  world-idea),  calls  us 
back  to  the  constitutional  and  ethnic  structure  of 
our  country  and  the  personality,  dignity,  and  dy- 
namics of  its  individual  parts.  Though  so  vigorous 
and  old-fashioned  a  lover  of  the  Union  that  to  him 
the  Civil  War  was  still  "the  War  of  the  Rebellion," 
and  the  recent  statue  to  Lee  a  blasphemy,  as  Gov- 
ernor, Pennypacker  would  brook  no  interference 
from  Washington  in  the  settlement  of  domestic  coal- 
strikes;  and,  as  scholar,  he  devoted  himself  exclu- 
sively to  the  history  of  his  state,  taking  now  and 
then  a  fall  out  of  Massachusetts  (and  her  expatriated 
son,  "the  discoverer  of  Philadelphia,"  whom  he  calls 
"a  job  printer"  on  the  evidence  of  some  two  hun- 
dred and  odd  chiefly  mercantile  publications  of 
Franklin's  press  in  his  own  private  library).  One 
feels  the  Pennsylvanian  not  alone  in  the  Pennsyl- 
vanian subject  matter;  quite  as  much  in  the  essen- 
tially Pennsylvanian  (sometimes  Philadelphian!) 
gestures,  tones,  outlook.  There  is  the  state  manner, 
very  different  from  the  state  manner  of  a  Virginian 
aristocrat  or  of  a  Bay  State  Brahmin  or  even  of  a 
Wisconsin  Progressive.  In  spite  of  its  glorious  pro- 
vincialism, Pennsylvania  has  a  rugged  cosmopolitan 
ancestry — the  Dutch,  the  Germans,  the  Swedes,  the 
English,  the  Scotch,  the  Irish ;  Church  of  England, 
Mennonite,  Quaker;  Liberty  Bell  and  Gettysburg 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


27 


have  all  contributed  to  the  Pennsylvanian  "manner," 
even  as  they  nearly  all  contributed  to  the  physical 
or  mental  antecedents  of  Pennypacker  himself. 

But  it  is  for  Pennypacker,  after  all,  rather  than 
for  his  state,  that  his  book  has  enduring  pith.  For 
Pennypacker,  too,  rather  than  for  politics.  That 
request  of  those  distinguished  friends  who  wanted 
him  "unexpurgated"  emphasizes  the  manuscript  as 
"an  invaluable  historical  document."  There  are 
new  and  kindlier  lights  on  Quay,  who  assisted,  with- 
out ever  controlling,  his  grateful  but  independent 
contemporary;  there  is  some  inside  history  of  old 
political  campaigns  (federal,  state,  city)  ;  there  are 
Civil  War  reminiscences;  there  is  a  full  account  of 
his  triumphant  governorship,  "four  years  filled  with 
storms  from  start  to  finish";  and  there  is  a  wel- 
come plenty  of  ruthlessly  keen  and  honest  comment 
on  the  character  and  conduct  of  the  great  and  the 
near-great,  living  and  dead.  Yet  his  public  life 
was  focal  to  no  great  crisis,  stood  for  no  great 
epoch,  was  identified  with  no  great  movement,  state 
or  federal;  and  thus  the  record  cannot  have  the 
larger  historical  significance  of  the  autobiography 
of,  say,  Carl  Schurz  or  of  Grant,  or  perhaps  of 
LaFollette.  But  a  man's  a  man  for  a'  that,  and 
may  turn  up  sturdy,  wise,  human  without  making 
great  history  or  being  made  great  by  history.  Any- 
one who  reads  this  autobiography  will  meet  therein 
somebody  who  will  make  a  difference  for  him:  that 
is  its  ultimate  significance. 

Charles  Francis  Adams  sets  down  near  the  begin- 
ning of  his  autobiography  (which  by  the  way  was 
one  of  the  last  books  the  Pennsylvanian  records  as 
read,  in  the  notebook  he  always  kept  at  his  elbow)  : 
"I  now  humbly  thank  fortune  that  I  have  almost 
got  through  life  without  making  a  conspicuous  ass  of 
myself."  This  may  be  the  Boston  understatement, 
the  indifferentism  of  one  born  to  a  name  and  a 
tradition  supposedly  so  secure  that  self-depreciation 
is  simply  good  form  is  one's  set — and  an  Adams  or 
a  Lowell  in  Boston  still  talks,  I  think,  mostly  to  his 
set.  But  nothing  like  this  for  Samuel  Whitaker 
Pennypacker!  He  has  had  a  ripping  time  being 
done  to:  from  the  days  when  he  had  colic  as  a 
country  baby  to  the  days  when,  as  Governor,  his 
tousled  head  was  cartooned  by  the  press  of  the  nation. 
He  has  had  an  even  more  ripping  time  doing  to: 
as  judge,  giving  a  chap  eight  months  for  cutting 
off  a  dog's  tail,  and  performing  other  stunts  based 
on  opinions  unusual  in  the  derivative  and  artificial 
code  of  the  sober  judiciary;  as  bibliophile,  going 
incog  up  into  the  country  and  buying  job  lots  of 
queer  old  books  at  German  farmhouse  auctions; 
as  antiquarian  and  scholar,  discovering  dates  and 
authors,  corresponding  with  or  interviewing  schol- 


ars abroad,  editing  law  cases  or  old  documents, 
writing  innumerable  books  and  pamphlets,  and  read- 
ing eight  or  so  languages  (mostly  self-taught)  ;  as 
politician,  standing  up  for  Blaine;  as  banqueter  (and 
the  City  of  Brotherly  Love  has  always  been  much 
given  to  these  social  affairs)  saying  with  gusto  the 
thing  he  was  supposed  not  to  say,  and  taking  home 
the  menus  to  be  preserved  and  bound ;  as  candidate, 
electioneering  thus-wise:  "I  don't  know  whether  I 
will  make  a  good  governor  or  not — you  will  have 
to  run  the  risk  and  take  the  responsibility";  as  gov- 
ernor, collecting  bugs  in  Wetzel  Swamp  or  "crush- 
ing the  freedom  of  the  press" — its  freedom  to  pub- 
lish filth,  libel,  and  lies  unpunished — and  answering 
unperturbed  the  reporter's  query,  "Does  not  this 
continuel  objurgation  [the  press  attacks]  disturb 
you?"  by  taking  his  cue  from  a  momentary  rumb- 
bling  in  the  western  sky:  "I  have  often  sat  upon  this 
porch  when  the  clouds  gathered  out  yonder,  and 
presently  the  lightnings  flashed  and  the  thunders 
rattled  until  in  the  uproar  my  voice  could  not  be 
heard.  Where  those  storms  have  gone  no  man 
knows,  and  here  I  am  sitting  on  this  porch  still." 
He  has  lived  with  zest — interested  in  all  sorts  of 
things,  but  chiefly  in  Pennsylvania  and  in  human 
nature;  he  has  got  some  things  done  that  seemed  to 
him  (and  to  Pennsylvania  and  to  the  rest  of  us) 
worth  doing.  And  in  this,  the  summing  up,  he  is 
living  the  whole  business  over — with  zest  too.  But 
the  effect  is  as  far  from  braggadocio  as  from  under- 
statement: such  a  combination  of  rollicking  and  in- 
genuous frankness  and  self-satisfaction,  with  philo- 
sophical sagacity  and  the  critical  spirit  (toward  his 
own  life  and  character  as  well  as  toward  all  else),, 
is  not  often  found. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  this  vigorous,  reflective, 
forthright,  eccentric,  and  withal  kindly  man  ever 
knew  the  agonies  of  pain,  sickness,  and  death,  ever 
brooded  in  any  suffering  of  the  spirit,  ever  was  lifted 
by  great  music  or  great  love  oj  any  other  of  the 
spiritually  expanding  instrumentalities  of  human 
life,  he  has  left  us  here  no  record.  Nor  is  there  but 
a  word  here  and  there  about  his  own  fireside.  It  is 
not  a  book  about  the  soul  or  the  home:  it  is  a  book 
about  a  man  busy  in  the  everyday  world,  who  sees 
through  make-believe,  helps  good  things  along,  col- 
lects all  sorts  of  souvenirs,  remembers  everybody's 
full  name,  knows  everybody's  genealogy,  and  creates 
unconsciously  through  three  score  years  and  ten, 
out  of  himself  and  out  of  his  neighborhood,  a  typi- 
cally American  personality — which  is  a  good  whole- 
some sort  of  thing,  though  its  typical  limitations  in 
subtility,  inwardness,  imagination,  sense  of  propor- 
tion, and  mellow  taste  should  not  be  forgotten. 

WILLIAM  ELLERY  LEONARD. 


28 


THE  DIAL 


January  11 


Eugenics — Made  in  Germany 


A  HERE  ARE  two  logics — a  logic  of  passion  and  a 
logic  of  fact.  The  latter  accumulates  its  material, 
classifies  it  according  to  its  nature,  allows  it  to 
assume  the  pattern  inevitable  to  that  nature,  and 
calls  the  pattern  the  law  which  governs  the  ma- 
terial ;  the  law  emerges  from  the  facts,  not  the  facts 
from  the  law.  Quite  contrary  is  the  procedure  of 
the  logic  of  passion.  It  begins  as  an  impulse,  a 
prejudice,  an  appetite,  a  wish,  conscious  perhaps, 
more  often  unconscious,  always  starved,  voracious, 
and  ashamed  of  the  candor  and  frankness  of  day, 
always  seeking  disguise  and  justification,  and  always, 
consequently,  sucking  into  its  vortex  all  sorts  of 
materials,  relevant  and  irrelevant,  important  and 
worthless,  that  will  give  it  aid  and  comfort  and 
right,  that  will  make  it  seem  reasonable.  The 
pattern  into  which  materials  so  gathered  fall  is  not 
the  effect  of  their  essential  nature,  not  the  revelation 
of  their  underlying  unity,  not  a  natural  pattern. 
The  pattern  into  which  materials  so  gathered  fall 
is  an  artificial  pattern;  its  unity  is  the  unity  of  the 
passion  or  prejudice  that  holds  them  together,  and 
when  it  lapses,  they  scatter.  The  differentia  of 
such  a  pattern  are  easily  observable :  its  elements  are 
incongruous  with  one  another ;  the  bulk  of  them  are 
assumptions,  dogmas,  speculations,  conjectures,  pre- 
sented as  facts  because  they  sustain  the  passion  which 
holds  them  together.  Whatever  correct  material  is 
mixed  with  them  they  distort  and  diminish  in  value. 
The  logic  of  Mr.  Seth  K.  Humphreys  in  Man- 
kind: Racial  Values  and  the  Racial  Prospect 
(Scribner;  $1.50)  is  the  logic  of  passion.  Indeed 
this  book  of  Mr.  Humphreys'  needs  only  an  intro- 
duction by  a  professional  patriot  to  make  it 
a  perfect  thing  of  its  kind.  It  has  the  hortatory 
unction,  the  smattering  of  sciences,  the  dogmatism, 
and  the  pretentiousness  which  the  protagonists  of 
American  Junkerism  have  standardized  for  the  read- 
ing public.  Its  style  is  perhaps  too  fine,  too  re- 
strained. But  that  is  an  incident.  The  play's  the 
thing,  and  the  play — was  made  in  Germany.  In 
that  land  of  passionate  self-appreciation  there  was 
invented  a  tall,  strong,  blond,  brainy  being,  every 
inch  a  German,  who  was  described  as  coming  out  of 
the  North,  and  creating  all  over  Europe  and  Asia — 
from  Japan  to  Italy — any  particular  item  of  civiliza- 
tion that  the  Germans  liked.  They  called  this  blond 
aborigine  "Aryan."  Because  they  fancied  they  liked 
Christianity  they  declared  that  Jesus  was  an  Aryan. 
Because  they  fancied  they  liked  Japanese  prints,  they 
declared  that  the  Aryan  blood  in  the  Japanese  made 
them.  And  so  on.  So  on,  against  the  total  absence 


of  anthropological  and  archeological  evidence ;  so  on, 
against  the  incontrovertible  witness  of  anthropology 
and  archeology  that  the  basic  advances  of  civilization 
are  due  to  the  Alpine  and  Mediterranean  types  in  the 
Orient,  Greece,  and  Italy;  that  the  geographical 
distribution  of  ethnic  types  crosses  the  lines  of  na- 
tional boundaries;  that  it  is  absurd,  consequently,  to 
identify  race,  type,  and  nation. 

But  the  evidence  of  science  matters  as  little  to 
Mr.  Humphreys  as  to  that  renegade  Englishman, 
Houston  Stewart  Chamberlain,  and  the  rest  of  the 
Pan-Germanist  priesthood.  He  presents  this  myth- 
ological fancy  as  fact,  without  authority  and  without 
argument,  and  upon  it  he  bases  his  "racial  prospect." 
France  is  racially  exhausted ;  England  is  distinctly 
on  the  way  to  exhaustion ;  whatever  contribution  to 
civilization  came  from  Russia  was  made  by  Teutons; 
the  Germans  alone,  being  a  young  race,  and  a  pure 
race,  and  a  good  race,  and  Aryan — oh  so  Aryan ! — 
have  the  future  in  their  hands.  Against  them  there 
are  however  the  renewed  Anglo-Saxon  stocks  of  the 
Anzac  lands,  and  of  America.  But  America  gives 
Mr.  Humphreys  pause — America,  the  melting-pot, 
is  a  mongrel  farm,  and  the  mixing  of  the  inferior 
races  from  Central  and  Southern  Europe,  of  the  in- 
digenous Indian  and  imported  African  with  the  su- 
perior Anglo-Saxon  means  degeneration.  Of  course 
African  and  Indian  sometimes  do  things  Aryans 
might  be  proud  of,  but  those  things  are  to  be 
attributed  to  Aryan  blood! 

Thus  Mr.  Seth  Humphreys,  concerning  the  value 
and  future  of  mankind,  oblivious — or  ignorant — of 
the  sober  finding  of  anthropology  and  archeology; 
oblivious  or  ignorant,  or  wilfully  ignoring,  the  social 
and  economic  history  of  the  nations  of  whose  future 
he  so  glibly  and  cathedrally  disposes,  particularly 
of  Germany's,  the  factors  in  whose  "spectacular  rise" 
are  very  far  from  being  even  fifty  per  cent  Aryan. 
He  has  uttered  a  passion,  not  recorded  a  perception. 

The  pity  of  his  utterance  lies  in  the  perversion  it 
operates  on  certain  eugenic  considerations  of  great 
importance,  and  altogether  independent  of  the  myth- 
ology with  which  it  is  applied.  That  the  superior  are 
for  a  variety  of  reasons  infertile,  that  the  multiplica- 
tion of  the  inferior  is  excessive,  that  the  war  has 
produced  an  inevitable  disproportion  of  females  to 
males,  in  which  the  breeding  of  the  superior  is  placed 
at  a  still  greater  disadvantage,  are  all  matters  de- 
serving the  deepest  attention  of  the  classes  concerned 
with  the  conservation  of  the  race,  in  whatever  na- 
tion. That  the  principle  which  must  govern  the 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


29 


use  of  any  chosen  remedy  in  this  situation  must  in- 
volve an  enhanced  reproduction  of  the  eugenically 
fit  and  a  greatly  diminished  reproduction  of  the 
eugenically  unfit  cannot  be  too  much  stressed.  And 
it  is  true  also  that  such  a  principle  must  needs  gen- 
erate very  definite  changes  in  the  conventions  of 
sex. 

But  why  blur  and  depreciate  important  concep- 


tions of  this  sort  with  racial  mythology?  The 
answer  is  that  in  the  logic  of  the  passions  reality  is 
made  to  minister  to  fancy  in  the  hope  that  it  may 
impart  some  of  its  solidity  to  the  object  of  desire. 
The  process  is  technically  called  "rationalization." 
Mr.  Humphreys'  book  is  a  more  tactful  attempt 
than  Mr.  Madison  Grant's  to  "rationalize"  war 

-  H.  M.  KALLEN. 


Kreymborg's  Marionettes 


W« 


HITMAN  AND  not  Poe  was  the  true  pioneer  of 
American  poetry.  Poe  filled  narrow  unpliant  forms 
with  a  wild,  fantastic,  supple  life.  He  played  freely 
within  circumscribed  boundaries,  because  boundaries 
did  not  constrict  him — he  was  the  kind  of  bird  that 
sings  most  sweetly  in  a  cage. 

But  Whitman's  was  a  grandly  nihilistic  gesture. 
He  assailed  the  whole  bastille  of  form  and  brought 
it  tumbling  about  his  own  ears.  He  was  a  liberator 
of  rhythms  as  Nietzsche  was  of  ethics.  And  at  that 
he  achieved  no  modern  miracle.  His  was  the  world- 
old  revolt  of  life,  weary  of  constraining  her  mighty 
rhythms  in  "piano  tunes."  Wholly  a  democrat,  he 
was  concerned  only  with  the  broad  and  common 
currents  of  existence — whatever  surrounded  and  in- 
cluded the  life  of  crowds — and  like  most  democrats 
he  was  unaware  of  nuances.  But  in  a  literary  sense 
his  service  to  .America  equaled  that  of  Washington 
and  the  co-Fathers  of  the  Revolution.  Like  theirs, 
his  Declaration  of  Independence  sounded  "a  bar- 
baric yawp  over  the  roofs  of  the  world."  And 
though  we  may  smile  tolerantly  at  the  clumsy  ways 
of  a  pioneer  and  clear  away  his  good  rank  grasses, 
it  is  over  his  unrailed  clearing  rather  than  along  the 
slender  trail  of  Poe  that  the  truly  American  poets 
will  pass  to  their  own. 

He  has  made  it  easier  for  men  so  unlike  as  Frost 
and  Sandburg  and  Bodenheim  and  Masters  to  grow 
and  push  out  horizons.  Even  Vachel  Lindsay  would 
not  have  had  space  enough  for  his  adorable  ragtime, 
if  Whitman's  breath  had  not  blown  over  the  stucco 
palaces  and  rose  gardens  and  high  English  hedges, 
and  left  a  great  clear  space  like  a  prairie  for  free 
rhythms  to  gallop  in. 

But  of  all  the  poets  that  are  now  travailing  out 
of  this  large  incoherence  that  is  America,  Kreymborg 
is  most  strangely  and  poignantly  alone.  Whether, 
like  some  elfin  Hamlet,  folded  in  an  ironic  smile  as 
in  a  cloak,  or  gazing  out  of  his  own  Mushrooms, 
solemn-eyed,  gnomelike,  with  naively  interested  eyes 
on  an  unrelated  world,  he  seems  to  have  no  artistic 


roots.  This  is  apparent  even  in  Mushrooms,  for 
never  since  the  great  Walt  scattered  his  Leaves  over 
an  offended  continent  has  there  been  a  poetic  firstling 
that  has  shown  so  few  "influences."  Its  method, 
then  tentative,  uncertain,  seemed  a  seed  blown  from 
nowhere.  Now  we  feel  its  upward  growth  in  these 
Plays  for  Poem-Mimes,  in  which  common  words 
made  taut  like  strings  seem  to  have  acquired  a  new 
and  silvery  timbre. 

Kreymborg  seems*  to  melt  life  as  in  a  crucible  and 
pour  it  into  these  quaintly  human  marionettes  from 
whom  it  perpetually  brims  over.  Except  for  Mani- 
kin and  Minikin — who  probably  flouted  their  be- 
getter's plan  by  announcing  themselves  as  fujl-blown 
egos — one  can  imagine  these  little  dramas  being 
staged  in  souls  and  played  by  "the  people  who  live 
in  people,"  so  eerily  intimate  are  they. 

All  six  plays  have  a  musical  structure.  Deftly, 
surely,  with  his  sensitive  musician's  fingers,  Kreynv 
borg  touches  those  tenuous  quivering  threads  that 
radiate  beneath  the  compact  surface  of  life.  First 
he  makes  a  silence — a  silence  of  wheels  and  cranes 
and  a  silence  of  subways  and  barrel  organs — even  a 
silence  of  feet  stamping  upon  gallery  floors.  And 
you  who  would  watch  his  swaying  motifs  in  their 
rhythmic  dances  and  listen  to  their  subtile  music, 
must  pass  through  this  luminous  silence  that  sur- 
rounds them  like  an  aura.  But  if  you  would  enjoy 
the  full  luster  of  each  silvery  dissonance  you  must 
hush  those  too  clamorous  memories  of  Broadway 
and  the  blind  white  scream  of  spotlights.  For 
Kreymborg  sweeps  away  all  ready-made  gestures 
and  all  unnecessary  noises.  He  deals  direct  with 
life,  and  life  needs  silence  to  be  heard. 

When  the  curtain  rises  on  Manikin  and  Minikin : 
A  Bisque-Play,  we  see  only  a  mantel  shelf  and  a 
huge  clock  ticking  away  eternity  between  "two  aris- 
tocratic bisque  figures,  a  boy  in  cerise  and  a  girl  in 
cornflower  blue."  The  servant  girl,  whom  we  never 
see  but  of  whose  nearness  we  are  always  aware,  has 


3° 


THE  DIAL 


January  1 1 


turned  them  away  from  each  other  so  that  they  see 
only 

the  everlasting  armchair, 

the  everlasting  tiger  skin, 

the  everlasting  yellow,  green  and  purple  books. 

And  into  these  two  inanimates,  who  recall  their 
childhood  in  the  English  museum,  Kreymborg  has 
poured  a  full,  sweet  tide  of  life.  We  do  not  think  of 
them  as  puppets  but  as  living  essences — gestures  cf 
surrounded  beauty,  captured  like  two  bright  birds 
and  held  static  in  time.  Minikin  asking: 

Who  made  me  what  I  am — 
who  dreamed  me  in  motionless  clay? 

or  voicing  her  jealousy  of  the  servant — Minikin  who 
does  not  know  how  old  she  is — is  as  perfect  of  her 
kind  as  any  of  the  great  characters  of  literature. 
Manikin  says  in  his  sad  wise  philosophy: 

The  life  of  an   animate 

is   a   procession   of  deaths 

with   but   a    secret   sorrowing  candle 

guttering  lower  and  lower 

on  the  path  to  the  grave — 

the  life  of  an  inanimate 

is  as  serenely  enduring — 

as  all  still  things  are. 

And  I  feel  this  little  play  to  be  of  such  stuff  as 
will  prove  to  be  "serenely  enduring."  Unlike  some 
of  Kreymborg's  other  work,  it  has  no  loose  repeti- 
tions straying  like  uncared-for  children,  and  no 
frayed  ends;  the  whole  is  correlated  into  a  perfect 
form.  A  lesser  artist  might  have  made  a  catastrophic 
finale  by  letting  the  servant  girl  "shatter  the  great 
happy  centuries  ahead"  by  sweeping  Minikin  from 
"the  everlasting  shelf."  As  it  is,  the  play  leaves  off 
on  the  progressive  chord.  Only  the  mellow  chimes 
of  the  clock  striking  the  hour  round  the  silence  like 
the  last  touch  on  a  jewel. 

Of  the  comedies,  Lima  Beans:  A  Scherzo-Play, 
with  a  dainty  allegro  movement,  is  a  prolonged  rip- 
ple of  quaintly  satirical  laughter  in  which  Kreym- 
borg, delicately  whimsically  as  some  supernaturally 
wise  gnome,  mocks  at  life  with  her  own  symbols. 

Jack's  House:  A  Cubic-Play  is  not  so  easily 
disposed  of.  It  has  a  way  of  leaving  one's  concep- 
tion of  it  swinging  foolishly  like  an  empty  cage.  At 
first  one  follows  pleasantly  the  miming  of  its  two 
figures  and  smiles  at  Jack's  expectations  of  his  doll- 
wife,  who  is  hardly  more  than  a  delicious  pout — 
and  what  has  a  pout  to  do  with  home-making? 
Later  this  little  oblique  satire  on  the  American  home 
acts  as  an  emotional  irritant.  There  is  something 
vaguely  chilling  about  an  atmosphere  where 

two  black  pillows 
on  our  green  couch 

are  the  make-believe  children.  Besides,  the  poet's 
thought  has  a  trick  of  whisking  into  ambush  and  out 


again,  -tagging  and  dancing  away,  making  impish 
mouths.  One  leaves  it  with  a  sense  of  futility  and 
of  being  wounded  uselessly  and  of  feeling  bits  of 
severed  life  fumbling  for  each  other.  And  yet,  for 
those  of  us  who  have  seen  Jack's  House  produced 
by  the  Other  Players  and  listened  to  the  wistfully 
importunate  accompaniment  of  Julian  Freedman's 
music,  this  parody  of  a  home 

will  rock  in  our  memory 
no  matter  what  we  grow  to. 

In  Blue  and  Green:  A  Shadow-Play  love — avid, 
morbidly  aware,  eternally  touching  and  swaying 
apart — is  again  the  dominant  motif.  The  two  fig- 
ures, talking  in  silvery  monotones  while  "fragments 
of  their  lives  dance  a  shadow-dance"  against  a  blue 
California  sky,  compare  their  dissonances  with  an 
exquisite  and  intimate  clarity,  flowing  through  each 
other's  consciousness  like  two  streams  of  faintly 
iridescent  water.  If  a  man  and  woman  could  so 
commune  through  their  mortal  opacity,  then  these 
two  might  be  any  man  and  any  woman  who  had 
tried  to  mold  the  other  to  his  own  image, 

only  to  find  the  image  mean, 

commonplace,  bitterly  familiar — 

a   sight  to  be  effaced  with  the   first  recognition. 

This  thought  of  our  multiple  spiritual  recreations 
of  each  other  finds  constant  expression  in  Kreym- 
borg's work.  The  old  figure  in  When  the  Willow 
Nods  says  of  the  Girl: 

Your  least  sly  look 
recreates  folk  to  your  image ; 

and  it  is  the  main  theme  of  People  Who  Die.  In 
this  lonely  Dream-Play,  Love  has  almost  ceased  to 
importune  her  dead  children.  And  the  two  figures 
are  as  shells  that  "we  hold  to  our  ear"  and  through 
which  we  hear  the  roaring  backwash  of  life.  It 
seems  in  a  sense  to  be  a  sequel  to  Blue  and  Green, 
penetrating  even  deeper  than  the  latter  into  inner 
sacristies.  As  dramatic  structures  these  two  plays 
are  the  weakest  in  the  group.  Perhaps  they  are 
spiritual  records  done  at  a  too  close  perspective  to  be 
expressed  in  conscious  terms  of  art.  But  in  order 
to  assume  any  dramatic  or  even  any  permanent 
literary  value  they  would  have  to  be  recast  and  all 
those  groping  segments  constrained  into  some  definite 
form.  As  it  is,  they  are  as  good  wine  that  has  been 
spilled  on  the  ground  instead  of  poured  into  clear-cut 
goblets. 

The  book  is  at  once  a  challenge  and  a  stimu- 
lus. It  reminds  us  that  the  artist's  interpre- 
tation of  life  must  be  more  than  a  record  of  action 
or  a  corroboration  of  registered  emotions.  Kipling 
achieved  these  brilliantly — and  reached  his  period  be- 
fore thirty.  Our  individual  reactions  to  the  tangible 
beat  in  ever  dwindling  vibrations — the  exploration 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


31 


of  the  intangible  is  the  one  inexhaustible  adventure. 
Blows,  gifts,  kisses,  wine,  stars,  winds,  sun — the 
time  comes  to  every  artist  when  he  has  answered 
even  these,  and  when  the  raised  and  visible  signs  by 
which  our  mute  souls  quibble  to  each  other  need  to 
be  re-energized  by  the  impetus  of  some  new  discov- 
ery. And  it  is  this  spirit  of  discovery — this  getting 
out  and  making  a  clearing,  instead  of  huddling  in 
mental  tenements — that  is  Kreymborg's  great  signifi- 
cance. 

In  one  almost  painfully  clutching  gesture — that  of 
musically  monotonous  repetitions — he  resembles 
Maeterlinck.  But  he  has  none  of  the  great  Bel- 
gian's fear  of  personal  extinction.  His  spiritual  at- 


titude is  serenely  robust,  and  his  regret  is  never  foi 
People  Who  Die,  but  for  "the  people  who  die  ir 
people,"  those  fragile  and  lovely  images  the  eg( 
fashions  of  its  beloved. 

Whether  we  like  him  or  not,  it  will  soon  bi 
obligatory  to  recognize  Kreymborg  as  an  impelling 
force  in  the  new  American  drama.  In  discardinj 
old  forms  he  has  merely  thrown  away  what  to  hin 
are  worn-out  swaddlings  no  longer  whole  enough  o: 
spacious  enough  to  contain  the  living,  growing  es 
sence.  His  aim  is  to  make  life  face  itself  anew  b] 
the  aid  of  new  symbols — life,  never  to  be  persuadec 
or  reconciled  by  its  own  "bitterly  familiar"  image 

LOLA  RIDGE. 


Imagination  and  Vision 


IT  is  SOME  years  now  since  "JE"  published  a 
book  of  the  nature  of  this  Candle  of  Vision  (Mac- 
millan;  London),  which  breaks  the  line  of  political 
writings  that  have  given  Mr.  George  W.  Russell 
a  public  unknown  to  the  earlier  "IE"  Indeed, 
only  the  readers  of  esoteric  magazines  and  the 
hoarders  of  rare  pamphlets  will  easily  recall  the  last 
prose  publication  of  "/E's,"  to  which  the  present 
volume  attaches  itself  in  the  lineage  of  his  work. 
There  were  chapters  in  Imaginations  and  Reveries 
(Macmillan;  1915)  to  remind  us  that  "JE,"  the 
mystic,  was  not  completely  submerged  in  Mr. 
George  Russell,  the  cooperator  and  economist.  That 
book,  consisting  for  the  most  part  of  reprinted  early 
essays,  may  serve  as  a  bridge  between  the  poet  of 
Homeward  (1894)  and  The  Earth  Breath  (1897) 
and  the  prose  author  of  The  Candle  of  Vision,  for 
here  he  has  returned  to  analyze  and  to  expound  the 
experiences  and  teaching  of  his  verse.  These  medi- 
tations are  "the  efforts  of  an  artist  and  poet  to  relate 
his  own  vision  to  the  vision  of  the  seers  and  writers 
of  the  sacred  books." 

Readers  of  "^i's"  poems  remember  them  as  the 
records  of  certain  spiritual  experiences  as  suggestive, 
and  often  as  beautiful,  as  they  are  rare  in  the  lives 
of  the  vast  majority  of  unmeditative,  incurious 
people.  By  the  exercise  of  will  power  and  concen- 
tration "JE"  is  able  to  attain  to  that  vision  of  the 
divine  world  about  us  whose  existence  he  now  at- 
tempts to  prove.  "There  is  no  personal  virtue  in 
me  other  than  this,  that  I  followed  a  path  all  may 
travel,  but  on  which  few  do  journey."  With  this 
modest  postulate  which,  at  all  events,  clears  the 
writer  of  all  suspicion  of  the  charlatanism  so  fre- 
quently prevalent  to  the  detriment  of  psychical  re- 
search, "JE"  selects  a  number  of  spiritual  adven- 


tures and  endeavors  to  reveal  their  significance.  T< 
this  end  his  account  is  restricted  to  experiences  whicl 
have  some  similarity  to  those  of  our  common  dreams 
"not  because  they  are  in  any  way  wonderful,  bu 
rather  because  they  are  like  things  many  people  see 
and  so  they  may  more  readily  follow  my  argument.' 
Many  eloquent  and  beautiful  pages  are  given  t( 
this  retrospective  narrative  of  dreams,  visions,  anc 
imaginations  since  the  poet's  boyhood,  when  th< 
"mysterious  life  quickening/-  within  my  life"  begar 
to  reveal  itself.  They  are  revelations  rather  thar 
proofs  of  a  doctrine  which  appeals  to  reason  whil< 
defying  it.  "2E"  proceeds  very  reasonably  to  ex 
plain  how  these  first  "intimations  of  immortality' 
came  to  him,  and  how  he  set  himself  by  concen 
trated  meditation  to  obtain  control  of  the  mean! 
of  access  to  the  divine  universe,  to  that  pleroma  oi 
the  Gnostics.  The  labor  of  concentration,  the  rigic 
setting  of  the  faculties  upon  some  mental  object 
leaves  the  neophyte  "trembling  as  at  the  close  of  i 
laborious  day."  A  thousand  conflicting  desires  anc 
emotions  crowd  in  upon  the  brain  to  deflect  the  wil 
from  its  purpose ;  but  once  the  power  of  concentra- 
tion has  been  acquired,  "the  inexpressible  yearning 
of  the  inner  man  to  go  out  with  the  infinite"  ma) 
be  satisfied.  Through  this  discipline  "^E"  passed 
and  he  invites  others  to  follow  him  and  to  share 
the  ecstasies  and  wonders  of  the  visions  of  super- 
nature  thus  obtained.  He  tells  of  the  power  sc 
won,  by  virtue  of  which  a  word  in  the  page  of  a 
book  could  transport  him  to  scenes  stored  up  in 
the  Eternal  Memory;  of  the  flickering  through  his 
brain  of  pictures  in  the  minds  of  friends  and 
strangers;  of  sudden  illuminations  of  the  darkness 
shrouding  past  and  future,  in  which  he  saw  phan- 
tasms of  the  life  of  ancient  Ireland  and  the  avatar 


THE  DIAL 


January  n 


f  our  race,  the  "child  of  destiny  around  whom 
he  future  of  Ireland  was  to  pivot."  If  in  many  of 
hese  pictures  "AL"  strays  from  the  line  of  com- 
lon  experience  to  which  he  promised  to  keep  in 
is  selection,  nobody  will  regret  that,  in  exchange, 
e  has  given  us  some  beautiful,  suggestive,  and 
wonderful  adventures  of  an  artist's  soul.  After  all 
:  is  doubtful  if  more  than  a  fraction  of  the  public 
/ill,  if  honest, *  do  more  than  grant  his  premises 
n  order  to  hear  what  he  has  to  tell.  "JE."  prom- 
>es  the  same  powers  of  vision  and  imagination  to 
very  disciple ;  but  if  we  eliminate,  as  is  often  so 
lifficult,  the  pseudo-mystics  from  those  who  are 
ruly  psychic,  it  must  inevitably  be  the  case  that 
lany  are  called  but  few  are  chosen. 

The  elimination  of  the  fakers  and  table-turning 
mateurs  of  cheap  mysteries  is  essential  if  we  are 
ver  to  have  serious  attention  paid  to  psychical 
evelations.  "/E,"  so  happily  free  from  the  stigma 
f  the  mystery-mongers,  has  been  able  to  raise  in 
his  book  some  points  of  the  deepest  interest.  He 
ries,  and  asks  us  to  try,  to  discover  what  element 
f  truth  lies  in  imagination.  He  cannot  accept  the 
acile  methods  of  the  now  fashionable  psycho- 
nalysts  who  can  explain  everything  by  reference 

0  memory  and  suppressed  desires.     Assuming  that 
mr    dreams    are    old    memories    refashioned    "yE" 
sks: 

\7hat    is    it    combines    with    such    miraculous    skill    the 
nings    seen,    taking    a    tint    here,    a    fragment    of    form 
here,    which    uses   the   colours   and    forms  of   memory   as 
palette   to   paint   such   masterpieces? 

Vnd  he  argues  that  it  is  "just  as  marvelous  but 
lot  so  credible"  to  assume  that  there  is  an  artistic 
acuity  in  the  subconscious  memory,  as  to  believe, 
yith  him,  that  dreams  come  "not  by  way  of  the 
ihysical  senses  transformed  to  memory,"  but  "like 
he  image  thought  transferred,  or  by  obscure  ways 
effected  from  spheres  above  us,  from  the  lives  of 
ithers  and  the  visions  of  others."  The  figures  of 
Ireams  move;  "they  have  life  and  expression.  The 
unlight  casts  authentic  moving  shadows  on  the 
ground."  How  can  such  effects  be  produced  by 
igures  composed  of  innumerable  fixed  impressions 
n  the  brain,  which,  if  recombin£d,  could  hardly 
nake  a  more  lifelike  effect  than  a  face  composed 
»f  a  hundred  thousand  pictures  of  heads  refashioned 
ind  pasted  together? 

Dreams  are  explicable,  as  "yE"  sees  it,  in  either 
>f  two  ways;  they  are  "self-created  fantasy"  or  "the 
nirroring  in  the  brain  of  an  experience  of  soul  in 

1  real  sphere  of   being."     While  this  provides  an 
:scape  from  the  irritating  dogmatism  of  the  Freudian 
scientists,  it  leaves  "the  plain  workaday  people"  no 
further  advanced  in  the  discussion.     Whichever  of 


"^E's"  theories  one  accepts,  "we  must  postulate 
an  unsleeping  consciousness  within  ourselves  while 
the  brain  is  asleep ;  and  the  unsleeping  creature  was 
either  the  creator  of  the  dream  or  the  actor  in  a 
real  event."  He  likens  himself  in  one  case  to  "a 
man  in  a  dark  hall  so  utterly  lightless,  so  soundless, 
that  nothing  reaches  him;  and  then  the  door  is 
suddenly  flung  open,  and  he  sees  a  crowd  hurrying 
by,  and  then  the  door  is  closed,  and  he  is  again  in 
darkness."  Such  is  the  dream  which  is  not  "self- 
created  fantasy,"  but  a  sudden  consciousness  of  being 
in  another  sphere  where  a  glimpse  is  obtained  of 
events  whose  beginning  and  end  are  not  seen: 

On  that  hypothesis  there  were  journeyings  of  the  soul 
before  and  after  the  moment  remembered,  but  the  action 
in  priority  and  succession  1  could  not  remember,  be- 
cause there  was  as  yet  no  kinship  in  the  brain  to  the 
mood  of  the  unsleeping  soul  or  to  the  deed  it  did. 

Arising  out  of  this  interpretation  of  dreams,  and 
governing  the  two-fold  hypothesis  of  "/K,"  there  is 
an  interesting  analysis  of  the  difference  between  im- 
agination and  vision,  although  the  two  are  often 
confounded.  "If  I  look  out  of  the  windows  of  the 
soul,"  he  writes,  that  is  not  an  act  of  imagination, 
but  a  "vision  of  something  which  already  exists, 
and  which  in  itself  must  be  unchanged  by  the  act 
of  seeing."  On  the  other  hand,  "by  imagination 
what  exists  in  latency  or  essence  is  outrealised  and 
is  given  a  form  in  thought,  and  we  can  contemplate 
with  full  consciousness  that  which  hitherto  has  been 
unrevealed,  or  only  intuitionally  surmised."  Hence 
it  follows  that  the  images  of  imagination  may  be 
referred  "definitely  to  an  internal  creator,  with 
power  to  use  or  re-mould  pre-existing  forms  and 
endow  them  with  life,  motion  and  voice."  In  other 
words,  that  artist  in  our  subconsciousness  whose 
power  to  refashion  memories  was  defined  by  "AL" 
as  "just  as  marvelous  but  not  so  credible"  as  his 
own  theory,  is  now  postulated  to  explain  the  acts 
of  imagination  as  distinct  from  vision.  The  differ- 
entiation is  important,  granting  the  author's  funda- 
mental theory  of  the  universe,  but  he  is  expecting 
too  much  of  the  unconverted  when  he  asks  them  to 
endow  imagination  with  creative  faculties  denied  in 
the  case  of  memory.  The  more  so  as  he  has  by  no 
means  succeeded  in  showing  a  real  divergence  be- 
tween acts  of  vision  and  acts  of  imagination.  The 
phenomena  described  in  both  cases  are  to  the  un- 
initiated remarkably  similar. 

The  dreams  recorded,  wonderful  as  many  of  them 
are,  may  be  traced  to  memories,  and  since  there  is 
evidently  a  mysterious  power  of  refashioning  the 
impressions  received  by  the  brain,  it  is  possible  to 
explain  "^E's"  visions  and  dreams  by  the  hypothesis 
he  rejects.  At  no  time  does  he  seem  to  be  aware  of 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


the  important  fact  that  the  mind  records  uncon- 
sciously innumerable  impressions.  He  writes  as  if 
he  could  always  be  certain  of  exactly  what  phenom- 
ena have  been  impressed  upon  his  memory,  and  he 
argues  that  when  he  sees  in  dreams  something  of 
which  he  had  no  earthly  knowledge  this  is  a  proof 
of  supernatural  revelation.  But  I  fancy  that  any 
reader  with  a  knowledge  of  physics  and  of  sailing, 
for  example,  could  show  "JE"  how  his  description 
of  the  aerial  ships  is  the  obvious  result  of  a  lay- 
man's vague  recollections  of  matters  with  which  he 
has  no  real  acquaintance.  His  airships  have  steer- 
ing wheels,  though  they  move  in  no  element  in 
which  they  could  be  so  controlled — surely  an  in- 
stance of  a  landsman's  unscientific  memory,  recalling 
the  casually  observed  fact  that  ships  are  steered  by 
a  wheel.  Indeed  it  will  be  evident  to  anyone  who 
analyzes  "AL's"  pictures  that  they  are  essentially 
refashioned  memories,  colored,  it  is  true,  by  the 
artistic  and  metaphysical  preoccupations  of  the 
author.  Had  his  mind  been  stored  with  other  lore 
than  the  Eastern  scriptures,  had  his  eye  been  that 
of  a  mechanical  engineer  instead  of  an  artist,  his 
imaginations  and  visions  would  have  been  molded 
accordingly.  Unless  perhaps  they  were  entirely  ex- 
tinguished ! 


These  points  are  merely  a  few  amongst  the  man 
suggested  by  this  unique  spiritual  autobiography 
which  is  packed  with  ideas  and  richly  colored  wit 
beautiful  reveries.  It  is  not  only  an  essential  pai 
of  the  work  which  "JE"  has  given  to  the  worl 
in  his  verse  but  it  opens  up  the  most  attractive  fielc 
of  speculation.  Here  is  a  man  who  has  found 
new  way  to  truth  and  knowledge,  and  who  is  on! 
too  anxious  to  submit  his  methods  for  examinatio 
and  to  invite  others  to  adopt  them.  If  the  grez 
metaphysicians  and  philosophers  had  essayed  the: 
strange  paths  along  which  "AL"  has  pursued  h 
quest,  they  might  have  arrived  at  a  perception  < 
life  more  vital  to  an  age  conscious  of  the  limitatior 
of  reason.  Will  and  imagination,  so  large  a  factc 
in  this  mystic  doctrine  of  the  universe — were  the 
not  the  basis'  of  Schopenhauer's  metaphysic  ?  Steepe 
as  he  was  in  the  sacred  writings  of  the  East,  whic 
have  meant  so  much  to  "M,"  he  just  failed  1 
realize  their  teaching.  If  in  the  end  The  Candle  ( 
Vision  brings  us  no  nearer  than  before  to  the  sob 
tion  of  the  profound  mystery  of  being,  it  renews  a 
old  approach  to  the  mysterious  problem  which  cha 
lenges  the  intelligence  of  humanity. 

ERNEST  A.  BOYD. 


The  American  Soldier 


X\MERICAN  LITERATURE  of  the  war  has  passed 
through  several  phases  as  marked  as  the  phases  of 
our  interest  and  participation  in  the  conflict  itself. 
The  outbreak  of  the  war  found  us  intellectually 
unprepared,  and  there  followed  a  feverish  eruption  of 
explanation.  Studies  of  national  ambitions,  trade 
rivalries,  diplomatic  backgrounds  were  quickly 
placed  before  the  public.  Then  as  our  citizens 
became  engaged  in  relief  work,  or  sporadically  as 
combatants,  their  immediate  view  of  the  phenomena 
of  the  war  and  personal  experience  in  it  became 
staple.  As  our  neutrality  wore  thin  and  it  became 
clear  that  we  should  be  involved  in  the  final  phase 
as  arbiter  if  not  as  contestant,  there  appeared  fore- 
casts of  the  settlement  in  which  we  must  have  a  part. 
And  when  we  became  belligerent  the  literature  of 
the  war  naturally  turned  to  a  record  of  our  participa- 
tion. These  several  phases  have  belonged  to  differ- 
ent classes  of  writers — the  first  to  historians,  pub- 
licists, and  other  informed  persons;  the  second  to 
adventurers;  the  third  to  social  philosophers  and 
economists;  and  only  in  the  fourth  has  the  war 
correspondent  come  distinctly  into  his  own.  Of  this 
final  phase  two  books,  both  by  well-known  corre- 
spondents, command  attention — Frederick  Palmer's 


America  in  France  (Dodd,  Mead;  $1.75)  an 
Floyd  Gibbons'  And  They  Thought  We  Wouldn 
Fight  (George  H.  Doran;  $2). 

The  titles  of  these  books  correctly  prophesy  the 
contents,  style,  and  general  approach.  Mr.  Palmi 
writes  as  a  historian — a  plain  unvarnished  tal 
From  his  position  on  General  Pershing's  staff  ; 
censor  we  may  assume  that  his  book  is  the  resu 
of  the  fullest  information  and  of  the  highest  di 
cretion.  It  is  in  fact  the  first  complete  official  vie 
of  America's  part  in  the  war.  And  with  evei 
allowance  for  reserve  it  is  a  convincing  as  well  ; 
an  impressive  one.  Mr.  Palmer  writes  as  a  historiar 
he  also  writes  as  a  soldier,  not  only  with  an  effac 
ment  of  himself  but  also  a  modesty  in  regard  to  h 
fellow  soldiers  which  is  both  engaging  and  inspirin; 
There  is  in  his  book  little  of  the  tone  of  person; 
reminiscence,  little  anecdote  and  illustration.  Tl 
impression  which  emerges  is  that  of  a  whole, 
powerful  and  ,  highly  organized  machine,  in  whic 
the  individual  is  not  lost  indeed,  but  multiplie 
until  his  personal  record  is  an  impertinence.  M 
Palmer  does  not  disguise  the  fact  that  the  machir 
did  not  work  perfectly, '  that  there  were  errors  i 
direction,  shortcomings  in  execution.  What  he  in 


34 


THE  DIAL 


January  n 


plies  however  is  the  superhuman  effort,  the  extremity 
of  toil  and  sacrifice,  with  which  the  individual 
member  of  the  vast  complex  set  himself  to  limit 
the  area  of  mistake  and  make  good  the  effects  of 
shortage.  It  is  easy  to  divine  beneath  the  surface 
of  his  narrative  of  a  successful  army  the  vital  con- 
tribution of  the  man,  not  only  behind  the  gun,  but 
behind  the  telephone  receiver,  the  motor  wheel,  even 
the  ledger  and  the  counter. 

And  this  is  the  view  which  America  will  be  glad 
to  take  in  the  future — a  view  of  the  campaign  in 
France  as  a  national  enterprise  in  which  the  qual- 
ities which  had  marked  the  geographical,  industrial, 
and  scientific  expansion  of  the  nation  were  directed 
to  a  single  end,  animated  by  miraculous  energy, 
crowned  by  complete  achievement,  and  glorified  by 
heroic  sacrifice. 

Mr.  Floyd  Gibbons,  of  the  Chicago  Tribune, 
writes  like  a  newspaper  man.  In  reading  his  book 
one  is  reminded  of  his  veteran  predecessors,  the 
correspondents  of  the  Civil  War,  of  Browne  and 
Richardson,  and  of  those  classics,  Four  Years  in 
Secessia  and  The  Field,  The  Dungeon,  and  The 
Escape;  and  one  recognizes  how  much  journalism 
has  gained  in  amplitude  and  richness  and  raciness 
by  the  intensive  cultivation  of  "the  story"  at  the 
hands  of  the  humbler  members  of  the  craft.  Mr. 
Gibbons  has  the  closeness  of  contact  with  his  ma- 
terial, the  intimacy  with  his  characters,  the  im- 
mediateness  of  style  that  mark  the  expert  police 
or  baseball  reporter.  His  book  is  a  succession  of 
journalistic  tours  de  force  of  which  the  first,  the 
sinking  of  the  Laconia,  and  the  last,  the  wounding 
of  the  author  during  the  taking  of  the  Belleau 
Woods  by  the  American  marines,  are  masterpieces 
worthy  of  G.  W.  Steevens.  Between  these  are  lesser 
stories,  the  taking  over  of  the  first  front-line  sector 
by  American  troops,  an  inspection  of  the  trenches, 
a  raid  into  the  enemy  dugouts  reported  by  telephone, 
a  bombardment,  and  the  rush  of  the  Second  Division 
into  Picardy  to  stem  the  German  offensive.  Where 
Mr.  Palmer  is  summary,  Mr.  Gibbons  is  detailed; 
where  the  former  is  literal  and  expository,  the  latter 
is  picturesque  and  illustrative :  America  in  France  is 
detached  and  impersonal;  individual  traits  and  inci- 
dents are  the  essence  of  And  They  Thought  We 
Wouldn't  Fight. 

Mr.  Gibbons  made  it  his  business  to  know  the 
American  soldier,  not  as  an  unidentifiable  factor  in 
the  grim  unity  of  his  formations,  but  as  the  individ- 
ual, who  accepts  regimentation  with  the  same 
humorous  stoicism  with  which  he  accepts  war.  Mr. 
Gibbons  constantly  allows  him  to  escape  from  his 
enforced  into  his  real  character,  to  appear  as  Big 
Moriarity,  or  Missouri  Slim,  or  the  dying  Wop. 


From  the  multitude  of  incidents  he  disengages  the 
American  soldier  as  a  type,  distinct  as  the  French 
poilu  of  Barbusse  or  the  British  Tommy  of  Captain 
Beith — a  national  figure  although  racially  of  Italian, 
English,  Celtic,  Slavic,  or  Teutonic  extraction.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  recreate  this  figure  in  a 
critical  summary,  but  some  of  his  salient  traits  may 
be  enumerated — his  imperturbable  coolness,  his  in- 
solent courage,  his  disconcerting  unexpectedness,  his 
tolerant  good  nature,  his  humor  that  surmounts 
pain,  and  his  irony  that  circumvents  fate.  And  a 
few  bits  of  his  lively  conversation  may  be  quoted. 
The  men  in  the  tree-top  lookout  waiting  for  the 
German  fire: 

"Why  in  hell  don't  they  come  back  at  us?"  Griffith 
asks.  "I've  had  myself  all  tuned  up  for  the  last  twenty 
minutes  to  have  a  leg  blown  off  and  be  thankful.  I  hate 
this  waiting  stuff." 

"Keep  your  shirt  on,  Pete,"  Stanton  remarks.  "Give 
'em  a  chance  to  get  their  breath  and  come  out  of  their 
holes.  That  barrage  drove  'em  down  a  couple  hundred 
feet  into  the  ground  and  they  haven't  any  elevators  to 
come  up  on." 

The  wireless  operator  in  the  open  summerhouse: 

"Seems  so  peaceful  here  with  the  sun  streaming  down 
over  these  old  walls,"  he  said. 

"What  do  you  hear  out  of  the  air?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  we  pick  up  a  lot  of  junk,"  he  replied.  .  .  "A 
few  minutes  ago  I  heard  a  German  aeroplane  signaling 
by  wireless  to  a  German  battery  and  directing  its  fire. 
I  could  tell  every  time  the  aviator  said  the  shot  was 
short  or  over.  It's  kinder  funny  to  sit  back  here  in  quiet 
and  listen  in  on  the  war,  isn't  it?" 

Dan  Bailey,  who  had  lost  a  leg  at  Cantigny: 

"I  know  what  I'm  going  to  do  when  I  get  home,"  he 
said.  "I'm  going  to  get  a  job  as  an  instructor  in  a  roller- 
skating  rink." 

The  record  of  the  American  soldier  as  revealed  in 
both  these  books  is  a  valuable  comment  on  democ- 
racy in  war.  After  all,  the  practical  issue  between 
democracy  and  autocracy  turned  on  the  question  of 
relative  efficiency  in  the  test  of  survival  in  direct 
conflict  of  arms.  It  was  the  belief  of  autocracy  in 
the  essential  military  unfitness  of  democracy  that 
gave  it  confidence  in  forcing  the  issues  that  inevit- 
ably added  first  England  and  later  America  to  its 
enemies.  It  appeared  to  the  best  authorities  that 
the  complicated  processes  of  modern  warfare  could 
not  be  learned  by  the  ordinary  citizen  in  less  than 
two  years  of  intensive  training — that  a  system  of 
instruction  of  such  levies  could  not  be  maintained 
except  by  a  military  caste  with  a  tradition  of  su- 
periority to  the  body  of  citizens  that  reflected  the 
autocracy  of  the  state.  Above  all,  the  testing  of 
armies  in  maneuver  and  the  constant  practice  of  the 
general  staff  in  handling  large  bodies  of  men  and 
material  was  deemed  essential.  It  is  true  that 
America  entered  the  war  under  tutelage — that  our 


35 


unpreparedness  was  in  part  at  the  expense  of  our 
allies.  But  granting  the  contribution  of  staff  work 
and  of  instruction  in  major  and  minor  tactics,  which 
was  so  generously  given,  the  attainment  of  the 
American  officers  and  men  gives  ground  for  belief 
in  the  ability  of  democracy  to  take  care  of  itself. 
What  part  if  any  our  high  command  played  in 
the  major  strategy  of  the  last  months  of  the  war 
may  never  be  disclosed.  Even  the  story  of  the  Amer- 
ican general  who  took  personal  responsibility  for 
the  counter-offensive  at  Chateau-Thierry  may  re- 
main apocryphal.  But  the  mastery  of  the  art  of  war 
by  field  officers  and  men  of  the  American  forces  is  an 
achievement  in  education  of  which  the  example 
should  not  be  lost.  The  result  was  brought  about 
by  an  extraordinary  spirit  of  cooperation  between 
officers  and  men.  Apart  from  a  small  number  avail- 
able for  active  service  in  the  regular  army  and  na- 
tional guard,  our  officers  were  college  boys  sum- 
moned to  turn  their  training  to  a  field  which  they 
had  never  thought  to  enter.  Their  success  was  per- 
haps a  surprise  to  the  faculties  which  had  trained 
them.  They  had  to  teach  themselves,  and  each 
other,  and  their  men.  The  men  taught  them- 
selves and  each  other.  The  limited  expert  instruction 


provided  was  economized  to  the  last  degree,  used 
as  leaven  in  the  whole  effervescing  mass.  And  as  a 
result  our  army  became  an  extraordinarily  flexible 
and  responsive  instrument,  preserving  the  best  fea- 
tures of  democratic  organization.  The  officers  could 
not  send  their  men  into  battle  in  rigid  formations, 
trained  to  mechanical  exactness  of  maneuver  at  word 
of  command,  but  they  could  lead  them  anywhere. 
The  result  was,  it  is  true,  in  the  American  as  in  the 
English  army,  which  was  trained  on  essentially  the 
same  principle,  a  disproportionate  loss  of  officers. 
That  is  the  price  which  democracy  must  always  pay 
for  being — the  sacrifice  of  its  leaders.  But  that  the 
individual  maintained  himself  in  spite  of  the  draft 
and  the  training  and  the  discipline — the  whole  proc- 
ess of  regimentation — and  will  return  personally 
the  richer  for  his  experience,  no  one  who  reads  these 
volumes  can  doubt.  In  his  justification  of  democ- 
racy as  against  autocracy  in  war  the  American 
soldier  recalls  the  boast  of  Pericles  to  the  Athenians : 
"Whereas  the  Spartans  from  early  youth  are  al- 
ways undergoing  laborious  exercises  which  are  to 
make  them  brave,  we  live  at  ease  yet  are  equally 
ready  to  face  danger." 

ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT. 


The  Economic  Interpretation  of  History :  A  Footnote 


AlAiLED  by  some  votaries  of  the  political  sciences 
as  a  generalization  comparable  with  the  theory  of 
evolution,  the  economic  interpretation  of  history  has 
found  small  favor  in  the  eyes  of  anthropologists. 
This  is  not  due  to  any  peculiarly  bourgeois  atmos- 
phere that  invests  anthropological  thought,  as  ex- 
treme adherents  .of  the  materialistic  conception 
might  assume.  The  grounds  for  an  a  priori  bias 
against  that  view  lie  in  quite  different  directions. 
For  one  thing,  the  complexities  of  civilization  even 
in  its  humbler  levels  are  such  that  antagonism  is 
at  once  roused  by  advertisements  of  any  vaunted 
master  key,  whether  economic  or  geographical  or 
what  not.  On  the  other  hand,  the  students  of  human 
culture  are  rightly  suspicious  of  any  attempt  to 
make  reason  shoulder  the  responsibility  for  most  or 
even  for  much  of  what  mankind  has  done.  They 
are  so  constantly  confronted  with  the  power  of 
other  impulses  that  ideological  rather  than  utilitarian 
motives  loom  large  in  their  consciousness  as  primary 
causes  of  human  action.  When,  for  example,  a 
Crow  Indian  imperiled  his  life  crawling  into  the 
midst  of  the  enemy's  camp  in  order  to  steal  a  horse 
tethered  to  the  tent  pegs,  it  is  difficult  to  hold  that 
he  was  prompted  by  ari  economic  motive,  seeing  that 


he  could  much  more  readily  have  stolen  several  un- 
picketed  horses  roaming  about  the  outskirts.  If  he 
chose  the  more  arduous  method,  it  was  to  gain 
not  any  material  benefit  but  social  prestige,  which 
was  attainable  only  through  some  traditionally  recog- 
nized act  of  bravery. 

Nevertheless  every  exaggeration  in  the  realm  of 
thought  seems  bound  to  lead  as  a  normal  reaction 
to  an  equal  and  contrary  perversity.  The  very  super- 
ciliousness with  which  the  modern  ethnologist  re- 
jects economic  causation  invites  a  cautious  reexamina- 
tion  of  the  ground.  Obviously,  the  most  favorable 
conditions  for  a  fair  test  of  economic  influences  on 
the  structure  of  society  would  obtain  if  we  had 
knowledge  of  a  given  community  at  one  stage  and 
equally  satisfactory  knowledge  of  the  same  com- 
munity at  a  later  period  when  some  basic  change  of 
economic  existence  had  supervened.  Our  Western 
civilization  hardly  furnishes  a  satisfactory  illustra- 
tion, because  its  complexity  obscures  the  factors  at 
work.  Simpler  modes  of  life,  while  better  suited 
for  the  purpose,  present  difficulties  of  a  different 
kind.  Contact  with  the  Caucasian  race  frequently 
produces  far-reaching  changes  in  economic  activity, 
but  frequently  this  modification  is  accompanied  by 


THE  DIAL 


January i i 


such  disintegration  of  aboriginal  life  that  nothing 
can  be  inferred  as  to  the  influence  due  to  an  enforced 
change  from,  say,  the  chase  to  agriculture.  Again, 
where  the  touch  of  civilization  has  not  proved  disas- 
trous— as  among  the  Navaho  of  Arizona — we  know 
little  or  nothing  of  the  earlier  status  of  the  people 
examined ;  we  cannot  say  what  has  been  the  effect  of 
stock-raising  on  Navaho  custom  and  thought,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  records  are  wanting  for  the 
ancient  life  of  this  tribe  before  the  Spaniards  had 
taught  them  to  rear  sheep. 

Yet  the  case  is  not  utterly  hopeless,  and  the  north- 
easternmost  part  of  Siberia  furnishes  us  with  most 
instructive  data.  In  this  region  we  encounter  a 
primitive  tribe  known  as  the  Chukchi,  which  is 
divided  into  two  groups  differing  widely  as  to  their 
mode  of  subsistence.  The  Maritime  branch  con-, 
tinues  to  support  itself  by  fishing  and  hunting  in  the 
ancestral  fashion,  presenting  on  the  whole  a  re- 
markably Eskimo-like  type  of  Arctic  culture.  With 
the  remainder  of  the  Chukchi  these  methods  of  gain- 
ing a  livelihood  are  overshadowed  by  utilization  of 
domesticated  reindeer,  a  feature  borrowed  from 
other  Siberian  aborigines  in  relatively  recent  times. 
A  comparison  of  the  Maritime  and  the  Reindeer 
Chukchi  thus  supplies  us  with  a  definite  test  of 
what  changes  may  follow  a  modification  of  eco- 
nomic conditions;  and  we  are  particularly  fortu- 
nate in  being  able  to  derive  our  data  from  Bogoras' 
monograph,  one  of  the  classics  of  modern  ethnog- 
raphy for  amplitude  of  detail  and  trustworthiness. 

Very  significant  differences  appear  in  matrimonial 
relations.  The  Maritime  Chukchi  is  not  nearly  so 
dependent  on  a  woman's  care  as  the  reindeer-breeder, 
whose  tents  and  clothes  demand  constant  attention. 
Accordingly  bachelorhood  is  more  common  among 
the  sea-hunters  than  with  the  reindeer-breeders. 
The  Maritime  Chukchi  is  barely  able  to  provide 
for  one  woman  and  her  issue,  so  that  even  bigamy  is 
extremely  rare,  while  a  wealthy  Reindeer  Chukchi 
often  has  one  wife  to  take  care  of  each  of  his  herds. 
The  need  of  assistants  to  tend  the  reindeer  has  also 
fostered  a  particular  form  of  courtship — the  scrip- 
tural method  of  gaining  a  bride  by  rendering  a 
herdsman's  services  to  her  father.  Equally  suggest- 
ive is  the  status  of  members  of  the  family.  In  both 
groups  woman  normally  is  in  a  subordinate  position, 
but  while  the  wives  of  the  Reindeer  Chukchi  have 
much  the  harder  labor  they  also  have  an  occasional 
chance  to  gain  the  ascendancy.  When  a  widow  has 
appropriated  her  husband's  herd  she  plays  the  domi- 
nant role  during  her  children's  minority  and  may 
lord  it  over  a  second  spouse.  The  influence  of 
property  in  fashioning  customary  law  is  even  more 
clearly  seen  in  the  position  of  children  and  father. 


Since  the  herd  requires  everlasting  care,  boys  and 
girls  of  ten  are  often  impressed  into  the  service, 
while  Maritime  children  of  considerably  greater  age 
continue  the  care-free  existence  of  youth.  A  rein- 
deer-owner is  master  of  valuable  property  and  as 
such  exacts  obedience  and  deference  even  in  senility. 
Not  so  among  the  sea-hunters,  where  success  is  de- 
pendent on  physical  prowess,  where  every  morsel  of 
food  is  the  result  of  labor  and  privation.  Here  the 
old  men  automatically  drop  out  of  the  race  and  are 
degraded  to  the  position  of  tolerated  dependents. 

With  the  Maritime  people  there  is  little  to  rouse 
native  cupidity,  and  theft  is  relatively  rare.  The 
introduction  of  reindeer  greatly  stimulated  theft 
and  avarice.  A  traveler  through  Maritime  terri- 
tory is  entertained  scot-free  for  several  days;  and  a 
host  will  not  stop  short  of  sacrificing  his  sledge  or 
house-supports  to  furnish  fuel.  In  striking  contrast 
to  such  generosity  stands  the  custom  of  the  Rein- 
deer people — inhospitable  to  the  point  of  churlish- 
ness and  unscrupulous  in  stealing  their  guest's  pos- 
sessions. Finally  may  be  mentioned  an  illustration 
of  the  subtle  influence  exerted  by  the  very  fact  of 
property  rights.  Property  becomes  in  a  way  an  end 
in  itself,  as  in  modern  rules  of  primogeniture.  With 
the  Maritime  people,  to  be  sure,  the  eldest  son  gets 
the  best  share  of  his  father's  implements,  but  the 
house  is  simply  broken  down  and  its  contents  divided 
among  the  survivors.  Such  division  strikes  the  Rein- 
deer Chukchi  as  almost  sacrilegious.  The  house 
must  descend  to  the  heir-apparent  undivided.  Fail- 
ing issue,  a  wealthy  reindeer-breeder  will  go  to  any 
lengths  to  perpetuate  his  hoard  by  adopting  a  remote 
relative  or  transmitting  the  whole  to  a  friend. 

It  seems  to  have  been  only  within  the  last  hundred 
years  that  the  Chukchi  developed  into  intensive  rein- 
deer-breeders. During  this  extremely  brief  span  of 
time,  then,  economic  specialization  has  produced  pro- 
found alterations  in  the  social  usages  of  the  Chukchi 
— nay,  in  their  very  outlook  on  life  and  their  ulti- 
mate ideals.  In  view  of  the  ocular  demonstration 
supplied  by  a  comparison  of  the  Maritime  and  the 
Reindeer  Chukchi,  the  total  rejection  of  economic 
factors  as  a  cultural  force  appears  untenable. 
Doubtless  they  are  even  in  this  instance  far  from 
being  the  only  ones.  A  sane  appraisal  of  their  effi- 
cacy may  be  suggested  by  an  analogy  from  the  his- 
tory of  philosophy.  The  early  Greek  philosophers' 
attempt  to  describe  the  universe  solely  in  terms  of 
water  is  no  longer  more  than  a  metaphysical  curios- 
ity; but  no  one  doubts  the  important  part  which 
water  has  played  in  the  fashioning  of  the  globe.  An 
assumed  cause  may  not  be  omnipotent,  yet  it  may 
be  very  far  indeed  from  being  reduced  to  impotence. 

ROBERT  H.  LOWIE. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


37 


London,  December  9 


IHE  CHEERFUL  turmoil  of  the  armistice  celebra- 
tions has  been  succeeded  here  by  the  more  doubtful 
turmoil  of  a  General  Election;  and  but  for  one 
circumstance  literature  would  have  been  swamped. 
This  one  circumstance  is  the  fact  that  the  Labor 
Party  is  the  rising  force  in  British  politics;  and  the 
Labor  Party,  since  the  revision  of  its  basis  by  which 
it  opened  its  arms  to  mental  as  well  as  manual  work- 
ers, seems  to  be  regarded  by  British  authors  with 
more  enthusiasm  than  any  other.  We  all  expected 
as  a  consequence  of  this  that  several  of  the  Labor 
candidates  would  be  men  of  letters ;  but  our  expecta- 
tions have  been  disappointed,  save  by  Mr.  J.  C. 
Squire,  who  is  standing  for  the  University  of  Cam- 
bridge. He  will  probably  not  succeed  at  the  first 
attempt ;  but  he  will  lay  a  foundation  for  the  future. 
In  that  future  Mr.  Maurice  Hewlett,  who  adds 
to  a  complete  understanding  of  the  agricultural 
laborer  a  capacity  for  writing  poetry  about  him,  may 
be  persuaded  to  reconsider  his  decision  not  to  stand ; 
and  encouraged  by  these  examples  others  may  enter 
the  field.  Then  we  shall  have  what  I  think  we  have 
never  had  before,  poets  and  authors  in  the  House  of 
Commons  who,  on  taking  their  seats,  will  remain 
poets  and  authors  just  as  much  as  a  stockbroker 
remains  a  stockbroker.  Hitherto  the  nearest  ap- 
proach we  have  had  has  been  in  journalists  who  have 
decided  to*  subordinate  journalism  to  the  more  im- 
posing career  of  politics.  And  then,  I  suppose,  the 
millennium  will  begin;  or  at  least  the  claims  of 
literature  will  receive  attention  commensurable  with 
that  given  to  the  claims  of  cheese. 

Certainly  if  women  have  deserved  the  vote  by 
their  indispensability  during  the  war,  authors,  for 
^he  same  reason,  have  deserved  a  greater  influence 
on  affairs.  Our  Government  surprisingly  perceived 
that  literature  might  be  used  to  strengthen  opinion ; 
and — this  being  truly  remarkable — they  asked  a 
number  of  literary  men  to  advise  them  how  it  should 
be  done.  They  also  appointed  Colonel  John  Buchan 
to  be  Director  ,of  Propaganda.  Colonel  Buchan  is 
a  publisher  and  also  the  genial  author  of  a  number 
of  "shockers"  which  are  better  written  than  most 
of  their  kind.  The  choice  might  have  bee^  better: 
it  might  also  have  been  worse.  Colonel  Buchan  did 
his  work  well,  if  not  with  much  imagination  or  much 
alertness  to  the  latest  movements.  I  am  told  that 
when  he  interviewed  a  young,  rather  advanced 
painter  who  sought  the  post  of  "Official  Artist"  at 
the  front,  he  remarked,  in  a  time-honored  formula, 


that  he  knew  nothing  about  pictures  but  he  knew 
what  he  liked  and  further  added,  ingratiatingly,  that 
the  works  of  the  man  to  whom  he  was  talking  looked 
as  though  they  might  have  been  done  by  a  child  of 
seven.  However,  the  young  painter  got  his  appoint- 
ment. This  of  course  was  too  good  to  last;  and 
presently  Colonel  Buchan  had  put  over  his  head  a 
"Minister  of  Information,"  Lord  Beaverbrooke,  a 
Canadian  financier,  whose  chief  connection  with 
literature  consisted  in  his  recent  acquisition  of  con- 
trol over  a  London  morning  paper.  Of  him  I  am 
told  that  one  day  early  this  year  he  asked  one  of  his 
departments  to  furnish  him  with  a  list  of  the  most 
successful  English  war-poets.  In  due  course  the 
list  arrived,  headed  by  the  name  of  Rupert  Brooke. 
The  Minister  of  Information  then  directed  one  of 
his  secretaries  to  write  to  Mr.  Brooke,  making  an 
appointment  for  an  interview.  Lord  Beaverbrooke 
did,  however,  introduce  into  his  Ministry  a  real 
man  of  letters  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett ; 
and,  not  long  before  the  cessation  of  hostilities,  Mr. 
Bennett  attained  a  position  there  equivalent  to  that 
of  Permanent  Under-Secretary  of  State  in  one  of 
the  War  Department  Offices.  I  do  not  know  how 
to  convey  to  anyone  not  intimately  acquainted  with 
our  social  structure  what  a  solidly  and  respectably 
glorious  position  this  is.  I  can  only  say  that  it  is 
solid  and  respectable  and  glorious  indeed.  I  look 
forward  with  excitement  to  the  description  which 
Mr.  Bennett,  now  unchained,  will  surely  give  us 
of  his  sensations  in  it.  In  addition  to  these,  other 
men  of  letters  have  made  themselves  useful  in  various 
branches  of  the  public  service.  Mr.  Walter  de  la 
Mare  has  decorated  as  well  as  strengthened  the 
Ministry  of  Food;  a  little  group  has  introduced 
some  intelligence  into  the  Intelligence  Department 
of  the  War  Office,  and  others  have  found  employ- 
ment in  the  Censorship.  Some  have  even  received 
some  of  the  mysterious  orders  and  distinctions  which 
are  now  distributed  with  a  lavish  hand.  So  we  may 
fairly  claim  to  have  played  our  part  in  the  civilian 
life  of  our  nation  at  war.  Now  that  the  normal 
Status  of  things  is  returning  and  the  ordinary  chan- 
nel into  public  life  is  again  Parliamentary  politics 
rather  than  bureaucratic  employment,  I  trust  we 
shall  forget  neither  our  rights  nor  our  duties.  Poets 
are  now,  curiously,  regarded  as  useful  and  worthy 
members  of  society;  and  the  Labor  Party  might 
brighten  the  rather  drab  ranks  of  its  legions  by 
adopting  a  few  more  as  candidates. 


THE  DIAL 


January  1 1 


We  are  thus,  you  will  perceive,  all  rather  turned 
outward  upon  the  nation's  affairs  than  inward 
upon  our  own.  This  will  account  for  the  fact  that 
the  autumn  publishing  season  has  been,  on  the  whole, 
rather  dull.  There  has  been  a  new  volume  of 
poems  by  Mr.  W.  H.  Davies,  a  book  by  Mr.  Hud- 
son, this,  that,  and  the  other — all  very  pleasant  to 
have.  The  publication  of  Swinburne's  letters  (the 
real  collection  this  time)  and  the  appearance  of  an 
enormous  work  by  Sir  James  Frazer  called  Folklore 
in  the  Old  Testament,  are  events;  but  they  are 
productive  rather  of  satisfaction  than  of  rapture. 
No  great  genius  has  suddenly  flamed  into  sight ;  nor 
is  it  probable  that  any  of  us  should  yet  have  noticed 
him  if  he  had.  (I  must  put  it  on  record  that  I  am 
aware  of  the  logical  flaw  in  this  sentence;  and  I 
leave  it  at  that.) 

One  attractive  and  interesting  personality  has 
been  removed  from  us  by  the  death,  the  compara- 
tively early  death,  of  Mr.  Robert  Ross.  Mr.  Ross 
was  a  writer  and  an  art  critic  with  his  own  claims 
to  distinction ;  but  he  was  best  known  in  the  general 
world  of  letters  as  the  devoted  friend  and  posthu- 
mous defender  of  Oscar  Wilde.  The  cult  of  Wilde 
has  been  to  me  always  a  rather  incomprehensible 
thing.  That  he  was  a  wit  I  will  readily  believe; 
that  he  was  a  great  poet  even  in  The  Ballad  of 
Reading  Gaol,  which  nevertheless  has  a  certain 
power,  I  am  prepared  stoutly  to  deny.  His  career 
and  his  pose,  the  things  for  which  he  was  first  fol- 
lowed and  then  pursued,  were  frankly  borrowed; 
and  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  think  that  he  was  a 
great  man.  Yet  there  is  something  potent  in  his 
memory  which  still  sets  people  by  the  ears;  and  no 
long  intervals  elapse  between  law  cases  (mostly  libel 
actions)  in  which  infuriated  litigants  throw  his 
name  at  one  another  across  a  pleasantly  scandalized 
court.  One  of  Wilde's  own  associates  in  particular, 
who  had  repented  that  connection,  spent  much 
energy  in  chasing  Mr.  Ross,  who  was  far  from  re- 
penting; and  this  (one  would  think,  somewhat  un- 
necessary) enthusiasm  must  have  been  one  of  the 
principal  curses  of  Mr.  Ross'  life.  Yet  he  never 
wavered  in  his  faith  or  sought  to  dissemble  it;  and 
I  verily  believe  that  he  died  holding  Wilde  to  have 
been  an  epoch-making  artist.  One  cannot  but  ad- 
mire so  much  steadfastness  based  on  so  inadequate 
a  foundation.  Perhaps  now  that  Mr.  Ross  is  gone 
we  shall  hear  Wilde's  name  mentioned  less  often 
in  a  good  or  an  evil  connection.  Yet  I  doubt  it. 
Early  this  year  he  and  his  factitious  wickedness 
turned  up  in  the  ridiculous  Pemberton-Billing  affair 
apropos  of  German  influence  in  England,  so  it  is 


difficult  to  say  that  any  train  of  thought  cannot 
reach  the  same  goal.  I  do  not  think  that  it  matters 
very  much.  But  it  is  one  of  the  minor  curiosities 
of  life  that  a  person  so  essentially  of  the  second  rate 
should  have  proved  so  disconcertingly  immortal. 
The  evil  that  men  do  rarely  lives  after  them  in  so 
obvious  a  shape  and  still  more  rarely,  I  think,  does 
so  little  harm. 

There  was  a  time  when  Wilde  was  looked  to  as 
the  regenerator  of  the  English  theater;  and  The 
Importance,  of  Being  Earnest  is,  I  suppose,  still  the 
most  perfect  stage-play  we  have  had  since  Congreve. 
But  one  comedy  does  not  make  a  renaissance;  and 
Wilde's  other  plays  all  led  into  a  cul-de-sac.  We 
were  still  looking  for  the  regenerator  (there  had 
been  several  other  candidates  in  the  meanwhile) 
when  the  war  broke  out  and  suspended  dramatic 
activity  to  make  way  for  the  sort  of  play  that  is 
expected  to  amuse  subalterns  home  on  leave.  I 
am  led  into  this  train  of  thought  by  reading  a  volume 
of  reprinted  essays  by  a  very  clever  dramatic  critic, 
Captain  James  E.  Agate.  His  book  Buzz!  Buzz! 
(Collins;  6s.)  is  as  clever  as  its  title,  which,  unless 
you  are  much  quicker  than  I  am,  you  have  not  yet 
recognized  as  Shakespearean  quotation.  But  it  in- 
duced in  me  a  feeling  of  profound  weariness.  Are 
we,  I  asked  myself,  to  begin  all  over  again  the  hope- 
less struggle  to  force  the  intellectual  drama  (thrice 
damnable  phrase)  down  the  throats  of  audiences 
who  very  sensibly  do  not  want  it?  Are  .we  to  de- 
velop again,  having  mercifully  forgotten  it,  that  old 
factitious  enthusiasm  for  the  inexpressibly  gloomy 
works  of  innumerable  Germans,  Swedes,  Czechs, 
and  other  aliens,  and  to  allow  to  grow  in  ourselves, 
or,  at  the  worst,  to  foster,  that  feeling  of  superiority 
over  the  uninstructed  which  is  generated  by  the 
visual  knowledge  of  their  unspeakable  (I  use  the 
word  literally,  of  course)  names?  Are  we,  I  cried 
as  my  despair  rose  unquenchably,  to  submit  to  end- 
less courses  of  plays  by  Bernard  Shaw,  in  which  the 
undeniable  treasures  of  wit  and  fancy  are  corrupted 
by  theories  that  have  already  begun  to  decay,  mostly 
because  there  is  nothing  else  we  can  honestly  affirm 
to  be  more  amusing  than  A  Week-End  at  Brighton, 
the  latest  adapted  French  farce,  or  Cheer  Up!,  the 
All-Legs  Revue?  But,  after  all,  there  is  hope,  for 
us  in  the  distance.  A  play  exists  by  the  late  James 
Avoy  Hecker  which,  I  am  told,  is  the  best  poetic 
drama  since  Shakespeare.  I  put  my  faith,  then,  in  a 
poetic  theater  which,  apart  from  this,  does  not  yet 
exist.  But  more  on  this  another  time.  Already  I 

overrun  my  space.  _>  c 

EDWARD  SHANKS. 


THE  DIAL 


GEORGE  DONLIN 


JOHN   DEWEY 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor 

CLARENCE   BRITTEN 

In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program : 

THORSTEIN  VEBLEN 


HAROLD  STEARNS 


HELEN  MARCH- 


ON  WHAT  TERMS  WILL   RUSSIA  BE  PERMITTED  TO 

enter  the  League  of  Nations?  What  price,  political 
and  economic,  must  she  pay  for  inclusion  in  the 
world  confederation  that  is  to  give  common  security 
and  protection  to  all  states?  Those  who  speak  for 
Soviet  Russia  and  those  who  speak  for  the  dis- 
gruntled groups  representing  the  opposing  factions 
have  already  asked  these  questions,  but  thus  far  the 
questions  have  remained  unanswered.  It  is  now 
reasonably  certain  that  no  delegates  will  be  con- 
sidered accredited  by  Russia  to  the  peace  confer- 
ence, and  that  her  fate — as  M.  Clemenceau  said  in 
his  speech  to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  on  December 
30  would  be  equally  true  of  "the  fate  of  nations  in 
all  parts  of  the  world" — -will  be  determined  by  her 
former  Allies,  France,  England,  Italy,  and  America. 
Admittedly  the  policy  which  is  to  be  pursued  to- 
wards Russia  is  of  first-rate  importance  for  the 
future  peace  of  the  world.  Thus  far,  in  spite  of 
Senator  Johnson's  spirited  and  just  queries,  this 
Government  has  not  seen  fit  to  enlighten  its  citizens. 
Lord  Milner,  speaking  for  the  British  Government, 
has  given  some  explanation,  feeble  and  inadequate 
though  it  be.  He  has  stated  that  it  would  be  a 
flagrant  violation  of  British  honor  if  those  Russians 
who  had  aided  the  intervening  troops  were  left  to 
the  tender  mercies  of  the  Bolsheviki.  M.  Pichon, 
speaking  for  the  French  Government,  has  given  his 
explanation  too.  It  is:  intervention  was  "inevitable" 
(he  does  not  state  exactly  why)  ;  intervention  has  be- 
come "defensive"  in  order  to  prevent  the  Bolsheviki 
from  invading  the  Ukraine,  the  Caucasus,  and  West- 
ern Siberia.  But  he  is  franker  than  his  British  col- 
league. Amidst  a  storm  of  protest  from  the  benches 
of  the  Left  and  cries  of  "The  war  is  beginning 
anew!"  M.  Pichon  went  on  to  explain  that  "in  the 
future"  an  offensive  intervention  might  be  necessary 
in  order  to  "destroy"  Bolshevism.  French  troops 
are  fighting  the  Russian  "Republican"  army  in 
Odessa  and  Sebastopol,  and  British  troops  have  al- 
ready landed  at  Riga,  Reval,  and  Helsingfors.  Our 
own  War  Trade  Board  has  authorized  shipments 
of  goods  to  Finland — where  the  White  Guard  has 
cooperated  with  the  Germans  in  driving  out  the 
Bolsheviki — and  to  those  parts  of  Siberia  under 
control  of  the  "Army  of  Occupation."  Briefly,  then, 
the  avowed  intentions  of  the  statesmen  of  the  Allies 
who  have  condescended  to  speak,  and  the  overt  acts 


of  all  the  Governments  of  the  Entente,  give  a  clear 
clue  to  the  policy  to  be  pursued  towards  Russia. 
Under  no  circumstances  is  Soviet  Russia  to  be  recog- 
nized or  to  be  admitted  to  the  League  of  Nations. 
Tempered  only  by  the  war-weariness  of  their  own 
peoples  and  the  degree  of  skepticism  which  may  be 
aroused  in  even  the  most  gullible  of  publics,  the 
Governments  of  the  Allies  intend  to  destroy  Soviet 
Russia  root  and  branch.  Yet  as  a  matter  of  fact 
this  failure  to  gain  political  recognition  would  not 
particularly  disturb  the  leaders  of  Soviet  Russia  if 
they  could  in  any  way  arrange  for  economic  coopera- 
tion with  the  Governments  of  their  former  Allies. 
But  the  destruction  contemplated  is  not  mere  po- 
litical isolation  from  the  benefits  of  the  League  of 
Nations:  it  is  actual  economic  destruction.  Some 
time  ago  the  Soviet  Government  bought  and  paid 
for  nets  and  fishing  instruments  in  Norway.  The 
goods  were  shipped;  on  October  26  the  boat  trans- 
porting them  was  stopped  and  the  goods  seized  by  the 
British.  Other  purchases  in  neutral  countries  have 
been  prevented  from  leaving  the  warehouses.  The 
economic  blockade  is  effective.  Was  it  irony  on  the 
part  of  M.  Pichon  when  in  the  speech  above  quoted 
he  gracefully  referred  to  the  fact  that  because  France 
had  already  given  so  much  to  the  common  cause 
"our  allies  should  contribute  to  this  intervention  on 
a  larger  scale  than  we"?  Not  entirely  irony.  For 
M.  Pichon  was  not  thinking  merely  of  Great 
Britain's  effective  blockade  against  Russia.  The 
hint  was  pretty  plain  that  a  large  share  of  the  task 
of  destroying  Soviet  Russia  should  in  justice  devolve 
upon  the  United  States,  which  has  sacrificed  far 
less  proportionately  than  any  other  nation  in  the 
victory  over  vGermany.  In  a  word,  the  United 
States  is  to  furnish  the  economic  help  and,  if  neces- 
sary, the  military  assistance  required  to  guarantee 
that  neither  a  Soviet  Russia  nor  Germany  shall  long 
continue  to  exist  and  to  embarrass  the  victorious 
Governments  of  England,  France,  and  Italy,  who 
naturally  enough  see  in  a  weak  Russia,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  in  a  "stable"  Germany,  on  the  other,  the 
opportunity  for  exploitation  of  natural  resources  and 
for  rich  indemnities  from  a  defeated  and  disciplined 
industrial  nation.  From  every  part  of  the  United 
States  should  arise  an  uncompromising  demand  for 
the  discontinuance  of  this  imperialistic  adventure 
into  which  our  Government  is  plunging  us. 


THE  DIAL 


January  n 


OUPERFICIALLY,    THE    RESULTS    OF    THE     BRITISH 

elections  are  discouraging  to  liberals:  Asquith,  Hen- 
derson, Snowden,  Macdonald  are  all  defeated;  the 
Liberal  and  Nationalist  Parties  are  practically  wiped 
out  of  existence ;  Labor  acquires  only  sixty-five  seats 
instead  of  the  expected  100;  Ireland  threatens  civil 
war  in  its  practical  sweep  for  the  Sinn  Fein;  the 
Tories  of  England,  France,  and  America  pluck  up 
heart  and  become  shamelessly  explicit  in  their  de- 
mands for  a  punitive,  vindictive  peace.  Yet  the  ad- 
verb "superficially"  is  merited.  If  a  general  election 
had  been  held  in  Germany  three  days  after  the  start 
of  the  last  March  offensive,  who  can  doubt  that  the 
results  would  have  been  overwhelmingly  conserva- 
tive? And  in  less  than  nine  months  Germany  turns 
revolutionary.  In  the  first  flush  of  a  victory  that 
must  have  seemed  as  sudden  as  it  was  complete,  it 
was  hardly  to  be  expected  that  England  would 
repudiate  the  leader  who  had,  in  the  popular  mind 
at  any  rate,  successfully  brought  her  through  the 
crisis.  The  day  of  election  found  England  in  a 
position  more  powerful  and  world  dominant  than 
she  has  ever  occupied  in  her  history  as  an  empire. 
Was  it  to  have  been  expected  that  a  vote  of  confi- 
dence would  then  be  denied?  But  there  are  fur- 
ther considerations  which  make  the  Coalition  vic- 
tory less  significant  than  appears  on  the  surface  of 
the  number  of  votes.  London  and  Scotland  polled 
less  than  half  their  electorate;  Wales,  just  half; 
English  boroughs  and  counties,  a  little  more  than 
half — striking  proof,  if  proof  were  needed,  that  to  a 
large  section  of  the  electorate  the  contest  was  re- 
garded as  unreal  and  that  suspicion  of  parliamentari- 
anism  is  strong.  Furthermore  the  system  of  "proxy" 
voting  for  the  army  inevitably  produced  a  situation 
wherein  about  one  third  of  the  votes  actually  cast 
represented  the  considered  political  opinion  of  the 
men  in  khaki.  It  is  noteworthy  that  most  of  the 
ballots  cast  out  were  from  soldiers  and  that  across 
the  slips  were  written  expressions  like  "Send  us 
home  and  we  will  vote,"  and  "We  have  no  informa- 
tion about  the  candidates."  Even  granting,  how- 
ever, that  the  Coalition  victory  represented  the 
practically  unanimous  present  day  view  of  England, 
the  evidence  is  definitive  that  a  few  weeks  will  see 
a  marked  shift  in  popular  conviction.  The  whole 
problem  of  peace  and  reconstruction  is  placed 
squarely  upon  Lloyd  George's  shoulders:  he  has 
given  election  hostages  to  fate  in  the  form  of  all 
sorts  of  extravagant-  promises.  But  if  the  word  of 
English  liberal  journals  is  to  be  believed,  the  plans 
for  demobilization  of  the  army  and  the  reabsorption 
of  men  into  industry  and  the  placing  of  them  upon 
the  land  are  as  uncoordinated  and.  inadequate  as  our 
own.  The  Lloyd  George  Government  will  be  faced 
with  a  serious  unemployment  crisis  before  the  Peace 
Conference  has  concluded  its  sittings.  Ireland  openly 
declares  its  intention  to  provoke  serious  military 
clashes  before  the  conference  finishes  its  work.  And 
if  many  of  the  peace  terms  which  Lloyd  George 


promised  in  the  heat  of  the  campaign  are  carried  out 
literally,  the  result  will  be  the  increase  of  Bolshevism 
everywhere  east  of  the  Rhine,  with  consequent  drains 
upon  British  finance  and  men  for  holding  in  check 
the  very  forces  which  the  stupidity  of  its  statesmen 
will  have  aroused.  Every  one  of  Lloyd  George's 
campaign  chickens  is  coming  home  to  roost — and 
with  a  tag  to  show  its  paternity.  Moreover  the 
national  unity  which  inevitably  prevailed  for  a  few 
weeks  following  the  close  of  the  most  successful  of 
wars  is  bound  soon  to  disappear.  The  very  intensity 
of  the  long  political  union  sacree  of  the  war  proved 
its  artificiality;  and  with  the  relaxing  of  external 
hostility  internal  and  domestic  differences  are  cer- 
tain to  be  accentuated  and  sharpened.  Lloyd  George 
has  aroused  high  hopes;  if  those  hopes  are  disap- 
pointed, the  resentment  will  be  greater  than  would 
have  been  the  case  with  a  statesman  who  had 
modestly  promised  less.  Labor  should  not  now  lose 
its  opportunity.  It  should  point  out  the  mistakes 
and  broken  promises  of  the  Coalition  regime  calmly 
and  without  exaggeration.  It  should  do  everything 
in  its  power  to  strengthen  the  personnel  of  its  lead- 
ers. For  the  indications  are  that  England  will  see 
another  General  Election  before  summer,  and  that 
the  country  will  then  look  as  hopefully  to  Labor  as 
it  is  now  looking  to  Coalition. 

IHE    CONVENTIONAL    SOLDIERS'    MONUMENT,    FOR 

all  that  is  beautiful  in  the  spirit  that  prompts  its  erec- 
tion, is  not  the  least  ugly  by-product  of  war.  But 
what  impresses  the  beholder  is  not  so  much  its  ugli- 
ness— and  its  appalling  monotony  in  ugliness — as  its 
utter  futility  as  a  memorial.  Spiked  and  rusting  can- 
non in  neglected  corners  have  something  to  say,  how- 
ever inappropriate;  but  to  whom  do  the  lumps  of 
granite  and  bronze  which,  after  the  Civil  War, 
broke  out  upon  the  Northern  states  like  a  rash  com- 
municate any  notion  of  the  passion  for  union,  the  hu- 
mane pity,  and  the  intolerable  sacrifices  which  they 
were  piled  up  to  commemorate?  And  now  that  we 
are  concluding  another  great  war,  waged  in  much 
the  same  spirit,  and  in  hundreds  of  deeply  roused 
communities,  are  gathering  funds  for  memorials, 
shall  we  again  trust  an  ugly  and  dumb  masonry  with 
the  memory  of  those  who  have  given  that  spirit  the 
last  full  measure  of  devotion?  The  War  Camp 
Community  Service  hopes  we  shall  not.  It  pro- 
poses instead  that  we  endow  Community  Houses, 
not  unlike  those  the  Service  has  built  to  further  its 
program  of  hospitality  to  men  in  uniform,  and  make 
them  permanent  "living"  memorials  to  our  soldiers. 
Such  Houses,  of  course,  would  function  differently 
in  communities  of  differing  size;  but  there  is  no 
reason  why  each  of  them  should  not  acquire  its  own 
technique  for  serving  the  everyday  social  needs  of 
its  common  owners  and  at  the  same  time  of  keeping 
alive  the  memory  of  these  days.  Cities  might  main- 
tain democratic  auditoriums  like  Faneuil  Hall  or 
Independence  Hall ;  towns  might  transfer  to  the  new 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


House  the  richly  varied  activities  which  are  begin- 
ning to  cluster  round  community  centers  in  the 
schools.  Homes  for  community  drama  and  music 
might  be  provided.  Memorials  like  these  would  of 
necessity  prove  flexible  in  character,  responsive  to  the 
changing  spirit  of  their  communities:  they  could 
not,  as  shafts  of  stone  and  metal  must,  become  mere 
stubborn  souvenirs  of  an  archaic  militarism.  Phys- 
ically, they  would  be  harder  to  make  ugly  in  the  first 
instance ;  and  certainly  an  initial  ugliness  could  be 
remedied  as  the  community's  taste  improved.  Jn 
the  deafening  barrage  of  after-the-war  proposals 
from  war-time  committees  this  suggestion  of  the 
War  Camp  Community  Service  is  one  to  which  we 
can  profitably  give  ear. 

L  ERHAPS  THE  MEMORY  THAT  WILL  LIVE  MOST  VIV- 

idly  of  Randolph  Bourne  is  of  his  quick  perception  of 
sham  and  pretense.  Pompous  gentility  and  ritual- 
ism, whether  encrusted  convention  or  mere  tradition, 
aroused  his  power  of  biting  irony;  for  graceful  and 
engaging  as  was  his  satire,  it  never  lacked  the  edge 
which  gave  it  a  peculiar  distinction.  Gifted  with  a 
fine  and  alert  intelligence,  Bourne  coupled  it  with 
an  extraordinary  ability  as  a  craftsman  in  writing. 
He  could  easily  have  won  more  substantial  recogni- 
tion by  employing  his  gifts  in  the  service  of  the 
accepted  and  the  acknowledged,  but  he  never  once 
played  false  to  his  spontaneous  sympathies  and  his 
personal  bias.  The  direction  of  those  sympathies 
and  that  bias  had  become  fairly  clear  even  before  his 
untimely  death:  he  demanded  of  life  richer  esthetic 
experiences,  the  companionship  of  fuller  intellectual 
straightforwardness,  more  emotional  range  and 
flexibility  than  his  American  environment  could 
possibly  yield  without  radical  transformation.  To 
that  radical  transformation  Bourne  gave  his  best 
efforts  and  ability.  In  all  of  his  work,  whether  in 
the  book  reviews  that  were  themselves  pieces  of 
creative  writing  or  in  his  books  or  articles  on  educa.- 
tion  or  even  politics,  he  was  always  sharply  insistent 
upon  the  contributions  which  our  immigrants  could 
make  to  our  national  life,  mockingly  contemptuous 
of  the  timidity  and  surviving  Puritan  shyness  which 
rejected  them.  He  exposed  unerringly  the  staleness 
which  comes  from  atrophy  of  the  living  spirit.  Nor 
was  he  perturbed  or  frightened  at  the  more  un- 
toward forms  which  flaring  rebellion  might  take — he 
welcomed  and  understood  them  even  when  his  atti- 
tude resulted  in  a  kind  of  perversity  of  fairness — 
although  he  refused  to  be  beguiled  by  new  formulas 
which  were  the  mere  fashionable  radical  escape  from 
the  old.  His  influence  was  a  constant  invigoration 
and  challenge.  The  shibboleths  and  fine  words  of 
the  day  were  examined  in  a  merciless  Socratic  spirit. 
It  was  hardly  in  the  way  of  systematic  intellectual 
achievement  that  either  his  ability  or  his  tempera- 
ment led  him :  he  was  rather  a  watchman  and  ques- 
tioner of  the  intellectual  achievements  of  others — 
a  challenger  whom  even  the  greatest  could  not  afford 


to  ignore.  Time  would  have  matured  his  judgment 
and  perhaps  mellowed  a  wit  as  urbane  as  any  in  our 
tradition.  But  it  would  scarcely  have  changed  the 
fundamental  quality  of  his  contribution  to  our  in- 
tellectual life.  The  loss  of  that  contribution  is 
irremediable.  All  of  us  are  the  poorer  for  his  going. 

IHE  ATTITUDE  OF  THE  DlAL  IN  REGARD  TO  RUSSIA 

would  seem  to  need  no  further  explanation,  yet  in 
answer  to  correspondence  received  since  the  number 
of  December  14  went  into  circulation,  it  may  be  well 
to  restate  it. 

First,  THE  DIAL  regards  the  case  of  Russia  as 
the  most  important  of  the  problems  affecting  any  one 
nation  to  be  considered  at  the  Peace  Conference — 
more  important  than  Germany  or  Czecho-Slovakia 
or  Poland  or  Jugo-Slavia  or  France  or  Italy  or 
Ireland.  It  involves  in  the  most  fundamental  way 
the  whole  question  of  democracy  as  affected  by  the 
relations  between  nations.  As  President  Wilson  has 
said: 

The  treatment  accorded  to  Russia  by  her  sister  nations 
in  the  months  to  come  will  be  the  acid  test  of  their  good 
will,  of  their  comprehension  of  her  needs  as  distinguished 
from  their  own  interests,  and  of  their  intelligent  and 
unselfish  sympathy. 

This  problem  is  laid  upon  America  the  more  ur- 
gently because  Russia,  in  spite  of  the  immense  sac- 
rifices and  sufferings  of  her  people,  will  evidently 
not  have  an  opportunity  to  speak  for  herself  in  that 
conference. 

Second,  in  order  that  public  opinion  in  the  United 
States  may  be  informed  in  regard  to  the  present 
state  of  affairs  in  Russia,  the  aims  of  her  present 
Government,  and  the  relation  of  that  Government  to 
the  Russian  people,  THE  DIAL  believes  that  the  full- 
est publicity  should  be  given  to  all  the  facts  obtain- 
able. THE  DIAL  has  no  fear  that  the  people  of  the 
United  States  will  fail  to  give  sympathy  where  it  is 
due  and  material  support  where  it  is  needed  if  they 
are  allowed  to  understand  the  situation.  It  would 
be  a  monstrous  result  of  the  war  for  democracy 
now  ended  if  as  a  result  of  restrictions  upon  freedom 
of  speech  the  United  States  should  drift  into  another 
war  which  the  public  mind  has  had  no  opportunity 
to  understand  or  sanction.  This  would  indeed  be 
to  reverse  President  Wilson's  motto:  it  would  be 
Victory  Without  Peace. 

THE  DIAL  holds  no  brief  for  the  present  regime 
in  Russia  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  misrepresented  in 
a  way  to  mislead  public  opinion  in  the  United 
States.  We  shall  publish  from  time  to  time  state- 
ments of  fact  which  have  been  verified',  and  im- 
portant documents  which  have  been  authenticated. 
THE  DIAL  is  prepared  to  serve  as  a  bureau  of  intelli- 
gence, to  answer  questions,  to  supply  copies  of  docu- 
ments, to  bring  inquirers  into  contact  with  authorita- 
tive sources  of  information.  It  will  act  not  in  the 
spirit  of  propaganda  but  of  truth. 


THE  DIAL 


January  1 1 


Foreign  Comment 

OPEN  DIPLOMACY  IN  RUSSIA 

The  following  is  a  translation  of  the  official 
declaration  issued  by  the  Russian  Peace  Delegation 
at  the  time  of  signing  the  Treaty  of  Brest-Litovsk, 
March  3,  1918: 

The  Workmen's  and  Peasants'  Government  of  the 
Russian  Republic,  which  has  announced  the  cessation  of 
war  and  has  demobilized  its  army,  is  compelled  by  the 
attack  of  the  German  troops  to  accept  the  ultimatum  pre- 
sented by  Germany  by  announcement  on  the  twenty-fourth 
of  February  and  has  delegated  us  to  sign  these  terms 
which  are  being  imposed  on  us  by  violence. 

The  negotiations  which  previously  took  place  in  Brest- 
Litovsk  between  Russia  on  one  side  and  Germany  and 
her  allies  on  the  other  made  it  evident  to  all  that  the 
so-called  (by  the  German  representatives)  "Peace  of 
Agreement"  is  in  reality  a  peace  definitely  annexational 
and  imperialistic.  Now  the  Brest  terms  are  made  a  great 
deal  worse.  The  peace  which  now  is  being  concluded 
here,  in  Brest-Litovsk,  is  not  a  peace  based  on  free  agree- 
ment of  the  people  of  Russia,  Germany,  Austria-Hungary, 
Bulgaria,  and  Turkey.  It  is  a  peace  which  is  being  dic- 
tated at  the  point  of  the  gun.  It  is  a  peace  which  Revolu- 
tionary Russia  is  compelled  to  accept  with  its  teeth 
clenched.  It  is  a  peace  which,  under  the  pretext  of 
"liberation"  of  the  frontier  districts  of  Russia,  in  reality 
turns  them  into  German  provinces,  and  denies  them  the 
right  of  free  definition  which  was  granted  to  them  by  the 
Workmen's  and  Peasants'  Government  of  Revolutionary 
Russia.  It  is  a  peace  which  under  the  pretext  of  re- 
establishing order  in  these  districts,  gives  armed  assist- 
ance to  the  oppressing  classes  against  the  working  class, 
and  helps  to  put  back  on  the  laboring  masses  the  yoke  of 
oppression,  which  was  thrown  off  by  the  Russian  Revolu- 
tion. It  is  a  peace  which  imposes,  for  a  long  time,  on  the 
laboring  people  of  Russia  the  old  commercial  treaty  of 
1904,  which  was  made  in  the  interests  of  the  German 
agrarians,  and  which  is  now  made  even  worse ;  and 
at  the  same  time  it  assures  the  payment  of  interest  to  the 
German  and  Austro-Hungarian  bourgeoisie  on  the  obli- 
gations of  the  Czar's  Government,  which  were  repudiated 
by  Revolutionary  Russia.  Finally,  as  if  to  emphasize 
clearly  the  real  class  character  of  the  German  armed 
raid,  the  German  ultimatum  attempts  to  stop  the  mouth 
of  the  Russian  Revolution  by  prohibiting  agitation  di- 
rected against  the  governments  of  the  Quadruple  Alliance 
and  their  military  authorities. 

But  not  only  all  that.  Under  the  same  pretext  of  re- 
establishing order,  Germany  by  force  of  arms  occupies 
districts  with  a  pure  Russian  population  and  establishes 
there  a  regime  of  military  occupation  and  a  return  to  the 
pre-Revolutionary  order.  In  the  Ukraine  and  in  Finland 
Germany  demands  the  non-interference  of  Revolutionary 
Russia,  and  at  the  same  time  actively  assists  the  counter- 
Revolutionary  forces  against  Revolutionary  workmen  and 
peasants.  In  the  Caucasus,  in  direct  violation  of  the 
terms  formulated  by  Germany  itself  in  the  ultimatum  of 
February  21,  Germany  tears  away  for  the  benefit  of 
Turkey  the  districts  of  Ardaghan,  Karse,  and  Batume, 
which  were  not  conquered  even  once  by  the  Turkish 
armies,  without  any  consideration  whatsoever  of  the  real 
will  of  the  population  of  these  districts. 

The  most  brazen  forcible  annexational  seizures  and 
possession  of  the  most  important  strategic  points,  which 
can  have  only  one  purpose ;  the  preparation  of  further 
invasion  of  Russia ;  and  the  defense  of  the  capitalistic 
interests  against  the  workmen's  and  peasants'  revolution — 
these  are  the  real  aims  that  are  served  by  the  offensive 
of  the  German  troops,  undertaken  on  the  eighteenth  of 
February,  without  the  seven  days'  notice  which  was 


assured  by  the  armistice  treaty  made  between  Russia  and 
the  powers  of  the  Quadruple  Alliance  on  the  fifteenth  of 
December  1917. 

This  invasion  was  not  stopped,  in  spite  of  the  statement 
of  the  Council  of  People's  Commissaires  of  its  acceptance 
of  terms  formulated  in  the  German  ultimatum  of  Feb- 
ruary 21.  This  invasion  was  not  stopped,  in  spite  of  the 
resumption  of  the  work  of  the  Peace  Conference  in 
Brest-Litovsk  and  in  spite  of  the  official  protest  of  the 
Russian  Delegation.  By  all  this  all  the  peace  terms 
offered  by  Germany  and  her  allies  are  reduced  entirely 
to  an  ultimatum  presented  to  Russia  and  supported  from 
the  side  of  the  framers  of  this  peace  treaty  by  threat  of 
direct  armed  violence. 

But  in  the  created  situation  Russia  has  no  possibility 
of  choice.  By  demobilizing  its  armies  the  Russian  Revolu- 
tion had  placed  its  fate  in  the  hands  of  the  German 
people. 

The  Russian  Delegation  in  Brest-Litovsk  had  openly 
stated,  in  due  time,  that  not  a  single  honest  man  would 
believe  that  a  war  against  Russia  now  might  be  a  defen- 
sive war.  Germany  has  undertaken  the  offensive.  Under 
the  slogan  of  establishing  order,  but  in  reality  for  the  pur- 
poses of  strangling  the  Russian  Workmen's  and  Peasants' 
Revolution  in  the  interests  of  the  world's  imperialism, 
German  militarism  has  now  succeeded  in  moving  its 
troops  against  the  workingmen  and  peasant  masses  of  the 
Russian  Socialist  Republic.  The  German  proletariat  has 
not  as  yet  proved  to  be  sufficiently  strong  to  stop  this 
attack.  We  do  not  doubt  for  a  single  minute  that  this 
triumph  of  imperialism  and  militarism  over  the  interna- 
tional proletarian  revolution  will  prove  to  be  only  tem- 
porary and  transitive. 

Under  the  present  conditions  the  Soviet  Government  of 
the  Russian  Republic,  which  is  left  only  to  its  own  re- 
sources, cannot  resist  the  armed  offensive  of  German 
imperialism,  and  in  the  name  of  the  preservation  of 
Revolutionary  Russia  is  compelled  to  accept  the  demands 
presented  to  it. 

We  are  authorized  by  our  Government  to  sign  the 
peace  treaty.  Compelled,  in  spite  of  our  protest,  to  carry 
on  negotiations  under  the  very  exceptional  conditions  of 
continuing  military  operations,  which  are  not  meeting 
with  resistance  from  the  Russian  side,  we  cannot  subject 
to  any  further  butchery  the  Russian  workmen  and  peas- 
ants, who  have  refused  to  continue  the  war  any 
longer. 

We  openly  state  before  the  face  of  workmen,  peasants, 
and  soldiers  of  Russia  and  Germany,  before  the  face  of 
the  laboring  and  exploited  classes  of  the  whole  world, 
that  we  are  compelled  to  accept  the  ultimatum  dictated 
by  the  side  which  is  at  the  present  time  more  powerful, 
and  are  signing  immediately  the  ultimative  peace  treaty 
presented  to  us,  desisting  from  any  deliberation  upon  it 
whatsoever. 

It  was  in  the  same  tenor  that  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment later  welcomed  to  Russia  the  first  -German 
Ambassador  under  the  new  treaty.  We  quote  from 
the  Russian  newspaper  Izvestia  of  April  27 : 

The  official  reply  of  the  Soviet  Government  of  Russia 
to  the  greetings  from  the  German  Imperial  Chancellor, 
Count  Hertling,  upon  the  presentation  of  credentials  by 
the  German  Ambassador  to  Moscow,  Count  Mirbach,  to 
the  representatives  of  the  Soviet  Government. 

This  reply  was  read  to  the  German  ambassador  by 
Soverdlor,  the  chairman  of  the  All  Russian  Central 
Executive  Committee  of  Soviets,  in  the  Kremlin  on  April 
26,  1918: 

"In  the  name  of  the  Russian  Socialist  Federated  Soviet 

Republic  I  have  the  honor  to  greet  in  you,  Mr.  Ambas- 

^sador,  the   representative  of  the   power  with  which   was 

concluded  the  peace  treaty  of  Brest,  as  a  result  of  which 

there  was  established  between  the  two  countries  the  peace 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


43 


which  was  so  essential  to  the  people.  All  the  obstacles  to 
this  peace  must  be  removed.  For  this  purpose  our  Com- 
missariat of  Foreign  Affairs  has  today  sent  a  note  to  the 
German  Government — a  copy  of  which  was  handed  to 
you,  Mr.  Ambassador — the  purpose  of  which  is  to  remove 
all  those  dangers  which  threaten  peace. 

"I  permit  myself  to  express  the  hope  that  you,  Mr.  Am- 
bassador, will,  from  your  side,  make  all  the  necessary 
efforts  for  the  satisfactory  settlement  of  the  problem  and 
the  securing  of  peace  between  the  German  Government 
and  the  Soviet  Republic." 

THE  NEW  STATESMAN  ON  THE  SOVIETS 

The  opposition  of  English  liberal  opinion  to  mili- 
tary intervention  in  Russia,  as  reported  in  this  col- 
umn two  weeks  ago,  is  further  manifested  in  the 
New  Statesman.  For  more  than  a  year  that  Liberal 
weekly  has  been  consistently  anti-Bolshevik.  Now, 
in  its  issue  of  December  21,  it  prints  an  article  as- 
serting that  the  Bolsheviki  are  the  real  restorers 
of  order  in  Russia: 

Order  is  more  thoroughly  reestablished  in  Russia  now 
than  at  any  time  since  the  fall  of  Czardom.  Food  dis- 
tribution is  better  organized  than  at  any  time  during  the 
whole  war.  Factories  are  rapidly  starting  up  again,  as 
fast  as  raw  material  can  be  obtained.  Management  of 
the  factories  by  committees  failed,  for  obvious  reasons. 
Management  by  the  Soviets,  with  consultative  committees 
of  employees,  has  been  substituted  with  growing 
success. 

The  Bolsheviki,  though  hampered  by  undesirable  tools, 
are  cleaning  the  country  of  bribery  and  corruption. 
"Terror"  has  ceased.  It  has  been  greatly  exaggerated. 
If  Nikolai  Lenine  had  not  been  in  bed,  as  the  result  of  a 
wound,  there  would  have  been  no  "terror"  in  Moscow. 
There  has  been  no  execution  in  Moscow  for  two  months. 
During  the  "terror"  there  were  400  executions,  of  which 
60  per  cent  were  corrupt  Soviet  officials.  Inefficiency  is 
being  remedied  by  rapid  recruiting  from  the  educated 
classes. 

The  Red  army  has  become  a  real  disciplined  force,  with 
a  new  spirit  of  revolutionary  and  nationalistic  enthusiasm. 
Its  numbers  are  uncertain,  but  there  are  at  least  600,000 
men  in  its  ranks.  It  has  rifles,  machine  guns  and  am- 
munition in  plenty,  but  little  artillery.  No  Russian  army 
has  a  chance  against  it.  It  has  experienced  nothing  but 
success  since  September.  Great  masses  of  professional 
men  and  petty  bourgeoisie  have  gone  over  to  the  Bolshe- 
viki during  the  past  few  months.  In  the  large  towns,  the 
workmen  almost  unanimously  support  the  Bolsheviki. 
The  peasants  were  hostile  for  a  long  time,  but  the  forma- 
tion of  "poverty  committees"  and  the  administration  of 
the  affairs  of  every  village  in  the  interests  of  the  peasants 
has  resulted  in  a  great  majority  now  keenly  supporting 
Lenine. 

The  invading  British  army,  which  six  months  ago 
would  have  found  many  friends,Tiow  finds  only  a  very 
few.  These  are  mostly  property  owners.  Where  the 
White  Guards  (anti-Bolsheviki)  temporarily  occupied 
districts,  they  have  carried  out  "terrors"  on  a  scale  the 
Red  Guards  never  dreamed  of.  Any  government  estab- 
lished by  us  will  need  the  support  of  foreign  bayonets,  as 
the  Russian  proletariat  are  thoroughly  imbued  with  Bol- 
shevism. 

The  Bolsheviki  would  be  certain  to  get  a  majority  in 
a  constituent  assembly,  but  they  prefer  a  Soviet  govern- 
ment. This  is  frankly  class  rule,  in  which  property 
owners  have  no  voice  until  they  become  proletarians, 
but,  as  a  majority  rule,  it  is  broader  than  ours  was  before 
the  last  reform  act. 


Communications 

ALLIED  RUBLES 

SIR:  It  is  reported  that  Great  Britain  and  Japan 
are  issuing  their  own  rubles  in  Russia.  Washington, 
too,  is  reported  to  be  paying  attention  to  the  same 
subject  and  to  contemplate  issuing  American  rubles 
in  Russia. 

This  fundamental  question  arises:  if  the  Allied 
governments  are  imbued  with  the  desire  to  render 
financial  aid  to  Russia,  and  ,if  to  their  mind  the  best 
remedy  is  to  inflate  Russia  with  new  paper  rubles, 
why  do  th*ey  not  issue  consolidated  notes,  guaranteed 
by  all  the  Allied  governments  together? 

In  abstaining  from  answering  the  rhetorical  ques- 
tion put  above,  let  us  emphasize  with  all  possible 
vigor  that  the  issuing  of  rubles  by  foreign  govern- 
ments— no  matter  what  motives  are  leading  them 
to  such  a  measure — can  be  considered  only  as  the 
clearest  kind  of  violation  of  Russian  sovereignty.  It 
is  absolutely  inconsistent  with  the  principle  of  self- 
determination  of  nations.  The  right  of  issuing  cur- 
rency notes  or  allowing  similar  issues  is  the  most 
sacred  right  of  every  nation  and  should  be  violated 
under  no  circumstances.  Only  the  nation  itself, 
under  emergency,  can  alienate  this  right. 

Let  us  consider  the  probable  consequences  of  this 
issuing  of  rubles  by  foreign  governments. 

Like  the  financial  systems  of  all  other  belligerent 
governments  except  the  United  States,  the  financial 
system  of  Russia  is  very  much  disturbed — the  in- 
evitable disturbance  due  to  the  terrible  economic 
burden  laid  upon  the  shoulders  of  Russia  during  the 
war.  The  paper  inflation  of  Russia  amounts  to  at 
least  forty  billion  rubles,  supported  by  a  gold  reserve 
of  about  one  billion  rubles.  It  ought  to  be  self-evi- 
dent that  the  inflation  of  Russian  currency  with 
Japanese,  English,  and  American  paper  rubles  can 
have  only  one  result — the  further  destruction  of 
Russia's  financial  system. 

Now  the  English  government  is  insuring  the  con- 
vertibility of  its  rubles  into  sterling  at  a  rate  of 
exchange  of  forty  rubles  to  one  pound,  that  is,  about 
\2l/2  cents.  (From  the  newspaper  report  it  is  not 
clear  whether  the  exchange  of  notes  is  insured  in 
gold  or  paper  sterling.)  Such  a  rat£  of  exchange  is 
much  lower  than  the  real  exchange  rate  of  Russian 
currency  on  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange  today: 
about  18  cents.  It  is  needless  to  point  out  that  with 
the  conclusion  of  the  armistice,  with  the  growing 
possibility  of  export  of  raw  materials  from  Russia 
and  the  growing  need  of  the  Allied  governments  for 
Russian  rubles  to  maintain  their  armies  now  occupy- 
ing Russian  territory,  the  exchange  rate  of  the  Rus- 
sian ruble,  other  things  being  equal,  should  show  a 
rising  tendency.  We  saw  indeed  that  the  exchange 
rate  of  Russian  currency  in  New  York  gradually 
increased  from  8  cents  to  25  in  the  middle  of  No- 
vember and  onlv  from  that  date — doubtless  in  con- 


44- 


January  n 


nection  with  the  rumors  of  the  intention  of  the 
Allied  governments  to  issue  their  own  rubles  in 
Russia — did  this  tendency  stop.  Thereafter  the  rate 
of  the  Russian  ruble  began  to  fall.  Evidently  it  will 
become  lower,  the  more  Japanese,  English,  and 
American  rubles  are  issued. 

But  the  financial  consequences  of  the  measure  are 
today  only  of  subordinate  importance.  The  eco- 
nomic consequences  are  vital. 

Russia  needs  economic  help;  she  needs  foodstuffs, 
clothing,  tools,  farm  machinery,  and  so  on.  She 
needs  economic  goods.  She  cannot  afford  to  supply 
with  her  own  goods  the  Allied  armies  now  occupying 
her  territory  and  to  export  her  materials  into  Allied 
countries  without  receiving  an  equivalent  in  real 
goods  instead  of  in  paper  money.  In  issuing  their 
own  rubles  the  Allied  governments  are  issuing  a 
loan  on  the  Russian  market,  a  loan  which  does  not 
bear  any  interest.  The  Allied  governments  are  pay- 
ing for  the  materials,  goods,  and  services  they  are 
getting  from  the  Russian  people,  not  with  real  goods 
but  with  obligations — no  matter  what  they  are  called 
nor  how  well  their  convertibility  is  insured.  In- 
stead of  rendering  economic  help  to  Russia,  the  in- 
flation of  the  Russian  market  with  Japanese,  Eng- 
lish, and  American  rubles  has  the  tendency,  on  the 
contrary,  of  getting  economic  help  from  Russia.  It 
is  thinly  disguised  exploitation. 

Of  course  a  minority  of  wealthy  Russians  are  in- 
terested in  such  "help"  because  it  will  give  them  the 
possibility  of  exporting  their  capital  from  Russia 
into  foreign  countries  and  thus  of  escaping  heavy 
taxation,  which  they  are  certain  to  experience  from 
a  democratic  Russia. 

A  second  question  arises:  How  is  it  possible  to 
bring  into  existence  any  commercial  intercourse  with 
Russia  without  Russian  currency  having  a  stabilized 
value  ?  Before  answering  this  question,  we  ought  to 
emphasize  that  for  the  time  being  the  only  desirable 
commercial  intercourse  with  Russia  is  that  which 
gives  her  the  goods  she  now  so  sadly  needs.  But  the 
fact  is,  the  policy  of  the  Allied  governments  has  the 
effect  of  exporting  goods  from  Russia  without  the 
importing  of  equivalent  real  goods.  The  materials 
which  can  be  exported  from  Russia  should  be  paid 
for  with  an  equivalent  quantity  of  real  goods  im- 
ported from  abroad.  The  services  which  the  Rus- 
sian people  are  actually  rendering  to  the  Allied  ar- 
mies now  occupying  Russia  should  also  be  paid  for 
in  equivalent  real  goods. 

The  Russian  ruble  is  the  only  legitimate  form  of 
Russian  currency.  It  should  be  the  only  one. 
Under  no  circumstances  are  foreign  governments  en- 
titled to  issue  their  own  rubles  on  Russian  soil.  Pri- 
vate corporations  which  today  intend  to  have  com- 
mercial intercourse  with  Russia  ought  to  secure  the 
rubles  necessary  for  purchasing  materials  in  Russia 
for  export  through  import  of  goods  needed  in  Rus- 
sia and  through  the  selling  of  these  goods  to  the 
Russian  population  for  Russian  rubles.  In  a  word, 


the  Allied  governments  ought  to  pay  the  Russian 
population  for  services  and  materials  rendered  to 
their  armies  with  real  goods  which  the  Russian  popu- 
lation needs.  If  the  Allied  governments  are  really 
willing  to  render  help  to  Russia,  they  ought  to  do  it 
in  a  straightforward  way  by  importing  real  goods 
into  Russia.  Of  course  such  a  form  of  help  is  more 
risky  and  more  complicated  than  the  issuing  of  rubles 
— a  measure  designed  not  to  render  genuine  eco- 
nomic help  to  Russia  but  to  get  economic  help  from 

GEORGE  J.  KWASHA. 
.  New  York  City. 

THE  DIGNITY  OF  LABOR 

SIR:  According  to  various  dispatches  received  in 
America,  it  is  a  foregone  conclusion  that  all  efforts 
to  establish  democracies  in  Europe  are  doomed  to 
failure.  But,  considering  the  plutocratic  sources 
from  which  these  reports  are  emanating,  it  at  once 
becomes  apparent  that  the  "wish  is  father  to  the 
thought."  The  principal  ground  upon  which  these 
reports  are  founded  seems  to  consist  in  the  fact  that 
the  leaders  of  the  different  provisional  governments 
are  men  who  once  upon  a  time  performed  human 
labor — actually  worked  and  produced  something. 
One  was  once  a  saddle-maker,  another  an  electrical 
worker,  another  an  agriculturist,  and  another  just  an 
editor — like  Horace  Greeley. 

What  impresses  one  as  peculiarly  strange  is  the 
fact  that  many  American  newspapers  profess  to  re- 
gard these  objections  as  valid  and  logical  reasons; 
why  any  government  under  such  leadership  is  neces- 
sarily unstable  and  transitory.  But  there  are  many 
shining  examples  in  American  history  to  prove  the 
senselessness  of  such  a  contention.  The  attempt  thus; 
to  belittle  the  new  democratic  leaders  of  Europe  in 
the  public  mind  is  paralleled  by  the  experiences  of 
other  noted  men  who  have  labored  in  the  cause  of 
democracy  and  the  rights  of  man. 

At  the  time  of  the  American  Revolution  George 
Washington  was  denounced  in  Europe  as  a  "rebel 
against  constituted  authority."  To  discredit  Wash- 
ington he  was  sneeringly  referred  to  as  a  "lowly 
agrarian."  His  armies  were  characterized  as  a 
"rabble  composed  of  the  lowest  elements,  principally 
ex-convicts  from  the  British  colonies." 

No  man  ever  bra\*d  more  bitter  vituperation  and 
slander  than  did  Abraham  Lincoln  in  the  sixties.  In 
Eastern  newspapers  he  was  caricatured  in  the  most 
vulgar  and  shameless  manner.  In  tne  same  spirit 
of  malignity  that  marks  the  attacks  being  made  upon 
his  prototypes  in  Europe  today  Lincoln  was  anathe- 
matized as  an  "untutored  rail-splitter  from  the  back- 
woods." But  one  spee'ch  at  Gettysburg  was 
sufficient  to  refute  all  the  unjust  imputations  made 
against  the  dignity  and  scholarship  of  Lincoln. 

Another  great  man  whom  history  will  record  as 
one  of  America's  most  illustrious  citizens  was  Henry 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


George,  author  of  the  unanswerable  treatise  on 
political  economy,  Progress  and  Poverty.  Col- 
lege professors,  editors,  and  other  paid  apologists  of 
institutions  founded  on  special  privilege  vainly  en- 
deavored to  explain  away  the  masterly  arguments 
contained  in  the  works  of  George.  Failing  in  this, 
it  has  been  the  practice  of  his  critics  to  resort  to 
satire  and  ridicule.  But  the  worst  that  mediocre 
minds  could  ever  charge  against  Henry  George  was 
the  fact  that  he  was  once  an  "itinerant  printer," 
thus  placing  him  in  the  same  company  with  Ben- 
jamin Franklin,  who,  tired  and  footsore,  trudged 
into  Philadelphia.  If  the  doctrines  advocated  by 
Henry  George  were  now  a  law  of  the  land,  one 
would  not  witness  the  spectacle  of  statesmen  at 
Washington  devising  plans  to  reward  soldiers  with 
swamps  and  boglands  for  their  heroic  services  in 
destroying  militarism  in  Europe,  whilst  vast  areas  of 
fertile  fields,  already  productive,  are  held  out  of  use 
by  speculators  in  land. 

Robert  Ingersoll  in  his  efforts  to  disprove  the 
historicity  of  Christ  never  once  disparaged  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  because  its  author  was  a  car- 
penter. This  one  example  should  impress  everyone 
with  a  reverence  for  the  dignity  of  labor. 


Dallas,  Texas. 


WILLIS  ANDREWS. 


FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS 

SIR:  In  your  issue  of  December  14,  page  563,  you 
comment  on  Churchill's  "commendable  bluntness" 
in  voicing  Wilson's  "fourth  point."  I  wonder 
whether  Mr.  Churchill's  motives  in  the  matter  are 
as  commendable  as  his  bluntness.  I  have  not  seen 
any  attempted  explanation.  Is  it  not  strange,  how- 
ever, that  a  Government  so  anxious  for  the  disarma- 
ment of  land  forces  shows  an  equal  anxiety  lest  the 
same  policy  be  followed  as  regards  naval  power? 
Possibly  the  matter  is  not  so  profound,  considering 
that  the  Power  in  question  is  the  leading  naval  na- 
tion, and  is  determined  that  the  same  mistake  be 
not  made  again.  It  is  highly  expedient  that  one 
armed  only  with  a  knife,  when  others  carry  rifles, 
add  a  rifle  to  his  wardrobe.  Under  such  circum- 
stances it  is  highly  discreet  to  demand  that  all  rifles, 
including  your  own,  be  declared  out  of  fashion — 
especially  when  you  have,  in  the  meantime,  cornered 
the  market  on  knives.  , 

LOUIS   H.    MlSCHKIND. 
Wheeling,  West  Virginia. 

HUMANITY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY 

SIR:  In  the  will  of  othe  late  Willard  Straight 
there  was  an  expression  which  promises  to  become 
classic.  He  asked  that  some  money  be  left  to  Cornell 
University  to  make  the  place  "more  human."  Upon 
these  terms  he  might  have  left  a  legacy  to  almost 
every  one  of  our  universities.  They  teach  the 
humanities — and  practice  the  most  mechanistic  con- 


ception of  life  and  living.  They  are  vast  combina- 
tions of  trackless  miles  covered  with  buildings  and 
scientific  paraphernalia.  They  enroll  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  students.  They  employ  formidable  staffs 
of  instruction.  They  turn  out  competent  doctors 
and  mechanics  and  lawyers.  But  they  fail  in  molding 
character.  They  do  not  expose  their  students  to  the 
finest  that  has  been  said,  thexhighest  that  has  been 
thought,  the  noblest  that  has  been  written.  They 
make  efficiency  their  goal,  and  a  vain  triviality  is 
their  reward. 

The  best  known  and  equally  the  best  beloved  of 
Cornell's  younger  alumni  came  back  from  the  grave 
to  utter  this  plea  for  a  greater  humanity.  He  left 
the  execution  of  his  wish  to  those  who  have  survived 
the  war.  The  word  has  been  spoken  and  there  are 
many  ears  that  have  caught  its  deeper  meaning. 

CORNELL  '05.  • 
New  York  City. 

RANDOLPH  BOURNE 

SIR:  Long  before  I  had  met  Randolph  Bourne  I 
seemed  to  divine  from  the  tenor  of  his  writing  that 
he  was  one  of  those  extraordinarily  fine-grained  men 
that  one  meets  but  rarely  in  a  lifetime  and  that  it  is 
always  an  exceptional  privilege  to  know.  It  re- 
quired only  a  little  sympathetic  insight  to  feel  that 
his  occasional  "bitterness"  was  in  reality  but  the 
keen  edge  of  a  remorseless  sincerity  and  that  he 
would  have  been  as  eager  to  cut  and  change  his  own 
soul  with  it  as  anyone  else's.  His  extraordinary 
combination  of  the  will  to  see  things  as  they  are  with 
a  warmth  of  idealism  (not  the  phrase-making  kind) 
still  haunts  me  as  something  particularly  inspiring. 
What  I  most  liked,  however,  about  Bourne  was  hjs 
exquisite  sensibility  to  the  esthetic  in  literature,  to 
the  nuances  of  thought  and  feeling  and  expression. 
One  knew  instinctively  that  if  anything  passed  by 
him  with  his  approval  or  sympathy,  it  was  indeed 
something  genuine.  His  own  style  was  well-nigh 
perfect.  Often  clever,  he  was  too  sensitive  ever  to 
be  merely  clever.  I  imagine  him  shrinking  from 
vulgarity  of  any  kind  as  one  shrinks  from  a  disgust- 
ing bug. 

His  loss  will  be  keenly  felt  not  only  by  THE  DIAL 
but  by  all  who  know  how  to  appreciate  a  soul  at  once 
sensitive  and  remorselessly  strong. 


Ottawa,  Ontario. 


EDWARD  SAPIR. 


SIR:  May  I  take  this  opportunity  of  expressing 
my,  profound  shock  in  learning  of  the  sudden  death 
of  my  fellow-alumnus  of  Columbia,  Mr.  Randolph 
Sillman  Bourne,  whose  work  in  THE  DIAL  has  been 
followed  by  all  of  us  here  at  Dartmouth?  THE 
DIAL  has  lost  a  very  incisive  and  sane  writer  in  him. 

WILLIAM  S.  KNICKERBOCKER. 
Dartmouth  College. 


January  11 


Notes  on  New  Books 

THE  MARNE.  By  Edith  Wharton.    Appleton  ; 

$1.25. 

Mrs.  Wharton's  Marne  is  in  no  sense  a  navigable 
stream  for  the  deeper  emotions.  One  cannot  stifle 
the  feeling  that,  were  it  not  for  the  title  and  the 
times,  it  would  stand  no  higher  than  many  another 
piece  of  opportunist  fiction.  Mrs.  Wharton's  story 
— in  its  framework  a  sort  of  double  exposure  of 
the  great  battleground — is  centered  upon  interpret- 
ing the  emotional  experience  of  a  serious-minded, 
France-loving  American  youth,  impelled  to  action 
despite  the  clogged  complacency  of  his  wealthy  en- 
vironment. But  the  artist  has  been  subordinated  to 
the  propagandist,  until  at  intervals  the  author  lapses 
into  employing  the  well-thumbed  counters  of  jour- 
nalistic commonplace: 

The  Lusitania  showed  America  what  the  Germans 
were,  Plattsburg  tried  to  show  her  the  only  way  of 
dealing  with  them. 

There  had  never  been  anything  worth  while  in  the 
world  that  had  not  had  to  be  died  for,  and  it  was  as 
clear  as  day  that  a  world  which  no  one  would  die  for 
could  never  be  a  world  worth  being  alive  in. 

The  early  pages  sketch  those  superficial  impulses 
of  war  charity — the  bazaars  and  tableaux  and 
dances,  "keeping  up  a  kind  of  continuous  picnic 
on  the  ruins  of  civilization" — and  here  the  touch  is 
more  genuine.  Later  the  story  stumbles  into  sym- 
bolism, with  the  author  standing  stanchly  at  the 
bellows  lest  the  flame  die  out.  In  the  range  of 
Wharton  fiction  here  is  one  novel  which  must  be 
classed  among  the  "seconds." 


•  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN   SELF-REVEALED.     By 
William  Cabell  Bruce.     2  vols.    Putnam;  $6. 

A  brilliant  English  writer  has  recently  bewailed 
the  low  state  into  which  the  art  of  biography  has 
fallen.  "Those  two  fat  volumes,"  he  says,  "with 
which  it  is  our  custom  to  commemorate  the  dead — 
who  does  not  •  know  them,  with  their  ill-digested 
masses  of  material,  their  slipshod  style,  their  tone 
of  tedious  panegyric,  their  lamentable  lack  of  selec- 
tion, of  detachment,  of  design?"  Mr.  Bruce's 
biography  of  Franklin  might  almost  have  been  writ- 
ten to  illustrate  this  sentence.  The  author  has  col- 
lected a  mass  of  facts  from  Franklin's  own  journals, 
letters,  writings,  .and  tumbled  it  into  loose  chapters, 
which  have  won  for  him  from  an  amiable  university 
a  prize  for  the  best  American  biography  of  the  year. 
The  book  tells  a  great  many  interesting  things  about 
that  shrewd  and  able  pagan  who  bequeathed  to 
America  a  scale  of  bourgeois  virtues  about  which  he 
himself  must  always  more  or  less  have  had  his  tongue 
in  his  cheek.  Mr.  Bruce's  own  atitude  is  a  con- 
tribution. He  spends  much  time  in  regretting  that 
so  excellent  a  man  should  have  been  so  much  sub- 


ject, even  in  advanced  age,  to  the  frailties  of  the 
flesh.  We  learn  therefore  more  about  Franklin's 
private  life  than  is  customary  in  American  pictures 
of  the  admirable  sage.  His  biographer  stands  par- 
ticularly aghast  at  Franklin's  insensitiveness  to  "the 
finer  feelings  of  mankind,"  in  his  treatment  of  both 
his  legitimate  and  illegitimate  children  with  the  same 
tenderness  and  affection.  This  "ingenious  natural- 
ism," says  our  self-revealing  biographer,  was  so 
unblushing  and  persistent  as  almost  to  have  a  certain 
"bastard  moral  value  of  its  own."  One  can  see  how 
very  entertaining  a  study  of  a  human  life  in  such 
terms  could  be. 

THE  POETS  OF  MODERN  FRANCE.     By  Lud- 
wig  Lewisohn.     Huebsch;  $1.50. 

A  more  appropriate  title  for  these  translations 
would  have  been  The  Symbolistic  Poets  of  France. 
For  while  the  Belgians  Rodenbach,  Maeterlinck, 
and  Verhaeren  are  externally  French,  Mr.  Lewisohn 
deals  almost  entirely  with  the  generation  of  the  last 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  and  fails  to  in- 
clude Claudel  or  Peguy  or  the  riotous  band  of 
"imagists"  so  dear  to  the  modern  poetic  heart. 
Within  these  limits,  however,  he  shows  both  insight 
and  talent.  There  is  an  interesting  if  somewhat 
footless  essay  on  the  symbolistic  movement,  which 
would  have  gained  force  by  connecting  the  school 
more  definitely  with  the  Romantic  expansionism  of 
the  century,  and  by  emphasizing  that,  as  a  piece  of 
technique,  connotation  through  the  deft  use  of  com- 
monplace words  plays  the  great  part  in  symbolistic 
art.  This  is  followed  by  the  sixty  translations  from 
the  chief  authors  and  a  bibliography  of  their  main 
works. 

The  translator,  alive  to  the  peculiar  difficulty  of 
reproducing  in  English  the  rhythms  and  subtleties 
of  the  French,  succeeds  best  with  Verlaine,  Ver- 
haeren, and  the  princely  Regnier.  The  greatest  of 
these,  in  fact  of  the  entire  group,  is  of  course  Ver- 
haeren ;  and  Mr.  Lewisohn's  rendering  of  The  Mill 
conveys  well  the  Flemish  poet's  landscape  and  his 
tortured  sense  of  uttering  the  inutterable.  Again 
in  such  a  selection  as  Kahn's  O  bel  Awil  epanoui 
(O  lovely  April  rich  and  bright)  he  has  caught 
the  spirit  as  well  as  the  movement  of  the  original. 
One  regrets  that  this  is  not  more  often  the  case. 
"On  the  loud  room  falls  silence  like  a  trance" 
hardly  renders  Samain's  luminous  Alexandrine  (the 
poem  portrays  a  "dance" — Dans  la  salle  en  rumeur 
un  silence  a  passe}  ;  whereas  the  poignant  climax  of 
Fernand  Gregh's  Mon  Dieu  qui  nes  peut-etre  pas 
simply  defies  translation :  certainly  "Thee  who,  per- 
haps, art  not  at  all"  comes  nowhere  near  it. 

But  let  us  not  ask  the  impossible.  The  little 
volume  will  win  readers  for  the  French  Symbolists. 
That  is  its  great  merit.  A  translation,  even  the  best, 
is  mainly  an  interpretation;  and  Mr.  Lewisohn's 
interpretations  are  decidedly  worth  while. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


47 


THE  ROMANCE  OF  OLD  PHILADELPHIA.    By 
John  T.   Faris.     Lippincott;  $4.50. 

Romance — the  romance  of  daring  the  unknown, 
the  romance  of  unique  experience,  the  even  greater 
romance  of  simple  daily  life — all  these  Mr.  Faris 
offers  us.  He  cunningly  takes  usx  on  a  trip  of  the 
imagination  to  a  land  made  tangible  by  countless 
realistic  details.  We  make  again  that  delightful  dis- 
covery that  life  is  more  strange  and  romantic  than 
fiction  as  we  read  of  English  heirs  being  shanghaied 
and  sold  to  slavery,  of  the  trials  and  adventures  of 
travel  more  impossible  than  Crusoe's,  of  Philadel- 
phia's cave-dwellers — riot  Indians  but  English  pio- 
neers. And  these  are  tales  garnered  in  Mr.  Faris' 
painstaking  research  among  old  letters  and  other 
documents,  so  that  they  are  as  authentic  as  they  are 
interesting.  No  dead  bones  dry  as  dust  here,  but 
living  figures — a  colorful  pageant  of  early  Phila- 
delphia life. 

Through  understanding  how  human  beings  gain 
experience,  or  by  virtue  of  native  literary  ability, 
the  author  has  known  how  to  make  us  really  ac- 
quainted with  the  city's  beginnings,  and  because  of 
this  moving  presentation  of  life  the  book  becomes 
literature,  which  too  few  guidebooks  are.  Yet  the 
literary  quality  subtracts  not  one  iota  from  the  au- 
thenticity and  comprehensiveness  of  the  account. 
The  author's  cast  of  mind  permits  him  to  select 
with  unerring  judgment  and  no  little  humor  those 
incidents  which  are  not  only  most  characteristic  of 
the  city's  pioneer  life  but  also  most  full  of  human 
interest.  No  doubt  some  of  his  brave  success  can 
be  attributed  to  the  natural  richness  of  the  subject 
and  the  plentitude  of  its  resources  for  the  historian: 
Philadelphia  has  a  past  as  romantically  quaint  and 
as  historically  important  as  any  large  American 
city,  and  she  has  shown  a  smiling  pride  in  her  be- 
ginnings by  a  wise  preservation  of  records.  But,  no 
matter  how  preserved,  records  are  only  records  until 
they  fall  under  the  eye  of  an  imagination  competent 
to  re-create  the  romance  of  reality.  '  / 

GABRIELLE  DE  BERGERAC.    By  Henry  James. 
Penguin  Series.     Boni  &  Liveright;  $1.25. 

Had  Henry  James  pursued  the  vein  of  this 
early  story  he  might  have  become  a  novelist  of 
insurgence.  For  misalliance  is  the  theme  to  which 
he  cleaves  and  his  setting  is  the  period  just  preceding 
the  French  Revolution,  swept  by  Rousseauism.  Co- 
quelin,  servant-preceptor  in  the  house  of  the  Baron 
de  Bergerac,  is  made  to  win  the  Baron's  sister,  and 
is  permitted  by  the  novelist  to  indulge  in  reflections 
that  do  honor  to  the  age-long  struggle  of  man  against 
institutions.  However,  the  young  lady's  baronial 
brother  is  properly  overbearing  and  her  rejected 
noble  suitor  cynical  to  the  right  degree  and  fore- 
spent.  Henry  James'  insurgence  even  here  has  an 
urbanity  and  elegance  which  is  made  manifest  in 
the  style  of  his  writing.  The  language  of  passion 
that  passes  between  Coquelin  and  his  high-born  but 


impoverished  Mile,  de  Bergerac  might  have  graced 
any  polished  novel  or  comedy  of  manners.  True, 
the  narrative  is  from  the  lips  of  the  baron's  son, 
but  this  is  a  novelist's  self-justification.  One  feels 
wit,  the  story-tellers'  iron  sense  of  his  art's  proprie- 
ties, guarding  reckless  human  passion.  It  is  a  well- 
proportioned,  graceful,  and  pungently  written  little 
story,  showing  some  study  of  the  period  which  it 
represents.  But  besides  its  insurgence  there  is  an 
earnest  in  it  of  Henry  James'  later  exploration  of 
the  English  scene,  a  jungle  whose  lions  often  turned 
out  in  his  hands  to  be  toy  rabbits. 

HIRA   SINGH.     By   Talbot   Mundy.      Bobbs- 
Merrill;  $1.50. 

In  the  spring  of  1915  some  two  hundred  Sikh 
troops  were  captured  in  Flanders  by  the  Germans 
and  sent  to  Turkey  in  the  hope  that  they  would 
join  the  Turks.  They  escaped  and  marched  to  Ka- 
bul in  Afghanistan  in  four  months,  and  thus  re- 
joined the  fighting  forces.  Elmer  Davis  put  Captain 
Talbot  Mundy,  author  of  King  of  the  Khybor 
Rifles,  in  touch  with  these  men,  and  he  has  con- 
structed a  story  of  their  wanderings  by  sea  and 
through  the  mountains  of  Kurdistan  which  he  tells 
in  the  first  person  as  Hira  Singh,  bahadur  of  the 
Sikh  cavalry.  It  is  a  method  which  allowed  Cap- 
tain Mundy  a  chance  for  as  much  vividness  as  De- 
foe's Captain  Singleton,  without  tying  him  down 
to  specific  detail  of  routes  and  dates,  and  yet  there 
is  enough  fact  underlying  the  story  to  keep  Hira 
Singh  from  resembling  the  G.  A.  Henty  type  of 
hero  Captain  Mundy  has  formerly  depicted.  The 
narrative  rivals  in  interest  the  march  of  the  Ten 
Thousand  Greeks ;  and  the  Oriental  craft  of  the  ne- 
gotiations between  the  Sikh  leader  and  the  Turks 
reminds  one  of  wily  Xenophon  bartering  with  tricky 
Tissaphernes  in  this  same  region.  Of  course  the 
Armenian  atrocities  and  the  dire  plottings  of  Ger- 
many in  the  East  are  dragged  in,  but  so  cleverly  as 
to  become  an  integral  element  of  the  story. 

Captain  Mundy  has  an  intimate  and  sympathetic 
knowledge  of  the  Sikh  as  a  faithful  soldier  of  the 
British  raj  and  a  loyal  ally  of  the  Englishman,  but 
he  shows  essentially  the  same  Sikh  Kipling  shows — 
plus  initiative  and  intelligence.  His  use  of  local 
color  in  external  details  is  felicitous,  and  his  com- 
ments on  events  and  places  from  the  Sikh  point  of 
view  are  in  character.  Unfortunately  he  slights  the 
religious  and  truly  Oriental  aspects  of  the  Sikh 
which  make  him  the  splendid  fighter  that  he  is,  and 
he  does  not  allude  to  some  of  the  most  obvious 
customs  of  this  material  people.  For  instance,  he 
tells  us  that  the  name  Singh  means  lion,  but  he 
does  not  state  that  all  male  Sikhs  bear  it  by  the 
order  of  one  of  the  Gurus,  because  it  was  a  name 
belonging  to  the  warrior  caste  and  all  Sikhs  were 
supposed  to  be  equals  and  fighters.  He  makes  no 
allusion  to  the  khalsa  of  the  Singh,  five  items  of  dress 
which  make  for  military  efficiency:  a  heavy  turban, 


THE  DIAL 


January  1 1 


long  hair  and  beard,  a  steel  bracelet — these  to  ward 
off  sword  cuts — short  drawers  for  quickness  of 
movement,  in  distinction  from  the  cumbrous  Mo- 
hammedan and  Hindu  garb,  and  a  sword,  which 
must  always  be  worn  by  the  true  Sikh.  This  last 
item  is  so  important  that  a  Sikh  professor  from 
the  college  at  Amhitzar  who  did  not  care  to  wear  a 
sword  openly  while  studying  in  America,  always 
carried  a  sword  cane  with  him. 

THE  ENGLISH  MIDDLE  CLASS.  By  R.  H. 
Gretton.  Macmillan;  $3.50. 

Mr.  Gretton's  book  is  an  attempt  to  define  the 
meaning  and  significance  of  the  "middle  class"  in 
England.  With  clearness,  judgment,  and  a  sense 
of  proportion  the  author  maintains  the  hypothesis 
that  "the  middle  class  is  that  portion  of  the  com- 
munity to  which  money  is  the  primary  condition 
and  the  primary  instrument  of  life."  In  the  opinion 
of  the  reviewer,  the  historical  evidence  presented 
fully  justifies  Mr.  Gretton's  contention. 

With  this  beginning,  it  is  most  desirable  that  the 
author  should  proceed  to  make  a  great  comparative 
study  of  the  same  development  wherever  else  it  may 
have  taken  place.  For  the  Continent  the  materials 
are  readily  available,  as  the  author  very  Veil  knows, 
but  what  should  be  urged  upon  his  attention  is  that 
a  theory  of  this  importance  must  be  tested  in  the 
light  of  all  the  evidence  available.  What  one  does, 
in  fact,  is  to  ask  Mr.  Gretton  to  put  himself  in 
the  very  forefront  of  the  emerging  generation  of 
scholars  whose  point  of  departure  is  a  devotion  to 
the  study  of  man  rather  than  an  academic  interest 
in  the  study  of  documents.  For  this  subject  is  of 
absolutely  fundamental  importance  to  our  compre- 
hension of  modern  life.  Political  society  begins 
everywhere  in  individual  self-assertion  based  upon 
ownership  of  land.  The  next  step  forward  comes 
only  with  the  discovery,  on  the  part  of  a  new  order 
in  society,  of  a  second  possible  basis  of  self-asser- 
tion— namely,  money — and  this  discovery  dates,  for 
practical  purposes,  only  from  the  sixteenth  century. 
Today  we  are  witnessing  the  blind,  driving  efforts 
of  still  another  level  of  society  to  achieve  the  same 
end.  Let  us  clearly  grasp  the  fact  that  the  most 
important  task  of  today  is  to  understand  man.  Mr. 
Gretton's  contribution  to  this  task  is  one  to  read, 
remember,  and  respect. 

ROUMANIA:  YESTERDAY  AND  TODAY.  By 
Mrs.  Will  Gordon.  Introduction  and  two 
chapters  by  the  Queen  of  Roumania.  Lane; 

$3. 

The  reader  of  this  book  may  gather,  without  much 
trouble,  a  fairly  adequate  idea  of  the  backgrounds 
of  Roumanian  culture  and  history,  as  well  as  a 
knowledge  of  the  peculiar  part  the  country  played 
in  the  war.  Mrs.  Gordon  has  a  keen  sense  of  the 
picturesque  and  an  ardent  sympathy  with  the  people 


whom  she  describes.  At  times  however  she  is  guilty 
of  the  flowery  writing  that  some  readers  dislike  to 
associate  with  historical  accounts.  The  pages  con- 
tributed by  Queen  Marie  are  also  written  in  a 
rhapsodic  style,  and  in  some  cases  are  really  ex- 
amples of  prose  poetry,  welling  up  in  the  heart  of  a 
ruler  who  has  gone  down  among  her  people  and 
ministered  to. them  without  fear  of  plague  or  hard- 
ship. Queen  Marie's  outlook  nevertheless  is  some- 
what too  centripetal ;  she  knows  what  her  nation 
has  suffered,  for  she  has  seen  the  devastation  of  land 
and  body  face  to  face;  yet  for  all  this  her  emphasis 
is  not  upon  the  land  and  the  people  but  upon  her 
own  suffering.  For  a  moment,  to  be  sure,  the  other 
side  strikes  her  forcibly: 

Why  should  I  be  chosen  to  represent  an  ideal?  Why 
should  just  I  be  the  symbol?  What  right  have  I  to  stand 
above  them,  to  buy  glory  with  the  shedding  of  their 
blood  ? 

It  is  unfortunate  that  in  a  book  whose  'sales  will 
help  to  swell  the  Roumania  Relief  Funds  there 
should  occur  passages  that  seek  to  palliate  Rou- 
mania's  attitude  toward  her  Jews.  It  matters  not 
whether  the  Jews  of  Roumania  are  racially  akin  to 
the  Semites  or  not;  they  are  entitled  to  justice,  no 
more  and  no  less.  And  at  this  late  date  in  soci- 
ological study,  to  speak  of  any  type  of  people  as 
"intruders"  betrays  not  only  a  species  of  intolerance 
but  need  for  a  greater  knowledge  of  the  reasons 
behind  the  migratory  movements  of  peoples.  Despite 
these  faults  the  volume  repays  reading;  it  presents 
a  succinct,  colorful  account,  suggestive  and  stim- 
ulating. 

THE  CAUSES  AND  COURSE  OF  ORGANIC  EVO- 
LUTION: A  Study  in  Bioenergics.  By  John 
Muirhead  Macfarlane.  Macmillan;  $4. 

From  time  to  time  our  ears  are  assailed  with 
lugubrious  plaints  to  the  effect  that  we  are  living 
in  an  age  of  overspecialization  in  which  the  sense 
for  the  meaning  of  the  whole  is  utterly  lost  in  the 
contemplation  of  detail.  However  justifiable  such 
strictures  may  be  in  particular  cases,  they  betray 
a  startling  ignorance  of  history  and  human  psychol- 
ogy if  they  intend  to  suggest  that  the  condition  is  a 
permanent  and  necessary  one.  For  history  shows  in 
very  decisive  manner  that  the  periods  of  patient  col- 
lecting of  facts  are  invariably  followed  by  others 
of  magnificent  generalization,  and  the  synthetic  in- 
stinct in  man  is  far  too  deep-rooted  to  be  bullied 
into  quiescence  by  no  matter  how  imposing  an  array 
of  raw  data. 

Professor  Macf arlane's  book  is  a  good  illustration 
of  this  tendency.  It  represents  the  thoroughly  hon- 
est attempt  of  a  veteran  botanist  to  outline  his  per- 
sonal philosophy  of  the  universe  after  presenting 
with  much  elaboration  an  account  of  biological  evo- 
lution. The  author  expresses  some  interesting  origi- 
nal views  in  contending  that  plants  did  not  develop 
in  the  ocean  but  in  fresh-water  areas.  Unfortunate- 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


49 


ly  for  most  readers,  he  does  not  mince  technicalities 
and  adds  to  the  existing  terminology  some  rather 
forbidding  inventions  of  his  own.  The  more  gen- 
eral sections  display  a  thoroughgoing  humanitarian 
spirit  and  political  liberalism  not  without  a  tincture 
of  Christian  theology.  As  a  whole  the  book,  with 
its  flavor  of  the  old-fashioned  yet  progressive  spirit 
of  noblesse  obligeante,  commands  respect  as  a  human 
document  without  ranking  as  a  remarkable  contribu- 
tion to  thought. ' 

ADVENTURES  IN  INDIGENCE.    By  Laura  Spen- 
cer Portor.    Atlantic  Monthly  Press;  $1.50. 

The  imagined  joys  of  vagrancy  are  .Sung  best  by 
those  who  who  punch  clocks ;  the  potency  of  poverty 
is  the  turgid  theme  of  the  well-to-do.  It  is  neces- 
sary to  be  somewhat  removed  from  certain  states  of 
existence  to  do  them  literary  homage,  just  as  Steven- 
son probably  wrote  about  idleness  upon  one  of  his 
busy  days.  Thus  Adventures  in  Indigence  will  be- 
guile you,  not  as  the  reflection  of  a  state  in  which 
you  long  to  see  yourself,  but  in  a  more  aloof  and 
vicarious  way.  You  will  enjoy  its  philosophy  so 
long  as  you  are  comfortable  in  the  knowledge  that 
you  need  not  practice  it. 

To  have  known  and  yet  to  have  loved  the  world!  Is  not 
this  the  real  heart  of  the  matter?  Is  not  this  the  true  test 
after  all,  and  the  indisputable  mark  of  a  king's  son? 
And  shall  you  not  find  it  oftener  among  the  poor  than 
elsewhere  ?  For  he  cannot  be  said  to  know  the  world  who 
has  never  been  at  its  mercy;  even  as  only  he  can  be  said 
to  have  triumphed  over  it,  who,  having  suffered  all 
things  at  its  hands,  yet  loves  it  with  unconquerable 
fidelity. 

This  is  the  theme  about  which  the  author  has 
grouped  her  sketches,  giving  them  a  sympathetic  and 
a  graceful  expression.  A  pleasant  book,  in  a  word, 
but  not  one  which  we  should  class  among  the  in- 
dispensables  for  charity-hospital  libraries.  A  rather 
palatable  little  book,  though  it  does  lack  a  pinch  of 
salt. 

JOHN  O'MAY.     By  Maxwell  Struthers  Burt. 
Scribner;  $1.35. 

Mr.  Burt's  stories  follow  pretty  closely  the  tradi- 
tion set  by  Mrs.  Gerould  and  Mrs.  Wharton.  It 
is  from  them  he  has  learned  that  air  of  keen  and 
lucid  detachment  from  his  characters,  that  air  of 
unwillingness  to  be  fooled  either  by  them  or  by  his 
theme.  And  he  gets,  too,  a  fine  competence  of 
phrase  and  a  strong  intellectual  thread  of  plot  that 
make  the  stories  rather  invigorating  reading.  He 
likes  the  gentleman  adventurer  who  divides  his  life 
sharply  between  the  luxurious  modernity  of  the 
Fifth  Avenue  club  and  the  blizzards  of  a  Wyoming 
ranch  or  the  heat  of  an  Arizona  desert.  He  likes 
the  theme  of  the  brilliant  Briton  who  turns  up  in  an 
Indian  tepee,  or  of  strong,  restless  young  capitalists 
who  come  home  to  die  at  the  hands  of  angry  strikers. 


But  his  men  are  less  complicated  and  therefore  more 
convincing  than  the  characters  of  those  two  women 
writers  with  whom,  one  inevitably  associates  him. 
John  O'May  is  perhaps  the  least  effective  of  the 
stories,  for  it  presents  merely  an  adventurer  who  is 
not  shown  up.  But  Mr.  Burt  makes  up  for  his  men 
in  the  mystical  strangeness  of  his  women.  He  loves 
the  wistful,  ill-mated  woman  found  in  a  ranch  or 
mining-camp  of  the  Western  wilderness.  Wings  of 
the  Morning,  with  its  weird  theme  of  the  aeroplane, 
is  a  really  beautiful  picture  of  a  woman's  uncon- 
scious life  breaking  through  the  hard  bright  sur- 
face. In  the  last  story  Mr.  Burt  handles  the 
familiar  theme  of  the  blind  soldier  with  a  very  sure 
and  powerful  touch.  Its  climax  of  undeniable 
pathos  concludes  a  most  interesting  book. 

STUDIES  IN  JAPANESE  BUDDHISM.    By  August 
Karl  Reischauer.     Macmillan;  $2. 
KOREAN    BUDDHISM  :     History — Condition — 
Art.    Three    Lectures.      By    Frederick    Starr. 
Marshall  Jones;  $2. 

All  students  of  Buddhism  and  all  who  are  inter- 
ested in  the  religions  and  philosophies  of  the  Orient 
will  welcome  these   two  books  as  significant   con- 
tributions to  the  study  of  one  of  the  world's  three 
great  living   religions.      In   addition   they  may   be 
expected    to    advance   American    understanding    of 
the  life   and   ideals  of   our  nearest   Pacific   neigh- 
bors, of  ever  growing  importance  to  us.     For  one 
is  at  once  struck  by  the  fact  that  both  Professors  , 
Reischauer  and  Starr  regard  Buddhism  as  the  one. 
really   living   native   religion    (for   the    Mahayana 
Buddhism  is  so  Mongolized  as  to  be  essentially  na- 
tive) and  the  one  really  formidable  rival  of  Chris- 
tianity.     Indeed    its   encounters   with    Christianity 
have  apparently  reacted  in  the  form  of  a  veritable 
Buddhist  renaissance,  about  which  there  is  gather- 
ing, if  not  a  nationalistic,  at  least  a  cultural  con- 
sciousness; for  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  art 
and  literary  traditions  of  Korea  and  Japan,  in  their 
first  impulse,  came  with  Buddhism  from  China,  and 
these  traditional  and  esthetic  elements  are  powerful 
fortifiers  of  conservatism  and  strong  foundations  for 
cultural  revivals.     "The  view  that  the  religions  of 
the  Orient  are  one  and  all  like  tottering  castles  of 
antiquity  which  will  soon  crumble  to  dust,"  says 
Professor    Reischauer,    "betrays    a    rather    shallow 
knowledge   of   the   real   nature   of   religion";   and, 
though  himself  a  Christian  missionary,  he  believes 
that  it  "will  take  decades  atid  perhaps  centuries"  to 
Christianize  Japan.     Similarly  Professor  Starr,  in 
his  discussion  of  the  condition  of  Korean  Buddhism, 
finds   absurd    the   statement  of    Dr.    Hulbert   that 
"Buddhism  in  Korea  is  dead";  instead  he  sketches 
the  growth  of  a  strong  Buddhist  revival,  in  which  he 
even  finds  a  covert  nationalism  resurgent:  "Korean 
Buddhism  of  today  is  actually  Korean,  not  Japanese. 
I  can  imagine  nothing  that  would  be  more  danger- 


5° 


THE  DIAL 


January  1 1 


ous  to  Japanese  control  than  a  strong  and  vital 
Korean  Buddhism  that  was  hostile  to  Japan."  In- 
deed it  may  not  be  beyond  the  bounds  of  possibility 
that  the  Japanese  government  may  yet  formally  en- 
courage Christianity  in  both  Japan  and  Korea  in 
the  interests  of  national  unity. 

Both  books  are  made  up  of  lecture  series.  Pro- 
fessor Reischauer's  lectures  were  the  seventh  series 
on  the  Deems  Lectureship  of  New  York  University, 
where  they  were  delivered  in  1913.  The  book 
itself  however  is  a  great  expansion  of  the  lectures, 
with  valuable  apparatus  of  notes  and  bibliography — 
the  latter  being  a  survey  list  of  the  principal  Japan- 
ese works.  The  plan  of  the  seven  lectures  is:  first, 
a  survey  of  Buddhist  origins  in  India  and  its  spread 
through  China ;  its  history  and  assimilation  in  Japan, 
where  Buddhism  has  become  the  true  religion  of  the 
people,  taking,  so  to  speak,  all  that  is  vital  in  Shinto 
and  Confucianism  under  its  wing;  an  analysis  of 
the  doctrines,  sects,  and  ethics  of  Japanese  Bud- 
dhism; and  finally  a  discussion  of  its  prospects, 
which  the  lecturer  naturally  does  not  regard  as 
hopeful,  in  rivalry  with  Christianity — a  program 
which  is  not  only  comprehensive  but  is  presented 
with  a  detail  for  which  the  author's  round  dozen 
of  years  as  a  teacher  of  philosophy  in  Japan  have 
given  him  competency. 

Professor  Starr's  three  lectures  have  a  different 
foundation.  They  are  in  fact  traveler's  notes,  based 
on  several  visits  to  Korea  and  laborious  journeys  to 
the  Buddhist  centers  there;  but  they  happen  to  be 
the  notes  of  a  trained  ethnologist  and  a  sharp  ob- 
server in,  as  he  says,  a  "virgin  field."  The  book 
"but  scratches  the  surface"  of  the  subject:  but  it 
gives  an  introduction  where  there  was  none  before; 
it  shows  that  the  subject  is  one  of  a  very  living 
interest;  and  the  numerous  half-tones  from  the 
author's  photographs  (unfortunately  none  too  well 
printed)  afford  a  survey  of  Korean  religious  art 
whose  rarity  will  reenforce  its  welcome. 

THE  VANGUARD  OF  AMERICAN  VOLUNTEERS. 
By  Edwin  W.  Morse.     Scribner;  $1.50. 

War  puts  a  premium  upon  the  services  of  the 
compiler.  Men  who  have  gone  into  the  fighting 
doubly  armed  with  sword  and  pen  have  not  lacked 
for  assistance  in  the  task  of  placing  their  literary 
product  in  the  hands  of  willing  publishers.  On  the 
heels  of  the  early  collections  of  war  verse  and  war 
prose  came  the  outpourings  of  the  cultists  and  con- 
trovertists,  but  these  are  rapidly  being  effaced  by 
their  own  dust.'  Mr.  Morse,  fortunately,  has  re- 
frained from  being  anything  more  pretentious  than 
a  sympathetic  compiler,  intent  upon  presenting 
within  the  scope  of  one  volume  the  essential  facts 
concerning  the  early  American  fighters.  Excerpts 
from  letters,  and  from  newspaper  and  magazine 
contributions  comprise  most  of  the  book.  Mr. 
Morse's  function  has  been  to  arrange  the  material 
in  convenient  divisions,  and  to  link  it  with  necessary 


explanatory  paragraphs.  He  makes  no  attempt  to 
weigh  Alan  Seeger  in  the  scales  of  definitive  justice 
as  an  artist,  nor  to  have  a  finger  in  the  pie  of  con- 
troversy. This  may  be  merely  a  negative  virtue, 
but  it  is  one  which  ought  not  be  passed  by  in  silence. 

HANDBOOK  OF  TRAVEL.  "Prepared  by  the  Har- 
vard Travelers  Club.  Harvard  University 
Press;  $2.50. 

% 

This  is  an  exceedingly  valuable  manual  made  up 
of  chapters,  each  the  work  of  one  or  more  experts, 
on  subjects  relating  to  camping  and  camp  equip- 
ment, methods  of  transport,  mapping  and  route 
surveying,  medicine,  and  records  and  observations  of 
travel.  A  pe'nchant  for,  as  well  as  some  experience 
in,  pioneer  work  is  presupposed.  For  instance,  there 
are  explicit  directions  for  selecting  camels  and  drom- 
edaries, riding,  packing,  and  caring  for  them ;  there 
are  also  hints  on  dealing  with  natives"  in  Africa. 
A  long  chapter  gives  rules  and  formulas  for  deter- 
mining positions  by  astronomical  observations,  and 
another  sets  forth  the  manner  in  which  data  are 
collected  in  the  field  for  mapping  the  localities  vis- 
ited. The  book  is  compact,  covers  a  wide  range  of 
subjects,  and  should  be  of  much  practical  use  to  the 
amateur  explorer. 

WAR  VERSE.  Edited  by  Frank  Foxcroft. 
Crowell;$1.25. 

This  collection  of  war  poems,  unlike  most,  is 
worth  its  editor's  trouble.  There  should,  of  course, 
be  a  concession  at  the  outset  that  the  war  will  not 
as  yet  deliver  much  unalloyed  and  finished  fairy 
gold.  There  will  be  poetry  in  time  to  come,  since 
probably  no  epoch  of  history,  not  even  the  Na- 
poleonic, will  have  so  many  or  so  impressive  asso- 
ciations as  this;  the  tense  however  is  necessarily 
future.  The  war  is  still  very  present.  Tranquillity 
is  what  we  need,  since  memory  is  the  parent  of 
poetry;  and  tranquillity  is  not  at  present  in  general - 
use.  Mr.  Foxcroft's  volume  has  its  value,  then, 
less  as  a  collection  of  poems — though  there  is  a  good 
deal  of  poetry  in  it — than  as  a  collection  of  elo- 
quence. 

Certain  of  the  editor's  inclusions  have  gained  note 
elsewhere:  Rupert  Brooke's  four  best  sonnets  are 
here,  and  Alan  Seeger's  Rendezvous  with  Death; 
there  is  also  Eden  Phillpotts'  exquisite  Death  and 
the  Flowers;  Henry  Newbolt  is  represented  by  Fare- 
well and  the  fine  King's  Highway;  Hilaire  Belloc 
by  Sedan;  Thomas  Hardy  with  Before  Marching 
and  After.  These  and  a  few  others  are  perhaps 
the  high  points  of  the  collection,  though  the  good 
poems  are  by  no  means  all  followed  by  familiar 
names;  and  if  the  collection  shows  nearly  every 
degree  and  quality  of 'execution,  it  nevertheless  also 
holds  throughout  a  considerable  elevation  and  dig- 
nity. Christ  in  Flanders  and  Dr.  John  McCrae's 
In  Flanders  Fields  could  be  chosen  as  typical  of  one 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


The 

Scandinavian  Classics 

"  The  series  is,  in  its  dignified  simplicity,  a  beautiful  testimony  to  a 
literary  solicitude  which  we  hitherto  have  not  been  accustomed  to  associate 
with  modern  American  culture.  .  .  .  This  undertaking  is  not  in  the 
least  forced,  but  just  well  done."  — August  Brunius,  the  Swedish  critic. 

Two  volumes  are  issued  annually.     The  following  eleven  are  now  ready : 


Comedies  by  Holberg 

Three  most  characteristic  plays  by  "The 
Moliere  of  the  North,"  the  first  great  mod- 
ern in  Scandinavian  literature. 

Poems  by  Tegner 

"Frithiof's  Saga"  and  other  poems  by  the 
lyrist  who  revealed  the  beauty  of  Swedish 
literature  to  Longfellow. 

Poems  and  Songs  by  Bjornstjerne 
Bjornson 

A  catechism  of  Norwegian  patriotic  ideals. 

Master  Olof 

Strindberg's  historical-religious  drama, 
whose  hero  has  been  called  "as  uncompro- 
mising at  moments  as  Ibsen's  Brand,  but 
more  living  than  he." 

The  Prose  Edda  of  Snorri  Sturluson 

Mythical  tales  of  the  North  written  by  a 
master  of  Old  Norse  Prose. 

Modern  Icelandic  Plays 

"Eyvind  of  the  Hills"  and  "The  Hraun 
Farm"  by  Johann  Sigurjonsson,  the  young 
dramatist  of  Iceland. 


Marie  Grubbe.     A  Lady  of  the 
Seventeenth  Century 

The  first  of  J.  P.  Jacobsen's  two  great  psy- 
chological novels. 

Arnljot  Gelline 

In  this  verse  romance  Bjornson  has  found 
the  most  "daring  and  tremendous  expres- 
sion for  the  spirit  of  Old  Norse  paganism." 

Anthology  of  Swedish  Lyrics 

A  wonderful  array  of  lyric  achievement  is 
revealed  in  this  volume  of  Swedish  verse, 
from  1750  to  1915,  collected  and  translated 
by  Charles  Wharton  Stork. 

Gosta  Berling's  Saga — Part  I 

Selma  Lagerlof's  first  romance,  which  won 
her  immortal  fame  among  world  writers. 
This  translation  is  based  up  the  excellent 
British  translation  by  Lillie  Tudeer,  now 
out  of  print.  It  has  been  carefully 'edited 
by  Hanna  Astrup  Larsen,  the  translator  of 
Jacobsen's  Marie  Grubbe,  and  the  eight 
chapters  omitted  from  Miss  Tudeer's  ver- 
sion have  been  added  in  masterly  translation 
by  Velma  Swanston  Howard. 

Gosta  Berling's  Saga — Part  II 

Containing  the  last  chapters  in  the  career 
of  the  profligate  poet-priest  of  Vamiland. 


The  Price  of  Each  Volume  is  $1.50 


The  American-Scandinavian  Foundation 

25  West  45th  Street,  New  York 


When  writing  to  advertisers  please  mention  THE  DIAL. 


52 


THE  DIAL 


January  n 


aspect  of  the  whole.  They  are  not  quite  the  "per- 
fect speech"  that  Arnold  predicates  as  poetry.  But 
they  are  something  that  enthusiasm  might  con- 
ceivably urge  as  about  as  good ;  they  are  eloquence 
— eloquence  which  would  undoubtedly  be  poetry  but 
for  a  certain  lack  of  the  terms  of  expression.  And, 
at  that,  one  is  not  sure  that  such  eloquence  may  not 
have  a  mark  and  moment  equal  to  that  of  poetry  of 
less,  or  even  of  the  same,  inspiration ;  the  reader  will 
find  himself  very  much  held  by  such  eloquence  and 
moved  much  in  the  same  fashion  in  which  poetry 
proper  moves  him.  But,  like  eloquence,  pieces  of 
this  sort  rather  too  much  fall  back  on  the  locutions 
of  custom  used  in  untransmuted  relations;  and  like 
eloquence  they  rely  for  their  power  mainly  on  the 
momentum  and  energy  or  poignancy  of  their  sub- 
stance. Poetry  however  is  not  poetry  by  virtue  of 
its  momentum,  and  everyone  will  concede  that  there 
is  a  great  deal  of  energetic  and  poignant  prose. 
The  language  of  poetry  may  have  and  doubtless 
always  should  have  the  effect  of  simplicity;  but  it 
surely  is  not  simple.  Accordingly,  although  Christ 
in  Flanders  and  In  Flanders  Fields  are  fine  and 
doubtless  enduring  things,  they  are  not  quite  poet- 
ically absolute,  since  they  are  somewhat  impoverished 
in  the  fit  detail,  the  selective,  rich  specificity,  the 
various  and  mysterious  wealth  of  poetry. 

Yet  if  the  majority  of  these  pieces  seem  not  en- 
tirely to  achieve  the  spontaneous  and  coherent  final- 
ity of  poetry,  it  must  certainly  be  marked  that  they 
are  incoherent  partly  through  their  great  burden  of 
significance;  it  is  an  incoherence  of  the  stable  and 
the  steady,  even  the  static,  who  are  here  deeply 
moved.  It  is  an  obviously  English  volume.  It  is 
English,  too,  at  the  time  when  the  English  are 
historically,  proverbially,  at  their  best — in  their  hour 
of  adversity.  Its  eloquence  well  reflects  the  pain 
endured,  the  matter-of-fact  sacrifice,  the  renewal  of 
faith,  the  patriotic  stir  of  pulse,  the  good  yew  stead- 
iness of  front  which  have  characterized  the  British 
for  the  last  four  years.  There  will  be  more  fin- 
ished poetry,  and  of  greater  reach  and  caliber,  from 
this  war;  yet  it  will  be  some 'time  before  the  sin- 
cerity and  national  timbre  of  the  English  are  more 
convincingly  witnessed  to  than  they  are  in  these 
poems,  whose  language,  if  not  quite  verbally  equal 
to  the  occasion,  does  yet  give  considerable  breath 
again  to  the  robust  and  resonant  sentiments  of  that 
thoroughly  English  and  very  remarkable  monarch, 
Shakespeare's  Henry  V. 

ON   OUR    HILL.    Josephine    Daskam    Bacon. 
Scribner;  $2. 

The  newest  volume  of  this  clever  writer  should 
have  been  preserved  merely  as  a  family  memento. 
It  is  probable  that  the  children  of  Josephine  Daskam 
Bacon  are  among  the  most  fortunate  in  heredity  and 
environment,  and  there  are  in  this  book,  no  doubt, 
many  suggestions '  as  to  education  and  development 
which  their  mother  is  generous  in  supplying  to  the 


unthinking;  but  it  is  rather  a  pity  that  the  memoirs 
of  childhood  should  give  the  impression  of  an  aerated 
text  on  the  elements  of  pedagogy.  Mrs.  Bacon's 
talents  could  be  better  employed  than  in  presenting 
these  excellent,  but  widely  known,  methods  in  child- 
training  in  this  almost  insufferably  righteous  way. 
The  children  in  the  book,  fortunately,  are  real 
children,  although  surrounded  by  perfection.  The 
illustrations  conform  to  the  text  in  their  general 
fashion-magazine  style. 

Books  of  the  Fortnight 

The  following  list  comprises  THE  DIAL'S  selec- 
tion of  books  recommended  among  the  publications 
received  during  the  last  two  weeks : 

The  Chronicles  of  America:  Elizabethan  Sea  Dogs, 
by  William  Wood;  Pioneers  of  the  Old 
South,  by  Mary  Johnston;  Crusaders  of  New 
France,  by  William  Bennett  Munro;  The 
Conquest  of  New  France,  by  George  M. 
Wrong;  The  Eve  of  the  Revolution,  by  Carl 
Becker;  Washington  and  His  Colleagues,  by 
Henry  Jones  Ford;  The  Forty  Niners,  by 
Stewart  Edward  White ;  Abraham  Lincoln  and 
the  Union,  by  Nathaniel  W.  Stephenson;  The 
American  Spirit  in  Literature,  by  Bliss  Perry; 
The  Passing  of  the  Frontier,  by  Emerson 
Hough.  To  be  complete  in  50  vols.  10  vols. 
ready.  Yale  University  Press.  $3.50  each; 
$175  a  set. 

The  Great  Change.  By  Charles  W.  Wood. 
12mo,  214  pages.  Boni  &  Liveright.  $1.50. 

India  in  Transition.  A  Study  in  Political  Evolution. 
By  the  Aga  Khan.  8vo,  310  pages.  G.  P. 
Putnam's  Sons.  $4.50. 

The  Meaning  of  National  Guilds.  By  Maurice  B. 
Reckitt  and  C.  E.  Bechhofer.  12mo,  452 
pages.  Macmillan  Co.  $2.50. 

War  Neuroses.  By  John  T.  MacCurdy.  8vo, 
132  pages.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  $2.50. 

Letters  of  Susan  Hale.  Edited  by  Caroline  P. 
Atkinson,  with  an  introduction  by  Edward  E. 
Hale.  12mo,  472  pages.  Marshall  Jones  Co. 
$3.50. 

Studies  in  Literature.  By  Arthur  Quiller-Couch. 
8vo,  324  pages.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  $2.50. 

The  Day's  Burden:  Studies,  Literary  and  Political, 
and  Miscellaneous  Essays.  By  Thomas  M. 
Kettle.  12mo,  218  pages.  Charles  Scribner 's 
Sons.  $? 

Java  Head.  A  Novel.  By  Joseph  Hergesheimer. 
12mo,  255  pages.  Alfred  A.  Knopf .  $1.50. 

The  Queen  of  China,  and  Other  Poems.  By  Ed- 
ward Shanks.  12mo,  240  pages.  Martin 
Seeker  (London). 

Chinese  Lyrics  from  the  Book  of  Jade.  Translated 
from  the  French  of  Judith  Gautier  by  James 
Whitall.  8vo,  53  pages.  B.  W.  Huebsch.  $1. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


53 


Abraham   Lincoln 

as  a 

Man  of  Letters 

By  Luther  Emerson  Robinson,  M.A . 

The  first  comprehensive  study  of  the  life  and  work  of  the  great  Eman- 
cipator from  the  literary  point  of  view.  The  author  traces  Lincoln's 
development  as  a  man  of  letters,  and  describes  the  growth  of  those 
personal  and  governmental  ideals  which  enabled  him  to  reach  the 
mind  and  heart  of  the  people. 

With  Appendix,  containing-  all  of  Lincoln's  notable  addresses, 
state-papers  and  letters:  Bibliography  and  Index.  12  mo;  342  $ages; 
$fjo  net. 

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Press;  75  cts.),  for  here  one  learns  successively  that 
Wesley  was  not  a  sociologist,  not  a  theologian,  not 
a  churchman.  ]But  he  was  a  fine  type  of  religious 
organizer,  a  personality  with  a  happy  faculty  of 
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ter Church  of  England,  a  better  nation,  and  a  better 
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The  Lyric  for  January  announces  that  the  Lyric 
Society  offers  $500  each  for  the  three  best  books  of 
poetry  submitted  to  it  before  April  1.  There  are  no 
restrictions  upon  the  volumes  except  that  they  must 
be  in  English.  The  donor  is  an  American  who  pre- 
fers to  remain  anonymous;  the  judges  will  be  an- 
nounced later.  The  Lyric  Society  was  formed  a 
year  ago  to  encourage  the  publication  and  distiibu- 
tion  of  poetry  in  America  and  a  better  compensation 
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gretfully have  surrendered  some  pleasanter  task  to 
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As  a  guidebook  to,  the  Five  Cities  the  volume  is 
comprehensive  and  informing:  everything  from  Lei- 
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reader  who  remembers  the  author's  other  books  may 
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THE   BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

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George  V.  Lomonossoff     61 


LUFBERY.     Verse Mabel  Kingsley  Richardson  66 

THE  GUNS  IN  SURREY  :  A  MEREDITH  REMEMBRANCE  .  Fullerton  L.  Waldo  67 

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LAMARTINE,  THE  PATRIOT  OF  THE  FEBRUARY 

REVOLUTION William  A.  Nitze  73 

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84 
86 

87 


THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR .    Will  Durant 

AN  AMERICAN  PENDENNIS     .' Robert  Morss  Lovett 

EMPTY  BALLOONS ,   James  Weber  Linn 

EDITORIALS 89 

FOREIGN  COMMENT:  Barbusse's    View   of   President   Wilson.— Questions.— Peace   or   War?       92 
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An  intense  and  thrilling  drama,  staged  in  the  Canadian  west.  Into  this  colorful  world,  to 
the  booming  town  of  Askatoon,  Joel  Mazarine  brings  his  young  wife,  Louise.  She  is  a  white 
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which  adjoins  Mazarine's  property.  Louise  has  almost  become  the  hapless  victim  of  her 
husband's  cruelty,  fading  like  a  parched  flower,  when  chance  brings  her  in  contact  with 
Orlando ;  they  "change  eyes,"  without  volition  of  their  own.  The  result  is  a  heart-gripping 
tale  of  love  and  jealousy,  hate  and  exquisite  romance. 

Recent  Publications  of  General  Interest 


The  Springtide  of  Life — Poems  of  Childhood 

By  ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE 
With  a  Preface  by  Edmund  Gosse. 
Illustrated  by  ARTHUR  RACKHAM. 
8  color  plates  and  many  illustrations  in  the  text. 

$3.00  net. 

Edmund  Gosse  has  carried  out  a  plan  once 
made  by  the  poet,  to  gather  his  poems  on  child- 
hood in  one  volume,  and  Arthur  Rackham  has 
interpreted  them  exquisitely. 

The  Historical  Nights  Entertainment 

By  RAFAEL  SABATINI,  Author  of  "The 
Snare,"  "Banner  of  the  Bull,"  etc.  $1.75  net. 
A  remarkable  work  in  which  the  author,  with 
all  of  his  rare  skill  in  re-creating  historical 
scenes,  has  described  a  group  of  famous  events, 
such  as  "The  Murder  of  the  Duke  of  Gandia," 
"The  Story  of  St.  Bartholomew,"  and  others  of 
equal  or  greater  import.  The  fact  that  each 
story  culminates  in  the  dramatic  happenings  of 
a  night  leads  to  the  captions :  The  Night  of  Be- 
trayal, The  Night  of  Charity,  The  Night  of 
Massacre,  etc.  The  author  is  supreme  in  his 
power  to  picture  vividly,  and  in  a  new  manner, 
scenes  already  more  than  fam'ous  through  great 
foreign  writers  such  as  Dumas. 

The  Romance  of  Old  Philadelphia 

By  JOHN  T.  PARIS,  Author  of 
"Old  Roads  Out  of  Philadelphia" 
100  Illustrations.    Octavo.    $4.50  net. 
The  fact  that  Philadelphia  was  the  center  for 
a  long  period  of  the  colonial  life  of  the  nation 
gives   this    volume   a   historical    appeal    to    all 
Americans.     The  illustrations  are  of  the  most 
varied  and  interesting  character. 


Esmeralda  or  Every  Little  Bit  Helps 

By  NINA  WILCOX  PUTNAM  and  NORMAN 
JACOBSON 

Illustrated  in  color  and  black  and  white,  $1.00  net. 
A  western  girl  in  the  China  Shop  of  Society, 
breaking  the  treasures  of  tradition  with  the  de- 
lighted co-operation  of  all  types  of  men — and 
helping  to  win  the  war  with  an  originality  of 
method  that  is  bewildering  but  full  of  "pep"  and 
and  individuality  effective.  A  delightful  ro- 
mance and  a  heroine  who  will  create  her  own 
welcome. 

Clear  the  Decks ! 

A  Tale  of  the  American  Navy  Today. 

By  "COMMANDER" 
20  Photographic  Illustrations.  $1.50  net. 
A  thrilling  tale  of  our  navy  boys  in  action — 
based  on  fact.  Thousands  of  our  American 
boys  are  today  living  the  life  of  the  hero  of 
this  book.  It  was  written  by  a  U.  S.  Naval 
Officer  during  off  hours  in  actual  naval  service. 
A  wholly  enthralling  story  of  American  naval 
activities  is  here  described — the  fun,  the  dan- 
gers, the  everyday  life,  the  encounters  with  the 
enemy. 

Decorative  Textiles 

By  GEORGE  LELAND  HUNTER 
580  Illustrations  in   color  and  halftones;   hand- 
somely bound.    $15  net. 

The  first  comprehensive  book  on  decorative 
textiles  for  wall,  floor,  and  furniture  coverings. 
A  perfect  reservoir  of  combinations  and 
schemes  old  and  new.  The  illustrations  are 
remarkable  for  both  quality  and  quantity,  show- 
ing texture  values  as  they  have  never  been 
shown  before.  A  magnificent  work. 


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THE  DIAL  59 


AMONG  DUTTON  BOOKS  OF  SPECIAL  INTEREST 

FICTION 

THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  CATHEDRAL.    By  VICENTE  BLASCO  IBANEZ 

By  the  Author  of  "The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apocalypse."  A  new  edition  entirely  reset  with  an  Introduction  by 
WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS.  Ready.  Net,  $1.90 

A  vivid,  dramatic  story  in  which  the  author  of  "The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apocalypse"  presents  the  undercurrents  of 
democratic  feeling  in  a  nation  long  passive  but  now  stirring  under  the  dead  weight  of  age-long  traditions  by  which  the 
church  and  monarchy  rule  Spain.  It  is  superbly  written  with  profound  knowledge  and  intense  conviction. 

THE  CRESCENT  MOON.    By  the  Author  of  "Marching  on  Tanga,"  FRANCIS  BRETT  YOUNG 

His  new  book  is  a  strange  and  picturesque  romance  set  against  the  colorful,  unhackneyed  background  of  German  East 
Africa.  It  is  a  love  story  of  unusual  charm,  tinged  with  the  mystery  of  African  jungles  and  a  hint  of  hidden  cults.  x 

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THE  CHALLENGE  TO  SIRIUS.      By  the  Author  of  "Sussex  Gorse,"  SHEILA  KAYE-SMITH 

"Straight  ahead  burned  a  great  lamp,  .  .  .  Sinus,  symbol  of  the  Divine  Indifference,"  quotes  the  author  on  the 
title-page  of  a  significant  story  written  with  a  quiet  power  and  sureness  of  touch  that  is  unusual.  Its  scenes  swing 
from  a  sleepy  Sussex  village  to  literary  London,  to  America  in  Civil  War  times,  to  a  remote  forest  pueblo  in  Yucatan 
and  back  in  full  circle  to  the  little  isle  of  Oxney,  between  Sussex  and  Kent.  Ready.  Net,  $1.90 

THE  HIGHWAYMAN.    By  H.  c.  BAILEY 

A  gallant  romance  of  conspiracy,  misunderstanding,  and  of  as  high-hearted  love  as  ever  banished  pride  of  place  or  hope 
of  preferment,  and  made  even  crowns  and  kingdoms  seem  of  minor  worth.  Ready.  Net,  $1.60 

JACQUOU  THE  REBEL.    By  EUGENE  LE  ROY 

Translated  by  Eleanor  Stimson  Brooks.  The  first  volume  of  The  Library  of  French  Fiction  which  aims  to  exhibit  the 
customs  and  manners  of  all  classes  of  French  society  through  a  selection  of  masterpieces.  This  volume  pictures  a  section 
of  life  in  Perigord  which  had  hardly  changed  for  a  century  and  reveals  the  gentle  qualities  which  have  made  French 
civilization  so  valuable  to  the  world.  Ready.  Net,  $1.90 

Others  to  follow:     None,  by  GASTON   ROUPNEL;   Two  Banks  of  the  Seine,  by  F.  VANDEREM. 

THE  FOUR  HORSEMEN  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE.    By  VICENTE  BLASCO  IBANEZ 

This  supreme  work  of  genius  still  holds  first  place  in  literature  of  the  war.  Critics  point  out  that  the  impressions  gained 
from  a  shelf-full  of  books  are  all  to  be  gained  with  greater  ci-earness,  force  and  unity  from  this  one  volume;  others  declare 
that  as  long  as  the  Great  War  lives  in  the  memory  of  the  race  this  will  be  read,  that  its  picture  of  the  sweep  and  ebb  of 
the  first  battle  of  the  Marne  surpasses  even  Victor  Hugo's  famous  "Waterloo."  Net,  $1.90 

THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL.      By  the  "Master  of  Mystery,"  ALGERNON  BLACKWtfOD 

There  is  no  living  writer  who  expresses  so  subtly  and  with  such  exquisite  beauty  the  power  of  undying  love  to  exert  its 
influence  even  from  beyond  the  grave  itself.  Ready.  Net,  $1.25 

WHILE  PARIS  LAUGHED.      The  latest  novel  by  LEONARD  MERRICK 

Being  the  Pranks  and  Passions  of  the  Poet  Tricotrin  in  the  gay  laughing  Paris  of  before  the  war.  "Had  Leonard  Merrick 
been  born  in  France,  his  brilliancy,  wit,  pathos  and  keen  insight  into  life  would  have  made  his  name  a  household  word  no 
less  than  Alphonse  Daudet's." — The  Nation.  To  be  ready  Jan.  25.  Net,  $1.75 

MISCELLANEOUS 

FRANCE  FACING  GERMANY.    By  GEORGES  CLEMENCEAU,  Premier  of  France 

An  analysis  of  the  origins  and  progress  of  the  struggle  between  France  and  Germany.  An  expression  of  the  viewpoint 
from  which  France  looks  to  the  peace  table.  So  vital  are  its  statements  of  the  condition  and  the  hope  of  France  that  it 
becomes  at  once  one  of  the  essential  books  to  any  one  following  the  peace  discussion.  Net,  $2.00 

THE  DAREDEVIL  OF  THE  ARMY.    By  Captain  A.  p.  CORCORAN 

Experiences  as  a  "Buzzer"  and  Despatch  Rider.  "Death,  capture,  accidents — any  may  overtake  him  on  his  road,  but  none 
may  deter  or  terrify  him.  ''The  daredevil  ' — that  is  the  name  he  earned  in  the  early  days  of  the  war,  when  General  French 
credited  him  with  the  salvation  of  the  British  forces."  Net,  $1.50 

KOEHLER'S  WEST  POINT  MANUAL  OF  PHYSICAL  DISCIPLINARY  TRAINING. 

By  Lieut.-Col.  H.  J.  KOEHLER,  U.  S.  A. 

The  author  directed  the  physical  training  at  West  Point,  and  of  the  men  in  many  officers'  training  camps.  The  Secretary 
of  War,  NEWTON  D.  BAKER,  says:  "The  advantage  of  this  discipline  is  not  merely  to  make  men  look  fit,  but  actually  to 
make  them  be  fit;  .  .  .  if  we  could  follow  Col.  Koehler's  graduates,  either  from  the  Military  Academy  or  from  these 
training  camps,  to  the  battlefields  of  France  we  would  find  an  impressive  story  of  physical  and  moral  adequacy." 

Ready  about  Feb.  1 

THE  FORGOTTEN  THRESHOLD.      Being  the  Diary  of  ARTHUR  MIDDLETON 

An  extraordinarily  beautiful  account  of  the  manner  in  which  a  young  man  gradually  learned  to  withdraw  his  soul  from 
the  outside  world  and  place  it  in  direct  communion  with  God.  Ready  shortly.  Net,  $1.00 

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What  the  Peace  Conference  Will  Do 

These  new  books  clarify  the  problems  of  the  Peace  Conference  and  outline 
the  structure  of  the  New  World.  They  are  necessary  to  an  intelligent  under- 
standing of  Reconstruction. 

H.    H.    Powers'    New    Book 

THE   GREAT   PEACE 

A  highly  original  and  brilliant  discussion  of  Nationality  and  the  general 
principles  on  which  the  new  order  must  be  built  to  insure  a  lasting  peace  and 
the  progress  of  civilization."  $2.25.  AMERICA  AMONG  THE  NA- 
TIONS, Mr.  Powers'  recent  book,  lays  particular  emphasis  on  our  part  in 
the  days  to  come.  "For  an  understanding  of  the  new  crisis  that  we  are  fac- 
ing in  1918,  we  know  of  no  book  more  searching  or  readable." — The  Outlook. 

$1.50. 

Walter    Weyl's    New    Book 

THE     END    OF    THE    WAR 

Shows  the  problems  President  Wilson  now  faces  at  the  Peace  Conference 
and  what  the  defeat  or  victory  of  his  policies  will  mean  to  us  and  all  liberal 
Europe.  "The  most  courageous  book  on  politics  published  in  America  since 
the  beginning  of  the  War." — The  Dial.  $2.00.  A  frank  and  stimulating 
discussion  of  America  is  found  in  Mr.  Weyl's  AMERICAN  WORLD 
POLICIES.  "It  exposes  dangers  that  lurk  in  what  to  the  casual  eye  seems 
evidence  of  national  success." — N.  Y.  Post.  $2  25. 

Ernest   Poole's   New   Books   on  Russia 

THE    VILLAGE 

"Filled,  crammed  with  revelations  of  Russian  character,  sentiments,  opinions, 
purposes.  .  .  .  One  of  the  most  enlightening  books  on  the  Russian 
problem  that  have  been  written  since  the  Revolution." — N.  Y.  Tribune. 
$1.50.  In  Mr.  Poole's  THE  DARK  PEOPLE* the  importance  of  Russia's 
great  peasant  population  is  revealed.  "A  sincere  and  strikingly  successful 
attempt  to  get  at  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  Russian  people." — N.  Y.  Post. 

$1.50. 

"The  Future  Belongs   to  the  People9 

KARL    LIEBVBKNECHT 

Translated  by  Dr.  S.  Zimand,  with  a  Foreword  by  Dr.  Walter  Weyl.  A  book 
that  reveals  Liebknecht's  position  on  many  of  the  great  problems  now  before 
the  German  people.  These  essays  and  speeches  made  in  war  time  give  a  new 
basis  on  which  to  judge  Liebknecht's  power  and  place  in  the  new  Germany. 

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A    FORTNIGHTLY 


A   Voice  Out  of  Russia 


./AMERICANS  have  always  pictured  Russia  as  some 
fairyland  such  as  India  or  Tibet.  Formerly  it  was 
the  land  of  the  Czars,  the  whip,  and  the  Cossack, 
and  now  it  is  the  land  of  the  still  less  comprehensible 
Bolsheviki.  Yet  there  is  a  great  likeness  in  char- 
acter between  Americans  and  Russians :  for  instance, 
devotion  to  land,  love  of  liberty,  natural  humor, 
and  a  carefree  attitude.  But  there  is  a  great  dif- 
ference, owing  to  historic  reasons,  between  the  mode 
of  life  of  the  United  States  and  that  of  Russia.  First 
of  all,  the  white  pioneers  went  into  the  forests  and 
prairies  of  this  country  one  by  one  or  in  small  groups 
and  settled  immediately  as  individual  farmers. 
The  Russian  people  migrated  a  thousand  years  ago 
from  the  Carpathians  to  the  east  en  masse.  They 
occupied  lands  for  "artels"  (groups).  During  that 
thousand  years  they  grew  accustomed  to  cultivating 
the  land  by  communistic  methods.  But  the  Ameri- 
can farmer  is  first  of  all  an  owner,  whereas  the 
Russian  peasant  is  a  communist — and  here  lies  the 
reason  of  the  success  of  Socialistic  teaching  in  Rus- 
sia. Second,  in  America  material  and  spiritual 
advantages  are  distributed  among  the  population 
more  evenly  than  in  Russia.  Until  the  very  out- 
break of  the  Revolution  the  law  distinctly  divided 
the  Russian  "subjects"  into  two  uneven  parts:  3  per 
cent  of  the  population  were  the  so-called  "priv- 
ileged" classes  and  97  per  cent  the  so-called  "tax- 
paying"  people.  All  comforts  and  necessities  of 
life,  including  education,  were  the  privilege  of  the 
3  per  cent;  admittance  to  high  schools  and  universi- 
ties, to  state  service  and  officers'  rank  was  totally 
closed  to  the  97  per  cent.  It  should  not  be  for- 
gotten that  85  per  cent  of  the  population  were  freed 
from  the  state  of  slavery  only  fifty-eight  years  ago, 
and  naturally  they  still  bear  much  malice  to  their 
former  masters.  But  even  among  the  3  per  cent 
of  the  privileged  there  was  not  full  content;  the 
capitalistic  class  and  the  Intelligentsia  were  de- 
r  prived  of  political  power,  which  was  monopolized 
by  court  adventurers.  Discontent  was  universal. 
It  was  already  evident  in  1905,  but  not  being  suffici- 
ently organized,  it  was  crushed. 

The   war   precipitated    the   climax.      It   is   well 


known  that  the  war  found  Russia  inadequately 
prepared.  Nevertheless  we  performed  the  self- 
imposed  duties  more  than  honestly;  we  performed 
them  with  self-sacrifice.  And  this  did  not  fail  to 
react;  owing  to  the  undeveloped  state  of  our  eco- 
nomic life  we  were  ruined  by  hunger  and  poverty 
by  the  third  year  of  the  war. 

This  did  not  happen  at  once.  We  passed  three 
stages  in  falling  down  the  slope.  The  first  stage 
passed  with  the  cry:  "The  war  will  end  soon!" 
Owing  to  this  belief  the  factories  and  shops  con- 
tinued to  work  according  to  the  usual  peace  pro- 
gram and  met  the  demands  of  the  consumers  at  the 
expense  of  the  army's  needs.  Russia  had  everything 
in  abundance;  moreover  the  cessation  of  exports 
created  a  surplus  of  goods.  The  heart  of  the  country 
did  not  feel  the  hardships  of  the  war.  It  is  true  that 
12,000,000  youths  and  men  were  torn  away  from 
their  families,  but  the  tears  for  them  dissolved  in 
the  ocean  of  apathy  and  plenty  brought  about  by  the 
flow  of  money  into  the  villages.  The  last  is  of  such 
great  importance  that  we  must  go  into  details  of  it. 
We  know  what  enormous  expenditures  a  modern 
war  requires.  Russia  did  not  have  enough  gold, 
and  attempts  to  raise  internal  loans  were  unsuccess- 
ful, owing  to  the  ignorance  of  the  masses.  Therefore 
only  one  way  was  open  to  us,  to  print  paper  money. 
The  sudden  increase  of  its  amount  in  circulation 
did  not  fail  to  show  results;  the  ruble  began  to  fall 
in  value  and  prices  of  commodities  began  to  increase 
accordingly.  Inasmuch  as  the  peasant  was  getting 
double  prices,  the  peasant  sold  everything:  grain, 
cattle,  linen,  grandmother's  dresses.  "The  village  is 
growing  rich,"  shouted  the  newspapers. 

But  soon,  very  soon,  the  Russian  peasant  learned 
a  bitter  lesson  as  to  the  value  of  money.  As  thunder 
from  a  clear  sky  came  the  news  of  our  retreat  from 
the  Carpathians  in  the  spring  of  1915.  It  was 
found  that  in  order  to  proceed  with  the  war  we 
lacked  the  most  necessary  commodities ;  it  was  found 
that  our  children  and  fathers  were  facing  the  most 
cruel  and  powerful  enemy  totally  unarmed.  This 
brought  about  a  feverish  mobilization  of  our  in- 
dustry. 


62 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


The  second  stage  ensued  and  ran  under  the  motto : 
"Everything  for  the  war."  We  sacrificed  our  en- 
tire industry  to  the  prosecution  of  the  war.  We  did 
not  merely  cease  to  manufacture  nails,  candles,  and 
agricultural  machinery,  but  we  even  gave  up  75  per 
cent  of  our  textile  industry  for  war  needs.  And 
thus  the  so-called  goods  famine  ensued.  But  the 
country  did  not  have  articles  of  necessity,  and  al- 
though goods  were  yet  to  be  obtained  in  the  cities 
nothing  reached  the  village.  Having  money  on  hand, 
the  peasant  found  that  he  could  not  purchase  any- 
thing with  it.  He  could  not  understand  it  at  first, 
but  when  he  realized  it,  he  became  very  angry  and 
refused  to  sell  grain  for  the  army  and  cities.  "I 
don't  want  your  money,"  he  said  to  the  agents  of 
the  Government  and  to  merchants  who  would  come 
for  the  grain.  "Give  me  gingham,  nails,  scythes, 
boots — and  unless  you  give  me  these,  you  will  not 
get  my  grain."  During  the  Czar's  regime  even 
flogging  was  resorted  to,  but  the  peasant  was  quite 
determined  in  his  refusal  to  sell  grain. 

As  a  result  of  this  the  army  and  the  cities  re- 
mained without  bread,  and  the  cattle  were  partly 
consumed  and  partly  starved  by  lack  of  hay.  A 
shortage  of  foodstuffs  began,  and  in  addition  to  this 
many  refugees  from  Poland  and  Lithuania  fled  in 
the  fall  of  1915  to  the  interior  cities.  Nevertheless 
we  managed  to  push  through  the  trying  winter  of 
1915-16.  And  in  the  fall  of  1916  the  situation 
became  still  worse.  Due  to  additional  recruiting  of 
soldiers  a  shortage  of  labor  occurred.  The  culti- 
vated area  suffered  a  decrease  of  30  per  cent.  And 
then  in  November  there  was  an  acute  shortage  of 
locomotives  on  the  railroads.  We  never  had  had 
many  of  them.  And  during  the  war,  owing  to  the  in- 
tensive usage,  they  were  worn  out  and  there  was  no 
means  of  repairing  them.  As  a  result  of  this,  the 
railroads  were  totally  disorganized.  On  the  Don 
and  in  Siberia,  for  instance,  grain  and  hay  were 
rotting  at  the  stations,  while  on  the  Roumanian 
front  I  personally  witnessed  how  thousands  of  horses 
were  falling  of  exhaustion  and  hunger.  And  the 
inhabitants  had  to  sustain  themselves  upon  the  meat 
of  these  fallen  horses.  Conditions  in  the  cities  were 
not  much  better.  Hunger  and  cold  penetrated 
everywhere.  The  most  timid  citizens  began  to 
complain  and  protest.  And  what  meanwhile  was 
going  on  within  the  Government?  Dissipation  with 
Rasputin  and  the  placing  of  favorites  in  ministerial 
posts.  All  slightly  capable  ministers,  in  spite  of  pub- 
lic opinion,  were  driven  out  and  in  their  places  were 
put  known  thieves,  cretins,  and  traitors.  A  sort  of 
madness,  hopeless  madness,  enveloped  Tsarskoye 
Selo  and  in  the  name  of  the  weak-willed,  drunken 


Nicholas  the  Russian  people  were  governed  by  his 
German  wife  and  a  clique  of  scoundrels.  Loyal 
hands,  desiring  to  uphold  the  prestige  of  the  throne, 
assassinated  Rasputin ;  but  in  answer  to  this  followed 
orgies  over  his  corpse,  the  "provocation"  of  street 
disturbances  in  Petrograd,  and  the  dispersing  of  the 
Duma.  Then  the  moment  came  when  all  of  us — 
from  Lenin  to  Purishkevitch  (the  leader  of  the 
famous  "Black  Hundred") — understood  that  this 
sort  of  thing  could  not  continue  any  longer,  that  the 
Czar's  regime  had  outlived  itself.  And  it  fell — fell 
painlessly  and  with  ease,  as  a  decayed  apple  falls 
from  a  tree. 

In  place  of  Nicholas  II  came  the  Government  of 
Prince  Lvoff,  the  Government  of  Cadets — a  revolu- 
tionary Government  without  revolutionists.  I  shall 
never  forget  the  comment  about  this  Government  by 
a  former  minister  of  the  Czar,  Krivoshein.  "This 
Government,"  said  Krivoshein  after  he  was  told  of 
its  composition,  "has  one  great  fault;  it  is  too  mod- 
erate. Two  months  ago  it  would  have  satisfied  the 
country ;  now  it  is  too  late.  It  will  not  have  power, 
and  thus,  Sirs,  you  will  sacrifice  your  own  newborn 
child — the  Revolution — and  also  our  all-beloved 
Fatherland,  Russia."  These  words  proved  to  be 
prophetic.  The  composition  of  the  First  Provisional 
Government  was  not  in  accordance  with  the  senti- 
ment of  the  country.  And  as  a  result,  side  by  side 
with  this  Government,  sprang  up  the  Soviets,  backed 
by  the  confidence  of  the  great  masses  of  the  people. 
Among  the  ministers  of  the  First  Provisional  Gov- 
ernment there  were  to  be  found  no  men  with  tech- 
nical experience  of  state  administration.  Lvoff  and 
Miliukoff  gave  ministerial  places  to  their  party 
friends.  The  Director  of  the  Imperial  Ballet  was 
given  the  portfolio  of  the  Ministry  of  Finance;  a 
physician,  the  Ministry  of  Agriculture. 

The  organization  of  the  Second  Provisional  Gov- 
ernment, which  included  representatives  of  the  radi- 
cal bourgeoisie  and  Moderate  Socialists,  slightly 
changed  the  picture.  They  could  not  very  well 
agree.  Creative  energy  was  expended  in  internal 
strife.  The  compromised  decisions  were  not  clear. 
The  Second  Provisional  Government  also  lacked 
state  experience  and  will-power.  Doubtless  the 
burden  placed  upon  these  governments  by  events 
proved  to  be  too  heavy.  The  time  demanded 
giants,  but  instead  found  midgets.  But  what  was 
the  problem  of  both  Provisional  Governments  with 
which  they  could  not  cope?  The  Provisional  Gov- 
ernments themselves  were  saying  that  their  aim  was 
to  call  a  Constituent  Assembly.  They  did  not 
realize  that  the  Constituent  Assembly  was  not  the 
final  end,  but  only  a  means,  a  means  of  expressing 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


the  will  of  the  people  and  of  solving  problems  placed 
before  them.  The  substantial  mistake  of  both  Pro- 
visional Governments  was  that  they  mistook  the 
means  for  the  end. 

When  the  March  Revolution  broke  out  three 
colossal  questions  confronted  the  Russian  people: 

1.  What  is  to  be  done  about  the  war? 

2.  How  is  the  Russian  state  to  be  organized? 

3.  How  are  famine  and  economic  disintegration 
to  be  stopped? 

Now  the  Constituent  Assembly  was  to  be  con- 
voked in  ten  months.  Even  in  normal  peaceful 
times  it  is  impossible  to  stop  the  current  of  life  for 
ten  months.  And  a  revolution  is  a  social  condition 
in  which  the  pulsation  of  events  is  increased  ten  to 
twentyfold.  It  ought  to  have  been  self-evident  that 
the  wheel  of  national  life  could  not  be  stopped  for 
ten  months  either  by  Lvoff  or  Kerensky.  No  matter 
how  they  urged  the  convocation  of  the  Constituent 
Assembly,  they  were  themselves  compelled  by  force 
of  events  to  solve,  little  by  little,  the  very  questions 
which  they  desired  to  give  over  to  the  decision  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly. 

Consider  the  problem  of  the  war.  Was  it  possible 
to  say  to  the  Germans:  "Wait,  gentlemen.  Do  not 
shoot  until  the  Constituent  Assembly  meets.  When 
it  meets,  it  will  decide  whether  or  not  we  shall  go 
on  killing  you"?  Even  the  Allies  would  not  agree 
to  such  a  decision.  Yet  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  we 
had  sacrificed  for  the  Allies  about  seven  millions  of 
our  sons,  they  demanded  that  revolutionary  Russia 
should  participate  more  actively  in  the  war. 

An  answer  to  these  demands  should  have  been 
given  immediately.  To  postpone  the  answer  until 
the  convocation  of  the  Constituent  Assembly  was 
impossible.  The  Provisional  Government  realized 
perfectly  well  that  a  hungry,  barefooted  Russia, 
with  its  disorganized  railroads,  could  not  possibly 
wage  war  even  as  it  had  during  the  Czar's  regime. 
And  the  treaties  signed  by  the  Czar  and  the  Allies 
could  have  no  moral  significance  for  free  Russia. 
Therefore  the  circumstances  and  the  dignity  of  Rus- 
sia required  that  the  Provisional  Government  give 
to  its  Allies  a  friendly  but  firm  repulse.  It  should 
have  demanded  immediate  aid  and  should  even  have 
threatened  separate  peace.  At  that  time  we  still  had 
an  army,  and  the  Germans  would  have  paid  us 
highly  for  a  separate  peace.  But  our  youthful  min- 
isters and  ambassadors,  instead  of  taking  such  a  firm 
course,  bowed  before  the  Allies  and  gave  all  sorts 
of  assurances  that  Russia  would  never  conclude  a 
separate  peace.  Why  then  should  the  Allies  have 
hastened  with  material  aid  to  Russia?  I  do  not 
blame  them  for  it.  "One's  own  interests  are  near- 


est." And  meanwhile  the  army  was  diminishing 
and  diminishing — hunger  had  driven  the  soldiers 
from  the  trenches. 

State  administration  presented  a  similar  picture. 
Its  problems  could  not  be  postponed  until  the  con- 
vocation of  the  Constituent  Assembly.  By  force  of 
events  the  Provisional  Government  was  compelled 
to  tolerate  the  self-appointed  unlawful  Soviets ;  more 
than  that,  they  had  to  listen  to  their  demands  at- 
tentively and  as  a  result  to  proclaim  Russia  a  Re- 
public. This  measure  undoubtedly  undermined  the 
prestige  of  the  Constituent  Assembly  and  the  belief 
in  its  indispensability.  For  this  the  Provisional  Gov- 
ernments could  scarcely  be  blamed.  Their  fault 
was  that  they  had  remained  behind  the  current  of 
life  and  the  expectations  of  the  people.  And  what 
were  these  expectations?  The  capitalists  and  the 
Intelligentsia,  approximately  \]/2  per  cent  of  the 
population,  were  dreaming  only  of  seizing  political 
power.  The  peasants — 75  per  cent  of  the  popula- 
tion— were  dreaming  of  the  land.  The  soldiers — and 
these  numbered  about  10  per  cent  of  the  popula- 
tion— dreamed  of  peace  and  of  returning  to  their 
dear  ones  at  home ;  and  finally,  the  workingmen,  who 
numbered  also  about  10  per  cent,  dreamed  of  seizing 
control  of  industry. 

The  Provisional  Governments  promised  every- 
thing, but  asked  for  delay  until  the  convocation  of 
the  Constituent  Assembly.  But  the  peasants  and 
workers  preferred  to  realize  their  desire  to  get  the 
land  and  the  means  of  production  immediately  by 
revolutionary  means.  "This  is  safer.  At  present 
the  power  is  in  our  hands,  and  what  will  happen 
tomorrow,  we  do  not  know."  This  was  well  under- 
stood by  the  Bolsheviki  and  this  is  where  the  meaning 
of  their  doctrine,  "the  deepening  of  the  Revolution" 
— that  is,  the  immediate  realization  of  the  people's 
desires  through  revolutionary  means — lies.  And 
here  lies  the  cause  of  their  success. 

Much  is  being  said  at  present  that  such  a  solution 
of  social  problems  is  not  democratic,  that  violence 
from  the  Left  is  just  as  hideous  as  violence  from  the 
Right.  In  substance  this  is  true,  but  the  trouble  is 
that  the  Kingdom  of  God  on  earth  has  not  come  as 
yet,  and  force  can  be  crushed  only  by  force.  Every 
revolution  provokes  violence;  why,  asked  the  Rus- 
sians, is  it  justifiable  to  overthrow  the  Czar  by  force, 
and  not  the  bankers? 

But  I  have  anticipated.  Before  speaking  of  the 
present,  let  us  return  to  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ments and  see  how  they  solved  the  third  funda- 
mental problem;  that  is,  the  reorganization  of  the 
economic  life  of  the  country.  The  question  can  be 
answered  in  a  few  words:  "They  did  not  solve." 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


Lacking  economic  experience  and  not  venturing,  for 
fear  of  the  Allies,  to  decrease  war  production  or  the 
number  of  soldiers  at  the  front,  the  Provisional 
Governments  enacted  nothing  new.  And  conditions 
were  growing  worse:  occupied  with  the  "deepening 
of  the  Revolution,"  the  workmen  hardly  worked. 
The  productivity  of  shops  and  factories  decreased 
manyfold.  General  economic  disintegration  con- 
stantly increased.  The  villages  had  no  goods,  and 
the  cities  and  army  had  no  bread.  A  real  famine 
ensued  and  this  was  followed  as  usual  by  robberies 
and  violence.  They  reached  their  height  in  August- 
September  of  1917 — about  two  months  before 
the  Bolshevik  Revolution  took  place.  The  Pro- 
visional Government  even  at  that  time  had  no 
authority  or  power.  The  prestige  of  any  power  is 
always  best  measured  by  the  forces  that  rally  around 
it  for  its  defense.  And  the  Provisional  Government 
for  its  defense  could  only  rally  Junkers,  a  few  Cos- 
sacks, and  the  Women's  Battalion  of  Death.  And 
it  can  hardly  be  said  that  the  Bolshevik  offensive 
was  an  unexpected  blow  to  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment. Just  the  reverse:  the  Bolsheviki  widely  ad- 
vertised it  two  weeks  in  advance,  so  that  the  Provi- 
sional Government  had  sufficient  foreknowledge.  It 
is  therefore  evident  that  it  was  in  possession  of 
defensive  forces  and  that  the  popularity  of  the  Pro- 
visional Government  was  not  greater  than  that  of 
the  Czar's. 

One  way  or  another,  fourteen  months  ago  the 
power  was  transferred  definitely  and  finally  to  the 
Soviets,  with  the  Bolsheviki  as  the  dominating  po- 
litical power.  And  thus  came  their  turn  to  decide 
the  vital  questions  of  war,  state,  and  economic 
organization.  The  question  of  the  war  they  decided 
to  solve  immediately.  They  disclosed  the  secret 
treaties  showing  imperialistic  war  aims  of  the  En- 
tente, at  the  same  time  offering  the  Allies  a  general 
democratic  peace.  The  latter  did  not  even  answer ! 
And  this  fact  is  of  utmost  importance,  because  it 
arouses  serious  doubt  as  to  who  was  betrayed  by 
whom — whether  we  have  betrayed  the  Allies,  or  the 
Allies  have  betrayed  us.  Not  having  received  any 
answer,  the  Soviet  Government  started  pourparlers 
for  a  separate  peace.  It  could  not  possibly  have 
acted  differently.  It  was  impossible  to  wage  war 
further:  the  army  had  run  away,  the  railroads  had 
come  to  a  standstill.  Nevertheless,  when  the  preda- 
tory tendencies  of  the  Kaiser  became  evident,  the 
Soviet  Government  delayed  the  ratification  of  the 
peace  treaty  and  entered  into  negotiations  with  the 
Allies,  promising  to  reestablish  the  Russian  front  if 
the  Allies  would  come  to  their  aid.  The  Allies  did 
not  accept  this  proposal,  the  sincerity  of  which  can 


hardly  be  doubted.  Lenin  was  obliged  to  present 
the  Brest-Litovsk  peace  treaty  for  ratification  to  the 
Congress  of  Soviets.  At  that  moment,  as  far  as  I 
am  concerned,  the  question  as  to  who  betrayed 
whom  was  finally  understood  and  decided.  Upon 
presenting  the  peace  treaty  for  ratification  of  the 
Congress,  Lenin  did  not  deny  it  was  humiliating. 
But  at  the  same  time  he  insisted  that  this  humilia- 
tion was  temporary,  that  the  German  revolution  was 
not  far  away.  Many  did  not  believe  it  at  that  time, 
but  now  the  German  revolution  is  an  accomplished 
fact. 

As  far  as  state  organization  was  concerned,  the 
Soviet  Government  decided  that  at  that  time  the 
question  could  be  postponed.  Russia  was  in  the 
throes  of  a  social  revolution  and  in  the  midst  of  a 
struggle  with  internal  and  external  enemies  of  the 
new  order.  Russia  is  being  built  by  the  plain  people, 
by  the  peasants — slowly,  firmly,  and  without  any 
definite  plan.  To  foretell  into  what  forms  this  re- 
building will  finally  shape  is  utterly  impossible.  It 
can,  however,  be  definitely  said  that  the  present 
rebuilding  of  Russia  is  not  the  last  word  of  the  Rus- 
sian Revolution.  The  word  "Soviet"  will  probably 
remain  with  us  forever.  The  Russian  people  grew 
fond  of  it.  It  was  also  adopted  in  Germany,  but 
the  meaning  attached  to  this  word  will  be  perfected 
in  the  future.  However,  it  must  be  kept  in  mind 
that  the  controversy  which  split  Russian  society  into 
two  uncompromising  camps  does  not  pertain  to  its 
meaning.  This  controversy  does  not  formally  touch 
upon  the  ideology  of  the  future,  but  solely  concerns 
the  tactics  of  the  present.  The  adherents  of  one 
camp  say  that  it  is  first  necessary  to  shape  Russia 
into  a  definite  political  form,  to  establish  a  per- 
manent government  and  to  let  it  decide  social  prob- 
lems slowly;  that  it  is  beyond  the  strength  of  the 
Russian  people  to  accomplish  a  social  and  political 
revolution  at  the  same  time;  that  it  is  necessary  to 
be  satisfied  for  the  present  with  the  political  revolu- 
tion alone,  and  to  bring  about  the  social  reforms 
through  evolution.  More  than  that,  representatives 
of  this  camp  insist  that  our  people  are  young  and 
"dark";  that  the  time  has  not  arrived  for  them  to 
decide  their  own  destiny;  that  the  people  do  not 
know  what  they  need,  but  that  they,  the  representa- 
tives of  the  radicals  and  the  Socialist  Intelligentsia, 
do  know.  Therefore  they  are  the  ones  to  govern 
the  "dark"  people,  to  educate  the  people,  to  prepare 
the  people  for  self-government. 

The  representatives  of  the  opposition  camp,  on  the 
other  hand,  insist  that  their  experiences  with  the 
first  two  Provisional  Governments  and  especially 
with  the  third — the  Omsk  Government,  which  is 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


now  dormant  in  the  pocket  of  Kolchak — is  sufficient 
warning  not  to  repeat  mistakes.  Their  deep  con- 
viction is  that  the  Russian  people  are  interested  most 
of  all  in  social  reforms  and  demand  these  reforms 
immediately  by  revolutionary  means.  Yes,  the  Rus- 
sian people  are  "dark"  and  uncultured,  but  they  pos- 
sess a  natural  common  sense.  They  will  acquire 
their  knowledge  in  the  process  of  reconstruction. 
Without  the  Intelligentsia  they  cannot  possibly 
get  along,  but  they  want  to  select  from  the  latter 
those  who  are  willing  to  serve  them,  and  not  those 
who  want  to  govern  them  against  their  will.  The 
"darkness"  of  the  Russian  masses  naturally  obstructs 
the  tempo  of  the  Russian  Revolution.  I  repeat, 
Russia  is  being  rebuilt  by  the  peasants — slowly, 
firmly,  and  without  any  definite  plan.  In  this  proc- 
ess of  rebuilding  much  has  to  be  broken  down.  It 
is  also  true  that  it  is  beyond  the  power  of  the  Russian 
people  to  accomplish  both  political  and  social  recon- 
struction. Now  the  Russian  people  are  busy  with 
the  construction  of  a  new  social  order,  and  when 
this  shall  have  been  crystallized  into  definite  form, 
they  can  begin  the  political  construction  of  Russia. 

It  can  be  foretold  already  that  for  the  new  social 
conditions  new  political  forms  will  be  required.  It 
may  also  be  predicted  that  neither  the  French  nor 
the  American  clothes  will  fit  the  free  Russian  peas- 
ant; it  will  be  necessary  to  sew  special  Russian 
clothes  of  new  cuts.  And  such  work  requires  time 
and  care:  "Measure  the  cloth  seven  times  and  cut  it 
once,"  says  an  old  Russian  proverb.  And  history 
confirms  it.  Of  all  the  constitutions  that  were  ever 
written  on  our  planet,  the  most  flexible  one  has 
proved  to  be  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States. 
Written  in  1787,  with  seventeen  amendments,  it  is 
alive  today.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  it 
was  written  in  1787,  eleven  years  after  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence.  Why  then  ask  of  Russia  that 
she  write  her  political  constitution  in  definite 
form  only  one  year  after  the  Revolution,  a  revolution 
deeper  than  that  of  1776?  It  may  be  retorted  that 
social  reforms  require  just  as  much  care;  that  they 
also  cannot  be  decided  in  haste.  I  perfectly  agree 
with  this,  but  I  also  understand  that  the  Russian 
people  do  not  care  to  wait  any  longer  and  do  not 
trust  the  "masters."  No  words  are  strong  enough 
to  convince  me  to  the  contrary:  To  back  one's  argu- 
ments with  Japanese  bayonets  and  English  machine 
guns  is  just  as  criminal,  in  my  opinion,  as  to 
assassinate  one's  own  mother.  And  all  the  outcries 
of  the  interventionists — that  this  is  a  "democratic" 
way  of  helping  Russia — are  mere  hypocrisy. 

When  one  and  one-half  years  ago  the  monarchy 
was  overthrown  in  Russia,  I,  as  well  as  many  others, 


believed  that  Russia  could  not  cope  with  the  political 
revolution,  war,  and  the  social  revolution  at  the 
same  time.  It  was  true.  We  were  thrown  out  of 
the  war,  and  for  this  we  had  to  pay  with  the  Brest- 
Litovsk  treaty.  But  we  are  confronted  with  an 
accomplished  fact  and  we  are  powerless  to  turn  back 
the  wheel  of  events.  We  have  lost  the  war,  yet  in 
social  progress  we  have  taken  tremendous  steps 
ahead.  And  now  the  question  is — What  are  we 
to  do?  Insist  that  the  social  revolution  is  untimely? 
Shall  we,  together  with  the  reactionaries  and  Czar- 
ists,  liquidate  all  the  gains  of  the  Revolution  and 
assist  the  French  and  English  in  dividing  Russia 
among  themselves?  Or  shall  we,  with  our  opponents 
from  the  Left,  defend  Russia  and  the  Revolution 
from  her  internal  and  foreign  enemies?  As  far  as  I 
am  concerned,  there  can  be  no  question,  and  that  is 
why,  while  remaining  a  Moderate  Socialist,  I  sin- 
cerely and  conscientiously  believe  that  I  must  serve 
Russia  under  the  Soviet  banner. 

There  is  still  another  point  to  be  considered.  We 
may  not  fully  agree  with  the  Soviet  Government; 
we  may  doubt  the  possibility  of  realizing  some  of  its 
ideals,  but  we  can  hardly  deny  the  fact  that  it  is 
consistent  and  clear  in  its  demands.  The  opponents 
of  the  Soviet  Government  have  no  platform  what- 
soever and  they  cannot  have  any.  They  represent 
the  most  picturesque  conglomerate :  side  by  side  with 
old  Revolutionists  we  see  former  officials  of  the 
Czar's  police;  side  by  side  with  noble  dreamers  we 
see  the  faces  of  criminals;  side  by  side  with  mon- 
archists we  see  anarchists — all  of  them  are  united 
in  their  mad  desire  to  overthrow  the  Soviet  Govern- 
ment; and  the  old  English  diplomats,  who  are  oper- 
ating behind  their  backs,  have  finally  realized  that 
such  a  union  is  not  stable  and  that  it  must  be  re- 
placed by  a  whip. 

And  so  the  Siberian  khedive  Kolchak  has  appeared 
on  the  -horizon.  He  began  his  political  career  with 
the  arrest  of  the  members  of  the  Constituent  As- 
sembly, with  the  reopening  of  the  vodka  factories, 
and  with  the  reintroduction  of  the  Czar's  rules 
against  Jews.  So  the  question  is  as  follows:  Kol- 
chak, or  the  Soviets  ? — The  dictatorship  of  the  work- 
ing people,  or  the  dictatorship  of  an  insignificant 
group  of  adventurers,  behind  the  backs  of  whom 
there  are  foreigners  ?  The  people,  or  generals  ?  The 
decision  is  clear. 

The  Soviet  Government  has  found  it  difficult  to 
bring  the  economic  life  of  Russia  back  to  normal. 
The  peasants  have  received  the  land,  but  remain 
without  agricultural  implements,  nails,  and  textile 
goods.  The  workmen  have  obtained  control  over 
production,  but  remain  without  bread  and  without 


66 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


coal.  Production  itself  has  slowed  down.  The  most 
important  factor  in  this  situation  is  the  isolation  of 
Russia.  She  is  practically  excluded  from  the  world 
exchange.  She  is  now  like  a  besieged  fortress,  a 
•fortress  which  the  enemy  wants  to  take,  if  not  by 
force  of  arms  then  by  hunger.  By  what  right?  For 
what?  It  is  said  that  we  have  committed  two  sins: 
first,  we  do  not  want  to  pay  the  debt  to  France. 
Yes,  in  principle  we  do  not  consider  ourselves  re- 
sponsible for  the  Czar's  loans,  because  part  of  them 
were  expended  for  the  oppression  of  the  Russian 
people.  But  practically  we  do  not  refuse  to  discuss 
this  matter — this  is  quite  clear  from  the  note  of 
Tchitcherin  of  October  26.  Second,  it  is  being  said 
that  we  have  betrayed  the  Allies.  In  my  opinion  the 
Allies  have  betrayed  us  and  are  now  dividing  among 
themselves  the  booty  which  was  promised  to  us. 
But  we  do  not  protest  against  this.  Proclaiming  a 
peace  without  annexations  and  contributions,  Russia 
has  renounced  her  participation  in  the  division  of 
any  booty.  But  having  sacrificed  for  the  Allies 
7,000,000  of  her  sons,  she  is  justified  in  demanding 
that  she  be  left  alone.  But  let  us  assume  for  a  sec- 
ond that  we  are  guilty  of  breaking  a  treaty:  then 
what  about  Italy  who  broke  the  treaty  with  the 
Central  Powers?  She  is  being  complimented  on  it! 
But  we  also  have  a  third  sin,  of  which  people 
do  not  speak  aloud:  we  are  weak,  but  our 
land  is  rich — why  not  make  use  of  it  ?  I  understand 
this  perfectly  well.  Together  with  England  we  par- 
titioned Persia  and  only  a  short  while  ago  we 
dreamed  of  the  partition  of  Austria  and  Turkey. 
And  now  we  are  being  partitioned!  I  understand 
it  all.  I  understand  the  English  and  French  very 
well,  but  I  cannot  understand  the  Americans  at  all. 
We  owe  you  very  little;  we  have  no  treaties  with 
you  and  never  had  any,  and  in  the  division  of  Rus- 
sia you  do  not  intend  to  participate.  Why  then  do 
you  keep  your  soldiers  in  Russia?  The  interests  of 
the  United  States  do  not  conflict  with  the  interests 
of  Russia.  More  than  that,  no  other  country  is 
more  interested  in  the  realization  of  the  ideals  of 
the  freedom  of  the  seas  and  the  League  of  Nations, 
which  your  President  is  faithfully  upholding  in 


Europe,  than  Russia.  All  our  seas  are  not  free.  Our 
Government  is  most  of  all  international.  Moreover 
the  interests  of  exchange  between  Russia  and  America 
at  present  should  be  mutual.  During  the  war  the 
United  States  has  tremendously  developed  her  pro- 
duction, and  she  needs  foreign  markets.  Russia 
could  be  one.  She  needs  goods.  She  cannot  of 
herself  increase  production  and  stimulate  industry. 
Yet  we  have  plenty  to  pay  with:  our  natural  re- 
sources are  enormous.  The  question  of  how  to 
utilize  these  resources  in  order  to  pay  for  your  goods 
may  be  decided  upon  by  mutual  understanding  and 
discussion  either  in  Washington  or  in  Moscow,  but 
surely  this  cannot  be  decided  by  mutual  destruction 
in  the  swamps  of  Archangel.  The  Soviet  Govern- 
ment has  attempted  many  a  time  to  begin  such  dis- 
cussions. 

This  argument  is  usually  disposed  of  by  referring 
to  the  Bolshevik  danger.  First  of  all,  the  responsi- 
bility of  power  has  compelled  the  Bolsheviki  to  be- 
come more  moderate.  Second,  the  Soviets  and  the 
Bolsheviki  are  not  one  and  the  same.  The  Bolshe- 
viki at  the  present  time  dominate  the  Soviets — to  a 
great  extent  because  of  the  policy  of  the  Allies.  Yet, 
fearing  Bolshevism,  you  are  cultivating  it.  More 
than  that,  by  your  actions  you  justify  its  ideology. 
As  far  as  the  philosophic  side  of  the  question  is  con- 
cerned, we  differ  from  the  Bolsheviki  in  the  matter 
of  natural  impulses.  The  Bolsheviki  say  that  such 
impulses  are  only  class  interests.  We,  realizing  that 
class  interests  are  the  most  important  interests  of 
mankind,  nevertheless  believe  that  mankind  has 
other  interests:  religious,  moral,  national,  and 
esthetic.  At  present  this  point  of  view  is  being 
subjected  to  a  difficult  trial.  There  is  some  ground 
for  your  accusation  that  the  Bolsheviki  are  serving 
the  interests  of  one  class  only.  But  what  about  those 
who  attempt  to  tighten  a  steel  lasso  around  the  neck 
of  Russia,  those  who  forget  that  she  came  to  this 
condition  righting  with  the  Allies  and  for  the  Allies 
— whom  are  those  interventionists  serving?  The 
class  interests  of  the  propertied  class  or  the  ideal  of 
justice?  Is  it  really  possible  that  these  ideals  are 

GEORGE  V.  LOMONOSSOFF. 


Lufbery 


Lure  of  all  far  countries  called  him, 
Seas  enticed,  and  skies  enthralled  him, 
Knowing  neither  fold  nor  fastness, 
Breaking  futile  bonds  that  galled  him, 
Only  Venture  led  him  captive  with  her  spell. 


But  the  wonderlands  that  drew  him, 

And  the  venturing  that  slew  him, 

Pale  beside  the  golden  vastness 

Of  the  realms  that  opened  to  him 

In  the  little  flowering  garden  where  he  fell. 

MABEL  KINGSLEY  RICHARDSON. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


67 


The  Guns  in  Surrey :  A  Meredith  Remembrance 


E 


DAYS  AGO,  in  a  car  with  two  French  officers, 
I  swirled  through  rain  and  mud  into  the  eviscerated 
towns  of  Villeneuve  and  Fere-en-Tardenois  in  the 
Chateau-Thierry  sector.  It  was,  they  told  me,  the 
first  correspondent's  car  to  enter  these  places  on  the 
iron  heel  of  the  military  occupation.  As  now  I 
roam  the  rural  lanes  and  meadows  of  England, 
where  "cows  flap  a  slow  tail  knee-deep  in  river" 
and  primeval  beeches  spread  an  umbrageous  coolness 
on  my  pathway,  I  can  distinctly  hear,  thudding 
against  the  air,  the  great  guns  at  the  Front  in  Flan- 
ders and  in  Normandy. 

I  have  seen  how  the  cannon  tore  the  heart  out 
of  bleeding  village  after  bleeding  village  there  in 
France.  I  went  from  one  incredible  crater  of 
ruin  to  the  next,  and  I  felt  amid  the  bare  and  aching 
desolation  as  one  might  feel  who  wandered  in  the 
arid  silence  of  the  mountains  of  the  moon.  I  could 
not  reconcile  the  sight  with  the  world  we  know 
and  love,  the  world  we  live  in — the  owls  and  foxes 
of  Ossian  never  looked  on  so  complete  a  bankruptcy 
of  all  the  beauty  of  this  good  green  earth :  nor  ever 
did  the  ghoulish  ululation  of  hyena,  jackal,  or  coyote 
fall  on  a  place  so  lonely.  Let  not  these  broken 
walls,  these  bleaching  heaps  of  rubble,  these  frac- 
tured shells  of  lath  and  plaster  be  likened  to  Pom- 
peii and  Herculaneum — for  these  ruins  are  of  today, 
and  they  still  pulsate  and  throb,  are  warm  and  bleed 
and  agonize.  Still  they  cry  out  to  God  from  a  soil 
moist  with  the  blood  of  his  innocents,  to  know  if 
he  has  abdicated  his  white  throne  or  will  come  to 
them  agajn  and  bless  and  heal  their  brokenness. 

I  did  not  understand  how  the  stars-  could  look 
down  complacently,  or  the  sweet  birds  be  singing,  or 
the  flowers  spring  again  in  the  red  of  poppies,  the 
white  of  the  "Queen's  necklace,"  the  blue  of  corn- 
flowers, round  shell-holes  of  green  scum,  implements 
of  battle  charred  and  rusted,  bodies  still  denied  a 
burial. 

Yet  I  saw  men,  with  three  horses  in  a  team,  reap 
the  wheat,  eluding  the  unexploded  shells  and  the  pit- 
falls. I  saw  the  peasants  trudging  back  to  encamp 
amid  the  jagged  walls  that  were  their  houses,  as  the 
dwellers  on  Aetna  or  Vesuvius  hobble  over  the  cool- 
ing lava  to  their  denuded  vineyards.  I  saw  "love 
among  the  ruins,"  and  life  too  was  there;  and 
when  I  talked  with  a  man  whose  visible  worldly 
assets  were  a  manure  pile  and  a  pitchfork,  he  des- 
canted indignantly  not  on  the  plight  of  his  own  vil- 
lage but  on  the  sacrilege  at  Rheims. 

On  the  way  from  London  to  Box  Hill  you  pass 


through  Leatherhead,  where  men  blinded  in  war- 
fare are  wrapping  poles  with  wickerwork  to  make 
roadways  for  the  guns,  and  Mitcham,  where  the  fin- 
est lavender  field  in  England  has  surrendered  to  the 
utilitarian  potato.  Detraining  at  Box  Hill  station, 
I  halted  at  the  inn  where  Keats  poured  out  his  soul 
upon  the  moonlight,  in  the  last  lines  of  Endymion. 
There  I  inquired  the  way  to  George  Meredith's 
house.  It  was  scarcely  more  than  the  turn  of  a 
corner  distant.  Outside  the  gate  was  a  little  boy 
who  did  not  know  about  George  Meredith,  but  he 
balanced  in  a  basket  on  his  round  blue  cap  a  pig's 
head  he  firmly  intended  to  deliver  to  the  cook. 
Between  the  pink  ears  of  the  pig,  upthrust  like 
rifle-sights  above  the  rim  of  the  basket,  one  beheld 
a  garden  of  exceeding  loveliness.  The  face  of  the 
dark  stone  house,  ivy-mantled,  had  for  eyes  toward 
the  sunlight  white-rimmed  windows  that  gazed 
benevolently  upon  a  close-cropped,  smooth-rolled 
oval  green  with  a  sundial  in  the  midst,  geraniums, 
and  orange-tinted  begonias.  Inclosing  the  lawn  was 
a  noble  hedge,  half  again  a  tall  man's  height,  of  box 
and  yew  with  not  a  dead  leaf  showing  in  the  dense 
contexture. 

Beyond  the  hedge  was  Coe  the  gardener,  whose 
time  and  hand-and-foot  devotion  belonged  to  George 
Meredith  for  thirty  years.  If  a  man  is  not  a  hero 
to  his  valet,  no  adage  forbids  the  homage  of  a  gar- 
dener. 

"I  can  see  him  now,"  said  Coe,  dropping  the  hoe- 
handle  and  dusting  his  broad  hands  against  each 
other  briskly,  "I  can  see  him  as  he  ran  across  the 
lawn  from  the  gate  waving  a  letter,  and  I  can  hear 
him  call  up  to  his  wife's  window  'The  Americans 
have  discovered  me!'  It  was  a  letter  from  one  of 
you  about  Diana  of  the  Crossways. 

"He  gave  me  the  manuscripts  of  Diana,  of  The 
Amazing  Marriage,  and  of  One  of  Our  Conquer- 
ors. I  sold  them  to  Mr.  Pierpont  Morgan.  Mr. 
Morgan's  butler  heard  Mr.  Morgan  say  to  some- 
body at  dinner  in  New  York:  'Yes,  and  I'd  have 
paid  him  twice  as  much  if  he  had  asked  it.'  The 
butler  told  a  friend  of  mine,  and  he  told  me.  I 
wish  I  had  asked  twice  as  much." 

He  spied  a  weed,  and  stooped  to  pull  it.  Then  he 
led  the  way  by  hobnails  to  the  tiny  chalet  on  the 
edge  of  the  wood  above  the  garden,  where  the  master 
wrote  and  paced  the  forest  path  and  musefully  re- 
garded the  blue  distance  of  the  vale.  The  spirit  of 
the  poems  Melampus  and  Outer  and  Inner,  or  of  the 
meeting  of  Richard  and  Lucy,  trembled  in  the  air. 


68 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


"Mr.  Meredith  had  a  board  across  his  knee  when 
he  wrote,"  said  Coe.  "He  didn't  use  a  table.  He 
had  a  dachshund  too.  He  admired  the  Germans 
for  some  things — he  always  felt  they  were  such  tre- 
mendous scholars.  He  thought  well  of  the  French, 
too,  and  in  a  fighting  way.  'Coe,'  he  said  to  me  one 
day,  'if  our  armies  were  led  by  French  officers  we 
could  walk  over  the  world.' 

"Here's  where  he  did  his  own  walking,  sir, 
mostly." 

He  parted  the  bushes  to  a  little  path  that  ran 
along  behind  the  chalet,  accurately,  and  as  though 
it  knew  its  own  mind,  for  a  distance  of  perhaps 
five  hundred  feet.  Holly,  yew,  and  pines  were  thick 
beside  and  above  the  narrow  way.  "He  would 
gather  the  twigs,"  said  Coe,  "and  tell  me  to  make  a 
price  on  them.  He'd  give  the  money  to  his  daugh- 
ter, for  her  good  works.  'Fourpence,'  I  would  say 
when  he  pointed  to  a  little  pile  he  had  collected. 
'Now  Coe,'  he  would  say,  'don't  be  unreasonable! 
You  know  very  well  that  pile  is  worth  two  shillings 
if  it's  worth  a  penny.'  But  I  was  firm  with  him, 
sir,  and  it  was  my  price  I  paid  him. 

"He  would  sit  here  in  the  chalet  thinking  and 
writing,  in  his  shirt  sleeves,  when  he  wasn't  walking 
up  and  down  the  path. 

"  'Do  you  know  what  time  it  is?'  I'd  ask  him. 

"  'No.' 

"  'It's  six  o'clock,'  I'd  tell  him.  'Time  for  you 
to  be  getting  ready  for  your  dinner.' 

"But  I  couldn't  get  him  to  knock  off  and  come 
down  to  the  house  as  if  he  was  an  ordinary  human 
being. 

"'It's  here,  Coe!'  he'd  cry,  excited-like.  'It's 
here !  No  use  trying  when  It  isn't  here !'  Then  he 
would  go  on  writing,  and  his  soup  was  cold. 

"After  breakfast,  every  day,  he  had  his  cigar,  and 
his  paper,  and  then  he  waited  for  It  to  come. 

"If  anybody  came  and  there  was  anything  in  the 
upper  story,  he  was  delighted. 

"A  Publisher  came  from  America."  (Coe  pro- 
nounced "publisher"  with  a  capital.) 

'  'Well,  what  do  you  want  my  books  for?'  he 
said.  'You  can  get  plenty  of  books  in  America.' 

"The  Publisher  said,  'Aye,  we  can  get  plenty,  but 
they  would  flare  up  over  your  head  for  twenty-five 
minutes  and  then  fade  out.  We  want  your  books, 
to  circulate  them  in  cheap  covers  and  make  them 
known  among  the  crowd.  Your  books  will  live.' 

"The  answer  seemed  to  please  him. 

"Mr.  Meredith  slept  here  in  this  little  hut,  and 
here  he  had  his  bath.  For  some  time  he  used  a 
swinging  hammock  for  his  bed,  but  he  didn't  have 
much  comfort  in  it.  He  got  the  idea  from  meeting 


on  a  steamship  a  passenger  who  had  one.  He  used 
to  complain  about  it  to  me,  because  it  would  creak 
and  sway  and  the  mattress  would  get  in  a  big  lump 
on  one  side. 

"Once  we  went  to  visit,  and  he  slept  in  a  bed 
that  was  on  all  fours,  very  substantial,  sir,  and  very 
restful. 

"I  said  to  him  afterwards,  'Why  can't  you  have 
a  similar  sort  of  a  bed  at  Box  Hill,  sir?' 

"So  he  let  me  get  him  one  of  iron,  and  he  liked 
it  well. 

"He  was  walking  and  thinking  and  writing  to  the 
end  of  his  days,  though  he  grew  feeble  and  leaned 
more  and -more  upon  my  arm.  He  was  vexed  he 
couldn't  climb  the  hill  so  easily.  His  body  was 
dying;  but  his  head  was  as  brisk  as  ever." 

We  left  the  gardener  to  his  watering-pot,  his 
borders,  and  his  memories,  and  crossed  the  vale  to  the 
slope  of  the  further  hill  and  stepped  into  the  little 
old  thatched  chapel  with  its  red  oak  beams — St. 
Michael's  chapel,  West  Humble,  parish  of  Michael- 
ham.  The  heads  of  pigs  and  the  heads  of  saints, 
gargoyle-wise,  were  cheek  by  jowl  among  the  ancient 
rafters.  Was  there  anything  symbolic  in  my  meet- 
ing the  pig's  head  in  the  butcher-boy's  hands,  in  such 
close  juxtaposition  to  the  spiritual — almost  ethereal 
— features  of  George  Meredith? 

An  aeroplane  droned  overhead  and  the  guns  at  the 
Front  were  throbbing  like  muffled  drums,  and  the 
words  of  Enid  Bagnold  floated  into  mind: 

And  there  thumps  at  the  heart  of  the  hill 
On  the  house-wall — and  runs 
In  the  grass  at  the  foot  of  the  trees 
The  Reminder.     The  guns. 

Every  field,  road,  and  the  lane  of  the  region  was 
mapped  by  the  Germans  ere  Mr.  Britling  saw  it 
through.  The  Battle  of  Dorking  had  been  planned. 
German  barons  owned  estates  in  the  vicinage. 
When  the  German  Emperor  was  in  England  at  the 
dedication  of  the  Victoria  Memorial  a  decade  ago 
he  toured  the  south  coast  with  his  staff  officers  for 
weeks. 

But  the  beech  and  the  yew,  the  holly  and  the 
bracken  whispered  naught  of  this  to  me  as  we  clam- 
bered meanderingly  to  the  high,  free  openness  of 
Ranmore  Common  over  the  virid  felt  of  the  spring- 
ing sod.  Ranmore  church,  the  creation  of  Sir  Gil- 
bert Scott  in  flint  rubble,  seemed  nothing  for  a  Sur- 
rey landscape  to  be  very  proud  of  as  a  beacon:  but 
as  we  came  down  the  hill  on  the  other  side  toward 
Westcott,  braking  and  sliding  on  our  heels,  I  liked 
what  my  friends  thought  aloud  of  the  common  land. 
They  spoke  with  the  voice  of  the  people.  "When 
WE  have  the  right  of  way,  WE  have  it  forever. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


69 


The  commoner  stands  up  and  fights  the  big  land- 
lord." 

Over  the  tops  of  the  beeches  that  firmly  kept  their 
footing  in  the  shale,  we  saw  vistas  that  realized 
L'Allegro  and  II  Penseroso,  and  I  stopped  to  stroke 
the  nose  of  a  strawberry  roan  with  shaggy  fetlocks 
who  put  his  head  over  the  stile  in  a  sober  curiosity. 
There  were  hedgerows  of  yews  and  Scotch  firs  stand- 
ing in  a  luminous  translation  of  the  sunlight  into 
golden  Vandyke  brown.  By  unromantically  named 
Pipp  Brook  below  us,  we  espied  the  white  convolvu- 
lus, the  evening  primrose,  the  massed  rhododendrons 
— only  the  leaves — and  even  (pray,  what  was  it  do- 
ing in  that  gallery?)  a  young  thicket  of  bamboo. 

Somewhere  in  the  vicinity,  once  upon  a  time, 
there  was  a  bell  known  as  the  "Wipers  Bell"  from 
the  name  of  Ypres,  whence  it  was  brought  in  the 
time  of  Edward  III.  Someone  has  lost  it,  within 
living  memory.  How  careless  of  him,  to  misplace  a 
ton  or  two  of  bell-metal!  But  the  name  "Wipers 
Bell"  is  still  a  household  word  in  this  withdrawn 
and  quiet  neighborhood,  as  though  to  bear  witness 
that  the  British  soldier's  pronunciation  of  the  famous 
Flanders  city  is  no  new  thing  under  the  sun. 

The  beginnings  of  Tillingbourne  stream  trickled 
from  an  iron  pipe  at  the  road's  edge,  but  a  man 
came  with  a  bucket  and  took  it  away  for  his  horses 
under  our  very  eyes. 

Lo!  the  beech-mast,  beloved  of  our  rummaging 
four-footed  little  brother  Porcus  since  before  the 
Romans  came.  Where  are  we  coming?  "Friday 
Street!"  A  curious  name  for  a  village.  Can  it  be 
Frigedoeges  treow — Friday's  tree?  These  fox- 
gloves remind  us  that  digitalis  is  now  extracted  from 
them,  even  as  belladonna  is  expressed  from  the 
deadly  nightshade — so  that  no  longer  need  England 
depend  on  Germany  for  the  supply  of  these  things. 
But  where  is  Friday  Street  ?  Is  the  street  sign  writ 
perchance  in  honeysuckle? 

Over  the  hedgerow  a  voice  impinges  musically  on 
our  discussion. 

"You  are  at  the  beginning  of  Friday  Street  now." 

A  scarlet  bush  of  geum  gleams  brilliantly  at  the 
door,  with  a  fiery  trail  of  climbing  nasturtium  on 
the  doorposts. 

How  dull  we  were  that  we  did  not  know ! 

On  the  great  flank  of  Leith  Hill  the  Evelyns, 
descendants  of  John,  still  are  lords  of  the  manor, 
and  their  sign — let  the  Germans  take  notice — for- 
bids among  other  things  the  deposit  of  old  metal. 
So  that  we  seem  to  be  safe.  The  gorse  pricks  us 
resentfully  as  we  force  a  shorter  path  through  it 
to  the  crest  of  the  hill.  "When  is  kissing  not  in 


season  ?  When  the  gorse  is  not  in  bloom."  That  is 
to  say,  for  about  six  weeks  of  the  running  year. 
What  means  this  white  circle  drawn  about  a  Scotch 
fir?  It  is  marked  for  slaughter  that  it  may  go  to 
line  the  trenches.  Circumventing  a  rabbit-warren 
with  nobody  at  home  we  come  out  through  the  mel- 
low, kine-like  breath  of  the  trees  and  the  sod  to  a 
gaunt  tower  on  the  hilltop.  It  was  placed  over  the 
remains  of  someone.  I  do  not  wonder  that  he 
remained. 

From  a  height  of  a  thousand  feet  above  sea  level 
one  looks  out  over  laughing  leagues  of  farming  land 
and  woodland,  the  dark  green  of  oaks  and  elms 
shading  to  the  fawn  yellow  of  the  exuberant  fields 
of  wheat  and  oats,  sun-dappled  or  beclouded.  The 
sea  is  barely  to  be  descried.  The  fields  are  irregu- 
lar of  outline  compared  with  those  of  Fiance  dnd. 
Belgium.  Their  corners  are  as  eccentrically  angu- 
lar as  broken  glass. 

The  air  of  security  with  which  the  cows  and 
sheep  of  England  browse  and  drowse  militates 
against  all  prospect  of  such  pitiable  desolation  as 
one  sees  in  the  invaded  countryside  of  France.  How 
could  it  happen  here?  How  could  the  shells  hurtle 
blasphemously  into  a  village  dreaming  under  its 
thatches  and  its  honeysuckle,  its  geraniums  and  its 
climbing  roses?  It  is  left  to  the  old  men  and  the 
women  to  labor  in  the  fields  where  once  the  feet  of 
the  young  men  trod  sturdily.  They  are  beyond 
the  Channel — or  beyond  the  stars.  It  is  they  who 
make  these  dull  reverberations  of  the  guns  that 
smite  our  ears.  When  .Gerald  du  Maurier  wrote 
the  play  An  Englishman's  Home,  men  and  women 
mocked  him  for  it.  Lord  Roberts  "pleaded  and 
was  not  heard."  Between  the  Huns  and  Britain 
men  with  their  bodies  have  reared  a  living  wall. 
For  this  hour  of  rest  upon  Leith  Hill,  for  the 
brooding  tranquillity  of  smoking  chimneys  there  be- 
low, for  the  ruminant  composure  of  the  beasts  of  the 
field  with  their  legs  tucked  under  them,  for  the  cool, 
deep  shade  of  the  beech  trees  and  the  pink  translu- 
cence  on  the  firs  and  the  garden  of  enchantment 
where  George  Meredith  amid  his  flowers  heard 
the  lark  ascending — for  these  things  men  by  the 
hundreds  of  thousands  bleed  and  die.  Shall  any 
town  of  England  be  struck  into  rubble  by  the  guns 
as  the  towns  of  France  were  wrecked  and  desolated  ? 
As  I  write  the  question  the  answer  is  borne  afar 
upon  the  wind  from  Normandy,  over  the  blue  water 
and  the  fields  with  their  nodding  grain,  under  a  spot- 
less heaven  that  is  still  God's  own. 

FULLBRTON    L.    WALDO. 


7° 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


Out  of  a  Day 


SHORE 

Wind-burnished  sands 

Swept  by  slow  surges 

Of  hammered  silver, 

Lighted  with  opal  fires 

Of  white  foam 

Blown  like  a  dancer's  spirit 

In  the  wind  to  vanish, 

A  fading  brightness 

Under  steely  skies — 

Take  me  to  you,  O  desolate  sands 

And  waving  plumy  grasses, 

Extinguish  this  restless  fire  of  spirit 

That  I  may  become 

Silent  clear  beauty 

Like  the  dunes 

Against  the  sky. 

WANDERER 

There  is  an  enchanted  hill 

Close  by  the  sea 

All  crystal  still 

Where  my  love  laughing  led  me. 

Blows  the  wind  and  water  sings 

Hoarse  runic  tunes 

Of  vanished  things 

Fled  from  life,  haunting  pale  dunes. 

Over  that  hill  shadows  fly 

Cast  by  wild  wings 

Far  in  the  sky, 

And  a  voice — silver  it  sings. 

Ancient  towers  thrust  gold  spires 

Up  to  the  sun, 

And  misty  fires 

Toss  and  fall,  whirling  they  run. 

Far  from  towns  and  mortal  eyes 

Down  by  the  sand 

That  old  hill  lies 

Bare  of  men — untrodden  land. 

Lost  the  pathway,  dead  my  love, 

Lost  the  hill 

And  wings  above — 

I  go  on,  seeking  it  still. 


PASSERBY 


I  am  the  wind 

That  goes  smiling  to  himself 

Down  forgotten  garden  ways 

Plucking  pearl  strands  from  yesterday's  spider  webs, 

Rocking  dead  Autumn  leaves 

To  sleep. 

There  is  a  garden 

On  a  northern  hillside 

Waiting 

To  fling  its  shoots  sunward 

To  burst  into  blossom,  fiery,  jubilant — 

I  am  the  wind. 

I  shall  come  on  the  wings  of  dawn 

Laughing  to  myself 

At  a  secret  I  have  forgotten 

And  I  shall  whisper  to  leaves  and  tendrils, 

To  buds  and  shoots  and  branches. 

Hot  suns  will  shine  after  I  have  whispered 

And  riotous  blooms  will  toss  their  heads 

In  that  garden 

And  birds  will  flutter, 

Hummingbirds  and  tanagers, 

Swift  as  thoughts, 

But  not  so  swift  as  I 

Who,  unlike  thought, 

Pass 

Into  nothingness. 

NOCTURNE 

0  music  of  hand  clasped  in  hand 
And  beating  pulse  pressed  upon  pulse, 

1  have  felt  sad  seas 

Thunder  your  cadence  in  my  body 

While  shrill  gulls 

Flaunted  their  whiteness 

In  wind-tossed  spume; 

I  have  heard  restless  winds 

Sighing  through  wildly  waving  treetops; 

I  have  heard  thunder 

Strike 

And  the  echo  go  bounding  over  the  mountain  sides, 

And  the  soft  lapping  of  endless  waves 

In  the  hot  silence  of  summer  nights. 


L'ENVOI 

Gently  the  petals  of  time 

Unseen,  unheard, 

Sublime, 

Cover  your  glance,  your  smile,  your  word, 

And  my  rhyme. 

HERBERT  J.  SELIGMANN. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


Military  Training  as  Education 


I 


N  SPITE  OF  the  "war  to  end  war,"  many  good  citi- 
zens are  urging  the  establishment  of  universal- mili- 
tary training  in  this  country.  If,  as  we  were  as- 
sured so  many  times  during  the  past  two  years,  the 
defeat  of  Germany  will  permit  the  nations  to  organ- 
ize for  peace  without  fear  of  unexpected  interrup- 
tion, the  proposal  must  be  advanced  because  its  advo- 
cates believe  six  months  or  more  in  the  army  will  be 
indispensable  in  American  education.  Now  what 
is  the  educational  value  of  military  training  in  times 
of  peace?  Ask  the  next  man  you  see,  and  he  will 
doubtless  say,  as  did  an  officer  at  the  farewell  dinner 
of  our  training  company,  that  it  teaches  a  man  to 
keep  his  shoes  shined  and  his  trousers  creased,  and  to 
say  "sir"  to  his  seniors.  It  may  also  help  him  to 
learn  how  to  stand  straight. 

Other  benefits  are,  indeed,  expected.  There  is  a 
vague  approval  of  the  "discipline"  which  a  short 
experience  of  the  military  regime  is  supposed  to  in- 
stil into  our  unruly  youth.  Often  this  seems  to  be 
merely  a  polite  expression  of  the  hope  that  laborers 
will  be  taught  not  to  strike  and  servants  to  be  more 
zealous.  But  behind  that  exists  a  more  worthy  feel- 
ing— that  if  our  young  men  are  all  run  through  the 
military  machine  we  shall  as  a  nation  understand 
better  how  to  work  together  and  to  produce  more 
efficiently  the  results  we  want.  And  underlying  all 
is  an  instinct  which  helped  to  send  many  of  us  into 
the  army.  It  is  the  desire  to  get  away  from  a  too 
artificial  and  overcivilized  world,  a  desire  to  gain 
power  from  victory  over  primitive  hardships.  The 
nation  will  become  more  masculine,  it  is  believed,  if 
men  are  thrown  together  and  taught  how  to  get 
along  in  a  hostile  world. 

However  it  may  have  been  with  the  men  who 
saw  actual  fighting  in  France,  those  of  us  who  re- 
mained six  months  or  more  in  camps  on  this  side  felt 
an  immense  relief  in  returning  to  civilian  simplicity 
and  directness  after  the  curiously  artificialized  ex- 
istence of  the  army.  The  man  who  puts  on  a  uni- 
form soon  discovers  that  he  has  not  come  nearer 
to  reality — on  the  contrary,  that  he  is  farther  away 
from  it  than  ever.  Every  moment  is  formalized 
into  a  stiff  pattern  of  behavior  which  is  as  difficult 
to  practice  gracefully  as  the  etiquette  of  a  Bour- 
bon court.  A  dozen  times  a  day  the  soldier  is 
called  to  a  formality  at  which  he  dare  not  be  a  mo- 
ment late,  and  what  he  does  at  this  formality  has  no 
more  relation  with  the  trade  of  war  or  any  useful 
accomplishment  than  if  he  were  practicing  the  latest 
tango  in  a  ballroom.  He  learns  to  hold  his  rifle  in 


certain  positions,  to  move  it  expeditiously  and  in  a 
predetermined  series  of  motions  from  one  of  these 
positions  to  another,  to  take  his  appointed  place  in 
many  complicated  formations  of  troops — but  no  one 
of  these  rifle  positions  or  formations  of  men  is  ever 
used  in  battle.  When  saluting  a  superior  officer 
he  must  hold  his  hand  and  arm  at  a  certain  angle; 
he  must  learn  in  deep  detail  when  to  salute  and 
when  not  to  salute.'  Except  for  brief  periods  of 
rest,  the  whole  time  of  the  recruit  is  taken 
up  with  intensive  training  in  these  and  a  hun- 
dred other  rituals,  and  the  effort  to  be  letter-perfect 
in  them  is  as  exacting  as  must  be  the  education  of  an 
English  butler.  When  a  man  becomes  proficient 
in  them  he  is  called  "a  good  soldier,"  and  it  is  fre- 
quently said  that  a  good  soldier  cannot  be  made 
inside  of  three  years;  in  fact  some  old  sergeants 
assert  that  a  good  soldier  must  be  born.  At  any 
rate,  the  attention  which  the  recruit  must  give  to 
such  matters  absorbs  nearly  all  his  intelligence  and 
nervous  energy.  So  absorbing  were  they,  that  it  was 
difficult  to  remember  that  a  war  was  being  fought. 

The  expected  intimacy  with  the  primitive  did  not 
appear.  We  slept  in  wooden  buildings,  on  cots  and 
mattresses,  and  between  sheets.  Our  food  was  fur- 
nished according  to  regulations  from  the  Quarter- 
master, and  cooked  on  stoves  by  cooks  appointed 
and  trained  for  that  purpose.  In  none  of  the  organi- 
zations of  which  I  was  a  member  were  tents  pitched, 
and  the  anticipated  practice  in  the  uses  of  a  rifle  was 
confined  to  one  half  a  day  on  the  range.  We  had 
some  exercise,  but  not  so  much  as  any  man  £an  get  in 
an  outdoor  job  or  in  a  camping  or  sailing  trip. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  any  changes  in  this 
regime  will  be  made  as  a  result  of  the  war.  The 
first  dogma  of  the  military  man  is  that  training  of 
this  sort,  rather  than  training  in  the  actual  business 
of  warfare,  is  necessary  as  a  kind  of  first  coat  before 
the  final  polish  of  field  maneuvers  can  be  applied. 
"The  best  battery  on  the  parade  ground  is  the  best 
battery  in  action."  Traditional  infantry  drill,  like 
the  traditional  classics  in  our  older  colleges,  is  sup- 
posed to  furnish  an  essential  disciplinary 'basis  for 
any  more  practical  exercise.  We  ought  therefore 
to  consider  whether  forcing  young  men  to  behave 
according  to  these  strange  formalities  for  a  few 
months  is  likely  to  produce  the  benefits  anticipated. 

The  constant  obedience  which  is  required  to 
make  men  alert  in  essentially  ridiculous  accom- 
plishments is  thought  of  intrinsic  value  by  many. 
Yet  it  is  doubtful  whether  such  obedience,  solemn- 


THE  DIAL 


ly  enforced  as  it  is  by  the  fear  of  unpleasant  pun- 
ishments, can  form  a  habit  which  will  last  long 
in  the  more  natural  civilian  environment,  where 
superiors  may  be  selected,  and  a  man's  worth  is 
more  often  measured  by  his  originality  and  initiative 
than  by  his  lack  of  it.  The  effect  of  such  discipline 
before  the  war  ended  was  merely  repressive,  and 
brought  about  nothing  but  an  urgent  desire  to  escape 
it.  On  the  one  hand  many  men  were  eager  to 
get  to  the  front,  where  "something  real  was  doing," 
and  they  would  at  least  have  a  chance  to  employ 
themselves  in  an  undertaking  which  seemed  to  have 
some  reason  for  existence.  On  the  other  hand 
those  of  any  ambition  were  eager  to  become  officers 
and  so  escape  the  stultifying  obligations  of  the 
ranks.  The  only  ones  who  remained  inert  under 
the  routine  were  a  few  old  regular  army  men  to 
whom  it  had  become  an  easy  and  professional  habit, 
one  which  they  would  relinquish  only  reluctantly 
for  any  occupation  demanding  mental  effort. 

It  is  pure  myth  that  the  soldier  acquires  any  capa- 
bility in  cooperation  for  hard  work.  Most  of  the 
tasks  imposed  upon  him,  particularly  the  physical 
labor  usually  known  as  "fatigue  duty,"  are  obviously 
invented  to  keep  him  busy.  No  one  watches  his 
work  except  to  prevent  him  from  loafing.  He  knows 
that  a  hard  worker  will  acquire  little  credit  from 
superiors,  but  will  on  the  other  hand  be  regarded 
by  his  comrades  as  a  scab.  He  knows  that  the  more 
he  accomplishes  the  more  will  be  given  him  to  do. 
If  he  happens  to  begin  his  duties  under  the  command 
of  a  good-natured  sergeant  he  will  probably  be 
warned  that  there  is  no  particular  use  in  exerting 
himself.  Many  a  man  has  told  me  that  he  never 
had  such  an  easy  time  of  it  as  regards  work  before 
he  entered  the  army.  The  prevailing  effort  of  the 
enlisted  man  is  to  shirk  as  much  as  possible.  The 
colloquial  use  of  "soldiering"  is  well  justified  by 
fact.  One  of  the  most  common  remarks  of  the 
private  is  that  the  army  has  made  him  so  lazy  that 
he  will  never  be  able  to  do  good  work  again. 

Those  of  us  who  succeeded  in  getting  to  an  offi- 
cers' training  school  found  plenty  to  keep  us  busy, 
and  we  seemed  closer  to  the  activities  which  we  had 
expected  to  find  in  war.  We  still  felt,  however, 
the  gray  repression  caused  by  the  stiff  pattern  of  rou- 
tine. I  often  wondered  how  much  of  our  energy 
and  interest  was  due  to  our  desire  to  be  effective 
in  the  war  against  Germany,  and  how  much  to 
any  validity  in  the  military  method  itself.  So  far 
as  we  did  good  work  and  gained  anything  at  all 
out  of  the  highly  formalized  teaching,  it  often 
seemed  to  me  that  we  did  so  only  through  a  con- 
sciousness of  our  function  in  the  actual  hostilities. 


When  the  armistice  was  announced  the  answer  to 
my  question  came.  A  striking  failure  of  morale 
was  felt  throughout  the  school,  the  commandant  be- 
ing so  worried  by  it  that  he  announced  that  we 
should  probably  be  retained  in  the  service  another 
year.  Yet  now  the  purpose  for  which  we  en- 
tered the  army  was  removed,  almost  everyone 
found  his  studies  only  something  to  be  endured  in 
silence  until  he  could  get  out  of  his  uniform.  When 
the  announcement  came  that  candidates  could  make 
a  choice  between  immediate  discharge  and  remaining 
to  win  reserve  commissions  on  inactive  duty,  all 
classes  except  those  within  a  week  or  two  of  gradua- 
tion melted  away,  and  this  in  spite  of  a  most  deter- 
mined effort  on  the  part  of  the  responsible  officers 
to  bring  disrepute  on  the  men  who  availed  them- 
selves of  the  privilege  of  resignation. 

Will  the  men  who  have  experienced  military  edu- 
cation under  the  semi-peaceful  conditions  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic  favor  universal  training?  If 
to  do  so  meant  that  they  would  have  to  spend 
another  day  in  the  service,  the  negative  majority 
would  be  overwhelming.  During  my  six  months  in 
uniform  I  have  not  talked  with  a  single  officer  or 
man  who  was  a  civilian  before  the  war  and  intended 
to  remain  in  the  army  after  the  end  of  the  emer- 
gency. Yet  one  is  inclined,  once  an  unprofitable 
experience  is  over,  to  count  it  a  benefit  and  grant  it 
a  sentimental  value.  The  men  who  would  be  sent 
to  camp  under  the  proposed  law  are  not  yet  of  voting 
age.  Their  elders  may  exhibit  the  quite  human 
trait  of  wishing  to  enforce  on  the  younger  genera- 
tion the  same  drilling  they  themselves  have  endured. 
There  is  also  the  impulse  to  exalt  a  loyalty  to  one's 
own  past.  At  our  farewell  dinner  the  officers  caught 
up. the  spirit  of  fellowship  naturally  existing  among 
so  many  men  who  had  lived  so  strangely  together, 
and  converted  it  into  loyalty  to  the  school  and  the 
army.  We  were  flattered  on  our  record,  bidden  to 
speak  well  of  the  military,  to  behave  like  soldiers 
the  rest  of  our  lives,  and  to  vote  for  universal  service. 
Such  counsels  are  sure  to  have  their  effect.  But  the 
public  should  not  take  without  critical  examina- 
tion the  arguments  usually  advanced  in  behalf  of 
military  training  as  a  method  of  education  for  peace. 
They  should,  on  the  contrary,  weigh  well  such 
statements  as  were  made  by  our  commandant,  when 
he  expressed  his  sympathy  because  we  had  missed 
so  narrowly  the  chance  of  fighting  Germans,  and  at- 
tempted to  console  us  by  adding  that  labor  troubles 
were  imminent  in  this  country,  and  that  we  might 
be  called  out  at  any  time  for  "riot  duty." 

GEORGE  SOULE. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


73 


Lamartine,  the  Patriot  of  the  February  Revolution 


,/YN  AMERICAN  LIFE  of  Lamartine  seems — at  first 
blush — as  appropriate  as  a  French  life  of  Long- 
fellow. Mr.  Whitehouse's  two  volumes  (The  Life 
of  Lamartine — Houghton  Mifflin;  $16)  are  not  in- 
tended primarily  for  scholars,  and  as  for  the  casual 
reader,  he  has  learned  long  ago  that  Lamartine,  like 
Longfellow,  is  little  more  than  a  Wordsworth 
manque — an  estimate  which  the  present  work  in  the 
main  upholds.  La  poesie  lamartinienne  had  its  day 
and  will  continue  to  have  its  Brahmans.  Le  Lac 
and  1'Isolement  are  unrivaled  in  their  harmony  and 
romantic  idealism.  Sainte-Beuve  celebrated  their 
appearance  in  the  words:  "One  passed  suddenly 
from  a  poetry  dry,  meagre  and  poor,  to  a  poetry 
broad,  abundant,  elevated  and  all  divine."  But  the 
world  at  large  is  cast  in  a  rougher  mold;  it  is  at 
once  more  sophisticated  and  more  simple  because 
more  experienced  and  profound ;  and  it  is  to  the 
credit  of  Lamartine  that  he  himself  held  "this 
sublime  gift  of  the  gods  in  slight  esteem."  At  the 
height  of  his  literary  fame  (1838)  he  wrote  to  a 
friend:  "Poetry  has  never  been  more  to  me  than  a 
prayer;  the  most  beautiful  and  intense  >act  of 
thought,  but  the  shortest,  and  the  one  which  deducts 
the  least  from  the  day's  work."  The  fact  is,  and  it  is 
the  object  of  Mr.  Whitehouse  to  keep  us  from  for- 
getting it,  that  Lamartine's  "day's  work"  was  politi- 
cal and  not  literary.  The  poet  who  in  his  youth 
sang  of  Graziella  and  Elvire,  whose  Wertherized 
soul  longed  for  eternity,  who  in  1818  was  all  "de- 
spair and  loneliness  and  lack  of  interest,"  is  the  self- 
same person  who  in  1847  wrote  the  Histoire  des 
Girondins;  who  a  year  later  aided  if  he  did  not 
instigate  the  fall  of  the  July  monarchy,  and  who 
during  the  bedlam  that  followed  alone  had  the  cour- 
age and  the  skill — not  to  speak  of  his  tireless  energy 
— to  conciliate  the  mob  and  to  establish  at  least  the 
semblance  of  a  constitutional  form  of  government. 
That  in  so  doing  he  simply  replaced  one  form  of 
autocracy  by  another,  the  bourgeois  reactionary 
Louis  Philippe  by  the  glittering  imperialist  Louis 
Napoleon,  adds  to  the  tragedy  of  his  already  tragic 
life.  But  the  unfortunate  result  cannot  in  the  least 
mar  Lamartine's  heroism  or  cloud  the  disinterested 
ideal  of  which  he  was  as  much  a  victim  as  an  origi- 
nator. There  is  no  denying  it:  Lamartine  made  a 
strange  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  for  the  Provi- 
sional Government — Heine  wittily  called  him 
"Minister  foreign  to  Affairs" — and  a  still  stranger 
revolutionary  leader,  aristocratic  as  his  origin  and 
demeanor  were.  But  he  was  the  man-of-the-hour  if 


ever  an  individual  was,  and  neither  his  country  nor 
the  world  at  large  has  ever  accorded  him  the  honor 
that  is  properly  his.  Thus,  it  is  particularly  as  a 
vindication  of  Lamartine  the  poet-politician,  that 
Mr.  Whitehouse  has  written  his  life. 

The  world  into  which  Alphonse  was  born  in  1790 
was  one  of  turmoil  and  upheaval ;  and  so  it  remained 
until  his  declining  years.  Well  documented,  Mr. 
Whitehouse  neglects  no  important  detail  of  the  fam- 
ily history.  Faithful  to  their  royalist  attachments 
the  poet's  parents  weathered  the  storm  of  the  Great 
Revolution  tant  bien  que  mal,  giving  to  their  son 
as  "free"  an  education  as  their  means  and  lights  al- 
lowed, both  of  which  were  considerable.  The  Chev- 
alier— as  the  father  was  called — had  a  marked  lean- 
ing for  literature  and  literary  composition,  while 
the  mother,  the  stronger  influence  with  the  poet, 
united  an  "inexorable  Catholicism"  to  a  sentimen- 
tal admiration  for  Rousseau.  "Doubtless,"  writes 
her  son,  "because  Rousseau  possessed  more  than 
genius:  he  had  soul."  And  it  is  precisely  this  qual- 
ity, more  than  genius,  insight,  or  ideas  that  is  charac- 
teristic of  Lamartine  himself.  Another  significant 
fact  is  the  reenforcement  of  the  Rousseauistic  prin- 
ciples by  the  poet's  contact  with  the  peasantry  of 
the  family  estate  at  Milly  and  by  the  soothing,  reli- 
gious atmosphere  of  the  Jesuit  school  in  Belley  with 
its  beautiful  surroundings  and  its  proximity  to  the 
Alps.  Desultory  as  Lamartine's  education  was,  the 
aristocratic  background,  the  Jesuit  training  for  ac- 
tion, the  humanitarianism  of  Rousseau  and  later  of 
Madame  de  Stae'l — of  whom  he  became  a  great  ad- 
mirer— conspired  to  instil  in  him  a  belief  in  the 
progress  of  mankind  and  in  himself  as  its  prophet 
which  only  the  complete  disillusionment  of  later  life 
was  to  destroy. 

To  say  then  that  Lamartine  carried  the  Roman- 
ticism of  literature  into  politics  is  not  enough.  As 
early  as  1811  he  confessed  to  his  friend  Virieu: 
"Je  me  suis  cree  des  societes  comme  des  mai tresses: 
'imaginaires.'  "  This  remark  is  far  truer  of  the 
latter  than  the  former.  The  detail  did  not  escape 
the  alert  eye  of  Anatole  France  in  his,  1'Elvire  de 
Lamartine.  Only  Mr.  Whitehouse  is  precise  in 
saying : 

"Whatever  the  relations  between  Lamartine  and 
Madame  Charles  may  have  been  .  .  .  the  limpid 
purity,  the  lofty  spirituality  of  his  poetry,  for  the  birth 
of  which  she  was  directly  responsible,  is  beyond  all  cavil. 
It  was  an  ideal  that  Lamartine  loved,  perhaps,  but  Julie 
was  not  unworthy  of  the  idealization  to  which  she  was 
subjected." 


74 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


And  he  further  notes  that,  as  Madame  Charles  her- 
self was  to  learn  with  bitterness,  the  fisherman's 
daughter  Graziella  had  already  inspired  similar  lofty 
effusions  on  the  poet's  part,  and  Madame  Charles 
"not  unnaturally  objected  to  being  classed  in  her 
lover's  mind  with  the  little  Neapolitan  grisette. 
With  an  eye  on  posterity  she  protested  at  being  one 
day  styled  'une  bonne  femme,  pleine  de  coeur,'  who 
had  loved  the  poet  Lamartine."  So  much  for  the 
lover.  As  for  Lamartine  the  politician,  he  too  ideal- 
ized, and  the  glamour  in  which  he  enveloped  his 
political  acts  are,  in  his  biographer's  opinion,  the 
main  cause  of  his  gravest  mistakes.  Only  an  ideal- 
ist could  cling  to  a  faith  in  the  progressive  liberalism 
of  the  French  nation — and  in  his  own  popularity — • 
at  the  moment  when  the  reactionary  forces,  appar- 
ent to  all  but  him,  were  about  to  seat  Napoleon  III 
on  his  uncle's  throne.  "M.  de  Lamartine  n'entend 
rien  a  la  politique,"  scornfully  said  the  radical 
Ledru-Rollin,  the  opponent  whom  Lamartine  was 
not  only  to  outwit  but  to  treat  with  unparalleled 
generosity.  We  must  grant  that  "Lamartine  did 
not  possess,  politically  speaking,  a  very  fine  sense  of 
values."  Of  the  great  French  quality,  esprit,  he  had 
not  a  glimmer.  And  yet  the  truth  is  that  Lamartine 
the  politician  is  a  complex  of  qualities.  Poetry  apart, 
he  was  essentially  a  being  cleft  into  by  opposing  ten- 
dencies: an  aristocrat's  generosity  (which  never 
failed  him),  a  poet's  enthusiasm  and  vanity,  and  a 
statesman's  instinct  for  conciliation  and  general 
ideas.  To  these  traits  should  be  added  an  ineradic- 
able aloofness — which  may  have  been  the  product  of 
the  conflicting  elements  named. 

Some  such  conclusion  the  reader  will  draw  from 
Mr.  Whitehouse's  illuminating  pages.  The  traits 
are  there,  though  not  always  connectedly  set  forth. 
Mr.  Whitehouse  narrates  well.  The  chapters  on  the 
Abdication  of  Louis  Philippe,  the  Provisional  Gov- 
ernment, the  thrilling  Sixteenth  of  April,  and  Louis 
Napoleon  Bonaparte,  read  like  a  romance.  An  eye- 
witness of  those  momentous  days  could  not  have  seen 
as  much  for  he  would  have  had  to  be  ubiquitous.  Nor 
does  the  hero  fail  to  occupy  the  center  of  the  action 
or  occupy  it  unnecessarily:  Lamartine's  absences  from 
the  arena  are  as  significant  as  his  presences.  Thus 
we  get  a  picture  of  the  "man"  Lamartine,  as  a  boy, 
a  lover,  a  diplomat,  a  traveler  in  the  Orient,  a 
husband,  a  father,  and  a  patriot.  Above  all,  we  are 
present  at  the  adventure  of  Lake  Bourget,  when 
Julie  comes  to  possess  his  glowing  soul,  once  for  all ; 
we  see  him  in  the  Chambre  in  the  heat  of  debate, 
in  the  anguish  of  those  sleepless  nights  during  the 
Revolution,  when  he  expected  every  moment  to  be 
shot  and  yet  never  quailed,  in  the  streets  of  the 


mob-ridden  capital  when  the  lightning  played  about 
his  head  and  he  nevertheless  found  the  words  to 
calm  the  mob,  and  we  accompany  him  in  his  mo- 
ment of  triumph  on  the  fifteenth  of  May  as  he  rode 
through  Paris  to  the  shouts  of  Vive  la  Republique. 
Perhaps  it  is  captious  to  ask  for  more,  still  we  long 
for  a  synthesis  of  so  many  details.  Fascinating  as 
Mr.  Whitehouse's  account  is,  the  "complete"  La- 
martine does  not  altogether  emerge. 

One  reason  for  this  doubtless  is  that  Mr.  White- 
house  has  isolated  his  hero  somewhat  more  than  the 
facts  warrant.  It  is  true  we  are  told: 

A  Legitimist  and  Monarchist  by  tradition,  but  a  pro- 
gressive and  fervent  advocate,  by  conviction,  for  the  most 
generous  grants  of  political,  and  social  liberties,  Lamar- 
tine invariably  struggled  for  the  doctrines  he  upheld. 

But  the  idea  is  not  developed  and  its  relationship 
to  the  philosophy  of  Cousin — one  of  the  progenitors 
of  our  own  Transcendentalism — is  not  recognized. 
That  Lamartine's  pantheism,  noted  by  Mr.  White- 
house  en  passant,  is  akin  to  Cousin's  Spontaneous 
Reason  "acquainting  us  with  the  true  and  essential 
nature  of  things,"  is  shown  among  other  instances 
by  the  poet's  advice  to  Lord  Byron : 

Descends  du  rang  des  dieux  qu'usurpait  ton  audace ; 
Tout  est  bien,  tout  est  ban,  tout  est  grand  a  sa  place. 

And  also  by  the  poetic — one  is  tempted  to  say  "po- 
litical"— application  he  makes  of  it  in  the  preface  to 
Jocelyn : 

Les  hommes  ne  s'interessent  plus  tant  aux  individual- 
ites,  ils  les  prennent  pour  ce  qu'elles  sont:  des  moyens 
ou  des  obstacles  dans  1'oeuvre  commune.  L'interet  du 
genre  humain  s'attache  au  genre  humain  lui-meme.  La 
poesie  redevient  sacree  par  la  verite,  comme  elle  le 
fut  jadis  par  la  fable;  elle  redevient  religieuse  par  la 
raison,  et  populaire  par  la  philosophic.  L'epopee  n'est 
plus  nationale  ni  heroique,  elle  est  bien  plus,  elle  est 
humanitaire. 

However  it  is  Humanity  in  no  modern,  sociological 
sense  of  first-hand  acquaintance,  but  Humanity  as  a 
Platonic  vision,  a  Wertherized,  Ossianic  fusion  of 
lyric  motifs  set  to  the  roll  of  harmonious  and  re- 
sounding music.  Such  is  the  verse  the  poet  writes, 
such  are  the  orations  he  pronounces  in  the  Cham- 
bre or  to  the  populace  of  the  Revolution.  This,  it 
seems,  is  the  dominant  and  connecting  motive  of  this 
extraordinary  life.  Lamartine  was  a  chantre  or, 
as  Mr.  Whitehouse  recognizes  at  the  outset,  a 
vates.  Had  he  himself  not  made  the  descent — 
he  the  son  of  the  ancien  regime — which  he  urges 
upon  Byron  ?  The  Republic  was  to  him  the  fruition 
of  those  who  reason  "spontaneously,"  not  from  be- 
low but  from  above.  "Ou  servir  des  idees,  ou  rien, 
voila  ma  devise,"  he  wrote  to  the  Marquis  de  la 
Grange.  Hence  the  attempt  or  attempts  to  place 
the  monarchy  on  the  side  of  the  people;  and  hence 


THE  DIAL 


75 


when  these  failed,  his  efforts  by  conciliatory  means  to 
brush  the  monarchy  aside  and  let  the  people  rule — 
though  he  considered  that  the  moment  was  prema- 
ture; hence  finally  the  failure  to  see,  because  of  the 
obsession  that  held  him,  the  forces  which  were  gath- 
ering for  his  destruction.  This  is  not  to  deny  him 
certain  real  political  qualities:  he  could  be  astute, 
as  when  he  kept  the  Opposition  guessing  or  when  he 
refused  posts  obviously  beyond  his  capacities;  he 
made  friends,  few  to  be  sure  but  genuine  ones;  he 
upheld  the  national  prestige  abroad  despite  a  foreign 
policy  often  ill-advised.  All  these  points  his  biog- 
rapher sees  and  is  just  to. 

But  he  might  have  dwelt  at  greater  length  on  the 
faculte  maitresse  of  his  hero :  the  clarifying  side  of 


the  man  that  made  him  at  once  a  patriot  and  a  seer. 
For  visionary  and  facile  as  Lamartine  was,  and  pre- 
mature as  he  realized  some  of  his  policies  to  be, 
he  yet  was  right  in  so  far  that  democracy  must  be 
coupled  with  magnanimity,  that  any  so-called  liberal 
form  of  government  must  be  founded  on  the  higher 
instincts  of  the  race  and  have  faith  in  them  and 
consistently  appeal  to  them — as  Lamartine  did — or 
democracy  like  the  autocracy  it  seeks  to  destroy  is 
another  name  for  tyranny.  The  tragedy  of  Lamar- 
tine's  life  is  epitomized  in  the  phrase :  J'ai  vecu  pour 
la  joule,  je  veux  dormir  seul.  It  would  be  a  greater 
tragedy  still  if  the  principle  for  which  he  lived 

should  prove  illusory. 

WILLIAM  A.  NITZE. 


The  Modern  Point  of  View  and  the  New  Order 

VIII. 

THE  VESTED  INTERESTS  AND  THE  COMMON  MAN 


1 N  THE  EIGHTEENTH  century  certain  principles  of 
enlightened  common  sense  were  thrown  into  formal 
shape  and  adopted  by  the  civilized  peoples  of  that 
time  to  govern  the  system  of  law  and  order,  use 
and  wont,  under  which  they  chose  to  live.  So  far 
as  concerns  economic  relations  the  principles  which 
so  became  incorporated  into  the  system  of  civilized 
law  and  custom  at  that  time  were  the  principles  of 
equal  opportunity,  self-determination,  and  self-help. 
Chief  among  the  specific  rights  by  which  this  civil- 
ized scheme  of  equal  opportunity  and  self-help  were 
to  be  safeguarded  were  the  rights  of  free  contract 
and  security  of  property.  These  make  up  the  sub- 
stantial core  of  that  system  of  principles  which  is 
called  the  modern  point  of  view,  in  so  far  as  con- 
cerns trade,  industry,  investment,  credit  obligations, 
and  whatever  else  may  properly  be  spoken  of  as 
economic  institutions.  And  these  still  stand  over 
today  as  paramount  among  the  inalienable  rights 
of  all  free  citizens  in  all  free  countries;  they  are 
the  groundwork  of  the  economic  system  as  it  runs 
today,  and  this  existing  system  can  undergo  no 
material  change  of  character  so  long  as  these  par- 
amount rights  of  civilized  men  continue  to  be 
inalienable.  Any  move  to  set  these  rights  aside 
would  be  subversive  of  the  modern  economic  order ; 
whereas  no  revision  or  alteration  of  established 
rights  and  usages  will  amount  to  a  revolutionary 
movement  so  long  as  it  does  not  disallow  these 
paramount  economic  rights. 

When  the  constituent  principles  of  the  modern 
point  of  view  were  accepted  and  the  modern  scheme 


of  civilized  life  was  therewith  endorsed  by  the 
civilized  peoples,  in  the  eighteenth  century,  these 
rights  of  self-direction  and  self-help  were  counted 
on  as  the  particular  and  sufficient  safeguard  of 
equity  and  efficiency  in  any  civilized  country.  They 
were  counted  on  to  establish  eqvality  among  men  in 
all  their  economic  relations  and  to  maintain  the 
industrial  system  at  the  highest  practicable  degree 
of  productive  efficiency.  They  were  counted  on  to 
give  enduring  effect  to  the  rule  of  Live  and  Let 
Live.  And  such  is  still  the  value  ascribed  to  these 
rights  in  the  esteem  of  modern  men.  The  main- 
tenance of  law  and  order  still  means  primarily  and 
chiefly  the  maintenance  of  these  rights  of  ownership 
and  pecuniary  obligation. 

But  things  have  changed  since  that  time  in  such 
a  way  that  the  rule  of  Live  and  Let  Live  is  no 
longer  sufficiently  safeguarded  by  maintaining  these 
rights  in  the  shape  given  them  in  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury— or  at  least  there  are  large  sections  of  the 
people  in  these  civilized  countries  who  are  beginning 
to  think  so,  which  is  just  as  good  for  practical  pur- 
poses. Things  have  changed  in  such  a  way,  since 
that  time,  that  the  ownership  of  property  in  large 
holdings  now  controls  the  nation's  industry,  and 
therefore  controls  the  conditions  of  life  for  those 
who  are  or  wish  to  be  engaged  in  industry — at  the 
same  time  that  the  same  ownership  of  large  wealth 
controls  the  markets  and  thereby  controls  the  con- 
ditions of  life  for  those  who  have  to  resort  to  the 
markets  to  sell  or  buy.  In  other  words,  it  has  come 
to  pass  with  the  change  of  circumstances  that  the 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


rule  of  Live  and  Let  Live  how  waits  on  the  dis- 
cretion of  the  owners  of  large  wealth.  In  fact,  those 
thoughtful  men  in  th-  eighteenth  century  who  made 
so  much  of  these  constituent  principles  of  the  mod- 
ern point  of  view  did  not  contemplate  anything  like 
the  system  of  large  wealth,  large-scale  industry,  and 
large-scale  commerce  and  credit  which  prevails  to- 
day. They  did  not  foresee  the  new  order  in  in- 
dustry and  business,  and  the  system  of  rights  and 
obligations  which  they  installed,  therefore,  made 
no  provision  for  the  new  order  of  things  that  has 
come  on  since  their  time. 

The  new  order  has  brought  the  machine  industry, 
corporation  finance,  big  business,  and  the  world 
market.  Under  this  new  order  in  business  and  in- 
dustry, business  controls  industry.  Invested  wealth 
in  large  holdings  controls  the  country's  industrial 
system,  directly  by  ownership  of  the  plant,  as  in  the 
mechanical  industries,  or  indirectly  through  the 
market,  as  in  farming.  So  that  the  population  of 
these  civilized  countries  now  falls  into  two  main 
classes:  those  who  own  wealth  invested  in  large 
holdings  and  who  thereby  control  the  conditions  of 
life  for  the  rest;  and  those  who  do  not  own  wealth 
in  sufficiently  large  holdings  and  whose  conditions 
of  life  are  therefore  controlled  by  these  others.  It 
is  a  division,  not  between  those  who  have  something 
and  those  who  have  nothing— as  many  socialists 
would  be  inclined  to  describe  it — but  between  those 
who  own  wealth  enough  to  make  it  count,  and 
those  who  do  not. 

And  all  the  while  the  scale  on  which  the  control 
of  industry  and  the  market  is  exercised  goes  on  in- 
creasing ;  from  which  it  follows  that  what  was  large 
enough  for  assured  independence  yesterday  is  no 
longer  large  enough  for  tomorrow.  Seen  from  an- 
other direction,  it  is  at  the  same  time  a  division  be- 
tween those  who  live  on  free  income  and  those  who 
live  by  work — a  division  between  the  kept  classes 
and  the  underlying  community  from  which  their 
keep  is  drawn.  It  is  sometimes  spoken  of  in  this 
bearing — particularly  by  certain  socialists — as  a  di- 
vision between  those  who  do  no  useful  work  and 
those  who  do ;  but  this  would  be  a  hasty  generaliza- 
tion, since  riot  a  few  of  those  persons  who  have  no 
assured  free  income  also  do  no  work  that  is  of 
material  use,  as,  for  example,  menial  servants.  But 
the  gravest  significance  of  this  cleavage  that  so  runs 
through  the  population  of  the  advanced  industrial 
countries  lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  a  division  between 
the  vested  interests  and  the  common  man.  It  is  a 
division  between  those  who  control  the  conditions  of 
work  and  the  rate  and  volume  of  output  and  to 
whom  the  net  output  of  industry  goes  as  free  in- 
come, on  the  one  hand,  and  those  who  have  the 


work  to  do  and  to  whom  a  livelihood  is  allowed  by 
those  in  control,  on  the  other  hand.  In  point  of 
numbers  it  is  a  very  uneven  division,  of  course. 

A  vested  interest  is  a  legitimate  right  to  get  some- 
thing for  nothing,  usually  a  prescriptive  right  to  an 
income  which  is  secured  by  controlling  the  traffic  at 
one  point  or  another.  The  owners  of  such  a  pre- 
scriptive right  are  also  spoken  of  as  a  vested  in- 
terest. Such  persons  make  up  what  are  called  the 
kept  classes.  But  the  kept  classes  also  comprise 
many  persons  who  are  entitled  to  a  free  income  on 
other  grounds  than  their  ownership  and  control  of 
industry  or  the  market,  as,  for  example,  landlords 
and  other  persons  classed  as  "gentry,"  the  clergy,  the 
Crown — where  there  is  a  Crown — and  its  officials, 
civil  and  military.  Contrasted  with  these  classes 
who  make  up  the  vested  interests,  and  who  derive 
an  income  from  the  established  order  of  ownership 
and  privilege,  is  the  common  man.  He  is  common 
in  the  respect  that  he  is  not  vested  with  such  a  pre- 
scriptive right  to  get  something  for  nothing.  And 
he  is  called  common  because  such  is  the  common  lot 
of  men  under  the  new  order  of  business  and  in- 
dustry; and  such  will  continue  (increasingly)  to  be 
the  common  lot  so  long  as  the  enlightened  principles 
of  secure  ownership  and  self-help  handed  down  from 
the  'eighteenth  century  continue  to  rule  human  af- 
fairs under  the  new  order  of  industry. 

The  kept  classes,  whose  free  income  is  secured  to 
them  by  the  legitimate  rights  of  the  vested  interests, 
are  less  numerous  than  the  common  man — less 
numerous  by  some  ninty-five  per  cent  or  thereabouts 
— and  less  serviceable  to  the  community  at  large 
in  perhaps  the  same  proportion,  so  far  as  regards 
any  conceivable  use  for  any  material  purpose.  In 
this  sense  they  are  uncommon.  But  it  is  not  usual 
to  speak  of  the  kept  classes  as  the  uncommon  classes, 
since  they  personally  differ  from  the  common  run 
of  mankind  in  no  sensible  respect.  It  is  more  usual 
to  speak  of  them  as  "the  better  classes,"  because  they 
are  in  better  circumstances  and  are  better  able  to  do 
as  they  like.  Their  place  in  the  economic  scheme 
of  the  civilized  world  is  to  consume  the  net  product 
of  the  country's  industry  over  cost,  and  so  prevent 
a  glut  of  the  market. 

But  this  broad  distinction  between  the  kept  classes 
and  their  vested  interests  on  the  one  side  and  the 
common  man  on  the  other  side  is  by  no  means  hard 
and  fast.  Doubtful  cases  are  frequent,  and  a  shift- 
ing across  the  line  occurs  now  and  again,  but  the 
broad  distinction  is  not  doubtful  for  all  that.  The 
great  distinguishing  mark  of  the  common  man  is 
that  he  is  helpless  within  the  rules  of  the  game  as 
it  is  played  in  the  twentieth  century  under  the  en- 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


77 


lightened    principles    of    the    eighteenth    century. 

There  are  all  degrees  of  this  helplessness  that  char- 
acterizes the  common  lot.  So  much  so  that  certain 
classes,  professions,  and  occupations — such  as  the 
clergy,  the  military,  the  courts,  police,  and  legal  pro- 
fession— are  perhaps  to  be  classed  as  belonging 
primarily  with  the  vested  interests,  although  they 
can  scarcely  be  counted  as  vested  interests  in  their 
own  right,  but  rather  as  outlying  and  subsidiary 
vested  interests  whose  security  of  tenure  is  con- 
ditioned on  their  serving  the  purposes  of  those  prin- 
cipal and  self-directing  vested  interests  whose  tenure 
rests  immediately  on  large  holdings  of  invested 
wealth.  The  income  which  goes  to  these  subsidiary 
or  dependent  vested  interests  is  of  the  nature  of  free 
income,  in  so  far  that  it  is  drawn  from  the  yearly 
product  of  the  underlying  community;  but  in  an- 
other sense  it  is  scarcely  to  be  counted  as  "free" 
income,  in  that  its  continuance  depends  on  the  good 
will  of  those  controlling  vested  interests  whose 
power  rests  on  the  ownership  of  large  invested 
wealth.  Still  it  will  be  found  that  these  subsidiary 
or  auxiliary  vested  interests  uniformly  range  them- 
selves with  their  superiors  in  the  same  class,  rather 
than  with  the  common  man.  By  sentiment  and 
habitual  outlook  they  belong  with  the  kept  classes, 
in  that  they  are  stanch  defenders  of  that  established 
order  of  law  and  custom  which  secures  the  great 
vested  interests  in  power  and  insures  the  free  income 
of  the  kept  classes.  In  any  twofold  division  of  the 
population  these  are  therefore,  on  the  whole,  to  be 
ranged  on  the  side  of  the  old  order,  the  vested  in- 
terests, and  the  kept  classes,  both  in  sentiment  and 
as  regards  the  circumstances  which  condition  their 
life  and  comfort. 

Beyond  these,  whose  life  interests  are,  after  all, 
closely  bound  up  with  the  kept  classes,  there  are 
other  vested  interests  of  a  more  doubtful  and  per- 
plexing kind;  classes  and  occupations  which  would 
seem  to  belong  with  the  common  lot,  but  which  range 
themselves  at  least  provisionally  with  the  vested  in- 
terests and  can  scarcely  be  denied  standing  as  such. 
Such,  as  an  illustrative  instance,  is  the  A.  F.  of  L. 
Not  that  the  constituency  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.  can 
be  said  to  live  on  free  income,  and  is  therefore  to  be 
counted  in  with  the  kept  classes — the  only  reserva- 
tion on  that  head  would  conceivably  be  the  corps  of 
officials  in  the  A.  F.  of  L.,  who  dominate  the  policies 
of  that  organization  and  exercise  a  prescriptive  right 
to  dispose  of  its  forces,  at  the  same  time  that  they 
habitually  come  in  for  an  income  drawn  from  the 
underlying  organization.  The  rank  and  file  as- 
suredly are  not  of  the  kept  classes,  nor  do  they 
visibly  come  in  for  a  free  income.  Yet  they  stand 
on  the  defensive  in  maintaining  a  vested  interest  in 


the  prerogatives  of  their  organization.  They  are 
apparently  moved  by  a  feeling  that  so  long  as  the 
established  arrangements  are  maintained  they  will 
come  in  for  a  little  something  over  and  above  what 
would  come  to  them  if  they  were  to  make  common 
cause  with  the  undistinguished  common  lot.  In 
other  words,  they  have  a  vested  interest  in  a  narrow 
margin  of  preference  over  and  above  what  goes  to 
the  common  man.  But  this  narrow  margin  of  net 
gain  over  the  common  lot,  this  vested  right  to  get 
a  narrow  margin  of  something  for  nothing,  has 
hitherto  been  sufficient  to  shape  their  sentiments  and 
outlook  in  such  a  way  as,  in  effect,  to  keep  them 
loyal  to  the  large  business  interests  with  whom  they 
negotiate  for  this  narrow  margin  of  preference.  As 
is  true  of  the  vested  interests  in  business,  so  in  the 
case  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.,  the  ordinary  ways  and 
means  of  enforcing  their  claim  to  a  little  something 
over  and  above  is  the  use  of  a  reasonable  sabotage, 
in  the  way  of  restriction,  retardation,  and  unemploy- 
ment. Yet  the  constituency  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.,  taken 
man  for  man,  is  not  readily  to  be  distinguished  from 
the  common  sort  so  far  as  regards  their  conditions  of 
life.  The  spirit  of  vested  interest  which  animates 
them  may,  in  fact,  be  nothing  more  to  the  point  than 
an  aimless  survival. 

Farther  along  the  same  line,  larger  and  even  more 
perplexing,  is  the  case  of  the  American  farmers,  who 
also  are  in  the  habit  of  ranging  themselves,  on  the 
whole,  with  the  vested  interests  rather  than  with  the 
common  man.  By  sentiment  and  outlook  the  farm- 
ers are,  commonly,  steady  votaries  of  that  established 
order  which  enables  the  vested  interests  to  do  a  "big 
business"  at  their  expense.  Such  is  the  tradition 
which  still  binds  the  farmers,  however  unequivo- 
cally their  material  circumstances  under  the  new 
order  of  business  and  industry  might  seem  to  drive 
the  other  way.  In  the  ordinary  case  the  American 
farmer  is  now  as  helpless  to  control  his  own  condi- 
tions of  life  as  the  commonest  of  the  common  run. 
He  is  caught  between  the  vested  interests  who  buy 
cheap  and  the  vested  interests  who  sell  dear,  and  it 
is  for  him  to  take  or  leave  what  is  offered — but 
ordinarily  to  take  it,  on  pain  of  "getting  leff 

There  is  still  afloat  among  the  rural  population 
a  slow-dying  tradition  of  the  "Independent  Farmer,", 
who  is  reputed  once  upon  a  time  to  have  lived  his 
own  life  and  done  his  own  work  as  good  him  seemed, 
and  who  was  content  to  let  the  world  wag.  But 
all  that  has  gone  by  as  completely  as  the  other  things 
that  are  told  in  tales  which  begin  with  "Once  upon 
a  time."  It  has  gone  by  into  the  same  waste  of 
regrets  with  the  like  independence  which  the 
country-town  retailer  is  believed  to  have  enjoyed 
once  upon  a  time.  But  the  country-town  retailer 


78 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


stands  stiffly  on  the  vested  rights  of  the  trade  and 
of  the  town ;  he  is  by  sentiment  and  habitual  outlook 
a  business  man  who  guides,  or  would  like  to  guide, 
his  enterprise  by  the  principle  of  charging  what  the 
traffic  will  bear,  of  buying  cheap  and  selling  dear. 
He  still  manages  to  sell  dear,  but  he  does  not  com- 
monly buy  cheap,  except  what  he  buys  of  the  farmer, 
for  the  massive  vested  interests  in  the  background 
now  decide  for  him,  in  the  main,  how  much  his 
traffic  will  bear.  He  is  not  placed  so  very  differently 
from  the  farmer  in  this  respect,  except  that,  being  a 
middleman,  he  can  in  some  appreciable  degree  shift 
the  burden  to  a  third  party.  The  third  party  in  the 
case  is  the  farmer;  the  massive  vested  interests  who 
move  in  the  background  of  the  market  do  not  lend 
themselves  to  that  purpose. 

Except  for  the  increasing  number  of  tenant  farm- 
ers, the  American  farmers  of  the  large  agricultural 
sections  still  are  owners  who  cultivate  their  own 
ground.  They  are  owners  of  property,  who  might 
be  said  to  have  an  investment  in  their  own  farms, 
and  therefore  fancy  that  they  have  a  vested  interest 
in  the  farm  and  its  earning-capacity.  They  have 
carried  over  out  of  the  past  and  its  old  order  of 
things  a  delusion  to  the  effect  that  they  have  some- 
thing to  lose.  It  is  quite  a  natural  and  rather  an 
engaging  delusion,  since,  barring  incumbrances,  they 
are  seised  of  a  good  and  valid  title  at  law,  to  a  very 
tangible  and  useful  form  of  property.  And  by  due 
provision  of  law  and  custom  they  are  quite  free  to 
use  or  abuse -their  holdings  in  the  land,  to  buy  and 
sell  it  and  its  produce  altogether  at  their  own  pleas- 
ure. It  is  small  wonder  if  the  farmers,  with  the 
genial  traditions  of  the  day  before  yesterday  still 
running  full  and  free  in  their  sophisticated  brains, 
are  given  to  consider  themselves  typical  holders  of  a 
legitimate  vested  interest  of  a  very  substantial  kind. 
In  all  of  which  they  count  without  their  host;  their 
host,  under  the  new  order  of  business,  being  those 
massive  vested  interests  that  move  obscurely  in  the 
background  of  the  market,  and  whose  rule  of  life  it 
is  to  buy  cheap  and  sell  dear. 

In  the  ordinary  case  the  farmers  of  the  great 
American  farming  regions  are  owners  of  the  land 
and  improvements,  except  for  an  increasing  propor- 
tion of  tenant  farmers.  But  it  is  the  farmer-own-- 
that  is  commonly  had  in  mind  in  speaking  of  the 
American  farmers  as  a  class.  Barring  incumbrances, 
these  farmer-owners  have  a  good  and  valid  title  to 
their  land  and  improvements ;  but  their  title  remains 
good  only  so  long  as  the  run  of  the  market  for  what 
they  need  and  what  they  have  to  sell  does  not  take 
such  a  turn  that  the  title  will  pass  by  process  of 
liquidation  into  other  hands,  as  may  always  happen. 
And  the  run  of  the  market  which  conditions  the 


farmer's  work  and  livelihood  has  now  come  to  de- 
pend on  the  highly  impersonal  maneuvers  of  those 
massive  interests  that  move  in  the  background  and 
find  a  profit  in  buying  cheap  and  selling  dear.  In 
point  of  law  and  custom  there  is,  of  course,  nothing 
to  hinder  the  American  farmer  from  considering 
himself  to  be  possessed  of  a  vested  interest  in  his 
farm  and  its  working,  if  that  pleases  his  fancy.  The 
circumstances  which  decide  what  he  may  do  with 
his  farm  and  its  equipment,  however,  are  prescribed 
for  him  quite  deliberately  and  quite  narrowly  by 
those  other  vested  interests  in  the  background  that 
are  massive  enough  to  regulate  the  course  of- things 
in  business  and  industry  at  large.  He  is  caught  in 
the  system,  and  he  does  not  govern  the  set  and  mo- 
tions of  the  system.  So  that  the  question  of  his 
effectual  standing  as  a  vested  interest  becomes  a 
question  of  fact,  not  of  preference  and  genial 
tradition. 

A  vested  interest  is  a  legitimate  right  to  get  some- 
thing for  nothing.  The  American  farmer — say,  the 
ordinary  farmer  of  the  grain-growing  Middle 
West — can  be  said  to  be  possessed  of  such  a  vested 
interest  only  if  he  habitually  and  securely  gets  some- 
thing in  the  way  of  free  income  above  cost,  counting 
as  cost  the  ordinary  rate  of  wages  for  work  done 
on  the  farm  plus  ordinary  returns  on  the  replacement 
value  of  the  means  of  production  which  he  employs. 
Now  it  is  notorious  that,  except  for  quite  exceptional 
cases,  there  are  no  intangible  assets  in  farming;  and 
intangible  assets  are  the  chief  and  ordinary  indication 
of  free  income,  that  is  to  say,  of  getting  something 
for  nothing.  Any  concern  that  can  claim  no  in- 
tangible assets,  in  the  way  of  valuable  good-will, 
monopoly  rights,  or  outstanding  corporation  securi- 
ties, has  no  claim  to  be  rated  as  a  vested  interest. 
What  constitutes  a  valid  claim  to  standing  as  a 
vested  interest  is  the  assured  customary  ability  to  get 
something  more  in  the  way  of  income  than  a  full 
equivalent  for  tangible  performance  in  the  way  of 
productive  work. 

The  returns  which  these  farmers  are  in  the  habit 
of  getting  from  their  own  work  and  from  the  work 
of  their  household  and  hired  help  do  not  ordinarily 
include  anything  that  can  be  called  free  or  unearned 
income — unless  one  should  go  so  far  as  to  declare 
that  income  reckoned  at  ordinary  rates  on  the  tangi- 
ble assets  engaged  in  this  industry  is  to  be  classed 
as  unearned  income,  which  is  not  the  usual  meaning 
of  the  expression.  It  may  be  that  popular  opinion 
on  these  matters  will  take  such  a  turn  some  time 
that  men  will  come  to  consider  that  income  wm'ch  is 
derived  from  the  use  of  land  and  equipment  is 
rightly  to  be  counted  as  unearned  income,  because  it 
does  not  correspond  to  any  tangible  performance  in 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


79 


the  way  of  productive  work  on  the  part  of  the  person 
to  whom  it  goes.  But  for  the  present  that  is  not  the 
popular  sense  of  the  matter,  and  that  is  not  the 
meaning  of  the  words  in  popular  usage.  For  the 
present,  at  least,  reasonable  returns  on  the  replace- 
ment value  of  tangible  assets  are  not  considered  to 
be  unearned  income. 

It  is  true  the  habits  of  thought  engendered  by  the 
machine  system  in  industry  and  by  the  mechanically 
standardized  organization  of  daily  life  under  this 
new  order,  as  well  as  by  the  material  sciences,  are 
of  such  a  character  as  would  incline  the  common 
man  to  rate  all  men  and  things  in  terms  of  tangible 
performance  rather  than  in  terms  of  legal  title  and 
ancient  usage.  And  it  may  well  come  to  pass,  in 
time,  that  men  will  consider  any  income  unearned 
which  exceeds  a  fair  return  for  tangible  performance 
in  the  way  of  productive  work  on  the  part  of  the 
person  to  whom  the  income  goes.  The  mechanistic 
logic  of  the  new  order  of  industry  drives  in  that 
direction,  and  it  may  well  be  that  the  frame  of  mind 
engendered  by  this  training  in  matter-of-fact  ways 
of  thinking  will  presently  so  shape  popular  sentiment 
that  all  income  from  property,  simply  on  the  basis 
of  ownership,  will  be  disallowed,  whether  the  prop- 
erty is  tangible  or  intangible.  All  that  is  a  specula- 
tive question  running  into  the  future.  It  is  to  be 
recognized  and  taken  account  of  that  the  immutable 
principles  of  law  and  equity,  in  matters  of  owner- 
ship and  income  as  well  as  in  other  connections,  are 
products  of  habit,  and  that  habits  are  always  liable 
to  change  in  response  to  altered  circumstances,  and 
the  drift  of  circumstances  is  now  apparently  setting 
in  that  direction.  But  popular  sentiment  has  not 
yet  reached  that  degree  of  emancipation  from  those 
good  old  principles  of  self-help  and  secure  ownership 
that  go  to  make  up  the  modern  (eighteenth  century) 
point  of  view  in  law  and  custom.  The  equity  of 
income  derived  from  the  use  of  tangible  property 
may  presently  become  a  moot  question ;  but  it  is  not 
so  today,  outside  of  certain  classes  in  the  population 
whom  the  law  and  the  courts  are  endeavoring  to 
discourage.  It  is  the  business  of  the  law  and  the 
courts  to  discourage  any  change  of  insight  or  opinion. 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  his  conditions  of  life 
should  throw  the  American  farmer  in  with  the 
common  man  who  has  substantially  nothing  to  lose, 
beyond  what  the  vested  interests  of  business  can 
always  take  over  at  their  own  discretion  and  in 
their  own  good  time.  In  point  of  material  fact  he 
has  ceased  to  be  a  self -directing  agent ;  and  self-help 
has  for  him  come  substantially  to  be  a  make-believe ; 
although,  of  course,  in  point  of  legal  formality  he 
still  continues  to  enjoy  all  the  ancient  rights  and 


immunities  of  secure  ownership  and  self-help.  Yet 
it  is  no  less  patent  a  fact  of  current  history  that 
the  American  farmer  continues,  on  the  whole,  to 
stand  fast  by  those  principles  of  self-help  and  free 
bargaining  which  enable  the  vested  interests  to  play 
fast  and  loose  with  him  and  all  his  works.  Such 
is  the  force  of  habit  and  tradition. 

The  reason,  or  at  least  the  preconception,  by 
force  of  which  the  American  farmers  have  been 
led,  in  effect,  to  side  with  the  vested  interests  rather 
than  with  the  common  man,  comes  of  the  fact  that 
the  farmers  are  not  only  farmers  but  also  owners 
of  speculative  real  estate.  And  it  is  as  speculators 
in  land  values  that  they  find  themselves  on  the  side 
of  unearned  income.  As  land-owners  they  aim  and 
confidently  hope  to  get  something  for  nothing  in 
the  unearned  increase  of  land  values.  But  all  the 
while  they  overlook  the  fact  that  the  future  in- 
crease of  land  values,  on  which  they  pin  their  hopes, 
is  already  discounted  in  the  present  price  of  the  land 
— except  for  exceptional  and  fortuitous  cases.  As 
is  known  to  all  persons  who  are  at  all  informed  on 
this  topic,  farmland  holdings  in  the  typical  Amer- 
ican farming  regions  are  overcapitalized,  in  the 
sense  that  the  current  market  value  of  these  farm- 
lands is  considerably  greater  than  the  capitalized 
value  of  the  income  to  be  derived  from  their  current 
use  as  farmlands.  This  excess  value  of  the  farm- 
lands is  a  speculative  value  due  to  discounting  the 
future  increased  value  which  these  lands  are  ex- 
pected to  gain  with  the  further  growth  of  popula- 
tion and  with  increasing  facilities  for  marketing 
the  farm  products  of  the  locality.  It  is  therefore 
as  a  land  speculator  holding  his  land  for  a  rise,  not 
as  a  husbandman  cultivating  the  soil  for  a  livelihood, 
that  the  prairie  farmer,  for  example,  comes  in  for 
an  excess  value  and  an  overcapitalization  of  his 
holdings.  All  of  which  has  much  in  common  with 
the  intangible  assets  of  the  vested  interests,  and 
all  of  which  persuades  the  prairie  farmer  that  he 
is  of  a  class  apart  from  the  common  man  who  has 
nothing  to  lose.  But  he  can  come  in  for  this  un- 
earned gain  only  by  the  eventual  sale  of  his  hold- 
ings, not  in  their  current  use  as  a  means  of  produc- 
tion in  farming.  As  a  business  man  doing  a  specu- 
lative business  in  farmlands  the  American '  farmer, 
in  a  small  way,  runs  true  to  form  and  so  is  entitled 
to  a  modest  place  among  that  class  of  substantial 
citizens  who  get  something  for  nothing  by  cornering 
the  supply  and  "sitting  tight."  And  all  the  while 
the  massive  interests  that  move  obscurely  in  the 
background  of  the  market  are  increasingly  in  a 
position,  in  their  own  good  time,  to  disallow  the 
farmer  just  so  much  of  this  stillborn  gain  as  they 
may  dispassionately  consider  to  be  convenient  for 


8o 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


their  own  use.  And  the  farmer-speculator  of  the 
prairies  continues  to  stand  fast  by  the  principles  of 
equity  which  entitle  the  vested  interests  to  play  fast 
and  loose  with  him  and  all  his  works. 

The  facts  of  the  case  stand  somewhat  different 
as  regards  the  American  farmer's  gains  from  his 
work  as  a  husbandman,  or  from  the  use  which  he 
makes  of  his  land  and  stock  in  farming.  His  re- 
turns from  his  work  are  notably  scant.  So  much 
so  that  it  is  still  an  open  question  whether,  taken 
one  with  another,  the  American  farmer's  assets  in 
land  and  other  equipment  enable  him,  one  year  with 
another,  to  earn  more  than  what  would  count  as 
ordinary  wages  for  the  labor  which  these  assets 
enable  him  to  put  into  his  product.  But  it  is  be- 
yond question  that  the  common  run  of  those  Amer- 
ican farmers  who  "work  their  own  land"  get  at 
the  best  a  very  modest  return  for  the  use  of  their 
land  and  stock — so  scant,  indeed,  that  if  usage 
admitted  such  an  expression  it  would  be  fair  to 
say  that  the  farmer,  considered  as  a  going  concern, 
should  be  credited  with  an  appreciable  item  of 
"negative  intangible  assets,"  such  as  habitually  to 
reduce  the  net  average  return  on  his  total  active 
assets  appreciably  below  the  ordinary  rate  of  dis- 
count. His  case,  in  other  words,  is  the  reverse  of 
the  typical  business  concern  of  the  larger  sort, 
which  conies  in  for  a  net  excess  over  ordinary  rates 
of  discount  on  its  tangible  assets,  and  which  is 
thereby  enabled  to  write  into  its  accounts  a  certain 
amount  of  intangible  assets,  and  so  come  into  line 
as  a  vested  interest.  The  farmer,  too,  is  caught  in 
the  net  of  the  new  order;  but  his  occupation  does 
not  belong  to  that  new  order  of  business  enterprise 
in  which  earning-capacity  habitually  outruns  the 
capitalized  value  of  the  underlying  physical  prop- 
erty. 

Evidently  the  cleavage  due  to  be  brought  on  by 
the  new  order  in  business  and  industry,  between 
the  vested  interests  and  the  common  man,  has  not 
yet  fallen  into  clear  lines,  at  least  not  in  America. 
The  common  man  does  not  know  himself  as  such, 
at  least  not  yet,  and  the  sections  of  the  population 
which  go  to  make  up  the  common  lot  as  contrasted 
with  the  vested  interests  have  not  yet  learned  to 
make  common  cause.  The  American  tradition 
stands  in  the  way.  This  tradition  says  that  the 
people  of  the  republic  are  made  up  of  ungraded 
masterless  men  who  enjoy  all  the  rights  and  im- 
munities of  self-direction,  self-help,  free  bargaining, 
and  equal  opportunity,  quite  after  the  fashion  that 
was  sketched  into  the  great  constituent  documents 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  Much  doubt  and  some 
discontent  is  afoot.  It  is  becoming  increasingly 


evident  that  the  facts  of  everyday  life  under  the 
new  order  do  not  fall  in  with  the  inherited  prin- 
ciples of  law  and  custom;  but  the  farmers,  farm 
laborers,  factory  hands,  mine  workmen,  lumber 
hands,  and  retail  tradesmen  have  not  come  to  any- 
thing like  a  realization  of  the  new  order  of  economic 
life  which  throws  them  in  together  on  one  side  of  a 
line  of  division,  on  the  other  side  of  which  stand 
the  vested  interests  and  the  kept  classes.  They  have 
not  yet  come  to  realize  that  all  of  them  together 
have  nothing  to  lose  except  such  things  as  the 
vested  interests  can  quite  legally  and  legitimately 
deprive  them  of,  with  full  sanction  of  law  and 
custom  as  it  runs,  so  soon  and  so  far  as  it  shall  suit 
the  convenience  of  the  vested  interests  to  make  such 
a  move.  These  people  of  the  variegated  mass  have 
no  safeguard,  in  fact,  against  the  control  of  their 
conditions  of  life  exercised  by  those  massive  inter- 
ests that  move  obscurely  in  the  background  of  the 
market,  except  such  considerations  of  expediency 
as  may  govern  the  maneuvers  of  those  massive  ones 
who  so  move  obscurely  in  the  background.  That 
is  to  say,  the  conditions  of  life  for  the  variegated 
mass  are  determined  by  what  the  traffic  will  bear, 
according  to  the  calculations  of  self-help  which 
guide  the  vested  interests,  all  the  while  that  the 
farmers,  workmen,  consumers,  the  common  lot,  are 
still  animated  with  the  fancy  that  they  have  them- 
selves something  to  say  in  these  premises. 

It  is  otherwise  with  the  vested  interests,  on  the 
whole.  They  take  a  more  perspicuous  view  of  their 
own  case  and  of  the  predicament  of  the  common 
man,  the  party  of  the  second  part.  Whereas  the 
variegated  mass  that  makes  up  the  common  lot  have 
not  hitherto  deliberately  taken  sides  together  or 
defined  their  own  attitude  toward  the  established 
system  of  law  and  order  and  its  continuance,  and 
so  are  neither  in  the  right  nor  in  the  wrong  as 
regards  this  matter,  the  vested  interests  and  the  kept 
classes,  on  the  other  hand,  have  reached  insight  and 
definition  of  what  they  need,  want,  and  are  entitled 
to.  They  have  deliberated  and  chosen  their  part 
in  the  division,  partly  by  interest  and  partly  by  in- 
grained habitual  bent,  no  doubt — and  they  are  al- 
ways in  the  right.  They  owe  their  position  and  the 
blessings  that  come  of  it — free  income  and  social 
prerogative — to  the  continued  enforcement  of 
eighteenth  century  principles  of  law  and  order  un- 
der conditions  created  by  the  twentieth  century 
state  of  the  industrial  arts.  Therefore  it  is  in- 
cumbent on  them,  in  point  of  expediency,  to  stand 
strongly  for  the  established  order  of  inalienable 
eighteenth  century  rights;  and  they  are  at  the  same 
time  in  the  right,  in  point  of  law  and  morals,  in  so 
doing,  since  what  is  right  in  law  and  morals  is 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


81 


always  a  question  of  settled  habit,  and  settled  habit 
is  always  a  legacy  out  of  the  past.  To  take  their 
own  part,  therefore,  the  vested  interests  and  the 
kept  classes  have  nothing  more  perplexing  to  do 
than  simply  to  follow  the  leadings  of  their  settled 
code  in  all  questions  of  law  and  order  and  thereby 
to  fall  neatly  in  with  the  leading  of  their  own  pe- 
cuniary advantage,  and  always  and  on  both  counts 
to  keep  their  poise  as  safe  and  sound  citizens  intelli- 
gently abiding  by  the  good  old  principles  of  right 
and  honest  living  which  safeguard  their  vested 
rights. 

The  common  man  is  not  so  fortunate.  He  cannot 
effectually  take  his  own  part  in  this  difficult  con- 
juncture of  circumstances  without  getting  on  the 
wrong  side  of  the  established  run  of  law  and  morals. 
Unless  he  is  content  to  go  on  as  the  party  of  the 
second  part  in  a  traffic  that  is  controlled  by  the  mas- 
sive interests  on  the  footing  of  what  they  consider 
that  the  traffic  will  bear,  he  will  find  himself  in  the 
wrong  and  may  even  come  in  for  the  comfortless 
attention  of  the  courts.  Whereas  if  he  makes  his 
peace  with  the  established  run  of  law  and  custom, 
and  so  continues  to  be  rated  as  a  good  man  and  true, 
he  will  find  that  his  livelihood  falls  into  a  dubious 
and  increasingly  precarious  case.  It  is  not  for 
nothing  that  he  is  a  common  man. 

So  caught  in  a  quandary,  it  is  small  wonder  if  the 
common  man  is  somewhat  irresponsible  and  un- 
steady in  his  aims  and  conduct,  so  far  as  touches 
industrial  affairs.  A  pious  regard  for  the  received 
code  of  right  and  honest  living  holds  him  to  a  sub- 
missive quietism,  a  make-believe  of  self-help  and 
fair  dealing,  whereas  the  material  and  pecuniary 
circumstances  that  condition  his  livelihood  under 
this  new  order  drive  him  to  fall  back  on  the  under- 
lying rule  of  Live  and  Let  Live,  and  to  revise  the 
established  code  of  law  and  custom  to  such  purpose 
that  the  underlying  rule  of  life  shall  be  brought  into 
bearing  in  point  of  fact  as  well  as  in  point  of  legal 
formality.  And  the  training  to  which  the  hard 
matter-of-fact  logic  of  the  machine  industry  and 
the  mechanical  organization  of  life  now  subjects 
him,  constantly  bends  him  to  a  matter-of-fact  out- 
look, to  a  rating  of  men  and  things  in  terms  of 
tangible  performance,  and  to  an  ever  slighter  respect 
for  the  traditional  principles  that  have  come  down 
from  the  eighteenth  century.  The  common  man  is 
constantly  and  increasingly  exposed  to  the  risk  of 
becoming  an  undesirable  citizen  in  the  eyes  of  the 
votaries  of  law  and  order.  In  other  words,  vested 
rights  to  free  income  are  no  longer  felt  to  be  secure 
in  case  the  common  man  should  take  over  the  direc- 
tion of  affairs. 

Such  a  vested  right  to  free  income,  that  is  to  say 


the  legitimate  right  of  the  kept  classes  to  their  keep 
at  the  cost  of  the  underlying  community,  does  not 
fall  in  with  the  lines  of  that  mechanistic  outlook  and 
mechanistic  logic  which  is  forever  gaining  ground 
as  the  new  order  of  industry  goes  forward.  Such 
free  income,  which  measures  neither  the  investor's 
personal  contribution  to  the  production  of  goods 
nor  his  necessary  consumption  while  engaged  in 
industry,  does  not  fit  in  with  that  mechanistic 
reckoning  that  runs  in  terms  of  tangible  perform- 
ance, and  that  grows  ever  increasingly  habitual  and 
convincing  with  every  further  habituation  to  the 
new  order  of  things  in  the  industrial  world.  Vested 
perquisites  have  no  place  in  the  new  scheme  of 
things;  hence  the  new  scheme  is  a  menace.  It  is 
true,  the  well  stabilized  principles  of  the  eighteenth 
century  still  continue  to  rate  the  investor  as  a  pro- 
ducer of  goods;  but  it  is  equally  true  that  such  a 
rating  is  palpable  nonsense  according  to  the  mechan- 
istic calculus  of  the  new  order  brought  into  bearing 
by  the  mechanical  industry  and  material  science. 
This  may  all  be  an  untoward  and  distasteful  turn 
of  circumstances,  but  there  is  no  gain  of  tranquillity 
to  be  got  from  ignoring  it. 

So  it  comes  about  that,  increasingly,  throughout 
broad  classes  in  these  industrial  countries  there  is 
coming  to  be  visible  a  lack  of  respect  and  affection 
for  the  vested  interests,  whether  of  business  or  of 
privilege;  and  it  rises  to  the  pitch  of  distrust  and 
plain  disallowance  among  those  on  whom  the  pre- 
conceptions of  the  eighteenth  century  sit  more  lightly 
and  loosely.  It  still  is  all  vague  and  shifty — so  much 
so  that  the  guardians  of  law  and  order  are  still  per- 
suaded that  they  "have  the  situation  in  hand."  But 
the  popular  feeling  of  incongruity  and  uselessness 
in  the  current  run  of  law  and  custom  under  the  rule 
of  these  timeworn  preconceptions  is  visibly  gaining 
ground  and  gathering  consistency,  even  in  so  well 
ordered  a  republic  as  America.  A  cleavage  of  senti- 
ment is  beginning  to  run  between  the  vested  interests 
and  the  variegated  mass  of  the  common  lot;  and 
increasingly  the  common  man  is  growing  apathetic, 
or  even  impervious,  to  appeals  grounded  on  these 
timeworn  preconceptions  of  equity  and  good  usage. 

The  fact  of  such  a  cleavage,  as  well  as  the  existence 
of  any  ground  for  it,  is  painstakingly  denied  by  the 
spokesmen  of  the  vested  interests;  and  in  support  of 
that  comfortable  delusion  they  will  cite  the  exem- 
plary fashion  in  which  certain  monopolistic  labor 
organizations  "stand  pat."  It  is  true,  such  a  quasi- 
vested  interest  as  the  A.  F.  of  L.,  which  unbidden 
assumes  to  speak  for  the  common  man,  can  doubtless 
be  counted  on  to  "stand  pat"  on  that  system  of  im- 
ponderables in  which  its  vested  perquisites  reside. 
So  also  the  kept  classes,  and  their  stewards  among 


82 


THE  DIAL 


January 


the  keepers  of  law  and  custom,  are  inflexibly  con- 
tent to  let  well  enough  alone.  They  can  be  counted 
on  to  see  nothing  more  to  the  point  than  a  stupidly 
subversive  rapacity  in  that  loosening  of  the  bonds 
of  convention  that  so  makes  light  of  the  sacred  rights 
of  vested  interest.  Interested  motives  may  count  for 
something  on  both  sides,  but  it  is  also  true  that  the 
kept  classes  and  the  businesslike  managers  of  the 
vested  interests,  whose  place  in  the  economy  of  na- 
ture it  is  to  make  money  by  conforming  to  the 
received  law  and  custom,  have  not  in  the  same  de- 
gree undergone  the  shattering  discipline  of  the  New 
Order.  They  are,  therefore,  still  to  be  found  stand- 
ing blamelessly  on  the  stable  principles  of  the  Mod- 
ern Point  of  View. 

But  a  large  fraction  of  the  people  in  the  indus- 
trial countries  is  visibly  growing  uneasy  under  these 
principles  as  they  work  out  under  existing  circum- 
stances. So,  for  example,  it  is  evident  that  the 
common  man  within  the  United  Kingdom,  in  so  far 
as  the  Labor  Party  is  his  accredited  spokesman,  is 
increasingly  restive  under  the  state  of  "things  as 
they  are,"  and  it  is  scarcely  less  evident  that  he 
finds  his  abiding  grievance  in  the  Vested  Interests 
and  that  system  of  law  and  custom  which  cherishes 
them.  And  these  men,  as  well  as  their  like  in  other 
countries,  are  still  in  an  unsettled  state  of  advance 
to  positions  more  definitely  at  variance  with  the 
received  law  and  custom.  In  some  instances,  and 
indeed  in  more  or  less  massive  formation,  this  move- 
ment of  dissent  has  already  reached  the  limit  of 
tolerance  and  has  found  itself  sharply  checked  by 
the  constituted  keepers  of  law  and  custom. 

It  is  perhaps  not  unwarranted  to  count  the 
I.  W.  W.  as  such  a  vanguard  of  dissent,  in  spite 
of  the  slight  consistency  and  the  exuberance  of  its 
movements.  After  all,  these  and  their  like,  here 
and  in  other  countries,  are  an  element  of  appre- 
ciable weight  in  the  population.  They  are  also 
increasingly  numerous,  in  spite  of  well-conceived 
repressive  measures,  and  they  appear  to  grow  in- 
creasingly sure.  And  it  will  not  do  to  lose  sight 
of  the  presumption  that,  while  they  may  be  gravely 
in  the  wrong,  they  are  likely  not  to  be  far  out  of 
touch  with  the  undistinguished  mass  of  the  common 
sort  who  still  continue  to  live  within  the  law.  It 
should  seem  likely  that  the  peculiar  moral  and  in- 
tellectual bent  which  marks  them  as  "undesirable 
citizens"  will,  all  the  while,  be  found  to  run  closer 
to  that  of  the  common  man  than  the  corresponding 
bent  of  the  law-abiding  beneficiaries  under  the 
existing  system. 

Vaguely,  perhaps,  and  with  a  picturesque  irre- 
sponsibility, these  and  their  like  are  talking  and 
thinking  at  cross-purposes  with  the  principles  of 


free  bargain  and  self-help.  There  is  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  to  their  own  thinking,  when  cast  in  the 
terms  in  which  they  conceive  these  things,  their 
notions  of  reasonable  human  intercourse  are  not 
equally  fantastic  and  inconclusive.  So,  there  is  the 
dread  word,  Syndicalism,  which  is  quite  properly 
unintelligible  to  the  kept  classes  and  the  adepts  of 
corporation  finance,  and  which  has  no  definable 
meaning  within  the  constituent  principles  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  But  the  notion  of  it  seems  to 
come  easy,  by  mere  lapse  of  habit,  to  these  others 
in  whom  the  discipline  of  the  New  Order  has  begun 
to  displace  the  preconceptions  of  the  eighteenth 
century. 

Then  there  are,  in  this  country,  the  agrarian 
syndicalists,  in  the  shape  of  the  Nonpartisan  League 
— large,  loose,  animated,  and  untidy,  but  sure  of 
itself  in  its  settled  disallowance  of  the  Vested  In- 
terests, and  fast  passing  the  limit  of  tolerance  in 
its  inattention  to  the  timeworn  principles  of  equity. 
How  serious  is  the  moral  dereliction  and  the  sub- 
versive stupidity  of  these  agrarian  syndicalists,  in 
the  eyes  of  those  who  still  hold  fast  to  the  eighteenth 
century,  may  be  gathered  from  the  animation  of  the 
business  community,  the  commercial  clubs,  the 
Rotarians,  and  the  traveling  salesmen,  in  any  place 
where  the  League  raises  its  untidy  head.  And  as  if 
advisedly  to  complete  the  case,  these  agrarians,  as 
well  as  their  running-mates  in  the  industrial  centers 
and  along  the  open  road,  are  found  to  be  slack  in 
respect  of  their  national  spirit.  So,  at  least,  it  is 
said  by  those  who  are  interested  to  know. 

It  is  not  that  these  and  their  like  are  ready  with 
"a  satisfactory  constructive  program,"  such  as  the 
people  of  the  uplift  require  to  be  shown  before 
they  will  believe  that  things  are  due  to  change.  It 
is  something  of  a  simpler  and  cruder  sort,  such  as 
history  is  full  of,  to  the  effect  that  whenever  and 
so  far  as  the  timeworn  rules  no  longer  fit  the  new 
material  circumstances  they  presently  fail  to  carry 
conviction  as  they  once  did.  Such  wear  and  tear 
of  institutions  is  unavoidable  where  circumstances 
change;  and  it  is  through  the  altered  personal  equa- 
tion of  those  elements  of  the  population  which  are 
most  directly  exposed  to  the  changing  circumstances 
that  the  wear  and  tear  of  institutions  may  be  ex- 
pected to  take  effect.  To  these  untidy  creatures  of 
the  New  Order  common  honesty  appears  to  mean 
vaguely  something  else,  perhaps  something  more 
exacting,  than  what  was  "nominated  in  the  bond" 
at  the  time  when  the  free  bargain  and  self-help  were 
written  into  the  moral  constitution  of  Christendom 
by  the  handicraft  industry  and  the  petty  trade.  And 

why  should  it  not?  -_,  _r 

THORSTEIN  VEBLEN. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


The  Literary  Abbozzo 


A  HE  ITALIANS  use  the  word  abbozzo — meaning 
a  sketch  or  unfinished  work — not  only  in  reference 
to  drawing  or  painting  but  also  as  a  sculptural  term. 
The  group  of  unfinished  sculptures  by  Michelangelo 
in  Florence,  for  example,  takes  this  name;  they  are 
called  simply  abbozzi.  The  stone  is  still  rough — 
the  conception  has  only  just  begun  to  appear;  it  has 
not  yet  wholly  or  freely  emerged.  There  is  an  im- 
pressiveness  in  the  way  in  which  the  powerful  figures 
seem  struggling  with  the  rock  for  release.  And  it  is 
no  wonder  that  Rodin  and  others  have  seen  in  this 
particular  stage  of  a  piece  of  sculpture  a  hint  for  a 
new  method  based  on  the  clear  enough  esthetic  value 
of  what  might  be  called  the  provocatively  incom- 
plete. 

Unfortunately,  in  literature  as  in  sculpture,  the 
vogue  of  the  incomplete  has  become  too  general,  and 
has  in  consequence  attracted  many  who  are  without 
a  clear  understanding  of  its  principles.  Two  mis- 
conceptions regarding  it  are  particularly  common: 
one,  that  it  is  relatively  formless,  and  therefore  eas- 
ier than  a  method  more  precise ;  the  other,  that  it  is 
a  universal  style,  applicable  to  any  one  of  the  whole 
gamut  of  themes.  Neither  of  these  notions,  of 
course,  is  true.  The  literary  abbozzo — or  to  be 
more  precise,  the  poetic  abbozzo — demands  a  high 
degree  of  skill,  a  very  sure  instinct.  And  it  should 
be  equally  apparent  that  it  is  properly  applicable  to 
what  is  relatively  only  a  small  number  of  moods  or 
themes — among  which  one  might  place  conspicuous- 
ly the  dithyrambic  and  the  enumerative.  These  are 
moods  which  irregularity  will  often  save  from  mo- 
notony. Whitman's  catalogues  would  be  even  worse 
than  they  are  had  they  been  written  as  conscien- 
tiously in  heroic  couplets.  The  same  is  perhaps 
true  of  the  dithyrambs  of  Ossian.  Both  poets  to 
have  been  successful  in  a  more  skilfully  elaborate 
style  would  have  been  compelled  to  delete  a  great 
deal  .  .  .  which  would  no  doubt  have  been  an 
improvement. 

This  makes  one  a  little  suspicious  of  the  abbozzo: 
is  it  possible  that  we  overrate  it  a  trifle?  Might  we 
not  safely  suggest  to  those  artists  whom  we  suspect 
of  greatness,  or  even  of  very  great  skill  merely,  that 
their  employment  of  the  abbozzo  should  be  chiefly 
as  relaxation  ?  But  they  will  hardly  need  to  be  told. 
The  provocatively  incomplete — which  is  to  be  sharp- 
ly distinguished  from  the  merely  truncated  or  slov- 
enly— has  its  charm,  its  beautiful  suggestiveness ; 
but  in  proportion  as  the  artist  is  powerful  he  will 


find  the  abbozzo  insufficient,  he  will  want  to  sub- 
stitute for  this  charm,  this  delicate  hover,  a  beauty 
and  strength  more  palpable.  The  charm  which  in- 
heres in  the  implied  rather  than  the  explicit  he 
knows  how  to  retain — he  will  retain  it  in  the  dim 
counterpoint  of  thought  itself. 

The  poems  of  Miss  Lola  Ridge  (The  Ghetto  and 
Other  Poems — Huebsch;  $1.25)  raise  all  these 
issues  sharply,  no  less  because  the  author  has  rich- 
ness and  originality  of  sensibility,  and  at  times  bril- 
liance of  idea,  than  because  she  follows  this  now 
too  common  vogue.  Here  is  a  vivid  personality, 
even  a  powerful  one,  clearly  aware  of  the  peculiar 
experience  which  is  its  own — a  not  too  frequent 
gift.  It  rejoices  in  the  streaming  and  garishly  lighted 
multiplicity  of  the  city:  it  turns  eagerly  toward 
the  semi-tropical  fecundity  of  the  meaner  streets  and 
tenement  districts.  Here  it  is  the  human  item  that 
most  attracts  Miss  Ridge — Jews,  for  the  most  part, 
seen  darkly  and  warmly  against  a  background  of 
social  consciousness,  of  rebelliousness  even.  She 
arranges  her  figures  for  us  with  a  muscular  force 
which  seems  masculine;  it  is  singular  to  come  upon 
a  book  written  by  a  woman  in  which  vigor  is  so 
clearly  a  more  natural  quality  than  grace.  This  is 
sometimes  merely  strident,  it  is  true.  When  she 
compares  Time  to  a  paralytic,  "A  mildewed  hulk 
above  the  nations  squatting,"  one  fails  to  respond. 
Nor  is  one  moved  precisely  as  Miss  Ridge  might 
hope  when  she  tells  us  of  a  wind  which  "noses 
among  them  like  a  skunk  that  roots  about  the  heart." 
It  is  apparent  from  the  frequency  with  which  such 
falsities  occur — particularly  in  the  section  called 
Labor — that  Miss  Ridge  is  a  trifle  obsessed  with  the 
concern  of  being  powerful :  she  forgets  that  the  harsh 
is  only  harsh  when  used  sparingly,  the  loud  only 
loud  when  it  emerges  from  the  quiet.  She  is  uncer- 
tain enough  of  herself  to  deal  in  harshnesses  whole- 
sale and  to  scream  them. 

But  with  due  allowances  made  for  these  extrava- 
gances— the  extravagances  of  the  brilliant  but  some- 
what too  abounding  amateur — one  must  pay  one's 
respects  to  Miss  Ridge  for  her  very  frequent  verbal 
felicities,  for  her  images  brightly  lighted,  for  a 
few  shorter  poems  which  are  clusters  of  glittering 
phrases,  and  for  the  human  richness  of  one  longer 
poem,  The  Ghetto,  in  which  the  vigorous  and  the 
tender  are  admirably  fused.  Here  Miss  Ridge's 
reactions  are  fullest  and  truest.  Here  she  is  under 
no  compulsion  to  be  strident.  And  it  is  precisely 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


because  here  she  is  relatively  most  successful  that  one 
is  most  awkwardly  conscious  of  the  defects  inher- 
ent in  the  whole  method  for  which  Miss  Ridge 
stands.  This  is  a  use  of  the  "provocatively  incom- 
plete"— as  concerns  form — in  which,  unfortunately, 
the  provocative  has  been  left  out.  If  we  consider 
again,  for  a  moment,  Michelangelo's  abbozzi  we 
become  aware  how  slightly,  by  comparison,  Miss 
Ridge's  figures  have  begun  to  emerge.  Have  they 
emerged  enough  to  suggest  the  clear  overtone  of  the 
thing  completed?  The  charm  of  the  incomplete  is 
of  course  in  its  positing  of  a  norm  which  it  suggests, 
approaches,  retreats  from,  or  at  points  actually 
touches.  The  ghost  of  completeness  alternately 
shines  and  dims.  But  for  Miss  Ridge  these  subtle- 
ties of  form  do  not  come  forward.  She  is  content 


to  use  for  the  most  part  a  direct  prose,  with  only  sel- 
dom an  interpellation  of  the  metrical,  and  the  metri- 
cal of  a  not  particularly  skilful  sort.  The  latent 
harmonies  are  never  evoked. 

One  hesitates  to  make  suggestions.  Miss  Ridge 
might  have  to  sacrifice  too  much  vigor  and  richness 
to  obtain  a  greater  beauty  of  form :  the  effort  might 
prove  her  undoing.  By  the  degree  of  her  success  or 
failure  in  this  undertaking,  however,  she  would  be- 
come aware  of  her  real  capacities  as  an  artist.  Or 
is  she  wise  enough  to  know  beforehand  that  the 
effort  would  be  fruitless,  and  that  she  has  already 
reached  what  is  for  her  the  right  pitch?  That 
would  be  a  confession  but  it  would  leave  us,  even 
so,  a  wide  margin  for  gratitude. 

CONRAD  AIKEN. 


The  Biology  of  War 


IN  OCTOBER  1914,  when  ninety-three  of  Ger- 
many's savants  signed  their  famous  Manifesto  to 
the  Civilized  (sic)  World,  defending  the  course  of 
their  government  in  the  negotiations  that  had  led 
to  war,  one  man,  Dr.  G.  F.  Nicolai,  Professor  of 
Physiology  at  the  University  of  Berlin  and  consult- 
ing specialist  to  the  German  Empress,  refused  to 
lend  his  name  to  the  document.  Rather  he  de- 
nounced it  as  venially  evasive  and  insincere,  drew 
up  a  contrary  document  indicting  the  whole  diplo- 
macy of  imperialistic  Europe,  and  went  about, 
Quixote-like,  seeking  signatures.  Getting  none,  he 
wrote  with  angry  vigor  The  Biology  of  War  (Cen- 
tury; $3.50),  had  it  published  in  Switzerland, 
allowed  it  to  be  smuggled  into  Germany,  and 
naturally  found  his  way  into  jail.  There  two  young 
scientists,  won  by  his  passionate  courage,  came  to  his 
rescue,  hurried  him  in  latest  romantic  style  to  a 
waiting  aeroplane,  and  flew  with  him  to  Denmark. 
Artistry  in  style  and  method  must  not  be  asked 
of  a  book  so  conceived  and  born ;  nor  any  sustained 
calmness  of  speech  or  judgment  in  contemporary 
reference.  The  book  is  not  so  much  a  scientific 
treatise  as  an  extended  polemical  pamphlet,  almost 
a  diatribe — but  it  would  have  taken  a  bloodless  man 
to  write  with  frigid  impartiality  in  the  midst  of 
war-mad  foes.  What  most  stirs  Dr.  Nicolai  to 
impassioned  rebuttal  is  the  contention  of  Junker 
scribes  that  war  is  biologically  natural,  inevitable, 
and  desirable.  It  might  be  one  or  another  of  these : 
but  to  argue  for  all  three  is  to  fall  on  the  other  side 
of  the  truth.  Of  course  the  fact  in  this  matter 
eludes  absolute  statement  and  lurks  among  distinc- 


tions. If  war  mean  merely  individual  fighting,  it 
is  natural  enough,  and  conceivably  desirable  as  an 
occasional  relief  from  "law  and  order" ;  if  war  mean 
fighting  between  two  groups  of  the  one  species,  then 
war  is  an  unnatural,  exceptional  thing  in  the  animal 
world,  being  popular  only  among  ants  and  men. 
Almost  throughout  nature  struggle  is  with  environ- 
mental obstruction  rather  than  within  the  species: 
.  the  teeth  and  claws  of  the  tiger  are  for  other  species, 
not  for  other  tigers.  Struggle  within  the  species  is 
indirect:  the  best  equipped  'for  getting  food  and 
fighting  other  species  survive;  the  worst  equipped 
succumb.  Struggle  is  natural,  but  war  is  human. 
"There  is  nothing  natural,  nothing  great,  nothing 
noble  about  war ;  it  is  merely  one  of  the  numberless 
consequences  of  the  introduction  of  private  prop- 
erty." Hence  the  ants,  which  accumulate  property, 
also  know  the  arts  of  slavery  and  war. 

It  is  less  than  half  a  truth,  too,  that  war  is 
naturally  based  in  the  pugnacity  of  the  "herd" 
(Trotter's  view).  It  is  clear  enough  that  we  love 
our  families  and  our  homes,  and  are  by  native  dis- 
position ready  to  fight  for  them;  it  is  not  clear  that 
we  are  by  nature  disposed  to  fight  for  60,000,000 
people  whom  we  have  never  seen.  We  must  be 
taught  that  these  three  score  millions  are  to  be 
fought  for,  and  that  these  others  over  the  border 
are  "natural"  food  for  our  powder.  It  is  true  that 
we  are  born  with  a  disposition  to  fight  for  our 
goods ;  it  is  not  true  that  we  are  born  with  a  disposi- 
tion to  fight  to  protect  the  goods  of  others.  We  have 
to  be  taught  that  the  goods  of  others  are  (only  for 
the  passing  purpose)  our  own.  If  we  were  born 


THE  DIAI 


with  a  disposition  to  fight  for  other  people's  goods, 
and  for  people  whom  we  have  never  seen,  we  would 
have  fought  without  urging  for  the  wage-slaves  of 
Lawrence  and  the  slaughtered  serfs  of  Colorado. 
Without  urging  we  would  not  do  it.  And  it  is  not 
otherwise  with  war:  a  thousand  reams  of  print  and 
a  thousand  reels  of  film  must  stretch  our  little 
pugnacities  to  the  mighty  scope  of  war.  And  so 
those  who,  like  Freud  and  Jones,  reduce  war  to 
"unconscious"  motivation,  miss  the  center  of  the 
fact.  These  unconscious  sources  will  suffice  to  pro- 
duce a  scrimmage  on  the  campus  or  a  quarrel  in  the 
streets;  but  war  calls  for  conscious  organization, 
stimulation  and  direction,  and  its  sources  are  to  be 
found  rather  in  the  minority  that  stimulates  and 
organizes  and  directs  than  in  the  really  gentle  mob 
that  fights  and  dies  or  lives  to  pay.  Hence,  finally, 
the  error  of  those  who  (like  our  author)  think  to 
destroy  war  by  proving  it  financially  injurious  to  the 
victorious  nation.  War  will  go  merrily  on,  genera- 
tion after  generation,  so  long  as  it  may  seem 
profitable  to  the  minority  that  chances  to  be  in 
power — and  in  the  present  structure  and  complexity 
of  states  it  is  always  a  minority  that  wields  the 
power.  Therefore  democracy,  if  it  is  democracy, 
does  in  some  modest  measure  make  for  peace;  for 
to  distribute  power  is  to  decrease  the  individual 
share  in  the  spoils,  and  so  to  lessen  the  temptations 
that  call  to  arms. 

But  the  biologs  of  wars  are  not  so  easily  routed. 
Surely  war  weeds  out  the  unfit,  and  aptly  serves 
selection.  So  far  as  "the  unfit"  means  individuals, 
the  argument  is  among  the  casualties  of  the  war. 
It  is  the  "unfit"  that  have  survived  to  increase  and 
multiply;  it  is  the  "fit"  whose  clear  flame  has  been 
snuffed  out  in  the  painless  ecstasy  of  battle.  "The 
blind,  deaf  and  dumb,  idiots,  hunchbacks,  scrofulous 
and  impotent  persons,  imbeciles,  paralytics,  epilep- 
tics, dwarfs,  and  abortions — all  these  .  .  .  can 
stay  at  home  and  dress  their  ulcers  while  the  brave, 
strong  young  men  are  rotting  on  the  battle-field." 
So  far  as  "the  unfit"  are  groups  and  institutions, 
the  argument  has  better  ground;  it  was  this,  no 
doubt,  that  Heraclitus,  Carlyle  of  Ephesus,  had  in 
mind  when  he  declared  that  "war  is  the  father  of 
all  things."  But  it  is  as  clear  as  a  day  in  June  that 
the  fitness  by  which  institutions  and  groups  are 
selected  in  war  is  not  fitness  in  general  but  fitness 
merely  for  war.  And  in  this  process  of  elimination 
and  survival  many  groups  and  institutions  may  be 
selected  which  for  vital  purposes  other  than  war 
are  not  as  obviously  "fit"  as  they  might  be:  auto- 
cratic class-structures,  for  example,  and  the  coercive 


state,  and  collective  conceit,  and  a  tongued-tied 
press,  and  the  subtly  poisoned  wells  of  public 
thought.  Selection  might  conceivably  proceed  by 
economic  competition  (as  now,  to  some  degree, 
within  the  state)  rather  than  by  ordeal  of  battle; 
and  there  are  some  who  believe  that  the  last  ordeal 
would  not  have  come  had  economic  competition  been 
left  quite  free.  When  selection  by  war  replaces  selec- 
tion by  economic  ability,  premium  and  incentive  are 
taken  from  the  creative  capacities  of  production  and 
placed  upon  the  disruptive  faculties  of  competitive 
destruction.  The  trouble  with  war  is  not  that  it  is 
a  dangerous  struggle — there  were  more  deaths  by 
infantile  disease  in  England  during  the  first  year 
of  the  war  than  by  bjattle  on  the  English  front — but 
that  it  is  a  foolish  one,  unfair  and  unproductive  of 
anything  but  further  war. 

The  bald  truth  of  the  matter,  of  course,  is  that  the 
biological  argument  for  war  is  an  afterthought,  an 
effort  some  have  made  to  conceal  economic  privilege 
jn  the  decent  drapery  of  science,  as  others  have  tried 
to  cover  it  with  idealistic  gloss.  A  victorious  Ger- 
many would  have  withdrawn  the  drapery  and  shown 
us  a  Belgium  conquered  and  a  middle  Europe  ab- 
sorbed and  feudalized ;  a  victorious  England  frankly 
forgets  that  she  fought  for  "the  rights  of  small 
nations,"  and  prepares  to  add  some  unwilling  col- 
onies to  her  vast  collection.  Germany  is  learning 
the  lesson  of  this  deceit;  victory  may  blind  us  to  it. 
Germany  began  with  Bernhardi,  and  ends  with 
Nicolai ;  we  began  with  Nicolai,  and  seem  resolved 
to  end  with  Bernhardi.  Nicolai  appeals  to  Ger- 
many to  think  internationally;  one  wonders  will 
she  be  permitted.  Apparently,  if  the  imperialistic 
bloc  that  signed  the  Pact  of  London  on  September 
5,  1914  maintains  ascendancy  at  Paris,  the  nations 
that  have  lost  this  war  for  democracy  and  against 
militarism  will  have  won  it,  and  the  nations  that 
have  won  it  will  have  lost  it.  The  Allies  have  given 
freedom  to  Germany,  and  seem  willing  to  accept 
Prussianism  in  return. 

One  is  reminded  of  the  story  (source  forgotten) 
of  the  Dukhobor  who,  forgetting  the  geographical 
variability  of  morals,  tried  to  go  naked  in'  the  streets 
of  London.  A  policeman  set  out  gravely  to  capture 
him,  but  found  himself  distanced  because  of  his 
heavy  clothing.  Therefore  he  divested  himself,  as 
he  ran,  of  garment  after  garment,  until  he  was 
naked :  and  so  lightened  caught  his  prey.  But  then 
it  was  impossible  to  tell  which  was  the  Dukhobor 
and  which  was  the  policeman. 

WILL  DURANT. 


86 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


An  American  Pendennis 


IHE  CHANCES  for  the  great  American  novel  grow 
fewer  and  fewer.  The  novels  which  we  regard  as 
characteristic  of  England,  or  France,  or  Spain  were 
written  when  the  social  classes  of  those  countries 
were  still  in  the  stratified  contact  prescribed  by 
feudalism,  or  when  it  could  be  truthfully  said  that 
certain  of  these  classes  did  not  count.  If  these 
characteristic  and  circumscriptive  novels  had  not 
been  written,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  we  should  forever 
lack  them.  The  American  novel  delayed  its  advent 
beyond  the  time  when  our  life  was  simple  and  homo- 
geneous, until  its  program  has  become  too  ambitious 
for  fulfilment.  American  novelists  have  chosen  to 
work  within  sectional  limits  or  class  limits:  where 
they  have  attempted  to  transcend  the  boundaries 
alike  of  locality  and  class  they  have  merely  illus- 
trated the  magnitude  of  their  task  without  perform- 
ing it.  The  great  American  novel  must  remain  a 
goal  to  be  approximated,  not  attained. 

But  though  this  be  true,  the  approach  to  the 
American  novel  will  continue  to  intrigue  us — in  no 
book  of  the  past  year  more  subtly  than  in  Mr. 
Booth  Tarkington's  The  Magnificent  Ambersons 
(Doubleday,  Page;  $1.50).  The  primary  demand 
that  the  American  novel  shall  give  us  the  specific 
quality  of  American  life,  not  in  its  local  manifesta- 
tions and  dialect  but  in  its  general  bearing  and 
language,  is  here  eminently  fulfilled.  The  scene 
of  the  story  is  clearly  the  Middle  West,  and  the 
atmosphere  is  that  of  a  newly  arrived  city,  Indian- 
apolis, or  Cleveland,  or  Omaha;  but  the  spiritual 
values  are  no  less  current  in  Boston,  or  Atlanta,  or 
San  Francisco — in  short  they  are  American.  The 
limitation  that  it  is  a  class  novel  is  balanced  by  the 
fact  that  it  is  the  typically  American  class  which  is 
presented — the  class  which  incarnates  the  American 
ideal  and  to  which  all  good  Americans  aspire.  And 
its  period  is  that  of  the  flowering  of  American  civil- 
ization after  the  Civil  War,  the  last  truly  American 
period  before  foreign  influence  set  in  with  the 
World's  Fair. 

How  total  is  Mr.  Tarkington's  recall  of  the 
American  Biedermeyer  period  is  evident  in  the 
pages  of  his  mise  en  scene.  It  was  the  period  when 
elegance  of  personal  appearance  was  believed  to 
rest  more  upon  the  texture  of  garments  than  upon 
their  shaping.  "A  silk  dress  .  .  .  remained 
distinguished  by  merely  remaining  silk."  He  re- 
mjinds  us  of  the  stovepipe  hat,  in  which  "without 
self-consciousness  men  went  rowing" ;  and  "the  long 
contagion  of  the  Derby,"  of  which  the  crown  varied 
from  a  bucket  to  a  spoon;  and  of  the  "Side-burns 


that  found  nourishment  upon  youthful  profiles." 
He  notes  with  uncanny  precision  the  architectural 
arrangements  of  the  houses,  just  beginning  to  boast 
the  bathroom,  in  which  "the  American  plumber 
joke  was  planted";  the  domestic  service,  at  wages 
of  two  to  three  dollars  a  week ;  the  horse  cars  which 
would  wait  for  a  lady  who  whistled  from  an  up- 
stairs window,  "while  she  shut  the  window,  put  oh 
her  hat  and  cloak,  went  downstairs,  found  an  um- 
brella, told  the  girl  what  to  have  for  dinner,  and 
came  forth  from  the  house."  He  recalls  the  habit 
of  serenading  with  such  songs  as  Silver  Threads 
Among  the  Gold,  and  Kathleen  Mavourneen;  the 
sports,  croquet  and  archery,  with  euchre  for  indoors ; 
and  the  esthetic  movement.  He  delights  us  with 
the  brilliant  slang  of  the  period  when  "Does  your 
mother  know  you're  out?"  was  a  mild  insult,  and 
the  conventional  repartee  to  "Pull  down  your  vest," 
was  "Wipe  off  your  chin." 

In  this  period  Major  Amberson  built  Amberson 
Addition,  the  local  Versailles,  with  cast-iron  statues 
at  the  intersections  of  the  streets — Minerva,  Mer- 
cury, Gladiator,  Emperor  Augustus,  Wounded  Doe 
— and  in  the  center  the  Amberson  Mansion  on  a 
four-acre  lot,  with  sixty  thousand  dollars'  worth  of 
black  walnut  woodwork  inside.  The  Addition  is  a 
symbol  of  the  magnificence  of  the  Ambersons  and 
of  their  period.  Its  decay  marks  the  destructive 
progress  of  the  American  city  with  its  waste,  mean- 
ness, and  squalor.  The  last  view  of  Amberson  Ad- 
dition has  a  grotesque  pathos  which  we  all  recognize : 

Other  houses  had  become  boarding-houses.  .  .  One 
having  torn  out  part  of  an  old  stone-trimmed  bay  window 
for  purposes  of  commercial  display,  showed  two  sus- 
pended petticoats  and  a  pair  of  oyster-coloured  flannel 
trousers  to  prove  the  claims  of  its  black-and-gilt  sign : 
"French  Cleaning  and  Dye  House."  Its  next  neighbour 
also  sported  a  remodelled  front  and  permitted  no  doubt 
that  its  mission  in  life  was  to  attend  cosily  upon  death: 
"J.  M.  Rolsener,  Caskets.  The  Funeral  Home."  And 
beyond  that,  a  plain  old  honest  four-square  gray-painted 
brick  house  was  flamboyantly  decorated  with  a  great  gilt 
scroll  on  the  railing  of  the  old-fashioned  veranda: 
"Mutual  Benev't  Order  Cavaliers  and  Dames  of  Purity." 

The  combination  of  characters  embodies  the 
typical  American  family  group  with  external  ma- 
terial for  complications  of  the  purely  American 
variety.  There  is  young  George,  his  grandfather, 
Major  Amberson,  his  mother  and  her  consort  of 
the  inferior  Minafer  clan,  his  uncles,  the  congress- 
man and  the  would-be  ambassador,  his  aunt-  Fanny 
on  the  Minafer  side;  and  challenging  the  magnifi- 
cence of  the  Ambersons  there  are  Eugene  Morgan, 
the  wanderer  returning  to  the  scenes  of  his  youth 
with  his  strange  belief  in  horseless  carriages,  and 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


87 


Lucy,  his  daughter.  There  are  materials  for  two 
romances  in  two  generations,  which  Mr.  Tarkington 
develops  with  his  usual  enthusiasm  for  youth  and 
tenderness  for  middle  age.  But  the  real  love  of 
the  book  is  that  of  Isabel  Minafer  for  her  son 
George. 

George  Amberson  Minafer  is  the  product  of  the 
magnificence  of  the  Ambersons  and  the  love  of  his 
mother.  He  lives  with  intolerable  egoism  in  the 
world  which  these  have  created  for  him.  He  is  the 
aristocratic  tough  boy,  who  in  his  Fauntleroy  suit 
and  brown  curls  fights  the  street  boys  and  tells  the 
minister  to  go  to  hell.  Later  he  drives  furiously 
through  the  streets  of  his  native  town  to  the  exasper- 
ation and  danger  of  its  citizens.  He  insults  his 
guests,  scorns  his  father,  bullies  his  aunt.  He 
completes  the  climax  when  he  interferes  brutally  to 
blight  the  second  blooming  romance  of  his  mother. 
Yet  in  all  this  George  is  but  the  victim  of  the  dead 
hand  of  the  former  generation.  His  mother's  love 
is  as  a  congenital  ailment  which  leaves  him  incom- 
plete. George  Minafer  is  in  fact  a  moral  idiot;  in 
destroying  his  mother's  romance  he  wrecks  his  own. 
There  is  something  very  powerful  in  Mr.  Tarking- 
ton's  working  out  of  this  theme — the  love  of  Isabel 
Minafer  for  her  son  is  really  a  monstrous  paradox 
but  it  is  clothed  in  a  garb  so  usual,  so  domestic,  that 
we  do  not  recognize  -it  for  what  it  is.  It  is  the  fate 
of  Greek  tragedy  in  an  American  home. 

It  is  this  sense  that  George  is  a  victim  and  not 
morally  responsible  which  occurs  again  and  again 
just  in  time  to  keep  the  reader  from  renouncing 
him  utterly  as  a  cur  and  a  cad.  It  is  this  that 
justifies  his  redemption.  Here  Mr.  Tarkington's 
hand  is  less  sure  than  in  the  downward  movement 
of  his  story,  and  the  result  less  convincing.  We 
have  to  take  George's  regeneration  by  virtue  of  the 
purging  power  of  enforced  renunciation,  of  poverty 


and  work,  largely  on  faith.  Our  confidence  in  the 
telepathic  machinery  by  which  the  reconciliation  of 
George  and  the  Morgans  is  brought  about  is  im- 
perfect. This  machinery,  however,  is  to  be  taken 
in  part  symbolically.  It  represents  the  love  of  Isabel 
Minafer  still  watching  over  and  protecting  her  son. 
Once  again  we  have  an  old  and  dignified  theme,  this 
time  the  theme  of  atonement,  wrought  into  the 
common  stuff  of  American  life,  but  so  subtly  that 
we  are  hardly  aware  of  it.  The  love  of  Isabel 
nearly  ruined  her  son;  but  in  some  mysterious  way 
the  spiritual  value  of  it  is  not  lost,  and  in  the  end 
it  becomes  his  salvation. 

This  solution  gives  the  final  touch  of  American 
quality  to  Mr.  Tarkington's  novel.  It  is  not  with 
him  merely  a  matter  of  crude  optimism  or  of  pro- 
viding the  novel  reader's  satisfaction.  It  is  rather 
an  assessment  of  life  values  in  which  the  world  ap- 
pears to  America.  Readers  of  the  Education  of 
Henry  Adams  will  remember  his  question — "The 
woman  had  once  been  supreme — why  was  she  un- 
known in  America  ?"  Mr.  Tarkington's  novel  gives 
one  answer.  Sex  in  one  form  is  prepotent  in 
America.  "An  American  Virgin  would  never  dare 
command,"  says  Adams.  True,  but  an  American 
mother  in  her  subjection  is  stronger  than  the  Virgin 
on  her  throne.  It  is  to  Mr.  Tarkington's  credit  as 
an  artist  that  he  fits  this  theme  perfectly  into  the 
American  setting  and  handles  it  with  reserve  and 
proportion,  in  good  faith  and  without  cynicism.  His 
method  is  disarmingly  simple  and  his  touch  gentle, 
with  the  good  nature  that  in  America  takes  the 
place  of  urbanity.  Above  all,  he'  gives  us  spiritual 
values  according  to  American  standards,  and  pro- 
fesses his  own  artistic  belief  in  them. 

ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT. 


Empty  Balloons 


A 


FEW  OF  THE  Victorian  letter  writers,  at  their 
best,  are  the  best.  Fitzgerald,  for  instance;  often 
Rossetti;  and  somewhat  less  often,  Morris.  More- 
over they  were  all  almost  unimaginably  voluminous. 
(  So  the  field  was  white  for  the  reapers,  and  indefat- 
igably  has  it  been  reaped.  Even  now  we  occasion- 
ally get  a  new  collection  with  power  to  charm. 
Even  when,  as  in  a  recent  volume  which  dealt  with 
the  sculptor  Woolner,  the  letters  center  about  some 
wholly  second-rate  figure  they  occasionally  give  side- 
lights that  are  marvelously  revealing.  Darwin, 
wishful  to  know  from  a  careful  student  of  nude 
models  how  far  down  he  had  ever  seen  a  blush 


extend,  repays  for  a  hundred  pages  of  common- 
place. 

But  most  of  the  collections  of  these  Victorian 
letters  are  stodge.  They  lie  upon  the  readers  with  a 
weight  heavy  as  frost.  Often  the  letters  are  signed 
by  great  names,  but  even  the  signature  of  a  Pickwick 
lends  no  thrill  to  chops  and  tomato  sauce.  When 
they  foreshadow  publication,  as  they  often  do,  they 
have  the  dullness  of  a  rehearsal ;  they  lack  the  inspi- 
rational realization  of  an  actual  audience. 

Why  were  the  Victorians,  or  so  many  of  them, 
so  dull  off  the  platform  of  their  public  appearance? 
To  ridicule  their  set  performances  is  in  itself  ridicu- 


88 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


lous.  Tennyson,  for  all  his  sentimentality,  will  last 
in  the  grateful  memory  of  men  till  melody  no  longer 
charms  the  ear.  We  did  hear  his  voice,  far  above 
singing ;  we  hear  it  still.  The  world  is  full  of  clever 
women  nowadays,  but  the  Mill  on  the  Floss  remains 
serenely  above  their  competition.  Ruskin  and  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  according  to  Professor  Phelps  in  The 
Pure  Gold  of  Nineteenth  Century  Literature,  are 
pyrites;  but  careful  smelting  seems  still  to  reward 
many  readers  of  their  articles.  But  oh  the  letters  of 
Tennyson  and  George  Eliot  and  Ruskin  and  Arnold ! 
Solemn  or  playful,  they  are  equally  ponderous. 

The  Victorians  were  like  great  balloons.  In  pub- 
lic they  were  rilled  with  purpose.  That  purpose 
buoyed  them  up  and  carried  them  soaring.  In  pri- 
vate life  they  seem  to  have  become  somehow  de- 
flated, and  in  consequence  lax  and  flabby  of  thought. 
And  this  laxity  and  flabbiness  appears  in  their  cor- 
respondence. Their  letters  are  neither  natural  and 
friendly,  like  Fitzgerald's,  nor  vivid  and  powerful, 
like  Emerson's;  merely  dull. 

In  this  sad  world  one  demands  either  to  be  in- 
formed, or  to  be  inspired,  or  to  be  diverted.  Grant- 
ing for  the  sake  of  the  argument  that  the  English 
letter-writers  seldom  inspire  the  reader,  may  one 
further  inquire  why  they  so  seldom  divert?  Are 
the  English  really  not  a  humorous  people,  such  as 
Lord  Bryce  in  his  well-known  analysis  of  Americans 
declares  us  to  be  ?  Certainly  Bairnsf  ather  is  humor- 
ous— but  then  Bairnsf  ather  is  Scotch,  is  he  not? 
Wells  is  humorous — but  then  Wells  is — Wells.  But 
how  about  Charlie  Chaplin?  No,  the  charge  fails. 
And  there  are  few  Americans  who  will  not  admit 
the  immense  superiority  of  Punch  to  Life,  provided 
they  have  read  both  publications,  or  even  provided 
they  have  read  Life  only.  And  yet  Punch  is  always 
self-conscious,  and  usually  pompous;  can  humor  be 
pompous  and  self-conscious? 

These  are  not  profound  speculations.  But  then, 
the  volumes  that  educed  them — Correspondence  of 
Sir  Arthur  Helps,  Edited  by  E.  A.  Helps  (Lane; 
$4)  and  Some  Hawarden  Letters:  1878-1913,  edited 
by  Lisle  March-Phillipps  and  Bertram  Christian 
(Dodd,  Mead;  $4) — are  not  very  profound,  either, 
although  in  both  cases  the  attitude  of  the  editors 
might  fairly  be  called  reverential.  The  correspond- 
ence of  Sir  Arthur  Helps  is  edited  by  his  son.  Sir 
Arthur  was  Clerk  of  the  Privy  Council  of  England ; 
had  the  honor  of  editing  the  Prince  Consort's 
Speeches  and  Addresses  and  the  Queen's  Leaves 
from  the  Journal  of  Our  Life  in  the  Highlands; 
wrote  many  volumes,  including  fiction,  all  forgotten 
now,  but  in  their  day  highly  praised  by  Helps'  many 
friends.  Helps  died  in  1875. 


The  letters  include  both  his  own  and  many  writ- 
ten to  him.  His  own  letters  are,  as  Carlyle  re- 
marked of  his  writing  in  general,  mild  and  lucent. 
They  deal  mostly  with  the  abstractions  of  political 
and  social  reform.  Infrequently  Helps  comments 
on  people  he  meets,  Mrs.  Stowe  for  instance,  of 
whom  he  says,  "She  seems  to  me  a  ladylike,  very  sen- 
sible, unassuming  person."  The  description  does  not 
badly  fit  Sir  Arthur.  Of  the  letters  he  received,  the 
most  numerous  are  from  Ruskin  and  Carlyle. 

Ruskin  and  Carlyle  appear  not  infrequently  also 
in  the  other  volume — letters  written  to  Mrs.  Drew. 
She  was  Mary  Gladstone,  third  daughter  of  Wil- 
liam E.  Gladstone.  As  the  letters  in  the  Helps  col- 
lection run  to  1875,  and  those  in  the  Drew  collection 
from  1878  to  1913,  one  might  naturally  conclude 
that  the  two  volumes  taken  together  would  give  a 
sort  of  consecutive  general  view  of  England  for  the 
sixty  years  or  so  preceding  the  war.  No  conclusion 
could  be  more  erroneous.  Consecutiveness  of  im- 
pression is  entirely  lacking — even  the  consecutive- 
ness  of  the  kaleidoscope,  which  at  least  falls  into  pat- 
terns. Ruskin,  Burne- Jones,  and  George  Wyndham 
are  the  only  individuals  in  the  volume  whose  char- 
acters stand  out  in  any  relief. 

Of  these  Ruskin  unfortunately  is  made  to  appear 
unpardonably  silly.  Of  course,  he  was  an  old  man 
writing  to  a  young  girl ;  the  years  had  battered  him, 
and  his  indignations  had  weakened  his  mentality; 
yet  these  were  the  years  of  Praeterita,  and  the  mushy 
futility  of  Ruskin's  letters  in  this  volume  we  really 
ought  to  have  been  spared.  Burne-Jones'  letters  are 
quite  another  matter.  A  letter  from  him  on  the 
threatened  restoration  of  St.  Mark's  Cathedral  in 
Venice  is  nearer  to  vigor  than  anything  else  in  the 
whole  languid  book ;  and  his  industry,  his  kindliness, 
and  his  melancholy  are  all  made  plain.  But  easily 
the  most  attractive  figure  of  them  all  is  Wyndham 's. 
An  utter  aristocrat,  he  prayed  from  the  bottom  of 
his  heart  for  the  welfare  of  the  people,  in  whose 
capacity  to  manage  themselves  he  was  never  able  to 
believe;  a  cultivated  and  fastidious  gentleman,  he 
loved  above  all  things  directness,  strength,  and 
vigor;  he  never  cherished  an  animosity,  never  for- 
got a  favor,  and  never  made  a  dull  speech.  But  even 
he  has  written  some  dull  letters  which  the  editor 
faithfully  includes. 

Some  Hawarden  Letters  is  attractively  illus- 
trated, including  a  photograph  of  Mrs.  DreW's  mar- 
riage certificate,  with  the  signatures  of  Edward  VII 
and  George  V  as  witnesses.  Somehow  this  particu- 
lar illustration  seems  to  epitomize  the  volume. 

JAMES  WEBER  LINN. 


THE  DIAL 


GIORGB  DONLIN 


JOHN   DEWEY 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor 

CLARENCE  BRITTEN 

In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program : 

THORSTEIN  VBBLEN 


HAROLD  STEARNS 


HELEN  MAROT 


I"!  OW  MUCH  LONGER  WILL  THE  AMERICAN  PUBLIC 

endure  our  shameful  intervention  in  Russia?  How 
much  longer  are  we  to  permit  our  troops,  enlisted 
under  a  democratic  banner,  to  be  used  as  pawns  in 
the  imperialistic  political  game  which  the  Allies  have 
been  and  are  now  openly  playing  in  that  country? 
We  have  no  hesitation  in  asking  these  questions,  for 
the  truth  is  that  if  our  Government  does  not  see  fit 
soon  to  put  a  stop  to  this  anti-American  adventure, 
the  American  people  will  put  a  stop  to  it  themselves. 
We  have  already  endured  too  many  mistakes  in  our 
Russian  policy  quietly  to  endure  many  more.  The 
most  recent  incident  in  that  policy — the  mishandling 
of  the  communication  from  the  British  Government 
by  our  State  Department — shows  how  little  our 
officials  are  to  be  entrusted  with  the  formulation  of 
any  democratic  foreign  policy,  when  left  unchecked 
or  uncriticized.  The  British  note  proposed  recogni- 
tion, at  least  tacitly,  of  the  Soviet  Government  in 
Russia,  and  representation  of  that  Government  at 
the  Peace  Conference.  Yet  incredible  as  it  may 
seem,  this  proposal  of  supreme  importance  appar- 
ently did  not  even  reach  the  eyes  of  Acting  Secretary 
of  State  Frank  L.  Polk  until  after  the  publication 
of  M.  Pichon's  statement  in  Paris  rejecting  the 
proposal  in  the  name  of  France.  Needless  to  add, 
the  proposal  was  not  communicated  to  the  President 
in  Paris,  and  if  newspaper  dispatches  report  cor- 
rectly, our  peace  delegates  there  were  as  much 
astonished  as  the  general  public  at  the  revelation 
that  the  proposal  had  been  made.  This  is  only  one 
incident  among  many  where  important  documents, 
either  through  malice  or  through  ignorance,  have 
been  lost  somewhere  in  the  red  tape  of  the  State 
Department  so  that  they  have  never  reached  the 
people  who  ought  first  to  have  seen  them.  All  the 
evidence  goes  to  show  that  our  State  Department  is 
an  example  of  monumental  inefficiency.  This  recent 
incident  is  appalling  enough  to  make  people  lose  all 
confidence  in  its  method  of  handling  our  foreign, 
and  especially  our  Russian,  policy.  We  have  no 
doubt  that  had  President  Wilson  been  informed  of 
those  important  developments  in  the  situation  of 
which  he  ought  to  have  been  informed,  he  would 
today  be  the  advocate  of  a  simple  and  direct  and 
democratic  Russian  policy  instead  of  being,  as  he  is, 
obviously  embarrassed  by  a  policy  which  is  personally 
distasteful  to  him — a  policy,  moreover,  which  is 


thoroughly  ambiguous.  But  we  have  conclusive  evi- 
dence that  the  President  has  never  been  so  informed 
— until  it  has  become  too  late.  We  may  here  point 
out  that  Lloyd  George  has  been  forced  to  change  his 
attitude  toward  the  Soviet  Government  in  Russia  by 
the  rising  anger  and  protest  of  the  British  people. 
For  us  also  but  one  Corrective  force  remains — the 
force  of  a  united  and  angered  public  opinion.  It 
must  be  made  clear  to  our  Government  and  to  the 
President  that  the  lives  of  our  men  in  Russia  are  not 
a  matter  of  negligible  importance.  It  must  be  made 
clear  that  we  entered  this  war  to  crush  German 
militarism,  and  that  with  this  task  accomplished, 
we  are  not  interes!ed  in  acting  as  the  bond  collectors 
for  any  European  Government.  It  must  be  made 
clear  that  we  are  disgusted  and  ashamed  at  the 
campaign  of  falsehood  and  misrepresentation  about 
Russia  which  our  Government  has  seen  fit  to  allow. 
It  must  be  made  clear  that  our  Government  is  the 
servant  and  not  the  master  of  the  American  people. 
It  is  for  the  people  and  not  for  a  small  autocratic 
clique  to  say  whether  our  men  are  to  remain  in 
Russia  killing  Russian  peasants  and  workingmen. 
As  the  New  Statesman  succinctly  says  of  English 
policy  in  its  issue  of  December  21 : 

What  we  now  seem  to  be  drifting  into  is  a  war  against 
a  Government  which  now  commands  the  allegiance  of 
the  mass  of  the  Russian  people,  a  war  which,  whatever 
it  may  be  in  theory,  would  in  effect  inevitably  prove  to  be 
a  war  on  behalf  of  a  small  monarchist  class.  However 
certain  we  may  be  that  the  Bolsheviks'  experiment  in 
"catastrophic  Socialism"  will  fail,  it  is  not  our  business 
to  stop  it.  We  may  watch  it  with  interest,  or  we  may 
contemptuously  say  that  we  will  "leave  Russia  to  stew 
in  her  own  juice."  But  we  have  neither  the  duty  nor 
even  the  right  to  suppress  it  merely  because  we  dislike 
it  and  to  kill  British  soldiers  in  the  operation. 

It  is  the  duty  of  every  American  to  infbrm  himself 
of  the  real  situation.  Already  there  has  been  organ- 
ized a  Truth  About  Russia  Society,  composed  en- 
tirely of  patriotic  Americans,  for  the  purpose  of 
giving  the  public  the  established  and  undisputed 
facts.  Everyone  should  join  this  organization. 
Everyone  should  help  in  the  arrangements  for  mass 
meetings,  in  the  circulation  of  petitions.  Everyone 
should  write  or  telegraph  his  representatives  at 
Washington.  This  type  of  legitimate  pressure  upon 
our  elected  representatives  should  not  be  relinquished 
until  there  is  no  mistaking  the  will  of  the  American 
people — or  their  temper. 


90 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


1  HE  PEACE  CONFERENCE  is  CONFRONTED  BY 
four  groups  of  questions:  penological,  territorial, 
commercial,  and  social.  Of  these  the  first  three  are 
most  interesting  to  the  type  of  mind  of  members  of 
the  Conference ;  but  while  they  are  in  the  fore- 
ground, the  social  situation  enforced  by  the  challenge 
of  Bolshevism  must  be  latent  in  every  discussion.  It 
is  this  situation  which  makes  the  all-inclusive  and 
transcending  problem  of  the  Conference  the  question 
whether  it  can  make  peace  at  all,  whether  the  ele- 
ments in  control  of  the  dominant  nations  can  so 
harmonize  their  penological,  political,  and  commer- 
cial interests  that  the  fabric  of  international  relations 
can  be  restored.  For  if  they  fail — if  they  cannot 
end  war  and  the  menace  of  it — the  present  civiliza- 
tion is  doomed.  Now  the  restoration  of  the  inter- 
national fabric  is  brought  within  bounds  of  possi- 
bility by  the  proposed  League  of  Free  Nations. 
There  has  been  much  discussion  as  to  whether  its 
establishment  should  be  given  priority  over  other 
matters,  or  be  relegated  to  the  background,  to  be 
taken  up  after  territorial  claims  and  financial  penal- 
ties have  been  adjusted.  Such  postponement,  how- 
ever, was  promptly  seen  to  imply  that  the  League 
of  Nations  would  be  dealt  with  perfunctorily,  half- 
heartedly, and  skeptically;  at  beist  it  would  b.e  a 
vague  union,  valuable  chiefly  as  a  preliminary  sketch 
of  what  good  intentions  might  accomplish  if  backed 
by  an  authority  that  would  in  all  probability  be  lack- 
ing ;  at  worst  it  would  be  a  Holy  Alliance  designed 
to  insure  the  permanence  of  such  arrangements, 
territorial  and  commercial,  as  the  dominant  powers 
might  impose.  Only  if  the  establishment  of  the 
League  of  Nations  be  given  priority  is  there  much 
chance  of  its  becoming  an  effective  power  in  the 
world.  Those  who  regard  the  League  as  the  pri- 
mary object'  of  the  Conference  will  probably  not 
have  the  strength  to  secure  this  priority  of  considera- 
tion, but  the  territorial  and  commercial  questions  are 
so  complicated  and  difficult  that  it  may  prove  that 
the  sponsors  of  this  or  that  claim  or  policy  may  be 
driven  to  support  the  priority  of  the  League,  as  the 
only  possible  means  of  securing  progress.  It  is  com- 
ing to  be  perceived  that  only  by  renunciation  is  any 
political  settlement  of  the  world  possible.  The 
Central  Powers  have  already  been  notified  pretty 
clearly  of  the  sacrifices  expected  of  them ;  the  ringer 
of  the  world  is  pointed  at  grasping  Italy;  Poland, 
Roumania  and  the  New  Slavic  States  will  be  called 
upon  to  modify  their  demands.  Nothing  would 
advance  the  settlement  so  much  as  the  inclusion  of 
Ireland,  Egypt,  India,  and  the  Philippines  under 
the  formula  of  self-determination.  Now  the  League, 
truly  conceived,  represents  essentially  just  this  idea 
of  renunciation — it  undertakes  to  insure  that  sacri- 
fice of  sovereignty  or  possession  shall  not  mean  loss 
of  safety  or  prosperity.  It  is  evident  that  the 
League,  if  it  were  already  in  existence,  would  sim- 
plify enormously  the  problems  of  settlement  by  pro- 
viding machinery  and  safeguards  for  their  solution. 


It  is,  therefore,  possible  that  the  urgent  need  will 
result  in  the  creation  of  the  instrument.  And  it  is 
further  possible  that  through  the  League  such  a  sys- 
tem of  political  and  commercial  readjustments 
throughout  the  world  may  be  reached  that  the 
social  question  may  be  kept  in  the  background,  and 
left  to  be  answered  by  the  nations  individually, 
under  the  aegis  of  self-determination.  The  connec- 
tion between  the  social  situation  and  political  policy 
in  the  minds  of  the  diplomats  who  compose  the 
Conference  is  obvious.  It  is  the  pressure  of  social 
unrest  that  is  impelling  certain  nations  to  demand 
the  uttermost  fruits  of  victory  in  territory  and  in- 
demnity. But  only  the  blindest  fail  to  see  that 
extreme  demands  enforced  against  one  nation  will 
make  that  nation  a  home  for  the  anarchy  which 
is  a  menace  to  all.  And  only  the  dullest  imagine 
that  the  people  of  any  nation  will  support  the  strain 
of  continued  preparedness  for  a  war  made  inevitable 
by  a  peace  of  conquest.  To  put  it  plainly,  the  funda- 
mental necessity  for  a  better  world  is  a  great  sacrifice 
of  the  instinct  for  possession.  If  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence can  arrange  a  plan  under  which  this  sacrifice  is 
made  primarily  b,y  the  existing  nations,  through  a 
generous  arrangement  of  their  political  and  com- 
mercial relations,  then  we  may  look  with  some  confi- 
dence toward  a  relatively  peaceful  social  readjust- 
ment within  their  borders.  But  if  this  plan  fails — if 
the  predatory  instincts  sway  the  Conference  to  con- 
cern itself  chiefly  with  demands  for  territory,  in- 
demnity, and  commercial  privilege  on  the  part  of  the 
victors — then,  indeed,  the  rulers  of  the  world  will 
have  proved  once  more  their  unfitness,  and  this  time 
the  people  cannot  be  deceived.  It  will  then  be  cer- 
tain that  no  beneficent  world  order  can  come  out  of 
societies  which  are  based  on  the  possessive  instincts 
of  mankind.  To  deny  priority  to  the  League  is  to 
grant  it  to  the  Revolution.  The  choice  is  before  the 
Conference — a  peace  of  generosity,  self-denial,  and 
good  will — or  anarchy. 

THE  PROGRAM  OF  THE  NEW    SCHOOL    FOR    SOCIAL 

Research  marks  two  departures  from  the  conven- 
tional academic  attitude  toward  the  social  sciences. 
One  is  in  the  direction  of  realism  in  education — an 
application  of  principles  as  old  as  Comenius. 

The  object  of  the  school  will  be  to  give  properly 
qualified  and  earnest  men  and  women,  whether  they  have 
had  an  academic  education  or  not,  an  opportunity  to 
carry  on  serious  and  profitable  advanced  research  in  the 
fields  of  government  and  social  organization.  Here  they 
may  not  only  study  the  actual  conditions  and  follow  the 
changes  which  are  constantly  taking  place  in  our  dynamic 
society,  but  they  will  be  enabled  to  see  our  present  dif- 
ficulties in  the  light  of  scientific,  philosophic,  and  his- 
torical knowledge.  Hitherto  there  has  commonly  been  a 
fatal  gap  between  so-called  theory  and  practice.  It  is 
the  chief  business  of  the  new  school  to  bridge  this  gap; 
for  all  intelligent  practice  is  based  on  theory,  and  all 
theories  that  are  calculated  to  aid  reform  are  nothing 
but, broad  and  critical  ways  of  viewing  practice. 

The    other    is    in    the    direction    of    simplifying 


1919 


91 


academic  machinery  and  releasing  both  students  and 
teachers  from  the  regimentation  which  is  the  basis 
of  academic  organization  and  hierarchy.  Of  the 
students  the  program  has  this  to  say: 

The  regular  students  will  be  presumed  to  be  in  the 
school  to  carry  on  each  for  himself  his  own  chosen  work 
with  the  help  of  the  men  and  books  which  are  put  at  his 
disposal.  In  every  case  each  of  them  will  have  his  special 
line  of  outside  investigation  into  the  social  and  economic 
and  political  phenomena  of  the  world  in  which  we  live. 
This  line  he  will  be  pursuing,  regardless  of  terms  and 
lectures,  with  such  persistence  as  his  energy  permits. 
Informal  discussion,  reading,  individual  pondering,  and 
above  all  a  constant  anxiety  to  get  a  first  hand  acquaint- 
ance with  what  is  actually  going  on,  will  be  the  main 
ambitions  of  this  new  school. 

There  will  be  no  ordinary  "examinations,"  no  system 
of  accountancy  which  enables  the  indifferent  student  to 
accumulate  academic  credit  bit  by  bit.  The  only  credit 
possible  will  be  the  willingness  of  the  instructors  to  ex- 
press approval  of  the  student's  ability,  achievements,  and 
promise. 

And  of  the  teachers: 

It  is  hoped  that  no  "inferiority  complex"  will  be  formed 
among  the  younger  members,  who  in  many  institutions 
feel  themselves  hopelessly  subordinated  to  men  who  have 
passed  the  state  of  active  readjustment.  There  will  be  no 
academic  ranks  or  hierarchy,  except  the  distinctions,  in 
no  way  invidious,  between  the  regular  staff,  upon  whom 
the  conduct  of  the  school  will  devolve,  the  temporary 
assistants  or  apprentices,  and  the  lecturers  from  the  out- 
side who  will  be  appointed  for  a  term  only. 

There  is  a  third  departure,  implicit  though  not 
formally  expressed  in  the  present  announcement.  It 
is  obviously  the  intention  of  the  founders  to  emanci- 
pate the  new  School  for  Research  from  any  depend- 
ence upon  capitalistic  interests  which  have  been  as- 
sumed to  influence  social  and  economic  teaching  in 
American  colleges.  In  this  respect  it  may  be  re- 
garded as  a  movement  in  the  direction  of  dissent, 
non-conformity,  Congregationalism,  similar  to  that 
which  marks  the  decline  of  established  churches  and 
is  a  prelude  to  their  disestablishment.  By  the  dis- 
establishment of  a  church — Irish,  Welsh,  Anglican, 
or  Gallican — is  understood  not  only  the  exclusion  of 
its  clergy  from  official  sanction,  but,  more  important, 
the  separation  of  the  institution  from  endowments, 
official  revenue,  and  patronage.  The  disestablish- 
ment of  university  education  in  the  United  States 
may  scarcely  be  prophesied  from  the  appearance  of 
the  new  school  as  a  sort  of  free  kirk  outside  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  synod.  Nevertheless  it  is  a  sign  of 
the  times  which  may  become  a  portent. 

The  school  opens  February  first  at  465  West 
Twenty-third  Street.  The  presence  among  the 
teachers  of  Professors  Veblen,  Beard,  J.  H.  Robin- 
son, W.  C.  Mitchell,  and  others  will  indicate  to 
readers  of  THE  DIAL  the  character  and  value  of 
the  instruction  offered.  THE  DIAL  greets  the  New 
School  with  cordial  good  wishes. 

1  HE    CAMPAIGN    OF   THE    AMERICAN    COMMITTEE 

for  Armenian  and  Syrian  relief,  which  will  last  the 
week  of  January  12  to  19,  should  enlist  the  sympathy 


of  everyone.  Millions  of  Armenians,  Greeks,  Syri- 
ans, and  Persians  were  deprived  of  all  their  posses- 
sions and  of  the  very  means  of  life  in  1915,  when 
they  were  deported  and  massacred  by  the  Turks. 
Nearly  four  millions  of  these  people  have  survived, 
struggling  into  precarious  safety  in  Syria,  Mesopo- 
tamia, and  the  Russian  Caucasus.  Here  for  months 
past  they  have  been  utterly  dependent  on  the  charity 
of  strangers.  To  all  their  miseries  the  final  over- 
whelming sorrow  of  family  separation  has  often 
been  added — indeed  the  marvel  is  that  any  remnant 
has  survived,  that  any  refugees,  after  years  of  wan- 
dering and  torment,  staggered,  starving  and  half- 
naked,  into  any  sphere  of  help.  These  pathetic 
beings,  alien  in  race,  religion,  and  sympathies  to  the 
government  under  which  they  have  lived  for  cen- 
turies, make  an  especially  immediate  appeal.  For 
the  chaos  of  the  Near  East  has  for  so  long  been 
everybody's  business  that  it  runs  the  risk  of  soon 
becoming  nobody's  business.  It  sfiould  be  a  point 
of  honor  with  America  that  we  will  not  allow  these 
people  to  perish.  And  fortunately  the  American 
Committee  does  not  contemplate  mere  charity.  To 
feed  the  hungry  and  clothe  the  naked  is  only  the 
beginning.  The  commission  intends  to  examine 
causes  and  so  far  as  possible  devise  preventive  work 
for  the  future.  The  American  expedition  will  in- 
clude trained  nurses,  doctors,  expert  mechanics, 
sanitary  engineers,  agriculturists,  orphanage  super- 
intendents, and  teachers.  Yet  important  as  this 
work  is,  it  must  be  financed  entirely  by  voluntary 
subscription.  We  are  offered  a  practical  oppor- 
tunity to  show  what  esprit  de  corps  among  nations 
means.  For  whatever  the  foundation  of  the  future 
League  of  Nations,  it  must  rest  for  its  last  security 
upon  the  spiritual  sanction  of  fellowship  and  human 
pity  for  unmerited  suffering. 

SINCE  its  last  issue  THE  DIAL  has  received  many 
communications  in  confirmation  of  its  demand  for 
the  release  of  political  prisoners,  including  conscien- 
tious objectors.  It  is  possible  to  publish  only  one  of 
these — the  admirably  reasoned  statement  of  the 
problems  of  conscience  and  martyrdom  in  war  which 
appears  on  page  93.  The  facts  in  regard  to  the 
treatment  of  conscientious  objectors  are  now  appear- 
ing in  the  press,  notably  in  the  New  York  World. 
They  bear  out  the  conclusion  that  American  soldiers 
can  be  guilty  of  atrocities  no  less  mad  than  those 
attributed  to  their  enemies — and  further  establish 
the  impotence  of  a  well-intentioned  Secretary  of  War 
to  deal  with  his  subordinates  committing  them. 
His  original  order  discharging  three  officers  was 
withdrawn  because  they  were  in  the  regular  army 
and  could  not  be  dismissed  without  trial — and  no 
charges  have  been  brought.  The  release  of  con- 
scientious objectors  now  in  confinement,  the  pun- 
ishment of  men  who  tortured  them,  are  responsibili- 
ties of  the  American  people.  They  are  a  challenge 
to  its  chivalry — a  test  of  its  morale. 


92 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


Foreign  Comment 

BARBUSSE'S  VIEW  OF  PRESIDENT  WILSON 

From  the  day  that  President  Wilson  landed  in 
France  we  have  been  learning  of  the  French  Social- 
ists' attempts  to  "capture"  Wilson.  This  may  have 
been  somewhat  confusing  to  those  not  acquainted 
with  the  partisan  bitterness  of  French  politics,  for 
the  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  all  the  radical  parties 
in  Europe  are  hoping  to  use  Wilson  as  a  club  over 
the  more  reactionary  members  of  their  own  govern- 
ments. In  Italy,  especially,  the  overtures  of  the 
Socialist  Party  to  President  Wilson  over  the  head 
of  the  regular  Government  had  a  dramatic  directness 
and  appeal.  The  following  article  written  by  Henri 
Barbusse,  author  of  Under  Fire,  in  the  December 
15,  1918  issue  of  Le  Populaire,  the  Paris  Socialist 
paper,  reveals  what  high  hopes  the  radical  parties 
of  France  place  in  President  Wilson.  The  transla- 
tion is  by  Andre  Tridon.  The  article  in  Le  Popu- 
laire was  called  Wilson,  Citizen  of  the  World,  and 
follows : 

Wilson  is  one  of  the  loftiest  figures  in  this  war  and  in 
our  times,  if  not  the  loftiest.  Above  ambition,  compro- 
mise, and  world-wide  intrigue,  he  has  stated  principles 
which  are  to  regulate  the  common  life  of  human  societies, 
in  words  which  are  admirably  clear  and  accurate.  The 
body  of  his  messages  constitutes  the  noblest  and  most 
complete  presentation  any  statesman  ever  made  of  the 
essential  postulates  of  internationalism.  He  has  not  been 
the  first  to  formulate  a  doctrine  of  international  politics 
which  in  its  main  points  and  in  its  general  spirit  is  that 
of  the  socialist  party,  but  at  least  he  has  seen  far  ahead, 
he  has  seen  the  ultimate  goal.  He  has  understood  that 
advance  in  one  direction  is  inseparable  from  advance  in 
other  directions,  that  truth  begets  truth  and  that  all  truths 
become  one,  and  that  the  important  thing  is  to  create 
something  consistent,  to  be  really  Constructive.  f 

The  very  importance  of  his  presidential  post  enhances 
his  glory,  not  only  because  it  has  given  more  weight  to 
his  words,  but  because  it  raised  obstacles  which  he  had 
to  surmount.  He  is  a  great  ethical  teacher,  a  great  human 
type.  He  is  a  forerunner  of  the  integral  democracy. 
Thanks  to  him  and  regardless  of  what  tomorrow  may 
bring,  the  first  step  taken  by  democracy  was  a  giant 
stride. 

Compared  to  him  the  men  who  govern  Europe  cut 
small  figures,  and  as  far  as  we  French  are  concerned,  we 
shall  have  no  cause  to  pride  ourselves,  some  day,  on  the 
small  stir  created,  after  Wilson's  creative  words,  by  the 
harangues  of  those  academicians  who  preside  over  our 
republic  and  our  cabinet,  and  who  have  only  been  moved 
by  the  thought  of  a  peaceful  organization  of  the  world — 
the  ones,  to  silence ;  the  others,  to  irony. 

It  is  not  difficult  for  anyone  to  say  that  he  desires  justice 
and  universal  peace.  That  was  the  constant  pretension 
of  Napoleon  I  and  of  William  II.  Nor  it  is  difficult  for 
anyone  to  say  that  he  agrees  with  Wilson.  Many  have 
been  proclaiming  that  they  do. 

It  would  be  better,  however,  to  realize  what  such  a 
profession  of  faith  binds  one  to.  It  would  be  better  to 
understand  that  whosoever  wants  the  end  must  want  the 
means.  It  would  be  better  to  want  both  the  means  and 
the  end. 

If  at  this  time,  when  the  future  of  the  world  is  being 
built  up  under  conditions  which  are  not  such  as  to  re- 
assure the  righteous-minded,  we  did  not  feel  so  deeply 
perturbed,  we  would  smile  at  all  those  projected  Leagues 


of  Nations  shrinking  to  the  dimensions  of  exclusive  or 
official  clubs,  at  all  those  grand  appeals  to  a  hate-ridden 
fraternity,  at  all  those  machinations  that  would  bring 
about  an  internationalism  devoid  of  any  international 
spirit. 

But  we  would  usurp  the  prerogatives  of  those  who  shall 
judge  us  some  day,  if  we  should  assign  his  proper  place 
to  the  man  whose  public  promises  are  not  a  mere  veil 
cast  over  secret  dealings;  to  the  man  who,  in  our 
troublous  times,  has  been  not  only  the  mightiest  among 
men,  but  the  most  clear-sighted  and  the  most  sincere ;  to 
the  man  who  has  been  able  to  define  masterfully  the 
complex  world  problem  by  planting  the  accurate  stakes 
of  his  formulas — democracy  versus  autocracy,  self-deter- 
mination of  nations,  open  diplomacy,  no  annexations  and 
no  indemnities,  no  economic  barriers;  to  the  chief  of  state 
who  has  not  jeered  at  the  democratic  strivings  of  Russia 
and  Germany;  to  the  splendid  logician  who  dared  to  say 
that  general  interest  must  be  placed  above  national  in- 
terest, a  noble  saying  which  casts  upon  world  ethics  a 
radiance  comparable  to  that  which,  emanating  from  the 
precepts  of  the  early  Christians,  revolutionized  the  souls 
of  men. 

It  is  the  duty  of  the  Socialist  Party  to  greet  respectfully 
and  to  acclaim  gratefully  the  President  of  the  United 
States.  It  may  come  to  pass  (for  the  very  purity  of  his 
thought  does  not  allow  us  to  retain  many  illusions)  that 
Wilson  the  Exceptional  will  become  some  day  Wilson  the 
Lonely;  that  the  ambitions  of  other  dominating  forces  may 
succeed  in  discarding  or  in  disfiguring  by  burlesquing  it, 
a  doctrine  whose  complete,  or  simply  honest,  application 
would  officially  deal  a  death  blow  to  imperialism;  and 
that  little  by  little  all  beauty  shall  be  taken  away  from  the 
Wilsonian  Commandments.  We  shall  wage  a  stubborn 
fight  that  such  a  thing  may  never  be.  Regardless  of 
whatever  may  happen,  however,  the  great  party  of  the 
poor,  of  the  workers,  of  mankind,  will  never  cease  to 
give  his  deserts  to  the  ruler  who  has  proved  the  most 
sensational  broadener  of  ideas  and  destroyer  of  abuses. 

The  socialist  ideal  must  not  become  identified  with 
any  man,  whatever  his  genius  or  his  sense  of  justice  may 
be.  That  ideal  has  become  too  lucid,  too  conscious,  too 
concrete.  The  Peoples'  International  will  sooner  or  later 
put  an  end  to  the  deepest  and  most  interminable  of  human 
tragedies,  and  that  organization  shall  be  reared  by  the 
masses  themselves,  over  the  age-worn  remains  of  a 
cankered  society.  But  it  shall  be  elementary  justice  on 
the  part  of  the  new  society  to  recognize  the  enormous 
advance  achieved  by  the  ideas  of  social  liberation,  thanks 
to^the  school-teacher  who  became  the  ruler  of  the  world's 
mightiest  nation.  It  shall  be  said  then  that,  alone  among 
the  mighty,  in  these  days  of  deluge,  he  found  himself  in 
accord  with  eternal  truth,  and  that,  after  all,  no  human 
being  has  done  more  than  he  has  to  eliminate  an  order 
of  things  which  for  the  past  six  thousand  years  has  been 
breeding  war,  and  to  eliminate  war  which  for  the  patt 
six  thousand  years  has  upheld  this  order  of  things. 


HENRI  BARBUSSE. 


QUESTIONS 


In  the  Toronto  Statesman  of  January  11,  1919 
appears  a  list  of  questions  which  the  British  Labor 
Party,  in  the  recent  election  in  England,  asked  of 
Lloyd  George.  Needless  to  say,  the  British  Gov- 
ernment did  not  answer  them.  Neither  were  they 
answered  in  the  campaign  speeches  of  the  Coalition 
candidates.  The  text  is  substantially  as  follows: 

1.  Are  there  now  50,000  soldiers  of  the  Allies  at 
Archangel  fighting  Bolshevik  Russia?  Is  their  com- 
mander now  in  London  asking  for  reinforcements?  Will 
the  safety  of  these  men  be  endangered  unless  they  are 
recalled  before  the  winter  ice  makes  their  return  impos- 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


93 


sible  ?  Is  the  Government  influenced  in  this  matter  by  the 
fact  that  the  French  Government  accepted  Russian  cou- 
pons as  payment  for  war  loans? 

2.  Does  the   Government  believe  that  the   documents 
proving  the  Bolsheviki  to  have  been  in  league  with  the 
German  militarists  are  genuine?     Does  the  Censor  pass 
them  for  publication  in  the  press?     Were  they  refused 
here  as  forgeries  before  a  more  credulous  institution  in 
Washington  accepted  them? 

3.  Is  the  British  Government  taking  any  steps  for  the 
restoration  of  the  Czardom  in  Russia  ?    Is  it  true  that  the 
new  currency  for  Northern  Russia  was  sent  from  this 
country  and  was  found  on  arrival  to  bear  the  imperial 
eagle?    Was  this  just  folly  or  intelligent  anticipation? 


.PEACE  OR  WAR  ? 

On  February  24,  1918,  Nicolai  Lenin  made  the 
following  statement  (given  only  in  its  essential 
part)  in  justification  of  his  contention  that  the 
harsh  terms  of  Brest-Litovsk,  imposed  upon  helpless 
Russia  by  the  Germans,  should  be  ratified.  The 
statement  was  part  of  his  fight  against  revolutionary 
ideology  which  issued  in  no  definite  action.  It 
presents  a  striking  contrast  to  the  fiery  invective 
of  Trotsky : 

The  reply  of  the  Germans,  as  the  leaders  see,  gives 
us  terms  of  peace  even  more  difficult  than  those  of  Brest- 
Litovsk.  And  yet  I  am  absolutely  convinced  that  only 
complete  intoxication  with  the  revolutionary  phrase  can 
persuade  anyone  to  refuse  to  sign  these  terms.  This  is 
why  I  began  in  articles  in  the  Pravda  signed  "Karpov"  a 
merciless  struggle  against  the  "revolutionary  phrase"  and 
against  the  "revolutionary  itch"  because  1  saw  in  it  the 
greatest  danger  to  our  party — and  therefore  to  the  revo- 
lution. Revolutionary  parties  that  strictly  carry  out 
revolutionary  slogans  have  been  ill  with  "revolutionary 
phrase"  many  times  in  history,  and  perished  on  account 
of  it.  .  .  In  thesis  17  I  wrote  that  if  we  should  refuse 
to  sign  the  proposed  peace,  then  "hardest  defeats  will 
compel  Russia  to  make  an  even  more  unprofitable  peace." 
It  proved  to  be  even  worse  because  our  retreating  and 
demobilizing  army  refused  altogether  to  fight.  At  the 
present  moment  only  impetuous  phrases  could  force  Rus- 
sia, in  its  immediate  hopeless  condition,  back  into  the 
war;  and  I  personally  will  of  course  not  remain  for  a 
second  in  a  government  or  on  the  central  committee  of 
our  party,  if  the  policy  of  phrase  is  to  take  the  upper 
hand.  Today  the  bitter  truth  has  shown  itself  so  horribly 
clear  that  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  it.  The  entire  bour- 
geoisie of  Russia  is  rejoicing  and  celebrating  the  arrival 
of  the  Germans.  Only  those  who  are  intoxicated  with 
mere  phrases  can  shut  their  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the 
policy  of  a  revolutionary  war— w ithout  an  army — is  water 
to  the  mill  of  the  bourgeoisie.  In  Dwinsk  Russian  offi- 
cers are  already  wearing  their  shoulder  straps.  In 
Riezhitza  the  bourgeoisie  greeted  the  Germans  with  great 
joy.  In  Petrograd,  on  the  Nevsky,  in  the  bourgeois  news- 
papers— the  Rietch,  the  Dielo  Naroda,  the  Novy  Lutch, 
and  others — everyone  is  preparing  to  celebrate  the  an- 
ticipated overthrow  of  Soviet  power  by  the  Germans. 
Everybody  must  by  this  time  see  that  those  against  this 
immediate,  against  this  supremely  difficult  peace,  are 
ruining  Soviet  power.  We  are  compelled  to  go  through 
a  most  difficult  peace.  This  peace  will  not  stop  the 
revolution  in  Germany  and  in  Europe.  We  will  organize 
a  Revolutionary  Army  not  by  phrases  and  exclamations — 
as  it  vaas  being  organized  by  those  who,  from  the  7th 
of  January  on  did  not  do  anything  to  prevent  our  armies 
from  running  away — but  by  organization,  by  action  cre- 
ating a  serious,  national,  mighty  army. 


Communications 

THE  BLOOD  OF  THE  MARTYRS 

SIR:  The  letter  of  John  Nevin  Sayre,  which 
was  published  in  THE  DIAL  of  December  28, 
prompts  me  to  write  to  you  in  regard  to  the  treat- 
ment of  political  prisoners  in  America — a  matter 
which  touches  the  conscience  of  each  one  of  us. 

For  several  months  I  have  followed  with  increas- 
ing interest  and  amazement  the  discussion  and 
communications  published  in  some  of  our  journals 
concerning  the  small  group  of  conscientious  objectors 
to  physical  combat,  who  are  now  caught  between 
the  upper  and  nether  millstones  of  popular  supersti- 
tion and  inertia.  I  have  finally  come  to  believe  that 
the  circumstances  concerning  these  men  constitute 
so  intricate  and  curious  a  problem  that  their  rescue 
can  only  be  effected  by  finding  whose  peculiar  wards 
they  are,  and  which  of  our  institutions  should  claim 
the  right  of  interpreting  their  situation  in  a  manner 
to  secure  their  exemption  from  further  punishment. 
The  liberal  press  has  put  the  burden  of  this  responsi- 
bility quite  squarely  upon  its  readers  and  it  is  now 
necessary  that  a  still  further  specialization  of  re- 
sponsibility be  accepted. 

In  the  first  analysis  the  release  of  these  prisoners 
will  be  a  thoroughly  practical  issue  and  will  have 
to  be  undertaken  on  definite  grounds  by  persons  to 
whose  special  keeping  has  been  entrusted  the  order 
of  interests  peculiarly  menaced  by  the  incarceration 
and  legalized  illtreatment  of  these  men. 

Instinctively  some  of  us  turn  to  the  Church,  feel- 
ing that  the  Church  does  truly  claim  the  right  to 
protect  the  man  or  woman  who  clearly  follows  the 
dictates  of  that  which  we  have  grown  accustomed  to 
call  conscience.  All  of  us  know  that  the  human 
lineage  of  the  Church  militant  is  a  lineage  of  saints 
and  martyrs,  and  that  in  all  ages  these  have  con- 
stituted a  small  residue  of  beings  differing  from  the 
mass  of  persons  with  whom  they  have  been  con- 
temporaries, and  who,  because  of  some  phase  of 
other-mindedness  concerning  right  and  wrong  nor 
in  consonance  with  the  common-mindedness,  have 
opposed  the  common  will  rather  than  betray  the 
truth  as  it  appeared  to  them.  Such  beings  in  all 
times  have  brought  upon  themselves  monstrous  suf- 
ferings. The  crowd  which  has  condemned  them 
for  sin  has  also  condemned  them  for '  folly,  since 
they  have  chosen  sorrow  and  bitter  hardship  rather 
than  speak  the  word  or  give  the  sign  of  yielding 
which  would  place  them  once  again  in  harmony  with 
their  fellows  and  bring  relief  from  their  sufferings. 
Personally,  I  shall  always  believe  that  the  Church  is 
the  rightful  apologist  for  all  those  who  suffer  for 
conscience'  sake;  but  I  also  believe  that  her  his- 
torical affiliation  with  the  State,  especially  in  times 
of  war,  makes  her  sincerely  doubt  the  genuineness 


94 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


of  any  call  which  inclines  an  individual  to  place 
himself  at  variance  with  the  national  decree  in  war 
time.  So  that,  although  the  Church  honors  above 
all  other  possessions  those  martyrs  who  in  past  cen- 
turies have  shed  the  bitter  tears  and  blood  of  physical 
anguish  rather  than  submit  to  decrees  which  were 
repugnant  to  their  conscience,  she  appears  to  find 
herself  unable  to  defend  the  same  quality  of  conduct 
when  such  conduct  is  in  disaccord  with  the  generally 
recognized  interests  of  the  State  in  times  of  war. 
Such  a  thought  causes  infinite  distress  and  raises 
within  one  the  question  as  to  how  far  the  temporal 
kingdom  has  made  ground  over  the  kingdom  where 
"we  wrestle  not  against  flesh  and  blood,  but  against 
principalities,  against  powers,  against  the  rulers  of 
the  darkness  of  this  world,  against  spiritual  wicked- 
ness in  high  places." 

If  we  admit  that  these  men  are  sincere  in  their 
convictions,  then  we  must  look  upon  them  whether 
or  no  as  martyrs,  since  they  suffer  for  conscience' 
sake.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  consider  martydom 
an  inconvenience  and  anachronism  in  these  later 
days,  our  celebration  of  such  virtues  as  practised 
in  the  past  becomes  simply  a  fashion  of  homage  and 
tribute  to  a  legendary  and  mythical  period,  of  great 
beauty  and  dignity.  No  other  way  seems  open  to  us 
unless  we  are  prepared  to  admit  that  God  himself 
has  so  unmistakably  sanctioned  warfare  between 
nations  that  the  man  who  obeys  a  contrary  indication 
is  misled  by  the  voice  of  the  Evil  One  and  therefore, 
from  the  medieval  point  of  view,  can  only  be  turned 
from  his  evil  way  by  torture. 

The  difficulty  may  lie  far  deeper  than  many  of  us 
realize  and  may  be  inherent  in  the  origin  of  the 
Church  itself,  which,  rooted  and  grounded  as  it  is  in 
the  Mosaic  tradition,  may  carry  with  it  an  uncon- 
scious sanction  of  war  and  therefore  an  instinctive 
execration  of  those  who  fail  to  defend  the  State. 
If  we  admit  such  a  conclusion  we  must  indeed  seek 
elsewhere  for  the  protection  of  these  beings,  though 
with  a  heavy  heart  and  much  sorrow,  since  we 
believe  these  -men  to  be  innocent  and  believe  also 
that  the  living  Church  is  our  greatest  medium  for 
the  expression  of  lasting  good. 

Turning  to  the  body  of  men  to  whom  justice  as 
embodied  in  law  is  especially  committed,  one  also 
finds  great  difficulties,  for  this  body  is  in  a  practical 
sense  dedicated,  it  seems  to  me,  rather  to  the  defense 
of  that  which  is  legal  than  to  the  reinterpretation  of 
man's  relationship  to  his  fellow  man  in  a  living, 
changing  race.  In  its  estimation,  what  law  has  here- 
tofore sanctioned  by  use  and  confirmed  by  honorable 
precedent  is  lawful ;  so  that  the  past,  with  its  earlier 
beliefs  and  practices,  conditions  most  heavily  the 
acceptance  of  a  later  concept.  How,  therefore,  can 
we  ask  its  protection  for  men  who  have  in  a  sense 
become  a  law  unto  themselves  and  are  in  conflict 
with  the  common  will  as  embodied  in  the  laws? 


Nevertheless,  many  and  bitter  are  one's  reflections 
at  this  point  when  one  considers  the  countless  and 
flagrant  instances  known  to  us  all  wherein  the  most 
respectable  and  honored  citizens  continually  evade 
enacted  law  concerning  such  questions  as  payment  of 
taxes,  customs  duties,  and  many  other  matters  where 
sophistical  cunning  and  manipulation  of  the  letter 
enable  the  "wise"  to  defeat  entirely  the  spirit  of  the 
law.  Such  offenders  have  no  sense  whatever  of  sin 
or  even  of  wrongdoing;  and  yet  among  groups  of 
such  wilful  evaders  of  the  law  one  finds 'the  strong- 
est condemnation  of  the  conscientious  objector 
to  physical  combat,  as  one  who  defrauds  the 
State. 

Would  it  not  be  safer  in  the  long  run  to  turn  this 
group  over  to  the  pathologist,  and  to  acknowledge  at 
once  that  the  age  is  rightly  committed  to  the  cult 
of  pseudo-pragmatic  values,  and  that  such  persons 
as  are  willing  to  endure  suffering  and  anguish 
rather  than  relinquish  their  ideals  are  defective,  in 
the  sense  of  being  ignorant  of  how  to  obtain  what 
they  want  at  the  expense  of  others  rather  than  at 
their  own  expense?  From  this  point  of  view,  cer- 
tainly, these  persons  have  been  lacking  in  common 
sense  to  entail  upon  themselves  consequences  so  out 
of  proportion  to  their  fault,  when,  by  a  little  ma- 
neuvering, they  could  have  had  an  easy  time  with 
not  too  much  loss  of  dignity  or  without  violating 
too  obviously  their  own  ideals.  If  there  is  any  justi- 
fication whatever  for  a  man's  willingness  to  endure 
great  sorrows  rather  than  yield  to  the  temptation  of 
betraying  by  one  jot  his  conception  of  right,  then 
these  men  deserve  to  find  protection  at  the  hand  of 
such  institutions  as  proclaim  the  reality  and  claim 
of  a  spiritual  life ;  but  if,  on  the  other  hand,  no  such 
claim  can  be  defended  in  any  vital  sense,  then  these 
men  should  be  protected  from  further  persecution 
on  the  ground  that  they  are  defective  in  ordinary 
intelligence  and  victims  of  a  kind  of  pathologic 
obstinacy  and  hallucination.  Whichever  way  we 
put  it,  it  seems  to  me  that  they  are  entitled  to  rescue 
and  to  amends  from  society  itself,  which  through  its, 
heedlessness  and  lack  of  inquiry  into  affairs  for 
which  it  is  entirely  responsible  allows  injustices 
of  this  nature  to  go  unrebuked  and  unchallenged — 
nay  more,  to  be  actually  committed  in  its  name. 

The  anguish  of  these  abandoned  ones  cries  out 
upon  our  comfort  and  upon  our  easily  held  creeds. 
Even  though  we  do  not  succeed  in  righting  their 
grievous  wrong  so  that  they  gain  relief  through  such 
action,  I  have  an  inner  feeling  that  they  will  be  the 
last  of  America's  sons  sacrificed  to  a  medieval  con- 
ception of  disciplinary  punishment,  and  that  in  spite 
of  the  material  conceptions  of  our  age  vicarious 
sacrifice  will  again  have  justified  itself  and  that  the 
suffering  of  this  little  company  will  not  have  been 

in  vain.  ANNIE  WETMORE  HASELTINE. 


1919 


95 


Scribner  Publications 


Another  Sheaf 

By  John  Galsworthy 

This  is  another  volume  of  Mr.  Galsworthy's 
charming  and  characteristic  essays  and  studies. 
It  has  a  particularly  timely  interest  in  that  it  is 
so  largely  concerned  with  questions,  material 
and  artistic,  of  reconstruction  ;  and  it  has  a  more 
special  interest  for  Americans  in  many  of  its 
studies  which  deal  with  American  standards, 
intellectual  and  practical.  Among  the  titles 
are  :  "American  and  Briton,"  "The  Drama 
in  England  and  America,"  "Impressions  of 
France,"  "Balance  Sheet  of  the  Soldier  Work- 
man," "The  Road,"  etc.  $1.50  net. 

The  Only  Possible  Peace 

By  Frederic  C.  Howe 

Commissioner  of  Immigration  of  the  Port  of 
New  York. 

Dr.  Howe  sees  the  European  war  from  an  en- 
tirely new  angle  as  a  struggle  for  imperialism 
of  world  states  and  primarily  economic.  .  .  He 
sketches  the  economic  development  of  Germany, 
the  colossal  banking  institutions,  the  industrial 
imperialistic  classes  that  have  risen  to  power 
during  the  last  twenty-five  years,  and  traces  the 
war  to  the  industrial  rather  than  exclusively  to 
the  Junker  classes.  $1.50  net. 


By  Armistead  C.  Gordon 

"It  has  charm,  solidity,  and  a  certain  fairness 
and  poise  which  befits  this  moment  in  our  na- 
tional history.  One  sees  in  it  the  Jefferson  Davis 
who  will  ultimately  emerge  from  the  pages  of 
unbiased  historical  study."  —  Edwin  O.  Alderman, 
President  of  the  University  of  Virginia. 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON 

By  Prof.  David  Saville  Muzzey,  of  Columbia  University 

"Dr.  Muzzey  does  not  pretend  to  disclose  any 
hitherto  unknown  facts  about  Jefferson,  but  he 
does  review  the  know\n  facts  temperately,  im- 
partially and  with  a  sanity  that  commends  his 
work  to  all  who  would  have  a  just  conception  of 
one  of  the  foremost  founders  of  the  Republic." 
—  New  York  Tribune. 
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The  Great  Adventure 

Present-Day  Studies  in  American  Nationalism. 

By  Theodore  Roosevelt 

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Men  Who  Pay  With  Their  Bodies  for  Their 
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It  Through,"  "The  Square  Deal  in  American- 
ism," "The  German  Horror,"  "Parlor  Bolshev- 
ism." $1.00  net. 

The  Essentials  of  an  Enduring 
Victory 

By  Andre  Cheradame 

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Petrograd  Since  the  Revolution 

(The  City  of  Trouble) 
By  Meriel  Buchanan 

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Psychology  and  the  Day's  Work 

By  Prof.  Edgar  James  Swift 

"This  book  is  not  the  typical  dry  as  dust  text  on 
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Simple  Souls 


By  John  Hastings  Turner 

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96 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


Notes  on  New  Books 

THE  SACRED  BEETLE  AND  OTHERS.     By  J. 
Henri  Fabre.    Dodd,  Mead;  $1.60. 

The  cult  of  Fabre  appears  to  be  enjoying  a  rather 
longer  lease  of  life  than  customarily  falls  to  any 
fashion,  whether  of  clothes,  the  dance,  or  literature, 
so  that  a  superficial  observer  would  stoutly  deny  that 
it  was  merely  a  cult.  But  the  simple  fact  remains 
inexorable:  the  extraordinary,  humanistic  genius  of 
Fabre,  coupled  with  the  talent  of  his  translators 
and  the  faith  of  his  publishers,  has  succeeded  in 
making  it  rather  clever  and  stylish  to  know  some- 
thing about  the  humble  insects  to  whose  lives  the 
great  French  naturalist  devoted  his  own.  The 
Souvenirs  Entomologiques  are,  in  their  way,  as 
unique  and  permanent  as  Brehm's  animal  studies  in 
theirs,  or  White's  Selborne;  and  unquestionably 
Fabre  will  endure  as  a  master  of  his  particular 
field.  The  Sacred  Beetle  and  Others  is  the  eighth 
of  the  Fabre  translations.  Alexander  Teixeira  de 
Mattos  gives  us  every  nuance  and  charm  of  the 
original;  and  the  various  life-cycles  narrated  with 
such  quaint  anthropomorphism  and  side-glances  ,at 
philosophy  make  us  regret,  very  keenly,  that  the 
stern  requirements  of  animal  and  comparative 
psychology  forbid  them  the  name  of  "Science." 

YOUNG   ADVENTURE.      By    Stephen    Vincent 
Benet.    Yale  University  Press;  $1.25. 

A  tonic  humor  is  one  of  the  chief  gifts  of  this 
charming  young  poet.  Whether  he  paints  a  Portrait 
of  a  Baby,  writes  a  stinging  Elegy  for  an  Enemy, 
or  makes  acute  analysis  of  The  Breaking  Point,  he 
evinces  an  intellectual  vigor  which  rarely  accom- 
panies so  profound  a  passion  for  beauty.  That  he 
has  the  latter  is  clear,  in  the  very  opening  of  the 
book,  in  that  curiously  uneven  and  intriguing  poem, 
The  Drug-Shop,  or,  Endymion  in  Edmonstoun: 

Night  falls;  the  great  jars  glow  against  the  dark, 

Dark  green,  dusk  red,  and,  like  a  coiling  snake, 

Writhing  eternally  in  smoky  gyres. 

Great  ropes  of  gorgeous  vapor  twist  and  turn 

Within  them.     So  the  Eastern  fishermen 

Saw  the  swart  genie  rise.     .    . 

The  same  evocative  magic  is  in  his  ballad  The 
Hemp,  one  of  the  most  dramatic  poems  in  the  book. 
Take  for  example  the  manner  in  which  he  induces  so 
different  a  mood  as  this: 

The  sky  was  blue,  and  the  sea  was  still, 
The  waves  lapped  softly,  hill  on  hill, 
And  between  one  wave  and  another  wave 
The  doomed  man's  cries  were  little  and  shrill. 

Drama  is  of  the  essence  of  his  verse.  In  one 
poem  at  least  Benet  is  not  so  much  at  Browning's 
feet  as  in  Browning's  chair.  One  can  imagine  old 
Robert  looking  with  a  fond  eye  at  this  young  man 
who  so  perfectly  comprehends  the  fascination  of 
gorgeous  Roman  settings  and  murders  of  finesse. 


Throughout,  however,  Benet  has  a  lyricism  rather 
reminiscent  of  Noyes.  Indeed  his  poem  on  Keats 
suffers  by  these  foreign  echoes. 

But  what  is  good  in  his  poetry  is  naturally  what 
is  his  own.  And  his  own  is  versatility.  Perhaps 
it  is,  rather,  poetic  understanding,  for  what  Benet 
does  is  to  paint  against  a  sympathetic  background 
people  caught  in  an  emotion.  But  because  he  is  a 
man  and  is  young,  it  is  courage  that  most  engages 
him — not  the  fearlessness  of  brute  strength,  but  the 
indomitable  Galahad  in  men.  These  poems  make 
one  paraphrase  the  familiar  line  to  read:  "The 
quality  of  courage  is  not  strained."  Mr.  Benet 
writes  of  battle  and  writes  well.  It  is  not  to  de- 
preciate the  worth  of  his  achievement  to  say  that 
this  is  a  book  of  promise. 

FOUR  YEARS  IN  THE  WHITE  NORTH.     By 
Donald  B.  MacMillan.     Harper;  $4. 

If  you  have  ever  stepped  from  an  overheated  com- 
mittee-room into  the  clear,  frosty  air  of  a  November 
night,  then  you  have  a  physical  parallel  for  the 
sort  of  mental  lung-filling  with  which  one  turns  the 
pages  of  this  book  after  too  much  perusing  of  war 
volumes.  Sledging  over  uncharted  wastes  at  the  top 
of  the  world — far  from  Soviets  and  censorships — 
may  not  be  the  best  way  to  keep  in  touch  with  war, 
but  it  is  an  admirable  way  to  keep  in  touch  with 
some  things  which  war-logged  folk  are  in  danger 
of  losing.  Even  the  illustrations  of  this  book  are  a 
relief,  after  endless  Sunday  supplements  with  their 
rotogravure  revelations  of  devastation.  The  author 
has  set  down  the  varied  adventures  of  the  Crocker 
Land  Expedition  during  four  years  of  exploration 
in  North  Greenland,  an  undertaking  which,  though 
it  disproved  the  existence  of  Crocker  Land  as  placed 
upon  our  latest  maps,  resulted  in  many  discoveries 
of  positive  value.  Mr.  MacMillan  writes  with  the 
enthusiasm  of  a  pathfinder  rather  than  the  cold  pre- 
cision of  a  scientist,  filling  the  narrative  with  bits 
of  experience  in  which  the  human  and  humorous 
elements  have  been  retained.  There  is,  for  example, 
this  appreciative  passage  with  its  tribute  to  crafts- 
manship and  orderliness.  Somehow,  we  always  had 
the  idea  that  igloos  were  messy,  murky  holes: 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  see  an  Eskimo  cut  and  handle  snow. 
One  cannot  but  admire  the  skill  and  dexterity  with  which 
he  cuts  it  on  the  surface,  breaks  it  out  with  his  toe,  lays 
it  up  on  the  wall,  bevels  the  edges,  and  thumps  it  into 
place  with  his  hand.  I  wonder  if  there  are  any  other 
people  in  the  world  who  attempt  to  build  an  arch  or  dome 
without  support.  Starting  from  the  ground  in  a  spiral 
from  right  to  left,  the  blocks  mount  higher  and  higher, 
ever  assuming  a  more  horizontal  position,  until  the  last 
two  or  three  appear  to  hang  in  the  air,  the  last  block 
locking  the  whole  structure. 

Entering  a  newly  constructed  igloo  seems  like  a  vision 
of  fairy-land,  the  light  filtering  through  the  snow  a  beau- 
tiful ethereal  blue ;  everything — the  bed,  the  two  side  plat- 
forms, the  wall — absolutely  spotless. 

In  the  course  of  the  narrative  the  author  contrives 
to  drop  sufficient  historical  background  of  Arctic 
travel  to  put  this  expedition  in  its  true  perspective. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


97 


Which  Shall  It  Be  ? 


Wilson  or  Glemenceau 

Smuts  or  Lodge 

Cecil  or  Reed 

Economic  Freedom  or  Rival  Armaments 

League  of  Nations  or  Balance  of  Power 

Over  7,000,000  men  have  been  killed.  Over  14,000,000  men  have 
been  wounded.  The  debt  of  France  equals  half  her  total  wealth. 
That  of  England  equals  37%  of  her  total  wealth.  Ours  will  equal 
50  billion  dollars.  Your  children  will  pay. 

Do  You  Want  Another  War? 

Mass  meetings  are  cabling  Wilson  their  support.  Senator  after 
senator  is  taking  his  stand.  The  liberal  forces  are  throwing 
their  weight  in  the  scales  for  the  new  statemanship. 
The  League  of  Nations  hangs  in  the  balance.  The  next  few 
weeks  will  decide.  Shall  your  influence  be  lost?  Your  only 
time  is  nou?.  A  cable  from  you  to  the  President — a  cable  from 
your  club,  church,  union,  chamber  of  commerce — will  help. 

We  want  MEMBERS,  MEETINGS,  MONEY,  to  promote  a 
more  general  realization  and  support  by  the  public  of  the  condi- 
tions indispensable  to  the  success,  at  the  Peace  Conference 
and  thereafter,  of  American  aims  and  policy  as  outlined  by 
President  Wilson. 

LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS  ASSOCIATION 

130  West  42nd  Street,  N.  Y.  G. 


Here  are  a  few  of  the 
John  R.   Commons 
John  Dewey 
Edwin  F.  Gay 
A.   Lawrence   Lowell 
Judge  Julian   W.  Mack 
Thomas    W.   Lamont 
Henry  Bruere 
Helen  Marat 
Frank  P.   Walsh 
Dorothy   Whitney  Straight 
J.  Randolph  Coolidge,  Jr. 
John  F.  Moors 


signers  of  our  Statement: 
Charles  A.  Beard 
John  Graham  Brooks 
Felix   Frankfurter 
Judge  Learned  Hand 
Thomas  L.   Chadbourne 
Julia  Lathrop 
Herbert  Croly 
Lawson   Purdy 
Jacob  Schiff 
E.   R.   A.   Seligman 
Ida  M.  Tarbell 
John  A.  Voll 

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LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS  ASSOCIATION 

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Mark  x 

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THE  DIAL 


January  25 


There  are  illuminating  bits  of  observation  concern- 
ing the  life  and  habits  of  the  Eskimos  and  the  animal 
life  of  that  region.  Supplementary  chapters  by  W. 
Elmer  Ekblaw  and  an  ornithological  appendix  com- 
plete the  volume. 

CONFESSIONS  OF  AN  OPERA  SINGER.    By  Kath- 
leen Howard.    Knopf ;  $2. 

These  are  no't  confessions  in  the  Rousseau  sense. 
The  threat  in  the  title  is  withdrawn  in  the  text, 
giving  place  merely  to  a  series  of  reminiscences — 
operatic  experiences  in  France,  England,  and  Ger- 
many. The  singer  is  discreetly  brief  regarding  the 
Metropolitan  Opera  House.  If  there  is  any  con- 
fessing to  be  done  about  that,  it  will  have  to  wait, 
for  she  dismisses  it  in  a  single  paragraph  at  the  end. 
Pictures  of  pension  life  abroad,  of  rehearsals  and 
trial  performances,  are  penned  with  considerable 
vividness,  and  there  are  amusing  sidelights  on  the 
management  of  opera  in  Germany,  ranging  all  the 
way  up  to  the  artistic  efficiency  of  Prince  Henry 
of  Prussia,  who  sent  word  to  the  contralto  on  one 
occasion  that  she  played  Carmen  with  skirts  too  long. 
Discussing  the  cramped  dimensions  of  some  of  the 
stages  in  Germany,  Miss  Howard  admits  once  play- 
ing through  an  entire  scene  with  the  end  of  her 
train  caught  in  the  door  by  which  she  had  entered, 
and  she  did  not  know  it.  Those  who  revel  in  peeps 
backstage  will  welcome  the  contralto's  "confessions." 
But  did  she,  or  the  printer,  write  "the  acoustic  is"? 

THE    FLAMING  <  CRUCIBLE.     By  Andre    Fri- 
bourg.     Macmillan;  $1.50. 

Although,  from  the  first  page  to  the  last,  this  book 
bears  evidence  of  authentic  personal  reaction,  it  is 
the  closing  chapters — dealing  with  the  returned 
soldier's  halting  readjustment  to  his  pre-war  sur- 
roundings— that  are  most  significant.  Perhaps  it  is 
because  we  are  so  sated  with  the  fighting  reac- 
tions (since  more  writers  have  chosen  to  deal  with 
them)  that  these  closing  pages  of  The  Flaming 
Crucible  seem  to  carry  a  fresher  note.  Both  in 
poignant  literary  expression  and  in  illuminating 
flashes  of  psychology,  this  groping  of  a  war-racked 
consciousness  among  the  strange  yet  familiar  paths 
of  security  gives  the  book  distinctive  merit. 

Fribourg  writes  in  the  febrile,  sometimes  almost 
brittle,  style  of  a  man  whose  calmer  faculties  have 
been  swept  aside  in  an  abrupt  clash  with  the  primi- 
tive elements  of  his  nature.  And  with  this  surrender 
comes  acceptance  of  the  fatalism  of  the  soldier : 

Why  should  I  go  more  quickly?  If  I  hasten  I  shall  be 
hit  by  the  bullet  that  would  have  passed  before  me ;  if  I 
delay,  by  the  bullet  that  would  have  passed  behind.  In 
any  event  I  shall  exhaust  myself  the  sooner.  .  .  Learn 
to  wait.  Whatever  you  do  your  blood  is  going  to  course 
more  swiftly  in  this  night's  journey,  and  the  passing  min- 
utes, any  one  of  which  may  be  your  last,  are  infinitely 
precious.  Every  bullet  that  grazes  you  will  reveal  some- 
thing and  show  the  way;  for,  when  the  mortal  stroke 
comes,  illusions  fly  away.  Death,  face  to  face,  is  clearly 
seen. 


Here  the  facts  of  hardship  and  privation  are  not 
glossed,  but  baldly  painted  i/i  quick  strokes.  Here 
are  the  mud  and  misery  and  madness,  made  real  in 
unadorned  sentences.  In  between,  however,  there 
are  passages  of  eloquence  which  seem  to  be  set  off 
not  without  the  suspicion  of  a  time-fuse.  The  inter- 
est ebbs  at  these  soarings  by  appointment.  The 
translation,  by  Arthur  B.  Maurice,  testifies  to  a 
sympathetic  absorption  in  the  original. 

THE  FOUNDATIONS  AND  NATURE  OF  VERSE. 
By  Gary  F.  Jacob.  Columbia  University 
Press;  $1.50. 

It  is  only  natural  that  the  rapid  development  of 
freer  forms  of  verse  should  be  attended  by  a  re- 
crudescence of  interest  in  problems  of  prosody.  The 
old  problem  of  the  essential  basis  or  bases  of  English 
verse  is  now  being  threshed  out  all  over  again.  The 
relation  in  point  of  rhythm  between  prose  and  verse 
has  become  a  curiously  live  question.  Some  see  in 
prose  and  verse  two  naturally  distinct  and  unbridge- 
able forms  of  expression;  others  consider  them  as 
merely  the  poles  of  a  continuous  gamut  of  possible 
forms,  some  of  which  are  only  now  being  consciously 
explored  as  artistic  media. 

In  his  conscientious  if  somewhat  dull  book  Dr. 
Jacob  takes  us  over  a  great  deal  of  familiar  ground, 
leads  us,  with  shrewd  deliberation,  into  many  a 
blind  alley  of  negation,  leaves  himself  apparently 
little  or  no  ground  to  stand  on,  and  triumphantly 
concludes  with  a  statement  of  principles  and  natural 
limitations.  Too  much  space  is  devoted  to  prelim- 
inaries— acoustic,  ethnographic,  psychologic.  It  is 
difficult  to  see,  for  instance,  what  meat  the  humble 
prosodist  is  expected  to  extract  from  the  lengthy 
chapter  on  pitch,  with  its  array  of  citations  from 
technical  treatises  on  acoustics  and  from  antiquated 
works  of  an  ethnographic  nature.  On  the  whole 
one  gathers  that  Dr.  Jacob's  psychologic  and  purely 
musical  equipment  is  superior  to  either  his  culture- 
historical  or  his  linguistic  equipment.  This  may 
well  be  erring  on  the  right  side,  but  it  also  tends 
to  limit  his  perspective  in  a  way  that  is  not  always 
fortunate.  Phonetic  phenomena  are  as  good  as 
ignored.  Again,  the  problems  of  English  verse 
structure  are  not  set  against  a  historical  or  compara-^ 
tive  background  that  would  serve  to  bring  out  in 
proper  relief  its  own  essential  peculiarities. 

The  book  offers  nothing  really  new.  To  the  dev- 
otees of  freer  prosodic  forms  it  will  prove  a  dis- 
appointment. No  natural  basis,  however  broad,  is 
pointed  out  that  would  justify  free  verse  as  a  realm 
of  artistic  promise.  Between  the  accidental  rhythms 
of  prose  and  the  more  or  less  rigidly  recurrent  metric 
units  of  normal  verse  Dr.  Jacobs  throws  no  bridge. 
The  book  strikes  one,  despite  its  liberal  employment 
of  psychologic  and  prosodic  authorities,  as  needlessly 
narrow  in  outlook.  Like  many  prosodists,  Dr. 
Jacob  attaches  probably  too  great  importance  to  the 
purely  objective  and  experimental  study  of  rhythmic 


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THE  LAW  OF  STRUGGLE 

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From  the  Varangians  to  the  Bolsheviks,  by  RAYMOND 
BEAZLEY,  NEVIL  FORBES  and  G.  A.  BIRKETT.  623  pages. 
(Postage  extra,  weight  2  Ibs.)  Net  $4.25 

What  are  the  factors  that  led  to  the  Bolshevik  domina- 
tion of  Russia?  Wherein  does  the  Russian  Revolution 
differ  from  the  French  Revolution?  Why  has  Ger- 
many been  so  successful  in  her  Russian  propaganda? 
Questions  like  these  are  answered  by  the  facts  as  given 
in  this  book.  One  cannot  fail  to  understand  the  Rus- 
sians better  after  reading  this  volume.  [Histories  of 
the  Belligerents  Series.] 


By  J.  A.  R.  MARRIOTT.  Second  edition  revised,  with 
eleven  maps  and  appendixes,  giving  a  list  of  the  Otto- 
man rulers,  and  the  shrinkage  of  the  Ottoman  Empire 
in  Europe,  1817-1914.  Crown  8vo  (8x5),  pp.  xii  +  538. 
(Postage  extra,  weight  2  Ibs.)  Net  $4.25 

A  systematic  account  of  the  origin  and  development 
of  the  Eastern  Question,  dealing  successively  with  the 
Ottomans,  Hapsburgs,  Russian  Empire,  the  Hellenic 
Kingdom  and  the  New  Balkan  States,  with  an  epilogue 
brought  down  to  June,  1918.  [Histories  of  the  Bellig- 
erent Series.] 

The  Partition  of  Europe,  1715-1815,  by  Philip 
Guedalla.  Cr.  8vo  (7^x5j4).  Pp.  320.  (Postage  ex- 
tra.) $1.50 

The   Fall  of  the   Old   Order,  1763-1815,  by   I.   L. 

Plunket.  Cr.  8vo.  (7^x5j4).  Pp.  248.  (Postage 
extra.)  $1.50 

From  Metternich  to  Bismarck,  1815-1878,  by  L. 
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extra.)  $1.50 

Outlines  of  European  History,  by  M.  O.  Davis. 
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index.  Cr.  8vo  (7^x5).  Pp.  146.  (Postage  extra.) 

$1.00 

Outlines  of  Modern  History,  by  J.  D.  Rogers. 
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At  all  Booksellers  or  from  the  Publishers 


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January  25 


phenomena.  A  subtler  and  ultimately  more  fruitful 
analysis  would  have  demanded  a  wider  definition  of 
the  concept  of  periodicity  and  a  greater  willingness 
to  evaluate  the  more  intimately  subjective  rhythmic 
factors.  The  same  stanza  may  be  truly  verse  to  one 
subject,  just  as  truly  prose  to  another,  according  to 
whether  or  not  a  rhythmic  contour  (not  necessarily 
a  rigid  metrical  pattern),  is  clearly  apperceived  by 
the  reader  or  hearer. 

SOME    HAPPENINGS.      By    Horace    Annesley 
Vachell.     Doran;  $1.50. 

The  Englishman,  though  he  travels  extensively 
and  frequently  writes  about  his  travels,  is  not  usually 
credited  with  taking  on  much  color  from  the  scenes 
and  people  he  visits.  This  cannot  be  said  of  Horace 
Annesley  Vachell,  who  in  his  collection  of  short 
stories,  Some  Happenings,  tells  tales  of  Western  life 
with  true  appreciation  of  its  quality,  tales  of  peasant 
life  in  France  with  sympathetic  understanding  of  the 
Breton  character,  and  tales  of  the  West  and  East 
Ends  of  London  with  insight  and  humor.  Through- 
out these  stories  the  human  values  are  emphasized 
and  the  writer  brings  to  light  the  essential  kindli- 
ness which  is  said  to  be  inherent  in  every  man,  how- 
ever rough  or  arid  or  vulgar  he  may  appear  to  be. 
Especially  noteworthy  for  its  Cockney  wit  is  Bean- 
feasters,  and  for  its  poignant  appeal  the  tragic  story 
of  The  Death  Mask.  Those  who  like  love  and 
laughter — love  that  is  not  too  urgent,  and  laughter 
that  is  not  too  loud — who  enjoy  humorous  character- 
ization and  varied  settings,  will  find  this  book  to 
their  taste,  but  those  who  require  the  complexity 
that  exists  in  actual  life  may  find  the  texture  of  these 
tales  somewhat  flimsy. 

OUT  OF  THE  SILENCES.    By  Mary  E.  Waller. 
Little,  Brown;  $1.50. 

Miss  Waller  has  neglected  that  quite  necessary 
duty  of  the  novelist — to  fix  the  tempo  of  her  story, 
and  then  to  remain  faithful  to  it.  Her  failure  to 
do  this  results  in  a  compositional  defect  which 
thwarts  the  reader  at  every  turn.  She  improvises 
upon  her  material,  running  her  hands  up  and  down 
the  emotional  keys  for  a  series  of  loosely  articulated 
effects,  some  of  which  carry  and  some  of  which  fail. 
This  absence  of  tempo — a  tempo  in  harmony  with 
the  mood  of  the  story — is  evident  in  the  lagging 
and  disproportionately  detailed  beginning,  which 
throws  the  ensuing  chapters  out  of  focus,  and  in 
the  author's  inability  to  rivet  attention  upon  her 
central  figure  of  the  "man-boy,  indomitable  of  will, 
inbued  with  the  symbolism  and  nature  worship  of 
the  Indians,  eager  for  the  new,  the  strange."  In 
order  to  bring  the  threads  of  the  improvisation  into 
the  semblance  of  harmony,  there  is  a  final  chord 
echoing  the  thunders  of  war,  but  even  this  device 
contributes  little  sweep  to  the  story.  Miss  Waller 
here  displays  little  of  that  warmth  of  insight  which 


gave  a  certain  quality  to  The  Woodcarver  of 
'Lympus.  One  has  difficulty  in  accepting  the  reality 
of  a  man  brought  up  in  the  wilds  of  western  Can- 
ada, schooled  in  stoic  repressions  and  hardship,  only 
to  slip  simultaneously  into  love  and  rhapsody  thus: 

"What  more  can  a  man  ask  for  in  this  world?  This 
one  hour  here  with  you.  And  then  my  luck — think  of  it! — 
to  be  one  infinitesimal  human  atom  sandwiched  in  be- 
tween the  upheaved,  broken-in-pieces,  red-lava-overflowed 
strata  of  two  ages  in  humanity's  history;  and,  just  at  the 
right  moment,  to  be  given  a  fighting  chance  to  strike  one 
blow  for  the  survival  of  what  should  be  most  fit  for  this 
world." 

Guided  by  Miss  Waller's  pen,  out  of  the  silences 
comes  hyperbole. 

Books  of  the  Fortnight 

The  following  list  comprises  THE  DIAL'S  selec- 
tion of  books  recommended  among  the  publications 
received  during  the  last  two  weeks: 

The  League  of  Nations:  Today  and  Tomorrow. 
By  Horace  M.  Kallen.  12mo,  181  pages. 
Marshall  Jones  Co.  $1.50. 

American  Charities.  By  Amos  G.  Warner.  With 
a  biographical  preface  by  George  Elliott  How- 
ard. Third  edition,  revised  by  Mary  Roberts 
Coolidge.  12mo,  541  pages.  Thomas  Y. 
Crowell  Co.  $2.50. 

The  Development  of  Rates  of  Postage:  An  Histori- 
cal and  Analytical  Study.  By  A.  D.  Smith. 
With  an  introduction  by  Herbert  Samuel.  8vo, 
431  pages.  Macmillan  Co.  $5. 

The  History  of  Religions.  By  E.  Washburn  Hop- 
kins. 12mo,  624  pages.  Macmillan  Co.  $3. 

Thirty  Years  in  Tropical  Australia.  By  Gilbert 
White.  With  an  introduction  by  H.  H.  Mont- 
gomery. Illustrated,  12mo,  264  pages.  Mac- 
millan Co.  $3.75. 

The  History  of  Henry  Fielding.  By  Wilbur  L. 
Cross.  Illustrated,  8vo,  1273  pages.  3  vols. 
Yale  University  Press.  Boxed,  $15. 

The  Early  Years  of  the  Saturday  Club:  1855- 
1876.  By  Edward  Waldo  Emerson.  8vo, 
514  pages.  Houghton  Mifflin  Co.  $7.50. 

The  English  Poets:  Selections  with  Critical  Intro- 
ductions. Edited  by  Thomas  Humphry 
Ward.  Vol.  5:  Browning  to  Rupert  Brooke. 
12mo,  653  pages.  Macmillan  Co.  $1.10. 

Collected  Plays  and  Collected  Poems.  By  John 
Masefield.  12mo,  1161  pages.  2  vols.  Mac- 
millan Co.  $2.75. 

Counter-Attack  and  Other  Poems.  By  Siegfried 
Sassoon.  With  an  introduction  by  Robert 
Nichols.  12mo,  64  pages.  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co. 
$1.25. 

Beyond  Life.  By  James  Branch  Cabell.  12mo,  366 
pages.  Robert  M.  McBride  &  Co.  $1.50. 

Tin  Cowrie  Dass.  A  novel.  By  Henry  Miller 
Rideout.  12mo,  163  pages.  Duffield  &  Co. 
$1.25. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


101 


REMINISCENCES  OF  LAFCADIO  HEARN 

By  Setsuko  Koizumi 

A  fresh,  vivid  and   intimate    portrait  of  Lafcadio 
Hearn  by  his  Japanese  wife.  $1.00  net 

Houghton  Mifflin  Company      BOSTON 


By  Dr.  G.  F.  Nicolai 

A  vital  conception  of  war  supplying:  solid  ground  for  sane  men  and 
women  to  stand  on.    8vo,  594  pages.    $3.50. 

Published  by  THE  CENTURY  CO.,  New  York. 


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THE  NEAR  EAST  AND  PAN  -  GERM ANISM 
By  H.  CHARLES  WOODS,  F.  R.G.  S. 

A  really  valuable  work,  based  on  intimate  first-hand 
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LITTLE  BROWN  &  CO.,    Publisher.,    BOSTON 


The   League  of  Nations 
Today  and  Tomorrow 

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Abraham    Lincoln 

As  a  Man  of  Letters 

By  Luther  Emerson  Robinson,  M.A. 

The  first  comprehensive  study  of  the  life  and  work  of  the  great  Eman- 
cipator from  the  literary  point  of  view.  The  author  traces  Lincoln's 
development  as  a  man  of  letters,  and  describes  the  growth  of  those 
personal  and  governmental  ideals  which  enabled  him  to  reach  the 
mind  and  heart  of  the  people. 

With  Appendix,  containing  all  of  Lincoln's  notable  addresses, 
state-papers  and  letters:  Bibliography  and  Index.  12  mo;  342  pages; 
$rjo  net. 

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IO2 


THE  DIAL 


January  25 


Current  News 

A  novel  by  Sir  Gilbert  Parker,  Wild  Youth  and 
Another,  is  announced  for  February  by  the  Lippin- 
cotts. 

Percy  MacKaye's  new  play,  Washington:  The 
Man  Who  Made  Us  Famous,  is  to  be  issued  at  once 
by  Alfred  A.  Knopf. 

The  February  list  of  the  Stokes  Co.  announces 
Gertrude  Atherton's  novel,  The  Avalanche,  for 
early  issue. 

John  Reed's  book  on  the  Russian  Revolution  is 
shortly  to  be  brought  out  by  Boni  and  Liveright 
under  the  title  Ten  Days  That  Shook  the  World. 

The  American  Jewish  Historical  Society  is  to  hold 
its  twenty-seventh  annual  meeting  at  Newark,  New 
Jersey,  February  11  and  12.  The  program  of  the 
Convention  will  consist  mainly  of  addresses  on  Jew- 
ish history. 

The  New  America:  By  an  Englishman,  is  the 
title  of  a  book  by  Frank  Dilnot,  soon  to  be  issued 
by  the  Macmillan  Co.  Mr.  Dilnot  has  for  some 
time  been  a  correspondent  from  this  country  to 
English  newspapers. 

A  series  of  lectures  delivered  last  winter  by  Pro- 
fessor A.  C.  McLaughlin  of  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago on  the  derivation  of  American  political  prin- 
ciples is  to  be  issued  in  book  form  by  E.  P.  Dutton 
and  Co.  under  the  title  America  and  Britain. 

Abraham  Lincoln  as  a  Man  of  Letters,  by  Luther 
E.  Robinson,  has  recently  appeared  from  the  press  of 
the  Reilly  and  Lee  Co.  The  volume  has  an  appen- 
dix which  includes  all  of  Lincoln's  notable  addresses, 
state  papers,  and  letters. 

Captain  H.  G.  Gilliland,  who  was  for  some 
months  a  prisoner  of  war  in  German  prison  camps, 
has  written  a  book  on  My  German  Prisons,  which 
Houghton  Mifflin  Co.  are  now  publishing.  The  book 
was  previously  issued  in  England,  but  owing  to  the 
rigorous  censorship  at  that  time,  was  suppressed. 

The  gathering  up  of  the  results  of  modern  Biblical 
criticism  into  an  attractive  and  popular  book  is  the 
difficult  task  George  Hodges  has  accomplished  in 
How  to  Know  the  Bible  ( Bobbs-Merrill ;  $1.50). 
He  has  treated  the  significant  problems  arising  from 
a  critical  study  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
the  making  of  the  Bible,  inspiration,  and  the  origin 
and  value  of  each  separate  book;  and  he  has  com- 
bined these  subjects  in  an  easy,  flowing  narrative 
replete  with  delightful  and  fascinating  turns.  Dean 
Hodges  is  a  popularizer  of  rare  ability. 

D.  Appleton  and  Co.  have  in  preparation  a  series 
of  thirty  volumes  to  be  published  during  the  winter 
and  early  spring  under  the  general  title  Problems 
of  War  and  Reconstruction.  The  volumes  an- 
nounced for  immediate  publication  include  Govern- 
ment Organization  in  War  Time  and  After,  by 
W.  F.  Willoughby;  Government  Insurance  in  War 
Time  and  After,  by  Samuel  McCune  Lindsay;  The 
Colleges  in  War  Time  and  After,  by  Park  R.  Kolbe ; 
The  Redemption  of  the  Disabled,  by  Garrard  Har- 


ris ;  The  American  Air  Service,  by  Arthur  Sweetser ; 
The  Strategy  of  Minerals,  by  George  R.  Smith ;  and 
Commercial  Policy  in  War  Time  and  After,  by 
W.  S.  Culbertson. 

The  League  of  Free  Nations  Association,  whose 
Statement  of  Principles  was  published  in  the  Novem- 
ber 30  issue  of  THE  DIAL,  has  announced  a  series 
of  luncheon  discussions  at  the  Cafe  Boulevard,  New 
York  City,  every  Saturday  during  the  Peace  Con- 
ference. The  meetings  of  January  11  and  18  were 
devoted  to  discussions  of  The  Problem  of  the  Adri- 
atic and  The  Problem  of  Poland  and  Dantzig. 
January  25  the  Association  will  present  a  program 
on  Armenia,  and  a  subsequent  meeting  will  be  de- 
voted to  general  discussion  of  the  League  of  Nations. 
The  luncheons  are  open  to  the  public. 

P.  Blakiston's  Son  and  Co.  (Philadelphia)  have 
recently  issued  the  second  edition  of  their  series  of 
handbooks  on  nursing  and  first  aid,  which  were  pre- 
pared for  and  endorsed  by  the  American  Red  Cross. 
The  list  includes  two  volumes  by  Colonel  Charles 
Lynch  of  the  Army  Medical  Corps — American  Red 
Cross  Text-Book  on  First  Aid  (Woman's  Edition) 
and  American  Red  Cross  Text-Book  on  First  Aid 
(General  Edition) — and  Jane  A.  Delano's  Ameri- 
can Red  Cross  Text-Book  on  Home  Hygiene  and 
Care  of  the  Sick,  revised  and  rewritten  by  Anne 
Hervey  Strong. 

Contributors 

George  V.  Lomonossoff,  some  time  Professor  of 
Railroad  Economics  and  Locomotives  at  the  Poly- 
technic Institute  in  Kiev  and  later  in  Warsaw,  is 
now  Professor  of  the  same  subject  at  the  Petrograd 
Institute  of  Ways  of  Communication  and  Manager 
of  the  Experimental  Bureau  on  Types  of  Locomo- 
tives. Under  the  first  Provisional  Government 
(Lvoff)  he  was  Assistant  Minister  of  Ways  of 
Communication,  and  under  the  second  (Kerensky) 
he  was  made  that  Ministry's  Chief  Envoy  to  Amer- 
ica. He  is  the  author  of  some  fifteen  books  on  rail- 
roading. 

Fullerton  L.  Waldo  (Harvard,  1898)  is  an  asso- 
ciate editor  of  the  Philadelphia  Public  Ledger.  As 
war  correspondent  he  has  been  to  the  Balkans,  to 
Turkey,  and  to  the  Western  Front.  His  book, 
America  at  the  Front,  has  just  been  issued  by 
Dutton. . 

Previous  to  his  entrance  into  the  army,  Lieutenant 
George  Soule  was  for  four  years  on  the  editorial 
staff  of  the  New  Republic. 

With  this  number  Professor  Veblen  concludes  his 
series  of  papers  on  The  Modern  Point  of  View  and 
the  New  Order. 

Mabel  K.  Richardson  has  contributed  poems  to 
Contemporary  Verse,  the  Midland,  and  other 
periodicals.  She  is  Librarian  at  the  University  of 
South  Dakota,  Vermillion. 

The  other  contributors  to  this  issue  have  pre- 
viously written  for  THE  DIAL. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


103 


COMING 


Norman  Angell— a  series  of  articles  on  INTERNAL  SOCIAL 
CONDITIONS  ABROAD. 

Thorstein  Veblen—z  series  on  CONTEMPORARY  PROBLEMS 
IN  RECONSTRUCTION,  a  concrete  application  of 
his  theory  outlined  in  'The  Modern  Point  of 
View  and  the  New  Order/ 


John  Dewey— THE   PSYCHOLOGY 
AMERICAN. 


OF   ROOSEVELT  — THE 


Robert  Morss  Lovett— STUDIES  OF  CONTEMPORARY  FOR- 
EIGN WRITERS— a  series  of  critical  essays. 


THE  DIAL 


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//  you  have  read  GREEN  MANSIONS  or  FAR 
AWAY  AND  LONG  AGO,  you  will  want  to 
get  W,  H.  Hudson's  exquisite  story  for  chil- 
dren of  all  ages 

A  LITTLE  BOY  LOST 
Illustrated.     SI  .50  net 


JAVA  HEAD  is  a  novel  of  the  American  merchant  marine  at  the  beginning  of  the  great  clipper 
ship  era.  It  is  laid  in  Salem,  when  that  city  was  still  a  port  rich  with  the  traffic  of  the  East 
Indies;  a  story  of  choleric  ship  masters,  charming  girls,  and  an  aristocratic  Manchu  woman  in 
carmine  and  jades  and.  crusted  gold.  There  is  a  drama  as  secret  and  poisonous  as  opium,  lovely 
old  gardens  with  lilac  trees  and  green  lattices,  and  elm-shaded  streets  ending  at  the  harbor  with 
the  brigs  unloading  ivory  fr6m  Africa  and  the  ships  crowding  on  their  topsails  for  Canton.  It 
is  a  romantic  novel — and  yet  true — rather  than  a  study  of  drab  manners;  there  is  no  purpose 
in  it  other  than  the  pleasure  to  T>e  found  in  the  spectacle  of  life  supported  by  high  courage  and 
made  beautiful  by  women  in  peacock  shawls. 


WASHINGTON 

THE  MAN  WHO  MADE  US 

A  Ballad  Play 
By  PERCY  MACKAYE 

This  play  chooses  boldly  as  its  central  figure,  for  the  first  time 
in  our  drama,  the  great  character  of  Washington,  whose  still 
living  spirit  leads  today  the  revolution  and  reconstruction  of 
the  world. 

Washington,  the  Man — "neither  statue  nor  statehouse  painting.  " 
but  dynamic  human  being — is  here  depicted:  the  man  in  his  prime 
and  vigor — from  a  glowing  lad  of  eighteen,  fresh  from  the  soil  of 
Virginia,  to  the  scarred  veteran  of  fifty,  grappling  the  human 
problems  of  a  continent. 

The  delineation  jp  broad  and  colorful,  shot  through  with  tense 
dramatic  emotion  and  droll  humor  and  differentiated  by  vivid 
life-sketches  of  Washington's  contemporaries,  Hamilton,  Tom 
Paine,  Lafayette  and  others.  ($1.75  net.) 


Of  MISS  E.  M.  DELAFIELD'S  two 

novels,  Joseph  Hergesheimer  writes: 

"ZELLA  SEES  IJERSELF  and  THE  WAR 
WORKERS  ($1.50,  net,  each)  offer  to  honest  and 
intelligent  people  an  enjoyment  of  what  are  recog- 
nized as  really  high  traits  of  creative  literature  to- 
gether with  a  pervading  amusement  and  lively  inter- 
est sustained  from  paragraph  to  paragraph  and  from 
novel  to  novel.  Miss  Delafield  is  a  valuable  addition 
to  the  number  of  writers,  always  small,  whose  books 
ornament  equally  the  drawing  room  table  and  the 
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Propaganda 


THE  DIAL 


A  FORTNIGHTLY 


VOL.  LXVI 


NEW  YORK 


NO.  783 


FEBRUARY    8,    1919 

THE  PAPER  WAR t.       Robert  Herrick     113 

THEODORE  ROOSEVELT      ...          John  Dewey     115 

THE  GREAT  TRADITION Ashley  Ii .  Thorndike 

NEWSPAPER  CONTROL A.  Vernon  Thomas 

DEBUSSY.     Verse  ' H.  H.  Bellamann 

ANATOLE  FRANCE  AND  THE  IMP  01  THE  PERVERSE      .  E.  Preston  Dargan     126 
THE  AMERICAN  PRESS  SINCE  THE  ARMISTICE  ....   Harold  Stearns     129 

THE  LAUGHTER  OF  DETACHMENT Marvin  M.  Lowenthal 

REMAKING  THE  PAST Walton  H.  Hamilton 

PELLEAS  ET  MELISANDE      .     .     ;     .     .     .     .     .     ,".-.   Paul  Rosenfeld 

THE  UNRELEGATED  QUILL Lisle  Bell 

EDITORIALS 

COMMUNICATIONS  :  A  Lance  for  Max  Eastman.— Poetry  in  the  Laboratory.— Automatic 
vs.  Autocratic. 

NOTES  ON  NEW  BOOKS :  The  Garden,  of  Survival.— Newspaper  Building.— Madame 
Roland:  A  Study  in  Revolution. — Camps  and  Trails  in  China. — Men  of  the  Old  Stone 
Age. — American  Railway  Accounting. — Principles  in  Accounting. — The  Catskills. — A 
History  of  Spain. — City  Tides. — The  Other  Side. — Bentoh  of  the  Royal  Mounted. — My 
People. — Capel  Sion. 


118 

121 
125 


133 
135 
138 
I4O 


146 

148 


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The  selected  works  of  the  great  northern  writers  in  authoritative 

translations  in 

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Comedies  by  Holberg,  "  The  Moliere  of  the  North." 

Poems   by   Tegner,  in  the  translations   of   Longfellow   and   W.   Lewery 

Blackley. 

III  Poems  and  Songs  By  Bjornstjerne  Bjoruson. 

IV  Master  Olof,  Strindberg's  great  national-religious  drama. 

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VII  Marie  Grubbe,  a  Lady  of  the  Seventeenth  Century. 

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IX  Anthology  of  Swedish  Lyrics  from  1750  to  1915,  collected  and  translated 
in  the  original  meters  by  Charles  Wharton  Stork. 

and 
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GOSTA  BERLING'S  SAGA 

the  first  great  novel  by 

SELMA  LAGERLOF 

in  the  translation  of 
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FRANCE  FACING  GERMANY  By  GEORGES  CLEMENCEAU 

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KOEHLER'S  WEST  POINT  MANUAL  OF  DISCIPLINARY  PHYSICAL  TRAINING 

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THE  DAREDEVIL  OF  THE  ARMY  By  Capt.  A.  P.  CORCORAN 

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AMERICAN  PROBLEMS  OF  RECONSTRUCTION  Edited  by  ELISHA  M.  FRIEDMAN 

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RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  ASPECTS  By  ROBERT  CROZIER  LONG 

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ULSTER  FOLKLORE  By  ELIZABETH  ANDREWS,  F.R.A.I 

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ESSAYS  IN  LENT  By  HAMILTON  WRIGHT  MABIE 

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WHILE  PARIS  LAUGHED  By  LEONARD  MERRICK 

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JACQUOU  THE  REBEL  By  EUGENE  LE  ROY 

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organized  to  meet  the  needs  of  intelligent  men  and  women  interested 
in  the  grave  social,  political,  economic  and  educational  problems  of  the  day. 
Courses  of  lectures  on  important  phases  of  reconstruction  will  be  offered  to 
those  who  desire  to  attend.  In  addition,  small  groups  of  specially  qualified 
persons  will  be  organized  for  the  practical  investigation  of  important  ques- 
tions. The  work  will  be  arranged  with  a  view  of  preparing  those  who  desire 
to  enter  the  fields  of  journalism,  municipal  administration,  labor  organiza- 
tion, and  the  teaching  of  social  sciences. 

The  school  will  be  open  with  an  enlarged  staff  and  a  full  program  in 
October,  1919.  In  the  meantime  the  following  preliminary  lectures  will  be 
offered  from  Monday,  February  tenth,  to  Friday,  May  third. 


Preliminary  Lectures — February-May,   1919 


THORSTEIN  VEBLEN.  The  Industrial 
Transition  from  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury to  the  Twentieth. 

An  inquiry  into  the  nature  of  the  changes 
which  have  taken  place  in  industry  from  the 
eighteenth  to  the  twentieth  centuries,  their 
consequences,  and  the  relation  of  these 
changes  to  current  questions  of  peace  and 
the  self-determination  of  nations. 

JAMES  HARVEY  ROBINSON.  The  Re- 
lation of  Education  to  Social  Progress. 

An  analysis  of  our  current  system  of 
education,  showing  the  need  of  its  revision 
and  an  attempt  to  determine  the  ways  in 
which  it  should  be  readjusted  so  as  to  for- 
ward the  reform  of  existing  evils. 

CHARLES   A.    BEARD,     Director  of  the 
Bureau     of    Municipal    Research     and 
Training  for  Public  Service. 
Problems  of  American  Government. 

These  lectures  will  be  given  at  the 
Bureau,  261  Broadway,  and  will  deal  with 
the  practical  methods  involved  in  the  de- 
velopment of  efficient  democracy. 

EMILY  JAMES  PUTNAM.  Habit  and 
History. 

How  habit  has  dominated  the  individual 
in  the  past  and  how  essential  it  is  to  recog- 
nize the  effect  of  excessive  and  undesirable 
habit  on  concepts  of  nationalism,  religion, 
the  status  of  women,  etc. 


HAROLD    J.    LASKI. 
Government. 


Representative 


The  working  out  of  a  new  theory  of 
representative  government,  the  breakdown 
of  the  system  as  conceived  by  the  nineteenth 
century  with  special  emphasis  upon  the 
recent  experience  of  England,  France  and 
America. 

WESLEY  CLAIR  MITCHELL.  The  Price 
System  and  the  War. 

The  role  of  prices  in  modern  life,  the 
effect  of  peace  upon  prices,  production, 
profits  and  wages. 

FREDERICK    W.    ELLIS.      The    Mind 
Viewed  as  a  Factor^in  Social  Adjust- 
nents. 

An  introductory  study  of  the  technique  of 
mental  adjustments,  the  customary  forms  of 
social  thinking,  the  measurement  of  mental 
efficiency  and  the  methods  of  securing  in- 
tegrity of  mind  in  the  course  of  social  ex- 
perience. 

ROBERT  BRUERE,   ORDWAY   TEAD, 
H.  C.  METCALF,  W.  E.  MOSHER. 

Courses  and  field  work  in  Employment 
Administration  and  Industrial  Relations 
given  at  the  Bureau  of  Municipal  Research, 
261  Broadway,  combining  lectures,  readings 
and  factory  visits  with  the  object  of  supply- 
ing definite  technique  as  well  as  a  sound 
point  of  view  toward  the  human  problems  of 
industry  and  government. 


All  applications  and  inquiries  should!  -b'e  addressed  to  the  Executive  Secretary. 
EMMA   PETERS    SMITH,    PH.D.,   465    WEST  23RD  STREET,  NEW  YORK  CITY 

Telephone  Chelsea  6636 


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THE  DIAL 


109 


COMING! 

Norman  Angell — articles  on 
Internal  Conditions  Abroad. 

Thorstein  Veblen — a  series  on 
Contemporary  Problems  in 
Reconstruction. 

John  Dewey — articles  from 
Japan  on  The  Situation  in 
The  Far  East. 

Bertrand  Russell — c  o  n  t  r  i  b  u  - 
tions. 


Robert  Morss  Lovett  and  others 
— Studies  of  Contemporary 
Foreign  Writers — a  series  of 
critical  essays. 

George  Moore — second  install- 
ment, Imaginary  Conversa- 
tions between  himself  and 
Edmund  Gosse. 

Richard  Aldington — Letters  to 
Unknown  Women. 


Editorials — Reprints  of  the  most  significant 
foreign  comment — Important  original  docu- 
ments— General  articles  on  art,  literature  and 
the  drama — And  especially  the  best  critical 
survey  of  current  books  that  exists  in  America. 


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THE  DIAL 


February  8 


Sir    Gilbert    Parker's 

Strongest  and  Most  Daring  Novel  in  Recent  Years 

WILD    YOUTH  AND    ANOTHER 

By  SIR  GILBERT  PARKER.     4  Illustrations.    $1.50  Net. 

An  intense  and  thrilling  drama,  staged  in  the  Canadian  west.  Into  this  colorful  world,  to 
the  booming  town  of  Askatoon,  Joel  Mazarine  brings  his  young  wife,  Louise.  She  is  a  white 
flower  of  unawakened  girlhood,  sold  to  a  rich  old  man  by  a  selfish  mother,  to  save  their  family 
fortunes.  The  spectators  of  the  drama  of  Mazarine's  Louise  and  Orlando  are  the  young 
doctor,  kindly  and  wise,  the  rough  survivors  of  pioneer  days,  and  the  newcomers  who  are 
building  up  the  new  and  modern  town.  Orlando  Guise  is  the  owner  of  Slow  Down  Ranch 
which  adjoins  Mazarine's  property.  Louise  has  almost  become  the  hapless  victim  of  her 
husband's  cruelty,  fading  like  a  parched  flower,  when  chance  brings  her  in  contact  with 
Orlando ;  they  *'  change  eyes,"  without  volition  of  their  own.  The  result  is  a  heart-gripping 
tale  of  love  and  jealousy,  hate  and  exquisite  romance. 

Recent  Publications  of  General  Interest 


The  Springtide  of  Life— Poems  of  Childhood 

By  ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWINBURNE 
With  a  Preface  by  Edmund  Gosse. 
Illustrated  by  ARTHUR  RACKHAM. 
8  color  plates  and  many  illustrations  in  the  text. 

$3.00  net. 

Edmund  Gosse  has-  carried  out  a  plan  once 
made  by  the  poet,  to  gather  his  poems  on  child- 
hood in  one  volume,  and  Arthur  Rackham  has 
interpreted  them  exquisitely. 

The  Historical  Nights  Entertainment 

By  RAFAEL  SABATINI,  Author  of  "The 
Snare,"  "  Banner  of  the  Bull,"  etc.  $1.75  net. 
A  remarkable  work  in  which  the  author,  with 
all  of  his  rare  skill  in  re-creating  historical 
scenes,  has  described  a  group  of  famous  events, 
such  as  "  The  Murder  of  the  Duke  of  Gandia," 
"  The  Story  of  St.  Batholomew,"  and  others  of 
equal  or  greater  import.  The  fact  that  each 
story  culminates  in  the  dramatic  happenings  of 
a  night  leads  to  the  captions :  The  Night  of  Be- 
trayal, The  Night  of  Charity,  The  Night  of 
Massacre,  etc.  The  author  is  supreme  in  his 
power  to  picture  vividly,  and  in  a  new  manner, 
scenes  already  more  than  famous  through  great 
foreign  writers  such  as  Dumas. 

The  Romance  of  Old  Philadelphia 

By  JOHN  T.  PARIS,  Author  of 
"Old   Roads   Out  of   Philadelphia." 
100  Illustrations.    Octavo.    $4.50  net. 
The  fact  that  Philadelphia  was  the  center  for 
a  long  period  of  the  colonial  life  of  the  nation 
gives   this   volume   a   historical    appeal   to    all 
Americans.     The  illustrations  are  of  the  most 
varied  and  interesting  character. 

AT  ALL 


Esmeralda  or  Every  Little  Bit  Helps 

By  NINA  WILCOX  PUTNAM  and  NORMAN 
JACOBSON 

Illustrated  in  color  and  black  and  white,  $1.00  net. 
A  western  girl  in  the  China  Shop  of  Society, 
breaking  the  treasures  of  tradition  wtih  the  de- 
lighted co-operation  of  all  types  of  men — and 
helping  to  win  the  war  with  an  originality  of 
method  that  is  bewildering  but  full  of  "  pep " 
and  individuality  effective.  A  delightful  ro- 
mance and  a  heroine  who  will  create  her  own 
welcome. 

Clear  the  Decks! 

A  Tale  of  the  American  Navy  Today. 

By  "COMMANDER" 
20  Photographic  Illustrations.  $1.50  net. 
A  thrilling  tale  of  our  navy  boys  in  action — 
based  on  fact.  Thousands  of  our  American 
boys  are  today  living  the  life  of  the  hero  of 
this  book.  _  It  was  written  by  a  U.  S.  Naval 
Officer  during  off  hours  in  actual  naval  service. 
A  wholly  enthralling  story  of  American  naval 
activities  is  here  described — the  fun,  the  dan- 
gers, the  everyday  life,  the  encounters  with  the 
enemy. 

Decorative  Textiles 

By  GEORGE  LELAND  HUNTER 
580  Illustrations  in  color  and  halftones;  hand- 
somely bound.    $15  net. 

The  first  comprehensive  book  on  decorative 
textiles  for  wall,  floor,  and  furniture  coverings. 
A  perfect  reservoir  of  combinations  and 
schemes  old  and  new.  The  illustrations  are 
remarkable  for  both  quality  and  quantity,  show- 
ing texture  values  as  they  have  never  been 
shown  before.  A  magnificent  work. 
BOOKSTORES 


J.      B.      LIPPINCOTT      COMPANY 


PUBLISHERS 


PHILADELPHIA 


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Important  February  Publications 

FROM  PUTNAM'S  LIST 


THE  LADY  FROM  LONG  ACRE  Victor  Bridges 

Author  of  "A  Rogue  by  Compulsion" 

A  riotous  tale  of  fantastic  adventures,  of  an  Englishman  of  title  and  his  prize 
fighting  friend,  of  a  lady  who  didn't  want  to  be  a  queen,  and  of  several  swarthy 
skinned  gentlemen  of  sinister  and  devious  ways — an  amazing,  exuberant  story 
with  a  chuckle  in  it.  12°.  6  full  page  Illustrations.  $1.60. 

VOLTAIRE  IN  HIS  LETTERS  S.  G.  Tallentyre 

Author  of  "The  Life  of  Voltaire,"  etc. 

The  letters  portray  the  man  "  in  his  habit  as  he  lived,"  and  not  only  display  his 
extraordinary  mind,  but  show  him  in  love  and  in  prison,  recovering  from  small- 
pox, lamenting  a  mistress,  visiting  a  king,  righting  human  wrongs,  attacking  in- 
human laws,  belittling  Shakespeare,  and  belauding  Chesterfield.  6*°.  Portraits. 
$3-50. 

IN  FLANDERS  FIELDS  and  Other  Poems 

Lieut  .-Colonel  John  McCrae,  M.D. 
With  an  Essay  in  Character  by  Sir  Andrew  Macphail 

John  McCrae  was  a  physician,  soldier,  and  poet,  and  died  in  France  a  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  with  the  Canadian  forces. 

The  poem  which  gives  this  collection  of  his  lovely  verse  its  name,  has  been  exten- 
sively reprinted,  and  received  with  unusual  enthusiasm. 

The  volume  contains,  as  well,  a  striking  essay  in  character  by  his  friend,  Sir 
Andrew  Macphail.  12°.  $1.50. 

A  SHORT  HISTORY  OF  ROME 

Guglielmo  Ferrero  and  Corrado  Barbagallo 

Part  II.  of  this  important  history  embracing  The  Empire,  44  B.C.-476  A.D.,  ready 
now.  Part  I.  includes  the  Monarchy  and  the  Republic,  from  the  foundation  of 
the  City  to  the  death  of  Julius  Caesar,  754  B.C.-44  B.C.  Though  the  history  is 
primarily  intended  for  use  in  classes,  it  is  written  with  a  broad,  sympathetic  feel- 
ing which  will  appeal  greatly  to  the  casual  reader.  12° '.  Two  volumes.  $1.90 
each. 

THE  WORLD  WAR  AND  ITS  CONSEQUENCES 

William  Herbert  Hobbs 

Introduction  by  Theodore  Roosevelt 

Theodore  Roosevelt  said,  after  reading  the  manuscript :  "  It  is  the  literal  truth 
that  if  I  could  choose  only  one  book  to  be  put  in  the  hand  of  every  man  and  woman 
in  the  United  States,  I  would  choose  the  book  of  Professor  Hobbs."  12°.  $2.00, 

NEW  YORK  At  att  Booksellers  LONDON 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


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THE  DIAL 


February  8 


NEW    MACMILLAN    BOOKS 

THE  VISION  FOR  WHICH 

WAR  AND  REVOLUTION 

WE  FOUGHT 

IN  RUSSIA  1914-1917 

By  Arthur  M.  Simons 

By  General  Basil  Courko 

A    brilliant    study    in    reconstruction    showing 

Chief  of  the  Russian  Imperial  Staff. 

the  need   for  conscious  continuance  of  proc- 

A book  of  permanent  historical  value  and  in- 

esses already  well  underway.                        $1.50 

terest.      These   memoirs    of    General    Gourko 

present  a  new  picture  of  Russia  and  Russian 

THE  NEW  AMERICA 

affairs.                                         Illustrated,  $4.00 

By  an  Englishman  (Frank  Dilnot) 

MEXICO,  TODAY  AND 

A  series  of  short,  vivacious  sketches  of  im- 
pressions  made  by  a   trained  observer   from 

TOMORROW 

England  of  life  in  the  United  States  during 

By  Edward  D.  Trowbridge 

1917  and  1918.                                                 $1.25 

A    comprehensive    statement    of    the    general 

THE  GREAT  PEACE 

situation  in  Mexico  —  political,  social,  financial 
and  economic.     •                                            $2.00 

/?  v    ff     M      Pr*  i/J  *>  r  Q 

*-fjf      **  •     MM  •     f  C/U/C/  o 

A  highly  original  and  brilliant  discussion  of 

CHINA  AND  THE  WORLD  WAR 

Nationality    and    the    general    principles    on 

By  W.  Reginald  Wheeler 

which  the  new  order  must  be  built.             $2.25 

A   clear   and    succinct   account   of    affairs    in 

NATIONAL  GOVERNMENTS 

China  since  the  outbreak  of  the  war. 
Illustrated,  $1.75 

AND  THE  WORLD  WAR 

By  Frederick  A.  Ogg  and  Charles  A.  Beard 

The  political  institutions,  ideals,  and  practices 

FOREIGN  FINANCIAL 
CONTROL  OF  CHINA 

—  national  and  international  —  of  the  belliger- 

By T.   W.  Overlach 

ents.                                                               $2.50 

An  unbiased  analysis  of  the  financial  and  polit- 

THE END  OF  THE  WAR 

ical   activities   of   the   six  leading  Powers   in 
China  during  the  last  twenty  years.           $2.00 

By  Walter  E.   Weyl 

"  The  most  courageous  book  on  politics  pub- 

WHO'S WHO  1919 

lished  in  America  since  the  beginning  of  the 

This  year's  English  Who's  Who  covers  nearly 

war."  —  The  Dial.                                            $2.00 

three  thousand  pages  and  provides  the  essen-. 

CHRISTIAN 

tial  facts  about  many  thousands  of  prominent 
people  of  the  world.                                    $12.00 

INTERNATIONALISM 

THE  HISTORY  OF  RELIGION 

By  William  Pierson  Merrill 

The    political,    social    and    religious     factors 
which  must  make  an  end  of  the  old  arbitrary 

By  E.   Washburn  Hopkins 

An  accurate  and  detailed  one  volume  history 

conduct  of  nations.                                         $1.50 

of  religion.                                                      $2.75 

THE  DISABLED  SOLDIER 

THE  ENGLISH  VILLAGE: 

By  Douglas  C.  McMurtrie 

A  LITERARY  STUDY 

A  description  of  the  whole  modern  principle 

By  Julia  Pat  ton 

of   rehabilitating  the   disabled  soldier  by  the 

A  study  of  the  village  in  English  literature 

director  of  the  Red  Cross  Institute  for  Crip- 

during the  period  1750-1850.                         $1.50 

pled  and  Disabled  Men.           Illustrated,  $2.00 

JOHN  MASEFIELD'S 

HIGHWAYS  AND  BYWAYS 

POEMS  AND  PLAYS 

OF  FLORIDA 

Include  everything  that  the  distinguished  Eng- 

By Clifton  Johnson 

lish  author  has  published  in  the  field  of  drama 

An    attractively    illustrated    book    containing 

and  verse.    Vol.  I,  Poems  ;  Vol.  II,  Plays. 

information  about  Florida  of  special  interest 

Each,  $2.75;  the  set,  $5.00 

and  to  the  tourist.                                         $2.00 

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IAL 


A  FORTNIGHTLY 


The  Paper  War 


.T  ONE  END  of  the  Piazza  di  Spagna  in  Rome 
rises  an  old  building  bearing  the  legend  "  Collegia 
di  Propaganda  Fide."  Here,  in  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  was  founded  by  Pope  Urban 
VIII  the  first  school  of  propagandists  to  spread 
the  true  faith  among  Teutonic  peoples.  I  do  not 
know  that  the  Imperial  German  Government  in  its 
wide-reaching  plot  for  world  conquest  consciously 
revived  this  ancient  Roman  institution.  But  it  is 
certain  that  to  the  German  example  the  world  is 
indebted  for  the  curse  of  propaganda,  which  in  the 
last  four  years  has  spread  like  a  pestilence  through- 
out every  corner  of  the  world;  and  today  shows  no 
sign  of  abatement.  Ample  revelations  have  be- 
trayed to  what  extent  German  propaganda  was  engi- 
neered chiefly  in  the  two  Americas,  also  the  prodigal 
sums  of  money  spent  by  the  German  Government  in 
this  and  the  allied  activities  of  arson  and  violence, 
which  may  be  considered  as  the  "  direct  action  "  arm 
of  propaganda.  Opinions  will  differ  as  to  the  effi- 
ciency of  German  propaganda.  It  is  probable  that, 
on  the  whole,  the  efforts  of  these  German  agents 
indirectly  assisted  the  United  States  into  the  world 
war.  At  any  rate,  if  it  takes  several  tons  of  metal 
to  kill  a  soldier  in  modern  battle,  it  takes  as  many 
tons  of  presswork  and  picture  reels,  as  well  as  mil- 
lions of  money  spent  on  special  missions  to  gather 
in  a  few  converts,  who,  judging  by  the  German 
results,  do  not  stay  converted.  German  propaganda 
has  been  a  colossal  failure — and  a  costly  one. 

During  the  first  months  of  the  war  the  Entente 
Governments  were  too  busy  about  other  matters  to 
organize  their  propaganda  and  counter-propaganda. 
Their  cause,  it  seemed,  was  good  enough  of  itself — 
broken  treaties,  invaded  Belgium  and  France — to 
dispense  with  special  pleading.  Sometimes,  when 
one  contemplates  their  later  activities  in  the  ramifi- 
cation of  propaganda,  one  wishes  that  the  Allied 
Governments  had  continued  to  let  the  great  Cause 
speak  for  itself  without  the  efforts  of  an  army 
of  proselytizers.  For  it  is  debatable  whether  allied 
propaganda  has  materially  hastened  the  victory, 
but  it  is  hardly  debatable  that  it  has  been 
attended  with  evil  consequences  which  may  far  out- 
run the  scope  of  the  present  conflict.  Early  in  1915 
it  was  apparent  that  the  activities  of  German  propa- 
gandists were  worrying  the  Allied  authorities.  The 
English  felt  that,  especially  in  the  United  States, 


they  suffered  from  the  lack  of  an  organized  press 
propaganda,  though  most  of  the  better  known  and 
more  responsible  newspapers  were  distinctly  friendly 
to  the  cause  of  the  Allies.  The  French  had  already 
begun  the  organization  of  a  propaganda  bureau  as 
an  adjunct  to  the  Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs.  To 
the  small  rooms  in  the  rear  of  the  Quai  d'Orsay 
building,  where  the  Peace  Conference  is  now  sitting, 
visiting  journalists  were  led  by  the  back  stairs  to 
obtain  those  privileges  of  information  and  military 
observation  which,  at  that  time,  the  French  rather 
timidly  and  grudgingly  granted. 

By.  1916  the  simple  installation  in  the  rear  of  the 
Quai  d'Orsay  Ministry  had  evolved  into  the  famous 
Maison  de  la  Presse,  which  occupied,  with  its  many 
bureaus,  a  large  six  story  building  on  the  Rue 
Frangois  Premier.  This  was  one  of  the  busiest 
hives  of  wartime  Paris ;  there  the  promising  novelist, 
the  art  critic,  the  publicist,  or  the  well-recommended 
belle  chanteuse,  as  well  as  the  more  vulgar  film 
operator  and  press  agent,  found  directions  and  mate- 
rial support  for  patriotic  activities  in  the  propa- 
gande.  From  the  Maison  de  la  Presse  were  de- 
spatched to  every  neutral  and  Entente  nation  select 
"  missions."  The  chief  focus  of  all  this  Allied 
propaganda  was  the  United  States,  especially  Wash- 
ington and  New  York,  though  itinerant  propagand- 
ists in  great  variety  have  covered  every  section  of  the 
country.  By  this  time  the  English  propaganda, 
also,  was  in  full  blast,  under  the  blunt  leadership  of 
Lord  Northcliffe,  with  a  Minister  at  home — in  the 
person  of  Lord  Beaverbrook — all  to  itself.  In  those 
days  Fifth  Avenue  became  a  multi-colored  parade  of 
Allied  propaganda.  One  could  scarcely  dine  with- 
out meeting  a  fair  propagandist  or  distinguished 
Frenchman  or  titled  Englishman  (titles  in  war  be- 
ing chiefly  for  American  consumption!),  or  enter 
a  theater  without  suffering  some  secret  or  overt 
stimulation  from  the  propaganda. 

When  we  entered  the  war  the  game  grew  more 
furious,  for  to  the  Babel  of  the  existing  propaganda 
was  now  added  not  only  the  voices  of  Jugo-Slavia, 
Czecho- Slovakia,  and  other  small  nationalities  strug- 
gling to  be  born,  but  our  own.  For  it  was  decreed 
that,  just  as  we  must  have  a  real  general  staff,  our 
own  heavy  artillery,  and  manufacture  our  own 
poison  gas,  so  we  must  have  our  own  Bureau  of 
Public  Information,  with  an  export  division  for 


114 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


conveying  our  special  U.  S.  brand  of  propaganda 
into  friendly  and  neutral  countries.  This  com- 
pleted the  full  bedlam  of  Allied  propaganda,  with 
the  ironic  situation  of  a  proud  democracy  taxing 
itself  to  pay  the  interpreters  and  corrupters  of 
its  national  thought.  For  eighteen  months  the 
United  States  has  suffered  mentally  and  morally 
from  the  nuisance  of  conflicting  propaganda 
(Jugo-Slav  versus  Italian,  French  and  English 
versus  Russia,  and  so  on)  besides  the  output  of 
its  own  official  opinion-makers.  As  a  crowning 
touch  for  the  comedy,  the  President  set  sail  for  the 
Peace  Conference  accompanied  by  his  Minister  of 
Propaganda  and  a  chosen  staff  of  press  agents.  For 
what  purpose?  To  persuade  Europe  of  the  purity 
of  our  national  motives?  Or  to  persuade  our  own 
citizens  that  their  chief  executive  was  really  doing 
things  in  Europe? 

Much  of  all  this  shooting  of  paper  bullets  has 
had  merely  negative  results.  Russia  is  an  excellent 
example  of  how  much  can  be  spent  on  propaganda 
with  no  result.  Not  to  dwell  on  the  fruitless  efforts 
of  the  official  United  States  propagandists  to  get 
their  wares  into  Russia — and  what  effect  could  there 
be  in  telling  the  Russians  how  benevolently  we  felt 
towards  them  while  we  were  sending  troops  to 
Vladivostok  and  Archangel? — the  general  Entente 
propaganda  on  Russia  has  been  especially  bewildered. 
The  object  of  this  campaign  in  the  United  States 
was  to  create  a  state  of  public  opinion  that  would 
compel  immediate  armed  intervention  on  a  large 
scale  in  Russia,  which  was  desired  especially  by 
England  and  France.  To  that  end  our  newspapers 
were  regularly  fed  with  reports  from  .Stockholm, 
Paris,  and  London,  of  Soviet  atrocities.  The  same 
stories  were  frequently  repeated  as  fresh  news  after 
short  intervals.  Finally  came  the  ludicrous  yarn  of 
a  St.  Bartholomew  massacre  in  Moscow- — which 
proved  to  be  pure  hoax.  The  German  end  was 
worked  by  inducing  our  official  Bureau  of  Public 
Information  to  father  the  discredited  Sisson  docu- 
ments in  order  that  the  unwary  citizen  might  be 
led  to  believe  that  armed  intervention  in  Russia 
meant  fighting  Germany's  allies,  and  hence  Ger- 
many. Meanwhile  alternate  currents  of  fear"  and 
hope  were  sent  over  the  propaganda  wires  by  two 
generaal  reports:  one  that  the  rule  of  the  Russian 
Soviets  would  collapse  "in  a  few  weeks " ;  the 
other,  that  the  "Red  Army  "  was  making  dangerous 
progress.  ( I  have  seen  the  two  reports  side  by  side 
in  the  columns  of  a  New  York  newspaper,  where 
evidently  the  propaganda  time  schedule  had  become 
confused!)  The  net  results  of  the  whole  immense, 
wasteful,  and  misleading  propaganda  on  Russia 
would  seem,  at  the  present  moment,  to  be  zero. 

Now  that  peace  is  remotely  in  sight,  our  friends 


of  the  Associated  Governments  should  see  the  pro- 
priety of  removing  at  once  their  tutorial  forces  from 
the  United  States.  If  London  and  Paris  would  but 
release  their  stranglehold  on  the  cables  and  permit 
uncensored  news  to  circulate  freely,  there  is  enough 
intelligence  still  left  in  this  democracy,  even  after 
suffering  the  passions  of  war,  to  enable  us  to  reach 
our  own  conclusions  on  world  problems.  Other 
means  of  employing  the  intellectual  classes  and  of 
giving  deserved  vacations  in  comfortable  America 
to  war-worn  heroes  can  be  found.  Most  of  us  would 
welcome  our  guests  more  warmly  if  they  did  not 
arrive,  each  with  a  brief  in  his  pocket  and  a  fixed 
resolve  to  do  our  thinking  for  us.  These  are  but 
the  ephemeral  annoyances  of  the  war,  however. 
They  will  pass  with  the  over-production  of  TNT 
and  mustard  gas.  The  real  menace  of  propaganda 
is  the  discovery  by  governments  and  other  interested 
agencies  that  this  extension  of  advertising — for  that 
is  what  propaganda  essentially  is — can  be  readily 
utilized  to  sway  and  control  democratic  masses. 
Hereafter  no  government  will  confront  its  electorate 
without  a  secret  or  open  bureau  of  propaganda,  and 
every  great  "  interest  "  will  organize  propaganda  as 
an  essential  activity.  (Witness  the  appeal  of  the 
liquor  forces  against  the  prohibition  amendment  to 
the  Constitution  by  gravely  warning  the  country  of 
the  danger  of  Bolshevism  if  the  nation  becomes 
dry!)  Already,  to  the  cautious-minded  citizen,  the 
press  has  become  more  than  suspect.  Not  that  our 
newspapers  are  bought,  but  the  news  which  they 
offer  is  tainted  at  the  source  and  inspired  by  a  govern- 
mental or  other  interested  agency.  By  becoming 
merely  a  channel  for  various  propaganda  the  press 
has  lost  much  of  its  dignity  and  authority  during  the 
war.  An'  increasingly  common  remark  upon  the 
daily  news  is,  "  I  guess  it's  just  propaganda!" 

The  spirit  of  propaganda  is  special  pleading.  Sup- 
pression, distortion,  as  well  as  misrepresentation  and 
direct  falsehood,  are  the  methods  of  the  zealous 
propagandist.  Propaganda,  to  be  sure,  kills  itself, 
like  many  evil  things,  by  its  own  excesses.  Truth 
has  a  habit  of  struggling  into  men's  minds  in  spite 
of  all  the  poison  so  prodigally  poured  out  to  kill  it. 
In  the  end,  public  opinion  clarifies  itself,  separating 
fact  from  propaganda — but  at  what  cost  of  time  and 
of  deception!  Truth,  the  complete,  open,  unbiased 
truth,  is  the  only  atmosphere  in  which  freedom  can 
grow,  in  which  democratic  ideals  can  mantain  them- 
selves. Therefore  we  should  regard  the  propagand- 
ist, no  matter  how  sincere  his  intentions  or  how 
good  his  cause,  much  as  the  hired  bravo,  the  poisoner, 
or  the  suborner  of  justice,  all  of  whose  trades  flour- 
ished when  Pope  Urban  VIII,  devised  this  engine 
of  mental  corruption  known  as  Propaganda. 

ROBERT  HERRICK. 


1919 


Theodore  Roosevelt 


AN  THE  DEATH  of  Theodore  Roosevelt  the  America 
of  the  generation  of  1880  to  1910  lost  its  typical 
representative.  Indeed,  he  was  its  living  embodi- 
ment rather  than  its  representative.  Successful  public 
men  are  not  merely  themselves.  They  are  records 
and  gauges  of  the  activities  and  aspirations  of  their 
own  day.  It  is  futile  to  praise  them  or  blame  them 
except  as  we  remember  that  in  so  doing  we  are 
appraising  the  time  and  the  people  that  produced 
them.  Hero  worship  of  the  olden  type  is  gone,  at 
least  so  far  as  statesmen  are  concerned.  For  in  a 
democracy  the  people  admire  themselves  in  the  man 
they  make  their  hero.  He  is  influential  with  them 
because  he  is  first  influential  by  them.  The  ordinary 
politician  is  fortunate  when  by  dint  of  keeping  his 
ear  to  the  ground  he  can  catch  and  reflect  in  articu- 
late speech  the  half-formed  sentences  of  the  people. 
Roosevelt  did  not  have  to  resort  to  this  undignified 
posture.  He  was  the  phonograph  in  whose  em- 
phatic utterances  the  people  recognized  and  greeted 
the  collective  composition  of  their  individual  voices. 
To  praise  or  condemn  Roosevelt  is,  then,  but  to 
pass  judgment  on  the  America  which  suddenly  awak- 
ened from  the  feverish  and  gigantic  expenditures  of 
energy  that  followed  the  Civil  War  to  find  itself  in 
the  face  of  vast  problems  and  in  need  of  vast  reforms. 
We  can  better  tell  the  qualities  and  defects  of  the 
period  by  looking  at  Roosevelt  than  in  any  other 
way.  Through  long  living  in  the  public  eye  he  had 
become  with  extraordinary  completeness  a  public 
character.  It  almost  seems  as  if  his  native  individu- 
ality, his  private  traits,  disappeared,  so  wholly  did 
they  merge  in  the  public  figure.  Of  every  man  who 
goes  into  political  life  there  gradually  grows  up  a 
double.  This  double  consists  of  the  acts  of  the 
original  individual  reflected  first  in  the  imaginations 
and  then  in  the  desires  and  acts  of  other  men.  Just 
because  Roosevelt's  capture  of  the  imagination  of  his 
countrymen  was  so  complete,  his  public  double  was 
immense,  towering.  One  cannot  think  of  him  ex- 
cept as  part  of  the  public  scene,  performing  on  the 
public  stage.  His  ordinary  and  native  acts  gained  a 
representative  significance.  He  shook  hands  with  a 
locomotive  engineer,  chopped  down  a  tree  at  Oyster 
Bay,  hunted  big  game,  or  wrote  a  magazine  article 
on  his  hunting.  Each  of  the  acts  somehow  swelled 
with  an  almost  ominous  import.  Each  provoked 
applause  or  rebuke,  enlisting  the  partisanships  of  the 
crowd.  In  all  of  these  acts  he  was  delightedly  our 
Teddy,  ours  with  admiring  acclaim  or  with  disgusted 
irritation.  In  these  acts,  almost  equally  with  those 
of  Roosevelt  making  a  stump  speech,  writing  a  state 
paper,  taking  a  canal,  or  sending  a  fleet  round  the 


world,  he  was  the  man  in  whom  we  saw  our  own 
ideals  fulfilled  or  betrayed.  One  of  the  things  that 
rankled  most  in  the  minds  of  those  who  did  not 
like  him  was*  that  they  could  not  get  rid  of  him, 
even  in  the  innermost  recesses  of  their  minds.  His 
representative,  incarnating  force  was  such  that  he 
stayed  by  them.  Everything  in  American  life  re- 
minded them  of  something  which  Roosevelt  had  said 
or  done.  The  assimilation  of  the  private  individual 
with  the  publicly  assumed  figure  is  so  complete  that 
for  all  except  his  personal  intimates  the  former  is 
non-existent.  All  that  an  outsider  can  say  of  it  is 
that  it  must  have  been  great  to  permit  such  thorough 
identification  with  the  public  self  built  up  out  of 
impacts  upon  others,  and  out  of  reflections  back  into 
the  native  self  of  the  successes  and  failures,  the  ap- 
plause and  dislike  of  others.  Only  an  individuality 
at  once  mediocre  and  great  could  have  become  so 
wholly  a  public  figure.  In  thinking  of  him  one  is 
never  conscious  of  mysteries,  of  unexplored  privacies, 
reticences,  and  reserves,  hidden  melancholies,  or  any 
touch  of  inaccessible  wistfulness.  His  inherited  ad- 
vantages of  social  position,  comfortable  wealth,  edu- 
cation without  personal  struggle  against  obstacles, 
afforded  external  conditions  from  which  he  could 
launch  himself  the  more  easily,  without  preliminary 
apprenticeship  and  without  waste  of  time,  upon  his 
task  of  representing  the  America  of  his  day.  For 
this  America  had  grown  self-conscious  about  its 
pioneer  days  of  log-cabin  and  rail-splitter  learning 
hardly  bought  by  light  of  candle-dip.  It  wanted 
something  less  sparse  and  starved,  something  more 
opulent,  something  more  obviously  prosperous  in  cul- 
ture and  social  standing.  It  felt  the  struggles  of 
the  earlier  day  in  the  scars  it  had  left  behind,  and 
rested  easily  only  in  the  contemplation  of  a  figure 
which  never  reminded  it  of  a  past  which  the  nation 
— for  so  it  seemed — had  so  happily  left  forever  be- 
hind. It  was  a  period  of  the  complacent  optimism 
born  of  success  in  overcoming  obstacles,  and  of  sub- 
conscious irritating  memories  of  the  shameful  limita- 
tions involved  in  having  such  obstacles  to  overcome. 
Roosevelt  was  the  Man  of  Action.  In  that  he 
incarnated  his  time.  He  preached  the  strenuous  life 
and  practised  what  he  taught.  The  age  was  delirious 
with  activity.  It  wanted  not  only  action  but  action 
done  with  such  a  resounding  thump  and  boom  that 
all  men  should  sit  up  and  take  notice.  Bagehot 
somewhere  remarked  that  a  large  part  of  the  avoid- 
able evils  of  mankind  had  arisen  because  a  number 
of  men  at  some  important  juncture  had  not  been  able 
to  sit  quietly  in  a  retired  room  until  things  had  been 
thought  out.  The  generation  had  no  sympathy  with 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


such  a  notion.  If  evils  existed  it  was  because  men 
did  not  act  promptly  and  intensely  enough.  Gordian 
knots  exist  only  to  be  cut  by  the  sword  of  sharp 
and  vehement  action.  As  soon  as  they  are  cut,  we 
should  have  statistics  of  the  number  of  strands,  the 
variety  of  snarls,  of  the  size  of  the  sword  and  the 
number  of  foot-pounds  in  the  blow  that  annihilated 
the  difficulty.  Refinements  and  subtleties  and  shades 
of  distinction  are  not  for  such  a  period. 

To  criticize  Roosevelt  for  love  of  the  camera  and 
the  headline  is  childish  unless  we  recognize  that 
in  such  criticism  we  are  condemning  the  very  con- 
ditions of  any  public  success  during  this  period.  A 
period  that  is  devoted  to  action  can  have  but  one 
measure  of  success — that  of  quantity  and  extent. 
This  measure  is  essentially  one  of  social  and  political 
reverberations.  It  cannot  be  said  that  it  was  re- 
served for  Roosevelt  to  discover  the  value  of  pub- 
licity for  a  public  man.  But  he  deeply  divined  the 
demand  for  publicity  of  an  emphatic  and  command- 
ing kind,  and  he  allowed  no  private  modesty  to  stand 
in  the  way  of  furnishing  it.  When  one  has  per- 
formed a  resounding  act  it  is  stultifying  not  to 
allow  it  to  resound.  While  other  politicians  were 
still  trusting  to  the  gum-shoe,  it  took  courage  as 
well  as  genial  sagacity  to  adopt  the  megaphone. 
Irritated  critics  of  Roosevelt's  egotism — which  they 
called  megalomania — overlooked  the  fact  that  a  petty 
deed  cannot  be  made  great  by  heralding,  and  that  his 
acts  commanded  publicity  because  they  were  in  the 
first  place  of  a  quality  to  command  attention. 

Probably  nothing  in  Roosevelt's  career  so  won  the 
attachment  of  the  American  people  as  the  fact  that 
he  had  the  courage  to  take  them  into  his  confidence. 
If  it  now  seems  a~  simple  thing  for  a  politician  to 
make  the  people,  in  form  at  least,  members  of  his 
own  household,  politically  speaking,  and  to  share 
with  them  at  the  breakfast  table  the  political  gossip 
of  the  day,  the  simplicity  of  the  performance  is 
evidence  of  the  thoroughness  with  which  Roosevelt 
did  his  work.  He  established  a  tradition  which  even 
a  man  as  opposite  in  temperament  as  Wilson  has  felt 
obliged  to  follow,  .and,  whatever  his  practice,  to 
make  central  in  profession.  Just  as  politicians  since 
Lincoln's  time  have  studiously  scanned  the  latter's 
methods,  so  future  statesmen  will  copy  the  style  of 
publicity  which  Roosevelt's  courageous  impetuosity 
created.  Thinking  out  loud,  or  at  least  seeming  to 
do  so,  is  one  of  Roosevelt's  permanent  contributions 
to  the  American  political  tradition.  Lack  of  occa- 
sional spasms  of  frankness  will  henceforth  be 
resented  as  evidence  both  of  lack  of  courage  and  lack 
of  trust  in  the  people.  And  these  will  become — 
because  of  Roosevelt  they  are  already  becoming — 
the  cardinal  vices  to  a  political  democracy.  Roose- 
velt's enemies  repeatedly  believed  that  he  was  polit- 


ically dead,  that  he  had  killed  himself.  Although 
the  vehemence  with  which  they  announced  his  de- 
mise was  part  of  a  calculated  technique  for  making 
their  prediction  true,  they  nevertheless  sincerely  be- 
lieved that  no  man  could  recover  from  what  they 
took  to  be  stupendous  blunders — such  as  the  New 
Nationalism  speech,  the  recall  of  judicial  decisions, 
and  so  on.  What  they  never  understood  was  the 
admiring  affection  and  unbounded  faith  with  which 
the  American  people  repaid  one  who  never  spoke  save 
to  make  them  sharers  in  his  ideas  and  to  appeal  to 
them  as  final  judges.  Because  of  the  power  thus 
given  him — combined,  of  course,  with  his  own  power 
to  learn  and  to  grow — probably  no  public  man  of 
any  country  ever  equaled  Roosevelt  in  power  to 
"  come  back." 

Perhaps  the  best  proof  of  the  completeness  with 
which  Roosevelt  embodied  the  belief  of  his  genera- 
tion in  action,  action  unhesitating,  untroubled  by 
fine  distinctions  or  over-nice  scruples,  is  the  irritation 
which  his  personality  aroused  in  academic  men. 
There  are  a  few  exceptions,  but  upon  the  whole  up 
to  the  time  of  the  Progressive  campaign  they  fol- 
lowed him  with  distrust  and  only,  as  they  felt,  from 
compulsion  of  circumstances.  A  mind  which  ap- 
parently never  engaged  in  criticism,  certainly  never 
in  self-criticism,  which  in  fact  identified  criticisms 
with  instantaneous  assault,  was  the  natural  opposite 
of  the  mind  tangled  in  the  timidities  which  result 
from  always  criticizing,  and  hence  never  acting  save 
when  external  pressure  compels. 

It  would  require  a  history  of  the  life  of  the 
United  States  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century  to  explain  how  and  why  there  developed 
such  devoted  admiration  of  action  as  action,  provided 
only  it  was  on  a  large  scale.  But  that  Roosevelt 
was  a  great  figure  because  he  was  the  exponent  in 
word  and  in  personality  of  this  faith  there  can  be 
no  doubt.  Nor  can  it  be  doubted  that  power  accrued 
to  him  because  he  exemplified  his  period  in  thinking 
and  speaking  of  action  exclusively  in  moral  terms. 
And  with  Roosevelt  as  with  the  type  which  adores 
action  for  its  own  sake,  to  think  and  to  speak  were 
synonymous.  There  are  those  who  think  that 
morality  does  not  enter  into  action  until  morality 
has  become  a  problem — until,  that  is,  the  right 
course  to  pursue  has  become  uncertain  and  to  be 
sought  for  with  painful  reflection.  But  by  this 
criterion  Roosevelt  rarely  if  ever  entered  the  moral 
sphere.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  was  ever 
troubled  by  those  brooding  questions,  those  haunting 
doubts,  which  never  wholly  leave  a  man  like  Lincoln. 
Right  and  wrong  were  to  him  as  distinctly  and 
completely  marked  off  from  one  another  in  every 
particular  case  as  the  blackness  of  midnight  and  the 
noonday  glare.  Nothing  more  endeared  him  to  the 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


117 


American  people  than  the  engaging  candor 
with  which  he  admitted  that  in  the  face  of  this 
immense  and  fixed  gulf  he  was  always  to  be  found 
on  the  side  of  righteousness.  As  he  repeatedly  con- 
fessed, he  "  stood  "  for  justice,  for  right,  for  truth, 
against  injustice,  wrong,  and  falsity.  When  he  did 
not  stand,  he  fought.  Wherever  his  activities  were 
engaged  at  all,  he  saw  the  combat  between  the 
forces  of  the  Lord  and  of  the  Devil.  The  battle  at 
Armageddon  was,  after  all,  but  the  consummating 
fight  in  the  campaign  for  Righteousness  in  which  he 
enlisted  when  he  entered  public  life.  And  if  upon 
the  whole  the  moral  battle  was  a  cheery  thing  in 
which  one  was  stimulated  rather  than  humbled  into 
thoughtful  meditation  that  too  reflected  the  moral 
simplicity  of  his  generation. 

It  is  true,  of  course,  that  the  cult  of  action  for  its 
own  sake  tends  to  demand  for  its  successful  pursuit 
either  a  cynical  immoralism  or  the  certainty  of  being 
on  the  side  of  the  Lord.  No  politician  in  America 
can  be  successful  beyond  the  local  stage  who  takes 
the  former  course.  The  good  old  Anglo-Saxon  habit 
of  thinking  of  politics  in  moralistic  terms  was 
strengthened  rather  than  weakened  by  its  voyage 
across  the  Atlantic.  Not,  however,  till  the  time  of 
Roosevelt  were  economic  problems  treated  in  terms 
of  sin  and  righteousness.  'Roosevelt  borrowed  much 
from  Bryan,  but  Bryan  came  from  Nazareth  in 
Galilee,  and  spoke  the  cruder  language  of  the  ex- 
horter  and  the  itinerant  revivalist.  When  Roosevelt 
uttered  like  sentiments,  his  utterances  had  the  color 
and  prestige  of  a  respectable  cult  and  an  established 
Church.  It  is  no  part  of  my  intention  to  appraise 
what  Roosevelt  did  for  our  American  life  in  the 
years  around  nineteen  hundred.  But  events  move 
rapidly,  and  if  for  a  time  Roosevelt,  as  the  prophet 
of  a  new  social  day,  loomed  larger  than  facts  justi- 
fied, it  is  already  easy  to  underestimate  what  we 
owe  him.  Positively  speaking,  pitifully  little  has 
been  done  with  our  industrial  inequities  and  con- 
flicts. But  in  addition  to  what  Roosevelt  did  in 
arresting  some  of  the  worst  tendencies  of  the  time, 
he  brought  men  to  where  they  could  behold  the 
newer  problems.  And  it  is  very  doubtful  if  they 
could  have  been  led  to  such  a  place  by  any  other 
than  the  moral  road,  or  by  any  one  who  did  not 
spontaneously  appeal  to  ethical  convictions  and  en- 
thusiasms. He  made  the  problem  of  economic  read- 
justment the  problem  of  rebuke  of  unrighteousness. 
He  endued  the  cause  of  the  reformer  with  the 
glamour  of  virility  and  vitality — and  all  those  other 
terms  of  romantic  energy  that  come  to  the  lips  when 
Roosevelt  is  spoken  of. 

If  under  the  cover  of  a  buoyant  and  readily 
vocalized  idealism,  Mr.  Roosevelt  took  the  steps 
which  a  "  practical  man  "  interested  in  success  would 


take  irrespective  of  moral  considerations,  he  was  in 
this  also  the  embodiment  of  his  generation  of  Amer- 
icans. The  generation  was  not  hypocritical — and 
neither  was  he.  Prosperity  is  the  due  reward  and 
recognition  of  righteousness.  Defeat  (in  that  reign 
of  moral  law  which  Americans  were  brought  up  to 
feel  all  about  them)  is  the  sign  manual  of  evil. 
The  cause  of  righteousness  was  too  precious  to  be 
compromised  by  the  danger  of  defeat;  it  not  only 
needed  to  win  but  it  needed  the  moral  sanction  that 
comes  from  triumph.  And  Mr.  Roosevelt's  glory  in 
the  fray  and  his  astuteness  in  discovering  the  condi- 
tions of  success  blended  with  his  belief  in  righteous- 
ness. He  endowed  his  frequent  dickers  with  machine 
politicians  and  compromises  with  machine  politics 
with  a  positive  moral  glow.  They  were  to  him 
proof  that  he  was  not  as  those  academic  reformers 
who  profess  high  ideals  and  accomplish  nothing.  His 
belief  in  righteousness  was  of  the  sort  that  "  brought 
things  to  pass."  He  trusted — and  correctly  enough 
— to  a  certain  ingrained  rectitude  which  would  pro- 
tect him  from  being  compromised  beyond  a  given 
point;  meantime  it  was  the  corrupt  politicians  who 
took  chances,  not  he.  This  dualism  of  theoretical 
idealism  with  a  too  facile  pragmatism  in  action  has 
still  to  be  faced  in  American  life. 

When  an  epoch  is  closed,  the  following  epoch  is 
not  usually  generous,  or  even  just,  to  it.  What  it 
achieved  is  taken  for  granted ;  what  it  failed  to  do  is 
the  outstanding  and  irritating  fact.  Roosevelt's 
period  has  not  wholly  passed.  The  men  who  fought 
hitn  are  now  just  beginning  to  "  appreciate  "  him, 
and  their  acclaim  mixes  with  the  reverberations 
from  old  fights  and  victories.  The  fact  that  the 
old  interests  have,  in  profession  at  least,  moved  up 
to  about  where  Roosevelt  stood  in  his  heyday 
measures  the  progress  made.  But  it  also  leaves  him 
by  association  in  a  somewhat  reactionary  light. 
Above  all,  men  are  beginning  to  realize  that  our 
serious  economic  problems  are  complicated,  not 
simple;  that  they  have  to  do  with  deeply  rooted 
conditions  and  institutions,  not  with  differences  be- 
tween malefactors  of  great  wealth  and  benefactors 
of  great  virtue;  and  that  for  the  most  part  even 
the  most  arduous  fights  of  Roosevelt  were  waged 
with  symptoms  rather  than  with  causes.  The  epoch 
of  "  Onward,  Christian  Soldiers  "  ended  with  the 
Progressive  campaign  in  which  it  consummated.  We 
are  in  an  epoch  of  special  problems  of  industrial 
democracy  in  farm  and  shop  to  which  the  older 
idealistic  slogans  of  righteousness  and  the  strenuous 
life  are  strangely  foreign.  Roosevelt's  "  luck  "  did 
not  desert  him.  He  has  been  forever  saved  from 
any  danger  of  becoming  the  figurehead  and  leader 
of  reactionaries. 

JOHN  DEWEY. 


u8 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


The  Great  Tradition 


OR  MOST  American  jeaders  the  first  acquaint- 
ance with  Mr.  Masefield's  poetry  was  made  in  1912, 
with  the  publication  in  this  country  of  The  Ever- 
lasting Mercy  and  The  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street, 
both  written  in  the  preceding  year.  That  publica- 
tion marked  a  notable  revival  in  the  popularity  of 
poetry  in  the  United  States,  and  since  then  a  verit- 
able freshet  of  verse  has  run  through  the  mill.  Both 
in  England  and  in  this  country  there  have  been  new 
poets,  new  subjects,  fresh  impulses  to  expression, 
innovations  in  technic,  and  an  unfailing  supply  of 
new  readers.  An  era  of  poetry  seemed  to  be  just 
breaking  into  dawn  when  the  great  war  came 
threatening  the  annihilation  of  all  beauty  and  art. 
But  the  war  itself  has  sown  seeds  of  creation  as  well 
as  of  destruction,  and  amid  its  horrors  and  fatigues 
has  already  quickened  an  early  harvest  of  verse  that 
throbs  with  the  ardor  of  dauntless  youth. 

Mr.  Masefield's  plays  and  poems  have  now  been 
collected  into  two  crowded  volumes  (The  Poems 
and  Plays  of  John  Masefield — Macmillan;  $2.75 
each,  $5.00  a  set)  which  enable  us  to  survey  as  a 
whole  the  work  of  one  of  the  leaders  in  this  imagina- 
tive awakening  of  the  early  years  of  the  twentieth 
century.  As  a  record  of  literary  achievement  ex- 
tending over  scarcely  a  single  decade,  these  volumes 
must  be  pronounced  a  most  impressive  monument. 
In  copiousness  and  variety,  in  originality  and  distinc- 
tion, in  their  power  to  seize  upon  our  sympathies 
and  to  exalt  and  enlarge  the  scope  of  our  imagina- 
tions, these  plays  and  poems  reveal  a  genius  that  is 
not  only  equal  to  a  worthy  leadership  in  the  new 
movement,  but  is  assured  of  a  welcome  among  tHose 
who  have  created  abiding  beauty  out  of  the  English 
language.  It  may  have  been  possible  to  maintain 
an  attitude  of  skepticism  or  suspended  judgment 
toward  the  individual  productions  of  Mr.  Mase- 
field's busy  pen;  but  the  barriers  of  conservative 
criticism  are  swept  aside  by  the  full  tide  of  imagi- 
nation, vigorous,  sustained,  irresistible,  that  sweeps 
through  these  thousand  pages. 

One  volume  contains  nine  plays,  two  in  verse — 
Philip  the  King  and  Good  Friday — four  one-aqt 
plays,  and  three  tragedies  in  prose.  These  prose 
plays  would  excite  great  interest  of  themselves,  even 
if  their  author  had  never  written  a  line  of  verse. 
The  three  tragedies  in  particular,  with  their  close- 
woven  structure,  and  their  direct  and  vivid  dialogue, 
add  an  independent  and  novel  page  to  our  dramatic 
literature.  There  are  not  many  authors  able  to 
evoke  poignant  and  elevated  emotion  alike  from  the 
downfall  of  Pompey  the  Great,  from  a  Japanese 


feud,  and  from  the  gruesome  murders  of  an  English 
countryside.  But  the  plays  even  at  their  best  are 
more  experimental  than  the  poems,  where  their  out- 
standing virtues  recur  in  more  abundant  measure. 
The  passional  tension,  even  in  Nan,  is  maintained 
with  less  certainty,  and  the  course  of  the  action 
rushes  not  less  impetuously  but  more  spasmodically 
than  in  the  poetic  narratives. 

Mr.  Masefield  won  and  established  his  reputation 
by  four  stories  in  verse,  all  written  within  the  space 
of  twenty  months.  They  helped  to  turn  poetry  back 
into  the  open  field  of  narration  where  it  has  always 
had  its  greatest  popularity  and  where,  perchance,  its 
longer  pieces  are  destined  still  to  find  full  success. 
Narrative  poetry  in  English  in  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury has  been  often  over-weighted  either  by  descrip- 
tive ornamentation  or  by  the  philosophical  obsessions 
of  the  author.  Mr.  Masefield  had  some  amazing 
stories  to  tell  and  he  told  them  with  the  onrushing 
sweep  of  one  of  the  full-rigged  ships  he  loves  to  pic- 
ture, bounding  before  a  favoring  wind.  The-moral 
implications  are  plain  enough,  but  there  is  no  ser- 
monizing. The  verse  varies  with  the  shifting  mood 
and  rises  to  passages  of  opulent  beauty,  but  it  rarely 
loiters  over  description  and  it  never  for  a  moment 
loses  hold  on  the  stirring  action.  Many  readers 
could  scarcely  believe  that  this  was  poetry,  for  it 
held  their  minds  glued  to  the  story  from  its  first 
word  to  the  last. 

The  Widow  in  the  Bye  Street  and  the  Daffodil 
Fields  tell  of  wayward  passion  resulting  in  ugly  mur- 
der and  bringing  punishment  to  the  just  as  well  as 
the  unjust.  Their  vivid  realism  is  unusual,  but  their 
themes  are  those  oft-told  in  verse  and  hence  more 
secure  of  an  appeal  to  our  sympathies  and  offering 
less  technical  difficulties  to  the  poet  than  the  other 
tales,  The  Everlasting  Mercy  and  Dauber.  The 
first  of  these  tells  of  an  unworthy  rascal  who  cheated 
his  friend,  won  a  prize  fight,  went  blind  drunk,  then 
experienced  religion,  and  awoke  to  a  richly  unde- 
served happiness.  Dauber  tells  of  a  boy  who,  im- 
pelled by  an  irresistible  desire  to  become  an  artist, 
goes  as  ship  painter  on  a  vessel  voyaging  round  the 
Horn.  His  paintings  are  wretched  daubs  and  he  is 
accidentally  killed  before  the  voyage  is  over,  but 
not  before  his  brave  spirit  has  triumphed  over  frail 
flesh  and  sordid  environment.  Here  are  new 
stories  told  in  a  new  way.  That  animal,  man,  is 
shown  brutal,  cruel,  violent,  and  yet  the  abode  of 
spiritual  exaltation.  The  vocabulary  of  the  prize 
ring,  the  alehouse,  the  brothel,  and  the  forecastle 
mingles  with  words  remindful  of  Shelley  or  Shake- 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


119 


speare,  and  the  terse  rhythms  of  the  crudest  collo- 
quialisms somehow  unite  with  a  melody  rich  and  im- 
pelling. There  is  never  any  doubt  about  the  facts. 
You  are  never  allowed  to  question  whether  this  is 
actuality  or  illusion.  You  see  the  prize-fight;  you 
are  in  the  midst  of  the  tavern  brawl;  you  climb  out 
on  the  icy  yard  to  reef  the  straining  sail,  or  you 
feel  your  soul  the  surprised  recipient  of  a  heavenly 
blessing.  Everything  is  intensely  real. 

In  1912  and  1913  even  those  of  us  who  were  not 
theoretical  pacifists  believed  that  this  was  a  pacific 
world.  Its  villains  and  tyrants  might  still  rob  the 
poor  but  they  would  not  murder  and  rape.  Adven- 
ture lay  in  commerce,  in  science,  and  not  in  pain 
and  battle.  Nearly  every  one  of  Mr.  Masefield's 
tales  contains  a  fight,  and  usually  a  brutal  and 
horrid  fight;  but  we  were  not  sure  that  we  were 
any  longer  fighting  animals.  The  life  of  physical 
violence  described  in  the  stories  of  Jack  London  and 
in  Masefield's  poems  seemed  romantically  remote 
from  our  daily  experience,  real  enough  doubtless 
on  the  frontiers  of  civilization,  not  typical  of  mod- 
ern life,  but  rather  sensational  and  melodramatic. 
The  war,  with  its  terrible  revelations,  has  brought 
an  undesired  and  sudden  justification  to  the  imagi- 
native genius  of  the  poet  who  had  found  in  his  own 
experience  with  men  both  the  brute  and  the  idealist, 
and  who  had  seen  spiritual  desire  linked  with  animal 
frenzy.  We  look  now  for  a  lasting  peace  and  for 
a  return  of  civilization  to  its  more  orderly  ways 
with  a  renewed  and  surer  vision  of  its  purpose ;  but 
it  will  be  long  before  the  imagination  can  forget  the 
shock  of  battle,  the  anguish  of  flesh,  the  trial  by 
combat.  Will  poetry  ever  be  content  again  with 
"soft  Lydian  airs  "  or  "  To  sport  with  Amaryllis  in 
the  shade  "  ? 

The  sensational  incidents  and  scenes  of  Mr. 
Masefield's  narratives  made  him  appear  at  first  as 
an  innovator,  and  to  some  as  an  innovator  reckless 
and  disregardful  of  the  idols  of  English  poetic  tra- 
dition. He  faced  life  as  he  had  experienced  it  and 
sought  beauty  in  its  toil  and  poverty,  in  its  places  of 
violence  and  sensation,  such  as  are  rarely  visited  by 
poets  or  modern  book-readers.  But  it  soon  became 
evident  that  neither  in  the  choice  of  subjects  nor  in 
the  technic  of  his  art  was  he  steering  a  course  that 
departed  widely  from  the  traditional  path.  He 
sings  of  the  spell  of  the  sea,  of  its  cruelties,  hard- 
ships, its  ships  and  sailors,  more  vividly,  more  com- 
prehendingly  perhaps  than  has  any  other — but  the 
sea  has  always  roused  the  imagination  of  British 
poets.  He  is  modern,  but  there  is  much  in  modern 
life  than  does  not  engage  his  interest.  He  shows 
none  of  the  painstaking  devotion  to  the  poverty  and 
drabness  of  the  working  classes  which  we  find  in  the 


poetry  of  Mr.  Wilfrid  Gibson.  The  enormous  and 
ever-expanding  technology  of  our  modern  era  excites 
neither  his  wonder  nor  his  protest.  Railways,  engi- 
neers, factories,  and  machines  do  not  inspire  him. 
His  ardor  is  all  for  the  square-rigged  ship,  never  for 
Macpherson's  turbines.  Nor  does  his  art  seek 
methods  that  are  novel  or  that  threaten  revolution. 
He  has  not  experimented  with  vers  libre  or  with  any 
of  the  many  variations  of  impressionistic  technic. 
The  well-known  measures  of  English  verse  have 
afforded  him  ample  variations  for  an  expression 
that  has  ever  turned  for  guidance  to  the  great  mas- 
ters of  English  poetry. 

Mr.  Masefield  has  known  toil  and  privation,  but 
he  was  as  surely  born  a  man  of  letters  and  an  art- 
ist as  was  Keats  or  Carlyle.  At  fourteen  he  was 
indentured  to  a  captain  in  the  merchant  marine, 
and  there  he  lived  the  life  that  found  expression  in 
the  Salt-Water  Ballads.  At  twenty-two,  after  some 
months  ashore  in  various  employments,  he  was 
working  in  a  carpet  factory  in  Yonkers;  and  then, 
as  he  tells  us,  he  first  began  "  to  read  poetry  with 
passion  and  system."  "  Chaucer  was  the  poet  and 
The  Parliament  of  Fowls,  the  poem  of  my  con- 
version." After  that,  the  factory  worker  crowded 
his  evenings  and  Sundays  with  the  wealth  of  Eng- 
lish pottry,  especially  Chaucer,  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
Shelley,  and  Keats.  One  thinks  of  Keats  in  com- 
parison and  of  the  "  new  world  of  wonder  and 
delight  "  that  was  similarly  opened  to  the  surgeon's 
apprentice.  The  two  experiences  are  indeed 
strikingly  alike,  only  the  new  world  for  Keats  was 
created  not  from  his  own  contact  with  men,  but 
out  of  old  stories,  the  Elgin  marbles,  the  myths, 
legends,  and  fancies  that  had  ever  swayed  the  heart 
of  the  poet;  while  Masefield  found  in  his  own 
experience  with  the  passions  of  the  sea  and  of  un- 
sophisticated men  the  material  that  through  the 
alchemy  of  verse  might  glow  with  the  beauty  of 
Lamia,  or  Adonais,  or  Lear. 

The   poetic    creed   he    adopted    in    that    humble 
Yonkers    room    and   which   he   has   sustained    and 
strengthened     in     the    following    years    of     great 
achievement  was  the  creed  of  the  romanticist^  only 
enlarged  to  fit  a  wider  experience  of  which  his  own 
life  had  given  him  an  insight.     The  poet  was  the. 
one  divinely  gifted  to  feel  and  understand*  beauty 
hidden   from  less  imaginative  men,   and  the  poet's; 
duty  was  to  search  ever  for  "  the  butterflies  andl 
petals  of  blossoms  blowing  from  the  unseen  worU 
of    beauty    into    this    world."      Through    his    per- 
sonality, by  the  processes  of  his  creative  expression", 
men's  emotions  and  sympathies  were  to  be  touched 
by  these  glimpses  of  a  transcendent  world.     In  his 
plays  and  tales  Mr.  Masefield  oftenest  finds  beauty 


20 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


in  emotional  ecstasy,  or  to  use  his  own  words  in 
defining  tragedy,  "  in  the  agony  and  exultation  of 
dreadful  acts."  But  he  finds  it  everywhere  bright- 
ening experience — in  conversion,  aspiration,  in  phy- 
sical bravery  and  effort,  in  landscape,  and  in  his- 
torical associations,  and  in  the  manifold  moods  of 
"  air,  earth,  and  skies." 

All   had   their   beauty,   their   bright  moments'    gift — 
Their  something  caught  from  Time,  the  ever-swift. 

The  full  volume  of  Mr.  Masefield's  poetry  is  an 
expression  of  that  noble  text  of  Wordsworth's 
which  declares  to  us  as  to  Toussaint : 

Thy  friends  are  exultations,  agonies 

And   love,    and   man's   unconquerable   mind. 

Many  wise  judges  of  literature  will  prefer  some 
of  the  later  poems,  such  as  Biography,  the  Sonnets, 
or  kollingdon  Downs,  with  their  more  reasoned 
and  less  vehement  emotion  and  with  their  more 
frequent  reminiscences  of  traditional  thought  and 
imagery,  to  the  naked  rapidity  of  the  earlier  tales. 
I  am  not  sure  that  I  share  their  preference.  In  the 
sequence  of  sonnets  in  the  Shakespearean  manner, 
there  are  poems  of  such  thoughtfulness  and  such 
perfection  that  they  must  be  given  high  rank 
among  examples  of  that  form  which  has  com- 
manded the  best  endeavors  of  the  greatest  poets; 
but  the  difficulty  of  a  sonnet  sequence  is  that  it 
calls  for  a  continual  harping  on  the  same  strings. 
Mr.  Masefield's  crooning  cadences  that  describe  his 
searchings  for  beauty  do  not  escape  monotony. 
Beauty  becomes  his  favorite  word,  like  Wit  in 
Pope  and  God  in  Browning;  and  after  many 
repetitions  it  loses  its  effulgence.  The  danger  of 
this  seeking  after  beauty  is  like  that  of  too  much 
seeking  after  religion.  The  seeker  comes  to  rely 
on  his  power  to  excite  emotional  ecstasies;  he  is 
forever  irritating  his  soul.  Keats,  at  least  in  his 
earlier  poems,  found  beauty  through  this  excited 
sensibility,  but  not  so  did  Chaucer  conceive  and 
create  the  Canterbury  Tales.  Too  much  refine- 
ment of  a  phrase  sometimes  recalls  the  condemna- 
tion that  Mr.  Masefield  puts  into  the  mouth  of 
one  of  his  unlettered  women : 

There's  a  feckless  brood 
Goes  to  the  devil  daily,  Joe,  in  cities 
Only  from  thinking  how  divine  their  wit  is. 

The  discovery  of  beauty,  so  far  as  it  lies  in 
poetry,  depends  on  the  variety  and  flexibility  of  art 
in  meeting  the  ever-growing  wealth  of  experience 
and  knowledge.  And  Mr.  Masefield  wins  our  ad- 
miration because  he  has  mastered  so  wide  a  range 
of  artistic  means  and  because  he  has  tried  boldly 
much  that  art  had  hitherto  found  intractable.  It 
is  through  a  personality,  vigorous,  independent,  in- 
quiring as  well  as  sensitive,  that  we  have  been  led 


to  enlarge  our  sympathies  and  to  gain  a  broader 
acquaintance  with  fact  at  the  same  time  that  we 
have  understood  "  the  bright  moments'  gift." 

In  concluding  testimony  of  Mr.  Masefield's 
great  and  varied  power,  I  may  recall  two  of  the 
best  remembered  passages  in  all  his  poems — the  one, 
expressive  of  the  fervor  of  "  agonies  and  exulta- 
tions," the  other  rather  of  brooding  reverie  on 
"  man's  unconquerable  mind."  After  the  rascal 
Saul  Kane  has  found  the  everlasting  mercy  he 
awakens  to  a  transformed  world,  and  his  raptures 
are  described  in  a  torrent  of  images.  He  sees  Christ 
and  joy  and  paradise  everywhere,  in  bird,  flower, 
brook,  railway,  and  plowman.  His  opened  eyes 
see  everything,  well,  bridge,  shunting  engine,  hunts- 
man, clovertops,  gipsies'  camp,  one  old  wagon,  dew- 
berry trailers,  the  young  green  corn,  the  golden 
harvest,  "  the  sea  with  all  her  ships  and  sails,"  the 
lark  overhead,  the  cows  plodding  up  to  milking 
house — and  all  these  and  much  else  focus  upon 
"  Old  Callow  at  his  autumn  ploughing,"  and  this 
picture  of  useful  service  holds  its  place  amid  the 
other  shifting  images  of  damnation  and  salvation 
until  it  fixes  itself  on  Kane's  mind  as  his  call  to 
work  and  as  a  symbol  of  his  redemption. 

And  in  men's  hearts  in  many  lands 

A  spiritual  ploughman  stands 

Forever  waiting,  waiting  now, 

The  heart's  "  Put  -in,  man,  zook  the  plough." 

In  this  wonderful  passage  with  its  richness  of  pic- 
ture and  image,  its  sense  of  fact,  and  its  emotional 
vitality,  its  rapid  but  constructive  imagination,  is 
there  anything  lacking  which  could  add  truth  or 
beauty  to  the  rapture  of  a  redeemed  drunkard? 

The  other  passage  is  from  August,  1914,  the 
poem  that  hailed  the  opening  of  the  great  war.  In 
cadence  and  image  it  is  not  strikingly  inventive,  its 
emotion  and  thought  are  not  different  from  those 
that  have  ever  and  again  stirred  poet  and  artist,  yet 
is  it  more  or  less  beautiful  than  the  amazing  con- 
clusion of  The'  Everlasting  Mercy  ?  The  poet  broods 
over  the  quiet  landscape,  the  loved  Berkshire  valley, 
the  long  ancestry  that  makes  England  beautiful  and 
brave,  the  spirits  watching  over  those  now  ready 
also  to  suffer  and  to  die.  And  who  has  said  all  this 
more  perfectly? 

All  the  unspoken  worship  of  those  lives 
Spent  in  forgotten  wars  at  other  calls 

Glimmer  upon  these  fields  where  evening  drives 
Beauty  like  breath,  so  gently  darkness  falls. 

During  the  war  Mr.  Masefield  has  been  render- 
ing service  at  the  front  and  through  his  writings. 
In  a  preface  he  speaks  longingly  of  the  peace  that 
may  release  him  again  for  the  quest  of  the  trans- 
cendent world  of  beauty  known  to  the  poets  of  his 
race,  and  for  the  effort  to  image  more  fully  "  what 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


121 


England  and  the  English  may  become,  or  spiritually 
No  one  will  desire  any  diminution  of  idealism, 


are. 


or  of  spiritual  sensitiveness  in  the  poetry  we  may 
assuredly  expect  from  his  matured  powers;  but  I 
for  one  do  not  desire  any  lessening  of  actuality,  of 
grip  on  fact,  of  probe  into  the  hearts  of  men.  Mr. 


Masefield's  poetry  is  itself  witness  that  both 
idealism  and  beauty  may  be  found  in  an  enterprising 
as  well  as  in  an  exquisite  art,  and  through  a  com- 
prehending knowledge  and  faith  in  human  will  as 
well  as  by  searching  one's  own  soul. 

ASHLEY  H.  THORNDIKE. 


w 


Newspaper  Control 

EVIDENCE  ACCRUING  FROM  THE  LAST  CANADIAN  GENERAL  ELECTION 


HILE  VAST  differences  of  opinion  with  regard 
to  the  war  exist  in  the  minds  of  absolutely  sincere 
men  and  women,  there  are  sqme  propositions,  at 
any  rate,  to  which  practically  all  assent.  One  of 
these  is  the  duty  of  seizing  and  preserving  for  future 
sober  study  every  scintilla  of  evidence  which  these 
years  have  afforded  as  to  the  nature  of  war,  its 
remote  springs,  its  influence  on  character,  and  its 
ability  to  achieve  what  it  claims  to  achieve.  Upon 
some  or  all  of  these  vital  things  American  students 
of  war  and  democracy  will  find  valuable  material 
in  the  Canadian  general  election  of  December  17, 
1917,  fought  upon  the  issue  of  conscription.  Little 
news  of  that  election  filtered  through  into  the  Amer- 
ican press,  and  much  of  what  did  appear  there  was 
colored  or,  indeed,  false.  Prime  Minister  Borden 
when  in  New  York  in  the  spring  of  1918  took 
occasion,  it  may  be  remembered,  to  deprecate  the 
highly  sensational  despatches  from  north  of  the 
border  as  to  disturbances  in  the  Province  of  Quebec. 
The  choice  of  the  Canadian  electors  a  year 
ago  lay  between  the  candidates  of  a  Union  Gov- 
ernment, headed  by  Sir  Robert  Borden,  and  the 
candidates  of  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier,  for  some  thirty 
years  the  leader  of  the  Canadian  Liberal  Party. 
The  new  Union  Government  pledged  itself  to  im- 
mediate enforcement  of  a  compulsory  military 
service  act,  passed  by  the  Canadian  Parliament  a 
few  months  previously,  while  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier 
undertook,  if  returned  to  power,  to  consult  the 
electorate  upon  the  question  by  way  of  a  referen- 
dum, pledging  himself  to  enforce  conscription  if 
the  referendum  carried.  The  conscription  issue 
drove  a  wedge  into  the  ranks  of  the  Canadian 
Liberals  and  many  threw  in  their  lot  with  that  of 
the  Union  Government.  The  latter  had  been 
formed  during  the  fall  of  1917,  but  not  without 
deep  heart-searching,  much  running  to  and  fro 
between  Ottawa  and  the  provincial  capitals,  refrac- 
tory conventions,  and  the  intriguing  of  political 
Warwicks.  To  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier  a  large  sec- 
tion of  his  followers  remained  true.  Among  the 
faithful  were  former  federal  ministers,  provincial 


ministers,  and  members  both  of  the  Canadian  House 
of  Commons  and  of  provincial  legislatures.  The 
Canadian  Labor  Party,  newly  formed,  elected  to 
make  common  cause  with  the  Liberals.  Hopes  of  a 
Laurier  victory,  almost  to  the  eve  of  the  polling, 
were  widely  entertained.  The  veteran  statesman 
traveled  in  midwinter  from  one  end  of  the  Dominion 
to  the  other  and  was  given  everywhere  an  ovation 
the  warmth  of  which  is  probably  without  a  parallel 
in  Canadian  political  history. 

Although  in  the  end  overwhelmingly  defeated, 
Laurier  had  a  popular  majority  in  two  of  the  eight 
English-speaking  Provinces.  In  the  Province  of 
Quebec  there  was  a  Laurier  landslide,  his  candi- 
dates securing  sixty- two  out  of  the  sixty-five  seats. 
A  determined  attempt  in  the  three  Provinces  to 
drive  the  Laurier  candidates  from  the  field  proved 
unsuccessful.  With  unimportant  exceptions  they 
stood  to  their  guns,  often  without  any  political 
machinery,  and  went  to  the  polls.  Taking  the 
English-speaking  Provinces  as  a  whole,  Laurier 
polled  more  than  one  vote  in  three.  In  these  Prov- 
inces 780,141  votes  were  cast  for  the  Borden  candi- 
dates, and  461,592  for  the  Laurier  candidates,  while 
35,581  votes  were  cast  for  Labor  candidates  either 
opposed  to  conscription  or  in  favor  of  a  referendum. 

Opposition  to  conscription  had  been  shared  up 
to  the  middle  of  1917  by  the  vast  majority  of  the 
Canadian  people,  by  the  majority  of  the  Canadian 
newspapers,  and  by  the  majority  of  Canada's  public 
men.  But  how  did  Laurier  fare  at  the  hands  of  the 
press  when  the  election  campaign  came  along  a  few 
months  later?  In  the  eight  English-speaking 
Provinces  there  were  in  existence  at  the  time 
thirty-three  daily  newspapers,  each  with  a 'circula- 
tion of  over  10,000  according  to  official  returns. 
These  thirty-three,  newspapers  comprise  practically 
the  whole  daily  press  of  the  larger  cities.  They 
include  all  Canada's  large  and  well  established 
dailies  in  the  English  Provinces.  In  politics  thirteen 
of  these  newspapers  officially  described  themselves 
as  "Conservative"  or  "Independent  Conservative;" 
eleven  as  "Liberal"  or  "Independent  Liberal,"  and 


122 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


nine  as  "Independent."     Now  consider  the  follow- 
ing facts: 

Nine  of  the  eleven  Liberal  or  Independent  Liberal 
dailies  which  had  supported  Laurier  in  previous  cam- 
paigns deserted  him. 

In  the  whole  of  English-speaking  Canada  Laurier 
had  three  dailies  with  a  circulation  of  over  10,000, 
and  his  opponent  thirty. 

In  Ontario,  the  most  populous  Province  of 
Canada,  Laurier  had  the  support  of  one  daily  of 
over  10,000  circulation  and  his  opponents  of  nine. 

In  the  Maritime  Provinces  of  New  Brunswick 
and  Nova  Scotia  Laurier  had  not  a  single  newspaper 
of  the  size  stated.  His  opponents  had  six.  (In 
New  Brunswick  Laurier  polled  44  per  cent  of  the 
vote  and  in  Nova  Scotia  51  per  cent.) 

in  five  out  of  the  eight  English-speaking  Prov- 
inces, namely,  British  Columbia,  Saskatchewan, 
Manitoba,  New  Brunswick,  and  Nova  Scotia, 
Laurier  had  not  a  single  daily  of  over  10,000  circu- 
lation. His  opponents  had  fourteen,  six  of  which 
were  former  Laurier  organs. 

In  the  cities  of  Toronto  (capital  of  Ontario), 
Winnipeg  (capital  of  Manitoba),  Vaucouver,  B.  C., 
Ottawa  (capital  of  the  Dominion),  Regina  (capital 
of  Saskatchewan),  Saskatoon,  Sask.,  Hamilton, 
Ont.,  St.  John,  N.B.,  and  Halifax  (capital  of  Nova 
Scotia),  Laurier  was  without  a  single  daily  of  the 
size  mentioned.  In  the  same  cities  his  opponents 
had  twenty-six  such  dailies. 

I  have  already  said  that  Laurier  swept  the 
French  Province  of  Quebec.  Naturally  the  news- 
paper situation  in  this  Province  does  not  present 
the  phenomenon  that  characterizes  it  in  the  English- 
speaking  portion  of  the  Dominion.  But  the  posi- 
tions were  not  reversed.  In  Montreal  and  Quebec 
City  both  sides  had  the  assistance  of  strong  dailies 
and  no  newspaper  in  the  Province  of  Quebec,  as  far 
as  I  am  aware,  changed  its  coat  before  the  election. 

When  Sir  Robert  Borden,  on  May  18,  1917,  in- 
troduced his  conscription  measure  into  the  Canadian 
House  of  Commons,  four  days  after  his  return 
from  a  visit  to  Great  Britain,  the  news  came  to  the 
Canadian  people  like  a  bolt  from  the  blue.  For  no 
hint  of  conscription  had  been  dropped  by  any  mem- 
ber of  Sir  Robert's  Government  when  the  Canadian 
Prime  Minister  left  Canada  for  London  early  in 
February,  1917.  In  the  spring  of  1916 — not  much 
more  than  a  year  before  the  announcement  of  con- 
scription— Sir  Robert  said  in  the  Canadian  Parlia- 
ment : 

In  speaking  in  the  first  two  or  three  months  of  this  war 
I  made  it  clear  to  the  people  of  Canada  that  we  did  not 
propose  conscription.  I  repeat  that  announcement  today 
with  emphasis. 

The  chief  newspapers  of  Canada,  especially  the 
Liberal  newspapers,  had  pronounced  strongly  against 


conscription.      Thus,    in   July,    1916,   the   Toronto 
Globe  said  editorially: 

The  Globe  in  its  editorial  columns  has  consistently 
pointed  out  that  in  a  country  such  .as  Canada  conscription 
is  an  impossibility,  and  that  no  responsible  statesman 
of  either  party,  capable  of  forming  or  leading  a  war 
ministry,  would  propose  compulsory  service. 

The  Manitoba  Free  Press,  the  largest  news- 
paper in  Western  Canada,  spoke  even  more 
strongly.  It  expressed  the  view  that  conscription 
would  mean  one  half  of  Canada  garrisoning  the 
other  half.  After  and  not  before  Sir  Robert  Borden 
announced  his  policy  of  conscription  did  he  invite 
Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier  to  enter  a  Union  Govern- 
ment. Is  it  not  strange  that  Canadian  newspapers 
which  in  the  fall  months  of  19*17  were  pouring 
abuse  on  Laurier's  head  and  insulting  both  his  can- 
didates and  his  followers,  were  able,  a  few  weeks 
earlier,  to  see  the  unfairness  of  expecting  Laurier 
to  enter  a  cabinet  committed  to  a  policy  to  which 
he  had  been  a  lifelong  opponent?  Consider,  for 
example,  this  remarkably  frank  editorial  utterance 
from  the  Manitoba  Free  Press  of  June  12,  1917: 

It  is  impossible  to  regard  the  situation  as  it  affects 
Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier  without  mixed  feelings  of  indigna- 
tion and  regret.  It  is  less  than  five  months  ago  since 
R.  B.  Bennett  [at  that  time  a  member  of  the  Borden 
cabinet],  who  presumably  spoke  with  knowledge,  told 
a  meeting  of  Winnipeg  citizens  that  conscription  meant 
bloodshed  in  Quebec  and  was  not  politically  practicable. 
.  .  .  .  Sir  Wilfrid  was  put  in  an  impossible  position 
by  the  tactics  of  Sir  Robert  Borden.  The  theory  that  it 
was  intended  to  destroy  Laurier  was  by  no  means  far- 
fetched. It  may  well  have  been  calculated  that  Sir  Wil- 
frid, when  confronted  with  the  inevitable  division  of 
the  party,  would  retire  from  public  life. 

Within  two  or  three  months  of  printing  the 
editorial  from  which  the  foregoing  is  taken,  the 
Manitoba  Free  Press  had  thrown  over  Sir  Wilfrid 
Laurier,  whose  policies  it  had  supported  for  nearly 
a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  was  enthusiastically 
backing  the  new  Union  Government  headed  by  Sir 
Robert  Borden.  Later  the  same  newspaper  said: 

For  the  young  man  who  is  liable  to  the  draft  to  vote  for 
Laurierism  is  a  confession  in  his  own  soul,  no  matter  by 
what  high-sounding  phrases  he  disguises  the  truth,  that 
he  is  yellow. 

Efforts  put  forth  to  split  the  Liberal  Party 
met  with  a  large  measure  of  success.  Two  methods 
were  in  the  main  relied  on,  one  the  gaining  control 
of  the  Laurier  newspapers,  and  the  other,  the  rais- 
ing of  a  racial  and  religious  issue.  Nevertheless, 
the  first  attempts  to  stampede  the  Liberals  into  the 
Union  Government  fold  were  ill-starred.  Con- 
ventions called  in  the  Province  of  Ontario  for  the 
purpose  of  repudiating  Laurier  either  endorsed  him 
or  produced  negative  results.  It  was  after  these 
failures  that  strong  influences  were  felt  to  be  abroad 
for  the  control  of  the  Liberal  newspapers.  At  this 
time — the  fall  of  1917 — desperate  attempts  were 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


123 


being  made  to  form  a  union  government.  To  induce 
prominent  Liberals  to  enter  the  proposed  coalition 
was  proving  extremely  difficult.  A  conference  of 
Liberal  leaders  held  at  Winnipeg  demanded  as  the 
condition  of  their  espousal  of  union  government  the 
resignation  of  Sir  Robert  Borden,  the  conference 
submitting  the  names  of  four  prominent  Canadians 
from  whom  the  new  prime  minister  was  to  be 
chosen.  This  overture  was  summarily  rejected  by 
the  friends  of  Sir  Robert  Borden.  During  these 
days  many  of  the  Liberal  papers  which  afterwards 
fell  into  line  behind  the  Union  Government  were 
having  their  daily  jest  at  Liberal  leaders  reported  to 
be  considering  the  offer  of  a  cabinet  position. 

But  the  silencing  of  the  press  supporting  Sir 
Wilfrid  Laurier  was  nevertheless  accomplished.  Al- 
though tragic  enough  to  the  Liberals  remaining  true 
to  Laurier,  the  situation  had  much  in  it  that  was 
comic.  The  transition  from  ridiculing  union  gov- 
ernment to  supporting  it  had  in  some  cases  to  be 
made  in  unceremonious  haste  and  under  the  rude 
gaze  of  astonished  onlookers.  Editorials  supporting 
Laurier  halted  on  the  printing  presses.  Ottawa 
correspondence  favoring  him  stopped  on  the  wires. 
When  it  was  all  over,  Laurier,  Prime  Minister  of 
Canada  through  four  successive  administrations,  was 
without  a  newspaper  press  in  the  English  Provinces. 

During  the  election  campaign  the  cry  that 
French  Nationalism  and  Roman  Catholicism  were 
threatening  the  vitals  of  Canada  was  assiduously 
spread.  The  idea  of  civil  war  was  on  the  lips  of 
many  whose  position  might  have  suggested  the  duty 
of  conciliation  between  Canada's  two  great  races. 
To  a  friend  of  mine,  a  respected  citizen  of  Winnipeg, 
a  cabinet  minister  in  the  Government  of  Manitoba, 
said:  "  Quebec  has  got  to  be  licked  and  it  might  as 
well  be  now  as  later." 

I  had  in  my  hands  the  original  of  a  letter  sent 
by  one  Alberta  farmer's  wife  to  another.  It  ran : 

How  do  we  feel  about  the  election?  Well,  we  feel 
that  the  real  Canadians  showed  the  good  stuff  they  are 
made  of,  and  showed  those  Frenchmen  where  they  be- 
longed. They  had  to  do  that  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it 
would  bring  conscription,  and  though  this  conscription 
bill  may  take  my  husband. 

Intimidation  of  Laurier  voters  was  a  general 
condition.  His  right-hand  men  were  read  out  of 
public  life  forever  by  former  Laurier  organs.  A 
vote  for  Laurier  was  held  up  in  the  press  not  mere- 
ly as  the  acme  of  disloyalty,  but  as  a  piece  of  down- 
right iniquity.  The  terrors  of  the  living  and  the 
dead  were  threatened  against  those  who  were  will- 
ing to  risk  conscription  on  a  referendum.  No 
chances  were  taken.  Any  Canadian  coming  to 
Canada  from  an  enemy  country  during  the  previous 
fifteen  years,  no  matter  how  long  a  citizen  of  the 
Dominion,  was  by  law  disfranchised.  On  the  other 


hand  a  special  military  franchise  was  created  under 
which  the  wife,  mother,  daughters,  or  sisters  of  a 
soldier  were  given  a  vote,  all  other  women  remain- 
ing as  before  unenfranchised. 

From  practically  every  Protestant  pulpit  con- 
gregations were  exhorted  to  vote  for  the  Union 
Government.  Colonel  (the  Rev.  Dr.)  Chown, 
General  Superintendent  of  the  Methodist  Church 
in  Canada,  issued  an  encyclical  in  which  the  follow- 
ing appeared : 

We  must  inquire  what  effect  each  ballot  will  have 
upon  Christian  civilization  as  opposed  to  undiluted  bar- 
barism, upon  heaven  as  in  contrast  with  hell. 

The  question,  it  seems  to  me,  which  should 
interest  American  students  of  war  and  of  this  war, 
is:  What  induced  the  Liberal  papers  of  Canada  to 
forsake  Sir  Wilfrid  Laurier?  Was  it, simply  an 
honest  change  of  opinion?  Had  the  reasons  which 
prompted  them  strongly  to  condemn  conscription  in 
1916  disappeared  in  1917? 

Personally  I  do  not  believe  that  an  affirmative 
answer  can  honestly  be  given  to  these  questions.  It 
is  quite  true  that  a  considerable  number  of  Canadians 
sincerely  believed  that  a  Union  Government  was 
desirable.  Again,  a  certain  number  of  Canadians, 
chiefly  elderly  gentlemen  well  beyond  the  draft  age, 
had  advocated  conscription.  But  it  is  equally  true 
that  the  idea  of  conscription  was  alien  to  the 
Canadian  people.  The  suspicion  is  also  justified  that 
in  many  minds  a  Union  Government,  with  Sir 
Robert  Borden  retained  as  its  head,  was  preferable  to 
the  accession  of  the  Liberals  to  office.  Of  the 
Borden  Government  whose  term  had  expired,  the 
Manitoba  Free  Press  said :  Had  it  gone  to  the  coun- 
try in  a  party  fight  it  would  have  met  with  an  over- 
whelming defeat. 

The  quick  and  unceremonious  switching  from 
Laurier  to  Union  Government  which  I  have  de- 
scribed does  not  suggest  a  genuine  change  of  heart, 
and  many  other  things  do  not  suggest  it  either. 
What  was  it,  then?  Frankly,  I  do  not  know,  but  I 
do  know  that  ever  since  the  election  there  has 
been  a  profound  conviction  in  the  minds  of  large 
numbers  of  Canadians  that  something  happened  a 
year  ago  which  has  never  yet  been  explained.  This 
belief  persists  in  Canada  and  was  never  more  alive 
than  at  the  present  moment.  A  few  things  may  be 
noted.  On  May  17  last,  in  the  Canadian  House  of 
Commons,  Mr.  Lucien  Cannon,  a  French  member, 
speaking  in  a  debate  on  Taxation,  asked : .  "  How 
are  those  millionaires  who  bought  and  bribed  the 
press  of  this  country  during  the  last  election  taxed  ?  " 
Mr.  Cannon  was  roundly  denounced  for  this  utter- 
ance and  it  must  be  confessed  that  he  produced  no 
evidence  in  support  of  it.  The  Voice,  a  Winnipeg 
Labor  weekly,  said  editorially  on  Dec.  4,  1917,  three 


I  24 


February  8 


days  before  the  polling:  "Wherein  then  lies  the 
significance  of  this  frenzied  campaign?  It  coincides 
with  the  visit  to  Ottawa  weeks  ago  of  the  biggest 
autocrat  of  the  press  in  the  world — Lord  North- 
cliffe."  His  lordship's  visit  to  Canada  certainly 
left  behind  it  a  crop  of  rumors,  and  one  may  note 
with  interest  that  the  Toronto  Globe  went  to  some 
pains  to  prove  that  its  stock,  at  any  rate,  had  no 
Northdiffian  taint. 

There  is  another  powerful  figure  in  British 
politics  whose  moves  are  regarded  by  large  numbers 
of  Canadians  with  distrust  and  suspicion.  I  refer 
to  Lord  Beaverbrook,  whose  rapid  accumulation  of 
wealth  through  the  "  organization  "  of  the  Canadian 
cement  merger  a  few  years  ago  by  no  means  en- 
hanced his  reputation  in  his  native  Dominion. 
Shortly  after  the  Canadian  general  election  Prime 
Minister  Lloyd  George,  in  the  British  House  of 
Commons,  spoke  of  the  marvelous  success  which  had 
attended  the  propaganda  work  of  Lord  Beaverbrook. 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  unfortunately  did  not  specify 
to  what  particular  "  success  "  he  had  reference,  but 
the  context  seemed  plainly  to  indicate  that  the  tri- 
umph of  the  Union  Government  in  Canada  was 
what  the  Prime  Minister  had  in  his  mind.  '  Ever 
since  the  election  assertions  of  independence  have 
been  appearing  in  the  Canadian  newspapers.  I  have 
before  me  as  I  write,  half  a  dozen  editorials,  clipped 
from  the  few  Canadian  dailies  which  come  into  my 
hands,  all  protesting  journalistic  honor.  One  from 
the  Toronto  Globe  strongly  condemns  the  President 
of  the  United  Farmers  of  Ontario  for  remarks  about 
the  Canadian  "  subsidized  press  "  made  to  a  gather- 
ing of  several  thousand  farmers.  The  editorial 
proceeds  to  preach  a  little  homily  on  the  robust  in- 
dependence and  absolute  integrity  of  Canada's  lead- 
ing newspapers.  Since  then,  however,  on  Oct.  5 
last,  to  be  exact,  the  Toronto  Globe  has  had  to 
admit  that  all  is  not  as  it  should  be  in  Canadian 
journalism.  In  a  Montreal  court  case  it  came  out 
that  two  evening  papers  in  that  city,  the  Star  and  the 
Herald,  although  differing  in  politics,  were  under 
the  same  ownership.  Commenting  upon  this  the 
Globe  said: 

The  Herald,  with  a  long  history  as  a  Liberal  paper, 
was  acquired  a  few  years  ago  by  Lord  Atholstan  of  the 
staunchly  Conservative  Star.  The  union  ended  a  bit- 
ter quarrel  between  the  Star  and  the  Herald  over  issues 
not  unrelated  to  Lord  Atholstan's  interest  in  certain 
municipal  franchises.  Since  then  they  have  been  in 
serene  and  perfect  agreement  on  civic  questions,  but 
they  maintain  their  party  differences.  .  .  .  Many  citi- 
zens will  not  regard  it  as  an  ideal  condition  that  the 
control  of  the  English  press  in  the  evening  field  of  a 
great  city  like  Montreal  should  be  in  one  man's  hands. 

The    Kingston    Whig,    another    Ontario    daily, 
in   an  editorial  quoted  by  the  Toronto  Globe  on 
June  27  last,  said: 
Here  and  there  rumors  still  persist  that  the  prers  of 


Canada',  which  almost  unanimously  supported  Union 
Government,  did  so  from  the  basest  and  lowest  motives — 
that,  in  fact,  it  was  bought  with  a  price. 

The  Whig's  editorial  went  on  to  denounce 
those  who  spread  such  rumors  and  declared  that 
"  The  press  of  the  country  supported  Union  Gov- 
ernment ...  for  a  principle,  not  for  mercenary 
gain." 

It  is  worth  while  noting  that  in  one  or  two 
instances  there  was  concrete  evidence  that  the 
switch  from  Laurier  had  been  made  reluctantly.  The 
Regina  Leader,  for  example,  was  one  of  the  papers 
that  made  a  rapid  transit  from  the  Laurier  to  the 
Union  Government  camp.  But  in  the  opinion  of 
the  Manitoba  Free  Press  there  was  still  some  hank- 
ering after  the  fleshpots  of  Egypt  in  the  editorial  , 
office  of  the  Leader,  for  the  former,  during  the  elec- 
tion campaign,  accused  its  contemporary  of  duplicity. 
It  said: 

The  Leader's  idea  of  fighting  for  the  Unionist  cause 
is  to  give  it  a  transparently  hypocritical  support  upon 
the  editorial  page  and  to  knife  it  in  every  other  column 
of  the  paper. 

Canadian  newspapermen  of  standing  with 
whom  I  conversed  recently,  assured  me  that  the 
editors  and  editorial  writers  on  the  newspapers 
which  deserted  Laurier  were  spiritually  coerced  and 
yielded  to  influences  which  they  found  irresistible. 
I  pressed  these  Canadian  journalists  for  a  careful 
estimate  of  the  proportion  of  editors  and  editorial 
writers  who  were,  in  their  opinion,  thus  coerced 
and  left  Laurier  reluctantly.  They  assured  me 
that  it  amounted  to  ninety  per  cent,  and  they  pro- 
ceeded to  name  to  me  editors  and  editorial  writers 
who,  in  their  opinion,  would  beyond  question  have 
supported  Laurier  had  they  felt  free  to  do  so. 

I  believe  that  in  the  foregoing  I  have  revealed 
a  condition  of  journalism  which  is  thoroughly  un- 
healthy and  under  which  neither  the  press  of  Canada 
nor  that  of  any  other  country  can  truly  serve  the 
people.  Just  what  the  solution*  is  I  do  not  pretend 
to  know.  I  simply  offer  the  above  as  evidence 
worthy  of  serious  study  by  those  who  wish  to  see 
the  press  a  greater  factor  in  human  progress.  Since 
I  began  this  article  a  statement  recently  made  in 
the  Westminster  Gazette  by  Mr.  J.  A.  Spender,  a 
prominent  British  journalist,  has  come  under  my 
notice.  I  am  disposed  to  think  it  throws  some  light 
upon  the  Canadian  situation.  I  will  close  by  quot- 
ing it.  It  reads  as  follows: 

The  public  would  be  astonished  if  it  knew  how  few 
writers  are  regularly  engaged  in  political  journalism  in 
these  times  and  how  little  opportunity  there  is  for  the 
exercise  of  a  free  judgment.  .  .  .  During  the  thirty- 
three  years  during  which  I  have  been  connected  with 
journalism  I  have  seen  the  power  of  the  editor  con- 
stantly diminishing  and  the  power  of  the  proprietor  con- 
stantly increasing. 

A.  VERNON  THOMAS. 


THE  DIAL 


125 


Debussy 


A  silver  dragon, 

Slender  as  a  reed, 

Wakes  from  his  sleep  on  a  lacquered  tray 

And  drops  his  length, 

Shining  coil  on  shining  coil, 

Among  the  gray-green  leaves 

Of  a  tiny  garden 

Patterned  on  a  table  top. 

Poising  his  carved  and  lustrous  head, 

He  delicately  intones 

A  slow,  fantastic  monologue. 

Crystal  cold  and  thin 

The  ancient  measures  flow, 

While  a  dragon-fly, 

Perched,  like  a  painted  eagle, 

On  a  pygmy  pine, 

Listens  in  silence. 

A  passing  swallow 

Hurls  his  shadow  on  the  garden's  elfin  lake — 

The  dragon-fly  takes  sapphire  flight, 

And  the  silver  dragon 

Climbs  to  his  vermilion  tray 

To  sleep. 

2 

Rain,  . 

Like  waving  threads  of  raveled  silk, 
Curls  across  the  window  glass 
And  breaks  the  picture  of  the  garden 
And  the  flowers 
And  the  fountain 
And  the  little  black  pagoda 
Into  a  quivering  kaleidoscope. 
The  wind  bells 

Shiver  under  the  beating  clappers  of  the  rain, 
And  the  long  green  vines 
With  purple  blossoms 
Shake  from  the  trellis 
Like  inverted  fireworks. 
Under  the  eaves 
A  cheerless  bird  complains, 
And  a  little  lost  wind 
Goes  among  the  leaves 
And  sings  a  song  about  the  stars. 


A  flower  moon, 

Tall  stemmed  above  a  bank  of  clouds, 

Stands  in  the  east ; 

Some  fallen  petals  of  her  light 

Float  on  the  sea. 

Mellow  gold  notes 

From  a  mandolin 

Sound  outside  an  ancient  wall 

On  which  dark  lichens 

Mold  an  apograph 

Of  legends  carved  on  stone. 

Behind  the  high,  heraldic  gates 


A  tracery  of  leaves, 

Stiff  and  precise, 

Conceals  a  faun 

Who  dances  to  the  mandolifl, 

And  wriggles  his  furry  ears, 

And  grins. 

4- 

The  dark 

Filled  with  muffled  sounds: 

Rustle  of  silk, 

Soft  tap  of  canes, 

Exclamations  of  polite  surprise, 

And  the  exquisite  staccato  of  murmured  French. 

Colored  globes, 

Deep  in  the  crowded  trees, 

Reveal  the  flutter  and  hurry  of  preparation. 

The  rising  moon, 

Hung  in  a  turquoise  arch, 

Gilds  the  terrace 

Of  waiting  audience. 

From  far,  high  towers 
Comes  the  unhurried, 
Uncadenced 
Chiming  of  bells. 

5 

Ah! 

Wheels  of  sparks — 
Green, 
Red, 

Darting  blue! 

Chain  and  lattice  and  lace*  of  light ! 
Fringe  and  spangles  and  fret  of  fire ! 

High  above  the  gulf  of  black, 

The  curving  flight 

Of  rockets 

Blossoms  in  a  shower  of  white  and  sudden  stars. 

Fading  jewels  of  fairy  gift —   ' 
Fire-drake  dancing  with  Will-o'-the-wisp, 
And — dark. 

6 

A  droll-mouthed  minstrel 

In  tattered  black  and  red 

Struts  round  the  cathedral  corner. 

A  girl 

Leans  from  a  balcony  in  the  Rue  des  Pontss 

And  listens  to  his  cynical  strumming. 

Freedom  sings  on  the  lute-strings — 

Sings  of  the  sunny  road  to  Provence, 

And  the  tavern  fire; 

Hints  of  two-edged  jests, 

And  wine- warm  kisses 

Of     .     .     .     just  such  a  red-lipped  minstrel  boy 

As  he,  whose  graceful  leg 

Struts  round  the  cathedral  corner 

In  tattered  black  and  red. 


126 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


Tuba  mirum     .     .     .     spargens  sonum, 

Rolls  in  Gregorian  solemnity 
From  old  St.  Louis  en  1'Ile, 

Coget  omnes  ante  thronum, 

And  drowns  irreverent  couplets 

Sounding  still 

Down  the  Quai  d'Anjou. 

Liber  scriptus  proferetur     . 

The  girl  in  the  balcony 
Suddenly  closes  her  eyes, 
And  sighs. 


/ 

Golden  tents 

Are  pitched  upon  the  wide,  blue  plain ; 

Temple  gongs 

Sound  across  an  ecstasy  of  light. 

The  vista 

Leads  beneath  the  painted  torii 

To  the  golden  tents 

And  the  perfect  mountain. 

Shall  we  go 

And  lift  the  silken  doors  of  tents, 

Or  shall  we  pluck  the  scarlet  poppy-petals 

Here? 

H.  H.  BELLAMANN. 


Anatole  France  and  the  Imp  of  the  Perverse 


J.HERE  CAME  to  a  dreaming  boy  in  a  Parisian 
bookshop  a  good  fairy  who  touched  his  lips  with 
the  "  honey  of  romance."  <  She  was  akin  to  the 
sprightly  fairy  who  teased  the  boy  as  an  old  man, 
and  she  was  first  cousin  to  the  salamander  who  loved 
for  a  time  the  pupil  of  Jerome  Coignard.  She 
brought  to  life  little  leaden  soldiers  and  many  other 
myths.  She  nourished  the  boy  in  naive  and  gentle 
imaginings,  persuading  him  that  nothing  exists  save 
by  imagination — which  is  why  she  existed.  They 
played  together  in  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  and  formed 
a  bowing  acquaintance  with  Latin  heroes.  The 
fairy  heard  the  terrible  prophecy :  "  You  will  always 
be  occupied  with  things  not  pertaining  to  class- 
work,"  and  she  consoled  her  friend  by  endowing 
him  with  a  sincere  and  lasting  beauty-worship.  All 
his  life  the  boy  dreamed  of  a  lovely  villa  by  a  blue 
lake,  of  classic  repose  and  conversations.  In  his 
first  maturity,  he  came  to  feel  a  gay  dilettantism, 
an  optimistic  zest  for  life,  a  mild  irony  which 
assuages  it.  Irony  and  pity  were  the  rules  of  his 
order;  a  blithe  humor  could  be  wedded  with  a  love 
for  all  noble  and  generous  things.  When  the  boy 
is  called  Bonnard,  his  Abbaye  de  Theleme  includes 
gentleness  to  animals,  Unobtrusive  acts  of  kindness, 
care  for  people's  feelings,  the  charm  of  early  sou- 
venirs. It  includes  indignant  action  in  behalf  of 
justice — and  it  enshrines  vistas  and  breezes  from  the 
garden  of  Epicurus. 

Thus  the  good  fairy  seemed  to  have  gifts  for 
every  age:  "desires  and  adorations,  winged  per- 
suasions and  veiled  destinies." .  Everything  was 
found  in  Pandora's  box,  except  Hope,  who  flew  out 
of  the  window ;  in  her  place  came  a  character  whom 
I  shall  call  the  Imp  of  the  Perverse;  he  sat  grin- 
ning on  the  edge  of  the  box  and  said  to  Anatole 
France:  "  Do  you  really  think  you  can  get  through 
on  that  schedule?  Your  deliberate  dilettantism 
means  love  for  the  beautiful — but  it  also  means 


hatred  for  the  ugly.  You  will  come  to  hate  more 
than  you  love  and  your  irony  will  grow  bitter  and 
your  Evolution  will  become  Fate  and  your  desire 
sensuality.  You  will  no  longer  admire  the  lofty 
gestures  of  the  Romanticists  and  you  will  see  that 
classic  art  is  largely  a  legend.  History,  you  will 
perceive,  is  either  archeological  and  keeps  the  life 
out,  or  it  is  imaginative  and  keeps  the  truth  out. 
You  have  read  so  much,  Bonnard,  that  you  know 
that  Relativity  is  the  only  extract  of  truth  which  is 
beneficial  to  the  health.  There  is  really  no  knowl- 
edge, no  ethics,  no  esthetics.  Therefore  you  re- 
nounce your  old  allegiance,  speaking  of  artistry  as 
doll-making  and  of  religious  traditions  as  largely 
Satanic." 

But- Anatole  Jerome  Bonnard  Bergeret  declared 
.  that  the  beautiful  still  existed,  epitomized  in  the 
love  of  women.  He  would  not  forget  the  fair- 
haired  Clementine  of  his  boyhood,  and  he  would 
cherish  the  image  of  Dido,  wandering  in  the  myrtles 
with  her  immortal  wound.  He  would  still  see  Thai's 
the  actress  as  "  a  lovely  statue,  sweet  and  proud, 
communicating  to  all  the  tragic  thrill  of  beauty." 
He  would  dwell,  in  his  fancy,  with  Madame  de 
Gromance,  "  flower-eyed,  empty  of  thought,  and 
therefore  more  desirable."  As  an  old  philosopher 
he  contemplated  with  delight  the  winsomeness  of  a 
street-girl,  and  he  approved  the  stark  passion  of  the 
lovers  in  his  "  Lys  Rouge."  For  he  held  that  the 
Venus  of  Milo  is  really  symbolic  of  Voluptas,  of 
creative  life,  and  sensualism  is  a  good  thing,  making 
for  the  grandeur  and  value  of  man,  inspiring  all  art. 
The  Imp  leered  in  assent.  "  I  taught  you  that! 
Illusion  and  sense  are  the  foundations  of  creative 
beauty — but  they  are  contradictory.  Among  Pagans 
and  Penguins  love  was  a  simple,  unimportant  pleas- 
Illusion  came  with  the  seven  veils  of  Chris- 


ure. 


tianity  and  civilization.     When  the  Church  made 
love  a  sin,  you  have  said,  the  Church  created  its 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


127 


charm  and  mystery.  It's  not  the  fault  of  women 
that  men  prolong  a  simple  unit  into  infinity,  and 
Madame  de  Gromance,  who  hardly  speaks  to  you 
anyhow,  has  no  use  for  your  ideal  admiration. 
There  is  much  perversity  in  the  way  women  follow 
the  forceful  and  brutal,  only  to  swerve  away  when 
their  heroes  become  tender.  So  Thais  follows 
Paphnuce  to  the  desert;  so  Chevalier  and  Balthasar 
are  cruelly  deserted  when  they  truly  love.  For  the 
sensual  law  is  cruel,  your  pleasure  is  somber,  the 
act  of  love  is  really  a  sign  of  death,  arrd  pleasure  in 
beauty  comes  to  be  a  sharp  pain." 

The  good  fairy  had  long  since  disappeared.  It 
seemed  to  the  great  ironist,  watching  the  tossing 
waves  of  illusion,  that  the  Epicurean  was  still  the 
only  way.  It  was  the  way  of  the  ancients  and  the 
friends  of  Thai's.  They  teach  us  to  adapt  happiness 
to  our  paltry  condition,  they  maintain  the  innocence 
and  the  wrorth  of  joy.  Combining  this  with  the 
simplicity  of  St.  Francis,  thought  the  brooding  phil- 
osopher, we  are  left  with  the  master-keys  of  Irony 
and  Pity,  the  charitable  skepticism  of  the  Abbe 
Coignard.  There  is  one  thing  further  about  the 
Epicurean  garden:  it  should  not  be  cultivated,  for 
that  is  an  act,  and  action  is  almost  as  deadly  as 
thought. 

The  Imp  retorted:  "Then  why  do  you  think?" 

Conceding  the  inhumanity  of  thought,  Anatole 
thought  further  that  this  self-questioning  carries  on 
the  world  through  the  grace  of  the  goddess  Maia. 
This  earth  is  a  spectacle  in  which  ignorance  and 
folly  are  the  true  forces ;  whereas  truth  is  single  and 
inert,  illusion  is  multiple,  moral,  and  individual. 
The  races  live  by  their  harmless  mythologies,  and 
nothing  really  exists  save  my  thought.  That  is  why 
I  should  send  my  imaginative  adventures  forth  as 
criticism,  my  impressions  as  science,  my  reactions  as 
a  creed.  Let  us  accept  universal  prejudices,  remem- 
bering further  that  the  universe  is  as  incoherent  as 
a  novel  by  Anatole  France.  As  clouds  dissolving 
are  the  appearances  of  life ;  it  is  a  succession  of  ruins, 
changes,  miseries.  To  think  that  we  should  people 
other  planets ! 

The  Imp  rejoined,  choosing  always  from  Ana- 
tole's  own  words:  "That  is  what  you  think,  Ber- 
geret,  when  discouraged.  But  when  you  are  called 
to  the  Sorbonne,  you  brighten  up  and  consider  that 
Sirius  might  very  .well  be  populated  by  Bergerets. 
Besides,  you  accept  the  likelihood  of  the  Eternal 
Return ;  in  all  the  permutations  of  worlds,  A. 
France  has  been,  is,  and  will  be  again — your  Goubin 
is  wiping,  has  wiped,  and  will  wipe  his  glasses 
through  all  eternity.  Progress,  of  course,  is  illusory 
— except  when  we  see  it.  Inventions  are  the  defor- 
mations of  the  herd — except  when  our  advantages 


over  our  forefathers  allow  us  to  perceive  how  little 
we  are  superior  to  them.  Science  merely  adds  spec- 
tacles to  our  poor  eyes,  prolongs  and  multiplies  our 
ignorance  through  knowledge." 

"  Exactly!  "  said  Anatole. 

"  And  thereby  furnishes  a  desirable  criterion  for 
progress.  Tell  us  how  you  work  for  progress." 

Anatole  then  wearily  repeated  that  knowledge 
was  pure  foolishness  and  metaphysics  so  much 
"  romancing."  Because  there  are  no  absolutes,  there 
can  be  no  real  justice.  And  as  for  humanitarian. 
Positivism,  "  the  great  fetish  scarcely  seems  to  me 
adorable." 

"  Yet,"  said  the  Imp,  "  you  are  always  contending 
for  positivism  in  other  fields — whenever  you  are  not 
contending  for  illusion.  The  fact  is,  Anatole,  that, 
like  poor  Flaubert,  you  were  always  at  seesaw  be- 
tween realism  and  romanticism.  You  were  playing 
Truth,  He  wins — Beauty,  I  lose.  It's  a  good  thing 
that  Dreyfus  came  along  to  set  you  straight." 

"  It's  all  Illusion,"  said  Anatole,  staring  gloomily 
at  his  tormentor.  "  Where  do  I  show  any  taste  for 
positive  realities?  " 

"Everywhere!  In  love,  religion,  politics,  and 
philosophy.  You  find  that  justice  is  utilitarian — 
and  you  regret  it.  You  make  everything  depend  on 
hunger  and  love — and  you  think  it's  a  shame.  You 
rationalize  Joan  of  Arc,  you  materialize  the  impulses 
of  chivalry,  you  think  that  killing  is  an  ordinary 
human  enterprise,  you  see  history  as  a  crude  mess. 
But  are  you  satisfied  with  all  this?  You  once  said 
that  your  mind  contained  both  Sancho  Panza  and 
Don  Quixote,  and  I  think  Don  Quixote  is  still 
there.  Your  cynicism  is  really  a  disappointed  ideal- 
ism, as  I  could  amply  prove,  you  mocking  Benedic- 
tine, from  your  whole  attack  on  religion,  of  which 
it  would  scarcely  become  me  to  speak.  Let  us  take 
politics.  And  Think !  " 

Avoiding  that  main  issue,  the  Voltairian  then 
submitted  a  few  of  his  neatest  paradoxes,  trusting 
thereby  to  appease  the  Imp.  He  described  life  as 
"  delicious,  horrible,  charming,  bitter,"  and  himself 
as  amused  by  its  contradictions,  interested  in  epochs 
of  conflict  like  the  Alexandrian  and  the  eighteenth 
century.  Life  is  evidently  ill-arranged,  for  youth 
should  come  at  the  close,  climactically ;  butterflies  do 
not  need  to  cry,  like  the  dying  dauphin,  "  Fi  de  la 
vie!"  But  why  try  to  adjust  anything?  Beneficence 
has  been  spoiled  by  the  Pharisees,  charity  is  mothered 
by  pride,  and  the  improvement  of  man  can  only  be 
forwarded  by  his  extinction.  The  Rousseauists 
carry  him  back  to  monkeydom  and  become  indignant 
when  the  monkey  does  not  behave.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Declaration  of  Rights  would  establish  an 
"  excessive  and  iniquitous  separation  between  man 


128 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


and  the  gorilla."  It  is  easy  to  show  that  great 
sinners  become  great  saints,  that  neighbors  are  natu- 
ral enemies,  that  Blue  Beard  was  a  henpecked  genial 
gentleman,  and  that  Pilate  might  readily  forget  the 
episode  of  Christ. 

His  own  works,  insisted  the  novelist,  were  de- 
signed to  show  this  world  as  one  huge  paradox.  In 
Thai's,  a  woman  is  carried  from  happiness  to  misery 
by  the  illusions  of  a  bigot ;  he  renounces  the  illusions 
as  she  swims  to  heaven  on  their  wings.  In  the 
Revoke  des  Anges,  the  angels  become  men  of  the 
world,  the  devils  become  angels.  The  Histoire 
Comique  is  a  tragic  story,  the  Abbe  Coignard  dies 
with  gay  songs  on  his  lips,  the  man  who  married  a 
dumb  wife  has  the  tables  turned  on  him — and  turns 
them  again.  There  is  the  juggler  who  offers  his  art 
to  Our  Lady;  there  is  a  whole  library  called  in  to 
witness  a  kiss.  In  Les  Dieux  Ont  Soif,  we  see  the 
underside  of  the  Revolution,  in  which  the  author 
none  the  less  believes,  and  among  the  Penguins 
there  are  accumulated  climaxes  and  anticlimaxes. 
Anatole  sighed.  "  Henry  James  once  told  me  that 
the  only  thing  my  intellect  left  standing  was — 
itself." 

"  I  should  like,"  said  the  Imp  pointedly,  "  to 
hear  your  views  on  politics." 

It  seemed  to  Anatole  that  his  satires  on  democ- 
racy had  settled  that  point.  Had  he  not  shown  that 
liberty,  equality,  and  the  like  were  unrealizable  or 
undesirable  fetishes?  Had  he  not  shown  that  the 
state  really  subsists  through  the  wisdom  of  a  few 
strong  statesmen  and  that  the  best  thing  to  be  said 
for  the  Republic  is  "  Elle  gouverne  peu  "  ?  Had  he 
not  given  dozens  of  cases  where  fraud,  vice,  and 
self-interest  moved  both  the  Dreyfusards  and  their 
opponents?  Popular  governments  are  self-enslaved, 
weak  through  their  lack  of  secrecy,  their  poor  ser- 
vants, their  whole  "  turbulent  menagerie." 

The  Imp  inquired :  "  Do  you  like  our  aristocrats, 
then,  our  '  god-given  hierarchies  ?  ' 

"  It  is  a  great  irony  that  so  much  power  was 
wielded  by  the  Royalists  and  Nationalists,  who 
were  weaker-brained  than  those  whom  they 
oppressed."  Thus  spoke  M.  Bergeret,  professor  of 
eloquence  at  the  Sofbonne.  And  he  passed  the 
sponge  of  universal  raillery  over  the  established 
classes — the  nobles,  the  bourgeois,  the  bureaucrats, 
the  military,  the  clergy.  He  jeeringly  asked  how 
two  French  war  councils  could  possibly  be  wrong 
in  the  Dreyfus  affair.  He  thought  it  fortunate  that 
the  state  really  subsists  not  through  the  wisdom  of  a 
few  strong  statesmen,  but  through  the  needs  of  sev- 
eral million  lowly  workers. 

"  You  are  really  more  at  war  with  institutions 
and  organizations  than  with  the  people,"  said  the 


Imp  slowly.     "  Why  did  you  come  out  for  Drey- 
fus?" 

"  Because  I  could  never  stand  by  and  see  injustice 
done !  I  hold  that  all  fetters  will  fall  before  a  single 
just  idea.  The  greatest  compliment  I  received  in 
the  Affair  was  when  a  workman  told  me :  '  You 
have  come  out  of  your  caste  and  you  have  not  wished 
to  fraternize  with  the  defenders  of  the  saber  and 
the  holy-water  sprinklers.'  There  is  no  paradox  in 
the  bond  of  the  proletariat  and  the  intellectuals. 
With  whom  do  you  wish  that  thinkers  and  artists 
should  consort?  With  the  sly  blind  calloused  bour- 
geoisie ?  " 

"  Go  on!  "  said  the  Imp. 

"  The  education  of  the  people  has  scarcely  begun, 
but  it  is  better  to  have  a  clean  sheet  than  one 
scrawled  over  with  the  wrong  prejudices.  And  the 
workmen  are  in  earnest  about  what  they  learn— 
witness  the  night  schools;  whereas  the  lackadaisical 
sons  of  the  bourgeois  avoid  education  as  a  pest. 
Vital  enthusiasm — heart!  Down  with  luxury!" 

"  And  you  declare,"  the  Imp  took  him  up,  "  that 
your  dream  of  the  future  is  the  true  evolutionary 
dream,  because  it  is  founded  on  economic  history, 
and  always  wise  thinkers  have  been  the  masons  of 
the  future.  Barring  your  attenuations  and  my  per- 
versities, you  see  Socialism  as  truth,  goodness,  and 
justice,  and  the  greatest  of  these  is  justice.  You 
believe  that  through  the  first  Revolution  France 
owes  herself  to  7the  world.  You  see  the  confused 
movements  of  modern  labor  as  tending  towards 
universal  peace  and  unity.  You  say  that  after  the 
world  conflagration  the  monster  of  militarism  will 
burst  from  obesity.  You  have  even  constructed  a 
somewhat  mechanical  Utopia,  like  Wells.  And 
when  it  comes  to  the  Great  War  " — the  Imp  sank 
his  voice,  and  Anatole  France  looked  at  him  uneas- 
ily. "  When  it  comes  to  the  Great  War,  you  have 
uttered  nothing  which  is  not  perfectly  human,  just 
— and  banal.  You  have  shown  the  sense,  feeling, 
and  patriotism  which  are  now  common  among  UP. 
You  have  spoken  of  the  ancient  town  whose  '  robe 
of  stone  '  has  been  violated,  you  have  execrated  .the 
Satanic  science  that  was  arrayed  against  us,  you  have 
defended  with  your  great  pen  our  ideals,  traditions, 
genius.  And  like  the  rest  of  us,  you  will  have  no 
peace  until  this  horror  is  conjured  forever  from  the 
human  horizon." 

Anatole  France  looked  at  the  speaker  in  great 
wonder  and  bewilderment.  "  You,  my  other  self, 
have  made  me  say  all  this.  Who  are  you,  brother?  " 

And  the  Imp  of  the  Perverse  answered :  "  My 
other  name  is  the  Spirit  of  Reality." 

E.  PRESTON  DARGAN. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


129 


The  American  Press  Since  the  Armistice 


UNDERSTAND  the  temper  and  direction  of 
American  newspaper  opinion  since  that  far-away 
day,  November  n,  1918,  it  is  imperative  briefly  to 
review  the  public  opinion  of  this  country  for  the 
period  just  before  the  end  of  hostilities.  When  the 
armistice  actually  came,  the  American  press — like 
the  American  public — was  intellectually  unprepared 
for  it;  for  nineteen  months  we  had  been  living  in 
a  fictitious  and  unreal  world  of  war  hysteria,  and 
the  corrective  of  suffering  had  as  yet  been  only 
feebly  administered.  Quite  aside  from  the  Espion- 
age Act,  which  of  itself  inevitably  forced  a  homo- 
geneity of  opinion,  the  American  press  as  a  whole 
merely  reflected  the  mood  of  the  country — that  the 
Germans  were  devils  in  human  form  and  the  begin- 
ning and  end  of  all  things  were  to  smash  them. 
The  good  man,  bad  man  theory  of  our  regular 
political  life — our  manner  of  carrying  over  religious 
emotions  into  political  contests,  otherwise  purely 
formal  struggles  between  the  "  ins  "  and  the  "  outs  " 
— had  successfully  given  the  direction  to  popular 
conceptions  of  foreign  policy.  Germany  became  the 
unregenerate  and  wicked  sinner  nation  (or  in  more 
nai've  minds,  the  Kaiser,  as  a  symbol  of  his  nation), 
and  our  war  problem  was  the  really  simple  problem 
of  how  to  crush  that  nation.  President  Wilson's 
attempt  to  distinguish  between  the  German  Govern- 
ment and  the  German  people  had  never  really  fired 
popular  imagination;  indeed,  even  if  it  had,  our 
patriotic  organizations  throughout  the  country 
would  have  seen  to  it  that  the  distinction  was  quickly 
forgotten.  Since  long  before  the  armistice  most  of 
our  regular  newspapers  had  merely  aped  the  worst 
form  of  current  Northcliffian  vulgarity:  the  ignor- 
ance and  provincialism  of  the  ordinary  newspaper 
editor's  views  of  foreign  relations  was  almost  as 
ludicrous  as  the  German  foreign  office's  idea  of  the 
psychology  of  the  American  people.  Propagandists, 
like  Cheradame  (now  busily  attacking  the  League 
of  Nations  and  threatening  to  undermine  President 
Wilson  by  appealing  to  disgruntled  Republican  Sen- 
ators in  America  to  start  a  backfire  against  him) 
were  gravely  accepted  as  prophets,  just  as  the  weekly 
discussions  of  the  "  military  experts  "  were  taken 
seriously  by  many  good  citizens.  The  liberal  news- 
papers— as,  for  instance,  the  Evening  Post  of  New 
York  (before  its  change  of  ownership),  and  the 
Springfield  Republican — and  the  liberal  magazines 
were  frightened  into  timidity  by  the  wave  of  mass 
opinion.  To  suggest  that  any  of  the  Allies,  or 
rather,  that  any  of  the  members  of  the  Governments 
of  the  Allies,  had  anything  except  the  purest  and 


highest  of  motives  was  (aside  from  the  possibility 
of  letting  oneself  in  for  a  term  in  jail)  to  be  guilty 
of  vile  pro-Germanism.  Even  to  suggest,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  Germany  might  have  a  revolution 
was  regarded  dubiously,  for  there  was  a  kind  of 
hidden  fear  of  a  real  revolution  in  Germany.  All 
newspapers  gave  lip  service  to  the  revolution  and 
announced  that  if  it  did  happen  they  would  welcome 
it;  actually  they  feared  it,  and  hence  said  it  was  im- 
possible. For  a  revolution  would  have  meant  the 
end  of  the  war,  and  hardly  anyone  really  wanted 
the  war  to  end  just  when  it  did.  Even  pacifists,  if 
they  are  honest,  will  confess  that  the  sudden  termina- 
tion of  hostilities  was  somewhat  irritating.  There 
is  a  deep  instinct  in  all  of  us  which  resents  making 
elaborate  preparations  for  something  which  doesn't 
happen,  even  if  that  something  is  suffering  and  war. 
We  did  not  quite  like,  to  use  a  popular  phrase,  hav- 
ing an  army  all  dressed  up  and  no  place  to  go. 

But  Germany  committed  the  ultimate  sin — she 
surrendered.  And  art  editorial  writer  of  the  New 
York  Tribune  honestly  confessed  that  never  again 
would  his  morning  coffee  have  quite  the  savor  it  had 
had  during  the  glorious  four  years  of  blood-letting. 
The  war  had  ended.  Everybody  knew  that.  It  was 
only  several  days  later  that  we  discovered  that  Ger- 
many had  not.  Some  80,000,000  of  Germans  were 
still  alive;  Berlin  and  Munich  were  still  on  the  map ; 
the  fact  of  Germany  as  a  nation  had  not  been  over- 
come by  the  signing  of  the  armistice.  This  was 
really  too  difficult  and  embarrassing!  But  if  Ger- 
many had  so  unkindly  robbed  us  of  the  opportunity 
of  punishing  her  by  force  of  arms,  we  still  could 
punish  her  in  the  peace  terms.  The  mood  of  the 
pre-armistice  days  inevitably  persisted  for  a  con- 
siderable period.  If  our  war  problem  had  been  to 
smash  everything  German,  our  peace  problem  was 
how  to  inflict  adequate  punishment  for  crimes  com- 
mitted. Our  newspapers  beguiled  themselves  with 
theories  as  to  what  was  to  be  done  to  Germany,  and 
busy  arm-chair  diplomatists  spent  hours  carving  up 
the  map  of  Europe.  Many  newspapers  started 
popular  series  like  "  How  Shall  the  Kaiser  Be  Pun- 
ished? "  and  telegrams  were  sent  all  over1  the  coun- 
try asking  the  advice  of  leading  citizens  on  this  grave 
question  of  world  policy.  The  severity  of  the  armis- 
tice conditions  somewhat  relieved  the  tension. 
There  was  practically  no  criticism  of  these  condi- 
tions, though  they  frankly  shocked  all  European 
neutrals,  who  invariably  compared  the  terms  to  the 
peace  of  Brest-Litovsk.  American  liberals  contented 
themselves  with  pointing  out  that  the  armistice 


130 


THE  DIAL 


terms  were  not  the  peace  terms.  The  newspapers 
as  a  whole  delightedly  approved.  Even  the  New 
York  World,  which  since  has  become  a  fairly  liberal 
paper,  wrote  on  November  12,  "Terms  less  severe 
would  not  have  met  the  situation  at  all."  This 
followed  the  very  sensible  observation  that  "  De- 
mocracy will  establish  no  enduring  peace  except  as 
it  shall  be  generous  and  just."  In  most  places, 
merely  ignorance  and  malice;  in  others,  good  inten- 
tions with  no  realistic  criticism  of  how  to  make 
those  intentions  effective.  Compare,  for  instance, 
the  World's  admonition  to  be  generous  with  an 
editorial  in  a  Danish  paper  of  the  same  day : 

After  the  capitulation  of  Paris  in  1871,  the  victors  were 
at  pains  immediately  !to  facilitate  transport  so  that  the 
famishing  population  might  be  provided  with  food.  But 
the  Allies  are  not  following  the  example  of  1871.  On 
the  contrary,  the  pressure  is  being  intensified  by  the  con- 
ditions formulated  in  the  armistice.  Not  only  is  the 
blockade  maintained,  but  {simultaneously  demands  are 
made  for  the  most  important  means  of  transport.  We 
venture  to  hope  that  Solf's  appeal,  which  describes  the 
fearful  gravity  of  the  situation  in  simple  and  dignified 
words,  will  create  an  impression  not  only  in  Washington 
but  also  in  London  and  Paris.  Germany  is  rendered  mili- 
tarily powerless  by  the  other  terms  of  the  armistice  in 
such  a  degree,  and  the  Allies'  victorious  position  is  so 
completely  insured  that  they  might  display  a  chivalrous 
magnanimity  to  an  enemy  in  distress. 

But  how  was'  this  condition  met  by  the  Ameri- 
can press?  With  the  skepticism  which  a  long  period 
of  war-time  emphasis  upon  the  duplicity  of  all  things 
German  had  rendered  both  unimaginative  and  un- 
discriminating.  The  New  York  Globe  said  suc- 
cinctly of  Solf's  appeal,  "  Same  Old  Germany." 
The  American  Women's  National  Committee  said 
of  the  pathetic  plea  of  the  National  Council  of  the 
Women  of  Germany  to  Mrs.  Wilson  and  to  Jane 
Addams,  "  It  seems  evident  that  this  is  just  another 
piece  of  German  trickery."  The  New  York  World 
headed  an  editorial  on  the  subject:  "  i)  Order;  2) 
Food;  3)  Peace."  This,  when  it  is  obviously  the 
sensible  thing  to  say  that  you  cannot  have  order 
without  food  and  peace  as  precedent  conditions. 
Mr.  Hoover  had  to  explain  how  reluctant  he  was 
to  give  food  to  Germany,  while  most  newspapers 
assumed  an  attitude  which  was  not  far  from  what 
might  be  summed  up  in  the  phrase,  "  Let  'em 
starve."  It  was  really  difficult  for  most  American 
editors  to  imagine  that  even  German  hunger  was 
anything  more  than  another  "  trap."  Begging  for 
food  must  be  either  whining  or  hypocrisy.  Many 
newspapers  received  glowing  accounts  from  their 
correspondents  in  the  occupied  regions  of  course 
luncheons,  with  real  meat  and  butter,  at  less  than 
Paris  prices.  Emphasis  was  laid  upon  the  extraor- 
dinary success  of  the  last  German  harvest.  Of 
course  editors 'do  not  take  the  trouble  to  read  much 
pf  the  news,  but  considering  the  gravity  of  the 


situation  it  really  would  seem  that  they  might  have 
informed  themselves  from  undisputed  official  docu- 
ments of  the  frightful  malnutrition  in  many  parts 
of  Germany  and  of  the  shocking  statistics  of  in- 
crease in  the  rate  of  infant  mortality  and  suscep- 
tibility to  infectious  diseases,  especially  tuberculosis. 
And  their  skepticism  came  with  special  bad  grace 
from  editors  who  every  other  week  during  the 
course  of  the  war  took  pains  to  write  an  article 
showing  Germany  on  the  verge  of  collapse  through 
starvation.  In  a  word,  they  were  more  preoccupied 
with  morale  than  with  facts.  If  Germany  appeared 
for  a  few  months  to  have  the  military  upper  hand, 
then  morale  was  strengthened  by  pointing  out  that 
nobody  need  be  worried  because  she  really  couldn't 
go  on  another  month.  If  Germany  became  in  a 
military  sense  helpless,  then  the  morale  necessary  for 
the  imposition  of  harsh  terms  was  strengthened  by 
proving  that  she  was  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and 
honey,  and  that  therefore  there  was  no  need  for 
going  easy  with  her. 

In  the  case  of  the  food  question  this  technique 
after  a  few  weeks  lost  its  effectiveness.  For  the 
shadow  of  Bolshevism  hovered  over  Germany,  and 
the  increasing  tendency  of  the  revolution  towards 
the  Left  could  only  be  explained  by  famine.  This 
gradually  became  the  popular  view.  But  here  again 
the  pre-armistice  dogmas  which  editors  of  news- 
papers had  done  so  much  to  promulgate  persisted 
to  embarrass  them.  Until  the  recent  elections  in 
Germany,  most  newspaper  editors  were  torn  between 
their  desire  to  support  the  Ebert  Government  as 
the  one  protection  against  the  Spartacides  and  their 
desire  to  prove  that  the  members  of  the  Ebert  Gov- 
ernment were  really  all  "  the  same  old  gang  "  and 
no  more  to  be  trusted  than  the  Hohenzolierns.  For 
the  myth  that  whatever  any  German  did  must  have 
behind  it  some  evil  ulterior  motive  had  been  so 
drilled  into  American  public  opinion  that  it  was 
difficult  to  find  any  reason  for  sanctioning  anybody 
in  Berlin.  There  is  such  a  thing  as  damning  too 
indiscriminately.  Gradually,  however,  the  mere 
force  of  events  made  the  editorial  writers  abandon 
the  technique  of  juggling  with  the  food  question 
and  haltingly  admit  that  perhaps  the  Ebert  Govern- 
ment might  be  strengthened  by  allowing  it  to  pur- 
chase food.  This,  it  was  stated,  was  necessary  to 
protect  the  German  people  from  the  dangerous  in- 
fluence of  the  fanatic  Liebknecht  (the  hero  of  the 
war,  when  he  served  the  Allies'  purpose),  by  whom 
they  were  being  exploited.  This  ironic  vacillation 
was  continued  until,  for  a  few  brief  days  in  Jan- 
uary, it  appeared  that  the  Spartacan  revolt  might 
be  successful.  Then  opinion  became  frank  and 
open.  "  Unless,"  wrote  the  New  York  Globe  on 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


January  9,  "  the  forces  of  order  and  democracy  in 
Germany  are  able  to  re-establish  control  there  is  no 
option  but  to  send  forward  liberating  troops."  The 
New  York  Evening  Sun  of  earlier  date  had  calmly 
stated,  "  There  may  remain  no  choice  to  the  Allies 
save  to  pacify  the  country  and  turn  it  over  to  a 
sobered  and  stable  popular  government  inspired 
by  the  judgment  of  the  citizens,  not  by  the  pas- 
sions of  the  mob."  Many  newspapers  advocated 
the  occupation  of  all  large  German  cities  —  a 
bayonet  in  one  hand  and  a  loaf  of  bread  in  an- 
other, as  one  newspaper  explained  the  method  of 
bringing  real  democracy  to  Germany.  The  recent 
exhibition  of  impatience  at  the  slowness  of  de- 
mobilization by  the  men  of  all  armies  has  some- 
what modified  the  editorial  popularity  of  this 
view;  it  is  now  hoped  that  by  economic  concessions 
of  one  sort  and  another  the  German  revolution  can 
be  guided  into  the  safe  channels  of  imitation  of 
Western  democracies.  How,  it  is  now  asked,  can 
Germany  pay  indemnities  unless  she  is  in  position 
to  work  off  her  debt?  To  make  Germany  strong 
enough  to  pay  and  weak  enough  not  to  be  a  menace 
— that  is  the  paradox  which  our  editors  are  now 
trying  to  resolve  after  many  weeks  of  attempting 
to  get  both  contradictory  things  at  the  same  time. 
How  are  these  aims  to  be  accomplished? 

Here  we  touch  upon  the  whole  subject  of  the 
League  of  Nations.  Public  opinion  is  being  grad- 
ually swung  around  into  warm  favor  of  it.  To  be 
sure,  some  reactionary  and  incurably  nationalistic 
papers  like  the  Chicago  Tribune  do  not  want  a 
League  of  Nations  any  more  than  they  want  Presi- 
dent Wilson's  fourteen  points  to  become  effective. 
On  January  17  the  Tribune  wrote:  "  The  fourteen 
points  were  good  fighting  points,  taking  it  by  and 
large;  but  are  they  good  peace  points?  Probably 
not.  The  first  one  wasn't,  as  we  have  seen. 
Thirteen  remain.  It's  an  unlucky  number."  And 
the  next  day  the  same  paper  referred  flippantly  to 
the  thirty-eight  or  more  different  kinds  of  Leagues 
of  Nations  under  consideration  at  Paris.  But  jin- 
goism of  this  type  is  exceptional  for,  after  all,  most 
of  the  heated  criticism  of  the  league  idea  in  the 
Senate  is  of  the  partisan  kind.  Even  the  New  York 
Times,  which  no  one  would  accuse  of  radicalism, 
mildly  reproved  Marshal  Foch  for  his  statement 
that  the  Rhine  was  the  "  natural  "  defense  of  France, 
pointing  out  the  best  defense  of  France  lay  in  the 
international  guarantees  of  economic  boycott  and 
the  like  implicit  in  any  effective  League  of  Nations. 
All  liberal  papers  and  those  with  even  a  slight  liberal 
bias  quite  warmly  approve  the  idea:  only  the  ex- 
tremists at  both  ends  are  disgruntled.  But  criticism 
of  what  a  League  of  Nations  should  be  like  or  how 


it  should  function,  or  realistic  considerations  of  the 
difficulties  that  stand  in  the  way,  are  appallingly 
infrequent.  For  here  we  touch,  I  think,  one  of  the 
fundamental  defects  of  American  newspaper  edi- 
torial writing — namely,  an  almost  perverse  un- 
willingness or  inability  (or  both)  to  face  the  facts. 
Not  to  envisage  any  other  kind  of  league  except 
that  which  includes  only  nations  like  ourself  is  an 
understandable  intellectual  astigmatism.  That  only 
"  stable  "  democratic  governments  of  our  type,  based 
upon  the  principle  that  "  the  will  of  the  people  " 
must  be  expressed  by  local  self-government  instead 
of  free  association  by  economic  union,  are  to  come 
in  is  merely  conventional  lack  of  imagination.  But 
let  me  cite  three  examples  from  the  New  York 
Globe,  typical  of  many  others  in  different  journals, 
of  downright  stupidity. 

In  an  attempt  to  exonerate  Italy  from  any  im- 
perialistic ambitions  the  Globe,  in  an  editorial  dated 
January  7,  1919,  states  inter  alia:  "  Italy  has  been 
industriously  misrepresented  by  those  who  are  seek- 
ing to  serve  Teutonism  and  Bolshevism,  those  twin 
evils  of  the  world."  But  the  Globe's  own  corre- 
spondent in  Paris,  Mr.  John  F.  Bass,  in  a  dispatch 
printed  on  the  first  page  of  the  Globe  on  November 
23,  wrote,  "At  the  present  moment  the  action  of 
one  of  the  powers  of  the  entente  [Italy]  is  threaten- 
ing the  possible  peace  of  Europe."  The  dispatch 
went  on  to  accuse  Italy  of  doing  a  very  serious 
thing — breaking  the  terms  of  the  armistice  she  had 
solemnly  signed  with  Austria.  And  on  December 
1 6,  1918,  another  dispatch  from  the  same  corre- 
spondent spoke  of  the  disruptive  effects  of  the  secret 
treaties,  with  especial  emphasis  on  Italian  unjust 
claims.  Will  the  editor  of  the  Globe  say  that  his 
own  correspondent  is  seeking  to  serve  Teutonism 
and  Bolshevism?  Or  can  it-be  that  he  does  not  read 
his  own  newspaper?  Or  that  if  he  does,  he  does 
not  understand  what  words  mean?  Another  ex- 
ample: on  December  19  the  Globe  had  an  editorial 
discussing  the  Brest-Litovsk  treaty  in  which  oc- 
curred this  sentence :  "  The  world  absolves  Rou- 
mania,  for  she  was  flat  on  her  back,  but  Russia  was 
not  similarly  hopeless."  This  is  such  a  plain  mis- 
statement  of  proved  fact  (admitted  even  by  those 
who  detest  the  Bolsheviki)  that  one  can  only  won- 
der how  far  ignorance  can  carry  prejudice.  A  final 
example:  in  an  editorial  on  January  2,  1919,  the 
Globe  tried  to  prove  that  Clemenceau  did  not  urge 
a  "balance  of  power"  in  the  old  sense.  No;  he 
urged  a  "  preponderance  of  power."  "  Balance 
means  a  poise.  Clemenceau  through  a  coalition 
would  have  no  poise,  but  overwhelming  weight  with 
the  democratic  nations."  Who  could  define  this 
as  intellectual  honesty? 


132 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


Yet  distortion  of  the  facts  or  ignorance  of  them 
is  not  confined  to  the  editorial  pages.  It  extends 
to  the  news  columns  and  even  to  the  headlines, 
where  the  caption  is  often  at  variance  with  the  sub- 
sequent text.  The  news  from  Russia  furnishes 
plenty  of  examples.  The  New  York  Times,  for 
instance,  solemnly  reprinted  Tchicherin's  note  to 
President  Wilson — as  a  document  secretly  circulated 
about  the  city — weeks  after  it  had  appeared  in  the 
December  Liberator,  where  anyone  could  have  read 
it  for  himself.  So  skeptical  has  the  average  reader 
now  become  that  even  accredited  dispatches  are  dis- 
trusted, the  popular  attitude  being,  "  Better  wait  a 
few  days;  they'll  be  contradicting  it  a  week  from 
now."  That  mysterious  creature,  the  man  in  the 
street,  is  tired  of  trying  to  determine  how  the  Soviet 
Government  is  collapsing  on  one  day  and  is  a  world 
menace  the  next;  of  reading  on  the  first  page  of  the 
New  York  Times  an  Associated  Press  dispatch  inti- 
mating clearly  that  one  of  the  reasons  the  Allies  and 
ourselves  had  decided  to  invite  the  Soviet  officials  to 
a  meeting  was  because  their  strength  was  too  formid- 
able to  be  ignored,  and  then  of  reading  on  the  edi- 
torial page  of  the  same  paper  that  the  real  reason 
they  had  been  invited  was  because  the  Soviet  Gov- 
ernment was  going  out  of  existance  rapidly ;  of  being 
told  that  Admiral  Kolchak  and  Generals  Somanoff 
and  Horwarth  are  representatives  of  democracy;  of 
learning  that  Lenin  has  been  arrested  in  Moscow 
and  has  landed  in  Spain  on  the  same  day. 

It  is  held,  however,  that  recently  there  has 
been  a  reaction  in  the  newspaper  world  towards 
fairness  and  liberalism.  There  is  a  certain  amount 
of  justice  in  the  claim.  Many  newspapers  have 
taken  up  the  cudgels  for  a  square  deal  for  Russia 
and  for  uncensored  news  from  that  country.  Papers 
like  the  Springfield  Republican  and  the  New  York 
World  have  somewhat  timidly  backed  Wilson  in 
his  liberal  policies.  Inevitably,  as  the  pressure  of 
hard  facts  increases  and  we  emerge  from  the  cloud 
of  war  rhetoric  into  the  sharper  realities  of  inter- 
national trade  competition,  problems  of  demobiliza- 
tion, and  labor  unrest,  many  of  our  newspapers  will 
return  to  something  like  common  sense.  But  the 
evidence  is  all  against  our  Coming  out  of  the  war 
with  anything  like  an  enlightened  or  forceful  liberal 
opinion  in  our  newspapers.  The  effect  of  the  Es- 
pionage Act  has  been  psychologically  disastrous — it 
has  caused  any  real  differences  of  opinion  to  disap- 
pear and  has  made  political  discussion  in  a  popular 
sense  jejune  and  tepid.  Where  liberal  opinion  exists 
it  is  spasmodic,  half-hearted,  and  at  cross-purposes. 

We  have  nothing  in  this  country  to  compare  with 
the  two  English  liberal  newspapers,  the  Manchester 
Guardian  and  the  London  Daily  News.  When  the 


most  momentous  decisions  of  history  are  being  made, 
we  are  left  without  any  liberal  newspaper  guidance. 
The  record  of  American  newspaper  opinion  since 
the  armistice  raises  again  the  disturbing  question  of 
what  is  the  function  of  the  press  in  a  democracy. 
Where  local  affairs  of  immediate  interest  are  con- 
cerned the  press  is  subject  to  a  constant  corrective. 
People  find  out  the  facts  for  themselves  and  cannot 
be  long  imposed  upon.  But  in  foreign  affairs  where 
ignorance  and  apathy  are  the  rule  for  the  great  mass 
of  people,  the  power  of  the  press  is  practically  om- 
nipotent. It  is  almost  as  great  as  that  of  the  Church 
in  the  old  days  and  certainly  greater  than  the  power, 
of  the  State  itself  today — indeed,  the  governing 
power  of  the  State  is  the  creature  of  that  mightier 
power  of  publicity.  Nor  does  this  power  of  publicity 
reside  chiefly  or  even  to  a  small  degree  in  the  edi- 
torial "  guidance "  given  its  readers  by  the  daily 
press;  it  lies  rather  in  the  direction  and  color  given 
to  opinions  by  its  entire  treatment  of  the  news,  by 
what  it  leaves  out  as  fully  as  what  it  prints.  The 
question  of  the  relation  of  the  press  to  govern- 
mental propaganda  in  time  of  war — especially  in  a 
democracy — has  been  raised  sharply  for  America  in 
the  last  fourteen  months.  In  a  country  as  large  as 
our  own  a  rumor  can  be  started  and  never  caught  up 
with  by  the  belated  denials.  Most  of  our  larger 
cities  west  of  the  Alleghenies  have  but  one  or 
two  morning  newspapers  compared  with  the  many 
party  organs  of  a  simpler  and  less  highly  cen- 
tralized day.  The  independent  local  editor  has 
been  replaced  by  a  small  business  man  who  makes 
use  of  syndicated  material  and  "  boiler-plate  "  edi- 
torials and  cartoons  prepared  at  some  central  office. 
The  great  news-gathering  agencies,  without  which 
any  newspaper  is  merely  a  local  or  trade  affair,  can 
be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand  and  are  sub- 
ject to  internal  limitations.  The  power  of  censor- 
ship over  news  and  the  readiness  of  the  public  to 
swallow  all  sorts  of  lies  about  foreign  affairs  have 
revealed  a  weapon  which  is  too  good  for  the  finan- 
cial and  interested  parties  to  miss.  In  England 
careful  observers  declare  that  the  Government  itself 
is  but  the  whim  of  the  "  stunt  "  press.  In  America 
that  result  seems  more  remote,  although  after  our 
recent  experience  with  our  newspapers  it  must  be 
reckoned  a  danger.  A  little  more  accentuation  of 
the  present  tendency  towards  consolidation,  and  the 
press  can  easily  dictate  the  kinds  of  national  cam- 
paigns which  must  succeed.  That  this  is  a  mockery 
of  what  we  mean  by  democracy  goes  without  saying. 
Without  free  opinion  and  free  expression  of  that 
opinion,  without  a  minority  opposition  which  com- 
mands respect,  so-called  self-government  is  a  failure. 

HAROLD  STEARNS. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


The  Laughter  of  Detachment 


kN  OBJECT  of  humor  must  be  both  of  us  and  apart 
from  us.  A  meteor,  for  instance,  is  too  remote  from 
our  life  to  be  a  matter  of  jest;  on  the  other  hand, 
our  mother  is  too  near  to  us.  But  a  mud  pie  or  a 
mother-in-law  combine  the  alien  and  familiar  in  the 
piquant  proportions  to  be  traditionally  humorous.  I 
dislike  lugging  in  serious  philosophers  to  testify  in 
so  pleasant  a  matter  as  humor,  but  I  suppose  I  owe 
it  to  Bergson  to  say  that  he  explains  that  human 
things  are  laughable  in  exact  proportion  as  they  are 
machinelike,  that  is,  alien.  This  recipe  for  humor 
is  obviously  easier  to  understand  than  to  carry  out, 
for  a  multitude  of  conditions  and  forces  conspire  to 
prevent  us  from  withdrawing  sufficiently  from  life 
to  afford  us  even  a  wan  smile.  Of  course,  it  is  easy 
in  our  human  relations  to  laugh  at  a  stranger.  Our 
primitive  blood-lust  takes  care  of  that;  indeed  it  is 
difficult  to  refrain.  It  is  likewise  easy  to  become 
amused  at  alien  peoples,  providing  their  civilization 
is  sufficiently  below  or  above  our  own  to  afford  little 
in  common.  We  smirk  at  the  Hindu,  and  the 
Eskimo  undoubtedly  smirks  back  at  us.  This  sort 
of  fun-making  at  the  foreigner,  which  concentrates 
on  his  unfamiliar  habits  and  relies  on  the  minimum 
of  similarity  running  through  all  mankind  to  keep 
the  raillery  at  a  smiling  point,  is  only  one  step  above 
plain  belligerency.  One  word  too  much  and  the 
,  smile  is  a  snarl.  There  is  that  famous  occasion 
when  Mark  Twain  directed  Paul  Bourget's  atten- 
tion to  the  efforts  Americans  make  to  find  out  who 
their  grandfathers  were,  and  Frenchmen  their 
fathers.  Bourget  got  all  heated  up  over  it. 

We  can  also  laugh  with  considerable  ease  at  the 
things  at  home  which  we  dislike,  for  our  antagon- 
ism, if  not  too  intense,  furnishes  the  necessary  alien- 
ation. In  fact  our  laughter,  in  this  case,  indicates 
our  hatred  and  our  impotence  to  remove  the  object 
of  it  through  direct  action.  This  is  often  the  ter- 
rible laughter  of  Swift  and  Juvenal.  Thoughtful 
men  admire  the  courage  and  judgment  required  to 
condemn  an  age;  perhaps  they  regret  the  weakness 
this  laughter  betrays.  Often,  indeed,  their  hatred 
pushes  its  theme  so  far  from  their  sympathies  that 
the  note  of  pure  belligerency  hardly  fails  to  domi- 
nate; and  we  write  them  down  for  satirists.  Their 
phrases  are  a  jester's  bauble  to  begin  with,  and  in 
the  end  a  naked  sword.  The  satirist  occasionally 
fools  us  in  our  bent  toward  mocking  strangers  by 
throwing  a  mask  of  unfamiliarity  over  contemporary 


life.  So  Gulliver  goes  traveling  in  foreign  climes, 
and  Montesquieu  writes  letters  from  Persia.  How- 
ever, the  satirist  is  never  fully  honest;  he  always 
makes  a  partial  reservation  in  favor  of  himself.  He 
can  laugh  a  world  to  scorn,  but  he  somehow  leaves 
the  impression  that  he  fortunately  doesn't  belong  to 
that  world.  The  rub  comes  when  we  attempt  a 
withdrawal  from  our  own  life  and  our  own  interests. 
In  addition  to  the  pressure  of  the  age,  the  trampling 
forces  of  the  herd,  entrenched  conventions  and  tra- 
ditions, barrage  fires  of  invested  privilege,  we  meet 
the  supreme  enemy  in  our  own  ego.  There  is*  a , 
dignity  in  mocking  the  universe — Satan  found  it. 
There  is  exaltation  in  a  magnificent  and  inclusive 
opposition;  we  equate  the  cosmos  with  ourself  by 
the  apposition.  But  to  expose  our  own  little  person 
to  the  pitiless  bolts  of  humor  demands  a  rare  soul. 
Yet  only  through  this  exposure  of  self  does  the 
humor  we  cast  upon  the  rest  of  the  world  become 
noble  and  regenerative.  There  is  necessary  the 
courage  of  heroes  and  the  humility  of  saints — and 
something  more,  for  heroes  and  saints  are  not  notori- 
ously humorous.  Even  in  their  sacrifices  lingers  a 
residue  of  reserve,  a  prejudice  for  their  own  cause. 

I  can  perhaps  make  clear  the  extraordinary  de- 
tachment of  the  humorist  by  saying  that  he  attains 
a  cosmic  point  of  view.  From  the  promontory  of  a 
fixed  star  he  observes  our  world  and  his  own  ridicu- 
lously obscure  place  in  the  poor  stream  of  humanity, 
while  the  bond  of  sjanpathy  necessary  for  humorous 
expression  becomes  as  tenuous  as  ether  and  yet  as 
universal  as  space.  In  these  moments  the  humorist 
shares  with  the  philosopher  that  primary  wonder 
which  is  the  mother  of  speculation.  This  philosophic 
wonder,  as  Schopenhauer  phrases  it,  "  becomes  a  sad 
astonishment,  and,  like  the  overture  to  Don  Giovanni, 
philosophy,"  together  with  cosmic  humor,  "  begins 
with  a  minor  chord."  Adversity  and  disillusionment 
are  the  classic  guides  to  this  lone  observatory  where 
the  real  wonderland  is  situate,  and  'it  is  their  com- 
panionship which  gives  our  great  humorists  an  un- 
relinquishable  sadness,  and  which  seasons  their 
laughter  with  the  salt  of  tears. 

This  cosmic  watchtower  is  never  far  away ;  at  any 
moment  one  may  stumble  upon  it.  Okakura  Kakuza 
assures  us  it  can  be  reached  in  the  cult  of  Tea  which 
"  is  the  noble  secret  of  laughing  at  yourself,  calmly 
yet  thoroughly,  and  is  thus  humor  itself — the  smile 
of  philosophy."  There  you  can  "  dream  of  evanes- 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


ence  and  linger  in  the  beautiful  foolishness  of  things." 
There  is  no  reason  for  presuming  that  Mark  Twain 
frequented  this  ghostly  station  on  the  peak  of  the 
universe  more  often  than  any  other  humoristic  specu- 
lator— indeed,  I  have  a  suspicion  Rabelais  built  him- 
self an  inn  on  the  very  crest,  near  the  spot  where 
Aristophanes  used  to  shy  pebbles  at  Olympus — but 
no  other  has  left  us  such  wealth  of  biographic  detail 
in  the  way  of  reminiscence,  chronicles,  and  letters 
to  indicate  these  excursions  in  disillusionment.  His 
Letters,  arranged  by  Albert  Bigelow  Paine  (2  vols., 
Harper;  $4),  particularly  reveal  him  in  his  freest 
speculative  mood,  and  because  this  mood  is  the 
Parnassus  of  his  merry  brotherhood,  the  present  two 
'  volumes  hold  an  assured  place  on  the  uncertain 
border  between  literature  and  philosophy.  Again, 
Mark  Twain  was  happy  in  the  possession  of  friends 
who  invited  freedom  of  expression:  Howells,  who 
is  an  old  lounger-about  at  that  cosmic  rendezvous; 
"  Joe  "  Twitchell,  no  slouch  himself  at  mountain- 
eering in  those  laughter-swept  heights;  and  a  host 
of  free  men  whom  Twain  met  during  seventy-five 
years  of  pilgrimaging  in  a  world  of  Innocents. 

I  began  to  reread  the  letters  for  quotation  at  this 
point,  but,  when  I  had  earmarked  forty  in  less  than 
as  many  minutes,  I  saw  that  the  best  thing  to  do  was 
to  tell  anyone  interested  to  go  through  the  two 
volumes  himself.  He  will  learn  what  Howells 
meant  by  the  "  bottom  of  fury  "  existing  in  Mark's 
fun — and  what  I  mean  exists  in  all  great  fun — when 
he  reads,  as  Howells  once  did: 

I  have  been  reading  the  morning  paper.  I  do  it  every 
morning — well  knowing  that  I  shall  find  in  it  the  usual 
depravities  and  basenesses  and  hypocrisies  and  cruelties 
that  make  up  civilization,  and  cause  me  to  put  in  the 
rest  of  the  day  pleading  for  the  damnation  of  the  hum^n 
race.  I  cannot  seem  to  get  my  prayers  answered,  yet  I 
do  not  despair. 

As  an  example  of  this  sort  of  civilization,  the  Boer 
War  was  of  course  "  nuts  "  for  the  author  of  Tom 
Sawyer.  We  need  his  lightnings  today. 

Privately  speaking,  this  is  a  sordid  and  criminal  war, 
and  in  every  way  shameful  and  excuseless.  Every  day 
I  write  (in  my  head)  bitter  magazine  articles  about  it, 
but  I  have  to  stop  with  that.  For  England  must  not  fall ; 
it  would  mean  an  inundation  of  Russian  and  German 
political  degradations  which  would  envelop  the  globe. 
.  .  .  .  Even  wrong — and  she  is  wrong — England  must 
be  upheld.  Why  <was  the  human  race  created  ?  Or  at 
least  why  wasn't  something  creditable  created  in  place 
of  it?  God  had  his  opportunity.  He  could  have  made 
a  reputation.  But  no,  He  must  commit  this  grotesque 
folly — a  lark  which  must  have  cost  him  a  regret  or  two 
when  He  came  to  think  it  over  and  observe  effects.  .  .  . 

It  was  my  intention  to  make  some  disparaging  remarks 
about  the  human  race ;  and  so  I  kept  this  letter  open  for 
that  purpose  .  .  .but  I  can  do  better — for  I  can  snip 
out  of  the  Times  various  samples  and  side-lights  which 


bring  the  race  down  to  date,  and  expose  it  as  of  yester- 
day. If  you  will  notice,  there  is  seldom  a  telegram  in 
a  paper  which  fails  to  show  up  one  or  more  members 
and  beneficiaries  of  our  Civilization  as  promenading  in 
his  shirt-tail,  with  the  rest  of  his  regalia  in  the  wash. 

I  love  to  see  the  holy  ones  air  their  smug  pieties  and 
admire  them  and  smirk  over  them,  and  at  the  same  mo- 
ment frankly  and  publicly  show  their  contempt  for  the 
pieties  of  the  Boer — confidently  expecting  the  approval 
of  the  country  and  the  pulpit,  and  getting  it. 

I  notice  that  God  is  on  both  sides  in  this  war;  thus 
history  repeats  itself.  But  I  am  the  only  person  who  has 
noticed  this;  everybody  here  thinks  He  is  playing  the 
game  for  this  side,  and  for  this  side  only. 

This  could  be  the  scolding  of  a  satirist  if  there 
were  not  behind  it  the  cosmic  view  that  lumped 
mankind  with — himself: 

Am  I  finding  fault  with  you  and  the  rest  of  the  popu- 
lace1? No — I  assure  you  I  am  not.  For  I  know  the 
human  race's  limitations,  and  this  makes  it  my  pleasant 
duty  to  be  fair  to  it.  Each  person  in  it  is  honest  in  one 
or  several  ways,  but  no  member  of  it  is  honest  in  all  the 
ways  required  by — by  what?  By  his  own  standard. 
Outside  of  that,  as  I  look  at  it,  there. is  no  obligation 
upon  him. 

Am  I  honest?  I  give  you  my  word  of  honor  (private) 
I  am  not.  .  .  .  Yes,  even  I  am  dishonest.  Not  in 
many  ways,  but  in  some.  Forty-one,  I  think  it  is.  We 
are  certainly  all  honest  in  one  or  several  ways — every 
man  in  the  world — though  I  have  reason  to  think  I  am 
the  only  one  whose  black-list  runs  so  light.  Sometimes  I 
feel  lonely  enough  in  this  lofty  solitude. 

To  command  these  impersonal  vistas  requires  a 
certain  innocence  of  heart  that  we  associate  with 
adolescence,  when  the  world  first  reveals  itself  to 
the  heart  of  the  child.  Mrs.  Clemens  always  called 
her  husband  "  Youth."  Time  and  again  he  saw 
himself  as  though  for  the  first  time — with  gaping, 
chuckling  wonder.  And  simultaneously  he  would 
boast  and  mock.  He  once  concluded  a  ten  paragraph 
sketch  of  his  life  with  the  gay  confession,  "  I  have 
been  an  author  for  twenty  years  and  an  ass  for 
fifty-five."  This  is  no  more  the  disillusionment  of 
age  than  the  following,  written  in  the  flush  of 
twenty-eight,  is  the  callow  cynicism  of  youth :  "  If  I 
were  not  naturally  a  lazy  idle  good-for-nothing  vaga- 
bond, I  could  make  it  [journalism]  pay  me  $20,000 
a  year.  But  I  don't  suppose  I  shall  ever  be  any 
account.  I  lead  an  easy  life,  though  .  .  .  and  I 
am  proud  to  say  I -am  the  most  conceited  ass  in  the 
Territory."  Both  are  quick  and  keen  glances  at 
himself  from  the  top  of  the  universe. 

The  final  detachment  comes  when  we  separate 
ourself  not  only  from  mankind  and  from  our  own 
person  but  from  the  tyranny  of  time.  This  measures 
the  height  of  our  withdrawal  as  plainly  as  the  snow 
line  on  a  mountain.  Our  detachment  from  time, 
however,  is  never  complete ;  here  our  sympathies  are 
hardest  to  subdue,  and  often  the  mere  consciousness 
of  the  tragedy  of  years  is  as  near  as  we  can  come 
to  freedom  from  it.  Under  the  date  of  January  22, 
1898,  Twain  writes: 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


Dear  Howells:  Look  at  these  ghastly  figures.  I  used 
to  write  it  "Hartford,  1871"  .  .  .  and  how  much 
lies  between  .  .  .  you  speak  of  the  glorious  days  of 
that  old  time — and  they  were.  Ifs  my  quarrel — that 
traps  like  these  are  set. 

Perhaps  the  gist  of  the  humor,  pathos,  and  pene- 
trating vision  of  cosmic  detachment  are  concentrated 
in  the  lines  he  once  wrote  "  Joe  "  Twitchell: 

Well,  we  are  all  getting  along  here  first-rate;  Livy 
gains  strength  daily,  and  sits  up  a  deal ;  the  baby  is  five 
weeks  old  and — but  no  more 'of  this;  somebody  may  be 


reading  this  letter  80  years  hence.  And  so,  my  friend 
(you  pitying  snob,  I  mean,  who  are  holding  this  yellow 
paper  in  your  hand  in  1960)  save  yourself  the  trouble 
of  looking  further ;  I  know  how  pathetically  trivial  our 
small  concerns  will  seem  to  you,  and  I  will  not  let  your 
eye  profane  them.  No,  I  keep  my  news ;  you  keep  your 
compassion.  Suffice  it  you  to  know,  scoffer  and  ribald, 
that  the  little  child  is  old  and  blind,  now,  and  once  more 
toothless;  and  the  rest  of  us  are  shadows,  these  many, 
many  years.  Yes,  and  your  time  cometh ! 

I    suppose,    Boswell,    you    recognize    Johnson's 
laughter.  MARVIN  M.  LOWENTHAL. 


Remaking  the  Past 


HAVE  BEEN  taught  that  the  past  is  gone  be- 
yond recall  and  that  the  future  is  ours  to  command. 
But  this  is  one  of  the  bundle  of  untruths  that  con- 
stitutes the  moral  instruction  of  youth.  We  have 
learned,  all  too  painfully,  that  nerve  cell,  environ- 
ment, and  the  cumulative  sweep  of  change  are  mak- 
ing a  rigid  future  which  we  can  neither  determine 
nor  anticipate;  that  "  what  is  to  be  will  be."  It  is 
the  past  which  is  ours.  Memory  is  short  and  un- 
certain, records  are  voluminous  and  fragmentary, 
and  we  can  make  of  what  is  gone  very  much  what 
we  like. 

Evidently  it  will  not  do  for  each  one  of  us  to 
create  for  himself  our  national  past.  So  very  re- 
luctantly we  entrust  that  work  to  the  historians. 
They  still  talk  as  if  the  past  were  the  result  of  the 
skill  and  cunning  of  Franklin,  Lincoln,  Hanna,  and 
James  J.  Hill,  and  without  doubt  such  "  historical  " 
persons  had  something  to  do  with  it.  But  the  past 
which  lives  in  our  minds  and  animates  our  conduct 
is  much  more  the  result  of  the  craft  of  Fiske,  Osgood, 
Rhodes,  and  Becker,  and  even  more  the  compiler  of 
the  school  history.  If  the  historians  give  us  the 
truth,  we  accept  the  labors  of  their  minds  and 
thumbs.  If  they  give  us  a  story  we  do  not  like,  or 
can  not  understand,  or  one  that  is  untrue,  others 
can  be  found  who  will  say  truthful  and  acceptable 
things.  Of  course  there  is  a  minimum  of  issue,  in- 
cident, character,  and  event,  which  the  most  obliging 
maker  of  the  past  cannot  avoid.  But  this  gives  zest 
to  his  game  rather  than  restricts  his  art.  Within  the 
limits  the  stores  are  ample  and  varied  enough  for 
the  purpose.  An  issue  can  be  variously  formulated  ; 
the  meaning  of  an  incident  can  not  be  exhausted; 
the  fulness  of  personality  cannot  be  absorbed  by  a 
pen-picture;  and  the  actuality  of  an  event  ramifies 
unto  the  ends  of  the  earth.  The  historian  must  not 
be  denied  his  right  to  select,  to  infer,  to  assemble, 
to  interpret.  He  must  be  allowed  to  satisfy  his 
sense  of  proportion,  of  unity,  of  relation.  He  is 
obliged  to  write  in  terms  that  his  readers  can  under- 


stand. Thus  there  is  no  sense  of  artifice  in  his  ef- 
forts. Unconsciously  he  mistakes  creation  for  ex- 
position and  knows  not  himself  as  the  maker  of  the 
past. 

Of  the  process  of  supplying  the  nation  with  a 
comfortable  past  there  can  be  no  end.  The  creations 
of  an  earlier  period  have  been  replaced  by  the 
"  scientific  "  histories  of  yesterday.  The  past  which 
they  have  made  for  us  is  on  the  whole  quite  satisfy- 
ing to  the  great  democracy.  The.  shorter  works, 
which  are  read,  tell  how  consciously  the  men  of  old 
labored  together  in  order  that  just  such  a  society 
as  we  have  now  might  exist.  The  larger  ones,  which 
are  not,  in  their  many  volumes  present  mute  testi- 
mony to  the  stupendous  greatness  of  our  past.  But 
a  small  class  of  intellectuals,  not  at  all  representative 
of  the  healthy-minded  nation,  and  rather  fussy  about 
things  which  they  call  "  truth  "  and  "  reality,"  dis- 
like this.  They  demand  a  past  created  in  the  intel- 
lectual likeness  of  themselves.  They  insist  that 
histories  glorify  rather  than  narrate ;  that  they  select 
their  materials  by  canons  of  social  respectability; 
that  they  neglect  matters  of  significance  of  which 
only  inferential  evidence  lies  in  the  documents;  that 
they  try  to  picture  the  whole  by  getting  together  a 
mass  of  unrelated  details;  and  that  the  artificial 
characters  which  run  across  their  pages  are  animated 
by  motives  which  are  a  combination  of  the  spirit  of 
Regulus  and  Paul's  advice  to  the  Corinthians.  They 
insist  that  those  who  profess  to  be  writing  history 
based  upon  "  the  facts "  and  "  free  from  any 
philosophical  bias  whatever  "  are  merely  deluding 
themselves  into  doing  uncritical  work.  They  insist 
that  there  can  be  no  "  scientific  "  history  without 
cognizance  of  what  the  humanistic  sciences  have  to 
teach  of  human  motives  and  conduct.  They  demand 
a  history  conscious  of  its  problems,  and  one  whose 
assumptions  square  with  the  latest  conclusions  of 
psychology,  economics,  and  sociology.  They  demand 
a  past  that  is  true  and  intelligible  to  people  who 
babble  about  "  economic  determinism,"  "  pragma- 


136 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


tisra,"  "human  behavior,"  and  "social  guidance." 
To  one  anxious  to  see  what  stuff  our  latest  past  is 
being  made  of  and  how  the  materials  are  put  to- 
gether The  Eve  of  the  Revolution:  a  chronicle  of 
the  Breach  with  England,  by  Carl  Becker  (Chron- 
icles of  America  Series — Yale  University.  Press; 
$3.50)  is  to  be  commended.  Its  appeal  is  alike  in 
theme  and  authorship.  Few  episodes  can  vie  with 
the  breach  with  England  in  tempting  the  latter- 
day  historian.  It  is  a  convenient  thread  whereon  to 
hang  a  theory  that  attempts  to  fathom  the  mystery 
of  human  conduct.  It  offers  a  practical  test  of  the 
influence  of  the  economic  motive  in  history.  It 
gives  a  chance  to  see  Americans  of  another  age  else- 
where than  on  dress  parade.  It  shows  something  of 
the  way  in  which  incidents  somehow  get  tied  to- 
gether into  what  later  is  mistaken  for  a  historical 
sequence.  The  name  of  the  author  is  equally  invit- 
ing. It  is  guarantee  of  a  sprightly  style,  happy 
phrasing,  and  a  disproof  of  Thoreau's  dictum,  "  The 
sun  never  shines  in  history."  Even  better,  no  his- 
torian of  the  present  day  knows  more  clearly  what 
he  is  about,  is  more  sensitive  to  the  nature  of  his 
materials,  or  is  more  artful  in  their  use.  The  book 
is  a  type  of  a  new  class  of  historical  works  which 
bids  fair  to  become  increasingly  numerous  and 
popular. 

In  form  the  book  is  a  simple,  straightforward 
narrative  with  never  a  word  about  "  motives "  or 
"  conduct  "  or  "causation."  Like  a  good  workman 
the  author  keeps  his  craft  knowledge  to  himself  or 
expounds  it  elsewhere.  He  presents  a  rapidly  mov- 
ing and  entertaining  volume  of  incident,  quotation, 
and  comment.'  This  runs  from  1757,  when  Frank- 
lin was  "  ordered  home  "  to  England,  to  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence  in  1776.  He  attempts 
"  to  convey  to  the  reader,  not  a  record  of  what  men 
did,  but  a  sense  of  how  they  thought  and  felt  about 
what  they  did."  The  thread  about  which  doings 
and  thought  and  feelings  move  is  the  conventional 
one  of  stamp  tax,  protest,  and  repeal;  of  customs 
duties,  non-importation,  and  tax  on  tea ;  of  the  rights 
of  colonists,  of  Englishmen  in  America,  and  of  men  ; 
and  of  the  other  matters  indigenous  to  the  sequel. 
The  narrative  quality  is  so  well  sustained  that  even 
amid  disputation  and  polemic  the  reader  would  ac- 
count the  story  only  an  interesting  episode  well  told, 
were  it  not  for  the  author's  reference  to  it  in  his 
preface  as  "  an  enterprise  of  questionable  ortho- 
doxy." 

Perhaps  this  confession  of  heresy  is  a  mere  device 
for  tempting  the  reader.  None  the  less  it  raises  the 
question  of  the  element  of  novelty  in  the  past  as  Mr. 
Becker  fabricates  it.  It  is  not  to  be  found  in  the 
sequence  of  incident,  in  the  event,  in  the  backbone 


of  the  story.  It  lies  rather  in  a  creative — or,  if  you 
will,  a  selective — touch  deftly  applied  to  issue,  inci- 
dent, and  character.  Note  the  setting  for  the  ac- 
tion. To  the  dignitaries  of  an  imperial  British 
government  "  colonial  rights  "  are  incidental  to  a 
schedule  in  a  tax  bill.  But  American  aristocrats 
"  clothed  themselves  "  in  "  the  homespun  garb,  half 
Roman  and  half  Puritan,  of  a  virtuous  republican- 
ism," and  "  stamped  small  matters  "  with  "  great 
character."  Or  observe  how  Mr.  Becker  shapes  the 
issues.  He  quotes  from  George  Seville,  "  Our 
trade  is  hurt;  what  the  devil  have  you  been  doing? 
For  our  part  we  don't  pretend  to  understand  your 
politics  and  American  matters,  but  our  trade  is  hurt  ; 
pray  remedy  it,  and  a  plague  on  you  if  you  won't." 
He  observes  that  a  pamphlet  of  "  twenty-three  small 
pages,"  written  by  Mr.  Soame  Jenyns,  in  answer  to 
the  arguments  of  the  colonists,  was  "  highly  satis- 
factory to  himself  and  doubtless  to  the  average  read- 
ing Briton  who  understood  constitutional  matters 
best  when  they  were  humorously  expounded  in 
pamphlets  that  could  be  had  for  sixpence."  He 
shows  how  Hutchinson,  and  for  that  matter  many 
another  pamphleteer,  loyal  or  liberal,  arrived  at  con- 
clusions which  were  identical  with  his  assumptions, 
but  none  the  less  satisfying  for  all  of  that.  And  he 
points  out  how  repeatedly  during  the  quarrel  the 
colonists  pronounced  themselves  "  humble  and  loyal 
subjects,"  "  dutiful  children,"  "  yielding  in  loyalty 
to  none." 

The  author's  creative  touch  is  even  more  in  evi- 
dence in  portraying  the  men  who  took  part  in  the 
incidents.  He  pictures  the  industrious  Ben  Frank- 
lin, "  Friend  of  the  Human  Race,"  charged  with  an 
important  mission  to  England  and  yet  spending  two 
months  "  more  uselessly  than  ever  he  could  remem- 
ber "  in  deciding  what  boat  to  take.  He  implies 
that  the  Sage's  return  from  the  mother  country, 
postponed  month  by  month  until  five  years  had 
rolled  around,  was  delayed  largely  by  his  overfond- 
ness  for  "  interesting  and  agreeable  conversation." 
Grenville  is  to  him  "  a  dry,  precise  man  ...  al- 
most always  right  in  little  matters."  John  Adams, 
a  rising  young  lawyer,  who  was  "  just  on  the  point 
of  making  a  reputation  and  winning  a  competence," 
when  trouble  over  the  stamp  act  led  to  the  closing 
of  the  courts,  insisted  that  "  This  execrable  project 
was  set  on  foot  for  my  ruin  as  well  as  that  of  Amer- 
ica in  general."  His  description  of  Samuel  Adams, 
the  personal  ingredient  most  essential  to  the  Revolu- 
tion, indicates'  where  the  sources  of  great  events 
sometimes  lie.  S.  Adams  was  "  a  poor  provider." 
"  For  business "  he  "  was  without  any  aptitude 
whatever,  being  entirely  devoid  of  the  acquisitive 
instinct,  and  neither  possessing  nor  ever  being  able 


I 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


to  acquire  any  skill  in  the  fine  art  of  inducing  people 
to  give  for  things  more  than  it  cost  to  make  them." 
He  was  a  well-known  member  of  the  "  Caucus 
Club,"  founded  in  the  likeness  of  the  "  Caulkers 
Club  "  of  his  father's  day,  which  had  existed  for.  the 
purpose  of  laying  "  plans  for  introducing  certain 
persons  into  places  of  trust  and  power."  The 
Copley  portrait  might  be  supplemented  by  another 
representing  him  "  placed  in  Tom  Dawes's  garret, 
dimly  seen  through  tobacco  smoke,  sitting,  with  coat 
off,  drinking  flip,  in  the  midst  of  Uncle  Fairfield, 
Story,  Cooper,  and  a  rudis  indigestaque  moles"  the 
while  he  devised  schemes  for  making  "  Brutuses  of 
the  men  of  Boston." 

Beneath  this  easy  narrative  the  stuff  of  which 
Mr.  Becker  remakes  the  past  displays  itself.  It  con- 
sists of  act,  thought,  and  feeling,  in  every  tem- 
poral sequence  in  which  the  three  can  be  arranged. 
The  incident  to  the  British  ministerial  mind  was  a 
mighty  matter  when  eyed  by  the  colonial  aristocrat. 
The  issue  which  separated  residents  of  the  mother 
country  and  colonists  and  rent  each  into  parties  and 
factions  was  an  ever  changing  one.  As  the  matter 
in  dispute  came  to  be  newly  formulated,  colonists 
shifted  from  one  to  the  other  side  of  the  argument; 
those  who  quarreled  with  England  meant  by  opposi- 
tion everything  from  submissive  protest  to  open  de- 
fiance; and  many,  too,  even  unto  the  last,  remained 
in  a  "  neither-nor  "  attitude.  The  incidents  of  the 
story,  rather  than  the  outcome,  concerned  most  the 
actors.  Together  they  lack  much  of  being  a  record 
of  a  human  purpose  moving  relentlessly  to  its  con- 
summation. The  actors  are  men  of  capacity  and 
frailty.  They  respond  to  that  within  which  makes 
one  man  different  from  another.  They  vary  in  sen- 
sitiveness to  conventions  of  thought  and  conduct,  to 
the  sense  of  duty,  and  to  their  own  material  in- 
terests. They  are  wise  and  stupid,  capable  of  under- 
standing others  and  too  obstinate  to  try,  prone  alike 
to  tolerance  and  jealousy.  They  are  given  to  im- 
petuous action  which  they  can  afterwards  defend  as 
an  expression  of  a  well-thought-out  purpose.  They 
can  selfishly  respond  to  their  own  material  interests 
and  without  manifest  dishonesty  vindicate  their 
actions  on  high  moral  grounds.  Their  feeling  that 
they  were  actors  in  a  great  drama  came  rather  from 
a  sense  of  their  own  importance  than  from  a  clear 
appreciation  of  the  event  which  emerged  from  their 
activities.  The  independence  which  came  to  them 
was  a  by-product  of  much  concern  with  immediate 
things.  It  clothes  polemic  and  shaken  fist  with  ex 
post  facto  values  alien  alike  to  the  man  and  the  occa- 
sion. 

It  is  the  stuff  of  which  Mr.  Becker  makes  the 
past  that  one  must  take  into  account  who  would 


appraise  his  volume.  In  the  matter  of  assessing 
values  the  issue  is  clear.  The  honesty,  workman- 
ship, and  artistry  of  the  author  are  beyond  ques- 
tion. There  is  no  quarrel  over  "  facts."  He  has  as 
many  as  he  needs;  his  picture  would  be  spoiled  by 
many  more.  He  might  insist  as  truthfully  as  the 
"  scientific  "  historians  that  his  art  is  that  of  per- 
sonal restraint,  and  that  he  "  has  allowed  the  facts 
to  tell  their  own  story."  But  he  knows  as  well  as 
the  critic  that  the  facts  tell  different  stories  for  dif- 
ferent men.  Something  back  of  them  is  to  be  called 
up  for  judgment,  a  something  that  we  may  call  "  a 
conception  of  history."  A  judgment  upon  his  work 
is  a  judgment  upon  a  new  adventure  in  history 
writing. 

Manifestly  the  verdict  will  depend  upon  who 
makes  it.  Fortunately  there  are  many  historians 
and  there  is  no  reason  why  anyone  should  not  have 
the  past  of  America  arranged  according  to  his  liking. 
There  are  the  successors  of  Bancroft  who  see  "  the 
hand  of  God  "  guiding  national  development  to  ks 
consummation  in  the  glorious  present.  There  is 
McMaster  with  his  curious  mosaic  that  contains 
everything  about  the  development  of  "  the  people  " 
save  the  few  things  one  wants  to  know.  There  is 
Channing  with  a  collection  of  material  far  too  large 
and  miscellaneous  to  be  turned  into  a  past,  but' 
which  none  the  less  he  persists  in  using.  There  is 
Hart,  weighing  and  assessing  men  and  events  by 
canons  juggled  out  of  a  provincial  conscience  as  if 
they  werq:  the  cosmic  verities  themselves,  and  being 
"  scientific  "  all  the  while.  And  there  is  Beard  re- 
cording a  clear-cut  struggle  between  opposing  eco- 
nomic groups,  with  property  in  the  offing  imparting 
values  to  events. 

As  against  these,  and  many  others,  the  "  new 
history,"  of  which  Mr.  Becker's  book  is  so  valuable 
a  type,  will  find  readers.  It  will  appeal  to  those 
who  have  acquired  "  modern  notions "  of  human 
motives  and  conduct  and  what  is  meant  by  cause  in 
history.  They  are  likely  to  call  his  entertaining 
little  volume,  which  contains  statements  that  are 
not  recorded  in  any  document,  "  realism,"  the  whil« 
they  hurl  the  charge  of  "romanticism  "  against  the 
several  tome  atomic  histories  of  the  "scientific 
school."  Books  like  his  are  filled  with  issues,  inci- 
dents, and  persons  whom  they  can  understand. 
And  if  at  times  they  cannot  escape  the  feeling  that 
the  author  in  his  detachment  is  saying,  "  Interesting 
antics,  these  of  the  humans;  watch  them,"  they  can 
forgive  him  for  not  furnishing  a  new  refuge  to  the 
homeless  economic  man.  But  they  cannot  escape 
the  conviction  that  there  is  quite  a  bit  of  Mr.  Becker 
in  the  episode  of  the  past  which  he  has  remade. 

WALTON  H.  HAMILTON. 


i38 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


Pelleas  et  Melisande 


"EBUSSY'S  music  is  our  own.  All  forms  lie  dor- 
mant in  the  soul,  and  there  is  no  work  of  art  actually 
foreign  to  us,  nor  can  such  a  one  appear,  in  all  the 
future  ages  of  the  world.  But  the  music  of  De- 
bussy is  proper  to  us  in  our  day  as  is  no  other.  For 
it  moved. in  us  before  its  birth,  and  afterward  re- 
turned upon  us  like  a  release.  Even  at  a  first  en- 
counter the  style  of  Pelleas  was  mysteriously  fa- 
miliar. All  its  novelty  was  but  the  sudden  con- 
sciousness that  we  had  always  needed,  say,  such  a 
rhythm,  such  a  luminous  chord,  perhaps  had  even 
heard  them  faintly  sounding  in  our  imaginations. 
The  music  seemed  old  as  our  separate  existences.  It 
seemed  an  exquisite  recognition  of  certain  intense 
and  troubling  and  appeasing  moments.  It  seemed 
fashioned  out  of  certain  ineluctable  moments  that 
had  budded  out  of  our  lives,  ineffably  sad  and  sweet, 
and  had  made  us  new,  and  set  us  apart.  And,  at  the 
music's  breath,  at  a  half-whispered  note,  at  the  un- 
closing of  a  rhythm,  the  flowering  of  a  cluster  of 
tones  out  of  the  warm  still  darkness,  they  were 
arisen  again  in  the  fullness  of  their  stature,  and 
were  become  ours  entirely. 

For  the  music  of  Debussy  is  proper  to  an  im- 
pressionistically  feeling  age.  Structurally  it  is  a 
fabric  of  exquisite  and  poignant  moments,  each  one 
of  them  full  and  complete  in  itself.  The  phrases 
contribute  to  the  whole,  compose  a  richly,  clearly 
organized  mass,  and  yet  are  independent,  and  sig- 
nificant in  themselves.  No  chord,  no  phrase  is  sub- 
ordinate. Each  one  exists  for  the  sake  of  its  own 
beauty,  occupies  the  universe  for  an  instant,  then 
merges  and  disappears.  The  harmonies  are  not,  as 
in  other  music,  preparations.  They  are  apparently 
an  end  in  themselves,  flow  in  space  and  then  change 
as  a  shimmering  stuff  changes  hue.  For  all  its 
golden  earthiness,  the  style  of  Debussy  is  the  most 
liquid  and  impalpable  of  musical  styles.  It  is  for- 
ever gliding,  gleaming,  melting,  crystallizing  for  an 
instant  in  some  savory  phrase,  then  moving  quiver- 
ingly  onward.  It  is  well-nigh  edgeless.  It  seems 
to  flow  through  our  perceptions  as  water  flows 
through  fingers,  and  the  iridescent  bubbles  that  float 
upon  it  burst  if  we  but  touch  them.  It  is  forever 
suggesting  water — fountains  and  pools  and  glisten- 
ing sprays  and  the  heaving  bosom  of  the  sea — or  the 
formless  breath  of  the  breeze  and  storms  and  per- 
fumes, or  the  play  of  sunshine  and  moonlight.  At 
the  bidding  of  Debussy  the  sound  of  the  piano, 


usually  but  the  ringing  of  flat-colored  stones,  be- 
comes rich  and  dense,  seems  to  take  on  the  prop- 
erties of  satins  and  velvets  and  aromatic  wines.  At 
each  new  employment  the  pedal  seems  to  wash  a 
new  tint  over  the  keyboard.  The  orchestration  of 
Debussy  infallibly  produces  all  that  is  cloudy  and 
diaphanous  in  ea.ch  instrument.  There  is  no  other 
style  that  could  have  transmitted  so  faithfully  the 
essential  qualities  of  that  most  glimmering,  floating 
of  poems,  L'Apres-midi  d'un  Faune.  The  fruity 
climbing  of  the  chromatic  flute,  the  drowsy  pizzicati 
of  the  strings,  the  languorous  sighing  of  the  horn 
have  caught,  quite  as  magically  as  Mallarme's  verses, 
the  atmosphere  of  the  daydream,  the  sleepy  warmth 
of  the  sunshot  grass,  and  the  white  wonder  of  arms 
and  breasts  and  thighs. 

And  yet,  the  music  of  Debussy  is  classically  pre- 
cise and  firm  and  knit.  There  is  neither  uncertainty 
nor  mistiness  in  his  form.  His  lyrical,  shimmering 
structures  are  logically  irrefragible.  The  line  never 
hesitates,  never  becomes  involved  nor  lost.  It  pro- 
ceeds directly,  clearly,  and  passing  through  jewels 
and  colors  fuses  them  into  a  single  mass.  The  music 
plots  its  curve  sheerly,  is  always  full  of  its  own 
weight  and  timbre.  It  can  be  said,  quite  without 
exaggeration,  that  his  best  work  omits  nothing,  neg- 
lects nothing,  and  that  every  component  element 
has  been  justly  treated.  His  little  pieces  occupy  a 
space  as  completely  as  the  most  massive  and  im- 
passioned of  compositions.  It  is  just  because  of  their 
formal  purity  that  they  succeeded  in  imparting  the 
sensations  intended  in  them.  In  the  hands  of  others, 
in  the  hands  of  so  many  of  Debussy's  imitators,  his 
style  becomes  confused  and  soft  and  unsubstantial. 
For  the  fluidity  and  the  restlessness  dominate  them, 
whereas  in  Debussy  these  qualities  are  controlled  by 
an  indomitable  love  of  clarity  and  concentration. 
For  he  is  of  the  race  of  Moliere  and  Pascal  and 
Verlaine.  He  is  of  the  classical  French  traditions 
in  his  intolerance  of  all  that  is  vague  and  murky 
and  pointless,  in  his  instinctive  preference  for  what 
is  aristocratically  temperate  and  firm  and  reason- 
able. Despite  the  modern  complexity  of  his  spirit, 
his  latter-day  subtlety  and  delicacy  and  weariness,  his 
mundane  grace  and  finesse,  he  is  neither  spiritually 
soft  nor  uncertain.  From  the  very  commencement  of 
his  career  he  was  nicely  conscious  of  himself.  Few 
musicians  have  been  more  sensible  of  their  gift,  bet- 
ter aware  of  its  quality  and  limitations.  He  had  a 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


sureness  of  taste,  a  sense  of  fitness  and  values,  that 
was  rare  and  singular.  It  is  just  the  superposition 
upon  a  subtle  and  sensuous  nature  of  so  classical  a 
tendency  that  gives  his  music  its  character.  For  he 
could  fix  precisely  the  most  elusive  emotions,  emo- 
tions that  flow  on  the  borders  of  consciousness, 
vaguely,  and  that  most  of  us  cannot  grasp  for  very 
dizziness.  For  him  the  shadowy  places  of  the  soul 
were  full  of  light. 

There  are  moments  when  this  work,  the  fine  fluid 
line  of  sound,  the  phrases  that  merge  and  pass  and 
vanish  into  one  another,  become  the  gleaming  rims 
that  circumscribe  vast  darkling  forms.  For,  not  in- 
frequently, Debussy  captured  what  is  distinguished 
in  the  age's  delight  and  tragedy.  All  its  fine  sensu- 
ality, its  Eastern  pleasure  in  the  infinite  daintiness 
and  warmth  of  nature,  all  its  sudden  joyous  dis- 
covery of  color  and  touch  that  made  men  feel  as 
though  neither  had  been  known  before,  are  con- 
tained in  this  music.  Debussy's  art,  too,  is  full  of 
images  of  the  "earth  of  the  liquid  and  slumbering 
trees,"  the  "earth  of  departed  sunset,"  the  "earth 
of  the  vitreous  pour  of  the  full  moon  just  tinged 
with  blue."  It  is  full  of  material  loveliness,  plies 
itself  to  its  innumerable  forms — to  the  somnolence 
of  the  Southern  night,  to  the  hieratic  gestures  of 
temple-dancers,  to  the  fall  of  lamplight  into  the 
dark,  the  fantastic  gush  of  fireworks,  the  romance 
of  old  mirrors  and  faded  brocades  and  Saxony 
clocks,  to  the  green  young  panoply  of  spring.  And, 
just  as  it  gives  again  the  age's  consciousness  of  the 
delicious  shell  of  earth,  so  too  it  gives  its  sense  of 
weariness  and  oppression  and  powerlessness.  The 
century  had  been  loud  with  blare  and  rumors  and 
the  vibration  of  movement,  and  man  had  apparently 
traversed  vast  distances,  and  explored  titanic  heights 
and  abysmal  depths.  And  yet,  for  all  the  glare,  the 
earth  was  dark,  darker  perhaps  because  of  the 
miasmic  light,  and  the  life  of  man  seemed  as  ever 
a  brief  and  sad  and  simple  thing,  the  stretching  of 
impotent  hands,  unable  to  grasp  and  hold;  the  in- 
terlacing of  shadows;  the  unclosing,  a  moment  be- 
fore nightfall,  of  exquisite  and  fragile  blossoms. 
And  this  sense  of  the  infirmity  of  life,  the  conscious- 
ness that  it  had  no  more  than  the  significance  of  a 
dream  with  passing  lights,  or  halting  steps  in  the 
snow,  or  an  old  and  half-forgotten  story,  had  mixed 
a  deep  wistfulness  and  melancholy  into  the  very 
glamour  of  the  world,  and  had  itself  become  heavier 
for  all  the  loveliness.  And  both  sentiments,  the 
delicious  and  the  oppressive,  are  caught  in  this  music. 

If  at  times  Debussy  is  so  great  a  poet,  it  is  because 


of  his  rare  sensibility.  Few  musicians  have  felt  with 
a  greater  tenderness,  a  greater  poignancy.  So  de- 
cisively did  the  particular  sentiments  of  his  time 
obtain  over  Debussy,  so  fully  did  his  music  grow  out 
of  them,  that  he  appears  to  stand  in  almost  symboli- 
cal relationship  to  his  day.  In  a  fashion  he  is  the 
artist  most  typical  of  it.  He  is  amongst  us  fully. 
He  is  here  in  our  midst,  in  the  world  of  the  city.  We 
seem  to  know  him  as  we  know  ourselves.  He  seems 
to  live  our  manner  of  life,  and  there  is  no  experi- 
ence of  his  that  is  not,  intensified  perhaps  by  his 
poet's  gift,  our  own,  or  that  cannot  possibly  become 
ours.  He  seems  almost  ourselves  as  he  passes  through 
the  city's  twilight,  intent  upon  some  errand  which 
we  too  have  gone,  journeying  a  road  which  we  our- 
selves have  traveled.  We  know  the  room  in  which 
he  lives,  the  moments  that  come  upon  him  there  in 
the  silence  of  the  lamp.  For  he  has  found  there 
quintessence.  Few  musicians  have  been  so  persever- 
ingly  essential,  have  managed  to  maintain  their 
emotion  at  a  height  so  steadily.  Perhaps  Bach 
and  Moussorgsky  alone  have  found  phrases  as 
pithy  and  inclusive  as  those  with  which  Pelleas 
is  strewn,  phrases  that  in  a  few  simple  notes 
epitomize  profound  and  fine  emotions.  There  are 
moments  in  the  work  of  Debussy  in  which  each  note 
opens  a  prospect.  There  are  portions  of  Pelleas  that 
are  like  those  moments  of  human  intercourse  in 
which  a  single  word  unseals  deep  reservoirs.  In- 
deed the  most  impassioned  utterances  of  the  drama, 
Melisande's  half  whispered  "Pelleas!  Pelleas!"  in 
the  turret  scene,  and  the  almost  toneless  avowal  of 
love  in  the  last  scene  by  the  fountain,  nearly  approach 
that  silence  which  is  the  largest  form  of  speech. 
And  though  the  work  is  to  a  degree  apart  from  all 
his  others,  ajid  is  indeed  the  ultimate  flowering  of 
his  art,  none  of  the  remainder  of  his  compositions, 
not  even  the  slightest,  is  unworthy  of  it  and  devoid 
entirely  of  its  fine  poesy.  He  never  doffs  his  singing- 
robes.  His  work  is  always  the  expression  of  pure 
and  clear,  often  intense  and  incandescent,  feeling. 
He  always  was  aware  of  beauty,  always  revealed  it. 
He  never  wrote  ugly  or  dull  or  insignificant  tones.  In 
his  brain,  the  thick-lipped  sentiment  of  the  coon-song, 
even,  gets  a  delicacy,  a  humorous  tenderness.  A 
thing  as  trifling  as  the  little  waltz  Le  Plus  Que  Lent 
has  a  lissome  grace  and  sweetness.  Perhaps  his 
music  wants  the  exalted  and  majestic  mystical  tone 
of  certain  other  music.  Nevertheless  it  has  a  lumi- 
nous tenderness  that  is  scarcely  to  be  duplicated  in 
musical  art,  perhaps  only  in  the  work  of  so  rare  and 
solitary  a  figure  as  Josquin.  And  tenderness,  after 


140 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


all,  is  the  most  intense  of  all  emotions. 

A  complex  of  determinants  made  of  Pelleas  et 
Melisande  the  most  eloquent  of  all  Debussy's  works, 
and  his  eternal  sign.  Issuing  as  he  did  from  the 
classical  French  tradition,  abhorring  overemphasis 
and  speciousness  and  exaggeration,  want  of  taste  and 
lucidity,  it  was  ordained  that  Debussy  should  turn 
upon  the  excesses  of  the  Wagnerian  music-drama 
and,  fortified  by  the  knowledge  of  Rameau's  works, 
oppose  his  proper  standards.  His  own  deep  sense 
of  the  French  term  and  the  possibility  of  its  treat- 
ment in  dramatic  recitative  almost  compelled  his  re- 
volt to  assume  the  form  of  an  opera.  Maeterlinck's 
little  play  afforded  him  his  opportunity,  offered  it- 
self as  a  unique  auxiliary.  In  itself  it  is  by  no  means 
an  insignificant  piece  of  expression.  It  has  the  pro- 
portions, the  accent,  of  the  time.  It  too  is  full 
of  a  constant  and  overwhelming  sense  of  the 
evanescence  and  flux  of  things,  and  establishes  a 
thing  by  fixing  its  atmosphere.  And  this  "vieille  et 
triste  legende  de  la  foret"  is  filled  with  images — the 
old  and  somber  castle,  inhabited  by  aging  people, 
lying  lost  amid  melancholy  land  and  sunless  forests ; 
the  rose  that  blooms  in  the  shadow  underneath 
Melisande's  casement;  Melisande's  hair  that  falls 
farther  than  her  arms  can  reach — that  called  a  vital 
and  profound  response  from  Debussy's  imagination. 
But  it  was  the  figure  of  Melisande  herself  that  ulti- 
mately made  him  pour  himself  into  the  play,  and 
intensify  it  into  the  perfect  and  poignant  thing  it  is. 
This  shadowy  little  drama  permitted  Debussy  to 
give  himself  in  the  creation  of  his  ideal  image.  It 
is  Melisande  that  the  music  reveals  from  the  moment 
that  she  rises  from  along  the  rocks  in  the  mystery 
of  her  golden  hair,  perhaps  from  the  very  moment 
that  the  orchestra  begins  the  work.  The  entire  score 


is  but  what  a  man  might  feel  towards  a  woman,  a 
woman  that  was  his,  and  yet  was  strange  and  mys- 
terious and  unknown  to  him.  There  are  moments 
when  it  is  all  that  lies  between  two  people,  when 
it  is  the  fullness  of  their  knowledge.  It  is  the  per- 
fect sign  and  symbol  of  an  experience.  For  this  is 
what  we  ourselves  have  lived. 

Debussy's  art  could  have  no  second  climax. 
For  it  is  a  unit.  His  task  was  the  establishment 
of  a  style.  It  was  for  that  that  he  came  into  the 
world.  It  was  in  the  order  of  things  that,  once  his 
genius  having  assumed  its  definite  form  and  received 
its  definitive  expression,  the  remainder  of  his  music 
should  be  comparatively  less  important.  It  is  not 
that  the  two  series  of  Images  for  piano,  or  some  of 
the  later  orchestral  poems,  or  the  music  to  Le  Mar- 
tyre  de  Saint  Sebastian,  are  not  perfect  and  astound- 
ing pieces  of  work,  and  do  not  contain  some  of  his 
loveliest  ideas.  It  is  only  that  they  are  the  applica- 
tions to  the  medium  of  the  piano  and  the  orchestra  of 
a  style  already  achieved  in  Pelleas.  There  is  not  the 
progression  in  the  art  of  Debussy  which  there  is  in 
Wagner's — a  progression  which  permitted  the  com- 
poser of  the  third  act  of  Tristan  to  write  Die  Meis- 
tersinger  and,  afterward,  Parsifal.  Debussy's  was  an 
art,  mature  already  in  his  quartet,  that  rounded  it- 
self out  during  twenty-five  years  of  his  life.  His 
death  robbed  us  of  no  fair  development  we  might 
reasonably  have  anticipated.  Indeed,  in  his  very  last 
works,  the  gold  is  spread  more  thinly,  the  emotion 
is  less  warm.  He  had  completely  fulfilled  himself. 
His  age  had  demanded  of  him  an  art  that  it  might 
hold  far  from  the  glare  and  tumult,  an  art  into 
which  it  could  retreat,  an  art  which  could  com- 
pensate it  for  a  life  become  too  cruel  and  demanding. 
And  this  he  gave  it,  in  perhaps  imperishable  form. 

PAUL  ROSENFELD. 


The  Unrelegated  Quill 


O 


NE  OF  THE  minor  after-war  adjustments  is  a 
sort  of  cerebral  spring-cleaning  which  invariably 
sends  a  lot  of  pretty  notions  to  one's  mental  junk- 
heap.  The  plush  albums  and  what-nots  of  the 
mind  are  out  of  harmony  with  new  conceptions  of 
interior  decoration,  and  must  go  into  the  discard. 
It  is  in  some  such  dusting  about  in  corners  that  one 
is  impelled  to  abandon  the  theory  that  certain  de- 
vices, of  our  civilization  have  succeeded  in  their  con- 
spiracy to  discredit  the  writing  of  letters.  And  it 
is  surprising  to  discover  how  well  entrenched  the 
idea  has  become.  All  such  facilities — somewhat 
ironically  labeled  "modern  conveniences" — as  the 
telephone  at  one's  elbow,  the  telegraph  office  at  the 


corner,  typewriters  and  social  secretaries,  have  been 
jointly  and  severally  accused,  and  we  have  been 
quite  content  to  tuck  them  snugly  under  one  blanket 
indictment,  and  thus  give  them  credit  for  a  dev- 
astation beyond  their  deserts.  Sheer  repetition  of 
the  remark  that  "no  one  writes  letters  any  more" 
put  the  observation  in  the  realm  of  the  unques- 
tioned— gave  it,  in  fact,  a  certain  social  standing. 
We  were  trapped  into  a  false  security,  and  it  was 
not  until  the  war  came  along  and  tumbled  us  out 
of  it  that  we  realized  how  far  from  moribund  the 
art  of  correspondence  really  is.  Instead  of  framing 
the  obituary  of  letter  writing,  everyone  appears  to 
be  writing — letters. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


141 


Doubtless  the  telephone,  and  its  co-conspirators 
did  play  a  part  in  an  attempt  to  outmode  the  pen, 
but  it  has  become  apparent  within  recent  months 
that  their  success  was  destined  to  be  fleeting — not 
final.  These  poisoners  of  the  ink-wells  have  failed 
in  their  large  purpose.  The  pen  and  the  sword, 
linked  for  so  long  in  the  old  proverb,  have  again 
revealed  their  kinship  in  a  new  manner.  The  sluice 
gates  are  opened;  once  more  there  is  a  free  flow  of 
ink.  But  that  is  not  the  full  extent  of  what  has 
happened.  Not  only  has  war  shattered  the  letter- 
writing  inhibitions,  in  so  far  as  they  were  operative ; 
but  it  has  shattered  publishers'  aversions  to  the 
traffic  in  letters  as  a  business  hazard.  One  hesitates 
to  say  which  is  the  greater  havoc — the  undoing  of 
the  inhibitions  or  the  undoing  of  the  aversions,  but 
the  consequences  of  the  two  in  conjunction  have 
resulted  in  an  apparently  inexhaustible  flood  of 
letters — especially  letters  from  the  front. 

It  has  seemed  as  though  letters  no  sooner  got 
written  than  they  got  printed.  They  began  to 
stream  steadily  into  newspaper  columns,  into  maga- 
zines, and  into  books.  Any  missive  which  passed 
the  military  censor  became — ipso  facto — eligible  for 
the  market.  Collections  of  letters  threatened  to 
become  as  numerous  and  as  miscellaneous  as  collec- 
tions of  relics.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  sudden 
termination  of  hostilities,  which  doubtless  has 
checked  the  momentum  of  the  flood,  it  is  difficult  to 
say  where  we  might  not  have  been  carried  at  its 
crest.  In  fact,  it  began  to  appear  that  the  most 
feasible  method  of  dealing  with  the  outpouring 
would  be  upon  a  basis  of  military  rather  than  of 
literary  rank,  although  the  problem  of  promotion 
might  have  proved  baffling.  In  any  event,  the  har- 
vest of  recent  books  serves  to  reveal  how  far  from 
vanquished  the  ancient  practice  of  writing  letters 
really  is — and  how  adequately  it  has  been  reassert- 
ing itself.  We  may  rest  assured  that  the  letters — if 
not  the  spirit — of  the  war  will  be  preserved. 

As  for  those  devices  which  sought  to  supplant  the 
quill,  they  have  been  relegated  to  their  former 
role — that  of  mere  go-between  in  the  humdrum 
business  of  making  and  canceling  engagements,  of 
taking  and  canceling  orders.  They  failed  utterly 
to  loosen  our  hold  upon  the  older  mode  of  com- 
munication. While  the  reactions  of  an  army  may  be 
recorded  by  wire,  the  reactions  of  an  individual 
demand  a  more  sensitized  medium. 

To  grasp  the  full  significance  of  this  epistolary 
renaissance,  one  need  but  glance  back  over  the  ante- 
bellum decade.  What  was  it — this  pre-war  period 
in  which  we  were  allegedly  "too  busy  to  write  let- 
ters"? As  one  seeks  for  some  distinguishing  mark, 
one  is  tempted  to  designate  it  as  the  age  of  the 


souvenir  postcard — a  universal  medium  of  exchange. 
Its  applications  to  the  exigencies  of  existence  ap- 
peared almost  endless.  If  one  went  on  a  vacation, 
one  played  a  variation  of  the  English  game  of  "hare 
and  hounds,"  with  postcard  "views"  to  mark  one's 
trail.  When  one  wished  to  be  humorous,  one  mailed 
an  appropriate  "comic"  card,  acquired  in  one  of 
the  "shops"  which  flourished — and  even  yet  enjoy 
a  diminished  vogue — in  the  vicinity  of  railroad  sta- 
tions. If  one  visited  an  "amusement  park" — in 
which,  one  may  do  everything  but  be  amused — it 
was  considered  desirable  to  acquire  several  "views" 
of  it.  One  could  discharge  one's  social  obligations 
simply  by  "placing  a  one-cent  stamp  here."  Just 
how  much  joy  the  recipient  of  a  boat  house  or  city 
hall  facsimile  succeeded  in  extracting  from  the 
cardboard  is  a  detail  which  has  never  been  suffici- 
ently studied.  The  chances  are  that  he  got  as  much 
as  he  deserved. 

However,  war  is  no  tourists'  attraction.  There  is 
more  to  be  written  than  may  be  crowded  into  the 
confines  of  the  "correspondence  space" — things  too 
intimate  to  be  sent  unsheathed  through  the  mails. 
There  are  dramatic  things  to  be  said — and  one  can 
hardly  be  dramatic  on  a  postcard.  "The  blot  which 
ended  my  last  sentence  was  not  entirely  my  fault. 
A  shell  landed  at  the  entrance  to  our  dug-out,  killed 
one  runner,  wounded  two,  and  blew  the  candle  out." 
These  sentences,  from  The  Love  of  an  Unknown 
Soldier  (Lane;  $1.25),  are  inconceivable  upon  a 
postcard,  for  they  would  be  robbed  of  all  sig- 
nificance. 

It  appears  to  be  a  common  characteristic  of  prac- 
tically all  this  war  correspondence  that  it  carries  a 
certain  degree  of  literary  polish.  You  discover 
little  of  the  hasty  scribbling  of  the  postcard  era. 
Taking  into  consideration  the  reputed  disabilities 
of  the  average  citizen,  when  it  comes  to  the  graces 
of  communication,  it  must  be  admitted  that  he  has 
done  himself  proud.  The  volume  mentioned  above 
is  a  case  in  point.  Incidentally,  it  differs  from  the 
main  body  of  the  war  correspondence  in  that  the 
author's  identity  is  unknown,  that  the  manuscript 
was  found  in  a  dug-out,  and  that  the  girl  to  whom 
the  love  letters  were  addressed  is  equally  anony- 
mous. The  publisher  emphatically  admits  that  he  is 
publishing  the  volume  in  the  hope  that  it  will  be 
the  means  of  finding  "the  American  girl,  who,  all 
unknowingly,  had  quickened  the  last  days  of  this 
unknown  soldier's  life  with  romance." 

Bearing  in  mind  that  this  continued  confession 
of  love  was  not  to  be  mailed  until  the  end  of  the 
war — and  possibly  not  even  then — one  finds  one's 
credulity  a  bit  overstrained  occasionally.  Under  the 
circumstances  the  officer  might  write  "I  must  leave 


142 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


off — something  is  happening,"  when  he  is  inter- 
rupted by  the  signal  of  an  attack,  but  it  is  more 
reasonable  to  imagine  that  he  would  simply  "leave 
off" — and  do  his  explaining  later  on. 

This  sort  of  parading  of  the  dramatic  effectives 
occurs  frequently.  As  a  spontaneous  outpouring  of 
soul,  The  Love  of  an  Unknown  Soldier  reveals  a 
literary  morale  which  never  wavers.  There  are 
sentences  which  touch  the  imagination.  "I  have 
seen  so  many  men  rise  up  in  the  morning  and  lie 
still  at  night."  "These  unposted  letters,  written 
out  of  loneliness,  make  the  future  seem  too  valuable. 
You  ran  up  the  steps  without  turning  your  head 
when  we  separated.  That's  the  way  I  would  pre- 
.fer  to  go  out  of  life."  He  speaks  of  the  English, 
"who  do  magnificent  things  and  voice  them  in  the 
language  of  stable-boys,"  and  of  the  French:  "I  wish 
to  God  we  Anglo-Saxons  shared  some  of  the  vices 
that  produce  their  virtues." 

Jack  Wright,  in  A  Poet  of  the  Air  (Houghton 
Mifflin;  $1.50),  is  another  of  the  correspondents 
who  cherished  the  public — even  in  the  most  private 
of  his  letters.  The  people  who  were  to  buy  the 
book  in  which  his  letters  appear  were  never  quite 
excluded  from  his  mind,  nor  from  his  epistles.  Un- 
restraint and  egotism  and  poetic  felicity  are  com- 
pounded in  his  pages.  Asked  what  he  thought  of 
France,  it  is  not  likely  that  he  would  have  answered 
with  the  flourish  with  which  he  writes:  "Paris  is 
for  me  a  Babylon  and  the  country  of  France  is  for 
me  a  plain  overflowing  with  the  fever  of  the  Huns ; 
the  incense  of  bursting  shells  and  smoking  powder." 
This  is  letter  writing  from  the  rostrum. 

Of  course  the  key  to  much  of  this  one-sidedness 
in  published  letters  lies  in  the  blue-penciling  of 
their  editors.  The  editors  have  been,  in  many  in- 
stances, relatives — and  relatives  exercise  a  rigid  cen- 
sorship sometimes.  The  flights  of  fancy  are 
garnered,  but  the  prosaic  grumblings  are  deftly  ex- 
cluded. The  transient  discomforts  have  ne  place 
in  the  record  beside  the  felicities  of  phrase.  That, 
perhaps,  is  why  such  details — even  when  they  do 
creep  into  the  narrative — are  so  touched  with  the 
gloss  of  humor  that  nearly  all  trace  of  the  actuality 
has  been  swept  away.  Wainwright  Merrill  writes, 
in  A  College  Man  in  Khaki  (Doran;  $1.50),  that 
"here  the  ensemble  is  a  sort  of  quintessence  of — 
mud,  piles  of  brick,  jagged  earth,  mud,  banging 
lorries,  booming,  and  mud."  And  in  another  place, 
"the  little  village  fully  justifies  its  name — nom  de 
guerre — 'Codford-in-the-Mud.'  "  Surely  this  must 
refer  to  a  substance  far  more  amenable  than  the 
stuff  which  clings  to  one's  boots,  and  splashes  into 
one's  ears. 


Sheer  modesty  doubtless  dictates  the  excision  of 
many  lines.  A  favorite  aunt  may  make  wonderful 
crullers,  but  she  naturally  shrinks  from  having  the 
fact  blazoned  to  posterity.  Hence,  when  the  youth- 
ful enthusiast  begins  to  compare  army  fare  with 
memories  of  her  cooking  to  the  utter  discredit  of  the 
nation's  commissariat,  it  is  time  to  wield  the  shears. 
These  intimacies  must  be  stricken  from  the  record. 
And  it  is  not  fitting  to  expose  little  details  of  finan- 
cial stringency,  such  as  happen  in  the  best  regulated 
squads,  to  unsympathetic  readers.  Such  incidents 
are,  in  the  abrupt  Americanism,  "nobody's  business." 

The  sight-seeing  instincts  come  to  the  surface  in 
these  American  letters,  as  though  many  of  their 
authors — aware  that  they  were  enjoying  their  first 
European  tour — kept  a  finger  on  their  pulse  to 
measure  their  reactions.  This  kaleidoscopic  flare 
for  the  historic,  this  eagerness  to  thrust  a  pin  through 
each  passing  impression,  makes  itself  apparent  par- 
ticularly in  the  Merrill  volume,  where  the  writer 
reveals  an  impatience  to  crowd  everything  into  one 
paragraph.  There  isn't  much  of  London  left  over 
after  a  few  pages  of  such  characteristic  cataloguing 
as  this: 

My  eyes  darted  right — the  Adelphi,  yes,  far  down; 
behind  it  I  knew  were  Covent  Garden,  Maiden  Lane, 
and  old  Drury.  Boardings,  significantly  new,  covered 
corners  of  two  buildings:  the  Hun  had  come  to  "mighty 
London" — not  long  since — but  that  thought  was  chased 
gaily  away  by  our  wheeling  left  of  course.  The  Grand 
ahead,  high  and  dark !  Then,  behind  a  big  'bus,  a  lion 
couchant,  black-grey!  Whistling  and  swaying  we  went; 
people  laughing;  a  kid  messenger's  pill-box  oscillating 
as  he  *  chewed  something;  "Canidians,  wot'  o!":  then  I 
felt  the  imposing  triumphal  arch  of  the  New  Admiralty 
over  against  me,  tall  square  and  grey — the  Mall  be- 
yond, yes — and  we  swung  into  the  Square." 

But  the  letters  which  have  attained  the  distinction 
of  publication  must  be  but  the  chosen  representatives 
of  the  great  body  of  our  epistolary  renascence.  They 
do  little  more  than  shadow  forth  the  real  bulk  of  the 
outpouring — much  of  which  is  destined  never  to 
know  the  permanence  of  book  covers.  Some  of  it, 
of  course,  will  make  its  appearance  at  a  later  day, 
possibly  in  the  guise  of  memoirs  or  as  source  ma- 
terial in  the  threshing  out  of  historic  controversy. 

And  then  there  will  be  the  cherished  personal 
missives — well-thumbed  messengers  about  which 
will  cluster  the  memory  of  anxious  days  and  unex- 
pressed' but  ever  present  fears.  These  are  the  let- 
ters which,  tied  with  ribbon  in  neat  packets,  ulti- 
mately will  find  their  way  into  the  sacred  corners 
of  old  trunks — to  be  almost  forgotten  for  a  time, 
and  then  to  be  unwrapped  with  trembling  fingers — 
the  stuff  of  dreams  and  fireside  reverie. 

LISLE  BELL. 


THE  DIAL 


GEORGE   DONLIN 


JOHN    DEWEY 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor 

CLARENCE    BRITTEN 

In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program: 
THORSTEIN    VEBLEN 


HAROLD    STEARNS 


HELEN    MAROT- 


T 

J_H 


.HE  GOVERNMENT  is  LEFT  BY  THE  CONCLUSION 
of  the  war  in  possession  of  immense  stores  of  muni- 
tions of  all  kinds,  including  vast  quantities  of  ex- 
plosives and  poison  gas.  Some  of  this  material  can 
be  converted  to  peaceful  uses — for  example  the  De- 
partment of  Agriculture  is  said  to  have  a  use  for 
the  80,000,000  unexploded  pounds  of  TNT.  If 
the  expected  revision  of  the  rules  of  war  takes  place, 
poison  gas  may  be  outlawed  in  future,  along  with 
submarines,  and  the  only  problem  will  be  to  set  free 
the  accumulation  of  this  substance  without  injury 
to  animal  and  vegetable  life.  There  are  other  prod- 
ucts of  our  feverish  period  of  preparation,  spiritual 
instead  of  material,  but  no  less  explosive  and 
poisonous  because  intangible.  In  order  to  bring  the 
nation  to  a  maximum  of  efficiency  for  war  it  was 
thought  necessary  to  develop  a  large  quantity  of 
hate  for  our  enemies.  The  systematic  production 
of  this  force  was  undertaken  by  newspapers  and 
magazines,  by  moving-picture  houses  and  patriotic 
societies,  by  schools  and  churches.  It  was  frequently 
remarked  that  hate  seemed  of  little  use  at  the  front, 
but  throughout  the  population  at  large  it  was  re- 
garded as  a  valuable  aid  in  preparing  for  the  draft, 
in  selling  bonds,  in  maintaining  morale  in  general — 
so  much  so  in  fact  that  persons  who  objected  on 
grounds  of  national  self-respect  to  the  production 
of  hate  through  the  invention  of  atrocity  stories 
were  informed  that  they  were  interfering  with  the 
success  of  their  country  at  war,  much  as  if  they  had 
opposed  the  floating  of  its  loans  or  the  drafting  of 
its  soldiers.  Even  during  the  war  the  hate  generated 
for  use  against  our  enemies  produced  untoward 
results — like  the  explosion  of  ammunition  at  Black 
Tom  and  Halifax.  More  than  once  the  President 
raised  his  chiding  voice  to  rebuke  those  enthusiastic 
spirits  whose  hate  for  Germany  would  not  permit 
them  to  grant  a  legal  trial-  to  Americans  who  hated 
less  than  they.  But  now  that  the  war  is  over  and 
our  object  is  no  longer  victory  but  peace,  it  is  clear 
that  the  presence  of  this  commodity  is  likely  seri- 
•ously  to  embarrass  us.  It  undoubtedly  embarrassed 
the  President  at  the  moment  when  the  Germans 
requested  an  armistice.  Our  hatred  demanded  un- 
conditional surrender,  a  march  to  Berlin,  the  laying 
waste  of  German  territory  to  an  extent  equal  to 
the  devastated  regions  of  France  and  Belgium.  It 
forced  the  President  to  adopt  a  tone  which  dimin- 


ished the  chance  that  the  new  German  Government 
could  hold  its  footing  between  Junkers  and  radicals, 
and  even  so  it  supported  the  indictment  brought 
against  him  by  Roosevelt  and  Lodge.  President 
Wilson  was  called  pro-German  in  the  Senate  of  the 
United  States,  and  repudiated  at  the  polls.  In  the 
ten  weeks  that  have  elapsed  since  the  armistice  was 
signed  this  hatred  has  made  it  impossible  for  the 
leaders  of  opinion  in  this  country  to  formulate  any 
consistent  or  dignified  policy  toward  our  late 
enemies.  But  already  there  are  frequent  signs 
that  astute  and  far-seeing  journalists  are  beginning 
to  realize  that  hate,  however  essential  in  war,  is  dan- 
gerous to  the  peace  of  mutual  self-interest,  the 
structure  of  which  is  being  so  painfully  laid — that 
the  explosives  and  poisonous  gas  must  somehow  be 
drawn  off  or  neutralized.  The  gingerly  way  in 
which  they  approach  their  task  is  evidence  of  their 
wholesome  fear  of  being  blown  up.  For  instance, 
Mr.  Grasty  in  the  New  York  Times  reminds  us 
that  "with  all  of  the  barbarism  of  Germans  in  the 
war,  they  have  certain  qualities — order,  discipline, 
thoroughness.  Because  we  justly  despise  the  Germans 
for  their  brutality  and  militarism  is  no  reason  why 
the  Allies  as  victors  in  the  war  should  not  employ 
the  German  qualities  to  stabilize  Central  Europe." 
The  New  York  Evening  Post  is  equally  guarded. 
"  We  do  not  love  the  Germans  .  .  .  but  ...  we 
recall  that  they  owe  the  victims  of  Germany's  on- 
slaught on  civilization  billions  of  money.  The 
sooner  they  straighten  out  their  affairs  and  get  to 
work,  the  sooner  they  will  be  able  to  pay."  Self- 
interest — that  is  undoubtedly  the  best  neutralizing 
agent  for  poisonous  hate.  But  a  large  portion 
of  our  hatred  is  undoubtedly  too  recalcitrant  to 
yield  to  this  treatment.  It  can  doubtless  be  resolved 
by  signal  penalties  inflicted  on  those  who  can  be 
held  personally  responsible  for  the  war.  Prpbably 
no  statesmen  believes  that  such  personal  punishment 
has  the  slightest  relation  to  the  aims  for  which  the 
war  was  fought,  and  yet  all  agree  in  the  utility  of 
such  punishment  as  a  means  of  satisfying  the  hatred 
of  their  peoples.  It  might  be  well  for  the  world 
if  the  Kaiser  could  thus  become  the  scapegoat,  if 
he  could  be  miraculously  preserved  to  suffer  the 
tortures  invented  for  him  by  imaginative  ladies  over 
their  knitting.  Failing  this  it  is  to  be  feared  that 
no  little  residue  of  hate  will  remain  a  constituent 


144 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


of  our  national  atmosphere.  Deprived  of  its  original 
destination,  it  is  already  being  directed  elsewhere 
by  able  manipulators.  Months  ago  prudent  men 
began  to  turn  hatred  for  Germany  against  the  Bol- 
sheviki  of  Russia  and  those  who  in  this  country  asked 
a  hearing  for  them.  Other  unpopular  groups 
readily  suggest  themselves  as  likely  to  become  the 
residuary  legatees  of  the  superfluous  hatred  left  by 
the  war — the^.  Non-partisan  League,  the  I.W.W., 
the  Oriental/ the  Negro.  Now  these  groups  and 
the  questions  which  they  raise  are  precisely  those 
which  in  the  interests  of  our  own  social  well-being 
as  well  as  that  of  countless  millions  of  our  fellow 
men  should  be  treated  honestly^  dispassionately,  gen- 
erously. They  remind  us  that  the  demobilization 
of  hate  should  be  the  immediate  object  of  those  who 
have  the  civic  as  well  as  the  spiritual  welfare  of  the 
country  at  heart.  It  may  be  hoped  that  some  effort 
in  this  direction  will  be  initiated,  now  that  the  war 
is  over,  by  that  class  whp  believe  and  teach  that 
their  Lord  came  to  earth  and  said :  "  Love  your 
enemies,  bless  them  that  curse  you,  do  good  to  them 
that  hate  you,  and  pray  for  them  which  despitefully 
use  you  and  persecute  you." 

J.HE    RUSSIAN    PROBLEM    IS    NOT    THE    ONLY    ONE 

affecting  Asia  which  will  come  before  the  Peace 
Conference.  In  the  long  run  the  peace  of  the  world 
may  depend  even  more  upon  China  than  upon  Rus- 
sia. No  one  in  his  senses— even  though  some  of  the 
French  have  parted  temporarily  with  theirs — 
believes  that  Russia  can  permanently  be  governed 
from  outside  itself.  Disorganization  in  China  is 
almost  as  great  as  in  Russia,  and  China  never  has 
been  a  great  power.  In  other  words,  it  is  one  of 
the  countries  that  has  been  regarded  as  the  Happy 
Hunting  Grounds  for  the  Great  Powers.  Few 
realize  how  far  the  parceling  out  has  gone,  or  the 
extent  to  which  the  path  from  the  Open  Door  leads 
into  secret  and  blind  alleys  of  foreign  exploitation. 
Superficially  the  report  (which  is  probably  authen- 
tic) seems  reassuring  that  China  and  Japan  have 
agreed  upon  the  policy  to  be  pursued  by  China  at 
the  Conference.  When  this  report  is  backed  by 
semi-official  news  that  Tsingtao  will  be  returned  by 
Japan  to  China,  the  omens  seem  most  propitious. 
All  the  more  disquieting  then  are  the  rumors  coming 
from  the  Far  East  that  Japan  has  exercised  tremen- 
dous pressure,  diplomatic  and  financial,  upon  China 
to  determine  the  Peace  Conference  program  of  the 
latter.  It  is  even  said  that  some  demands  are 
included  only  because  they  are  sure  of  rejection,  and 
Japan  can  then  make  the  better  claim  to  be  China's 
real  friend.  Others  are  said  to  be  more  in  the 
interest  of  Japan  than  of  China.  One  circumstantial 
story  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  one  of  the  Chinese 
delegates  was  detained  in  Tokyo  to  make  him  sign 
a  promise  that  certain  questions  would  not  be  raised 
by  China  at  Paris — this  even  though  it  is  stated 
that  Japanese  pressure  had  already  controlled  the 
selection  of  Chinese  delegates.  These  rumors  come 


from  the  foreign  settlements  in  Peking.  They  are  ex 
parte  and  partisan.  But  they  follow  upon  reports  of 
activities  of  Japan  in  China  during  the  war  that  are 
most  sinister.  Wholesale  opium  smuggling  with 
government  connivance  is  the  most  unpleasant,  but 
not  the  most  serious,  of  these  tales.  They  are  to  the 
effect  that  Japan  has  subsidized  the  militarists  of 
the  north  in  order  to  keep  China  weak  and  divided  ; 
that  all  sorts  of  loans  have  been  made  merely  to 
involve  China  hopelessly;  that  bribery  is  regularly 
resorted  to.  in  order  to  get  concessions  of  railways, 
mines,  and  forests  ;  that  the  famous  —  or  infamous  — 
demands  of  the  twenty-one  points  have  been  with- 
drawn only  because  the  Japanese  faction  which  is 
now  uppermost  believes  that  the  conquest  of  China 
can  be  effected  better  by  economic  means  than  by 
military.  These  reports  are  not  proved.  But  also 
they  are  not  put  in  circulation  by  merely  irresponsi- 
ble parties.  The  concentration  of  interest  upon 
Europe  has  cooperated  with  the  censorship  to  keep 
us  all  ignorant  of  the  vast  conflict  of  factions  and 
interests  going  on  in  China.  The  rumors,  even  if 
not  adequately  authenticated,  are  worth  setting 
down.  They,  as  well  as  the  facts  behind  them, 
declare  the  necessity  for  the  League  of  Nations. 
They  make  apparent  even  more  what  kind  of 
League  it  should  be.  Only  some  permanent  body 
having  scientific  experts  constantly  in  its  service  can 
ascertain  the  facts.  Only  such  a  body  can  command 
attention  and  belief  for  its  reports.  Only  such  a 
body  can  investigate  and  report  without  exciting 
all  sorts  of  nationalistic  suspicions  and  hatreds,  and 
without  itself  becoming  an  instrumentality  of 
intrigue.  Secret  diplomacy  is  not  limited  to  treaties. 
Our  whole.  international  life  goes  on  in  secrecy.  It 
is  this  secrecy  which  allows  rumors  to  flourish  which 
are  abominable  if  they  are  false,  because  they  carry 
the  seeds  of  distrust  and  war.  It  is  secrecy  which 
permits  the  abominable  events  to  occur,  if  the 
rumors  turn  out  to  be  justified.  Only  an  interna- 
tional agency  can  introduce  real  publicity  based 
on  knowledge  of  facts  into  -the  situation.  The 
nee,d  is  most  crying  when  colonies,  backward  regions, 
spheres  of  influence  and  Siberia  and  China  are  in 
question. 


ACTUAL  OUTCOME  OF  THE  RECENT  DECISIONS 

of  the  Peace  Conference  is  a  remarkable,  if  to  a 
great  extent  unconscious,  disappearance  of  the  pre- 
rogatives of  State  sovereignty  in  the  old-fashioned 
sense.  This  is  especially  true  of  smaller  nations. 
For  what  is  happening  in  Paris  in  the  field  of  diplo- 
macy is  much  like  what  has  happened  for  some  time 
past  in  the  field  of  industry  —  consolidation  and 
amalgamation,  the  big  interests  becoming  bigger  and 
the  smaller,  smaller.  The  real  importance  of  these 
incidents  lies  in  their  illustration  of  a  fundamental 
difficulty  facing  a  League  of  Nations  in  which  the 
smaller  powers,  theoretically  equal  before  the  law 
exactly  as  all  private  citizens  are  theoretically  equal 
before  it  within  any  civilized  state,  are  from  an 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


economic  and  industrial  point  of  view  practically 
impotent  and  dependent  upon  the  crumbs  of  favors 
of  the  great  powers.  Just  as  small  competing  busi- 
nesses have  been,  in  this  era  of  large-scale  corpora- 
tions, to  a  great  extent  eliminated,  so  are  the  smaller 
nations  coming  to  count  less  and  less  in  the  more 
extensive  decisions  of  world  policy  of  trade,  finance, 
commerce,  and  industry.  The  truth  is,  sovereignty 
in  the  old-fashioned  nationalistic  sense  has  become  a 
misnomer  except  for  the  great  powers — and  even 
with  them,  it  is  rapidly  becoming  a  tenuous  and 
fragile  possession  however  much  Republican  Sena- 
tors rage  against  a  Le*ague  of  Nations.  Nations  are 
no  longer  sufficient  unto  themselves.  No  matter  how 
adequate  and  flexible  a  system  of  representation  is 
devised  for  individual  countries  within  the  frame- 
work of  a  League  of  Nations,  what  will  really  deter- 
mine decisions  of  world  polity  will1  be  the  interplay 
of  economic  and  industrial  forces  bigger  than 
national  boundaries.  The  groupings  will  be  of  a  type 
necessarily  different  from  that  in  the  old  days  when 
nations  were  self-sufficient  and  self-supporting  blocs, 
with  a  numerical  weight  of  men  who  could  take  up 
arms.  What  we  are  witnessing  is  the  passing  of  the 
old  order  of  national  irresponsible  sovereignty.  And 
there  are  few  left  today  to  weep  over  its  expected 
demise. 

WHY  ARE  THE  AMERICAN  AND  FRENCH  Gov- 
ernments so  interested  in  supporting  the  Paderewski 
faction  in  Poland  ?  Aside  from  the  sinister  financial 
cliques  in  both  countries,  which  are  frankly  desirous 
of  a  reactionary  Poland  as  a  buffer  state  between  an 
imperialistic  Germany  on  the  one  hand  and  a  Bol- 
shevik Russia  on  the  other,  there  are  reasons  more 
or  less  inherent  in  the  genius  and  national  tempera- 
ment of  both  France  and  America  which  make  the 
phenomenon  explicable.  (  How  many  people  in  this 
country  showed  any  concern  when  our  official  Gov- 
ernment in  Washington  failed  to  interfere  with  the 
creation  here  in  America  of  a  Polish  expeditionary 
force  which  was  frankly  a  partisan  army?  Very 
few.  Since  our  muck-raking  days  we  have  accepted 
with  magnificent  unconcern  the  presence  in  our 
country  of  what  we  aptly  term  "  an  invisible  gov- 
ernment." We  appear  to  have  carried  over  this  do- 
mestic conception  into"  our  ideas  about  foreign  policy. 
It  never  seems  to  occur  to  us  that  Poland  may  some 
day  vigorously  resent  the  entrance  of  an  expedition- 
ary force  carrying  the  United  States  flag,  yet  with- 
out the  sanction  of  the  official  American  Govern- 
ment with  which  Poland  must  ultimately  deal.  It 
is  evident  that  Paderewski  and  his  expeditionary 
force  decided  that  the  people  of  Poland,  like  the 
people  of  this  country,  would  submit  gracefully  to 
the  imposition  of  a  particular  government  which,  in 
our  own  parlance,  "  has  the  goods."  French  diplo- 
matists, with  their  penchant  for  intrigue  and  with 
their  natural  inability  to  believe  that  a  moderate 
Socialist  government  such  as  that  of  General  Pilsud- 
ski  could  possibly  succeed  in  creating  a  strong  na- 


tion, seem  equally  determined  to  make  a  mockery 
of  the  principle  of  "  self-determination  " — which 
we  have  apotheosized  with  so  much  rhetoric.  They 
are  backing  the  Paderewski  faction  for  all  they  are 
worth,  utterly  indifferent  to  the  fact  that  the  ma- 
jority of  the  plain  people  of  Poland  have  shown  no 
interest  and  no  affection  for  that  faction.  Our 
genius  for  an  "  invisible  government "  and  the 
French  genius  for  intrigue  seem  to  have  combined 
successfully  to  wreck  the  prospects  of  a  united 
Poland.  Only  one  remedy  for  this  destruction  of 
the  fundamental  principle  of  the  League  of  Na- 
tions remains — to  see  that  the  representatives  of 
Poland,  which  represent  the  wishes  of  the  Polish 
people,  and  not  interested  cliques  in  Paris,  are  ad- 
mitted to  the  Peace  Conference  as  accredited  dele- 
gates. 

U  NE     OF    THE     NOISOME     BY-PRODUCTS     OF     THE 

recent  war  is  the  espionage  habit.  During  the  past 
year  it  has  not  been  unusual  to  see  in  the  press 
editorial  notices — "  Call  number — "  followed  by 
adjurations  to  report  to  the  Department  of  Justice 
words  and  deeds  which  might  be  interpreted  as 
showing  hostility  or  even  lack  of  sympathy  toward 
the  American  part  in  the  war.  The  Department  of 
Justice  and  the  American  Protective  League  have 
prided  themselves  on  the  sheer  number  of  cases  so 
reported,  however  trivial  or  malicious  the  grounds. 
It  was  useless  to  point  out  that  by  encouraging  the 
espionage  habit  we  were  fixing  on  our  people  one 
of  the  worst  vices  of  the  Prussian  Police  system. 
The  temptation  to  the  active  exercise  of  patriotism 
was  too  strong,  and  men  and  women  accepted  the 
suggestion  to  become  spies  and  informers  who  in 
saner  moments  would  have  spurned  the  idea.  How 
strongly  this  espionage  habit  has  been  fastened  on 
the  country,  even  in  the  brief  period  of  its  exercise, 
is  shown  by  the  novel  activity  of  the  United  States 
Senate.  This  body  has  recently  emitted  two  lists  of 
persons  whom  it  desires  to  brand  with  pro-German- 
ism or  pacifism.  The  constitution  of  the  lists  shows 
by  what  methods  of  irresponsible  tattle  and  gossip 
they  have  been  made  up.  In  this  respect  they  form 
an  accurate  mirror  of  the  mind  of  the  country 
under  the  influence  of  the  espionage  habit,  and  it  is 
because  the  country  at  large  so  well  understood  the 
propensities  which  produced  them  that  it  dismissed 
the  incidents  with  a  humor  which  was  touched  with 
shame.  The  repudiation  of  responsibility  by  Secre- 
tary Baker,  for  the  War  Department,  represents 
the  better  mind  of  the  whole  country  toward  prac- 
tices which  lower  the  prestige  of  government  and 
degrade  the  name  of  justice.  In  his  words  the  list 
of  infamy  becomes  one  of  glory.  "  In  the  particular 
list  accredited  to  Mr.  Stevenson  there  are  names  of 
people  of  great  distinction,  exalted  purity  of  pur- 
pose, and  lifelong  devotion  to  the  highest  interests 
of  America  and  of  mankind.  Miss  Jane  Addams, 
for  instance,  lends  dignity  and  greatness  to  any  list 
in  which  her  name  appears." 


146 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


Communications 

A  LANCE  FOR  MAX^  EASTMAN 

SIR:  Mr.  Louis  Untermeyer's  review  of  Max 
Eastman's  new  book  of  poems — Colors  of  Life — 
which  appeared  in  the  issue  of  THE  DIAL  of  De- 
cember 28,  has  caused  me  so  much  bewilderment 
that  I  cannot  refrain  from  commenting  on  it.  The 
review  is  so  obviously  acrimonious,  and  so  delib- 
erately polemic  as  to  appear  almost  invidious,  much 
to  the  detriment  of  Mr.  Untermeyer's  reputation 
for  critical  sobriety  and  equanimity. 

My  purpose,  however,  is  not  so  much  to  take 
issues  with  his  judgment  of  Max  Eastman's  art,  as 
to  deplore  the  method  by  which  it  is  arrived  at;  for 
Mr.  Untermeyer  discusses  Eastman's  conception  of 
poetry,  as  embodied  in  the  splendid  preface  to  the 
book,  for  nine-tenths  of  the  review,  and  devotes 
only  one-tenth  to  the  poems.  I  am  indeed  surprised 
that  once  having  decided  on  this  very  unconven- 
tional procedure,  Mr.  Untermeyer  did  not  use  this 
last  remaining  tenth  for  a  scholarly  condemnation 
of  the  binding  and  typographical  make-up  of  the 
book,  and  ignore  altogether  the  seemingly  unimpor- 
tant fact  that  perhaps,  as  I  strongly  suspect,  the 
book  was  chiefly  intended  to  present  Eastman's 
poetry,  and  only  incidentally  to  inform  us  of  its 
author's  opinions  of  Poe,  Whitman,  and  free  verse. 

But  whatever  may  have  prompted  Mr.  Unter- 
meyer to  follow  this  extremely  original  and  brilliant 
method  of  reviewing  a  work  of  art  by  not  saying 
anything  about  it,  the  fact  remains  that  Max  East- 
man has  written  a  book  of  verse,  and  that  he  is 
entitled  to  have  it  criticized  fairly  and  directly  on 
its  own  merits,  or  not  at  all.  It  is,  therefore,  to  be 
desired  that  when  Mr.  Eastman  writes  another  book 
THE  DIAL  will  invest  someone  other  than  Mr. 
Untermeyer  with  the  judicature — unless,  of  course, 
Mr.  Eastman  gives  up  his  bad  habit  of  writing 
prefaces  and  excoriating  free  verse. 

In  the  meantime,  there  is  one  thing  that  I  cannot 
let  pass  unchallenged,  and  that  is  the  statement  that 
Mr.  Eastman  is  "  an  artist  anxious  to  capture 
beauty,  rather  than  a  captor  driven  by  it."  This, 
allowing  that  it  is  true,  seems  to  me  a  mere  quibble, 
for  surely  the  pursuit  of  beauty  is  as  much  a  part 
of  the  creation  of  it  as  the  pursuit  of  liberty  is  a 
condition  of  its  inauguration.  But  it  is  not  true,  for 
much  of  Eastman's  poetry  is  so  replete  with  genuine 
and  spontaneous  beauty  as  to  miss  some  of  the  more 
rugged,  and  by  no  means  less  poetical  aspects  of 
life,  a  fact  that  most  of  his  friends  sincerely  regret. 
I  need  only  call  the  attention  of  the  interested  reader 
to  a  single  poem,  Hours,  to  bear  out  my  assertion; 
for  to  me  at  least,  those  six  lines  are  the  most  beauti- 
ful and  exquisite  in  their  particular  field  that  have 
been  written  in  many  a  year. 

But  I  am  afraid  that  Mr.  Untermeyer  has  over- 
looked this  poem,  with  many  others,  if  the  only  one 
he  can  quote  is  At  the  Aquarium,  whose  appearance 
in  an  earlier  volume  has  won  for  its  author  the 


reputation  of  being  the  foremost  poetical  ichthyolo- 
gist in  America.  The  singling  out  of  this  aquatic 
feat  from  so  much  terra  firma  reveals  the  whole 
motive  of  Mr.  Untermeyer's  review.  Decidedly, 
he  was  fishing  for  something.  But  then,  why  not 
say,  like  the  Roman  gladiator  to  his  Gallic  opponent 
who  wore  a  fish  on  his  helmet :  "  Non  te  peto,  pis- 
cem  peto — quid  me  fugis,  Galle?" 

ARTURO  GIOVANNITTI. 
New  York  City. 

POETRY  IN  THE  LABORATORY 

SIR:  I  think  Mr.  John  Gould  Fletcher  is  unfair 
to  Dr.  Patterson.  In  his  article,  A  Rational  Ex- 
planation of  Vers  Libre,  he  does  not  for  a  moment 
make  clear  that  Dr.  Patterson  is  a  scientist  wha 
has  made  important  contributions  to  a  little  known 
science.  It  is  a  mistake  to  dismiss  "  this  atmosphere 
of  the  laboratory  "  as  Mr.  Fletcher  does.  In  olden 
days  art  and  science  were  one,  and  art  can  be  but 
superficial  which  does  not  make  use  of  the  wisdom 
collected  in  the  data  of  scientific  experiments. 

Vers  Libre  is  composed  by  the  aborigines  of  Aus- 
tralia, by  the  Negro  in  West  Indian  Islands,  and 
by  all  "  primitive "  folk.  Its  introduction  into 
poetry  coincides  with  the  primitive  turn  given  to  art 
by  Cezanne,  Van  Gogh,  and  Gaugain — and  with 
the  development  of  the  sciences  of  anthropology  and 
ethnology,  and  the  "  back  to  nature  "  movement  in 
dancing  and  in  music.  The  Psalms — as  translated 
in  the  English  Bible — are  vers  libres. 

AMELIA  DOROTHY  DEFRIES. 
Washington,  D.  C. 

AUTOMATIC  vs.  AUTOCRATIC 

SIR:  The  excellent  article  by  Mr.  Roe  in  THE 
DIAL  of  January  n  suggests  two  important  points 
in  the  question  of  free  speech  which  are  worthy  of 
some  elaboration.  In  the  first  place  we  can  now  see 
that  some  of  the  -important  liberties  which  we  sur- 
rendered in  wartime  are  not  to  be  restored  to  us 
automatically.  If  we  get  them  back  we  shall  have 
to  fight  for  them.  They  are  in  the  hands  of  the 
autocracy  which  we  thought  necessary  to  win 
the  war,  and  this  autocracy  can  urge  plausi- 
ble reasons  for  the  further  suppression  of  them. 
And  autocracies  do  not  relinquish  powers  where 
there  is  any  possibility  of  retaining  them. 

In  the  second  place,  we  should  note  that  the 
organization  of  the  people  to  wrest  their  rights 
from  an  autocratic  officialdom  is  a  tremendously 
difficult  task.  The  agencies  of  social  control  are 
everywhere  in  the  hands  of  the  Government  and 
terrific  pressure  can  be  brought  to  bear  on  all  indi- 
viduals restive  under  restraint.  The  people  are 
likely  to  learn  in  this  present  upheaval  that  relin- 
quished civil  liberties  are  not  restored  to  them 
graciously  by  an  autocratic  officialdom  which  finds- 
advantage  in  restraining  such  liberties. 

JAMES  G.  STEVENS. 
Middlebury  College. 


1919 


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148 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


Notes  on  New  Books 

THE  GARDEN  OF  SURVIVAL.     By  Algernon 
Blackwood.    Button;  $1.25. 

To  read  Blackwood  is  to  descend  into  a  valley 
where  the  mists  lie — mists  that  soften  and  subdue 
the  outlines  of  reality.  Often  these  mists  bring  a 
breath  of  enchantment  and  mystery,  and  yet  there 
are  other  times  when  they  merely  react  upon  the 
reader  as  a  sort  of  esthetic  damp.  Occasionally  one 
wishes  that  Blackwood  might  come  up  into  the 
sunlight,  instead  of  delving  in  the  shadows,  flitting 
from  the  phantasy  that  is  half-formed  to  the  phan- 
tasy that  is  half-uttered.  In  the  case  of  the  present 
book  it  is  difficult  to  lay  one's  finger  upon  the  pre- 
cise flaw,  yet  we  suspect  that  the  secret  lies  in  the 
author's  so  complete  absorption  in  his  method  that 
he  permits  a  false  harmony  to  creep  into  his  mate- 
rials. In  spite  of  all  the  expert  modeling,  he  has 
not  made  us  forget  the  clay. 

Blackwood  sets  himself  to  unfold  the  conception 
that  out  of  an  imperfect  and  unequal  love  there 
comes  a  perfection  of  beauty.  His  starting  point  is 
the  marriage  between  a  man  and  a  woman  who  are 
not  mated.  He  descends  into  flashiness  by  having 
the  woman  meet  death  in  an  automobile  accident  a 
month  later.  And  from  these  ingredients  he  seeks  to 
clothe  his  thought — the  belief  that  "  those  who  loved 
beauty  and  lived  it  in  their  lives  follow  that  same 
ideal  with  increasing  power  afterwards — and  for- 
ever." Had  he  chosen  a  more  harmonic  set  of  facts, 
a  more  ideal  framework,  he  might  have  heightened 
the  beauty  of  what  he  sought  to  interpret.  The 
weakness  of  the  book  is  not  in  its  message,  but  in  the 
early  part  of  the  narrative — which  is  hot  attuned  to 
the  idealistic  pinioning  which  is  to  follow. 

NEWSPAPER    BUILDING.      By   Jason    Rogers. 
Harper;  $5. 

The  application  of  efficiency  to  editing,  to  mechan- 
ical production,  to  circulation,  and  advertising,  is  the 
main  thesis  of  this  interesting  book.  Curiously 
enough,  the  opening  chapters  are  devoted  to  a  study 
of  the  personalities  and  methods  of  Melville  E. 
Stone  and  Victor  F.  Lawson  of  the  Chicago  News, 
Colonel  Nelson  of  the  Kansas  City  Star,  Adolph  S. 
Ochs  of  the  New  York  Times,  and  others.  Out  of 
this  concrete  study  of  previously  successful  news- 
papers, Mr.  Rogers  and  his  associates  built  up  the 
New  York  Globe  into  a  paying  newspaper  property. 
The  various  problems  were  subjected  to  a -searching 
analysis,  and  out  of  that  thorough  study  the  best 
methods  of  conducting  the  various  departments  of 
the  paper  were  worked  out.  In  the  present  state  of 
competition  and  high  cost  of  production  only  the 
most  ably  and  most  skilfully  edited  and  conducted 
newspaper  can  attain  enduring  success.  A  mixture 
of  brains  and  wise  methods  on  the  business  side  is  as 
necessary  as  on  the  editorial  side.  The  right  kind  of 
building,  a  knowledge  of  costs  in  both  labor  and 


material,  a  budget  system,  a  clear  understanding  of 
conditions,  and  an  exact  knowledge  of  income  and 
outgo  are  necessary  today.  Guessing  at  half  and 
multiplying  by  two  lead  to  failure. .  A  chart  or  graph 
pictures  the  leaks.  This  book  is  an  interesting  and 
vivid  presentation  of  the  business  methods  plus  the 
enthusiasm  mixed  with  brains  necessary  to  make  a 
newspaper  a  financial  success  and  also  to  make  it  a 
permanent  and  influential  factor  in  the  community. 
The  price  of  the  volume  seems  excessive,  although 
the  book  gives  the  results  of  years  of  study  of  the 
newspaper  business  freely  and  with  great  frankness. 

MADAME  ROLAND:  A  STUDY  IN  REVOLUTION. 
By  Mrs.  Pope-Hennessy.     Dodd,  Mead;  $5. 

By  our  readiness  to  let  our  thoughts  revert  from 
time  to  time  to  Madame  Roland  we  acknowledge 
that  nothing  is  so  attractive  in  the  long  run  as  per- 
sonality. Product  of  conditions  that  gave  birth  to 
that  doctrinaire  and  futile  revolutionary  type,  the 
Girondist  Republican,  she  proved  that  she  alone  of 
her  numerous  political  family  possessed  the  energy 
and  persistance  necessary  for  leadership  in  critical 
times.  And  that  leadership  she  often  exercised, 
though  just  as  often  she  refused  to  do  so,  at  least 
openly,  because  the  age  had  a  strong  prejudice 
(which  she  fully  shared)  against  la  femme  politique. 
Even  her  Prison  Memoirs,  frank  and  proud  confes- 
sions of  fully  emancipated,  political  opinions,  show 
an  anxiety  as  laughable  as  it  is  sincere,  to  reduce  her 
role  in  the  councils  of  the  Girondist  group  to  the 
proportions  of  the  good  wife  who  plied  her  needle 
and  listened  while  her  betters  held  the  floor.  Her 
newest  biographer  was  able  to  uncover  so  many  of 
these  modestly  concealed  trails  that  we  shall  be 
obliged  henceforth  to  accept  her  as  the  only  leader 
the  poor  Gironde  ever  had.  This  is  perhaps  the 
special  contribution  of  the  book,  which  shows  quite 
conclusively  that  the  party  policy  adopted  in  the 
great  crisis  of  1793  and  calling  for  a  federal  organi- 
zation of  France  as  well  as  for  a  departmental  guard 
for  the  Convention,  was  her  work.  True,  with 
these  ill-starred  measures  she  broke  the  necks  of  her 
Girondist  friends  and,  incidentally,  her  own,  but  one 
is  tempted  to  think  that  if  circumstances  had  per- 
mitted her  to  act  as  field  general  for  her  party  instead 
of  being  just  a  secret,  unofficial  chief  of  staff,  the 
Girondists  might  have  come  out  on  top.  -However, 
there  was  Danton — no,  she  could  never  have  won 
against  the  elemental  energy  of  an  adversary  who 
very  accurately  took  her  measure  when  he  said :  "  In 
revolutions  one  doesn't  write,  one  acts."  Beside 
Danton,  savior  of  his  country  through  action,  she 
shrivels  to  a  little  quill-driving  blue-stocking. 

The  author  has  a  singularly  just  outlook  enabling 
her  to  range  in  orderly  perspective  the  crowding 
figures  and  forces  of  the  Revolution.  In  consequence 
of  this  happy  poise  she  steadily  holds  her  heroine  to 
the  human  level  and  makes  her  political  illusions  as 
palatable  as  her  sprightly  wit,  her  love  of  nature, 
and  her  extraordinary  gift  for  friendship.  One 


1919  THE  DIAL  149 


Read  it  during  the  coining  All  Russian— Allied  Con- 
ference. It  clearly  explains — for  the  first  time— *who's 
who  and  what's  what  in  the  highly  complicated 
Russian  situation 

JOHN  REEDS 

Long  awaited  book  on  Russia  will  be 
published  February  25th 

"Ten  Days  That 
Shook  the  World" 

This  book  is  a  moving  picture  of  those  thrilling  days, 
whose  reverberations  were  felt  throughout  the  world. 
Written  in  John  Reed's  inimitable  style;  It  tells 
facts  hitherto  unpublished,  and  will  be  used  as  an 
original  source  by  historians.  Profusely  illustrated. 

We  suggest  that  you  place  your  order  now — at  any 
bookstore — $2.00  net,  postage  15c  extra. 

BONI  &  LIVERIGHT,  New  York  City,  PUBLISHERS 


Recent   Important   Publications 

MEN   IN  WAR  Andreas  Latzko 

Accepted  by  the  best  judges  as  one  of  the  three  masterpieces  of  the  war  books  of  our  time 
and  a  book  that  will  live  for  all  time.  For  a  time  impossible  to  obtain  at  bookstores,  but  now  again 
in  wide  circulation.  Now  in  its  eighth  American  and  third  English  edition.  $1-5° 

THE   PRESTONS  Mary  Heaton  Vorse 

Published  late  in  December,  now  in  its  sixth  large  printing.  Called  by  the  New  York  Sun,  Phila- 
delphia Record,  Brooklyn  Eagle,  Richmond  Evening  Journal,  Review  of  Reviews,  The  Bookman, 
etc.,  one  of  the  best,  if  not  the  best,  novels  of  American  family  life  written  in  the  last  decade.  $i-75 

THE  MODERN  LIBRARY 

Fourteen  New  Titles — (64  now  ready) — Francois  Villon,  Gautier,  Frank  Norris,  D'Annunzio, 
Nietzsche,  Henry  James,  May  Sinclair,  Leo  Tolstoy,  Woodrow  Wilson,  etc. 

Hand  bound  in  limp  Croftleather.    Send  for  catalogue.    70  cents  per  volume. 

Boni  &  Liveright,  105%  W.  40th  St.,  N.  Y.,  publishers 


When  writing  to  advertisers  please  mention  THE  DIAL. 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


misses  the  philosophic  penetration  that  would  have 
delved  into  the  origin  of  Madame  Roland's  ideas 
and  uncovered  their  relation  to  the  conflicting  ideas 
and  programs  of  the  age.  However,  when  all's  said, 
the  author  chose  well  in  telling  a  very  personal  and 
pragmatic  story,  for  Madame  Roland  as  a  thinker 
is  at  best  second-rate,  while  her  personality  with  its 
fine  sympathies  and  rancors,  bewitching  gaiety  and 
noble  courage,  bubbles  for  our  delight  like  a  peren- 
nial spring. 

CAMPS  AND  TRAILS  IN  CHINA.  By  Roy  Chap- 
man Andrews  and  Yvette  Borup  Andrews. 
Appleton;  $3. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Andrews  tell  the  story  of  the 
Asiatic  Zoological  Expedition  in  a  manner  calcu- 
lated to  appeal  to  popular  taste.  Yiin-nan,  a  prov- 
ince in  southwestern  China,  was  selected  as  the 
region  in  which  the  main  work  of  the  expedition  was 
to  be  conducted.  This  province  is  about  the  size  of 
California,  and,  says  Mr.  Andrews,  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  in  no  similar  area  of  the  world  is  there  such  a 
variety  of  language  and  dialects  as  in  this  region. 
Its  faunaL  range  is  also  very  wide. 

In  Fukien  Province,  whither  the  party  first  went, 
the  author  spent  several  weeks  vainly  hunting  the 
"  blue  tiger,"  an  elusive  man-eater  that  had  long 
been  spreading  terror  in  the  region.  Curiously 
enough,  a  more  interesting  chapter  is  that  which 
vividly  describes  a  cave  tenanted  by  thousands  of 
bats,  and  the  manner  in  which  Mrs.  Andrews 
braved  its  terrors  in  the  cause  of  science.  "  All 
about  is  the  swish  of  ghostly  wings  which  brush  her 
face  or  neck,  and  the  air  is  full  of  chattering  noises 
like  the  grinding  of  hundreds  of  tiny  teeth.  Some- 
times a  soft  little  body  plumps  into  her  lap."  Any 
but  a  naturalist's  wife  would  find  a  blue  tiger  far 
more  desirable  company! 

The  scientific  reputation  of  the  expedition,  as  the 
preface  points  out,  will  rest  upon  the  technical 
reports  of  its  work,  which  will  be  published  in  due 
course  by  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  His- 
tory. 'The  book  includes,  besides  the  data  on  the 
fauna  of  the  regions  visited,  references  to  the  state 
of  Chinese  politics  in  the  days  of  1916-17,  the  social 
and  religious  customs  of  the  inhabitants,  and  numer- 
ous more  or  less  lively  adventures. 

MEN  OF  THE  OLD  STONE  AGE:  Their  En- 
vironment, Life  and  Art.  By  Henry  Fair- 
field  Osborn.  Scribner;  $3.50. 

Here  is  a  popular  edition,  at  a  considerably 
reduced  price,  of  Professor  Osborn's  synthesis  of 
knowledge  of  our  Paleolithic  predecessors.  With 
its  wealth  of  first-rate  illustrative  material  it  repre- 
sents a  valuable  compendium  for  teachers,  both  as 
to  the  anatomical  and  the  archeological  finds.  The 
very  full  account  of  Magdalenian  arj:  doubtless 
forms  one  of  the  most  attractive  features  of  the  book. 
As  to  the  precise  value  of  the  restorations  from 


ancient  human  remains,  opinions  will  differ.  Doubt- 
less they  help  to  visualize  what  Paleolithic  man  may 
have  looked  like,  but  the  probable  error  as  to  the 
soft  parts  is  a  large  one — which  may  not  be  appre- 
ciated by  the  laity.  Every  book  of  this  type  suffers 
from  the  difficulty  that  it  must  keep  in  view  the 
disparate  needs  of  several  classes  of  readers — of  pro- 
fessional colleagues,  of  students,  of  the  cultured 
layman.  The  author's  endeavor  has  evidently  been 
to  omit  nothing  that  is  in  any  way  significant,  and 
while  this  renders  his  book  a  most  convenient  work 
of  reference,  a  certain  amount  of  judicious  skipping 
is  advisable  for  the  general  reader.  Thus  the  latter 
will  be  less  interested  in  the  history  of  all  the  vari- 
ous Neanderthal  finds  and  their  minor  variations 
than  in  the  general  characteristics  of  this  human 
type.  However,  the  success  of  the  work  from  the 
publisher's  point  of  view  may  possibly  indicate  a 
greater  willingness  to  wrestle  with  scientific  detail 
than  was  even  recently  noticeable  among  the  Ameri- 
can public.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  on  the 
whole  Osborn's  book  is  the  most  useful  general 
treatment  in  English — at  once  sounder  and  more 
up-to-date  than  Sollas'  Ancient  Hunters,  its  only 
serious  rival. 

AMERICAN  RAILWAY  ACCOUNTING.  By  Henry 

C.  Adams.     Holt;  $3. 

PRINCIPLES    IN    ACCOUNTING.     By    W.    A. 

Paton    and    R.    A.    Stevenson.     Macmillan; 

$3-25. 

The  government  control  of  the  railroads  brought 
about  by  the  war  has  relegated  to  the  scrap  heap 
much  of  the  regulation  previously  practised.  The 
one  definite  result  which  remains  of  the  work  of 
the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission  since  its  estab- 
lishment in  1887  is  the  standardization  of  railroad 
accounts.  Chiefly  responsible  for  that  standardiza- 
tion has  been  Professor  Henry  C.  Adams,  who  was 
in  charge  of  the  statistical  and  accounting  work  of 
the  Commission  from  1887  to  1911,  and  who  has 
worked  out  a  scientific  method  of  accounting. 
Originally  Professor  Adams  intended  to  write .  a 
book  on  the  abuses  and  uses  of  railway  accounts, 
which  would  have  led  to  a  criticism  of  most  that 
had  been  done  relative  to  rate  regulation.  Instead 
he  has  written  a  commentary  on  the  standard  system 
of  railway  accounts  used  by  American  railways. 
Accounting,  according  to  the  author,  is  the  de- 
termination of  relative  equities:  it  can  claim  the 
dignity  of  science  because  it  is  subject  to  the  strict 
rules  of  formal  logic.  The  language  used  is  that 
of  figures  and  the  underlying  conception  is  that  of 
a  mathematical  equation.  Exactness,  as  in  any  other 
science,  is  the  end  sought.  Hence  the  railway  ac- 
countant is  not  so  much  a  bookkeeper  as  an  execu- 
tive, personally  responsible  for  the  observation  of 
all  accounting  rules  and  thus  subject  to  accounting 
principles  instead  of,  as  formerly,  to  the  whims  of 
a  superior  officer.  This  of  course  does  not  mean 
that  the  peculiarities  of  the  business  must  not  be 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


Have  You  a 
Progressive  Conscience? 

Have  you  fixed  ideals  ?  Do  you  approve  actions 
today  that  you  condemned  yesterday?  Have  you 
acquired  the  urge  of  Evolution?  Is  your  belief 
in  rightness  and  wrongness  based  upon  ancient 
doctrine,  or  is  it  grounded  on  a  personal  study 
of  what  really  constitutes  Tightness  and  wrong- 
ness  ? 

Read  this  most  interesting  book 

ETERNAL  PROGRESS 

by     the     distinguished     thinker     and     writer, 

HAROLD  ROWNTREE, 

and  learn  his  conclusions  regarding  the  Progress- 
ive Conscience. 

An  example  of  fine  bookmaking.  To  be  had 
from  your  bookseller,  or  from  the  publisher.  The 
price  is  $1.50. 

LAURENCE  C.  WOODWORTH 

Maker  and  Publisher  of  Books 
502  Sherman  Street  Chicago 

Also  privately  printed  books  and  memorial  volumes. 


The  Brick  Row  Book  Shop,  inc. 

NEW  HAVEN,   CONN. 

We  beg  to  announce  that  Part  Two 
of  Catalogue  Number  Five,  embrac- 
ing a  choice  selection  of  books  on 

ART 

BIOGRAPHY 
NAPOLEON 
DRAMA 

is  now  ready  for  distribution.  We 
shall  be  pleased  to  send  a  copy  of  the 
same  on  request. 

High  St.,  New  Haven,  Conn.,  and  489  Park  Ave.,  New  York 


ANNUAL  FEBRUARY  SALE 
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TIMELY 


Books  on  Polish  Matters 


OFFERED  BY 


The  Polish  Book  Importing  Co.,  Inc. 

83  Second  Avenue,  New  York 


By  Dr.  E.  H.  Lewinski-Corwin 

628  pages — 368  Illustrations — 14  maps 
Price,  handsome  cloth  binding,  $3.00 

Prof.  B.  H.  Lord,  U.  S.  Commissioner  for  Po- 
land, says  In  "The  American  Political  Science 
Review  ": 

"  This  is  the  most  detailed  and  comprehensive, 
and  one  of  the  moat  readable  and  illuminating:  of 
the  numerous  histories  of  Poland.  .  .  .  The 
author  shows  a  wide  acquaintance  with  Polish 
historical  literature,  Insight,  accuracy,  and  a 
s-?nse  of  proportion." 

".  .  .  The  work  is  undoubtedly  the  best  of 
its  kind  in  the  English  Language"  (The  Ameri- 
can Historical  Review.) 

"  A  book  which  should  be  read  by  all  those  In- 
terested in  the  territorial  problems  which  must 
be  solved  at  the  close  of  the  war."  (The  Journal 
of  Race  Development.) 

"  Dr.  Lewinski-Corwin's  book  takes  its  place 
as  the  best  and  most  authoritative  brief  history 
of  Poland  now  on  the  market."  (The  Survey.) 

"  The  most  satisfactory  account  of  Poland 
which  has  yet  been  published  In  English."  (The 
Polish  Review,  London.) 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  POLISH 
HISTORY 

By  Antoni  Choloniewski 

68   pages — 60c. 

An  excellent  essay  on  the  true  significance  of 
Poland's  history  and  her  democratic  ideas  of 
government. 

FUNDAMENTAL    CONDITIONS 
OF  THE  ECONOMIC  INDE- 
PENDENCE OF  POLAND 

i. .-"•«BF JW«»*?1W!L;!IW.'1 ;".  ^^  -J!«Jweu 

By  Joseph  Freihch,  Ph.D. 

95  pages — 50c. 

A  study  of  the  natural  and  industrial  resources 
of  Poland.  Indispensable  for  those  interested  in 
the  economic  possibilities  of  this  important  part 
of  Europe. 

PRACTICAL  HANDBOOK  OF 
THE  POLISH  LANGUAGE 

By  Joseph  F.  Baluta  , 

Cloth    bound— $1.25 

A  manual  of  300  pages  for  those  English  speak- 
ing people  who  want'  to  learn  Polish  or  who  need 
this  language  In  their  business  relations  with 
Poles. 


The  Polish  Book  Importing  Co.,  Inc. 

83  Second  Avenue,  New  York 


When  writing  to   advertisers  please  mention   THE   DIAL. 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


studied.  Professor  Adams  does  this  in  an  illuminat- 
ing chapter  concerning  the  structure  of  a  system  of 
railway  accounts.  The  details  involved  in  construc- 
tion costs  prior  and  after  operation  are  shown*  to 
have  a  vital  relation  to  the  questions  of  investment 
and  surplus  as  well  as  to  renewals  and  betterments. 
In  his  last  five  chapters  the  author  discusses  with 
scientific  thoroughness  operating  expenses  and 
revenues,  the  income  account,  profit  and  loss  ac- 
counts, and  the  general  balance  sheet  accounts.  Not 
the  least  valuable  part  of  the  book  is  the  appendices, 
which  reprint  the  classifications  promulgated  by  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission. 

The  influence  of  the  ideas  on  railway  accounting 
outlined  in  the  above  noted  volume  can  be  seen  in 
Principles  of  Accounting.  The  authors  use  to  some 
extent  the  terms  adopted  by  the  Interstate  Com- 
merce Commission  in  its  prescribed  classification  as 
representing  the  most  logical  system  of  accounting 
phraseology  at  present  developed.  The  whole  field 
of  accounting,  however,  is  covered  under  the  rubrics 
of  elements  of  accounting,  the  equity  accounts,  the 
interest  problem,  the  valuation  of  assets,  the  construc- 
tion and  analysis  of  financial  statements,  and  special 
fields  of  accounting.  Further  laboratory  material 
is  furnished  in  the  appendices.  The  book  is  in- 
tended for  the  student  of  economics  who  desires  a 
broad  training  in  accounting  principles  as  a  part  of 
general  educational  equipment.  The  general  reader 
will  also  find  it  valuable  and  interesting  because  it 
is  based  on  logical  and  scientific  principles.  Details 
have  been  subordinated  and  the  result  is  an  eminent- 
ly suggestive  and  valuable  work.  The  appearance 
of  these  two  books  is  an  encouraging  sign  of  the 
times  in  that  scientific  principles  and  ideas  are  being 
applied  in  business.  Guessing  at  half  and  multiply- 
ing by  two  is  rapidly  becoming  obsolete.  A  scienti- 
fic methqd  of  accounting  is  the  foundation  for  cor- 
poration honesty  and  general  business  efficiency  as 
well  as  for  the  regulation  of  public  utilities  or  ef- 
ficient government  ownership. 

THE  CATSKILLS.     By  T.  Morris  Longstreth. 
Century;  $2.50. 

Go  to  the  Catskills  in  April,  and  you  will  not  only 
avoid  the  depressing  horde  of  "  summer  boarders  " 
that  seem  to  lurk  behind  every  stone  wall  and  corn- 
stalk in  that  region,  but  you  will  find  its  modicum 
of  scenic  attraction  in  one  of  its  most  inspiring 
phases.  There  were  yet  a  few  snow  flurries  to  come 
when  the  author  began  a  several  weeks'  walking  trip 
that  had  its  beginning  at  Woodstock,  where  artists 
are  wont  to  congregate,  and  ended,  toward  the 
middle  of  June,  at  Arkville.  For  company  he  had 
a  young  man  native  to  the  mountains,  who  had 
never  read  Rip  Van  Winkle,  but  who  nevertheless 
had  the  advantage  of  imagination  and  no  little  love 
for  the  open  road.  Together  they  saw  the  ice  break 
up,  the  snow  melt,  and  the  world  come  to  life  with 
the  advent  of  spring.  They  traversed  much  of  the 
so-called  heart  of  the  Catskills,  climbing  mountains, 


stopping  to  see  John  Burroughs,  getting  lost  on  dim 
trails,  and  observing  all  the  worthwhile  things  that 
seem  to  hide  during  vacation  months. 

Mr.  Longstreth  is  something  of  a  philosopher, 
though  by  no  means  an  aggressive  one.  He  is  pleas- 
ant company  in  a  book,  and  we  find  ourselves  rather 
envying  the  young  man  who  accompanied  him  on 
his  walking  trip.  The  book  is  provided  with  an 
excellent  map,  and  in  the  back  are  addenda  giving 
directions  to  those  who  would  see  the  Catskills  in 
the  same  way. 

A  HISTORY  OF  SPAIN.  Founded  on  the  His- 
toria  de  Espana  y  de  la  Civilization  Espanola 
of  Rafael  Altamira.  By  Charles  E.  Chapman. 
Macmillan;  $2.60. 

The  renaissance  of  interest  in  things  Spanish  may 
be  in  part  a  reflection  of  the  heightened  public 
interest  in  all  international  affairs,  but  it  is  certain 
that  it  was  bound  to  come,  and  indeed  was  on  its 
way  even  before  the  war  lifted  us  into  a  conscious 
cosmopolitanism.  The  Iberian  peninsula,  to  be  sure, 
is  neither  politically  nor  economically  great  as  world 
centers  go,  and  in  latter  months  Spain  has  been  con- 
spicuous chiefly  in  the  dummy  part  of  a  chief  among 
neutrals.  But  for  all  that,  the  political  world  can- 
not, if  it  would,  overlook  the  fact  that  the  greater 
Iberia — in  language,  law,  tradition,  and  ideals — in- 
cludes more  than  the  whole  of  'one  of  Earth's  great 
continents.  Latin  America  may  never  again  be 
merely  Spanish  in  civilization,  but  it  is  little  likely 
that  it  wrill  ever  be  non-Spanish;  and  it  is  beyond 
doubt  that  as  time  passes  it  will  grow  in  world 
importance.  The  part  which  Spanish  culture  is  yet 
to  play  in  the  affairs  of  mankind  is  surely  to  out- 
shine aught  that  Spain  has  achieved  in  the  past:  this 
is  clear,  and  it  is  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  growing 
interest  in  Spanish  history  and  politics. 

Professor  Chapman's  contribution  in  this  field  is 
a  book  which  fills  an  obvious  gap,  for  he  gives  us  a 
readable  and  capable  one  volume  history,  compendi- 
ous in  matter  yet  comprehensive  enough  in  time  to 
cover  the  whole  historic  range  from  the  Cartha- 
ginian settlements  to  Spain  in  the  great  war.  The 
work,  as  the  title  states,  is  founded  upon  the  most 
eminent  of  Spanish  historians,  the  four  volume  work 
of  Altamira,  but  it  is  not  merely  an  abridgment; 
the  author  has  written  in  the  light  of  his  own  studies 
and  has  expressed  his  own  opinions,  and  the  two 
final  chapters,  dealing  with  the  period  from  1808 
to  1917,  are  entirely  his.  The  book's  special  claim 
to  originality — in  addition  to  an  amount  of  original 
research  and  the  use  of  new  materials — lies  in  the 
fact  that  it  endeavors,  if  not  to  subordinate  the 
political  to  the  social,  economic,  and  cultural  phases 
of  history,  at  least  not  to  allow  them  to  be  over- 
shadowed by  the  political  narrative.  This  is  an  aim 
so  wholly  laudable,  and  indeed  so  well  attained 
within  the  possibilities  of  a  limited  book,  that  it  is 
near  to  carping  to  remark  upon  its  shortcomings — 
or  upon  the  something  approaching  the  pamphleteer's 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


Fifth  Printing 


War  Verse 

EDITED  BY  FRANK  FOXCROFT 

Editor  of  "  The  Living  Age  " 


"  We  are  accustomed  to  think  of  poetry  as  the 
expression  of  soft-handed,  pleasure-loving,  even 
if  impoverished,  men  and  women,  and  have  be- 
lieved that  whatever  else  might  be  lacking  in 
wooing  the  muse,  quietude  was  an  indispensable 
essential. 

"But  here  is  verse  written  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  the  deafening  roar  of  exploding  shells 
and  the  anguished  cries  of  the  wounded  and 
dying;  and  through  it  all  runs  that  note  of  a 
wonderful  awe — that  peculiar  conviction  of  the 
presence  of  a  Great  Miracle — the  awakening  of 
the  god  in  man. 


"  One  feels  that  to  have  missed  this  book  would 
have  been  an  almost  irreparable  loss,  and  to  have 
read  it  is  to  have  acquired  an  almost  unforget- 
table heartache,  and  yet  over  and  above  all  other 
emotions  is  the  one  of  exaltation,  the  positive 
assurance  that  the  Great  War  means  the  triumph 
of  Good  over  Evil,  the  end  of  the  old  regime  of 
Autocracy  and  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
World  Democracy." 

— Review  of  "  War  Verse"  by  Margaret  Mclvor- 
Tyndall  in  "National  Service." 


303  pages,  Flexible  Cloth,  Net  $1.25;  Limp  Leather,  Net  $2.00 
Postage  extra.    Order  of  Your  Bookseller 

THOMAS  Y.  CROWELL  COMPANY,  Publishers,  New  York 


THE  BIRTH  CONTROL  REVIEW 

Reconstruction  is  in  the  air.  One  of  the  first  principles  of  reconstruction  is 
the  freedom  of  women  through  birth  control. 

The  Birth  Control  movement  is  dedicated  to  the  cause  of  voluntary  mother- 
hood. The  Birth  Control  Review  is  the  voice  of  this  movement,  which 
George  Bernard  Shaw  has  termed  "  the  most  revolutionary  doctrine  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century." 

No  League  of  Nations,  nor  Government,  no  matter  how  ideal,  can  main- 
tain peace  until  it  recognizes  the  danger  of  over-population  and  advo- 
cates the  practice  of  birth  control  as  a  fundamental  principle. 

THE  FEBRUARY  NUMBER 

Special  Eugenics  and  Havelock  Ellis  Issue 

Articles  by:  Havelock  Ellis,  Margaret  Sanger,  Jessie  Ashley,  W.  F.  Stella  Browne,  C.  V. 
Drysdale,  Genevieve  Grandcourt,  and  Mothers  of  the  Unfit 

$1.50  a  year  15  cents  a  copy 

Published  Monthly  by  The  New  York  Women's  Publishing  Co.,  Inc. 
Margaret  Sanger,  Editor  104  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York  City 


When  writing  to  advertisers  please  mention  THE  I>IAI.. 


"54 


THE  DIAL 


February  8 


flamboyancy  in  the  characterization  of  the  modern 
Spaniard  which  closes  the  book.  Certainly  the  pub- 
lishers had  aided  their  author  valuably  had  they  seen 
fit  to  add  to  the  volume  illustrations  drawn  from 
Spanish  art,  architecture,  and  nature,  which  the  text 
eminently  deserves. 

CITY    TIDES.      By    Archie    Austin    Coates. 
Doran;  $1.25. 

THE    OTHER    SIDE.      By    Gilbert    Frankau. 
Knopf;  $i. 

City  Tides  is  a  compound  of  the  good  and  evil 
influences  of  Spoon  River.  At  its  best,  this  first 
book  of  Mr.  Coates'  is  an  honest,  and  often  colorful, 
attempt  to  delve  into  the  human  consciousness  and 
unconsciousness  and  select  those  rare  things  which 
are  true  beneath  the  illusions  of  the  commonplace. 
At  its  worst,  it  is  very  thin  stuff,  psychologically  and 
rhythmically.  The  poorer  side  is  probably  due  to  the 
fact  that  one  influence  other  than  inspiration  and 
Masters  played  a  part  in  shaping  these  creations:  a 
newspaper  "  column."  That  sophisticated  brother 
of  the  Poets'  Corner  does  much,  perhaps,  to  arouse 
the  interest  of  the  average  reader  in  things  literary; 
but  there  is,  too,  a  tendency  to  "  smartness  "  which 
is  amusing  on  the  way  downtown,  but  which  falls 
flat,  for  some  reason,  between  the  covers  of  a  book. 
Scattered  among  the  free  verses  of  City  Tides  are 
a  few  rhymed  lyrics  and  sonnets ;  and  it  is  curious  to 
note  that  when  the  poet  thus  restricts  himself,  he 
gains  an  intensity  which  is  so  often  lacking  in  his 
other  pieces.  Felicitously  illustrative  of  this  is  the 
first  (and  perhaps  best)  poem  in  the  book — The 
Ticket-Seller,  who  rarely  sees  the  faces  of  his  cus- 
tomers, but  more  often  their  hands. 

In  his  Conscription,  Mr.  Coates  takes  an  attitude 
distinct  from  that  in  The  Other  Side.  It  might  be 
said  that  the  attitude  of  the  American — Conscrip- 
tion was  written  when  he  was  facing  the  draft — 
was  that  of  the  man  who  had  learned  about  war 
from  Over  the  Top,  and  the  attitude  of  Mr.  Fran- 
kau that  of  the  man  who  had  learned  about  war 
from  war.  There  are  "blacker  things  than  death, 
there  are  sweeter  things  than  living,  Mr.  Coates  ro- 
mantically says  in  the  prospect  of  the  trenches. 
War,  says  the  English  soldier,  is  "  dirty,  lousy, 
loathsome.  .  ," 

Men  disembowelled  by  guns  five  miles  away, 
Cursing,  with  their  last  breath,  the  living  God 
Because  he  made  them,  in  His  Image,  men. 

Versification  plays  a  much  larger  part  in  Mr. 
Frankau's  book  than  poetry.  There  is  much  capital- 
ization of  names  and  symbols,  lending  it  a  Kipling- 
esque  effect  when  taken  in  conjunction  with  the 
meters.  But  there  is  a  sincerity  in  many  of  the 
verses  so  passionate  and  whole-hearted  that  the 
impression  is  vividly  made  of  a  frank  and  rather  fine 
nature  instantaneously  reacting  against  the  false 
glamour  of  war  when  coming  into  the  knowledge  of 
what  it  actually  is,  yet  not  blind  to  its  braveries  and 
austerities.  And  in  at  least  one  poem,  Music  and 


Wine,  there  is  a  charming  pathos  of  thought  and 
expression,  beauties  remembered: 

Here  in  the  mud  and  the  rain — 

God,  give  me  London  again! 

I  would  lose  all  earth  and  the  heavens  above 

For  just  one  banquet  of  laughter  and  love. 

When  my  flesh  returns  to  its  earth, 
When  my  body  is  dust  as  my  sword ; 

If  one  thing  I  wrought  find  worth 
In  the  eyes  of  our  kindly  Lord, 

I  will  only  ask  of  his  grace 

That  he  grant  us  a  lowly  place 

Where  his  warriors  toast  him,  in  heaven  above, 

With  wine  and  laughter,  music  and  love. 

BENTON  OF  THE  ROYAL  MOUNTED.    By  Ralph 
S.  Kendall.    Lane;  $1.50. 

There  is  a  certain  type  of  mind  which  likes  its 
fiction  labelled  fact.  It  seems  to  hold  that  books  not 
founded  upon  "  the  actual  experiences  of  the  author," 
or  not  crowded  with  characters  "  which  the  reader 
would  instantly  recognize,  if  their  names  were 
given  "  are  scarcely  worth  reading,  and  it  probably 
dismisses  The  Mikado  and  Alice  in  Wonder- 
land as  obviously  and  equally  spurious.  Fortu- 
nately this  type  of  mind  is  not  particularly  prevalent,, 
but  since  it  does  exist  in  some  measure,  one  really 
cannot  quarrel  with  fiction  writers  who  cater  to  it. 
But  it  is  equally  true  that  the  kind  of  fiction  which 
starts  out  with  a  certificate  of  authenticity  is  seldom 
endowed  with  the  credentials  of  genuine  imagination. 
This  applies  to  Sergeant  Kendall's  book,  which  de- 
tails some  of  the  adventures  of  an  officer  of  the  Royal 
Northwest  mounted  police.  Fidelity  to  fact  is,  in 
its  place,  an  admirable  attribute,  but  it  has  here  been 
taken  with  a  literalness  that  is  the  antithesis  of  taste. 
Dealing  largely  with  the  apprehension  of  criminals, 
the  author  feels  constrained  to  write  with  all  of  a 
police  reporter's  accuracy  and  less  than  a  police 
reporter's  imagination.  Profanity  is  transcribed, 
and  the  course  of  a  bullet  traced  with  care  worthy 
of  a  better  cause.  And  when  one  comes  to  the  love- 
scenes,  one  is  hardly  prepared  to  find  the  Royal 
Mounted  reciting  Marie  Corelli  stanzas,  seven  lines 
long.  Here  the  problem  is  perhaps  more  for  the 
alienist  than  for  the  critic. 

MY  PEOPLE.     By  Caradoc  Evans.     Boni  & 

Liveright;$1.50. 

CAPEL  SIGN.     By  Caradoc  Evans.     Boni  & 

Liveright;$1.50. 

Is  this  revelation  or  fiction?  Such  uniform 
squalor  and  bestiality  scarcely  seems  consistent  with 
truth.  The  author  appears  to  have  used  up  his 
literary  faculties  on  variations  of  the  general  themes 
of  sexual  degradation  and  avarice.  It  is  not  to  be  de- 
nied that  he  has  made  excellent  literary  material 
out  of  these  unpleasant  themes,  but  it  is  the  excel- 
lence of  his  handling  which  makes  it  so  difficult  to 
suppress  a  question  concerning  the  truth  of  his  tales 
and  sketches.  It  is  not  at  all  impossible  that  these 
peasants  of  West  Wales  may  be  violent  distortions 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


Tax  Reports- 


The  Prentice-Hall  Tax  Service  gives  all  the 
help  you  need  in  the  preparation  of  Income  and 
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a  1,000  page  book  explaining  every  legal  and  ac- 
counting detail  of  the  new  law,  (3)  weekly  sup- 
plements, (4)  complete  instructions  for  the 
preparation  of  reports,  (5)  constructive  sugges- 
tions for  closing  books  of  account  that  enable 
the  taxpayer  to  take  every  advantage  per- 
mitted by  the  new  law,  and  (6)  personal  an- 
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scriber. 

These  recognized  authorities,  who  have  had  wide, 
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Laws,  conduct  the  Prentice-Hall  Tax  Service  : 

Charles  W.  Gerstenberg,  Ph.  B.,  J.D. 

Member  of  the  New  York  Bar;  Director  of  Fi- 
nance Department  of  New  York  University. 

Henry  Brach,  B.C.S.,  C.P.A. 

Certified  Public  Accountant;  Co-author  of  "1918 
Income  and  Federal  Tax  Reports." 

Gould  Harris,  M.A. 

Public  Accountant;  Lecturer  on  Cost  Accounting 
at  New  York  University. 

Walter  S.  Orr,  A.B.,  LL.B. 

Member  of  the  New  York  Bar;  Secretary  of  the 
Committee  of  Banking  Institutions  on  Federal 
Taxation. 

Richard  P.  Ettinger,  B.C.S.,  LL.B. 

Member  of  the  New  York  Bar;  Assistant  Profes- 
sor of  Finance  at  New  York  University  School  of 
Commerce,  Accounts  and  Finance. 

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TJO  ^Parents  and  TJeachers: 


Here  is  a  new  'book  which  is  meeting  with 
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GAMES  FOR  CHILDREN'S 
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By  HILDA  A.  WRIGHTSON 

Miss  Wrightson  has  had  long  and  effective  experi- 
ence in  the  training  of  children ;  and  the  methods 
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their  social  instincts,  are  now  revealed  in  this  book. 
It  is  well  known  that  some  games  will  enliven  the 
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the  vocabulary.  Some  will  develop  good  behavior — 
others  will  sharpen  the  imagination.  In  this  book, 
the  games  have  been  carefully  planned  to  do  these 
very  things ;  and  the  instructions  given  are  simple 
and  easy  to  follow. 

"  The  clever  combination  of  mental  and 
manual  training  makes  the  games  doubly 
valuable.  The  book  should  find  a  grateful 
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with  a  diploma,  or  without  it?  In  either  case, 
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The  Book  of  the  Hoar 

PAX  ECONOMICA 

Freedom  of  International  Exchange  the  Sole 
Method  for  the  Permanent  and  Universal  Aboli- 
tion of  War 

with 

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A  Statement  of  the  Cause  and  Solution  of  the 
European  Crisis,  and  the  Outline  of  a  Treaty  of 
Economic  Peace. 

Being  a  Sketch  of  the  only  Possible  Conclusive 
Settlement  of  the  Problem  Confronting  the 
World. 

By 

HENRI  LAMBERT 

Manufacturer  in  Charleroi,  Belgium 

Titular  Member  of  the  Societe  d'Economie   r 
Politique,  of  Paris 

"  No  Treaty  of  Peace  is  worthy  of  its  name,  if 
contained  therein  are  the  hidden  germs  of  a  fu- 
ture war." — Kant,  Essay  on  Perpetual  Peace. 

Third    Edition.    Revised,    and    Enlarged    to    167    pages. 
Price,  75c.  postpaid.    Special  terms  to  public  libraries. 

INTERNATIONAL  FREE   TRADE  LEAGUE 

38  St.  Botolph  Street  Boston,  Mass. 


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THE  DIAL 


February  8 


of  our  correct  selves,  to  whom  the  veiling  of  emo- 
tion and  desire  has  become  like  a  sixth  sense.  But 
whether  the  tales  and  sketches  are  faithful  transcrip- 
tions of  truth  or  merely  fiction,  they  possess  force 
and  vitality.  If  Mr.  Evans  has  not  written  of  the 
people  of  West  Wales,  then  he  has  created  a  new 
type  of  peasant  and,  in  any  event,  his  work  is  literary 
creation  which  our  moral  prejudices  or  preconcep- 
tions should  not  permit  us  to  neglect.  He  has  told 
us  of  a  people  who  live  their  lives  on  a  non-moral 
basis  and  who  are  yet  so  conscious  of  sin  and  of  their 
moral  responsibility  to  the  Big  Man  and  the  "little 
white  Jesus"  that  what  might  easily  have  been  in- 
different non-morality  becomes  gross  and  repulsive 
immorality.  These  peasants,  in  spite  of  their 
anthropomorphic  religiosity,  seem  naively  uncon- 
scious that  filth  is  dirty.  Their  God  is  a  primitive 
patriarch,  between  whom  and  themselves  there  is 
hardly  any  barrier  of  ritual,  though  at  the  same  time 
there  is  no  beauty  in  the  communion.  The  Big  Man 
speaks  in  the  vulgar  language  of  the  commonest 
peasant — being,  one  supposes,  in  common  with  all 
gods,  a  reflection  of  his  worshipers.  ,  He  doesn't 
hedge  himself  about  with  any  symbols  of  divinity — 
though  he  does  insist  on  being  invisible  to  mortal 
eyes — and  may  be  induced  to  wink  at  any  subversion 
of  the  moral  laws,  provided  that  the  Respected,  or 
the  minister,  intercedes  (for  a  consideration)  on  be- 
half of  the  sinner.  "lanto  opened  his  Bible  and 
read.  Afterwards  he  removed  the  tobacco  from  his 
mouth  and  laid  it  on  the  table  and  he  reported  to 
God  with  a  clean  mouth." 

The  tales  and  sketches  have  at  least  the  sound 
of  truth.  And  perhaps  it  is  only  our  desire  to  have 
people  live  cleanly  that  makes  it  so  very  easy  for 
us  to  believe  that  the  peasants  of  these  books  are 
nothing  more  than  creatures  of  the  author's  imag- 
ination. 

Books  of  the  Fortnight 

The  following  list  comprises  THE  DIAL'S  selec- 
tion of  books  recommended  among  the  publications 
received  during  the  last  two  weeks: 

The  Cambridge  History  of  American  Literature. 
Edited  by  William  Peterfield  Trent,  John 
Erskine,  Stuart  P.  Sherman,  and  Carl  Van 
Doran.  8vo,  658  pages.  Vol.  II.  G.  P.  Put- 
nam's Sons.  $3.50. 

James  Madison's  Notes  of  Debates  in  the  Federal 
Convention  of  1787  and  Their  Relation  to  a 
More  Perfect  Society  of  Nations.  By  James 
Brown  Scott.  8vo,  149  pages.  Oxford  Uni- 
versity Press.  $2. 

National  Governments  and  the  World  War.  By 
Frederic  A.  Ogg  and  Charles  A.  Beard.  8vo, 
603  pages.  Macmillan  Co.  $2.50. 

An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  the  Government 
of  Modern  States.  By  W.  F.  Willoughby. 
I2mo,  455  pages.  Century  Co.  $2.25. 


How  the  World  Votes:  The  Story  of  Democratic 
Development  in  Elections.  By  Charles  Sey- 
mour and  Donald  Paige  Frary.  I2mo,  761 
pages.  2  vols.  C.  A.  Nichols  Co.  (Spring- 
field, Mass.). 

Experiments  in  International  Administration.  By 
Francis  Bowes  Sayre.  I2mo,  201  pages.  Har- 
per &  Bros.  $1.50. 

Racial  Factors  in  Democracy.  By  Philip  Ains- 
worth  Means.  I2mo,  278  pages.  Marshall 
Jones  Co.  $2.50. 

Can  Mankind  Survive.  By  Morrison  I.  Swift. 
I2mo,  20 1  pages.  Marshall  Jones  Co.  $1.50. 

Fighting  the  Spoilsmen:  Reminiscences  of  the 
Movement  for  Civil  Service  Reform  from  the 
Passage  of  the  Act  of  1883  Down  to  the  Out- 
break of  the  Present  War.  By  William.  Dud- 
ley Foulke.  I2mo,  348  pages.  G.  P.  Put- 
nam's Sons.  $2. 

The  Soul  of  Denmark.  By  Shaw  Desmond.  I2mo, 
277  pages.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons.  $3. 

Russia:  From  the  Varangians  to  the  Bolsheviks.  By 
Raymond  Beazley,  Nevill  Forbes  and  G.  A. 
Birkett.  With  an  introduction  by  Ernest 
Barker.  I2mo,  60 1  pages.  Oxford  Univer- 
sity Press.  $4.25. 

From  Czar  to  Bolshevik.  By  E.  P.  Stebbing.  Il- 
lustrated, 8vo,  322  pages.  John  Lane  Co. 
$3-50. 

The  Unbroken  Tradition.  By  Nora  Connolly. 
Illustrated,  I2mo,  202  pages.  Boni  &  Live- 
right.  $1.25. 

New  and  Old.  By  Edith  Sichel.  With  an  intro- 
duction by  A.  C.  Bradley.  Illustrated,  8vo, 
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does  man  live  by  lying? 

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beyond      life 

By  James  Branch  Cabell 

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line,  war,  taxation,  rural  life,  socialism,  child 
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The  Governments 
of  Modern  States 

By  W.  F.  Willoughby 

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and  Politics,  Princeton   University. 

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in  respect  to  which  governments  differ  among  them- 
selves, but  in  all  cases  points  out  the  advantages  and 
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as  ready  for  immediate  issue  by  the  Macmillan  Co. 

Little,  Brown  and  Co.  announce  for  March  Green 
Valley,  a  chronicle  of  country  life,  by  Katharine 
Reynolds. 

Dodd,  Mead  and  Co.  have  in  hand  the  manu- 
script of  a  new  novel  by  Richard  Baldock,  The 
Clintons  and  Others. 

A  Gentle  Cynic,  a  translation  of  Ecclesiastes 
by  Morris  Jastrow,  with  a  history  of  the  conditions 
surrounding  the  writing  of  the  book,  is  to  be  pub- 
lished at  once  by  the  J.  B.  Lippincott  Co. 

Miss  E.  M.  Delafield's  War  Workers,  issued 
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followed  in  March  by  the  publication  from  the 
same  press  of  her  novel,  The  Pelicans,  recently 
brought  out  by  Heinemann  (London). 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons  are  shortly  to  bring  out 
Another  Sheaf,  by  John  Galsworthy;  Hospital 
Heroes,  by  Elizabeth  Black;  The  Only  Possible 
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by  Edith  Serrell  and  Marguerite  Bernard. 

Lemcke  and  Buechner  have  ready  for  early  pub- 
lication, following  the  Entente  "  Baedeker "  and 
Entente  "  Almanach  de  Gotha,"  an  Entente  "  Min- 
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under  the  title  Universitatum  et  Altarum  Scholarum 
Index  Generalis,  Annuaire  General  des  Facultes, 
prepared  under  the  direction  of  R.  de  Montressus  de 
Ballore. 

A.  L.  Humphreys  (London)  has  issued  at  one 
shilling*  a  prose  translation  of  Bion's  Lament  for 
Adonis,  by  Winifred  Bryher,.  with  the  Greek  text — 
that  of  the  Loeb  Classical  Library  edition  of  The 
Bucolic  Poets  (Putnam) — on  parallel  pages.  Using 
a  simple,  flexible  prose  devoid  of  archaic  affecta- 
tions, the  translator  has  rendered  the  poem  faith- 
fully enough  and  the  poet  with  a  sensitive  fidelity 
to  the  Greek  clarity  and  Oriental  ritualism  that 
were  blended  in  him.  She  has,  moreover,  made  a 
beautiful  piece  of  English. 

D.  C.  Heath  and  Co.  have  just  issued  at  $2  a  new 
edition  of  President  Wilson's  The  State:  Elements 
of  Historical  and  Practical  Politics,  revised  by 
Edward  Elliott,  of  the  University  of  California.  In 
this  edition  the  chapters  on  the  Theory  of  the  State 
are  substantially  unchanged;  but  the  chapters  on 
government  in  the  several  nations  have  been  re- 
vised to  December,  *i9i8,  and  new  chapters  have 
been  added  covering  the  governments  of  Italy,  Bel- 
gium, Serbia,  Roumania,  Bulgaria,  Modern  Greece, 
Russia,  Turkey,  and  Japan.  A  postscript  looks  to- 
ward the  League  of  Nations. 

To  write  a  bookful  of  poems  in  which  the  sea  is 
the  dominant  theme  is  to  challenge  the  reader  to  a 
particularly  critical  sensitiveness  to  the  presence — 
or  absence — of  rhythm.  It  may  be  possible  for  the 
writer  of  verse  to  falter  in  this  respect  in  other 
fields,  but  when  the  reader  turns  page  after  page 


of  Songs  and  Sea  Voices  (by  James  Stewart  Double- 
day — Washington  Square  Bookshop;  $1.25),  he  be- 
comes keen  to  detect  the  flaws.  Consequently  by 
the  time  one  has  reached  the  forty-seventh  page  of 
Dr.  Doubleday's  volume,  he  resents  the  "  choppi- 
ness  "  of  such  stanzas  as 

The  fisher  sails  are  floating 

In  the  blue  evening  calm, 
And   I  sense   the  breath  of  still   waters 

On  my  torn  spirit  like  balm. 

The  author  now  and  then  rides  the  crest  of  a 
wave,  and  then  one  catches  the  freedom  of  rhythm, 
but  he  is  quite  as  likely  to  destroy  the  mood,  no 
sooner  than  it  is  achieved. 

The  reader  should  be  grateful  to  Boni  and  Live- 
right  for  three  translations  lately  made  available 
in  their  Modern  Library  (Croft  leather,  70  cts. 
each) —  Nietzsche's  Genealogy  of  Morals,  trans- 
lated by  Horace  B.  Samuel;  Gautier's  Mile,  de 
Maupin;  and  Maupassant's  Une  Vie,  with  the 
Henry  James  introduction.  Another  recent  issue 
in  this  series  contributes  to  the  current  vogue  for 
publishing  Villon;  fortunately  this  reprinting  of 
John  Payne's  translations  (with  his  introduction) 
gives  him  the  credit  that  at  least  one  contempor- 
ary edition  has  withheld. 

Contributors 

H.  H.  Bellamann  is  dean  of  the  School  of  Music 
of  the  College  for  Women,  Columbia,  South  Caro- 
lina. Mr.  Bellamann  was  educated  in  Paris  and  was 
closely  associated  with  new  movements  in  music 
during  his  residence  there.  He  is  a  frequent  con- 
tributor to  American  musical  journals. 

A.  Vernon  Thomas  is  a  native  of  Manchester, 
England,  and  has  done  considerable  journalistic 
work  for  the  Manchester  Guardian.  In  1907  Mr. 
Thomas  joined  the  staff  of  the  Manitoba  Free  Press 
and  remained  with  that  paper  for  ten  years,  for  the 
greater  portion  of  that  time  as  editorial  and  special 
article  writer.  Mr.  Thomas  served  as  secretary  of 
the  People's  Forum,  Winnipeg,  1913-16. 

Walton  H.  Hamilton  (University  of  Texas, 
1907)  has  been  Olds  professor  in  economics  in  Am- 
herst  College  since  1917.  He  has  served  with  Mr. 
Felix  Frankfurter  on  the  War  Labor  Policies 
Board.  Mr.  Hamilton  is  the  author  of  Current 
Economic  Problems,  Exercises  in  Current  Econo- 
mics, and  an  associate  editor  of  the  Materials  for  the 
Study  of  Economics  series. 

Ashley  H.  Thorndike  (Wesleyan  University, 
1893)  has  been  professor  of  English  at  Columbia 
University  since  1906.  Mr.  Thorndike  is  a  frequent 
contributor  to  various  journals,  and  is  the  author  of 
The  Influence  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  on  Shake- 
speare, Tragedy,  Everyday  English,  Facts  About 
Shakespeare,  Shakespeare's  Theater;  and  editor  of 
Tudor  Shakespeare,  Library  of  the  World's  Best 
Literature,  and  Longman's  English  Classics. 

The  other  contributors  to  the  issue  have  previ- 
ously written  for  THE  DIAL. 


1919 


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160 THE   DIAL February  8,  1919 

The  Disabled  Soldier 

By  Douglas  C.  McMurtrie 

An  Important  New  Book   Published  by  the  Macmillan   Company 

THIS  BOOK,  the  first  on  the  subject  to  be  published  in  this  country,  tells 
in  non-technical  form,  of  the  achievements  in  the  new  science  of  rehabilita- 
tion, whereby  the  disabled  man  is  no  longer  obliged  to  live  in  idleness — dependent 
alone  on  his  pension — but  is  retrained  for  self-support  and  returned  to  the  commu- 
nity well  able  to  earn  his  own  living. 

The  efforts  of  the  belligerent  countries  to  give  a  square  deal  to  the  soldiers  disabled 
in  their  service  have  laid  the  foundation  for  a  revolutionary  policy  in  dealing  with 
the  physically  handicapped,  civilian  as  well  as  military. 

The  historical  evolution  of  public  attitude  which  he  can  hold — these  and  other  questions 

toward  the  disabled,  the  beginnings  of  con-  are  covered  clearly  but  concisely, 

structive  dealing  with  the  cripple,   how  re-  The  organization  of  rehabilitation  in  the 

habilitation  begins  in  the   hospital   bed,   in  allied  and  enemy  countries,  the  special  prob- 

what  trades  it  has  been   possible   to   train  lems  of  the  blinded,  the  deafened,  the  tubercu- 

disabled  men  for  100  per  cent,  performance,  lous,  and  the  mental  cases,  and — finally — the 

the  extent  to  which  public  opinion  can  help  government  program  for  disabled  soldiers  and 

or  hinder  the  cause  of  the  disabled  soldier;  sailors  of  the  American  forces  are  likewise 

how  the  handicapped  man  is  placed  in  a  job  described. 

This  is  not  a  book  for  the  specialist,  but  for  any  reader  interested  in  social  progress.  It 
deals  with  a  subject  on  which  no  intelligent  citizen  can  afford  to  be  uninformed. 

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Director  of  the  Red  Cross  Institute  for  Crippled  and  Disabled  Men,  President  of  the  Federa- 
tion of  Associations  for  Cripples,  and  Editor  of  the  American  Journal  of  Care  for  Cripples. 

Twenty-five  remarkable  illustrations  showing  crippled  men  on  the  high  road  to  economic 
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at  the  Crossways 


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VOL.  LXVI 


NEW  YORK 


NO.  784 


FEBRUARY    22,    1919 

LABOR  AT  THE  CROSSWAYS Helen  Marot  165 

NOCTURNE.     Verse Mildred  Johnston  Murphy  168 

MR.  BALFOUR'S  CHARM Norman    Hapgood  169 

THE  INDUSTRIAL  COUNCILS  OF  GREAT  BRITAIN     .     .     .  G.  D.  H.  Cole  171 

BOLSHEVISM  Is  A  MENACE — TO  WHOM  ? Thorstein  Veblen  174 

THE  POETRY  OF  EDMOND  ROSTAND William  A.  Nitze  179 

ROGUE'S  MARCH  :  To  A  FLEMISH  AIR James  Branch  Cab  ell  181 

BRIDGES.    Verse Annette  Wynne  182 

LETTERS  TO  UNKNOWN  WOMEN  .     .     .     .     .     .     .      Richard  Aldington  183 

To  the  Amaryllis  of  Theocritus 

Louis  COUPERUS  AND  THE  FAMILY  NOVEL      .     .     Robert  Morss  Lovett  184 

THE  LEAGUE  AND  THE  INSTINCT  FOR  COMPETITION   /.  George  Frederick  187 

POSSESSOR  AND  POSSESSED Conrad  Aiken  189 

THE  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  REDON Walter  Pack  191 

THE  THEORY  OF  FICTION Henry  B.  Fuller  193 

LONDON,  JANUARY  30 Edward  Shanks  195 

To  ONE  WHO  Woos  FAME  WITH  ME.    Verse  ....      Ralph  Block  196 

EDITORIALS 197 

FOREIGN  COMMENT:     Long  Live  the  German  Republic !— The  Last  Paradox.  2OO 

COMMUNICATIONS :       The    Test   of   Democracy.— Soviet   Russia    and    the    American    Con-        203 
stitution. — When   Dreams    Come  True. — Mr.  Untermeyer  Raises  His  Shield. — Banishment 
or  Death. 

NOTES  ON  NEW  BOOKS  :  Birth.— The  Poetry  of  George  Edward  Woodberry.— Tin  Cowrie 
Dass. — Jungle  Peace. — Our  National  Forests. — Kipling  the  Story-Writer. — Backgrounds 
for  Social  Workers. — Colonial  Merchants  and  the  American  Revolution. — Anthropology 
Up-to-Date. — God's  Responsibility  for  the  War. — Stakes  of  the  War. — The  Great 
Change. — Campaigning  in  the  Balkans. — Echoes  and  Realities. — Gargoyles. — The  Winged 
Spirit. — Where  Your  Heart  Is. 


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THE  DIAL 


February  22 


FRANCE  FACING  GERMANY  By  GEORGES  CLEMENCEAU 

Translated  by  ERNEST  HUNTER  WRIGHT.  The  Point  of  View  of  the  Premier  of  France  and  Chairman 
of  the  Peace  Conference.  "A  notably  interesting,  illuminating,  inspiring  book  " — says  the  New  York  Times 
It  goes  far  to  explain  the  passionate  admiration  the  world  feels  for  the  man  whose  fiery  eloquence  sus- 
tained France  in  the  darkest  hour  of  the  war.  2fet  $2.00 

INCIDENTS  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  A  MINING  ENGINEER     By  E.  T.  McCARTHY.  A.R.  S.M.,  F.R.G.S. 

The  London  Spectator  comments  with  enthusiasm  upon  the  amount  of  raw  material  this  book  holds  for  the 
scenario  writer  or  the  novelist  of  the  Lone  Trail,  declaring,  "It  contains  more  exciting  incidents  than 
many  a  self-styled  novel  of  adventure,"  and  inasmuch  as  the  author's  occupation  seems  to  have  carried 
him  into  the  wildest  parts  of  the  Rockies,  Central  America,  the  Gold  Coast,  Morocco,  Malaya,  China, 
Australia,  New  Zealand,  Uruguay  and  elsewhere,  this  is  easy  to  believe.  Ready  February  19.  $7.00 

KOEHLER'S  WEST  POINT  MANUAL  OF  DISCIPLINARY  PHYSICAL  TRAINING 

By  Lieut.-Col.  H.  J.  KOEHLER,  U.  S.  A.  With  a   Foreword   by 

Director   of   Military    Gymnastics,    Swordsmanship,    etc.,    U.    S.    Military  NEWTON  D.  BAKER 

Academy,    Instructor    at   Training   Camps    and    Cantonments,    1915-1918.  Secretary  of  War 

Secretary  Baker  testifies  to  the  amazing  rapidity  with  which  Col.  Koehler's  method,  formed  by  years  of 
experience  at  West  Point,  developed  young  men  of  every  part  of  the  country  into  military  officers  of  impres- 
.  sive  physical  and  moral  adequacy.  Wherever  the  object  of  physical  training  in  schools,  colleges,  and  other 
institutions  is  disciplinary  and  educational  and  not  purely  physical,  this  manual  is  easily  adaptable  and 
will  prove  exceedingly  valuable.  For  the  individual  the  directions  are  especially  clear  and  practical. 
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OUR  ALLIES  AND  ENEMIES  IN  THE  NEAR  EAST  By  JEAN  VICTOR  BATES 

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districts  conveniently  grouped  as  "  the  Balkans  " — Roumania,  Dobrudga,  Transylvania,  the  Bukovina,  Bul- 
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RUSSIAN  REVOLUTION  ASPECTS  By  ROBERT  CROZIER  LONG 

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aid  when  that  time  comes,  such  a  first-hand  account  of  conditions  and  events  as  is  here  given  by  a  cor- 
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THE  FORGOTTEN  THRESHOLD  Being  the  Diary  of  ARTHUR  MIDDLETON 

An  extraordinary  beautiful  account  of  the  manner  in  which  a  young  man  gradually  learned  to  withdraw 
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ESSAYS  IN  LENT  By  HAMILTON  WRIGHT  MABIE 

A  series  of  beautiful  little  essays  which  originally  appeared  in  the  Outlook  in  1915,  in  which  the  reader 
was  enabled  to  turn  from  the  warfare  then  all-absorbing,  to  dwell  awhile  in  the  affairs  of  the  soul. 

Ready  February  19.     Net  $1.00 

NEW  FICTION 

WHILE  PARIS  LAUGHED  Being  the  Pranks  and  Passions  of  the  Poet  Tricotrin 

LEONARD  MERRICK'S  new  book  "  compact  of  gay  ety,  and  wit  and  mirth.  Its  irony,  though  keen  is  the 
irony  that  provokes  to  delighted  chuckles." — New  York  Times.  Net  $1.75 

AMALIA  -       A  Romance  of  the  Argentine.  From  the  Spanish  of  JOSE  MARMOL 

Translated  by  MARY  J.  SERRANO,  translator  of  "The  Journal  of  Marie  Baskkirtseff,"  "  Pepita  Ximenez," 
etc.  A  fine  picture  of  the  thrilling  attempt  of  the  better  element  in  Argentina  to  overthrow  the  brutal 
tyranny  of  the  famous  dictator  Rosas;  and  through  all  its  exciting  adventures  runs  the  thread  of  a  love 
faithful  unto  death.  Net  $2.00 

THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  CATHEDRAL  By  VICENTE  BLASCO  IBANEZ 

Translated  by  MRS.  W.  A.  GILLESPIE.  New  edition  entirely  reset  with  an  Introduction  by  WILLIAM 
DEAN  HOWELLS.  Frontispiece  showing  the  Cathedral  of  Toledo. 


OLD-DAD 


By  the  author  of  "Mollie  Make-Believe,"  ELEANOR  HALLOWELL  ABBOTT 


Crisp,  sparkling  dialogue  and  a  series  of  breath-takUig  episodes,  quite  unbelievable  but  refreshingly  enter- 
taining, altogether  out  of  the  ordinary,  commend  this  book  to  any  who  are  seeking  relaxation  from  war 
strain.  Net  $1.50 

THE  LIBRARY  OF  FRENCH  FICTION 

Edited  by  BARNET  J.  BEYER,  Sometime  Lecturer  at  the  Sorbonne,  Paris 

JACQUOU  THE  REBEL,  By  EUGENE  LE  ROY  I  NONO  By  GASTON  ROUPNEL 

Translated  by  Eleanor  Stimson  Brooks.  $1.90  I   Translated  by  Barnet  J.  Beyer.  $1.90 

The  first  of  a   carefully   chosen  series  of  French    novels  by  modern   writers,   selected  first  on  their 

artistic  merits,  but  also  with  a  view  to  exhibiting    the   life   and   character   of  all   types,   classes   and 

institutions  of  French  society. 

In  Preparation 

TWO  BANKS  OF  THE  SEINE      By  FERNAND  VANDfilREM 
Six  Other  Volumes  Are  Either  in  Press  or  in  Process  of  Translation. 

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163 


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Scandinavian  Review 


AN   UNSIGNED   LETTER  By  Theodore  Roosevelt 

"  It  seems  to  me  we  should  consider  far  more  carefully  than  we  have  done  our  duty 
in  connection  with  the  neutral  nations  in  immediate  proximity  to  the  European  com- 
batants :  Sweden,  Norway,  Denmark,  Holland  and  Switzerland.  These  are  small  na- 
tions of  exceptionally  high  ethnic  and  cultural  type.  I  believe  that  in  their  hearts  they 
sympathize  with  us  in  this  war.  They  are  probably  on  the  whole  in  more  fundamen- 
tal agreement  with  us,  socially,  politically,  and  in  the  deeper  relations  of  life,  than  any 
of  the  larger  continental  powers." — So  wrote  Theodore  Roosevelt  in  a  letter  published 
for  the  first  time  in  the  REVIEW.  Professor  W.  H.  Schofield,  of  Harvard,  tells 
how  the  letter  came  to  be  written. 

VILHJALMUR   STEFANSSON  By  John  G.  Holme 

Stefansson  belongs  to  the  select  Log  Cabin  type  of  great  men  now  almost  as  rare  as 
buffalo  fur  coats.  His  youth  was  spent  on  the  prairies  of  North  Dakota  in  a  home 
stripped  of  all  cultural  advantages  except  the  sagas  on  his  father's  book  shelves. 
Mr.  Holme  tells  of  his  adventures  in  hay  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  when  a  blizzard  saved 
him  from  a  business  career  and  of  how  he  side-stepped  politics  and  the  puplit,  jour- 
nalism and  poetry,  until  finally  he  struck  the  Arctics. 

FREEDOM  THE  BULWARK  AGAINST  BOLSHEVISM.  Two  Interviews 

Scandinavia  has  her  own  way  of  meeting  the  Russian  and  Finnish  Bolshevik  propa- 
ganda, with  freedom  and  ever  more  freedom,  according  to  the  Socialist  editors,  Jacob 
Vid-nes  of  Norway,  and  Otto  Johanssen  of  Sweden.  Plural  voting  and  all  remnants 
of  caste  and  privilege  have  just  been  swept  away  in  Sweden,  and  woman  suffrage  is 
assured. 

A  GLIMPSE  OF  DANISH  ART.    Part  II.      By  Maurice  Francis  Egan 

Interest  in  art  extends  through  all  classes  in  Denmark.  Royalty  opens  the  annual 
exhibition  at  Charlottenborg  and  buys  the  first  picture,  and  the  legation  barber  begins 
the  usual  tonsorial  conversation  with  an  allusion  to  the  work  of  the  modernists.  Dr. 
Egan's  essay  is  illustrated  with  reproductions  from  Kai  Nielsen,  Kroyer,  Michael  and 
Anna  Ancher,  and  others. 

In   the   March-April   Number   of   the   AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN 
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A  FORTNIGHTLY 


Labor  at  the  Crossways 


A 


N  ENGLISHMAN  WRITES,  "  We  cannot  get 
the  hang  over  here  of  your  labor  movement."  Ap- 
parently he  has  been  talking  with  optimistic  Ameri- 
cans and  reading  our  press  reports.  From  these  he 
has  learned  that  American  labor  secured  unprece- 
dented wage  returns  during  the  war;  that  trade 
union  officials  were  granted  extravagant  represen- 
tation on  war  boards  and  state  committees;  that  a 
host  of  labor  officials  held  executive  jobs  under  the 
government  for  the  administration  of  the  war  in- 
dustries. All  of  this  was  represented  for  more  than 
it  was  worth  according  to  British  labor  evaluation. 
Union  officials  of  Great  Britain  were  also  given 
administrative  posts  and  held  positions  of  influence 
for  purposes  of  war.  But  these  positions  and  the 
wage  concessions  paid  British  labor  were  regarded 
with  a  characteristic  skepticism  suggesting  the  state 
of  mind  toward  industry  of  the  British  worker  as 
it  differs  from  our  own.  The  American  habit  of 
mind  in  relation  to  the  industrial  institution  is  not 
the  English ;  moreover,  our  war  industrial  policy 
was  extraordinary. 

In  regard  to  the  latter  it  will  be  remembered 
that  when  we  entered  the  war  we  were  conscious 
that  we  were  late  for  the  accomplishment  of  our 
avowed  part  in  the  conflict.  If  we  paid  sufficiently, 
it  was  argued,  we  stood  the  chance  of  making 
up  for  our  tardiness.  As  a  practical  people  we 
decided  to  pay,  to  pay  any  price  that  would  avoid 
delay.  The  delay  that  was  most  feared  was  short- 
age in  industrial  output.  Immediate  steps  were 
taken  to  insure  vested  interests  against  loss,  or 
rather  to  assure  them  of  ample  reward  for  any 
cooperation  they  stood  ready  to  give.  Assurance 
was  given  the  unions  that  workers  would  be  re- 
warded in  wages  as  never  before.  It  was  appar- 
ently accepted  that  wage  payments  would  not  meet 
I.  W.  W.  requirements,  so  the  I.  W.  W.  was 
jailed.  But  high  wage  rates  could  be  counted  on 
to  settle  any  difficulties  that  might  arise  with  the 
A.  F.  of  L.,  particularly  if  union  officials  were 
given  ample  representation  on  war  industry  coun- 
cils. The  concessions  came  high,  but  it  made  no 
serious  difference  what  was  conceded  to  labor  while 
the  government  was  the  purchaser  and  business 
reaped  its  necessary  profits.  It  was  not  as  though 
the  unions  wanted  to  run  the  industries;  all  they 
asked  was  "  a  voice  "  and  a  fair  wage. 


Of  course  we  wondered,  while  we  were  still  at 
war  and  all  the  concessions  were  being  made,  what 
risks  were  in  store  for  business  when  the  competi- 
tive market  should  take  the  place  of  the  assured 
market  and  bills  should  be  paid  no  longer  by  the 
government.  As  a  matter  of  fact  we  are  won- 
dering about  that  now  more  than  ever.  Before  the 
armistice  was  signed  it  seemed  so  wonderful  to 
have  the  strong  arm  of  the  state  offering  its  pro- 
tection that  to  many  it  was  inconceivable  that  this 
beneficent  power  should  be  withdrawn.  Now, 
dumb  as  usual,  we  are  watching  with  the  helpless- 
ness of  little  children  the  disintegration  of  the  War 
Labor  Board,  the  War  Labor  Policies  Board,  the 
failure  of  the  Department  of  Labor  to  protect  the 
women  workers  against  sudden  discharge,  discrimi- 
nation, and  cuts  in  wage  rates.  These  agencies  I 
speak  of  particularly  because  their  failure  to  survive 
the  first  murmur  of  peace  left,  with  the  timid  who 
place  their  dependence  on  state  machinery,  a  dis- 
quieting sense  of  the  futility  of  government  pro- 
tection in  labor  affairs. 

Nobody  has  seemed  to  know  \yhat  to  do  about 
it.  We  are  at  sea:  the  government,  the  labor 
unions,  and  business.  Business  claimed  the  right 
to  manage  the  situation.  The  national  legislature 
was  glad  to  shunt  the  responsibility,  and  the  na- 
tional administration  blithely  threw  the  problem 
over  to  the  claimants.  Since  then  events  have  been 
moving  at  an  unwonted  pace.  The  labor  market 
has  overflowed.  The  Federal  Employment  offices 
reaching  up  and  down  and  across  the  country  are 
clogged  and  unable  to  function  as  factory  doors 
remain  closed  and  men  fail  to  fit  the  jobs  that  offer 
and  the  jobs  fail  to  fit  the  men.  We  are  told  by 
the  employment  managers  that  the  refusal  of  sol- 
diers to  go  back  to  routine  and  confinement  adds 
a  new  element  to  a  situation  already  on  the  verge 
of  breaking.  ' 

In  spite  of  the  insistence  of  the  business  men 
that  they  be  allowed  to  resume  their  sponsorship 
over  the  production  of  wealth  and  resume  it  un- 
hampered, the  Secretary  of  Labor  states  that  the 
statistics  from  the  employment  bureaus  show  that 
the  unemployment  is  due  not  to  any  unusual  labor 
surplus,  but  to  the  timidity  of  the  business  men 
themselves.  An  industrial  manager  said  to  me, 
"  If  you  think  that  labor  is  without  a  policy  and 


i66 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


unequal  to  the  present  emergency,  I  wonder  what 
you  would  say  of  the  business  man  if  you  knew 
him  as  well  as  I  do?"  With  the  price  of  raw 
material  floating  in  upper  regions,  attainable  only  by 
government  agents  because  they  are  unhandicapped 
as  are  business  agents  with  the  payment  of  divi- 
dends; with  Mr.  Gpmpers  shouting  across  the 
continent  that  wage  fates  shall  not  be  reduced — what 
can  a  sane  business  man  do?  He  could  of  course 
treat  with  Mr.  Gompers.  It  has  always  been  the 
boast  of  the  American  Federation  that  it  can  treat 
with  any  sane  business  man. 

But  what  the  business  man  is  now  seeing,  which 
causes  his  discomfort,  is  not  Mr.  Gompers,  but 
that  Specter  which  raised  its  head  in  Russia  two 
years  ago,  which  a  little  later  faced  west,  crossed 
Europe,  and  passed  into  Great  Britain.  No  one 
can  say  that  this  Specter  will  cross  the  Atlantic. 
But  the  fear  that  obsesses  many  of  the  business  men 
is  that  cuts  in  the  wage  rates  which  were  created  in 
war  times  with  the  government's  underwriting, 
might  furnish  the  Specter  its  incentive  for  a  trial 
trip.  It  is  difficult  to  tell  whether  this  Specter 
could  create  havoc  of  grave  importance  in  America, 
should  it  make  an  attempt.  But  it  has  taken  up 
its  abode  for  the  time  in  England,  and  looks  so 
like  a  native  there  that  they  forget  to  call  it  by  its 
Russian  name.  It  has  made  it  clear  in  Great 
Britain  that  its  special  mission  is  not  confined  to  the 
protection  of  wage  rates  but  that  it  is  concerned 
primarily  in  jacking  up  labor  into  the  belief  that 
political  states  and  financiers  are  incompetent  to 
carry  industry  forward  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
people  of  any  land.  The  most  recent  reports  which 
have  come  from  England,  Scotland,  and  Ireland 
show  developments  which  were  not  defined  when 
Mr.  Cole's  article  which  appears  in  this  issue  of 
THE  DIAL  was  written.  The  strikes  are  develop- 
ing unusual  significance  as  they  are  advancing.  The 
latest  reports  show  that  the  men  are  ou,t  for  some- 
thing quite  different  from  collective  bargaining  be- 
tween employer  and  employed.  The  most  favorable 
settlement  terms  fail  to  bring  a  sense  of  permanent 
peace.  A  forty-hour  week  seems  to  be  no  greater 
accomplishment  than  a  forty-eight.  There  are 
boilermakers,  shipbuilders,  and  engineers  who  "  im- 
pudently "  assert  that  they  are  out  for  the  control 
of  industry,  that  they  intend  to  see  that  it  no  longer 
pays  business  men  to  carry  on.  But  more  signifi- 
cant is  the  fact  that  the  strikes  represent  a  rank 
and  file  movement;  that  the  old  leaders  and  or- 
ganizations are  defied;  that  the  movement  in 
throwing  off  the  old  leadership  has  substituted  an 
organization  which  has  a  centralizing  power  of  its 
own  rather  than  one  imposed  from  above  and  ex- 
isting by  the  weakness  of  its  membership.  The 


European  movement  on  the  continent  and  in  Great 
Britain  is  characterized  by  a  decentralization  of 
power  and  an  attempt  of  the  worker  to  gain  status 
through  control  and  self-government,  in  his  organi- 
zations as  well  as  in  the  workshop. 

The  intention  of  the  American  unions,  to  form  a 
national  political  party  expresses  a  new  desire  for  the 
extension  of  political  control  rather  any  new  sense 
of  industrial  sovereignty.  It  will  be  said  that  the 
intention  is  to  develop  both.  But  I  can  find  noth- 
ing in  the  platforms  as  they  were  issued  which 
shows  desire  for  change  in  industrial  status,  or  in- 
terest of  the  unions  in  the  extension  of  labor  con- 
trol. The  platforms  of  the  Chicago  and  New 
York  trade  unions,  it  is  true,  as  well  as  a  recent 
manifesto  of  the  American  Federation  (declaring 
against  a  political  party)  are  all  opposed  to  the  ex- 
tension of  privilege  to  corporations.  They  all  stand 
for  a  tax  on  land  values,  but  they  stand  for  a  tax 
as  well  on  inheritance  and  incomes.  In  other 
words,  they  have  no  conception  of  clearing  industry 
of  legal  handicaps  so  that  it  could  be  pursued  and 
developed;  they  are  not  concerned,  indeed,  with  its 
development.  They  leave  development  and  control, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  to  others — to  any  others,  to  the 
business  men  or  to  the  state.  There  is  the  tacit 
assumption  throughout  that  labor  has  no  interest  in 
the  running  of  industry.  The  American  wage 
earner,  the  American  stockholder,  financial  manipu- 
lator, and  employer  of  labor  are  alike  concerned 
with  the  possession  of  goods.  That  is  what  these 
labor  platforms  are  about  and  that  is  what  the 
manifesto  of  the  Executive  Council  of  the  A.  F. 
of  L.  is  about.  They  demand  the  right  of  organi- 
sation to  maintain  wage  rates.  There  is  no  sug- 
gestion that  these  organizations  shall  represent 
industrial  self-government  in  the  sense  in  which 
they  use  that  term  in  Europe.  The  Chicago  plat- 
form and  the  New  York  platform  call  for  a  demo- 
cratic control  of  industry,  but  no  further  reading 
of  the  platforms  suggests  that  democratic  control 
means  more  than  the  higgling  which  the  unions 
have  heretofore  carried  on  with  employers — the  jug- 
gling with  a  wage  which  was  followed  by  a  more 
skilful  juggling  with  a  market. 

The  Federation  and  these  new  labor  parties  in 
the  states  are  relying  on  the  government  to  regu- 
late industry  as  they  lay  stress  on  a  proportionate 
representation  of  labor  in  government  administra- 
tive and  legislative  bodies.  Such  political  represen- 
tation might  well. follow  an  organization  of  indus- 
try where  self-government  had  been  effected  or 
where  labor  had  assumed  responsibility  and  status 
in  the  work  of  wealth  production.  But  preceding 
labor's  industrial  control  and  responsibility,  political 
representation,  as  it  is  demanded  in  these  platforms. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


167 


means  labor's  administration  of  industry  through 
politics.  Conceive  for  a  moment  the  realization 
of  this  demand  for  political  representation.  The 
legislatures  and  government  offices  would  be  domi- 
nated by  labor.  Under  such  circumstances  labor 
would  block  the  movements  of  those  who  controlled 
wealth  wherever  such  action  appeared  to  serve  the 
purposes  of  the  trade  unions.  The  situation,  as  we 
know,  is  inconceivable,  and  it  is  further  to  be  con- 
sidered what  can  be  gained  by  a  policy  which  de- 
pends on  blocking?  Is  not  this  effort  of  labor  to 
gain  a  strategic  position  through  the  state  only 
another  move  in  a  defensive  policy?  Does  it  not 
indicate  that  labor  is  admitting  weakness,  is  side- 
stepping the  extension  of  its  function  from  its 
position  of  routine  and  employment  to  participa- 
tion in  the  management  and  control  of  wealth  pro- 
duction? So  far  as  these  recent  pronouncements  of 
organized  labor  indicate,  the  union  position  is  un- 
changed. Labor  is  to  be  bought  and  sold  in  the 
market  as  usual.  No  reiteration  of  the  American 
Federation  that  labor  is  not  a  commodity  can  be 
seriously  regarded  while  the  union  movement  leaves 
the  workers  without  status  in  their  industry,  or 
control  in  the  development  of  the  enterprise  of 
which  they  are  an  integral  part. 

We  have  believed  in  our  industrial  institution 
because  we  were  confident  that  our  resources  were 
unlimited,  that  wealth  was  to  be  had,  and  that 
sooner  or  later  it  would  come  our  individual  way. 
The  chances  were  good  if  we  could  only  get  next  to 
some  one  in  power.  What  could  a  union  move- 
ment do  against  such  a  cheering  thought?  This 
temper  is  unintelligible  to  our  English  friends:  it 
it  because  of  it  that  they  cannot  understand  our 
movement  or  realize  why  it  is  hung  up.  It  is  hung 
up,  but  no  one  will  predict  for  how  long.  With 
the  government  leaving  industry  to  business  men, 
and  business  men  coming  back  for  protection  to  the 
government;  with  a  desperate  cutting  in  wage  rates 
in  some-of  the  industries  in  spite  of  what  may  hap- 
pen later;  with  production  blocked  in  other  indus- 
tries; and  with  food,  clothing,  and  shelter  maintain- 
ing their  purchase  price,  will  the  American  labor 
movement  come  down  to  the  business  in  hand? 
Will  it  remain  sublimely  unconscious  that  such  a 
thing  as  labor  control  of  production  is  being  born 
into  the  world? 

Today,  for  the  first  time,  organized  labor  has 
given  a  sign  that  it  is  conscious.  Up  to  the  present 
moment  there  was  no  public  evidence  that  2,000,000 
organized  workers  in  the  United  States  would  pro- 
pose in  regular  form  to  Congress  that  the  railroad 
workers  of  the  country  should  take  over  the  entire 
operating  control  and  financial  management  of  the 


roads.  There  is  no  precedent  in  trade  union  prac- 
tice for  such  an  astounding  proposition.  There  is 
no  tradition  among  the  wage  workers  in  America, 
such  as  still  lurks  in  the  minds  of  the  British,  of  in- 
dustrial responsibility.  Our  American  unions  have 
not  been  discussing  labor  status  as  the  English  have. 
On  the  contrary  they  have  displayed  a  marked  aver- 
sion to  the  idea  of  industrial  management  or  con- 
trol. Even  these  same  railroad  workers,  it  is  ru- 
mored, turned  down  a  short  time  ago  a  tentative 
invitation  to  participate  in  the  administration  of  the 
roads  when  the  government  took  them  over  while 
we  were  at  war.  Today  with  cool  confidence  they 
make  a  proposition  which  might  have  sprung  from 
any  corporation  that  was  properly  endowed  with 
its  usual  quota  of  common,  preferred,  and  watered 
stock.  In  making  their  proposition  they  remark, 
or  their  attorney  does  for  them,  that  operating 
ability  is  the  sole  capital  of  this  corporation.  Has 
any  greater  heresy  than  this  been  spoken  in  Russia? 
The  proposition  wears  indeed  the  same  air  of 
"  impudence  "  which  was  objected  to  in  England. 
But  the  animus  is  not  the  English  nor  the  Russian. 
It  is  not  impudent  and  is  not  impelled  by  any  revo- 
lutionary thoughts  or  intention.  Specifically  it  is  a 
defensive  move  against  the  federal  regulation  which 
denies  government  employees  the  full  right  of  organi- 
zation. Although  the  proposition,may  be  no  more 
than  a  matter  of  trade-union  strategy,  as  it  comes 
at  this  time  when  the  industrial  and  labor  situa- 
tion is  highly  sensitive  to  suggestion,  it  cannot  fail 
to  mark  a  new  era  in  labor  psychology.  What  will 
be  said  in  the  next  few  weeks  on  the  question  of 
acceptance  or  rejection  of  the  proposal  must  in- 
evitably leave  an  indelible  impression  on  the  future 
if  not  on  the  present  policy  of  the  labor  movement. 

In  the  first  place  the  proposal  involves  a  com- 
plete shift  from  craft  to  industrial  unionism.  It  is 
implicit  in  the  very  statement  of  the  proposition 
that  industrial  organization  is  the  prerequisite  of 
mastery  and  control,  for  the  very  simple  reason  that 
it  is  the  basis  of  actual  industrial  operation.  What- 
ever disposition  is  made  of  the  scheme,  the  500,000 
members  of  the  Railroad  Brotherhood  and  the 
1,500,000  members  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.  craft  unions 
which  are  involved  in  the  proposal  will  all  recog- 
nize that  any  suggestion  which  insures  a  cha'nge  of 
status  for  labor  or  places  it  in  a  position  of  control 
will  require  this  shift  from  craft  to  industrial  or- 
ganization. For  the  advancement  of  industrial 
unionism  the  event  could  not  have  been  more  timely. 
During  the  war  the  development  of  efficiency 
methods  in  the  factory  reduced  many  of  the  so- 
called  skilled  processes  to  mechanical  operations 
which  would  fit  the  strength  and  experience  •£ 


i68 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


women  and  young  people.  This  dilution  of  skill  and 
of  male  labor  has  its  serious,  direct,  and  obvious  con- 
sequences for  the  craft  unions. 

One  of  the  most  important  effects  of  industrial 
unionism  is  the  compulsion  which  it  imposes  on 
labor  to  think  in  terms  of  the  enterprise  rather 
than  the  job.  On  the  other  hand,  industrial  union- 
ism does  not,  as  is  often  supposed,  insure  industrial 
democracy  or  give  of  necessity  opportunity  for  self- 
government.  In  respect  to  the  latter  this  scheme  of 
the  Railroad  Unions  furnishes  a  striking  contrast 
to  the  English  movement  of  the  shops,  which  is  also 
industrial  in  its  direction.  It  is  not  the  industrial 
form  of  organization  of  the  shop  stewards  move- 
ment which  gives  it  its  democratic  character;  it  is, 
the  desire  of  the  shop  workers  to  participate  in  in- 
dustrial management.  The  existence  of  this  desire 
in  England  and  its  absence  in  America  is  a  pertinent 
illustration  of  the  differences  which  exist  in  trade 
union  psychology.  The  division  of  labor  and  the 
successful  competition  of  machine  production  with 
hand  production,  of  the  factory  with  the  workshop 
or  the  craftsman,  never  destroyed  completely  the 
British  tradition  that  bound  the  workman  to  his  in- 
dustry. This  tradition  which  has  persisted  for 
nearly  two  centuries  without  apparent  warrant  or 
value  has  made  its  contribution  at  last  in  the  swift 
development  of  labor  organization  which  is  deter- 
mined by  the  men  at  work  in  the  shops.  Even 
should  this  shop  steward  movement  end  without 
complete  victory  over  the  unionism  which  is  super- 
imposed, this  habit  of  mind  of  the  British  worker 
toward  industrial  responsibility  is  a  labor  asset  with 
which  the  vested  interests  of  Great  Britain  will 
eventually  reckon. 

Because  modern  industry  has  made  little  im- 
pression in  Russia,  the  Russian  workers  as  a  whole 
have  never  experienced  an  industrial  environment 
which  is  as  irresponsible  as  is  our  own  for  pro- 
duction. Producing  wealth  in  Russia  has  always 
been  a  matter  for  serious  concern,  and  the  brunt  of 
the  concern  as  well  as  the  labor  was  borne  by  the 
peasant.  It  is  not  difficult  to  trace  the  idea  of  in- 
dustrial self-government  for  which  the  Soviet 


stands  to  the  old  Zemstvos  and  to  understand  that 
the  Russian  workers  are  better  prepared  for  the 
assumption  of  industrial  responsibility  than  the 
workers  of  the  United  States.  It  is  important  to 
remember  in  estimating  the  elements  which  have 
given  the  workers  of  Russia  and  Great  Britain  their 
impetus  for  industrial  democracy  that  in  both  of 
these  countries  the  workers'  cooperative  enterprises 
have  persisted  with  the  strong  tendency  to  pre- 
serve the  idea  of  responsibility  for  productive  en- 
terprise which  had  rested  with  workers  before  the 
days  of  business  enterprise. 

The  attitude  of  American  labor  toward  produc- 
tion is  the  national  attitude  of  giving  as  little  and 
taking  as  much  as  we  can  get  away  with.  This 
attitude  is  common  enough  in  modern  Europe  but 
in  America  it  is  without  inhibitions  sufficiently  im- 
portant to  have  had  their  effect,  either  conscious, 
or  unconscious,  on  industrial  responsibility.  I  have 
not  space  to  speak  of  the  part  this  attitude  may  play 
in  the  revolutionary  changes  which  are  apparently 
scheduled  to  come  off  sooner  or  later  on  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic.  But"  as  industry  is  reorganizing 
for  the  benefit  of  financial  interests  it  has  become 
apparent  that  the  interest  of  labor  and  its  sense 
of  industrial  responsibility  must  be  aroused  if 
American  industry  is  to  hold  its  own  in  the  world 
market.  There  is  no  known  way  of  developing 
responsibility  except  by  experiencing  it,  and  this 
proposal  of  the  railroad  workers  is  the  first  sugges- 
tion that  the  unions  may  seriously  regard  them- 
selves as  responsible  factors.  While  this  proposal 
is  not  as  yet  representative  of  current  thought  in 
labor  organizations,  it  will  be  received  there  as  a 
highly  agitating  event  and  one  with  which  the  in- 
terests in  some  connection  will  have  to  deal.  Today 
the  situation  is  this:  the  officials  of  unions  represent- 
ing 2,000,000  wage  workers  have  broken  down  all 
precedent  as  they  have  proposed  in  serious  form 
to  take  over  the  management  of  the  railroad  sys- 
tems of  the  United  States.  Here  is  adventure  and 
imaginative  matter  injected  at  a  time  when  sug- 


gestion counts. 


HELEN  MAROT. 


Nocturne 


When  night-winds  blow,  I  open  wide 
My  window  to  the  sounding  seas, 
And  the  strange  sea-birds  come  with  cries, 
Their  wings  all  wet  from  the  wild  seas     . 
(And  the  long-drown'd  arise). 


When  night-winds  blow,  I  open  wide 

My  heart  to  loud  and  breaking  seas; 

Oh  the  strange,  passionate  thoughts  fly  near,  afraid, 

Their  wings  all  wet  with  wild  sea-water! 

(And  on  my  heart  cold  hands,  long  dead,  are  laid). 

MILDRED  JOHNSTON  MURPHY. 


THE  DIAL 


169 


Mr.  Balfour's  Charm 


J-HE  MIND  of  Arthur  James  Balfour:  Selections 
from  his  Non-political  Writings,  Speeches  and  Ad- 
dresses, 1879-1917  (edited  by  Wilfred  M.  Short — 
Doran;  $2.50)  is  a  challenge  to  consider  Mr.  Bal- 
four apart  from  his  political  record:  as  a  thinker,  a 
spirit,  a  personality.  The  two  aspects  of  the  man 
are  not  altogether  separable.  If  the  tradition  of  his 
class  had  not  forced  the  languid  and  philosophic 
youth  into  public  life,  his  literary  record  would  not 
have  forced  THE  DIAL  and  me  to  destroy  white 
paper  talking  about  him.  He  is  a  fascinating 
creature,  of  a  fascinating  entourage,  but  his  indi- 
vidual importance  for  history  lies  in  his  policy  of 
force  and  the  British  style  of  reform  in  Ireland — in 
those  long  years  when  he  led  either  the  Government 
or  the  opposition — and  in  his  success  as  a  diplomat 
in  the  greatest  of  wars.  As  his  uncle  believed  in 
him,  he  was  put  in  Parliament  at  twenty-six;  five 
years  later  he  made  himself  famous  by  applying  to 
Ireland  coercion  plus  sensible  concrete  proposals  as 
seen  by  a  mind  bred  across  the  Channel;  and  at 
forty-four  he  was  prime  minister.  Nobody  claims 
for  him  a  constructive  legislative  record — in  his 
three  most  conspicuous  subjects,  Ireland,  education, 
and  tariff,  he  solved  nothing — but  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, which  knows  so  much  about  England's  prog- 
ress, through  many  years  loved  and  followed  him. 
England  always  has  her  men  of  action — her  Rhodes, 
Gladstone,  Chamberlain;  she  has  a  quiet  and  pre- 
vailing instinct  for  getting  things  done;  but  her 
governing  class  also  love  a  measured  manner  and 
calm  indifference  to  political  prizes.  Sir  Edward 
Grey's  known  preference  for  fishing  over  public  life, 
the  Duke  of  Devonshire's  devotion  to  country  occu- 
pations, Lord  Salisbury's  indifference,  fitted  the 
taste  of  an  assembly  of  gentlemen  long  accustomed 
to  rule.  Mr.  Balfour's  manner,  his  love  of  philoso- 
phy, his  rapier-like  •  debating,  his  personal  charm, 
and  his  courage  reached  the  House  of  Commons,  as 
they  will  reach  some  who  merely  read  his  written 
words.  A  Briton  will  pass  final  judgment  on  some- 
one by  saying  he  is  the  sort  of  man  with  whom  one 
would  like  to  go  tiger-hunting.  He  is  picturing 
character  in  an  emergency,  when  it  would  stand 
surely  to  its  undertaking.  Nobody  ever  doubted 
Mr.  Balfour's  character. 

This  firmness  is  not  to  be  exploited.  Even 
tragedy  is  questionable.  A  perfect  type  of  the  Brit- 
ish aristocrat  has  a  kind  of  unobtrusive  preference 
for  the  agreeable.  "  I  personally  like  the  Spring 
day,"  Mr.  Balfour  says,  in  responding  to  a  toast  to 
literature,  "  and  bright  sun  and  the  birds  singing, 


and  if  there  be  a  shower  or  a  storm,  it  should  be 
merely  a  passing  episode  in  the  landscape,  to  be  fol- 
lowed immediately  by  a  return  of  brilliant  sun- 
shine." It  is  not  the  Lear  or  Oedipus  type.  I  know 
not  how  true  it  is,  but  there  used  to  be  a  statement 
current,  about  the  time  Mr.  Balfour  was  coming 
into  prominence,  that  the  most  quoted  book  in  the 
House  of  Commons  was  Alice  in  Wonderland,  and 
surely  there  is  no  book  that  appeals  more  unques- 
tionably to  a  high  and  rather  late  culture.  The 
fact  that  the  House  of  Commons  liked  it  so  much  is 
not  unrelated  to  their  love  of  Mr.  Balfour,  to  whom 
human  reasoning  appears  much  as  a  grotesque. 
This  type  of  mind  has  made  him  more  formidable 
in  destructive  criticism  than  in  positive  propaganda 
or  enactment,  and  it  is  fit  that  his  most  notable  piece 
of  writing  should  be  entitled*  A  Defense  of  Philo- 
sophic Doubt.  It  is  an  entirely  successful  defense 
of  philosophic  doubt.  It  is  not  so  conclusive  a 
foundation  for  the  doctrines  of  the  established 
church,  or  for  any  other  affirmation,  nor  is  its  suc- 
cessor, The  Foundations  of  Belief.  The  ability  ex- 
hibited in  these  volumes  is  forensic.  The  misty 
notions  of  evidence  harbored  by  the  unskilled  have 
small  chance  against  the  writer;  and  his  favorite 
target  is  the  cruder  skepticism: 

Suppose  for  a  moment  a  community  of  which  each 
member  should  deliberately  set  himself  the  task  of  throw- 
ing off  as  far  as  possible  all  prejudices  due  to  education; 
where  each  should  consider  it  his  duty  critically  to  ex- 
amine the  grounds  upon  which  rest  every  positive  enact- 
ment and  every  moral  precept  which  he  has  been  accus- 
tomed to  obey;  to  dissect  all  the  great  loyalties  which 
make  social  life  possible,  and  all  the  minor  conventions 
which  help  to  make  it  easy;  and  to  weigh  out  with 
scrupulous  precision  the  exact  degree  of  assent  which  in 
e~ach  particular  case  the  results  of  this  process  might 
seem"  to  justify.  To  say  that  such  a  community,  if  it 
acted  upon  the  opinions  thus  arrived  at,  would  stand  but 
a  poor  chance  in  the  struggle  for  existence  is  to  say  far 
too  little.  It  could  never  even  begin  to  be;  and  if  by  a 
miracle  it  was  created,  it  would  without  doubt  imme- 
diately resolve  itself  into  its  constituent  elements. 

Hence  we  take  our  stand  for  Authority : 

It  is  true,  no  doubt,  that  we  can,  without  any  great 
expenditure  of  research,  accumulate  instances  in  which 
Authority  has  perpetuated  error  and  retarded  progress, 
for  unluckily  none  of  the  influences,  Reason  least1  of  all, 
by  which  the  history  of  the  race  has  been  moulded,  have 
been  productive  of  unmixed  good. 

"  Least  of  all,"  Mr.  Balfour?    And  again: 

if  we  would  find  the  quality  in  which  we  most  notably 
excel  the  brute  creation,  we  should  look  for  it,  not  so 
much  in  our  faculty  of  convincing  and  being  convinced 
by  the  exercise  of  reasoning,  as  in  our  capacity  for  in- 
fluencing and  being  influenced  through  the  action  of 
Authority. 

Note  the  capital  A.  But  this  preference  really  fails 
at  a  glance.  Our  young  chickens  reproduce  the 


170 


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February  22 


habits  and  conclusions  of  their  ancestors.  On  the 
Other  hand,  reasoning,  and  reasoning  against  the  cur- 
rent, guided  Galileo,  Darwin,  Socrates,  and  Jesus. 
Also  if  man  has  passed  into  a  world  unknown  to 
apes,  it  is  because  he  was  able  to  reach  a  conclu- 
sion that  if  he  put  wood  on  fire  he  could  maintain 
himself  in  warmth.  By  the  heterodox  has  he  gone 
forward.  No  doubt  the  first  ape  to  walk  on  his 
hind  legs  was  deemed  an  opponent  of  Authority  and 
a  Danger  to  the  Community. 

I  would  not  willingly  be  frivolous.  The  Tory 
tradition  has  a  role  of  value  in  the  world,  and  it 
will  have  value  in  the  new  world  that  we  approach. 
Even  we  democrats  should  welcome  an  intelligent 
questioning  of  democracy.  There  will  be  a  new 
Tory  party,  whatever  it  may  be  called.  The  public 
is  the  right  judge  of  public  affairs,  but  the  public 
is  compelled  to  experiment,  and  it  is  subject  to  at- 
tacks of  caprice,  fashion,  and  mob  despotism.  The 
future  will  do  something  strange  to  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  Heaven  knows  what;  languid,  critical 
charm  will  not  mark  the  prime  minister  of  2019; 
but  there  will  be  other  Cambridges,  other  Balfours, 
questioning  the  new,  calm  with  the  memory  of  cen- 
turies, guided  (and  limited)  by  taste.  To  that  new 
Toryism  let  us  hope  that  some  of  our  best  men  and 
women  may  adhere.  "  Democracy  is  one  of  the  most 
difficult  forms  of  government  to  administer,  though 
it  be  the  greatest."  Mr.  Balfour  was  talking  to 
Americans  when  he  said  that,  in  1911,  and  he 
warned  them  that  the  problems  of  democracy  are 
not  simple;  are  not  going  to  solve  themselves;  re- 
quire the  services  of  the  best  men ;  are  of  increasing 
difficulty ;  and  indeed,  "  while  the  word  progress  is 
perpetually  on  our  lips,  we  may  yet  be  face  to  face 
with  a  danger  and  difficulty  of  %vhich  the  solution 
may  escape  even  the  wisest." 

The  Tory  was  a  person  with  a  privilege  to  which 
was  attached  an  obligation.  He  is  not  to  be  classed 
with  the  Bourbons.  He  recognized  his  obligations 
more  than  his  successor  in  power,  the  captain  of  in- 
dustry; and  indeed  the  best  of  the  Tories  are 
lining  themselves  up  with  those  who  would  shake 
the  hold  of  finance.  Mr.  Balfour  said  some  years 
ago,  and  his  cousin,  Lord  Robert  Cecil,  has  said 
within  a  few  weeks,  that  the  hope  of  civilization 
lies  in  actual  partnership  between  capital  and  labor, 
not  in  minor  concessions.  Yet  Lord  Robert  re- 
signed from  the  Government  on  the  issue  of  Welsh 
disestablishment,  and  Mr.  Balfour  fights  modern 
education  in  behalf  of  the  established  church.  The 
Tory  is  an  extraordinarily  worthy  and  interesting 
tnimal.  Moriturum  te  salutamus.  Your  day  is 
passing,  but  we  give  you  our  applause. 

The  British  aristocrat,  whether  Tory  or  Whig, 


has  known  singularly  well  how  to  fit  himself  to  ad- 
vancing circumstance.  If  the  Bourbon  forgot 
nothing  and  learned  nothing,  the  .British  aristocracy 
renews  itself  with  men  of  mark  and  respects  in  its 
own  ranks  not  the  wasters  and  the  drones  but  the 
industrious  and  responsible.  To  a  near  relative  of 
Mr.  Balfour's  I  once  said,  "  The  British  populace 
has  taken  over  political  power  just  about  in  propor- 
tion as  it -has  needed  it,"  and  she  replied,  "  We  have 
given  it  to  them."  The  "  we  "  was  a  trifle  proud, 
perhaps,  but  it  is  true  that  one  of  the  greatest  ac- 
complishments of  the  ruling  class  in  England  has 
been  in  knowing  when  to  yield.  It  has  never  sat  on 
the  lid  until  it  was  blown  up.  Mr.  Balfour  is  over 
seventy  today,  and  his  ideas  are  more  liberal  than 
they  were  when  he  was  twenty.  Perhaps  if  the 
German  aristocracy  had  been  as  sound  in  instinct  as 
the  British,  the  world-war  would  have  had  another 
ending,  or  there  would  have  been  no  war.  The 
Briton  can  tell  pretty  well  the  substance  from  the 
shadow.  If  he  had  been  in  power  in  Germany,  and 
had  seen  his  country  rapidly  conquering  the  mar- 
kets of  the  world,  he  would  never  have  given  up 
such  solid  conquest  for  a  dazzling  grandiose  idea. 
No  shining  armor  or  terrifying  noises  for  him.  He 
finds  out  what  is  essential  and  quietly  makes  it  his. 
In  the  growth  of  the  mighty  empire  the  liberal  and 
the  conservative  forces  have  kept  so  close  together 
that  their  differences  have  amounted  to  supplement. 
It  is  even  true  that  a  large  part  of  the  progressive 
legislation  has  been  enacted  by  the  Tories.  As  I 
look  back  at  Mr.  Balfour's  record,  even  at  such 
parts  of  it  as  Ireland,  I  hesitate  to  dogmatize.  He 
is  always  intelligent;  perhaps  he  might  admit  that 
the  more  characteristic  doctrines  of  Jesus  have  not 
shown  conspicuously  in  his  politics.  This  may  be 
for  him  or  against  him,  for  all  I  know.  The  Brit- 
ish Empire  is  a  big  place.  It  might  have  been 
smaller  if  only  democratically  and  spiritually  minded 
men  had  formed  its  governments.  It  certainly 
would  have  been  smaller  if  stern  men  had  ruled 
alone,  for  in  that  case  South  Africa  would  have 
joined  Germany  in  this  war,  with  what  remoter 
consequences  we  know  not.  Possibly  the  combina- 
tion of  compulsion  and  freedom,  of  idealism  and 
business,  of  skepticism  and  hope,  that  the  British 
elector  has  stood  for  represents  as  sound  political 
government  as  there  is. 

However,  in  insisting  on  Mr.  Balfour's  essential 
Toryism,  we  must  emphasize  also  the  superiority  of 
his  individual  intelligence.  Why  did  he  cease  to  be 
the  leader  of  his  party?  Why  were  the  letters, 
B.M.G.,  "  Balfour  Must  Go,"  posted  over  Lon- 
don? Who  succeeded  him?  He  lost  his  leadership, 
in  the  fight  of  a  decade  ago,  over  the  House  of 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


171 


Lords  because  he  was  not  sufficiently  rigid  and  nar- 
row-minded to  meet  the  spirit  of  the  unbending 
Tories.  It  was  the  Bitter-Enders,  in  the  House  of 
Lords  contest,  who  threw  Mr.  Balfour  out.  Since 
those  days  the  leader  of  the  Unionists  has  been  an 
industrious  and  mediocre  business  man,  with  no 
troublesome  individuality,  and  apparently  Mr.  An- 
drew Bonar  Law  managed  his  task,  before  the 
world  war  and  since,  to  the  satisfaction  of  those 
immediately  concerned.  Mr.  Balfour's  reputation 
seemed  to  have  started  on  the  decline  until  in  the 
war  he  emerged  as  the  man  most  trusted  in  foreign 
diplomacy  not  for  imagination,  for  conceiving  or 
embracing  a  startling  future,  but  for  tact,  negoti- 
ating ability,  forensic  shrewdness,  and  judgment. 
The  acts  of  leadership  and  faith  in  this  greatest  of 


all  crises  are  not  what  we  expect  of  him;  but  if 
these  acts  give  promise  it  will  not  be  in  Mr.,  Balfour 
to  oppose.  If  mankind  masters  itself,  to  settle  in  a 
better  way  the  problems  that  arise  between  states;  if 
Germany  and  Russia  are  made  welcome  partners ;  if 
the  method  of  governing  this  new  assembly  is  well 
advanced  in  liberalism;  and  if  all  countries,  includ- 
ing Britain,  are  asked  to  make  sacrifices  for  a  suc- 
cess so  high — facing  such  a  world  Mr.  Balfour  will 
at  least  acquiesce.  Afterward  he  will  go  back  to 
England,  happy  to  spend  the  evening  of  life  with 
books  and  simple  exercise,  but  ready  whenever 
needed  to  enter  the  ranks,  and  not  afraid  to  contem- 
plate any  new  world  that  the  wisdom  or  folly  of 
man  may  choose.  A  Balfour  is  not  a  Knox,  Lodge, 

or  Reed.  Xr  TT 

NORMAN  HAPGOOD. 


The  Industrial  Councils  of  Great  Britain 


R, 


.EADERS  WHOSE  knowledge  of  the  industrial 
situation  in  Great  Britain  is  confined  to  the 
speeches  of  Cabinet  Ministers  and  the  comments  of 
the  daily  press  are  apt  to  imagine  that  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth  are  being  created  by  some  magical 
process  initiated  by  the  Whitley  Report.  Joint 
Standing  Industrial  Councils  representing  employers 
and  employed,  so  the  press  and  the  politicians  in- 
form us,  are  being  set  up  almost  every  day,  and  a 
new  spirit  of  fellowship  and  good  will  is  animating 
masters  and  workmen  alike.  I  can  only  say  that  I 
have  sought  for  this  new  spirit,  and  I  have  not 
found  it.  Joint  Standing  Industrial  Councils  are 
indeed  being  established  in  considerable  numbers; 
but  most  of  the  vital  industries  have  hitherto  shown 
no  anxiety  to  establish  them,  and,  even  where  they 
have  been  established,  there  is  not  much  evidence  of 
the  "  new  spirit  "  of  which  we  hear  so  much.  In 
fact,  the  Whitley  Report,  loudly  as  it  has  been  ac- 
claimed in  governmental  circles,  has  almost  entirely 
failed  to  stir  the  world  of  Labor.  In  some  indus- 
tries, notably  on  the  railways  and  in  the  big  engi- 
neering group,  it  has  been  definitely  rejected.  In 
other  cases  it  has  been  accepted  as  a  useful  piece  of 
machinery,  but  without  any  particular  enthusiasm, 
and  certainly  with  no  idea  that  it  provides  a  panacea 
for  all  industrial  troubles.  The  only  case  in  which 
its  adoption  has  been  urgently  pressed  by  the  workers 
is  that  of  State  employees,  and  in  this  instance  the 
urgency  arises  largely  from  the  desire  to  use  it  as  a 
means  of  securing  full  recognition  and  the  right  of 
collective  bargaining. 

The  first  Whitley  Report,  to  which  the  later  Re- 
ports are  hardly  more  than  supplements,  proposes 


that  in  the  better  organized  industries  Standing 
Joint  Industrial  Councils  should  be  set  up  nationally 
in  each  industry,  with  District  Councils  and  Works 
Councils  under  them.  The  National  and  District 
Councils  are  to  consist  of  an  equal  representation 
from  Employers'  Associations  on  the  one  side  and 
from  Trade  Unions  on  the  other.  They  are  to  be 
voluntary  in  character,  and  the  Endowing  of  their 
decisions  with  any  legal  power  is  to  be  a  matter  for 
further  consideration.  The  State  is  not  to  be  repre- 
sented, and  is  to  appoint  a  chairman  only  when  re- 
quested to  do  so  by  the  Council  itself.  At  the  same 
time  the  Government  has  announced  its  intention  of 
recognizing  the  Councils  as  advisory  bodies  repre- 
senting the  various  industries,  and  of  consulting 
them  on  matters  affecting  their  interests. 

In  all  this  there  is  nothing  in  the  smallest  degree 
revolutionary.  In  most  industries  in  Great  Britain 
there  have  long  existed  regular  means  of  joint  nego- 
tiation and  consultation  between  employers  and  em- 
ployed. In  some  cases  these  have  taken  the  form  of 
Boards  of  Conciliation  with  agreed  rules  and 
methods  of  procedure;  in  others  there  have  been 
merely  regular  arrangements  for  periodic  confer- 
ence. The  important  point  is  that,  in  the  majority 
of  organized  industries,  recognition  of  Trade  Union- 
ism and  frequent  negotiation  between  Trade  Unions 
and  Employers'  Associations  have  long  been  the 
rule. 

The  Whitley  Report  does  not  in  reality  carry 
matters  very  much  further,  though  at  first  sight  it 
may  seem  to  do  so.  It  hints  again  and  again  that 
one  of  its  principal  reasons  for  urging  the  establish- 
ment of  Joint  Industrial  Councils  is  in  order  to 


172 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


satisfy  the  demand  of  the  workers  for  a  greater  con- 
trol over  industry;  but  the  actual  constitutions  of 
the  Whitley  Councils  which  have  been  established 
do  nothing  at  all  to  make  this  aspiration  a  fact. 
They  provide,' indeed,  for  joint  consideration  of 
questions  affecting  the  industry;  but  they  do  nothing 
to  affect  the  final  and  exclusive  control  of  the  em- 
ployer over  the  way  in  which  he  runs  his  business. 
I  am  not  complaining,  or  saying  that  they  could  do 
more.  I  am  merely  criticizing  the  prevalent  view 
that  the  Whitley  Report  makes  a  new  and  revolu- 
tionary departure  in  the  sphere  of  industrial  rela- 
tions. It  does  not:-  it  only  regularizes  and  formal- 
ises a  process  which  has  long  been  going  on  in  most 
of  our  principal  industries,  and  one  which  would 
have  continued  whether  there  had  been  a  Whitley 
Report  or  not.  In  fact,  the  control  of  industry  can- 
not be  altered  merely  by  the  setting  up  of  a  few 
Joint  Committees.  The  control  of  industry  rests  on 
the  economic  power  of  those  who  control  it;  and 
only  a  shifting  of  the  balance  of  economic  power 
will  alter  this  control.  Such  a  shifting  of  power 
may  be,  and  I  believe  is,  in  progress  at  the  present 
time;  but  it  is  quite  independent  of  such  events  as 
the  issuing  and  adoption  by  the  Government  of  the 
Whitley  Report.  The  view  most  current  among 
Trade  Unionists — that  the  Whitley  Report  does  not 
matter  much  one  way  or  the  other — is  certainly  the 
right  one. 

Nevertheless,  though  it  is  not  likely  to  produce 
large  permanent  results,  the  Report  has  for  the  time 
being  attracted  a  good  deal  of  attention.  Official 
Trade  Unionism,  represented  by  the  Parliamentary 
Committee  of  the  Trades  Union  Congress,  accepted 
it  without  enthusiasm  and  subject  to  its  remaining 
purely  voluntary.  Even  official  Trade  Unionism 
will  not  tolerate  compulsory  arbitration  in  any  form, 
except  under  protest  as  a  war  measure.  Unofficial 
rank  and  file  Trade  Unionism,  represented  by  the 
shop  stewards'  movement  and  other  agencies, 
roundly  denounced  "  Whitleyism  "  as  an  attempt  to 
sidetrack  the  growing  movement  of  the  class-con- 
scious workers  towards  the  control  of  industry. 
"  Whitleying  away  our  strength,"  one  rank  and  file 
critic  entitled  his  article  upon  the  Report,  and  went 
on  to  urge  that  the  capitalists,  fearing  the  rising 
tide  of  rank  and  file  committees,  had  inspired  the 
Report  in  the  hope  of  substituting  for  them  joint 
committees  of  masters  and  men,  and  so  depriving 
them  of  their  dynamic  and  revolutionary  character. 
The  National  Guilds  League,  also  representing  the 
left  wing,  declared  against  the  underlying  assump- 
tion of  the  Report  that  industrial  peace  is  possible 
and  desirable  under  capitalism,  and  pointed  out  that, 
whatever  the  merits  or  demerits  of  joint  committees, 
they  cannot  provide  the  dynamic  for  securing  con- 


trol, or  offer  any  alternative  to  workship  agitation 
and  workshop  organization  for  the  purpose  of  a 
gradual  assumption  of  control  by  the  workers. 
Other  critics,  largely  among  State  Socialists,  dwelt 
rather  on  the  dangers  of  Whitleyism  to  the  con- 
sumer and  the  risk  of  establishing  a  common  soli- 
darity between  employers  and  workers  in  a  particu- 
lar industry  against  the  public — a  risk  also  noted  by 
the  Guild  Socialists.  In  fact,  everywhere  the  left 
wing,  and  often  a  part  of  the  right  also,  rejected  the 
Whitley  proposals. 

What,  then,  of  the  Whitley  Councils  and  other 
bodies  on  similar  lines,  which  are  being  established? 
The  first  thing  to  notice  about  them  is  that  many 
of  them  affect  only  small  and  often  ill-organized 
groups.  The  Whitley  Committee  itself  recom- 
mended the  establishment  of  Joint  Industrial  Coun- 
cils only  in  those  industries  in  which  employers  and 
employed  were  comparatively  well  organized.  For 
the  industries  in  which  organization  was  weak,  it 
recommended  the  establishment  of  Trade  Boards 
under  the  act  recently  passed  to  extend  the  scope 
of  the  original  Trade  Boards  Act  of  1909.  Never-' 
theless,  Whitley  Councils  have  been  established  in 
a  number  of  industries  which  cannot  by  any  means 
be  regarded  as  well  organized.  Instances  of  this 
are  the  Pottery  Council  and  the  Match  Makers' 
Council.  Moreover,  Councils  are  being  set  up  for 
certain  small  sectional  trades  which  can  hardly  by 
any  stretch  of  imagination  be  regarded  as  industries. 
The  Bobbin  Industrial  Council  and  the  Spelter  In- 
dustrial Council  are  notable  examples  of  this  undue 
tendency  to  sectional  organization.  On  the  other 
hand,  Councils  have  been  or  are  being  set  up  in  a 
number  of  important  industries,  including  the 
woolen,  printing,  building,  baking,  and  other  in- 
dustries. 

In  addition  to  the  Industrial  Councils  set  up 
under  the  Whitley  scheme,  the  Government, 
through  the  Ministry  of  Reconstruction,  has  estab- 
lished a  number  of  Interim  Reconstruction  Com- 
mittees, principally  in  industries  in  which  the  for- 
mation of  Industrial  Councils  has  not  been  found 
possible,  but  also  in  some  cases  for  small  or  almost 
unorganized  industrial  groups,  such  as  needles  and 
fishhooks,  and  furniture  removing  and  warehous- 
ing. Altogether  there  are  about  twenty  Indus- 
trial Councils  now  in  existence,  and  a  considerably 
larger  number  of  Interim  Reconstruction  Commit- 
tees. No  steps  have  yet  been  taken  to  extend  the 
Trade  Boards  Act  to  new  trades,  unless  not  very 
definite  promises  to  distributive  workers,  to  tobacco 
workers,  and  to  one  or  two  other  groups  are  treated 
as  steps  in  this  direction. 

It  is  too  early  yet  to  say  what  the  new  Indus- 
trial Councils  are  likely  to  do  when  they  get  to 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


work.  Their  constitutions  are,  as  a  rule,  drawn  so 
as  to  embrace  a  large  variety  of  purposes,  without 
giving  much  indication  of  the  course  which  they  will 
actually  pursue.  One  significant  clause,  which  oc- 
curs in  the  constitution  of  several  Councils,  makes  it 
one  of  the  objects  to  maintain  selling  prices  at  a 
level  which  will  secure  reasonable  remuneration  to 
both  employers  and  employees.  This  recalls  the 
professed  objects  of  many  trusts  and  employers'  com- 
binations too  closely  to  require  detailed  criticism; 
but  it  is  important  to  note  it  because  it  is  clearly 
based  on  the  assumption  of  a  common  interest  be- 
tween employers  and  workers  in  a  particular  indus- 
try— a  common  interest  which  clearly  may  easily 
become  anti-social  in  its  effects,  and  in  any  case  runs 
counter  to  the  Socialist  theory  of  a  common  soli- 
darity of  all  workers  irrespective  of  craft  or  indus- 
try. Apart  from  this  provision  the  constitutions 
contain  few  notable  features,  except  that  in  many 
cases  the  provision  for  District  Councils  and,  still 
more,  for  Works  Committees  is  allowed  to  fall  very 
much  into  the  background.  All  the  constitutions 
provide  for  regular  discussion  on  matters  affecting 
the  industry,  and  for  communication  with  the  au- 
thorities on  questions  of  legislation  affecting  the  in- 
dustry; but  it  is  too  soon  to  see  how  this  consulta- 
tion will  work  in  practice. 

Apart  from  the  Whitley  Councils,  there  are  a 
riumber  of  agencies  at  work  with  the  declared  object 
of  promoting  industrial  peace.  The  Industrial  Re- 
construction Council  exists  mainly  in  order  to  push 
the  ideas  of  the  Whitley  Report,  and  sometimes 
seems  to  acquire  in  the  process  an  almost  official 
status.  The  so-called  "  Reconstruction  Society  "  is 
merely  the  old  Anti-Socialist  Union  suitably  dis- 
guised. The  National  Alliance  of  Employers  and 
Employed  is,  directly  or  indirectly,  an  offshoot  of 
the  big  employers'  Federation  of  British  Industries, 
and  includes  many  prominent  employers  and  a  few 
well-known  Trade  Unionists  of  the  right  wing, 
among  them  Mr.  Havelock  Wilson  and  Mr.  John 
Hodge.  This  body  has  so  far  devoted  itself  mainly 
to  the  question  of  demobilization,  urging  that  the  re- 
construction of  industry  should  be  undertaken  co- 
operatively by  employers  and  Trade  Unions  with 
the  minimum  of  Government  interference.  The 
Industrial  League  is  a  less  formal  prqpagandist  body 
with  much  the  same  obj'ects  as  the  National  Alli- 
ance. None  of  these  bodies  has  secured  much  Trade 
Union  backing,  except  among  the  Labor  leaders  of 
the  extreme  right  wing.  In  fact  all  these  move- 
ments for  industrial  cooperation  are  of  little  effect 
in  relation  to  the  really  vital  problems  of  industrial 
•  reconstruction.  Whatever  joint  machinery  may  be 
set  up,  it  seems  unlikely  that  the  gulf  between  em- 
ployers and  workers  will  be  in  any  way  bridged.  In 


almost  every  industry  of  importance  the  workers  are 
already  busy  formulating  extensive  programs,  em- 
bodying demands  which  will  hardly  be  granted  with- 
out a  struggle.  The  railwaymen  have  already  put 
forward  their  National  Program,  which  includes  not 
only  the  eight-hour  day  and  heavy  demands  for 
wage  increases,  but  also  a  definite  claim  for  an  equal 
share  in  the  control  of  the  railway  service.  The 
promise  of  the"  eight-hour  day,  already  given  by  the 
Government,  has  staved  off  the  crisis  for  the  mo- 
ment but  has  done  nothing  really  to  solve  the  prob- 
lem. The  engineering  and  shipyard  trades,  which 
have  just  received  the  forty-seven  hour  week,  have 
an  extensive  list  of  further  demands  in  preparation. 
The  miners  in  most  of  the  coalfields  are  already  put- 
ting forward  comprehensive  programs.  The  cotton 
workers  have  just  come  through  a  wage  crisis,  and 
are  about  to  put  forward  a  claim  for  a  substantial 
reduction  in  hours.  The  transport  workers  are 
formulating  a  series  of  national  demands  for  the 
various  sections  of  their  membership.  Nor  is  the 
position  in  these  industries  peculiar.  Almost  every 
group  of  workers  has  a  long  list  of  grievances  and 
demands  which  have  been  perforce  laid  aside  during 
the  war,  and  all  these  may  be  expected  to  emerge 
during  the  next  few  months.  The  existence  of 
Whitley  Councils  or  Reconstruction  Committees 
will  do  nothing  to  alter  the  character  of  the  eco- 
nomic conflict  which  seems  to  be  impending. 

I  do  not  mean,  of  course,  that  the  British  workers 
are  class-conscious  revolutionaries  aiming  definitely 
at  the  overthrow  of  the  existing  industrial  order. 
Nor  do  I  mean  that  all,  or  even  the  majority,  of  the 
demands  which  they  are  making  will  result  in 
strikes.  Most  of  them  will  probably  be  settled  by 
negotiation,  unless  a  general  upheaval  occurs.  This 
however  is  nothing  new.  The  strike  has  never  been 
more  than  an  occasional  weapon,  and  the  fact  that  a 
dispute  is  settled  without  a  stoppage  does  not  alter 
the  fact  that  the  terms  of  settlement  usually  depend 
on  the  relative  economic  strength  of  the  parties.  My 
point  is  that  all  the  talk  about  industrial  peace  and 
all  the  action  in  setting  up  new  machinery  will  be 
found  to  have  made  very  little  difference  when  it  is 
actually  put  to  the  test.  Employers  and  workers 
will  continue  to  differ  about  their  relative  status  in 
industry  and  about  their  respective  shares  -of  its 
fruits;  and  they  will  continue  to  settle  their  differ- 
ences mainly  by  the  balancing  of  economic  forces, 
whether  the  balancing  is  done  by  negotiation  or  by 
the  open  force  of  strike  or  lock-out.  In  fact  the 
tendency  is  to  attach  far  too  much  importance  to 
joint  machinery  such  as  that  which  is  recommended 
in  the  Whitley  Reports,  and  to  forget  that  no 
amount  of  machinery  can  alter  the  essential  facts 
of  the  economic  situation.  _ 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


Bolshevism  Is  a  Menace — to  Whom? 


HEN  TAKEN  at  its  face  value  and  trans- 
lated into  its  nearest  English  equivalent  "  bol- 
shevism "  means  "  majority  rule."  Another 
equivalent  would  be  "  popular  government,"  and 
still  another,  "  democracy  " — although  the  latter 
two  terms  are  not  so  close  a  translation  as  the 
former,  particularly  not  as  "  democracy  "  is  under- 
stood in  America. 

In  American  usage  "  democracy  "  denotes  a  par- 
ticular form  of  political  organization,  without  ref- 
erence to  the  underlying  economic  organization ; 
whereas  "  bolshevism "  has  primarily  no  political 
signification,  being  a  form  of  economic  organiza- 
tion, with  incidental  consequences — mostly  nega- 
tive— in  the  field  of  politics. 

But  in  the  case  of  any  word  that  gets  tangled 
up  in  controversial  argument  and  so  becomes  a 
storm-center  of  ugly  sentiments,  its  etymology  is  no 
safe  guide  to  the  meaning  which  the  word  has  in 
the  mind  of  those  who  shout  it  abroad  in  the  heat 
of  applause  or  of  denunciation. 

By  immediate  derivation,  as  it  is  now  used  to 
designate  that  revolutionary  faction  which  rules 
the  main  remnants  of  the  Russian  empire,  "  Bol- 
sheviki  "  signifies  that  particular  wing  of  the  Rus- 
sian Socialists  which  was  in  a  majority  on  a  test 
vote  at  a  congress  of  the  Russian  Social-Democratic 
Party  in  1903;  since  which  time  the  name  has  at- 
tached to  that  particular  faction.  It  happens  that 
the  wing  of  the  Social-Democratic  Party  which  so 
came  in  for  this  name  at  that  time  was  the  left 
wing,  the  out-and-outers  of  the  Socialist  profes- 
sion. And  these  are  they  to  whom  it  has  fallen 
today  to  carry  the  burden  of  humanity's  dearest 
hopes  or  fears,  according  as  one  may  be  inclined  to 
see  it.  Beyond  the  Russian  frontiers  the  name  has 
been  carried  over  to  designate  the  out-and-outers 
elsewhere,  wherever  they  offer  to  break  bounds  and 
set  aside  the  underlying  principles  of  the  established 
order,  economic  and  political. 

Bolshevism  is  a  menace.  No  thoughtful  person 
today  is  free  to  doubt  that,  whether  he  takes 
sides  for  or  against — according  as  his  past  habitua- 
tion  and  his  present  circumstances  may  dictate.  In- 
deed it  would  even  be  the  same  for  any  reasonably 
intelligent  person  who  might  conceivably  be  stand- 
ing footloose  in  the  middle,  as  a  disinterested  by- 
stander possessed  of  that  amiably  ineffectual  gift,  a 
perfectly  balanced  mind.  He  would  still  have  to 
admit  the  fact  that  Bolshevism  is  a  menace.  Only 
that,  in  the  absence  of  partisan  heat,  he  would  also 
be  faced  with  the  question:  A  menace  to  whom? 


Bolshevism  is  revolutionary.  It  aims  to  carry 
democracy  and  majority  rule  over  into  the  domain 
of  industry.  Therefore  it  is  a  menace  to  the  estab- 
lished order  and  to  those  persons  whose  fortunes 
are  bound  up  with  the  established  order.  It  is 
charged  with  being  a  menace  to  private  property, 
to  business,  to  industry,  to  state  and  church,  to  law 
and  morals,  to  the  world's  peace,  to  civilization,  and 
to  mankind  at  large.  And  it  might  prove  sufficient- 
ly difficult  for  any  person  with  a  balanced  mind  to 
clear  the  Bolshevist  movement  of  any  one  or  all  of 
these  charges. 

In  point  of  its  theoretical  aims  and  its  profes- 
sions, as  regards  its  underlying  principles  of  equity 
and  reconstruction,  this  movement  can  presumably 
make  out  about  as  good  and  wholesome  a  case  as 
any  other  revolutionary  movement.  But  in  point  of 
practical  fact,  as  regards  the  effectual  working-out 
of  its  aims  and  policies  under  existing  conditions, 
the  evidence  which  has  yet  come  to  hand,  it  must 
be  admitted,  is  evidence  of  a  trail  of  strife,  priva- 
tion, and  bloodshed,  more  or  less  broad  but  in  any 
case  plain  to  be  seen. 

No  doubt  the  available  evidence  of  this  working- 
out  of  Bolshevism  in  the  Russian  lands  is  to  be 
taken  with  a  much  larger  allowance  than  anything 
that  could  be  called  "  a  grain  of  salt  " ;  no  doubt 
much  of  it  is  biased  testimony,  and  no  doubt  much 
of  the  rest  is  maliciously  false.  But  when  all  is 
said  in  abatement  there  still  remains  the  trail  of  dis- 
order, strife,  privation,  and  bloodshed,  plain  to  be 
"seen.  How  much  of  all  this  disastrous  run  of  horror 
and  distress  is  to  be  set  down  to  the  account  of 
Bolshevism,  simply  in  its  own  right,  and  how  much 
to  the  tactics  of  the  old  order  and  its  defenders,  or 
how  the  burden  of  blame  is  fairly  to  be  shared 
between  them — all  that  is  not  so  plain. 

Bolshevism  is  a  revolutionary  movement,  and  as 
such  it  has  necessarily  met  with  forcible  opposition, 
and  in  the  nature  of  things  it  is  bound  to  meet  op- 
position, more  or  less  stubborn  and  with  more 
or  less  unhappy  consequences.  Any  subversive 
project  such  as  Bolshevism  can  be  carried  through 
only  by  overcoming  resistance,  which  means  an 
appeal  to  force. 

The  Russian  democratic  revolution  of  the  spring 
of  1917  was  a  political  and  military  revolution 
which  involved  a  number  of  economic  readjust- 
ments. The  merits  of  that  move  are  not  in  ques- 
tion here.  In  the  present  connection  it  is  chieflj 
significant  as  having  prepared  the  ground  for  the 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


later  revolution — of  November  1917 — out  of  which 
the  rule  of  the  Soviets  and  the  Bolshevik  dictator- 
ship have  grown.  This  latter  is  an  economic  revo- 
lution in  intention  and  in  its  main  effect,  although 
it  involves  also  certain  political  undertakings  and 
adjustments.  Its  political  and  military  undertakings 
and  policies  are,  a't  least  in  theory,  wholly  provi- 
sional and  subsidiary  to  its  economic  program.  Any 
slight  attention  to  the  Declaration  of  Rights  and  the 
provisions  of  the  Constitution,  promulgated  by  the 
All-Russian  Convention  of  Soviets  last  July,  will 
make  that  clear.  The  political  and  military  meas- 
ures decided  on  have  been  taken  with  a  view  singly 
to  carrying  out  a  policy  of  economic  changes.  This 
economic  policy  is  frankly  subversive  of  the  existing 
system  of  property  rights  and  business  enterprise,  in- 
cluding, at  least  provisionally,  repudiation  of  the 
Russian  imperial  obligations  incurred  by  the  Czar's 
Government. 

These  documents  of  the  Soviet  Republic,  together 
with  later  action  taken  in  pursuance  of  the  policies 
there  outlined,  give  a  summary  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion: A  menace  to  whom?  The  documents  in  the 
case  draw  an  unambiguous  line  of  division  between 
the  vested  interests  and  the  common  man;  and  the 
Bolshevist  program  foots  up  to  a  simple  and  com- 
prehensive disallowance  of  all  vested  rights.  That 
is  substantially  all  that  is  aimed  at;  but  the  sequel 
of  that  high  resolve,  as  it  is  now  running  its  course, 
goes  to  say  that  that  much  is  also  more  than  a  suffi- 
cient beginning  of  trouble.  In  its  first  intention, 
and  in  the  pursuit  of  its  own  aim,  therefore,  in  so  far 
as  this  pursuit  has  not  been  hindered  by  interested 
parties,  this  Bolshevism  is  a  menace  to  the  vested  in- 
terests, and  to  nothing  and  no  one  else. 

All  of  which  is  putting  as  favorable  a  construc- 
tion on  the  professions  and  conduct  of  the  Bolshe- 
viki  as  may  be ;  and  it  is  all  to  be  taken  as  a  de- 
scription of  the  main  purpose  of  the  movement,  not 
as  an  account  of  the  past  year's  turmoil  in  Bolshe- 
vist Russia.  But  it  is  as  well  to  keep  in  mind  that 
the  original  substance  and  cause  of  this  Bolshevist 
trouble  is  a  cleavage  and  antagonism  between  the 
vested  interests  and  the  common  man,  and  that  the 
whole  quarrel  turns  finally  about  the  vested  rights 
of  property  and  privilege.  The  moderate  liberals, 
such  as  the  Cadets,  and  in  its  degree  the  Kerensky 
administration,  are  made  up  of  those  persons  who 
are  ready  to  disallow  the  vested  rights  of  privilege, 
but  who  will  not  consent  to  the  disallowance  of  the 
vested  rights  of  ownershop. 

And  it  is  at  this  point  that  the  European  powers 
come  into  the  case.  These  democratic  or  quasi- 
democratic  powers  and  their  democratic  or  pseudo- 
democratic  statesmen  are  not  so  greatly  concerned, 
though  regretful,  about  the  disallowance  of  class 


privileges  and  perquisites  in  Russia.  Of  course,  it  is 
disquieting  enough,  and  the  European  statesmen  of 
the  status  quo  ante,  to  whom  European  affairs  have 
been  entrusted,  will  necessarily  look  with  some  dis- 
taste and  suspicion  on  the  discontinuance  of  class 
privilege  and  class  rule  in  the  dominions  of  the  late 
Czar;  all  that  sort  of  thing  is  disquieting  to  the 
system  of  vested  rights  within  which  these  Euro- 
pean statesmen  live  and  move.  But  privilege  simply 
as  such  is  after  all  in  the  nature  of  an  imponder- 
able, and  it  may  well  be  expedient  to  concede  the 
loss  of  that  much  intangible  assets  with  a  good 
grace,  lest  a  worse  evil  befall.  But  it  is  not  so  with 
the  vested  rights  of  ownership.  These  are  of  the 
essence  of  that  same  quasi-democratic  status  quo 
about  the  preservation  of  which  these  elder  states- 
men are  concerned.  "  Discontinuance  of  the  rights 
of  ownership  "  is  equivalent  to  "  the  day  of  judg- 
ment "  for  the  regime  of  the  elder  statesmen  and  for 
the  interests  which  they  have  at  heart.  These  in- 
terests which  the  elder  statesmen  have  at  heart  are 
primarily  the  interests  of  trade,  investment,  and  na- 
tional integrity,  and  beyond  that  the  ordered  sys- 
tem of  law  and  custom  and  businesslike  prosperity 
which  runs  on  under  the  shadow  of  these  interests 
of  trade,  investment,  and  national  integrity.  And 
these  elder  statesmen,  being  honorable  gentlemen, 
and  as  such  being  faithful  to  their  bread,  see 
plainly  that  Russian  Bolshevism  is  a  menace  to  all 
the  best  interests  of  mankind. 

So  there  prevails  among  the  astute  keepers  of  law 
and  order  in  other  lands  an  uneasy  statesmanlike 
dread  of  "  Bolshevist  infection,"  which  it  is  con- 
sidered will  surely  follow  on  any  contact  or  com- 
munication across  the  Russian  frontiers.  There  is  a 
singular  unanimity  of  apprehension  on  this  matter 
of  "  Bolshevist  infection  "  among  the  votaries  of 
law  and  order.  Precautionary  measures  of  isola- 
tion are  therefore  devised — something  like  quaran- 
tine to  guard  against  the  infection.  It  should  be 
noted  that  this  statesmanlike  fear  of  Bolshevist  in- 
fection is  always  a  fear  that  the  common  man  in 
these  other  countries  may  become  infected.  The 
elder  statesmen  have  no  serious  apprehension  that 
the  statesmen  themselves  are  likely  to  be  infected 
with  Bolshevism,  even  by  fairly  reckless  exposure, 
or  that  the  military  class,  or  the  clergy,  or  the  land- 
lords, or  the  business  men  at  large  are  liable  to  such 
infection.  Indeed  it  is  assumed  as  a  matter  of 
course  that  the  vested  interests  and  the  kept  classes; 
are  immune,  and  it  will  be  admitted  that  the  as- 
sumption is  reasonable.  The  measures  of  quaran- 
tine are,  accordingly,  always  designed  to  safeguard 
those  classes  in  the  community  who  have  no  vested 
rights  to  lose. 

It  is  always  as  a  system  of  ideas,  or  "  principles," 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


that  Bolshevism  spreads  by  communication ;  it  is  a 
contamination  of  ideas,  of  habits  of  thought.  And 
it  owes  much  of  its  insidious  success  to  tjie  fact  that 
this  new  order  of  ideas  which  it  proposes  is  ex- 
tremely simple  and  is  in  the  main  of  a  negative 
character.  The  Bolshevist  scheme  of  ideas  comes 
easy  to  the  common  man  because  it  does  not  require 
him  to  learn  much  that  is  new,  but  mainly  to  un- 
learn much  that  is  old.  It  does  not  propose  the 
adoption  of  a  new  range  of  preconceptions,  so  that 
it  calls  for  little  in  the  way  of  acquiring  new  habits 
of  thought.  In  the  main  it  is  an  emancipation  from 
older  preconceptions,  older  habitual  convictions. 
And  the  proposed  new  order  of  ideas  will  displace 
the  older  preconceptions  all  the  more  easily  because 
these  older  habitual  convictions  that  are  due  to  be 
displaced,  no  longer  have  the  support  of  those  ma- 
terial circumstances  which  now  condition  the  life  of 
the  common  man,  and  which  will  therefore  make 
the  outcome  by  bending  his  habits  of  thought. 

The  training  given  by  the  mechanical  industries 
and  strengthened  by  the  experience  of  daily  life  in  a 
mechanically  organized  community  lends  no  sup- 
port to  prescriptive  rights  of  ownership,  class  per- 
quisites, and  free  income.  This  training  bends  the 
mental  attitude  of  the  common  man  at  cross-pur- 
poses with  the  established  system  of  rights,  and 
makes  it  easy  for  him  to  deny  their  validity  so  soon 
as  there  is  sufficient  provocation.  And  it  is 
scarcely  necessary  for  him  to  find  a  substitute  for 
these  principles  of  vested  right  that  so  fall  away 
from  him. 

It  is  true,  these  prescriptive  rights,  about  whose 
maintenance  and  repair  the  whole  quarrel  swings 
and  centers,  do  have  the  consistent  support  of  those 
habits  of  thought  that  are  engendered  by  experience 
in  business  traffic;  and  business  traffic  is  a  very  large 
and  consequential  part  of  life  as  it  runs  in  these 
civilized  countries.  But  business  traffic  is  not  the 
tone-giving  factor  in  the  life  of  the  common  man, 
nor  are  business  interests  his  interests  in  so  obvious 
a  fashion  as  greatly  to  affect  his  habitual  outlook. 
Under  the  new  order  of  things  there  is,  in  effect,  a 
widening  gulf  fixed  between  the  business  traffic  and 
those  industrial  occupations  that  shape  the  habits  of 
thought  of  the  common  man.  The  business  corh- 
.munity,  who  are  engaged  in  this  business  traffic  and 
whose  habitual  attention  centers  on  the  rights  of 
ownership  and  income,  are  consistent  votaries  of  the 
old  order,  as  their  training  and  interest  would  dic- 
tate. And  these  are  also  immune  against  any  sub- 
versive propaganda,  however  insidious,  as  has  al- 
ready been  remarked  above.  Indeed,  it  is  out  of 
this  division  of  classes  in  respect  of  their  habitual 
outlook  and  of  their  material  interests  that  the 
whole  difficultv  arises,  and  it  is  by  force  of  this  divi- 


sion that  this  subversive  propaganda  becomes  a 
menace.  Both  parties  are  acting  on  conviction,  and 
there  is,  therefore,  no  middle  ground  for  them  to 
meet  on.  "  Thrice  is  he  armed  who  knows  his  quar- 
rel just  ";  and  in  this  case  both  parties  to  the  quar- 
rel are  convinced  of  the  justice  of  their  own  cause, 
at  the  same  time  that  the  material  fortunes  of  both 
are  at  stake1.  Hence  an  unreserved  recourse  to 
force,  with  all  its  consequences. 

By  first  intention  and  by  consistent  aim  Bolshe- 
vism is  a  menace  to  the  vested  rights  of  property 
and  of  privilege,  and  from  this  the  rest  follows. 
The  vested  interests  are  within  their  legal  and  moral 
rights,  and  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  they  will 
yield  these"  rights  amicably.  All  those  classes,  fac- 
tions, and  interests  that  stand  to  lose  have  made 
common  cause  against  the  out-and-outers,  have  em- 
ployed armed  force  where  that  has  been  practicable, 
and  have  resorted  to  such  measures  of  intrigue  and 
sabotage  as  they  can  command.  All  of  which  is 
quite  reasonable,  in  a  way,  since  these  vested  inter- 
ests are  legally  and  morally  in  the  right  according 
to  the  best  of  their  knowledge  and  belief;  but  the 
consequence  of  their  righteous  opposition,  intrigue, 
and  obstruction  has  been  strife,  disorder,  privation 
and  bloodshed,  with  a  doubtful  and  evil  prospect 
ahead. 

Among  the  immediate  consequences  of  this  quar- 
rel, according  to  the  reports  which  have  been  al- 
lowed to  come  through  to  the  outside,  is  alleged  to 
be  a  total  disorganization  and  collapse  of  the  indus- 
trial system  throughout  the  Russian  dominions,  in- 
cluding the  transportation  system  and  the  food  sup- 
ply. From  which  has  followed  famine,  pestilence, 
and  pillage,  uncontrolled  and  uncontrollable.  How- 
ever, there  are  certain  outstanding  facts  which  it 
will  be  in  place  to  recall,  in  part  because  they  are 
habitually  overlooked  or  not  habitually  drawn  on 
for  correction  of  the  published  reports.  The  Bol- 
shevist administration  has  now  been  running  for 
something  over  a  year,  which  will  include  one  crop 
season.  During  this  time  it  has  been  gaining 
ground,  particularly  during  the  later  months  of  this 
period;  and  this  gain  has  been  made  in  spite  of  a 
very  considerable  resistance,  active  and  passive, 
more  or  less  competently  organized  and  more  or  less 
adequately  supported  from  the  outside.  Meantime 
the  "  infection  "  is  spreading  in  a  way  that  does  not 
signify  a  lost  cause. 

All  the  while  the  administration  has  been  carry- 
ing on  military  operations  on  a  more  or  less  extended 
scale;  and  on  the  whole,  and  particularly  through 
the  latter  part  of  this  period,  its  military  operations 
appear  to  have  been  gaining  in  magnitude  and  to 
have  met  with  increasing  success,  such  as  would 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


177 


argue  a  more  or  less  adequate  continued  supply  of 
arms  and  munitions.  These  military  operations 
have  been  carried  on  without  substantial  supplies 
from  the  outside,  so  that  the  administration  will 
have  had  to  supply  its  warlike  needs  and  replace  its 
wear  and  tear  from  within  the  country  during  this 
rather  costly  period.  It  has  been  said  from  time  to 
time,  of  course,  that  the  Bolshevist  administration 
has  drawn  heavily  on  German  support  for  funds  and 
material  supplies  during  this  period.  It  has  been 
said,  but  it  is  very  doubtful  if  it  has  been  believed. 
Quite  notoriously  the  Bolsheviki  have  lost  more  than 
they  have  gained  at  the  hands  of  the  Germans.  And 
imports  of  all  warlike  supplies  from  any  source  have 
been  very  nearly  shut  off. 

Such  information  as  has  been  coming  through 
from  the  inside,  in  the  way  of  official  reports,  runs 
to  the  effect  that  the  needed  supplies  of  war  ma- 
terial, including  arms  and  ammunition,  have  in  the 
main  been  provided  at  home  from  stocks  on  hand 
and  by  taking  over  various  industrial  works  and  oper- 
ating them  for  war  purposes  under  administrative 
control — which  would  argue  that  the  industrial  col- 
lapse and  disorganization  cannot  have  been  so  com- 
plete or  so  far-reaching  as  had  been  feared,  or  hoped. 
Indeed  these  reports  are  singularly  out  of  touch  and 
out  of  sympathy  with  the  Associated  Press  news 
bearing  on  the  same  general  topic.  It  appears, 
dimly,  from  the  circumstantial  evidence  that  the 
Bolshevist  administration  in  Russia  has  met  with 
somewhat  the  same  surprising  experience  as  the 
Democratic  administration  in  America — that  in  spite 
of  the  haste,  confusion,  and  blundering,  incident  to 
taking  over  the  control  of  industrial  works,  the 
same  works  have  after  all  proved  t6  run  at  a  higher 
efficiency  under  administrative  management  than 
they  previously  have  habitually  done  when  managed 
by  their  owners  for  private  gain.  The  point  is  in 
doubt,  it  must  be  admitted,  but  the  circumstantial 
evidence,  backed  by  the  official  reports,  appears  on 
the  whole  to  go  that  way. 

Something  to  a  similar  effect  will  apparently  hold 
true  for  the  transportation  system.  The  administra- 
tion has  apparently  been  able  to  take  over  more  of 
the  means  of  transport  than  the  Associated  Press 
news  would  indicate,  and  to  have  kept  it  all  in  a 
more  nearly  reasonable  state  of  repair.  As  is  well 
known,  the  conduct  of  successful  military  opera- 
tions today  quite  imperatively  requires  a  competent 
transport  system;  and,  in  spite  of  many  reverses,  it 
is  apparently  necessary  to  admit  that  the  military 
operations  of  the  Bolshevist  administration  have  on 
the  whole  been  successful  rather  than  the  reverse. 
The  inference  is  plain,  so  far  as  concerns  the  point 
immediately  in  question  here.  Doubtless  the  Rus- 
sian transportation  system  is  in  sufficiently  bad 


shape,  but  it  can  scarcely  be  in  so  complete  a  state  of 
collapse  as  had  been  reported,  feared,  and  hoped  by 
those  who  go  on  the  information  given  out  by  the 
standard  news  agencies.  If  one  discounts  the  selec- 
tively standardized  news  dispatches  of  these  agen- 
cies, one  is  left  with  an  impression  that  the  railway 
system,  for  example,  is  better  furnished  with  rolling- 
stock  and  in  better  repair  in  European  Russia  than 
in  Siberia,  where  the  Bolshevist  administration  is 
not  in  control.  This  may  be  due  in  good  part  to  the 
fact  that  the  working  personnel  of  the  railways  and 
their  repair  shops  are  Bolsheviki  at  heart,  both  in 
Siberia  and  in  European  Russia,  and  that  they  have 
therefore  withdrawn  from  the  train  service  and  re- 
pair shops  of  the  Siberian  roads  as  fast  as  these  roads 
have  fallen  into  non-Bolshevist  hands,  and  have  mi- 
grated into  Russia  to  take  up  the  same  work  among 
their  own  friends. 

The  transportation  system  does  not  appear  to  have 
precisely  broken  down;  the  continuance  of  military 
operations  goes  to  show  that  much.  Also,  the  crop 
year  of  1918  is  known  to  have  been  rather  excep- 
tionally good  in  European  Russia,  on  the  whole,  so 
that  there  will  be  at  least  a  scant  sufficiency  of  food- 
stuff back  in  the  country  and  available  for  those  por- 
tions of  the  population  who  can  get  at  it.  Also,  it 
will  be  noted  that,  by  all  accounts,  the  civilian  popu- 
lation of  the  cities  has  fallen  off  to  a  fraction  of  its 
ordinary  number,  by  way  of  escape  to  the  open 
country  or  to  foreign  parts.  Those  classes  who 
were  fit  to  get  a  living  elsewhere  have  apparently 
escaped.  In  the  absence  of  reliable  information  one 
would,  on  this  showing,  be  inclined  to  say  that  the 
remaining  civilian  population  of  the  cities  will  be 
made  up  chiefly,  perhaps  almost  wholly,  of  such 
elements  of  the  so-called  middle  classes  as  could  not 
get  away  or  had  nowhere  to  go  with  any  prospect 
of  bettering  their  lot.  These  will  for  the  most  part 
have  been  trades  people  and  their  specialized  em- 
ployees, persons  who  are  of  slight  use  in  any  pro- 
ductive industry  and  stand  a  small  chance  of  gaining 
a  livelihood  by  actually  necessary  work.  They  be- 
long to  the  class  of  smaller  "  middle-men,"  who  are 
in  great  part'  superfluous  in  any  case,  and  whose 
business  traffic  has  been  virtually  discontinued  by 
the  Bolshevist  administration.  These  displaced 
small  business  men  of  the  Russian  cities  are  as  use- 
less and  as  helpless  under  the  Bolshevist  regime  as 
nine-tenths  of  the  population  of  the  American  coun- 
try towns  in  the  prairie  states  would  be  if  the  retail 
trade  of  the  prairie  states  were  reorganized  in  such 
a  way  as  to  do  away  with  all  useless  duplication. 
The  difference  is  that  the  Bolshevist  administration 
of  Russia  has  discontinued  much  of  the  superfluous 
retail  trade,  whereas  the  democratic  administration 
of  America  takes  pains  to  safeguard  the  reasonable 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


profits  of  its  superfluous  retailers.     Bolshevism  is  a 
menace  to  the  retail  trade  and  to  the  retailers. 

Accordingly  it  is  to  be  noted  that  when  details 
and  concrete  instances  "of  extreme  hardship  in  the 
cities  are  given,  they  will  commonly  turn  out  to  be 
hardships  which  have  fallen  on  some  member  or 
class  of  what  the  Socialists  call  the  Bourgeoisie,  the 
middle  class,  the  business  community,  the  kept 
classes — more  commonly  than  anything  of  lower 
social  value  or  nearer  to  the  soil.  Those  that  be- 
long nearer  to  the  soil  appear  largely  to  have 
escaped  from  the  cities  and  returned  to  the  soil. 
Now,  on  a  cold  and  harsh  appraisal  such  as  the  Ger- 
mans have  made  familiar  to  civilized  people  under 
the  name  of  "  military  necessity,"  these  "  Bour- 
geois "  are  in  part  to  be  considered  useless  and  in 
part  mischievous  for  all  purposes  of  Bolshevism. 
Under  the  Bolshevist  regime  they  are  "  undesirable 
citizens,"  who  consume  without  producing  and  who 
may  be  counted  on  to  intrigue  against  the  adminis- 
tration and  obstruct  its  operation  whenever  a  chance 
offers.  From  which  it  follows,  on  a  cold  and  harsh 
calculation  of  "  military  necessity,"  that  whether 
the  necessary  supplies  are  to  be  had  in  the  country 
or  not,  and  whether  the  transportation  system  is 
capable  of  handling  the  necessary  supplies  or  not,  it 
might  still  appear  the  part  of  wisdom,  or  of  Bolshe- 
vist expediency,  to  leave  this  prevailingly  Bour- 
geois and  disaffected  civilian  population  of  the  cities 
without  the  necessaries  of  life.  The  result  would 
be  famine,  of  course,  together  with  the  things  that 
go  with  famine;  but  the  Bolsheviki  would  be  in  a 
position  to  say  that  they  are  applying  famine  selec- 
tively, as  a  measure  of  defense  against  their  enemies 
within  the  frontiers,  very  much  as  the  nations  of 
the  Entente  once  were  in  a  position  to  argue  that  the 
exclusion  of  foodstuffs  from  Germany  during  the 
war  was  a  weapon  employed  against  the  enemies  of 
the  world's  peace. 

These  considerations  are,  unhappily,  very  loose 
and  general.  They  amount  to  little  better  than 
cautious  speculations  on  the  general  drift  and  upshot 
of  things.  On  the  evidence  which  has  yet  come  to 
hand  and  which  is  in  any  degree  reliable  it  would 
be  altogether  hazardous,  just  yet,  to  attempt  an 
analysis  of  events  in  detail.  But  it  is  at  least  plain 
that  Bolshevism  is  a  menace  to  the  vested  interests, 
at  home  and  abroad.  So  long  as  its  vagaries  run 
their  course  within  the  Russian  dominions  it  is  pri- 
marily and  immediately  a  menace  to  the  vested 
rights  of  the  landowners,  the  banking  establish- 
ments, the  industrial  corporations,  and  not  least  to 
the  retail  traders  in  the  Russian  towns.  The  last 
named  are  perhaps  the  hardest  hit,  because  they 
have  relatively  little  to  lose  and  that  little  is  thejr 


all.  The  greater  sympathy  is,  doubtless  properly, 
according  to  the  accepted  scheme  of  social  values, 
given  to  the  suffering  members  of  the  privileged 
classes,  the  kept  classes  par  excellence,  but  the 
larger  and  more  acute  hardship  doubtless  falls  to  the 
share  of  the  smaller  trades-people.  These,  of 
course,  are  all  to  be  classified  with  the  vested  in- 
terests. But  the  common  man  also  comes  in  for  his 
portion.  He  finally  bears  the  cost  of  it  all,  and  its 
cost  runs  finally  in  terms  of  privation  and  blood. 

But  it  menaces  also  certain  vested  interests  out- 
side of  Russia,  particularly  the  vested  rights  of  in- 
vestors in  Russian  industries  and  natural  resources, 
as  well  as  of  concerns  which  have  an  interest  in  the 
Russian  import  and  export  trade.  So  also  the  vested 
rights  of  investors  in  Russian  securities.  Among 
the  latter  claimants  are  now  certain  governments 
lately  associated  with  Russia  in  the  conduct  of  the 
war,  and  more  particularly  the  holders  of  Russian 
imperial  bonds.  Of  the  latter  many  are  French 
citizens,  it  is  said ;  and  it  has  been  remarked  that  the 
French  statesmen  realize  the  menace  of  Bolshevism 
perhaps  even  more  acutely  than  the  common  run  of 
those  elder  statesmen  who  are  now  deliberating  on 
the  state  of  mankind  at  large  and  the  state  of  Rus- 
sian Bolshevism  in  particular. 

But  the  menace  of  Bolshevism  extends  also  to  the 
common  man  in  those  other  countries  whose  vested 
interests  have  claims  on  Russian  income  and  re- 
sources. These  vested  rights  of  these  claimants  in 
foreign  parts  are  good  and  valid  in  law  and  morals, 
and  therefore  by  settled  usage  it  is  the  duty  of  these 
foreign  governments  to  enforce  these  vested  rights 
of  their  several  citizens  who  have  a  claim  on  Rus- 
sian income  and  resources;  indeed  it  is  the  duty  of 
these  governments,  to  which  they  are  in  honor 
bound  and  to  which  they  are  addicted  by  habit,  to 
enforce  these  vested  claims  to  Russian  income  and 
resources  by  force  of  arms  if  necessary.  And  it  is 
well  known,  and  also  it  is  right  and  good  by  law 
and  custom,  that  when  recourse  is  had  to  arms  the 
common  man  pays  the  cost.  He  pays  it  in  lost 
labor,  anxiety,  privation,  blood  and  wounds;  and  by 
way  of  returns  he  comes  in  for  an  increase  of  just 
national  pride  in  the  fact  that  the  vested  interests 
which  find  shelter  under  the  same  national  estab- 
lishment with  himself  are  duly  preserved  from  loss 
on  their  Russian  investments.  So  that,  by  a 
"  roundabout  process  of  production,"  Bolshevism  is 
also  a  menace  to  the  common  man. 

How  it  stands  with  the  menace  of  Bolshevism  in 
the  event  of  its  infection  reaching  any  other  of  the 
civilized  countries — as,  for  example,  America  or 
France — that  is  a  sufficiently  perplexing  problem  to 
which  the  substantial  citizens  and  the  statesmen  to 
whose  keeping  the  fortunes  of  the  substantial  citi- 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


179 


zens  are  entrusted,  have  already  begun  to  give  their 
best  attention.  They  are  substantially  of  one  mind, 
and  all  are  sound  on  the  main  fact,  that  Bolshevism 
is  a  menace;  and  now  and  again  they  will  specify 
that  it  is  a  menace  to  property  and  business.  And 
with  that  contention  there  can  be  no  quarrel.  How 
it  stands,  beyond  that  and  at  the  end  of  the  argu- 
ment, with  the  eventual  bearing  of  Bolshevism  on 
the  common  man  and  his  fortunes,  is  less  clear  and 
is  a  less  immediate  object  of  solicitude.  On  scant 
reflection  it  should  seem  that,  since  the  the  common 
man  has  substantially  no  vested  rights  to  lose,  he 


should  come  off  indifferently  well  in  such  an  event. 
But  such  a  hasty  view  overlooks  the  great  lesson  of 
history  that  when  anything  goes  askew  in  the  na- 
tional economy,  or  anything  is  to  be  set  to  rights, 
the  common  man  eventually  pays  the  cost  and  he 
pays  it  eventually  in  lost  labor,  anxiety,  privation, 
blood,  and  wounds.  The  Bolshevik  is  the  common 
man  who  has  faced  the  question:  What  do  I  stand 
to  lose?  and  has  come  away  with  the  answer: 
Nothing.  And  the  elder  statesmen  are  busy  with 
arrangements  for  disappointing  that  indifferent  hope. 

THORSTEIN  VEBLEN. 


The  Poetry  of  Edmond  Rostand 


Ou    fleurit    le    Droit? 
Ou  luit  la  Raison? 
C'est  dans  un  endroh 
Nomme  PHorizon. 

So  sang  Edmond  Rostand  in  what  was  to  be  his 
swan-song,  published  in  the  Mid-December  number 
of  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  only  a  few  hours 
after  his  death.  In  1897  he  had  became  famous  at 
a  stroke.  His  heroic-comedy  Cyrano  de  Bergerac 
had  in  the  opinion  of  the  critics  given  back  to 
France  her  birthright.  It  was  heralded  as  a  re- 
action against  the  depressing  naturalistic  drama  and 
proclaimed  as  the  beginning  of  a  new  literary 
epoch.  "  Quel  bonheur,"  exclaimed  the  critic  of 
Le  Temps,  "  the  play  is  graceful,  it  is  clear,  it  has 
movement  and  measure,  all  of  them  qualities  that 
characterize  our  race."  Catulle  Mendes,  in  a  burst 
of  ecstasy,  had  called  Rostand  a  great  poet,  divers, 
multiple,  heureux,  follement  inspire,  et  prodigeuse- 
ment  virtuose.  More  temperate  voices  either  were 
drowned  in  this  wave  of  general  approval  or  re- 
solved themselves  into  the  peal  of  laughter  which 
greeted  the  absurd  suit  brought  by  a  Chicago  pundit 
to  show  that  Cyrano  was  plagiarized  from  the 
Merchant  Prince  of  Cornville.  To  all  this  we  shall 
return  presently.  Let  it  be  said  now,  without 
derogation,  that  Rostand  remains  in  death,  as  in 
life,  the  "  poet  of  the  horizon."  This  is  his  dis- 
tinction and  his  limitation.  Like  his  own  Chantecler 
he  heralds  the  dawn,  he  does  not — for  he  cannot — 
realize  it.  In  passionate  protest,  the  Lady-Pheasant 
reproves  the  worthy  Cock  with :  "  One  is  every- 
thing for  a  heart,  nothing  for  a  horizon";  little  did 
she  know  that  his  view  was  yet  to  triumph.  In  La 
Princesse  Lointaine,  the  weakling  Bertrand  says  to 
Melissinde :  "  I  should  fear  too  much  to  see  the 
sail  on  the  horizon  " — symbol  that  it  is  of  Rudel's 
love  and  their  betrayal  of  it.  But  the  great  war 
also  has  its  horizons.  Rostand,  the  herald  of  the 
dawn,  had  lived  to  see  France  victorious.  Cer- 


tainly, he  had  done  his  share  with  the  munificence 
of  the  spirit.  Not  only  Cyrano,  but  all  his  plays 
and  poems  had  been  a  rallying  cry  for  those  who 
despaired  of  the  future.  The  celebrated  "  Mais 
quel  geste  "  of  Cyrano,  after  he  has  hurled  his  purse 
to  the  indigent  players,  is  not  merely  panache,  it  is 
also  the  act  of  faith  of  a  generous  and  valiant  soul. 
"  Moi,  c'est  moralement  que  j'ai  mes  elegances," 
says  Cyrano,  and  rightly.  For  it  was  to  the  moral 
conscience  of  his  race  that  Rostand  made  his  appeal. 
Therefore,  the  lesson  of  the  war  is  clear.  The 
poem  I  have  cited  says  "  Que  devons-nous  aux 
morts?  Rendre  leur  mort  feconde";  and  it  tri- 
umphs with  the  lines: 

Qu'un  peuple  d'hier 
Meure  pour  demain, 
C'est  a  rendre  fier 
Tout  le  genre  humain! 

Is  there  not  discernible  in  the  moment  of  Rostand's 
death,  as  throughout  his  life,  the  shielding  hand  of 
Providence  ? 

There  is  no  doubt  that  he  owed  much  to  Fortune. 
Born  at  Marseilles  (1868),  he  was  educated  in 
Paris  at  the  College  Stanislas.  There  is  a  Provencal 
flavor  to  the  tale  that  he  urged  his  schoolmates  to 
curl  their  mustaches  before  they  had  any — "  meme 
si  vous  n'en  avez  pas."  At  twenty-two  he  published 
his  first  poems:  Les  Musardises.  Dedicated  to  his 
"  bons  amis  les  Rates"  [the  unsuccessful],  these 
early  verses  have  a  freshness,  a  boldness  and  a  lim- 
pidity which  made  them  popular  at  once.  Imme- 
diately after  their  publication  he  married  Rosemonde 
Gerard,  his  companion  in  letters.  The  refusal  of  a 
one  act  comedy  by  the  Comedie  frangaise  was  ac- 
companied by  the  request  for  "  another  act,"  and  a 
week  later  Rostand  handed  M.  de  Feraudy  the 
beginning  of  Les  Romanesques.  The  performance 
of  the  latter  in  1894  at  the  Theatre  frangais  estab- 
lished Rostand's  position  as  a  writer  of  verse-drama. 

But  it  was  the  two  great  actors  of  the  Theatre 


i8o 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


de  la  Renaissance,  the  Divine  Sarah  and  Coquelin, 
who  turned  Rostand's  budding  fame  into  glory.  La 
Princesse  Lointaine,  despite  its  dramatic  third  act 
on  which  the  masterful  actress  lavished  all  of  her 
wonderful  technique,  was  too  subtle  for  "  the  stage 
optics  "  to  win  more  than  a  succes  d'estime.  At 
least,  Sarcey's  criticism  was  not  favorable.  Two 
years  later,  in  La  Samaritaine,  Rostand  treated  a 
religious  subject  which  was  quite  beyond  his  poetic 
grasp.  Thus  it  remained  for  Cyrano  to  produce  the 
magic  that  opened  the  hearts  of  the  world.  Here 
the  poet's  gifts  had  full  play.  Revival  to  be  sure, 
yet  what  a  revival!  We  can  trust  Rostand's  words 
that  the  idea  of  recreating  the  story  of  Corneille's 
blustering  but  inspired  contemporary  had  long  been 
slumbering  in  his  mind.  It  was  the  contact  with 
Coquelin  and  the  desire  to  eternalize  the  actor  in  the 
play  that  impelled  Rostand  to  put  his  idea  into  exe- 
cution. In  this  way  Coquelin  became  Cyrano  and 
Cyrano  Coquelin. 

I   wished  to  dedicate  this  poem  to  Cyrano's  soul 
But   since   it   has   passed   into  you,   Coquelin,   to   you   I 
dedicate  it. 

For  this  reason  it  is  so  difficult,  not  to  say  impossi- 
ble, for  any  other  actor  to  take  the  part.  To  the 
French,  however,  the  play  had  also  a  deeper  signifi- 
cance. Granting  that  Cyrano  is  reminiscent  of 
Gautier,  Banville,  and  Hugo,  we  must  not  forget 
that  it  was  especially  Rostand's  footing  in  the  seven- 
teenth century,  the  period  of  the  Fronde,  the  age 
when  France  was  really  in  the  making,  when  the 
French  spirit  still  flowed  free  and  untrammeled  by 
les  regies  du  devoir  and  classical  precepts,  that  ren- 
dered the  comedy  what  it  is  to  the  French. 

The  gratitude  of  France  won  for  Rostand  the 
croix  de  chevalier  the  very  evening  of  the  perform- 
ance. And  in  1903  he  entered  the  portals  of  the 
Academy  with  an  address  in  which  panache,  the 
key-word  of  Cyrano,  is ,,  wittily  but  euphuistically 
described : 

Plaisanter  en  face  du  danger,  c'est  la  supreme  politesse, 
un  delicat  refus  de  se  prendre  au  tragiqile;  le  panache  est 
alors  la  pudeur  de  I'hero'isme,  comme  un  sourire  par  lequel 
on  s'excuse  d'etre  sublime. 

The  rest  is  quickly  told.  L'Aiglon,  written  to  the 
theme  of  Hugo's  antithesis  (1'Angleterre  prit  1'aigle 
et  1'Autriche  1'aiglon),  was  the  success  of  Sarah 
Bernhardt's  Hamletizing  period,  but  for  Rostand  it 
marks  a  relapse  into  excessive  Marivaudage.  The 
'  princeling  '  is  too  shadowy  a  figure  for  a  nation  to 
whom  Napoleon  is  an  ever-present  reality.  As  for 
the  long-awaited  Chantecler — the  performance  of 
which  was  delayed  by  Coquelin's  death — it  too  was 
a  disappointment.  True  to  French  tradition  as  the 
animal  world  is,  and  deeply  as  Chantecler's  hymn 
to  the  sun  stirred  the  audience,  nevertheless  the 


action  of  the  play  lags;  Rostand's  favorite  trick  of 
playing  on  words — le  cliquetis  des  mots — is  over- 
done, and  the  disguise  of  the  characters  as  birds  and 
beasts  hampers  the  actors  in  their  movements. 

Thus  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  remains  the  outstand- 
ing production  in  Rostand's  career  and  work. 
Pellissier,  who  realized  more  clearly  than  the  other 
critics  the  epigonous  character  of  Rostand's  art,  yet 
cannot  withhold  from  Cyrano  the  epithet  of 
chef-d'oeuvre.  It  is  true,  strictly  speaking,  the  play 
has  but  one  character  and  that  character  is  a  type 
rather  than  a  person.  True  too  that  the  action 
does  not  conform  to  genre  as  well  as  one  would 
expect  of  one  of  Rostand's  virtuosity ;  the  fourth 
act  comes  close  to  opera-bouffe  in  spite  of  the  tragedy 
of  Christian's  death,  while  the  fifth  is  in  the  tone  of 
sentimental  romance.  Nor  can  it  be  denied  that 
again  and  again  the  speeches  are  tours  de  force, 
clever  and  almost  always  scintillating,  but  often  just 
that.  Still,  as  was  indicated  above,  what  makes  the 
play  is  the  complete  adjustment  of  the  modern  lyric 
mood  to  the  freedom,  the  gaiety,  the  bravado  of  the 
romanesque. 

And  the  romanesque  is  not  necessarily  the  "ro- 
mantic." Cyrano  is  no  dark  figure  in  cape  and 
dagger  like  Hernani.  He  is  not  "  une  force  qui  va," 
a  man  of  destiny.  None  of  Rostand's  characters 
are.  He  is  simply  a  frondeur,  an  individualist  if 
you  like,  but  with  no  ax  to  grind;  a  rate  like  so 
many  of  us,  because  of  some  physical  or  other  de- 
formity, but  taking  it  gaily,  humorously,  poetically, 
with  a  sense  of  hope  and  freshness  in  his  heart.  In 
comparison,  the  lover  Rudel  in  La  Princesse  Loin- 
taine and  the  Duke  of  Reichstadt  are  sublimated 
creatures.  Chantecler  alone  has  Cyrano's  valor,  his 
willingness  to  sacrifice  himself  for  a  beautiful  cause, 
and  in  addition  his  trust  in  the  future.  "  C'est  que 
je  suis  le  Coq  d'un  soleil  plus  lointain,"  Chantecler 
tells  the  doubting  Pheasant.  As  for  his  song,  his 
song  of  Light  and  the  Day — "  Je  chante !  .  .  .  et 
c'est  deja  la  moitie  du  mystere." 

In  Rostand,  then,  there  is  fancy  rather-  than 
imagination.  His  lyricism  is  optimistic,  wholesome, 
even  buoyant.  It  would  be  a  profanation  to  call 
so  delicate  a  flower  great.  Moreover,  he  came  to 
literature  via  the  consecrated  channels  of  literary 
norms  and  formulas.  Therein  he  is  singularly 
French.  His  works  bristle  with  near-quotations, 
as  they  abound  in  quotable  lines.  What  French- 
man, fond  of  his  literature,  does  not  know  the 
verses : 

Et    ma    raison    s'endort    au   bruit   sempiternel, 

Au  bruit  sempiternel  des  jets  d'eau  dans  les  vasques, 

and  admire  their  beauty?  Thus  French  wit  and 
sentiment,  always  so  close  together  that  they  seem 
to  merge,  are  reborn  in  the  works  of  Edmond  Ros- 


IQIQ 


THE  DIAL 


181 


tand.  If  others  who  are  more  materially  minded 
had  forgotten  the  Gallic  sources  of  inspiration — at 
least,  not  he.  So  the  critics  realized,  and  so  felt 
the  French  nation.  The  Princesse  Lointaine — that 
true  Princess  of  the  Horizon — reminds  her  worldly 
lover : 


"  Combien   dans   le  mediocre   ou   vivre   nous   enserre, 
Le  sublime  de  cet  amour  m'est  necessaire." 

Rostand,  as  we  said  at  the  beginning,  is  the  "  poet 
of  the  horizon,"  but  of  the  eastern  heavens,  where 
the  sun  does  not  set  but  rises. 

WILLIAM  A.  NITZE. 


I 


Rogue's  March:  To  a  Flemish  Air 


.1  is  A  GENEROUS  publishing  season  that  to  The 
Education  of  Henry  Adams  and  The  Great  Hunger 
adds  The  Legend  of  the  Glorious  Adventures  of 
Tyl  Ulenspiegel  (McBride;  $2.50).  Not  often, 
one  may  assert,  are  thus  coincidently  given  for  the 
first  time  to  Americans  three  volumes  with  such  a 
plausible  air  of  being  destined  to  longevity — al- 
though the  cautious  will  affix  to  such  assertion  the 
<;  rider  "  that  each  book  centers  about  a  personality 
which  is  by  way  of  being  unfairly  beguiling  (in 
that  it  is  a  personality  evocative  of  the  reader's 
friendship,  in  the  instant  happy  way  in  which  peo- 
ple between  bookcovers  are  privileged  to  establish 
such  relations  with  beings  less  permanently  boun,d 
in  flesh)  and  so  evades  calm  judgment.  For  to 
many  of  us  these  figure  nowadays  as  new-found, 
heart-delighting,  and  eminently  "  personal  "  friends, 
this  Ulenspiegel  and  this  Peer  Holm,  come  severally 
from  Belgium  and  Norway,  and  this  wistful  Adams, 
lately  freed  from  the  decent  reticences  of  living — 
so  that  we  appraise  them  with  the  bias  of  friend- 
'  ship,  doubtless,  rather  than  by  any  code  of  "literary" 
values. 

The  honest  can  but  confess  as  much,  and  must 
then  pass  on  to  further  confession  that  of  the  in- 
triguing trio  one  finds  Tyl  Ulenspiegel  the  most  dif- 
ficult to  judge  with  any  pretense  of  equky,  because 
this  Tyl  is  so  frankly  a  rogue.  It  would  be  pleasant 
here  to  digress  into  speculation  as  to  why  in  Bnglish 
literature  there  should  be  so  few  rogues  portrayed 
full-length ;  and  above  all,  as  to  why  America,  that 
in  daily  life  derives  such  naive  pleasure  from  being 
cheated  by  "  fine  business  men  "  and  "  far-seeing 
statesmen,"  should  have  produced  in  its  writings  no 
really  memorable  rogue,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  Uncle  Remus'  Brer  Rabbit.  But,  upon  the  whole, 
it  appears  preferable  to  say  quite  simply  that  Tyl 
Ulenspiegel  has  been  for  some  five  centuries  famed 
among  the  people  of  Belgium  and  the  Nether- 
lands as  a  sort  of  Dutch  Figaro  or  Scapin — as 
"  mischief-maker,  jack-of-all-trades,  and  by  turn 
fool,  artist,  valet  and  physician  " ;  that  this  char- 
acter was  appropriated  and  ennobled  by  Charles  de 
Coster  as  the  central  figure  of  a  heroic  romance,  La 
Legende  de  Tiel  Uylenspiegel,  published  in  1867, 
and  since  known  as  "  the  Bible  of  the  Flemings  " ; 


and  that  this  book  has  been,  recently  translated  into 
our  tongue  by  Geoffrey  Whitworth.  This  much 
it  appears  preferable  to  say  as  simply  as  possible 
and  with  frank  egoism,  because  I  am  endeavoring 
to  record  my  personal  belief  that  an  exceedingly 
splendid  and  great-hearted  example  of  literary  art 
has  for  the  first  time  been  rendered  into  delight- 
fully adequate  English;  as  likewise  my  belief  that 
a  masterpiece,  such  as  I  personally  take  this  book  to 
constitute,  should  be  greeted  simply,  and  reverently, 
and  without  vain  speaking.  Even  to  "  recommend  " 
it  seems  rather  on  a  par  with  saying  pleasant  things 
about  a  sunrise. 

So  honest  comment  can  but  come  back  to  this: 
for  Tyl  Ulenspiegel  himself  one  straightway  estab- 
lishes a  sort  of  peculiarly  personal  liking,  a  liking 
quite  unbased  on  "  literary "  values,  and  an  un- 
moralizing  liking  such  as  entraps  you  into  indigna- 
tion when  the  reforming  Henry  the  Fifth '  re- 
pudiates that  other  not-unlovable  rogue,  Sir  John 
Falstafr.  "  A  Fleming  I  am,"  says  Tyl,  "  from  the 
lovely  land  of  Flanders,  workingman,  nobleman, 
all  in  one — and  I  go  wandering  through  the  world, 
praising  things  beautiful  and  good,  but  boldly  mak- 
ing fun  of  foolishness."  So  does  Tyl  describe  him- 
self, and  the  description  is  apt,  as  far  as  it  reaches, 
but  is  overmodestly  incommensurate  to  the  speaker's 
variousness. 

Thus  Tyl  can  be  upon  occasion  a  very  pretty 
fightingman  indeed,  performing  salutary  homicides 
with  heroic  thoroughness.  Here  is  a  random  taste 
of  his  quality : 

Ulenspiegel  took  careful  aim,  and  with  his  bullet 
shattered  the  tongue  and  the  entire  jawbone  of  Don 
Ruffele  Henricis,  son  of  the  Duke.  At  the  same  time 
Ulenspiegel  brought  down  the  son  of  the  Marquess 
Delmares,  and  in  a  little  while  v  more  the  eight  ensigns 
and  the  three  cohorts  of  cavalry  were  thoroughly  worsted. 
The  prisoners  imagined  that  some  angel  from  heaven, 
who  was  also  a  fine  marksman,  had  descended  'from  the 
sky  to  aid  them,  and  they  all  fell  upon  their  knees. 

Such  a  deduction  was  natural  enough,  to  illiterate 
prisoners;  but  the  erudite  will  recognize  forthwith 
the  authentic  manner  of  a  national  hero;  for  thus 
it  was  that  Roland  laid  about  him  at  Roncesvaux, 
and  in  very  much  this  fashion  did  Achilles  choke 
Scamander  with  slain  Trojans. 

So  much  of  physical  prowess  one  has  the  fair  and 


182 


February  22 


ancient  right  to  expect  of  a  national  hero.  But 
quite  another  facet  of  the  jewel  is  the  roguish,  not 
at  all  "  heroic  "  Tyl  who  delights  in  jokes  that  are 
not  always  pre-eminent  for  delicacy.  Then,  too, 
although  Tyl  is — of  course — devotedly  attached  to 
the  fair  Nele,  and  their  marriage  at  the  end  of  his 
wanderings  is  a  foregone  conclusion,  nobody  can  ex- 
pect a  rogue  meticulously  to  emulate  Joseph.  And 
Tyl,  be  it  repeated,  is  frankly  a  rogue.  One  there- 
fore must  regard  with  equanimity  the  Walloon 
maiden  to  whose  house  Tyl  went  to  sing  some 
Flemish  love-songs  which,  what  with  one  thing  and 
another,  were  not  ended  until  midnight.  Then 
there  was  the  beautiful,  gay-hearted  dame  whom  Tyl 
guided  to  Dudzeel ;  in  all  dealings  with  young  men 
she  abhorred  in  particular  the  sin  of  cruelty,  and  so 
Tyl  left  her  with  flushed  cheeks  but  not  displeased. 
Moreover,  there  was  the  Comtesse  de  Meghen,  an- 
other benevolent  lady,  who  offered  Ulenspiegel  hos- 
pitality, in  the  to  him  inadequate  form  of  ham  and 
bruinbier.'  "  Ham!  "  he  cried,  "  that  is  good  to  eat, 
and  bruinbier  is  a  drink  divine.  But  blessed  above 
all  men  shall  that  man  be  to  whom  it  is  given  to 
dine  off  thy  loveliness."  "  How  the  fellow  does 
run  on !  "  she  exclaimed ;  and  then :  "  Eat  first,  you 
rogue !  "  "  Shall  we  not  say  grace  'ere  we  con- 
sume all  these  dainties?  "  said  Ulenspiegel.  "  Nay," 
answered  the  lady ;  and  presently  congratulated  Tyl, 
as  in  nothing  resembling  her  husband.  In  fine,  Tyl 
marches,  in  the  pride  of  youth,  about  a  world  of 
brightly  colored  and  generous  women,  and  graces  a 
world  wherein  he  displays  as  much  continence  as 
appears  consistent  with  politeness,  and  wherein 
Joseph,  in  the  final  outcome,  could  not  manage  to 
combine  these  virtues. 

So  likewise  this  rogue  marches,  with  chance  for 
guide,  about  a  world  that  even  then  was  ruled  by 
folly  and  bigotry;  and  he  treads  blithely,  as  be- 
fits "  a  master  of  the  merry  words  and  frolics  of 
youth,"  in  shadowred  places  where  his  gibbeted 
kindred  swing  between  him  and  the  sun.  For  the 
ashes  of  a  martyred  father  lie  upon  Tyl's  breast 
without  at  all  oppressing  a  heart  whose  core  is 
roguishness.  Therefore  in  the  presence  of  injustice 


Tyl  Ulenspiegel  does  not  slink,  not  even  into  draw- 
ing morals;  instead,  with  chance  for  guide,  he 
marches.  For  those  who  would  wrong  him  his 
eye  and  tongue  and  sword  stay  equally  keen,  and 
the  rogue  knows  these  weapons  to  be  in  the  long 
run  sufficient ;  meanwhile,  that  there  should  be  over- 
troublesome  fellows  to  be  killed  now  and  then  is 
as  naturally  a  part  of  wandering  as  that  there 
should  everywhere  be  girls  to  be  kissed  and  flagons 
to  be  emptied,  and  songs  to  be  made  beyond  any 
numbering,  but  never  the  last  song.  So  the  rogue 
marches  and  puts  all  things  to  their  proper  uses. 
And  the  heart  of  the  reader,  given  something  better 
than  the  heart  of  a  flea,  goes  out  to  this  resistless 
rogue. 

It  is  around  this  sprightly  figure  that  De  Coster 
has  woven  ( cotemporaneously,  it  is  bewildering  to 
reflect,  with  the  weaving  of  a  dreary  mystery  about 
one  Edwin  Drood)  a  romance  as  cruel  as  life  and 
considerably  gayer.  Somewhat  to  deviate  meta- 
phorically, in  this  tale  of  fifteenth  century  Flanders 
under  the  yoke  of  Spain  and  the  Holy  Inquisition, 
De  Coster  has  builded  a  story  that  is  not  unlike  a 
time-mellowed  cathedral,  with  the  gentry  about  their 
devotions,  and  with  peasants  joking  on  the  porches, 
and  with  a  stately  organ  music  accompanying  both 
aspiration  and  laughter;  a  cathedral,  too,  that  is  no 
less  opulent  in  glowing  paintings  than  in  captivat- 
ingly  hideous  gargoyles.  And  here  again  one  is 
tempted  to  expatiate  concerning  these  gargoyles  as, 
say,  upon  the  chapter  that  depicts  the  death  of 
Charles  the  Fifth  and  his  trial  in  heaven;  or  per- 
haps upon  Tyl's  hunting  of  the  werwolf;  or  else 
to  dwrell  upon  that  really  intolerable  "  catharsis  by 
pity  and  terror,"  when  Katheline  the  good  witch 
attempts  to  share  her  cup  of  cold  water  with  Joos 
Damman  in  the  torture  chamber — although  this  last 
is  a  stroke  of  genius  with  which  perhaps  no  author 
has  the"  right  to  unsettle  his  reader. 

Yes,  one  is  tempted  to  expatiate.  But  once  more 
it  appears  preferable  to  remember  that  a  masterwork 
should  be  greeted  simply,  and  reverently,  and  with- 
out vain  speaking. 

JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL. 


Bridges 


A  hundred  bridges  over  the  river — 

And  never  a  bridge  to  you, 

Not  one. 

Ah,  but  was  it  a  river — 

The  deep,  dark  hole  where  they  took  you. 

Too  deep,  too  far,  too  dark 

For  a  bridge! 

A  hundred  bridges  over  the  river, 

And  not  one  bridge  to  you! 

ANNETTE  WYNNE. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


183 


Letters  to  Unknown  Women 

THE  AMARYLLIS  OF  THEOCRITUS 


Lo  AMARYLLIS: 

You  cannot  have  known,  O  white  violet  of  Si- 
cilia,  that  immeasurable  tedium  and  exhaustion 
which  weighs  upon  those  who  endure  today  the 
tyranny  of  existence,  Certainly  the  poet  who  cre- 
ated you  from  his  yearning  for  the  valleys  of  Sicily 
in  the  dust  and  clatter  of  Alexandria  would  under- 
stand us,  but  you,  whom  he  created  free  from  that 
malady,  ^saw  life  with  eyes  not  feverish  as  ours  are. 
It  is  your  exquisite  animality,  with  perfect  freedom 
from  self-consciousness,  which  makes  us  love  you. 

Your  presence  is  as  soothing  to  our  wearied  des- 
perate souls  as  white  violet  petals  pressed  against 
tired  eyes. 

We  are  not  of  those  who,  by  some  sudden  deed 
or  by  a  life  of  activity,  impress  their  personality 
upon  centuries.  We  think  in  millions  and  act  in 
millions;  we  know  with  only  too  dread  a  certainty 
that  each  and  every  one  of  our  acts  is  imitated,  un- 
consciously and  precisely,  by  thousands  about  us. 
We  have  just  a  slim  thread  of  that  divine  common 
sense  your  Athenians  called  "  Pallas,"  which  pre- 
vents our  falling  into  uncouth  extravagances  or  dis- 
sonant obstinacies,  as  some  do,  to  avoid  the  banality 
of  this  vast  mediocrity.  We  are  cut  off  from  almost 
every  exercise  of  talent  or  power  which  would 
satisfy  us.  Who  speaks  of  Euripedes  to  the  Beo- 
tians  ? 

We  are  driven  back  upon  a  form  of  existence 
which  has  been  named  "  the  life  of  imagination  " — 
a  weak  substitute  for  that  bright  burning  life  you 
lived — a  life  we  liken  from  our  darkness  to  a  clear 
gold  flame.  It  seems  the  only  existence  compatible 
with  calm  and  intelligence,  two  qualities  you  could 
not  fail  to  appreciate.  But  even  the  exercise  of  that 
faint  simulacrum  of  your  intensity  is  denied  us  now. 
We  had  willingly  abandoned  most  of  those  actions 
and  possessions  which  men  consider  desirable,  so 
that  we  might  possess  full  liberty  within  that 
shadowy  but  vast  world  which  was  ours.  But 
through  a  disastrous  sequence  of  events  which  no 
wisdom  could  foresee  or  cunning  provide  for,  we 
are  deprived  even  of  that  which  we  had,  and  are 
abandoned  helpless,  or  nearly  so,  to  the  vulgar  in- 
stincts of  mob  passion  and  control.  Ah,  Amaryllis, 
those  who  gave  Socrates  the  hemlock  were  merci- 
ful; and  did  Hyacinthus  die  today,  we  should  feel 
through  our  sorrow  a  kind  of  gladness  and  grati- 
tude to  that  jealous  blast  of  wind. 

We  know,  O  Sicilian,  that  your  life  was  impos- 
sible, a  dream,  that  you  are  the  product  of  a  sick 


imagination;  but  for  that  very  reason  you  burn  like 
a  flame  before  us,  you  seduce  us,  you  entrance  us, 
you  are  mysterious  as  a  flower,  you  are  the  un- 
known. In  the  midst  of  our  incredible  helplessness 
your  beauty  makes  one  clear  ray.  Because,  for 
your  sake,  the  singers  contended  upon  the  slopes  of 
Aetna,  among  the  still  valleys,  beside  the  cold 
brooks,  life  is  not  utterly  valueless  to  us. 

For  your  sake  the  first  narcissus  of  the  year 
catches  our  hearts  with  a  sudden  new  beauty;  be- 
cause of  you  the  five-petaled  roses  along  our  north- 
ern hills  become  doubly  lovely.  With  such  roses 
you  bound  your  dark  hair;  such  narcissus  flowers 
you  laid  upon  the  altars  of  your  half-gods.  And 
through  you  also  we  understand  the  correspondence 
between  love  and  flowers,  we  feel  suddenly  the 
presence  of  gods.  We  stagger  through  life  blindly; 
we  fumble  among  half-perceptions,  half-desires. 
But  with  the  dear  melody  of  your  speech  in  our 
ears  there  are  moments  when  the  world  becomes 
clear.  We  perceive  for  a  flash  that  there  is  more 
truth  in  your  simplicity  than  in  the  subtilty  of  all 
our  learned  men  and  women.  We  come  to  value 
kindness  and  simplicity  above  almost  all  other 
qualities.  You  give  us,  just  for  a  moment,  the 
power  to  reach  that  blitheness  which  for  you  was 
natural,  for  us  an  effort.  We  are  seduced — yes, 
literally  seduced  by  a  glimpse  of  brown  breasts  and 
by  a  snatch  of  shrill  song — from  our  gloomy  strug- 
gle, our  perpetual  fronting  of  grim  unknown 
forces.  Our  universe  shrinks  from  an  overwhelm- 
ing vastness  to  your  pastoral  shores;  our  desperate 
fever  yields  to  the  touch  of  your  hand.  We  see  that 
there  is  more  beauty  in  one  wreath  of  your  perfect, 
conventional  flowers  than  in  all  our  intellectual 
striving.  We  leave  the  great  gods  for  the  less,  con- 
tent to  realize  that  indeed  there  is  a  spirit  in  an  oak 
and  a  white  girl  in  a  brook  rather  than  to  search 
vaguely  for  the  "  deus  ignotus." 

There  was  a  learned  man  of  our  country  who  was 
so  stirred  by  your  poets  that  he  spent  many  months 
alone  in  your  woods  and  saw  the  white  nymphs 
flitting  from  tree  to  tree,  heard  with  awe  the  rush 
of  Artemis'  hounds  and  the  sough  of  her  shafts 
through  the  pine  boughs,  watched  the  daughter  of 
the  Earth-Shaker  sitting  at  night  upon  weeded 
rocks  above  cool  water.  His  name  I  have  forgot- 
ten; I  have  never  seen  the  strange  book  he  wrote 
after  those  mysterious  days;  but  it  is  happiness  to 
know  that  he  also  is  your  lover  and  knows  the 

Sicilian  singing.  „ 

RICHARD  ALDINGTON. 


184 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


.Liu 


Louis  Couperus  and  the  Family  Novel 


[E  FAMILY  novel  as  distinguished  from  the  heroic 
has  an  equally  honorable  lineage.  Undoubtedly  the 
first  principle  of  structure  recognized  in  fiction  was 
the  persistence  of  the  hero,  usually  in  a  series  of 
enterprises  which  took  him  far  from  home;  but 
when  the  chronicler  of  a  more  sophisticated  day 
sought  to  deal  with  man  in  society,  he  naturally 
chose  as  his  unit  the  immediate  form  of  grouping 
known  to  him,  and  we  have  the  family  dramas  of 
the  House  of  Atreus  and  the  House  of  Oedipus. 
When  the  novel  succeeded  in  modern  times  to  the 
place  of  the  epic  we  have  the  same  opposition. 
Early  novels  followed  the  simple  heroic  type.  In- 
deed, in  the  popular  form  of  the  picaresque  novel 
the  hero  was  separated  from  his  forebears  as  soon 
after  birth  as  was  consistent  with  survival — what  do 
we  hear  of  the  family  of  Lazarillo  de  Tormez  or 
Moll  Flanders? — and  proceeded  to  weave  for  him- 
self a  pattern  of  adventure  quite  independent  of 
organized  society.  With  greater  sophistication  on 
the  part  of  the  novelist  the  family  background  plays 
an  increasingly  important  role.  The  first  part  of 
Pamela  is  of  the  heroic  type:  the  second  part  of 
the  family.  Fielding  after  Joseph  Andrews  and 
Tom  Jones  achieved  a  family  novel  in  Amelia.  In 
Tristam  Shandy  the  flagrant  omission  of  the  hero 
leaves  what  pattern  there  is  to  be  supported  by  the 
Shandy  family.  In  the  nineteenth  century  the 
romantic  novel  tended  toward  the  heroic,  with  its 
picaresque  variant;  the  novel  of  manners  toward 
the  family  type.  Jane  Austen  set  her  heroines  in 
families;  and  in  Thackeray  families  persist  from 
novel  to  novel,  giving  a  sense  of  social  fabric  to 
the  whole  "of  his  work.  In  The  Newcomes,  indeed, 
he  gives  a  family  the  power  of  a  chief  and  determin- 
ing character — a  position  analogous  to  Nature  in 
Thomas  Hardy1 — and  it  may  be  said  comes  near  to 
creating  a  family  novel  in  the  true  sense. 

Only  with  the  artistic  concentration  and  technical 
self-consciousness  of  very  modern  work  do  we  reach 
the  true  family  novel — that  in  which  hero  and  hero- 
ine disappear  as  types  and  are  merged  in  the  back- 
ground, and  their  family  group  becomes  the  recog- 
nizable entity  in  which  the  characters  live  and  move 
and  have  their  being.  One  does  not  readily  find 
examples  of  such  concentration  and  self -conscious- 
ness in  English  fiction,  but  two  instances  in  con- 
tinental fiction  emerge — Buddenbrooks  by  Thomas 
Mann  and  Books  of  the  Small  Souls  by  Louis 
Couperus.  (Small  Souls,  The  Later  Life,  Twilight 
of  Souls,  and  Dr.  Adriaan,  translated  by  Alexander 
Teixeira  de  Mattos — Dodd  Mead;  $1.75.)  In  the 
former  the  family  lives  though  the  characters  die — 


lives  from  the  end  of  the  Napoleonic  era  through 
four  generations  of  births,  marriages,  scandals,  and 
deaths.  The  center  of  this  life  is  the  family  business, 
in  the  old  Hanseatic  city  of  Lubeck,  and  the  family 
fortune.  Though  Lubeck  was  out  of  the  main  cur- 
rent of  events,  scarcely  shaken  by  the  Revolution  of 
1848,  and  prudently  avoiding  the  fate  of  Frankfort 
in  1866,  it  affords  an  excellent  vantage  ground 
whence  to  follow  the  development  of  Germany 
politically,  economically,  culturally.  The  Budden- 
brooks did  not  keep  up  with  this  expansion;  they 
were  small  people,  well  fitted  to  play  their  part  with 
dignity  in  old  Germany,  quite  unfit  for  it  in  the 
new.  They  perished  in  sign  that  the  old  Germany 
had  passed  away. 

Couperus  has  chosen  another  pattern:  he  has 
arranged  his  characters,  also  four  generations,  like 
stars  in  their  orbits  about  the  ancient  mother  of 
the  race,  Mamma  van  Lowe,  widow  of  a  former 
Governor  General  of  Java,  who  lives  alone  in  her 
mansion  at  the  Hague,  and  draws  her  family  about 
her  every  Sunday  night.  These  reunions  recur 
throughout  the  four  volumes  and  remind  us,  if 
need  were,  of  the  fact  that  this  multitude  of  small 
souls  lives  chiefly  in  the  family.  There  is  Bertha, 
the  eldest  daughter,  married  to  van  Naghel  van 
Voorde,  Secretary  for  the  Colonies,  the  only  one  of 
her  children  who  recalls  to  Mamma  van  Lowe  her 
own  former  state — and  her  children,  Otto,  and 
Louise,  Henri  and  Emilie,  Marietje  and  Marianne 
and  Karel — the  fourth  generation  appearing  in 
Otto's  children.  There  is  Adolphine  Saetzema, 
eager  to  rival  her  sister's  position  with  only  an 
under  secretary  for  husband,  and  an  unkempt  brood 
of  girls  and  boys.  There  is  Gerrit,  Captain  of 
Hussars,  married  to  plump  bread-and-butter  Adeline 
who  has  brought  him  nine  children;  there  is  Karel 
who  lives  in  selfish  sloth  with  his  stupid  wife 
Cateau;  and  Paul,  the  exquisite;  and  Ernst,  the 
connoisseur;  and  Dorine,  who  flits  about,  messen- 
ger of  the  family.  And  there  is  Constance,  bright- 
est star  of  all,  who  had  married  her  father's  friend 
De  Staffelaer,  ambassador  at  Rome,  .and  then  shot 
madly  from  her  sphere  into  intrigue,  scandal,  and 
divorce;  had  been  raised  thence  only  by  a  marriage 
of  reparation  with  her  lover  Henri  Van  der  Welcke, 
and  who  comes  at  the  opening  of  the  first  volume 
with  her  son  Addie  to  revolve  again,  with  tarnished 
glory  and  in  remote  orbit,  among  her  sisters  and 
brothers.  There  is  Mamma  van  Lowe's  brother, 
Uncle  Ruyvenaer,  and  his  half-caste  family  with 
their  East  Indian  words  and  ways  and  food ;  and 
her  two  old  sisters,  the  Aunts  Rina  and  Tina  who, 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


185 


deaf  and  half-witted,  sit  on  Sunday  evenings  at 
opposite  sides  of  the  conservatory  door,  and  shriek 
scandal.  « 

So  resolute  is  Couperus  in  the  enforcement  of 
his  formula  that  scarcely  a  person  is  mentioned  who 
is  not  of  the  van  Lowes  or  connected  with  them 
by  marriage  or  domestic  service.  We  hear  of  the 
world  of  people  only  as  it  looks  on  the  family  drama 
or  comments  and  gossips.  Like  the  Buddenbrooks, 
the  van  Lowes  are  little  people,  living  out  the  life 
of  a  family  the  initiative  impulse  of  which  has 
passed  away.  And  yet,  through  them  we  feel  the 
very  essential  things  in  Dutch  life  and  culture,  not 
historically,  through  the  development  of  an  epoch 
of  political  creation,  but  statically,  as  befits  a  nation 
retired  from  business  and  living  in  the  suburbs  of 
the  world,  intent  on  its  own  comfort  and  well-being. 
Now  and  then  there  comes  a  breath  from  over-seas, 
from  the  Indies,  reminiscent  of  the  adventuring  days 
of  the  race  and  the  glory  of  the  family  when  Grand- 
papa van  Lowe  was  Governor  General  in  his  palaces 
at  Batavia,  and  Buitenzorg;  reminiscent  also  of  the 
source  of  the  income  which  gives  the  nation  and 
the  family  their  patent  of  respectability  as  of  the 
leisure  class.  But  this  only  serves  to  emphasize  by 
contrast  the  dull  montony  of  the  world  in  which 
they  live.  We  feel  the  ease  and  well-bred  indolence, 
the  triviality  and  mechanical  precision  of  life,  the 
lack  of  creation  and  ambition,  the  morbid  fatigue 
which  takes  possession  of  the  consciousness.  There 
is  no  career  for  the  boys  to  choose  except  in  one  of 
the  various  routines;  there  is  none  for  the  girls 
except  to  marry  into  one.  There  is  no  outlet  for 
artistic  impulse  except  Ernst's  collection  of  bibelots 
and  Paul's  effort  to  keep  himself  clean.  When 
Emilie  and  her  brother  Henri  revolt  and  flee  to  the 
Bohemia  of  Paris,  it  is  to  a  bizarre  mockery  of  art  ; 
she  paints  fans  and  he  becomes  a  clown.  On  such 
a  stage  the  motives  and  passions  sink  to  a  Lilliputian 
scale.  Couperus  has  written  a  family  novel 
of  small  souls  clinging  pitifully  together;  he  has 
written  likewise  a  national  novel,  an  argument 
against  the  right  of  self-determination  of  small 
nations. 

Among  these  characters  it  is  impossible  to  say  that 
any  one  has  preeminence,  nor  is  there  any  sustained 
plot.  The  personal  title  makes  Dr.  Adriaan,  Con- 
stance's son  Addie,  the  hero  of  the  last  volume,  as 
throughout  he  has  been  the  rising  hope  of  the  family, 
but  even  here  his  emphasis  is  not  unduly  great.  In- 
stead of  a  plot,  or  a  predominance  of  character, 
Couperus  has  elaborated  a  structure  depending  on 
the  recurrence  of  themes  as  in  a  symphony.  Small 
Souls  begins  with  the  sin  of  Constance,  brought 
home  to  her  after  twelve  years  as  she  rejoins  the 
family  circle,  and  this  theme  is  sounded  through  the 
different  characters,  each  responding  with  a  single 


quality  as  recognizable  as  that  of  a  musical  instru- 
ment— in  the  clear,  boyish  honesty  of  Addie,  in  the 
whining  gossip  of  Karel  and  Cateau,  in  the  vindic- 
tive jealousy  of  Adolphine,  in  the  selfish  caution 
of  Bertha,  in  the  screams  of\the  ancient  aunts.  The 
Later  Life  is  built  on  themes  of  passion,  the  tender 
wistful  love  of  Henri  van  der  Welcke  for  Marianne 
van  Naghel,  and  of  Constance  for  Brauws — loves 
more  pitful  because  born  of  small  souls  and  destined 
to  such  brief  bloom.  And  these  themes  again  are 
sounded  by  character  after  character  as  in  strings, 
woodwinds,  and  brasses.  The  Twilight  of  Souls 
is  a  madness — Ernst  going  mad  with  fear  for  the 
souls  imprisoned  in  his  vases,  Gerrit,  the  brawny 
hussar,  with  horror  of  "  the  great  fat  worm,  a 
beastly  crawling  thing  which  rooted  with  its  legs 
in  his  back  and  slowly  ate  him  up,  the  damned 
rotten  thing."  The  two  strains  mingle  and  respond 
— Ernst's  thin,  anxious  treble,  and  Gerrit's  deep, 
tortured  bass,  which  falls  at  least  into  broken, 
childish  quavers  and  finally  to  silence.  And  in  Dr. 
Adriaan  there  is  weariness  and  calm — soft  with  sub- 
dued pathos  and  monotonous  melancholy.  The  old 
themes  are  recalled  and  repeated  but  they  have  lost 
their  tragic  import.  Nothing  matters — nothing  but 
rest.  And  at  the  end  the  old  Mamma  van  Lowe 
dies.  It  is  a  symphony  pathetique,  with  its  four 
massive  subjects,  sin,  love,  madness,  rest,  rendered 
in  four  movements — allegro  non  troppo,  andante 
cantabile,  scherzo  feroce,  and  adagio  lamentoso. 

As  the  human  background  of  Dutch  life  and  in- 
terests is  implicit,  in  the  Books  of  Small  Souls,  so 
without  formal  description  the  Dutch  landscape  is 
everywhere  present,  its  flatness  and  humility  in 
physical  congruity  with  the  beings  that  crawl  upon 
it.  And  the  weather  is  a  perpetual  reminder  of  the 
melancholy  of  the  Northland.  The  first  words  of 
Small  Souls  are:  "  It  was  pouring  with  rain,"  the 
rain  in  which  Dorine  had  gone  about  to  collect  her 
brothers  and  sisters  for  Constance's  home  coming. 
It  was  raining  at  the  beginning  of  The  Twilight  of 
Souls  when  Dorine  appears  to  summon  Gerrit  to 
Ernst's  help.  It  was  raining  when  Constance  went 
to  Driebergen  to  be  forgiven  by  Henri's  dying 
mother : 

It  had  rained  steadily  for  days  upon  the  dreary  wintry 
trees,  out  of  a  sky  that  hung  low  but  tremendously  wide 
and  heavy,  as  oppressive  as  a  pitiless  darkness.  The 
day  was  almost  black.  It  was  three  o'clock,  but  it  was 
night ;  and  the  rain,  grey  over  the  road  and  grey  over  the  , 
houses  and  gardens,  was  black  over  the  misty  landscapes 
which  could  be  dimly  descried  through  the  bare  gardens. 
The  dreary  trees  looked  dead  and  lived  only  in  the  de- 
spairing gestures  of  their  branches  when  a  wind,  howling 
up  from  the  distance,  blew  through  them  and  moved  them. 

It    was    mist    through    which    the    stricken    Gerrit 
wandered  while  the  worm  ate  deeper  into  his  back: 

The  clouds  seemed  to  be  bending  over  the  town  in  pity, 
an  immense,  yearning  pity  which  turned  into  a  desperate 


i86 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


melancholy  while  Gerrit  hurried  along  with  his  great 
strides ;  the  wintry  trees  lifted  their  crowns  of  branches 
in  melancholy  despair;  the  rooks  cawed  and  circled  in 
swarms;  the  bells  of  the  tram-cars  tinkled  as  though 
muffled  in  black  crepe;  the  few  pedestrians  walked  stiffly 
and  unnaturally;  he  met  ague-stricken  black-clad  figures 
with  sinister,  spectral  faces:  they  passed  him  like  so  many 
ghosts;  and  all  around  him,  in  the  vistas  of  the  woods, 
rose  a  clammy  mist  in  which  every  outline  of  houses, 
trees  and  people  was  blurred  into  a  shadowy  unreality. 

It  is  wind  and  cloud  which  emphasize  the  pathos  of 
the  humble  landscape  at  the  beginning  of  Dr. 
Adriaan : 

The  afternoon  sky  was  full  of  thick  dark  clouds,  drift- 
ing ponderously  grey  over  almost  black  violet;  clouds  so 
dark,  heavy  and  thick  that  they  seemed  to  creep  labor- 
iously upon  the  east  wind,  for  all  that  it  was  blowing 
hard.  In  its  breath  the  clouds  now  and  again  changed 
their  weary  outline,  before  their  time  came  to  pour  down 
in  heavy  straight  streaks  of  rain.  The  stiff  pine-woods 
quivered,  erect  and  anxious,  along  the  road ;  and  the 
tops  of  the  trees  lost  themselves  in  a  silver-grey  air  hard- 
ly lighter  than  the  clouds  and  dissolving  far  and  wide 
under  all  that  massive  grey-violet  and  purple-black  which 
seemed  so  close  and  low.  The  road  ran  near  and  went 
winding  past,  lonely,  deserted  and  sad.  It  was  as  though 
it  came  winding  out  of  low  horizons  and  went  on  towards 
low  horizons,  dipping  humbly  under  very  low  skies,  and 
only  pine-trees  still  stood  up,  pointed,  proud  and  straight, 
when  everything  else  was  stooping.  The  modest  villa- 
residence,  the  smaller  poor  dwellings  here  and  there 
stooped  under  the  heavy  sky  and  the  gusty  wind ;  the 
shrubs  dipped  along  the  roadside;  and  the  few  people 
who  went  along — an  old  gentleman ;  a  peasant-woman ; 
two  poor  children  carrying  a  basket  and  followed  by  a 
melancholy,  big,  rough-coated  dog — seemed  to  hang  their 
heads  low  under  the  solemn  weight  of  the  clouds  and 
the  fierce  mastery  of  the  wind,  which  had  months  ago 
blown  the  smile  from  the  now  humble,  frowning,  pensive 
landscape.  The  soul  of  that  landscape  appeared  small 
and  all  forlorn  in  the  watery  mists  of  the  dreary  winter. 

It  is  snow  which  falls  like  a  pall  and  marks  the 
bitter  peace  of  the  winter  of  souls. 

Days  had  come  of  endless  flaking  snow;  and  the  hard 
frost  kept  the  snow  tight-packed  in  the  garden,  alongside 
the  house,  the  silent,  massive  building  whose  thick  white 
lines  stood  out  against  the  low  bending  snow-laden  skies: 
one  great  greyness  from  out  of  which  the  grey  of  the  snow 
fell  with  a  sleepy  whirl  until  it  was  caught  in  the  grip  of 
the  frost  and  turned  white,  describing  the  outlines  of 
villa-houses  and  the  branching  silhouettes  of  black  and 
dreary  trees  with  round  soft  strokes  of  white.  The  road 
in  front  of  the  house  soon  soiled  its  whiteness  with  cart- 
tracks  and  footprints;  and  with  the  snow  there  fell  from 
the  sky,  like  so  much  grey  wool,  the  pale  melancholy  of 
a  winter  in  the  country,  all  white  decay  and  white  lone- 
liness: days  so  short  that  it  seemed  as  though  the  slow 
hours  slept  and,  when  awake,  but  dragged  their  whiter 
veils  from  grey  dawn  to  grey  twilight,  so  that  dawn 
might  once  again  be  turned  to  night.  And  the  short  days 
were  like  white  nights,  sunless,  as  though  the  light  were 
shining  through  velvet,  velvet  cold  as  the  breath  of  death, 
the  breath  of  death  itself,  striking  down  and  embracing 
all  things  in  its  chill  velvet. 

As  the  characters  appear  like  musical  instruments 
in  an  orchestral  composition,  so  such  passages  as 
these  represent  the  great  bursts  of  sound  of  the 
organ,  more  frequent  and  sustained  and  overwhelm- 
ing as  the  finale  comes  to  its  close. 


The  Small  Souls  series  is  not  the  only  example 
that  Couperus  has  given  us  of  the  family  novel. 
In  Old  People  and  Things  that  Pass  (translated  by 
Alexander  Teixeira  de  Mattos — Dodd  Mead; 
$1.75)  two  characters  detach  themselves  more  de- 
cisively from  the  background  than  any  in  Small 
Souls,  the  old  grandmother  Dercksz,  and  her  lover 
Takma.  But  these  figures  are  static,  fixed  as  the 
result  of  the  spell  laid  on  them  by  their  crime ;  the 
action  of  the  story  evolves  in  the  learning  of  this 
crime  by  their  descendants,  and  the  learning  that 
the  others  know.  Slowly  and  fatally  the  guilty 
secret  which  has  been  kept  for  sixty  years  makes  its 
way  until  the  circle  is  complete.  By  virtue  of  this 
plot  the  novel  is  more  concentrated  than  Small 
Souls,  and  the  characters  are  presented  with  a 
bolder  outline,  physically  and  spiritually.  There  is 
no  portrait  in  Small  Souls  of  such  definiteness  as 
this  of  Anton  Dercksz,  whose  aged  sensuality  has 
taken  refuge  in  his  mind. 

He  grinned,  with  a  broad  grin.  He  sat  there,  big  and 
heavy;  and  the  folds  and  dewlaps  of  his  full,  yellow-red 
cheeks  thrilled  with  pleasure  at  her  outburst;  the  ends  of 
his  grey-yellow  moustache  stood  straight  up  with  merri- 
ment; and  his  eyes  with  their  yellow  irises  gazed  pen- 
sively at  his  sister,  who  had  never  been  of  the  flesh. 
What  hadn't  she  missed,  thought  Anton,  in  scoffing  con- 
tempt, as  he  sat  bending  forward.  His  coarse-fisted  hands 
lay  like  clods  on  his  thick  knees;  and  the  tops  of  his 
Wellington  boots  showed  round  under  the  trouser-legs. 
His  waistcoast  was  undone ;  so  were  the  two  top  buttons 
of  his  trousers,  and  Stefanie  could  just  see  his  braces. 

On  the  other  hand  the  natural  background  is  en- 
tirely suppressed.  Once  more  a  single  family  is 
sufficient  to  itself — except  Takma  almost  the  only 
intruder  is  Dr.  Roelofsz,.  and  he  by  sharing  the 
knowledge  of  the  crime  has  likewise  shared  in  the 
love  of  the  woman  who  inspired  it.  Again  through 
a  single  family  we  gain  a  vivid  impression  of  Dutch 
life,  its  local  concentration  varied  by  a  sterile  cosmo- 
politianism — Therese,  one  of  the  daughters,  is  a 
nun  at  Paris;  Ottilie,  a  granddaughter,  lives  with 
her  Italian  lover  at  Nice.  As  in  Small  Souls  the 
structure  is  musical — the  variations  of  the  theme 
of  antique  crime  as  it  is  sounded  in  the  characters, 
quavering  in  the  strings,  sobbing  and  groaning  in 
the  winds  and  brasses ;  with  passages  of  tender 
joy — as  where  the  great  great  grandmother  em- 
braces the  babies,  the  fourth  generation  of  her  body 
— alternating  with  those  of  horror  when  she  sees 
with  her  terrible  second  sight  the  form  of  her  mur- 
dered husband.  That  Couperus  should  have  solved 
so  completely  the  artistic  problem  of  the  family 
novel  in  the  four  books  of  Small  Souls  is  a  wonder- 
ful achievement:  that  he  should  have  repeated  the 
performance  in  a  single  volume  marks  him  as  a 
technician  of  the  highest  power — a  virtuoso. 

ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


187 


The  League  and  the  Instinct  for  Competition 


1  N  A  MOMENT  of  relaxation,  and  distinctly  not  for 
publication,  a  well-known  defender  of  corporations 
from  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law  said  to  me  re- 
cently: "I  have  come  at  last,  after  ten  years  of 
fighting  it,  to  perceive  that  the  Sherman  Law  repre- 
sents a  more  or  less  permanent  instinct  in  the  com- 
mon run  of  American  people.  I  do  not  believe  it 
will  ever  be  repealed,  and  I  believe  it  is  hopeless  to 
fight  it."  Occasional  appearances  before  Congres- 
sional Committees,  the  Federal  Trade  Commission, 
and  other  bodies  to  debate  matters  involving  the 
principles  of  competition  have  given  me  inklings  of 
the  truth  and  profundity  of  this  opinion.  The  mass 
of  men  are  combative  and  competitive  in  instinct, 
and  they  distrust  and  fear  any  and  all  combinations, 
even  government  centralization  of  power.  They 
feel  safest  when  they  buy  from  small  competitors 
vying  with  each  other;  they  revel  in  contest  in  all 
matters  political  and  commercial;  in  athletics  and 
in  love.  The  very  doom  of  autocracy  consists  to  a 
certain  extent  in  its  fixity  and  lack  of  contest.  There 
are  no  excitements  in  America  equal  to  those  in- 
spired by  four  typical  competitions — a  presidential 
election,  business,  baseball,  and  until  recent  years 
the  pugilistic  championship.  The  cockfight  and 
counter  revolutions  in  Mexico,  bullfights  in  Spain, 
politics  in  England,  bristling  war  preparation  and 
economic  penetration  in  Germany — these  have  been 
elemental  competitive  matters  closest  to  the  common 
heart.  Average  mankind  adores  competition ;  is  un- 
easy without  it;  hugs  it,  indeed,  with  almost  the 
love  of  a  tippler  for  his  flask ! 

America  is  very  especially  addicted  to  competi- 
tion, because  of  its  individualistic  traditions.  The 
feud  and  turmoil  between  politics  and  'business  in 
the  past  twenty  years  have  been  due  largely,  I  verily 
believe,  to  the  collision  between  the  inveterate  in- 
stinct for  competition  on  the  part  of  the  common 
people  and  the  natural  tendency  of  brains  to  appre- 
ciate cooperation  and  combination.  There  is  no 
immediate  .hope  that  America  will  change  greatly 
in  this  respect,  nor  is  there  any  indication  that  com- 
petition between  nations  after  the  war  will  be  less 
than  before  the  war.  On  the  contrary  there  are 
many  signs  of  a  strongly  renascent  nationalism.  It 
is  well,  therefore,  to  introduce  a  note  of  caution 
in  the  high  hopes  of  idealists  and  intellectuals  for 
approaching  a  millennium  through  the  gateway  of  a 
League  of  Nations  or  after-the-war  reconstruction. 

There  is  an  impending  tragedy  in  the  develop- 
ment now  growing  before  our  eyes — the  sharpening 
up  of  the  instinct  for  competition  among  nations. 


Even  though  it  is  now  economic  instead  of  military, 
already  it  is  compressing  seriously  the  idealistic 
hopes  for  the  League  of  Nations.  Every  European 
country,  great  and  small,  is  literally  "on  its  toes" 
with  economic  ambition  made  all  the  more  for- 
midable by  a  national  integration  heightened  enor- 
mously by  the  war.  There  are  going  to  be  a  great 
many  disappointed  intellectuals  everywhere,  even 
under  the  most  favorable  outcome,  because  the  new 
nationalistic  aspirations,  freed  and  stimulated  by  the 
passing  of  autocracy,  turn  instinctively  to  economic 
contest,  to  economic  self-determination.  In  a  com- 
petition between  instinct  and  brains,  popular  instinct 
will  inevitably  be  the  master,  since  in  a  democracy 
it  usually  gets  its  way.  And  that  popular  instinct 
for  competition  is  not  ready,  I  fear,  for  the  national- 
istic sacrifices  necessary  for  an  economically  inte- 
grated world — for  competitions  of  a  more  sublimated 
kind. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  it  may  safely  be  predicted 
that  the  intelligent  constructive  minds  of  the  world, 
in  their  work  for  a  League  of  Nations  of  broad 
scope  inclusive  of  the  all-important  economic  ele- 
ments, will  now  run  up  against  a  veritable  unwritten 
Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law  among  the  peoples  of  the 
world.  In  other  words,  the  universal  human  in- 
stinct for  competition  and  against  organized  com- 
binations will  very  likely  stubbornly  balk  the  forma- 
tion of  what  might  be  the  great  master  combination 
of  all  history,  in  the  same  manner  and  for  the  same 
reasons  that  the  antiquated  and  stupid  Sherman  Law 
has  balked  wise  and  honest  combination  in  America. 

The  common  run  of  people  and  nations  do  not 
believe  what  they  do  not  see ;  do  not  trust  organiza- 
tions because  they  are  abstract.  Only  the  Germans, 
with  their  genius  for  abstraction,  could  thoroughly 
visualize  even  the  State.  It  has  taken  the  war  to 
teach  other  countries  nationalism.  And,  though  it 
has  also  taught  some  internationalism,  it  is  without 
the  same  enthusiasm.  The  individual — whether 
man  or  nation — remains  the  most  dramatic  and 
effective  unit  on  the  stage  of  consciousness,  because 
the  common  man  knows  how  an  individual  feels 
and  moves  and  does.  A  great  corporation  is  a 
logarithmic  abstraction  to  the  common  intelligence, 
hated  and  distrusted  because  it  is  both  superhuman 
and  often  inhuman.  A  League  of  Nations  will  be 
a  veritable  fourth  dimension  conception  to  the  aver- 
age mind,  and  whatever  part  of  its  logical  scope  and 
outline  will  finally  be  agreed  upon  will  need  desper- 
ately to  be  "sold"  and  kept  "sold"  continuously  to 
the  people  of  the  world  if  it  is  not  to  suffer  the 


i88 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


disaster  of  innocuous  desuetude  or  worse.  Strong 
counteracting  efforts  will  be  necessary  to  remove  the 
curse  of  abstraction  from  such  a  League  and  give 
it  some  of  the  strength  arising  from  competitive  in- 
centives. The  streams  of  competition  are  already 
racing  through  the  national  sluiceways  with  a  swirl 
that  will  rise  to  a  roar  of  elemental  power  as  soon 
as  all  the  dams  of  war  'are  removed.  This  most  for- 
midable commercial  and  industrial  nationalism, 
which  is  mobilizing  itself  within  all  such  nations 
as  have  remaining  any  mobilizing  power  whatever, 
must  now,  if  ever,  be  led  toward  constructive  inter- 
national competitions. 

The  present  policy  of  individual  nations  is  essen- 
tially one  of  economic  self-determination,  or  as  our 
Department  of  Commerce  reports  it — the  word  in 
itself  is  a  condemnation — "economic  self -sufficiency." 
As  such  it  represents  virtually  a  nationalistic  prep- 
aration for  economic  battle;  represents  a  conviction 
that  nations  must  hereafter  be  not  more,  but  less, 
dependent  upon  any  other  nation  or  group  of  nations. 
Never  again,  such  nations  virtually  proclaim,  shall 
we  be  surprised  in  a  condition  of  dependence  upon 
other  nations  for  vital  "key"  products.  Social  cost 
and  international  efficiency  and  logical  subdivision  of 
world  tasks  are  as  nothing  in  this  intense  national- 
istic view.  Except  that  it  is  economic,  the  spirit  of 
this  resolve  is  nevertheless  militaristic  in  principle, 
even  though  purely  defensive.  It  is  flatly  antag- 
onistic in  spirit  to  the  principle  of  a  World  State 
and  disarmament,  and  as  such  breathes  the  same  old 
instinct  for  competition;  comprises,  in  unwritten 
essence,  a  universal  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law  stand- 
ing in  the  way  of  a  real  League  of  Nations.  It 
amounts  to  the  substitution  of  economic  armament 
for  military  armament. 

It  is  doubly  formidable,  and-  withal  contradictory, 
in  that  it  aims  to  use  the  powerful  tool  of  internal 
combination  to  attain  nationalism  following  the  plan 
of  German  state-fostered  combinations  for  com- 
peting with  other  nations.  England  is  earnestly 
urging  her  industries  to  combine  as  a  national  unit 
to  meet  the  foreign  competitor,  saying  that  England's 
industries,  disunited,  cannot  meet  world  competition, 
but  united,  can.  We  thus  have  combination  along 
national  lines  to  combat  other  national  or  inter- 
national combinations — an  infinitely  more  effective 
trigger  for  war  explosions  than  disorganized  indi- 
vidual competition,  because  it  represents  industrial 
mobilization  of  nations  for  international  aggression. 
State-fostered  as  such  effort  must  necessarily  be,  it 
will  virtually  duplicate  the  old  Germany  in  spiritual 
principle,  and  invite  fatal  trials  of  strength. 

The  struggle  for  existence  has  always  been  three- 
fold :  ( 1 )  struggle  between  individuals  of  the  same 


race  or  nation;  (2)  struggle  with  other  races  or 
nations;  (3)  struggle  against  conditions  of  life.  The 
war  has  knit  individual  nations  and  races  into 
amicable,  effective  units  as  never  before.  Can  now 
this  new  and  vivid  sense  of  economic  self-determina- 
tion and  economic  rivalry  among  individual  nations 
and  races  be  carried  upward  and  diverted  to  the 
international  ends  of  a  logical  League  of  Nations 
for  universal  amelioration  of  conditions  of  life,  in- 
stead of  wasteful  competition  between  groups?  It  is 
indeed  doubtful.  Even  amidst  the  most  earnest  co- 
operation of  nations  for  war  and  under  dire 
necessity,  the  nationalistic  feelings,  prides,  pre- 
judices, and  jealous  self -consciousness  of  the 
various  nations  have  at  least  unmistakably  indi- 
cated their  presence,  even  if  not  obstructively. 
The  one  pivotal  decision  of  the  war — unity  of 
military  command — was  almost  fatally  delayed 
by  this  instinct  for  competition,  this  distrust 
of  combination.  He  is  a  bold  man  who  will  predict 
that  with  the  weight  of  war  once  off  his  chest,  the 
average  man's  instinct  will  not  again  take  him  to 
his  tipple,  his  delusion  of  competition,  which  cares 
much  less  for  efficiency  and  logic  and  wise  equilib- 
rium than  for  a  good  fight.  (Fabre  has  abundantly 
proved  how  little  instinct  has  to  do  with  reason.) 
The  fact  that  he  is  sick  of  bayonet  and  gunpowder 
battle  does  not  make  him  any  the  less  keen  for  battle 
of  goods  and  markets  and  price ;  in  fact,  by  contrast, 
it  has  made  him  very  especially  keen  for  it — not  real- 
izing in  his  fatuity  that  he  may  merely  make  certain 
another  round  of  the  old,  old  human  savagery. 

The  League  of  Nations  must  be  made  successful 
much  after  the  manner  of  any  great  organization — 
by  the  use  of  rivalry  and  enthusiasm  for  common 
ends,  kept  skilfully  in  sight;  by  the  most  minute  tech- 
nical pains  and  coordinative  ability.  It  must  produce 
something  which  the  common  man  wants,  and  lose 
no  opportunity  to  advertise  itself  to  him  in  terms 
he  can  understand.  It  is — with  no  disrespect  either 
to  the  League  of  Nations  or  to  business — a  business 
proposition,  pure  and  simple.  It  must  enter  very 
prosaically  into  the  workaday  endeavors  of  nations 
and  show  them  its  specific  advantages  in  even  a 
salesmanlike  manner.  It  was  with  some  such  com- 
bination of  vision,  optimism,  and  practicality  that 
Morgan,  after  Carnegie  announced  his  vigorous 
competitive  program,  showed  the  steel  industry  the 
value  of  combining,  by  chart,  statistic,  hard  sense, 
practical  program — and  showed  also  a  clear  picture 
of  the  disintegrating  alternatives.  The  League  of 
Nations  must  become  part  of  the  daily  desk  and 
bench  labors  of  man  or  remain  merely  a  trailing 
cloud  of  intellectual  glory. 

J.  GEORGE  FREDERICK. 


THE  DIAL 


189 


Possessor  and  Possessed 


T 

J.H 


.HE  WORK  OF  Mr.  John  Gould  "Fletcher  has 
hardly  attained  the  eminence  in  contemporary  poetry 
that  it  deserves.  One  is  doubtful,  indeed,  whether 
it  will.  For  not  only  is  it  of  that  sort  which  in- 
evitably attracts  only  a  small  audience,  but  it  is  also 
singularly  uneven  in  quality,  and  many  readers  who 
would  like  Mr.  Fletcher  at  his  best  cannot  muster 
the  patience  to  read  beyond  his  worst.  Mr. 
Fletcher  is  his  own  implacable  enemy.  He  has  not 
yet  published  a  book  in  which  his  excellent  qualities 
are  single,  candid,  and  undivided:  a  great  many 
dead  leaves  are  always  to  be  turned.  The  reward 
for  the  search  is  conspicuous,  but  unfortunately  it 
is  one  which  few  will  take  the  trouble  to  find. 

Mr.  Fletcher's  latest  book,  The  Tree  of  Life 
(Macmillan;  $1.50)  is  no  exception  to  this  rule: 
it  is  perhaps,  if  we  leave  out  of  account  his  five  early 
books  of  orthodox  and  nugatory  self-exploration, 
the  most  remarkably  uneven  of  them  all.  It  has 
neither  the  level  technical  excellence,  the  economical 
terseness  of  his  Japanese  Prints,  nor,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  amazing  flight  of  many  pages  in  Goblins 
and  Pagodas.  Yet  certainly  one  would  rather  have 
it  than  Japanese  Prints;  and  even  if  it  contains  a 
greater  proportion  of  dross  than  is  to  be  found  in 
the  symphonies,  it  has  compensating  qualities,  quali- 
ties which  one  feels  are  new  in  the  work  of  Mr. 
Fletcher,  and  which  make  one  hesitate  to  rate  it  too 
far  below  Goblins  and  Pagodas,  or,  at  any  rate. 
Irradiations.  For  the  moment,  however,  it  is  in- 
teresting to  set  aside  these  new  qualities  and  to 
consider,  or  savor,  the  astonishing  unequalness 
which  alone  would  constitute  a  sort  of  distinction  in 
the  work  of  Mr.  Fletcher.  It  is  the  custom  in 
such  cases  to  say  that  the" poet  has  no  self-critical 
faculty,  and  to  let  it  go  at  that.  But  that  explana- 
tion is  of  a  general  and  vague  character,  and 
operates  only  under  the  fallacy  that  any  such  com- 
plex is  reducible  to  the  terms  of  a  single  factor.  It 
should  be  clear  that  any  given  complex  will  consist 
of  several  factors;  that  "  absence  of  a  critical  facul- 
ty "  is  to  a  considerable  degree  a  merely  negative 
diagnosis;  and  that  perhaps  one  would  wisely  look 
for  a  more  express  clue  to  the  particular  personal 
equation  in  something  more  positive — as  for  example 
in  some  excess  rather  than  lack.  It  is  in  a  kind  of 
redundancy,  on  the  psychic  plane,  that  an  artist's 
character  is  most  manifest.  Here  will  lie  the  key 
to  both  his  successes  and  his  failures.  It  should  be 
the  critic's  undertaking  to  name  and  analyze  this 
redundancy  and  to  ascertain  the  degree  in  which 
the  artist  has  it  under  control. 


Unfortunately,  this  undertaking,  in  the  present 
state  of  psychology — and  criticism  is  a  branch  of 
psychology — is  as  yet  highly  speculative;  it  borders, 
indeed,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  on  the  mythological. 
Criticism  of  this  sort  must  be,  confessedly,  supposi- 
titious. Thus  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Fletcher  we  shall 
perhaps  find  the  most  suggestive  light  cast  from  a 
direction  which  to  many  literary  folk  is  highly 
suspect — from  psychology  itself.  Kostyleff,  it  will 
be  recalled,  maintains  that  a  very  important  part  of 
the  mechanism  of  poetic  inspiration  rests  in  the 
automatic  discharge  of  verbal  reflexes — the  initial 
impulse  coming  from  some  external  stimulus,  but 
the  chain  of  verbal  association  thereafter  unraveling 
more  or  less  of  its  own  momentum,  and  leading,  as 
far  as  any  connection  of  thought  or  emotion  is  con- 
cerned, well  beyond  the  premises  of  the  original 
stimulus.  Of  course  Kostyleff  does  not  limit  him- 
self to  this.  He  grants  that  it  is  only  a  peculiar 
sensibility  which  will  store  up,  as  in  the  case  of  a 
poet,  such  a  wealth  of  verbal  reflexes :  and  he  grants 
further  that  there  is  often — though  not  always— 
the  initial  stimulus  from  without.  For  our  part,  as 
soon  as  we  apply  this  engaging  theory  to  the  work 
of  poets,  we  see  that  certain  aspects  of  it  are  more 
illuminating  in  some  cases  than  others;  in  other 
words,  that  while  the  principle  as  a  whole  is  true 
of  all  poets,  in  some  poets  it  is  one  factor  which  is 
more  important,  and  in  some  another.  It  is  true, 
for  example,  that  Mr., Fletcher  has  a  very  original 
sensibility,  and  it  is  also  true  that  his  initial  stimulus 
sometimes  comes  from  without,  but  whereas  in  the 
work  of  certain  other  poets  these  factors  might  be 
paramount,  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Fletcher  the  striking 
feature  has  always  been  his  habit  of  surrendering 
himself,  almost  completely,  to  the  power  of  these 
automatically  unraveling  verbal  reflexes.  In  fact 
the  poetry  of  Mr.  Fletcher  is  as  remarkable  an  il- 
lustration of  this  principle  as  one  could  find. 

The  implications  are  rich.  What  occurs  to  one 
immediately  is  that,  as  the  functioning  of  these 
verbal  reflexes  is  most  rapid  when  least  consciously 
controlled,  the  poet  will  be  at  his  best  when  the 
initial  stimulus  is  of  a  nature  to  leave  hirn  greatest 
freedom.  To  such  a  poet,  it  will  be  seen,  it  would 
be  a  great  handicap  to  have  to  adhere  too  closely, 
throughout  a  longish  poem,  to  a  fixed  and  unalter- 
able idea.  The  best  theme  for  him  will  be  the  one 
which  is  least  definite,  one  which  will  start  him  off 
at  top  speed  but  will  be  rather  enhanced  than  im- 
paired by  the  introduction  and  development  of  new 
elements,  by  rapid  successive  improvisations  in  un- 


190 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


foreseen  directions.  Any  sort  of  conceptual  frame- 
work prepared  in  advance  with  regard  either  to 
subject  or  form  would  be  perpetually  retarding  him, 
perpetually  bringing  him  back  to  a  more  severely 
conscious  plane  of  effort,  a  plane  on  which,  the 
chances  are,  he  would  be  far  less  effective.  These 
suppositions  gain  force  when  we  turn,  in  their  light, 
to  Mr.  Fletcher's  work.  In  Irradiations  wre  find 
him  taking  his  first  ecstatic  plunge  into  improvisa- 
tion— formalism  is  thrown  to  the  winds,  and  with 
it  much  which  for  this  poet  perplexes  and  retards; 
and  an  amazingly  rich  treasure  house  of  verbal 
reflexes,  the  gift  of  a  temperament  almost  hyper-" 
esthetic  in  its  sensitiveness  to  color,  line,  and  tex- 
ture— a  temperament  in  which  some  profound  dis- 
harmony is  most  easily  struck  at  and  shaken  through 
these  senses — is  for  the  first  time  rifled.  It  is  in  this 
stage  of  a  lyric  poet's  career  that  his  speech  most 
glistens.  Impressions  come  up  shining  from  their 
long  burial  in  the  subconscious.  The  poet  is  per- 
haps a  little  breathless  with  his  sudden  wealth — he 
is  at  first  content  to  bring  up  only  small  handfuls 
of  the  most  glittering  coin;  he  is  even  perhaps  a 
little  distrustful  of  it.  But  the  habit  of  allowing 
himself  to  be  possessed  by  this  wealth  grows  rapidly. 
The  mechanism  becomes  more  familiar,  if  anything 
so  vague  as  this  kind  of  apperception  can  be  said  to 
be  truly  recognizable,  and  the  poet  learns  the  trick 
of  shutting  his  eyes  and  not  merely  allowing,  but 
precisely  inviting,  his  subconscious  to  take  possession 
of  him.  The  trick  consists  largely  in  a  knowledge, 
abruptly  acquired,  of  his  own  character,  and  of  such 
ideas  as  are,  therefore,  the  "  Open  Sesame!  "  to  this 
cave.  It  was  in  colorism  that  Mr.  Fletcher  found 
this  password.  And  it  was  in  Goblins  and  Pagodas 
that  he  first  put  it  to  full  and  gorgeous  use. 

For  in  the  idea  of  a  series  of  symphonies  in 
which  the  sole  unity  was  to  be  a  harmony  of  color, 
in  which  form  and  emotional  tone  could  follow 
the  lead  of  coloristic  word-associations  no  matter 
how  far  afield,  Mr.  Fletcher  discovered  an  "  Open 
Sesame !  "  so  ideal  to  his  nature,  and  so  powerful,  as 
not  merely  to  open  the  door,  but  at  one  stroke  to 
lay  bare  his  treasure  entire.  One  should  not  over- 
look here  also  an  important  secondary  element  in 
Mr.  Fletcher's  nature,  a  strong  but  partial  affinity 
for  musical  construction,  a  feeling  for  powerful 
submerged  rhythms  less  ordered  than  those  of 
metrical  verse,  but  more  ordered  than  those  of 
prose;  and  this  element,  too,  found  its  ideal  oppor- 
tunity in  the  color  symphonies.  The  result  was, 
naturally,  the  most  brilliant  and  powerful  work 
which  Mr.  Fletcher  has  yet  given  us — a  poetry 
unlike  any  other.  It  contains  no  thought:  Mr. 
Fletcher  is  not  a  conceptual  poet.  It  contains,  in 


the  strictly  human  sense,  extraordinarily  little  of  the 
sort  of  emotion  which  relates  to  the  daily  life  of 
men  and  women;  there  are  despairs  and  exaltations 
and  sorrows  and  hopes,  and  the  furious  energy  of 
ambition,  and  the  weariness  of  resignation,  but  they 
are  the  emotions  of  someone  incorporeal,  and  their 
sphere  of  action  is  among  winds  and  clouds,  the 
colors  of  sky  and  sea,  the  glittering  of  rain  and 
jewels;  and  not  among  the  perplexed  hearts  of 
humanity.  In  a  sense  it  is  like  the  symbolism  of 
such  poets  as  Mallarme,  but  with  the  difference  that 
here  the  symbols  have  no  meaning.  It  is  a  sort  of 
absolute  poetry,  a  poetry  of  detached  waver  and 
brilliance,  a  beautiful  flowering  of  language  alone, 
a  parthenogenesis,  as  if  language  were  fertilized  by 
itself  rather  than  by  thought  or  feeling.  Remove 
the  magic  of  phrase  and  sound,  and  there  is  nothing 
left:  no  thread  of  continuity,  no  relation  between 
one  page  and  the  next,  no  thought,  no  story,  no 
emotion.  But  the  magic  of  phrase  and  sound  is 
powerful,  and  it  takes  one  into  a  fantastic  world 
where  one  is  etherealized,  where  one  has  deep  emo- 
tions, indeed,  but  emotions  star-powdered,  and 
blown  to  flame  by  speed  and  intensity  rather  than 
by  thought  or  human  warmth. 

Unfortunately  it  is  only  for  a  little  while  that  a 
poet  can  be  so  completely  possessed  by  the  subcon- 
scious: the  more  complete  the  possession  the  more 
rapid  the  exhaustion.  One  or  two  of  Mr.  Fletcher's 
color  symphonies  showed  already  a  v  flagging  of 
energy,  and  in  addition  to  the  unevenness  which  is 
inevitable  in  a  blind  obedience  to  the  lead  of  word- 
association  alone  (since  it  leads  as  often  to  verbosity 
as  to  magic)  that  unevenness  also  is  noticed  which 
comes  of  the  poet's  attempt  to  substitute  the  con- 
sciously for  the  unconsciously  found — an  attempt 
which  for  such  a  temperament  as  Mr.  Fletcher's  is 
frequently  doomed  to  failure.  There  are  limits, 
moreover,  as  we  have  seen,  to  the  number  of  themes 
which  will  draw  out  the  best  of  the  possessed  type 
of  poet.  Failing  to  discover  new  themes,  he  must 
repeat  the  old  ones;  and  here  it  is  not  long  before 
he  feels  his  consciousness  intruding,  and  saying  to 
him,  "  You  have  said  this  before,"  a  consciousness 
which  at  once  inhibits  the  unraveling  of  word-asso- 
ciation, and  brings  him  back  to  that  more  deliberate 
sort  of  art  for  which  he  is  not  so  well  fitted.  It  is 
to  this  point  that  Mr.  Fletcher  has  come,  recently 
in  Japanese  Prints,  and  now  in  The  Tree  of  Life. 
Here  and  there  for  a  moment  is  a  flash  of  magic 
and  power — there  are  pages,  even  whole  poems, 
which  are  only  less  delightful  than  the  symphonies 
— but  intermingled  with  how  much  that  is  lame, 
stiltedly  metrical,  verbose,  or  downright  ugly.  The 
use  of  regular  meter  or  rhyme  brings  him  down  with 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


191 


a  thud.  .  .  The  Tree  of  Life  is  a  volume  of 
love  poems,  more  personal  than  Mr.  Fletcher  has 
given  us  hitherto,  and  that  has  an  interest  of  its 
own.  But  the  colorism  has  begun  to  dim,  it  is  often 
merely  a  wordy  and  tediously  overcrowded  imitation 
of  the  colored  swiftness  of  Goblins  and  Pagodas,  the 
images  indistinct  and  conflicting;  and  if  one  is  to 
hope  fpr  further  brilliance  it  is  not  in  this  but  in  a 
new  note,  audible  here  and  there  in  the  shorter 


lyrics,  a  note  of  ironlike  resonance,  bitterly  per- 
sonal, and  written  in  a  free  verse  akin  to  the  stark 
eloquence  of  Biblical  prose.  .  .  Are  these  lyrics 
an  earnest  of  further  development,  and  will  Mr. 
Fletcher  pass  to  that  other  plane  of  art,  that  of  the 
possessor  artist,  the  artist  who  foresees  and  forges, 
who  calculates  his  effects?  There  is  hardly  enough 
evidence  here  to  make  one  sure. 

CONRAD  AIKEN. 


The  Significance  of  Redon 


_i 


'HEN  THE  WORK  of  Odilon  Redon  was  first 
shown  in  this  country,  at  the  International  Exhibi- 
tion of  1913,  its  success  was  immediate  and,  beyond 
a  doubt,  more  complete  than  that  of  any  other  artist 
represented  in  the  epoch-making  show.  There  was 
naturally  more  of  popular  discussion  about  the 
Cubists  and  others  whose  work  seemed  revolution- 
ary, but  the  man  who  came  in 'for  most  admiration 
— more  even  than  was  given  to  Cezanne  —  was 
Redon. 

Should  we  see  in  this  merely  a  sign  that  the 
artist  had  something  which  the  American  public 
demands,  through  the  nature  of  its  preferences?  I 
think  not;  twenty  years  earlier  his  reception  here 
would  have  been  different,  as  it  was  different  in 
Paris.  Only  in  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years  has 
there  been  anything  like  a  solid  appreciation  of 
Redon  anywhere,  and  his  success  here  was  not  a 
question  of  place  but  of  time.  Indeed  the  fact  is 
that  in  a  number  of  European  countries  the  recog- 
nition of  his  genius  was  coming  about,  more  and 
more  positively,  in  the  decade  before  the  exhibition 
here.  It  was  late  in  coming,  among  laymen  at 
least,  for  Redon  was  born  in  1840  and  the  time 
when  he  had  made  clear  the  bearing  of  his  art  may 
easily  be  placed  before  his  thirtieth  year.  With  an 
exhibition  of  Redon's  etchings  and  lithographs  be- 
fore us  again  (at  the  Ehrich  Print  Gallery,  until 
March  12)  it  seems  incomprehensible  that  his  fame 
does  not  date  back  fifty  years,  but  the  world  is 
probably  no  more  interested  in  living  genius  now 
than  it  was  then. 

Artists  were  naturally  the  first  to  recognize  his 
importance,  but  even  among  them  it  was  long  before 
the  major  quality  in  his  art  was  understood.  For 
there  are  in  Redon  the  two  phases  which  we  find 
in  every  master — the  qualities  of  idea  and  of  form. 
The  first  generation  which  turned  to  Redon  for 
guidance — the  men  who  began  to  play  a  role  in 
art  about  1890 — were  followers  or  successors  of  the 
Impressionists  who  had  come  to  see  that  Cezanne 
with  his  infinite  world  of  form,  Gauguin  with  his 


startling  design  and  Van  Gogh  with  his  intensity 
of  expression  had  given  a  new  turn  to  the  line  of 
art  development.  If  they  did  not  see  Redon's  full 
importance,  it  was  because  they  were  content  to 
skim  the  surface  of  their  elders'  production  and  to 
draw  from  it  the  elements  of  a  merely  decorative 
art,  agreeable  but  light.  They  did  see  in  him  the 
colorist  and  designer,  and  much  that  is  good  in  the 
work  of  Bonnard,  Roussel,  and  numerous  minor 
artists  is  to  be  traced  to  Redon. 

Of  the  same  generation,  but  of  a  far  deeper  talent 
and  mind,  Matisse  consulted  Redon  to  better  pur- 
pose. Not  only  was  his  native  gift  of  color  enriched 
by  contact  with  the  rare  opulence  of  Redon,  but  the 
quality  of  significance  which  lifts  him  above  his 
contemporaries  was  intensified  by  his  study  of  the 
older  man.  Redon,  while  always  glad  to  receive 
the  visits  of  young  artists  and  to  give  them  advice, 
never  undertook  teaching  in  a  school.  The  teacher 
who  most  nearly  approached  him  in  ideals  (though 
far  from  approaching  in  his  results  the  plane  of 
Redon)  was  Gustave  Moreau,  and  it  was  from 
Moreau  that  Matisse  had  his  most  important  les- 
sons. Another  student  at  the  atelier,  whose  later 
achievement  has  been  admirable,  was  Georges 
Rouault.  The  preoccupation  of  both  men  with 
the  problem  of  expression  is  proof  of  their  ad- 
herence to  that  art  of  the  idea  of  which  Redon  is 
the  chief  exemplar  in  the  whole  Nineteenth  Century. 

But  it  is  the  group  which  appeared  after  these 
men  which  goes  deepest  into  the  significance  of 
Redon.  A  few  years  ago  there  was  exhibited  in  this 
city  a  sheet  of  drawings  by  Picasso  in  which  that 
surprising  person  gave  imitations  of  four  of  the 
older  artists — unmistakable  by  themselves,  but  on 
each  of  which  he  wrote  the  name  of  the  man  in 
whose  manner  the  sketch  was  made.  One  of  them 
was  Redon.  And  what  has  Cubism  to  do  with 
the  old  sage  who  invented  for  us  this  mythology, 
ancient  and  modern,  these  grand  illustrations  for 
The  Temptation  of  Saint  Anthony  and  of  the 
Apocalypse,  this  recounter  of  dreams  who  portrays 


192 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


for  us  with  equal  sureness  the  Buddha,  a  bunch  of 
flowers,  or  the  Spanish  guitarist  who  has  delighted 
him  the  evening  before?  On  the  surface,  Redon's 
art  and  the  art  of  the  men  but  halfway  described 
by  their  surname  of  Cubists  have  little  or  nothing 
in  common.  Indeed  the  geometrical  side  of  Cubism 
is  in  strong  contrast  with  the  spontaneous,  impro- 
vising quality  so  apparent  in  the  work  of  Redon. 
He  himself  felt  this  and  spoke  in  gentle  distrust  of  a 
theoretical  method  of  procedure  in  art. 

But  he  also  understood  the  other  side  of  the  new 
school  and  was  well  pleased  with  its  homage.  The 
man  whose  work  proclaims  most  unequivocally  the 
latter-day  attitude  toward  art  as  an  expression  of 
what  takes  place  in  the  world  of  the  mind,  Marcel 
Duchamp,  is  also  the  man  of  the  new  generation 
who  most  frankly  acknowledges  his  debt  to  Redon. 
In  the  essentials  of  the  question,  then,  there  is  a 
close  bond  between  the  master  whose  works  are 
before  us  an'd  the  advance  guard  who  have  so  far 
departed  from  his  external  forms.  Together  they 
continue  the  line  of  those  who  tell  us  that  art  is 
not  "  homo  additus  naturae,"  but  a  pure  expression 
of  the  purpose  of  man  through  his  joy  in  form  and 
color — the  "  natura  "  vof  Bacon  entering  into  the 
operation  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  useful  as  a  means. 

A  part  of  the  reason  why  it  has  taken  long  for 
the  world  to  see  the  greatness  of  Redon  is,  as  I 
have  shown,  that  the  artists  took  long.  For  it  is 
often  through  the  inheritors  or  even  the  vulgarizers 
of  a  creative  work  that  the  mass  of  men  come  to 
know  its  quality.  But  another  reason  is  that  Redon 
was  really  that  unusual  being,  the  man  ahead  of  his 
time.  It  is  only  a  thoughtless  use  of  the  phrase  that 
applies  it  to  artists  like  Delacroix,  Courbet,  or 
Cezanne.  They  are  of  their  time,  not  ahead  of  it, 
the  violent  opposition  they  had  to  face  having  been 
only  a  natural  reaction  on  the  part  of  the  mediocre 
mob  wrhich  resented  being  dragged  from  its  com- 
fortable wallowing  in  the  refuse  of  the  past. 
Among  the  leaders,  Cezanne  and  all  the  great  Im- 
pressionists (save  Pissarro)  were  born  within  a  year 
of  one  another  and  of  Redon.  The  former  group 
dominates  the  years  from  1870  to  1900.  Redon  be- 
gins to  emerge  only  about  the  end  of  that  period, 
as  a  man  of  sixty,  with  a  great  work  behind  him 
and,  most  fortunately,  with  sixteen  years  of  glorious 
production  still  before  him. 

He  was  clear  in  his  own  mind  about  the  differ- 
ences between  himself  and  his  contemporaries,  as 
we  see  in  some  notes  of  1913,  in  which  he  tells  of  a 
friend  and  preceptor  of  his  youth,  the  fine  artist 
Rodophe  Bresdin: 

He  said  to  me  once,  in  a  tone  of  gentle  authority:  "  Look 
at  that  chimney;  what  does  it  tell  you?  To  me  it  re- 
counts a  legend.  If  you  have  the  strength  to  observe  it 


well  and  to  comprehend  it,  imagine  the  strangest,  the  most 
bizarre  subject,  if  it  is  well  based  and  if  it  remains  within 
the  limits  of  that  simple  stretch  of.  wall,  your  dream  will 
be  living.  Therein  lies  art."  Bresdin  made  these  re- 
marks in  1864.  I  note  the  date  because  it  was  not  thus 
that  art  was  taught  at  that  time. 

The  artists  of  my  generation,  for  the  most  part,  [and 
he  does  not  mean  the  masters],  have  assuredly  considered 
the  chimney.  And  they  have  seen  nothing  but  the  chim- 
ney. All  that  can  be  added  to  the  stretch  of  wall  through 
the  mirage  of  our  personal  essence  has  not  been  rendered 
by  them.  Everything  that  passes  beyond,  illumines  or 
amplifies  the  object,  and  lifts  the  mind  into  the  region  of 
mystery,  into  the  trouble  of  the  irresolute  and  of  its  de- 
licious unrest,  has  been  totally  closed  to  them.  Everything 
which  lends  to  the  symbol,  everything  which  our  art  holds 
of  the  unexpected,  of  the  unprecise,  of  the  undefinable,  and 
which  gives  it  an  aspect  which  borders  on  the  enigma — 
they  have  hidden  from  it,  they  have  feared  it.  True  para- 
sites of  the  object,  they  have  developed  art  in  the  visual 
field  alone,  and  have  to  some  extent  closed  it  off  from  that 
which  passes  beyond  and  could  bring  into  the  humblest 
essays,  even  into  the  blacks,  the  light  of  spirituality.  I 
mean  an  irradiation  which  takes  hold  of  our  spirit,  and 
which  escapes  all  analysis. 

In  the  half  century  between  Bresdin's  remarks 
and  Redon's  development  of  them  a  change  took 
place  in  the  world's  mind,  and  there  is  every  sign 
that  the  present  era  will  not  accept  the  ever-present 
"  parasites  of  the  object  "  as  its  representatives.  It 
is  turning  to  Redon  and  the  others  who  "  depassent 
1'objet  "  with  more  and  more  understanding  and  cer- 
tainty. He  speaks  with  emphasis  in  the  passage  I 
have  cited,  but  it  must  not  be  thought  that  his 
habitual  mood  was  one  of  criticism.  On  the  con- 
trary it  was  one  of  faith  in  the  world,  of  confidence 
that  there  were  always  certain  persons  who  saw  be- 
yond the  object  to  its  new  form  after  assimilation  by 
the  mind,  and  who  were  thus  ready  to  delight  in 
the  new  form  when  an  artist  makes  it  visible  by  his 
line  and  color.  The  fact  that  his  belief  was  justified, 
that  the  number  of  these  persons  is  increasing,  is  the 
final  reply  to  those  shallow  critics  of  the  modern 
world  who  cry  "  materialism  "  because  the  forms 
of  art  change  with  time  and  because  we  are  no 
longer  working  with  Greek  or  Gothic  models. 

Redon's  family  life  was  extremely  happy  and 
his  work  went  on  steadily  from  year  to  year,  with 
friends  am6ngst  the  great  painters,  poets  and  musi- 
cians of  his  time  to  give  him  the  encouraging  ap- 
plause that  every  artist  should  have.  But  the  extent 
of  his  good  fortune  did  not  hide  from  his  clear  eyes 
the  fact  that  art  appreciation,  in  a  time  at  all  similar 
to  ours,  must  be  looked  for  amongst  few  people. 
And  he  knew  that  when  the  understanding  for  his 
art  of  the  inner  world  came,  it  would  have  about 
it  nothing  definitive.  His  great  wish  was  that  the 
young  men  go  on  to  their  own  work,  provided  only 
that  it  be  well  pondered  and  the  result  of  genuine 
need.  Late  in  life  he  once  declared  himself  ready  to 
forget  all  he  had  done  and  essay  a  totally  different 
style,  if  an  experience  befell  him  which  rendered 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


such  a  change  necessary.  It  was  with  a  ring  of 
conviction  in  his  power  to  go  on  to  new  things  that 
he  spoke  the  words.  And  this  openness — which  had 
in  it  humility  and  pride  at  once — was  one  of  the 
marks  by  which  one  can  recognize  him  as  the  seer  of 
latent  forces  in  his  own  time  and  the  prophet  of  their 
expansion  in  the  time  ahead. 

With  all  there  is  of  change  in  men's  attitude 
toward  art,  one  feels  that  some  underlying  principles 
remain,  in  whatever  form  they  may  be  embodied. 
One  feels  that  the  light  Redon  has  thrown  for  us  on 
the  relation  of  the  object  to  the  mind,  the  mind  to 
art,  must  remain  clear,  and  will  be  handed  on 


while  our  civilization  lasts.  If  his  work  is  not  the 
last  word  in  exemplifying  the  truth,  we  may  rejoice 
in  the  vitality  of  the  later  generation — which  owes 
him  so  much.  Before  his  own  work  in  the  present 
exhibition  we  have  the  pleasure  of  saluting  an  elder 
who  does  not  grow  old.  The  magical  sonorous 
gradations  of  black  and  white  thrill  us  only  the 
more  deeply  as  we  see  them  again:  the  powerful, 
elusive,  unprecedented  forms  find  unsuspected  cor- 
respondence in  our  own  minds,  and  they  are 
clothed  with  an  always  more  intense  and  permanent 
reality. 

WALTER  PACH. 


The  Theory  of  Fiction 


A  HERE  ARE  at  least  three  standpoints — or  three 
levels — from  which  the  field  of  fiction  may  be 
viewed:  you  may  range  over  it  while  on  its  own 
level ;  you  may  take  it  from  aloft — the  bird's-eye 
view ;  or  you  may  take  it  from  below — from  the 
standpoint  which  gives  what  has  been  called,  in- 
geniously and  felicitously,  the  "  worm's-eye  view." 
The  first  of  these  is  the  ordinary  way  of  the  novelist 
himself:  with  his  feet  on  the  ground  and  his  head 
in  the  air,  he  takes  his  chances  along  the  various 
heights  and  hollows.  The  second,  the  bird's-eye 
view,  is  that  of  Mr.  Wilson  Follett.  The  third, 
the  worm's-eye  view,  is,  with  some  shiftings  and 
modifications,  that  of  Mr.  Clayton  Hamilton. 

In  The  Modern  Novel  (Knopf;  $2)  Mr. 
Follett  is  very  much  aloft  indeed.  He  whirs  and 
sweeps,  aviator-like,  through  the  thin,  keen  air  of 
theory,  and  indulges  frequent  apergus  which  take 
in  the  vague  groundlings  that  toil  far  below.  One 
wishes  that  he  would  come  down  to  earth  and  try 
a  little  fiction  on  his  own  account.  He  might  find 
the  fabrication  of  two  or  three  short  stories 
worth  a  manual  to  him,  and  the  consummation  of  a 
full-sized  novel  to  outweigh  an  encyclopedia.  For 
here,  as  in  last  year's  Some  Modern  Novelists,  he  is 
obsessed,  even  borne  down,  by  the  sense  of  the 
novelist's  accountability:  the  writing  of  fiction  is  a 
serious  social  function.  "  You  are  responsible,"  he 
seems  to  say  through  every  page ;  "  so  see  that  you 
are  honest  and  earnest  and  right."  Joy  in  the 
swarming  human  scene  counts  for  little,  the  com- 
fortable satisfaction  is  the  self-expression  for  less, 
and  exhilaration  from  the  mastering  and  shaping  of 
material  for  almost  nothing.  "  Be,"  he  seems  to 
adjure  the  novelist,  "  be  a  responsible,  sober-minded 
agent.  How  else  can  we  take  you  seriously?  How 
else  can  we  hold  ourselves  in  contenance  while  we 
are  writing  serious  books  about  you?  " 


Yes,  Mr.  Follett  has  chosen  the  ether  rather  than 
the  clod,  and  he  evades  the  concrete  as  long  as  possi- 
ble. He  prides  himself,  in  his  preface,  on  his  suc- 
cessful suppression  of  the  word  "  psychology."  One 
begins  to  ask,  presently,  whether  he  is  intending  to 
suppress,  in  addition,  the  words  form,  tone,  color, 
and  the  like.  On  page  199  there  is  a  false  dawn, 
and  the  silhouettes  of  "  form  "  and  "  selection  "  ap- 
pear briefly  on  the  pale  horizon;  but  full  daylight 
is  really  deferred  until  his  penultimate  chapter  on 
Design.  This  part  of  the  book  contains  the  most 
of  interest  for  the  practical  fictionist.  Here  we 
come  upon  the  novel  in  metamorphosis ;  it  is  slough- 
ing off  its  ancient,  cumbrous  skin  and  is  emerging 
into  the  trim  compactness  desired  by  this  later  day. 
Here  too  comes  in  belated  cognizance  of  France 
and  Russia.  The  wonder  is  that  anybody  could  live 
so  long  on  Fielding  and  Richardson  before  getting 
to  Flaubert  and  Turgenev. 

Some  Modern  Novelists,  though  cluttered  with 
small  anxieties,  was  not  professorial.  The  Modern 
Novel  is.  Not  by  reason  of  its  notes,  its  bibli- 
ography, its  hints  for  study,  but  rather  through  a 
growing  tendency  to  jargonize.  The  "  School  of 
Terror,"  "  unofficial  sentimentalism,"  and  even 
"  the  realistic  spirit  "  may  be  mentioned  too  fre- 
quently and  leaned  upon  too  heavily.  And  there  is 
always  the  risk  that  a  man  who  is  churning  and 
rechurning  limited  material  may  jargonize  not  only 
his  diction  but  his  thought. 

Mr.  Hamilton,  in  A  Manual  of  the  Art  of  Fic- 
tion (Doubleday,  Page;  $1.60),  does  not  take  to 
the  blue  empyrean;  he  remains  strictly  below, 
among  the  definite  substrata.  He  burrows  thor- 
oughly and  faithfully.  He  accomplishes  a  good 
amount  of  serviceable  earthwork  and  helps  ventilate 
and  rearrange  the  general  soil.  His  book  is  really 
a  recasting  of  Materials  and  Methods  of  Fiction, 


194 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


which  appeared  some  ten  years  ago.  Indeed,  his 
very  index  "dates"  him:  Kipling,  Stevenson,  and 
Poe  are  his  biggest  items,  and  George  Eliot  has  her 
good  ten  lines.  He  states  in  plain,  sensible,  ship- 
shape fashion  a  good  many  things  that  nobody  will 
now  dispute — things  that  have  been  threshed  out 
and  have  reached  the  safe  bin  of  the  handbook. 
He  leans  somewhat  upon  Professor  Brander 
Matthews,  who  adds  a  paragraph  to  his  introduc- 
tion for  the  earlier  edition,  and  who  contributes  his 
theory  of  the  short-story  (with  its  hyphen).  Review 
Questions  and  Suggested  Readings  make  the  book 
obviously  a  "  manual  "  indeed,  and  tend  to  sober 
the  flighty  romancer.  Professor  Matthews  looms 
large,  of  course,  along  with  Mr.  Bliss  Perry,  in  the 
chapter  which  deals  with  the  art  of  fiction  as  in- 
fluenced by  the  element  of  length:  the  paragraphs 
on  the  roman  and  the  nouvelle  (in  English  the 
"  novel  "  and  the  "  novelette  ")  have  their  interest  in 
a  day  when  literary  molds  are  in  the  remaking. 

Mr.  Hamilton,  stepping  a  little  to  one  side  of  his 
cathedra,  notes  toward  his  end  (and  perhaps  a  trifle 
mournfully)  that  "  as  far  as  the  general  reader  is 
concerned,  the  appeal  of  any  work  of  fiction  depends 
far  more  upon  its  content  than  upon  its  form." 
One  who  happens  to  believe  that,  for  the. arts  in 
general,  form  remains  the  one  great  sine  qua  non 
may  fancy,  if  he  choose,  that  this  species  of  recal- 
citrance is  exhibited  chiefly  toward  such  of  the  arts 
as  require  for  apprehension  the  element  of  time  and 
the  governance  of  consecutivity ;  works  of  architec- 
ture, painting,  and  sculpture,  being  observable  at 
a  mere  glance,  do  not  delay  and  embarrass  us  as 
we  try  to  take  in  their  general  scope ;  it  is  the  works 
which  unfold  or  unroll — the  epic,  the  drama,  the 
symphony,  the  novel — that  run  the  chance  of  hav- 
ing their  form  missed  while  their  content  comes 
uppermost.  Yet  we  recall  that  most  paintings  in- 
terest the  rank  and  file  through  the  subject  rather 
than  through  the  technique;  and  that,  per  contra, 
a  play  which  does  not  shape  itself  as  it  ought  to 
sends  the  spectator  out  dissatisfied.  It  may  be  all 
one  can  say  is  this:  that  the  more  restricted  the 
work  of  art  the  greater  the  chance  that  its  form, 
construction,  and  technique  may  be  satisfactorily 
apprehended  by  the  laity.  Such  apprehension  is  an 
intelligible  and  intelligent  pleasure,  and  ought  to  be 
promoted.  Delimitation  makes  the  novel  easier  to 
compass,  both  for  writer  and  reader. 

Mr.  Follett,  in  the  most  arresting  of  his  chapters, 
notes  the  disposition  of  the  French  "  to  exhaust  the 
possibilities  of  order,  symmetry,  and  austere  per- 
fection," and  "  to  achieve  unity  by  whittling  down 
their  subjects  to  essentials  ";  and  he  contrasts  them 
with  the  Russians,  who  run  to  an  "  inclusiveness  of 


matter  and  of  event  "  like  that  of  the  Victorians, 
"  which  is  our  chief  tradition  in  the  novel  " — a 
kind  of  continental  welter,  in  fact,  which  leaves  us 
where  we  were  in  the  matter  of  clear  and  well- 
proportioned  design.  Mr.  Follett  sees  the  new 
novel,  whatever  its  length,  as  a  sublimated  short 
story.  It  "  avails  itself  of  the  novel's  fulness  of 
treatment;  it  may  run  to  any  length,  even  the  in- 
ordinate length  of  the  Victorian  novels."  However, 
"  its  theme  is  single,  and  it  aims  at  rigid  unity  of 
effect — the  unity  which  comes  from  one  direction 
inexorably  followed,  and  the  use  of  all  the  material 
to  illustrate  a  single  principle.  ...  It  is  the 
short  story  under  a  microscope,  the  short  story  on  a 
vastly  enlarged  scale." 

He  is  thus  quite  at  variance  with  such  men  of 
yesterday  as  Mr.  Matthews,  Mr.  Hamilton,  and 
Mr.  Perry,  who  believe  that  a  short  story  can  be 
poised  successfully  on  but  one  or  two  of  the  several 
bases  required  by  a  novel.  For  plot  or  situation 
alone  may  suffice;  or  characterization  alone;  or,  in 
special  instances,  even  setting  alone.  Further,  the 
short  story  may  pose  problems  without  answering 
them,  may  operate  on  highly  arbitrary  premises,  may 
create  beauty  out  of  the  horrible,  may  indulge  a 
poetic  symbolism,  and  may  make  other  excursions 
denied  the  novel,  whether  long  or  short. 

Thus  one  may  find  no  great  reason  for  following 
Mr.  Follett  when  he  telescopes  the  novel  and  the 
short  story  and  squeezes  out  the  novelette  alto- 
gether; yet  there  is  a  growing  sense  that  unity  and 
conciseness,  under  whatever  categories,  are  better 
worth  striving  for  than  was  once  thought.  The 
future  appears  to  be  for  the  shorter  form  which  has 
been  employed  now  and  then  by  Henry  James  and 
Edith  Wharton,  and  which  indeed  was  employed  as 
far  back  as  1840  (for  the  French  are  usually  first 
in  the  field)  by  Merimee  in  his  Colomba;  the  form 
which,  within  the  past  year  or  two,  has  produced 
Swinnerton's  Nocturne,  Rebecca  West's  The  Re- 
turn of  the  Soldier,  and,  within  slightly  wider 
limits,  Joseph  Hergesheimer's  Java  Head.  The 
technique  of  this  latter,  wherein  the  author  works 
out  his  own  problem  through  independent  and 
rather  self-willed  and  overconfident  endeavor,  is  far 
from  perfect,  but  is  most  suggestive  and  instructive. 
It  helps  point  out  the  new,  indubitable  road. 

If  novel-writing,  as  Mr.  Follett  insists,  is  a 
responsible  social  function,  novel-reading  has  its 
obligations  too.  A  cultivation  of  the  sense  of  form 
and  proportion  ought  to  add  to  the  reader's  pleasure, 
and  even  to  discipline  him,  in  a  measure,  for  the 
general  conduct  of  life.  A  burden  shared  becomes 
less  onerous. 

HENRY  B.  FULLER. 


igig 


THE  DIAL 


London,  January  30 


XA  FEW  DAYS  AGO  I  asked  an  editor  of  my  acquaint- 
ance what  were  his  plans  for  the  reconstruction  of 
his  magazine  when  increased  supplies  of  paper  should 
make  it  possible.  "  That,"  he  replied  with  impres- 
sive gravity,  "  depends  on  the  effect  which  the  result 
of  the  election  has  on  literature."  I  do  not  know 
precisely  what  effect  he  apprehended;  I  hadn't, 
in  fact,  the  courage  to  ask  him.  He  may  have  been 
looking  forward'  to  the  suppression  of  every  periodi- 
cal that  does  not  sing  the  praise  of  our  great  and 
noble  Prime  Minister  in  the  loudest  possible  strains ; 
or  he  may  merely  have  envisaged  the  imposition  of  a 
prohibitive  tax  on  pure  letters.  Those  whose  inter- 
ests are  not  bound  up  with  the  interest  of  "  big  busi- 
ness "  are  looking  rather  gloomily  to  the  future  and 
are  preparing  themselves  for  any  smashing  blow 
which  the  new  state  of  affairs  may  casually  deal  them 
in  passing.  But  I  am  not  apprehensive  for  literature 
myself.  It  is  a  matter  apart  from  politics — it  rarely 
penetrates  to  the  utterance  of  politicians;  and  au- 
thors, editors,  and  publishers,  as  such,  are  not  greatly 
concerned  with  affairs  of  state  or  the  gyrations  of 
statesmen.  It  does  occasionally  happen  that  legisla- 
tion affects  us.  At  Christmas  time  I  met  a  pub- 
lisher in  the  country,  w)io  told  me  that  he  had  serious 
thoughts  of  going  up  to  London  the  next  day  and 
assassinating  Mr.  Wilson.  He  had  no  particular 
grudge  against  your  President;  but,  at  the  moment, 
he  disliked  your  country  intensely.  An  American 
publisher  had  just  written  to  him,  proposing  to  issue 
an  American  edition  of  one  of  his  books  and  offering 
him  a  royalty  of  ten  per  cent,  on  condition  that  he 
abstained  from  selling  his  own  edition  in  America. 
But  irritation  over  the  copyright  laws  does  not  often 
rise  to  this  pitch ;  and,  though  we  have  a  grievance 
to  be  redressed,  we  do  not  expect  to  be  considered 
at  the  Peace  Conference  or  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. 

The  main  effect  of  the  election,  so  far  as  I  can  see, 
will  be  to  reduce  even  further  (and  Heaven  knows 
it  was  low  enough)  the  literary  level  of  Parlia- 
mentary speeches.  There  were  not  many  men  in 
the  House  of  Commons  who  were  capable  of  stand- 
ing up  and  talking  good,  dignified  English;  and  our 
electorate  has  now  rejected  most  of  them,  preferring 
such  men  of  letters  as  Mr.  Horatio  Bottomley,  the 
editor  of  John  Bull.  The  official  report  of  the 
debates  will  now  be  more  lacerating  to  the  literary 
mind  than  ever.  They  will  split  their  infinitives, 
leave  their  sentences  unfinished  and  without  verbs, 
muddle  their  relative  clauses  and  perpetrate  on  the 
English  language  all  the  outrages  of  which  only 


a  politician  in  full  flood  is  capable ;  and  Mr.  Asquith 
will  not  be  there  to  raise  the  tone  of  the  debate  by 
his  majestic  and  Augustan  style.  The  favorite 
locution  of  the  present  Prime  Minister  is  "  What 
you  have  got  to  remember  .  .  .  "  or  "  You  have 
got  to  convince  Labor  .  .  .";  and  though  this 
to  me,  and,  I  imagine,  to  all  right-thinking  littera- 
teurs, is  perfectly  odious,  I  doubt  whether  it  turned 
a  vote  at  the  election.  On  the  political  aspects  of 
the  election  I  will  not  dwell  because  they  are  too 
painful,  and  because  they  fortunately  do  not  fall 
within  my  province.  I  go  about  daily  murmuring 
to  myself  a  phrase  which  I  read  recently  in  Swin- 
burne's letters  and  which  took  my  fancy,  a  phrase 
about  "  the  God-doomed  metropolis  of  this  hell- 
devoted  country."  I  find  it  a  powerful  incantation 
when  I  am  reading  the  latest  political  news  in  my 
morning  paper. 

I  feel  that  I  must  advert — oh,  how  easily  one 
falls  into  political  phraseology  once  one  has  gone 
near  to  the  accursed  thing! — to  the  criticisms  on 
my  view  of  the  right  length  for  novels.  Mr.  Fuller, 
if  I  may  say  so  without  offense,  seems  to  me  to  be 
refuting  something  I  never  said  and  his  remark 
about  "  the  old  Anglo-Saxon  resentment  over  a 
disciplined  work  of  art "  is  particularly  unkind, 
since  it  is  one  of  my  bad  habits  to  go  about  adjur- 
ing the  English  author  to  learn  form,  proportion,  dis- 
cipline, and  restraint,  to  look  at  the  French  and  so 
to  become  a  wiser  man  and  a  better  artist.  Further- 
more, it  must  have  escaped  Mr.  Fuller  that  I  re- 
joiced over  "  the  vision  of  the  technically  perfect 
and  harmonious  novel  "  which,  in  my  judgment, 
the  present  generation  has  a  reasonable  chance  of 
accomplishing.  The  English  novel  has  suffered  by 
being  the  province  of  good  honest  men  with  im- 
aginations who  think  it  is  easy  enough  to  tell  a  tale 
"  in  their  own  way  " — pipe  in  mouth  and  slippered 
feet  on  a  chair.  Our  novelists  have  nearly  all  been 
men  who,  being  born  with  the  temperament  of  the 
artist,  think  they  need  not  give  themselves  the  edu- 
cation of  the  artist.  It  is  not  thus  that  great  art  is 
produced,  but  by  long  and  strict  meditation,  by  pain- 
ful experiment,  by  all  the  agonies  necessary  to  bring 
forth  perfection — none  of  which  must  be  apparent  in 
the  finished  work.  But  a  mere  mechanical  reduction 
of  length  does  not  solve  this  problem;  and  the 
reasons  which  have  led  to  the  reduction  of  the  novel 
have  been  by  no  means  all  purely  artistic.  It  is 
right  that  the  novelist  should  ask  himself,  "  How 
much  can  I  leave  out?"  But  he  so  often  answers 
his  own  question  by  leaving  out  more  than  his  con- 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


ception  can  afford,  that  I  should  prefer  him  to  word 
the  inquiry,  "How  much  must  I  put  in?"  Mr. 
Fuller  will  admit,  I  suppose,  that  there  is  no  test 
of  the  Tightness  of  a  novel's  length,  except  in  its 
general  harmony  and  the  completeness  and  fullness 
of  the  impression  which  it  makes  on  the  reader's 
mind.  By  this  canon,  the  novel  may  range  from 
fifty  thousand  words  (which  is  shorter  than  any 
English  publisher  will  look  at  without  dismay)  to 
a  quarter  of  a  million  or  more — and  that  is  more 
than  our  novelists  at  present  usually  dare  to  allow 
themselves.  I  do  not  raise  merely  the  undiscriminat- 
ing  slogan  "Longer  Novels!"  I  only  ask  that 
when  a  writer  selects  a  subject  which  cannot  be  ade- 
quately treated  in  less  than  two  hundred  thousand 
words,  he  should  not  scamp  it  in  eighty  thousand, 
because  that  is  the  number  he  can  conveniently 
write  in  a  year  and  which  his  publisher  thinks  is 
the  suitable  amount  to  be  sold  for  six  shillings. 
There  is  no  reason  why  a  long  novel  should  not  have 
as  much  form  and  harmony,  concentration  and 
brilliance,  as  a  short  one — though  I  admit  that,  other 


things  being  equal,  it  would  naturally  be  more  diffi- 
cult to  impart  these  qualities  to  it.  But  I  do  not 
agree  that  "  brilliance  " — by  which  in  this  context 
I  understand  "  work  that  is  artistically  satisfactory  " 
— can  be  boring  in  however  great  a  quantity;  I  only 
wish  that  Miss  West  would  give  me  an  oppor- 
tunity of  finding  her  "  brilliance  "  so.  I  do  main- 
tain, to  conclude,  that  no  limit,  inferior  or  superior, 
can  be  set  in  principle  upon  fiction,  except,  in  each 
given  case,  in  relation  to  the  demands  of  the  particu- 
lar conception;  and  I  do  maintain  that  many  of  our 
novelists  do  habitually  ruin  their  conceptions  by  at- 
tempting, for  reasons  quite  other  than  artistic,  to 
treat  them  in  an  inadequate  space.  But  the  decision 
on  this  controversy  was  really  given  many  years  ago 
by  Mr.  Hilaire  Belloc,  when  someone  asked  him 
the  inane  question — of  how  many  words  a  novel 
should  consist.  "  It  depends,"  he  replied,  with  his ' 
customary  lucidity  and  directness  of  thought,  "  on 
which  the  words  are  and  what  their  order  is." 

EDWARD  SHANKS. 


To  One  Who  Woos  Fame  With  Me 


You  and  I  may  dream  of  roses, 

Flung 

Like  flowered  kisses 

Through  the  haze 

And  powdered  air — 

Showered 

At  our  feet 

Behind  the  candles  of  the  world. 

But  when  laughter  flows  away 

And  echoes  die, 

When  waving  candles  wane 

Like  wearied  lilies  in  the  dusk, 

When  shadows  fade  upon  the  painted  scene, 

And  voices 

Raised  for  soft  applause 

Are  tired  grown, 

Murmuring 

As  children's  voices  worn  at  play — 

What  scent  of  this 

Will  linger  with  the  days  for  us? 

What  fragrant  gift  remain 

Of  roses  carried  off, 

Of  garlands  withered  overnight, 

Dust 

With  the  laden  air 

That  midnight  left  behind? 

RALPH  BLOCK. 


THE  DIAL 


GEORGE   DONLIN 


JOHN    DEWEY 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor 

CLARENCE    BRITTEN 

In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program. 
THORSTEIN   VEBLEN 


HAROLD    STEARNS 


HELEN    MAROT 


N, 


ATIONAL  PROHIBITION  MAY  HAVE  BEEN  Dic- 
tated by  political,  social,  moral,  and  economic  con- 
siderations overwhelming  in  their  combination.  At 
the  same  time  it  would  be  folly  to  deny  that  the 
gain  in  the  easier  functioning  of  world  machinery 
has  involved  some  losses.  Morally,  for  example, 
the  curse  of  strong  drink  is  one  of  the  primitive 
enemies  that  have  beset  mankind,  like  the  forces  of 
nature  itself,  and  the  struggle  against  it  has  called 
into  existence  individual  qualities  of  initiative, 
energy,  persistence,  and  adroitness,  which  now,  it  is 
to  be  feared,  wll  be  diverted  from  the  assault 
against  demon  Rum  to  an  alliance  enabling  him  to 
make  a  diminished  stand  against  extinction.  The 
moral  life  as  affected  by  alcohol  will  be  so  thor- 
oughly guarded  by  state  control  that  all  the  lure 
of  adventure  and  the  chivalry  of  the  lost  cause  will 
pass  to  the  other  side.  No  less  will  there  be  occa- 
sion to  mark  the  loss  to  civilization  through  the 
banishment  of  one  of  the  elements  of  culture,  an 
element  be  it  noted  that  alone  saves  one  of  the  five 
senses  for  the  higher  uses  of  life.  That  which  dis- 
tinguishes the  nobler  from  the  baser  senses  is  doubt- 
less their  capacity  for  refinement,  for  being  educated 
to  keenness  of  perception  and  discrimination.  Now 
wine,  it  is  fair  to  say,  is  the  only  medium  capable 
of  affording  this  training  and  refinement  to  the 
sense  of  taste.  It  is  true  that  there  is  tea,  which 
fulfills  the  same  function  for  the  oriental,  and  one 
recalls  the  story  of  a  forest  ranger  whri  could  dis- 
tinguish among  eleven  morsels  of  venison  the  part 
of  the  animal  from  which  each  was  taken;  but  in  the 
long  run  it  is  only  alcohol  that  appeals  to  the  taste 
of  the  occidental  in  sufficiently  exciting  form  to  con- 
stitute a  motive  and  an  end  to  intensive  cultivation. 
And  this  culture  has  its  phases,  pure,  ornate,  gro- 
tesque. The  taste  of  the  amateur  of  vintage  wines 
represents  y:he  classical  phase;  the  morbid  fancy  of 
the  connoisseur  of  liqueurs  and  the  inventor  of 
pousse  cafes  marks  the  grotesque.  It  was  the  hero  of 
A  Rebours  who  invented  for  himself  an  organ  of 
which  the  notes  were  liqueurs  to  be  discharged  in 
drops  against  his  palate  like  musical  notes  against 
his  ear  drums,  and  from  which  he  drew  palatal 
symphonies,  pastoral  and  military,  humorous,  pas- 
sionate, and  pathetic.  This  may  represent  a  degree 
of  organization  of  the  sense  of  taste  unthinkable  to 
the  ordinary  mind,  but  the  reenforcement  of  other 
senses,  especially  hearing,  afforded  by  that  of  taste 
is  within  the  experience  of  us  all.  There  is  a  divine 
congruity  between  Mozart's  symphonies  and  thin 


clear  Moselle  wine;  Beethoven  takes  on  a  lambent 
glow  in  conjunction  with  Burgundy;  and  the  degus- 
tation  of  Wagner  is  powerfully  aided  by  Munich 
beer.  The  direct  contribution  of  wine  to  artistic 
composition — especially  to  poetry — need  not  be 
dwelt  upon.  From  Anacreon  to  W.  E.  Henley 
wine  has  been  one  of  the  catholic  sources  of  inspira- 
tion to  the  poetry  of  pleasure.  But  this  is  after  all, 
an  ancillary  service.  The  .highest  value  of  the 
alcoholic  beverage  to  our  civilized  life  is  in  the  pos- 
sibility of  raising  a  whole  sense  from  its  lowly  posi- 
tion as  a  source  of  crude  pleasure  to  a  function  of 
high  discrimination  and  critical  penetration — in 
short,  to  a  rank  with  the  senses  which  furnish  the 
basis  of  the  fine  arts  and  the  material  of  culture. 

WHAT  is  THE  BACKGROUND  OF  CONTEMPORARY 
French  foreign  policy,  which  on  the  surface  appears 
nationalistic  jusqu'auboutiste  and  even  imperial- 
istic? It  is  considerably  easier  to  be  harsh  than  to 
be  comprehending.  We  should  first  try  to  under- 
stand as  sympathetically  as  possible  the  basic  French 
assumptions.  French  statesmen  are  not  thinking  of 
next  year  or  the  year  after,  but  of  the  twenty  and 
thirty  years  from  now.  And  when  they  think  of 
the  future  in  the  old  historical  concepts  of  the  past, 
have  they  not  legitimate  grounds  for  uneasiness? 
Consider :  France's  population  is  almost  stationary, 
Germany's  is  increasing  at  a  rapid  rate.  The 
French  frontier  is  long  and  comparatively  unpro- 
tected: English  and  American  troops  cannot  stay 
there  forever  as  a  defense.  Large  sections  of  their 
land  itself  have  been  devastated;  Germany  remains 
almost  intact.  The  French  debt  is  appalling,  and 
without  some  sort  of  reparation  they  face  bank- 
ruptcy— can  French  statesmen  be  expected  to  for- 
get that  they  won  the  war?  The  future  belongs 
to  the  industrially  and  commercially  strong,  but 
France  has  been  almost  wrecked  industrially,  and 
she  faces  the  attacks  of  a  future  keen  and  enter- 
prising competitor.  These  are  the  unpalatable  facts 
which  frighten  French  statesmen.  Their  motto 
has  naturally  become  "  Safety  first."  They  are 
trying  to  incorporate  in  the  peace  terms  conditions 
which  will  hold  Germany  in  check  forever.  Hence 
the  reason  for  four  cardinal  policies,  which  if  carried 
out  literally  will  destroy  any  chances  for  a  real 
League  of  Nations.  First,  the  strengthening 
of  the  reactionary  parties  in  Poland,  in  the  belief 
that  a  strong,  nationalistic  Poland  will  act  as  a 
buffer  against  any  German  ambitions  in  the  East. 


198 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


Second,  the  encouragement  of  extravagant  Czecho- 
slovak claims,  for  the  same  reason.  Third,  hos- 
tility to  the  incorporation  of  German  Austria  with 
Germany,  irrespective  of  the  wishes  of  the  people, 
because  the  prospect  of  a  greater  Germany  appalls 
France.  Fourth,  the  annexation  of  the  Saar  valley 
because  such  an  annexation  will  weaken  Germany 
permanently.  All  these  policies,  exactly  as  the 
Russian  and  indemnity  policies,  spring  from  this 
basic  conviction  that  France  must  be  protected.  It 
is  understandable,  but  it  is  folly.  Surely  the  French 
statesmen  might  learn  one  fundamental  lesson  from 
the  history  which  they  read  so  assiduously — the 
lesson  that  guarantees  which  are  based  on  force  and 
not  on  justice  are  in  the  long  run  worth  precisely 
nothing.  Worse:  ultimately  such  guarantees  pro- 
voke reprisals,  the  cost  of  which  is  greater  than  any 
benefits  accruing  from  the  original  guarantees.  The 
worst  possible  misfortune  that  could  befall  France 
today  is  that  the  policies  now  advocated  by  French 
statesmen  should  succeed.  France  is  helpless  and 
her  future  hopeless  if  today  she  sets  the  stage  for 
a  future  war  of  "  revanche."  She  cannot  endure 
another  war  like  the  present.  She  cannot  be  con- 
fident that  she  will  have  the  same  Allies,  whatever 
may  be  the  accord  among  them  t6day.  She  would 
in  all  likelihood  emerge  from  it  shattered  and 
broken.  France's  real  protection  lies  in  the  inter- 
national guarantees  of  an  effective  League  of  Na- 
tions. For  most  other  nations,  the  League  offers 
the  possibility  of  avoiding  the  waste  and  expense 
of  future  wars.  But  for  France,  quite  literally,  the 
League  offers  her  only  opportunity  for  any  con- 
siderable nationalistic  survival.  It  is  pathetic  that 
the  one  great  nation  most  in  need  of  the  League 
should  today,  through  whatever  mistaken  human 
motives,  be  most  skeptical  of  its  value. 


E: 


ts  M 

~»XPERIENCE     HAS     AMPLY     SHOWN     THAT     TO 

treat  the  political  prisoner  like  the  common 
criminal  does  not  deprive  him  of  the  sympathies  of 
those  who  agree  with  him  politically,  but  may 
rather  endear  him  further  to  them  and  at  any  rate 
serve  to  embitter  their  feelings  and  stimulate  them 
to  unlawful  reprisals." .  So  wrote  James  Bryce 
some  thirty  years  ago.  And  on  the  whole  Europe 
has  learned  the  lesson  of  experience.  When  the 
Dublin  leaders  in  the  Sinn  Fein  rebellion  were  con- 
fined they  were  treated  as  political  prisoners,  and 
the  English  government  has  granted  amnesty  to 
most  of  these  Irishmen,  although  in  many  cases  the 
charge  was  active  rebellion  and  homicide.  When 
Herve  was  imprisoned  in  France  he  was  placed  in 
a  separate  prison  for  political  prisoners,  (as  Caillaux 
is  today)  ;  he  was  allowed  to  write  articles  and 
continue  his  position  as  editor  of  a  French  journal. 
In  Italy  the  status  of  the  political  prisoner  is  fully 
recognized.  Moreover,  the  Italians  have  their  own 
peculiar  method  of  liberating  such  offenders.  When 
Cipriani  was  imprisoned  in  1892  the  Italian  people 


elected  him  to  Parliament  and  the  Government  was 
forced  to  free  him.  Likewise  in  1894  Dr.  Nicola 
Barbato,  tried  for  treason  and  serving  a  thirty-year 
sentence,  was  elected  to  Parliament  and  released 
from  prison  in  eighteen  months.  During  the  pres- 
ent war  most  European  governments  have  shown  a 
wisdom  and  moderation  in  their  handling  of  the 
political  prisoner  which  put  to  shame  our  own  bar- 
baric and  savage  treatment  of  anyone  who  dis- 
agrees with  the  majority  view  of  the  moment.  For 
example,  no  European  government  has  sentenced  a 
political  offender  for  more  than  five  years.  Pericat — 
called  the  Bill  Haywood  of  France — was  sentenced 
to  five  years,  and  he  has  been  released  since  the 
armistice  along  with  sixty  other  such  offenders. 
Menotti  Serrati,  editor  of  L'Avanti,  who  in  June, 
1917,  led  the  riots  of  Torino  which  lasted  seven 
days,  was  tried  by  a  military  tribunal  and  given 
only  three  years.  Furthermore,  Italy  has  repealed 
the  "  Decreto  Sacchi,"  a  law  imposing  a  two-year 
sentence  on  Socialists  who  urged  refusal  to  pay 
taxes,  and  all  persons  imprisoned  under  the  law 
have  been  freed  and  those  under  indictment  dis- 
missed. In  England,  members  of  all  parties,  con- 
servative as  well  as  radical,  "are  demanding  a  gen- 
eral amnesty  for  political  prisoners,  and  among  the 
signers  of  the  petition  are  such  men  as  Viscount 
Bryce,  Viscount  Morley,  and  Arthur  Henderson. 
The  contrast  between  European  and  American 
treatment  of  political  prisoners  is  too  humiliating 
to  need  emphasis.  But  there  is  one  aspect  of  the 
matter  that  we  are  inclined  to  overlook.  If  public 
opinion  in  this  country  is  so  sluggish  or  so  intimi- 
dated as  to  remain  indifferent  concerning  the  more 
than  two  thousand  political  prisoners  now  in  our 
jails,  European  public  opinion  will  not.  Unless  we 
soon  revert  to  our  traditional  regard  for  freedom  of 
conscience,  European  liberals  may  well  be  moved 
to  form  a  protest  committee,  similar  to  the  British 
Protest  Committee  of  1913,  who  by  a  year  of  ag- 
gressive propaganda  succeeded  in  securing  a  general 
amnesty  for  Portugal's  political  prisoners  (among 
them  many  Syndicalists  and  Socialists).  When 
John  McLean  was  released  from  Peterhead  Prison 
he  wrote  a  letter  to  President  Wilson  in  wtiich  he 
said: 

The  Working  Class  Democracy  of  Britain  forced  the 
Cabinet  to  release  me  from  Peterhead  Prison  where  I 
was  undergoing  a  five-year  sentence  under  the  D.  O.  R.  A. 
.  .  .  You  are  in  Europe  to  negotiate  a  "  Democratic 
Peace  "  as  a  democrat.  If  so,  I  wish  you  to  prove  your 
sincerity  by  releasing  Tom  Mooney,  Billings,  Debs,  Hay- 
wood,  and  all  the  others  at  present  in  prison  as  a  con- 
sequence of  their  fight  for  Working  Class  Democracy. 
The  Clyde  Workers  will  send  me  as  one  of  their  Dele- 
gates to  the  coming  Peace  Conference  and  there,  inside 
and  outside  the  conference  hall,  1  shall  challenge  your 
U.  S.  A.  delegates,  if  my  friends  are  not  released.  After 
that  I  shall  tour  America  until  you  do  justice  to  the  real 
American  champions  of  Democracy. 

Will  it  not  be  ironical  justice,  if  we  find  ourselves 
viewed  by  Europe  with  the  same  pitying  regard 
that  we  so  lately  held  for  the  German  people? 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


199 


VJ  ONFIRMATION       OF      THE       WORST       SUSPICIONS 

as  to  the  political  futility  and  military  failure  of 
the  ill-starred  Allied  expedition  to  North  Russia 
has  been  given  in  striking  manner  by  the  corre- 
spondent of  the  Chicago  Tribune  in  a  cable  dispatch 
from  Vard,  Norway,  dated  February  i,  1919.  The 
correspondent  explains  why  he  is  sending  his  dis- 
patch from  Norway  in  vigorous  and  bitter  terms: 

I  have  come  out  of  Russia  to  write  this.  The  censor- 
ship that  has  crawled  back  into  its  hole  in  most  of  the 
world  still  wears  the  iron  heel  of  war  days  in  the 
north.  The  American  public  has  been  fed  pretty  stories 
of  the  gentle  glories  of  this  "  help  Russia  "  expedition,  but 
the  facts  are  that  a  mess  has  been  stewed  and  has  been 
kept  for  the  cooks  themselves. 

The  principal  counts  in  the  indictment,  according  to 
this,  observer,  are:  that  it  has  failed  to  inspire 
confidence  and  loyalty;  that  in  the  minds  of  the 
soldiers  the  expedition  has  become  a  mere  fighting 
job  to  collect  Russia's  debt  to  Europe;  that  the 
original  commanders  turned  out  to  be  neither  diplo- 
mats nor  soldiers;  that  there  is  no  enthusiasm  even 
among  the  intelligent  Russians  in  the  north  to  assist 
the  Allies  and  fight  the  Bolsheviki ;  "  that  the 
beautiful  faith  of  the  Russians  in  America  is  break- 
ing under  the  manhandling  by  our  forces  under  the 
foreign  command."  As  an  example  of  "  man- 
handling"  by  our- troops  the  correspondent  cites  the 
instance  of  a  purely  political  strike  of  protest  by 
the  workingmen  of  Archangel,  where  our  men — 
always  under  foreign  command — were  used  for  the 
manning  of  the  street  cars,  in  a  word,  as  strike- 
breakers. It  is  not  a  pretty  report  which  the 
Tribune's  correspondent  gives,  but  there  is  no 
reason  to  doubt  its  authenticity.  He  supplies  a 
wealth  of  detail  about  the  war-weariness  of  the 
Allied  soldiers  and  about  the  utter  destruction  of 
their  faith  in  the  good  intentions  of  the  expedition. 
The  men  were  led  to  believe  that  they  were  to  be 
used  solely  to  police  the  city;  they  actually  found 
that  they  were  sent  hundreds  of  miles  inland  on 
foolish  and  wasteful  "  offensives,"  which  resulted 
only  in  retreats  and  loss  of  men.  They  were  led 
to  believe  that  they  were  to  protect  supplies  from 
the  Germans;  they  found  no  supplies  and  no  Ger- 
mans to  protect  them  from.  They  were  led  to  be- 
lieve that  they  would  be  welcomed  by  the  "  loyal  " 
Russians;  they  found  that  they  were  met  with  dis- 
trust and  that  most  of  the  natives  frankly  preferred 
the  tyranny  of  Moscow  to  the  tyranny  of  foreign 
bayonets.  In  fact,  the  entire  dispatch  gives  ir- 
refutable proof  of  the  truth  for  which  THE  DIAL 
has  long  been  contending — that  the  whole  Archangel 
adventure  is  a  disgraceful  and  imperialistic  bit  of 
brigandage  in  which  the  employment  of  American 
troops  is  humiliating  and  shameful.  There  is  evi- 
dence that  the  Paris  Conference  has  decided  defi- 
nitely to  -withdraw  Aljied  troops  from  Russia, 
recognizing  the  military  futility  of  the  whole  ex- 
pedition. And  the  quicker  we  get  out  of  Russia 
the  better  the  Russians  will  like  it. 


JL  HE  COUNTRY  HAS   BEEN   WAITING   FOR   MONTHS 

for  the  opinion  of  the  Supreme  Court  on  the  con- 
stitutionality of  the  Espionage  Act.  The  reason 
why  the  opinion  is  delayed  is  that  each  time  a  case 
is  about  to  reach  the  court  on  appeal  the  Depart- 
ment of  Justice  confesses  error,  or  requests  postpone- 
ment. This  has  happened  often  enough  to  raise 
the  question  whether  the  Department  is  itself  con- 
fident of  the  constitutionality  of  the  Act  under 
which  it  has  imprisoned  hundreds  of  men  and 
women.  There  is  no  question  of  the  terrific  blow 
to  the  prestige  of  the  government  in  general  and 
of  this  administration  in  particular  which  the  dis- 
covery of  the  unconstitutioriality  of  the  Act  would 
deal.  The  Act  was  passed  under  the  lash  and  spur 
of  the  President.  His  Department  of  Justice  has 
enforced  it  with  ruthlessness.  The  discovery  that 
men  and  women  now  undergoing  confinement  in 
loathsome  prisons  for  terms  of  ten  to  thirty  years 
have  been  deprived  of  their  freedom  without  due 
and  proper  process  of  law  will  fill  up  the  measure 
of  indignation  and  contempt  which  will  be  meted 
out  to  those  responsible  for  a  shameful  miscarriage 
of  justice.  This  possibility  is  another  reason  for 
insisting  on  the  repeal  of  the  Act  and  the  immedi- 
ate pardon  of  those  suffering  under  it.  Senator 
France  of  Maryland,  one  of  the  few  brave  Senators 
who  voted  against  the  Act  on  its  original  introduc- 
tion, has  introduced  a  bill  for  its  repeal.  It  will 
be  passed  if  the  public  demands  it. 

AT    WILL    BE    AGREED    THAT    PRESIDENT    WILSON'S 

choice  of  representatives  to  meet  the  Bolsheviki  was 
a  happy  one.  In  Professor  Herron,  Mr.  Wilson 
found  a  delegate  who  speaks,  or  at  least  under- 
stands, the  economic  language  of  the  men  whom  he 
is  sent  to  meet.  The  other  delegate,  Mr.  William 
A.  White,  of  Kansas,  can  be  trusted  as  can  few 
Americans,  not  to  make  a  fool  of  himself  or  his 
country.  His  reported  interview  on  his  appoint- 
ment contains  sound  sense  on  the  Russian  situation. 
It  reminds  one  of  the  words  of  Gamaliel  when  the 
Jews  were  in  doubt  what  to  do  with  the  Bolsheviki 
of  Jerusalem.  Said  Gamaliel:  "Ye  men  of  Israel, 
take  heed  to  yourselves  what  ye  intend  to  do  as 
touching  these  men.  .  .  Refrain  from  these  men 
and  let  them  alone.  For  if  this  counsel  or  this 
work  be  of  men  it  will  come  to  naught:  but  if  it 
be  of  God,  ye  cannot  overthrow  it;  lest  haply  ye 
be  found  to  fight  against  God."  The  Jews  took 
his  advice,  and  (like  "an  American  mob)  when 
they  had  beaten  up  the  apostles,  they  let  them  go. 


T 

AH 


HE  DlAL  APOLOGIZES  TO  MR.  GERALD  DU  MAURIER 

for  the  inadvertence  of  a  contributor  who,  in  its 
issue  of  January  25,  made  him  responsible  for  the 
play  An  Englishman's  Home.  The  author  of 
course  was  Major  Guy  du  Maurier,  the  actor- 
manager's  brother,  who  was  killed  in  1914. 


200 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


Foreign  Comment 

LONG  LIVE  THE  GERMAN  REPUBLIC  ! 

The  following  manifesto  appeared  originally  in 
the  Paris  paper  Humanite,  and  was  reprinted  in 
the  Berliner  Tageblatt,  from  which  (as  copied  in 
the  New  York  Staats  Zeitung)  we  translate,  as 
copies  of  Humanite  are  not  easy  to  acquire  in 
this  country: 

In  the  name  of  the  organized  French  working  class,  the 
united  workers  greet  the  German  Republic.  This  histori- 
cal crisis  must  signify  the  end  of  the  lordship  of  power 
and  the  beginning  of  responsibility  on  the  part  of  the 
people.  The  revolution  of  the  German  people  conditions 
the  attitude  of  the  working  classes  of  the  Allied  lands, 
who  now  more  than  ever  before  must  desire  from  their 
own  governments  that  peace  be  created  upon  the  founda- 
tions of  freedom  and  on  the  self-determination  of  peoples. 
Militarism  is  finally  defeated.  The  world  must  be  again 
rebuilt  on  new  international  principles,  and  the  rebuild- 
ing must  follow  on  the  basis  of  equality  for  all  people. 
The  working  classes  of  the  lands  of  the  Entente  face  a 
great  duty.  They  must  destroy  every  chauvinistic  move- 
ment and  not  permit  the  military  power  of  the  Entente, 
under  the  pretense  of  restoring  law  and  order,  to  attack 
the  new  regimes  in  Russia,  Austria  Hungary,  and  Ger- 
many. We  have  certainty  that  the  international  power  of 
the  workers — which  ultimately  will  be  recreated — will 
conquer.  We  must  especially  guard  what  freedom  we 
have  won.  Our  first  demand  is  full  amnesty  for  all.  The 
end  of  the  military  imperialistic  adventures  must  give  us 
full  spiritual  and  industrial  freedom,  without  which  a 
social  democracy  cannot  exist. 

Humanite  of  another  date  appeared  with  a  great 
flaring  headline:  "Citizens  lay  down  your  arms, 
the  German  Republic  lives!" 

THE  LAST  PARADOX 

SIR  :  The  following  passage  from  a  letter  recently 
received  from  Paris  will,  I  think,  interest  your 
readers  as  it  has  me.  The  writer,  a  Frenchman  of 
high  civil  position,  volunteered  at  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  and  served  four  years  in  the  trenches,  being 
wounded  and  also  suffering  from  fever.  He  is  one 
of  the  many  men  "  muris  par  1'epreuve  terrible  de 
la  guerre  elle-meme,"  who  has  won  the  right  .to  be 
heard  on  peace: 

Voyez-vous,  mon  ami,  1'un  des  paradoxes  de  cette 
guerre,  le  derniere  peut-etre  et  le  plus  gros  de  conse- 
quences: C'est  qu'au  moment  d'etablir  le  statut  du  monde 
issu  de  cette  guerre,  aucune  des  democraties  victorieuses 
n'appellera  et  ne  songe  meme  d'appeller  un  de  ces 
hommes  muris  par  1'epreuve  terrible  de  la  guerre  elle- 
meme  un  de  ceux  qui  dans  la  solitude  morale  des  tran- 
chees,  etait  soutenu  par  le  reve  magnifique  d'un  avenir 
meilleur  et  pensait  qu'un  tel  reve  justifait  tous  les  sacri- 
fices. 

Combien  sont  morts  avec  cette  esperance!  Les  autres, 
les  survivants  n'ont  actuellement  aucun  moyen  de  se  faire 
entendre  des  puissance  en  exercise. 

Livres  aux  seuls  professionels  de  la  diplomatic  et  de 
la  politique  pour  lesquels  le  passe  qu'ils  nous  ont  fait  ne 
saurait  servir  de  recommendation,  vous  comprenez  que  je 
ne  sais  guere  rassure.  .  . 

Neither  the  voice  of  the  dead  who  died  sustained 
by  "  the  magnificent  dream  of  a  better  future,"  nor 
the  voice  of  their  living  comrades  who  "  in  the 
moral  solitude  of  the  trenches  thought  that  such  a 


dream  justified  all  the  sacrifices  "  will  be  heard  in 
the  conference  hall  of  the  Quai  d'Orsay.  No! 
Milner,  Bonar  Law,  Balfour,  Sonino,  et  al — those 
"  professionals  of  diplomacy  and  of  politics  for 
whom  the  past  that  they  have  made  for  us  hardly 
serves  for  a  recommendation,"  have  locked  them- 
selves away  in  the  customary  secrecy  of  the  profes- 
sion from  the  eyes  of  the  world  to  organize  that 
new  world,  which  others  died  and  suffered  to  give 

birth  to. 

ROBERT  HERRICK. 

University  of  Chicago. 

Communications 

THE  TEST  OF  DEMOCRACY 

SIR:  Those  who  have  watched  President  Wil- 
son's varied  career  with  regard  to  the  woman  suf- 
frage question  will  read  with  indignation  but  no 
surprise  his  reply  to  the  delegation  of  French  work- 
ing women  who  made  the  reasonable  and  timely  re- 
quest that  woman  suffrage  be  included  among  the 
points  to  be  settled  by  the  Peace  Conference. 

If  the  war  was  fought  for  democracy  (as  he  said 
it  was)  and  if  Mr.  Wilson  really  cared  about  jus- 
tice to  women,  he  would  have  answered  to  the 
effect  that  a  minimum  standard  of  democracy  should 
be  required  of  the  countries  which  are  to  enter  the 
League  of  Nations,  and  that  no  nation  would  be 
considered  eligible  until  it  has  fully  enfranchised 
its  women.  But  such  explicitness  and  direct  deal- 
ing is  not  in  Mr.  Wilson's  line  and  he  merely  re- 
plied that  a  Conference  of  Peace  settling  the  rela- 
tions of  nations  with  each  other  would  be  "  regarded 
as  going  very  much  outside  its  province  if  it  under- 
took to  dictate  to  the  several  states  what  their  in- 
ternal policy  should  be  " ;  and  then  bethinking  him- 
self that  this  stand  was  not  consistent  with  the 
recognition  to  be  accorded  to  Labor  by  the  Con- 
ference, expressed  a  vague  hope  that  some  occasion 
might  be  offered  for  the  suffragists  to  present  their 
case.  He  then  proceeded  to  smooth  things  over  by 
paying  the  women  of  France  some  elaborate  compli- 
ments, using  the  sentimental  platitudes  and  Spen- 
cerian  copybook  maxims  in  which  his  vocabulary  is 
so  rich :  his  "  heart,"  his  "  feelings,"  "  nerves  of 
sympathy,"  his  "  passion  for  democracy " — stock 
phrases  the  value  of  which  foreign  nations  will  soon 
learn  to  estimate  as  they  are  estimated  in  this 
country.  As  if  graceful  flattery  from  him  or  anyone 
could  recompense  women  for  the  agony  they  have 
endured  in  this  terrible  war,  or  act  as  a  substitute 
for  the  justice  they  are  demanding. 

Politicians  have  long  been  accustomed  to  reward 
those  who,-  have  suffered  and  sacrificed  in  two  ways 
—the  men  with  honors,  titles,  fortunes,  pensions, 
high  offices,  and  other  substantial  considerations; 
women  with  -praise,  flattery,  expressions  of  apprecia- 
tion, words,  words,  words!  .As  Hamlet  pointed  out 
this  is  to  be  "  promise-fed,"  "  air-crammed  " — and 
even  poultry  could  not  be  fed  after  this  fashion. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


2OI 


As  for  the  President's  further  statement  that  suf- 
frage is  a  "  domestic  question  for  the  several  na- 
tions," one  would  think  he  might  be  somewhat  chary 
of  that  topic  inasmuch  as  it  was  the  Democratic 
Party  which  killed  the  Federal  Suffrage  Amendment 
in  the  Senate — a  slaughter  to  which  Mr.  Wilson 
largely  contributed  through  his  election  attacks  upon 
pro-suffrage  Senators  and  his  hearty  support  of  the 
Anti-Senators.  To  cite  one  instance  among  many, 
last  spring  at  the  primaries  (the  only  place  where 
a  candidate  can  be  defeated  in  the  solidly  Demo- 
cratic South)  Mr.  Wilson  successfully  bent  all  his 
efforts  to  defeat  the  senior  Senator  from  Mississippi 
on  the  ground  that  the  latter  did  not  support  the 
Administration  policies  though  Mr.  Vardaman  was 
in  favor  of  the  Federal  Amendment  and  voted  for 
it  in  the  Senate.  Another  flagrant  case  of  bad  faith 
with  the  confiding  suffragists  who  looked  to  the 
President  to  put  their  bill  through  was  his  refusal 
to  appeal  to  the  people1  of  Tennessee  to  vote  against 
Senator  Shields  of  that  state  after  the  latter  had 
contemptuously  disregarded  Mr.  Wilson's  request 
that  he  should  support  the  Federal  Amendment. 
Mr.  Shields'  opponent  was  an  upholder  of  all  the 
President's  policies,  including  woman  suffrage,  but 
this  brought  him  no  help  from  the  White  House. 

When  the  November  elections  drew  near  Mr. 
Wilson  threw  suffrage  to  the  wolves  and  came  out 
in  hotly-partisan  support  of  antis  and  against  suf- 
fragists. We  are  forced  to  conclude  that  if  the 
Federal  Amendment  be  one  of  Mr.  Wilson's  poli- 
cies, it  is  only  between  elections,  like  the  man  who 
was  a  "  vegetarian  between  meals  ".  Is  it  any  won- 
der that  when  the  vote  in  the  Senate  was  taken 
immediately  after  the  Prsident's  magnificent  speech, 
the  suffrage  majority  was  still  two  votes  short? 
The  party  members  must  have  listened  to  Mr.  Wil- 
son's eloquence  with  their  tongues  in  their  cheeks, 
evidently  confident  that  they  could  oppose  the  Presi- 
dent's wishes  with  impunity  and  that  for'  once  the 
party  whip  would  not  be  cracked  over  their  heads 
by  the  party  leader,  as  it  had  been  on  so  many  occa- 
sions when  they  had  tried  to  defy  the  President  on 
a  subject  which  he  really  had  at  heart. 

So  women  are  standing  in  front  of  the  White 
House  burning  the  eloquent  phrases  that  come  to 
us  from  across  the  seas  where  Mr.  Wilson  is  still 
talking  about  freedom,  liberty,  justice,  and  democ- 
racy. The  prisons  in  Washington  are  crowded  with 
suffragists  from  every  state  in  the  Union,  who  have 
broken  no  law,  whose  only  offense  is  that  they  have 
asked  for  deeds  not  words.  On  February  15  the 
Prison  Special  went  out  from  Washington  bearing 
to  the  far  South  and  West  the  just  demand  that 
the  Democratic  slackers  in  the  Senate  be. required 
to  furnish  forthwith  the  one  vote  necessary  to  pass 
the  bill  through  the  Senate  before  this  Congress 
adjourns  on  Mar<»h  4,  and  thus  tardily  give  justice 
and  liberty  to  American  women. 

MARY  WINSOR. 

Haverford,  Pennsylvania. 


SOVIET  RUSSIA  AND  THE  AMERICAN 
CONSTITUTION 

SIR:  I  wish  to  make  a  correction  in  the  illumi- 
nating article  by  Lincoln  Colcord  [in  THE  DIAL  for 
December  28,  1918]  entitled  Soviet  Russia  and  the 
American  Revolution,  in  line  with  the  author's  ad- 
mission at  the  outset  that  "the  drawing  of  historical 
analogies  is  a  perilous  undertaking."  In  his  com- 
parison he  confuses  the  American  Revolutionary 
leaders  with  the  framers  of  the  American  Constitu- 
tion. He  then  says  that  the  framers  "certainly 
strove  to  construct  an  instrument  by  virtue  of  which 
the  actual  majority  of  the  electorate  should  control 
the  government.  They  certainly  strove  to  render 
impossible  the  domination  of  a  ruling  class,  to  do 
away  with  the  artificial  complexities  of  politics,  and 
to  bring  every  function  of  government  within  the 
grasp  and  comprehension  of  the  whole  electorate." 
Now  this  would  do  very  well  for  the  Revolutionary 
leaders,  but  the  Convention  of  1787  was  a  counter- 
revolutionary movement  born  out  of  the  fear  of  the 
recent  "excess  of  democracy."  The  framers  of  the 
Constitution  asserted  as  their  supreme  aim  the  pro- 
tection of  property  rights;  the  doctrine  that  "prop- 
erty is  the  main  object  of  government"  was  repeat- 
edly declared  and  never  seriously  disputed.  As 
Woodrow  Wilson  says:  "The  federal  government 
was  not  by  intention  a  democratic  government.  In 
plan  and  structure  it  had  been  meant  to  check  the 
sweep  and  power  of  popular  majorities.  .  .  The 
government  had,  in  fact,  been  originated  and  organ- 
ized upon  the  initiative  and  primarily  in  the  interest 
of  the  mercantile  and  wealthy  classes.  Originally 
conceived  in  an  effort  to  accommodate  commercial 
disputes  between  the  states,  it  had  been  urged  to 
adoption  by  a  minority,  under  the  concerted  and 
aggressive  leadership  of  able  men  representing  a  rul- 
ing class."  (Division  and  Reunion,  page  12.) 

ARTHUR  C.  COLE. 

Urbana,  Illinois. 

WHEN  DREAMS  COME  TRUE 

SIR:  Much  of  the  criticism  that  is  being  meted 
out  against  the  Presidential  program  of  peace  is 
based  upon  the  unwarranted  assumption  that  man 
is  essentially  a  practical  being.  We  hear  stated 
again  and  again,  "  The  League  of  Nations  is  a 
fine  idealistic  scheme,  but  it  is  not  practical." 

It  is  not  very  evident  why  the  lack  of  practicality 
should  cause  concern  to  man,  the  fabric  of  whose 
life  is  built,  not  on  practicality,  but  on  dreams.  To 
live  at  all  as  human  beings  is  to  be  impractical. 
Our  whole  civilization  we  owe  to  the  impracticality 
of  man;  where  his  work  has  endured,  it  has  looked 
far  beyond  his  practical  needs  and  the  demands  of 
the  moment.  The  epicure,  eating,  drinking,  and 
making  merry,  is  your  practical  being.  The  wild 
beast  is  essentially  practical;  he  contents  himself 
with  his  full  meal  today,  taking  no  thought  for  the 
mvstical  morrow.  But  man  builds  for  the  morrow; 


202 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


his  sowing  and  reaping,  his  planning  and  building, 
point  toward  the  future,  the  unknown,  the  non- 
existent. Having  only  today,  holding  only  one 
moment  at  a  time  in  his  hand,  his  bold  faith  plans 
for  the  years  and  the  centuries. 

The  typical  American  prides  himself  upon  be- 
ing a  practical  man;  he  does  not  recognize  that  in 
one  sense  to  continue  to  live  at  all  is  to  stand  con- 
victed of  being  impractical.  He  grumbles  about 
high  prices  and  low  wages,  about  poor  crops  and 
devastating  weather,  when  he  himself  if  he  were 
really  practical  and  sincere  in  his  querulousness 
"  might  his  quietus  make  with  a  bare  bodkin." 

It  is  the  vision  of  the  unknown,  of  the  unseen, 
which  alike  holds  man  back  and  drives  him  forward. 

With  prices  high,  and  war  and  pestilence  raging, 
it  would  seem  the  height  of  folly  to  fall  in  love, 
and  the  summit  of  impracticality  to  marry.  When 
it  is  difficult  for  one  person  to  live,  plain  arithmetic, 
the  most  practical  of  sciences,  proclaims  that  it  is  at 
least  twice  as  difficult  for  two  people  to  live,  yet 
the  majority  of  mankind  commit  just  that  folly, 
and  insure  that  human  living  shall  continue  along 
the  line  of  impracticality. 

It  looks  as  if  men  will  achieve  a  League  of  Na- 
tions, not  because  it  satisfies  those  who  call  them- 
selves practical,  but  because  such  a  league  is  con- 
sistent with  man's  real  needs  and  the  spirit  of  hu- 
man living.  After  all,  man  lives,  and  moves  and 
has  his  being,  when  he  is  most  human,  in  faith, 
in  the  world  of  imagination;  and  men  achieve 
dreams  because,  in  truth,  they  themselves  are  "  such 
stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of." 


M.  T.  SEYMOUR. 


Urbana,  Illinois. 


MR.  UNTERMEYER  RAISES  His  SHIELD 

SIR:  I  was  both  pained  surprised  at  the  contents 
as  well  as  the  tone  of  Arturo  Giovannitti's  expostu- 
latory  letter  in  THE  DIAL  of  February  8  concern- 
ing my  review  of  Max  Eastman's  Colors  of  Life. 
An  attack  from  any  other  quarter  would  have 
troubled  me  less.  Giovannitti  compels-  my  deep 
admiration;  to  Max  Eastman  I  bear  the  compli- 
cated relation  of  admirer,  fellow  worker,  and  friend. 
This  fondness  embraces  most  of  his  activities.  I 
have  an  abiding  respect  for  Eastman  the  person,  the 
propagandist,  the  pamphleteer,  the  provocative  para- 
grapher — not,  unfortunately,  for  Eastman  the  poet. 
Personally,  I  wish  I  were  a  blind  worshipper  of  the 
well-written  if  often  flavorless  verse  that  Eastman 
indites  between  his  pungent  and  penetrating  edi- 
torials. But  much  as  I  am  stirred  by  his  clean-cut 
and  lively  prose,  I  am  (and  it  is  possibly  one  of  my 
many  limitations)  unmoved  by  most  of  his  metrical 
lines  which,  unlike  his  ametrical  ones,  seem  the 
result  of  a  desire  to  write  rather  than  a  burning 
need  to  create. 

So,  when  I  took  up  Colors  of  Life,  it  seemed 
natural  to  me  that  the  prose  preface  contained  much 


more  Eastman  than  the  proper  and  undistinguished 
blank  verse  of  The  Thought  of  Protagoras,  the 
pseudo-Elizabethan  fancy  of  A  Praiseful  Complaint, 
and  the  mere  pleasantness  of  such  lyrics  as  Autumn 
Light,  Hours,  and  others.  What  struck  me  as 
the  most  valuable  portions  of  the  little  volume  were 
the  unrhymed  parts  in  which  Eastman's  natural 
gifts  as  philosophic  essayist  were  displayed  at  their 
best.  And  when  .  one  considers  that  this  book  of 
little  more  than  one  hundred  pages  contains  over 
thirty  pages  of  prose,  my  emphasis  was  not  quite  so 
inconsistent  nor  so  "  unconventional "  as  Mr. 
Giovannitti  suggests. 

Criticism  is  not  always  the  impersonal  and  Olymp- 
ian affair  that  it  is  supposed  to  be.  My  own  articles 
bear  their  personal  bias  obviously;  they  may  even 
err  on  the  side  of  an  emotional  conviction.  Still, 
I  think  it  rather  unlikely  that  a  review  of  a  book 
written  by  a  man  I  am  anxious  to  praise  would 
degenerate  into  a  parade  of  prejudices — particularly 
non-existent  ones.  j^^  UNTERMEYER. 

New  York  City. 

BANISHMENT  OR  DEATH 

SIR:  Is  not  the  time  ripe  for  the  establishment 'of 
a  penal  farm  for  our  intellectuals?  Somewhere  in 
Montana,  perhaps ;  however,  upon  reflection,  Alaska, 
for  reasons  of  climate  and  isolation,  seems  to  be 
far  the  better  place.  In  the  good  old  days  in  Russia 
there  was  a  Siberia  that  served  the  purpose  for 
Russia.  If  the  intellectual  escaped  Siberia,  he  had 
to  fly  the  country  altogether.  Now,  of  course,  all 
the  intellectuals  have  flocked  back  again,  and  they 
are  causing  no  end  of  trouble.  Is  America  going 
to  be  so  short-sighted  as  to  dilly-dally  with  her 
intellectuals?  Quick  action  is  necessary.  We  must 
not  only  prevent  an  exodus  of  these  agitators  to 
Russia;  we  must  put  them  all  in  a  place  in  this 
country  where  we  can  keep  an  eye  on  them. 

Did  not  Bernard  Shaw,  in  his  preface  to  Major 
Barbara,  give  us  solemn  warning  as  many  as  four- 
teen years  ago?  Did  he  not  throw  up  his  hands 
and  admit  by  asserting  the  contrary,  that  all  his 
ideas,  like  the  ideas  of  his  fellows,  came  from  beetle- 
browed  Scandinavians  and  other  continental}  unde- 
sirables? Was  it  not  clear  to  us  all,  when  Ibsen 
was  introduced  to  us  a  generation  ago,  that  America's 
future  welfare  lay  in  the  cultivation  of  things  to 
which  the  cultivation  of  ideas  was  quite  opposed? 
Did  we  not  all  rise  up  as  one  man  in  opposition  to 
ideas?  The  time  was  ripe  then  to  squelch  the  in- 
tellectuals forever.  Now  is  our  last  chance.  The 
whole  country  is  clamoring  for  action.  And  the 
bagging  of  the  game  will  be  mere  child's  play;  for 
these  intellectuals — many  of  them — are  becoming 
regular  dare-devils,  speaking  and  writing  in  the 
open,  and  those  who  do  not  speak  and  write  can  be 
easily  identified  by  their  moody  and  melancholy 
appearance.  £.  Q  Ross. 

Miami  University,  Oxford,  Ohio. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


203 


Notes  on  New  Books 

BIRTH.     By  Zona  Gale.     Macmillan;  $1.60. 

It  is  no  slight  accomplishment  to  catch  the  flavor 
of  folk,  to  render  the  reality  which  lies  beneath  the 
flat  surface  of  American  village  existence,  but  that 
is  what  Zona  Gale  has  achieved  hei^e.  Sometimes 
by  a  flash  of  insight,  sometimes  by  a  mere  turn  of 
phrase,  she  illuminates  the  dullest  of  incidents  so 
that  they  take  on  dignity  and  significance.  It  is  this 
quality — the  art,  with  none  of  the  tedium  of  taking 
pains — which  lends  most  value  to  this  story.-  The 
little  town  of  Burage,  which  lies  not  so  far  from 
Chicago,  is  realized  in  all  its  tiresome  detail,  all  its 
emphatic  trivialities,  and  yet  the  reader's  sympathy 
is  held  and  his  interest  fed  by  the  keenness  of  obser- 
vation. One  gets  a  fresh  insight  into  the  uneventful 
routine  of  lives  whose  daily  high-water  mark  of 
animation  is  a  going  downtown  to  the  postoffice — 
"  dusty,  fly-specked  little  hole,  where  the  state  func- 
tioned as  precisely  as  under  hardwood  and  marble; 
and,  in  their  tiny  glass  coffins,  marked  with  worn 
red  letters,  were  popped  missives  of  death,  of  life, 
of  love,  of  unspeakable  commonplace." 

It  is  against  this  background  that  the  gentle  life 
tragedy  of  a  wistful,  indecisive  little  idealist,  Mar- 
shall Pitt,  is  drawn — a  figure  which  has  no  flourish, 
no  positive  attractiveness,  and  is  yet  presented 
with  a  penetrating  sympathy.  Zona  Gale  plays  a 
bit  off  key  when  she  sends  him  to  Alaska,  for  there 
is  not  enough  adventure  in  his  soul  to  carry  him  that 
far  from  Burage,  but  for  the  most  part  she  draws 
a  consistent,  living  character.  Marshall  Pitt's  son 
is  not  so  successfully  rendered ;  he  is  too  palpably 
shaped  to  the  needs  of  the  novel — and  its  title.  But 
it  is  the  father  who  is  the  real  pivot  of  interest,  and 
the  author  has  invested  him  richly  with  the  frail 
garments  of  humanity. 

THE  POETRY  OF  GEORGE  EDWARD  WOOD- 
BERRY:  A  Critical  Study.  By  Louis  V. 
Ledoux.  Dodd,  Mead;  $1. 

In  this  small  volume  Mr.  Ledoux  gives  a  sym- 
pathetic critical  study  of  a  poet  who  should  be  much 
better  known.  Professor  Woodberry  is  no  doubt 
among  the  number  who  are  admired  greatly  if  at  all, 
but  the  critic  has  been  careful  not  to  express  his 
admiration  in  superlatives.  He  aims  rather  to 
analyze  the  poems  than  to  estimate  the  poet's  place 
in  American  letters.  Intense  spirituality,  a  pas- 
sionate loyalty  to  the  ideal  with  an  almost  equal 
devotion  to  the  world  of  sense,  a  growing  breadth 
of  interest  and  sympathy,  the  love  of  children,  an 
unusually  keen  appreciation  of  color  and  light,  and  a 
growing  perception  of  the  complete  interrelation  of 
all  manifestations  of  the  "life-spirit"  are  the  char- 
acteristics which  have  most  deeply  impressed  the 
critic.  "It  is,"  he  states,  "the  passion  in  Mr.  Wood- 
berry,  the  intensity  of  his  spirituality,  the  persist- 
ence and  conviction  with  which  he  clings  to  the 


ideal  that,  with  the  peculiar  iridescence  of  his  style, 
give  to  his  poetry  its  distinctive  value." 

The  book  abounds  in  excellently  selected  quota- 
tions from  Mr.  Woodberry 's  poetry.  To  one  who 
is  making  a  quick  survey  of  American  literature, 
but  who  wishes  to  know  a  poet's  work  more  inti- 
mately than  is  possible  from  studying  a  list  of 
characteristics,  these  quotations  will  have  a  value 
apart  from  that  of  substantiating  Mr.  Ledoux's 
analysis.  For  characteristics  do  not  make  a  poem. 
A  convenient  bibliography  is  appended. 

TIN     COWRIE     DASS.       By     Henry     Milncr 
Rideout.     Duffield;  $1.25. 

In  Mr.  Rideout's  latest '  story  is  none  of  the 
usual  claptrap  of  the  lost  heir  of  the  kingdom  tale. 
Tin  Cowrie  Dass,  in  his  white  clothes,  pulling  the 
greasy  thong  to  move  the  linen  fan  above  the 
manager  in  a  small  Hindu  bank,  is  an  engaging 
and  real  character;  his  adventures  follow  with 
romantic  inevitability.  Mr.  Rideout  manages  his 
narrative  with  skilful  suggestion  of  background, 
people,  and  incident,  until  the  comic-opera  ending 
possesses  illusion  enough  to  be  entertaining.  Tin 
Cowrie  Dass,  consistent,  calmly  heroic,  offers  him- 
self to  the  reader  for  a  satisfactory  hour  of  ad- 
venturing. The  story  is  slight,  but  the  dexterity 
with  which  Mr.  Rideout  presents  it  compensates 
for  its  lack  of  elaborate  plot. 

JUNGLE  PEACE.     By  William  Beebe.     Holt: 

$1-75. 

It  is  the  true  scientist  who  can  run  the  risk  of 
being  imaginative— Mr.  Beebe's  charming  book  is 
admirable  proof  of  that.  The  timid  naturalist  or 
the  too  frequent  dessicated  product  of  the  labora- 
tory will  protect  himself  from  criticism  by  the  main- 
tenance of  a  carefully  restrained  ''objectivity"; 
he  will  hesitate  to  be  dramatic  or  narrative  for  fear 
of  being  called  anthropomorphic ;  he  will  be  scrupu- 
lous in  his  observation  and  records  of  fact — and 
infernally  dull.  He  will  be  meticulous  in>  his  cata- 
loguing of  the  colors  of  a  bird,  but  he  will  shun 
expressing  any  spontaneous  affection  for  it  if  it  is 
a  beauty,  like  the  scarlet  tanager,  or  any  spon- 
taneous dislike  for  it  if  it  is  repellent,  like  the  bald- 
headed  vulture.  He  will  set  down  in  great  detail 
.the  profusion  of  plant  life  in  the  tropical  jungle, 
but  he  will  shrink  from  illuminating  similes.  Least 
of  all  will  this  type  of  scientist  be  caught  in  a 
sentimental  mood;  he  may,  out  of  the  weakness  of 
his  heart,  rescue  a  besieged  frog  from  the  implac- 
able attacks  of  army  ants,  exactly  as  Mr.  Beebe 
did,  but  he  will  not  be  likely  to  tell  of  it.  In  a 
word,  he  will  be  afraid  to  be  "  popular."  He  will 
shrink  from  the  tacit  criticisms  of  his  colleagues,  who 
too  often  tend  to  regard  any  injection  of  sap  and 
dramatic  vividness  into  a  scientific  account  as 
somehow  a  debasing  of  science's  high  estate.  The 
truth  is,  this  attitude  is  largely  superstition.  It 


204 


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February  22 


springs  really  from  a  scientific  diffidence  and  not 
from  scientific  exactitude.  Aside  from  the  purely 
technical  treatise  or  discussion,  which  is  of  course 
another  matter,  the  best  criterion  of  the  effective 
and  able  scientist  is  whether  or  not  he  can  let 
himself  go,  naturally  and  easily;  whether  he  is  so 
saturated  in  his  subject  that  he  can  be  almost  naive 
before  it.  Mr.  Beebe  is  a  scientist  whose  repute 
is  beyond  question,  yet  he  has  written  a  volume 
more  genuinely  dramatic  and  thrilling  and  pictur- 
esque than  any  adventure  tale  by  a  popular  novelist. 
Nor  to  do  it  does  he  have  recourse  to  phantasy — 
which  is  so  happily  employed  by  that  exquisite 
ornithologist,  W.  H.  Hudson.  He  devotes  a  whole 
chapter  to  A  Yard  of  Jungle,  which  is  exactly 
what  it  says  it  is,  a  square  yard  of  jungle  earth  and 
roots,  a  few  feet  thick,  teeming  with  animal  and 
plant  life  of  all  kinds,  for  the  mold  contained  over 
a  thousand  different  animal  organisms  visible  to  the 
eye,  as  well  as  numberless  roots  and  sprouting  shoots. 
And  the  whole  drama  of  evolution  is  exhibited  in 
microcosm  in  that  square  yard  of  earth  and  loam, 
the  whole  pathos  and  humor  and  irony  of  the  strug- 
gle for  existence  and  of  nature's  inextinguishable 
vitality.  Still  more  remarkable  and  illuminating  is 
the  chapter  on  the  hoatzins,  those  extraordinary 
birds  that  still  preserve  the  reptilian  habits  of  ages 
past.  Mr.  Beebe  actually  makes  one  see  what  life 
must  have  resembled  millions  of  years  ago,  when 
the  future  course  of  their  evolution  was  still. un- 
certain for  thousands  of  zoologically  unde- 
cided creatures.  There  is  plenty  in  the  book  to 
satisfy  scientific  curiosity.  But  Mr.  Beebe's  distinc- 
tive achievement  does  not  consist  of  this.  It  con- 
sists of  his  power  to  summon  and  vivify  the-tu- 
multous'life  of  the  jungle  and  the  sea  and  the  tropic 
earth.  Everywhere  his  observation  turns,  the  pano- 
rama of  animal  or  vegetable  existence  is  unfolded, 
and  its  inner  rhythm  and  color  are  disclosed.  He 
catches  and  transfers  to  his  pages  the  sting  and 
glow  of  the  never-ending  naturalistic  drama.  And 
he  does  it  with  a  literary  precision  and  sensitive- 
ness beside  which  the  conventional  stylistic  virtues 
of  descriptive  writing  become  tepid  and  cheap. 

OUR  NATIONAL  FORESTS.    By  Richard  H.  D. 

Boerker.     Macmillan;  $2.50. 

The  necessity  for  the  preservation  of  our  natural 
resources  has  been  brought  home  to  the  American 
people  in  recent  years  in  no  uncertain  tones  by  the 
increased  cost  of  lumber,  minerals,  and  other  com- 
modities because  of  prodigal  waste  in  the  past.  An 
encouraging  phase  of  this  preservation  movement  is 
found  in  the  development  of  our  national  forests, 
which  at  present  cover  over  155,000,000  acres.  Dr. 
Boerker  in  this  interesting  book  brings  together  the 
many  facts  connected  with  forestry  as  a  national 
problem,  with  the  creation  and  organization  of  the 
national  forests,  the  administration  and  protection 
of  the  national  forests,  and  the  sale  and  rental  of 
forest  resources.  A  number  of  half-tone  cuts,  from 
original  photographs,  make  the  author's  points  more 


vivid.  The  protection  of  the  forests  against  fires  has 
come  to  be  recognized  as  a  joint  problem  and  duty 
to  be  borne  by  the  individual  state  and  the  nation. 
A  further  step  in  conservation  should  be  taken  by 
forbidding  any  timber  owner  to  cut  his  timber  with- 
out the  consent  of  the  government,  and  the  gov- 
ernment should  see  to  it  that  he  leaves  the  young 
growth  as  a  basis  for  the  future  crop,  or  provides 
a  new  growth  of  timber  by  planting  young  trees. 
The  book  is  a  popular  and,  at  the  same  time,  scienti- 
fic presentation  of  a  great  national  problem. 

KIPLING    THE    STORY-WRITER.      By    Walter 
Morris  Hart.     University  of  California  Press; 

$2.25. 

This  is  the  most  comprehensive  study  of  Rudyard 
Kipling's  prose  technique  which  has  yet  appeared ;  it 
can,  in  fact,  probably  be  regarded  as  definitive — 
complete  and  scholarly — without  being  stodgy.  Pro- 
fessor Hart  might  have  modified  one  or  two  of  his 
conclusions  and  amplified  several  others,  had  he 
extended  his  survey  to  the  stories  collected  in  A  Di- 
versity of  Creatures,  but  the  permanent  groundwork 
will  remain  and  will  not  be  neglected  by  anyone 
interested  in  the  art  of  the  short  story. 

Professor  Hart  divides  Kipling's  prose  into  three 
periods — Indian,  transitional,  and  English — and 
among  the  many  merits  of  his  book,  perhaps  the 
most  conspicuous  is  its  recognition  of  the  superior 
quality  of  the  works  of  Kipling's  later,  or  English, 
period.  After  reading  the  lucubrations  of  critics 
whose  acquaintance  with  Kipling  apparently  ceased 
with  the  publication  of  The  Day's  Work  (can  it  be 
that  they  derive  their  knowledge  from  the  premium 
sets  given  away  with  the  works  of  O.  Henry?),  it 
is  refreshing  to  encounter  a  man  who  appreciates  the 
perfection  of  such  a  little'  masterpiece  as  Marklake 
Witches;  who  realizes  that  An  Habitation  Enforced 
is  "  one  of  the  most  utterly  satisfactory  stories  that 
Kipling  has  written  " ;  and  who  avows  his  belief 
that  They  is  not  only  its  author's  best  story,  but 
"  even  one  of  the  best  in  the  English  language."  In 
the  technique  of  The  Brushwood  Boy,  on  the  other 
hand,  Professor  Hart  finds  many  flaws;  though  at 
the  end,  after  comparing  it  with  the  two  or  three 
other  tales  on  analogous  themes  in  our  own  or  other 
literatures,  he  is  constrained  to  admit  that  "  as  a 
story  of  pure  romantic  love,  [it]  more  than  holds 
its  own." 

A  few  errors  of  fact  and  of  interpretation  may 
be  noted.  The  Lost  Legion  was  not  "  destroyed 
by  the  natives  who  remained  true  to  the  English," 
but  by  Afghans  beyond  the  Border  who  slew  for 
the  sake  of  plunder.  Mr.  Kipling  does  not  "  con- 
tinue to  live  at  Rottingdean  " ;  for  the  past  fifteen 
years,  or  thereabouts,  he  has  lived  at  Burwash,  in 
the  Weald.  Finally,  Professor  Hart,  in  common 
with  every  other  critic  who  has  noticed  the  story, 
errs  in  seeming  to  ascribe  the  comparative  shadowi- 
ness  of  the  figures  of  Ortheris  and  Mulvaney  in 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


205 


Garm  to  the  late  date  of  its  composition ;  the  tale  in 
fact  antedates  Kim,  first  having  been  published  in 
1899,  though  not  collected  until  ten  years  later.     In 
general,   however,   the   book  is  remarkable   for   its 
accuracy. 

BACKGROUNDS    FOR   SOCIAL   WORKERS.      By 
Edward  J.  Menge.    Badger;  $1.50. 

Infinite  are  the  number  of  books  written  on 
sociology  every  year.  As  a  textbook,  Professor 
Menge's  Backgrounds  for  Social  Workers  deserves 
to  find  its  place  with  the  others  on  our  college 
library  shelves.  Aside  from  the  discussion  of  the 
threadbare  yet  vital  subjects  of  Marriage  and  The 
Family,  the  writer  devotes  several  chapters  to  such 
modern  questions  as  Birth  Control,  Eugenics, 
Sterilization,  and  Sex-Instruction  and  Training. 
After  all,  it  is  simply  a  matter  of  point  of  view. 
Professor  Menge  is  neither  an  advocate  of  birih 
control  nor  sterilization  of  the  feeble-minded  and 
insane.  He  thinks  that  the  problem  can  be  entirely 
solved  by  education — first,  of  the  parents;  then,  of 
their  children.  On  the  same  bookshelf  next  to 
Professor  Menge's  book  we  might  find  a  physician's 
discussion  of  the  same  subject  from  the  scientific 
rather  than  from  the  moral  point  of  view.  One 
says,  train  your  child  to  "  want  "  to  do  the  right 
thing,  give  him  the  proper  early  instruction — and  the 
future  will  work  itself  out;  the  other  says,  remember 
the  curse  of  bad  inheritance,  teach  your  public  the 
simplest  scientific  principles — and  there  will  be  less 
misery  about  us. 

We  cannot  understand  the  present  without  a 
knowledge  of  the  past.  The  psychological  basis  of 
the  family  today  evolved  out  of  the  primitive  family 
of  the  past.  Therefore  Professor  Menge's  discus- 
sion of  the  family,  though  dealing  in  familiar  things, 
is  not  out  of  place.  He  takes  us  in  detail  through 
the  less  known  phases — the  Medieval,  the  Renais- 
sance, and  the  Reformation  family — in  a  more  in- 
teresting way,  perhaps,  than  the  average  textbook. 

COLONIAL  MERCHANTS  AND  THE  AMERICANS 
REVOLUTION.  By  Arthur  Meier  Schlesinger. 
Columbia  University  Press;  $4. 

There  are  some  things  about  the  American  Revo- 
lution that  have  long  needed  to  be  cleared  up.  One 
of  these  is  the  part  and  conduct  of  the  American 
commercial  interests  in  the  movement.  Another  is 
the  contribution  of  the  religious  groups  of  the 
colonies.  And  still  a  third  is  the  frontiersmen.  The 
last  is  perhaps  the  best  understood,  thanks  to  Pro- 
fessor Turner's  studies.  And  now  Professor  Schles- 
inger endeavors  to  clear  up  the  first.  He  has 
succeeded  in  very  large  degree  and  where  he  has  not 
quite  satisfied  us,  he  has  yet  suggested  the  way  to  a 
better  understanding.  The  commercial  interests  of 
1770,  let  us  say,  were  divided  into  several  groups 
that  did  not  always  recognize  common  aims.  The 
shipping  and  importing  men  of  New  England  were 
the  aristocrats  of  their  section  and  time.  They 


wished  the  world  to  remain  very  much  as  it  was. 
But  the  English  monopolists,  notably  the  East  India 
Company,  would  not  take  them  in  "  on  the  ground 
floor,"  as  we  say.  Their  agitations  in  the  early 
part  of  the  Revolutionary  struggle  were,  then, 
almost  exclusively  for  a  betterment  of  the  world 
from  their  point  of  view  and  not  for  independence 
or,  least  of  all,  democracy.  When  they  found,  as 
Mr.  Schlesinger  shows  very  clearly,  that  indepen- 
dence and  democracy  were  the  aims  of  Adams  and 
his  "  agitators,"  they  promptly  withdrew  from  the 
campaign.  The  Southern  merchants  and  credit 
brokers,  mostly  Scotch  dependents  of  the  London 
tobacco  traders,  made  a  class  to  themselves.  They 
were  never  free  enough  to  join  any  radical  move- 
ment, although  the  planters,  groaning  under  the 
burden  of  usurious  debts,  like  the  Western  farmers 
of  1896,  compelled  from  them  in  the  early  part  of 
the  struggle  some  sort  of  assistance.  It  was  hardly 
different  with  the  Middle  Colony  merchants.  All 
of  these  lent  some  sort  of  aid  to  American  agitations 
fn  the  earlier  years  of  the  quarrel.  Most  of  them 
returned  to  their  conservative  moorings  when 
democracy  seemed  to  loom. 

Mr.  Schlesinger  has  analyzed  these  groups  very 
well.  He  has  shown  just  what  they  did  and  what 
they  wished,  although  he  has  not  given  names  and 
amounts  of  fortunes  or  businesses  involved.  Per- 
haps this  feature  is  beyond  accurate  and  definite 
portrayal.  Some  help  may  be  got  from  Sabine  on 
the  personal  side;  something  on  the  economic  side 
from  Davis'  Corporations,  published  a  year  or  two 
ago.  One  element  of  the  problem  has  escaped  the 
present  author,  as  it  has  escaped  all  his  predecessors. 
That  is  the  effect  of  the  liquor  interests  of  Boston  and 
other  Eastern  towns.  It  might  seem  like  exaggera- 
tion to  suggest  that  the  rum  trade  was  a  great  factor 
in  the  American  Revolution.  As  the  story  has  never 
been  fairly  set  forth,  it  might  have  been  brought 
within  the  scope  of  the  present  work.  The  positive 
contributions  of  the  present  author  are  important 
and  numerous.  The  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide  of 
revolution,  the  hopes  and  fears  of  democratic 
leaders,  and  the  final  break  of  the  farmers,  the 
mechanics,  and  the  frontiersmen  from  the  timid 
merchants  are  all  made  clearer  than  they  have  hith- 
erto been.  And  at  the  conclusion  it  is  once  more 
shown  that  the  merchants  and  the  professional  men, 
the  shipowners  and  the  embryo  financiers,  who  were 
unwillingly  dragged  along  the  path  of  revolt  and 
freedom,  united  at  the  end  of  the  war  to  bring  about 
a  federal  organization,  both  social  and  national  in 
tendency,  that  would  conserve  their  interests  and 
defeat,  as  far  as  might  be  possible,  the  aims  of  the 
radicals. 

Wars  seldom  attain  their  ends.  It  was  so  in 
1783.  The  merchants  set  out  to  get  a  fairer  share 
of  the  profits  of  British  trade.  They  soon  found 
themselves  in  the  midst  of  a  wide-reaching  demo- 
cratic upheaval.  This  they  tried  to  control.  They 
failed  and  the  real  war  men  went  their  vyay  to 
independence.  But  independence  cost  so  much,  and 

A 


\ 


2C>6 


THE  DIAL 


so  many  blunders  were  committed,  that  the  traders 
got  back  into  the  movement  and  set  up  a  social 
machine  in  1789  that  much  resembled  the  British 
empire  which  had  been  so  sadly  disrupted. 

ANTHROPOLOGY    UP-TO-DATE.      By    George 
Winter  Mitchell.     Stratford;  75  cts. 

This  skit  runs  the  risk  of  not  being  so  popular 
as  it  deserves.  In  the  guise  of  a  solid  little  treatise, 
with  chapter  headings  like  Method,  Magic,  The 
Social  Unit,  The  Origin  of  Exogamy,  and  with  foot- 
note references  to  Tylor,  Frazer,  Herbert  Spencer, 
Robertson  Smith,  and  other  eminent  authorities,  the 
author  expounds  one  current  anthropological  doctrine 
after  another,  to  slide  off  by  gradual  reductions  into 
the  absurd,  or  again  to  break  outright  into  burlesque. 
Or,  when  the  reader  is  unwary,  he  will  carry  him 
through  from  thin  to  thinner  theory  with  straight- 
faced  irony.  Half  the  cants  of  anthropology  are 
tenderly  undraped,  all  its  most  hollow  pomposities 
neatly  pierced  and  collapsed.  Even  he  who  has  but 
little  interest  in  the  verities  as  opposed  to  the  pre- 
tensions of  science,  cannot  but  see  what  game  is  on 
foot  and  smile  at  its  deftness.  Mr.  Mitchell,  who 
resides  at  Queen's  University,  Kingston,  is  a  more 
than  unprofessorial  professor.  But  then  he  is  a 
professor  of  the  classics,  on  which  the  attempt  has 
recently  been  made  to  foist  some  of  the  crassest 
products  and  extensions  of  ethnology. 

The  little  volume  will  thoroughly  amuse  any  in- 
telligent reader  for  an  hour.  But  it  carries  a  moral 
for  the  serious  minded.  If  anthropology  can  be  so 
easily  shown  up  and  legitimately  ridiculed,  what 
merit  can  it  still  claim?  The  fact  is,  there  are  two 
streams  in  the  science.  One  is  learned  but  naive, 
comparative  but  unorganized,  finding  evolutions  and 
ready  explanations  at  will,  and  piling  hypothesis  on 
hypothesis  as  if  building  high  enough  on  a  theory 
would  convert  it  into  fact.  This  is  the  anthropology 
that  produces  the  books  on  the  shelves  of  well- 
appointed  libraries,  and  that  filters  into  magazines, 
Sunday  supplements,  and  parlor  conversations.  The 
Socialists  have  made  some  of  it  into  a  party  plank; 
th6  colleges  spread  it  before  thousands  of  students 
— often  when  the  teachers  are  anthropologists,  near- 
ly always  when  they  hail  either  from  biology  or 
from  sociology. 

The  other  current  knows  that  knowledge  is  dif- 
ficult and  laborious,  and  devoid  of  short  cuts.  It 
does  not  hope  to  solve  all  problems  of  human  evolu- 
tion by  a  series  of  happy  guesses  over  night,  but  to 
work  out  this  story  piece  by  piece,  with  every  re-- 
course of  tethnical  skill.  Its  pronouncements  are 
therefore  fragmentary  and  tentative,  like  all  the  dicta 
of  true  science.  This  kind  of  anthropology  offers 
no  intellectual  panaceas  and  no  stimulus  but  for  the 
hard  thinker.  The  public  naturally  has  little  inter- 


est in  it.  The  result  is  that  books  like  Boas'  Mind 
of  Primitive  Man  and  Wissler's  The  American  In- 
dian, to  mention  only  two  recent  American  examples, 
have  not  a  tenth  the  general  reputation  or  influence 
of  the  seductively  vague  and  pedantically  unsound 
works  of  the  authors  referred  to  above. 

It  is  by  driving  a  wedge  between  these  two  sorts 
of  anthropology,  and  exposing  the  sham* kind,  that 
Mitchell's  wit  is  justified — and  useful. 

GOD'S  RESPONSIBILITY  FOR  THE  WAR.     By 
Edward  S.  Drown.     Macmillan;  60  cts. 

The  primary  object  vof  this  compact  modern 
theodicy  is  to  excuse  God  from  any  responsibility 
for  the  late  war  as  for  the  other  evils  in  the  world. 
Incidentally,  the  principle  of  non-resistance  is  dis- 
posed of  on  the  best  terms  possible.  Christian  teach- 
ing creates  the  metaphysical  puzzle  as  to  the  problem 
of  evil  by  simultaneously  asserting  the  divine  good- 
ness and  the  divine  omnipotence.  Dr.  Drown  re- 
jects the  proposed  solutions  of  dualism,  Calvinism, 
and  optimism.  J.  S.  Mill,  William  James,  and  H. 
G.  Wells  have  proposed  to  resolve  the  dilemma  by 
abandoning  the  claim  of  the  divine  omnipotence  and 
saving,  by  that  sacrifice,  the  divine  goodness.  Dr. 
Drown  is  sympathetic  toward  the  suggestion  but 
shows  a  theologian's  reluctance  to  part  with  the 
traditional  divine  attribute  of  almightiness.  God's 
power  must  be  redefined  as  "  moral  omnipotence." 
God  is  omnipotent  because  goodness,  right,  and  love 
are  omnipotent.  But  these  exclude  the  use  of  force. 
God  himself  is  a  pacifist  because  he  cannot,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  principles  of  his  moral  nature, 
employ  "  force  without  stint  and  without  limit." 
"  If  God  is  to  produce  a  moral  universe  he  cannot 
produce  it  by  force."  But  is  God  justified  in  the  use 
of  force  defensively — or  as  a  means  of  opposing  force 
that  threatens  to  dominate  the  right?  Apparently 
not,  for  "  the  cross  of  Christ  becomes  the  sign  and 
symbol  and  realization  of  the  supreme  power  of 
God.  In  the  cross  is  revealed  the  true  omnipotence 
of  God."  The  cross,  surely,  is  the  symbol  of 
physical  non-resistance  as  it  is  of  faith  in  the 
omnipotence  of  right. 

But  why  should  not  force  be  enlisted  on  the  side 
of  righteousness?  Dr.  Drown  seems  to  imply  that 
"  with  God  it  is  impossible,  but  with  men  it  is 
possible." 

Our  purpose  is  so  to  use  force  that  force  shall  yield 
to  righteousness.  We  are  to  use  force  with  the  deep 
conviction  that  force  is  not  the  final  thing.  Force,  like 
John  the  Baptist,  must  yield  to  that  which  is  greater 
than  itself,  it  must  prepare  the  way  of  the  Lord.  It 
must  make  straight  in  the  desert  of  human  life  a  high- 
way for  our  God. 

But  is  not  this  after  all  to  appeal  to  the  interim 
ethic  of  expediency  rather  than  to  stand  by  the  abso- 


1919 


THE  DIAL  207 


An  Appeal  To  Americans 

"  Receive  ye,  oh  the  captive,  and  let  us  pre- 
pare an  asylum  for  mankind  to  dwell  in." 

TJTINDUS  are  indicted  under  the  Espionage  Act  in  America  for  prop- 
aganda, the  aim  of  which  was  to  secure  a  different  political  regime 
for  their  country.  One  man,  Taraknath  Das,  an  American  citizen,  faces 
proceedings  for  revocation  of  his  citizenship  and  possible  deportation  be- 
cause of  his  interest  in  political  reform  in  the  land  of  his  birth.  Deporta- 
tion for  a  Hindu  nationalist  ordinarily  means  execution  by  the  British  au- 
thorities in  India. 

Whether  or  not  you  approve  of  the  activities  or  point  of  view  of  these 
Hindus,  they  are  entitled  to  what  has  always  been  a  traditional  American 
right,  the  right  of  political  asylum,  which  has  been  offered  not  only  to  Kos- 
suth,  but  to  Puren,  Rudovich,  and  numerous  others  who  have  flocked  to 
these  shores  from  every  corner  of  the  globe.  Thus  the  continued  prosecu- 
tion of  these  Hindus  threatens  an  historic  privilege  and  puts  American 
courts  in  the  position  of  assisting  in  doing  the  bidding  of  foreign  govern- 
ments. While  the  war  still  continues  officially,  a  new  and  special  condition 
exists  during  the  armistice  which  should  give  these  cases  a  special  status. 
Certainly  this  transitional  period  is  no  time  for  punishment,  on' the  basis 
of  a  state  of  war,  which  might  establish  a  precedent  that  may  be  used  in  all 
times  to  destroy  the  right  of  asylum  in  this  country. 

These  cases  must  be  defended,  and  a  defense  fund  has  been  started, 
with  headquarters  in  New  York,  to  defray  the  necessary  expenses  and  to 
insure  legal  aid  and  protection  to  these  men.  Checks  and  post  office  orders 
should  be  made  payable  to  Albert  De  Silver,  26  East  Seventeenth  Street, 
New  York  City. 

(Signed) 

JOHN  DEWEY  PAUL  KENNADAY 

FRANK  P.  WALSH  CLARENCE  DARROW 

WILLIAM  ENGLISH  WALLING  MRS.  MARY  K.  SIMKHOVITCH 

MRS.  ERNEST  POOLE  ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT 

CHARLES  FERGUSON  CHARLES  EDWARD  RUSSELL 

MRS.  ROBERT  BRUERE  ,  Miss  S.  P.  BRECKINRIDGE 

GEORGE  W.  NASMYTH 


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208 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


lute  ethic  of  Jesus  summed  up  in  the  precept — 
"  Be  ye  therefore  perfect  as  your  Father  in  Heaven 
is  perfect"?  Hazardous  and  impracticable  as  we 
may  feel  the  pacifists'  program  to  have  been,  we  do 
not  feel  that  Dr.  Drown  has  overthrown  their 
theoretical  stronghold.  In  fact,  he  has  justified 
their  primary  contention  as  to  the  character  and 
methods  of  God. 

STAKES  OF  THE  WAR.    By  Lothrop  Stoddard 
and  Glenn  Frank.     Century;    $2.50. 

Few  indeed  are  the  reference  and  text  books  writ- 
ten in  the  early  part  of  1918  which  have  survived 
the  moderating  and  tempering  influence  of  the 
armistice.  Stakes  of  the  War  is  one  of  the  few. 
Although  later  developments  have  made  for  a  direct 
interest  in  Siberia,  the  Ural  region  of  Great  Rus- 
sia, the  Chinese-Russian  frontier,  the  book  keeps  its 
high  value  as  a  compendium  of  the  issues  and  prob- 
lems which  confront  the  makers  of  what  we  hope 
to  be  a  permanent  peace.  Practically  every  other 
territorial,  economic,  and  national  problem  that  is 
now  to  be  solved — for  better  or  for  worse — is  briefly 
and  succinctly  stated  in  this  book:  Belgium,  Al- 
sace-Lorraine, Schleswig-Holstein,  Finland  and  the 
Baltic  Provinces,  Poland,  Lithuania,  Bohemia,  the 
Ukraine,  Italia  Irredenta,  Jugo-Slavia,  Macedonia, 
Albania,  Rumania,  Dobrudja,  Constantinople,  Asia 
Minor,  Armenia,  Syria,  Mesopotamia,  Arabia, 
Egypt.  Persia,  and  the  African  colonies.  With  the 
exception  of  those  territories  which  the  recent  activi- 
ties of  the  Bolsheviki  have  made  of  immediate  in- 
terest, and  the  German  possessions  in  China  and  the 
Pacific,  all  the  puzzles  of  the  Peace  Conference  are 
exposed.  It  is  a  credit  to  the  scholarship  and  fair- 
ness of  the  authors  that  these  puzzles  are  exposed 
with  absolutely  no  partisan  rancor  or  bias.  The 
relevant  facts  of  the  case  are  first  given,  followed 
by  simple  explanations  of  the  various  proposed  solu- 
tions. Bibliographies  are  appended  for  more  ex- 
haustive reference.  Maps  and  statistics  are  given 
where  needed  for  the  sake  of  clearness.  There  is 
no  pretense  at  exhaustive  treatment  and  no  dog- 
matic assertion  that  one  solution  is  better  than  an- 
other, although  the  authors  do  not  mince  words  in 
describing  a  proposed  solution  as  nationalistic  or 
imperialistic,  where  it  is  obviously  such  —  whether 
proposed  by  the  Central  Powers  or  the  Entente. 
Such  a  volume  is  of  great  value  today,  when  con- 
flicting claims  of  the  different  nationalities  are  be- 
ing laid  before  American  public  opinion  for  its  ap- 
proval and  moral  backing.  Amid  the  contemporary 
currents  of  propaganda  and  carefully  conducted 
publicity  for  extravagant  or  moderate  claims  this 
volume  becomes  a  lucid  and  impartial  guide.  If  it 
cannot  offer  final  solutions,  it  can  and  does  reveal 


where  certain  pretensions  are  manifestly  unjust  or 
unwise,  or  the  reverse.  Yet  even  a  cursory  reading 
of  the  book  gives  rise  to  one  unescapable  convic- 
tion :  that  fully  fifty  per  cent  of  the  problems  which 
are  engaging  the  attention  of  the  delegates  at  Paris 
can  be  satisfactorily  solved  only  by  some  sort  of  in- 
ternational control,  based  on  the  simple  philosophy 
of  live  and  let  live.  So  far  as  the  book  can  influence 
our  public  opinion — and  we  hope  that  influence  will 
be  great — it  will  do  so  wholly  in  the  direction  of 
justice  and  fair  dealing. 

THE    GREAT    CHANGE.      By    Charles    W. 
Wood.     Boni  &  Liveright;   $1.50. 

This  book  is  a  series  of  interviews  with  the 
"  Leaders  in  American  Government,  Industry,  and 
Education  who  are  Remaking  Civilization."  It  is 
therefore  a  manual  of  reconstruction,  predigested. 
Mr.  Wood  reflects  the  enthusiasm  of  Washington 
in  war  time — when  the  city  was  a  strange  land 
filled  with  people  working  at  high  pressure,  ap- 
parently of  their  own  volition  and,  apparently,  for 
other  interests  than  personal  return.  In  Mr. 
Wood's  last  chapter  there  is  a  suggestion  that  his 
high  hopes,  inspired  by  his  interviews  with  govern- 
ment officials,  suffered  a  check.  It  doubtless  has 
become  evident  to  Mr.  Wood,  as  it  has  to  others, 
in  the  few  weeks  which  have  passed  since  the  sign- 
ing of  the  armistice,  that  these  hopes  were  a  re- 
flection of  the  war  mind,  of  the  tense  anticipation 
of  the  incorrigible  idealist.  But  Mr.  Wood  does 
not  pin  his  whole  faith  in  the  great  change  to  the 
simple  evidence  of  social  service  in  war  time,  or  to 
the  results  of  state  administration.  In  his  inter- 
views with  production 'managers,  with  H.  L.  Gantt, 
Charles  M.  Schwab,  and  Walter  N.  Polokov,  his 
economics  underwent  a  revision.  He  saw  that  in 
the  processes  of  production  rather  than  in  the  capture 
of  products  there  was  the  opportunity  to  become 
masters  of  industry.  "  From  collective  bargaining," 
he  says  in  his  concluding  chapter,  "  workers  may 
gradually  advance  to  collective  management;  not 
through  any  political  or  debating  society  but  through 
first-hand  acquaintance  with  the  facts."  For  in- 
stance, he  saw  opportunities  for  realizing  the  eight- 
hour  day  for  which  labor  has  been  organizing  and 
contending  for  thirty  years.  "  I  haven't  yet  been  able 
to  demonstrate  conclusively,"  Walter  N.  Polokov  of 
the  Shipping  Board  told  his  interviewer,  "  that  men 
can  do  more  work  in  six  hours  than  they  can  in  eight. 
Positively  they  can  do  more  in  six  than  they  can 
do  in  ten  or  twelve;  but,  owing  to  certain  con- 
ditions in  the  plants  where  I  tried  it  out,  the  six- 
hour  'experiment  is  still  inconclusive.  However," 
the  engineer  added,  "  if  America  seriously  sets  out 
to  eliminate  all  the  friction  in  her  industrial  system 
we  may  expect  a  four,  or  perhaps  a  two-hour  day. 
With  production  simplified  and  power  utilized  to 
its  fullest  capacity,  we  could  probably  produce  all 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


209 


John  Galsworthy 

says: 

THE  GREAT  HUNGER 

is  the  first  work  of  fiction  I  have  ever  reviewed. 
This  story  by  the  distinguished  Norwegian  writer, 
Johan  Bojer,  is  so  touchingly  searching  and  sin- 
cere that  it  interested  me  from  the  first  page  to 
the  last. 

Joseph  Hergesheimer 

says: 

THE  GREAT  HUNGER 

has  beauty  to  a  thrilling  degree,  the  beauty  that 
pinches  the  heart  and  interferes  with  breathing. 
It  has  the  inexplicable  loveliness  that  rare  in- 
dividuals possess  and  which  by  no  means  can  be 
accounted  for  in  set  conventional  attributes. 
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This  Volume  contains  the  complete  text  of  21 
plays.  Mr.  Moses  has  been  fortunate  in  securing 
the  most  notable  English  Dramas,  from  Sheridan 
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LITTLE,  BROWN  &  CO. :  Publishers,  Boston 


"  A  Voice  Out  of  Russia" 
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man's control.  Single  copies  lOc. ;  7  cents  lots  of  100- 
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WHITE  MAN,  a  novel  by 
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Ten  Years  of  the  Carnegie  Foundation:  Joseph 
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February  22 


we  want  in  much  less  time  than  six  hours;  and  with 
distribution  simplified  we  would  have  no  trouble 
in  securing  the  product  for  our  own  enjoyment." 
"  Socialism  ?  "  the  author  asked.  "  Engineering," 
Mr.  Polokoy  corrected. 

The  point  which  the  author  makes,  and  of  which 
his  hard-headed  comrades  would  do  well  to  take 
notice,  is  this:  if  the  workers'  organizations  will 
learn  how  to  eliminate  "  all  the  friction  "  and  as- 
»ume  the  responsibility  of  carrying  production  for- 
ward, they  may  become  masters  of  wealth  instead 
of  "  a  voice  "  which  pipes  for  a  hearing. 

CAMPAIGNING  IN  THE  BALKANS.    By  Harold 
Lake.     McBride;  $1.50. 

After  the  endless  political  volumes  on  the  war 
dealing  with  world  plots  and  world  leagues,  often 
no  better  than  metaphysical  moonshine,  this  simple, 
straightforward  account  of  an  actual  campaigning 
experience   in   Macedonia  elicits   a  sigh   of   relief. 
The   author  served   in   the   British   Expeditionary 
»    Force  which  came  to  Salonika  after  the  conquest 
of  Serbia  by  the  Central  Powers  in  1915  and  there 
he  remained  throughout  the  long  period  of  inaction 
which  so  greatly  aroused  the  ire  of  the  newspaper 
strategists  and  so  profoundly  puzzled  the  general 
public.     His  is  not  a  tale  of  the  fury  of  battle  and 
the  exalted  heroism  which  carries  a  man  with  his 
mates  and  his  cause   to  the  summit  of  existence. 
His   stay   in   Macedonia   befell   exclusively   in   the 
period  of  gestation,  in  the  long  and  wearisome  days 
of  road-making,  transport  organization,  and  other 
similar  scientific  drudgery,  when  the  distant  victory 
had  to  be  prepared  by  the  detailed  and  intelligent 
cooperation  of  the  myriad  parts  of  a  complicated 
war-machine.       The    enemy     opposite     the     front 
trenches  hardly  figures  in  the  book;  he  is  quiescent 
more  or  less,  glad  to  be  let  alone.    And  the  British 
army  welcomes  the  respite  while  it  feverishly  ap- 
plies itself  to  the  job  of  defeating  a  more  deadly 
enemy,  persistent,   snuggling  close,   Medusa-headed 
— the   wretched   land   of   Macedonia.      By   telling 
just  experiences,   things  seen   and  heard   and   felt, 
the  author  builds  up  an  impressive  picture  of  this 
in  turn  writhing  and  torpid  monster  of  a  country, 
and  by  very  virtue  of  a  sort  of  commonplaceness  of 
manner,  a  taking  for  granted  the  sacrifices,  suffer- 
ing,   and   moral   courage,    he   erects   an    authentic, 
spiritual  monument  to  his  British  kin  which  gal- 
lantly stood  ground  and  in  the  end  slew  the  Python. 
This   Macedonia,    synonymous   these    many   centu- 
ries with  trouble — is  there  its  like  anywhere  under 
the  sun?     It  rises  before  us  in  these  pages,  a  coun- 
try without  roads,   food,   or   water,   a  country   of 
rocks,  without  trees  or  shelter,  a  country  scorched 
brown  and  turned  to  powder  under  a  blazing  sun, 
a  country  infested  with  flies,  mosquitoes,  and  name- 
less crawling  vermin — a  country,   one  should  say, 
to  cherish  like  leprosy.     Across  this  desert  land,  as 
chance  would  have  it,  the  British  were  obliged  to 


dig  a  dike  against  the  German  flood,  and  out  of  its 
waste  a  British  officer,  using  the  direct  speech  of 
the  diarist,  has  raised  his  voice  to  tell  of  the  worth 
ef  the  British  stock. 


ECHOES  AND  REALITIES. 
Eaton.     Doran;  $1.50. 
GARGOYLES.     By    Howard 
Cornhill;  $1.25. 
THE  WINGED   SPIRIT.     By 
Putnami;  $1.50. 


By  Walter  Prichard 
Mumfprd    Jones. 
Marie    Tudor. 


If  the  market  for  poetry  is  as  limited  as  it  is  said 
to  be,  how  may  one  account  for  the  cunning  which 
is  lavished  in  masking  much  excellent  prose  in  the 
trappings  of  half-fledged  verse?  It  frequently  ap- 
pears that  the  poetic  product  is  in  far  greater  demand 
than  we  have  been  led  to  believe;  otherwise  authors 
would  not  go  so  far  out  of  their  way  to  achieve  it. 
There  is  much  alloy,  for  example,  in  the  poetic 
character  of  many  things  that  carry  the  poetic  label 
in  Mr.  Eaton's  latest  book.  Echoes  and  Realities  is 
mainly  a  series  of  pen  pictures — adroit,  colorful, 
human  vignettes — which  he  has  consciously  cast  into 
rhythms  by  breaking  up  the  lines  into  requisite 
lengths.  The  author  has  produced  a  volume  of 
tasteful  prose  in  the  guise  of  poetry.  In  the  most 
representative  pieces  he  is  concerned  less  with  the 
inspiration  than  with  the  subject,  so  that  his  treat- 
ment is  essentially  that  of  prose.  His  very  titles — 
Washington  Square,  The  Daily  Paper,  Skis,  Town 
Meeting — these  suggest  the  mood  of  prose  minia- 
tures, extremely  graceful  in  their  way,  but  their 
way  is  not  the  way  of  poetry. 

Turning  to  Mr.  Eaton's  love  poems,  one  is  im- 
pelled to  speak  in  another  vein.  Here  he  has  taken 
the  stuff  of  poetry,  but  failed  to  sustain  it;  he  ex- 
changes vigor  and  originality  for  too  much  syrup. 
There  is  a  settled  sweetness  which  quickly  dulls  the 
appetite.  We  find  ten  poems  in  a  row  (pages 
89-101),  for  example,  and  each  one  is  buttoned  up 
with  a  kiss,  like  a  tailored  jacket.  One  hungers  for 
"  the  challenge  of  a  soul  more  free  and  wild." 

With  Mr.  Jones,  this  tendency  to  treat  poetically 
a  subject  which  might  yield  more  gracefully  to  prose 
is  seen  in  the  somewhat  extended  poem,  His 
Mother.  Here  the  author  is  concerned  with  a 
psychological  analysis  of  a  mother  who  hears  that 
her  son  is  about  to  marry.  Its  opening  line — "  The 
first  shock  of  the  letter  that  she  had  " — displays  an 
unrhythmic  abruptness  which  the  writer  is  not  able 
to  avoid  in  several  other  places.  We  feel  that  His 
Mother  might  have  been  rendered  doubly  effective 
if  the  impulse  to  put  it  in  verse  had  been  ignored. 
However,  this  poem  is  not  representative  of  the  ex- 
treme variety  of  mood  and  manner  which  Mr.  Jones 
has  encompassed  in  Gargoyles.  The  title  is  well 
chosen  to  symbolize  the  grotesque  visages  which  fre- 
quently peer  through  the  thin  veils  of  rhythmic 
fancy.  The  poet  displays  a  vivid  touch  and  a  facile 
dominion  over  words;  his  style  is  incisive  rather 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


211 


Have  You  Left  School? 

with  a  diploma,  or  without  it?  In  either  case, 
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cated. When  education  ends,  life  ends. 

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tauqua  Reading  Course  Is  useful  alike  to  the  per- 
son of  limited  training,  who  labors  many  nights 
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Don't  Read  at  Random 

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Feb.  11.     Organization,  Powers  and  Basis  of  Representation 

of  a  League  of  Nations.     Speaker  —  Dr.  H.  M.  Kallen. 

B.  OPPOSING      FORCES     BEHIND      INTERNATIONAL 

COOPERATION. 

Feb.  18.     Behind  the  Scenes  at  the  Peace  Table. 
Speaker — Dr.  A.  A.  Golden weisser. 

C.  HISTORY  OF  INTERNATIONAL  CO-OPERATION. 
Feb.   25.     National  Conception  of  Independent  States  and 
Their  Relation  to  Each  Other. 

Speaker — Dr.  James  Harvey  Robinson. 

March  4.     International   Organization — What   Governments 
Have  Done.     Speaker  —  Dr.  H.  A.  Overstreet. 
March   11.     International  Organization — What  Non-Govern- 
mental Groups  Have  Done. 
Speaker — Dr.  H.  A.  Overstreet. 


D.  BASIC  PROBLEMS  OF  INTERNATIONAL  CO-OPERA- 

TION. ;,  _ 

March  18.    Trade — Raw  Materials.  '•'&_    ,    • 

March  25.    Colonies  and  Backward  Areas. 
April  1.     Territorial  Adjustments. 
April  8.    Armaments  and  Freedom  of  the  Seas. 
Speaker — Dr.  George  W.  Nasmyth. 

E.  PROBLEMS  OF  NATIONAL  RECONSTRUCTION. 
April  15,  22,  29  and  May  6.  13.  20,  27. 

On  the  preceding  dates  a  course  will  be  held  on  the  following 
problems  in  their  relation  to  Reconstruction:  British  Labor, 
Land  and  Taxation,  Government  Ownership.  Socialist  and 
Radical  Movements,  Labor  and  Collective  Bargaining,  Women 
in  Industry,  etc.  Such  speakers  as  Paul  Kellogg,  Amos 
Pinchot,  Juliet  Poyntz,  Mary  Ware  Dennett,  Geo.  West  and 
others  will  handle  these  subjects — the  specific  dates  to  be 
announced  later.  , 

THE  WOMAN'S  INTERNATIONAL  LEAGUE 

Room  722,  70  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

Telephone  Chelsea  4410 


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2.  Universal  disarmament — to   be   hastened   by.  government 
ownership  of  munition  plants  and  the  abolishment  of  all 
permanent  systems  of  compulsory  military  training. 

3.  Open  diplomacy — with  democratic  control  of  all  Questions 
which  may  lead  to  war. 


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212 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


than  fluid.  He  sees  the  uncouth  contrasts  of  life,  no 
matter  whether  it  be  in  an  abandoned  cemetery  or 
in  a  street  car,  and  he  possesses  the  deft  faculty  of 
catching  that  contrast  on  the  turn  of  a  phrase.  The 
University  Sketches  are  among  the  most  character- 
istic pieces.  One  will  show  the  flavor  of  the  style : 

A  rag  of  sunset  flaps  my  window  pane 

With  curious  insistence;    memoried  trees 

Stand  up  like  solemn  eastern  devotees; 

The  empty  campus  floods  with  purple  grain 

Behind   them   where  they  pray;    one  cloud   in   vain 

Threatens  the  moon,  on  dim  and  ghostly  seas 

Of  silent  weather  lost;    day's  emptied   lees, 

Spilled  through  the  west,  tinge  heaven  a  wine-red  stain. 

Papers  are  marked.     The  quarter's  past  and  done. 

Two  sparrows,  chattering,  are  very  loud 

Where  yesterday  I  heard  a  happy  crowd 

At  graduation.     Now  the   belated   sun 

Drops  swiftly,  and  the  vesper  air  is  bowed 

With  weight  of  growing  stars.    The  quarter's  done. 

Of  the  more  than  two  hundred  poems  in  the 
Tudor  collection,  trickling  down  the  pages  between 
wide  margins,  we  cull  but  one,  which  is  entitled 
The  Universe: 

Nothing  in  the  universe  is  fixed, 

Nor  God — nor  purpose. 

This  absence  of  a  fixed  purpose  may  explain  why 
— after  dismissing  the  universe  in  two  lines — the 
author  should  have  devoted  such  a  quantity  of  poems 
to  subsidiary  themes.  Their  creator  appears  to  have 
regarded  them  all,  however,  as  but  so  many  colored 
beads  on  the  thread  of  her  ego.  Their  texture  is 
uniformly  frail ;  they  seem  saddened  by  similarity. 

WHERE  YOUR  HEART  Is.     By  Beatrice  Har- 

raden.    Dodd,  Mead;  $1.50. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  put  psychological  heroines 
into  books,  but  it  is  unwise  to  keep  nudging  the 
reader's  mind  to  keep  him  aware  of  their  psychologi- 
cal aspects.  The  reader  is  apt  to  be  rather  jealous 
of  his  own  psychological  aspects — and  among  them 
is  his  aversion  to  being  nudged.  If  Miss  Harraden 
had  kept  this  fact  more  carefully  in  mind,  Where 
Your  Heart  Is  could  have  been  made  a  better  piece 
of  fiction.  The  author  does  less  insisting  than  she 
used  to  do,  but  she  still  retains  vestiges  of  her 
ancient  fault.  This  novel  is  not  nearly  so  guide- 
posted  as,  for  example,  her  Ships  That  Pass  in  the 
Night,  but  the  landscape  is  still  marred  by  finger- 
posts at  almost  every  cross-roads.  Miss  Harraden 
needs  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  Henry  James  to  learn 
something  of  the  art  of  presenting  psychological 
heroines  without  recourse  to  labels. 

The  early  portions  of  this  story  are  more  success- 
ful than  .its  conclusion.  The  character  of  a  self- 
centered  woman,  a  dealer  in  antique  jewelry  and 
collector  of  precious  stones,  is  made  vivid  and  plausi- 
ble. Her  impulses  are  sympathetically  analyzed, 
and  the  balance  between  her  almost  fanatical  covet- 
ousnouss  and  her  better  instincts  is  carefully  held. 
But  when  Miss  Harraden's  heroine  is  drawn  into 
the  war — in  order  to  facilitate  her  regeneration — 
then  the  nudging  becomes  more  conspicuous  and 


the  machinery  begins  to  creak.  Where  Your  Heart 
Is  joins  that  numerous  army  of  converted-by-war 
fiction,  and  ends  with  the  author's  foot  upon  the 
soft  pedal  while  her  fingers  strike  the  keys  in  the 
too-familiar  "  carry  on  "  chord. 

Books  of  the  Fortnight 

The  following  list  comprises  THE  DIAI/S  selec- 
tion of  books  recommended  among  the  publications 
received  during  the  last  two  weeks : 

The  Only  Possible  Peace,  By  Frederic  C.  Howe. 
I2mo,  265  pages.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 
$1.50. 

War  and  Revolution  in  Russia,  1914-1917.  By- 
Basil  Gourko.  Illustrated,  8vo,  420  pages. 
Macmillan  Co.  $4. 

China  and  the  World  War.  By  W.  Reginald 
Wheeler.  Illustrated,  I2mo,  263  pages.  Mac- 
millan Co.  $1.75. 

The  Movement  for  Budgetary  Reform  in  the  States. 
By  W.  F.  Willoughby.  8vo,  254  pages.  D. 
Appleton  &  Co.  $2.75. 

The  Problem  of  a  National  Budget.  By  W.  F. 
Willoughby.  8vo,  220  pages.  D.  Appleton 
&  Co.  $2.75. 

The  Disabled  Soldier.  By  Douglas  C.  McMurtrie. 
Illustrated,  I2mo,  232  pages.  Macmillan  Co. 

$2. 

The  Vocational  Re-Education  of  Maimed  Soldiers. 
By  Leon  De  Paeuw.  i2mo,  194  pages. 
Princeton  University  Press.  $1.50. 

Child-Placing-  in  Families:  A  Manual  for  Stu- 
dents and  Social  Workers.  By  W.  H. 
Slingerland.  8vo,  261  pages.  Russell  Sage 
Foundation.  $2. 

The  Humane  Society  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
Massachusetts:  An  Historical  Review,  1785- 
1916.  By  M.  A.  DeWolfe  Howe.  Illus- 
trated, 8vo,  398  pages.  Riverside  Press 
(Cambridge). 

Dutch  Landscape  Etchers  of  the  Seventeenth  Cen- 
tury. By  William  Aspenwall  Bradley.  Illus- 
trated, I2mo,  128  pages.  Yale  University 
Press.  $2. 

Currents  and  Eddies  in  the  English  Romantic 
Generation.  By  Frederick  E.  Pierce.  8vo, 
342  pages.  Yale  University  Press.  $3. 

Dante.  By  Henry  Dwight  Sedgwick.  Illustrated, 
I2mo,  187  pages.  Yale  University  Press. 
$1.50. 

Another  Sheaf.  Essays.  By  John  Galsworthy. 
I2mo,  336  pages.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 
$1.50. 

While  Pans  Laughed:  Being  Pranks  and  Passions 
of  the  Poet  Tricotrin.  By  Leonard  Merrick. 
i2mo,  298  pages.  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co. 

$i-75- 

Shops  and  Houses.  A  novel.  By  Frank  Swinner- 
ton.  I2mo,  320  pages.  George  H.  Doran 
Co.  $1.50. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


213 


By  JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL 

U  T  T  is  astonishing  that  he  is  not 
*•  better  known,"   says  the  New 
York  Sun,  of  James  Branch  Cabell. 
«  •    /i  "  '  Beyond  Life  '  has  a  quiet  clever- 

I  1  T  £}  ness,  an  audacious  originality  that 

JL  A  A  v  will  delight  a  good  many  readers. 

In  fact,   this  mosaic  of  essays  on 
books      and      things     in      general 
should  be  sufficient  to  convince  any- 
one   not    actually    in    the    mental 
breadline    that    here    is    a   thinker 
attention,    a    writer   in    bondage    to    no    external 
a  dreamer  who  follows  after  beauty." 

AT  ALL  BOOKSTORES 
ROBERT  M.  McBRIDE  &   CO.,  Publishers,  New  York 


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ideas, 


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ble elsewhere. 

THE  BAKER  &  TAYLOR  CO. 

Wholesale  Dealers  in  the  Bioks  oi  All  Publishers 
354  Fourth  Ave,  NEW  YORK  At  Twenty-Sixth  Street 


LECTURES  ON  THE  PHILOSOPHY 
OF  MATHEMATICS 

By  James  Byrnie  Shaw 
193  payes.     Cloth,  Price  $1.50  net 

"  James  Byrnie  Shaw's  Lectures  on  the 
Philosophy  of  Mathematics,  as  published  in  a 
single  200-page  volume,  will  be  found  to  offer  rare 
interest  to  students  of  the  mathematical  heights 
and  profundities.  It  deals  with  the  sources, 
forms,  logic,  theories,  methods,  and  validity  of 
mathematics." — New  York  World. 

THE  OPEN  COURT  PUBLISHING  CO., 

122   South   Michigan   Avenue.  Chicago,   111. 


THE  BRICK  10 V 


NEW  HAVEN,  CONN. 

Carries  on  a  business  as  dealers  in  Rare  and  Fine 
books,  Autograph  letters,  Manuscripts,  etc.,  and 
in  addition  specialize  in  first  editions  of  modern 
authors. 

Its  general  stock  of  second-hand  books  in  good 
condition  is  especially  rich  in  books  on  Art,  Biog- 
raphy and  Belles  Lettres. 

(Catalogues  sent  upon  request.) 

(Any  book  secured  whether  new  or  old.) 


THE  EASTERN  QUESTION 

By  J.  A.  R.  MARRIOTT.  Second  edition  revised,  with 
eleven  maps  and  appendixes,  giving  a  list  of  the  Ottoman 
rulers,  and  the  shrinkage  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  in 
Europe,  1871-1914.  Crown  8vo.  (8x5),  pp.  xii  +  538. 
(Postage  extra,  weight  2  Ibs).  Net,  J4.25. 

A  systematic  account  of  the  origin  and  development 
of  the  Eastern  Question,  dealing  successively  with  the 
Ottomans,  Hapsburgs,  Russian  Empire,  the  Hellenic 
Kingdom  and  the  New  Balkan  States,  with  an  epilogue 
brought  down  to  June,  1918. 

"  Professor  Marriott  presents  a  clear,  scholarly  and  ac- 
curate account  of  Balkan  problems  from  the  Turk's 
first  European  activity  to  the  zenith  of  Constantino's 
recent  high-handedness  in  Greece." — N.  Y.  Sun. 

At  all  Booksellers  or  from  the  Publishers 

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A  Voice  Out  of  Russia 

We  have  reprinted  in  booklet  form  the  important  ar- 
ticles on  Russia  which  have  appeared  recently  in  the 
DIAL.  This  48-page  booklet  contains  the  following,: 

1.  Withdraw  from  Russia! 

Z.  Soviet  Russia  and  The  American  Revolution 
By  Lincoln  Colcord 

3.  A  Voice  Out  of  Russia 

By  George  V.  Lomonossoff 

4.  Decree  on  Land 

5.  Decree  on   Workers'   Control 

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2  14 


THE  DIAL 


February  22 


Current  News 

Van  Wyck  Brooks  is  getting  ready  for  book 
publication  a  psychological  study  of  Mark  Twain. 

About  the  middle  of  next  month  Doubleday,  Page 
and  Co.  expect  to  bring  out  The  Arrow  of  Gold, 
by  Joseph  Conrad. 

Scudder  Middleton's  recent  verse  is  to  be  col- 
lected into  a  volume  for  publication  in  March  by 
the  Macmillan  Co.  The  book  will  include  his 
The  Lost  Singer,  which  appeared  in  THE  DIAL 
of  November  2,  1918. 

Mildred  Aldrich,  whose  Hilltop  on  the  Marne 
and  On  the  Edge  of  the  War  Zone  were  reviewed 
in  THE  DIAL  of  January  31,  1918,  has  written 
another  war  book — When  Johnny  Comes  Marching 
Home,  which  is  to  be  published  by  Small  Maynard 
and  Co.  early  in  the  spring. 

The  Marshall  Jones  Co.  plan  to  issue  in  the 
spring  an  anonymous  volume,  Letters  from  a 
Prairie  Garden;  Reconstruction  of  Churches  in  the 
War  Zone,  by  Professor  Goodyear  of  the  Brook- 
lyn Museum;  and  The  Seven  Who  Slept,  a  novel 
by  A.  Kingsley  Porter. 

George  H.  Doran  Co.  will  publish  in  February 
American  Labor  and  the  War,  by  Samuel  Gom- 
pers;  Ten  Years  Near  the  German  Frontier,  by 
Maurice  Francis  Egan;  and  The  Riddle  of  Nearer 
Asia,  by  Basil  Mathews. 

Edward  S.  Martin  who,  at  the  request  of  Mrs. 
Choate,  has  undertaken  the  preparation  of  the  bi- 
ography of  Joseph  Hodges  Choate,  requests  that 
any  friends  of  Mr.  Choate  who  have  letters  which 
they  are  willing  to  entrust  to  the  biographer,  either 
for  his  information  or  for  publication,  send  them 
to  him  in  care  of  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 

Leonard  Mer rick's  While  Paris  Laughed,  which 
was  reviewed  by  Ruth  Mclntyre  in  THE  DIAL  of 
June  6,  1918,  has  just  been  issued  in  this  country 
by  E.  P.  Dutton  and  Co.,  who  announce  a  uniform 
edition  of  Mr.  Merrick's  books  with  introductions 
by  English  writers.  The  first  of  this  new  series, 
Conrad  in  Quest  of  His  Youth,  with  an  introduc- 
tion by  Sir  James  Barrie,  will  appear  in  April. 

Others  is  again  being  published  as  a  monthly, 
with  a  new  editorial  policy  that  admits  prose  and 
the  reproductions  of  pictures,  as  well  as  poetry,  and 
even  promises  the  publication  of  plays.  The  editors 
are:  Alfred  Kreymborg,  Lola  Ridge,  William 
Saphier,  Dorothy  Kreymborg,  and  William  Zorach. 
The  present  headquarters  in  New  York  are  at  the 
Washington  Square  Book  Shop,  17  West  8th  Street; 
and  in  Chicago,  the  Radical  Book  Shop,  867  North 
Clark  Street. 

The  first  issue  of  The  Playboy — a  new  periodical 
attractively  got  up  by  Egmont  Arens  at  the  Wash- 
ington Square  Book  Shop,  New  York — is  dated 
January,  1919,  and  is  entitled  A  Portfolio  of  Art 
and  Satire.  It  contains  cartoons,  caricatures,  draw- 
ings, and  designs — mostly  in  the  new  manners; 
verse  by  Alfred  Kreymborg,  Lola  Ridge,  Vachel 


Lindsay,  and  others;  and  a  miscellany  of  undistin- 
guished prose.  The  mood  of  The  Playboy  is 
jocund,  its  spirit  rather  acidly  contemporary : 
"  Playboy  comes  with  a  handful  of  leaves  to  fling 
them  over  the  corpses  of  the  remembered  dead.  On 
each  leaf  will  be  written  a  thought  of  Today,  and 
with  such  the  Past  will  be  buried."  But  one  ob- 
serves that  some  of  the  drawings  are  dated  1917, 
1912,  even  1909;  that  some  of  the  verse  has  long 
been  in  print  elsewhere — and  wonders.  The  price 
is  twenty-five  cents  a  funeral. 

A  Voice  Out  of  Russia,  a  reprint  of  important 
articles  on  Russia  which  have  appeared  in  recent 
numbers  of  THE  DIAL,  is  being  issued  in  pam- 
phlet by  the  publishers.  The  reprint  contains 
Withdraw  from  Russia!  by  The  Editors;  Soviet 
Russia  and  the  American  Revolution,  by  Lincoln 
Colcord;  A  Voice  Out  of  Russia,  by  George  V. 
Lomonossoff;  and  the  Soviet  Decrees  on  Land 
and  on  Workers'  Control.  The  price  of  the  book- 
let is  ten  cents. 

The  Motor  Truck  As  an  Aid  to  Business  Profits, 
by  S.  V.  Norton  (A.  W.  Shaw;  $7.50)  is  a 
practical  guide  to  efficiency  in  the  use  of  the  motor 
truck  in  business.  Mr.  Norton  has  taken  an  active 
part  in  the  development  of  the  motor  truck  industry 
and  he  writes  in  the  light  of  his  own  experience  and 
of  the  experience  of  a  large  number  of  motor 
truck  owners.  Subject  matter  covering  498  pages 
is  rendered  easily  accessible  through  careful  index- 
ing, and  is  amplified  by  many  illustrations  and 
charts.  Problems  confronting  owners,  and  prospec- 
tive owners,  of  motor  trucks,  in  business  enterprises 
large  and  small,  are  differentiated  and  analyzed  in 
a  direct  and  lucid  way.  Efficiency  plans  for  keeping 
check  on  costs,  for  the  effective  scheduling  and  rout- 
ing of  delivery  systems  are  made  clear.  The  vol- 
ume is  an  addition  of  first  importance  to  the  library 
of  American  business  efficiency. 

Contributors 

Norman  Hapgood  (Harvard,  1890)  is  president 
of  the  League  of  Free  Nations  Association.  Mr. 
Hapgood  was  editor  of  Collier's  Weekly  from  1903 
to  1912,  and  of  Harper's  Weekly  until  1916.  He 
is  the  author  of  several  books  and  many  magazine 
articles. 

Mildred  Johnston  Murphy  collaborated  with  her 
husband,  Mr.  Charles  R.  Murphy,  in  the  transla- 
tion from  the  French  of  a  volume  of  poems  by 
Auguste  Angellier.  Mrs.  Murphy  is  a  graduate  of 
Wellesley. 

Ralph  Block  (University  of  Michigan,  1911) 
was  dramatic  critic  on  the  Kansas  City  Star  in  the 
pre-war  period  and  has  since  then  been  on  the  staff 
of  the  New  York  Tribune.  His  verse  has  appeared 
in  the  Poetry  Journal  and  other  periodicals. 

The  other  contributors  to  this  issue  have  pre- 
viously written  for  THE  DIAL. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


2I5 


DUTCH  LANDSCAPE  ETCHERS  OF 
THE  SEVENTEENTH  CENTURY 

BY  WILLIAM  ASPENWALL  BRADLEY 
Cloth.     52  illustrations.     $2.00. 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

120  College  Street,  New  Haven,   Connecticut 
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THE  BIOLOGY  OF  WAR 

By  Dr.  G.  F.  Nicolai 

A  vital  conception  of  war  supplying  solid  ground  for  sane 
men  and  women  to  stand  on.     8vo,  594  pages.     $3.50. 

Published  by  THE  CENTURY  CO.,  New  York 


LIFE  OF  LAMARTINE 

By    II.    Remsen    Whitehouse 

The  first  complete  life  in  any  language,  illu- 
minating not  only  Lamartine's  activities  as  a  poet 
and  statesman,  but  his  famous  affairs  of  senti- 
ment as  well.  Illustrated,  $10.00  net 

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THE  COVENANT — AND  AFTER Robert  Morss  Lovett  219 

REVERSING  AN  EMERGENCY Benjamin  C.  Gruenberg  221 

NIGHT  SMELL.     Verse Josephine  Bell'  224 

TEN  TIMES  TEN  MAKE  ONE Wilson  Follett  225 

Two  LATTER-DAY  HAMLETS r    .....  Lida  C.  Schem  228 

NATIONALISM Franz  Boas  232 

To  ONE  DEAD.     Verse Rose  Henderson  237 

THE  DRAMA  OF  SELF-DECEPTION  . >  Katharine  Anthony  238 

THE  INDIAN  AS  POET Louis  Untermeyer  240 

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LONDON,  FEBRUARY  4     .     .     .' Robert  Dell  244 

EXPRESSIONS  NEAR  THE  END  OF  WINTER    Verse       Stephen  Vincent  Benet  248 

EDITORIALS 249 


COMMUNICATIONS  :     Nationalities  or  Nations. 

NOTES  ON  NEW  BOOKS  :  Wild  Youth  and  Another.— The  Web.— Formative  Types  in 
English  Poetry. — Another  Sheaf. — The  Life  of  David  Belasco. — Religion  and  the  War. — 
War  and  Revolution  in  Asiatic  Russia. — Understanding  South  America. — The  War  in 
the  Cradle  of  the  World. — American  Problems  of  Reconstruction. — George  Meredith. — 
The  Village  Wife's  Lament. — Three  Live  Ghosts. 


252 
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The  Covenant — and  After 


A  HE  LEAGUE  OF  FREE  NATIONS,  the  League  to 
Enforce  Peace,  the  International  Alliance,  the  va- 
rious concepts  of  a  better  world  for  which  we 
fought  have  taken  form  in  the  constitution  of  the 
League  of  Nations,  which  President  Wilson  has 
brought  back  from  Paris.  It  will  not  be  submitted 
to  the  Senate  until  the  entire  treaty  of  peace  of 
which  it  forms  a  part  is  ready  for  action;  but  it 
is  now  submitted  to  the  country  and  to  the  world 
as  the  basis  of  that  treaty.  As  such  it  should  be 
received  with  such  signs  of  acceptance  as  the  Senate 
cannot  fail  to  understand.  The  expected  opposition 
has  already  developed,  on  the  part  of  those  who  are 
unable  to  think  save  in  terms  of  national  sover- 
eignty, entangling  alliances,  and  the  Monroe  Doc- 
trine. What  is  more  to  be  feared  is- the  opposition 
or  the  indifference  of  liberals,  who  look  in  vain  in 
the  constitution  for  the  fourteen  points  which  Presi- 
dent Wilson  so  often  asserted  as  the  condition  of 
world  peace,  and  therefore  find  themselves  in  a 
mood  varying  between  disillusion  and  disgust.  With 
the  former,  argument  may  be  used,  but  it  will  not 
prevail.  The  question^  is  one  of  practical  politics 
in  the  Senate.  If  the  country  answers,  the  Senate 
will  hear.  It  is  to  the  latter,  who  not  without 
cause  have  learned  to  distrust  fair  words  and  noble 
promises,  and  who  by  skepticism,  criticism,  and  in- 
difference may  confuse  the  answer  of  the  country 
and  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  Tories,  that  per- 
suasion must  be  addressed.  Such  persuasion  must 
be  based  on  a  consideration  of  the  true  nature  of 
the  constitution.  And  it  is  above  all  important  that 
the  great  mass  of  liberals  who  may  be  tempted  to 
regard  the  document  as  it  stands  as  a  complete  and 
satisfactory  conclusion  of  the  world  catastrophe  be 
brought  to  a  realistic  understanding  of  the  instru- 
ment, as  a  condition  of  uniting  their  forces  with 
those  of  more  radical  critics,  and  making  impossible 
a  division  of  which  the  Tories  will  be  too  eager  to 
take  advantage. 

First  of  all,  it  must  be  recognized  that  the  Cov- 
enant is  a  blank  check — a  form,  which  may  be 
signed  but  will  then  require  filling  out  with  the 
figures  which  alone  can  give  it  meaning.  It  was 


inevitable  that  this  should  be  so.  The  Peace  Con- 
ference had  its  choice  of  proceeding  immediately 
to  impose  a  peace  among  the  belligerents,  or  of 
drawing  first  the  instrument  which  should  be  the 
basis  of  that  peace.  Obviously  the  first  course 
would  have  meant  a  peace  written  in  terms  of  the 
old  world  of  national  sovereignty  and  balance  of 
power  from  which  we  had  a  chance  to  escape.  The 
second  course  logically  implies  a  peace  written  in 
terms  of  the  new  world  of  which  the  Covenant  is, 
if  it  is  anything,  the  guarantee.  The  Covenant  is 
part  of  the  treaty  of  peace.  It  will  be  worthy  to 
stand  or  fall  according  to  the  use  made  of  their 
power  by  the  five  nations  which  constitute  the 
Executive  Council  of  the  League,  in  the  treaty 
which  they  will  impose.  Their  handiwork  is  at 
once  to  be  subjected  to  the  test  of  their  own  faith.. 

The  points  on  which  that  test  will  chiefly  turn 
have  already  become  a  part  of  liberal  criticism  of 
the  Covenant.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  pointed  out 
that  the  League  of  present  conferees  is  no  true 
League  of  Nations,  but  a  perpetuation  of  the  vic- 
torious Alliance — that  as  matters  stand  we  may  find 
the  excluded  nations  setting  up  a  rival  league  to 
throw  the  world  back  into  the  chaos  of  diplomacy, 
preparedness,  and  war.  Clearly  the  treaty  of  which 
the  Covenant  is  to  become  a  part  must  provide  for 
the  entry  into  the  League  of  the  nations  now  ex- 
cluded— especially  Germany,  including  the  German 
provinces  of  Austria,  and  Russia.  And  this  in  turn 
implies  terms  which  make  it  possible  for  those  units 
to  resume  their  status  in  the  family  of  nations 
— a  new  family  of  nations  of  which  the  basis  is 
reconciliation.  The  questions  of  the  punishment  of 
Germany  and  the  conversion  of  Russia  have  been 
held  in  abeyance  during  the  drafting  of  the  Cov- 
enant. When  they  are  taken  up  they  must  be  con- 
sidered in  a  spirit  which  is  in  conformity  with  the 
meaning  of  the  League  and  which  it  is  the  object 
of  the  League  to  make  possible  on  earth. 

Second,  the  rights  of  weak  nations,  and  among 
these  we  include  Ireland,  China,  Mexico,  Jugo- 
slavia— those  nations  which  are  particularly  subject 
to  the  predatory  policies  of  certain  classes  in  one 


220 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


or  more  of  the  five  executive  nations — must  be  be- 
yond any  peradventure  safeguarded.  One  of  the 
defects  in  the  constitution  of  the  League  is  in  Article 
XV,  which  seems  to  permit  a  nation  to  make  war, 
or  to  bring  pressure  equivalent  to  war,  on  another 
with  the  sanction  of  one  disinterested  member  of 
the  Executive  Council. 

Third,  the  provisions  regarding  the  assignment 
of  undeveloped  peoples  by  mandate  to  the  care  of 
tutelary  powers  must  be  carried  out  in  conspicuous 
good  faith.  The  examples  which  the  world  has 
before  it  of  such  professed  guardianship  in  the  cases 
of  Morocco,  Madagascar,  Egypt,  the  Congo  Free 
State,  and  Korea  are  not  such  as  to  inspire  con- 
fidence in  this  form  of  machinery. 

So  much  for  matters  in  which  the  nations  repre- 
sented at  the  Peace  Conference,  especially  the  five 
executives,  must  act  through  their  representatives  in 
order  to  fill  out  the  sketch  of  the  League  of  Na- 
tions in  «such  a  way  as  to  give  it  the  color  and 
meaning  implied  in  President  Wilson's  repeated  ut- 
terances on  the  subject.  There  are  other  matters 
which  will  be  left  to  later  action  of  the  League, 
and  which  will  be  decided  in  accordance  with  the 
attitude  of  the  several  contracting  nations.  First 
of  these  stands  disarmament.  The  constitution  ot 
the  League  is  obviously  vague  on  this  point,  but 
it  is  certain  that  here  we  come  to  the  supreme — or, 
as  President  Wilson  would  say,  the  acid — test  of 
the  reality  of  the  whole  structure.  If  nations  con- 
tinue to  pile  up  armament,  if  they  permit  4:he  manu- 
facture of  munitions  to  be  a  matter  of  private  specu- 
lation and  public  corruption,  if  above  all  they  train 
their  populations  for  war  under  any  system,  Swiss 
or  Prussian,  then  clearly  they  have  not  the  root  of 
the  matter  in  them.  Second  stands  the  commercial 
intercourse  of  nations.  If  this  become  progressively 
free  there  will  be  supplied  an  economic  basis  of 
peace  which  will  render  superfluous  the  safeguards 
of  the  League;  but  if  the  business  relations  of  na- 
tions continue  to  be  dictated  by  selfish  considerations 
only,  especially  if  it  be  the  selfishness  of  a  class,  we 
shall  have  exchanged  one  form  of  warfare  for  an- 
other likely  to  become  more  terrible  and  desolating 
as  the  economic  exploitation  of  the  world  proceeds. 
Third  is  the  freedom  of  movement  among  peoples, 
not  excluding  Japanese  and  Hindus — obviously  a 
necessary  condition  of  that  mutual  respect  which  is 
at  the  basis  of  a  League  of  Free  Nations.  And 
finally  there  is  the  matter  touched  on  briefly  in 
Article  XX,  the  treatment  of  labor  in  the  several 
nations — a  matter  of  internal  administration,  in 
which,  however,  the  nations  comprising  the  League 
may  powerfully  influence  each  other.  It  is  by  some 
such  cooperative  effort  of  democracy  as  that  sug- 


gested in  this  article,  with  opportunity  for  direct 
representation  of>  the  people  in  the  legislature  of 
nations,  that  the  present  Covenant  may  become  the 
basis  of  a  League  of  Peoples. 

The  most  damaging  criticism  of  the  present 
Covenant  is  that  it  is  not  a  covenant  of  peoples.  It 
could  not  be.  The  people  have  no  machinery 
through  which  they  could  be  represented  in  draw- 
ing up  such  a  document,  and  to  this  fact  its  obvious 
shortcomings  are  due.  It  is  a  Covenant  of  Govern- 
ments. To  remedy  its  defects,  to  fill  in  its  outline, 
to  make  it  a  genuine  and  vital  instrument,  however, 
the  people  have  a  weapon  which  President  Wilson 
himself  suggested  in  his  Boston  speech : 

The  nations  of  the  world  have  set  their  heads  now  to 
do  a  great  thing,  and  they  are  not  going  to  slacken  their 
purpose.  And  when  I  speak  of  the  nations  of  the  world  I 
do  not  speak^  of  the  governments  of  the  world.  I  speak 
of  the  peoples  who  constitute  the  nations  of  the  world. 
They  are  in  the  saddle  and  they  are  going  to  see  to  it 
that  if  their  present  governments  do  not  do  their  will, 
some  other  governments  shall.  And  the  secret  is  out  and 
the  present  governments  know  it. 

The  people  have  resolved  on  a  great  thing, 
possibly  a  greater  thing  than  even  President  Wilson 
realizes.  They  will  accomplish  it  either  through 
the  medium  of  existing  governments  or  by  over- 
turning them.  They  understand  the  causes  of  war, 
and  realize  that  they  are  deeply  rooted  in  the  struc- 
ture of  a  society  founded  primarily  on  the  possessive 
instincts  of  mankind.  It  is  the  representatives  and 
guardians  of  the  vested  interests  of  this  society  who 
are  met  in  Paris  to  draw  up  the  protocol  for  the 
settlement  of  the  world.  As  was  pointed  out  in  THE 
DIAL  of  January  25,  the  all-inclusive  question  of 
the  Conference  is  still  whether  the  forces  there  rep- 
resented can  in  such  a  world  make  peace  at  all.  The 
draft  of  the  constitution  of  the  League  does  not 
answer  that  question ;  it  postpones  it ;  it  may  indeed 
become  an  evasion  of  it.  But  it  will  be  an  evasion 
of  which  men  will  be  well  aware,  and  they  will  re- 
sent most  bitterly  the  action  of  those  who  have  had 
the  largest  share  in  the  deception.  Only  as  a  prom- 
ise to  be  redeemed  in  full  in  the  terms  of  interna- 
tional settlement  repeatedly  laid  down  by  President 
Wilson  and  endorsed  by  all  the  Allies  can  the  pres- 
ent Covenant  be  honestly  offered  or  accepted. 

It  is  in  this  sense,  as  the  basis  of  an  alliance  of 
all  nations,  an  instrument  of  international  coopera- 
tion among  all  peoples,  that  we  accept  this  Cov- 
enant. Unless  it  is  this,  it  is  nothing.  It  is  in 
this  sense  that  we  can  call  on  liberals  to  accept  it, 
always  reminding  ourselves  and  them  that  the 
present  document  is  only  a  beginning,  the  first  dawn 
of  the  morning,  and  that  the  burden  and  heat  of  the 
day  are  all  before  us. 

ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


221 


Reversing  an  Emergency 


H 


ow  ACUTE  MUST  an  emergency  be  to  war- 
rant the  suspension  of  the  Constitution?  Or  is  it  a 
question  of  whose  emergency  it  is? 

When  we  entered  the  war  we  lost  comparatively 
little  time  in  mobilizing  our  resources  in  men,  in 
materials,  in  money.  These  were  quickly  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  the  government;  or  the  govern- 
ment, recognizing  the  existence  of  an  emergency — 
whatever  that  may  be — established  new  agencies 
for  their  seizure  and  administration.  Many  seri- 
ously questioned  the  motivation  of  our  entry  into 
the  war,  but  nobody  questioned  the  authority  of  the 
government  to  assume  its  new  powers.  In  a  great 
emergency,  it  is  recognized,  ordinary  rules  and  ordi- 
nary agencies  no  longer  work,  at  least  adequately. 
At  such  a  time  we  depend  upon  the  leadership  of 
the  community,  whether  official  or  unofficial,  to 
assert  itself,  to  override  routine,  and  to  use  all 
necessary  force  to  establish  order,  or  security,  or 
health,  or  whatever  it  is  that  the  emergency  de- 
mands. Our  entry  upon  the  war  was  no  doubt  a 
serious  emergency.  But  with  the  cessation  of  hos- 
tilities the  emergency  is  completely  reversed,  in 
certain  respects.  Yet  our  officials  are  doing  nothing 
very  prompt,  nothing  very  drastic,  to  cope  with  the 
situation. 

One  feature  of  the  conduct  of  the  war  has  a 
special  significance  for  the  future  of  our  national 
policies  on  the  economic  side.  That  was  the  or- 
ganization of  the  administration  of  essentials  on  a 
comprehensive  scale.  The  Transport  Administra- 
tion, the  Food  Administration,  the  Fuel  Adminis- 
tration, the  War  Industries  Board,  the  Capital 
Issues  Board,  and  many  other  agencies  represented 
the  principle  that  an  essential  commodity  which  is 
limited  in  amount  and  which  may  become  the  limit- 
ing factor  in  the  execution  of  the  national  purpose 
must  be  controlled,  on  the  one  hand  to  guard  against 
waste  and  dissipation  or  sequestration,  and  on  the 
other  hand  to  insure  the  most  effective  utilization 
in  the  emergency.  In  accepting  the  slogan  "  work 
or  fight,"  in*  establishing  the  United  States  Em- 
ployment Service  to  administer  labor  power  when 
labor  threatened  to  become  the  limiting  factor  in 
the  successful  conduct  of  the  war,  and  in  the  deter- 
mination of  labor  priorities,  labor  was  treated  pre- 
cisely the  same  as  other  commodities,  and  rightly  so. 
All  of  these  things  mean  that  in  an  emergency  it  is 
no  longer  safe  to  leave  to  private  initiative  and 
enterprise — and  patriotism — the  control  of  national 
essentials. 

But  suddenly  the  emergency  is  over.     Suddenly 


we  stop  shooting  shells  and  dropping  bombs.  Sud- 
denly we  stop  pulverizing  shoes  and  uniforms.  We 
stop  manufacturing  and  saving  up  shells  and  bombs 
and  uniforms  and  army  shoes.  Presently  we  with- 
draw restraint  from  the  paper  market  and  from  the 
lumber  market.  The  War  Industries  Board  is  al- 
lowed to  disband;  the  Capital  Issues  Board  evapor- 
ates; the  War  Labor  Board  sinks  into  desuetude. 
It  seems  that  private  initiative  and  enterprise  and  the 
traditional  wisdom  and  motivation  of  business  can 
now  be  relied  upon  to  produce  what  is  necessary,  as 
economically  as  may  be,  as  promptly  as  our  general 
welfare  may  require. 

The  emergency  is  past.  But  a  new  emergency 
has  come  to  replace  it.  The  commodity  labor,  of 
which  there  was  a  serious  shortage  but  a  few  weeks 
ago,  is  rapidly  changing  into  a  vast  array  of  hungry 
men  and  women  with  no  income  in  sight.  The 
munitions  factories,  the  uniform  factories,  the  gas- 
mask factories  stop  producing  war  supplies.  That 
is  excellent.  That  will  liberate  capital  and  ma- 
terials for  peace-time  production.  That,  plus  the 
demobilization,  will  liberate  workers — to  look  for 
jobs.  And  that  is  the  new  emergency.  In  the  past 
such  situations  were  looked  upon  as  the  emergen- 
cies of  those  directly  concerned.  In  the  past  .we 
took  official  cognizance  of  unfortunate  people's 
emergencies  because  we  were  more  or  less  humane, 
more  or  less  sympathetic,  more  or  less  disposed  to 
relieve  distress.  But  now  we  have  an  uncomfort- 
able feeling  that  there  is  some  official  responsibility 
for  meeting  this  new  emergency.  After  all,  the 
men  and  women  who  fought  and  carried  on  are 
something  more  than  convenient  supplies  for  the 
conduct  of  business ;  they  are  an  integral  and  a  very 
considerable  portion  of  that  something  "  we  "  were 
fighting  for  —  and  moreover,  they  will  not  be 
ignored.  « 

So  we  must  take  official  note  of  the  new  emer- 
gency, and  we  shift  it  to  the  Employment  Service. 
And  the  Employment  Service,  with  the  best  of  in- 
tentions, with  the  best  of  organizations,  with  the 
best  of  executives,  will  fail  to  meet  the  emergency. 
Then  the  Employment  Service,  and  the  Department 
of  Labor,  and  perhaps  the  Democratic  Administra- 
tion will  be  discredited.  Indeed  the  very  idea  of  the 
government's  interfering  with  what  is  historically  a 
private  affair  will  be  thoroughly  discredited.  But  if 
it  fails,  the  Employment  Service  will  not  be  at  fault. 
You  might  as  well  blame  your  refrigerator  for  not 
keeping  your  apartment  warm.  It  is  not  built  that 
way.  It  was  built  for  an  entirely  different  purpose 


222 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


— an  opposite  purpose.  No  matter  how  good  a  re- 
frigerator it  is,  it  cannot  keep  your  apartment 
warm.  And  neither  can  the  Employment  Service, 
which  was  built  for  administering  a  shortage  of  the 
commodity  labor,  successfully  reverse  itself  and  ad- 
minister a  shortage  of  jobs. 

The  reason  ^or  this  is  that,  whereas  the  govern- 
ment could  establish  some  control  over  the  commodi- 
ties it  undertook  to  administer — food,  or  fuel,  or 
labor — as  a  war  measure,  it  has  no  control  whatever 
over  jobs.  The  making  of  jobs  is  in  the  hands  of 
those  who  own  the  machinery  for  production — cap- 
ital and  organization  and  technique.  So  long  as  we 
leave  it  to  these,  the  emergency  will  continue — with 
fluctuations  in  volume  and  acuteness,  but  it  will 
cojntinue.  For  the  job  makers  can  afford  to  wait. 
There  is  of  course  a  great  need  for  goods  of  all 
kinds,  but  this  great  need  is  not  an  "  effective  de- 
mand." That  is  to  say,  there  is  no  immediate  buy- 
ing ability  proportionate  to  our  potential  produc- 
tivity. It  is  not  considered  good  business  to  plow 
lands  or  build  houses  or  weave  cloth  today  because 
the  labor  cost  is  too  high,  and  because  labor,  as 
market,  is  too  poor. 

It  is  true  that  a  given  acre  of  tillage  or  a  given 
mile  of  trackage  represents  the  same  amount  of 
labor,  whether  the  wage  rate  be  one  dollar  or  ten 
dollars  a  day.  It  is  true  that  the  food  and  clothing 
required  by  a  worker's  family  in  1919  'is  inde- 
pendent both  of  the  wage  rate  and  of  the  current 
prices  of  commodities.  But  the  factors  that  deter- 
mine whether  or  not  it  is  worth  while  to  produce 
food  and  clothing  and  houses  and  roads  are  not  the 
productivity  of  able  and  willing  workers,  nor  the 
needs  of  men,  women,  and  children.  The  determin- 
ing factors  are  the  probability  of  profits  for  the 
undertakers  and  of  dividends  for  the  investors. 

So  private  capital  is  waiting  for  a  recognized  need 
to  become  translated  in  some  mysterious  manner 
into  an  effective  demand;  but  the  workers  cannot 
waft.  It  is  not  merely  a  question  of  keeping  idle 
folk  occupied;  it  is  not  even  a  question  of  furnish- 
ing a  wage  or  a  stipend.  It  is  primarily  a  question 
of  maintaining  production  and  distribution  of  essen- 
tials. That  is  why  any  agency  for  dealing  with  the 
emergency,  whether  the  Employment  Service  or 
what  not,  must  start  something  substantially  like 
the  organization  of  production  and  distribution. 

Reservoir  or  buffer  employments  will  be  neces- 
sary; but  they  will  not  suffice.  While  we  may 
raise  enough  money  to  pay  emergency  wages  for 
such  employments  for  many  months  to  come,  we 
shall  be  producing  values  that  the  emergency  wages 
cannot  buy,  that  workers  cannot  use  to  live  on.  If 
we  established  only  emergency  reservoir  employ- 


ment, we  should  establish  a  condition  of  continued 
low  wages  with  constantly  rising  prices;  but  per- 
haps we  should  then  be  forced  to  recognize  that  we 
had  a  real  emergency  on  our  hands. 

If  the  present  emergency  concerns  only  discharged 
munitions  workers  and  discharged  soldiers,  it  is  but 
the  front  end  of  an  emergency  that  concerns  the 
very  existence  of  the  nation.  We  must  recognize 
quickly  that  there  is  needed  an  organization,  on  a 
comprehensive  scale,  for  the  production  of  funda- 
mentals that  are  immediately  and  continuously 
usable.  We  must  recognize  that  we  cannot  depend 
for  this  prompt  and  comprehensive  organization 
upon  those  in  control  of  the  industrial  and  commer- 
cial and  financial  machinery  of  the  country.  Those 
in  control  are,  from  a  traditional  and  legalistic 
point  of  view,  quite  legitimately  taking  their  time 
until  the  situation  is  so  clear  that  they  can  see  profit 
in  making  jobs.  But  while  they  are  waiting,  the 
organisms  that  constitute  labor,  the  flesh  and  blood 
of  the  country,  are  undergoing  deleterious  changes. 

If  now  we  are  to  assume  national  responsibility 
for  this  emergency,  instead  of  ignoring  it,  or  in- 
stead of  allowing  it  to  be  the  exclusive  concern  of 
those  upon  whom  it  happens  to  impinge,  we  must 
first  of  all  reestablish  the  various  administrative 
bodies  maintained  during  the  war  for  the  purpose 
of  controlling  the  production  and  distribution  of 
war  essentials — with  certain  important  differences. 
Whereas  during  the  war  capital  issues,  the  purchase 
of  materials,  the  allotment  of  labor,  and  the  assign- 
ment of  transportation  priorities  were  administered 
solely  with  a  view  to  war  needs,  today  capital  and 
materials  and  labor  must  be  administered  with  a 
view  to  the  normal  essentials  of  working  people. 
Whereas  during  the  war  competition  for  workers 
had  virtually  to  be  prohibited  to  prevent  the  sky- 
rocketing of  wages,  we  must  now  prevent  competi- 
tion for  jobs  from  knocking  the  bottom  out  of  living 
standards.  Whereas  during  the  war  we  comman- 
deered labor  and  left  to  it  a  minimum  of  oppor- 
tunity^ for  self-direction  while  we  merely  controlled 
capital,  we  should  now  commandeer  capital,  leaving 
it  a  minimum  of  self-direction,  while  we  merely 
guide  labor.  In  short,  we  must  now  recognize  that 
the  emergency  is  reversed. 

'  The  first  difference  this  reversal  makes  in  any 
program  of  organized  production  and  distribution  is 
this:  during  the  war  we  were  concerned  with  pro- 
ducing to  the  very  utmost,  limiting  ourselves  only 
by  such  limiting  factors  as  were  beyond  our  con- 
trol— chiefly  shortages  of  essentials — now  transpor- 
tation, at  another  time  equipment,  or  labor,  or  some 
special  chemical;  now  we  should  be  concerned  with 
establishing  a  minimum  program,  in  the  fear  that 


223 


any  excess  of  production  would  affect  unfavorably 
those  factors  of  national  or  foreign  markets  that 
furnish  the  prerogatives  of  merchants  and  finan- 
ciers. Because  the  fixing  of  prices  and  of  wages 
would  to  a  certain  extent  interfere  with  the  specu- 
lative elements  of  investments  and  profits,  we 
should  undertake  to  produce  only  as  little  as  wpuld 
suffice  to  meet  the  prospective  needs,  with  the  nar- 
rowest possible  margin  of  safety. 

The  apparently  arbitrary  limitation  of  wage  de- 
pression is  the  second  point  of  difference,  and  this 
is  quite  as  justifiable  as  was  the  previous  restriction 
on  competition  for  workers.  Under  war  conditions 
those  in  control  of  industry,  whether  they  dealt 
directly  with  the  government  or  with  the  public  at 
large,  were  amply  protected  against  excessively 
high  wages.  Through  cost-plus  contracts,  or  through 
fixed  price  contracts,  the  margin  was  all  on  the 
side  of  the  capital  owner.  An  excessively  high 
wage,  which  strictly  speaking  means  a  wage  in  ex- 
cess of  the  social  value  of  the  worker's  product,  may 
indeed  have  been  attained  in  some  trades;  but 
generally  speaking  the  living  standards  of  the 
workers  of  the  country  have  not  gone  up  unduly 
during  the  war,  whereas,  generally  speaking,  the 
families  of  the  capital  controlling  classes  have  not 
been  exposed  to  undue  privation,  and  the  "  earn- 
ings "  of  capital  have  been  of  such  magnitude  as  to 
lead  many  to  confuse  "  profiteering "  with  the 
sequestration  of  excess  profits.  Under  these  circum- 
stances the  danger  of  alloting  to  the  workers  an  ex- 
cessive wage  means  at  the  worst  a  draft  upon  our 
material  reserves;  whereas  an  unduly  low  wage 
would  mean  a  draft  upon  our  human  reserve — 
the  disintegration  of  men,  women,  and  children,  if 
these  stood  for  it  long  enough. 

The  third  difference,  the  determination  by  public 
agencies  of  the  location  and  uses  of  private  capital, 
is  but  another  implication  of  our  acceptance  of  na- 
tional action  in  an  emergency.  We  took  it  for 
granted,  in  accepting  the  draft  law,  that  at  least 
so  far  as  they  were  able  officials  would  place  each 
conscript  where  he  -would  be  of  most  service.  In 
the  same  way  commandeering  of  private  fixed  capi- 
tal should  result  in  placing  each  tractor  or  sewing 
machine  or  lathe  where  it  will  do  the  most  good. 
What  stands  in  the  way  of  an  official  seizure  of 
industrial  equipment  is  not  the  fear  that  some  fool 
officer  might  try  to  grind  heavy  castings  with  a 
spinning  jenny  and  thus  ruin  a  perfectly  good  ma- 
chine. The  chief  obstacle  is  the  refusal  of  those 
in  control  of  the  government  to  recognize  the  sit- 
uation as  a  national  emergency.  That,  however, 
is  the  sort  of  obstacle  that  may  at  any  time  cease 
to  have  meaning. 


The  assumption  of  national  responsibility  would 
mean  in  the  second  place  the  immediate  starting 
of  all  our  statistical  machinery  for  ascertaining  the 
actual  needs  of  the  nation — that  is  the  people — in 
the  months  to  come.  How  much  food,  and  what 
kinds,  how  much  iron  and  coal  and  gasoline  and 
copper  and  lumber,  how  many  pairs  of  shoes,  and 
how  many  dwellings  during  the  next  fiscal  year? 
All  these  things  we  can  find  out  with  reasonable 
accuracy,  even  if  the  financiers  have  no  way  of 
knowing  how  much  can  be  profitably  marketed. 

Next  we  can  find  out  how  much  our  farms  and 
mines,  our  forests  and  factories,  are  capable  of 
producing — assuming  organization  and  labor  and 
materials  and  technique — profit  or  no  profit.  And 
then  we  can  find  out  just  what  private  enterprise 
contemplates  producing  and  when  it  plans  to  start. 
Prices  being  what  they  are,  wages  being  what 
they  are,  visible  stocks  of  supplies  being  what  they 
are,  what  do  you  plan  to  do  with  your  silk  mills, 
with  your  clothing  factories,  with  your  machine 
shops,  with  your  furniture  factories? 

Suppose  our  War  Industries  Board,  converted  into 
a  National  Safety  Industries  Board,  receives  from  a 
certain  munitions  plant,  now  converted  into  a  sport- 
ing goods  plant,  a  program  of  the  year's  production. 
There  being  an  abundance  of  labor  and  raw  material 
available,  our  board  allots  coal  and  materials  to  the 
factory.  But  a  compilation  of  all  the  sporting  goods 
reports  shows  that  there  is  contemplated  a  shortage 
of  tennis  rackets.  Now  you  cannot  force  the  manu- 
facturer to  take  any  risks;  but  you  can  undertake  to 
manufacture  a  supplementary  lot  of  tennis  rackets  in 
a  commandeered  and  converted  airplane  factory. 
What  is  needed,  in  other  words,  as  a  third  step,  is 
the  determination  of  what  work  must  be  undertaken 
to  supplement  the  private  voluntary  undertakings.  If 
there  is  enough  machinery  in  the  country  to  produce 
the  necessary  shoes,  and  only  enough  is  working  to 
meet  half  the  needs,  we  must  start  enough  additional 
machinery  going  to  supply  the  other  half.  If  private 
capital  is  too  timid  to  take  the  risk,  it  may  waive  its 
profits  while  the  machinery  turns  out  peace  essentials. 

This  means  the  fixing  of  wages  for  workers  in 
terms  of  living  costs  and  living  standards.  It  may 
mean  the  fixing  of  prices  that  leave  too  little  profit. 
The  fixing  of  wages  in  terms  of  prices  would  tend  to 
stabilize  wages.  This  would  be  embarrassing 'to  the 
manufacturer  whose  program  for  the  year  was  based 
on  the  hope  that  wages  would  drop  speedily.  But 
the  fixing  of  prices  might  bring  its  compensations. 
At  any  rate,  we  shall  eventually  have  to  choose  be- 
tween making  unwilling  capital  serve  the  nation  at 
what  its  owners  consider  inadequate  pay,  and  leav- 
ing willing  but  unemployed  workers  to  their  own 


224 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


devices.  As  to  the  former  alternative,  we  do  not 
know  what  constitutes  adequate  compensation  for 
the  service  of  capital;  empirically  it  is  anything  be- 
tween zero  and  several  hundred  per  cent.  And  as 
to  the  latter  alternative,  we  do  not  know  to  what 
devices  idle  workers  and  outraged  soldiers  may  re- 
sort. But  we  do  know,  or  can  easily  enough  find 
out,  what  lands  and  materials  and  machinery  are 
required  for  producing  the  consumable  utilities  of 
the  coming  year;  we  know  where  the  machinery 
and  the  materials  and  the  workers  are  located. 

The  matter  is  not  altogether  a  simple  problem  in 
arithmetic;  there  are  many  variables  and  many  un- 
certainties. There  is  the  possibility  that  private  cap- 
ital will  discover  that  it  is  not  as  timid  as  it  had 
feared  itself  to  be,  and  that  it  will  then  come  forth 
to  steal  labor  away  from  government  undertakings 
by  the  offer  of  higher  wages.  There  is  the  possibil- 
ity that  workers  (even  unemployed  workers)  have 
already  discovered  that  what  they  used  to  consider 
good  jobs  are  today  beneath  their  notice.  There  is 
the  possibility  that  unforeseen  importations  will 
leave  the  relatively  high-priced  domestic  products  on 
our  hands,  too  valuable  to  throw  away,  but  too  "ex- 
pensive" to  use  up.  But  all  of  these  possibilities  mean 
that  an  emergency  is  an  expensive  proposition;  that 
does  not  need  to  be  decided.  What  needs  to  be  de- 
cided is,  who  is  to  pay  the  cost?  Shall  it  be  the  re- 
turning soldiers  and  the  discharged  second  line? 
Shall  it  be  the  next  generation,  forced  to  liquidate 
long  term  bonds?  Shall  it  be  the  few  who  are  both 
wealthy  and  generous?  Shall  it  be  those  who  have 
accumulated  war  profits  beyond  all  decency?  The 
fact  is  that  not  one  of  these  classes  can  bear  the  cost, 
however  much  it  may  wish  to.  To  carry  the  cost 
means  to  produce  continuously,  and  that  requires 
workers,  plus  organization,  plus  equipment,  plus 
technique.  Heretofore  we  have  depended  upon  the 


owners  of  equipment  and  credit  to  furnish  the  or- 
ganization and  to  employ  labor  and  to  exploit  tech- 
nology. The  present  emergency  means  that  the  own- 
ers of  capital  are  not  ready  to  start.  Some  other 
agency  must  do  the  starting,  the  national  govern- 
ment— or  those  who  feel  it  to  be  their  emergency. 
There  are  here  then  four  important  questions : 

1.  Have  we  enough  resources  in  the  way  of  mate- 
rials and  tools  and  machinery  and  fluid  capital 
(or  credit)  to  employ  all  willing  men  and  women 
in  a  producing  organization  ? 

2.  Have  we  available  the  intelligence,  the  expert 
knowledge,  and  the  executive  ability  requisite  for 
effecting  such  an  organization  ? 

3.  Can  such   an   organization   produce   enough   to 
maintain  the  corresponding  portion  of  the  popula- 
tion, and  carry  its  overhead  costs? 

4.  Is  the  organization  of  capital  for  the  purpose  of 
enabling  available  workers  to  produce  and  to  main- 
tain themselves  and  their  dependents  a  matter  of 
national  importance? 

It  is  only  the  fourth  of  these  questions  that  re- 
mains open.  It  is  the  whole  question  whether  un- 
employment, however  extensive  or  enduring,  is  or 
is  not  a  public  emergency,  is  or  is  not  a  strictly  pri- 
vate matter. 

When  we  recognized  the  existence  of  an  emer- 
gency that  called  for  more  labor  than  came  forward 
voluntarily,  we  knew  how  to  conscript  the  additional 
service.  Now  that  the  emergency  is  reversed,  shall 
we  have  the  vision  and  the  energy  and  the  courage 
to  cope  with  it?  That  is,  shall  we  have  the  vision 
and  the  courage  and  the  energy  to  continue  conscript- 
ing, whatever  and  whomsoever  may  be  needed,  until 
the  emergency  is  past? 

That  depends  on  whose  emergency  we  think  it  is. 

BENJAMIN  C.  GRUENBERG. 


Night  Smell 


The  quivering  night  smell 

Comes  and  touches  my  heart 

Till  it  swoons,  almost, 

In  the  darkness. 

I  am  like  the  happy  bending  and  floating 

Of  unknown  and  outworn  spiderwebs, 

So  without  importance 

In  the  exultant  brooding 

Of  the  night. 

The  bloom,  and  the  blush,  and  the  nod 

Of  it  lean  over  me, 

And  make  a  long  soft  sound 

Like  a  bird  asleep. 

JOSEPHINE  BELL. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


Ten  Times  Ten  Make  One 


M 


R.  JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL  of  Virginia, 
genealogist  and  twentieth  century  jongleur  of  let- 
ters, now  amuses  himself  by  giving  his  fourth  dimen- 
sional arithmetic  its  official  textbook,  Beyond  Life: 
Dizain  des  Demiurges  (McBride;  $1.50).  This 
charming  act  of  concession  may  or  may  not  be  a 
good  thing  for  the  future  of  the  romantic  and 
gossamer  science  thereby  made  manifest.  In  any 
event,  I  mean  "  charming "  in  all  literalness — 
abhorring  sarcasm  on  this  subject,  and  leaving  it  to 
the  really  professional  reviewer  who  reviews  with- 
out having  read. 

At  first  glimpse,  the  concession  seems  one  of 
humorous  despair,  whereby  Mr.  Cabell  offers  to 
make  himself  over,  body  and  soul — one  group  after 
another  having  refused  him  on  whatever  terms — to 
the  cults  and  the  coteries,  which  remain  hitherto 
as  blankly  oblivious  of  him  as  the  newspapered  and 
Saturday-Evening-Posted  multitude  itself.  This 
would  be,  for  the  author  of  Gallantry  and  The 
Line  of  Love,  a  dreadful  form  of  suicide,  compara- 
ble to  the  self-extinction  invoked  by  vice-presidents 
and  the  husbands  of  famous  women.  But  what 
Mr.  Cabell  has  done,  and  notably  done,  in  Beyond 
Life  is  to  make  an  extension  into  philosophy  of  his 
artifice,  perhaps  also  of  his  art.  I  do  not  know 
that  even  the  most  enterprising-  of  his  detractors 
has  ever  made  any  very  serious  attempt  to  convict 
him  of  a  deficit  in  the  sense  of  purely  artistic  unity. 
He  is  nothing  if  not  the  workman,  the  welder. 
Even  in  his  volumes  of  tales — Chivalry,  the  Dizain 
des  Reines;  The  Certain  Hour,  his  Dizain  des 
Poetes;  Gallantry,  the  Dizain  des  Fetes-Galanr.es; 
and  The  Line  of  Love,  which  started  out  to  be 
the  Dizain  des  Mariages,  and  was  thwarted  only 
by  Mr.  Cabell's  failure  to  have  discovered  at  that 
early  period  "  the  decimal  system  of  composition  " — 
even  in  these  volumes  of  ostensibly  separate  tales, 
there  is  inflexible  unity  of  design,  an  interweaving 
of  parts  patterned  into  a  whole  by  composition, 
point  of  view,  a  selective  principle,  singleness  of 
esthetic  and  philosophic  accent.  With  these  belongs 
this  newer  volume,  Beyond  Life,  the  Dizain  des 
Demiurges,  ten  essays  of  the  same  calculated  and 
preordained  harmony,  each  essay  coaxed  into  ten 
neat  sections  strung  together  and  fitting  like  verte- 
brae, all  the  essays  and  all  the  sections  falling  into 
nicest  adjustment  to  disclose  a  philosophy  of  life 
wrapped  round  a  philosophy  of  letters.  It  is  the 
book  of  a  man  in  whose  supernal  mathematic  ten 
times  ten  always  make  one,  and  one  only. 

The  central  unifying  speculation  of  the  book  is 


that  the  history  of  conscious  life  may  be  only  an 
essay  in  romantic  fiction,  contrived  by  an  all-power- 
ful author  who  uses  men  and  women,  rather  than 
written  words,  as  his  symbols.  It  is  a  romantic, 
not  a  realistic,  essay,  because  the  demiurge  or  world- 
shaping  principle  is  nothing  other  than  romance. 
The  universal  human  instinct  for  romance — which, 
I  take  it,  would  be  the  Cabellian  defense  of  the 
supposition  that  man  is  made  in  the  image  of  his 
author — expresses  itself  in  a  set  of  "  dynamic  illu- 
sions "  or  "  vital  lies,"  each  an  elaborate  denial  of 
the  factual  truth  about  life,  and  a  fashion  of  accept- 
ing things  not  "  as  they  are  "  but  "  as  they  ought 
to  be."  The  crowning  merit  of  these  dynamic  il- 
lusions is  that,  one  and  all,  they  work,  whereas 
nothing  else  does  work.  They  improve  the  race, 
better  the  shape  and  composition  of  the  world  it 
inhabits,  hasten  and  control  its  evolution  away  from 
the  ape,  enlist  it  on  the  side  of  the  angels.  Man 
has  the  faculty  of  "  playing  the  ape  to  his  dreams"  ; 
he  "  can,  actually,  acquire  a  trait  by  assuming,  in 
defiance  of  reason,  that  he  already  has  it." 

To  exemplify:  The  love  of  the  sexes  is  such  a 
dynamic  illusion,  one  of  the  chief  of  man's  incite- 
ments to  noble  emprise.  "  When  you  come  to 
judge  what  he  [man]  made  of  sexual  desire,  ap- 
praising the  deed  in  view  as  against  the  wondrous 
overture  of  courtship  and  that  infinity  of  high 
achievements  which  time  has  seen  performed  as 
grace-notes,  words  fail  before  his  egregious  thauma- 
turgy.  For  after  any  such  stupendous  bit  of  hocus- 
pocus,  there  seems  to  be  no  limit  fixed  to  the  con- 
jurations of  human  vanity."  The  epic  of  Chris- 
tianity is  another  triumph  of  romance,  the  most 
staggering  of  all :  it  is  the  tale  of  Cinderella  and  the 
Prince  in  a  cosmic  translation.  And  all  religion 
creates  dynamic  illusions  based  on  human  vanity;  it 
whispers  to  man  that  the  gods  are  interested  in 
him  and  his  doings,  and  he,  moved  by  the  pretty 
fiction  of  a  reward  in  eternity,  does  the  best  he 
knows  how  on  this  bank  and  shoal  of  time.  Also 
he  abstains  from  doing :  for  virtue,  which  is  "  vic- 
torious resistance  to  one's  vital  desire,"  a  "  daily 
abstention  from  being  '  true  to  life,' "  res"ts  im- 
plicitly on  the  expectation  of  being  "  paid  ...  in 
a  transfigured  life  to  come."  (This,  says  Mr. 
Cabell,  is  religion's  use  of  "  that  venerable  artistic 
convention,  '  the  happy  ending.'  ")  Patriotism,  a 
demiurgic  product  especially  valuable  in  war-time, 
is  "  undefiled  by  any  smirch  of  '  realism  '  or  of  that 
which  is  merely  '  logical '  " ;  it  is  an  anesthesia  for 
saving  us  from  truths  which  would  drive  us  in- 


226 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


stantly.mad  if  honestly  faced,  such  as  that  "presi- 
dents and  chief-justices  and  archbishops  and  kings 
and  statesmen  are  human  beings  like  you  and  me 
and  the  state  legislators  and  the  laundryman." 
Whence  the  "  mythos  "  built  up  round  each  of  our 
great  men,  "  so  as  to  save  us  from  the  driveling 
terror  that  would  spring  from  conceding  our  des- 
tinies in  any  way  to  depend  on  other  beings  quite  as 
mediocre  and  incompetent  as  ourselves." 

And  then  there  is  the  most  potent  and  pervasive 
of  all  demiurgic  forces,  plain  human  dullness.  It 
keeps  the  average  man  convinced  of  the  ultimate 
value  of  "  common  sense,"  of  doing  "  practical  " 
things;  it  keeps  us  one  and  all  perpetually  con- 
vinced that  life,  however  aimless  and  wasteful  and 
unsatisfactory  at  this  moment,  is  certain  to  be  al- 
together different  by  week  after  next.  And 
"  finally  dulness  it  is  that  lifts  up  heart  and  voice 
alike,  to  view  a  parasite  infesting  the  epidermis  of 
a  midge  among  the  planets,  and  cries,  Behold,  this 
is  the  child  of  God  All-mighty  and  All-worshipful, 
made  in  the  likeness  of  his  Father!" 

Thus,  throughout,  the  demiurge  compels  us  to 
interpret  life  as  it  is  not,  and  thereby  spares  us  the 
dementia  of  seeing  it  as  it  is;  it  enables  us  to  exist. 
Having  done  that,  it  enables  us  to  progress,  on  our 
maker's  grand  scale  as  the  artist  in  fiction  does 
on  his  tiny  scale,  toward  "  the  auctorial  virtues  of 
distinction  and  clarity,  of  beauty  and  symmetry,  of 
tenderness  and  truth  and  urbanity."  And,  of  all 
that  is,  no  jot  has  come  to  be  except  by  virtue  of 
"  this  will  that  stirs  in  us  to  have  the  creatures 
of  earth  and  the  affairs  of  earth,  not  as  they  are, 
but  '  as  they  ought  to  be.' >:  This  will  about  which 
we  talk  is  romance,  the  demiurge;  but  "when  we 
note  how  visibly  it  sways  all  life  we  perceive  that 
we  are  talking  about  God." 

However  clear  the  general  purport  of  this 
philosophy,  as  a  restatement  of  the  truism  that  life 
is  somehow  making  game  of  us,  there  is  somewhat 
in  its  detailed  applications  to  ruffle  the  sense  of 
logic.  One  wants  the  doctrine — because  it  is,  how- 
ever subordinately,  a  born  artist's  doctrine  of  art — 
to  achieve  indubitable  clarity  on  the  main  esthetic 
point.  That  point  is  the  authenticity  of  "  romance  " 
and  the  spuriousness  of  "realism";  and  precisely 
that  point  is  left  without  any  very  exact  locus. 
Beyond  Life,  unlike  life,  teems  with  definition ;  but, 
through  the  piling  up  of  definitions  that  do  not 
agree,  it  leaves  its  major  terms  as  undefined  as 
those  of  life  itself.  The  major  terms  here  are 
"  romance  "  and  "  realism."  Almost  from  begin- 
ning to  end  of  the  book,  romance  is  understood  to 
be  the  acceptance  of  life  as  it  ought  to  be,  realism 
the  acceptance  of  life  as  it  is.  Romance,  dynamic 


illusion,  the  demiurge,  is -the  friend  of  the  race,  the 
summum  bonum,  the  author  of  all  effort,  all  achieve- 
ment ;  realism,  or  insistence  on  the  factual  truth,  is 
the  inveterately  inimical  and  destructive  principle. 
And  then,  behold !  we  land  with  a  thud  against  the 
astounding  assertion  that  the  crowning  imbecility 
of  realism  in  fiction  is  its  endeavor  "  to  show  our 
actual  existence  from  a  viewpoint  wherefrom  no 
human  being  ever  saw  it  " — that  is,  the  viewpoint 
which  penetrates  and  analyzes,  which  excludes  what 
it  can  of  bias,  which  portrays  the  dynamic  illusions 
not  as  the  eternal  laws  of  truth  and  beauty,  but 
simply  as  emotion  and  predilection  objectively  ex- 
isting in  the  characters;  the  viewpoint  of  Flaubert, 
of  Conrad — and,  I  must  add,  at  the  risk  of  in- 
furiating a  writer  to  whose  work  I,  for  one,  warmly 
respond — the  viewpoint  of  Mr.  Cabell  himself  in 
every  book  he  has  yet  signed. 

Now,  if  no  human  being  does  actually  see  life 
from  this  angle — I  pass  over  the  question  how  on 
earth,  if  no  one  does,  The  Cords  of  Vanity  and 
Beyond  Life  and  Madame  Bovary  and  Une  Vie 
and  Nostromo  have  contrived  to  exist — if  the 
dynamic  illusions  are  the  whole  sum  of  normal 
consciousness,  and  presenting  the  facts  "  as  they 
are  "  is  "  precisely  the  one  indiscretion  which  life 
never  perpetrates";  if  all  this  is  so,  why  then  of 
course  it  is  "  romance  "  which  turns  out  to  be  the 
servile  and  effortless  copy  of  factuality,  and  by 
the  same  token  it  is  this  very  decried  "  realism  " 
which  alone  takes  imagination,  expands  the  province 
of  consciousness,  changes  the  shape,  the  boundaries, 
the  very  center  of  the  world  each  of  us  inhabits;  it 
is  realism  only,  in  fine,  which  is  the  authentic  ro- 
mance. 

That  this  may  indeed  be  so  is  the  one  valid  jus- 
tification of  realism,  the  realist's  all-sufficing 
apologia.  If  all  of  us  are  swaddled  in  illusion,  then 
the  only  adventure  left  is  the  effort  to  get  rid  of  the 
wrappings,  see  ourselves  stripped,  and  perceive  at 
last  how  infantile  we  really  are.  To  do  so  may  be, 
in  fact,  the  one  way  for  us  to  get  our  growth — 
that  growth  toward  the  stature  of  archangels  on 
which  Mr.  Cabell  more  than  once  compliments 
the  race.  That  this  is  the  function  of  realism  some 
of  us  have  always  contended.  The  fact  that  much 
pseudo-realism  has  got  no  deeper  than  the  pimples 
on  the  skin  of  life — has  remained,  in  the  words  of 
Mr.  Cabell's  Charteris,  "  the  art  of  being  super- 
ficial seriously  " — has  really  nothing  to  do  with  the 
question.  If.  Mr.  Cabell's  Charteris,  who  has  to 
perfection  the  art  of  being  serious  superficially,  were 
to  ask  what  I  mean  by  realism,  when  the  question 
is  of  literature  and  not  merely  of  glib  journalism 
masquerading  as  the  art  of  fiction,  I  might  very  in- 


1.919 


THE  DIAL 


227 


telligently  answer  that  I  mean  The  Cream  of  the 
Jest  and  The  Cords  of  Vanity  and  Beyond  Life. 
The  net  result  of  these  books,  and  of  their  neighbors 
on  the  same  shelf — excepting,  perhaps,  The  Eagle's 
Shadow — is  to  shrink  the  domain  of  illusion  and 
faith  and  to  expand  that  of  disillusion  and  sight. 
What  criticism  there  is  in  this  continent  simply 
cannot  afford  longer  to  wage  its  war  against  the 
falsities  without  acclaiming  the  addition  to  its 
ranks  of  such  a  master  of  strategy  as  Mr.  Cabell. 
His  present  defense  of  the  illusions  of  romance  is 
the  most  insidiously  damaging  attack  on  them  ever 
printed. 

And  therein  it  is  of  a  substance  with  his  other 
work:  indeed,  philosophically  it  is  little  more  than 
a  hauling-together  and  piecing-out  of  fragmentary 
meanings  from  all  of  them.  Charteris,  Kennaston, 
Townsend,  Villon,  Shakespeare,  Herrick,  Rudolph 
Musgrave,  Wycherley,  Sheridan — does  Mr.  Cabell 
show  these  men  "  as  they  ought  to  be  "  or  "  as  they 
are"?  He  is  far  beyond  pampering  his  own  illusions 
about  them,  whatever  theirs  about  life.  And  what 
dynamic  illusion  is  it,  one  wonders,  which  drives 
him  to  the  ruthless  exposure  of  his  own  illusions 
as  fast  as  he  can  detect  them?  Not,  it  would  cer- 
tainly appear,  a  wholesome  love  of  viewing  himself 
as  he  ought  to  be,  nor  yet  that  overmastering  desire 
to  play  the  part  which  is  expected  of  one,  to  which 
.he  rightly  ascribes  much  of  the  waste  and  tedium 
of  our  unsocial  society.  His  posture  of  an  enemy 
to  realism  and  an  apologist  of  human  sentimentalism 
must  assuredly  be,  then,  the  cream  of  a  prodigious 
jest.  It  pleases  him,  here,  to  ignore  the  abysmal 
difference  in  kind  and  consequence  between  the 
sentimental  self-deceptions  of  gross  minds,  and  the 
idealizing  urge  of  a  fine  temperament  toward  "  dis- 
tinction and  clarity,  beauty  and  symmetry,  tender- 
ness and  truth  and  urbanity";  the  difference,  say, 
between  stupid  conformity  to  what  is  expected  of 
one,  and  his  own  idealized  vision  of  that  conformity 
as  being  no  mean  part  of  the  demiurgic  force.  Yet 
that  difference,  which  he  understands  better  than 
any  American  who  ever  put  pen  to  paper,  is  the  all- 
important  thing,  and  every  nerve  of  his  artist's  tem- 
per vibrates  constant  recognition  of  it.  You  really 
cannot  account  for  his  words — some  of  them — 
except  as  the  words  of  a  man  with  his  tongue  in  his 
cheek. 

Mr.  Cabell  does  in  fact  carry  his  tongue  in  his 
cheek  rather  persistently  of  late:  one  hopes  and 
trusts  it  is  not  going  to  surfer  the  untoward  mishap 
of  tongues,  and  persons,  that  venture  where  they 
do  not  strictly  belong.  I  mentioned  Mr.  Cabell's 
apparent  overture  to  the  cults  and  the  coteries;  and 
indeed  he  does  become,  since  The  Rivet  in  Grand- 


father's Neck,  very  special,  very  tricksy,  very  ex- 
clusively and  (shall  I  say?)  ostentatiously  given  to 
pleasing  the  most  whimsical  part  of  himself,  and 
other  considerations  be  hanged.  But  the  real  dan- 
ger, after  all,  is  not  that  the  faddists  will  injure 
his  future  by  taking  him  up;  it  is  that,  by  limiting 
himself  more  and  more  narrowly  to  ingenious  mock- 
eries, he  will  injure  it  himself,  and  with  it  more 
than  he  can  possibly  conjecture  of  the  next  quarter- 
century  of  letters  in  America.  If  this  seem  a  fanci- 
ful speculation,  consider  that  Mark  Twain  missed 
something  of  his  due  place  by  an  almost  lifelong 
conformity,  and  Ambrose  Bierce  something  of  his 
by  a  progressive  embitterment.  Those  who  think 
they  understand  Cabell  do  not  wish  to  see  him  the 
victim  of  a  withdrawal  into  the  most  intricate 
passages  of  his  own  personality — not  even  if- that 
would  multiply  delights  for  themselves.  That  is, 
then,  the  danger — that  he  is  by  way  of  becoming  his 
own  coterie.  For  himself,  that  would  be  all  beer  and 
skittles  and  the  best  o'  company.  What  an  in-- 
dividual, for  example,  is  that  one  segment  of  Cabell 
named  John  Charteris  (who,  by  the  way,  has  evi- 
dently moved  from  Lichfield  to  Fairhaven  since 
Jasper  Hardress  killed  him  in  The  Rivet  in  Grand- 
father's Neck),  the  man  who  talks  the  essays  of 
Beyond  Life  straight  off  between  nine  of  a  May 
evening  and  five  of  the  next  morning,  in  a  study 
lined  with  such  things  as  The  Complete  Works  of 
David  Copperfield,  The  Novels  and  Tales  of  Mark 
Ambient,  The  Works  of  Colney  Durance,  The 
Collected  Essays  of  Ernest  Pontifex,  the  last  six 
cantos  of  The  Faerie  Queene,  and  the  latter  Can- 
terbury Tales,  to  an  interlocutor  who  plagiarizes 
the  favorite  argument  of  the  professional  reviewer 
by  failing  to  understand  exactly  what  it  is  all  about. 
But  what  I  am  thinking  of  is  not  the  greatest  pos- 
sible fun  for  Mr.  Cabell :  what  I  am  thinking  of  is 
the  richest  possible  yield  to  a  modest  number  of 
the  rest  of  us. 

A  fantastic  possibility  to  close  on  is  that  Cabell 
may  achieve  popularity,  notices,  plaudits,  editions, 
with  this  inherently  and  deliberately  least  "  popu- 
lar "  of  all  his  books.  It  is  reported  that  Mr.  Felix 
Kennaston's  Men  Who  Loved  Alison  achieved  sales 
through  a  blundering  allusion  which  everyone  but 
the  author  perfectly  comprehended;  it  would  be 
hardly  less  fantastic  if  Beyond  Life  were  instantly 
to  enrich  its  publisher  on  the  strength  of  the  adver- 
tising matter  at  the  back  of  the  book.  Possibly  to 
lend  color  to  his  theory  that  dullness  is  the  final 
arbiter,  Mr.  Cabell  has  included  eight  pages  of 
journalistic  comment  on  his  own  work,  all  of  it 
maudlin  almost  beyond  human  credibility,  and  clos- 
ing with  the  assurance  of  the  New  York  Sun  that 


228 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


"  with  time  and  experience,  aided  by  the  sympathetic 
appreciation  of  the  reviewer,  Mr.  Cabell  will  doubt- 
less learn."  If  these  eight  pages  were  to  do  for 
the  author  what  some  three  hundred  and  sixty  of 
his  own  resplendent  prose  could  not  do,  life  would 
have  committed  a  truly  Cabellian  jest  transcending 
laughter  or  tears. 


"  A  good  book,"  the  title-page  quotes,  "  is  the 
precious  life-blood  of  a  master-spirit,  embalmed  and 
treasured  up  on  purpose  to  a  life  beyond  life."  Mr. 
Cabell  is  one  of  a  very  few  living  writers  who  have 
offered  hostages  to  nothing  in  space  or  time  except 
this  sort  of  ultravitality. 

WILSON  FOLLETT. 


Two  Latter-Day  Hamlets 


I 


N  THE  AVERAGE  AUDIENCE  that  attends  a  per- 
formance of  Hamlet  there  are  represented,  roughly 
speaking,  three  distinct  types.  First  of  all  there  are 
the  persons  who  attend  from  a  sense  of  self-educa- 
tional duty.  These  constitute  almost  but  not  quite 
one  half  of  the  audience.  Then  there  are  the  persons 
who  thoroughly  enjoy  either  the  poesy  of  the  lan- 
guage or  the  beauty  of  the  stage  pictures  or  both. 
These  make  up  a  comfortable  half  of  the  audience. 
Last  of  all  there  is  the  handful  of  discriminating 
Shakespeare  lovers,  to  whom  Hamlet  is  a  great 
salient,  vitalizing,  and  humanizing  fact,  to  be  care- 
fully studied  and  pondered  over  and  fathomed — as 
far  as  one  can  fathom  the  unfathomable;  and  these 
attend  because  to  hear  the  lines  rendered  with  any- 
thing approximating  adequacy  is  as  breath  in  their 
nostrils,  and  because  they  hope  to  find  in  each  suc- 
cessive interpretation  some  new  intrinsic  but  hither- 
to undiscovered  beauty.  Or,  if  they  have  made  a 
very  close  study  indeed  of  the  greatest  of  plays,  they 
hope,  by  some  miracle,  to  witness  the  manifestly  im- 
possible— a  perfect  interpretation. 

Why  manifestly  impossible?  The  answer  is 
simple  enough.  Impossible  because  Hamlet  is  a 
creature  of  moods  and  in  the  quick  flux  of  his  vari- 
ability it  is  doubtful  whether  he  himself — if  the 
Hamlet  of  the  play  had  had  a  historical  prototype — 
would  have  given  utterance  to  the  same  words  in 
the  same  way  when  the  wind  was  "  north-north- 
west "  and  when  it  was  "  southerly."  For  there  is 
perhaps  more  truth  in  Hamlet's  words  that  he  is 
but  mad  "  north-northwest"  than  has  been  generally 
observed.  The  north-northwest  wind  of  intense 
and  intensive  anger  and  righteous  wrath  certainly 
whips  him  to  the  very  brim  of  the  chasm  of  mad- 
ness; the  southerly  wind  of  philosophic  rumination 
shows  him  to  be  infinitely  saner  than  the  man  irv 
the  marketplace  who  deems  the  multiplication  of 
shekels  the  only  philosophy  worth  knowing. 

The  first  task  of  the  actor  who  essays  Hamlet, 
therefore,  is  to  pluck  out  of  the  shifting  quicksands 
of  temperament  Hamlet's  essential  character,  and 
to  bend  his  energies  and  his  talents  to  the  achieving 


of  a  portraiture  of  the  essential  as  it  shows  through 
the  veils  of  rapid  transitions,  and  to  shape  those 
transitions  in  such  wise  as  to  produce  a  unity  of 
impression.  Is  Hamlet  mad?  Half-mad?  Wholly 
sane  ?  Was  his  love  for  Ophelia  real  love  or  merely 
a  passing  fancy?  If  real,  in  what  estimation  did  he 
hold  her  mentality?  Her  character?  Did  he  think 
his  mother  an  accomplice  to  the  murder  ?  The  ques- 
tions which  suggest  themselves  could  be  multiplied 
a  hundredfold. 

An  enormous  mass  of  stage  tradition  accrues  to 
Hamlet.  No  actor  of  any  note  has  ever  attempted 
to  play  the  part  without  injecting  into  it  some  new 
business,  intended  to  aid  visualization  of  the  lines 
or  to  lend  emphasis  to  some  usually  unobserved 
point.  The  contributions  of  Burbage,  Garrick, 
Kemble,  Kean,  Fechter,  Booth,  Forbes-Robertson  to 
this  tradition  are  recognized  by  all  students  of  the 
actor's  art.  It  is  against  this  background  that 
every  new  Hamlet  is  projected,  and  every  one  chal- 
lenges memories  of  the  greatest  actors  in  the 
greatest  part  on  the  English  stage. 

The  two  new  Hamlets  who  appeared  simul- 
taneously in  New  York  during  this  season  cannot  be 
praised  too  highly.  Nor  can  they  be  compared  save 
for  the  purpose  of  bringing  into  clearer  relief  the 
conception  of  each  actor;  for  integrally,  tempera- 
mentally the  Hamlet  of  Fritz  Leiber  and  the  Ham- 
let of  Walter  Hampden  are  situated  at  emotional 
antipodes. 

Leiber's  Hamlet  is  intrinsically  a  pathetic,  wist- 
ful, lovable,  and  high-bred  gentleman.  His  melan- 
choly shows  so  gentle  a  complexion  that  if  the  time 
had  not  been  out  of  joint  it  might  have  been  worn 
by  him  as  nothing  more  ostentatious  or  corrosive 
than  a  mental  mannerism  or  eccentricity.  Words 
cannot  adequately  describe  the  poetic  beauty  with 
which  he  invested  the  Suicide  Soliloquy,  of  which 
he  delivered  himself  leaning  upon  the  arm  of  the 
Queen's  throne.  There  was  no  violent  start  after 
the  words  "  to  sleep,  perchance  to  dream,"  but  he 
shifted  his  position  slightly,  as  a  man  who  is  deeply 
preoccupied  will  unconsciously  do.  The  problem 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


229 


interested  but  did  not  agitate  him.  With  the  Ghost 
he  was  tender,  reverential,  and  unterrified.  His 
reading  of  the  line  "  Angels  and  ministers  of  grace 
defend  us  "  was  indicative  of  a  nervous  shock,  of 
amazement,  of  bewilderment,  but  not  of  fear.  His 
Hamlet  followed  the  precedent  set  by  Fechter,  and 
held  the  hilt  of  his  sword — the  sign  of  the  cross — 
between  himself  and  the  Ghost  in  following  the 
"  questionable  shape."  As  he  himself  had  experi- 
enced wonder  but  no  fear  upon  seeing  the  Ghost, 
this  protective  action  was  probably  employed  as  a 
concession  to  the  fear  of  Horatio  and  Marcellus. 
The  words  "  Alas,  poor  Ghost  "  were  vibrant  with 
filial  feeling  and  sheer  human  pity. 

The  scenes  with  Guildenstern  and  Rosencrans 
were  unduly  truncated,  the  second,  the  Recorder 
Scene,  being  entirely  omitted.  The  two  "  adders 
fanged  "  were  thereby  rendered  even  more  wooden 
than  usual.  Leiber  has  been  criticized  for  not  de- 
veloping sufficient  sparkle  in  these  scenes  and  in  the 
lighter  scenes  with  Polonius,  but  his  deliberate,  al- 
most slow  reading  of  the  lines  was  quite  in  keeping 
with  his  portrait  of  a  creature  so  fundamentally 
gentle  that  even  to  say  an  unpleasant  thing  was  an 
unwelcome  labor.  There  was  nothing  spontaneous 
in  his  malicious  raillery  of  Polonius.  His  unami- 
able  replies  seemed  to  be  wrung  from  him  in  the 
vain  hope  that  Polonius,  being  tartly  answered, 
would  at  last  cease  pestering  him.  In  handling 
Guildenstern's  medallion,  this  pervasive  gentleness 
was  again  apparent.  He  did  not  fling  the  damning 
miniature  in  Guildenstern's  face,^  but  handled  it 
with  a  gesture  of  profound  contempt,  as  something 
too  despicable  for  anger. 

Once  only  did  white-hot  anger  flare  up  like  a 
rocket  in  Leiber's  Hamlet — upon  the  discovery  of, 
the  "  lawful  espials."  Then  he  was  stung  to  the 
quick,  and  the  turbulence  and  tumult  with  which 
he  berated  Ophelia  were  the  impotent  fury  of  an 
ingrainedly  gentle  creature  driven  to  desperation  by 
a  series  of  damnable  treacheries.  N,ow  and  then 
there  came  a  rift  in  the  storm-cloud  of  his  black- 
visaged  rage,  and  he  stretched  out  his  arms  yearn- 
ingly to  the  woman  whom  he  still  loved  although 
she  had  failed  him  so  lamentably.  In  no  other 
scene  was  the  pathos,  the  cruel,  harrowing  soul-lone- 
liness of  Hamlet  more  exquisitely  suggested. 

Leiber's  Hamlet  did  not  play  the  Play-Scene 
violently.  He  had  set  the  puppets  in  motion,  and 
awaited  the  outcome  in  profound  but  veiled  excite- 
ment. Some  of  Leiber's  finest  work  was  done  in 
the  Closet  Scene.  He  came  into  the  room  crying 
"  Mother,  Mother,  Mother  "  with  a  crescendo  of 
feeling  which  gave  a  harrowing  notion  of  the  out- 
rage worked  upon  his  filial  feelings  by  his  remain- 


ing parent.  It  showed  that  the  deep  well  of  his 
affection  had  been  poisoned  but  not  dried  up  by  his 
mother's  shame.  It  was  the  cry  of  a  tortured, 
spiritually  stricken  creature,  and  the  unearthly 
beauty  of  tone  in  which  Leiber  spoke,  or  rather 
cried,  these  three  words  can  be  indicated  but  not 
described.  In  the  speech  comparing  Claudius  and 
his  father,  Leiber's  Hamlet  pointed  throughout  to 
the  medallion  which  he  wore  and  to  a  portrait  sup- 
posed to  hang  upon  the  wall.  This  is  one  of  the 
most  ticklish  scenes  of  the  entire  play,  and  it  is  to  be 
deplored  that  Leiber,  who  is  grace  personified  when 
in  a  natural  pose,  stood  almost  throughout  this  scene 
in  a  cramped  and  unnatural  position. 

In  the  fencing  scene  Leiber's  Hamlet  caught  the 
foil  as  it  fell  from  Laertes'  hand  by  making  a  wild 
dash  for  it,  thereby  showing  that  he  suspected 
treachery.  Mercifully  the  audience  was  spared  the 
entrance  of  Fortinbras  and  his  opera-bouffe  crew. 
This  excision  was  in  the  best  of  taste  and  an  innova- 
tion for  which  to  be  devoutly  grateful. 

Leiber's  Hamlet  has  the  unequivocal  charm  in- 
herent in  poetic  delicacy,  refinement,  and  breeding. 
He  is  not  so  much  a  prince  as  a  gentleman.  When 
Horatio  said  of  Hamlet's  father,  "  He  was  a 
goodly  king,  "  Leiber's  Hamlet  flung  back,  "  He  was 
a  man!  "  He  slightly  emphasized  the  word  "  man,  " 
as  if  to  be  a  man,  in  every  virtuous  sense,  was  far 
more  than  to  be  a  crowned  head. 

Compared  with  Leiber's  Hamlet,  which  is  pitched 
throughout  in  the  minor  key,  the  Hamlet  of  Walter 
Hampden  shows  the  vigor,  the  freshness,  the  domi- 
nance of  a  triumphal  procession  of  major  chords. 
Hampden's  Hamlet  is  not  a  wistful,  brooding, 
essentially  sane  Hamlet.  There  is  in  him  a  decided 
straining  toward  the  danger-mark  of  madness.  He 
has  not  yet  crossed  the  line  of  demarcation — but  he 
may.  He  is  not  so  much  a  potential  poet,  a  gentle- 
man of  cultured  tastes,  as  a  royal  prince.  He  is  a 
man  in  whom  exceptional  mental  endowments, 
turned  awry  by  the  course  of  events,  have  assumed  a 
corrosive  virulence  which  is  eating  into  the  very 
marrow  of  mind  and  soul.  He  is  a  man  capable 
of  prodigious  endeavors.  But  his  energy,  real 
enough  while  it  lasts,  spends  itself  with  the  celerity 
of  an  alcohol-fed  flame.  His  mentality  is  impetuous 
and  creative.  But  it  lacks  organization  and  fixity 
of  purpose  and  thus  becomes  sterile. 

Hampden  possesses  a  voice  of  rare,  rich  sonorous- 
ness, a  figure  perfectly  suited  to  the  part,  lithe  grace 
of  movement,  and  great  freedom  of  limb.  Not  once 
did  he  fall  into  an  ungraceful  posture.  He  is  for- 
tunate in  having  a  superb  supporting  caste,  which 
enables  him  to  make  many  fine  "points  which  are 
usually  slurred.. 


230 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


Hampden's  Hamlet  is  a  very  princely,  masculine 
Hamlet,  and  it  is  characteristic  of  the  interpreta- 
tion in  its  entirety  that  he  made  Hamlet's  friendship 
for  Horatio  far  more  convincing  than  his  love  for 
Ophelia,  and  that,  while  he  placed  the  greatest  pos- 
sible emphasis  upon  his  love  for  the  murdered  king, 
the  queen  aroused  in  him  only  a  passion  of  aversion 
and  condemnation,  but  no  conflict  in  his  soul. 
Hampden's  Hamlet  probably  thought  Gertrude  an 
accomplice  in  the  murder.  His  tempestuously  vo- 
ciferated "  Almost  as  bad,  good  mother,  as  kill  a 
king  and  marry  with  his  brother  "  lends  warrant  to 
this  assumption. 

The  Ghost  Scenes  were  played  as  probably  no 
generation  since  Garrick  has  seen  them  played. 
Hampden  thoroughly  impressed  upon  his  audience 
the  dreadful,  portentous  nature  of  the  Ghost's  visi- 
tation. His  "  Angels  and  ministers  of  grace  defend 
us"  sent  a  chill  of  apprehension  down  the  spine; 
and  his  "  I'll  call  thee  Hamlet,  King,  father! — 
Royal  Dane! — "  were  replete  with  a  gracious, 
thrilling  solemnity  and  with  a  filial  affection  which 
could  not  have  been  bettered.  After  the  word 
"  father  "  he  changed  the  reading  of  the  text  so  far 
as  to  come  to  a  full  stop,  throwing  into  the  one  word 
a  world  of  palpitating  love  and  tremulous  rever- 
ence. In  following  the  Ghost,  he  dragged  his  sword 
after  him,  as  if  fully  convinced  of  the  Ghost's 
"  honesty,"  but  wary  lest  Horatio  and  Marcellus, 
in  all  loyalty  and  devotion,  attempt  to  drag  him 
away  once  more.  The  Ghost,  let  it  be  parenthetic- 
ally remarked,  was  quite  the  handsomest  and  most 
convincing  ghost  yet  seen  on  our  stage.  The  cere- 
ments which  he  had  burst  seemed  to  swathe  him, 
making  him  indeed  an  astonishing  apparition. 

Hampden's  Hamlet,  like  Irving's,  resorted  to  the 
use  of  tablets  after  the  Ghost  had  left  him.  His 
excitement  verged  on  hysteria,  and  Hampden's  re- 
markable histrionic  ability  shone  with  spectacular 
brightness  in  the  brief  scene  which  follows  between 
Horatio,  Hamlet,  and  Marcellus.  He  contrived, 
•by  an  art  so  flawless  that  it  is  impossible  to  dis- 
sect it,  to  convey  the  impression  that  Hamlet  re- 
fused to  impart  the  Ghost's  mission  only  because  he 
and  Horatio  were  not  alone,  and  that  he  intended 
to  tell  Horatio  all  about  it  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment.  The  grim  humor  displayed  by  his  irrever- 
ent appellations  of  the  Ghost  as  "  old  true-penny  " 
and  "  old  mole  "  were  self-evidently  caused  by  his 
exultation  that  his  soul  had  not  been  a  false  prophet. 
Very  touching,  very  beautiful,  and  very  sincere  was 
his  use  of  the  sword  hilt  as  a  cross,  held  almost  upon 
the  very  ground,  as  he  said,  "  Rest,  rest,  perturbed 
spirit!"  He  pronounced  these  words  as  a  mother 
may  speak  words  to  soothe  a  frightened  child.  The 


inflection  of  his  voice  made  of  these  three  words  a 
sublimated  lullaby. 

Hampden,  very  properly,  retained  the  second — 
the  Recorder — scene  with  Guildenstern  and  Ro- 
sencrans.  In  the  earlier  scene  he  was  very- 
cross  with  Guildenstern  and  all  but  spanked 
the  medallion  into  his  face,  so  that  Guilden- 
stern, quite  "  affrighted,  "  involuntarily  drew  back. 
In  the  scene  with  the  players  Hampden  introduced 
a  pregnant  bit  of  business.  There  was  in  this  com- 
pany of  players  a  young  lad  who  later,  in  the  Play 
Scene,  spoke  the  Prologue,  which  is  usually  omitted. 
Upon  this  lad's  pate  the  clown  of  the  company 
rapped  soundly  apropos  of  nothing,  bringing  upon 
himself  Hamlet's  rebuke,  "  And  let  those  that  play 
your  clowns  speak  no  more  than  is  set  down  for 
them,"  for  which  the  clown,  when  Hamlet's  back 
was  turned,  made  a  "  mow  "  at  the  prince.  Hamp- 
den's treatment  of  Polonius  was  almost  as  deliberate 
as  Leiber's.  With  Leiber,  deliberation  fitted  into 
the  picture,  but  Hampden's  Hamlet,  to  be  con- 
sistent, demands  greater  spontaneity  in  this  scene. 

In  the  three  great  scenes  which  apply  the  touch- 
stone to  an  actor's  qualification  for  the  part,  Hamp- 
den acquitted  himself  superbly.  His  reading  of  the 
Play  Scene,  the  Closet  Scene,  and  the  Scene  with 
Ophelia  was  stupendously  dynamic  and  moving. 

The  scene  with  Ophelia  he  played  without  a 
break — that  is,  he  gave  no  indication  of  having  be- 
come aware  of  the  "  lawful  espials."  He  seemed  to 
mistrust  Ophelia  from  the  outset,  from  the  very 
moment  when  she  offered  to  return  his  tokens  and 
letters,  just  as  he  mistrusted  Guildenstern  and 
Rosencrans  because  he  discovered  the  medallion  with 
the  miniature  of  the  king  hanging  from  Guilden- 
stern's  neck.  He  gave  the  impression  throughout 
the  scene  of  a  mind  so  harrowed  and  harassed  by 
continual  brooding  upon  a  Ztuanffsidee  that,  for  the 
nonce  at  least,  the  value  and  the  sanctity  of  love  had 
receded  in  his  mind  to  a  coign  of  signal  disadvan- 
tage. The  sight  of  Ophelia  distressed  him  because 
he  realized  that  his  love  for  her,  if  given  free  reign, 
might  divert  him  from  the  awful  business  in  hand. 
His  wild  words  were  rendered  more  wild  by  his 
manner.  He  was  guilty  of  downright  incivility  to 
his  lady.  He  rushed  frantically  to  and  fro.  Tow- 
ard the  close  of  the  scene,  he  flung  off  the  stage  and 
back  again,  frequently  beginning  the  opening  words 
of  his  clue  while  off  stage.  He  was  plainly  semi- 
hysterical,  and  the  frenzied  words  rushed  from  his 
lips  like  a  cascade  over  a  cliff.  He  was  a  human 
tempest,  a  whirlwind  incarnate,  fury  embodied.  As 
a  lover  he  was  terrifying,  and  poor  Ophelia — the 
most  timid,  shrinking,  little  violet  sort  of  an  Ophelia 
that  we  have  ever  seen — was  simply  scared  out  of 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


231 


her  wits.  The  whole  scene  was  a  magnificent  tour 
de  force. 

In  the  Play  Scene  his  nervous  excitement  tran- 
scended all  bounds.  He  was  all  movement,  all  fire 
and  flash  and  dash.  He  was  here  and  there  and 
nowhere  and  everywhere.  He  was  elemental  as  the 
incoming  tide  is  elemental,  and  quite  as  irresistible. 
He  was  ubiquitous  as  a  sea  of  fire  from  whose  every 
point  a  myriad  tongues  of  flame  rear  themselves 
simultaneously.  Very  fine,  very  fine  indeed  was  the 
stage  management  of  this  scene.  Claudius,  who, 
strange  to  say,  was  not  the  odiously  repellent,  be- 
tinselled,  gilt-paper  crowned,  red-whiskered,  hideous 
toy-king  whom  we  have  been,  accustomed  to,  feut  a 
man  of  sufficient  presence  and  attractiveness  to  make 
his  fatal  fascination  upon  the  seeming-virtuous 
queen  quite  plausible,  asks  Hamlet,  after  the  first 
half  of  the  play,  "  Have  you  heard  the  argument? 
Is  there  no  offense  in  it?"  And  Hamlet,  approach- 
ing the  throne,  replies  with  an  exaggerated  air  of 
innocence,  "  No,  no,  they  do  but  jest,  Poison  in 
jest;  no  offense  i'  the  world."  The  air  seemed 
fairly  to  vibrate  between  this  uncle-father  and 
nephew-son  who  hated  each  other  so  bitterly  after 
this  passage  at  arms.  One  could  sense  the  true 
situation.  Claudius,  by  this  time,  had  seen  enough 
of  the  play  to  know  that  Hamlet  was  lying,  and 
Hamlet  knew  that  Claudius  knew  and  didn't  care 
tuppence,  because  Claudius,  without  giving  himself 
away  then  and  there,  could  not  possibly  refuse  to 
allow  the  play  to  continue.  Then,  when  the  climax 
came,  and  Claudius,  angry  and  troubled,  rose  with 
his  queen  and  court  and  left  the  lobby,  Hampden's 
Hamlet  gave  vent  to  a  joy  rendered  terrible  by  the 
now  potent  impulse  toward  revenge  underlying  it. 

There  remains  the  test  of  the  Closet  Scene,  and 
in  this  also  Hampden  showed  a  superlative  achieve- 
ment. He  discarded  all  by-play  with  miniatures 
and  panel  portraits  while  drawing  his  comparison 
between  the  two  brothers,  and  delivered  the  speech 
standing  upright,  his  eye  fixed  on  vacancy,  as  if 
seeing  there  the  image  of  his  murdered  father.  Hav- 
ing stabbed  through  the  arras,  and  not  knowing 
whom  he  had  killed,  he  took  the  solitary  candle 
with  which  the  apartment  was  lighted,  and  with 
it  in  his  hand  investigated  his  deed.  He  was  not 
over-tender  with  his  mother,  justifying  the  Ghost's 
solicitude  for  her,  and  at  the  end  of  the  scene, 
when  Gertrude  offered  to  embrace  him,  he  drew 
back,  as  Fechter  had  done  before  him,  and,  also 
like  Fechter,  pointed  sternly  to  the  miniature  of 
the  dead  king  suspended  from  his  neck.  His  solemn- 
ity throughout  this  scene  was  deeply  impressive. 

In  the  fencing  scene,  Hamlet,  being  pricked  by 
Laertes'  unbated  sword,  plucked  his  sleeve — with 


a  look  of  perplexity,  the  perplexity  being  succeeded 
almost  immediately  by  certainty  of  Laertes'  treach- 
ery. When  Laertes  was  disarmed,  his  foil  fell  upon 
the  ground.  Before  Laertes  could  recover  it,  Ham- 
let placed  his  foot  squarely  across  it,  at  the  same 
time  offering  Laertes  his  own  bated  foil.  Laertes, 
willy-nilly,  was  bound  to  accept  the  proffer,  leav- 
ing the  unbated,  poisoned  foil  for  Hamlet's  use. 
In  this  final  scene,  as  in  almost  every  scene  through- 
out the  entire  play,  Hampden's  marvellous  ability 
to  externalize  emotion  and  thought  illuminated 
points  which  heretofore  were  ineptly  considered  ob- 
scure or  a  matter  of  indifference. 

In  conclusion :  Both  interpretations  are  beauti- 
ful with  the  surprising  beauty  of  perfectly  polished 
and  perfectly  set  gems.  To  continue  this  metaphor, 
Leiber's  Hamlet  may  be  likened  to  the  delicate 
iridescence  of  the  opal,  with  its  amazing  complexity 
of  elusive,  interpenetrating,  subtly  pervasive  color. 
Hampden's  Hamlet  scintillates  and  flashes  like  a 
diamond,  and  like  a  diamond  wears  the  mantle 
and  the  insignia  of  accepted  supremacy.  Leiber's 
Hamlet  is  primarily  a  poet,  a  dreamer,  a  philos- 
opher, and  a  gentleman.  Hampden's  Hamlet  is 
chiefly,  authoritatively,  self-consciously,  and  unfor- 
gettably a  prince.  Leiber's  Hamlet  is  an  exquisitely 
wrought  pastel;  Hampden's  Hamlet  a  vigorous  can- 
vas in  oil,  in  which  gorgeous  color  runs  riot.  Leiber's 
Hamlet  partakes  of  the  mysterious,  chaste  witchery 
of  an  intaglio,  lucid  but  not  sharp,  distinct  yet  sub- 
tly veiled,  so  that  its  outlines  may  be  seen  clearly 
yet  with  the  delicate  elusiveness  of  a  landscape 
shrouded  in  mist.  It  is  mellow  rather  than  bril- 
liant, subtly  suggestive  rather  than  emphatic  and 
direct.  Hampden's  Hamlet  on  the  other  hand 
possesses  the  incisiveness,  the  detached,  clear  limning 
of  the  cameo.  He  is  splendid  like  a  sun-burst,  but 
the  haunting  loveliness  of  star  and  moonlight  is 
not  for  him. 

Which  of  the  two  actors  presents  the  real  Ham- 
let? Who  can  say!  Hazlitt  said,  "It  is  we  who 
are  Hamlet."  There  are  many  species  and  sub- 
species of  We,  and  as  Hamlet  sits  enthroned  in  the 
universal  soul,  and  the  universal  soul  is  a  myriad 
souls,  there  must  be,  logically  reasoned,  not  one 
but  many  true  Hamlets.  Moreover,  appreciation 
of  a  Rodin  marble  does  not  preclude  admiration  of 
Greek  sculpture.  The  same  mind,  conceivably,  may 
find  infinite  food  for  reflection  and  infinite  esthetic 
satisfaction  in  meditating  upon  The  Hand  of  God 
and  the  Laokoon.  Small  minds  may  read  in  dis- 
paragement of  the  unfavored,  praise  for  the  favored, 
but  the  versatile  mind  is  grateful  for  manifold  and 
diverging  varieties  of  beauty. 

LlDA   C.   SCHEM. 


232 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


Nationalism 


.HE  BREAKING-UP  of  Austria-Hungary  and  of 
Russia  has  emphasized  the  difference  between  a  na- 
tion and  a  nationality.  It  has  become  evident  that 
unity  of  racial  descent  does  not  bring  about  na- 
tional cohesion,  and  that  distinct  racial  elements 
may  combine  and  form  a  nation  of  great  solidarity. 
We  also  recognize  that  between  the  members  of  a 
nationality  language  is  a  firmer  bond  than  race, 
although  it  does  not  necessarily  coincide  with  na- 
tional boundaries. 

Since  at  the  present  time  we  lay  great  stress  upon 
the  rights  of  nations,  it  seems  desirable  to  obtain  a 
clear  understanding  of  what  we  mean  by  the  unity 
of  a  nationality.  In  order  to  answer  this  problem, 
we  must  understand  the  basis  of  all  actions  based  on 
social  solidarity.  In  early  times  mankind  was 
divided  into  small  hordes  or  tribes  that  lived  in  iso- 
lation and  in  constant  fear  of  enemies,  beast  as  well  as 
man.  Whoever  was  not  a  member  of  the  tribe  was 
a  potential  enemy,  a  being  of  a  different  order  that 
was  chased  away  and  slain,  if  he  did  not  yield.  Al- 
though this  condition  in  its  extreme  form  has  never 
been  observed  among  primitive  people,  it  may  be 
inferred  with  high  probability.  Its  remnants  may 
be  recognized  even  in  language,  as  when  the  term 
"  man  "  is  used  only  for  the  members  of  one's  own 
tribe,  all  foreigners  being  called,  like  animals,  by 
specific  names;  or  when  an  Indian  tribe  designates 
by  one  grammatical  form  only  the  adult  males 
of  that  tribe,  while  the  rest  of  the  world  belongs 
to  a  different  category.  The  extreme  hostility 
against  the  stranger,  which  characterizes  the  be- 
havior of  many  primitive  tribes,  and  the  utter  dis- 
regard of  the  stranger's  life  all  point  to  the  early 
feeling  of  specific  difference  between  the  member 
of  the  horde  and  the  outsider.  In  the  progress  of 
times  contact  between  the  isolated  bands  became 
more  frequent  and  economic  life  developed  in  such 
a  manner  that  no  tribe  was  entirely  independent  of 
all  its  neighbors.  Thus  the  feeling  of  specific  dif- 
ference gradually  wore  off  and,  although  the  at- 
titude towards  the  stranger  retained  a  background 
of  hostility,  a  certain  amount  of  mutual  toleration 
developed.  Behavior,  however,  continued  to  be 
based  on  the  existence  of  a  contrast  between  the 
tribe  and  the  outsider.  A  person  may  struggle 
against  other  members  of  his  own  band  and  defend 
his  own  interests.  Against  strangers  he  reacts  first 
of  all  as  a  member  of  the  tribe  and  defends  himself 
against  real  or  supposed  encroachments  by  defend- 
ing the  social  unit  to  which  he  belongs. 

We  have  not  progressed  far  beyond  these  limits. 


Human  interests  that  know  no  national  boundaries 
have  increased.  Art,  science,  and  commerce  form 
ties  that  bind  together  mankind  regardless  of  na- 
tionality, but  nevertheless  there  persists  the  con- 
trast between  members  of  different  national  groups 
that  makes  it  right  for  one  nation  to  promote  the 
well-being  of  its  own  citizens  regardless  of  the  ef- 
fect that  its  actions  may  have  upon  the  rest  of  man- 
kind, to  set  their  welfare  higher  than  that  of  others, 
and  to  look  with  poisonous  envy  upon  the  growing 
powei*and  successes  of  members  of  foreign  nations. 

Group  solidarity  has  expanded  from  the  small 
horde  or  tribe  to  communities  of  ever  increasing  size. 
This  development  has  not  been  steady,  for  periods 
in  which  large  and  heterogeneous  masses  formed 
units  that  acted  conjointly  against  foreign  groups 
were  followed  by  others  in  which  the  large  struc- 
tures disintegrated,  the  smaller  units  forming  cen- 
ters from  which  new,  larger  social  units  developed. 
The  history  of  the  Alexandrian  Empire,  of  Rome,  of 
the  Spanish  World  Empire  illustrates  the  growth 
and  decline  of  large  communities.  The  develop- 
ment of  the  modern  European  states  from  the  dis- 
integrating tendencies  of  feudal  times  and  from  the 
rise  of  independent  cities,  illustrates  another  phase 
of  expansion  of  the  smaller  units  into  larger  ones. 

In  all  cases  of  group  solidarity  the  unifying  force 
is  the  will  of  the  members  of  the  group  to  maintain 
their  society  against  foreign  groups.  In  its  simplest 
form  this  mode  of  action  of  man  as  a  member  of 
a  social  group  is  strictly  analogous  to  that  of  a  herd 
of  animals  that  maintains  the  integrity  of  its  habitat 
against  other  herds.  It  is  the  instinctive  feeling  of 
the  unity  of  the  herd  or  pack  that  is  manifested  by 
all  gregarious  animals.  In  many  cases,  as  among 
modern  primitive  tribes,  the  analogous  reaction  is 
entirely  spontaneous  and  automatic.  It  may  be 
observed  that  the  less  automatic  their  reaction,  the 
more  will  people  endeavor  to  reason  out  their 
motives;  and  the  more  automatic  a  reaction,  the  less 
will  there  be  felt  any  need  of  a  reasoned  interpreta- 
tion. Among  primitive  tribes  the  actions  springing 
from  the  solidarity  of  the  tribal  group  are  so  little 
conscious  that  they  do  not  call  for  explanation  and 
the  rights  of  foreigners  are  no  subject  of  thought. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  the  same  instinct  con- 
tinues to  sway  us.  Under  normal  conditions  the 
family  is  a  loose  unit  in  which  each  member  goes 
more  or  less  his  own  way.  If,  however,  a  member 
of  the  family  comes  into  conflict  with  outsiders,  the 
natural  reaction  is  for  the  members  of  the  family  to 
stand  together.  When  a  gang  of  youth  infests  a 


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THE  DIAL 


233 


city  street,  it  will  not  allow  other  gangs  in  the  same 
street.  The  stronger  the  feeling  of  solidarity  in  the 
group  and  of  sameness  of  form  and  purpose  of  the 
conflicting  groups,  the  more  violent  are  also  their 
reactions  against  one  another. 

In  more  complex  social  units  in  which  conflicting 
social  instincts  make  the  social  affiliations  less  auto- 
matic and  more  often  determined  by  choice,  the  sub- 
ordination of  the  individual  under  a  social  group 
becomes  the  subject  of  retrospective  thought  and  in- 
terpretation and  thus  assumes  forms  and  shades  of 
meaning  that  obscure  its  instinctive  origin.  It  may 
be  called  allegiance  to  a  race,  to  the  personality  of 
a  chief  or  family,  to  a  god,  or  to  an  ideal.  The  sub- 
stratum on  which  it  arises  is  always  the  same  in- 
stinctive social  reaction. 

We  shall  attempt  to  characterize  those  elements 
that  set  off  nationality  from  other  similar  units. 
One  of  the  main  difficulties  in  the  way  of  clear  un- 
derstanding of  the  significance  of  nationality  lies  in 
the  confusion  between  the  aims  of  a  nation  and  of 
a  nationality.  The  nation  is  the  state  and  national 
feeling  is  bound  up  with  the  political  power  of  the 
state.  Nationality  and  state  do  not  need  to  coin- 
cide. The  nationalities  comprised  in  a  complex 
state  may  have  political  aspirations  and  may  strive 
to  become  independent  states.  The  question  must 
be  answered:  what  constitutes  these  nationalities? 
They  are  not  adequately  defined  as  racial  or  lin- 
guistic units. 

It  is  helpful  to  observe  how  the  concepts  of  both 
"  nation  "  and  "  nationality  "  are  reflected  in  differ- 
ent classes  of  a  population.  In  most  modern  states 
in  which  compulsory  education  prevails  both  ideas 
have  permeated  the  whole  body  of  the  people.  Not 
so  in  simpler  communities.  It  is  not  so  very  long 
ago  that  the  mountaineer  of  the  southern  Appalach- 
ian region  had  the  vaguest  ideas  only  of  the  United 
States  as  a  nation,  and  that  his  social  interests  rather 
centered  in  his  family  group.  There  are  many  re- 
gions in  Mexico  in  which  the  very  existence  of  Mexi- 
co is  unknown  and  where  the  social  interests  of  the 
people  are  confined  to  the  village  of  their  fathers. 
The  feeling  of  national  political  unity  requires  first 
of  all  a  knowledge  of  the  nation  and  its  work.  In 
all  large  units,  the  existence  of  which  is  not  mani- 
fested in  the  narrow  cycle  of  everyday  life,  this 
knowledge  must  necessarily  be  based  on  education. 

The  self-consciousness  of  nationalities  is  similarly 
restricted.  When  a  knowledge  of  communities  of 
different  speech,  habits,  and  appearance  is -lacking, 
the  feeling  of  differentiation  between  small  units 
must  necessarily  prevail.  When  communities  of 
alien  descent,  of  foreign  language,  or  of  unfamiliar 
customs  are  known,  the  feeling  of  relationship  of 


those  who  are  the  same  in  race,  language,  or  custom 
may  develop.  The  limits  of  modern  nationalities 
are  not  determined  by  these  elements,  for  nationali- 
ties include  people  who  show  marked  differences  in 
all  these  respects.  The  habits  of  life,  speech,  and 
bodily  form  of  the  Sicilian  peasant  are  quite  dif- 
ferent from  those  of  the  Venetian  peasant,  and  there 
is  little  that  he  has  in  common  in  his  conduct  of 
life  with  the  Florentine  artist  or  scientist,  or  with 
the  Roman  politician.  The  Galician  and  the  Cata- 
lan peasants  and  the  Spanish  scientist,  merchant,  and 
laborer;  the  peasant  of  the  Provence  and  of  Nor- 
mandie,  and  the  educated  Parisian ;  the  Swabian  peas- 
ant, the  Frisian  fisherman  and  the  German  com- 
poser and  scientist  have  little  in  common. 

In  the  most  strongly  localized  groups,  as  in  the 
peasantry,  modern  nationality  exceeds  the  experience 
of  daily  life  and  can  become  conscious  only  by  edu- 
cational agencies  that  originate  outside  of  the  social 
group.  In  those  groups  of  men  that  deal  with 
science,  art,  and  commerce,  which  are  in  their  na- 
ture essentially  international,  the  idea  of  nationality 
is  more  restricted  than  the  universality  of  interests 
which  is  prominent  in  their  daily  life.  In  neither 
group  does  it  spring  from  everyday  experience. 

It  is  fairly  obvious  that  in  modern  times  the  na- 
tionalistic feeling  cannot  be  separated  from  the 
desire  for  political  power — at  least  for  the  power 
of  a  group  to  shape  its  own  mode  of  life  according 
to  its  own  wishes,  for  the  right  to  use  its  own  lan- 
guage, follow  its  own  customs  and  formulate  its 
own  laws.  Therefore  nationalistic  aspirations  are 
nowhere  stronger  than  in  suppressed  nationalities. 
The  Poles  in  Russia  and  Prussia ;  the  Danes  in  north- 
ern Schleswig;  the  Irish;  the  Flemish  in  Belgium; 
the  Bulgarians  in  old  Servia;  the  Germans,  Slavs,  and 
Roumanians  in  Hungary;  the  Germans  in  the  Bal- 
tic Provinces  of  Russia;  the  Lithuanians;  the  Ruth- 
enians  in  Galicia — all  exemplify  this  condition  in 
which  the  consciousness  of  nationality  attains  its 
strength  by  the  resistance  to  new  forcibly  imposed 
forms  of  life.  In  these  local  phases  the  nationalistic 
feeling  is  easily  intelligible  because  it  is  based  on  the 
reaction  against  outside  interference  on  the  part 
of  a  fairly  homogeneous  group  that  is  held  together 
by  common  language,  customs,  and  interests.  At  the 
same  time  these  areas  present  problems  of  national 
antagonism  in  many  cases  not  capable  of  solution. 

Where  national  boundaries  are  fairly  sharply 
drawn  and  permanent,  a  cleavage  along  national 
lines  would  solve  most  conflicts.  These  conditions 
prevail  along  the  Franco-German  boundary  in 
Alsace  and  Lorraine,  in  Schleswig,  in  Belgium,  in 
the  islands  of  the  Mediterranean  that  are  politically 
not  affiliated  with  the  countries  whose  language 


234 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


they  speak — as  in  Cyprus,  a  Greek  community  gov- 
erned by  England;  perhaps  also  in  Corsica,  an  Ital- 
ian country  governed  by  France.    All  through  east- 
ern Europe  conditions  are  quite  different,   because 
no  sharp  national  boundaries  exist.    This  is  an  effect 
of  the  peculiar  historic  changes  that  occurred  during 
the  Middle  Ages.     After  the  period  of  Teutonic 
migrations   Slavs  had   occupied  what   is   now  east 
Germany  as  far  as  the  Elbe.    With  the  close  of  the 
migrations,  the  growth  of  stable  agricultural  com- 
munities, and  the  development  of  individual  land- 
owning, the  period  of  slow  eastward  colonization 
set  in  which  gradually  transformed  the  Slavic  East 
into    German    territory.      Somewhat    later    similar 
movements  began  among  the  western  Slavic  people, 
particularly  the  Poles  who  colonized  eastward.   The 
effects  of  these  movements  which  continued  through 
centuries  and  which  are  not  entirely  closed  yet,  have 
been  a  slow  infiltration  of  Slavic  territory  by  Ger- 
mans by  which  the  more  western  countries  were  by 
degrees  transformed   into  purely  German  districts, 
while  eastward  there  are  first  found  small  enclaves 
of  Slavish  people  in  German  territory,  farther  east 
a  somewhat  equal  representation  of  both  linguistic 
groups,  and  still  farther  east  German  centers  in  a 
Slavic  population.     By  the  same  process  Prussia  has 
been  Germanized,  and  Lithuania  has  been  covered 
with  German  agricultural  colonies  and  cities.     The 
infusion  of  Poles  into  Lithuanian  territory  and  of 
Poles  into  Russian  areas  proceeded  in  the  same  way. 
Somewhat    analogous    are    conditions    in    Hungary 
where  also  clearly  defined  national  boundaries  are 
lacking.     In  southwestern  Russia  and  the  Balkan 
Peninsula  a  similar  permeation  of  different  nation- 
alities exists,  but  due  to  other  historical  causes. 
.  The  settlement  of  the  Qermans  in  the  western 
Slavic  territory  and  the  general  influence  of  West- 
European  civilization  upon  these  countries  gradual- 
ly strengthened  the  self-consciousness  and  economic 
strength  of  the  East-European  peoples.   At  the  same 
time  the  current  of  eastward  colonization  began  to 
ebb,  with  the  result  that  the  distribution  of  colonies 
became  more  stable  and  we  have  what  we  might  call 
a  fossilization  of  the  process  of  colonization,  result- 
ing in  a  half  colonized  territory  in  which  the  dif- 
ferent groups  live  side  by  side.     According  to  the 
political  affiliations  of  the  area,  the  one  or  the  other 
of  the  nationalities  tries  to  force  or  resist  further 
colonization.      Thus    in    German    Poland    German 
colonization   was   favored   and    Polish  speech    sup- 
pressed.    In  Russian  Poland  both  Polish  and  Ger- 
man were  suppressed  by  the  Russians.     In  Galicia 
Ruthenian  was  suppressed  by  the  Poles;   in  Lith- 
uania  both    German    and    Lithuanian     were    sup- 
pressed by  the  Russians.     None  of  the  nations  in 


the  mixed  territories  confines  itself  to  the  de- 
mand of  freedom  of  its  own  speech,  but  endeavors 
at  the  same  time  to  gain  political  control  and  to 
subject  the  members  of  other  nationalities  to  it- 
self. The  chief  complaint  of  the  Bohemians  is 
not  that  they  have  not  freedom  of  their  own  speech, 
but  that  they  cannot  sufficiently  effectively  shackle 
the  large  German  districts  of  Bohemia  and  Moravia 
— as  in  earlier  times  the  Germans  tried  to  impose 
German  upon  the  Bohemians.  The  violent  demand 
of  the  Poles  for  the  control  of  Cholm,  which  is 
Ruthenian  territory  partly  colonized  by  Poles,  illus- 
trates the  same  point.  In  Courland  and  Livonia 
with  their  German  cities,  Lithuanian  peasantry, 
Polish  colonies,  and  recent  Russian  accessions,  the 
struggle  is  even  more  complex.  In  these  regions  the 
problem  will  never  be  solved  as  long  as  the  struggle 
for  domination  on  the  part  of  one  language  over  the 
others  remains.  Self-determination  of  nationalities 
has  no  meaning  there,  because  up  to  the  present  time 
the  only  question  at  issue  is  which  people  shall  coerce 
the  other  to  adopt  a  language  and  customs  that  they 
do  not  want.  As  long  as  the  modern  nationalistic 
attitude  lasts,  there  is  only  one  conceivable  solution 
of  this  problem,  namely  a  separation  of  nationalities, 
by  which  the  linguistic  groups  can  be  placed  in  sep- 
arate areas  by  means  of  a  forced  legal  exchange  of 
land  and  residence.  Although  this  exchange  would 
also  entail  great  hardships,  these  would  seem  small 
and  temporary  as  compared  to  the  constant  struggle 
that  is  now  disturbing  the  peace  of  all  areas  of  this 
character.  In  another  way  a  reconstruction  of  this 
kind  has  been  made  before.  Owing  to  the  transfers 
made  by  marriages  and  other  causes,  the  lands  of  the 
peasants  in  western  Germany  had  come  to  be  located 
in  many  isolated  patches  that  were  difficult  to  work. 
This  condition  has  been  largely  modified  by  a  forced 
exchange  which,  naturally,  found  much  resistance 
but  was  nevertheless  an  indispensable  condition  for 
the  well-being  of  the  peasants. 

Psychologically  quite  different  are  the  sources  of 
national  feeling  in  countries  that  seek  national  unit}7, 
not  to  free  themselves  of  the  yoke  of  foreign  mas- 
tery but  in  an  attempt  to  break  down  barriers  be- 
tween those  who  are  of  the  same  nationality  and 
who  are  separated  by  political  boundaries  that  have 
no  nationalistic  meaning.  These  feelings  prevailed 
with  particular  intensity  in  Germany  and  Italy  be- 
fore each  became  a  united  state.  Among  the  Poles, 
Greeks,  Servians,  Roumanians,  Lithuanians  and  Lit- 
tle Russians  they  are  complicated  by  the  feelings 
engendered  by  the  intermingling  of  nationalities  to 
which  we  referred  before. 

In  an  uneducated  person  who  has  no  historic  per- 
spective and  no  knowledge  outside  of  that  which 


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235 


his  daily  experience  presents  to  him,  the  aspiration 
for  national  unity  could  not  possibly  arise,  because  it 
must  be  based  on  a  unity  of  feeling  that  does  not 
manifest  itself  in  a  tangible  form  in  daily  needs  and 
wishes.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  Sicilian  "and 
the  Venetian,  or  the  Bavarian  and  Westphalian 
peasants,  if  they  should  meet  and  converse  solely  in 
regard  to  matters  of  everyday  life,  would  find  so 
little  in  common  that  the  feeling  of  national  unity 
would  not  arise  on  this  basis.  The  relation  of  the 
Sicilian  to  the  Friulese  or  Romansh,  of  the  Bavar- 
ian to  the  Dutch,  corroborates  this  view.  Administra- 
tive regulations  making  difficult  intercourse  between 
neighbors  may  have  fostered  the  desire  to  do  away 
with  artificial  boundaries,  but  it  does  not  account 
for  the  intense  desire  for  national  unity.  In  the 
cases  of  Italy  and  Germany  it  is  particularly  clear 
that  two  sources  have  molded  this  feeling:  the 
memory  of  times  in  which  the  nation  had  great 
political  power  and  the  desire  to  bring  back  these 
times;  and  the  consciousness  that  a  certain  literature 
and  art  is  the  common  property  of  all  those  who 
constitute  the  nation.  These  are  the  expression  and 
at  the  same  time  the  outflow  of  a  mode  of  thought 
which  is  felt  by  the  nation  as  its  very  soul.  Ideals 
of  this  kind  can  arise  in  the  educated  class  only  and 
we  see,  therefore,  that  national  feeling  is  always 
based  on  the  efforts  of  the  educated  to  impress  na- 
tionalistic ideas  upon  the  mass  of  the  people; 
school  and  literature  constantly  cooperate  to  keep 
alive  and  strengthen  these  ideals. 

How  thoroughly  the  concept  of  national  unity  de- 
pends upon  the  educated  class  is  illustrated  by  Pan- 
Slavism.  The  knowledge  of  the  relationship  be- 
tween the  Slavic  languages  is  a  result  of  philological 
inquiry.  There  is  no  community  of  interests  be- 
tween the  different  Slavic  groups.  To, the  unedu- 
cated Russian  peasant  the  South  Slavs  are  non-exist- 
ent, or,  if  he  hears  about  them,  they  appear  as  a 
foreign  nation.  The  same  is  true  of  the  Czechs, 
while  to  the  Little  Russian  the  Pole  is  better  known 
as  an  enemy  than  as  a  member  of  the  same  nation- 
ality. There  is  no  community  of  historical,  literary, 
or  religious  interest  in  these  groups.  The  cultural 
history  of  Bohemia  and  Poland  has  developed  quite 
differently  from  that  of  Russia.  Whatever  may 
have  led  to  the  growth  of  the  Pan-Slavistic  idea,  it 
can  have  grown  up  only  among  the  educated  classes. 
Its  growth  is  similar  to  the  attempt  of  Louis  Napo- 
leon who  tried  to  collect,  under  the  leadership  of 
France,  the  Romance-speaking  people  of  Europe  as 
opposed  to  the  Teutonic  and  Slavic  groups.  The 
artificial  origin  of  this  idea  is  clear,  because  it  has 
never  been  transposed  into  a  strong  popular  feeling. 
In  these  two  cases  the  supposed  unity  is  a  construc- 


tion based  entirely  on  philological  data,  without  any 
national  cultural  background. 

In  the  cases  of  true  nationalities  the  local  differ- 
ences are  overlaid  by  the  consciousness  of  a  com- 
munity of  political  history  and  of  cultural  achieve- 
ments that  are  the  property  of  the  whole  nation.  In 
the  consciousness  of  the  Italian  the  greatness  of 
Rome,  both  in  the  history  of  antiquity  and  in  the 
history  of  Christianity,  is  a  leading  idea  that  makes 
him  long  for  national  greatness;  and  Italian  litera- 
ture and  art  are  the  common  property  of  the  whole 
people  of  which  they  are  proud.  This  is  no  less  true 
of  Germany.  Without  the  memory  of  Germany's  po- 
litical history,  without  the  works  of  the  great  Ger- 
mans, there  would  be  no  German  nationality.  The 
works  of  the  past  in  which  men  find  strength  and 
solace  are  not  the  same  for  every  nation,  and  a  feel- 
ing of  brotherhood  arises  in  those  minds  whose  fires 
are  kindled  by  the  same  sparks  of  genius. 

For  these  reasons  nationalism  in  large  states  can- 
not flourish  unless  it  is  continually  rekindled  by  edu- 
cation, and  preached  in  and  out  of  season;  and  for 
these  reasons  it  finds  its  home  chiefly  among  the  edu- 
cated classes,  while  the  masses  merely  follow  the 
impetus  that  is  given  to  them. 

It  might  be  thought  that  common  political  activ- 
ity a*s  members  of  a  state,  and  particularly  common 
dangers  encountered  in  warfare,  bind  the  members 
of  a  state  together,  but  it  seems  that  this  is  the  case . 
to  a  very  limited  extent  only.  Political  dissension 
is  often  a  dissolving  agent  rather  than  a  unifying 
force,  and  the  rapidity  with  which  fellows  in  arms 
fall  apart  and  enemies  join  hands  shows  the  weak- 
ness of  fellowship  engendered  by  war  as  compared 
with  the  stability  of  national  sentiment. 

Modern  nationalism  is  based  on  the  dogma  that 
political  power  and  national  individuality  are  insep- 
arable; that  a  people  that  is  politically  weak  cannot 
develop  a  strong  national  individuality;  that  a  peo- 
ple that  is  politically  strong  must  also  be  a  strong 
nationality.  The  history  of  civilization  proves  this 
belief  to  be  entirely  erroneous.  Italy's  greatness  be- 
longs to  the  period  of  political  dissension,  to  a  time 
when  numerous  small  independent  states  prevented 
Italy  from  being  a  great  political  power,  but  when 
intellectual  life  was  a  unit  notwithstanding  the 
atomization  of  political  organization.  The  period 
of  Germany's  greatest  achievements  in  the  domain 
of  art  and  literature  coincided  with  the  lowest  ebb 
of  Germany's  political  power.  Turkey,  on  the 
other  hand,  although  a  political  power  of  great 
magnitude,  has  never  developed  into  a  powerful  na- 
tionality, and  only  with  the  decadence  of  its  politi- 
cal greatness  has  there  been  the  beginning  of  a  na- 
tional life.  It  is  true,  however,  that  under  favor- 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


able  conditions  political  greatness  may  strongly 
stimulate  national  life.  When  the  forces  of  a  na- 
tion are  centralized  in  one  focus  and  when  the  great 
minds  are  attracted  to  the  center  of  the  state  and 
form  a  nucleus  that  persists  for  long  periods,  the 
soil  for  cultural  progress  and  for  the  development 
of  a  strong  national  individuality  may  be  exception- 
ally favorable.  These  conditions  have  given  to 
Paris  its  position  in  the  life  of  France  and  in  the 
history  of  human  civilization.  The  many  local  cen- 
ters of  Italy  of  the  Renaissance  and  of  Germany 
of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  prove, 
however,  that  political  centralization  is  not  a  neces- 
sary condition  for  an  active  and  fruitful  cultural 
life  provided  the  small  centers  can  draw  upon  the 
mental  resources  of  a  numerous  people  that  have  the 
same  cultural  background. 

The  conditions  for  the  development  of  economic 
life  would  seem  to  be  more  closely  connected  with 
the  political  power  of  nations,  because  the  field  of 
economic  activity  is  almost  everywhere  restricted 
by  legislative  discrimination  against  the  foreigner, 
while  its  full  development  requires  free  access  to  the 
resources  of  large  territories  and  the  opportunity 
of  unrestricted  distribution.  The  more  nations  are 
in  fear  of  having  their  food  supply  cut  off  by  hostile 
neighbors,  the  more  difficulties  they  encounter  in 
free  access  to  foreign  countries,  the  more  they  are 
bound  to  pro'ect  and  foster  their  own  resources  and 
the  more  strongly  develops  the  sense  of  the  com- 
munity of  interests  of  the  nation.  If  this  is  super- 
added  to  the  feeling  of  cultural  unity,  the  character- 
istic imperialistic  tendencies  of  modern  times  de- 
velop, which  are  dominated  by  the  desire  for 
economic  and  political  power. 

The  cultivation  of  national  cultural  ideals  has  lit- 
tle in  common  with  these  tendencies,  and  in  the 
purest  national  fervor  there  is  no  tinge  of  the  lust 
of  dominion  that  characterizes  imperialistic  nation- 
alism. It  is  merely  the  expression  of  the  intense  de- 
sire to  develop  freely  the  national  cultural  ideals.  It 
seems  a  curious  contradiction  that  the  educated 
classes  who  have  the  widest  knowledge  of  the 
world  and  who  are  alone  in  a  position  to  appreciate 
the  achievements  of  foreign  nations,  should  be 
everywhere  the  carriers  of  imperialistic  nationalism. 

This  phenomenon  is  not  difficult  to  understand  if 
we  remember  that  the  historic  facts  on  which  na- 
tionalistic feelings  are  founded  and  the  emotional 
setting  in  which  they  are  presented  are  impressed 
upon  the  educated  classes  much  more  vigorously 
and  persistently  than  upon  those  whose  period  of 
scholarship  is  short  and  irregular  and  who  are  not 
subject  to  similar  influences  out  of  school.  It  is  a 
general  observation  that  when  a  segregated  class 


exists  which  is  subject  to  its  own  special  traditions, 
it  will  set  class  interests  higher  than  general  human 
interests  which  are  always,  even  in  simple  tribal  life, 
present  among  the  mass  of  the  people.  The  nation 
is  a  segregated  class  in  this  sense.  The  characteris- 
tic feature  of  nationalism  is  that  its  social  and  ethi- 
cal standards  are  considered  as  more  fundamental 
than  those  that  are  general  and  human,  or  rather 
that  the  members  of  each  nation  assume  that  their 
ideals  are  or  should  be  the  true  ideals  of  mankind. 
On  account  of  the  long  subjection  to  these  influ- 
ences, the  thought  of  those  whom  we  call  the  edu- 
cated classes  is  controlled  essentially  by  those  ideals 
which  have  been  transmitted  to  us  by  past  genera- 
tions. Particularly  among  the  heterogeneous  poor 
population  of  our  cities,  that  is  tied  to  the  past  only 
by  the  slightest  bonds,  a  vigorous  and  persistent 
propaganda  is  necessary  to  arouse  strong  patriotic 
emotions. 

We  may,  then,  decline  to  accept  the  teachings 
of  an  imperialistic  nationalism  and  still  be  devoted 
to  the  ideals  of  a  nationality.  The  problems  of 
mankind  are  manifold  and  their  solution  is  diffi- 
cult. They  may  be  approached  in  many  different 
manners  and  satisfactory  solutions  may  be  found  by 
different  lines  of  approach.  The  same  solution  is 
not  satisfactory  to  all  minds,  but  what  is  dear  to  one 
will  always  remain  repugnant  to  another  one.  The 
character  of  a  person  is  molded  by  the  social  medium 
in  which  he  lives  and  his  ideals  and  wishes  reflect 
the  national  temper.  Progress  results  from  the 
peaceful  struggle  of  national  ideals  and  endeavors, 
and  from  the  knowledge  that  what  is  dear  to  us  is 
for  that  reason  not  the  best  for  the  rest  of  mankind, 
that  we  may  cultivate  our  most  valued  ideals  with- 
out ever  harboring  the  wish  to  impose  them  upon 
others — unless  thay  adopt  them  by  their  own  free 
will.  This  thought  has  been  clearly  expressed  by 
Eduard  Meyer,  who  says:  "Very  gradually,  in 
course  of  the  ascending  historical  development,  and 
at  first  half  unconsciously,  develops  the  feeling  of  a 
closer  relationship,  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  a  people. 
Its  most  elevated  form,  the  concept  of  nationality, 
is  the  most  refined  and  complex  structure  that  can 
be  created  by  historical  development;  it  transforms 
the  unity  that  actually  exists  into  the  conscious,  ac- 
tive, and  creative  will  to  be  and  to  live  as  a  unit 
specifically  distinct  from  all  other  social  groups." 
In  other  words,  the  background  of  nationality  is 
social  individuality  that  neither  brooks  interference 
from  other  groups  nor  possesses  the  wish  to  deprive 
other  nationalities  of  their  individuality. 

Conceived  in  this  way  nationality  is  one  of  the 
most  fruitful  sources  of  cultural  progress.  Its  pro- 
ductiveness lies  in  the  strength  that  the  individual 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


237 


derives  from  being  able  to  act  in  a  large  homo- 
geneous social  group  which  responds  readily  to  his 
thoughts  and  actions  because  he  shares  with  it  the 
same  cultural  background.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
the  greater  the  social  group,  the  greater  will  also 
be  the  effectiveness  of  the  response  and  its  cumula- 
tive influence.  For  this  reason  the  state  and  na- 
tionally organized  society  have  seized  upon  the  na- 
tionalistic idea  and  make  it.  the  dominant  tone  of 
public  education,  not  only  in  compulsory,  state-sup- 
ported schools,  but  also  in  private  schools,  by  im- 
pressing upon  the  teacher  the  importance  of  instill- 
ing national  ideals  into^the  minds  of  the  children.  In 
this  lies  undoubtedly  a  danger  for  cultural  progress. 
First  of  all  the  kind  of  nationalism  that  is  taught 
is  not  the  nationalism  of  ideas  but  the  imperialistic 
nationalism  of  political  and  economic  power;  it  is 
not  the  nationalism  that  endeavors  to  understand  and 
appreciate  foreign  patterns  of  thought,  it  is  the  in- 
tolerant nationalism  that  sets  its  own  kind  over  and 
above  every  foreign  form  of  feeling.  Only  too 
often  is  the  dogmatic  adulation  of  national  political 
and  cultural  form  and  ill-concealed  contempt  of  for- 
eign forms  impressed  upon  the  plastic  minds  of  the 
young,  whose  lifelong  behavior  is  thus  determined. 

A  further  danger  lies  in  the  uniformity  of  pat- 
terns of  thought  that  is  the  result  of  this  type  of 
education,  and  which  in  modern  times,  is  still  fur- 
ther sustained  by  the  daily  press  and  by  public  ora- 
tory. The  attempt  of  the  State  to  set  definite  ideals 
for  its  system  of  education  is  a  hindrance  to  cultural 
advance.  In  every  country  it  tends  to  stabilize  exist- 
ing conditions  and  hinders  progress  by  preventing 
the  development  of  independent  habits  of  thought. 
The  more  rigidly  the  system  is  confined  to  the 
teaching  of  national  ideals  and  the  more- intolerant 
it  is  of  foreign  ideals,  the  more  unfavorable  must 
be  its  influence  upon  the  growing  generation.  It  is 
true  that  the  greater  the  mass  of  people  imbued 
with  one  dominant  idea,  the  stronger  will  be  their 
reaction  to  its  emotional  appeal.  In  former  times, 


religion  was  the  chief  sentiment  thus  appealed  to,  a 
sentiment  that  transcended  all  boundaries  of  na- 
tionalities and  appealed  here  to  Christians,  there  to 
Mohammedans,  without  regard  to  language,  race, 
or  national  affiliation.  During  the  present  period 
it  is  the  national  feeling  that  makes  the  strongest 
appeal  and  finds  the  readiest  response,  because  it  is 
cultivated  with  the  most  refined  means  of  education 
and  is  constantly  kept  before  our  minds.  Its  natural 
basis  is  the  common  interest  of  the  people  in  the  his- 
tory of  their  ancestors,  in  the  participation  of  all  in 
the  work,  pleasures,  and  ideals  of  truth  and  beauty 
that  are  expressed  in  the  work  of  the  great  men  of 
the  nation  and  that  influence  the  life  of  even  its 
humblest  member.  From  these  forces  we  cannot 
escape,  even  if  we  wish  to  do  so.  There  is,  Jiow- 
ever,  a  fundamental  difference  between  the  teaching 
of  intelligent  love  of  our  national  environment  that 
must  be  the  basis  of  fruitful  action,  and  the  playing 
upon  the  sentiments  of  the  young  by  teaching  de- 
votion to  nebulous  symbols  of  greatness  that 
elicit  only  passionate  reaction  and  prevent  the 
growth  of  constructive  ideas.  Love  for  our  nation 
does  not  exclude  admiration  of  foreign  modes  of 
life;  it  should  not  blind  us  to  an  intelligent  under- 
standing of  the  basis  of  our  own  life,  of  its  merits, 
and  of  its  defects. 

The  one-sided  emphasis  laid  upon  the  attempts 
to  secure  a  purely  emotional  devotion  to  our  social, 
political,  and  geographical  environment  is  liable 
to  produce  an  unwholesome  uniformity  of  thought. 
A  safer  basis  might  be  reached  if  it  were  our  en- 
deavor to  give  an  intelligent  basis  to  our  devotion  to 
our  country,  balanced  by  an  appreciative  under- 
standing of  the  reasons  why  other  nations  are 
equally  devoted  to  their  countries  and  to  their  ideals, 
and  if  the  greatest  freedom  were  given  to  the  teach- 
ing of  social  and  political  ideals.  It  is  a  sign  of 
weakness  to  dread  that  critical  attitude  towards  the 
basis  of  national  institutions  which  is  the  only  basis 
of  sound  progress. 

FRANZ  BOAS. 


To  One  Dead 


You  are  not  there  where  the  black  pall  waits, 
You  are  not  there. 

Let  them  crowd  and  sniffle  about  the  gates, 
Let  them  mope  and  stare. 

I  shall  walk  where  the  April  skies  flash  blue, 

With  the  scudding  clouds  and  the  sun  whipped  through; 

I  shall  run  where  the  golden  poplars  swing 

Abloom  with  spring. 

ROSE  HENDERSON. 


238 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


The  Drama  of  Self -Deception 


.MONG  THE  CLASS  of  brainworkers  whom  the 
British  Labor  party  has  recently  declared  to  be 
eligible  for~  membership  within  its  ranks  there  is  a 
group  of  young  women  writers  who  have  distin- 
guished themselves  by  their  precocious  achievements. 
In  fact  some  of  them  are  still  too  young  to  vote,  un- 
der an  election  law  which  requires  the  woman  voter 
to  have  reached  the  age  of  thirty.  Fortunately  the 
English  publishers  do  not  enforce  such  a  high  stand- 
ard of  maturity  as  the  election  officials.  Otherwise 
we  should  have  been  deprived  of  much  brilliant  and 
able  work — notably  that  of  Rebecca  West,  Clemence 
Dane,  and  E.  M.  Delafield. 

The  brainwork  of  Miss  Delafield  is  characterized, 
among  other  things,  by  a  very  high  rate  of  speed: 
she  has  published  three  novels  in  less  than  three 
years.  It  is  furthermore  characterized  by  a  brilliant 
and  relentless  accuracy  in  the  observation  of  her 
special  field.  Miss  Delafield  has  an  extraordinarily 
keen  vision  for  the  drama  of  self-deception  in  which 
the  ego  plays  the  double  role  of  actor  and  audience. 
She  understands  the  game  of  hide-and-seek  with 
motives — which,  as  Sincere  James  says  to  Zella, 
doesn't  take  in  the  other  people  half  as  often  as  one 
thinks.  In  Zella  Sees  Herself  (Knopf;  $1.50),  the 
heroine's  passion  for  posing  assumes  a  rather  harm- 
less form,  so  far  as  other  people  are  concerned.  It 
is  her  personal  tragedy  that  even  the  most  stupid 
eventually  see  through  her.  She  is  an  arch-pretender 
who  simply  cannot  help  it  and  who  is  always  catch- 
ing herself  in  the  act — the  unhappy  victim  of  her 
own  self-consciousness.  She  moves  from  one  en- 
vironment to  the  other,  always  conforming  to  stand- 
ards which  in  her  heart  she  despises,  because  with- 
out conforming  one  cannot  compete,  and  without 
competition  one  can  not  excel.  At  all  costs  she  must 
out-Herod  Herod;  she  must  prove  the  pathos  of 
every  occasion.  At  her  mother's  funeral,  in  her 
aunt's  family  life,  during  her  convent  days  (Miss 
Delafield  certainly  knows  the  convent  from  the  in- 
side), at'  home  and  abroad,  Zella  revels  in  her 
artificial  emotions  and  uncurbed  phantasies.  The 
climax  of  her  indulgence  in  the  pleasures  of  unreal- 
ity is  reached  when,  as  the  Misunderstood  Woman, 
she  encounters  the  Misunderstood  Man,  and  the  two 
mutually  outpose  each  other  until  they  hover  on  the 
brink  of  marriage.  This  lover  is  brutally  diagnosed 
by  Sincere  James,  whose  keen  insight  is  doubtless 
stimulated  by  the  impulse  of  jealousy. 

It's  all  derivative — his  whole  ego.  It's  like  a  mirror 
lying  on  a  table;  it  can't  help  reflecting  all  the  things 
within  range,  on  its  own  perfectly  hard,  flat  surface. 
Pick  it  up  and  smash  it,  and  there's  nothing  left  of  the 
reflections,  and  nothing  behind. 


The  description  might  be  applied  to  some  extent 
to  Zella  also,  but  Cousin  James  is  not  the  man  to 
apply  it.  In  fact,  he  cannot  endure  in  a  creature 
of  his  own  sex  the  same  qualities  for  which  he  can 
make  excuses  in  one  of  the  opposite  sex.  It  is  per- 
haps for  the  same  reason  that  Miss  Delafield  pre- 
fers to  castigate  the  practice  of  self-deception  among 
women  rather  than  among  men.  At  any  rate,  she 
is  prone  to  allocate  the  attribute  of  sincerity  to  the 
husbands  and  male  cousins  in  her  stories. 

In  The  War  Workers  (Knopf;  $1.50),  she 
satirizes  the  use  of  patriotism  as  a  cloak  for  personal 
and  emotional  aims  of  an  altogether  different  nature. 
The  dominating  qualities  of  Miss  Vivian,  Director 
of  the  Midland  Supply  Depot,  and  the  adoring  at- 
titude of  her  staff  of  Voluntary  Workers  form  the 
center  of  the  comedy.  Charmian  Vivian,  thirty 
years  old  and  unmarried  and  previously  a  daughter 
in  the  home,  now  manages  all  the  war  work  of  her 
district,  voraciously  absorbing  each  new  enterprise 
— canteen  or  what-not — which  springs  up  in  her 
neighborhood.  She  treasures  in  her  mind's  eye  a 
picture  of  herself  as  the  indefatigable  and  self-sac- 
rificing leader,  and  her  one  aim  in  life  is  not  to  spoil 
the  picture.  Her  bedazzled  staff  is  conveniently  en- 
thralled by  the  same  view  of  her:  "Miss  Vivian 
always  puts  the  work  before  everything,"  they  earn- 
estly chorus.  "She  never  spares  herself,  so  why 
should  she  spare  any  of  us?"  Miss  Vivian  never 
had  time  to  go  to  lunch  and  she  never  got  home  to 
dinner  before  nine  o'clock;  she  signed  every  letter 
herself  and  jealously  guarded  every  detail  to  the 
outermost  ramifications  of  her  exacting  job.  Her 
exhausted  staff  was  sent  out  at  the  end  of  the  long 
day's  work  for  evening  service  in  canteens  and  troop- 
train  stations  and  they  went  unquestioningly.  There 
was  a  Hostel  in  which  "Miss  Vivian's  own  work- 
ers" lived,  sweltering  together  in  an  atmosphere  of 
adulation,  which  receives  a  slightly  pathological 
accent  from  the  figure  of  poor  little  masochistic  Miss 
Plumtree  with  her  eager  confession:  "But  even  if 
one  doesn't  like  her  awfully  much,  she  has  a  sort 
of  fascination,  don't  you  think?  J  always  feel  like 
a — a  sort  of  bird  with  a. sort  of  snake,  you  know." 

A  striking  contrast  to  the  voluntary  workers  is 
the  delightful  Miss  Collins,  the  expert  stenographer, 
one  of  the  few  paid  workers  in  the  office.  Miss 
Collins  scorned  the  uniform  and  presented  herself 
daily  in  silk  stockings,  transparent  blouses,  and 
sundry  jewelry.  She  received  two  pounds  ten  shil- 
lings a  week,  never  worked  overtime,  and  had  every 
Saturday  afternoon  off.  In  due  course  of  time, 
when  all  the  staff,  including  the  Director,  succumbed 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


239 


to  the  influenza  epidemic,  Miss  Collins  was  the  only 
one  who  escaped.  For  her  the  author  reserves  a  dif- 
ferent fate.  Of  the  400,000  war  marriages  contracted 
in  England,  the  author  hands  one  to  her  favorite, 
Miss  Collins;  and  she  even  carefully  excludes  it 
from  the  390,000  which  have  remained  childless. 
Miss  Collins  receives  a  place  among  the  upper  ten 
thousand.  "She's  probably  going  to  be  of  more 
use  to  the  nation,  let  me  tell  you,  than  all  the  rest 
of  you  put  together,"  blusters  the  pompous  Dr. 
Prince. 

Into  the  Adamless  paradise  of  the  Hostel,  there 
enters  the  serpent  in  the  form  of  a  new  secretary. 
Literal  and  unimaginative,  the  newcomer  takes  an 
objective  view  of  her  chief  and  perpetrates  lese 
majeste  in  numberless  small  ways.  But  it  is  not 
Miss  Jones  who  really  seeks  the  downfall  of  Miss 
Vivian.  The  real  enemy  is  Char  Vivian's  mother, 
who  stands  on  a  footing  of  intimate  warfare  with  her 
only  daughter.  Against  Char's  circle  of  adorers  her 
mother  is  able  to  muster  some  deadly  forces  of  her 
own.  She  has  the  family  doctor  on  her  side,  who, 
because  he  helped  to  bring  Char  into  the  world,  feels 
himself  privileged  to  call  her  a  "conceited  monkey" 
in  talking  with  her  secretary.  She  has  the  irrepress- 
ible Lesbia,  who  drops  in  at  the  Director's  office  and 
tells  her  candidly,  as  her  "mother's  greatest  friend," 
that  she  is  "behaving  like  an  absolute  little  fool." 
Then  she  has  Sincere  Cousin  John,  who  turns  up  at 
the  canteen  and  tells  the  errant  daughter  that  her 
place  is  at  home  with  her  invalid  father.  These 
persons  are  all  infected  with  the  implacable  dislike 
which  Lady  Vivian  cherishes  for  her  unmanageable 
daughter  and  which  unmistakeably  breaks  out  in  a 
secret,  ardent  wish:  "Oh,  why  in  Heaven's  name 
didn't  I  whip  Char  when  she  was  younger!"  There 
is  only  one  thing  wrong  with  Miss  Delafield's  satire 
in  this  book:  unlike  G.  B.  S.  and  Thackeray,  she 
hasn't  enough  to  go  round.  For  the  caddish  doctor, 
the  priggish  cousin,  and  the  vindictive  mother,  she 
has  none  to  spare.  It  is  all  spent  on  the  patriotic 
hypocrisies  of  Miss  Vivian,  who,  like  Carthage,  must 
be  destroyed. 

In  The  Pelicans  (Knopf;  $1.50)  the  author  takes 
sides  with  the  younger  generation.  The  Pelicans  is 
a  drama  of  maternalism.  Mrs.  Tregaskis,  who  has 
brought  up  three  girls,  knows  how  it  feels  to  be  a 
mother.  "It's  all  give,  give,  give  on  one  side,  and 
take,  take,  take  on  theirs.  I  feel  rather  like  an  un- 
fortunate pelican  feeding  its  young,  sometimes."  But 
pathos  is  not,  after  all,  her  note.  She  is1  practical, 
breezy,  possessive.  Having  only  one  daughter  of  her 
own,  and  sighing  for  more  worlds  to  conquer,  she 
increases  her  family  by  the  adoption  of  two  orphans. 
In  describing  the  fate  of  the  two  sensitive,  high- 


strung  girls  under  the  dominion  of  "Cousin  Bertie," 
the  story  often  rises  from  satire  to  tragedy.  It  is 
so  when  little  Frances,  submissive  by  nature,  finds 
her  way  into  the  convent  and  among  the  nuns,  who 
praise  her  for  "1'habitude  de  1'obeissance."  With 
a  horrible  smugness,  Cousin  Bertie  congratulates 
herself  that  she  knows  where  her  ward  picked  up 
the  habit.  Frederick  Tregaskis,  who  is  a  Live  and 
Let  Live  husband,  now  and  then  asserts  himself  in 
an  attempt  to  make  his  home  safe  for  democracy, 
though  nothing  ever  comes  of  it.  But  at  least  he 
bequeathes  to  Hazel,  the  daughter  of  his  disposition, 
the  spirit  to  make,  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  a  great 
discovery.  "I  used  to  think  if  one's  parents  forbade 
a  thing,  it  became  impossible,  ipso  facto,  but  it 
doesn't.  They  just  cant  do  anything  at  all." 

The  other  Pelicans  are  Lady  Argent  and  Mrs. 
Severing.  But  Lady  Argent  is  not  a  pretender  like 
the  others;  she  has  not  enough  intellect.  She  is  a 
kind  but  feeble-minded  woman,  who  does  not  know 
which  weighs  more,  a  ton  of  lead  or  a  ton  of  feathers, 
and  who  has  been  an  object  of  affectionate  contempt 
to  her  son  from,  his  tenth  year  onward.  Mrs.  Sever- 
ing and  "her  Morris"  are  quite  a  different  pair. 
The  Severings,  mother  and  son,  understand  each 
other  only  too  well;  they  see  through  each  other 
with  a  blinding  clearness,  but  there  it  stops.  Neither 
of  them  has  a  ray  of  self-knowledge.  Their  dia- 
logues are  perverse  duels  in  which  each  tries  vainly 
to  drag  out  into  the  light  the  secret  self  of  the  other. 
Yet  they  cleave  to  each  other  as  such  people  alone 
can  cleave,  and  on  rare  and  fleeting  occasions,  they 
enjoy  a  sense  of  perfect  companionship  "when  their 
respective  mental  tableaux  vivants  of  one  another 
happen  to  coincide." 

The  author's  attitude  toward  her  play-acting 
characters  varies  from  cool  sympathy  to  warm  dis- 
like. She  handles  Zella  with  some  tolerance  but 
she  finishes  off  Miss  Vivian,  Director  of  the  Mid- 
land Supply  Depot,  with  a  complete  and  perfect 
vengeance.  As  for  sentimentalists  like  Aunt 
Marianne  and  Lesbia  Willoughby,  with  their  sheep- 
ish and  would-be  truthful  consorts,  they  deserve  no 
mercy  from  their  author  and,  indeed,  they  get  none. 
Likewise  Cousin  Bertie  and  N'ina  Severing  are  cor- 
dially detested,  but  they  are  by  far  the  best  of  these 
satirical  portraits.  By  comparison,  Miss  Vivian 
degenerates  into  an  effigy.  The  Pelicans  is  superior, 
too,  in  the  way  in  which  the  characters  are  psycho- 
logically proportioned  to  each  other.  Those  who 
escape  the  lash  convince  us  that  they  deserve  to  do 
so.  In  short,  the  newest  novel  indicates  that  the 
precocious  Miss  Delafield  is  still  developing. 

KATHARINE  ANTHONY. 


240 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


The  Indian  as  Poet 


is  just  beginning  to  discover  him.  The 
pioneer's  harsh  estimate  has  been  modified  to  a  sur- 
prising degree;  a  good  Indian,  according  to  his 
students,  is  not  so  much  a  dead  Indian  as  a  singing 
one.  Fragmentary  reports  have  come  to  us  and,  in 
the  work  of  Natalie  Curtis  Burlin  and  Mary  Austin, 
a  few  rich  and  careful  evaluations.  But  we  have 
'  been  offered  singularly  little  by  the  protagonists  of 
the  red  man  that  is  either  thorough  or  convincing. 
Much  of  this  is  due  to  the  tremendous  gap  between 
the  languages.  Translation,  at  the  best,  is  a  difficult 
and  ungrateful  performance  for  both  interlocutor 
and  audience.  But  the  translating  of  folk  songs 
and  aboriginal  chants  is  an  even  more  hazardous 
matter.  So  much  that  is  idiomatic  escapes  or  is 
distorted  or  is,  most  often,  entirely  misunderstood. 
A  word  out  of  place,  even  when  it  is  apprehended, 
may  need  a  chapter  of  explanations;  an  uncertain 
phrase  may  mean  nothing  to  anyone  but  the  singer 
and  his  tribe  who  carry  its  connotations  with  them. 
I  recall  with  fresh  appreciation  the  various  versions 
one  small  sentence  went  through  before  it  attained 
intelligibility.  In  an  Indian  song  (Ojibwa,  accord- 
ing to  Robert  Frost,  from  whom  I  have  the  story) 
a  certain  phrase  was  repeated  several  times.  Its 
crudeness  puzzled  the  translator  who  finally  ren- 
dered it :  " /  wear  bad  shoes"  This  meant  nothing 
in  the  context,  so  the  phrase  was  changed  to:  "My 
shoes  hurt  me."  Still  dissatisfied,  the  adapter 
showed  it  to  an  old  Indian,  who  smiled  and  said 
nothing.  After  a  while  the  venerable  Redman 
explained  that  the  song  was  an  ancient  gambling 
tune,  that  the  game  was  played  with  moccasins  and 
a  stone  or  small  nut — our  shell  game  was  possibly  a 
variation  of  it — and  that  the  queer  phrase,  literally 
and  figuratively,  was :  "  /  use  wicked  shoes  " — the 
line  being  a  taunting  challenge,  uttered  very  much 
in  the  spirit  of  the  side  show  come-on :  "  Watch  the 
little  pea.  Now  you  see  it ;  now  you  don't !  " 

This  incident  takes  on  a  particular  significance 
after  one  has  read  the  greater  part  of  the  latest  con- 
tribution to  our  indigenous  literature,  an  anthology 
of  songs  and  chants  from  the  Indians  of  North 
America  (The  Path  on  the  Rainbow — Boni  &  Liv- 
eright;  $1.50).  One  suspects  the  editor,  George 
W.  Cronyn,  of  fathering  more  than  a  few  hybrid 
if  not  actually  dubious  offspring.  It  is  hard  to  say 
how  much  of  the  book  should  be  credited  to  Mr. 
Cronyn,  his  share  of  the  task  is  concealed  to  the 
point  of  mystery.  The  front  matter,  purporting  to 
be  a  translation  of  a  song  that  never  existed,  is  by 
Carl  Sandburg;  the  illuminating  introduction  is  by 


Mary  Austin ;  the  graceful  essay  by  way  of  epilogue 
is  the  work  of  Constance  Lindsay  Skinner.  If  Mr. 
Cronyn  is  a  genuine  student  of  Indian  folklore,  he 
is  to  be  blamed  for  not  having  made  the  volume 
more  communicative  and  less  cryptic;  many  of  these 
songs  cry  aloud  for  nothing  so  much  as  footnotes. 
Nor  is  one  assisted  materially  by  the  arbitrary 
arrangement  of  words  and  a  pretentious  typography 
that  is  foreign  to  our  native — though  it  may  be 
native  to  Ezra  Pound,  "  H.  D.,"  and  Richard 
Adington.  For  example: 

SONG  OF  THE  TREES 
The  wind 
only 
I  am  afraid  of. 

Or  this,  redolent  of  Others  and  the  Kreymborg- 
Johns'  naivete: 

MAPLE  SUGAR 
Maple  sugar 

is  the  only  thing 
That  satisfies  me. 

Or  this  equally  inspired  bit: 

HE  Is  GONE 
I  might  grieve 
I  am  sad 

that  he  has  gone 

my  lover. 

There  are  surprisingly  many  of  such  odd-shaped 
pieces  of  sentimentality.  The  number  of  them 
proves  that,  robbed  of  the  imagiste  set-up,  the  harsh 
aborigine  can  commit  poetry  as  trite  and  banal  as 
many  an  overcivilized  paleface.  The  relationship 
does  not  end  with  the  mere  elimination  of  capitals 
and  the  indentation  of  a  few  lines. 

Miss  Austin  almost  succeeds  in  disposing  of  par. 
of  our  objection.  In  her  introduction  she  writes: 

That  there  is  such  a  relationship  any  one  at  all  familiar 
with  current  verse  of  the  past  three  or  four  years  must 
immediately  conclude  on  turning  over  a  few  pages.  He 
will  be  struck  at  once  with  the  extraordinary  likeness  be- 
tween much  of  this  native  product  and  the  recent  work  of 
the  Imagists,  vers  librists,  and  other  literary  fashionables. 
He  may,  indeed,  congratulate  himself  on  the  confirmation 
of  his  secret  suspicion  that  Imagism  is  a  very  primitive 
form ;  he  may,  if  he  happens  to  be  of  the  Imagist's  party, 
suffer  a  check  in  the  discovery  that  the  first  free  move- 
ment of  poetic  originality  in  America  finds  us  just  about 
where  the  last  Medicine  Man  left  off.  But  what  else 
could  he  have  expected? 

It  would  be  unfair  of  me  to  give  the  impression 
that  the  book  is  made  up  of  alternate  portions  of 
preciosity  and  platitudes.  Some  of  the  songs, 
especially  those  of  the  Southwest,  are  full  of  vitality 
and  several — such  as  The  Child  Is  Introduced  to 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


241 


the  Cosmos  at  Birth,  and  the  rituals — are  impressive 
even  without  the  music,  the  rude  chant  which  gives 
them  most  of  their  racial  color.  Of  the  translators, 
Natalie  Curtis  Burlin  seems  to  retain  more  of  the 
sharp  flavor  than  the  others;  of  the  interpreters,  the 
two  most  successful  are  Alice  Corbin  Henderson 
and  Frank  Gordon.  With  work  as  good  as  theirs 
to  live  up  to,  it  is  an  added  disappointment  to  come 
across  jingles  like  Pauline  Johnson's  The  Song  My 
Paddle  Sings,  which  is  neither  original  nor  aborig- 
inal, and  rhymed  sweetmeats  as  time-dusty  as: 


It  is  dark  on  the  Lost  Lagoon, 
And  gone  are  the  depths  of  haunting  blue, 
The  grouping  gulls,  and  the  old  canoe, 
The  singing  firs,  and  the  dusk  and — you ; 

And  gone  is  the  golden  moon. 

As  an  ethnic  document  this  anthology  is  of 
indubitable  value;  as  a  contribution  to  creative 
Americana  it  may  grow  to  have  importance.  But 
as  a  collection  for  the  mere  man  of  letters  it  is  a 
rather  forbidding  pile — a  crude  and  top-heavy  mon- 
ument with  a  few  lovely  and  even  lively  decorations. 

Louis  UNTERMEYER. 


Postprogramism  and  Reconstruction 


HEN  CONCERT  PROGRAMS  distract  with  Orn- 
stein,  Schoenberg,  Scriabine,  Strawinsky,  or  Ravel, 
and  neglect  the  restrained  and  penetrative  utterance 
of  men  like  d'Indy  and  Elgar,  it  is  a  consolation 
to  read  a  lucid  attack  upon  the  sensationalism  of  the 
postprogramists,  as  we  might  term  those  who  have 
carried  to  an  extreme  the  alliance  of  music  and  ex- 
traneous matters.  Such  an  attack  forms  the  basis 
of  the  latest  group  of  essays  by  Daniel  Gregory  Ma- 
son— Contemporary  Composers  (Macmillan;  $2). 
To  those  who  know  from  deeply  emotional  experi- 
ences that  "abstract"  music  is  a  far  greater  thing 
than  mathematical  note-spinning,  the  book  will  be 
welcome  indeed ;  for  seldom  has  contemporary  music 
been  so  ably  analyzed  from  the  position  of  the  purist. 
With  characteristic  clarity  of  expression  and 
thought,  Mr.  Mason  dissects  the  tendencies  of  to- 
day's music,  and  thus  completes  his  brilliant  cycle 
of  essays  on  the  history  of  modern  music — Beet- 
hoven and  his  Forerunners,  The  Romantic  Com- 
posers, From  Grieg  to  Brahms,  and  Contemporary 
Composers. 

Musicians  who  are  on  everyone's  lips  today — the 
programists,  the  impressionists,  the  sensationalists — 
are  criticized  as  looking  away  from  that  inner  emo- 
tion "to  which  alone,"  as  Wagner  said,  "can  music 
give  a  voice,  and  music  only."  With  the  exception 
of  Strauss  and  Debussy,  they  receive  but  passing 
mention  in  this  volume.  These  two  are  regarded  as 
showing  frequently  the  same  decadent  elements, 
mixed,  however,  with  certain  merits  that  make  their 
consideration  imperative.  The  discussion  of  their 
characteristics — for  instance,  the  gradually  increas- 
ing interest  of  Strauss  in  externals  at  the  expense  of 
inner  emotion — will  be  found  to  be  quite  valuable. 
Those  who  receive  the  author's  real  deference,  how- 
ever, are  d'Indy  and  Elgar — despite  the  latter's  fre- 
quent vulgarity — and  it  is  by  men  of  their  character 
that  he  expects  the  best  traditions  of  music  to  be 


carried  forward  in  the  face  of  shallowness  and  dis- 
play. To  the  casual  music  listener  such  a  realign- 
ment of  names  and  rank  will  be  novel,  though 
hardly  surprising  if  he  will  reflect  that  the  casual 
listeners  of  their  day  placed  Spohr  above  Beethoven 
and  Meyerbeer  above  Wagner.  In  so  far  as  this 
realignment  of  contemporary  composers  is  based  on 
the  creed  of  music  for  its  own  sake,  it  is  too  sound 
to  be  seriously  questioned ;  but  in  part,  one  must  ad- 
mit, it  appears  to  rest  on  individual  taste. 

Nothing  could  be  easier  than  to  recognize  the 
book  as  authoritative  and  to  settle  back  comfortably 
into  acceptance  of  its  persuasive  views.  They  form 
a  consistent,  individual,  well  thought  out  philosophy 
of  music.  They  are  the  conclusions  of  one  appar- 
ently sure  of  himself,  one  whose  opinions  tend  to 
crystallize.  But  can  one  man's  philosophy  of  music 
be  accepted  by  another?  Are  we  dealing  altogether 
with  valid,  permanent  judgments,  or  is  a  man's  ar- 
tistic perception  mostly  the  composite  of  his  experi- 
ences meeting  another's  perception,  not  because  of 
absolute  values  but  because  of  inheritances  and  ex- 
periences common  to  both?  Biological  and  philo- 
sophical questions  arise  but,  being  mostly  unan- 
swered, they  must  be  passed  over  with  the  one  com- 
ment that,  if  the  values  to  which  we  would  attach 
permanence  are  an  illusion,  like  that  of  free  will,  we 
face  the  same  necessity  of  recognizing  the  mechanical 
nature  of  our  reactions  and  of  acting  as  if  we  did 
not.  For  practical  purposes,  certain  standards  may 
be  taken  to  be  absolute.  Debussy's  music,  for  in- 
stance, does  carefully  avoid  sweeping  melodic  line. 
That  is  a  question  of  fact.  Similarly,  one  can  prac- 
tically regard  as  a  fact  a  conclusion  of  the  final  essay 
—that  ragtime  does  not  "express"  America.  The 
plausibility  of  Mr.  Mason's  book  is  enhanced  because 
he  is  so  inevitably  right  in  regard  to  these  questions 
of  fact.  And  it  is  only  a  step  further  for  him  to 
think,  perhaps,  that  if  he  can  be  authoritative  here, 


242 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


he  can  also  trust  his  impressions  in  regard  to  more 
subtle  matters,  such  as  the  appeal  of  a  particular 
passage  of  music,  or  the  beneficial  or  evil  results  of 
certain  musical  tendencies. 

In  this  connection  it  is  interesting  to  note  that  in 
presenting  his  impressions  in  so  positive  a  manner, 
Mr.  Mason  is  following  out  his  creed  of  individual- 
ism. Of  the  musician  he  says:  "He  must  love  his 
cause  so  singly  that  he  will  cleave  to  it,  and  forsake 
all  else.  .  .  He  must  take  sides.  He  must  be, 
not  a  philosopher,  but  a  partisan.  He  must  have 
good  hearty  enthusiasms,  and  good  hearty  prej- 
udices. Only  so  can  he  be  an  individual."  Such  a 
statement  would  be  disquieting  enough  if  it  were  not 
for  the  obvious  refutation  that  philosophers  have 
ever  been  individuals.  We  need  not  be  provincial 
to  be  ourselves,  nor  need  we  reject  our  deepest 
and  most  unique  feelings  to  give  our  neighbor  his 
due. 

Occasionally  readers  of  a  magazine  of  literary 
criticism  need  to  be  reminded  of  the  subjectivity  of 
artistic  perception.  If  a  reflective  person  is  honest 
with  himself,  he  will  know  that  only  an  occasional 
movement  or  passage  of  music  of  even  the  greatest 
masters  is  really  of  a  nature  to  permit  his  thorough 
appreciation  of  it.  On  different  occasions  even  the 
same  passage  will  affect  him  in  an  entirely  new  way. 
Moreover,  he  will  catch  himself  being  thrilled  by 
a  given  effect  because  it  has  pleasurable  associations, 
because  in  some  indefinable  way  his  ear  has  been 
prepared  to  appreciate  it,  or  because  it  appears 
strikingly  original  to  him.  If  sufficiently  introspec- 
tive, he  may  be  able  to  see  the  mechanism  of  his  ap- 
preciation at  work,  and  from  that  day  he  will  never 
trust  his  personal  opinion  sufficiently  to  declare  un- 
reservedly that  this  is  a  great  work  or  that  the  other 
has  no  permanent  value.  And  thus  I  prefer  to  think 
of  the  major  portion  of  musical  criticism  in  this  and 
previous  books  of  Mr.  Mason's  as  being  the  impres- 
sions of  a  broadly  interested,  clear-thinking,  and 
wholesome  musical  critic,  with  whom  I  personally 
happen  to  agree  in  regard  to  a  vast  number  of  musi- 
cal matters.  And  if  another  man  should  find  Elgar's 
First  Symphony  dry,  or  fail  to  find  in  it  the  interpre- 
tation of  the  same  emotions  that  are  described  some- 
what too  fully  in  the  present  volume,  I  should  not 
be  so  certain  as  Mr.  Mason  that  his  musical  appre- 
ciation is  at  fault. 

When  the  author  is  merely  offering  "suggestions 
and  hints"  as  to  the  future  of  music,  he  can  be  read 
with  more  confidence.  Pointing  out  at  length  how 
music,  having  passed  gradually  from  the  hands  of 
the  nobility  to  those  of  the  people,  has  suffered 
from  the  loss  of  its  homogeneous  audience  and  from 
the  fatigue-results  of  capitalism  and  industrial 


servitude,  the  author  suggests  that  possibly  an  era  of 
cooperation  and  communism  may  rescue  it  from  the 
sensational  and  revivify  it.  The  essay  in  question 
was  written  when  after-the-war  conditions  did  not 
seem  of  such  immediate  importance;  but  it  forms  an 
interesting  departure  for  reconstruction  speculations. 
The  attitude  that  the  arts  can  come  along  in  the 
wake  of  more  material  reconstruction  is  not  less 
dangerous  than  the  related  one  that  the  League  of 
Nations  can  be  patched  up  after  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence. There  would  be  no  great  value  in  making  the 
world  safe  for  a  democracy  stripped  of  the  finer  fea- 
tures of  the  arts.  If  no  concerted  action  to  improve 
directly  the  status  of  music  is  possible  at  present,  we 
must  at  least  realize  that  in  forming  our  opinions 
as  to  social  changes  we  should  know  if  possible  what 
these  changes  may  mean  to  music.  If  social  justice 
is  to  give  music  a  better  opportunity,  as  Mr.  Mason 
believes,  then  we  can  work  toward  it  with  added 
zest. 

What  is  looked  for  is  "first,  the  gradual  refining, 
deepening,  and  vitalizing  of  the  taste  of  the  general 
public  under  the  influence  of  increasing  leisure, 
health,  self-respect,  and  education;  second,  the  cut- 
ting off  of  extravagance,  luxury,  and  faddism  in  the 
wealthier  classes  by  a  wholesome  pressure  of  en- 
forced economy;  third,  increasing  solidarity  of  feel- 
ing in  the  whole  social  fabric  through  such  a  mutual 
rapprochement,  giving  the  indispensable  emotional 
basis  for  vital  art."  Such  a  picture  is  an  additional 
incentive  to  raise  our  aims  toward  cooperation  and 
communism  as  the  real  expression  of  the  democracy 
for  which  we  have  waged  war.  In  doing  so  we  must 
face  the  problem  with  our  eyes  open.  Unless  the 
greatest  vigilance  is  exercised,  the  world  will  slip 
back  into  the  same  rut  of  capitalism  and  industrial 
servitude,  with  conditions  more  intolerable  than 
ever  before.  Not  only  social  justice  but  the  future 
of  the  arts  calls  for  our  efforts. 

And  pending  the  slow  evolution  of  such  a  social 
organization  as  the  author  hopes  will  ^  revivify 
music,  the  advice  to  the  American  composer  in  the 
last  essay  is  of  singular  value.  He  must  realize 
that  while  society  withholds  proper  payment  for 
his  best  creative  work,  especially  in  this  country, 
it  freely  offers  him  a  livelihood  if  he  will  only  teach, 
perform,  or  do  anything  but  create  new  music. 
However,  he  must  also  "realize  that  music,  like  so- 
ciety, has  reached  its  present  state  only  through  the 
struggles,  against  immense  odds,  of  its  martyrs  and 
its  heroes.  He  must  be  ready  to  sacrifice  much  and 
to  feel  that  in  the  possession  of  a  lifelong  enthu- 
siasm he  has  the  best  gift  that  life  has  to  offer. 

ROLLO  BRITTEN. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


243 


A  New  American  Statesman  Series 


JLN  THE  TWO  VOLUMES,  Thomas  Jefferson,  by 
David  Saville  Muzzey,  and  Jefferson  Davis,  by 
Armistead  C.  Gordon  ($1.50  each),  Scribner's  have 
announced  a  series  of  biographies  of  American 
Statesmen  to  supplement  or  replace  those  already  in 
existence.  There  are  two  conditions  of  the  success  of 
this  enterprise — an  editor  who  understands  the 
status  of  historical  writing  in  the  United  States,  and 
cooperating  scholars  who  both  know  what  has  been 
the  actual  development  in  this  country  and  have  the 
gifts  to  apply  their  knowledge  to  the  subjects. 

These  volumes  illustrate  the  editorial  point  of 
view  that  has  been  adopted,  a  liberal  writer  for  a 
liberal  subject,  a  conservative  for  a  conservative 
subject.  On  this  principle,  the  story  of  Jefferson 
by  Professor  Muzzey  reaches  a  degree  of  success 
and  fairness  hitherto  unattained.  We  have  had 
biographies  of  Jefferson  galore,  but  none  that  ap- 
proaches Thayer's  Life  of  Cavour — which  by  the 
way  might  be  taken  as  a  model — in  visualizing  the 
great  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Nearly  all  men  who  have  written  of  Jefferson  make 
out  that  he  received  his  ideals  and  philosophy  from 
the  French.  Muzzey  shows  how  absurd  is  this 
theory,  for  it  could  never  have  been  anything  more 
than  a  theory  invented  by  men  who  did  not  know 
the  facts.  Another  thing  Muzzey  makes  clearer 
than  others  have  done  is  the  great  work  of  Jeffer- 
son in  literally  overturning  the  whole  Virginia 
civilization  during  the  early  years  of  the  Revolu- 
tion "  while  the  iron  was  hot."  What  he  does  not 
quite  grasp  is  the  fact  that  Virginia — I  mean  vot- 
ing Virginia — never,  after  1781,  admired' her  great- 
est citizen.  That  Jefferson  received  the  support  of 
Virginia  for  the  Presidency  does  -not  prove  any- 
thing, for  it  was  a  case  of  Jefferson  against  John 
Adams  or  some  other  alien — for  aliens  good  Vir- 
ginians always  regarded  New  England  men.  So 
articulate  Virginians  took  Jefferson  in  preference 
to  a  "  foreigner."  The  test  of  their  loyalty  to  him 
came  in  the  constant  pressure  from  Monticello  to 
have  a  new  and  mlore  democratic  constitution  for  the 
great  old  state.  Jefferson  was  a  man  of  some  as- 
tuteness, but  he  labored  forty  years  for  a  democratic 
constitution  and  to  no  avail.  Virginia  would  have 
none  of  it. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  the  author  of  our  new  Life 
of  Jefferson  has  not  done  a  good  job.  He  has;  only 
he  missed  the  common  American  habit  of  compro- 
mising state  and  national  affairs  in  the  setting  up  of 
presidential  candidates.  Virginia  would,  for  ex- 
ample, gladly  have  a  Democrat  for  President  but 


never  think  of  one  for  Governor.  It  has  been  so 
with  other  leaders.  Wilson  has  never,  I  believe, 
carried  a  majority  of  the  votes  of  New  Jersey  on 
the  merits  of  his  democratic  program.  He  could 
hardly  carry  a  single  American  state  today  if  he 
really  proposed  to  make  a  state  democratic.  Yet 
he  could  probably  carry  the  country. 

This  is  writing  about  a  book  and  not  giving  its 
contents.  But  the  spirit  of  the  book  is  given. 
Muzzey's  short  volume  puts  Jefferson  in  his  proper 
position.  It  does  not  mistake  his  purpose  at  any 
time.  It  was  not  States  Rights  that  Jefferson  ad- 
vocated in  the  great  war  with  Federalism,  but  the 
cause  of  democracy  which  Jefferson  thought  he 
could  forward  by  using  the  States.  He  had  no  idea 
of  dissolving  the  Federal  Union  in  his  Kentucky 
resolutions  and  none  knew  this  better  than  contem- 
poraries; but  they  chose  to  attack  him  on  that 
ground  rather  than  on  democratic  grounds.  The 
pity  of  this  biography  is  that  it  is  not  longer  and 
more  elaborate.  The  greatest  of  American  demo- 
crats before  Lincoln  deserves  it. 

Mr.  Armistead  Gordon's  Life  of  Jefferson  Davis 
is  written  on  the  assumption  that  the  author  of  the 
biography  should  sympathize  with  the  subject.  That 
is,  Mr.  Gordon  is  supposed  by  the  editor  of  the  series 
to  sympathize  with  secession  as  a  rightful  measure 
of  sectional  defense  or  to  approve  of  what  are  some- 
times called  conservative  principles  in  society.  The 
biography  is  written  by  one  who  can,  therefore,  see 
the  task  from  the  point  of  view  of  Davis.  With 
that  there  can  be  no  quarrel — certainly  not  if  the 
author  is  a  miaster  of  his  art  and  is  a  philosopher 
who  knows  history  in  long  periods,  rather  than  in 
decade  instalments. 

The  book  fulfills  the  expectations  of  the  editor. 
It  will  satisfy  those  who  look  upon  history  through 
Southern  spectacles;  it  will  please  gentlefolk,  North 
and  South,  who  still  feel  the  dire  need  of  cheap 
household  servants.  Nor  does  it  fall  short  of  high 
historical  standards.  I  have  detected  no  important 
error  in  all  its  pages.  It  reads  well,  moreover,  and 
the  footnotes  give  every  evidence  of  care  and  honesty 
in  its  composition.  No  previous  worker  in  the  field 
has  been  slighted,  no  matter  how  widely  the  diver- 
gence of  viewpoint.  That  is  a  good  deal.  Not 
many  writers  of  history  in  this  country  have  been 
able  to  rise  to  similar  heights  of  just  dealing. 

Yet,  if  the  reviewer  mistake  not,  the  story  of 
Jefferson  Davis  remains  to  be  written.  Davis  was 
a  rather  noble  nature,  a  sincere  aristocrat,  a  man 
who  never  believed  in  the  principles  that  pe- 


244 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


culiarly  mark  American  history.  His  philosophy  was 
that  of  Nietzsche,  but  without  the  brutalism  of  the 
German;  it  was  that  of  Bismarck  without  the  cold- 
blooded cynicism  of  the  great  Prussian;  Davis  be- 
lieved that  the  minority,  the  educated,  "  the  rich 
and  the  good,"  as  Fisher  Ames  once  put  it,  should 
govern.  There  are  classes  in  all  society,  the  sim- 
ple field  laborer,  the  more  sophisticated  artisan  and 
small  farmer  group,  and  the  highly  intelligent  rul- 
ing and  employing  class.  To  this  latter  belonged, 
from  his  point  of  view,  the  responsibility  of  gov- 
erning, not  of  exploiting,  all  the  rest.  This  may 
seem  an  exaggeration.  Yet  I  think  the  President 
of  the  Confederacy  did  not  exploit  his  slaves,  cer- 
tainly he  did  not  feel  that  intense  desire  of  ex- 
ploitation which  marks  the  conduct  of  so  many 
leaders  of  industry  today.  Davis  thought  a  slave 
should  have  all  he  could  earn;  but  he  could  only 
earn  a  comfortable  living  for  himself  and  family. 
Davis  would  have  made  of  all  America  a  fine  old 
feudal  state  in  which  every  man  should  have  his 
place  and  be  made  physically  as  comfortable  as  the 
state  of  things  would  allow. 

In  the  light  of  this  philosophy  Mr.  Gordon's 
book  falls  short  of  its  high  promise  otherwise.  It 
gives  the  facts  of  a  romantic  and  reactionary  period 
and  personal  career;  but  it  does  not  arrange  those 
facts  in  such  a  way  that  the  reader  understands  what 
Davis  and  his  devoted  coworkers  intended  to  do. 
That  we  must  lament,  for  the  story  is  such  a  dra- 
matic one,  and  the  author  would  have  made  such 
a  charming  and  soul  moving  narrative  if  he  had 
grasped  that  larger  opportunity.  All  the  discus- 
sions of  constitutional  guarantees  and  the  rights  of 
property,  clearly  and  accurately  set  forth  as  they  are, 
fail  to  grip  the  reader  unless  it  is  made  plain  what 
men  wanted  to  do.  There  can  be  no  doubt,  for  ex- 
ample, that  the  Federal  Supreme  Court  had  law  and 
constitution  on  its  side  in  the  Dred  Scott  dictum. 


But  the  reader  can  not  understand  why  Lincoln  was 
not  satisfied  with  it  if  he  confines  himself  to  Gor- 
don's pages.  One  needs  to  know  the  meaning  of 
law  and  constitution.  Mr.  Gordon  wonders  why 
the  North  refused  to  abide  by  the  decision  of  the 
court  which  its  leaders  had  so  long  praised  as  the 
rightful  arbiter  in  great  controversies.  It  is  plain 
enough.  The  body  of  Northern  men,  stirred  perhaps 
by  some  designing  leaders,  had  gone  past  that  older 
view.  They  were  returning  to  the  ideals  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  of  equality  among 
men.  And  to  such  men  law  and  constitution  do 
not  settle  things.  Davis  knew  why  Lin- 
coln was  not  satisfied.  He  knew  and  feared  the 
deep  feeling  of  common  men  everywhere;  it  boded 
ill  for  any  system  of  government  in  which  gentle- 
folk and  trained  minds  held  all  the  places  of  power. 
Davis  also  knew  what  the  author  does  not  grasp, 
why  Douglas  broke  with  Buchanan  in  December 
1857.  The  fact  that  Douglas  who  had  no  supreme 
faith  in  democracy,  as  had  Lincoln,  could  not  abide 
the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  portended  dis- 
aster to  Davis.  It  showed  that  not  only  the  anti- 
slavery  men  of  the  North  were  against  the  phil- 
osophy of  Davis  but  that  moderate  men,  who  cared 
little  about  slavery  in  any  form,  could  not  defend 
it.  Ignoring  this  crucial  test  of  1857,  Mr.  Gordon 
loses  the  best  opportunity  of  his  subject  to  set  forth 
the  merits  of  the  quarrel  that  was  about  to  rend 
the  country  into  warring  sections. 

But  I  must  not  leave  the  impression  that  the  book 
is  not  a  good  one.  It  only  falls  into  that  class  of 
books  measured  by  the  standards  of  the  older  series 
of  biographies.  It  is  as  good  as  any,  perhaps  bet- 
ter than  any  we  have  of  the  great  Confederate 
leader.  The  disappointment  consists  in  the  failure 
of  the  author  to  give  us  a  better  story  of  a  supremely 
tragic  career. 


WILLIAM  E.  DODD. 


London,  February  4 


I 


T  is  DIFFICULT  to  believe  that  little  more  than 
eight  months  have  passed  since  I  arrived  (involun- 
tarily) in  England.  Then  we  were  in  the  midst  of 
the  most  critical  period  of  the  war,  the  end  of  which 
seemed  very  far  off.  Now  the  war  is  practically 
although  not  formally  over.  You  can  hardly  in 
America  fully  understand  what  that  means  to  one 
who  experienced  nearly  four  years  of  war  in  France. 
When  I  left  Paris  in  May,  it  was  deserted  by  at 
least  one  third  of  its  population;  the  city  was 
wrapped  in  gloom,  material  and  moral.  Both  be- 
fore "and  after  I  left,  the  German  shells  were  fall- 


ing daily  on  Paris.  I  shall  never  forget  the  im- 
pression that  was  made  on  me,  when  I  arrived  in 
London,  by  the  complete  contrast  between  the  as- 
pects of  the  two  cities.  London  was  crowded,  more 
crowded  than  I  had  ever  seen  it,  and  seemed  gayer 
than  in  normal  times.  Theaters  and  restaurants 
were  thronged,  and  it  was  difficult  to  find  a  room 
in  a  hotel.  The  spirits  of  Londoners  seemed  not 
at  all  affected  by  the  anxious  military  situation, 
partly  because  they  were  farther  off,  partly  no  doubt 
because  they  are  less  liable  to  sudden  changes  of 
temper  than  the  Parisians,  who  alternated  between 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


245 


the  extreme  of  optimism  and  the  extreme  of  pessi- 
mism. There  had  been  a  bad  air  raid  on  London — 
the  last  of  the  war — during  the  very  night  on  which 
I  crossed  the  Channel.  It  left  no  trace  on  the  spirits 
of  the  population. 

Certainly  one  must  respect  the  steadiness  of  the 
English  character,  whichTis  particularly  conspicuous 
at  this  moment.  There  has  been  much  less  of  the 
intoxication  of  victory  here  than  in  the  other  Allied 
countries,  and  now  there  is  none  at  all.  But  in  the 
first  months  of  my  arrival  London  seemed  to  me 
too  indifferent  to  the  tragedy  of  the  war.  To  one 
coming  from  a  country  where  indifference  was  im- 
possible there  was  something  indecent  in  the  evi- 
dent pleasure-seeking,  in  the  vast  masses  of  people 
thoroughly  enjoying  themselves  while  just  across  the 
Channel  was  the  Great  Atrocity.  Now  all  that  hap- 
pily belongs  to  the  past  and  gayety  is  no  longer  in- 
congruous. I  shall  never  forget  the  sensation  of 
realizing,  when  the  guns  on  the  morning  of  No- 
vember 1 1  announced  the  Armistice,  that  for  the 
first  time  for  more  than  four  years  nobody  was  being 
killed  on  the  devastated  plains  of  Europe.  The  first 
thought  of  many  people  no  doubt  turned  to  victory ; 
mine  was  entirely  preoccupied  by  the  cessation  of 
the  slaughter.  I  quite  understand  the  intense  re- 
lief of  the  people  even  of  defeated  Germany.  The 
English  people  as  a  whole,  as  I  have  said,  has  not 
been  intoxicated  by  victory.  Of  course  during  the 
Armistice  week  London  went  more  or  less  mad 
and  there  was  not  a  little  intoxication  in  the  literal 
sense  of  the  term.  But  there  is  little  sign  of  any 
desire  to  abuse  the  victory,  of  any  lust  of  conquest. 
There  is  no  popular  demand  for  annexations  or  un- 
conscionable terms  of  peace.  The  peace  aims  of  the 
English  people  are  the  same  as  their  war  aims — 
the  suppression  of  militarism  and  the  abolition  of 
war.  They  really  and  sincerely  went  to  war  for 
those  objects,  and  their  present  attitude  shows  that 
they  are  a  fundamentally  pacific  people.  No  doubt 
part  of  the  press  has  had  a  different  attitude.  Dur- 
ing the  general  election  the  two  "stunts"  of  "hang 
the  Kaiser"  and  "make  the  Germans  pay"  were 
worked  for  all  they  were  worth.  They  seem  to 
have  appealed  to  the  newly  enfranchised  women, 
for  whose  special  benefit  they  were  probably  started. 
But  they  are  now  almost  forgotten  and  interest  no- 
body. As  to  the  latter,  sensible  people  realize  that 
it  is  materially  impossible  to  make  the  Germans  pay 
the  whole  cost  of  the  war  and  that  there  are  so 
many  other  prior  claims  that  this  country  is  unlikely 
ever  to  get  a  penny.  The  fate  of  the  German  colo- 
nies, in  which  some  of  the  British  Dominions  are 
keenly  interested,  interests  hardly  anybody  in  this 
country;  it  is  purely  a  journalistic  stunt. 


The  general  public  wants  three  things:  immediate 
demobilization,  the  entire  abolition  of  conscription, 
and  measures  to  prevent  war  in  the  future.  In  re- 
gard to  demobilization,  it  hardly  takes  account  of 
the  time  that  it  must  necessarily  take  to  demobilize 
millions  of  men.  But  the  country  is  determined 
that  they  shall  be  demobilized  as  soon  as  possible 
and  that,  above  all,  no  policy  shall  be  adopted  which 
might  involve  the  keeping  of  the  soldiers  under  arms. 
That  is  the  reason  why  the  suggestion  of  continued 
military  operations  in  Russia  provoked  immediate 
indignation.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  knows  how  to  feel 
the  pulse  of  popular  opinion.  No  doubt  his  own 
remarkable  intelligence  led  him  to  oppose  war 
against  the  Russian  Revolution,  but  he  also  knew 
that  the  country  would  not  follow  him  in  any  other 
policy.  Never  was  a  decision  received  with  greater 
and  more  universal  satisfaction  in  England  than  the 
adoption  by  the  Peace  Conference  of  President  Wil- 
son's proposal  in  regard  to  Russia,  which  embodied 
the  policy  proposed  at  the  beginning  of  this  year 
by  Mr.  Lloyd  George  and  then  rejected  by  M. 
Clemenceau  and'M.  Pichon.  There  is  also  intense 
satisfaction  here  at  the  evidently  close  cooperation 
of  the  British  and  American  delegates  at  the  Peace 
Conference.  Mr.  Wilson  and  Mr.  Lloyd  George 
are  standing  together  for  a  sincere  application  of  the 
principles  for  which  all  the  Allies  professed  to  be 
fighting.  If  any  kind  of  genuine  League  of  Na- 
tions comes  out  of  the  Conference,  it  will  be  this 
cooperation  that  we  have  to  thank  for  it.  It  has 
been  only  too  clear  that  there  are  many  in  France 
for  whom  the  League  of  Nations  means  a  new  Holy 
Alliance  to  put  down  "Bolshevism,"  as  the  old  Holy 
Alliance  tried  to  put  down  the  French  Revolution, 
and  to  make  the  world  safe  for  capitalism.  It  may 
be  said  with  safety  that  the  British  working  classes 
would  never  tolerate  such  a  League  of  Nations  as 
that. 

As  to  the  state  of  feeling  in  France,  I  have  no 
direct  information.  I  can  only  form  impressions 
from  the  French  press  and  the  reports  of  friends.  It 
would  be  a  mistake  to  assume  that  the  great  Parisian 
papers  necessarily  represent  French  public  opinion; 
they  did  not  before  the  war,  they  have  done  so  still 
less  during  the  war,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  believe 
that  they  are  more  representative  now.  French  sol- 
diers are  certainly  no  more  disposed  to  go  on  fighting 
in  Russia  than  are  British  soldiers,  who  have  recently 
made  their  opinion  on  that  matter  very  plain.  But 
the  press  is  controlled  by  the  financial  interests, 
whose  power  is  greater  in  France  than  in  any  other 
European  country.  No  crime,  real  or  imaginary,  of 
the  Bolsheviks  is  so  great,  in  the  eyes  of  the  great 
French  banks  and  financiers,  as  their  repudiation 


246 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


of  the  national  debt.  That  is  the  secret  of  the  de- 
mand of  the  French  press  for  war  against  the  Rus- 
sian Revolution  and  of  its  indignation  at  the  de- 
cision of  the  Peace  Conference,  which  found  its  most 
extreme  expression  in  the  remark  of  "Pertinax"  (M. 
Giraud)  in  the  Echo  de  Paris  of  January  23  that 
"Ideology,  ignorance  and  electoral  policy  are  the 
guests  of  the  Quai  d'Orsay."  "Electoral  policy" 
means  respect  for  public  opinion. 

Difficult  as  it  is  to  ascertain  what  the  mass  of  the 
French  people — the  peasants  and  the  proletariat — 
are  thinking,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  wine  of 
victory  has  gone  to  the  head  of  a  considerable  num- 
ber  in    France.      Indeed    the   greater   part   of   the 
bourgeoisie,  afany  rate,  seems  to  have  lost  its  head. 
Paris  as  usual  is  particularly  affected.     Radical  dep- 
uties who  only  a  few  months  ago  denounced  the 
claims  to  the  Left  Bank  of  the  Rhine  now  denounce 
those  that  still  object  to  them.    The  very  men  who 
in  June    1917   forced   M.    Ribot  to   repudiate  the 
agreement  of  February  1917  with  the  Government 
of  the  Czar,  now  demand  all  that  that  agreement 
tried  to  secure  to  France.     It  is  impossible  to  deny 
it:    victory    has    revived    the    old    militarist    and 
Chauvinist  spirit  of  France  which,  it  must  be  re- 
membered, was  dominant  throughout  the  nineteenth 
century,  except  during  the  reign  of  Louis  Philippe, 
and  was  only  reduced  to  impotence  by  the  victory 
of  the  Dreyfusards  at  the  end  of  the  century.     All 
Frenchmen  over  forty  were  brought  up  under  the  in- 
fluence of  that  spirit;  many  of  them  emancipated 
themselves  from  it  but,  as  is  now  evident,  the  eman- 
cipation was  not  in  all  cases  complete,  and  the  old 
spirit  has  once  more  entered  into  many  that  had 
thrown  it  off.     Clearly  the  war  was  in  its  inception 
a  purely  defensive  war  so  far  as  France  was  con- 
cerned, but  before  it  had  lasted  long  there  was  an 
influential  party  which  tried  to  convert  it  into  a  war 
of  Revanche.     They  failed  to  carry  with  them  the 
bulk  of  the  French  people,  but  they  are  carrying 
many  more  with  them  in  trying  to  make  the  vic- 
tory a  victory  of  Revanche.    So  far  as  vocal  opinion 
goes,  the  great  difference  that  I  see  between  French 
and  English  opinion  is  that  the  former  seems  to  be 
chiefly  concerned  with  purely  national  interests  and 
ambitions,  whereas  the   latter    is    more    concerned 
about  the  general  interest  of  the  world.     There  is 
no  tenderness  for  the  Germans  in  England,  but  a 
certain  good  sense  tells  us  that  war  will  never  be 
got  rid  of  if  we  allow  this  victory  to  be  abused  as 
all  victories  have  been  in  the  past  and  if  the  peace 
terms  are  such   as   to  leave  behind "  them   another 
Revanche.    A  genuine  League  of  Nations  will  be  a 
much  more  effective  protection  to  France  and  all 
other    countries    than    territorial    guarantees    and 


strategic  frontiers.  Germany  insisted  on  a  strategic 
frontier  in  1871  and  the  results  are  before  us.  Yet 
there  are  actually  influential  persons  and  news- 
papers in  France  that  want  to  repeat  the  conduct  of 
Germany  now.  The  only  hope  of  the  world  is  in 
entirely  new  methods.  I  think  that  the  great  ma- 
jority of  the  English  people  recognize  that  fact; 
hence  their  enthusiasm  for  President  Wilson  and 
their  satisfaction  at  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  coopera- 
tion with  him.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  has  strengthened 
his  position  by  his  attitude  during  the  Peace  Con- 
gress and  the  attacks  on  him  of  the  Echo  de  Paris 
and  some  other  French  Nationalist  papers  will 
strengthen  it  still  more. 

Nevertheless  there  is  great  unrest  in  England.    At 
the   moment  of   writing   there  are   general   strikes 
at   Glasgow   and    Belfast,   strikes  on    the    London 
"  Tubes  "  railways  which  are  entirely  stopped,  local 
and  sectional  strikes  in  many  other  places.    General 
strikes  of  the  railway  men  and  the  engineers  are 
threatened,  as  is  an  electrician's  strike  in  London. 
The  immediate  and  ostensible  cause  of  the  strikes  is 
the  demand   for  a  forty-hour  week,   but  they   are 
symptoms  of  profound   discontent   in   the  working 
class  and  they  have  in  many  cases — notably  at  Glas- 
gow— a  definitely  revolutionary  character.  The  Bel- 
fast strike  has  brought  about  an  extraordinary  situa- 
tion in  Ireland.     Labor  seems  about  to  bridge  the 
gulf  between  North  and  South.     Racial  and  reli- 
gious differences  are  yielding  to  common  economic 
interests  and  Sir  Edward  Carson's  reign  in  Ulster 
is  threatened.    The  Belfast  strikers  have  made  over- 
tures to  their  fellow  workmen  in  Dublin  and  an  alli- 
ance between  Sinn   Fein  and  Labor — between  the 
political  and  industrial  rebels — seems  probable  at  the 
moment  of  writing.     The  Sinn  Feiners  have  been 
quiet  since  the  general  election  because  the  hope  was 
held  out  to  them  that  their  interned  members,  thirty 
of  whom  have  been  returned  to  Parliament,  would 
be  released.    The  Government  has  now  decided  not 
to  release  them  and  the  situation  is  naturally  much 
worse  than   it  would   have   been   if  the  hope  had 
never  been  held  out.     The  Sinn  Feiners  have  now 
determined  to  act  and  we  may  see  the  North  and 
South  of  Ireland  united  in  a  general  revolutionary 
strike   against    the   English    Government.      Should 
this  come  about,  it  will  be  a  momentous  event  in 
Irish  history.     In  any  case  the  old  modified  Home 
Rule  is  dead  and  Ireland  will  now  never  accept  less 
than  an  autonomy  such  as  is  enjoyed  by  the  self- 
governing  Dominions  of  the  British  Empire.    Never 
has  revolutionary  feeling  been  so  strong  or  so  wide- 
spread in  this  country  since  the  Chartist  movement. 
The  Trade  Union  leaders  and  officials  have  lost  con- 
trol of  the  rank  and  file  and  the  Trade  Union  or- 


igig 


THE  DIAL 


247 


ganizations  are  in  process  of  transformation.  Their 
control  seems  about  to  pass  formally  into  the  hands 
of  the  shop  stewards,  who  already  exercise  that  con- 
trol in  fact. 

Those  who  believed  that  the  prolongation  of  the 
war  would  lead  to  revolution  everywhere — I  was  one 
of  them — already  seem  on  the  way  to  be  justified.  Ex- 
isting society  has  been  shaken  to  its  very  founda- 
tions and  it  is  doubtful  whether  it  can  escape  de- 
struction. The  anxious  question  for  the  world  is 
whether  there  will  be  forthcoming  men  capable  of 
constructing  a  new  society  to  take  its  place  or 
whether  we  are  on  the  verge  of  a  period  of  mere 
anarchy.  Certainly  the  present  situation  justifies 
Lord  Lansdowne  and  the  few  others  who  saw  the 
only  hope  of  saving  existing  society  in  an  early  peace 
by  negotiation.  The  Socialists  that  supported  Lord 
Lansdowne  did  so  for  other  reasons — because  they 
believed,  rightly  or  wrongly,  that  nothing  justified 
the  continued  massacre  of  the  youth  of  Europe. 
Had  they  thought  only  of  the  interest  of  Socialism, 
they  would  certainly  have  advocated  war  to  the 
bitter  end — to  the  end  that  has  actually  been 
reached,  the  break-up  of  the  capitalist  system  over 
the  greater  part  of  the  continent  of  Europe.  Revo- 
lution began,  as  was  inevitable,  with  the  conquered 
peoples.  It  would  be  rash  indeed  to  assume  that  it 
will  stop  with  them. 

The  present  attitude  of  English  workmen  for- 
bids any  such  assumption.  Although  those  that 
were  not  at  the  front  have  never  been  so  well  off  as 
they  were  during  the  war — for  wages  rose  in  an 
even  greater  proportion  than  prices — it  is  now  evi- 
dent that  its  prolongation  exasperated  them.  Now 
that  the  tension  is  removed  their  real  feeling  can 
show  itself.  Moreover  the  days  of  fictitious  pros- 
perity are  numbered.  Demobilization  is  throwing 
millions  of  men  into  the  labor  market,  the  cessation 
of  war  manufacture  is  causing  the  displacement  of 
industry  such  as  has  never  before  been  known,  we 
are  left  with  a  huge  war  debt  which  means,  if  it  is 
to  be  paid  in  full,  a  heavy  tax  on  the  labor  of  genera- 
tions to  come.  The  workmen  see  that,  unless  there 
is  a  drastic  change  in  economic  conditions,  they  can- 
not hope  to  be  even  as  well  off  as  they  were  before 
the  war.  The  women  are  even  more  discontented 
than  the  men.  During  the  war  they  have  for  the 
first  time  had  economic  independence.  Women 
have  poured  into  business,  trade,  and  industry,  and 
have  earned  wages  such  as  they  had  never  dreamed 
of.  They  are  not  at  all  disposed  to  return  to  the 
old  conditions.  Married  women  who  have  been 
earning  their  own  money  and  spending  it  as  they 
pleased  will  not  again  be  content  to  be  the  slaves 
of  husbands  who  dole  out  to  them  weekly  a  small 


portion  of  their  wages.  The  war  has  completely 
revolutionized  the  position  of  women  and  the  rela- 
tions of  the  sexes  in  every  class.  That  is  a  large 
subject  to  which  I  hope  to  return  in  a  future  letter. 
Meanwhile  it  is  enough  to  note  that  the  women  are 
not  at  all  willing  to  surrender  their  places  to  men 
and  return  to  domesticity. 

The  influence  of  the  Russian  Revolution,  which 
was  at  first  enormous  but  was  arrested  by  the  with- 
drawal of  Russia  from  the  war,  has  revived  and 
been  intensified  by  the  revolutions  in  Central  Eu- 
rope. There  is  in  the  working  class  a  profound 
distrust  of  Parliament  and  politicians,  and  an  in- 
creasing tendency  to  disbelieve  in  the  efficacy  of 
parliamentary  methods.  The  advocates  of  "  direct 
action  ""are  increasing  in  number  daily.  There 
have  been  striking  examples  of  its  efficacy  in  the  suc- 
cessful resistance  of  Ulster  to  Home  Rule  for  Ire- 
land, the  refusal  of  Mr.  Havelock  Wilson  to  allow 
Internationalists  to  cross  the  Channel,  and  such  suc- 
cesses as  that  of  the  police  strike  in  London  and  the 
retaliation  of  the  electricians  against  the  manager  of 
the  Albert  Hall  when  he  refused  it  for  a  labor  meet- 
ing— until  his  light  was  cut  off,  when  he  yielded 
at  once.  The  Conservative  press,  with  fatuous 
blindness,  applauded  Sir  Edward  Carson  and  Mr. 
Havelock  Wilson,  forgetting  that  others  could  play 
at  their  game. 

Moreover,  the  result  of  the  general  election 
has  strengthened  the  hands  of  the  advocates  of 
"  direct  action."  Only  half  the  electors  took  the 
trouble  to  vote,  and  an  illogical  electoral  system  has 
resulted  in  a  House  of  Commons  which  does  not 
properly  represent  the  voters.  The  poll  of  the 
Labor  Party  entitled  it  to  twice  as.  many  members 
as  it  has  obtained,  the  Opposition  Liberals  are  even 
more  under-represented,  and  the  Unionist  party  has 
a  clear  majority  of  the  House,  whereas  the  voting 
showed  that  it  is  in  a  minority  in  the  country. 
Were  the  representation  of  the  various  parties  in 
the  House  of  Commons  even  approximately  pro- 
portionate to  their  respective  polls,  the  ministerial 
Coalition  would  have  a  moderate  majority  instead 
of  an  overwhelming  one  and  that  majority  would 
depend  on  the  Liberal  members  of  the  Coalition, 
whereas  at  the  present  moment  the  Unionists  alone 
have  a  majority  over  all  the  other  parties  put 
together. 

Parliament  is  in  consequence  more  discredited 
than  ever  and  it  has  even  been  proposed  that  the 
Labor  members  should  refuse,  like  the  Sinn  Feiners, 
to  take  part  in  its  proceedings.  The  proposal  has 
•not  been  adopted,  but  it  is  significant  that  it  should 
even  have  been  made.  Nobody  supposes  that  the 
present  Parliament  can  last  very  long.  The  soldiers, 


248 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


very  few  of  whom  were  able  to  vote,  will  demand 
another  general  election  after  the  demobilization  is 
completed.  Mr.  Lloyd  George  has  threatened  a, 
dissolution  if  he  is  thwarted  in  his  policy.  That  he 
recognizes  the  necessity  of  a  thoroughly  democratic 
policy  is  certain  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  as  to  his 
skill  and  intelligence.  But  it  is  unlikely  that  he 
will  be  able  to  regain  the  confidence  of  the  work- 
men as  a  body,  nor  has  he  a  sufficiently  profound 
grasp  of  the  factors  in  the  situation.  He  is  extraor- 
dinarily skilful  in  dealing  with  the  difficulty  of  the 
moment,  but  he  sometimes  does  so  in  such  a  way  as 
to  create  further  difficulties  in  the  future.  Just 
before  the  poll  of  the  general  election,  he  suddenly 
made  a  violent  attack  on  the  Labor  Party  and  ac- 
cused it  of  being  led  by  "  Bolsheviks."  That  will 
not  be  forgotten  in  a  hurry. 

The  soldiers  are  quite  as  discontented  as  the  men 
engaged  in  industry  during  the  war.  There  were 
recently  several  manifestations  of  their  discontent, 
which  did  not  enforce  discipline.  The  causes  were 
dissatisfaction  at  the  system  of  demobilization  and 
unwillingness  to  take  part  in  any  expedition  to  Rus- 


sia or  anywhere  else.  The  Government  was  obliged 
to  declare  officially  that  no  more  troops  would  be 
sent  to  Russia.  The  announcement  that  900,000 
men  are  to  be  retained  under  the  colors  for  another 
year  to  form  an  army  of  occupation  in  the  territories 
of  our  late  enemies  will  not  improve  feeling  in  the 
army  or  the  country.  It  means  a  prolongation  of 
conscription.  Both  the  army  and  the  country  will 
demand  peace  terms  which  do  not  make  any  army 
of  occupation  necessary  and,  if  they  do  not  get  them, 
there  may  be  trouble. 

I  am  disposed  to  think  that  the  present  strikes 
will  not  last  long;  by  the  time  that  this  article  ap- 
pears in  print  it  will  be  known  whether  I  am  right. 
But  their  end  will  not  mean  the  end  of  the  indust- 
trial  unrest.  Rather  is  it  likely  to  extend.  As  de- 
mobilization proceeds  the  economic  conditions  will 
become  more  and  more  difficult  and  the  causes  of 
discontent  will  increase  rather  than  diminish.  We 
are  entering  on  a  period  of  strikes  and  industrial 
troubles  such  as  England  has  not  known  since  the 
days  of  Chartism.  What  its  issue  will  be  no  man 

knoweth. 

ROBERT  DELL. 


Expressions  Near  the  End  of  Winter 

If  I  but  had  my  longing! — not  opals  sad  and  rare, 
For  noble  stones  are  proud  things,  and  best  befit  your  hair — 
Not  purple-buttoned  waistcoasts,  or  sack  to  drink  me  deep — 
But  white,  smooth  sheets  to  lie  in — oh  I'd  sleep,  sleep,  sleep! 

And  the  corners  of  that  bedstead  should  be  olive-wood  so  green, 
And  the  gentle  swan's-down  pillows  should  have  comforted  a  queen; 
With  a  canopy  above  me,  of  azure  silk  outspread, 
Four  carved  Evangels  at  my  feet  and  Magi  at  my  head! 

And  no  sun  should  creep  there,  and  but  small  starlight, 
And  the  whole  room  be  odorous  of  gardens  known  at  night! 
The  thick  scents  of  evening,  the  attar  of  the  rose, 
Should  take  away  my  weariness  both  drowsily  and  close. 

You  would  come  on  tiptoe,  like  the  whisper  of  birds'  wings, 
With  a  quite  small  music,  and  some  occupying  things, 
And  draw  up  close  a  cushion,  and  bend  a  cautious  ear, 
And  say,  "Now  don't  disturb  him! — for  he's  tired,  poor  dear!" 

And  then,  both  handfast,  we  would  dream  long  days, 
Till  the  dry  world  shimmered  to  a  sleepy,  happy   haze. 
With  no  cares  to  speak  of — no  silly  fools  to  fret — 
Oh  my  great,  proud  longing  that  I'll  never,  never   get! 

STEPHEN  VINCENT  BENET. 


THE  DIAL 


GEORGE   DONLIN 


JOHN    DEWEY 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor 

CLARENCE    BRITTEN 

In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program, 

THORSTEIN   VEBLEN 


HAROLD   STEARNS 


HELEN    MAROT 


.HE     ROUTINE     CAUSE     FOR     DEPORTATION     CITED 

against  agitators  is  that  of  advocating  the  overthrow 
of  the  American  government  by  force.  This  is 
notably  the  case  with  the  60  odd  I.  W.  W.'s  and 
others  awaiting  the  pleasure  of  the  immigration  au- 
thorities at  Ellis  Island.  Of  course  that  section  of 
the  amendment  to  the  immigration  act  which  makes 
advocacy  of  the  overthrow  of  this  government  by 
force  grounds  for  the  deportation  of  an  alien  is 
justifiable,  although  we  should  like  to  point  out  that 
the  definition  of  what  constitutes  advocacy  of  the 
overthrow  of  this  government  by  force  is  so  vague 
that  the  pleaders  for  that  mild  degree  of  sabotage 
which  is  known  as  "  striking  on  the  job  "  are  con- 
sidered to  come  within  the  law's  provisions.  But 
the  amendment  to  the  immigration  act  goes  much 
further.  It  specifically  states  that  advocacy  of  the 
overthrow  by  force  of  any  government  whatsoever 
shall  be  considered  grounds  for  the  deportation  of 
any  alien.  Now  to  include  this  provision  within 
the  scope  of  the  amendment  is  manifestly  to  make 
the  law  ridiculous  or — as  is  more  plausibly  the  case 
— to  make  it  just  an  instrument  of  indiscriminate 
coercion.  Consider  some  of  its  absurd  implications. 
"  The  Friends  of  Russian  Freedom,"  who,  before 
the  war,  included  some  of  our  most  upright  arid 
humanitarian  leaders,  would  be  liable  to  deportation 
under  this  act — provided,  of  course,  that  they  lacked 
American  citizenship  papers.  A  political  refugee 
from  Siberia  who  came  to  this  country  to  preach 
the  evils  of  Czarism  and  the  necessity  for  a  cleansing 
revolution  in  Russia  would  have  been  sent  back  to 
the  Czar's  hangmen.  Before  our  beneficent  war 
for  democracy  had  robbed  us  of  our  most  elementary 
conceptions  of  political  asylum  and  freedom  of 
speech  such  a  law  could  never  have  passed  even  -  a 
Senate  Judiciary  Committee.  It  would  have  been 
repugnant  to  those  traditions  of  liberty  which  used 
to  be  dear  to  most  Americans.  We  had  always 
prided  ourselves  on  the  fact  that  our  shores  bounded 
a  safe  refuge  for  the  persecuted  of  other  lands. 
Certainly  we  cannot  do  so  any  longer.  Yet  it  is  the 
demonstrable  hypocrisy  of  the  recent  law  which 
makes  it  a  stench  in  the  nostrils  of  all  decent  men. 
Suppose  that  something  like  the  present  Soviet 
Government  in  Russia  should  come  to  be  officially 
recognized.  Would  the  alien  agitators  from  Russia 
now  in  this  country  advocating  the  overthrow  of 


that  Government  by  force — and  part  of  that  force 
our  own  soldiers — be  deported  to  Russia  if  they 
continued  in  the  strain  of  their  recent  advertise- 
ments in  our  daily  papers?  Another  instance,  who 
of  us  cannot  today  arise  in  a  public  meeting  and 
denounce  the  British  Government  in  Ireland  to  his 
heart's  content  and  end  by  advocating  its  overthrow 
by  force?  it  wonld  be  a  violation  of  the  law,  but 
it  would  be  a  violation  very  unlikely  to  be  brought 
to  a  Grand  Jury's  attention — unless,  of  course,  we 
were  a  "  dangerous "  labor  agitator.  And  even 
then  the  local  District  Attorney  would  be  likely  to 
be  easy.  Why?  Well,  the  Irish  have  a  big  vote 
in  this  country;  they  dominate  many  political  ma- 
chines; they  have  the  sympathy  of  a  large  and 
powerful  section  of  American  organized  labor.  In 
other  words,  so  long  as  an  agitator  against  a  foreign 
government  is  respectable,  so  long  as  he  has  any 
political  backing  in  this  country,  so  long  as  he  is  not 
mixed  up  with  any  radical  wing  of  the  labor  move- 
ment, he  can  agitate  against  a  foreign  government 
as  vigorously  as  he  pleases.  It  is  only  the  weak 
and  the  unprotected  who  have  to  fear  deportation. 
If,  for  example,  the  Hindus  recently  scheduled  for 
deportation  had  an  influence  on  American  political 
life  commensurate  with  the  Irish,  who  of  us  would 
be  so  naive  as  to  imagine  that  they  would  now  be 
awaiting  the  pleasure  of  the  immigration  authori- 
ties? We  cite  these  pitiful  cases  last,  for  not  only 
do  they  illustrate  the  manifest  hypocrisy  of  the  law 
but  also  how  far  we  have  wandered  from  our  former 
proud  estate  of  political  asylum.  We  stand  ready 
today  to  deport  Hindus  who  advocate  the  overthrow 
of  the  British  government  in  India  by  force — in- 
deed, we  have  already  actually  deported  some  of 
them,  blind  or  indifferent  to  the  fact  that  such  de- 
portation for  a  Hindu  nationalist  usually  means 
execution  by  the  British  authorities.  As  long  as 
any  government,  however  corrupt  or  tyrannical  or 
vicious,  is  formally  recognized,  refugees  have  not 
the  right  in  the  United  States  to  advocate  the  over- 
throw by  force  of  that  government.  We  do  not 
of  course  say,  or  even  mean  to  imply,  that  the  gov- 
ernment of  India,  under  British  rule,  is  either  cor- 
rupt or  tyrannical  or  vicious.  But  we  do  say  that 
even  ten  years  ago  it  would  never  have  occurred 
to  us  to  deny  a  Hindu  refugee  the  right  to  say 
exactly  that,  if  he  thought  it  was  true. 


25° 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


WE     ARE     RECEIVING     FREQUENT     REMINDERS     OF 

the  fact  that  the  Russian  Revolution  is  of  the  classic 
type  established  by  France,  not  of  the  romantic  or 
eccentric  school  current  in  the  Western  hemisphere. 
One  of  the  notes  of  classic  revolution  is  its  propul- 
sion by  energy  derived  from  internal  combustion. 
In  France  the  States  General  was  burned  to  heat 
the  fires  of  the  Legislative  Assembly,  and  that  in 
turn  was  consumed  to  set  in  motion  the  Convention, 
which  again  was  sacrificed  to  the  Committee  of 
Public  Safety.  Vergniaud  fell  before  Danton,  and 
t)anton  before  Robespierre,  as  Lvoff  fell  before 
Kerensky,  and  Kerensky  before  Lenin.  But  those 
who  are  curious  enough  to  inquire  into  the  physics 
of  revolution  are  aware  that  this  internal  energy 
which  becomes  explosive  is  in  the  main  generated 
under  pressure  from  without.  How  far  the  French 
Revolution  overshot  its  original  mark  because  of  the 
intervention  of  Prussia  and  Austria  is  a  matter  of 
history,  and  the  accession  of  England  to  the  Allies 
made  certain  the  Reign  of  Terror.  This  is  the 
great  tragedy  in  the  annals  of  revolution — the  way 
in  which  the  good  cause  is  maneuvered  by  skilful 
opposition  into  excess  and  self-destruction.  Mr.  F. 
C.  Howe  has  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  modern 
world  took  a  fatally  wrong  turn  when  England 
suppressed  her  early  sympathy  with  the  French  Rev- 
olution, and,  under  the  spell  of  Burke's  declamation, 
joined  the  ranks  of  the  repressers.  In  this  respect 
also  it  is  easy  to  see  the  parallel  between  the  situa- 
tion of  France  and  that  of  Russia,  between  the 
Allies  of  1794  and  those  of  1919.  The  French 
Revolution,  like  the  Russian,  was  acclaimed  in  Eu- 
rope, particularly  in  England,  as  a  forward  step 
in  the  march  of  humanity  toward  freedom.  Fox 
had  the  courage  to  stand  out  for  the  admission  of 
the  revolutionary  state  to  the  family  of  European 
nations.  We  can  imagine  him  saying,  in  an  old- 
fashioned  way,  that  the  treatment  accorded  to  France 
by  her  sister  nations  was  the  acid  test  of  their 
good-will,  and  of  their  intelligent  and  unselfish  sym- 
pathy. But  sympathy  with  France  found  no  effect 
in  action,  while  reprobation  showed  itself  in  hostility. 
Foreign  intervention  by  intrigue  and  arms  stung  the 
Revolution  into  the  Terror,  and  its  leaders  became 
outcast  and  adcursed  of  mankind.  So  with  the  Rus- 
sian Revolution.  It  is  one  of  the  ironies  of  history 
that  Mr.  Lloyd  George's  proposal  to  admit  Russian 
delegates  to  the  Peace  Conference  should  be  an- 
swered by  France  in  the  words  of  M.  Pichon,  which, 
as  given  in  the  New  York  Times,  might  have  been 
quoted  from  Burke  on  A  Regicide  Peace : 

The  criminal  regime  of  the  Bolsheviki  .  .  .  since 
it  is  supported  solely  by  the  lowest  passions  of  anarchical 
oppression  in  negation  of  all  the  principles  of  public 
and  private  right,  cannot  claim  to  be  recognized  as  a 
regular  Government  .  .  .  The  French  Government 
.  .  .  will  make  no  contract  with  crime. 

War  forced  the  French  Revolution  to  reprisals,  and 
the  Republic  became  predatory.  Even  so,  sympathy, 
especially  in  England,  died  slowly.  Long  after  the 


English  Government  had  reconciled  public  opinion 
to  war  with  France,  Wordsworth  hoped  for  the 
defeat  of  the  Allies  of  which  his  country  was  one. 
Then  the  Revolution  brought  forth  a  dictatorship, 
democracy  turned  imperialistic,  Napoleon  became 
the  War  Lord  of  Europe,  and  England  complacently 
found  herself  the  defender  of  the  rights  of  nations, 
small  and  large.  The  tragedy  was  not  that  of  France 
alone — it  was  England's.  The  unearned  moral 
increment  which  accrued  to  England  from  having 
her  worse  cause  turn  out  to  be  the  better — by  no 
virtue  of  her  own — was  one  of  the  fruitful  causes 
of  that  hypocrisy,  self-righteousness,  and  cant  which 
England's  prophets,  from  Carlyle  to  Bernard  Shaw, 
have  denounced.  It  was  to  the  soul  of  the  nation 
what  rent  was  to  its  political  economy — it  was 
poison.  Nor  will  the  present  tragedy  be  Russia's 
alone — it  will  be  that  of  the  Allies,  of  America. 

T 

L  HE  LIST  OF  TEACHERS  DISMISSED  OR  SUSPENDED 

from  the  New  York  public  schools  in  consequence 
of  difference  of  opinion  from  the  majority  has  re- 
ceived a  notable  addition  in  the  name  of  Benjamin 
Glassberg.  Mr.  Glassberg  was  furnished  a  text- 
book on  current  history  which  he  was  told  to  teach 
"  with  enthusiasm."  This  is  apparently  the  book 
which  makes  such  elaborate  apology  for  the  long 
continued  neutrality  of  the  United  States  that  the 
late  Theodore  Roosevelt  requested  that  the  record 
of  his  own  contribution  to  the  making  of  this  par- 
ticular part  of  history  be  deleted.  Had  Mr.  Roose- 
velt been  a  teacher  under  the  New  York  School 
Board  he  would  apparently  have  failed  in  enthusi- 
asm at  this  point  and  been  subject  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  Dr.  Tildsley.  It  was  on  the  pages  de- 
voted to  the  Russian  Revolution  that  Mr.  Glass- 
berg's  enthusiasm  seems  to  have  flagged.  At  any 
rate  it  was  on  the  day  when  he  confessed  certain 
doubts  as  to  the  extent  to  which  Lenin  and  Trotsky 
were  German  agents,  and  regretted  that  testimony 
in  regard  to  the  situation  in  Russia  was  suppressed, 
that  twelve  of  his  pupils  (including  the  only  ten 
Gentiles  in  the  class)  were  summoned  to  the  prin- 
cipal's office  to  bear  witness  against  him.  There- 
upon Mr.  Glassberg  was  suspended  without  pay. 
Eight  weeks  have  passed  and  he  is  still  under  sus- 
pension, with  no  charges  filed  against  him.  At  last 
accounts  the  twelve  witnesses  were  being  subjected 
to  continued  examination  by_  Principal  Raynor,  and 
recently  Dr.  Tildsley  spent  a  day  at  the  school  col- 
lecting evidence.  We  cannot  think  so  ill  of  the 
School  Board  as  to  imagine  that  if  Mr.  Glassberg  is 
ever  tried  he  will  be  found  guilty  of  anything 
unbecoming  a  teacher.  On  his  acquittal  perhaps 
he  will  be  offered  the  terms  presented  to  his  prede- 
cessor in  martyrdom,  Mr.  Perlstein.  Mr.  Perlstein 
was  suspended  without  pay  in  January  1918,  pre- 
sumably for  lack  of  sympathy  with  the  war.  After 
serving  the  U.  S.  Government  for  a  year  in  uniform 
he  is  offered  reinstatement  without  pay  for  the 
period  of  suspension. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


A 

•f*.   SECOND    CASE    OF     INTERFERENCE    WITH     THE 

freedom  of  thought  and  expression  is  reported  from 
the  University  of  Montana.  On  February  7  Chan- 
cellor E.  C.  Elliot  "  suspended  Professor  Louis 
Levine  from  further  duty  as  a  member  of  the  fac- 
ulty, for  insubordination  and  for  unprofessional 
conduct  prejudicial  to  the  welfare  of  the  Univer- 
sity." Professor  Levine's  offense  consisted  in  pub- 
lishing a  monograph  on  The  Taxation  of  Mines 
in  Montana,  which  showed  considerable  discrepancy 
between  property  owned  and  share  of  taxes  paid 
by  the  Anaconda  Copper  Company.  According 
to  Professor  Levine  this  investigation  was  under- 
taken with  the  consent  of  the  Chancellor  and  on 
the  understanding  that  the  results  should  be  pub- 
lished by  the  University.  The  book  was  presented 
to  the  Chancellor,  who  praised  it  but  demurred  to 
its  publication  by  the  institution.  Later  the  Chan- 
cellor advised,  but  did  not  order,  that  it  be  in- 
definitely withheld.  Professor  Levine  after  sub- 
mitting his  work  to  Professor  Seligman  of  Columbia 
University  and  Professor  Murray  Haig,  -  who 
vouched  for  its  impartial,  scientific  character,  pub- 
lished it,  as  a  "  service  to  all  the  people  of  the 
state."  The  Chancellor  accordingly  suspended  Pro- 
fessor Levine  with  the  explanation: 

This  suspension  will  remain  in  force  until  the  board  is 
called  to  give  its  consideration  to  the  case,  which  involves 
the  all-important  questions  as  to  whether  the  Chancellor's 
policy  of  insisting  that  University  men  shall  not  mix  in 
legislative  political  controversies  is  a  sound  one  for  an 
institution  created  to  serve  fairly  all  the  people  of  the 
state. 

We  wonder  which  conception  of  public  service, 
the  teacher's  or  the  Chancellor's,  the  people  of  Mon- 
tana will  endorse. 


o    SECONDARY    FIGURE   IN    ENGLISH    HISTORY    IS 

better  stamped  on  the  imagination  of  succeeding 
generations  than  that  of  George  Jeffreys,  the  hang- 
ing judge,  who  made  his  progress  through  the 
Western  counties  after  Monmouth's  insurrection, 
putting  in  force  the  Espionage  Act  of  those  days.  It 
was  not  the  unfairness  of  his  trials  or  the  ferocity  of 
his  sentences  alone  which  accounts  for  the  bad 
eminence  which  Jeffreys  has  maintained:  it  was  his 
brutal  use  of  his  position  to  bait  the  accused  with 
bitter  gibe  and  coarse  abuse  that  has  made  him 
infamous.  Nothing  contributed  more  to  the  deep 
popular  indignation  which  subverted  the  govern- 
ment in  1688  than  the  stories  of  Jeffreys'  trials.  If 
there  are  any  lessons  to  be  learned  from  history  this 
is  one  of  them  —  that  of  the  abuses  of  government, 
one  that  the  people  find  it  hardest  to  forgive  is  the 
cowardly  and  bullying  judge,  who,  safe  on  his 
bench,  makes  his  sport  out  of  the  men  and  women 
who  are  entrusted  to  his  conception  of  justice.  In 
the  records  of  trials  in  the  last  two  years  under  the 
Espionage  Act  more  than  one  Jeffreys  has  been  re- 
vealed among  our  federal  judges.  Among  the  many 
arguments  in  favor  of  immediate  amnesty  for  politi- 
cal prisoners  is  this  —  that  in  so  many  cases  the  trial 


judges  allowed  themselves  to  bring  their  own  good 
faith  and  impartiality  into  question  by  taking  sides 
violently  or  mockingly  against  the  defendants.  The 
records  of  these  trials  are  permanent.  They  remain 
as  evidence  in  the  case  of  the  people  versus  the 
Government.  In  order  to  protect  the  prestige  of 
government  there  has  been  defined  the  crime  known 
as  contempt  of  court,  for  which  persons  farthest 
removed  from  criminal  have  suffered  severe  penal- 
ties. It  should  be  recognized  that  no  contempt  of 
court  expressed  from  without  is  so  dangerous  as  that 
of  the  court  for  itself,  for  its  functions,  and  for  the 
claims  of  justice  which  it  is  sworn  to  serve.  Where 
the  courts  have  in  so  many  instances  committed  the 
crime  of  self-contempt,  it  is  in  their  interest,  and 
that  of  the  Government  whose  prestige  they  uphold, 
that  we  ask  for  amnesty  for  political  prisoners. 

-L  HE   FIRST  TEST  OF  THE   SINCERITY  OF  THE   NA- 

tions  nominating  themselves  for  the  Executive 
Council  of  the  League  of  Nations  will  be  the  peace 
terms  offered  to  Germany  and  Austria.  The  terms 
of  the  armistice  were  severe/and  their  severity  has 
been  increased  with  each  renewal.  There  is  ground 
for  suspicion  that  President  Wilson  consented  to 
them  in  order  to  smooth  the  way  for  the  acceptance 
of  the  Covenant.  Now,  however,  the  end  of  such 
diplomatic  logrolling  is  in  sight.  The  Covenant 
itself  becomes  void,  and  the  League  of  Nations  a 
misnomer,  unless  such  terms  are  granted  Germany 
and  Austria  as  to  make  their  joint  participation  pos- 
sible. More  than  this,  nothing  is  more  certain  than 
that  the  terms  of  revenge  hitherto  put  forward  by 
Clemenceau,  Orlando,  and  Lloyd  George  will  result 
in  the  downfall  of  the  present  moderately  revolu- 
tionary government  of  Germany.  Already  the 
Junkers  are  merely  biding  their  time — a  treaty  of 
ruin  signed  by  Ebert  will  give  them  their  opportu- 
nity. And  behind  them  stand  the  .  Sparticans — the 
Bolsheviki.  The  revolution  in  Bavaria  was  a  dress 
rehearsal— a  flash  by  a  Junker  to  set  into  explosion 
the  magazine  of  proletarian  wrath.  We  must  not 
forget  that  the  Allies  are  responsible  for  Bolshevik 
Russia.  The  stupid  intrigues  with  counter-revolu- 
tionaries, coupled  with  the  demand  for  an  immediate 
offensive  which  President  Wilson  voiced  none  too 
happily  in  the  summer  of  1917,  brought  about  the 
downfall  of  Kerensky.  History  now  threatens  to 
repeat  itself.  It  inevitably  does  repeat  itself  in  the 
hands  of  such  elder  statesmen  as  compose  the  Paris 
Conference.  We  have  no  doubt  whatever  that 
President  Wilson  knows  perfectly  this  peculiarly  of 
history  and  understands  no  less  the  character  of 
the  diplomats  with  whom  he  is  dealing.  The 
pregnant  sentences  near  the  close  of  his  speech  at 
Boston  show  that  he  is  reading  the  hand-writing 
on  the  wall  for  their  benefit.  They  also  show 
that  he  knows  the  remedy  which  the  situation  de- 
mands. Has  he  the  courage  to  apply  it?  He  has 
the  foresight — so  had  Cassandra. 


252 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


Communications 

NATIONALITIES  OR  NATIONS 

SIR  :  The  meaning  of  the  world  war  will  doubt- 
less be  a  subject  of  much  variety  of  opinion.  The 
degree  in  which  its  meaning  is  understood  will 
mark  the  degree  in  which  our  reconstruction  plans 
will  proceed  logically  and  progressively.  It  is  then 
of  utmost  importance  that  we  rightly  grasp  the 
meaning  and  lay  a  firm  foundation  for  future  peace 
and  happiness.  With  this  in  mind  we  have  read 
THE  DIAL'S  suggestions  regarding  The  Modern 
Point  of  View  and  the  New  Order,  by  Mr.  Thor- 
stein  Veblen,  the  editor  "  in  charge  of  the  recon- 
struction program."  We  have  noted  that  in  the 
opinion  of  at  least  one  thoughtful  and  analytic 
mind,  gifted  with  the  power  of  expressing  itself, 
"  the  object  lesson  enforced  by  recent  and  current 
events,  in  so  far  as  concerns  the  material  fortunes 
of  the  underlying  community  at  large,  as  well  as 
the  keeping  of  peace,"  is  "  that  the  most  benefi- 
cent change  that  can  conceivably  overtake  any  ma- 
terial establishment  would  be  to  let  it  fall  into 
innocuous  desuetude.  Apparently  the  less  [of  na- 
tional establishments]  the  better,  with  no  apparent 
limit  short  of  the  vanishing  point."  At  first  we 
might  suppose  that  here  was  a  chronic  individualist 
holding  to  that  ancient  maxim  of  democracy,  that 
that  "  government  is  best  which  governs  least." 
But  we  find  that  really  Mr.  Veblen  finds  no  use 
for  national  government  at  all,  for  "  the  new  order 
in  industry  has  no  use  or  place  for  national  dis- 
crimination, or  national  pretensions  of  any  kind. 
.  .  .  For  industry  as  carried  on  under  the  new 
order,  the  overcoming  of  national  discrimination  is 
part  of  the  ordinary  day's  work  "  although  for  the 
business  community  and  "  the  new  order  of  business 
enterprise  "  resting  on  intangible  assets  "it  is  other- 
wise," for  "  the  business  community  has  urgent  need 
of  an  efficient  national  establishment." 

Now  two  things  are,  among  many  here,  especially 
notable.  First,  that  in  the  "  new  order  "  all  na- 
tional establishment  is  weighed  and  found  wanting. 
Second,  that  in  the  "  new  order  "  the  wants  of  in- 
dustry and  business  enterprise  are  as  divergent  and 
hostile  as  in  the  old. 

Of  course  with  such  conceptions  the  new  world 
which  Mr.  Veblen  foresees  is  nothing  but  a  series 
of  "  Balkan-state  national  establishments,"  each  na- 
tion being  "  an  organization  for  collective  offense 
and  defense  in  peace  and  war — essentially  based  on 
hate  and  fear  of  other  nations."  Whereas,  had  our 
"  diplomatic  nation-makers "  the  clever  vision  of 
their  critic,  they  would  see  that  "  nationalities  get 
along  well  enough,  to  all  appearances,  without 
being  '  nations '  in  that  militant  and  obstructive 
fashion  that  is  aimed  at  in  those  projected  creations 
of  the  diplomatic  nation-makers."  And  Mr.  Veblen 
cites  the  Welsh  and  Scotch  as  nationalities — as  dis- 
tinguished from  nations  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 


word.  And  while  he  regrets  that  "  it  is  not  the 
object  lesson  of  Welsh  and  Scotch  experience  that 
guides  the  new  projects,"  he  does  not  express  any 
regret  that  the  experience,  somewhat  more  tragic, 
of  some  other  nationalities  which  he  mentions — 
namely,  Ireland,  Finland,  and  Armenia — does  not 
guide  these  new  projects  for  sovereign  states.  Yet 
may  it  not  be  that  it  is  the  historic  example  of  these 
latter  nationalities  which  has  led  our  "  diplomatic 
nation-makers  "  to  avoid,  a  repetition  of  horrors  by 
clothing  their  creations  with  an  organized  power  to 
look  after  themselves  and  to  conclude  that  in  a 
future  where  hate  and  rivalry  are  at  least  possibili- 
ties, in  some  quarter  or  other,  a  nationality  vitalized 
into  a  nation  might  have  as  great  capacity  for  use- 
fulness as  a  nationality  without  such  an  organization 
for  its  protection?  But  to  test  the  "new  order" 
with  the  old — which  it  must  be  admitted  is  capable 
of  much  improvement  and  may  in  a  "  safely  demo- 
cratic "  world  be  as  different  from  the  world  we 
knew  before  1914  as  to  be  deserving  of  better  names 
than  Mr.  Veblen  suggests — may  we  not  ask  our- 
selves and  him  a  few  questions? 

1 i )  If  the  Allies  at  the  Peace  Conference  set  up 
only  nationalities  and   not  nations,   what  will 
speedily  become  of  them,  unless  the  Allies  con- 
tinue to  prepare  for  the  defense  of  the  liberties 
of  their  new  creations? 

(2)  Is  it  not  fair  and  just  that  these  new  creations 
should  prepare   to   protect   and   defend   them- 
selves?     Better   a   nation   than   a   pauper   na- 
tionality ! 

(3)  Is  it  not  an  undue  bur.den  on  the  peoples  of 
the  Allied  nations  that  they  alone  make  sacri- 
fices for  the  preservation^  of  the  newly  recog- 
nized self-governing  nationalities  of  the  world? 

(4)  After  all,  why  should  we  all  strive  so  hard  for 
a  "  new  order  "  in  which  the  interests  of  indus- 
try and  of  the  "  business  community  "  are  so 
fatally  antagonistic  as  they  appear  to  be  on  Mr. 
Veblen's  showing?    Where  will  be  the  gain? 

(5)  Can  we  not  conceive  of  a  "new  order"  in 
which  the  nation  might  be  organized  and  exist 
both  to  preserve  the  right  and  liberties  of  the 
nationality,  which  it  embodied,  and  to  aid  in 
the  orderly  and  fair  adjustment  of  differences 
which  exist  between  industry  and  business? 

(6)  Would   not   this   second    function   justify   the 
creation    or   continued   existence   of   nations — 
even  if  it  is  conceivable  that  nationalities  might 
exist  without  such  supervisory  national  organi- 
zation ? 

(7)  But,  finally,  what  choice  would  the  nationality, 
let  us  say  of  Poland,  or  Finland,  have  to  exist 
as  an  independent  political  entity  or  social  or- 
ganization, without  the  protection  of  its  own 
members  or  of  friendly  foreign  nationalities? 

Would  it  not  be  like  the  classic  example  of  the 
snowball  in  Hades?  Or  the  cat  that  was  born 
without  claws?  W.  D.  S. 

Washington,  D.  C. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


253 


Notes  on  New  Books 

WILD  YOUTH  AND  ANOTHER.     By  Gilbert 
Parker.     Lippincott;  $1.50. 
THE  WEB.     By   Frederic  Arnold  Kummer. 
Century;  $1.50. 

If  the  plotless  novel  were  dependent  upon  such 
craftsmen  as  Sir  Gilbert  and  Mr.  Kummer  to  usher 
it  into  being,  the  probabilities  are  that  it  would 
stand  forever  without  the  portals.  These  two 
writers,  though  they  differ  in  detail,  dwell  in  closest 
harmony  when  it  comes  to  frank  and  unfeigned 
reliance  upon  story.  Give  them  plenty  of  incident, 
and  they  will  undertake  to  carry  the  reader  through 
somehow.  They  may  ride  roughshod  over  the  tran- 
sitions; they  may  give  scant  finish  to  characteriza- 
tion; but  how  they  warm  to  the  demands  of  every 
twitch  of  action!  Whatever  their  shortcomings, 
neither  Wild  Youth  nor  The  Web  may  be  branded 
with  sluggish  circulation.  Sir  Gilbert  rides  his  ink- 
pot into  the  rugged  Canadian  West,  and  there  pulls 
his  characters  in  and  out  of  the  picture  with  the 
careless  authority  of  a  motion-picture  director.  If 
a  young  girl  is  married  to  an  old  man,  and  the  old 
man  is  cruel,  and  the  young  girl  falls  in  love  with  a 
young  man,  then  it  follows  that  the  old  man  must 
be  put  out  of  the  way,  and  the  fanatic  fingers  of  a 
Chinaman  are  requisitioned.  And  if  a  young  girl 
is  too  adorable  to  become  the  bride  of  uncouth 
Westerners,  then  a  young  nobleman,  slightly 
wounded  but  otherwise  perfect,  will  be  spirited  upon 
the  scene.  At  times,  one  feels  that  Sir  Gilbert  is 
scarcely  more  than  one  chapter  ahead  of  the  reader. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Kummer's  metier  is  military  intrigue, 
with  the  late  world  securely  impaled  on  his  pen, 
while  the  reader  and  the  enemy  submit  to  simul- 
taneous baffling.  But  does  The  Web  derive  any 
added  momentum  from  the  disclosure  that  it  is 
founded  upon  fact? 

FORMATIVE  TYPES  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY.  The 
Earl  Lectures  of  1917.  By  George  Herbert 
Palmer.  Houghton  Mifflin. 

It  is  a  rather  formidable  title  which  Mr.  Palmer 
elects  to  place  at  the  head  of  his  anything  but  for- 
midable volume.  It  is  the  kind  of  title  that  sug- 
gests the  immense  erudition  of  a  Saintsbury,  a  Pan- 
coast,  or  a  Skeats.  But  the  reader  need  have  no  fear, 
for  the  author  hastens  to  deny  any  but  the  most 
modest  intentions — as  is  befitting  a  confessed  phil- 
osopher and  amateur  of  the  arts.  Mr.  Palmer  in- 
tends merely  to  sketch,  in  broad  outlines,  the  chief 
poetic  influences  of  English  literature;  for  this  pur- 
pose he  chooses  six  "  inevitables "  :  Chaucer, 
Spenser,  George  Herbert,  Alexander  Pope,  Tenny- 
son, and  Browning.  To  each  of  these  men  he  gives 
a  competent  essay,  in  which  biography  is  mingled 
with  an  analysis  of  his  subject's  particular  contribu- 


tion to  the  English  Parnassus.  Throughout,  the 
author's  chief  criterion  is  the  "  self-liberating " 
quality  of  poetry:  a  great  poet  is  essentially  one 
who  can  broaden,  deepen,  and  vivify  one's  compre- 
hension of  large  life-forces  through  "  the  conscious 
transmission  of  an  emotional  experience  to  another 
imaginative  mind  " — a  doctrine  of  the  "  utile  " 
which  might  conceivably  bore  some  of  the  moderns 
— but  at  least  Mr.  Palmer  does  not  compel  the 
moderns  to  eat  at  his  table. 


ANOTHER    SHEAF. 
Scribner;  $1.50. 


By    John     Galsworthy. 


In  John  Galsworthy's  new  volume  of  essays 
readers  may  find  a  pleasure  and  satisfaction  which 
many  have  restlessly  missed  in  his  recent  fiction. 
Those  later  serials  have  shown  such  a  lowering  of 
his  standards,  such  a  lessening  of  his  art,  that  many 
of  his  admirers  have  wondered  if  there  would  be  a 
return  of  the  magic  of  his  early  novels  and  his  plays. 
Another  Sheaf  is  not  in  the  best  Galsworthy  man- 
ner, but  it  is  good.  The  style  is  less  poetic,  more 
prosaic,  than  was  usual  with  him,  and  in  places  the 
diction  tends  surprisingly  toward  the  trite.  Only 
in  the  brief  sketch  at  the  beginning,  The  Road,  do 
the  words  soar ;  for  the  rest  they  trudge,  but  even  so 
they  do  arrive. 

The  road  stretched  in  a  pale,  straight  streak,  narrow- 
ing to  a  mere  thread  at  the  limit  of  vision — the  only  living 
thing  in  the  wild  darkness.  All  was  very  still.  It  had 
been  raining;  the  wet  heather  and  the  pines  gave  forth 
scent,  and  little  gusty  shivers  shook  the  dripping  birch 
trees.  In  the  pools  of  sky,  between  broken  clouds,  a  few 
stars  shone,  and  half  of  a  thin  moon  was  seen  from  time 
to  time,  like  the  fragment  of  a  silver  horn  held  up  there 
by  an  invisible  hand,  waiting  to  be  blown. 

In  subject  matter  these  papers  on  various  topics, 
gathered  together  without  much  effect  of  unity,  are 
more  closely  related  to  Galsworthy's  plays  than 
to  his  fiction.  They  deaf  with  social  problems 
affecting  the  laboring  classes  of  England,  and 
through  them  the  country  as  a  whole.  They  have 
evidently  seen  publication  before,  and  some  of  them 
are  less  timely  now  than  when  they  were  written. 
Their  chief  value  lies  in  the  author's  plea  for  recon- 
struction plans,  for  national  policies  that  shall  re- 
duce the  dangers  of  the  demobilization  period  and 
conserve  the  forces  undestroyed  by  war.  Galsworthy 
urges  a  sensible  and  just  attitude  toward  the  return- 
ing cripple — not  the  maudlin  emotion  that  cries 
out,  "  Here's  a  wounded  hero ;  let's  take  him  to  the 
movies  and  give  him  tea!  "  but  a  wisdom  that  will 
give  to  the  maimed  a  chance  to  do  full  work  and- 
live  a  normal  life.  He  is  logical  in  his  argument 
for  the  necessity  of  England's  growing  her  own 
food,  and  shows  the  easy  possibility  of  great  agri- 
cultural schemes  managed  by  the  government.  On 
the  whole,  his  discussion  of  the  problems  of  recon- 
struction is  sane  and  admirable;  and  his  ideas  for 
the  most  part  are  as  applicable  to  America  as  to 
England.  Indeed,  he  has  much  to  say  concerning 


254 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


the  relation  between  the  two  countries,  and  says  it 
with  breadth  of  vision  and  without  that  "  certain 
condescension  "  Britishers  too  often  assume : 

Underneath  surface  differences  and  irritations  we  Eng- 
lish-speaking peoples  are  fast  bound  together.  May  it  not 
be  in  misery  and  iron!  If  America  walks  upright,  so  shall 
we ;  if  she  goes  bowed  under  the  weight  of  machines, 
money,  and  materialism,  we,  too,  shall  creep  our  way.  We 
run  a  long  race,  we  nations;  a  generation  is  but  a  day. 
But  in  a  day  a  man  may  leave  the  track  and  never  again 
recover  it! 

THE  LIFE  OF  DAVID  BELASCO.     By  William 
Winter.     Moffat,  Yard;  $11. 

Well-written  biographies  are  frequently  more 
entertaining  than  fiction,  for  the  details  of  life  often 
possess  a  romance  which  the  story-writer  would  not 
imagine.  The  novelist  is  likely  to  see  only  the  con- 
spicuous in  situation  and  character,  while  the  true 
biographer  perceives  the  slighter,  more  significant 
matters  as  well.  The  Life  of  David  Belasco,  Wil- 
liam Winter's  final  work,  possesses  a  double  interest 
in  that  it  is  at  once  a  valuable  history  of  certain 
aspects  of  the  American  stage  and  a  record  of  a  life 
full  of  adventurous  and  colorful  variety.  There 
are,  of  course,  many  pages  which  only  the  student 
of  stage  history  will  linger  over.  There  are  sermonic 
passages  that  might  have  been  omitted  to  advantage, 
not  so  much  because  they  are  digressions — since 
digressions  are  often  the  part  of  a  book  most  worth 
while — as  because  they  lack  the  author's  usual  sanity 
of  judgment.  But  the  book  is  most  readable. 

Belasco  never  staged  a  play  more  romantic  than 
his  own  life.  Born  in  a  cellar  in  San  Francisco,  the 
son  of  an  English  harlequin  who  had  come  to  this 
country  in  destitution,  he  has  known  the  true  dra- 
matic reversal  of  fortune.  A  Jew,  he  lived  for 
several  years  in  a  monastery,  under  the  training  of 
a  Catholic  priest,  whence  he  ran  away  to  join  a 
traveling  circus  as  boy,  clown.  Riding  on  the  hook 
and  ladder  wagon  as  the  mascot  of  the  Victoria 
Fire  Department,  standing  on  a  box  to  reach  the^ 
wash-tubs  in  order  to  help  his  mother  with  her 
work,  hiding  as  a  stowaway  in  a  Vancouver  boat, 
reciting  "  shockers "  of  his  own  composition  in 
saloons  and  dives  in  San  Francisco,  he  lived  a  life 
calculated  to  provide  him  abundant  material  for  the 
sensational  plays  he  later  wrote.  From  the  time 
when  he  was  "  carried  on  "  as  an  infant  in  arms  at 
the  Victoria  Theatre  Royal  he  was  always  asso- 
ciated with  the  stage.  He  danced  and  played  the 
banjo  at  cheap  places,  and  once  appeared  as  an 
Indian  brave.  "  I  was  too  small,"  he  says,  "  but 
Proctor  kept  me  because  I  gave  such  fine  war- 
whoops."  These  adventures  of  Belasco's  boyhood 
and  youth  are  more  entertainingly  told  than  are  his 
experiences  in  writing,  adapting,  acting,  and  produc- 
ing; and  the  average  reader  will  find  more  pleasure 
in  the  first  volume  than  in  the  second.  William 
Winter  does  not  hesitate  to  criticize  his  subject  un- 
favorably on  occasion,  and  his  book  is  marked  by  a 
fine  sincerity. 


RELIGION  AND  THE  WAR:  A  Series  of  Essays 
on  the  War  and  Reconstruction.  By  Members 
of  the  Faculty  of  the  School  of  Religion,  Yale 
University.  Edited  by  Hasbey  Sneath.  Yale 
University  Press;  $i. 

With  the  exception  of  Essays  III  (The  Christian 
Hope  in  Time  of  War,  by  Frank  Chamberlain 
Porter)  and  IV  ( Non-Resistance,  Christian  or 
Pagan,  by  Benjamin  M.  Bacon),  this  collection  is 
typical  of  a  great  multitude  of  popular  sermons  and 
addresses  of  the  last  four  years.  As  such  it  already 
belongs  to  a  past  era.  The  third  essay  is  a  scholarly 
discussion  of  what  is  known  to  theologians  as  the 
"  Eschatological  Problem."  It  adopts  the  commonly 
accepted  view  of  liberal  Protestantism,  but  shows  a 
lack  of  familiarity  with  some  of  the  most  recent 
contributions  to  the  subject.  The  fourth  essay  is  a 
polemic  against  the  non-resistant  pacificism  of  New 
Wars  for  Old  by  John  Haynes  Holmes,  and  points 
out  loopholes  in  the  latter's  argument.  Professor 
Bacon  admits  that  the  teaching  of  Jesus  was  pacifis- 
tic,  but  denies  that  it  was  uniformly  non-resistant. 
He  does  not  explicitly  answer  the  question,  raised 
by  his  title,  whether  non-resistance  be  Christian  or 
Pagan,  though  he  quotes  Buddha: 

With  mercy  and  forbearance  shalt  thou  disarm  every 
foe.  For  want  of  fuel  the  fire  expires:  mercy  and  for- 
bearance bring  violence  to  naught. 

But  one  would  hardly  classify  this  as  a  typically 
"  pagan  "  saying. 

The  group  of  essays  does  not  address  itself  seri- 
ously to  specific  questions  of  reconstruction.  It 
modestly  contents  itself  with  suggesting  remedies  of 
a  most  general  nature. 

WAR  AND  REVOLUTION  IN  ASIATIC  RUSSIA. 
By  M.  Philips  Price.  Macmillan;  $3. 

Mr.  Price  has  written  an  extremely  valuable 
book,  interesting  as  well  as  historical.  Late  in 
1914  the  author  went  to  Russia  as  special  corre- 
spondent for  the  Manchester  Guardian,  but  after 
the  great  retreat  of  the  Russians  from  Lemberg  he 
found  the  difficulties  of  sending  out  of  the  country 
true  descriptions  of  the  discouraging  facts  and  the 
impositions  of  the  censorship  so  severe  that  rather 
than  stay  in  Europe,  where  honest  reporting  was 
impossible,  he  went  to  the  Caucasus  and  the  Middle 
East.  Here  he  spent  the  last  half  of  1915  and  all 
of  1916  making  journeys  into  the  nearby  districts 
of  Persia,  Greater  Armenia,  and  the  Black  Sea 
coast.  Part  of  his  book  is  a  diary  and  careful  rec- 
ord of  what  he  saw  on  these  journeys.  He  wit- 
nessed the  outbreak  of  the  Russian  Revolution  in 
the  Asiatic  provinces  and  the  Cossack  regions  of 
the  Caucasus,  and  on  the  general  theme  of  the 
Revolution  and  its  effect  on  these  unhappy  people 
midway  between  Europe  and  Asia  his  book  fittingly 
ends.  Mr.  Price  is  never  sketchy  or  impressionistic, 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


We  think  that  the  readers  of  THE  DIAL  will  consider  our  list  of  Spring  publications  an  interesting  one. 
We  would  suggest  that  orders  be  sent  to  the  book  dealer  at  least  one  week  before  "  Possible  publication 
date."  In  sending  orders  to  us,  please  add  fifteen  cents  per  copy  for  mailing  expense. 


John  Reed 

Ten  Days  That  Shook  the  World 

Reed's  long  awaited  book  on  Russia — a  moving  picture 
of  those  thrilling  days  in  Petrograd.  A  serious  attempt 
to  tell  all  of  the  details  about  the  Bolshevik  coup  d'etat. 
I*  will  be  used  as  an  original  source  by  historians  of 
the  great  Russian  Revolution.  It  contains  documents, 
speeches,  newspaper  clippings,  correspondence,  et'c., 
never  before  published  in  this  country.  Profusely  il- 
lustrated. 

Probable  publication  date  Mar.  It     $2.00 

Major  Walter  Guest  Kellogg 
The  Conscientious  Objector 

Foreword  by  Secretary  of  War  Newton  D.  Baker 

In  this  book,  the  Chairman  of  the  Board  of  Inquiry  for 
Conscientious  Objectors  presents  his  own  observations 
of  the  Objector,  derived  from  an  official  examination  of 
a  large  number  of  all  types  in  the  military  camps  of  the 
country,  together  with  a  brief  history  of  the  subject  and 
some  recommendations  as  to  future  action  in  regard  to 
this  vital  factor  in  our  national  wellbeing. 

Probable  publication  date  Mar.  16     $1.00 

Paul  U.  Kellogg--Author  Gleason 
British  Labor  and  the  War 

Reconstructors  for  A  New  World 

(Note:  Originally  announced  for  1918  publication.) 
The  publication  of  this  book  was  postponed  because  the 
authors  wished  to  bring  it  strictly  up  to  date  and  have 
it  cover  the  entire  British  Labor  movement  up  to  the 
time  of  the  Peace  Conference.  It  gives  the  fullest  ac- 
count that  has  yet  appeared  of  the  war  and  reconstruc- 
tion aims  of  British  Labor,  deals  also  with  the  attitude 
of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  toward  the  British 
Labor  Movement,  and  contains  valuable  appendixes  con- 
taining material  not  before  published;  also  &  compre- 
hensive index. 

Probable  publication  date  Mar.  25     $2.00 

Ruth  Dunbar 
The  Swallow 

Not  a  war  book  but  a  novel  based  upon  the  actual  ex- 
periences of  one  of  the  few  survivors  of  the  original 
members  of  the  famous  Lafayette  Escadrille.  We  be- 
lieve this  delightful  novel  of  adventure,  suffering  heroism 
and  love  will  prove  one  of  the  big  surprises  in 
Spring  fiction.  This  inspiring  message  of  faith  and 
optimism  makes  it  a  memorable  contribution  to  recent 
literature.  A  small  part  of  the  book  appeared  in  the 
Century  Magazine. 

Probable  publication  date  Apr.  10     $1.50 

Theodore  Dreiser 
Twelve  Men 

Not  short  stories,  not  sketches,  SOMETHING  EN- 
TIRELY NEW.  Full  of  drama,  color,  pathos,  humor. 
A  seething  picture  of  American  life.  Everyone  will 
guess  who  these  twelve  men  were  and  are.  Dreiser  him- 
self moves  through  the  pages  of  this  book  and  Is  shown 
in  lights  and  shadows  that  will  be  intensely  interesting 
to  everyone. 

Probable  publication  date  Mar.  15     $1.75 

Edward  J.  O'Brien 
The  Great  Modern  English  Stories 

A  companion  volume  to  "  The  Great  Modern  French 
Stories,"  and  one  of  the  series  of  the  Great  Modern 
Stories  which  will  Include  American,  Italian,  Scandi- 
navian, etc. 

Probable  publication  date  Apr.  20     $1.75 


Upton  Sinclair 
Jimmie  Higgins 


A  new  novel  by  the  author  of  "  The  Jungle,"  of  SEN- 
SATIONAL interest.  It  is  an  absorbing  and  dramatic 
romance  of  the  struggles,  temptations  and  decisions  of 
an  everyday  workingman  who,  at  first  opposed  to  Amer- 
ica's entry  into  the  war,  becomes  a  patriot,  joins  the 
troops  in  France,  but  finally  protests  against  fighting  in 
Archangel.  Sinclair  writes:  "This  is  the  best  thing  I 
have  ever  done,"  and  several  distinguished  critics  who 
have  read  the  manuscript  agree  with  him. 

Probable  publication  date  Apr.  10     $f.60 

Edgar  Saltus 

The  Paliser  Case 

A  NEW  NOVEL  by  the  author  of  "  Imperial  Purple," 
"  Daughters  of  the  Rich,"  etc.  This  is  a  drama  of  gold, 
of  pain,  of  curious  crime  and  the  heart  of  a  girl,  by  one 
of  America's  most  brilliant  writers.  There  are  some 
characters  in  "  The  Paliser  Case  "  that  will  live  long  in 
American  fiction.  Beware  of  beautiful  Cassy  Cara.  She 
may  go  to  your  head. 

Probable  publication  date  Mar.  15     $1.60 

Henry  James 
Travelling  Companions 

This  collection  of  stories,  none  of  which  has  ever  before 
appeared  in  book  form,  will  be  a  veritable  find  not  only 
to  James  enthusiasts,  but  to  all  readers  of  fine  short 
fiction.  Every  story  in  the  book  is  more  entertaining 
and  of  higher  literary  value  than  can  be  found  in  almost 
any  collection  of  short  stories  now  being  published. 

Probable  publication  date  Apr,  10     $1.75 

Eugene  O'Neill 

The  Moon  of  the  Caribbees  and  Six 
Other  Plays  of  the  Sea 

These  plays,  "  Bound  East  for  Cardiff,"  "  In  the  Zone," 
"  lie,"  etc.,  have  been  generally  acclaimed  as  the  best 
that  have  been  written  by  an  American  in  the  last  ten 
years.  John  Corbin  of  the  New  York  Times,  Clayton 
Hamilton  in  Vogue,  The  Nation,  The  Christian  Science 
Monitor,  Current  Oponion,  etc.,  all  say  that  Eugene 
O'Neill  is  one  of  the  few  great  American  playwrights. 

Probable  publication  date  Mar.  85     $1.35 

Albert  Mordell 

The  Erotic  Motive  in  Literature 

What  is  the  real  meaning  of  the  dream  in  Kipling's 
"The  Brushwood  Boy?  "  Is  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth 
and  Browning  as  free  from  erotic  interpretation  as  most 
of  their  readers  believe?  This  book  is  a  most  fascinat- 
ing and  novel  interpretation  of  the  writings  of  the 
world's  greatest  poets  and  novelists.  An  entirely  non- 
technical and  entertaining  psycho-analytical  study  that 
will  surprise  many  and  shock  only  a  few. 

Probable  publication  date  Mar.  25     $1.75 

Richard  Le  Gallienne 

The  Modern  Book  of  English  Verse 

An  anthology  edited  with  an  introduction  by  Richard 
Le  Gallienne.  In  this  anthology  Mr.  Le  Gallienne,  as 
he  says  in  his  introduction,  followed  the  more  or  less 
usual  lines  generally  adopted  in  compiling  such  anthol- 
ogies as  "  The  Oxford  Book  of  English  Verse."  etc.  In 
this  volume  of  between  500  and  600  pages,  particular 
stress  is  laid  upon  Modern  English  poetry.  Both  the 
editor  and  the  publisher  feel  that  this  book  will  take  its 
place  with  the  very  few  fine  and  exhaustive  anthologies 
of  English  vernse. 

Probable  publication  date  Apr.  20     $2.00 


On  April  20th  the  two  following  titles  will  be  added  to  THE  PENGUIN  SERIES— V— THE 
CURIOUS  REPUBLIC  OF  GONDOUR  and  other  Whimsical  Sketches  by  SAMUEL  L.  CLEMENS, 
author  of  Tom  Sawyer,  Huckleberry  Finn,  etc.,  and— VI— SKETCHES  AND  REVIEWS— by  WALTER 
PATER— ($1.25  per  volume)  and  NINE  NEW  TITLES  IN  THE  MODERN  LIBRARY  (70c.  each— 
send  for  catalogue). 

BONI  AND  LIVERIGHT,  publishers,  105  X  West  40th  Street,  New  York  Gily 


256 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


and  his  background  of  facts  is  extensive.  He  can 
select  from  his  mass  of  material  the  relevant  and 
salient  points  which  are  needed  for  correct  orienta- 
tion in  so  complex  a  subject.  The  final  result  is 
a  clear  and  perceptive  exposition  of  the  peoples  and 
political  and  social  forces  at  work  in  that  section  of 
the  world.  Yet  if  Mr.  Price  is  careful  to  keep 
the  general  tone  of  his  volume  intelligently  exposi- 
tory, the  force  of  his  few  interpretive  suggestions 
gains  rather  than  loses  by  this  method.  Nothing 
is  more  revelatory  than  the  quiet  way,  with  unes- 
capable  massing  of  fact  on  fact,  in  which  Mr.  Price 
shows  that  nationalism,  beginning  at  first  as  a  fruit- 
ful and  tolerant  cultural  variation,  has  invariably 
been  exploited  by  the  imperialisms  of  Russia  and 
Turkey — always  with  the  intriguing  approval  of 
the  Great  Powers — for  the  purpose  of  setting  one 
people  at  another's  throat.  Nothing  is  more  revela- 
tory than  the  quiet  way  in  which  he  shows  that  this 
aggressive  nationalism  collapsed  before  the  prole- 
tarian revolution.  It  must  have  thrilled  the  author 
to  see  Tartars,  Armenians,  and  Russians  amicably 
serving  on  the  same  committees — to  witness  the 
rapprochement  of  so  many  nationalities  formerly 
hostile.  If  one  wants  an  accurate  picture  of  the 
effects  of  that  great  decision  on  the  banks  of  the 
Neva — how  they  are  spreading  eastward  through 
the  Caucasus  and  Turkestan  to  India  and  China — 
War  and  Revolution  in  Asiatic  Russia  will  supply  it. 

UNDERSTANDING  SOUTH  AMERICA.    By  Clay- 
ton Sedgwick  Cooper.     Doran;  $2. 

Those  who  have  enjoyed  Mr.  Cooper's  delightful 
and  informative  volume  on  Brazil  and  the  Brazilians 
will  know  what  to  expect  of  his  latest  book.  Nor 
will  they  be  disappointed.  Mr.  Cooper  is  a  broad- 
minded  traveler  who  sees  behind  appearances ;  he 
does  not  visit  foreign  countries  with  the  preconceived 
notion  of  returning  to  show  how  superior  is  his  own 
nation;  he  journeys  rather  to  learn  from  what  he 
beholds,  and  to  benefit  both  his  own  country  and 
the  land  to  which  he  comes  by  an  exchange  of  ideas 
and  a  broadening  of  outlook  that  cannot  help  but 
promote  a  fruitful  understanding  of  each  other. 
While  the  present  book  has  as  one  of  its  main  pur- 
poses the  instruction  of  Northern  business  men  in 
procuring  South  American  trade,  it  may  well  be 
read  to  advantage  by  all  who  are  interested  in  the 
continent  to  the  south  of  us.  As  a  nation  we  are 
sadly  in  need  of  the  counsel  here  offered;  we  must 
come  to  understand  that  differences  in  culture  and 
language  and  habits  are  not  necessarily  signs  of  in- 
feriority or  superiority;  they  are — differences. 

Particularly  interesting  in  the  book,  which  is 
written  in  an  easy  colloquial  style  and  is  replete 
with  humorous  anecdotes  (very  much  to  the  point) 
and  significant  experiences  of  the  author,  are  the 
chapters  dealing  with  the  Oriental  psychology  of 
the  South  American,  the  German  penetration  into 
the  continent,  the  South  American  cowboy — that 


"gaucho"  about  whom  has  sprung  up  a  literature 
all  his  own — and  a  fairly  full  treatment  of  Peru 
and  the  Incas.  Nothing  better  can  be  said  of  any 
book  than  that  it  fulfills  its  purpose;  one  rises  from 
Mr.  Cooper's  book  with  a  mind  much  enlightened 
as  to  the  other  half  of  America. 

THE  WAR  IN  THE  CRADLE  OF  THE  WORLD. 
By  Eleanor  Franklin  Egan.     Harper;  $2. 

Since  there  is  legitimate  doubt  as  to  where  the 
infant  world  was  cradled,  let  it  be  said  at  once  that 
the  author  with  a  confidence  which  is  her  leading 
trait  and  alter  or  rather  ipsissimus  ego  identifies  the 
cradle  with  the  ancient  land  of  Mesopotamia.  Her 
book  deals  with  the  British  end  of  the  war  there  in 
its  final  triumphant  stages.  By  a  miracle  of  favor 
bewildering  even  to  herself,  not  readily  given  to  be- 
wilderment, she  was  permitted  to  penetrate  to  the 
theater  of  operations  and,  politely  handed  by  busy 
officials  from  post  to  post  across  the  dusty  desert 
spaces,  she  came  at  last  to  Bagdad  the  Wonderful 
and  to  the  presence  of  the  Army  Commander,  Sir 
Stanley  Maude.  In  spite  of  its  martial  title  this  is 
not  a  book  of  military  operations  but  rather  of  im- 
pressions of  things  seen,  heard,  and  sensed  among 
the  scorched  and  pathless  wastes  of  a  land  of  fable ; 
and  since  the  writer  possesses  unusual  powers  of  ob- 
servation and  a  deft  and  very  feminine  pen,  the 
result  is  not  that  the  land  ceases  to  be  fable — that 
is  fortunately  impossible — but  that  the  fable  .is  il- 
lustrated and  enriched  by  mirages  and  dream-pic- 
tures so  colorful  and  seductive  that  the  issue  of 
reality  loses  interest. 

But — and  now  we  come  to  what  for  the  author  is 
doubtless  the  effective  purpose  of  the  book — against 
the  filmy  fable  of  the  land,  and  thrown  upon  it  as 
upon  a  moving  screen  is  a  vividly  contrasting  thing, 
utterly  real  and  palpable — the  British  war  prepara- 
tions. The  reader  is  made  to  see,  streaming  into 
Mesopotamia  along  with  the  supplies  from  the  great 
base  at  Bombay  the  rows  of  troop  and  cargo  ships, 
the  acres  of  choked  wharves  at  Basra,  the  brown 
tent-cities  running  off  into  the  desert  haze  till  they 
are  lost  from  sight,  the  stacked  pyramids  of  hay  and 
wheat  under  sloping  canvas,  the  endless  supply  trains 
of  donkeys  and  camels  winding  in  ant-like  lines 
toward  the  horizon — in  short,  a  titanic  labor  of 
countless  details  and  infinite  pains  constituting  a 
masterpiece  of  organization.  A  British  masterpiece. 
The  American  author  reveals  a  state  of  mind  as 
interesting  to  study  as  it  is  necessary  to  reckon  with 
as  we  approach  the  hour  when  the  world  is  expected 
to  give  birth  to  the  new  internationalism  with  which 
it  is  even  now  declared  to  be  in  labor.  The  British 
Empire  has  overwhelmed  our  author.  She  is  past 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


257 


"Britton  List"  Books 

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Fighting  Byng 

By  A.  STONE 

A  story  of  the  Secret  Service — also  an  exciting 
love  story.  $1.50  net. 

The  Evolution  of 
Peter  Moore 

By  DALE  DRUMMOND 

(Author  of  "A  Man  and  a  Woman.") — the  New 
York  adventures  of  a  War  Bride.  $1 .50  net. 

The  Edge  of  the 
World 

By  EDITH  BLINN 

A  story  of  the  boundless  West,  its  kindly 
people — and  Mother  Lee,  "so  motherly" — who 
brings  up  other  people's  children.  $1 .50  net. 

Maid  and  Wife 

By  CAROLYN  BEECHER 

A  story  of  the  small  town  girl  who  makes  her 
way  in  the  great  metropolis.  $1.50  net. 

Love  Time  in  Picardy 

By  WILLIAM  ADDISON  LATHROP 

A  wonderful  love  story  of  world  wide  signi- 
ficance but  without  problem — fascinating. 

$1.50  net. 


Here's  a  Timely  Book 


By  Lt.  HAROLD  HERSEY 

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This  book  should  be  read  by  all  returning  sol- 
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258 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


the  point  of  question.  Like  the  efficient  officers  and 
civil  servants  she  encounters,  she  affirms  the  Empire 
as  an  article  of  faith.  And  her  attitude  is  typical. 
For  the  world  at  large  the  British  Empire  is  the 
power  we  see  and  feel  today  because  it  is  set  upon 
this  rock,  the  rock  of  faith.  Does  Mr.  Wilson  com- 
mand a  rock  remotely  like  it  upon  which  to  plant 
the  superstructure  of  his  League  of  Nations? 

AMERICAN   PROBLEMS  OF  RECONSTRUCTION. 
Edited  by  Elisha  M.  Friedman.  Dutton;  $4. 

This  is  a  national  symposium  to  which  American 
economists,  statesmen,  financiers,  and  business  men 
have  made  their  contributions.  The  book  is  a  strik- 
ing contrast  to  the  English  symposium  published 
earlier,  in  1917.  The  latter  reflected  an  unmistak- 
able concern  among  the  leaders  of  industrial  enter- 
prise in  regard  to  England's  economic  position  at-, 
the  termination  of  the  war,  and  their  belief  that 
England's  future  is  dependent  on  industry  becoming 
a  matter  of  national  concern  and  national  organiza- 
tion. In  our  American  symposium  there  is  an  as- 
surance that  America,  the  land  of  unlimited  re- 
sources, has  nothing  to  fear  and  no  serious  amends 
to  make.  The  measures  of  economy  which  are 
advocated  in  this  symposium  have  no  revolutionary 
import.  They  have  to  do  with  a  perfection  of 
economy  in  methods  already  in  use ;  with  a  strength- 
ening rather  than  a  reorganization  of  our  present 
institutions.  Much  of  the  book  is,  indeed,  concerned 
with  a  review  of  our  actual  and  potential  wealth: 
the  status  of  our  mineral  resources,  the  possibilities 
of  increasing  technical  research,  the  accomplished 
mechanics  of  labor  efficiency,  and  the  future  possi- 
bilities of  scientific  management  in  the  hands  of  ex- 
perts. Emphasis  is  laid  on  the  advantages  of  priv- 
ate ownership  of  railroads  with  government  regu- 
lation, the  development  of  a  merchant  marine  with 
government  backing  and  regulation,  the  value  to 
America  of  a  free  port,  such  as  the  free  port  of 
Hamburg;  a  moderate  shifting  of  inequalities  of 
wealth  through  taxation  on  incomes,  consumption, 
lands,  inheritance,  and  business.  Our  agricultural 
problem,  it  seems,  might  be  solved  if  we  gave  suffi- 
cient attention  to  the  kind  of  "  containers  "  used  in 
shipping,  to  better  cold  storage  accommodations, 
some  modification  of  the  produce  exchanges.  There 
is  appreciation  that  in  the  rehabilitation  of  war- 
stricken  Europe  American  investors  and  financiers 
have  an  unusual  opportunity.  In  short,  the  volume 
seems  to  stand  for  a  policy  which  will  trust  indus- 
try and  trade  to  the  leadership  of  America's  busi- 
ness men  and  financiers,  and  which  will  give  them 
the  backing  and  full  force  of  state  approval. 

The  last  chapter  is  a  singular  appreciation  of 
Prussianism,  which  if  issued  by  an  I.W.W.  organi- 
zation might  have  been  lost  in  Mr.  Burleson's  dis- 
card. The  author  believes  in  the  centralized  execu- 
tive leadership,  in  what  he  calls  "  a  well  disciplined 
line  organization,"  and  a  highly  specialized  staff  or- 


ganization. To  these  most  important  provisions  of 
an  autocratic  state  he  adds  the  feeble  recommenda- 
tion of  criticism,  publicity,  and  "  effective  control 
in  the  hands  of  the  people."  The  latter  seems  to 
mean,  so  far  as  one  can  read  between  the  lines,  a 
universal  ballot.  How  treacherous  a  dependence 
a  ballot  is,  in  a  less  centralized  government  than 
Germany's,  we  all  know.  How  little  a  people  for 
their  protection  can  depend  upon  popular  criticism 
and  publicity,  we  also  know  from  our  own  very 
recent  experience. 

One  of  the  contributors  to  the  symposium,  Mr. 
Louis  B.  Wehle,  also  welcomes  centralized  gov- 
ernment control.  His  experience  on  the  Shipping 
Board  induces  his  enthusiastic  support  of  shop  com- 
mittees made  up  of  workers  who  will  take  up  con- 
ditions of  employment  with  the  management.  The 
author  does  not  specifically  recommend  that  they 
constitute  a  unit  of  industrial  administration,  but 
the  general  temper  of  this  chapter  suggests  that  the 
author  would  be  less  hostile  to  influences  which 
were  truly  democratic  than  the  other  contributors 
to  the  symposium.  Nowhere  in  the  symposium, 
unless  in  this  chapter,  is  there  an  intimation  that  the 
American  economists,  financiers,  and  business  men 
welcome  the  introduction  of  any  scheme  which 
might  impair  a  centralized  control  of  production  of 
wealth. 

GEORGE  MEREDITH:  A  Study  of  His  Works 
and  Personality.  By  J.  H.  E.  Crees.  Long- 
mans, Green;  $2. 

That  the  Essay  on  Comedy  presents  its  author's 
conception  of  the  true  aim  of  the  novel;  that 
Meredith  satirized  sentimentalists  and  delighted  in 
the  poetry  of  youth ;  that  "  his  verse  is  lacking  in 
the  finest  sense  of  form  " ;  that  his  obscurity  "  pro- 
ceeds from  high-strained  intellectual  activity,  not 
from  laziness  or  incompetence  " ;  that  novels  are 
written  "  to  show  characters  in  action  and  develop- 
ment"; that  "we  do  not  in  real  life  talk  like 
Meredithian  characters,"  are  among  the  not  un- 
familiar conclusions  reached  by  Mr.  Crees  in  his 
two  hundred  odd  pages  devoted  to  George  Meredith. 
Mr.  Crees  announces  that  probably  every  one  who 
journeys  through  Meredith  will  prefer  to  tell  his 
own  story.  Granted  that  this  be  true,  there  seems 
to  be  nothing  so  novel  about  Mr.  Crees'  itinerary 
that  he  should  tell  it  out  loud. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  fact  about  the  book  is 
that  Mr.  Crees  is  the  author  of  The  Reign  of  the 
Emperor  Probus  and  headmaster  of  a  grammar 
school.  These  facts  may  explain  his  continual  hank- 
ering after  the  Greeks.  Every  now  and  then,  while 
the  critic  is  talking  about  Meredith,  one  has  an  un- 
easy suspicion  that  he  would  much  prefer  to  chat 
about  Euripides.  If  Mr.  Crees  had  had  the  courage 
of  his  instincts  he  might  have  given  us  a  pretty  study 
of  the  Hellenic  aspects  of  Meredith;  but  he  prefers 
to  talk  about  enthousiasmos  and  to  write  a  book 
which,  if  it  is  nowhere  wrong,  is  not  indispensable. 


1919 


THE  DlAL 


259 


"  Of  real  service  at  the  peace  conference." — Chicago  News 

Ambassador     Morgenthau's     Story 

By  Our  Former  Ambassador  to  Turkey 


THIS  is  the  startling,  authentic  account  of 
the  early  years  of  the  war  in  the  near 
East.  Germany's  intrigue  and  trickery  to 
win  over  Turkey,  Bulgaria  and  Austria  are 
clearly  shown.  How  the  war  was  hatched 
at  Potsdam  and  how  the  Allies  gave  up  their 
attack  on  Constantinople  when  the  Turks  had 
prepared  to  surrender,  are  a  few  of  the  im- 
portant facts  revealed.  Much  light  on  pn  s- 
ent  momentous  events  is  shed. 

"  As  to  the  interest  and  importance  of  Mr. 
Morgenthau's  book  there  will  be  no  difference 
of  opinion.  It  is  a  remarkably  readable,  sig- 
nificant and  instructive  account  of  conditions 


and  events  in  the  Turkish  Empire  from  the 
end  of  1913  to  the  beginning  of  1916.  It  is 
filled  from  cover  to  cover  with  vital  matter, 
is  exceptionally  free  from  digressions  or  irrel- 
evancies,  and  rivets  the  attention  throughout. 

"  It  ought  never  to  appear  on  that  confer- 
ence, or  elsewhere,  that  America  is  '  the 
friend  of  Turkey.'  That  would  be  a  title  of 
unspeakable  shame  and  dishonor.  If  you 
doubt  it  read  this  book." — New  York  Times. 

"  A  true  story,  this,  and  more  important  in 
the  larger  historical  account  than  anything 
heretofore  printed  covering  the  same  topical 
ground." — Philadelphia  North  American. 


Published  by 


Your  bookseller  has  it.     Net,  $2.00 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  CO. 


Garden  City,  N.  Y. 


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REPRESENTATIVE 
BRITISH  DRAMAS: 

Victorian  and  Modern 

Edited  by 
MONTROSE  J.  MOSES 

A  Series  of  Dramas  which  Illustrate  the  prog- 
ress of  the  British  Dramatist,  and  emphasize 
the  Important  features  of  the  History  of  the 
British  Theatre. 

This  Volume  contains  the  complete  text  of  21 
plays.  Mr.  Moses  has  been  fortunate  In  securing 
the  most  notable  English  Dramas,  from  Sheridan 
Knowles  down  to  John  Masefleld ;  and  the  most 
representative  Irish  Dramas  from  Williara  Butler 
Yates  down  to  Lord  Dunsany. 

873  pages.     $4.00  net. 
LITTLE,  BROWN  &  CO.: Publishers,  Boston 


The  League  of  Nations 

Whether  you  favor  a  league  or  not  you  want 
to  know  what  has  been  said,  recently,  for  and 
against  it 

No  one  book,  no  one  magazine,  can  give 
as  comprehensive  a  view  of  the  problems 
and  difficulties  incident  to  the  formation  of 
such  a  league  as  the  Handbook,  A  LEAGUE 
OF  NATIONS. 

Into  its  350  pages,  Miss  Phelps  has  collected  70 
of  the  most  important  speeches  and  writings 
which  appeared  in  books,  magazines  and  news- 
papers and  has  grouped  them  under  the  plan  they 
advocate  or  condemn.  The  third  edition  (just  off 
the  press)  includes  the  twenty-six  articles  of  the 
proposed  Constitution  and  President  Wilson's  ex- 
planation of  them. 

The  Handbook,  A  LEAGUE  OF  NA- 
TIONS, is  priced  at  $1.50,  so  that  every 
good  American  can  own  a  copy. 

Other  Titles  in  Handbook  Series 


Americanization   ....  $1.50 
Russia 1.50 


Monroe  Doctrine $1.25 

Prohibition 1.25 


THE  H.  W.  WILSON  COMPANY 

966  University  Avenue  New  York  City 


When  writing  to  advertisers  please  mention  THE  DIAL. 


260 


THE  DIAL 


March  8 


THE  VILLAGE  WIFE'S  LAMENT.    By  Maurice 

Hewlett.     Putnam;  $1.25. 

The  obvious  charge  that  can  be  brought  against 
this  poetical  venture  by  the  author  of  Thorgils  and 
The  Forest  Lovers  is  that  no  village  wife  could 
possibly  deliver  herself  of  such  a  sustained  and  com- 
paratively philosophic  utterance  on  the  horrors  of 
war.  But  Mr.  Hewlett  himself  removes  the  sting 
of  this  criticism  by  admitting  its  validity,  in  the 
brief  Note  appended  to  the  poem;  wherein  also  he 
utters  a  few  prose  lamentations  inspired  by  the  war, 
more  rhetorical  than  profound — as  when  he  affirms 
that  "  German  blood-lust  will  become  one  of  the 
standing  legends  of  history."  The  poem  itself  is  in 
homely  vein,  as  befits  the  rustic  setting  and  the 
speaker:  there  is  something  of  the  old  Dutch  genre 
painters  in  this  picture  of  peasant  life — simplicity, 
drudgery,  resignation,  and  a  passionate  attachment 
to  all  things  of.  the  earth  earthy.  One  witnesses  the 
effect  of  war  upon  the  bride  of  a  sturdy  English 
yokel,  the  raw  anguish  of  separation,  the  fierce 
dumb  hatred  of  bloodshed — above  all,  anger  at  war's 
interference  with  the  even  current  of  obscure  and 
contented  lives.  The  sixty  odd  pages  of  the  Lament 
make  rather  difficult  reading  for  the  sophisticated 
urban  mind,  so  long  fed  on  controversy,  worn  out? 
by  absurd  quibblings  and  subtle  distinctions;  but  to 
one  who  can  make  due  allowance  for  these  factors, 
Maurice  Hewlett's  poem  will  bring  enough  pleasure 
to  justify  very  favorable  comparison  with  most  of 
our  "  war-poetry." 

THREE  LIVE  GHOSTS.    By  Frederic  S.  Isham. 

Bobbs-Merrill ;  $1.50. 

Mr.  Isham's  novel  is  depressing.  Its  qualities 
are  not  the  result  of  amateur  writing;  they  are  the 
deliberate  result  of  professional  belief  in  patterns 
for  light  fiction.  His  situation  has  possibilities: 
three  soldiers,  escaping  from  a  German  prison,  find 
themselves,  upon  their  return  to  London,  officially 
dead.  But  the  possibilities  are  at  once  lost  in  a 
mesh  of  devices  for  provoking  laughter,  sympathy, 
applause.  The  characters — Lord,  cockney,  and  rich 
American — are  the  stock  figures  of  farce,  unchanged 
by  war  or  uniforms.  They  move  through  the  book 
after  the  manner  of  clay  pigeons  in  a  shooting  gal- 
lery, pulled  along  from  outside. 

A  dramatic  critic  recently  suggested  that  in  pro- 
hibition lay  hope  for  the  musical  comedy  and  the 
farce,  since  future  audiences  must  be  cold  and  sober. 
What  of  book  readers? 

Books  of  the  Fortnight 

The  following  list  comprises  THE  DIAL'S  selec- 
tion of  books  recommended  among  the  publications 
received  during  the  last  two  weeks: 
The  British  Revolution  and  the  American  Democ- 
racy:     An    Interpretation    of    British    Labour 
Programmes.    By  Norman  Angell.     I2mo,  319 
pages.     B.  W.  Huebsch.    $1.50. 


A  Social  History  of  the  American  Family:  From 
Colonial  Times  to  the  Present.  By  Arthur 
W.  Calhoun.  Vol.  Ill:  Since  the  Civil  War. 
8vo,  411  pages.  Arthur  H.  Clark  Co.  (Cleve- 
land). $5. 

Socialism  versus  the  State.  By  Emile  Vandervelde. 
I2mo,  229  pages.  Charles  H.  Kerr  Co.  $i. 

Prussian  Political  Philosophy.  By  Westel  W.  Wil- 
loughby.  I2mo,  203  pages.  D.  Appleton  & 
Co.  $1.50. 

Foreign  Financial  Control  in  China.  By  T.  W. 
Overlach.  I2mo,  295  pages.  Macmillan  Co. 
$2. 

Mexico  Today  and  Tomorrow.  By  E.  D.  Trow- 
bridge.  I2mo,  282  pages.  Macmillan  Co.  $2. 

Yashka:  My  Life  as  a  Peasant  Officer  and  Exile. 
By  Maria  Botchkareva.  Illustrated,  I2mo, 
340  pages.  Frederick  A.  Stokes  Co,  $2. 

Pioneers  of  the  Russian  Revolution.  By  Angelo 
S.  Rappoport.  Illustrated,  I2mo,  281  pages. 
Brentano's.  $2.25. 

The  "Charmed  American":  A  Story  of  the  Iron 
Division  of  France.  By  George  Lewys.  Illus- 
trated, I2mo,  328  pages.  John  Lane  Co. 
$1.50. 

The  Salmagundi  Club:  A  History.  By  William 
Henry  Shelton.  Illustrated,  8vo,  161  pages. 
Houghton  Mifflin  Co.  $5.  

The  English  Village:  A  Literary  Study,  1750-1850. 
By  Julia  Patton.  I2mo,  236  pages.  Mac- 
millan Co.  $1.50. 

Six  Plays  of  the  Yiddish  Theater:  Second  Series. 
By  David  Pinski,  Z.  Levin,  Perez  Hirschbein, 
and  Leon  Kobrin.  Translated  by  Isaac  Gold- 
berg. I2mo,  197  pages.  John  W.  Luce  &  Co. 
$1-50. 

Oxford  Poetry:  1918.  Edited  by  T.  W.  E., 
E.  F.  A.  G.,  and  D.  L.  S.  I2mo,  55  pages. 
Longmans,  Green  &  Co.  50  cts. 

Nono:  Love  and  the  Soil.  A  novel.  By  Gaston 
Roupnel.  Translated  by  Barnet  J.  Beyer. 
1 2mo,  272  pages.  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.  $1.90. 

Jacquou  the  Rebel.  A  novel.  By  Eugene  Le  Roy. 
Translated  by  Eleanor  Stimson  Brooks.  I2mo, 
415  pages.  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.  $1.90. 

Amalia:  A  Romance  of  the  Argentine  in  the  Time 
of  Rosas  the  Dictator.  A  novel.  By  Jose 
Marmol.  Translated  by  Mary  J.  Serrano. 
^I2mo,  419  pages.  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.  $2. 

Martin  Rivas.  A  novel.  By  Alberto  Blest-Gana. 
Translated  by  Mrs.  Charles  Whitman.  I2mo, 
431  pages.  Alfred  A.  Knopf.  $1.60. 

The  Secret  City.  A  novel.  By  Hugh  Walpole. 
i2mo,  386  pages.  George  H.  Doran  Co. 
$1.60. 

The  Pelicans.  A  novel.  By  E.  M.  Delafield. 
I2mo,  345  pages.  Alfred  A.  Knopf.  $i-75- 

The  Mirror  and  the  Lamp.  A  novel.  By  W.  B. 
Maxwell.  I2mo,  442  pages.  Bobbs-Merrill 
Co.  $1.75. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


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THE  DIAL 


March  8 


Current  News 

Archibald  Marshall's  novel,  The  Clintons  and 
Others,  is  soon  to  be  published  by  Dodd,  Mead. 

Houghton  Mifflin  Co.  promise  the  following 
volumes  of  fiction  for  early  spring:  Dawn,  by 
Eleanor  H.  Porter;  Cornelia,  by  Lucy  Fitch  Per- 
kins; The  Old  Gray  Homestead,  by  Frances  P. 
Keyes ;  and  A  Man  Four-Square,  by  William  Mac- 
Leod Raine. 

Two  new  volumes  to  be  added  to  the  Penguin 
Series  issued  by  Boni  and  Liveright  are  some 
hitherto  unpublished  sketches  and  reviews  by  Wal- 
ter Pater,  and  a  collection  of  the  stories,  sketches, 
and  anecdotes  of  Samuel  L.  Clemens.  The  latter 
volume  will  carry  the  title,  The  Curious  Republic 
of  Gondour. 

The  quality  of  sincerity  is  unmistakable  in  James 
C.  Welsh's  Songs  of  a  Miner  (Putnam;  $1.25), 
and  there  are  occasional  passages  of  considerable 
felicity.  The  poet's  themes  are  drawn  chiefly  from 
nature  and  from  the  worker  close  to  nature,  and  the 
slender  volume  spans  many  moods.  Mr.  Welsh's 
muse  is  manifestly  a  votary  of  Burns. 

To  make  its  books  available  for  the  use  of  those 
who  cannot  withdraw  them  in  person,  the  St.  Louis 
Public  Library  is  operating  a  parcel-post  service 
system.  Printed  instruction  cards  with  blanks  for 
the  author  and  title  of  the  book  desired,  or  for  indi- 
cation of  the  general  subjects  in  which  the  reader 
is  interested,  are  supplied  by  the  library,  to  be  mailed 
back  to  them  with  the  small  sum  necessary  for  the 
prepayment  of  postage. 

A  rather  odd  collection  is  presented  by  Maud 
Chapin  in  Rushlight  Stories  (Duffield;  $1.35)1 
comprising  one  or  two  romantic  narratives  and  a 
number  of  fables.  The  author  must  be  given  credit 
for  a  diversity  of  setting,  a  wide  vocabulary,  and  a 
discursive  imagination;  but  the  tales,  are  bookish 
and  garrulous,  and  disappoint  the  reader  by  their 
failure  in  emphasis.  There  is  a  suggestion  of  Hans 
Andersen  in  some  of  the  themes,  which  makes  their 
lack  of  concise  development  more  evident. 

The  Cowper  Society,  which  was  founded  in  1900 
on  the  centenary  of  the  poet's  death  and  which 
maintains  as  the  Cowper  and  Newton  Museum  the 
Cowper  house  in  Olney  then  presented  to  the  town, 
has  announced  that  the  private  owner  of  the  adjoin- 
ing garden,  in  which  stands  the  poet's  famous  Sum- 
mer House,  has  offered  it  for  sale.  The  trustees 
of  the  Museum  have  the  refusal  of  the  property  at 
£450  and  have  issued  a  general  appeal  for  con- 
tributions, which  should  be  sent  to  Mr.  Thomas 
Wright,  Secretary,  of  the  Cowper  School,  Olney, 
Bucks,  England.  The  following  works,  contain- 
ing manuscript  and  material  not  previously  avail- 
able in  print,  have  been  published  under  the  So- 
ciety's auspices:  Teedon's  Diary,  Cowper  Memo- 
rials, Cowper  in  London,  Olney  Hymns,  Cowper 
and  Blake,  and  a  guide  to  the  Museum.  Mr. 
Wright  is  also  Secretary  of  two  related  organiza- 


tions— the  John  Payne  Society   (founded  in  1905) 
and  the  Blake  Society  (founded  in  1912). 

The  Music  of  Spain,  by  Carl  Van  Vechten 
(Knopf;  $1.50),  contains  a  reprint  from  the  origi- 
nal plates  of  the  essay  on  Music  and  Spain  in  the 
author's  volume  Music  and  Bad  Manners  (Knopf, 
1916;  $1.60 — reviewed  in  THE  DIAL  for  January 
n,  1917),  to  which  have  been  added  some  fifty 
pages  of  corrective  "  notes  on  the  text " ;  a  reprint 
of  his  discerning  appreciation  of  The  Land  of  Joy 
in  The  Merry-Go-Round  (Knopf,  1918;  $2 — re- 
viewed by  Randolph  Bourne  in  THE  DIAL  of  No- 
vember 1 6,  1918) ;  and  a  new  essay,  From  George 
Borrow  to  Mary  Garden.  This  last,  which  has 
the  revealing  sub-title  Histoire  sommaire  de  Car- 
men, is  one  of  Mr.  Van  Vechten's  characteristic 
rambles  through  the  irrelevant  marginalia  of  erudi- 
tion. It  is  less  an  essay  than  an  overgrown  speci- 
men of  those  "  analytical  and  historical  notes  "  Mr. 
Philip  Hale  contributes  to  the  programs  of  the 
Boston  Symphony  Orchestra.  The  volume  as  a 
whole  is  a  welter  of  undigested,  and  for  the  most 
part  indigestible,  material,  for  which — in  a  moment 
of  repentance — the  author  has  compounded  a  peptic 
index.  Before  Mr.  Van  Vechten  began  concocting 
these  Spanish  dishes  of  his,  we  had — as  his  publisher 
does  not  neglect  to  inform  us — very  little  knowl- 
edge of  Spanish  music,  and  some  of  us  were  hungry 
for  more;  but  there  is  little  that  is  either  substan- 
tial or  nutritious  in  this  assembled  meal.  Even  the 
hardened  critics,  one  fancies,  will  be  grateful  for 
that  index. 

Contributors 

Benjamin  C.  Gruenberg  is  an  educator  and. 
scientist  who  has  made  special  studies  in  vocational 
adjustment  and  industrial  relations.  Dr.  Gruen- 
berg is  a  frequent  contributor  to  technical  and  gen- 
eral magazines. 

At  Harvard  Rollo  Britten  was  an  editor  of  the 
Harvard  Monthly.  After  his  graduation  in  1912 
he  engaged  in  newspaper  work  in  the  Middle  West. 
He  is  now  a  member  of  the  Public  Health  Service, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

Lida  C.  Schem  is  the  author  of  three  novels, 
Matthew  Ferguson,  The  Voice  of  the  Heart,  and 
The  Greater  Heart,  published  under  the  pseudonym 
Margaret  Blake,  and  of  many  magazine  articles  and 
newspaper  features. 

Stephen  Vincent  Benet  is  a  recent  graduate  of 
Yale  who  has  contributed  verse  to  many  magazines. 
His  first  volume  of  verse,  Young  Adventure  (Yale 
University  Press;  $1.25),  was  reviewed  in  THE 
DIAL  for  January  25. 

Josephine  Bell  is  associated  with  Mr.  Egmont 
Arens  in  the  production  of  The  Playboy.  Her  verse 
has  been  published  in  several  magazines. 

The  other  contributors  to  this  number  have 
previously  written  for  THE  DIAL, 


1919  THE  DIAL  263 


Beginning  with  the  issue  of  March  22 

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Miss  Marot's  book  the  most  sincere  and  nearer  to  the  essential  and  vital  questions  of 
courageous  attempt  yet  made  to  face  the  real  democracy  than  any  other  recent  writer, 
problem  of  an  education  adapted  to  modern  .  Chas.  F.  Taylor,  of  Posey  &  Jones  Cow- 
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264 


THE  DIAL  .March  8 


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RUSSIA'S  AGONY  By  ROBERT  WILTON,  Correspondent  of  the  Times  at  Petrograd 

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By  ROBERT  CROZIER  LONG,  Correspondent  in  Russia  (1917)  for  the  Associated  Press 

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With    3   maps   and   28   illustrations.      Among   contributors   of   the   critical   essays,   reminiscences   and   < 
matter,  which  make  the  book  indispensable  to  the  Bronte  student,  are  Edmund  Gosse,   G.  K.  Chesterton, 
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ULSTER  FOLK-LORE  By  ELIZABETH  ANDREWS,  F.  R.  A.  I 

A  collection  of  Ulster  traditions  of  "wee  folk"  in   which  are  found  traces  of  a  race  of  dwarfs  and  of  a 
warfare  in  which  the  capture  of  children  possibly  originated  a  whole  group  of  fairy  tales 

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STUDIES  IN  ELECTRO-PATHOLOGY      (Illustrated)     By  A.  WHITE  ROBERTSON 

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o  Treat  Germany 


IAL 


A  FORTNIGHTLY 


VOL.  LXVI 


NEW  YORK 


NO.  786 


MARCH   22,    1919 

Spring  Announcement  Number 

How  TO  TREAT  GERMANY Norman  Angell 

GOOD  FORM  AND  ORTHODOXY George  Donlin 

ENGLISH  OPPORTUNISM  AND  THE  LEAGUE  OF  NATIONS  .  Samuel  Spring 
A  SECOND  IMAGINARY  CONVERSATION  :  Gosse  and  Moore,  i  .  George  Moore 
WHY  REFORM  Is  FUTILE  ....'.......  Helen  Marot 

CITIES  AND  SEA  COASTS  AND  ISLANDS Stark  Young 

INTERNATIONAL  ANGLING .      Lewis  Mum  ford 

THE  GREAT  HUNGER Robert  Morss  Lovett 

HARBINGERS  OF  SPRING.     Verse Donald  B.  Clark 

THE  UNENDING  REVOLUTION Harold  Stearns 

FRANCE  AND  A  WILSONIAN  PEACE Ferdinand  Schevill 

EXILES.   Verse     . ,     .       Babette  Deutsch 

THE  AMERICAN  NOTE Percy  H.  Boynton 

THE  INDEPENDENTS Walter  Pack 

EDITORIALS 

NOTES  ON  NEW  BOOKS  :The  Burgomaster  of  Stilemonde.— The  Way  of  a  Man.— Tarn 
o'  the  Scoots. — Asia  Minor. — The  Mirror  and  the  Lamp. — The  Open-Air  Theatre. — 
Sinister  House. — Memories  Grave  and  Gray. — Letters  of  Susan  Hale. — The  Spinners. — 
Edgewater  People. — Byways  in  Southern  Tuscany. 

SPRING  ANNOUNCEMENT  LIST    . 

CURRENT    NEWS 


279 

282 

284 
287 

293 
296 

298 
299 
300 
301 
303 

305 
306 

3°7 
309 
312 


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1750-1915 


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And  mine  should  be  the  song. 

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one  thinks  of  a  Pippin  when  he  is  eating  a  Northern 
Spy,  but  the  taste  is  different.  The  person  that  reads 
this  book  will  want  another,  and  then  another  by  the 
same  author.  We  are  glad  to  see  on  the  title  page 
that  there  are  others.  Our  window  is  open  toward 

Australia   that  they   may   fly   in." — Northwestern 

Ihristian  Advocate. 

12  mo.     274  pages.     Net,  $1.25,  Postpaid. 


THE  LUGGAGE  OF  LIFE 

Bj  F.   W.   BORBHAM 

There  is  a  quaint  humor  that  always  plays  about  the 
horizon  of  Boreham 's  thought  like  heat  lightning. 
You  would  better  read  him  aloud,  for  if  you  don't, 
the  family  will  keep  interrupting  you  all  the  time 
asking  what  the  joke  is.  He  has  unconsciously 
suggested  his  own  epitaph  (which  Heaven  grant  need 
not  be  cut  in  stone  for  marly  ages)  in  writing  of  the 


ideal  minister:  "  When  he  is  dead  men  will  inscribe 
on  his  tombstone  not,  'Here  lies  a  great  Divine," 
but  'Here  lies  a  great  Human.'*  If  you  have  a 
confirmed  taste  for  human  nature  and  like  to  look 
on  it  through  lenses  of  humor  and  sympathy — get 
acquainted  with  Mr.  Boreham. 

12  mo.     248  pages.     Net,  $1.25,  Postpaid. 


THE  GOLDEN  MILESTONE 

By  F.  W.  BOREHAM 

He  touches  nothing  that  he  does  not  adorn  with  the 
sparkling  brightness  of  a  Fourth  of  July  Roman 
candle.  His  books  are  more  than  essays;  they  are 
motion  pictures  of  a  phosphorescent  mind.  Each  one 
is  treated  with  beauty  and  distinction.  The  happy 
light-heartedness  of  him  is  so  infectious  that  to  read 
him  is  a  sheer  delight.  There  are  about  him  rio 
barbed-wire  entanglements  of  formal  rhetoric  or  am- 
bitious style.  We  are  in  intimate  touch  with  a  mind 
that  is  mellow,  quaint  and  richly  original. 

12  mo.     276  pages.     Net,  $1.25,  Postpaid. 

THE  SILVER  SHADOW 

Br  F.  W.  BOREHAM 

"A  most  suggestible  person  is  this.Tasmanian  essay- 
ist. To  him  every  event  and  object  is  suggestive : 
wherever  his  glance  strikes  it  richochets  to  something 
else.  His  eye  is  like  the  poet's,  which  sees  a  poem 
hanging  on  the  berry  bush;  like  Shakespeare's,  to 
which  the  whole  street  is  a  masquerade  when  he 
passes  by."" — The  Methodist  Review. 

12  mo.     254  pages.     Net,  $1.25,  Postpaid. 


NEW  YORK    THE  ABINGDON  PRESS   CINCINNATI 


PITTSBURGH 


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March  22 


The  Leading  Books  on  Brentano's  Spring  List 


THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  SQUINTING 
WINDOWS 

By  Brinsley  MacNamara 

The  story  of  an  Irish  family  unfolding  a  grim  and 
tragic  drama.  A  most  powerful  novel  that  will  stir 
you  to  your  depths.  12»M>.  Cloth.  Net  $1.50 

THE  YELLOW  DOCUMENT,  or 
FANTOMAS  OF  BERLIN 

By  Pierre  Souvestre  and  Marcel  Attain 

A  most   exciting  detective   story   that  can  be   counted 
upon  to  furnish  thrills  from  the  first  page  to  the  last. 
12wo.     Cloth.     Net  $1.50 

THE  SILENT  MILL 

By  Hermann  Sudermann 

A  novel  of  astounding  force  revealing  the  pathos  and 
deep  sincerity  with  which  readers  of  the  other  works 
of  this  master  writer  are  familiar. 

12«w.     Cloth.      Net  $1.25 

TEMPTATIONS 

A  Volume  of  Short  Stories 

By  David  Pinski 

A  collection  of  powerful  and  most  unique  short  stories 
into  which  the  author  has  projected  the  same  ability 
that  has  made  him  the  dramatist  he  is.  Every  story  is 
a  gem  as  brilliant  as  his  plays. 

12»m>.     Cloth.     Net  $1.50 

POEMS 

By  Michael  Strange 

Author  of  "  Miscellaneous  Poems." 

A  collection  of  verses  of  unusual  merit  by  a  most 
promising  writer.  12f«o.  Ototh.  Net  $1.50 

THE  PASSING  GOD 

Songs  for  Modern  Lover* 
By  Harry  Kemp 

Author  of  "  Judas,"  "  The  Cry  of  Youth." 
H       With  an  Introduction  by  Richard  Le  Oallietinc. 

An  uncommonly  fine  collection  of  lyrics  in  Mr.  Kemp's 
best  style.  The  long  narrative  poem  "  Cresaeid  "  is  a 
splendid  performance  and  will  be  much  talked  about. 

12wu>.     Boards.     Net  $1.25 

POEMS  AND  PROSE  POEMS  OF 
CHARLES  BAUDELAIRE 

With  Introduction  by  James  Huneker 

A  de  luxe  edition  of  Charles  Baudelaire,  prepared  in 
the  highest  standards  of  book  manufacture. 

Fancy  Boards.     Boaed.     Net  $1.50 

PIONEERS  OF  THE  RUSSIAN 
REVOLUTION 

By  Dr.  Angela  S.  Rappoport 

A  history  of  the  Revolutionary  Movement  during  the 
last  fifty  years.  This  well  informed  and  timely  work 
should  lead  to  a  better  understanding  of  the  aims  and 
desires  of  the  Russian  people. 

Profusely  illustrated.    Large  12mo.    Cloth.    Net  $2.25 


SET  DOWN  IN  MALICE 

By  Gerald  Cumberland 

A  book  revealing  glimpses  of  figures  well  knowa  la 
the  English  world  of  arts,  letters  and  politics  by  an 
ex-journalist  and  critic  of  the  arts. 

12mo.     Cloth.     Net  $2.50 

HARVARD  PLAYS:   Second  Series 

Edited  by  George  P.  Barker 

Plays  of  the  same  merit  as  were  gathered  together  In 
the  first  books  ("  47  Workshop,"  "  Dramatic  Club 
Plays.")  12mo.  Boards.  Net  $1.00 

THE  STORY  WITHOUT  A  NAME 

By  Barbey  D'Aurevilly.  Translated  by  Edgar 
Salt  us 

This  recognized  French  masterpiece  is  a  portrayal  of 
egotism  at  its  apogee,  consummated  and  almost  deified. 
Translated  and  with  Impression  of  the  author  of  Edgar 
Baltus.  (New  volume  in  the  Lotous  Library.)  Net  $1.25 

THE  SOCIAL  SECRETARY 

By  Elizabeth  Myers 

In    this    companion    volume    to    "  The    Social    Letter," 

Miss    Myers    describes    in    great    detail    the   duties    and 

responsibilities  of  the  social  secretary  and  gives  minute 

directions  for  the  administration  of  the  domestic  regime. 

12mo.     Cloth.     Net  $1.25 

AFTER  BIG  GAME 

The  Story  of  an  African  Holiday. 
By  R.  S.  Meikle,  F.  Z.  S.,  F.  S.  Scot,  and 
Mrs.  M.  E.  Meikle. 

A  very  readable  account  of  two  travellers'  experiences 
in  East  Africa  as  guest  of  the  Governor.  Profusely 
illustrated  ana  with  a  map. 

Svo.     Cloth.     Net  $3.00 

THE  MEETING  OF  THE  SPHERES  or 
LETTERS  FROM  DR.  COULTER 

By   Charlotte  Herbine 

The  messages  written  and  spoken  »f  Dr.  Coulter  about 
the  continuity  of  lives  are  here  presented  in  a  new  au- 
thorized American  edition  with  a  special  foreword  by 
Charlotte  G.  Herbine.  8w.  Cloth.  Net  $3.60 

THE  WISDOM   OF  WOODROW 
WILSON 

New  volume  in  the  "  Wisdom  Seriee.'^ 
Compiled  and  with  an  Introduction 

By  Charles  J.  Herold 

This  compilation  containing  the  beet  thoughts  of 
Woodrow  Wilson  on  all  the  important  subjects  of  the 
day  should  be  welcomed  by  all  who  love  and  admire  him. 
IGmo.  limp  tending,  richly  ornamented,  full  gilt,  boxed. 

Net  $1.00 


SOME  OF 
ANIMALS 


SHAKESPEARE'S 


By  J.  Sanford  Saltus 

Mr.  Saltus  gives  us  the  result  of  some  painstaking 
work  which  contains,  play  by  play,  all  the  passages  in 
Shakespeare  referring  to  animals. 

12mo.     Boards.     Net  $1.00 


Net  $.75 
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CHILDREN'S  FRENCH  CONVERSATION.    By  Jale*  Helein 

BEGINNERS  FRENCH   CONVERSATION.    By  Jalet  Helein  ..... 

INTERMEDIATE  FRENCH  CONVERSATION.    By  Jule,  Helein        .  .  .  .  .  . 

ADVANCED  FRENCH  CONVERSATION.    By  Jttlet  Helein       .  .  . 

Four  texts  giving  a  rather  simple  but  thorough  course  in    French  by  a  well  known  French  teacher  who  has  tested  the 
method  himself  in  his  own  school.  _       _  _ 

BRENTANO'S,  Publishers,  27th  Street  and  5th  Avenue,  New  York 


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The  Omar  Khayyam  of  the  Bible 

A  GENTLE  CYNIC 

Being  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes 

By  MORRIS  JASTROW,  JR.,  Ph.D.,  LL.D.,  Author  of  "  The 
War  and  the  Bagdad  Railway,"  etc.    SmaU  4to.    $2.00  net 

"*A  delightfully  human  book  on  the  Omar  Khayyam  of  the  Bible 
with  an  exact  translation  of  the  original  text.  How  it  came  to  be 
written  and  who  wrote  it  (and  it  was  not  Solomon) ,  why  additions 
were  made  to  the  original  text  and  the  whole  interesting  story  is 
here  given.  A  delightful  exposition  of  that  "uncomfortable  in- 
terrogation mark,"  the  first  author  who  wrote  under  a  nom 
de  plume. 

THE  SOUL  OF  ANN  RUTLEDGE 

The  Story  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  Romance 
By   BERNIE    BABCOCK 

This  remarkable  novel,  based  upon  the  true  story  of  Abraham  Lincoln's 
early  love  affair,  revives  in  the  pioneer  setting  of  the  times,  one  of  the  rarest 
and  most  exquisite  love  stories  in  history.  The  story  of  Lincoln's  romance 
has  never  before  been  told.  Frontispiece  in  color  by  Gayle  Hoskins.  $1.50  net. 
Ready  in  April. 

THE  DIAMOND  PIN 

By    CAROLYN    WELLS 

Fleming  Stone,  the  Sherlock  Holmes  of  American  fiction,  the  irrepressible 
"  Fibsy,"  and  the  lovely  Iris  Clyde  become  involved  in  a  curious  and  inex- 
plicable mystery — the  outcome  of  a  practical  joke  played  by  a  whimsical  old 
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tispiece in  color  by  Gayle  Hoskins.  $1.35  net. 

THE  RED  SIGNAL 

By   GRACE   LIVINGSTON   HILL   LUTZ 

Author  of  "  The  Enchanted  Barn " 

A  real  American  girl  outwits  a  band  of  spies  and  agents  for  destruction 
in  this  country.  It  is  a  breathless  and  exciting  yarn.  Perhaps  the  finest 
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how  her  country  can  be  served.  Frontispiece  in  color.  $1.35  net.  Ready  in  April. 

HIDDEN  TREASURE 

A  Story  of  Modern  Farming 
By    JOHN   THOMAS    SIMPSON 

This  is  above  all  an  intensely  interesting  story  for  boys,  but  written  with 
the  distinct  purpose  of  inspiring  boys  with  the  "  back  to  the  farm  "  idea, 
and  also  to  point  out  to  country  boys  the  great  commercial  possibilities  right 
at  home.  Frontispiece  and  16  illustrations.  $1.25  net. 

TRAINING  OF  A  SALESMAN 

By   WILLIAM   MAXWELL 
Vice-President  Thomas  Edison,  Inc. 

Author  of  "If  I  Were  Twenty-One,"  etc. 

This  new  volume  in  Lippincott's  Training  Series  gives  constructive  and 
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TRAINING  FOR  THE  ELECTRIC  RAILWAY 
BUSINESS 

By   C.   B.   FAIROHILD,   JR. 

Prepared  under  the  Direct  Supervision  of  T.  E.  MITTBN,  of  the 

Philadelphia  Traction  Company 

This  addition  to  Lippincott's  Training  Series  presents  a  very  broad 
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THE  FINE  ART  OF  PHOTOGRAPHY 

By  PAUL   L.   ANDERSON 

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Writes   for  all   classes.     His   novels 
make  a  universal  appeal. 

WILD  YOUTH 

AND  ANOTHER 

is  a  novel  of  his  supreme  and  mature 
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THE  UNIVERSITY  OF 

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years.  22  illustrations.  Limited 
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MONOGRAPHS  ON 

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Edited  by  JACQUES  LOEB,  T.  H. 
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Two  volumes  have  been  issued  in 
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FORCED       MOVEMENTS,        TROP- 

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THE  DIAL 


March  2; 


Revolution  or  Reconstruction? 


A  Call  to  Americans 


America  has  reached  a  turning  point  in  her  history.  The  time  has  come  for  all  free  minds  to  meet  in  con- 
certed effort  to  face  and  shape  the  crisis. 

Despite  America's  splendid  success  in  a  war  waged  against  foreign  autocracy,  our  country  is  menaced  by 
the  growing  power  of  an  autocratic  and  reactionary  minority  at  home.  We  stand  in  danger  of  losing  many 
of  the  liberties  and  advances  won  in  the  course  of  our  national  development.  There  is  grave  likelihood  of  our 
being  left  stagnant  and  backward  in  a  world  that  for  the  most  part  is  vigorously  reorganizing  its  economic  and 
political  life. 

Centralization  and  autocracy  are  increasing  rapidly  in  the  organization  of  government,  in  the  control  of  credit, 
and  in  the  determination  of  public  opinion.  The  very  classes  whose  labors  in  factory  and  field  are  the  basis 
and  substance  of  our  economic  power,  find  no  effective  political  medium  through  which  to  express  their 
economic  demand,  but  by  deceptive  diversions  of  our  party-system  are  denied  their  proper  representation  in 
the  law-making  bodies  of  the  nation. 


/"CRITICISM,  competent  or  not,  is  discouraged;  periodicals 
\^ji  are  suppressed  with  hardly  a  pretense  of  adequate  hear- 
ing; public  assemblies  meeting  under  constitutional  guar- 
antees are  dispersed  by  official  force  or  by  mob  violence  bred 
of  official  intolerance;  our  women  are  subjected  to  unwarranted 
delays  in  their  campaign  for  the  fulfilment  of  democracy ; 
agricultural  and  labor  organizers  and  political  heretics  are  not 
only  suppressed  but  are  in  many  cases  sent  to  penitentiaries 
for  terms  whose  unprecedented  severity  would  surprise  even  the 
fallen  despots  of  Europe. 

Meanwhile  the  cost  of  armaments,  the  orgies  of  profiteering, 
the  extravagances  of  administration,  the  expense  of  innumer- 
able agencies  of  suppression  combined  with  the  lack  of  any 
intelligent  and  far-sighted  budget  system,  swell  the  public  debt, 
devouring  loans  and  revenues  before  they  can  be  collected, 
and  sending  prices  always  beyond  the  reach  of  fifteen  million 
families  whose  physical  and  intellectual  well  being  are  the  final 
test  of  our  collective  development  and  survival. 

It  is  the  privilege  of  America,  protected  by  its  vestige  of 
geographical  seclusion,  to  profit  by  the  experiences  of  Europe. 
Europe  too  has  had  its  reactionary  ruling  minorities,  its  in- 
dustrial autocrats,  its  financial  oligarchies,  its  massive 
armaments,  its  hated  conscription,  its  corrupt  and  futile 
politics,  its  suppression  of  dissent,  its  judicial  frightfulness,  its 
bursting  budgets,  its  toilers  broken  in  body  and  bitter  of  soul. 
And  Europe  has  revolution. 

Is  this  what  Americans  want?     We  do  not  think  so. 

We  believe  that  there  is  intelligence  enough  in  this  country, 
if  it  will  but  come  together,  to  catch  control  of  the  current  of 
things  and  co-operate  directively  with  the  inevitable  forces  of 
human  growth.  To  Reaction  and  Revolution  we  oppose  Re- 
construction ;  not  as  a  catchword  and  ( pretense,  but  as  an 
organized  effort  to  find  some  new  adjustment  of  the  changing 
powers  that  constitute  society. 

Many_  of  us  believe  that  these  readjustments  demand  a 
new  political  alignment,  that  the  old  parties  are  determined  to 
withhold  that  which  the  American  people  are  determined  to 


have.  Day  by  day  men  come  _to  see  more  clearly  that  these 
organizations  have  'lost  that  spirit  to  serve  the  people  which 
was  embodied  once  in  Jefferson  and  at  another  time  in  Lincoln ; 
that  the  shell  has  hardened  and  stifled  the  growth  within.  With 
exceptions  lost  among  the  instances,  the  politicians  whom  we 
have  elected  have  misrepresented  our  desires  and  laughed  at 
our  hopes ;  they  have  opposed  with  a  cynical  accord  all  that 
we  have  set  our  hearts  on  as  vital  to  the  renovation  of  Amer- 
ican life.  There  are  times  when  by  the  vigor  of  a  personality, 
the  old  mechanisms  are  driven  to  some  efficacy  and  result;  but 
the  mechanism  soon  overcomes  the  man,  pushes  him  aside,  and 
undoes  his  little  work.  America  cannot  grow  much  more  in 
these  old  skins. 

Rather  must  reconstruction  derive  its  impetus  and  direction 
from  the  political  organization  of  the  manual  and  mental  work- 
ers of  the  country.  The  future  belongs  not  to  the  inheritors 
and  manipulators  of  great  wealth  but  to  the  men  and  women 
who  live  by  their  work  of  hand  or  brain  and  know  by  hard 
experience  the  needs  and  aspirations  of  the  common  life. 

It  is  the  purpose  of  the  Committee  of  Forty-Eight  to  sum- 
mon from  all  parts  of  the  country  the  leaders  of  its  liberal 
thought  and  of  its  forward-looking  citizens,  to  meet  in  confer- 
ence. We  hope  that  out  of  this  assemblage  of  the  hitherto 
scattered  forces  of  Americanism  will  come  a  flexible  statement 
of  principles  and  methods  that  will  permit  effective  co-operation 
with  organized  Labor  and  Agricultural  workers  in  the  tasks 
of  social  reconstruction. 

So  we  send  out  this  call.  It  is  not  such  an  opportunity  as 
comes  with  every  day.  The  world  is  fluent  now,  and  responds 
readily  to  every  moulding  force ;  but  let  it  find  a  form  and  it 
will  congeal  again  into  resistance  and  immobility.  All  minds 
are  awake  today  ,  as  seldom  before,  all  hearts^  are  astir  with 
hopes  and  open  to  large  purposes ;  but  these  minds  will  shrivel 
once  more  into  their  grooves,  these  hopes  will  lose  their  glow,  if 
we  miss  this  chance  to  organize  the  liberal  intelligence  of  Amer- 
ica into  coherent  voice  and  form.  It  may  be  the  final 
opportunity  of  our  generation. 


LEADERS  OF  THE  NEW  LABOR  PARTIES  AND  OF  THE  ORGANIZED  FARMERS  ARE  LOOKING 
TO  US  AND  EXPECTING  OUR  COOPERATION.    WE  NEED  YOUR  TIME,  ENTHUSIASM,  ADVICE, 

MONEY. 


WILL  YOU  JOIN  US? 


For   the    Committee 


ALLEN    T.    BURNS 
GEORGE   P.   WEST 
ROBERT    W.    BRUERE 
LINCOLN  COLCORD 


JOHN  HAYNES  HOLMES 
OTTO   CULLMAN 
WILL  DURANT 
GEORGE    NASMYTH 
GILBERT   E.    ROE 


CHARLES    ZUEBLIN 
WILLIAM   P.   EVERTS 
ARTHUR    G.    WRAY 
CARL  D.   THOMPSON 
DUDLEY  F.  MALONE 


MARY    H.    INGHAM 
MARY  PATTISON 
CHARLOTTE    P.    OILMAN 
MARY   K.   SIMKHOVITCH 


Write  today  for  further  information  to  the 

COMMITTEE  OF  FORTY-EIGHT 

15  EAST  40TH  STREET 
NEW  YORK 


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1919 


THE  DIAL 


275 


HS^  This  is  the  book  that  was  awarded,  on  New  Year's  Day,  the  Goncourt 
Prize  for  fiction  for  1918.  The  translation,  the  publishers  believe,  is 
a  real  achievement;  and  the  book  is  offered  to  the  American  reading 
public  as  it  is,  without  violently  timid  editorial  adulteration. 

CIVILIZATION 

By  GEORGES  DUHAMEL 

• 

Author  of  "The  Life  of  the  Martyrs,"  etc 

"Civilization"  is  the  title  of  this  book  in  the  original  French.  It  is  ferociously  ironic.  It  is  the 
passionate  cry  of  a  greatly  tender  heart. 

And  what  is  this  book?  It  is  not  a  novel;  it  is  a  book  of  flaming  sketches,  short-stories,  silhouettes, 
the  chief  figures  wounded  French  soldiers,  the  author  a  surgeon  for  four  years  on  an  automobile 
ambulance  at  the  front.  It  is  testimony  by  way  of  literature  as  to  what  the  ordinary  French  man 
is;  it  is  a  survey  of  souls  stripped  naked  by  the  wild  hands  of  war.  It  is  the  story  of  Cousin,  with 
both  legs  off,  and  his  boundless  confidence.  It  is  the  story  of  a  keeper  and  accountant  of  corpses 
who  though  he  cannot  keep  the  count  loves  them  and  all  their  little  individualities  as  if  they  were 
living  people.  It  is  the  story  of  Rabot  who,  being  called  a  hero,  laughs  himself  into  hysterics. 
And  more  like  them. 

.rvntoine,  one  of  the  greatest  critics  of  France,  says  this  of  the  book:  "If  there  remains  there,  beyond 
the  Rhine,  a  single  German  still  capable  of  shedding  the  tears  with  which  I  stained  my  copy  of  this 
book,  nothing  is  lost,  the  world  is  saved." 

(12mo,  288  pages.     $1.50) 


A  PEACE  CONGRESS  OF  INTRIGUE 

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fascinating  narrative,  told  from  many  angles,  of  that 
brilliant,  magnificent,  sinister  conference  of  political 
intrigue,  where  small  nations  were  mere  pawns  in  a 
gigantic  game  of  incredible  and  shameless  selfishness. 
(8vo,  448  pages.  $2.50.) 

RAEMAEKERS'  CARTOON  HISTORY  OF 
THE  WAR  (VOL.  II) 

This  is  the  second  volume  in  the  series  of  four  which, 
when  completed,  will  be  a  pictorial  record  of  the  four 
years  of  war — perhaps  the  most  remarkable  pictorial 
record  of  a  war  the  world  has  ever  known.  Each  volume 
contains  one  hundred  full-page  cartoons,  and  facing 
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text.  (Quarto.  $1.75.) 


WHY  JOAN? 

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ern Kentucky,  without  moonshiners,  revenue  officers 
and  any  of  that  too  familiar  group.  The  novel  is  set  in 
picturesque  Louisville,  but  the  story  is  not  primarily 
of  a  place  but  of  a  human  heart — Joan's  heart.  It  is 
beautifully  done.  (Frontispiece.  $1.50.) 

DIVERGING  ROADS 

By  ROSE  WILDER  LANE 

A  home  with  faithful  love  and  happy  children  in  the 
house,  with  flowers  in  the  front  yard,  with  work  and  joy 
and  content  and  fearlessness — this  was  Helen's  vision 
as  a  school  girl.  But  first  came  wage-labor,  then  the 
glittering  life  of  San  Francisco's  joy-riders  who  love 
highballs  and  hate  inhibitions.  And  then —  '($1.50.) 


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276       THE   DIAL March  22 

A  Prominent  Woman  Author  Furnishes  Her  Evidence  That 

OUT  OF  THE  GREAT  BEYOND 

has  come  through  her 

A    CALL     TO    BROTHERHOOD 

This  call  is  revealed  in  a  new  book,  "  The  Seven  Purposes."  By  the  hand  of  a  woman, 
hitherto  a  welt-known  writer  of  charming  stories,  is  transmitted  a  message  of  thrilling  inter- 
est and  consummate  importance — challenging  the  attention  of  the  thoughtful  and  forward- 
looking,  and  full  of  comfort  and  uplift.  The  author  shows  what  makes  her  believe  that  this 
call  has  come  from  the  great  spiritual  "  Forces  of  Construction  "  to  build  the  world  anew. 

The  Seven  Purposes 

By  MARGARET  CAMERON 

Whether  or  not  you  believe  in  a  Life  After  Death — Whether  or  not  you  accept  this 
Message  as  a  Revelation  from  the  "  Other  Side  "  -Whatever  you  may  conclude  as  to 
its  source — You  cannot  afford  to  miss  the  great  Vision,  the  new  Philosophy  of  Life, 
of  Right  Human  Relationships  and  World  Progress  set  forth  in  this  unique  book. 

Among  the  hundreds  of  letters  that  have  come  to  Margaret  Cameron  from  thinking 
men  and  women  of  high  standing  and  high  intelligence  and  culture  the  country 
over  is  one  from  a  lifelong  student  of  religions,  in  which  he  says  in  part: 

"  /  stand  amazed  at  what  has  come  through  you  to  a  waiting  ztforld!  .  .  .  There  is 
nothing  new  about  truth,  but  there  IS  something  new  about  this  presentation  of  truth, 
and  I  consider  this  the  greatest  contribution  to  ethics  that  I  have  ever  seen.  Theoretical 
religion  has  been  omitted  and  the  most  practical  religion  presented.  Both  have  their 
place,  but  just  noiv,  in  this  rationalistic  age,  the  practical  will  gain  the  attention  of  the 
busy  man  ivhen  the  theoretical  and  sentimental  would  leave  him  cold  and  uninterested." 

It  is  indeed  a  Revelation — whether  divine  or  not  you  must  decide 

for  yourself— this  CALL  TO  BROTHERHOOD— But  read  it 

at  once ;  it  must  give  you  uplift  and  broader  world  vision. 

The  Seven  Purposes 


Established  1817 


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1919 


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277 


LANE  LEADERS-SPRING.  1919 


Another  Dawson  Success! 

LIVING 
BAYONETS 

A  Record  of  the  Last  Push 
By  LIEUT.  CONINGSBY  DAWSON 
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Glory  of  the  Trenches,"  etc.          Cloth,  $1.25  net. 
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among  the  great  consolations  and  inspirations  of 
the  war,  and  this  latest  of  them,  written  at  the 
climax  of  the  great  struggle,  is  the  best  of  all." 
— New  York  Tribune. 


The  Epic  of  the  Poilu 

THE  "CHARMED 
AMERICAN" 

A  Story  of  the   Iron   Division  of  France 

By  GEORGES  LEWYS 

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A  Frenchman's  View  of 

PRESIDENT 
WILSON 

By  DANIEL  HALEVY 
Translated  by  Hugh  Stokes. 


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America's  Miracle  in  France 

s.  o.  s. 

(Service  of  Supply) 

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DOMUS 
DOLORIS 

By  W.  OOMPTON  LEITH 

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A  FORTNIGHTLY 


How  to  Treat  Germany 


WH 


'HAT  is  AT  THE  BOTTOM  of  the  feeling  of  paraly- 
sis and  pessimism  which,  by  universal  consent,  is  so 
current  in  Paris  after  two  months  of  labor  by  the 
Conference?  One  may  point  to  a  few  illuminating 
factors.  Entente  policy — particularly  French  policy 
— is  at  this  moment  directed  towards  two  mutually 
exclusive  objects,  two  divergent  ends. 

Let  us  take  the  ^material  aspect  first.  M.  Tardieu 
declared  the  other  day  that  Germany  must  be  pre- 
vented from  reestablishing  her  industries,  because 
economic  restoration  would  ultimately  lead  to  mili- 
tary restoration,  and  because,  since  Germany  had 
not  been  devastated,  she  would  be  able  to  restore  her 
industries  very  much  more  rapidly  than  France  and 
so  by  advantage  in  competition  strangle  French  trade 
permanently — kill  France  as  an  economic  rival. 
That  this  is  a  popular  French  view  will  be  proved 
by  a  five  minute  talk  with  a  French  tradesman. 

Yet  sooner  or  later  it  will  be  necessary  to  com- 
pel French  opinion — and  Allied  opinion  generally 
— to  face  the  fact  that  if  Germany  is  to  pay  an 
indemnity,  even  to  help  Belgian  and  French  restora- 
tion in  a  moderate  degree,  she  must  be  permitted 
to  reestablish  her  industries,  particularly  her  agri- 
culture and  communications.  The  view  expressed 
in  the  press  is  that  Germany's  shortness  of  food, 
lack  of  locomotives,  and  loss  of  agricultural  ma- 
chinery is  a  just  punishment.  Granting  that  this 
is  sound  enough  morally,  to  couple  it  with  the  de- 
mand for  big  indemnities  as  part  of  the  punishment 
is  to  ask  economic  miracles.  It  must  by  now  be 
obvious  that  without  ample  food,  raw  materials, 
and  improved  communications,  Germany  can  pay 
no  indemnity  worth  while. 

But  the  present  French  temper  insists  not  alone 
on  economic  but  on  political  and  moral  miracles. 
We  are  asking  that  the  people  whom  we  declare 
to  be  the  least  politically  minded  in  Europe,  the 
most  wedded  to  discipline  and  routine,  shall,  as  an 
earnest  of  their  intention  to  break  with  the  past, 
not  only  in  a  few  weeks  sweep  away  twenty 
dynasties  and  establish  a  parliamentary  republic, 
but  shall,  during  the  widespread  chaos  of  defeat 
and  revolution  and  demobilization,  tear  up  all  their 
political  institutions  by  the  roots,  including  the 


bureaucratic  organizations  of  twenty  states — organ- 
izations which  can  alone  prevent  reconstruction  de- 
veloping into  anarchy.  We  take  it  as  proof  of  ob- 
stinate persistence  in  sin  that  officials  of  the  old 
order  still  remain,  that  old  political  parties,  with 
slight  change  of  program,  still  retain  much  power. 
Nevertheless  while  we  refuse  to  believe  in  any 
change  in  the  German  heart  because  of  this  failure 
to  make  root  and  branch  changes,  we  insist,  almost 
in  the  same  breath,  that  any  drift  of  power  to  the 
extreme  left,  any  capture  of  the  government  by 
Bolshevism,  will  be  proof  of  the  nation's  intention 
to  evade  its  obligations  by  "  organized  disorder," 
and  will  be  ample  justification  for  our  military  oc- 
cupation of  the  country. 

Nor  is  this  all.     We  demand  as  final  proof  of 
change  of  heart  that  all  attempts  to  revive  the  coun- 
try's  military   power   be   abandoned:   that   it   turn 
from  this  preoccupation  altogether.     Yet  meantime 
we   make   no   provision   for   insuring   the   German 
people  protection  for  those  rights  which  we  have 
again  and  again  declared  she  is  entitled  to,  what- 
ever her   guilt — the   right,   for    instance,   of  indis- 
putably German  populations  to  self-determination. 
In  East  Prussia,    West    Prussia,    Silesia,    Dantzig, 
German  Bohemia,  are  populations  whose  precise  na- 
tionality the  Allied  Conference  admits  still  remains 
to  be  determined.     That  must  be  the  work  of  the 
Peace  Conference.  But  meantime  Polish  or  Czecho- 
slovak troops,  or  the  Polish  or  Czech  sections  of 
the  population,  take  measures  to  forestall  the  de- 
cision of  the  Conference  and  present  it  with  a  fait 
accompli.     What  is  Germany  to  do?    Acquiesce  in 
the  subjugation  of  German  populations?     Would 
not  that  be  asking  for  a  /^-patriotism  which  we 
declare  to  be  a  crime  in  the  case  of  other  peoples? 
No  nationally  minded  people  in  the  world  will  take 
such  a  position.     To  ask  it  is,  again,  to  ask  moral 
miracles.     Two  courses  are  open :  either  to  make  it 
plain  to  the  German  people  that  we  intend  to  pro- 
tect  their   nationality  against   the   attacks  of   even 
our  own  Allies,  Polish  or  Czecho-Slovak,  and  for 
that  purpose  will  refuse  aid  and  will  even  restrain 
those  Allies  when   they  attempt  to  anticipate  the 
decisions  of  the  Peace  Conference ;  or  to  allow  Ger- 


280 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


many  to  organize  her  own  defense  by  the  recreation 
of  some  measure  of  her  former  military  power.  We 
do  not  in  any  real  sense  adopt  the  former  policy 
(beyond  a  Platonic  lecture  to  unnamed  parties  on 
the  wickedness  of  trying  to  present  the  Conference 
with  a  fait  accompli),  and  when  as  an  inevitable 
consequence  Germany  herself  adopts  the  second  we 
point  to  it  as  proof  of  her  incurable  militarism  and 
duplicity. 

We  go  still  further.  Observing  that  Germany's 
sufferings  have  provoked  in  the  people,  not  a  sense 
of  guilt,  but  only  a  sense  of  self-pity,  we  demand 
some  dramatic  and  visible  sign  of  repentance, 
although  we  admit  that  the  failure  to  realize  any 
sense  of  guilt  is  caused  partly  by  the  way  in  which 
the  late  government  managed  to  hide  from  the 
people  the  moral  facts  of  the  war  and  partly  by  the 
way  in  which  a  narrow-visioned  people  tend  to  con- 
centrate their  emotions  upon  the  sufferings  of  which 
they  are  victims  and  to  blame  those  sufferings  to 
their  enemy.  Obviously  our  primary  task  is  to 
show  the  German  people  not  by  our  words  and  our 
propaganda,  but  by  our  acts  and  our  policy,  that 
they  have  been  lied  to  concerning  the  character  of 
their  enemy  and  his  objects,  and  that  the  way  of 
"  repentance  "  is  a  way  which  a  German  with  due 
regard  to  future — and  consequently  innocent — 
German  generations  can  tread. 

It  ought  to  be  clear  that  there  can  be  no  sense 
of  guilt  or  of  moral  inferiority  on  Germany's  part 
if  her  present  enemies  are  guilty  to  any  degree  of 
the  very  crimes  of  which  we  want  the  German 
people  to  repent.  Yet  there  is  a  dangerous  tendency 
in  Allied  opinion  at  this  moment  to  refuse  con- 
demnation of  certain  Allied  policies  because  they 
are  venial  compared  to  the  monstrousness  of  the 
German  offense.  Any  criticism,  say,  of  the  pro- 
posed annexation  of  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  or 
of  the  blockade,  or  of  the  retention  of  German 
prisoners  for  forced  labor,  or  of  Polish,  Czecho- 
slovak, Roumanian,  or  Italian  plans  of  conquest, 
is  met  by  the  citation  of  much  greater  offenses  on 
the  part  of  Germany.  This  is  mere  moral  chaos. 
Because  one  man  is  a  murderer  does  not  excuse 
another  man  for  being  a  thief.  The  government 
of  peoples  against  their  wish  will  not  be  less  polit- 
ically demoralizing  on  Czechs,  Poles,  Italians,  and 
French  because  in  the  past  Czechs,  Poles,  Italians, 
and  French  have  themselves  been  governed  against 
their  wish.  But  more  pertinently  perhaps,  Ger- 
mans will  not  be  helped  to  see  the  wickedness  of 
allowing  children  to  be  drowned  at  sea  as  part  of 
a  military  policy  by  seeing  their  own  children 
starved  to  death  as  part  of  a  peace  policy.  That 
is  not  the  way  human  nature  works;  it  is  to  mis- 
construe it  altogether,  and  particularly  to  miscon- 


strue stupid  or  criminal  human  nature — which  we 
declare  German  nature  to  be.  The  stupider  and 
narrower  the  German  mentality  the  more  likely  are 
Germans  to  take  some  feature  of  our  policy  as  proof 
that  the  Allies  are  capable,  when  their  policy  de- 
mands it,  of  cruelty  as  great  as  that  of  which  the 
Germans  were  guilty.  Since  the  Armistice  we  have 
given  them  plenty  of  excuses  for  that  interpretation 
of  our  acts.  And  such  a  conclusion  is  fatal  to  that 
sense  of  moral  inferiority  which  is  the  beginning  of 
a  sense  of  guilt.  Indeed  it  may  be  asked  if  it  is  not 
already  too  late  for  German  repentance. 

For  there  are  certain  features  of  Allied  policy 
which  are  particularly  impressing  German  imagina- 
tion at  this  moment  and  tending  to  form  the  German 
attitude,  to  shape  the  German  policy.  The  first  is 
the  fact  of  the  blockade  maintained  after  Germany's 
naval  disarmament.  It  raises  the  whole  question  of 
"  navalism  "  versus  "  Freedom  of  the  Seas  "  in  its 
acutest  form.  The  position  of  Germany  is  much 
worse  in  this  respect  after  the  disappearance  of  her 
fleet  than  it  was  when  she  was  a  great  naval  power. 
The  Baltic  at  least  was  open  to  her  trade  during  the 
war.  Now  it  is  closed.  Not  only  is  it  closed  to  mer- 
chant shipping :  even  fishing  is  stopped.  Germany's 
fishermen  are  not  even  allowed  to  add  to  the  slender 
store  of  food  in  the  home  country.  Meantime  the 
Armistice  demand  for  the  delivery  of  agricultural 
machinery,  taken  in  conjunction  with  transport  dis- 
location and  the  loss  of  fertilizers,  threatens  to  make 
the  coming  harvest  the  worst  that  Germany  has 
known. 

But  the  fact  which  more  than  anything  else  per- 
haps is  molding  the  feelings  and  opinions  which  will 
determine  the  direction  to  be  taken  by  the  new  Ger- 
many is  the  proposed  retention  of  the  prisoners  of 
war  for  forced  labor  in  France.  The  term  "  pro- 
posed "  does  not  mean  that  the  proposal  has  been 
put  forward  by  the  French  government — and  one 
may  hope  that  no  such  idea  has  been  seriously  en- 
tertained— but  that  it  is  currently  discussed  in  the 
French  press.  It  is  commonly  defended  as  a 
"  stern  but  just  measure,  "  justified  by  the  dev- 
astation which  "  Germany  "  has  wrought.  Let  us 
examine  its  justice  by  reference  to  the  realities  of 
responsibility. 

Here  is  an  individual  German  prisoner:  a  young 
married  peasant  (among  the  prisoners,  by  the  way, 
arc  Poles,  Danes,  Alsatians,  Bavarians,  Austrians, 
and  Slavs  of  various  branches).  At  home  he  has 
a  wife  and  two  young  children.  He  was  captured 
early  in  the  war  and  has  been  a  prisoner  for  nearly 
five  years.  Here  is  another  of  different  type:  a 
music  teacher,  dreamy,  artistic,  unpractical.  At 
home  he  supported  his  mother.  Incidentally  his 
physique  makes  him  a  poor  laborer.  He  also  has 


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281 


lived  nearly  five  years  in  a  prison  camp.  In  a  few 
years,  as  with  many  others,  his  mind  will  have  gone. 
To  the  five  years  these  men  have  already  suffered 
it  is  proposed  to  add  five,  ten,  or  fifteen  years  more 
of  penal  servitude.  For  what  crime  that  they  in- 
dividually have  committed?  It  is  not  even  alleged 
that  they  have  taken  part  in  the  unnamable  atroci- 
ties that  marked  the  march  of  their  army.  Are  they 
to  be  punished  for  being  a  part  of  the  army — for 
having  submitted  to  conscription  in  the  early  part 
of  the  war?  But  we  ourselves  have  laid  down  the 
law  that  a  conscript  cannot  refuse  to  serve  merely 
because  he  disapproves  of  the  political  purpose  for 
which  a  war  is  fought.  These  two  prisoners,  like 
so  many  others,  were  very  hazy  in  their  political 
opinions.  Suddenly,  out  of  the  blue,  they)  had  been 
told  that  their  country  was  at  war — that  it  had  been 
attacked.  They  knew  nothing  of  the  Serbian  ulti- 
matum, of  Balkan  quarrels.  They  had  no  means 
of  getting  at  the  facts.  They  knew  as  little  of  them 
as  did  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Russian  conscripts 
who  were  mobilizing  on  the  other  side  of  the  fron- 
tier. They  had  been  taught — as  Russians,  Japanese, 
Italians,  French,  British,  and  Americans  are  taught 
today — that  it  was  their  duty  to  respond  to  their 
.country's  call  wfthout  too  much  questioning  of  the 
orders  of  the  constituted  authorities,  still  less  with- 
out questioning  what  foreigners  said  against  their 
country.  They  knew  they  were  perhaps  going  to 
their  deaths;  they  knew  that  for  them  there  would 
be  neither  profit  nor  glory — they  obeyed.  And  now, 
with  no  reference  whatever  to  any  special  guilt  even 
alleged  against  them,  they  will  be  condemned  to 
half  a  lifetime  of  penal  servitude.  Their  children 
will  grow  to  manhood  and  womanhood  in  Germany, 
knowing  that  their  father — for  no  proved  or  even 
alleged  offense — is,  by  the  very  nations 'that  have 
declared  they  fought  a  war  for  justice  and  right, 
held  in  slavery.  For  Germany  a  legend  will  grow 
out  of  this  war.  The  children  who  have  never  seen 
their  fathers — those  fathers  thus  reduced  to  slavery 
— will  be  the  disseminators  of  this  legend.  And 
finally  in  ten,  twenty,  or  thirty  years,  when  Ger- 
many has  in  some  measure  regained  her  strength 
perhaps,  and  the  whirligig  of  politics  has  given  her 
new  allies  in  an  organized  Russia  or  a  Danubian 
Confederation,  these  million  men,  enflamed  with  the 
memory  of  a  lifetime  of  slavery,  will  return  to  their 
country  to  be  part  of  that  public  opinion  which  must 
be  rallied  to  the  support  of  that  new  world  which 
we  must  build,  Mr.  Lloyd  George  tells  us,  "  on 
exact  and  scrupulous  justice,  on  high  ideals  of  right- 
eous humanity  and  generosity."  It  is  thus  that  Ger- 
many is  to  be  won  from  her  old  evil  past  of  mili- 
tarism, suspicion,  distrust,  and  hate. 

And  meantime  of  course,  in  these  lesser  wars  be- 


tween Poles  and  Ukrainians,  or  Czecho- Slovaks  and 
Roumanians — which  we  seem  unable  to  prevent 
since  they  are  now  going  on — the  same  methods 
will  be  justified.  Polish  landowners  will  in  the 
future  use  their  influence  with  their  governments  to 
hold  Russian  or  Slovak  prisoners  of  war  to  forced 
labor  as  part  of  a  just  indemnity.  The  new  world 
of  Mr.  Wilson's  Society  of  Nations  will  be  singu- 
larly like  an  older  world  in  which  peoples  could  be 
carried  into  captivity,  a  world  which  we  thought  to 
have  left  behind  us  some  thousand  years  ago. 

Now  it  is  most  unlikely  that  there  is  any  intention 
whatsoever  of  putting  such  a  policy  -as  this  into 
execution.  But  in  that  case  would  it  not  be  as  well 
to  say  so  explicitly  before  the  mere  rumor  has  grown 
into  an  all  but  indestructable  legend  in  Germany,  a 
legend  it  may  take  years  to  destroy? 

The  fact  is  that  the  success  of  the  League  of 
Nations  will  now  depend  less  upon  the  form  of 
machinery  which  the  Allies  may  devise  than  upon 
whether  the  spirit  which  must  animate  any  success- 
ful League  is  imported  into  their  actual  policy 
towards  one  another  and  towards  the  enemy  during 
the  next  few  months. 

What  are  the  elements  of  success  in  that  policy? 
They  might  be  enumerated  as  follows: 

1 i )  Any  dependable  policy  of  German  disarmament 
must  be  preceded  by  an  obvious  intention  on  the 
part  of  the  Allies  to  protect  German  rights  and  to 
act  impartially;  to  oppose  unjust  claims,  whether 
made  by  Czechs,  Italians,  French,  or  Poles. 

(2)  If  an  idealistic  policy  is  proclaimed,  it  must  be 
carried  out  sincerely.     (After  inviting  the  Bolshe- 
viki  to  meet  Allied  representatives  and  to  arrange 
a  truce,  the  newspapers  bring  us  news  of   (a) 
"  great   Allied   victories   against   the    Bolsheviki 
troops"  in  the  Northern  Territories  and  (b)   a 
statement  by  M.  Pichon  that  the  Allies  had  never 
invited  the  Bolsheviki  to  meet  Allied  representa- 
tives— though  the    names    of    the    delegates    had 
been  published — but  only  to  talk  with  other  Rus- 
sian governments!) 

(3)  We  must  realize  that  if  Germany  is  to  pay 
an  indemnity  or  to  help  in  reconstructing  France 
and  Belgium  we  must  adopt  a  policy  which  will 
help  instead  of   hindering   her   starting   fyer    na- 
tional life  after  the  dislocation  of  defeat  and  rev- 
olution.    The   blockade   must   be   relaxed    (M. 
Klotz  demands  its  stiffening  "  in  the  interest  of 
French  industry  "  !),  and  such  things  as  the  pro- 
hibition of  Baltic  fisheries  must  not  be  attempted. 

(4)  An  end  should  be  put  to  such  legends  as  the 
intention  of  retaining  prisoners  of  war  for  long 
periods  as  forced  laborers.     There  should  be  im- 
mediate repatriation  of  the  sick  and  wounded  and 


282 


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March  22 


some  definite  arrangements  made  concerning  the 
repatriation  of  the  others. 

(5)  Seizure  of  German  rolling  stock,  agricultural 
machinery,   and  so  on  should  be  guided  by  the 
need  for  the  greatest  total  world  production  of 
food  during  the  coming  year. 

(6)  In  order  to  help  keep  certain  too  clever  poli- 
ticians up  to  the  standard  they  proclaim  in  the 
matter  of  high  ideals   and  the  abandonment  of 
imperialistic  aims,  and  so  on,  the  censorship  should 
be  abolished  entirely,  and  the  utmost  publicity  of 


all  negotiations  from  now  on  demanded.  And 
since  Allied  correspondents  are  now  freely  ad- 
mitted into  Germany  and  Austria,  opinion  in 
those  countries  would  be  greatly  helped  in  their 
fight  against  the  "  old  gang  "  and  their  counter- 
revolutionary intrigues  if  they  had  correspond- 
ents in  the  Allied  capitals  who  could  give  sym- 
pathetic interpretations  of  news  items  exploited 
by  German  reactionaries  in  an  anti-Entente 

sense.  XT 

NORMAN  ANGELL. 

Paris.    Passed  by  Base  Censor,  A.  E.  F. 


Good  Form  and  Orthodoxy 


OIR  ARTHUR  QUILLER-COUCH  offers  us  in  his 
Studies  in  Literature   (Putnam;  $2.50)   a  series  of 
very   pleasant   talks   on    life   and   letters,    most   of 
which  were  originally  given  before  a  class  of  un- 
dergraduates at  Cambridge.    There  is  nothing  here 
to  match  the  acerbity  of  the  famous  essay  on  Jargon 
(terrifying  to  journalists)  in  the  earlier  volume,  On 
the  Art  of  Writing.     And  naturally  not,  since  Sir 
Arthur  is  dealing  with  established  excellence   and 
not  with  the  slackness  of  his  contemporaries.     He  is, 
indeed,  hardly  at  his  best  in  the  immediate  present. 
For    a   novelist,    he   has   an   oddly    cloistral    spirit 
and     unadventurous    nerves;     the     fluid,     shifting 
world  seems  to  elude  and  irritate  him  until  it  has 
been  immobilized  in  a  masterpiece  or  turned  into 
the  abstract  nobility  of  a  verbal  symbol.     To  these 
he  gives  his  fullest  loyalty.     It  is  a  way  to  be  quiet. 
It  is  a  way  to  possess  oneself  and  not  to  be  possessed 
by  change.     There  is   a  phrase   of  Wordsworth's 
that    is    often    on    his    lips — that    "wise    passivity" 
which  is  the  ultimate  wisdom  for  poets.    Well,  Sir 
Arthur  has  something  like  a  gift  for  passivity,  and 
the  writers  who  reflect  it  have,  I  suspect,  his  special 
devotion.     But  he  is  catholic  and  a  genuine  lover 
of  literature,  whose  enthusiasms  are  none  the  less 
real    for   being   invariably   temperate   and    mellow. 
You  feel  only  that  they  have  been  lived  with  for  a 
long   time    and    have    thus    acquired    all    the    self- 
authenticating  force  of  old  habits — in  this  case,  in- 
deed, almost  of  national  habits,  for  Sir  Arthur  is 
rarely    idiosyncratic.      To    defend    them    excitedly 
would  occur  to  him  as  little  as  to  urge  them  on 
others  with  missionary  zeal.    Accordingly,  his  man- 
ner is  as  far  as  possible  from  the  dogmatic.     He 
recommends;   he   never   imposes.     And   he  recom- 
mends with  a  charming  urbanity  which  is  possible, 
I  think,  only  to  the  critic  who  relies  wholly  on  taste 
and  prefers  to  remain  silent  on  most  of  the  prob- 
lems about  which  taste  has  nothing  very  profitable 
to  say. 


The    material    here    is,    for    the    most    part,    so 
familiar — Coleridge,    Matthew   Arnold,    Meredith, 
Swinburne,    Mr.    Hardy — that   the  „  chief   problem 
is   (for  so  expert  a  craftsman  as  Sir  Arthur)    the 
always    congenial    one    of    handling.      Sir    Arthur 
has  a  great  deal  of  the  French  neatness.    The  essays 
flow  smoothly  in  themselves  and  flow  smoothly  into 
one  another  with  just  the  right  degree  of  casual- 
ness  to  efface  the  last  trace  of  effort.      (In  essence 
this  is  only  literary  good  form.)     There  is  nothing 
of  pedantry   and  no  hint  of   a  worked-up   theme. 
Sir  Arthur   is  simply  sharing  his   discoveries  in   a 
field   that  stimulates  his  spontaneous   interests.      I 
have  said  that  he  is  rarely  idiosyncratic,  except  in 
a  touch  here  and  there  of  the  romantic,  as  in  what 
he  has  to  say  of  Coleridge's  premature  exhaustion: 
"In  other  words,  let  us  inquire  if,  in  a  man  who 
performed   that  miracle    [The  Ancient   Mariner], 
his    failure    to    perform    others    may    not    more 
charitably  be  set  down  to  a  divine  exhaustion  than 
charged    upon   his    frailties."      Like   James    Dykes 
Campbell     (Coleridge's    biographer),    Sir    Arthur 
indeed  honors  the  poet's  memory  throughout  only 
a  little  "on  this  side  idolatry."    Towards  those  who 
are    more    nearly    his    contemporaries — Meredith, 
Swinburne    and    Mr.    Hardy — Sir   Arthur    adopts 
a  more  reserved   tone,   and,   especially  in   the   bio- 
graphical sketch  of  Swinburne,  a  less  conventional 
note    than    elsewhere    in    dealing   with    established 
greatness.    True,  he  only  follows  here  Mr.  Gosse's 
example   in    discreetly   agitating   but   never   lifting 
the  veil  before  that  "great  figure,  a  spent  god  and 
asleep  under  the  pines   [Putney]."     But  in  resort- 
ing even   to   agitation,    Sir  Arthur  rather  exceeds 
his  usual  practice.     The  tone  is  more  likely  to  be 
that  in  which  he  writes  of  George  Herbert :     "  A 
life — as  you   read  of  it  in  Walton — so  delicately 
holy,  so  fragrant  of  the  Wiltshire  water  meadows 
along  which  the  biographer  himself  wandered  with 
his  rod,  fishing  for  trout  and  'studying  to  be  quiet,' 


THE  DIAL 


283 


that  it  seemed  made  to  tick  on  and  on  like  a  well- 
oiled  clock."  In  a  word,  the  impression  one  gets 
is  that  of  a  prevailing  orthodoxy.  I  don't  refer  to 
Sir  Arthur's  gingerly  attitude  to  "doctrine,"  which 
is  that  of  a  cat  with  hot  milk.  After  all,  some 
allowance  must  be  made,  I  suppose,  for  any  King 
Edward  VII  Professor  of  English  Literature  in  the 
University  of  Cambridge,  though  it  becomes  in- 
creasingly hard  to  visualize  the  force  of  that  particu- 
lar taboo  in  John  Bull's  Island  and  reconcile  it 
with  other  forces  now  rather  noticeably  at  work. 
Even  the  stupendous  paradox  of  Mr.  Belloc  doesn't 
help  us  much. 

No.  The  orthodoxy  here  is  stretched  to  cover 
the  Englishman's  customary  world  from  the 
periphery  of  Empire  to  th6  center  of  good  form, 
which  Sir  Arthur  never  sees  as  a  possible  ex- 
tinguisher of  thought,  but  only  as  an  ultimate 
achievement  in  the  world-old  struggle  to  produce 
the  first  man  made  perfect.  Now,  in  this  strident 
world,  it  is  the  exceptionally  noisy  persons  who 
identify  themselves  with  terms  and  make  the  terms 
over  in  their  own  image,  and  so  Mr.  Chesterton 
has  misled  many  who  are  less  familiar  with  ortho- 
doxy than  were  our  grandfathers.  But  he  is  largely 
a  sham.  Orthodoxy  consists  in  believing  what  your 
fathers  believed  and  not  in  finding  reasons  why  you 
need  not  disbelieve.  Sir  Arthur  really  apprehends 
the  rnood,  whereas  Mr.  Chesterton  means  little 
more  than  loyalty  to  your  private  idiosyncrasies 
camouflaged  in  the  correct  institutional  wardrobe. 
The  difference  is  considerable.  Mr.  Chesterton's 
orthodoxy  does  not  relieve  the  cerebral  strain  to 
which  he  is  put  every  time  he  indicts  an  article.  If 
anything,  he  has  more  trouble  than  the  heterodox, 
because  he  is  always  thinking  of  them  and  trying 
to  circumvent  their  subtle  wickedness.  But  they 
do  not  enter  into  Sir  Arthur's  mind  at  all,  and 
orthodoxy  means  for  him  precisely  what  it  should 
mean — a  quiet  conscience.  He  has  been  ruffled  as 
little  by  the  war  as  by  the  intellectual  ferment  that 
preceded  it;  he  has  lived  straight  on  above  the 
battle — whether  of  blood  and  iron  or  of  ideas.  To 
ideas  in  general,  indeed,  his  attitude  is  strictly 
aristocratic  and  has  more  than  a  trace  of  aristo- 
cratic insufficiency.  This  nonchalance  constitutes 
a  peril  for  Sir  Arthur:  his  commodity  is  not  always, 
so  to  speak,  Grade  i ;  a  certain  staleness  emanates 
from  it.  Thus  he  can  write  of  the  Germans :  "  It 
has  been-  the  curse  of  Germany  that,  mistaking  the 
human  end  of  education  and  misconceiving  what 
'power'  means  in  the  saying  'Knowledge  is  Power,' 
she  has  strained  herself  to  it  beyond  preparation  of 
ancestry  or  manners."  Or  of  the  proprieties :  "  In 
ordinary  social  life  we  know  that  a  well-bred  man 


naturally  inclines  to  let  his  ancestry  (or  his  rank; 
or  his  riches,  if  he  have  them;  or  any  personal  dis- 
tinction he  has  won)  go  silently  for  granted;  not 
undervaluing  them,  but  taught  to  see  them  in  their 
true  value  as  gifts  at  the  best  held  in  trusteeship 
from  the  gods."  A  countryman  of  Edward  Car- 
penter and  Havelock  Ellis,  he  can  write  of  Hardy's 
grim  challenge  to  the  stupidities  and  brutalities  of 
sex,  of  the  pitiful  agonizing  of  Tess :  "  Say  what 
you  will,  this  indignation  in  Hardy  is  noble,  is 
chivalrous,  and,  as  the  world  is  worked,  it  has  much 
reason  at  the  back  of  its  furious  'Why  ?-Why  ?- 
Why?'" 

Instances  might  be  multiplied  (especially  the 
Victorian  stuffiness  of  a  paragraph  in  the  essay  on 
Arnold  that  eluded  his  critical  censor),  but  the 
most  serious  inadequacy  shows  itself  in  his  treat- 
ment of  the  war  and  that  "sacred  emotion,  love 
of  one's  country."  As  for  the  war  itself,  there  is 
something  like  an  implication  that  it  was  owing  to 
a  lack  of  good  form  in  the  German  nation — "that 
itch  for  self-assertion  which  is  the  root-bane  of 
good  manners."  As  for  patriotism,  it  is  obvious  to 
him  that  the  English — in  common  with  "great 
nations  of  the  past"— take  it  in  the  definitely  right 
way — with  a  trace  of  shyness.  Sir  Arthur  is  de- 
fending the  Socrates  of  the  Menexenus  against  any 
possible  suspicion  of  a  taint  of  disloyalty.  Socrates 
(or  Plato  for  him)  is  dealing  with  the  patrioteers 
of  his  day  in  quite  the  disillusioned  modern  spirit, 
and  being  at  home  with  irony — and,  anyway,  none 
too  respectable — he  leaves  it  to  his  friendly  com- 
mentators to  delimit,  or  denature,  his  satire  and 
supply  the  protective  gloss.  Sir  Arthur's  seems  to 
me  inimitable  and  a  good  note  on  which  to  close: 

If  a  man's  mind  be  accustomed,  as  Plato's  was,  to  move 
reverently  among  holy  things  and  so  that  his  appreciation 
of  them  has  become  a  second  nature,  he  can  afford 
(whether  he  speak  of  poetry,  or  of  art,  or  of  religion)  to 
play  with  his  adored  one  even  as  a  tactful  lover  may 
tease  his  mistress,  and  the  pair  of  them  find  in  it  a  pretty 
refreshment  of  love.  For  he  knows  exactly  where  to  stop, 
as  she  what  to  allow.  ...  It  may  seem  a  long  way — 
even  a  longer  way  than  to  Tipperary — from  the  polite 
irony  of  Menexenus  to  the  cheerful  irony  of  the  English 
private  soldier,  now  fighting  for  us  on  the  Belgian  border. 
But  I  suggest  to  you  that  his  irony  too  plays  with  patriot- 
ism just  because  he  is  at  home  with  that  holy  spirit;  so 
much  at  home  that  he  may  be  called  at  any  hour  of  the, 
day  or  night  to  die  for  it.  Precisely  because  he  lives  in 
this  intimacy,  he  is  shy  of  revealing  it,  and  from  shy  turns 
to  scornful  when  the  glib  uninitiate  would  vulgarize  the 
mystery. 

You  see  what  it  is  to  take  life  on  the  wing — or 
disinter  it  from  the  slime  and  blood  and  filth  of  a 
trench  in  Flanders — and  turn  it  into  the  noble  im- 
mobility of  Art.  Pygmalion's  feat  was  nothing 
beside  it,  really. 

GEORGE  DONLIN. 


284 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


English  Opportunism  and  the  League  of  Nations 


J.HE  ROMANCE  OF  A  LEAGUE  of  nations  is  gone. 
We  now  face  cold  realities — a  definite  though  com- 
plex scheme  of  international  management,  obscure 
with  the  detail  of  governmental  mechanics,  and  re- 
vealing all  the  uncertainties  that  arise  when  ideas 
are  put  into  the  confines  of  print.  The  age  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  is  past ;  we  are  in  the 
era  of  the  Federalist.  The  conflict  as  to  the  theories 
of  political  control  is  now  definite  and  sharp.  The 
great  debate  has  begun.  Already  we  hear  com- 
plaints, first  feeble  but  now  harsh,  that  the  scheme 
of  a  league  of  nations  was  made  in  England,  and, 
if  adopted,  will  be  a  triumph  of  English  govern- 
mental theories.  The  playboy  of  the  Senate — petu- 
lant Senator  Borah — who  first  heartened  us  by  his 
vigorous  Liberalism  and  now  has  lapsed  into  the 
absurdities  of  abounding  egotism,  grounds  his  op- 
position to  the  League  chiefly  on  that  complaint. 
And  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  League  of  Na- 
tions in  spirit,  in  theory,  and  in  mechanics  is  Eng- 
lish; that  it  stands  as  a  masterpiece  of  English  op- 
portunism and  must  be  considered  as  the  full  flow- 
ering of  the  principles  of  the  British  Empire.  The 
mere  fact  that  General  Smuts,  or  some  other  Eng- 
lishman, anticipated  or  suggested  much  of  the 
mechanics  of  the  League  is  of  little  significance ;  the 
controlling  fact  is  that  the  spirit  and  attitude  of  mind 
toward  the  problems  of  government  of  the  whole 
plan  is  British.  Is  that  a  reason  for  rejecting  the 
plan  ?  On  the  contrary  is  it  not  a  reason  for  scrut- 
inizing the  theory  of  English  governmental  oppor- 
tunism fairly  and  frankly? 

Unhappily  most  of  us  know  little  about  the  Eng- 
lish Empire  except  a  few  prejudiced  generalities. 
The  interesting  and  admirable  sketch  of  the  Eng- 
lish Empire  by  Professor  Edward  Jenks  (The  Gov- 
ernment of  the  British  Empire — Little,  Brown;  $2), 
comes  at  an  opportune  time.  Though  Professor 
Jenks  modestly  disclaims  any  higher  purpose  for  his 
brief  book  than  the  furnishing  of  an  introduction  to 
the  longer  and  more  erudite  texts,  nevertheless  his 
work,  both  in  terseness  and  lucidity,  not  to  speak 
of  keenness  of  analysis,  is  not  outshone  by  the 
learned  books  with  which  it  competes.  Indeed, 
it  is  more  illuminating  than  any  recent  treatment 
of  the  English  government  except  President 
Lowell's  enduring  masterpiece.  On  finishing  Pro- 
fessor Jenks'  discussion  of  the  English  Empire 
one  is  reminded  of  Voltaire's  familiar  epigram 
about  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  that  "  it  was 
neither  an  empire,  nor  Roman,  nor  holy."  The 
English  Empire  appears  far  indeed  from  imperial; 
it  seems  a  chaos  of  inconsistencies  and  intangible 


mannerisms  of  government.  The  elements  of  the 
Empire  seem  all  to  do  as  they  please^  to  demand 
diametrically  opposite  things;  and  yet  the  Empire 
stands  firm  as  Gibraltar.  As  Professor  Jenks  says, 
"to  many  critics  such  a  system  appears  to  be  sheer 
political  lunacy ;  but  the  results  challenge  a  compari- 
son which  probably  causes  a  good  deal  of  envy  to 
mingle  with  their  contempt."  And  what  is  far 
more  perplexing,  the  whole  system  of  the  English 
Empire,  to  the  pessimist,  may  well  seem  on  the  point 
of  collapsing.  What  part  shall  the  self-governing 
dominions  play  in  imperial  policies?  What  of  India 
or  Ireland?  Can  there  be  an  Empire  if.  Hughes 
of  Australia  defies  the  head  of  the  English  Empire  ? 
The  Empire  has  been  postponing  the  much  talked 
of  Imperial  Constitutional  Conference  until  the  end 
of  the  war,  and  is  now  confronted  by  a  task  second 
only  in  difficulty  to  that  of  a  league  of  nations.  And 
yet  the  English  Empire — the  entire  Empire  includ- 
ing India  and  Egypt — has  undergone  the  terrific 
strain  of  the  war,  when  the  very  existence  of  Eng- 
land trembled  over  the  abyss,  without  even  a  visible 
crack.  England's  Empire,  in  its  enduring  strength, 
cannot  be  scoffed  at;  rather,  indeed,  it  is  to  be  envied. 
What  is  the  underlying  principle  of 'this  perplex- 
ing though  admirable  structure?  Opportunism — 
sheer  opportunism.  Unfortunately  the  theory  of  op- 
portunism "is  credited  with  sinister,  insecure  attri- 
butes that  it  does  not  deserve.  To  be  elementary, 
without  desiring  to  imitate  the  formalism  and 
austere  blindness  of  academic  discussions,  we  can 
distinguish  two  theories  or  basic  attitudes  of  mind 
in  government.  The  one  is  French  and  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  American — the  insistence  upon  definite- 
ness.  It  is  not  so  much  that  our  Constitution  is 
written  and  the  English  Constitution  unwritten,  but 
rather  that  the  American  Constitution  is  definite, 
rigid,  and  complete,  representing  an  ideal  which 
must  be  vigorously  adhered  to  in  order  to  avoid  de- 
struction, while  the  English  Constitution  has  always 
consisted  of  indefinite  traditions,  representing  a 
minimum  of  governmental  principles  and  an  odd  de- 
termination never  to  solve  an  imperial  question  un- 
til the  Empire  found  the  knife  at  its  throat.  The 
makers  of  our  Constitution  determined  to  set  down 
a  clearly  defined  code  of  government,  and  to  pro- 
vide for  every  aspect  of  governmental  conflict.  They 
made  one  or  two  serious  omissions — take,  for  ex- 
ample, the  assumed  powers  of  the  Supreme  Court 
to  declare  legislative  acts  considered  inharmonious 
with  the  Constitution  void — but  their  purpose  was 
clear.  The  whole  scope  of  American  Constitutional 
history  from  1789  until  1860 — indeed,  even  to  the 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


285 


present  day — has  represented  a  tendency  to  break 
away  from  the  rigid  maximum  requirements  of  the 
Constitution,  offset  by  a  valiant  determination  not 
to  add  to  the  Constitution  but  to  keep  it  intact.  The 
American  Constitution  has  been  a  glorious  success, 
and  the  fact  that  it  has  succeeded  so  gloriously  must 
move  us  all,  as  it  did  Gladstone,  to  admiration.  But 
it  is  extremely  doubtful  if  the  success  could  be  re- 
peated in  so  infinite  a  field  as  international  politics. 
Greater  flexibility  is  needed.  The  English  Constitu- 
tion is  so  flexible  that  at  times  it  seems  flabby.  When 
problems  arise  the  English  improvise  governmental 
conferences  or  devices  to  handle  them — but  never 
before  the  problems  arise.  Somehow  one  gets  the 
impression  that  in  government  as  in  the  war  the 
English  blundered  along  in  a  hand-to-mouth  way — 
with  brilliant  success.  They  always  have  sufficient 
governmental  mechanics  to  solve  existing  problems 
and  to  maintain  the  status  quo;  they  always  have 
been  struggling  with  a  mass  of  dead  governmental 
institutions  which  they  never  discard  until  these  in- 
stitutions fall  completely  to  pieces — but  they  leave 
to  the  statesmen  of  the  next  day  the  problems  of 
that  day.  Thus  the  English  governmental  structure, 
including  the  English  parliamentary  system,  stag- 
gering under  the  burden  of  many  small  parties  as 
distinct  from  the  old  government  party  and  opposi- 
tion which  erected  it,  is  the  world's  patchwork 
masterpiece.  It  is  confused  and  lacks  definite,  log- 
ical arrangement;  yet  it  is  flexible,  workable,  and 
sound.  It  is  universally  laughed  at  but  universally 
imitated.  It  bristles  with  problems,  yet  it  stands 
firm.  It  is  frank  opportunism,  but  not  the  oppor- 
tunism of  indecision  or  feebleness;  rather  it  is  the 
opportunism  of  practical  statesmanship  and  of  quiet 
confidence  in  the  capacity  of  the  coming  generations. 
Your  English  statesman  goes  on  the  theory  of  never 
waking  sleeping  dogs;  they  may  die  in  their  sleep. 
Now  the  League  of  Nations,  when  carefully 
analyzed,  reveals  the  same  attitude  of  mind  as  found 
in  the  British  Empire.  It  represents  a  minimum 
structure;  it  solves  only  the  problems  it  must  solve 
in  order  to  exist;  it  is  indefinite,  uncertain,  and 
leaves  to  the  next  generation  the  problems  of  the 
future.  It  may  expand — indeed  it  must  to  be  fully 
successful;  it  may  grow  more  robust  and  acquire 
more  definite,  wider  powers.  Surely  it  cannot  grow 
any  weaker  and  surrender  any  powers  that  it  has 
without  collapsing.  It  is  a  workable  though  vague 
compromise,  indistinct  and  by  no  means  balanced  or 
symmetrical,  but  above  all  else  it  is  workable — 
easily  and  at  once.  In  a  word,  it  is  an  admirable 
achievement  of  the  philosophy  of  opportunism.  For 
that  reason  it  will  be  difficult  for  us  Americans  fully 
to  grasp  and  accept  this  new  constitution.  We  Amer- 
icans, after  all,  are  still  a  little  provincial ;  we  love 


to  gaze  at  our  own  picture  reflected  in  the  mirror 
of  American  tradition.  We  are  being  engulfed  for 
the  first  time  in  the  mist  of  European  perplexities; 
we  still  are  strangers  in  a  confused,  new  world. 
Like  the  French,  we  yearn  for  a  complete,  definite 
system  of  government  covering  every  possible  con- 
tingency; thus  the  English  opportunism  of  the 
League  will  strike  some  of  us  as  an  intellectual  af- 
front. President  Butler  is  reported  so  to  have  viewed 
it.  But  is  it  not  true  that  the  task  confronting  the 
world  is  so  titanic  that  it  can  be  achieved  only  by 
means  of  the  English  theory  of  doing  as  little  in 
governmental  devising  as  you  can  and  of  leaving  to 
tomorrow  the  governmental  problems  thereof? 

A  fleeting  analysis  of  the  constitution  reveals  the 
full  sway  of  this  theory  of  English  opportunism. 
Those  who  drafted  the  constitution  strove  to  ar- 
range for  the  maintenance  of  the  status  quo  to  be 
established  by  the  treaty  of  peace,  to  establish  a 
minimum  of  international  authority  to  handle  likely 
difficulties,  and  to  leave  for  the  future  all  the  prob- 
lems that  can  possibly  be  avoided.  Thus  the  philos- 
ophers who  are  setting  themselves  up  as  international 
lawyers  and  sages  in  governmental  theory  are  dis- 
mayed but  not  speechless. 

The  constitution  of  the  League  of  Nations  falls 
into  three  divisions:  first,  the  sphere  of  power 
granted  to  the  League  to  prevent  war;  second,  the 
sphere  of  power  granted  to  the  League  touching 
upon  certain  international  problems  which  involve 
war  only  indirectly,  such  as  labor  and  colonial  ad- 
ministration;  third,  the  mechanics  of  government  by 
which  the  two  previous  undertakings  are  to  be 
accomplished. 

The  question  of  preventing  war — the  first  and 
vital  division  suggested — involves  as  a  preliminary 
the  problem  of  disarmament;  then,  first,  the  prob- 
lem of  making  certain  that  no  war  will  be  begun  un- 
til the  masses;  of  the  people  have  had  time  to  ascer- 
tain the  issues  involved  and  manifest  their  desires 
and  until  the  possibilities  of  arbitration  are  ex- 
hausted; then,  second,  and  here  is  the  basic  distinc- 
tion, the  problem  of  providing  that  if  a  dispute,  jus- 
ticiable or  not,  is  determined  by  the  League,  or  its 
arbitrators,  in  favor  of  the  existing  status,  the  status 
will  be  maintained  by  force  of  arms;  and  third,  the 
problem  of  providing  for  the  enforcement  of  the 
League's  decision  where  a  change  in  the  existing 
status  is  involved  in  that  decision.  This  distinction 
between  the  second  and  third  problems  may  seem 
obscure  and  technical  but  it  reaches  the  pith  of  the 
problem  involved  in  the  power  of  the  League  to  pre- 
vent war.  Let  us,  for  purposes  of  illustration,  con- 
sider a  possible  dispute  between,  say,  Italy  and 
France  over  the  control  of  Tripoli.  First,  assum- 
ing that  the  question  of  armament  has  already  been 


28-6 


March  22 


taken  care  of,  the  League  of  Nations  will  insist  upon 
the  dispute  being  submitted  to  arbitration  though 
both  nations  may  not  consider  it  justiciable.  Italy 
controls  Tripoli  today;  France,  let  us  assume,  claims 
a  wider  field  of  influence.  If  the  League  determines 
that  Italy  is  in  the  right,  since  Italy  already  has 
Tripoli,  it  means  that  the  status  quo  is  maintained. 
Thus  we  have  involved  our  second  problem — 
the  maintenance  of  the  status  quo.  If  the  League 
determines  that  France  is  right,  the  decision  then 
requires  that  Italy  be  limited  in  her  already  com- 
plete control  of  Tripoli  and  that  the  status  quo  be 
changed.  We  then  have  the  third  problem. 

The  constitution  adequately  provides  for  effective 
arbitration — thus  we  can  dismiss  the  first  problem. 
The  constitution  also  provides — articles  twelve  and 
sixteen — that  where  a  member  nation  complies  with 
the  award,  war  cannot  be  declared  against  it.  In 
other  words,  if  the  award  approves  the  status  quo 
the  successful  nation  can  obviously  comply  with  it, 
and  any  nation  protesting  against  this  status  quo 
cannot,  without  declaring  war  against  the  entire 
League,  disturb  the  successful  nation.  In  our  ex- 
ample, if  Italy  is  successful  and  the  League  de- 
termines that  the  status  quo  as  to  Tripoli  is  just, 
France  cannot  attack  Italy  or  seize  Tripoli  with- 
out waging  war  against  the  entire  League.  Thus 
the  second  question,  that  of  maintaining  the  status 
quo,  is  fully  taken  care  of.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
the  League  determines  that  France  should  have 
greater  power  in  Tripoli,  then,  unless  the  executive 
council  is  unanimous,  France  must  wage  her  own 
war  against  Italy  unaided.  Since  it  is  extremely  dif- 
ficult to  imagine  a  dangerous  dispute  where  one  of 
the  big  five  powers  is  not  directly  concerned,  unani- 
mous consent  by  the  executive  council  is  extremely 
unlikely.  Thus  the  third  problem  is  left  for  the 
future  to  solve. 

What  does  all  this  mean  ?  Simply  that  the  powers 
are  anxious  to  establish  a  fixed  order,  to  maintain  it, 
and  to  leave  to  tomorrow  the  problems  that  may 
then  arise.  This  desire  is  enforced  by  the  guaranty 
of  territorial  and  political  integrity  found  in  article 
ten.  The  nations  of  tomorrow  can  worry  about  this 
third  problem  of  establishing  justice  by  upsetting  the 
status  quo  if  they  must. 

The  question  of  disarmament  is  handled  in  the 
same  manner.  It  is  impossible  to  get  the  nations  to 
concede  to  the  League  the  power  to  fix  armaments. 
Our  Senate  will  not;  England  will  not  surrender 
her  control  of  the  sea.  So  the  twenty-six  articles 
provide  that  the  executive  council  first  suggests  to 
the  various  nations  a  maximum  armament  which, 
when  accepted  by  the  various  nations,  establishes  the 
status  quo,  any  departure  from  which  will  mean  war. 
Here  again  we  have  practical  statecraft.  Reach  a 


status  quo  as  easily  as  you  can ;  then  adhere  to  it ; 
if  the  status  quo  can  be  changed  peacefully — that 
is  with  the  consent  of  all  the  great  nations — all  is 
well;  if  it  cannot,  let  that  be  solved. by  the  genera- 
tions that  must  confront  the  problem.  By  that  time 
the  spirit  of  the  League  will  be  so  much  stronger 
that  it  can  better  grapple  with  the  difficulty.  The 
problem  of  today  is  to  get  some  sort  of  recognition 
for  the  idea  of  a  League  of  Nations — a  workable 
scheme  that  can  be  expanded  and  twisted  as  the 
needs  of  the  present  demand.  Thus  we  have  a  com- 
plete adoption  of  the  underlying  principle  of  the 
English  Empire. 

There  is  a  similar  indefiniteness,  a  similar  effort 
to  find  a  workable  minimum,  in  the  other  divisions 
of  the  constitution.  So  far  as  the  scope  of  powers 
in  international  matters  not  directly  concerning  war 
is  concerned,  with  the  exception  of  the  colonial  ques- 
tion, scarcely  a  beginning  is  made.  The  right  of 
the  League  to  investigate  such  matters  as  the  needs 
of  labor  is  recognized.  What  that  investigation 
will  result  in,  let  the  future  decide.  So  too,  the 
much  discussed  system  of  mandatories  is  an  adapta- 
tion of  the  ordered  confusion  of  the  English  Em- 
pire with  its  graduated  degrees  of  self-government — 
self-governing  dominions,  India,  crown  colonies 
divided  into  three  groups  with  diminishing  degrees 
of  autonomy,  protectorates  like  Egypt,  chartered 
companies,  and  spheres  of  influence.  In  a  word,  it 
means  the  facile  establishment  of  a  status  quo  with 
'  a  free  road  for  change  and  improvement. 

The  mechanics  of  government — the  third  division 
— is  likewise  indistinct  enough  to  admit  of  the  shap- 
ing influence  of  experience  and  conflict.  It  is  in- 
teresting to  remember,  when  we  consider  the  frank 
indefiniteness  of  this  part  of  the  new  constitution, 
that,  as  Professor  Jenks  points  out,  when  it  was 
decided  to  introduce  "  responsible  government  " — 
the  very  heart  of  the  English  theory  of  representa- 
tive government — into  the  Australian  constitutions 
it  was  found  impossible  to  draw  any  article  ade- 
quately covering  the  situation.  A  formal  provision 
about  the  appointment  of  ministers  was  finally  in- 
serted and  the  whole  matter  left  to  custom  and 
practice.  So  the  indefiniteness  of  the  new  constitu- 
tion need  cause  us  no  alarm.  At  first  glance  the 
division  of  powers  between  delegates  and  executive 
council  is  extremely  obscure;  several  powers  are 
vested  in  the  League  without  any  indication  as  to 
whether  the  general  residuary  power  lies  in  the  dele- 
gates or  the  executive  council.  But  that  will  all  be 
worked  out  in  practice  in  the  most  convenient, 
feasible  way.  In  government,  time  is  the  best  con- 
stitution maker  and  experience  the  wisest  drafting 
committee.  A  constitution  for  a  League  of  Nations 
might  be  drawn  with  all  the  formal,  verbal  stiffness 


igig 


THE  DIAL 


287 


so  urgently  demanded  by  that  apostle  of  stiffness  in 
speech,  ideals,  and  politics,  Senator  Lodge — but 
such  a  constitution  would  hold  the  promise  of  con- 
fusion and  conflict  rather  than  clearness  and  cer- 
tainty. How  can  you  have  textual  certainty  and 
clearness  when  our  very  ideas  as  to  the  nature  of  a 
League  of  Nations  are  still  unsettled?  Only  time 
and  experience  can  clarify  both  our  ideas  and  our 
phraseology. 

Such  is  the  doctrine  of  English  opportunism  in 


government— entrust  as  much  as  you  can  to  time 
and  experience;  the  future  is  to  be  trusted  not 
dreaded;  we  are  not  the  dictators  of  posterity. 
Surely  when  we  consider  the  great  chaos  before  us 
and  the  overwhelming  necessity  of  some  sort  of  in- 
ternational unity  that  will  make  it  possible  for 
humanity  to  survive,  we  can  find  solace  and  hope 
in  the  enduring  success  of  English  opportunism. 

SAMUEL  SPRING. 


A  Second  Imaginary  Conversation 


GOSSE  AND  MOORE 
I 


M. 


.AID.    Mr.  George  Moore. 

GOSSE.  My  dear  Moore,  how  unexpected  and 
how  delightful. 

MOORE.  It  is  pleasant  to  hear  you  say  so,  for 
truth  to  tell  I  was  not  quite  sure  that  I  showJd  be 
welcome  on  a  day  not  set  apart  for  visitors.  But 
since  I  am  so  fortunate  I  will  admit  that  I  am 
glad  to  catch  you  in  your  wont,  passing  your  time 
on  your  great  balcony,  as  large  as  a  parlor,  reading, 
a  shawl  wrapped  about  your  knees. 

GOSSE.  You  know  the  proverb,  "  Whether  May 
come  early  or  late,  'tis  sure  to  make  the  old  cow 
quake." 

MOORE.  I  like  these  homely  proverbs,  and  as  I 
cannot  be  among  our  lanes  and  downs  I  come  to 
Regent's  Park,  so  typical  of  the  London  of  our  gen- 
eration, and  to  your  house,  typical  of  our  ideas.  All 
the  way  up  the  stairs  it  breathes  the  delightful 

seventies Rossetti,  Madox  Brown,  and  the 

residue.  You  were  associated  with  the  pre-Raphael- 
ites. 

GOSSE.  Only  through  Rossetti  and  Swinburne's 
poems;  but  my  wife  was  a  painter  and  knew  them 
all,  even  that  remote  one  who  died  last  year. 

MOORE.  And  before  you  met  the  pre-Raphaelite 
movement  you  were  a  Plymouth  Brother,  another 
instinct  of  the  English  mind.  I  would  be  as  English 
as  you,  Gosse,  but  to  be  you,  I  should  have  to  re- 
nounce a  great  deal — the  Nouvelle  Athenes.  It  was 
in  one  of  my  adventures  from  that  cafe  to  London 
that  I  brought  my  youthful  drama  in  blank  verse, 
Martin  Luther,  to  a  house  overlooking  a  canal,  with 
a  screen  of  poplar  trees  between  it  and  the  barges. 
But  Delamere  Terrace  is  almost  forgotten,  and  I 
can  only  think  of  you  here  in  Regent's  Park,  though 
my  instinct  tells  me  that  it  was  not  you,  but  your 
wife  and  daughters,  who  discovered  this  Georgian 


house ;  a  man  of  letters  does  not  make  discoveries  in 
house  property.  You  owe  a  great  deal  to  your  wife 
and  daughters.  You  will  never  know  how  much 
unless  you  survive  them,  which — but  the  conversa- 
tion has  taken  a  turn  too  gloomy  for  this  wide  bal- 
cony overlooking  the  Park.  Did  you  notice  that 
breeze,  lilac  laden  ?  And  in  a  few  days  it  will  bring 
the  odor  of  hawthorn.  But  what  book  are  you  read- 
ing? 

GOSSE.    Lamb's  Essays. 

MOORE.  You  knew  them  always,  but  Lamb  was 
no  more  than  a  name  to  me  until  I  found  his  book 
in  my  secretary's  hand  and  took  it  from  her,  and 
could  do  no  writing  that  morning. 

GOSSE.  So  you  mentioned  once  before,  but  despite 
your  admiration  you  did  not  pursue  your  new  ac- 
quaintance into  his  correspondence,  as  I  begged  you 
to  do. 

MOORE.  We  must  allow  many  good  dishes  to 
pass  by  if  we  would  taste  of  a  few  fully. 

GOSSE.    A  frail  excuse. 

MOORE.  A  second  is  not  lacking.  I  would  not 
risk  blurring  the  impression  the  essays  have  made; 
you  tell  me  the  correspondence  will  but  increase  it. 
But  there  is  no  need  at  present,  for  did  I  not  say 
to  myself,  and  not  later  tharLyesterday :  "  No  litera- 
ture has  a  Lamb  like  ours,  not  even  Greek.  .  . 
Not  till  it  became  canine."  You  do  not  understand? 
You  should,  for  the  variant  is  Swinburne, 'with  an 
additional  turn  given  to  it.  What,  not  yet?  Is 
there  not  a  lamb  in  the  New  Testament?  Ah! 
Now  you've  got  it,  and  we  can  return  to  Lamb  who 
appears  in  your  history  as  the  author  of  a  pastoral, 
Rosamond  Grey.  This  work  came  upon  me  with 
something  of  a  shock,  and  I  am  still  trying  to  asso- 
ciate him  with  Corydon,  Amaryllis,  Sylvander,  and 
Rosalind,  trying  to  see  him  among  the  downs,  but 


288 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


in  my  imagination  he  remains  always  in  Fountain 
Court.  You  would  have  done  well  to  have  held 
your  tongue  about  that  pastoral.  But  his  associa- 
tion, however  brief  it  may  have  been,  with  shep- 
herds and  sheep,  brings  us  back  easily  to  our  own 
sheep,  or,  to  be  still  more  exact,  my  dear  Gosse,  to 
your  own  "  yoe  "  lamb — that  English  genius  ex- 
pressed itself  so  fully  in  poetry  that  very  little  was 
left  over  to  sustain  and  dignify  the  other  arts.  .  . 
It  would  have  cost  Stevenson  a  sleepless  night  had 
he  heard  you  say  so,  for  though  he  longed  to  write 
romance,  he  knew  his  own  powers  better  than  Sid- 
ney Colvin,  and  often  let  the  secret  out  that  they 
deserted  him  on  the  approach  of  human  passions  and 
emotions.  Our  bodies  are  as  curiously  constructed 
as  our  minds.  Dr.  Pollock  told  me  he  once  had 
a  patient  who  could  not  take  laudanum,  however 
small  the  dose,  and  that  he  instructed  his  locum 
tenens  not  to  give  this  one  any,  however  great  her 
suffering.  But  the  locum  tenens  thought  that  an 
infinitesimal  dose  could  not  do  as  much  harm  as 
another  sleepless  night,  and  nearly  killed  her.  He 
told  me  of  a  still  stranger  case  of  a  patient  whom 
mutton  affected  almost  as  a  poison.  It  made  her  so 
ill  when  she  was  a  child  that  she  never  ate  it  again, 
not  for  many  years;  but  rinding  herself  in  a  house 
where  there  was  nothing  but  mutton  for  dinner,  she 
ate  a  small  portion,  thinking  her  stomach's  revolt 
against  the  meat  must  have  passed  away  with  measles 
and  whooping-cough.  But  it  hadn't,  and  Dr.  Pol- 
lock said  that  if  she  had  died  the  microscope  would 
have  discovered  nothing.  So  we  find  the  physical 
world  as  incomprehensible  as  the  intellectual.  I 
have  pondered  on  Stevenson's  failure  to  write  stories, 
and  have  discovered  very  little  more  than  the  micro- 
scope— merely  that  Stevenson  had  all  the  literary 
gifts,  and  that  one  drop  of  story  poisoned  the  lump. 

GOSSE.  I  think  I  can  tell  you  why  he  failed  to 
write  stories;  he  had  little  power  to  heighten  the 
interest  with  anecdotes,  and  .  .  . 

MOORE.  A  very  good  point  that  is  of  yours, 
Gosse,  better  perhaps  than  you  think,  for  the  real 
gift  of  the  tale-teller  lies  in  the  power  to  excite  and 
illuminate  by  means  of  anecdote.  Balzac  .  .  . 

GOSSE.  Balzac's  invention  was  always  prompt. 
But  I  was  going  to  give  another  reason  for  the  dry- 
ness  of  Stevenson's  stories,  the  absence  of  his  own  en- 
chanting presence  from  them,  one  that  I  shall  never 
forget,  else  I  should  have  stopped  you  before,  for 
if  you  do  not  propose  to  carry  this  discussion  into 
our  own  time  I  think  we  had  better  turn  our  atten- 
tion to  Disraeli  and  Lytton. 

MOORE.  Lytton's  novels  were  among  the  first  I 
read,  and  The  Last  of  the  Barons  came  to  me  highly 
recommended  by  my  companions  in  whooping-cough 
in  a  school  in  Germany.  As  you  may  remember, 


whooping-cough  allows  nothing  to  stay  on  the 
stomach;  one  is  obliged  to  fly  from  the  room  con- 
stantly, and  every  time  I  returned  I  came  upon  peo- 
ple and  events  in  the  story  that  I  could  not  connect 
with  those  I  had  left  a  few  moments  before.  But 
my  companions  had  said  it  was  a  great  story,  and 
I  read  on  day  after  day,  understanding  nothing  of 
what  I  was  reading,  dreading  questions  and  expect- 
ing them,  for  it  had  begun  to  seem  to  me  that  I 
was  being  watched.  "  So  you've  finished  the  book  ?  " 
said  one.  "Did  you  enjoy  the  story?"  "Very 
much,"  I  replied.  "  Which  part  did  you  like  the 
best?"  another  asked.  "  It  was  all  very  good,"  I 
answered ;  and  all  that  day  the  laughers  did  not  cease 
to  tease  me  (how  little  the  word  "  tease  "  expresses 
the  agony  those  pin-pricks  caused,  so  soft,  so  tender, 
so  susceptible  to  pain  are  we  in  childhood)  till, 
wearied  of  teasing,  maybe,  or  thinking  my  skin  had 
hardened  and  could  be  pierced  no  longer,  they  be- 
came curious  to  hear  how  I  would  take  the  news 
that  every  time  I  left  the  room  my  marker  was  ad- 
vanced some  twenty  or  thirty  pages. 

The  Last  Days  of  Pompeii  was  read  in  more 
favorable  circumstances,  and  counted  in  my  life  as 
an  educational  influence,  for  it  aroused  my  imagina- 
tion, and  I  can't  help  thinking  that  nothing  really 
happens  until  the  imagination  is  captured.  In  The 
Last  Days  of  Pompeii  there  is  one  called  Glaucus, 
who  loves  a  blind  girl  and  behaves  towards  her 
decorously.  But  it  is  to  Pelham  that  I  owe  a  cer- 
tain whimsicality  of  mind  that  the  years  have  never 
rubbed  away;  I  believe  the  tone  of  the  book  has  in- 
fluenced thousands.  One  incident  is  potent.  Pel- 
ham  is  walking  one  day  with  a  friend  who  begs  him 
suddenly  to  cross  the  roadway,  saying  he  cannot 
bring  himself  to  speak  to  or  even  to  recognize  as 
an  acquaintance  a  man  whom  he  had  just  caught 
sight  of  coming  towards  them.  On  looking  up  to 
see  who  it  is  that  causes  such  an  aversion,  Pelham 
sees  a  man  that  everybody  in  London  would  like  to 
be  seen  talking  to.  "  Why  do  you  not  wish  to  speak 
,to  him?"  Pelham  asks;  and  as  soon  as  they  are 
safely  on  the  other  side  of  the  street  the  friend  an- 
swers :  "  The  man  you  see  coming  towards  us  dined 
with  me  last  week,  and  on  my  apologizing  to  him 
for  an  unaccountable  oversight  on  the  part  of  my 
cook,  who  substituted  ordinary  vinegar  for  chili 
with  the  turbot,  replied  that  he  did  not  know  the 
difference  between  one  vinegar  and  another.  I  feel 
that  I  have  missed  the  end  of  Lytton's  sentence,  but 
the  beginning  you  can  take  as  being  quoted  correctly. 
But  why  should  blame  fall  on  the  cook?  Pelham's 
friend  should  have  apologized  for  his  butler's  mis- 
take; turbot  is  not  boiled  in  vinegar,  and  the  pas- 
sage exhibits  Lytton  as  a  sciolist  rather  than  as  an 
adept  in  the  art  of  living,  a  man  of  letters  aping  a 


THE  DIAL 


289 


man  of  fashion,  and  doing  it  fairly  well,  but  only 
fairly.  At  fifteen  one  overlooks  detail,  and  Pel- 
ham's  friend  was  clearly  one  to  be  imitated. 

GOSSE.  An  exemplar  that,  methinks,  has  found 
many  noisy  adherents  in  our  own  time,  every  one  of 
whom  would  be  hurt  and  shocked  to  find  himself 
traced  to  such  an  humble  origin  as  Lytton. 

MOORE.  But  are  not  all  origins  humble?  We 
all  begin  in  bad  taste,  and  most  men  remain  in  it. 

GOSSE.  Nobody  had  greater  successes  with  the 
public  than  Lytton.  Every  book  he  wrote  was  a  suc- 
cess; some,  of  course,  were  more  successful  than 
others,  but  all  were  successes. 

MOORE.  Another  book  of  his  roused  my  imagina- 
tion, and  in  much  the  same  way  as  Pelham — The 
Parisians.  It  was  never  finished ;  Lytton's  death  in- 
terrupted the  story  as  a  party  of  friends  in  the 
beleaguered  city  were  about  to  dine  off  a  pet  dog, 
Fox,  whose  master  endured  hunger  as  long  as  he 
could,  sharing  his  crusts  with  Fox,  but  at  last  it  be- 
came apparent  that  if  Fox  were  not  eaten  at  once  he 
would  not  be  worth  eating  later. 

GOSSE.    Was  Fox  killed  before  the  story  stopped  ? 

MOORE.  I've  forgotten;  but  the  meal  was  not 
described,  and  Lytton's  description  of  it  would  have 
been  worth  reading;  his  talent  revealed  itself  in 
such  scenes  of  comedy  rather  than  in  discourses  on 
truth  and  beauty.  Another  great  event  of  my  youth, 
and  of  yours  too,  Gosse,  I'm  sure,  was  Money,  at 
the  Old  Prince  of  Wales's  Theater,  when  the  Baa- 
crofts  owned  it.  Do  you  remember  Coghlan  and 
Miss  Foote  in  the  act  in  which  the  will  is  read? — 
as  good  an  act  of  comedy  as  ever  was  written  if  it 
resembles  my  memory  of  it.  If  you  have  forgotten 
it  I  never  shall,  nor  a  certain  short  front  scene 
played  by  George  Honey  and  his  wife.  The  The- 
ater never  interested  you ;  but  there  was  a  Lamb  in 
me,  and  if  I  had  been  taken  round  after  a  per- 
formance of  Money  and  introduced  to  Lytton  I 
should  have  fallen  on  my  knees. 

GOSSE.  Then  it's  lucky  you  weren't,  for  the 
memory  would  have  been  disagreeable.  Have  you 
no  memory  of  Disraeli? 

MOORE.  None.  My  father  asked  me  to  read 
Vivian  Grey,  but  it  left  no  impression  on  my  mind, 
perhaps  because  he  asked  me  to  read  it;  and  my 
memory  of  the  unendurable  silliness  of  Henrietta 
Temple  prevented  me  from  reading  Lothair,  though 
there  were  many  in  the  Nouvelle  Athenes  who 
wished  to  hear  what  I  thought  of  the  book.  There 
are  so  many  wonderful  books  to  read,  I  answered 
Villiers— Villiers  de  1'Ile  Adam.  '.'  Are  there?  "  his 
troubled  eyes  seemed  to  ask,  and  I  added  "  there  is 
your  '  Eve.'  "  "  La  nouvelle  edition  est  epuisee,  on 
m'a  dit  hier  de  passer  a  la  caisse.  Enfin,  si  apres  tout 
la  chance  est  venue  a  moi ;  "  and  sweeping  a  lock  of 


hair  from  his  face  he  repeated,  "  si  apres  tout  la 
chance  est  venue  a  moi."  Villiers'  unhappy  eyes 
haunt  me  as  none  others  do,  and  the  memory  of  them 
is  very  dear  to  me.  You  have  similar  memories, 
Gosse.  You  remember  the  great  men  you  met  ins 
Denmark  and  Norway.  The  poet  wrarns  us  to 
gather  our  memories  while  we  may;  he  should  have 
added,  "  for  the  time  will  come  when  memories  will- 
seem  like  hips  and  haws,  hardly  worth  gathering." 
The  feminine  trouble  is  the  first  to  disappear;  we 
are  glad  in  our  folly,  and  afterwards  regret  it,  for 
we  are  now  altogether  without  appointments  except 
those  we  make  with  our  publishers;  a  forlorn  twain 
surely,  having  read  too  'much  and  seen  too  many 
pictures,  and  though  the  world's  shows  amuse  us 
still  we  are  weary  of  them  and  perhaps  a  little  of 
ourselves. 

GOSSE.  If  you  are  a  little  weary  of  yourself  it 
is  because  you  have  lost  the  habit  of  reading;  if  you 
read  it  is  to  get  something  from  the  book,  rather 
than  for  the  book  itself ;  and  if  I  may  hazard  a  very 
personal  criticism  of  your  life  I  should  say  that  you 
never  cared  for  painting  or  music  or  literature,  but 
used  them  as  a  means  of  self-development. 

MOORE.  Even  though  what  you  say  be  true,  am 
I  different  from  anybody  else?  Can  we  care  for 
anything  except  as  we  care  for  food  and  drink?  But 
I  agree  with  you,  Gosse,  in  this  much,  that  I  have 
invested  too  much  in  art.  You  have  been  wiser 
or  more  fortunate  in  the  conduct  of  your  life.  You 
do  not  stand  alone ;  there  are  your  wife,  your  daugh- 
ters, your  son,  and  little  grandchild.  This  solid 
Georgian  house  is  charged  with  memories  of  your 
life  and  theirs.  You  have  nothing  to  complain  of, 
Gosse;  a  very  fortunate  man  you  have  been  in  your 
literature,  in  your  wife  and  children.  The  House 
of  Lords  fell  into  your  lap  at  the  right  moment  when 
you  began  to  tire  of  writing  articles  for  necessary 
money.  And  with  the  House  of  Lords  came  other 
windfalls.  Indeed  the  only  ill  luck  that  I  can  re- 
member is  when  the  age  limit  obliged  you  to  leave 
the  Lords.  Even  that  retirement  was  not  an  un- 
mixed bitterness,  for  it  did  not  come  before  you 
left  behind  you  a  permanent  memory.  You  are  still 
the  literary  force  behind  the  House.  It  has  begun 
to  write,  and  every  lord  that  writes  is  your  debtor 
for  an  article.  And  so  are  we,  Gosse.  We  too 
are  indebted  to  the  lords  for  many  pages  'of  pure, 
beautiful  English  prose;  if  not  music  makers  them- 
selves, the  lords  are  at  least  the  reeds  through  which 
music  is  blown. 

GOSSE.  It  is  indeed  a  pleasure  to  me  to  hear  that 
my  prose  has  pleased  you.  But  you  do  not  think 
that  I  write  these  articles  merely  because  the  books 
I  review  were  written  by  lords? 

MOORE.     Good  heavens,  Gosse,  such  a  thought 


290 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


never  crossed  my  mind.  Who  could  defend  the  lords 
as  well  as  their  old  librarian?  Who  should  defend 
them  if  he  refrained?  Who  has  a  right  to  defend 
them  better  than  he? 

GOSSE.  I  never  put  it  to  myself  in  that  way  be- 
fore, but  I  see  now  that  I  must  have  always  felt 
that  their  old  librarian  still  owed  them  his  service. 

MOORE.  Service  does  not  comprehend  the  whole 
of  your  sympathy.  You  look  back  on  the  House  of 
Lords  as  I  do  on  the  Nouvelle  Athenes ;  on  stepping 
over  the  two  thresholds  we  seemed  to  step  into  our 
true  selves,  at  least  I  did  and  you  can  judge  if  I 
am  not  today  as  distinctly  un-Nouvel  Athenian  as 
I  was  when  I  brought  you  Martin  Luther. 

GOSSE.  It  is  nice  of  you  to  speak  like  this,  for 
sometimes  it  has  crossed  my  mind  that  my  attitude 
to  the  Lords  might  be  misunderstood.  But  you 
understand  me  so  well  that  perhaps  others  too  under- 
stand better  than  I  thought  for. 

MOORE.    Thank  you,  Gosse,  I  do  not  think  that  * 
anyone  seriously  misunderstands,  but  it  may  be  that 
my  almost  excessive  interest  in  human  conduct  has 
enabled  me  to  see  farther  into  the  lives  of  others 
than  the  average  man. 

GOSSE.  As  we  are  on  the  subject  I  may  say  to 
you  that  my  connection  with  the  House  of  Lords 
has  been  useful  in  many  ways  that  perhaps  you  do 
not  know  of.  It  has  opened  up  libraries  to  me  that 
I  should  never  have  seen,  certainly  never  have  known 
in  detail  if  I  had  not  been  privileged.  It  was  only 
the  other  day  I  was  staying  at  Loughton  Hall.  The 
late  Earl  wrote  some  charming  poetry;  you  are  not 
interested  in  the  byways  of  literature,  but  I  am ; 
and  besides  writing  a  good  deal  of  poetry,  which  in 
my  humble  opinion  is  not  without  value,  he  was  a 
great  book  collector.  His  libraries  were  among  the 
richest  in  the  United  Kingdom ;  and  if  we  were  not 
engaged  in  a  search  for  somebody  that  has  written 
prose  narrative  in  England  seriously  I  could  tell 
you  of  many  interesting  discoveries  but,  alas,  in- 
stead of  telling  you  of  a  sonnet  ending  on  the  lovely 
line  "  Princess  appoint  me  shepherd  of  your  smiles," 
I  must  insist  that  we  return  to  Lytton  and  Disraeli. 
In  my  History  of  English  Literature — you  have 
given  so  many  proofs  of  your  attentive  reading  of 
my  book  that  perhaps,  you  remember  that  I  place 
Disraeli  higher  than  Lytton;  you,  it  would  seem, 
take  an  opposite  view ;  but  we  will  not  waste  words 
on  our  differences  of  opinion  regarding  the  relative 
value  of  a  mercenary  literature,  novels  that  served 
to  pay  the  election  expenses  of  their  authors,  and 
now  exemplify  your  theory  that  the  English  novel 
was  never  anything  more  than  a  commercial  trans- 
action between  author  and  publisher.  On  this  point 
we  are  in  cordial  agreement,  and  I  will  add  that 
Disraeli,  knowing  his  literary  talent  was  no  more 


than  a  showy  facility  in  the  handling  of  words,  an 
essentially  Jewish  talent,  was  glad  to  place  the  whole 
of  it  at  the  service  of  politics,  whereas  Lytton,  be- 
lieving himself  to  be  a  great  man  of  letters,  gave 
ear  to  the  tempter  and  sold,  not  his  whole^soul,  but 
half  of  it,  which  is  always  a  bad  speculation,  for 
half  a  soul  is  of  no  use  to  God  or  man. 

MOORE.  My  faith  is  plighted  to  your  psychology 
that  every  man  writes  as  well  as  he  can — a  mourn- 
ful truth  indeed,  for  the  rogue  is  more  interesting 
that  the  dupe.  This  much,  however,  may  be  said 
in  favor  of  Lytton  and  Disraeli — that  they  succeed 
in  amusing  many  more  than  we  do,  or  ever  shall. 
You  have  no  doubt  asked  yourself  very  often  if  it 
were  not  better  to  amuse  the  multitude  than  to 
deserve  the  respect  of  the  few:  for  all  passes  but 
Shakespeare  and  the  Bible,  and  we  in  our  midnight 
communings  ask  ourselves  if  it  be  not  better  to 
range  with  humble  livers  in  content  than  to  seek 
the  grand  style,  for  whosoever  seeks  it  is  driven  into 
suicide;  in  Haydon's  case  it  was  towards  a  basin, 
with  a  razor  in  his  hand.  There  is  a  potential 
Benjamin  Haydon  in  every  one  of  us,  minus  the 
noble  soul  who  found  a  Calvary  in  Parnassus 
from  the  evening  he  went  to  Park  Lane  to  consult 
the  Elgin  Marbles  for  information  regarding  the 
drawing  of  a  foot. 

GOSSE.  I  know  nothing  more  heartbreaking  than 
his  description  of  his  mother's  death — nothing  in 
Balzac,  nothing  in  Turgenev,  and  it  may  be  that  a 
great  man  of  letters  was  lost  in  a  bad  painter. 

MOORE.  If  he  had  laid  aside  the  palette  for  the 
pen  he  would  have  sought  the  grand  style  in  litera- 
ture. A  noble  soul  despite  his  failure.  *  *  *  But 
what  am  I  saying?  It  Was  through  his  failure  that 
we  learned  to  know  him.  You  overlooked  him, 
in  your  History;  worse  still,  you  overlooked  Borrow. 

GOSSE.  As  you  say,  I  overlooked  Borrow.  Mea 
culpa,  mea  maxima  culpa. 

MOORE.  I'm  glad  to  hear  that  you  repent  an 
omission  which  is  a  grave  one,  but  I  must  not  take 
credit  for  unselfish  reading;  my  discovery  was  made 
while  reading  for  information  rather  than  for  plea- 
sure. I  had  forgotten  Borrow's  birth  and  death, 
and  finding  you  had  overlooked  him,  I  had  recourse 
to  my  friends  and  learned  from  them  that  Borrow 
was  a  contemporary  of  Scott.  A  century,  at  least, 
I  said,  should  divide  them,  and  I  fell  to  thinking  of 
Borrow  writing  The  Bible  in  Spain,  his  eye  always 
on  the  object,  thinking  only  how  he  might  discover 
every  voice  and  aspect  of  Spain  in  English  prose. 
Borrow  is  an  integral  part  of  my  subject,  I  said,  for 
now  I  come  to  consider  it,  like  Sterne,  he  saved  his 
talent  by  refraining  from  story-telling. 

GOSSE.  But  he  did  write  stories — Lavengro  and 
The  Romany  Rye. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


291 


MOORE.  These  admirable  books  have  always  been 
looked  upon  as  biographies,  into  which  Borrow  in- 
troduced many  imaginary  anecdotes;  and  it  seems 
worth  while  to  point  out  that  the  strange  mixture  of 
fact  and  fiction,  which  has  caused  so  much  wonder- 
ment among  his  admirers,  was  imposed  upon  Borrow 
by  the  very  nature  of  his  talent — too  great  to  per- 
mit him  to  write  a  literature  of  oiled  ringlets  and 
perfumery,  and  not  great  enough  to  allow  him  to 
create  outside  of  his  own  observation — in  other 
words,  te  evoke  human  souls  out  of  instinctive 
knowledge  how  human  life  is  made. 

GOSSE.  We  had  an  interesting  talk  on  that  sub- 
ject not  very  many  days  ago,  you  maintaining  that 
Serge  Aksakoff  was  not  the  principal  character,  but 
Serge's  father,  whereas  I  looked  upon  the  narrator 
as  the  chief  character.  But  I  can  see  now  that  I 
was  wrong,  for  Serge  does  not  attempt  to  narrate 
himself,  like  Rousseau — he  is  merely,  the  reed 
through  which  the  music  is  blown. 

MOORE.  We  learn  little  or  nothing  of  Borrow 
from  his  books,  and  remember  them  by  the  anec- 
dotes, all  of  which  enfold  sketches  of  men  and 
women  that  set  us  thinking  of  Daumier,  many 
caught  in  eternal  lines — the  old  woman  whom  he 
found  groaning  over  a  straw  fire  in  a  ruined  castle 
somewhere  near  Clonmel,  and  the  man  he  met 
hunting  hare  with  hound  in  the  bog  as  he  returns 
home.  The  hare  stops  in  the  middle  of  the  road; 
a  few  moments  after  the  man  and  his  hound  ap- 
pear, and  after  some  strange  dialogue  hound  and 
hare  and  huntsman  disappear  in  the  dusk. 

No  one  tells  an  anecdote  like  Borrow,  and  the 
anecdotes  he  tells  never  fail  to  enhance  the  interest 
and  compel  the  reader  to  continue  reading.  We 
must  take  off  our  hats  when  we  read  his  telling  of 
the  fight  with  the  Tinman,  and  the-  chaste  nights 
and  days  that  follow  in  the  dingle,  Borrow  in  one 
tent  and  the  Tinman's  daughter  in  another.  An 
idea  strikes  me,  Gosse,  that  Borrow  is  Defoe  risen 
from  the  dead,  and  though  God  may  forgive  me, 
I  can  never  forgive  myself  for  not  having  thought 
of  this  before.  But  I  see  you  are  not  thrilled,  yet 
you  cannot  have  forgotten  our  little  talk  about 
Robinson  Crusoe.  I  could  not  remember  if  Crusoe 
taught  Friday  his  Catechism,  and  you  told  me  he 
did. 

GOSSE.  Borrow  would  probably  have  learnt  Fri- 
day's language  and  translated  the  Gospels  into  it. 

MOORE.  I  know  no  book  that  I  would  as  soon 
read  again  as  The  Bible  in  Spain.  An  imperishable 
book,  for  it  is  about  people  and  things.  Landscape 
after  landscape ;  and  is  there  not  somewhere  in  the 
book  a  dwarf  who  turns  somersaults  in  front  of 
Sorrow's  noble  horse?  Or  did  I  invent  it?  I  was 
grieved  when  he  parted  with  his  horse,  and  only 


fully  soothed  by  the  brilliant  report  of  a  conversa- 
tion with  an  Archbishop.  "  You  want  permission 
to  sell  the  Gospels  without  notes  or  commentaries?" 
the  Archbishop  asks.  And  Borrow  admits  that  that 
is  the  permission  he  is  applying  for,  but  gathering 
from  the  Archbishop's  manner  that  the  permission 
he  seeks  will  not  be  granted,  he  observes  the  bishop's 
ring,  and  a  delightful  little  conversation  springs  up 
regarding  the  purity  of  the  gem.  A  little  later  in 
the  book  we  learn  that  beautiful  souls  can  exist 
even  in  Catholicism,  and  though  our  lives  were 
extended  to  a  thousand  years  we  should  still  re- 
member the  Alcalde  in  the  wild  landscape  of  Cape 
Finistere. 

GOSSE.    Of  what  are  you  thinking? 

MOORE.  If  the  admirer  of  Jeremy  Bentham  was 
invented  by  Borrow  or  by  nature.  I  beg  your 
pardon,  Gosse,  for  my  absentmindedness;  it  was 
only  a  moment  ago  that  I  was  contrasting  Borrow 
with  Defoe,  and  now  I  am  thinking  of  him  in  con- 
nection with  Miss  Austen,  for  whereas  in  Borrow 
sex  is  altogether  absent,  in  Miss  Austen  it  is  omni- 
present. 

GOSSE.  The  omission  of  sex  from  Borrow's  work 
is  no  doubt  very  remarkable,  and  cannot  be  ac- 
counted for  by  an  unhappy  marriage,  for  as  far  as 
we  know  Mrs.  Borrow  did  not  give  him  any  cause 
for  sorrow. 

MOORE.  His  books  are  stamped  with  an  indif- 
ference to  women. 

GOSSE.  You  think  that  Mrs.  Borrow  kept  a  close 
watch  ?. 

MOORE.  I  was  not  thinking  of  Mrs.  Borrow 
or  even  of  Borrow.  A  casual  thought  crossed  my 
mind  that  the  best  portraits  of  women  are  written 
by  bachelors — the  celibate,  I  suppose,  being  more 
interested  in  sex  than  the  married;  and  now  an- 
other thought  has  come  to  me:  that  it  was  Miss 
Austen's  spinsterhood  that  allowed  her  to  discover 
the  Venusberg  in  the  modern  drawing-room. 

GOSSE.     I'm  afraid  I  miss  your  point. 

MOORE.  We  do  not  go  into  society  for  the  pleas- 
ure of  conversation,  but  for  the  pleasure  of  sex, 
direct  or  indirect.  Everything  is  arranged  for  this 
end — the  dresses,  the  dances,  the  food,  the  wine, 
the  music!  Of  this  truth  we  are  all  conscious  now; 
but  should  we  have  discovered  it  without  Miss 
Austen's  help?  It  was  certainly  she  who  perceived 
it,  and  her  books  are  permeated  with  it,  just  as 
Wordsworth's  poems  are  with  a  sense  of  deity  in 
nature;  and  is  it  not  this  deep  instinctive  knowl- 
edge that  makes  her  drawing-rooms  seem  more  real 
than  anybody  else's?  We  all  remember  the  arrival 
of  the  young  man  for  the  dance  in  Pride  and 
Prejudice.  Nor  has  any  of  us  forgotten  how  satur- 
ated with  sex  is  the  long  walk  in  Mansfield  Park, 


2<)2 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


and  the  more  profoundly  because  of  the  formality 
of  social  speech  observed;  the  opening  and  shutting 
of  a  gate  is  the  only  event;  all  the  rest  is  sex — the 
lady  walking  with  her  parasol  aslant,  the  gentle- 
man beside  her  engaged  in  carrying  on  a  trite  con- 
versation that  neither  would  have  endured  had  it 
not  been  a  sexual  adventure.  In  Sense  and  Sensi- 
bility there  is  much  less  restraint — Marianne  is  sex 
stricken  as  Juliet  was  not,  as  Isolde  was  not;  and 
never  in  literature  did  anybody  drink  as  deeply  of 
the  love  philter  as  Marianne.  Our  wonder  at  her 
passion  is  heightened  by  the  fact  that  it  wears  out  in 
drawing-rooms  among  chaperons ;  and  the  book  falls 
on  our  knee,  and  we  murmur  as  we  look  through 
the  silence :  How  simple  the  means  and  how  amaz- 
ing the  result!  A  good  deal  of  what  I  am  saying 
here  is  repetition  come  over  from  our  last  conver- 
sation, provoked  by  Borrow,  in  whose  books  the 
drawing-room  never  appears.  The  knights  ride  past 
the  Venusberg  without  seeing  it,  without  hearing 
it,  and  we  find  ourselves  in  a  workaday  world  of 
gipsies  and  prize-fighters,  horse  dealers  and  horse 
thieves,  odds  and  oddments  of  all  sorts  and  kinds. 
Borrow  is  never  at  a  loss  for  a  queer  turn  of  mind, 
and  the  dealer  in  Chinese  porcelain  who  is  inspired 
by  the  writing  on  the  cups  and  saucers  to  learn 
Chinese  is  never  far  from  my  thoughts.  Another 
equally  interesting  anecdote  eludes  my  memory  for 
the  moment.  It  will  come  back  presently.  In  Wild 
Wales  we  are  in  a  real  country  filled  with  real  peo- 
ple, and  Borrow  enchants  us  with  his  talks  with 
wayfarers  as  he  walks  through  the  hills,  having  con- 
veniently left  his  wife  and  daughter  behind.  His 
characters  are  as  numerous  as  the  people  that  come 
and  go  through  the  pages  of  the  Bible. 

GOSSE.  How  he  enjoys  his  beer,  and  how  the 
quality  of  the  beer  fixes  a  certain  picturesque  site 
in  his  memory.  Of  the  truth  of  this  to  nature  I 
can  vouch,  for,  having  once  wandered  into  Wales 
on  foot  for  the  purpose  of  verifying  the  accuracy 
of  Borrow's  itinerary,  what  happened  to  Borrow 
happened  to  me.  I,  too,  remember  a  certain  town 
by  the  excellence  of  the  glass  of  beer  I  drank  in  its 
inn.  » 

MOORE.  What  was  the  name  of  that  Welsh 
town  ? 

GOSSE.  It  is  unkind  of  you  to  ask  me  these  ques- 
tions. You  know  that  my  unfortunate  memory  re- 
tains few  names  and  dates — above  all,  dates.  But 
here  is  something  you  may  not  have  thought  of — 
the  almost  Dutch  seriousness  which  we  notice  in 
Borrow  may  have  come  to  him  from  Holland.  He 
was  a  Norfolk  man,  and  Norfolk  more  than  any- 
where else  is  impregnated  with  Dutch  influence, 


especially  during  Borrow's  century.  He  was  born 
in  the  eighteenth;  I  should  say  he  was  a  contem- 
porary of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  as  your  friends  told 
you,  and  as  your  thesis,  or  a  great  part  of  it,  is 
that  literature  written  for  money  is  worthless  from 
an  esthetic  point  of  view,  and  from  every  point  of 
view  in  a  few  years,  I  think  that  Borrow  is  the 
illustration  you  require.  All  his  books,  with  one 
exception,  were  failures,  commercial  failures,  with 
the  exception  of  The  Bible  in  Spain,  and  it  was 
not  the  literary  merits  of  The  Bible  in  Spain  that 
caused  it  to  be  read ;  and  if  you  care  to  emphasize 
your  paradox  that  a  man's  name  directs  the  course 
of  his  life,  you  can  say  that  George  Borrow  is  a 
name  that  would  be  approved  by  his  admirers  if  his 
books  had  come  to  us  anonymously.  You  will  be 
safe  in  saying  as  much,  for  the  name  is  plain, 
straightforward,  without  subterfuge  or  evasion,  in 
perfect  agreement  with  the  man's  literary  style  and 
his  wont.  I  can  hear  you  call  it  an  honest  English 
name,  one  that  began  with  the  race,  to  endure  for 
all  time,  like  our  homesteads,  and  so  forth.  You 
will  be  able  to  fill  up  the  category  of  qualities  that 
the  name  evokes  better  than  I. 

MOORE.  He  wrote  a  literature  that  pleased  no- 
body when  it  was  written,  and  he  has  outlived  his 
contemporaries  and  predecessors,  all  except  Jane 
Austen,  who,  like  him,  wrote  to  please  herself.  Bor- 
row was  a  great  master  of  patter  (his  patter  is  as 
good  as  Jane  Austen's).  The  next  time  we  meet 
in  a  country  house  we  will  read  some  Borrow  to- 
gether; you  have  no  doubt  a  thousand  interesting 
things  to  say  to  me  about  The  Bible  in  Spain,  and 
I  am  conscious  of  a  desire  springing  in  me  to  talk 
for  an  hour  on  the  extraordinary  variety  of  charac- 
ters and  conversations  in  that  great  book;  but  we 
must  hasten  from  Spain  to  meet  three  sisters  from 
a  parsonage  over  against  a  Yorkshire  heath  whose 
literary  fortunes  draw  into  the  arena  of  this  dis- 
cussion an  interesting  question — how  far  the  cir- 
cumstances of  an  artist's  life  contribute  to  get  recog- 
nition for  his  work.  Literature  alone  is  unavail- 
ing; however  beautiful  it  may  be  it  will  remain 
unread  if  circumstances  do  not  come  to  its  aid — 
something  in  the  book  itself  or  something  in  the 
author's  life.  The  Bible  in  Spain  was  read  for  the 
sake  of  the  propaganda;  if  it  had  been  less  well 
written  it  would  probably  have  been  still  more 
widely  read.  We  read  it  today  for  certain  esthetic 
qualities,  and  Byron,  who  preceded  Borrow  by  forty 
or  more  years,  was  read  for  his  title,  his  exile,  and 
most  of  all  for  his  romantic  death  in  Greece. 
[To  be  tontinued] 

GEORGE  MOORE. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


293 


Why  Reform  Is  Futile 


I 


F  WORKMEN  PETITION  employers  or  state  legisla- 
tures for  an  eight-hour  day,  they  may  be  deported 
or  they  may  be  jailed,  but  they  are  not  hanged  as 
they  were  thirty  years  ago  in  Chicago.  Credit  for 
this  evidence  of  progress  goes  to  the  labor  unions,  as 
it  should,  but  some  generous  recognition  is  also  due 
those  social  reformers  who  have  advocated  state  pro- 
tection for  wage  workers,  and  government  control  of 
financial  operations  as  efficient  and  ethical  principles 
of  statecraft.  These  reformers  for  many  years  have 
given  unremitting  energy,  in  and  out  of  legislatures, 
to  campaigns  which  they  have  hoped  would  eventu- 
ally result  in  the  adoption  of  a  national  policy  of 
industrial  reform  by  way  of  protective  enactments. 
I  speak  of  these  reforms  now  because  of  the  unex- 
pected opportunity  we  have  been  given  to  estimate 
the  power  of  labor  legislation  to  bring  about  change 
in  our  industrial  habits  and  national  manners. 

Good  people  in  the  early  days  of  the  factory 
system  were  shocked  by  the  long  hours  of  labor  and 
the  long  absences  from  home  which  factory  opera- 
tions required.  Some  time  later  practical  men  came 
to  the  rescue  of  the  idealists  as  they  pointed  out  that 
long  hours  of  labor  meant  in  the  end  the  political 
and  industrial  inefficiency  of  the  nation.  Many  years 
of  reform  campaign  went  by  before  the  promoters 
were  given  a  full  hearing,  because  labor  in  spite  of 
the  wear  and  tear  of  factory  life  continued  its  flow  to 
the  satisfaction  of  business  demands,  which  are  con- 
cerned with  the  immediate  situation  and  not  tb», 
future  of  a  people.  But  suddenly  the  valiant  hopes 
of  the  reformers  achieved  an  apparent  glory  of  re- 
alization. The  occasion  came  as  a  surprise  because 
the  cause  of  it  had  less  to  do  with  the  development 
of  events  within  the  reform  movement  than  with 
the  misfortunes  of  the  Republican  party.  It  was  es- 
timated by  the  recalcitrants  of  that  party  that  the 
new  party  which  they  formed  would  stand  its  best 
chance  of  swinging  into  power  if  it  adopted  the 
labor  legislative  program  of  the  reformers.  Thou- 
sands of  men  and  women  with  deep  conviction  as  to 
the  righteousness  of  their  cause  pledged  the  Proges- 
sive  party  their  active  support  and  gave  it  their  vote. 

The  popularity  of  the  measures  for  which  this 
party  stood  is  not  to  be  judged  by  the  failure  of  the 
party  to  carry  the  election  or  to  weather  a  second 
presidential  campaign.  The  test  of  the  popular  sup- 
port must  be  estimated  rather  by  the  inability  of  the 
Democratic  party  to  win  any  election  if  it  rejected 
these  measures.  Furthermore,  its  leaders  discovered 
later  that  their  endorsement  of  state  interference  in 
industry  and  of  privilege  for  the  working  man,  op- 


posed as  these  measures  were  to  traditional  policies 
of  the  party,  was  not  to  end  with  election  promises 
or  the  writing  of  platform  planks.  The  full  irony 
of  the  situation  appeared  when  the  Democratic  ad- 
ministration representing  the  party  in  power  was 
compelled  during  the  war  period  to  put  into  actual 
practice  those  reform  measures  and  to  extend  their 
application  beyond  the  anticipation  of  their  advo- 
cates 

It  was  clear  beyond  dispute  that  the  successful 
operation  of  the  war  industries  could  not  be  left  to 
employers,  and  that  labor  must  be  placated.  This 
delicate  task  the  government  was  forced  to  take  over 
and  to  take  over  with  the  assistance  of  the  reformers 
who  had  their  policy  of  state  interference  fully 
evolved.  So  far  as  I  can  remember  every  demand 
which  the  reformers  had  made  during  the  preceding 
decade  was  echoed  in  the  reorganization  and  the  ex- 
tended activities  of  the  Department  of  Labor,  as  well 
as  in  the  other  departments,  war  councils,  and  com- 
mittees which  were  engaged  in  the  production  direct- 
ly and  indirectly  of  war  materials.  I  do  not  say 
that  the  ideals  of  the  reformers  were  realized  in  any 
case,  nor  was  there  time  for  their  full  realization. 
My  point  is  that  all  the  measures  which  had  been 
advocated  were  given  official  recognition,  that  labor 
reform  administrators  were  appointed  to  deal  with 
them,  that  an  understanding  was  gained  as  to  what 
the  measures  stood  to  accomplish.  A  system  of 
federal  employment  exchanges  was  promoted,  for 
which  the  reformers  had  for  a  long  time  contended, 
and  the  private  agencies  exterminated.  A  War  La- 
bor Board  was  created  for  the  settlement  of  wage 
conditions  by  means  of  collective  bargaining  and 
arbitration.  Special  councils  were  organized  to  look 
after  the  special  needs  of  women  and  young  persons 
as  well  as  the  health  and  safety  of  all  wage  earners 
in  the  workshops.  Provisions  for  the  extension  of 
sanitation  to  the  homes  of  the  workers  were  also 
made.  There  was  added  to  the  councils  charged 
with  the  administration  of  the  reform  measures  an- 
other council  which  was  concerned  with  the  formu- 
lation of  a  policy  of  government  regulation  and 
control  of  labor  conditions.  This  wholesale  extension 
of  protection  to  labor  was  inaugurated  for  the  pur- 
pose of  war. 

Three  months  have  elapsed  since  the  signing  of 
the  armistice,  and  while  there  is  still  a  trace  of 
these  reform  agencies  and  some  pale  evidence  of 
their  continued  activity,  it  must  have  become  clear 
to  the  reformers  themselves  that  their  method  of 
social  reorganization  will  not  materially  alter  the 


294 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


operation  of  the  laws  of  the  national  economy  which 
we  have  set  up  and  which  we  support.  The  sudden 
collapse  of  the  policy  inaugurated  at  Washington 
was  almost  as  spectacular  a  performance  as  was  the 
official  recognition  which  was  given  it  in  1912  and 
1917-  It  is  rumored  that  a  revival  of  this  war-time 
government  machinery  may  be  undertaken  if  unem- 
ployment and  business  stagnation  lead  to  serious 
strikes  and  to  business  demands  for  increase  of 
privilege  and  subsidy. 

But  machinery  set  up  for  war  will  not  serve 
peace  because  the  driving  force  of  the  war  machin- 
ery, which  was  war  patriotism,  represents  an  actual 
horsepower  which  business  animus,  the  driving  force 
of  industry  in  times  of  peace,  fails  to  induce.  As  the 
war  came  to  a  close  and  the  wartime  patriotism  lost 
its  force,  so  did  the  mandatory  influence  of  the  War 
Labor  Board.  New  wage  boards  may  be  created  and 
special  protection  given  business  and  labor  "for  the 
transition  period,"  but  what  reason  is  there  to  believe 
that  these  can  be  developed  as  a  national  policy?  or 
if  they  are,  that  they  will  change  the  relative  posi- 
tion of  capital  and  labor?  The  actual  accomplish- 
ment in  legislative  regulation  of  the  hours  of  women 
workers  in  the  last  decade  is  as  follows:  in  ten 
states  women  may  work  seventy  hours  or  more;  in 
twenty-one  states  they  may  work  anywhere  from 
fifty-five  hours  to  seventy ;  and  in  fifteen  states  from 
fifty-five  to  forty-eight.  In  respect  to  the  minimum 
wage  there  are  twelve  states  out  of  the  forty-eight 
which  have  given  it  their  endorsement.  But  this 
lack  of  legislative  accomplishment  presents  a  less 
complete  picture  of  the  uphill  character  of  the  re- 
form movement  than  the  persistent  difficulties  with 
which  the  movement  is  beset  in  the  way  of  enforce- 
ment. 

And  were  it  possible  to  overcome  the  difficulties 
of  enactment  and  enforcement,  labor  would  still 
have  the  bill  to  pay  for  the  sick  insurance  it  received, 
for  its  sanitary  privileges,  its  increase  in  wages,  and 
its  decreased  hours  of  work.  An  award  in  hours 
may  be  paid  for  in  wages  or  the  burden  of  an  award 
in  both  hours  and  wages  can  be  shifted  through  an 
increase  in  rents,  food,  or  clothing,  through  labor 
saving  devices  which  result  in  the  decrease  in  the 
wage  rate  or  in  the  annual  wage  income.  There 
is  often  an  appearance  of  economic  gain  for  labor 
when  an  award  is  made  by  a  state  legislature  or 
by  a  union  but  the  net  result  is  usually  the  avoid- 
ance of  cost  by  vested  interests  without  relative  gain 
in  labor's  position. 

The  reformers  in  their  desire  to  put  the  industrial 
situation  to  rights,  have  undertaken  to  accomplish 
their  end  by  the  indirect  road  of  political  action. 
They  have  done  this  because  it  was  the  only  road 


open  to  them,  as  they  are  not  a  part  of  industry 
and  cannot  function  through  it.  If  society  were 
so  organized  that  all  the  members  of  it  were 
engaged  in  some  productive  occupation  or  creative 
work,  the  sole  business  of  the  government  under 
these  circumstances  would  be  to  open  up  every  op- 
portunity for  all  the  members  to  function  to  the  limit 
of  their  capacity.  As  the  situation  is  now,  the  re- 
form movement  represents  a  policy  of  the  unlimited 
extension  of  the  government's  police  function ;  it  rep- 
resents a  method  of  negation  and  indirection. 

All  economists,  hard  thinking  business  men,  and 
wage  earners  know  that  the  roots  of  the  labor  legis- 
lative reform  movement  are  too  tender  to  penetrate 
beyond  the  surface  of  our  political  and  industrial 
institutions.  To  put  this  familiar  matter  once  more, 
quite  simply  it  is  this :  while  natural  wealth  is  with- 
out approximate  limit,  the  sources  of  wealth  by  the 
act  of  the  state  become  the  private  possession  of  men 
who  can  show  credit  for  a  financial  equivalent.  This 
credit  is  given  not  to  those  who  can  show  productive 
ability  but  to  those  who  have  already  received  credit. 
The  manipulation  of  this  wealth  which  represents 
control  over  industrial  enterprise  is  carried  on  first 
and  naturally  in  the  interest  of  the  manipulators, 
the  people  who  have  been  given  and  can  give  credit. 
These  creditors  assume,  as  they  say,  "the  steward- 
ship" of  all  the  national  wealth  which  they  receive, 
and  by  the  law  of  the  land  it  is  theirs  to  do  with  as 
they  please.  The  position  of  the  reformers  is  anoma- 
lous as  they  invoke  this  same  law  for  labor  conces- 
sions. It  is  extremely  embarrassing  for  the  state  to 
recognize  the  invocation,  as  it  places  it  virtually  in 
the  position  of  "  Injun  giver."  The  reformers  are 
in  position  of  suppliants  who  come  with  claims  to 
what  has  already  been  disposed  of.  They  do  not 
ask  for  a  return  of  the  common  wealth  to  labor,  on 
the  ground  that  access  to  wealth  should  be  free  and 
control  over  production  extended  to  those  who  can 
prove  their  ability  to  carry  forward  the  undertaking. 
And  why  should  they?  Labor  has  shown  no  dispo- 
sition to  undertake  it.  This  indisposition  of  labor 
is  in  part  the  raison  d'etre  of  the  reformer.  It  is  the 
story  of  the  people  who  do  not  attend  to  their  own 
affairs  and  of  the  other  people  who  make  an  attempt 
to  do  it  for  them.  It  is  the  experience  of  the  ages 
that  such  attention  meets  with  indifferent  results. 

It  may  be  that  the  situation  in  which  labor  finds 
itself  and  which  it  is  called  upon  to  reshape,  if  it  is 
to  prove  its  capacity  for  self-government,  is  actually 
too  difficult  an  environment  for  it  to  affect.  This 
is  the  supposition  of  the  reformers  who  argue  that 
if  labor  had  more  leisure,  say  sixteen  hours  absence 
from  work,  and  a  living  wage,  it  would  be  in  a 
position  to  affect  its  environment.  The  facts  hardly 


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295 


bear  out  this  argument.  The  present  social  environ- 
ment seems  entirely  safe  in  the  hands  of  the  count- 
less thousands  of  skilled  mechanics,  clerks,  and  su- 
perintendents, for  instance,  who  live  above  the  re- 
gion of  the  financially  submerged  worker.  These 
skilled  mechanics,  clerks,  and  superintendents  who 
enjoy  a  greater  purchasing  power  show  no  greater 
disposition  as  a  class  of  people  to  alter  their  indus- 
trial status  than  does  the  class  of  workers  who  are 
economically  the  most  helpless.  Although  the  eco- 
nomic position  of  individuals  is  in  a  constant  state 
of  change,  it  has  not  been  possible  for  them  to  over- 
come the  conditions  of  the  environment  as  they  are 
fixed.  The  established  industrial  institution  is  suc- 
cessfully maintained  with  its  definite  status  for  the 
workers.  And  this  state  of  affairs  is  bound  to  con- 
tinue in  spite  of  the  interminable  propaganda  of  re- 
formers and  the  intellectual  expositions  of  the  econo- 
mists, until  the  institution  through  some  internal 
infirmity  of  its  own  gives  way. 

Santayana  has  said  "  the  real  difficulty  in  man's 
estate,  the  true  danger  to  his  vitality,  lies  not  in 
want  of  work  but  in  so  colossal  a  disproportion  be- 
tween demand  and  opportunity  that  the  ideal  is 
stunned  out  of  existence  and  perishes  for  want  of 
hope.  The  life  of  reason  is  continually  beaten  back 
upon  its  animal  sources,  and  nations  are  submerged 
in  deluge  after  deluge  of  barbarism.  .  .  .  The 
ideal  requires,  then,  that  opportunities  should  be 
offered  for  realizing  it  through  action,  and  that 
transition  should  be  possible  from  a  given  state  of 
things." 

I  think  history  goes  to  show  that  progress  has 
been  made,  not  through  any  instinct  or  passion  of  a 
people  for  the  abstraction  of  justice  or  democracy, 
but  through  the  failure  of  the  established  institution 
to  function.  The  truth  of  the  matter  ,seems  to  be 
that  the  social  environment  in  which  the  mass  of 
men  have  found  themselves  from  time  to  time  has 
been  too  difficult  for  them  to  affect  except  at  those 
propitious  moments  when  the  conditions  which  have 
inhibited  action  have  broken  down  of  their  own 
weight.  These  times  in  the  nature  of  the  case  seem 
destined  to  appear  for  the  reason  that  the  social  en- 
vironment is  a  condition  of  interdependence  of  a 
people.  As  population  changes  or  expands,  as  new 
relations  evolve,  interdependence  and  the  fixed  con- 
ditions of  the  old  environment  fail  to  meet  the  needs 
of  the  new.  Never  has  the  truth  of  this  been  so 
clearly  demonstrated  as  now,  because  never  has  the 
interdependence  of  people  been  so  widely  extended. 

Our  present  industrial  infirmity  is  due  to  the  fail- 
ure of  the  institutional  order  to  secure  the  coopera- 
tion of  labor  in  the  enterprise  of  wealth  production. 
This  failure  is  a  sign  that  the  interdependence  of  the 


productive  factors  has  become  a  matter  of  conscious- 
ness. This  has  come  about  in  part  through  the  rest- 
lessness of  the  factors,  through  their  increased  move- 
ment and  the  interchange  in  the  personnel  of  groups, 
but  it  is  due  primarily  to  the  realization  that  the 
further  promotion  of  industry  is  now  actually  de- 
pendent on  an  economy  in  the  use  of  labor  energy. 
The  old  scheme  of  business  management  cannot  sat- 
isfy the  need  for  the  economy  or  omit  the  necessity 
of  turning  that  restlessness  into  active  cooperation. 
It  cannot  be  met  by  the  substitution  this  time  of  ma- 
chines for  men.  It  must  be  met  by  the  men  themselves. 
Industry  has  become  too  vast  a  burden,  as  it  is  being 
extended,  for  its  promoters  to  carry  it  forward  against 
the  disinclination  of  the  mass  of  people  involved. 
The  industrial  order  is  passing  through  a  crisis  as  it 
is  faced  with  new  world  conditions.  Even  the  finan- 
ciers have  some  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  the  old 
habits  and  processes  which  have  served  them  call  for 
revision.  Their  production  managers,  expert  in  the 
industrial  processes  and  the  estimation  of  costs,  have 
demonstrated  that  new  methods  of  manufacture  can 
be  introduced  which  will  effect  a  saving  as  great  as 
that  secured  by  the  steam  engine.  The  point  in 
this  discovery  which  is  pertinent  for  all  who  are  in- 
terested in  industrial  reorganization  is  that  it  pro- 
poses not  a  substitution  of  some  other  energy  for 
human  energy  but  a  new  distribution  of  the  energy 
of  labor.  This  new  distribution  can  show  not  only 
an  increase  in  output  and  a  decrease  in  cost  but 
a  greater  reduction  in  working  hours  than  either 
reformers  or  trade  unionists  in  their  modesty  or  con- 
sideration here  thought  fit  to  demand.  This  discov- 
ery involves  no  capital  investment  or  extra  financial 
credit.  It  is  entirely  possible  for  labor  in  its  organ- 
ized capacity  to  make  it  its  own.  It  is  possible  for 
organized  labor  to  agree  to  deliver  the  greater  out- 
put which  results  from  its  own  saving  in  workshop 
energy,  and  stipulate  that  on  delivery  its  own  saving 
of  its  own  energy  shall  not  be  appropriated  by  others. 

The  recognition  of  the  need  of  labor's  cooperation 
in  the  new  methods  of  industrial  economy  introduces 
the  condition  which  makes  possible  the  worker's  as- 
sumption of  responsibility  for  the  promotion  of 
wealth.  The  recognition  indeed  creates  an  environ- 
ment which  it  is  possible  for  labor  to  affect.  Here 
we  have  the  conditions  of  the  new  industrial  psy- 
chology brought  about  by  fundamental  requirements 
in  the  social  economy.  The  realization  of  these 
conditions  will  provide  an  environment  in  which  in- 
dustrial democracy  will  have  opportunity  to  develop. 

While  the  reformers'  program  is  without  eco- 
nomic sanction  according  to  the  laws  of  our  indus- 
trial institution  as  that  is  now  run ;  while  it  is  with- 
out important  material  results  for  the  workers ; 


296 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


while  it  tends  to  convert  the  government  into  a  po- 
lice organization;  while  it  contributes  nothing  con- 
structive to  the  actual  business  of  wealth  production  ; 
it  has  served  a  beneficial  purpose  as  it  has  prevented 
upholders  of  our  institutions  from  sinking  into  a 
hopeless  state  of  smug  satisfaction.  It  has  induced 
a  certain  amount  of  the  restlessness,  much  explana- 


tion and  examination  of  industrial  practice.  More 
than  this,  while  the  reform  movement  represents  a 
large  expenditure  of  energy  for  small  returns,  waste 
activity  is  an  inevitable  condition  of  growth.  The 
trial  and  error  experience  prevails  even  where  reason 
and  creative  effort  have  had  a  chance. 

HELEN  MAROT. 


Cities  and  Sea  Coasts  and  Islands 


"1VT 

-L V JL  AY  THERE  NOT  BE  superior  beings  amused 
with  any  graceful,  though  instinctive,  attitude  my 
mind  may  fall  into,  as  I  am  entertained  with  the 
alertness  of  the  stoat  or  the  anxiety  of  a  deer?" 
Keats  asks  in  the  letters.  It  is  with  this  spirit  that 
Mr.  Arthur  Symons,  in  Cities  and  Seacoasts  and 
Islands  (Brentano;  $3),  approaches  his  places — 
Cordova,  Toledo,  Valencia,  Seville,  the  convent  of 
Montserrat,  London,  Cornwall,  and  Dover;  it  is  in 
this  way  he  takes  his  men  and  women  in  these  cities 
and  islands  and  sea  towns.  In  all  these  papers — 
known  already,  some  of  them,  in  periodicals — he 
maintains  his  point  of  view.  To  him  there  is  in  the 
aspect  we  human  beings  present  to  one  another  some- 
thing inevitably  automatic.  In  most  men  we  see 
little  more  than  a  smile,  a  passing,  a  gesture;  they 
are  hardly  more  real  to  us  than  actors  on  the  stage. 
They  are  largely  a  spectacle  to  us,  conveying  a  sense 
of  beauty,  variety,  life,  change,  or  necessity.  Our 
pleasure  and  satisfaction  over  life  and  cities  and 
men  depend  largely  on  the  skill  with  which  we 
have  trained  ourselves  to  an  instinctive  and  delighted 
apprehension.  Sometimes,  and  to  a  few,  we  can 
draw  closer,  and  they  seem  more  real  to  us.  But 
for  most  we  must  be  content  to  wonder,  to  a'dmire, 
to  see  the  use  and  beauty  and  curiosity  of  them, 
and  so  take  them,  without  the  wan  endeavor  of  in- 
truding further  into  their  meanings  and  destinies. 

The  book  is  made  up  of  the  experience  of  the 
senses  weaving  back  and  forth  into  the  experience 
of  the  colder  intelligence.  In  writing  of  this  sort 
the  record  of  the  senses  solely  may. become  shape- 
less, emotional,  lush.  The  record  of  the  in- 
telligence solely  becomes  merely  informative,  unper- 
ceptive,  workaday.  But  Mr.  Symons  describes 
the  yellow  and  white  town  climbing  into  the 
pale  sky  in  Cordova;  or  in  Tarragona  the  gray 
houses  climbing  to  a  yellow  point — the  Cathedral  ; 
he  sees  the  shadows  around  things  no  longer  gray 
as  in  colder  lands,  but  blue — "  de  fac.on  que  les  om- 
bres semblent  eclaire  d'un  cote  par  le  clair  de  lune 
et  de  1'autre  par  le  soleil,"  as  Gautier  says;  or  the 
river  wild  and  savage,  with  the  brown  sand  redden- 


ing under  the  dark  clouds  in  Valencia;  and  we  be- 
gin to  realize  and  to  share  that  happy  and  delighted 
apprehension  of  which  he  speaks  and  which  is  surely 
his.  It  is  interesting  to  see  such  an  observer  achieve, 
through  the  utmost  sophistication  of  thought  and 
art  and  sense,  results  that  are  often  as  elemental  as 
the  emotion  of  the  primitive  life  of  which  he  speaks 
or  of  the  founders  of  the  ancient,  far-off  things  that 
delight  him.  He  achieves  now  and  again  a  sort  of 
direct  elemental  contact  with  light  and  color  and 
life  and  naive  creations,  as  the  perfect  athlete 
achieves  the  quality  of  the  savage  body.  He  en- 
joys the  veracity  of  the  flesh.  He  has  himself  that 
kind  of  subtlety  which  he  observes  in  Spain,  and 
which  he  adds  to  his  own  artistic  and  cosmopolitan 
range,  that  kind  of  secondary  spiritual  subtlety  that 
comes  from  exquisitely  responsive  senses,  a  sort  of 
delicacy  that  forms  in  itself  a  profound  kind  of  in- 
telligence. He  records  at  the  Montserrat  Convent, 
perched  on  the  rocks  nearly  three  thousand  feet 
above  the  ruddy  soil  of  the  encircling  plain  beneath, 
the  sense  he  had  of  natural  felicity  moved  to  aston- 
ishment, to  the -absoluteness  of  delight  in  being  where 
one  is,  and  the  sense  of  being  perfectly  happy,  with 
that  element  of  strangeness  in  it  all  without  which 
he  cannot  conceive  happiness.  He  notes  in  the  women 
of  Seville  the  mournful  pallor,  and  that  long,  im- 
mobile gaze,  which  seems  to  touch  the  flesh  like  a 
slow  caress;  the  cold  ardor,  which  is  the  utmost  re- 
finement of  fire;  a  white  people  carrying  themselves 
like  idols.  And  in  Toledo,  before  the  paintings  of 
El  Greco,  he  writes  of  the  man's  contempt  for  the 
facile  joys  and  fresh  carnations  of  life,  his  desire 
to  express  another  kind  of  world,  to  paint  the  life 
of  continual  proud  meditation.  Here  is  a  man,  he 
says,  who  has  intellectualized  the  warmth  of  life 
into  the  specter  of  a  thought  taking  visible  form 
somewhat  alarmingly.  Gautier  had  seen  in  El 
Greco  mostly  a  man  chevauchant  hors  du  possible. 
But  that  weighs  little  with  me;  Gautier — heaven 
forbid! — wrote  of  Murillo's  Miracle  of  St.  An- 
thony: "  Jamais  la  magie  de  la  peinture  n'a  ete 
poussee  plus  loin!"  But  Mr.  Symons  dwells  on  El 


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297 


Greco's  austerity,  his  spiritual  realism,  and  on  that 
color  of  his  which  was  the  reticence  of  a  passionate 
abnegation. 

I  see  that  the  writer  of  this  book  feels  indeed  that 
the  world  is  little  more  real  than  illusion  is.  He 
often  supplants  one's  experience  of  the  illusion  of 
real  things  with  the  reality  of  illusion.  Perhaps 
sometimes  there  is  a  little  too  much  the  effect  of 
tasting.  Sometimes  the  effect  is  merely  fantastic. 
And  in  places  I  miss  the  stiffening  of  intellect;  I 
miss  the  exaction  of  sheer  mental  vigor.  Where  emo- 
tion or  sensuous  response  is  strong  or  subtle  or  keen 
enough,  it  can  carry  itself;  for  it  is  in  itself  informed 
with  the  matter  of  thought,  of  the  intelligence.  But 
Mr.  Symons  has  grown  limp  or  soft  at  times,  as  his 
opposite  in  temperament  might  grow  dry.  And 
sometimes,  now  and  then,  the  whole  affair  becomes 
a  business,  a  sort  of  delicious  hack-writing;  almost 
the  "style  coulant  cher  aux  bourgeois."  And  even 
at  other  times,  when  the  sentences  are  golden,  one 
pauses  now  and  then  to  wish,  perhaps  ever  so  little, 
that  so  beautiful  a  mind  and  eye  would  settle  into 
something  a  little  more  central,  a  stronger  biting 

This  is  the  primitive  heroic  theme  of  the  North- 
downward  toward  a  center.  He  pushes  me  so  far 
at  times  that  I  go  wishing  for  him  something  more 
of  that  stubborn  English  quality,  that  self-devoted 
obstinacy,  that  spiritual  and  almost  insular  individ- 
ual hold,  that  I — and  all  of  us — so  often  revile. 

It  is  diverting  to  see — when,  in  the  middle  of  the 
book  and  for  the  remainder  of  it,  we  settle  on  Eng- 
land and  English  coasts  and  moors  and  streets — how 
the  quality  and  mood  of  the  work  alters.  The  style 
changes  j  it  is  no  more  intimate  for  the  depths  of  the 
soul,  but  it  is  more  personally  and  almost  domestic- 
ally intimate.  There  is  in  the  matter,  also,  more 
whimsicality,  more  individual  preference,  more  min- 
uteness in  less  important  preferences.  The  beauty  set 
down  in  the  things  seen  and  in  the  mood  of  the  ob- 
server is  less  spacious,  is  quieter  and,  I  think,  much 
thinner.  He  is  forced  to  bring  up  out  of  himself 
more  matter  to  complete  and  perfect  and  consummate 
the  experience  attached  to  external  things.  It  is 
all  not  necessarily  deeper  or  more  profound,  but  it 
is  less  assisted  by  the  sun  and  the  fruits  of  the  sun — 
light,  animation,  and  splendor.  It  is  not  necessar- 
ily deeper  or  more  profound,  as  our  own  race  likes 
to  believe,  but  it  is  life  turning  on  itself  inwards, 
in  the  Northern  way. 

About  London  Mr.  Symons  is  less  comfortably 
ripe  and  town-fed  and  town-content  than  Charles 
Lamb  was.  But  he  brings  up  to  the  record  a  mind 
more  subtle-sensed  than  Lamb's,  a  richer,  more 
perilous  nature,  and  an  organism  more  exquisite  and 
more  nearly  exotic.  Mr.  Symons  is  not  so  journal- 


istic as  Mr.  Thomas  Burke,  of  Nights  in  London 
and  Limehouse  Lights,  London's  latest  evangel;  he 
is  not  so  busy  or  so  eclectic,  and — I  shall  be  dis- 
puted here — not  really  more  self-conscious,  if  more 
delicately  so.  Lamb  and  Mr.  Thomas  Burke  see 
London  through  eyes  that  are  often  like  Hogarth's 
or  Dickens'  or  Balzac's — with,  in  Mr.  Burke,  a 
dash  of  the  bold  unmentionabilities  and  a  blur  of 
impressionism — where  Mr.  Symons  sees  it  more  as 
Monet  and  Verlaine  would  see  it,  I  fancy. 

In  the  English  country  Mr.  Symons'  work  is  in- 
terestingly less  good.  It  is  as  if  his  mind  fell  back 
less  easily  on  green  lawns  and  cloud  and  rain  in  quiet 
key,  less  easily  than  on  the  light  and  stone,  the  strong 
romance  and  blood  of  Spain,  or  the  nights  in  London, 
or  the  sails  toward  Africa  set  out  from  Cadiz.  And 
after  John  Synge  no  one  should  try  to  record  the 
Arran  Islands;  John  Synge's  style  is  the  Arran 
Islands,  and  they  are  his  style.  Mr.  Syraons'  style 
we  all  know  by  now.  It  is  a  style  made  up  of  sub- 
tle shading  in  phrase  and  imagery  and  cadence.  It 
can  be  cloying,  and  it  can  be  dazzling,  palpitant, 
heady,  and  dominating.  It  seems  English  and  for- 
eign at  once.  There  is  something  in  it  of  D'Annun- 
zio's  Italian — as  in  the  passage  "  la  musica  silenziosa 
delle  linee  immobile  era  cosi  possente  che  creava  la 
fantasma,  quasi  visibile,  di  una  vita  piu  ricca  e  piu 
bella  " — but  it  is  more  elusive,  and  less  firm  and 
variable.  It  is  copious  sometimes  like  Hofmanns- 
thal's  German;  it  has  something  of  Gautier,  of 
Yeats,  and  the  Pre-Raphaelites ;  but  all  in  all,  at  its 
best  it  is  beautifully  his  own. 

And  a  book  like  this  is  valuable,  if  for  nothing 
else  because  it  may  serve  to  increase  one's  appara- 
tus for  experience.  Its  method  seems  not  to  arrive 
merely  through  the  medium  of  writing.  It  seems 
to  employ  all  the  arts  to  its  delicate  and  pro- 
found ends.  We  get  the  sense  of  the  car  helping 
the  eye.  We  remind  the  soles  of  our  feet  of  swift- 
ness through  the  play  of  light,  of  rhythm,  of  ecstasy 
and  mood.  We  exchange  terms,  we  unify  sensation 
and  response.  We  see'm  to  compose  into  one  region 
of  all  arts  the  many  sister  and  supporting  arts.  This 
method  of  the  interplay  and  interborrowing  of  the 
terms  and  effects  and  channels  of  several  arts  at 
once  gives  us  the  sense  almost  of  a  new  medium  of 
expression.  It  may  not  reach  any  farther  ultimately 
than  what  we  have  always  had  in  the  arts.  '  But  it 
serves  to  enlarge  our  perception  and  our  means  of 
perception.  It  dilates  our  sense  of  the  infinity  and 
singularity  and  oneness  of  experience.  And  the 
dream  of  its  possibilities  has  troubled  many  artists 
of  our  generation,  though  few  can  succeed  with  It 
as  Mr.  Symons  does. 

STARK  YOUNG. 


298 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


International  Angling 


D 


URING  THE  EARLY  PART  of  the  war  American 
readers  were  deluged  by  a  storm  of  pamphlets  and 
books  that  purposed  to  tell  the  "truth  about  Ger- 
many." There  was  a  chilly  iteration  in  this  litera- 
ture which  convinced  one  that  whether  or  not  Ger- 
many was  condemned,  the  impulse  to  know  the 
truth  was  vindicated.  The  association  of  America 
with  the  Allies  dispatched  these  explorations  of  the 
national  being  into  other  regions,  and  there  now 
appears  somewhat  belatedly  a  further  shower  of 
books  whose  purpose  is  to  embellish  the  truth  about 
the  more  prominent  Allies.  On  the  whole,  this 
fresh  outburst  does  not  fall  on  the  same  plane  of 
veracity  as  that  which  dealt  with  Germany  aspired 
to;  or,  perhaps,  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say 
that  it  is  exaggerative  in  the  other  direction. 
Whereas  Ralph  Adams  Cram  and  Gilbert  Chester- 
ton and  Gertrude  Atherton  branded  the  Prussians 
perhaps  justly  as  demons,  Charles  Hanson  Towne 
(Shaking  Hands  With  England — Doran;  $i) 
talks  effusively  as  though  the  English  were  angels. 
It  is  true  that  Mr.  Towne  avows  himself  apolo- 
getically no  hero-worshipper;  but  when  he  goes  on 
to  speak  about  his  ecstasy  in  breathing  the  same 
air  as  that  great  statesman,  Lloyd  George,  it  is 
plain  that  the  reverence  he  hesitates  to  pay  heroes 
goes  out  instinctively  to  deity.  Unfortunately  this 
is  the  conventional  atmosphere  in  which  our  inter- 
national friendships  are  conducted.  There  seems 
to  be  no  mean  level  between  the  miasmas  of  hatred 
and  the  angelic  rarity  of  the  upper  ether,  and,  as  a 
result,  the  poor  humanity  which  is  common  to  all 
of  us  can  find  nothing  to  breathe. 

It  is  easy  to  grant  the  amiable  intent  of  Mr. 
Towne's  effort  to  shake  hands  with  the  angels,  or 
of  Mr.  Frederick  William  Wile's  attempt  to  ex-, 
plain  away  the  idiosyncrasies  of  the  tight  little 
islanders  (Explaining  the  Britishers — Doran;  $i). 
But  it  is  equally  easy  to  see  that  this  literature  per- 
petuates a  vicious  tradition.  While  discord  between 
nations  has  been  promoted  by  the  patriotic  lies 
which  build, up  the  sacred  egoism  of  the  fatherland 
by  magnifying  its  predatory  exploits  in  contemptu- 
ous comparison  with  its  rivals',  the  mischief  is  not 
to  be  remedied  by  raising  a  clamor  of  gratulatory 
fiction  about  a  nation's  allies  and  friends.  If  the 
devilishness  of  Prussia  puts  that  country  beyond  the 
pale  of  our  friendship,  the  angelic  qualities  of  our 
noble  allies  surely  put  them  beyond  the  need  of  it. 

These  polite  fictions  of  state  appear  to  have  the 
sanction  of  Plato;  but  in  fact  they  work  to  no  saner 


purpose  than  the  malevolent  subtleties  of  Machia- 
velli.  The  sort  of  peace  that  is  built  upon  a  fiction 
will  itself  prove  to  be  a  fiction.  In  other  words, 
there  can  be  no  lasting  comity  of  nations  until  we 
examine,  more  candidly  than  most  of  us  are  will- 
ing to  do,  the  material  elements  that  will  clog  the 
bearings  of  our  international  peace  machinery,  no 
matter  how  much  oil  we  may  inject  into  the  cham- 
bers by  way  of  removing  the  sentimental,  psycho- 
logical causes  of  conflict. 

Both  Messrs.  Towne  and  Wile  write  for  the 
Man  in  the  Street,  whose  vague  tribal  resentful- 
ness  against  everything  foreign — an  attitude  more 
peculiar  at  present  to  the  Man  in  the  Senate — they 
seek  to  subdue.  Mr.  Wile's  book,  prefaced  by 
Admiral  Sims,  is  obviously  directed  in  its  colloquial 
address  at  the  personnel  of  the  naval  and  military 
expeditionary  forces.  It  is  no  more  a  serious  inquiry 
into  the  national  character  of  the  Britisher  than 
Mr.  Towne's  book  is  the  painstaking  study  of  the 
milieu  of  England  at  war;  and  it  is  written  with  a 
slick  familiarity,  a  plausible  digging  of  ribs  and 
patting  of  shoulders,  which  is  only  too  manifestly 
a  newspaper  correspondent's  idea  of  persuasive 
international  salesmanship. 

To  turn  from  these  efforts  to  prepare  for  new 
history  by  whitewashing  the  old,  and  to  pick  up  Dr. 
Andrew  McLaughlin's  America  and  Britain  (Dut- 
ton;  $2)  is  to  leave  a  diet  of  angel  cake  for  the 
substantial  bread  and  butter  of  reality. 

Dr.  McLaughlin's  papers  were  originally  read 
to  British  audiences,  and  this  gives  his  treatment 
of  American  and  British  relations  a  consistency  of 
purpose  which  delivers  his  historical  theme  from 
abstractness.  As  an  informed  scholar  (Head  of  the 
History  Department  at  Chicago)  Dr.  McLaughlin 
selects  two  parallel  courses  upon  which  he  seeks 
to  move  toward  an  understanding.  He  is  interested 
first  of  all  in  tracing  the  constitutional  expression 
of  American  Federalism  to  its  sources  in  Britain's 
eighteenth  century  Empire,  and  secondly  in  show- 
ing that  the  dissensions  which  preceded  the  Revolu- 
tionary War  arose  over  the  same  problems  of 
imperial  organization  which  involve  British  states- 
men today.  In  this  he  has  made  a  pertinent  con- 
tribution to  the  history  of  the  Federal  principle. 

The  other  path  of  exposition  leads  to  a  discussion 
of  Anglo-American  state  relations  prior  to  the 
Great  War.  This  is  in  the  main  a  story  of  the 
exacerbating  controversies  which  began  even  before 
the  impressment  of  American  Seamen  and  which 


THE  DIAL 


299 


continued  even  after  -the  Newfoundland  Fisheries 
dispute  was  adjusted,  and  it  reminds  the  reader 
how  the  narrow  patriotism  of  statesmen  may  per- 
petuate a  traditional  animosity  long  after  its  origi- 
nal causes  are  buried  and  presumably  dead.  With 
the  substance  of  these  events  even  the  casual  student 
is  familiar.  What  is  heartening  in  the  present  re- 
cital is  its  discriminating  fairness  and  fine  candor. 

In  dealing  with  the  Nineteenth  Century,  for 
example,  Dr.  McLaughlin  accepts  equally  the  Eng- 
land of  Josiah  Bounderby  and  the  America  of  Jef- 
ferson Brick,  and  instead  of  insulting  us  like  Mr. 
Wile  with  the  information  that  the  King  is  a  per- 
petual President,  he  confesses  that  the  inequality 
of  England's  electoral  system  prior  to  1867  was 
one  of  the  reasons  for  the  oligarchic  state's  distrust 
of  America  prior  to  that  time.  The  outrageously 
successful  career  of  Canning's  Doctrine — perhaps 
better  known  to  American  politicians  as  Monroe's — 
may  be  attributed,  on  the  other  hand,  to  England's 
commercial  interest  in  letting  the  new  world  of  raw 
materials  redress  the  balance  of  the  old.  In  both 
instances  the  reader  cannot  fail  to  see  how  deeply 
economic  motives  colored  the  state  policies. 

Now  Dr.  McLaughlin's'  papers  point  at  once  to 
the  parity  of  English  and  American  interests,  and 
to  the  necessity  for  distrusting  any  attempt  at 
leadership  or  selfish  appropriation  on  the  part  of 
either  of  them.  But  if  the  nascent  friendship  be- 


tween the  two  countries  is  definitely  to  be  realized, 
it  must  be  on  other  terms  than  those  which  led 
Canning  to  urge  the  "  Monroe "  Doctrine  in  the 
twenties  and  Lord  Salisbury  to  reject  it  in  the 
nineties.  The  good  will  of  peoples  is  abraded  by 
the  antagonism  of  ruling  class  interests.  Unless 
this  good  will  can  be  harnessed  to  concrete  prob- 
lems such  as  the  competition  of  the  American  Mer- 
chant Marine,  discriminatory  colonial  trade  acts, 
and  the  like,  it  will  dissipate  itself  ineffectually. 

The  chief  criticism  to  lay  at  Dr.  McLaughlin's 
door  in  these  particular  papers  is  that  the  im- 
mediacy of  his  audience  prevented  him  from  bring- 
ing his  survey  up  to  the  present  moment  so  as  to 
deal  with  the  shipping  controversies  of  the  first 
two  years  and  a  half  of  the  war.  That  timidity  was 
doubtless  due  to  the  war  itself,  during  which  the 
angel  theory  of  friendly  states  held  the  field  by  rea- 
son of  Defense  of  the  Realm  and  Espionage  Acts. 
Now  that  the  atmosphere  is  clearing,  it  would  be 
timely  to  inquire  into  the  spheres  where  Anglo- 
American  economic  interests  are  dangerously  dis- 
crepant. On  the  ability  to  perceive  these  danger 
points  and  on  the  common  willingness  to  remove 
them,  the  success  of  the  Anglo-American  entente 
(with  its  offspring,  the  League  of  Nations)  rests. 
Dr.  McLaughlin  has  admirably  pitched  the  tone 

for  this  inquiry. 

LEWIS  MUMFORD. 


The  Great  Hunger 


A  HE  EPIC  MOTIVE  OF  MAN  in  warfare  with  nature 
is  the  first  theme  of  The  Great  Hunger,  by  Johan 
Bojer,  translated  from  the  Norwegian-  by  W.  J. 
Alexander  Worster  and  C.  Archer  (Moffat  Yard; 
$1.60).  Peer  Troen,  the  hero,  bursts  upon  us  in 
a  typical  adventure.  The  boys  were  forbidden  to 
touch  the  big  deep-sea  line  because  "  the  thing  about 
a  deep-sea  line  is  that  it  may  bring  to  the  surface 
fish  so  big  and  so  fearsome  that  the  like  has  never 
been  seen  before."  But  as  all  the  men  of  the  vil- 
lage are  off  at  the  Lofoten  fishery,  Peer  and  his 
friends  have  carried  the  line  across  the  fjord  and 
baited  the  hooks.  Now  they  are  hauling  in  the  catch : 
on  the  first  hook  a  big  cod,  on  the  second  a  catfish, 
on  the  third  a  great  shadow  bearing  up  through 
the  water,  a  gleam  of  white,  a  row  of  great  white 
teeth  on  the  underside — a  Greenland  Shark.  "  The 
heavy  body  big  as  a  grown  man  was  heaved  in  over 
the  gunwale.  .  .  There  it  lay  raging,  the  great 
black  beast  of  prey  with  its  sharp  threatening  snout 
and  wicked  eyes  ablaze.  .  .  Now  and  again 
it  would  leap  high  up  in  the  air,  only  to  fall  back 


again,  writhing  furiously,  hissing  and  spitting  and 
frothing  at  the  mouth,  its  red  eyes  glaring  from 
one  to  another  of  the  terrified  captors  as  if  to  say 
'  Come  on — just  a  little  nearer. ' '  Knives  and 
gaffs  were  buried  in  the  creature's  back,  one  gaff 
between  the  eyes  while  another  hung  on  the  flank.. 
Now  Peer's  knife  flashed  out  and  sent  a  stream  of 
blood  from  between  the  shoulders,  but  the  blow 
cost  him  his  foothold — and  in  a  moment  the  two 
bodies  were  rolling  over  and  over  together  in  the 
bottom  of  the  boat.  Then  as  the  brute's  jaws 
seized  Peer's  arm,  Peter  Ronningen  dropped  his 
oars  and  sent  his  knife  straight  in  between  the  beast's 
eyes.  The  blade  pierced  through  to  the  bfain,  and 
the  grip  of  the  teeth  relaxed.  "  C-c-cursed 
d-d-devil !  "  stammered  Peter,  as  he  scrambled  back 
to  his  oars. 

With  this  auspicious  beginning  Peer  Troen, 
bastard,  sets  out  to  conquer  his  world.  His  path 
leads  him  far — to  the  binding  of  the  cataracts  of 
the  Nile  by  barrage,  and  the  taming  of  the  jungles 
of  Abyssinia  by  railroads.  And  at  length  this  Beo- 


300 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


wulf  returns  to  Norway,  marries  and  has  children 
about  him,  lives  at  ease  in  his  great  house  at  Loreng, 
full  of  the  joy  of  life  as  he  drives  his  stallions  over 
the  frozen  lake,  or  comes  home  on  ski  in  "  the  pale 
winter  evenings,  with  a  violet  twilight  over  woods 
and  fields  and  lake,  over  white  snow  and  blue" 
— home  to  rest,  and  wine,  and  joy.  But  the  old 
restlessness  leads  him  forth  to  a  new  adventure, 
the  harnessing  of  the  waters  of  the  Bresna  and  its 
lakes  far  up  in  the  mountains,  a  struggle  with  rock 
and  flood  and  snow,  and  the  weakness  of  human 
wills.  His  success  is  his  ruin — and  once  more  he 
meets  nature  single-handed,  forced  back  foot  by 
foot  along  the  path  which  he  had  climbed  so  joy- 
ously in  the  morning  of  his  youth,  back  from  the 
heights  which  he  had  reached  to  the  valley  whence 
he  had  started,  weary,  broken,  but  indomitable. 

This  is  the  primitive  heroic  theme  of  the  North- 
land, recognizable  enough  in  its  modern  dress  of 
steel  and  power.  Mingled  with  it  is  another — one 
of  wistful,  eager  questioning,  equally  modern  and 
northern.  The  meaning  of  this  striving,  this  in- 
cessant urge  toward  conquest — is  it  expressed  in  the 
words  of  Peer's  half  brother? 

"You !  Are  you  still  going  about  feeling  your  own 
pulse  and  wanting  to  live  forever?  My  dear  fellow,  you 
don't  exist.  There  is  just  one  person  on  our  side — 
the  world-will.  And  that  includes  us  all.  That's  what 
I  mean  by  'we.'  And  we  are  working  towards  the  day 
when  we  can  make  God  respect  us  in  good  earnest.  The 
spirit  of  man  will  hold  a  Day  of  Judgment,  and  settle 
accounts  with  Olympus — with  the  riddle,  the  almighty 
power  beyond.  It  will  be  a  great  reckoning.  And  mark 
my  words — that  is  the  one  single  religious  idea  that  lives 
and  works  in  each  and  every  one  of  us — the  thing  that 
makes  us  hold  up  our  heads  and  walk  upright,  forgetting 
that  we  are  slaves  and  things  that  die." 

No.  It  is  not  in  the  great  wind,  or  the  earth- 
quake, or  the  fire — powers  with  which  man  can 
struggle — but  in  the  still  small  voice  of  human 
compassion  that  Peer  finds  his  answer.  Mercy, 
forgiveness,  reconciliation  with  his  fellow  men — one 
act  of  divine  charity  means  more  in  Peer's  reading 
of  the  universe  than  all  his  triumphs  over  nature. 


"I  began  to  feel  an  unspeakable  compassion  for  all  men 
upon  earth,  and  yet  in  the  last  resort  I  was  proud  that  I 
was  one  of  them.  And  I  knew  now  that  what  I  had 
hungered  after  in  my  best  years  was  neither  knowledge, 
nor  honour,  nor  riches ;  nor  to  be  a  priest  or  a  great 
creator  in  steel ;  no,  friend,  but  to  build  temples ;  not 
chapels  for  prayers  or  churches  for  wailing  penitent 
•  sinners,  but  a  temple  for  the  human  spirit  in  its  gran- 
deur, where  we  could  lift  up  our  souls  in  an  anthem  as 
a  gift  to  heaven." 

As  he  finishes  planting  his  last  bushel  of  corn  in 
the  field  of  his  enemy,  the  slayer  of  his  last  darling 
child,  he  sees  Merle,  his  wife,  smiling :  "  As  if  she 
too,  the  stricken  mother,  had  risen  from  the  ocean 
of  her  suffering  that  here,  in  the  daybreak,  she 
might  take  her  share  in  the  creating  of  God." 

The  Great  Hunger  is  a  book  of  individual  striv- 
ing— a  type  made  familiar  in  northern  literature  by 
Frenssen's  Jb'rn  Uhl  and  Klaus  Heinrich  Baas.  It 
will  also  recall  to  readers  of  an  older  generation 
Mrs.  Schreiner's  Story  of  an  African  Farm.  In 
The  Great  Hunger  the  northern  scene — the  sea  on 
sunlighted  beaches  or  shadowed  in  overhanging 
fiords,  the  lakes,  pine-encircled  under  moonlight,  the 
iron  hills,  the  wind-swept  uplands,  and  the  far  fields 
of  snow — is  cold  and  bright  in  color,  clear  and  hard 
in  atmosphere;  the  human  figures  are  attentuated 
to  epic  simplicity,  perfectly  comprehended  and  de- 
fined, and  iacontestably  real.  In  The  African  .Farm 
it  is  the  veldt  which  stretches  to  infinity  like  the 
sea — yellow  under  the  sun,  gray  and  violet  under 
the  stars :  and  the  human  beings  who  dwell  upon 
it  are  held  in  bondage  by  their  environment,  pathetic 
in  their  subjection,  vague  in  outline,  as  individuals 
only  half  disengaged  from  the  vast  blocks,  of  sub- 
conscious human  stuff.  The  Great  Hunger  revives 
the  epic  manner  as  opposed  to  the  impressionistic, 
psychoanalytic  realism  of  which  The  Story  of  an 
African  Farm  contained  such  startling  premonitions. 
But  in  theme  the  books  will  call  to  each  other 
across  the  decades  and  across  the  world — incarnat- 
ing the  same  energy  of  conquest,  the  same  passion 
of  understanding,  the  same  thirst  for  God. 

ROBERT  MORS$  LOVETT. 


Harbingers  of  Spring 


The  hurdy-gurdy  there  has  lost  its  bass ; 

It  tinkle-tinkles  in  the  upper  regions 

As  if  an  inexperienced  banjo-pick  were  thrumming 

Too  near  the  tail-piece,  having  missed  the  place. 


Undaunted  in  its  woodenness,  the  thing 
Runs  calmly  on,  complacent,  idiotic, 
Without  a  change  in  that  infernal  chopping, 
Without  a  waver  in  its  glassy  ring. 


The  trees  are  fresh  with  leaves;  the  wind  swirls  in 
The  yellow  clusters  with  a  swerving  cadence : 
But  through  the  living  day  that  brainless  tinkle 
Sneers  at  me,  like  a  corpse  that  wears  a  grin. 

DONALD  B.  CLARK. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


301 


The  Unending  Revolution 


OH  ALL  WE  HAVE  TO  SAY  that  the  most  impartial 
histories  are  those  written  by  prejudiced  persons? 
If  the  type  of  books  dealing  with  the  present  Rus- 
sian Revolution  are  a  standard,  ail  our  criteria  of 
historical  accuracy  must  be  revised.    The  most  class- 
blind  and  stupid  and  unimaginative  books  describ- 
ing the  events  in  Russia  of  October  and  November, 
1917,  when  occurred  one  of  the  great  crises  in  his- 
tory, are  precisely  those  books  written  by  men  of 
integrity  and  personal  rectitude — the  avowed  non- 
partisans.    Two  examples  of  the  latter  kind  of  book 
are  before  me:     Russia's  Agony  by  Robert  Wilton 
(Dutton;  $5)   and  Russian  Revolution  Aspects  by 
Robert  Crozier  Long  (Dutton;  $2.50).    Mr.  Wil- 
ton says  in  his  preface,  "  Men,  events,  and  condi- 
tions have,  I  believe,  been  dealt  with  in  a  spirit  of 
fairness;  "  and  although  Mr.  Long  more  modestly 
claims  to  be  merely  a  journalist  describing  events, 
he  yet  can  dogmatically  make  the  astounding  asser- 
tion that  there  was  never  any  substantial  founda- 
tion for  the  belief  of  the  masses  in  the  danger  of 
a  counter-revolution,  that  "  the  whole  of  Russian 
society  was,  and   is,   radical   in  its  view  of  policy 
and  economy."     It  is  difficult  to  give  full  justice 
to  obtuseness  or  unconscious  snobbery  on  the  one 
hand  ("  Having  partaken  of  caviare  and  other  deli- 
cacies} "  intones  Mr.  Wilton   in  his  account  of  a 
reception  at  court,  "  we  sat  down  to  a  modest  repast 
served  on  silver  "),  or,  on  the  other  hand,  to  mere 
sketchy  and  impressionistic  journalism.     These  vol- 
umes may  be  intrinsically  interesting;  that  is  not 
important.     What  is  important  is  that  they  cannot 
give    anything   like    an    illuminating    interpretation 
of  that  great  mass  uprising  which  we  call  the  pro- 
letarian   revolution.      The    authors    are    astigmatic 
with  the  definiteness  of  all  those  who  assume  their 
vision  to  be  normal ;  biased  by  those  clusters  of  un- 
conscious beliefs  which  are  called  impartiality  be- 
cause the  surface  of   the  mind   remains   unruffled. 
Books   of   this   type   cannot   possibly   give    us    any 
real    understanding    of     an     entirely    new    social 
phenomenon;    they  can    only    flatter    our    own    a 
priori    notions    of    what    that    phenomenon  should 
be,    familiarize  us    with    the    strange    by    absorb- 
ing    it    into    those    conventional    categories    with 
which  we  are  already   acquainted.     They  present 
an  analogy  to  the  testimony  of  Ambassador  Francis 
before  the  Senate  Committee — testimony  which  was 
the  expression  of  a  desire  rather  than  a  description 
of  fact,  and  all  the  more  pernicious  because  the  de- 
sire (in  this  case  to  discredit  the  Soviet  Government 
in  Russia)  was  unrecognized. 


Now  to  turn  from  these  "impartial"  books  and 
investigators  to  an  author  who  prefaces  his  volume 
with   the    frank   statement   that   in    "  the   struggle 
my  sympathies  were  not  neutral,  "  and  who  does 
not  hesitate  to  reveal  his  belief  in  the  justness  of 
one  side  as  opposed  to  another,  is  to  discover  that 
the  paradoxical  question  which   began  this   article 
has  more  than  paradoxical  value.     For  a  prejudice 
admitted  in  advance  is  a  prejudice  robbed  of  nine- 
tenths   of    its   power    for   evil.      Ten    Days   That 
Shook  The  World  by  John  Reed   (Boni  &  Live- 
right;  $2)    is  a  far  more  objective  and  impartial 
description  of  events  than  are  any  of  the  hundreds 
of  volumes  of  Mr.  Wilton's  or  Mr.  Long's  kind. 
Mr.   Reed  knew  what  he  wanted  to  happen;  the 
reader  knows  what  the  author  wanted;  the  cards 
are  on  the  table.     It  is  not  the  things  which 'are 
said    in    a    historical    volume    that    do    harm;    it 
is    the    things    which    are    left    unsaid — and    it    is 
a    curious    fact    that     Mr.     Reed     quotes     more 
anti-Bolshevik   statements   and    gives   more   gener- 
ously the  anti-Bolshevik  point  of  view  than  do  most 
of  those  industrious  apologists  so  anxious  to  prove 
Bolshevism  a  menace  to  all  civilization  and  decent 
living.     Furthermore,  Mr.  Reed  had  the  advantage 
of  being  on  the  side  that  won:  he  began  with  the 
conviction   that   eventually   it   was   going   to   win, 
and  if  to  be  a  good  prophet  is  to  be  a  bad  historian, 
Mr.  Reed  will  have  to  put  up  with  his  critics.     For 
when  your   interpretation   of   anything   is  justified 
later  by  the  course  of  events,  you  can  afford  to  be 
generous   with   your  opponents.      It   is   those  who 
are  on  the  losing  side  that  have  difficulty  in  see- 
ing straight;  hence  the  never-ending  predictions  of 
the  "careful  "  historians  that  the  Bolsheviki  would 
last  a  week,  then  a  week  more,  then  a  month,  then 
a  month   more,   then   finally   that   their  time   was 
short,  and  ultimately  of  course  that  they  held  power 
only  by  the  tyranny  of  a  small  number  of  unscrupu- 
lous fanatics.     The  rather  simple  explanation  that  " 
the  majority  of  the  180  millions  of  people  in  Rus- 
sia might  have  had  something  to  do  with  it  could 
hardly  have  been  expected  to  enter  into  their  cal- 
culations.   That  would  have  been  to  give  their  case 
away  in  advance. 

Mr.  Reed,  then,  has  the  initial  advantages  of 
straight-forwardness  and  of  guessing  right.  But  he 
discloses  other  virtues  in  the  book  itself.  Those 
who  remember  Mr.  Reed  for  his  fine  impression- 
istic descriptions  of  the  revolution  in  Mexico  will 
perhaps  be  taken  aback  at  the  almost  severe  quality 
of  this  present  narrative.  With  opportunity  after 


302 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


opportunity  for  "  purple  patches  "  Mr.  Reed  shows 
a  restraint  which  practically  vacuum-cleans  the  book 
of  any  mere  rhetorical  passages.  He  is  content  to 
let  the  narrative  flow  on  naturally  and  quietly, 
welded  together  by  the  hammer  of  relevant  fact 
after  relevant  fact,  in  short  paragraphs  which  fre- 
quently end  in  a  tiny  row  of  dots,  a  happy  incor- 
poration of  the  technique  of  Wellsian  suggestive- 
ness.  Often  he  includes  proclamations  of  the  vari- 
ous parties  and  statements  and  speeches  of  the  party 
leaders  in  the  text  itself,  although  the  more  impor- 
tant of  the  documentary  material  is  included  in  an 
appendix  which  historians  of  the  future  will  find 
as  invaluable  as  the  living  observers  of  today.  The 
story  does  not  lack  emotional  thrill  because  of  this 
deliberately  chosen  method  of  unemphatic  presenta- 
tion. If  anything,  it  gains.  Mr.  Reed  has  taken 
only  ten  days  of  the  Bolshevik  Revolution — the  vital 
ten  days — with  short  glimpses  before  them  and  few 
after.  Consequently  there  is  some  inevitable  repeti- 
tion. But  the  effect  is  cumulative.  A  picture  of 
the  state  of  mind  which  made  the  Bolsheviki  up- 
rising inevitable  emerges  gradually,  with  the  out- 
lines of  the  picture  becoming  sharper  and  sharper, 
until  finally  it  stands  forth  etched  with  unforget- 
able  definiteness.  The  author,  for  instance,  seldom 
tells  you  what  he  thinks  the  proletariat,  the  toiling 
masses,  the  soldiers,  the  workers  and  peasants,  are 
saying.  He  lets  them  speak  for  themselves  at  just 
the  correct  dramatic  moment.  He  selects  their 
spokesmen  not  only  with  the  unerring  precision  of 
the  partisan  but  also  with  the  wisdom  of  the  jour- 
nalist in  choosing  those  who  are  truly  representa- 
tive. It  is  this  sense  of  the  inevitability  of  the 
course  of  events  which  gives  the  book  its  finest 
quality — the  slow  rising  flood  of  hatred  for  the 
war  among  the  soldiers,  the  slow  rising  flood  of 
suspicion  on  the  part  of  the  peasants  that  Kerensky's 
Government  might  promise  them  the  land  but  had 
no  intention  of  helping  them  to  get  it,  the  slow 
rising  anger  of  the  workers  who  wanted  to  take  over 
the  industries  for  themselves  and  who  found  them- 
selves blocked  at  every  turn.  Against  this  mass 
anger  and  hatred  and  suspicion  the  futile  temporiz- 
ing of  the  Provisional  Government  was  bound  to 
be  ultimately  powerless.  It  had  to  go — swept  away 
in  the  full  tide  of  proletarian  revolt.  Nothing  is 
more  illuminating  in  Mr.  Reed's  book  than  his  de- 
scription of  the  simplicity  of  the  issues  as  they  pre- 
sented themselves  to  the  minds  of  the  masses  of 
the  Russian  people;  their  struggle  to  understand, 
and,  once  understanding,  their  unshakable  deter- 
mination to  do  battle  for  their  faith.  And  the  lesson 
we  can  learn  from  it  is  plainly  this  (although  Mr. 
Reed  does  not  say  so)  that  the  morale  of  proletarian 
revolution  before  it  is  successful  is  the  morale  of 


despair,  coupled  with  hope,  but  that  the  morale  of 
proletarian  revolution  after  it  has  seized  power  is 
the  morale  of  defense,  of  fighting  for  what  is  its 
own.  That  is  what,  for  all  its  enemies  at  home 
and  abroad,  has  made  the  Soviet  Government  so 
far  invincible.  It  is  what,  if  anything,  will  make 
it  invincible  in  the  future. 

It  is  this  curious  blend  of  conviction  and  proph- 
ecy and  belief  in  the  fundamental  justness  of  the 
claims  of  the  masses  for  a  richer  life  which  gives 
Mr.  Reed's  book  its  emotional  reach.  It  is,  so 
to  speak,  the  unconscious  ideology  to  which  his 
feelings  are  attached.  But  it  would  be  a  mistake 
to  put  his  services  to  us  in  this  book  on  what, 
after  all,  is  the  rather  tenuous  and  intangible  basis 
of  emotional  satisfaction.  What  he  has  really  given 
us  is  not  only  the  record  of  a  great  event,  but  a 
kind  of  handbook  of  reference  for  the  future.  The 
Russian  proletarian  revolution  is  not  likely  to  be 
the  last;  as  past  centuries  saw  political  revolutions 
spreading  imitatively  from  one  country  to  another, 
so  our  century  will  in  all  likelihood  see  that  new 
social  order — the  economic  revolution — also  spread- 
ing imitatively  from  one  country  to  another.  Mr. 
Reed  has  pictured  the  conflict  of  classes  with  such 
precision  and  finality  that  his  account  of  Petro- 
grad  during  those  ten  days  furnishes  a  sort  of 
microcosm  of  what  happened  all  over  Russia  shortly 
afterwards,  and  what  we  have  already  seen  hap- 
pen in  parts  of  Germany.  It  takes  no  great  gift 
of  prophecy  to  see  that  it  is  also  a  microcosm  of 
what,  in  varying  forms,  is  certain  to  take  place  in 
many  other  countries,  perhaps  even  here  in  safe 
America  where  nobody  yet  believes  in  a  Soviet 
revolution  except  the  Overman  Committee,  army 
officers,  and  government  officials,  who  are  being 
driven  by  their  fear  to  just  those  actions  most  nicely 
calculated  to  encourage  such  a  revolution.  We  can 
see  their  prototypes  in  the  vacillating  officers  of  the 
Provisional  Government  in  Petrograd.  We  can 
also  see  how  Allied  diplomacy  failed  utterly  to  un- 
derstand the  Revolution  and  its  economic  basis,  and 
how,  by  that  failure,  it  helped  to  drive  the  Revolu- 
tion more  and  more  toward  the  Left — just  as  today 
Allied  diplomacy,  by  failing  to  understand  the  Ger- 
man Revolution  is  driving  it  as  inexorably  toward 
the  Left.  We  can  see  how  Kerensky  was  by  the 
logic  of  events  driven  more  and  more  to  rely  upon 
the  counter-revolutionists  and  the  reactionary  prop- 
ertied classes,  thus  losing  the  confidence  of  the 
people — just  as  today  Ebert,  by  the  logic  of  events, 
is  being  driven  to  rely  upon  the  same  class  inter- 
ests in  Germany. 

For  when  before  in  the  history  of  the  world  have 
we  had,  in  such  a  short  space  of  time,  two  revolu- 
tions of  this  magnitude  succeeding  each  other  and 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


303 


following  so  sharply  the  same  general  outlines? 
I  recommend  Mr.  Reed's  book  to  Marshal  Foch 
and  to  the  Allied  delegates  who  are  drawing  up  the 
terms  of  peace  for  Germany  at  Versailles.  If  they 
are  really  perturbed  by  the  growth  of  Bolshevism 
in  Germany,  it  might  be  as  well  for  them  to  for- 
get for  a  time  the  myths  which  they  have  so  indus- 
triously spread  for  the  consumption  of  the  Allied 
publics  and  give  attention  to  the  few  simple  and 
obvious  facts  of  the  class  struggle  as  it  actually 
developed  in  Russia.  They  will  find  these  simple 
and  obvious  facts  in  this  book.  Yet  it  is  doubtful 
if  they  could  draw  any  sensible  conclusions  from 
them:  the  Allied  diplomats  in  Petrograd  could  not 
see  what  was  actually  taking  place  day  by  day 
around  them  within  physical  sight  and  hearing. 
No  blindness  is  so  great  as  the  blindness  of  class — 
Mr.  Reed's  book  reveals  that  with  incisive  vividness. 
It  also  reveals  one  more  thing,  which  Americans 
cannot  admit  without  shame — that  from  the  day  the 
Bolsheviki  came  into  power  we  were  so  supine  and 
cowardly  that  we  allowed  ourselves  to  believe  what 
press  and  government  thought  fit  to  tell  us  about 


the  proletarian  revolution  in  Russia,  that  the  first 
democracy  of  the  West  played  false  to  the  greatest 
economic  experiment  and  social  adventure  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  For  if  one  thing  is  now 
clear  to  all  people  of  intelligence  it  is  this:  that  the 
Bolsheviki  were  the  most  implacable  enemies  of 
German  imperialism  in  Russia  and  that  if  we  had 
cared  more  about  defeating  Germany  quickly  than 
we  did  about  crushing  a  revolution,  we  should 
have  hastened  to  cooperate  with  Soviet  Russia  in  its 
unequal  fight  against  Kaiserism.  But  with  fine 
words  on  our  lips  we  deserted  them.  Shall  we  com- 
mit the  ultimate  perfidy — sign  a  treaty  of  peace 
which  is  a  mockery  of  our  democratic  pretensions? 
Perhaps.  Then  if  we  do,  we  at  least  can  have  no 
excuse  for  not  knowing  what  will  happen.  It  will 
be  what  happened  in  Petrograd  and  Moscow  all 
over  again,  what  Mr.  Reed  has  described  in  this 
book.  And  the  ten  days  which,  as  the  author  justly 
says,  shook  the  world  will  inevitably  develop  into 
the  coming  ten  years  which  will  transform  it. 

HAROLD  STEARNS. 


France  and  a  Wilsonian  Peace 


N, 


ow  THAT  THE  LEAGUE  of  Nations  has,  amidst 
the  applause  of  the  Peace  Conference,  been  reduced 
to  writing,  a  forward  movement  of  humanity  be- 
yond anything  known  to  history  becomes  possible — 
on  the  single  condition  that  the  world  will  apply 
itself  with  good  will  and  energy  to  the  task  of  carry- 
ing the  League  from  its  present  paper  stage  into  the 
realm  of  social  and  historical  reality.  Essentially 
this  is  a  labor  of  the  spirit,  which  to  be  effective 
must  win  the  support  of  the  leading  spokesmen 
of  the  great  nations  of  the  world.  The  League, 
when  completed,  should  be  a  sensitive  and  elastic  in- 
stitution drawing  its  vital  fluid  and  steadily  renew- 
ing it  from  the  creative  energy  of  mankind.  Already 
the  call  to  the  leaders  has  gone  forth — with  what 
result?  Among  ourselves — in  many  high-placed 
circles,  in  the  Senate,  among  outstanding  represen- 
tatives of  business  and  the  press — it  has  met  with 
skepticism  verging  on  derision  and  everywhere  in 
Europe  among  corresponding  groups  the  same  in- 
stinctive aversion  is  alarmingly  apparent.  These 
watchdogs  and  beneficiaries  of  the  existing  system, 
these  bcati  possidentes,  want  no  hazy  ventures  aim- 
ing at  the  distribution  of  their  advantages  among 
the  common  run  of  men  and  unsettling  the  status 
quo ;  they  want  to  get  back  as  soon  as  possible  to  the 
old  basis,  to  the  old  game,  to  "  business  as  usual," 
and  to  this  end  they  need  nothing  so  much  as  a  swift 


settlement  with  all  the  spoils  in  sight  tucked  away  in 
the  pockets  of  the  victors — the  familiar  statesmen's 
peace  of  history.  And  of  all  the  Allied  ruling  classes 
the  distinction  of  putting  up  the  most  stubborn  as 
well  as  the  most  subtle  resistance  to  the  new  idea 
seems  to  fall  to  the  French  group.  It  is  worth 
while  to  puzzle  out  the  reasons,  especially  as  the 
French  position  is  certain  to  prove  typical ;  and  since 
Andre  Cheradame  is  a  great  name  in  the  political 
and  literary  circles  of  his  country  we  may  reason- 
ably hope  to  squeeze  enlightenment  out  of  his  most 
recent  book — The  Essentials  of  an  Enduring  Vic- 
tory (Scribner,  $1.50). 

Cheradame,  as  one  of  the  matadors  of  the  French 
propaganda,  has  dwelt  among  us  for  some  time  and 
in  this  book,  thrown  together  apparently  from  news- 
paper articles  and  as  little  unified  as  a  book  can 
well  be  and  remain  a  book,  he  makes  a  distraught 
but  passionate  appeal  to  American  opinion  in  be- 
half of  the  policy  which  we  may  safely  assume  to 
be  more  or  less  that  of  the  government  he  repre- 
sents. Let  not  the  reader  imagine  a  set  argument 
against  the  League  of  Nations  or  any  related  item 
of  the  Wilsonian  program.  Apart  from  the  fact 
that  such  an  attack  upon  his  war-time  host  would 
be  in  extremely  bad  form,  the  excited  author  has 
neither  taste  nor  leisure  for  the  deliberate  discussion 
of  anything  pertaining  to  peace,  a  Wilsonian  peace, 


3°4 


THE  DIAL 


March  2; 


and  spends  his  fury  on  one  subject  and  only  one — 
on  victory.  And  what  is  victory,  enduring  victory, 
that  cure  of  every  ill?  For,  let  it  be  observed,  this 
particular  victor,  like  his  long  line  of  forbears  in 
the  conquering  business,  wants  what  the  gods  have 
always  vainly  been  implored  to  give,  a  victory  with 
a  guarantee  of  permanence  attached.  Let  us  analyze 
this  victory  of  Cheradame's  desire  and  at  once  admit 
that  in  many  essential  features  it  is  fully  consonant 
with  the  commitments  resting  on  America  by  virtue 
of  President  Wilson's  various  messages.  Mittel- 
Europa  or  Pangermany,  as  M.  Cheradame  prefers 
to  call  it,  must  be  destroyed,  France  must  have 
back  Alsace-Lorraine,  and  ample  financial  and  eco- 
nomic reparation  must  be  made  for  the  damage  and 
destruction  wrought  in  the  regions  occupied  and  har- 
ried by  the  German  forces.  So  far,  so  good :  Amer- 
ica's whole  influence  at  the  peace  Conference  will 
be  behind  these  demands  to  which  American  public 
opinion  has  steadily  and  passionately  adhered. 

But  now  comes  the  arresting  thing  (and  there- 
with Cheradame  passes  beyond  the  American  ken 
into  the  murky  atmosphere  in  which  the  French  rul- 
ing classes  seem  to  delight  to  fix  their  abode)  :  no- 
where does  he  claim  the  above  terms  by  reason  of 
the  President's  words,  in  fact  he  practically  never 
refers  to  the  President  at  all.  And  as  for  the  Four- 
teen Points,  to  which  France  no  less  than  her  Allies 
has  solemnly  committed  herself,  they  do  not  once  re- 
ceive even  a  modest  Mention  Honorable  in  a  book 
dedicated  to  the  idea  of  a  world  settlement !  By  the 
very  simple  procedure  of  ignoring  their  existence, 
the  Fourteen  Points  are  effectively  reduced  to  four- 
teen scraps  of  paper.  The  omission  by  itself  tells 
volumes  as  to  Cheradame's  mentality.  He  acted 
logically  enough  since  he  does  not  seek  peace  but  vic- 
tory, a  victory  dictated  by  France  and  a  narrow  na- 
tionalist conception  of  her  interests,  dictated  more 
precisely  by  the  fierce  spirit  of  revenge  which  by 
,virtue  of  forty  years'  seasoning  in  the  dark  cellars 
of  the  human  mind  has  become  like  a  strong  and 
heady  wine.  Under  the  circumstances  Cheradame's 
terms  can  hardly  be  expected  to  carry  any  promising 
suggestions  of  world  pacification.  Broadly  they  are : 
All  Germany  to  be  occupied  by  the  Allies  and  a  tri- 
umphal entrance  made  into  Berlin;  her  economic  life 
to  be  put  under  Allied  direction  and  the  whole  popu- 
lation to  be  obliged  to  work  for  foreign  account; 
the  profits  of  this  arrangement,  valued  at  ten  billion 
marks  per  annum,  to  be  distributed  among  the  Allies, 
and  this  stranglehold  to  be  maintained  for  fifty  years. 
On  the  territorial  side  there  is  a  little  vagueness, 
due  to  a  host's  polite  desire  not  to  appear  to  be  set- 
ting limits  to  the  appetite  of  the  guests  whom  he 
has  summoned  to  the  feast.  In  general  he  invites 
them — French,  Poles,  Czechs,  and  Danes — to  claim 


as  much  German  soil  as  they  think  they  can  digest, 
without  regard  for  the  principle  of  nationality.  That 
principle  is  excellent,  but  of  course  has  no  validity 
for  an  outlaw  nation  like  Germany. 

It  is,  as  I  have  said,  the  mind  behind  these  terms 
which  interests  the  world  at  the  present  juncture, 
because  it  discloses  not  the  attitude  of  an  individual, 
but    rather    that    of    the    leaders    of    the    French 
Intelligentsia     and      Government.       Judging     by 
Cheradame's  book  we  may  conclude  that  these  men, 
generally  speaking,  do  not  have  their  eye  on  peace, 
a  healing  peace,  at  all.    They  aim  at  victory,  a  vic- 
tory moreover  prompted  by  the  spirit  of  revenge. 
And   under  the  spur  of   this   sentiment   there   has 
lodged  itself  within  the  French  mind  a  concept  and 
a  picture  of  the  German   enemy   so   revolting,   so 
inhuman,  that  the  severest  attitude  toward  him  and 
the  extreme  measure  against  him  become  at  once 
morally   justified.      The    German,    the    minds   en- 
meshed in  this  reasoning  assure  themselves,  is  differ- 
ent, he  is  not  like  other  Europeans,  he  simply  has 
no  place  among  civilized  men.     Cheradame  at  least 
entertains  no  doubts  whatever  on  this  head.    He  pic- 
tures the  German  as  moved  exclusively  by  "a  passion 
for  spoils,"  till  finally  he  arrives  at  the  historically 
immutable  barbarian  "whose  mentality,  whose  pas- 
sion for  wars  of  gain  and  for  pillage,  has  remained 
the  same  ever  since  it  was  described  by  Tacitus." 
Throughout  the  length  of  the  book  there  is  no  other 
explanation  of  the  war  so  much  as  hinted  at  except 
this  unvarying  one  of  the  German  savagery.     That 
we  live  in  an  industrial  world  controlled  by  com- 
petitive capital,  that  we  have  clashing  colonial  and 
imperialist  policies,  that  the  European  world,  with 
the  French  regularly  in  the  thick  of  the  fray,  has 
for  many  centuries  revolved  around  these  issues,  pro- 
ducing a  sheer  endless  string  of  wars — all  this  is  as 
completely  sponged  from  the  record  as  if  it  had  not 
been.    One's  head  whirls  at  a  procedure  content  to 
imitate  the  terrier,  who  sits  with  his  eye  singly  and 
fanatically  fixed  on  a  hole  in  the  ground,  completely 
oblivious  of  the  stirring  happenings  on  the  earth 
about  him  and  in  the  air  above.     If  the  French  ter- 
rier can  but  catch  the  German  rat  and  rend  it,  peace 
will  follow  automatically  throughout  the  world,  a 
permanent  peace,  bringing  in  its  joyous  train  all  the 
lost  blessings  of  Eden.     It  is  a  reading  of  history  so 
simple  one  could  almost  wish  that  it  were  true;  but 
since  it  is  not  true,  since  it  is  in  fact  a  delusion  fan- 
tastic to  a  point  almost  beyond  belief,  it  becomes  our 
duty  to  resist  it  and  the  proposed  victory  arrange- 
ments based  thereon.    The  new  world  edifice  cannot 
be  raised  on  the  foundations  of  an  evil  dream. 

This  then  is  the  mind  with  which  President  Wil- 
son has  been  lately  dealing  in  Paris  and  with  which 
the  world  will  have  to  reckon  for  many  years  to 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


3°5 


come.  For  those  forward-looking  groups,  every- 
where as  yet  a  minority,  who  wish  to  sink  the  roots 
of  the  League  of  Nations  deep  in  the  human  spirit 
it  is  a  serious  situation.  Well  may  they  anxiously 
take  counsel,  but  if  they  are  wise  they  will  be  calm 
and  patient  and  pin  their  faith  to  reason  and  to  mod- 
eration, assuming  as  a  matter  of  course  the  final  vic- 
tory of  the  moral  forces  by  which  alone  a  democratic 
world  can  live.  From  every  fair  and  reasonable 
angle  France  has  a  right  to  ask  for  certain  things 
and  no  right  whatever  to  go  beyond  that  limit.  With 
full  and  even  generous  measure  she  must  be  given 
what  a  nation  which  has  gone  through  her  harrow- 
ing experiences  longs  for  as  the  great  desideratum: 
peace  with  security.  Over  and  over  again  she  must 
be  told  and  have  explained  to  her  that  her  best  se- 
curity, her  only  real  security,  does  not  lie  in  fresh 
German  annexations,  such  as  the  valley  of  the  Saar 
and  the  Rhineland,  but  in  a  League  of  Nations  which 
alone  can  put  an  overwhelming  force  behind  the 
present  settlement.  And  she  must  be  asked  to  con- 
sider carefully  a  Germany  wounded  past  healing  by 
wanton  excisions  from  her  flesh.  Will  not  such  a 
Germany  in  her  turn  nurse  the  revenge  which  as 
France  knows  but  too  well,  poisons  the  spiritual  life 
at  the  source  and  gives  assurance  of  a  new  war  with- 
in a  generation?  Shall  the  tide  of  war  ebb  and 
flow  over  France  and  Germany  in  the  future  as  in 
the  past,  onward  to  the  close  of  time  ?  Incalculable 
is  the  injury  which  humanity  has  already  suffered 
from  this  prolonged  national  feud,  nor  is  it  extrav- 
agant to  forecast  that  unless  it  be  composed  the 
whole  world  will  in  the  end  be  wrecked  by  it. 
Fortunately  in  favor  of  its  composition  the  soundest 
elements  of  all  the  civilized  nations  are  raising  their 
voices,  and  it  would  be  strange  indeed  if  the  dis- 


cordant voice  to  which  we  have  been  listening  were 
the  only  one  heard  in  France  in  this  crisis.  France 
has  other  spokesmen  than  the  official  patriots  mo- 
mentarily in  the  saddle;  she  has  a  great  body  of 
workingmen  whose  generous  traditions  will  not  per- 
mit them  to  seal  their  lips  at  command  of  their  rulers. 

On  December  14,  at  Paris,  there  was  read  to 
President  Wilson  an  address  which  our  daily  press 
failed  to  print  for  reasons  only  too  patent.  Speak- 
ing on  behalf  of  the  Socialist  party  and  the  General 
Confederation  of  Labor,  Pierre  Renaudel  squarely 
planted  himself  behind  the  Wilsonian  program,  em- 
phasizing "the  deep  harmony  of  thought  which  ex- 
ists between  the  French  workers  and  the  President 
of  the  United  States  regarding  the  conception  of 
war  and  peace."  And  then  in  ringing  words  aimed 
doubtless  straight  at  French  officialdom,  he  protested 
against  the  attempt  "to  transform  this  war  of  de- 
fense into  a  war  of  conquests  which  would  prepare 
new  conflicts,  create  new  grievances,  and  subject 
the  peoples  more  than  ever  to  the  double  yoke  of 
armaments  and  war." 

Once  more,  the  supporters  of  a  new  world  as  rep- 
resented by  the  Wilsonian  program  need  not  despair, 
though  the  difficulties  ahead  may  often  seem  almost 
insurmountable.  Time  and  a  certain  decency  in  the 
average  man  may  be  trusted  gradually  to  clear  the 
road  for  the  League  of  Nations.  Even  M.  Chera- 
dame  may  be  converted  to  it,  though  admittedly  only 
by  a  special  act  of  grace.  But  should  he  and  his 
bourgeois  kind  prove  hopelessly  stiffnecked,  there  at 
any  rate  are  the  working  people,  in  France  as  every- 
where else  the  real  servants  of  the  spirit,  to  remind 
their  rulers,  not  suppliantly  either,  we  may  be  sure, 
that  a  new  dawn  is  breaking  in  the  east. 


FERDINAND  SCHEVILL. 


Exiles 


By  what  wind-loved  grasses, 

By  what  gray  sea 

Do  they  dwell, 

The  restless  ones,  forever  returning 

To  the  places  their  lovers  remember? 

They  are  a  moment  seen 

Tossing  their  golden  balls, 

Or  running  far,  far 

Beyond  the  sands  where  the  skies  vanish. 

They  come  again 

In  the  dawn  twilight, 

In  the  bird-broken  silences. 

But  they  are  gone 

Ungathered — 

Cliff-flowers, 

The  grace  of  foam 

Lost  in  the  bitter  green  waters. 

BABETTE  DEUTSCH. 


306 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


The  American  Note 


IN  THE  OPENING  CHAPTER  of  his  The  American 
Spirit  in  Literature  (Yale  University  Press;  $3.50), 
Professor  Perry  has  defined  his  plan : 

We  are  primarily  concerned  with  a  procession  of  men 
each  of  whom  is  interesting  as  an  individual  and  as  a 
writer.  But  we  cannot  watch  the  individuals  .long  with- 
out perceiving  the  general  direction  of  their  march,  the 
ideas  that  animate  them,  the  common  hopes  and  loyalties 
that  make  up  the  life  of  their  spirit.  To  become  aware 
of  these  general  tendencies  is  to  understand  the  "  Ameri- 
can "  note  in  our  national  writing. 

It  is  a  hard  plan  to  follow  in  a  book  of  less  than 
seventy  thousand  words,  though  it  is  far  from  an 
impossible  one.  It  demands  the  ripeness  of  judg- 
ment with  which  we  credit  Mr.  Perry,  and  also  an 
utter  singleness  of  purpose  and  a  ruthless  omission 
of  every  fact  not  indispensable  to  the  broad  scheme. 

The  book  is  composed  of  ten  chapters,  four  on  the 
colonial  centuries,  ending -with  The  Revolution,  five 
on  the  half  century  culminating  with  Union  and 
Liberty,  and  one,  The  New  Nation,  for  all  the  im- 
plications of  the  American  spirit  in  literature  since 
1865.  The  rapid  surveys  on  The  Pioneers  and  The 
First  Colonial  Literature  are  well  balanced  and 
thoroughly  familiar.  The  generalizations  are  sound 
as  far  as  they  go,  and  they  are  well  supported  by 
readable  detail.  They  are  marked,  too,  by  the  usual 
omission  of  several  of  the  most  felicitous  early 
writers  who  bear  witness  to  the  early  reactions 
against  Puritanism — Thomas  Morton,  who  flayed 
them  joyously  in  1637;  Nathaniel  Ward,  whose 
Simple  Cobbler  is  an  unrecognized  classic;  and  Sarah 
Kemble  Knight,  whose  Journal  reveals  the  hidden 
•reefs  of  unorthodoxy  on  which  the  Mathers  were 
wrecked.  The  chapter  on  the  Civil  War  issues  is 
the  best  fused  of  all,  perfectly  unified,  and  well 
condensed,  a  complete  fulfillment  of  the  plan  laid 
down  at  the  outset.  In  a  different  way  the  nine 
pages  on  Thoreau  are  admirable.  They  repeat  little 
of  the  usual  material;  but,  without  any  notable 
disagreement  from  the  ordinary  judgments,  they  are 
fresh,  fair,  and  sympathetic,  and  withal  are  written 
with  a  friendly  suavity  of  style  'which  befits  the 
treatment — as  of  one  who  appreciates  the  man,  but 
does  not  take  him  quite  as  seriously  as  he  took 
himself. 

Yet  as  a  whole  Mr.  Perry  has  not  lived  up  to 
his  program,  and,  for  one  reason,  because  it  was  too 
big  a  one  for  so  small  a  book.  There  is  no  room  in 
such  a  survey  for  the  same  biographical  facts  which 
no  textbook  could  omit.  Circumstantial  details  of 
a  purely  informative  sort  are  intrusively  de  trop  in 
a  series  of  broad  interpretations.  One  resents  hav- 


ing to  crowd  his  knees  under  a  schoolroom  desk 
when  he  has  been  invited  to  a  Phi  Beta  Kappa 
oration. 

Moreover,  though  there  is  a  surfeit  of  negligible 
information  in  the  book,  it  is  far  from  scrupulously 
accurate.  When  Mr.  Perry  says  of  the  Roger 
Williams-John  Cotton  controversy  "  Back  and  forth 
the  books  fly,"  he  hardly  suggests  the  ponderously 
labored  exchanges  at  intervals  of  three  to  five  years. 
In  his  quotation  against  Bronson  Alcott  of  Emer- 
son's "  tedious  archangel,"  he  forgets  the  prevailing 
tone  of  admiration  in  a  dozen  more  important  pass- 
ages. When  he  alludes  to  Francis  Scott  Key  as 
"  of  an  earlier  generation "  than  John  Howard 
Payne,  he  evidently  does  not  know  that  the  two 
were  closer  contemporaries  than  Emerson  and 
Lowell.  And  his  allusion  to  Payne  as  "  a  single 
poem  man  "  points  to  his  utter  and  utterly  con- 
ventional neglect  of  the  drama  as  a  factor  in  Amer- 
ican literary  history. 

This  leads  to  the  most  unsatisfying  feature  of  the 
book — that  it  takes  no  particular  stock  in  the 
creators  of  the  American  spirit,  the  dreamers  and 
the  iconoclasts.  A  tone  of  complacent  pragmatism 
pervades  the  estimates  from  first  to  last.  Whitman 
is  discussed  with  cautious  deference;  Longfellow, 
Whittier,  Lowell,  and  Holmes  are  all  commended 
for  having  too  much  art,  poetic  instinct,  and  humor 
to  fall  into  the  search  for  the  unattainable.  Mark 
Twain  is  given  less  space  than  Bret  Harte.  Mr. 
Howells  is  dismissed,  in  less  than  two  pages,  without 
a  mention  of  his  social  convictions  or  of  any  novel 
of  his  later  career;  and  Henry  James,  who  had  no 
social  convictions,  is  given  twice  the  space.  Natur- 
ally a  book  of  such  safe  and  sane  conservatism  would 
limit  itself  to  judgments  on  the  remoter  past.  And 
this  book  does. 

Just  one  tenth  is  devoted  to  the  period  since  the 
Civil  War,  and  a  bare  fifth  of  that  tenth  to  the 
really  vital  things  written  since  1890.  And  yet  in 
this  last  century,  and  especially  in  this  last  genera- 
tion, the  changes  in  the  American  spirit  have  been  as 
great  as — let  us  say — the  literary  differences  between 
James  Russell  Lowell  and  his  distinguished  niece. 
In  one  of  Mr.  Perry's  early  pages  is  a  promising 
allusion  to  "  productions  which  caught  the  fancy 
of  a  whole  generation."  But  in  his  last  chapter  he 
evades  discussion  of  contemporary  drama  and  poetry 
with  the  statements  that  it  is  too  soon  to  speak  of 
one  and  impossible  to  forecast  the  other. 

The  student  of  American  literary  historv  owes 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


3°7 


much  of  his  acquaintance  with  the  past  spirit  of 
America  to  the  old  critics'  comments  on  their  con- 
temporaries. A  reader  of  a  hundred  years  hence 
would  gather  from  Mr.  Perry's  book  the  wholly 
false  impressions  that  American  literature  went  into 
retirement  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century;  that 


since  then  there  had  been  no  redefining  of  wealth, 
citizenship,  or  patriotism;  and  that  the  American 
spirit  in  contemporary  literature  was  either  retro- 
spective or  timidly  self-distrustful. 

PERCY  H.  BOYNTON. 


T, 


The  Independents 


HE  NEW  YORK  PAPERS  have  printed  an  item 
to  the  effect  that  the  third  annual  exhibition  of 
the  Society  of  Independent  Artists  will  open  at 
the  Waldorf  Astoria  on  March  28,  and  the  an- 
nouncement sounds  as  prim  and  businesslike  as 
any  other.  A  first  exhibition  smacks  of  novelty  and 
romance,  but  the  words  "  third  annual "  carry 
with  them  the  banality  and  stuffiness  of  routine 
officialdom.  And  then  the  implication  of  gilded 
success  in  the  place  where  the  show  will  be  held — 
what  concern  have  thinking  men  with  art  societies 
which  parade  the  heavy  dignity  of  their  regular 
habits  and  their  big  membership  in  the  halls  of  the 
wealthy?  The  challenge  is  a  fair  one,  the  only  one 
that  we  of  the  Independents  have  reason  to  fear. 
For  in  the  present  era  it  is  not  failure  in  the  esti- 
mation of  the  public  that  dismays  the  artist — he 
must  tremble  and  search  his  face  for  fat  and  sod- 
denness  when  he  is  visited  by  popular  success. 
Come  to  the  show,  then,  you  thinking  men  for 
whom  it  is  given,  and  see  what  is  behind  the 
"  antiche  maschere  "  of  your  Pagliacci.  Here  you 
see  them  all,  everyone  who  cares  to  exhibit,  and  so 
you  have  your  hand  on  the  pulse  of  American  art. 

If  the  paintings  and  sculptures  are  good,  then  the 
success  is  the  success  of  this  country,  for  the  works 
come  from  every  part  of  the  country — and  the 
Society's  foundation  principle  of  No  Jury  means 
that  every  tendency  in  our  art  may  have  its  voice 
here;  if  the  exhibition  is  bad,  then  the  failure  is, 
temporarily  at  least,  the  failure  of  American  art. 
The  question  of  the  permanence  and  the  financial 
status  of  the  society  is  really  aside  from  the  point, 
for  as  long  as  it  keeps  to  the  law  it  made  for  itself 
at  the  outset,  it  will  not  grow  old — even  as  the 
French  society  of  the  same  name,  after  more  than 
ten  times  the  existence  of  ours,  still  maintains  its 
youth,  its  freedom,  its  undisputed  position  as  the 
battleground  of  new  ideas. 

Where  should  they  appear  if  not  at  such  exhibi- 
tions? All  that1  is  asked  of  the  artist  in  the  French 
society  and  in  its  American  descendant  is  that  he 
subscribe  to  the  system  of  "  No  Jury,  No  Prizes,  " 
and  pay  his  small  membership  dues.  After  that, 


he  may  show  what  he  likes,  either,  as  in  the  ma- 
jority of  cases,  the  wares  he  hopes  to  sell  or,  as 
in  the  case  of  a  goodly  minority,  the  expression  of 
ideas  he  thinks  important,  of  the  sensations  through 
which  he  finds  beauty.  An  Independent  show  offers 
the  great  adventure  of  the  world  of  contemporary 
art:  amidst  its  mass  of  mediocrity  one  can  find  the 
living  ideas  of  the  time.  It  is  only  at  such  a  place 
that  one  can  find  them,  for  an  open  door  is  needed 
before  they  will  ask  for  admission.  It  is  senseless 
to  rail  against  the  hostility  toward  new  forms  which 
one  finds  in  official  or  commercial  institutions — 
the  galleries  of  the  academies  or  of  the  dealers. 
Men  who  have  reached  a  certain  age,  with  venera- 
tion for  their  art,  and  the  mental  inelasticity  which 
is  bound  to  come  in  time  (save  in  splendidly  ex- 
ceptional cases)  can  see  only  vandalism  where  the 
young  men  see  development.  It  is  not  fair  to  ask 
that  these  older  men  give  their  sanction  to  things 
which  seem  the  denial  and  destruction  of  every- 
thing they  have  worked  for,  to  ask  that  they  vote 
to  have  the  innovators  in  their  exhibitions,  on  a 
chance  that  amongst  the  ineptitudes  of  which  every 
generation  has  a  majority,  they  may  be  getting  a 
genius.  They  cannot  distinguish  between  the  two 
classes — and  I  do  not  speak  only  of  the  weaklings 
among  the  old  men,  but  of  the  greatest  of  them. 
Renoir,  on  being  asked  about  an  artist  of  the 
younger  generation  around  whom  the  battle  of 
opinion  was  raging,  answered :  "  I  cannot  very 
well  speak  of  him ;  I  cannot  see  everything  that  is 
going  on;  and  then,  too,  one  is  of  one's  time  in 
spite  of  oneself.  Ask  me  about  Manet,  Monet, 
Degas,  and  Cezanne,  and  I  can  give  you  clearly 
formed  opinions,  for  I  lived,  worked,  and  struggled 
with  them.  But  with  the  young  men  the  question 
is  different,  I  cannot  speak  so  freely." 

The  essential  phase  of  the  question  is  not  that 
the  young  men  need  the  chance  to  express  them- 
selves. What  is  a  thousand  times  more  important 
is  that  it  is  the  ideas  of  the  young  men  that  the 
world  needs.  The  giants  of  art  are  giants  in  their 
twenties.  They  may  go  on,  in  later  life,  to  more 
of  depth  and  mellowness,  but  their  ideas  are  to  be 


3°8 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


found  in  their  early  works.  And  these  ideas  are 
the  burning-point  of  the  thought  of  all  men  in  their 
time.  It  is  less  clearly  formed  in  the  mass  of  men, 
less  intense,  diluted  and  muddy  with  the  lees  of 
earlier  thought;  but  when  the  years  have  had  their 
clarifying  influence  we  find,  and  without  exception, 
that  the  character  of  the  period  was  expressed  by 
the  men  who  were  young  at  the  time.  Why  should 
the  world  wait  till  they  are  old  or  dead,  to  have 
the  use  of  their  vision  ?  It  is  too  late  then ;  thought 
has  moved  on,  the  old  men's  work  goes  to  the  mu- 
seum, and  the  world  repeats  its  tragic  blunder 
of  ignoring  the  voices  which  for  that  day  utter 
its  purpose. 

"  Place  aux  jeunes !  "  cried  Puvis  de  Chavannes ; 
there  is  no  need  that  the  farce  be  repeated  forever, 
though  the  impulse  toward  it  will  always  be  part 
of  our  nature.  When  this  impulse  gains  complete 
control,  when  the  new  ideas  are  not  only  pushed 
aside  at  birth  but  actually  cut  of}  from  germina- 
tion, we  have  the  condition  called  decadence.  Was 
there  ever  a  more  degenerate  perversion  of  the  term 
than  that  which  tried  to  fasten  it  to  the  fecundity 
we  witnessed  in  the  last  half-century?  Fortu- 
nately the  period  was  strong  enough  to  fight  off  the 
senility  that  so  continually  tried  to  make  of  art 
the  sterile  wanton  which  amuses  the  leisure  of  old 
and  corrupt  societies.  It  is  proof  of  the  cleanness 
and  health  of  our  age  that  the  great  work  in  it 
was  done  not  alone  by  the  young  men,  but  also 
by  those  who  carried  into  later  life  the  force  to  go 
on  producing. 

It  cannot  be  said  too  often  that  the  Independent 
exhibition  is  open  to  anyone  who  chooses  to  show 
in  it.  And  it  is  worth  while  to  recall  here  that  a 
very  large  proportion  of  the  works  hung  during 
its  first  two  years  of  existence  were  of  conservative, 
even  reactionary,  tendencies.  What  a  mixture  one 
finds  there:  the  best  and  worst  of  our  older  artists, 
the  best  and  worst  of  the  younger  men,  those  whom 
no  exhibition — no  museum,  almost — would  refuse, 
those  whom  no  other  exhibition  would  admit.  As 
I  speak  from  a  purely  personal  standpoint  here,  I 
may  use  names  and  recall  that  twice  the  member- 
ship has  included  Mr.  Prendergast,  and  twice  his 
splendid  and  complete  art  has  figured  in  the  ex- 
hibition. Among  the  younger  men  I  will  mention 
Morton  L.  Schamberg,  one  of  the  founders  of  the 
Society,  whose  untimely  death  last  fall  deprived 
this  country  of  an  artist  who  had  already  done  im- 
portant work  and  from  whom  even  more  was  to  be 
expected.  What  interests  us,  above  all,  at  the  ex- 
hibition is  the  chance  of  finding  unknown  talent. 
In  a  number  of  cases  the  hope  has  been  fulfilled 


to  admiration.  The  work  which  probably  attracted 
most  attention  at  last  year's  Independents  was  the 
sculpture  of  Mrs.  Victor  Soskice,  a  young  Russian 
artist  who  had  come  to  America  but  a  few  months 
previously.  One  always  wonders  what  will  be 
sent  from  the  West — that  region  which  includes 
everything  beyond  the  Hudson,  and  of  which  New 
York  knows  little.  Even  the  so  plentiful  bad 
things  of  the  show  seem  to  take  on  some  nuance 
of  amiability,  as  if  caught  up  in  the  spirit  of  equal 
opportunity.  At  least  they  are  relieved  of  the 
offensiveness  that  attaches  to  them  when  they  are 
put  forward  as  the  choice  of  a  jury  or  when  an 
attempt  is  made  to  dissimulate  the  scent  of  their 
staleness  with  the  incense  of  a  prize. 

Is  the  Independents'  denial  of  both  the  jury's 
authority  and  the  mob's  the  final  step  in  unbridled 
individualism?  I  think  not;  it  is  rather  a  step 
toward  that  solidarity  which  we  hope  to  see  as  a 
mark  of  the  era  on  which  we  are  entering.  An 
interesting  means  of  approach  to  this  solidarity, 
a  means  which  has  been  discussed  several  times  but 
which  most  artists  would  not  at  present  be  willing 
to  adopt,  consists  in  the  omission  from  the  catalogue 
of  the  names  of  the  producers  of  the  works,  thus 
making  art  anonymous,  as  it  was  in  the  Gothic 
and  certain  other  periods.  Every  movement  in  the 
world's  thought  is  prefigured  by  its  expression  in 
the  quickly  responding  medium  of  art,  and  the 
vitality  of  the  Independent  principle,  which  has 
had  to  fight  hard  for  existence,  in  Europe  and 
America,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it  corresponds  with 
some  deep  current  of  evolution.  The  problem  is 
to  give  to  the  most  important  elements  of  society  an 
opportunity  to  get  their  place  and  their  recogni- 
tion, while  reserving  for  the  weaker  members  at 
least  the  right  to  live.  The  fact  that  many  of  our 
most  distinguished  men  have  been  willing  to  forego 
all  privilege  and  let  their  works  stand  on  their 
merits  in  the  exhibition,  and  the  fact.  Droved  beyond 
argument  at  the  Independent  shows,  that  merit 
will  secure  recognition  whether  its  possessor  is  fa- 
mous or  unknown,  are  more  than  chance  incidents; 
they  have  a  significance  beyond  the  field  of  art,  in 
the  broader  movement  toward  a  collective  effort 
in  society. 

But  one  really  does  not  want  to  worry  too  much 
about  social  philosophies  when  seeing  pictures. 
The  artists  themselves  certainly  do  not;  what  they 
contribute  to  such  matters  comes  purely  as  an  un- 
conscious by-product  of  the  single  interest  of  their 
lives — which  is  to  do  their  work. 

WALTER  PACH. 


THE  DIAL 


GEORGE   DONLIN 


TOHN    DEWEY 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor 

CLARENCE    BRITTEN 

In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program. 

THORSTEIN   VEBLEN 


HAROLD   STEARNS 


HELEN    MAROT 


-•-HE  CHIEF  IMMEDIATE  VALUE  OF  THE  COVENANT 

of  the  League  of  Nations  is  to  serve  as  a  basis  of 
reconciliation  upon  which  terms  of  peace  may  be 
based.  That  this  is  the  view  of  the  Covenant  as 
it  applies  to  the  smaller  nations  is  clear.  It  is  ex- 
pected that  in  its  light  the  Poles  and  the  Ruthenians, 
the  Italians  and  the  Jugo-Slavs,  the  Roumanians 
and  the  Hungarians  will  be  able  to  lay  aside  their 
traditional  feuds  and  accept  the  law  of  peace.  It  is 
surprising  to  find  great  reluctance  to  accept  this  view 
as  respects  the  larger  antagonists  and  the  funda- 
mental quarrel  of  the  world  war.  Indeed,  it  is 
clear  that  many  defenders  of  the  Covenant  regard 
it  as  a  means  of  perpetuating  this  quarrel,  and  un- 
derwriting revenge.  That  this  should  be  the  view 
of  such  as  ex-Senator  Burton  is  perhaps  to  be  ex- 
pected, and  not  particularly  to  be  regretted,  but 
when  we  find  it  put  forth  in  an  article  in  support 
of  the  League  appearing  in  the  Outlook,  and  ad- 
dressed to  the  semi-religious  middle-class  public 
whom  that  magazine  serves,  it  is  a  cause  of  appre- 
hension. "  Germany  is  not  yet  beaten  but  just 
placed  in  a  position  where  she  can  be  beaten  and 
she  must  be  kept  there  by  an  army  of  occupation  un- 
til her  ultimate  defeat  is  assured."  And  again: 
"  Germany  is  still  the  enemy  of  the  free  nations  of 
the  world."  All  this  shows  that  the  Outlook  is 
defending  the  Covenant  under  a  complete  miscon- 
ception of  its  spirit  and  purpose.  The  League  of 
Nations  without  Germany  is  no  association  in  the 
sense  in  which  President  Wilson  used  the  term  in 
the  last  of  his  famous  fourteen  articles.  It  is  on 
the  contrary  a  perpetuation  of  an  alliance  which 
will  be  faced  at  first  by  a  single  nation,  as  Europe 
by  Prussia  in  1806,  then  by  a  rival  alliance,  one 
which  in  view  of  its  exclusion  from  the  world  of 
international  finance  will  be  what  our  press  calls 
Bolshevik,  and  which  will  in  consequence  attract 
the  admiration  of  labor  everywhere  and  be  in  a 
position  to  carry  the  class  war  into  every  country 
of  the  world.  No — a  League  of  Nations  without 
Germany  is  the  surest  way  of  defeating  the  object 
of  such  a  league.  The  great  problem  is  indeed  the 
making  of  a  peace  with  Germany  by  virtue  of  which 
she  will  recognize  the  Covenant  as  the  child  of 
President  Wilson's  idealism,  and  be  eager  to  adopt 
and  defend  the  faith.  It  should  be  said  at  once 
and  with  all  solemnity  that  the  terms  of  peace  of- 


fered to  Germany  in  connection  with  the  Covenant 
are  the  last  opportunity  to  reestablish  the  world  on 
its  old  foundations.  Already  the  treatment  of  Ger- 
.  many  by  the  Allies  has  seriously  compromised  the 
situation.  It  may  be  said  with  truth  that  the  bit- 
terness, the  legacy  of  hate,  of  the  last  four  months 
is  greater  than  that  of  the  four  years  of  war.  On 
the  one  hand  the  political  and  financial  exigencies 
of  the  Allied  statesmen  have  led  to  an  intensifica- 
tion of  the  verbal  campaign  against  Germany, 
with  a  consequent  accretion  of  wrath  among  their 
peoples ;  and  on  the  other,  the  severity  of  the  Armis- 
tice and  the  blockade  has  extended  and  increased 
the  hardships  of  war  conditions  among  the  civil 
population  of  Germany  until  it  appears  that  one 
reason  why  Lloyd  George  urges  the  granting  of  food 
is  that  his  army  of  occupation  will  not  endure  longer 
the  sight  of  women  and  children  dying  of  starvation. 
It  should  be  remembered  that  the  long  years  of  hate 
and  distrust  between  North  and  South  that  followed 
our  own  Civil  War  were  the  product  of  the  so-called 
Reconstruction  rather  than  of  the  war  itself.  It 
will  be  so  in  this  case  unless  full  advantage  is  taken 
of  the  means  of  reconciliation  afforded  by  the  Treaty 
of  Peace  based  on  the  Covenant.  We  quote  the 
words  of  Norman  Angell  in  hisi  article  in  this  issue 
of  THE  DIAL: 

The  success  of  the  League  of  Nations  will  depend  less 
now  upon  the  form  of  machinery  which  the  Allies  may 
devise  than  whether  the  spirit  which  must  animate  any 
successful  League  is  imported  into  their  actual  policy  to- 
wards the  enemy  during  the  next  months. 

\_/NE   OF  THE  CHIEF  OBSTACLES   IN   THE   WAY  OF 

a  genuine  and  enduring  peace  with  Germany — a 
peace  of  the  spirit  as  well  as  of  the  flesh — is  the  un- 
satisfactory attitude  of  that  country  in  the  matter 
of  repentance.  Our  press  reminds  us  daily  that  at 
heart  the  Germans  are  as  world-defying  as  ever. 
They  are  glum  in  the  presence  of  our  soldiers  and 
exhibit  unbecoming  joy  at  the  return  of  their  own, 
to  whom  they  apply  the  term  heroes  as  undis- 
criminatingly  as  we  do  to  ours.  What  signs  of  re- 
morse our  experts  in  national  conscience  demand  is 
difficult  to  discover.  It  has  been  suggested  that  the 
ninety-three  professors  publicly  recant  and  with- 
draw their  pronouncement — that  the  Ebert  govern- 
ment publish  a  White  Book  confessing  Germany's 


310 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


responsibility  for  beginning  the  war — that  the  clergy 
lead  their  flocks  in  penance.  None  of  these  things 
will  happen.  If  we  are  waiting  for  them  as  pre- 
liminary to  peace  with  Germany,  we  shall  not  have 
that  peace.  In  fact  it  may  be  questioned  whether 
modern  history  records  a  genuine  case  of  national 
repentance.  It  is  true  that  in  times  when  the  na- 
tion was  a  unit  not  far  removed  from  a  patriarchal 
society,  it  could  doubtless  feel  as  a  single  family  in 
the  presence  of  national  sin  and  misfortune:  there 
is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  psychological  truth  of 
the  Old  Testament  accounts  of  the  repentance  of 
the  Hebrew  people  under  the  scourge  of  their 
prophets.  Again,  in  the  city  states,  Athens  and 
Florence,  it  was  possible  for  similar  unity  of  feel- 
ing to  take  effect  in  great  movements  of  civic 
emotion.  But  in  a  modern  state,  as  in  a  modern 
corporation,  the  sense  of  responsibility  is  so  diffused, 
the  means  of  information  so  indirect  and  uncertain, 
that  it  is  impossible  to  focus  national  feeling  on  any- 
thing so  unpleasant  as  a  conviction  of  sin.  We 
know  this  from  our  own  history.  It  is  well  estab- 
lished that  the  Spanish  War  was  diplomatically 
avoidable — that  President  McKinley  yielded  to  the 
popular  blood  thirst  excited  by  Roosevelt  and 
Hearst.  It  may  be  thought  that  no  subject  of  re- 
pentance is  more  compelling  than  a  needless  war; 
yet  has  the  United  States  or  its  body  of  citizens 
felt  anything  approaching  regret  for  the  bloodshed? 
It  is  equally  well  established  that  in  setting  up 
the  republic  of  Panama  we  made  a  scrap  of  paper 
of  a  treaty  with  Columbia  explicitly  covering  the 
subject  of  our  aggression,  and  that  if  Columbia  had 
resisted  we!  should  have  invaded  her  territory.  Yet 
nothing  is  farther  from  our  national  conscience  than 
a  sense  of  wrongdoing.  If  we  confess,  as  Roose- 
velt did,  it  is  with  pride.  The  efforts  of  a  few 
well-meaning  idealists  to  make  us  pay  damage  are 
the  cause  in  our  Senate  of  renewed  hardness  of 
heart  or  ribald  contempt  of  the  law  of  nations — 
and  the  people  care  for  none  of  these  things.  But 
it  may  be  said  that  Germany's  offense  was  accom- 
panied by  circumstances  of  outrage  and  atrocity 
that  should  bring  an  instinctive  recoil.  Did  simi- 
lar atrocities  when  perpetrated  by  our  soldiers  in 
the  Philippines  cause  any  noticeable  mental  or  moral 
anguish  in- this  country?  Yes — to  Mr.  Moorfield 
Story  and  a  few  other  belated  Puritans.  The 
trouble  was  that  they  could  not  bring  to  the  coun- 
try any  lively  conception  of  its  responsibility  for  the 
behavior  of  its  servants  toward  an  inferior  race.  And 
probably  the  German  people  today  are  in  the  same 
condition  of  mingled  ignorance,  disbelief,  and  indif- 
ference in  regard  to  Belgium.  We  need  not  look 
for  any  great  act  of  national  repentance  from  Ger- 
many, for  none  is  possible.  In  view  of  Germany's 
defeat  such  an  act  would  be  in  any  case  discounted. 
So  it  behooves  us  to  remake  our  world  as  best  we 
can,  without  the  edifying  and  gratifying  spectacle  of 
Germany  on  her  knees  in  public  penance. 


T, 


HE  OVERMAN  COMMITTEE  MARKED  THE 
climax  of  its  deliberations  with  the  appearance  of 
Colonel  Raymond  Robins.  The  investigation  di- 
rected by  the  State  Department  as  a  smoke  screen 
for  its  blunders  in  the  Russian  situation  was  care- 
fully planned  to  include  only  the  testimony  of  those 
violently  opposed  to  the  present  regime  in  Russia, 
with  a  final  explosion  from  the  Reds  to  damn  it 
with  loud  praise.  It  was  expected  that  in  this  way 
the  Soviet  Government  would  be  discredited  from 
both  sides,  and  the  natural  reaction  of  the  country 
would  be  a  disgust  so  deep  that  the  record  of  the 
State  Department  would  be  drowned  in  it.  The 
failure  of  the  plan  was  due  largely  to  the  modera- 
_tion  and  good  sense  with  which  Messrs.  John  Reed 
and  Albert  Rhys  Williams  and  Miss  Louise  Bryant 
conducted  themselves  before  the  Committee.  A  sen- 
atorial investigation  is  nowadays  much  like  the 
Indian  custom  of  running  the  gauntlet.  The  war- 
riors line  up  on  either  side,  spitting  on  their  hands 
and  waving  their  clubs  with  ferocious  gestures, 
grimaces,  and  cries,  each  eager  to  plant  a  blow  that 
will  echo  down  the  ages  in  the  Congressional  Rec- 
ord. In  the  case  of  favored  prisoners  who  are 
destined  to  adoption  into  the  tribe,  the  warriors  are 
directed  to  strike  just  before  or  after  the  flying 
figure.  In  the  case  of  Breshkovskaya,  who  was  sup- 
posed to  be  persona  grata,  some  over-eager  young 
braves,  excited  doubtless  by  the  term  "  revolution- 
ist, "  struck  to  wound,  but  were  called  off.  In  the 
cases  of  the  sympathizers  with  the  Soviets,  however, 
no  quarter  was  given,  and  Miss  Bryant  in  particular 
was  subjected  to  the  peculiar  type  of  courtesy  which 
Senators  retain  for  use  towards  their  masters — the 
people.  In  spite  of  this,  the  testimony  of  the  avowed 
sympathizers  with  the  Soviets  was  such  as  to  con- 
vict the  Committee  and  the  State  Department  of 
the  panic  cry  of  "  Wolf!  Wolf!  "  It  was  not  ap- 
parently the  intention  to  call  Colonel  Robins;  but 
his  own  expressed  desire  to  make  his  long  awaited 
statement  before  this  official  body,  and  the  demand 
of  'the  Truth  about  Russia  Society,  forced  the  hand 
of  the  State  Department,  which  professed  to  be  man- 
aging the  investigation,  and  resulted  in  the  exten- 
sion of  its  hearings.  Colonel  Robins  effectively 
disposed  of  any  value  the  investigation  might  have 
as  camouflage  for  the  mistakes  of  the  Administration 
in  dealing  with  Russia.  Blunders  that  became  atroc- 
ities were  noted  and  catalogued  in  his  testimony,  to 
become  a  part  of  the  final  indictment.  The  sending 
of  the  most  notorious  representative  of  the  Dark 
Forces  of  America  to  greet  Revolutionary  Russia, 
the  selfish  sacrifice  of  the  Kerensky  Government, 
the  cowardly  refusal  to  give  an  answer  to  Lenin's 
offer  to  break  off  negotiations  at  Brest-Litovsk  in  re- 
turn for  aid — all  these  stand  forth  in  Colonel  Rob- 
ins' testimony  as  monuments  to  the  arrogant  stupid- 
ity that  has  characterized  our  State  Department, 
to  whose  best  traditions  the  present  locum  tenens  is 
not  unfaithful.  Colonel  Robins  refused  comment 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


311 


on  the  Sisson  documents,  which,  he  said — according 
to  the  report  in  the  New  York  Tribune — "  would 
inevitably  reflect  on  Mr.  Sisson,  who  is  abroad." 
He  expressed  disbelief  in  many  of  the  stories  of 
violence  and  terror  circulated  in  the  campaign  of 
propaganda  against  the  Soviet  Government,  espe- 
cially the  picturesque  tale  of  the  violation  of  the 
Woman's  Battalion.  In  reply  to  questions  as  to 
the  danger  of  Bolshevism  in  America  Colonel 
Robins  declared  that  there  were  two  remedies — full 
publicity  as  to  Russia  and  full  protection  of  the 
American  workman,  "  so  that  he  will  say  that  the 
land  that  is  worth  living  in  is  a  land  worth  living 
for." 

V_JpposED  TO  COLONEL  ROBINS  IN  THE  TREAT- 
ment  of  social  unrest  stand  forth  certain  champions 
of  strong-arm  methods.  There  is  Governor  Sproul 
of  Pennsylvania,  addressing  the  Scotch-Irish  So- 
ciety of  that  state : 

I  don't  believe  we  are  in  any  danger.  I  don't  believe 
that  any  doctrine  which  controverts  our  religion  or  the 
God  we  believe  in  will  get  any  status  in  America.  Any- 
one who  wants  to  start  trouble  in  Pennsylvania  will  get 
it.  The  state  has  an  organization  to  beat  any  attempt 
to  disturb  the  present  order  of  things. 

There  is  Mayor  Ole  Hanson  of  Seattle,  and  his 
Chief  of  Police: 

"We  closed  up  every  'wobbly'  hall  in  town,"  said 
the  Mayor.  "We  didn't  have  any  law  to  do  it  with,  so 
we  used  nails.  When  there  was  serious  opposition  we 
trotted  out  tiie  Department  of  Health  and  had  the  build- 
ings condemned.  We  didn't  need  any  more  law  than 
we  did  to  stop  the  red  flag.  We  just  stopped  it." 

In  reference  to  a  raid  in  which  the  police  searched 
the  cooperative  market  run  by  union  labor,  closed 
and  padlocked  the  headquarters  of  the  Socialist 
Party,  and  stopped  w"brk  at  a  cooperative  shop  where 
I.  W.  W.  literature  had  been  printed,  the  Chief 
of  Police  said : 

I  had  no  warrant  ordering  the  place  closed.  I  was 
tired  of  reading  the  revolutionary  circulars  that  were 
printed  there,  and  decided  that  I  had  already  let  them 
go  too  far,  so  I  just  locked  them  up.  They  started  with 
very  mild  articles,  but  have  now  passed  the  limit.  I 
expect  no  trouble  in  enforcing  the  closing  order. 

In  Lawrence,  Massachusetts,  where  the  textile 
workers  are  striking  for  the  eight-hour  day,  the  po- 
lice have  refused  the  strikers  the  exercise  of  their 
right  of  peaceful  assembly,  have  arrested  a  strike 
leader  on  the  false  charge  of  evading  the  draft, 
have  ridden  down  and  beaten  up  peaceful  strikers 
and  their  sympathizers  on  the  public  streets  and  side- 
walks. In  the  case  of  the  Lawrence  strike  the  forces 
of  repression  are  drawing  on  the  hatred  generated 
and  stored  up  for  war  purposes.  They  are  mak- 
ing lavish  use  of  the  shibboleths  of  patriotism  and 
religion,  utterly  reckless  as  to  the  effect  of  discredit- 
ing forever  among  hungry  and  desperate  men  the 
faiths  for  which  the  catchwords  stand. 


.HE  GOVERNMENT  CONTINUES  ITS  BLUNDERING 
policy  in  regard  to  the  victims  of  war  psychology. 
Ex-Attorney  General  Gregory  continues  to  main- 
tain that  persons  convicted  under  the  Espionage 
Act  are  not  political  prisoners,  and  that  in  every  case 
it  was  proved  that  whatever  they  said  or  did  was 
done  with  a  specific  unlawful  intent,  even  wrhen 
the  prosecution  arose  from  statements  made  in  pri- 
vate conversation.  His  own  recommendation  of 
commutation  of  sentences  recognizes  that  in  some 
cases  the  evidence  of  unlawful  intent  was  unsatis- 
factory, and  further  that  "  injustice  resulted  to  cer- 
tain defendants  because  of  the  all-prevalent  condi- 
tion of  intense  patriotism  and  aroused  emotions  on 
the  part  of  the  jurors."  It  is  pertinent  to  ask  Mr. 
Gregory  whether  this  condition  did  not  result  in 
injustice  not  in  some  cases  but  in  all,  and  whether 
he  and  his  subordinates  did  not  make  every  effort 
to  inflame  the  patriotic  passions  of  courts  and  juries 
against  defendants  and  thus  become  themselves  the 
cause  of  the  injustice  which  Mr.  Gregory  now 
tardily  condemns.  The  cases  recently  reported  for 
clemency  illustrate  and  emphasize  the  inequality  with 
which  the  law  was  enforced.  Convicts  who  at- 
tracted much  public  sympathy  even  when  convicted 
of  publicly'  urging  resistance  to  conscription  are  to 
be  released.  Others  like  Robert  Goldstein,  con- 
victed for  promoting  a  moving  picture  showing  mas- 
sacres by  British  soldiers  in  the  American  Revolu- 
tion, are  held  to  three  years.  The  statement  that 
he  is  "  alleged  to  have  been  financed  by  pro-German 
interests  "  is  an  interesting  comment  on  what  the 
Department  of  Justice  holds  to  be  material  evidence 
in  such  cases. 


.HE    SAME    SHUFFLING    AND    EVASIVE    POLICY    IS 

continued  toward  the  Conscientious  Objectors.  Late 
in  January  the  Secretary  of  War  released  113  Ob- 
jectors from  Fort  Leavenworth — men  who  had 
been  courtmartialled  without  having  been  granted, 
or  in  some  cases  offered,  the"  farm  furloughs  offi- 
cially promised.  Freedom  seems  to  have  been  ex- 
tended only  to  the  men  who  declared  that  they 
would  have  accepted  such  alternative  service  had  it 
been  offered.  Absolutists  whose  consciences  revolted 
at  every  direct  or  indirect  form  of  submission  to 
conscription  for  war  are  left,  presumably,  to  serve 
out  their  sentences.  In  other  words,  the  War  De- 
partment offers  the  temptation  to  these  men  to  deny 
their  consciences  and  impeach  their  own  sincerity. 
By  so  doing  it  cuts  from  under  its  own  feqt  the 
only  ground  on  which  its  practice  can  be  defended. 
For  it  is  obvious  that  the  only  ground  on  which 
conscientious  objectors  are  entitled  to  escape  facing 
the  firing  squad  is  that  of  conscience.  All  compro- 
mise, evasion,  and  paltering  with  this  issue  are  ab- 
surd and  must  ultimately  be  abandoned.  If  the  Sec- 
retary of  War  felt  that  such  courses  were  useful  in 
time  of  war  he  can  have  no  excuse  for  maintaining 
them  in  peace. 


312 


March  22 


Notes  on  New  Books 


THE  BURGOMASTER  OF  STILEMONDE.  By 
Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Translated  by  Alexan- 
der Teixeira  de  Mattos.  Dodd,  Mead;  $1.75. 

The  Burgomaster  of  Stilemonde  is  written  by 
the  Maeterlinck  who  wrote  Monna  Vanna  and 
Mary  Magdalene,  a  Maeterlinck  who  approaches 
moral  problems  with  some  objectivity.  He  has  lost 
his  coloring  and  poetry,  but  perhaps  that  is  a  fitting 
loss  in  a  play  of  the  recent  war.  Instead  however 
of  a  grim,  stark,  bleeding  piece  of  artistry,  he  has 
given  us  merely  a  workmanlike  play  in  which 
plausible  beings  repeat  declarations  familiar  for 
the  past  four  years.  One  might  say  the  conflict  in 
the  play  is  between  the  two  Mythologies — of  Power 
and  of  Sacrifice:  in  Nietzschean  terms,  between  the 
proud,  relentless,  strong,  "  well-constituted,"  and 
the  self-sacrificing  and  loving  "  ill-constituted." 
John  Cowper  Powys  in  his  novel  Wood  and  Stone 
took  this  antagonism,  handled  it  with  an  ironic 
searching  grasp,  and  posed  in  a  hundred  ways  the 
question  as  to  which  after  all  were  really  the 
stronger,  the  power-seeking  ones  or  the  loving  ones. 
Maeterlinck  has  treated  the  theme  almost  as  Pinero 
might  do  it. 

The  play  ends  in  the  execution  of  the  Burgo- 
master, who  gives  his  life  to  save  his  head  gardener 
and  his  town  from  German  violence.  By  many 
wordy  speeches  Maeterlinck  shows  us  the  incom- 
prehensibility, to  the  invading  military  leaders,  of 
such  actions  and  of  Belgian  resistance.  Major  von 
Rochow  stands  for  absolute  Prussian  militarism, 
while  the  young  Lieutenant  Hilmer  is  intended  to 
show  us  "  a  very  pleasant,  good-hearted  fellow,  very 
kind,  clever,  too,"  who  is  warped  into  a  different 
man  by  taking  his  place  as  a  small  cog  in  a  vast  army 
machine.  The  tragic  note  is  intensified  by  Kilmer's 
relation  to  the  Burgomaster  as  his  son-in-law  and  by 
the  distraction  of  his  wife  Isabelle,  who  forbids  Hil- 
mer to  touch  her  after  the  Burgomaster  has  been 
shot.  "  This  is  incomprehensible,"  says  Major  von 
Rochow,  "  but  they're  all  more  or  less  mad  in  this 
country." 

Maeterlinck's  restraint  is  evident  throughout.  In 
his  desire  to  avoid  too  bitter  rancor,  too  great  pas- 
sion, the  play  has  lost  something  life-giving.  Future 
readers  in  studying  the  collected  works  will  pass 
quickly  over  the  Burgomaster  of  Stilemonde. 

THE  WAY  OF  A  MAN.  By  Thomas  Dixon. 
Appleton;  $1.50. 

Could  any  person  not  of  essentially  unclean  mind 
have  written  Thomas  Dixon's  latest  atrocity,  The 
Way  of  a  Man?  If  the  book  possessed  merit  as 
literature  it  would  be  barred  from  libraries,  but  it 
is  so  worthless  as  to  be  safe  from  attack.  The 
once-Reverend  Thomas  Dixon  would  doubtless 


plead  that  he  is  teaching  a  moral  lesson,  but  the 
plea  would  not  stand:  he  writes  with  too  obvious 
relish  in  his  pornographic  material;  his  pen  revels 
in  an  eroticism  that  offends  doubly  because  of  its 
crudity.  Mr.  Dixon  is  a  sensation-monger,  know- 
ing only  the  vulgarly  violent  emotions,  striving 
always  to  lash  the  reader  into  some  state  of  passion. 
Having  exhausted  the  possibilities  of  race  prejudice 
in  the  South,  he  now  gives  over  his  efforts  to  stir 
up  mob  violence  against  the  Negroes  for  conditions 
that  existed — if  ever — more  than  fifty  years  ago, 
and  spatters  the  North  with  his  highly  colored  ink. 
The  South  is  to  be  congratulated  on  his  removal. 
In  this  book  he  undertakes  to  furnish  an  expose  of 
free  love  in  lower  Manhattan.  Bis  style  is  no  less 
absurd  than  his  plot,  2nd  both  show  the  influence  of 
nis  experience  in  scenario  writing.  Violent  and 
luscious  adjectives  pursue  each  other  across  the  page," 
where  mechanical  emotions  rumble  along  through  a 
pasteboard  world  to  their  stereotyped  conclusions. 

TAM  o'  THE   SCOOTS.     By   Edgar  Wallace. 
Small,  Maynard;  $1.35. 

Mr.  Wallace,  in  Tarn  o'  the  Scoots,  reflects  les 
chansons  de  gloire  that  colored  the  life  of  flyers  in 
the  late  war.  More,  he  reflects  the  bright  spirit 
of  chivalry  that  marked  the  aerial  lists.  Tarn  shot 
down  a  great  rival,  and  the  next  day  attended  his 
funeral  at  some  altitude,  dropping  a  noble  epitaph 
in  verse.  Later,  Tarn  shot  down  another  one  of 
the  enemy  in  flames,  but  the  man  escaped  death; 
and,  while  being  feasted  before  going  into  formal 
captivity,  he  praised  the  poetry  of  the  little  epitaph. 
Tam  flushed  .up.  "  Thank  ye,  sir-r,"  he  blurted. 
"  Ye  couldna'  'a'  made  me  more  pleased — even  if 
A'  killit  ye."  An  excellent  touch,  that;  for  the 
episodes  of  the  high  tourney  always  were  funny 
to  the  flyers,  much  in  the  mood  of  an  Icarian  bur- 
lesque. And  if  any  were  killed,  the  play  became, 
for  the  moment,  serious.  Also,  it  should  be  noted, 
Mr.  Wallace  reflects  this  happy  spirit  of  the  air- 
men by  the  employment  of  a  lively  and  entertaining 
narrative  of  adventure.  Many  things  happen  in  a 
page,  and  very  quickly  too.  Tam  is  the  gentle 
apotheosis  of  the  blood-and-thunder  hero,  and  some- 
thing besides.  If  the  reader  asks  more,  it  will  be 
an  echo  of  that  unph rased  deep  pathos  that  just 
touched  the  faces  of  these  modern  knights  when, 
the  day  done,  they  sat  down  to  mess,  marked  an- 
other vacant  chair,  and  raised  their  glasses  in  a 
silent  toast. 

But  the  flyers  themselves,  in  reading  this  book, 
will  find  not  a  few  technical  errors  of  the  sort 
that  a  writer  would  make.  It  is  a  sorry  thing  to 
point  them  out  in  such  good  narrative.  And  yet, 
because  the  same  errors  may  be  published  again, 
it  is  just  as  well  to  set  a  clarifying  finger  on  the 
confused  illustration  facing  page  52.  The  gun 
in  the  illustration  could  never  be  used  in  the  air. 
It  has  a  cooling  device  which  is  unnecessary,  and  a 


IQI9 


THE  DIAL 


belt  feed  which  would  knock  out  the  pilot's  eyes, 
at  least.  It  has  no  sights.  The  trigger  squeeze 
is  so  antiquated  for  a  pilot's  gun  that  it  would  be 
useless  in  combat.  The  pilot's  goggles  are  raised, 
and — climactic  error — both  hands  are  removed  from 
the  controls.  The  plane  to  which  the  gun  is  at- 
tached was  evidently  invented  by  the  illustrator. 
It  would  never  fly. 

ASIA  MINOR.     By  Walter  A.  Hawley.    John 
Lane;  $3.50. 

It  is  hard  to  condemn  a  man  because  he  lacks 
imagination.  But  in  the  last  analysis  any  criticism 
of  Mr.  Hawley 's  Asia  Minor  must  come  down  to 
that.  If  careful  observation  were  all,  if  a  meticulous 
transcribing  of  things  seen  sufficed  to  give  a  true 
picture  of  the  unexplored,  the  volume  would  pass 
the  censor.  Unfortunately,  much  of  the  significance 
of  the  East,  as  indeed  of  all  places  where  we  are 
minded  to  look  for  it,  consists  in  the  things  that  are 
not  visible.  And  Mr.  Hawley  is  neither  prophet 
nor  seer,  but  simply  a  traveler  with  a  zest  for  dis- 
tant lands,  a  deep-felt  appreciation  for  antiquities 
and  landscapes,  and  some  very  considerable  knowl- 
edge of  the  ancient  races  that  have  successively 
inhabited  his  bit  of  the  East,  from  the  square-toed 
Hittites  up.  He  can  be  counted  on  not  to  make  mis- 
statements  or  blunders.  But  such  a  writer  as  H.  G. 
Dwight  will  give  more  of  the  East  in  the  turn  of  a 
phrase  than  can  be  found  in  all  the  present  volume 
together.  To  the  description  of  a  country  richer  in 
association,  in  mystery,  and  dawning  power  than 
almost  any  other  spot  of  the  globe,  he  brings  obser- 
vation, but  little  perception  of  the  fundamental  and 
living  questions  at  stake.  Hence  he  offers  worn 
banalities,  comfortless  assurances,  or  positive  mis- 
conceptions— such  as  his  assertion  that  "  despite 
abuses  perpetrated  by  the  Government,  the  Turks 
have  many  excellent  qualities,  some  of  which  have 
been  manifest  during  the  last  two  decades  in  the 
serious  efforts  of  the  Progressive  Party  to  accom- 
plish necessary  reforms."  Is  Mr.  Hawley  really 
unacquainted  with  history  since  the  inauguration  of 
the  Young  Turk  Administration  ?  He  has  given  us 
an  interesting  Baedeker  of  Asia  Minor,  but  he  has 
certainly  missed  a  priceless  opportunity. 

THE  MIRROR  AND  THE  LAMP.    W.  B.  Max- 
well.    Bobbs-Merrill ;  $1.75. 

Mr.  Maxwell,  novelist,  has  given  place  for  four 
years  to  Captain  Maxwell  of  the  British  Army, 
righting  with  the  Fusiliers  in  France.  The  war 
however  has  no  part  in  his  new  novel,  in  which 
the  struggles  are  all  mental  and  spiritual.  He  says 
of  his  title : 

The  lamp  is  one's  inmost  self — what  we  call  the  soul — the 
mirror  is  the  mind.  The  lamp  is  constant  in  its  power  to 
light  the  mirror,  and  show  what  is  fair  and  what  is  foul. 

In  this  book,  which  is  in  some  respects  the  best 
thing  he  has  done,  Mr.  Maxwell  repeats  the  themes 


of  his  previous  novels — man's  craving  for  religion, 
the  contrast  between  wealth  and  poverty,  and  the 
effects  upon  character  of  unlawful  love.  He  han- 
dles these  essentially  difficult  subjects  with  sincerity 
and  admirable  delicacy.  His  description  of  char- 
acter is  excellent  in  the  case  of  the  minor  persons, 
but  the  major  persons  do  not  convince.  Edward 
Churchill,  the  central  figure,  never  succeeds  in  gain- 
ing the  reader's  belief  in  him  nor  sympathy  with  him. 
He  alone  of  the  family  group  in  his  childhood  home 
is  unconvincing.  The  mother  is  extremely  real, 
detestably  so,  and  the  brothers  are  alive.  Even  the 
old  servant,  Maria,  and  the  various  boys  at  school 
are  actual — particularly  the  tragic  Jarvis,  he  of  the 
graveyard  cough  with  which  he  entertains  his  fel- 
lows, until  the  day  when  he  has  to  go  to  work  in 
a  shop  and  becomes  the  victim  of  the  boys'  cruel 
caste  snobbery.  And  Walsden,  the  ^missionary,  is 
one  of  the  most  authentic  persons  in  recent  fiction. 
But  Churchill  is  a  prig  in  his  boyhood  and  a  weak- 
ling in  manhood.  His  religion  never  seems  vital, 
as  Walsden's  is,  and  his  vacillations  about  the  min- 
istry lack  sufficient  motivation.  He  puts  belief  off 
and  on  too  easily.  He  shows  inherent  weakness  in 
letting  himself  be  so  dominated  by  his  piously  crafty 
mother,  as  well  as  in  the  entanglement  of  his  later 
life.  The  author  obviously  expects  the  reader's 
approval,  or  at  least  sympathy,  in  Churchill's  elope- 
ment with  a  married  woman  and  his  subsequent  life 
with  her,  but  the  whole  affair  appears  unreal. 
(Why  is  Mr.  Maxwell  always  writing  about  the 
woman  who  transgresses  the  moral  law?)  Lillian 
is  a  poor  thing,  not  worth  the  sacrifice  Churchill 
made  for  her. 

The  story  is  huddled  together  at  the  last,  so  that 
the  closing  events  appear  dreamlike.  And  the  final 
chapters  are  a  sop  to  the  happy-ender. 

THE    OPEN-AIR    THEATRE.       By     Sheldon 
Cheney.    Kennerley;  $3. 

The  virtues  of  open  air  do  not  require  proof; 
they  are  axiomatic.  And  we  are  not  certain  but 
that  over-insistence  upon  them  has  a  tendency  to 
weaken  rather  than  strengthen  their  position. 
There  is  always  a  temptation  for  the  compiler  to  turn 
special  pleader,  and  that  appears  to  be  the  trap 
into  which  the  author  of  this  handbook  has  fallen 
on  more  than  one  occasion.  He  is  led  into  a  dog- 
matic assertiveness  which  warps  the  fabric  of  his 
theme.  By  claiming  too  much  for  the  al  fresco 
drama  he  imparts  the  impression  that  there<  is  some 
special  baneful  influence  residing  in  mere  roof.  We 
find  him  requisitioning  italics  to  remark:  "  If 
there  is  one  quality  that,  more  than  any  other, 
distinguishes  the  drama  of  the  open  from  the  indoor 
drama,  it  is  genuineness."  "  The  story  of  the  birth 
of  dramatic  art,  and  of  that  art's  growth  through 
its  greatest  eras,  is  exclusively  the  story  of  the  open- 
air  theater,"  he  says  elsewhere.  And  when  we  find 
Mr.  Cheney  claiming  for  the  Cranbrook  theatei, 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


near  Detroit,  that  "  the  whole  effect  has  a  loveliness 
without  parallel  in  the  existing  theatres  of  ancient 
or  modern  times,"  we  have  a  lurking  conviction 
that  the  author  is  taking  in  a  little  too  much  terri- 
tory. 

For  the  most  part,  however,  the  compiler  con- 
tents himself  with  a  lucid  textual  description  of  the 
open-air  theater  of  this  country  and  Europe,  giving 
an  adequate  idea  of  their  styles  and  the  kind  of 
production  to  which  they  are  adapted.  The  book 
is  comprehensive,  and  contains  more  than  half  a 
hundred  excellent  illustrations.  There  is  an  ap- 
pendix devoted  more  particularly  to  problems  of 
planning  and  construction. 

SINISTER  HOUSE.     By  Leland  Hall.     Hough- 
ton  Mifflin;  $1.50. 

Of  course  we  don't  believe  in  ghosts.  Reason, 
science,  even  simple  decorum  of  everyday  life — all 
combine  against  such  belief.  Yet  there  exists  in 
hardheaded  as  well  as  in  imaginative  folk  a  sub- 
stratum of  credulity  needing  only  to  be  tapped. 
Some  skill  is  necessary  to  drop  through  the  layers 
of  sophisticated  resistance  into  that  substratum. 
We  demand  competent  witnesses,  people  who  are 
not  flighty — ordinary,  good,  sensible  people.  We 
like  the  evidence  of  animals,  dogs  especially,  for  we 
do  not  suspect  them  of  conniving  to  fool  us.  We 
need  motivation  for  the  ghosts:  why  are  they 
haunting  the  cattle  ?  We  find  it  easier,  on  the  whole, 
to  accept  malevolent  spirits  than  gentle,  well-mean- 
ing ones. 

Perhaps  never  since  the  Turn  of  the  Screw  have 
ghosts  been  evoked  so  successfully  as  in  Sinister 
House.  The  narrator  of  the  story  is  a  commuter 
with  a  Ford,  living  in  a  new  concrete  house.  His 
wife,  Annette,  is  plump,  pretty,  and  skeptical 
enough  to  remove  any  suspicion  of  connivance. 
Giles  Farrow,  Annette's  artist  cousin,  supplies  the 
element  of  intellectual  doubt.  Eric  and  Julia'Grier, 
who  live  in  the  dark  house  high  over  the  river,  are 
from  the  first  comment  intriguing  characters,  Julia 
with  her  fine  courage  and  her  intense  love  for  Eric, 
Eric,  with  his  restless,  over-protective  passion  for  his 
wife.  The  story  is  like  an  enlarging  spiral  of  mystery 
and  terror,  with  scenes  of  steadily  heightening  dra- 
matic quality  until  the  final  terrifying  night  of  the 
disclosure.  Giles,  firm  in  his  belief  that  ghosts 
breed  only  in  the  living,  works  toward  the  disclosure 
of  some  tangible  cause  in  Eric's  past  for  the  terror 
of  his  present  life.  And  terror  it  is,  malevolent 
and  horrid,  driving  Eric  into  isolation  by  repelling 
his  friends,  making  him  frightful  to  children,  be- 
setting Julia  to  the  point  of  death. 

Mr.  Hall  understands  the  artistic  value  of  con- 
trasts in  building  up  his  atmosphere.  Days  of 
bright  autumn  sun  and  family  picnics  precede  nights 
that  are  black  with  great  winds  blowing.  Com- 
fortable fires  and  pleasant  food — and  then  ghostly 


fingers  at  one's  neck.  The  style  is  manipulated 
toward  this  same  end :  Pierre  Smith,  the  narrator, 
talks  in  commonplace  colloquialisms,  except  at  the 
high  moments  of  the  story;  there  the  colloquialisms 
give  place  to  clear,  distinct,  sometimes  powerful 
phrasing. 

MEMORIES  GRAVE  AND  GAY.     By   Florence 
Howe  Hall.     Harper;  $3.50. 
LETTERS  OF  SUSAN  HALE.     Edited  by  Caro- 
line P.  Atkinson.     Marshall  Jones;  $3.50. 

The  strongest  reaction  aroused  by  Memories 
Grave  and  Gay  is  acute  sympathy  for  Mrs.  Julia 
Ward  Howe  and  her  worthy  husband,  Dr.  Samuel 
Gridley  Howe.  In  their  day  and  generation  they 
must  have  been  a  vigorous,  enterprising  pair.  The 
Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic  and  the  Asylum  for 
the  Blind  are  first-class  products.  Fighting  for  the 
right  of  women  to  work  outside  their  own  families 
and  for  Greek  independence  meant  a  thoroughgoing 
passion  for  reform  seventy  or  eighty  years  ago.  It 
was  to  the  Howes  that  Florence  Nightingale  looked 
for  moral  support  in  the  unheard-of  adventure  of 
hospital  nursing  in  the  eighteen-fifties,  and  it  was 
in  the  Howes'  Dorchester  home,  Green  Peace,  that 
many  a  European  revolutionist  and  exile  found 
welcome.  But  that  was  very  long  ago,  and  this 
famous  couple  have  been  unfortunate  in  their  de- 
scendants. Instead  of  going  forward  to  blaze  new- 
trails  in  the  manner  of  their  father  and  mother, 
the  Howes  of  today  seem  to  prefer  to  stay  at  home 
and  indulge  in  the  worship  of  their  ancestors.  The 
library  catalogues  show  lives  of  each  parent  sepa- 
rately, another  of  both  parents  together,  besides 
endless  special  chapters  and  magazine  articles;  and 
now  comes  this  new  record  of  family  history — a 
last,  careful,  patient  gleaning  in  a  field  wThence 
many  solid  volumes  had  already  been  harvested. 
Wonderful  it  is  under  such  circumstances  that  Mrs. 
Florence  Howe  Hall  has  found  anything  new  or 
interesting  to  relate.  She  has— but  the  difficulty 
is  that  the  new  parts  are  not  interesting,  and  the 
interesing  parts  are  not  new.  We  have  heard  before 
of  the  education  of  Laura  Bridgeman,  and  we  do 
not  care  to  hear  how  young  Harry  Hall  first  learned 
-to  ride  a  bicycle. 

Still,  quite  apart  from  the  value  of  the  material, 
the  book  has  a  charm  and  distinction  of  its  own. 
An  atmosphere  of  the  "  divine  right  of  kings  "  per- 
vades it.  A  serene  confidence  surrounds  it  like  a 
halo.  Without  humor,  without  hurry,  without 
selection,  without  the  faintest  shadow  of  a  suspi- 
cion of  the  devout  interest  of  her  public,  every  least 
detail  of  the  doings  of  the  Howe  family  is  set  down, 
to  the  third  and  fourth  generation.  The  chronicle 
is  childlike,  almost  pathetic  in  its  simple-hearted- 
ness. We  could  go  on  forever  in  admiration  of 
this  perfect  specimen  of  ancestor  worship,  if  we  were 
not  brought  up  short  again  by  our  sharp  sympathy 


1919  THE  DIAL  3*5 


The  crux  of  the  reconstruction  problem  is  the  relation  between  capital  and 
labor.  To  everyone  interested  in  this  problem,  these  two  books  are  recom- 
mended. Written  by  leading  authorities  they  illuminate  from  different 
angles  the  whole  labor  question  and  give  just  the  knowledge  that  is  needed 
for  an  understanding  of  the  new  era  of  industrial  relations. 

INSTINCTS  IN  INDUSTRY  By  Ordway  Tead 

"  No  one  who  comes  in  contact  with  or  handles  labor  in  any  way  can  fail  to 
find  information  of  value  in  it." — American  Machinist. 

"  Mr.  Tead  has  joined  the  things  that  every  intelligent  employer  has  ob- 
served and  the  things  that  every  intelligent  psychologist  has  observed  and  has 
made  the  employers'  observations  scientific,  and  the  psychologists'  observation 
practicable." — Chicago  Daily  News. 

"  To  employers  who  want  to  know  '  what  is  the  matter '  with  their  employes, 
what  impulses  determine  their  efficiency,  we  recommend  '  Instincts  in  Industry.' 
Practical  manufacturers  can  spend  a  very  profitable  couple  of  hours  with  this 
author,  who  has  gathered  his  material  at  first  hand,  dealing  with  labor  problems 
as  an  industrial  counsel." — Babson  Statistical  Organisation  Bulletin.  $1.40  net 

'INDUSTRY  AND  HUMANITY  By  Hon.  W.  L.  MacKenzie  King 

This  volume,  the  result  of  years  of  study  and  experience  as  Canadian  Labor 
minister,  investigator,  etc.,  shows  how  the  struggle  between  capital  and  labor  can, 
and  must,  be  settled  by  peaceful  methods. 

"  The  great  problem  of  reconstruction  which  America  is  facing  is  the  creating 
of  more  efficient  relations  between  employer  and  employe.  This  is  one  of  the 
new  books  on  this  subject  and  will  be  of  interest  to  both  employers  and  labor 
leaders." — Babson  Statistical  Organisation  Bulletin. 

il  The  underlying  causes  of  industrial  unrest,  the  evolution  of  industrial 
phenomena,  the  essential  features  of  industrial  processes,  the  rights  and  functions 
of  labor,  capital,  management  a'nd  community  are  brought  out  in  forceful  man- 
ner."— Industrial  Management. 

".  .  .  Of  immense  value.  The  most  practical  of  books  concerning  the 
geous  and  clear-sighted." — Christian  Register.  $3-OO  net 


Moral  Reconstruction 


RIGHT  AND  WRONG  AFTER  THE  WAR          By  Rev.  Bernard  Iddings  Bell 

"  Fresh,  bold,  and  suggestive  thinking." — Boston  Transcript. 

"  This  book  treats  of  such  vital  problems  as  feminism,  poverty,  and  birth  con- 
trol. Mr.  Bell  sees  that  a  revision  of  our  Christian  ethics  is  in  order." — Chicago 
Evening  Post. 

"  Its  analysis  of  modern  social  and  ethical  conditions  is  refreshingly  coura- 
geous and  clear-sighted." — Christian  Register.  $i-^5  net 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY,  Boston  and  New  York 


316 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


for  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe.  In  life  she  was  a 
clever  woman,  more  than  ordinarily  vivid  and 
human:  it  is  hard  that  she  has  not  been  allowed, 
naturally  and  gently,  to  fade  into  obscurity.  It  is 
hard  not  to  be  allowed  to  die  a  natural  death. 

The  refreshing  thing  about  The  Letters  of  Susan 
Hale  is  that  she  does  not  take  herself  seriously — 
neither  herself  nor  her  family.  She  paints  in  Paris 
studios;  she  sketches  on  the  Nile;  she  acts  charades 
in  half  the  back  parlors  of  Boston;  she  teaches 
school;  she  jobs  at  literary  hack  work  for  her 
brother;  she  is  responsible  for  a  respectable  row 
of  volumes  herself;  she  dissects  the  flora  cf  Matu- 
nuck,  Rhode  Island ;  she  lectures  at  Woman's 
Clubs,  east  and  west  and  everywhere.  But  none 
of  these  occupations  takes  the  center  of  the  stage, 
or  diverts  her  from  her  true  profession  of  having 
a  perfectly  beautiful  time  in  the  world.  Let  us 
frankly  call  her  what  she  was,  an  amateur  and  un- 
ashamed. Letter  writing  however,  as  we  find  to  our 
good  fortune  in  the  present  volume,  she  did  take  seri- 
ously. A  nephew  once  said  of  her,  "  Why,  I  could 
write  good  letters,  too,  if  I  sat  down  to  it  right 
after  breakfast  and  kept  it  up  the  whole  morning." 
Being  a  friend  to  all  sorts  of  conditions  and  ages  of 
men  amounted  with  Miss  Hale  to  a  career  in  itself. 
In  her  letters  of  travel  her  greater  enthusiasms  were 
for  the  people,  not  the  places.  Europe  becomes 
almost  a  "  suburb  of  Boston,"  where  she  is  con- 
tinually running  into  somebody's  sister,  or  cousin, 
or  aunt.  In  Paris  her  chief  adventure  was  break- 
fasting with  James  Russell  Lowell. 

But  already,  and  very  swiftly,  these  letters  of 
Miss  Susan  Hale's  are  taking  on  the  aroma  and 
fragrance  of  the  old-fashioned.  Her  travels  abroad 
belong  to  the  long  ago,  ante-bellum  period  when 
Europe  was  to  most  of  us — blessedly — a  huge,  de- 
lightful, colored  picture-book  of  romance.  The 
porcelain  stoves  of  Germany,  the  Pyramids  of 
Egypt  were  only  parts  of  an  amusing,  enchanting 
Foreign  Whole.  Those  were  the  days  before  we 
had  seen  It  come  alive  and  turn  twice  as  real  as 
Boston  Common  or  the  State  House.  In  these 
days  of  doubt  and  difficulty,  then,  all  lovers  of  let- 
ters will  find  it  doubly  refreshing  to  turn  over  these 
records  of  irresponsible  good  times  in  the  old  world. 


THE     SPINNERS. 
Macmillan;  $1.60. 


By      Eden      Phillpotts. 


In  The  Spinners  Eden  Phillpotts  shows  the 
working  of  the  old  eternal  forces  in  a  modern 
community.  The  scene  is  an  idyllic  landscape  of 
chalk  downs,  winding  rivers,  and  cottage  gardens 
overflowing  with  flowers,  such  as  are  to  be  found 
only  in  the  West  Country  of  England.  The 
dramatis  personae  are  the  folk  of  the  spinning 
mill  which  is  owned  by  Raymond  Ironsyde.  Among 
them,  all  three  Fates  were  to  be  seen  at  their 
ancient  business.  "  Clotho  attended  to  the  Spread 


Board;  the  can-minders,  coiling  away  the  sliver, 
stood  for  Lachesis;  while  in  the  spinners,  who  cut 
the  thread  when  the  bobbin  was  full,  Estelle  found 
Atropos,  the  goddess  of  the  shears."  The  tragedy 
of  the  story  is  due  to  the  world-old  situation  of  a 
wronged  girl  whose  love  has  turned  to  hate.  Her 
bitterness  and  her  lover's  faithlessness  find  their 
nemesis  in  the  unbalanced  nature  of  their  son,  who 
is  the  victim  and  the  instrument  of  Fate.  A  theme 
so  threadbare  as  this  needs  to  be  given  a  very 
special  treatment  or  to  be  presented  from  a  very 
unusual  angle  in  order  to  hold  the  interest  of  the 
reader,  and  one  does  not  find  that  treatment  or 
that  angle  in  this  book.  True,  a  modern  note  is 
struck  in  the  consideration  of  such  subjects  as 
the  demands  of  labor,  and  the  position  of  women 
in  industry,  but  that  does  not  compensate  for  the 
very  obvious  lack  of  originality.  The  most  pleas- 
ing point  in  the  book  is  the  recognition  of  the  ro- 
mance that  is  to  be  found  in  machinery  and  the 
actual  esthetic  pleasure  that  is  to  be  derived  from 
it.  As  a  dispassionate  study  of  cause  and  effect, 
which  are  shown  with  much  psychological  con- 
scientiousness, this  story  has  a  certain  value;  it  is 
true  to  life  also  in  the  fact  that,  although  the  char- 
acterization is  firm  and  convincing,  none  of  the 
characters  stand  out  very  vividly  from  the  group 
to  which  they  belong.  The  book  is  lightened  by 
touches  of  delicious,  almost  Dickensian,  hiftnor, 
but  it  does  not  equal  either  in  its  comedy  or  in  its 
tragedy  some  of  Eden  Phillpotts'  earlier  work,  and 
there  are  some  who  might  almost  consider  it  dull — 
as  depressingly  dull  as  English  country  life  itself 
can  be  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year. 

EDGEWATER  PEOPLE.     By  Mary  E.  Wilkins 
Freeman.     Harper:  $1.35. 

Edgewater  People  portrays  the  New  England 
temperament  continuing  to  dominate  the  life  of  four 
villages,  offshoots  of  the  parent  town.  The  tempera- 
ment, in  its  inarticulate  intensities,  is  shown  in 
various  forms  of  pride,  cherished  loves  and  hates, 
the  yearning  of  lonely  souls  for  affection,  self-seek- 
ing, the  passion  for  nature,  the  fighting  spirit,  and 
brooding  remorse.  The  cumulative  effect,  in  spite 
of  the  conventional  happy  ending  and  a  buoyant 
morality,  is  rather  grim,  and  is  emphasized  by  the 
simplicity  of  the  types,  the  author's  own  frankness, 
and  an  uncompromising  directness,  almost  abrupt- 
ness of  style.  Humor  is  absent  also  from  several  of 
the  sketches,  though  the  best  are  pervaded  by  an 
irony  inherent  in  the  situation,  as  in  the  predicament 
of  the  youth  returned  from  a  traveling  show  to  find 
himself,  because  of  his  mother's  deception,  posing  as 
a  hero  of  the  trenches. 

After  themes  of  domestic  estrangement  and  recon- 
ciliation, the  yearning  of  the  spinster,  the  child's 
mission  of  regeneration  and  the  acerbities  of  decayed 
gentlewomen,  the  reader  welcomes  the  fresher 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


31? 


I A          M          E          R          I 

I  THIRTY-FIVE       WEST 


CAN  BRA 

THIRTY-SECOND       STREET. 


N          C          H 

NEW        YORK 


The  Society  of  Nations 

By  T.  J.  LAWRENCE,  LL.D.  Formerly  Professor 
of  International  Law,  University  of  Chicago.  8vo 
(8%  x  5%),  pp.  xi  +  194 Net  $1.50 

Contents :  The  Origin  of  International  Society — 
The  Growth  of  International  Society — International 
Society  in  July,  1914— The  Partial  Overthrow  of  In- 
ternational Law — Conditions  of  Reconstruction — Re- 
building of  International  Society. 

A  Republic  of  Nations 

A  Study  of  the  Organization  of  a  Federal  League 
of  Nations  by  RALEIGH  C.  MINOR.  Crown  Svo 
(8  x  5%),  pp.  39  +  316 Net  $8.50 

Provides  a  definite  programme  for  the  formation 
of  a  League  of  Nations  based  on  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States. 

"  A  book  that  must  be  read  by  every  serious  stu- 
dent of  the  most  important  issue  now  before  the 
world. — New  York  Evening  Post. 

"  Scholarly,  dispassionate  discussion  of  the  whole 
subject  deserving  of  the  earnest,  serious  consideration 
of  every  individual  who  loves  peace." — Phila.  Record. 

"  The  introduction  alone  is  worth  the  price  of  the 
book." — Chicago  Daily  News. 

"  Must  be  read  by  every  serious  student  of  the 
most  important  issue  now  before  the  world." — OM- 
cago  Evening  Post. 

"  A  convincing  and  practical  presentation  of  a  plan 
which  will  be  of  the  utmost  interest  to  all  thought- 
ful readers." — The  Independent. 

James  Madison's  Notes  of 
Debates 

In  the  Federal  Convention  of  1787  and  Their  Re- 
lation to  a  More  Perfect  Society  of  Nations.  Edited 
by  JAMES  BROWN  SCOTT.  8vo  (9  x  5%),  pp. 
xviii  +  149 Net  $2.00 

This  work  tells  in  simple  and  narrative  form  how 
the  American  States,  existing  up  to  1787  under  the 
Articles  of  Confederation  created  a  more  perfect 
union — the  present  United  States  of  America.  The 
result  was,  in  the  impressive  language  of  Chief  Jus- 
tice Chase :  "  An  indestructible  Union,  composed  of 
indestructible  States."  The  Peace  Conference  will 
result  as  happily  if  it  takes  the  counsel  of  experience 
and  considers  the  proceedings  of  the  Federal  Conven- 
tion of  1787. 

"  Of  the  utmost  value  at  the  present  juncture." — 
New  York  Sun. 

The  Great  European  Treaties 

Of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  edited  by  SIR 
AUGUSTUS  OAKES  and  R.  B.  MOWAT.  Cr.  8vo 
(7%  x  '5),  pp.  xii  +  404,  with  ten  maps. . .  Net  $3.40 

"  The  introductory  chapter  on  the  technical  aspect 
of  the  conclusion  of  treaties,  together  with  the  excel- 
lent orienting  historical  introductions  to  the  several 
treaties,  makes  this  an  almost  ideal  source  book  and 
piece  of  desk  apparatus  for  the  historian,  student  and 
journalist.  The  series  of  maps  add  to  the  value." — 
The  Literary  Digest. 

The  European  Commonwealth 

By  J.  A.  R.  MARRIOTT,  author  of  The  Eastern 
Question.  Svo  (9%  x  5%),  pp.  xii  +  370.  Net  $7.50 

A  new  book  dealing  with  the  rise  of  modern  diplom- 
acy, the  Hohenzollern  traditions,  the  problems  of 
Poland,  the,  Near  East  and  the  Adriatic,  and  the  Holy 
Alliance  and  the  Concert  of  Europe. 


The  Eastern  Question 

By  J.  A.  R.  MARRIOTT.  Second  edition  revised, 
with  eleven  maps  and  appendixes,  giving  a  list  of  the 
Ottoman  rulers,  and  the  shrinkage  of  the  Ottoman 
Empire  in  Europe,  1871-1914.  Crown  Svo  (8  x  5, 
pp.  xii  +  538 Net  $4.25 

A  systematic  account  of  the  origin  and  development 
of  the  Eastern  Question,  dealing  successively  with  the 
Ottomans,  Hapsburgs,  Russian  Empire,  the  Hellenic 
Kingdom  and  the  New  Balkan  States,  with  an  epi- 
logue brought  down  to  June.  1918. 

"  Professor  Marriott  presents  a  clear,  scholarly 
and  accurate  account  of  Balkan  problems  from  the 
Turks'  first  European  activity  to  the  zenith  of  Con- 
stantino's recent  high-handedness  in  Greece." — New 
York  Sun. 

England  and  the  War 

Addresses  delivered  during  the  War,  and  now  first 
collected  by  WALTER  RALEIGH.  The  titles  of 
the  addresses  are  :  Might  Is  Right ;  The  War  of  Ideas  ; 
The  Faith  of  England ;  Some  Gains  of  the  W.ar ;  The 
War  and  the  Press ;  Shakespeare  and  England.  With 
a  Preface.  Crown  Svo  (7%  x  5),  pp.  144 $2.00 

Labor  and  Industry  in  Australia 

from  the  first  settlement  in  1788  to  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Commonwealth  in  1901,  by  T.  A.  COGH- 
LAN.  Four  volumes.  Svo  (8%  x  5%).  Vol.  I,  pp. 
viii  +  588  ;  Vol  II,  pp.  vi  +  589-1185 ;  Vol.  Ill,  pp. 

1186-1790;   Vol.   IV,   pp.    1791-2450 .....$33.00 

A  history  of  the  Labour  movements  in  Australia 
from  the  first  beginning  of  the  colony  to  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Commonwealth  in  1901.  It  is  divided 
chronologically  into  seven  books,  each  book  dealing 
exhaustively  with  questions  of  immigration,  land 
legislation,  prices  and  political  action  of  its  period. 
The  author  was  for  years  Agent  General  for  New 
South  Wales. 

The  Pronunciation  of  Standard 
English  in  America 

By  GEORGE  PHILIP  KRAPP,  Professor  of  Eng- 
lish in  Columbia  University.  Crown  Svo,  (7 Mi  x  5), 
pp.  xv  +  235 $1.50 

"  It  is  the  purpose  of  this  book  to  provide  a  ra- 
tional method  of  examining  pronunciation,  the  most 
important  of  the  practical  aspects  of  speech  in  order 
that  those  who  have  a  conscience  in  the  matter  may 
exercise  it  with  justice  both  to  themselves  and  to 
others." — From  the  Preface. 

The  Oxford  Book  of 
Australasian  Verse 

Chosen  by  W.  MURDOCK.  Uniform  with  the 
Oxford  Book  of  English  Verse:  Fcap,  Svo  (6%  x 
4% ),  pp.  viii  +  294,  cloth Net  $3.00 

The  Turks  of  Central  Asia 

In  History  nnd  at  the  Present  Day.  By  M.  A. 
CZAPLICKA.  Svo  (9%  x  5%),  pp.  242,  with  a  map, 
appendixes,  and  much  biblographlcal  material.  $6.T5 

An  ethnological  inquiry  into  the  Pan.  Turanian 
problem,  and  bibliographical  material  relating  to  the 
early  Turks  and  the  present  Turks  of  Central  Asia. 

The  Congress  of  Vienna, 
1814-1815 

By  C.  K.  WEBSTER,  Svo  (8%  x  5%).  pp.  174, 
with  a  map,  chronological  table  and  eight  appendixes  ; 
paper  $2.00 

The  first  standard  history  of  this  notable  gather- 
ing. Of  great  present-day  interest  because  of  the 
task  now  before  the  peoples  of  the  world. 


AT  ALL  BOOKSELLERS  OR  FROM  THE  PUBLISHERS.    POSTAGE  EXTRA 


3i8 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


motive  of  the  sea  captain's  pride  of  proprietorship  in 
the  sea.  Ingenuity  of  situation  and  incident  is  il- 
lustrated in  the  Odyssean  variation  on  the  prodigal 
son,  who,  unrecognized  by  any  of  his  family  except 
his  mother,  rehabilitates  his  father's  country  store, 
and  satisfies  poetic  justice  by  feeding  the  pig.  In 
-one  instance,  at  least,  the  idiosyncrasy  of  plot  strains 
credulity,  when  the  morbid  wife  proves  her  daughter- 
in-law  by  the  same  fantastic  and  fiery  trial  of  love 
to  which  she  herself  succumbed.  Mingled  with 
the  types  who  embody  more  or  less  humanly  the  rage 
of  the  devouring  temperament  are  dispositions  hap- 
pily lower-pitched,  as  that  of  the  self-forgetful,  clear- 
eyed,  and  resourceful  Lizzie  Jordan,  whose  homely 
common  sense  is  the  best  philosophy:  "Well,  I 
know  what  I  have  to  put  up  with  livin'  with  Sophia 
Ludd,  but  I  was  kind  of  in  the  dark  about  Adela 
Dyce." 

On  the  whole  the  reader  is  fain  to  reflect  that  even 
old  age  and  celibacy  in  an  New  England  village  are 
conscious  at  their  most  expansive  of  a  lighter  and 
more  superficial  vein,  and  that  the  New  England 
temperament  may  presently  be  constrained  to  sur- 
render its  last  stronghold  to  the  insidious  invasion 
of  cosmopolitanism. 

BYWAYS  IN  SOUTHERN  TUSCANY.     By  Kath- 
arine Hooker.     Scribner;  $3.50. 

If  ever  a  country  could  be  likened  to  the  pitcher 
of  Philemon  and  Baucis,  that  country  is  Italy.  The 
centuries  pass  in  vain — the  flow  of  books  on  the 
beloved  land  continues  steadily.  This  latest  one 
by  Katharine  Hooker  is  not  from  so  mighty  a  pen 
as  some  which  have  written  of  Italian  journeys,  but 
it  is  a  good  and  likable  work  which  gives  us  sketches 
of  many  a  little  town  that  one  would  scarcely  know 
where  to  read  about  otherwise  unless  one  had  access 
to  a  good  library  of  Italian.  Even  then  one  would 
miss  the  particular  sort  of  delight  that  a  country 
affords  to  a  foreigner — quite  a  different  matter  from 
the  associations  and  the  pride  awakened  in  a  native. 

The  author's  appreciation  of  the  Latin  grace  and 
sweetness  of  the  simple  people  she  meets  in  the 
country  and  the  little  cities  makes  up  to  the  reader 
for  the  regret  he  will  feel  at  having  cleanliness  or 
the  lack  of  it  noted  so  diligently  at  almost  every  place 
to  which  he  is  conducted.  Such  entrancing  places — 
really  out  of  the  way,  and  not  to  be  seen  by  those 
who  confine  their  travel  to  railway  carriages!  Fine 
old  legends  cluster  about  even  finer  old  ruins;  pas- 
sages from  Dante  come  to  lips,  or  perhaps  fall  from 
lips,  that  speak  them  with  the  purity  of  the  Sienese 
territory,  which  today  has  something  in  its  speech 
akin  to  that  of  the  poet. 

The  travels  of  the  party  (which  included  a  pho- 
tographer with  an  eye  for  lovely  scenes — witness  the 
illustrations)  extend  westward  from  Siena,  along 
the  Maremma,  as  far  as  the  Campagna  and  Umbria 
.  to  the  south  and  east,  and  stop  short  of  Arezzo  again 


at  the  north,  lest  so  great  and  famous  a  place  take 
one  out  of  the  Byways  which  it  is  the  book's  purpose 
to  describe. 

Having  journeyed  to  Massa  Marittima,  however, 
it  may  be  that  one  missed  a  page  on  the  great  altar- 
piece  there  by  Lorenzetti,  or  even  a  reproduction 
of  it.  Pazienza!  there  is  enough  in  this  corner  of 
the  inexhaustible  Italy  to  make  good  the  loss  many 
times  over,  with  marshes  and  mountains,  brigands 
and  blessed  bells,  saints  and  signoroni  and  sunshine. 

Books  of  the  Fortnight 

The  following  list  comprises  THE  DIAL'S  selec- 
tion of  books  recommended  among  the  publications 
received  during  the  last  two  weeks: 

Ten  Days  That  Shook  the  World.  By  John  Reed. 
Illustrated,  I2mo,  372  pages.  Boni  &  Live- 
right.  $2. 

Our  Allies  and  Enemies  in  the  Near  East.  By  Jean 
Victor  Bates.  8vo,  226  pages.  E.  P.  Dutton 
&  Co.  $5. 

The  Society  of  Nations.  By  T.  J.  Lawrence.  I2mo, 
194  pages.  Oxford  University  Press.  $1.50. 

The  Government  of  the  United  States:  National, 
State,  and  Local.  By  William  Bennett  Munro. 
8vo,  648  pages.  Macmillan  Co.  $2.75. 

Bismarck.  By  C.  Grant  Robertson.  Makers  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century  Series.  Edited  by 
Basil  Williams.  8vo,  539  pages.  Henry  Holt 
&  Co.  $2.25. 

Glemenceau:  The  Man  and  His  Time.  By  H.  M. 
Hyndman.  I2mo,  338  pages.  Frederick  A. 
Stokes  Co.  $2. 

English  Literature  During  the  Last  Half  Century. 
By  John  W.  Cunliffe.  I2mo,  315  pages. 
Macmillan  Co.  $2. 

Cultural  Reality.  By  Florian  Znaniecki.  8vo,  359 
pages.  University  of  Chicago  Press.  $2.50. 

Psychological  Principles.  By  James  Ward.  8vo, 
478  pages.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.  $6.50. 

Beverages  and  Their  Adulteration:  Origin,  Com- 
position, Manufacture,  Natural,  Artificial, 
Fermented,  Distilled,  Alkaloidal  and  Fruit 
Juices.  By  Harvey  W.  Wiley.  Illustrated,  8vor 
421  pages.  P.  Blakiston's  Sons  &  Co.  $3.50. 

The  Burgomaster  of  Stilemonde.  A  play.  By 
Maurice  Maeterlinck.  Translated  by  Alex- 
ander Teixeira  de  Mattos.  I2mo,  128  pages. 
Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.  $1.75. 

The  Heart  of  Peace.  Verse.  By  Laurence  Hous- 
man.  I2mo,  150  pages.  Small,  Maynard  & 
Co.  $1.25. 

The  Dead  Command.  A  novel.  By  Vicente 
Blasco  Ibanez.  Translated  by  Frances  Doug- 
las. I2mo,  351  pages.  Duffield  &  Co.  $i-75- 

The  Challenge  to  Sirius.  A  novel.  By  Sheila 
Kaye-Smith.  I2mo,  442  pages.  E.  P.  Dutton 
&  Co.  $1.90. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


A  PERSONAL  LETTER  FROM  A  CONVICT 

On  February  20  I  was  sentenced  by  Federal  Judge  Kenesaw  Mountain  Landis  of 
Chicago  to  twenty  years  in  Fort  Leaven  worth  for  the  crime  of  publishing  the  official  liter- 
ature of  the  Socialist  Party  and  making  speeches  defining  its  position.  Four  other  officials 
of  the  Socialist  Party  were  similarly  sentenced.  Pending  action  on  that  sentence  by  the 
higher  courts,  I  am  trying  to  issue  in  book  form  the  lectures  which  I  have  been  delivering 
during  the  past  ten  years,  both  to  get  them  before  the  public  before  the  gates  of  the  peni- 
tentiary close  upon  me,  and  also  to  provide  support  for  my  family  during  the  period  of 

the  sentence.     Not  knowing  how  much  time  I  have,  I  take  this  means  of  enlisting  your 
attention. 

Below  is  a  list  of  these  works,  historical  and  poetic,  which  are  being  issued  as  fast  as 
the  presses  can  turn  them  out.  If  you  are  at  all  interested,  please  send  for  one  to  test 
their  quality.  The  book  stores  do  not  handle  them — yet.  Buy  by  mail. 

The  whole^set  will  be  sent,  bound  in  cloth,  for  $6.00;  bound  in  paper,  for  $3.00 

Irwin  St.  John  Tucker 


HISTORICAL 

INTERNATIONALISM :  The  Problem  of  the 
Hour.  Five  Lectures;  The  German  Idea;  Deutsch- 
land  Ueber  Alles. — The  British  Idea;  Britannia 
Rules  the  Waves. — The  American  Idea;  Phrases 
vs.  Facts. — The  Russian  Idea;  The  Proletarian 
Revolt. — The  Labor  Idea;  The  Commonwealth 
of  the  World. 

THE  MARTYR  PEOPLES.  Six  Lectures  on 
the  Little  Nationalities,  Israel,  Serbia,  Ireland, 
Belgium,  Poland  and  Armenia. 

IMPERIALISM.  In  two  volumes,  i.  Found- 
ers of  Imperialism.  Egypt,  the  United  States 
of  the  Nile;  Chaldaea,  the  Strife  of  the  Cities; 
Persia,  Spirit  of  the  Mountains;  Greece,  Empire 
of  the  Mind;  Rome,  Mistress  of  the  World,  ii. 
Modern  Imperialism.  France,  Daughter  of  the 
Empire;  Islam,  Shadow  of  the  Deserts;  Spain, 
Shadow  of  the  Moor;  Great  Britain,  Empire  of 
Finance;  Austria,  a  League  of  Nations. 

THE    GEOGRAPHY    OF    THE    GODS,    A 

Study  of  the  Religions  of  Patriotism. 

Each  50  cents  Paper,  $1.00  Cloth.  5  cents  postage 


POETIC 

THE  CHOSEN  NATION.  A  Dramatic  Poem, 
completed  during  the  trial  and  presented  to  the 
Judge  at  the  time  of  Sentence.  Of  this,  Dean  R.  M. 
Lovett  of  the  University  of  Chicago  said:  "Shelley 
might  have  written  it." 


THE  SANGREAL.  A  distinctly  new  version 
of  the  Holy  Grail  legend  proving  that  Galahad 
was  a  Bolshevik. 

POEMS    OF    A    SOCIALIST    PRIEST.'  Of 

these  the  Living  Church  said:  "The  ring  of  epic 
passion  is  in  many  of  them." 

SONGS  OF  THE  ALAMO  and  THE  CITY 
OF  DREAMS.  A  contribution  to  the  national 
literature  of  the  Southwest. 

JEAN  LAFITTE:  A  romantic  drama  of  the 
War  of  1812  and  the  Battle  of  New  Orleans. 

The  Philosophy  of  the  Commonplace.  In 
Five  Lectures:  Philosophy  of  the  Kitchen  Chair, 
Philosophy  of  the  Hobo,  Philosophy  of  Smoke, 
Philosophy  of  Paper,  Philosophy  of  Buttons. 

Each  25  cents  Paper,  50  cents  Cloth.    5  cents 
postage 


The  whole  set  will  be  sent  for  $6.00  bound  in  cloth,  or  for  $3.00  bound  in  paper 

Address    IRWIN  ST.  JOHN  TUCKER 

1541   Unity  Building 
P.  S.—Be  Quick  CHICAGO,  ILL. 


When  writing  to  advertisers  please  mention   THE  DIAL. 


320 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


Spring  Announcement  List 


The  following  is  THE  DIAL'S  selected  list  of  the 
most  notable  spring  issues  and  announcements  in  the 
fields  indicated,  exclusive  of  reprints,  new  editions, 
new  translations,  technical  books,  and  works  of  ref- 
erence. A  list  of  books  on  the  theory  and  practice  of 
education,  and  in  philosophy,  religion,  and  science, 
will  appear  in  the  Spring  Educational  Number, 
April  19.  These  lists  are  compiled  from  data  sub- 
mitted by  the  publishers. 

Fiction 

While  Paris  Laughed,  by  Leonard  Merrick,  $1.75. — Uni- 
form Edition  of  Leonard  Merrick:  Conrad  in  Quest  of 
His  Youth,  The  Position  of  Peggy  Harper,  The  Man 
Who  Understood  Women,  The  Worldlings,  The  Actor- 
Manager,  $2  each. — The  Shadow  of  the  Cathedral,  by 
V.  Blasco  Ibanez,  $1.90. — Mare  Nostrum,  by  V.  Blasco 
Ibanez,  $1.60. — Jacquo,  the  Rebel,  by  Eugene  LeRoy, 
$1.90. — Nono:  Love  and  the  Soil,  by  Gaston  Roupee, 
$1.60. — Two  Banks  of  the  Seine,  by  Fernand  Van- 
deren,  $1.60. — Amalia:  A  Romance  of  the  Argentine  in 
the  Time  of  Rosas  the  Dictator,  by  Jose  Marmol,  $1.60. 
— The  Challenge  to  Sirius,  by  Sheila  Kaye-Smith, 
$1.90.  (E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.) 

The  Jervaise  Comedy,  by  J.  D.  Beresford,  $1.50. — Storm 
in  a  Teacup,  by  Eden  Phillpotts,  $1.50. — Our  House, 
by  Henry  S.  Canby,  $1.50.— The  Rising  Tide:  The 
Story  of  Sabinsport,  by  Ida  M.  Tarbell,  $1.50.— An 
Honest  Thief,  and  A  Friend  of  the  Family,  by  Dos- 
toevsky,  $1.50  each. — The  Bishop  and  Other  Stories, 
and  The  Chorus  Girl  and  Other  Stories,  by  Anton 
Chekhov,  $1.50  each.  (Macmillan  Co.) 

The  Secret  City,  by  Hugh  Walpole,  $1.60.— Shops  and 
Houses,  by  Frank  Swinnerton,  $1.50.— The  Roll-Call,  by 
Arnold  Bennett,  $1.50. — Mummery,  by  Gilbert  Cannan, 
$1.50.  (George  H.  Doran  Co.) 

Travelling  Companions,  by  Henry  James,  $1.75. — The 
Curious  Republic  of  Gondour,  by  Mark  Twain,  Pen- 
guin Series,  $1.25. — Twelve  Men,  by  Theodore  Dreiser, 
$1.75.— The  Paliser  Case,  by  Edgar  Saltus,  $1.60.  (Boni 
&  Liveright.) 

Caesar  or  Nothing,  by  Pio  Baroja,  $1.75. — Martin  Rivas, 
by  Alberto  Blest-Gana,  $1.60.— The  Pale  Horse,  by 
"  Ropshin "  (Boris  Savinkov),  $1.25. — Java  Head,  by 
Joseph  Hergesheimer,  $1.75.— The  Tunnel  (Pilgrim- 
age, IV.),  by  Dorothy  Richardson,  $1.50. — The  Pelicans, 
by  E.  M.  Delafield,  $1.75.  (Alfred  A.  Knopf.) 

The  Arrow  of  Gold,  by  Joseph  Conrad,  $1.50. — The 
Builders,  by  Ellen  Glasgow,  $1.50. — Birds  of  a  Feather, 
by  Marcel  Nadaud,  $1.35.  (Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.) 

The  Old  Madhouse,  by  William  De  Morgan,  $1.75.— 
The  Day  of  Glory,  by  Dorothy  Canfield.  $1.  (Henry 
Holt  &  Co.) 

The  Dead  Command,  by  Vicente  Blasco  Ibanez,  $1.75. — 
The  Lucky  Mill,  by  loan  Slavici,  $1.50.  (Duffield  & 
Co.) 

The  Ameythst  Ring,  by  Anatole  France,  $2.— The  Call  of 
the  Soil,  by  Adrian  Bertrand,  $1.50.  (John  Lane  Co.) 

The  Silent  Mills,  by  Hermann  Sudermann,  $1.25. — Temp- 
tations: A  Volume  of  Short  Stories,  by  David  Pinski, 
$1.50.  (Brentano.) 

Saint's  Progress,  by  John  Galsworthy,  $1.60.  (Charles 
Scribner's  Sons.) 

The  Clintons,  and  Others,  by  Archibald  Marshall,  $1.75. 
(Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.) 

Sinister  House,  by  Leland  Hall,  illus.,  $1.35.  (Houghton 
Mifflin  Co.) 


The  Marne,  by  Edith  Wharton,  $1.25.— The  Sagebrusher, 

by  Emerson  Hough,  $1.50.     (D.  Appleton  &  Co.) 
The   City  of   Comrades,     by    Basil    King,     illus.,    $1.75. 

(Harper  &  Bros.) 

Civilization,  by  Georges  Duhamel,  $1.50.     (Century  Co.) 
The  Avalanche,  by  Gertrude  Atherton,  $1.35.     (Frederick 

A.  Stokes  Co.) 
Wild  Youth  and  Another,  by  Gilbert  Parker,  illus.,  $1.50. 

(J.  B.  Lippincott  Co.) 
Gosta  Berling's  Saga,    by    Selma    Lagerlof,  2  vols.,  $3. 

(American-Scandinavian  Foundation.) 
Winesburg,     Ohio,     by     Sherwood     Anderson.     (B.     W. 

Huebsch.) 
The  Great  Hunger,  by  Johan  Bojer,  $1.60.  (Moffat,  Yard 

&  Co.) 
Blind  Alley,  by  W.  L.  George,  $1.75.     (Little,  Brown  & 

Co.) 
The   Mirror   and' the  Lamp,   by   W.   B.   Maxwell,   $1.75. 

(Bobbs-Merrill  Co.) 

Books  of  Verse 

The  Wild  Swans  of  Coole,  and  Other  Verses,  by  William 
Butler  Yeats.— The  Tree  of  Life,  by  John  Gould 
Fletcher. — Leaves:  A  Book  of  Poems,  by  Hermann 
Hagedorn. — The  New  Day,  by  Scudder  Middelton,  $1. 
(Macmillan  Co.) 

Counter  Attack,  and  Other  Poems,  by  Siegfried  Sassoon, 
$1.25. — Lanterns  in  Gethsemane,  by  Willard  Wattles, 
$1.50. — Modern  Russian  Poetry,  edited  by  P.  Selver, 
$1.25. — A  Lute  of  Jade:  Selections  from  the  Chinese 
Classical  Poets,  translated  by  L.  Cranmer-Byng,  $1. 
(E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.) 

Songs  to  the  Beloved  Stranger,  by  Witter  Bynner,  $1.25. 
— One  Hundred  and  Seventy  Chinese  Poems:  An  An- 
thology, translated  by  Arthur  Waley,  $2.  (Alfred  A. 
Knopf.) 

Look!  We  Have  Come  Through,  by  D.  H.  Lawrence, 
$1.50.— The  Solitary,  by  James  Oppenheim,  $1.25.  (B. 
W.  Huebsch.) 

Japanese  Prints,  by  John  Gould  Fletcher,  $1.75. — The 
Charnel  Rose,  and  Other  Tales  in  Verse,  by  Conrad 
Aiken,  $1.25.  (Four  Seas  Co.) 

The  Kiltartan  Poetry  Book,  by  Lady  Gregory,  $1.50.  (G. 
P.  Putnam's  Sons.) 

The  Modern  Book  of  English  Verse,  by  Richard  Le  Gal- 
lienne,  $2.  (Boni  &  Liveright.) 

Poems  About  God,  by  John  Crowe  Ransom,  $1.25. 
(Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 

The  Years  Between,  by  Rudyard  Kipling,  $1.50.  (Dou- 
bleday, Page  &  Co.) 

The  New  Morning,  by  Alfred  Noyes,  $1.35.  (Frederick 
A.  Stokes  Co.) 

The  Passing  God:  Songs  for  Modern  Lovers,  by  Harry 
Kemp,  $1.25.  (Brentano.) 

Three  War  Poems,  by  Paul  Claudel.  (Yale  University 
Press.) 

Drama  and  the  Stage 

The  Burgomaster  of  Stilemonde,  by  Maurice  Maeterlinck, 

$1.75.     (Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.) 
The  Living  Corpse    (Redemption),    by    Leo    N.  Tolstoi. 

(Nicholas  L.  Brown.) 
The  Gentile  Wife,  by  Rita  Wellman,  $1.     (Moffat,  Yard 

&  Co.) 

Moliere,  by  Philip  Moeller,  $1.50.     (Alfred  A.  Knopf.) 
The  Moon  of  the  Caribbees,  and  Six  Other  Plays  of  the 

Sea,  by  Eugene  O'Neill,  $1.35.     (Boni  &  Liveright.) 
Father  Noah,  by  Geoffrey  Whitworth,  $1.      (Robert  M. 

McBride  &  Co.) 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


321 


Some  Important  Volumes  From  Putnam's  Spring  List 


Voltaire  in  His  Letters 

Being  a  selection  from    his  correspondence. 
Translated  with  a  preface  and  notes. 

By  S.  G.  Tallentyre 

Author  of  "  The  Life  of  Voltaire,"  etc. 
8°.    8  Portraits.    $3.50. 

Voltaire,  as  his  letters  reveal  him,  portray- 
ing not  only  his  extraordinary  mind,  but 
showing  him  in  love  and  in  prison,  recover- 
ing from  smallpox,  lamenting  a  mistress, 
visiting  a  king,  righting  human  wrongs,  at- 
tacking inhuman  laws,  belittling  Shakespeare 
and  belauding  Chesterfield. 


A  Short  History  of  Rome 

From  the  Foundation  of  the  City  to  the  Fall 
of  the  Empire  of  the  West 

By  Guglielmo  Ferrero 
Assisted  by  Corrado  Barbagallo 

Two  vols.  8*.    Each  $1.90. 

Part  II  of  this  important  history,  embracing 

the   Empire,   44   B.   C. — 476  A.   D.,   is   now 

ready. 

Part   I,   published   last   year,   comprises   the 

period  754  B.  C.-44  B.  C. 


New  Books  of  Verse 


In  Flanders  Fields 

And  Other  Poems 

By  Lieut.-CoI.  John  McCrae 

12°.    $1.50. 

This  volume  contains  all  of  Dr.  McCrae's 
lovely  poems  and  an  essay  in  character  by 
his  friend,  Sir  Andrew  Macphail. 


The  Kiltartan  Poetry  Book 

Prose  Translations  from  the  Irish 

By  Lady  Gregory 

8°.    $1.50. 

The  brave  old  legends  and  poems  of  Ireland, 
collected  by  this  famous  student  and  friend 
of  the  Irish  peasants. 


New  Volumes  in  "Heroes  of  the  Nations"  Series 


Alfred  the  Great, 
The  Truth  Teller 

Maker  of  England  848—899 

By  Beatrice  A.  Lees 

12°.    50  illustrations.    $1.90. 

The  story  of  the  great  military  leader,  law- 
giver, scholar  and  saint. 


Isabel  of  Castile 

And    the   Making    of    the    Spanish    Nation, 
1451—1504 

By  lerne  Plunket 

12°.    45  illustrations  and  maps.    $1.90. 

The  storv  of  a  great  woman  ruler  and  the 
history  of  a  nation  in  the  making. 


"One  of  the  outstanding  biographical  work*  in  English  Literature"— Chicago    Tribune. 

EMINENT  VICTORIANS-By  Lytton  Strachey 

8°.    Six-  Portraits.    $3.50  net. 

An  extraordinarily  brilliant   study,   historical   and   biographical,   of   the   lives   of   Florence 
Nightingale,  Cardinal  Manning,  Dr.  Arnold  and  General  Gordon. 


New  York 


For  Sale  at  all  Booksellers 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


London 


322 


THE  DIAL 


March  22 


Everybody's   Husband,   by   Gilbert   Cannan,   75   cts.      (B. 

W.  Huebsch.) 
Plays  by  Jacinto  Benavente:  Second  Series,  translated  by 

John    Garrett   Underbill,   $1.75.       (Charles     Scribner's 

Sons.) 
Six   Plays   of   the   Yiddish   Theater:      Second    Series,    by 

David    Pinski,    Z.    Levin,    Perez    Hirshbein,    and    Leon 

Kobrin,  $1.50.     (John  W.  Luce  &  Co.) 
Uneasy  Street,  by  Alfred  Kreymborg ;,  La  Cigale,  by  Ly- 

man  Bryson;  The  Prodigal  Son,  by  Harry  Kemp;  The 

Rope,   by  Eugene   O'Neill,  Flying    Stag    Series,   35  cts. 

each.     (Washington  Square  Book  Shop.) 
Dramatic  Technique,    by    George    Pierce    Baker,    $3.75. 

(Hough ton  Mifflin  Co.) 

Essays  and  General  Literature 

English  Literature  During  the  Last  Half  Century,  by 
John  W.  Cunliffe.  $2.— The  English  Poets,  by  Thomas 
Humphrey  Ward,  vol.  VI,  $1.50. — New  Voices:  An  In- 
troduction to  Contemporary  Poetry,  by  Marguerite  Wil- 
kinson, $1.50.— The  Candle  of  Vision,  by  "A.  E."— 
The  English  Village:  A  Literary  Study,  by  Julia  Pat- 
ton,  $1.50.  (Macmillan  Co.) 

The  Cambridge  History  of  American  Literature,  edited  by 
William  Peterfield  Trent,  John  Erskine,  Stuart  Pratt 
Sherman,  and  Carl  Van  Doren,  vol.  II,  $3.50. — Studies 
in  Literature,  by  Arthur  Quiller-Couch,  $2.50. — The 
Dawn  of  the  French  Renaissance,  by  Arthur  Tilley, 
illus.,  $8.25.  (G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.) 

The  New  Era  in  American  Poetry,  by  Louis  Untermeyer, 
$2.50. — An  Outline  of  Spanish  Literature,  by  I.  D.  M. 
Ford,  $2. — A  Guide  to  Russian  Literature,  by  Moissaye 
J.  Olgin,  $1.50. — Out  and  About  London,  by  Thomas 
Burke,  $1.35.  (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 

Another  Sheaf,  by  John  Galsworthy,  $1.50. — "The  Day's 
Burden  " :  Studies,  Literary  and  Political,  and  Miscel- 
laneous Essays,  by  Thomas  M.  Kettle,  $2.  (Charles 
Scribner's  Sons.) 

Rousseau  and  Romanticism,  by  Irving  Babbitt,  $3.50. — 
Convention  and  Revolt  in  Poetry,  by  John  Livingston 
Lowes,  $1.75. — Field  and  Study,  by  John  Burroughs, 
$1.50.  (Houghton  Mifflin  Co.) 

Currents  and  Eddies  in  the  English  Romantic  Generation, 
by  Frederick  E.  Pierce,  $3. — Dante,  by  Henry  Dwight 
Sedgwick,  illus.,  $1.50.  (Yale  University  Press.) 

St.  Beuve,  by  Arthur  Tilley,  $2.  (Cambridge  University 
Press.) 

Sketches  and  Reviews,  by  Walter  Pater,  Penguin  Series, 
$1.25.  (Boni  &  Liveright.) 

Charlotte  Bronte:  A  Centenary  Memorial,  edited  by  But- 
ler Wood,  $5.  (E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co.) 

A  Gentle  Cynic :  Being  the  Book  of  Ecclesiastes,  by  Mor- 
ris Jastrow,  $2.  (J.  B.  Lippincott  Co.) 

Domus  Doloris,  by  W.  Compton  Leith,  $1.50.  (John  Lane 
Co.) 

Beyond  Life,  by  James  Branch  Cabell,  $1.50.  (Robert  M. 
McBride  &  Co.) 

The  American  Language,  by  H.  L.  Mencken,  $4.  (Alfred 
A.  Knopf.) 

Dickens:  How  to  Know  Him,  by  Richard  Burton,  $1.50. 
(Bobbs-Merrill  Co.) 

Walled  Towns,  by  Ralph  Adams  Cram,  $1.  (Marshall 
Jones  Co.) 

Travel  and  Description 

Labrador  Days,  by  Wilfred  Thomason  Grenfell,  $1.50.— 
Golden  Days:  The  Fishing  Log  of  a  Painter  in  Brit- 
tany, by  Romilly  Fedden,  illus.,  $2.50.  (Houghton 
Mifflin  Co.) 

The  Soul  of  Denmark,  by  Shaw  Desmond,  $3.— The  Book 
of  the  National  Parks,  by  Sterling  Yard,  illus.,  $3. 
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Volume  I,  number  i  of  Kismet:  A  magazine  of 
the  Arts,  Particularly  Poetry,  announces  itself  in  a 
burst  of  editorial  candor: 

For  three  years  and  a  half  ...  I  have  beec  writing 
Poetry — and  Verse  of  varied  merit.  To  date  compara- 
tively few  people  are  aware  of  my  existence — (I  think) 
to  their — and  rny — misfortune.  It  is  high  time  we  (the 
reading  public  and  myself)  became  acquainted.  Yes, 
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to  continue  to  monopolize  its  pages,  this,  and  future  is- 
sues, will  contain  the  estimable  work  of  such  well 
known  and  deservedly  popular  poets  as, 

in  this  issue,  Mary  Carolyn  Davies,  Daphne  Carr, 
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Contributors 

The  second  Imaginary  Conversation  between 
George  Moore  and  Edmund  Gosse  begins  in  this  is- 
sue of  THE  DIAL.  The  first  conversation  appeared 
in  the  issues  for  October  i,  October  19,  and  Novem- 
ber 2,  1918. 

Samuel  Spring  is  a  graduate  of  Harvard  College 
(1910)  and  of  the  Harvard  Law  School.  His 
professional  experience  has  been  chiefly  in  the  field 
of  public  utilities  in  California,  and  he  has  con- 
tributed numerous  articles  to  the  legal  reviews. 
During  the  war  he  was  employed  by  the  government 
as  a  branch  officer  of  the  Emergency  Fleet  Corpora- 
tion, at  San  Francisco,  and  later  in  the  Coast 
Artillery.  Mr.  Spring  is  now  practicing  law  in 
Boston,  Mass. 

Percy  H.  Boynton  was  graduated  from  Amherst 
in  1897.  He  is  associate  professor  of  English  and 
dean  in  the  Colleges  of  Arts,  Literature  and  Science 
in  the  University  of  Chicago.  Professor  Boynton 
is  associate  editor  of  The  English  Journal  and  the 
author  of  several  volumes  on  English  and  American 
literature. 

Lewis  Mumford,  a  resident  of  New  York  City, 
has  contributed  numerous  articles  to  technical  and 
general  magazines.  He  has  been  an  investigator  in 
the  dress  and  waist  industry,  a  laboratory  worker 
in  the  Bureau  of  Standards,  and  a  radio  operator 
in  the  United  States  Navy. 

Ferdinand  Schevill  (Yale,  1889)  has  been  pro- 
fessor of  modern  history  in  the  University  of  Chi- 
cago since  1909.  Mr.  Schevill  is  the  author  of  The 
Making  of  Modern  Germany,  and  Siena. 

Donald  B.  Clark,  who  was  born  and  brought 
up  in  Rome,  Italy,  is  teaching  philosophy  at  Harv- 
ard. He  was  one  of  the  founders,  and  until  re- 
cently one  of  the  editors,  of  Youth:  Poetry  of 
Today. 

The  other  contributors  to  this  issue  have  previ- 
ously written  for  THE  DIAL. 


1919  THE  DIAL 327 

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THE  DIAL 


A  FORTNIGHTLY 


VOL.  LXVI 


NEW  YORK 


NO.  787 


THE  MORAL  DEVASTATION  OF  WAR Frank  Tannenbaum 

FROM  A  HILL  IN  FRANCE.     Verse Cuthbert  Wright 

THE  LAPSE  TO  LAISSEZ-FAIRE Walton    H.    Hamilton 

SYNGE'S  PLAYBOY  OF  THE  WESTERN  WORLD.    Verse  .  Emanuel  Carnevali 

Variation 

ON  THE  NATURE  AND  USES  OF  SABOTAGE     ....   Thor stein  Veblen 
A  SECOND  IMAGINARY  CONVERSATION .    George  Moore 

Gosse  and  Moore,  II 

ROADS  TO  FREEDOM .    Will  Dur ant 

Vox — ET    PRAETEREA? Conrad  Aiken 

DUBLIN,   MARCH  6 Ernest  A.  Boyd 

VISITANTS.   Verse Leslie  Nelson  Jennings 

EDITORIALS ' 

COMMUNICATIONS:  To   the   Secretary   of   War.— How   to   Dispose   of   Intellectuals. 

NOTES  ON  NEW  BOOKS:  Old  Dad.— Helen  of  Troy,  and  Rose.— Yashka :  My  Life  as 
Peasant,  Officer  and  Exile. — Blind. — The  Slave  with  Two  Faces. — Rise  of  the  Spanish- 
American  Republics. — Santo  Domingo,  a  Country  with  a  Future. — The  Sky  Pilot  in  No 
Man's  Land. — Heard  Melodies. — Portraits  of  Whistler. — Africa  and  the  War. — The  Curious 
Quest. — Tales  of  an  Old  Sea  Port. — Afterglow. 

CURRENT  NEWS 


333 
336 
337 
340 


347 

354 
356 
358 
360 
361 
364 
366 


374 


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33° 


April  5 


HOW    DIPLOMATS    MAKE   WAR 

By  FRANCIS  NEILSON,  Member  of  Parliament  1910-1915 

DIPLOMATS  are  now  making  peace.  How  many  persons 
are  familiar  with  the  complexities  and  involutions  of  the 
questions  with  which  they  are  dealing? 

ONLY  by  reading  the  incredible  story  of  the  moves  on 
the  chessboard  of  statecraft  that  led  to  the  catastrophe 
can  you  interpret  what  the  newspapers  print — and  don 't 
print — about  the  Paris  conference. 


BERNARD  SHAW'S  disclosures,  now  exciting  so  much  at- 
tention, contain  little  that  has  not  been  said  in  Mr. 
Neilson's  noteworthy  contribution  to  history. 


HOW   DIPLOMATS    MAKE   WAR 

By  FRANCIS  NEILSON 


3d 
printing 


What 'f  says    the    London     Times   about 
diplomacy   as    the   root    of  war? 

"  Who,  then,  makes  war  ?  The  answer  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Chancelleries  of  Europe,  among  the  men  who  have  too  long  played 
with  human  lives  as  pawns  in  a  game  of  chess,  who  have  become  so 
enmeshed  in  formulas  and  the  jargon  of  diplomacy  that  they  have 
ceased  to  be  conscious  of  the  poignant  realities  with  which  they 
trifle.  And  thus  will  war  continue  to  be  made,  until  the  great 
masses  who  are  the  sport  of  professional  schemers  and  dreamers  say 
the  word  which  will  bring,  not  eternal  peace,  for  that  is  impossible, 
but  a  determination  that  wars  shall  be  fought  only  in  a  just  and 
righteous  and  vital  cause." 


As  to  Mr.  Neilson's  masterly  grasp  of  the  subject  and  his  fascinating 
presentation ,  read  these  views: 


REVIEW  OF  REVIEWS  : 

"  It  Is  a  terrific  indictment  of  the  diplomatic  game 
aa  played  by  all  the  great  European  governments.  It 
shows  how  dangerous  is  the  survival  of  a  diplomacy 
that  is  not  only  removed  from  contact  with  public 
opinion,  but  is  even  beyond  the  knowledge  and  reach 
of  the  people's  representatives  in  Parliament." 


THE  PUBLIC  : 

"  It  is  a  stirring  story  of  the  rotten  result  of  a 
sinister,  lying,  bluffing  diplomacy  that  despoiled  the 
Continent.  And  the  final  chapter,  that  makes  a  tre- 
mendous appeal  for  frankness  and  true  democracy, 
is  a  notable  one." 


THE  NATION  : 

"  He  writes  with  a  bitter  pen.  but  has  a  large  his- 
torical sweep  and  much  knowledge.  .  .  .  As  to 
one  of  the  chief  positions  of  the  volume,  no  American 
will  have  any  quarrel  with  the  writer  of  this  book. 
It  is  that  no  treaties,  forms  of  international  alliance, 
or  agreements  with  other  nations  ought  to  be  entered 
into  until  they  have  been  submitted  to  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people  in  Parliament." 

NEW    YORK    TIMES  : 

"  The  volume  is  written  with  much  facility  of  ex- 
pression and  a  large  fund  of  materials.  In  diplomatic 
matters  it  attacks  the  faults  of  the  ruling  class  of 
Great  Britain  in  much  the  same  way  as  'I  accuse!  ' 
attacked  those  of  the  corresponding  class  in  Ger- 
many." 


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The  Moral  Devastation  of  War 


T 

AH 


•  HE  SOLDIER  HAS  BECOME  a  child.  The  camp 
is  the  place  where  this  new  child  lives,  and  military 
discipline  is  the  force  which  created  him.  This  is 
the  most  striking  thing  about  camp  life.  The 
soldiers  have  become  children.  They  show  the 
same  playfulness,  indifference,  carelessness  of  conse- 
quence, and  craving  for  change ;  the  same  desire  for 
excitement,  for  being  on  the  go,  for  playing  games 
of  chance,  that  are  characteristic  of  children.  Like 
children  they  take  no  thought  of  the  consequence  of 
their  acts  or  interest  in  the  serious  and  important 
things  of  life.  Amongst  them  are  no  politicians,  and 
having  a  good  time  is  their  ambition  in  full. 
Like  children,  too,  they  make  friends  very  easily,  are 
extremely  social  and  confidential,  having  practically 
no  secrets  from  each  other,  and  readily  exchange 
the  most  intimate  experiences  with  the  friends  of  a 
day.  This  close  friendship  is  not  only  in  things  of 
the  spirit.  The  soldier's  sociability  takes  the  form 
of  great  readiness  to  share  the  material  things  he 
has.  On  getting  a  box  of  "  goodies  "  from  home, 
one  divides  them  with  his  "buddies"  (friends)  — 
and  his  friends  include  all  the  soldiers  in  sight — 
and  with  the  sharing  of  the  "  goodies  "  one  natur- 
ally shares  his  news,  and  his  letters  are  often  read 
aloud — especially  if  they  happen  to  be  from  some 
admiring  and  naive  ladylove  who  opens  her  lone- 
some heart  in  terms  of  endearment  to  her  soldier 
boy.  They  love  to  shout,  to  sing,  to  gamble,  to 
fight,  to  get  into  escapades,  to  indulge  in  pleasantries, 
and  take  the  world,  so  to  speak,  as  a  playhouse  and 
life  as  a  game  where  the  rules  are  still  to  be  made 
and  where  responsibility  and  laws  have  no  existence. 

This  attitude  is  very  strong.  It  prevails  with 
practically  all  soldiers.  It  forces  itself  upon  all  of 
the  men  who  remain  in  the  army  as  privates.  I  am 
not  speaking  of  the  officer.  I  know  very  little 
about  him,  and  there  are  influences  which  must  have 
a  counteracting  and  restraining  effect.  But  for  the 
private  soldier  this  tendency  to  forget  the  world  one 
came  from,  to  lose  interest  in  the  serious  and 
weighty  things  that  filled  one's  life  before,  and 
succumb  to  the  irresponsibility  in  thought  and  act 
that  is  bred  in  army  life,  is  almost  universal.  Only 
he  who  fails  to  become  a  soldier  fails  to  participate 


in  this  spirit  of  irresponsibility — and  he  is  a  very 
poor  soldier  indeed,  if  that  prove  the  case,  even  if  he 
continue  in  the  military  service  and  wear  his  uni- 
form. I  have  seen  serious  men,  troubled  and  wor- 
ried with  heavy  responsibilities  and  interests  either 
personal  or  social,  succumb  to  this  influence,  and  in  a 
little  while  lose  themselves  and  become  indifferent 
to  the  whole  world — excepting  the  very  immediate 
problem  of  escaping  from  boredom.  For  boredom 
is  the  curse  of  the  camp. 

Monotony,  constant  repetition  of  the  same  fact, 
unending  similarity  and  likeness  in  experience  and 
labor  and  environment  become  the  chief  factors  in 
the  soldier's  life  as  soon  as  the  novelty  of  the  situa- 
tion wears  off.  This  makes  the  one  great  aim,  the 
one  great  ambition  of  the  soldier  in  camp,  to  escape 
the  weight  of  an  uncontrollable  self-subordination 
that  destroys  all  difference  and  all  individuality. 

There  is  an  equality  about  camp  life  that  is  ideal. 
It  knows  no  variation.  It  is  perfect.  It  reduces  all 
things  to  one  level.  It  dresses  all  bodies  in  one  cloth, 
and  contracts  all  souls  into  one  mood — irresponsi- 
bility. For  the  soldier's  life  is  so  arranged  that  the 
only  thing  to  do  is  to  be  irresponsible.  His  food, 
shelter,  and  clothing  are  provided  for  him.  He  has 
no  voice  in  matters  of  the  most  intimate  and  ,per- 
sonal  activity.  He  can  do  nothing  of  his  own  voli- 
tion. The  buttons  on  his  coat  are  regulated  by  a 
rule  which  he  did  not  make  and  which  he  cannot 
change.  The  shape  of  his  shoes,  the  color  of  his  hat 
cord,  the  size  of  his  necktie,  and  the  place  of  his  bed 
are  regulated  and  determined  for  him.  He  lives  a 
life  where  the  will  has  no  meaning,  and  where 
thought  and  initiative  are  not  only  not  demanded 
but  suppressed.  He  is  a  nearer  approach  to  an  ani- 
mate, tool  acting  under  response  to  external  stimuli 
than  any  other  human  contrivance.  ,- 

'  This  reduction  of  the  individual  variant  is  not 
only  in  things  material  but  in  things  spiritual  as 
well.  Not  only  do  soldiers  look  alike,  but  to  an 
extraordinary  degree  they  think  and  feel  alike  and 
about  the  same  things.  In  civil  life  each  individual 
is  constantly  called  upon  to  exercise  initiative  in  the 
solution  of  problems  peculiar  to  himself — which 
involve  personal  responsibility.  But  in  the  army  the 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


problem  and  the  situation  are  very  much  alike  for 
each  man.  It  is  the  problem  of  finding  some 
medium  of  creative  individual  expression  inside  a 
system  that  strives  to  mold  all  character  and  all 
thought  into  a  single  formula  and  into  a  single  type 
— a  type  capable  of  acting  without  hesitation  to 
certain  given  and  purely  external  stimuli  having 
little  or  no  correlation  within  the  experiences  of  the 
men  themselves. 

But  man  cannot  live  on  obedience  and  submis- 
sion alone.  The  soldier  demands  something  else. 
He  craves  some  form  of  activity  involving  personal 
responsibility  and  individual  effort.  And  to  satisfy 
this  need  for  self-expression  that  finds  some  outlet 
in  civil  life  compatible  with  the  ordinary  interests 
of  the  individual,  no  matter  how  cramped  and  nar- 
row those  interests  may  be,  is  in  the  army  possible 
only  in  extra-military  things — things  having  no  re- 
lation with  the  activities  which  the  army  imposes 
upon  the  men.  They  cannot  contribute  to  the 
serious  things  that  are  expected  of  them,  and  so 
they  seek  and  find  satisfaction  in  extra-military 
things  generally  frowned  upon  in  civil  life  which, 
in  the  army,  become  a  natural  and  normal 
variant  to  the  regular  and  non-varying  form  of 
existence  imposed  from  above.  It  would  seem,  of 
course,  that  this  situation  would  provide  an  excel- 
lent opportunity  for  good  and  wholesome  external 
influence  along  moral  and  educational  lines.  For 
the  soldier  needs  some  outlet,  and  his  external  life 
makes  him  very  easily  subject  to  influence.  Un- 
fortunately, however,  no  such  provision  at  all  ade- 
quate has  been  provided.  I  do  not  at  present  want 
to  go  into  a  discussion  of  the  activities  ot  the  various 
welfare  organizations  and  of  their  value  to  the 
soldier,  excepting  to  say  that  their  activities  have,  as 
a  whole,  failed  to  reach  the  core  of  the  problem — 
the  provision  of  an  opportunity  for  initiative  and 
self-expression — and  that  at  the  very  best  they  have 
reached  but  a  small  portion  of  the  men.  While  they 
have  had  a  very  definite  value  in  providing  little 
things,  they  have  failed  in  the  larger  and  deeper 
sense — failed  both  as  educational  and  as  moral 
centers  providing  an  imaginative  and  convincing  in- 
terpretation of  the  world  forces  which  brought 
the  men  into  the  army.  In  fact,  the  truth  is  that 
not  only  did  they  fail  to  give  to  the  soldier  something 
of  the  meaning  of  the  things  involved  in  a  spiritual 
way  in  America's  entrance  into  the  war,  or  of  the 
full  significance  of  the  slogans  that  were  abroad  as 
indications  of  those  values,  but  that  they  seem  never 
to  have  realized  that  there  was  an  opportunity  to 
fulfill  a  very  definite  need.  The  welfare  organiza- 
tions as  a  whole  seem  to  have  been  perfectly  helpless 
in  the  light  of  this  need.  Their  lack  of  imagination 
and  their  helpless  and  antiquated  attitude  as  to  what 


constitutes  the  essentials  of  moral  activity  under 
these  conditions  is  pathetic.  They  therefore  failed 
to  render  the  one  vital  and  essential  service  to  both 
the  soldier  and  the  nation  that  was  at  this  time  so 
much  needed,  and  that  would  have  given  these  or- 
ganizations a  real  part  in  making  the  American  war 
effort  mean  something  to  the  world  in  a  spiritual 
way.  This  failure  to  make  provision  for  the  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  needs  of  the  men  left  them  to 
their  own  resources  to  find  an  escape  from  their 
monotonous  world — and  find  it  in  some  measure 
they  did. 

The  paths  to  self-expression  in  camp  are  ex- 
tremely limited.  And  some  form  of  self-expression 
is  essential  if  men  are  to  retain  any  semblance  of 
self  in  an  environment  so  consistently  organized  to 
destroy  individual  personality.  Some  soldiers  came 
to  the  army  as  lovers  of  books,  and  in  that  way 
found  a  means  of  keeping  alive  their  spiritual  world. 
Others  had  the  good  fortune  to  play  some  musical 
instrument  and  gave  vent  to  their  pent-up  feelings 
by  playing.  But  most  men  are  neither  lovers  of 
books,  nor  musicians,  and  even  those  who  are,  as  a 
rule,  find  their  environment  unconducive  to  a  main- 
tenance of  that  interest.  For  men  in  camp  are  ex- 
tremely restless,  unable  to  concentrate,  anxious  for 
novelty  and  change,  and  not  satisfied  with  the  forms 
of  expression  that  proved  satisfactory  under  normal 
conditions.  There  is,  therefore,  for  the  soldier  only 
a  limited  field  capable  of  providing  sufficient  excite- 
ment and  interest  and  opportunity  for  self-forget- 
fulness,  and  that  field  is  chiefly  represented  by  two 
things — gambling  and  women. 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  practically  every 
soldier  gambles.  There  is  no  other  activity  that  is 
so  popular  or  that  seems  so  satisfactory.  Gambling 
has  many  forms,  but  the  shooting  of  dice  ("  craps  ") 
is  the  most  popular.  Of  all  games  it  is  the  greatest 
game  of  chance  and  luck,  and  is  therefore  the  most 
universal.  "  Crap  shooting "  for  money  is  pro- 
hibited in  the  army,  and  in  my  camp  there  has  just 
been  issued  an  order  increasing  the  penalty.  But 
that  is  the  one  rule  that  no  one  obeys.  It  is  played 
everywhere  and  on  all  occasions.  I  have  seen  men 
on  the  drill  field  given  a  few  minutes  rest  take  the 
dice  from  their  pockets  and  start  a  game.  At  night 
when  the  lights  are  out  they  will  crouch  around  a 
candle  shielded  from  observation,  and  stretched  on 
the  floor,  or  straight  on  their  stomachs,  with  bated 
breath  and  flushed  faces,  either  as  participants  or 
observers,  spend  hours  in  the  game.  After  payday 
it  is  usual  to  stay  up  all  night,  and  many  a  man  is 
broke  before  morning  dawns  again,  to  spend  the  rest 
of  the  month  in  borrowing  "  smokes."  While 
"  crap  "  playing  is  the  most  general  of  all  games  of 
chance,  it  is  not  the  only  one.  Cards  in  varying 


IQI9 


THE  DIAL 


335 


forms,  with  poker  holding  its  own  as  the  chief,  is 
certainly  next  in  line  of  favor.  After  payday  many 
will  stay  up  nights  and  play  for  high  stakes,  until 
practically  all  of  the  money  is  held  by  a  very  few 
of  the  card  experts  in  the  company.  To  this  must 
be  added  the  capacity  to  turn  every  situation  into  a 
game  of  chance.  Men  will  gamble  as  to  who  will 
buy  a  drink  when  in  the  canteen,  or  as  to  whether 
there  will  be  chicken  for  dinner.  Every  dogmatic 
statement  is  met  by  a  challenge — from  the  spelling 
of  a  word  to  the  day  of  mustering  out,  or  as  to 
whether  it  will  rain  or  snow  in  the  morning.  Prob- 
ably the  most  interesting  game  of  chance  I  witnessed 
took  place  one  night  when  I  was  teaching  spelling. 
I  had  a  class  in  elementary  English  and  some  boys 
were  in  the  test  as  observers,  others  as  students.  The 
spelling  lesson  developed  into  a  spelling  match,  the 
men  betting  against  each  other  as  to  whether  they 
could  or  could  not  spell  the  next  word.  I  agreed  to 
give  the  words  in  order  as  they  appeared  in  the 
spelling  book,  and  words  with  the  same  number  of 
syllables.  In  a  little  while  the  observers  began  to 
bet,  each  choosing  his  particular  favorite  to  bet  on. 
The  tent  soon  filled  to  overflowing  and  the  game 
was  in  full  swing.  Up  to  eleven,  when  taps  was 
sounded,  we  had  an  exciting  time  of  it.  I  have 
never  witnessed  so  much  will  and  enthusiasm  in  the 
learning  of  spelling — as  for  the  pupils,  they  learned 
more  spelling  that  night  than  in  any  other.  It  was  a 
very  successful  evening,  also,  for  the  schoolmaster, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  rest  of  the  schedule  was 
crowded  by  this  sudden  love  for  spelling.  It  made 
the  school.  It  gave  it  social  standing  and  the  teacher 
an  unwonted  popularity. 

The  soldier  is  very  much  concerned  about  woman. 
Just  as  gambling  is  one  of  the  serious  occupations 
of  the  soldier,  so  is  the  search  after  woman  one  of 
the  great  games  he  plays.  It  is  the  game  of  a  hunts- 
man, and  like  a  good  hunter  he  displays  persistence, 
energy,  avidity,  and  resourcefulness  in  the  chase. 
And  generally  speaking,  this  activity  in  the  pursuit 
of  woman  is  not  in  vain,  for  by  and  large  practi- 
cally every  soldier  who  participates  in  this  activ- 
ity— and  a  very  large  majority  do — finds  his  efforts 
rewarded.  And  in  this  process  he  reduces  all  social 
institutions  within  his  reach,  from  the  church  to  the 
gambling  house,  to  an  instrument  for  his  end,  and 
does  so  deliberately. 

The  talk  in  some  quarters  to  the  effect  that  mili- 
tary discipline  has  made  a  moral  saint  of  the  Amer- 
ican soldier  emanates  from  sources  that  would  place 
a  wish  above  a  fact.  And  the  fact  is  that  the  soldier 
is  very  much  more  unmoral  than  when  he  entered 
the  army — a  fact  that  has  few,  if  any,  exceptions. 
The  truth  that  infectious  diseases  are  less  common 
in  the  army  than  they  were,  or  than  they  are  known 


to  be  in  some  large  cities,  is  due  not  so  much  to 
greater  voluntary  abstinence,  to  higher  morality,  or 
even  to  the  lack  of  opportunity  for  its  spreading, 
but  rather  to  the  fact  that  military  efficiency  is  not 
consistent  with  pnjdery,  and  that  the  army  has  faced 
the  problem  and  made  provision  for  its  discovery  and 
treatment  on  a  scale  more  adequate  for  the  situa- 
tion than  in  civil  life — but  most  of  all  to  the  fact 
that  educational  preventive  measures  are  a  part  of 
the  army  scheme  and  method  in  dealing  with  this 
problem.  In  fact  the  army  has  done  a  remarkable 
piece  of  educational  work  in  sex  hygiene.  An  inter- 
esting illustration  of  the  method  of  approach  is  the 
fact  that  a  man  is  court-martialed  for  not  reporting 
exposure  to  contagion  rather  than  for  exposure  as 
such.  But  the  interesting  thing  in  the  present  con- 
nection is  the  soldier's  attitude  towards  woman  as 
that  attitude  is  affected  by  his  life  in  camp  and  the 
narrow  outlets  which  it  forces  upon  him.  This  atti- 
tude is  unexpected.  It  is  the  attitude  of  the  scientist. 
It  is  an  attitude  shorn  of  modesty,  morals,  sentiment, 
and  subjectivity.  It  is  immodest,  unmoral,  objec- 
tive, evaluating,  and  experimental.  Men  will  sit 
till  late  at  night  in  a  darkened  tent,  or  lie  on  their 
cots,  their  faces  covered  with  the  pale  glow  of  a 
tent  stove  that. burns  red  on  cold  nights,  and  talk 
about  women — but  this  talk  is  of  the  physical  rather 
than  the  emotional,  of  the  types,  the  reactions,  the 
temperaments,  the  differences  and  the  peculiarities  of 
moral  concepts,  the  degrees  of  perversity,  the  physical 
reactions,  the  methods  of  approach — in  fact,  as  if  it 
were  a  problem  in  physics  rather  than  morals. 

The  lack  of  personal  interest,  the  freedom  from 
care,  the  absence  of  the  restraint  of  family  and  asso- 
ciation, the  close  intimacy  with  men  to  the  exclusion 
of  women,  accentuates  the  interest  of  and  the  crav- 
ing for  woman.  This  craving  for  the  escape  from 
an  unnatural  and  dissatisfying  condition  lacks  how- 
ever most  of  those  sentimental  »and  affectional  as- 
pects which  we  consider  a  normal  consequence  to  the 
intimacy  between  man  and  woman.  It  is  an  expres- 
sion of  physical  hunger  desiring  physical  satiation. 
It  is  very  much  akin  to  the  craving  for  food  by  a 
hungry  man,  and  is  talked  about  and  discussed  in 
terms  applicable  to  food  hunger,  food  acquisition, 
and  food  satisfying  qualities. 

This  predominating  unemotional  attitude  is  so 
characteristic  that  it  pervades  the  atmosphere.  Let 
me  illustrate.  In  the  town  near  my  camp  the  public 
woman  has  been  driven  from  the  street.  Some  hun- 
dred of  them  are  now  in  jail.  But  prostitution  has 
prevailed.  The  soliciting  previously  carried  on 
openly  by  the  women  is  now  in  the  hands  of  young 
boys — boys  from  twelve  to  sixteen  years  of  age. 
After  being  accosted  a  number  of  times  one  evening 
by  some  of  these  youngsters  I  made  some  remark 


336 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


offensive  to  one  young  huckster,  and  in  reply  he 
avowed,  "  Look  a'  here,  Soldier,  I  tell  you  it  is  clean, 
fresh,  and  good."  These  were  the  very  adjectives, 
and  others  like  them,  which  are  on  the  lips  of  the 
men  in  camp  when  discussing  the  problem  of  sex — an 
attitude  applicable  not  only  to  the  public  woman,  but 
to  all  women  in  general.  That  there  are  some  ex- 
ceptions to  this  rule  is  probably  true,  but  it  is  also 
true  that  these  exceptions  are  rare. 

The  deteriorating  influences  of  camp  life  involve 
other  aspects  than  those  indicated,  but  the  widely 
heralded  virtues  bred  by  military  discipline — and  be- 
yond a  certain  readiness  of  give  and  take  and  greater 
sociability  I  do  not  know  what  they  are — are 
achieved  at  a  very  heavy  cost  in  terms  of  human 
personality.  Aside  from  the  political  aspects  of 
military  institutions,  when  viewed  purely  as  an  in- 
fluence upon  human  personality,  army  life  proves 
to  be  unhappy  in  its  consequence.  For  not  only  does 
gambling  become  the  chief  of  the  moral  occupations, 
and  the  physical  attitude  towards  sex  a  reversion  to 
a  type  that  is  not  generally  considered  desirable, 
but  in  addition  to  those  things  it  definitely  deterior- 
ates the  sense  of  individuality,  of  self-respect,  of 
interest,  and  of  that  something  that  gives  to  a  nor- 
mal being  his  fiber  and  his  grip  upon  the  world 
about  him.  It  is  a  very  great  destroyer  of  values — 
values  cherished  in  civil  life.  Probably  the  meaning 
is  best  illustrated  by  a  remark  made  by  a  Sergeant- 
Major  who,  upon  being  discharged,  and  while  saying 
good-by,  turned  to  me  and  said :  "  I  am  very  glad 
to  go  home."  "And  why  this  great  gladness?"  I 
asked.  "  Well,  it  darn  near  makes  a  criminal  of 
you  if  you  stay  in  it  long  enough,"  was  the  reply. 
And  this  remark  tells  a  tale  that  includes  most  of 
the  things  I  am  trying  to  say. 

It  seems  a  matter  of  great  doubt  whether  this 
deteriorating  influence  could  be  modified  or  elimi- 


nated by  giving  something  to  the  army  life  that  it 
has  not  at  present — something  that  is  described  as 
education.  The  evidence  seems  to  point  to  the  fact 
that  as  long  as  young  men  are  herded  together  on  a 
large  scale  and  deprived  of  the  opportunities  to  con- 
tribute democratically  to  the  determination  of  their 
own  destinies,  their  own  government,  and  their 
own  labors,  no  amount  of  external  palliatives  will 
destroy  the  more  serious  evils  involved  in  army  life. 
And  to  democratize  an  army — truly  democratize  it 
— is  to  undermine  the  present  function  of  all  the 
military  ideology  and  technique  as  it  relates  to  the 
soldier,  making  him  an  obedient  unthinking  instru- 
ment of  another's  will.  There  seems,  in  fact,  no 
alternative.  One  must  either  accept  the  present 
scheme  of  army  life  with  whatever  palliatives  and 
reforms  are  offered,  and  accept  with  it  the  general 
evils  that  come  from  such  a  life,  or  set  one's  face 
like  flint  against  the  whole  scheme  of  military  pur- 
pose and  military  ends. 

The  soldier's  efforts  at  escape  from  a  dull  en- 
vironment and  his  efforts  to  find  an  outlet  for  his 
personal  activities  are  rarely  successful.  Neither 
gambling  nor  women  make  such  provision,  and  the 
desire  to  escape  the  immediate  is  always  the 
strongest  and  most  obvious  thought  and  purpose 
that  he  exhibits.  He  is  never  happier  than  when  he 
is  on  the  go.  Long  before  the  war  ended  there  was 
some  rumor  to  the  effect  that  my  Division  would 
be  held  on  this  side  for  a  winter's  training.  Not  only 
were  we  chagrined  at  being  denied  the  privilege  of 
going  across,  but  we  were  made  extremely  unhappy 
at  the  thought  of  having  to  spend  a  winter  in  camp, 
— and  one  soldier  put  it  tersely  and  with  the  com- 
mon approval  of  all,  "  I  would  rather  spend  the 
next  six  months  in  Hell  than  here." 


FRANK  TANNENBAUM. 


From  a  Hill  in  France 

Beyond  the  setting  of  this  sun  of  fate 

I  see  far  off  dim  towered  haunts  of  story; 

On  pain  unmerited  and  sin  elate 

Goes  down  once  more  its  ancient  unjust  glory. 

I  see  the  hills  of  death,  the  fields  of  hate — 

So  twine  the  bitter  blossoms  with  the  sweet — 

Yet  all  my  being  surges  out  to  meet 

Thy  groves  and  dim  blue  plains,  Immaculate, 

My  Italy     ...     Oh   God   that  this  should  be- 

Red  war  and  Giotto's  tower  sweetly  strong, 

And  Rome,  the  jewel  of  eternity, 

Dear  citadel  of  consecrated  song. 

Remembering  thee,  small  wonder  I  could  stand 

And  weep  for  hopeless  love  of  the  one  land. 

CUTHBERT  WRIGHT. 


IQIQ 


THE  DIAL 


337 


The  Lapse  to  Laissez-Faire 


As  ...  the  Creator  is  a  being,  not  only  of  infinite 
power  and  wisdom,  but  also  of  infinite  goodness,  he  has 
been  pleased  so  to  contrive  the  constitution  and  frame  of 
humanity  that  we  should  want  no  other  prompter  to 
enquire  after  .  .  .  but  only  our  self-love,  that  uni- 
versal principle  of  action.  For  he  has  .  .  .  insepar- 
ably interwoven  the  laws  of  external  justice  with  the  hap- 
piness of  each  individual.  In  consequence  of  which  mu- 
tual connection  of  justice  with  human  felicity,  he  ... 
has  graciously  reduced  the  rule  of  obedience  to  this  one 
paternal  precept  "  that  man  should  pursue  his  own  true 
and  substantial  happiness." — Blackstone,  in  1765. 


1  HE  RECONSTRUCTION  POLICY  of  the  Administra- 
tion was  announced  on  Monday,  December  2,  1918. 
In  an  address  to  the  Senate  and  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives of  the  United  States  in  congress  assem- 
bled the  President  said: 

Our  people  ...  do  not  want  to  be  coached  and 
led.  They  know  their  own  business,  are  quick  and  re- 
sourceful at  every  readjustment,  definite  in  purpose,  and 
self-reliant  in  action.  Any  leading  strings  we  might  put 
them  in  would  speedily  become  hopelessly  tangled,  be- 
cause they  would  pay  no  attention  to  them  and  go  their 
own  way.  .  .  .  From  no  quarter  have  I  seen  any  gen- 
eral scheme  of  "  reconstruction  "  which  I  thought  it  likely 
we  could  force  our  spirited  business  men  and  self-con- 
scious laborers  to  accept  with  due  pliancy  and  obedience. 

This  statement,  blending  current  fact  with  obso- 
lete reason,  seems  out  of  place  in  an  after-the-war 
world.  The  immediate  response  of  the  country  to 
it  was  inharmonious  disapproval.  The  Republican 
politicians,  whose  intellectual  bankruptcy  is  well 
known,  and  who  are  content  to  take  any  side  of  a 
public  question  the  President  may  leave  to  them, 
pointed  to  another  neglected  opportunity.  The  busi- 
ness men,  who  inconsistently  mix  a  demand  for  a 
protective  tariff  with  dreams  of  a  huge  foreign 
trade,  were  sincerely  disappointed.  The  provincials 
who  make  dislike  or  distrust  of  the  chief  executive 
the  major  premise  of  their  political  reasoning,  cried 
out  immediate  disapproval,  though  they  lacked  the 
necessary  "  therefores."  The  governmental  officials 
at  Washington  were  distressed  to  think  of  a  transi- 
tion to  peace  proceeding  without  their  bureaucratic 
supervision.  The  champions  of  panaceas,  who  are 
always  with  us,  had  found  the  vast  and  empty  con- 
cept of  "  reconstruction  "  much  to  their  liking,  and 
were  put  out  to  see  it  taken  from  them  so  uncere- 
moniously. And  even  the  liberals,  who  all  along 
have  been  the  President's  stanchest  friends,  were 
seriously  disturbed.  To  them  the  voice  was  the 
voice  of  the  President,  but  the  speech  was  that  of 
a  younger  Mr.  Wilson.  It  suggested  the  young  law 
student  enthusiastic  over  his  Blackstone,  the  in- 
structor in  the  denominational  college  expounding 
Adam  Smith's  theory  of  "  the  invisible  hand,"  the 


presidential    candidate    preaching   "  the    new    free- 
dom "  from  the  gospel  according  to  Jefferson. 

What  led  Mr.  Wilson  to  his  new  laissez-faire  it' 
is  impossible  to  say.  One  who  has  thumbed  on  a 
Washington  desk  and  tried  to  read  the  mind  of 
the  man  in  the  White  House  just  across  Lafayette 
Park  will  claim  no  ability  to  fathom  the  mystery  of 
presidential  contemplation.  But,  whatever  the  mo- 
tive, as  the  matter  stood  in  December,  there  were 
reasons  for  the  President's  choice.  However  seri- 
ous the  consequences  may  be,  the  alternative  policy 
freshly  entered  upon  at  that  time  would  likewise 
have  produced  serious  consequences.  A  brief  state- 
ment of  the  situation  will  make  this  clear  beyond 
peradventure.  In  the  first  place  the  Administration 
was  caught  by  the  unexpected  end  of  the  war  with- 
out a  program  for  a  return  to  peace.  At  that  time 
the  President  had  not  succeeded  in  giving  a  content 
to  the  word  "  reconstruction."  There  is  little  evi- 
dence that  he  had  tried  hard;  but  the  mind  which 
coined  the  word  supplied  a  cosmic  term  which  he 
could  reject  as  meaningless.  In  truth  few  expres- 
sions have  ever  given  such  genuine  satisfaction  to 
such  an  assortment  of  minds.  To  the  exporters  it 
meant  foreign  markets;  to  the  politicians,  more 
offices;  to  the  guild  socialists,  at  least  industrial 
councils;  to  the  single  taxers,  the  single  tax;  and  to 
social  workers,  "  betterment."  The  Weeks  bill, 
robbed  by  the  armistice  of  its  chance  to  provoke  sen- 
atorial oratory,  meant  by  "  reconstruction "  what 
any  banker  would  mean  by  it.  The  Overman  bill 
made  it  a  conglomeration  of  all  the  things  that 
needed  tinkering  with  which  the  unimaginative 
mind  of  its  sponsor  could  call  up  at  the  time.  The 
British  Ministry  of  Reconstruction,  in  the  likeness 
of  which  many  would  have  created  an  American 
commission,  resolved  the  matter  into  more  than  one 
hundred  inquiries,  ranging  from  the  constitutionali- 
zation  of  industry  to  the  demobilization  of  mules. 
As  a  minimum  it  seemed  to  mean  the  return  to  ordi- 
nary uses  of  the  men  and  material  displaced  by  the 
war.  As  a  maximum  it  connoted  an  attempt  to 
take  advantage  of  the  general  state  of  flux  to  ar- 
range elements  into  a  more  pleasing  social1  order. 
Even  in  this  variety  Mr.  Wilson  failed  to  discover 
a  problem  of  reconstruction  to  his  liking. 

It  may  have  been  design  rather  than  accident 
which  found  him  unprepared  in  November.  Cer- 
tainly he  had  empowered  no  group  of  men  to  make 
a  study  and  determine  the  feasibility  of  a  program 
of  reconstruction.  On  the  contrary  he  seems  to 
have  settled  the  matter  by  assumption,  or  guess,  or 
the  chance  advice  of  a  trusted  official.  The  half- 


338 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


hearted  assent  to  the  request  of  the  Council  of  Na- 
tional Defense  last  June  to  be  permitted  to  look 
into  the  matter  can  be  interpreted  as  little  more 
than  saying,  "  If  you  think  anything  can  be  found 
in  that  vague  inquiry,  go  to  it.  Far  be  it  from  me 
to  deny  you  the  pleasure."  From  the  first  he  seems 
to  have  bothered  little  with  the  matter.  And  it 
must  be  admitted  that  from  the  first  there  was  good 
reason,  if  not  the  best  reason,  for  his  reticence.  He 
could  not  have  thrilled  over  the  accomplishments 
of  the  British  Ministry  of  Reconstruction,  which 
was  held  up  as  a  model  for  us.  If  he  attempted 
to  find  reason  in  the  maze  of  their  reports  he  dis- 
covered that  only  two  significant  recommendations 
appeared  as  the  result  of  their  countless  labors.  And, 
peculiarly  enough,  both  of  these — the  scheme  for 
industrial  councils  and  the  plan  for  demobilization 
in  terms  of  industrial  needs — were  well  under  way 
when  the  committees  having  them  in  charge  were 
associated  with  the  Reconstruction  Ministry.  As 
for  the  hundred  and  more  other  sub-committees, 
each  did  in  isolation  its  appointed  task,  each  per- 
formed its  clerical  labors  undisturbed  by  what 
others  were  doing.  .  Most  of  them  decided,  as  dic( 
the  sub-committee  upon  the  chemical  industry,  that 
the  situation  after  the  war  would  most  likely  be  a 
serious  one  and  that  something  ought  to  be  done 
about  it. 

Quite  likely  Mr.  Wilson  did  not  busy  himself  to 
find  out  how  much  better  an  American  commission 
could  do.  If  he  had,,  it  is  by  no  means  certain  that 
he  would  have  been  greatly  impressed.  He  must 
know,  perhaps  better  than  anyone  else,  the  unsuit- 
ableness  of  agencies  of  state  for  such  a  task.  First 
of  all,  there  is  neither  in  Washington  nor  else- 
where an  adequate  body  of  knowledge  about  the 
organization  -of  industry,  its  interrelations  with 
finance  and  commerce,  and  its  place  in  the  social 
life  of  the  nation.  The  figures  which  have  been 
gathered  into  imposing  statistical  tables  relate  to 
the  most  immediate  and  ephemeral  of  problems. 
The  scheme  upon  which  they  have  been  gathered 
and  interpreted  is  irrelevant  to  the  larger  problems 
involved  in  controlling  a  developing  industrial  soci- 
ety. Second,  there  is  small  reason  for  thinking  that 
any  commission  which  would  have  proved  accept- 
able to  the  country  would  have  been  willing  to  ap- 
proach its  problems  without  bias.  At  present  the 
decisions  of  state  rest  upon  rule  of  thumb,  prejudice, 
and  the  chance  bias  of  the  glad-hand  administrator 
— in  fact  upon  anything  except  an  application  of  the 
methods  of  scientific  procedure  to  the  matter  in 
hand.  Its  prejudice  against  intellect  would  have 
prevented  any  commission  from  obtaining  the  in- 
formation without  which  any  action  is  worse  than 
no  action.  And  third,  even  if  an  adequate  program 


of  reconstruction  could  have  been  devised,  the  spirit 
of  cooperation  necessary  to  its  execution  could 
never  have  been  attained.  The  many-sided  thing 
known  outside  of  Washington  as  •"  the  government  " 
would  have  prevented  that.  But,  whether  by  acci- 
dent or  no,  Mr.  Wilson  was  caught  in  November 
without  a  reconstruction  program,  and  plead  per- 
suasively, if  not  convincingly,  for  a  return  to 
laissez-faire. 

In  the  second  place,  a  positive  program  of  re- 
construction was  bad  politics.  However  we  may 
insist  that  the  common  good  must  override  the  ex- 
igencies of  party  strife,  Mr.  Wilson  has  always  kept 
one  eye  upon  the  future  of  his  party.  Even  with 
the  war  on,  a  cry  of  "  paternalism  "  had  been  raised 
against  the  government;  no  one  knew  better  than 
the  President  that  a  "  reconstructed  peace  "  would 
be  damned  by  his  political  opponents  as  "  socialism." 
At  the  time  of  the  armistice  the  government  had 
just  passed  the  inevitable  period  of  blundering.  Its 
program  of  control  was  just  beginning  to  vindicate 
itself  in  positive  results.  Evidence  of  this  prelimi- 
nary inefficiency  was  at  hand  to  damn  any  adminis- 
tration which  persisted  in  the  policy.  In  fact  Mr. 
Wilson's  opponents  were  counting  upon  a  continu- 
ance of  control,  had  massed  their  fire  upon  this 
issue,  and  were  determined  to  make  the  most  of  it. 
They  were  persuaded  that  the  country  was  pre- 
pared to  believe  with  them  that  what  was  medicine 
in  time  of  war  became  poison  upon  the  return  to 
peace.  The  President's  tactics  robbed  them  of  a 
convincing  argument.  It  is  true  that  he  took  the 
chance  of  being  damned  for  the  ills  which  attend 
the  lack  of  a  preparation  for  peace.  But  he  escaped 
condemnation  for  the  evils  which  would  have  at- 
tended a  badly  executed  program  for  the  transition 
period.  As  between  relying  upon  the  knowledge 
and  wisdom  of  the  gods  of  chance  with  whom  he 
has  a  passing  acquaintance,  and  the  foresight  and 
discretion  of  an  administration  he  knows  thoroughly, 
Mr.  Wilson  preferred  the  gods. 

His  program  of  a  lasting  peace  for  the  world 
moved  him  to  the  same  decision.  The  President's 
is  "  a  single-track  mind  "  and  he  understands  that 
the  nation  is  made  up  of  like-minded  individuals. 
The  secret  of  his  political  art  has  always  been  in  en- 
gaging the  minds  of  the  people  upon  one  question  at 
a  time.  He  is  right  in  rating  the  issue  of  an  in- 
surance against  war  higher  than  any  domestic  mat- 
ter. It  was  easy  for  him  to  conclude  that  whatever 
of  good  or  ill  the  term  "  reconstruction  "  veiled,  it 
could  wait.  Its  intrusion  at  this  time  would  dis- 
turb the  mind  of  a  nation  at  a  time  when  he  wanted 
it  fixed  upon  the  League  of  Nations.  In  addition 
the  peace  program  must  not  be  allowed  to  incur 
ill  will  stirred  up  by  a  reconstruction  program. 


IQI9 


THE  DIAL 


339 


In  the  third  place  a  positive  program  of  recon- 
struction would  have  proved  most  unpopular.  The 
President  is  right  in  saying  that  the  nation  at  large 
was  crying  aloud  for  a  return  to  laissez-faire. 
While  the  fight  was  on,  our  people  were  willing  to 
make  the  sacrifices  which  they  regarded  as  neces- 
s#ry  to  victory;  but  beneath  the  battle  there  was  re- 
sentment at  state  interference,  which  accumulated 
into  a  vast  volume  of  unexpressed  protest.  Manu- 
facturers were  less  sure  of  the  logic  of  priorities 
than  they  were  of  that  of  a  maximum  wage;  em- 
ployers objected  to  an  excess  profits  tax  but  would 
welcome  a  conscription  of  labor;  laborers  objected 
strenuously  to  "  profiteering,"  but  made  no  applica- 
tion of  the  word  to  their  own  work  and  wages. 
Peculiarly  enough  there  was  little  impatience  at 
loans,  contributions  to  war  charities,  and  taxes. 
The  serious  burdens  imposed  by  the  questionable 
methods  by  which  the  war  was  financed,  which 
found  expression  in  inflation  and  high  prices,  pro- 
voked little  protest.  On  the  contrary  the  petty  an- 
noyances connected  with  state  supervision  were  a 
constant  source  of  irritation.  In  general  the  pub- 
lic disapproval  of  governmental  departments  varied 
directly  with  their  efficiency.  It  would  be  hard, 
for  instance,  to  convince  anyone  who  knew  the  Food 
Administration  intimately  that  its  activities  consist- 
ed in  anything  more  than  vain  motions.  Yet,  by 
flattering  the  people  into  believing  that  their  petty 
savings  made  holy  martyrs  of  them,  it  became  the 
most  popular  of  all  the  government  departments. 
The  signing  of  the  armistice  removed  the  incentive 
to  silence.  In  November  the  country  demanded  in 
no  unmistakable  terms  a  return  to  laissez-faire.  And 
the  President  decided,  perhaps  with  a  shrug  of  the 
shoulders,  to  let  the  people  have  their  way. 

Nearly  four  eventful  months  have  gone  by  since 
the  President's  announcement  of  his  reconversion  to 
laissez-faire.  Even  now  the  time  is  not  at  hand  for 
a  final  appraisal  of  his  policy;  but  the  outlines  of 
a  tentative  judgment  seem  unmistakable.  Whether 
it  is  because  of  his  proverbial  luck,  or  his  foresight, 
his  policy  looks  better  in  March  than  it  did  in  De- 
cember. This  is  not  because  the  consequences  of 
laissez-faire  have  been  less  serious  than  were  antici- 
pated. On  the  contrary  "  the  industrial  depression 
of  1919,"  as  it  will  be  called  in  history,  is  coming 
more  quickly  than  the  foreminded  thought.  The 
great  advantage  of  the  policy  has  been  in  allowing 
the  public  to  discover  reconstruction  for  itself.  A 
nation  which  requires  visible  evidence  of  a  problem's 
actual  presence  before  it  will  think  about  it  has  been 
goaded  into  attention.  But  the  time  for  antitoxins 
is  now  past  and  only  medicine  or  surgery  will 
suffice. 


To  judge  the  policy  aright  we  must  separate  the 
"  reconstruction  "  from  the  "  demobilization  "  prob- 
lem ;  we  must  draw  some  sort  of  a  line  between  the 
<(  emergency  "  and  the  "  constructive  "  problem. 
The  more  we  have  in  mind  the  immediate  ques- 
tions of  readjustment,  the  less  merit  we  can  see  in 
laissez-faire.  But  the  more  we  consider  the  ulti- 
mate issues  of  the  coming  "peace  the  more  of  good 
it  seems  to  hold.  In  terms  of  the  latter  it  says  that 
the  government  is  not  the  proper  agency,  and  this 
is  not  the  proper  time,  to  settle  the  larger  issues  of 
machine  industry  and  human  welfare.  It  insists 
that  these  are  abiding  questions  which  society  must 
attend  to  in  the  process  of  its  gradual  development. 
The  policy  prevents  much  ado  and  little  done  un- 
der the  pretense  of  reconstructing  the  country.  It 
enables  specific  problems  to  be  dealt  with  by  proper 
agencies  as  they  arise.  It  breaks  up  the  larger  prob- 
lems into  bits  which  are  manageable  and  permits 
time  for  an  adequate  understanding  and  an  adequate 
solution.  Upon  the  "constructive "  problem  the 
President's  recommendations  seem  sound. 

But  it  seems  impossible  to  overlook  the  neglect 
of  the  "  emergency  "  problem.  It  can  be  justified 
only  upon  one  of  two  distinct  theories.  The  first 
is  that  the  President  expected  demobilization  to  be 
successfully  effected  in  terms  of  the  ordained  ritual 
of  the  War  Department.  The  second  is  that  his 
belief  in  laissez-faire  rose  to  the  transcendental 
heights  of  faith  in  its  efficacy  for  even  so  great  an 
emergency.  To  make  the  first  the  fact  is  to  ac- 
cuse him  of  ignorance  of  the  limitations  of  military 
procedure.  To  make  the  second  his  motive  is  to 
charge  him  with  failing  to  comprehend  what  is  in- 
volved in  demobilization.  The  latter  seems  to  have 
been  the  case. 

For  two  reasons  the  President's  reliance  upon 
"  the  simple  and  obvious  system  of  natural  liberty,  " 
exhibited  in  "  spirited  business  men "  and  "  self- 
conscious  laborers,  "  was  misplaced.  In  the  first 
place  ordinary  business  practice  cannot  be  depended 
upon  to  secure  the  full  employment  of  all  produc- 
tive resources.  The  end  of  the  war  brought  a  threat 
to  employer's  profits,  the  motive  upon  which  Mr. 
Wilson  depends  for  reorganization.  The  cancella- 
tion of  government  contracts  aggregating  at  least  ten 
'billion  dollars  robbed  many  employ9rs  of  profitable 
markets.  The  threatened  loss  to  these  industries 
held  a  threat  to  others  supplying  them  with  materials 
and  a  threat  of  loss  of  employment  to  men.  It 
discouraged  buying,  which  in  turn  again  threatened 
profits.  In  addition  an  anticipated  fall  in  prices 
discouraged  business  activity,  just  when  expansion 
was  required  to  provide  work  for  the  men  in  the 
army.  In  the  absence  of  a  plan  designed  to  accele- 


340 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


rate  business  enterprise,  an  industrial  depression  of 
greater  or  less  magnitude  threatened,  attended  by 
idleness  of  plants,  unemployment  of  labor,  and  waste 
of  human  and  material  resources. 

In  the  second  place  ordinary  business  activity 
could  not  be  depended  upon  to  secure  within  the  de- 
mobilization period  a  proper  distribution  of  men 
and  materials  among  different  industries.  If  each 
producer  acted  for  himself  and  in  ignorance  of  the 
action  of  others,  the  immediate  result  would  be  the 
overproduction  of  certain  goods  and  the  underpro- 
duction of  others.  The  losses  attending  overproduc- 
tion would  impose  a  check  upon  business  enterprise 
and  lead  to  a  still  further  disorganization  of  the 
system.  Eventually,  of  course,  as  any  champion  of 
laissez-faire  can  show,  matters  would  all  work  out 
nicely.  Sooner  or  later  business  would  expand  and 
all  the  elements  of  capital  and  labor  would  be  drawn 
into  active  work,  at  least  all  that  survived.  But 
this  readjustment  by  a  process  of  trial  and  error  is 
wasteful  and  slow.  Even  before  the  war  many  eco- 
nomists were  questioning  the  ability  of  business  en- 
terprise effectively  to  organize  production — and  that 
without  a  loss  of  their  orthodoxy.  Then  the  aggre- 
gate of  change  from  one  line  of  production  to  an- 
other could  not  have  been  more  than  two  or  three 
per  cent  of  the  total  volume  of  industry  per  year. 
If  the  efficacy  of  the  magic  was  questionable  then, 
what  can  be  expected  of  it  if  from  twenty-five  to 
thirty-five  per  cent  of  the  whole  is  to  be  diverted 
from  emergency  to  ordinary  uses  within  a  short 
period  of  time  ?  At  best  it  is  a  poor  alternative  to  a 
carefully  formulated  plan  which  approaches  demo- 
bilization as  a  problem  in  industrial'organization  and 


attempts  to  formulate  principles  for  the  speedy  and 
discriminating  return  of  men  and  materials  to  ac- 
tive industry. 

Whatever  justification  may  be  given  a  neglect  of 
the  problems  of  reconstruction,  the  failure  of  the 
Administration  to  formulate  a  demobilization  policy 
is  inexcusable.  If  the  President  regarded  it  as  a 
matter  of  mere  manipulations,  he  should  have  in- 
quired into  its  nature  rather  than  judge  it  by 
intuition.  If  he  considered  the  War  Department 
adequate  to  handle  it,  he  should  have  informed  him- 
self more  particularly  about  the  tasks  which  it  can 
and  cannot  do.  If  adequate  knowledge  for  even 
this  smaller  task  was  lacking,  he  made  no  attempt 
to  supply  the  deficiency.  If  he  had  no  confidence 
in  the  personnel  of  the  departments  and  boards  which 
would  have  been  charged  with  the  execution  of  a 
demobilization  program,  they  held  their  places  sub- 
ject to  his  discretion.  If  the  mind  of  the  nation  was 
to  be  kept  upon  the  need  of  a  lasting  peace,  it  was 
necessary  to  prevent  the  distractions  which  were  the 
inevitable  consequences  of  even  a  temporary  lapse 
to  laissez-faire.  The  psychology  of  one  thing  at  a 
time  is  unquestioned.  But  the  fact  is  that  the  end 
of  the  war  brought  two  immediate  and  imperative 
problems.  Peace  had  to  be  made  and  the  industrial 
system  had  to  be  restored  to  a  peace  basis.  The 
double-track  problem  required  a  double-track  mind. 
If  it  was  necessary  to  see  to  it  that  the  coming  peace 
be  a  permanent  one,  it  was  no  less  necessary  to  take 
care  that  abiding  values  be  read  into  the  industrial 
system  which  is  being  reestablished. 

WALTON  H.  HAMILTON. 


Synge's  Playboy  of  the   Western   World 


VARIATION 

It  's  New  York,  I  tell  you     .     .     . 

I'd  have  a  home 

on  top  of  a  hill; 

there  should  be  roses 

from  the  roof  down; 

and  I'd  get  up  every  day 

at  sunrise. 

I  should  become  so  beautiful 
you  would  be  embarrassed 
looking  at  me. 

It's  New  York  I  tell  you, 

a  city  that  lives 

with  work 

for  men  stronger  than  I ; 

with  duties 

for  a  different  conscience 

than  mine. 

EMANUEL  CARNEVALI. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


On  the  Nature  and  Uses  of  Sabotage 


ABOTAGE  "  IS  A  DERIVATIVE  of  "  Sabot,"  which  is 

French  for  a  wooden  shoe.  It  means  going  slow, 
with  a  dragging,  clumsy  movement,  such  as  that 
manner  of  footgear  may  be  expected  to  bring  on.  So 
it  has  come  to  describe  any  maneuver  of  slowing- 
down,  inefficiency,  bungling,  obstruction.  In  Ameri- 
can usage  the  word  is  very  often  taken  to  mean 
forcible  obstruction,  destructive  tactics,  industrial 
frightfulness,  incendiarism  and  high  explosives,  al- 
though that  is  plainly  not  its  first  meaning  nor  its 
common  meaning.  Nor  is  that  its  ordinary  mean- 
ing as  the  word  is  used  among  those  who  have 
advocated  a  recourse  to  sabotage  as  a  means  of 
enforcing  an  argument  about  wages  or  the  condi- 
tion of  work.  The  ordinary  meaning  of  the  word 
is  better  defined  by  an  expression  which  has  latterly 
come  into  use  among  the  I.  W.  W.,  "  conscientious 
withdrawal  of  efficiency"  —  although  that  phrase 
does  not  cover  all  that  is  rightly  to  be  included 
under  this  technical  term. 

The  sinister  meaning  which  is  often  attached  to 
the  word  in  American  usage,  as  denoting  violence 
and  disorder,  appears  to  be  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
American  usage  has  been  shaped  chiefly  by  persons 
and  newspapers  who  have  aimed  to  discredit  the 
use  of  sabotage  by  organized  workmen,  and  who 
have  therefore  laid  stress  on  its  less  amiable  mani- 
festations. This  is  unfortunate.  It  lessens  the 
usefulness  of  the  word  by  making  it  a  means  of 
denunciation  rather  than  of  understanding.  No 
doubt  violent  obstruction  has  had  its  share  in  the 
strategy  of  sabotage  as  carried  on  by  disaffected 
workmen,  as  well  as  in  the  similar  tactics  of  rival 
business  concerns.  It  comes  into  the  case  as  one 
method  of  sabotage,  though  by  no  means  the  most 
usual  or  the  most  effective;  but  it  is  so  spectacular 
and  shocking  a  method  that  it  has  drawn  undue  at- 
tention to  itself.  Yet  such  deliberate  violence  is,  no 
doubt,  a  relatively  minor  fact  in  the  case,  as  com- 
pared with  that  deliberate  malingering,  confusion, 
and  misdirection  of  work  that  makes  up  the  bulk 
of  what  the  expert  practitioners  would  recognize 
as  legitimate  sabotage. 

The  word  first  came  into  use  among  the  organized 
French  workmen,  the  members  of  certain  syndicats, 
to  describe  their  tactics  of  passive  resistance,  and 
it  has  continued  to  be  associated  with  the  strategy 
of  these  French  workmen,  who  are  known  as  syndi- 
calists, and  with  their  like-minded  running-mates 
in  other  countries.  But  the  tactics  of  these  syndi- 
calists, and  their  use  of  sabotage,  do  not  differ,  ex- 
cept in  detail,  from  the  tactics  of  other  workmen 


elsewhere,  or  from  the  similar  tactics  of  friction, 
obstruction,  and  delay  habitually  employed,  from 
time  to  time,  by  both  employees  and  employers  to 
enforce  an  argument  about  wages  and  prices.  There- 
fore, in  the  course  of  a  quarter-century  past,  the 
word  has  quite  unavoidably  taken  on  a  general 
meaning  in  common  speech,  and  has  been  extended 
to  cover  all  such  peaceable  or  surreptitious  maneu- 
vers of  delay,  obstruction,  friction,  and  defeat, 
whether  employed  by  the  workmen  to  enforce  their 
claims,  or  by  the  employers  to  defeat  their  em- 
ployees, or  by  competitive  business  concerns  to  get 
the  better  of  their  business  rivals  or  to  secure  their 
own  advantage. 

Such  maneuvers  of  restriction,  delay,  and  hin- 
drance have  a  large  share  in  the  ordinary  conduct 
of  business;  but  it  is  only  lately  that  this  ordinary 
line  of  business  strategy  has  come  to  be  recognized 
as  being  substantially  of  the  same  nature  as  the 
ordinary  tactics  of  the  syndicalists.  So  that  it  has 
not  been  usual  until  the  last  few  years  to  speak  of 
maneuvers  of  this  kind  as  sabotage  when  they  are 
employed  by  employers  and  other  business  concerns. 
But  all  this  strategy  of  delay,  restriction,  hindrance, 
and  defeat  is  manifestly  of  the  same  character,  and 
should  conveniently  be  called  by  the  same  name, 
whether  it  is  carried  on  by  business  men  or  by  work- 
men; so  that  it  is  no  longer  unusual  now  to  find 
workmen  speaking  of  "capitalistic  sabotage"  as  free- 
ly as  the  employers  and  the  newspapers  speak  of 
syndicalist  sabotage.  As  the  word  is  now  used,  and 
as  it  is  properly  used,  it  describes  a  certain  system 
of  industrial  strategy  or  management,  whether  it  is 
employed  by  one  or  another.  What  it  describes  is 
a  resort  to  peaceable  or  surreptitious  restriction, 
delay,  withdrawal,  or  obstruction. 

Sabotage  commonly  works  within  the  law,  al- 
though it  may  often  be  within  the  letter  rather  than 
the  spirit  of  the  law.  It  is  used  to  secure  some 
special  advantage  or  preference,  usually  of  a  busi- 
nesslike sort.  It  commonly  has  to  do  with  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  a  vested  right,  which  one 
or  another  of  the  parties  in  the  case  aims  to  secure 
or  defend,  or  to  defeat  or  diminish ;  some  preferential 
right  or  special  advantage  in  respect  of  income  or 
privilege,  something  in  the  way  of  a  vested  interest. 
Workmen  have  resorted  to  such  measures  to  secure 
improved  conditions  of  work,  or  increased  wages, 
or  shorter  hours,  or  to  maintain  their  habitual 
standards,  to  all  of  which  they  have  claimed  to 
have  some  sort  of  a  vested  right.  Any  strike  is 
of  the  nature  of  sabotage,  of  course.  Indeed,  a 


342 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


strike  is  a  typical  species  of  sabotage.  That  strikes 
have  not  been  spoken  of  as  sabotage  is  due  to  the 
accidental  fact  that  strikes  were  in  use  before  this 
word  came  into  use.  So  also,  of  course,  a  lockout 
is  another  typical  species  of  sabotage.  That  the 
lockout  is  employed  by  the  employers  against  the 
employees  does  not  change  the  fact  that  it  is  a 
means  of  defending  a  vested  right  by  delay,  with- 
drawal, defeat,  and  obstruction  of  the  work  to  be 
done.  Lockouts  have  not  usually  been  spoken  of  as 
sabotage,  for  the  same  reason  that  holds  true  in  the 
case  of  strikes.  All  the  while  it  has  been  recog- 
nized that  strikes  and  lockouts  are  of  identically 
the  same  character. 

All  this  does  not  imply  that  there  is  anything 
discreditable  or  immoral  about  this  habitual  use  of 
strikes  and  lockouts.  They  are  part  of  the  ordinary 
conduct  of  industry  under  the  existing  system,  and 
necessarily  so.  So  long  as  the  system  remains  un- 
changed these  measures  are  a  necessary  and  legiti- 
mate part  of  it.  By  virtue  of  his  ownership  the 
owner-employer  has  a  vested  right  to  do  as  he  will 
with  his  own  property,  to  deal  or  not  to  deal  with 
any  person  that  offers,  to  withhold  or  withdraw  any 
part  or  all  of  his  industrial  equipment  and  natural 
resources  from  active  use  for  the  time  being,  to 
run  on  half  time  or  to  shut  down  his  plant  and  to 
lock  out  all  those  persons  for  whom  he  has  no 
present  use  on  his  own  premises.  There  is  no  ques- 
tion that  the  lockout  is  altogether  a  legitimate 
maneuver.  It  may  even  be  meritorious,  and  it  is 
frequently  considered  to  be  meritorious  when  its 
use  helps  to  maintain  sound  conditions  in  business — 
that  is  to  say,  profitable  conditions,  as  frequently 
happens.  Such  is  the  view  of  the  substantial  citi- 
zens. So  also  is  the  strike  legitimate,  so  long  as  it 
keeps  within  the  law;  and  it  may  at  times  even  be 
meritorious,  at  least  in  the  eyes  of  the  strikers.  It 
is  to  be  admitted  quite  broadly  that  both  of  these 
typical  species  of  sabotage  are  altogether  fair  and 
honest  in  principle,  although  it  does  not  therefore 
follow  that  every  strike  or  every  lockout  is  neces- 
sarily fair  and  honest  in  its  working-out.  That  is 
in  some  degree  a  question  of  special  circumstances. 

Sabotage,  accordingly,  is  not  to  be  condemned  out 
of  hand,  simply  as  such.  There  are  many  meas- 
ures of  policy  and  management  both  in  private  busi- 
ness and  in  public  administration  which  are  un- 
mistakably of  the  nature  of  sabotage  and  which  are 
not  only  considered  to  be  excusable,  but  are  de- 
liberately sanctioned  by  statute  and  common  law 
and  by  the  public  conscience.  Many  such  measures 
are  quite  of  the  essence  of  the  case  under  the  estab- 
lished system  of  law  and  order,  price  and  business, 
and  are  faithfully  believed  to  be  indispensable  to 


the  common  good.  It  should  not  be  difficult  to 
show  that  the  common  welfare  in  any  community 
which  is  organized  on  the  price  system  cannot  be 
maintained  without  a  salutary  use  of  sabotage — that 
is  to  say,  such  habitual  recourse  to  delay  and  obstruc- 
tion of  industry  and  such  restriction  of  output  as 
will  maintain  prices  at  a  reasonably  profitable  level 
and  so  guard  against  business  depression.  Indeed, 
it  is  precisely  considerations  of  this  nature  that  are 
now  engaging  the  best  attention  of  officials  and 
business  men  in  their  endeavors  to  tide  over  a 
threatening  depression  in  American  business  and  a 
consequent  season  of  hardship  for  all  those  per- 
sons whose  main  dependence  is  free  income  from 
investments. 

Without  some  salutary  restraint  in  the  way  of 
sabotage  on  the  productive  use  of  the  available  in- 
dustrial plant  and  workmen,  it  is  altogether  unlikely 
that  prices  could  be  maintained  at  a  reasonably 
profitable  figure  for  any  appreciable  time.  A  busi- 
nesslike control  of  the  rate  and  volume  of  output 
is  indispensable  for  keeping  up  a  profitable  market, 
and  a  profitable  market  is  the  first  and  unremitting 
condition  of  prosperity  in  any  community  whose  in- 
dustry is  owned  and  managed  by  business  men.  And 
the  ways  and  means  of  this  necessary  control  of  the 
output  of  industry  are  always  and  necessarily  some- 
thing in  the  nature  of  sabotage — something  in  the 
way  of  retardation,  restriction,  withdrawal,  unem- 
ployment of  plant  and  workmen — whereby  produc- 
tion is  kept  short  of  productive  capacity.  The  me- 
chanical industry  of  the  new  order  is  inordinately- 
productive.  So  the  rate  and  volume  of  output  have 
to  be  regulated  with  a  view  to  what  the  traffic  will 
bear — that  is  to  say,  what  will  yield  the  largest  net 
return  in  terms  of  price  to  the  business  men  in  charge 
of  the  country's  industrial  system.  Otherwise  there 
will  be  "overproduction,"  business  depression,  and 
consequent  hard  times  all  round.  Overproduction 
means  production  in  excess  of  what  the  market 
will  carry  off  at  a  sufficiently  profitable  price.  So 
it  appears  that  the  continued  prosperity  of  the  coun- 
try from  day  to  day  hangs  on  a  "conscientious 
withdrawal  of  efficiency"  by  the  business  men  who 
control  the  country's  industrial  output.  They  con- 
trol it  all  for  their  own  use,  of  course,  and  their 
own  use  means  always  a  profitable  price. 

In  any  community  that  is  organized  on  the  price 
system,  with  investment  and  business  enterprise, 
habitual  unemployment  of  the  available  indus- 
trial plant  and  workmen,  in  whole  or  in  part, 
appears  to  be  the  .  indispensable  condition  without 
which  tolerable  conditions  of  life  cannot  be  main- 
tained. That  is  to  say,  in  no  such  community  can 
the  industrial  system  be  allowed  to  work  at  full 


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capacity  for  any  appreciable  interval  of  time,  on 
pain  of  business  stagnation  and  consequent  privation 
for  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men.  The  require- 
ments of  profitable  business  will  not  tolerate  it.  So 
the  rate  and  volume  of  output  must  be  adjusted  to 
the  needs  of  the  market,  not  to  the  working  capacity 
of  the  available  resources,  equipment  and  man 
power,  nor  to  the  community's  need  of  consumable 
goods.  Therefore  there  must  always  be  a  certain 
variable  margin  of  unemployment  of  plant  and  man 
power.  Rate  and  volume  of  output  can,  of  course, 
not  be  adjusted  by  exceeding  the  productive  capacity 
of  the  industrial  system.  So  it  has  to  be  regulated 
by  keeping  short  of  maximum  production  by  more 
or  less,  as  the  condition  of  the  market  may  require. 
It  is  always  a  question  of  more  or  less  unemploy- 
ment of  plant  and  man  power,  and  a  shrewd  moder- 
ation in  the  unemployment  of  these  available  re- 
sources, a  "  conscientious  withdrawal  of  efficiency," 
therefore,  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom  in  all  sound 
workday  business  enterprise  that  has  to  do  with 
industry. 

All  this  is  matter  of  course  and  notorious.  But 
it  is  not  a  topic  on  which  one  prefers  to  dwell. 
Writers  and  speakers  who  dilate  on  the  meritorious 
exploits  of  the  nation's  business  men  will  not  corn- 
manly  allude  to  this  voluminous  running  adminis- 
tration of  sabotage,  this  conscientious  withdrawal  of 
efficiency,  that  goes  into  their  ordinary  day's  work. 
One  prefers  to  dwell  on  those  exceptional,  sporadic, 
and  spectacular  episodes  in  business  where  business 
men  have  now  and  again  successfully  gone  out  of 
the  safe  and  sane  highway  of  conservative  business 
enterprise  that  is  hedged  about  with  a  conscientious 
withdrawal  of  efficiency,  and  have  endeavored  to 
regulate  the  output  by  increasing  the  productive 
capacity  of  the  industrial  system  at  one  point  or 
another. 

But  after  all,  such  habitual  recourse  to  peaceable 
or  surreptitious  measures  of  restraint,  delay,  and 
obstruction  in  the  ordinary  businesslike  management 
of  industry  is  too  widely  known  and  too  well  ap- 
proved to  call  for  much  exposition  or  illustration. 
Yet,  as  one  capital  illustration  of  the  scope  and 
force  of  such  businesslike  withdrawal  of  efficiency, 
it  may  be  in  place  to  recall  that  all  the  civilized 
nations  are  just  now  undergoing  an  experiment  in 
businesslike  sabotage  on  an  unexampled  scale  and 
carried  out  with  unexampled  effrontery.  All  these 
nations  that  have  come  through  the  war,  whether  as 
belligerents  or  as  neutrals,  have  come  into  a  state 
of  more  or  less  pronounced  distress,  due  to  a  scarcity 
of  the  common  necessaries  of  life;  and  this  distress 
falls,  of  course,  chiefly  on  the  common  sort,  who 
have  at  the  same  time  borne  the  chief  burden  of 


the  war  which  has  brought  them  to  this  state  of 
distress.  The  common  man  has  won  the  war  and 
lost  his  livelihood.  This  need  not  be  said  by  way 
of  praise  or  blame.  As  it  stands  it  is,  broadly,  an 
objective  statement  of  fact,  which  may  need  some 
slight  qualification,  such  as  broad  statements  of  fact 
will  commonly  need.  All  these  nations  that  have 
come  through  the  war,  and  more  particularly  the 
common  run  of  their  populations,  are  very  much  in 
need  of  all  sorts  of  supplies  for  daily  use,  both  for 
immediate  consumption  and  for  productive  use.  So 
much  so  that  the  prevailing  state  of  distress  rises  in 
many  places  to  an  altogether  unwholesome  pitch  of 
privation,  for  want  of  the  necessary  food,  clothing, 
and  fuel.  Yet  in  all  these  countries  the  staple  in- 
dustries are  slowing  down.  There  is  an  ever  in-  « 
creasing  withdrawal  of  efficiency.  The  industrial 
plant  is  increasingly  running  idle  or  half  idle,  run- 
ning increasingly  short  of  its  productive  capacity. 
Workmen  are  being  laid  off  and  an  increasing  num- 
ber of  those  workmen  who  have  been  serving  in  the 
armies  are  going  idle  for  want  of  work,  at  the  same 
time  that  the  troops  which  are  no  longer  needed  in 
the  service  are  being  demobilized  as  slowly  as  popu- 
lar sentiment  will  tolerate,  apparently  for  fear  that 
the  number  of  unemployed  workmen  in  the  country 
may  ^presently  increase  to  such  proportions  as  to 
bring  on  a  catastrophe.  And  all  the  while  all  these 
peoples  are  in  great  need  of  all  sorts  of  goods  and 
services  which  these  idle  plants  and  idle  workmen 
are  fit  to  produce.  But  for  reasons  of  business 
expediency  it  is  impossible  to  let  these  idle  plants  and 
idle  workmen  go  to  work — that  is  to  say  for  reasons 
of  insufficient  profit  to  the  business  men  interested, 
or  in  other  words,  for  reasons  of  insufficient  income 
to  the  vested  interests  which  control  the  staple  in- 
dustries and  so  regulate  the  output  of  product.  The 
traffic  will  not  bear  so  large  a  production  of  goods 
as  the  community  needs  for  current  consumption, 
because  it  is  considered  doubtful  whether  so  large  a 
supply  could  be  sold  at  prices  that  would  yield  a" 
reasonable  profit  on  the  investment — or  rather  on 
the  capitalization ;  that  is  to  say,  it  is  considered 
doubtful  whether  an  increased  production,  such  as 
to  employ  more  workmen  and  supply  the  goods 
needed  by  the  community,  would  result  in(  an  in- 
creased net  aggregate  income  for  the  vested  interests 
which  control  these  industries.  A  reasonable  profit 
always  means,  in  effect,  the  largest  obtainable  profit. 
All  this  is  simple  and  obvious,  and  it  should 
scarcely  need  explicit  statement.  It  is  for  these 
business  men  to  manage  the  country's  industry,  of 
course,  and  therefore  to  regulate  the  rate  and  volume 
of  output;  and  also  of  course  any  regulation  of  the 
output  by  them  will  be  made  with  a  view  to  the 


344 


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needs  of  business;  that  is  to  say,  with  a  view  to  the 
largest  obtainable  net  profit,  not  with  a  view  to  the 
physical  needs  of  these  peoples  who  have  come 
through  the  war  and  have  made  the  world  safe  for 
the  business  of  the  vested  interests.  Should  the 
business  men  in  charge,  by  any  chance  aberration, 
stray  from  this  straight  and  narrow  path  of  business 
integrity,  and  allow  the  community's  needs  unduly 
to  influence  their  management  of  the  community's 
industry,  they  would  presently  find  themselves  dis- 
credited and  would  probably  face  insolvency.  Their 
only  salvation  is  a  conscientious  withdrawal  of  effi- 
ciency. All  this  lies  in  the  nature  of  the  case.  It 
is  the  working  of  the  price  system,  whose  creatures 
and  agents  these  business  men  are.  Their  case  is 
rather  pathetic,  as  indeed  they  admit  quite  volubly. 
They  are  not  in  a  position  to  manage  with  a  free 
hand,  the  reason  being  that  they  have  in  the  past, 
under  the  routine  requirements  of  the  price  system 
as  it  takes  effect  in  corporation  finance,  taken  on  so 
large  an  overhead  burden  of  fixed  charges  that  any 
appreciable  decrease  in  the  net  earnings  of  the  busi- 
ness will  bring  any  well-managed  concern  of  this 
class  face  to  face  with  bankruptcy. 

At  the  present  conjuncture,  brought  on  by  the 
war  and  its  termination,  the  case  stands  somewhat 
in  this  typical  shape.  In  the  recent  past  earnings 
have  been  large;  these  large  earnings  (free  income) 
have  been  capitalized;  their  capitalized  value  has 
been  added  to  the  corporate  capital  and  covered 
with  securities  bearing  a  fixed  income-charge;  this 
income-charge,  representing  free  income,  has  thereby 
become  a  liability  on  the  earnings  of  the  corporation ; 
this  liability  cannot  be  met  in  case  the  concern's  net 
aggregate  earnings  fall  off  in  any  degree;  therefore 
prices  must  be  kept  up  to  such  a  figure  as  will  bring 
the  largest  net  aggregate  return,  and  the  only  means 
of  keeping  up  prices  is  a  conscientious  withdrawal 
of  efficiency  in  these  staple  industries  on  which  the 
community  depends  for  a  supply  of  the  necessaries 
of  life. 

The  business  community  has  hopes  of  tiding  things 
over  by  this  means,  but  it  is  still  a  point  in  doubt 
whether  the  present  unexampled  large  use  of  sabo- 
tage in  the  businesslike  management  of  the  staple 
industries  will  now  suffice  to  bring  the  business 
community  through  this  grave  crisis  without  a  disas- 
trous shrinkage  of  its  capitalization,  and  a  consequent 
liquidation;  but  the  point  is  not  in  doubt  that  the 
physical  salvation  of  these  peoples  who  have  come 
through  the  war  must  in  any  case  wait  on  the 
pecuniary  salvation  of  these  owners  of  corporate 
securities  which  represent  free  income.  It  is  a  suffi- 
ciently difficult  passage.  It  appears  that  production 
must  be  curtailed  in  the  staple  industries,  on  pain 


of  unprofitable  prices.  The  case  is  not  so  desperate 
in  those  industries  which  have  immediately  to  do 
with  the  production  of  superfluities;  but  even  these, 
which  depend  chiefly  on  the  custom  of  those  kept 
classes  to  whom  the  free  income  goes,  are  not  feel- 
ing altogether  secure.  For  the  good  of  business  it 
is  necessary  to  curtail  production  of  the  means  of 
life,  on  pain  of  unprofitable  prices,  at  the  same  time 
that  the  increasing  need  of  all  sorts  of  the  neces- 
saries of  life  must  be  met  in  some  passable  fashion, 
on  pain  of  such  popular  disturbances  as  will  always 
come  of  popular  distress  when  it  passes  the  limit  of 
tolerance. 

Those  wise  business  men  who  are  charged  with 
administering  the  salutary  modicum  of  sabotage  at 
this  grave  juncture  may  conceivably  be  faced  with 
a  dubious  choice  between  a  distasteful  curtailment 
of  the  free  income  that  goes  to  the  vested  interests, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  an  unmanageable  onset  of 
popular  discontent  on  the  other  hand.  And  in  either 
alternative  lies  disaster.  Present  indications  would 
seem  to  say  that  their  choice  will  fall  out  according 
to  ancient  habit,  that  they  will  be  likely  to  hold 
fast  by  an  undiminished  free  income  for  the  vested 
interests  at  the  possible  cost  of  any  popular  discon- 
tent that  may  be  in  prospect — and  then,  with  the 
help  of  the  courts  and  the  military  arm,  presently 
make  reasonable  terms  with  any  popular  discontent 
that  may  arise.  In  which  event  it  should  all  occa- 
sion no  surprise  or  resentment,  inasmuch  as  it  would 
be  nothing  unusual  or  irregular  and  would  presum- 
ably be  the  most  expeditious  way  of  reaching  a 
modus  vivendi.  During  the  past  few  weeks,  too, 
quite  an  unusually  large  number  of  machine  guns 
have  been  sold  to  industrial  business  concerns  of  the 
larger  sort,  here  and  there;  at  least  so  they  say. 
Business  enterprise  being  the  palladium  of  the  Re- 
public, it  is  right  to  take  any  necessary  measures 
for  its  safeguarding.  Price  is  of  the  essence  of  the 
case,  whereas  livelihood  is  not. 

The  grave  emergency  that  has  arisen  out  of  the 
war  and  its  provisional  conclusion  is,  after  all, 
nothing  exceptional  except  in  magnitude  and  sever- 
ity. In  substance  it  is  the  same  sort  of  thing  that 
goes  on  continually  but  unobtrusively  and  as  a 
matter  of  course  in  ordinary  times  of  business  as 
usual.  It  is  only  that  the  extremity  of  the  case  is 
calling  attention  to  itself.  At  the  same  time  it 
serves  impressively  to  enforce  the  broad  proposition 
that  a  conscientious  withdrawal  of  efficiency  is  the 
beginning  of  wisdom  in  all  established  business  en- 
terprise that  has  to  do  with  industrial  production. 
But  it  has  been  found  that  this  grave  interest  which 
the  vested  interests  always  have  in  a  salutary  re- 
tardation of  industry  at  one  point  or  another  cannot 


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345 


well  be  left  altogether  to  the  haphazard  and  ill- 
coordinated  efforts  of  individual  business  concerns, 
each  taking  care  of  its  own  particular  line  of 
sabotage  within  its  own  premises.  The  needed 
sabotage  can  best  be  administered  on  a  compre- 
hensive plan  and  by  a  central  authority,  since  the 
country's  industry  is  of  the  nature  of  a  compre- 
hensive interlocking  system,  whereas  the  business 
concerns  which  are  called  on  to  control  the  motions 
of  this  industrial  system  will  necessarily  work  piece- 
meal, in  severalty  and  at  cross-purposes.  In  effect, 
their  working  at  cross-purposes  results  in  a  suffi- 
ciently large  aggregate  retardation  of  industry,  of 
course,  but  the  resulting  retardation  is  necessarily 
somewhat  blindly  apportioned  and  does  not  con- 
verge to  a  neat  and  perspicuous  outcome.  Even  a 
reasonable  amount  of  collusion  among  the  interested 
business  concerns  will  not  by  itself  suffice  to  carry  on 
that  comprehensive  moving  equilibrium  of  sabotage 
that  is  required  to  preserve  the  business  community 
from  recurrent  collapse  or  stagnation,  or  to  bring  the 
nation's  traffic  into  line  with  the  general  needs  of 
the  vested  interests. 

Where  the  national  government  is  charged  with 
the  general  care  of  the  country's  business  interests, 
as  is  invariably  the  case  among  the  civilized  nations, 
it   follows   from  the  nature  of  the   case   that  the 
nation's    lawgivers    and    administration    will    have 
some  share  in  administering  that  necessary  modicum 
of  sabotage  that  must  always  go  into  the  day's  work 
of  carrying  on  industry  by  business  methods  and  for 
business  purposes.    The  government  is  in  a  position 
to  penalize  excessive  or  unwholesome  traffic.     So, 
it  is  always  considered  necessary,  or  at  least  expedi- 
ent, by  all  sound  mercantilists  to  impose  and  main- 
tain   a    certain   balance   or   proportion    among   the 
several  branches  of  industry  and  trade  that  go  to 
make  up  the  nation's  industrial  system.     The  pur- 
pose commonly  urged  for  measures  of  this  class  is 
the  fuller  utilization  of  the  nation's  industrial  re- 
sources in  material,  equipment,  and  man  power;  the 
invariable  effect  is  a  lowered  efficiency  and  a  waste- 
ful use  of  these  resources,  together  with  an  increase 
of   international   jealousy.     But   measures   of   that 
kind  are  thought  to  be  expedient  by  the  mercantilists 
for  these  purposes — that  is  to  say,  by  the  statesmen 
of  these  civilized  nations,  for  the  purposes  of  the 
vested  interests.    The  chief  and  nearly  sole  means  of 
maintaining  such  a  fabricated  balance  and  proportion 
among   the   nation's   industries    is   to   obstruct   the 
traffic  at  some  critical  point  by  prohibiting  or  penal- 
izing   any    exuberant    undesirables    among    these 
branches  of  industry.    Disallowance,,  in  whole  or  in 
part,  is  the  usual  and  standard  method. 


The  great  standing  illustration  of  sabotage  ad- 
ministered by  the  government  is  the  protective  tariff, 
of  course.  It  protects  certain  special  interests  by 
obstructing  competition  from  beyond  the  frontier. 
This  is  the  main  use  of  a  national  boundary.  The 
effect  of  the  tariff  is  to  keep  the  supply  of  goods  down 
and  thereby  keep  the  price  up,  and  so  to  bring 
reasonably  satisfactory  dividends  to  those  special 
interests  which  deal  in  the  protected  articles  of 
trade,  at  the  cost  of  the  underlying  community.  A 
protective  tariff  is  a  typical  conspiracy  in  restraint 
of  trade.  It  brings  a  relatively  small,  though  abso- 
lutely large,  run  of  free  income  to  the  special  inter- 
ests which  benefit  by  it,  at  a  relatively,  and  abso- 
lutely, large  cost  to  the  underlying  community,  and 
so  it  gives  rise  to  a  body  of  vested  rights  and  in- 
tangible assets  belonging  to  these  special  interests. 

Of  a  similar  character,  in  so  far  that  in  effect 
they  are  in  the  nature  of  sabotage — conscientious 
withdrawal  of  efficiency — are  all  manner  of  excise 
and  revenue-stamp  regulations;  although  they  are 
not  always  designed  for  that  purpose.   'Such  would 
be,  for  instance,  the  partial  or  complete  prohibition 
of  alcoholic  beverages,  the  regulation  of  the  trade  in 
tobacco,    opium,    and    other    deleterious    narcotics, 
drugs,  poisons,  and  high  explosives.     Of  the  same 
nature,  in  effect  if  not  in  intention,  are  such  regu- 
lations as  the  oleomargarine  law;  as  also  the  un- 
necessarily costly  and  vexatious  roatine  of  inspection 
imposed  on  the  production  of  industrial  (denatured) 
alcohol,  which  has  inured  to  the  benefit  of  certain 
business  concerns  that  are  interested  in  other  fuels 
for  use  in  internal-combustion  engines;  so  also  the 
singularly  vexatious 'and  elaborately  imbecile  speci- 
fications that  limit  and  discourage  the  use  of  the 
parcel  post,  for  the  benefit  of  the  express  companies 
and  other  carriers  which  have  a  vested  interest  in 
traffic  of  that  kind. 

It  is  worth  noting  in   the  same  connection,   al- 
though it  comes  in  from  the  other  side  of  the  case, 
that   ever   since   the   express  companies   have   been 
taken  over  by  the  federal  administration  there  has 
visibly  gone  into  effect  a  comprehensive  system  of 
vexation  and  delay  in  the  detail  conduct  of  their 
traffic,  so  contrived  as  to  discredit  federal  control  of 
this  traffic  and  thereby  provoke  a  popular  sentiment 
in  favor  of  its  early  return  to  private  control.  '  Much 
the  same  state  of  things  has  been  in  evidence  in  the 
railway  traffic  under  similar  conditions.     Sabotage 
is  serviceable  as  a  deterrent,  whether  in  furtherance 
of  the  administration  work  or  in  contravention  of  it. 
In  what  has  just  been  said  there  is,  of  course,  no 
intention  to  find  fault  with  any  of  these  uses  of 
sabotage.     It  is  not  a  question  of  morals  and  good 
intentions.    It  is  always  to  be  presumed  as  a  matter 


346 


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April  5 


of  course  that  the  guiding  spirit  in  all  such  govern- 
mental moves  to  regularize  the,  nation's  affairs, 
whether  by  restraint  or  by.  incitement,  is  a  wise 
solicitude  for  the  nation's  enduring  gain  and  security. 
All  that  can  be  said  here  is  that  many  of  these  wise 
measures  of  restraint  and  incitement  are  in  the 
nature  of  sabotage,  and  that  in  effect  they  habitually, 
though  not  invariably,  inure  to  the  benefit  of  certain 
vested  interests — ordinarily  vested  interests  which 
bulk  large  in  the  ownership  and  control  of  the 
nation's  resources.  That  these  measures  are  quite 
legitimate  and  presumably  salutary,  therefore,  goes 
without  saying.  In  effect  they  are  measures  for 
hindering  traffic  and  industry  at  one  point  or  an- 
other, which  may  often  be  a  wise  precaution. 

During  the  period  of  the  war  administrative 
measures  in  the  nature  of  sabotage  have  been  greatly 
extended  in  scope  and  kind.  Peculiar  and  imperative 
exigencies  have  had  to  be  met,  and  the  staple  means 
of  meeting  many  of  these  new  and  exceptional  exi- 
gencies has  quite  reasonably  been  something  in  the 
way  of  avoidance,  disallowance,  penalization,  hind- 
rance, a  conscientious  withdrawal  of  efficiency  from 
work  that  does  not  fall  in  with  the  purposes  of  the 
Administration.  Very  much  as  is  true  in  private 
business  when  a  situation  of  doubt  and  hazard  pre- 
sents itself,  so  also  in  the  business  of  government  at 
the  present  juncture  of  exacting  demands  and  in- 
convenient limitations,  the  Administration  has  been 
driven  to  expedients  of  disallowance  and  obstruc- 
tion with  regard  to  some  of  the  ordinary  processes  of 
life,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  non-essential  industries. 
It  has  also  appeared  that  the  ordinary  equipment 
and  agencies  for  gathering  and  distributing  news 
and  other  information  have  in  the  past  developed 
a  capacity  far  in  excess  of  what  can  safely  be  per- 
mitted in  time  of  war.  The  like  is  true  for  the 
ordinary  facilities  for  public  discussion  of  all  sorts 
of  public  questions.  The  ordinary  facilities,  which 
may  have  seemed  scant  enough  in  time  of  peace 
and  slack  interest,  had  after  all  developed  a  capacity 
far  beyond  what  the  governmental  traffic  will  bear 
in  these  uneasy  times  of  war  and  negotiations,  when 
men  are  very  much  on  the  alert  to  know  what  is 
going  on.  By  a  moderate  use  of  the  later  improve- 
ments in  the  technology  of  transport  and  communi- 
cation, the  ordinary  means  of  disseminating  informa- 
tion and  opinions  have  grown  so  efficient  that  the 
traffic  can  no  longer  be  allowed  to  run  at  full 
capacity  during  a  period  of  stress  in  the  business  of 
government.  Even  the  mail  service  has  proved 
insufferably  efficient,  and  a  selective  withdrawal 
of  efficiency  has  gone  into  effect.  To  speak  after 
the  analogy  of  private  business,  it  has  been  found 


best  to  disallow  such  use  of  the  mail  facilities  as  does 
not  inure  to  the  benefit  of  the  administration  in  the 
way  of  good  will  and  vested  rights  of  usufruct. 

These  peremptory  measures  of  disallowance  have 
attracted  a  wide  and  dubious  attention ;  but  they 
have  doubtless  been  of  a  salutary  nature  and  in- 
tention, in  some  way  which  is  not  to  be  understood 
by  outsiders — that  is  to  say,  by  citizens  of  the  Re- 
public. An  unguarded  dissemination  of  information 
and  opinions  or  an  unduly  frank  canvassing  of  the 
relevant  facts  by  these  outsiders,  will  be  a  handicap 
on  the  Administration's  work,  and  may  even  defeat 
the  Administration's  aims.  At  least  so  they  say. 

Something  of  much  the  same  color  has  been  ob- 
served elsewhere/and  in  other  times,  so  that  all  this 
nervously  alert  resort  to  sabotage  on  undesirable 
information  and  opinions  is  nothing  novel,  nor  is  it 
peculiarly  democratic.  The  elder  statesmen  of  the 
great  monarchies,  east  and  west,  have  long  ago  seen 
and  approved  the  like.  But  these  elder  statesmen 
of  the  dynastic  regime  have  gone  to  their  work  of 
sabotage  on  information  because  of  a  palpable 
division  of  sentiment  between  their  government  and 
the  underlying  population,  such  as  does  not  exist  in 
the  advanced  democratic  commonwealths.  The  case 
of  Imperial  Germany  during  the  period  of  the  war  is 
believed  to  show  such  a  division  of  sentiment  be- 
tween the  government  and  the  underlying  popula- 
tion, and  also  to  show  how  such  a  divided  sentiment 
on  the  part  of  a  distrustful  and  distrusted  popula- 
tion had  best  be  dealt  with.  The  method  approved 
by  German  dynastic  experience  is  sabotage,  of  a 
somewhat  free-swung  character,  censorship,  embargo 
on  communication,  and  also,  it  is  confidently  alleged, 
elaborate  misinformation. 

Such  procedure  on  the  part  of  the  dynastic  states- 
men of  the  Empire  is  comprehensible  even  to  a  lay- 
man. But  how  it  all  stands  with  those  advanced 
democratic  nations,  like  America,  where  the  gov- 
ernment is  the  dispassionately  faithful  agent  and 
spokesman  of  the  body  of  citizens,  and  where  there 
can  consequently  be  no  division  of  aims  and  senti- 
ment between  the  body  of  officials  and  any  under- 
lying population — all  that  is  a  more  obscure  and 
hazardous  subject  of  speculation.  Yet  there  has  been 
censorship,  somewhat  rigorous,  and  there  has  been 
selective  refusal  of  mail  facilities,  somewhat  arbi- 
trary, in  these  democratic  commonwealths  also,  and 
not  least  in  America,  freely  acknowledged  to  be  the 
most  naively  democratic  of  them  all.  And  all  the 
while  one  would  like  to  believe  that  it  all  has 
somehow  served  some  useful  end.  It  is  all v  suffi- 
ciently perplexing.  „  ,T 

THORSTEIN  VEBLEN. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


347 


A  Second  Imaginary  Conversation 


GOSSE  AND  MOORE 


II 


vJTossE.      Byron    was    largely    conscious    that   his 
'literary  reputation  depended  on  his  acts  rather  than 
on  his  words. 

MOORE.    But,  Gosse,  isn't  that  always  so? 

GOSSE.     Shakespeare. 

MOORE.     Had     Shakespeare     in     that     tiresome 
phrase  trailed  a  pike  in  the  Low  Countries,  his  con- 
,  temporaries   would   have   appreciated   him    as   they 
did  Ben  Jonson;  but  he  did  nothing. 

GOSSE.     Nor  did  the  Brontes. 

MOORE.  The  Brontes  had  silhouette  thrust  upon 
them;  and  on  looking  into  Jane  Eyre  after  fifty 
years  of  absence,  I  have  to  confess  my  inability  to 
discover  the  qualities  that  compelled  you  and 
Swinburne  to  write  of  it  as  if  it  were  a  master- 
piece. In  speaking  of  Wuthering  Heights  you  were 
a  little  more  careful — you  glided  swiftly;  but  in 
writing  of  Jane  Eyre  you  spoke  of — I  have  your 
exact  words — "a  sweep  of  tragic  passion  and  the 
fusion  of  romantic  intrigue  with  grave  and  sinister 
landscape,"  and  will  you  deny  that  this  is  the  kind 
of  phrase  that  the  pen  drops  when  we  yield  to  public 
opinion? 

GOSSE.  I  am  glad,  flattered,  that  my  History  of 
English  Literature  was  of  use  to  you,  but  I  may 
remark  that  it  was  intended  primarily  for  the 
general  reader. 

MOORE.  I  have  no  difficulty  in  understanding 
that  you  tried  to  keep  purely  personal  opinions  out 
of  your  book,  judging,  and  judging  wisely,  that 
these  would  merely  puzzle  and  embarrass  the  reader 
you  had  in  your  mind.  Jane  Eyre  was  praised 
when  you  wrote  by  the  best  informed,  and  it  is  to 
your  credit  that  you  were  not  deceived  by  the 
literary  babble  of  the  time,  nor  driven  to  flouting 
public  opinion,  as  you  might  well  have  been,  but 
with  your  usual  tact  judged  neither  the  place  nor  the 
moment  to  be  propitious,  and  refrained.  But  now 
that  the  Bronte  epidemic  is  over,  may  I  not  seek 
to  discover  what  your  personal  opinion  .  .  . 
GOSSE.  You  can  ask  me  any  question. 
MOORE.  I  prefer  not  to  ask  any,  but  tell  you 
the  story  of  Jane  Eyre. 

GOSSE.  But  what  is  a  book  divested  of  its 
words  ? 

MOORE.  As  much  as  a  man  is  when  divested  of 
his  flesh.  .  .  Charlotte  relates  that  a  widower 
with  one  daughter  engages  Jane  Eyre  as  governess, 
and  that  it  is  not  very  long  before  Jane  begins  to 
notice  that  Mr.  Rochester  pays  her  attentions  and 
disappears  from  time  to  time  into  a  distant  part  of 


the  house.  And  the  attentions  Rochester  pays  to  his 
daughter's  governess  become  more  and  more'  marked, 
and  culminate  in  a  proposal  of  marriage.  But  the 
maniac  in  the  distant  wing  is  Mrs.  Rochester,  and 
the  marriage  into  which  Rochester  nearly  succeeds 
in  inveigling  Jane  is  stopped  in  the  church,  at  the 
very  altar,  by  the  wife's  relations.  Extenuating  cir- 
cumstances may  be  found  for  the  murderer  and  for 
the  seducer,  but  it  is  hard  to  find  any  for  the 
bigamist.  And  Charlotte  must  have  been  aware 
of  this,  and  no  doubt  would  have  preferred  Roches- 
ter to  have  said,  "Jane,  my  wife  is  a  maniac  and 
lives  in  the  distant  wing.  But  if  you  like  to  live 
with  me  I  will  try  to  make  you  happy  and  shall 
succeed,  for  I  love  you  very  dearly."  It  is  possible 
to  imagine  an  honorable  man  speaking  these  words 
to  his  daughter's  governess.  I  should  not  altogether 
like  the  bargain,  because  the  parties  are  not  bar- 
gaining on  equal  terms — one  is  a  governess  and  the 
other  a  man  of  wealth  and  position.  But  there  can 
be  no  question  that  from  a  moral  as  well  as  from 
a  literary  point  of  view  it  would  be  preferable  to 
bigamy.  What  happens  then? 

GOSSE.  Jane  returns  from  the  church  to  the 
Hall,  and  I  think  I  can  aver  that  Mr.  Rochester 
is  accepted  as  a  penitent — a  penitent  inasmuch  as  he 
regrets  his  design  to  inveigle  his  governess  into  a 
sham  marriage,  and  I  think  he  confesses  that  it 
would  have  been  wiser  to  propose  that  Jane  should 
live  with  him  outside  of  marriage.  Jane  might 
have  accepted  him  on  these  terms  if  she  had  not 
been  deceived  by  Rochester  in  the  first  instance,  but 
having  just  escaped  a  sham  marriage,  she  feels  she 
cannot  remain  at  the  Hall,  and  runs  away  without 
clothes  or  money. 

MOORE.  I  think  so,  and  takes  refuge  with  Par- 
son. And  with  the  help  of  Parson  the  story  is 
somewhat  tediously  drawn  out  to  the  requisite 
three-volume  length.  The  maniac  sets  fire  to  the 
house.  She  has  to,  for  it  is  necessary  to  be  rid  of  her 
so  that  Rochester  may  marry  Jane.  At  the  same 
time,  it  behooves  the  novelist  to  show  a  noble  soul 
in  her  hero,  and  the  best  plot  that  Charlotte  can 
devise  is,  that  in  trying  to  save  his  wife's  life 
Rochester  loses  his  sight  from  a  falling  beam.  Even 
so,  Charlotte's  difficulties  are  not  cleared  up,  for, 
from  the  point  of  drawing-room  entertainment,  it 
would  be  a  cheerless  sort  of  story  if  Rochester  did 
not  recover  his  sight;  and  as  soon  as  he  has  been 
blind  a  couple  of  years  he  says  to  Jane,  "  Jane, 
something  seems  to  glitter  on  your  dress."  "  It  is 


14-8 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


the  chain  you  gave  me;  your  sight  is  coming  back," 
or  words  to  that  effect.  Sensation!  I  know  that 
this  story  was  hailed  as  a  masterpiece;  but  fifty 
years  have  passed  over,  and  it  appears  to  me  that 
the  time  has  come  for  somebody  to  say  that  Jane 
Eyre  is  our  old  friend  Mother  Goose  over  again. 
If  you  have  showed  no  signs  of  boredom  while 
listening,  Gosse,  it  is  because  you  feel  with  me  that 
Jane  Eyre  is  the  typical  English  novel — the  story 
that  every  generation  rewrites  and  that  never  fails 
to  attract  readers.  The  details  of  the  story  are 
many  and  various,  each  generation  invents  its  own 
"  vocalization,"  but  every  version  I  have  seen  may  be 
described  as  a  rigmarole  with  something  in  it  which 
gives  the  lady  we  sit  next  to  at  dinner  an  excuse 
for  talking  morality.  The  original  story  is  written 
with  more  intensity  than  the  variants,  but  nonsense 
is  never  really  well  written,  and  words  avail  little 
if  the  skeleton  is  not  perfect.  We  who  have  been 
about  a  good  deal  have  no  difficulty  in  imagining  the 
number  of  literary  pens  that  a  story  like  Jane  Eyre 
will  set  scratching,  and  the  chatter  it  will  set  flow- 
ing at  a  dinner-table.  As:  It  was,  of  course, 
wrong  for  Rochester  to  pass  himself  off  as  a  bache- 
lor. All  the  same,  his  plight  was  a  sad  one,  tied  to 
a  maniac  wife ;  and  then  the  sudden  switch  off — the 
divorce  laws  ought  to  be  amended.  But  do  you  not 
fear  that  if  .the  marriage  laws  are  loosened  much 
further  they  might  as  well  be  done  away  with  ?  And 
are  you  quite  sure  that  if  he  had  confided  his  secret 
to  Jane  in  the  first  instance  that  she  would  have 
refused  to  live  with  him?  If  the  speakers  are  ac- 
quainted with  French  poetry,  one  of  them  is  sure  to 
quote  the  lines: 

Gloire  dans  1'univers,  dans  les  temps,  a  celui, 
Qui  s'immole  a  jamais  pour  le  salut  d'autrui! 

And  the  inherent  desire  of  martyrdom  in  the  al- 
most ugly,  scrappy  little  woman  with  burning  gray 
eyes  will  be  described,  and  the  tale  told  of  her  em- 
barrassment when  she  stepped  across  the  threshold 
of  Smith  Elder's  drawing-room  and  found  herself 
in  the  presence  of  six  London  celebrities,  two  of 
these  standing  on  the  hearth-rug,  their  coat  tails 
lifted  so  that  they  might  enjoy  the  blaze  more 
thoroughly.  The  editor  of  the  Cornhill  was  there. 
.  .  .  At  this  moment  an  intrusive  footman 
presses  some  dish  on  the  speakers,  and,  having 
Helped  themselves,  the  literary  twain  fall  to  think- 
ing how  the  six  portly  gentlemen  must  have  enjoyed 
putting  questions  to  Charlotte,  asking  how  she  had 
gotten  that  sufficient  knowledge  of  life  which 
enabled  her  to  divine  a  man  like  Rochester. 

Charlotte  and  her  sister  had  been  to  school  in 
Brussels,  and  they  returned  home  together  after  a 
year's  schooling;  but  Charlotte  was  drawn  back  to 
Brussels,  in  her  words,  "  by  an  impulse  that  seemed 


to  her  irresistible  " — and  it  was  this  irresistible  im- 
pulse that  enlarged  the  Bronte  silhouette  almost 
indefinitely,  and  the  discovery  of  letters  continued 
the  enlargement  till  it  filled  the  entire  literary 
horizon,  and  Monsieur  Heger,  the  schoolmaster, 
came  to  supply  needy  bookmakers  with  a  subject 
suited  to  popular  taste.  "  If  I  could  only  rid  myself 
of  my  conscience,"  she  said,  on  her  way  to  Sainte 
Gudule.  Penitents  were  passing  in  and  out  of  the 
Confessional.  Charlotte  was  a  Protestant,  and  it 
required  an  uncontrollable  impulse  to  propel  her 
into  the  box.  At  first  the  Confessor  would  not  hear 
her,  she  being  a  Protestant;  but  she  would  not  take 
"  No  "  for  an  answer;  she  confessed — what?  If  we 
only  knew;  if  the  reporters  had  been  able  to  get 
hold  of  that  Confessor,  there  is  reason  to  suppose 
that  we  should  be  discussing  Charlotte's  morals  till 
we  ascended  to  the  Judgment  Seat.  But  if  Char- 
lotte had  transgressed?  If  she  had,  the  veracity  of 
the  confession  would  have  been  impugned.  ...  . 
Even  the  present  war  would  not  be  sufficient  to 
quench  the  desire  to  discuss  whether  Charlotte  held 
the  Professor's  hand  or  the  Professor  held  hers. 
It  broke  out  again  in  the  Times,  and  not  more 
than  two  years  ago.  You  saw  the  correspondence, 
Gosse  ? 

GOSSE.  No,  I  didn't,  but  I  like  listening  to  you ; 
go  on. 

MOORE.  Some  wandering  gossip  or  a  newly  dis- 
covered letter  blew  up  the  dying  embers  of  this 
controversy — somebody  died,  somebody  confessed, 
or  new  letters  were  discovered.  I  have  forgotten, 
if  I  ever  knew.  I  came  upon  a  middle  letter,  and 
was  struck  by  the  almost  passionate  tenacity  with 
which  the  writer  clung  to  the  belief  that  Charlotte's 
life  had  always  been  gray  and  dull,  and  that  noth- 
ing had  ever  happened  in  it  to  redeem  the  monotony 
of  ill-health  and  teaching.  We  know  that  we  arc 
not  virtuous,  we  know  that  we  cannot  be  virtuous, 
but  we  are  anxious  to  believe  that  somebody  else  is 
virtuous.  I  suppose  it  cannot  be  otherwise,  the 
doctrine  of  Atonement  having  taken  such  a  hold  on 
us.  But  this  explanation  did  not  satisfy  me  alto- 
gether, and  at  odd  times  the  thought  returned  that 
there  must  be  more  in  it  than  the  instinct  of  the 
individual,  and  seeking  for  the  instinct  of  the  hive, 
I  said  to  myself  one  day:  Of  course,  the  whole 
national  attitude  regarding  the  Brontes  would  alter 
if  it  could  be  proved  that  she  had  held  the  school- 
master's hand. 

GOSSE.  You're  in  excellent  form  today,  and  I'm 
sorry  to  interrupt  you,  but  I,  too,  am  being  poked 
up  by  a  constantly  recurring  thought  and  cannot 
help  remembering  your  saying  that  I -glided  swiftly 
over  Wuthering  Heights,  like  one  anxious  not  to 
commit  himself  to  any  definite  opinion  for  or 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


against  the  book,  and  I  do  not  think  I  am  going  too 
far  if  I  say  that  your  suggestion  was  that  my  pri- 
vate judgment  was  held  in  check  by  the  prevalent 
literary  opinion  of  the  time  headed  by  Swinburne, 
who  .  .  . 

MOORE.  It  seems  to  me  quite  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  a  man  writing  a  history  of  English  litera- 
ture must  refrain  from  challenging  received 
opinions.  I  thought  I  had  made  that  sufficiently 
clear. 

GOSSE.  Yes;  quite  plain,  and  it  is  no  doubt  as 
you  say.  I  did,  of  course,  try  to  exclude  eccentric 
opinions  (I  use  the  word  in  its  grammatical  sense), 
for  these  would  only  embarrass  and  confuse;  but 
you  are  in  a  different  position,  and  will,  no  doubt, 
undo  the  mischief  I  have  done  by  a  clear  pronounce- 
ment. How  does  Wuthering  Heights  strike  you? 
As  a  masterpiece? 

MOORE.  As  it  appears  to  me,  those  who  com- 
mitted their  critical  reputations  to  the  pronounce- 
ment that  Wuthering  Heights  was  a  masterpiece 
would  have  done  well  to  consider  the  word  master- 
piece. The  word  is  sufficiently  explicit — a  work 
executed  by  one  who  is  a  master  in  his  craft;  and 
to  be  a  master  in  any  craft,  an  apprenticeship  is 
necessary.  Emily  was  born  in  1818  and  died  in 
1848,  and  presumably  Wuthering  Heights  was 
written  some  years  earlier — shall  we  say  at  six  or 
seven  and  twenty?  Well,  masterpieces  are  not  pro- 
duced at  that  age,  not  even  by  Raphael,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  nobody  is  a  master  of  his  craft, 
whatever  it  may  be,  till  he  has  practiced  it  for  ten 
years,  not  even  if  it  be  the  humble  craft  of  prose 
narrative.  And  a  casual  glance  into  the  book  tells 
those  who  know  how  to  read  that  it  is  just  what  ' 
a  girl  of  genius,  unpracticed  in  her  craft  and  with- 
out experience  of  lifej  might  write  in  a  lonely  par- 
sonage over  against  a  Yorkshire  heath — wild  and 
violent  imaginings  shot  through  with  glimpses  of 
real  beauty.  A  glimpse  of  beauty  her  vision  of 
Heathcliff  surely  is — a  man  haunted  by  the  memory 
of  Catherine,  his  enemy's  wife,  who  died  many 
years  ago,  more  than  twenty  have  passed  over,  but 
for  Heathcliff  there  is  nobody  in  the  world  but 
Catherine.  She  is  never  far  away,  often  by  his 
elbow;  she  has  come  to  speak,  but  she  utters  no 
word,  but  signs  to  him,  and  he  rises  immediately 
from  the  meal  and  follows  her  across  the  desolate 
heath.  In  vain,  needless  to  say.  The  hallucination 
continues;  he  sees  her  in  every  face  he  looks  upon, 
and  we  feel  with  him  that  only  death  can  release 
him  from  the  torture  of  the  deception,  forever  re- 
curring in  a  hundred  different  aspects,  and  always 
failing  him.  Did  Emily  mean  the  wraith  to  stand 
for  a  symbol  of  life  itself?  She  hardly  knew.  She 
wrote  as  we  dream. 


GOSSE.     You  think  that  Emily  was  the  genius? 

MOORE.  The  word  is  inapplicable  to  prose 
writers  under  forty,  and  more  than  a  single  work 
is  necessary,  and  there  is  nothing  in  Wuthering 
Heights  to  show  that  Emily  Bronte's  talent  would 
have  developed. 

The  one  that  might  have  developed  into  a  fm« 
writer  was  Anne.  She  wrote  a  book  called  The 
Tenant  of  Wildfell  Hall,  a  baby  book,  it  is  true, 
but  the  memory  of  it  lingers  in  me  to  this  day;  a 
story  of  illegitimate  love  that  came  to  naught,  and 
for  no  valid  reason  that  I  could  discover  on  my 
way  to  Castle  Carra,  whither  I  went  not  a  little 
scared  lest  perchance  I  had  been  born  into  a  world 
in  which  nobody  transgressed.  It  is  with  my  boyish 
dread  of  a  sinless  world  that  she  is  associated,  and 
with  pity  for  her  early  death  coming  before  any 
taste  of  life.  A  virgin's  death  is  the  very  saddest. 
Anne  revealed  her  sadness  to  me,  and  I  take  this 
opportunity  of  paying  my  debt. 

GOSSE.  You  have  thrown  every  sort  of  stone 
against  the  Brontes,  and  I  can  tell  by  your  face 
that  you  think  you  brought  down  Jane  Eyre  with 
that  last  one — a  vindictive  summary  of  her  book. 
A  silly  story  no  doubt  it  is,  but  many  silly  stories 
abound  in  beautiful  pages  and  Jane  Eyre  is  not  an 
exception.  It  is  many  years  since  I  read  it,  but  I 
am  still  haunted  by  a  memory  of  the  twain  in  a 
dewy  orchard  or  garden  and  a  dialogue  that  lasts 
all  night  and  that  ends,  I  think,  with  the  dawn. 
You  may  have  forgotten  these  pages  or  half  forgot- 
ten as  I  have;  if  so,  you  will  do  well  to  read  them 
again,  for  I  think  you  would  admire  them. 

MOORE.  Your  memory  is  better  than  mine 
in  this  instance. 

GOSSE.  Thank  you  for  this  tribute,  which  it  is 
an  honor  to  receive  from  one  of  prodigious  mem- 
ory, though  of  slight  reading.  And  now  there  is 
a  point  of  criticism  which  it  seems  to  me  you  have 
overlooked.  It  is  that  of  all  the  novels  written  in 
mid-Victorian  years,  the  Brontes'  are  the  only  ones 
that  retain  any  faint  vitality.  You  can  read  Jane 
Eyre  and  Wuthering  Heights  more  easily  than 
Lytton  or  Disraeli,  more  easily  than  the  late  Vic- 
torians, Trollope,  even  more  easily  than  Dickens, 
Thackeray,  and  George  Eliot.  I  gather  from  your 
silence  that  I  have  guessed  rightly.  As  a  critic  of 
English  fiction;  it  behooves  you  to  consider  how  this 
has  come  to  pass.  But  you  do  not  seem  to  be  ready 
with  an  answer.  Perhaps  you  will  allow  me  to 
tell  you  your  charge  against  the  English  novel  is 
that  it  has  been,  from  the  hour  of  its  birth  to  the 
present  year,  concerned  with  the  surface  of  life 
rather  than  with  the  depths — and  need  we  hook 
further  for  the  reason  why  the  novels  we  enjoyed 
in  our  boyhood  are  rejected  by  the  younger  genera- 


35° 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


tion?  The  great  bulk  of  men  and  women  know 
life  only  by  the  waves,  and  the  popular  novelist 
concerns  himself  with  what  attracts  his  public:  the 
surface  of  life,  all  the  little  -odds  and  oddments, 
the  picturesque  follies  of  the  hour,  the  tricks  of 
speech  and  manner,  the  ideas  of  the  moment.  His 
audience  is  delighted.  He  is  presenting  life  as  it 
appears  to  them.  But  all  these  waves  and  wave- 
lets sink  into  the  deep,  disappear,  and  when  they 
have  gone,  the  books  go  with  them.  Can  it  be 
else? 

MOORE.  But  the  Brontes  were  popular  during 
their  lifetime. 

GOSSE.  To  some  extent,  but  it  was  not  until 
the  nineties  that  they  met  with  any  intelligent 
appreciation. 

MOORE.  I  am  beginning  to  see  whither  your 
argument  is  tending:  that  the  Brontes  wrote  about 
life  in  its  essentials,  which,  like  the  depths  of  the 
sea,  do  not  change. 

GOSSE.  The  parsonage  over  against  the  lonely 
heath  excited  your  derision,  but  if  I  may  venture 
to  say  so,  unduly.  Mr.  Arthur  Mellows  is  never 
wholly  wrong,  but  he  cannot:  explain  himself.  That 
parsonage  and  that  heath  which  he  photographed 
so  often  are  not  interesting  in  themselves  as  he 
thought,  but  because  they  saved  the  Brontes 
from  the  English  literary  tradition,  that  in  prose 
narrative  life  as  only  a  thin  upper  crust  is,  shall 
I  say,  representable. 

MOORE.  The  Brontes,  knowing  nothing  of  so- 
cial life,  were  forced  to  look  into  the  depths. 

GOSSE.  There  may  be  less  character  in  their 
books  than  there  is  in  Lytton  or  Disraeli,  but  there's 
more  humanity. 

MOORE.  I  see;  and  that  is  why  Swinburne 
wrote  his  monograph.  But  you  record  the  fact 
in  your  biography  that  when  he  summoned  you  to 
hear  it  he  wearied  in  his  reading  and  laid  it  aside 
so  that  he  might  read  you  his  novel — a  novel  that 
he  never  wearied  of,  but  which  you  and  Mr.  Wise 
have  decided  shall  never  be  published. 

GOSSE.  Outside  his  gift  no  man  is  very  wise ; 
and  as  I  have  often  mentioned  in  my  biography  of 
the  great  poet,  whom  I  was  fortunate  enough  to 
know  intimately,  Swinburne  lost  all  receptive 
power  at  the  age  of  forty.  After  forty  his  mind 
was  closed  to  new  ideas;  it  was  less  flexible,  less 
elastic.  I  think  that  in  my  biography  the  word 
ossification  almost  occurs.  I  have  no  wish  to.  with- 
draw it.  In  his  later  critical  writings  he  never 
argued,  explained,  or  analyzed.  He  merely  ham- 
mered. The  noise  he  made  was  sometimes  ridicu- 
lous, as  is  shown  in  the  sentence  in  which  he  called 
George  Eliot  "  an  Amazon  thrown  sprawling  over 
the  crupper  of  her  spavined  and  spur-galled  Peg- 


asus." And  a  hundred  sentences  as  silly  and  as 
ugly  could  be  culled  from  his  prose  writings.  I 
quote  this  phrase  though  it  gives  me  pain  to  repeat 
it,  for  I  believe  that  the  origin  of  the  monograph 
on  Charlotte  Bronte  may  be  traced  to  his  desire  to 
write  something  that  would  give  pain  to  George 
Eliot  and  to  her  admirers,  rather  than  to  any  gen- 
uine admiration  of  Jane  Eyre  or  Shirley. 

MOORE.  He  liked  Dickens  in  his  youth,  and 
duririg  middle  age  and  old  age  he  read  Dickens 
through  from  end  to  end  every  three  years,  from 
the  Sketches  by  Boz  to  the  Mystery  of  Edwin 
Drood.  You  tell  us  that,  and  more  than  that — 
that  he  read  Dickens  aloud  to  Watts-Dunton  three 
times.  The  Pines  needs  a  biographer — a  subject 
made  to  your  hand,  Gosse.  And  now  I'll  tell  you 
something  you  do  not  know.  It  was  proposed, 
whether  by  Frank  Harris  or  another  I  am  not  quite 
sure,  but  during  his  editorship,  that  Swinburne 
should  write  an  appreciation  of  Dickens  for  the 
Fortnightly.  But  the  paper  was  never  written,  on 
account  of  the  rejection  of  a  poem,  a  ballad  with 
"  The  wind  wears  o'er  the  heather  "  for  refrain. 
Have  you  met  with  the  manuscript  of  this  poem 
in  your  researches? 

GOSSE.  I  do  not  remember  it,  and  Wise  an,d  I 
have  gone  through  all  the  papers  carefully.  Are 
you  sure  that  the  poem  was  by  Swinburne? 

MOORE.  I  was  told  it  was  by  Swinburne.  It 
certainly  seemed  to  me  rather  casual,  and  I  doubt  that 
the  appreciation  would  have  been  of  much  literary 
value  if  it  had  been  written.  It  would  have  been 
too  much  in  the  Pauline  manner,  asseveration  upon 
asseveration.  But  let  us  not  stray  from  the  point 
of  dutiful  criticism,  and  as  I  am  a  little  weary  of 
fault  finding  will  you  confide  to  me  your  best 
thoughts  on  Dickens?  I  thirst  for  some  whole- 
hearted praise. 

GOSSE.  I  look  upon  Dickens  as  the  first  man 
of  English  genius  who  gave  the  whole  of  his  genius 
to  the  novel-reader;  he  was  able  to  do  this,  for  he 
was  without  general  culture,  and  as  Matthew 
Arnold  pointed  out,  two  things  are  necessary  for 
the  birth  of  ar,t — the  man  and  the  moment.  Ypu 
have  talked  to  me  so  much  about  English  prose 
narrative  that  I  find  it  a  little  difficult  to  disen- 
tangle my  ideas  from  yours.  But  if  you  will  have 
patience,  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  do  so.  It  seems 
to  me  certain  that  in  Dickens  we  got  the  man  of 
genius,  and  it  seerns  to  me  if  not  as  certain,  at 
least  arguable,  that  the  moment  of  'his  coming  was 
not  propitious.  By  the  moment  we  must  under- 
stand not  only  the  literary  tradition  that  prevailed 
in  his  time,  but  the  circumstances  of  his  life.  Dick- 
ens was  a)  man  of  the  people,  and  was  without  that 
school  and  university  education  which  liberated 


IQI9 


THE  DIAL 


351 


Landor  and  Swinburne  from  the  narrow  sympathies 
and  latter  prejudices  of  the  Victorian  age;  added  to 
which,  he  had  to  get  his  living,  and  he  could  only 
do  this  by  supplying  the  drawing-room  with  en- 
tertainment. You  see  I  accept  your  definition  of  the 
English  novel;  if  he  had  not  been  a  man  of  genius 
he  would  have  continued  the  Lytton  and  Disraeli 
modes  and  we  should  have  more-  Disraeli  modes 
and  we  should  have  had  more  historical  flourishes, 
verbose  politics,  sentimental  rhodomontades,  fop- 
pery, and  high  living.  Instead  of  these,  we  got  the 
middle  and  lower  classes,  of  which  English  litera- 
ture was  hardly  aware  before  Dickens  introduced 
them!  You  would  prefer  that  he  should  have  laid 
less  stress  on  superficial  markings — superficial  is 
perhaps  unnecessary — on  markings,  and  you  will  tell 
me  that  whereas  Balzac  stands  head  and  shoulders 
above  Daumier,  Gavarni,  and  Monnier;  such  char- 
acters as  Micawber,  Stiggins,  Dombey,  and  Little 
Nell  do  not  represent  anything  deeper,  any  deeper 
humanity  than  Cruikshank  and  Phiz.  I  answer  you 
and  I  think  fairly,  that  though  a  great  man  is  always 
greater  than  his  environment,  he  is  born  of  it  and 
shares  its  qualities,  good  and  evil.  Balzac  was  fa- 
vored by  circumstance;  he  lived  in  a  great  moment 
of  literary  revival,  one  as  favorable  to  French  litera- 
ture as  the  Elizabethan  age  was  to  English  litera- 
ture. But  in  spite  of  these  magnificent  advantages, 
the  great  Tourainian  was  not,  as  yourself  will  ad- 
mit, free  from  melodrama  and  sentimentality.  Hand 
on  your  heart,  is  Vautrin  better  than  Bill  Sykes, 
and  are  the  wrorst  pages  in  Little  Dorrit  worse  than 
certain  pages  in  La  Femme  de  Trente  Ans? 

MOORE.  Which  of  Dickens'  books  do  you  like 
best? 

GOSSE.  On  the  whole,  Pickwick,  for  we  recog- 
nize the  English  middle  classes  in  Mr.  Pickwick, 
and  it  is  an  achievement  to  discover  an  acceptable 
symbol.  In  the  same  book  we  have  Sam  Weller, 
and  we  discover  in  him  the  mind  of  the  lower 
classes,  their  humor  and  good  nature.  A  man  that 
has  set  forth  two  figures  as  typical  as  these  cannot 
be  dismissed  as  unworthy  of  our  literature  merely 
because  his  Travels  in  Italy  do  not  fulfill  the  as- 
pirations of  the  young  idea.  For  the  sake  of  Mr. 
Pickwick  and  his  valet,  Dickens  is  forgiven,  at 
least  by  me  for  the  somewhat,  shall  I  say  lack-luster 
buffoonery,  of  the  breach  of  promise  case — Mrs. 
Bardell,  Sergeant  Buzfuz,  all  and  sundry.  We  for- 
get these  faults,  puerilities,  if  you  will  remember 
that  if  France's  gift  was  the  novelist,  England  re- 
ceived the  incomparable  poet.  Of  what  are  you 
thinking? 

MOORE.  Do  not  be  so  prickly  ...  of 
what  you  are  saying  and  that  if  our  novelist  had 
spent  his  evenings  in  the  Nouvelle  Athenes,  he  would 


have  written  prose  narratives  worthy  of  our  poet- 
ical literature,  creating  characters  that  in  their 
seriousness  would  compare  with  Le  Pere  Goriot 
and  Philippe,  in  Un  Menage  de  Garcon.  But  if 
he  had  gone  to  France  and  spent  his  evenings  as 
you  suggest,  we  should  not  have  had  Dickens  but 
another  man.  His  talent  was  more  natural,  more 
spontaneous,  than  any  he  would  have  met  in  France. 
He  had  more  talent  than  Flaubert,  Zola,  Goncourt, 
Daudet;  but  he  would  have  learned  from  them  the 
value  of  seriousness.  A  quick,  receptive  mind  like 
his  would  have  understood  that  a  convict  waiting 
in  a  marsh  for  a  boy  to  bring  him  a  file  with  which 
he  may  file  himself  from  his  irons  is  not  a  subject 
for  humor.  He  need  not  have  spent  the  whole  of 
his  youth  on  the  Boulevard  Exterieur.  A  few 
years  would  have  been  sufficient  to  dissipate  the  vile 
English  tradition  that  humor  is  a  literate  quality. 
He  would  have  learned  that  it  is  more  commercial 
than  literary,  and  that,  if  it  be  introduced  in  large 
quantities,  all  life  dies  out  of  the  narrative.  A 
living  and  moving  story  related  by  a  humorist  very 
soon  becomes  a  thing  of  jeers  and  laughter,  signify- 
ing nothing.  We  must  have  humor,  of  course,  but 
the  use  we  must  make  of  our  humor  is  to  avoid  in- 
troducing anything  into  the  narrative  that  shall  dis- 
tract the  reader  from  the  beauty,  the  mystery,  and 
the\  pathos  of  the  life  we  live  in  this  world.  Who- 
soever keeps  humor  under  lock  and  key  is  read  in 
the  next  generation,  if  he  writes  well,  for  to  write 
well  without  the  help  of  humor  is  the  supreme  test. 
I  should  like  to  speak  in  my  essay  of  the  abuse  of 
humor,  but  it  would  be  difficult  to  make  this  abuse 
plain  to  a  public  so  uneducated  as  ours,  whose  liter- 
ary sensibilities  are  restricted  to  a  belief  that  some 
jokes  are  better  than  others,  but  that  any  joke  is 
better  than  no  joke.  I ,  do  not  wish  to  libel  the 
daily  or  weekly  press,  but  it  would  seem  to  me  fhat 
we  have  not  a  critic  among  us  who  is  yet  prepared 
to  say  that  humor  is  but  a  crutch  by  the  aid  of 
which  almost  any  writer  can  totter  a  little  way.  I 
am  afraid  I  am  repeating  myself,  but  the  matter  is 
of  such  literary  importance  that  a  repetition  may 
be  forgiven  me.  Looking  back,  I  catch  sight  of  the 
Athenaeum,  our  first  literary  journal  in  the  eigh- 
ties, and  I  am  not  exaggerating  when  I  say  that  it 
must  have  published  some  hundreds  of  articles  en- 
forcing the  doctrine  that  humor  is  a  primary  con- 
dition of  prose  narrative,  without  its  occurring  to 
anybody,  though  all  the  best  pens  in  London  were 
writing  for  the  Athenaeum  in  the  eighties,  that 
Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  attained  a  unique  reality  in 
literature  by  abstention  from  humor;  I  only  remem- 
ber one  smiling  sentence  in  his  Confessions  and  that 
lasts  but  a  minute — at  the  end  of  the  journey  that. 
Jean  Jacques  undertakes  for  the  benefit  of  his  health. 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


GOSSE.  A  great  book  like  the  Confessions  pro- 
vokes different  remembrances  in  all  of  us;  and  I 
agree  with  you  that  the  introduction  of  humor  into 
the  Confessions  would  have  deprived  the  book  of  its 
high  literary  quality.  A  very  little  humor  would 
have  turned  a  great  and  beautiful  book  into  a  mere 
vulgarity.  Only  a  very  great  writer  would  have 
abstained  from  humor,  and  one  shudders  at  the 
thought  of  what  the  scene  in  the  garden  would  have 
become  if  Jean  Jacques  had  allowed  the  faintest 
smile  to  curl  the  end  of  a  sentence.  And  what  a 
feat  this  scene  is!  Madame  de  Wareus  calls  Jean 
Jacques  into  the  garden  to  confide  to  him  her  project 
for  his  sexual  education.  She  appreciates  the  boy's 
embarrassment,  telling  him  that  she  will  give  him 
eight  days  to  think  the  matter  over,  and  the  char- 
acter that  emerges  when  she  folds  him  in  her  arms 
is  a  new  one  in  literature — the  material  mistress. 

MOORE.  It  is  strange  that  the  admirable  lesson 
given  by  Jean  Jacques  was  never  laid  to  heart  in 
England. 

GOSSE.     I  would  make  good  some  omissions. 

MOORE.     Pray  make  good  my  omissions? 

GOSSE.  I  would  point  out  that  we  look  in  vain 
for  humor  in  the  Greek  and  Latin  poets ;  Aristo- 
phanes was  an  ironist  rather  than  a  humorist,  and 
the  same  may  be  said  of  Shakespeare.  The  grave- 
diggers'  scene  in  Hamlet  was  not  written  to  set 
the  audience  giggling,  any  more  than  the  scene  be- 
tween Cleopatra  and  the  fruit-seller.  These  scenes 
and  the  pattef  of  the  porter  in  Macbeth  were  writ- 
ten to  delay  the  action,  so  that  the  spectator  might 
have  time  to  meditate  on  the  tragedies  that  were  on 
their  way  to  accomplishment.  The  same  cannot  be 
said  of  the  comic  scenes  relating  to  the  building  of 
the  wall  in  the  Midsummer  Night's  Dream.  They 
may  have  been  humorous  originally,  but  I  think  it 
will  be  allowed  that  if  the  authority  of  Shakespeare 
were  withdrawn  from  them  they  would  be  resented, 
and  rightly.  But  once  more  we  are  dropping  into 
Shakespearean  controversy.  And  to  bring  the  con- 
versation back,  I  will  say  we  have  strayed  into  Tom 
Tiddler's  ground.  .  .  No,  you  must  not  inter- 
rupt me.  You  asked  me  to  make  good  your  omis- 
sions. .  .  The  desire  to  giggle  is  a  very  imper- 
.sonal  quality.  But  there  is  another  humor,  one 
which  saves  us  from  urging  our  ideas  upon  our 
friends  with  undue  insistence,  and  this  is  a  humor 
which  I  appreciate,  and  look  upon  as  the  rudder 
whereby  we  steer  our  course  through  life.  I  should 
like  to  continue  a  little  further,  but  we  have  lighted 
our  lanterns,  and  are  searching  for  a  man  who  has 
written  prose  narrative  in  English  seriously.  So 
far  as  we  have  gone  we  have  discovered  one  woman, 
and  it  will  be  a  pity  if  we  cannot  find  a  literary 
mate  or  concomitant  for  her.  I  gather  that  neither 


Dickens  nor  Thackeray  attracts  you.     Even  so,  one 
must  repel  you  more  than  the  other= 

MOORE.  If  Dickens  had  not  come  into  our 
literature  we  should  lose  more  than  a  certain  num- 
ber of  books,  something  of  ourselves,  for  Dickens 
has  become  part  of  our  perceptions,  and  as  the  world 
exists  in  our  perceptions,  he  has  enlarged  the  world 
for  us.  But  can  as  much  be  said  for  Thackeray? 
If  he  had  not  come  into  our  literature  we  should 
lose  some  books  which  I  will  allow  to  be  admirable, 
so  that  hitches  and  hindrances  in  our  conversation 
may  be  avoided.  But  I  do  not  think  that  we  should 
lose  any  more.  Vanity  Fair,  for  instance,  seems  to 
me  implicit  in  the  literature  that  preceded  it — in 
Fielding,  to  whom  he  has  often  been  compared,  and 
not  without  reason,  as  it  appears  to  me.  Almost 
any  reader  acquainted  with  the  first  writer  would  be 
struck  with  the  similarity  of  mind  on  reading  the 
second,  and  would  feel  that  Thackeray  had  modeled 
his  style  on  Fielding's,  adapting  it  to  the  temper 
of  Victorian  readers,  robbing  it  of  its  gusts,  and  im- 
proving the  spacing  and  ordination  of  the  different 
parts.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  same  interest  in  the 
surface  of  life  marks  both  writers:  both  are  equally 
unable  or  unwilling  to  look  into  the  depths ;  one  re- 
lated Squire  Western's  drunken  bouts  and  his  pas- 
sion for  hunting,  and  the  other  Pitt  Crawley's  habit 
of  talking  to  Horrocks  the  butler  during  dinner. 
To  look  below  the  surface  bored  them.  Thackeray's 
surfaces  are  often  admirable,  but  that  sense  of 
the  eternal  which  gives  mystery  and  awe  to  a  work 
of  art  was  unknown  to  him,  so  it  seems  to  me. 

GOSSE.  You  said  that  Tom  Jones  was  a  book 
without  seasons,  without  trees,  without  flowers, 
without  a  storm  cloud  above  the  landscape,  or  a 
rag  in  it.  Might  not  the  same  strictures  be  directed 
with  equal  force  against  Vanity  Fair? 

MOORE.  Yes  indeed.  Both  books  lack  intimacy 
of  thought  and  feeling.  No  one  sits  by  the  fire  and 
thinks  what  his  or  her  past  has  been  and  welcomes 
the  approach  of  a  familiar  bird  or  animal.  I  do 
not  remember  any  dog,  cat,  or  parrot  in  Vanity. 
Fair,  and  I  am  almost  sure  that  Tom  Jones  is  with- 
out one.  A  caged  blackbird  or  thrush  is  a  painful 
sight,  but  the  parrot  has  chosen  domestication,  like 
the  cat  and  dog.  Some  of  our  homebirds  love  us, 
the  jackdaw  very  often;  the  raven  prefers  the  warm 
outhouse  to  the  windy  scarp  perhaps.  However  this 
may  be,  he  who  loves  animals  and  birds  is  more 
human  than  he  who  doesn't. 

GOSSE.  Grip  loved  Barnaby  Rudge's  shoulder, 
and  was  with  him  always  in  the  Gordon  riots  and 
afterwards,  I  think,  in  prison.  Can  you  remember 
what  he  said? 

MOORE.  Unfortunately  I  cannot,  it's  too  long 
ago.  I  have  forgotten  their  names  but  I  am  con- 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


353 


scious  of  the  presence  of  dogs  and  cats  in  Dickens' 
pages. 

GOSSE.  There  is  Gyp  in  David  Copperfield, 
who  ekes  out  the  character  of  Dora  very  happily, 
and  we  might  think  of  many  others. 

MOORE.  Dickens'  description  of  Bill  Sikes'  dog 
shows  that  the  writer  had  observed  dogs  and  was 
in  sympathy  with  their  instincts.  Altogether  Dick- 
ens' mind  was  richer,  more  abundant  than  Thack- 
eray's; Thackeray's  always  seemed  to  me  a  meager, 
sandy  mind,  an  essentially  ungenerous  soil,  that  pro- 
duced only  starvelings. 

GOSSE.  But  this  description  of  Thackeray's  mind 
is  hardly  in  agreement  with  his  characters — only 
the  writing  is  inferior. 

MOORE.  What  is  in  the  mind  transpires ;  he  was 
interested  only,  in  life,  the  drift  and  letter  of  social 
life,  always  pleased  and  proud  to  relate  that  a  Major 
or  a  Colonel  arrived  at  his  club  at  a  certain  hour, 
and  hardly  less  so  to  tell  us  how  a  lady  of  high 
degree  is  driven  to  satisfy  her  milliner  and  dress- 
maker by  concluding  an  armistice,  paying  something 
on  account,  the  foe  to  wait  for  full  settlement  un- 
til the  daughter's  marriage  is  brought  off.  In  Pen- 
dennis  and  The  Newcomes  a  booby  is  presented 
deftly,  but  the  conception  of  a  booby  is  very  com- 
monplace. Boobies  in  Shakespeare,  Balzac,  and 
Tourgenev  are  men  of  genius  as  well  as  boobies. 

GOSSE.  Forgive  me  for  interrupting  you,  but  it 
may  be  well  that  I  should  remind  you  that  the  ab- 
sence of  interest  in  Nature  which  you  deplore  in 
Thackeray  is  not  shared  by  any  first-rate  writer 
in  modern  or  antique  times.  It  has  become  the  fash- 
ion to  say  that  we  moderns  discovered  Nature,  but 
is  this  true?  Vergil  told  the  story  of  the  fields  as 
well  as  Wordsworth,  and  if  the  early  Irish  poets 
are  remarkable  for  anything,  it  is  for  their  love  of 
Nature.  The  only  great  writer  that  I  can  call  to 
mind  who  never  mentioned  a  tree  or  flower,  a  field 
or  hill,  is  Frangois  Villon. 

MOORE.  It  is  true  that  flowers  and  trees  and 
familiar  animals  find  perhaps  as  small  a  place  in 
Villon's  poems  as  in  Thackeray's  novels.  But  Vil- 
lon was  not  lacking  in  human  sympathies.  Now  if 
I  remember  The  Newcomes  and  Pendennis  correctly, 
Thackeray's  implicit  approval  of  the  attitude  adopted 
by  his  "  good  "  women  towards  Lady  Clara  High- 
gate  and  the  porter's  daughter  whom  they  find 
nursing  Pendennis  shows  that  human  beings  were 
as  remote  from  his  sympathies  as  were  the  flowers 
and  trees  and  fields.  What  he  did  understand 
though,  were  prejudices  and  conventions,  and  that 
is  why  his  novels  seem  old-fashioned  to  the  younger 
generation. 

GOSSE.  But  his  characters  represent  something 
more  than  the  conventions  of  his  time.  Becky 


Sharpe  represents  an  adventuress  prise  sur  le  vif. 

MOORE.  An  adventuress  according  to  the  liter- 
ary canons  of  the  fifties — an  adventuress  without  a 
temperament,  which  is  very  much  the  same  as  a  sol- 
dier without  courage. 

GOSSE.  But  I  can  imagine  a  man  lacking  in 
physical  courage,  yet  a  very  good  soldier. 

MOORE.  Through  a  moral  courage  that  over- 
comes physical  weakness.  But  it  is  not  so  easy  to 
imagine  an  adventuress  overcoming  her  distaste  for 
love  from  a  sense  of  duty. 

GOSSE.  Madame  Re'cannier  is  reputed  to  have 
been  a  cold  woman,  yet  she  attracted  men.  A  cold 
woman  leading  men  on,  making  them  miserable,, 
and  taking  her  pleasure  in  their  misery  is  conceivable. 

MOORE.  Quite  conceivable;  but  no  such  excel- 
lent and  subtle  conception  of  devilish  malignity 
crossed  Thackeray's  mind,  nor  had  he  in  mind  the 
great  adventuress,  she  whose  weapon  and  defense 
is  her  sex.  His  mind  did  not  move  on  grand,  nat- 
ural lines;  he  imagined  a  little  intriguing,  middle- 
class  woman,  determined  to  get  on,  and  he  was  in- 
terested, in  her  tricks,  how  she  won  over  the  women 
when  they  came  into  the  drawing-room  after  dinner, 
how  she  bamboozled  the  younger  Sir  Pitt.  So  far 
he  was  in  sympathy  with  his  subject;  but  as  it  ap- 
pears to  me,  his  interest  in  human  nature  did  not 
compel  him  to  ask  himself  any  essential  question 
about  her.  In  writing  once  about  a  celebrated 
passage  in  St.  Paul  I  said,  "  No  man  is  known  to 
us  till  he  has  revealed  his  sex  to  us,  "  and  with  the 
alteration  of  one  word  the  same  phrase  will  ser-ve 
me  here.  Thackeray  in  writing  of  Becky  Sharpe 
followed  the  English  tradition.  He  observed,  and 
abstained  from  meditation;  he  was  satisfied  with 
externals,  and  the  human  nature  that  belongs  to  all 
of  us — our  humanity — was  unknown  to  him.  It 
did  not  occur  to  him  to  humanize  Becky  Sharpe  by 
expatiating  in  her  religious  feelings,  in  her  super- 
stitions. Mankind  is  incurably  superstitious  and 
one  might  almost  say  therefore  Thackeray  instinc- 
tively avoided  the  subject.  He  liked  men  and  women 
better  than  mankind.  He  liked  character  better 
than  humanity;  but  in  omitting  any  superstition 
from  Becky  Sharpe's  character  he  was  sinning 
against  the  type;  no  class  or  type  is  more  likely  to 
seek  counsel  in  oracles,  to  believe  in  their  line  of 
luck,  than  the  adventurer  and  the  adventuress;  but 
never  once  does  he  send  Becky  Sharpe  running  to 
a  Bond  Street  fortune-teller. 

GOSSE.  You  have  clung  somewhat  tediously  to 
your  idea  that  the  English  novelist  never  looks  into 
the  depths  of  life  .  .  .  and  I  have  been  wait- 
ing all  the  while  for  a  quotation  from  Thackeray 
on  this  very  question.  He  says  somewhere,  and  in 
Vanity  Fair — I  will  not  answer  for  the  exact  words 


354 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


of  the  sentence  but  he  addresses  the  reader  and 
points  out  to  him  that  nothing  appears  above  the 
waves,  and  that  if  he  choose  to  look  under  them, 
well,  he,  Thackeray  is  not  responsible  for  what 
may  be  seen  there. 

MOORE.  What  terrible  thing  will  he  perceive? 
An  adultery  in  Mayfair!  The  magnificent  Raw- 
don  overthrowing  the  Marquis  on  the  hearth-rug, 
and  flinging  the  jewels,  the  tokens  of  his  wife's  sin, 
in  the  nobleman's  face. 

GOSSE.  A  very  theatrical  scene,  no  doubt;  alto- 
gether false,  no  doubt,  but  it  is  not  easy  to  say  what 
Rawdon  should  have  done  in  the  circumstances  un- 
less, indeed,  he  had  adopted  the  grammatical  pose 
related  in  the  Chronicles  of  French  gallantries  touch- 
ing le  Marquis  de  la  Perdrigonde  who  on  returning 
home  found  his  wife  in  the  arms  of  a  lover,  an 
Englishman.  I'm  wrong,  he  was  a  German,  and 
it  was  therefore  quite  natural  that  he  should  strike 
an  attitude  as  soon  as  he  was  dressed  and  declare 
his  intention  to  leave  the  room.  "II  fallait  que  je 
m'en  aille  "  he  said.  "  II  fallait  que  je  m'en  allasse,  " 
the  •  Marquis  de  la  Perdrigonde  corrected.  This 
grammatical  unraveling  of  an  awkward  situation  is 
not  possible  in  English,  owing  to  the  leanness  of  our 
verbal  system.  But  though  our  language  is  possessed 
of  little  grammar,  the  possibility  of  writing  so  as 


to  defy  criticism  may  be  doubted.  Landor  took 
pleasure  in  reproving  the  ghost  of  Cicero  for  mis- 
takes in  Latin;  in  the  person  of  Home  Tooke  he 
reproved  Dr.  Johnson,  forcing  him  into  an  admis- 
sion that  he  had  constructed  a  sentence  negligently ; 
and  it  was  only  the  other  day  that  you  came  here 
with  a  bunch  of  mistakes  gathered  from  Landor 
and  Pater  and  myself;  if  I  were  to  search  your 
works  I  should  not  return  with  empty  hands.  But 
the  mistakes  of  the  illustrious  ones,  and  perhaps  my 
own  obscure  errors,  are,  if  I  may  say  so,  different 
from  the  vulgarisms  which  are  to  be  found  in 
Thackeray,  who  perhaps  is  guilty  of  more  than  any 
writer  of  equal  importance. 

MOORE.     But  is  he  important  ? 

GOSSE.  I  am  afraid  we  shall  have  to  leave  the 
centuries  to  decide  that  point.  Meanwhile  a  word 
upon  a  personal  matter,  if  it  be  not  judged  unseemly 
to  interrupt  a  purely  literary  discussion  for  so  slight 
a  cause.  You  reproved  me  for  my  praise  of  Jane 
Eyre  saying  that  I  yielded  to  popular  clamor,  but 
whatever  truth  there  may  be  in  this  contention,  you 
will  allow  that  my  acceptance  of  Thackeray  as  a 
writer  in  keeping  with  the  high  tradition  of  our 
literature  is  fainthearted.  We  pass  easily  from 
Thackeray  to  Trollope. 

[To  be  continued] 

GEORGE  MOORE. 


Roads  to  Freedom 


fj  ERTRAND  RUSSELL  is  one  of  the  encouraging 
phenomena  of  this  disintegrating  age.  Some  of  us 
heard  him  at  Columbia  in  1915,  speajdng  with  a 
delicate  Emersonian  ethereality  on  Our  Knowledge 
of  the  External  World:  for  more  than  an  hour  he 
assured  us  that  the  benches  on  which  we  sat  really 
existed;  and  then  he  melted  timidly  away  into  a 
neighboring  office  haven.  He  was  a  thin,  dry  speci- 
men of  a  man,  innocuously  academic;  surely  not 
many  of  us  suspected  that  this  already  reverend 
epistemolog  (he  is  nearly  fifty)  would  ever  perpe- 
trate any  startling  mischief  in  the  political  world. 
We  heard  that  he  belonged  to  one  of  the  "  noblest  " 
families  of  England;  that,  being  a  second  son,  he 
had  escaped  an  earldom  by  an  heir's  breadth;  and 
that  he  had  taken  to  a  weird  infinitesimal-calculus 
philosophy,  presumably  because  philosophy,  being 
still  for  the  most  part  useless,  was  still  for  the  most 
part  respectable.  And  then  a  year  later  came  Jus- 
tice in  War-Time,  full  of  unprofessorial  passion 
and  pertinence.  Many  of  us  ignored  the  new  vol- 
ume; an  author's  followers  do  not  readily  permit 
him  to  deviate  from  his  past.  When,  after  another 
year,  an  American  publisher  brought  out  Principles 


of  Social  Reconstruction — under  the  misleading  and 
sensational  title,  Why  Men  Fight — Russell  lost  a 
small  public  and  found  a  large  one ;  for  now  he  was 
speaking  not  only  to  intellects,  which  are  rare,  but 
to  hearts,  which  are  everywhere.  The  Haves  read 
the  book  because  it  psychoanalyzed  them  painless- 
ly; the  Have-nots  read  it  because  here  was  their 
eternal  hope  come  back  to  them  in  language  elo- 
quent as  sincerity  and  clear  as  the  eyes  of  love.  All 
the  world  looked  up,  like  a  multiplied  Diogenes,  at 
this  Daniel  come  to  judgment;  what  could  such  a 
naively  honest  fellow  be  doing  in  this  mad  world, 
at  this  maddest  of  all  mad  times?  One  almost  en- 
vied him  his  honesty ;  for  honesty  is  a  luxury  which 
most  of  us  can  ill  afford. 

Since  then  the  romance  has  taken  form  with  the 
few  items  that  have  slipped  through  the  fingers  of 
the  censor:  that  the  timid  philosopher  had  all  the 
governing  classes  of  England  scared  to  pettiness, 
and  had  been  quarantined  to  prevent  the  spread  of 
his  curious  infection;  that  he  had  not  been  allowed 
to  come  again  to  America,  for  fear  that  even  an 
ocean  voyage  would  not  make  him  give  up  his  new 
philosophy;  that  in  a  more  or  less  gentlemanly  way 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


355 


he  was  kept  in  semi-bondage,  like  another  Galileo, 
also  insisting  that  the  world  does  move.  He  was 
lost  to  us  for  a  while,  silent  in  a  shouting  world; 
until  last  month,  when  we  were  told  how  the 
strikers  at  Glasgow  asked  Russell  to  come  and  ad- 
dress them;  how  the  British  Government  so  feared 
the  little  man's  power  of  thought  and  truth  that 
they  forbade  him  to  go;  how  Robert  Smillie  spoke 
instead  (with  unwonted  purity  of  diction),  reading 
from  a  manuscript;  and  having  finished  said, 
"  That,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  is  what  Mr.  Russell 
would  have  said  if  he  had  been  permitted  to  be 
present  here  tonight."  And  now  comes  another 
Russell  book,  Proposed  Roads  to  Freedom:  Social- 
ism, Anarchism,  and  Syndicalism  (Holt,  $.1.50), 
and  from  a  stray  sentence  here  and  there  we  per- 
ceive that  the  philosopher  has  borne  his  segrega- 
tion philosophically:  "  Few  are  able  to  see  through 
the  apparent  evils  of  an  outcast's  Jife  to  the  inner 
joy  that  comes  of  faith  and  creative  hope." 

It  is  a  quiet  book,  dealing  though  it  does  with 
movements  that  are  making  no  little  noise  at  pres- 
ent in  the  world.  There  is  first  a  chapter  on 
socialism,  aptly  defined  as  "  the  advocacy  of  com- 
munal ownership  of  land  and  capital  " ;  there  is  a 
critical  analysis  of  the  central  concepts  of  Marxism 
—economic  interpretation,  class  war,  and  the  con- 
centration of  capital;  and  there  is  the  usual  account 
of  the  break-up  of  socialism  into  state  capitalism  on 
the  one  hand  and  syndicalism  on  the  other.  Russell 
points  out  the  difficulties  of  a  socialism  resting  on 
the  "  democratic "  state  as  at  present  organized : 
'  The  actual  experience  of  democratic  representative 
government  is  very  disillusioning,"  he  writes  in  his 
polite  way;  and  the  notion  of  the  state  as  universal 
employer  is  about  as  pleasant  as  the  idea  of  conscrip- 
tion. "  Socialists  .  .  .  imagine  that  the  Social- 
ist State  will  be  governed  by  men  like  those  who 
now  advocate  it.  This  is,  of  course,  a  delusion. 
.  .  .  Those  who  hold  power  after  the  reform 
has  been  carried  out  are  likely  to  belong,  in  the 
main,  to  the  ambitious  executive  type  which  has  in 
all  ages-  possessed  itself  of  the  government  of  the 
nations.  And  this  type  has  never  shown  itself  tol- 
erant of  opposition  or  friendly  to  freedom." 

There  follows  a  sympathetic  account  of  anarch- 
ism as  taught  by  Bakunin  and  Kropotkin;  the  indi- 
cations of  this  chapter  are  that  Russell  has,  during; 
his  domestic  exile,  re-read  Kropotkin,  and  has  al- 
most been  carried  away  by  the  sweet  reasonableness 
of  the  man.  Like  Jefferson,  Russell  thinks  that  a 
violent  uprising  now  and  then  is  a  good  national 
tonic,  and  has  some  value  as  educative  drama;  but 
"  in  labor  movements  generally,  success  through  vio- 
lence can  hardly  be  expected  except  in  circumstances 
where  success  without  violence  is  attainable."  Rus- 


sell inclines  much  more  towards  the  syndicalism  of 
Pelloutier  and  Lagardelle  than  toward  the  socialism 
of  Hyndman  and  Wells  and  Shaw;  but  he  wonders 
whether  the  solidarity  of  labor  on  which  the  move- 
ment would  base  itself  is  not  even  more  of  a  myth 
than  the  general  strike.  Many  English  working- 
men,  he  points  out,  have  been  made  conservative  by 
the  investments  which  they  or  their  unions  have 
placed  in  capitalistic  enterprises,  as  well  as  by  their 
share,  however  slight,  in  the  benefit  accruing  from 
the  exploitation  of  backward  countries.  And  in 
America  "  the  older  skilled  workers,  largely  Ameri- 
can born,  have  long  been  organized  in  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor  under  Mr.  Gompers.  These 
represent  an  aristocracy  of  labor.  They  tend  to 
work  with  the  employers  against  the  great  mass  of 
unskilled  immigrants,  and  they  cannot  be  regarded 
as  forming  part  of  anything  that  could  truly  be 
called  a  labor  movement."  This  statement  may 
appear  extreme,  in  the  light  of  the  recent  semi- 
syndicalistic  proposals  of  the  American  railway 
unions;  but  it  is  helpful  to  see  how  matters  Ameri- 
can look* at  a  distance  which  lends  perspective  to 
the  view.  Russell  concludes  that  syndicalism  takes 
account  of  men  only  as  producers,  just  as  state  so- 
cialism takes  account  of  men  only  as  consumers; 
and  accepts  the  plan  of  the  Guild  Socialists  to  recon- 
cile the  two.  "  The  system  which  they  advocate  is, 
I  believe,  the  best  hitherto  proposed,  and  the  one 
most  likely  to  secure  liberty  without  constant  ap- 
peals to  violence." 

"  To  secure  liberty  " — that  to  Russell  is  the  su- 
preme purpose  of  all  political  organization  and 
thought.  He  approaches  the  social  question  always 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  artist,  and  tests  each 
plan  by  asking  "  What  will  it  do  to  art?"  He  con- 
tinues to  use  as  the  center  of  his  political  thinking 
the  distinction  between  the  creative  and  the  posses- 
sive dispositions;  and  his  Utopia  is  a  system  of 
checks  to  possession  and  incentives  to  creation.  Un- 
der Guild  Socialism,  he  thinks,  men  will  come  to 
be  valued  not  by  the  quantity  but  by  the  quality  of 
their  product;  there  will  be  a  minimum  wage  for 
all,  even  for  those  who  will  not  work;  the  creative 
impulse,  the  constructive  disposition,  may  be  trusted 
to  keep  all  but  a  few  men  busy  (but,  one  wonders, 
busy  at  (he  work  that  is  most  needed,  or  only  at 
the  work  that  is  most  pleasant?)  ;  every  industry 
will  be  controlled  by  the  men  engaged  in  it,  except 
in  its  external  relations,  which  will  fall  for  adjudi- 
cation to  some  central  body;  there  will  be  very  lit- 
tle government,  very  little  law  or  compulsion;  an 
international  economic  congress  will  take  the  place 
of  war  as  the  arbiter  in  commercial  and  territorial 
disputes;  invention  will  be  stimulated  by  permitting 
each  guild  to  monopolize  for  a  time  the  advantages 


356 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


of  any  processes  which  it  may  introduce;  and  every- 
where the  artist  will  be  crowned  as  the  most  de- 
serving of  men.  It  is  a  pleasant  Utopia,  but  not  to 
be  had  for  the  asking. 

Indeed,  if  one  may  now  add  a,  word  of  criticism, 
the  impression  left  by  the  book  is  one  of  oversim- 
plicity  and  unreality;  it  has  about  it  an  air  of  jejune 
and  ideologic  youth.  It  has  all  of  Kropotkin's 
gentleness  and  many  of  his  delusions;  but  it  has 
little  of  Kropotkin's  patient  grappling  with  difficult 
details.  It  has  beauty,  such  as  one  has  come  to  ex- 
pect of  Bertrand  Russell ;  but  it  is  a  fragile  beauty : 
a  sentence  or  two  from  Nietzsche,  one  fears,  would 
smash  it  into  sweet  regrets.  There  is  here  no  con- 
sideration of  the  powerful  competitive  impulses  of 
men,  their  love  of  inequality  and  difference,  their 
lust  for  domination ;  one  would  think  that  "  natural 
selection  "  and  "  the  will  to  power  "  had  been  quite 
annihilated  by  "  mutual  aid."  '  One  looks,  in  such 
a  discussion,  for  some  resolute  consideration  of  what 
are  the  forces,  psychological  and  economic,  that 
make  against,  as  well  as  those  that  make  for,  our 


social  ends;  what  the  relative  strength  of  these 
forces  is;  and  how  intelligence  may  bend  them  into 
some  progressive  synthesis.  Indeed,  these  "  roads  to 
freedom  "  are  not  roads  at  all,  but  goals — and 
thought  must  find  the  way. 

To  find  fault  after  this  fashion  is  no  pleasant 
task,  and  a  paragraph  of  it  will  do.  These  deduc- 
tions made,  the  book  still  retains  exceptional  worth : 
it  is  refreshingly  simple  and  kindly;  here  at  last  our 
various  economic  isms  meet  without  fratricidal 
strife;  here  is  an  honest  estimate  of  them  by  a  man 
who  has  loved  and  loves  them  all.  "  Meantime," 
says  the  author,  ending  in  a  flash  of  poetry  that  dis- 
arms and  almost  nullifies  all  criticism,  "  the  world 
in  which  we  exist  has  other  aims.  But  it  will  pass 
away,  burnt  up  in  the  fire  of  its  own  hot  passions ; 
and  from  its  ashes  will  spring  a  new  and  younger 
world,  full  of  fresh  hope,  with  the  light  of  mornang 
in  its  eyes."  Wfren  that  new  world  comes  men  will 
not  forget  to  honor  Bertrand  Russell. 

WILL  DURANT. 


et  Praeterea? 


i 


r  WILL  BE  RECALLED  that  when  the  Imagists  first 
came  upon  us  they  carried  banners,  and  that  upon 
one  of  them  was  inscribed  their  detestation  of  the 
"cosmic,"  and  of  the  "cosmic"  poet,  who  (they 
added)  "  seems  to  us  to  shirk  the  real  difficulties  of 
his  art."  No  doubt  if  the  Imagists  were  to  issue 
this  particular  volume  again  they  would  find  occa- 
sion to  alter  this  and  perhaps  other  statements,  for 
here  as  elsewhere  they  sinned  against  one  of  their 
own  cardinal  doctrines — they  failed  to  think  clearly 
and,  ipso  facto,  failed  also  to  define  with  precision. 
Were  they  quite  sure  what  they  meant  by  the  term 
"cosmic"  poet?  Did  they  mean,  for  example, 
Dante — or  only  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox?  The  point 
is  trifling,  it  may  be,  and  yet  it  is  not  without  its 
interest,  for-  it  indicates  an  error  characteristic  of 
the  moment.  It  was  not  unnatural  that  those  of 
our  poetic  revolutionaries  who,  tired  of  the  verbose 
sentimentalities  and  ineptitudes  of  the  more  medi- 
ocre among  their  predecessors,  determined  to  achieve 
a  sharper  picturism  in  poetry  should  in  the  first  ex- 
cited survey  of  the  situation  decide  that  anything 
"  cosmic,  "  or  let  us  say  philosophic,  was  obviously 
beyond  the  focus  of  their  poetic  camera — could  not 
be  "  picturized."  It  appeared  that  thought  would 
have  to  be  excluded — and  in  fact  for  a  year  or  more, 
under  the  influence  of  the  Imagists,  the  markets 
were  flooded  with  a  free  verse  in  which  thought 
was  conspicuously  at  a  minimum.  "Pure  sensa- 
tion !"  was  the  cry — a  cry  which  has  been  heard  be- 


fore, and  will  be  heard  again ;  it  arises  from  a  ques- 
•  tion  almost  as  old  as  poetry  itself — the  question 
whether  the  poet  should  be  only  a  drifting  senso- 
rium,  and  merely  feel,  or  whether  he  should  be  per- 
mitted to  think.  Should  he  be  a  voice,  simply — 
or  something  beside?  Should  he  occasionally,  to- 
put  it  colloquially,  say  something?  Or  should  he 
be  merely  a  magic  lantern,  casting  colored  pictures 
forever  on  a  screen? 

The  question  is  put  perhaps  too  starkly,  and  pur- 
posely leaves  out  of  account  all  of  the  minute  grada- 
tions by  which  one  passes  from  the  one  extreme  to 
the  other.  And  the  occasion  for  the  question  is  Mr. 
Maxwell  Bodenheim,  who,  though  already  well 
known  as  a  poet,  has  just  published  his  first  book, 
Minna  and  Myself  (Pagan;  $1.25).  Mr.  Boden- 
heim might  well,  it  appears,  have  been  one  of  the 
Imagists.  None  of  them,  with  perhaps  the  excep- 
tion of  "  H.  D.,  "  can  equal  his  delicate  precision  of 
phrasing.  None  of  them  is  more  subtly  pictorial. 
Moreover  Mr.  Bodenheim's  theories  as  to  the  nature 
of  poetry  (for  which  he  has  adroitly  argued),  such 
as  that  it  should  be  a  "  colored  grace  "  and  that  it 
should  bear  no  relation  to  "  human  beliefs  and 
fundamental  human  feelings,"  might  seem  even 
more  clearly  to  define  that  affinity.  Yet  it  would  be 
a  great  mistake  to  ticket  Mr.  Bodenheim  as  an 
Imagist  merely  because  his  poetry  is  sharply  pic- 
torial, or  because  he  has  declared  that  poetry  should 
not  deal  with  fundamental  human  emotions.  As  a 


THE  DIAL 


357 


matter  of  fact  his  theory  and  performance  are  two 
very  different  things.  One  has  not  gone  very  far 
before  detecting  in  him  a  curious  dualism  of  per- 
sonality. 

It  is  obvious,  of  course,  that  Mr.  Bodenheim  has 
taken  out  of  the  air  much  that  the  Imagists  and 
other  radicals  have  set  in  circulation.  His  poe.ms  are 
in  the  freest  of  free  verse:  they  are  indeed  quite 
candidly  without  rhyme  or  metrical  rhythm,  and  re- 
solve themselves  for  the  most  part  into  series  of  lucid 
and  delicate  statements,  of  which  the  crisp  cadences 
are  only  perhaps  the  cadences  of  a  very  sensitive 
prose.  It  is  to  Mr.  Bodenheim's  credit  that  despite 
the  heavy  handicap  of  such  a  form  he  makes  poems. 
How  does  he  do  this  ?  Not  merely  by  evoking  sharp- 
edged  images — if  he  did  only  that  he  would  be  in- 
deed simply  an  exponent  of  "  colored  grace "  or 
Imagism — but  precisely  because  his  exquisite  pic- 
tures are  not  merely  pictures,  but  symbols.  And 
the  things  they  symbolize  are,  oddly  enough,  these 
flouted  "  fundamental  feelings." 

Mr.  Bodenheim  is,  in  short,  a  symbolist.  His 
poems  are  almost  invariably  presentations  of  mood, 
evanescent  and  tenuous — tenuous,  frequently,  to  the 
point  of  impalpability — in  terms  of  the  visual  or 
tactile;  and  if  it  would  be  an  exaggeration  to  say 
that  they  differ  from  the  purely  imagistic  type  of 
poetry  by  being,  for  this  reason,  essentially  emo- 
tional, nevertheless  such  a  statement  approximates 
the  truth.  Perhaps  rather  one  should  say  that  they 
are  the  ghosts  of  emotions,  or  the  perfumes  of  them. 
It  is  at  this  point  that  one  guesses  Mr.  Bodenheim's 
dualism.  For  it  seems  as  if  the  poet  were  at  odds 
with  the  theorist:  as  if  the  poet  desired  to  betray 
these  "fundamental  emotions  "  to  a  greater  extent 
than  the  severe  theorist  will  permit.  In  conse- 
quence one  feels  that  Mr.  Bodenheim  has  cheated 
not  only  his  reader  but  also  himself.  He  gives  us 
enough  to  show  us  that  he  is  one  of  the  most  original 
of  contemporary  poets,  but  one  feels  that  out  of 
sheer  perversity  he  has  withheld  even  more  than 
he  has  given.  There  are  many  poets  who  have  the 
vox  et  praeterea  nihil  of  poetry,  and  who  wisely 
therefore  cultivate  that  kind  of  charm;  but  it  is  a 
tragedy  when  a  poet  such  as  Mr.  Bodenheim,  pos- 
sessing other  riches  as  well,  ignores  these  riches  in 
credulous  obeisance  to  the  theory  that,  since  it  is  the 
voice,  the  hover,  the  overtone,  the  perfume  alone 
which  is  important  in  poetry,  therefore  poetry  is  to 
be  sought  rather  in  the  gossamer  than  in  the  rock. 
Mr.  Bodenheim  has  taken  the  first  step:  he  has 
found  that  moods  can  be  magically  described — no 
less  than  dew  and  roses.  But  poetic  magic,  as 
George  Santayana  has  said,  is  chiefly  a  matter  of 
perspective — it  is  the  revelation  of  "  sweep  in  the 
concise  and  depth  in  the  clear  " — and,  as  Santayana 


points  out,  if  this  is  true  we  need  not  be  surprised 
to  perceive  that  the  poet  will  find  greatest  scope  for 
this  faculty  in  dealing  with  ideas,  particularly  with 
philosophic  ideas.     .     .     .     And  we  return  to  our 
old  friend  the  "  cosmic." 

Nor  need  Mr.  Bodenheim  be  unduly  alarmed. 
For  when  one  suggests  that  the  contemplation  of 
life  as  a  whole,  or  the  recognition  of  its  items  as 
merely  minute  sand-grains  of  that  whole,  or  an  occa- 
sional recollection  of  man's  twinkling  unimportance, 
or  a  fleeting  glimpse  of  the  cruel  perfection  of  the 
order  of  things  are  among  the  finest  headlands  from 
which  the  poet  may  seek  an  outlook,  one  is  certainly 
not  suggesting  that  poets  should  be  I6gicians.  It  is 
not  the  paraphernalia  but  the  vision  of  philosophy 
which  is  sublime.  If  the  poet's  business  is  vision, 
he  can  ill  afford  to  ignore  this  watch-tower.  For  if, 
like  Mr.  Bodenheim,  he  desires  that  poetry  shall 
be  a  kind  of  absolute  music,  "  unattached  with  sur- 
face sentiment  " — a  music  in  which  sensations  are 
the  notes,  emotions  the  harmonies,  and  ideas  the 
counterpoint ;  a  music  of  detached  waver  and  gleam, 
which,  taking  for  granted  a  complete  knowledge  of 
all  things,  will  npt  be  so  naive  as  to  make  state- 
ments, or  argue  a  point,  or  praise  the  nature  of 
things,  or  inveigh  against  it,  but  will  simply  employ 
all  such  elements  as  the  keys  to  certain  tones — then 
truly  the  keyboard  of  the  poet  who  uses  his  brain  as 
well  as  his  sensorium  will  be  immensely  greater  than 
that,  let  us  say,  of  the  ideal  Imagist. 

The  point  has  been  elaborated  because,  as  has 
been  said,  it  is  one  on  which  Mr.  Bodenheim  seems 
to  be  at  odds  with  himself :  the  poems  in  Minna  and 
Myself  show  him  to  be  an  adept  at  playing  with 
moods,  an  intrepid  juggler  with  sensations,  but  one 
who  tends  to  repeat  his  tricks,  and  to  juggle  always 
with  the  same  set  of  balls.  Of  the  poems  them- 
selves what  more  needs  to  be  said  than  that  they  are 
among  the  most  delicately  tinted  and  fantastically 
subtle  of  contemporary  poems  in  free  verse?  Mr. 
Bodenheim's  sensibility  is  as  unique  in  its  way  as 
that  of  Wallace  Stevens  or  of  T.  S.  Eliot  or  of 
Alfred  Kreymborg.  One  need  not  search  here  for 
the  robust,  nor  for  the  seductively  rhythmic,  nor 
for  the  enkindling.^  Mr.  Bodenheim's  patterns  are 
cool  almost  to  the  point  of  preciosity ;  they  are,  so  to 
speak,  only  one  degree  more  fused  than  mosaics. 
They  must  be  read  with  sympathy  or  not  at  all. 
And  one  feels  that  Mr.  Bodenheim  is  only  at  his 
beginning,  and  that  he  will  eventually  free  himself 
of  his  conventions  on  the  score  of  rhythm  (with 
which  he  is  experimenting  tentatively)  and  of 
theme-color.  In  what  direction  _these  broadenings 
will  lead  him,  only  Mr.  Bodenheim  can  discover. 
One  is  convinced,  however,  that  he  can  step  out  with 

security.  ^ 

CONRAD  AIKEN. 


358 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


Dublin,  March  6 


1  HE  RECORDS  OF  THE  IRISH  Literary  "  Move- 
ment "  will  be  scanned  in  vain  for  any  reference  to 
Mr.  Forrest  Reid,  who  has  just  published  A  Gar- 
den by  the  Sea:  Stories  and  Sketches  (Talbot 
Press;  Dublin) — his  first  book  to  appear  with  an 
Irish  imprint.  Indeed,  there  must  be  many  who 
have  read  his  remarkable  novels  of  Ulster  character, 
The  Bracknels,  Following  Darkness,  -and  At  the 
Door  of  the  Gate,  without  knowing  that  the  author 
is  an  Irishman,  living  in  Belfast.  Although  Mr. 
Reid  was  a  contributor  to  Uladh,  the  quarterly  jour- 
nal of  the  Ulster  Literary  Theater  in  its  heroic 
period,  he  has  never  associated  himself  with  any  of 
the  groups  in  Ireland  whose  regionalism  has  given 
them  prominence.  In  fact,  so  determined  is  he  to 
escape  the  stigma  which  he  conceives  attaching  to 
that  word,"  that  he  surpassed  himself  by  writing  an 
excellent  study  of  W.  B.  Yeats  from  which  all 
reference  to  the  literary  renascence  in  Ireland  is 
omitted.  Mr.  Forrest  Reid  is,  therefore,  a  further 
instance  of  that  diversity  which,  .as  I  mentioned  in 
my  last  letter,  distinguishes  Belfast  from  Dublin. 
One  is  constantly  surprised  to  discover,  isolated  here 
and  there  in  that  brazenly  provincial  town,  a  num- 
ber of  talented  writers  who  crave  neither  the  sup- 
port nor  the  society  of  their  more  widely  advertised 
colleagues  "  south  of  the  Boyne."  Where  the 
South  is  gregarious,  the  North  is  unsociable,  and 
literature  is  a  vice  one  cultivates  unknown  to  one's 
friends.  How  unlike  the  intellectual  communism  of 
the  Dublin  literati,  whose  existence  excites  the  half 
contemptuous  wonder  of  British  explorers! 

It  is  difficult  to  obtain  the  works  of  Mr.  Reid  in 
the  bookshops  of  his  native  city,  and  as  for  the  pub- 
lications of  the  "  mere  Irish,"  they  are  procurable 
only  "  to  order  " — that  exasperating  formula.  One 
can  only  hope  that  the  Irish  imprint  will  not  alto- 
gether ruin  the  author's  credit  with  the  suspicious 
vendors  of  British  best-sellers  in  Belfast.  The 
superstitious  fear  of  these  gentlemen  lest  their 
shelves  be  contaminated  with  Sinn  Fein  literature 
has  even  less  justification  in  this  case  than  in  that  of 
the  majority  of  the  writers  thus  boycotted,  for  there 
is  not  the  faintest  trace  of  the  national  self-con- 
sciousness which  is  so  terrifying  to  the  Carsonian 
imagination.  Mr.  Forrest  Reid  is,  I  believe,  the 
only  articulate  Irishman  who  has  no  feeling  for  poli- 
tics, and  no  interest  in  any  party  to  the  Anglo-Irish 
struggle.  There  is  an  authentic  record  of  the  fact — 
incredible  to  us — that  he  was  in  Larne  when  Sir 
Edward  Carson's  rebels  landed  their  arms  in  1914, 
but  retired  to  sleep  in  utter  oblivion  to  the  seemingly 


meaningless  commotion,  although  the  loyal  insurrec- 
tionaries  had  overpowered  the  authorities  and  taken 
possession  of  the  town.  The  gun-runners  of  Larne, 
and  those  who  emulated  them  at  such  cost  in  Dub- 
lin later,  will  scrutinize  the  pages  of  A  Garden  by 
the  Sea  in  vain  for  heresies  or  propaganda.  Mr. 
Reid  has  no  passion  but  that  of  the  writer  for  his 
craft.  He  gives  to  literature  what  others  have  de- 
voted to  ward  politics  and  geographical  patriotism. 
Even  the  two  camps  into  which  his  admirers  have 
divided  will  have  to  agree  as  to  the  merits  of  this 
book,  for  each  will  find  the  necessary  material  to 
prove  that  the  author  is  a  romantic  or  a  realist. 
Courage,  The  Truant,  and  the  title-story  are  perfect 
examples  of  that  fanciful,  imaginative  style  which, 
while  never  wholly  absent  from  the  work  of  Mr. 
Reid,  predominates  so  far  in  certain  cases  as  to  mark 
off  his  stories  into  the  two  classes  referred  to.  On 
the  other  hand,  his  realistic  manner  is  well  illus- 
trated in  The  Reconciliation,  The  Accomplice,  and 
An  Ulster  Farm — to  mention  the  more  important 
stories. 

If  this  selection  had  been  made  for  the  special 
purpose  of  shaking  the  assurance  of  the  author's 
critics,  it  could  not  have  been  better  devised  to  that 
end.  While  it  is  easy  to  assert — if  one  incline  that 
way — that  The  Bracknels  and  At  the  Door  of  the 
Gate  are  better  than  The  Spring  Song  and  The 
Gentle  Lover,  the  choice  is  by  no  means  so  simple 
between,  say,  A  Garden  by  the  Sea  and  An  Ulster 
Farm.  On  the  whole,  an  admirer  of  the  realist  must 
confess  that  the  romanticist  has  triumphed  in  the 
present  volume.  Every  story  is  carefully  and  beau- 
tifully written,  with  the  ease  and  deftness  of  a  prac- 
ticed artist,  but  of  necessity  the  realist  is  more  de- 
pendent upon  his  material  for  his  effects,  and  as  it 
happens,  the  substance  of  the  realistic  sketches  is 
slight.  At  this  point  precisely,  the  artistry  of  the 
writer  triumphs  where  the  themes  are  such  as  must 
rely  entirely  upon  craftsmanship  for  their  success. 
Such  sketches  as  An  Ending,  with  its  evocation  of 
dying  Bruges,  or  A  Garden  by  the  Sea,  with  its 
reveries  over  childhood — with  what  should  they 
hold  the  reader  but  the  suggestive,  brooding  •  har- 
mony of  style  and  mood  ?  The  incident  narrated  de- 
rives in  each  case  its  sole  interest  from  the  author's 
power  of  investing  the  subject  with  the  glamour  of 
the  moment  in  which  his  imagination  was  stirred. 
It  is  just  the  faculty  of  conveying  the  impalpable 
suggestion  of  a  singularly  sensitive  imagination 
which  constitutes  the  beauty  of  this  writing.  When, 
as  in  Following  Darkness,  Mr.  Forrest  Reid 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


359 


has  a  theme  which  calls  for  the  employment  of  all 
his  arts,  then  he  gives  us  what  we  must  so  far  re- 
gard as  his  masterpiece.  None  of  the  qualities  which 
distinguish  the  author's  contribution  to  contem- 
porary literature  is  absent  from  this  miniature  of  his 
work,  and  he  has  emancipated  himself  from  the  de- 
rivative influences  which  threatened  at  one  time  to 
mar  the  eerie  effect  of  such  a  conception  as  The 
Truant,  now  presented  in  an  original  and  truly 
characteristic  manner,  without  Machenesque  accre- 
tions. 

The  latest  addition  to  the  greatly  prized  series  of 
books  issued  by  Miss  E.  C.  Yeats  at  the  Cuala  Press 
is  the  Kiltartan  Poetry  Book,  by  Lady  Gregory.  It 
is  a  collection  of  folksongs  translated  from  the  Irish, 
and  reprinted,  for  the  most  part,  from  Cuchulain  of 
Muirthemne,  Gods  and  Fighting  Men,  Saints  and 
Wonders,  and  Poets  and  Dreamers.  The  volume 
is  a  reminder  of  the  changes  which  have  taken  place 
since  the  works  in  question  first  appeared.  The 
most  recent  is  twelve  years  old,  and  all  of  them  pre- 
ceded the  world  fame  which  Synge  brought  to  the 
peasant  idiom,  in  which  he  and  Lady  Gregory,  fol- 
lowing Dr.  Douglas  Hyde,  created  a  new  literary 
convention.  Not  the  least  of  time's  effects  has  been 
to  produce  in  Ireland  a  reaction  in  certain  quarters 
against  the  Gaelicized  English  which  these  writers 
employed.  We  have  developed  a  tendency  to  speak 
disparagingly  of  Kiltartanese,  and  if  Synge's  estab- 
lished glory  protects  him  from  the  carping  of  the 
disaffected,  the  living  exponents  of  the  style  have  to 
bear  the  brunt  of  hostile  criticism.  Two  influences 
have  been  at  work  undermining  the  prestige  of  Kil- 
tartan speech.  To  take  the  lesser  first:  there  have 
arisen  new  idols — worshipped,  at  least,  in  the  circles 
most  loudly  anti-Kiltartan — and  they  are  credited 
with  an  exactness  of  knowledge  of  the  peasant  and 
his  idiom  beside  which  Synge  is  classed  as  mere 
literature.  It  is  solemnly  argued  that  no  peasant 
actually  talks  like  The  Playboy  of  the  Western 
World — as  if  Synge  had  ever  undertaken  to  compile 
a  species  of  Congressional  Record  of  the  Aran 
Islands.  There  is,  of  course,  no  virtue  in  phono- 
graphic records  of  unilluminating  talk,  whether  of 
peasants  or  politicians.  When  we  have  analyzed  the 
technique  of  Synge,  we  have  by  no  means  disposed 
of  his  art.  The  writer  of  genius  must  know  how  to 
transform  and  transcend  reality,  so  that  we  lose 
sight  of  his  convention  in  the  profound  beauty  of  his 
ultimate  effects. 

At  this  point  arises  the  second,  and  more  serious, 
influence  in  the  process  of  discredit  which  has  threat- 
ened the  literary  use  of  Anglo-Irish  idiom.  Like  so 
many  other  conventions,  it  has  been  overworked, 
and  we  are  suffering  from  a  prolonged  acquaintance 


with  the  mere  mechanism  of  the  style,  divorced  from 
real  beauty  of  thought  or  form.  For  the  one  occa- 
sion when  the  public  has  an  opportunity  of  admiring 
the  highest  expression  of  Kiltartan  speech,  there  are 
dozens  when  only  its  cheapest  manifestations  are 
available — notably  in  the  later  comedies  and  melo- 
dramas of  the  popular  peasant  playwrights.  These 
have  become  almost  as  dull  and  unbearable  as  the 
jargon  of  the  old-fashioned  stage  Irishman.  In  fact 
we  are  tiring  of  a  new-fashioned  stage  Irishman,  for 
precisely  the  same  reason  as  we  wearied  of  his  prede- 
cessor. Both  fail  to  correspond  to  anything  in  our 
experience,  and  both  fail  to  stimulate  the  imagina- 
tion. If  the  "  folk  speech  "  of  our  present  day 
literature  is  not  quite  so  horrible  as  the  abominable 
dialect  of  the  earlier  writers,  it  is  because  it  is  saved 
by  its  genuine  relation  to  a  cultivated  and  subtle 
tongue.  But  this  Gaelicized  English  cannot  survive 
apart  from  the  work  it  clothes,  any  more  than  the 
lesser  Elizabethans  could  hope  to  dispute  the  final 
supremacy  of  Shakespeare.  Purely  verbal  substi- 
tutes for  style  and  matter  cannot  deceive,  and  it  is 
the  most  short-sighted  reaction  which  prompts  this 
condemnation  of  the  language  of  The  Playboy,  be- 
cause every  imitator  is  not  a  Synge. 

Those  who  read  Mr.  Dermot  O'Byrne's  Children 
of  the  Hills,  when  it  was  published  by  Messrs. 
Maunsel  some  years  ago,  will  readily  understand 
that  his  new  book  of  short  stories,  entitled  Wrack 
(Talbot  Press),  has  aroused  the  Kiltartan  contro- 
versy in  many  places.  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  once 
threatened  to  publish  no  more  short  stories  because 
of  the  incorrigible  belief  of  all  reviewers  that  only 
Maupassant  could  write  short  stories.  The  super- 
stition that  only  Synge  could  use  the  peasant  idiom  of 
Anglo-Irish  is  a  somewhat  similar  bogey,  with  which 
Mr.  O'Byrne  is  threatened,  but  fortunately  he  has 
not  been  afraid  to  offer  the  public  a  second  collection 
of  those  fine  tales,  whose  imagination,  poetry,  and 
dialectical  vigor  showed  that  he  had  mastered  for 
prose  narrative  the  medium  of  Synge,  the  dramatist. 
These  six  stories  illustrate  most  admirably  the 
author's  wide  range  of  imagination,  from  modern 
realism  to  historical  reconstruction,  and  including 
visionary  phantasy.  Mr.  O'Byrne's  method  is  au- 
thentic; his  knowledge  of  Irish,  combined  with  an 
intimate  contact  with  the  scenes  and  people  he  de- 
scribes, gives  to  his  work  the  color  and  raciness 
which  cannot  be  captured  by  the  mechanical  Kiltar- 
tanizers.  His  stories  are  so  obvious  a  demonstration 
of  the  absurdity  of  the  theory  that  Anglo-Irish  is  the 
speech  of  mere  comedy,  their  power  is  so  challenging 
in  its  defiant  idiomatic  technique,  that  adverse  crit- 
icism has  taken  refuge  in  the  old  trench  of  patriotic 
puritanism  from  which  Synge  was  bombarded.  Mr. 


36° 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


O'Byrne  is  accused  of  calumniating  the  Gael — and 
this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  a  recent  book  of  his 
verse,  A  Ballad  of  Dublin  (Candle  Press),  which 
was  suppressed  by  the  Censor,  has  been  described 
by  W.  B.  Yeats  as  containing  the  best  poem  in- 
spired by  the  Rising  of  Easter  Week  1916. 

Another  victim  of  that  functionary  is  the 
pseudonymous  "  D.  L.  Kay,"  whose  Glamour  of 
Dublin  (Talbot  Press)  has  attracted  the  great- 
est attention,  as  the  most  original  of  the  innumer- 
able books  to  which  this  city  has  supplied  a  theme. 
It  is  a  collection  of  -impressionistic  sketches,  some 
actual,  others  historical,  many  fantastical.  The 
first  chapter,  which  purports  to  give  the  impressions 
of  Parnell  during  Easter  Week,  as  he  watched  the 
Sinn  Fein  stronghold  in  O'Connell  Street  from  his 
pedestal  at  the  top  of  that  thoroughfare,  was  the 
occasion  of  the  Censor's  interference.  The  closing 
paragraph  was  blue-penciled  because  of  the  sugges- 
tion that  Padraic  Pearse  was  not  ejected  from  the 
portal  of  heaven,  but  was  greeted  with  "  Pass, 
friend  "  as  he  entered  the  "  seraphic  gates,  wherever, 
east  of  the  moon,  the  jasper  hinges  turn."  As  the 
missing  paragraph  was  printed  in  an  English  period- 
ical, with  appropriate  comment,  it  will  doubtless 


be  discreet  to  quote  these  words  from  it.  In  an- 
other chapter  the  words  "  even  now  "  were  deleted 
from  a  reference  to  the  grave  of  Wolfe  Tone, 
"  where  he  lies,  dreaming,  even  now,  of  Irish  free- 
dom." The  book  however  does  not  depend  upon 
these  extraneous  humors  of  British  government  in 
Ireland  for  its  interest.  It  is  a  unique  series  of 
"  promenades  of  an  impressionist,  "  who  has  a  de- 
lightful gift  of  irony  and  an  amazing  fund  of  pre- 
cise topographical  lore  at  his  disposal,  both  of  which 
are  so  adroitly  insinuated  that  the  reader  discovers, 
only  when  he  has  ceased  chuckling,  that  he  has 
been  given  an  extraordinary  glimpse  of  the  sub- 
tleties of  our  peculiar  history.  The  description  of 
Queen  Victoria  and  her  husband  scrawling  their 
names  in  ink  upon  an  illuminated  page  of  the  price- 
less Book  of  Kells,  is  a  masterpiece,  which  has 
been  duly  appreciated.  Out  of  the  purest  altruism 
one  hopes  that  The  Glamour  of  Dublin  will  not 
be  missed  by  English  readers  who,  it  appears,  are 
looking  coldly  upon  Irish  and  Russian  literature 
because  of  the  political  heterodoxy  of  these  two 
countries.  So,  in  literature  as  in  politics,  our  hope 

lies  with  America.  ~  A    „ 

ERNEST  A.  BOYD. 


Visitants 


Clothed  in  delight,  these  dreams  will  come 

And  lean  above  another's  bed, 
Nor  care  whose  earthy  lips  are  dumb, 

Nor  care  what  dreamer's  dead. 

Dew-lidded  girls,  as  straight  and  slim 

As  poplars  are  in  April — oh ! 
They  will  be  there  to  trouble  him, 

And  I  shall  never  know! 

And  he,  perhaps,  will  rise  and  stand 

Bare-browed  beneath  the  moon  and  stars, 

His  will  a  very  rope  of  sand, 
In  Night's  old  lupanars. 

You  golden  temptresses,  you  fair, 
Foam-breasted  phantoms  of  desire, 

Give  him  your  cup  of  sweet  despair, 
Chasten  his  flesh  with  fire ! 

Draw  him  a  draught  of  Circe's  wine, 
Scatter  an  incense  through  his  sleep — 

For  then  you  cannot  trouble  mine, 
That  will  be  far  too  deep. 


LESLIE  NELSON  JENNINGS. 


THE  DIAL 


GEORGE   DONLIN 


JOHN    DEWEY 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor 

CLARENCE   BRITTEN 

In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program. 

THORSTEIN  VEBLEN 


HAROLD  STEARNS 


HELEN  MAROT 


Jt5  OLSHEVISM  IS  A  MENACE  TO  THE  VESTED  INTER- 

ests  of  privilege  and  property.  This  is  the  golden 
text  which  illuminates  the  policies  pursued  by  the 
statesmen  of  the  Great  Powers  in  all  their  dealings 
with  Soviet  Russia.  Not  that  this  axiom  of  im- 
perialist statecraft  is  formally  written  into  the  Cove- 
nant of  the  League.  It  is  only  that  the  policies 
pursued  by  the  Elder  Statesmen  of  the  Great 
Powers  have  impeccably  followed  its  line.  What  is 
formally  written  into  the  documents  is  the  broad 
principle  of  self-determination.  But  in  the  measures 
taken  by  the  Elder  Statesmen,  unasked,  for  the  reg- 
ularization  of  Soviet  Russia  there  enters  no  shadow 
of  regard  for  the  principle  of  self-determination. 
All  of  which  appears  quite  reasonable  and  regular 
so  soon  as  it  is  illuminated  by  this  golden  text  of 
the  Elder  Statesmen,  that  Bolshevism  is  a  menace 
to  the  vested  interests  of  privilege  and  property. 
The  high  merit  as  well  as  the  high  necessity  o£  the 
resulting  maneuvers  of  repression  may  be  taken  for 
granted  as  a  matter  of  course.  No  question  of  the 
merit  of  these  maneuvers  is  admitted  either  by  the 
substantial  citizens  or  by  their  safe  and  sane  states- 
men. But  it  may  still  be  in  order  to  entertain  a 
question  as  to  what  measures  had  best  be  taken  in 
these  premises,  considering  the  means  in  hand  and 
the  circumstances  of  the  case,  considering  the  diffi- 
culties of  any  effectual  intervention  and  the  uneasy 
temper  of  the  underlying  peoples  with  which  these 
Elder  Statesmen  will  have  to  make  up  their  account. 
The  Russian  situation  is  by  no  means  simple  and 
its  details  are  sufficiently  obscure.  Yet  the  outlines 
of  it  are  visible  in  a  large  way,  and"  it  is  not  without 
a  certain  consistency.  And  it  is  a  perplexing  sit- 
uation that  faces  the  Elder  Statesmen  of  the  Great 
Powers.  By  and  large  Soviet  Russia  is  self-support- 
ing, beyond  any  other  considerable  body  of  popula- 
tion in  Europe,  and  it  is  correspondingly  difficult  to 
regulate  by  forcible  measures  from  outside.  The 
Russian  people  at  large  are  still  in  a  "  backward 
state  "  industrially.  So  that  they  are  used  to  de- 
pending on  a  home-grown  food  supply  and  on  local 
and  household  industry  for  the  ordinary  necessities 
of  life  in  the  way  of  clothing,  shelter,  fuel,  and 
transport^  At  the  same  time  they  also  have  the  use 
of  something  appreciable  in  the  way  of  a  machine 
industry,  widely  scattered  both  along  their  borders 
and  through  the  country  inland — enough  to  serve 
somewhat  sparingly  as  a  sufficient  auxiliary  to  their 


farm  and  household  industry  in  case  of  urgent  need. 
It  follows  that  any  protracted  continuation  of  the 
existing  blockade  of  imports  will  scarcely  starve 
Soviet  Russia  into  submission.  In  fact  it  could 
scarcely  do  more  than  starve  the  remnants  of  the 
vested  interests  in  Russia.  This  would  hold  true 
even  in  the  improbable  event  that  the  Great  Powers 
should  succeed  in  closing  the  ports  of  the  Pacific, 
Baltic,  and  Black  Sea  to  all  sea-borne  trade.  To 
hold  such  a  country  in  a  perpetual  stage  of  siege 
would  scarcely  be  a  profitable  enterprise,  since  there 
is  no  prospect  of  a  favorable  outcome,  and  since  a 
perpetuation  of  this  state  of  siege  would  bring  no 
gain  to  the  vested  interests  in  whose  behalf  the  en- 
terprise is  undertaken.  At  the  same  time  an  exten- 
sive campaign  of  occupation  and  forcible  control 
promises  no  better  solution,  inasmuch  as  the  Soviet 
Republic  is  proving  to  be  quite  formidable  in  the 
field,  and  since  the  amorphous  country  on  which  it 
draws  is  not  vulnerable  in  any  vital  part.  It  has 
the  defects  of  its  qualities,  but  it  has  also  the  quali- 
ties of  its  defects.  It  is  incapable  of  serious  aggres-  - 
sion,  but  it  is  also  incapable  of  conclusive  defeat  by 
force. 

Meantime  Soviet  Russia  offers  an  attractive  mar- 
ket for  such  American  products  as  machine  tools 
and  factory  equipment,  railway  material  and  roll- 
ing stock,  electrical  supplies,  farm  implements  and 
tools,  textiles,  wrought  leather  goods,  certain  food- 
stuffs and  certain  metals;  and  at  the  same  time  there 
is  waiting  a  large  volume  of  export  trade,  including 
such  things  as  grain  and  other  foodstuffs,  flax, 
hemp,  and  lumber.  Should  the  blockade  be  main- 
tained for  any  time  it  is  not  to  be  doubted  that  the 
illicit  trade  into  Soviet  Russia  in  all  these  things 
will  rise  to  unexampled  proportions — to  the  very 
substantial  profit  of  the  Scandinavians  and  other 
expert  smugglers  and  blockade  runners.  Meantime, 
too,  the  Great  Powers  whose  national  integrity  has 
now  been  provisionally  stabilized  by  America's  de- 
cisive participation  in  the  war  are  placing  an  em- 
bargo on  the  import  of  many  articles  into  the  Euro- 
pean market — in  practical  effect  an  embargo  on  the 
importation  of  these  American  products  for  which 
Soviet  Russia  is  now  making  a  cash  offer.  Soviet 
Russia  is  today  the  only  country  that  places  no  ob- 
stacles in  the  way  of  import  trade.  So  it  becomes 
an  interesting  question :  How  long  will  those  Amer- 
ican vested  interests  which  derive  an  income  from 


362 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


foreign  trade  have  the  patience  to  forego  an  assured 
profit  from  open  trade  with  Soviet  Russia  in  order 
to  afford  certain  European  vested  interests  a  dubi- 
ously problematical  chance  to  continue  getting  some- 
thing for  nothing  in  the  way  of  class  privilege  and 
unearned  income? 


'URING  THE  WAR  THE  FABLE  OF  THE  SYBILLINE 

books  was  frequently  quoted,  always  with  reference 
to  the  diminishing  opportunity  afforded  the  Central 
Powers  for  a  peace  of  repentance  and  pardon.  It  is 
the  irony  of  history  that  the  fable  has  acquired  a 
new  application — this  time  to  the  victorious  powers 
themselves.  It  is  to  them  that  the  fateful  figure  ap- 
pears offering  her  books  of  prophecy,  nine,  six,  three. 
And  the  question  with  each  diminished  opportunity 
is  more  insistent.  On  January  25,  THE  DIAL  said: 
"  The  fundamental  necessity  for  a  better  world  is  a 
sacrifice  of  the  instinct  for  possession.  .  .  If 
predatory  instincts,  sway  the  Conference  to  concern 
itself  chiefly  with  demands  for  territory,  indemnity, 
and  commercial  privilege  on  the  part  of  the  victors — 
then  indeed  the  rulers  of  the  world  will  have  proved 
once  more  their  unfitness,  and  this  time  the  people 
cannot  be  deceived."  The  events  of  the  past  two 
months  seem  to  have  justified  the  second  part  of  this 
prophecy.  Unquestionably  predatory  instincts  have 
governed  the  Conference.  The  talk  which  has 
emanated  from  Paris  has  been  of  how  much  Ger- 
many can  pay,  of  shutting  her  off  from  raw  ma- 
terials, of  granting  the  Saar  Valley  and  the  left 
bank  of  the  Rhine  to  France,  Danzig  to  Poland, 
and  of  extending  the  Italian  frontier  to  the  Bren- 
ner. Even  the  Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations, 
which  should  have  been  a  means  of  reconciliation, 
was  presented  in  the  guise  of  an  alliance  of  the  vic- 
torious nations,  and  the  generous  interpretation 
which  should  have  relieved  it  of  this  character  has 
not  been  forthcoming.  And  the  inevitable  has  hap- 
pened. Hungary,  frightened  by  an  unwarrantable 
extension  of  the  terms  of  the  Armistice,  and  threat- 
ened with  dismemberment,  has  followed  the  ex- 
ample of  France  in  1792,  has  committed  her  na- 
tional existence  directly  to  her  people.  Whether  the 
social  solvent  of  the  Soviet  form  of  government  will 
suffice  to  hold  in  solution  the  various  races  with 
nationalistic  ambitions  which  Hungary  includes  is 
not  yet  certain.  But  in  any  case  the  moving  finger 
has  written  another  syllable  of  the  mene,  mene, 
tekel,  upharsin  on  the  walls  within  which  Belshazzar 
keeps  his  feast  at  Paris.  Upon  President  Wilson, 
as  upon  no  other  of  the  Allied  statesmen,  the  re- 
sponsibility rests.  It  is  fair  to  say  that  all  the  ques- 
tions which  have  delayed  peace  and  made  Paris  a 
Babel  of  discord  were  settled  in  principle  by  the 
statement  of  war  aims  which  he  gave  to  his  allies 
and  to  his  enemies.  They  were  accepted  by  the 
former  with  full  acquiescence,  in  spite  of  his  invita- 
tion to  them  to  discuss  or  dissent.  Thev  were 


understood  by  the  latter  and  thus  became  a  part  of 
that  political,  or  rather  moral,  offensive  which  con- 
tributed to  their  undoing.  Above  all  they  were  ad- 
dressed to  his  fellow  countrymen  as  the  interpreta- 
tion of  the  cause  for  which  they  were  fighting.  To 
all — allies,  enemies,  and  fellow-citizens — President 
Wilson  assumed  obligations  of  the  most  solemn 
kind,  involving  not  only  his  own  personal  honor  but 
the  honor  of  his  country.  He  knows  this,  as  he 
knows  the  result  if  he  fail.  The  fateful  words  of 
his  Boston  speech  were  spoken  in  solemn  remem- 
brance of  the  power  which  he  has  invoked:  "  They 
[the  people]  are  in  the  saddle,  and  they  are 
going  to  see  to  it:  that  if  the  present  governments  do 
not  do  their  will,  some  other  governments  shall." 


A 


SINISTER  NOTE  IN  THE  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  THE 

Conference  is  the  fact  that  the  four  leading  partners 
have  taken  frankly  to  the  practice  of  secret  negotia- 
tion, and  it  is  significant  that  this  is  coincident  with 
the  revolution  in  Hungary.  They  are  confronted 
by  a  second  people  choosing  the  path  of  immediate 
self-determination,  and  their  decision  what  course  to 
take  is  apparently  not  to  be  an  "  open  covenant 
openly  arrived  at."  But  this  case  differs  from  the 
Russian  situation  in  that  the  secrecy  cannot  long  be 
maintained,  and  the  action  of  the  representatives  at 
Paris  will  be  subject  to  quick  consideration  and  re- 
vision by  the  people  whom  they  represent.  Should 
the  conferees  undertake  the  forcible  suppression  of 
Soviet  and  other  efforts  at  self-determination  there 
will  be  war,  unorganized  war  as  well  as  organized. 
In  such  war  the  bitter-enders  will  fight.  If  a  reign 
of  terror  overwhelms  Europe  the  responsibility  will 
fall  on  the  Supreme  Council  for  its  failure  to  recog- 
nize that  the  real  forces  of  reorganization  are  to  be 
found  within  the  movements  of  the  people.  These 
movements  are  not  comparable,  as  the  Councilors 
seem  to  believe,  to  a  general  strike  in  one  or  more  in- 
dustries. The  colossal  proportions  of  the  movement 
as  a  whole  have  to  do  not  only  with  its  extent  but 
with  its  character.  It  is  a  movement  in  which 
people  know  what  they  want  and,  as  they  are  op- 
posed, will  arm  and  fight  to  get  it.  Military 
repression  of  this  particular  kind  of  want  intensifies 
the  desire  for  it  and  induces  the  support  of  those 
who  were  neutral.  Blockades  become  boomerangs, 
since  hunger  and  deprivation  feed  such  movements. 
The  present  movement  in  Central  Europe  and  Great 
Britain  is  an  indication  of  an  international  con- 
sciousness of  common  interest.  Before  the  people 
have  had  time  to  recover  themselves  from  the  ex- 
haustions of  war-  they  are  faced  with  the  startling 
fact  that  the  self-determination  for  which  they 
fought  has  not  been  won;  that  neither«the  Peace 
Conference  nor  the  Supreme  Council  has  given  a 
sign  of  granting  it.  When  the  statesmen  who  rep- 
resented the  old  order  directed  their  appeal  to  the 
people  in  terms  of  altruistic  patriotism  they  little 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


363 


guessed  the  forces  with  which  they  were  conjuring. 
The  people  answered  the  appeal  to  arms  and  fought 
for  a  different  kind  of  world,  a  world  in  which 
democracy  was  to  be  lived  for  rather  than  died  for. 
This  current  which  is  rising  with  uncontrollable 
power  is  free  of  old  diplomacy  and  political  domi- 
nation; to  dam  it  means  world  catastrophe.  What 
it  needs  is  time;  a  chance  to  harness  and  generate 
power  more  potent  in  human  welfare  than  devices 
of  statecraft  hatched  in  the  capitals  of  the  old  world, 
which  is  passing. 


SABOTAGE  is  ONE  OF  THE  LATE  AND  FORMID- 
able  loan-words  of  the  English  language.  At  the 
same  time  it  has  also  some  currency  in  other  lan- 
guages, as  would  be  expected  in  the  case  of  a  loan- 
word which  fills  so  notable  a  place  in  common 
speech,  since  the  facts  which  call  for  the  use  of 
such  a  new  word  are  sure  to  range  beyond  the 
frontiers  of  any  one  language.  In  all  this  the  word 
has  the  company  of  such  other  late  comers  as 
"  camouflage  "  and  "  bolshevism."  And  not  much 
different  is  the  case  of  such  late-come,  home-bred 
terms  as  "  graft  "  and  "  goodwill,"  and  "intangible 
assets  "  and  "  vested  interests."  Whether  they  are 
borrowed  from  abroad  or  are  made  over  from 
innocent  home-grown  words,  all  these  half-  technical 
terms  that  are  making  their  way  into  common  use 
to  describe  notable  facts  lack  that  sharp  definition 
that  belongs  to  words  of  the  ancient  line.  There 
is  always  something  of  metaphor  or  analogy  about 
them,  and  the  meaning  attached  to  their  use  in 
common  speech  is  neither  precise  nor  uniform.  They 
are  still  more  or  less  unfamiliar;  they  seem  uncouth 
and  alien,  but  they  make  good  their  intrusion  into 
the  language  by  becoming  indispensable.  They  are 
needed  for  present  use  to  describe  facts  which  are 
very  much  in  evidence  and  which  are  not  otherwise 
provided  for. 

Of  course,  the  facts  described  by  such  late  word- 
growths  as  "  graft,"  "  sabotage,"  "  camouflage,"  or 
"  bolshevism  "  are  not  altogether  new,  nor  nearly  so; 
but  they  count  for  more  now  than  they  have  done 
in  the  past,  and  so  it  has  become  necessary  to  find 
words  for  them.  As  a  fact  of  history,  graft  is  at 
least  as  old  as  the  early  Egyptian  dynasties,  and 
sabotage  is  quite  inseparable  from  the  price  sys- 
tem, so  that  its  beginnings  can  scarcely  fail  to  be 
as  ancient  as  the  love  of  money.  It  is  perhaps 
the  first-born  of  those  evils  that  have  been  said  to 
be  rooted  in  the  love  of  money.  Doubtless  graft  and 
sabotage  have  been  running  along  together  through 
human  history  from  its  beginning.  We  should  all 
find  it  very  difficult  to  get  our  bearings  in  any 
period  of  history  or  any  state  of  society  which  might 
by  any  chance  not  be  shot  through  with  both.  Still 
those  ancients  who  passed  before  the  last  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century  had  not  the  use  of  these 
technical  terms  to  describe  the  facts,  with  which 


they  seem  all  the  while  to  have  been  familiar 
enough.  It  may  have  been  because  the  facts  of 
graft  and  sabotage,  however  massive  and  wide- 
reaching  they  doubtless  were  in  those  past  times, 
did  not,  after  all,  then  stand  out  in  such  bold  relief 
on  the  face  of  things.  But  things  have  moved 
forward  since  then.  And  quite  plainly  now,  since 
the  price  system  and  all  its  ways,  means,  #nd  ends 
have  reached  that  mature  development  which  is 
familiar  to  this  generation,  both  of  these  terms 
have  become  indispensable  in  common  and  current 
speech. 

IN  CONGRESS-. THE  PRACTICE  OF  SABOTAGE  HAS 
long  enjoyed  another  imported  and  figurative  name, 
also  drawn  from  footgear — "  filibuster,"  the  onoma- 
topoetic  equivalent  of  "  freebooter."  Respectable  as 
familiarity  has  made  this  political  device,  it  is  by  in- 
tent and  effect  sheer  sabotage.  Witness  the  pres- 
ent plight  of  the  Railroad  Administration  and  other 
bureaus,  deprived  of  their  necessary  and  in  most 
cases  unopposed  appropriations  because  the  late 
Congress,  in  order  to  force  an  extra  session  in  which 
to  protect  its  constitutional  function  in  foreign  af- 
fairs, deliberately  refused  to  perform  its  domestic 
functions  and  adjourned  without  providing  funds  to 
keep  the  governmental  machine  running  during  its 
absence.  With  a  touching  solicitude  the  Congress- 
men provided  for  the  salaries  of  their  secretaries, 
but  they  made  no  provision  for  their  wage-workers 
in  the  lobbies  of  the  two  chambers.  And  while  they 
take  the  spring  air  in  cities  whose  street-cleaning  de- 
partments do  not  depend  upon  federal  appropria- 
tion, the  government  clerks  they  have  left  behind  in 
Washington  walk  to  work  that  is,  in  many  cases, 
temporarily  unpaid,  through  streets  that  are  un- 
swept  because  Congress  went  on  strike.  Nobody 
believes,  of  course,  that  the  governmental  machine 
will  stop  for  lack  of  the  withheld  fuel ;  and  in  most 
departments  the  results  of  the  Congressional  strike 
will  be  more  ludicrous  than  .important.  One  bureau 
however  has  been  throttled  in  its  hour  of  utmost 
need.  The  Federal  Employment  Service  suddenly 
finds  itself  with  funds  to  operate  less  than  sixty  of 
its  seven  hundred  placement  agencies,  and  must  ap- 
peal, to  states  and  municipalities  to  keep  open  as 
many  of  these  offices  as  possible.  Its  personnel,  re- 
cently assembled  at  great  pains,  is  again  scattered, 
and  its  training  school  closed.  Meanwhile  demobil- 
ization continues  and  unemployment  mounts.  At 
best  we  have  taken  too  little  interest  in  finding  jobs 
for  our  war  workers  and  returned  soldiers.  And 
congressional  tactics  that  slow  down  our  all  too  in- 
adequate machinery  for  returning  these  hands  to 
productive  industry  is  really — no  matter  at  whom  it 
is  directed  nor  how  it  is  dignified  in  parliamentary 
parlance — straight  sabotage  on  business,  on  labor, 
an.d  on  the  people  at  large,  the  form  of  sabotage 
known  as  striking  on  the  job. 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


Communications 

To  THE  SECRETARY  OF  WAR 

MY  DEAR  MR.  BAKER  :  I  enclose  a  clipping  from 
a  report  of  the  discharge  of  113  military  prisoners 
from  Fort  Leavenworth.  A  well-known  woman,  a 
publicist  of  note,  and,  I  may  add,  a  member  of  one 
of  the  largest  and  most  progressive  churches  in  this 
city,  has  just  returned  from  there,  where  she  talked 
with  a  number  of  the  prisoners.  She  reports  that 
the  city  is  one  of  the  vilest  in  the  country.  That 
conditions  in  the  prison  are  vile  goes  without  say- 
ing. Fine,  idealistic,  clean  young  men  are  forced  to 
see  before  their  eyes  at  all  hours  of  the  day  the 
most  revolting  phases  of  sodomy;  are  forced  to  live 
in  filth;  to  say  nothing  of  being  subjected  to  the 
autocratic  and  brutal  activities  of  men  who  are  not 
worthy  to  black  their  shoes,  but  who,  by  virtue  of 
military  authority  vested  in  them,  can  "  go  the 
limit  "  in  the  endeavor  to  break  the  men's  spirits ! 

A  young  man  recently  discharged  from  Fort 
Leavenworth,  speaking  to  a  group  recently  (with 
no  bitterness  of  spirit,  no  exaggeration,  but  with  an 
almost  unbelievable  restraint),  said  that  when  the 
military  authorities  had  broken  a  man's  spirit  they 
felt  that  they  had  done  their  duty.  That  was 
success  as  they  saw  it;  but  think  of  what  it  means 
to  the  individual,  and  think  of  the  loss  to  the  man- 
hood of  the  nation!  The  man  who  will  suffer  for 
conscience's  sake  is,  as  President  Wilson  said,  of 
unusual  spiritual  fiber  or  intellectual  independence. 
And  what  have  we  done  to  hundreds  of  such  men? 
Some  have  died ;  others  will  never  recover  physically 
from  the  treatment  that  has  been  meted  out  to 
them — and  our  government  stands  before  the  world, 
responsible  for  these  crimes! 

Is  it  not  time  that  we,  as  well  as  Russia,  recog- 
nized the  worth  of  human  beings  in  general,  and 
acknowledged  the  particular  worth  of  these  splendid 
young  men  who  are  standing  for  liberty  of  con- 
science— for  the  democracy  that  our  Constitution 
outlines,  but  which  our  authorities  disregard  in  the 
most  barefaced  manner  imaginable? 

The  machinery  of  release  of  these  political  pris- 
oners (to  recognize  whom,  officially,  would  be  to 
deny  the  democratic  ideals  that  we  have  got  so  far 
away  from)  has  been  some  time  starting.  However 
can  it  not  be  speeded  up? 

A  large  audience  of  relatives  and  friends  gath- 
ered last  week  to  hear  two  speakers  on  this  subject. 
They  want  their  husbands,  and  brothers,  and  sweet- 
hearts, and  friends  back,  and  they  should  have  them 
'as  soon  as  is  humanly  possible!  A  few  days'  delay 
may  mean  death  to  some,  now  nearly  broken !  Two 
great  souls  have  recently  gone — physically  too  frail 
to  stand  the  treatment;  spiritually  too  strong  to 
desert  their  ideals.  How  many  more  are  to  go  the 
same  way?  The  people  of  the  country  are  putting 
this  question  up  to  you. 

BLANCHE  WATSON. 

New  York  City,  Jan.  23, 


MY  DEAR  Miss  WATSON:  Your  letter  of 
January  23  has  been  referred  to  me. 

The  War  Department  immediately  upon  having 
conditions  at  the  Disciplinary  Barracks  called  to  its 
attention,  instituted  an  investigation.  The  report 
of  that  investigation  disclosed  the  fact  that  the 
trouble  at  Leavenworth,  which  centered  entirely 
about  two  or  three  men,  was  due,  not  at  all  to  the 
administration  of  the  prison,  but  to  the  regulations 
which  were  ill  adapted  to  the  unusual  type  of  pris- 
oner that  the  Selective  Service  Act  brought  to  mili- 
tary prisons.  The  Secretary  at  once  made  some 
appropriate  modifications  of  those  regulations  and 
has  called  a  conference  to  consider  further  changes 
in  disciplinary  regulations,  not  only  to  meet  this 
unusual  condition  but  to  bring  the  Army's  disciplin- 
ary methods  up  to  the  most  modern  penological 
standards,  in  case  they  shall  be  found  to  be  deficient. 
The  conference  will  also  consider  ways  of  meeting 
the  immediate  emergency  of  the  overcrowding  of 
disciplinary  barracks  due  to  the  increased  size  of 
the  Army  during  the  war.  The  conference  will 
come  to  its  conclusions  in  the  near  future  and  you 
may  be  assured  that  action  leading  out  of  its  con- 
clusions will  be  promptly  taken. 

F.  P.  KEPPEL, 
Third  Assistant  Secretary. 

Washington,  D.  C.,  Jan.  28,  IQIQ. 

DEAR  SIR  :  The  communication  received  in  reply 
to  my  letter  from  the  third  Assistant  Secretary  of 
the  Department  of  Jan.  23  is,  may  I  say,  most  un- 
satisfactory, and  it  is  a  perfect  example,  moreover, 
of  the  official  inefficiency  and  stupidity  that  has  char- 
acterized the  activities  of  the  War  Department 
during  the  past  two  years. 

In  the  first  place  it  is  a  "  form  "  letter,  supposed 
to  reply  to  all  communications,  and  in  reality  reply- 
ing to  none. 

In  the  second  place  the  form  is  nobody  knows 
how  old.  Note  the  phrase  "  due  to  the  increased 
size  of  the  army  during  the  war!  " 

In  the  third  place  it  wholly  ignores  the  main 
content  of  my  letter — the  speedy  discharge  of  all  of 
the  so-called  political  prisoners,  whether  in  Leaven- 
worth or  anywhere  else.  Public  sentiment  is 
thoroughly  aroused  on  this  subject,  and  letters  such 
as  the  one  to  which  I  refer  above  are  not  going  to 
temper  it  any.  The  matter  is  much  too  serious,  and 
it  is  one  that  too  deeply  concerns  the  honor  of  the 
United  States  government,  to  permit  "the  treatment 
that  the  War  Department  seems  inclined  to  give  it. 

The  imprisonment  of  these  men  and  women  is  in 
defiance  of  the  law  of  the  land  and  in  complete 
violation  of  the  spirit  of  our  American  democracy. 
The  War  Department  cannot,  I  realize,  "  recog- 
nize "  them  without  admitting  that  our  boasted 
democracy  no  longer  exists;  but  it  can  free  them, 
at  once,  one  and  all,  and  permit  tardy  reparation  to 
atone,  insofar  as  is  possible,  for  outrageous  mal- 
administration, and  an  official  shortsightedness  and 
stupidity  that  borders  on  criminality. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


365 


This,  permit  me  to  say,  is  a  personal  communica- 
tion, but  it  expresses  a  countrywide  demand  for 
justice.  BLANCHE  WATSON. 

New  York  City,  Jan.  30,  1919. 

MY  DEAR  Miss  WATSON:  Your  letter  of  Jan. 
30  has  been  referred  to  me.  You  evidently  did  not 
understand  the  letter  which  I  wrote  to  you  on 
January  23.  The  increased  size  of  the  Army  during 
the  war  still  influences  the  size  of  the  present  popu- 
lation of  the  Disciplinary  Barracks,  as  you  will 
realize  upon  consideration. 

The  only  group  of  the  so-called  political  prisoners 
who  come  under  the  War  Department  is  composed 
of  that  small  per  cent  of  the  drafted  men  professing 
conscientious  objections  who  have  been -court  mar- 
tialed  and  are  serving  sentence  in  Disciplinary  Bar- 
racks. Representatives  of  the  Secretary  are  reviewing 
all  such  cases  at  present  and  1 1 3  of  these  men  have 
already  been  discharged  on  their  recommendations. 
However,  the  War  Department  has  decided  that  it 
would  not  feel  justified  in  extending  on  the  basis  of 
conscientious  objections  the  same  immediate  clem- 
ency to  the  men  who  refused  all  service  for  their 
country  that  has  been  extended  to  those  who  by 
error  or  accident  were  not  given  the  opportunity 
for  such  service.  F  p  KEPPEL, 

Third  Assistant  Secretary. 

Washington,  D.  C.,  Feb.  13,  1919. 

SIR:  After  reading  in  the  New  York  Times  of 
January  23  the  memorandum  of  Secretary  Baker 
concerning  the  release  of  some  conscientious  ob- 
jectors from  Fort  Leavenworth,  one  finds  himself 
somewhat  perplexed  over  the  policy  of  the  War 
Department  in  this  respect. 

According  to  this  statement  the  released  men 
comprise  two  groups.  The  first  consists  of  those 
men  who  had  been  recommended  for  farm  furloughs 
which  they  had  not  received  because  of  delay  in  the 
execution  of  the  plan.  The  second  is  composed  of 
those  men  whom  the  "  Board  of  Inquiry  now  find 
to  be  sincere,  and  who  in  their  judgment  would 
have  been  recommended  for  furloughs  if  they  had 
had  the  opportunity  of  being  examined  by  the  Board 
of  Inquiry  before  the  court-martial  proceedings." 
But,  one  asks,  what  does  the  Board  of  Inquiry  con- 
sider necessary  to  establish  the  sincerity  of  a  con- 
scientious objector?  Surely  the  steadfastness  with 
which  he  has  clung  to  his  declaration  of  objections 
can  be  but  a  small  part  of  the  test,  for  every  ob- 
jector in  Fort  Leavenworth  was  there  because  he 
had  maintained  his  position  in  spite  of  threats,  ridi- 
cule, court-martial,  and  even  physical  torture — and 
only  113  of  them  were  released.  If  the  Board  took 
cognizance  of  the  reasons  given  by  the  men  for 
their  refusal  to  accept  military  service,  what  reasons 
did  it  consider  of  sufficient  validity  to  establish  the 
sincerity  of  the  person  advancing  them?  If,  as  has 
been  done  in  some  cases,  the  War  Department  is 


following  the  definition  of  the  conscientious  objector 
which  distinguishes  him  from  a  political  objector  in 
that  his  motives  are  purely  religious,  it  is  obvious 
that  only  those  men  whose  attitude  was  based  on 
religious  convictions  were  given  a  chance  to  prove 
their  sincerity.  In  that  event  are  all  the  men  who 
derive  their  views  from  political  theory  to  be  con- 
sidered in  a  later  hearing,  or  are  they  to  be  labeled 
"  insincere "  and  left  to  serve  long  prison  terms 
because,  in  the  eyes  of  military  law,  no  man  can 
conscientiously  hold  political  opinions  varying  from 
those  of  the  majority? 

But  perhaps  it  is  not  a  man's  philosophy,  or  his 
steadfastness  in  maintaining  a  course  of  action  in 
conformity  with  his  belief,  that  proves  his  integrity 
of  purpose  and  fitness  to  resume  the  duties  of  a 
citizen.  Possibly  this  second  group  is  composed  of 
only  those  men  who  were  able  to  answer  in  the 
affirmative  the  hypothetical  question :  "  If  you  had 
been  offered  a  farm  furlough  before  you  were  court- 
martialed,  would  you  have  accepted?"  But  why 
should  willingness  to  accept  a  farm  furlough  be 
made  the  criterion  for  judging  which  of  our  polit- 
ical prisoners  should  be  granted  amnesty?  Could 
not  a  man  be  "  sincere  "  in  holding  the  position  that 
all  assistance  to  war  is  wrong,  even  such  forms  of 
non-combatant  service  as  farm  labor? 

To  be  brief,  is  there  anything  in  this  memoran- 
dum of  Mr.  Baker's  that  can  be  taken  as  an  indi- 
cation of  a  liberal  policy  on  the  part  of  the  War 
Department  toward  a  large  group  of  objectors  who 
have  based  their  opposition  to  the  war  on  political 
convictions,  and  who  have,  or  would  have,  refused 
all  forms  of  non-combatant  as  well  as  combatant 
service  ? 

JEAN  SAUNDERS. 

Washington,  D.  C. 

How  TO  DISPOSE  OF  INTELLECTUALS 

SIR:  I  have  read  the  communication  from  Mr. 
E.  C.  Ross  in  regard  to  the  intellectuals  who  are 
always  stirring  up  trouble.  There  is  one  point 
which  he  left  out,  and  that  is  the  method  of  gather- 
ing up  and  disposing  of  such  persons,  taking  into  con- 
sideration the  fact  that  this  is  a  democratic  country. 

In  ancient  and  barbarous  times  these  people  were 
handled  very  roughly.  They  were  shut  up  in  dun- 
geons, tortured,  and  many  of  them  burned  alive \ 
but  in  our  highly  civilized  and  humanely  democratic 
time,  this  sort  of  punishment  should  not  be  allowed. 

These  intellectuals  should  be  rounded  up,  shipped 
in  cattle  cars  to  some  centralized  stock  yards — 
Chicago,  for  instance — and  there  be  allowed  to  vote 
on  the  question  as  to  where  the  penal  farm  should 
be  established,  the  majority  to  decide.  They  should 
be  given  several  choices — say,  Montana,  Alaska, 
Lower  California,  or  Death  Valley.  Democracy. 
That's  me  all  over. 

A.  L.  BlGLER. 
'Norfolk,  Virginia. 


366 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


Notes  on  New  Books 

OLD-DAD.      By    Eleanor     Hallowell    Abbot. 
Dutton;  $1.50. 

Victorian  damsels  in  pattens  could  boast  no  more 
impenetrable  innocence  than  the  heroine  of  this 
story;  but  given  the  most  romantic  of  them,  and 
she  in  a  gold-lined  nightmare  of  an  even  less,  cred- 
ible swiftness,  one  might  hope  in  vain  for  such 
colossal  idiocy.  Daphne  Bretton,  aged  eighteen,  is 
suddenly  expelled  from  a  prim  little  college  for 
"  having  a  boy  in  her  room — at  night."  After  tell- 
ing her  father  of  her  disgrace,  she  gasps,  "  What  is 
it  about  boys  that  makes  it  so  wicked  to  have  them 
around  ?  "  pitching  headlong — quite  consistently 
with  her  role — in  a  dead  faint  at  his  feet.  Then 
follows  a  fantastically  saccharine  kaleidoscope  of 
adventures,  punctuated  with  kisses  and  revelations, 
which  flash  across  a  vivid  landscape  in  Florida. 
And  all  this  time  the  heroine  goes  blithely  along, 
trailing  clouds  of  the  densest  ignorance  of  every 
situation  about  her,  adoring  and  running  away 
from  her  clever  father,  wondering  at  and  running 
away  with  a  dissipated  young  stranger.  Fortu- 
nately she  is  rescued  from  this  fate,  and  on  page 
230  we  are  given  a  conversation  between  her  and 
her  eventual  consort  which  brings  to  mind  a 
famous  column  in  a  Chicago  paper — nine  consecu- 
tive remarks  are  ushered  in  by  the  nine  interlocu- 
tory verbs:  pawed,  shivered,  scoffed,  worried, 
stammered,  winced,  apologized,  purred,  acqui- 
esced. Seriously,  this  is  the  sort  of  book  which,  by 
reason  of  vague  and  romantic  amorality,  is  nearer 
perversion  than  many  a  less  aspiring  volume.  The 
book  is  advertised  as  "  a  sure  cure  for  the  blues," 
when  the  very  suggestion  that  half  a  dozen  such 
people  inhabit  the  same  sphere  is  depressing  in 
itself. 

HELEN    OF   TROY   AND    ROSE.      By    Phyllis 
Bottome.     Century;  $1.35. 

These  two  studies  of  women's  temperaments 
are  handled  with  the  delicacy  and  insight  that  mark 
much  of  Phyllis  Bottome's  work.  With  deft, 
swift  touches  she  suggests  atmosphere  and  situa- 
tions that  other  writers  might  take  pages  to  pre- 
sent and  thus  these  stories  that  might  each  have 
rilled  a  volume  can  be  included  iji  a  book  rather 
shorter  than  an  ordinary  novel.  Although  they 
are  strongly  differentiated  in  plot  and  treatment, 
each  of  them  deals  with  fundamentally  the  same 
theme — the  matrimonial  problems  of  an  English- 
man. One  is  inclined  to  stress  the  point  of  na- 
tionality, because  the  difficulties  of  the  heroine  seem 
to  come  from  traits  largely  inherent  in  their  na- 
tionality and  training.  Anyone  acquainted  with 
the  educational  ideal  in  England  as  it  concerns  the 
emotions,  or  who  has  read  Mr.  Wells'  study  of 
education  in  that  country  before  the  war  in  Joan 


and  Peter,  must  be  aware  how  unfitted  by  training 
is  the  average  reserved  English  girl  of  the  upper 
classes  to  cope  with  the  varied  phases  of  passion. 
She  is  brought  up  to  despise,  deny,  and  suppress 
her  emotions,  to  taboo  romance  and  sentiment  as 
"  soppiness,"  and  to  aim,  above  all  things,  at  self- 
control.  Fortunately  there  are  forces  at  work  in 
human  nature  that  counteract  such  one-sided  train- 
ing and  insist  on  some  sort  of  self-expression,  but 
the  training  bears  fruit  in  inhibitions  that  are  diffi- 
cult to  overcome  and  that  lead  frequently  to  mis- 
adjustment  and  misunderstanding.  One  of  Phyllis 
Bottome's  heroines  marries  the  typica|, ^Englishman 
who  fears  "  a  scene,"  but  who  needs  one  to  bring 
him  to  his  senses;  while  the  other  marries  the 
typical  Frenchman  who  would  rather  enjoy  one. 
Each  story  shows  the  suffering  that  comes  from  the 
wife's  unselfish  but  mistaken  suppression  of  her 
personal  feelings,  but  the  solution  of  each  is  due 
to  the  exercise  of  the  same  virtue,  prompted  by  a 
deep  and  moving  passion.  The  lightness  and  charm 
of  the  style  in  which  they  are  told,  and  the  un- 
obtrusive epigrams  that  are  to  be  found  here  and 
there,  cover  a  sound  and  serious  psychology  which 
gives  these  otherwise  somewhat  slight  stories  a 
verv  real  value. 


YASHKA:   MY  LIFE  AS   PEASANT,   OFFICER 
AND  EXILE.     By  Maria  Botchkareva.     Stokes; 

$2. 

The  story  of  Maria  Botchkareva,  as  set  down  by 
Isaac  Don  Levine,  may  be  recommended  to  all 
lovers  of  a  thrilling  tale.  To  enemies  of  the  Bol- 
sheviki  it  has  the  added  charm  of  painting  a  blood- 
freezing  picture  of  Bolshevism.  A  scene  like  that 
of  the  "  Bolshevik  death-trap  "  is,  from  both  points 
of  view,  almost  too  good  to  be  true:  a  field  heaped 
with  the  corpses  of  murdered  men ;  Yashka  lined  up 
with  twenty  officers  to  be  shot ;  a  humane  Bolshevik 
(there  are  such,  it  seems)  trying  to  persuade  a 
bloodthirsty  fellow-officer  to  grant  a  reprieve  to 
Yashka;  dramatic  recognition  of  Yashka  by  a  sol- 
dier whose  life  she  had  saved ;  his  noble  "gesture — 
"  If  you  shoot  her,  you  will  have  to  shoot  me  first!  " 
— Yashka  is  saved,  the  twenty  officers  brutally  mur- 
dered. Scarcely  less  exciting  is  the  account  of 
Botchkareva's  early  life,  a  story  reminiscent  of 
Gorky  in  its  scenes  of  poverty,  hard  labor,  floggings, 
drunkenness,  brutality.  Obeying  an  inner  voice — 
"Go  to  war  to  save  thy  country!" — Botchkareva 
exchanged  the  dreariness  of  Siberian  exile 'for  the 
miseries,  the  heroism,  and  the  comradeship  of  the 
trenches.  Alarmed  at  the  crumbling  of  discipline 
under  the  flood  of  talk  released  by  the  Revolution, 
she  conceived  and  carried  out  the  organization  of 
the  Women's  Battalion  of  Death,  in  the  hope  of 
shaming  the  men.  The  story  of  that  battalion  is 
the  pathetic  story  of  a  lost  cause.  The  enterprise 
was  swamped,  together  with  "  all  that  was  good 


IQI9 


THE  DIAL 


367 


STRUGGLING  RUSSIA 

A  New  Weekly  Magazine  Devoted  to  Russian  Problems 


The  It  sues  of  March  22d  and  March  29th  are  Out 

AMONG  OTHER  ARTICLES  THEY   CONTAIN: 

Struggling  Russia  and  Russia's  Inevitable 
Resurrection  —  Editorials      -       -       A-  J-   SACK 

What  is  Bolshevism  ?      and  Allied  Help  and 
Intervention  in  Russia  CATHERINE  BRESHKOVSKY 

Russia  and  the  Allies    -      ALEXANDER   KERENSKV 

Russia  and  the  Peace  Conference 

NICHOLAS  TCHAIKOVSKY 

Did  Paul  Miliukov  "betray"  the  Allied  Cause? 

An  Interview  with  the  former  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs  in  the  Russian  Provisional  Government. 

Russia's  Struggle  for  Unity  and  Freedom 

PAUL  MILIUKOV 

The  Bolsheviki  and  the  Socialists  of  Europe 
and  America        -        -        -  PAUL  AXELKOD 

The  Voluntary  Army  in  Southern  Russia 

A.    A.    TlTOV 

A  United  Russia  from  the  Economic  Point  of  View 

N.    NOUDMAX 

News  from  Russia  (weekly  cable  letters) 

VLADIMIR  BOUUTZEV 
Cable  News 

From  the  Russian  Telegraphic  Agency  at  Omsk 
Russian  Documents: 

In  the  issue  of  March  22d 

1.  Zinoviev's  speech  before  the  Petrograd  Soviet. 
about  the  Prinkipo  Conference;  2.  Red  Terror  in 
Russia,  as  told  by  the  Bolsheviki  themselves; 

3.  Civil  liberties  in  Russia  under  Bolshevist  rule; 

4.  Russia  and  the  Czecho-Slovaks;  5.  Tcheidze 
and  Tzeretelli  on  the  situation  in  Russia. 

In  the  issue  of  March  29th 

1.  An  Appeal  to  the  American  People,  by  Nicholas 
Tchaikovsky,  Boris  Savinkov,  Vladimir  Bourtzev, 
Vladimir  Lebedeff,  Alexander  Titov  and  other 
representatives  of  Revolutionary  Russia;  2.  A 
Memorandum  of  the  Political  Parties  and  Groups 
in  Southern  Russia  to  the  Allied  Governments; 
3.  The  Russian  Workingmen  against  the  Bolshe- 
viki; 4.  The  Siberian  Zemstovs  and  Municipal- 
ities on  Allied  Intervention;  5.  Did  the  Socialists- 
Revolutionists  and  the  Menshevlkl  unite  with 
the  Bolsheviki? 


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368 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


and  noble  in  Russia,"  in  the  tide  of  "  destruction 
and  ignorance."  "  One  did  not  want  to  live."  But 
Yashka  nevertheless  fought  gallantly  for  her  life 
in  all  her  subsequent  hair-raising  adventures,  and 
finally  escaped  from  Vladivostok  to  plead  in  Amer- 
ica and  England  for  the  assistance  of  Allied  arms 
against  the  Bolsheviki. 

Those  who  enjoy  mystifying  themselves  over  the 
interpretation  of  the  Russian  soul  may  join  Mr. 
Levine  in  regarding  this  "  phenomenal  rustic  as  a 
symbol  of  the  Russian  people.  The  rest  may  re- 
joice with  an  easy  conscience  in  the  fascinating 
record  of  human  experience. 

BLIND:  A  Comedy  in  One  Act.  By  Seumas 
O'Brien.  Flying  Stag  Plays.  Washington 
Square  Bookshop;  35  cts. 
THE  SLAVE  WITH  Two  FACES:  An  Allegory 
in  One  Act.  By  Mary  Carolyn  Davies.  Fly- 
ing Stag  Plays.  Washington  Square  Book- 
shop; 35  cts. 

Seumas  O'Brien  has  attempted  to  do  a  Lady 
Gregory  comedy,  but  alas  his  talent  is  not  suf- 
ficient. The  Davies  play  is  better.  It  is  indeed 
one  of  the  justifications  for  the  work  of  the  Prov- 
incetown  Players.  At  a  time  when  allegories  are 
far-fetched  and  literary,  she  has  evoked  a  simple 
fresh  allegory  of  life  in  decent  dramatic  form. 
Life  is  a  slave  who  behaves  towards  us  as  a  will- 
ing submissive  bondsman  if  we  adopt  a  high- 
handed courageous  attitude,  or  as  a  cruel  murdering 
brute  if  we  falter  and  conciliate  him.  Therefore 
let  us  always  wear  our  royal  crowns  in  the  presence 
of  the  slave,  Life.  Such  is  the  theme,  a  theme  capa- 
ble of  being  worked  into  a  masterpiece  by  a  writer 
with  more  patience,  more  depth,  more  power — 
someone  more  like  Andreyev,  let  us  say — than  the 
prolific  and  hasty  Mary  Carolyn  Davies. 

RISE  OF  THE  SPANISH- AM  ERIC  AN  REPUBLICS  : 
As  Told  in  the  Lives  of  Their  Liberators.  By 
William  Spence  Robertson.  Appleton;  $3. 

The  American  side  of  Spanish  history  is  for  us — 
and  must  eventually  become  for  the  whole  world — 
the  important  side.  As  a  European  state  Spain  will 
live  long  and  be  remembered;  but  it  is  as  an  Amer- 
ican civilization  that  she  bids  fair  to  become  great. 
Spanish  histories,  limited  as  is  Chapman's,  glance 
with  too  indirect  an  eye  at  the  Indies;  the  interest 
and  intention  are  present,  and  the  publishers  very 
properly  advertise  that  an  understanding  of  Spanish 
America  must  be  founded  in  an  understanding  of 
Spain;  but  it  is  impossible  for  a  historian  who  is 
dealing  with  a  mother  country  to  see  centrally  her 
colonial  empire — the  colonies  must  find  their  own 
historians.  Professor  Robertson  is  among  those  who 
have  of  late  embarked  upon  the  Latin  American 


voyage,  and  he  brings  us  his  early  cargo  in  a  series 
of  studies  of  the  careers  and  characters  of  those 
Latin  American  leaders — Miranda,  Hidalgo,  Itur- 
bide,  Moreno,  San  Martin,  Bolivar,  and  others — 
who  in  the  years  from  1808  to  1831  succeeded  in 
forming  independent  republics  out  of  Spain's  vice- 
royalties  and  captaincies  general.  There  is — one 
should  remark  it  first  off — an  admirable  propriety 
in  this  author's  mode  of  procedure.  It  is  a  bit  old- 
fashioned  nowadays  to  be  writing  history  in  terms 
of  the  biographies  of  heroes,  the  Plutarchian  mode; 
we  are  all  for  ethnical  and  physiographical  and  eco- 
nomic interpretations.  But  if  there  is  a  portion  of 
the  world  where  the  biographical  foundation  is 
justified,  it  is  surely  Latin  America.  Its  first  con- 
quests were  by  men  of  overpowering  wills  and  vis- 
ionary ambitions — Cortes,  Pizarro,  Columbus  him- 
self, and  that  maddest  of  extravagants,  Lope  de 
Aguirre — and  its  later  history  has  won  for  the  whole 
continent,  if  not  the  name,  at  least  the  flavor  of  a 
Paradise  of  Dictators.  The  History  of  South  Amer- 
ica is  a  standing  refutation  of  the  economic  inter- 
pretation, and  a  standing  invitation  to  the  enthusi- 
asms of  hero  worship ;  and  no  period  of  it,  in  this  re- 
gard, is  superior  to  that  which  Professor  Robertson 
here  makes  his  own.  The  subject  and  the  mode  of 
treatment  will  themselves  ensure  him  readers, 
•which  his  book  deserves  no  less  for  the  results  of 
original  investigations,  in  South  America  and  else- 
where, which  he  has  incorporated  in  it. 


SANTO  DOMINGO,  A  COUNTRY  WITH  A  FU- 
TURE.    By  Otto  Schoenrich.     Macmillan;  $3. 

Santo  Domingo,  or  the  Dominican  Republic  as 
it  is  officially  termed,  has  had  a  career  which,  ever 
since  the  island  of  which  it  is  a  part  was  discovered 
by  Columbus  and  brought  under  Spanish  rule,  has 
bordered  on  epilepsy.  The  historical  sketch  with 
which  this  book  is  begun  covers  nearly  a  hundred 
pages,  in  which  revolts,  guerilla  warfare,  murders, 
and  conspiracies  follow  each  other  with  amazing 
rapidity.  The  really  eventful  period  of  Santo 
Domingo's  career  ended  with  the  military  occupa- 
tion by  the  United  States  beginning  in  November 
1916,  so  that  in  two  pages — such  is  the  tranquilizing 
effect  of  Uncle  Sam — the  history  is  brought  up  to 
date.  The  remainder  of  the  book  is  devoted  to  a 
somewhat  detailed  study  of  the  country — its  topogra- 
phy, climate,  fauna  and  flora,  religion,  government, 
commerce,  finance,  and  kindred  subjects.  One 
noticeable  feature  is  the  author's  faculty  of  impar- 
tial exposition;  he  writes  almost  with  the  detach- 
ment of  a  financial  reporter,  and,  it  must  be 
admitted,  with  little  more  imaginative  insight.  In 
this  day  of  the  development  of  foreign  trade,  how- 
ever, the  qualities  possessed  by  Mr.  Schoenrich's 
book  make  it  of  considerable  value  to  those  who 
would  take  advantage  of  the  commercial  opportuni- 
ties offered. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


369 


Why 


Readers  of  THE  DIAL  should 
have  upon  their  bookshelves 

THE  GREAT  HUNGER 
THE  FLAIL 

THE  WOMEN  WHO 
MAKE  OUR  NOVELS 

OUR  POETS  OF  TODAY 


The  Great  Hunger,  by  Johan  Bojer,  is  man's 
search  for  self-understanding;  The  Flail  is  a  first 
novel  that  will  make  the  name  of  Newton  A. 
Fuessle  live;  and  in  The  Women  Who  Make  Our 
Novels  and  Our  Poets  of  Today,  Grant  Overton 
and  Howard  Cook  present  racy  biographies  and 
facts  for  book  lovers. 

AT  ALL  BOOKSTORES 

MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 

31  Union  Square  West  New  York 


THE  THEORY  OF 


By  Harry  Gunnison  Brown 

Professor  of  Economics,  University  of  Missouri 

Alarums  and  excursions!  A  college  professor  has  written  a 
book  that  justifies  the  theory  and  affirms  the  practicality  of  the 
single  tax.  And  that  professor  occupies  the  chair  of  economics 
In  the  University  of  Missouri.  .  .  .  The  volume  ,1s  as  Interest- 
Ing  a  book  on  economics  as  I  have  read  In  many  years.  It  la  a 
singularly  well  articulated,  closely  knit,  logical  performance. 
(Wm.  Marlon  Reedy  In  Reedy's  Mirror"). 

This  book  Is  one  of  the  new  era.  It  is  like  a  breath  of  fresh  air 
In  the  musty  realm  of  economics  and  sociology.  Those  who  think 
they  have  fixed  notions  respecting  Marxian  socialism,  birth  control 
and  single  tax,  should  read  the  author's  criticism  of  their  favorite 
economic  theories.  His  mental  attitude  la  fair  and  what  he  has 
to  say  will  not  aggravate,  but  will  help.  If  the  reader  himself  baa 
an  open  mind.  (nvluOt  Herald). 

This  book  should  be  welcomed  not  only  by  philosophic  radicals 
but  by  all  who  seriously  wish  to  understand  the  nature  of  the  germ 
behind  the  fever  of  discontent  which  now  threatens  the  life  of  our 
civilization.  (The  Public). 

The  debate  will  be  with  those  whom  the  author  describes  as 
"economists  whose  social  sympathies  (of  the  Influence  of  which 
they  are  not  always  conscious)  or  whose  training  by  their  former 
teachers,  incapacitates  them  for  seeing  any  distinction  between 
land  and  capital."  To  these  Mr.  BrownTa  work  comes  as  a  virile 
challenge,  made  in  such  terms  that  it  must  be  taken  up.  The 
fundamental  issues  raised  affect  the  economic  policy  of  the  country 
too  profoundly  to  be  ignored.  The  style  of  the  work  la  clear,  easy, 
and  Its  vocabulary  un technical;  while  on  every  page  It  Is  provoca- 
tive of  thought.  (Single  Tax  Review). 

$2.00  Postpaid 

THE  MISSOURI  BOOK  CO. 

Columbia,  Mo. 


The  League  of  Nations 

Whether  you  favor  a  league  or  not  you  want 
to  know  what  has  been  said,  recently,  for  and 
against  it. 

No  one  book,  no  one  magazine,  can  give 
as  comprehensive  a  view  of  the  problems 
and  difficulties  incident  to  the  formation  of 
such  a  league  as  the  Handbook,  A  LEAGUE 
OF  NATIONS. 

Into  its  350  pages,  Miss  Phelps  has  collected  70 
of  the  most  important  speeches  and  writings 
which  appeared  in  books,  magazines  and  news- 
papers and  has  grouped  them  under  the  plan  they 
advocate  or  condemn.  The  third  edition  (just  off 
the  press)  includes  the  twenty-six  articles  of  the 
proposed  Constitution  and  President  Wilson's 
explanation  of  them. 

The  Handbook,  A  LEAGUE  OF  NA- 
TIONS, is  priced  at  $1.50,  so  that  every 
good  American  can  own  a  copy.  Order 
direct  from  the  publisher. 

Other  Titles  in  Handbook  Series 


Americanization   . . .  .$1.50 
Russia 1.50 


Monroe  Doctrine $1.25 

Prohibition 1.25 


THE  H.  W.  WILSON  COMPANY 

966  University  Avenue  New  York  City 


JUST  PUBLISHED 

MOTHERS  OF  MEN 

By  WILLIAM  HENRY  WARNER 
and  DE  WITTE  KAPLAN 

With  Frontispiece.     12mo.     Cloth,  $1.60  net. 

This  is  a  story  of  a  gallant  and  noble  young 
man  and  a  beautiful  girl,  of  different  na- 
tionalities, who  loved  each  other  before  the 
war,  and  whose  love  conquered  despite  the 
war. 

"  Whither  thou  goest,  I  will  go;  and 
where  thou  lodgest,  I  will  lodge; 
thy  people  shall  be  my  people." 

How  nobly  she  answered  the  test  of  that 
saying,  even  though  fate  had  set  her  qoun- 
try  against  his  country  in  enmity,  is  beauti- 
fully and  dramatically  told  in  this  moving 
tale. 
A  FINE  NOVEL  WITH  A  GREAT  MESSAGE 


AT  ALL  BOOKSELLERS 

TEMPLE  SCOTT 


101  PARK  AVE., 


NEW  YORK 


When  writing  to  advertisers  please  mention  THE  DIAL. 


THE  DIAL 


April  5 


THE  SKY  PILOT  IN  No  MAN'S  LAND.     By 
Ralph  Connor.     Do  fan;  $1.50. 

Ralph  Connor  has  taken  a  safe  course  in  his 
latest  venture  in  fiction.  He  has  yoked  the  inspira- 
tional and  the  martial,  and  hitched  them  like  a 
team  of  oxen  to  the  solid  but  lumbering  cart  which 
has  served  him  all  these  years  as  the  vehicle  for 
literary  expression.  Structurally,  his  story  creaks; 
of  freshness  of  style  there  is  none.  His  material — 
abruptly  to  change  the  figure — is  of  that  tested 
weave  which  beguiles  the  ready-made  mind,  and 
the  cutting  and  fitting  has  been  carried  out  along 
ultra-conservative  lines.  Mr.  Connor  invests  his 
hero,  a  young  missionary  who  has  the  physical  attri- 
butes of  Apollo,  with  a  verbal  reliance  upon  God 
which  assures  a  marked  religious  flavor.  Depend- 
ing upon  that,  he  naturally  leaves  the  finer  demands 
of  craftsmanship  to  providence,  arid  as  a  conse- 
quence the  narrative  is  littered  with  nearly  all  the 
outworn  counters  of  conventional  novel  writing 
which  one  can  recall :  "  From  the  furious  scorn  in 
his  voice  and  in  his  flaming  face  she  visibly  shrank, 
almost  as  if  he  had  struck  her."  "  Silent  she  stood, 
as  if  still  under  the  spell  of  his  words,  her  eyes 
devouring  his  face."  "  Her  hand  held  his  in  a 
strong,  warm  grasp,  but  her  eyes  searched  his  face 
as  if  seeking  something  she  greatly  desired." 

HEARD  MELODIES.    By  Willoughby  Weaving. 
Longmans,  Green ;  $2. 

The  poet  who  allows  himself  to  be  distracted  by 
a  sheer  multiplicity  of  verse  forms  fashions  a  hobble 
which  is  almost  certain  to  trip  him.  If  he  dips 
first  into  one  form  and  then  into  another,  and  fails 
to  fasten  upon  any  inner  guiding  rule  to  steer  his 
muse,  the  creature  becomes  tangled  in  the  rhythmic 
underbrush,  and  comes  out  scratched  and  unhappy. 
This  appears  to  have  been  the  frequent  fate  of 
Mr.  Weaving's  muse.  He  tackles  so  many  little 
twists  of  rhyme,  and  splits  his  lines  in  so  many 
unexpected  ways,  that  one  seldom  is  able  to  fathom 
the  inner  harmony  which  may  lie  somewhere  in  the 
wreckage.  Intelligibility,  though  it  sometimes  seems 
to  have  lost  caste  among  the  majority  of  contem- 
poraneous verse-makers,  still  has  some  rights.  It 
may  be  snubbed,  but  it  can't  be  utterly  ignored,  as 
Mr.  Weaving  seems  to  have  tried  to  do  in  these 
stanzas,  called  Robins: 

Small   robins  cheer  the  end  of  the  year 

When  need  for  cheering  is. 
What   bird    doth    sing    so    sweetly    through    the    spring? 

My   heart,    aread   me  this. 

Richer  maybe   those    songs   of   glee 

And  wilder  well  I  wis; 
But  sweeter  none  than  sing  small  robins  dun 

When   all   things  are   amiss. 

There  is  so  much  dashing  about  from  one  thing 
to  another  in  Heard  Melodies  that  the  volume  al- 
most gives  the  impression  of  exercises  in  versifica- 


tion. Occasionally,  it  is  true,  one  is  enabled  to  shake 
off  this  impression,  for  Mr.  Weaving  gives  a  sym- 
pathetic setting  to  a  number  of  his  themes.  When 
he  is  content  to  sing,  he  is  most  sure  in  his  art. 
Emotional  undercurrents  have  a  trick  of  churning 
his  verse  into  choppy  waves. 

PORTRAITS  OF  WHISTLER:  A  Critical  Study 
and  an  Iconography.  By  A.  E.  Gallatin. 
Lane;  $12.50. 

Altogether  fascinating  is  Gallatin's  Portraits  of 
Whistler,  from  its  marbled  boards  to  the  collection 
of  various  and  engaging  portraits  within.  The 
Critical  Study,  if  not  noteworthy  for  its  originality, 
is  interesting  for  the  lights  it  throws  on  Whistler's 
own  estimates  of  these  portraits  and  caricatures.  It 
contains  among  other  good  things  Beerbohm's  defi- 
nition of  the  latter  as  that  which  "  with  the  simplest 
means  most  accurately  exaggerates  to  the  highest 
point  the  peculiarities  of  a  human  being,  at  his  most 
characteristic  moment,  in  the  most  beautiful  man- 
ner." The  volume  concludes  with  literary  por- 
traits by  Arthur  Symons,  Frank  Harris,  and  others 
of  a  clever,  sensitive,  imperious  creature,  with  the 
flight  of  a  butterfly  and  the  thrust  of  a  rapier. 
Whether  for  the  sake  of  the  reproductions  of  oils 
and  dry-points  and  charcoal  sketches  by  such 
worthies  as  Boldini,  Rothenstein,  Charles  Keene, 
and  Whistler  himself,  or  for  the  rounded  figure  of 
the  man  one  gets  from  such  different  views  of  him, 
the  gallery  is  full  of  brilliance  and  charm.  It 
invites  more  of  its  kind,  though  it  may  be  doubtful 
if  another  artist  will  repay  his  biographer  in  por- 
traiture as  richly  as  the  autocrat  of  the  ten  o'clock. 

AFRICA  AND  THE  WAR.     By  Benjamin  Braw- 
ley.     Duffield;  $i. 

This  is  a  slight  volume  of  a  hundred  odd  pages, 
a  half  given  to  a  few  slight  essays,  the  other  half  to 
the  subject-title.  The  author  sketches  the  Africa 
of  today,  the  great  prize  for  the  imperialist  and  the 
exploiter,  and  asks  that  the  German  colonies  be 
placed  under  an  international  tribunal,  believing 
that  this  will  not  only  work  well  for  the  Negroes 
in  German  Africa,  but  will  benefit  all  the  Negroes 
of  the  continent.  "  England  and  France,  the  chief 
possessors,  and  America,  whose  aid  really  decided 
the  war,  will  find  themselves  working  together  in 
colonization,  missions,  and  education  on  a  scale 
never  before  contemplated."  The  African  should 
be  wisely  educated,  trained  in  mechanics,  farming, 
engineering,  even  in  the  professions,  especially 
medicine.  Those  preeminently  fitted  to  do  this 
work,  Mr.  Brawley  believes,  are  the  Negroes  of 
the  United  States,  and  he  ends  his  book  with  a.  plea 
for  the  training  of  American  Negroes  in  the  higher 
professional  and  technical  studies  that  they  may 
bring  Western  civilization  to  the  black  men  of  the 
African  continent. 

The  book  is  written  in  a  delightful  style.     Es- 


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The  Society  of  Nations 

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8vo.  (8&  x  5%  ),  pp.  xi  -f  194  .........  Net  $1.50 


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throw of  International  Law  —  Conditions  of  Recon- 
struction —  Rebuilding  of  International  Society. 

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OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

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Balder's    Death  and  Loke's 
Punishment 

A  iKietlcal  version  ol  Incidents  from  Northern  Mythology  with  Ulus- 

ttmdSSaromttS  «**  serk*  with  whteh  FroUch  UliMtrated  MM  Bdda* 

By  Cornelia  Stekftte  Haltt 

Boards,  75c. 

The  HON.  RASMUS  B.  ANDERSON,  author  of  "Nowe 
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OF  THE   WORLD'S    BEST   BOOKS 

Sixty-four  titles  now  published— 14  new  volumes  Just  issued. 
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THE  DIAL 


April  5 


pecially  noteworthy  is  the  chapter  on  Livingston, 
one  of  the  greatest  of  explorers  and  most  humane 
of  men.  If  his  spirit  had  dominated  the  white 
men  who  went  later  to  Africa,  we  should  have  seen, 
instead  of  the  monstrous  and  cruel  exploitation  of 
the  last  fifty  years,  a  fine,  intelligent  development 
of  native  industry  and  power.  , 


THE  CURIOUS  QUEST.  By  E.  Phillips  Op- 
penheim.  Little,  Brown;  $1.50. 

We  do  not  know  whether  Mr.  Oppenheim  is  bent 
upon  forging  his  own  five-foot  shelf,  but  certainly 
he  has  made  a  brave  beginning:  by  the  testimony 
of  a  list  published  in  the  back  of  the  present  novel 
it  is  the  latest  in  a  brood  of  forty-four.  Facing  such 
a  record,  one  is  tempted  from  the  critical  highroad 
into  speculative  bypaths,  there  to  marvel  upon  the 
methods  of  literary  incubation  which  make  possible 
so  prolific  an  output.  This  assiduous  production,  at 
any  rate,  throws  light  upon  the  author's  occasional 
slump  in  inventiveness.  It  doubtless  accounts  for 
the  framework  of  the  present  novel,  in  which  Mr. 
Oppenheim  has  turned  to  a  device  that  is  beginning 
to  creak  from  overwork — the  devious  adventures  of 
a  millionaire  who  wagers  with  his  physician  that  he 
can  start  with  a  five-pound  note  and  live  for  a  year 
on  his  own  resources.  From  this  familiar  spring- 
board, we  dive  into  a  narrative  which  whirls  the 
young  idler  through  the  usual  difficulties  attending 
these  eccentric  figments  of  the  best-selling  imagina- 
tion. Our  hero  meets  the  usual  types  and  the  usual 
typist,  and  comes  through  the  delightful  ordeal  in  a 
manner  befitting  a  gentleman  and  a  millionaire. 
The  complications  are  ample  for  the  purposes  of 
light  entertainment;  the  manner  is  tailored  to  the 
matter.  The  characters  are  artificially  warmed  into 
existence;  their  relation  to  life  is  about  as  intimate 
as  that  oi  the  egg  to  the  incubator. 

TALES  OF  AN  OLD  SEA  PORT.  By  Wilfrid 
Harold  Munro.  Princeton  University  Press. 
$1.50. 

The  wild  adventures  of  Simeon  Potter,  Norwest 
John,  and  De  Wolf  Hopper's  ship  Yankee  have 
stimulated  the  romantic  fancies  of  many  generations 
of  Bristol,  Rhode  Island,  youth.  The  outsider  is 
given  an  intimate  introduction  to  these  historic 
characters  in  Tales  of  an  Old  Sea  Port.  Mr. 
Munro  has  published  the  Yankee's  log,  the  remi- 
niscences of  Norwest  John — one  of  the  first  Amer- 
icans to  encircle  the  world  via  Siberia — and  a  letter 
about  Simeon  Potter,  the  most  interesting  of  .the 
three.  In  1740,  while  on  a  privateering  expedition 
against  the  French,  Captain  Potter  captured  a  mis- 
sionary father  whom  he  kept  prisoner  for  a  few 
days.  Father  Fauque  has  reported  the  incident  in 
a  charming  letter  that  serves  as  a  corrective  to  the 
exaggerated  tales  of  Potter's  strength  as  recorded 
by  tradition. 


AFTERGLOW.      By    James    Fenimore    Cooper, 
Jr.     Yale  University  Press;  $i. 

Thrice  fitting  is  the  title  Afterglow  for  the  slen- 
der collection  of  poems  by  Captain  Cooper.  The 
book  is  a  posthumous  publication ;  it  contains  vague, 
sweet,  and  delicate  expressions  of  quiet  moods;  and 
it  truly  serves  as  an  evanescent  afterglow  to  the 
bulkier  work  of  the  poet's  great-grandfather.  Oc- 
casionally there  is  a  poem  to  be  grateful  for;  such 
a  one  is  An  Answer,  a  neat  rejoinder  to  those  scien- 
tific ones  who  attempt  to  mark  out  all  life  with  lens 
and  rule.  But  because  these  gracefully  turned  bits 
of  metrical  verse  lack  rarity  and  subtlety  and  depth, 
one  is  forced  to  conclude  that  the  Cooper  literary 
talent,  emerging  from  underground  in  the  fourth 
generation,  remains  still  only  a  talent.  The  best 
pages  of  the  volumes  are  not  poetry,  but  an  essay 
at  the  back,  on  Religion,  in  which  a  forthright  state- 
ment of  values  and  of  the  need  for  self-realization 
is  given  in  a  manner  worthy  of  Randolph  Bourne. 

Books  of  the  Fortnight 

The  following  list  comprises  THE  DIAL'S  selec- 
tion of  books  recommended  among  the  publications 
received  during  the  last  two  weeks: 
Proposed  Roads  to  Freedom:  Socialism,  Anarchism, 

and  Syndicalism.     By  Bertrand  Russell.     I2mo, 

218  pages.     Henry  Holt  &  Co.    $1.50. 
Altruism:   Its   Nature    and   Varieties.     By   George 

Herbert   Palmer.     I2mo,    138   pages.    Charles 

Scribner's  Sons.     $1.25. 
Richard  Cobden,   The  International  Man.     By  J. 

A.    Hobson.      Illustrated,    I2mo,    415    pages. 

Henry  Holt  &  Co.    $5.00. 
Musings  and  Memories  of  a  Musician.     Bjr  George 

Henschel.  8vo,  398  pages.  Macmilian  Co.  $5. 
Foltaire   in  His  Letters:  JBeing  a   Selection   from 

His  Correspondence.     Translated,  with  an  in- 
troduction, by  S.  G.  Tallentyre.     Illustrated, 

8vo,  270  pages.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.    $3.50. 
In  the  Key  of  Blue,  and  Other  Prose  Essays.     By 

John  Addington  Symonds.     I2mo,  302  pages. 

Macmilian  Co. 
Essays,    Irish    and    American.       By    John    Butler 

Yeats.      Illustrated,    I2mo,    95    pages.      Mac- 
milian Co.     $1.50. 
The  Wild  Swans  at  Coole.     Verse.     By  W.   B. 

Yeats.      I2mo,    114   pages.      Macmilian    Co. 

$1.25. 
Look!  We  Have  Come  Through.     Verse.     By  D. 

H.    Lawrence.      8vo,     163    pages.      B.    W. 

Huebsch.     $1.50. 
Civilization,    1914-1917.      Sketches.      By    Georges 

Duhamel.      I2mo,    288   pages.      Century    Co. 

$1.50. 
The    Amethyst    Ring.       A    novel.       By    Anatole 

France.     Edited  by  Frederic  Chapman.     8vo, 

304  pages.     John  Lane  Co.     $2. 


IQI9 


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WORLD-POWER  AND  EVOLUTION 

BY  ELLSWORTH  HUXTINGTON,  PH.D. 

Author  of  "  Civilization  and  Climate " 

Cloth,  30  illustrations,  $2.50 

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A  GENTLE  CYNIC  SS2&2 

By  MORRIS  JASTROW,  JR.,  Ph.D.,  LL.D..  Author  of   "The 

War  and  the  Bagdad  Railway,"  etc.     Small  4to.     $2.00  net 

A  delightfully  human  book  on  the  Omar  Khayyam  of  the  Bible 

with  an  exact  translation  of  the  original  text.    How  It  came  to  be 

written  and  who  wrote  It  (and  it  was  not  Solomon)  .why  additions 

were  made  to  the  original  text  and  the  whole  interesting  story  is 

here  given. 

J.  B.  LIppincott  Company,  Philadelphia 


tl 


"  Not  only  Miss  Delafleld's  best  work  so  far,  but 
almost  the  best  novel  that  has  been  published  this 
year." — Westminster  Gazette. 

THE    PELICANS 

By  B.  M.  DELAFIBLD 

Now  ready.    At  all  bookshops,  $1.75  net 

ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  New  York 


CIVILIZATION 

By  Georges  Duhamel 

Won  the  Goncourt  Prize  for  1918.     Masterly  fiction  presenting  the  French 
soldier  as  he  is.    Price  #1.50. 

Published  by  THE  CENTURY  CO.,  New  York 


ONE  OF  THEM 

By  Elizabeth  Hasanovitz 

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Land  of  Freedom  and  her  life  in  the  gar- 
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HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY,  BOSTON 


The   League   of   Nations,    Today 
and  Tomorrow 

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MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 

212  Summer  St.,  Boston 


FIGHTING 
BYNG 

A  bang-up  Secret  Service 
story  by  A.  Stone — a 
peach  of  a  mystery- 
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big  business  and  block- 
ade-runners in  a  free- 
for-all. 

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BOOK  REPAIR  and  RESTORATION 

By  Mitchell  S.  Buck 

A  manual  of  practical  suggestions  for  Bibliophiles. 
Clear  and  reliable  instructions  for  removing  stains,  re- 
backing,  repairing  and  preserving  old  bindings,  remarks 
on  rarity  in  books,  auctions,  and  a  chapter  on  Greek  and 
Latin  classics  in  translation.  With  17  Illustrations. 
1000  copies  from  type.  Net  $2.00 

NICHOLAS  L.  BROWN  g^ 


A~- 


Victorian  and  Modern 

Edited  by 
MONTROSE  J.  MOSES 

A  Series  of  Dramas  which  Illustrate  the  prog- 
ress of  the  British  Dramatist,  and  emphasize 
the  important  features  of  the  History  of  the 
British  Theatre.  - 

This  Volume  contains  the  complete  teat  of  21 
plays.  Mr.  Moses  has  been  fortunate  in  securing 
the  most  notable  English  Dramas,  from  Sheridan. 
Knowles  down  to  Jonn  Masefleld ;  and  the  most 
representative  Irish  Dramas  from  William  Butler 
Yates  down  to  Lord  Dunsany. 

873  pages.     $4.00  net. 
LITTLE,  BROWN  &  CO.: Publishers,  Boston 


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April  5 


Current  News 

This  month  Stephen  McKenna's  novel,  .Midas 
and  Son,  will  be  brought  out  in  this  country  by  the 
Dorans. 

The  Macmillan  Co.  have  now  imported  at  $1.50 
The  Candle  of  Vision,  by  "  A.  E.  "  (George  W. 
Russell),  which  the  English  Macmillans  published 
late  last  year  and  which  Ernest  A.  Boyd  reviewed  in 
THE  DIAL  for  January  u. 

Under  the  title  The  Atlantic  Monthly  and  Its 
Makers  M.  A.  DeWolfe  Howe  has  written  an  an- 
ecdotal historical  sketch  of  the  magazine  and  the 
eight  editors  that  have  directed  it  since  its  founding 
in  1857.  The  volume,  which  is  illustrated,  is  pub- 
lished by  the  Atlantic  Monthly  Press  at  $i. 

The  United  States  Catalogue  Supplement,  a 
cumulative  index  of  books  published  in  the  United 
States  from  1912  to  1917,  listing  8 1,000  volumes, 
has  just  been  issued  by  the  H.  W,  Wilson  Co. 
The  next  issue  in  the  series  will  be  bound  June 
30,  1919  and  will,  cover  the  publications  of  the 
previous  eighteen  months. 

Vincent  Starrett  has  made  Arthur  Machen  the 
subject  ef  a  thirty-one  page  monograph  published 
in  Chicago  by  Walter  M.  Hill.  The  essay,  which 
is  rather  popularly  written,  is  not  unfairly  charac- 
terized by  its  sub-title:  A  Novelist  of  Ecstasy  and 
Sin.  Two  hitherto  uncollected  poems  by  Mr. 
Machen — The  Remembrance  of  the  Bard,  and  The 
Praise  of  Myfanwy — are  appended. 

The  Department  of  Labor  has  now  published  a 
supplementary  List  of  References  which  adds  460 
titles  to  the  415  titles  of  its  Reconstruction  Bibliog- 
raphy, compiled  by  Laura  A.  Thompson,  issued  last 
December.  Another  valuable  bibliography  has  been 
prepared  by  the  Library  War  Service  of  the  Ameri- 
can Library  Association,  a  list  of  books  on  subjects 
taught  in  re-education  hospitals. 

There  is  strange  bottling  in  The  Wine  of  Aston- 
ishment, by  Mary  Hastings  Bradley  (Appleton; 
$1.50).  The  author  keeps  both  her  hero  and  her 
heroine  in  the  vineyard  of  virginity  against  all  odds. 
For  this  purpose  the  man  vanquishes  temptation  in 
repeated  encounters,  while  the  girl  is  fenced  about 
with  a  "  marriage  of  friendship,  "  from  which  she 
is  finally  released.  The  Wine  of  Astonishment  is 
redolent  of  pungent  puritanism. 

Essays  Irish  and  American,  by  John  Butler 
Yeats,  originally  published  by  the  Talbot  Press, 
Dublin,  has  now  been  imported  by  the  Macmillan 
Company  at  $1.50.  The  volume — which  includes 
Recollections  of  Samuel  Butler,  Back  to  the  Home, 
Why  the  Englishman  Is  Happy,  Synge  and  the 
Irish,  The  Modern  Woman,  Watts  and  the 
Method  of  Art,  and  an  appreciation  by  "  A.  E." — 
was  reviewed  by  Ernest  Boyd  in  the  December 
14  DIAL. 

Bibliophiles  of  the  erudite  sort  will  welcome  two 
recent  books  about  books.  One  is  a  second  edition, 
after  a  quarter-century,  of  Alfred  W.  Pollard's 


Early  Illustrated  Books:  A  History  of  the  Decora- 
tion and  Illustration  of  Books  in  the  I5th  and  i6th 
Centuries  (Dutton;  $2).  .The  original  text  of 
this  delightful  landmark  in  bibliography  has  been 
changed  only  to  admit  corrections,  in  which  the 
author  has  had  the  assistance  of  Mr.  Victor  Schol- 
derer,  of  the  British  Museum.  The  numerous 
illustrations  are  excellently  reproduced.  The  other 
is  an  essay  by  Wilbur  Macey  Stone  on  The  Divine 
and  Moral  Songs  of  Isaac  Watts,  which  was  origi- 
nally published  in  1715  and  was  the  first  song  book 
written  and  printed  for  children.  Before  its  popu- 
larity passed,  a  century  and  a  half  later,  the  little 
book  ran  to  nearly  six  hundred  editions,  a  tentative 
list  of  which  is  appended  to  Mr.  Stone's  rather 
precious  historical  essay.  The  volume  is  published 
by  The  Triptych,  15  Park  Row,  New  York  City, 
in  a  limited  edition  at  $2.50. 

The  Report  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  for  the 
year  which  ended  last  June  (Government  Print- 
ing Office:  45  cts.)  affords  an  index  of  the  war's 
effect  upon  book  publishing  in  this  country.  Ac- 
cessions by  copyright  fell  off  more  than  a  thousand 
titles  from  the  1917  figure — 13,713  as  against 
14>738.  The  total  accessions  were  32,638  fewer 
v*an  in  1917.  In  fact,  the  only  sources  that  pro- 
T-kJed  more  titles  than  in  the  previous  year  were  the 
public  printer,  the  state  governments,  and  the 
Library's  own  publications.  Probably  the  most  in- 
teresting purchases  were  twenty-eight  additions  to 
the  collection  of  first  or  early  editions  of  dramas 
and  romances,  the  list  including  plays  by  Dekker, 
Farquhar,  Fletcher,  Ford,  Gascoigne,  Heywood, 
Massinger,  and  others.  A  notable  gift,  in  view  of 
the  approaching  Whitman  Centenary,  was  that  from 
Mr.  Thomas  B.  Harned,  consisting  of  "  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  literary  remains  of  Walt  Whitman  " — 
scrapbooks,  pamphlets,  periodicals,  various  editions, 
manuscript,  and  clippings. 

Contributors 

Frank  Tannenbaum  joined  the  army  last  summer, 
and  his  military  experience  has  included  three  dif- 
ferent branches  of  the  service  and  training  in  two 
camps. 

Cuthbert  Wright,  an  editor  of  the  Harvard 
Monthly  before  his  induction  into  the  army,  is  with 
the  A.  E.  F.  in  France.  He  is  the  author  of  One 
Way  of  Love  (Brentano,  1916;  $i),  and  was  one 
of  the  contributors  to  the  anthology  Eight  Harvard 
Poets  (Gomme,  1917;  $i). 

Emanuel  Carnevali  was  born  in  Florence.  He  has 
contributed  to  several  magazines  and  has  won  one 
of  the  annual  prizes  of  Poetry:  A  Magazine  of 
Verse.  His  first  book,  The  Rhythmical  Talk  of 
E.  C.,  will  soon  be  published. 

The  other  contributors  to  this  issue  have  previ- 
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How  to  Secure  the  German  Indemnity 

THE^tHAL 


A  FORTNIGHTLY 


VOL.  LXVI  NEW  YORK  NO.  788 


APRIL    19,    1919 

Spring  Educational  Number 

How  TO  SECURE  THE  GERMAN  INDEMNITY     .     .     .     John  S.   Codman  385 

THE  END  OF  APRIL.     Verse Allen   Tucker  387 

PEACE  IN  ITS  ECONOMIC  ASPECTS H.  J.  Davenport  388 

UNIVERSITY  RECONSTRUCTION  AND  THE  CLASSICS    .    Royal  Case  Nemiah  390 

A  SECOND  IMAGINARY  CONVERSATION George  Moore  394 

Gosse  and  Moore,  III 

COBDEN,   THE   INTERNATIONALIST    .     ....    Robert  Morss  Lovett  399 

LIVING  DOWN  THE  HYPHEN 401 

PATRIOTISM  AND  ITS  CONSEQUENCES Lewis  Mumford  406 

A  VINDICATION  OF  FIELDING Helen  Sard  Hughes  407 

LIBERALISM    INVINCIBLE Harold  Stearns  409 

LABOR  CONTROL  OF  GOVERNMENT  INDUSTRIES     .  '.     .      Helen  Marot  411 

EXPERIMENTAL   SCHOOLS Caroline  Pratt  413 

A  PERSPECTIVE  OF  DEATH .     .     .     H.  M.  Kallen  415 

LONDON,  FEBRUARY  20     . .  Edward  Shanks  417 

I  WATCH  ONE  WOMAN  KNITTING.     Verse   .     .     .     .    David  Morton  418 

EDITORIALS 419 

FOREIGN  COMMENT:       The  Soviets  and  the  Schools 422 

COMMUNICATIONS  :        A  Noble  Translation.— A  Change  of  Name 423 

NOTES  ON  NEW  BOOKS:     The  Flail.— The  Vocational  Re-education  of  Maimed  Soldiers.  424 
— The   Vocational   Education  of  Girls  and  Women. — The  Tragedy  of  Tragedies. — The 
Cambridge  History  of  American  Literature. — Forced  Movements,  Tropism,   and  Animal 
Conduct. — The  English  Poets. — The  Poets  of  the  Future. 

SPRING  EDUCATIONAL  LIST .      .  434 

CURRENT  NEWS     . 436 


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The  British  Revolution  and  the  American  Democracy 

by  NORMAN  ANGELL 


"A" 


N  interpretation  of  British  Labour  Programmes  "  is  the  subtitle,  but  the  book  is  far  more  comprehensive 
than  that  suggests.    It  is  an  examination  into    social,  economic  and  industrial  reconstruction  as  abruptly 

•focused  by  the  war.  It  explains  the  relegation  to  the  past  of  political  and  national  issues  and  the  rise  of 
issues  based  on  new  systems.  It  explains  the  presence  of  issues  for  which  we  are  pitifully  unprepared.  Then, 
for  guidance  in  our  bewilderment,  the  author  recounts  British  labor  history,  discusses  its  programme  and  relates 
it  to  our  own  problems.  As  if  for  good  measure — but  really  because  the  questions  are  indispensable  to  a  healthy 
readjustment  of  this  weary  world — Mr.  Angell  adds  a  section  under  the  significant  title,  "The  Dangers,"  con- 
sisting of  these  three  chapters:  A  Society  of  Free  Men  or  the  Servile  State?;  The  Herd  and  Its  Hatred  of  Free- 
dom; Why  Freedom  Matters.  There  are  two  appendices:  The  Report  of  the  British  Labour  Party  on  Recon- 
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The    Govenant   of   Peace 
by  H.  N.  Brailsford 

In  the  confusion  of  partisan  criticism 
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prove  instructive  to  examine  this  con- 
cise account  of  the  broad  general  prin- 
ciples that  must  govern  a  valid  consti- 
tution for  a  League  of  Nations.  The 
English  Review  offered  £100  for  the 
best  essay  on  the  subject  and  the  dis- 
tinguished jury  included  such  men  as 
H.  G.  Wells,  John  Galsworthy  and 
Professor  Bury.  The  vagaries  of  fate 
caused  the  best  man  to  win,  for  Mr. 
Brailsford  is  concededly  the  most 
capable  exponent  of  the  plan  which,  if 
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The  Taxation  of  Mines  in 

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natural  resources  preponderate  in  the 
taxable  property;  of  the  merits  of  the 
system;  of  the  defects  in  the  laws;  of 
the  exhaustibility  of  the  mines.  In 
fine,  all  of  the  facts  are  presented  im- 
partially. Remembering  the  relation 
of  the  Anaconda  Copper  Mining  Co. 
to  the  state  of  Montana,  the  volume 
acquires  a  lively  interest  for  students 
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for  those  whose  immediate  activities 
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The  Restoration  of  Trade  Union  Con- 
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ment  on  these  issues  that  has  come  from  an  English  publi- 
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Women  and  the  Labour  Party 

by  Marion  Phillips  and  others.   (Paper,  50c.) 

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The  Aims  of  Labor 
by  Arthur  Henderson 


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Jean  Jaures 

by  Margaret  Pease 


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Education  in  Ancient  Israel  By  FLETCHER  H.  SWIFT 

From  the  earliest  times  to  70  A.D. 

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Virgil's  Prophecy  on  the  Saviour's  Birth 

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What  Is  a  Dogma  By  EDOUARD  LE  ROY 

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Raider's  Death  and  Loke's  Punishment 

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445   pages.     Price,   $3.00 

A  Modern  Job  By  ETIENNE  GIRAN 

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Rignano  s  studies  he  in  the  borderland  De- 

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Conrad  in  Quest  of  His  Youth Sir  JAMES  M.  BARRIE 

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The  Position  of  Peggy  Harper Sir  ARTHUR  PINERO 

The  Man  Who  Understood  Women W.  J.  LOCKE 

When  Love  Flies  Out  of  the  Window. . .  .Sir  W.  R.  NICOLL 

The  Worldlings NEIL  MUNRO 

The  Quaint  Companions H.  G.  WELLS 

One  Man's  View GRANVILLE  BARKER 

The  Man  Who  Was  Good J.  K.  PROTHERO 

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THE  FOUR  HORSEMEN  OF  THE  APOCALYPSE 

Translated  by  CHARLOTTE  BREWSTER  JORDAN 

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BLOOD  AND  SAND 

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THE  SHADOW  OF  THE  CATHEDRAL 

Translated  by  Mrs.  W.  A.  GILLESPIE.     Introduction  by  W.  D.  HOWELLS 

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IN  PREPARATION 

LA   BODEGA    (The    Saloon)         Translated  by  Dr.  I.  GOLDBERG 

Under  the  stirring  plot  of  love  and  intrigue  is  a  study  of  the  effects  and  causes  of  drunkenness  in  Spain. 
MARE  NOSTRUM  (Our  Sea)  Translated  by  CHARLOTTE  B.  JORDAN 

A  powerful  story  of  the  German  submarine  warfare  in  the  Mediterranean. 

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How  to  Secure  the  German  Indemnity 


Fv  VERY  MAN  WHO  WILL  allow  his  reason  full  sway 
rather  than  his  passions  and  emotions,  every  man 
who  cares  more  about  the  restoration  of  Belgium 
and  France  and  the  other  countries  devastated  by 
the  Germans  than  he  does  about  punishing  the  Ger- 
mans for  the  devastation,  must  realize  that  the  only 
practical  way  to  secure  the  great  financial  indemnity 
demanded  on  behalf  of  the  devastated  countries  is 
to  set  the  German  people  to  work  in  productive  en- 
terprise.   There  is,  however,  a  real  fear  that  if  this 
be  done  the  payment  of  the  indemnity  may  turn  out 
to  be  a  boomerang  injuring  those  who  receive  it  more 
than  those  who  pay  it.    This  fear  among  the  states- 
men of  the  Allied  nations  is  well  expressed  by  Lloyd 
George  in  a  speech  made  at  Newcastle  on  Nov.  29 
last,  in  which  he  said  that  Germany  must  pay  the 
cost  of  the  war  up  to  the  limit  of  her  capacity,  and 
then  uttered  these  words :     "  But  I  must  use  one 
word  of  warning.    We  have  ,to  consider  the  question 
of  Germany's  capacity.     Whatever  happens,   Ger- 
many is  not  to  be  allowed  to  pay  her  indemnity  by 
dumping  cheap  goods  upon  us.     That  is  the  only 
limit  in  principle  we  are  laying  down.     She  must 
not  be  allowed  to  pay  for  her  wanton  damage  and 
devastation  by  dumping  cheap  goods  and  wrecking 
our  industries."    In  other  words,  the  danger  appears 
to  be  that  if  the  Germans  are  allowed  opportunity 
to   produce   and   exchange,   their   competition   will 
wreck  the  industries  of  other  nations,  causing  unem- 
ployment and  disaster.     Already  with  the  end  of 
war,  unemployment  is  becoming  a  serious  problem 
everywhere.     How  then  can  the  Germans  be  put  to 
work   without  lessening  the  opportunities  of   em- 
ployment for  the  peoples  of  the  Allied  nations? 

There  is  one  way,  perhaps,  of  side-stepping  the 
whole  question  of  giving  Germans  employment.  It 
can  be  done  by  excluding  them  altogether,  or  in  part, 
from  access  to  the  natural  resources  of  their  own 
country  and  then  securing  the  indemnity  by  develop- 
ing those  natural  resources  by  means  of  Allied  and 
American  capital  and  labor.  To  be  sure,  we  could 
hardly  say  that  under  such  circumstances  the  Ger- 
mans would  be  paying  the  indemnity.  They  would 
simply  be  deprived  of  the  opportunity  to  pay  it,  and 


the  Allies  therefore  would  have  to  pay  it  themselves, 
merely  securing  the  advantage  of  free  access  to  Ger- 
many's natural  resources. 

In  addition,  in  so  far  as  the  Germans  were  de- 
prived of  access  to  their  natural  resources,  their 
mines,  their  agricultural  lands  and  so  on,  they  would 
become  unable  to  help  themselves  and  would  there- 
fore starve  or  become  the  objects  of  Allied  and 
American  charity.  Neither  of  these  alternatives 
can  be  considered.  On  humanitarian  grounds  alone 
the  first  alternative  is  out  of  the  question;  and 
further,  in  either  case,  a  stupendous  army  of  oc- 
cupation would  be  required  to  war  upon  the  German 
people  whether  the  object  were  to  pauperize  them 
or  to  starve  them.  We  cannot  avoid,  therefore,  giv- 
ing employment  to  the  German  people  if  we  desire 
the  indemnity  paid,  and  the  larger  the  indemnity  de- 
manded the  greater  must  be  the  opportunities  af- 
forded to  German  labor. 

It  might  be  thought,  however,  that  if  German 
labor  must  be  employed,  then  at  least  it  should  not 
be  employed  for  the  profit  of  German  capitalists,  but 
should  be  employed  directly  in  the  service  of  the 
Allied  nations;  and  it  might  be  suggested,  therefore, 
that  Allied  capital,  or  confiscated  German  capital, 
or  both,  should  be  used  in  the  employment  of  Ger- 
mans in  Germany.  But  to  this  suggestion  of  directly 
diverting  capital  to  the  employment  of  Germans  in 
Germany  all  the  laboring  men  in  every  Allied  coun- 
try would  protest.  They  will  insist  that,  at  this 
time  of  all  times  when  employment  appears  to  be 
scarce,  all  capital  available  shall  be  employed  at 
home. 

Another  plan  of  securing  reparation,  which  has 
actually  been  suggested,  is  that  German  laborers 
shall  be  forced  to  go  into  Belgium  and  France  and 
there  be  made  to  repair  the  actual  damage  done, 
rebuilding  the  shattered  cities  and  towns,  repairing 
the  damaged  mines,  and  restoring  the  devastated 
fields.  This  would  look  like  stern  justice  to  some 
people,  who  fail  to  consider  that  the  particular  Ger- 
mans forced  into  this  slavery  would  almost  surely  be 
those  least  responsible  for  the  outbreak  of  the  war 
and  the  atrocities  committed  in  carrying  it  on.  Jus- 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


tice  aside,  however,  it  is  certain  that  any  such  plan 
would  be  condemned  at  once  by  the  laboring  classes 
of  the  devastated  regions.  They  would  no  more 
permit  their  jobs  to  be  taken  away  from  them  in  this 
way  by  Germans  than  they  would  permit  the  gov- 
ernment to  use  convicts  as  strike  breakers.  This 
plan  too  is  entirely  out  of  the  question. 

It  appears  then  that  after  all  it  will  be  necessary 
to  permit  the  Germans  to  exploit  their  own  resources 
by  their  own  labor  and  capital;  and  that  the  more 
quickly  and  effectively  they  are  able  to  produce,  the 
more  quickly  will  the  Allies  receive  the  indemnities 
demanded. 

But  does  it  follow  that  the  Allied  nations  and  our- 
selves should  trade  with  the  Germans?  If  it  will 
enable  the  Germans  to  produce  more  quickly  and 
effectively,  it  would  seem  that  the  Allies  ought  to 
allow  trade  with  them,  and  we  also,  if  we  desire 
to  help  the  Allies;  but  if,  as  Lloyd  George  seems 
to  think,  the  dumping  of  cheap  goods  will  wreck 
British  industries,  or  our  industries,  then  surely  we 
ought  to  think  twice  about  it.  How  to  secure  in- 
demnity to  a  nation,  without  injuring  the  nation 
getting  the  indemnity,  seems  in  truth  to  be  a  real 
puzzle  despite  the  apparent  absurdity  of  the  idea 
at  first  thought.  It  may  be  that  Lloyd  George,  in 
warning  against  the  dumping  of  cheap  goods,  refers 
only  to  the  practice  of  selling  goods  in  a  foreign 
country  at  less  than  the  cost  of  production.  This 
seems  unlikely,  however,  since  any  goods  cheap 
enough  to  be  imported  from  Germany,  whether  sold 
at  less  than  cost  or  not,  would  if  imported  displace 
similar  goods  in  the  markets  of  the  importing  coun- 
try and  would  therefore  be  just  as  likely  to  wreck 
home  industries. 

What  is  more,  it  would  seem  that  cheap  goods 
from  France  or  Italy  or  from  this  country  would 
also  wreck  the  industries  of  Great  Britain.  If,  there- 
fore, Lloyd  George  is  to  allow  the  importation  of 
such  goods,  he  is  in  the  position  of  permitting  the 
destruction  of  British  industries  out  of  deference 
to  his  Allies ;  or  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  danger 
from  cheap  goods  is  imaginary,  he  is  then  in  the 
position  of  penalizing  the  Germans  for  no  reason 
at  all — with  the  result  that  they  will  be  less  able 
to  pay  the  indemnity. 

In  fact,  if  the  cheap  goods  argument  is  not  a  fake, 
it  might  be  suggested  that  a  good  way  for  the  Allies 
to  deal  with  Germany  would  be  to  prevent  her  from 
exporting  anything  to  the  Allied  countries  and  at 
the  same  time  to  forbid  the  German  government  to 
establish  a  tariff  on  Allied  goods  imported  into  Ger- 
many. In  this  way  it  might  be  argued  that  the  cheap 
goods  would  go  into  Germany  instead  of  out,  and 
thus  it  would  be  the  German  industries  that  would 
be  wrecked  rather  than  those  of  the  Allies. 


The  first  objection  to  this  suggestion  is  that 
wrecking  German  industries  would  hinder  the  pay- 
ment of  the  indemnity.  Second >  however,  and  more 
important,  the  plan  would  not  work  out  as  above 
supposed  because  if  the  Germans  could  not  export 
anything  they  would  have  no  means  of  paying  for 
the  imports,  and  for  that  reason  no  imports  would 
there  be. 

To  some  it  would  seem  that  the  best  plan  would 
be  to  allow  nature  to  take  its  course,  or  in  other 
words  to  permit  trade  between  the  Germans  and 
other  peoples  without  governmental  interference.  If 
is  certain  that  if  this  were  done,  trade  would  soon 
spring  up  not  only  between  Germans  and  English, 
between  Germans  and  Americans,  but  also  even  be- 
tween Germans  and  French.  Unless  trading  is 
mutually  advantageous  to  the  traders,  it  will  not 
take  place.  On  the  other  hand,  if  mutually  advan- 
tageous, nothing  will  stop  it  except  direct  govern- 
mental interference.  Perhaps  the  interference  of 
government  with  the  trade  of  its  citizens  may  not 
always  be  harmful,  but  at  all  events  it  is  certain  that 
if  the  Allied  governments  are  all  going  to  put  re- 
strictions on  German  trade,  the  Germans  will  not 
be  able  to  pay  the  indemnity  as  soon  as  they  other- 
wise could.  Unless  they  can  import  raw  materials, 
their  industries  cannot  prosper,  and  unless  they  can 
export  their  manufactures  to  pay  for  the  imports, 
then  they  cannot  obtain  the  raw  materials.  They 
will  have  to  be  sufficient  unto  themselves,  using  only 
their  own  raw  materials  which  are  limited  in  char- 
acter; thus  their  productive  powers  will  be  stunted 
and  the  indemnity  will  be  hard  to  exact.  Moreover, 
too  much  economic  pressure  on  the  German  people 
will  drive  them  into  a  bloody  revolution  and  then 
all  hope  of  getting  reparation  for  Belgium,  France, 
Serbia,  Poland,  and  Roumania  will  be  gone. 

The  conclusion  seems  to  be  unavoidable  that  the 
Allies  ought,  for  their  own  sake,  to  permit  the  Ger- 
mans to  exploit  their  own  natural  resources  with 
their  own  labor  and  capital,  and  ought  to  accord 
them  also  liberal  trading  privileges  in  order  to  in- 
crease their  productive  power.  The  Allies  might 
very  wisely  go  even  further,  however,  and  in  order 
to  insure  that  the  productive  power  of  the  Germans 
shall  be  increased  to  a  maximum,  they  might  dictate 
to  them  just  how  the  revenue  required  to  run  the 
Government  and  pay  the  indemnity  should  be  raised. 
The  Allies  may  well  insist  that  the  method  adopted 
be  one  that  will  stimulate  productive  effort,  that  will 
encourage  the  enterprising  and  industrious  Ger- 
mans, and  will  prevent  the  monopoly  of  economic 
opportunities. 

This  can  best  be  done  by  making  all  owners  of 
agricultural  land,  of  mines,  of  water  power,  and  of 
valuable  urban  sites  pay  over  for  the  benefit  of  the 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


387 


Allied  governments  as  indemnity  the  full  rental  value 
of  the  exclusive  privileges  enjoyed  through  such 
ownership.  These  payments  should  not  include 
rental  for  agricultural  improvements,  nor  for  mine 
shafts  and  machinery,  nor  for  hydro-electric  installa- 
tions, nor  for  buildings  of  any  kind,  but  only  rental 
for  the  privilege  of  exclusive  access  to  natural 
resources. 

Such  a  plan  ought  to  be  welcome  to  the  great  mass 
of  the  German  people.  Sentimentally,  it  would 
make  little  difference  to  the  factory  hands,  to  the 
peasants,  to  the  tenant  farmers,  to  the  employers, 
and  to  the  owners  of  German  capital  if  the  rent 
which  had  in  any  case  to  be  paid  to  the  discredited 
Junker  and  landlord  class  were  simply  passed  on  to 
the  allies  to  settle  the  indemnity.  Practically,  how- 
ever, the  plan  would  be  of  great  advantage  to  the 
productive  and  enterprising  classes  since,  in  the  first 
place,  they  would  be  relieved  of  taxation  to  just  the 
extent  that  the  Junkers  had  to  pay;  and — what  is 
more  important — access  to  natural  resources  would 
no  longer  be  open  to  them  only  at  exorbitant  prices, 
or  closed  to  them  altogether.  The  power  of  the 
land  owning  class  to  withhold  natural  resources  from 
use  or  to  demand  for  their  use  industry-prohibit- 
ing rentals  would  be  broken.  Being  obliged  to  pay 
over  to  the  Allies  the  f  ull  rental  values  of  the  natural 
resources,  whether  used  or  unused,  the  land  owning 
class  would  be  under  the  imperious  necessity  of  rent- 
ing or  selling  to  the  industrious  classes,  or  of  giving 
them  employment.  No  longer  would  it  pay  to  own 
land  and  other  natural  resources  merely  to  draw 
tribute  from  others. 

The  plan  would  redound  enormously  also  to  the 
advantage  of  the  Allies.  With  free  access  to  the 
natural  resources  and  raw  materials  of  industry,  un- 
employment among  the  German  people  would 
largely  disappear.  With  the  German  people  all 
busily  engaged  in  productive  enterprise,  the  indem- 
nity which  the  Allied  nations  desire  to  obtain  as 
quickly  as  possible  would  be  forthcoming  in  a  re- 


markably short  time,  and  the  fear,  moreover,  that 
Germany  might  become  a  plague  spot  of  revolution 
and  anarchy,  or  be  restored  to  its  former  autocratic 
masters,  would  soon  fade  away. 

At  this  point,  however,  the  reader  may  protest 
that  if  this  plan  be  carried  out,  the  German  people, 
freed  from  the  shackles  of  monopoly,  will  be  on  the 
high  road  to  becoming  the  most  prosperous  and 
happy  people  in  Europe,  if  not  in  the  world — and 
this  as  a  reward  for  their  guilt  in  bringing  on  the 
most  criminal  assault  on  civilization  in  all  history. 
True,  but  nevertheless  the  Allied  peoples  will  have 
got  what  they  wanted,  namely,  quick  payment  of 
the  indemnity  to  the  unfortunate  people  of  the  dev- 
astated regions  and  at  the  same  time  a  stable  gov- 
ernment in  Germany,  one  neither  aggressive  nor 
anarchistic  because  of  the  happiness  and  content- 
ment of  its  people. 

If,  finally,  the  question  arises,  how  then  should 
the  Allied  peoples  gain  an  equal  prosperity  and  con- 
tentment, the  answer  is  plain:  Let  the  Allied  peo- 
ples, also,  break  the  back  of  the  monopoly  of  their 
natural  resources  by  forcing  the  holders  of  those 
natural  resources  to  pay  in  full  for  the  value  of 
their  privileges,  payments  not  to  be  made  to  any 
foreign  governments,  but  to  their  own  governments 
to  be  used  for  the  benefit  of  all  the  people.  Then 
the  preposterous  phenomenon  of  unemployment  will 
disappear  from  among  the  Allied  nations  as  well  as  in 
Germany;  the  laboring  classes,  freed  from  the  com- 
petition of  the  unemployed,  will  secure  the  full 
value  of  their  labor;  and  the  great  captains  of  in- 
dustry, freed  from  monopolistic  exactions,  will  be 
able  to  establish  greater  industries  than  the  world 
has  yet  seen,  in  which  the  savings  of  the  workers 
will  be  invested. 

Then  will  the  time  come  when  a  League  of  Free 
Nations  will  be  in  truth  a  permanent  reality  and  the 
peace  of  the  world  will  be  definitely  assured. 


JOHN  S.  CODMAN. 


The  End  of  April 

When  on  a  blue,  pale  night  in  coming  spring, 

The  little  leaves  are  breathing  to  the  stars, 

The  crescent  moon  with  burning  tips  hangs  in  the  tender  sky ; 

The  world  enveloped  by  enchantment 

Seems  dipped  in  beauty. 

I  see  the  wonder  and  amazing  mystery  of  it  all, 

Then  suddenly  I  feel  the  terror, 

And  wish  that  I  could  die. 

ALLEN  TUCKER. 


388 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


Peace  in  Its  Economic  Aspects 


I.HERE  ARE  VARIOUS  interpretations  of  Bolshevism, 
each  easy,  all  insecure  and  tentative,  some  of  them 
frankly  conjectural.  But  it  is  safe  to  say  that,  in  its 
beginnings  at  least,  the  Bolshevist  movement  was  a 
protest  against  the  political  and  economic  aristocracy 
of  feudal  institutions.  In  this  sense  it  was  pro- 
foundly democratic  in  spirit,  no  matter  how  auto- 
cratic it  may  have  become  in  its  later  methods.  If, 
then,  it  is  finally  to  align  itself  against  the  Entente 
Powers,  it  will  be  in  the  essential  conviction  that, 
so  far  as  the  East  is  concerned,  the  Western  war 
for  peace  and  for  the  safeguarding  of  democracy  has 
become  transformed  into  a  war  for  the  preservation 
of  economic  aristocracy. 

Adequate  understanding  of  the  Bolshevist  pro- 
gram requires  complete  abstraction  from  all  its 
immediate  economic  fatuities  and  from  its  current 
excesses  and  cruelties.  The  facts  become,  then,  so 
far  plain  in  Bolshevist  thinking:  from  a  new  political 
order  there  is  no  hope  for  eastern  Europe.  What- 
ever new  thing  may  come,  it  will  not  be  worse  than 
•what  has  been  and  still  is.  Therefore  the  powers 
that  stand  for  economic  aristocracy  intend  nothing 
that  can  be  good  in  its  bearing  on  the  peasant  and 
the  artisan  of  the  East.  For  them  there  is  ultimately 
but  one  thing  to  gain;  in  the  failure  to  gain  it  they 
lose  all.  Their  war  is  against  feudal  institutions, 
primarily  in  their  economic  aspect,  and  only  secon- 
darily in  their  political  aspect.  For  them  political 
domination  depends  solely  on  its  economic  leverage. 
With  the  economic  situation  unchanged,  nothing 
essential  will  change.  Thus  Bolshevism  inevitably 
challenges  the  West,  if  the  West  is  committed  to 
the  maintenance  of  the  present  property  institutions 
of  the  East. 

If,  then,  the  victors  in  the  war  are  more  interested 
in  the  protection  of  the  vested  rights  of  a  landed 
proprietorship,  and  in  the  privileges  of  wealth,  than 
in  a  new  democratic  political  order  in  the  East  so 
conditioned  on  a  new  economic  order  as  to  democra- 
tize the  participation  in  wealth  and  opportunity,  the 
issue  is  drawn,  the  conflict  inevitable.  For  the 
purposes  of  this  issue,  the  West  will  have  declared 
that  it  wants  only  such  political  democracy  as  is 
possible  within  the  setting  of  a  feudal  economic 
aristocracy — that  its  ultimate  ideals  are  economic 
rather  than  political,  and  are  economically  aristo- 
cratic rather  than  democratic.  In  thus  allotting  to 
property  institutions  the  first  rank,  its  error  will  be 
so  far  greater  than  that  of  the  revolutionaries.  They 
also  do  not  take  their  democracy  at  all  too  seriously. 
With  them  also  economic  ends  are  first — political 
democracy  a  subordinate  or  tributary  interest.  Such 


political  democracy  as  they  intend  is  only  as  a  means 
to  a  new  distribution  of  wealth  and  opportunity. 
Such  political  democracy  as  the  West  will  consent 
to  is  likewise  to  be  submitted  to  the  perpetuity  of 
the  economic  order  that  the  West  holds  good.  But 
the  East  is  probably  right  in  its  conviction  that  such 
political  democracy  as  it  cares  for — if  it  securely 
cares  for  any — will,  under  eastern  conditions,  stand 
or  fall  with  the  economic  democracy  on  which  the 
East  is  wholeheartedly  determined.  The  West  ap- 
pears to  be  in  the  way  of  demonstrating  its  entirely 
secondary  interest  in  political  democracy — to  the 
extent  even  that  it  will  deny  it  to  other  peoples, 
unless  as  conditioned  on  that  economic  organization 
within  which  its  own  ideals  find  their  expression 
and  their  determining  influence. 

Such  quite  obviously  must  be  the  Bolshevist  inter- 
pretation of  Western  policies  as  they  seem  now  to 
be  developing.  World  peace  takes  on  importance 
chiefly  in  its  property  aspect.  And  more  significant 
still,  such  also  appears  to  be  the  essential  character 
of  the  Entente  policies  as  they  are  implicitly 
reported  in  the  formulation  of  the  peace  terms  to  be 
imposed  on  Germany — the  Central  Powers.  How 
far  in  the  prosecution  of^the  war  have  the  interests 
of  the  common  people  been  regarded  ?  In  the  peace 
settlement  how  far  are  they  fostered?  In  what  de- 
gree is  there  basis  for  the  Bolshevist  interpretation 
and  for  the  Bolshevist  growing  attitude  of  antag- 
onism ? 

Germany  is,  no  doubt,  to  make  reparation  and 
indemnity  to  the  limit  of  what  is  possible.  It  is 
therefore  held  that  the  German  people  are  to  be 
saddled  with  all  the  debt  they  can  carry — due 
allowance,  however,  made  for  the  war  claims 
already  existing  in  favor  of  the  investing  classes  of 
Germany  against  the  taxpaying  public.  Not  incred- 
ibly, indeed,  these  rights  of  German  wealth  may  be 
postponed,  in  order  of  payment  and  of  right,  to  the 
Entente  claims — the  total  always,  however,  to  be 
conformed  to  the  debt-carrying  power  and  the  debt- 
paying  tolerance  of  the  German  people.  Otherwise 
there  might  be  socialistic  agitations  and  menace  to 
the  security  of  property  rights.  The  entire  discus- 
sion assumes  that  whatever  the  penalties  that  may 
be  imposed,  these  shall  be  exclusively  at  the  charge 
of  the  German  taxpayer.  The  property  rights  of 
the  privileged  classes  in  Germany  are  in  no  wise  in 
question  or  in  jeopardy.  Peace  shall  mean  that  all 
property,  even  Junker  and  Warlord  property,  shall 
be  sacred.  About  this  fixed  stake  all  other  interests 
are  made  to  turn ;  against  this  bulwark  all  other 
purposes  beat  and  shatter.  As  America  was  prompt 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


to  conscript  life  for  war,  but  up  to  the  end  pre- 
served in  the  main  for  wealth  its  option  between 
investment  and  complete  nonparticipation,  so  now, 
when  war  indemnities  are  to  be  provided,  the  future 
generations  of  Germany  shall  be  mortgaged,  in  the 
full  solicitude  that  German  wealth  go  unchallenged 
and  unpunished.  Nor  shall  there  be  any  slightest 
reference  to  the  guilt  that  has  attended  the  wealth, 
or  to  the  innocence  that  will  attach  to  the  life. 

Thus,  by  assumption,  the  Entente  peoples  are  to 
continue  in  the  travail  of  their  tremendous  war 
indebtedness — France  in  particular  staggeringly  fac- 
ing fiscal  debacle  and  possible  or  probable  future 
revolutions  in  revolt  against  intolerable  fiscal  bur- 
dens. But  even  for  France,  only  such  indemnities 
are  contemplated  from  Germany  as  can  be  provided 
through  bond  issues  for  the  future  taxpayers  of 
Germany  to  bear  and  meet. 

From  all  of  this  the  Bolshevist  draws  fatally  easy 
inferences.  Not  only  is  Entente  thinking  more  con- 
siderate of  Russian  wealth  than  of  Russian  life,  but 
logically  so — since  it  is  more  considerate  of  German 
wealth  than  of  its  own  life  or  of  its  own  institutions 
of  political  democracy.  As  earlier,  when  victory 
was  still  in  doubt,  it  financed  its  war  by  allotting  to 
domestic  wealth  mortgages  against  its  future  domes- 
tic life,  so  in  precise  parallel  now,  with  victory 
achieved,  it  goes  about  to  prescribe  the  war  settle- 
ment. Not  only  as  between  German  wealth  and 
German  poverty  is  the  poverty  to  bear  the  burden, 
but  even  as  between  German  wealth  and  Entente 
poverty  it  shall  still  be  the  poverty  that  is  to  pay. 
Not  only  shall  your  grandchildren  and  mine  be 
paying  war  legacies  of  taxes  to  domestic  bond- 
holders,  but  meanwhile  the  German  Junker  shall 
be  collecting  his  rent  rolls,  the  while  also  that  he  is 
cutting  coupons  from  the  bonds  issued  to  finance  the 
war  that  his  progenitors  contrived,  and  mortgaged 
others  to  themselves  to  pay  for.  Why  is  it — if  in 
the  sacredness  of  all  property  these  German  bonds 
must  be  recognized — that  our  children's  children 
shall  not  have  the  benefit  of  them  to  meet  their  tax 
obligations?  Why  are  not  the  rent  rolls  left  at  the 
disposal  of  the  children  of  the  victims  rather  than 
of  the  children  of  .the  aggressors?  Why  perpetu- 
ate the  menace  of  this  ruthless  aristocracy  even  at 
the  cost  of  all  this  monstrous  and  hazardous  injus- 
tice ?  Assume  that  innocent  future  generations  must 
make  their  payments  to  some  one — that  in  this  peace 
of  justice  we  shall  not  move  to  protect  the  victim 
from  the  criminal  in  Germany — that,  so  far  as  may 
be,  and  in  the  interests  of  peace,  all  war-wagers  shall 
be  secure  in  their  plunder,  so  long  as  our  withers 
remain  unwrung — why  must  it  be  also  true  that 
with  our  own  welfare  at  stake,  our  own  children  the 
sufferers,  our  own  poverty  the  burden  bearer, 


we  still  enact  that  the  German  debtors  shall  account 
not  to  our  own  children,  but  to  the  children  of  the 
Junkers,  the  industrial  captains,  the  banking  mag- 
nates, the  hereditary  nobility,  and  the  political  aris- 
tocracy of  Germany?  Why  not,  in  short,  expropri- 
ate the  wealth  owners  in  discharge  of  the  penalties 
for  their  crimes  and  in  the  protection  of  the  inno- 
cent, who  else  must  bear  the  penalties?  Why  must 
the  future  Entente  generations  pay  in  place  of  the 
German,  or  any  German  in  place  of  the  finally  re- 
sponsible and  bountifully  solvent  criminals?  In  terms 
of  present  prices  and  of  present  income  resources, 
the  wealth  of  Germany  alone  totals  upwards  of 
1 60  billions  of  dollars.  Eighty-five  per  cent  of  the. 
German  lands  are  in  holdings  of  over  15  acres. 

For  plainly  the  Entente  bonds  have  to  be  dfs- 
charged  by  some  one.  So  much  we  provided  for  in 
the  financing  of  the  war.  It  is,  however,  clear 
enough  that  in  terms  of  immediate  cash  payment  no 
policy  of  expropriation  would  retire  the  bonds.  But 
there  is  no  need.  The  obligations  do  not  so  run.  It 
needs  merely  that  the  German  properties,  the  titles 
of  proprietorship,  be  sold  out  to  German  small  in- 
vestors or  to  the  peasants  and  artisans,  on  long-time 
amortization  payments.  True,  the  working  people,, 
would  finally  discharge  the  debt — not,  however,  as 
taxes,  but  as  purchase  money  to  be  advanced  in  the 
acquisition  of  their  economic  and  political  independ- 
ence. All  the  hardships  would  rest  with  the  guilt.. 
The  kept  classes  of  Germany,  shorn  of  their 
potencies  of  harm  with  the  loss  of  their  economic: 
leverage,  could  then  go  to  work  or  starve — fortu- 
nate even  at  this,  in  comparison  with  the  victims 
that  they  plundered  and  massacred  where  they  dicS. 
not  starve.  If  the  guilty  are  excused  from  payment; 
the  innocent — their  wives,  their  daughters,  their 
descendants  in  general — must  pay  instead.  A  Ger- 
man aristocracy  living  off  its  rent  rolls  and  its 
interest  collections,  while  the  rest  of  the  world  is 
busy  paying  off  war  debts,  is  nothing  short  of  mon- 
strous. 

It  is,  in  fact,  quite  clear  that  a  covenanted  peace 
is  of  little  worth  if  it  leaves  with  the  classes  in 
Germany  that  contrived  the  war  the  will  and  the 
power  to  contrive  another,  and  leaves  everywhere 
among  the  masses  of  common  people  neither  the 
will  nor  the  ability  to  endure  the  terms  of  the  cov- 
enated  peace.  Both  these  errors  the  peace  plan  as  it 
is  now  formulated  clearly  commits.  It  matters  little 
whether  the  war  was  won  more  in  the  interests  of 
peace  or  in  the  interests  of  democracy,  if  with  victory 
once  achieved  the  record  sums  up  into  little  or  noth- 
ing accomplished  in  the  interests  of  peace,  and  a  good 
deal  less  than  nothing  in  the  interests  of  democracy. 
In  the  long  run  and  ultimately,  peace  is  subject  to 
two  conditions — that  nowhere  shall  there  be  an 


39° 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


irresponsible  ruling  class  to  plan  more  wars  abroad 
and  nowhere  subject  peoples  goaded  by  economic 
exploitation  into  revolution  at  home.  Economic 
democracy  with  its  working  correlative  of  political 
democracy  provides  these  basic  conditions.  The 
peace  that  we  are  covenanting  provides  neither,  no 
matter  how  ingenious  and  adequate  may  be — and,  as 
I  think,  actually  is — the  specific  detail  of  organiza- 
tion. 

There  are,  in  truth,  in  human  affairs  other  and 
greater  sanctities  to  be  recognized  than  those  of 
wealth  and  property.  In  grave  emergencies  it  be- 


falls that  even  the  sanctity  of  life  must  make  way 
for  higher  issues.  Just  this  is  what  conscription 
rightly  means.  Humanity  may  one  day  revolt 
against  wealth  grown  intolerable  in  its  demands  and 
its  privileges.  For  my  own  part,  I  accept  the  social 
expediency  of  individualism  and  of  property — hold- 
ing, however,  neither  of  them  as  sacred,  but  each 
as  wise  within  the  limits  of  its  social  service.  To 
my  view,  then,  it  is  surpassingly  tragic  if  either 
stands  at  the  hazard  of  being  done  to  death  in  the 
house  of  its  friends. 

H.  J.  DAVENPORT. 


University  Reconstruction  and  the  Classics 


1- 
T  is  A  STRANGE  THING  to  write  an  apology  for 
the  Classics.  One  might  as  well  write  in  defense 
of  the  springtime  dancing  gaily  northward  in  a 
mad  riot  of  birds  and  flowers;  as  well  argue  in  de- 
fense of-sunsets,  a  Beethoven  symphony,  or  the  colors 
of  a  New  England  autumn. 

To  attack  the  Classics  is  not  so  simple  a  thing  as 
it  would  seem  at  first  sight;  it  is  an  attack  upon  all 
literary  art.  The  folly  of  those  who  maintain  that 
too  much  time  is  spent  in  the  learning  of  the  ancient 
tongues,  and  that  Greek  and  Latin  literature  can 
be  read  as  advantageously  in  English  translations,  is 
as  obvious  as  that  of  the  person  who  tries  to  convince 
us  that  it  is  sufficient  to  read  the  score  of  an  opera 
without  hearing  it,  or  to  see  a  photograph  of  the 
Matterhorn  without  taking  the  trouble  to  go  to 
Switzerland.  Such  an  argument  may  be  properly 
styled  an  argumentum  pigritiae,  and  is  like  the  story 
of  the  boy  who  said  that  at  the  school  which  he  at- 
tended they  were  never  taught  to  make  the  capital 
letter  Q ;  first  because  it  was  a  very  difficult  letter 
to  make,  and  then  because  it  didn't  occur  very  often 
in  English  anyway.  It  is  the  flattest  kind  of  truism 
to  assert  that  in  considering  it  as  a  work  of  art  the 
literary  form  of  a  book  is  as  important  as  the 
thought,  but  that  is  precisely  what  countless  people 
disregard  when  they  maintain  that  Homer  or  the 
Greek  lyric  or  Plato  can  be  read  as  profitably  in 
modern  English  as  in  the  language  with  which  these 
authors  beautified  their  ideas. 

To  enumerate  all  or  even  a  fraction  of  the  reasons 
which  have  been  brought  forward  for  studying  the 
Classics  would  be  but  a  weariness  of  the  flesh.  The 
ancient  fetish  that  the  study  of  them  constitutes  a 
good  mental  discipline  is,  by  some  dispensation  of 
Providence,  dying  away.  (I  should  suggest  Turk- 
ish or  Chinese  as  a  better  discipline  for  the  mind.) 
The  predatory  conception  that  a  knowledge  of  the 
Classics  is  the  distinguishing  mark  of  every  true 


gentleman  is  also  disappearing.  The  materialistic 
champion  of  the  ancient  languages  argues  that  a 
knowledge  of  them  will  help  him  in  a  medical  or 
legal  career  to  grasp  more  easily  the  difficult  term- 
inologies of  those  professions,  as  also  the  ever-in- 
creasing vocabulary  of  modern  books  and  periodicals. 
A  thorough  knowledge  of  the  grammar  of  modern 
languages  is  said  by  some  to  be  obtainable  only 
through  acquaintance  with  the  classical  languages. 
All  these  arguments  have  become  as  wearisome  as 
the  chatter  of  magpies,  and  when  we  hear  them  we 
instinctively  put  our  fingers  in  our  ears  and  hasten 
away.  Much  time  has  been  spent  by  classical  prop- 
agandists in  reiterating  these  arguments,  thinking, 
forsooth,  that  by  quantity  of  reasoning  rather  than 
by  quality  they  could  prove  their  contentions.  But 
the  interest  in  the  Classics  has  become  less  and  less 
as  time  has  sped  by,  until  only  the  faintest  vestige 
of  their  former  glory  remains.  The  war  with  its 
strident  tones  has  -almost  succeeded  in  drowning 
their  timid  voice ;  though  not  entirely,  for  immortal- 
ity has  been  given  them  by  the  homage  of  countless 
poets  of  all  nations  and  all  times.  May  it  not  be 
that  our  old  methods  of  teaching  and  our  thread- 
bare arguments  in  favor  of  the  Classics  may  perish 
in  the  present  holocaust,  and  that,  like  the  Phoenix, 
a  new  creature  may  arise,  vigorous  and  strong,  from 
the  ashes  of  the  old?  Vivat,  floreat,  crescat! 

It  is  instructive  to  notice  the  effect  of  the  war  on 
the  Classics  in  one  of  our  large  Eastern  universities. 
The  course  in  Freshman  Latin,  which  ordinarily  has 
a  registration  of  over  three  hundred,  this  year  has  a 
total  of  fifteen.  In  the  Sophomore  Latin  course  one 
student  is  enrolled  instead  of  the  usual  one  hundred. 
The  percentage  of  loss  in  the  Greek  department  is 
about  the  same.  At  first  it  might  seem  as  if  the 
materialists  had  conquered,  and  that  the  Classics  had 
perished ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  quite  as 
true  that  the  war  will  prove  to  be  beneficial  to  the 


IQI9 


THE  DIAL 


391 


Classics.  In  intellectual  matters  as  well  as  in  po- 
litical, war  not  only  arouses  hatreds  and  prejudices 
which  never  existed  before,  but  also  breaks  down 
many  preexisting  traditions  and  smooths  away  many 
an  international  and  intellectual  antipathy. 

When  I  say  that  the  war  may  be  beneficial  to  the 
Classics  I  do  not  refer  to  those  well-meaning  prop- 
agandists who  read  papers  at  conventions  on  "  Latin 
versus  German."  For  the  gain  in  numbers  which 
would  accrue  to  Latin  from  any  such  purely  nega- 
tive cause  would  be  valueless  to  the  Classics  and — 
what  is  vastly  more  important — would  be  valueless 
to  the  student.  What  I  do  mean  is  that  certain  time- 
worn  traditions  and  prejudices  may  be  broken  down. 
These  exist  both  in  the  mind  of  the  man  on  the 
street  and  in  that  of  the  teacher.  The  average  busi- 
ness man,  for  example,  thinks  that  the  Classics  are 
uninteresting,  and  that  they  have  no  relation  to  mod- 
ern affairs.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  they  are 
uninteresting  to  him  because  he  has  never  been  shown 
what  their  relation  is  to  modern  affairs.  The 
teacher  of  the  Classics,  who  is  usually  a  specialist  in 
a  narrowly  circumscribed  field,  presents  the  works 
of  a  particular  author  in  a  way  which  is  broad 
enough  for  him — for  does  he  not  see  at  each  step 
a  score  of  alluring  problems  which  await  solution  ? — 
but  pitifully  narrow  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
student  who  is  to  share  in  the  burdens  of  commercial 
and  political  life.  It  sometimes  happens  that  the 
qualities  of  a  great  scholar  and  a  great  teacher  are 
to  be  found  in  one  man ;  but  this  is  rare.  The 
scholar  and  the  teacher  differ  in  kind  as  the  dynamo 
differs  from  the  motor. 

Now  that  the  war  is  over,  educational  reconstruc- 
tion is  as  important,  though  not  so  much  discussed, 
as  physical  and  economic  reconstruction.  Students 
returning  to  their  books  from  the  battlefield  and  the 
training-camp  are  looking  upon  things  with  a  more 
exacting  materialism;  they  have  obtained  a  wider 
and  fuller  perspective  of  the  world  and  of  their  needs 
in  it;  they  have  learned  to  conceive  the  world  as  a 
great  army,  each  part  helping  and  explaining  the 
other,  in  which  isolated  facts  and  theories,  those  hav- 
ing no  connection  with  anything  else,  have  no  place. 
At  the  present  moment,  then,  the  Classics  are  in  un- 
stable equilibrium.  The  classicist  stands  at  the  part- 
ing of  the  ways,  one  of  which  leads  through  the  dry 
deserts  of  pedantry — trodden,  alas,  much  too  often 
in  the  past! — the  other  leading  amid  the  ways  of 
men  who  lived  and  loved  and  died  without  refer- 
ence to  the  ablative  absolute. 

Autocracy  in  education  must  be  banished  as  well 
as  political  autocracy;  and  the  classicist,  instead  of 
superciliously  assuming  that  his  subject  will  and 
must  be  studied  by  gentlefolk  everywhere,  must  de- 


scend into  the  forum  and  pro^e  that  the  Classics  are 
of  value  to  the  whole  world.  It  is  pathetic  to  think 
of  all  the  generations  of  men  who  have  come  with 
youthful  eyes  gleaming,  eager  to  learn  of  the  treas- 
ures locked  in  ancient  books;  and  then  to  think  of 
how  they  have  turned  away  with  dull  eyes  and 
wondering  hearts,  finding  in  their  mouths  nothing 
but  dust  instead  of  the  promised  honey. 

There  must  be  no  half  way  measures  in  the  class- 
ical teaching  of  the  future;  there  must  be  no -luke- 
warm convictions  about  the  value  of  the  Classics; 
for  the  youth  of  America  does  not  partake  of  the 
nature  of  the  ancient  Laodiceans,  and  will  believe  a 
thing  only  when  he  is  shown  vigorously  and  beyond 
all  cavil  that  it  is  so.  The  greater  the  prejudices  to 
be  broken  down,  the  more  insuperable  the  difficulties 
to  be  overcome,  the  more  eagerly  will  the  classicist 
apply  himself  to  his  task,  if  he  really  believes  in  the 
importance  of  it. 

It  is  now  high  time  that  we  turn  oxjr  attention  to 
the  statement  of  a  definite  program.  In  so  doing  we 
must,  of  course,  differentiate  between  the  teaching  of 
the  Classics  in  secondary  schools  and  that  in  univer- 
sities. In  the  secondary  schools  the  main  object  must 
always  be  the  mastery  of  the  formal  and  syntactical 
elements  of  the  language,  without  which  no  advanced 
work  in  the  literature  would  ever  be  possible;  but 
inasmuch  as  this  discussion  has  to  do  with  univer- 
sity problems  it  is  permissible  to  pass  over  those 
which  have  to  do  with  elementary  instruction.  For 
university  teaching  two  precepts  may  be  stated  which 
should  be  observed  in  teaching  the  Classics — the  one 
being  self-evident,  as  it  applies  to  the  teaching  of 
any  literature,  and  the  other  being  implied  by  what 
has  already  been  said  in  this  discussion.  The  first 
of  these  precepts  is:  So  teach  that  you  will  reveal 
to  the  student  the  maximum  amount  of  beauty — 
beauty  of  thought,  and  expression,  and  structure. 
And  the  second  is  equally  important :  So  teach  that 
you  will  reveal  the  significance  of  a  given  work  in 
the  history  of  thought,  that  there  may  be  no  discon- 
nected fragments  of  learning  seething  about  in  the 
student's  mind.  For  in  education,  as  in  other  fields 
of  endeavor,  union  fait  la  force,  and  isolated  bits 
of  information  are  as  worthless  for  the  molding  and 
guiding  of  a  man  as  the  asteroids  would  be  for  his 
habitation. 

It  is  this  second  precept  which  I  wish  to  make  the 
basis  of  the  constructive  part  of  this  discussion,  a 
discussion  largely  encyclopedic  in  nature,  but  based 
on  empirical  fact — my  own  experience. 

A  certain  professor  of  music  in  a  New  England 
college  once  said  that,  although  he  enjoyed'  reading 
the  Classics  and  considered  the  time  he  had  devoted 
to  them  as  well  spent,  he  had  never  been  able  to  dis- 


392 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


cover  any  rational  argument  in  favor  of  studying 
them,  any  convincing  proof  which  he  could  use  in  de- 
fense of  them  against  the  attacks  of  the  ever-pres- 
ent Philistine.  An  analogy  finally  occurred  to  him 
from  his  own  profession.  It  was  this:  just  as  Bach 
is  the  basis  of  modern  music,-  and  in  just  the  same 
way  that  a  knowledge  of  Bach  is  necessary  for  the 
musician  if  he  wishes  to  understand  modern  music 
thoroughly,  so  are  the  Classics  the  basis  of  all  Euro- 
pean literature. 

The  insistence  on  considering  a  work  of  art  in  its 
historical  setting  is  tantamount  to  saying  that  that 
work  of  art  should  be  considered  simply  as  one  stage 
in  the  development  of  a  type,  and  obviously  one  must 
have  some  conception  of  the  type  as  a  whole  in  order 
to  appreciate  the  importance  and  meaning  of  each 
particular  stage  in  that  development.  Let  us  take 
as  an  example  an  actual  university  course,  containing 
works  of  various  authors,  each  representative  of  a 
different  literary  type :  the  Odyssey,  the  Greek  lyric, 
Plato's  Apology,  and  Lucian's  True  History.  First 
let  us  consider  the  epic.  Passing  over  all  controver- 
sial definitions,  all  will  agree,  I  think,  that  this  is  one 
of  the  earliest  forms  of  literary  expression,  at  least 
one  of  the  earliest  forms  that  was  written  down  and 
thus  acquired  a  certain  degree  of  permanence.  It  is 
possible  to  find  examples  of  the  primitive  epic  in  the 
early  stages  of  most  "of  the  European  languages. 
Beowulf  and  the  Nibelungenlied,  the  Cid  and  the 
Chanson  de  Roland  are  full  of  tales  of  personal 
prowess  which  are  only  more  modern  versions  of 
the  combats  of  Diomedes  and  Achilles.  The  Finnish 
epic,  the  Kalevala,  is  more  primitive  than  any  of 
these,  containing  the  myth  of  creation  as  well  as  the 
exploits  of  a  great  hero.  Later  in  the  development 
of  a  nation's  literature  come  epics  which  are  less 
vigorous  in  spirit  and  more  formal  in  structure  and 
diction.  Of  these  scores  could  be  named:  the 
Argonautica  of  Apollonius  Rhodius,  Lucan's  Phar- 
salia,  the  Italian  epic  of  chivalry,  such  as  those  of 
Tasso  and  Ariosto,  and  we  might  include  here 
Spenser's  Faery  Queen,  the  historical  epic  such  as 
Voltaire's  Henriade  and  Camoens'  Lusiads,  and  the 
religious  epic  represented  by  Klopstock's  Messiah. 
Midway  between  the  primitive  epic,  hewn  out  of  liv- 
ing rock,  and  the  more  modern,  at  times  decadent, 
epic,  there  is  a  type  which  combines  the  vigor  of  the 
primitives  with  the  felicity  of  expression  of  the  mod- 
erns. Such  are  the  Aeneid,  the  De  Rerum  Natura, 
Paradise  Lost,  and  the  Divine  Comedy.  Such  a 
broad  view  of  many  peoples  and  many  lands,  the 
variety  of  ideas  and  yet  the  astonishing  similarity  of 
ideals  and  unity  of  purpose  observed  in  many  books 
of  widely  separated  countries  and  ages  deserves  much 
more  to  be  called  a  liberal  education  than  the  ordi- 


nary parsing  of  verb  and  noun,  or  the  fixing  of  the 
attention  upon  a  single  isolated  work  without  refer- 
ence to  any  others  of  the  same  type. 

The  obvious  objection  to  such  a  program  is  that 
lack  of  time  would  forbid  it.  Of  course  it  would  be 
impossible  for  each  member  of  a  class  to  read  all 
of  these  books,  but  it  is  perfectly  possible  for  each  one 
to  read  a  different  book  and  report  on  its  contents. 
In  this  way  a  synoptic  conception  of  the  whole  mat- 
ter is  gained.  Furthermore  an  interest  in  reading 
is  aroused  in  this  way  such  as  would  scarcely  come 
about  in  any  other,  for  the  integration  of  the  sep- 
arate parts,  the  focusing  of  the  attention  upon  a 
single  fact  from  varying  angles,  holds  the  interest  of 
the  student  as  no  disconnected  reading  ever  could. 

In  like  manner  the  lyric  may  be  studied  compara- 
tively. It  is  interesting,  for  example,  to  trace  the 
development  of  one  type,  namely  the  elegy,  from  its 
Greek  origin  where  it  was  distinguished  by  its  coup- 
lets of  alternately  long  and  short  verses,  and  was 
used  for  themes  of  love,  war,  and  moral  admonition, 
into  its  later  Greek  use,  where  it  expressed  sorrow 
at  the  death  of  the  beloved  one,  then  into  its  Latin 
environment,  where  it  was  still  distinguished  by  the 
same  form  but  was  used  merely  for  themes  of  love. 
In  English  the  elegy  is  not  confined  to  any  rigid 
form  of  versification  but  in  content  follows  the  late 
Greek  elegy  as  its  model.  This  we  see  in  such 
poems  as  Milton's  Lycidas,  Matthew  Arnold's 
Thyrsis,  Swinburne's  Ave  atque  Vale,  Spenser's 
Astrophel,  and  Shelley's  Adonais. 

Plato's  Apology  requires  consideration  from  two 
different  points  .of  view.  First  of  all  one  should 
study  Socrates'  significance  in  the  history  of  phil- 
osophy, his  changing  of  the  center  of  gravity  from 
purely  cosmological  questions  external  to  man  to 
ethical  and  social  questions  concerning  man  as  an 
individual  and  in  groups.  To  do  this  a  knowledge 
of  the  pre-Socratic  philosophers  and  their  principal 
doctrines  is  essential.  Secondly,  one  may  study  the 
Apology  as  a  type  of  biographical  literature  of  a 
very  distinct  kind.  In  the  Apology  we  have  an  ac- 
count of  a  real  human  being,  who  lived  unselfishly, 
who  spent  his  days  and  nights  teaching  his  followers 
to  lead  a  rational  life  and  therefore,  according  to 
his  doctrines,  an  upright  life.  From  the  people  as 
a  whole  he  received  nothing  but  jeers  and  curses 
and  finally,  due  to  a  combination  of  a  sense  of 
humor  and  a  sense  of  justice,  he  chose  to  die  rather 
than  give  up  his  teaching.  Here  we  have  the  por- 
trayal of  the  best  man  that  the  Greeks  ever  knew — 
and  it  differs  from  their  portrayal  of  that  other 
great  unselfish  figure  in  Greek  literature,  Prome- 
theus, in  that  the  latter  was  a  hero  of  the  far-dis- 
tant past  and  consequently  was  credited  with  cer- 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


tain  divine  or  at  least  superhuman  characteristics, 
whereas  Socrates  was  portrayed  by  his  own  disciple, 
with  a  certain  amount  of  idealism,  no  doubt,  yet 
free  from  all  the  trappings  of  divinity.  How  illum- 
inating it  is  to  compare  this  life  with  the  life  of 
Jesus  as  given  in  Luke's  gospel!  In  these  two  ex- 
amples we  have  summed  up  one  of  the  fundamental 
differences  between  the  Greek  and  the  Christian 
conceptions  of  life.  The  Apology  represents  a  man 
who,  by  the  exercise  of  his  intellect,  was  raised  far 
above  his  fellow  men.  The  gospel  shows  us  a  man 
who,  by  some  mystical  connection  with  God,  became 
something  more  than  man.  The  one  is  a  glorifica- 
tion of  the  intellect;  the  other  a  glorification  of  the 
spirit. 

Lucian's  True  History  is  representative  of  a  type 
which  has  been  popular  in  all  ages — the  romantic 
adventure.  The  literary  progenitor  of  the  type  is 
Homer,  particularly  in  that  part  of  the  Odyssey  in 
which  Odysseus  is  represented  as  descending  to  the 
underworld.  This  type  is  of  a  two-fold  nature :  the 
one  aims  to  delight  through  the  sheer  incredibility 
of  the  tale,  the  other  uses  the  narrative  merely  as 
an  instrument  of  satire.  To  the  first  division  be- 
longs that  part  of  the  Odyssey  already  mentioned, 
as  well  as  many  of  the  Greek  romances  of  the  Alex- 
andrian and  Byzantine  periods.  Here  also  belong 
a  large  number  of  medieval  French  romances  and 
the  modern  scientific  extravaganzas  of  Jules  Verne 
and  H.  G.  Wells.  To  the  second  and  much  more 
important  division,  the  satirical,  belong  a  host  of 
works  which  have  been  of  the  utmost  importance  in 
the  history  of  literature.  Here  one  must  place 
Lucian's  True  History  and  the  Golden  Ass  of 
Apuleius;  here  also  Rabelais'  Gargantua  and  Pan- 
tagruel.  Don  Quixote,  which  strove  by  satire  to 
put  an  end  to  the  romances  of  chivalry,  finds  a  place 
in  this  group,  as  also  Gulliver's  Travels.  Voltaire's 
Candide,  which  held  up  to  ridicule  the  optimism  of 
Leibnitz,  and  Samuel  Butler's  Erewhon  and 
Erewhon  Revisited,  with  their  ridicule  of  Mrs. 
Grundy  and  the  Church  of  England,  must  both  be 
included  in  this  type.  By  the  very  nature  of  com- 
edy, which  consists  partly  in  hyperbole,  and  by  the 
very  nature  of  satire,  which  strives  to  destroy  a  thing 
by  making  it  ridiculous,  the  romantic  adventure  has 
been  frequently  employed  as  an  instrument  of  reform. 

To  the  reader  whose  interests  are  primarily 
esthetic  and  who  believes  that  the  value  of  literature 
consists  in  its  intrinsic  beauty,  irrespective  of  the 
time  and  place  in  which  it  was  created,  this  historical 
treatment  may  seem  entirely  beside  the  point.  But 
the  esthete's  point  of  view  does  not  seem  to  coincide 
with  the  actual  facts  of  experience.  The  knowledge 
of  the  history  of  a  work  of  art  illumines  it  and  makes 
it  more  beautiful  and  more  precious  to  the  individual, 


just  as  with  one's  friends  or  with  one's  native  coun- 
try, a  knowledge  oi  its  history,  of  its  struggles 
toward  perfection,  of  its  successes  and  failures, 
makes  it  all  the  richer  and  more  full  of  meaning. 
The  appreciation  of  art  is,  of  course,  subjective,  as 
one  will  readily  admit  if  one  consider  the  difference 
in  effect  of  some  supremely  beautiful  thing  on  a 
Francis  Thompson  and  on  a  Fiji  Islander.  If  this  is 
so  it  is  obvious  that  the  wider  and  deeper  the  experi- 
ence of  a  man — and  what  is  reading  but  a  short-cut 
to  experience? — the  greater  will  be  his  appreciation 
of  a  given  work  of  art.  The  historical  or  compara- 
tive method,  then,  not  only  is  of  value  in  itself  but 
it  reacts  upon  and  increases  the  esthetic  enjoyment, 
which,  after  all,  is  the  main  thing  in  art. 

Although  much  space  has  been  devoted  in  this  dis- 
cussion to  a  theoretical  treatment  of  the  reasons  for 
approaching  the  study  of  the  Classics  from  a  his- 
torical or  comparative  point  of  view,  we  must  not 
let  matters  rest  on  a  theoretical  basis  alone.  Theories 
in  teaching  just  as  in  any  other  art  must  stand  or 
fall  by  their  effectiveness  in  actual  practice.  Teach- 
ers far  too  often  have  recourse  to  the  mock  logic  of 
baffled  parents:  if  you  do  not  see  now  why  you 
should  do  this,  my  child,  do  it  because  I  ask  you 
to,  and  when  you  have  grown  to  be  a  man  you  will 
see  that  I  am  right.  This  is  shifting  the  respon- 
sibility to  the  future  instead  of  proving  to  the  student 
that  the  Classics  are  worth  while  studying  now. 
The  teacher  must  respect  the  mind  of  the  student 
if  he  will  have  the  student  respect  the  Classics.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  "descend"  to  the  intellectual 
level  of  the  university  student,  and  if  the  teacher 
does  this  the  student  will  have  no  incentive  to  as- 
cend to  the  level  of  the  teacher.  The  teacher  must 
take  the  student  into  his  confidence  and  fulfill  in 
the  present  all  the  promises  whose  fulfillment  has  cus- 
tomarily been  reserved  for  the  future.  Teaching  of 
the  Classics,  as  here  advocated,  has  aroused  a  more 
vigorous  interest  not  only  in  the  Classics  but  in  all 
literature.  The  conclusions  here  stated  are  the  re- 
sult of  my  own  teaching,  proved  in  the  class-room, 
the  only  laboratory  which  the  teacher  of  literature 
has  at  his  command. 

University  reconstruction  must  be  directed  toward 
the  reconstructing  and  reconciling  of  the  nations, 
and  this  can  most  thoroughly  and  most  speedily  be 
brought  about  by  realizing  the  essential  oneness  of 
the  human  race.  The  teaching  of  the  Classics  in 
the  method  hejre  described  is  one  approach  to  this 
end,  for  it  shows  the  similarity  of  the  aims  and 
strivings  of  all  peoples.  Is  not  this  the  great  func- 
tion of  teaching — that  it  should  give  a  broader  and 
deeper,  and  consequently  more  liberal  view  of  the 
world  in  which  we  live? 

ROYAL  CASE  NBMIAH. 


394- 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


A  Second  Imaginary  Conversation 


GOSSE  AND  MOORE 


III 


1V1  OORE.  With  Trollope  I  can  shake  hands  more 
cordially  than  with  Scott,  for  it  was  not  he  who 
turned  literature  into  a  trade;  and  in  view  of  your 
pronouncement  that  every  man  writes  as  well  as  he 
can,  I  will  ask  you  if  it  would  not  be  hard  to 
discern  a  line  more  adapted  to  the  abilities  Trollope 
brought  into  the  world  than  the  line  these  same 
abilities  discovered  for  themselves.  He  rose  at 
sjx,  and  followed  the  road  that  leads  to  the  par- 
sonage until  it  was  time  to  go  to  the  post  office. 
The  Bishop,  the  parson,  and  the  Squire  appear  in 
suitable  parts;  the  young  girl  and  the  lover  are 
supplied  with  admirable  consciences  and  chaperons; 
and  between  whiles  there  are  pages,  sometimes  chap- 
ters, devoted  to  the  subjects  most  likely  to  interest 
his  readers — sport,  farming,  the  housing  of  the  poor, 
and  the  condition  of  the  junior  clergy  written  about 
in  a  way  that  all  may  read  without  any  disturbance 
of  their  preconceived  opinions.  In  Barchester 
Towers  his  admiration  for  nice  conduct  exceeds 
Thackeray's,  whose  style  he  is. supposed  to  have  con- 
tinued. The  Widow  Bold  is  perchance  kissed  at 
a  party  by  a  man  she  is  not  in  love  with — an  un- 
fortunate accident  no  doubt,  but  one  that  hardly 
warrants  the  solo  and  tears  which  he  deems  it 
necessary  to  measure  out  to  her,  and  the  soul  search- 
ings  that  rack  her :  did  she  by  look  or  word  encour- 
age the  horrid  creature  "  to  suspect  that  I  cared 
for  him?  No,  I  certainly  did  not."  In  the  fifties 
tears  were  more  common  than  they  are  today.  But 
it  may  be  doubted  whether  even  in  the  fifties  the 
young  ladies  looked  upon  parties  in  which  kisses 
were  never  exchanged  as  altogether  successful. 
Tears  are  sometimes  in  fashion  and  sometimes  out 
of  fashion,  but  kisses,  so  the  proverb  tells  us,  are 
always  in  fashion,  like  the  gorse  flower.  ^ 

GOSSE.  He  drones  like  an  old  lady  to  her  niece 
after  tea. 

MOORE.  It  is  not  difficult,  it  is  impossible,  to 
write  for  the  parsonage  in  good  prose.  A  good 
writer  adventures  himself  into  windy  Pontic  seas, 
and  the  dangerous  straits  of  Abydos,  where  the 
oyster  is  reared. 

GOSSE.     I  did  not  know  you  as  a  Vergilian. 

MOORE.  Heloise  led  me  to  Vergil — I  am  writing 
Heloi'se  and  Abelard — but  we  must  abide  with 
Trollope  .  .  .  for  the  moment.  Out  of  date 
Suranne  .  .  .  The  wake  of  the  vessel  has  not 
yet  disappeared  into  the  gray  expanse  of  water, 
and  we  catch  sight  still  of  those  coasts  whence  we 


have  come,  crinolines,  blue  chamber  ware,  pink 
decanters,  rep  curtains,  blue  fingerbowls.  These 
things  Trollope  represents,  and  is  endeared  to  us 
thereby. 

GOSSE.  If  his  fame  rests  only  upon  these 
things.  .  .  . 

MOORE.  His  fame  rests  on  a  much  more  solid 
foundation.  Trollope,  in  spite  of  his  name,  and  his 
temperament  which  was  in  strict  accordance  with 
his  name,  was  a  great  revolutionary. 

GOSSE.  Your  paradox  puts  me  in  mind  of  a  line 
of  Hugo's:  "  Des  revolutions  dans  les  ecailles 
d'huitres." 

MOORE.  I  would  not  have  you  speak  disrespect- 
fully of  Trollope,  to  whom  we  owe  our  freedom. 
We  always  count  upon  a  reaction,  and  Trollope 
carried  commonplace  further  than  anyone  dreamed 
it  could  be  carried.  And  it  was  when  Nature 
seemed  to  have  been  expelled  definitely  from  art, 
that  Nature  began  to  return  to  art.  You  have 
wandered  over  many  seashores  with  your  father  the 
naturalist,  and  you  can  remember  the  drift  and 
litter  of  seaweed  with  here  and  there  a  dying  star- 
fish and  many  other  derelicts  of  the  sea  that  you 
could  enumerate.  You  can  therefore  appreciate  the 
comparison :  Nature  had  retired  like  the  sea ;  only 
the  faintest  blue  line  remained  on  the  horizon;  in — 
I  think  the  year  was  '48 — in  '48  three  men  met  one 
night  in  a  studio  in  a  street  off  Oxford  Street, 
Berners  Street,  or  Newman  Street — John  Everett 
Millais,  Holman  Hunt,  and  Rossetti,  to  preach  and 
to  instigate  the  necessity  of  a  return  to  Nature,  and 
the  following  year  the  tide  was  then  breaking  over 
the  evil-smelling  pools. 

GOSSE.  There's  generally  something  in  what  you 
say,  and  it  may  well  be  that  the  r'eturn  to  Nature 
which  began  in  '48  was  brought  about  by  the  stifling 
atmosphere  of  Victorian  conventions.  Millais  illus- 
trated some  of  Trollope's  books. 

MOORE.  The  drawings  he  contributed  to  Orley 
Farm  are  the  very  best  spirit  of  sense,  and  in  his 
best  Pre-Raphaelite  manner,  and  persuade  us  almost 
that  we  have  read  the  book. 

GOSSE.  You  overestimate  their  power.  Beautiful 
as  they  are  they  cannot  persuade  me  to  bear  with 
the  listless  amble  of  that  prose. 

MOORE.  An  amble  listless  as  that  of  Stevenson's 
Modestine,  that  no  sapling  cut  from  the  hedge  could 
urge  into  a  trot — an  exasperating  walk  that  tends 
to  fall  into  a  crawl,  and  that  you  fear  will  end  in 
a  nap  by  the  roadside. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


395 


GOSSE.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  if  the 
book  Orley  Farm  dropped  on  Millais'  knees,  and  if, 
looking  through  the  studio  he  said  to  himself,  "  My 
drawings  are  the  condemnation  of  the  text." 

MOORE.  He  was  too  eagerly  concerned  with  his 
own  work  to  give  a  thought  to  the  merits  or  de- 
merits of  Orley  Farm,  and  acquiesced  in  the  belief 
that  novels  were  like  that,  and  probably  regretted 
that  he  could  not  illustrate  without  reading.  Paint- 
ers are  excellent  judges  of  literature. 

GOSSE.    He  must  have  thought  it  strange.    .    .    . 

MOORE.  Thought  what  strange?  Continue  to 
put  questions  to  me  for  every  one  helps  to  clear 
my  mind. 

GOSSE.  But  WordswTorth  broke  the  conventions 
before  the  painter. 

MOORE.  It  was  the  turn  of  the  painters  to  do 
something  for  art,  and  by  Jove,  they  did  it.  Moral- 
ity was  always  less  suspicious  of  painting  than  of 
literature.  The  naked  woman  banished  from  the 
one  art  was  welcome  in  the  other,  and  you  must  not 
forget  that  the  novelist  in  the  fifties  wrote  almost 
at  the  dictation  of  the  circulating  library.  His 
works  were  published  at  3/6  and  distributed  and 
collected  by  a  service  of  carts.  If  the  librarian  did 
not  think  that  his  book  made  agreeable  drawing- 
room  entertainment  it  never  was  heard  of  again. 
The  librarian  was  an  autocrat,  and  no  one  dared  to 
be  original,  even  if  he  could. 

GOSSE.  Do  you  think  that  this  censorship  has 
prevented  the  addition  of  a  prose  epic  to  our  litera- 
ture? 

MOORE.  A  prose  epic  implies  the  existence  of  a 
man  of  genius,  and  genius,  I  suppose,  cannot  be 
censored.  It  will  find  a  way  out,  so  it  is  said, 
though  all  the  doors  and  windows  are  barred — up 
the  chimney,  through  the  keyhole.  And  if  that  be 
true,  a  first-rate  genius  did  not  exist  in  the  fifties. 

GOSSE.  You  will  perhaps  agree  with  me  that 
the  Russians  have  on  the  whole  produced  the 
best  story-tellers — Turgenev,  Tolstoy,  Dostoevsky, 
Gorki,  are  all  story-tellers,  Tchekhoff  too. 

MOORE.  Yes,  indeed.  .  The  instinct  of  story- 
telling is  in  the  Russians  more  than  in  any  other 
race — more  than  in  the  French,  who  have  only  had 
Balzac  on  the  big  canvas,  and  Maupassant  on  the 
ivory  tablet.  Story-tellers  differ  so  widely  among 
themselves  that  it  is  impossible  to  define  the  gift,  but 
it  is  always  recognizable.  We  perceive  it  in  Tcheh- 
koff  and  miss  it  in  Trollope.  I  will  try  to  assimilate 
and  compose  our  conversations  into  the  form  of  an 
essay,  stopping  at  Trollope,  for  it  would  be  useless 
and  perhaps  unkind  of  me  to  continue  my  search 
for  a  story-teller  among  my  contemporaries,  but  of 
the  dead  we  may  speak  as  plainly  as  we  please.  You 
have  no  idea  how  you  have  helped  me,  Gosse.  You 


have  done  me  a  service  that  I  shall  always  remember. 

GOSSE.   One  moment.   You  have  forgotten  Pater. 

MOORE.  Whose  Marius,  the  Epicurean  is  the 
only  English  narrative  that  men  of  letters  will  turn 
to  in  the  years  that  lie  ahead  of  us. 

GOSSE.  He  applied  himself  to  the  art  of  writ- 
.ing.  .  .  . 

MOORE.  He  wrote  the  only  prose  that  I  never 
weary  of;  but  it  was  not  of  the  beauty  of  his  prose 
that  I  was  about  to  speak,  but  of  something  which 
is  perhaps  as  important.  He  wrote  more  about 
humanity  than  character.  You  remember  the  chap- 
ter entitled  White  Nights.  He  allowed  Marius  to 
pass  before  us  almost  without  distinguishing  trait  as 
a  typical  young  man  of  all  time ;  and  as  a  foil  to  the 
almost  abstract  Marius,  he  set  Flavian,  whom  the 
casual  reader  prefers,  for  character  rather  than 
humanity — this  was  Pater's  intention  in  his  portrait 
of  Marius'  friend.  You  have  set  me  thinking  again, 
Gosse.  English  literature  is  not  without  a  late- 
letter.  If  we  look  across  the  Atlantic  we  find  one, 
and  a  marvelous  one,  Poe. 

GOSSE.  It  is  indeed  a  surprise  to  me  to  hear  that 
you  admire  a  writer  so  essentially  unhealthy  as  Poe, 
one  so  concerned  with  the  very  hypertrophy  of  emo- 
tion. The  very  names  of  his  characters  seem  to 
lead  you  out  of  the  world  of  humanity — one  is  at 
once  in  a  region  of  ghosts:  Ligeia,  Morella,  Bere- 
nice, Eleonora. 

MOORE.  I  have  sufficient  faith  in  antiquity  to 
believe  it  would  have  understood  that  all  the  poetry 
of  life  is  in  the  fact  that  it  is  always  passing  from 
us.  I  will  go  further  and  ask  you  if  it  is  possible 
for  poet  or  peasant  to  love  a  woman  in  life's  daily 
usage  as  he  does  in  remembrance,  and  if  this  be  so 
why.  should  they  blame  Poe  for  setting  forth  so 
representative  of  human  life  many  beautiful  symbols 
bearing  women's  names?  Not  content  with  the 
surface  of  life  like  Trollope,  Poe  sought  a  finer 
distillation. 

GOSSE.  Do  you  not  think  we  should  be  drawn 
to  art  to  praise  life? 

MOORE.  I  would  avoid  dogmatism,  and  the  mere 
revival  of  the  theologian's  formula  seems  too  simple 
an  expedient. 

GOSSE.    What  would  you  put  in  place  of  it? 

MOORE.  The  artist  is  without  dogma,  or 'if  you 
like  to  put  it  differently,  he  is  his  own  dogma;  and 
to  tell  the  story  that  life  brought  to  him.  .  .  . 

GOSSE.     Leaving  out  all  philosophy? 

MOORE.  A  philosophy  is  implicit  in  every  well 
told  story. 

GOSSE.  What  philosophy  would  you  extract  from 
the  Iliad  ? 

MOORE.    That  beauty  is  worth  our  pursuit. 
GOSSE.     Stevenson ! 


396 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


MOORE.  Stevenson  is  a  butterfly  content  to  enjoy 
the  warmth  of  the  sun  and  follow  the  scent  of  the 
flowers,  and  his  enjoyment  of  these  is  so  delightful 
that  we  join  in  the  chase,  children  once  again,  led  by 
a  child;  and  after  a  long  day  in  the  open  air  we 
return  to  relive  our  adventures  in  drowsy  dreams. 

GOSSE.  As  you  yourself  pointed  out  in  A  Story- 
teller's Holiday  Stevenson  dropped  into  superficial 
thinking  when  he  said  that  Catholics  remained  al- 
ways Catholics  and  Protestants  always  Protestants. 
He  should  have  looked  upon  Catholicism  and  Prot- 
estantism as  eternal  attitudes  of  the  human  mind. 

MOORE.     Indeed  I  think  he  should. 

GOSSE.  In  the  pages  that  do  not  meet  with  your 
approval  .  .  . 

MOORE.  In  the  pages  that  I  ventured  to  con- 
sider, to  measure,  and  to  weigh  .  .  . 

GOSSE.  There  is  a  good  deal  that  you  must  have 
recognized  as  true:  the  pleasure,  for  instance,  that 
Stevenson  felt  on  finding  himself  once  again  in  a 
Protestant  atmosphere  could  not  have  been  told  at 
all  by  Poe,  who  was  not  so  great  a  master  of  words 
as  Stevenson. 

MOORE.  A  very  inadmissible  statement,  Gosse, 
for  how  else  but  by  the  beauty  of  the  words  can 
you  explain  Poe's  poetry — and  that  he  wrote  better 
poetry  than  Stevenson  will  be  conceded  by  all  men 
of  letters,  and  if  you  fail  to  nod  your  head  approv- 
ingly I'll  write  to  Sir  Sidney  Colvin  who,  though 
bewitched  by  his  edition  of  Stevenson's  correspond- 
ence as  he  undoubtedly  is,  will  not  deny  .  .  . 

GOSSE.  So  you  look  upon  Poe  as  a  master  of 
words,  and  his  English  as  equal  to  Baudelaire's 
French. 

MOORE.  You  must  have  forgotten  the  beautiful 
opening  of  Baudelaire's  introduction;  let  me  recall 
it  to  your  memory.  Is  there  a  devil  Providence  that 
bends  over  the  cradles  to  choose  its  victims,  and  with 
malice  prepense  throws  the  purest  spirits  into  hostile 
regions  like  martyrs  into  the  arenas;  are  there  then 
souls  dedicated  to  the  altar  who  walk  to  death  and 
glory  through  their  ruined  lives?  Baudelaire  asks 
this  question,  for  in  view  of  Poe's  life  and  his  own 
he  is  minded  to  believe  in  this  devil  Providence.  To 
know  the  lives  of  these  two  men  is  to  share  their 
mutual  conviction  that  they  were  victims  of  such  a 
Providence,  Poe  even  more  than  Baudelaire,  for  to 
this  very  day  the  ill  luck  that  presided  at  his  birth 
has  not  ceased — it  is  implicit  in  your  question:  Is 
Poe's  English  equal  to  Baudelaire's  French?  The 
gift  of  the  good  fairy — the  beautifullest  transla- 
tion, she  said,  that  a  man  ever  had  shall  be  thine — 
was  overheard  by  the  bad  fairy  who  returned  down 
the  chimney  and  said,  I  cannot  take  away  the  gift 
that  the  good  fairy  has  given  thee,  but  it  shall  be 
said  commonly  that  thou  canst  only  be  read  in  trans- 


lation. "  Ma  fiancee  et  ma  compagne  d'etude  et 
enfin  1'espouse  de  mon  coeur  "  seems  commonplace 
and  trite  when  compared  with  "  my  friend  and  my 
betrothed,  who  became  the  partner  of  my  studies 
and  finally  the  wife  of  my  bosom,"  and  we  are  con- 
scious of  a  drop  when  we  read,  "  Si  jamais  la  pale 
Ashtophet  de  1'idolatre  Egypte  aux  ailes  tene- 
breuses,"  and  remember  the  beautiful  English 
"  The  wan  and  misty  winged  Ashtophet  of  idola- 
trous Egypt."  And  so  On,  through  the  beautiful 
pages  of  Ligeia,  we  can  detect  a  delicate  rise  and 
fall,  the  original  and  the  translation  having  the 
upper  hand  in  turns. 

GOSSE.  As  is  usual,  a  good  deal  of  what  you 
say  is  true,  and  I  am  with  you  so  far  that  it  cannot 
be  seriously  maintained  that  a  translation  that  fol- 
lows the  original,  comma  by  comma,  full  stop  by  full 
stop,  can  be  said  to  possess  great  beauties  of  style 
that  are  not  discoverable  in  the  original.  All  the 
same,  I  think  something  happened  in  the  transla- 
tion; but  you  will  allow  that  a  less  favorable  ex- 
ample of  Poe's  style  might  have  been  selected?  In 
the  story  of  William  Wilson  Poe  tells  how  the 
struggle  between  good  and  evil  continues  in  the  same 
individual  till  the  evil  overpowers  the  good. 

MOORE.  And  he  tells  his  story  without  the  help 
of  magic  potions. 

GOSSE.  You  have  Doctor  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde 
in  your  mind. 

MOORE.  Stevenson's  story  is  no  more  than  a 
popular  version  of  Poe's,  and  I  have  always 
thought  Poe  is  himself  implicit  in  the  story  of 
William  Wilson.  Poe  was  a  poet  and  a  man  of 
science,  and  although  the  poet  was  the  stronger  of 
the  two,  the  man  of  science  makes  himself  felt  in  the 
prose. 

GOSSE.  Baudelaire's  service  was  to  attenuate  the 
diagrams. 

MOORE.  There  are  diagrams  in  Poe's  prose 
sometimes,  and  festoons  and  astragals  in  Steven- 
son's always. 

GOSSE.  As  a  writer  you  place  Hawthorne  higher 
than  Poe. 

MOORE.  A  young  man  cannot  overlook  Poe,  but 
he  can  Hawthorne — Hawthorne's  genius  not  being 
so  evident  as  Poe's — but  if  our  young  man  be 
worthy  of  our  consideration  he  will  return  to  Haw- 
thorne in  later  life,  and  without  losing  any  of  his 
admiration  for  Poe.  One  does  not  exclude  the 
other,  our  estheticism  should  be  wide  enough  to 
include  Michael  Angelo  and  Phidias.  When  I 
enter  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  I  walk  about 
admiring  the  absence  of  accent. 

GOSSE.  Is  it  not  one  of  your  little  perversities  to 
consider  Hepzibah  Pyncheon  as  Greek  sculpture 
rather  than  Gothic? 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


397 


MOORE.  As  for  Gothic  and  Greek,  a  truce  to 
the  discussion  regarding  their  characteristics,  for  have 
I  not  seen  little  medieval  virgins  from  Rhenish  towns 
as  ungainly  as  Greek  maidens,  and  though  there 
is  nothing  in  Greek  art  as  ungainly  as  Hepzibah, 
there  is  nothing  that  I  can  remember  at  this  moment 
as  modest  in  Gothic.  But  it  matters  nothing  to  me 
whether  you  call  her  Greek  or  Gothic  if  you  admire 
her;  and  as  the  two  styles  mingle  in  her  I  would 
that  our  twain  admiration  of  her  should  f  irn  to  one 
this  summer  afternoon. 

GOSSE.  Your  talk  of  her  the  last  time  you  were 
here  caused  Sylvia  to  take  the  book  from  the  s  elves. 
It  is  on  the  table  by  you. 

MOORE.  I  should  like  to  read  to  you  the  de- 
scription of  the  old  maid  and  her  agony  of  mind  .  .  . 

GOSSE.  The  morning  that  she  descends  the  old 
timbered  stairs  to  open  the  shop  for  the  first  time. 
It  is  many  years  since  I  read  it  and  it  will  come 
upon  me  quite  fresh. 

The  old  maid  was  alone  in  the  old  house.  Alone,  ex- 
cept for  a  certain  respectable  and  orderly  young  man,  an 
artist  in  the  daguerreotype  line,  who,  for  about  three 
months  back,  had  been  a  lodger  in  a  remote  gable, — quite 
a  house  by  itself,  indeed, — with  locks,  bolts,  and  oaken 
bars  on  all  the  intervening  doors.  Inaudible,  conse- 
quently, were  poor  Miss  Hepzibah's  gusty  sighs.  In- 
audible, the  creaking  joints  of  her  stiffened  knees,  as  she 
knelt  down  by  the  bedside.  And  inaudible  too,  by  mortal 
ear,  but  heard  with  all-comprehending  love  and  pity  in 
the  farthest  heaven,  that  almost  agony  of  prayer — now 
whispered,  now  a  groan,  now  a  struggling  silence — 
wherewith  she  besought  the  divine  assistance  through  the 
day!  Evidently  this  is  to  be  a  day  of  more  than  ordinary 
trial  to  Miss  Hepzibah,  who  for  above  a  quarter 
of  a  century  gone  by,  has  dwelt  in  strict  seclusion, 
taking  no  part  in  the  business  of  life,  and  just  as  little 
in  its  intercourse  and  pleasures.  Not  with  such  fervor 
prays  the  torpid  recluse,  looking  forward  to  the  cold, 
sunless,  stagnant  calm  of  a  day  that  is  to  be  like  innum- 
erable yesterdays ! 

The  maiden  lady's  devotions  are  concluded.  Will  she 
now  issue  forth  over  the  threshold  of  our  story?  Not 
yet,  by  many  moments.  First,  every  drawer  in  the  tall, 
old-fashioned  bureau  is  to  be  opened,  with  difficulty  and 
with  a  suggestion  of  spasmodic  jerks;  then,  all  must 
close  again,  with  the  same  fidgety  reluctance.  There  is 
a  rustling  of  stiff  silks;  a  tread  of  backward  and  for- 
ward footsteps,  to  and  fro  across  the  chamber.  We  sus- 
pect Miss  Hepzibah,  moreover,  of  taking  a  step  upward 
into  a  chair,  in  order  to  give  heedful  regard  to  her  ap- 
pearance on  all  sides,  and  at  full  length,  in  the  oval, 
dingy-framed  toilet  glass,  that  hangs  above  her  table. 
Truly!  well,  indeed!  Who  would  have  thought  it!  Is 
all  this  precious  time  to  be  lavished  on  the  matutinal 
repair  and  beautifying  of  an  elderly  person,  who  never 
goes  abroad,  whom  nobody  ever  visits,  and  from  whom, 
when  she  shall  have  done  her  utmost,  it  were  the  best 
charity  to  turn  one's  eyes  another  way? 

Now  she  is  almost  ready.  Let  us  pardon  her  one  other 
pause;  for  it  is  given  to  the  sole  sentiment,  or,  we  might 
better  say, — heightened  and  rendered  intense,  as  it  has 
been,  by  sorrow  and  seclusion — to  the  strong  passion  of 
her  life.  We  heard  the  turning  of  a  key  in  a  small  lock; 
she  has  opened  a  secret  drawer  of  an  escritoire,  and  is 
probably  looking  at  a  certain  miniature,  one  in  Mai- 
bone's  most  perfect  style,  and  representing  a  face  worthy 


of  no  less  delicate  a  pencil.  It  was  once  our  good  for- 
tune to  see  this  picture.  It  is  a  likeness  of  a  young  man, 
in  a  silken  dressing-gown  of  an  old  fashion,  the  soft 
richness  of  which  is  well  adapted  to  the  countenance  of 
revery,  with  its  full,  tender  lips,  and  beautiful  eyes,  that 
seem  to  indicate  not  so  much  capacity  of  thought,  as 
gentle  and  voluptuous  emotion.  Of  the  possessor  of  such 
features  we  shall  have  a  right  to  ask  nothing,  except  that 
he  would  take  the  rude  world  easily,  and  make  himself 
happy  in  it.  Can  it  have  been  an  early  lover  of  Miss 
Hepzibah?  No;  she  never  had  a  lover — poor  thing,  how 
could  she? — nor  ever  knew,  by  her  own  experience,  what 
love  technically  means.  And  yet,  her  undying  faith  and 
trust,  her  fresh  remembrance  and  continual  devotedness 
towards  the  original  of  that  miniature,  have  been  the 
only  substance  for  her  heart  to  feed  upon. 

She  seems  to  have  put  aside  the  miniature,  and  is 
standing  again  before  the  toilet-glass.  There  are  tears 
to  be  wiped  off.  A  few  more  footsteps  to  and  fro;  and 
here,  at  last — with  another  pitiful  sigh,  like  a  gust  of 
chill,  damp  wind  out  of  a  long  closed  vault,  the  door 
of  which  has  been  accidentally  set  ajar — here  comes  Miss 
Hepzibah  Pyncheon !  Forth  she  steps  into  the  dusky,  time- 
darkened  passage;  a  4all  figure,  clad  in  black  silk,  with 
a  long  and  shrunken  waist,  feeling  her  way  towards  the 
stairs  like  a  near-sighted  person,  as  in  truth  she  is. 

MOORE.  How  restrained  and  how  full  of  seri- 
ousness and  dignity,  a  portrait  that  Balzac  would 
read  twice  over,  recognizing  in  it  a  vision  as  in- 
tense as  his  own  and  better  balanced,  and  Turgenev 
would  have  recognized  in  Hawthorne's  portrait 
genius  akin  to  his  own. 

GOSSE.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  listen  to  prose  like 
that. 

MOORE.  And  it  is  a  pleasure  to  me  to  hear  you 
express  approval  as  I  read  to  you  on  a  balcony  on  a 
summer  afternoon.  You  do  think  with  me  that  no 
writer  of  English  prose  narrative  has  written  like 
that  before? 

GOSSE.  I  would  agree  with  you  with  more  alac- 
rity if  I  were  sure  that  my  acquiescence  would  not 
provoke  you  to  some  unpleasant  gibes.  There  is 
still  George  Eliot  to  be  considered.  And  I  would 
willingly  dispute  the  truth  of  some  of  the  evil 
things  that  have  been  said  about  her  if  I  were  not 
altogether  and  utterly  overcome  by  the  graceful 
proportions  and  the  temperate  dignity  of  Haw- 
thorne's portraiture.  And  we  are  conscious  of  his 
beautiful  mind  as  we  are  of  the  sun  behind  yon 
cloud,  illuminating  it,  filling  it  with  poetry,  of  a 
beautiful  summer  afternoon.  Hawthorne  was  the 
first  to  understand  the  Pre-Raphaelites,  and  none 
has  explained  their  art  better  than  he.  He  wrote 
out  of  a  well  cultivated  intelligence,  and  he  recalls 
Pater  inasmuch  as  his  desire,  like  Pater's,  was  to 
make  each  separate  sentence  a  work  of  art  in  itself. 
Nor  are  his  gifts  of  vision  and  comprehension  of 
human  life  exhausted  in  his  portrait  of  Hepzibah; 
it  breaks  my  heart  that  I  cannot  quote  Clifford's 
portrait,  for  as  it  seems  to  me  it  stands  on  as  high 
a  level,  in  some  ways  on  a  higher  level  than  any- 
thing accomplished  by  Balzac  or  Turgenev,  and  to 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


compare  it  with  the  work  of  any  English  novelist 
would  be  as  absurd  as  to  draw  a  comparison  be- 
tween Rembrandt  and  Frank  Hall,  but  it  would 
take  half  an  hour  to  read  it  aloud,  and  I  will  accept 
your  promise  that  you  read  these  pages  when  I  leave 
you,  in  lieu  of  your  attention.  I  turn  down  the 
leaf  at  the  place.  I  must  exact  a  promise  from  you 
that  you  read  Phoebe  too.  A  portrait  of  a  young 
girl  in  her  teens  can  never  be  carried  further  than  a 
sketch,  she  being  herself  no  more  than  a  sketch. 
But  was  there  ever  a  more  beautiful  sketch,  one 
more  instinctive  with  awakening  life?  The  book 
drops  on  our  knees  and  we  ask  ourselves  what  her 
womanhood  will  bring  forth  in  fateful  happiness 
or  blunder.  It  seems  to  have  been  part  of  Haw- 
thorne's problem  to  stir  the  reader  to  musings  of 
this  sort,  and  very  admirably  he  does,  with  Phoebe's 
voice  rising  and  falling  to  the  pathetic  tinkle  of  a 
harpsichord,  pathetic  always  to  our  ears  from  its 
very  inadequacy  of  sound — and  doubly  pathetic  are 
the  tones  of  Hepzibah's  harpsichord,  in  this  old  tim- 
bered house. 

He,  Clifford,  would  sit  quietly,  with  a  gentle  pleasure 
gleaming  over  his  face,  brighter  now,  and  now  a  little 
dimmer,  as  the  song  happened  to  float  near  him,  or  was 
more  remotely  heard.  It  pleased  him  best,  however, 
when  she  sat  on  a  low  footstool,  at  his  knee. 

GOSSE.  Then  we  have  come  upon  the  narrative 
we  are  in  search  of  ... 

MOORE.  The  harmony  is  not  less  expressive 
than  the  souls  that  fulfill  it,  and  not  less  when 
we  meet  them  in  the  torn  uncouth  garden,  en- 
croached upon  by  the  back  yards  of  some  near 
streets,  and  the  speckled  fowls,  and  the  patriarchal 
cock  that  scuttles  away  from  approaching  footsteps, 
creeping  through  broken  box  hedges,  than  they  were 
in  the  falling  house;  and  in  keeping  too  are  the 
words  that  Phoebe  speaks  to  the  daguerreotypist 
in  the  garden,  revealing  her  pretty  soul  and  to  its 
very  depths.  The  daguerreotypist,  Holgrave,  is  the 
lodger;  he  was  there  from  the  beginning  before  the 
arrival  of  Phoebe  and  Clifford,  and  he  too  might 
have  been  .  ..  . 

GOSSE.  So  we  have  come  to  the  might  have 
beens. 

MOORE.  You  seem  relieved  by  the  prospect  that 
our  search  may  end  in  failure,  thinking  perhaps 
that  it  would  not  be  in  keeping  to  come  upon  per- 
fect art  in  a  world  that  has  outlived  beauty.  Hol- 
grave is  of  the  unfortunate  class  in  story-books — the 
class  that  the  author  cannot  keep  himself  from  in- 
tellectualizing;  Holgrave  has  been  heavily  intellec- 
tualized,  and  when  he  has  finished  his  disputations 
with  Phoebe  the  reader  is  informed  that  he  had 
visited  Europe  and  found  means  before  his  return 


to  visit  Italy  and  part  of  France  and  Germany  too. 
At  a  later  period  he  had  even  spent  some  months  in  a 
community  of  Fourierists,  and  still  more  recently  he 
had  been  a  public  lecturer  or  mesmerist,  for  which 
science  he  had  very  remarkable  .  endowments ;  and 
a  few  pages  later  we  learn — this  time  without  sur- 
prise— that  he  is  a  frequent  contributor  to  the  maga- 
zines, and  that  he  has  an  article  in  his  pocket  into 
which  he  has  put  an  incident  of  the  Pyncheon 
family.  He  would  like  to  read  it  to  her,  and  hence- 
forth the  truth,  if  it  must  be  spoken,  is  that  the 
story  evaporates  in  the  literary  prejudices  and  con- 
ventions for  which  Scott  and  his  ilk  are  responsible. 
It  is  all  very  sad,  and  how  this  came  about  I  am 
afraid  will  never  be  thoroughly  explained.  To 
whom  are  we  to  assign  Judge  Pyncheon,  who  is 
stricken  suddenly  in  death  while  sitting  in  an  arm- 
chair facing  the  portrait  of  the  original  Pyncheon, 
the  witch  burner?  Nor  is  this  all — behind  the  por- 
trait is  the  document  he  has  long  been  in  search  of, 
for  the  discovery  of  it  would  put  him  into  possession 
of  the  larger  part  of  the  state  of  Ohio.  To  whom 
are  we  to  assign  this  plot?  The  claimants  are  so 
numerous  that  I  think  we  had  better  assign  it  to 
the  English  literary  tradition  of  what  a  novel  should 
be,  and  we  should  rather  wonder  that  Hawthorne 
succeeded  in  writing  beautiful  openings  rather  than 
that  he  failed  to  write  perfect  works. 

GOSSE.  I  am  glad  that  you  think  that  the  age 
a  man  lives  in  influences  his  art  as  much  as  his  indi- 
vidual talent. 

MOORE.  I  remember  that  you  say  somewhere 
that  had  Tennyson  been  born  in  1550  he  would 
have  possessed  the  same  personality,  but  his  poetry, 
had  he  written  verse,  would  have  had  scarcely  a 
remote  resemblance  to  what  we  have  now  received 
from  his  hand;  and  you  go  on  to  say  that  we  are 
in  the  habit  of  describing  a  man's  originality  as 
merely  an  aggregation  of  elements  which  he  re- 
ceived by  inheritance.  If  this  be  so  it  follows  that 
the  congenital  commonplace  of  the  English  novelist 
is  also  an  aggregation  of  elements  that  he  receives 
by  inheritance.  We  need  not  seek  further  for  the 
extraordinary  lack  of  art  in  English  prose  narra- 
tive. Our  heredity  is  bad. 

GOSSE.  There  is  no  escape  from  that  conclu- 
sion, unless  we  accept  the  alternatives  that  the  per- 
fect molding  of  a  story  is  alien  to  the  genius  of  the 
race. 

MOORE.  A  somewhat  cruel  conclusion,  one  that 
I  shrink  from  accepting,  but  it  would  be  vain  to 
pretend  that  it  is  not  supported  by  facts — and  one 
of  the  most  significant  is  Hawthorne,  who  failed 
to  carry  a  story  through.  The  Blythedale  Ro- 
mance opened  on  a  prospect  of  story  that  I  read 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


399 


tremulous  with  fear  lest  Hawthorne's  strength 
should  fail  him  as  it  had  done  in  the  conclusion  of 
his  House  of  the  Seven  Gables.  The  story  rose 
higher,  beautiful  it  seemed  to  me  as  a  bird  on  wing; 
and  I  said,  on  the  two  hundredth  page,  we  are  in 
Eldorado  safe,  for  he  will  not  commit  so  potent  a 
mistake  as  to  allow  him  who  joins  the  community 
to  return  to  New  York  or  Boston  till  the  end  of 
the  story.  And  asking  myself  if  his  art  were  suffi- 
cient to  continue  the  story  in  the  community,  I 
looked  to  see  how  many  more  pages  there  were  to 
read.  About  two  hundred,  I  said.  It  was  in  the 
middle  of  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables  that  he 
broke  down.  The  strain  became  greater  at  every 
page,  and  after  the  splendid  scene  between  the  two 
men  he  could  not  do  else  but  leave — there  was  no 
other  issue.  But  so  great  is  an  artist's  desire  of  the 
masterpiece  that  I  continued  to  hope  the  impos- 
sible might  happen;  by  some  miracle  of  genius,  I 


said,  he  may  be  saved,  and  so  vivid  was  his  telling 
of  the  disquiet  and  sense  of  spiritual  loneliness  that 
comes  over  us  on  our  return  to  the  multitudes  that 
it  began  to  seem  as  if  he  had  hit  upon  a  way  out  of 
the  difficulty.  My  hopes  were  at  pitch  and  I 
waited,  almost  breathless,  for  the  loosening  of  the 
clutch.  Alas!  he  walked  to  the  window,  and  on 
looking  across  a  courtyard  saw  against  the  lighted 
panes  forms  that  he  could  not  doubt  were  Zenobia's 
— I  have  forgotten  the  other  woman's  name.  They, 
too,  had  come  up  to  town.  After  that  the  book 
drifted  out  somehow  as  inconsequently  as  The 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables. 

GOSSE.     Have  you  read  The  Scarlet  Letter? 

MOORE.     No-;  and  it  isn't  probable  that  I  ever 
shall. 

Here  ends  the  second  conversation. 

GEORGE  MOORE. 


Cobden  The  Internationalist 


JLHE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY  showed  its  trust  in 
history  by  the  fact  that  the  monuments  which  it 
erected  to  what  it  recognized  as  greatness  took  his- 
toric form.  Instead  of  confiding  immortality  to 
marble  and  bronze  or  poetry  the  Victorians  erected 
the  great  structures  of  interpretation  and  documents 
known  as  Lives  and  Times,  or  Lives  and  Letters. 
Lockhart's  Scott,  Masson's  Milton,  Moore's  Byron, 
Froude's  Carlyle,  Forster's  Dickens,  were  followed 
by  Purcell's  Manning,  Liddon's  Pusey,  Morley's 
Cobden  and  Gladstone,  and  with  Moneypenny's 
Disraeli  and  Gosse's  Swinburne  the  fashion  goes  on. 
As  the  death  of  a  rich  man  provokes  the  immediate 
question  to  whom  does  he  leave  his  wealth,  so  that 
of  a  famous  one  moves  men  to  ask  to  whom  does  he 
confide  his  reputation.  The  documented  biography 
became  a  definite  form  of  literary  art  and  craftsman- 
ship which  the  nineteenth  century  made  peculiarly 
its  own.  Some  of  its  subjects  live  for  us  the  more 
splendidly  because  of  the  monumental  skill  of  their 
biographers,  while  others  have  suffered  through  a 
frankness  or  a  clumsiness  which  has  sometimes 
seemed  a  betrayal. 

Of  the  great  mortuary  artists  of  the  Victorian 
School  John  Morley  may  be  accounted  the  chief. 
His  Cobden  in  1881  was  a  high  achievement,  and  his 
Gladstone  twenty  years  later  established  his  rank. 
The  completeness  and  justice  of  these  works  would 
seem  to  leave  little  scope  for  his  successors,  and  one 
approaches  the  new  life  of  Richard  Cobden  by  J.  A. 
Hobson  (Holt)  with  the  feeling  that  it  can  be 
little  more  than  a  replica,  a  figurine  or  portrait 


bust  for  the  library,  reproducing  the  outlines  of  the 
heroic  statue  which  Morley  erected  for  the  cathedral 
or  public  square.  Even  so  we  might  be  grateful,  for 
the  highways  of  the  world  no  longer  lead  past  the 
memorial  places  where  the  last  century  honored 
its  dead.  In  fact,  however,  Mr.  Hobson's  life  is 
more  than  this.  By  shifting  the  emphasis  from 
Cobden 's  early  and  best  known  activities  in  connec- 
tion with  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  to  his  later 
application  of  his  principle  of  free  trade  to  foreign 
affairs  during  the  period  from  the  opening  of  the 
Crimean  to  the  close  of  the  American  Civil  War, 
Mr.  Hobson  has  given  us  a  new  view  of  his  subject, 
with  a  modern  attitude  and  expression,  and  above 
all  has  placed  his  figure  where  the  world  cannot 
fail  to  pass  and  see.  The  timeliness  of  the  book  is 
astonishing.  It  is  as  if  the  spirit  of  Cobden  had 
returned  to  take  his  place  beside  Lowes  Dickinson 
and  Bertrand  Russell. 

Mr.  Hobson  was  fortunate  in  having  new  docu- 
ments to  supplement  those  of  which  Lord  Morley 
made  such  conscientious  use.  The  correspondence 
with  Mr.  Richard,  of  the  Peace  Society,  and  that 
with  Charles  Sumner  occupy  most  of  the  present 
volume.  The  biographer  contents  himself  with  a 
few  pages  here  and  there  of  connecting  narrative, 
and  for  the  rest  lets  Cobden  speak  for  himself — the 
protagonist  of  non-intervention,  internationalism, 
and  pacifism  in  the  years  1850-1865.  These  were 
the  years  of  the  supremacy  of  Palmerstone  in  the 
councils  of  the  British  government,  and  with  him, 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  on  the  hustings,  and  in 


400 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


the  press,  Cobden  carried  on  a  long  and  splendid 
duel.  With  John  Bright  he  threw  himself  directly 
across  the  path  which  England  under  the  bad  genius 
of  her  leader  was  following  and  dragging  the  world 
after  her  to  its  ruin.  He  fought  the  mischievous 
intrigues  of  Lord  Stratford  de  Redcliffe  at  Con- 
stantinople, the  attempt  to  isolate  Russia,  the  re- 
peated and  foolish  war  panics  founded  on  the  imag- 
inary danger  of  invasion  by  France  and  resulting 
always  in  increase  of  armament,  the  bullying  of  the 
United  States,  the  disgraceful  aggressions  against 
China  and  the  border  state  of  India.  He  recognized 
this  policy  as  one  of  cowardice  as  well  as  selfishness 
and  cruelty,  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  express  his 
condemnation  of  the  imperial  part  which  his  country 
had  played,  and  of  which  Palmerstone's  activity 
seemed  to  him  the  culmination.  His  comment  on 
recent  English  history  is  worth  quoting — indeed  he 
thought  so  himself  for  he  used  practically  the  same 
language  to  two  correspondents — fo  Mr.  Thomassen 
September  27,  1852  (quoted  in  M  rley),  and  to  Mr. 
Richard  two  days  later : 

I  wish  we  had  a  map,  on  Mercator's  projection,  with 
a  red  spot  printed  upon  those  places  by  land  and  sea 
where  we  have  fought  battles  since  1688.  It  would  be 
seen  at  a  glance  that  we  have  (unlike  any  other  nation 
under  the  sun)  been  fighting  foreign  enemies  upon  every 
part  of  the  earth's  surface  excepting  our  own  territory 
— thus  showing  that  we  have  been  the  most  warlike  and 
aggressive  people  that  ever  existed. 

And  again: 

We  shall  do  no  good  until  we  can  bring  home  to  the 
conviction  and  consciences  of  men  the  fact  that,  as  in 
the  slave-trade  we  had  surpassed  in  guilt  the  whole 
world,  so  in  foreign  wars  we  have  been  the  most  ag- 
gressive, quarrelsome,  warlike,  and  bloody  nation  under 
the  sun. 

Nor  did  he  confine  his  opposition  to  private  cor- 
respondence. With  the  prestige  which  he  had  won 
by  the  prosperity  which  followed  the  repeal  of  the 
Corn  Laws  he  addressed  his  countrymen  fearlessly, 
even  in  times  of  actual  warfare,  defying  the  popular 
psychology,  putting  his  reputation,  his  party,  and 
almost  his  life  at  stake.  He  won  a  signal  triumph 
of  reason  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  carrying  a 
vote  of  censure  against  the  Palmerstone  government 
for  the  outrageous  bombardment  of  Canton  because 
of  the  seizure  by  Chinese  authorities  of  the  lorcha 
Arrow,  but  in  the  election  which  followed  Palmer- 
stone  set  the  country  aflame  with  patriotism,  Cob- 
den  and  Bright  were  defeated  for  Parliament,  and 
the  Manchester  School  was  almost  wiped  out.  He 
carried  through  to  success  the  difficult  negotiation 
of  a  commercial  treaty  with  France,  to  the  immense 
advantage  of  both  nations.  Nothing  speaks  so  elo- 
quently of  the  impressiveness  of  Cobden's  character 
and  the  strength  which  sheer  conviction  gave  him  as 
the  fact  that  he  brought  Louis  Napoleon  and  his 


ministers  to  agree  to  this  pacific  measure  at  the  very 
moment  when  Palmerstone  was  rousing  England  to 
renewed  armament  against  them.  Twice  he  re- 
ceived offers  from  the  Whigs  to  take  office,  once 
from  Palmerstone  himself,  but  he  rejected  the 
specious  argument  of  the  good  which  he  might 
accomplish  in  the  Cabinet.  In  this  respect  of  utter 
integrity  his  career  offers  a  contrast,  of  which  he 
was  not  unconscious,  to  the  brilliant  opportunism  of 
Gladstone. 

Cobden's  doctrines  of  non-intervention  and  paci- 
fism were  the  direct  result  of  his  faith  in  free  trade 
as  the  solvent  of  war.  As  early  as  1842  he  wrote 
to  Mr.  Ashworth : 

Free  trade  by  perfecting  the  intercourse  and  securing 
the  dependence  of  countries  one  upon  another  must  in- 
evitably snatch  the  power  from  governments  to  plunge 
their  people  into  war. 

With  the  example  of  free  trade  in  England  the 
Manchester  School  thought  that  it  had  provided  the 
world  with  a  solid  basis  of  international  peace,  a 
basis  of  utilitarianism.  Cobden  saw  clearly  that 
the  structure  of  international  economic  service  and 
advantage  which  he  had  planned  would  be  wrecked 
by  tendencies  already  manifest  to  replace  the  legiti- 
mate methods  of  gain  by  exchange  of  goods  for  the 
get-rich-quick  device  of  exporting  capital,  be- 
cause, as  Mr.  Brailsford  has  pointed  out,  while 
the  exporter  of  goods  has  a  natural  interest  in 
the  prosperity  of  his  customer,  the  exporter  of 
capital,  like  any  other  money  lender,  often  finds 
his  advantage  in  the  bankruptcy  of  his  client. 
To  the  safety  of  this  financial  penetration  of 
weaker  and  undeveloped  countries  Palmerstone's 
Civis  Romanus  doctrine  of  protection  to  the 
property  of  British  citizens  in  foreign  lands,  was 
essential.  It  appeared,  a  cloud  not  bigger  than 
a  man's  hand,  in  connection  with  the  case  of  Don 
Pacifico,  a  Levantine  Jew  naturalized  Englishman, 
whose  house  was  sacked  by  a  mob  in  Athens  and 
for  whose  avenging  Palmerstone  sent  the  British 
fleet  to  blockade  Greece — and  Cobden  denounced 
him.  Thirty  years  later  when  the  cloud  had  grown 
to  cover  half  the  heavens  with  menacing  blackness, 
Mr.  Gladstone  at  the  behest  of  the  creditors  of  the 
Khedive  sent  the  English  fleet  to  bombard  Alexan- 
dria and  put  down  the  Egyptian  nationalists — and 
Cobden's  friend  John  Bright  resigned  from  the 
Cabinet. 

Of  the  fact  that  in  his  war  against  war  CSbden 
anticipated  the  experiences  of  present  day  statesman- 
ship, Mr.  Hobson's  pages  contain  many  reminders. 
Therein  consists  the  timeliness  of  his  volume.  The 
dishonesty  necessary  to  maintain  the  war  spirit  was 
the  theme  on  which  Cobden  began  his  speech  (at 
Leeds)  against  the  Crimean  War: 

My  first  and  greatest  objection  to  the  war,  gentlemen, 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


401 


has  been  the  delusive,  I  had  almost  said  fraudu- 
lent, pretences  under  which  it  has  been  made  popular 
in  this  country.  I  mean  that  the  feelings  of  the  people 
have  been  roused  into  enthusiasm  in  favour  of  the  war, 
by  being  led  to  entertain  the  belief  that  it  was  to  effect 
objects  which  I  know  and  felt,  at  all  events,  it  never 
was  intended  to  effect. 

The  mischievous  influence  of  the  press  on  the  public 
mind  was  a  frequent  subject  of  his  attack.  He 
quotes  Lord  Aberdeen  as  saying: 

"  It  was  not  the  Parliament  or  the  public,  but  the  Press 
that  forced  the  Government  into  the  war.  The  public 
mind  was  not  at  first  in  an  uncontrollable  state,  but  it 
was  made  so  by  the  Press." 

In  his  arraignment  of  Palmerstone  he  declares: 

There  is  not  the  least  doubt  that  Palmerstone  has,  as 
Disraeli  said  the  first  night  of  the  session  in  reference 
to  his  use  of  the  Press,  made  greater  use  of  that  means 
of  creating  an  artificial  public  opinion  than  any  other 
Minister  since  the  time  of  Bolingbroke. 

He  suggests  a  method  of  combatting  this  public 
enemy  which  Mr.  Henry  Ford  has  applied: 

My  object  in  writing  is  more  especially  to  suggest  a 
plan  which  I  have  often  thought  of — that  of  going 
through  The  Times  for  about  three  years  and  taking 
out  enough  for  a  short  pamphlet  of  its  inconsistencies, 
false  assumptions,  unverified  predictions,  and  bombastic 
appeals  to  the  momentary  passions  and  prejudices. 


He  recognized  the  difficulty  of  dealing  with  pre- 
paredness : 

The  money  power,  created  by  the  vast  sums  voted  for 
the  support  of  the  standing  armaments  of  Europe,  is 
the  greatest  difficulty  we  have  to  encounter  in  trying 
to  reduce  those  peace  establishments. 

He  was  heartily  in  favor  of  the  freedom  of  the 
seas,  with  limitation  of  the  right  of  blockade  and 
immunity  of  private  property  at  sea.  He  repeatedly 
advocated  a  League  of  Nations.  Except  in  the  field 
of  industrial  relations  there  is  scarcely  a  topic  before 
the  would-be  makers  of  the  new  world  todty  on 
which  Cobden  did  not  hold  advanced  views.  Indeed 
it  is  with  something  like  despair  that  one  comes  to 
see  in  our  world  only  the  realization  of  Cobden's 
antipathies  and  fears,  and  to  recognize  that  he 
fought  the  battle  for  peace  more  honestly,  bravely, 
and  consistently  than  any  successor  has  done,  but 
in  vain,  while  the  diplomacy  of  Palmerstone  was 
writing  the  death  warrants  of  English  boys  at  the 
Alma  and  Inkermann,  and  of  American  boys  at 
Chateau-Thierry  and  in  the  Argonne. 

ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT. 


Living  Down  the  Hyphen 


1  CAME  TO  AMERICA  as  I  came  into  the  world — 
involuntarily.  I  have  not  always  been  able  to  re- 
joice over  the  initial  journey,  but  my  gratitude  for 
being  taken  on  the  second  one  when  I  was  five  years 
old  has  increased  with  the  years.  It  is  this  gratitude 
which  now  prompts  me  to  relate  something  of  my 
experience  as  an  American  of  German  birth.  Per- 
haps my  story  may  help  a  little  toward  a  better 
understanding  of  one  of  the  most  serious  and  com- 
plicated problems  brought  on  by  the  war. 

My  first  years  in  America  were  not  happy.  Un- 
like many  foreigners,  my  parents  settled  among 
American  neighbors  instead  of  in  a  district  pre- 
dominantly of  their  own  nationality.  As  a  result 
I  was  the  butt  of  ridicule  and  the  object  of  petty 
persecution  whenever  I  appeared  in  the  street. 
Fights  without  number,  in  which  I  was  almost 
invariably  worsted  and  ignominiously  chased  home, 
seem,  as  I  look  back,  to  have  made  up  the  record  of 
my  days.  Sometimes  my  father  took  a  hand,  swoop- 
ing down  upon  a  gang  of  tormenters  like  a  terrible 
Nemesis,  collaring  some  of  the  leaders  and  giving 
them  a  ringing  box  on  the  ears.  Then  others  would 
be  drawn  in — fathers  or  mothers  or  big  brothers — 
and  we  had  tumults  on  a  larger  scale.  Once  in- 
deed shots  were  fired,  though  no  one  was  hit. 

Thus  we  fought  side  by  side,  my  father  and  I,  for 
the  simple  privilege  of  going  about  our  business  un- 


molested. And  together  we  hungered  for  the  com- 
panionship of  our  fellows.  Those  who  have  not 
experienced  it  can  have  no  conception  of  the  isola- 
tion of  an  immigrant  unsupported  by  a  colony  of  his 
kind.  The  situation  should  have  drawn  us  to- 
gether but  it  did  not.  It  did  not  because  very  dif- 
ferent emotions  were  aroused  in  us  by  these  early 
experiences:  in  him,  a  feeling  of  bitter  disappoint- 
ment; in  me,  an  acute  sense  of  shame.  The  wildest 
tales  of  conditions  and  opportunities  in  America  had 
brought  my  father  to  this  country,  and  he  suffered 
disillusions  of  which  I  then' understood  nothing.  As 
a  result  Germany,  transformed  by  the  magic  of 
distance,  had  never  seemed  so  fair.  If  going  back 
to  the  country  he  came  from  were  as  simple  a  propo- 
sition to  the  immigrant  as  those  assume  who  glibly 
suggest  a  return  trip  to  the  disappointed  foreigner, 
I  am  sure  my  father  would  have  died  in  the  land  of 
his  birth.  I,  on  the  other  hand,  had  come  with  no 
illusions,  and  being  a  child,  lived  forward.  I  had 
but  one  wish:  to  be  rid  of  every  trace  of  German 
about  me — in  clothes,  in  manner,  in  speech;  to  be 
free  from  the  guilt  which  made  boys  and  girls  call 
me  "  Sauerkraut,"  and  yell  after  me,  "  Nix  kom' 
'rouse  Von  der  Dutchman's  house." 

In  my  childish  extremity  I  called  upon  my  gods, 
the  angels.  They  could  manage  it,  I  knew,  so  that 
I  would  be  liked  instead  of  tormented.  Then  one 


402 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


night  I  was  awakened  by  cries  of  pain.  I  could 
tell  it  was  my  mother,  and  I  faintly  remember 
quivering  all  over  and  drawing  myself  together  in 
physical  sympathy.  But  presently  I  was  sound 
asleep  again,  blissfully  ignoring  her  agonies.  And 
the  next  morning  I  had  a  new  sister. 

My  new  sister  brought  an  illumination.  I  still 
remember  how  clear  it  all  seemed.  The  way  out 
of  my  difficulty  was  to  become  a  baby  again.  And 
so  I  prayed  to  be  started  over  as  a  baby,  an  Amer- 
ican baby  like  my  sister,  with  the  power  to  grow  so 
fast  that  before  anyone  would  notice  what  had 
happened,  I  would  be  as  big  as  I  was  before,  only 
free  from  all  trace  of  German.  I  had  the  most 
fantastic  ideas  as  to  how  it  was  to  happen,  and 
enjoyed  ecstatic  moments  when  it  seemed  to  me 
the  change  was  beginning.  And  when  the  scheme  of 
becoming  a  baby  again  had  to  be  recognized  as  a 
failure,  I  invented  a  variety  of  others,  with  always 
the  same  objective — to  be  an  American,  and  con- 
sequently to  be  liked,  instead  of  tormented.  Thus 
while  my  father  was  looking  wistfully  back  to  the 
old  country  I  was  using  what  ingenuity  I  had  to 
become  one  with  the  new  country.  Such  was  the 
beginning  of  the  separation  between  us  which  was  to 
become  in  time  a  spiritual  chasm. 

Just  when  or  how  my  father  first  became 
aware  of  my  state  of  mind  I  do  not  know. 
When  he  did,  he  took  drastic  measures  to  keep 
me  German  in  soul.  I  was  never  permitted  to 
utter  an  English  word  in  the  house  or  in  his 
hearing  outside,  and  if  he  discovered  my  dislike 
for  anything  because  of  its  German  associations  it 
immediately  became  his  chief  concern  to  see  that  I 
was  most  punctilious  in  my  loyalty  to  that  thing, 
whatever  it  was.  Not  very  good  psychology,  but 
he  followed  the  method  rigorously.  To  lose  me  too 
was  the  last  straw  of  failure.  He  could  not  bear  it. 
Consequently,  as  my  Germanism  came  gradually  to 
be  less  of  an  occasion  for  annoyance  out  of  doors, 
I  began  to  be  punished  at  home  for  signs  of  Amer- 
icanism. And  my  father  did  not  punish  psychically. 
Of  that  the  scars  I  still  bear  are  witness.  When  in 
the  grip  of  the  passion  which  seized  him  at  every 
new  sign  of  my  defection,  he  lost  all  sense  of  justice 
and  all  humanity.  But  why  go  into  details  of 
cruelty  and  brutality?  He  is  locked  away  forever 
from  my  praise  or  blame  in  the  hillside  he  loved, 
where  the  unrivaled  redbud  blooms  in  May  and  the 
pawpaw  is  heavy  with  strange  fruit  in  October. 
Moreover,  that  miracle-woman,  my  mother,  re- 
deemed and  glorified  even  those  horrible  experiences. 
I  remember  them  now  without  bitterness. 

My    fathe'r    was    strongly    opposed   to    church 
religion,  and  one  consequence  of  this  was  that  he 
favored  public  as  against  parochial  school  education. 


Which  was  fortunate  for  me,  but  it  intensified  the 
conflict  between  us.  I  had  a  keen  appetite  for 
history  and  biography,  and  so  devoured  with  avidity 
the  romantic  story  of  the  settlement  of  America, 
and  the  dramatic  founding  of  our  nation.  My 
mental  furniture  was  soon  as  completely  American 
as  my  love  of  country  was  fervent  and  intense. 
And  how  I  hated  the  English!  The  same  process 
which  made  me  American  made  me  anti-British. 
And  of  course  I  liked  the  French.  They  had  helped 
us  win  the  Revolution.  As  for  all  other  nations, 
even  Germany,  they  were  names.  My  head  knew  of 
their  existence,  but  not  my  heart.  And  what  did  it 
matter?  There  was  one  country  transcendently 
great  and  glorious,  "  the  land  of  the  free  and  the 
home  of  the  brave,"  my  country^ 

The  crisis  came  when  I  was  fourteen.  For  a 
year  my  father  had  threatened  to  take  me  out  of 
school  and  now  he  said  the  fatal  word.  And  my 
father  did  not  change  his  mind  in  such  matters. 
How  vividly  I  recall  the  closing  exercises  of  that 
year.  They  were  to  be  my  last.  In  the  midst  of 
them,  while  the  speaker  of  the  occasion  was  urging 
upon  us  the  advantages  of  continuing  in  school,  I 
burst  into  tears  and  rushed  from  the  room. 

Going  to  work  was  easy  enough.  I  had  been 
accustomed  to  working  after  school  and  in  the  sum- 
mer. Indeed,  my  last  year  in  school  was  purchased 
by  working  in  a  restaurant  nights,  sleeping  when 
there  were  no  customers.  But  a  dull  dread  of  Sep- 
tember grew  upon  me  as  the  summer  wore  on.  I 
stood  it  well  into  August.  Early  in  the  morning 
of  the  sixteenth,  however,  they  found  my  good 
mother  in  a  dead  faint  in  the  kitchen.  She  had 
just  learned  that  the  secret  confided  to  her  wras  out: 
I  had  left  in  the  night — gone  to  try  myself  out  in 
"  the  world." 

When  I  saw  my  father  again  much  had  happened. 
Instead  of  fourteen  I  was  twenty-six,  and  he  did 
not  know  me  as  we  met.  I  had  intended  to  do  him 
the  courtesy  of  talking  in  German,  but  my  purpose 
to  cut  myself  off  from  everything  German  had 
worked  too  well.  My  attempts  only  called  at- 
tention to  the  thoroughness  of  my  naturalization. 
Sentences  begun  in  German  were  soon  snarled  and 
had  to  be  unraveled  in  English.  It  was  evident,  too, 
that  my  loss  of  the  German  tongue  was  merely  the 
outward  manifestation  of  a  complete  spiritual 
change  within.  He  did  not  seem  to  mind.  We 
talked  far  into  the  night,  seated  in  the  old  grape- 
arbor  overlooking  the  river.  Long  streamers  of 
dancing  light — red,  green,  yellow — were  flung  to 
us  from  the  dark  bank  across  the  stream.  Now 
and  then  the  deep-toned  whistle  of  a  river  packet 
would  announce  that  it  was  about  to  take  "  the 
Bend  "  and  bear  down  upon  the  city ;  and  soon 


19.19 


THE  DIAL 


4°3 


thereafter  a  puffing  monster  with  two  rows  of 
fiery  teeth,  and  one  red  and  one  green  eye,  would 
glide  out  from  behind  the  'black  hills,  just  as  when 
I  was  a  boy  and  could  tell  each  steam-boat  by  its 
whistle.  We  talked  far  into  the  night,  but  not 
about  those  days,  the  days  that  were  uppermost  in 
our  minds.  Somehow  we  could  not  manage  it,  or 
else  we  thought  the  reestablished  relationship  too 
precious  to  risk.  Nor  did  we  talk  as  father  and  son, 
but  as  men  between  whom  some  tragedy  in  the  past 
has  created  a  bond  whidh  holds  them  together  while 
it  keeps  them  apart.  As  I  walked  to  the  depot 
through  the  summer  night,  with  the  katydids  dis- 
puting in  the  willows  along  the  river,  and  the 
Pleiades  just  visible  over  the  eastern  hills,  I  was 
conscious  that  I  had  experienced  one  of  those  ele- 
mental moments  of  life  that  introduce  men  to  a 
new  level  of  being;  and  I  learned  afterwards  that 
he  continued  to  pace  slowly  back  and  forth  in  the 
garden  until  daylight.  And  so  it  remained  to  the 
end.  There  was  something  big  about  our  relation- 
ship but  also  something  somber.  We  approached, 
but  did  not  meet.  That  was  the  tribute  we  paid 
to  the  foe  of  compromise  enshrined  in  the  heart  of 
father  and  son. 

Well,  as  I  was  saying,  much  had  happened  in 
those  twelve  years.  For  one  thing,  I  had  graduated 
from  college,  doing  major  work  in  American  his- 
tory. Lack  of  preparation  and  lack  of  funds  made 
college  a  rash  adventure,  but  youth  does  not  take 
counsel  of  obstacles.  I  began  to  dream  of  it  while 
still  an  office  boy  in  New  York,  and  in  time  the 
dream  had  its  way,  as  dreams  will.  When  the  pre- 
paratory work  was  somehow  accomplished,  a  far- 
seeing  friend  guided  me  to  a  college  which  was  just 
then  in  a  period  of  creative  glory.  It  was  at  once 
a  shjine  and  a  work-shop.  Inspired  by  a.  new  vision 
of  life  and  guided  by  new  ideals  of  service,  pro- 
fessors, administrators,  and  students  were  cooperat- 
ing to  make  the  institution  a  laboratory  of  social 
reconstruction.  It  was  just  the  environment  needed 
to  clarifiy  and  illuminate  my  intense  but  uninformed 
Americanism.  Here,  too,  in  one  of  the  professors,  I 
found  the  man  who  gave  the  intellectual  tone  to 
my  life  which  will,  I  suspect,  remain  its  dominant 
quality  to  the  end.  As  my  teacher  he  introduced 
me  to  spiritual  treasure  of  which  I  had  not  even 
suspected  the  existence.  It  was  as  if  he  had  raised 
the  blinds  and  opened  the  windows  upon  a  new 
world.  And  if,  looking  out  upon  that  world,  I  at 
first  failed  to  see  things  which  he  thought  it  of 
most  importance  to  see,  and  then  gradually  showed 
an  interest  in  things  which  in  his  judgment  were 
to  be  ignored  because  they  were  of  slight  importance, 
he  did  not,  like  the  typical  professor,  lose  interest 
in  my  career.  He  wanted  me  to  be  a  voice,  not  an 


echo.  Quick  to  appreciate  any  sign  of  mental  vigor, 
but  holding  me  to  high  standards  of  workmanship, 
generous  in  his  endorsement,  but  straightforward 
and  penetrating  in  his  criticism  where  he  thought 
me  wrong,  what  he  did  for  me  in  the  field  of  in- 
tellect alone  would  be  difficult  to  overemphasize. 
And  his  influence  upon  my  mind  only  partly  repre- 
sents the  spiritual  tradition  which  came  to  me 
through  him  and  whic'h  I  have  tried  to  pass  on  to 
others.  For  our  association  was  not  merely  a  matter 
of  brains.  Together  we  enjoyed  music,  together  we 
championed  what  we  thought  better  ideals  in  edu- 
cation, together  we  worried  over  the  prospect  of  art 
in  America.  Moreover,  his  influence  was  suffused 
by  a  rare  personal  quality.  I  was  welcomed  to  his 
family  circle  in  town  and  by  lake  side,  and  we  were 
companions  again  and  again  in  walking  trips 
through  some  of  the  loveliest  country  my  eyes  have 
ever  looked  upon.  Uplands  warmed  by  the  first 
breath  of  spring,  great  valleys  asleep  in  the  embrace 
of  Indian  Summer,  bonfires  with  their  trails  of  blue 
smoke,  the  smell  of  pine,  the  sound  of  waters,  yellow 
moons  and  red  suns — such  are  the  first  memories 
my  thought  of  him  recalls.  I  have  heard  it  said  that 
the  ideal  relation  between  man  and  man  is  "  com- 
radeship in  the  achievement  of  glorious  plans."  If 
that  is  true,  we  were  headed  in  the  right  direction. 

So  year  was  added  on  year  until  when  the  war 
broke  out  in  Europe  I  was  myself  a  professor,  proud 
of  the  privilege  of  calling  my  teacher  my  colleague. 
And  I  was  accepted  for  what  I  was — an  American. 
Few  people,  to  be  sure,  knew  that  the  two  thinkers 
most  intimate  to  my  inner  life  were  Emerson  and 
William  James.  Not  many  more  were  aware  that 
I  had  returned  from  a  stay  abroad,  where  I  had 
responded  profoundly  to  the  influence  of  the  past, 
more  alive  than  ever  to  the  glory  of  a  possible  future 
America.  But  I  was  also  American  by  outward 
signs.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  there  was 
nothing  about  me  to  raise  the  question  of  nationality. 
My  name,  while  German,  was  not  obviously  so,  and 
there  was  no  trace  of  German  accent  or  construction 
in  my  speech.  I  had  no  affiliation  with  German 
societies.  My  habitual  associates,  my  intimate 
friends,  my  manner  of  life,. everything  marked  me 
as  thoroughly  American.  Of  the  number  who  in 
one  way  or  another  chanced  to  discover  my  German 
extraction  I  do  not  recall  a  single  person  who  was 
not  greatly  surprised,  and  many  were  even  in- 
credulous. "  There  is  absolutely  nothing  German 
about  him  but  his  name,"  once  said  a  German  in 
disapproval  of  me,  "  and  that's  only  "half  German." 

The  outbreak  of  the  war  brought  a  great  change. 
All  my  speculative  thinking  had  prepared  me  to 
see  in  the  European  struggle  the  threat  of  destruc- 
tion to  Western  civilization,  and  I  became  more  and 


4-04 


THE  DIAL 


April  19' 


more  pacifistic  in  my  convictions  as  the  war  increased 
in  bitterness  and  brutality.  Doubtless  my  early  dis- 
like of  the  British  was  an  influence  too.  It  was 
not  easy  for  me  to  accept  the  English  statement  of 
the  case  at  its  face  value.  And  perhaps  something 
was  due  to  subconscious  ties  which  bound  me  to  the 
land  of  my  birth.  I  examined  myself  repeatedly  on 
this  matter  and  always  came  to  a  negative  con- 
clusion, but  such  influences  may  be  very  subtle.  All 
that  I  am  sure  of  is  that  I  fervently  hoped  the  strug- 
gle might  soon  come  to  a  deadlock,  and  that  ou>r 
country  might  act  as  mediator  in  the  interest  of  a 
better  international  arrangement.  I  found  en- 
couragement in  the  writings  of  Bertrand  Russell, 
G.  Lowes  Dickinson,  and  Norman  Angell,  and 
with  their  aid  I  was  able  to  translate  my  faith  into 
a  program. 

To  my  surprise,  though  not  at  all  unnaturally 
under  the  circumstances,  my  attitude  was  inter- 
preted by  many  of  my  colleagues  as  pro-German. 
At  first  I  paid  little  attention  to  these  suspicions. 
They  seemed  so  absurd,  so  obviously  without  foun- 
dation. Moreover  I  discovered  that  some  of  my 
critics  were  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  absolute 
moral  and  intellectual  surrender.  The  expression 
of  the  slightest  difference  of  opinion  as  regards  the 
correct  policy  for  America,  was  branded  by  them 
as  pro-Germanism,  and  any  concession  made  in  the 
interest  of  harmony  only  led  to  their  demanding 
others.  Moreover,  some  of  these  colleagues  were 
outspokenly  pro-British,  and  others  actually  Cana- 
dians or  Englishmen  who,  although  at  home  in  the 
United  States  for  years,  had  never  felt  it  desirable 
to  become  American  citizens.  It  was  foolish,  per- 
haps, but  I  resented  their  attempt  to  instruct  me  in 
Americanism.  Instinctively  I  assumed  an  attitude 
of  aloofness  and  thus  made  matters  worse. 

Then  came  the  explosion  which  aroused  me  to  the 
seriousness  of  my  situation  and  made  it  clear  to  me 
that  I  was  once  more  called  upon  to  fight  for  the 
privilege  of  being  an  American.  The  day  on  which 
the  papers  announced  our  entrance  into  the  war  is 
one  I  shall  not  forget.  The  morning  sun  was 
streaming  in  through  the  window  as  I  reached  the 
office  at  the  university  which  I  shared  with  my 
teacher-colleague,  and  he  was  standing  in  the  flood 
of  it  looking  out  over  the  campus.  Apropos  of  my 
"  good  morning  "  and  without  turning  around  he 
said,  "  I  regret  that  hereafter  our  relations  cannot 
be  what  they  have  been  in  the  past." 

My  mind  was  preoccupied  with  the  lecture  I  was 
about  to  deliver,  so  that  I  did  not  appreciate  the 
real  import  of  his  remark.  Besides,  had  I  noticed 
his  excited  state  of  mind  and  had  I  known  the  cause 
of  it  (I  had  not  yet  heard  the  news),  the  thing 
was  so  completely  out  of  harmony  with  anything 


I  might  have  expected  that  under  any  circum- 
stances I  should  have  been  slow  to  apprehend  his 
meaning.  I  fear,  therefore,  that  I  made  some  such 
silly  reply  as,  "  Is  that  so?  That's  interesting." 

"  You  seem  to  take  it  lightly,"  said  my  colleague, 
turning  upon  me.  "  I  assure  you  this  is  no  time  for 
joking.  I  was  never  more  serious." 

His  frigid  tone,  rather  than  what  he  said,  pene- 
trated my  preoccupation.  I  felt  as  if  ice-water  had 
been  poured  down  my  back. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  I  managed  to  say. 
"  What  have  I  done?" 

"  It  isn't  anything  you've  done,"  he  replied,  "  it's 
what  you  are.  At  last  the  crisis  is  upon  us.  From 
today  on  Germany  and  America  will  be  at  war. 
Unpleasant  as  it  may  be,  no  true  American  can  any 
longer  condone  the  divided  allegiance  of  the  Ger- 
man-Americans. It's  now  a  case  of  for  us  or 
against  us."  .  N 

That  afforded  me  a  clue,  of  course,  but  only  a 
clue;  for  he  had  never  given  me  the  slightest  in- 
dication that  he  suspected  me  of  divided  allegiance, 
and  strange  as  it  may  seem,  I  had  never  thought  of 
myself  as  German-American.  At  first  I  thought  of 
myself  as  German,  then  as  American.  Never,  as  far' 
as  I  know,  did  I  represent  that  complex  of  mental 
preferences  and  attitudes  properly  called  German- 
American.  Not  that  I  retained  no  admiration  for 
anything  German.  What  I  mean  is  that  my  dedica- 
tion to  American  life  and  ideals  was  ardent,  en- 
thusiastic, and  whole-hearted.  For  a  moment  I 
thought  my  colleague  was  speaking  in  general  and 
in  the  abstract;  that  he  did  not  have  reference  to 
me  at  all.  But  his  face,  white  and  tense  with  sup- 
pressed emotion,  recalled  his  first  remark  and  I  un- 
derstood it  in  all  its  tragic  import. 

"  You  have  known  me  now  for  'ten  or  twelve 
years,"  I  ventured.  "  If,  as  result  of  that  ac- 
quaintance or  because  of  something  you  have  just 
learned,  you  have  concluded  to  strike  me  from  the 
list  of  those  you  care  to  associate  with,  I  can  only 
bow  to  your  wish  in  the  matter,  hard  as  I  shall  find 
it.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  I  am  at  least  entitled 
to  know  what  you  are  basing  your  action  upon." 

"  I  have  already  told  you,"  he  said,  "  that  it  isn't 
anything  you've  done.  It's  your  attitude,  it's  what 
you  are,  and  that's  what  counts  in  a  crisis  like  this. 
I  have  come  to  feel  that  just  as  a  Jew  is  a  Jew — 
an  exception  here  and  there  doesn't  matter — so  a 
German  is  a  German." 

I  have  not  the  art  to  describe  the  effect  these 
words  had  upon  me.  There  was  a  feeling  in  my 
head  as  if  myriads  of  tiny  arrows  were  shooting 
through  my  brain  and  out  into  the  roots  of  my 
hair.  My  throat  was  dry;  I  could  hardly  speak; 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


405 


and  my  whole  body  seemed  rigid  and  cold.  It  was 
a  strange,  hard  voice  that  said: 

"  And  what  are  we  to  do?  If  your  words  could 
blast  us  into  nothingness,  or  if  you  could  spit  us 
out  of  the  country  as  you  might  some  nasty  taste 
out  of  your  mouth,  well  and  good.  But  here  we 
are,  by  the  hundreds  of  thousands,  even  if  you  con- 
vince us  that  we  have  no  right  here.  What  are  we 
to  do?" 

"  That  is  for  you  to  decide,"  was  his  reply. 

I  wish  I  had  given  free  rein  to  the  feelings  which 
surged  within  me.  I  wish  I  had  spoken  the  words 
that  were  on  my  lips:  that  he  had  no  right  to  ex- 
clude me  or  any  other  so-called  German-American 
from  the  "  us  "  for  or  against  which  every  citizen 
was  now  called  upon  to  take  a  stand ;  that  until 
we  removed  ourselves  from  that  "  us "  by  un- 
American  sentiments  or  acts  we  were  as  vitally  part 
of  it  as  he;  that  I  resented  his  arrogating  to  him- 
self the  right  to  decide  my  status.  I  wish  I  had  told 
him  that  his  Scotch  antecedents  no  more  made  him 
an  American  than  my  German  birth  kept  me  from 
being  one ;  that  we  were  what  we  were,  regardless 
of  origins — a  doctrine  which  in  better  days  he  him- 
self had  taught  me.  It  would  have  cleared  the  air, 
and  who  knows  what  good  might  have  come  of  it? 

One  thing  stood  in  the  way,  the  same  thing  that 
is  responsible  for  serious  racial  antagonisms  now 
developing  in  our  country.  That  one  thing  was 
pride — a  pride  which  in  him  assumed  a  holier  than 
thou  attitude,  and  in  me  was  too  holy  to  defend 
itself.  I  said  nothing  at  all.  Looking  back  from 
this  distance,  it  is  clear  that  my  colleague's  patriotic 
self-righteousness  was  the  element  of  dross  in  a  deep 
love  of  country.  He  unfortunately  confused  it  with 
love  of  country  itself,  a  confusion  which,  sad  to  say, 
is  at  present  not  uncommon.  Only  the  most  pro- 
found emotional  upheaval  can  account  for  his  action. 
I  have  never  met  a  man  temperamentally  more  fair- 
minded.  Again  and  again  I  have  marveled  at  his 
ability  to  arrive  at  an  objective  judgment  in  situa- 
tions where  most  of  us  were  twisted  to  one  side  by 
an  emotional  bias.  His  performance  in  this  case  was 
so  fundamentally  unlike  him,  so  out  of  harmony 
with  what  for  years  he  had  shown  himself  to  be, 
that  I  should' have  paid  no  attention  to  it.  I  didn't 
and  couldn't.  I  have  but  this  to  say  for  my  conduct, 
and  that  not  at  all  by  way  of  justification.  My 
reaction  was  essentially  a  struggle — random  and 
unintelligent  if  you  will,  but  sincere  and  vital — 
against  being  de-Americanized.  If  a  man  has  any 
spirit  he  cannot  go  through  what  I  had  gone  through 
to  become  an  American  and  then  calmly  suffer  him- 
self to  be  hyphenated. 

It  goes  without  saying  that  I  deeply  regretted  the 
interruption  of  a  relation  which  had  meant  so  much 


to  me.  But  I  failed  to  catch  its  significance.  I  re- 
garded it  as  a  personal  matter,  as  a  misunderstand- 
ing between  him  and  me.  Since  then,  however,  I 
have  become  well  aware  that  the  clash  between  us 
was  symbolic  of  a  national  situation.  And  this  is 
my  justification  for  telling  the  story.  For  if  the 
public  mind  is  such  that  a  keen,  judicially-minded, 
cultured  man  is  impelled  to  smother  a  whole  class 
of  his  countrymen  under  one  blanket  of  suspicion, 
what  can  be  expected  of  men  as  they  run?  And  if 
one  so  completely  Americanized  as  I  falls  under 
the  common  suspicion  even  in  the  mind  of  a  friend, 
what  chance  have  those  who  are  less  Americanized, 
especially  those  who  are  at  the  mercy  of  enemies? 
Here  is  the  seriousness  of  the  situation.  As  far  as 
I  am  concerned  there  has  been  nothing  like  per- 
secution. Nor  has  anything  that  has  happened  suc- 
ceeded in  making  me  feel  that  I  am  German  or  even 
a  German- American.  I  resented  it,  I  confess,  when 
I  found  that  my  German  birth  closed  the  door  to 
service  in  a  Red  Cross  unit,  and  that  even  the  Y.  M. 
C.  A.,  badly  in  need  of  men  for  France,  could  not 
send  me  out  if  it  would.  But  I  scored  it  up  against 
"  military  necessity,"  and  thus  somehow — the  psy- 
chology of  it  is  obscure — escaped  the  feeling  that 
I  do  not  truly  belong.  As  for  the  proposal  (which 
we  hear  in  our  town  as  elsewhere)  that  all  who 
have  German  blood  in  their  veins  shall  hereafter 
regard  themselves,  unless  specifically  approved,  as 
spectators  of  rather  than  participators  in  American 
life,  although  it  still  arouses  a  temporary  bitterness 
in  me,  I  find  it  more  and  more  possible  to  ignore, 
while  I  go  on  doing  my  work  and  planning  to  take 
a  not  unworthy  part  in  the  great  task  to  which  1 
believe  my  country  to  be  dedicated.  One  cannot,  I 
know,  set  bounds  to  what  a  man  may  be  persuaded 
of.  I  remember  that  in  preparatory  school  we 
formed  a  conspiracy  to  make  a  Freshman  believe 
he  had  the  measles,  and  that  he  finally  took  to  bed, 
a  very  sick  boy,  while  the  panic-stricken  conspirators 
hastened  to  find  a  doctor.  But  somehow  I  have  no 
fear  whatever  of  being  convinced  that  I  am  not  an 
American.  It  is  acknowledged  to  be  impossible  for 
a  leopard  to  change  his  spots  or  an  Ethiopian  his 
skin;  how  then  shall  a  man  change  his  personality 
and  be  someone  else?  I  am,  however,  afraid  that 
many  Americans  of  German  ancestry  who  have  not 
been  as  completely  Americanized  as  I  and  who  have 
thus  been  peculiarly  open  to  suspicion  and  peculiarly 
liable  to  the  unjust  treatment  which  suspicion  often 
breeds,  will,  unless  we  change  our  method  of  dealing 
with  them,  be  made  in  fact  what  we  have  already 
made  them  in  our  imagination — a  group  apart,  a 
foreign  substance  in  the  body  of  our  national  life, 
and  so  the  germ  of  a  new  and  stubborn  social 
disease. 


406 


April   19 


Patriotism  and  Its  Consequences 


J.HE  WAR,  BY  THE  LAW  of  its  being,  produced 
articles  which  have  no  conceivable  use  in  a  civil 
community,  and  which  could  not  be  stored  away  by 
such  a  community  without  grave  menace  to  its  ex- 
istence. In  the  case  of  poison  gas  the  War  De- 
partment set  an  excellent  example  by  dumping  large 
quantities  of  the  noxious  compound  into  the  sea.  It 
is  unfortunate  that  no  administrative  authority  has 
power  to  deal  with  the  fuscous  states  of  mind  which 
were  likewise  manufactured  for  purely  bellicose  pur- 
poses. A  community  that  had  an  intelligent  regard 
for  the  hygiene  of  its  mental  processes  would  con- 
sign vast  quantities  of  its  war  books,  pamphlets, 
newspapers,  and  judicial  decisions  to  the  ignomini- 
ous depths  of  the  ocean  rather  than  let  the  rising 
generation  run  the  danger  of  contamination  through 
contact  on  library  shelves  and  bookstore  counters. 
Foremost  among  books  awaiting  such  disposal  would 
be  The  World  War  and  Its  Consequences,  by 
Professor  William  Herbert  Hobbs  (Putnam). 

This  series  of  lectures  on  patriotism  which  Pro- 
fessor Hobbs  tardily  publishes  points  to  conse- 
quences of  the  war  that  the  lecturer  was  hardly 
introspective  enough  to  explore.  The  doctrine  of 
the  single  indivisible  nation,  the  cult  of  the  united 
front,  the  operation  of  the  "  patriotic  "  inquisition, 
the  imprisonment  and  torture  of  heretics,  and  the 
like,  are  all  phenomena  worthy  of  attention  in  any 
exhaustive  discussion  of  either  the  world  war  or 
patriotism.  Toward  topics  of  this  nature,  however, 
Professor  Hobbs  is  opaque,  for  the  reason  that  it 
would  lead  to  an  examination  of  the  state  of  mind 
which  he,  and  the  late  ex-President,  and  a  number 
•of  other  worthy  and  honorable  gentlemen  not  mere- 
ly accept  but  would  like  to  perpetuate.  The 
"  patriotism  "  complex  has  made  the  name  of  peace 
loathsome  to  Professor  Hobbs:  it  literally  passeth 
his  understanding.  His  mind  is  at  home  only  in 
that  fumy  war  atmosphere  which  destroyeth  all 
understanding,  for  it  is  in  this  element  that  all 
pacifists  appear  to  be  black  traitors,  and  all 
"  patriots  "  shining  heroes  of  chivalry.  One  of  the 
humors  of  the  situation  is  that  the  wind  which  can 
carry  the  poison  gas  against  the  foe  can  also  waft 
it  back  upon  the  friend.  If  the  Industrial  Work- 
ers are  disloyal  to  the  established  government,  what 
about  the  National  Security  League?*  Hence,  it  is 
amusing  to  see  Professor  Hobbs  close  his  last  lec- 
ture with  an  unseemly  attack  upon  the  President 
whilst  (with  an  eye  that  searches  the  audience  for 
a  Department  of  Justice  agent)  he  invites  the  gov- 
ernment to  make  the  most  of  it.  But  of  course 


this  was  merely  oratorical  camouflage:  no  sensible 
officer -would  arrest  such  authentic  "patriots  "  as 
Henry  W.  Wood  or  W.  H.  Hobbs.  During  the 
war  men  were  sent  to  jail  for  their  convictions;  they 
were  asked  to  lecture  upon  patriotism  for — their 
suspicions. 

Now  the  war  animus  revealed  in  Professor 
Hobbs'  work  was  one  of  the  most  important  psy- 
chological by-products  of  the  war,  and  to  those  who 
accept  the  liberal  point  of  view  it  appears  at  long 
last  the  most  dangerous.  The  virulence  of  this  ani- 
mus was  not  sufficiently  accounted  for  in  the  liberal 
prospectuses,  and  the  difficulty  of  handling  it  proved 
so  great  that  within  the  executive  department  itself 
the  spirit  of  the  President's  first  exhortation  to  fight 
without  rancor  was  broken  within  a  few  weeks 
of  the  declaration.  Perhaps  the  only  writer  who 
gauged  this  imponderable  element  at  its  full  worth 
was  the  late  Randolph  Bourne.  Whereas  in  Ger- 
many "  patriotism "  helped  provoke  the  war,  in 
America  the  war  succeeded  in  evoking  an  uncon- 
trollable quantity  of  "  patriotism."  This  patriot- 
ism of  blind  faith  must  be  distinguished  boldly  from 
that  genuine  patriotism  of  good  works  whose  other 
name  is  public  spirit.  To  practice  real  patriotism 
is  the  first  duty  of  a  citizen;  to  inculcate  an  in- 
stinctive and  servile  loyalty  to  the  group,  right  or 
wrong,  hell-bent  or  heaven-bent,  is  the  first  sub- 
terfuge of  a  commercial  imperialist.  Both  varieties 
were  stimulated  by  the  war.  The  problem  before  us 
is  to  do  away  with  "  patriotism  " — the  blind  habit 
of  running  with  the  pack  and  following  the  leader 
on  predatory  expeditions — and  to  maintain  public 
spirit.  It  is  a  sufficient  comment  on  Professor 
Hobbs'  beautiful  opacity  that  in  the  course  of  more 
than  four  hundred  pages  he  does  not  once  attempt 
to  make  this  elementary  distinction. 

Unless  this  war  complex  can  be  broken  up  the 
prospects  for  a  civil  polity  are  not  hopeful.  The 
institutions  of  peacedom  function  freely  only  on  a 
basis  of  divided  loyalties  and  dispersed  interests. 
Civil  life  means  association,  with  the  family,  the 
trade  union,  the  grange,  the  chamber  of  commerce, 
the  professional  institute,  the  church,  the  theater, 
and  the  forum  intermediating  between  the  life  o£ 
the  individual  as  an  individual  and  his  life  as  the 
member  of  a  political  (military)  state.  The  war 
brought  the  individual  face  to  face  with  the  state 
and  divested  him  of  all  associative  interests,  and  in 
order  for  a  state  to  continue  on  a  footing  ready  for 
warlike  emergency  this  intolerance  of  voluntary 
groups  which  refuse  to  merge  themselves  in  the  life 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


407 


of  the  state  will  continue.  In  particular,  the  uni- 
versity, with  its  extensive  criticism  of  the  prevailing 
order  in  the  economic  and  political  worlds,  is  threat- 
ened with  the  same  fate  in  this  country  as  it  met  in 
Germany  if  the  military  conditions  which  operated 
in  Europe  come  into  existence  here.  Dr.  Claxton, 
the  Federal  Commissioner  of  Education,  has  ration- 
alized the  instinctive  war  complex  by  saying  that 
"  the  government  of  the  United  States  recognizes  no 
groups.  It  knows  only  individuals."  To  accept 
his  creed  would  be  to  carry  one  of  the  necessary 


products  of  the  war  into  a  realm  where  its  presence 
is  not  merely  useless  but  dangerous.  By  sanction- 
ing this  philosophy  Professor  Hobbs  has  done  a 
dubious  service  as  a  citizen,  and  he  has  committed 
a  traitorous  act  as  a  scholar,  a  member  of  that  wider 
republic  of  science  and  letters.  He  places  himself 
in  that  group  of  "  hirelings  in  the  camp,  the  court, 
and  the  university,  who,"  according  to  Blake, 
"  would,  if  they  could,  forever  depress  mental  and 

prolong  corporeal  war." 

LEWIS  MUMFORD. 


A   Vindication  of  Fielding 


1  N  A  CONVERSATION  in  Fielding's  A  Journey  from 
This  World  to  the  Next,  Shakespeare  is  seen  "  shak- 
ing his  sides"  and  exclaiming:  "On  my  word, 
brother  Milton,  they  have  brought  a  noble  set  of 
poets  together;  they  would  have  been  hanged  erst 
have  convened  such  a  company  at  their  table  when 
alive."  So  Fielding  himself  might  have  enjoyed  the 
incongruous  position  of  mannerly  critics  who  have 
bestowed  post  mortem  commendation  upon  his  art 
while  they  gave  scant  courtesy  to  his  person.  To 
the  rescue  of  such  uneasy  persons,  caught  upon  the 
horns  of  a  prudential  dilemma,  now  comes  Pro- 
fessor Wilbur  L.  Cross  with  a  portrait  of  "  Field- 
ing as  He  Was "  which  reconciles  art  and  the 
bourgeois  concern  with  the  artist's  private  life.  To 
Fielding's  love  of  nature  and  truth,  however,  the 
mass  of  apocryphal  legend  which  has  accumulated 
about  the  facts  of  his  life  history  would  be  abhor- 
rent; and  welcome  to  his  love  of  fair  play  would  be- 
Professor  Cross'  loyal  labors  to  remove  from  "  the 
shadow  of  Arthur  Murphy,"  Fielding's,  personal 
reputation. 

In  this  History  of  Henry  Fielding  (3  vols.,  Yale 
University  Press,  New  Haven.)  Professor  Cross  has 
added  another  to  the  little  group  of  great  biographies 
in  English  literature.  He  has  reconstructed  with 
much  detail  the  life  of  a  man  who  has  left  almost  no 
personal  documents.  Lockhart,  Trevelyan,  Mrs. 
Gaskell  not  only  stood  in  intimate  personal  relation 
to  the  subjects  of  their  studies  but  they  had  also  the 
documentary  aid  of  voluminous  letters,  journals,  and 
other  records.  Not  so  Professor  Cross.  Over  a 
century  and  a  half  after  the  death  of  his  hero,  a 
period  during  which,  unexplainably,  nearly  all  Field- 
ing's letters  had  disappeared  and  other  contemporary 
evidence  had  become  scattered  and  blurred,  he  un- 
dertook the  task  whose  patent  difficulties  had  de- 
terred earlier  biographers.  Collecting  laboriously 
the  contemporary  records  here  and  there  in  letters, 
memoirs,  magazines,  newspapers,  and  archives;  sys- 


tematizing the  results  of  the  researches  of  other  re- 
cent scholars,  he  compared  these  data  with  the  state- 
ments of  earlier  biographers,  testing  and  reenforc- 
ing  his  conclusions  with  the  testimony  in  the  writings 
of  Fielding  himself.  The  result  is  the  story  of  Field- 
ing's life  year  by  year,  often  month  by  month  and 
day  by  day,  from  boyhood  to  his  death  in  the  forty- 
eighth  year  of  his  age,  a  record  supplemented  by  nine-' 
teen  photogravures  of  great  beauty,  and  a  bibliog- 
raphy (in  part  the  work  of  that  indefatigable  Field- 
ing student,  Mr.  Frederick  S.  Dickson),  which  not 
only  adds  new  data  concerning  familiar  works  but 
also  contributes  new  items  to  the  Fielding  canon. 

The  angle  of  Professor  Cross'  approach  to  his  sub- 
ject is  as  far  as  possible  Fielding's  own.  In  his 
title,  like  Fielding,  he  uses  "  History  "  to  mean : 
"  a  biography,  either  fictitious  or  real,  that  places  in 
the  proper  social  background  all  the  incidents  in  the 
life  of  a  man  essential  to  knowing  him,  in  conjunc- 
tion with  a  sufficient  account  of  the  persons  who 
bore  upon  that  life  for  good  or  evil."  This  placing 
of  the  man  in  his  milieu  in  such  a  way  that  the  two 
shall  be  mutually  interpretative,  requires  that  a  mas- 
tery of  the  facts  of  both  the  physical  and  spiritual 
life  of  an  age  shall  be  put  at  the  disposal  of  a  con- 
structive imagination  quickened  by  emotion.  This 
vitalizing  of  scholarship  by  warm  personal  sympa- 
thies is  the  source  of  the  strength — and  of  certain 
amiable  weaknesses,  I  think — which  Professor 
Cross'  work  displays. 

What  Viscount  Morley's  Recollections  do  for 
Victorian  England,  in  its  upper  social  reaches;  what 
the  Letters  of  Charles  Eliot  Norton  do  for  the  Cam- 
bridge group  of  the  mid-century,  revealing  con- 
cretely the  currents  and  eddies  of  political,  social 
and  literary  life  as  they  are  felt  by  a  man  who  is  a 
part  of  what  he  has  seen,  such  service  The  History 
of  Henry  Fielding  renders  to  England,  especially 
London,  from  about  1730  to  1754.  The  inside  his- 
tories of  the  theaters  —  managers,  actors,  play- 


408 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


wrights,  and  critics  of  the  Haymarket  and  Co  vent 
Garden  and  Grub  Street  close  by;  the  personal  and 
factional  conflicts  of  the  Walpole  ministry  waged  in 
pamphlet  and  journal  and  on  the  stage,  until  the 
Licensing  Act  put  an  end  to  the  activities  of  Field- 
ing and  his  fellows;  the  study  and  fellowship  of  the 
lawyers  of  the  Middle  Temple ;  the  sordid,  arduous, 
and  serviceable  labors  of  the  Bow  Street  Justice's 
court;  murder  and  robbery  in  the  dark  city  streets, 
diseases,  doctors  and  their  nostrums,  brothels  and 
masquerades,  prisons  and  constables  and  thief-takers, 
lawbooks  and  lodgings,  Salisbury,  Bath,  Lyme 
Regis,  and  London,  all  these  items  enter  as  naturally 
and  inevitably  into  this  tale  of  real  life  as  do  the 
Flat-Iron  Building  and  Montgomery  Ward's  Tower 
into  pictures  of  New  York  or  Chicago  today.  Such 
landmarks  of  Fielding's  physical  world,  like  the 
inns  and  roads  from  Salisbury  to  Holborn  which 
mark  the  stages  of  Tom  Jones'  progress,  are  at  the 
same  time  the  explanation  of  his  inner  life.  For 
such  a  reconstructed  world  of  eighteenth  century 
London  many  students  will  be  grateful,  for  it  is  the 
explanation  not  only  of  Harry  Fielding  and  Tom 
Jones  but  of  other  personages,  historical  or  fictitious, 
of  those  times. 

Through  this  every-day  world  Professor  Cross 
follows  Fielding;  he  portrays  "  the  handsome  boy  " 
who  comes  to  London  in  1727,  perhaps,  quickly  win- 
ning his  way  in  the  theaters  and  also  in  the  favor  of 
Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague  his  kinswoman; 
the  student,  not  of  law  but  of  ancient  letters,  at 
Leyden  in  1 728-29 ;  the  anti-Walpole  dramatist,  and 
editor;  the  romantic  lover  and  husband,  the  affec- 
tionate and  anxious  father  of  a  family  growing  while 
the  income  seems  to  shrink;  the  faithful  friend  of 
rich  and  poor;  the  tireless  and  humane  Justice  of 
the  Peace  laboring  until  sick  unto  death  for  the 
reform  of  men  and  of  laws;  and  finally,  the  social 
censor  and  lover  of  his  kind,  the  same  voice  speak- 
ing sentiments  much  the  same  in  drama,  journal, 
essay,  pamphlet,  and  novel. 

The  last  years  of  Fielding's  life  Professor  Cross 
describes  with  a  profound  sympathy  which  dramatic- 
ally foreshadows  the  end  with  feeling  of  Nemesis. 
He  shows  us  a  gallant  spirit  adventuring  bravely 
through  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  which  closes  about 
him  with  the  inevitableness  of  a  tragedy  of  fate.  We 
finish  the  story  of  The  Voyage  to  Lisbon  in  a  sad 
and  exalted  mood,  which  is  our  ultimate  tribute 
to  Henry  Fielding  and  to  the  art  of  his  latest 
biographer. 

From  this  narrative  Fielding's  personality  and 
his  work  emerge  with  striking  unity.  There  are  no 
violent  or  incredible  transitions.  H.  Scriblerus  Se- 
cundus,  Sir  Hercules  Vinegar,  Sir  Alexander 
Drawcansir,  and  Henry  Fielding,  Esq.,  are  one 


man  playing  in  his  day  many  parts.  As  Professor 
Cross  writes  in  his  final  chapter:  Fielding's  "de- 
velopment under  the  stress  of  changing  circum- 
stances was  perfectly  natural,  and  logical,  like  the 
development  of  a  great  character  in  a  great  novel. 
He  had  a  mind  most  responsive  to  his  immediate 
surroundings;  and  therein  lay  the  prime  element  of 
his  genius." 

This  unity  of  effect,  together  with  certain  per- 
sonal qualities  essential  to  the  portrait,  distinguish 
this  from  earlier  biographies.  Yet  in  the  midst  of 
an  admiring  mood  the  reader  pauses  occasionally,  as 
he  reads  through  the  volumes,  to  ask,  at  first  hesi- 
tantly and  then  with  more  assurance,  whether  now 
and  then  Professor  Cross  does  not  commit  the  very 
fault  for  which  Frederick  Lawrence  and  others 
stand  condemned,  that  of  letting  "  fixed  preposses- 
sion "  influence  unwittingly  his  selection  and  inter- 
pretation of  facts.  Frankly  he  tells  us  in  his  pre- 
face that  the  work  began  with  a  prepossession,  "  a 
surmise  which  soon  grew  into  a  conviction  that  the 
author  of  Tom  Jones  could  not  have  been  the  kind 
of  man  described  in  innumerable  books  and  essays." 
The  biography  is  surcharged  with  this  thesis,  which 
involves  the  destruction  of  that  Fielding  legend, 
initiated  in  the  rhetorical  essay  which  the  incom- 
petent Arthur  Murphy  prefixed  to  the  1762  edition 
of  Fielding's  works.  Two  items  in  the  legend  are 
the  chief  objects  of  attack:  the  charge  that  Fielding 
led  a  life  of  dissipation,  to  which  was  due  his 
poverty,  sickness,  and  premature  death;  and  the 
statement  that  his  works  were  written  in  haste  in 
the  intervals  between  the  riotous  incidents  of  his 
career. 

Led  into  paths  of  controversy  here  and  there,  Pro- 
fessor Cross  gives  short  shrift  to  critics  of  his  hero. 
Of  Richardson — always  anathema  to  your  true 
lover  of  Fielding — we  hear  that  praise  of  Tom 
Jones  "  set  his  shrunken  heart  boiling  with  rage  and 
envy " ;  Mrs.  Barbauld's  essay  is  "  a  thoroughly 
feminine  production  " ;  Leslie  Stephen  is  "  the  last 
of  the  brilliant  defamers,"  after  whom  come  "  the 
twenty  sane  years  from  Dobson  to  Henley,"  fol- 
lowed by  a  period  of  recent  scientific  research  into 
the  facts  of  Fielding's  life  history,  culminating  in 
the  present  work. 

Though  Mr.  Cross  agrees  in  the  main  with  the 
conclusions  of  these  later  scholars,  readers  will  be 
startled  at  times  by  the  ease  with  which  statements 
of  Fielding's  contemporaries  are  brushed  aside  when 
incompatible  with  Professor  Cross'  thesis ;  puzzled  a 
little  too  as  to  the  exact  basis  of  selection  between 
those  facts  in  Fielding's  novels  which  may  justly  be 
considered  autobiographic,  and  those  which  are  not 
autobiographic  but  "  essential  dramatic  elements  in 
his  art."  In  many  cases  readers  will  assume  that 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


409 


the  biographer  has  at  hand  data  not  evident  to  them, 
justifying  certain  procedures  and  assertions  in  Field- 
ing's defense  which  appear  captious  or  dogmatic. 
And  they  will  conclude  with  the  conviction  that  the 
truth  about  Henry  Fielding  lies  perhaps  far  above 
the  level  of  personal  character  Arthur  Murphy  de- 
scribed, yet — since  God  made  man  a  little  lower 
than  the  angels — just  a  bit  below  the  amiable  per- 
fection of  the  hero  of  Professor  Cross. 

But  after  all  the  great  value  of  The  History  of 
Henry  Fielding  lies  not  in  its  defense  of  Fielding's 
morals  but  in  its  realism  in  the  presentation  of  the 
man  and  artist  against  the  background  of  his  times. 
As  a  rule  it  is  the  novel  of  manners,  not  the  novel  of 
purpose,  which  has  the  universal  qualities  which 


make  for  immortality.  So  it  is  often  with  bio- 
graphical writing,  and  especially  is  it  true  of  the 
present  work,  that  the  qualities  which  give  it  charm 
and  insure  it  permanence  derive  not  from  the 
author's  thesis,  not  even  from  his  personal  analysis 
of  his  hero  and  his  hero's  works,  discriminating  and 
delightful  as  these  are,  but  from  the  portrait  of  this 
hero  playing  a  credible  part  in  a  fully  peopled  world 
reconstructed  with  the  veracity  and  the  imaginative 
sympathy  of  the  creative  scholar.  Of  such  creative 
scholarship,  remote  from  the  genre  of  the  average 
doctoral  dissertation,  American  universities  have 
hitherto  given  us  too  little. 


HELEN  SARD  HUGHES. 


Liberalism  Invincible 


1  ERHAPS  NO  WORD  has  so  diminished  in  prestige 
since  the  beginning  of  the  war  as  the  word  liberal- 
ism. This  has  been  due  not  merely  to  the  extraor- 
dinarily facile  collapse  of  supposedly  liberal  leaders 
before  the  emotion-provoking  shibboleths  of  bellig- 
erency, but  also  to  the  deliberate  creation  of  a  popu- 
lar temper  and  attitude  sharply  hostile  to  all  that 
the  adjective  liberal  connotes.  Modern  war  invari- 
bly  brings  to  the  fools  and  chauvinists  of  any 
country  a  glamour  and  prestige  which  they  cannot 
hope  to  achieve  in  the  more  rational  atmosphere  of 
peace.  Consequently  they  have  a  kind  of  vested 
prestige  interest  in  seeing  to  it  that  the  mass  of  the 
people  are  kept  at  the  same  low  intellectual  level 
which  is  their  own  customary  habitation.  It  goes 
without  saying  that  all  the  great  instruments  of 
publicity — the  press,  the  universities,  the  church, 
the  stage — are  at  their  entire  disposal,  far  from 
unwilling  to  help  them  in  their  attempt  to  reduce 
the  national  atmosphere  to  the  desired  temperature 
of  warm  and  unthinking  animal  emotion.  The 
independent  and  fearless  mind  is  cowed  into  silence 
or  twisted  by  the  social  pressure  into  mere  erratic- 
ism.  The  union  sacree  tends  irresistibly  to  become, 
so  to  speak,  the  union  degradee,  for  when  a  nation 
turns  homogeneous  in  its  thinking — as  it  has  to  in 
war-time — it  must  maintain  its  concepts  at  the 
lowest  common  denominator.  Political  heresy  (in 
normal  times,  a  mere  personal  idiosyncrasy)  becomes 
a  crime  punishable  by  penalties  more  severe  than 
were  visited  upon  the  religious  heretics  of  the  in- 
quisitorial age.  Protest  is  greeted  by  savage  and 
summary  repression ;  intolerance  becomes  the  normal 
and  accepted  thing.  Even  a  few  months  of  this  anti- 
liberal  nationalistic  hysteria  is  usually  long  enough 
to  shatter  the  thin  resistances  of  the  intellectuals, 
and  to  render  the  popular  temper — which  inwardly 


chafes  at  the  artificiality  of  it  all — apathetic  and 
dull.  Competent  observers  in  Europe,  even  today, 
months  after  the  signing  of  the  armistice,  speak  with 
growing  concern  of  the  atrophy  of  political  minded- 
ness,  the  huddling  back  of  the  herd  to  smaller  and 
more  understandable  groups  than  the  abstract  State 
for  which  they  have  already  sacrificed  almost  beyond 
any  limit  of  human  endurance.  This  apathy  of 
social  awareness  in  the  individual  is  especially  nota- 
ble in  Germany  and  the  half-starved,  neurasthenic 
small  nationalities  of  south-eastern  Europe;  but  it 
has  not  left  even  the  victors  untouched.  It  is  a  type 
of  spiritual  dullness  before  any  other  than  immedi- 
ate and  material  issues — a  by-product  of  the  bigotry 
and  intolerance  (as  truly  as  of  the  suffering)  of  the 
war.  It  has  brought  the  fact  and  the  word,  liberal- 
ism, into  disrepute. 

For  the  true  definition  of  liberalism  would  be  a 
definition  of  a  temper  and  an  attitude  towards  life 
as  a  whole  rather  than  an  explication  of  a  program. 
It  would  include  the  neglected  virtues  of  candidness, 
willingness  to  examine  the  unpopular  view,  toler- 
ance, intellectual  detachment,  the  desire  for  social 
experiment,  humility  before  facts,  historical  back- 
ground. Liberalism  is  good-tempered  and  non- 
partisan.  It  despises  the  role  of  hired  attorney  for 
any  cause — however  meritorious  the  cause  may 
intrinsically  be.  It  is  frankly  au-dessus  de  la  melee, 
not  through  arrogance  but  through  a  pretty  thor- 
ough conviction  that  perhaps  the  most  valuable 
social  service  possible  is  the  inculcation  of  the  liberal 
attitude  of  mind.  It  is  less  concerned  with  the 
achievement  of  specific  objects  than  with  the  crea- 
tion of  that  tolerant  and  intelligent  social  atmos- 
phere without  which  the  achievement  of  any  object 
is  valueless.  Consequently  the  liberal  temper  is 
seldom  encouraged  and  usually  not  even  allowed  by 


410 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


governments  in  time  of  war.  It  is  subversive  and 
disturbing;  it  breaks  up  the  national  unity — and 
seldom  yet  has  a  nation  gone  to  war  with  its  cause 
so  spotless  that  it  could  afford  to  be  good-natured 
about  its  minority  opposition.  Certainly  in  this 
present  war,  which  seems  to  be  transforming  itself, 
despite  formal  armistices,  from  nationalistic  rivalry 
into  a  bleak  class  struggle,  the  suppression  of  all 
kinds  of  minority  opinion  has  been  especially  ruth- 
less and  far-reaching.  It  takes  more  than  mere  in- 
tellectual conviction  to  withstand  the  passions  of  the 
herd  today;  it  takes  more  even  than  the  sudden,  defi- 
ant courage  of  the  irreconcilable. 

It  takes,  in  a  word,  what  a  genuine  liberal  like 
Mr.  Norman  Angell  has  never  relinquished,  no 
matter  what  social  pressure  the  war  has  focussed 
on  him — the  power  of  character  to  remain 
rational,  sensible,  fair-minded.  Mr.  Angell  is  the 
enduring,  the  Socratian  type  of  liberal.  He  does 
not  allow  the  revelation  of  the  appalling  stupidity 
and  prejudice  of  the  mob  which  the  war  has  given 
us  to  shake  his  belief  in  the  final  ability  of  the  aver- 
age man  to  see  the  rational  course  of  action.  He 
has  a  passion  for  reasonableness,  "  not,"  as  he  once 
said  to  the  present  writer,  "  because  I  do  not  recog- 
nize the  extent  and  massiveness  of  unconscious 
motives  in  the  acts  of  people,  but  because  the  reason, 
slight  and  capricious  though  it  is,  is  all  that  we 
have."  He  has  been  called  the  incomparable  pam- 
phleteer, but  this  hardly  does  him -justice.  His  writ- 
ing is  all  of  a  piece.  It  is  one  extended  and  detailed 
attempt  to  persuade  the  person  of  ordinary  intelli- 
gence to  see  the  rational  scheme  of  politics  and 
affairs.  What  emotional  drive  it  possesses  comes 
from  his  democratic  faith  in  the  ultimate  good  sense 
of  the  common  man  and  woman.  It  is  sharply  dif- 
ferentiated from  either  the  incisive  bitterness  of  so 
penetrating  a  critic  as  Bertrand  Russell,  or  from 
the  fanatical  and  courageous  doctrinairism  ~of  a 
leader  like  Liebknecht,  or  from  the  somewhat  sneer- 
ing petulance  of  a  skeptic  of  war's  values  like 
Macdonald  or  Snowden.  It  is  more  akin  to  the 
quality  of  H.  B.  Brailsford's  writing,  although  with 
less  emotional  intensity  and  likewise  with  less  back- 
ground of  European  history.  For  Mr.  Angell's 
method  has  the  defect  of  its  virtues:  it  is  sometimes 
careless  of  minor  facts,  however  sound  may  be  the 
main  contentions;  it  has  the  somewhat  thin  and 
ratiocinative  quality  of  all  predominantly  hortatory 
writing.  But  it  is  infinitely  patient  before  stupidity ; 
its  feeling  for  justice  and  integrity  is  never  once 
deflected  by  the  plea  of  immediate  expedients;  it  is 
never  bitter;  it  never  descends  to  invective;  it  is 
always  lucid  and  simple  and  non-patronizing  and 
straightforward.  Almost  any  book  of  Mr.  Angell's 
is  a  fine  corrective  to  either  the  passions  of  war- 


time or  to  the  apathy  of  peace.  -It  puts  the  reader 
in  the  frame  of  mind  where  discussion  is  possible. 
It  really  does  induce  in  one  the  first  act  of  intellect- 
ual honesty — 'being  fair  to  one's,  opponents.  Tem- 
porarily at  least,  it  makes  the  reader  a  liberal. 

Especially  is  this  true  of  his  latest  book,  The 
British  Revolution  and  The  American  Democracy 
(Huebsch).  The  specific  task  of  exposition  which 
he  attempts  is  not  very  pretentious.  He  merely  tries 
to  show  how  in  Europe  the  war  has  raised  questions 
which  go  far  beyond  those  involved  in  merely  politi- 
cal democracy,  and  the  relevancy  of  these  new  ques- 
tions to  our  own  immediate  social  and  political 
future  in  the  United  States.  He  gives  an  excellent 
analysis  of  the  program  of  British  Labor,  showing 
how  beneath  the  formal  demands  runs  a  new  note — 
the  desire  for  an  entirely  novel  social  order.  He 
shows  how  industrial  democracy  has  come  to  be  the 
real  question  in  Europe;  how  the  conscription  of 
life  has  raised  inevitably  the  moral  issue  of  the  con- 
scription of  income  and  even  the  whole  concept  of 
private  property.  He  points  out  that  merely  state 
socialism  has  come  to  be  regarded  with  even  more 
suspicion  by  the  workers  desirous  of  a  new  status 
than  the  old  capitalistic  individualism.  He  explains 
how  the  questions  involved  in  state  socialism  cannot 
be  escaped  by  America  after  the  drastic  war  legisla- 
tion. And  finally  he  reveals  how,  as  during  the 
Reformation  it  was  the  common  man's  feeling  for 
ordinary  justice  and  humanity  which  finally  de- 
stroyed religious  bigotry,  so,  in  all  likelihood,  it  will 
be  the  common  man's  new  feeling  for  the  community 
of  interest  of  all  who  labor  and  surfer  that  will 
finally  destroy  modern  political  bigotry. 

Mr.  Angell's  new  book  concludes  with  an  essay 
which  is  of  its  kind  a  classic:  Why  Freedom  Mat- 
ters. It  is  temperate  and  just  and  unanswerable. 
Our  author  puts  his  case  so  that  it  cannot  be  chal- 
lenged: human  happiness  ultimately  depends  upon 
the  quality  of  the  society  which  men  have  made  for 
themselves,  and  that  quality  depends  upon  the  ideas 
of  the  individuals  who  compose  it — those  ideas,  in 
turn,  upon  freedom  and  independence  of  judgment. 
Without  the  latter  a  land  flowing  with  milk  and 
honey  is  spiritually  a  waste.  Perhaps  the%  one  great- 
est evil  resulting  from  this  war,  even  counting  all 
the  physical  and  material  suffering  and  loss,  has 
been  its  evocation  of  the  spirit  of  intolerant  parti- 
sanship, the  willingness  to  kill  and  imprison  because 
men  could  not  agree  with  you.  Men  have  been 
taught  to  rely  upon  the  wisdom  of  blind  majorities. 
Mr.  Angell  can  look  back  with  pride  upon  his  record 
in  this  war.  He  has  done  nothing  to  encourage 
and  much  to  destroy  this  ancient  and  most  tragic 
of  human  delusions. 

HAROLD  STEARNS. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


411 


Labor  Control  of  Government  Industries 


A 


MONG  A  NUMBER  OF  THINGS  which  we  may  lose 
through  the  general  shuffle  in  international  adjust- 
ment of  affairs  and  exchange  of  thought,  is  the 
depressing  idea  which  was  gaining  headway  before 
the  war,  that  public  utilities  could  be  administered 
by  the  state  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  common  peo- 
ple; that  by  some  hocus  pocus  this  transfer  from 
private  to  public  operation  would  confer  benefit  on 
the  wage  earners  involved.  The  idea  of  state  social- 
ism gained  friends  and  made  progress  as  it  began  to 
appear  that  the  movement  in  that  direction  was  not 
revolutionary,  that  it  did  not  contemplate  a  greater 
control  by  labor  or  offer  new  opportunities  for  labor 
expression.  It  was  essentially  a  revisionist  proposi- 
tion, since  it  accepted  the  modern  scheme  of  machine 
production,  the  division  of  labor,  and  routine 
employment  as  unalterable,  and  offered  nothing  in 
its  stead  or  supplementary  which  might  open  up  the 
environment  to  the  common  people  so  that  they 
could  take  part  more  freely  in  the  reshaping  of  it. 
The  spirit  of  the  movement  was  to  make  the  best 
of  a  bad  thing  and  carry  routine  employment  to  its 
consummation  by  eliminating,  further  than  had  yet 
been  done,  the  workers'  responsibility  through  the 
centralization  of  management  of  enterprise.  The 
idea  seemed  to  be  that  if  the  direction  of  industry 
could  be  vested  in  the  state  the  tendency  in  modern 
enterprise  to  eliminate  interest  in  the  processes 
would  be  advanced,  and  energy  and  thought  could 
be  saved  for  better  things. 

The  conspicuous  loss  of  confidence  of  American 
socialists  in  state  administration  was  occasioned  by 
the  war  against  Germany  and  all  that  it  represented. 
That  loss  of  confidence  was  increased  by  the  discus- 
sions which  center  around  the  Russian  Revolu- 
tion and  the  movement  among  the  workers  of  Eng- 
land for  status  and  control.  As  these  events  have 
emphasized  the  abortive  results  of  state  administra- 
tion the  workers  of  America  have  become  more 
conscious  of  the  limitations  which  are  inherent  in 
civil  service.  Up  to  the  present  time  neither 
American  socialists  nor  trade  unionists  have  offered 
any  concrete  working  program  which  would  replace 
bureaucratic  management  in  public  works.  The 
syndicalist  program  of  the  Industrial  Workers  is 
put  forth  in  opposition  to  state  socialism,  but  that 
program  has  not  been  worked  out  along  lines  which 
relate  in  practical  application  to  actual  problems  of 
administration.  I  referred  in  a  recent  issue  of  THE 
DIAL  to  the  proposition  of  the  railroad  workers  for 
the  administration  of  the  roads.  I  alluded  to  the  fact 
that  while  the  proposition  was  presented  as  an  alter- 


native to  state  administration,  no  provision  was 
made  for  labor  control.  Control  and  management 
of  railroad  operations  was  vested  in  a  board  of  direc- 
tors which  was  to  be  elected  with  due  precautions 
against  power  of  rank  and  file.  Management  was 
to  be  centralized,  as  it  is  commonly  in  the  business 
arrangement  of  affairs.  The  election  of  the  direc- 
torate was  divided  between  the  federal  government, 
the  classified  officials,  and  the  employees  as  distin- 
guished from  officers.  Having  given  the  rank  and 
file  a  voice  in  the  determination  of  the  directorate, 
ample  provision  was  made  for  the  overwhelming  of 
it.  In  this  way  the  scheme  of  organization  denied 
at  the  outset  its  cardinal  and  avowed  principle,  the 
one  that  gave  it  validity,  that  operating  rights 
should  be  awarded  on  the  basis  of  ability  to  operate. 

If  ability  is  in  reality  the  asset  of  an  operating 
scheme,  it  follows  that  provision  must  be  made  for 
its  exercise.  In  the  case  of  a  business  enterprise  it 
is  necessary  to  show  ability  to  pay  and  provision 
for  payment.  In  the  case  of  a  cooperative  enter- 
prise it  is  necessary  to  measure  the  capacity  of  indi- 
viduals and  to  give  that  capacity  the  best  possible 
conditions  for  expression  and  expansion.  If  the 
promoters  of  the  railroad  scheme  should  ever  be 
called  on  to  submit  their  asset — that  is  their  abil- 
ity— to  appraisement,  they  would  be  obliged  to 
prove  that  their  association  was  a  well  coordinated 
organization  composed  of  members  who  were  techni- 
cally equipped,  conscious  of  their  ability,  their  inter- 
dependence in  the  promotion  of  the  enterprise;  that 
they  were  informed  and  intelligent  as  to  the  details 
of  administration  and  the  purpose  and  the  policy 
of  the  enterprise.  Having  shown  so  much  it  would 
then  follow,  but  not  until  then,  that  executive 
officers  could  represent  the  ability  of  the  member- 
ship and  irom  this  ability  they  would  derive  their 
sanction.  An  enterprise  could  not  be  run  by  a  board 
of  directors,  in  fact,  if  the  membership  of  the  asso- 
ciation represented  ability  to  any  important  extent, 
and  if  it  had  the  chance  to  exercise  it. 

Our  national  psychology  at  the  moment  is  more 
favorable  than  it  has  ever  been  for  the  kind  of 
reorganization  which  is  implicit  in  the  events.  A 
year  ago  the  proposition  which  I  here  submit  would 
have  appeared  Utopian,  but  it  will  be  recognized 
at  the  present  moment  that  it  has  its  bearings  on 
the  current  situation  and  its  relation  to  institutional 
practices  with  which  we  have  become  familiar.  I 
submit  the  proposition  to  the  special  consideration  of 
civil  servants  who  are  employed  in  public  service. 

To  secure  the  maximum  service  from  such  public 


412 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


utilities  as  railroads,  telephones,  telegraphs,  mer- 
chant marine,  street  railways,  gas,  electric  light- 
ing, power  and  water  supply.  The  federal  gov- 
ernment in  respect  to  the  federal  utilities  named, 
and  the  state  government  in  respect  to  the  state 
utilities,  and  the  municipal  government  in  respect 
to  the  municipal  utilities,  shall  issue  short  term 
operating  franchises  to  self-governing  associations 
which  are  made  up  of  individuals  technically  com- 
petent and  necessary  in  the  promotion  of  the  utility 
in  question.  These  franchises  shall :  I ,  fix  charges 
for  service  in  consultation  with  the  operating 
association,  consistent  with  the  costs  of  operation 
and  with  the  welfare  of  the  association  member- 
ship and  with  the  needs  of  the  public;  2,  require 
from  the  association  a  rental  based  on  the  per- 
centage return  of  the  net  income,  which  repre- 
sents in  some  approximate  measure  the  value  of 
the  franchise  which  the  community  creates.  (No 
association  could  be  forced  to  accept  terms  dis- 
advantageous to  the  enterprise  or  to  the  members, 
but  the  board  granting  the  franchise  could  hold 
open  its  offer  until  it  was  evident  that  no  compe- 
tent association  would  accept  the  terms.)  3,  fix  the 
minimum  requirement  for  upkeep  and  extension. 

The  association  receiving  the  franchise  would  be 
granted  credit  by  a  federal  reserve  or  other  public 
banking  institution.  It  would  be  desirable  for  the 
franchise  board  to  fix  service  charges,  rent,  and  up- 
keep, not  only  to  protect  the  public  against  extor- 
tion, but  so  that  the  net  income  would  revert  in  its 
entirety  to  the  membership  in  the  shape  of  earned 
income  and  not  by  wages  arbitararily  fixed.  The 
income  could  be  divided  pro  rata  among  the  mem- 
bers as  the  association  from  time  to  time  determined. 

If  an  operating  association  holding  a  franchise 
failed  to  give  satisfactory  service,  the  franchise 
would  be  renewed  only  on  conditions  of  reorganiza- 
tion. As  the  management  of  these  organizations 
would  be  decentralized  the  temptation  "  to  play 
politics  "  with  the  situation  or  within  the  organiza- 
tion could  be  largely  avoided  because  under  a 
scheme  of  decentralized  government  the  "  plums  " 
of  office  .holding  would  not  exist  as  they  do 
now.  The  responsibility  and  the  consequent 
power  would  be  diluted  as  it  was  divided  and 
shared.  It  would  be  to  the  advantage  of  the  whole 
membership  to  secure  members  on  the  basis  of  ability, 
on  the  basis  of  technical  equipment,  responsibility, 
experience,  and  general  intelligence.  Charges  for 
service  would  be  fixed  of  necessity  by  the  franchise 
board,  together  with  the  association,  as  price  is  a 
matter  of  interest  to  consumers  as  well  as  to  the 
workers. 

In   the  case   of  public   utilities   which   make   no 


charge  for  service  such  as  the  public  schools,  or  in 
the  case  of  the  post  office  which  is  run  with  a  deficit, 
the  franchise  would  be  awarded  the  association  to- 
gether with  a  grant  determined  as  now  on  the  basis 
of  approximate  cost. 

It  is  not  possible  to  imagine  a  public  service  insti- 
tution organized  on  these  lines  that  would  not  radi- 
ate some  of  the  warmth  and  human  interest  which 
is    now    so    conspicuously    absent    from    all    public 
employment.     In  the  case,  for  instance,  of  the  char- 
tered post   office   association   each   local  postmaster 
and  local  postal  clerk  would  be  responsible  to  his 
peers,  as  he  would  be  elected  by  them  and  kept  in 
his  office  on   their  sufferance  instead  of  "  holding 
down  his  job  "  through  "  bluff  "  or  "  pull."     The 
bungling   efforts   of  civil  service   reform,   appoint- 
ment by  competitive  examinations,  political  patron- 
age would    fall   by   the   way,    for  self-government 
would  look  after  hiring  and  firing  in  the  interest 
of    the    enterprise    and    the    association.      Such    a 
scheme  of  organization  would  offer  local  postmas- 
ters the  chance  to  work  out  methods  of  economy 
which  would  result  to  their  own  advantage  and  to 
the  advantage  of  their  fellow  workers  in  the  saving 
of  time  and  expense.     Under  the  present  arrange- 
ment   there    is    no    inducement    for    a   post    office 
employee   ever   to  concern   himself  with   efficiency. 
The  public  institutions  which  have  been  the  most 
seriously    perverted    by    centralized    administration 
and    quantative     standardization    are    the    public 
schools.     A  recent  Superintendent  of  Schools  of  a 
large  city  was  in  the  habit  of  observing  that  it  was 
a  matter  of  extreme  satisfaction  to  be  able  at  any 
time  during  school  hours  to  consult  his  watch  and 
to  know  at  that  particular  moment  that  thousands 
of  children  were  being  drilled  in  some  one  lesson 
on  a  certain  page  in  some  textbook  to  which  he 
could  at  the  moment  refer.     For  this  satisfaction 
the  thousands  of  teachers  and  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  children  paid  a  colossal  price  in  spiritual 
and  intellectual  vassalage.  This  example  may  illus- 
trate bureaucracy  gone  mad  or  centralized  admin- 
istration carried  to  perfection.    It  is  extreme  but  none 
the  less  it  tells  the  story  of  bureaucratic  management. 
It  indicates,  in  the  varying  degrees  of  its  imposition, 
the  inhibiting  results  for  teachers  and  children.     If 
the  schools  in  any  measure  meet  the  needs  of  educa- 
tion  they  must  represent  conditions  which   are  as 
changing  as  the  conditions  of  growth.     This  can  only 
be  assured  when  the  teachers  coming  in  direct  contact 
with  the  individual  children  and  their  changing  needs 
are  free  to  meet  and  take  up  the  problems.     Teachers 
will  not  experience  this  freedom  until  they  are  suf- 
ficiently alive  to  the  fact  of  their  own  enslavement 
in  the  system,  and  until  they  are  ready  to  assume, 
the   responsibility  of  promoting  a  school  organiza- 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


413 


tion  which  responds  to  the  needs  of  the  children  and 
which  translates  their  own  present  dull  and  thank- 
less job  into  a  creative  adventure. 

It  would  be  unfortunate  to  leave  the  impression 
that  bureaucratic  management  results  exclusively 
from  state  administration.  I  have  mentioned  the 
proposition  of  the  railroad  brotherhoods  which  was 
opposed  to  state  administration  and  in  favor  of  an 
alternative  which  was  no  less  bureaucratic  in  its 
promised  results.  The  grave  danger  in  England  at 
the  present  moment  is  that  the  opposition  to  the 
movement  of  the  rank  and  file  of  workers  toward 


decentralized  administration  of  all  enterprise,  will 
be  able  to  convert  the  established  trade  unions  into 
extra-legal  organizations  as  much  concerned  to 
retain  centralized  power  as  any  state  or  business  cor- 
poration. It  is  not  necessary  to  remark  in  ^closing 
that  the  executive  council  of  the  American  Federa- 
tion would  assume  such  position,  if  the  occasion  of- 
fered, with  a  sense  of  their  mission  fulfilled  and 
their  efforts  crowned  in  royal  fashion.  Will  the 
rank  and  file  in  America  take  care? 

HELEN  MAROT. 


Experimental  Schools 


IN  STRANGE  CONTRAST  to  the  turbulent  efforts  of 
men  to  reorganize  old  institutions  is  the  peace,  if 
peace  means  quiescence,  which  continues  without 
serious  disturbance  in  the  educational  world  below 
the  university  line.  If  some  day  the  teachers  of  the 
lower  schools  are  fired  with  a  desire  to  experiment 
they  will  discover  that  they  must  take  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  schools  as  well  as  the  formulation  of 
policy  and  methods  over  into  their  own  hands. 
That  is  what  has  been  done  by  a  few  teachers  here 
and  there  throughout  the  country  who  have  realized 
that  the  school  systems  and  education  are  irreconcil- 
able. The  experimental  schools  which  these  teachers 
have  promoted  may  have  their  relation  some  day  to 
the  general  reorganization  of  the  lower  schools,  as 
they  show  that  if  the  method  of  growth  of  children 
is  discovered  and  followed  a  larger  field  in  a  shorter 
period  of  time  can  be  covered  by  the  school.  Such 
demonstrations  will  sow  seeds  of  dissension  in  the 
world  of  the  lower  schools  and  even  now,  if  the 
material  which  these  experimental  schools  have 
brought  to  light  could  be  assembled,  something 
might  be  done  to  disturb  the  peace. 

To  begin  with,  the  experimental  method  is  pre- 
eminently the  method  of  little  children.  If  we  were 
at  all  observant  we  should  not  have  to  be  told  that 
the  method  is  in  good  working  order  among  babies 
up  to  the  age  of  four  or  before  they  are  consigned 
to  some  educational  institution.  Up  to  that  time 
they  are  occupied  with  growing.  They  have  experi- 
mented with  their  own  small  bodies  to  such  advan- 
tage that  they  have  acquired  the  art  of  walking,  talk- 
ing, and  the  use  of  their  hands.  They  have  learned 
these  complicated  operations  more  rapidly  than  they 
will  be  allowed  to  learn  anything  else  in  the  future. 
Why  is  it  that  schools  bent  on  getting  children 
over  ground  at  a  maximum  pace  reverse  the  lead 
which  the  children  themselves  give? 

After  children  have  acquired  the  degree  of  motor 


control  which  they  commonly  do  during  babyhood, 
they  are  confronted  with  the  organized  world 
around  them.  But  their  natural  method  of  experi- 
mentation with  this  organized  material  is  constantly 
inhibited,  as  their  experimental  handling  of  it  inevi- 
tably comes  into  conflict  with  some  adult  possessive 
interest.  Their  activities  are  curtailed  and  regu- 
lated at  home  and  their  experiments  are  supplanted 
and  forestalled  at  school.  Experimental  schools,  in 
opposition  to  this  practice,  undertake  to  protect  the 
environment  of  the  children  so  that  they  may  carry 
on  their  experiments  with  confidence  and  freedom. 
It  is  important  to  realize  that  the  environment  from 
babyhood  to  the  sixth  year  must  yield  to  the  child's 
method  of  play,  and  that  play  is  the  child's  applica- 
tion of  the  trial  and  error  method  of  science  to  peo- 
ple and  to  the  things  about  him.  The  kindergarten 
was  founded  on  the  play  idea,  but  the  kindergarten 
is  a  system  of  teaching  the  children  how  to  play. 
The  kindergarten  acknowledges  the  play,  activities 
of  children  in  general,  but  not  recognizing  their 
desire  to  experiment,  it  undertakes  to  socialize  the 
activities  of  a  period  which  is  distinctly  individual. 

The  Montessori,  distinguished  from  the  kinder- 
garten method,  is  a  system  of  training.  It  gives  the 
children  more  freedom  to  move  about  in  their  en- 
vironment and  to  choose  what  they  will  do,  but  the 
material  from  which  they  have  to  choose  is  designed 
to  train.  The  odium  of  teaching  is  transferred  from 
the  teacher  to  blocks,  to  bits  of  fabric,  to  weights, 
to  sandpaper  letters,  and  to  figures.  The  children 
may  not  use  this  material  to  carry  out  purposes  of 
their  own,  but  only  for  the  purpose  for  which  it 
was  originally  designed.  As  the  children's  use  of 
material  is  limited,  so  is  their  development.  Purpose 
and  purposefulness  are  the  striking  signs  of  growth 
in  the  period  which  follows  babyhood.  In  the  Mon- 
tessori schools  the  children's  activities  do  not  func- 
tion from  their  own  point  of  view.  The  children 


414 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


build  a  stair  but  they  cannot  put  it  to  use.  The 
adult  intention  lying  back  of  each  of  the  Montes- 
sori  training  sets  is  completed  when  the  object  is 
complete.  Putting  the  object  to  use  might  become 
a  practice  and  so  the  adult  intention  would  be  lost. 

Both  the  teaching  system  of  the  kindergarten  and 
the  training  system  of  the  Montessori  are  opposed 
to  the  method  of  the  children's  experimentation. 
An  experimental  school,  on  the  other  hand,  under- 
takes to  be  a  part  of  the  children's  environment,  to 
watch  the  children  while  they  grow,  to  discover  and 
meet  their  growth  requirements  as  they  appear. 
Children  cannot  be  taught  to  grow,  but  they  can  be 
furnished  with  conditions  which  are  conducive  to 
growth.  They  cannot  be  trained  to  grow;  our 
knowledge  is  necessarily  insufficient,  and  always 
must  be.  If  we  undertake  to  train  some  one  of 
the  senses  we  may  be  stultifying  others.  Normal 
growth  does  not  break  up  in  this  or  the  other  direc- 
tion; it  takes  place  as  a  whole. 

In  the  experimental  schools  the  teachers  and  the 
children  are  both  the  experimenters.  The  teachers 
are  continuously  trying  out  the  value  to  the  child  of 
different  kinds  of  materials  and  situations,  and  the 
children  are  continuously  experimenting  with  the 
materials  which  are  available  and  learning  through 
these  at  first  hand  to  make  adjustments,  generali- 
zations, and  conclusions.  The  teacher  directs  the 
child  to  sources  of  information  as  well  as  material 
so  that  he  may  have  the  stimulating  experience  of 
answering  himself  the  questions  the  experience 
excites.  The  questions  and  the  answers  point  con- 
stantly to  new  fields  and  opportunities. 

The  character  of  these  opportunities  is  more  or 
less  dependent  upon  the  location  of  the  school.  If 
it  is  a  country  school  the  teacher's  problems  are  sim- 
plified. "The  environment  is. replete  with  raw  mate- 
rial, that  is,  with  matter  which  has  not  been  made 
over.  The  child's  interests  and  processes  in  this 
environment  naturally  follow  more  or  less  physical 
laws  of  growth  and  are  less  complicated  than  those 
which  he  will  meet  in  the  city.  But  it  is  possible 
in  the  city  to  give  children  under  six  years  oppor- 
tunity to  answer  the  queries  which  the  actual  prob- 
lems of  transportation  turn  up,  and  to  follow  with 
intense  interest,  if  they  are  given  the  chance,  the 
transfer  of  material  by  rail,  water,  or  through  the 
city  streets.  They  will  observe  and  inquire  into 
cars,  wagons,  tug  or*  river  boats,  trains,  delivery 
carts,  with  curiosity  and  with  ability  to  understand 
the  major  part  of  the  progression  of  such  vehicles. 
Where  are  they  going?  what  makes  them  go?  what 
are  they  carrying  and  why?  are  questions  which 
result  in  lessons  in  economics,  geography,  and 
physics.  But  the  actual  knowledge  gained  is  less 
important  than  that  the  children  are  learning  how 


to  observe  and  are  forming  habits  of  work.  The 
pupils  learn  by  living  over  in  their  play  the  experi- 
ences which  their  inquiries  excited.  In  this  play 
they  need  building  material,  carpenters'  tools,  and 
toys  which  are  representative.  They  require  draw- 
ing material,  and  outdoor  space  where  they  can  dig 
and  build.  They  will  use  all  material,  if  they  are 

.  given  free  access  to  it  without  suggestion,  to  try 
out  on  their  own  scale  of  operation  what  they  have 
seen  going  on  in  the  world  about  them. 

Somewhere  between  the  seventh  and  eighth  year 
the  interests  of  children  and  their  methods  of  expres- 

-sion  undergo  changes.  Up  to  this  time  they  have 
reproduced  adult  existence  by  the  method  of  play. 
As  they  have  made  their  acquaintance  with  material 
their  desire  to  play  with  it  is  modified ;  it  does  not 
fully  satisfy  them  as  it  did.  They  want  in  part  to 
turn  the  material  or  their  activities  to  some  real  use. 
This  does  not  mean  that  children  at  this  time  have 
turned  from  the  world  of  phantasy  to  a  world  of 
reality;  they  have  always  been  interested  in  reality, 
but  they  have  acquired  a  greater  "familiarity  with  it, 
and  with  the  familiarity  comes  the  desire  for  better 
workmanship.  They  want  now  for  the  first  time 
some  training  and  some  teaching.  There  has  been 
a  general  recognition  that  children  were  ready  for 
both  at  this  time,  and  the  formal  schools  have  under- 
taken to  meet  this  requirement  by  giving  them 
academic  material;  but  the  acquisition  of  the  three 
R's  is  merely  the  acquisition  of  tools,  and  these  are 
tools  which  fail  to  give  children  of  this  age  the  help 
they  want  in  their  translation  of  the  real  world. 
All  this  academic  matter,  which  few  children  can 
put  to  any  use,  has  the  tendency  to  make  life  more 
visionary,  less  comprehensible  and  real ;  its  tendency 
is  to  make  adjustment  to  the  actual  environment 
more  difficult  and  the  environment  itself  more  remote. 
Many  of  the  formal  schools,  in  place  of  books 
and  in  place  of  hours  of  listening  to  the  words  of  a 
teacher,  are  trying  to  meet  the  real  needs  of  the 
children  through  first-hand  experience  in  different 
forms  of  handwork.  Whether  the  real  need  is  met 
depends  upon  whether  the  applications  are  to  things 
which  are  real  to  the  children.  Mere  handwork 
does  not  suffice.  It  must  be  handwork  with  a  pur- 
pose which  the  children  understand.  Incidentally 
the  children  turn  to  the  formalized  .material  on 
which  they  are  exclusively  fed  in  the  regular 
schools,  as  they  discover  here  and  there  that  books 
and  figures  are  helpful  tools.  They  learn  the  actual 
value  of  this  academic  matter  as  they  experience  its 
use. 

As  children  advance  toward  adolescence  the  ex- 
perimental method  of  dealing  with  environment  has 
the  same  significance.  The  indication  of  growth  at 
this  time  is  the  shifting  of  the  children's  interest 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


415 


from  the  things  which  serve  them  individually,  tp 
what  as  well  serves  others,  and  particularly  what 
serves  the  adult  purpose.  Through  this  period  social 
desires  and  realization  are  advancing  on  a  cres- 
cendo scale.  Teachers  have  more  to  guide  them  in 
formulating  their  school  work  for  this  period,  for 
they  are  more  in  sympathy  with  the  children's  minds. 
Having  said  so  much  for  the  experimental 
method,  I  must  add  that  the  contribution  of  the, 
experimental  schools  is  as  yet  negative  rather  than 
positive  in  character.  They  can,  for  instance,  dem- 


onstrate that  the  regular  school  systems  which 
handle  children  in  the  mass  and  standardize  proce- 
dure on  the  factory  principle  dwarf  as  well  as  retard 
the  children.  The  experimental  schools  hope  to  set 
up  standards,  but  when  they  do  they  will  not  be 
standards  which  can  be  standardized.  They  repre- 
sent a  never  ending  line  of  experiences  to  be  pooled, 
and  they  indicate  advances  which  have  goals  which 
are  as  various  and  as  changing  as  the  goals  of  in- 
dividuals whether  those  are  adult  or  juvenile. 

CAROLINE  PRATT. 


A  Perspective  of  Death 


JL/  EATH  is  THE  LASTING  aspect  of  a  world  at 
peace  no  less  than  of  the  world  at  war.  For  peace 
times,  however,  death  is  the  contingency  of  the  ad- 
venture of  living,  a  sudden  enemy  springing  from 
the  dark;  while  to  men  at  war,  death  is  the  whole 
adventure — the  hazard,  and  the  purpose  no  less,  of 
both  the  slayer  and  the  slain.  There  are  casualty 
lists  only  in  times  of  war.  Then  the  eyes  of  death 
stare  all  men  in  the  face,  its  nearness  hurts,  and  we 
turn  from  it,  and  our  poets  and  prophets  extol  the 
vigor  and  the  passion  of  the  life  of  battle,  and 
orphans  and  widows  and  mothers  are  told  to  think 
only  of  the  glories  which  their  dead  have  saved,  and 
not  of  the  peace  of  the  tomb.  Rarely,  in  war  time, 
do  peoples  look  upon  death  undisguised.  And  in 
no  other  time,  perhaps,  have  they  greater  need  so 
to  observe  it  and  so  to  know  it.  Only  the  remote 
in  time  and  spirit  appear  able  for  this,  able  to  desig- 
nate its  being  and  to  find  its  right  perspective.  Four 
years  of  much  war  literature  has  brought  us  noth- 
ing out  of  the  immediate  worthy  the  dignity  of 
death.  So  far  as  I  know,  there  have  been  printed 
but  two  works  adequate  to  the  high  call  of  the 
world's  tragedy,  and  both  are  evocations  from  the 
past.  One  came,  early  in  the  war,  from  the  hands 
of  the  poet  laureate.  It  was  an  anthology  of  the 
serenities  and  high  places  of  the  soul,  of  its  quietude 
and  self-possession.  Its  collector  called  it  The 
Spirit  of  Man.  The  other  was  an  English  version 
of  the  noblest  confrontation  of  death  that  litera- 
ture knows — the  poem  of  Lucretius,  called  Of 
the  Nature  of  Things  (Dutton),  done  into 
blank  verse  by  William  Ellery  Leonard.  "He  has," 
says  Mr.  Leonard  of  himself,  "loved  Lucretius  for 
many  years,  and  the  mighty  spirit  of  the  Roman 
has  helped  him  to  sustain  many  of  the  burdens  of 
life.  He  can  but  hope  that  he  has  not  altogether 
failed  to  communicate  him  to  English  and  American 
readers  ignorant  of  Latin.  Lucretius  is  indeed  a 
voice  for  these  supreme  times." 


That  he  has  made  a  communication  of  Lucretius 
Mr.  Leonard  may  be  well  assured.  He  has  uttered, 
in  his  own  measure,  something  of  both  the  beat  and 
the  passion  of  the  Roman  verse.  His  diction  repro- 
duces the  Lucretian  abbondanza,  and  his  pieties  and 
perhaps  his  temperament  are  not  alien  to  the  Lucre- 
tian conspectus  of  life  and  death.  Yet  it  is  by  no 
means  certain  that  the  excellences  of  his  abound- 
ing verse  make  up  for  its  limitations.  Its  metrical 
necessities  have  often  stood  in  the  way  of  clearness, 
and  have,  perhaps  more  than  anything  else,  caused 
us  to  miss  that  justness  and  adequacy  of  expres- 
sion with  which  Lucretius  so  many  times  captures 
the  mind  and  which  prose  translation  has  managed 
to  set  down.  Pick  at  random  one  of  the  oft-quoted 
passages,  such  as  the  rendering  of  is  a  true  test — 
say  that  at  the  close  of  the  third  book — 

lam  iam  non  domus  accipiet  te  laeta,,neque  uxor  .  .  . 
Mr.  Leonard  renders  it: 

Thee  now  no  more 

The  joyful  house  and  best  of  wives  shall  welcome, 
Nor  little  sons  run  up  to  snatch  their  kisses 
And  touch  with  silent  happiness  thy  heart, 
Thou  shall  not  speed  in  undertakings  more, 
Nor  be  the  warder  of  thine  own  no  more. 
"  Poor  wretch,"  they  say,  "  one  hostile  hour  hath  ta'en 
Wretchedly  from  thee  all  life's  many  guerdons," 
But  add  not,  "  yet  no  longer  unto  thee 
Remains  a  remnant  of  desire  for  them." 
If  this  they  only  well  perceived  with  mind 
And  followed  up  with  maxims,  they  would  free 
Their  state  of  man  from  anguish  and  from  fear. 
"  O  even  as  here  thou  art,  aslumber  in  death, 
So  shalt  thou  slumber  down  the  rest  of  time, 
Released  from  every  harrowing  pang.     But  we, 
We  have  bewept  thee  with  insatiate  woe, 
Standing  aside  whilst  in  the  awful  pyre 
Thou  wert  made  ashes;  and  no  day  shall  take 
For  us  the  eternal  sorrow  from  the  breast." 
But  ask  the  mourner  what's  the  bitterness 
That  man  should  waste  in  an  eternal  grief, 
If,  after  all,  the  thing's  but  sleep  and  rest? 

and  set  it  beside  this  prose  of  Mackail's: 

Now  no  more  shall  a  glad  home  and  a  true  wife  wel- 
come thee,  nor  darling  children  race  to  snatch  thy  first 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


kisses  and  touch  thy  heart  with  a  sweet  and  silent  con- 
tent; no  more  mayest  thou  be  prosperous  in  thy  doings 
and  a  defense  to  thine  own;  "alas  and  woe  !"  say  they, 
"  one  disastrous  day  has  taken  all  these  prizes  of  thy  life 
away  from  thee," — but  thereat  they  do  not  add  this,  "  and 
now  no  more  does  any  longing  for  these  things  beset  thee." 
This  did  their  thought  but  clearly  see  and  their  speech 
follow,  they  would  release  themselves  from  great  heart- 
ache and  fear.  "  Thou,  indeed,  as  thou  art  sunk  in  the 
sleep  of  death,  wilt  so  be  for  the  rest  of  the  ages,  severed 
from  all  weary  pains;  but  we,  while  close  by  us  thou  didst 
turn  ashen  on  the  awful  pyre,  made  unappeasable  lament- 
ation, and  everlastingly  shall  time  never  rid  our  heart  of 
anguish."  Ask  we  then  this  of  him,  what  there  is  that  is 
so  very  bitter,  if  sleep  and  peace  be  the  conclusion  of  the 
matter,  to  make  one  fade  away  in  never-ending  grief? 

Beside  this,  Mr.  Leonard's  verse  gives  one  a  sense, 
not  altogether  correct,  of  literalness  without  ac- 
curacy, of  passion  without  elevation,  of  clamor. 
Mackail's  key  is  too  subdued  for  Lucretius,  as 
Leonard's  is  too  strident.  Both  miss  the  Lucretian 
poignancy,  that  eager  deliberation  and  passionate 
quietude  of  his  verse,  which  render  it  so  truly  the 
voice  of  his  vision. 

But  such  is  the  fate  of  translators  anywhere.  The 
marvel  is  rather  that  they  should  at  all,  in  Mr. 
Leonard's  suggestive  analogy,  have  re-enacted  any- 
thing of  their  original's  being  and  have  caused  it  to 
live  in  the  new  body  they  have  given  it.  With 
Lucretius  this  is  particularly  difficult,  so  spiritual 
and  uncustomary  a  thing  is  his  vision.  An  almost 
unknown  poet,  of  a  despised  philosophic  sect,  with 
a  courage  about  ultimacies  men  hate  each  other  for, 
his  one  poem  passed,  preserved  by  a  single  manu- 
script, down  the  Christian  ages,  with  a  stigma  upon 
its  worth  and  the  life  of  its  author  at  the  hands  of  a 
sainted  chronicler  of  a  Christian  church.  Dante 
does  not  mention  him,  nor  does  he  figure  noticeably 
in  the  thoughts  of  men  until  the  imaginings  of 
philosophers  have  become  the  truths  of  science,  and 
the  face  of  the  world  has  had  stripped  away  the 
mask  which  the  Church  had  drawn  over  it.  Since 
then  his  lovers  have  become  myriads,  but  his  temper 
has  remained  essentially  alien  to  our  Christian 
times.  Why,  may  be  gathered  from  what  the  strip- 
ping revealed.  It  was,  by  and  large,  that  which 
Lucretius  had  seen — a  universe  of  atoms  and  space, 
bound  by  inexorable  law  in  a  single  process  of 
alternate  integration  and  dissolution;  of  worlds 
made  and  unmade  under  the  alternate  sway  of 
Venus  and  Mars,  poetic  personifications  of  two 
forces,  really  the  flow  and  the  ebb  of  the  one  cosmic 
tide  which  is  existence. 

Foam  and  spindrift  of  this  tide,  man  shares  its 
character  and  destiny.  The  Nature  which  breeds 
him  destroys  him  also,  and  all  his  life  is  a  battle 
with  death.  Indeed,  the  love  of  life  and  the  fear 
of  death  are  in  him  one  and  the  same  thing.  They 
make  his  pieties,  his  patriotism,  his  acquisitiveness, 
his  ambition,  and  his  love.  They  drive  him  from 


the  kindliness  and  simplicity  of  elemental  living  to 
the  cruelties,  the  complexities,  the  wars,  the  enslave- 
ments, and  the  other  inhumanities  men  call  civiliza- 
tion. They  drive  and  compel  him  because  he  is 
ignorant  of  their  nature  and  of  his  own  powers 
and  limitations.  Let  him  learn  to  know  them,  and 
he  is  set  free  of  them.  He  sees  them  then  in  their 
true  measure  and  proportion,  incidents  in  the  effec- 
tuation of  inexorable  law;  his  mind  identifies  itself 
with  this  law,  his  love  of  life  relaxes,  and  when  his 
love  of  life  relaxes,  the  fear  of  death  falls  away. 
For  the  fear  of  death  is  the  greatest  of  all  fears, 
the  ruling  passion  in  the  life  of  the  sons  of  man, 
the  energy  of  all  the  tragedies  men  inflict  upon 
each  other.  Yet  it  rests  upon  ignorance  and  upon 
illusion.  The  fear  of  death  is  the  fear  of  nothing; 
the  fear  merely  of  the  sleep  and  peace  which  are 
"the  conclusion  of  the  matter."  The  fear  of  death, 
in  a  word,  is  the  instinct  toward  living,  against 
which  argument  cannot  prevail.  Its  follies  and 
absurdities  may  be  exposed,  its  foundation  laid  bare, 
and  its  setting  discovered,  and  that  is  all.  Once 
this  is  done,  however,  as  Epicurus  has  done  it,  the 
intensities  of  life  are  weakened;  the  spirit  has 
changed  its  role  from  actor  to  spectator.  It  is  free 
and  at  rest  above  the  battle,  serene  and  self- 
sufficient. 

.  .  .  nought 

There  is  more  goodly  than  to  hold  the  high 
Serene  plateaus,  well  fortressed  by  the  wise, 
Whence  thou  may'st  look  below  on  other  men 
And  see  them  ev'rywhere  wand'ring,  all  dispersed 
In  their  lone  seeking  for  the  road  of  life; 
Rivals  in  genius,  or  emulous  in  rank, 
Pressing  through  days  and  nights  with  hugest  toil 
For  summits  of  power  and  mastery  of  the  world." 

This  is,  of  course,  essentially  asceticism.  But  it 
has  nothing  in  it  of  the  asceticism  of  tradition.  No 
medieval  skeleton,  with  memento  mori  upon  its  lips. 
No  mortification  of  the  true  normalities  of  life. 
It  is  a  withdrawal  rather  of  the  mind's  attention 
to  the  ardent  indifferences,  the  dynamic  im- 
partialities of  a  Nature  to  which  living  and  dying 
are  all  one:  "Nature  for  herself  harks  after  noth- 
ing." It  is  the  antipodes  of  Stoicism,  for  the  Stoic 
accepts  everything,  and  this  is  a  great  rejection.  It 
is  the  antipodes  of  Christianity  because  to  Christian 
materialism  death  is  the  gate  to  hell  or  paradise, 
and  its  memento  mori  is  a  minatory  warning  of  a 
world  to  come.  To  Lucretius  and  the  purer  Epi- 
curean tradition  death  is  a  thing  not  to  be  remem- 
bered but,  because  of  its  very  inevitability,  to  be 
disregarded.  A  mind  contemplative  of  Nature's 
eternal  laws  is  a  free  mind.  It  accepts  its  span  of 
selfhood  for  its  period  and  its  proper  worth,  and 
when  it  ends,  it  ends.  The  rest  is  silence. 

H.  M.  KALLEN. 


19*9 


THE  DIAL 


London,  February  20 


1-rtFE  IN  LONDON  HAS  BEEN  rather  flat  during 
the  past  month.  I  judge  this  from  the  fact  that 
we  are  all  inclined  to  buzz  a  little  about  the  elec- 
tion of  Sir  Aston  Webb  to  the  Presidency  of  the 
Royal  Academy.  Sir  Aston  is  the  first  architect 
who  has  ever  received  this  distinction;  and,  what- 
ever may  have  been  the  motives  which  the  electors 
imagined  as  persuading  them,  I  assume  that  the 
cosmic  purpose  in  the  matter  was  to  assure  us  that 
the  Royal  Academy  was  as  dead  as  architecture  or 
that  architecture  was  as  dead  as  the  Royal  Academy 
— it  does  not  much  matter  which.  Several  painters 
of  the  modern  school  have  raised  a  yelp  of  protest. 
Apparently  they  were  still  hoping  that  the  Academy 
might  earn  their  approval  by  electing  Mr.  Sargent. 
If  an  architect  must  be  elected,  they  said,  why  not 
Lutyens,  who  is  a  good  and  progressive  architect? 
But  the  Academy  goes  its  own  way  without  refer- 
ence to  the  modern  school.  It  chose  the  man  most 
representative  of  its  own  spirit — the  man  who  de- 
signed the  Victoria  Memorial  and  refronted  Buck- 
ingham Palace,  a  man  who  knows  what  is  expected 
of  an  eminent  architect  and  who  invariably  fulfills 
expectations.  The  correct  attitude  in  the  affair  was 
observed  by  the  Academy  itself  and  by  Mr.  Jacob 
Epstein.  Mr.  Epstein,  being  questioned,  replied 
that  he  had  nothing  to  say,  that  the  Academy  was 
a  business  house  and  had  no  connection  with  art, 
and  that  he  had,  therefore,  no  concern  with  its 
proceedings.  It  seems  to  me  quite  clear  that  the 
younger  artists  who  ostentatiously  decline  to  have 
any  dealings  with  the  Academy  are  a  little  ridicu- 
lous when  they  betray  a  benevolent  interest  in  the 
choice  of 'its  President.  But  young  painte'rs  in  re- 
volt always  tend  to  be  a  little  ridiculous.  Mean- 
while the  Academy  is  inviting  the  laughter  of  man- 
kind by  discussing  the  proposition  that  Academicians 
shall  retire  at  the  age  of  seventy-five. 

Another  event  of  interest  is  the  appearance  of 
the  first  pages  of  a  new  serial  by  Mr.  Conrad.  The 
history  of  this  writer's  reputation  is  one  of  the 
curiosities  of  modern  literature.  He  has  been  "be- 
fore the  public,"  I  suppose,  for  more  than  twenty 
years,  and  almost  from  his  first  book  his  reputation 
was  assured  with  all  the  mighty  persons  whose 
opinions  count.  He  combined,  moreover,  a  fine 
creative  imagination  and  an  exquisite^  prose  style 
with  a  choice  of  characters,  incidents,  and  settings 
that  would  have  made  the  fortune  of  a  writer  of 
"penny  bloods."  Nevertheless,  he  proved  to  be  a 
delight  only  for  the  few;  and,  as  time  went  on,  it 
seemed  to  be  obvious  that  he  must  be  content  with 


the  admiration  of  men  of  letters,  and  particularly 
of  novelists,  and  with  the  certainty  of  enduring 
fame.  These  are  not  despicable  rewards;  but  some 
fortunate  writers  manage  to  add  to  them  others  of 
a  more  physically  satisfying  character.  In  1912 
or  1913,  however,  a  Civil  List  pension  was  granted 
to  Mr.  Conrad,  a  grant  which  does  not  usually 
come  the  way  of  the  "best  seller."  Then  at  the 
end  of  1913,  or  the  beginning  of  1914,  he  pub- 
lished Chance,  and  suddenly  the  scene  was  changed. 
I  suppose  the  idea  that  Mr.  Conrad  was  a  great 
novelist  had  been  slowly  germinating  for  years  in 
the  breasts  of  the  persons  who  really  sell  novels; 
and  at  this  opportunity  it  burgeoned  forth.  The 
newspapers  were  filled  with  immense  reviews,  the 
book's  name  was  on  everyone's  lips — you  know 
what  I  mean  when  I  say  "everyone" — and  several 
editions  were  printed.  Now,  Chance,  though  a 
fine  book,  is  not  in  my  judgment  Mr.  Conrad's 
best;  but  since  its  appearance  he  has  been  a  popular, 
as  well  as  a  famous,  novelist.  He  is  not,  if  I  esti- 
mate his  character  correctly  from  his  writings, 
much  moved  by  the  change.  It  is  an  event  which 
will  rejoice  his  colleagues  more  than  himself;  but 
in  years  of  doubt  and  depression  it  is  an  event  which 
rejoices  his  colleagues  very  considerably. 

A  little  while  ago  I  referred  to  the  probability 
that  the  old  wearisome  discussions  about  the  Higher 
Drama  would  be  revived  with  the  end  of  the  war. 
Now  I  am  told  that  the  Higher  Drama  is  in  for  a 
very  bad  time  indeed.-  This  is  due  to  two  facts. 
In  the  first  place,  Western  theaters  have  grown  so 
exceedingly  costly  that  only  a  syndicate,  and  a  very 
wealthy  syndicate  at  that,  can  possibly  hope  to 
undertake  the  risks  involved  in  leasing  them.  In 
the  second  place,  two  such  syndicates  have  arisen 
and  are  gradually  swallowing  up  theater  after 
theater.  The  old  actor-manager,  whose  demand  for 
a  place — a  permanent  place — in  the  limelight  used 
so  much  to  irritate  the  exponents  of  the  Higher 
Drama,  has  already  almost  disappeared;  and  the 
Higher  Dramatists  are  beginning  to  miss  him.  He 
was,  they  say,  a  creature  of  strange  tastes  and 
methods  and  preposterous  vanities;  but  there  was 
a  strain  of  idealism  in  his  character.  He  did  not 
care  wholly  for  loot,  he  cared  something  for  artistic 
success  and  a  good  deal  for  his  reputation.  But 
the  new  syndicates  are  mere  caterers,  on  the  same 
level  as  the  proprietors  of  multiple  tea-shops.  They 
will  find  out  what  the  public  is  prepared  to  pay  for, 
and  they  will  give  it  precisely  that,  indifferent  to 
any  other  qualities  in  the  goods  they  handle.  More- 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


over,  it  is  obvious  that  the  more  theaters  the  syndi- 
cates control,  the  more  secure  they  will  be  against 
the  chances  and  misfortunes  that  commonly  assail 
theatrical  enterprises.  The  Higher  Dramatists  do 
not  look  for  much  help  from  the  syndicates,  and 
they  are  in  consequence  very  unhappy. 

But  I  can  see  two  possible  mitigations  of  the 
<loom  they  anticipate.  The  greater  the  success  of 
the  syndicates  the  more  powerful  is  likely  to  be 
the  inevitable  reaction  against  it;  and  I  can  see  that 
reaction  taking  the  shape  of  a  National  Theater  in 
London,  and  numerous  and  enterprising  municipal 
theaters  in  the  provinces.  The  theater  is,  in  all 
conscience,  bad  enough;  and,  perhaps,  it  must  be 
worse  before  it  can  be  better.  On  the  other  hand, 
it  does  seem  to  me  possible  that  unity  of  control 
may  involve  greater  diversity  of  production.  At 
present  what  happens  is  this:  a  manager  makes 
a  hit  with  a  farce  containing  a  slightly  risque  scene 
in  a  bathroom ;  and  promptly  every  other  manager 
in  London  rushes  on  to  the  stage  a  new  farce  also 
containing  a  scene  in  a  bathroom.  But  the  syndi- 
cate, when  it  makes  a  hit  of  this  kind,  will  not,  if  I 
may  so  express  myself,  put  all  its  eggs  in  one  bath- 
room. It  will  find  it  more  profitable  to  reserve 
certain  theaters  for  certain  kinds  of  plays,  and  so 
tap  all  sections  of  the  public  at  once.  Thus  the 
Higher  Drama,  which  really  has  a  following,  if  not 
a  large  one,  will  get  its  innings  after  all. 

And  I  am  persuaded  that  the  public  which  will 
pay  to  witness  artistically  serious  drama  is  larger 
than  anyone  has  yet  been  able  to  demonstrate.  The 
public  was  never  enthusiastic  about  the  gloomier 
plays  of  Mr.  Galsworthy  and  his  followers — it  had 
no  great  interest  in  tragic  seductions  in  the  country ; 
the  darkness  of  life  in  the  industrial  districts  failed 


to  stir  its  blood.  But,  though  you  would  not  gather 
it  from  hearing  the  Higher  Dramatists  talk,  these 
genres  do  not  really  exhaust  all  the  possibilities. 
It  is  not  a  fact,  as  is  often  believed,  that  the  public 
dislikes  a  thing  to  be  good.  The  public  dislikes  in- 
tensely to  be  bored;  and  it  sometimes  finds  good  art 
so  difficult  to  follow  as  to  be  boring.  But  a  thing 
is  not  necessarily  good  art  because  it  bores  the  pub- 
lic. The  gloomier  works  of  the  Higher  Dramatists 
attracted  nobody  but  a  few  persons  desirous  of  ap- 
pearing intellectual.  The  public  were  repelled  by 
the  dullness  of  the  stuff,  and  persons  of  taste  were 
repelled  simply  because  it  was  not  good  art.  But 
I  can  see,  if  only  faintly,  a  type  of  play  that  we 
shall  all  equally  like  and  respect;  and  that  type  of 
play,  I  dare  to  affirm,  is  the  play  in  verse.  The 
public,  though  it  has  had  few  recent  opportunities 
of  finding  it  out,  likes  good  verse  well  spoken.  It 
is  at  present  immensely  enjoying  a  production  of 
Twelfth  Night,  which  is  particularly  distinguished 
by  the  beautiful  elocution  of  some  of  the  perform- 
ers. The  Elizabethan  drama  sprang  out  of  this 
public  appetite;  if  enough  of  our  young  poets  will 
turn  their  attention  to  the  stage  and  make  up  their 
minds  to  try  and  to  fail  and  to  keep  on  trying,  they 
may  stimulate  this  appetite  anew.  Stephen  Phillips 
succeeded ;  but  he  was  not  good  enough  either  as 
a  poet  or  as  a  dramatist  for  his  success  to  last;  and 
practically  all  the  other  poetic  dramatists  of  recent 
times  have  been  well  intentioned,  and  sometimes 
excellent,  poets  without  the  slightest  notion  how  to 
work  on  an  audience.  I  suppose  really  that  -I  am 
the  only  person  in  London  who  looks  on  the  pros- 
pects of  the  Higher  Drama  with  a  cheerful  eye. 
The  exponents  of  it  do  not,  nor  do  those  who  have 
witnessed  its  performances.  EDWARD  SHANKS. 


/  Watch  One  Woman  Knitting 

The  lamplight  rings  her  in  a  golden  space, 

And  isles  her  in  from  all  the  eager  dark ; 

She  cannot  see  me  where  I  sit  and  mark 
The  disappearing  pageant  on  her  face: 
Those   swiftest   thoughts,   and   moods,   and   whims   like   lace, 

Impermanent  as  winds  across  the  grass 

One  after  one  they  rise  and  change  and  pass, 
One  after  one,  and  leave  no  slightest  trace. 

Her's  is  the  peace  of  a  cathedral  close. 

The  lamp's  warm  glow  has  walled  her  all  about 

In  deepest  quiet  from  the  world  without — 
Until  I  cannot  think  how  well  she  knows 

That  just  beyond  this  circle  where  she  sits, 

They  clash  and  curse  and  die,  for  whom  she  knits. 


DAVID  MORTON. 


THE  DIAL 


GEORGE   DONLIN 


JOHN    DEWEY 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor 
In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program: 

THORSTEIN    VEBLEN 


CLARENCE    BRITTEN 


HELEN    MAROT 


AN    NO  DEPARTMENT  OF  THE   MODERN   WORLD   HAS 

the  tendency  toward  democracy  been  more  pro- 
nounced than  in  education.  An  analysis  of  the 
process  into  its  factors  clearly  shows  the  change 
from  the  Renaissance  to  the  modern  school.  These 
factors  are  three — the  subject  matter,  the  teacher, 
and  the  pupil.  In  respect  to  each  the  education  of 
the  Renaissance  was  aristocratic.  The  subject  mat- 
ter was  conventionally  prescribed,  a  group  of  classics 
whose  value  was  a  matter  of  authority,  not  of  ex- 
perience. The  teaching  was  autocratic;  the  posses- 
sion of  the  text  in  a  dead  language  gave  the  teacher 
an  absolute  control  over  his  pupils.  The  fact  that  the 
subject  matter  was  remote  from  the  immediate  needs 
and  interests  of  ordinary  existence  automatically 
restricted  its  followers  to  a  special  caste.  Culture 
was  the  concern  of  an  institution — it  was  academic, 
as  religion  was  ecclesiastic.  The  appearance  of 
Comenius,  almost  contemporary  with  that  of  Bacon 
and  the  scientific  Renaissance,  marked  the  beginning 
of  the  modern  tendency;  the  exclusion  of  purely 
conventional  learning,  the  use  of  the  vernacular,  the 
introduction  of  an  objective  method,  above  all  the 
concept  of  a  school  system  which  should  extend 
education  to  the  people — these  ideas  projected  by 
the  seventeenth  century  reformer  are  gradually  being 
achieved.  In  the  last  few  years  the  progress  has 
been  notable.  No  longer  is  the  teacher  an  autocrat. 
From  the  earliest  experimental  school  to  the  univer- 
sity seminar  the  teacher  works  with  his  classes  in 
a  spirit  of  cooperation.  No  longer  is  the  subject 
matter  prescribed,  conventional,  remote  from  life. 
The  defense  of  the  study  of  the  so-called  classics  is 
now  based  on  their  vital  quality  as  a  record  of  ex- 
perience. Practical  study  of  the  world,  technical 
study  of  the  arts  are  part  of  every  curriculum.  In 
method,  experiment  has  replaced  authority.  These 
changes  in  subject  matter  and  method  have  made 
education  necessarily  democratic  in  appeal.  It  has 
become  an  initiation  into  life  of  which  all  men  feel 
the  need,  and  resent  the  lack — for  themselves  and 
their  children. 

But  in  this  triumphant  movement  of  education  in 
the  direction  of  democracy  there  is  One  point  of 
friction.  It  is  the  point  at  which  the  system  of 
education  is  in  contact  with  that  of  society  and 
government.  The  control  of  education  by  persons 
outside  the  system,  of  endowed  universities  and  col- 


leges  by   trustees,   of  state    institutions  and   public 
schools  by  regents  and  school  boards,  results  in  a 
limitation  of  its  natural  democratic  tendencies.     In 
the  direction  of  subject  matter  political  have  taken 
the  place  of  literary  or  religious  conventions.     A 
conventional  political  economy,  political  science,  and 
history  have  been  imposed,  and  any  attempt  by  the 
teacher  or  the  pupil  to  break  through  this  shell  and 
touch  the  core  of  human  experience  within  is  bitterly 
resented  by  those  who  represent  the  social  control  of 
vested  interests.    Similarly  the  method  of  experiment 
and  testimony  is  ruled  out  as  soon  as  it  is  applied 
*lo   current  political   and   social   phenomena.     The 
teacher  is  prevented  from  joining  his  pupils  in  a 
search   for  truth,   but  is  compelled   to   resume  his 
old  papal  seat  of  authority.     Of  all  these  types  of 
limitation  and  impediment  the  relations  of  the  New 
York  Board  of  Education  with  the  teachers  during 
the  past  year  afford  ample  illustration.     The   in- 
fluence of  war  psychology  was  a  natural  and  reason- 
able excuse  for  the  attitude  shown  by  the  Board  and 
its  superintendents  while  the  country  was  at  war, 
but  it  is  significant  that  with  the  return  to  peace 
the  feeling  which   was  developed   for  nationalistic 
purposes  has  been  transferred  to  social  ends.     In- 
stead of  Germany,  Russia  is  the  object  of  patriotic 
animadversion.      The   investigations    and    trials   of 
teachers  held  by  the  Board  of  Education  are  pitiful 
spectacles.     On   the  one  hand   is   the   teacher,   ac- 
cused of  something  which  in  most  cases  amounts  to 
making  personal  reservations  of  opinion  in  regard 
to  the  phenomena  of  the  world  instead  of  enforcing 
arbitrarily   the   official   view,    and   of    inviting   his 
pupils  to  make  use  of  the  method  of  experiment  and 
testimony.     On  the  other  hand  there  is  the  organi- 
zation, aided  by  the  officious  zeal  of  its  servants  to 
whom  the  espionage  habit  has  become  second  nature. 
Between  them  stands  a  flock  of  pupils,  their  minds 
driven  this  way  and  that  by  examination  and  cross- 
examination,  victims  of  the  war  as  certainly  as  if 
they  had  been  drafted  and  sent  to  the  front.     It  is 
nothing  short  of  sabotage  of  education.    Similar  re- 
ports come  from  Washington  where  a  teacher,  ex- 
pressing the  opinion  that  "  the  Soviet  Government 
in  Russia  was  better  for  Russia  than  was  the  ab- 
solutism of  the  Czar  "  was  charged  with  "  unpatri- 
otic utterances  "  and  suspended.  The  superintendent 
has  barred  discussion  of  the  League  of  Nations  to- 
gether with  Bolshevism,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 


420 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


teaching  of  current  topics  is  required,  and  it  is  a 
literal  impossibility  to  exclude  these  subjects  from 
discussion  in  classes  in  modern  history  and  eco- 
nomics. 

The  remedy  for  this  maladjustment  is  immediate 
and  obvious.  It  is  simply  to  give  teachers  control 
of  education,  to  restrict  the  functions  of  school 
boards  and  trustees  to  business  management.  It  is 
to  be  noted  that  this  is  the  demand  everywhere  of 
labor  that  respects  itself — responsibility  for  produc- 
tion. Responsibility  is  the  only  way  of  introducing 
that  esprit  de  corps  which  has  been  defined  as  con- 
sisting in  thinking  in  terms  of  the  enterprise  rather 
than  of  the  job.  It  is  characteristic  of  workers  that 
under  a  system  of  responsibility  they  make  few  mis- 
takes in  choosing  their  leaders — men  and  women  of 
initiative  and  originality.  But  the  true  analogy  is 
not  between  teachers  and  labor,  but  between  educa- 
tion and  other  professions.  To  quote  Dr.  Kallen 
(THE  DIAL,  Feb.  28,  1918)  :  "To  the  discoverers 
and  creators  of  Knowledge,  and  to  its  transmitters 
and  distributors,  to  these  and  to  no  one  else  beside 
belongs  the  control  of  education.  It  is  as  absurd 
that  any  but  teachers  and  investigators  should  gov-4 
ern  the  art  of  education  as  that  any  but  medical 
practitioners  and  investigators  should  govern  the 
art  of  medicine." 


I 


T     IS     CLEAR     THAT     ANY     COVENANT     OF     PEACE 

among  nations  will  depend  for  its  validity  upon  the 
activity  of  its  supporters  in  all  countries  in  taking  ad- 
vantage of  the  opportunity  offered  for  international 
cooperation  to  remove  the  causes  of  war.  No  one 
need  be  told  today  that  of  these  causes  armament  and 
military  training  are  two  of  the  most  immediate.  It 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  every  country  may  test 
its  will  to  end  war  by  its  readiness  to  disarm,  and 
the  weakness  of  this  will  is  revealed  by  the  feeble 
and  uncertain  character  of  the  provisions  of  the 
Covenant  in  this  matter.  There  is  all  the  more 
reason,  therefore,  that  believers  in  international 
peace  should  manifest  their  faith  by  national  action. 
The  principle  is  recognized  by  the  Covenant  of 
armament  graduated  according  to  the  geographical 
circumstances  of  the  contracting  parties.  Clearly 
the  part  is  suggested  to  the  United  States  of  lead- 
ing the  way  in  showing  confidence  in  reason  and 
good  will  instead  of  bayonets  and  iron-clads.  And 
the  part  should  not  be  a  difficult  one.  The  people 
of  the  United  States  are  normally  pacific  and  they 
have  had  enough  experience  of  the  spiritual  rav- 
ages of  war  to  recognize  the  symptoms  of  the  dis- 
ease. They  have  never  built  the  system  of  general 
military  service  into  their  social  structure,  or 
crowned  the  edifice  with  a  military  caste.  The  re- 
sult of  the  recent  mobilization  seems  on  the  whole 
to  have  given  the  people  a  pronounced  distaste  for 
military  experience,  and  this  distaste  is  apparently 
strongest  among  those  who  participated  most  ac- 


tively in  that  experience.  At  the  same  time  it  is 
clear  that  no  merely  passive  attitude  on  the  part 
of  a  people  will  stand  against  powerful  forces 
working  to  subvert  it,  and  a  democratically  organ- 
ized people  is  peculiarly  liable  to  attack  by  such 
forces  through  the  institution  of  representative 
government.  It  seems  probable  that  the  issue  of 
universal  military  service  will  appear  well  to  the 
front  in  the  next  presidential  campaign,  and  mean- 
while the  sponsors  for  it  are  active  in  the  various 
states.  In  these  the  method  is  to  make  military 
training  a  part  of  the  high  school  course,  and  the 
question  thus  becomes  an  educational  one.  A  law 
to  this  effect,  in  New  York,  hastily  conceived  and 
irregularly  enforced,  is  now  undergoing  scrutiny 
as  to  its  educational  value.  Similar  bills  are  pend- 
ing in  the  legislatures  of  Pennsylvania,  Missouri, 
and  California.  In  Oregon  such  a  bill  has  failed; 
in  New  Jersey  the  adverse  report  of  the  legislative 
committee  on  military  drill  in  high  schools  has 
probably  proved  decisive.  The  organizations  which 
for  one  purpose  or  another  are  seeking  to  carry  such 
bills  in  the  several  states,  as  the  basis  of  a  plan  of 
national  military  service,  have  placed  the  question 
squarely  on  educational  grounds.  The  Security 
League  sent  its  most  brilliant  orator  to  the  last 
meeting  of  the  National  Education  Association  to 
clamor  for  its  endorsement.  It  is  altogether  proper 
that  the  opinion  of  teachers  should  be  decisive  on 
this  phase  of  the  matter.  If  teachers  have  little 
influence  with  local  authorities  in  which  control  of 
education  is  specifically  vested,  at  least  they  have 
the  power  of  organized  citizens  to  secure  political 
action  which  shall  be  representative  of  the  com- 
munity, and  of  themselves,  in  a  matter  on  which 
they  have  a  supreme  right  to  be  heard. 


TH 


,HE    VICTORY    LOAN    SHOULD    BE    THE    OCCASION 

for  the  exhibition  of  a  new  spirit  if  the  League  of 
Nations  is  to  be  worth  the  paper  on  which  it  is 
drawn  up.  The  Liberty  Bonds  were  sold  largely 
on  hate.  The  appeal  carried  to  the  ear  of  the 
people  by  four-minute  oratory,  or  to  the  eye  of  the 
people  by  posters  and  moving-pictures,  was  sup- 
ported by  lavish  representations  of  the  malevolence 
of  the  enemy.  That  these  were  in  part  false  was 
indicated  by  the  action  of  General  Pershing  in  with- 
drawing from  active  salesmanship  a  sergeant  who 
was  telling  atrocity  stories  unwarranted  by  any- 
thing in  the  actual  experience  of  the  troops.  At  the 
same  time  this  popular  feeling  was  used  as  a  measure 
of  coercion  against  citizens  who  did  not  manifest 
the  degree  of  financial  patriotism  demanded  by  the 
standards  of  the  community.  The  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury  fulminated  against  pacifists.  The  extent 
to  which  organized  coercion  was  practiced  under  the 
direction  of  local  managers  is  revealed  in  an  article 
in  The  New  Republic  for  March  29,  enitled  Bor- 
rowing with  a  Club.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


421 


out  that  such  methods,  emphasizing  division  in  pub- 
lic opinion,  will  not  serve  to  advance  the  prospects 
of  the  present  loan.  The  government  has  been  un- 
able to  secure,  so  far  as  we  know,  the  punishment 
of  a  single  person  for  illegal  proceedings  in  connec- 
tion with  the  sale  of  Liberty  Bonds.  It  is  not  to  be 
expected  that  it  will  be  able  to  mark  its  disapproval 
of  their' methods  by  relieving  these  active  patriots 
from  the  management  of  the  present  loan.  As  in 
the  case  of  leaders  and  inciters  of  mob  violence,  the 
energy  and  aggressiveness  shown  by  such  persons 
are  qualities  with  which  the  government  will  hesi- 
tate to  dispense.  But  the  spirit  and  method  of  their 
appeal  must  be  totally  different  if  the  distinction 
between  the  Liberty  Loans  and  the  Victory  Loan  is 
to  be  maintained.  The  victory,  which  is  properly 
to  be  celebrated  by  new  sacrifices,  was  a  victory 
won  for  the  whole  world.  The  fruits  of  that  vic- 
tory are  to  be  found  in  a  reunion  of  the  world 
toward  which  nothing  can  contribute  so  much  at 
the  present  time  as  the  feeding  of  the  starving,  the 
clothing  of  the  naked,  wherever  they  may  be,  among 
our  late  enemies  as  among  our  allies.  Is  it  too 
much  to  suggest  emphasis  upon  this  generous  aspect 
of  the  sacrifice?  The  victory  was  won  for  democ- 
racy at  home  as  well  as  abroad.  The  fruits  of  that 
victory  are  to  be  found  in  a  reunion  of  Americans 
on  the  basis  of  their  freedom,  toward  which  re- 
union nothing  can  contribute  so  much  at  the 
present  time  as  the  release  of  those  in  prison  for 
conscience'  or  opinion's  sake.  In  many  cases  a  re- 
calcitrant attitude  toward  the  Liberty  Loans  was 
one  of  the  indictments  brought  against  those  con- 
victed under  the  Espionage  Act.  To  what  extent 
this  attitude  was  engendered  and  reenforced  by  the 
illegal  methods  of  the  managers  of  the  loans  is  a 
matter  deserving  honest  inquiry.  The  withholding 
of  supply  has  been  a  time-honored  weapon  by  which 
the  Anglo-Saxons  have  maintained  their  liberties, 
and  to  some  citizens  the  Liberty  Loans  were  doubt- 
less presented  as  a  form  of  taxation,  as  unjust  and 
illegal  as  Ship  Money  or  the  Stamp  Tax.  The 
government  could  manifest  the  spirit  of  victory  and 
confidence  in  the  results  of  the  war  in  no  way  more 
eloquently  than  by  opening  the  drive  for  a  Victory 
Loan  by  a  general  amnesty  to  all  victims  of  laws  en- 
acted for  the  emergency  of  war. 


A  HE     UNIVERSITY     PROMISES     TO     BE     THE     LAST 

citadel  of  sex  privilege.  The  granddaughters  of  the 
women  who  won  from  prejudice  the  opportunity  to 
study  in  college  on  equal  terms  with  men  have  yet 
to  secure  the  same  opportunity  in  the  better  pro- 
fessional schools.  During  most  of  these  years,  more- 
over, the  public,  and  many  of  the  private,  colleges 
have  been  conferring  degrees  on  women,  admitting 
them  to  the  '*  fellowship  of  educated  men  " — the 
fellowship,  but  not  the  profession.  For  though  their 
scholarship  carry  the  academic  seal  of  approval  and 


their  record  show  the  full  apprenticeship  exacted  by 
an  ancient  and  jealous  guild,  they  have  not  yet — 
except  here  and  there,  and  in  inconsiderable  num- 
bers— the  opportunity  to  teach  on  equal  terms  with 
men.  They  may  clerk  in  libraries,  drudge  in  ad- 
ministrative offices,  mark  themes,  correct  exercises, 
and  aspire  to  infrequent  instructorships ;  but — ex- 
cept here  and  there,  and  in  inconsiderable  numbers 
— they  may  not  enter  the  faculty  proper  and  achieve 
the  rewards,  niggardly  enough,  that  men  finally  re- 
ceive for  the  apprentice  years  of  overwork  and 
underpay.  Before  the  war  this  situation  was  an 
anachronism:  today,  when  women  have  convinced  the 
world  of  their  capacity  to  perform  nearly  all  tasks 
that  men  perform,  it  is  becoming  a  peril.  Attracted 
by  the  current  demand  in  other  fields,  with  better 
wages  and  nearer  approximation  to  sex  equality, 
large  numbers  of  the  more  independent  (and  by 
the  same  sign  more  valuable)  women  are  being 
drawn  away  from  academic  life.  If  the  colleges  find 
it  difficult  to  retain  the  services  of  men  of  initiative, 
how  can  they  hope  to  keep  their  women  teachers 
unless  they  level  the  humiliating  and  indefensible 
barrier  of  sex  discrimination?  There  is  a  certain 
type  of  academic  mind  that  professes  indifference 
to  the  breaches  made  in  university  personnel  by  the 
greater  attractiveness  of  secular  pursuits.  It  finds 
something  unworthy  in  the  teacher  who  is  swayed 
at  all  by  considerations  of  wage  or  working  hours. 
But  it  is  a  mind  that  is  increasingly  incongruous  in 
the  world  for  which  our  colleges  are  preparing  our 
youth.  Sooner  or  later  it  must  give  way  before 
modern  demands,  just  as  sooner  or  later  the  col- 
leges must  accept  the  modern  world's  estimate  of 
women's  sphere.  But  will  it  be  so  late  that  we 
shall  yet  witness  the  spectacle  of  educators  arguing 
before  women  legislators  that  woman's  place  is  in 
the  home? 


UNDER  THE  ACID  TEST  OF  EVERYDAY  PSYCHOLOGY 
our  pedagogy  still  shows  a  considerable  blind-spot. 
One  of  the  minor  evidences  of  its  existence  is  the 
prevailing  practice  of  writing  two  distinct  prefaces 
or  "forewords"  in  our  high  school  and  collegiate 
textbooks — one  labeled  To  the  Teacher,  and  the 
other  To  the  Pupil.  To  the  discerning  student 
this  bifocal  adjustment  is  apt  to  appear  in  the 
nature  of  an  implied  condescension.  It  is  like  com- 
ing to  the  branching  of  a  road,  with  one  fork 
winding  upward  to  the  instructor  and  the  <other 
sloping  slightly  down  grade  for  the  assumed  mental 
convenience  of  the  student.  With  a  modicum  of 
ingenuity  it  ought  to  be  possible  for  the  author  of  a 
textbook  to  merge  these  separate  messages — to  start 
with  a  salutary  "meeting  of  the  minds"  of  teacher 
and  pupil — and  thus  pave  the  way  for  a  more  unified 
approach  to  the  stuff  of  his  ensuing  chapters.  The 
innovation  would  certainly  be  more  adroit — and 
therefore  better  psychology. 


422 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


Foreign  Comment 


THE  SOVIETS  AND  THE  SCHOOLS 

An  editorial  on  Americanism  and  Bolshevism  ap- 
peared in  the  Chicago  Daily  Tribune  on  February 
6.  The  whole  of  it  shows  how  poorly  informed  the 
editors  are  on  Russian  affairs.  I  was  especially 
astounded  by  the  following  passage:  "We  build 
schoolhouses.  The  Bolsheviki  shoot  school  teachers. 
The  school  teachers  know  too  much." 

In  reality,  the  first  order  of  the  Soviet  power 
which  reached  the  villages  in  November,  1917,  was 
a  decree  for  the  increase  of  the  salaries  of  village 
teachers  almost  fourfold.  Further  orders  of  the 
Soviet  power  abolished  directors  and  inspectors  of 
public  schools — those  Czarist  agents  of  public  "  un- 
enlightenment  "  who  have  through  some  misunder- 
standing survived  the  Provisional  Governments.  In 
their  places  elected  Soviets  of  People's  Education 
were  organized  in  every  county.  And  finally,  on 
August  26,  1918,  an  All-Russian  Convention  on 
Education  was  called  in  Moscow.  When  opening 
this  convention  the  Commissar  of  People's  Educa- 
tion, Lunacharsky,  thus  characterized  the  problems" 
of  the  Government  in  regard  to  schools: 

The  revolution  of  October  25  [November  7]  made  the 
school  problem  one  of  the  most  important  problems.  The 
struggle  of  the  people  is  carried  on  in  three  directions: 
(1)  for  state  power,  (2)  for  economic  power,  (3)  for 
knowledge.  .  .  .  Never  was  the  work  on  this  planet  as 
fruitful  as  that  of  the  past  ten  months.  The  same  with 
the  school.  The  people  cannot  direct  the  economy  and 
the  life  of  the  country  if  they  are  not  educated.  The 
school  is  subject  to  revolutionary  reforms.  It  must  not 
be  built  anew,  it  must  only  be  rebuilt  radically.  .  .  We 
want  the  maximum  development  of  the  schools.  The 
wish  of  the  present  power  is  to  give  greater  and  better 
educational  opportunities.  .  .  It  is  already  possible  to 
work  more  normally.  We  have  not  passed  the  danger 
yet;  the  military  struggle  is  still  on,  but  this  period  is 
comparatively  normal  and  there  is  a  possibility  of  get- 
ting to  work  in  the  rear.  The  Commissariat  is  almost 
complete ;  the  pedagogues  are  with  us  and  the  school 
reform  must  be  realized  this  year. 

What  does  this  reform  consist  of  ?  In  spite  of  the 
opinion  of  the  Chicago  Daily  Tribune  it  consists  of 
nothing  more  than  the  Americanization  of  the  Rus- 
sian schools.  The  American  schools  are  undoubtedly 
the  best  and  Free  Russia  makes  great  use  of  .this  ex- 
periment. At  the  present  time  the  following  has 
already  been  accomplished: 

(1)  The  schools  have  been  taken  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  clergy  and  religion  as  a  compulsory  sub- 
ject has  been  abolished. 

(2)  All  schools  are  free. 

(3)  Coeducation  of  boys  and  girls  has  been  intro- 
duced in  all  schools. 

(4)  The  participation  of  the  pupils  in  some  school 
affairs  is  permitted   (school  republics). 

But  the  main  reform  of  the  Russian  schools  con- 


sists of  the 'creation  of  a  continuous  school  system, 
which  was  in  the  process  of  creation  already  in  No- 
vember, as  one  may  judge  by  copies  of  Russian  news- 
papers which  came  to  hand.  To  an  American  who 
always  had  a  continuous  school  system  this  reform 
is  not  quite  clear,  for  it  is  difficult  for  him  to  picture 
the  Russian  schools  as  they  were  during  the  Czar's 
regime.  Until  the  very  outbreak  of  the  revolution 
the  Russian  statutes  divided  the  Russian  "  subjects  " 
into  two  classes:  the  privileged  (3  per  cent),  and 
the  tax-paying  (97  per  cent).  For  each  of  these 
classes  there  were  separate  schools.  For  the  former 
there  were  gymnasiums  (high  schools),  universi- 
ties, and  polytechnical  institutes;  for  the  latter,  vil- 
lage and  city  schools.  The  completion  of  a  course 
in  these  schools  did  not  give  the  pupil  the  right  to 
enter  high  school.  Furthermore,  the  admission  of 
children  of  tax-paying  "  subjects "  was  prohibited 
altogether  in  some  high  schools.  And  those  who,, 
according  to  the  law,  had  the  right  to  enter  high 
schools  were  deprived  of  this  right  by  all  sorts  of 
circulars  of  the  Czar's  ministers,  who  recommended 
the  directors  not  to  heed  this  right. 

By  a  continuous  school  system  wre  mean  the  right 
of  the  pupil,  who  has  been  graduated  from  grammar 
school — city  or  village — to  enter  high  school  and 
after  that  a  university  or  a  polytechnical  institute. 
This  reform  involves  the  increase  of  the  number  of 
high  schools  and  the  revision  of  the  program  of  the 
grammar  schools. 

It  is  also  worth  while  to  say  a  few  words  about 
this  latter  program  under  the  old  regime.  The  city 
schools  with  a  six-year  course  and  the  zemsky  vil- 
lage schools  with  a  three-year  course  were  compara- 
tively good,  although  even  there  much  time  was  de- 
voted to  the  memorizing  of  prayers  and  of  all  titles 
not  only  of  the  Czar,  but  of  his  seventy  relatives  as 
well.  But  the  zemsky  schools  have  long  since  been 
looked  upon  suspiciously  because  of  their  liberal  ten- 
dency, and  they  were  being  replaced  therefore  by 
church  schools.  The  latter  had  the  largest  number 
of  pupils.  Some  of  these  schools  had  a  one-year 
course,  others,  a  two-year  course.  Most  attention 
in  these  was  paid  to  choir  singing  and  to  the  memo- 
rizing of  prayers.  Reading  was  taught  in  such  a 
way  "  that  the  reader  should  not  understand  what 
he  reads."  You  will  no  doubt  think  that  this  is  a 
joke.  But  no,  this  is  a  quotation  from  one  of  the 
secret  instructions  of  the  Holy  Synod  to  the  prelates. 
Such  a  state  of  affairs  was  quite  natural  under  the 
autocratic  regime.  No  wonder  that  its  ideologist 
and  inspirer,  Pobiedonoszeff,  said :  "  Especially  do  we 
fear  popular  education."  But  it  is  an  enigma  to  me 
why  both  Provisional  Governments  overlooked  the 
school  problem.  Perhaps  the  fault  lies  in  the  per- 
sonality of  the  cadet  Minister  of  Education,  whom 
even  Boublikoff  calls  "  absurd  "  in  his  book  entitled 
The  Russian  Revolution. 


New  York  City. 


GEORGE  V.  LOMONOSSOFF. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


423 


Communications 

A  NOBLE  TRANSLATION 

SIR:  Yesterday  was  one  of  those  golden  days 
that  have  been  so  unusually  numerous  this  extraordi- 
nary winter.  An  accumulation  of  tasks  kept  my 
rebellious  body  at  my  desk  but  my  mind  was  for- 
ever tramping  the  frozen  fields.  And  when  a 
great  wedge  of  honking  wild  geese  pushed  north- 
ward over  the  housetops,  even  my  body  deserted. 
But  at  the  door  I  met  the  postman  with  a  package 
from  THE  DIAL,  which  was  just  enough  to  send 
me  sneaking  back  to  duty. 

I  spare  you  any  account  of  the  pleasantries  I  in- 
dulged in  at  the  expense  of  the  editor  who  had  thus 
tripped  up  adventure.  My  animus  all  came  to  this : 
What  were  you  thinking  of  to  send  me  another  book 
tto  review?  Didn't  you  know  that  I  was  already 
hopelessly  buried  under  other  unfinished  work? 
You  should  have  the  package  back  unopened.  You 
should  be  told,  politely  but  firmly,  to  go  hang. 

Alas,  curiosity!  There  could  be  no  harm  in  just 
looking  to  see  what  the  book  was.  Perhaps  I  might 
even  want  to  read  a  little  of  it.  I  could  easily 
enough  wrap  it  up  again,  and  still  tell  you  go  hang — 
which,  after  all,  was  the  important  thing.  But  once 
having  seen  the  familiar  and  magnificent  head  of  the 
author  on  the  wrapper,  the  book  was  mine — mine  by 
the  divine  right  of  appreciation.  Why,  sir,  I  have 
lived  with  that  work  for  years.  As  Professor  Kerr 
has  issued,  book  by  book,  his  translation  of  Plato's 
Republic,  I  have  read  and  reread  the  immortal  dis- 
cussion. All  my  favorite  hilltops  and  glens  and  lake- 
retreats  know  Socrates  and  Glaucon  and  Adejman- 
tus  and  Thrasymachus.  I  have  had  them  debate 
in  villages  before  audiences  gathered  about  that  great 
American  institution,  the  base-burner;  in  towns  by 
the  glow  of  the  hospitable  open  fire;  in  cities  when 
the  reader's  tremulo  had  to  be  reduced  by  a  seat  on 
the  radiator.  These  little  booklets,  now  worn  and 
soiled  from  much  traveling  in  knapsacks,  have  short- 
ened the  hours  of  illness,  have  kept  alive  the  hope 
of  a  better  social  order,  have  encouraged  philosophic 
temper  and  imaginative  identification  with  alien 
times  and  alien  creeds.  No,  you  shall  not  have 
back  the  volume  which  now  gathers  them  together 
in  durable,  well  printed  form.  Instead  I  send  you 
two  words  about  it,  or  rather  one  about  the  book  and 
one  about  the  author. 

Of  course  there  are  other  good  translations  of  The 
Republic.  Professor  Kerr's  work  excels  in  the  clear- 
ness, strength,  and  limpid  flow  of  his  style.  He  has 
assimilated  the  Platonic  diction  and  movement.  The 
translation  is  agreed  to  be  impeccable  in  accu- 
racy, and  it  is  colored  all  through  by  a  wide  acquaint- 
ance with  the  scholarly  queries  and  cruxes  pertain- 
ing to  the  subject.  But  the  striking  quality  of  the 
achievement  is  the  absence  of  all  academic  flavor. 
One  carries  away  the  impression  of  having  engaged 


with  real  people  in  an  actual  discussion  of  living  is- 
sues. And  this  gives  the  book  great  and  permanent 
value  for  intelligent  readers  everywhere. 

The  translation  has  an  additional  value  however 
for  those  who  know  the  circumstances  of  its  creation. 
For  it  represents  the  dedicated  labor  of  years  on  the 
part  of  a  man  who  had  not  only  retired  after  long 
and  honorable  service  at  the  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, but  who  had  reached  a  period  of  life  when  all 
but  the  rarest  spirits  consider  themselves  out  of  the 
race.  Indeed  the  last  third  of  the  translation,  accom- 
plished after  the  author  was  over  eighty-five  and 
practically  blind,  was  done  by  ear  and  dictation.  The 
fact  that  in  spite  of  this  the  freshness  and  clarity  of 
style  and  the  accuracy  of  scholarship  are  maintained 
to  the  end,  so  that  it  is  quite  impossible  to  discover 
any  weakening  of  powers,  to  say  nothing  of  detecting 
where  the  blindness  set  in,  demonstrates  the  author's 
extraordinary  physical  and  intellectual  vigor.  Those 
acquainted  with  the  book  were  not  surprised  at  the 
tribute  recently  paid  in  a  speech  at  the  Madison 
Literary  Club,  by  Chief  Justice  Winslow,  himself  a 
scholar,  to  the  fine  quality  of  the  work  and  the  fine 
courage  of  the  action. 

Please  accept  my  thanks  then  for  The  Republic  of 
Plato,  translated  by  Alexander  Kerr,  Litt.  D.,  Emer- 
itus Professor  of  Greek  in  the  University  of  Wiscon- 
sin, our  sturdy  Scotch  townsman,  now  ninety  years 
old.  It  is  not  only  a  noble  work  of  translation  but 
a  translation  of  a  noble  work,  one  that  should  be 
better  known  by  a  people  who  have  assumed  the  task 
of  making  the  world  safe  for  democracy. 


Madison,  Wisconsin. 


M.  C.  OTTO. 


A  CHANGE  OF  NAME. 

SIR:  The  Seventh  Annual  Report  of  the  Na- 
tional League  on  Urban  Conditions  among  Negroes 
shows  the  universal  hand  of  war  affecting  all  its 
activities.  The  spread  of  the  work  incident  to  these 
extensive  war  activities  has  made  it  so  well  known 
to  the  public,  that  it  feels  this  a  good  time  to  ab- 
breviate its  rather  cumbrous  title,  and  wishes  to 
make  its  bow  to  its  contributors  and  friends  this, 
year  as  the  National  Urban  League. 

The  year's  work  shows  the  organization  of  four 
new  cities,  so  that  a  total  of  thirty  cities  now  carry 
on  the  work  of  community  betterment  among  urban 
Negroes.  The  national  office  has  been  chiefly  con- 
cerned with  giving  supervision  and  advice  in  these 
cities  and  with  visiting  others  asking  for  organiza- 
tion; with  attendance  at  the  many  national  con- 
ferences held  this  year,  especially  those  interested  in 
social  welfare;  with  placing  welfare  workers  in  in- 
dustrial centers  and  with  securing  and  training  wel- 
fare workers  for  the  various  kinds  of  social  work 
needed  in  the  community  development  which  the 
Urban  League  is  constantly  seeking  to  enlarge. 

New  York  City.  LILLIAN  A.  TURNER. 


424 


THE  DIAL 


April  19 


Notes  on  New  Books 

THE  FLAIL.     By  Newton  A.  Fuessle.     Mof- 
fat,  Yard. 

In  computing  the  damages  inflicted  by  Germany 
during  the  war,  the  transformation  of  sound  lit- 
erary materials  into  the  "  timely"  propagandist 
nonsense  of  The  Flail  should  doubtless  be  taken 
into  .account.  Before  the  Hun  gave  Mr.  Fuessle 
strabismus  he  had  recorded  in  his  sharp,  unsmiling 
way  the  realities  of  lower  middle-class  adolescence 
in  the  backwaters  of  Chicago,  of  business  enterprise 
on  LaSalle  Street,  and  of  the  forced  and  furtive 
dissipations  that  ran  below  the  surface  of  life  at 
the  University.  In  the  transition  from  the  timid, 
dreaming  public-school  boy  to  the  successful  man 
of  business  the  author  had  the  opportunity  to  show 
how  the  demands  of  contemporary  business  tech- 
nique may  develop  a  personality  whose  native 
endowments  run  to  softness  and  sentimentalism, 
into  the  triumphant,  self-assertive  model  of  the 
Economic  Man.  However  well  Mr.  Fuessle's  ob- 
servation had  provided  him  with  the  details  of  such 
a  novel,  his  psychology  was  not  sensitive  enough, 
nor  his  humor  keen  enough,  to  grasp  the  possibili- 
ties of  a  realistic  criticism  of  life.  Lacking  insight 
into  Rudolph  Dohmer,  his  hero,  as  an  individual, 
the  author  falls  back  upon  his  hero's  ancestors;  and 
since  his  squalid  and  embittered  parents  happen  to 
be  of  German  stock,  every  bit  of  theft,  rapine,  ruth- 
lessness,  and  lack  of  principle  that  Rudolph  shows 
is  fastened  extenuatingly  upon  his  hateful  forbears. 
Thus  the  interesting  exploration  of  a  new  social 
milieu  is  makeshifted  into  an  excursion  into  the 
realms  of  quack  anthropology  and  quack  social 
psychology  for  the  purpose  of  raising  the  question 
of  alleged  pertinence  during  the  period  of  recon- 
struction :  "  Is  it  Rudolph  Dohmer's  power  to  sub- 
merge through  American  association  and  American 
ideals  the  hereditary  instincts  of  the  German  ?  "  It 
is  this  warped  mirror  of  pseudoscience  which"  Mr. 
Fuessle  holds  up  to  life,  and  the  consequence  is  a 
systematic  perversion  of  values  and  a  distortion  of 
images.  That  there  is  any  distinction  between  the 
racial  inheritance  common  to  all  Western  Euro- 
peans and  the  cultural  heritage  peculiar  to  a  region 
or  to  a  technology,  the  author  simply  does  not  grasp. 
Whenever  the  results  of  the  American  milieu  be- 
come a  little  too  painful  for  candid  appraisal,  his 
defense  reaction  is  to  vapor  murkily  about  the  Hun 
in  Rudolph.  The  Hun  is  the  scapegoat  upon  which 
the  sins  of  the  American  business  regime  are  fas- 
tened. Unfortunately  for  this  comforting  thesis, 
Nesseth  and  Stone  and  Shattuck,  the  advertising 
strategists  whose  habits  of  masterly  chicane  Ru- 
dolph successfully  acquires,  are  not  tainted  Teu- 
tons, but  patriotic,  liberty-loaning,  dyed-in-the-wool 
Americans.  What  pushes  Rudolph  forward  in  his 
career  is  not  that  he  is  by  accident  a  Hun,  but  by 
accident  a  human  being.  The  saddest  commentary 
upon  this  drastic  exposure  of  the  terrible  handicap 


of  an  alien  Prussian  ancestry  is  that  the  most 
genial  character  in  The  Flail  is  the  rough  old 
unlettered  peasant,  Biltmeier,  who  without  palter- 
ing lends  the  hero  a  thousand  dollars  for  his  college 
tuition.  Where  American  associations  and  Ameri- 
can ideals  are  set  forth,  on  the  contrary,  they  do 
not  come  out  very  creditably,  and  the  reader  is  led 
impiously  to  question  whether  the  white  napery  of 
middle-class  reputability,  the  liveried  coaches  on 
Dearborn  Avenue,  and  the  gaudy  delicacies  of  the 
cabaret  are  very  potent  elements  in  conveying  to 
the  unassimilated  foreigner  the  qualities  of  that 
traditional  ideal  of  America  that  one  associates  with 
Jefferson,  Paine,  Walt  Whitman,  and  Lincoln.  An 
author  who  sets  out  to  prove  the  putative  virtues 
of  our  civilization  in  relation  to  a  fictitious  national 
problem  ought  to  be  able  to  stack  the  evidence 
more  competently. 

THE  VOCATIONAL  RE-EDUCATION  OF  MAIMED 
SOLDIERS.  By  Leon  de  Paeuw,  translated  by 
The  Baronne  Moncheur  and  Elizabeth  Kemper 
Barrott.  Princeton  University  Press. 

THE  VOCATIONAL  EDUCATION  OF  GIRLS  AND 
WOMEN.  By  Albert  H.  Leake.  Macmillan. 

The  suddenly  increased  interest  in  vocational  ed- 
ucation, responding  to  the  demand  for  training  war- 
crippled  soldiers,  has  brought  this  subject  out  of  the 
field  of  academic  discussion  into  the  open  of  immed- 
iately practical  policies. 

M.  de  Paeuw  is  Inspector  General  of  primary 
education  in  Belgium  and  pedagogic  inspector  in  the 
institutes  for  vocational  re-education  of  wounded 
soldiers.  His  book  gives  an  account  of  what  Bel- 
gium, in  spite  of  her  upset  condition,  has  accom- 
plished in  vocational  re-education  since  1915,  and 
presents  an  object,  lesson  in  what  can  be  done  when 
the  state  whole-heartedly  stands  behind  an  educa- 
tional project.  The  Belgian  National  School  for 
Maimed  Soldiers  at  Port-Villez  includes  courses  of 
training  with  apprenticeship  in  forty-eight  trades,  an 
Auxiliary  School  for  assistants  in  commerce,  trade, 
and  administration,  and  an  Agricultural  School. 
The  apprenticeship  system,  through  which  pupils 
get  their  training  in  work  on  actual  orders,  secures 
an  added  value  from  the  war-time  shortage  in  pro- 
duction; and  the  profit  on  these  orders,  which  are 
chiefly  for  the  state,  reduces  the  cost  of  the  training 
course.  To  secure  the  pupil's  best  allround  develop- 
ment the  work  is  organized  under  three  departments 
— the  medical,  the  pedagogic,  and  the  technical.  It 
is  noteworthy  that  the  time  requisite  for  apprentice- 
ship in  the  trades  proves  to  be  much  less  than  the 
time  required  under  ordinary  business  conditions. 
Since  the  education  of  the  pupil  is  the  first  considera- 
tion, his  training  follows  a  logical  progression  from 
one  completed  process  to  another,  while  the  work 
produced  is  of  merely  incidental  importance.  It  is 
unfortunate  that  the  attitude  of  patronage  char- 
acteristic of  the  French  military  mind  in  relation  to 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


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IDEALISM  AND  THE 
MODERN  AGE 

By  George  Plimpton  Adams,  Ph.D. 
Of  the  University  of  California 

The  underlying  mental  structures  which  have 
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MORALE  AND  ITS  ENEMIES 

By  William  Ernest  Hocking,  Ph.D. 
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The  Nation.  Cloth,  $1.50. 

DANTE 

By  Henry  Dwight  Sedgwick 

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GEOGRAPHY  OF  EUROPE: 
A  SYLLABUS 

Edited    by    Ellsworth    Huntington,    Ph.D.,    and 
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A  study  of  the  physical  geography  of  Europe  and 
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THE  DIAL 


April  19 


the  workingman  is  so  obvious  in  M.  de  Pauew's  dis- 
cussion. Nevertheless,  as  a  report  of  work  actually 
being  done,  the  book  has  an  immediate  interest  to 
advocates  of  vocational  education  in  general. 

Mr.  Leake  opens  up  in  stimulating  fashion  the 
whole  question  of  education  in  its  relation  to  recon- 
struction. We  seem  gradually  to  have  accepted  the 
idea  that  after  the  war  we  are  to  have  a  reform  in 
education  as  an  essential  element  in  the  whole  scheme 
of  economic  readjustment.  For  a  number  of  years 
in  disconnected  situations  we  have  been  making  ex- 
periments and  trying  our  methods  urged  by  one  or 
another  specialist  seeking  a  scheme  of  education 
which  would  bridge  the  constantly  widening  gulf  be- 
tween the  academic  methods  of  the  school  and  the 
immediate  attractions  of  industry.  That  so  many 
children  prefer  to  go  to  work  at  the  end  of  the  com- 
pulsory school  period  must  be  charged  against  the 
school,  which  has  failed  to  take  advantage  of  the 
spirit  of  restlessness  of  children  at  this  age  and  their 
growing  demand  for  independent  expression.  In  our 
American  environment,  and  in  the  particular  indus- 
trial state  in  which  we  find  ourselves,  the  "  motor- 
minded  "  child  who  learns  by  doing  things  is  pre- 
dominant, and  the  successful  school  will  reckon  with 
his  needs  and  taste  no  less  than  with  those  of  his 
studious-minded  brother.  We  want  a  scheme  of  ed- 
ucation which  shall  recognize  the  industrial  regime 
in  which  we  live  and  cooperate  with  it  without  being 
dominated  by  it.  We  do  not  want  our  children,  in 
Prussian  fashion,  assigned  and  trained  to  some  form 
of  industry  which  will  turn  them  out  skilled  workers' 
without  consulting  their  individual  inclinations  or 
abilities.  Neither  do  we  want  them  put  through  a 
course  of  book  knowledge  unrelated  to  the  world  of 
work  in  which  a  large  part  of  their  lives  will  be 
spent.  The  schools  must  decide  whether  they  will 
adapt  themselves  to  the  needs  and  taste  of  the  child 
and  so,  hold  him  a  few  years  longer,  or  will  hand 
him  over  to  industry.  Raising  the  compulsory  school 
age  to  sixteen  years,  it  is  true,  will  do  much,  and 
enforcing  compulsory  attendance  will  do  more;  but 
neither  method  is  a  substitute  for  the  sort  of  school 
which  will  appeal  to  the  parent  as  too  valuable,  and 
to  the  child  as  too  attractive,  to  give  up  for  a  few 
early  dollars  in  industry. 

As  inspector  in  the  government  service  for  the 
Province  of  Ontario,  Mr.  Leake  has  made  a  study 
of  school  conditions  on  the  Continent,  in  Great 
Britain,  and  in  the  United  States.  His  book  is  a 
report,  authoritative  but  condensed,  of  the  present 
state  of  women's  education  for  homemaking  and  in- 
dustrial pursuits,  excluding  the  professional  field. 
His  treatment  of  homemaking  as  an  industry,  but 
still  women's  chief  industry,  is  entirely  sound,  and 
his  analysis  of  the  domestic-servant  problem  is 
illuminating.  The  book  contains  a  harvest  of  well 
selected  information  that  will  be  of  special  value  to 
anyone  who  has  been  so  busy  digging  in  one  corner 
of  the  field  that  he  has  lost  perspective  and  needs 
to  recover  his  view  of  the  whole  field. 


THE  TRAGEDY  OF  TRAGEDIES;  or,  The  Life 
and  Death  of  Tom  Thumb  the  Great,  With 
the   Annotations   of    H.    Scriblcrus   Secundus.     • 
By  Henry  Fielding.    Edited  by  James  T.  Hill- 
house.    Yale  University  Press. 

We  may  speculate  as  to  Fielding's  own  emotions 
could  he  perceive  the  scholarly  attention  lavished 
upon  his  life  and  works  in  handsome  volumes 
emanating  recently  from  New  Haven.  In  his  Mod- 
ern Glossary  Fielding  makes  "  Pedantry  "  a  syn- 
onym for  "  Learning";  "  self-taught  commentators  " 
are  objects  of  his  ridicule;  text  editing  and  emenda- 
tions he  satirizes  more  than  once  in  the  Covent 
Garden  Journal  and  elsewhere.  In  his  Journey 
from  This  World  to  the  Next  (published  in  1743) 
he  lets  Shakespeare  announce  the  critical  doctrine 
which  is  apparently  Fielding's  own — a  doctrine  bred 
of  his  scorn  of  the  Shakespearean  scholarship  of 
Rowe,  Theobald,  Warburton,  et  al: 

"  I  marvel  nothing  so  much  as  that  men  -will  gird 
themselves  at  discovering  obscure  beauties  in  an  author. 
Certes  the  greatest  and  most  pregnant  beauties  are  ever 
the  plainest  and  most  evidently  striking;  and  when  two 
meanings  of  a  passage  can  in  the  least  balance  our  judg- 
ment which  to  prefer,  I  hold  it  matter  of  unuestionable 
certainty  that  neither  of  them  is  worth  a  farthing." 

So  on  turning  to  Mr.  Hillhouse's  competent  edi- 
tion of  The  Tragedy  of  Tragedies  one  is  inevitably 
bound,  despite  his  appreciation  of  the  uses  of  the 
work,  to  imagine  Fielding's  honest  mirth  could  he 
behold  his  own  burlesque  of  scholarly  editing  sol- 
emnly treated  to  preface  and  notes  replete  with 
parallel  passages  and  editorial  opinions,  with  dis- 
cussions of  date  and  edition,  of  sources  and  imita- 
tions and  altered  versions.  There  seems,  then,  a 
humorous  premonition  in  the  concluding  sentence 
to  H.  Scriblerus  Secundus'  mock  preface: 

I  have  a  young  Commentator  from  the  University,  who 
is  reading  over  all  the  modern  Tragedies,  at  Five  Shill- 
ings a  Dozen,  and  collecting  all  that  they  have  stole  from 
our  Author,  which  shall  shortly  be  added  in  an  Ap- 
pendix to  this  Work. 

•  The  Commentator  in  the  present  case  however, 
besides  reading  many  tragedies  of  the  species  Field- 
ing burlesqued  and  culling  apt  parallels  for  his  notes, 
has  set  forth  in  initial  chapters  the  complicated  stage 
history  of  the  play  in  its  earlier  and  later  versions, 
and  of  the  interpolations  and  adaptations  to  which 
it  was  subjected.  He  expounds  the  nature  of  Field- 
ing's burlesque  of  the  heroic  play — a  type  of  trag- 
edy still  popular  with  the  playgoers  at  that  time, 
though  discarded  by  the  playwrights  in  favor  of  the 
classical  play.  In  the  mock  critical  preface  and  the 
burlesqued  annotations  of  the  longer  version  of  the 
play,  as  he  shows,  Fielding  attacks  the  critics  for 
their  mechanical  application  to  tragedy  of  established 
rules,  in  justification  of  which  they  resort  to  the 
practice  and  precepts  of  the  ancients.  Mr.  Hill- 
house  points  out  that  in  such  attacks  on  Dennis, 
Theobald,  Bentley,  and  other  critics,  Fielding  was 
following  the  fashion  set  by  Pope  in  the  Dunciad, 


1919 


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A          M          E          R          I 

THIRTY-FIVE       WEST 


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This  edition  of  the  Chancun  de  Willame  will  be 
welcomed  by  folk-lorists,  by  historians  seeking  a  pic- 
ture of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  by  literary  amateurs 
seeking  beautiful  poetry.  It  is  a  storehouse  for  any- 
one interested  in  the  history  or  literature  of  medieval 
France. 


Le  Francais  des  Francais 
de  France 

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French  as  it  is  spoken  in  ordinary  life.  The  con- 
versations are  arranged  according  to  the  seasons,  with 
characteristic  scenes  in  each.  Excellently  suited  to  a 
conversational  course. 


L'Anglais  pour  les  Francais 

A  manual  for  rapid  self-tuition  in  English,   by  A.   J. 
DE  HAVILLAND  BUSHNELL.     Crown  Svo,  pp.  236  $1.20 


La  Victoire  par  les  Couleurs, 
et  Autres  Saynetes 

By  LADY  FRAZER.     Crown   Svo,  pp.    93 80c. 

Original  plays  of  imagination,  prepared  with  special 
regard  to  the  needs  of  class-teaching.  On  the  same 
lines  as  the  author's  Je  sais  un  conte. 

La  Patrie 

Echos  de  1'Histoire  de  France  pour  les  Commen- 
cants,  by  JULIA  TITTERTON.  Crown  Svo  (7%  x4%), 
pp.  78,  with  twelve  illustrations,  historical,  table,  and 
vocabulary  80c. 

Scenes  from  French  History  from  Caesar's  Conquest 
of  Gaul  to  the  Franco-Prussian  War. 


Oxford  Russian  Plain  Texts 

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Lermontov 

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a  work  which — together  with  the  earlier  satire  on 
heroic  plays,  The  Rehearsal,  and  an  anonymous 
pamphlet  entitled  A  Comment  upon  the  History 
of  Tom  Thumb  (1711) — probably  served  as  his 
model. 

Like  Professor  Cross,  Mr.  Hillhouse  is  interested 
in  demolishing  the  legend  of  the  dissipated  Fielding 
and  finds  in  the  careful  workmanship  of  this  play 
evidence  "  in  refutation  of  the  commonly  accepted 
theory  that  Fielding's  youth  was  woefully  misspent 
in  an  uninterrupted  sowing  of  wild  oats,  and  that 
his  plays  were  dashed  off  over  night  on  stray  tobacco 
wrappers.  In  the  case  of  this  play,  at  any  rate, 
such  a  theory  cannot  stand."  The  composition  of 
the  play  meant  time  and  drudgery:  "the  citations 
and  references  with  which  the  notes  are  thickly 
scattered  are  practically  all  correct."  Such  accuracy, 
together  with  the  "  careful  burlesque  of  the  char- 
acters, situations,  and  diction  of  tragedy  give  ground 
for  the  assumption  that  he  lavished  a  great  deal  of 
attention  on  the  Tragedy  of  Tragedies." 

THE    CAMBRIDGE    HISTORY    OF    AMERICAN 
LITERATURE.  Vol.  II.   Putnam. 

This  volume  enjoys,  like  its  predecessor,  a  pre- 
ponderance of  bibliography — some  two  hundred 
pages  out  of  a  little  over  six  hundred.  It  is  this 
elaborate  feature  which  has  led  to  publication  in 
three  volumes  rather  than  in  the  two  originally  de- 
signed, and  which  now  brings  from  the  editors  an 
explanation  to  the  effect  that  the  division  into  vol- 
umes is  "  fortuitous  "  and  not  to  be  taken  as  offering 
a  "classification  of  the  subject."  Book  III,  thus, 
begins  somewhat  past  the  middle  of  the  present  vol- 
ume, and  the  line  is  drawn  between  Lowell  and 
Whitman,  though  they  were  exact  contemporaries — 
Lowell  closing  the  earlier  day  and  Whitman  open- 
ing the  later  one.  Professor  Thorndike  of  Colum- 
bia, on  the  former,  is  one  of  the  high  successes  of  the 
present  volume.  Antecedent  to  Lowell  we  find, 
among  other  items,  a  sharp  and  clear-seeing  chapter 
on  Thoreau ;  one  on  Hawthorne,  with  especial  refer- 
ence to  his  relations  to  Emerson ;  a  restrained  chapter 
on  Poe;  a  grateful  one  on  Daniel  Webster  as  a  lit- 
erary man,  treated  with  breadth  and  simplicity  by 
Senator  Lodge,  and  studies  of  those  two  diminish- 
ing lights,  Longfellow  and  Whittier.  The  latter, 
by  Dr.  William  Morton  Payne,  is  a  judicious  blend 
of  biography  and  criticism;  it  is  judicious  too  in  its 
estimate  of  Whittier's  essential  influence  on  his  day 
and  in  its  observance  of  the  pieties  that  the  reader 
of  the  elder  generation  looks  for  and  likes.  Pro- 
fessor Trent,  on  Longfellow,  takes,  though  with  less 
decisiveness,  a  not  unrelated  tone.  Among  the  his- 
torians, Prescott  and  Motley  are  well  represented; 
Bancroft  too,  and  in  a  rather  better  piece  of  writing. 
In  the  field  of  verse,  chapters  on  the  poets  of  the 
Civil  War,  both  Northern  and  Southern,  will  catch 
the  eye  and  reward  the  attention  in  days  when  war 
poetry  is  strikingly  to  the  fore.  The  short  story,  as 


a  distinctly  American  development,  is  presented  in 
its  early  and  middle  stages  by  Professor  Pattee ;  and 
the  volume  closes  with  an  entertaining  chapter  on 
Books  for  Children,  which  runs  the  gamut  from 
Spiritual  Milk  for  Boston  Babes  to  Huckleberry 
Finn. 


FORCED  MOVEMENTS,  TROPISM  AND  ANI- 
MAL CONDUCT.  By  Jacques  Loeb.  Lippincott ; 
Philadelphia. 

This  is  the  first  of  a  series  of  Monographs  on  Ex- 
perimental Biology  under  the  editorship  of  Dr.  J. 
Loeb,  Dr.  T.  H.  Morgan,  and  Dr.  W.  J.  V.  Oster- 
hout.  The  aim  is  to  present  the  results  of  recent  in- 
vestigations in  a  number  of  subjects  now  in  the  fore- 
ground of  interest  among  students  of  biological 
science.  Dr.  Loeb's  book  offers  a  typical  illustration 
of  the  application  to  animal  behavior  of  the  methods 
of  investigation  employed  by  modern  students  of 
experimental  embryology,  genetics,  and  the  psysio- 
logical  activities  of  the  body,  and  these  are  essen- 
tially the  methods  of  the  physicist  and  the  chemist. 
The  author  says : 

Animal  conduct  is  known  to  many  through  the  romantic 
tales  of  popularizers,  through  the  descriptive  work  of 
biological  observers,  or  through  the  attempts  of  vitalists 
to  show  the  inadequacy  of  physical  laws  for  the  explana- 
tion of  life.  Since  none  of  these  contributions  are  based 
upon  quantitative  experiments,  they  have  led  only  to 
speculations,  which  are  generally  of  an  anthropomorphic 
or  of  a  purely  verbalistic  character.  It  is  the  aim  of 
this  monograph  to  show  that  the  subject  of  animal  con- 
duct can  be  treated  by  the  quantitative  methods  of  the 
physicist,  and  that  these  methods  lead  to  the  forced  move- 
ment or  tropism  theory  of  animal  conduct. 

For  the  analysis  of  animal  behavior  much  im- 
portance is  attached  to  this  phenomenon  of  forced 
movements.  Animals  with  certain  unilateral  in- 
juries to  the  brain  are  no  longer  able  to  proceed  in 
a  straight  line  and  are  compelled  to  travel  toward 
•one  side.  This  is  explained  as  a  result  of  the  un- 
equal tension  or  tonus  of  the  symmetrical  muscles 
on  the  two  sides  of  the  body.  The  behavior  of 
animals  with  asymmetrical  brain  injuries  suggests 
that  the  movements  classed  as  tropisms  are  also 
forced,  although  in  the  latter  case  the  turning  is 
temporary,  lasting  only  so  long  as  the  two  sides 
of  the  body  are  unequally  affected  by  the  external 
stimulus.  The  term  tropism  covers  a  variety  of 
responses  of  animals  and  plants  in  which  the  or- 
ganism comes  to  orient  itself  in  symmetrical  rela- 
tions to  some  outer  stimulating  agency.  For  the 
explanation  of  tropisms  the  symmetry  of  the  body 
is  an  important  feature.  In  an  insect  illuminated 
more  on  one  side  than  on  the  other 

the  muscles  connected  with  the  more  strongly  illumin- 
ated eye  are  thrown  into  a  stronger  tension,  and  if  now 
impulses  for  locomotion  originate  in  the  central  nervous 
system,  they  will  no  longer  produce  an  equal  response 
in  the  symmetrical  muscles,  but  a  stronger  one  in  the 
muscles  turning  the  head  and  body  of  the  animal  to  the 


THE  DIAL  429 


m  the  teaching  of  history  means  original 
inquiry  into  the  ultimate  purposes  of  historical 
instruction  and  concentration  on  those  ends. 

THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  AMERICAN  PEOPLE 

» 

by  Beard  and   Bagley 

sets  a  new  standard  and  lives  up  to  it.  The  great  masses  of  the  people  rather  than 
a  few  shadowy  names  ;  movements  and  problems  and  adjustments  rather  than 
petty  politics  and  forgotten  wars  ;  the  twentieth  century  instead  of  the  eighteenth  : 
—  these  topics  deserve  stress  and  receive  it.  (For  seventh  and  eighth  grades.) 

"  It  gives  that  interest  in  American  progress  that  makes  for  intelligent  pa- 
triotism, genuine  loyalty,  and  willingness  to  accept  responsibility."  (John  C. 
Almack,  University  of  Oregon.) 

Write  for  our  biographical  booklet  on  the  authors  of  this  new  text. 

EARLY  EUROPEAN  CIVILIZATION 
MODERN  EUROPEAN  CIVILIZATION 

by  R.  L.  Ashley,  Pasadena  High  School 

This  series,  now  winning  wide  recognition,  is  the  fruit  of  many  years  of 
class-room  experience.  Mr.  Ashley  is  a  pioneer  in  the  newer  type  of  high  school 
history  course  —  a  course  in  which  history  is  made  the  background  for  an  under- 
standing of  world  problems  of  today  rather  than  a  handmaid  to  the  study  of 
ancient  languages. 

Mr.  Ashley's  style  is  always  within  the  grasp  of  the  high  school  student. 

He  is  fearless  in  his  elimination  of  traditional  detail,  broadly  constructive  in 
his  correlation  and  interpretation,  thoroughgoing  in  his  subordination  of  the  mili- 
tary and  the  political  to  the  social  and  the  economic. 

SUPERVISED  STUDY  IN  AMERICAN  HISTORY 

by  Mabel  E.  Simpson 

is  as  important  a  contribution  in  the  pedagogy  of  history  as  the  above  texts  are  in 
its  subject-matter. 

Supervised  study  is  one  of  the  most  widely  discussed  themes  in  the  entire 
field  of  modern  education.  For  the  first  time,  Miss  Simpson  has  formulated, 
concretely,  the  application  of  generally  accepted  theories  to  detailed  practice  in  one 
definite  department  of  the  curriculum. 

Miss  Simpson's  oral  demonstrations  of  supervised  study  in  this  field  are 
exciting  nation-wide  interest.  This  book  covers  the  same  ground,  and  is  indis- 
pensable to  teachers  of  history. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

64-66   Fifth   Ave.,    New   York 

Chicago  Boston  Dallas  Atlanta  San  Francisco 


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source  of  light.  The  animal  will  thus  be  compelled  to 
change  the  direction  of  its  motion  and  to  turn  to  the 
scource  of  light.  As  soon  as  the  plane  of  symmetry  goes 
through  the  source  of  light,  both  eyes  receive  again  equal 
illumination,  the  tension  (or  tonus)  of  symmetrical  mus- 
cles becomes  equal  again,  and  the  impulses  for  locomo- 
tion will  now  produce  equal  activity  in  the  symmetrical 
muscles.  As  a  consequence,  the  animal  will  move  in  a 
straight  line  to  the  source  of  light  until  some  other 
asymmetrical  disturbance  once  more  changes  the  direction 
of  motion. 

This  statement  embodies  the  essential  features  of 
Loeb's  theory  of  tropisms.  With  certain  modifica- 
tions the  explanation  of  the  orientation  of  an  in- 
sect to  light  may  be  extended  to  the  phototropism 
of  other  animals,  and  to  the  tropic  responses  of  or- 
ganisms to  gravity,  contact,  the  electric  current,  and 
many  other  sources  of  stimuli.  Tropisms  are  thus 
resolved  into  reflex  acts,  or  actions  essentially  re- 
flex in  character,  which  take  place  as  involuntarily 
as  the  reaction  of  a  nerve-muscle  preparation  of 
an  isolated  frog's  leg. 

One  of  the  most  important  features  of  the  trop- 
isms theory  is  that  it  affords  a  mechanistic  explana- 
tion of  many  so-called  instincts.  Dr.  Loeb  appears 
not  to  be  daunted  by  the  wonderful  complexity  and 
perfection  which  instinctive  performances  sometimes 
exhibit.  In  the  short  chapter  on  instinct  he  shows 
how  some  relatively  simple  activities  which  are  com- 
monly described  as  instinctive  may  plausibly  be  re- 
solved into  tropisms.  But  anyone  who  attempts  to 
prove  that  instincts  in  general  are  "  tropistic  reac- 
tions" has  undertaken  a  large  contract,  and  the 
reader  of  the  chapter  on  instinct  can  scarcely  fail  to 
be  impressed  with  the  intrepidity  with  which  the 
author  enters  upon  his  task.  Dr.  Loeb  is  in  the  habit 
of  thinking  of  phenomena  in  terms  of  their  simplest 
manifestations,  and  he  has  an  especial  fondness  for 
simple  explanations.  Despite  its  apparent  shortcom- 
ings, his  method  of  procedure  may  be  justified  in 
that  it  has  so  often  led  to  significant  discoveries ;  yet 
one  cannot  but  think  that  in  his  unduly  simplified 
treatment  of  the  problem  of  instinct  he  has  been  be- 
trayed into  an  inadequate  analysis  by  his  habitual 
assumption  of  the  irrelevancy  of  the  complex.  Many 
instincts  such  as  nest  building,  comb  making,  cocoon 
spinning,  or  orb  weaving,  are  riot  resolvable  into 
acts  which  may  properly  be  termed  tropisms.  Often 
complex  instincts  may  be  analyzed  in  terms  of  re- 
flexes to  outer  stimuli,  but  in  other  cases  the  prompt- 
ings to  action  arise  from  within  instead  of  from  with- 
out the  organism.  In  either  case  the  behavior  may 
be  the  expression  of  the  creature's  inherited  organiza- 
tion quite  as  much  as  if  it  were  a  mere  Cartesian 
automaton.  Doubtless  tropisms  afford  important 
component  factors  of  instinctive  behavior,  and  they 
may  constitute  the  phylogenic  roots  of  elaborate  and 
specialized  reactions;  but  this  in  no  wise  justifies  us 
in  the  conclusion  that  instincts  are  properly  describ- 
able  as  merely  "  tropistic  responses."  They  may  be 
mechanistically  explicable,  but  tropisms  are  not  the 
only  types  of  response  into  which  they  may  be 
construed. 


The  last  chapter,  Memory  Images  and  Tropisms, 
sets  forth  a  mechanistic  interpretation  of  associative 
memory  and  describes  the  modifications  of  tropisms 
by  memory  images.  Only  a  brief  excursion  is  made 
into  the  field  of  the  psychology  of  higher  animals  and 
human  beings,  and  that  with  the  purpose  of  showing 
the  possible  application  of  the  tropism  theory  to 
human  psychology. 

THE  ENGLISH  POETS.  Edited  by  Thomas 
Humphrey  Ward.  Vol.  V.  Browning  to 
Rupert  Brooke.  Macmillan. 

When  the  four  volumes  of  Ward's  English  Poets 
were  published  in  1880,  one  might  have  predicted 
that  a  fifth  would  at  some  time  be  necessary;  for 
Tennyson  and  Browning,  Swinburne  and  Morris, 
not  to  mention  Matthew  Arnold,  though  they  had 
done  almost  all  the  work  by  which  they  were  to  be 
remembered,  were  alive  and  therefore  not  to  be 
included,  and  without  them  the  representation  of 
the  nineteenth  century  verse  was  almost  absurdly 
inadequate.  Now,  almost  forty  years  later,  this 
necessary  volume  appears,  with  every  mark  of  being 
meant  to  conclude  the  series.  One  may  congratulate 
Mr.  Ward  on  surviving  to  complete  his  now  classic 
anthology.  He  has  chosen  a  fitting  point  at  which 
to  close  it;  for  by  the  death  of  Rupert  Brooke  in 
1915  nearly  all  those  who  had  helped  to  shape  the 
character  of  the  previous  century  were  available, 
and  Brooke  himself,  as  one  complex  of  the  forces 
that  set  in  with  the  turn  of  the  new  century,  was 
happily  qualified  to  carry  on  without  suggesting  any 
necessary  venture  into  the  later  field.  A  great 
period  was  rounded  out  and  its  sequel  hinted  at. 
As  you  look  down  the  table  of  contents  you  miss 
few  names  that  you  would  care  greatly  to  have 
included,  and  those  mostly  of  Nestors  like  Austin 
Dobson.  One  gap  there  is  however  which  is  start- 
ling. By  any  fair  estimate  Oscar  Wilde  should 
have  his  place  in  the  list,  if  only  for  the  Ballad 
of  Reading  Gaol.  One  hopes  that  his  exclusion  was 
due  to  copyright  difficulties  and  not,  as  one  suspects, 
to  a  British  sense  of  decorum,  unwilling  to  revive 
disquieting  memories. 

As  for  the  selections  by  which  the  various  poets 
are  represented,  one  has  to  remember  that  no  an- 
thology has  ever  entirely  satisfied  readers  who  have 
opinions  of  their  own.  In  the  present  volume  many 
will  be  surprised  that  Stevenson  should  be  allotted 
nearly  twice  as  much  space  as  George  Meredith  and 
more  than  three  times  as  much  as  Fitzgerald,  who 
gets  less  than  Thomas  Gordon  Hale  or  any  one  of 
half  a  dozen  respectables.  Many  others  will  feel 
that  to  represent  Calverley  without  either  The 
Cock  and  the  Bull  or  Forever  or  the  Ode  to  To- 
bacco is  a  mockery,  as  also  to  print  eleven  pages  of 
Christina  Rossetti  with  never  a  one  of  her  thrilling 
sonnets.  Criticism  of  this  kind  however  is  always 
inevitable  and,  in  this  case,  has  only  incidental  bear- 
ing on  the  excellence  of  the  anthology  as  a  whole. 


IQI9 


THE  DIAL 


431 


BOOKS    OF    IMMEDIATE    INTEREST 


Bolshevism 

by 

John  Spargo 


The  Society  of  Free  States 


by 
Dwight  W. 


Morrow 


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by~~ 

Woodrow  Wilson 


What  Bolshevism  is  and  what  it  has  done. 

The  theoretical  and  practical  principles  of  Bolshevism. 

Revelations  in  Bolshevist  documents  (never  before  trans- 
lated) of  democratic  shortcomings. 

With  the  astonishing  conclusion,  and  a  parallel  between 
the  ideas  of  Lenine  and  Treitschke,  that  Bolshevism  and 
Prussian  militarism  are  alike  in  effect.  $1-5° 

An  analysis  of  the  League  Covenant  as  proposed  by  the 
League  of  Nations  Committee,  of  which  President  Wilson 
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flict between  National  Liberty  and  World  order.  $1-35 

This  new  book  contains  all  the  speeches  and  addresses  by 
the  President  during  his  stay  in  Europe,  coming  down  to 
the  final  one  delivered  when  he  presented  the  League  of 
Nations  covenant  to  the  Peace  Congress  February  I4th, 
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the  pupils  tire  of  the  subject.  "The  Home  and  Country"  books  are  all-around  grammar  school  readers,  as 
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Four  volumes,  each  with  colored  frontispiece  and  sixteen  full  page  pictures 
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Besides,  one  does  not  turn  to  this  work  solely  for 
the  poetical  extracts.  One  great  value  of  the  original 
four  volumes  was  in  the  introductions  to  the  separate 
parts,  themselves  an  anthology  of  the  most  judicious 
criticism  of  that  day.  In  this  matter  the  present 
volume  may  fairly  court  comparison  with  its  prede- 
cessors. Most  of  the  names,  of  course,  are  new; 
for  the  forty  years  that  have  brought  so  many  poets 
into  the  collection  have  also  eliminated  many  critics. 
Mr.  Ward  has  survived  to  continue  the  tradition, 
and  so  has  Mr.  Gosse;  in  place  of  the  others  we 
have  a  new  set,  among  whom  may  be  noted  Sir 
Richard  Jebb  for  Tennyson,  Sir  -Henry  Newbolt 
for  Brooke,  Professor  Mackail  for  Morris,  Thomas 
Hardy  for  Barnes,  Canon  Beeching  for  Dixon, 
Charles  Whibley  for  Henley,  and  John  Drinkwater 
and  Aldous  Huxley  for  various  poets  each.  One 
regrets  that  some  of  these  should  not  have  been 
given  more  scope.  No  one  however  is  likely  to 
regret  the  prominence  of  John  Drinkwater,  whose 
critical  introductions  are  among  the  pleasures  of  this 
excellent  volume. 

THE   POETS   OF   THE   FUTURE.     Edited   by 
Henry   T.    Schnittkind.      The    Stratford    Co. 

When  President  Wilson  said  that  young  people, 
instead  of  being  radical  in  their  views,  are  inclined 
to  be  very  conservative,  he  enlisted  what  had  once 
been  a  daring  paradox  into  the  ranks  of  our  favor- 
ite platitudes.  If  the  statement  needed  any  further 
proof,  one  could  find  plenty  in  Mr.  Schnittkind's 
latest  anthology  of  our  college  poets.  The  108 
poems  he  has  chosen  from  96  colleges  are  old-fash- 
ioned almost  without  exception.  Modernity,  with 
the  exception  of  a  good  piece  of  imagism  by  Royall 
Snow,  is  represented  solely  by  an  odd 'two-score  of 
poems  about  the  war.  These  however  incline  to 
be  Mid-Victorian  and  sentimental.  The  lyrical 
realism  of  Conrad  Aiken  and  the  whimsical  realism 
of  T.  S.  Eliot  are  represented  only  by  one  poem  of 
Stephen  Vincent  Benet's ;  the  starker  realism  of  Mr. 
Masters  is  reflected  through  a  romantic  prism. 
There  is  hardly  anything  in  the  whole  volume  that 
could  not  have  appeared — the  doubtful  assent  of  the 
editors  being  granted — in  the  first  issue  of  the  Har- 
vard Monthly,  back  in  the  eighties. 

Along  with  the  almost  universal  conservatism 
goes  a  certain  technical  carelessness.  The  theory  so 
assiduously  spread  abroad  by  Sara  Teasdale  and 
H.  L.  Mencken — that  poets  are  best  when  young, 
and  require  almost  no  training — has  evidently  been 
bearing  fruit.  One  symptom  of  it  is  the  quantity  of 
free  verse  written  by  people  who  have  apparently  no 
idea  of  the  difference  between  free  verse  and  the  sort 
of  stuff  that  Professor  Patterson  calls  "  spaced 
prose."  Another  symptom  is  the  number  of  nursery 
quatrains.  Yet  another,  the  quantity  of  poems 
rhymed  sloppily.  There  are  two  or  three  sonnets 
in  the  collection — sonnets  very  far  from  the  strict 


Italian  model — and  one  ode  to  Spring,  the  latter  cor- 
rect enough  to  have  been  written  by  Grey  or  Collins. 
For  the  rest,  the  verse  is  loose  rather  than  free.  The 
good  workmanship  to  which  Swinburne  and  Tenny- 
son devoted  their  lives  seems  to  be  an  ideal  either 
above  or  below  the  majority  of  these  our  younger 
poets. 

The  blame  for  a  volume  of  such  low  standards 
must  rest  either  with  our  colleges  or  with  the  anthol- 
ogist. As  far  as  the  students  go,  one  can  allege  the 
war.  Yet  the  war  had  little  effect — outside  of  the 
sentimental — on  the  young  women  of  our  univer- 
sities, who  have  always  played  a  large  part  in  the 
junior  poetic  movement.  One  suspects  the  much- 
advertised  renaissance  of  poetry.  On  the  other  hand, 
although  one  has  no  way  of  checking  up  Mr.  Schnitt- 
kind, and  although  he  is  perhaps  the  only  man  who 
has  read  the  magazines  of  all  the  96  colleges  repre- 
sented, one  does  come  to  question  his  work  through 
a  knowledge  of  a  few  of  the  student  periodicals. 
The  basis  of  selection  is  much  fairer  than  in  the  past 
two  anthologies,  yet  the  anthologist  persists  in  his 
Braithwaitian  love  of  the  sentimental.  And  there  are 
still  curious  lacunae.  Though  the  one  poem  he  chose 
from  Yale  is  excellent,  there  was  much  other  good 
verse  in  the  Yale  Literary  Monthly.  The  best  work 
of  Princeton  and  Williams  and  Harvard  is  hardly 
represented.  At  the  same  time  there  is  much  atro- 
cious poetry  from  the  University  of  Southern  Cali- 
fornia and  Agnes  Scott  College.  Perhaps  Mr. 
Schnittkind's  choice  was  geographical  rather  than 
literary.  If  he  was  hard  put  to  it  to  make  up  a  book, 
he  might  have  taken  108  poems  by  Stephen  Vincent 
Benet  and  arrived  at  a  much  better  result  than  he 
did.  At  any  rate,  one  can  see  little  use  for  the 
anthology  he  has  published.  It  is  either  a  libel  on 
the  poetry  of  the  American  college,  or  else  the  poetry 
of  the  American  college  does  not  deserve  an 
anthology. 

Books  of  the  Fortnight 

The  following  list  comprises  THE  DIAL'S  selec- 
tion of  books  recommended  among  the  publications 
received  during  the  last  two  weeks: 

The  Chronicles  of  America:  Dutch  and  English  on 
the  Hudson,  by  Maud  Wilder  Goodwin;  The 
Old  Northwest,  by  Frederic  Austin  Ogg; 
The  Anti-Slavery  Crusade,  by  Jesse  Macy ;  The 
Cotton  Kingdom,  by  William  E.  Dodd; 
The  Boss  and  the  Machine,  by  Samuel  P.  Orth  ; 
The  Age  of  Big  Business,  by  Burton  J.  Hen- 
drik;  The  Fathers  of  New  England,  by 
Charles  M.  Andrews;  The  Day  of  the  Con- 
federacy, by  Nathaniel  W.  Stephenson;  The 
Old  Merchant  Marine,  by  Ralph  D.  Paine; 
The  Spanish  Conquerors,  by  Irving  Berdine 
Richman.  To  be  complete  in  50  vols.  20 
vols.  ready.  Yale  University  Press. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


433 


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Webster's  NEW  INTERNATIONAL 

Dictionary.    For  the  first  time  you  can  find  authori- 
tative answers  to  your  questions  about  the  new  terms. 


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AND  LITERATURE 

No.  1.    British  Criticisms  of  American 

Writings:  1783-1815 
By  WILL/AM  B.  CAIRNS.    Price  SOc. 

No.  2.    Studies  by  Members  of  the  De- 
partment of  English 
(Dedicated    to    FRANK    GAYLORD    HUB- 
BARD).    Price  $1.00 
THEOLOGY  IN  PARADISE  LOST 

R.  E.  Neil  Dodge 
THE  PROSE  STYLE  OF  JOHNSON- 

Warner  Taylor 
THE  PROSE  STYLE  OF  SIB  PHILIP  SIDNEY 

Stanley  Harkness 
UNITY,  COHERENCE  AND  EMPHASIS 

H.  B.  Lathrop 
BEOWULF  AND  THE  NIEBELUNGEN  COUPLET 

William  Ellery  Leonard 
NOTES  ON  A  MIDDLE  ENGLISH  SCRIBE'S  METHODS 

Muriel  Bothwell  Carr 
THE  ORIENTAL  IN  RESTORATION  DRAMA 

Louis  Wann 

A   HISTORY    OF    COSTUMING    ON    THE    ENGLISH 
STAGE  BETWEEN  1660  AND  1825 

Lily  B.  Campbell 
JOSEPH  FAWCETT  :  THE  ART  OF  WAR 

Arthur  Beatty 

RUSKIN  AND  THE   SENSE  OF  BEAUTY 

F.  W.  Roe 
AN  AMERICAN'S  INFLUENCE  ON  JOHN  RUSKIN 

William  F.  De  Moss 

CHARACTER  PORTRAYAL  IN  THE  WORK  OF  HENRY 
JAMES 

William  B.  Cairns 

SOME   INFLUENCES   OF   MEREDITH'S    PHILOSOPHY 
ON  His  FICTION 

O.  J.  Campbell 
THE  FOWLS  IN  CHAUCER'S  PARLEMENT 

Willard  Edward  Farnham 
ASPECTS  OF  THE  STORY  OF  TROILUS  AND  CBISEYDE 

Karl  Young 

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THE  DIAL 


April  19 


A  Short  History  of  Rome.  Vol.  II:  The  Empire 
from  the  Death  of  Caesar  to  the  Fall  of  the 
Western  Empire,  44  B.C.-476  A.D.  By  Gug- 
lielmo  Ferrero  and  Corrado  Barbagallo.  I2mo, 
516  pages.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

The  Grand  Fleet,  1914-1916:  Its  Creation,  Devel- 
opment and  Work.  By  Admiral  Viscount  Jel- 
licoe.  Illustrated,  8vo,  510  pages.  George  H. 
Doran  Co. 

Last  and  First:  Being  Two  Essays — The  New 
Spirit,  and  Arthur  Hugh  Clough.  By  John 
Addington  Symonds.  I2mo,  137  pages. 
Nicholas  L.  Brown  (New  York). 

Field  and  Study.  By  John  Burroughs.  Illustrated, 
I2mo,  337  pages.  Houghton  Mifflin  Co. 
(Boston). 


The   American   Language.      By    H.   L.    Mencken. 

8vo,    374    pages.      Alfred    A.    Knopf    (New 

York). 

Convention  and  Revolt  in  Poetry.     By  John  Liv- 
ingston Lowes.     I2mo,  346  pages.     Houghton 

Mifflin  Co.  (Boston). 
Dramatic    Technique.      By   George    Pierce   Baker. 

I2mo,    531    pages.      Houghton    Mifflin    Co. 

(Boston). 
The  Living  Corpse  (Redemption).    A  drama.     By 

Leo  Tolstoi.     Translated  by  Anna  Monosso- 

wich   Evarts.      I2mo,  98  pages.     Nicholas  L. 

Brown   (New  York). 
Martin   Schiller.     A  novel.     By   Romer  Wilson. 

I2mo,  313  pages.     Henry  Holt  &  Co. 


Spring  Educational  List 


The  following  is  THE  DIAL'S  selected  list  of  the 
most  notable  spring  issues  and  announcements  in 
the  theory  and  practice  of  education,  in  science,  and 
in  philosophy  and  religion.  Reprints,  new  editions, 
new  translations,  textbooks  not  of  general  interest, 
very  technical  books,  and  works  of  reference  have 
been  omitted.  The  list  is  compiled  from  data  sub- 
mitted by  the  publishers. 

Education 

Historical  Papers  of  the  Late  Henry  Adams:  A  Letter 
to  Teachers;  Phase,  edited  by  Brooks  Adams. — Edu- 
cational Psychology,  by  Daniel  Starch. — Modern  Ele- 
mentary School  Practice,  by  George  E.  Freeland. — 
Management  of  the  City  School,  by  A.  C.  Perry. — Va- 
cational  Agricultural  Education,  by  Rufus  W.  Stimson. 
(Macmillan  Co.) 

The  Pronunciation  of  Standard  English  in  America,  by 
George  Philip  Krapp. — Modern  Punctuation :  Its  Utili- 
ties and  Conventions,  by  George  Summey,  Jr.  (Ox- 
ford University  Press.) 

Psychology  of  the  Normal  and  Subnormal,  by  Henry  H. 
Goddard,  illus. — The  Child's  Unconscious  Mind,  by 
Wilfred  Lay.  (Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.) 

Lewis  Theobald:  His  Contribution  to  English  Scholar- 
ship, with  some  unpublished  letters,  by  Richard  Foster 
Jones.  (Columbia  University  Press.) 

Educational  Experiments,  by  Evelyn  Dewey.  (E.  P.  Dut- 
ton  &  Co.) 

History  of  Education,  by  Charles  C.  Boyer.  (Charles 
Scribner's  Sons.) 

The  Colleges  in  War  Time  and  After,  by  Parke  Rexford 
Kolbe,  illus.  (D.  Appleton  &  Co.) 

The  University  of  Pennsylvania:  Franklin's  College,  by 
Horace  Mather  Lippincott,  illus.  (J.  B.  Lippincott  Co.) 

Mental  Hygiene  in  Childhood,  by  William  A.  White. 
(Little,  Brown  &  Co.) 

Science 

Medical  Contributions  to  the  Study  of  Evolution,  by  J.  G. 
Adami,  illus. — Pellagra:  A  Study  of  Its  Etiology,  Path- 
ology and  Treatment,  by  H.  F.  Harris,  illus. — Hysteri- 
cal Disorders  of  Warfare,  by  Lewis  R.  Yealland. 
(Macmillan  Co.) 

A  Century  of  Science  in  America:  With  Especial  Refer- 
ence to  the  American  Journal  of  Science,  1818-1918, 
illus.  (Yale  University  Press.) 


Psychological  Principles,  by  James  Ward.  (G.  P.  Put- 
nam's Sons.) 

Studies  in  Electro-Physiology:  Animal  and  Vegetable, 
by  Arthur  E.  Baines,  illus. — Studies  in  Electro-Pathol- 
ogy, by  A.  White  Robertson,  illus.  (E.  P.  Dutton  & 
Co.) 

War  Neurosis,  by  John  T.  MacCurdy.  (Cambridge  Uni- 
versity Press.) 

A  Source  Book  of  Biological  Nature-Study,  by  Elliot  R. 
Downing.  (University  of  Chicago  Press.) 

The  Elementary  Nervous  System,  by  G.  H.  Parker.  (J. 
B.  Lippincott  Co.) 

Aircraft:  Its  Origin  and  Its  Development  in  War  and 
Peace,  by  Evan  John  David,  illus.  (Charles  Scrib- 
ner's Sons.) 

The  Secrets  of  Animal  Life,  by  J.  Arthur  Thompson, 
illus'.  (Henry  Holt  &  Co.) 

The  Mason-Wasps,  by  J.  Henri  Fabre.  (Dodd,  Mead  & 
Co.) 

Outlines  of  Economic  Zoology,  by  Albert  M.  Reese.  (P. 
Blakiston's  Son  &  Co.) 

Philosophy  and  Religion 

Christian  Internationalism,  by  William  Pierson  Merrill. 
— Prophecy  and  Authority,  by  Kemper  Fullerton. — 
The  Coming  of  the  Lord:  Will  It  Be  Premillenial?  by 
James  H.  Snowden. — Our  Immortality,  by  Daniel  P. 
Rhodes.  (Macmillan  Co.) 

History  of  Religions,  by  George  F.  Moore,  vol.  II. — Al- 
truism: Its  Nature  and  Varieties,  by  George  Herbert 
Palmer. — Mind  and  Conduct,  by  Henry  Rutgers  Mar- 
shall. (Charles  Scribner's  Sons.) 

Animism,  by  George  William  Gilmore. — The  Mythology 
of  All  Races,  vol.  XL — by  Hartley  Burr  Alexander. 
(Marshall  Jones  Co.) 

Moral  Values  and  the  Idea  of  God,  by  William  R.  Sorley. 
(G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons.) 

Naturalistic  Ethics  and  Sociology,  by  Edward  Gary 
Hayes.  (D.  Appleton  &  Co.) 

Neo-Platonists,  by  Thomas  Whittaker.  (Cambridge  Uni- 
versity Press.) 

Religion  and  Culture,  by  Frederick  Schleiter.  (Columbia 
University  Press.) 

Redemption:  Hindu  and  Christian,  by  Sydney  Cave. 
(Oxford  University  Press.) 

The  Modern  Expansion  of  Christianity,  by  Edward  Cald- 
well  Moore.  (University  of  Chicago  Press.) 

The  Second  Coming  of  Christ,  by  James  M.  Campbell. 
(Methodist  Book  Concern.) 


IQI9 


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435 


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April  19 


Current  News 

Appleton's  Annual  American  Year  Book:  A 
Record  of  Events  and  Progress  for  1918,  edited  by 
Francis  G.  Wickware,  is  now  ready. 

The  Holts  are  to  bring  out  on  April  10  Walter 
Lippman's  The  Political  Scene:  An  Essay  on  the 
Victory  of  1918. 

Charles  Edward  Russell's  Bolshevism  and  Our 
United  States  is  announced  for  early  issue  by  the 
Bobbs-Merrill  Co. 

Boni  and  Liveright  have  ready  for  immediate  pub- 
lication Upton  Sinclair's  Jimmie  Higgins,  an 
American  novel  of  the  war  period. 

Don  Seitz  has  written  introductory  comment  on 
the  text  of  The  Tryal  of  William  Penn  and  Wil- 
liam Mead,  for  Causing  a  Tumult,  a  reprint  of 
which  is  soon  to  be  put  out  by  Marshall  Jones. 

The  Prang  Co.  publishes  in  The  Theory  and 
Practice  of  Color,  by  Bonnie  E.  Snow  and  Hugo  B. 
Froehlich,  a  valuable  handbook  copiously  illus- 
trated with  color  charts  and  diagrams. 

The  Kiltartan  Poetry  Book:  Prose  Translations 
from  the  Irish,  by  Lady  Gregory,  of  which  the  Irish 
edition  was  reviewed  by  Ernest  Boyd  in  the  previ- 
ous issue  of  THE  DIAL,  has  just  been  imported  by 
G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

Clarence  C.  Dill  is  editor  and  publisher  of  a  new 
monthly  called  Let  the  People  Vote  on  War,  of 
which  the  first  issue  is  dated  March  15.  It  is  pub- 
lished from  1311  G  Street,  N.  W.,  Washington, 
D.  C. 

An  autographed  edition  of  Woodrow,  Wilson's 
A  History  of  the  American  People  has  just  been 
issued  by  Harpers.  The  edition  is  in  ten  volumes, 
printed  on  Japanese  vellum,  illustrated  in  photo- 
gravure, and  limited  to  400  sets. 

The  University  of  Chicago  has  published,  as 
Number  1 1  of  its  Supplementary  Educational  Mon- 
ographs, Educational  Legislation  and  Administra- 
tion in  the  State  of  New  York  from  1777  to  1850, 
by  Elsie  Garland  Hobson. 

The  library  of  the  Northwestern  University  Law 
School  has  just  issued  a  pamphlet  of  Bibliographical 
Notes  on  Some  Books  About  Reconstruction,  by 
Aksel  G.  S.  Josephson,  of  the  John  Crerar  Library, 
Chicago. 

Richard  Aldington,  T.  S.  Eliot,  Wyndham  Lewis, 
Lyfrton  Strachey,  Siegfried  Sassoon,  and  some  others 
propose,  if  properly  encouraged,  to  publish  Art  and 
Letters  as  a  new  and  larger  quarterly.  They  ask 
for  5,000  subscribers  at  10/6  a  year.  The  address 
is  9  Duke  Street,  Adelphi,  London,  W.  C.  2. 

The  Newark  Free  Public  Library  has  prepared 
the  fourth  revision  of  its  pamphlet,  A  Thousand  of 
the  Best  Novels.  The  criterion  of  the  list  is  a 
simple  one — "  those  things  which  have  pleased  the 
most  people  for  the  longest  time  are  the  better  " — 
and,  in  full  harmony  with  the  vagaries  of  popular 
taste,  choice  ranges  from  Robert  W.  Chambers  and 
Myrtle  Reed  to  Galsworthy  and  Barrie. 


The  Macmillans  have  recently  added  three  titles 
to  their  Rural  Manuals:  a  Manual  of  Home-Mak- 
ing, compiled  by  Martha  van  Rensselaer,  Flora 
Rose,  and  Helen  Canon-;  a  Manual  of  Tree  Dis- 
eases, by  W.  Howard  Rankin;  and  a  Manual  of 
Vegetable  Garden  Insects,  by  Cyrus  Richard  Crosby 
and  Mortimer  Demarest  Leonard. 

The  Scribners  have  now  issued  the  tenth  volume 
(Picts — Sacraments)  of  their  Encyclopaedia  of  Re- 
ligion and  Ethics,  edited  by  James  Hastings,  and 
the  second  and  final  volume  of  the  same  editor's  Dic- 
tionary of  the  Apostolic  Church.  An  evaluation  of 
the  Encyclopaedia,  based  on  Volumes  II  and  VIII, 
was  published  in  THE  DIAL  of  December  28,  1916. 

The  Putnams  have  republished,  in  one  volume 
each,  Letters  of  Washington  Irving  to  Henry  Bre- 
voort,  and  Letters  of  Henry  Brevoort  to  Washing- 
ton Irvfng  (together  with  other  unpublished  Bre- 
voort papers),  both  edited  by  George  S.  Hellman. 
The  original  appearance  of  these  books,  in  1915  and 
1916  respectively,  was  in  limited  editions  of  two 
volumes  each. 

A  Trade  Union  College  has  been  inaugurated  in 
Boston  under  the  auspices  of  the  Central  Labor 
Union.  For  its  first  term,  April  7  to  June  14  of 
this  year,  it  offers  courses  in  English,  Labor  Organi- 
zation, Law,  Government,  Economics,  and  Science. 
The  faculty  includes  Roscoe  Pound,  Irving  Fisher, 
William  Z.  Ripley,  Felix  Frankfurter,  R.  F.  Alfred 
Hoernle,  Horace  M.  Kallen,  Henry  W.  L.  Dana, 
George  Nasmyth,  Francis  Bowes  Sayre,  Harold  J. 
Laski,  and  others. 

The  American  Branch  of  the  Oxford  University 
Press  has  just  published  two  authoritative  and  use- 
ful works  of  reference.  Modern  Punctuation:  Its 
Utilities  and  Conventions,  by  George  Summey,  Jr., 
is  exhaustive  without  being  pedantic  or  impractical, 
and  is  generously  illustrated  from  contemporary 
usage.  The  Pronunciation  of  Standard  English  in 
America,  by  George  Philip  Krapp,  employs  a  rather 
exacting  set  of  symbols,  which  however  make  possible 
a  valuable  exactitude  of  transcription.  The  mate- 
terial  is  conveniently  arranged;  the  spirit  of  the 
rulings  is  neither  dogmatic  on  the  one  hand  nor  too 
catholic  on  the  other. 

Those  of  us  who  enjoy  seeing  ourselves  as  others 
see  us  can  find  much  of  interest  in  Regis  Michaud's 
Mystiques  et  Realistes  Anglo-Saxons  (Colin,  Paris), 
for  of  the  nine  authors  considered,  only  two — Pater 
and  Bernard  Shaw — are  not  American.  Naturally 
the  French  are  interested  in  Emerson  and  Whitman ; 
one  is  pleased  to  learn  that  the  fame  of  Henry  James 
and  Mark  Twain  is  secure  on  the  Continent;  one 
is  perhaps  surprised  to  find  Jack  London  and  Upton 
Sinclair  well  known  there.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
French  know  more  of  us  than  we  expect,  and  their 
comments  are  always  engaging,  often — as  here — 
valuable. 

The  Loeb  Classical  Library  has  added  to  its 
list  of  very  admirable  English  translations,  with  the 
original  text  on  parallel  pages,  new  volumes  in  each 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


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The  Mythology  of  All  Races 

I  —  Greek  and  Roman.  II  —  Teu- 
tonic. Ill  —  Celtic,  Slavic.  IV  — 
Finno-Ugric,  Siberian.  V  —  Semitic. 
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STATEMENT  OF  THE  OWNERSHIP,  MANAGEMENT,  CIRCULA- 
TION,   ETC.,    REQUIRED    BY    THE    ACT    OF 

CONGRESS  OF  AUGUST  24,  1912, 

Of  The  Dial,  published  fortnightly  at  New  York,  N.  Y.t  for  April  1,  1919 
State  of  New  York,  County  of  New  York,  ss. 

Before  me,  a  notary  in  and  for  the  State  and  county  aforesaid,  personally 
appeared  Martyn  Johnson,  who,  having  been  duly  sworn  according  to  law, 
deposes  and  says  that  he  is  the  publisher  of  The  Dial,  and  that  the  following 
Is,  to  the  best  of  his  knowledge  and  belief,  a  true  statement  of  the  owner- 
ship, management  (and  if  a  daily  paper,  the  circulation),  etc.,  of  the  afore- 
said publication  for  the  date  shown  In  the  above  caption,  required  by  the 
Act  of  August  24,  1912,  embodied  in  section  443,  Postal  Laws  and  Regula- 
tions, printed  on  the  reverse  of  this  form,  to  wit: 

1.  That  the  names  and  addresses  of  the  publisher,  editor,  managing 
editor,  and  business  managers  are:  Publisher,  Martyn  Johnson,  152  W.  13th, 
St.,  New  York,  N.  Y.;  Editor,  Robert  Morss  Lovett,  152  W.  13th  St.,  New 
York,  N.  Y.;  Managing  Editor,  none;  Business  Manager,  Martyn  Johnson 
152  W.  13th  St.,  New  York,  N.  Y. 

2.  That  the  owners  are:  (Give  names  and  addresses  of  individual  owners, 
or,  if  a  corporation,  give  its  name  and  the  names  and  addresses  of  stock- 
holders owning  or  holding  1  per  cent  or  more  of  the  total  amount  of  stock  : 
The  Dial  Publishing  Company,  Inc.,  152  W.  13th  St.,  New  York,  N.  Y.; 
Martyn  Johnson,  152  W.  13th  St.,  New  York,  N.  Y.;  Wlllard  C.  Kltchell, 
140  8.  Dearborn  St.,  Chicago,  111.;  Scofield  Thayer,  80  Washington  Square, 
New  York,  N.  Y.;  Marlon  C.  Ingersoll,  149  S.  Oxford  St.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.; 
Agnes  Brown  Leach,  25  W.  45th  St.,  New  York,  N.  Y.;  Frederick  Lynch, 
70  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York,  N.  Y.;  Henry  Goddard  Leach,  25  W.  45th  St., 
New  York,  N.  Y. 

3.  That  the  known  bondholders,  mortgagees,  and  other  security  holders 
owning  or  holding  1  per  cent  or  more  of  total  amount  of  bonds,  mortgages, 
or  other  securities  are  (if  there  are  none,  so  state  :  None. 

4.  That  the  two  paragraphs  next  above,  giving  the  names  of  the  owners, 
stockholders,  and  security  holders,  if  any,  contain  not  only  the  list  of  stock- 
holders and  security  holders  as  they  appear  upon  the  books  of  the  company 
but  also.  In  cases  where  the  stockholder  or  security  holder  appears  upon  the 
books  of  the  company  as  trustee  or  In  any  other  fiduciary  relation,  the 
name  of  the  person  or  corporation  for  whom  such  trustee  Is  acting,  is  given; 
also  that  the  said  two  paragraphs  contain  statements  embracing  affiant's  full 
knowledge  and  belief  as  to  the  circumstances  and  conditions  under  which 
stockholders  and  security  holders  who  do  not  appear  upon  the  books  of  the 
company  as  trustees,  hold  stock  and  securities  in  a  capacity  other  than  that 
of  a  bona  nde  owner;  and  this  affiant  has  no  reason  to  believe  that  any  other 
person,  association,  or  corporation  has  any  interest  direct  or  indirect  in  the 
said  stock,  bonds,  or  other  securities  than  as  so  stated  by  him. 

5.  That  the  average  number  of  copies  of  each  issue  of  this  publication 
sold  or  distributed,  through  the  mails  or  otherwise,  to  paid  subscribers 
during  the  six  months  preceding  the  date  shown  above  Is  (this  Information 
Is  required  from  daily  publications  only). 

MARTYN  JOHNSON. 
Sworn  to  and  subscribed  before  me  this  1st  day  of  April,  1919. 

Edward  F.  Fox,  Notary  Public,  Bronx  County,  N.  Y.;  New  York  County 
Clerks,  No.  Ill;  New  York  Register's,  No.  1233;  Bronx  County  Clerks 
No.  16;  Bronx  Registers,  No.  2117. 
[Seal.] 

(My  commission  expires  March  30.  1921 


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April  19 


of  the  following  editions  of  classical  writers: 
Pausanias'  Description  of  Greece,  six  volumes,  trans- 
lated by  W.  H.  S.  Jones;  The  Theological  Tract- 
ates of  Boethius,  translated  by  H.  F.  Stewart  and 
E.  K.  Rand,  together  with  "  I.  T.'s  "  translation 
of  the  Consolation  of  Philosophy,  revised  by  H.  F. 
Stewart;  a  three-volume  edition  of  Cicero's  Letters 
to  Atticus,  translated  by  E.  O.  Winstedt;  Virgil's 
Aeneid,  and  the  Minor  Poems,  translated  by  H. 
Rushton  Fairclough,  two  volumes;  and  Bernadotte 
Perrin's  translation  of  Plutarch's  Lives,  in  eleven 
books.  This  notable  series  is  published  in  this  coun- 
try by  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 

The  J.  B.  Lippincott  Co.  has  just  published  the 
second  Monograph  on  Experimental  Biology — 
The  Elementary  Nervous  System,  by  G.  H.  Parker, 
Professor  of  Zoology  at  Harvard.  The  first  volume 
of  this  series — Forced  Movements,  Tropisms,  and 
Animal  Conduct,  by  Jacques  Loeb — is  reviewed  in 
this  issue  of  THE  DIAL  (page  428).  To  the  series 
the  publishers  are  preparing  to  add  the  following 
volumes:  The  Nature  of  Animal  Light,  by  E.  New- 
ton Harvey ;  The  Chromosome  Theory  of  Heredity, 
by  T.  H.  Morgan;  Inbreeding  and  Outbreeding: 
Their  Genetic  and  Sociological  Significance,  by  E. 
M.  East  and  D.  F.  Jones;  Pure  Line  Inheritance, 
by  H.  S.  Jennings;  The  Experimental  Modification 
of  the  Process  of  Inheritance,  by  R.  Pearl;  Locali- 
zation of  Morphogenetic  Substances  in  the  Egg,  by 
E.  G.  Conklin;  Tissue  Culture,  by  R.  G.  Harri- 
son; Permeability  and  Electrical  Conductivity  of 
Living  Tissue,  by  W.  J.  V.  Osterhout;  The  Equi- 
librium Between  Acids  and  Bases  in  Organism  and 
Environment,  by  L.  J.  Henderson;  Chemical  Basis 
of  Growth,  by  T.  B.  Robertson;  and  Coordination 
in  Locomotion,  by  A.  R.  Moore. 

In  their  Handbook  Series  the  H.  W.  Wilson  Co., 
New  York,  ^have  issued  Selected  Articles  on  a 
League  of  Nations,  compiled  by  Edith  M.  Phelps. 
The  selections  include  several  pages  from  The 
Structure  of  Lasting  Peace,  by  H.  M.  Kallen, 
which  originally  appeared  in  THE  DIAL  (October 
25,  1917  to  February  18,  1918)  and  was  subse- 
quently published  by  the  Marshall  Jones  Co.  There 
is  a  list  of  organizations  devoted  to  the  furtherance 
of  the  League  idea  and  a  valuable  bibliography. 
Another  useful  and  timely  work  of  reference  has 
been  edited  by  Sir  Augustus  Oakes  and  Sir  H. 
Erie  Richards — the  Great  European  Treaties  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century  (Oxford  University  Press). 
Here  the  editors  have  assembled  the  texts  of 
the  important  European  treaties  since  the  Napo- 
leonic wars,  with  a  running  commentary  designed 
to  make  clear  the  international  situation  at  the  time 
of  each,  and  a  number  of  maps  are  included.  The 
Atlantic  Monthly  Press  has  imported  the  Oxford 
University  Press  pamphlet  The  Idea  of  a  League  of 
Nations,  by  H.  G.  Wells,  and  collaborators,  who 
include  Viscounts  Grey  and  Bryce,  Gilbert  Murray, 
and  William  Archer.^ 


Contributors 

John  S.  Codman  was  born  in  Boston,  and  was 
graduated  from  Harvard  in  1890  and  from  the 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology  in  1893.  In 
connection  with  his  work  in  engineering  he  has  pub- 
lished numerous  technical  articles,  and  he  has  also 
contributed  to  various  periodicals  articles  on  eco- 
nomic subjects,  especially  taxation. 

Herbert  J.  Davenport  is  a  specialist  in  political 
'economy  who  has  pursued  his  study  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Leipzig  and  the  Ecole  des  Sciences  Politiques. 
He  has  been  Professor  of  Economics  at  Cornell  since 
1916,  and  is  the  author  of  a  number  of  volumes. 

Royal  Case  Nemiah  (Yale:  B.A.,  1912;  Ph.D., 
1916)  studied  at  Gottingen  in  1913-1914,  was  In- 
structor in  Greek  and  Latin  at  Yale  from  1915  to 
1918,  and  is  now  teaching  the  classics  at  the  Rox- 
bury  School,  Cheshire,  Connecticut. 

Helen  Sard  Hughes  (Ph.D.,  University  of  Chica- 
go) was  formerly  an  instructor  in  English  at 
Wellesley  College  and  is  now  an  Assistant  Profes- 
sor at  the  University  of  Montana. 

Caroline  Pratt  founded  and  has  charge  of  The 
Play  School,  New  York  City.  She  is  a  member  of 
the  executive  council  of  the  Bureau  of  Municipal 
Experiments  and  has  done  pioneer  work  on  toys  as 
educational  material.  Miss  Pratt  is  a  graduate  of 
Teachers'  College  of  Columbia  University,  and  was 
formerly  a  member  of  the  faculty  of  the  Philadel- 
phia Normal  School. 

Allen  Tucker  is  a  painter  who  has  recently  been 
writing  prose  and  verse  for  the  magazines. 

David  Morton  (Vanderbilt  University,  1909) 
teaches  history  and  English  in  the  Morristown, 
New  Jersey,  High  School. 


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1919 


THE  DIAL 


439 


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Bertrand  Russell  on  Direct  Action 


A  FORTNIGHTLY 


VOL.  LXVI 


NEW  YORK 


NO.  789 


MAY   3,    1919 

DEMOCRACY  AND  DIRECT  ACTION Bertrand   Russell  445 

SEA-HOARDINGS.    Verse Cale  Young  Rice  448 

FACTUALIST  VERSUS  IMPRESSIONIST     .     .     .     f'\.     .     .     Wilson  Follett  449 

PAUL  CARUS William  Ellery  Leonard  452 

THE  IMPENDING  REVOLUTION  IN  ITALY Flavio  Fenanzi  455 

THE  MoNTAGU-CHELMSFORD  REFORM  PROPOSALS     Sailendra  nath  Ghose  457 

THE  PASSING  OF  CLASSICISM Richard  Offner  460 

THE  ARMY  AND  THE  LAW Charles  Recht  461 

MARY  IN  WONDERLAND Robert  Morss  Lovett  463 

LONDON,  APRIL  10 Robert  Dell  465 

EDITORIALS 467 

COMMUNICATIONS:      Withdraw    from    Russia.— Military    Training    as    Education.— The    .  470 
German  Indemnity. 

NOTES  ON  NEW  BOOKS:      Civilization.— The  Power  of  Dante.— The  Early  Years  of  the  472 
Saturday    Club. — The    Salmagundi    Club. — Government    and    the    War. — The    Valley   of 
Vision. — The  Valley  of  Vision. — Domus  Doloris. — The  Gilded  Man. 

CURRENT  NEWS 478 


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Others  Say 


THE  NATION: 

A  sheaf  of  sketches — vignettes  of  character, 
little  glimpses  of  the  human  background  to 
that  vast  organized  madness  called  war — 
which,  though  cast  in  the  form  of  fiction, 
yet  bear  upon  every  page  the  impress  of 
undubitable  veracity.  They  are  pitched  in 
various  keys ;  but  whether  the  prevailing 
note  be  that  of  tragedy  or  humor  or  satire, 
there  throbs  through  all  of  them  a  ground- 
tone  of  intense,  tender  pity  and  limitless 
admiration  for  the  humble  and  heroic  men 
whom  he  has  come  to  know  in  the  dressing 
stations  and  hospitals  of  France.  .  .  .  And 
the  knowledge  thus  gained  he  conveys  to 
us,  as  far  as  the  printed  word  is  capable  of 
conveying  it,  in  a  book  which  is  literature 
of  a  fine  and  enduring  sort. 

NEW   YORK  TIMES: 

It  is  a  fine,  a  noble  book.  .  .  .  Pathos, 
tenderness,  irony,  vivid  description  and 
stinging  satire  are  all  in  this  book.  .  .  . 
The  Goncourt  prize  for  1918  was  well  and 
worthily  bestowed. 

BOSTON  HERALD: 

What  better  evidence  of  the  serene  in- 
telligence of  France  than  award  of  the 
Goncourt  prize  to  Dr.  Duhamel's  war 
sketches  called  "  Civilization." 

NEW  YORK  SUN: 

Each  chapter  is  a  story  in  itself.  Sil- 
houettes of  hell.  Cameos  of  beauty.  Etched 
ironies.  Always  the  right  word  in  the 
right  place — the  word  that  is  vascular,  to 
use  Emerson's  phrase ;  the  word  that  leaps 
at  you ;  the  word  that  coins  a  terrible 
image ;  the  word  that  drops  like  a  sun  into 
your  mind ;  the  word  that  haunts  you. 

NEW  YORK  TRIBUNE: 

No  man  can  read  this  book  without  weep- 
ing for  utter  pity.  But  we  should  pity  him 
who  could  read  it  without  feeling  a  mighty 
inspiration  and  a  joy  that  the  human  soul 
can  so  "  tire  and  torture  time,"  and  can 
triumph  over  the  very  powers  that  were 
put  forth  to  overthrow  true  civilization. 

CHICAGO  DAILY  NEWS: 

Dr.  Duhamel  reaches  the  heart  of  tragedy 
and  brings  before  his  readers  some  of  the 
most  poignant  incidents  I  have  yet  come 
across.  They  are  described  as  personal  en- 
counters by  a  man  of  obviously  great  sym- 
pathies and  perceptions.  It  is  so  human, 
so  real,  so  tragically  beautiful.  .  .  . 

CIVILIZTION 


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Democracy  and  Direct  Action 


JLHE  BATTLE  for  political  democracy  has  been 
won:  white  men  everywhere  are  to  live  under  the 
regime  of  parliamentary  government.  Russia,  which 
for  the  present  is  trying  a  new  form  of  constitution, 
will  probably  be  led  by  internal  or  external  pressure 
to  adopt  the  system  favored  by  the  Western  powers. 
But  even  before  this  contest  was  decided  a  new 
one  was  seen  to  be  beginning.  The  form  of  govern- 
ment in  the  United  States,  Britain,  and  France  is  a 
capitalistic  or  plutocratic  democracy:  the  democracy 
which  exists  in  the  political  sphere  finds  no  counter- 
part in  the  economic  world.  The  struggle  for  eco- 
nomic democracy  seems  likely  to  dominate  politics 
for  many  years  to  come.  The  Russian  government, 
which  cares  nothing  for  the  forms  of  political  democ- 
racy, stands  for  a  very  extreme  form  of  economic 
democracy.  A  strong  and  apparently  growing  party 
in  Germany  has  similar  aims.  Of  opinion  in  France 
I  know  nothing,  but  in  this  country  the  workers 
who  desire  to  obtain  control  of  industries  subject 
to  state  ownership,  though  not  sufficiently  strong 
numerically  to  have  much  influence  on  the  personnel 
of  Parliament,  are  nevertheless  able  through  organi- 
zation in  key  industries  to  exert  a  powerful  pressure 
on  the  government  and  to  cause  fear  of  industrial 
upheavals  to  become  widespread  throughout  the 
middle  and  upper  classes.  We  have  thus  the  spec- 
tacle of  opposition  between  a  new  democratically- 
elected  Parliament  and  the  sections  of  the  nation 
which  consider  themselves  the  most  democratic.  In 
such  circumstances  many  friends  of  democracy  be- 
come bewildered  and  grow  perplexed  as  to  the  aims 
they  ought  to  pursue  or  the  party  with  which  they 
ought  to  sympathize. 

The  time  was  when  the  idea  of  parliamentary 
government  inspired  enthusiasm,  but  that  time  is 
past.  Already  before  the  war  legislation  had  come 
to  be  more  and  more  determined  by  contests  between 
interests  outside  the  legislature,  bringing  pressure 
to  bear  directly  upon  the  government.  This  ten- 
dency has  been  much  accelerated.  The  view  which 
prevails  in  the  ranks  of  organized  labor — and  not 
only  there — is  that  Parliament  exists  merely  to  give 
effect  to  the  decision  of  the  government,  while  those 
decisions  themselves,  so  far  from  representing  any 


settled  policy,  embody  nothing  but  the  momentary 
balance  of  forces  and  the  compromise  most  likely  to 
secure  temporary  peace.  The  weapon  of  labor  in 
these  contests  is  no  longer  the  vote,  but  the  threat 
of  a  strike — "  direct  action."  It  was  the  leaders  of 
the  Confederation  Generale  du  Travail  during  the 
twenty  years  preceding  the  war  who  first  developed 
this  theory  of  the  best  tactics  for  labor.  But  it  is 
experience  rather  than  theory  that  has  led  to  its 
widespread  adoption — the  experience  largely  of  the 
untrustworthiness  of  parliamentary  Socialist  leaders 
and  of  the  reactionary  social  forces  to  which  they 
are  exposed. 

To  the  traditional  doctrine  of  democracy  there  is 
something  repugnant  in  this  whole  method.  Put 
crudely  and  nakedly  the  position  is  this:  the  organ- 
ized workers  in  a  key  industry  can  inflict  so  much 
hardship  upon  the  community  by  a  strike  that  the 
community  is  willing  to  yield  to  their  demands 
things  which  it  would  never  yield  except  under  the 
threat  of  force.  This  may  be  represented  as  the 
substitution  of  the  private  force  of  a  minority  in 
place  of  law  as  embodying  the  will  of  the  majority. 
On  this  basis  a  very  formidable  indictment  of  direct 
action  can  be  built  up. 

There  is  no  denying  that  direct  action  involves 
grave  dangers,  and  if  abused  may  theoretically  lead 
to  very  bad  results.  In  this  cpuntry,  when  (in  1917) 
organized  labor  wished  to  send  delegates  to  Stock- 
holm, the  Seamen's  and  Firemen's  Union  prevented 
them  from  doing  so,  with  the  enthusiastic  approval 
of  the  capitalist  press.  Such  interferences  of  minor- 
ities with  the  freedom  of  .action  of  majorities  are 
possible;  it  is  also  possible  for  majorities  to  interfere 
with  the  legitimate  freedom  of  minorities.  Like  all 
use  of  force,  whether  inside  or  outside  the  law, 
direct  action  makes  tyranny  possible.  And  if  one 
were  anxious  to  draw  a  gloomy  picture  of  terrors 
ahead  one  might  prophesy  that  certain  well-organ- 
ized vital  industries — say  the  Triple  Allidnce  of 
Miners,  Railwaymen,  and  Transport  Workers — 
would  learn  to  combine,  not  only  against  the  em- 
ployers, but  against  the  community  as  a  whole.  We 
shall  be  told  that  this  will  happen  unless  a  firm 
stand  is  made  now.  We  shall  be  told  that,  if  it 


446 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


does  happen,  the  indignant  public  will  have,  sooner 
or  later,  to  devote  itself  to  the  organization  of 
blacklegs,  in  spite  of  the  danger  of  civil  disturbance 
and  industrial  chaos  that  such  a  course  would  in- 
volve. No  doubt  such  dangers  would  be  real  if  it 
could  be  assumed  that  organized  labor  is  wholly 
destitute  of  common  sense  and  public  spirit.  But 
such  an  assumption  could  never  be  made  except  to 
flatter  the  fears  of  property-owners.  Let  us  leave 
nightmares  on  one  side  and  come  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  good  and  harm  that  are  actually  likely 
to  result  in  practice  from  the  increasing  resort  to 
direct  action  as  a  means  of  influencing  government. 

Many  people  speak  and  write  as  though  the  be- 
ginning and  end  of  democracy  were  the  rule  of  the 
majority.  This,  for  example,  is  the  view  of  Pro- 
fessor Hearnshaw  in  his  recent  book  Democracy  at 
the  Cross-Ways.  But  this  is  far  too  mechanical  a 
view.  It  leaves  out  of  account  two  questions  of 
great  importance,  namely :  ( I )  What  should  be  the 
group  of  which  the  majority  is  to  prevail?.  (2) 
What  are  the  matters  with  which  the  majority  has 
a  right  to  interfere?  Right  answers  to  these  ques- 
tions are  essential  if  nominal  democracy  is  not  to 
develop  into  a  new  and  more  stable  form  of  tyranny, 
for  minorities  and  subordinate  groups  have  the  right 
to  live,  and  must  not  be  internally  subject  to  the 
malice  of  hostile  masses. 

The  first  question  is  familiar  in  one  form,  namely 
that  of  nationality.  It  is  recognized  as  contrary  to 
the  theory  of  democracy  to  combine  into  one  state  a 
big  nation  and  a  small  one,  when  the  small  nation 
desires  to  be*  independent.  To  allow  votes  to  the 
citizens  of  the  small  nation  is  no  remedy,  since  they 
can  always  be  outvoted  by  the  citizens  of  the  large 
nation.  The  popularly  elected  legislature,  if  it  is 
to  be  genuinely  democratic,  must  represent  one 
nation ;  or,  if  more  are  to  be  represented,  it  must  be 
by  a  federal  arrangement  which  safeguards  the 
smaller  units.  A  legislature  should  exist  for  defined 
purposes,  and  should  cover  a  larger  or  smaller  area 
according  to  the  nature  of  those  purposes.  At  this 
moment,  when  an  attempt  is  being  made  to  create 
a  League  of  Nations  for  certain  objects,  this  point 
does  not  need  emphasizing. 

But  it  is  not  only  geographical  units,  such  as 
nations,  that  have  a  right,  according  to  the  true 
theory  of  democracy,  to  autonomy  for  certain  pur- 
poses. Just  the  same  principle  applies  to  any  group 
which  has  important  internal  concerns  that  affect 
the  members  of  the  group  enormously  more  than 
they  affect  outsiders.  The  coal  trade,  for  example, 
might  legitimately  say :  "  What  concerns  the  com- 
munity is  the  quantity  and  price  of  the  coal  that  we 
supply.  But  our  conditions  and  hours  of  work,  the 
technical  methods  of  our  production,  and  the  share 


of  the  produce  that  we  choose  to  allow  to  the  land- 
owners and  capitalists  who  at  present  own  and 
manage  the  collieries,  all  these  are  internal  concerns 
of  the  coal  trade,  in  which  the  general  public  has 
no  right  to  interfere.  For  these  purposes  we  de- 
mand an  internal  parliament,  in  which  those  who 
are  interested  as  owners  and  capitalists  may  have 
one  vote  each,  but  no  more."  If  such  a  demand 
were  put  forward  it  would  be  as  impossible  to  resist 
on  democratic  grounds  as  the  demand  for  autonomy 
on  the  part  of  a  small  nation.  Yet  it  is  perfectly 
clear  that  the  coal  trade  could  not  induce  the  com- 
munity to  agree  to  such  a  proposal,  especially  where 
it  infringes  the  "  rights  of  property,"  unless  it  were 
sufficiently  well  organized  to  be  able  to  do  grave 
injury  to  the  community  in  the  event  of  its  proposal's 
being  rejected — just  as  no  small  nation  except  Nor- 
way, so  far  as  my  memory  serves  me,  has  ever 
obtained  independence  from  a  large  one  to  which  it 
was  subject,  except  by  war  or  the  threat  of  war. 

The  fact  is  that  democracies,  as  soon  as  they  are 
well  established,  are  just  as  jealous  of  power  as 
other  forms  of  government.  It  is  therefore  neces- 
sary, if  subordinate  groups  are  to  obtain  their  rights, 
that  they  shall  have  some  means  of  bringing  pressure 
to  bear  upon  the  government.  The  Benthamite  the- 
ory, upon  which  democracy  is  still  defended  by  some 
doctrinaires,  was  that  each  voter  would  look  after 
his  own  interest,  and  in  the  resultant  each  man's 
interest  would  receive  its  proportionate  share  of 
attention.  But  human  nature  is  neither  so  rational 
nor  so  self-centered  as  Bentham  imagined.  In 
practice  it  is  easier,  by  arousing  hatred  and  jeal- 
ousies, to  induce  men  to  vote  against  the  interests 
of  others  than  to  persuade  them  to  vote  for  their 
own  interests.  In  the  recent  General  Election  in 
this  country  very  few  electors  remembered  their 
own  interests  at  all.  They  voted  for  the  man  who 
showed  the  loudest  zeal  for  hanging  the  Kaiser,  not 
because  they  imagined  they  would  be  richer  if  he 
were  hanged  but  as  an  expression  of  disinterested 
hatred.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  autonomy  is 
important :  in  order  that,  as  far  as  possible,  no  group 
shall  have  its  internal  concerns  determined  for  it  by 
those  who  hate  it.  And  this  result  is  not  secured 
by  the  mere  form  of  democracy;  it  can  only  be 
secured  by  careful  devolution  of  special  powers  to 
special  groups,  so  as  to  secure,  as  far  as  possible, 
that  legislation  shall  be  inspired  by  the  self-interest 
of  those  concerned,  not  by  the  hostility  of  those  not 
concerned. 

This  brings  us  to  the  second  of  the  two  questions 
mentioned  above — a  question  which  is,  in  fact,  close- 
ly bound  up  with  the  first.  Our  second  question 
was:  What  are  the  matters  with  which  the  democ- 
racy has  a  right  to  interfere?  It  is  now  generally 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


447 


recognized  that  religion,  for  example,  is  a  question 
with  which  no  government  should  interfere.  If  a 
Mahometan  conies  to  live  in  England  we  do  not 
think  it  right  to  force  him  to  profess  Christianity. 
This  is  a  comparatively  recent  change;  three  cen- 
turies ago,  no  state  recognized  the  right  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  choose  his  own  religion.  (Some  other 
personal  rights  have  been  longer  recognized :  a  man 
may  choose  his  own  wife,  though  in  Christian 
countries  he  must  not  choose  more  than  one.) 
When  it  ceased  to  be  illegal  to  hold  that  the  earth 
goes  round  the  sun,  it  was  not  made  illegal  to 
believe  that  the  sun  goes  round  the  earth.  In  such 
matters  it  has  been  found,  with  intense  surprise, 
that  personal  liberty  does  not  entail  anarchy.  Even 
the  sternest  supporters  of  the  rule  of  the  majority 
would  not  hold  that  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
ought  to  turn  Buddhist  if  Parliament  ordered  him 
to  do  so.  And  Parliament  does  not,  as  a  rule,  issue 
orders  of  this  kind,  largely  because  it  is  known  that 
the  resistance  would  be  formidable  and  that  it  would 
have  support  in  public  opinion. 

In  theory,  the  formula  as  to  legitimate  interfer- 
ences is  simple.  A  democracy  has  a  right  to  inter- 
fere with  those  of  the  affairs  of  a  group  which  inti- 
mately concern  people  outside  the  group,  but  not 
with  those  which  have  comparatively  slight  effects 
outside  the  group.  In  practice,  this  formula  may 
sometimes  be  difficult  to  apply,  but  often  its  appli- 
cation is  clear.  If,  for  example,  the  Welsh  wish  to 
have  their  elementary  education  conducted  in  Welsh, 
that  is  a  matter  which  concerns  them  so  much  more 
intimately  than  anyone  else  that  there  can  be  no 
good  reason  why  the  rest  of  the  United  Kingdom 
should  interfere.  Thus  the  theory  of  democracy 
demands  a  good  deal  more  than  the  mere  mechani- 
cal supremacy  of  the  majority.  It  demands :  ( I ) 
division  of  the  community  into  more,  or  less  auton- 
omous groups;  (2)  delimitation  of  the  powers  of 
the  autonomous  groups  by  determining  which  of 
their  concerns  are  so  much  more  important  to  them- 
selves than  to  others  that  others  had  better  have  no 
say  in  them.  Direct  action  may,  in  most  cases,  be 
judged  by  these  tests.  In  an  ideal  democracy  in- 
dustries or  groups  of  industries  would  be  self- 
governing  as  regards  almost  everything  except  the 
price  and  quantity  of  their  product,  and  their  self- 
government  would  be  democratic.  Measures  which 
they  would  then  be  able  to  adopt  autonomously  they 
are  now  justified  in  extorting  from  the  government 
by  direct  action.  At  present  the  extreme  limit  of 
imaginable  official  concession  is  a  conference  in 
which  the  men  and  the  employers  are  represented 
equally,  but  this  is  very  far  from  democracy,  since 
the  men  are  much  more  numerous  than  the  em- 
ployers. This  application  of  majority-rule  is  abhor- 


rent to  those  who  invoke  majority-rule  against  direct- 
actionists;  yet  it  is  absolutely  in  accordance  with 
the  principles  of  democracy.  It  must  at  best  be  a 
long  and  difficult  process  to  procure  formal  self- 
government  for  industries.  Meanwhile  they  have  the 
same  right  that  belongs  to  oppressed  national 
groups,  the  right  of  securing  the  substance  of  auton- 
omy by  making  it  difficult  and  painful  to  go  against 
their  wishes  in  matters  primarily  concerning 
themselves.  So  long  as  they  confine  themselves  to 
such  matters,  their  action  is  justified  by  the  strictest 
principles  of  theoretical  democracy,  and  those  who 
decry  it  have  been  led  by  prejudice  to  mistake  the 
empty  form  of  democracy  for  its  substance. 

Certain  practical  limitations,  however,  are  impor- 
tant to  remember.  In  the  first  place,  it  is  unwise 
for  a  section  to  set  out  to  extort  concessions  from 
the  government  by  force,  if  in  the  long  run  public 
opinion  will  be  on  the  side  of  the  government.  For 
a  government  backed  by  public  opinion  will  be  able, 
in  a  prolonged  struggle,  to  defeat  any  subordinate 
section.  In  the  second  place,  it  is  important  to 
render  every  struggle  of  this  kind,  when  it  does 
occur,  a  means  of  educating  the  public  opinion  by 
making  facts  known  which  would  otherwise  remain 
more  or  less  hidden.  In  a  large  community  most 
people  know  very  little  about  the  affairs  of  other 
groups  than  their  own.  The  only  way  in  which  a 
group  can  get  its  concerns  widely  known  is  by  afford- 
ing "  copy  "  for  the  newspapers,  and  by  showing 
itself  sufficiently  strong  and  determined  to  command 
respect.  When  these  conditions  are  fulfilled,  even 
if  it  is  force  that  is  brought  to  bear  upon  the  gov- 
ernment, it  is  persuasion  that  is  brought  to  bear 
upon  the  community.  And  in  the  long  run  no  vic- 
tory is  secure  unless  it  rests  upon  persuasion,  and 
employs  force  at  most  as  a  means  to  persuasion. 

'  The  mention  of  the  press  and  its  effect  on  public 
opinion  suggests  a  direction  in  which  direct  action 
has  sometimes  been  advocated,  namely  to  counteract 
the  capitalist  bias  of  almost  all  great  newspapers. 
One  can  imagine  compositors  refusing  to  set  up  some 
statement  about  trade-union  action  which  they 
know  to  be  directly  contrary  to  the  truth.  Or  they 
might  insist  on  setting  up  side  by  side  a  statement 
of  the  case  from  the  Trade-union  standpoint.  Such 
a  weapon,  if  it  were  used  sparingly  and  judiciously, 
might  do  much  to  counteract  the  influence  of  the 
newspapers  in  misleading  public  opinion.  So  long 
as  the  capitalist  system  persists,  most  newspapers 
are  bound  to  be  capitalist  ventures  and  to  present 
"  facts,"  in  the  main,  in  the  way  that  suits  capital- 
istic interests.  A  strong  case  can  be  made  out  for 
the  use  of  direct  action  to  counteract  this  tendency. 
But  it  is  obvious  that  very  grave  dangers  would 
attend  such  a  practice  if  it  became  common.  A 


448                                    THE  DIAL                                 May  3 

censorship  of  the  press  by  trade  unionists  would,  in  certain  cases,  for  example  where  there  has  been 
the  long  run,  be  just  as  harmful  as  any  other  censor-  infringement  of  some  important  right  such  as  free 
ship.  It  is  improbable,  however,  that  the  method  speech,  it  may  be  justifiable.  The  second  of  the 
could  be  carried  to  such  extremes,  since  if  it  were,  above  uses  of  the  strike,  for  the  fundamental  change 
a  special  set  of  blackleg  compositors  would  be  of  the  economic  system,  has  been  made  familiar  by 
trained  up,  and  no  others  would  gain  admission  to  the  French  Syndicalists.  It  seems  fairly  certain 
the  offices  of  capitalist  newspapers.  In  this  case,  as  that,  for  a  considerable  time  to  come,  the  main 
in  others,  the  dangers  supposed  to  belong  to  the  struggle  in  Europe  will  be  between  capitalism  and 
method  of  direct  action  are  largely  illusory,  owing  some  form  of  Socialism,  and  it  is  highly  probable 
to  the  natural  limitations  of  its  effectiveness.  that  in  this  struggle  the  strike  will  play  a  great 
Direct  action  may  be  employed :  ( I )  for  ameliora-  part.  To  introduce  democracy  into  industry  by  any 
tion  of  trade  conditions  within  the  present  economic  other  method  would  be  very  difficult.  And  the 
system;  (2)  for  economic  reconstruction,  including  principle  of  group  autonomy  justifies  this  method 
the  partial  or  complete  abolition  of  the  capitalist  so  long  as  the  rest  of  the  community  opposes  self- 
system;  (3)  for  political  ends,  such  as  altering  the  government  for  industries  which  desire  it.  Direct 
form  of  government,  extension  of  the  suffrage,  or  action  has  its  dangers,  but  so  has  every  vigorous 
amnesty  for  political  prisoners.  Of  these  three  no  form  Of  activity.  And  in  our  recent  realization  of 
one  nowadays  would  deny  the  legitimacy  of  the  first,  the  importance  of  law  we  must  not  forget  that  the 
except  in  exceptional  circumstances.  The  third,  greatest  of  all  dangers  to  a  civilization  is  to  become 
except  for  purposes  of  establishing  democracy  where  stereotyped  and  stagnant.  From  this  danger,  at 
it  does  not  yet  exist,  seems  a  dubious  expedient  if  j  industrial  unrest  is  likely  to  save  us. 
democracy,  in  spite  of  its  faults,  is  recognized  as 
the  best  practicable  form  of  government;  but  in  BERTRAND  RUSSELL. 


Sea-Hoardings 


My  heart  is  open  again  and  the  sea  flows  in; 

It  shall  fill  with  a' summer  of  mists  and  winds  and  clouds  and  waves  breaking, 

Of  gull-wings  over  the  green  tide,  of  the  surf's  drenching  din, 

Of  sudden  horizon-sails  that  come  and  vanish,  phantom-thin, 

Of  arching  sapphire  skies,  deep  and  unaching. 

I  shall  lie  on  the  rocks  just  over  the  weeds  that  drape 

The  clear  sea-pools,  where  birth  and  death  in  the  sunny  ooze  are  teeming. 

AVhere  the  crab  in  quest  of  booty  sidles  about  a  surly  shape, 

Where  the  snail  creeps  and  the  muscle  sleeps  with  wary  valves  agape, 

Where  life  is  too  grotesque  to  be  but  seeming. 

And  the  swallow  shall  weave  my  dreams  with  threads  of  flight, 
A  shuttle  with  silver  breast  across  the  warp  of  the  waves  gliding; 
And  an  isle  far  out  shall  be  a  beam  in  the  loom  of  my  delight, 
And  the  pattern  of  every  dream  shall  be  a  rapture  bathed  in  light — 
Its  evanescence  a  beauty  most  abiding. 

And  the  sunsets  shall  give  sadness  all  its  due; 

They  shall  stain  the  sands  and  trouble  the  tides  with  all  the  ache  of  sorrow. 

They  shall  bleed  and  die  with  a  beauty  of  meaning  old  yet  ever  new ; 

They  shall  burn  with  all  the  hunger  for  things  that  hearts  have  failed  to  do, 

They  shall  whisper  of  a  gold  that  none  can  borrow. 

And  the  stars  shall  come  and  build  a  bridge  of  fire 
For  the  moon  to  cross  the  shoreless  sky,  with  never  a  fear  of  sinking. 
They  shall  teach  me  of  the  magic  things  of  life  never  to  tire, 
And  how  to  renew,  when  it  is  low,  the  lamp  of  my  desire — 
And  how  to  hope,  in  the  darkest  deeps  of  thinking. 

CALE  YOUNG  RICE. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


449 


Factualist  Versus  Impressionist 


IN  A  CERTAIN  prodigious  year  of  beginnings  and 
endings,  now  unspeakably  remote,  the  novel  read- 
ers of  this  country  might  have  discovered  them- 
selves to  be  the  richer  by  a  simple  romance  called 
The  Lay  Anthony.  No  great  multitude  appears  to 
have  performed  the  exploit.  By  a  recent  calcula- 
tion of  Mr.  Joseph  Hergesheimer,  the  author  of 
that  romance — who  seems  to  have  a  modest  im- 
pression that  his  first  book  was  not,  perhaps,  the 
signal  event  of  1914 — the  copy  now  open  at  the 
title-page  on  this  desk  is  one  solid  nine-hundredth 
of  all  that  were  sold.  Beside  it  there  lies,  in 
this  the  month  of  its  appearance,  a  copy  of  Java 
Head  (Knopf)  inscribed:  "First  and  second 
printings  before  publication.  Published  January, 
1919."  Moreover,  the  conservative  novel  reader 
who  prefers  to  take  his  pleasure  from  between 
covers — seemingly  he  still  exists — was  not  vouch- 
safed a  glimpse  of  this  particular  delight  until  the 
tale,  serialized  in  a  weekly  of  circulation  so  stag- 
gering that  the  actual  figures  sound  like  those  of  a 
war  "  drive "  by  some  organization  of  immense 
prestige,  had  unfolded  itself  to  eyes  countable  only 
in  hundreds  of  thousands  of  pairs. 

It  is  a  screaming  contrast,  that  here  denoted.  If 
one  has  the  cynicism  of  experience,  the  first  effect 
of  such  a  contrast  is  to  set  one  hunting  for  clues 
in  the  author  himself.  There  must  have  gone  on  in 
him,  one  figures,  some  process  analogous  to  that 
which  went  on  in  Mr.  Robert  Chambers  between 
The  King  in  Yellow  and,  say,  The  Danger  Mark 
— some  conscious  or  unconscious  adulteration  of  the 
genuine  with  the  spurious.  The  author  of  The 
Lay  Anthony,  like  the  hero  thereof,  was  good  and, 
duly,  lonesome:  it  is  simple  to  conclude,  then,  that 
the  author  of  Java  Head,  to  whom  crowds  flock 
and  profits  accrue,  must  have  turned  meretrix. 

Well,  cynicism  hunts  in  vain.  Java  Head  is  in 
the  same  straight  line  with  The  Lay  Anthony,  and 
it  is  the  line  of  an  almost  prohibitively  austere  ideal 
pursued  with  inflexible  fidelity.  Search  as  you 
will  the  two  volumes  which  delimit  his  career 
thus  far,  you  find  no  increase  in  the  recognized 
marks  of  that  commercially  potent  thing,  popu- 
larity. You  find,  if  anything,  a  decrease:  it  is  the 
austerity  that  increases.  For  the  austerity  of  The 
Lay  Anthony  is  merely  that  of  the  remote  ideal 
proposed,  sought,  clutched  at,  honestly  missed,  per- 
haps despaired  of  for  the  moment;  whereas  the 
austerity  of  Java  Head  is  that  of  the  same  elusive 
ideal  attained,  captured,  crystallized  in  a  lovely 
form  of  words.  It  is  almost  enough  to  provoke  a 


speculation  that  the  multitude  must  have  changed 
overnight — graduated  from  its  mere  occasional  will- 
ingness io  receive  a  grain  of  wheat  along  with 
bushels  of  chaff,  and  joined  the  cults  and  the  coteries 
in  their  preference  for  that  which  is  nothing  if  not 
"  art."  Preposterous,  of  course,  yet  a  more  nearly 
tenable  theory  than  that  Mr.  Hergesheimer  has  by 
intention  or  accident  sought  the  multitude  where  it 
is  customarily  at  home. 

It  is  not  my  wish  to  represent  The  Lay  Anthony 
as  in  itself  a  masterpiece,  or  even  a  strikingly 
eminent  piece  of  fiction.  But  it  is  promissory  of 
masterpieces,  and  in  kind  if  not  in  degree  it  claims 
kinship  with  the  most  eminent  work  its  author  has 
done.  This  is  a  judgment  which  can  derive  its  sanc- 
tion only  from  some  general  view  of  what  Mr. 
Hergesheimer  is  about.  Even  for  the  reader  who 
has  not  yet  discovered  this  author,  or  who,  having 
blundered  upon  him,  is  not  aware  of  having  scaled 
any  very  notable  peak  in  Darien,  I  can  give  the 
argument  significance  and  scope  by  saying  that  what 
Hergesheimer  is  about  is  precisely  what  the  art  of 
fiction  itself  has  been  about  during  the  thirty  years 
past,  whenever  its  manifestations  have  been  most 
arresting  and  distinguished.  However  sweeping  his 
claims  to  blissful  ignorance  about  the  technicalities 
of  his  art,  it  is  clear  that  he  has  read  the  right  things 
very  understandingly,  and  kept  himself  sensitive  to 
currents  and  eddies  in  the  air  round  him.  He  is  of 
the  moderns;  and  without  any  elaborate  and  self- 
conscious  repudiations  of  the  past — without,  for  in- 
stance, having  to  go  through  the  process  of  audibly 
despising  the  Victorians  just  because  he  is  quite 
unlike  them — he  avails  himself,  in  a  quite  natural 
and  urbane  and  effortless  way,  of  the  most  impor- 
tant structural  and  tonal  changes  that  have  made 
fiction  a  finer  art  now  than  it  ever  was. 

What  are  the  chief  of  these  changes?  All  of 
them,  I  think,  can  be  grouped  under  the  spacious 
word  "  impressionism."  The  difference  between 
the  more  and  the  less  distinguished  in  present  fic- 
tion is  the  difference  between  impressionistic  real- 
ism and  factualistic  realism.  A  factual  realist  'is  a 
narrator  who  adopts  life  itself  as  his  selective  prin- 
ciple and,  on  the  assumption  that  whatever  is  is 
artistic,'  determines  the  material  of  his  tale  solely 
by  its  accord  with  what  actually  does,  or  easily 
could,  happen.  But  the  impressionistic  realist 
chooses  his  material  in  accordance  with  the  inherent 
need  of  his  subject  to  be  developed  in  a  particular 
way,  and  while  remaining  faithful  to  the  general 


450 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


laws  of  how  things  occur  in  human  nature,  and 
perhaps  even  to  the  specific  details  of  how  they 
occur  in  human  civilization,  he  regulates  the  shape 
and  size  and  color  of  his  product  by  requirements 
which  exist  rather  in  his  theme  than  outside  it. 
The  difference  in  result  is  like  that  between  a  para- 
sitic vine  which  follows  slavishly  the  contour  of 
whatever  happens  to  support  it,  and  a  bud  which 
follows  simply  an  inner  compulsion  to  unfold  into 
a  particular  kind  of  flower,  and  must  be  either  that 
flower  or  nothing.  To  make  the  long  story  short, 
it  is  the  difference  between  Mr.  Howells  and 
Henry  James;  between  J.  D.  Beresford  or  Gilbert 
Cannan  and  Mr.  Galsworthy;  between  Arnold 
Bennett  and  Conrad.  It  is  also  the  difference  be- 
tween Alice  Brown  or  Zona  Gale  or  Rupert 
Hughes  or  Isabel  Paterson — conscientious  f actual- 
ists mainly — and  Joseph  Hergesheimer,  impres- 
sionist. 

There  are  two  chief  symptoms  of  this  difference. 
One  of  them  is  the  presence  or  absence  of  unity  in 
the  point  of  view,  either  throughout  the  whole  or 
throughout  each  chapter.  Henry  James  reached, 
by  1890,  the  point  where  this  kind  of  unity  be- 
came an  indispensable  canon  of  his  art;  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy in  nearly  all  his  work,  and  Conrad  in  the 
best  of  his,  have  followed  him.  The  other  symp- 
tom is  the  presence  or  absence  of  absolute  single- 
ness or  centrality  in  the  whole  work — singleness  of 
situation,  of  purpose,  of  accent,  of  impression; 
such  singleness  as  belongs  to  the  ideal  short-story. 
The  first  of  these  developments  puts  the  stress,  not 
on  what  happens  in  the  story,  but  on  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  happenings  to  some  sympathetic  ob- 
serving consciousness.  The  second  fuses  action, 
character,  setting,  dialogue,  all  the  physical  in- 
gredients of  the  tale,  into  the  same  unity  of  effect 
which  Poe  demanded  in  ballad  or  lyric,  and  which 
even  pundits  now  clamor  for  in  the  short  tale.  The 
short  tale  has  had  that  singleness  for  fifty  years; 
what  is  significant  is  that,  in  the  last  twenty-five, 
the  novel  has  discovered  that  it  cannot  live  up  to 
its  privileges  without  exactly  the  same  totality. 
Years  ago  Henry  James  wrote,  in  The  Sacred 
Fount,  a  parable  of  this  necessity,  in  the  form  of  a 
crucial  instance  of  the  war  between  factualism  and 
impressionism — that  is  to  say,  between  raw  "  life  " 
and  fictional  composition.  Criticism  is  still  so  far 
behind  that,  to  this  day,  there  does  not  exist  in  print 
an  intelligible  analysis  of  The  Sacred  Fount,  one  of 
the  great  documents  of  esthetic  theory.  Henry 
James  began,  obviously,  as  an  externalist,  a  fac- 
tualist,  saturating  himself  with  life ;  he  came  out  an 
impressionist,  saturating  himself  with  nothing  but 
the  sense  of  his  theme.  Even  Meredith  approached, 
less  understandingly,  the  same  consummation:  he 


wrote  Feverel  under  the  influence  of  Dickens,  but 
he  wrote  Lord  Ormont  and  His  Aminta  under  the 
same  Zeitgeist  that  wrought  The  Spoils  of  Poyn- 
ton  and  The  Red  Badge  of  Courage  and  Conrad  in 
Quest  of  His  Youth  and  Heart  of  Darkness.  The 
critics,  some  of  them,  seem  still  not  to  know  which 
way  the  wind  blows — but  a  few  artists  know,  and 
the  author  of  Java  Head  is  clearly  one  of^them. 

The  title-page  of  Java  Head  quotes:  "  It  is  only 
the  path  of  pure  simplicity  which  guards  and  pre- 
serves the  spirit."  The  direct  literal  application  of 
the  proverb  is  presumably  to  the  moral  life  of  Taou 
Yuen,  the  wondrous  Manchu  lady  whom  Gerrit 
Ammidon,  a  hot-tempered  individualist,  marries 
and  brings  into  the  staid  New  England  Salem  of 
the  days  when  Mr.  Polk  was  President  and  clippers 
were  brand  new  in  the  China  trade.  Taou  Yuen, 
by  uttermost  simplicity  of  spirit,  finds  her  way  un- 
erringly— her  way  to  beauty  and  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  her  own  exquisite  serenity — first  through  all 
the  deviousness  of  social  Salem,  against  the  back- 
ground of  the  Ammidons'  commercial  greatness 
and  general  prestige;  then  through  the  complica- 
tions of  an  astounding  intrigue  of  which  she  be- 
comes, innocently,  the  center.  Clinging  faithfully 
in  her  bewilderment  to  the  few  simple  ideals  of 
conduct  which  scores  of  generations  have  bred  into 
her  blood  as  well  as  her  mind,  maintaining  to  the 
end  the  poise  of  her  own  fatalistic  philosophy,  she 
gives  a  sense  of  living  exclusively  with  fundamen- 
tals and  essentials,  in  the  midst  of  a  society  preoc- 
cupied with  trivial  externals.  It  is  she,  the  alien, 
who  lives  at  the  center  of  the  life  she  has  entered, 
working  her  way  with  a  patient  simplicity  to  the 
core  of  its  realities,  while  the  others,  the  indigenes 
— even  Gerrit  the  individualist  and  rebel — live,  by 
comparison,  unreally  and  at  the  fringe  of  things, 
making  motions  they  hardly  know  the  sense  of. 
They  exist,  as  it  were,  from  hand  to  mouth,  letting 
the  effect  achieved  in  one  moment  supply  the  con- 
duct of  the  next,  exactly  like  a  realistic  novel ; 
whereas  Taou  Yuen  is  living,  at  every  moment,  as 
for  eternity.  This  is  why  the  fine  gesture  withv 
which  she  chooses  death,  being  the  ultimate  affirm- 
ation of  her  pure  serenity  and  disregard  of  compli- 
cating non-essentials,  has  in  itself  immortal  love- 
liness. The  death  of  any  other  character  would  be 
incompletion,  unfulfillment,  because  the  others  are 
living  in  a  more  or  less  straight  line,  and  a  line  can 
be  cut  off.  But  her  life,  is  always  complete  from 
moment  to  moment:  she  is  living  in  a  sphere,  and 
a  sphere  is  always  as  round  as  it  can  be. 

Now  the  Chinese  proverb  about  simplicity  ex- 
actly expresses  Hergesheimer's  ideal  for  his  own 
art;  and  Taou  Yuen  is  the  natural  symbol  of  the 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


45 


goal  toward  which  his  writing  has  progressed  since 
he  began  to  publish  it.  Taou  Yuen  is  a  simple  im- 
pressionist forced  into  a  society  of  complicated 
factualists,  and  emerging  from  it  without  im- 
pairment to  the  inner  principle  of  her  being. 
Hergesheimer's  career  thus  far  shows  a  similar 
contention  of  elements  and  a  similar  culmination — 
the  logical  completion  of  a  natural  bent  toward 
impressionism. 

One  evidence  that  his  art  has  indeed  found  the 
path  of  pure  simplicity  is  his  present  instinct  to 
interpret  into  his  earlier  work  an  impressionistic 
unity  which  is  not  completely  there,  through  simple 
inability  to  tolerate  the  thought  that  he  was  ever 
actuated  by  any  impulse  except  the  only  one  now 
possible  to  him.  He  summarizes  the  theme  of  The 
Lay  Anthony  (1914)  as  "a  boy's  purity — in  a 
world  where  that  quality  is  a  cause  for  excruciat- 
ing jest;"  and  that  of  Mountain  Blood  (1915)  as 
"  the  failure  of  an  aged  man  to  repair  a  spiritual 
wrong  with  gold."  The  Lay  Anthony  is  indeed  a 
winning  and  faithful  likeness  of  youth  as  it  is,  with 
its  queer  fits  and  starts  of  quixotism,  the  tremors 
of  its  response  to  beauty,  its  oscillation  between  a 
fantastic  idealism  and  a  still  more  fantastic  prac- 
ticality. The  physical  purity  of  Anthony  Ball  is 
preserved  by  a  combination  of  forces;  sheer  acci- 
dent wearing  at  times  the  aspect  of  sheer  fate,  and 
also  something  boyish,  inhibiting,  and  virginal  in 
himself.  But  through  the  theme,  because  it  was 
imperfectly  grasped  as  an  idea  which  should  have 
engendered  the  details  making  up  its  own  atmos- 
phere, there  stick  the  most  oddly  irrelevent  and 
jarring  minutiae — baseball,  chewing  gum,  differ- 
entials, fashions  in  collars,  thirty-one  dollars  and 
seventy  cents — put  in,  not  because  they  are  true  to 
the  theme,  but  because  they  are  locally  and  tem- 
porally true,  because  the  author  knows  them,  be- 
cause the  artist  distrusts  the  creator  in  himself  and 
leans  on  the  copyist.  In  Mountain  Blood,  a  story 
of  a  primitive  community  in  the  West  Virginia 
mountains,  this  tyranny  of  actuality  over  imagina- 
tion is  carried  to  a  point  which  means  the  practical 
extinction  of  the  theme.  Mountain  Blood  is  a 
rousing  story;  it  would  even  make  a  tremendous 
motion  picture  without  complete  annihilation  of  its 
identity;  but  it  is  certainly  not,  in  any  consistent 
artistic  sense,  the  focused  story  of  "  an  aged  man's 
failure  to  repair  a  spiritual  wrong  with  gold,"  and 
for  that  reason  it  remains,  of  all  Hergesheimer's 
work,  least  Hergesheimerian.  There  is  one  more 
lapse  into  factualism,  that  of  The  Dark  Fleece 
(one  of  the  three  tales  in  Gold  and  Iron,  1918),  in 
which  Mr.  Hergesheimer  is  lured  into  a  startling 
breach  of  his  point  of  view  by  the  pursuit  of  a 
theme  which  seems  always  to  have  had  a  peculiar 


fascination  for  him — the  nature  and  effects  of  re- 
ligious fanaticism. 

These  are,  I  think,  the  only  serious  aberrations. 
In  The  Three  Black  Pennys  (1917)  he  binds  to- 
gether into  fundamental  unity  the  parts  of  a  story 
as  disjointed,  from  the  merely  factualist  point  of 
view,  as  a  story  could  be,  with  three  protagonists  in 
three  quite  separate  generations.  He  is  able  to 
accomplish  this  because  his  real  protagonist  is  not 
a  person  at  all,  but  a  recrudescent  family  trait  and 
its  modifications  over  a  century  and  a  half.  It  is 
for  the  sake  of  that  trait,  a  sort  of  creative  indi- 
vidualism and  rebellion  which  crops  out  at  inter- 
vals in  the  Penny  family,  against  its  wonted  back- 
ground of  sober  rectitude,  that  the  whole  spectacle 
is  conjured  into  existence,  an  impressive  documenta- 
tion of  the  social  and  economic  history  of  America. 
Wild  Oranges,  the  first  tale  of  Gold  and  Iron,  is 
a  piece  of  atmosphere  entirely  appropriate  to  a 
writer  who  had  once  gone  out  of  his  way  to  make 
a  character  remark  that  Heart  of  Darkness  is 
"the  most  beautiful  story  of  our  time;"  Tubal 
Cain,  the  second  story  of  the  volume,  is  unified  by 
a  trait  of  character,  an  idee  fixe,  as  Wild  Oranges 
is  by  its  atmosphere ;  and  there  is  an  exquisite  felic- 
ity in  the  title  which  brackets  the  three  stories  to- 
gether into  an  idea.  And  now — Java  Head,  a 
thing  so  consummate  of  its  kind  as  almost  to  make 
one  tremble  for  the  author  of  it,  in  the  wonder  how 
he  can  either  excel  it  or  endure  failure  to  excel  it. 
Here  at  last  is  the  matchless  integrity  once  glimpsed 
and  missed  by  ever  so  little  in  The  Lay  Anthony, 
almost  lost  sight  of  in  Mountain  Blood,  recovered 
in  the  spirit  but  obscured  by  the  amorphous  body 
of  The  Three  Black  Pennys.  In  Java  Head  the 
spirit  creates  the  body  after  its  kind.  There  is  both 
singleness  of  esthetic  effect  and  singleness  of  con- 
crete situation.  The  ten  chapters,  each  from  the 
point  of  view  of  one  of  the  chief  personae,  succeed 
one  another  like  a  string  of  delicately  tinted  pearls 
clasped  round  the  neck  of  Taou  Yuen  in  her 
strange  situation;  and  for  her  exist  too  the  ma- 
chinery and  the  scholarship,  the  re-created  Salem  of 
old  days,  the  harbor  and  its  decaying  jetties,  the 
ships  under  clouds  of  white  canvas  making  the  heart 
lift,  the  three  generations  of  Ammidons,  the  great 
house  named  to  symbolize  the  "  happy  end  of  an 
arduous  voyage,"  the  loves  and  the  gossipings,  all 
the  vistaed  loveliness  of  things  native  and  exotic. 

There,  in  creation  of  loveliness,  is  the  goal  of  this 
writer's  endeavor.  There  too  is  the  lesson  for 
criticism  to  interpret  to  his  contemporary  tellers  of 
tales,  cisatlantic  and  other.  For  the  novel  in  gen- 
eral, as  for  this  one  artist,  the  path  of  pure  simplic- 
ity, that  leads  from  factualism  to  impressionism,  is 
the  path  to  beauty.  WILSQN 


452 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


Paul  Cams 


AT  is  WHEN  halfway  on  the  Road,  as  our  friends 
begin  in  such  solemn  procession  to  quit  our  ken, 
that  death  brings  with  it  a  new  bewilderment 
besides  its  primitive  power  to  shock  the  feelings.  It 
brings  now  a  tragic  cunning  to  awaken  the 
thoughts.  In  taking  the  friend  away,  it  first  shows 
us  with  a  grave  high  challenge  the  friend,  detached 
and  whole,  who  was  before  to  us  but  half-regarded 
fragments  among  infinite  other  fragments.  So  it  is 
that  by  middle  life  not  a  little  of  our  thinking  goes 
into  the  organized  effort  to  appraise  individual 
character  and  influence;  and  the  effort,  though  not 
unworthy  as  effort,  is  as  result  (we  all  know) 
a  grievous  confusion — for  life  cannot  comprehend 
life,  even  when  isolated  and  clarified  by  death. 
This  elemental  truth  has  been  particularly  brought 
home  to  me  of  late  by  the  passing  of  Paul  Carus. 
For  he  was  a  man  so  greatly  and  diversely*  alive, 
with  so  many  interests,  activities,  contacts  sym- 
bolizing and  illustrating  so  many  issues.  But  I  can 
at  least  refuse  to  complicate  the  moment  by  attempt- 
ing to  appraise  him  for  others ;  let  me  set  down  these 
few  paragraphs,  as  if  simply  to  help  myself. 

I  think,  inevitably,  first  of  his  big,  rugged  human- 
ity, so  well  squaring  with  his  philosophy  but  so 
gloriously  untainted  by  that  unctious  serviceability 
of  those  who  practice  humanity  as  a  deduction 
from  their  philosophy.  Profoundly  absorbed  as  he 
was  in  his  own  enterprises  as  publisher,  thinker, 
and  father  in  a  large  household,  he  had  the  zest 
and  the  strength  for  so  many  little  kindnesses  here 
and  there  by  the  way  that  of  themselves  they  would 
alone  constitute  good  works  enough  to  fulfill  and 
justify  any  life  of  three  score  and  ten  lacking  three. 
Not  that  he  could  not  dislike  with  the  same  zest. 
I  have  a  list  of  his  pet  aversions:  certain  pompous 
orators,  tricky  business  men,  smug  politicians,  ver- 
bose philosophers — the  shams  and  the  exploiters. 
But  they  served  only  his  abounding  sense  of  humor 
and  the  bearded  volubility  of  his  table  talk;  there 
was  not  one  of  them  he  could  have  done  a  mean 
turn  even  if  he  had  summoned  to  the  ungracious 
task  all  the  formidable  domination  of  his  unshorn, 
massive  head  and  his  stocky  physique.  A  fighter, 
but  always  in  the  open  and  on  the  square,  indiffer- 
ent to  self,  if  only  the  truth  of  the  object  prevail. 
And  what  might  the  object  be?  Literally,  any- 
thing. For  him  any  thing  was  some  thing:  on  con- 
sciously conceived  principle,  a  some-thing  because 
it  was  a  hint,  a  manifestation  of  one  or  another  of 
those  universal  laws  that  made  the  monistic  world 
he  so  valiantly  preached;  but  more  immediately,  a 
some-thing  because,  merely,  of  his  inveterate  instinct 


to  look  into  and  round  about. .  His  acquisitions 
were  enormous;  in  an  age  of  a  thousand  specialties 
he  seemed  to  take,  like  Bacon,  all  knowledge  for 
his  province.  In  the  course  of  one  morning  at 
La  Salle  he  piloted  me  through  his  father-in-law's 
fuming  zinc  factory,  traversed  Kant,  Alfred  the 
Great,  Empedocles,  and  Gummere's  ballad  theories 
on  the  way  to  the  composing  rooms,  and  then  with 
whimsical  mirth  analyzed  the  character  of  a  huge 
printer  in  his  establishment  who  got  drunk  and 
wanted  to  divorce  a  wizened  wife  for  cruel  and 
abusive  treatment.  All  was  grist  to  his  mill,  grist 
and  not  chaff  or  grit,  and  the  mill  seldom  clogged 
but  continued  to  grind  out  a  definite  brand.  Some 
smaller  mill-owners,  resenting  this,  said  he  showed 
a  lack  of  sense  for  relative  values.  He  showed  the 
same  "  lack  "  in  taking  up  with  incongruous  people. 
In  turning  over  the  pages  of  The  Monist,  The 
Open  Court,  or  his  numerous  books,  besides  vigor- 
ous correspondence  with  such  distinguished  and  ill- 
assorted  friends  as  Ernst  Haeckel,  Tolstoy,  and 
Pere  Hyacinthe,  one  comes  upon  equally  whole- 
hearted discussions  with  up-state  clergymen  in 
Michigan  or  small-town  doctors  in  Illinois — sub- 
scribers doubtless.  But  I  know  it  was  not  editorial 
courtesy  that  prompted  him  to  take  their  thinking 
seriously.  He  took  any  thinking,  or  honest  attempt 
at  thinking,  seriously — because  he  was  too  habit- 
ually close  to  the  great  problems,  and  all  men's 
great  shortcomings  in  dealing  with  the  great  prob- 
lems, to  be  much  impressed  with  the  differences 
between  such  superficialities  as  fame  and  obscurity ; 
and  really  living  his  mission  to  seek  and  to  bring 
light  into  the  world,  he  found  none  who  asked  or 
challenged  too  humble  to  arouse  his  interest.  In 
this,  as  in  so  much  besides,  he  often  reminded  me 
of  my  old  teacher  William  James,  whose  broad- 
gauge  personality  was  cherished  by  this  broad-gauge 
dogmatist  quite  as  warmly  as  his  pluralistic  philos- 
ophy was  repelled.  His  ceaseless  vitality  could  not 
be  exhausted  in  looking  into  and  thinking  about, 
even  in  talking  about.  It  discharged  itself  also  in 
making:  he  had  Veblen's  two  primary  instincts,  the 
instinct  of  craftsmanship  no  less  than  that  of  curi- 
osity. He  expanded  the  Open  Court  Publishing 
Co.  till  it  has  become  veritably  an  "  institution  " 
(vide  the  Evening  Post,  New  York,  September  26, 
1914),  with  distinct  aims  and  methods  and  with 
contacts  all  over  the  world.  The  bibliographical 
summary  of  his  writings  to  1909  is  itself  a  book  of 
213  pages  (Philosophy  As  a  Science).  Once  when 
two  weeks  on  his  back  in  the  hospital  he  wrote  a 
verse-drama  on  Buddha,  not  perhaps  important  as 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


453 


verse  or  drama,  but  still  two  weeks  of  giving  shape 
to  big  thought  instead  of  setting  eyes  to  blank  walls. 
Nothing  but  death  could  keep  his  untiring  spirit 
still. 

Paul  Cams'  name  suggests  many  morals, on  my 
walks  in  the  spring  lanes  out  of  town.  A  graduate 
of  Tubingen  in  1876,  he  found  his  intellectual 
opportunity  in  America,  and  gave  to  America  the 
loyal  services  of  a  grateful  German  soul.  I  thought 
of  Paul  Carus  once  when  a  fellow  Anglo-American 
assured  me  that  every  German-American,  had  he 
stayed  where  he  belonged,  would  still  be  plodding 
about  in  wooden  shoes.  A  man  of  independent 
means  (largely  I  believe  through  his  association 
with  that  sturdy  founder  of  the  zinc  factory  and 
the  Open  Court,  Mr.  Hegeler,  himself  a  German- 
American  and  a  rare  character  with  a  romantic 
history),  he  found  in  money  solely  instruments  of 
liberation,  liberation  for  his  own  intellectual 
growth,  and  liberation  for  leadership  and  public 
service  in  essentially  uncommercial  enterprises.  He 
was  not  your  rich  man  who  writes  out  a  check  for 
a  drinking-fountain,  a  monument,  a  whole  library 
or  university,  and  then  goes  down  to  the  Stock  Ex- 
change to  make  good  the  sacrifice.  He  didn't  even 
spend  his  money  for  illuminated  manuscripts  and 
incunabula.  A  philosopher  by  profession,  but  not 
a  professor  of  philosophy,  he  had  relatively  little 
professional  recognition  in  Academia,  though  he 
was  sometimes  a  lecturer  before  clubs  and  classes. 
Professor  Otto  here  at  Wisconsin  tells  me  of  pick- 
ing him  up  by  chance  in  the  corridor  (the  Carus 
boys  were  at  our  college)  five  minutes  before  the 
hour  and  getting  him  to  talk  to  his  students  on 
Kant — in  a  luminous  and  well-ordered  exposition 
without  notes  or  other  hitches.  But  most  teachers, 
I  suspect,  would  have  begrudged  him  the  hour.  It 
wasn't  jealousy,  for  most  professors  are,  in  the 
security  of  their  ivy  citadels,  without  jealousy — 
except  perhaps  toward  their  fellows  inside  the 
works.  It  wasn't  any  superficiality  in  his  philos- 
ophy— at  least  not  if  they  stopped  to  examine  it — 
for  though,  as  to  theory  of  knowledge,  as  to  the 
concepts  of  energy  and  stuff,  he  may  be  inadequate, 
and  though  his  whole  system  may  be  founded  on  a 
repugnant  technique,  or  dialectic,  his  best  thinking 
(as  in  God,  an  Inquiry  and  a  Solution,  or  Kant's 
Prolegomena)  has  the  unmistakable  note  of  the 
philosopher  as  distinct  both  from  author  of  a  phil- 
osophic monograph  and  from  the  philosophaster  of 
the  middle-class  readers'  magazines.  The  neglect 
seems  to  have  been  due  to  a  number  of  things,  in- 
structive for  the  quizzical  moralizer.  In  the  first 
place,  it  illustrates  the  delimited  hospitality  of  any 
established  cult.  Carus  was  not  in  any  university 
catalogue.  He  hadn't  the,  password.  And  he  didn't 


obey  the  rules,  he  didn't  play  the  game.  His  Eng- 
lish vocabulary,  among  other  things,  was  too  un- 
technical  and  his  English  sentences  too  clear — and 
a  German,  too!  And  he  associated  with  so  many 
intellectual  fools  and  parvenus!  Besides,  he  didn't 
look  natural.  He  couldn't  be  classified  in  any  de- 
partment. He  meddled  with  the  affairs  of  so  many 
"  departments."  Even  inside  the  sacred  walls  a 
man  who  meddles  with  more  than  one  "  depart- 
ment "  is  doomed  as  a  suspect.  Again,  his  pro- 
digious output  was  in  fact  a  disconcerting  farrago. 
If  one  is  as  alert,  many-faceted,  and  fluent  as 
Carus,  he  shouldn't  have  the  use  of  a  personally 
owned  and  controlled  printing  press  always  at  h:s 
elbow.  He  never  took  time  to  write  a  magnum 
opus,  and  was  short  on  footnotes.  Writing  for 
general  enlightenment,  he  frequently  merely  popu- 
larized (sometimes  too  in  rather  slap-stick  fashion) 
facts  already  familiar  enough  to  the  better  informed. 
He  would  intermingle,  with  naive  indifference  to 
ex-cathedral  dignity  and  scholastic  reputation,  fa- 
miliar commonplaces  of  higher  thought  amid  valua- 
ble, original  analysis  of  such  abstruse  affairs  as 
Kant's  inconsistent  threefold  meaning  of  "  experi- 
ence "  and  Aristotle's  inconsistent  fourfold  meaning 
of  "  cause."  Moreover  he  sometimes  made  pal- 
pable blunders  of  fact  or  ventured  on  erratic  guesses 
of  theory.  But,  all  in  all,  such  a  capital  stock  of 
brains,  if  properly  invested,  would  yield  enormous 
returns  of  academic  prestige  in  any  one  of  a  half- 
dozen  departments,  if  not  in  a  whole  college.  And 
finally  there  was  the  paradoxical  character  of  his 
relations  to  modern  thought  and  the  vast  scope  cf 
the  synthesis  he  attempted.  Of  this  a  word  more. 

An  active  champion  of  evolution  in  nature,  man, 
and  man's  institutions  from  the  days  when  the  fight 
was  first  on,  he  still  held  as  firmly  as  Aristotle  or 
the  Schoolmen  to  eternal  norms  of  truth,  and  was 
as  impatient  of  agnosticism  as  was  Huxley's  bishop. 
Indeed  agnosticism,  to  him  "  the  egg-shell  of  meta- 
physicism "  was,  with  mysticism,  one  of  the  few 
typical  isms  of  human  speculative  endeavor  he  could 
not,  or  would  not,  subsume  under  one  or  another 
of  his  principles  of  reconciliation.  There  could  be 
no  such  thing  as  agnosticism  any  longer.  Science  is 
registering  law  after  law;  the  laws  are  the  inter- 
related forms  of  one  universe;  and  the  complex  of 
the  forms  is  "  the  Allhood."  And  the  result  is 
more,  too,  than  positivism.  Man  can  grasp  the 
Allhood  because  he  is  himself  of  the  same  stock. 
Man's  reasoning  is  not  a  subjective  reconstruction 
by  man  for  man :  against  Kant  he  affirms  the  formal 
factors  of  thought  to  be  the  formal  factors  of 
nature;  against  Mill  he  affirms  the  universality  of 
the  principles  of  pure  mathematics  and  pure  logic : 
against  Bergson  he  affirms  the  validity  of  the  Intel- 


454 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


lectual,  rather  than  the  intuitional  approach,  pre- 
cisely because  it  does  break  phenomena  up  into  the 
discreet,  abstract,  formal;  against  James  he  affirms 
that  reason  creates  the  specific  activities  of  the  will, 
far  more  than  the  will  creates  the  activities  of 
belief  and  reason;  against  the  pragmatists  generally, 
that  life  does  not  make  truth  but  truth  life,  re- 
affirming with  the  Stoics  the  injunction  to  follow 
nature  (that  is,  to  learn  the  norms  and  work  with 
them)  and  holding  with  Platonism  against  Nietz- 
sche that  morality  is  conformity  to  an  Eternal,  not 
a  psychological  twist  in  a  temporal  flux.  Withal, 
he  seems  an  old-fashioned  rationalist  in  an  age  that 
has  changed  all  that.  Of  the  two  types  of  explana- 
tion, that  which  stresses  the  principle  of  being  and 
that  which  stresses  the  principle  of  becoming — the 
Eleatic  and  the  Heraclitic,  recurring  in  later  times 
as  Absolute  Idealism  or  Creative  Evolution  (and 
combined  in  The  World  as  Will  and  Idea) — he 
seems  to  have  closer  affiliations  with  the  former. 
But  his  own  pages  are  dedicated  to  bringing  "  all 
that  "  down  to  date.  The  universal  rational  norms 
are  the  very  condition  of  this  recently  discovered 
evolution  that  is  supposed  to  have  dethroned 
rationalism  forever.  As  "  the  immanent  world- 
order  of  uniformities  which  naturally  lead  all  crea- 
tures to  develop  toward  rationality,"  they  reveal 
a  rational  meaning  in  evolution  as  progress:  prog- 
ress is  not  merely  relative,  an  adjustment  between 
organism  and  environment;  it  is  not,  either,  in  any 
increased  differentiation  of  functions  and  organs; 
it  is  measurable  strictly  in  terms  of  approach  toward 
that  intelligence  which  "  mirrors  the  norms " — 
toward  the  powers,  culminating  in  man,  to  achieve 
truth  (which  is  reas/m),  and  to  act  upon  it  (which 
is  morality),  and  to  love  and  reverence  it  (which  is 
religion).  And  so  he  combines  old  and  new,  orth- 
odoxy and  heterodoxy,  science  and  religion,  and  calls 
the  result  Nomotheism  (Greek:  nomos,  law).  The 
laws  of  science — that  is,  the  immanent  world-order 
— have  an  intrinsic  teleology;  determinism  is  still 
freedom  where  the  determinant  is  the  actor's  own 
character;  the  logos — that  is,  the  norm — becomes 
flesh  ever  and  anew;  we  live  and  move  and  have 
our  being  in  God — that  is,  we  are  all  that  we  are 
by  virtue  of  the  cosmic  laws  in  which  we  share. 
We  are  personalities,  souls,  but  Buddha  (to  whom 
Carus  dedicated  some  of  his  best  study  in  books 
now  translated  into  many  tongues,  west  and  east, 
and  used  in  the  temple-schools  of  Japan  and  Cey- 
lon) Buddha  was  right,  as  modern  psychology  is 
beginning  to  realize:  our  souls  are  but  samskaras, 
soul-forms  (for  example,  seeing,  hearing,  thinking) 
with  no  atman,  no  metaphysical  entity,  behind;  and 
salvation,  with  Carus  as  with  Buddha,  means  get- 
ting rid  of  the  illusion  of  self;  and  immortality  is, 


as  with  Buddha,  the  Karma,  the  infinite  and  subtle 
influences  of  our  character  as  men  and  minds,  and 
Dr.  Carus  (so  runs  his  credo)  lives  still,  for  better 
or  for  worse,  in  this  little  essay  and  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  those  who  read  it  (even  as  I  too  live  in  it) ; 
God  is  not  personal  but  super-personal,  nor  the  All 
of  Pantheism  but  the  Allhood  of  Laotze  as  ex- 
pounded in  Dr.  Carus'  own  translations  from  the 
Chinese  (for  Carus'  capital-stock  included,  among 
other  things,  a  Professorship  of  Oriental  Linguis- 
tics.) There  is  no  Umwertung  aller  Werte:  mythol- 
ogy, religion,  philosophy  are  evolution,  are  progress, 
and,  as  it  were,  a  progress  in  understanding  and 
making  ideographs,  alphabets,  metaphors,  symbols. 
Christ  is  true,  but  so  is  Apollo — there  is  no  last 
oracle.  And  Christianity  was  "  the  fulfillment  " 
proclaimed  by  the  Apostle,  the  result  of  antecedent 
historical  and  spiritual  forces,  as  strikingly  pre- 
sented in  his  scholarly  but  popular  little  book  called 
The  Pleromar  and  he  advised  more  than  one  trou- 
bled cleric,  whom  the  times  had  made  shaky  in  the 
faith,  to  stick  to  his  job.  Dr.  Carus  belongs  in 
the  Protestant  manner,  as  Cardinal  Mercier  (today 
so  famous  for  preserving  the  heroic  of  thought  in  the 
heroic  of  action)  belongs  in  the  Catholic  manner,  to 
the  modernists  of  science  who  are  the  mediators  of 
tradition. 

This  hospitality  to  all  points  of  view,  this  reso- 
lution of  factual  opposites  and  logical  antinomies — 
was  it  a  good  or  not?  I  don't  know.  It  doubtless 
helped  to  stabilize  himself  and  many  others  in  an 
age  of  spiritual  shake-ups  and  change.  It  doubt- 
less serves  as  an  impressive  reminder  of  the  organic 
continuity  of  history,  its  institutions  and  creeds. 
But  as  ,a  dialectic  method  it  may  tend  to  obscur- 
antism, however  far  from  the  obscurantism  of 
Hegel.  Certain  things  are  different,  if  only  be- 
cause, as  James  used  to  say,  they  make  a  difference ; 
and  they  should  be  named  differently.  Dr.  Carus 
may  live  on  in  my  thought;  but  I  shall  never  see 
Dr.  Carus  again — because  Dr.  Carus  has  gone  to 
his  long  sleep  and  I  shall  soon  be  going  to  mine, 
and  there  are  no  hands  across  the  seas  of  death. 
The  immortality  of  the  Buddhist's  "  Karma  "  and 
the  immortality  of  the  Christian's  "  personality " 
are  two  different  immortalities;  and  though  the 
latter  might  not  exclude  the  former,  the  former 
has  no  meaning  for  the  latter.  So  too  of  Dr.  Carus' 
"  God."  The  monist  Haeckel,  incorrigible  atheist, 
wrote  him,  "  We  mean  the  same  thing."  And 
Carus  was  never  able  to  make  it  clear  to  me  that 
Haeckel  was  not  right — intellectually.  The  term 
is  possibly  justified  only  when  we  meditate  certain 
human  factors  outside  logical  analysis ;  and  these 
factors  are  at  the  root  of  the  good  (or  the  evil) 
in  the  use  of  many  old  words  for  new  views.  The 


1919 


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455 


symbol  "  God,"  born  of  a  deep  racial  instinct  of 
wonder  and  aspiration  and  dependence  on  the  order 
of  nature,  and  rendered  trebly  sacred  by  the  long 
human  history  so  intertwined  with  it,  saves  for  us 
an  attitude,  an  emotion,  an  imaginative  moment, 
that  the  logically  correct  "  norms  of  existence  "  can 
never  have;  and  Carus'  attitude  of  reverence  and 
love  and  dedication  to  the  logos  may  be  truer  to  the 
sources  and  the  ends  of  man's  life  than  the  defiantly 
"  scientific  "  attitude  we  associate,  rightly  or  wrong- 
ly, with  the  author  of  The  Riddle  of  the  Universe. 
Paul  Carus,  like  so  many  men  of  his  generation, 
suffered  the  spiritual  tragedy  of  a  household  faith  in 
ruins ;  and  the  waves  swept  him  far  out  to  sea.  But 
he  was  a  young  and  vigorous  swimmer,  and  wrestled 
in  the  da^k.  He  found  shore  in  a  new  faith  of 
science,  far  from  all  old  doorwavs.  But  the  old 


emotional  attitude,  the  old  imaginative  moment  had 
not  altered.  So  it  came,  I  think,  that  he  felt  with 
a  peculiar  poignancy  and  depth,  not  amenable  even 
to  his  own  versatile  argument  and  not  communi- 
cable in  any  speech,  the  religious  quality  of  what 
is  logically  speaking,  a  system  of  impersonal  laws, 
infinite  in  time  and  space  and  achieving  self- 
consciousness  (as  far  as  we  know)  only  through 
one  moment  of  eternity  on  one  small  planet  of  one 
of  millions  of  suns  in  the  life  of  that  creature  whose 
destiny  it  is  to  transmute  cosmic  process  into  cosmic 
reason — a  destiny  to  which  Paul  Carus  himself  so 
nobly  bore  witness,  and  to  which  the  masters  of 
the  earth  today,  not  only  in  Paris,  seem  so  trag- 
ically, so  ominously,  indifferent. 

WILLIAM  ELLERY  LEONARD. 


The-  Impending  Revolution  in  Italy 


THE  SUDDEN  and  unexpected  breaking  out  of 
the  European  war  in  1914  Italy  was  just  passing 
through  a  very  hard  and  critical  period  of  unrest, 
as  a  consequence  of  the  victorious  but  difficult  strug- 
gle In  Tripoli  against  Turkey.  The  Italian  prol<f- 
tariat  has  never  approved  and  was  never  willing  to 
start  any  colonial  enterprise,  on  account  of  its  own 
backward  social  conditions.  The  colonial  wars  al- 
ways left  Italy  crushed  under  a  burden  of  heavy 
taxation.  The  working  classes,  spurred  and  upheld 
by  their  sense  of  solidarity  and  of  their  own  common 
interests,  warned  the  government  of  the  danger  that 
its  policy  was  precipitating  upon  the  whole  nation, 
sending  it  in  the  direction  of  new  ruins  and  disas- 
ters. 

But  even  the  young  kingdom  of  Italy  had  in  itself 
and  had  fomented  in  others  the  imperialistic  desires 
that  are  common  to  kingdoms.  It  had  visions  of 
a  larger  country  and  new  lands  to  exploit.  From 
the  point  of  view  of  the  new  and  audacious  financial 
and  industrial  classes  of  northern  Italy  this  policy 
might  have  been  excusable,  but  central  and  southern 
Italy  are  poor  and  industrially,  agriculturally,  and 
financially  undeveloped.  Besides  this,  the  taxation 
system  of  Italy  is  a  most  unjust  one,  both  in  its  sys- 
tem and  in  its  administration.  The  average  per  capita 
rate  of  contribution  to  the  budget  of  the  government 
is  greater  in  central  and  southern  Italy  than  in  the 
more  prosperous  north.  This  want  of  equilibrium  in 
the  system  of  taxation  inevitably  results  in  a  simi- 
larly unbalanced  ratio  of  benefits  from  the  govern- 
ment. 

Italy  is  absolutely  dependent  upon  outside  coun- 
tries. Its  resources — grain,  cotton,  coal,  and  iron — 


are  needed  for  the  industries  of  the  country  itself. 
Yet  before  its  entry  into  the  great  war  Italy  im- 
ported more  than  a  billion  of  francs  more  value  than 
its  exports  amounted  to.  It  was  on  the  market,  a  cus- 
tomer of  Germany,  England,  France,  Austria-Hun- 
gary, and  of  the  United  States,  and  if  these  nations 
ever  closed  their  market  Italy  would  be  strangled  in 
a  very  short  time.  Therefore,  because  of  its  geograph- 
ical position,  its  financial  and  industrial  needs,  and 
further  because  of  its  political  and  traditional  ties 
of  sympathy  with  England,  Italy  "entered  the  war, 
"  bargaining  "  for  the  best  of  her  "  sacro  egoismo." 
The  beginning  of  this  war  found  Italy  already  at 
the  point  of  exhaustion  as  a  result  of  the  Tripoli  war, 
which  cost  over  a  billion  lire.  The  working  classes 
were  absolutely  opposed  to  any  further  war  venture 
and  they  went  into  the  fight  grudgingly,  their  hearts 
filled  with  resentment.  The  protests  of  the  Socialist 
party  were  unheard.  Violence,  corruption,  excep- 
tional laws  conquered  every  opposition.  Italy  had 
to  fight. 

Italy,  the  country  that  had  for  years  opposed  any 
real  program  of  reform  in  favor  of  the  working 
people,  using  as  her  excuse  the  meagerness  of  her 
treasury,  now  threw  millions  and  millions  of  dol- 
lars into  a  war  to  realize  her  dreams  of  revenge  and 
territorial  aggrandizement.  During  four  years 
Italy  has  suffered  as  no  other  country.  She  de- 
stroyed the  best  of  her  human  stock,  she  destroyed 
her  forests,  her  farms,  abandoned  all  her  public 
works,  especially  in  the  south,  and  stripped  of  every- 
thing of  value  her  already  miserable  peasants  who, 
more  than  any  other  class,  gave  to  the  war  their 
blood  and  their  resources.  The  public  debt  which 


456 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


was  fifteen  billions  of  lire  before  the  war  is  to- 
day seventy-five  billions  of  lire.  Three-fourths  of 
the  national  wealth,  which  is  estimated  at  one  hun- 
dred billions  of  lire,  is  mortgaged.  The  interest 
alone  on  her  debt,  at  the  rate  of  four  per  cent,  will 
cost  Italy  three  billions  of  lire  annually.  Let  us 
take  statistics  from  the  official  records  of  the  coun- 
try in  normal  times,  just  preceding  the  war. 

Year         Revenues  Expenditures  Surplus         Peficit 

(lire)                (lire)  (lire)  (lire) 

1909-10  2,237,260,000  2,204,960,000  32,300,000 

1910-11   2,403,390,000  2,391,820,000  11,570,000 

1911-12  2,475,350,000  2,587,180,000  111,830,000 

1912-13   2,528,870,000  2,786,370,000  257,500,000 

1913-14  2,523,750,000  2,687,660,000  163,910,000 

The  question  which  arises  spontaneously  on  the 
lips  of  every  person  of  common  sense  who  reads 
these  figures  is:  How  can  Italy  pay  the  interest  on 
her  debts?  (Many  of  them  are  contracted  with 
foreign  countries.) 

Here  is  a  nation  in  an  absolutely  unique  situation, 
not  to  be  compared  with  that  of  any  other  country 
in  the  world.  Italy  has  no  gold,  no  raw  material, 
no  superabundant  capital,  no  great  world-famed 
captains  of  industry.  Her  only  wealth  is  a  thrifty, 
intelligent,  and  productive  peasantry,  and  of  this 
wealth  she  has  an  abundant  store,  with  a  great 
reservoir  of  natural  strength  and  ability,  which  will 
play  a  great  part  in  the  building  of  a  new  society. 
Italy's  central  government  has  been  for  the  past 
half  century,  \vith  few  exceptions,  formed  of  men 
entirely  unfit  for  any  public  office.  They  are  usually 
appointed  from  or  chosen  by  groups  of  parliamen- 
tary camarillas  who  represent  petty  bourgeois  pro- 
vincial interests.  Never  in  this  time  has  there  been 
a  man  of  large  vision  who  could  see  or  outline  a 
consistent  Italian  policy,  a  democratic  policy.  The 
Parliament  has  been  an  obedient  and  manageable 
instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  Conservative  party, 
and  it  is  lately  in  the  hands  of  the  Free  Masons. 
The  kings  of  Italy  swung  from  reaction  to  a  hypo- 
critical ostentation  of  democracy.  The  actual  ruler, 
very  shortsightedly  forgetting  the  teachings  of  past 
history  and  events,  assumed  for  himself  the  right  to 
throw  Italy  into  the  war. 

So  in  ignoring  the  Socialist  Party,  the  Confedera- 
zione  del  Lavoro,  and  the  Unione  Sindacale  Italiana 
— the  government,  the  statesmen,  the  king,  the 
parties,  pushed  Italy  over  the  brink  of  an  abyss,  for- 
getting everything  but  the  war,  neither  understand- 
ing nor  trying  to  understand  the  real  feelings  and 
conditions  of  the  working  classes.  Even  the  pro- 
posed and  hotly  discussed  great  reform  of  "  The 
Land  to  the  Peasants  "  can  no  longer  seduce  the 
working  classes.  They  know  too  well  that  this  re- 
form does  not  abolish  the  private  rights  of  property 
but  changes  only  its  management,  leaving  to  the 


proprietor  the  right  of  living  off  the  land.  Nor  can 
the  returning  soldiers  be  omitted  from  the  equation. 
At  the  front 'they  heard  of  useless  sacrifices  of  their 
comrades,  due  to  faults  and  mistakes  of  their  com- 
mandants. When  they  return  they  find  themselves 
and  their  families  and  villages  in  desperate  plight, 
helpless,  penniless,  hungry,  suffering.  They  wander 
like  ghosts,  cursing  the  responsible  "  Signori  "  who 
wanted  the  dreadful  war.  The  situation  in  southern 
Italy  is  terrible,  no  less.  'Here  the  peasants  depend 
mostly  upon  the  products  of  agriculture.  Right  here 
one  strikes  the  first  spirit  of  revolt.  The  peasants' 
psychology  is  very  simple,  direct,  clear,  and  because 
of  its  very  simplicity  is  in  a  position  to  interpret  and 
understand  society  and  the  relation  of  the  peasant  to 
"  higher  authority."  They  have  been  told  for  years 
that  the  defeat  of  the  "  ancient  enemy  "  would  bring 
freedom  and  prosperity  to  the  poorer  classes.  They 
have,  ordinarily,  no  interest  in  political  matters.  But 
as  soon  as  they  perceive  that  they  have  been  duped, 
used,  deceived  by  false  promises,  they  go  back  in 
their  minds  and  memories  to  other  disastrous  adven- 
tures— the  Abysinnian  War,  Tripoli — and  they 
realize  that  it  is  but  the  same  tragic  story  in  a  new- 
cloak. 

And  they  need  but  to  realize  this  to  become  spon- 
taneously and  immediately  revolutionists.  They  see 
men  who  a  few  years  ago  were  without  a  span  of 
land  and  who  today  are  rich.  How?  Why?  All 
their  own  sufferings,  like  the  clouds  before  a  storm, 
gather  in  their  exasperated  brains,  and  it  is  but  a 
step  from  that  point  to  open  violence.  In  1894  dur- 
ing  the  bloody  revolts  of  Sicily  the  peasant  vented  his 
hatred  upon  the  little  stations  of  the  municipal  im- 
port duty,  thinking  that  these  were  the  culprits  who 
were  to  blame  for  all  his  unendurable  misery.  He 
cannot  be  so  deceived  again.  Now  he  experiences  all 
the  different  stages  of  moral,  mental,  and  physical 
crises — war,  death,  disease,  hunger,  grief,  privations 
— and  his  heart  burns  for  justice,  for  human  sym- 
pathy, for  solidarity. 

And  the  industrial  worker  of  northern  and  cen- 
tral Italy  shares  the  resentment  of  his  brother  in  the 
south.  What  matters  it  that  he  has  made  money 
out  of  the  war,  because  of  the  higher  wages,  when 
there  has  been  no  food  in  the  markets  for  himself 
and  his  family?  And  in  addition  the  proletarians 
of  the  large  cities  have  found  during  the  war  that 
there  are  organizations  for  their  benefit,  class  or- 
ganizations, the  Socialist  party,  and  he  has  learned 
to  trust  them.  Here  is  the  kernel  of  the  matter.  It 
cannot  be  denied  that  the  labor  organizations  and 
the  Socialist  party  are  the  only  hope  of  the  Italinn 
workers.  No  other  party  or  faction  or  group  from 
the  Conservatives  to  the  Republicans,  from  the 
Catholics  to  the  Democrats,  has  the  confidence  and 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


457 


support  of  the  working  masses.  The  Socialist  party, 
with  its  uncompromising  attitude,  composed  of  men 
fearless,  honest,  combative,  every  moment  in  close 
touch  with  the  workingmen,  has  the  key  of  the  whole 
situation. 

A  few  weeks  ago  in  Milan,  the  greatest  indus- 
trial center  of  Italy,  at  a  meeting  of  thousands  of 
workers  organized  to  protest  against  the  holding 
of  political  prisoners  and  to  demand  the  evacuation 
6f  Italian  troops  from  Russia,  a  Socialist  representa- 
tive defined  the  situation  sharply  and  clearly,  amidst 
thunders  of  applause  from  the  crowds.  "  The 
Italian  bourgeoisie  is  bankrupt.  The  state  which 
represents  it  is  bankrupt.  It  matters  not  that  bank- 
ruptcy has  not  been  declared.  It  exists.  Every 
public  service  in  the  state  is  disorganized.  Un- 
employment is  growing.  There  is  nothing  to  meet 
and  face  the  needs  of  the  people.  The  state  and 
the  bourgeoisie  have  no  solution."  (Voice:  "It  is 
true.  We  need  revolution.")  "  Even  if  Italy  has 
won  a  military  victory  by  sacrificing  a  half-million 


of  its  workers,  it  has  been  defeated  economically. 
Our  problem  now  is  to  feed  the  people,  and  the 
bourgeoisie  cannot  feed  them.  Only  if  the  revolution 
in  Russia,  in  Germany,  in  Austria  succeeds  will  it 
be  possible  to  obtain  food  from  the  East." 

Such  is  the  plain  expression'  of  the  men  who  will 
be  in  the  saddle  of  the  new  Italy  tomorrow.  No 
other  remedy  can  be  successful.  The  giving  to 
Italy  of  all  she  demands  from  the  Peace  Conference 
will  not  change  by  a  hair's  breadth  the  swing  of 
the  pendulum  of  her  fate.  A  country  of  many 
revolutionary  traditions,  in  the  most  precarious 
social  unrest,  party  strife;  a  mass  of  people  held 
under  the  most  brutal  iron  heel  of  military  discip- 
line for  the  past  four  years;  with  revolutionary 
parties  who  unceasingly  spealc,  write,  organize,  and 
incite  the  workers  and  the  peasants  to  solidarity, 
Italy  is  at  a  crucial  hour  of  a  great  revolution.  No 
magician  has  yet  arisen  to  avert  the  social  deluge. 

.'     'FLAVIO  VENANZI. 


The  Montagu-Chelmsford  Reform  Proposals 


XTLs  IN  EVERY  OTHER  COUNTRY,  so  in  India  eco- 
nomic factors  play  a  predominant  part  in  the  politi- 
cal situation.  Any  constitutional  reform  proposal 
to  be  of  any  practical  value  to  the  people  should 
solve  economic  grievances  in  a  way  satisfactory  to 
them  with  an  eye  to  their  real  interests,  and  not  to 
the  interests  of  a  few  special  or  "  kept  "  classes. 

To  understand  the  effect  which  the  new  Montagu- 
Chelmsford  Reform  Report,  if  adopted,  will  have 
upon  the  Indian  masses,  it  is  necessary  to  study  the 
economic  side  of  the  proposal.  The  extent  to  which 
the  proposed  reforms  embodied  in  this  scheme  will 
benefit  India's  millions  is  really  the  extent  of  its 
value.  Throughout  the  whole  of  this  record,  admir- 
able for  its  bulk,  its  excellent  English,  and  its  clever- 
ness, there  are  few  provisions  for  solving  the  eco- 
nomic needs  of  India — needs  which  are  vital  to  the 
peace  and  tranquillity  of  the  people  and  the  country. 
The  document  abounds  in  changes;  but  they  are 
merely  political  changes,  with  checks  and  counter- 
checks, limitations  and  provisos,  and  the  authors 
seem  entirely  lacking  in  ability  to  discern  and  un- 
derstand the  real  economic  problems  of  the  people, 
the  solution  of  which  is  more  necessary  than  the  in- 
crease of  a  carefully  chosen  electorate,  or  similar 
purely  political  institutions.  Where  the  report 
touches,  or  can  be  construed  to  touch,  the  economic 
problem,  it  is  found  that  the  whole  function  of 
the  proposed  reform  is  to  safeguard  a  few  special 
interests.  Or,  to  quote  directly  from  the  report,  "to 


protect  capital,  credit,  and  indeed  property,  with- 
out discrimination." 

India  is  at  present  an  agricultural  country.  It 
possesses  a  phenomenally  fertile  soil.  It  has  an  area 
of  about  1,820,000  square  miles,  or  about  two-thirds 
that  of  the  United  Sjtates.  Still  almost  two-thirds 
of  its  population  are  supported  directly  by  agricul- 
ture and  the  subordinate  industry  of  cattle  raising. 
If  the  number  indirectly  supported  by  these  indus- 
tries be  included,  the  proportion  dependent  upon 
them  would  rise  to  nine-tenths.  In  the  United 
States  the  proportion  dependent  upon  agriculture, 
directly  and  indirectly,  is  only  three-tenths  of  the 
entire  population.  In  other  words,  because  of  scien- 
tific methods,  modern  implements,  and  a  broader 
education,  an  American  farmer  does  the  wrork  of 
six  Indian  ryots  (farmers). 

One  would  naturally  expect  that  any  reform  con- 
ceived for  India  would  be  executed  on  behalf  of 
this  vast  peasant  class.  Yet  nowhere  in  the  new 
.reform  scheme  is  there  mention  of  any  change  which 
might  improve  its  conditions.  Under  the  proposed 
reforms,  Indians — natives  of  the  land,  owners  of 
the  soil  of  India — are  granted  more  voice  in  the 
legislative  bodies.  If  the  representatives  of  the 
people,  sitting  in  legislative  bodies,  attempt  to  solve 
problems  arising  out  of  their  own  domestic  affairs 
in  a  manner  which  may  make  India  more  of  an  in- 
dustrial and  less  of  an  agricultural  country — a  pro- 
cedure which  wourd  be  for  India's  benefit — or  if 


458 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


they  should  attempt  innovations  which  might  be  em- 
barrassing to  the  supreme  authority  of  the  British 
Government,  the  Governor-General  in  Council  is 
given  the  power  to  intervene  and  to  veto  such  a 
move,  on  the  plea  that  it  "threatens  the  stability  of 
the  country."  Article  V  of  the  Summary  of  Rec- 
ommendations, which  follows,  will  be  the  strong 
veto  weapon  in  the  hands  of  the  Governor-General : 

The  Government  of  India  [is]  to  preserve  indisput- 
able authority  adjudged  by  it  to  be  essential  in  the  dis- 
charge of  its  responsibilities  for  peace,  order,  and  good 
government. 

The  following  quotation,  also  taken  from  the  re- 
port, further  gives  the  attitude  of  the  supreme 
authority  in  the  land  toward  the  people  subject 
to  it: 

And  while  we  do  everything  that  we  can  to  encourage 
Indians  to  settle  their  own  problems  for  themselves, 
we  [the  Governor-General  in  Council]  must  retain 
power  to  restrain  them  from  seeking  to  do  so  in  a  way 
that  would  threaten  to  destroy  the  stability  of  the  coun- 
try. .  .  He,  [the  ryot],  must  not  be  exposed  to  the 
risk  of  oppression  by  people  who  are  stronger  and 
cleverer  than  he  is,  and  until  it  is  clear  that  his  inter- 
ests can  safely  be  left  in  his  own  hands,  or  that  the  legis- 
lative council  represents  and  considers  his  interests,  we 
must  retain  power  to  protect  him. 

Or,  in  other  words,  the  authors  of  the  scheme 
believe,  or  seem  to  believe  that,  unlike  the  represen- 
tatives of  any  self-governing  country,  the  represen- 
tative of  the  people  of  India  are  incapable  of  look- 
ing after  the  interests  of  the  Indian  peasants,  while 
they,  the  British,  are  above  criticism  in  this  respect. 
The  quotation  further  infers  that  the  Indian  rep- 
resentatives do  not  represent  the  ryot  or  consider 
their  interests.  Yet  this  would  not  be  true  if  the 
franchise  were  granted  to  other  than  selected  groups 
whose  representatives  are  incapable,  as  are  the  Brit- 
ish themselves,  of  considering  the  interests  of  any 
save  themselves.  It  is  a  clever  political  reform  which 
says:  "You  do  not  represent  the  people,  and  we  re- 
fuse to  give  you  the  power  to  do  so.  But  we  have 
the  power  and  we  are,  therefore,  capable  of  this 
benevolent  duty." 

But  just  what  sort  of  interest  in  the  peasant  class 
the  alien  rulers  possess  may  readily  be  inferred  from 
a  study  of  the  economic  policy  of  British  rule  in 
India,  as  well  as  from  the  recommendations  em- 
bodied in  Chapters  344,  345,  and  346,  which  con- 
cern themselves  with  special  classes  and  interests. 
The  economic  policy  which  obtains  in  India  has  re- 
duced the  country  to  the  status  of  "a  hewer  of  wood 
and  drawer  of  water,"  an  expression  used  by  Mr. 
Austen  Chamberlain,  the  ex-Secretary  of  State.  All 
Indian  industries  and  handicrafts  have  been  ruined 
by  restrictive  and  repressive  measures,  both  political 
and  economical ;  industrial  backwardness  has  always 
been  fostered  and  encouraged  in  the  interests  of 


British  manufacturers;  the  countervailing  excise 
duty  on  locally  manufactured  cotton  goods,  and  the 
maintenance  of  a  Stores  Department  at  the  India 
Office  in  London,  are  eloquent  symbols  of  the  ex- 
ploiting economic  policy  of  the  administrators  who 
now  profess  to  hold  so  close  to  their  hearts  the  wel- 
fare of  the  Indian  ryot. 

Though  .  .  .  the  standard  of  living  among  the 
peasant  class  has  improved  perceptibly  of  late  years, 
there  is  still  no  great  margin  of  taxable  capacity, 
[Italics  mine.] 

This  sentence  from  the  report  again  exposes  the 
kind  of  concern  in  the  peasant  held  by  the  governing 
class.  The  governing  class  has  but  one  interest,  and 
that  is  to  levy  taxes.  Witness  the  confession  that 
the  ryot  is  today  taxed  to  his  fullest  possible  capac- 
ity. This  in  itself  is  sufficient  condemnation  of  an 
administration  which  has  brought  such  unspeakable 
poverty.  Yet  the  authors  of  the  reform  scheme  are 
searching  for  new  sources  of  revenue  of  taxation. 
While  thus  searching  they  have  turned  their  eyes 
to  industrial  development,  which  is  the  prime  source 
of  revenue  in  modern,  self-governing  countries. 

Practically  every  well-poised,  up-to-date  country 
in  the  world  has  a  fiscal  policy  which,  in  one  way 
or  the  other,  fosters  home  industries  through  pro- 
tective tariffs,  dumpings,  and  subsidies.  Even  the 
self-governing  colonies  of  the  British  Empire  enjoy 
this  privilege  to  the  full  extent.  Only  in  India  is 
the  fiscal  policy  designed  to  suppress  (Indian)  in- 
dustries and  handicrafts,  and  hamper  the  develop- 
ment of  natural  resources — all  in  the  interests  of 
English  capitalists  and  manufacturers.  India's  fis- 
cal policy  is  dictated  from  Westminster  by  a  few 
of  the  "kept"  classes;  they  are  not  even  the  Indian 
"kept"  class. 

The  authors  of  the  present  scheme  have  come  for- 
ward with  a  policy  for  industrial  development.  But 
even  in  this  they  are  not  as  altruistic  as  may  appear 
on  the  face  of  the  proposal. 

Both  on  economic  and  military  grounds,  Imperial  in- 
terests also  demand  that  the  natural  resources  of  India 
should  be  better  utilized.  We  cannot  measure  the  access 
of  strength  which  an  industrialized  India  will  bring  to 
the  power  of  the  Empire.  .  .  The  war  has  thrown 
a  strong  light  on  the  military  importance  of  economic 
development.  We  know  that  the  possibility  of  sea  com- 
munications being  temporarily  interrupted,  forces  us  to 
rely  on  India,  as  an  ordnance  base  for  protective  opera- 
tions for  eastern  theatres  of  war. 

Herein  lies  the  true  reason  for  the  avowed  "forward 
policy  " :  India  is  strategically  needed  for  a  military 
and  ordnance  base  for  operations  in  the  East.  As 
nowadays  the  products  of  an  industrially  developed 
community  coincide  so  nearly  "in  kind,  though  not 
in  quantity,  with  the  catalogue  of  munitions  of 
war,"  so  the  authors  of  the  scheme  are  concerned 
with  an  industrialized  India — not  for  the  interests 


THE  DIAL 


459 


of  India  however,  but  as  an  asset  of  strength  "  to 
the  Empire  for  Imperial  interests."  The  great  in- 
ternational importance  of  India  is  thus  revealed : 
in  the  past  converted  into  a  producer  of  raw  mate- 
rial for  a  special  purpose ;  in  the  future,  converted 
into  an  industrialized  country,  not  for  its  own  de- 
velopment, but  to  be  used  as  a  base  for  an  Eastern 
theater  of  war.  And  a  war  for  whom  and  for 
what?  Perhaps  the  world  will  be  told  that  it  is  to 
save  India  from  subjugation  by  a  foreign  power! 

Will  India  be  allowed  to  have  measures  of  pro- 
tective tariffs  for  the  development  and  protection 
of  its  own  industries?  Not  according  to  the  report 
if,  by  so  doing,  India  jeopardizes  the  interests  of 
British  manufacturers.  It  must  not  be  allowed  "to 
penalize  imported  articles  without  respect  of  ori- 
gin"— meaning,  of  course,  those  of  British  origin. 
To  safeguard  this  phase  of  tariff  regulations — 
in  other  words,  to  safeguard  British  manufactured 
articles — the  Governor-General  in  Council  retains 
absolute  veto  power  over  tariff  measures  passed  by 
the  representatives  of  India  in  their  Legislative 
Council.  For  political  expediency  and  military 
necessity  the  Government  will  act  as  guide  in  the 
development  of  natural  resources,  but  these  must  be 
subjected  to  the  interests  of  the  British  Empire.  In- 
dia's development  is  to  be,  not  for  her  own  advance- 
ment, protection,  and  gain,  but  only  so  far  as  is 
needed  for  the  interests  of  the  Empire  for  "strength- 
ening India's  connection  with  the  Empire."  India 
exists  for  the  interests  of  the  Empire  and  must  serve 
as  needed  and  directed,  and  not  in  her  own  way! 

The  reform  proposals  also  give  the  Governor- 
General  in  Council  absolute  veto  power  over  meas- 
ures passed  by  the  Legislative  Council,  which  might 
be  looked  upon  with  disfavor  by  certain  special  in- 
terests, such  as  the  European  community,  the  Chris- 
tian missions,  the  Eurasian  community,  each  of 
which  belongs  to  what  Thorstein  Veblen,  in  a  re- 
cent issue  of  THE  DIAL,  has  styled  "kept  classes," 
and  the  class  of  "vested  interests."  The  authors 
of  the  scheme  seem  to  be  particularly  anxious  to 
safeguard  the  interests  of  the  non-official  European 
community.  In  main,  this  class  is  engaged  in  com- 
mercial enterprises,  but  it  also  includes  Christian 
missions,  whose  dignitaries,  unlike  those  of  other 
religious  denominations,  are  supported  by  Indian 
taxpayers  from  Indian  revenues.  The  non-official 
European  community  also  includes  European  pen- 
sioners living  in  the  "cooler  parts  of  the  country." 

It  is  the  British  commercial  interests  that  drain 
the  country  of  the  wealth  which  ought  to  be  retained. 
But  again,  lest  India's  representatives  raise  a  voice 
in  their  Legislature  against  this  unjust  drain,  the 
Governor-General  in  Council  retains  the  absolute 
power  to  keep  this  drain  a-fiowing.  The  report  states : 


It  is  our  duty  to  reserve  to  the  Government  the  power 
to  protect  any  industry  from  prejudicial  attack  or  priv- 
ileged competition. 

Here,  again,  India  will  be  allowed  to  develop  her 
industries  only  in  a  way  such  as  will  safeguard 
"vested  interests."  These  "vested  interests"  must 
be  protected  from  prejudicial  attack  or  privileged 
competition.  All  the  power  and  force  of  the  alien 
administration  is  there  to  look  after  the  good  be- 
havior of  India's  representatives.  The  missionaries 
and  the  Eurasian  community  have  long  been  indi- 
rectly, if  not  directly,  encouraged  by  the  theory  df 
absolutism  to  inculcate  in  the  illiterate  masses  ideas 
of  their  inferiority.  The  authors  of  the  present 
scheme,  therefore,  are  determined  to  protect  the  in- 
terests of  these  communities  against  "impositions" 
by  the  representatives  of  India  which  might 
jeopardize  their  privileged  positions.  Imperialism 
in  India,  as  well  as  in  every  other  country  outside 
of  Japan,  assumes  as  its  first  tenet  the  superiority 
of  white  rulers,  and  every  precaution  is  taken  in  the 
new  reform  scheme  to  perpetuate  this  theory.  Any 
action  taken  by  India's  representatives  to  challenge 
this  assumption  will  face  the  supreme  veto  power  of 
the  Governor-General. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  the  Montagu-Chelmsford  Re- 
port is  almost  entirely  political  in  scope;  but  even 
then  it  has  not  met  the  very  moderate  political  de- 
mands of  the  Indian  National  Congress  and  the 
All  India  Muslim  League.  It  has  been  forced  by 
the  growth  of  the  separatist  movement  in  India. 
This  latter  movement  owes  its  origin  as  much  to 
economic  injustice,  economic  inequalities,  and  eco- 
nomic exploitation  as  to  political  injustice.  India's 
grievances  have  been  accumulating  for  a  century; 
they  have  given  birth  to  the  separatist  movement. 
The  reform  proposal  hopes  to  solve  these  problems; 
yet  every  safeguard  is  used  to  maintain  the  status 
quo  in  the  policy  of  economic  exploitation. 

Political  concessions  without  economic  reform 
will  count  for  little  in  India.  The  economic  situa- 
tion is  the  root  cause  of  political  difficulties,  and 
economic  grievances  create  political  grievances.  Un- 
less these  problems  are  solved  in  time,  in  the  right 
way,  a  political  and  social  upheaval  may  be  the  re- 
sult. But  reforms  offered  should  not  be  half- 
hearted, suspicious  adventures,  the  purpose  of  which 
is  to  emasculate  opposition  without  meeting  the  de- 
mands of  India  and  solving  the  root  cause  of 
agitation. 

India  presents  this  reform  bill  in  entirety  to  the 
world  and  wishes  to  know  if  this  is  what  is  meant 
by  the  expressions  "self-determination"  and  "un- 
Jictated  self-development"  of  nations. 

SAILENDRA  NATH  GHOSE. 


460 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


The  Passing  of  Classicism 


I 


N  THE  REPUBLIC  of  letters  a  book  ought  to 
have  good  reason  for  existing — it  would  simplify 
life  incalculably  for  all  readers,  and  make  the  lives 
of  uninspired  writers  much  less  irksome.  And  yet 
Mr.  Cox  unreasonably  insists  that  it  is  the  obvious 
that  is  ever  being  forgotten  or  denied,  and  therefore 
the  obvious  that  needs  constant  reassertion.  Such  a 
claim  sums  up  the  merciless  raison-d'etr'e  of  a  book 
Concerning  Painting,  (Scribner)  no  less  indifferent 
for  having  been  carefully  written.  It  is  accordingly 
a  clarification  rather  than  a  contribution,  a  sheaf  of 
occasional  and  consecutive  papers  on  the  history  of 
painting,  originally  addressed  to  an  immature  public 
of  students,  and  amateurs.  Guarded  as  its  preten- 
sions are,  it  is  neither  free  from  pedantry  nor  com- 
placence. In  fact  our  author  sails  down  the  dim 
centuries,  past  what  he  calls  "  the  golden  age,"  into 
the  placid  shallows  of  American  painting,  altogether 
like  a  vessel  of  sweetness  and  light,  distributing  his 
gifts  generously,  but  seldom  illuminating  the  dark- 
ness. 

Yet  it  would  be  ungracious  not  to  add  that  Mr. 
Cox  came  to  his  subject  with  special  qualifications. 
If  not  a  constructive  thinker,  he  was  sane  and  cir- 
cumspect, unlikely  to  slip  up  on  external  details, 
while  he  kept  safe  and  warm  within  him  the  invio- 
lable principles  .of  his  solemn  esthetic.  He  was  one 
of  the  few  artistic  practitioners  who  had  mature 
convictions  about  painting.  He  was  one  of  a  very 
small  number  of  writers  upon  art  in  whom  an  easy 
and  innocent  public  reposed  its  ultimate  remnant  of 
faith,  because  he  was  at  the  same  time  a  craftsman. 

But — and  it  is  here  that  the  obvious  pleads  for 
reassertion — the  activities  of  art  and  criticism  are 
profoundly  antinomian  and  disparate,  and  each  must 
forever  remain  prejudicial  to  the  other.  A  prudent 
Providence  has  given  the  painter  freedom  of  all  the 
fruits  of  his  boundless  paradise  but  denied  him  that 
of  the  knowledge  of  what  is  good  and  what  is  bad. 
For  the  concern  of  the  artist  is  chiefly  with  an  opera- 
tion, that  of  the  critic  with  a  result — that  of  the  one 
with  the  mechanics  of  externalization,  that  of  the 
other  with  the  consummation.  What  the  artist 
creates  by  a  vital  act  of  imaginative  synthesis  the 
critic  reconstructs  by  imaginative  sympathy.  His 
function  involves  a  greater  variety  of  faculties,  and 
the  ideal  critic  is  accordingly  put  together  of  high 
susceptibilities,  range  and  freedom  of  the  imagina- 
tion, and  a  clear  gift  for  self-analysis.  He  is  "  pro- 
tean "  and  expansive.  He  is  also  learned  and  dis- 
cerning. His  delicate  business  is  to  interpret  a  work 
of  art  through  infinitely  fluid,  responsive  emotions. 


But  the  adventure  as  well  as  the  history  of  the 
painter  is  intensive,  individual,  and  constraining. 
His  style  evolves  by  a  process  of  involution ;  by  re- 
ciprocal confinement  and  consolidation  of  the  crea- 
tive materials;  by  bringing  the  pictorial  idea,  the 
pictorial  symbol,  and  the  pictorial  performance  into 
close  cooperation.  The  more  nearly  complete  this  in- 
ner alliance,  the  more  individual  the  creative  ele- 
ments, the  more  intense  their  activity,  the  more  deep- 
ly determined  his  taste.  It  will,  consequently,  bias  his 
judgment.  For  in  the  episode  of  stylistic  formation 
the  painter  drifts  into  orthodoxies  of  his  own,  with 
private  ritual  and  private  dread  of  heresy.  The 
objects  of  his  idolatry  may  even  be  predicted.  He 
may  be  counted  on  to  look  for  his  own  reflection  in 
the  works  of  others,  and  his  chest  will  swell  with 
pious  exaltation  before  works  that  betray  similar 
procedure  or  aims  kindred  to  his  own. 

The  insulation  of  taste  and  of  standards  is  the 
result  partly  of  defensory  measures  the  conscientious 
individual  must  take  against  the  quantitative  ideal 
of  modern  civilization.  In  the  day  when  the  aver- 
age mind  was  of  a  more  imaginative  order  and  each 
separate  communal  world  rejoiced  in  common  intel- 
lectual and  spiritual  possessions,  as  in  the  Italian 
Renaissance  for  example,  the  individual  was  shaped 
by  the  total  growth  of  culture  and  society;  and  the 
painter's  taste,  with  its  roots  in  the  genius  of  his 
people  and  his  time,  was  indeed  typical  and  authori- 
tative. But  in  this  age,  and  in  our  country  most  of 
all,  the  creative  activities  encounter  great  difficulties. 
In  the  dearth  of  acknowledged  norms,  of  early 
standardized  training,  with  an  unkindly  or  indif- 
ferent or  insensible  world  spinning  round  him,  the 
artist  avdws  no  higher  authority  than  his  own,  and 
his  taste  must  contract  until  it  becomes  personal 
and  eccentric. 

With  Mr.  Cox  taste  had  settled  into  something 
like  fastidiousness,  received  the  vesture  of  a  formula 
and  the  glorification  of  a  canon.  Being  what  is 
vulgarly  called  a  "  classicist,"  his  canon  would  have 
been  the  canon  of  correctness.  And  as  he  followed 
it  in  his  painting,  he  could  not  have  failed  to  apply 
it  to  the  painting  of  others.  It  is  as  easy  to  guess 
that  our  egregious  author  found  the  embodiment  of 
his  "  canonized  "  ideal  in  the  academic  genius  of 
Leonardo,  Raphael,  Rubens,  and  a  group  of  painters 
more  nearly  of  our  own  time,  who  like  himself  have 
covered  beautiful  wall-spaces  with  ineffably  tire- 
some decorations. 

As  his  position  was  essentially  uncritical,  so  his 
method  was  shallow,  traditional,  and  dogmatic.  In 


IQI9 


THE  DIAL 


461 


a  philosophic  exordium  Mr.  Cox  set  himself  to 
abstract  from  the  history  of  art — and  what  he  was 
pleased  to  decide  are  its  eras  of  greatest  progress — 
its  eternal  characteristics,  and  he  was  persuaded 
that  from  its  first  appearance  painting  has  been  an 
art  of  representation.  No  theory  could — both  for 
its  tradition  and  its  plausibility — be  more  flattering. 
It  has  all  the  sanctions  of  logic.  Does  not  our 
whole  system  of  imagery  derive  from  the  objects  of 
natural  life?  They  constitute  the  icdnography  of 
the  mind  and  become,  by  necessity,  the  notation  in 
which  painting  realizes  itself.  Only  be  it  remem- 
bered that  ever  since  the  days  of  Cubism  much  of 
painting  has  dispensed  with  natural  forms,  a  matter 
which  Mr.  Cox  noted  in  his  argument  but  chose  to 
ignore  in  his  conclusions.  This  is  not  treating  his- 
tory ingenuously.  For  the  contemporary  movements 
are  no  less  a  parcel  of  evolution  than  those  that 
have  gone  before.  But  Mr.  Cox  thought  more  of 
rolling  up  a  high  score  by  careful  dialectic  than  by 
sympathetic  reading  of  artistic  evolution. 

Having,  as  he  thought,  satisfied  the  historic  and 
inductive  part  of  his  discussion,  he  proceeded  to 
formulate  the  ethics  of  art — from  a  knowledge  of 
what  painting  is,  it  is  only  one  logical  step  to  what 
it  should  be,  and  Mr.  Cox  surpassed  himself  when 
he  told  us  with  staggering  composure  that  what  is 
historically  true  (according  to  his  lights)  must  be 
esthetically  right.  The  viciousness  of  this  view  is 
only  too  obvious.  As  well  might  our  standards  of 


conduct  be  deduced  from  the  conduct  of  men  in 
the  past.  Standards  of  judgment  in  art,  like  the 
standards  of  right  and  wrong  in  ethics,  must  ulti- 
mately derive  from  the  individuality  of  the  object 
or  the  circumstance.  Each  work  of  art  carries 
within  it  its  own  law,  its  own  standard,  its  own 
esthetic,  exactly  as  each  is  the  product  of  different 
internal  and  external  conditions. 

His  original  assumption  once  established,  that  art 
is  measurable  by  unchanging  rule,  he  found  it  easy  to 
pass  to  the  elementary  fallacy  that  art  like  science 
has  knowable  and  calculable  characters;  and  he 
spoke  with  amusing  innocence  of  "  progress  in  art " 
as  if  art,  like  the  sciences,  advanced  by  a  sort  of 
cumulative  growth  of  artistic  excellence.  But  such 
a  view  would  drag  us  to  the  preposterous  conclusion 
that  the  art  of  Titian  is  greater  than  that  of  Giotto, 
that  of  Ingres  greater  than  that  of  Raphael,  and 
Mr.  Cox's  by  inevitable  inference,  the  greatest  of 
them  all. 

And  even  were  that  so,  his  reputation  as  a 
painter  should  have  as  little  to  do  with  the  value  of 
his  critical  pronouncements  as  the  marvelous  con- 
structions of  a  mole,  let  us  say,  with  the  value  of  his 
opinions  on  architecture.  But  it  is  neither  by  his  art 
nor  by  his  criticism  that  Mr.  Cox  will  be  remem- 
bered, but  as  an  angel  of  dead  perfections,  who  has 
bravely  set  his  face  against  the  intolerable  beauty  of 
many  things  in  art  that  are  strange  or  violent  or 

merely  beautiful. 

RICHARD  OFFNER. 


The  Army  and  The  Law 


o 


N  JANUARY  3  George  T.  Page,  President  of 
the  American  Bar  Association,  brought  up  the  sub- 
ject of  court-martials  before  the  body,  and  a  resolu- 
tion was  adopted  condemning  the  entire  judiciary 
process  of  the  Army  as  "unworthy  of  law  and  jus- 
tice." A  bill  known  as  Senate  Bill  No.  8.5320  was 
introduced  by  Senator  Chamberlain  on  January  13, 
1919,  asking  for  the  revision  of  the  war  acts  relat- 
ing to  the  administration  of  military  justice.  As  the 
result  of  disclosures  and  insistent  demands  by  friends 
of  the  conscientious  objectors  confined  in  the  Camp 
Funston  Guard  House,  two  officers  were  dismissed 
from  the  service  for  the  responsibility  they  bore 
for  the  brutal  treatment  accorded  to  the  imprisoned 
conscientious  objectors.  The  New  York  World, 
in  its  issue  of  January  19,  1919,  under  the  title 
A  Thing  Called  Military  Justice,  relates  the  story 
of  men  ordered  to  be  shot  in  France,  the  sentence 
being  mainly  based  on  induced  confessions  of  the 
men  themselves.  The  charge  was  sleeping  while  on 
sentinel  post  and  the  record  disclosed  such  irregulari- 


ties that  the  sentences  were  rescinded  by  the  Secre- 
tary of  War  and  the  men  liberated. 

Both  in  the  army  and  the  navy  men  were  en- 
trusted with  the  administration  of  military  justice 
and  penalization,  with  little  regard  for  their  mental 
equipment  or  qualifications  for  these  important  posi- 
tions. Officiousness,  stupidity,  brutality  prevailed 
side  by  side  with  the  apparent  humaneness  and  fair- 
ness of  the  Secretary  of  War  and  his  immediate  as- 
sociates. Outside  the  army,  men  who  were  loudest 
in  their  denunciation  of  the  Prussian  theory  of  "mili- 
tary necessity"  excused  these*  irregularities  because 
— maxim  of  benighted  medieval  pirates — inter  <arma 
lex  silet.  Of  specific  instances  of  injustice  there  is 
hardly  an  end.  No  account  seems  to  have  been  taken 
by  the  officers  of  the  fact  that  the  drafted  men  were 
sons  of  freemen  unaccustomed  to  the  iron-clad  arbi- 
trary discipline  of  the  life  into  which  they  were  sud- 
denly cast.  The  conscripts,  taken  from  their  fami- 
lies, were  expected  to  imbibe  the  spirit  of  unques-  • 
tioning  obedience  over  night.  The  offenses  for 


462 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


which  severe  punishments  were  administered  were 
entirely  out  of  proportion  to  the  penalties.  It  can- 
not be  said  that  the  system  was  "for  the  good  of  the 
service."  The  experience  of  France  and  England 
proves  the  contrary.  The  punishment  in  the  Ameri- 
can cantonments  was  administered  with  Puritan 
solemnity  and  the  severity  disclosed  the  inexperience 
of  the  amateur  penologists.  The  officers  were  evi- 
dently impressed  with  the  fact  that  they  were  a 
principio  soldiers  and  incidentally  human  beings.  A 
man  in  the  guard  house  was  like  one  who  had 
stained  the  hem  of  the  cloister  robe.  There  was 
none  of  the  jolliness  and  wink-of-the-eye  camara- 
derie of  Tommy  Atkins  while  in  the  guard  house : 

But  I've  had  my  fun  of  the  Corp'ral's  Guard; 
I've   made   the   cinders   fly, 

And  I'm  here  in  the  Clink  for  a  thundering  drink 
And  blackening  the  Corporal's  eye. 

A  plausible  explanation  may  well  be  that  there  is 
a  Freudian  reason  for  the  severity  which  officers  of 
court-martials  exercised  on  men  claiming  to  be  con- 
scientious objectors.  Men  who  voted  for  and  elected 
a  President  because  he  had  "  kept  them  out  of  war  " 
were  required  to  become  staunchest  martinets  almost 
within  a  fortnight.  But  most  of  the  severity  was 
due  to  inexperience.  An  artist  doing  police  kitchen 
work  "bossed"  by  a  non-commissioned  bootblack 
and  court-martialed  by  a  furniture  salesman,  drug 
clerk,  small-town  newspaper  man,  and  the  like.  Such 
was  this  strange  world  of  topsy-turvy. 

The  military  law  of  the  United  States  preserves 
its  archaic  spirit  in  which  our  characteristic  unpre- 
paredness  found  us  at  the  beginning  of  the  war. 
While  the  Congressional  investigation  into  the  sani- 
tary and  medical  conditions  in  the  camps,  made  at 
the  very  beginning  of  the  war,  disclosed  culpable 
laxity  and  negligence  and  resulted  in  immediate  re- 
form, no  such  action  was  taken  in  relation  to  judica- 
ture or  penal  institutions.  The  entire  system  was 
originated  by  Lieber  in  the  Civil  War  and  in  normal 
times  of  peace  was  found  to  be  ample  in  regulating 
a  comparatively  small  body  of  volunteers.  With 
practically  no  important  changes  the  War  Act  (Act 
of  1917)  was  applied  to  an  army  of  millions  of  con- 
scripts. A  book,  therefore,  dealing  with  the  law 
and  the  army  written  by  a  lawyer  should  prove  a 
welcome  and  timely  contribution.  Unfortunately 
Mr.  Gerrard  Glenn's  The  Army  and  the  Law 
(Columbia  University  Press),  fails  in  this  im- 
portant task.  It  is  not  a  criticism,  nor  is  it  sug- 
gestive of  any  reforms.  It  may  be  argued  that  the 
disbanding  of  our  army  will  make  these  changes 
purely  academic.  That  were  a  wished-for  consum- 
mation. But  many  men  are  still  languishing  in  jail 


serving  almost;  lifetime  sentences  for  incommensurate 
trespasses,  some  sentences  imposed  because  of  the 
caprice  of  a  newly  commissioned  smart  young  officer. 
Men  are  still  being  court-martialed.  The  entire 
penal  system  is  a  disgrace  to  the  nation.  But  the 
author's  "avowed  purpose,"  it  may  be  said,  is  not 
so  broad;  he  merely  sets  out  to  interpret  the  rela- 
tion of  the  army  to  the  common  law,  <md  has  here  no 
business  with  the  army  organization  per  se.  Even 
in  this  narrow  sphere,  Mr.  Glenn  is  merely  pro- 
mulgatory.  No  mention  is  made  of  the  numerous 
invasions  made  by  the  army  and  navy  Intelligence 
Officers  into  private  homes  where  they  seized  per- 
sonal effects  and  made  searches  without  warrants. 
The  notorious  "slacker  raid"  in  New  York  City 
and  elsewhere,  in  which  the  army  played  such  an 
important  part,  is  avoided.  The  illegal  drafting  of 
aliens,  Russians  with  or  without  "  first  papers,"  the 
drafting  of  Austrians  and  even  Germans  are  not 
treated.  The  case  of  Angellus  vs.  Sullivan  is  inade- 
quately referred  to.  No  account  is  given  of  the  de- 
batable proposition  of  "desertion"  by  drafted  men 
who  fail  to  report. 

The  book  is  a  learned  legal  dissertation  citing 
numerous  historic  references  but  totally  devoid  of 
suggestions  which  would  displease  the  army  author- 
ities. Its  proper  repository  is  the  Academy  at  West 
Point,  which  we  all  hope  will  some  day  be  turned 
into  a  National  Museum.  Otherwise  it  will  make 
a  valuable  addition  to  the  overcrowded  library- 
shelves  of  the  law  schools,  where  the  students  may 
hurriedly  read  the  title  some  time.  But  ours  are 
the  days  of  quick  changes.  Even  the  venerable  lore 
of  Metternichian  diplomacy  has  been  taught  that  its 
usefulness  as  a  humanity-serving  institution  has  gone 
by  the  board.  The  democracies  of  the  world  will 
insist  that  martial  law  lose  the  spirit  of  the  middle 
ages.  Blackstone,  Hume,  Coke,  Dicey,  and  Lieber 
may  be  interesting  to  historians  and  brief-writers, 
but  books  on  law  and  the  army  should  be  broad,  pro- 
gressive, and  constructive  outlines,  not  merely 
retrospective  dissertations.  Within  its  proper  limits 
the  book  demonstrates  a  conscientious  purpose  and 
painstaking  labor  and  a  well-grounded  knowledge 
of  the  subject  matter  with  which  it  deals.  Its  chosen 
field  is  well  covered  and  it  is  replete  with  in- 
teresting historical  incidents.  It  is  to  be  regretted 
that  the  author  elected  not  to  view  so  important  a 
matter  as  the  army  and  the  law  from  the  broader, 
social,  economic,  and  internationalist  viewpoint.  His 
audience  must  necessarily  be  limited — and  it  is  an 
audience  which  is  incapable  of  appreciation  of  the 
labor  which  goes  into  the  making  of  the  small 

volume. 

CHARLES  RECHT. 


THE  DIAL 


463 


Mary  in  Wonderland 


1VJ.ARY  ARNOLD  was  the  child  of  the  Victorian 
family — a  large  family  of  grown-ups  but  only  one 
child.  At  least  the  impression  which  A  Writer's 
Recollections  (Harper)  gives  us  is  that  of  a  little 
girl  who  sits  on  the  knees  of  innumerable  parents, 
grandparents,  uncles,  aunts,  and  mature  cousins,  and 
asks  questions,  or  plays  contentedly  by  herself  on  the 
hearth — a  quiet,  demure  child,  serious  and  attentive, 
with  nice  manners  and  no  taste  for  mischief  or  dis- 
concerting sense  of  humor.  She  must  have  been 
a  delight  to  her  elders.  She  took  the  toys  which 
they  handed  to  her — the  higher  criticism,  the  higher 
education  of  women,  the  polite  philanthropy  of  the 
University  Settlement,  the  improving  card  games  of 
society,  scholarship,  arts,  and  letters.  She  never 
wanted  a  boy's  toy,  like  the  vote — and  didn't  want 
other  little  girls  to  have  it  either.  Oh,  she  must 
have  been  a  delight  to  those  elders — so  fresh,  and 
bright,  and  naive,  and — Thomas  Humphry  Ward  to 
the  contrary — maidenly.  Her  Recollections  are  like 
a  tea-party,  a  child's  tea-party  with  everybody  for 
half  a  century  invited  and  accepting,  and  all  there 
at  once,  a  party  like  Alice  in  Wonderland  with 
old  Miss  Martineau  as  the  Red  Queen  crying  "  Off 
with  his  head,"  and  Uncle  Matthew  dangling  his 
gloves  like  the  White  Rabbit,  and  Mark  Pattison 
as  the  Mad  Hatter,  complaining  that  it's  always 
jam  tomorrow  and  never  today,  and  the  Master  of 
Balliol  perched  on  the  wall  like  Humpty  Dumpty — 
and  little  Mary  handing  round  the  cakes.  Some 
French  gentlemen,  M.  Taine  and  M.  Renan,  are 
there  too,  but  of  these  Mary  is  at  first  a  little  shy, 
for  her  French  is  not  very  good. 

There  was  one  terrible  figure  in  the  background  of 
the  child's  thoughts,  and  in  her  playroom  a  dreadful 
closet  which  was  not  to  be  opened.  Her  father, 
Thomas  Arnold,  son  of  the  leader  of  the  Church  of 
England  against  the  Oxford  Malignants,  had  fallen 
victim  of  their  arts  and  become  perverted  to  Roman 
Catholicism.  This  fact  supplied  the  element  of  fear 
without  which  no  child's  game  is  complete,  and  the 
fear  was  no  less  real  because  the  author  of  it  pos- 
sessed such  rare  and  tender  charm.  As  a  child  in 
Edgbaston,  where  her  father  was  master  in  the 
Oratory  School,  she  saw  the  figure  of  Newman  pass 
in  the  streets  and  "  shrank  from  him  in  a  dumb 
childish  resentment  as  from  some  one  whom  I  under- 
stood to  be  the  author  of  our  family  misfortunes." 
And  she  never  escaped  the  sense  of  Newman's  mys- 
terious power  and  subtle  charm,  the  old  childish 
fear  lending  a  kind  of  fascination  to  her  thought  of 
him.  At  Oxford,  whither  her  father  took  her  on  his 


temporary  reversion  to  Anglicanism,  she  felt  the 
presence  of  the  lost  leader,  felt  it  in  the  intellectual 
life  of  the  University  which  was  a  battle  in  which 
Christ  Church  represented  authority  and  the  church, 
Balliol,  liberalism,  and  Lincoln,  science  and  re- 
search ;  in  University  politics  which  were  a  struggle 
between  Pusey  and  Liddon  on  the  one  hand  and 
Jowett  and  Pattison  on  the  other.  Liddon  had  suc- 
ceeded Newman  as  the  pulpit  orator  of  the  Tractar- 
ians  and  vividly  she  recalls  the  scene  of  his  triumph  ^ 

First  came  the  stir  of  the  procession ;  the  long  line  of 
Heads  of  Houses  in  their  scarlet  robes  as  Doctors  of 
Divinity — all  but  the  two  heretics,  Pattison  and  Jowett, 
who  walked  in  plain  black  and  warmed  my  heart  always 
thereby!  And  then  the  Vice  Chancellor,  with  the 
"  pokers,"  and  the  preacher.  All  eyes  were  fixed  on  the 
slender  willowy  figure,  and  the  dark  head  touched  with 
silver.  A  bow  to  the  Vice  Chancellor  as  they  parted  at 
the  foot  of  the  pulpit  stairs,  the  mounting  of  the  pulpit, 
the  quiet  look  out  over  the  Church,  the  Bidding  Prayer, 
the  voice — it  was  all  part  of  an  incomparable  perform- 
ance which  cannot  be  paralleled  today. 

Beside  this  dignified  picture  there  is  a  more  grac- 
ious and  winning  one.  The  leader  of  feminist  Ox- 
ford was  Mrs.  Mark  Pattison,  afterward  Lady 
Dilke.  Her  lovely  apparition  on  the  severe  academic 
scene  was  a  portent  which  few  recognized.  To  the 
meeting  with  her  Mrs.  Ward  gives  another  vignette, 
with  an  indescribable  and  old  world  charm : 

It  was  in*  1868  or  1869 — I  think  I  was  seventeen — that 
I  remember  mv  first  sight  of  a  college  garden  lying  cool 
and  shaded  between  gray  college  walls,  and  on  the 
grass  a  figure  that  held  me  fascinated — a  lady  in  a  green 
brocade  dress,  with  a  belt  and  chatelaine  of  Russian 
silver,  who  was  playing  croquet,  then  a  novelty  in  Ox- 
ford, and  seemed  to  me  as  I  watched  her,  a  perfect 
model  of  grace  and  vivacity.  A  man  nearly  thirty  years 
older  than  herself,  whom  I  knew  to  be  her  husband,  was 
standing  near  her,  and  a  handful  of  under-graduates 
made  an  amused  and  admiring  court  round  the  lady. 

The  lady  in  green  brocade  playing  croquet  on  the 
grass — the  husband  thirty  years  older — the  amused 
and  admiring  undergraduates — could  anything  be 
more  enchantingly  of  the  period? 

Mrs.  Pattison  marked  the  beginning  of  feminine 
influence  in  Oxford  as  did  Newman  the  end  of 
monasticism.  One  can  divine  the  breeze  which 
made  the  leaves  of  gossip  tremble  on  the  University 
tree  when  she  wore  a  tea  gown  to  her  Sunday  night 
parties,  and  smoked  a  cigarette — as  a  few  years  be- 
fore they  had  rustled  when  one  of  Newman's  dis- 
ciples assumed  the  eastward  position  or  bowed  to 
God  in  a  Catholic  chapel.  The  coming  of  George 
Eliot  to  Lincoln  College  as  her  guest  was  an  event 
that  shook  the  branches  as  did  the  return  of  New- 
man in  his  cardinal's  robes  to  hold  high  court  at 
Trinitv.  One  can  divine  too  the  second  intention 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


which  made  Mrs.  Pattison  welcome  little  Mary 
Arnold  to  her  salon,  though  Mary's  evangelical 
protest  took  the  form  of  a  dark  frock  high  about  the 
throat.  Perhaps  it  was  this  sign  that  the  young  girl 
was  in  this  world  but  not  yet  of  it  that  made  the 
George  Eliot  hold  her  back  as  the  party 'was  ad- 
journing, to  sit  in  the  darkness  and  tell  her  of 
Spain.  And  one  more  recollection.  The  next  day 
as  the  party  were  returning  from  Christ  Church 
meadow  they  were  led  by  Mr.  Creighton,  Fellow 
of  Merton,  through  the  gardens  of  his  college. 

The  chestnuts  were  all  out,  one  splendor  from  top  to 
toe;  the  laburnams;  the  lilacs;  the  hawthorns,  red  and 
white;  the  new-mown  grass  spreading  its  smooth  and 
silky  carpet  round  the  college  walls;  a  May  sky  over- 
head and  through  the  trees  glimpses  of  towers  and 
spires,  silver  gray,  in  the  sparkling  summer  air.  ...  As 
we  turned  into  the  quadrangle  of  Lincoln — suddenly  at 
one  of  the  upper  windows  of  the  Rector's  lodgings  there 
appeared  the  head  and  shoulders  of  Mrs.  Pattison,  as 
she  looked  out  and  beckoned,  smiling,  to  Mrs.  Lewes.  It 
was  a  brilliant  apparition,  as  though  a  French  portrait 
by  Greuze  or  Perronneau  had  suddenly  slipped  into  a 
vacant  space  in  the  old  college  wall.  The  pale,  pretty 
head,  blond-cendree ;  the  delicate,  smiling  features  and 
white  throat;  a  touch  of  black,  a  touch  of  blue;  a  white 
dress;  a  general  eighteenth-century  impression  as  though 
of  powder  and  patches — Mrs.  Lewes  perceived  it  in  a  flash 
and  I  saw  her  run  eagerly  to  Mr.  Lewes  and  draw  his 
attention  to  the  window  and  its  occupant.  ...  If  she 
had  lived  longer,  someday,  and  somewhere  in  her  books, 
that  vision  at  the  window  and  that  flower-laden  garden 
would  have  reappeared.  I  seemed  to  see  her  consciously 
and  deliberately  committing  both  to  memory. 

With  all  her  admiration  for  Mrs.  Pattison  it  is 
clear  that  it  was  for  the  Rector  that  Mary  Arnold 
kept  her  devotion,  cheering  him  in  the  absence  of 
his  wife,  making  tea  for  him  in  his  lonely  rooms. 
Scarcely  less  intimate  and  charming  was  her  friend- 
ship with  Jowett.  For  them  and  for  Thomas  Hill 
Green,  Dean  Stanley,  Heriry  Sidgwick  and  her 
uncle  Matt  she  kept  a  girlish  yet  maternal  instinct 
to  cherish  and  protect  from  the  bitter  assaults  of 
the  Tractarians.  When  Bishop  Wordsworth  at- 
tacked her  friends  in  his  Bampton  lectures  she  de- 
fended them  in  a  pamphlet  that  the  High  Church 
party  suppressed  on  the  ground  that  the  printer's 
name  did  not  appear.  Under,  their  inspiration  she 
began  to  play  in  earnest.  Historical  scholarship  was 
the  great  game  at  Oxford:  history  touched  by  the 
modern  scientific  method  was  its  newest  phase.  Peo- 
ple wTere  going  about  saying  that  if  Newman  had 
only  known  German  the  course  of  the  world  would 
have  been  different.  Mary  Arnold  began  to  amuse 
herself  with  the  West-Gothic  kings  of  Spain  and 
then  was  commissioned  to  write  the  Spanish  lives 
for  Smith's  Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography.  Mr. 
Pattison  secured  her  admission  to  the  great  gaming 
tables  of  the  Bodleian,  and  there  she  played  for  her 
modest  stakes  and  won.  She  relates  her  consterna- 
tion at  finding  one  day  that  Johannes  Biclarensis 


was  missing  from  her  stock,  and  her  prompt  surmise 
that  some  German  had  done  it,  working  in  the  same 
field  and  about  to  anticipate  her.  No,  it  was  the 
Regius  Professor,  Bishop  Stubbs,  the  greatest  his- 
torian in  England,  who  was  checking  up  on  her. 
He  approved,  and  so  did  young  Mr.  Creighton. 
"  Tell  Mary  to  go  on.  There  is  nobody  but  Stubbs- 
doing  such  work  in  Oxford  now,"  he  said. 

But  Mary  had  more  ambitious  plans  and  a  larger 
game  in  mind.  With  her  departure  from  Oxford 
for  London  this  was  inevitable.  The  West-Gothic 
kings  were  well  enough  so  long  as  one  was  playing 
at  the  feet  of  Mark  Pattison  and  Bishop  Stubbs, 
but  most  people  wouldn't  care  much  for  them.  Fic- 
tion was  the  king  sport  of  the  century,  and  already 
Mary  had  seen  how  one  great  woman  played  it. 
Her  first  novel,  Miss  Bretherton,  was  a  study  based 
on  the  spectacular  success  of  Mary  Anderson  in  the 
early  eighties,  and  it  brought  her  much  encourage- 
ment. "  Henry  James,  Walter  Pater,  John  Morley, 
Mr.  Creighton,  Cotter  Morrison,  Sir  Henry  Tay- 
lor— they  are  all  there."  Whatever  game  Mary 
wanted  to  play  she  found  plenty  of  grown-ups  ready 
to  make-believe  with  her.  Henry  James  indeed 
went  down  on  his  hands  and  knees  and  played  the 
critic  Beast  to  her  Beauty  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 
Looking  back  she  feels  a  certain  surprise  at  so  much 
complacency,  and  a  certain  remorse  at  having  taken 
such  advantage  of  it.  "  Are  there  similar  friends 
nowadays  to  help  the  first  steps  of  a  writer  ?  Or  i» 
there  no  leisure  left  in  this  crowded  life  of  ours?  " 

Miss  Bretherton  was  a  trial  trip,  short  and  prom- 
ising. One  can  imagine  the  delighted  excitement  in 
the  family  when  it  was  whispered  about  that  Mary 
was  doing  another  novel — a  real  affair  of  large 
canvas  and  long  breath,  to  set  before  the  world  the 
reconciliation  of  Christianity  with  science  that 
Uncle  Matt  had  proposed  in  Literature  and  Dogma 
and  God  and  the  Bible,  the  new  faith  that  all  liberal 
Oxford  believed.  This  was  Robert  Elsmere.  Into 
it  she  put  the  best  material  she  would  ever  have — 
the  background,  characters,  and  thought  of  the  Ox- 
ford wrhich  she  knew.  She  toiled  nobly  to  be  worthy 
of  it,  and  she  achieved  much.  Like  George  Eliot 
she  found  her  great  problem  to  incarnate  in  flesh 
and  blood  and  in  action  the  themes  that  her  mind 
provided,  but  with  the  help  of  portraiture  and  first 
hand  experience  she  for  once  solved  it.  But  the 
glory  of  >  Robert  Elsmere  in  its  author's  recollection 
of  it  is  its  stupefying  popular  success — the  enormous 
sales  in  England,  the  runs  on  the  circulating 
libraries,  the  personal  encounters  between  rivals  for 
copies,  the  stupendous  piracy  in  America,  the  review 
by  Mr.  Gladstone,  the  applause  of  Uncle  Matt — he 
read  only  the  first  volume  before  he  died,  being,  one 
fancies,  a  slow  reader  of  fiction — all  this  is  like  an 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


465 


eastern  tale  of  a  genius  out  of  a  bottle,  or  Alice's 
wonderful  growth  after  eating  her  cake. 

This  story  of  success  was  repeated  with  David 
Grieve,  Marcella,  Sir  George  Tressady,  Helbeck  of 
Bannisdale,  and  Eleanor,  and  here  the  Recollections 
end.  Of  Lady  Rose's  Daughter,  Fenwick's  Career 
and  The  Marriage  of  William  Ashe  one  suspects 
that  Mary  knows  that  the  toys  are  somewhat  worn 
and  battered,  and  certainly  the  bright  red  paint  of 
popular  triumph  has  been  licked  off.  The  Recollec- 
tions close  with  a  rather  wistful  chapter  about  other 
writers,  Meredith,  Hardy,  Bennett,  Wells,  Gals- 
worthy, boys  who,  except  Henry  James,  apparently 
would  not  play  with  girls.  None  the  less  Mrs. 
Ward  records  her  opinion  of  them  cheerfully  and 
without  prejudice — except  a  little  for  Wells,  who  is 
a  journalist  (clearly  Mary  is  thinking  of  a  news- 


boy) and  Lytton  Strachey,  who  stuck  out  his  tongue 
at  her  grandfather's  portrait.  Writing  and  society 
were  the  two^games  Mary  enjoyed.  Politics  she 
would  have  liked  to  try — the  old-fashioned,  dignified 
game  that  Palmerstone  and  Disraeli  played  in  her 
youth  when  ladies  in  famous  country  houses  or  in 
Mayfair  held  the  threads  of  Parliamentary  intrigue 
adroitly  wound  on  their  elegant  fingers.  But  in 
later  days  the  politics  of  suffrage  and  labor  were  too 
rough,  and  sex  had  become  too  horrid.  Then  came 
the  war,  and  we  suspect  that  Mary  played  that 
badly.  We  are  thankful  that  she  closes  her  Recol- 
lections twenty  years  ago — when  the  charm  was 
still  strong  of  that  incomparable  play  world  which 
was  opened  to  her  so  freely  and  in  which  she  stayed 
so  pleasantly  and  so  long. 

ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT. 


London,  April  10 


J-JVERYBODY  THAT  RETURNS  from  France  takes  a 
grave  view  of  the  situation  there  in  every  respect. 
The  financial  problem  seems  almost  insoluble,  and 
M.  Klotz's  lamentable  exhibition  at  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  on  March  13  showed  that  he,  at  any  rate, 
has  no  solution.  He  could  only  say  that  the  ques- 
tion must  be  postponed  until  it  was  known  what 
could  be  obtained  from  Germany.  Yet  no  sane 
person  supposes  that  any  indemnity  can  be  obtained 
from  Germany  which  will  enable  the  financial  bur- 
dens of  France  to  be  alleviated  to  any  appreciable 
«xtent.  Justice  demands  that  Belgium  and  Serbia 
should  have  the  first  claim,  and  if  Germany  can  be 
made  to  compensate  them  the  Allies  may  think  them- 
selves fortunate.  As  things  are  it  seems  quite  possi- 
ble that  befare  very  long  Germany  will  no  more  be 
in  a  position  to  pay  an  indemnity  than  Russia  is. 
Perhaps  it  would  have  been  wiser  not  to  push 
matters  to  extremes.  As  Lord  Beauchamp  said  re- 
cently, Lord  Lansdowne's  initiative  in  favor  of 
peace  is  now  approved  by  many  more  people  than 
at  the  time  when  it  was  taken,  and  will  probably 
have  still  more  regretful  admirers  in  the  near  future. 
People  who  only  six  months  ago  were  for  victory  at 
any  cost  are  now  beginning  to  think  that  the  cost 
is  perhaps  greater  than  the  victory  is  worth.  And 
M.  Clemenceau  has  declared  that  the  victory  is  a 
Pyrrhic  one  so  far  as  France  is  concerned.  One 
might  reply :  "  Tu  1'as  voulu,  Georges  Dandin." 

For  my  part,  I  might  derive  some  personal  satis- 
faction from  the  fact  that  I  have  been  denounced 
for  the  last  three  years  as  a  "  defeatist,"  and  was 
finally  expelled  from  France  simply  for  having  fore- 
told what  is  now  in  fact  happening.  It  seemed  to 
ane  evident  that,  whatever  the  military  result  of  the 


war  might  be,  its  prolongation  could  only  be  ruinous 
to  France.  M.  Clemenceau  now  says  in  effect  that 
I  was  right.  But  I  can  derive  no  satisfaction  from 
this  confirmation  of  my  forebodings.  I  wish  that  I 
had  proved  to  be  wrong.  Can  anybody  now  doubt 
that  the  rejection  of  the  Austrian  peace  proposals 
made  in  March  1917  and  of  the  German  peace  pro- 
posals made  in  August  of  the  same  year  was  a  crime 
against  France  and  against  Europe?  I  am  glad  to 
know  that  the  English  Government  was  not  chiefly 
responsible  for  it.  That  responsibility  rests  on  M. 
Alexandre  Ribot  and  Baron  Sonnino. 

The  lesson  has  not  yet  been  learned,  as  the  pro- 
ceedings at  the  Peace  Conference  show.  Here  dis- 
gust and  disappointment  are  giving  place  to  indif- 
ference in  that  regard.  People  are  beginning  to 
recognize  that  it  will  soon  not  matter  much  what 
the  Peace  Conference  decides,  for  things  will  have 
gone  too  far  for  its  decisions  to  have  any  impor- 
tance. We  see  with  amazement  our  representatives 
discussing  such  mattefs  as  the  annexation  to  France 
of  the  Saar  Valley  or  the  acquisition  of  Dalmatian 
ports  by  Italy  with  more  than  half  Europe  already 
in  revolution  and  the  rest  on  the  verge  of  it.  M. 
Auguste  Gauvain's  severe  criticism  of  the  Confer- 
ence in  the  Journal  des  Debats  of  March  17  was 
not  more  severe  than  the  Conference  deserves.  As 
he  said,  while. the  Peace  delegates  are  disputing 
strips  of  territory,  "  general  disorganization  is  in- 
creasing in  the  world  with  a  rapidity  which  only 
the  blind  fail  to  see."  "  When,"  added  M.  Gau- 
vain,  "  agreement  has  at  last  been  reached  as  to  the 
division  of  the  spoils  k  will  be  too  late  to  profit  by 
them:  the  tertius  gaudens,  that  is  to  say,  the  anar- 
chist, will  have  laid  hands  on  everything."  And 


466 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


M.  Gauvain  warned  the  delegates  that  the  peoples 
are  indifferent  to  territorial  acquisitions  and  are 
thinking  only  of  the  restoration  of  normal  life  in 
peace.  "  The  peoples,"  said  M.  Gauvain  in  con- 
clusion, "  for  whom  the  men  of  the  chancelleries 
and  the  amateur  diplomatists  speak  with  superb 
disdain,  will  in  the  end  be  the  masters  in  spite  of 
all  the  clauses  inscribed  in  the  treaties.  If  those 
clauses  violate  evident  rights,  all  the  piles  of  proto- 
cols heaped  on  the  European  cauldron  will  not  pre- 
vent the  lid  from  being  blown  off." 

Such  an  article  as  this  in  a  paper  that  represents 
intellectual  conservative  opinion  in  France  is  indeed 
significant.  M.  Gauvain's  view  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ference is  that  very  generally  taken  in  England. 
Only  today  I  was  talking  about  the  matter  to  the 
manager  of  a  great  London  bank.  He  was  protest- 
ing against  the  proposal  to  hold  a  week's  peace 
celebration  in  the  summer.  Most  people,  he  said, 
saw  no  sign  that  there  would  be  much  cause  for 
rejoicing.  The  Peace  Conference  was  discredited 
and  there  was  little  or  no  public  interest  in  its  pro- 
ceedings. What  people  wanted  was  to  get  back  to 
work  and  normal  life — he  used  almost  exactly  the 
§arne  words  as  M.  Gauvain,  of  whose  article  he 
i,  ot  heard — and  they  would  be  glad  enough  if, 
by  summer,  a  revolution  had  been  averted. 

This  is  certainly  a  representative  opinion.  The 
scheme  for  a  League  of  Nations  produced  by  the 
Paris  Conference  is  generally  regarded  as  a  fiasco. 
"  The  Clique  of  Nations  "  is  the  name  that  has  been 
given  to  it  by  the  Labor  paper,  the  Herald,  which 
is  now  a  daily.  The  general  view  in  the  Labor 
party  is  that  it  is  worse  than  nothing  for,  instead 
of  being  a  genuine  international  organization,  it  is 
more  like  a  modern  version  of  the  Holy  Alliance — 
a  hegemony  of  the  five  great  Allied  powers.  No 
section  of  opinion  shows  any  enthusiasm  for  it. 
Some  people  in  America  seem  to  think  that  the 
League  is  a  British  device  for  controlling  the  world. 
They  are  much  mistaken.  President  Wilson's  pro- 
posal for  a  League  of  Nations  was  enthusiastically 
received  here  because  it  was  believed  that  it  would 
be  a  genuine  international  organization  limiting  the 
power  of  the  stronger  nations  and  strengthening  the 
weaker.  It  was  hoped  that  it  would  lead  to  general 
disarmament,  without  which  it  is  impossible  to  pre- 
vent wars.  Public  opinion,  which  had  formed  such 
high  hopes,  is  proportionately  disappointed  at  the 
miserable  substitute  offered  to  it.  And  I  am  bound 
to  say  that  it  is  also  profoundly  disappointed  that 
President  Wilson  has  not  been  able  to  achieve  more. 
It  is  to  be  feared  that  he  came  to  Europe  without 
any  definite  scheme  of  his  own.  In  any  case  he 
seems  to  have  yielded  to  pressure  not  only  in  regard 
to  the  League  of  Nations,  but  also  on  other  points. 


For,  if  report  be  true,  some  of  the  peace  conditions 
contemplated  by  the  Conference  are  in  flagrant  con- 
tradiction with  the  Fourteen  Points. 

The  pressure  has  not  come  from  the  British  Gov- 
ernment. Mr.  Lloyd  George  is  far  too  acute  a 
judge  of  public  opinion  here  not  to  desire  a  really 
democratic  peace.  He  knows  that  discontent  with 
the  Peace  Conference  is  one  of  the  causes  of  the 
industrial  unrest.  Indeed,  if  a  general  strike  on 
economic  grounds  is  averted  it  is  quite  possible  that 
there  will  be  one  as  a  protest  against  the  peace  con- 
ditions, if  they  are  what  they  are  expected  to  be. 
The  reactionary  influences  at  the  Peace  Conference 
are,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  the  French  and  Italian  dele- 
gates. It  is  they  who  are  aimed  at  in  M.  Gauvain's 
article  that  I  have  just  quoted,  for  it  is  they  who 
have  wasted  the  time  of  the  Conference  in  disputes 
about  strips  of  territory,  and  who  are  opposed  to 
disarmament  and  a  genuine  international  organiza- 
tion. They  are  still  at  the  Congress  of  Vienna. 
I  should  be  sorry  to  think  that  they  really  represent 
the  French  and  Italian  peoples,  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  about  their  attitude.  It  is  the  French  Gov- 
ernment too  that  has  prevented  any  sane  policy — or 
indeed  any  policy  at  all — in  regard  to  Russia.  The 
most  violent  and  uncompromising  opposition  to  the 
Russian  Revolution  comes  from  the  official  represen- 
tatives of  the  country  of  the  Revolution. 

Unless  the  Peace  Conference  mends  its  ways  the 
outlook  in  Europe  is  a  da*rk  one.  I  am  sure  that 
M.  Gauvain  is  right  in  saying  that  the  people  care 
nothing  about  territorial  acquisitions  and  strategi- 
cal frontiers.  They  want  peace  and  a  new  start. 
At  any  rat£  that  is  the  feeling  here.  Nobody  cares 
any  more  about  the  German  colonies,  or  about  pun- 
ishing the  Kaiser,  or  about  making  Germany  pay. 
The  English  people  demand  peace  conditions  which 
will  make  an  army  of  occupation  unnecessary,  and 
if  it  does  not  get  them  there  will  be  trouble. 

Meanwhile  the  makeshift  League  of  Nations  has 
been  unfavorably  received  by  the  small  Allied 
powers  and  the  neutral  countries.  In  Belgium  in 
particular  its  constitution  is  deeply  resented.  Bel- 
gium is  economically  and  commercially  a  more  im- 
portant country  than  Italy,  and  it  feels  that  it  has 
been  scurvily  treated  after  the  terrible  sacrifices  that 
it  has  made.  Those  sacrifices  were  made  in  the 
cause  of  liberty  and  democracy,  not  to  secure  the 
domination  of  the  world  by  a  clique  of  five  powers. 
The  whole  question  must  be  reconsidered  and  it 
may  be  better,  after  all,  if  the  present  scheme  for 
a  League  of  Nations  is  not  incorporated  in  the  pre- 
liminary treaty  of  peace.  For  it  cannot  be  final  and 
it  has  not  the  support  of  the  peoples  of  Europe. 

ROBERT  DELL. 


THE  DIAL 


GEORGE   DONLIN 


JOHN    DEWEY 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor 
In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program 

THORSTEIN    VEBLEN 


CLARENCE    BRITTEN 


HELEN    MAROT 


IHE  MEMORANDUM  OF  THE  ALLIED  GOVERN- 
ments  transmitted  to  the  German  Government  No- 
vember 5,  1918,  by  President  Wilson,  which  formed 
the  basis  of  the  Armistice,  affirmed  the  willingness 
of  the  Allies  and  the  United  States  to  make  peace  on 
the  basis  of  the  fourteen  points  promulgated  by  the 
President  January  8,  *r9i8,  and  the  principles  of  set- 
tlement enunciated  in  his  subsequent  addresses.  It 
further  expressly  defined  the  compensation  to  be 
made  by  Germany,  and  limited  the  liability  to  dam- 
age done  to  the  civilian  population  of  the  Allies  by 
the  aggression  of  Germany  by  land,  by  sea,  and  from 
the  air.  Scarcely  had  the  ink  of  the  signatures  dried 
when  this  provision  was  cast  aside  by  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  in  his  election  appeal  on  the  basis  of  making 
Germany  pay  the  entire  cost  of  the  war,  and  on  this 
platform  England  gave  him  a  huge  majority  in  the 
new  Parliament.  England's  repudiation  of  this  ex- 
plicit provision  of  the  Armistice  gave  the  cry  to 
France  and  Italy.  Jn  the  months  that  have  fol- 
lowed, what  has  transpired  of  the  deliberations  of 
the  Peace  Conference  has  had  no  reference  to  the 
agreement  made  through  President  Wilson:  the 
whole  discussion  has  turned  on  what  Germany  can 
pay.  Now  that  the  sum  has  been  fixed  approximate- 
ly, and  it  appears  that  it  is  far  smaller  than  was  im- 
plied in  the  promises  of  the  Allied  Governments  to 
their  people,  there  is  Still  no  mention  of  its  distribu- 
tion according  to  the  principle  laid  down  in  the 
Armistice.  On  the  contrary,  Mr.  Lloyd  George  has 
reaffirmed  to  Parliament  his  pre-election  promises, 
and  the  latest  forecast  of  the  apportionment  gives  to 
England  a  third  of  what  is  now  everywhere  referred 
to  as  the  German  indemnity.  Whether  the  amount 
paid  by  Germany  is  sufficient  or  not  to  cover  damage 
done  to  the  civilian  population  and  their  property, 
the  Allies  have  made  a  scrap  of  paper  of  their  en- 
gagement. 

This  is  not  the  most  serious  infraction  of  the 
terms  of  the  Armistice.  The  most  immediately  im- 
portant of  the  fourteen  points  are  those  having  to  do 
with  territorial  arrangements,  and  here  again  the  dis- 
cussions of  the  Conference  have  inevitably  led  to  the 
belief  that  the  Allies  would  not  be  bound  by  their 
promises.  The  proposed  arrangements  in  regard  to 
the  Saar  Valley  and  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  are 
in  implicit  contravention  of  the  eighth  point,  as  that 
in  regard  to  Danzig  is  of  the  thirteenth.  Still  fur- 
ther, the  Armistice  set  definite  boundaries  to  military 


occupation  by  the  Allied  forces.  The  breaking  of 
those  boundaries  in  Hungary  was  the  immediate 
cause  of  the  overthrow  of  Count  Karolyi's  Govern- 
ment. The  ninth  point  states  that  "  a  readjustment 
of  the  frontiers  of  Italy  should  be  effected  along 
clearly  recognizable  lines  of  nationality."  The 
Armistice  allowed  the  temporary  occupation  of  Ger- 
man territory  by  Italian  forces,  with  the  result  de- 
scribed by  the  Neue  Zuricher  Zeitung,  February  28, 
1919,  as  follows: 

The  Italians  are  continuing  their  policy  of  forcibly 
annexing  German  South  Tyrol  and  thus  confronting  the 
Paris  Peace  Conference  with  a  fait  accompli.  In  con- 
trast to  the  army  of  occupation  in  Germany,  which  did 
not  prevent  the  population  [with  the  exception  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine]  from  voting  for  the  German  National  As- 
sembly, the  Italians  prohibited  the  inhabitants  of  German 
South  Tyrol  from  taking  part  in  the  national  Austrian 
elections.  Recently  the  Gernyan  communes  were  visited 
by  commissions  of  Italian  officers  who  induced  people 
who  do  not  understand  a  word  of  Italian  to  sign  state- 
ments expressing  satisfaction  with  the  Italian  occupation. 
As  the  inhabitants  do  not  know  what  they  are  signing, 
they  are  told  that  the  statements  submitted  to  them  are 
receipts  for  food  about  to  be  distributed.  Anyone  of  the 
native  officials  who  refuses  to  sign  is  denounced  to  his 
community  as  opposing  the  distribution  of  food  supplies. 
In  Meran  the  teaching  of  Italian  in  the  schools  has  al- 
ready been  made  obligatory.  History  is  now  being  taught 
according  to  Italian  books.  It  is  also  significant  that 
General  Amante  has  given  orders  to  Italianize  the  names 
of  all  railway  stations  in  the  German  section  of  South 
Tyrol. 

It  is  superfluous  to  point  out  that  a  League  of  Na- 
tions which  should  set  out  by  guaranteeing  political 
arrangements  brought  about  by  such  methods  would 
be  merely  a  form  of  capitalizing  dishonor  and  vali- 
dating a  lie. 


rLL  THAT  HAS  TRANSPIRED  OF  THE  PROCEEDINGS 

of  the  Peace  Conference  since  the  Covenant  of  the 
League  of  Nations  was  presented  to  the  world  on 
February  1  4  tends  to  weaken  confidence  in  the  (good 
faith  of  the  parties  thereto.  On  the  one  hand  the 
United  States  has  insisted  on  the  addition  of  a  clause 
making  exclusive  reservation  in  regard  to  that  hoary 
fetish,  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  a  reservation  conducing 
only  to  selfish  interest  and  vulgar  prestige.  On  the 
other,  the  claim  of  Japan  for  the  recognition  of 
equality  of  her  citizenship  with  that  of  other  nations 
has  been  summarily  rejected.  Both  the  freedom  of 
the  Western  Hemisphere  from  European  aggression 


468 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


and   the   adjustment  of   immigration   according  to 
mutual  interest  are  matters  which  should  be  left  to 
the  operation  of  the  League  of  Nations  if  any  con- 
fidence whatever  is  to  be  placed  in  that  organization. 
Faith  and  good  will  are  the  basis  of  such  an  organi- 
zation.   Where  are  they  ?    But  the  most  serious  lack 
of  faith  in  the. League  on  the  part  of  its  proponents 
is  shown  in  their  failure  to  make  use  of  it  as  a  means 
toward  peace  and  reconciliation.    The  exclusion  of 
Germany,  or  her  admission  by  an  extorted  accept- 
ance of  the  principles  of  the  Covenant,  is  fatal  alike 
to  the  conception  of  the  League  as  proposed  and 
fought  for,  and  to  its  working  under  the  present 
forces  in  control.     Still  the  question  insistently  de- 
mands answer:  Can  those  forces  make  peace  for  the 
world?    That  the  treaty  may  be  signed,  the  Cove- 
nant adopted,  and  the  machinery  of  the  League  set 
up  constitute  no  answer  to  that  question.     These 
things  may  prove  only  more  clearly  the  impotence 
of  existing  governments  to  give  an  affirmative  an- 
swer.   More  and  more  clearly  it  appears  that  a  con- 
dition precedent  to  a  true  peace  is  a  change  in  those 
governments  themselves.     As  the  Russian  Revolu- 
tion, by  eliminating  one  set  of  nationalistic  interests, 
made  the  first  simplification  in  the  problem,  so  now 
it  appears  that  the  next  steps  are  revolution  in  Italy, 
in  Frande,  in  England — wherever  selfish  imperial- 
ism blocks  the  path  of  progress  toward  world  peace. 
To  quote  Mr.   J.   A.   Hobson:    "If  the   workers 
within  each  nation  cannot  capture  their  state  and 
through  their  state  the  new  international  arrange- 
ment,  League  of  Nations  or  whatever  it  may  be 
called,  they  will  be  helpless  in  the  hands  of  their 
rulers  and  their  capitalists."     Even  so  the  League 
has  its  temporary  function  and  value.    The  fact  that 
it  is  not  a  peoples'  league,  merely  an  arrangement 
whereby  governments  are  impeded  in  making  war, 
is  a  cynical  recognition  of  the  fact  that  it  is  not  the 
people  who  need  such  restraint,  for  it  is  not  they 
who  make  war.    But  if  the  League  is  to  be  the  con- 
structive   instrument    of    righting    the    monstrous 
wrongs  of  the  world,  if  it  is  to  be  the  beginning  of  a 
genuine  society  of  nations,  it  must  be  under  the  con- 
trol of  men  who  possess  a  common  ground  of  under- 
standing other  than  participation  in  loot,  a  basis  of 
mutual  trust  other  than  the  honor  among  thieves. 

./\.N  INSTANCE  OF  THE  IMPOSSIBILITY  OF  NATIONAL 

repentance  is  the  attitude  of  the  American  people 
toward  the  lynching  of  Negroes.  That  the  country 
feels  a  certain  shame  is  clear.  The  news  of  such  out- 
rages is  now  largely  suppressed.  Even  the  press 
forgoes  the  profit  of  playing  upon  its  readers'  appe- 
tite for  atrocities,  and  when  the  Liberator  published 
the  accounts  of  certain  peculiarly  hideous  mob 
crimes  it  was  roundly  denounced  for  lack  of  patriot- 
ism. In  the  case  of  the  massacre  of  East  Saint 
Louis,  after  a  brief  spasm  of  horror  the  country 
averted  its  face.  The  trials  were  perfunctory.  The 


responsibility  of  the  executive  of  the  state,  and  of 
the  military  authorities  under  whose  very  eyes  mur- 
der with  fiendish  tortures  took  place,  was  not 
pressed.  When  the  report  of  the  Congressional 
committee  of  investigation  was  received  a  motion 
was  made  that  it  be  not  printed,  on  the  ground  of 
its  lack  of  importance,  and  though  this  motion  failed 
to  pass  the  report  was  virtually  suppressed.  The 
public  printer  replies  to  inquiries  that  he  has  no 
copies  for  distribution.  This  impulse  toward  con- 
cealment shows  that  we  are  as  a  nation  under  con- 
viction of  sin,  but  there  are  few  signs  of  remorse. 
An  effort  to  arouse  the  public  conscience  on  this 
matter  and  to  initiate  works  meet  for  repentance 
will  be  made  by  a  National  Conference  on  Lynch- 
ing to  be  held  in  New  York  City  May  5  and  6, 
"  to  take  concerted  action  against  lynching  and 
lawlessness  wherever  found,  and  to  consider  what 
measures  should  be  adopted  to  abate  them." 


IHE  WORDS  OF  THE  CALL  ABOVE  QUOTED  CONTAIN 
an  oblique  reference  to  the  fact  that  lynching  is  no 
longer  a  purely  race  problem — nor  is  it  always  a 
matter  of  reprobation  and  shame.    On  the  contrary, 
as  an  expression  of  patriotic  sentiment  it  has  been 
recognized  as  part  of  our  moral  life,  and  associated 
with  our  best  efforts  toward  the  progress  of  the 
world.    It  is  invoked  under  the  sanction  of  patriotic 
societies,  military  authorities,  and  sponsors  for  the 
Victory    Loan.      The    chief   propagandist    for    the 
Security  League  still  boasts  of  his  attempt  as  agent 
provocateur  before  an  audience  in  a  Western  uni- 
versity.    The  press  has  repeatedly  borne  witness  to 
the  crimes  of  violence  committed  by  men  in  uniform 
against  persons  exercising  the  right  of  lawful  as- 
sembly, but  whereas  our  courts  martial  have  been 
active  in  grinding  out  sentences  to  death  and  life 
imprisonment  against  men  who  have  failed  in  some 
minor  observance  of  military  law,  we  have  yet  to 
hear  of  a  case  where  a  soldier  has  been  punished 
for  attacking  the  institutions  of  democracy  which 
he  was   drafted   to   defend — except   the  men   who 
rioted  at  Houston,  who  were  black,  and  who  were 
hanged.     An  instance  of  the  attitude  of  the  army 
toward  mob  law  is  shown  by  the  petition  of  soldiers 
of  the  27th  division  to  General  O'Ryan  threatening 
violence  unless  the  entirely  lawful  performance  of 
opera  in  German  were  prevented   by  "  organized 
action."    Apparently  the  threat  was  regarded  as  so 
natural  as  to  attract  no  comment  or  rebuke.     An 
organ  which  claims  to  represent  the  returned  sol- 
diers is  Arthur  Guy  Empey's  Treat  'Em  Rough, 
whose  eminent  services  are  enlisted  in  behalf  of  the 
Victory  Loan.    In  the  March  issue  Mr.  Empey  ad- 
vises the  men  who  were  in  the  trenches  when  he 
was  on  the  lecture  platform  as  follows: 

The  Fifth  Liberty  Loan,  drive  will  soon  be  here.  Make 
a  Bolshevist  or  an  "  I.  W.  W."  buy  one  of  those  bonds, 
and  believe  me,  from  that  time  on  that  fellow  is  going  to 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


469 


support  Uncle  Sara,  and,  if  necessary,  fight  for  him.  If 
you  cannot,  after  very  patient  endeavor,  sell  him,  then 
show  him  what  it  means  to  get  a  good  Yankee  wallop  in 
the  nose. 

And  again  in  April,  referring  to  Socialists: 

This  speaker,  instead  of  being  arrested  and  given  a 
chance  to  gain  his  freedom  by  putting  up  as  bail  a  few 
paltry  dollars,  thus  being  enabled  to  further  spread  his 
treason,  should  be  executed  by  a  firing  squad  composed 
of  men  in  uniform.  The  staff  of  this  magazine — and  some 
of  us  are  pretty  good  shots — would  be  only  too  willing 
to  volunteer  for  such  a  firing  squad,  and  I  know  that 
every  true-thinking  soldier,  sailor,  or  marine  would  do 
the  same. 

The  national  and  local  authorities  which  are  inter- 
ested in  preventing  the  spread  of  Bolshevism  might 
consider  whether  the  restraint  of  those  patriots  who 
invoke  mob  violence  to  suppress  free  speech  and 
opinion  might  conduce  to  this  end. 


JLHE  UTTERANCES  OF  MEN  LIKE  THE  REVEREND 
Charles  A.  Eaton,  McNutt  McElroy,  and  Arthur 
Guy  Empey  may  be  discounted  as  part  of  the  ritual 
of  violence  which  their  professional  employments 
make  necessary.  In  the  same  way  the  utterances  on 
which  the  I.  W.  W.  leaders  were  convicted  in  Chi- 
cago and  elsewhere  are  part  of  a  ritual  of  sabotage, 
which  had  no  more  reference  to  the  question  of  the 
country  at  war  than  the  ritual  language  of 
Christians  with  their  Golden  Rule  and  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  had  to  the  same  situation.  Far  more 
serious  is  the  resort  of  the  local  authorities,  whose 
professional  function  is  to  keep  the  peace,  to  open 
provocation  and  violence.  The  facts  of  the  behavior 
>f  the  police  at  Lawrence  are  suppressed  in  the  news 
columns  of  the  press,  but  have  been  made  known  by 
communications  from  Mrs.  Glendower  Evans  and 
others  who  were  eyewitnesses  of  brutal  assaults 
made  by  the  protectors  of  society  against  strikers 
who  were  striving  to  preserve  a  peaceful  attitude. 
Of  these  assaults,  both  on  the  public  street  and  be- 
hind prison  walls,  there  is  no  shadow  of  doubt, 
pet  no  official  cognizance  is  taken,  no  charge  is 
arought,  and  the  reign  of  law  continues.  The  Gov- 
ernor of  Massachusetts  looks  on  Lawrence  as  the 
Grovernor  of  Illinois  on  East  Saint  Louis,  and,  like 
Gallio,  they  care  for  none  of  these  things. 


A  HE    CULTURE    OF    THE    NINETEENTH    CENTURY 

,vas  largely  historical.  Its  authors  of  epic  scope  were 
listorians  —  Carlyle,  Macaulay,  Grote,  Napier, 
Kinglake,  to  mention  no  others.  Drama,  fiction, 
3oetry,  when  devoted  to  high  and  serious  ends,  took 
:heir  material  from  history.  The  trust  in  history  as 
i  guide  to  life  was  reiterated  in  definitions :  "  His- 
:ory  is  philosophy  teaching  by  experience,"  and  the 
.ike.  With  the  publication  of  Darwin's  Origin  of 
species,  the  intellectual  life  took  a  new  turn.  The 
scientific  replaced  the  historical  method — even  his- 


tory itself  became  a  matter  of  evaluating  human 
testimony.  The  geological  record  reduced  the  period 
of  history  to  a  brief  moment  in  the  life  of  man. 
Biology  became  the  background  of  human  thought — 
drama,  fiction,  poetry  in  serious  moods  reflected  it. 
Modern  psychology  and  sociology  were  born.  Only 
in  politics  has  the  historical  background  and  method 
persisted  with  undiminished  authority.  Only  there 
has  the  obsession  lingered  that  historical  study  and 
precedent  will  serve  as  infallible  guides.  But  the 
events  of  the  last  years  have  given  a  rude  shock  to 
the  belief  that  men  and  nations  learn  anything  from 
recorded  experience.  The  record  itself,  when  sub- 
ject to  political  use,  becomes  distorted  beyond  the 
semblance  of  truth.  If  there  is  one  lesson  that 
stands  out  today  it  is  the  failure  of  history  to  teach, 
or  men's  perverse  incapacity  to  profit  by  its  teaching. 
The  failure  of  empires  of  the  past  had  no  message 
for  modern  imperialists;  the  economic  teachings  of 
war  had  none  for  modern  capitalists ;  the  disillusion- 
ments  of  peace  congresses  have  none  for  modern 
diplomats.  Apparently  in  national  and  international 
organization  nations  are  thrown  back  on  the  trial 
and  error  method.  They  are  becoming  laboratories 
in  which  nature  must  be  read  in  the  language  of 
-experiment — mortars  in  which  human  material  is 
brayed  and  broken,  to  be  purified  in  the  process  of 
disintegration,  and  the  residue  fused  and  welded  to 
new  forms  and  uses  by  fervent  heat.  Of  the  na- 
tions which  submit  themselves  boldly  to  experiment 
Russia  is  the  type;  of  those  that  trust  to  the  biased 
textbooks  of  their  past  the  United  States  is  the 
chief.  No  country,  unless  it  is  China,  is  so  proud 
of  its  past,  so  confident  in  the  wisdom  of  the  fathers, 
so  unconscious  of  the  vital  phenomena  of  the  modern 
world.  The  contrast  is  reflected  in  the  masterpieces 
of  Lenin  and  Wilson.  The  proletarian  state  is  an 
experiment;  the  League  of  Nations  is  being  rapidly 
reduced  to  the  application  of  a  historical  formula. 

1  MMANUEL  KANT  ONCE  WROTE  A  SKETCH,  A 
century  and  a  quarter  ago,  on  Perpetual  Peace.  He 
prefaced  it  with  a  jest,  as  tasteless  as  it  was  clumsy, 
to  say  that  the  running  title  under  which  he  wrote — 
Zum  ewigen  Frieden,  that  is  to  say,  The  House  of 
Peace  Everlasting — was  borrowed  from  the  sign- 
board of  a  certain  roadside  tavern  adjoining  a  cer- 
tain ancient  churchyard.  Compounded  of  bar-room 
and  graveyard,  this  wise  man's  jest  will  to  many 
readers  doubtless  have  seemed  as  pointless  as  it  is 
tasteless.  But  that  will  be  true  only  of  those  readers 
of  Kant  who  have  not  had  the  inestimable  fortune 
to  live  through  these  days  of  returning  peace  and 
to  witness  the  maudlin  deliberations  of  that  con- 
clave of  elder  statesmen  who  are  now  arranging 
to  make  the  world  safe  for  the  vested  rights  of  inter- 
national dissension.  The  point  of  Kant's  jest  is 
plain  now.  Today  his  readers  are  in  a  position  to 
marvel  that  even  that  wise  old  man  should  have 
been  so  wise  as  all  that.  It  is  quite  uncanny. 


47° 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


Communications 


SIR:  It  seems  to  me  that  no  day  should  pass 
without  dignified  but  persistent  agitation  of  the  fol- 
lowing points: 

Why  are  we  fighting  the  political  majority  of  the 
Russian  people?  Have  not  wives,  mothers,  and 
fathers,  as  well  as  the  soldiers  themselves,  a  right 
to  know  for  what  reason  American  boys  are  giving 
their  lives  or  being  wounded  in  a  foreign  country? 
Is  it  right  or  just  for  men  to  be  conscripted  to  kill 
people  with  whom  they  are  not  at  war?  Why  was 
there  no  answer  to  the  note  from  the  Russian  Soviet 
Government  to  President  Wilson  asking  for  an  ex- 
planation of  our  conduct  and  a  statement  of  what 
amounts  to  our  "war  aims"?  Should  not  sol- 
diers wounded  now  in  Russia  be  able  to  claim  dam- 
ages for  being  forced  to  fight  against  a  people  with 
whom  we  are  not  at  war?  Has  there  not  been 
enough  agony  and  bloodshed  in  a  just  cause  against 
Prussianism  and  militarism,  without  agony  and 
bloodshed  in  an  unjust  cause?  Or  have  we  been 
contaminated  into  taking  up  Hohenzollern  methods 
against  the  Russians? 

We  are  told  in  recent  reports  from  Paris  that  we 
are  to  keep  troops  in  Russia  to  give  "  moral  sup- 
port "  to  certain  approved  but  fluctuating  govern- 
ments against  the  immoralities  and  illegalities  of 
the  Bolsheviki.  But  let  us  look  to  our  own  morals, 
our  own  doings,  our  own  laws  in  America,  before, 
we  undertake  by  force  to  improve  another  people. 
We  are  persecuting  political  offenders  in  a  way  to 
recall  darkest  Czarism.  Our  state  prisons  are 
abominations,  medieval  in  their  tortures.  Unless  we 
quickly  relieve  and  remedy  these  and  other  evils,  we 
must  expect  among  our  own  people  revolt  and  even 
Bolshevism.  The  greater  the  tyranny  the  more  ex- 
treme the  revolt.  Russia  and  Germany  are  a  lesson 
to  the  whole  world.  Kerensky's  moderation 
was  not  supported  by  the  Allies.  Bolshevism  fol- 
lowed. Czaristic  Russia  and  tyrannical,  imperial- 
istic Germany  forced  the  people  to  revolt.  Two 
years. ago  could  you  have  persuaded  anyone  that  re- 
volt of  the  people  of  these  imperialistic  countries 
would  have  been  so  sudden  and  complete  and  suc- 
cessful? Let  imperialistic  conservatives  of  Eng- 
land bear  in  mind  their  decisions  at  the  Peace  Con- 
ference. The  British  Labor  Party  was  seemingly 
defeated  at  the  polls  but  is  strong  and  on  the  alert. 
Let  imperialistic  conservatives  in  America  as  well 
take  heed,  because  the  more  oppressive  and  tyran- 
nical they  become,  as  in  the  Mooney  case,  the  more 
sudden  and  violent  the  deluge. 

I  am  proud  to  be  an  American  these  days,  proud 
that  we  are  represented  by  the  only  man  who  is 
speaking  clearly  in  the  cause  of  democracy  at  the 
Peace  Conference,  demanding  honest  treatment  for 
all  people  as  well  as  for  the  people  he  represents. 
President  Wilson  originally  raised  a  voice  against 


the  Russian  invasion.  But  his  own  party,  as  well 
as  the  Republicans  and  Allies,  silenced  that  voice. 
His  vision  of  what  would  happen  has  come  true,  and 
time  has  divulged  the  contradictory  un justness  of 
our  invasion.  Our  way  of  conferring  "  self-deter- 
mination "is  to  kill. 

I  appeal  to  you  who  have  stood  out  against  the 
invasion  of  Russia,  and  urge  you  to  even  greater 
effort. 

And  I  appeal  to  all  liberals  to  make  themselves 
heard  at  this  crucial  time. 

JULIA  ELLSWORTH  FORD. 

New  York  City. 

MILITARY  TRAINING  AS  EDUCATION 

SIR:  In  your  issue  of  January  25  appears  a  very 
interesting  contribution  by  George  Soule  on  the 
educational  value  of  military  training.  His  argu- 
ment is  interesting  and  instructive,  and  doubtless 
many  thousands  of  serious  men  have  felt  the  same 
things  in  the  last  two  years,  but  few  could  express 
these  ideas  so  definitely  and  in  so  few  words.  My 
aim  in  writing  is  to  present  the  other  side  of  the 
question  in  part,  and  to  explain  some  features  of 
military  training  that  have  educational  value.  Mr. 
Soule  has  chosen  the  weak  points,  and  I  say  can- 
didly I  am  sure  the  points  he  makes  must  be  reck- 
oned with.  It  is  a  problem  to  be  worked  out  by 
pedagogical  experts.  It  has  often  appeared  to  the 
writer,  a  mere  civilian  in  uniform,  that  military 
methods  are  too  conservative,  and  the  chiefs,  those 
in  high  command,  are  rather  "  inhospitable  to  new 
ideas."  The  American  public,  the  American  Con- 
gress, those  in  high  military  command,  and  the 
horde  of  under-chiefs  should  candidly  admit  that 
the  machine  and  the  methods  are  not  perfect,  and 
set  about  to  take  counsel  to  improve  them.  Army 
officials  must  take  the  thinking  public  into  their 
confidence. 

The  question  of  military  training  is  fundamen- 
tally a  question  of  education.  Since  the  problem  of 
universal  military  training  is  imminent,  the  most 
imminent  question  for  citizens,  fathers,  and  mothers 
is  what  ideals,  what  methods  shall  control  the 
training.  No  counsel  or  advice  or  suggestion  from 
any  source  should  be  refused  or  ignored  by  law- 
makers and  military  leaders  to  insure  not  only  ef- 
fective military  training,  but  valuable  habits  and 
useful  information  available  in  civil  pursuits.  To 
achieve  this  end,  it  occurs  to  me  that  Congress  or 
the  War  Department  should  raise  a  commission, 
composed  of  one  military  official,  one  university 
man,  one  high  school  teacher  or  superintendent,  one 
business  man,  and  one  professional  man,  to  call  for 
suggestions  from  officers  and  enlisted  men  demobil- 
ized from  service  to  study  the  whole  question  of 
training  and  discipline  in  the  army  from  a  patriotic 
and  pedagogical  viewpoint ;  and  to  report  conclusions 
and  recommendations .  to  Congress  and  the  War 
Department.  There  is  no  mystery  or  esoteric  force 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


471 


enshrouding  and  obscuring  military  questions. 
Methods  and  ideals  that  succeed  in  efficient  indus- 
tries may  be  applied  advantageously  to  army  train- 
ing and  discipline.  Since  universal  training  takes 
the  entire  citizenry  into  direct  contact  with  the 
army,  military  leaders  must  consent  to  take  counsel 
'of  and  with  civilians.  Since  the  military  establish- 
ment is  to  be  broadened  numerically  and  financially, 
its  high  command  must  admit  the  possibility  of  im- 
provement by  adopting  suggestions  from  "  partially 
initiated  civilians."  There  is  a  reason  for  the 
archaic,  non-progressive  methods  of  which  Mr. 
Soule  complains.  The  American  public  has  never 
taken  any  interest  in  the  army  except  in  time  of 
war,  and  then  there  was  no  time  to  consider  and 
devise  improvements.  In  peace  times  the  army  has 
been  considered  and  treated  as  a  thing  apart  from 
our  chief  national  interests.  Before  our  entry  into 
the  world  war,  millions  of  Americans  never  saw  a 
soldier.  Further,  military  leaders  were  not  edu- 
cators. Officers  came  from  the  ranks  or  from  West 
Point,  but  in  both  cases  the  previous  training  was 
solely  to  make  soldiers.  Years  of  military  discip- 
line do  not  encourage  originality  or  develop  the 
habit  of  mind  of  seeking  out  improvements,  but 
instill  a  disposition  to  accept  existing  conditions  and 
to  acquiesce  in  prevailing  ideas,  ideals,  and  methods. 
Furthermore,  military  power  is  one-man  power. 
The  commander  neither  asks  nor  accepts  suggestions 
from  inferiors.  As  it  is  impossible  for  one  man 
to  know  all  things,  the  chief  who  does  not  take 
counsel  of  others  is  shut  off  from  the  greatest  source 
of  information  and  enlightenment.  Hence  the  ne- 
qessity  of  some  such  commission  as  suggested.  • 

JOHN  J.  McSwAiN, 

Captain,  Infantry. 
Camp  Morrison,   Va. 

THE  GERMAN  INDEMNITY 

SIR:  In  regard  to  Mr.  Codman's  artfcle  How 
to  Secure  the  German  Indemnity,  it  is  inconceivable 
after  taking  all  facts  into  consideration  just  how 
this  indemnity  can  ever  be  paid.  From  a  stand- 
point of  state  socialism  Mr.  Codman's  plan  appears 
sound,  sane,  and  practical;  but  conditions  have  so 
changed  as  to  make  this  extremely  doubtful  if  not 
altogether  unthinkable.  The  law  of  economic  de- 
terminism is  entirely  ignored,  also  human  nature. 
When  ayman  lies  awake  nights  thinking  and  schem- 
ing, and  chases  dollars  all  day  to  amass  a  fortune, 
he  is  not  going  to  give  it  up  without  a  fight.  On 
the  other  hand  if  the  people  were  given  their 
economic  freedom,  as  a  man  might  have  a  fortune 
dropped  into  his  lap,  would  they  appreciate  its  value, 
and  would  they  hold  it?  There  is  an  old  saying 
that  anything  that  comes  easy  goes  easy.  That  is 
true  to  human  nature.  Even  if  Mr.  Codman's  plan 
were  feasible  and  put  into  practice,  there  would  be 
an  unceasing  opposition,  and  it  would  not  be  long 
before  those  who  so  desired  would  have  no  fear  or 


hesitancy  of  inaugurating  a  scheme  to  exact  tribute 
from  others. 

Mr.  Codman  is  apparently  not  informed  as  to 
Germany's  present  financial  condition.  Dr.  Rudolf, 
one  of  the  editors  of  Freiheit,  the  organ  of  the  In- 
dependent Socialists  of  Germany  states  that : 

Today  Germany  is  hopelessly  bankrupt.  .  .  .  Ger- 
many's national  total  debt  is  170,000,000,000  marks. 
Add  to  this  total,  debts  of  the  states,  cities,  and  communi- 
ties—50,000,000,000  marks;  and  add  further  20,000,000,000 
for  the  uncovered  paper  money  in  circulation.  Besides, 
Germany's  running  expenses  today  are  4,000,000,000 
marks  a  month,  say  another  50,000,000,000  a  year,  making 
a  grand  total  of  obligations  of  nearly  300,000,000,000 
marks  (approximately  $75,000,000,000  under  the  normal 
rate  of  exchange).  Thjs  is  more  than  the  national  wealth 
today,  and  this  without  paying  a  penny  of  indemnity  or 
including  present  necessary  payments  for  food  and  raw 
materials. 

In  the  face  of  this  could  the  German  people  be 
expected  to  pay  an  indemnity  and  at  the  same  time 
pay  off  their  own  national  debt,  as  well  as  the  neces- 
sary payments  for  food  and  raw  materials  in  a  "  re- 
markably short  time,"  even  though  the  wealth-own- 
ing classes  were  deprived  of  everything  except  title 
to  their  holdings,  by  being  forced  to  pay  over  the 
full  rental  value  for  the  right  of  ownership  which 
the  Allies  would  have  to  exact  through  force  ?  Will 
the  German  working  classes  voluntarily  place  them- 
selves in  virtual  bondage  for  generations  to  come  to 
pay  off  the  moral  debts  of  the  Junkers?  Mr.  Cod- 
man apparently  takes  this  for  granted  in  saying  that 
"  sentimentally,  it  would  make  little  difference  to 
the  factory  hands,  the  peasants,  to  the  tenant  farm- 
ers," to  whom  they  paid  their  tribute.  (The  own- 
ers of  capital  and  employers  Clever  have  and  never 
will  pay  any  tribute.)  Another  misjudgment  of 
human  nature.  He  forgets  that  the  working  classes 
are  fast  becoming  class  conscious,  which  means  that 
they  are  finding  out  that  the  interests  of  any  person, 
organization,  or  institution  that  exploits  them  are 
diametrically  opposed  to  their  own. 

Assuming  that  the  Germans  could  pay  the  in- 
demnity under  Mr.  Codman's  plan,  would  the  prop- 
ertied classes  give  up  private  ownership  of  the  nat- 
ural resources  when  technically  they  would  not  be 
required  to  do  so? 

If  Germany  must  have  foreign  markets  to  dis- 
pose of  her  surplus  production,  the  Allied  nations 
must  also  have  them  to  dispose  of  their  surplus  pro- 
duction, more  especially  so  if  the  Allies  were  pro- 
ducing as  abundantly  as  the  Germans  would  be. 
These  markets  are  now  and  always  have  been  the 
competitive  markets  of  the  world,  and  with  nations 
competing  for  them,  there  is  bound  to  be  a  War  at 
some  time  or  other. 

Mr.  Codman  also  proposes  that  the  Allied  gov- 
ernments practice  the  same  methods  at  home  as  he 
thinks  they  should  practice  on  the  Germans.  Would 
any  of  the  Allied  governments  do  this?  No. 
Where  did  he  get  such  a  funny  idea? 

A.  L.  BIGLER. 

Norfolk,  Virginia. 


472 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


Notes  on  New  Books 

CIVILIZATION.    By  Georges  Duhamel.    Century. 

Certain  modern  painters  have  tried  to  suggest 
the  power  and  influence  of  machines  on  our  present- 
day  life :  it  is  "  those  machines  of  yours  that  used  to 
amuse  me  once,  when  I  knew  nothing,  but  that  now 
fill  me  with  horror,  because  they  are  the  very  soul 
of  this  war,  the  principle  and  reason  of  this  war!" 
that  cause  Georges  Duhamel  to  write  with  fury 
little  stories  of  his  experiences  as  a  surgeon  with 
the  French  army.  He  sees  the  battlefield  as  a  vast 
"  brazier,"  the  front  line  as  a  "  workshop  of  tritura- 
tion  and  destruction,"  the  automobile  ambulance  as 
the  first  "  repair  shop,"  in  which  "  skilful  work- 
men "  hurriedly  patch  human  bits  of  the  military 
machine.  Field  hospitals  are  "  flesh-factories," 
whose  wheels  revolve  on  themselves  when  there 
is  insufficient  material  to  gorge  them.  The  heart 
of  the  hospital  is  the  monstrous  sterilizing  autoclave, 
"  raised  up  like  a  monarch  on  a  sort  of  throne."  The 
worst  of  it  is  that  "  civilization's  reply  to  itself, 
the  correction  it  was  giving  to  its  own  destructive 
eruptions,  all  this  complexity  to  efface  a  little  of  the 
harm  engendered  by  the  age  of  machines,"  seems 
to  be  simply  the  pincers,  the  delicate  knives,  the 
microscopes,  and  the  autoclaves  of  the  hospital.  No 
wonder  Duhamel  cries  out:  "  I  hate  the  twentieth 
century  as  I  hate  rotten  Europe  and  the  whole  world 
on  which  this  wretched  Europe  is  spread  out  like  a 
great  spot  of  axle  grease."  And  yet :  "  Civilization ! 
the  true  Civilization — I  often  think  of  it.  It  is 
like  a  choir  of  harmonious  voices  chanting  a  hymn 
in  my  heart,  it  is  a  marble  statue  on  a  barren  hill, 
it  is  a  man  saying,  '  Love  one  another!'  and  '  Return 
good  for  evil!'  "  And  if  civilization  "  is  not  in  the 
heart  of  man,  well,  it's  nowhere."  And  it  is  the 
heart  of  man  suffering  from  terrible  wounds,  or 
oppressed  by  living  with  corpses,  which  he  shows 
us  in  these  sickening  side-wing  sketches  of  war. 
They  are  good  little  stories,  not  always  so  well 
written  as  one  would  expect  (is  that  the  translator's 
fault?)  but  illumined  by  an  irony,  a  weary  humor, 
and  a  disillusioned  martyr-spirit  characteristic  of  the 
French  litterateurs  of  Duhamel's  generation.  One 
is  tempted  to  say  that  Duhamel  in  this  book  is  the 
Oliver  Jeannin  of  Jean-Christophe  gone  to  war. 

THE  POWER  OF  DANTE.     By  Charles  Hall 
Grandgent.     Marshall  Jones;  Boston. 

As  someone  has  said,  "  there  are  books  and  books," 
and  of  these  the  Divina  Commedia  is  the  second  that 
is  always  able  to  give  sustenance  of  some  sort  to 
every  type  of  mind.  Dante  speaks  with  a  certainty 
that  catches  the  sympathetic  reader  at  once  and 
makes  him  feel  that  he  is  on  a  firm  ground  of  belief. 
The  reasons  for  this  power  that  Dante  has  over 
even  the  modern  efficiency  expert — who  is  supposed 
to  be  otherwise  occupied  than  with  the  vaporings  of 


a  centuries  dead  mystic — Mr.  Grandgent  has  well 
set  forth  in  these  Lowell  Lectures.  He  shows  us 
the  poet's  faith,  its  reality  and  working  force;  his 
morality,  stern  in  its  logic  but  lightened  with  pity 
for  the  frailties  of  the  flesh;  his  uncompromising, 
honest,  scholarly,  and  courteous  temperament;  the 
varied  course  of  his  life  and  the  wanton  injustice 
done  him  by  his  beloved  Florence ;  his  vision  of  the 
meaning  of  life  and  the  allegory  of  Man,  so  much 
truer  than  the  silly  symbols  of  some  more  recent 
seers;  his  keenness  of  conception,  realistic  in  its  de- 
tail; and  his  workmanship  and  diction,  which, 
grievous  to  relate,  were  the  result  of  a  classical  ed- 
ucation. These  lectures  cannot  be  enjoyed  to  the 
full  without  a  fairly  complete  acquaintance  with 
the  poem,  an  acquaintance  which  possibly  a  Lowell 
Lecturer  alone  has  a  right  to  expect;  but  if  they 
send  the  reader  to  attempt  the  great  journey  with 
Dante  as  guide  they  will  have  added  to  the  sum- 
total  of  human  joy.  Among  the  pleasantest  features 
of  the  book  are  the  many  graceful  and  scholarly 
translations  by  Mr.  Grandgent  in  Dante's  own 
meter.  It  makes  one  hope  that  Mr.  Grandgent  will 
some  day  give  us  that  long-awaited  perfect  transla- 
tion of  the  Divina  Commedia  which  will  unite  ac- 
curacy and  real  poetry  in  the  English. 

THE  EARLY  YEARS  OF  THE  SATURDAY  CLUB 
(1855-1870).  By  Edward  Waldo  Emerson. 
Hough  ton  Mifflin;  Boston. 

THE  SALMAGUNDI  CLUB.  By  William  Henry 
Shelton.  Houghton  Mifflin;  Boston. 

The  Golden  Age  of  the  Saturday  Club  has  been 
recorded  with  pious  fulness  by  Edward  Waldo 
Emerson,  with  the  help  of  Bliss  Perry,  who  wrote 
nine  personal  sketches,  and  of  four  other  contribu- 
tors, who  together  wrote  five.  The  differences 
among  the  contributors  are  enough  to  make  the 
sketches  vary  perceptibly  in  quality,  from  Professor 
Perry's  accomplished  grace  to  Dr.  Emerson's  au- 
thoritative pomp.  The  sketches  of  Emerson,  Lowell, 
and  other  bewritten  persons  naturally  contain 
little  if  anything  that  is  new,  but  in  emphasizing 
the  clubable  traits  of  these  celebrities  they  are  an 
essential  part  of  the  scheme.  More  valuable  how- 
ever are  the  sketches  of  the  underlings,  such  as 
Edwin  Percy  Whipple  (whose  centenary  is  being 
observed  somewhat  casually  this  year),  now  for  the 
first  time  the  subject  of  a  full-length  portrait,  and 
Horatio  Woodman,  an  interesting  farmer  from 
New  Hampshire  with  a  large  appetite  for  genius. 
When  formed,  the  Saturday  Club  included  fourteen 
men:  Emerson,  Lowell,  Agassiz,  Peirce,  Dana, 
Dwight,  Hoar,  Motley,  Ward,  Whipple,  Wood- 
man, Holmes,  Longfellow,  and  Felton — "  four 
poets,  one  historian,  one  essayist,  one  biologist  and 
geologist,  one  mathematician  and  astronomer,  one 
classical  scholar,  one  musical  critic,  one  judge,  twa 
lawyers,  and  one  banker."  Of  those  who  were 


1919  THE  DIAL  473 


ECONOMIC  PRIZES 

SIXTEENTH  YEAR 

In  order  to  arouse  an  interest  in  the  study  of  topics  relating  to  commerce  and  industry, 
and  to  stimulate  those  who  have  a  college  training  to  consider  the  problems  of  a  business 
career,  a  committee  composed  of 

Professor  J.  Laurence  Laughlin,  University  of  Chicago,  Chairman 
Professor  J.  B.  Clark,  Columbia  University 
Professor  Henry  C.  Adams,  University  of  Michigan 
Hon.  Theodore  E.  Burton,  New  York  City,  and 
Professor  Edwin  F.  Gay,  Harvard  University 

has  been  enabled,  through  the  generosity  of  Messrs.  Hart  Schaffner  &  Marx  of  Chicago,  to 
offer  in  1920  four  prizes  for  the  best  studies  in  the  economic  field. 

In  addition  to  the  subjects  printed  below,  we  will  send  on  request  a  list  of  available 
subjects  proposed  in  past  years.  Attention  is  expressly  called  to  the  rule  that  a  competitor 
is  not  confined  to  topics  proposed  in  the  announcements  of  this  committee,  but  any  other 
subject  chosen  must  first  be  approved  by  it. 

.    1.    On  what  economic  basis  can  a  League  of  Nations  be  permanently  established? 

2.  The  Future  of  the  Food  Supply. 

3.  A  study  of  the  means  and  results  of  economic  control  by  the  Allies   during  the 

European  War. 

4.  The  effects  of  governmental  action  in  the  United  States  on  the  wages  of  labor. 

5.  The  effect  of  price-fixing  in  the  United  States  on"  the  competitive  system. 

6.  A  study  of  the  effects  of  paper  money  issues  during  the  European  War. 

Class  B  includes  only  those  who,  at  the  time  the  papers  are  sent  in,  are  undergraduates 
of  any  American  college.  Class  A  includes  any  other  Americans  without  restriction;  the 
possession  of  a  degree  is  not  required  of  any  contestant  in  this  class,  nor  is  any  age  limit  set. 

A  First  Prize  of  One  Thousand  Dollars,  and 
A  Second  Prize  of  Five  Hundred  Dollars 

are  offered  to  contestants  in  Class  A. 

A  First  Prize  of  Three  Hundred  Dollars,  and 
A  Second  Prize  of  Two  Hundred  Dollars 

are  offered  to  contestants  in  Class  B.  The  committee  reserves  to  itself  the  right  to  award 
the  two  prizes  of  $1,000  and  $500  of  Class  A  to  undergraduates  in  Class  B,  if  the  merits  of 
the  papers  demand  it.  The  committee  also  reserves  the  privilege  of  dividing  the  prizes 
offered,  if  justice  can  be  best  obtained  thereby.  The  winner  of  a  prize  shall  not  receive  the 
amount  designated  until  he  has  prepared  his  manuscript  for  the  printer  to  the  satisfaction 
of  the  committee.  • 

The  ownership  of  the  copyright  of  successful  studies  will  vest  In  the  donors,  and  It  Is  expected 
that,  without  precluding  the  use  of  these  papers  as  theses  for  higher  degrees,  they  will  cause  them  to 
be  issued  in  some  permanent  form. 

Competitors  are  advised  that  the  studies  should  be  thorough,  expressed  in  good  English,  and  al- 
though not  limited  as  to  length,  they  should  not  be  needlessly  expanded.  They  should  be  inscribed 
with  an  assumed  name,  the  class  in  which  they  are  presented,  and  accompanied  by  a  sealed  envelope 
giving  the  real  name  and  address  of  the  competitor.  No  paper  is  eligible  which  shall  have  been 
printed  or  published  in  a  form  to  disclose  the  identity  of  the  author  before  the  award  shall  have  been 
made.  If  the  competitor  is  In  CLASS  B,  the  sealed  envelope  should  contain  the  name  of  the  Institu- 
tion in  which  he  is  studying.  The  papers  should  be  sent  on  or  before  June  1,  1920,  to 

J.  Laurence  Laughlin,  Esq. 

The  University  of  Chicago 

Chicago  Illinois 


When  writing  to  advertisers  please  mention  THE  DIAL. 


474 


THE  DIAL 


May  3 


admitted  later  perhaps  the  best  known  are  Prescott, 
Whittier,  Norton,  Sumner,  and  Charles  Francis 
Adams.  At  first  the  club  was  often  referred  to  by 
outsiders  as  "  Agassiz's  Club."  Louis  Agassiz,  the 
expansive,  cultivated  French-Swiss  who  loved  his 
work  in  America  too  much  to  respond  to  the  French 
Emperor's  offer  of  a  chair  in  the  Museum  of 
Natural  History  at  Paris,  was  fortunately  one  of 
the  ruling  spirits.  He  helped  to  keep  the  club  from 
being  the  group  of  well-behaved  literary  Brahmins 
that  too  many  of  us  are  accustomed  to  regard  it. 
At  "  Parker's,"  opposite  the  City  Hall,  where  the 
statue  of  Franklin  bade  them  beware  of  provincial- 
ism, these  good  gentlemen  ate  from  three  to  nine; 
and  imbibed  (discreetly)  sherry,  sauterne,  and  claret; 
and  talked  with  a  degree  of  wisdom  and  brilliance 
since  then  probably  unequaled  in  the  Western 
Hemisphere.  Every  serious  student  of  American  life 
and  letters  will  need  to  know  this  book.  It  is 
printed  and  bound  perfectly. 

Dr.  Emerson's  record  runs  to  1871 :  William 
Henry  Shelton's  record  of  the  Salmagundi  Club 
begins  with  its  inception  in  that  year  and  runs  to  the 
present.  The  difference  between  the  Boston  and  the 
New  York  of  1871  is  roughly  symbolized  by  these 
two  famous  clubs:  the  one  dominantly  literary  on  a 
Puritan  foundation,  the  other  artistic  with  the 
simple  ideals  of  the  painter.  Salmagundi  grew  out 
of  "  a  group  of  art  students  who  formed  a  sketch 
class  for  mutual  improvement,"  and  prospered  in 
the  same  current  of  progress  that  is  associated  with 
the  old  Scribner's  Monthly  (later  the  Century  Mag- 
azine), for  which  they  drew.  For  many  years  the 
members  gave  annual  exhibitions  of  black-and-white 
drawings;  a  large  number  of  these  early  sketches  are 
admirably  reproduced  in  the  present  book.  Not  to 
mention  several  "  laymen,"  the  original  members 
were  F.  S.  Church,  Will  Low,  Fred  Vance,  the 
Harleys,  W.  H.  Shelton,  Alfred  E.  Emslie,  and 
J.  P.  Andrews.  In  1887,  the  last  exhibition  year, 
the  club  gave  up  its  character  as  a  group  of  sketchers 
and  became  frankly  social.  Recognizing  the  re- 
stricted interest  in  a  record  of  this  kind,  the  pub- 
lishers have  printed  a  limited  edition.  Like  the 
Saturday  Club,  it  is  an  exceptionally  beautiful  book. 

GOVERNMENT  AND  THE  WAR.     By   Spenser 
Wilkinson.      McBride. 

For  those  to  whom  the  inevitability  of  war  is 
a  foregone  conclusion  this  volume  of  essays  by 
the  Chichele.  professor  of  Military  History  at  Ox- 
ford will  prove  very  acceptable  reading,  presenting 
as  it  does  every  essential  argument  to  prove  that  the 
development  of  human  societies  and  the  progress  of 
civilization  has  been  attended  and  even  conditioned 
by  warfare.  According  to  Professor  Wilkinson, 
war  is  an  unavoidable  Fact  of  Government  and  the 
State — a  view  of  the  "  realists  "  in  politics  from 
Machiavelli  to  Bernhardi.  A  view,  one  might  add, 
that  seems  to  be  falling  into  considerable  disfavor 


among  those  classes  of  the  people  who  hitherto  have 
been  expected  meekly  to  bear  the  brunt  of  this 
"  Fact."  Spenser  Wilkinson,  however,  is  very  far 
from  being  a  mere  zealot  or  enthusiast  in  the  cause 
of  militarism.  Despite  his  quarrel  with  Norman 
Angell  (touched  on  in  the  essay  What  is  Peace?) 
an  impartial  reader  cannot  but  see  the  force  and 
logic  of  many  of  the  author's  contentions :  the  whole 
trouble  is  seen  to  rest  in  the  old-fashioned  concep- 
tion of  the  State  as  in  some  sort  an  entity,  not  to  be 
in  any  way  modified  or  tampered  with  by  those  cos- 
mopolitan and  international  influences  at  present 
operating  in  the  world.  Thus,  the  major  premise 
being  discredited,  or  at  least  very  seriously  ques- 
tionable, the  whole  fabric  of  Mr.  Wilkinson's  mili- 
taristic politics  crumbles.  The  book  is  of  interest  as 
showing  how  well  a  certain  element  of  the  English 
public  assimilated  the  ideas  of  the  Prussian  philos- 
ophy they  had  vowed  utterly  to  destroy. 

THE   VALLEY  OF   VISION.     By   Henry   Van 
Dyke.    Scribner. 

THE  VALLEY  OF  VISION.     By   Sarah   Corn- 
stock.     Doubleday,  Page. 

Despite  a  common  title,  a  common  cost,  and  a 
common  humanity,  there  are  numerous  points  of 
divergence  in  these  two-books;  the  coincidence  has 
no  literary  significance.  Dr.  Van  Dyke  has  assem- 
bled a  series  of  sketches  and  short  stories,  most  of 
them  with  the  war  as  background,  whereas  Miss 
Comstock  unburdens  herself  of  a  novel  which  ends 
two  years  before  the  war  begins.  A  trivial  dis- 
tinction of  the  literal-minded,  no  doubt;  but  note 
the  closing  lines  of  the  novel: 

It  was  then  the  summer  of  1912. 

She  went  on   packing.     She   was  brisk.     .     .     . 

"  I  can  see,"  she  mused,  following  some  dim  train  of 
thought,  "  how  it  must  be — how  war  must  come  as  a 
godsend  to  a  man — or  woman — at  certain  times —  " 

And  the  old  Psychologist  smiled  less  cynically  than 
before  upon  Marcia  Warren — almost  kindly,  in  fact,  as 
if  wanting  to  tell  her  that  1914  was  but  two  years  away. 

In  style — to  continue  the  parallel — Miss  Comstock 
is  like  the  gilt  on  a  picture  frame,  obliterating  the 
wood;  while  the  effect  with  Dr.  Van  Dyke  is  more 
like  that  of  varnish — it  is  smooth,  rather  glossy,  and 
occasionally  brings  out  the  beauty  of  the  grain. 
Doubtless  Dr.  Van  Dyke  reacted  deeply  and  au- 
thentically to  the  emotional  experiences  of  war,  and 
without  question  his  vantage  post  for  observation 
was  far  superior  to  that  of  most  of  those  who  have 
committed  their  thoughts  to  books ;  yet  one  turns 
the  excellently  printed  and  faintly  amber  pages 
feeling  that  here  are  good  intentions  run  into  lean 
literature.  Either  a  temperamental  inability  to  let 
himself  go,  or  perhaps  a  conscious  curbing  of  the 
pen,  has  resulted  in  a  product  too  correct  and  too 
impersonal  to  kindle  the  spark  of  enthusiasm.  When 
Dr.  Van  Dyke  unbends,  it  is  with  an  audible  pro- 
fessorial creak.  If  he  seeks  to  transcribe  the  slangy 
discourse  of  college  men  he  jumbles  the  obsolete  and 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


475 


UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN  STUDIES 

STUDIES    IN  LANGUAGE  AND  LITERATURE 

No.  1.  British  Criticisms  of  American  Writings:  1783- 
1815,  by  William  B.  Cairns.  Price  50c. 

No.  2.  Studies  by  Members  of  the  Department  of  Eng- 
lish (Dedicated  to  Frank  Gay  lord  Hubbaro). 
Price  $1.00. 

No.  3.  Classical  Studies  in  honor  of  Charles  Forster 
Smith,  by  his  Colleagues.  Price  $1.00. 

THE  HEEACLKS  MYTH  AND  ITS  TREATMENT  BY  EURI- 
PIDES 

G.  L.  Hendrickson 

THE  SOURCE  OF  HERODOTUS'  KNOWLEDGE  OF  ARTA- 
BAZUS 

A.  G.  Laird 
SENECA  AND  THE  STOIC  THEORY  OF  LITERARY 

C.  N.  Smiley 
THE  PLAIN  STYLE  IN  THE  SCIPIONIC  CIRCLE 

George  Converse  Fiske 
THE  OLIVB  CROWN  IN  HORACE 

Andrew  Runni  Anderson 

THE  EXTERNAL  CITY 

Grant   Showerman 
BRITAIN  IN  ROMAN  LITERATURE 

Katharine  Allen 

A  STUDY  OF  PINDAR 
Annie  M.  Pitman 

LUCRETIUS — THE  POET  OF  SCIENCE 

M.  S.  Slaughter 
AN  EGYPTIAN  FARMER 

W.   L.  Westermann 

Orders    should  be  sent  to 

Secretary,  The  Board  of  Regents 

UNIVERSITY  OF   WISCONSIN 

Madison,    Wisconsin 


Announcing 


A  New  Novel 


By  HAROLD  LORD  VARNEY 

A  tale  of  revolution,  lived  and  spun 
through  the  familiar  settings  of  American 
cities.  A  cross-section  of  proletarian  life, 
never  before  revealed  by  fiction.  A 
spiritual  pilgrimage  which  finds  its  haven  ' 
in  the  I.  W.  W.  A  tale  of  love  which 
carries  the  reader  across  the  ocean  to  the 
stirring  days  of  Petrograd  and  the  Bol- 
shevik triumph  of  1917.  Here  one  meets 
all  the  drama,  the  burning  passions,  the 
breathless  thrills  of  the  life  of  the 
I.  W.  W.  agitator.  The  drudgery  of  the 
factory  and  the  docks,  the  romantic 
freedom  of  hobo  life,  the  agonies  of  jail 
and  imprisonment,  the  fevered  labor 
movement  of  New  York,  the  pretenders 
at  radicalism,  and  the  inspiring  radiance  ' 
of  revolutionary  women,  the  climax  of  the 
great  strike  at  Bayview  and  the  sudden 
journey  to  Revolutionary  Russia  —  a  great 
fictional  fabric  of  reality.  » 

Harold  Lord  Varney  is  a  ruthless  realist, 
who  writes  his  story  with  the  pen  of 
golden  romance.  His  pages  are  full  of 
the  cadences  of  real  life.  They  glow  with 
the  color  of  the  actual  class  struggle. 
And  his  story  never  lags.  One  follows  the 
plot  breathlessly  until  its  final  thrilling 
page.  Never  before  has  such  an  encyclo- 
paedic interpretation  of  the  labor  drama 
been  offered.  The  I.  W.  W.  has  found  its 
revealer.  Out  soon.  Order  your  copy  today. 

400  Pages,  Cloth  Bound,  $2 

IRVING  KAYE  DAVIS  &  CO. 

42  West  28th  Street"  New  York 


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476 


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the  current  jargon  in  an  orderly  fashion  which 
belies  the  uninitiate.  When  he  approaches  the  white 
heat  of  creative  writing,  he  sacrifices  its  finer  fever 
to  avoid  its  minor  flaws.  It  is  difficult  to  be  patient 
with  such  repeated  lapses  into  schoolmaster  con- 
descension as :  "  Well,  I  must  tell  you  more  about 
that,  else  you  can  never  feel  the  meaning  of  this 
story;"  or,  "Is  this  the  end  of  the  story?  Who 
can  say?"  There  are  times  when  the  helping  hand 
is  best  withheld. 

Miss  Comstock's  claim  to  The  Valley  of  Vision 
would  hardly  hold  in  a  court  of  literary  equity.  Her 
novel  is  an  interesting  sample  of  manufactured 
atmosphere,  done  with  a  fretwork  of  Ellen  Key 
and  an  embroidered  smartness  which  attains  such 
heights  as :  "  She  read  William  James  till  midnight 
— she  always  spoke  of  him  disrespectfully  as  her 
spiritual  hot  toddy."  Miss  Comstock's  story  is  it- 
self not  unlike  spiritual  cold  slaw. 

DOMUS    DOLORIS.      By    W.    Compton    Leith. 
Lane. 

If  the  droning,  prose  of  Compton  Leith  causes 
the  reader  to  revive  the  old  discussion  of  style  and 
matter,  he  will  probably  head  precipitately  for  the 
camp  of  those  who  maintain  that  what  you  say  is 
far  more  important  than  the  way  you  say  it.  He 
will  reflect  that  the  more  you  divorce  thought  from 
style  the  more  sensuous  the  latter  becomes,  and  that 
the  senses  sate  themselves  far  sooner  than  the  in- 
tellect. He  will  remember  too  that  to  write  prose 
more  than  feebly  suggestive  of  Pater  necessitates  as 
rich  and  developed  an  attitude  towards  life  as  the 
master  himself  had.  And  always  he  will  note,  as  he 
follows  the  inane  meditations  of  this  present-day 
Polonius,  that  one  may  have  the  politest  of  manners 
and  still  be  a  deadening  bore. 

THE    GILDED    MAN.      By    Clifford    Smyth. 
Boni  and  Liveright. 

There  is  a  thick  coating  of  science  around  this 
romancer's  pill.  You  are  beguiled  by  what  is  essen- 
tially a  fairy  story — but  a  fairy  story  in  which  the 
conjuration  is  duly  accounted  for,  instead  of  being 
left  to  the  haphazard  brandishing  of  a  wand.  Thus 
Dr.  Snayth  tunnels  through  the  heart  of  a  legend, 
using  the  edged  tools  of  the  psychologist  and  the 
physicist  to  heighten  the  apparent  verity  of  the 
myth.  In  this  manner  the  reader  is  adroitly  led 
into  unquestioning — if  somewhat  temporary — ac- 
ceptance of  the  highly-colored  ingredients,  not  one 
of  which  is  introduced  without  the  coating  of  scien- 
tific incantation.  This  method  of  writing,  coupled 
with  a  vivid  and  sure-footed  style,  results  in  a  piece 
of  fiction  which  sustains  the  curiosity  rather  than 
the  higher  faculties  of  the  mind.  One  reads  on 
with  the  consciousness  that  one's  reward  is  destined 
to  be  nothing  more  permanent  than  a  demolished 
question  mark.  Dr.  Smyth  was  for  some  years 
American  consul  at  Carthagena,  and  there  gleaned 


the  ancient  echoes  of  that  El  Dorado,  the  search  foi 
which  is  in  part  the  motive  force  of  the  presem 
romance.  With  its  color  and  suspense  and  action 
The  Gilded  Man  will  appeal  especially  to  thos< 
who  prize  a  novel  in  proportion  to  their  inability 
to  lay  it  down. 

Books  of  the  Fortnight 

The  following  list  comprises  THE  DIAL'S  selec 
tion  of  books  recommended  among  the  publication 
received  during  the  last  two  weeks : 

The  Way  to  Victory.    By  Philip  Gibbs.    I2mo,  67* 

pages.    2  vols.    George  H.  Doran  Co. 
Forty  Days  in   1914.     By  Major-General   Sir   F 

Maurice.     8vo,  213  pages.     George  H.  Dorai 

Co. 
Authority   in   the  Modern   State.      By   Harold   J 

Laski.    8vo,  398  pages.    Yale  University  Press 

(New  Haven). 
Idealism  and  the  Modern  Age.    By  George  Plimp 

ton  Adams.     8vo,  253  pages.    Yale  University 

Press.    (New  Haven). 
The    Forgotten    Man,    and    Other    Essays.       B: 

William  Graham  Sumner.     Edited  by  Alber 

Galloway  Keller.    8vo,  557  Pages.    Yale  Uni 

versity  Press.     (New  Haven). 
The  Lady.    By  Emily  James  Putnam.     Illustrated 

I2mo,  323  pages.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons. 
A  New  Study  of  English  Poetry.    By  Henry  New 

bolt.     8vo,  357  pages.     E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co 
The     Letters    of    Algernon     Charles     Swinburne 

Edited  by  Edmund  Gosse  and  Thomas  Jame 

Wise.    2  vols.    8vo,  600  pages.    John  Lane  Co 
The  Years  Between.    Verse.     By  Rudyard  Kipling 

•  I2mo,  153  pages.    Doubleday,  Page  &  Co. 
The  Arrow  of  Gold.    A  novel.    By  Joseph  Conrad 

I2mo,  385  pages.    Doubleday,  Page  &  Co. 
The  Jervaise  Comedy.    A  novel.     By  J.  D.  Beres 

ford.     I2mo,  283  pages.     Macmillan  Co. 
Midas  and  Son.    A  novel.   *By  Stephen  McKenna 

I2mo,    418    pages.      George    H.    Doran    Co 
Blind  Alley.    A  novel.     By  W.  L.  George.    I2mo 

431  pages.    Little  Brown  &  Co. 
Christopher    and    Columbus.      A    novel.      By    th< 

author  of  Elizabeth  and  Her  German  Garden 

Illustrated,     I2mo,    435    pages.       Doubleday 

Page  &  Co. 
Twelve   Men.    Sketches.     By    Theodore     Dreiser 

I2mo,  360  pages.    Boni  &  Liveright. 
Blood  and  Sand.     A   novel.     By  Vicente   Blascc 

Ibanez.    Translated  by  Mrs.  W.  A.  Gillespie. 

I2mo,  356  pages.     E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co. 
Two  Banks  of  the  Seine.     A  novel.     By  Fernanc 

Vanderem.    Translated  by  George  Raffalovich 

E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


4-77 


Karl  Marx:   The  Man  and  His  Work 

and 

The  Constructive  Elements  of  Socialism 

BY  KARL  DANNENBERG 
Presents    in    concise    form    the    evolution    of    Socialist 

thought   and    its   constructive   elements. 
130  pages  30  cents   (35  cents  postpaid) 

The  Revolution  in  Germany 

A  Study  including  separate  Essays  entitled  That 
Dictatorship  of  the  Proletariat  and  Revolutionary 
Socialism   and  the  Constituent  Assembly   in   Ger- 
many. BY  KARL  DANNENBERG 
32  pages  10  cents   (12  cents  postpaid) 

$6.50  in  lots  of  100 

The  Radical  Review  Publishing  Association 
202  East  Seventeenth  Street  New  York 


npHOSE  upon  whom  devolves  the 
•*•  responsibility  of  purchasing  books 
for  class  or  library  use  will  find  it  to 
their  advantage  to  communicate  with 
us  before  placing  their  orders  else- 
where. 

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May  3 


Current  News 

The  Alexander  Kerr  translation  of  The  Re- 
public of  Plato,  which  M.  C.  Otto  recommended  in 
his  communication  in  the  previous  issue  of  THE. 
DIAL,  was  published  by  the  Charles  H.  Kerr  Co., 
Chicago. 

It  will  be  of  interest  to  many  inquirers  that 
Frank  Tannenbaum's  article  The  Moral  Devasta- 
tion of  War,  as  printed  in  THE  DIAL  of  April  5, 
was  read  in  manuscript  to  several  officers  and  to 
200  soldiers.  They  endorsed  it  and  urged  its  pub- 
lication. It  was  printed  as  it  was  read  to  them. 

The  Annual  Convention  of  the  American  Book- 
sellers' Association  is  to  be  held  this  year  at  the 
Copley  Plaza  Hotel,  Boston,  May  13,  14,  and  15. 
Mr.  Hulings  C.  Brown,  of  Little,  Brown  and  Co., 
chairman  of  the  committee  on  arrangements,  re- 
quests that  booksellers  planning  to  attend  the  con- 
vention communicate  with  him  at  34  Beacon  Street, 
Boston.  As  an  advance  souvenir  of  the  convention, 
the  Penn  Publishing  Co.  (Philadelphia 5  is  sending 
out,  upon  request,  complimentary  copies  of  a  holi- 
day edition  of  Robert  Shackleton's  The  Book  of 
Boston. 

A  two-act  phantasy,  The  Lost  Pleiad,  by  Jane 
Dransfield  (James  T.  White)  has  made  its  tardy 
way  into  type  after  being  first  performed  some 
eight  years  ago.  Miss  Dransfield  has  handled 
hef  blank  verse  without  trepidation,  and  has 
succeeded  in  giving  a  really  graceful  setting  to  the 
ancient  myth  of  the  Pleiad  who  came  to  earth  to 
marry  the  first  King  of  Corinth.  Disclaiming 
any  intent  to  pattern  after  Greek  models,  she  has 
reproduced  the  spirit  of  the  myth  in  a  somewhat 
modern  fashion.  Pert  passages  rub  elbows  with 
the  poetic,  but  the  effect  is  informal  rather  than  dis- 
pleasing. 

The  Gentleman  Ranker  and  Other  Plays,  by  the 
actor  Leon  Gordon  (Four  Seas;  Boston),  contains 
a  stereotyped  melodrama  of  the  campaign  against  the 
German  Colonies,  a  one-act  detective  play  of  some 
ingenuity  written  in  collaboration  with  Charles 
King,  and  a  short  cockney  farce  well  suited  for 
amateur  dramatics — all  three  bristling  with  the 
wooden  tricks  of  the  conventional  actor.  Emma 
Beatrice  Brunner  commands  a  smoother  technique. 
In  Bits  of  Background  in  One  Act  Plays  (Knopf) 
she  has  written  one  very  clever  sketch,  Strangers, 
and  three  others  which  do  not  carry  so  well  solely 
because  their  themes  are  less  intriguing. 

To  Christopher  Morley  one  might  easily  apply 
the  title  of  his  recent  book  of  light  verse.  He  is 
the  rocking  horse  among  the  younger  American 
writers.  In  Shandygaff  (Doubleday,  Page)  he 
lurched  forward  as  a  delightful  enterprising  essayist : 
in  The  Rocking  Horse  (Doran)  he  sidles  back  to  a 
rather  unsteady  singing  of  the  well-known  joys  of 
the  suburban  home-builder.  He  seems  to  feel  that 
Joyce  Kilmer's  efforts  in  that  field  should  be  sec- 
onded, but  it  is  a  hard  pasture  in  which  to  turn  up 


fresh  earth.  And  by  collecting  these  poems  in  £ 
book  he  has  lost  the  advantage  they  held  as  light 
magazine  verse — that  of  coming  in  small  doses  anc 
of  contrast  with  the  other  subject  matter. 

Apparently  Christian  Internationalism,  by  Wil 
liam  Pierson  Merrill  (Macmillan),  is  a  course  oi 
war-sermons:  possibly  it  is  a  series  of  essays  with 
the  accepted  homiletical  technique.  The  author  is  £ 
typically  American  optimist  of  the  pre-war  type, 
He  puts  his  faith  in  existing  institutions,  such  as  the 
League  to  Enforce  Peace,  the  World  Alliance  foi 
International  Friendship  through  the  Churches,  and 
the  National  Committee  on  the  Churches  and  the 
Moral  Aims  of  the  War.  He  seems  to  feel  that 
we  already  have  a  practically  Christian  national- 
ism— to  which  we  have  only  to  add  a  Christian 
internationalism. 

Contributors 

Bertrand  Russell's  more  recent  publications  in- 
clude Political  Ideals,  reviewed  by  Randolph 
Bourne  in  THE  DIAL  of  January  17,  1918; 
Mysticism  and  Logic,  which  was  treated  by  Edward 
Shanks  in  his  London  Letter  to  THE  DIAL  oi 
April  25,  1918;  and  Proposed  Roads  to  Freedom, 
reviewed  by  Will  Durant  in  THE  DIAL  of  April 
5,  1919. 

Flavio  Venanzi  is  a  research  expert  in  economics 
and  statistics,  and  a  well-known  Italian  journalist 
and  lecturer  on  political  questions.  He  was  as- 
sociated for  some  years  with  II  Proletario,  and 
has  been  a  contributor  to  many  other  publications 
in  Italy  and  America. 

Sailendra  nath  Ghose,  M.Sc.  (Calcutta)  was 
formerly  on  the  staff  of  the  Calcutta  University  Col- 
lege of  Science  for  Post-Graduate  Studies.  In  1916 
he  obtained  the  Sir  T.  N.  Palit  fellowship  of  the 
University  of  Calcutta  at  Harvard.  Two  day? 
before  he  should  have  left  India  he  was  refused  a 
passport  on  account  of  his  interest  in  the  movement 
for  independence.  He  escaped  to  the  United  Statef 
in  1917.  In  1918  he  was  arrested  in  New  York  and 
was  kept  in-  the  Tombs  for  ten  months  on  $25,000 
bail.  He  is  now  a  political  refugee  in  New  York, 
in  danger  of  deportation. 

Charles  Recht,  a  native 'of  Bohemia,  is  a  New 
York  lawyer  who  has  been  especially  active  in  the 
defense  of  civil  liberties.  He  is  the  translator  oi 
a  number  of  plays  from  the  Czech,  the  Polish,  and 
the  German,  and  the  author  of  numerous  magazine 
articles  on  the  drama,  the  history  and  culture  oi 
Bohemia,  Central  European  politics,  and  American 
liberties  in  war  time. 

Cale  Young  Rice  (Harvard,  1895)  is  a  Ken- 
tuckian,  a  poet,  a  dramatist,  and  a  traveler.  His 
published  works  include  some  seventeen  volumes  oi 
verse  and  poetic  drama.  Wraiths  and  Realities  was 
reviewed  in  THE  DIAL  of  June  20,  1918,  and 
Songs  to  A.H.R.  in  the  issue  of  December  14. 

The  other  contributors  tp  this  issue  have  previ- 
ously j written  for  THE  DIAL, 


May  3 


THE  DIAL 


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THE 


A  FORTNIGHTLY 


VOL.  LXVI  NEW  YORK  NO.  790 


MAY    17,    1919 

PEACE Thorstein  Feblen  485 

DISPATCH.     Verse Wallace  Gould  487 

Quo  VADIS? Norman  Angell  488 

JOEL  CHANDLER  HARRIS  AND  NEGRO  FOLKLORE      .   Elsie 'Clews  Parsons  491 

THE  FUTURE  OF  AMERICAN  SOCIALISM Will  Durant  494 

THE  IMPENDING  INDUSTRIAL  CRISIS Walton  H.  Hamilton  496 

FIRST  SNOW  ON  THE  HILLS.     Verse Leonora  Speyer  500 

JAPAN  AND  AMERICA ' John  Dewey  501 

IRELAND  BETWEEN  Two  STOOLS '     Dubliner  503 

THE  SCHAMBERG  EXHIBITION Walter  Pack  505 

IVAN  SPEAKS    .  -  .  .  .     .     , H.  M.  Kallen  507 

THE  HISTORICAL  WEST Howard  Mumford  Jones-  508 

LETTERS  TO  UNKNOWN  WOMEN:    La  Grosse  Margot     .     Richard  Aldington  510 

EDITORIALS •. 511 

COMMUNICATIONS:      Concerning     the     Defense     of     "Soviet     Government."— Professor     .  514 
Lomonossoff  Replies. — "  Point  of  View." 

NOTES  ON  NEW  BOOKS  :    lolanthe's  Wedding.— A  Gray  Dream.— Russia  from  the  Varan-  517 
gians     to    the     Bolsheviks. — Shops     and     Houses. — Teton     Sioux     Music. — The     English 
Village. — Ma  Pettengill. — Jacquou  the  Rebel. — Nono:  Love  and  the  Soil. — The  Heart  of 
Peace. — From    Czar   to   Bolshevik. — The   City   of   Trouble. — Books  of  the  Fortnight. 

CURRENT  NEWS: 526 


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UAPPY  today  is  he  who  has  the  gift  of  reading.  The  choice  of  all  the  beautiful  and 
wholesome  thoughts  of  many  yesterdays  lies  before  him,  instantly  available  as  a 
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years  has  stood  for  the  highest  ideals  in  the  publishing  field.  Some  recent  publications 
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THE  TRAGEDY  OF  LABOR 
A  Monograph  in  Folk  Philosophy 

By  WILLIAM  RILEY  HALSTEAD 

A  practical  treatment  of  themes  occupying  the  at- 
tention of  the  student  and  of  the  man  on  the  street. 
A  fine  piece  of  clear  thinking  and  lucid  writing. 

16  mo.    108  pages.     Cloth.    Net,  50  cents,  Postpaid. 

FIGHTING  FOR  A  NEW  WORLD 

By  CHARLES  W.  DABNEY 

A  series  of  Constructive  Essays  dealing  with  To- 
day and  To-morrow.  Some  of  the  titles  are  "A  Better 
Era,"  "True  Preparedness,"  and  "Fighting  for  a  New 
World."  Some  of  these  essays  were  made  the  basis  of 
efforts  by  Pro-Germans  to  depose  the  author  from  the 
Presidency  of  the  University  of  Cincinnati. 

12  mo.     112  pages.     Cloth.     Net,  75  cents,  Postpaid. 

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*  *  He  never  saw  pure  white  light,  as  such,  but  as  made 
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THE  PEACEFUL  LIFE 
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and  taste  for  the  infinite,  and  as  essentially  a  part  of 
human  nature  as  either  knowledge  or  action."  Hence, 
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Peace 


I 


NTEMPERATE  CRITICISM  has  diligently  sought  to 
find  fault  with  the  covenant  which  has  been  devised 
and  underwritten  by  the  deputies  of  the  great 
powers.  The  criticism  has  been  animated  and  vol- 
uble, but  it  has  been  singularly  futile  on  the  whole. 
At  the  same  time  the  spokesmen  of  this  covenant 
show  a  singular  lack  of  assurance;  they  speak  in  a 
tone  of  doubtful  hope  rather  than  enthusiastic  con- 
viction. And  the  statesmen  who  set  up  this  cov- 
enant do  so  with  such  an  engaging  air  of  modesty 
and  furtive  apprehension  as  should  engender  a 
spirit  of  good  will  and  fellowship  in  the  presenta- 
tion of  a  doubtfully  hopeful  enterprise,  rather  than 
obstructive  tactics  and  intemperate  criticism.  They 
are  saying,  in  effect:  We  have  done  the  best  we 
could  under  the  circumstances.  It  is  a  great  pity 
that  we  have  been  able  to  do  no  better.  Let  us  hope 
for  the  best,  and  God  help  us  all! 

The  best  must  always  be  good  enough,  and  the 
Covenant  is  the  best  that  the  political  wisdom  of 
the  three  continents  has  been  able  to  find  in  a  five 
months'  search  for  ways  and  means  of  avoiding  war. 
But  this  best  will  always  have  the  defects  of  its 
qualities.  And  such  defects  as  still  attach  to  the 
Covenant  will  best  be  understood,  and  may  there- 
fore best  be  condoned  and  allowed  for,  when  seen 
in  the  light  of  its  qualities.  Now,  as  for  its  qualities, 
the  Covenant  is  a  political  document,  an  instrument 
of  realpolitik,  created  in  the  image  of  nineteenth 
century  imperialism.  It  has  been  set  up  by  political 
statesmen,  on  political  grounds,  for  political  ends, 
and  with  political  apparatus  to  be  used  with  political 
effect.  It  brings  to  a  focus  the  best  and  highest  tra- 
ditions of  commercialized  nationalism,  but  also  it 
brings  nothing  else.  The  outcome  is  a  political 
covenant  which  even  its  friends  and  advocates  view 
with  an  acute  sense  of  its  inability,  perhaps  rather  a 
sense  of  its  total  vacuity. 

Its  defect  is  not  that  the  Covenant  falls  short,  but 
rather  that  it  is  quite  beside  the  point.  The  point 
is  the  avoidance  of  war,  at  all  costs;  the  war  arose 
unavoidably  out  of  the  political  status  quo;  the 
Covenant  reestablishes  the  status  quo,  with  some 
additional  political  apparatus  supplied  from  the  same 


shop.  True  to  the  political  tradition,  the  Covenant 
provides  for  enforcing  the  peace  by  recourse  to  arms 
and  commercial  hostilities,  but  it  contemplates  no 
measures  for  avoiding  war  by  avoiding  the  status 
quo  out  of  which  the  great  war  arose.  The  status 
quo  was  a  status  of  commercialized  nationalism. 
The  traditions  which  bind  them  will  not  permit 
anything  beyond  these  political  ends,  ways,  and 
means  of  commercialized  nationalism  to  come  within 
the  cognizance  of  the  competence  of  these  elder 
statesmen  who  have  had  this  work  to  do.  So  there 
is  no  help  for  it. 

But  the  Covenant  is  after  all  the  best  that  was 
reasonably  to  be  looked  for.  It  embodies  the  best 
and  highest  traditions  of  nineteenth  century  states- 
manship. That  it  does  so,  that  it  is  conceived  in  the 
spirit  of  Mid-Victorian  liberalism  rather  than  in 
the  spirit  of  Mid-European  imperialism,  is  to  be  set 
down  to  the  account  of  America  and  America's 
President.  But  that  it  remains  standing  as  a  left- 
over on  that  outworn  ground,  instead  of  coming  up 
abreast  of  the  twentieth  century  is  also  to  be  credited 
to  the  same  power.  It  is  in  an  eminent  sense 
America's  Covenant,  made  and  provided  by  the  para- 
mount advice  and  consent  of  America's  President, 
And  this  paramount  advice  and  consent  has  gone  to 
the  making  of  the  Covenant  in  the  simple  faith  that 
commercialized  nationalism  answereth  all  things. 
The  unfortunate,  and  unfortunately  decisive,  cir- 
cumstance of  the  case  is,  therefore,  that  the  Presi- 
dent's outlook  and  ideals  are  in  this  way  grounded  in 
the  political  traditions  of  Mid-Victorian  liberalism, 
and  that  his  advisers  have  been  animated  with  po- 
litical traditions  of  a  still  narrower  and  more  anti- 
quated make.  Hence  the  difficulties  which  arise  out 
of  a  new  industrial  situation  and  a  consequent  new 
bias  of  the  popular  temper  are  sought  to  be  adjusted 
by  readjusting  the  political  status  quo  ante. 

Now,  it  should  be  plain  to  anyone  on  slight  re- 
flection that  this  covanant  has  been  forced  upon  the 
politicians  by  the  present  state  of  the  industrial  sys- 
tem. The  great  war  has  run  its  course  within  the 
confines  of  this  industrial  system,  and  it  has  become 
evident  that  no  nation  is  competent  henceforth 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


single-handed  to  take  care  of  its  own  case  within 
this  system,  in  which  all  the  civilized  peoples  are 
bound  up  together.  And  it  should  be  similarly 
plain,  on  similarly  slight  reflection,  that  no  readjust- 
ment of  working  arrangements  among  the  peoples 
concerned  can  hope  to  touch  the  core  of  the  diffi- 
culties unless  its  scope  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  in- 
dustrial system  and  unless  it  is  carried  out  with  a 
single-handed  regard  to  the  industrial  requirements 
of  the  case,  and  coupled  with  a  thoroughgoing  dis- 
allowance of  those  political  and  nationalist  prece- 
dents and  ambitions' that  hinder  the  free  working  of 
this  industrial  system. 

The  interval  since  Mid- Victorian  time  has  been 
a  period  of  unexampled  change  in  the  industrial  arts 
and  in  the  working  arrangements  necessary  to  indus- 
trial production.  The  productive  industry  of  all  the 
civilized  peoples  has  been  drawn  together  by  the 
continued  advance  of  the  industrial  arts  into  a  single 
comprehensive,  close-knit  system,  a  network  of  me- 
chanically balanced  give  and  take,  such  that  no 
nation  and  no  community  can  now  carry  on  its  own 
industrial  affairs  in  severally  or  at  cross-purposes 
with  the  rest  except  at  the  cost  of  a  disproportionate 
derangement  and  hardship  to  itself  and  to  all  the 
rest.  All  this  is  simple  and  obvious  to  those  who 
are  at  all  familiar  with  the  technical  requirements 
of  production.  To  all  such  it  is  well  known  that  for 
the  purposes  of  productive  industry,  and  therefore 
for  the  purposes  of  popular  welfare  and  content, 
national  divisions  are  nothing  better  than  haphazard 
divisions  of  an  indivisible  whole,  arbitrary  and  ob- 
structive. And  because  of  this  state  of  things,  any 
regulation  or  diversion  of  trade  or  industry  within 
any  one  of  these  national  units  is  of  graver  conse- 
quence to  all  the  others  than  to  itself.  Yet  the  Cov- 
enant contemplates  no  abatement  of  that  obsructive 
nationalist  intrigue  that  makes  the  practical  .sub- 
stance of  the  "self-determination  of  nations." 

At  the  same  time,  that  which  chiefly  hampers  the 
everyday  work  of  industrial  production  and  chiefly 
tries  the  popular  temper  under  this  new  order  of 
things  is  the  increasingly  obstructive  and  increasingly 
irresponsible  control  of  production  by  the  vested  in- 
terests of  commerce  and  finance,  seeking  each  their 
own  profit  at  the  cost  of  the  underlying  population. 
Yet  the  Covenant  contemplates  no  abatement  of 
these  vested  interests  that  are  fast  approaching  the 
limit  of  popular  tolerance;  for  the  Covenant  is  a 
political  instrument,  made  and  provided  for  the  re- 
habilitation of  Mid-Victorian  political  intrigue  and 
for  the  upkeep  of  the  vested  interests  of  commerce 
and  finance.  The  cry  of  the  common  man  has  been : 
What  shall  we  do  to  be  saved  from  war  abroad 
and  dissension  at  home?  And  the  answer  given  in 


the  Covenant  is  the  good  old  answer  of  the  elder 
statesmen  of  the  Old  Order — provision  of  armed 
force  sufficient  to  curb  any  uneasy  drift  of  senti- 
ment among  the  underlying  populace,  with  the  due 
advice  and  consent  of  the  dictatorship  established 
by  the  elder  statesmen. 

Now,  the  great  war  was  precipitated  by  the 
malign  growth  of  just  such  a  commercialized  na- 
tionalism within  this  industrial  system,  and  was 
fought  to  a  successful  issue  as  a  struggle  of  industrial 
forces  and  with  the  purpose  of  establishing  an  endur- 
ing peace  of  industrial  prosperity  and  content;  at 
least  so  they  say.  It  should  accordingly  have  seemed 
reasonable  to  entrust  the  settlement  to  those  men 
who  know  something  about  the  working  and  re- 
quirements of  this  industrial  system  on  which  the 
welfare  of  mankind  finally  turns.  To  any  man 
whose  perspective  is  not  confined  within  the  Mid- 
Victorian  political  traditions,  it  would  seem  that  the 
first  move  toward  an  enduring  peace  would  be 
abatement  of  the  vested  interests  and  national  pre- 
tensions wherever  they  touch  the  conduct  of  in- 
dustry ;  and  the  men  to  do  this  work  should  logically 
be  those  who  know  the  needs  of  the  industrial  sys- 
tem and  are  not  biased  by  commercial  incentives. 
An  enduring  settlement  should  be  entrusted  to  reas- 
onably unbiased  production  engineers,  rather  than 
to  the  awestruck  political  lieutenants  of  the  vested 
interests.  These  men,  technical  specialists,  over- 
workmen,  skilled  foremen  of  the  system,  are  expert 
in  the  ways  and  means  of  industry  and  know  some- 
thing of  the  material  conditions  of  life  that  sur- 
round the  common  man,  at  the  same  time  that  they 
are  familiar  with  the  available  resources  and  the 
uses  to  which  they  are  to  be  turned.  Of  necessity  in 
war  and  peace,  it  is  for  these  workmen  of  the  top 
line  to  take  care  of  the  industrial  system  and  its 
working,  so  far  as  the  obstructive  tactics  of  the 
vested  interests  and  the  commercial  statesmen  will 
permit;  for  without  their  constant  supervision  and 
correction  this  highly  technical  system  of  production 
will  not  work  at  all.  Logically  it  should  be  for 
these  and  their  like  to  frame  such  a  settlement  as 
will  bind  the  civilized  peoples  together  on  an  amic- 
able footing  as  a  going  concern,  engaged  on  a  joint 
industrial  enterprise.  However,  it  is  not  worth 
while  to  speculate  on  what  they  and  their  like  might 
propose,  since  neither  they  nor  their  counsels  have 
had  any  part  in  the  Covenant.  The  Covenant  is  a 
covenant  of  commercialized  nationalism,  without 
afterthought. 

To  return  to  the  facts :  The  great  war  was  fought 
out  and  peace  was  brought  within  sight  by  teamwork 
of  the  soldiers  and  workmen  and  the  political  per- 
sonnel. The  cost,  the  work,  and  hardship  fell  on 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


487 


the  soldiers  and  workmen,  and  it  is  also  chiefly  their 
fortune  that  is  now  in  the  balance.  The  political 
personnel  have  lost  nothing,  risked  nothing,  and 
have  nothing  at  stake  on  the  chance  of  further  war 
or  peace.  But  in  these  deliberations  on  peace  the 
political  personnel  alone  have  had  a  voice.  Neither 
those  who  have  done  the  necessary  righting  at  the 
front  nor  those  who  have  done  the  necessary  work 
at  home  have  had  any  part  in  it  all.  The  conference 
has  been  a  conclave  made  up  of  the  spokesmen  of 
commercialized  nationalism,  in  effect  a  conclave  of 
the  political  lieutenants  of  the  political  lieutenants 
of  the  vested  interests.  In  short,  there  have  been  no 
Soldiers'  and  Workmen's  Deputies  included  in  this 
Soviet  of  the  Elder  Statesmen  which  has  conferred 
the  dictatorship  on  the  political  deputies  of  the 
vested  interests.  By  and  large,  neither  the  wishes 
nor  the  welfare  of  the  soldiers,  the  workmen,  or  the 
industrial  system  as  a  going  concern,  have  visibly 
been  consulted  in  the  drafting  of  this  Covenant. 
However,  to  avoid  all  appearance  of  graceless  over- 
statement, it  should  perhaps  be  noted  in  qualification 
that  the  American  workmen  may  be  alleged  to  have 
been  represented  at  this  court  of  elder  statesmen,  in- 
formally, unofficially,  and  irresponsibly,  by  the  sex- 
ton beadle  of  the  A.  F.  of  L.,  but  it  will  be  admitted 
that  this  qualification  makes  no  serious  inroad  on  the 
broader  statement  above. 

Neither  the  value  nor  the  cost  of  this  Covenant 
are  fairly  to  be  appreciated  apart  from  its  back- 
ground and  the  purposes  and  interests  which  are 
moving  in  the  background.  As  it  now  looms  up 
against  this  murky  background  of  covert  agreements 
covertly  arrived  at  during  the  past  months,  the" 
Covenant  is  beginning  to  look  like  a  last  desperate 
concert  of  crepuscular  statesmanship  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  civilized  world's  kept  classes  and  vested 
interests  in  the  face  of  a  menacing  situation.  There- 
fore, in  case  the  Covenant  should  yet  prove  to  be  so 
lasting  and  serve  this  turn  so  well  as  materially  to 


deflect  the  course  of  events,  what  is  likely  to  be  of 
material  consequence  to  the  fortunes  of  mankind  is 
chiefly  the  outcome  of  this  furtive  traffic  in  other 
men's  good  between  the  deputies  of  the  great 
powers,  which  underlies  and  conditions  the  stilted 
formalities  of  the  instrument  itself.  Little  is  known, 
and  perhaps  less  is  intended  to  be  known,  of  this 
furtive  traffic  in  other  men's  goods.  Hitherto  the 
"High  Contracting  Parties"  have  been  at  pains  to 
give  out  no  "  information  which  might  be  useful  to 
the  enemy." 

What  and  how  many  covert  agreements  have  been 
covertly  arrived  at  during  these  four  or  five  months 
of  diplomatic  twilight  will  not  be  known  for  some 
time  yet.  A  decent  cover  still  hides  what  may  be 
hidden,  which  is  presumably  just  as  well.  And  yet, 
even  if  one  had  best  not  see  him  face  to  face,  one 
may  still  infer  something  as  to  the  nature  of  the 
beast  from  the  shape  of  his  hoof.  A  little  something 
in  that  way  is  coming  in  sight  now  in  the  shameful 
transaction  by  which  the  politicians  and  vested  in- 
terests of  Japan  are  given  a  burglarious  free  hand 
in  northern  China;  and  it  would  be  both  graceless 
and  idle  to  speculate  on  what  may  be  the  grand  total 
of  gruesome  enormities  which  the  Oriental  states- 
men will  have  undertaken  to  perpetrate  or  overlook, 
for  the  benefit  of  the  vested  interests  identified  with 
the  European  powers,  in  consideration  of  that  carte 
blanche  of  indecency.  So  also  is  the  arrangement 
between  the  great  powers  for  the  suppression  of 
Soviet  Russia,  for  the  profit  of  the  vested  interests 
identified  with  these  Powers  and  at  the  cost  of  the 
underlying  population ;  the  due  parceling  out  of  con- 
cessions and  natural  resources  in  foreign  parts,  inci- 
dent to  that  convention  of  smuggled  warfare,  will 
doubtless  have  consumed  a  formidable  total  of  time, 
ingenuity,  and  effrontery.  But  the  Covenant  being 
an  instrument  of  commercialized  nationalism,  all 
these  things  have  had  to  be  seen  to. 


THORSTEIN  VEBLEN. 


Dispatch 


Come  up  to  Maine,  old  friend,  before  the  violets  are  gone. 
The  valley  of  the  Kennebec  is  smeared  with  luminous  purple. 
It  is  smeared  with  waves  of  bluettes,  too.     Out  in  the  fields 

are  sweeps  of  white,  as  if  the  shadows 

of  the  clouds  were"  white, 
yet  even  the  white  is  touched  with  purple, 
and  so  is  the  leaden  leafmould  of  the  woods. 
Come  up  to  Maine  before  the  violets  all  grow  pale. 
Come  up  before  they  are  ghastly  on  their  stems — 
withered,  they  look  like  heads  impaled  on  spears. 
Come.    Do  not  let  me  tell  you  more  of  what  is  dead. 

WALLACE  GOULD. 


488 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


Quo  Vadis? 


Ao  GO  FROM  ENGLAND  on  the  morrow  of  the  elec- 
tions, and  the  eve  of  the  miners'  and  railway  men's 
strikes,  to  the  Conference  in  Paris,  and  from  that  to 
the  meeting  of  the  resuscitated  Internationale  in 
Berne,  is  to  get  a  pretty  fair  bird's-eye  view,  so  far 
as  externals  can  give  that  view,  of  the  factors  of 
European  politics  at  this  moment.  Let  us  note  cer- 
tain outstanding  features  of  this  political  landscape. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  of  a  general  condition  of 
widespread  upheaval  in  England.  Strikes  are  with- 
out number.  They  are  for  demands — such  as  a  six- 
hour  day — that  a  year  or  two  ago  would  have  been 
regarded  as  outrageous.  In  his  opening  speech  of 
the  session  the  British  Prime  Minister  said  that 
while  he  was  in  Paris  he  received  every  morning  on 
going  to  the  Conference  a  telegram  announcing 
some  new  strike,  and  found  another  such  telegram 
on  returning  in  the  evening.  And  what  is  notable 
is  the  apparent  triviality  of  the  pretext  for  strike. 
The  whole  industrial  life  of  the  country  is  embar- 
rassed because  of  a  disagreement  over  the  dinner 
hour  of  railway  men.  And  the  authority  of  the 
Trades  Unions  themselves  is  flouted:  bargains  made 
by  the  Unions  with  the  employers  are  disregarded; 
strikes  which  have  been  forbidden  by  the  Unions 
take  place. 

Fact  number  one  then:  a  widespread  revolution- 
ary mood,  a  readiness  to  take  extreme  measures  on 
behalf  of  minor  aims.  Papers  like  the  Daily  Express 
represent  the  whole  strike  movement  as  the  work 
of  a  minority  of  Bolshevists  aiming  at  the  overturn 
of  the  state.  The  Times  gives  evidence  to  show 
that  the  leaders  are  political  revolutionaries  of  ex- 
treme type.  What  these  papers  seem  to  overlook  is 
that  they  themselves  have  for  four  years  been  sedu- 
lously cultivating  a  revolutionary  mood  of  a  kind. 
Every  day  they  told  us  that  we  were  righting  for  a 
new  world.  Never  was  anything  to  be  quite  the 
same  again;  the  old  diplomacy  was  dead.  While 
Mr.  Webb  talked  to  us  of  a  new  social  order  Mr. 
Wilson  and  his  friends  talked  of  a  new  political 
world  order.  Just  latterly  the  Daily  Mail  has  been 
printing  every  morning  articles  in  supporf  of  an 
organized  internationalism  which  might  have  been 
written  by  David  Starr  Jordan,  or  Bertrand  Russell, 
or  Lowes  Dickinson,  or  Henry  Brailsford.  One 
rubbed  one's  eyes.  Here  was  revolution  indeed. 
Those  who  ventured  to  write  in  this  strain  before 
the  war  were  held  up  by  the  Daily  Mail  itself  either 
as  plain  traitors  playing  the  game  of  Germany,  or 
hopeless  cranks  refusing  to  face  the  hard  facts  of 
the  world  about  them. 


It  is  true  that  in  Paris  one  found  official  France 
resenting  this  diplomatic  revolution,  but  not  pub- 
licly  resisting,  and  great  masses  were  accepting, 
passively  it  may  be,  but  still  accepting,  the  Wilsonian 
policy. 

.In  Berne  one  still  found  early  in  February-  the 
federal  capital  of  Switzerland  resounding  with  the 
echoes  of  the  Bolshevist  coup  d'etat  of  November — 
an  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  extremer  Socialists 
to  seize  the  government  and  create  a  revolution 
by  means  of  a  general  strike — an  attempt  of  which 
the  world  heard  very  little  because  it  happened  to 
coincide  with  the  Armistice.  But  it  was  a  very 
serious  business  indeed  for  Switzerland:  for  three 
days  the  members  of  the  federal  government  were 
virtual  prisoners  in  the  Bellevue  Palace  Hotel  and 
the  whole  army  was  placed  on  a  war  footing. 
(Incidentally  the  land-owning  peasants,  very  con- 
servative, very  anti-town,  were,  so  it  is  very  com- 
monly believed,  extremely  anxious  to  demonstrate 
the  excellence  of  that  shooting  which  is  the  feature 
of  his  military  training  in  which  the  peasant  takes 
most  pride.)  And  then  of  course  here  on  the  bor- 
ders of  Germany,  with  Germans  going  to  and  fro 
with  relative  freedom  and  ex-German  and  Austrian 
royalties  escaping  to  Swiss  villas  and  hotels,  one 
heard  a  good  deal  of  the  German  revolution  in 
which  in  a  few  days  dynasties  which  had  lasted  a 
thousand  years  vanished  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 
Here  then  undoubtedly  was  a  world  in  revolution, 
boiling  and  seething  in  order  to  throw  out  the 
elements  of  the  old  order  and  to  take  on  an  entirely 
new  form. 

That  however   is   only  one  aspect  of  the   case. 
There  is  a  contrary  and  conflicting  aspect. 

This  England,  of  a  mood  so  revolutionary  that 
the  very  Unionists  are  rebelling  against  their 
Unions,  has  just  had  an  election.  At  that  election 
a  great  Labor  Party  appeared  as  definitely  repre- 
senting the  new  social  order.  The  English  Consti- 
tution would  have  permitted  here,  at  one  step,  the 
capture  of  a  political  power  which,,  without  inter- 
fering Supreme  Courts,  would  have  enabled  organ- 
ized labor  to  enter  into  its  own:  to  nationalize  the 
mines  and  railways,  hand  them  over  to  the  Unions 
for  management,  make  an  end  of  the  old  diplo- 
matic methods  in  international  affairs,  and  make  of 
the  settlement  of  Paris  the  beginnings  of  a  new 
world  organization  based  upon  the  union  of  the 
peoples.  Well,  this  revolutionary  England,  ready 
apparently  in  one  mood  to  paralyze  the  nation's  in- 
dustrial life  in  order  to  enforce  some  point  about 


THE  DIAL 


489 


the  length  of  the  dinner  hour,  did  not  trouble  to 
vote  at  all  in  an  election  which  could  have  given 
it  the  foundations,  at  least,  of  this  new  social 
order  everybody  had  been  talking  about.  At  a 
juncture  of  the  world's  affairs  more  momentous 
than  any  perhaps  which  mankind  has  known  in  writ- 
ten history,  at  a  time  when  the  character  of  a  popu- 
lar judgment  might  affect  the  character  of  our 
civilization  during  whole  centuries,  half  the  British 
people  stayed  away  from  the  polls.  The  very  men 
who  went  to  the  war,  risking  their  lives,  lying, 
some  of  them,  half -disemboweled  through  nights  of 
hell  in  the  Flanders  mud  in  order  that  international 
treaties  might  be  respected,  that  their  children  might 
"  never  again  "  know  this  thing  (insert  here  the  per- 
oration of  ten  thousand  impassioned  speeches,  ser- 
mons, poems,  editorials  of  four  years  of  war) — 
these  men,  most  of  them  perhaps,  declined  to  trou- 
ble about  recording  their  vote  at  all.  They  seem 
to  have  decided  to  leave  it  to  their  womenkind,  to 
whom  that  sort  of  thing  was  a  new  amusement. 
With  the  result  that  there  are  excluded  from  the 
Parliament  of  the  new  Britain,  which  "  has  swept 
away  forever  the  obsolete  order  which  "  (insert 
again  quotations  from  the  perorations  of  ten  thous- 
and speeches),  all  those  who  have  been  notable 
for  their  thoroughgoing  radicalism  and  constructive 
work  towards  the  new  order.  Mr.  Sidney  Webb 
himself,  draughtsman  of  the  Charter  of  the  New  So- 
cial Order,  is  rejected  by  London  University,  which 
has  been  the  scene  of  so  much  of  his  labor.  In  this 
Parliament  of  the  Revolution  power  is  placed  in  the 
hands  of  Mr.  Bonar  Law !  And  in  the  international 
field  this  new  Britain  marks  its  sense  of  the  degree  to 
which  old  diplomatic  methods  have  disappeared  and 
an  entirely  new  method  of  handling  international 
affairs  inaugurated,  by  sending,  as  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal members — in  Mr.  George's  absence  the  head — 
of  the  British  delegation,  Lord  Milner.  Lord 
Milner,  the  reader  need  hardly  be  reminded,  is  an 
administrator  of  German  training  and  partly  Ger- 
man descent,  whose  Prussian  settlement  in  South 
Africa  had  to  be  undone  by  the  Liberal  Government 
of  Campbell-Bannermann ;  whose  conservative  habit 
of  mind,  particularly  in  international  affairs,  has 
never  been  disguised,  whose  skepticism  concerning 
what  may  be  called  Wilsonian  methods  is  notorious. 
He  is  perhaps  the  one  public  man  in  Britain  most 
certain  to  adhere  to  principles  and  ideas  which  it  was 
supposed  to  be  the  task  of  the  Conference  to  do  away 
with. 

The  pessimism  of  Liberals  and  radicals  in  close 
touch  with  the  Conference  concerning  the  possibility 
of  any  real  change  of  the  old  diplomatic  attitude 
has  now  become  pretty  well  known:  French  and 
Italian  insistence  upon  the  fulfilment  of  secret 


treaties,  Clemenceau's  and  Orlando's  very  open  de- 
fense of  the  old  system  of  alliances,  the  ill  concealed 
contempt  for  the  political  ideology  which  would 
attempt  to  do  away  with  them ;  the  French  attitude 
to  Russia,  the  Italian  to  Jugo-Slavia,  the  very  frank 
hostility  even  of  the  French  press  itself  to  publicity 
of  debate  at  the  Conference — these  are  but  a  few 
of  the  numberless  facts  which  show  that  the  old 
order,  its  spirit  and  method,  still  dominate  the 
management  of  international  affairs. 

But  at  the  Berne  Socialist  Conference?  Surely 
here  at  least  would  be  found  a  definite  and  radical 
break  with  the  principles  of  the  past  insisted  upon  by 
men  who  knew  what  they  wanted — a  revolutionary 
program  in  fact?  Well,  a  young  radical  at  the 
close  of  the  Conference — having  attended  all  its 
sessions — summed  it  up  in  these  terms: 

The  Conference  professed  to  be  the  most  advanced  ex- 
pression of  Internationalism  and  Socialism.  You  need 
only  look  at  the  reports  of  the  debates  and  read  its  reso- 
lutions to  see  that  it  is  neither  Internationalist  nor  Social- 
ist. It  is  not  Internationalist,  in  that  national  passions 
blazed  out  at  every  turn,  and  great  Socialistic  figures  like 
Albert  Thomas  and  Renaudel  practically  never  spoke  ex- 
cept to  express  a  national  point  of  view.  Look  at  the 
resolutions.  Is  there  one  that  deals  with  the  method  of 
abolishing  the  present  capitalist  system?  Not  one.  Yet 
that  was  the  supposed  raison  d'etre  of  the  Conference. 
The  place  has  been  positively  swamped  with  the  litera- 
ture of  Czecho-Slovak,  Jugo-Slav,  Armenian,  Georgian, 
Roumanian,  Greek,  Lettish,  Esthonian,  Ukrainian,  Fin- 
nish national  claims — there  have  literally  been  tons  of 
it  distributed  during  the  Conference.  Not  one  single  leaf- 
let, so  far  as  I  know,  has  there  been  on  industrial  inter- 
nationalism or  the  social  revolution.  And  in  the  ques- 
tions with  which  the  Conference  did  deal — League^  of 
Nations  for  instance — it  showed  itself  no  more  radical 
than  Lord  Robert  Cecil  or  the  other  people  in  Paris. 
In  one  vital  particular  only — that  of  parliamentary  rep- 
resentation— did  it  go  in  definite  proposals  beyond  the 
Paris  Conference,  and  that  was  so  much  an  afterthought 
that  it  had  to  be  introduced  as  an  amendment.  Who 
have  been  the  dominating  figures  at  the  Conference? 
Branting  and  Arthur  Henderson — about  as  suggestive  of 
revolution  as  Lord  Rothschild  or  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury.  The  excommunication  of  the  Conference 
pronounced,  not  only  by  the  Russian  but  even  by  the  Swiss 
Bolshevists,  has  been  from  their  point  of  view  entirely 
justified. 

Very  well  then,  one  concludes,  with  his  eye  on 
this  group  of  facts — the  deliberate  election  of  a 
Tory  Government  in  England;  the  docility  with 
which  is  accepted  the  representation  at  this  juncture 
of  the  democracies  by  men  like  Milner,  Cecil,  Bal- 
four,  Bourgeois,  Clemenceau,  Orlando,  Sonnino; 
"  revolutionary "  conferences  of  the  kind  just  de- 
scribed— it  is  evident,  in  view  of  al^  this,  that 
Entente  Europe  is  in  no  revolutionary  mood,  and 
that  it  will  stand  by  a  steady  and  orderly  develop- 
ment. 

And  then — one  reads  of  the  British  strikes,  where 
these  sober  British  workmen  who  voted  for  Lord 
Milner  throw  the  whole  country  into  industrial 
chaos  because  they  have  a  grievance  about  the  dinner 


49° 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


hour.  And  it  is  not  just  a  momentary  explosion. 
The  thing  is  indicative  of  what  has  been  going  on 
for  months;  it  is  symptomatic  of  something  wide- 
spread and  chronic.  What  does  it  mean  ? 

This  much  is  clear:  we  cannot  make  any  reliable 
estimate  of  forces  at  work  unless  we  take  the  two 
apparently  contradictory  tendencies  into  considera- 
tion. How  can  they  be  reconciled  ?  Here  is  a  guess : 
Normally  the  mass  of  a  busy  people,  concerned  with 
its  own  individual  daily  work  and  troubles  and  pre- 
occupations, is  inert  in  political  matters.  That 
inertia  cannot  be  stirred  by  forces  that  lack  psycho- 
logical stimulus,  that  are  undramatic — mere  argu- 
ment and  exhortation  that  require  cold  intellectual 
decisions  arrived  at  by  painful  and  unexciting  ratio- 
cinative  processes  to  give  them  effect.  An  election, 
a  matter  of  argument,  speeches,  votes,  leaves  the 
mass  relatively  cold,  except  where  its  emotions  can  be 
stirred.  This  is  done  most  easily  by  appeals  to  the 
old  and  familiar  sentiments  of  nationalism,  hatred 
of  the  enemy.  Certainly  so  unfamiliar  a  thing  as 
the  League  of  Nations  does  not  profoundly  stir  it. 
But  this  relatively  inert  mass,  absorbed  in  its  own 
affairs,  can  readily  feel  the  stimulus  of  an  action 
which  it  can  follow  or  imitate.  To  do  something 
that  other  people  are  doing  is  a  good  deal  easier 
than  to  think  out  painfully  opinions  and  decisions 
which  may  differ  from  those  of  others.  A  strike 
is  such  an  action,  easily  followed;  the  expression  of 
opinion  through  a  vote  on  the  League  of  Nations 
and  the  abolition  of  the  old  diplomacy,  involving 
difficult  questions  as  to  why  the  old  diplomacy 
should  be  abolished  and  why  the  balance  of  power 
and  national  forces  are  insufficient,  implies  an  in- 
tellectual activity  before  which  an  overworked  miner 
or  railroad  man  quails.  The  laborer  feels  himself 
done  out  of  his  dinner  hour;  that  is  something  near 
to  him,  understandable;  he  is  angry.  The  suggested 
remedy  is  one  he  is  familiar  with  and  the  efficacy  of 
which  he  can  understand.  And  it  is  action — like 
righting,  a  relief  to  the  feelings.  But  this  voting 
about  foreign  policy  in  Paris — that  may  have  im- 
portance twenty  years  hence.  Why  should  he  have 
any  feeling  about  that?  "And  the  Boche  should 
be  made  to  pay  up,  as  Hughes  says;  Hughes  talks 
about  the  Boche  in  a  way  a  man  who  has  lost  a 
son  in  the  war  can  understand.  Makes  a  man's 
blood  boil.  And  now  a  lot  of  blighters  who  made 
pots  of  money  out  of  the  war  want  to  do  a  man 
out  of  his  dinner  hour!" 

And  if  in  this  mood  two  or  three  active  resolute 
men  come  to  a  hundred  and  say  they  are  going  to 
strike,  and  ask  the  others  to  join  them — why,  in 
most  cases  they  will,  though  except  for  such  a  lead 
the  hundred  would  have  gone  on  working  without 
question. 


And  thus  it  is  that  an  active  minority  can  secure 
revolutionary  action — a  tremendous  movement  for 
ends  and  results  that  of  themselves  are  small.  And 
action  which  is  the  result  of  motives  and  impulses 
of  that  kind  is  apt  to  be  sporadic,  localized,  undis- 
ciplined, without  centralized  direction.  The  action 
is  not  on  behalf  of  any  large  predetermined  pro- 
gram ;  it  "  breaks  out  "  spontaneously,  impulsively 
— a  temperamental  manifestation.  The  final  state 
is  not  one  of  revolution — large  masses  moving 
against  a  common  enemy  on  behalf  of  a  conscious 
political  program.  Rather  is  it  confusion,  one  group 
taking  a  line  which  runs  counter  to  that  taken  by 
another  group.  The  men  who  strike  about  a  din- 
ner hour  are  not  impelled  by  revolutionary  ideas 
or  visions  of  a  new  social  order,  but  by  motives 
much  less  rationalized.  And  the  situation  would 
be  a  good  deal  more  hopeful  if  the  movement  were 
more  revolutionary,  in  the  sense  of  being  impelled 
by  a  vision  of  social  revolution,  and  less  tempera- 
mental and  subconscious. 

Francis  Bacon  remarked  some  centuries  since 
that  truth  came  out  of  error  more  easily  than  out 
of  confusion.  If  a  man  has  on  some  subject  a  clear- 
cut  theory  definitely  wrong,  he  will,  as  Huxley  re- 
marked, have  the  great  good  fortune  one  day  of 
banging  his  head  against  a  fact;  and  that,  if  he  is 
honest,  sets  him  straight  again.  But  the  man  who 
will  not  clearly  rationalize  his  beliefs  at  all,  but, 
again  as  Huxley  puts  it,  goes  buzzing  about  unre- 
flectingly between  right  and  wrong,  comes  out  no- 
where. 

Something  analogous  is  true  in  politics.  If  there 
were  a  conscious,  concerted  revolutionary  move- 
ment, leaders  -knowing  what  they  wanted,  with  a 
predetermined  program  of  a  new  social  order,  mar- 
shaling forces  on  one  side;  while  on  the  other  there 
were  the  forces  of  the  old  order,  also  knowing 
what  they  wanted,  then  one  or  the  other  would 
impose  its  will,  and  we  should  be  able  to  live,  tant 
bien  que  mal,  by  one  system  or  the  other.  The 
traffic  would  be  going  either  to  the  left  or  the 
right.  And  the  question  as  to  whether  it  should 
go  to  the  right  or  the  left  is  after  all  much  less 
important  than  that  everybody  should  do  one  thing 
or  the  other.  The  fatal  thing  most  provocative 
of  dreadful  smashes  is  that  sometimes  folk  go  one 
way,  sometimes  the  other,  with  no  rule,  but  just 
as  the  spirit  moves  them.  In  that  sort  of  confu- 
sion nobody  can  go  into  the  streets  in  safety.  And 
it  is  this  confusion,  the  absence  of  any  working 
theory,  not  the  supremacy  of  one  revolutionary 
theory  however  wild,  that  threatens  the  world. 

In  the  political  world  in  general — outside  the 
industrial  field  of  miners  and  railway  men — a  simi- 
lar absence  of  conscious  political  principle  or  theory 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


491 


is  leading  to  a  similar  condition  of  instability,  of 
incalculable  unrest,  of  movements  that  are  deter- 
mined not  by  conscious  efforts  towards  a  discerned 
goal  but  by  unconscious  impulse.  One  reads  these 
speeches  from  statesmen  of  the  old  school  in  favor 
of  a  society  of  nations,  and  the  self-determination 
of  small  peoples,  and  the  respect  of  the  weak  by  the 
strong;  these  Daily  Mail  editorials  expressing  sen- 
timents of  pacific  internationalism  which,  but  a  few 
years  since,  the  same  paper  was  holding  up  to  fero- 
cious contempt.  One  might  assume  that  the  public 
had  undergone  a  great  conversion,  had  seen  a  great 
light,  thus  to  embrace  this  revolutionary  doctrine 
of  the  League  of  Nations  with  its  surrender  of 
national  sovereignty  and  independence,  the  privilege 
of  imposing  our  will  upon  others  by  means  of  our 
superior  might  and  virtue.  But  there  is  no  such 
moral  revolution;  the  public  is  quite  unaware  of 
having  surrendered  anything  or  changed  any  opinion. 
It  follows  an  active  lead  like  that  of  Wilson  as 
tomorrow  it  will  follow  a  contrary  lead,  if  some 
turn  of  political  circumstance  should  render  it  worth 
while  for  an  active  minority  to  furnish  it.  And 
statesmen  and  newspapers  would  turn  from  inter- 
nationalism to  intense  nationalism  and  all  its  moral 
connotations,  from  talking  of  "  the  great  ideals  so 
nobly  expressed  "  to  talking  of  "  the  debasing  sen- 
timentality of  an  emasculate  pacifism,"  without 
blinking;  and  the  great  mass  of  their  readers  would 
soon  be  completely  unaware  of  any  change  what- 
soever. 

Put  down  thus  nakedly  the  thing  seems  an  af- 
fected overstatement,  or  an  effort  at  cynicism.  But 
it  is  neither.  This  change  from  one  political  philo- 
sophy to  a  contrary  one  within  a  few  weeks  has  been 
abundantly  illustrated  in  the  last  year  or  two  in 
both  Europe  and  America.  For  the  first  eighteen 


months  of  the  war  nearly  all  America  drew  an  un- 
compromisingly pacifist  argument  from  the  war; 
it  was  the  period  of  "  I  did  not  raise  my  boy  to  be 
a  soldier " ;  of  the  Democratic  party's  claim  for 
support  on  the  ground  that  "  it  kept  the  country 
out  of  war."  Within  a  few  months  the  author 
of  "  I  did  not  raise  .  .  ."  was  writing  to  the 
papers  to  explain  that  the  song  was  really  written 
for  the  purpose  of  promoting  the  selective  draft; 
great  communities  that  voted  by  the  hundred-thou- 
sand against  America's  participation  in  war  were 
in  a  few  months  lynching  those  who  were  supposed 
not  to  favor  the  war.  In  such  things  as  our  atti- 
tude to  Russia  we  have  displayed  the  same  moral 
gymnastics.  For  two  years  no  word  of  criticism  of 
Czarist  Russia  was  permitted  in  the  French  or 
English  press;  the  papers  abounded  with  touching 
stories  of  the  gentleness  and  nobility  of  the  Russian 
people.  Today  no  good  word  for  Soviet  Russia 
can  be  printed  in  that  same  press.  It  is  part  of 
the  condition  which  enables  a  Durham  miner  to 
vote  for  Mr.  Bonar  Law  today  and  for  the  aboli- 
tion of  private  property  in  mines  and  a  syndicalist 
revolution  tomorrow. 

And  if  this  waywardness  marks  a  people  possessed 
of  the  self-confidence,  the  encouragement,  that  comes 
of  victory,  what  may  we  not  look  for  in  the  enemy 
people  whose  future  is  so  uncertain,  who  cannot, 
however  disciplined  and  concerted  their  action,  de- 
termine that  future,  since  they  are  within  the  power 
of  others?  Is  it  to  be  wondered  that  each  gives 
himself  to  the  impulse  of  the  moment?  "Revolu- 
tion "  would  imply  a  set  and  common  purpose,  a 
discerned  goal,  and  that  would  give  us  some  hope. 
But  those  things  do  not  mark  the  course  of  events. 
There's  no  discernible  goal.  Quo  vadis? 

NORMAN  ANGELL. 


Joel  Chandler  Harris  and  Negro  Folklore 


IN  UNCLE  REMUS  RETURNS  (Houghton  Mifflin; 
Boston)  we  meet  our  old  friend  Remus  and  the 
same  little  boy  who  appears  in  Told  by  Uncle 
Remus — the  son  of  the  boy  who  listened  to  the 
earlier  tales  and  of  a  mother  most  antipathetic  to 
Uncle  Remus,  Miss  Sally,  and  Mr.  Harris.  That 
the  little  boy  should  be  shown  to  be  so  exclusively 
the  product  of  his  mother's  theory  of  education  is, 
by  the  way,  a  naive  witness  to  the  unfortunate  in- 
significance of  the  father  in  the  American  family. 
The  little  boy  is  singularly  lacking  in  the  child's 
usual  protective  devices  against  education.  But  Mr. 
Harris  had  caught  the  folk-tale  spirit,  keeping 
to  the  expected  theme  or  emotion  or  trait.  Prig- 


gishness  is  the  outcome  of  a  quasi-scientific  educa- 
tion, held  Harris,  and  so  his  little  boy — in  this  last 
picture  of  him  at  any  rate — is  consistently  a  prig^ 
The  stories  the  child  listens  to — there  are  six  of 
them — consist  of  the  familiar  colloquies  between" 
the  animals,  superimposed  upon  folk-tales  or  near- 
folk-tales.  Impty-Umpty  and  the  Blacksmith  is  a 
variant  of  the  tale  known  to  readers  of  Grimm  as 
Grandfather  Death.  It  has  been  collected  in  New 
England  from  Portuguese  Negroes,  but  it  has  not 
been  recorded  before,  so  far  as  I  know,  in  the  South. 
Mr.  Ridgeley  Torrence  tells  me  however  that  the 
tale  is  widely  spread  among  American  Negroes.  The 
Most  Beautiful  Bird  in  the  World  appears  to  be 


492 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


a  variant  of  The  Birds  Take  Back  Their  Feathers, 
recorded  in  Jamaica,  in  New  England  from  Portu- 
guese Negroes,  and — further  evidence  of  its  Hispanic 
provenience — in  the  Southwest  from  the  Pueblo 
Indians.  Brother  Rabbit,  Brother  Fox,  and  Two 
Fat  Pullets  consists  of  the  European  pattern  of  the 
false  message  or  letter,  the  same  pattern  which  ap- 
pears in  the  earlier  Remus  tales  of  Brother  Rabbit 
and  the  Little  Girl,  and  In  Some  Lady's  Garden, 
and  in  a  tale  which  was  once  told  me  in  Newport, 
Rhode  Island,  by  a  white  woman  from  the  Azores. 
How  Brother  Rabbit  Brought  Family  Trouble  on 
Brother  Fox  is  reminiscent  likewise  of  Portuguese 
tales  that  I  have  listened  to  in  New  England.  A. 
variant  of  Taily-po  I  heard  on  Andros  Island, 
Bahamas,  and  what  is  probably  another  variant 
Chatelain  heard  in  Angola,  West  Africa.  Brother 
Rabbit's  Bear  Hunt  contains  a  less  well  defined 
pattern  than  the  other  tales  in  the  volume  and,  like 
some  of  the  earlier  Remus  tales,  it  is,  I  suspect,  one 
of  those  quasi-individualistic  pieces  of  embroidery 
with  familiar  material  which  are  not  uncommonly 
forthcoming  among  Negro  story-tellers  and  which 
may  or  may  not  develop  into  a  true  folk-tale. 

To  what  extent  does  Mr.  Harris  himself  em- 
broider? In  more  than  one  of  those  very  pleasant 
letters  which  are  printed  in  the  recently  published 
biography  by  Julia  Collier  Harris  (The  Life  and 
Letters  of  Joel  Chandler  Harris.  Houghton  Mif- 
flin;  Boston)  Mr.  Harris  refers  to  himself  as 
merely  a  compiler  of  the  Remus  tales.  In  a  letter 
in  particular  written  to  Gomme,  president  of  the 
Folk  Lore  Society  in  England,  but  with  character- 
istic diffidence  not  sent,  Mr.  Harris  stated  of 
the  tales  that  "  not  one  of  them  is  cooked,  and  not 
one  nor  any  part  of  one  is  an  invention  of  mine. 
They  are  all  genuine  folk-tales."  That  they  are 
indeed  folk-tales,  at  least  the  earlier  tales,  any  folk- 
lorist  will  agree,  or  in  fact  anyone  who  takes  the 
trouble  to  compare  them  with  another  collection 
made  in  Georgia,  the  excellent  collection  of  C.  C. 
Jones,  Jr.,  called  Negro  Myths  from  the  Georgia 
Coast,  or  with  Mrs.  Christensen's  collection  from 
the  Sea  Islands  of  South  Carolina,  or  with  our 
meager  collections  from  other  parts  of  the  South 
or  from  the  West  Indies. 

But  in  making  this  comparison  it  becomes  quite 
evident  that  just  as  Mr.  Harris  preserved  the  pat- 
tern of  the  tale  very  faithfully,  so  the  setting  (I 
refer  not  only  to  the  old  man  and  the  little  boy,  but 
to  the  animal  colloquies  and  to  the  developed  con- 
cept of  the  animal  community)  is  a  thing  apart, 
not  appearing  in  any  of  the  other  recorded  tales. 
In  the  Harris  biography  there  is  likewise  testimony 
of,  in  this  respect,  the  literary  character  of  the  tales. 
In  1883  in  requesting  a  friend  at  Darien,  a  Georgia 


coast  town,  to  get  him  some  characteristic  coast 
tales,  varying  from  the  cotton  plantation  tales 
of  the  interior,  tales  for  example  about  alligators, 
Mr.  Harris  particularizes:  "  All  I  want  is  a  reason- 
ably intelligent  outline  of  the  stories  as  the  Negroes 
tell  them."  That  is,  he  might  have  said,  he  wanted 
the  pattern;  its  setting  he  himself  would  supply. 

A  definite  illustration  of  the  distribution  of  folk- 
lore and  literature  in  the  Remus  tales  is  presented 
in  the  biography.  A  correspondent  from  Senoia, 
Georgia,  wrote: 

Mr.  Harris  I  have  one  tale  of  Uncle  Remus  that  I  have 
not  seen  in  print  yet.  Bro  Rabbit  at  Mis  Meadows  and 
Bro  Bare  went  to  Bro  Rabbit  house  and  eat  up  his  chil- 
drun  and  set  his  house  on  fire  and  make  like  the  childrun 
all  burnt  up  but  Bro  Rabbit  saw  his  track  he  knowed 
Bro  Bare  was  the  man  so  one  day  Bro  Rabbit  saw  Bro 
Bare  in  the  woods  with  his  ax  hunting  a  bee  tree  after 
Bro  Rabbit  spon  howdy  he  tell  Bro  Bare  he  know  whare 
a  bee  tree  was  and  he  would  go  an  show  and  help  him 
cut  it  down  they  went  and  cut  it  an  Bro  Rabbit  drove 
in  the  glut  while  Bro  Bare  push  his  head  in  the  hole  Bro 
Rabbit  nock  out  the  glut  and  cut  him  hickry.  Mr.  Harris 
you  have  the  tale  now  give  it  ivit  I  never  had  room  to 
give  you  all  you  can  finish  it. 

This  tale,  writes  the  biographer,  was  the  source  of 
The  End  of  Mr.  Bear,  in  the  first  of  the  Remus 
books.  Reread  this  tale  and  you  will  agree  with  Mr. 
Harris  that  the  tales  were  "  not  written  as  folklore 
stories." 

As  it  may  be  urged  however  that  the  tale  from 
Senoia  was  merely  a  written  "  outline,"  as  the  bio- 
grapher calls  it,  and  not  a  reproduction  of  the  tale 
as  told  by  Negroes,  I  am  tempted  to  give  the  tale 
of  the  Forgotten  Pass-Word,  of  which  this  Senoia- 
Harris  tale  seems  to  be  a  variant,  as  the  former  was 
taken  down  this  year  from  the  lips  of  a  Sea  Islander. 

Ber  Wolf  he  fin'  a  honey  tree.  So  he  call  Ber  Rabbit, 
"Le'  go  get  some  honey."  So  dey  went  to  de  tree.  De 
honey  commence  to  come  down.  Dey  couldn't  get  it — 
so  very  free.  But  anyhow  dey  bu'st  de  tree  wid  de  axe. 
So  Ber  Rabbit  he  went  to  de  tree  an'  poke  his  head  an' 
say,  "  Come  down  honey,  go  up  bee."  So  de  honey  com- 
mence to  pour  down.  Dey  get  so  much,  but  Ber  Rabbit 
it  seem  like  he  didn't  sati'fy  with  what  he  get.  So  he  went 
to  de  tree,  an'  he  get  his  head  into  de  holler  of  de  tree. 
When  he  get  dere,  he  said,  "  Oh  Ber  Wolf,  my  head  is 
too  big.  You  try  now."  So  Ber  Wolf  try.  Poor  feller, 
he  didn't  know  any  better.  He  poke  his  head  way  up  in 
de  tree.  After  Ber  Wolf  get  his  head  in,  he  say,  "  Come 
down  bee,  an'  go  up  honey."  So  de  honey  go  up,  an' 
de  bee  stung  Ber  Wolf  to  deat'. 

In  connection  with  the  respective  literary  and 
folklore  elements  in  the  Remus  tales  a  happy  valu- 
ation, it  seems  to  me,  is  made  by  Mark  Twain  in 
a  letter  to  Mr.  Harris  in  1881 :  "  You  can  argue 
yourself  into  the  delusion  that  the  principle  of  life 
is  in  the  stories  themselves  and  not  in  their  setting, 
but  you  will  save  labor  by  stopping  with  that  soli- 
tary convert,  for  he  is  the  only  intelligent  one  you 
will  bag.  In  reality  the  stories  are  only  alligator 
pears — one  eats  them  merely  for  the  sake  of  the 


igig 


THE  DIAL 


493 


dressing."  To  be  sure,  now  and  then  one  hears 
of  somebody  who  fancies  alligator  pears  without 
dressing. 

With  or  without  dressing,  a  diet  of  alligator 
pears  may  lead  one  to  seek  variety.  The  seeker, 
whether  artist  or  folklorist,  can  find  variety  in 
Negro  stories  as  told  by  Negroes.  He  can  find 
ghost  stories,  stories  of  the  narrators'  English  or 
Scotch  neighbors  or  forbears;  witch  stories  that 
may  trace  back  either  to  medieval  Europe  or  to 
Africa;  preacher  stories  curiously  reminiscent  of 
Chaucer  or  Boccacio ;  "  Ashman  "  stories  in  which 
swearing  Pat  is,  like  Rabbit  or  Jack  or  Pedro  Ordi- 
nales  or  Petit  Jean,  the  protagonist  of  the  cycle; 
"  fairy  stories "  whose  European  origin  is  some- 
times plain  and  sometimes  obscure;  and  stories  like 
the  tale  of  the  Forty  Thieves  or  the  tale  of  the 
Treasury  of  King  Rhampsinitus,  which  in  the 
course  of  wanderings  in  Africa  since  the  days  of 
Herodotus  or  before  have  been  so  transformed  that 
they  yield  the  secret  of  their  origin  only  to  devout 
study. 

Such  study  is  compounded  not  only  of  patience 
and  industry,  but  of  a  gratified  sense  of  romance. 
As  there  is  romance  in  the  wanderings  of  peoples 
over  the  globe,  so  is  there  romance  in  the  wander- 
ings of  tales.  It  is  exciting  to  recognize  in  an 
Apache  tale  from  the  Southwest  or  in  an  Indian 
tale  from  Penobscot  Bay  a  tale  you  have  heard  the 
day  before  from  a  Cape  Verde  Islander  on  Cape 
Cod,  a  coincidence  which  may  resolve  for  you  an 
uncertainty  whether  the  tale  came  from  Europe  or 
from  Africa.  Or,  after  comparing  the  forty-odd 
variants  of  a  tale  collected  from  American  Negroes 
and  American  Indians  from  the  southeast  to  the 
northwest  of  the  continent,  it  is  exciting  to  hear 
the  one  recorded  European  version  of  the  tale,  a 
Spanish  version,  fall  from  the  lips  of  a  Sea  Islands 
Negro  in  South  Carolina. 

The  pursuit  of  folk-tales  not  only  takes  one  to 
islands  and  other  places  more  or  less  romantic;  it 
reveals  the  unlettered  people  of  the  world  and  it 
leads  to  intercourse  which  is  unknown,  as  a  rule, 
to  other  travelers  or  sojourners.  Recently,  on  a 
visit  to  the  Sea  Islands,  had  I  not  been  sitting  by 
the  fire  one  night  in  the  house  of  old  Mr.  Jack, 
sometime  sailor  and,  despite  the  loss  of  his  left  arm 
"  skylarkin',"  now  boat  builder,  it  is  likely  that  one 
aspect  of  the  charming  little  town  which  is  the 
metropolis  of  the  Islands  had  escaped  me.  We 
were  in  the  middle  of  a  tale  about  the  Devil  Bride- 
groom when  a  goodlooking  young  woman  came  in 
from  the  street  and,  looking  over  the  screen  between 
the  hearth  and  the  open  door,  said,  "  Mr.  Jack, 
didsh  yer  hear  dat  cyar  jus'  now  in  dis  street?  E'f 
I  could  fin'  out  who  dat  chauffeur,  I  git  after  him. 


Six,  sewen  sojers  pile  out  an'  ax  me  ef  I  wan'  mek 
some  money.  I  say,  '  Not  dat  way.'  Le'  me  fin' 
out  who  dat  chauffeur,  I  git  after  him."  We  had 
heard  a  motor,  but  Mr.  Jack  was  not  to  be  inter- 
rupted. "  I  hear'  nothin',"  he  answered.  "  I  des 
tellin'  riddles  to  dish  yere  ladee." 

Later  in  the  island  of  Defuskie  it  was  as  an  out- 
come, I  surmise,  of  the  afternoon  riddling  on  the 
top  of  an  oyster-shell  heap  that  in  the  evening  one 
of  the  oyster  openers  told  me  of  the  week-long  stay 
in  his  house  of  a  "  pa'tridge  "  hunter  and  his  wife 
from  the  north,  a  visit  which  had  caused  the  Whites 
of  the  island  to  charge  the  Negro  with  being  pro- 
German.  The  social  intercourse  involved  had  been 
so  contrary  to  Southern  ethics  that  the  violator  was 
necessarily  pro-German.  "  But  dose  white  people 
treated  us  decent,"  said  the  host  of  the  Northerners, 
"  an'  dat  was  all  we  cya'd." 

Again,  it  was  due  to  the  friendliness  that  is  a 
by-product  of  collecting  tales  that,  after  two  days 
and  parts  of  two  nights  spent  in  story-telling  in  the 
cabin  of  James  and  Pinkie  Middleton  of  Hilton 
Head,  I  was  informed  by  my  host  as  he  drove  me  to 
the  shore  which  is  called  Spanishville  that,  had  I 
stayed  on  in  the  house  of  the  white  man  where  Mr. 
Middleton  and  I  had  metr  he  would  not  have  told 
me  tales — "  fo'  no  money,  not  fo'  a  week."  Here  Mr. 
Jack,  who  had  come  on  with  me  to  this  island  and 
was  sitting  on  top  of  the  dress-suit  case  in  the  back 
of  the  buggy,  began  to  generalize  on  racial  relations. 
"  We  hoi'  no  communication  wid  dem,"  he  con- 
cluded. And  James  Middleton  added:  "We  pay 
dem  fo'  what  we  git,  an'  dey  pay  us.  We  don't 
boder  wid  dem  an'  dey  don'  boder  wid  us."  Was 
there  ever  a  more  trenchant  statement  of  racial  sep- 
aration ? 

One  'hears  quite  often  from  the  Whites  of  the 
South  that  the  Negroes  do  not  tell  stories  any 
more.  And  they  don't — to  their  White  neighbors, 
certainly  not  to  adult  Whites,  and  less  and  less  to 
the  children.  Story-telling  is  a  pastime  which  the 
superior  may  share  with  the  inferior — elders  tell 
stories  to  children;  a  king  or  judge  may  point  his 
decision  with  a  tale — but,  lacking  the  institution  of 
court  jester  or  minstrel  or  player,  inferiors  or  quasi- 
inferiors  do  not  tell  stories  to  their  superiors 
or  quasi-superiors,  and  on  the  whole  the  art 
of  story-telling  is  wont  to  be  practiced  between 
equals.  Arrogance  or  condescension  stand  in  the 
way  of  story-telling.  It  would  be  strange  indeed  if 
Southern  Negroes  told  stories  to  Southern  Whites. 
It  takes  something  of  an  artist  to  listen  to  a  folk-tale 
as  well  as  to  tell  it,  and  between  artists  theories  of 
social  inequality  do  not  obtrude. 

ELSIE  CLEWS  PARSONS. 


494 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


The  Future  of  American  Socialism 


LE  HONEST  RADICAL  (who  may  be  defined  as  the 
radical  who  would  rather  look  fact  in  the  face  than 
feast  on  a  phrase)  is  discovering  today  that  the  chief 
difference  between  the  exploiter  and  the  exploited 
is  the  superiority  of  the  former  in  initiative,  organi- 
zation, and  foresight.  The  rapidity  with  which 
capital,  faced  by  revolution  and  dissolution,  has 
organized  its  international  in  the  League  of  Nations, 
and  the  readiness  with  which  Republicans  and 
Democrats  combine  in  localities  where  Socialism  has 
become  a  menace  to  all  respectable  and  God-fearing 
men,  may  be  profitably  contrasted  with  the  passion 
for  fragmentation  which  has  animated  and  dissi- 
pated the  forces  of  reconstruction  in  Europe  and 
America  these  last  half-hundred  years.  The  same 
abounding  individuality  which  makes  a  man  a  rebel 
against  Providence  and  the  police  makes  him  also 
an  impatient  item  in  any  organized  radical  group. 
This  is  an  old  story,  and  not  the  sweetest  ever  told ; 
particularly  painful  today,  when  the  opportunity  is 
so  obviously  ours  to  replace  deceptive  geographical 
divisions  of  political  opinion  by  fundamental  hori- 
zontal divisions  drawn  to  accord  with  the  vital  and 
present  interests  of  men.  Probably  the  opportunity 
will  be  lost,  and  we  poor  individualistic  Socialists 
will  go  on  with  our  infinite  division,  like  a  conscien- 
tous  mathematician  struggling  with  the  square  root 
of  a  surd. 

Part  of  the  difficulty,  of  course,  buds  out  from  the 
fact  that  radicals  deal  in  new  ideas  while  conserva- 
tives (as  such)  deal  with  ideas  older  than  the  hills. 
A  new  idea  is  an  experiment,  a  risk,  an  adventure; 
it  leads  a  precarious  existence  always,  and  has  no 
large  expectation  of  life;  it  is  more  often  a  fashion 
than  a  fact,  and  even  as  a  fact  it  may  ride  insecurely 
some  passing  crest  of  circumstance.  So  we  whose 
radicalism  is  losing  the  beardless  flush  of  youth  find 
ourselves  caught  today  in  a  flux  of  theory  that  has 
long  since  dislodged  us  from  our  cherished  isms,  and 
is  sweeping  us  on  with  a  rapidity  only  less  violent 
than  the  dizzying  current  of  events.  Our  old  fetish 
of  government  ownership,  for  example,  is  no  longer 
a  fit  god  for  our  tribe;  our  enemies  too  are  begin- 
ning to  worship  at  this  shrine,  and  we  begin  to  feel 
ill  at  ease  in  its  presence.  We  have  become  sus- 
picious of  the  state* and  all  its  works;  we  distinguish 
anxiously  now  between  Socialism  and  State  Social- 
ism— though  we  are  rather  surer  of  what  we  do  not, 
than  of  what  we  do,  mean  by  the  former  term. 
This  State  Socialism  was  a  religion  of  weakness;  we 
wished  to  be  huddled  up  in  the  great  safe  bosom  of 
"  the  Government,"  to  lose  our  little  worried  egos 


in  a  sort  of  economic  Nirvana  in  which  God  and  the 
State  and  ourselves  melted  into  an  ethereal,  ether- 
ized unity.  Then  came  war;  and  overnight  the 
socialized  state  engulfed  us.  Some  of  us  are  relieved, 
even  enthusiastic,  over  this  event;  Mr.  James  Mac- 
Kaye,  indeed,  rejoices  eloquently,  and  feels  that  we 
are  tobogganing  into  Utopia  (Americanized  Social- 
ism; Boni  and  Liveright).  But  some  of  us  are 
skeptical,  and  think  of  Greek  gifts. 

Now,  we  have  had  enough  of  this  Schiedemann 
yellow  Socialism;  there  is  more  for  our  eyes  and 
our  hopes  in  the  brilliant  colors  with  which  Bolshe- 
vism is  covering  the  canvas  of  the  world.  Soviet 
is  the  throned  word  of  the  day;  we  shall  send  our 
Congressmen  back  to  school,  and  shall  put  in  their 
place  a  body  of  deputies  chosen  by  the  producers, 
rather  than  named  and  "  put  through  "  by  the  in- 
vestors of  the  country.  Clearly  we  Americans  are 
in  matters  political  still  at  the  imitative  stage;  we 
import  our  isms  bodily  from  Germany  (State 
Socialism),  or  from  France  (Syndicalism),  or  from 
England  (Labor  Party  programs),  or  from  Russia 
(Bolshevism) ;  and  any  suggestion  that  these  the- 
ories must  be  changed  to  fit  the  peculiar  perspective 
of  the  American  scene  passes  over  our  heads,  close 
to  the  clouds  though  they  be.  Mr.  Louis  Fraina, 
for  example  (Revolutionary  Socialism;  Communist 
Press)  wants  a  red-hot  revolution  immediately,  if 
not  sooner,  and  never  doubts  that  the  proletariat  of 
these  United  States  is  prepared  to  take  over  all  the 
means  of  production  and  distribution,  and  to  man- 
age sufficiently  well  the  complicated  interrelations  of 
American  agriculture,  industry,  and  commerce.  The 
differences  in  size,  organization,  and  intelligence  be- 
tween the  business  class  in  America  and  the  business 
class  in  Russia;  the  condition,  character,  and  con- 
servatism of  the  average  American  farmer ;  the  pres- 
ence of  a  large  and  victorious  army;  the  individual- 
istic and  careerist  tradition  that  has  molded  us  all, 
immigrant  almost  as  much  as  native,  radical  almost 
as  much  as  conservative;  the  comparative  (though 
rapidly  decreasing)  fluidity  of  classes  in  America; 
the  secret  hope  in  almost  every  wage-slave's  heart 
that  he  will  some  day  be  a  happy  exploiter  himself, 
with  a  front  pew  at  church  and  an  ancient  coat  of 
arms  on  his  stationery;  the  vast  horde  of  servants — 
"  parasitic  proletariat,"  Shaw  has  called  them — 
whose  interests  are  so  bound  up  with  the  present 
regime  that  they  are  more  reactionary  than  their 
masters;  the  blurring  of  the  distinction  between 
producer  and  investor  as  a  result  of  stock-holding, 
profit-sharing,  bond-purchases,  and  so  on;  the  bour- 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


495 


geois  affiliation  of  practically  all  men  trained  for 
directive  and  administrative  functions;  above  all  the 
conservatism  of  the  dominant  group  in  the  ranks  of 
organized  labor  in  America — treacherous  details  of 
this  sort  are  to  our  gentle  revolutionaries  but  spots 
on  the  rising  sun;  let  us  put  our  blinders  on  and 
move  forward ;  "  if  we  reflect  too  much  we  shall 
never  act  at  all  " ;  let  us  have  action,  action,  action, 
and  we  can  ask  questions  afterward. 

No,  we  must  take  leave  of  Mr.  Fraina  too ;  mere- 
ly recommending  his  book  as  a  very  capable  and  sin- 
cere exposition  of  the  revolutionary  point  of  view. 

And  now,  having  successfully  demolished  all  other 
theories,  nothing  remains  for  us  to  do  but  to  formu- 
late and  establish  our  own  nostrum.  There  are 
three  questions  involved:  First,  what  do  we  want? 
( Most  of  us  stop  here. )  Second,  what  can  we  get  ? 
(Most  others  stop  here.)  Third,  just  how  are  we 
going  to  go  about  it?  (Some  get  thus  far.)  Most 
radicalism  is  rather  an  aspiration  than  a  resolution; 
and  most  of  the  resolution  fights  shy  of  specific  pur- 
poses, methods,  and  details.  Two  things  we  can 
perhaps  agree  on  as  items  in  our  general  social 
desire :  One,  that  "  labor  "  shall  have  at  least  an 
equal  share  with  "  capital  "  in  the  direction  of  indus- 
try, local  and  national — and  not  merely  in  the  dis- 
cussion and  arbitration  of  lesser  industrial  disputes, 
as  seems  to  be  upshot  of  the  Whitley  Reports — until 
such  time  as  all  capital  may  be  socialized  and  the 
private  investor  squeezed  out  of  existence.  Two, 
that  to  our  present  Congress,  retained  as  a  geograph- 
ically elected  body  representing  us  as  consumers,  we 
shall  add  a  national  economic  congress  of  deputies 
elected  by  agricultural  and  industrial  groups  and 
representing  us  as  producers.  The  first  of  these  two 
commandments  of  the  new  dispensation  is  probably 
as  much  as  can  be  made  effective  at  present.  A 
revolution  might  realize  both,  or  more,  for  a  time; 
but  the  lack  of  administrative  and  commercial  train- 
ing among  the  members  of  the  proletariat  would  pre- 
sumably result  in  a  swing  back  to  the  condition  as 
here  outlined  and  here  proposed  as  within  the 
bounds  of  bloodless  attainment. 

Towards  this  prosaic  attainment  we  would  sug- 
gest, first  of  all,  that  some  effort  be  made  to  bring 
into  general  harmony — at  least  on  these  two  points 
— the  four  fundamental  forces  making  for  a  better 
social  order  in  America:  a  unified  Labor  party,  a 
broadened  Socialist  party,  a  more  partisan  Non- 
Partisan  League,  and  the  more  advanced  element  in 
the  very  varied  ranks  of  American  liberalism.  The 
Labor  party  would  have  to  open  its  ranks  to  all  who 
live  by  their  labor  of  hand  or  brain;  the  Socialists 
would  have  to  stretch  a  point  or  two  in  their  con- 
stitution and  develop  a  more  flexible  machinery;  the 
rebellious  farmers  would  have  to  play  a  bolder  game 


than  heretofore,  sacrificing  some  immediate  gains  to 
larger  ulterior  purposes;  and  the  liberals — well,  can 
anything  good  still  be  said  for  the  liberals?  The 
very  word  is  in  bad  odor  with  all  men  who  can 
detect  decomposition ;  it  has  come  to  betoken  a  mild 
and  bespectacled  indecision,  as  of  a  man  who  dis- 
penses radical  rhetoric  but  cannot  forget  that  he 
has  some  shares  in  Bethlehem  Steel.  Yet  the  threat- 
ening propinquity  of  revolution  is  sifting  the  ranks  of 
the  liberals,  driving  into  a  frankly  conservative  posi- 
tion those  who  think  that  pills  will  do  where  surgery 
is  needed;  and  the  remnant  finds  its  hands  freer  to 
work  for  some  such  program  as  has  been  here  put 
forth.  Let  then  these  four  elements  unite — 
Laborite,  Socialist,  Leaguer,  and  Liberal — and  they 
may  quicken  a  new  birth  which  will  burst  the  shell 
that  is  stifling  American  growth. 

But  all  this  is  politics,  and  is  mere  paper  and  ink 
unless  behind  it  stand  forceful  organizations  of  pro- 
ducers and  consumers.  That  consumers  too  must 
be  organized  is  elementary,  and  hardly  calls  for 
demonstration  here.  That  our  trade-unions  must 
turn  over  a  new  leaf,  passing  from  the  isolated  con- 
sideration of  hours  and  wages  to  self-preparation  for 
all  the  tasks  of  industrial  management  and  co-ordi- 
nation, is  a  proposition  that  can  better  bear  repeat- 
ing; we  offer  it  here  as  the  second  constituent  in  our 
general  panacea.  The  new  society  must  be  built 
from  the  bottom  up,  with  the  remodeled  labor  union 
as  its  productive  and  directive  unit.  But  it  must  be 
a  maturer  union  than  that  which  gives  Mr.  Gompers 
carte  blanche  to  stultify  American  labor  in  the  con- 
ferences of  Europe;  it  must  become  worthy  of  its 
future.  It  will  have  to  reorganize  on  an  industrial 
rather  than  a  craft  basis,  with  shop-committees  re- 
placing the  old  union  machine;  it  will  have  to 
broaden  its  borders  to  include  all  producers,  manual 
or  mental,  who  care  to  be  included.  So  labor  will 
(let  us  pray)  eventually  unite  itself  as  thoroughly 
as  capital  is  united ;  "  one  big  union  "  is  indispens- 
able to  ultimate  labor  control  of  production  and  dis- 
tribution, and  will  serve  as  effective  counterpoint 
to  the  centralized  control  of  capital.  And  in  every 
city  these  organizations  of  labor  will  join  hands  for 
all  manner  of  purposes,  economic,  political,  recrea- 
tive— and  educational.  To  this  last,  in  the  end,  all 
plans  return.  Each  great  center  of  population  must 
have  its  labor-financed  People's  University,  where 
all  may  freely  learn  who  can  show  a  producer's  card, 
and  where  men  effectively  pledged  to  labor-loyalty 
may  be  selected  and  trained  to  fill,  one  by  one,  the 
places  of  direction  and  management  in  industry  and 
commerce.  And  out  of  each  such  university  may 
come  a  daily  paper  accurate  and  thorough  in  its 
reports,  courageous  and  constructive  in  its  com- 
ments, managed  and  edited  by  a  board  that  will  rep- 


496 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


resent  fairly  the  varied  elements  that  are  joined  in 
its  support.  To  teach  workingmen  to  read  their 
own  press,  and  to  produce  a  labor  press  which  work- 
ingmen can  be  persuaded  to  read — this  is  part  of  the 
prelude  to  reconstruction. 

In  short,  we  are  not  worthy  of  a  revolution  be- 
cause we  have  not  yet  developed  a  system  with  which 
to  replace  the  order  that  we  would  depose.  It  is 
only  by  the  artificial  stimulus  of  European  example 
and  "  democratic  "  autocracy  at  home  that  we  are 
driven  to  think  of  it;  the  indispensable  basis  of  a 
successful  revolution — the  ability  to  replace  and 
improve  upon  the  existing  system — is  not  yet  pres- 
ent; certainly  less  so  here  than  in  England.  To 
advocate  revolution  without  serious  conviction  of 
our  ability  to  make  this  substitution  is  to  invite 
workingmen  to  be  slaughtered  for  an  ideologist's 


holiday.  We  cannot  write  our  poetic  drama  yet; 
we  can  only  write  the  prologue,  and  in  prose.  We 
can  only  make  straight  the  way.  We  can  organize 
our  forces,  add  to  our  resources,  and  develop  within 
our  ranks  men  fit  to  deal  with  the  complexities,,  of 
our  economic  interrelations,  domestic  and  foreign ; 
we  can  use  our  present  power  to  compel  the  democ- 
ratization of  industry  by  the  equal  representation  of 
labor  with  capital  on  all  industrial  boards ;  and  with 
this  leverage  we  can  one  by  one  replace  the  mana- 
gers, engineers,  agents,  and  merchants  whose  hearts 
are  loyal  to  the  past,  with  men  chosen  by  the  forces 
of  labor,  trained  in  the  universities  of  labor,  pledged 
to  the  purposes  of  labor,  and  directed  by  its  councils. 
And  so,  perhaps,  unheroically  but  surely,  the  new 

day  will  dawn.  ,,,        ,-, 

3  WILL  DURANT. 


The  Impending  Industrial  Crisis 


HREE  GROUPS  of  events,  quite  distinct  to  many 
whom  they  intimately  concern,  hold  the  key  to  the 
riddle  of  demobilization.  The  first  is  the  decrease 
in  the  volume  of  production  and  of  business  and  a 
consequent  increase  in  the  number  of  the  unem- 
ployed. The  second  is  the  rapid  growth  in  the  num- 
ber of  strikes  since  the  first  of  the  year,  a  tendency 
which  bears  evidence  to  the  alarming  amount  of  in- 
dustrial unrest  in  the  country.  The  third  is  a  series 
of  steps  which  make  up  the  unscientific  and  dilatory 
policy  of  the  "  Government  "  in  dealing  with  the  sit- 
nation.  This  last  is  typified  by  two  significant 
occurrences. 

On  May  I,  1919,  there  went  into  effect  a  new 
schedule  of  high  taxes  upon  "  luxuries."  These  im- 
positions upon  cosmetics,  high-priced  clothing,  and 
like  articles  had  the  sanction  of  the  financial  experts 
of  the  Bureau  of  International  Revenue  and  the  all 
but  unanimous  approval  of  the  economists  of  the 
country.  But  they  were  originally  designed,  not  to 
raise  revenue  but  to  force  producers  to  turn  their  at- 
tention from  non-essential  to  essential  commodities. 
Because  of  a  needless  delay  of  nine  months  by  Con- 
gress they  are  useless  for  stimulating  the  production 
of  munitions  of  war.  Because  a  tax  bill  designed  by 
experts  for  a  war  emergency  was  not  revised  in  the 
light  of  the  conditions  of  an  impending  peace,  these 
taxes  serve  to  discourage  production,  retard  the  con- 
version of  industry  to  a  peace  basis,  and  to  contribute 
to  swelling  the  volume  of  the  unemployed. 

A  few  days  earlier  a  representative  of  the  army 
stated  that  demobilization  had  nearly  reached  the 
two  million  mark  and  that  the  process  was  going  for- 
ward with  alacrity.  His  statement  was  satisfactory 


to  himself  and  doubtless  to  other  devotees  of  ritual. 
Nor  was  it  vain  self-congratulation,  for  he  had  the 
testimony  of  clean  desks  and  accurate  files  to  effici- 
ency in  his  work.  It  may  be  that  non-consultation  by 
laymen  in  Congress  with  financial  experts,  and  con- 
gratulatory smiles  by  army  officers  are  poor  ultimates 
in  a  philosophical  quest.  Yet  in  the  act  of  Congress 
in  putting  good  advice  to  a  bad  use  and  in  the  satis- 
faction of  the  army  chiefs  over  their  work  the  prin- 
cipal causes  of  the  muddle  of  demobilization  are  to 
be  found. 

Unlike  the  larger  issue  of  reconstruction,  the 
problem  of  demobilization  was  too  immediate  to 
escape  even  Mr.  Wilson's  Benthamite  logic.  The 
government  had  conscripted  men ;  it  had  to  devise 
some  plan  of  getting  rid  of  them.  The  government 
had  contracted  for  supplies;  it  had  to  formulate 
some  scheme  for  the  cancellation  of  contracts.  Of- 
ficials charged  with  the  discharge  of  men  and  the 
riddance  of  contracts  may  be  able  to  view  their 
acts  apart  from  {heir  effect  upon  the  industrial  sys- 
tem, and  in  emulation  of  the  deity  see  the  work 
which  they  have  done  and  find  it  good.  But  one 
who  recognizes  the  problem  as  part  of  the  larger 
one  of  reorganizing  industry  by  transferring  men 
and  materials  from  emergency  to  ordinary  uses  is 
likely  to  behold  the  result  and  call  it  a  failure. 
To  understand  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  failure 
of  the  administration's  demobilization  policy,  or 
lack  of  one,  it  is  necessary  to  have  the  story.  And 
the  story  begins  in  November.  One  reason  for 
the  lack  of  success  is  that  it  did  not  begin  months 
earlier. 

In  November  arose  the  question  of  whether  de- 


1919 


497 


mobilization  was  likely  to  involve  an  industrial 
crisis  or  whether  it  could  safely  be  left  to  the  min- 
istrations of  the  general  staff  and  "  the  simple  and 
obvious  system  of  natural  liberty."  The  optimists, 
whose  numbers  at  that  time  were  overwhelming, 
saw  just  ahead  of  us  farm,  mine,  and  factory  filled 
with  well-paid  and  contented  laborers  producing 
wealth  enough  to  insure  national  plenty  and  to 
take  away  the  dearth  of  Europe.  Their  vision  was 
of  "  peace  on  earth  and  good  will  to  men  "  made 
doubly  sure  by  abundance.  The  pessimists,  a  mere 
handful  at  the  signing  of  the  Armistice,  had  as  little 
trouble  in  discerning  in  the  near  future  an  industrial 
system  half-stalled,  a  host  of  laborers  half-employed 
or  idle,  wages  falling  and  labor  standards  going  to 
rack,  and  anarchy  arising  to  devastate  the  land. 
Their  vision  was  the  specter  of  hatred,  class  strug- 
gle, and  violence,  kept  alive  by  unemployment,  dis- 
content, and  hunger. 

To  understand  the  matter  aright  let  us  look  at 
it  as  each  of  these  groups  did  at  the  time  of  the 
Armistice.  The  optimists  found  all  signs  pointing 
to  fair  weather.  The  plant  capacity  of  the  country, 
consisting  of  field,  mine,  factory,  railway,  and  shop, 
had  been  increased  by  the  war,  and  was  ample  for 
all  needs.  The  great  demand  for  goods  gave  em- 
ployers an  incentive  to  maintain  production  at  a 
high  level.  Evidence  of  this  demand  was  to  be 
found  in  the  anticipated  purchase  of  non-essentials 
which  had  been  renounced  for  the  war,  in  depleted 
stocks  of  goods  which  merchants  had  to  replace, 
in  wear  and  tear  and  "  deferred  maintenance,"  in 
the  construction  of  buildings  and  the  production 
of  equipment  halted  by  the  war,  and  in  the  large 
orders  which  would  come  to  us  for  the  wherewithal 
to  rebuild  a  devastated  Europe.  A  visible  record 
of  this  demand  was  to  be  found  in  accumulated 
orders  which  crowded  the  files  of  every  productive 
firm.  With  such  a  stimulus  to  industry  the  indica- 
tion was  rather  of  a  shortage  than  a  surplus  of  labor. 
Before  the  war  the  industries  of  the  country  had 
been  able  to  absorb  neatly  a  million  new  immigrants 
a  year.  Since  the  autumn  of  1914  only  a  fraction 
of  this  number  had  come  in.  Even  if  plants  had 
to  be  converted  to  peace  uses,  the  matter  was  not 
serious.  Peace  had  come  before  the  process  of  mak- 
ing industry  serve  the  needs  of  war  was  completed, 
and  the  structure  of  the  industrial  system  remained 
intact.  That  all  the  laborers  could  be  put  back 
into  the  system  was  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  they 
had  been  withdrawn.  And  finally,  history  was 
called  upon  to  countersign  the  promises  of  prophecy. 
The  Civil  War  had  been  followed  by  an  era  of 
prosperity.  Then  why  not  this  one  ?  Thus  the 
optimists  persuaded  those  who  agreed  with  them 
that  peace  meant  plenty,  prosperity,  and  peace. 


But  real  pessimists  do  not  easily  forego  the  joys 
of  seeing  the  future  as  through  a  glass  darkly. 
They  refused  to  be  silenced  by  even  so  rosy  an 
array  of  argument.  They  denied  these  and  affirmed 
propositions  of  their  own  fashioning.  Many  plants, 
hastily  erected,  were  useless  for  peace-time  produc- 
tion; many  more  could  be  made  of  service  only 
through  great  expense  and  after  long  delay.  But, 
even  if  plants  and  equipment  were  adequate,  there 
was  no  assurance  that  they  would  all  be  used. 
Owners  would  run  their  establishments  only  if  they 
saw  a  profit  in  doing  so.  This  profit  was  an  affair 
of  demand  and  of  price.  Undoubtedly  there  was 
a  great  need  for  goods  of  all  sorts.  But  need  did 
not  constitute  effective  demand,  the  kind  which  stirs 
business  into  activity.  To  be  effective  need  must 
be  attended  by  the  means  wherewith  to  pay  and 
a  willingness  to  purchase  at  high  prices.  Manu- 
facturer and  merchant  alike  would  hesitate  to  buy 
raw  materials  and  stocks  when  prices  were  on  the 
eve  of  a  decline.  Europe  was  by  no  means  a  good 
prospective  debtor.  Even  if  it  could  afford  our 
goods  it  would  be  reluctant  to  pay  our  prices.  Ac- 
cumulated orders  were  no  infallible  index  of  the 
future,  for  there  was  no  assurance  that  all  of  them 
were  "live."  If  anticipated  profits  failed  to  per- 
suade the  owner  to  produce,  employment  would  not 
be  forthcoming.  Men  would  seek  without  finding, 
and  those  who  found  might  not  cheerfully  accept 
the  lower  wages  which  were  offered.  The  result 
would  ^be  underemployment  or  none  at  all,  low 
wages  or  their  lack,  a  breaking  down  of  labor  stand- 
ards by  a  desperate  competition  of  the  great  unem- 
ployed for  a  little  work,  a  disruption  of  the  buying 
power  of  the  masses,  a  further  threat  to  the  em- 
ployer's inducement  to  go  ahead,  and  the  prospect 
of  group  conflict  and  industrial  depression.  The 
temper  of  employer  and  employee  alike  held  the 
seeds  of  trouble.  •  Their  union  had  but  the  simple 
end  of  winning  the  war.  Self-interest,  held  in 
leash,  might  be  expected  to  display  itself  in  sus- 
picion and  prevent  the  cooperation  which  alone 
would  save  the  situation.  The  forces  of  war  had 
been  loosed,  and  naught  that  man  could  do  would 
stay  the  consequences.  The  Civil  War  analogy 
was  worthless.  Men  drawn  from  farms  for  a  local 
struggle  could  be  reabsorbed'.  As  for  the  reabsorp- 
tion  of  men  drawn  from  an  intricate  industrial  sys- 
tem for  a  world-wide  conflict,  that  was,  another 
matter.  Thus  the  pessimists  assured  each  other 
that  peace  meant  dearth,  calamity,  and  warfare. 

Between  these  two  stood  a  third  group  little 
prone  to  positive  prediction,  and  fond  of  the  words, 
"  if  " — "  then."  They  saw  in  a  plastic  situation 
the  elements  alike  of  promise  and  of  despair.  With 
the  optimists  they  agreed  that  in  plant  and  equip- 


49 


8 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


ment,  in  natural  resources,  in  labor,  we  were  pos- 
sessed of  the  materials  of  prosperity.  With  the 
pessimists  they  were  in  harmony  in  seeing  in  the 
situation  elements  of  danger.  They  differed  from 
both  in  insisting  that  the  future  could  be  shaped 
by  means  of  a  conscious  policy.  To  them  attitudes 
were  the  result  of  markets  or  the  lack  of  them,  of 
employment  or  its  absence,  and  markets  and  em- 
ployment depended  upon  the  speed  and  efficiency 
with  which  industry  was  reorganized.  This  group 
included  many  men  scattered  throughout  the  coun- 
try and  had  its  representatives  even  among  the  per- 
sonnel of  the  war  boards  at  Washington. 

In  all  probability  a  unified  and  consistent  pro- 
gram for  the  demobilization  period  has  never  found 
written  expression.  -  But  its  various  parts,  which  fit 
together  into  a  fairly  consistent  plan  of  action,  are 
all  recorded  in  "  memoranda "  with  which  those 
upon  "  the  working  level  "  bombarded  departmental 
chiefs,  heads  of  boards,  and  others  upon  "  the  dis- 
cretionary level  " — who  together  form  that  inchoate 
personnel  known  outside  of  Washington  as  "  the 
government."  This  paper  assault  engaged  repre- 
sentatives of  most  of  the  departments  and  boards 
at  the  Capitol.  It  lasted  from  early  October  until 
mid-November.  The  general  principles  which 
found  expression  in  these  documents  were  three  in 
number:  first,  the  demobilization  of  men  and  ma- 
terials must  respond  to  the  industrial  needs  of  the 
country ;  second,  by  conscious  policy  the  government 
must  hasten  the  return  of  industry  to  a  peace  basis; 
third,  the  government  must  provide  employment 
for  the  men  who  are  certain  to  be  left  adrift  in  the 
process.  Together  these  policies  analyze  the  prob- 
lem of  demobilization  and  reveal  the  factors  which, 
left  uncontrolled,  have  made  the  situation  what  it 
is  today.  For  this  reason  each  of  them  requires 
explicit  statement. 

In  the  first  place,  demobilization  must  respond 
to  the  industrial  needs  of  the  country.  If  the  use 
to  which  men  and  materials  were  to  be  put  made 
of  mobilization  a  military  matter,  then  demobiliza- 
tion is  stamped  with  an  industrial  label.  The 
army's  needs  expire  suddenly  and  the  men  can 
be  quickly  released.  But  the  adjustment  of  industry 
to  new  conditions  takes  time.  Hence  the  need  is 
for  an  arrested  demobilization.  Both  the  rate  at 
which  and  the  order  in  which  men  and  plants  are 
to  be  transferred  from  emergency  to  ordinary  uses 
must  be  carefully  determined.  As  for  industrial 
establishments,  they  should  be  released  from  war 
work  as  fast,  and  no  faster  than,  they  can  find 
civilian  work  to  do.  This  can  be  effected  through 
a  carefully  formulated  policy  for  the  cancellation  of 
war  contracts.  Through  this  policy  contracts  which 
involve  articles  useless  in  time  of  peace  must  go  first, 


those  involving  goods  which  can  later  find  a  way 
into  ordinary  commerce  last.  In  addition  the  can- 
cellation of  contracts  should  be  governed  by  the  po- 
sitions which  the  goods  affected  hold  in  the  produc- 
tive sequence  which  runs  from  raw  materials  to 
finished  products. 

In  like  manner  a  definite  policy  must  guide  the 
discharge  of  men.  It  must  not  take  account  of  sol- 
diers alone;  it  must  comprehend  all  who  are  bring- 
ing their  labor  to  market.  Since  soldiers  compete 
with  discharged  munitions  workers  and  other  civil- 
ians, assurance  of  employment  is  contingent  upon 
arresting  the  whole  flow  into  the  labor  market. 
This  threatening  flood  is  composed  of  five  streams: 
i)  discharged  workers  from  war  industries,  2) 
men  in  service  overseas,  3)  men  in  arms  in  this 
country,  4)  immigrants,  and  5)  young  persons 
bringing  their  labor  to  market  for  the  first  time. 
Each  of  these  streams  is  subject  to  more  or  less 
control.  Through  them  the  flow  into  the  labor 
market  can  be  arrested.  In  this  way  the  chances 
of  soldiers  finding  acceptable  work  may  be  multi- 
plied many  fold. 

The  control  of  the  government  over  these  groups 
varies.  The  most  immediate  danger  lies  in  the 
wholesale  discharge  of  munitions  workers.  They 
threaten  tq.  deluge  the  market,  to  snap  up  the  better 
places,  to  force  wages  down,  and  to  cause  discharged 
soldiers  to  seek  work  in  a  glutted  market.  Their 
discharge  can  be  controlled  only  through  the  indi- 
rect means  of  reading  the  intent  to  hold  them  back 
into  a  policy  for  the  cancellation  of  contracts.  The 
men  under  arms,  both  overseas  and  in  this  country, 
are  under  a  single  authority.  Their  discharge  may 
be  hastened  or  stayed  as  the  powers  that  be  decree. 
Whatever  considerations  impel  a  speedy  release,  it  is 
possible  to  prevent  them  from  flooding  the  market. 
Neither  of  the  two  groups  last  named  offers  a 
serious  threat.  For  the  time  at  least  the  scarcity  of 
shipping  is  an  effective  bar  to  immigration.  Most 
of  the  young  people  who  might  now  be  seeking 
work  for  the  first  time  have  already  been  drawn 
into  industry.  Thus,  of  the  streams  into  the  labor 
market,  one  is  subject  to  indirect  control,  two  of 
them  are  responsive  to  exact  direction,  and  two  of 
them  are  for  the  time  closed. 

The  control  of  the  discharge  of  labor  requires 
also  a  scheme  of  priorities.  Labor  is  not  a  fluid 
fund  of  units  which  can  be  used  interchangeably 
at  will.  Attention  must  always  be  given  to  the 
requirements  of  the  place  and  the  capacities  of  the 
man.  Military  must  yield  to  industrial  usefulness, 
and  no  chance  of  putting  a  laborer  into  an  accept- 
able place  should  be  overlooked.  Requests  from 
employers  should  in  all  reasonable  cases  be  acceded 
to.  In  priorities  managers  of  business  should  be 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


499 


released  early,  for  their  planning  is  necessary  to  a 
resumption  of  industry  which  eventually  will  create 
employment  for  others.  By  tempering  policies  such 
as  these  to  changing  circumstances  the  flow  of  labor 
could  in  detail  be  adjusted  to  the  country's  need 
for  men. 

In  the  second  place  the  government  should  strive 
to  hasten  the  return  of  industry  to  a  peace  footing. 
Its  aim  should  be  to  draw  within  the  effective  or- 
ganization of  industry  as  much  of  the  productive 
equipment  of  the  country  as  possible.  Manifestly 
no  panacea  will  suffice  for  so  large  and  delicate  a 
task.  But  there  is  much  which  a  wise  government 
might  do.  By  regulating  cancellation  of  contracts 
it  could  prevent  plants  from  standing  idle.  Through 
priorities  in  the  discharge  of  men  it  could  influence 
the  order  in  which  industry  was  resumed,  and  thus 
hasten  the  process.  By  placing  new  orders  judi- 
ciously it  could  stimulate  resumption  when  and 
where  it  was  lagging.  If  labor  were  lacking,  a  con- 
cern could  be  supplied  from  the  stores  of  the  army. 
If  a  scarcity  of  raw  materials  were  the  limiting 
factor,  a  priorities  board  could  see  that  they  were 
available.  If  capital  were  lacking  for  conversion 
or  another  purpose,  a  peace  finance  corporation  should 
prove  of  service.  Even  something  could  be  done 
to  stimulate  demand.  If  many  industries  are  idle, 
their  employees  are  not  paid,  and  no  one  fares  well 
who  has  goods  to  sell.  If  all  resume  production, 
and  too  many  do  not  turn  out  the  same  article,  the 
owners  and  employees  of  each  should  constitute  a 
market  for  the  products  of  the  'others.  With 
prospect  of  little  loss  the  government  could 
guarantee  industries  a  reasonable  profit  for  the 
demobilization  period.  It  could  thus  secure  addi- 
tional wealth  from  establishments  the  timidity 
of  whose  owners  would  otherwise  bind  them 
to  partial  idleness.  By  a  careful  supervision  of 
production  it  could  remove  the  dangers  of  over- 
production of  certain  lines  of  goods.  Finally  its 
policy  would  arrest  the  hesitation  which  comes  from 
an  expectation  of  falling  prices.  By  removing  this 
threat  upon  profits  it  would  stimulate  production. 
Even  if  resumption  could  not  be  brought  entirely 
under  control,  the  hand  of  the  government,  cun- 
ningly applied,  promised  better  than  the  ruthless 
struggle  under  laissez-faire. 

In  the  third  place  the  government  should  miti- 
gate the  unemployment  which  at  best  would  attend 
the  process.  The  men  who  find  themselves  victims 
of  the  rapid  changes  in  industry  should  be  given 
something  to  do  until  they  can  find  regular  employ- 
ment. Perhaps  the  best  device  for  furnishing 
"  buffer  employment  "  is  a  provision  of  public  works 
by  federal,  state,  and  municipal  governments. 

It  is  no  secret  of  state  that  the  multiform  per- 


sonality called  the  government  undertook  no  policy 
so  comprehensive  and  so  definite  as  this  one.  Those 
who  get  their  notions  of  its  activities  from  text- 
books may  not  understa  id  its  hesitation.  But  those 
who  are  acquainted  with  the  genus  in  its  native 
habitat  will  not  have  to  be  told  the  reasons  for  its 
timidity.  Here  they  must  be  set  down  in  briefest 
fashion.  There  was  little  interest  in  demobiliza- 
tion and  even  less  consciousness  of  what  it  involved. 
So  far  as  those  who  decide  things  considered  the 
matter,  they  saw  only  boundless  resources  and  the 
unprecedented  demand  for  goo3s.  They  argued 
that  all  was  well  ahead  and  were  content  to  let  Mr. 
Baker's  department  handle  the  matter.  The  Secre- 
tary of  War,  who  knows  perhaps  better  than  any 
one  else  the  limitations  of  the  military  mind,  and 
is  perhaps  the  world's  greatest  authority  upon  its 
incapacity  for  industrial  and  social  problems,  let 
the  matter  go.  As  a  result  the  general  staff  ex- 
hibited its  customary  reticence  at  the  prospect  of  the 
ceremonial  of  discharge  by  military  units  being 
disturbed  by  so  small  a  matter  as  concern  over  jobs 
for  the  victims.  As  for  the  civilians — they  took 
refuge  in  the  magic  of  making  all  well  by  insisting 
that  all  was  well,  and  joined  the  Whistlers'  Chorus. 

So  it  came  about  that  matters  were  left  to  the 
War  Department,  "  the  simple  and  obvious  system 
of  natural  liberty,"  and  to  "  the  invisible  hand." 
Little  attempt  was  to  be  made  to  slow  up  de- 
mobilization or  to  correlate  its  streams;  the  re- 
sumption of  industry  Was  to  be  intrusted  to  whom 
it  might  concern,  and  no  buffer  was  to  be  erected 
against  impending  dangers.  Under  certain  condi- 
tions men  were  to  be  released  upon  representa- 
tions from  employers.  A  faint-hearted  effort  was 
to  be  made  to  give  system  to  the  cancellation  of  con- 
tracts. Some  motions  were  to  be  made  to  solve 
the  problem  in  terms  of  the  recipe  of  the  Civil 
War  and  settle  soldiers  from  cities  upon  an  agricul- 
tural frontier  which  does  not  exist.  A  pious  wish 
was  expressed  that  something  might  be  done  to  pro- 
vide "  buffer  employment "  upon  public  works. 
And  that  was  all. 

The  gods  often  aid  those  who  blindly  trust  them. 
Thus  far  they  have  threatened  but  they  have  sent 
upon  us  no  industrial  calamity.  Many  factors  lurking 
in  strange  places  have  kept  the  gravest  dangers  from 
our  doors.  A  belief  that  all  was  well  for  a  time 
prevented  serious  trouble.  The  more  compact  or- 
ganization of  industries  brought  by  the  war  has 
given  them  an  ability  better  to  withstand  an  impact. 
Limited  shipping  facilities  have  slowed  up  the  rate 
of  the  return  of  overseas  men.  And  a  reasonable 
measure  of  inefficiency  has  worked  magic  in  stay- 
ing demobilization.  Delay  in  getting  blanks,  fussi- 
ness  about  forms,  and  much  ado  over  proper  pro- 


500 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


cedure  have  been  of  more  service  than  they  will 
ever  get  credit  for.  Even  official  procrastination 
has  improved  the  quality  of  judgment  in  defiance 
of  copy-book  mottoes.  But  most  important  of  all, 
the  hue  and  cry  against  non-essentials  never  drove 
"  business  as  usual  "  out  of  the  land.  Our  conse- 
cration of  industry  to  the  service  of  war  was  never 
as  complete  as  it  seemed.  Therefore  we  have  pre- 
served intact  what  every  European  country  has  lost, 
the  structure  of  the  pre-war  organization  of  in- 
dustry. 

But  the  end  is  not  y  ;t.  For  some  weeks  the  gods 
have  muttered  at  the  load,  and  occasionally  they 
have  thundered.  The  reports  of  the  labor  situation 
gathered  by  the  employment  service  speak  of  im- 
pending trouble.  For  November  they  were  rosy; 
December  saw  them  promising ;  January  found  them 
colorless;  in  February  they  threatened;  and  March 
found  them  gravely  alarming.  Although  they  are 
fragmentary  and  come  from  optimistic  sources,  at 
the  end  of  March  they  showed  nearly  four  hun- 
dred thousand  unemployed.  Since  the  first  of  April 
we  have  been  denied  also  their  help.  The  failure  of 
an  appropriation  impaired  the  efficiency  of  the  ser- 
vice, reports  became  more  fragmentary  and  came  in 
from  little  more  than  one  half  the  number  of  cities, 
and  the  consequent  tallerations  became  well-nigh 
meaningless.  Just  when  we  most  need  a  picture  of 
the  whole  situation,  it  is  not  to  be  had.  Unrest  is 
visible  here  and  there;  in  more  than  one  city  soldiers 
have  already  paraded  their  status  of  being  among  the 
unemployed.  In  many  localities  unrest  is  finding  ex- 
pression in  strikes.  It  is  true  that  these  strikes  have 
little  existence  in  the  newspapers;  but  even  those 
journals  which  conscientiously  limit  themselves  to 
"  the  news  that's  fit  to  print "  have  had  to  note  the 
more  important  of  these.  A  certain  barometer  of  the 
change  is  to  be  found  in  the  attitude  of  officials. 
The  indifference  of  November  had  become  a  grave 
concern  by  March.  The  governors  who  came  to- 
gether at  the  request  of  the  President  to  consider 
unemployment  are  the  very  ones  who  manifested 


no  interest  in  the  problem  when  it  was  brought 
to  their  reluctant  attention  at  their  conference  at 
Annapolis  in  December.  A  bill  providing  for  a 
federal  commission  upon  public  works  was  being 
pushed  strongly  in  the  Senate  when  it  adjourned. 
An  act  prohibiting  immigration  for  a  period  of 
years  is  likely  to-pass  Congress  when  it  reconvenes, 
and  may  run  the  gauntlet  of  a  presidential  veto. 
Even  the  army  has  become  concerned  and  a  would- 
be  discharged  soldier  may  abide  in  the  ranks  until 
he  has  assurance  of  employment.  The  Chamber  of 
Commerce  of  the  United  States  has  demanded  a  call- 
ing of  Congress  immediately  upon  the  President's 
return  from  abroad. 

The  impending  crisis  is  not  yet  over.  The  trade 
papers  are  full  of  gloomy  predictions  about  the  fu- 
ture. "The  industrial  depression  of  1919"  is 
already  upon  us.  In  the  face  of  this  the  country 
is  not  yet  ready  to  take  vigorous  action.  The  mail 
and  wires  bring  to  members  of  Congress  floods  of 
telegrams  asking  for  a  provision  for  "  buffer  em- 
ployment." But  they  carry  fully  as  many  messages 
protesting  against  the  high  rates  of  taxation.  The 
government  still  persists  in  attempting  to  deal  with 
the  situation  through  the  processes  of  magic.  The 
Secretary  of  Labor  has  recently  taken  the  lead  in 
insisting  that  an  intricate  problem  in  industrial  or- 
ganization can  be  solved  by  wishing  and  that  the  dan- 
gers in  the  situation  will  disappear  before  an  act  of 
collective  volition.  He  has  assumed  to  lead  several 
members  of  the  Cabinet  and  other  high  dignitaries  in 
an  anthem  which  has  become  characteristically  the 
Administration's  own  "  The  Whistler's  Chorus." 
But  fortunately  the  problem  lies  in  the  immediate 
transition  to  peace,  not  in  the  ultimate  matter  of 
national  well-being.  Upon  that  we  shall  doubtless 
be  saved,  as  we  have  been  many  times  of  yore,  by 
our  vast  stores  of  natural  resources, 

...  our  help  in  ages  past, 
Our  hope  for  years  to  come, 

A  refuge  from  the  stormy  blast, 
And  our  eternal  home. 

WALTON  H.  HAMILTON. 


First  Snow  on  the  Hills 

The  hills  kneel  in  a  huddled  group, 
Like  camels  of  the  caravan, 
And  winter  piles  upon  their  patient  backs 
Its  snows. 

And  through  the  desert  of  long  nights  and  days, 
I  think  I  see  them  stepping — stepping — 
In  misty  file 
Towards  the  green  land  of  Spring. 

LEONORA  SPEYER. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


Japan  and  America 


.R.  CREEL'S  CRITICS  should  have  been  sent  to  a 
foreign  country  to  view  his  activities  in  a  new  per- 
spective. When  the  armistice  was  signed  the  Bureau 
of  Public  Information  was  at  its  height.  Every 
newspaper  in  Japan  was  daily  printing  about  two 
columns  of  American  news  conceived  from  an  Amer- 
ican standpoint.  And  daily  newspapers  in  Japan  are 
many  and  widely  circulated.  Small  towns  that  in 
the  United  States  would  depend  upon  journals  of 
the  large  cities  have  sheets  of  some  importance.  Prac- 
tically every  Japanese  man  reads  a  newspaper.  To 
put  it  moderately,  the  international  value  of  publicity 
is  not  less  in  Japan  than  in  other  countries.  Self- 
consciousness  about  foreign  affairs  and  about  what 
other  nations  think  of  one's  own  country  is  perhaps 
more  intense  there  than  anywhere  else.  No  country 
is  so  responsive  to  the  approbation  of  other  peoples, 
and  none  more  sensitive  to  slights,  real  or  fancied. 
It  was  then  hardly  a  coincidence  that  pro-Ameri- 
canism in  Japan  rose  with  the  rising  of  news  from 
America,  and  was  at  its  height  when  the  end  of  war 
came. 

There  was  enthusiasm  for  America's  energetic 
share  in  bringing  peace,  and  even  more  for  her  aims. 
Sentiment  was  warmer  toward  us  than  any  time 
since  the  end  of  the  Russo-Japanese  war  and  the 
days  when  readers  of  a  Tokyo  newspaper  voted 
George  Washington  and  Abraham  Lincoln  to  head 
the  list  of  the  world's  great  men  when  that  paper 
took  a  poll.  Such  a  vote,  placing  Americans  above 
even  the  Japanese  national  heroes,  is  a  surprise  to 
those  of  our  countrymen  who  regard  the  Japanese  as 
devoted  to  a  narrow  and  exclusive  "  patriotism." 
But  the  indication  it  gives  of  the  almost  sentimental 
responsiveness  of  the  Japanese  is  more  to.  be  depended 
upon  than  current  opinions  that  make  the  Japanese 
people  completely  self-centered.  On  the  spot  one 
reaches  the  conclusion  that  some  at  least  of  the  most 
chauvinistic  utterances  of  her  politicians  are  in- 
tended as  a  makeweight  against  too  ready  popular 
enthusiasms  for  outside  countries. 

Today  the  Bureau  of  Public  Information  is  out  of 
existence,  and  Japanese  newspapers  are  largely  en- 
gaged in  an  anti-American  drive  which  however 
already  shows  some  signs  of  waning,  as  influential 
statesmen  have  issued  warnings  against  it.  It  is  no 
coincidence  that  this  drive  began  when  news  from 
the  United  States  had  been  for  some  weeks  at  its  low- 
est ebb.  The  Pacific  cable  has  been  broken,  and  no 
news  has  come  directly,  and  none  even  indirectly 
from  the  Associated  Press.  Hence  all  knowledge  of 
both  America  and  of  the  Peace  Conference  has 


reached  the  public  through  three  non-American 
sources:  British,  French,  and  Japanese.  The  latter 
two  are,  so  it  is  currently  believed,  subsidized.  The 
French  Havas  service  if  not  anti-American  has  been 
steadily  anti-Wilson.  The  Japanese  service,  both 
the  regular  Kokusai  and  the  special  cables,  has  been 
chiefly  concerned  with  the  questions  of  race  discrimi- 
nation and  China.  The  Reuter  service  is  not  anti- 
American  but  is  decidedly  pro-British,  and  with 
American'  prestige  at  the  height  it  has  reached  all 
over  the  Far  East,  there  is  no  motive,  economic  or 
political,  for  expressly  cultivating  its  further  growth. 

As  a  net  result  the  reader  of  the  press  would  re- 
ceive the  impression  that  President  Wilson's  policies 
have  had  a  very  bad  back-set,  even  if  they  were  not 
positively  discredited;  that  he  has  practically  failed 
both  at  home  and  abroad  in  securing  an  effective 
following;  and  that  the  League  of  Nations  will 
either  fail  in  the  end  or  be  adopted  in  such  a  form  as 
to  represent  a  complete  defeat  for  Wilson.  Prior  re- 
gard for  the  United  States  was  largely  due  to  sym- 
pathy with  the  idealism  of  Wilson's  policies  and  the 
wave  of  liberal  sentiment  they  released.  But  if  they 
are  coming  to  nothing,  the  wave  naturally  subsides. 
There  are  also  many  items  which  leave  the  further 
impression  that  "  humanity  "  and  peace  for  the  whole 
world  were  merely  disguises  behind  which  material- 
istic America  was  hiding  her  commercial  and  terri- 
torial ambitions  in  China,  Siberia,  and  other  parts  of 
the  world.  The  League  of  Nations  has  been  held 
up  as  a  scheme  of  Anglo-American  capitalism  to 
dominate  the  world  without  the  trouble  .and  expense 
of  maintaining  an  army.  As  a  reputable  publicist 
recently  said,  "  when  the  robber  is  expelled,  the 
swindler  is  likely  to  enter  " ;  the  menace  of  German 
militarism  is  destroyed  to  give  way  to  that  of  Anglo- 
American  economic  domination. 

Those  whose  faith  in  moral  factors  as  political 
forces  has  departed  should  pay  a  visit  to  the  Far 
East.  Unless  they  have  become  complete  cynics  their 
faith  will  revive.  Sentiment  will  appear  as  a  thing 
of  almost  incalculable  importance.  On  the  one 
hand,  Oriental  diplomacy  is  an  object  lesson  in  the 
suicidal  character  of  an  international  politics  based 
on  narrow  considerations  of  self-interest.  There  are 
no  critics  of  Japan's  policies  more  severe  than  many 
of  the  Japanese,  who  declare  that  for  lack  of  suffi- 
cient disinterestedness  Japan  has  thrown  away  in 
Asia  one  of  the  greatest  opportunities  that  ever  came 
to  any  nation.  While  the  present  Kara  ministry  has 
tried  to  repair  the  evils  done  by  the  prior  Terauchi 
ministry,  these  critics  feel  that  the  mischief  has  been 


502 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


done — and  done  because  of  a  short-sighted  policy  of 
seeking  immediate  and  one-sided  advantage.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  is  evident  that  American  prestige  and 
influence  rise  and  fall  in  the  Far  East  with  belief 
and  disbelief  in  the  generosity  and  idealism  of  her 
purposes.  The  Americans  at  home  who  have  adver- 
tised opposition  to  the  League  of  Nations  have  as- 
sumed a  heavy  responsibility.  They  have  made 
many  intelligent  foreigners,  previously  sympathetic 
with  America,  open  to  the  impression,  fostered  by 
inadequate  news  service,  that  Wilson's  professed 
aims  were  a  cloak.  They  have  done  America  an  ill 
turn  in  spreading  the  conviction  that  in  truth  Amer- 
ica cares  at  home  only  for  her  supremacy  in  South 
America  and  abroad  only  for  such  power  as  will 
increase  trade. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  repeat  the  items  of  the 
newspaper  criticism  of  the  United  States  that  would 
stimulate  a  like  criticism  of  Japan.  They  are  re- 
ferred to  for  an  opposite  purpose,  to  bring  out  the 
various  factors  which  at  the  present  time  are  affect- 
ing the  formation  of  public  opinion.  In  part,  most 
Tokyo  newspapers  are  against  the  ministry  whatever 
it  is.  Criticism  of  the  United  States  is  thus  an  easy 
way  of  hitting  the  Government.  This  is  accused  on 
one  side  of  truckling  to  the  United  States  and  on  the 
other  of  failure  to  promote  Japanese  interests  prop- 
erly at  the  Peace  Conference,  in  Siberia,  and  in 
China.  There  is  also  a  natural  reaction  in  the  face 
of  the  surprising  exhibition  of  patriotism  and  power, 
military  as  well  as  economic,  manifest  by  the  United 
States.  There  is  a  revulsion  of  combined  suspicion 
and  dread  not  unlike  that  which  in  the  United 
States  followed  after  Japan's  victory  over  Russia. 
The  result  was  desired  but  it  seemed  unnecessarily 
demonstrative.  Hence  events  in  Korea,  in  Siberia, 
in  China,  where  it  is  possible  for  imagination  to  in- 
volve America  either  officially  or  through  private 
individuals,  take  on  an  ominous  aspect.  The  race 
discrimination  issue,  which  becomes  pointed  in  the 
virtual  prohibition  of  immigraton,  suddenly  takes 
on  a  renewed  importance.  The  reported  abolition  of 
conscription  seems  to  be  aimed  particularly  at  Japan. 
Each  one  of  these  matters  is  too  complicated  to  be 
discussed  merely  in  passing.  It  is  enough  to  say 
here  that  they  constitute  the  headings  of  the  chief 
charges  brought  against  the  United  States,  adding 
that  the  accusations  as  respects  China  and  Siberia 
have  many  sub-headings.  Looked  at  from  this  point 
of  view,  the  drive  against  America  ceases  to  be  a 
mere  matter  of  newspaper  recrimination  and  retort, 
and  becomes  a  kind  of  burning  glass  in  which  focus 
all  the  possible  causes  of  friction  between  the  two 
countries. 

Up  to  the  present  the  anti-Americanism  is,  ac- 
cording to  the  best  reports  I  can  get,  almost  wholly 


confined  to  the  newspapers.  The  difference  of  tone 
within  and  without  the  newspapers  is  such  as  to 
create  a  feeling  that  somewhere  it  is  thought  that 
the  people  are  too  pro-American,  and  need  to  have 
their  sympathies  and  affections  cooled.  Especially 
does  it  seem  suspicious  that  the  only  chord  which  wins 
a  spontaneous  popular  response  should  be  increas- 
ingly harped  upon — the  race-discrimination  issue. 
However  this  may  be,  there  is  one  fact  that  Ameri- 
cans should  bear  unceasingly  in  mind  when  accounts 
reach  them  of  anti-American  propaganda  in  Japan. 
The  outstanding  fact  is  that  the  outcome  of  the  vtar 
has  dealt  the  militaristic  and  bureaucratic  party  in 
Japan  the  greatest  blow  it  has  ever  had.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  only  one  thing  could  have  shaken 
its  hold  to  a  greater  extent,  and  that  is  the  actual 
defeat  in  war  of  the  party  itself.  If  this  element  of 
Japanese  life,  so  strong  in  the  past,  is  not  to  pass  into 
deeper  eclipse  and  be  permanently  discredited  to  such 
an  extent  that  nothing  less  than  a  radical  realign- 
ment of  Japanese  politics  will  occur,  it  must  take 
steps  to  recover  some  of  ita  lost  prestige.  The  easiest 
way  to  accomplish  this  recovery  is  to  foster  that  dread 
and  suspicion  of  other  nations  which  is  the  ultimate 
source  of  all  militarism,  since  it  is  the  only  thing  that 
will  make  a  nation  endure  the  burdens  militarism  im- 
poses. There  are  some  symptoms  that  the  discredited 
party  has  wavered  between  Great  Britain  and  the 
United  States  in  selecting  the  danger  which  only  its 
own  reinvestment  can  avert.  But  aside  from  the 
alliance  with  Great  Britain  which  still  holds,  the 
United  States  is  uppermost  in  everybody's  mind  at 
the  present.  It  was  from  America  that  proceeded 
the  cry  which  made  the  war  one  between  autocracy 
and  democracy,  and  the  difficulties  which  Japan  is 
experiencing  in  Korea,  Siberia,  and  China  can  most 
plausibly  be  attributed  to  America. 

I  asked  an  intelligent  and  well-informed  Japanese 
friend  if  he  did  not  think  that  this  situation,  to- 
gether with  the  absence  of  authentic  American  news, 
explained  the  present  outburst  of  criticism.  He  was 
very  sure  that  it  did  not.  And  his  reason  is  so  sig- 
nificant that  I  give  it.  It  is  not  possible,  he  said, 
that  the  bureaucrats  and  militarists  should  be  back 
of  the  criticisms,  for  they  have  so  completely  lost 
their  authority  and  influence  that  they  are  powerless. 
I  quote  the  answer  because  it  illustrates  that  loss  of 
standing  and  prestige  to  which  reference  has  been 
made — a  loss  so  extreme  that  at  first  it  seemed  in- 
credible, but  which  I  am  now  convinced  is  the  out- 
standing fact  in  the  present  life  of  Japan.  That, 
however,  a  party  still  entrenched  in  education,  the 
army,  and  the  civil  service  should  be  so  completely 
discredited  as  to  surrender  without  a  struggle  does 
not  seem  probable. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


The  moral  of  all  this  for  our  own  country  is 
almost  too  obvious  to  need  mentioning.  The  cause 
of  liberalism  in  Japan  has  taken  a  mighty  forward 
leap — so  mighty  as  to  be  almost  unbelievable.  The 
causes  which  produced  it  can  sustain  it.  If  they  do 
sustain  it,  there  will  be  little  backward  reaction.  If 
they  do  not  continue  in  force  to  sustain  it,  they  will 
betray  it.  To  speak  more  plainly,  the  release  of  lib- 
eral forces  that  had  been  slowly  forming  beneath  the 
lid  was  due  to  the  belief  that  democracy  really  stood 
for  the  supremacy  of  fairness,  humanity,  and  good 
feeling,  and  that  consequently  in  a  democratic  world 
a  nation  like  Japan,  ambitious  but  weak  in  many 
respects  in  which  her  competitors  are  strong,  could 
afford  to  enter  upon  the  paths  of  liberalism.  The 
real  test  has  not  yet  come.  But  if  the  nominally 
democratic  world  should  go  back  on  the  professions 
so  profusely  uttered  during  war  days,  the  shock  will 


be  enormous,  and  bureaucracy  and  militarism  might 
come  back.  One  cannot  believe  that  such  a  thing  is 
to  happen.  But  every  manifestation  of  national 
greed,  every  cynical  attack  upon  the  basic  ideas  of 
the  League  of  Nations,  every  repudiation  of  inter- 
national idealism,  every  thoughtless  word  of  race 
prejudice,  every  exhibition  of  dislike  and  unjustified 
suspicion  directed  at  Japan  is  «.  gratuitous  offering 
in  support  of  the  now  waning  cause  of  autocratic 
bureaucracy  in  Japan.  Liberalism  here  has  plenty 
of  difficulties  still  to  overcome.  Only  the  liberals 
in  Japan  itself,  who  have  now  taken  heart  and  cour- 
age, can  work  out  the  problem.  But  liberals  else- 
where can  at  least  fight  against  those  untoward 
developments  in  their  own  countries  which  will 
restore  to  the  Japanese  reactionaries  the  weapons 
which  the  outcome  of  the  war  has  loosed  from  their 

hands.  T  ,-. 

JOHN  DEWEY. 


Ireland  Between  Two  Stools 


3 


HILE  MANY  SMALL  nations,  from  neutral 
Danes  to  most  belligerent  Czecho-Slovaks,  have 
seen  in  the  collapse  of  German  militarism  the  hope 
of  national  resurgence  and  security,  Ireland  has  not 
been  allowed  to  seize  more  than  the  most  insubstan- 
tial promise  of  some  degree  of  autonomy.  We  have 
been  permitted  to  cling,  with  the  fervor  of  despera- 
tion, to  the  possibility  of  American  intervention  on 
our  behalf.  This  hopeful  gleam  has  been  per- 
ceptible, it  is  true,  only  to  the  most  ostensibly  un- 
sophisticated, and  almost  vanished  at  the  time  Pres- 
ident Wilson  left  Europe  without  confronting  the 
issue.  After  the  victory  of  the  Allies  our  participa- 
tion in  the  general  rejoicing  was  constantly  tem- 
pered by  a  despondency  based  upon  the  conviction 
that  England  had  obtained  a  new  lease  of  imperial 
life.  Only  that  section  of  Irish  opinion  which  cor- 
responds to  the  Junker  mentality  in  Germany  has 
unfeignedly  rejoiced  in  the  triumph  of  the  Allied 
cause.  Their  happiness  on  that  occasion  was  para- 
doxically insured  by  Sir  Edward  Carson's  emphatic 
assurance  that  Ireland  would  be  immune  from  the 
application  of  the  principle  which  the  Allies  had 
vindicated. 

When  England  took  the  field  against  Germany 
there  were  two  policies  open  to  Irish  nationalism. 
Ireland  could  either  decide  to  trust  the  British  Gov- 
ernment, and  join  with  the  English  people  to  defeat 
Germany,  or  she  could  fall  back  upon  the  belief  that 
only  in  England's  difficulty  would  Ireland  find  the 
opportunity  of  freedom,  and  count  upon  a  German 
victory  to  secure  Irish  independence — independence 


of  England,  at  all  events.  In  the  latter  event,  since 
the  active  participation  of  Ireland  on  the  side  of  the 
Germans  was  impossible,  the  Irish  people  would 
have  to  content  themselves  with  an  attitude  of 
benevolently  pro-German  neutrality,  framing  their 
policy  always  upon  the  assumption  of  England's  de- 
feat. That,  in  fact,  was  the  attitude  of  a  small  sec- 
tion of  Irish  opinion,  an  attitude  dating  from  many 
years  before  the  actual  outbreak  of  war,  and  ex- 
pressed by  word  and  action  in  the  pre-war  writings 
and  subsequent  mission  of  Roger  Casement.  What- 
ever the  defects  of  such  reasoning,  it  was,  at  least, 
logical,  granted  the  premises,  and  its  most  conspicu- 
ous and  intelligent  exponent  demonstrated  tragically 
the  sincerity  of  that  point  of  view. 

It  happens,  however,  that  the  policy  of  coopera- 
tion with  England  was  the  one  adopted  by  the  Irish 
Nationalist  representatives  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, with  the  approval  of  the  vast  majority  of  the 
Irish  people.  The  conflict  was  seen  to  be  too  wide, 
and  the  principles  involved  too  far-reaching  to  allow 
a  return  to  the  old  method  of  meeting  such  crises  by 
the  simple  process  of  saying  "  against  England  right 
or  wrong."  When  John  Redmond  pledged  Ireland 
for  the  Allies  there  is  little  doubt  that  he  was  not 
exceeding  the  wishes,  though  he  certainly  exceeded 
the  mandate,  of  his  people.  They  would  have 
pardoned  this  technical  abuse  of  their  authority  had 
subsequent  events  justified  both  his  faith  and  theirs 
in  the  sense  of  justice  of  the  British  Government. 
Ireland  was  not  like  England ;  she  did  not  feel  men- 
aced by  German  militarism;  her  choice  was  there- 


5°4 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


fore  conscious  and  reasoned,  not  patriotic  and  emo- 
tional. It  is  possible  to  pity  the  blindness  which 
did  not  see  any  danger  in  the  aggrandizement  of 
Prussia;  it  is  difficult  for  Englishmen  to  realize  the 
separation  of  Ireland  in  what  appeared  to  be  the 
clear  call  of  patriotism.  It  is  nevertheless  a  fact,  a 
most  vital  fact,  that  an  Englishman's  patriotism  may 
be  an  Irishman's  poison.  The  two  rarely  coincide, 
and  the  remarkable  point  is  precisely  their  common 
impulse  in  August,  1914. 

How  Irish  nationalism  was  gradually  robbed  of 
its  illusions  is  now  a  matter  of  common  knowledge 
amongst  all  who  have  tried  to  acquaint  themselves 
with  the  history  of  Anglo-Irish  relations  during  the 
past  four  years.  The  rise  to  power  in  England  of 
the  most  anti-Irish  forces,  political  and  journalistic, 
in  the  country ;  the  selection  for  office  in  the  Cabinet 
of  the  man  who  preached  treason  and  armed  rebel- 
lion in  Ireland  until  all  faith  in  constitutional  gov- 
ernment was  destroyed ;  the  discouragement  of  Cath- 
olic recruits  for  the  army;  the  refusal  at  any  time 
to  make  the  slight  concessions  to  local  pride  and 
sentiment  which  would  have  definitely  established 
the  part  of  Irish  nationalism  in  the  war — these  facts 
are  now  well  known,  and  have  been  admitted  on  the 
authority  of  responsible  ministers.  Their  first  effect 
was  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  minority  so  that 
the  abortive  insurrection  of  1916  followed,  marking 
the  flare-up  of  the  accumulated  bitterness  of  disillu- 
sion. Rather  than  throw  upon  the  professional 
"  loyalists  "  of  the  minority  the  onus  of  revolt,  Eng- 
land preferred  to  purchase  the  assistance  of  Sir 
Edward  Carson  at  the  cost  of  Ireland. 

The  expense  of  this  bargain  was  only  fully  real- 
ized when  it  became  evident  that  the  death  of  a  hand- 
ful of  representative  extremists  had  profoundly  af- 
fected the  mind  of  nationalist  Ireland.  Evidence 
accumulated  to  show  how  foolish  those  idealists 
were  who  had  pledged  the  cooperation  of  Ireland 
without  exacting  a  single  guarantee.  t  People  who 
had  hesitation  in  taking  sides  with  England  when 
her  chances  of  victory  seemed  most  problematical, 
now  became  neutral,  watching  the  ever-increasing 
ranks  of  England's  Allies  with  cynical  contempt  or 
sullen  hostility.  By  every  known  process  of  repres- 
sion, taunt,  and  outrage  the  Irish  people  were  driven 
into  a  denial  of  constitutional  government,  and 
obliged  to  put  their  trust  in  those  who  promised,  at 
any  cost,  to  remove  the  agents  of  their  undoing. 
By-elections  offered  opportunities  for  manifestations 
whose  sole  significance  was  their  expression  of  dis- 
gust at  the  betrayal  of  a  confidence  given  at  the 
cost  of  an  old  and  deep  tradition  of  mistrust.  Only 
an  Irish  Nationalist  can  know  what  it  meant  for 
him  to  pledge  his  sword  for  England.  He  could 


not  know  until  now  he  has  learned  it  by  the  bitter- 
est experience  that  it  meant  the  disintegration  of 
Irish  nationalism,  the  destruction  of  constitutional- 
ism, and,  as  it  now  seems,  the  obliteration  of  all  that 
was  in  process  of  achievement  after  a  century  of  suf- 
fering and  patient  negotiation.  The  reward  of 
moderation  is  the  rise  of  Sinn  Fein. 

If  the  neutral  and  pro-German  Irish  were  sur- 
prised and  disappointed  respectively  when  Germany 
surrendered,  their  plight  certainly  need  not  detain 
the  Allies.  The  case  of  the  pro-Ally  Nationalists 
is  altogether  different.  They  are  probably  the  most 
sadly  deceived  of  all  belligerents  in  the  war,  for 
they  have  nothing,  not  even  honor,  for  their  partic- 
ipation in  the  great  crusade  against  Prussianism. 
Their  exploits,  unlike  those  of  Carsonia,  do  not 
elicit  Royal  telegrams  and  the  felicitations  of  the 
world;  their  nationalism  is  carefully  passed  over  in 
the  sympathetic  addresses  of  President  Wilson,  who 
greets  Danes,  Czecho-Slovaks,  and  Jugo-Slavs  with 
so  keen  an  appreciation  of  their  grievances.  Irish 
Nationalists  are  not  rewarded  for  the  virtue  of  be- 
ing pro-Ally.  In  fact,  they  find  themselves  in  no 
better  position  than  those  of  their  countrymen  who 
held  aloof,  or  backed  their  enemy,  the  Germans.  In 
Ireland  they  have  been  forced  to  witness  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  party  which  represented  them,  and  to 
hear  themselves  taunted  with  having  supported  a  sys- 
tem which  they  abhor  no  less  than  their  political 
opponents.  While  Sinn  Fein  suffers  the  fortunes 
of  war  and  must  abide  by  the  decision  against  Ger- 
many, constitutional  nationalism  can  neither  share 
to  the  full  the  Unionist  exultation  in  the  Allied 
victory,  nor  bring  any  weight  to  bear  against 
Schadenfreude  of  the  Separatists,  whom  the  British 
Government  delights  to  honor  with  an  irresistible 
martyrdom. 

Thus  it  seems  as  if  Ireland  must  be  forced  to  the 
logic  of  the  extreme  revolutionary  position,  namely, 
that  until  England  is  defeated  there  is  no  hope  of 
freedom  for  Ireland.  This  argument  has  always 
been  in  the  background  of  Irish  politics,  and  it 
emerges  periodically  to  prompt  those  who  have  sided, 
at  various  times,  with  whatever  enemy  threatened 
the  supremacy  of  England.  Insurrectionary  Ire- 
land has  turned  in  the  course  of  history  to  Spain, 
to  France,  and  to  Germany,  in  the  hope  of  witness- 
ing the  victory  which  would  mean  freedom.  In  this 
last  war,  it  so  happened  that  the  principles  for  which 
England  professed  to  stand  seemed  to  guarantee  re- 
sults which  had  never  hitherto  been  associated  with 
an  English  victory.  The  defeat  of  Germany  could 
not  be  claimed  as  an  English  triumph,  and  the 
participation  of  other  powers,  particularly  America, 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


505 


gave  an  appearance  of  hope  to  the  future.  But  the 
hope  has  with  difficulty  survived  the  gravest  disap- 
pointments, and  is  now  threatened  with  extinction  as 
we  observe  the  transcendental  optimism  of  the 
President's  acceptance  of  a  militarist-economic  trust 
in  lieu  of  a  league  of  free  peoples.  The  sweeping 
electoral  victory  of  Sinn  Fein  was  intended  primarily 
as  a  demonstration  to  the  world  of  the  Irish  de- 
mand for  self-determination.  It  was  a  manifesta- 
tion of  national  purpose  which,  we  believed,  could 
not  be  misunderstood,  but  we  forgot — or  did  not 


care  to  remember — that  it  might  easily  be  ignored. 
That  is  precisely  what  has  happened,  so  far  as  the 
Peace  Conference  is  concerned.  There  are  not 
wanting  advisers  who  hint  that  some  more  dramatic 
reminder  of  the  existence  ~of  this  ignored,  if  not 
forgotten,  small  nationality  is  required.  -  It  depends 
upon  America  whether  moderate  Nationalists  in  Ire- 
land will  be  able  to  parry  this  suggestion  by  refer- 
ence to  the  tangible  evidence  of  a  desire  to  anticipate 
the  argument  of  bloodshed.  To  evade  the  issue  is 
to  invite  revolt. 

DUBLINER. 


The  Schamberg  Exhibition 


A 


BRAVE  SPIRIT  went  from  among  us  last  autumn 
when  Morton  L.  Schamberg  died.  His  name  may 
be  known  to  few  even  among  those  who  read 
these  lines,  but  we  who  had  followed  his  work 
looked  upon  him  as  one  of  the  men  on  whom  de- 
pended the  building  up  of  art  in  America.  Would 
he  have  remained  isolated — would  his  public  still 
have  been  a  small  one — had  he  attained  twice  his 
thirty-seven  years?  Looking  at  the  retrospective 
exhibition  of  his  pictures  in  New  York  (at  Knoed- 
ler's  until  May  24),  noting  the  uncompromising 
character  they  reveal,  the  seriousness,  the  clear  in- 
tellect, the  man's  indifference  to  the  popularity 
which  is  bought  by  things  that  too  readily  please, 
one  is  tempted  to  think  that  only  certain  rare  in- 
dividuals would  have  been  willing  to  meet  him  on 
his  proud,  often  severe  plane  of  research,  that  few 
would  have  cared  to  keep  with  him  in  the  ascent  to 
which  he  held  so  unfalteringly,  and  seen  that  his 
results  at  every  stage  and  with  ever-increasing  full- 
ness were  marked  by  a  noble  beauty. 

This  success  of  his  gives  the  best  answer  to  the 
question  as  to  whether  Schamberg's  public  would 
have  grown  with  time.  For  there  is  a  solidarity  be- 
tween the  artist  and  his  generation,  and  if  he  ad- 
vances more  rapidly  than  the  laymen,  one  cannot 
but  see  that  they  will  follow  where  he  has  led. 
The  forces  which  impelled  him  to  go  on  are  pres- 
ent in  other  men,  whose  slower  progress  is  "due  to 
their  necessary  preoccupation  with  everyday  affairs. 
No  artist  worth  the  name  has  ever  thought  he  paid 
a  high  price  for  his  freedom  to  advance.  For  those 
who  have  drawn  the  breath  of  that  freedom  know 
that  it  is  the  one  thing  in  the  world  worth  while, 
and  the  bond  between  the  artist  and  his  fellows  is 
that  they  too  want  to  live,  and  so  they  realize  what 
is  great  in  those  who  have  lived  most  fully. 

The  pictures  before  us  are  a  record  of  achieve- 


ment. They  add  something  to  the  world's  sources 
of  thought  and  happiness,  and  so,  from  one  stand- 
point, they  pass  out  of  the  category  of  the  experi- 
mental into  that  of  the  creative,  the  definitive. 
And  yet  I  think  their  greatest  interest  is  found 
when  we  look  on  them  as  phases  of  a  long  proges- 
sion,  one  that  had  given  no  sign  of  slackening  when 
the  painter's  death  broke  it  off  and  brought  us  once 
more  to  the  world-old  riddle  of  nature's  unconcern 
with  the  destinies  of  men.  One  thinks  of  the  great 
giants  of  the  past  who  have  died  in  their  thirties, 
their  twenties  even,  and  before  their  results  we 
cannot  ask  for  more.  What  matter  whether  ^ 
Masaccio  or  a  Giorgione  died  young?  His  work 
was  complete.  We  rebel  however  at  the  senseless- 
ness of  fate  in  cases  like  the  one  before  us,  where 
there  was  every  promise  of  a  great  expansion,  every 
proof  that  the  man  was  worthy  of  his  increasing 
capabilities — when  the  breath  of  an  epidemic  chokes 
the  work  where  it  was,  its  finest  development,  one 
that  we  needed  sorely,  forever  unrevealed.  What 
we  have  is  a  splendid  thing;  what  would  have  come 
was  bound  to  surpass  it. 

To  understand  how  fine  Schamberg's  pictures  are, 
one  has  to  know  where  he  started.  And  to  see 
him  come  up  from  the  impossible  level  on  which  he 
was  twenty  years  ago  is  to  convince  oneself  again 
of  that  solidarity  among  men  of  which  I  spoke  be- 
fore. The  advance  that  one  man  could  make  crea- 
tively, in  his  work,  others  are  making  receptively, 
in  their  appreciation.  Not  more  than  fifteen  years 
carried  Morton  L.  Schamberg  from  a  type  of 
"  pretty-girl  picture,"  as  grotesquely  cheap  as  any- 
thing in  the  cheap  magazines,  to  a  work  that  had  to 
be  counted  among  the  significant  productions  of  our 
time.  I  should  not  venture — for  fear  of  personal 
prejudice  in  his  favor — on  a  statement  so  strong  as 
my  last  if  it  were  not  amply  confirmed  by  the  judg- 


506 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


ment  of  many  competent  men,  both  American  and 
foreign. 

It  was  William  M.  Chase  who  first  directed 
Schamberg's  attention  to  art — the  ideas  he  first  had 
in  his  student  days,  as  an  architect,  and  as  a  victim 
of  the  abominations  of  popular  art  (a  misnomer 
currently  applied  to  commercial  art),  being  merely 
obstacles  he  had  to  overcome  when  he  had  once 
started  on  his  career.  The  first  years  of  it  were 
spent  in  somewhat  the  usual  manner  of  serious  and 
active  students  of  art — in  academic  training  and  a 
questioning  of  the  old  masters.  To  be  sure  it  was 
only  certain  sections  of  the  museums  which  were 
consulted  and  not  until  the  winter  of  1908-09  did 
Schamberg  discover,  at  Florence  and  Siena,  the 
meaning  of  the  great  tradition  which  was  to 
open  his  eyes  to  the  falsity — for  him  at  least 
— of  nineteenth  century  naturalism.  On  his 
return  to  Paris  he  was  ready  to  appreciate  what 
the  great  Frenchmen  of  our  time  had  accom- 
plished in  setting  art  upon  a  truer  basis  than  that 
which  their  predecessors  had  had.  It  is  from  this 
point  that  Schamberg's  real  work  is  to  be  reckoned. 
The  present  exhibition  is  arranged  with  that  fact  in 
mind,  nothing  of  his  production  before  his  last  and 
critically  important  stay  in  Europe  being  included, 
though  in  the  years  preceding  there  were  quite  hon- 
orable qualities  in  his  work. 

The  last  years  of  his  work  may  be  divided  with 
some  distinctness  into  periods.  For  a  time  he 
worked  in  strong  color,  Matisse  and  the  Chinese 
and  Persian  ceramists  being  his  influences.  It  is 
remarkable  to  note  how  far  he  went  in  mastering 
their  quality.  Painting  with  a  new  ardor,  this  man, 
the  passion  of  whose  nature  seems  hardly  suited  to 
the  type  of  expression  which  we  think  of  among 
colorists,  let  himself  go  with  an  unwonted  vehem- 
ence, and  the  pictures  of  1911  and  1912  show  that 
his  color  sense  was  genuine  and  strong.  But  he 
was  still  working  with  the  ideas  of  the  older  men 
among  the  moderns;  by  1913  or  1914  he  had  caught 
up  with  his  generation  and  was  painting  in  a  way 
which  not  only  placed  him  in  line  with  his  contem- 
poraries but  which  was  unquestionably  better  suited 
to  his  own  temperament.  The  change  was  from 
reliance  on  instinct — the  unconscious  factor — to  the 
guidance  of  reason.  His  paintings  in  the  Cubistic 
manner  were  among  the  very  first  in  America  and 
will  probably  long  remain  among  the  best. 

As  fine  as  they  were,  he  still  saw  in  them  re- 
minders of  his  old  years  of  naturalism  and  of  the 
preciosity  that  fastened  itself  on  the  "  men  of  the 
brush  "  of  1870.  Some  of  the  Frenchmen,  notably 
Duchamp,  had  already  used  machinery  as  their  sub- 
jects, ostensible  or  real,  and  Schamberg  had  appre- 
ciated the  fineness  of  their  work.  He  did  not 


follow  them  however  until,  by  a  chance,  he 
was  led  by  circumstances  outside  of  his  painting  to 
consider  the  beauty  which  the  makers  of  machines 
lent  to  their  work.  His  incentive  in  painting 
themes  drawn  from  the  field  of  mechanics  was 
therefore  first-hand  observation  quite  as  much  as 
the  lead  given  by  other  men.  His  pictures  of  this 
period  will  surely  be  ranked  among  his  best.  If  I 
may  intrude  a  personal  preference,  it  is  for  those 
in  which  his  rich  store  of  the  traditional  esthetic 
qualities  unites  with  the  vigor  of  his  new  outlook, 
the  exhilaration  of  handling  a  perfectly  fresh  sub- 
ject being  supported  rather  than  checked  by  the 
self-control  that  was  native  and  natural  with  him. 

Few  men  were  more  stirred  by  the  war  than 
Schamberg,  and  from  the  beginning  of  it  his  logical 
mind  was  working  at  fever  heat  with  its  problems. 
He  went  down  step  by  step  to  the  underlying  forces 
at  work  and  the  turmoil  of  doubt,  indignation,  and 
resentment  in  which  he  lived  was  not  conducive 
to  painting.  He  was  never  a  partisan — save  of 
truth,  which  seemed  to  him  the  monopoly  of  none  of 
the  belligerents. 

He  had  striven  unremittingly  in  art  for  truth, 
and  the  falsity  of  the  appeal  to  might  which  comes 
in  even  a  righteous  war  was  a  thing  to  which  he 
could  not  reconcile  himself.  When  the  torture  of 
his  conflicting  ideas  on  the  war  had  done  its  ut- 
most and  when,  at  the  same  time  last  summer,  cer- 
tain new  ideas  of  art  came  to  crystallize  in  his  mind, 
he  produced  the  series  of  water-colors  which  mark 
the  end  of  his  career.  Thoughtless  observers  will 
take  the  accurate  notation  of  objects  in  these 
works  as  a  sign  that  Schamberg  had  repented  of 
his  "heresies"  of  the  preceding  years  and  had  come 
back  as  a  sheep  to  the  fold.  If  these  people  cannot 
see  that  his  last  pictures  are  built  on  the  earlier 
works  and  contain  their  qualities  in  a  purer  and 
more  intense  form — the  drawing,  the  color,  the 
character — they  should  at  least  understand,  at  this 
exhibition,  that  for  the  man  who  had  painted  the 
pictures  of  1910  to  1916  there  was  no  turning 
back;  such  men  can  only  go  onward. 

I  have  tried  to  write  of  him  impersonally  and 
objectively,  and  with  regard  to  the  ideal  of  his  art — 
a  white  fire  that  he  tended  and  increased  and  that 
throws  a  light  on  the  youth  of  America  in  his  time. 
If  there  was  one  such  spirit  here,  then  there  were 
many.  It  does  not  matter  whether  they  speak 
through  one  medium  or  another:  they  are  here,  and 
they  will  speak,  as  strongly  and  as  straight  as  did 
the  man  we  have  lost.  Fortunately  the  body  of 
work  he  has  left  is  enough  to  let  us  know  him.  And 
the  talent,  the  probity,  the  love  that  were  in  him 
are  in  his  work  and  will  make  it  endure. 

WALTER  PACK. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


50? 


Ivan  Speaks 


These  sayings  on  war  and  peace  were  set  down  by 
Madame  Fedorchenko,  a  Russian  nurse,  from  talks  which 
she  overheard  among  Russian  soldiers  at  the  front  in 
1915,  1916,  and  1917.  From  a  large  amount  of  material 
they  are  selected,  translated,  and  arranged.  These  de- 
tached utterances  of  wounded  soldiers,  many  of  whom 
could  neither  read  nor  write,  lying  in  their  cots,  were 
spoken  without  premeditation  or  thought  of  the  nurse's 
presence.  Beyond  translation,  they  are  printed  absolutely 
without  change.  For  this  reason  they  penetrate  and  reveal 
the  mystery  of  Russian  character. 

JL  HIS  IS  ALL  Mr.  Whittemore  has  to  say  in  Ivan 
Speaks  (translated  from  the  Russian  by  Thomas 
Whittemore.  Houghton  MifHin;  Boston),  by  way 
of  preface  or  introduction.  The  sayings  are  sub- 
mitted, without  interpretation,  direct  to  the  English- 
reading  public.  They  are  as  near  the  aboriginal  of 
the  Russian  peasant  psyche  as  can  be  documents  that 
have  undergone  selection  and  arrangement  at  the 
hands  of  so  too  civilized  and  sensitive  a  spirit  as  Mr. 
Whittemore's.  He,  his  tastes,  his  opinions,  and  his 
philosophy  of  life  are  an  invisible  and  pervasive  re- 
fractive medium  through  which  the  material  comes 
to  the  reader.  One  feels  that  one  either  ought  to 
know  all  about  Mr.  Whittemore  who  selects  and 
arranges,  or  to  have  the  residue  of  the  "large 
amount"  from  which  the  selection  and  arrangement 
have  been  made.  From  the  point  of  view  of  those 
who  desire  a  genuine  understanding  of  what  has 
been  going  on  in  Russia,  in  terms  of  the  original 
qualities  of  Russian  men,  the  latter  is  the  consumma- 
tion more  to  be  desired.  Mr.  Whittemore  will,  we 
hope,  publish  the  rest  of  his  material  before  long. 

What  he  has  already  published  may  be  said  in- 
deed to  "penetrate  and  reveal  the  mystery  of  Russian 
character."  He  exhibits  in  nearness  and  intimacy 
the  quality  of  spirit  that  makes  Russian  literature 
a  cult  among  non-Russians,  and  the  Russian  people 
a  religion  with  such  temperaments  as  Mr.  Stephen 
Graham's.  It  is  at  once  the  most  hopeful  and  dis- 
illusioning publication  about  Russia  that  has  come 
to  hand.  Disillusioning  because  the  "mystery  of 
Russian  character"  which  it  "penetrates  and  reveals" 
turns  out  to  be  no  mystery  whatsover  in  the  Russian 
himself.  It  turns  out  to  be  the  embarrassment  and 
wonder  and  unreadiness  of  the  sophisticated  Euro- 
pean— the  Continental  European  with  his  mores  of 
insincerity  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  European  with  his 
mores  of  repression — before  a  personal  quality  that 
is  at  once  straightforward  and  uninhibited.  All 
adults  have  felt  the  same  wonder  and  unreadiness 

and  embarrassment  in  the  presence  of  some  child  not 
yet  perverted  by  education   from  the  simplicity  of 


free  thinking  and  straight  speaking.  All  have  felt 
"mystery"  in  children,  and  have  enveloped  them  in 
"clouds  of  glory."  All  have  been  committing  the 
same  pathetic  psychologist's  fallacy — of  imaging  the 
subject  of  their  contemplation  in  the  stuff  of  their 
own  mentality  and  passion.  It  has  been  perpetra- 
ted upon  the  Russian  without  laughter,  and  at  great 
cost.  The  disillusion  cannot  come  too  swiftly  that 
the  "mystery  of  Russian  character"  lies  in  the  fact 
that  Russian  character  is  simple,  direct,  sensitive, 
and  liberal,  precisely  as  a  child's  is.  In  this,  also, 
lies  its  hopefulness.  Saved  by  a  benevolent  bureau- 
cracy from  the  curse  of  literacy,  and  by  a  sanitary 
economic  system  which  reserved  industrial  organiza- 
tion and  skill  for  foreigners,  particularly  Germans, 
from  the  bitter  sophistications  of  industry,  the 
Russian  peasant  remained  close  to  the  community  of 
earth,  profoundly  a  part  of  his  commune  and  in 
every  way  dependent  on  it.  The  "revolutionary" 
gospel  of  the  Soviet  was  to  him  largely  a  common- 
place of  the  daily  life,  and  this  subversive  commun- 
ism to  which  he  was  invited  was  so  ordinary  as  to 
stir  in  him  no  excitement.  It  was  the  Revolutionary 
promise  of  education  that  excited  him,  for  he  felt 
"dark;"  the  challenge  of  authority  excited  him,  for 
he  had  the  submissiveness  of  a  child  who  has  never 
known  freedom ;  and  the  division  of  the  land  excited 
him  because  it  promised  to  meet  his  great  need. 
But  that  was  all.  For  the  rest,  just  what  seems  to 
the  possessing  classes  of  Europe  most  revolutionary 
in  Bolshevism  seemed  most  natural  to  him.  The 
Socialist  economics  was  the  only  economics  he  had 
learned,  and  he  took  it  simply  and  literally.  The 
creative  foundations  were  natural  to  him;  the  rest 
would  pass,  like  other  artefacts,  in  God's  good  time. 
The  foregoing,  however,  is  already  inference  from 
the  quality  of  Russian  character  which  Mr.  Whitte- 
more's pellucid  translations  exhibit.  The  speeches 
throw  the  mind  at  once  back  to  Homeric  poems,  and 
to  some  of  the  great  ironic  simplicities  of  the  Old 
Testament  narratives.  Nothing  is  held  in  reserve, 
nothing  repressed — and  nothing  is  made  ignoble  or 
unclean:  lust,  drunkenness,  superstition,  greed, 
honor,  ambition,  courage,  pity,  irony,  love,  and  com- 
radeship, the  conventions  of  home  and  community, 
the  uprootedness  of  barrack  and  battlefield,  all  pos- 
sessed of  that  certain  dignity  with  which  only 
straight  speaking  and  straight  thinking  can  suffuse 
the  deeds  and  passions  of  men.  It  is  the  solidity 
and  healthy-mindedness  of  natural  being,  indeed, 
that  transfigures  all  the  sayings.  They  are,  together 


5o8 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


with  the  ghosts  of  Christianity  that  figure  in  them, 
clean  pagan,  pagan  clean.  They  are  astoundingly 
free  from  animosity;  the  quality  they  register  is  as- 
toundingly esthetic — thus : 

"  I  took  aim  at  him,  and  did  not  know  who  it  was, 
but  hoped  it  would  turn  out  to  be  a  German.  I  aimed 
from  a  tren,ch.  I  took  long  aim,  and  shot  very  luckily. 
He  fell  flat,  and  turned  out  to  be  a  German,  and  healthy 
as  a  bull." 

If  this  seems  cruel  and  insensitive,  one  need  only 
turn  to  the  many  expressions  of  pity,  even  in  action. 
What  it  truly  utters  is  the  sensuous  realization  of 
the  business  in  hand,  the  childlike  absorption  in 
the  thing  doing.  Beneath  it,  and  all  the  other  words 
lies  the  sense  of  a  living  nature,  which  is  so  patent 
in  the  spirit  of  the  unconverted  young: 

I  was  allowed  to  go  out.  I  went  to  see  the  animals  and 
the  birds.  What  beauty  unspeakable  there  is  in  the  world! 


Some  birds  are  clothed  in  feathers  of  every  hue  in  the 
rainbow,  and  have  eyes  like  precious  stones.  And  such 
animals!  Incredible!  There  is  the  lion,  now,  the  king  of 
beasts.  The  crowd  stands  around  him,  gaping  with  idle 
curiosity.  But  he  lies  quiet  and  won't  stir,  and  looks  right 
through  you,  as  if  you  were  not  there  at  all.  He  is  seeing 
something  of  his  own,  quite  different.  You  feel  the 
strength  under  that  hide,  a  strength  like  cast  steel ;  and 
his  very  calm  is  terrible.  Believe  it  or  not,  as  you  will, 
but  the  earth  breathes.  Only  your  ear  is  not  always 
attuned  to  hear  it.  Life  makes  too  great  a  noise  around 
you;  we  never  have  leisure,  either  to  look  or  to  listen 
closely.  But  there  are  peculiar  days  and  nights  when  the 
soul  tears  itself  from  the  material  and  sees  and  hears  earth 
live,  as  you  might  say,  her  own  separate  life.  She  stirs  the 
swaying  grasses  and  the  waters;  breathes  in  vapor,  in 
mists,  in  the  fragrance  of  flowers,  in  the  exhalations  of 
all  living  things.  So  immense  is  the  life  of  the  earth 
that  man  can  sense  it  only  by  feeling,  not  from  knowl- 
edge. I  think  monastic  life  is  the  real  thing,  the  stillness 
that  could  make  many  think  clear;  but  where  find  such 
retreats  ? 

H.  M.  KALLEN. 


The  Historical  West 


IT  is  NOW  almost  fifty  years  since  Mark  Twain, 
in  the  first  chapter  of  Life  on  the  Mississippi, 
undertook  by  a  clever  comparison  of  dates  to  ex- 
plode the  fallacy  that  America,  speaking  historically, 
is  a  mere  infant  in  arms.  Today,  when  we  boast 
of  the  oldest  national  flag,  the  chapter  has  lost  some 
of  its  edge.  Such  are  the  changes  of  half  a  century. 
But  in  1874  Pioneers  of  France  in  the  New  World, 
the  first  of  the  Parkman  narratives,  was  not  yet  ten 
years  old ;  the  historical  societies  of  the  Middle  West 
had  just  begun  their  invaluable  labors;  fifteen  years 
were  to  elapse  before  Roosevelt  was  to  draw  popu- 
lar attention  to  the  winning  of  the  West;  and  no- 
body had  dreamed  of  Professor  Turner's  epochal 
discovery  of  the  significance  of  the  frontier.  When 
Clemens  wrote,  American  history  was  convention- 
ally the  tale  of  Jamestown  and  of  the  Pilgrim 
fathers  with  the  rest  of  the  continent  stuck  on  like 
a  fringe. 

But  now  the  middle  west  is  proudly  conscious 
of  being  antique.  University  courses  are  devoted 
to  its  history.  It  has  been  discovered  by  Meredith 
Nicholson  and  eastern  literati.  Vachel  Lindsay 
has  seen  historical  ghosts  in  the  streets  of  Spring- 
field. The  Spoon  River  Anthology  exhibits  all  the 
crimes  of  decadent  Rome.  We  have  read  Hamlin 
Garland's  A  Son  of  the  Middle  Border  and  found 
there  the  winey  flavor  of  things  historic.  Some  of 
us  are  familiar  with  Reuben  Gold  Thwaites  and 
some  of  us,  beholding 'the  St.  Louis  pageant,  know 
that  the  mound  builders  are  part  of  our  history. 
,Two  volumes  recently  published  in  The  Chroni- 


cles of  America  series  (Yale  University  Press;  New 
Haven)  ^mphasize  our  antiquity.  In  Crusaders  of 
New  France,  by  William  Bennett  Munro,  Cartier 
and  Richelieu,  Champlain  and  Louis  XIV,  naked 
Huron  Indians  and  men  of  the  Regiment  de  Carig- 
nan-Salieres  elbow  each  other  for  attention.  Mr. 
George  M.  Wrong  in  The  Conquest  of  New 
France  is  even  more  of  a  showman.  One  turns 
from  Titus  Oates  to  the  conquest  of  Louisbourg,. 
from  the  intrigues  of  Versailles  and  Vienna  to  the 
planting  of  old-world  names,  like  that  of  Fort 
Maurepas,  in  the  wilderness.  If  the  transition 
from  Marlborough  to  Mandan  Indian  culture  is  at 
times  a  little  precipitate,  it  is  none  the  less  exhila- 
rating. Allusions  to  European  affairs  are  thicker 
than  blackberries  and  furnish  excellent  gymnastics 
for  the  memory. 

In  the  best  sense,  both  authors  are  popular  his- 
torians. Both  suffer  under  the  disability  of  the 
inevitable  comparison  with  Parkman.  Perhaps  a 
lurking  fear  of  this  accounts  for  the  flatness  of  Mr. 
Munro 's  chapter  on  LaSalle.  It  is  the  dreariest 
thing  in  his  book.  With  Mr.  Wrong  the  chal- 
lenge is  even  more  direct.  "  After  Parkman,"  said 
Roosevelt  in  his  address  as  president  of  the  Ameri- 
can Historical  Society,  "  had  written  of  Montcalm 
and  Wolfe  there  was  left  for  other  writers  only 
what  Fitzgerald  left  for  other  translators  of  Omar 
Khayyam."  If  the  comparison  is  not  just  to  the 
painstaking  American  who  reigns,  like  Gibbon,  the 
sole  master  of  his  field,  the  point  is  nevertheless  well 
taken.  Mr.  Wrong,  however,  dexterously  avoids 


THE  DIAL 


509 


a  sustained  parallel  by  breaking  his  book  in  two 
with  a  long  excursus  devoted  to  the  explorations  of 
La  Verendrye  and  his  followers,  of  Hendry  and 
Saint-Pierre.  Their  heroic  exploits  rouse  him  to  a 
pitch  of  enthusiasm  not  unworthy  of  the  great  his- 
•  torian. 

The  Crusaders  of  New  France  falls  into  a  seri- 
ous difficulty,  best  described  by  Mr.  Crothers  in 
one  of  his  most  entertaining  essays.  That  amusing 
author,  writing  on  The  World's  Worst  Books, 
details  at  length  the  struggles  of  a  writer  compelled 
to  mix  in  one  volume  information  on  the  Chosen 
People  and  observations  on  "  our  gallinaceous 
fowls."  Mr.  Munro  is  in  a  similar  pickle.  After 
his  preliminary  chapter  on  France  as  a  colonizing 
country,  he  has  only  five  chapters,  totalling  less 
than  one  hundred  pages,  to  devote  to  the  whole  his- 
tory of  French  exploration  from  Carrier's  first  voy- 
age in  1534  to  the  the  death  of  LaSalle  in  1687. 
This  compression  is  fatal  to  anything  like  adequate 
treatment.  Five  more  chapters,  the  most  interest- 
ing part  of  the  book,  are  given  to  a  discussion  of 
life  in  New  France,  one  each  being  devoted  to  the 
Jesuits,  the  seigneurs,  and  the  coureurs-de-bois,  and 
two  to  the  life  of  the  colony  proper.  As  a  result 
the  title  of  his  study  must  be  stretched  outrageously 
to  cover  two  subjects,  neither  of  which  can  be 
treated  in  half  a  book. 

General  readers  will  find  these  last  five  chapters 
an  interesting  corrective  to  Parkman.  Mr.  Munro 
shows  that  the  organization  of  New  France  was  far 
better  adapted  to  Canadian  conditions  than  is  gen- 
erally supposed.  The  feudal  system  which  in 
France  was  obsolescent  achieved  in  Canada  "  a 
restored  vitality."  The  centralized  government  in 
church  and  state  made  possible  the  long  resistance 
of  the  French  to  the  numerically  powerful  but 
mutually  jealous  plantations  of  the  English.  In- 
deed, had  Canadian  affairs  been  even  more  central- 
ized in  1759;  had  the  incompetent  Vaudreuil  not 
interfered ;  had  the  entire  management  of  the  colony 
been  given  to  Montcalm,  Quebec  might  have  held 
out  against  the  English  for  an  indefinite  period. 
Certainly  Frontenac  was  able  to  launch  the  entire 
strength  of  the  colony  against  the  English  with  an 
effectiveness  that  Montcalm  could  only  despair  of. 

The  Conquest  of  New  France  presents  a  smaller 
and  more  manageable  sector  of  history.  The  nar- 
rative really  begins  with  the  second  administration 
of  Frontenac  in  1689,  and  ends  with  the  fall  of 
Quebec  in  1759 — exactly  seventy  years.  The  treaty 
of  Paris  (1763)  and  the  final  withdrawal  of  the 
French  from  North  America  form  an  epilogue  to 
the  battle  of  the  Plains  of  Abraham  and  are  so 
treated. 


It  is  the  aim  of  Mr.  Wrong  to  present  the  strug- 
gle for  Canada  as  part  of  the  world  conflict  begun 
by  Louis  XIV  and  ended  by  the  efficiency  of  Pitt. 
This  is  undoubtedly  the  proper  method  of  attack, 
but  it  is  difficult  matter  for  a  small  book  of  246 
pages.  He  undertakes  to  present  the  varying  Euro- 
pean situation,  and  from  that  to  argue  the  policies 
of  the  rival  governments.  He  is  compelled  to 
hurry  from  India  to  the  valley  of  the  Ohio,  from 
the  character  of  Madame  Pompadour  to  the  idiosyn- 
crasies of  the  Pennsylvania  legislature.  He  also 
sketches  the  characters  and  the  biographies  of  the 
principal  personages,  and,  in  addition,  devotes  forty- 
seven  pages — a  fifth  of  the  book — to  the  fascinating 
but  subsidiary  story  of  French  exploration  in  the 
Far  West. 

As  a  result  he  has  had  to  pay  tribute  to  compres- 
sion. The  final  capture  of  Louisbourg,  of  Fort 
Duquesne,  of  Fort  Frontenac,  "  giving  command 
of  Lake  Ontario  and,  with  it,  the  west  " — these  are 
dismissed  with  a  word.  The  defeat  of  Braddock  is 
not  sufficiently  developed  and  the  exploits  of  the 
young  Washington  are  given  disproportionate  space. 
And  yet,  under  these  accumulated  problems,  Mr. 
Wrong  has  produced  a  unity  of  impression  that  is 
a  tribute  to  his  structural  powers. 

The  fall  of  French  power  in  America,  indeed,  is 
like  a  great  play — a  play  in  five  acts  of  which  the 
titles  are  Frontenac,  Acadia,  Louisbourg,  the  Ohio, 
Montcalm  and  Wolfe.  This  Mr.  Wrong  has  seen, 
and  has  frequently  opposed  his  figures  with  apposite 
dramatic  effect.  He  is  interested  in  character. 
Frontenac,  "  the  showy  court  figure  "  with  genius 
in  it,  whose  "  guests  were  expected  to  admire  his 
indifferent  horses  as  the  finest  to  be  seen,  his  gardens 
as  the  most  beautiful,  his  clothes  as  of  the  most 
effective  cut  and  finish,  the  plate  on  his  table  as  of 
the  best  workmanship,  and  the  food  as  having  a 
superior  flavor " — Frontenac  is  superbly  drawn. 
His  foil  is  Phipps,  half  pirate  and  half  captain  of 
industry,  governor  of  Massachusetts,  and  burner  of 
witches.  If  the  figures  of  Montcalm  and  Wolfe 
seem  less  vividly  cut,  it  is  only  because  they  are 
more  familiar. 

A  word  should  be  devoted  to  the  form  of  the 
books  in  this  series.  The  illustrations,  the  type, 
the  binding,  are  alike  attractive,  and  represent  a 
high  achievement  in  bookmaking.  The  present 
edition  is  the  Abraham  Lincoln  edition;  it  must 
be  confessed  that  these  aristocratic  volumes  are  more 
in  the  spirit  of  Chester  A.  Arthur  than  of  the 
Illinois  rail-splitter.  Yet  one  can  take  pleasure 
in  their  format  and  wish  that  Lincoln  might  have 

owned  them. 

HOWARD  MUMFORD  JONES. 


510 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


Letters  to  Unknown  Women 


JLo  LA  GROSSE  MARGOT: 

There  are  moments,  not  rare  unhappily,  when  our 
dreams  of  the  beauty  of  Greek  women,  our  senti- 
mentalizings  over  past  loveliness,  seem  sickly  and 
inane.  We  try  to  persuade  ourselves  with  soft  words 
that  life  is  delicate,  but  too  surely  we  are  shocked 
back  to  a  grim  realization  of  true  ugliness,  true  hor- 
ror, true  futility.  And  at  such  moments  life,  which 
we  had  symbolized  as  some  myrrh-tressed  Heliodora, 
resembles  one  of  those  desperate  cynicisms  of  Rops, 
where  the  painted  lovely  face  of  the  courtesan  slips 
off  like  a  mask  and  shows  the  yellow  hag  beneath. 
That  mood  finds  its  symbol  in  you. 

Day  after  day  drags  past  and  we  know  too  surely 
that  the  bright  rapture  is  leaving  us,  that  the  gay 
shades  of  our  dreams  grow  fainter,  the  power  of 
beauty  less  potent.  There  were  days  when  the 
sense  of  fascination  in  choice  exquisite  things  almost 
stifled  us,  when  we  spent  hours  upon  hours  in  some 
sunlit  Italian  garden  or  shut  out  the  gloom  of  No- 
vember with  the  patterns  of  Hokusai  and  Utamaro. 
Now  these  things  are  a  cause  only  of  infinite  regret, 
having  about  them  the  pathos  of  bright  playthings 
with  which  men  tried  to  deceive  the  gloomy  truth, 
to  gild  the  leaden  reality.  Villon  wrote  of  Helen 
and  Flora,  but  you  were  his  life.  For  in  the  des- 
peration of  that  moment  when  men  see  that  truth  is 
other  than  they  had  dreamed  they  may  revolt  from 
an  impossible  beauty  to  mere  dulling  bestiality.  Had 
we  not  seen  his  own  words  we  could  scarcely  believe 
that  he  who  mourned  over  the  dead  ladies  of  old 
times,  likening  them  to  the  melted  snow  of  yester- 
year, could  have  lived  with  you  in  a  brothel.  Per- 
haps we  did  not  quite  understand  it  until  in  this  age 
and  generation  the  horrors  of  the  world,  hidden  un- 
der a  light  mask  of  gayety,  became  suddenly  alert 
and  dangerous. 

The  time  in  which  you  lived  was  horrible  indeed. 
Europe  was  desolate  with  wars  and  with  civil  war; 
in  the  villages  there  was  no  safety ;  fields  were  burnt 
and  ravaged ;  within  the  walls  of  cities  murder  and 
treachery  lurked  and  the  plague  ran  like  flame  along 
the  narrow  streets;  in  the  woods  to  which  men  fled 
for  safety  lay  starvation  or  a  wretched  death  from 
fierce  beasts.  In  the  daytime  your  Paris  knew  many 
shameful  things  made  more  bitter  by  the  contrast 
of  mad  luxury  with  utmost  poverty;  and  at  night, 
as  Hugo  tells  us,  those  who  stood  on  the  tower  of 
Our  Lady  could  see  the  dull  glare  of  burning  vil- 
lages and  trembled  for  the  safety  of  their  city  walls. 
Little  wonder,  then,  if  the  poor  scholar  became  a 


thief,  and  Flora  the  beautiful  Roman  gave  place  to 
the  gross  Margot.  Like  a  branch  of  fruited  oak 
flung  in  the  mud  the  poet's  soul  became  filthy  in 
the  ordure  of  his  age.  There  seemed  no  place  for 
him;  and  indeed  the  world  has  no  place  for  such 
as  he. 

But  we  cannot  forget  that  the  age  which  produced 
you,  produced  also  Jeanne  d'Arc,  that  the  very  mo- 
ment when  you  and  Villon  were  deep  in  the  filth  of 
degradation,  Ficino  and  Poliziano  were  declaiming 
with  sonorous  eloquence  of  Plato  and  of  perfect 
beauty  and  perfect  knowledge,  and  that  Botticelli  was 
dreaming  his 'Madonnas.  If  we  were  really  con- 
vinced that  life  is  as  bestial  as  you  seem  to  make  it 
there  would  be  nothing  for  us  but  the  "bare  bodkin  " 
or  the  ignoble  gibbet  your  poet  eventually  honored 
with  his  neck.  We  do  not  believe  it,  we  cannot ;  we 
deceive  ourselves  if  deception  be  necessary;  we  put 
aside  the  horrors  and  the  filth  which  we  know  to  be 
true,  but  we  claim  that  the  beauty  is  true  also.  We 
do  not  condemn,  we  accept  you.  Misery  upon  mis- 
ery, disgust  upon  disgust,  we  know  that  they  exist, 
that  for  every  sensitive  soul  the  loathsomeness  of  La 
Grosse  Margot  is  a  cruel  spiritual  fact,  but  we  know 
also  that  the  bright  toys  are  not  wholly  toys  but 
symbols  of  truth,  truth  itself.  We  do  not  need  to 
interpret  this  horror  in  confused  geometric  shapes 
of  sullen  color  or  to  torture  the  Muse's  mouth  to  the 
utterance  of  harsh  discordance.  We  say :  "  There 
are  rose-wreaths  and  the  foulness  of  dead  men; 
Greek  song  and  the  groans  of  murder ;  tall  trees  un- 
der a  pale  opaque  sky  and  the  mephitic  gloom  of 
narrow  streets — we  know  it,  we  accept  it,  but  we 
choose  among  these  things  and  choose  for  ourselves 
rose-wreath  and  song  and  the  clear  air." 

Horror  may  be  forced  upon  us,  but  the  purity  of 
white  marble  has  entered  our  souls  and  cannot  be 
permanently  stained ;  the  grosse  Margot  may  gibber 
at  us  from  street  corners  with  foul  words  and  ob- 
scene gesture — we  are  not  harmed,  for  Heliodora 
loves  us;  we  may  be  forced  towards  crime,  but  we 
cannot  be  made  criminal.  Even  Villon  escaped  from 
you,  if  not  by  disgust,  by  the  gallows;  and  by  death 
he  purged  from  his  soul  that  "  accidia  "  which  I  have 
called  the  "  cruel  spiritual  fact  "  of  La  Grosse  Mar- 
got.  Perhaps  you  cannot  see  these  things,  sneer  that 
the  harm  you  do  is  irrevocable;  but,  Margot,  the 
gods  feed  their  sparrows  and  will  doubtless  release 
their  nightingales  from  the  snare. 

RICHARD  ALDINGTON. 


THE  DIAL 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor 

In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program: 

JOHN    DEWEY  THORSTEIN   VEBLEN 


CLARENCE    BRITTEN 


HELEN    MAROT 


HE    WAR    WAS    WON    BY    AMERICA.       WlTH    ALL 

possible  subtractions  from  our  achievement  it  is  clear 
that  but  for  American  food,  American  munitions, 
American  money,  and  American  men,  the  Allies 
would  have  been  compelled  to  negotiate  a  peace  in 
1917,  or  accept  a  dictated  peace  in  1918.  At  the 
time  of  America's  entrance  into  the  war  the  belief 
was  general  that  her  influence  would  result  in  a 
peace  which  would  be  righteous  and  permanent. 
The  foundations  for  such  a  peace  were  announced 
by  President  Wilson  in  his  address  to  the  United 
States  Senate  on  January  22,  1917.  He  said  "  Only 
a  peace  between  equals  can  last.  Only  a  peace  the 
very  principle  of  which  is  equality  and  a  common 
participation  in  a  common  benefit."  On  April  2,  on 
the  eve  of  entering  the  war,  he  explicitly  confirmed 
this  view  of  the  peace  to  be  sought.  "  I  have  ex- 
actly the  same  things  in  mind  now  that  I  had  in 
mind  when  I  addressed  the  Senate  on  the  twenty- 
second  of  January  last."  On  August  27  in  his 
reply  to  the  proposals  for  peace  issued  by  the  Pope 
he  asserted  that  the  basis  of  peace  was  "  the  rights 
of  peoples  .  .  .  their  equal  right  to  freedom  and 
security  and  self-government  and  to  a  participation 
upon  fair  terms  in  the  economic  opportunities  of  the 
world,  the  German  people,  of  course,  included  if 
they  will  accept  equality  and  not  seek  domination." 
There  followed  on  January  8,  1918,  the  statement 
of  explicit  terms  in'  the  famous  fourteen,  points. 
America  won  the  war;  America  has  lost  the 
peace,  the  object  for  which  she  fought.  It  is  a 
thankless  task  to  bring  in  a  bill  of  particulars — to 
show  in  detail  how  one  by  one  the  fourteen  points 
to  which  America  and  the  Allies  bound  themselves 
have  been  abrogated  by  the  actual  pact.  On  Jan- 
uary 22,  1917,  President  Wilson  had  declared  that 
"  the  freedom  of  the  seas  is  the  sine  qua  non  of  peace, 
equality,  and  cooperation,"  yet  this  was  the  first 
article  of  the  fourteen  to  be  withdrawn  from  con- 
sideration before  the  Armistice  was  signed.  The 
grant  of  Upper  Silesia  to  Poland,  of  Southern 
Tyrol  to  Italy  are  not  only  violations  of  an  agree- 
ment made  with  a  beaten  enemy :  they  are  clear  vio- 
lations of  that  international  order  which  America 
fought  to  establish,  crimes  against  the  peace  of  the 
world.  The  terms  of  the  grant ,  of  Kiaochau  and 
Shantung  to  Japan,  of  the  Dodecanese  to  Italy,  are 
violations  of  the  fourteen  points  at  the  expense  not 
of  the  enemy  but  of  allies.  In  the  territorial  estab- 


lishment of  new  states,  Jugo-Slavia,  Czecho- 
slovakia, Poland,  difficult  questions  arose  which 
did  not  admit  of  any  clean  cut  application  of  the 
fourteen  points,  but  in  the  claims  of  Japan  on  China 
there  was  but  a  single  issue  to  be  maintained  or 
compromised,  that  of  right,  justice,  and  truth.  The 
treaty  not  only  cancels  the  principle  of  "  equality 
and  participation  in  a  common  benefit  "  as  respects 
the  late  enemy;  it  withdraws  it  among  the  Allies 
themselves.  America  has  won  the  war  but  has  lost 
the  peace.  With  far  greater  reason  than  Clemenceau 
President  Wilson  may  lament  a  Pyrrhic  victory. 


T« 


.HE  REASONS  FOR  THE  DEFEAT  OF  AMERICA  ARE 

easily  to  be  read.  They  go  back  to  our  entrance 
into  the  war  in  April  1917.  It  is  clear  that  Presi- 
dent Wilson  was  hurried.  He  would  have  preferred 
to  meet  Congress  in  extra  session  in  May,  but  the 
war-at-any-price  party  forced  his  hand  in  April.  If 
the  longer  interval  had  been  allowed  it  is  possible 
that  an  arrangement  might  have  been  arrived  at  be- 
tween America  and  the  Entente,  including  a  state- 
ment of  war  aims.  Such  a  negotiation  would  at 
least  have  revealed  the  existence  of  the  Treaties  of 
London,  and  the  common  necessity  of  the  Allies 
might  have  led  to  their  common  renunciation  of 
the  aims  of  those  secret  instruments.  However, 
time  was  not  granted.  We  entered  the  war  more 
immediately  dependent  on  the  Entente  nations  for 
means  to  carry  it  on  than  the  latter  were  upon  us, 
bound  by  necessity  to  peoples  who  were  fighting  for 
secret  ends  utterly  at  variance  with  our  own.  Even 
then  it  might  have  been  possible  to  save  the  situa- 
tion had  President  Wilson  issued  promptly  a  state- 
ment of  the  war  aims  of  the  United  States,  and  de- 
fined the  basis  upon  which  he  would  cooperate  with 
the  Allies ;  but  this  he  showed  a  fierce  reluctance  to 
do,  accusing  those  who  advised  such  action  of  seek- 
ing to  embarrass  him  in  the  conduct  of  the  war,  and 
in  his  letter  to  Congressman  Heflin  disingenuously 
trying  to  confuse  the  demand  for  war  aims  with  a 
profession  of  ignorance  as  to  why  we  were  at  war 
at  all.  He  insisted  that  his  general  statements  of 
January  22  and  April  2  were  all-sufficient.  In 
August,  however,  he  assumed  to  reply  to  the  Pope's 
proposals  in  the  sense  of  his  January  speech,  as  com- 
mon spokesman  of  the  nations  fighting  Germany; 
and  in  the  January  following  he  issued  the  famous 


512 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


fourteen  points.  Though  these  were  received  with 
general  agreement  he  later  challenged  the  Allies  to 
express  dissent  if  such  existed.  The  points  were 
reaffirmed  in  his  speech  of  April  6,  and  in  the  most 
solemn  fashion.  They  were  put  forward  by  Ger- 
many as  the  basis  of  her  surrender  and,  with  two 
exceptions,  specifically  accepted  by  the  other  warring 
nations.  But  even  with  all  this  open  diplomacy  he 
failed  to  bind  the  Allies  to  the  terms  of  world  settle- 
ment which  he  had  announced.  It  is  obvious  now 
that  they  had  always  made  reservations  in  favor  of 
the  secret  treaties  of  London.  When  President 
Wilson  learned  of  the  terms  of  these  agreements  is 
uncertain.  It  may  have  been  only  when  they  were 
published  by  the  Soviet  Government  of  Russia.  In 
any  case,  however,  the  moment  of  his  first  knowledge 
of  these  treaties  was  the  time  when  he  could  have 
moved  for  their  specific  subordination  to  his  own 
terms  with  best  chance  of  success. 

If  Mr.  Wilson  trusted  entirely  in  the  acceptance 
of  his  fourteen  points  by  the  Allies  he  must  have  been 
rudely  shocked  by  the  behavior  of  Lloyd  George  and 
Clemenceau  in  promising  their  tax-payers  to  collect 
the  entire  cost  of  the  war  in  the  form  of  a  German 
indemnity.  He  must  have  gone  to  the  Peace  Con- 
ference with  a  clear  presage  of  defeat.  And  in  fact 
he  has  seen  his  own  terms,  and  those  on  which  Ger- 
many surrendered,  repeatedly  repudiated  in  favor  of 
those  of  the  secret  understandings.  From  France 
he  has  apparently  been  able  to  purchase  certain  con- 
cessions in  regard  to  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine  by 
more  or  less  definite  promises  of  support  in  event  of 
future  attack  by  Germany.  In  regard  to  Japan  his 
hands  were  tied  by  a  secret  arrangement  of  his 
own — the  Lansing-Ishii  agreement — and  the  situa- 
tion has  been  further  complicated  by  the  fact  that  he 
was  constrained  to  purchase  support  for  the  League 
of  Nations  at  home  and  in  the  English  colonies  by  a 
refusal  to  accept  the  clause  granting  equal  recogni- 
tion to  citizens  of  all  nations.  Despite  the  eloquent 
and*pathetic  plea  of  the  Chinese  delegation  Kiao- 
chau  and  the  Shantung  peninsula  have  been  turned 
over  to  Japan,  to  relinquish  when  and  how  she 
may  determine.  Baron  Makino's  claim  that  this 
procedure  was  in  recognition  of  the  fact  that  Japan 
had  proved  always  faithful  to  her  international 
agreements  must  have  extorted  a  smile  even  from 
Mr.  Wilson,  as  he~  recalled  the  Russo-Japanese 
agreement  of  April  25,  1898  in  which  both  govern- 
ments recognized  the  sovereignty  and  entire  inde- 
pendence of  Korea  and  pledged  themselves  mutually 
to  abstain  from  all  direct  interference  in  the  internal 
affairs  of  that  country — a  pledge  subsequently  re- 
asserted in  agreements  of  Japan  with  China  and 
with  Korea  herself.  In  regard  to  Italy  Mr.  Wilson 
found  no  resting  place  in  his  retreat  to  the  line 
drawn  by  the  Treaty  of  London,  short  of  Fiume, 
which  Italy  claimed  in  excess  of  that  settlement. 
We  can  appreciate  the  feeling  of  the  Italians  that 
Mr.  Wilson's  insistance  on  the  exact  limitations  of 
this  secret  pact  is  to  be  explained,  in  view  of  the 


general  surrender  of  his  fourteen  points,  only  by 
some  special  grudge  against  their  country.  Of 
course  this  is  absurd.  Mr.  Wilson  needs  Fiume 
more  than  the  Italians  do:  he  needs  it  as  the  symbol 
of  his  victorious  idealism — the  sign  that  he  knows 
how  to  get  what  he  wants.  If  it  were  permissible 
for  Mr.  Wilson  to  accept  a  patent  of  nobility  from 
some  foreign  power  we  should  suggest  as  the  appro- 
priate title,  Lord  Wilson  of  Fiume. 

±HE    ABANDONMENT    OF   THE    FOURTEEN    POINTS 

was  the  price  which  Mr.  Wilson  paid  for  the  form 
of  peace -which  he  has  secured  under  the  title  The 
League  of  Nations.  He  will  doubtless  base  his 
claim  to  the  success  of  his  mission  to  Europe  on  this 
.achievement,  and  already  it  is  being  "hailed  as  a 
triumph  of  practical  statesmanship  over  the  futile 
aspirations  and  feeble  scruples  of  the  idealists — of 
whom  Mr.  Wilson  used  to  be  accounted  one.  It 
should  be  pointed  out,  however,  that  the  process  by 
which  the  League  was  secured,  that  of  paltering 
with  the  principles  on  which  it  was  to  have  been 
based,  goes  far  to  discredit  it  in  its  inception.  The 
true  relation  between  the  Covenant  and  the  Treaty 
has  been  reversed.  The  Covenant  was  put  forward 
as  a  pledge  and  a  promise  to  be  made  good  by  sub- 
sequent action  beginning  with  the  Treaty  of  peace. 
Instead  of  this  the  Treaty  has  been  used  to  buy  sup- 
port, or  worse,  to  buy  off  opposition,  to  the  League. 
Mr.  Wilson  is  an  architect  who  robs  his  foundation 
of  stone  to  build  flying  buttresses.  He  is  the  mother 
fleeing  in  a  sledge  from  wolves,  holding  to  her  bosom 
her  last  born  and  throwing  her  other  children  suc- 
cessively to  the  devouring  pack.  Whether  the  child 
is  worth  the  sacrifice  is  for  the  future  to  show.  The 
League  with  which  Mr.  Wilson  escaped  is  not  a 
society  of  peoples,  a  new  social  order.  It  is  a  politi- 
cal instrument,  and  as  such  it  enters  on  its  career 
handicapped  by  the  political  compromises  and  decep- 
tions which  marked  its  origin.  A  League  which  is 
frankly  in  perpetuation  of  the  victorious  alliance, 
which  excludes  from  membership  the  nations  with 
which  we  were  at  war,  which  denies  the  right  of 
nations  to  choose  for  themselves  a  form  of  economic 
democracy  hostile  to  the  institution  of  private  prop- 
erty, which  recognizes  at  the  outset  territorial 
arrangements  in  direct  contravention  of  the  principle 
of  self-determination  of  nationalities,  which  does  not 
require  disarmament  even  among  the  signatory 
nations  against  each  other,  which  does  not  assert  the 
equality  of  citizenship  of  those  nations  or  the  free- 
dom of  the  seas,  which  makes  no  provision  for  the 
liquidation  of  empires  and  the  raising  to  the  status 
of  self-government  of  peoples  now  held  in  political 
bondage,  which  does  not  look  toward  freedom  of 
trade  or  movement — such  a  League  with  such 
powers  and  processes  as  are  allowed  it  is  all  too 
weak  for  its  assigned  task.  Yet  this  League  is  the 
net  positive  result  of  the  participation  of  the  United 
States  in  the  war — this  and  Fiume.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  on  his  return  to  his  native  land  President  Wil- 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


son  will  not  seek  to  exaggerate  his  triumph  for 
reasons  of  partisan  or  personal  glory.  The  con- 
dition of  the  success  of  the  League  is  recognition 
of  the  function  to  which  it  has  been  limited,  that 
of  a  temporary  receivership  of  a  bankrupt  world. 
More  clearly  than  when  it  was  first  presented  the 
Covenant  appears  in  the  light  of  a  task,  to  be  per- 
formed, if  at  all,  only  by  such  an  initial  repudiation 
of  the  men  and  the  methods  instrumental  in  draw- 
ing it  up  as  to  amount  to  conversion,  to  regeneration, 
to  revolution.  We  suggest  therefore  that  the  proper 
mood  for  the  reception  of  President  Wilson  on  his 
return  is  that  of  the  old  Puritan  day  of  fasting^ 
humiliation,  and  prayer. 


N, 


OTHING  WHICH  THE   PEACE   CONFERENCE   HAS 

proposed  will  excite  less  opposition  than  the  recom- 
mendations of  its  labor  commissioners.  The  recom- 
mendations convey  a  gratifying  sense  that  of  all  the 
problems  now  before  the  world  awaiting  solution 
none  is  so  simple  or  requires  so  little  readjustment 
of  interests  as  the  relation  of  capital  to  labor.  One 
may  turn  from  the  outdoor  turmoil  in  Europe,  and 
even  in  the  United  States,  as  from  a  bad  dream  to 
the  report  of  the  Commission  on  Industrial  Labor 
Legislation  of  the  Peace  Conference  and  be  assured 
that  the  hour  of  peace  has  struck  and  "all  is  well" 
in  industry.  The  declaration  of  these  Commis- 
sioners that  no  child  under  14  years  should  be  per- 
mitted in  industry;  that  every  worker  has  a  right 
to  a  wage  commensurate  with  civilized  standards  of 
living;  that  every  worker  should  enjoy  one  day  of 
rest  in  seven ;  that  forty-eight  hours  wherever  indus- 
trial development  permits  should  constitute  a  week's 
work,  will  receive  the  endorsement  of  the  Whitley 
Commission  of  the  large  organizations  of  employers 
in  England,  and  even  of  the  Chambers  of  Commerce 
in  the  United  States.  Everyone  in  all  parts  of  the 
globe,  except  in  certain  backward  regions  where 
industrial  life  is  still  primitive,  is  saying  as  much. 
But  it  is  noteworthy  that  wherever  this  pious  wish 
is  expressed  in  the  report  there  is  the  expectation  that 
it  will  stand  as  a  promissory  note  for  the  sometime 
enforcement  and  that  reasonable  time  will  of  course 
be  allowed  for  the  fulfillment  of  these  ideals.  The 
ways  of  enforcement  it  is  understood  are  fraught 
with  technicalities  which  must  perforce  take  prece- 
dence as  they  are  concerned  with  the  realities  of 
routine  rather  than  the  abstractions  of  human  rights. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  High  Contracting  Parties 
of  the  Labor  Commission  steep  in  mystery  the  ways 
and  means  of  enforcing  their  own  decrees  as  to  labor 
rights  and  standards.  There  is  a  hint  in  their  pro- 
posals that  some  dire  fate  will  befall  a  nation  which 
does  not  accept  the  precepts.  But  what  that  fate 
or  penalty  is  they  do  not  explain.  However,  there 
is  a  clear  assumption  that  the  highest  of  the  High 
Commissioners  (which  must  mean  Great  Britain, 
the  United  States,  France,  and  Japan)  already  ob- 
serve those  ethical  precepts.  It  appears  that  they 


are  so  taken  to  heart  by  the  governments  of  these 
countries  that  these  same  governments  are  eager  and 
ready  at  the  sacrifice  of  the  interests  of  their  own 
business  men  to  carry  on  trade  wars  against  those 
nations  which  fail  to  observe  ethical  standards  of 
industrial  relationship.  If  indeed  these  High  Com- 
missioners know  better  than  the  rest  of  us  about 
what  they  are  talking — that  is,  if,  the  governments 
of  their  countries  have  actually  taken  this  matter 
to  heart — the  point  for  which  the  old-line  trade 
unions  have  been  fighting  is  cleared  up  and  the  al- 
liance between  stand-pat  unionism  and  stand-pat 
business  is  consummated.  If  this  is  the  case  the 
wage  standards  of  the  regular  unions  of  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain  are  to  be  protected  as  the 
prices  of  commodities  are  now  protected  by  the 
United  States  tariff,  and  special  labor  interests  like 
special  business  interests  will  be  cared  for.  Such  a 
contemplated  scheme,  naively  supported  by  reformers 
in  a  spirit  of  universal  uplift,  has  as  much  relation 
to  a  progressive  civilization  as  a  tariff  imposed  for 
the  support  of  infant  industries,  but  no  more. 
The  declaration  'of  the  High  Contracting  Parties 
that  the  "  labor  of  human  beings  should  not  be 
treated  as  merchandise  or  articles  of  commerce  is  a 
restatement  of  Mr.  Gompers'  familiar  formula  that 
labor  is  not  a  commodity.  But  as  that  is  exactly 
what  labor  is  in  the  wage  system  which  Mr. 
Gompers  and  the  High  Commissioners  support,  this 
statement  as  it  is  uttered  by  men  who  represent  labor 
is  sheer  cant.  And  they  may  clear  the  statement 
of  cant  only  as  they  carry  with  it  a  proposition  which 
will  do  away  with  a  market  where  labor  is  bargained 
for  collectively  according  to  trade-union  practice,  or 
where  individually  sold  and  purchased.  But  such 
a  proposal  would  reecho  the  outdoor  movement  of 
the  workers  of  Europe,  and  that  we  know  is  not 
the  purpose  of  the  Peace  Congress. 

IVlR.     WlLSON     EITHER     MEANT     HIS     FOURTEEN 

points  honestly  or  he  did  not.  He  put  them  forward 
either  as  a  holy  cause  for  which  his  countrymen  were 
to  die,  or  else  as  a  political,  or  rather  moral,  offensive 
in  the  same  spirit  in  which  Colonel  Robins  sent 
Bolshevik  propaganda  into  Germany.  In  any  case  he 
owes  an  answer  to  the  American  people,  who  com- 
mitted life  and  honor  into  his  hands — the  more  that 
his  answer  is  bound  to  be  theirs.  Either  he  acted  as 
decoy  or  he  fell  among  thieves.  It  is  a  hard  choice 
for  vanity  to  make;  and  it  is  the  vanity  of  the  whole 
nation  which  must  be  denied  when  the  truth  is 
spoken.  In  the  litany  which  should  be  sung  for  all 
of  us  are  the  lines: 

Earth  bears  no  balsam  for  mistakes; 

Men  crown  the  knave  and  scourge  the  tool 
That  did  his  will — but,  thou,  O  Lord, 

Be  merciful  to  me,  a  fool. 


5*4 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


Communications 

CONCERNING  THE  DEFENSE  OF  "  SOVIET 
GOVERNMENT  " 

SIR:  In  your  issue  of  January  25  appeared  an 
article  under  the  title  A  Voice  Out  of  Russia  in  de- 
fense of  the  Soviet  Government. 

In  illuminating  the  present  events  in  Russia  Mr. 
Lomonossoff  tries  to  show  by  comparing  the  Amer- 
ican people  with  the  Russians  that  the  reason  for  the 
success  of  Socialism  in  Russia  (understand  Bolshev- 
ism) is  the  fact  that  the  Russian  peasants  are  com- 
munists while  the  American  farmers  are  individual- 
ists. Thus  he  states: 

During  that  thousand  years  they  [the  Russians]  grew 
accustomed  to  cultivating  the  land  by  communistic 
methods.  .  .  But  the  American  farmer  is  first  of  all 
an  owner,  whereas  the  Russian  peasant  is  a  communist — 
and  here  lies  the  reason  for  the  success  of  socialistic 
teaching  in  Russia. 

Mr.  Lomonossoff  knows  or  should  know  that  the 
Russian  peasant  does  not  cultivate  his  land  by  com- 
munistic but  by  individualistic  methods;  that  the 
Russian  peasant  of  the  Commune  considers  himself 
the  owner  of  the  land  which  has  been  allotted  to 
him  and  to  his  family  by  the  village  Mir,  and  that 
he  is  in  reality  the  sole  owner  of  that  land  at  least 
up  to  the  next  redivision,  which  may  come  in 
twenty-five  years  or  may  not  come  at  all. 

Mr.  Lomonossoff  knows  that  this  very  faith  in 
the  communistic  and  socialistic  ideals  of  the  Russian 
peasants  was  the  reason  for  the  great  revolutionary 
movement  of  the  Russian  Intelligentsia — "On  to  the 
people " — in  the  seventies  of  last  century.  He 
must  be  aware  that  the  Russian  Intelligentsia  was 
greatly  disappointed  in  its  expectation  of  infusing 
Socialism  in  Russia  with  preliminary  education  and 
active  propaganda  among  the  masses,  and  that  its 
hopes  in  the  Mir  and  Commune  were  not  realized. 
He  surely  must  also  know  that  the  communal  land 
tenure  is  far  from  being  general  in  Russia,  that  it 
is  very  little  known  in  the  Ukraine,  and  that  there 
were  no  signs  of  protests  from  the  peasants  when 
Stolipin  had  dealt  the  Commune  its  death  blow. 

In  explaining  the  rise  of  the  Soviets  Mr.  Lomonos- 
soff says :  "  The  composition  of  the  First  Pro- 
visional Government  was  not  in  accordance  with  the 
sentiment  of  the  country.  And  as  a  result,  side  by 
side  with  this  Government,  sprang  up  the  Soviets 
backed  by  the  great  masses  of  the  people."  As  one 
of  the  participants  in  the  work  of  the  Provisional 
Government  at  Kiev  after  the  March  Revolution, 
as  one  elected  by  the  Kiev  Soviet  of  Workmen  and 
Soldiers'  Delegates  to  the  office  of  Military  Com- 
mander of  the  Kiev  district,  and  as  a  delegate  to  the 
Copenhagen  Conference  sent  by  the  Central  Execu- 
tive Committee  of  the  Peasants'  Soviets,  I  feel  com- 
petent to  assert  that  the  Soviets  did  not  spring  up 
because  the  Provisional  Government  was  not  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  sentiment  of  country,  but  because 


the  Soviets  were  necessary,  and  for  the  following 
reason : 

After  the  March  Revolution -and  the  downfall  of 
the  Czarist  regime  the  local  authorities  lost  their 
heads.  As  there  were  no  other  democratic  institu- 
tions which  were  trusted  by  the  masses,  the  necessity 
arose,  therefore,  to  create  temporary  revolutionary 
organs  on  more  democratic  lines  than  the  former 
municipal  Dumas  and  Zemstvo  institutions,  the  mem- 
bers of  which  were  elected  on  property  qualifications. 
Thus,  in  order  to  cooperate  with  the  Provisional 
Revolutionary  Governments,  were  created  the 
Soviets  of  Workmen  and  Soldiers'  Delegates,  and 
also  the  Peasants'  Soviets.  These  were  then  neces- 
sary, life  itself  brought  them  to  the  fore.  True,  it 
might  seem  strange  to  see  soldiers  (soldiers  and  of- 
ficers, of  course)  in  the  local  political  and  economic 
organizations,  for  politics  is  not  the  business  of  the 
army,  but  the  war  had  taken  in  all  the  healthy  young 
men  of  the  population,  and  it  was  quite  natural  that 
they  should  wish  to  participate  in  the  whirlpool  of 
the  revolution. 

The  Provisional  Government  in  the  course  of  its 
'constructive  work  promulgated  universal  suffrage, 
and  thus  in  August  and  September  of  1917  all  the 
municipal  Dumas  and  Zemstvo  institutions  were 
elected  under  the  system  of  universal,  equal,  and 
secret  suffrage.  From  the  moment  these  truly 
democratic  institutions  began  to  function,  the  role, 
of  the  temporary  revolutionary  organs — the  Soviets 
— was  over,  and  they  should  have  naturally  given 
up  their  power. 

But  now  however  started  the  struggle  for  power, 
the  Bolsheviki  agitators  doing  their  utmost  with  the 
slogan  "  All  power  to  the  Soviets."  And  wherever, 
after  the  November  counter-revolution,  the  Bolshe- 
viki seized  the  power,  they  dispersed  the  Dumas  and 
the  Zemstvos,  and  replaced  them  by  Bolshevist 
Soviets.  In  addition  I  must  say  that  even  if  these 
Soviets  had  been  elected  without  pressure  on  the 
part  of  the  Bolsheviki,  even  then  they  could  not  be 
considered  as  democratic  institutions  to  replace  the 
Dumas  and  the  Zemstvos,  for  the  representation  of 
the  Soviets  was  accidental  and  the  regularity  of  the 
elections  was  not  guaranteed. 

Thus  the  Soviet  "rule  even  in  case  the  elections 
were  conducted  without  pressure  or  special  selection 
is  far  from  being  genuinely  democratic.  Moreover, 
as  Mr.  Lomonossoff  well  knows,  the  Bolsheviki  have 
excluded  "  for  the  purpose  of  still  greater  democrati- 
zation "  from  the  Central  Executive  Committee  of 
the  Soviets  all  Socialist  Revolutionists  and  Social 
Democrats  ( Mensheviki ) .  This  exclusion  of  non- 
Bolshevik  elements  is  carried  out  in  other  localities. 
The  Soviet  Government  at  present  does  not  even 
represent  the  workmen  nor  the  peasants,  but  only 
the  Bolsheviki  or  those  who  feign  Bolshevism,  and 
therefore  Mr.  Lomonossoff's  assertion  that  "  the 
Soviets  and  the  Bolsheviki  are  not  one  and  the  same  " 
is  entirely  false. 

I  shall  not  stop  to  argue  with  Mr.  Lomonossoff 
regarding  his  lengthy  criticism  of  the  Provisional 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


Government,  but  one  point  I  cannot  pass  in  silence. 
He  reproaches  the  Provisional  Government  for  not 
having  concluded  a  separate  peace  with  Germany. 
At  that  time,  he  says,  "  we  still  had  an  army,  and 
the  Germans  would  have  paid  us  highly  for  a  sep- 
arate peace."  I  wish  to  thank  Mr.  Lomonossoff  for 
this  reproach.  He  says  the  Provisional  Government 
has  not  sold  the  honor  of  Russia  to  the  German  mili- 
tarists for  the  high  price  they  offered,  but  the  Bolshe- 
viki  whom  he  so  ardently  defends  have  done  so.  In 
order  to  retain  at  any  cost  the  power  they  usurped 
they  sold  the  honor  of  Russia  at  Brest-Litovsk.  No, 
they  did  not  succeed  in  selling  the  honor  of  Russia, 
but  only  the  honor  of  the  adventurers  who  in  the 
name  of  Russia  signed  such  a  peace,  for  Russia  as 
such  did  not  recognize  this  peace. 

These  same  revolutionary  adventurers — the  Bol- 
sheviki — have  torn  to  pieces  our  fatherland,  and  de- 
livered it  to  hunger,  suffering,  and  torture  for  a 
long  time  to  come.  And  such  results  of  the  domina- 
tion of  the  Bolsheviki  and  their  hirelings  are  quite 
comprehensible  in  the  light  of  Lenin's  remarks  at 
the  Third  Congress  of  Soviets.  In  estimating  his 
comrades — the  Bolsheviki — he  said  :  "  To  every 
hundred  Bolsheviki  there  is  one  idealist,  thirty-nine 
criminals  and  sixty  fools."  Sapienti  sat. 

C.  OBEROUTCHEFF. 
PROFESSOR  LOMONOSSOFF  REPLIES. 

In  the  domain  of  facts  General  Oberutcheff  re- 
futes two  of  my  statements :  ( i )  That  the  reason  of 
the  success  of  socialistic  teaching  in  Russia  lies  in  the 
fact  of  the  existence  of  the  land  communes  and 
"  artiels "  for  a  thousand  years;  (2)  That  the 
Soviets  and  the  Bolsheviki  are  not  one  and  the  same, 
and  that  the  Soviets  were  created  simultaneously 
with  the  first  Provisional  Government  and  as  a  coun- 
ter-balance to  same.  Besides  General  Oberutcheff 
tells1  us  a  new  fact — that  Lenin  supposedly  said  at 
the  Third  Congress  of  Soviets:  "  To  every- hundred 
Bolsheviki  there  is  one  idealist,  thirty-nine  criminals, 
and  sixty  fools." 

These  facts  I  want  to  discuss.  We  shall  begin 
with  the  first.  General  Oberutcheff  says:  "In 
illuminating  the  present  events  in  Russia  Mr. 
Lomonossoff  tries  to  show  by  comparing  the  Amer- 
ican people  with  the  Russians  that  the  reason  for 
the  success  of  Socialism  in  Russia  (understand 
Bolshevism )  is  the  fact  that  the  Russian  peasants  are 
communists  while  the  American  farmers  are  individ- 
ualists." If  we  are  to  exclude  General  Oberu- 
tcheff's  own  insertion  "  understand  Bolshevism,"  my 
idea  is  conveyed  quite  accurately.  But  the  trouble 
is  that  this  insertion  distorts  my  idea  and  gives  the 
General  the  opportunity  to  make  a  series  of  accusa- 
tions, which  accusations  would  otherwise  not  be  pos- 
sible, if  he  quoted  what  I  actually  said.  My  words : 
"  The  success  of  socialistic  teaching  in  Russia  ..." 
should  be  understood  as  what  they  meant  to  convey. 
I  am  speaking  about  that  particular  propaganda  of 


the  socialist  Intelligentsia  while  the  General  accuses 
me  of  not  mentioning  it.  Among  the  propagandists 
were  Bolsheviki,  Mensheviki,  and  Social  Revolu- 
tionists. In  the  villages,  with  the  exception  of 
Ukrainia,  the  latter  were  most  successful.  Why  then 
did  the  socialist  teaching  in  general  have  in  Russia 
— a  land  industrially  backward — such  an  enormous 
success?  Just  for  the  reason  that  the  darkest  masses 
of  the  people  were  historically  ripe  to  absorb  the 
socialistic  ideas.  It  is  exceptionally  hard  for  me  to 
explain  this  to  General  Oberutcheff,  who  is  himself 
a  member  of  the  Social  Revolutionary  Party,  which 
always  explained  this  as  the  basis  of  their  ideology. 

Furthermore,  the  General  says  that  within  the 
Commune  the  peasant  always  remained  an  individ- 
ualist and  "  that  there  were  no  signs  of  protests  from 
the  peasants  when  Stolipin  had  dealt  the  Commune 
its  death  blow."  Those  who  are  interested  in  the 
history  of  the  Russian  commune  I  would  refer  to  the 
classic  works  on  this  question — Professor  Ebers'  Das 
Alteste  Recht  der  Russen,  1826;  Professor  Beliaeff's 
The  Peasants  in  Russia,  1891 ;  and  Professor  Kauff- 
man's  The  Origin  of  the  Russian  Commune  1908. 
But  in  this  brief  article  I  shall  endeavor  to  explain 
what  was  exactly  the  Russian  land  commune  before 
the  war,  and  what  is  an  "artiel." 

Until  1907,  with  the  exception  of  those  parts  of 
Ukrainia  which  preserved  the  standard  of  the  Polish 
land  right,  all  the  Russian  peasantry  owned  the  land 
on  communistic  basis.  The  land  did  not  belong  to 
any  individual  but  was  embodied  in  a  commune  be- 
longing to  a  whole  village.  The  members  of  the 
commune  had  only  the  right  to  utilize  their  partic- 
ular plot  which  was  allotted  to  them  by  the  commune 
or  by  the  mir  for  a  definite  length  of  time.  The  re- 
divisions  of  these  lands  regularly  took  place  in  Siberia 
every  fifteen  years;  in  Zabaikals — every  five  years, 
and  throughout  Great  Russia — every  year.  Within 
the  limits  of  these  periods  the  peasants  tilled  the 
alloted  plots  individually,  but  the  pastures,  forests 
and  fishing  waters  were  used  by  the  commune  as  a 
whole.  By  the  ukase  of  November  ist,  1907  (Stoli- 
pin's  reform)  the  peasants  were  given  the  privilege 
on  certain  conditions  to  buy  their  own  plots  of  land. 
General  Oberutcheff  says  that  this  ukase  was  a 
death-blow  to  the  commune  and  that  the  peasants 
did  not  protest.  The  facts  are,  however,  as  follows: 
The  Czar's  regime  had  allotted  credits  only  to  the 
peasants  who  were  willing  to  take  advantage  of  the 
ukase  of  November  ist.  Before  the  war  out  of  135 
millions  Russian  peasants  only  19  millions  became 
private  landowners,  and  only  six  millions  expressed 
their  desire  to  do  so  ( From  the  Russian  Year  Book, 
1916,  pages  176-177).  In  other  words,  under  the 
pressure  of  the  monarchy  only  1 8  per  cent  of  the 
Russian  peasantry  forsook  the  old  traditions  of  the 
land-tilling  masses. 

Another,  not  less  ancient  establishment  of  the 
Russian  life  is  the  "  artiel."  The  "artiel  "  is  a  free 
union  for  cooperative  work.  In  Russia  there  are 
widely  spread  artiels  of  woodcutters,  carpenters, 
diggers,  and  so  on.  Their  capital  is  composed  of 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


contributions  of  the  members.  The  implements, 
provisioning,  and  sometimes  even  the  clothing  are 
communal.  The  earnings  are  divided  proportion- 
ately to  the  contributions.  Of  laTe,  the  Russian 
word  "  artiel  "  has  begun  to  disappear  and  is  being 
replaced  by  the  foreign  word  "  cooperative."  Some 
differentiate  these  two  conceptions  and  say  that  an 
artiel  is  a  productive  union,  while  the  cooperative  is 
the  consuming  union.  Both  are  nevertheless  an  at- 
tempt at  communal  economy.  The  establishment  of 
the  Russian  land  commune,  in  accordance  with 
Article  113  of  the  Provision  of  February  19,  1861, 
was  also,  in  spite  of  the  opinion  of  General  Ober- 
utcheff,  such  an  attempt. 

Speaking  about  the  Soviets,  I  insist  that  they 
existed  from  the  first  day  of  the  Revolution  and  were 
not,  as  the  General  says,  local  organs  for  coopera- 
tion with  the  Provisional  Government,  but  a  real 
power  which  overthrew  the  first  and  the  second 
Provisional  Governments.  I  remember  perfectly 
well  the  conditions  under  which  the  Soviets  came 
into  existence,  but  I  am  afraid  that  the  General 
will  doubt  my  testimony.  Therefore  I  will  quote 
the  testimony  of  one  of  the  chief  workers  of  the 
March  Revolution,  a  member  of  the  Duma — Mr. 
Boublikoff — especially  because  he  is  an  ideologist 
of  capitalism  and  a  bitter  opponent  of  the  Soviet 
Government.  In  his  book  entitled  The  Russian 
Revolution,  published  in  New  York  in  1918  in 
Russian,  he  says: 

And  nevertheless  the  revolution  came  welcomed  by 
nobody  and  organized  by  nobody  [page  15].  .  .  Later 
it  was  often  said  that  the  Duma  refused  to  dissolve. 
This  is  incorrect.  The  Duma  was  not  in  session.  The 
members  of  the  Duma,  after  receiving  the  Ukase, 
assembled  for  a  private  conference  [page  17].  .  .  At 
last  it  was  decided  to  organize  a  "  Temporary  Com- 
mittee for  the  Maintenance  of  Order  and  for  Communi- 
cation with  Organizations  and  Individuals,"  consisting  of 
twelve  members  of  the  Duma  [page  18].  .  .  A  mob 
entered  the  Palace  [the  quarters  of  the  Duma].  .  . 
Having  seized  the  Duma  quarters,  the  remnants  of  the 
revolutionary  parties  of  1905  quickly  formed  the  Soviet 
of  Workers'  and  Soldiers'  Deputies,  and  this  Soviet  raised 
its  head  and  voice  hourly  and  was  growing  more  insist- 
ent [page  25.] 

[At  the  same  time]  the  Soviet  of  Workers'  and  Soldiers' 
Deputies  .  .  .  consistently  worked  for  the  formation 
of  its  branches  throughout  the  land.  In  other  words,  it 
was  getting  ready  to  seize  the  power  in  the  future 
[pages  40-41].  .  .  The  Provisional  Government  .  .  . 
at  once  put  itself  in  an  inferior  and  dependent  relation 
to  the  Soviets  [page  41],  .  .  Many  of  the  ministries 
were  always  running  to  the  telephone  to  inquire  of  the 
opinion  and  the  sentiment  of  the  Soviet  of  Workers'  and 
Soldiers'  Deputies  [page  48].  .  .  The  resistance  of 
Kerensky  in  July  and  October  was  not  much  more  rigid 
than  that  of  the  Czar  in  February  (March)  [page 
76].  .  .  Undoubtedly,  much  of  what  has  been  done  by 
the  Bolsheviki,  could  and  should  have  been  done  by  the 
Provisional  Government  [page  81]. 

In  spite  of  the  opinion  of  General  Oberutcheff, 
the  establishment  of  the  All-Class  Zemstvo  did  not 
shake  the  strength  and  the  position  of  the  Soviets, 
while  the  adventure  of  General  Korniloff  only 
strengthened  them.  In  September,  1917,  the  Soviets 
called  a  democratic  Congress  and  at  that  time  it  was 


quite  clear  that  the  Kerensky  Government  was 
doomed. 

I  do  not  dispute  that  in  August,  1918,  not  all, 
but  many,  of  the  Social  Revolutionists  and  Menshe- 
viki  were  expelled  from  the  Soviets  for  the  participa- 
tion and  communication  with  the  elements  that  in- 
vited foreign  forces  into  Russia,  and  for  the  attempt 
to  overthrow  the  Soviet  Government.  But  let  me 
ask  what  would  the  American  Senate  do  if  foreign 
forces  should  invade  the  United  States,  attempting — 
we  will  say — to  put  up  a  monarch  at  the  head  of  the 
Government  and  if  some  of  the  Senators  should  help 
in  such  an  adventure? 

And,  finally,  in  regard  to  the  phrase  attributed 
to  Lenin  that  "  To  every  hundred  Bolsheviki  there  is 
one  idealist,  thirty-nine  criminals,  and  sixty  fools," 
let  me  humbly  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  I  have 
in  my  possession  the  stenographic  report  of  the  Third 
Congress  of  Soviets  and  that  this  report  contains  no 
such  phrase.  Nothing  of  the  sort  was  heard  by  the 
Americans  present  at  the  Third  Congress — by 
Messrs.  A.  R.  Williams  and  G.  Yarros.  I  do  not 
know  the  source  where  trie  General  borrowed  this 
phrase  (he  does  not  state  it),  but  I  presume  that  he 
was  made  a  victim  of  a  joker.  It  is  hardly  possible 
to  believe  that  Lenin  should  say  any  such  thing  about 
his  party,  and  still  more  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to 
believe  that  after  such  a  remark  he  should  remain 
at  the  head  of  it. 


Chicago. 


G.   LOMONOSSOFF. 


POINT  OF  VIEW 


There  is  in  the  March  29  issue  of  the  Scientific 
American  an  article  headed  The  Humanity  of  Poison 
Gas.  The  quotations  below  are  taken  from  that 
article : 

So  greatly  have  the  horrors  of  gas  attack  been  miti- 
gated since  its  first  introduction  that  in  the  opinion  of 
Brigadier-General  Amos  A.  Fries,  who  was  in  command 
of  the  Chemical  Warfare  Service  of  our  army  at  the 
front,  it  is  possible  that  gas  warfare  may  come  to  be 
recognized  as  a  lawful  method  of  warfare,  and  that  it 
will  not  be  eliminated.  The  argument  as  presented  by 
him  is  also  endorsed  by  Colonel  Walker,  who  is  in  com- 
mand of  the  Edgewood  plant  for  the  manufacture  of 
gas.  .  . 

If  these  facts  are  well  established  ...  it  becomes 
a  question  whether  prudence  and  farsightedness  do  not 
suggest  the  maintenance  of  our  great  gas  factory  at 
Edgewood  Arsenal. 

Possibly  the  Colonel  and  the  Brigadier  General 
are  prejudiced  somewhat  by  self  interest  in  recom- 
mending the  continuance  of  poison  gas  in  warfare, 
and,  by  implication,  of  warfare  itself.  Possibly  they 
did  not  lie  half-blinded  and  half-suffocated  in 
trenches  charged  with  the  breath  of  death,  nor  toss 
in  vain  search  for  relief  from  the  agony  of  livid 
flesh  that  had  been  caressed  with  humane  mustard 
gas.  Have  we  not  had  enough  of  such  arguments 
as  these  two  warriors  advance? 


Schenectady,  N.  Y. 


H.  S.  TRECARTIN. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


5*7 


Notes  on  New  Books 

IOLANTHE'S  WEDDING.     By  Hermann  Suder- 
mann.     159  pages.     Boni  &  Liveright. 

Sudermann  is  an  expert  in  handling  the  massive 
and  unruly  phenomena  of  passion:  nearly  all  of  his 
various  works  testify  to  his  absorption  in  the  sinister 
rather  than  the  rapturously  sentimental  phases  of 
love.  Nietzsche's  caustic  words  "  but  even  your 
best  love  is  only  an  enraptured  parable  and  a  painful 
.heat  "  give  the  measure  of  Sudermann's  curiously 
tender  and  relentless  cynicism,  which  seems  always 
earnestly  seeking  genuine  beauty  in  sex  relations, 
but  is  invariably  conpelled  to  find  more  of  purgatory 
than  of  paradise. 

lolanthe's  Wedding  (which  is  but  the  longest  of 
four  stories  in  this  little  volume)  is  a  very  grace- 
fully told  story  of  an  elderly  nobleman  and  a  beauti- 
ful girl  whose  betrothal  to  him  was  the  result  of 
parental  intrigue  rather  than  love.  The  nobleman 
himself  tells  us  the  story,  beginning  with  the  death 
of  his  best  friend,  his  meeting  with  the  parents  of 
lolanthe,  the  girl  herself,  and  his  growing  love  for 
her — a  love  he  consistently  makes  fun  of,  in  a 
wistful  way.  But  his  dead  friend  has  a  son,  Lothar, 
and  it  develops,  immediately  after  his  marriage  to 
lolanthe,  that  she  and  Lothar  have  long  been  des- 
perately in  love  with  each  other  and  are  considering 
a  double  suicide  as  the  only  .way  out  of  an  intoler- 
able situation.  The  old  nobleman  hides  his  pro- 
found adoration  of  lolanthe  and  keeps  them  both 
alive  by  getting  divorced  from  the  girl.  The  story 
ends  with  the  old  gentleman  climbing  into  his 
beloved  army  cot  and  putting  himself  to  sleep  with 
an  account  of  certain  campaigns  of  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War.  Presumably  lolanthe  and  Lothar 
-are  married,  but  Sudermann  spares  us  the  corrosive 
solvent  of  his  irony:  for  once  in  a  way  he  will  per- 
mit us  to  imagine  a  happy  ending. 

The  Woman  Who  Was  His  Friend,  the 
second  story,  is  a  fragment  of  concentrated  bitter- 
ness, presented  in  the  form  of  a  letter.  The  theme 
is  the  eternal  incompatibility  between  friendship 
and  love;  despite  a  rather  sentimental  tone  the 
episode  is  forcefully  told.  The  remaining  two  tales, 
— New  Year's  Confession,  and  The  Goose  Herd — 
are  linked  to  the  others  in  subject-matter  and  treat- 
ment. One  can  thank  Adele  Seltzer  for  very 
sympathetic  translation. 

A  GRAY  DREAM.     By  Laura  Wolcott.     288 
pages.    Yale  University  Press;  New  Haven. 

The  method  and  the  mood  of  sketches  cling  to 
all  the  contents  of  this  volume,  though  part  of  it 
aspires  to  consideration  as  stories.  But  where  the 
aim  has  been  fiction,  the  effect  is  scarcely  less  sketchy 
than  in  the  pieces  plainly  of  that  genre.  All  the 
things  are  tinted  in  the  same  soft  shades,  and  there 
is  the  flavor  of  New  England  from  cover  to  cover. 
"The  book's  value  is  perhaps  chiefly  in  the  flavor 


rather  than  in  the  material,  for  most  of  the  glimpses 
of  life  are  not  different  from  what  has  been  en- 
countered before  in  some  guise.  We  are  given  pen 
pictures  of  village  characters,  tiny  flashes  of  person- 
ality set  down  with  sober  sympathy.  We  review 
the  even  succession  of  events  which  are  the  warp 
and  woof  of  unhorizoned  lives,  with  now  and  then 
a  glow  of  vital  tragedy,  and  now  and  then  a  touch 
of  homely  comedy.  A  Gray  Dream  is  a  looking 
backward,  through  the  eyes  of  a  woman,  upon  "  the 
lengthening  record  of  delectable  days."  The  style 
is  unpretentious,  and  its  not  infrequent  felicities 
seem  to  rise  outxof  the  author's  quiet  harmony  with 
the  period  of  which  she  writes  rather  than  from 
conscious  literary  striving.  Not  a  book  for  a  wide 
public,  but  one  which  will  be  welcomed  by  those 
whose  lives  beat  in  tune  with  the  New  England 
memories  which  it  evokes. 

RUSSIA  FROM  THE  VARANGIANS  TO  THE 
BOLSHEVIKS.  By  Raymond  Beazley,  Nevill 
Forbes,  and  G.  A.  Birkett.  601  pages.  Ox- 
ford University  Press. 

The  presumptuous  subtitle  is  justifiable  only  in 
so  much  as  the  book  presents  a  kaleidoscopic  cat- 
alogue of  the  more  important  events  that  took  place 
in  Russia  between  the  ninth  century  and  the  abdica- 
tion of  the  last  Romanov.  Beyond  this  qualification, 
the  work  of  the  British  professors  scarcely  meets  the 
obvious  need  for  a  comprehensive  interpretative  ac- 
count of  the  history  of  Russia.  The  meritorious 
impartiality  of  the  authors  is  quite  evident ;  but  this 
merit  becomes  dubious  when  one  finds  their  lack  of 
bias  tantamount  to  lack  of  point  of  view.  More- 
over the  triunity  of  the  authorship  is  responsible 
for  a  lack  of  unity  and  uniformity  in  the  structure 
of  the  book  and  in  the  transliteration  of  Slavonic 
names.  Mr.  Beazley's  Hedwig  is  rightly  trans- 
formed by  Mr.  Forbes  into  Jadwiga,  to  cite  a  typical 
instance.  Neither  do  the  authors  possess  an  equal 
sense  of  proportion.  There  are  pages  and  pages  of 
entertaining  narrative  relative  to  the  semi-legendary 
period  of  Russian  history  (Book  I),  whereas  less 
than  a  page  is  given  to  the  Decembrist  uprising 
(Book  III).  Were  Mr.  Birkett  guilty  of  critical 
vision,  or  at  least  of  a  point  of  view,  he  would  not 
dismiss  this  uprising  as  "  a  parody  of  the  court  revo- 
lutions of  the  eighteenth  century."  The  Decem- 
brists struck  the  keynote  of  the  revolutionary  move- 
ments in  Russia  which  culminated  in  the  two  revo- 
lutions of  1917.  The  platform  of  Colonel  Pestel, 
the  soul  of  the  Decembrist  movement,  was  virtually 
Bolshevist,  advocating  as  it  did  a  Federative  Repub- 
lic, the  abolition  of  class  privileges,  the  nationaliza- 
tion of  the  land,  and  even  a  temporary  dictatorship ! 
The  failure  of  the  Decembrists  to  overthrow  the 
Czar  does  not  justify  the  contemptuous  treatment 
allotted  them  by  Mr.  Birkett;  One  of  those  dream- 
ers, Kahovskoy,  shouted  from  the  scaffold  to  his 
executioner:  "  You've  caught  the  pike,  but  his  teeth 
are  at  large."  In  the  words  of  Alexander  Herzen, 


518 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


"the  cannon,  the  Senate  Square  [1825]  aroused  a 
whole  generation."  Thus  the  book  on  nineteenth 
century  Russia  starts  out  by  overlooking  the  import- 
ance of  an  event  which  laid  its  stamp  on  all  the 
succeeding  movements  of  the  Russian  revolutionary 
forces.  On  the  whole  the  third  book  is  much  weaker 
and  thinner  than  the  first  two.  The  more  recent 
the  events  the  more  journalistic  appears  their  treat- 
ment. Again  one  is  struck  with  the  authors'  peculiar 
sense  of  proportion,  when  after  a  parsimoniously 
condensed  account 'of  the  important  events  in  the 
last  fifteen  years  one  comes  in  the  concluding  pages 
upon  a  verbatim  reproduction  of  the  abdication 
manifestoes  of  Nicolas  II  and  of  his  brother, 
Michael.  One  is  tempted  to  suggest  a  reason  for 
the  superiority  of  the  first  two  portions  of  the 
book :  Messrs.  Beazley  and  Forbes  have  made  con- 
scientious use  of  the  work  of  the  great  Russian  his- 
torian, Kluchevsky.  But  Kluchevsky's  history  does 
not  reach  the  nineteenth  century,  and  Mr.  Birkett, 
with  his  faculty  for  "overlooking,"  has  failed  to 
consult  the  work  of  Kluchevsky's  follower,  Kornilov, 
the  author  of  a  standard  book  on  nineteenth  century 
Russia. 

SHOPS   AND   HOUSES.      By   Frank   Swinnerton. 
320  pages.     Doran. 

There  is  an  old  fallacy  in  Mr.  Swinnerton's  in- 
teresting new  novel — a  study  of  social  life  in  a 
small  community.  He  presents  the  hypothesis  that 
society  in  such  a  community  excludes  the  individual, 
cruelly  represses  him  and  belittles  him;  whereas  the 
society  of  a  large  city,  in  contrast,  receives  this  same 
individual  sympathetically  and  democratically. 
Surely  that  is  not  the  true  state  of  affairs.  Exactly 
the  same  kind  of  conflict  that  takes  place  in  Beck- 
with  takes  place  in  London  or  any  other  large  city 
when  people  try  to  break  into  a  set  which  is  not 
their  own.  The  butler  is  prejudiced  against  the 
new  chauffeur,  and  the  duchess  is  antagonistic  to  the 
parvenu  wholesale  grocer.  Moving  to  London  only 
dodges  the  subject;  it  does  not  solve  it.  Social 
climbers  are  everywhere  alike — petty,  comtumelious, 
cruel.  "  Aren't  people,"  Dorothy  says,  "  every- 
where alike?"  In  the  social  world,  assuredly,  they 
are  very  much  alike.  What  London  really  does 
offer  is  not  an  escape  from  the  social  conflict  but 
an  escape  from  social  life  itself.  In  a  city  the  in- 
dividual can  live  as  an  individual,  comparatively 
independent  of  social  relationships,  free  to  indulge 
his  individualistic  predilections. 

In  the  development  of  his  story,  Mr.  Swinnerton 
swerves  curiously  from  a  realism,  vigorous  and  au- 
thentic, to  a  romanticism  that  permits  the  employ- 
ment of  the  deus  ex  machina — a  wrecked  delivery 
wagon  and  other  interpolated  impedimenta.  As  a 
result,  the  issues  are  worked  out  through  the  agency 
of  accidents,  chance,  disease,  and  the  like.  It  is 
strange  that  Mr.  Swinnerton,  the  realist,  writes  a 
scene  like  that  of  The  Concert,  which  might  easily 
be  a  chapter  in  a  Louisa  May  Alcott  novel  about 


sisters.  This  understanding  of  sisters  however  is 
quite  remarkable.  Mr.  Swinnerton  knows  the  secret 
intricacies  of  sex  rivalry — woman  against  woman, 
sisters  against  sisters.  Jenny  and  Emmy  in  Nocturne 
are  perfectly  drawn:  similarly  here  Adela  Veronica 
and  Judith  are  alive,  human,  passionate,  combative. 
It  is  difficult  to  recall  another  author  who  has  so 
successfully  and  intimately  mastered  the  presentation 
of  sisterly  love  and  hatred. 

TETON  Sioux  Music.  By  Frances  Densmore. 
561  pages.  Government  Printing  Office; 
Washington. 

This  is  a  work  of  the  utmost  value.  The  Indian 
customs  are  rapidly  vanishing;  the  Indians  them- 
selves prefer  not  to  talk ;  the  buffalo  hunts  are  over ; 
the  war  ceremonies  have  gone.  This  author  how- 
ever has  collected,  arranged,  and  analyzed  their 
songs  with  enthusiasm  and  patience.  The  difficul- 
ties were  immense:  Indian  scales  are  different;  their 
intervals  are  different;  their  rhythms  are  un- 
familiar, and  often  curiously  complex.  The  drum 
and  the  voice,  for  example,  often  seem  entirely  in- 
dependent of  each  other.  But  the  author  is  not 
exclusively  interested  in  music;  that  in  fact  is  only 
the  focus  of  the  book.  There  are  elaborate  and 
sympathetic  accounts  of  ceremonies,  legends,  phil- 
osophy, medicine,  symbolisms,  societies,  games,  and 
dances,  illustrated  by  photographs  and  colored  re- 
productions of  the  Indians'  own  paintings.  The 
translations  of  Indian  poetry  alone  would  justify 
the  book's  existence.  Musicians  however  should  be 
especially  interested  in  the  rhythms,  the  curious 
method  of  building  a  melody  by  rhythmic  phrases, 
and  the  non-tonal  tunes. 

THE  ENGLISH  VILLAGE:  A  Literary  Study, 
1750-1850.  By  Julia  Patton.  236  pages. 
Macmillan. 

Dr.  Patton  discusses  the  literature  of  the  English 
village  as  a  "  chapter  in  the  social  history  of  Eng- 
land." No  purely  literary  study — having  regard 
to  origins,  relations,  developments,  types — would 
have  been  feasible,  for  the  literature  of  the  village 
does  not  constitute  a  distinct  genre.  It  is  without 
unity  of  conception  or  a  common  form,  and  it  was 
written  in  response  to  the  most  diverse  influences. 
In  the  history  of  the  Romantic  Movement,  the 
emergence  during  the  eighteenth  century  of  the 
village  theme  is  a  mark  of  the  growing  democratic 
spirit;  it  is  also  the  expression  of  a  sweeping  social 
change.  As  the  old-time  village,  with  its  unenclosed 
common,  its  self-sufficient  isolation,  its  communal 
spirit,  its  rich  traditions  of  an  immemorial  past,  was 
about  to  disappear,  it  established  itself  in  literature. 
Only  within  the  last  decade  have  the  Hammonds 
and  others  told  the  full  story  of  the  destruction 
during  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  of 
the  old  village  society.  Many  readers — victims  of 
the  usual  method  of  teaching  literature  as  if  it 
flourished  in  a  vacuum — must  have  felt  a  thrill  at 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


HAROLD  J.  LASKI'S  NEW  BOOK 

AUTHORITY  IN  THE  MODERN  STATE 

"The  real  danger  in  any  society  is  lest  decision  on  great  events  secure  only  the  passive 
concurrence  of  the  mass  of  men.  It  is  only  by  intensifying  the  active  participation  of  men 
in  the  business  of  government  that  liberty  can  be  made  secure.  For  there  is  a  poison  in  power 
against  which  even  the  greatest  of  nations  must  be  upon  its  guard.  The  temptation  demands 
resistances;  and  the  solution  is  to  deprive  the  state  of  any  priority  not  fully  won  by  performance." 

A  paragraph  from  Mr.  Laski's  book.     Cloth.     $3.00 

IDEALISM  AND  THE  MODERN  AGE 

By  George  Plimpton  Adams,  Ph.  D. 
Of    the    University    of    California 

"  Now,  I  am  persuaded  that  amidst  all  the  manifold  traditions  which  lie  embedded  within  our 
age,  there  is,  through  vast  reaches  of  our  life  and  thought,  a  single  idea  system  which  is  at  work. 
.  .  .  That  many  of  the  fundamental  categories  of  our  thinking  and  of  the  basic  concepts  to 
which  the  modern  age  has  become  habituated,  need  to  be  overhauled  and  reconstructed,  is  the 
unescapable  lesson  of  the  present  situation,  which  he  who  runs  may  read.  This  essay  is  an 
attempt  to  understand  something  of  that  idea  system  in  the  midst  of  which  the  present  age  has 
been  living  its  life." 

A  paragraph  from  Mr.  Adams'  book.     Cloth."f$2.50 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HENRY 
FIELDING 

By  Wilbur  L.  Cross,  Ph.  D. 

"A  masterpiece  of  biographical  writing." — Samuel 
C.  Chew  in  Modern  Language  Notes 

"  Not  only  a  monument  of  sound,  patient  deep 
delving  scholarship  and  original  research  •  extend- 
ing over  many  years,  but  is  also  a  fascinatingly 
readable  narrative  and  a  keen,  intelligently  sym- 
pathetic critique  and  estimate  of  Fielding,  the 
man  and  the  artist." — New  York  Sun. 

3  volumes,  cloth,  photogravures,  $15.00.  Sets 
autographed  by  Mr.  Cross,  $25.00. 

THE   QUIT-RENT    SYSTEM   IN 
THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

By  Beverley  W.   Bond,  Jr.,   Ph.D. 
(Yale  Historical  Publications,  Miscellany,  Vol.  VI) 

The  feudal  restraints  upon  the  land  in  colonial 
times,  how  they  were  managed  and  in  what  meas- 
ure they  were  eventually  eliminated.  Cloth,  $3.00. 


THE   FORGOTTEN    MAN   AND 
OTHER  ESSAYS 

By  William  Graham  Sumner,  LL.  D. 
Edited  by  Albert  Galloway  Keller,  Ph.D. 

The  fourth  and  last  volume  of  Sumner's  col- 
lected essays,  containing  chapters  on  the  philos- 
ophy of  strikes,  free  trade,  tariff  reform,  the  co- 
operative commonwealth,  integrity  in  education, 
and  other  economic  subjects.  Bibliography,  and 
index  to  four  volumes  of  Sumner's  Complete 
Essays.  Cloth,  $2.50.  Set  of  four  volumes,  $10.00. 

RURAL   RECONSTRUCTION  IN 
IRELAND 

By    Lionel    Smith-Gordon,    M.    A.     (Oxon.),    and 
Laurence  C.  Staples,  A.  M. 

The  interesting  story  of  the  successful  move-, 
ment  initiated  by  Plunkett  in  Ireland  for  the 
establishment  of  cooperative  creameries,  credjt 
societies,  and  societies  for  the  purchase  of  farm- 
ers' supplies.  Cloth,  $3.00. 


YALE  UNIVERSITY   PRESS 


120  College  Street,  New  Haven,  Connecticut 


280  Madison  Avenue,  New  York  City 


When  writing  to  advertisers  please  mention   THE  DIAL. 


52° 


THE  DIAL 


May  17 


the  proof  that  The  Deserted  Village  was  not  a 
"  beautiful  piece  of  irrelevant  pathos,"  but  a  true 
picture  of  what  the  great  Enclosure  movement  was 
bringing  about  in  England.  It  was  clearly  the  op- 
portunity of  the  literary  student  to  reexamine  the 
old  familiar  village  literature  in  the  light  of  this 
new  body  of  social  fact.  This  Dr.  Fatten  has  done, 
with  fine  literary  appreciation  and  keen  social  sense. 
That  the  result  is  in  one  way  a  little  disappointing 
is  not  the  author's  fault.  Disinherited  peasants, 
victims  of  an  agrarian  revolution  more  obscure  but 
no  less  sweeping  than  the  Industrial  Revolution, 
exiled  laborers,  villages  sinking  into  poverty  and 
crime — what  did  literature  do  with  this  tragedy? 
Typically,  it  looked  backward  to  the  village  of  the 
past,  to  Auburn  in  its  happier  days.  Dr.  Patton 
brings  out  the  full  social  significance  of  Crabbe's 
stern  realism  and  of  Burns'  sturdy  assertion  of 
peasant  independence;  she  stresses  all  the  scattered 
references  to  enclosure,  to  the  grim  "  House,"  to  the 
unjust  game  laws;  and  she  notes  the  groping  after 
causes.  Yet  from  her  study  emerges  the  fact  that 
literature  lagged  behind  life.  "  England's  peasant 
slave,  the  trodden  down,  the  parish  paid,  in  soul 
and  body  bowed,"  was  not  wholly  neglected  in  the 
literature  of  the  village.  But  this  literature  does 
little  to  break  the  force  of  the  statement  made  by 
the  Hammonds,  that  "  the  obscurity  which  sur- 
rounded the  poor  in  life  has  settled  on  their  wrongs 
in  history." 

MA  PETTENGILL.     By  Harry  Leon  Wilson. 
324  pages.    Doubleday,  Page. 

If  Harry  Leon  Wilson  has  a  genius  for  any- 
thing— and  it  is  within  the  range  of  possibility  that 
he  has — it  is  most  evident  in  the  touch  of  burlesque 
with  which  he  gives  point  to  personality.  Tricks 
of  manner,  quaintnesses  of  speech,  strange  quirks 
and  eccentricities — all  of  them  humanly  significant 
he  catches  aptly  and  repeats.  Like  the  calcium  man 
with  his  spotlight,  he  picks  out  dim  figures  on  the 
darkened  stage  and  throws  them  into  a  picturesque 
reality  more  real  than  life.  But  this  genuine  knack 
of  Mr.  Wilson's  is  at  once  his  opportunity  and  his 
limitation.  The  cowmen,  old  Safety  First  Cum- 
mins, the  little  guest  from  "  Grenitch  "  Village  ap- 
pear engagingly  before  us  in  the  grease  paint  and 
full  costume  of  their  several  roles,  and  speak  their 
lines  with  conviction ;  but  it  requires  a  deal  of  in- 
genuity on  Mr.  Wilson's  part  to  keep  them  moving 
across  the  stage.  He  has  been  so  busy  with  their 
make-up  that  he  hasn't  had  time  to  give  them  minds. 
They  have  no  inwardness,  no  urge  to  move  in  any 
particular  direction,  or  in  fact  to  move  at  all,  so 
that  Mr.  Wilson  must  needs  shove  them.  But  Ma 
Pettengill,  the  stalwart  ranchwoman  who  emerged, 
an  upstanding  figure,  from  Ruggles  of  Red  Gap, 
suffers  from  none  of  the  limitations  of  her  creator's 
method.  Tipped  back  in  her  chair  on  the  ranch- 
house  porch,  wreathing  herself  in  clouds  of  cigar- 
ette smoke,  she  savors  life  through  this  pleasant 


haze  and  finds  it  good.  Though  she  is  made  to 
recite  a  dozen  or  so  undeniably  "  made  "  tales,  she 
recounts  them  in  so  shrewdly  humorous  a  fashion  as 
to  make  them  entirely  delightful.  And  Ma  Petten- 
gill herself,  by  right  of  her  spicy  vernacular  and 
this  same  shrewd  humor,  belongs,  with  Pudd'nhead 
Wilson  and  Mr.  Dooley,  in  the  apostolic  succession 
of  Simon-pure  American  humor. 

JACQUOU   THE    REBEL.     By   Eugene   Le    Roy. 
415  pages.     Dutton. 

NONO:  LOVE  AND  THE  SOIL.    By  Gaston  Roup- 
nel.    272  pages.     Dutton. 

The  Library  of  French  Fiction,  edited  by  Barnet 
J.  Beyer,  proposes  to  follow  in  the  wake  of  the  war 
and  to  make  known  to  a  sympathetic  but  non- 
French-reading  United  States  the  "distinctive  insti- 
tution^" and  "unique  social  and  intellectual  life"  of 
France  by  means  of  a  series  of  translations  from 
contemporary  French  novels.  A  sense  for  the  pic- 
turesque in  landscape  and  customs — whose  exploi- 
tation was  one  of  the  marks  of  nineteenth  century 
romanticism — reinforced  by  the  intense  French  at- 
tachment to  the  national  soil,  has  produced  a  line 
of  novels  whose  care  for  local  color  makes  them  so 
intensively  interpretative  of  provincial  life  that  they 
seem  designed  for  instruction  of  the  foreigner. 
Novels,  like  individuals,  are  of  mixed  ancestry;  but 
whatever  the  crosses  with  naturalistic  schools  in  both 
France  and  Russia,  such  novels  as  Jacquou  the  Rebel 
and  Nono  derive  directly  from  the  provincial  novels 
of  George  Sand. 

There  is  so  little  the  ring  of  invention,  so  little 
even  the  air  of  reshaping,  in  Jacquou  the  Rebel  that 
one  is  inclined  to  accept  Jacquou  as  a  genuine  local 
character  whose  story  has  become  a  part  of  the  tra- 
dition of  the  countryside.  The  grasp  of  the  forces 
that  formed  the  character  of  the  peasant  rebel — 
that  is  the  contribution  of  the  novelist's  sophistica- 
tion, certainly.  But  the  murder  of  the  villainous 
steward,  the  assault  and  razing  of  the  chateau — the 
tale  of  these  must  still  persist  among  the  descendents 
of  witnesses.  "  It  seems,"  one  of  Eugene  Le  Roy's 
French  critics  has  said,  "that  the  author  is  absent 
while  the  book  goes  on  quite  by  itself,  unrolls  of  its 
own  momentum."  Treated  in  any  other  than  this 
matter-of-fact  way,  such  a  story  of  peasant  oppres- 
sion and  misery  would  out-Dickens  Dickens  for 
pathos.  The  novel  is  told  as  the  direct  recital  of 
the  hero,  and  perhaps  the  only  sign  of  strain  is 
exactly  the  details  of  local  superstition,  habit,  and 
history.  Nono's  story  is  less  outwardly  striking  and 
more  complex.  The  reader  gets  at  it  by  layers. 
There  are  first  fragments  of  Nono's  tavern  ac- 
counts— baited  by  his  fellow-habitues — of  the  mar- 
riage of  his  youth ;  gradually  these  fragments  fall  to- 
gether into  a  connected  narrative,  and  finally  we 
are  at  the  heart  of  an  idyl  of  the  vineyards — Nono's 
love  for  the  sweetheart  of  his  childhood,  a  love  that 
overlooks  her  violation  by  Renardin,  the  villain  of 
the  countryside.  But  Nono's  old  father  under- 


THE  DIAL 


521 


BOOKS  OF  MOMENTOUS  INTEREST 

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STODDARD 
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League  of  Nations 

A  Forerunner  of 
a  World  Government? 

In  the  inevitable  progress  of  the  race — from  pairs 
to  groups  to  tribes  to  nations — the  next  logical 
step  is  the  World  Union.  Are  we  ready  for  it? 
Are  we  advanced  far  enough  for  it  and  is  our 
step,  now  being  taken,  one  that  is  forward  or 
back?  Read  about  this  in  . 

Eternal  Progress 

By  HAROLD  ROWNTREE 

This  book  discusses  from  an  evolutionary  stand- 
point the  possibilities  of  peace  or  trouble  that 
may  arise  from  the  World  Federation.. 

Read  about  this  new  view  of  the  League.  Inter- 
estingly instructive  analysis  of  the  world's 
mental,  moral  and  economic  evolution. 

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May  17 


stands  more  of  the  intricate  nature  of  the  girl.  "I 
know  you've  a  good  heart,"  he  tells  her.  "But 
your  head  is  a  little  fanciful,  and  the  flesh  is  ever 
knavish.  Well!"  So  that,  the  idyl  done,  and  the 
old  man  dead  whose  knowledge  of  life  had  kept  its 
various  forces  in  equilibrium,  the  melancholy  of  the 
fanciful  head  unites  with  the  knavish  flesh  to  lead 
Nenette  back  to  Renardin.  And  to  others.  There 
is  finally  the  moment  of  anger  and  Nono  turns  out 
his  wife.  And  yet  they  would  both  regain  the 
idyl  if  they  could;  they  both  feel  it  still  as  a  living 
thing. 

Humanity  both  novels  have.  And  the  qualities 
of  the  soil  run  like  sap  in  these  peasant  lives;  so 
that,  as  one  ground  produces  wheat  and  another 
grapes, — Perigord  nourishes  a  Jacquou  and  Ber- 
'gundy  a  Nono. 

THE  HEART  OF  PEACE.    By  Laurence  Hous- 
man.     140  pages.     Small,  Maynard;  Boston. 

"  For  if  you  harp  too  long  your  harp  becomes  a 
hurdy-gurdy,"  grinds  out  Laurence  Housman  in 
Farewell  to  Town.  And  hurdy-gurdy  in  their  con- 
ventionality of  thought  and  in  their  mechanical 
nature  seem  the  tunes  of  this  poet,  although  we 
•cannot  assign  him  the  stridency  of  the  instrument 
mentioned.  We  must  grant  that  occasionally  he 
shows  some  originality,  as  in  The  Quick  and  the 
Dead;  that  he  does  give  us  passages  of  beauty  in 
The  Beautiful  Heart  and  in  one  or  two  songs;  and 
that  A  Goodly  Heritage  and  Armageddon — And 
After  are  better  war  poems  than  some  of  his  more 
famous  brother  poets  of  England  have  written. 
But  the  remainder  of  his  volume  merely  justifies 
H.  L.  Mencken's  dictum  that  all  poets  should  be 
"killed  at  twenty-six. 

FROM  CZAR  TO  BOLSHEVIK.     By  E.  P.  Steb- 
bing.     322  pages.     Lane. 
THE  CITY  OF  TROUBLE.  By  Meriel  Buchanan. 
242  pages.     Scribner. 

Who  is  the  author?  and  what  were  his  opportuni- 
ties for  observing  the  Russian  Revolution?  These 
are  questions  the  wise"  reader  asks  concerning  each 
new  book  on  Russia.  To  ignore  the  political  or 
class  bias  of  the  competent  eye-witness  is  scarcely 
less  foolish  than  to  swallow  every  traveler's  tale. 
Both  Mr.  Stebbing  and  Miss  Buchanan  lived 
through  the  Kerensky  regime  in  Petrograd;  Miss 
Buchanan  was  also  resident  there  during  the  last 
years  of  the  Czar's  power.  Both  are  of  the  British 
privileged  class:  Miss  Buchanan  is  the  daughter  of 
the  British  ambassador ;  Mr.  Stebbing  was  for  many 
years  an  official  in  the  Anglo-Indian  service.  Their 
point  of  view  is  that  of  the  privileged  class.  The 
-opinions  they  quote  are  largely  those  of  members  of 
the  privileged  class  in  Russia:  bankers,  generals,  of- 
iicials,  and  diplomats  of  the  old  regime,  industrial 
magnates,  leaders  of  the  more  conservative  political 
groups.  To  both  observers  the  faces  of  the  revolu- 


tionary soldiers  and  workmen  are  sullen,  obstinate, 
dull,  brazen,  furtive,  or  evil-looking.  "  Scalawags," 
"  ruffians,"  "  brutes  "  are  the  favorite  epithets.  No 
conversations  with  these  workmen,  soldiers,  and  sail- 
ors are  recorded.  The  tragedy  of  Russia  reveals 
itself  in  the  slouch  of  a  sentry,  the  failure  to  salute 
an  officer,  the  entry  of  privates  into  a  first-class 
restaurant  car.  When  the'  soldier  in  the  hospital 
suffered  with  patient,  uncomplaining,  unquestioning 
resignation;  when  the  masses  knelt,  weeping,  cheer- 
ing, and  singing,  as  the  Czar  passed  by  on  his  way 
to  the  cathedral — then  Miss  Buchanan  loved  and 
pitied  the  simple-hearted  Russian.  Later,  her  pity 
is  for  the  poor,  bewildered,  old-fashioned  soldier  who 
no  longer  has  a  Little  Father  to  die  for ;  for  the  old 
white-bearded  general  in  fur  hat  and  scarlet-lined 
cloak,  who  is  pitifully  grateful  for  the  unexpected 
salute  of  an  English  officer;  for  the  upper-class 
women  whose  relatives  lost  their  lives  and  whose 
estates  were  plundered  during  the  agrarian  troubles. 
Her  admiration  is  for  the  fierce,  well-disciplined 
Cossacks  who  ride  down  the  Kronstadt  sailors,  and 
for  the  faithful  though  cruel  police  who  stuck  to 
their  posts  to  the  end,  firing  with  their  machine 
guns  upon  the  people.  Mr.  Stebbing's  hero  is 
Kornilov,  and  his  hope  is  for  the  appearance  of  the 
"  strong  man."  Both  muse,  in  empty  churches  or 
in  the  halls  of  the  Winter  Palace,  upon  the  majesty 
of  the  old  faith,  or  on  the  scenes  of  splendor  when 
those  halls  were  thronged  with  the  noblest  and  love- 
liest and  greatest  of  the  Empire.  Miss  Buchanan 
hears  the  savage  laugh  of  a  workman  in  the  desolate 
city  of  Peter  the  Great,  once  the  scene  of  golden 
pomp  and  revelry — and  of  Bloody  Sunday  mas- 
sacres. Mr.  Stebbing  quotes  with  no  mark  of  disap- 
proval the  opinion  of  an  old  regime  official  that, 
until  the  new  generation  is  educated,  the  only  way 
to  rule  is  with  the  whip.  For,  bad  as  the  old  regime 
was,  it  maintained  order,  protected  property,  and 
made  the  law  respected.  In  short,  it  had  "  dignity 
and  distinction." 

Although  the  two  writers  record  the  same  events, 
they  emphasize  different  aspects.  Mr.  Stebbing  is 
most  concerned  with  the  military  situation  on  the 
various  Russian  fronts,  and  with  the  political 
changes  in  the  capital  as  they  affect  the  army's 
operations.  His  diary  is  full  of  political  gossip, 
significant  and  trivial,  of  extracts  from  interminable 
speeches,  and  of  reports  from  the  army.  Miss 
Buchanan  is  an  artist.  She  selects  with  a  sure  in- 
stinct the  picturesque  scenes,  the  dramatic  incidents, 
of  the  court,  the  street,  and  the  hospital.  She  has 
a  rare  feeling  for  the  beauty  of  sunset,  of  shadows, 
of  opal  or  copper  tinted  waters,  of  gilded  domes  and 
slender  spires,  golden  bells,  blue  seas,  snowy  forests, 
and  dusky  churches.  .  .  It  is  a  pity  she  saw  no 
beauty  in  the  crimson  banners  of  the  Revolution — • 
they  were  always  "  grimy,"  or  "  dusty,"  or  "  limp  " 
— and  felt  no  thrill  at  the  new  light  in  the  eyes  of 
those  whose  unquestioning  resignation  had  endured 
too  long. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


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in  Sweden  when  the  steamer  "  Per  Brahe  "  went  down 
on  the  20th  of  November  last  -year  brought  also  to  a 
stop  John  Bauer's  promising  career.  To  the  lovers  of 
his  delicate  and  exquisite  art  a  collection  of  some  of  his 
best  things  has  been  published  in  a  big  4to  volume  en- 
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Books  of  the  Fortnight 

Problems  of  Reconstruction,  by  Isaac  Lippincott  (340 
pages;  Macmillan),  will  be  of  greater  permanent 
value  than  most  of  the  books  on  reconstruction,  be- 
cause the  author  does  not  concern  himself  with  . 
meliorative  reforms  but  with  fundamental  problems 
of  war  production  and  administration.  He  realizes 
that  the  problems  must  be  worked  out  as  engineers 
work;  that  they  cannot  be  solved  by  opinions.  If 
his  summary  of  the  problems  of  production  is  of 
greater  interest  than  his  review  of  suggestions  for 
reconstruction,  that  is  because  the  issues  are  clear 
as  they  have  never  been  clear  before  and  all  sug- 
gested solutions  are  pitifully  inadequate  to  our  needs. 

Democracy  in  Reconstruction,  by  Joseph  Schaefer  and 
Frederick  A.  Cleveland  (506  pages;  Houghton  Mif- 
flin;  Boston),  is  a  symposium  of  opinions  on  political 
and  social  betterment  from  men  in  good  academic 
standing.  The  opinions  are  familiar,  and  the  sug- 
gestions for  reconstruction  are  uninfluenced  by  the 
recent  industrial  upheavals  induced  by  the  war. 

The  Society  of  Free  States,  by  Dwight  W.  Morrow 
(224  pages;  Harper),  offers  a  comprehensive  account 
of  earlier  attempts  at  the  establishment  of  world 
peace,  now  culminating  in  the  League  of  Free  Na- 
tions, and  an  analysis  of  the  Covenant  submitted 
February  14,  1919.  Mr.  Morrow's  point  of  view  is 
limited  to  that  of  the  Covenant  makers  themselves. 
For  consideration  of  the  subject  from  a1  wider  social 
point  of  view,  see  Mr.  Veblen's  article  in  this  issue 
of  THE  DIAL. 

Characters  from  the  Histories  and  Memoirs  of  the 
Seventeenth  Century,  by  David  Nichol  Smith  (329 
pages;  Oxford  University  Press),  calls  attention  to 
the  interest  of  the  seventeenth  century  in  personality 
and  studies  of  human  life  as  reflected  in  biography 
and  history.  The  most  noteworthy  selections  here  are 
from  Clarendon,  whose  great  and  neglected  merit 
as  an  analyst  of  character  is  made  abundantly  evi- 
dent. The  introduction  traces  the  influence  of  char- 
acter writing  in  the  manner  of  Theophrastus,  of  clas- 
sical historians,  and  of  the  French  memoirs. 

Banners,  by  Babette  Deutsch  (104  pages;  Doran),  is 
the  first  volume  of  verse  from  a  poet  who  has  fre- 
quently contributed  to  THE  DIAL.  Her  vers  libre — 
which  is  genuine  vers  libre — is  delicate  in  mood  but 
discloses  a  restrained  intensity  and  a  faculty  for 
colorful  image.  The  volume  also  contains  some 
sharply  etched  lyrics  in  the  regular  forms,  some  in- 
teresting experiments  in  irregular  rhymed  verse,  and 
a  few  sonnets,  undistinguished  except  for  one  to  Ran- 
dolph Bourne. 

The  New  Morning,  by  Alfred  Noyes  (172  pages; 
Stokes),  contains  more  war  poems,  American  poems 
between  1912  and  1917,  and  a  miscellany  that  might 
be  made  up  of  pieces  omitted  from  earlier  volumes 
— if  Mr.  Noyes  ever  omits.  Except  for  a  few  rollick- 
ing sea  chanteys  there  is  no  evidence  here  that  his 
muse  has  altered,  or  will  alter,  her  now  familiar  and 
too  pedestrian  gait. 

The  Earth  Turns  South,  by  Clement  Wood  ( 149  pages ; 
Dutton),  will  confirm  the  reader  of  his  earlier  volume 
of  verse — Glad  of  Earth  (Gomme,  1917) — in  the  sus- 
picion that  Mr.  Wood  has  rather  more  of  the  will 
than  of  the  talent  for  poetry. 

Alice  Sit-by-the-Fire,  by  J.  M.  Barrie  (139  pages;  Serib- 
ner),  the  sixth  volume  in  the  new  uniform  edition 
of  the  Barrie  plays,  is  in  print,  as  in  Miss  Barry- 
more's  production,  a  very  dilute  solution  of  the  au- 
thor's fantasy. 


Problems  of  Peace:  From  the  Holy  Alliance  to  the 
League  of  Nations,  by  Guglielmo  Ferrero  (281  pages; 
Putnam),  is  a  summary  and  running  comment  on  the 
history  of  Europe  from  1815.  Mr.  Ferrero  finds  that 
the  chief  problem  of  peace  during  the  nineteenth 
century  was  the  opposition  between  divine  right  and 
popular  sovereignty  as  principles  of  rule.  The 
only  problem  of  peace  that  he  sees  in  the  present  is 
the  complete  satisfaction  of  the  claims  of  Italy  to 
compensate  for  her  unparalleled  chivalry  in  rush- 
ing to  the  aid  of  the  Allies  and  her  surpassing  losses 
on  their  behalf. 

Mexico  Under  Carranza,  by  Thomas  E.  Gibbon  (270 
pages;  Doubleday,  Page),  betrays  its  animus  in  its 
sub-title :  "  A  Lawyer's  Indictment  ^of  the  Crowning 
Infamy  of  Four  Hundred  Years  of  Misrule."  It  is  a 
piece  of  special  pleading  leading  to  the  familiar 
conclusion  that  intervention  is  the  only  solution. 

The  I.  W.  W.:  A  Study  of  American  Syndicalism,  by 
Paul  Frederick  Brissenden  (Columbia  University 
Press),  wisely  treats  the  I.  W.  W.  neither  as  a 
philosophy  nor  as  a  contribution  to  pure  theory,  but 
presents  a  comprehensive  and  impartial  historical 
account  of  the  organization  as  a  militant  tactic  from 
its  inception  to  date.  The  book  contains  excerpts 
from  the  I.  W.  W.  Song  Book  and  a  valuable  bibli- 
ography. 

Old  Saws  and  Modern  Instances,  by  W.  L.  Courtney 
(269  pages;  Dutton),  is  a  new  collection  of  essays  by 
the  editor  of  The  Fortnightly.  "  An  inquiry  into  the 
conditions  and  limitations  of  Dramatic  Realism  is 
perhaps  the  most  substantive  of  my  aims  in  this 
book,  which  also  includes  some  purely  historical  es- 
says." The  three  essays  on  Dramatic  Realism  are 
accompanied  by  two  on  The  Idea  of  Comedy,  which 
supplement  his  admirable  book  The  Idea  of  Tragedy 
(1900),  and  by  discussions  of  Hardy  and  Aeschy- 
lus; Aristophanes,  the  Pacifist;  Patriotism  and  Ora- 
tory (with  reference  to  Demosthenes,  Lincoln,  and 
Venizelos)  ;  Sappho  and  Aspasia;  Marcus  Aurelius; 
Brieux  as  a  Moralist ;  the  "  human ""  Euripides ; 
and  Sir  Herbert  Tree  and  the  English  Stage.  A 
book  rich  with  the  seasoned  thought  of  a  scholar 
who  is  equally  at  home  in  the  ancient  and  the  modern; 
worlds. 

The  Moon  of  the  Caribbees,  by  Eugene  O'Neill  (2M 
pages;  Boni  &  Liveright),  includes  Six  Other  Plays 
of  the  Sea:  Bound  East  for  Cardiff,  The  Long  Voyage 
Home,  In  the  Zone,  He,  Where  the  Cross  is  Made, 
and  The  Rope.  The  atmosphere  that  on  the  stage 
saturates  these  brief  dramatic  studies  persists  in  the 
printed  plays  and  carries  them  successfully  through 
not  a  little'  halting  action  and  commonplace  motiva- 
tion. Picture,  dialect,  and  mood  contribute  more  to 
this  magic  than  do  the  characters,  who  are  often 
sentimentalized,  or  the  events,  which  may  be  quite 
melodramatic. 

Travelling  Companions,  by  Henry  James  ^  (309  pages; 
Boni  &  Liveright),  contains  seven  stories,  published 
between  1870  and  1874,  of  the  type  made  familiar  by 
the  collections  in  The  Passionate  Pilgrim  and  in  A 
Bundle  of  Letters.  The  material  of  most  of  them  Ts 
the  rather  thin  cosmopolitanism  of  James'  early  years. 
The  pallid  characters  and  self-conscious  style  are 
pleasantly  reminiscent  of  the  affectations  of  that  in- 
teresting period. 

The  Toys  of  Peace,  by  H.  H.  Munro  (illustrated;  303 
pages;  Lane),  is  made  up  of  some  thirty  very  brief 
humorous  sketches  of  pre-wartime  England,  done  with 
such  lightness  of  touch  and  complete  spontaneity  as 
to  make  their  nonsense  most  infectious. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


525 


a  flaming 


romance  of 

rebellion 

The  I.  W.  W.  has  been  one  of  the  flaming 
romances  of  our  American  life ;  an  uncon- 
querable rebellion ;  a  human  frontier  of  petu- 
lant, primitive  insurrection. 

One  may  hate  the  I.  W.  W. — one  may  fear 
its  power.  One  must  nevertheless  admit  that 
it  is  a  dramatic,  scarlet  color,  splashed  over 
the  canvas  of  our  national  life. 

Always  heretofore  it  has  been  a  mystery, 
uninterpreted  and  unexplained.  All  that  one 
could  read,  if  his  curiosity  were  kindled,  was 
the  dry  and  wheezy  economic  pamphlets  of 
propaganda. 

But  at  last  the  revolution  has  raised  up  a 
man  who  has  put  this  story  of  passion  into 
literature.  The  drama  and  the  dreams — the 
passions  and  the  regenerations — the  triumphs 
and  the  tragedies — all  the  whirling  pageantry 
of  labor's  rebellion  find  voice  in  Harold  Lord 
Varney's  "  Revolt." 

This  novel  is  a  burst  of  breathless  incidents, 
warmed  with  a  rich  tale  of  friendship,  and  an 
exotic,  flaming  climax  of  woman's  love.  To 
Varney  the  I.  W.  W.  is  a  veritable  Arden  of 
Romance.  Make  his  vision  yours  today  by 
sending  your  order  for 

"  REVOLT "     (400    pages,    cloth-bound,    illus- 
trated by  William  Cropper,  $2)  to 

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more  Evening  Sun.  "  A  style  that  often  rises  to  marked  elo- 
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...  a  certain  fine  intellectual  resilience  and  audacity; 
...  an  oasis  in  the  wilderness." — H.  L.  Mencken  in  The 
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organized  intelligence." — New  Republic. 

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May  17 


Current  News 

"  Dishonesty  is  the  national  sin  of  America,"  says 
Christian,  one  of  the  characters  in  Basil  King's 
novel  The  City  of  Comrades  (Harper).  And  one 
divines  that  the  author  himself  is  speaking.  Dis- 
honesty— of  workmanship — is  also  the  fault  of  Mr. 
King's  story.  He  does  not  face  his  problems  squarely. 
When  his  hero,  rescued  from  dipsomania  by  the 
efforts  of  the  Down  and  Out  Club,  is  rebuffed  by 
the  heroine  on  account  of  his  past  misdeeds — in 
other  words  when  an  apparent  impasse  has  been 
reached — the  author  discovers  that  the  Archduke 
Ferdinand  must  have  been  murdered  about  this 
time,  and  ships  Frank  Melbury  off  to  the  wars. 
When  he  returns,  a  Canadian  major  with  a  fash- 
ionable limp,  affairs  have  of  course  altered.  In  due 
time  the  wars,  by  disposing  of  Melbury 's  .rival,  save 
the  heroine  from  her  impasse  as  well. 

In  Victorious  (Bobbs-Merrill;  Indianapolis) 
Reginald  Wright  Kauffman  tries  to  invest  the  same 
national  characteristic — exemplified  in  this  case  by 
army  contractors — with  an  epic  quality.  He  at- 
tempts much  more  than  Mr.  King;  he  fails  more 
signally  and  for  similar  reasons.  On  his  canvas  he 
includes  the  whole  of  America  at  war:  the  country 
towns  in  1917;  the  debarkation  camps;  Paris;  the 
American  front.  He  knits  the  story  together  with 
recurrent  references  to  munition  frauds  and  bureau- 
cratic inefficiency.  At  times  he  rises  to  a  noble 
anger,  but  he  accomplishes  little  in  the  end,  for  he 
mingles  the  inevitability  of  tragedy  with  the  shoddy 
of  circumstance.  Moreover  the  motto  of  the  eternal 
journalist — "  Cherchez  la  femme,"  or  in  plain 
American,  "  Go  heavy  on  the  sex  stuff  " — interferes 
constantly  with  his  larger  purposes. 

It  is  a  journalistic  view  of  the  war,  again,  that 
ruins  The  American  (Century).  In  this  case  the 
journalism  is  sentimental  and  reeks  of  the  press 
office  of  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  Mary  Dillon's  novel 
shows  in  addition  the  futility  of  the  old  situations — 
the  romantic  triangle,  for  example — against  the 
background  of  a  world  in  arms.  When  chance 
places  the  rival  suitors  of  her  novel  in  the  same 
company,  one  is  willing  to  give  some  credence  to 
the  story,  for  such  things  do  happen,  even  if  only 
once  in  ten  thousand  times.  But  when  the  heroine 
takes  up  nurs'ing  and  happens  to  be  assigned  to  their 
sector  of  the  front,  one  begins  to  doubt.  War,  after 
all,  is  the  great  separator,  not  the  great  assembler, 
of  friends. 

Confronted  by  the  same  situation  as  the  others, 
J.  C.  Snaith  acquits  himself  with  more  polish  but 
with  little  more  understanding.  In  The  Undefeated 
(Appleton)  he  skimps  on  realities  just  as  she  does, 
and  emphasizes  the  obvious.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  book  his  characters  are  either  weakly  good  or 
strong  and  wicked;  after  a  hundred  pages,  and  the 
declaration  of  war,  they  become  paragons  of  both 
strength  and  virtue. 

All  of  these  books  deal  with  the  European  strug- 


gle; in  all  of  them  it  is  the  pleasant,  the  heroic  side 
of  war  that  the  authors  choose  to  stress.  Entirely 
absent  from  their  picture  is  the  uncompromising 
truthfulness  of  Siegfried  Sassoon  and  his  indignation 
at  the  system  that  lets  war  come  to  pass : 

You  smug-faced  crowds  with  kindling  eye 
Who  cheer  when   soldier   lads  march  by, 
Sneak  home  and  pray  you  never  know 
The  hell  where  youth  and  laughter  go. 

The  crowd  will  never  know  if  they  depend  on  these 
authors.  These  will  never  draw  aside  the  veiL 
Their  account  of  the  war  is  fuller,  more  studied,  but 
no  more  true  and  no  more  vivid  than  that  of  the 
average  newspaper. 

John  Finley's  A  Pilgrim  in  Palestine  (Scribner) 
is  the  product  of  a  conscientious  effort  to  recount 
each  step  of  the  journey  on  foot  through  Palestine 
as  the  "  first  American  pilgrim  "  after  its  recovery 
by  General  Allenby.  Mr.  Finley,  a  sincere  and 
earnest  pilgrim  through  holy  places,  is  genuinely 
impressed,  is  awed  into  a  delightfully  solemn  and 
reverent  mood — and  rendered  inarticulate.  Now 
and  again  he  turns  for  self-expression  to  mediocre 
verse — and  returns,  frustrate.  In  less  "  memora- 
ble "  matters — in  his  chapter  on  the  personal  quali- 
ties of  General  Allenby,  for  instance — he  is  on  firm 
ground  and  succeeds  well.  The  volume  is  consid- 
erably brightened  by  some  excellent  photographs. 

Greenwich  Village  receives  for  once  a  not  un- 
worthy treatment  in  I've  Come  to  Stay,  by  Mary 
Heaton  Vorse  (Century).  Mrs.  Vorse  writes  well; 
the  characters  maintain  a  high  level  of  conversa- 
tional cleverness,  and  Sonya,  the  super-child  who 
turns  cart-wheels  in  the  street  to  express  her  individ- 
uality, is  an  entertaining  creature.  The  reader  be- 
comes at  once  a  joyful  partner  in  this  gay  romance. 

Through  M.  de  Wai  the  radicals  confined  in  the 
Deporting  Division  at  Ellis  Island,  New  York 
Harbor,  have  appealed  for  good  reading-matter. 
Donors  may  feel  assured  that  books  and  periodicals 
addressed  to  him  there  will  be  greatly  appreciated 
by  readers  who  now  find  time  heavy  with  inactivity. 

Art  Young  and  Ellis  O.  Jones  have  issued  the 
first  number  of  Good  Morning,  a  humorous  weekly, 
which  they  will  edit  at  7  East  I5th  Street,  New 
York  City.  It  is  devoted  to  social  and  political 
satire  in  cartoons,  prose,  and  verse. 

Contributors 

Howard  Mumford  Jones  is  assistant  professor  of 
English  in  the  University  of  Montana.  He  is  the 
translator  of  Heine's  The  North  Sea,  and  the  author 
of  a  recently  published  volume  of  verse,  Gargoyles, 
and  of  various  short  stories. 

Wallace  Gould  is  the  author  of  Children  of  the 
Sun:  Rhapsodies  and  Poems  (Cornhill,  1917).  He 
is  a  resident  of  Madison,  Maine. 

The  other  contributors  to  this  issue  have  previously 
written  for  THE  DIAL. 

Leonora  Speyer  is  a  resident  of  New  York  City. 
Poems  of  hers  have  recently  appeared  in  various 
periodicals. 


1919 


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The  Symbolist  Movement  in  Literature  By  ARTHUR  SYMONS 

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YOUNG,  Author  of    Marching  on  Tanga.  LUCAS  WHITE,  Author  of  "El  Supremo." 

Indescribable    atmosphere    surrounds     this    uncommonly  vivM  hmintimr  rAstnrfltinna  nf  tho  enirit  ana  th^  ononpc 
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a  Foreword  by  Ben  Tillett,  M.  P.  .,  Ma8terpiece8  Of   comedy,"    the  critics   call   these  gay 

Rich  in  character  and  beauty  and  deeply  moving,   espe-  adventures    of    the    irresponsible    poet    of    Moutmartre, 

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NO  ONE  WHO  CARES  FOR  THE  "BIG"  THINGS  OF  LIFE  CAN  IGNORE  THE 
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The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apocalypse      Blood  and  Sand 

Translated     by     CHARLOTTE     BREWSTER  Translated  by  Mrs.  W.  A.  GILLESPIE 

Introduction  by  Dr.   ISAAC  GOLDBERG 

The  Shadow  of  the  Cathedral  /T-,      ,     .     T       x 

Translated  by  Mrs.  W.  A.  GILLESPIE  La  Bodega   (Ready  m  June) 

Foreword  by  WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS  Translated  by  Dr.  ISAAC  GOLDBERG 


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VOL.  LXVI                                                NEW  YORK  NO.  791 

MAY   31,    1919 

"KEEP  THE  FAITH" 533 

THE  REAL  SEM  BENELLI Robert  Morss  Lovett  534 

AMERICANIZATION  AND  WALT  WHITMAN    ...     .     Winifred  Kirkland  537 

AMERICANIZING  THE  IMMIGRANTS     .     ......     Carl  H.  Grabo  539 

THE  FEDERAL  SUFFRAGE  AMENDMENT.     .     .        .     .     Harold  J.  Laski  541 

AMERICAN  ART? Maxwell  Bodenheim  544 

AN  ATTITUDE  TOWARD  POETIC  REVOLT. Rollo  'Britten  545 

COQ    D'OR.     Verse     ...... Amy  Lowell  549 

MOOD.     Verse .     Maxwell  Bodenheim  549 

STEAMBOAT  NIGHTS.     Verse Carl    Sandburg  549 

A  PLAINT  OF  COMPLEXITY.     Verse Eunice   Tietjens  550 

REVEILLE.      Verse Lola    Ridge  551 

ON  THE   HILLS.     Verse Eden  Phillpotts  551 

INDUSTRY  AND  THE  CAPTAINS  OF  INDUSTRY  ....    Thor stein  Veblen  552 

CONRAD  AIKEN — METAPHYSICAL  POET.     .     .     .     John    Gould  Fletcher  558 

RAINER  MARIA  RILKE Martin  Schiitze  559 

THE  ROMANCE  OF  THE  REALISTS Babette  Deutsch  560 

THE    CULT   OF   BRUTALITY Louis    Untermeyer  562 

LONDON,    MAY    10 Edward  Shanks  563 

SUN  GLAMOUR.     Verse Hazel    Hall  564 

EDITORIALS    .    .  • 565     ' 

COMMUNICATIONS:      One    Future   for   American   Poetry.— The  Path  on  the  Rainbow.—  568 
The  School  Problem  in  Russia. — Brutes  in  Uniform. 

NOTES  ON  NEW  BOOKS:    The   Years   Between.— Lanterns  in  Gethsemane.— A  Study  of  ..  571 
English  Metrics. — Poems,  by  Gerard  Manley  Hopkins. — Poems,  by  Geoffrey  Dearmer. — 

^*tm  Poems,  by  Michael  Strange. — The  Drums  in  Our  Street. — Joyce  Kilmer:  Poems,  Essays, 
and  Letters. — Candles  That  Burn. — Anthology  of  Magazine  Verse:  1918. — The  Writing 
and  Reading  of  Verse. — How  to  Read  Poetry. — Books  of  the  Fortnight. 

A  SELECTED  LIST  OF  POETRY 580 

CURRENT  NEWS 582 

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Balzac,  Prosper  de  Merimee,  Gerard  de  Narvel,  Gustave  Flaubert,  Charles  Baudelaire,  Edmund  and  Jules  de  Goncourt, 
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JORDAN  Introduction  by  DR.  ISAAC  GOLDBERG 

The  Shadow  of  the  Cathedral  .      D    ,          /o     j       u     *.  T         ii\ 

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With  us  rests  the  choice  to  break  through  all  the  hypocrisies  and 
patent  cheats  and  masks  of  brute  force  and  help  set  the  world  free. — 
December  1917. 

No  nation  or  people  shall  be  robbed  or  punished  because  the  irre- 
sponsible rulers  of  a  single  country  have  themselves  done  deep  and 
abominable  wrong. — December  1917. 

The  day  of  conquest  and  aggrandizement  is  gone  by;  so  is  also  the 
day  of  secret  covenants. — January  1918. 

The  treatment  accorded  Russia  by  her  sister  nations  will  be  the  acid 
test  of  their  good  will. — January  1918. 

WOODROW  WILSON. 


JL\,  NATION  that  cannot  keep  its  promises  is  weak. 
A  nation  that  will  not  keep  its  promises  is  faithless. 
Within  the  next  few  weeks  the  American  people 
must  choose  either  to  admit  their  helplessness  or 
sanction  their  betrayal. 

In  entering  the  war  we  pledged  ourselves  to 
create  a  new  international  order.  Our  aim  was 
nothing  less  than  to  make  the  world  "  safe  for 
democracy."  Spurred  by  our  magnanimous  state- 
ment of  purposes  the  peoples  of  Europe,  weary  of 
the  riot  and  carnage  and  death,  stiffened  their  backs 
to  bear  a  little  while  longer  the  burden  of  the  war. 
Nearly  three  hundred  thousand  American  soldiers 
sealed  the  pledge  of  honor  with  their  blood.  Mil- 
lions more  stood  ready  to  make  the  sacrifice. 

The  arrangements  effected  by  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence are  a  mockery  of  our  democratic  faith  and  our 
idealistic  promises.  We  are  offered  a  "  peace " 
which  only  further  warfare  can  keep  intact.'  The 
League  of  Nations  has  become  a  bond  exacted  by 
usurers.  Not  for  such  a  pact  did  the  American 
people  pledge  their  lives  and  their  fortunes.  We 
sought  a  "  league  of  honor."  We  cannot  satisfy 
ourselves  with  the  sort  of  honor  that  is  found 
among  thieves.  To  accept  the  present  treaty  and 
covenant  would  betray  the  dead.  It  would  sell 
the  common  people  of  the  world  into  the  slavery  of 
perpetual  militarism.  It  would  smirch  the  honor 


and  blacken  the  historical  character  of  the  Ameri- 
can people. 

"  The  ultimate  peace  of  the  world  and  the  libera- 
tion of  its  peoples "  still  remain  to  be  achieved. 
The  Treaty  and  Covenant  block  the  path  to  a  new 
order.  Hence  THE  DIAL  rejects  the  Treaty  and 
demands  an  honest  Covenant.  Unless  the  Ameri- 
can people  have  the  moral  honesty  and  the  political 
force  to  back  up  this  demand,  their  promises  are 
flouted,  their  hopes  are  betrayed,  and  their  pledges 
annulled. 

Now  is  the  time  for  a  lineup.  On  one  side — 
submission,  reaction,  chaos,  and  warfare  without 
end.  On  the  other — .resistance,  progress,  order, 
and  the  foundations  of  a  genuine  peace.  THE  DIAL 
has  frankly  indicated  the  ground  upon  which  it 
stands.  It  believes  that  the  American  people  must- 
"  hold  their  purpose  and  their  honor  steady  to  a 
common  end,"  and  that  they  cannot  boast  them- 
selves a  iree  nation  unless  they  are  able  to  keep  the 
faith  they  have  plighted.  Holding  that  democracy 
itself  is  at  stake,  THE  DIAL  appeals  boldly  for 
popular  moral  support.  The  daily  press  is, venal. 
The  national  legislature  is  subservient.  The  liberal 
journals  must  serve. 

Will  you  help  us  keep  the  faith?  The  govern- 
ment has  failed.  The  American  people  must  finish 
the  job. 


534 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


The  Real  Sem  Benelli 


IN  ITALY  DURING  THE  YEARS  before  the  war  one 
heard  much  of  the  rising  fame  of  Sem  Benelli.  He 
was  a  Tuscan,  born  at  Prato — almost  a  Florentine. 
While  yet  in  his  twenties  he  was  the  author  of  a 
great  theatrical  success,  La  Cena  delle  Beffe,  as  well 
as  of  several  plays  upon  which  the  popular  verdict 
was  more  doubtful.  He  had  found  a  new  mode  of 
Italian  dramatic  poetry,  a  dolce  stil  nuovo.  In 
the  general  opinion  Italy  had  given  to  this  genera- 
tion a  second  romantic  and  poetic  dramatist  worthy 
to  stand  beside  D'Annunzio — and  Rostand.  But 
before  the  name  and  plays  of  Sem  Benelli  reached 
our  shores  the  war  intervened;  and  only  now,  ten 
years  after  its  brilliant  premiere  at  the  Teatro  dell'- 
Argentina,  comes  La  Cena  in  its  American  form  of 
The  Jest  to  Mr.  Hopkins'  theater  as  a  "  vehicle  " 
for  the  talents  of  the  Brothers  Barrymore. 

It  must  be  said  at  once  that  the  play  has  suffered 
a  sea-change.  La  Cena  delle  Beffe  is  in  the  origi- 
nal a  historical  play  of  character  and  atmosphere. 
D'Annunzio's  Francesca  da  Rimini  is  its  rival — a 
play  which  diffuses  from  the  old  story  immortalized 
by  Dante  the  very  mood  of  the  Middle  Age,  the 
spirit  in  which  the  Malatesti  and  Polentani  played 
their  desperate  match  in  Ravenna  and  Rimini,  as 
the  Baglioni  at  Perugia  or  the  Estensi  at  Ferrara — 
a  mood  of  threatening  gloom  as  of  winter,  a  spirit 
of  fierce  concentration  upon  self-preservation  and 
aggrandizement  relieved  at  moments  by  the  tender 
dawn  of  youth  and  spring,  by  a  flash  of  matchless 
beauty,  a  song  of  infinite  sweetness,  which  leads 
the  lovers  back  again  into  the  "  lightless  night  of 
night."  La  Cena  delle  Beffe  is  of  a  period  later  by 
two  centuries,  the  noon  of  high  Renaissance,  in  the 
Florence  of  the  magnificent  Lorenzo,  the  home  of 
artists  and  of  artists  in  life,  of  men  who  still  played 
with  the  same  counters  of  love  and  death,  but  in 
sport,  seeking  sources  of  new  sensation  in  subtle 
compounds  of  pleasure  and  fear,  finding  expression 
for  their  artistic  endeavor  in  giving  to  human  ex- 
perience strange,  grotesque,  and  yet  symmetrically 
exact  forms;  a  period  when  they  had  learned  to  act 
more  lightly,  to  dare  more  negligently,  to  bear 
themselves  more  gracefully,  to  pluck  the  exquisite 
moments  of  life  more  casually,  to  parody  the  great 
struggle  for  the  survival  of  the  fittest  with  a  jest, 
a  beffa,  and  to  make  the  jest  a  work  of  subtly  con- 
trived art.  Much  of  this  atmosphere  is  lost  in  the 
American  adaptation.  The  Barrymores  or  their 
adapter  have  chosen  to  see  in  the  play  a  melodrama, 
and  they  have  naturally  fallen  into  the  great  tradi- 


tion of  English  melodrama — the  late  Elizabethan. 
The  story  might  be  one  out  of  Boccaccio,  and  its 
treatment  is  reminiscent  of  the  way  in  which  the 
Elizabethans  used  that  storehouse  of  dramatic  ma- 
terial— with  this  difference,  that  no  decadent  fol- 
lower of  Shakespeare  would  have  chosen  this  story 
at  all.  To  the  Italians  of  the  Renaissance  the 
practical  joke  was  a  test  of  human  power  and  of 
that  adroitness  which  they  prized  above  strength, 
of  that  compound  of  human  forces  which  they 
called  virtu.  To  the  English  mind  it  is  but  a 
piece  of  ingenuity  aided  by  circumstance,  clever 
but  hardly  worth  telling.  Thus  in  the  Barry- 
mores'  version  we  have  the  effect  of  an  Elizabethan 
tragedy,  Middleton's  Changeling  or  Ford's  'Tis 
Pity  She's  a  Whore,  but  with  the  difference  that 
whereas  the  English  plays  have  a  basis  of  genuine 
passion  to  sustain  them,  the  Italian  lacks  that  raison 
d'etre.  Its  suffering  seems  gratuitous,  invented.  In 
other  words,  it  is  melodramic. 

Giannetto  Malespini  has  suffered  long  humilia- 
tion at  the  hands  of  two  brothers,  Neri  and  Ga- 
briello  Chiaramantesi,  bullies  from  Pisa.  Neri  has 
stolen  Giannetto's  lady-love  Ginevra,  and  the  two 
have  beaten  and  nearly  drowned  him.  Giannetto 
has  engaged  his  friend  Tornaquinci  to  give  a  supper 
to  which  he  invites  his  enemies.  Here  at  the  out- 
set the  adaptation  goes  wrong.  There  is  no 
authorization,  except  John  Barrymore's  prejudice, 
for  making  Giannetto  but  eighteen  years  old,  and 
the  story  of  persecution  on  his  way  to v  school  by 
the  older  boys,  who  compel  him  to  eat  twelve  blue- 
bottle flies,  however  true  to  American  life,  does 
not  belong  to  the  play.  Equally  baseless  is  the  ac- 
count of  the  grotesque  terture  inflicted  on  Gian- 
netto by  the  brothers,  which  is  _the  immediate  oc- 
casion of  his  revenge — his  trussing  up  on  a  barrel 
and  the  decoration  of  his  hinder  parts  with  pic- 
tures drawn  in  blood  with  a  knife.  The  possible 
reason  for  this  addition  seems  to  be  to  strengthen 
the  -motivation;  the  adapter  does  not  trust  to 
the  Renaissance  concept  of  a  jest  and  fears  that 
his  audience  will  find  the  play  -  top-heavy  with  its 
terrific  structure  of  revenge  built  upon  so  slight 
a  foundation.  The  same  reason  doubtless  explains 
the  metamorphosis  of  Ginevra  from  mistress  to 
fiancee — though  her  description  as  daughter  of  a 
fishmonger  seems  entirely  gratuitous,  perhaps  a 
reminiscence  of  Hamlet. 

Giannetto  begins  his  revenge  by  pitying  Ga- 
briello  for  his  hopeless  love  of  Ginevra,  and  on 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


535 


that  suggestion  the  younger  brother  departs.  He 
then  challenges  Neri  to  go  to  the  shop  of  Ceccherino 
in  armor  and  bearing  a  sword.  As  Neri  departs  he 
sends  word  to  the  bravi  at  the  fencing-school  that 
Neri  is  mad  and  must  be  seized — and  to  Lorenzo 
that  the  berfa  has  begun,  and  that  it  will  be  per- 
fidious and  beautiful. 

In  the  next  act  Ginevra  emerges  from  her  cham- 
ber to  hear  from  a  messenger  how  Neri  has  gone 
mad  and  is  in  bonds — she  is  astonished,  for  is  not 
Neri  within  ?  No,  it  is  Giannetto  who  comes  forth 
— a  thief  of  love — trembling  between  desire  and 
fear.  Here  again  the  American  adaptation  refines 
upon  the  original,  for  Giannetto  makes  it  clear  that 
there  has  been  nothing  between  them  less  innocent 
than  sleep.  Was  not  Ginevra  his  fiancee?  But 
this  change  makes  his  scene  with  Neri  (who  appears 
but  is  again  captured)  one  of  pure  boasting. 

Act  III  is  in  Neri's  prison.  He  is  tested  by  the 
appearance  of  those  who  hate  him,  women  whom 
he  has  betrayed.  One  of  them,  Lisabetta,  really 
loves  Neri  and  tells  a  falsehood  in  order  to  be 
brought  to  'him  among  the  others.  She  counsels 
him  to  feign  actual  madness  so  that  Giannetto  may 
free  him,  and  then  asks  that  he  be  given  into  her 
custody.  Giannetto  is  terribly  afraid,  but  he 
savors  his  fear  like  a  rare  fruit  or  wine — and  he 
is  mad  to  play  out  his  befra  to  the  end.  He  sets 
Neri  free: 

I  shall  be  [he  says]  this  evening  at  Ginevra's  house 
at  the  usual  hour.  If  you  come,  you  kill  me.  I  shall  be 
there!  You  know  how  danger  is  my  bread  and  my  wine. 
My  legs  tremble  when  I  reflect,  but  I  shall  be  there.  If 
you  are  mad  you  will  not  come ;  if  you  are  not,  I  find 
my  death. 

Act  IV  is  brief  as  a  spasm  of  passion  or  of  death. 
It  is  again  at  the  house  of  Ginevra.  Neri  forces 
her  to  receive  Giannetto,  meaning  to  kill  him  in 
her  arms.  Trembling  with  horror  she  agrees.  Into 
the  night  of  fear  comes  a  single  star — the  song  of 
a  boy  who  loves  Ginevra  and  sings  under  her  win- 
dow his  song  of  May.  A  man  enters  wearing  the 
mantle  of  flame  color  which  Giannetto  has  worn 
in  Act  I.  He  goes  in  to  Ginevra.  Higher  and 
higher  rises  the  boy's  song  of  May  into  the  sky 
black  with  murder.  There  is  a  double  cry  of  man 
and  woman.  Neri  emerges  with  his  bloody  dag- 
ger in  his  fist — in  the  American  version,  a  blood- 
stained white  mantle — to  be  confronted  by  the 
pallid  face  of  Giannetto,  trembling  in  the  joy  of  his 
completed  vengeance.  It  was  Gabriello,  whom 
love  of  Ginevra,  planted  by  Giannetto's  hate,  has 
lured  to  death — and  Neri  is  indeed  mad. 

In  the  acting,  likewise,  the  Barrymores  have  fallen 
back  on  the  Elizabethan  tradition.  John  Barry- 
more,  who  has  somehow  grasped  the  fact  that  his 
part  is  one  of  superheated  intelligence,  adopts  the 


pose  of  Hamlet,  though  his  appearance  is  rather 
that  of  Osric.  Lionel  Barrymore,  as  Neri,  carries 
off  the  first  act  with  bluff  bravado,  a  compound  of 
Falstaff  and  the  Ancient  Pistol.  In  one  moment 
indeed  he  raises  the  play  from  melodrama  to  pure 
tragedy,  when  in  Act  III  Jie  stands  chained  to  his 
pillar,  his  head  bowed,  his  face  hidden,  his  body  in- 
ert and  broken.  Even  Miss  Maud  Durand  (who 
is  excellent)  as  Ginevra's  servant  has  reminiscences 
of  Juliet's  nurse.  The  real  triumph  of  presenta- 
tion, as  has  been  generally  agreed,  is  that  of  the  set- 
tings by  Mr.  Robert  Edmond  Jones.  They  restore 
to  the  play  in  a  measure  that  of  which  adaptation  and 
interpretation  have  deprived  it — the  atmosphere  of 
its  period. 

La  Cena  delle  Beffe  is,  in  its  true  form,  a  great 
play  because  it  is  the  perfect  representation  of  char- 
acter in  action — although  the  action  is  but  a  jest. 
Benelli's  preoccupation  with  this  chief  of  dramatic 
problems,  the  relation  of  action  to  character,  can 
scarcely  be  understood  without  reference  to  his 
other  plays,  particularly  the  one  which  preceded 
La  Cena  and  which  might  be  called  its  antitype.  In 
The  Mask  of  Brutus  (La  Maschera  di  Bruto,  first 
acted  at  the  Teatro  Lirico,  Milan,  in  May  1908) 
he  chose  for  his  action  not  a  jest,  but  one  of  the 
famous  events  of  history,  one  of  those  deeds  which 
like  the  exploit  of  Judith  or  the  death  of  Samson 
or  the  temptation  of  Herod  have  fascinated  the  race 
by  its  drawing  together  of  human  forces  into  one 
moment  of  overwhelming  action.  Benelli's  action 
is  that  of  Lorenzino  dei  Medici  -(Lorenzaccio), 
who  murdered  his  bastard  cousin  Alessandro,  tyrant 
of  Florence  by  grace  of  the  Emperor  Charles  V, 
and  first  holder  of  the  hated  title  of  Grand  Duke  of 
Tuscany.  Lorenzino  has  always  been  a  baffling 
figure,  incarnating  within  himself  the  worst  vices 
and  weaknesses  of  rotting  Italy,  and  yet  strangely 
capable  of  a  deed  that  reminded  men  of  Cesare 
Borgia,  and  made  them  wonder  for  a  moment  if 
that  great  active  spirit  had  not  returned  to  earth 
to  bring  back  the  glories  of  the  days  when  the 
Renaissance  was  action,  and  human  character 
was  human  force.  This  personality  of  Loren- 
zino was  Benelli's  chief  attraction  to  the  story. 
He  loves  his  aunt  Caterina  with  that  mixture  of 
feeling,  filial,  fraternal,  passionate,  which  fasci- 
nated the  Renaissance  with  its  suggestion  of  being 
beyond  human  sin ;  and  twisted  into  this  theme  is 
his  love  of  Florence.  The  Grand  Duke  also  de- 
sires Caterina  and  Lorenzino  stabs  him.  Then 
fleeing  he  is  hailed  by  the  Florentine  exiles  as 
Brutus,  and  the  mask  once  assumed  he  can  never 
put  it  off.  At  the  court  of  Francis  I  of  France, 
where  he  is  an  exile,  Marguerite  of  Navarre,  with 
the  novelist's  instinct,  pursues  him.  Is  he  really 


536 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


sincere?  "As  falsehood,"  cries  Lorenzino.  At 
last  at  Venice,  he  confesses,  and  dies  by  the  hands 
of  Cosimo's  assassins.  » 

In  Lorenzino  Benelli  has  presented  a  character 
in  which  the  late  Renaissance  delighted,  a  man 
played  upon  by  conflicting  passions,  love  of  country, 
love  of  woman,  love  of  fame — themselves  capable  of 
assuming  strange  perverse  forms — a  personality  with 
motives  which  bear  no  fruit  in  deeds,  and  deeds 
which  have  no  honorable  parentage.  He  has  given 
us  a  drama  about  a  bastard  act,  written  with  the 
eloquence  of  deceit.  The  truth  of  the  play  is  its 
falsehood.  "  My  drama  respects  his  mask,"  says 
Benelli,  "  that  which  is  most  significant  and  most 
beautiful  in  him.  .  .  .  Art  is  also  a  game." 

Of  Benelli's  other  plays  The  Love  of  the  Three 
Kings  (L'Amore  dei  Tre  Re)  is  known  in  Amer- 
ica as  the  libretto  of  Montemezzis'  opera.  It  takes 
us  back  into  an  earlier  age,  forty  years  after  the  con- 
quest of  Italy  by  the  Lombards,  the  twilight  of  the 
world — the  period  of  D'Annunzio's  La  Nave.  The 
blind  old  Lombard  king  Archibaldo  recalls  the  con- 
quest: 

This  goddess,  rising  between  two  seas,  seemed  to  us 
solitary,  with  none  to  defend  her — alone,  unguarded, 
virgin,  who  to  the  panting  desire  of  us  barbarians  in- 
clined her  head,  timid,  shrouded  in  melancholy.  But  her 
members,  hardly  touched',  awoke  a  morbid  languor  which 
diffuses  itself  through  us  all.  And  here  with  her  we  sit, 
and  lie,  and  love,  and  never  one  of  us  will  leave  her, 
this  new  mistress,  all  fresh,  green,  golden — and  loving  her 
we  weep  that  she  is  our  slave,  not  our  mother,  because  if  she 
were  our  mother  she  would  teach  us  to  conquer  the  world. 

The  play  is  a  swift  tragedy.  The  son  of  Archi- 
baldo, Manfedo,  has  married  Fiora,  of  an  ancient 
Italian  family.  Her  former  betrothed,  Avito,  re- 
turns and  she  loves  him.  The  old  king's  blindness, 
which  prevents  him  from  seeing  and  avenging  the 
dishonor  of  his  house,  is  a  touch  of  tragedy  like 
the  presence  of  the  blind  wife  in  D'Annunzio's  La 
Citta  Morta.  Fiora  wavers  between  love  of  Avito 
and  returning  passion  for  Manfedo.  She  is 
strangled  by  the  old  king,  and  her  lovers  die  of  the 
poison  with  which  he  has  anointed  her  lips.  It  is 
the  allegory  of  Italy — "  the  woman  country,  woo'ed 
not  wed,  by  earth's  male  lands  " — and  her  hesitating 
betrayal  of  her  future  with  her  past. 

In  II  Mantellaccio,  1913,  to  choose  one  more 
of  Benelli's  plays,  he  comes  again  to  the  Renais- 
sance— to  the  seventeenth  century,  when  the  cul- 
ture of  Italy  had  stiffened  into  pedantry  and  her 
poetic  genius  had  become  an  affair  of  learned  clubs 
and  academies.  The  drama  opens  at  the  session  of 
the  Accademia  degli  Intemerati,  that  is  the  In- 
violate. The  members  are  trying  their  verses  on 
each  other.  Meanwhile  outside  the  sacred  portals 
the  Carnival  is  on.  A  group  of  ladies  enter, 


masked  as  precious  stones.  They  will  assist  at  the 
session  and  reward  with  a  suitable  prize  the  poet 
who  triumphs.  But  outside  rises  higher  the  song 
of  the  revellers : 

Enjoy  with  gladness 

For   tomorrow  comes   sadness. 

Christ  forsakes  never 

Him  who  sins  with  ardor. 

He  pardons  ever 

Who  repents  with  fervor. 

For  clearly  the  heart 

Which    forgiveness    would    win 

Must  know  well  the  wisdom: 

'Tis  human  to  sin. 

There  is  tumult  about  the  door  and  the  revellers 
rush  in.  They  are  the  company  of  the  Man- 
tellaccio— of  the  cloak — a  singing  company,  men  of 
the  people,  poets  as  well,  who  have  forced  the 
doors  of  the  Inviolate  to  let  in  a  little  fresh  air. 
It  is  agreed  that  they  shall  be  admitted  to  the  con- 
test, and  the  leader  of  the  masks,  the  Emerald, 
promises  to  show  her  face  to  the  victor  as  prize. 
L'Ardente  begins  a  canzone  in  the  Petrarchan 
manner,  but  the  lady  is  bored.  Then  the  Novice 
sings  for  the  Mantellaccio,  a  song  as  different  from 
L'Ardente's  as  Walther's  from  Beckmesser's.  The 
Novice  has  won.  Later  he  visits  the  Emerald  and 
tells  her  how  his  father  was  poet,  a  strolling  singer ; 
how  he  grew  up,  a  poet  of  nature;  how  love  of  her 
makes  him  more  than  ever  poet.  He  leaves  her, 
followed  by  L'Ardente,  who  forces  him  to  a  duel  and 
wounds  him  mortally,  as  the  Emerald  comes,  bring- 
ing too  late  the  love  that  would  have  saved  him. 

The  question  which  has  been  raised  in  regard 
to  the  verse  of  The  Jest  in  English,  calls  attention 
to  the  new  dramatic  medium  which  Sem  Benelli 
has  created.  He  has  taken  the  Italian  endecasyllabic 
line — the  established  measure  of  the  Italian 
poetic  drama  as  the  Alexandrine  is  of  French — and 
has  used  the  permissible  freedom  of  dividing  it  ac; 
cording  to  the  meaning  of  the  speaker,  and  varying 
the  value  of  syllables  according  to  the  natural 
rhythm  of  his  speech,  thus  obtaining  a  freedom 
that  is  comparable  to  that  achieved  by  Shakespeare  in 
his  later  plays,  and  by  the  dramatists  who  followed 
him,  making  of  the  rigid  blank  verse  a  kind  of 
colloquial  poetry.  In  other  words,  Benelli  has 
imposed  upon  the  established  line  of  the  Italian 
blank  verse  the  larger  rhythms  and  countless  contra- 
puntal effects  of  prose.  Italian  critics  regard  these 
innovations  as  re-creative.  It  is  easy  for  even  a 
foreign  reader  to  feel  how  smooth,  plastic,  undulat- 
ing, and  harmonious  is  Benelli's  verse;  how  natur- 
ally it  accommodates  itself  to  the  staccato  effect  of 
his  comic  speech  and  the  sonorous  majesty  of  his 
tragic  utterance — above  all  how  the  strain  of  fol- 
lowing the  thoughts  of  men  in  a  medium  in  which 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


537 


they  do  not  think  is  abolished.  We  can  conceive 
of  Benelli's  characters  thinking  in  such  verse  as  his. 
Another  Elizabethan  characteristic  of  Benelli  is 
his  feeling  for  the  word.  We  have  come  to  rec- 
ognize the  dramatic  value  of  language  itself — the 
difference  between  a  play  written  in  the  vital  speech, 
even  if  it  be  slang,  of  actual  life,  and  one  written 
in  poetic  or  literary  diction.  But  words  themselves 
live  and  move,  have  in  themselves  being,  expres- 
sion, action.  This  is  truer  of  Italian  words  than 
of  those  of  any  other  modern  speech.  Benelli's 
words  have  characters,  movements,  lineaments  of 
their  own.  They  are  noble,  generous,  bold,  false, 
cruel,  hateful;  they  bear  themselves  boldly,  rear 
themselves  proudly;  they  fly,  or  they  crawl,  sneak, 
crouch,  prowl;  they  smile,  frown,  grin,  weep;  they 
storm  and  roar;  they  groan,  mutter,  hiss.  We  look 
on  their  faces  as  on  living  forms.  All  this  gives 
an  effect  as  of  a  kind  of  internal  drama  to  his 
printed  page.  As  Giannetto  tells  of  his  persecu- 
tion at  the  hands  of  the  brutal  Chiaramentesi  and 
.takes  revenge  to  be  his  mistress,  we  hear  his  suffer- 
ing in  the  great  sobbing  words,  and  read  his  fero- 
cious resolution  in  their  bitter  smiles  and  grinding 
teeth. 


And  now  for  the  final  effect  of  his  drama — is  it 
anything  more  than  an  assembly  of  scenes  recalled 
from  the  past,  a  little  local  color,  a  few  baffling  fig- 
ures set  in  clear  light,  a  new  collection  of  human 
types,  pathetic,  aspiring,  grotesque,  a  few  new-old 
phases  of  the  endless  struggle  of  man  with  man  and 
with  himself  for  the  meager  gifts  of  the  gods — love 
and  freedom  and  truth  and  unity?  One  is  tempted 
to  answer,  protestingly,  yes — but  there  are  Benelli's 
own  words  on  the  first  page  of  La  Cena  delle  Beffe : 

This  poetic  comedy  is  dedicated  to   Giulio   di  Frenzi,      . 
beloved  brother,  who  upon  the  shifting  sand  of  art  knows 
well  how  to  trace  and  mark  with  his  painful  and  subtile 
pen  the  bounds  of  our  evil — eternal  and  uniform,  infinite, 
monotonous. 

If  this  is  all  that  Benelli  will  claim  for  his  friend 
it  were  impertinence  to  claim  more  for  himself. 
This  is  his  philosophy  and  reason  of  art — to  in- 
spire the  eyes,  to  stir  the  senses,  to  quicken  the 
pulses,  to  spur  the  lagging  step,  to  purge  the  mind 
of  illusion  and  the  soul  of  fear,  to  give  higher  value 
to  the  moments  as  they  pass — the  art  of  relief  and 
escape — truly  romantic  and  fundamentally  pessi- 
mistic, as  is  all  romance." 

ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT. 


Americanization  and  Walt  Whitman 


A 


.MERICANIZATION  is  a  word  now  frequent  in 
print  and  on  our  tongues.  The  past  five  years  have 
waked  us  abruptly  to  the  fact  that  our  cherished 
melting  pot  has  in  many  instances  conspicuously 
failed  to  fuse,  and  with  laudable  energy  but 
lamentable  precipitancy  we  have  rushed  to  find 
remedies.  Suggestions  for  the  speediest  possible 
making  of  an  alien  into  an  American  are. crowded 
upon  legislators  and  educators.  It  is  no  lack  of 
patriotism  but  quite  the  contrary  that  makes  the 
more  thoughtful  pause  for  a  moment  of  self-ques- 
tion, as  to  what  are  these  American  ideals  which 
we  are  so  eager  to  teach  to  our  immigrants.  The 
American  spirit  does  not  seem  so  easy  to  label 
when  one  tries  to  translate  it  into  curricula  or 
laws.  Love  of  country  is  as  sensitive  an  emotion 
to  expose  to  methods  of  efficiency  as  love  of  God. 
Humbly  one  wonders  how  so  beautiful  a  thing  as 
the  spirit  of  America,  that  spirit  for  which  once  our 
fathers  and  lately  our  sons  have  died,  is  to  be 
transmitted  to  the  ignorant  and  down-trodden  who 
seek  our  shores  of  promise.  It  is  the  priceless  gift 
we  would  bestow  with  adoption,  but  the  actual 
details  of  how  to  give  it  make  one  look  about  help- 
lessly for  a  textbook,  make  one  ponder  how  to  equip 
teachers  to  impart  so  sacred  a  study. 


In  a  recent  Atlantic  appeared  an  article  entitled 
What  America  Means  to  an  Englishwoman.  One 
pregnant  paragraph  gives  a  reader  pause:  "  If  you 
ask  me  what  is  essentially  American  and  could  not 
have  been  born  anywhere  else,  I  can  only  think  of 
The  Education  of  Henry  Adams,  the  Introduction 
to  Victor  Chapman's  Letters,  and  Walt  Whitman, 
the  Rodin  of  poetry."  The  juxtaposition  of  names 
is  provocative,  but  there  is  no  reader  who  would 
not  agree  that  the  last  is  preeminent  in  expressing 
what  America  means  to  an  American.  Poet  and 
prophet  and  patriot,  Whitman  is  still  the  supreme 
spokesman  of  American  democracy.  To  many  of 
us  the  poems  of  Whitman  have  taught  more  than 
we  could  ever  otherwise  have  known  of  our  own 
patriotism;  and  because  of  their  proved  inspiration 
to  Americans,  they  are  perhaps  best  fitted  to  em- 
body for  an  alien  the  spirit  of  his  new  country. 
This  is  far  from  saying  that  Whitman  is  not  too 
strong  a  draught  to  be  offered  untransmuted  to  a 
foreigner,  but  that  there  is  no  book  so  well  fitted 
to  clarify  and  vivify  for  the  teacher  of  Americaniza- 
tion his  own  ideals. 

The  mere  name  Walt  Whitman  brings  an  in- 
stant exhilaration  like  the  sudden  sight  of  the  stars 
and  stripes  billowing  on  the  breeze.  Like  the  flag 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


his  name  connotes  space,  for  his  descriptions  touch 
as  vast  and  varied  a  territory  as  that  over  which 
the  flag  floats.  Pride  of  place  is  a  foundation 
element  in  patriotism,  the  one  that  constrains  it  to 
take  certain  individual  forms  of  expression  in  na- 
tional character  and  action  and  literature.  The 
Swiss  is  molded  by  his  mountains,  the  Hollander 
by  his  dykes,  the  Norwegian  by  his  mysterious 
dark  and  daylight;  the  American,  if  he  is  to  be  true 
inheritor  of  the  land  that  has  been  given  him, 
needs  to  tune  his  soul  to  wide  spaces,  unchained 
cataracts,  limitless  prairie,  and  to  cities  seething 
with  incredible  .energy.  There  is  no  poet  but 
Whitman  fitted  to  be  the  poet  of  all  these  United 
States.  His  song  cannot  be  chained  to  any  one 
locality.  His  pictures  flash  on  us  reminiscence  from 
the  Adirondacks  to  Florida,  from  his  busy  Manhat- 
tan to  California.  We  too  need  to  be  spacious 
people  like  Whitman  if  we  are  to  be  worthy  heirs, 
so  that  we  can  say  with  him : 

I  inhale  great  draughts  of  space; 

The  east  and  the  west  are  mine,  and  the  north  and  the 
south  are  mine. 

Genuine  patriotism  is  always  expressive  of  place 
in  no  vague,  but  in  most  specific  correspondence  of 
national  character  to  national  geography.  Not  only 
should  vastness  and  variety  somehow  translate 
themselves  into  our  national  qualities,  but  we 
should  reflect  in  our  energy  some  of  the  limitless 
resources  and  fecundity  of  our  land.  No  poet  has 
celebrated  this  native  energy  with  more  inspira- 
tion for  our  efforts  than  Whitman.  His  farm 
scenes  are  always  busy;  "  the  song  of  the  broad  axe" 
rings  through  his  forests;  cities  and  factories  teem 
with  life.  There  is  no  remoteness  of  reverie  about 
this  poet  of  a  pioneer  people.  He  celebrates  always 
a  tireless  activity.  Yet  American  energy  as  Whit- 
man expresses  it  is  never  fevered  but  always  pur- 
poseful. Voicing  ideals  for  industry  that  we  should 
like  to  cherish  and,  in  spite  of  his  sturdy  realism, 
suppressing  that  sordidness  of  toil  which  we  should 
like  to  annul,  Whitman  always  paints  work  as 
joyous.  For  him  the  singing  man  had  not  vanished 
— perhaps  Whitman's  own  singing,  if  only  we 
listen,  may  some  day  bring  him  back,  as  Whitman 
knew  him : 

I  hear  America  singing,  the  varied  carols  I  hear ;~~ 
Those   of  mechanics — each   singing  his,   as   it  should   be, 
blithe   and    strong. 

Always  Whitman  viewed  the  vitality  of  Amer- 
ica as  essentially  a  pjoneer  vitality,  the  health  and 
courage  and  force  of  men  brave  enough  to  build 
a  new  world.  In  Whitman's  lifetime  he  saw  this 
pioneer  activity  chiefly  applied  to  actual  frontier 
conditions,  but  his  vision  reached  into  the  future 
and  imaged  other  frontiers  for  his  nation  to  ad- 


venture. It  is  significant  for  us  today  that  his 
clarion  call  to  courage  "Pioneers!  O  Pioneers" 
should  be  placed  under  the  general  heading  of 
Marches  Now  the  War  is  Over.  Today  when  the 
world  is  again  breathless  and  spent  over  this  latest 
war  for  freedom,  we  need  again  Whitman's  ring- 
ing incentive: 

Have  the  elder  races  halted? 

Do  they  droop  and  end  their  lesson,  wearied  over  there, 

beyond  the  seas? 
We  take   up  the  task  eternal,   and   the  burden,   and   the 

lesson, 
Pioneers !     O  pioneers ! 

Above  all  other  American  ideals  for  which  we 
may  turn  to  Whitman  to  find  expression  and  re- 
inforcement of  our  own  conviction,  a  catholic 
breadth  of  hospitality  is  paramount.  The  United 
States  is  an  entity  fused  from  myriad  nations  to 
each  of  which  each  of  us  owes  something.  No 
land  ever  befriended  the  foreigner  so  generously 
as  ours,  and  the  grace  of  that  sympathy  is  some- 
thing we  must  hold  fast  if  we  are  to  be  worthy 
of  the  sacred  trust  of  transmitting  the  soul  of 
America  to  the  soul  of  the  stranger.  Because  with- 
in these  last  tragic  years  there  has  been  sporadic 
abuse  of  our  welcome,  we  must  not  forget  that 
the  loyal  have  outnumbered  the  traitorous  a 
thousand  to  one.  We  need  to  turn  to  Whitman 
that  we  may  more  surely  recall  our  clearer  motives 
before  the  heat  and  hatred  of  a  world  war.  Whit- 
man too  was  fresh  from  a  conflict  where  cruelty 
and  oppression  had  almost  prevailed,  but  his 
sympathy  was  not  abated.  If  some  of  the  strangers 
within  our  gates  have  failed  us,  others  by  the 
thousands  have  braved  death  to  vindicate  the  ideals 
of  our  United  States — and  theirs.  To  these  and 
to  others  of  their  kind  we  owe  all  that  we  long  to 
bestow  under  the  complex  and  subtle  term  Amer- 
icanization. There  was  no  man  of  whatever  race 
or  color  or  country  that  Whitman's  sympathy  could 
not  have  found  a  way  to  reach : 

This  moment  yearning  and  thoughtful,  sitting  alone, 

It  seems  to  me  there  are  other  men  in  other  lands,  yearn- 
ing and  thoughtful ; 

It  seems  to  me  I  can  look  over  and  behold  them,  in 
Germany,  Italy,  France,  Spain — or  far,  far  away,  in 
China,  or  in  Russia  or  India — talking  other  dialects; 

And  it  seems  to  me  if  I  could  know  those  men,  I  should 
become  attached  to  them,  as  I  do  to  men  in  my  own 
lands; 

O,  I  know  we  should  be  brethren  and  lovers, 

I  know  I  should  be  happy  with  them. 

Of  all  the  pioneer  adventure  that  Whitman 
coveted  for  his  countrymen  there  was  none  dearer 
to  him  than  the  difficult  and  daring  adventure  of 
brotherhood : 

I  will  establish  in  the  Mannahatta,  and  in  every  city  of 

these  States,  inland  and  seaboard, 
And  in  the  fields  and  woods,  and  above  every  keel,  little 

or  large,  that  dents  the  water, 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


539 


Without  edifices,  or  rules,  or  trustees,  or  any  argument, 
The  institution  of  the  dear  love  of  comrades. 

Over  and  over  again,  Whitman's  poems  affirm 
the  New  World  welcome  to  the  Old  World  im- 
migrant: 

All  you  continentals  of  Asia,  Africa,  Europe,  Australia, 

indifferent  of  place! 
All  you  on  the  numberless  islands  of  the  archipelagoes  of 

the   sea ! 

And  you  of  centuries  hence,  when  you  listen  to  me! 
And  you,  each  and  everywhere,  whom  I  specify  not,  but 

include  just  the  same! 
Health   to  you!      Good   will   to  you   all — from   me   and 

America  sent. 


For  the  teacher  humble  enough  to  feel  that  he 
himself  needs  instruction  before  he  shall  presume 
to  teach  Americanization,  there  is  no  nobler  text- 
book than  the  poems  of  Whitman.  If  only  we 
can  breathe  his  inspiration  deeply  enough  we  may 
safely  leave  all  the  details  of  its  application  to 
American  efficiency.  More  simply  stated,  if  we 
can  succeed  in  being  as  good  Americans  as  was  Walt 
Whitman,  we  shall  know  how  to  make  good 
Americans  of  other  people. 

WINIFRED  KIRKLAND. 


Americanizing  the  Immigrants 


J.  HE  TRUE  PATRIOT,  it  is  to  be  assumed,  welcomes 
sincere  criticism  of  his  country  and  is  a  bit  embar- 
rassed when  her  praises  are  sung;  if  by  foreigners, 
suspecting  them  of  flattery;  if  by  the  native-born, 
of  emptiness  or  worse.  Best  praise  and  criticism  of 
all  is  that  of  the  naturalized  American,  caring 
enough  for  his  new  home  to  become  a  citizen,  yet 
possessing  standards  of  comparison,  the  inheritor  of 
benefits  from  another  land.  Though  one  of  the  fam- 
ily, he  is,  like  an  -adopted  son,  a  bit  detached  in 
spirit,  one  fitted  to  take  notes. 

It  is  somewhat  unjust  to  the  Rev.  Enrico  C.  Sar- 
torio  in  quoting  from  his  book,  Social  and  Religious 
Life  of  Italians  in  America  (Christopher  Publishing 
House;  Boston)  to  emphasize  his  criticisms  of  the 
country  of  his  adoption,  for  he  is  ardently  patriotic 
and  sanguine  of  the  future.  So  too  in  citing  from 
Mr.  Horace  J.  Bridges'  essays,  On  Becoming  an, 
American  (Marshall  Jones;  Boston),  for  Mr. 
Bridges  sees  more  clearly  than  nine  out  of  ten  of 
the  native-born  whatever  is  great  and  good  in  the 
American  spirit  and  tradition.  Yet  in  both  it  is  from 
their  strictures  and  their  suggestions  of  amendment 
that  we  can  derive  most  profit,  particularly  at  this 
time  when  there  is  under  way  a  widespread  move- 
ment to  Americanize  the  immigrant  more  efficiently 
than  in  the  past.  For  in  how  few  quarters  is  there 
any  clear  notion  of  what  Americanization  means. 

That  there  are  more  Italians  in  New  York  City 
than  in  Rome,  in  Philadelphia  more  than  in  Flor- 
ence, is  perhaps  no  news  to  the  socially  informed; 
but  such  comparisons  are  nevertheless  always  illu- 
minating, awakening  us  anew  to  our  obligations  to 
this  race — but  one  of  many — if  it  is  to  become  an 
integral  part  of  our  national  life.  We  know  too 
that  the  Italians  largely  build  our  railroads  and  sup- 
ply much  of  the  unskilled  labor  upon  which  the 
country  has  hitherto  based  its  economic  prosperity. 
Steiner  is  quoted  as  estimating  that  ten  thousand 


foreigners  a  year  "  lay  down  their  lives  diggntg  coal, 
making  steel,  blasting  stones,  and  doing  the  number- 
less dangerous  drudgeries  of  the  industrial  life  of 
the  country."  In  return  the  immigrant  is  exploited 
at  every  turn,  receives  little  or  no  compensation  for 
industrial  accidents,  and  crowds  the  slums  of  our  cit- 
ies, forming  colonies  where  he  may  live  among  his 
countrymen  and  speak  their  language.  He  learns, 
consequently,  little  English,  and  is  seldom  natural- 
ized. Being  often  a  tiller  of  the  soil — the  South 
Italians  mostly  so — he  finds  in  city  life  little  exercise 
for  his  knowledge,  nor  are  his  many  excellent  virtues 
such  as  suffice  him,  unaided,  to  endure  for  long  the 
strain  of  new  conditions.  Says  Mr.  Sartorio:  "  In 
Italy  we  know  the  difference  between  a  peasant  who 
has  lived  there  always,  and  one  who  has  spent  a  few 
years  in  America  and  then  goes  back.  The  former 
is  poorer,  but  the  latter  is  quite  often  rotten." 

Despite  the  fine  work  done  by  Hull  House  in  Chi- 
cago, and  similar  agencies,  we  do  not  as  a  people 
make  any  effort  to  understand  our  immigrants  or  to 
aid  them.  To  quote  again  from  Mr.  Sartorio: 

Where  does  the  fault  lie?  In  prejudice  and  indiffer- 
ence, and  in  the  spirit  of  patronage.  Americans  who 
judge  by  appearances,  who  have  not  traveled  in  Italy 
or  studied  modern  Italian  life,  scornfully  turn  away  from 
the  Italian  immigrant  because  he  is  not  clean-shaven  or 
as  well-kempt  as  the  American  w.orkingman.  Other 
Americans  do  not  concern  themselves  with  foreigners. 
They  have  a  vague  knowledge  that  there  is  somewhere 
in  some  God-forsaken  corner  of  the  city,  a  foreign  popu- 
lation, and  that  is  all. 

The  American  point  of  view  is  compactly  expressed 
in  the  remark  cited  from  the  report  of  a  group  of 
social  workers:  "  Not  yet  Americanized;  still  eating 
Italian  food." 

The  Bureau  of  Naturalization,  presumably  in- 
tended to  be  of  constructive  service  in  the  process  of 
Americanization,  replies  to  the  applicant  for  citizen- 
ship papers  with  a  letter  stating  that  "It  .  .  . 
wants  to  help  you  to  get  a  better  position  that  pays 


54-0 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


you  more  money  for  your  work,"  and  adds  that 
"  the  superintendent  of  the  public  schools  of  your 
city  has  promised  to  teach  you  the  things  you  should 
know  to  help  you  to  get  a  better  position."  A  let- 
ter not  designed,  surely,  to  awake  in  the  new  citi- 
zen the  ideals  either  of  Garibaldi  or  Lincoln,  but 
justifying  him  in  his  belief  that  Americans  care  only 
for  money  and  worldly  success.  Of  governmental 
bureaus  one  does  not,  of  course,  expect  much  spirit- 
ual vision.  Yet  the  churches  are  no  better.  Mr. 
Sartorio  cites  a  conference  of  representatives  of  all 
the'  Evangelical  churches  to  consider  extensive  re- 
ligious work  among  the  foreigners  of  the  community. 
"  Not  a  single  representative  of  the  different  foreign 
colonies  was  invited.  .  .  .  The  good  repre- 
sentatives of  that  gathering  felt  no  need  of  advice 
from  the  educated  leaders  of  the  different  races 
which  they  desired  to  influence." 

Mr.  Sartorio's  suggestion  of  one  means  whereby 
in  the  naturalizing  process,  which  now  affects  al- 
most solely  the  second  generation,  much  needless 
pain,  -  cultural  loss,  and  even  criminality  may  be 
obviated  will  doubtless  fall  coldly  upon  the  ears 
of  those  patriotic  Americans  who  feel  that  the  best 
and  quickest  way  to  naturalize  the  foreigner  is  as 
soon  as  possible  to  make  him  forget  his  native  speech, 
substituting  therefor,  in  the  public  schools,  commer- 
cial Spanish  in  view  of  the  commercial  possibilities 
(somewhat  dubious)  of  Latin  America: 

The  children  of  foreign  extraction  learn  English  and, 
as  very  little  is  done  in  school  to  make  them  keep  up 
the  language  of  their  parents,  they  soon  forget  it,  with 
the  result  that  their  home  life  is  destroyed.  .  .  .  It  is  sad 
to  notice  the  patronizing  attitude  that  the  child  assumes 
towards  his  father  and  mother  after  a  few  months  in  the 
public  school.  .  .  .  When  I  discuss  the  matter  with 
teachers  in  the  public  schools,  I  become  aware  that  they 
possess  a  holy  horror  of  teaching  children  the  language 
and  history  of  Italy.  In  my  opinion  the  way  to  preserve 
the  home  life  of  the  children  of  immigrants  is  to  teach 
through  the  language  and  history  of  their  fathers  that 
in  every  country  men  and  women  have  always  been 
ready  to  sacrifice  their  personal  interest  for  the  sake 
of  their  country.  By  making  these  children  realize  that 
they  are  connected  by  blood  with  a  race  of  glorious  tradi- 
tions, and  by  adoption  have  come  to  belong  to  a  country 
which  has  also  a  glorious  past,  the  love  for  America  will 
be  kept  in  their  hearts  without  their  acquiring  a  feeling 
of  contempt  for  their  fathers'  country. 

Mr.  Bridges,  English  born  and  trained  in  the  Eng- 
lish tradition,  making  his  home  in  the  United  States 
only  when  he  was  mature,  and  after  careful  consid- 
eration, conceives  it  to  be  the  "  business  of  America , 
to  produce  a  new  type  of  national  character  and  civ- 
ilization by  the  cross-fertilization  of  the  many  cul- 
tural types  which  the  Republic  has  absorbed  and  is 
absorbing."  This  thesis  he  develops  at  length,  it 
being  his  conviction  that  hybrid  civilizations  have 
always,  as  history  shows,  been  culturally  the  most 
rich.  In  the  United  States  we  have  now,  undevel- 


oped and  unappreciated,  the  materials  for  a  new  and 
richer  civilization  than  the  world  has  yet  seen : 

It  is  an  astonishment  to  me  that  so  few  Americans  seem 
aware  of  the  great  educational  opportunity  which  lies 
at  their  doors,  through  contact  with  their  fellow-citizens 
of  alien  origin.  One  would  have  .expected  a  priori  that 
familiarity  with  foreign  languages  would  be  more  gen- 
eral among  Americans  than  among  any  other  people. 
Yet  the  fact,  I  fear,  is  precisely  the  opposite  of  this.  My 
impression,  tested  on  a  fairly  large  scale,  is  that  among 
native-born  Americans  there  are  comparatively  few  who 
are  really  at  home  in  the  language  and  literatures  of 
continental  Europe.  .  .  .  We  blame  our  foreigners  for 
their  clannishness.  We  resent  the  fact  that  they  sequester 
themselves  among  people  of  their  own  race,  and  do  not 
take  the  trouble  to  understand  our  language  or  our  his- 
tory and  institutions ;  but  we  are  guilty  of  an  exactly 
analogous  piece  of  provincialism  when  we  betray  our 
unwillingness  to  learn  from  them,  while  expecting  them  to 
learn  from  us. 

Mr.  Bridges  objects  to  our  favorite  figure  of 
speech,  "  the  melting  pot,"  as  one  utterly  unsuited  to 
define  the  Americanizing  process.  "  There  is,"  he 
observes,  "  no  such  thing  as  humanity-in-general, 
into  which  the  definite,  heterogeneous,  living  creat- 
ure can  be  melted  down.  .  .  .  There  is  no  hu- 
man mould  in  America  to  which  the  spiritual  stuff 
of  the  immigrant  is  to  be  patterned.  Not  only  is 
there  as  yet  no  fixed  and  final  type,  but  there  never 
can  be."  He  adds  that  "  the  very  genius  of  democ- 
racy, moreover,  must  lead  us  to  desire  the  widest 
possible  range  of  variability,  the  greatest  attain- 
able differentiation  of  individuality,  among  our  pop- 
ulation. .  .  .  The  business  of  America  is  to  get 
rid  of  mechanical  uniformity,  and,  by  encouraging 
the  utmost  possible  differentiation  through  mental 
and  psychic  cross- fertilization,  to  attain  to  a  higher 
level  of  humanity." 

Mr.  Bridges  would  have  the  foreign-language 
press  fostered  rather  than  discouraged,  not  only  to 
afford  Americans  an  opportunity  to  learn  of  their 
neighbors,  for  he  would  have  every  American  read 
at  least  one  foreign  language  paper,  but  also  as  a 
means  to  genuine  Americanization  of  the  foreign- 
born  and  their  acquaintance  with  the  spirit  and 
ideals  of  the  Republic.  Foreign  societies  are  likewise 
one  of  the  best  means  to  Americanization  and  serve 
another  purpose  only  less  important: 

Let  them  keep  alive  Italian  and  German  music  and 
literature,  Balkan  handicrafts,  and  the  folk-lore  and  folk 
dances  of  the  Old  World; — not  for  the  sake  of  the  Old 
World,  but  as  elements  contributory  to  American  culture. 
Let  them  spend  as  much  time  in  bringing  the  spirit  and 
meaning  of  American  institutions  home  to  their  members 
as  in  bringing  home  to  Americans  the  spirit  and  meaning 
of  their  European  traditions. 

As  a  specific  means  to  "  cultural  cross-fertiliza- 
tion "  Mr.  Bridges  suggests  that  every  immigrant 
be  a  member  not  only  of  a  society  of  his  own  national 
origin,  but  "  also  a  member  of  an  international 
society  composed  of  representatives  of  as  many 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


different  peoples  as  possible."  The  native-born,  like- 
wise, for  the  good  of  his  soul  and  the  eradication  of 
his  provincialism,  should  be  a  member  of  an  inter- 
national society.  Intermarriage  between  persons  of 
different  national  descent,  which  is  also  advocated, 
can  be  safely  left,  one  imagines,  to  take  care  of  it- 
self. But  the  establishment  of  municipal  theaters 
in  which  plays  in  all  languages  shall  be  presented, 
a  useful  and  timely  suggestion,  will  need  to  be 
pushed  if  it  is  to  be  realized. 

In  the  light  of  these  suggestive  books  it  is  some- 
what depressing  to  turn  to  the  state  policy  of  Amer- 
icanization initiated  by  the  Delaware  State  Council 
of  Defense.  The  motive  is  frankly  commercial. 
Fearful  that  the  end  of  the  war  is  to  see  an  exodus 
of  workers  from  Delaware  to  other  fields  of  indus- 
try or  to  their  native  lands,  "  the  most  hard-headed 
men  have  come  to  see  that  the  way  to  attract  work- 
men is  to  attach  them  to  the  community."  The 
pamphlet  of  the  League  continues: 

Some  of  the  employers  take  it  out  in  throwing  up  their 
hands  and  cursing  the  scum  of  Europe.  .  .  A  few 
enlightened  employers,  however,  see  that  they  can  control 
this  situation  just  as  they  have  controlled  many  other 
difficulties  in  business  by  an  enlightened  cooperative 
policy.  Letting  the  situation  alone  means  leaving  it  to 
the  I.  W.  W.  and  to  other  forces  of  disintegration.  Radi- 
cal agents  depend  always  upon  the  ignorance  of  the  men 
as  their  chief  asset  for  their  purposes.  As  soon  as  the  man 
understands  English  and  has  some  glimmering  of  Ameri- 
can ideals  and  becomes  attached  to  some  given  com- 
munity, he  is  a  less  hopeful  prospect  for  the  I.  W.  W. 

The  "  enlightened  "  policy  of  the  Delaware  State 
Council  of  Defense  is  obviously  at  best,  but  enlight- 
ened self-interest  stimulated  by  fear.  And  yet  it 
would  be  unjust  wholly  to  dismiss  their  declaration 
on  this  ground.  That  industrial  managers  in  Del- 


aware have  anything  to  learn  from  the  foreigners  in 
their  midst  is  a  thought  that  has,  indeed,  ntver  en- 
tered their  innocent  hard  heads,  or  that  the  cultural 
richness  of  the  state  could  be  enhanced  by  grafting 
upon  it  the  culture  of  Poland  and  Italy.  Neverthe- 
less the  night  schools  they  have  established  to  teach 
English  and  civil  government  will  do  something 
to  make  the  immigrant  a  better  prospective  citizen, 
and  a  gleam  of  light  is  evident  in  the  statement  that 
"  Americanization  is  a  two-fold  matter,  it  carries 
a  practical  industrial  advantage,  and  is  also  a  means 
of  producing  better  citizenship  in  the  communities  of 
this  state."  And,  again :  "  Americanization  is  above 
all  else  a  cooperative  activity;  impose  it  upon  the 
foreigner,  and  he  will  repudiate  it ;  plan  it  with  him, 
and  he  will  carry  his  share  of  the  load."  Perhaps, 
with  a  better  and  more  permanent  citizenship  of  for- 
eign extraction,  cultural  benefits  will  in  time  ensue. 
More  is  involved  in  this  problem  of  Americaniza- 
tion than  the  cultural  enrichment  of  our  national 
life  and  the  conversion  of  our  present  provincial 
spirit.  In  the  internationalism  which  is  coming, 
peace  among  the  nations  and  their  cooperation  to 
the  larger  ends  of  a  world  civilization  are  depend- 
ent upon  the  good  will  and  reciprocal  understand- 
ing among  men  of  diverse  stocks  and  cultures.  If  we 
are  to  work  with  Russian,  Frenchman,  Italian,  and 
German  to  the  attainment  of  our  common  welfare 
and  security,'  the  first  step  to  that  end  is  a  greater 
sympathy  with  and  appreciation  of  the  foreigners 
now  among  us.  If  we  truly  absorb  them,  and  are 
modified  by  contact  with  them  as  they  by  us,  we 
shall  be  better  prepared  to  assume  our  duties  in  the 

League  of  Nations.  ~         TT    ~ 

CARL  H.  GRABO. 


The  Federal  Suffrage  Amendment 


U 


THE  PRINCIPLE  of  women's  suffrage  there 
can  now  be  no  further  debate.  Every  device  of 
unreason  has  been  exhausted  by  its  opponents,  and 
their  arguments  have  long  since  been  relegated  to 
the  museums  of  political  antiquities.  The  contest 
has  now  been  shifted  to  a  different  field.  Of  federal 
suffrage  by  constitutional  amendment  we  are  now 
certain;  and  the  only  point  at  issue  is  the  actual 
date  of  its  passage.  That  has  raised  an  interesting 
question  of  political  method.  The  most  representa- 
tive of  the  suffrage  societies,  headed  by  Dr.  Shaw 
and  Mrs.  Chapman  Catt,  proceed  upon  the  ordinary 
assumptions  of  the  classical  theory  of  representative 
government.  Men,  so  they  urge,  are  the  creatures 
of  reason  and  the  suffrage  has  an  unanswerable  case. 
They  have  only  to  put  confidence  in  the  resistless 


logic  of  the  facts  to  secure  their  goal.  Speeches, 
deputations,  pamphlets,  the  record  of  women's 
achievement  and  the  results  of  the  vote  in  suffrage 
states — here  is  the  material  for  a  campaign  of  which 
the  success  is  ultimately  certain.  Even  Senator 
Lodge  must  one  day  feel  his  antiquarianism ;  for 
right  and  truth  are  bound  in  the  end  to  prevail. 
And  it  is  upon  a  charming  insistence  upon  the,  in- 
tellectual case  for  the  vote  that  they  have  laid  all 
the  emphasis  of  their  effort. 

In  a  bopk  that  is  already  a  decade  old,  Mr. 
Graham  Wallas  laid  down  a  thesis  which  suggested 
that  human  nature  is  in  fact  more  complex  than 
this  easy  Benthamism  would  seem  to  suggest.  John 
Stuart  Mill  wrote  an  unanswerable  argument  for 
women  suffrage  in  the  sixties;  arid  if  logic  was  the 


542 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


main  element  in  politics  suffrage  for  women  would 
have  found  its  place  in  the  Reform  Act  of  1867. 
In  fact,  the  struggle  took  fifty  years;  and  to  anyone 
who  looks  back  over  the  last  ten  years  of  its  history 
in  England  the  psychology  of  the  movement  will 
be  seen  to  have  different  foundations.  We  live  in  a 
big  world  and  it  is  difficult  for  any  government  to 
find  time  to  answer  the  calls  upon  its  attention. 
What  it  does,  perhaps  also — since  politics  is  by  its 
nature  a  philosophy  of  the  second  best — what  it  is 
bound  to  do — is  to  proceed  upon  the  assumption 
that  what  is  politically  innocuous  is,  for  practical 
purposes,  non-existent.  The  rule  is  well  enough 
known.  So  long  as  parties  are  not  closely  influenced 
by  the  matter  in  debate,  it  may  well  enough  be  left 
to  take  care  of  itself.  There  must  be  no  glaring 
injustice,  since  that  would  give  your  opponents 
ground  for  criticism.  But  the  public  need  be  given 
nothing  that  it  does  not  insistently  demand.  A 
powerful  interest  must  always  be  conciliated  at  the 
expense  of  interests  which  fail  to  attract  attention. 
Decisions  must  be  evaded  unless  they  insistently 
demand  response.  In  the  result,  that  unanswerable 
logic  of  the  case  on  which  Dr.  Shaw  and  Mrs.  Catt 
pin  their  faith  is  really  unrelated  to  the  realities  of 
political  life.  The  telephone  operators  of  Boston 
would  not  have  secured  Mr.  Burleson's  defeat  by 
trusting  to  the  unanswerable  logic  of  their  case 
and  to  that  alone.  The  Railroad  Brotherhoods  in 
1916  would  never  have  brought  Mr.  Wilson  to 
urge  the  justice  of  the  eight-hour  day  except  by 
forcing-  him  to  a  point  where  the  issue  could  no 
longer  be  evaded.  Social  improvement  is  always 
born  of  a  refusal  to  depend  any  longer  upon  the 
relentless  pressure  of  unending  time.  It  is  born  of  a 
determination  to  produce  a  set  of  circumstances 
where  action  is  irresistibly  necessary.  Men  are 
pricked  into  thought  not  by  a  passionate  desire  to 
set  right  the  whole  world  but  by  being  brought  to 
see  that  in  a  given  'set  of  circumstances  thought  is 
cheaper  than  inertia.  And  thought  must  be  driven 
by  its  continuity  into  action  if  the  original  inertia 
is  not  to  be  resumed. 

That,  certainly,  is  the  history  of  women  suffrage 
in  England.  It  came  in  1918  simply  because  events 
in  the  eight  years  before  the  war  had  made  it  in- 
evitable. No  English  statesman  would  have  lived 
over  again  the  wholesale  irritations  of  the  militant 
movement.  Members  hated  to  have  their  con- 
stituents arrested.  Ministers  were  irritated  beyond 
endurance  by  the  impossibility  of  burking  the  issue. 
They  lied,  they  evaded,  they  shuffled,  they  showed, 
like  Mr.  Asquith,  a  proud  impermeability  to  the 
obvious  facts.  The  war  came  and  with  it  the  wide 
extension  of  female  labor.  The  government  was 
glad  to  attribute  to  the  service  of  war  what  in  fact 


was  due  to  the  irritations  of  peace.  But  they  in 
reality  yielded  to  the  effort  of  the  militant  move- 
ment which,  between  1906  and  1914,  made  suffrage 
for  the  first  time  a  genuine  issue.  Suffrage  would 
have  been  secured,  war  or  no  war ;  but  Mr.  Asquith 
was  able  to  make  a  more  congenial  recantation,  and 
Mr.  George  to  compensate  for  a  typical  piece  of 
double-dealing,  by  an  atmosphere  in  which  the  real 
causal  sequence  had  been  forgotten  in  a  vaster 
drama. 

Something  of  the  same  situation  has  developed  in 
America  in  the  last  few  years.  The  National 
Women's  Party  represents  the  early  stage  of  the 
English  militant  movement.  It  secures  the  typical 
abuse  of  those  respectable  people  whose'  faith  in  the 
suffrage  is  so  urgent  that  they  will  do  anything 
on  its  behalf  except  the  thing  most  likely  to  achieve 
it.  They  think  it  unladylike,  abominable,  con- 
temptible, to  do  things  that  increase  the  difficulties 
of  the  President;  as  though  anything  can  be  got  in 
America  except  by  making  it  impossible  for  the 
President  to  refrain  from  doing  it.  They  urge  that 
militancy  has  put  back  their  cause  for  years;  while 
in  the  same  breath  they  acclaim  its  triumph  in  the 
next  Congress.  They  cannot  have  it  both  ways. 
In  December,  1916,  the  federal  amendment  wanted 
one  hundred  votes:  today  it  is  certain  of  passage. 
If  militancy  has  done  so  much  harm,  it  were  de- 
voutly to  be  hoped  that  every  good  cause  were  so 
served  by  its  mistaken  adherents. 

The  real  truth,  of  course,  is  that  the  militant 
National  Woman's  Party  was  the  only  suffrage 
society  to  see  the  inexorable  logic  of  the  situation. 
The  President's  party  was  an  incubus  on  his  back, 
and  their  hostility  to  suffrage  was  a  part  of  the  cross 
he  had  to  bear.  Mr.  Wilson  would  smile  benignly 
at  deputations  and  make  pleasing  speeches  to  in- 
dividual callers.  But  he  would  not  take  his  party 
seriously  in  hand  for  the  sake  of  diminishing  the 
number  of  deputations.  And,  in  any  case,  the 
ordinary  suffragist  was  so  humbly  grateful  for  the 
least  crumb  of  comfort,  that  Mr.  Wilson  must 
have  felt,  when  he  received  them,  that  it  was  really 
unnecessary  to  go  further  lest  the  depth  of  their 
gratitude  hinder  the  retention  of  their  self-respect. 

The  militants  were  better  psychologists.  They 
were  dissatisfied  with  Mr.  Wilson's  hopes  and 
speeches.  His  supporters  made  promises  in  the 
West  in  1916  and  their  redemption  was  some  re- 
marks to  Congress  on  Filipino  self-government. 
Miss  Paul  and  her  party  interrupted  his  remarks 
and  Mr.  Wilson  had  thereby  made  the  suffrage  an 
issue  of  the  first  importance.  On  January  9,  1917, 
he  told  a  deputation  that  a  federal  amendment  was 
hopeless.  The  pickets  were  placed  aoout  the  White 
House.  They  were  arrested  and  imprisoned;  on 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


543 


their  release  they  went  to  prison  again.  Mr.  Wil- 
son began  to  take  notice.  Congressmen  began  to 
hold  communications,  to  offer  terms,  to  watch  with 
the  troubled  suspicion  of  men  who  know  that  elec- 
tion is  only  a  year  away.  The  President  gave  away 
pardons  like  theatre-tickets;  but  the  women  wanted 
not  pardons  but  the  suffrage,  and  they  went  to 
prison  again.  Little  by  little  the  things  that  had 
been,  as  Mr.  Wilson  said,  in  1917  impossible  be- 
came, as  the  year  closed,  within  the  range  of  action. 
In  January  1918  in  a  House  previously  most 
hostile  the  amendment  was  accepted  and  Mr.  Wil- 
son ate  his  previous  wrords  and  hurried  to  its  sup- 
port. Clearly,  he  was  getting  anxious,  for  the  next 
Congressional  elections  began  to  draw  near  and  it 
is  not  Mr.  Wilson's  habit  to  offer  gifts  (and  votes) 
to  the  Republicans.  From  the  Congress  the  mili- 
tants turned  to  the  states  and  began  to  oppose 
Democrats  who  were  hostile  to  suffrage  in  the 
primaries.  Little  by  little  hostility  in  the  Senate 
dwindled  down  to  two;  and  these  Mr.  Wilson 
could  have  removed  if  he  had  treated  Senator 
Shields  as  he  treated  Hardwick  and  Vardaman. 
But  instead  he  still  refused  to  admit  that  he  was 
so  obviously  the  head  of  his  party  as  to  hold  it  in 
his  hands.  Senator  Jones  elaborately  explained  last 
September  that  the  time-table  of  the  Senate  left  no 
room  for  the  amendment.  Mr.  Wilson  told  the 
peaceable  societies,  on  September  26,  1918,  how 
much  he  hoped  for  and  with  them,  and  his  anxiety 
that  they  should  win  (as  he  only  could  secure)  the 
necessary  votes  in  the  Senate.  Fair  words  to  an 
ancient  and  beguiling  tune  and  the  militant  suf- 
fragists burnt  those  words.  It  is  coincidence,  but 
significant  coincidence,  that  on  the  next  day  Senator 
Jones  found  a  place  for  women  suffrage  in  the  time- 
table. It  is  coincidence,  but  still  significant  coinci- 
dence, that  a  week  later  Mr.  Wilson  was  urging 
the  amendment  to  the  Senate  in  the  most  earnest 
effort  he  had  ever  made  upon  its  behalf. 

It  may,  of  course,  be  urged  that  association  is 
not  causation,  and  that  this  progress  is  in  despite  of, 
and  not  because  of,  militant  activity.  The  whole  of 
historic  experience  is  against  that  contention.  "  If 
the  people  of  this  country,"  said  Mr.  Gladstone  in 
1869,  "had  obeyed  the  precept  to  preserve  order 
and  eschew  violence,  the  liberties  of  this  country 
would  never  have  been  obtained."  The  reforms  of 
1832  and  1867  were  not  a  peaceful  surrender  to 
logic ;  they  were  an  ungrateful  yielding  to  militancy. 
The  pickets,  the  burning  of  speeches,  the  interrup- 
tion of  Congressional  debate,  brought  suffrage  down 
from  the  clouds  of  argument  to  the  solid  earth  of 
action.  Mr.  Wilson  did  not  want  suffragists  im- 
prisoned for  the  backwardness  of  his  supporters. 
He  did  not  want  the  pickets  round  the  White 


House  for  Mr.  Balfour  to  see  and  smile  at,  as  he 
remembered  the  pickets  in  Downing  Street.  He  did 
not  want  Russians  who  had  seen  the  women  of 
Russia  emancipated,  to  ask  themselves  if  his  fine 
phrases  about  democracy  were  in  fact  applicable  to 
American  conditions;  Russians  were  so  terribly 
literal-minded  and  there  were  difficulties,  like 
Mooney  and  conscientious  objectors,  to  trouble  him 
in  addition.  He  did  not  want  his  speeches  burned, 
not  merely  because  he  did  believe  in  their  truth  in 
those  realms  where  the  Democratic  Party  was  in 
reality  democratic,  but  because  he  saw  that  more 
and  more  the  women  in  suffrage  states  would  tend 
to  regard  his  supporters  as  useless  and  swing  their 
influence  to  the  Republican  side.  That  was  why 
he  became  the  urgent  advocate  of  the  amendment — 
a  little  too  late  perhaps,  but  he  woufd  have  been  in 
time  had  it  not  been  for  the  eager  disciples  of 
respectability  who  urged  him  to  pay  no  heed  to 
those  women  who  were  disgracing  a  movement  they 
themselves  would  never  in  such  fashion  press  as  to 
inconvenience  him.  No  external  observer  can  doubt 
that  it  is  the  blindness  of  the  peaceful  suffragists  to 
political  reality  which  lost  women  the  vote  in  the 
Congress  recently  ended. 

In  the  special  session  presently  to  be  summoned 
it  does  not  seem  that  the  issue  is  doubtful.  The 
Republicans  are,  on  this  factor  at  least,  alive  to  the 
new  significance  of  the  West.  They  do  not  want  the 
experience  of  the  Democratic  party  in  the  last  three 
years.  They  remain  untrammeled  by  doctrines  of 
State-rights,  by  a  high  and  chivalrous  regard  for  the 
women  of  the  Mid-Victorian  age,  and  the  half- 
dozen  similar  obfuscated  arguments  by  which  the 
Southern  Senators  attempted  to  delay  the  inevitable. 
The  only  danger  is  lest  the  Democrats  should  seek 
to  delay  the  measure  to  prevent  the  Republicans 
from  securing  the  credit  of  its  passage.  But  Mr. 
Wilson  is  on  record  on  this  matter  and  he  cannot 
avoid  the  issue.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  Miss  Paul  and 
her  supporters  will  release  him  from,  the  need  of  ac- 
tivity. They  have  a  sufficient  hold  of  political  reality 
to  know,  as  Huxley  said,  that  while  right  and  truth 
will  ultimately  prevail,  a  gentle  assistance  to  their 
progress  will  do  them  no  harm.  Doubtless  they 
have  shocked  the  old-fashioned  who  thought  that  by 
deputations  and  the  reading  of  John  Stuart  Mill 
even  a  Presidential  heart  would  be  won.  But  it  is 
worth  while  even  to  shock  the  old-fashioned  in 
order  to  win  the  vote.  It  is  worth  while  to  make 
the  effort  that  has  distinguished  the  National 
Women's  Party  if  only  to  demonstrate  their  under- 
standing of  the  mechanisms  of  politics.  Therein, 
indeed,  they  removed  the  last  objection  a  critic 
could  have  made  to  the  final  attainment  of  their 
freedom.  HAROLD  J.  LASKI. 


544 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


American  Art? 


V>JRITICS  IN  THIS  COUNTRY  often  assail  the  lack 
of  a  distinctively  American  art  and  strive  to  labor 
for  its  arrival.  They  long  to  see  the  spirit  and 
surface  flavors  of  America  molded  into  sturdily 
esthetic  art  forms  that  will  grow  in  unison  with 
the  inner  and  outer  life  about  them. 

But  art  is  ever  a  concentrated  infidelity  toward 
the  semblances  and  spiritual  averages  of  actual  ex- 
istence. A  blind  and  instinctive  lack  of  communion 
with  the  outer  forms  and  details  of  his  environ- 
ments causes  the  artist  to  rear  his  individual's 
refuge,  in  which  the  mandates  of  reason  and  eye- 
sight are  delicately  or  incisively  ignored.  Some- 
times his  world  is  tinged  with  detached  fantasy;  at 
other  times  it  wrestles  with  the  salient  motives  of 
daily  life.  But  even  when  he  touches'  the  con- 
crete, reiterated  forms  about  him,  his  emphasis  is 
upon  what  he  would  like  them  to  be ;  he  takes  liber- 
ties with  their  essence  and  visual  outlines.  Ex- 
amine the  work  of  a  Bellows  or  a  Glackens.  These 
men  seize  upon  details  of  their  fishermen,  prize- 
fighters, shopgirls,  plowmen,  and  nudes,  arid  exag- 
gerate them  to  a  world  of  semi-masquerading 
reality.  The  longings  of  these  painters  distort 
but  do  not  utterly  violate  the  common  forms  of 
life. 

Artists  can  never  accurately  reflect  the  ensemble- 
spirit  and  average  contours  of  the  formative  age  in 
which  they  dwell ;  artists  live  upon  their  own  hori- 
zons and  ever  recede  to  the  mass  of  people  approach- 
ing them.  "  The  clamoring  nationalist  in  art  does 
not  realize  this,  nor  the  fact  that  the  essence  of  a 
complicated  age  hides  beneath  the  turmoil  of  exist- 
ence and  needs  the  mellow  retrospect  of  succeeding 
centuries  to  bring  it  forth.  He  also  ignores  the 
fact  that  national  characteristics  are  but  the  broad 
colorings  of  art  and  not  part  of  its  substance. 
French  art  can  immediately  be  distinguished  from 
Russian,  though  both  hold  the  same  fundamentals. 
When  centuries  have  concentrated  and  softened  a 
nation,  a  wide  color  spreads  over  its  life  and  from 
thence  to  its  art.  But  this  color  steals  from  the 
womb  of  a  slow  process  and  cannot  arbitrarily  be 
evolved  by  individual  artists. 

America,  in  its  ensemble,  is  the  eagerly  childlike 
forum  of  different  races  speaking  one  ill-assimilated 
language  and  joined  by  common  social  and  ma- 
terial aspirations  instead  of  esthetic  ties  or  emo- 
tional undercurrents.  The  descendants  of  some 
of  these  races  have  submerged  their  original  traits 


in  a  brassy  surface  melee  in  which  swagger  and 
earnest  materialism  are  dominant  notes;  other  mem- 
bers of  these  races  have  kept  their  national  tints 
more  intact,  thanks  to  their  more  recent  immigra- 
tion ;  still  others  have  completely  preserved  their 
national  colors,  revealing  these  colors  during  lulls 
in  material  activity.  The  descendants  of  original 
settlers  in  this  country  have  not,  as  yet,  been  fused 
into  one  emotional  unit;  their  surfaces  touch,  but 
their  inner  lives  do  not  spontaneously  meet  in  ways 
deeper  than  the  bright,  seeming  union  of  material 
building  and  social  exuberance.  The  memory  of 
their  forefathers  and  the  solemn  moments  of  Amer- 
ican history  give  these  offspring  of  American 
pioneers  a  deceptive  cohesion  unsupported  by  any 
permanent,  inner  response  in  the  individual.  The 
American  business  man  recollects  Abraham  Lincoln 
at  patriotic  festivals  but  does  not  make  him  a  walk- 
ing-companion. 

Agricultural  and  small-town  dwellers  are  rela- 
tively more  crystalized  than  those  in  the  larger 
cities,  but  even  there  no  wide  emotional  traits  exist. 
There  is  a  sameness  in  the  types  of  Sherwood  An- 
derson's Winesburg  stories,  but  it  is  a  Similarity  of 
surface  mannerisms  and  customs,  of  mechanical  so- 
cial observances;  no  deeply  rooted  reactions  toward 
gaiety,  melancholy,  or  pagan  serenity,  no  emotional 
undercurrents  can  be  discerned.  A  French  com- 
munity would  offer  an  equal  variety  of  types  blend- 
ing into  an  infinitely  more  compact  intangible 
whole. 

The  American  nationalist  in  art  dreams  of  a 
trend  that  will  be  toward  "the  spirit  of  the  prairies" 
and  "Mrs.  Giovanitti  carrying  her  bundle  of  wood, 
in  the  morning,  on  Peoria  street"  and  "the  husky 
laborer  smilingly  hewing  a  new  world."  But  these 
are  myriads  of  struggling  details  in  a  blithe  whirl- 
pool in  which  no  one  group  of  objects  is  entitled  to 
a  distinctive  role,  in  which  a  feverish  interplay  of 
material  currents  forms  a  disorganizing  force 
against  any  quiet,  vital  fusion  of  emotional  or  men- 
tal longings.  This  applies  even  to  the  voices  of  be- 
ginning bands  of  artists. 

American  art  will  attain  a  national  shading  with 
the  slow  march  odf  centuries,  and  even  then  this 
shading  will  steal  over  the  creations  of  artists  who 
will  not  consciously  evolve  it,  but  will  recognize 
it  in  their  finished  products  as  a  natural  function. 

MAXWELL   BODENHEIM. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


545 


An  Attitude  Toward  Poetic  Revolt 


j\jL  ANY  SINCERE  LOVERS  of  poetry  bear  malice 
toward  the  present  insurgency;  but  the  banners 
their  standard-bearers  raise  seem  curiously  frayed 
and  old.  Does  not  their  attitude  rise  out  of  an 
entire  misconception?  The  revolt  in  essence  is 
not  against  the  strongholds  of  Parnassus,  but 
against  a  force  drawn  up  along  its  slopes — the 
shades  of  that  which  once  was  great.  Such  a  re- 
bellion cries  out  for  a  public  which  will  not  be 
partisan,  but  will  discriminate,  intellectually  and 
emotionally.  There  is  no  call  to  praise  a  poem 
merely  because  it  is  not  that  against  which  it  is 
in  revolt;  but  the  fact  that  a  rabble  of  extremists 
are  carrying  along  with  them  not  a  small  propor- 
tion of  a  public  which  is  reading  poetry  as  never 
before  makes  it  of  importance  that  the  construc- 
tive aims  of  the  new  poetry  be  understood  and 
that  its  sincere  workers  find  a  sympathetic 
audience. 

Probably  the  most  significant  necessity  is  that  for 
understanding  the  part  conventions  and  form  play 
in  the  creation  of  beauty.  If  some  of  the  new 
workers  believe  they  have  succeeded  in  being  form- 
less, the  more  successful  among  them  realize  the 
hopelessness  and  madness  of  such  a  pursuit.  It  is 
form  which  coordinates  the  impressions  they  wish 
to  convey.  Without  form  all  is  confusion — the 
futurist  poetry  of  Marinetti  is  very  close  to  the 
formless — and  confusion  is  only  experience  unas- 
similated,  unrelated.  Beauty  is  created  when,  by 
imaginative  selection,  the  essentials  are  brought  to- 
gether in  an  ordered  whole,  more  real  than  reality, 
even  as  the  City  which 

is  built 

To  music:  therefore  never  built   at  all, 
And  therefore  built  forever. 

The  point  is  that  the  given  form,  the  given  conven- 
tion, shares  the  transiency  of  all  things  human, 
not  the  fortunate  immortality  of  the  City. 

Perhaps  no  book  in  English  has  presented,  in  a 
manner  so  full  of  life  and  feeling,  the  part  which 
the  acceptance  of  convention  plays  in  the  creation 
of  beauty  as  John  Livingston  Lowes'  Convention 
and  Revolt  in  Poetry  (Houghton  Mifflin).  He 
lends  perspective  to  the  present  insurgency  by  his 
illuminating  views  about  the  dependence  of  art  on 
the  acceptance  of  convention  and  about  the  man- 
ner in  which  these  conventions  stiffen  into  death 
and  give  rise  to  revolt.  Viewed  in  the  light  of  this 
volume,  the  present  revolt  ceases  to  be  unique, 
spontaneous,  without  historic  background.  Pre- 


senting Professor  Lowes'  attitude,  I  choose,  when- 
ever I  can,  to  quote  his  language,  even  at  the  sac- 
rifice of  brevity,  in  order  to  convey  some  impres- 
sion of  its  vitality  and  aptness  of  allusion: 

1.  One    element    in    convention    is   acceptance. 
"  Horse  "  has  a  certain  meaning  because  I  accept 
its  use  in  that  sense.     Another  element  is  the  ac- 
ceptance of  illusion.     I  accept  as  one  thing  some- 
thing which  is  another  and  different  thing — hence, 
the  inevitability  of  imagery.     In  a  word,  it  is  be- 
cause poetry  is  what  it  is  that  its  conventions  are 
what  they  are. 

2.  Two  weighty  and  paradoxical  facts  have  in- 
fluenced the  development  of  poetry:  the  plasticity 
of  conventions,  while  the  life  still  runs  in  their  veins  ; 
and   their   tendency   to   harden   into  empty   shells, 
like  abandoned  chrysalids,  when  the  informing  life 
has  flown. 

3.  Through  these  two  opposing  characteristics, 
it  comes  about  that  art  moves  from  stage  to  stage 
by    two    divergent    paths — by    molding    the    still 
ductile  forms  (the  way  of  constructive  acceptance) 
and  by  shattering  the  empty  shells    (the  way  of 
revolt).     The  two  frequently  alternate  during  dif- 
ferent    periods,     but     they    must     be     viewed     as 
complementary. 

4.  Thus  the  present   revolt  is  an  old  familiar 
friend,  revisiting,  with  punctual  observance  of,  its 
period,  the  glimpses  of  the  moon. 

5.  The  function  of  the  revolutionists  in  poetry 
(who    are    quite    the    mildest-mannered    men    that 
ever  scuttled  ship  or  cut  a  throat)   is  to  reach  out, 
for  new  substance  for  its  alchemy,  into  the  regions 
of  the  strange. 

6.  After  the  pioneers  there  follow' others,  when 
the   strange   has   become    no    longer   strange,    who 
transmute  what  the  adventurers  have  brought  with- 
in the  circle  into  something  that  is  enduringly  old 
and  new  in  one. 

7.  For   originality,    rightly   understood,    seldom 
concerns  itself  with  minting  a  new  and  particular 
medium  of  its  own.    Genius  of  the  highest  order  is 
far  more  apt  to  disclose  the  unexpected  resources 
of  whatever  vehicle  of  expression  it  fails  heir,  to. 
Originality  is  the  fixing  of  the  familiar  in  the  re- 
current act  of  becoming  new. 

8.  It    is  poetry  which,    through   its   energizing 
influence,   gives  to  words  poetic  quality;   it  is  not 
poetic  diction  which  makes  poetry.     Thus  the  re- 
volt, when  best  informed,  is  not  against  this  or  that 
type  of  words  per  se,  but  against  the  use  of  any 


546 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


word  solely  for  its  adventitious  values.  It  aims  to 
use  (in  the  language  of  the  Imagist  Manifesto) 
"  the  exact  word,  not  the  nearly-exact  word,  nor 
the  merely  decorative  word." 

9.  Upon  the  length  or  the  development  of  the 
larger  infinitely  varying  rhythmic  units  of  poetry, 
meter  does  not  impose  any  limitations  whatever. 
They  are  merely  taken  up  and  merged  with  an- 
other rhythmic  movement.  By  substituting  rhythm 
alone  for  the  fusion  of  rhythm  and  meter  in 
one,  free  verse  has  foregone  the  great  harmonic, 
orchestral  effects  of  the  old  verse. 

Disengaged  from  .their  luminous  background, 
these  propositions,  although  sound  doctrine,  no 
doubt  fail  to  do  full  justice  to  Mr.  Lowes'  atti- 
tude, and  their  bearing  on  the  present  question 
would  be  more  vital  could  I  report  the  examples 
and  transitions  by  which  they  are  reinforced;  but 
they  are  at  least  suggestive.  The  necessity  for  the 
acceptance  of  convention  is  particularly  apropos 
and  must  be  regarded  as  being  somewhere  in  mind 
during  the  whole  of  this  discussion.  In  much  of 
the  art  of  Mr.  Fletcher,  to  take  a  case  in  point,  we 
are  given  a  substance  compact  of  convention,  but 
the  conventions  are  those  of  Japan  and  have  not  yet 
been  accepted  by  the  Western  world.  For  instance, 
the  hokku  (three  lines)  was  originally  followed  by 
the  ageku  (two  lines).  It  became  the  custom  to 
have  the  ageku  given  by  a  second  person.  Under 
Basho  the  ageku  was  dropped,  but  there  was  an 
implied  continuation.  To  the  Western  mind,  which 
has  not  accepted  this  convention,  a  poem  of  Basho's 
— such  as: 

An  old  pond 

And  the  sound  of  a  frog  leaping 

Into  the  water — 

has  little  beauty.  Mr.  Fletcher  has  a  task  indeed 
if  he  would  bring  that  convention  within  the  fold 
of  Western  appreciation;  unless  he  succeeds,  that 
part  of  his  poetry  which  is  based  upon  it  will  re- 
main the  art  of  a  select  group  of  the  initiated. 

Consider  now  a  second  recent  publication — A 
New  Study  of  English  Poetry,  by  Sir  Henry  New- 
bolt  (Button).  This  volume,  again,  without  deal- 
ing primarily  with  the  present  movement,  holds  out 
to  it  the  same  cordial  welcome,  tempered  by  the 
same  doubts,  although  the  personalities  and  basic 
esthetic  attitudes  of  Messrs.  Lowes  and  Newbolt 
differ  widely.  Mr.  Newbolt  is  perfectly  clear  on 
the  subject  of  the  necessity  for  form  in  poetry. 
"  The  evil  with  which  we  have  to  contend,"  he 
says,  "  is  that  old  belief  that  form  in  art  is  an 
adornment,  an  added  beauty  independent  of  the 
subject  and  less  important."  He  points  out  that 
the  efforts  of  the  vers-librists  are  not  to  free  them- 
selves from  form,  but  from  forms — those  of  older 


writers.  It  is  only  in  the  camp-followers  of  the 
school  that  indolence  has  led  almost  to  formlessness, 
and  therefore  to  failure.  Mr.  Newbolt  points  a  good 
caution:  "We  have  ceased  to  love  affectation, 
elaboration,  imitation  of  models;  we  must  not  go 
on  to  make  the  mistake  of  imagining  that  a  meter 
once  used  is  used  up."  Different  personalities  will 
employ  the  same  medium  and  secure  widely  differ- 
ent results.  May  I  add  that  they  will  even  employ 
the  same  ideas,  those  which  are  enduringly  old  and 
new  in  one?  The  fact  that  Shelley  had  written 
Ozymandias  does  not  preclude  our  appreciating  the 
following  from  Mr.  Fletcher: 

The  wind  shakes  the  mists 

Making  them  quiver 

With  faint  drum-tones  of  thunder. 

Out  of  the  crane-haunted  mists  of  autumn, 
Blue  and  brown 
Rolls  the  moon. 

There  was  a  city  living  here  long  ago, 

Of  all  that  city 

There  is  only  one  stone  left  half-buried  in  the  marsh, 

With  characters  upon  it  which  no  one  now  can  read. 

Mr.  Newbolt  devotes  a  chapter  to  the  question  of 
personality  in  art.  A  poem  is  to  be  regarded  not 
as  a  finished  product,  but  as  the  expression  of  a 
personality.  Most  anthologies  are  therefore  of 
doubtful  value,  because  they  emphasize  the  isolated 
poem.  The  point  is-  well  taken — and  the  same 
might  perhaps  be  said  of  magazines  devoted  to 
poetry. 

What  Mr.  Newbolt  thinks  would  make  it  pos- 
sible for  the  individual  to  appreciate  the  good  in 
the  new  movement  is  a  clear  esthetic  principle,  a 
criterion  by  "which  to  test  his  first  impressions.  If 
he  is  pursuing  a  will-o'-the-wisp  in  this  matter,  let 
us  follow  him  so  far  as  we  can.  Definitions  of 
poetry  we  have  always  with  us.  To  Mr.  Newbolt 
"  poetry  is  the  act  of  expressing  an  intuition  in 
words."  I  shy  at  the  word  "  intuition,"  and  re- 
luctantly but  necessarily  am  drawn  into  the  meta- 
physical lists,  which  Mr.  Lowes  has  so  discreetly 
eschewed.  The  case  is  put  as  follows : 

We  are  placed  in  a  world  where  there  exist  two  great 
antagonistic  forces — consciousness  and  matter._  They  are 
antagonistic  in  this,  that  matter  is  naturally  the  sphere  of 
fatality  or  necessity,  while  consciousness  is  naturally  the 
sphere  of  freedom.  Their  antagonism  must  be  remedied 
by  life,  which  is  simply  consciousness  attempting  to  turn 
matter  to  its  own  uses,  to  the  uses  of  freedom.  A  .  .  We 
are  all  vessels,  channels,  vehicles,  of  one  and  the  same 
spirit. 

Such  a  speculation  makes  an  interesting  diversion 
— this  it  has  in  common  with  most  metaphysics — 
but  it  seems  to  have  little  pragmatic  value  beyond 
Hegel's  "  the  beautiful  is  the  absolute  ideal  real- 
izing itself."  As  it  chances,  this  metaphysical 
speculation  is  not  a  diversion  with  Mr.  Newbolt. 


1919 


547 


It  leads  him  promptly  to  the  esthetic  principle  which 
is  to  guide  us : 

The  spirit  of  man  has  two  activities:  the  esthetic  or 
intuitive  activity  by  which  he  gains  perceptions,  and  the 
intellectual  pr  scientific  activity  by  which  he  makes  con- 
cepts or  judgments.  Poetry  is  the  expression  in  human 
language  of  our  intuitions ;  prose  is  the  expression  of 
our  judgments.  .  .  .  Good  poetry,  poetry  in  the  full 
sense  of  the  word,  is  the  masterly  expression  of  rare, 
difficult,  and  complex  states  of  consciousness,  of  intuitions 
in  which  the  highest  thought  is  fused  with  simple  percep- 
tions, until  both  become  a  new  emotion.  And  of  all  the 
possible  emotions,  the  strongest  and  most  binding  is  felt 
when  the  poet's  consciousness  of  this  world  is  tinged  with 
man's  universal  longing  for  a  world  more  perfect. 

Mr.  Newbolt  goes  on  triumphantly  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  "  the  real  world,  the  world  of  reason, 
of  common  sense,  of  prose,  has  of  its  own  nature, 
no  passion,  no  humor,  no  true  drama,"  and  he  is 
even  led  to  the  belief  that  "  the  western  side  of 
the  world  has  sacrificed  instinct  to  intellect." 

What  such  obscurantism  does  not  see  is  that  the 
processes  leading  to  an  intuition  correspond  to  the 
steps  of  reasoning.  The  one  takes  place  below  the 
threshold  of  consciousness,  the  other  above  it;  if 
one  is  supernatural,  so  is  the  other.  Thus  the  way 
out  of  the  metaphysical  swamp  is  through  the  fields 
of  psychology,  poorly  tilled  though  they  be.  One 
of  the  most  insidious  delusions  which  the  philos- 
ophers have  bequeathed  to  us  is  the  sharply  defined 
contrast  between  spirit  and  matter.  Psychology 
is  freeing  itself  rapidly  from  this  unfortunate  at- 
titude, since  in  its  experimental  work  it  finds  the 
intellect  nowhere  working  independently  of  neural 
activity.  Whatever  the  ultimate  truth  as  to  this 
relationship,  we  can  never  judge  a  poem  by  means 
of  the  intellect  alone  or  by  means  of  the  emotions 
alone.  The  two  are  interwoven  inextricably,  and 
there  is  bound  up  with  them  the  memory,  the 
senses,  and  other  factors.  Mr.  Newbolt  has  tried 
in  vain  to  extricate  them.  Through  intellectual 
activity,  he  states,  man  takes  his  intuitions  and  of 
them  makes  comparisons,  classes,  generalizations, 
and  deductions;  the  expression  of  these  in  words 
is  essential  prose — that  is,  Science.  But  such  is  the 
way  of  art  too,  except  that  at  the  touch  of  imagina- 
tion— a  miracle,  and  in  the  place  of  comparisons 
and  deductions  we  have  a  thing  of  beauty. 

Life  however  has  a  way  of  tripping  us  up  at  the 
very  moment  when  our  hypotheses  would  carry  us 
farthest  into  the  clouds.  We  feel  the  cool  earth 
of  reality  and  our  speculations  are  dispersed.  Thus 
Mr.  Newbolt,  in  spite  of  a  philosophical  twist  that 
is  as  questionable  as  it  is  popular  at  the  present 
moment,  really  sees  eye  to  eye  with  Mr.  Lowes 
and  a  great  line  of  critics  and  poets.  He  has  written 
a  book  of  singular  interest,  which  takes  up  enter- 
tainingly a  variety  of  questions  that  cannot  be 
touched  on  here. 


Professor  Neilson  once  devoted  a  book  to  the 
problem — The  Essentials  of  Poetry — but  it  would 
appear  that  he  stopped  short  at  explaining  varying 
taste.  It  is  a  justification  that  is  needed.  With 
Mr.  Neilson  there  are  three  primary  elements  in 
poetry:  reason,  sense  of  fact,  imagination.  When 
the  first  predominates,  the  period  is  classical ;  when 
the  second,  realistic;  when  the  third,  romantic.  The 
greatest  art  has  the  three  characteristics  in  approx-^ 
imately  equal  proportion.  That  is  a  very  illumina- 
ting view  to  take  of  literary  history ;  but  it  indicates 
that  in  his  mind  there  lurks  the  feeling  that  there 
is  a  greatest,  although  no  one  age  may  be  able  to 
apprehend  it  as  a  whole.  In  spite  of  the  wealth  of 
keen  understanding  in  The  Essentials  of  Poetry,  a 
book  that  would  be  of  infinite  value  in  determining 
an  attitude  toward  insurgency,  we  must  seek  else- 
where for  a  solution  of  the  problem  of  relative 
values. 

The  acceptance  of  convention,  which  Mr.  Lowes 
shows  to  be  the  fundamental  necessity  of  poetic  ex^ 
pression,  carries  with  it  a  c  /rollary  that  will  fur- 
nish  the   clue.      For    it   implies   the   acceptance   of 
standards.  If  that  gives  us  nothing  absolute,  neither 
does  it  give  us  chaos.     Conventions,  however  rap- 
idly they  change,  are  bound  together  by  the  asso- 
ciation of   ideas   in   the  mind;   they   are   no  more 
chaotic   than   the   instinctive   actions   of   an   insect. 
As  an  example  of  how  this  principle  of  the  accept- 
ance of  standards  may  be  applied,  it  should  be  noted 
that  we  fail,   for  the  most  part,  to  be  moved  by 
Chinese  music,  not  because  it  is  incapable  of  mov- 
ing human  beings,  but  because  we  are  not  in  the 
tradition.     Some  day  we  may  be.     On  the  other 
hand,  we  are  gradually  drawing  out  of  the  charmed 
circle  of  many  previous  ages,  with  a  corresponding 
decline  in  the  keenness  of  our  appreciation  of  their 
literature.     In  a  degree  we  can  place  ourselves  in 
the  tradition  .by  education,  and  in  that  fact  we  see 
— and  this  is  one  of   the  important  points   to   be 
made — why  the  establishing  of  a  rough  and  chang- 
ing scale  of  values  is  justified.     The  broader  our 
appreciation — that  is,   the  more  completely  we  as- 
similate  varying   traditions — the    more    deeply    we 
shall  live.     And  this  is  why  we  can  feel  from  the 
depths  of  our  beings  that  the  person  whose  tradi- 
tions lead  him  only  to  understand  rag-time  and  slang 
and  magazine  covers  is  on  a  lower  plane,  artistic- 
ally, than  he  who  has  back  of  him  the  traditions 
of  the  great  art  of  the  past.    And  this  is  why  there 
are  standards,  ideals  for  which  artists  are  making 
daily  sacrifices,  values  which  lend  richness  to  our 
lives.     But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  our  atti- 
tude toward  such  standards  is  ever  undergoing  meta- 
morphosis.    It  is  not  of  much  consequence  to  hold 
that  the  values  themselves  are  unchanged,  for  it  is 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


our  attitude  that  determines  their  complexion. 
Exactly  as  in  the  case  of  conventions.  And  what- 
ever the  books  teach  us  and  however  our  modern- 
ists assail  us  with  theories  of  new  beauty,  we  shall 
take  the  complex  way  of  the  intellect  working  in 
and  through  the  emotions,  the  two  indissoluble,  their 
relations  indeterminate.  The  mind  will  discern  cer- 
tain general  principles  (those  quoted  above  from 
Mr.  Lowes  will  answer  for  the  moment)  and  will 
apply  those  in  so  far  as  the  emotions,  with  their 
rich,  and  controlling  traditions,  permit;  but  so  long 
as  personality  remains  as  the  distinction  of  our  kind, 
the  mind  and  emotions  of  one  will  never  conform 
entirely  to  the  mind  and  emotions  of  another.  We 
shall  muddle  through. 

But  I  do  not  mean  to  disparage  the  part  which 
keen  criticism  and  honest  intensity  of  feeling  must 
play.  The  impression  one  receives  from  a  vast 
amount  of  the  new  verse  is  that  of  an  absence  of 
mental  training  and  mental  discipline.  The  idea 
is  poured  out  without  the  taking  of  pains  to  ex- 
press it  in  the  best  possible  manner.  For  instance 
note  the  following  from  Carl  Sandburg: 

REPETITIONS 

They  are  crying  salt  tears 
Over  the  beautiful  beloved   body 
Of  Inez  Milholland, 
Because  they  are  glad  she  lived, 
Because  she  loved  open-armed, 
Throwing  love  for  a  cheap  thing 
Belonging  to  everybody — 
Cheap  as   sunlight, 
And  morning  air. 

Among  the  lesser  men  of  the  movement,  who  cast 
aside  even  the  cadences  to  be  noted  in  poems  like 
the  above,  writing-paper  is  the  target  of  all  their 
thoughts,  however  incomplete,  and  before  the 
printers'  ink  is  dry  these  fragments  and  sketches  are 
blown  about  the  earth.  Frequently  the  attitude 
seems  to  be:  "This  has  come  into  my  mind  in 
this  form.  I  should  have  failed  my  calling  unless 
I  were  to  express  it  precisely  as  it  came  to  me." 
But  it  is  a  rare  soul  to  whom  ideas  do  come  already 
clothed  in  their  final  form.  Mostly  they  are  born 
naked.  One  thinks  of  the  pages  of  unilluminated 
music  of  Schubert,  which  could  never  have  gone 
down  on  paper  had  his  intellect  been  actively  select- 
ing and  arranging;  yet  he  is  perhaps  the  best  example 
of  one  to  whom  the  idea  frequently  came,  com- 
plete, ready  for  the  composer  to  play  but  the  part 
of  a  clerk.  The  intellect,  as  Mr.  Lowes  states, 
must  hold  "  imperial  sway  over  the  impressions  re- 
ceived, selecting,  clarifying,  ordering,  molding,  fil- 
ing, and  refiling  them."  Were  this  the  habit 
of  more  poets  at  the  present  time,  magazine  mails 
might  be  lighter,  but  there  would  be  a  wholesome 
check  on  the  impulse  to  immortalize  every  precious 
thought  of  the  poet,  even  if  it  is  ultimately  to  be 


preserved  only  in  the  pages  of  a  never  opened 
volume. 

Were  the  intellect — always  working,  it  must  be 
remembered,  in  and  through  the  emotions — called 
upon  to  play  the  part  indicated,  I  believe  there  would 
be  far  less  occasion  to  criticize  the  new  verse  for 
its  frequent  lack  of  good  taste.  Miss  Lowell  says 
of  "  polyphonic  prose "  that  "  its  only  touchstone 
is  the  taste  and  feeling  of  the  author."  And  yet — 
to  choose  an  example  from  one  of  the  best  poets  of 
the  revolt  in  this  country — Miss  Lowell  herself 
will  write :  "  The  Earth  rolls  upon  itself,  in- 
cessantly creating  morning  and  evening."  It  would 
appear  that  the  taste  and  feeling  of  the  reader  must 
also  be  considered.  The  proposition  that  a  poem 
irmst  be  congruous,  consistent  with  itself,  has  been 
well  brought  out  by  Mr.  Lowes.  The  crying  need 
is  for  self-discipline,  which  in  a  measure  was  given 
by  the  metrical  form  employed  in  the  past.  Free 
verse  has  made  it  so  simple  a  matter  to  fill  up  a 
page  with  scratches  that  more  than  ever  before  it 
is  necessary  t.o  feel  that  genius  is  "  the  capacity  for 
taking  infinite  pains."  The  exact  expression  of  an 
idea  may  be  the  occupation  of  a  life-time — at  least 
the  poet  who  tires  himself  with  "  seeking  an  epithet 
for  the  cuckoo  "  need  not  envy  him  who  writes  a 
handful  of  poems  of  a  morning. 

To  sum  up,  our  attitude  toward  the  present  re- 
volt in  poetry  cannot  be  a  simple  one  of  acceptance 
or  rejection.  It  must  b'e  compact  of  a  variety  of 
factors,  including  an  understanding  of  the  nature 
of  convention,  the  relativity  of  values,  the  course  of 
previous  revolts,  and  the  part  personality  plays. 
"  There  is  no  master  principle,"  says  Mr.  Max 
Eastman,  "  for  that  art  whose  very  nature  is  to  shun 
generality  and  cleave  to  the  unique  nature  of  each 
individual  experience."  It  is  not  a  problem  for  the 
indolent.  The  revolutionists  are  fighting  along  the 
frontiers  of  art,  whatever  their  individual  vagaries; 
and  in  the  mind  of  the  reader  a  counterpart  of  this 
struggle  should  take  place.  Mr.  Newbolt  is  led 
to  exclaim  against  the  passion  for  burning  heretics, 
which  to  him  is  unintelligible;  but  we  are  not  .only 
always  conservative  when  the  zest  of  life  is  not  in 
us,  we  are  also  intolerant  of  another's  enthusiasm. 
If  the  reader  cares  to  extend  the  frontiers  of  his  own 
appreciation,  he  must  be  up  and  about.  For  it  is  not 
alone  in  the  creation  of  beauty  that  a  man  must  be 
ever  a  fighter;  if  he  would  secure  from  life,  for  the 
moment  the  privilege  is  his,  all  that  it  has  to  offer, 
he  must  approach  the  appreciation  of  art  with  all 
of  the  intelligence  and  energy  and  honest  intensity 
of  feeling  of  which  he  is  capable.  He  will  be  a  con- 
servative of  the  conservatives  if  he  do  not. 

ROLLO  BRITTEN. 


1919 THE  DIAL          549 

Cog  d'Or 

I  walked  along  a  street  at  dawn  in  cold,  gray  light, 
Above  me  lines  of  windows  watched,  gaunt,  dull,  drear. 
The  lamps  were  fading,  and  the  sky  was  streaked  rose-red, 
Silhouetting  chimneys  with  their  queer,  round  pots. 
My  feet  upon  the  pavement  made  a  knock — knock — knock. 
Above  the  roofs  of  Westminster  Big  Ben  struck. 
v  The  cocks  on  all  the  steeples  crew  in  clear,  flat  tones, 

And  churchyard  daisies  sprang  away  from  thin,  bleak  bones. 
The  golden  trees  were  calling  me:  "  Come!     Come!     Come!" 
The  trees  were  fresh  with  daylight,  and  I  heard  bees  hum. 
A  cart  trailed  slowly  down  the  street,  its  load  young  greens, 
They  sparkled  like  blown  emeralds,  and  then  I  laughed. 
A  morning  in  the  city  with  its  upthrust  spires 
All  tipped  with  gold  and  shining  in  the  brisk,  blue  air, 
But  the  gold  is  round  my  forehead  and  the  knot  still  holds 
Where  you  tied  it  in  the  shadows,  your  rose-gold  hair. 

AMY  LOWELL. 

Mood 

Standing  before  your  heart,  one  evening, 

I  bent  and  saw  a  little  gate, 

Its  posts  and  bars  were  like  still  smoke 

Tinged  with  a  drolly  murmuring  red. 

I  had  passed  near  it  many  times 

On  my  way  to  the  drowsy  carnivals  in  your  heart, 

But  not  until  one  evening  did  I  see  it. 

''  There  are  no  walls  or  keepers  before  her  heart, 

So  why  this  little  gate,"  I  asked. 

Then  a  joy-maiden  ran  to  the  gate 

And  perched  upon  it,  lightly  fingering 

Her  tenuous,  out-blown  mandolin  of  hair. 

"  This  gate  is  over  an  unseen  road,"  she  said, 

And  one  grief-pilgrim  comes  here  every  evening. 

He  feels  the  closed  gate  and  sinks,  tired,  at  its  feet, 

While  I  play  upon  my  hair  and  make  him  sleep." 

MAXWELL  BODENHEIM. 

Steamboat  Nights 

AN  OMAHA  MAN  WRITES  TO  AN  INDIANAPOLIS  WOMAN 

If  a  million  wires  slid  through  the  prairie  rain  and  the  yellow  telegrams  poured  from 
Labrador  to  Texas,  crowds,  faces,  and  money  calling  me, 

I  would  remember  only  you ;  I  would  remember  only  three  nights ;  I  would  remember 
only  our  steamboat  nights. 

The  pressing  thirsty  lips,  the  pressing  wishing  lips,   unlock  a  tidal  drive  of  storm     ' 
and  star. 

The  love  knot  of  our  arms  amid  a  Mississippi  River  sunrise  shall  last  while  the  sun  and 
the  moon  are  painted  on  the  sky. 

And  the  dawn  tongues  we  spoke  to  each  other  with,  these  passionate  tongues,  even  as 
a  thimble  of  dust  at  the  last,  the  two  of  them  shall  ^mix  and  go  down  the  wind 
together. 

CARL  SANDBURG. 


55° 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


A  Plaint  of  Complexity 


I  have  too  many  selves  to  know  the  one. 

In  too  complex  a  schooling  was  I  bred, 

Child  of  too  many  cities,  who  have  gone 

Down  all  bright  cross-roads  of  the  world's  desires, 

And  at  too  many  altars  bowed  my  head 

To  light  too  many  fires. 

One  polished  self  I  have,  she  who  can  sit 

Familiarly  at  tea  with  the  marquise 

And  play  the  exquisite 

In  silken  rustle  lined""  with  etiquette, 

Chatting  in  French,  Italian,  what  you  please, 

Of  this  and  that — 

Who  sings  now  at  La  Scala,  what's  the  gown 

Fortuni's  planned  for  "  La  Louise," 

Or  what  Les  Jeunes  are  at  in  London  Town. 

She  can  look  out 

At  dusk  across  Lung'  Arno,  sigh  a  bit, 

And  speak  with  shadowy  feeling  of  the  rout 

This  brute  modernity  has  made 

Of  Beauty  and  of  Art; 

And  sigh  with  just  the  proper  shade 

Of  scorn  for  Guido  Reni,  just  the  "Ah!" 

For  the  squeezed  martyrs  of  El  Greco. 

And  I've  a  modern,  rather  mannish  self, 
Lives  gladly  in  Chicago. 
•  She  believes 

That  woman  should  come  down  from  off  her  shelf 
Of  calm  dependence  on  the  male 
And  labor  for  her  living. 
She  likes  men, 

And  equal  comradeship,  and  giving 
As  much  as  she  receives. 
She  likes  discussions  lasting  half  the  night — 
Lit  up  with  wit  and  cigarettes — 
Of  art,  religion,  politics  and  sex, 
Science  and  prostitution.     She  thinks  art 
Deals  first  of  all  with  life,  and  likes  to  write 
Poems  of  drug  clerks  and  machinery. 
She's  very  independent — and  at  heart 
A  little  lonely.     .     . 

I've  a  horrid  self, 

A  sort  of  snob,  who's  traveled  here  and  there 

And  drags  in  references  by  the  hair 

To  steamship  lines,  and  hotels  in  Hong  Kong, 

The  temple  roofs  of  Nikko,  and  the  song 

Of  the  Pope's  Nightingale. 

She  always  speaks, 

In  passing,  of  the  great  men  whom  she  knows, 

And  leaves  a  trail 

Of  half-impressed  but  irritated  foes. 

My  other  selves  dislike  her,  but  we  can't 

Get  rid  of  her  at  certain  times  and  places, 

And  there  are  faces 

That  wake  her  in  me. 


I've  a  self  compound  of  strange,  wild  things — 

Of  solitude,  and  mud,  and  savagery; 

Loves  mountain-tops,  and  deserts, 

And  the  wings 

Of  great  hawks  beating  black  against  the  sky. 

Would  love  a  man  to  beat  her.     .     . 

I've  a  self  might  almost  be  a  nun, 

So  she  loves  peace,  prim  gardens  in  the  sun 

Where  shadows  sift  at  evening, 

Hands  at  rest, 

And  the  clear  lack  of  questions  in  her  breast. 

And  deeper  yet  there  is  my  mother  self, 

Something  not  so  much  I  as  womankind, 

That  surges  upward  from  a  blind 

Immeasurable  past. 

A  little  laughing  daughter,  a  cool  child 

Sudden  and  lovely  as  a  wild 

Young  wood-thing,  she  has  somehow  caught 

And  holds  half-unbelieving.     She  has  wrought 

Love-bands  to  hold  her  fast 

Of  courage,  tenderness,  and  truth, 

And  memories  of  her  own  white  youth, 

The  best  I  am,  or  can  be. 

This  self  stands 

When  others  come  and  go,  and  in  her  hands 

Are  balm  for  wounds  and  quiet  for  distractions, 

And  she's  the  deepest  source  of  all  my  actions. 

But  I've  another  self  she  does  not  touch, 

A  self  I  live  in  much,  and  overmuch 

These  latter  years. 

A  self  who  stands  apart  from  outward  things, 

From  pleasure  and  from  tears, 

And  all  the  little  things  I  say  and  do. 

She  feels  that  action  traps  her,  and  she  swings 

Sheer  out  of  life  sometimes,  and  loses  sense 

Of  boundaries  and  of  impotence. 

I  think  she  touches  something,  and  her  eyes 

Grope,  almost  seeing,  through  the  veil 

Towards  the  eternal  beauty  in  the  skies 

And  the  last  loveliness  that  cannot  fail." 

But  what  she  sees  in  her  far  spirit  world, 

Or  what  the  center  is 

Of  all  this  whirl  of  crowding  I's, 

I  cannot  tell  you — only  this, 

That  I've  too  many  selves  to  know  the  one, 

In  too  complex  a  schooling  was  I  bred, 

Child  of  too  many  cities,  who  have  gone 

Down  all  bright  cross-roads  of  the  world's  desires, 

And  at  too  many  altars  bowed  my  head 

To  light  too  many  fires. 

EUNICE  TIETJENS. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


Reveille 


Come  forth,  you  workers! 
Let  the  fires  grow  cold.     .     . 
Let  the  iron  cleave  to  the  furnace.     .     ; 
Let  the  iron  spill  out  of  the  troughs.     .     . 
Let  the  iron  run  wild 
Like  a  red  bramble  on  the  floors.     .     . 
Leave  the  mill  and  the  foundry  and  the  mine 
And  the  shrapnel  lying  on  the  wharves.     .     . 
Leave  the  desk  and  -the  shuttle  and  the  loom- 
Come! 

With  your  ashen  lives — 
Your  lives  like  dust  in  your  hands. 

I  call  upon  you,  workers. 

It  is  not  yet  light  but  I  beat  upon  your  doors. 

You  say  you  await  the  dawn, 

But  I  say  you  are  the  Dawn! 

Come 

In  your  irresistible  unspent  force 

And  make  new  Jight  upon  the  mountains! 

You  have  turned  deaf  ears  to  others : 
Me  you  shall  hear. 
Out  of  the  mouths  of  turbines. 
Out  of  the  turgid'  throats  of  engines 


Over  the  whistling  steam 
You  shall  hear  me  shrilly  piping. 
Your  mills  I  shall  enter  as  the  A 
And  blow  upon  your  hearts, 
Fanning  the  slow  fire. 


'ind 


They  think  they  have  cowed  you — 

Beaten  you  to  a  tool 

To  scoop  hot  honor  up  with 

Till  it  be  cool. 

But  out  of  the  passion  of  the  red  frontiers 

A  great  flower  trembles  and  burns  and  glows 

And  each  of  its  petals  is  a  people. 

Come  forth,  you  workers — 

Clinging  to  your  stable  and  your  wisp  of  warm  straw ! 

As  our  forefathers  stood  upon  the  prairies, 

So  we  shall  stand  in  a  ring. 

We  shall  tear  up  their  prisons  like  grass 

And  beat  them  to  barricades — 

We  shall  fight  the  fire  of  their  guns  with  a  greater  fire, 

Till  the  birds  shall  fly  to  the  mountains 

For  one  safe  bough. 

LOLA  RIDGE. 


On  The  Hills 


Solitudes  carved  from  the  granite,  your  passionless  patience  reproaches 

One  time-worn  and  travel-stained  spirit,  who  wanders  your  antres  in  sorrow 

And  deep  discontentment,  disheartened  because  the  world's  weather  has  smote  him, 

And  frowned  on  his  labor  and  left  him  unwanted,  unloved,  and  unheeded, 

The  things  he  has  made  unrequited,  the  gifts  he  has  offered  unwelcomed; 

For  here,  deep  withdrawn  in  your  valleys  and  hid  on  the  cairns  of  your  crowning, 

Lie  the  haunts  of  ineffable  peace,  austerely  unchanged  and  persistent. 

When  lightnings  break  short  in  your  bosom,  you  moan  not  of  wound  or  of  anguish; 

Nor  teeth  of  the  frost  in  their  gnawing  win  ever  a  cry  from  your  torment ; 

Where  watersprings  drown  all  their  fountains  and  sweep  to  the  valleys  your  substance, 

You  claim  not  compassion  of  any,  nor  whisper  lament  neath  their  scourges, 

For  what  know  the  tempests  that  fold  you  and  robe  your  wide  summits  in  purple? 

And  what  shall  the  starry  nights  see,  when  the  ice  and  the  snows  are  your  mantle  ? 

They  find  but  a  fervor  to  hide  all  the  brands  of  your  stripes  and  your  tortures, 

A  zeal  that's  unsleeping,  unshaken,  to  cover  the  track  of  ill  fortune. 

You  waste  not  a  thought  on  self-pity,  nor  squander  your  potence  in  anger 

Against  the  harsh  heavens  that  broke  you  and  cleft  you  and  left  you  ableeding. 

For  now  your  eternal  devotion,  good  will,  and  great  might  of  endeavor 

Are  turned  to  the  task  of  retrieval  and  healing  and  cure  and  forgetting. 

You  rally,  revive,  and  redeem ;  you  staunch  and  bind  up  and  establish ; 

You  bury  your  manifold  gashes  and  turn  all  your  buffets  to  beauty. 

You  bring  the  grey  lichens  and  golden  to  hide  the  white  wounds  of  the  granite; 

With  rapture  of  stars  and  of  buds  you  deck  the  black  grief  of  the  peat  beds, 

In  euphrasy,  tormentil,  heather,  in  violet,  asphodel,  milkwort; 

And  over  each  ravage  and  scarth  fling  the  rainbows  and  laughters  of  blossoms. 


552 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


Oh  grant  one  to  echo  evangel  that  waits  for  his  heart  on  your  summits, 
In  the  songs  of  the  ocean-born  wind  and  the  voices  from  sweet,  secret  places ; 
Make  pure  his  dark,  earth-foundered  thinking  with  bright,  lustral  foam  of  your  waters, 
Until  the  slurs  and  the  slightings  and  bruises  of  life's  cold  indifference 
Shall  spring  a  new  niche  in  his  temple  that  pleads  for  another  adornment, 
And  grace,  and  distinction  to  fill  it  with  all  of  the  best  he  can  fashion. 
So  shall  contumely  leave  in  his  heart  a  new  precinct  for  beauty — 
A  challenge  deserving  his  courage,  noblest  and  highest  endeavor. 
For  thus  your  sublimity  answers  the  child  of  a  day  who  invokes  it — 
That  to  brood  upon  them  who  ill  use  him  will  drive  home  a  bitterer  woe 
Than  can  lie  in  the  compass  of  others,  or  wide  world  in  arms  thrown  against  him. 

EDEN  PHILLPOTTS. 

The  Industrial  System  and  the  Captains  of  Industry 


I 


T  HAS  BEEN  USUAL,  and  indeed  it  still  is  not 
unusual,  to  speak  of  three  coordinate  "  factors  of 
production  " :  land,  labor,  and  capital.  The  reason 
for  this  threefold  scheme  of  factors  in  production  is 
that  there  have  been  three  recognized  classes  of  in- 
come: rent,  wages,  and  profits;  and  it  has  been 
assumed  that  whatever  yields  an  income  is  a  pro- 
ductive factor.  This  scheme  has  come  down  from 
the  eighteenth  century.  It  is  presumed  to  have  been 
true,  in  a  general  way,  under  the  conditions  which 
prevailed  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  it  has  there- 
fore also  been  assumed  that  it  should  continue  to  be 
natural,  or  normal,  true  in  some  eminent  sense, 
under  any  other  conditions  that  have  come  on  since 
that  time. 

Seen  in  the  light  of  later  events  this  threefold  plan 
of  coordinate  factors  in  production  is  notable  for 
what  it  omits.  It  assigns  no  productive  effect  to  the 
industrial  arts,  for  example,  for  the  >  conclusive 
reason  that  the  state  of  the  industrial  arts  yields  no 
stated  or  ratable  income  to  any  one  class  of  persons ; 
it  affords  no  legal  claim  to  a  share  in  the  commu- 
nity's yearly  production  of  goods.  The  state  of  the 
industrial  art  is  a  joint  stock  of  knowledge  derived 
from  past  experience,  and  is  held  and  passed  on  as 
an  indivisible  possession  of  the  community  at  large. 
It  is  the  indispensable  foundation  of  all  productive 
industry,  of  course,  but  except  for  certain  minute 
fragments  covered  by  patent  rights  or  trade  secrets, 
this  joint  stock  is  no  man's  individual  property.  For 
this  reason  it  has  not  been  counted  in  as  a 
factor  in  production.  The  unexampled  advance  of 
technology  during  the  past  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  has  now  begun  to  call  attention  to  its  omis- 
sion from  the  threefold  plan  of  productive  factors 
handed  down  from  that  earlier  time. 

Another  omission  from  the  scheme  of  factors,  as 
it  was  originally  drawn,  was  the  business  man. 
But  in  the  course  of  the  nineteenth  century  the 


business -man  came  more  and  more  obtrusively  to  the 
front  and  came  in  for  a  more  and  more  generous 
portion  of  the  country's  yearly  income — which  was 
taken  to  argue  that  he  also  contributed  increasingly 
to  the  yearly  production  of  goods.  So  a  fourth  factor 
of  production  has  provisionally  been  added  to  the 
threefold  scheme,  in  the  person  of  the  "  entrepre- 
neur," whose  wages  of  management  are  considered 
to  measure  his  creative  share  in  the  production  of 
goods,  although  there  still  is  some  question  as  to 
the  precise  part  of  the  entrepreneur  in  productive 
industry. 

"  Entrepreneur  "  is  a  technical  term  to  designate 
the  man  who  takes  care  of  the  financial  end  of 
things.  It  covers  the  same  fact  as  the  more  familiar 
"  business  man,"  but  with  a  vague  suggestion  of  big 
business  rather  than  small.  The  typical  entrepreneur 
is  the  corporation  financier.  And  since  the  corpora- 
tion financier  has  habitually  come  in  for  a  very  sub- 
stantial share  of  the  community's  yearly  income  he 
has  also  been  conceived  to  render  a  very  substantial 
service  to  the  community  as  a  creative  force  in  that 
productive  industry  out  of  which  the  yearly  income 
arises.  Indeed  it  is  nearly  true  that  in  current  usage 
"  producer  "  has  come  to  mean  "  financial  manager," 
both  in  the  standard  economic  theory  and  in  every- 
day speech. 

There  need  of  course  be  no  quarrel  with  all  this. 
It  is  a  matter  of  usage.  During  the  era  of  the 
machine  industry — which  is  also  the  era  of  the  com- 
mercial democracy — business  men  have  controlled 
production  and  have  managed  the  industry  of  the 
commonwealth  for  their  own'  ends,  so  that  the 
material  fortunes  of  all  the  civilized  peoples  have 
continued  to  turn  on  the  financial  management  of 
their  business  men.  And  during  the  same  period 
not  only  have  the  conditions  of  life  among  these 
civilized  peoples  continued  to  be  fairly  tolerable  on 
the  whole,  but  it  is  also  true  that  the  industrial 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


553 


system  which  these  business  men  have  been  manag- 
ing for  their  own  private  gain  all  this  time  has  con- 
tinually been  growing  more  efficient  on  the  whole. 
Its  productive  capacity  per  unit  of  equipment  and 
man  power  has  continually  grown  larger.  For  this 
very  creditable  outcome  due  credit  should  be,  as 
indeed  it  has  been,  given  to  the  business  community 
which  has  had  the  oversight  of  things.  The  efficient 
enlargement  of  industrial  capacity  has,  of  course, 
been  due  to  a  continued  advance  in  technology,  to  a 
continued  increase  of  the  available  natural  resources, 
and  to  a  continued  increase  of  population.  But  the 
business  community  have  also  had  a  part  in  bringing 
all  this  to  pass;  they  have  always  been  in  a  position 
to  hinder  this  growth,  and  it  is  only  by  their  consent 
and  advice  that  things  have  been  enabled  to  go 
forward  so  far  as  they  have  gone. 

This  sustained  advance  in  productive  capacity,  due 
to  the  continued  advance  in  technology  and  in  popu- 
lation, has  also  had  another  notable  consequence. 
According  to  the  Liberal  principles  of  the  eighteenth 
century  any  legally  defensible  receipt  of  income  is 
a  sure  sign  of  productive  work  done.  Seen  in  the 
light  of  this  assumption,  the  visibly  increasing  pro- 
ductive capacity  of  the  industrial  system  has  enabled 
all  men  of  a  liberal  and  commercial  mind  not  only 
to  credit  the  businesslike  captains  of  industry  with 
having  created  this  productive  capacity,  but  also  to 
overlook  all  that  the  same  captains  of  industry  have 
been  doing  in  the  ordinary  course  of  business  to  hold 
productive  industry  in  check.  And  it  happens  that 
all  this  time  things  have  been  moving  in  such  a  direc- 
tion and  have  now  gone  so  far  that  it  is  today  quite 
an  open  question  whether  the  businesslike  manage- 
ment of  the  captains  is  not  more  occupied  with  check- 
ing industry  than  with  increasing  its  productive 
capacity. 

This  captain  of  industry,  typified  by  the  corpora- 
tion financier,  and  latterly  by  the  investment  banker, 
is  one  of  the  institutions  that  go  to  make  up  the 
new  order  of  things,  which  has  been  coming  on 
among  all  the  civilized  peoples  ever  since  the  Indus- 
trial Revolution  set  in.  As  such,  as  an  institutional 
growth,  his  life  history  hitherto  should  be  worth 
looking  into  for  anyone  who  proposes  to  understand 
the  recent  growth  and  present  drift  of  this  new 
economic  order.  The  beginnings  of  the  captain  of 
industry  are  to  be  seen  at  their  best  among  those 
enterprising  Englishmen  who  made  it  their  work  to 
carry  the  industrial  promise  of  the  -Revolution  out 
into  tangible  performance,  during  the  closing  decades 
of  the  eighteenth  and  the  early  decades  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  These  captains  of  the  early  time  are 


likely  to  be  rated  as  inventors,  at  least  in  a  loose 
sense  of  the  word.  But  it  is  more  to  the  point  that 
they  were  designers  and  builders  of  factory,  mill, 
and  mine  equipment,  of  engines,  processes,  machines, 
and  .machine  tools,  as  well  as  shop  managers,  at  the 
same  time  that  they  took  care,  more  or  less 
effectually,  of  the  financial  end.  Nowhere  do  these 
beginnings  of  the  captain  of  industry  stand  out  so 
convincingly  as  among  the  English  tool-builders  of 
that  early  time,  who  designed,  tried  out,  built,  and 
marketed  that  series  of  indispensable  machine  tools 
that  has  made  the  practical  foundation  of"  the  me- 
chanical industry.  Something  to  much  the  same 
effect  is  due  to  be  said  for  the  pioneering  work  of 
the  Americans  along  the  same  general  lines  of 
mechanical  design  and  performance  at  a  slightly  later 
period.  To  men  of  this  class  the  new  industrial 
order  owes  much  of  its  early  success  as  well  as  of 
its  later  growth. 

These  men  were  captains  of  industry,  entrepre- 
neurs, in  some  such  simple  and  comprehensive  sense 
of  the  word  as  that  which  the  economists  appear  to 
have  had  in  mind  for  a  hundred  years  after,  when 
they  have  spoken  of  the  wages  of  management  that 
are  due  the  entrepreneur  for  productive  work  done. 
They  were  a  cross  between  a  business  man  and  an 
industrial  expert,  and  the  industrial  expert  appears 
to  have  been  the  more  valuable  half  in  their  composi- 
tion. But  factory,  mine,  and  ship  owners,  as  well 
as  merchants  and  bankers,  also  made  up  a  vital  part 
of  that  business  community  out  of  whose  later 
growth  and  specialization  the  corporation  financier 
of  the  nineteenth  and  twentieth  centuries  has  arisen. 
His  origins  are  both  technological  and  commercial, 
and  in  that  early  phase  of  his  life  history  which  has 
been  taken  over  into  the  traditions  of  economic 
theory  and  of  common  sense  he  carried  on  both  of 
these  lines  of  interest  and  of  work  in  combination. 
That  was  before  the  large  scale,  the  wide  sweep,  and 
the  profound  specialization  of  the  advanced  mechan- 
ical industry  had  gathered  headway.  But  progres- 
sively the  cares  of  business  management  grew  larger 
and  more  exacting,  as  the  scale  of  things  in  business 
grew  larger,  and  so  the  directive  head  of  any  such 
business  concern  came  progressively  to  give  his  atten- 
tion more  and  more  exclusively  to  the  "  financial 
end."  At  the  same  time  and  driven  by  the  same  con- 
siderations the  businesslike  management  of  industry 
has  progressively  been  shifting  to  the  footing  of  cor- 
poration finance.  This  has  brought  on  a  further 
division,  dividing  the  ownership  of  the  industrial 
equipment  and  resources  from  their  management. 
But  also  at  the  same  time  the  industrial  system,  on 
its  technological  side,  has  been  progressively  growing 


554 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


greater  and  going-  farther  in  scope,  diversity,  special- 
ization, and  complexity,  as  well  as  in  productive 
capacity  per  unit  of  equipment  and  man  power. 

The  last  named  item  of  change,  the  progressive 
increase  of  productive  capacity,  is  peculiarly  signif- 
icant in  this  connection.  Through  the  earlier  and 
pioneering  decades  of  the  machine  era  it  appears  to 
have  been  passably  true  that  the  ordinary  routine 
of  management  in  industrial  business  was  taken  up 
with  reaching  out  for  new  ways  and  means  and 
speeding  up  production  to  maximum  capacity.  That 
was  before  standardization  of  processes  and  of  unit 
products,  and  fabrication  of  parts  had  been  carried 
far,  and  therefore  before  quantity  production  had 
taken  on  anything  like  its  later  range  and  reach. 
And,  partly  because  of  that  fact — because  quantity 
production  was  then  still  a  slight  matter  and  greatly 
circumscribed,  as  contrasted  with  its  later  growth — 
the  ordinary  volume  of  output  in  the  mechanical 
industries  was  still  relatively  slight  and  manageable. 
Therefore  those  concerns  that  were  engaged  in  these 
industries  still  had  a  fairly  open  market  for  what- 
ever they  might  turn  out,  a  market  capable  of  taking 
up  any  reasonable  increase  of  output.  Exceptions 
to  this  general  rule  occurred;  as,  for  example,  in 
textiles.  But  the  general  rule  stands  out  obtrusively 
through  the  early  decades  of  the  nineteenth  century 
so  far  as  regards  English  industry,  and  even  more 
obviously  in  the  case  of  America.  Such  an  open 
market  meant  a  fair  chance  for  competitive  produc- 
tion, without  too  much  risk  of  overstocking.  And 
running  to  the  same  effect,  there  was  the  continued 
increase  of  population  and  the  continually  increasing 
reach  and  volume  of  the  means  of  transport,  serving 
to  maintain  a  free  market  for  any  prospective  in- 
crease of  output,  at  prices  which  offered  a  fair 
prospect  of  continued  profit.  In  the  degree  in  which 
this  condition  of  things  prevailed  a  reasonably-  free 
competitive  production  would  be  practicable. 

The  industrial  situation  so  outlined  began  visibly 
to  give  way  toward  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  in  England,  and  at  a  correspondingly  later 
period  in  America.  The  productive  capacity  of  the 
mechanical  industry  was  visibly  overtaking  the 
capacity  of  the  market,  so  that  free  competition  with-  _ 
out  afterthought  was  no  longer  a  sound  footing  on 
which  to  manage  production.  Loosely,  this  critical 
or  transitional  period  falls  in  and  about  the  second 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  England ;  else- 
where at  a  correspondingly  later  date.  Of  course 
the  critical  point,  when  business  exigencies  began 
to  dictate  a  policy  of  combination  and  restriction, 
did  not  come  at  the  same  date  in  all  or  in  most  of 
i  the  mechanical  industries;  but  it  seems  possible  to 


say  that,  by  and  large,  the  period  of  transition  to  a 
general  rule  of  restriction  in  industry  comes  on  at 
the  time  and  for  the  reason  so  indicated.  There 
were  also  other  factors  engaged  in  that  industrial 
situation,  besides  those  spoken  of  above,  less  notable 
and  less  sharply  defined,  but  enforcing  limitations  of 
the  same  character.  Such  were,  for  example,  a 
rapidly  gaining  obsolescence  of  industrial  plant,  due 
to  improvements  and  extensions,  as  also  the  partial 
exhaustion  of  the  labor  supply  by  persistent  over- 
work, under-feeding,  and  unsanitary  conditions — 
but  this  applies  to  the  English  case  rather  than 
elsewhere. 

In  point  of  time  this  critical  period  in  the  affairs 
of  industrial  business  coincides  roughly  with  the 
coming  in  of  corporation  finance  as  the  ordinary  and 
typical  method  of  controlling  the  industrial  output. 
Of  course  the  corporation,  or  company,  has  other 
uses  besides  the  restrictive  control  of  the  output  with 
a  view  to  a  profitable  market,  but  it  should  be  suffi- 
ciently obvious  that  the  combination  of  ownership 
and  centralization  of  control  which  the  corporation 
brings  about  is  also  exceedingly  convenient  for  that 
purpose.  And  when  it  appears  that  the  general 
resort  to  corporate  organization  of  the  larger  sort 
sets  in  about  the  time  when  business  exigencies  begin 
to  dictate  an  imperative  restriction  of  ouput,  it  is  not 
easy  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  this  was  one  of  the 
ends  to  be  served  by  this  reorganization  of  business 
enterprise.  Business  enterprise  may  fairly  be  said 
to  have  shifted  from  the  footing  of  free-swung  com- 
petitive production  to  that  of  a  conscientious  with- 
holding of  efficiency,  so  soon  and  so  far  as  corpora- 
tion finance  on  a  sufficiently  large  scale  had  come  to 
be  the  controlling  factor  in  industry.  At  the  same 
time  and  in  the  same  degree  the  discretionary  con- 
trol of  industry,  and  of  other  business  enterprise  in 
great  part,  has  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  corpora- 
tion financier. 

Corporate  organization  has  continually  gone  for- 
ward to  a  larger  scale  and  a  more  comprehensive 
coalition  of  forces,  and  at  the  same  time,  and  more 
and  more  visibly,  it  has  become  the  ordinary  duty 
of  the  corporate  management  to  adjust  production 
to  the  requirements  of  the  market  by  restricting  the 
output  to  what  the  traffic  will  bear,  that  is  to  say, 
what  will  yield  the  largest  net  earnings.  Under 
corporate  management  it  rarely  happens  that  produc- 
tion is  pushed  to  the  limit  of  capacity.  It  happens, 
and  can  happen,  only  rarely  and  intermittently. 
This  has  been  true,  increasingly,  ever  since  the  ordi- 
nary productive  capacity  of  the  mechanical  industries 
seriously  began  to  overtake  and  promised  to  exceed 
what  the  market  would  carry  off  at  a  reasonably 


1919 


555 


profitable  price.  And  ever  since  that  critical  turn 
in  the  affairs  of  industrial  business — somewhere  in 
the  middle  half  of  the  nineteenth  century — it  has 
become  increasingly  imperative  to  use  a  wise  mod- 
eration and  stop  down  the  output  to  such  a  rate  and 
volume  as  the  traffic  will  bear.  The  cares  of  busi- 
ness have  required  an  increasingly  undivided  atten- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  business  men,  and  in  an  ever 
increasing  measure  their  day's  work  has  come  to 
center  about  a  running  adjustment  of  sabotage  on 
production.  And  for  this  purpose,  evidently,  the 
corporate  organization  of  this  business,  on  an  increas- 
ingly large  scale,  is  very  serviceable,  since  the  requi- 
site sabotage  on  productive  industry  can  be  effec- 
tually administered  only  on  a  large  plan  and  with  a 
firm  hand. 

"  The  leaders  in  business  are  men  who  have 
studied  and  thought  all  their  lives.  They  have  thus 
learned  to  decide  big  problems  at  once,  basing  their 
decisions  upon  their  knowledge  of  fundamental 
principles." — Jeremiah  W.  Jenks.  That  is  to  say, 
the  surveillance  of  this  financial  end  of  industrial 
business,  and  the  control  of  the  requisite  running 
balance  of  sabotage,  have  been  reduced  to  a  routine 
governed  by  settled  principles  of  procedure  and  ad- 
ministered by  suitably  trained  experts  in  corporation 
finance.  But  under  the  limitations  to  which  all 
hurrian  capacity  is  subject  it  follows  from  this  in- 
creasingly exacting  discipline  of  business  administra- 
tion that  the  business  men  are  increasingly  out  of 
touch  with  that  manner  of  thinking  and  those  ele- 
ments of  knowledge  that  go  to  make  up  the  logic 
and  the  relevant  facts  of  the  mechanical  technology. 
Addiction  to  a  strict  and  unremitting  valuation  of 
all  things  in  terms  of  price  and  profit  leaves  them, 
by  settled  habit,  unfit  to  appreciate  those  technologi- 
cal facts  and  values  that  can  be  formulated  only  in 
terms  of  tangible  mechanical  performance;  increas- 
ingly so  with  every  further  move  into  a  stricter 
addiction  to  businesslike  management  and  with  every 
further  advance  of  the  industrial  system  into  a  still 
wider  scope  and  a  still  more  diversified  and  more 
delicately  balanced  give  and  take  among  its  inter- 
locking members. 

They  are  experts  in  prices  and  profits  and  finan- 
cial maneuvers,  and  yet  the  final  discretion  in  all 
questions  of  industrial  policy  continues  to  rest  in 
their  hands.  They  are  by  training  and  interest  cap- 
tains of  finance,  and  yet,  with  no  competent  grasp 
of  the  industrial  arts,  they  continue  to  exercise  a 
plenary  discretion  as  captains  of  industry.  They 
are  unremittingly  engaged  in  a  routine  of  acquisition, 
in  which  they  habitually  reach  their  ends  by  a 
shrewd  restriction  of  output,  and  yet  they  continue 


to  be  entrusted  with  the  community's  industrial  wel- 
fare, which  calls  for  maximum  production. 

Such  has  been  the  situation  in  all  the  civilized 
countries  since  corporation  finance  has  ruled  indus- 
try, and  until  a  recent  date.  Quite  recently  this 
settled  scheme  of  business  management  has  shown 
signs  of  giving  way,  and  a  new  move  in  the  organi- 
zation of  business  enterprise  has  come  in  sight, 
whereby  the  discretionary  control  of  industrial  pro- 
duction is  shifting  still  farther  over  to  the  side  of 
finance  and  still  farther  out  of  touch  with  the  re- 
quirements of  maximum  production.  The  new 
move  is  of  a  twofold  character:  (a)  the  financial 
captains  of  industry  have  been  proving  their  indus- 
trial incompetence  in  a  progressively  convincing 
fashion,  and  (b)  their  own  proper  work  of  financial 
management  has  progressively  taken  on  a  character 
of  standardized  routine  such  as  no  longer  calls  for  or 
admits  any  large  measure  of  discretion  or  initiative. 
They  have  been  losing  touch  with  the  management 
of  industrial  processes,  at  the  same  time  that  the 
management  of  corporate  business  has,  in  effect,  been 
shifting  into  the  hands  of  a  bureaucratic  clerical 
staff.  The  corporation  financier  of  popular  tradition 
is  taking  on  the  character  of  a  chief  of  bureau. 

The  changes  which  have  brought  the  corporation 
financier  to  this  somewhat  inglorious  position  of  a 
routine  administrator  set  in  along  with  the  early 
growth  of  corporation  finance,  somewhere  around 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  they  have 
come  to  a  head  somewhere  about  the  passage  to  the 
twentieth  century,  although  it  is  only  since  the  latter 
date  that  the  outcome  is  becoming  at  all  clearly 
defined.  When  corporate  organization  and  the 
consequent  control  of  output  came  into  bearing  there 
were  two  lines  of  policy  open  to  the  management: 
(a*)  to  maintain  profitable  prices  by  limiting  the 
output,  and  (b)  to  maintain  profits  by  lowering  the 
production  cost  of  an  increased  output.  To  some 
extent  both  of  these  lines  were  followed,  but  on 
the  whole  the  former  proved  the  more  attractive; 
it  involved  less  risk,  and  it  required  less  acquaint- 
ance with  the  working  processes  of  industry.  At  least 
it  appears  that  in  effect  the  preference  was 
increasingly  given  to  the  former  method  during  this 
half-century  of  financial  management.  For  this1  there 
were  good  reasons.  The  processes  of  production 
were  continually  growing  more  extensive,  diversified, 
complicaced,  and  more  difficult  for  any  layman  in 
technology  to  comprehend — and  the  corporation 
financier  was  such  a  layman,  necessarily  and  increas- 
ingly so,  for  reasons  indicated  above.  At  the  same 
time,  owing  to  a  continued  increase  of  population 


556 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


and  a  continued  extension  of  the  industrial  system, 
the  net  product  of  industry  and  its  net  earnings  con- 
tinued to  increase  independently  of  any  creative 
effort  on  the  part  of  the  financial  management.  So 
the  corporation  financier,  as  a  class,  came  in  for  an 
"  unearned  increment "  of  income  on  the  simple 
plan  of  "  sitting  tight."  That  plan  is  intelligible  to 
any  layman.  All  industrial  innovation  and  all 
aggressive  economy  in  the  conduct  of  industry  not 
only  presumes  an  insight  into  the  '  technological 
details  of  the  industrial  process,  but  to  any  other 
than  the  technological  experts,  who  know  the  facts 
intimately,  any  move  of  that  kind  will  appear  haz- 
ardous. So  the  business  men  who  have  controlled 
industry,  being  laymen  in  all  that  concerns  its  man- 
agement, have  increasingly  been  content  to  let  well 
enough  alone  and  to  get  along  with  an  ever  increas- 
ing overhead  charge  of  inefficiency,  so  long  as  they 
have  lost  nothing  by  it.  The  result  has  been  an 
ever  increasing  volume  of  waste  and  misdirection  in 
the  use  of  equipment,  resources,  and  man  power 
throughout  the  industrial  system. 

In  time,  that  is  to  say  within  the  last  few  years, 
the  resulting  lag,  leak,  and  friction  in  the  ordinary 
working  of  this  mechanical  industry  under  business 
management  have  reached  such  proportions  that  no 
ordinarily  intelligent  outsider  can  help  seeing  them 
wherever  he  may  look  into  the  facts  of  the  case. 
But  it  is  the  industrial  experts,  not  the  business 
men,  who  have  finally  begun  to  criticize  this  busi- 
nesslike mismanagement  and  neglect  of  the  ways 
and  means  of  industry.  And  hitherto  their  efforts 
and  advice  have  met  with  no  cordial  response  from 
the  business  men  in  charge,  who  have,  on  the  whole, 
continued  to  let  well  enough  alone — that  is  to  say, 
what  is  well  enough  for  a  short-sighted  business 
policy  looking  to  private  gain,  however  poorly  it 
may  serve  the  material  needs  of  the  community.  But 
in  the  meantime  two  things  have  been  happening 
which  have  deranged  the  regime  of  the  corporation 
financier:  industrial  experts,  engineers,  chemists, 
minerologists,  technicians  of  all  kinds  have  been 
drifting  into  more  responsible  positions  in  the  indus- 
trial system  and  have  been  growing  up  and  multiply- 
ing within  the  system,  because  the  system  will  no 
longer  work  at  all  without  them;  and  on  the  other 
hand,  the  large  financial  interests  on  whose  support 
the  corporation  financiers  have  been  leaning  have 
gradually  come  to  realize  that  corporation  finance 
can  best  be  managed  as  a  comprehensive  bureucratic 
routine,  and  that  the  two  pillars  of  the  house  of 
corporate  business  enterprise  of  the  larger  sort  are 
the  industrial  experts  and  the  large  financial  con- 
cerns that  control  the  necessary  funds;  whereas  the 


corporation  financier  is  little  more  than  a  dubious 
intermediate  term  between  these  two. 

One  of  the  greater  personages  in  American  busi- 
ness finance  took  note  of  this  situation  in  the  late 
nineties  and  set  about  turning  it  to  account  for  the 
benefit  of  himself  and  his  business  associates,  and 
from  that  period  dates  a  new  era  in  American  cor- 
poration finance.  It  was  for  a  time  spoken  of  loosely 
as  the  Era  of  Trust-Making,  but  that  phrase  does 
not  describe  it  at  all  adequately.  It  should  rather  be 
called  the  Era  of  the  Investment  Banker,  and  it  has 
come  to  its  present  stage  of  maturity  and  stability 
only  in  the  course  of  the  past  quarter-century. 

The  characteristic  features  and  the  guiding  pur- 
pose of  this  improved  method  in  corporation  finance 
are  best  shown  by  a  showing  of  the  methods  and 
achievements  of  that  great  pioneer  by  whom  it  was 
inaugurated.      As    an    illustrative    case,    then,    the 
American  steel  business  in  the  nineties  was  suffering 
from    the    continued    use   of   out-of-date   processes, 
equipment,   and   locations,    from  wasteful   manage- 
ment under  the  control  of  stubbornly  ignorant  cor- 
poration officials,  and  particularly  from  intermittent 
haphazard  competition  and  mutual  sabotage  between 
the  numerous  concerns  which  were  then  doing  busi- 
ness in  steel.    It  appears  to  have  been  the  last-named 
difficulty  that  particularly  claimed  the  attention  and 
supplied  the  opportunity  of  the  great  pioneer.     He 
can  by  no  stretch  of  charity  be  assumed  to  have  had 
even  a  slight  acquaintance  with  the  technological 
needs  and  shortcomings  of  the  steel  industry.     But 
to  a  man  of  commercial  vision  and  financial  sobriety 
it  was  plain  that  a  more  comprehensive,  and  there- 
fore more  authoritative,  organization  and  control  of 
the  steel  business  would  readily  obviate  much  of  the 
competition  which  was  deranging  prices.     The  ap- 
parent purpose  and  the  evident  effect  of  the  new  and 
larger  coalition  of  business  interests  in  steel  was  to 
maintain  profitable  prices  by  a  reasonable  curtail- 
ment of  production.     A  secondary  and  less  evident 
effect  was  a  more  economical  management  of  the 
industry,  which  involved  some  displacement  of  quon- 
dam corporation  financiers  and  some  introduction  of 
industrial  experts.     A  further,  but  unavowed,  end 
to  be  served  by  the  same  move  in  each  of  the  many 
enterprises    in    coalition    undertaken    by    the    great 
pioneer  and  by  his  competitors  was  a  bonus  that 
came  to  these  enterprising  men  in  the  shape  of  an 
increased  capitalization   of  the  business.     But  the 
notable  feature  of  it  all  as  seen  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  public  at  large  was  always  the  stabiliza- 
tion of  prices  at  a  reasonably  high  level,  such  as 
would  always  assure  reasonably  large  earnings  on  the 
increased  capitalization. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


557 


Since  then  this  manner  of  corporation  finance  has 
been  further  perfected  and  standardized,  until  it  will 
now  hold  true  that  no  large  move  in  the  field  of 
corporation  finance  can  be  made  without  the  advice 
and  consent  of  those  large  funded  interests  that  are 
in  a  position  to  act  as  investment  bankers;  nor  does 
any  large  enterprise  in  corporation  business  ever 
escape  from  the  continued  control  of  the  investment 
bankers  in  any  of  its  larger  transactions ;  nor  can  any 
corporate  enterprise  of  the  larger  sort  now  continue 
to  do  business  except  on  terms  which  will  yield 
something  appreciable  in  the  way  of  income  to  the 
investment  bankers,  whose  continued  supp&t  is  nec- 
essary to  its  success.  The  financial  interest  here 
spoken  of  as  the  investment  banker  is  commonly 
something  in  the  way  of  a  more  or  less  articulate 
syndicate  of  financial  houses,  and  it  is  to  be  added 
that  the  same  financial  concerns  are  also  commonly, 
if  not  invariably,  engaged  or  interested  in  commer- 
cial banking  of  the  usual  kind.  So  that  the  same 
well-established,  half-syndicated  ramification  of 
banking  houses  that  have  been  taking  care  of  the 
country's  commercial  banking,  with  its  center  of 
credit  and  of  control  at  the  country's  financial 
metropolis,  is  ready  from  beforehand  to  take  over 
and  administer  the  country's  corporation  finance  on 
a  unified  plan  and  with  a  view  to  an  equitable  dis- 
tribution of  the  country's  net  earnings  among  them- 
selves and  their  clients.  The  more  inclusive  this 
financial  organization  is,  of  course,  the  more  able  it 
will  be  to  manage  the  country's  industrial  system  as 
an  inclusive  whole  and  prevent  any  hazardous  inno- 
vation or  experiment,  as  well  as  to  limit  production 
of  the  necessaries  to  such  a  volume  of  output  as  will 
yield  the  largest  net  return  to  itself  and  its  clients. 
Evidently  the  improved  plan  which  has  thrown  the 
discretion  and  responsibility  into  the  "hands  of  the 
investment  banker  should  make  for  a  safe  and  sound 
conduct  of  business,  such  as  will  avoid  fluctuations 
of  price,  and  more  particularly  avoid  any  unprofit- 
able speeding-up  of  productive  industry.  Evidently, 
too,  the  initiative  has  hereby  passed  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  corporation  financier,  who  has  fallen  into  the 
position  of  a  financial  middleman  or  agent,  with 
limited  discretion  and  with  a  precariously  doubtful 
future.  But  all  human  institutions  are  susceptible 
of  improvement,  and  the  course  of  improvement  may 
now  and  again,  as  in  his  case,  result  in  supersession 
and  displacement.  And  doubtless  it  is  all  for  the 
best,  that  is  to  say,  for  the  good  of  business,  more 
particularly  for  the  profit  of  big  business. 

But  now  as  always  corporation  finance  is  a  traffic 
in  credit;  indeed,  now  more  than  ever  before. 
Therefore  to  stabilize  corporate  business  sufficientlv 


in  the  hands  of  this  inclusive  quasi-syndicate  of 
banking  interests 'it  is  necessary  that  the  credit  sys- 
tem of  the  country  should  as  a  whole  be  adminis- 
tered on  a  unified  plan  and  inclusively.  All  of 
which  is  taken  care  of  by  the  same  conjunction  of 
circumstances;  the  same  quasi-syndicate  of  banking 
interests  that  makes  use  of  the  country's  credit  in 
the  way  of  corporation  finance  is  also  the  guardian 
of  the  country's  credit.  From  which  it  results  that, 
as  regards  those  large-scale  credit  extensions  which 
are  of  substantial  consequence,  the  credits  and  debits 
are,  in  effect,  pooled  within  the  syndicate,  so  that  no 
substantial  derangement  of  the  credit  situation  can 
take  effect  except  by  the  free  choice  of  this  quasi- 
syndicate  of  investment  banking  houses;  that  is  to 
say,  not  except  they  see  an  advantage  to  themselves 
in  allowing  the  credit  situation  to  be  deranged,  and 
not  beyond  the  point  which  will  best  serve  their 
collective  purpose  as  against  the  rest  of  the  com- 
munity. With  such  a  closed  system  no  extension  of 
credit  obligations  or  multiplication  of  corporate 
securities,  with  the  resulting  inflation  of  values,  need 
bring  any  risk  of  a  liquidaton,  since  credits  and 
debits  are  in  effect  pooled  within  the  system.  By 
way  of  parenthesis  it  may  also  be  remarked  that 
under  these  circumstances  "  credit "  has  no  par- 
ticular meaning  except  as  a  method  of  account1 
ing.  Credit  is  also  one  of  the  timeworn  insti- 
tutions that  are  due  to  suffer  obsolescence  5y 
improvement. 

This  process  of  pooling  and  syndication  that  is 
remaking  the  world  of  credit  and  corporation  finance 
has  been  greatly  helped  on  in  America  by  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  Federal  Reserve  system,  while  some- 
"what  similar  results  have  been  achieved  elsewhere 
by  somewhat  similar  devices.  That  system  has 
greatly  helped  to  extend,  facilitate,  simplify,  and 
consolidate  the  unified  control  of  the  country's  credit 
arrangements,  and  it  has  very  conveniently  left  the 
substantial  control  in  the  hands  of  those  larger  finan- 
cial interests  into  whose  hands  the  lines  of  control 
in  credit  and  industrial  business  were  already  being 
gathered  by  force  of  circumstances  and  by  sagacious 
management  of  the  interested  parties.  By  this  means 
the  substantial  core  of  the  country's  credit  system  is 
gathered  into  a  self-balanced  whole,  closed  and  un- 
breakable, self-insured  against  all  risk  and  derange- 
ment. All  of  which  converges  to  the  definitive  sta- 
bilization of  the  country's  business;  but  since  it 
reduces  financial  traffic  to  a  riskless  routine  it  also 
converges  to  the  conceivable  obsolescence  of  corpora- 
tion finance  and  eventually,  perhaps,  of  the  invest- 
•ment  banker. 

THORSTEIN  VEBLEN. 


558 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


Conrad  Aiken — Metaphysical  Poet 


HE  WORLD  is  seriously  in  need  of  a  new  classifica- 
tion of  poets.  Hitherto  we  have  been  largely  con- 
tent with  the  old  labels  of  romantic  and  realist. 
But  these  old  labels  can  no  longer  satisfy,  for  the 
boundaries  of  poetry  have  been  enlarged  since  the 
early  nineteenth  century  to  embrace  the  whole  field 
of  scientific  speculation  which  is  our  legacy  from 
the  evolutionists,  the  anthropologists,  the  psychol- 
ogists, the  sociologists,  and  the  men  of  science  gen- 
erally. As  we  are  today,  it  is  evident  that  there 
may  be  quite  as  much  romantic  magic  in  a  poet  writ- 
ing from  a  mind  stocked  with  purely  scientific 
theory,  as  there  is  in  Shelley;  and  as  much  realism 
in  the  narrower  sense,  in  a  poet  of  pure  romantic 
tendency,  as  there  is,  say,  in  Masefield.  We  must 
seek  finer  distinctions.  What  is  needed  is  not  a  new 
definition  of  the  incomprehensible  mystery  called 
"  poetry,"  but  a  new  classification  of  the  poets 
themselves. 

When  we  come  to  examine  English  poetry,  we 
can,  if  we  observe  closely,  easily  distinguish  two 
main  streams  of  inspiration  fn  it — now  parting,  now 
fusing,  sometimes  clouded,  and  again  distinct.  There 
have  been  the  poets  who  wrote  largely  of  the  aspects 
of  things  outside  themselves;  and  the  poets  who, 
turning  within  themselves,  wrote  of  the  world  as 
mirrored  in  the  human  brain.  We  may  call  the  first 
objective,  and  the  second  subjective;  or  we  may 
adopt  a  more  recent  nomenclature  and  label  the  first 
imagistic  and  the  second  symbolistic.  But  if  the 
spirit  of  inquiry  is  strong  within  us  neither  of  these 
labels  can  completely  satisfy  our  intelligence.  They 
do  not  completely  cover  the  ground.  We  are  per- 
haps safer  if  we  say  that  the  first  group  of  poets 
are  externalistic,  and  the  second  metaphysical,  in 
tendency.  There  have  been  far  more  poets  of  the 
externalist  type  in  English  than  of  the  metaphysical. 
And  these  poets  have  been  more  widely  read  and 
appreciated  by  their  contemporaries — indeed,  by 
posterity — than  their  neglected  antitypes.  This  is 
partly  due  to  the  mental  inertia  of  most  of  us — 
an  inertia  that  seeks  to  be  soothed  with  pretty, 
easily  explainable  pictures  and  familiar  tunes — partly 
also  to  the  extreme  difficulty  of  writing  good  meta- 
physical verse.  The  good  metaphysical  poet  must 
be  always  turning  the  world  inside  out,  so  to  speak. 
And  since  the  faculty  of  verse-writing  is  based  pri- 
marily on  an  immediate  emotional  response  to  sensu- 
ous impression,  it  is  apparent  that  the  good  meta- 
physical poet  must  be  always  battling  against  his 
own  immediate  apprehensions.  This  will  explain 
the  rarity  of  great  metaphysical  poets.  In  England 


there  have  been,  so  far  as  I  remember,  Donne — 
facile  princeps  in  this  field — also  Vaughan,  and  possi- 
bly Marvell.  Shakespeare  in  Hamlet  and  lago, 
Webster  in  Bosola  and  Ferdinand,  gave  us  complete 
figures  illuminated  by  the  same  searching  metaphys- 
ic.  Shelley,  had  he  developed  in  the  direction 
of  The  Cenci  and  of  The  Triumph  of  Time, 
might  have  become  one  of  the  great  metaphysical 
poets. 

To  turn  from  these  figures  to  a  writer  of  the 
present  day  and  generation  may  seem  to  some  an 
impertinence.  But  we  are  not  able  to  estimate  the 
weight  and  significance  of  a  writer  such  as  Conrad 
Aiken,  either  as  poet  or  as  critic  of  poetry,  except 
by  making  some  such  transition.  On  the  jacket  of 
Mr.  Aiken's  latest  book,  his  fifth  (The  Charnel 
Rose;  Four  Seas  Co.;  Boston),  I  find  the  following: 
"  There  is  a  strangeness  about  the  art  of  Conrad 
Aiken  that  makes  it  unique.  No  one  is  writing 
just  like  him  in  America  today."  This  remark  is 
not  only  true,  it  is  probably  the  one -true  thing  that 
has  ever  been  said  about  Aiken.  And  because  of  this 
strangeness,  which  I  think  springs  from  the  fact  that 
both  in  his  poetry  and  in  his  prose  criticism  Aiken 
is  a  metaphysician,  he  has  been  more  variously  esti- 
mated by  writers  and  critics  on  both  sides  of  the  At- 
lantic than  any  man  I  know.  He  is  profoundly  dis- 
liked by  many,  mistrusted  by  some,  and  admired,  if 
at  all,  by  a  few. 

I  turn  to  page  thirty-one  of  the  poem  he  calls 
Senlin:  A  Biography  (really  I  like  to  think  that 
the  subject  of  this  poem  is  Aiken  himself)  and  cull 
the  following  stanzas : 

It  is  morning,  Senlin  says,  and  in  the  morning 

When  the  light  drips  through  the  shutters  like  the  dew, 

I  arise,  I  face  the  sunrise, 

And  do  the  things  my  fathers  learned  to  do. 

Stars  in  the  purple  dusk  above  the  roof-tops 

Pale  in  a  saffron  mist  and  seem  to  die, 

And  I  myself  on  a  swiftly  tilting  planet 

Stand  before  a  glass  and  tie  my  tie. 

I  stand  before  a  mirror  and  comb  my  hair ; 
How  small  and  white  my  face! 
The  green  earth  tilts  through   a   sea  of  air, 
And  bathes  in  a  flame  of  space. 

It  is  morning,  Senlin  says,  and  in  the  morning 
Should  I  not  pause  in  the  light  to  remember  God  ? 
Upright  and  firm  I  stand  on  a  star  unstable, 
He  is  immense  and  lonely  as  a  cloud. 
I  will  dedicate  this  moment  before  my  mirror 
To  Him  alone,  for  Him  I  will  comb  my  hair. 
Accept  these  humble  offerings,  cloud  of  silence ! 
I  will  think  of  you  as  I  descend  the  stair. 

Here  we  have  a  kind  of  poetry  profoundly  un- 
settling of  our  cherished  conventions  and  prejudices. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


559 


Either  we  are  by  nature  timid  anthropomorphists  in 
matters  of  religion  (despite  all  the  evidence  that  can 
be  urged  to  the  contrary)  or  we  are  simply  indiffer- 
ent. But  Aiken  is  neither.  He  "looks  beneath  the 
surface  of  age-old  compromises  and  sees  the  body 
of  Everyman  poised  on  an  unstable  helpless  planet, 
carefully  arranging  his  tie,  while  his  soul,  darkened 
and  without  knowledge,  humbly  seeks  to  penetrate 
to  the  cause  of  all  things.  The  cruel  clarity  of  such 
perception  as  this  startles  and  horrifies.  But  none, 
the  less  it  is  both  beautiful  and  true.  In  this  mind 
we  find  all  our  minds  mirrored.  Poetry  cannot  do 
more. 

Even  more  profoundly  disturbing,  more  intoxicat- 
ingly  daemonic,  is  the  insight  displayed  in  the  poem 
which  gives  this  volume  its  title — The  Charnel  Rose. 
The  subject  of  this  poem  is  sexual  desire;  and  out 
of  desire,  the  "  desire  of  the  moth  for  the  star,"  the 


desire  that  has  tormented  every  great  mind  from 
Saint  Augustine  to  Nietzsche,  Aiken  has  woven  a 
vast  symphony.  Quotation  here  is  useless.  We  are 
simply  upborne  in  these  mad,  delirious  waves  of 
drunken  music  that  flow  in  and  out  endlessly.  We 
are  hurried  from  one  chaos  into  another,  so  that  we 
should  be  in  danger  of  losing  our  bearings  utterly 
were  not  the  mind  and  voice  directing  this  orchestra 
that  of  a  poet.  "  To  shape  this  world  of  leaderless 
ghostly  passions, — or  else  be  mobbed  by  it,  that  is 
the  question  " :  in  these  lines  is  summed  up  the  whole 
purpose  of  the  poem.  Conrad  Aiken  has  shaped  this 
world  for  us,  has  striven  to  make  tangible  to  us  the 
intangible  substance  of  our  lives,  and  we  cannot 
withhold  from  him  a  meed  of  praise  as  great  as  that 
of  any  poet  living  and  writing  in  America  today. 

JOHN  GOULD  FLETCHER. 


Rainer  Maria  Rilke 


V-tHiEF  AMONG  THE  LYRICAL  gem  makers  of  Ger- 
many at  present  is  Rainer  Maria  Rilke.  He  makes 
little  perfect  things  after  the  patterns  of  old  great 
things.  Taking  an  intimate,  poignant,  but  minute 
impress  of  a  'great  emotion  or  intimation,  he  gives 
out  an  attenuated  copy  of  it  wrought  in  exquisite 
miniature  workmanship. 

His  talent  burns  with  an  intense  but  thin  flame,  a 
flame  assuming  a  semblance  of  many  colors  from  the 
many  objects  over  which  it  plays,  but  having  little 
color  of  its  own.  The  paucity  of  inner  warmth  and 
substance  is  covered  by  much  outward  sense  imagery 
wrapped  in  a  symbolistic  haze  of  unutterable  mean- 
ings. The  attitude  of  the  Annunciation  becomes  a 
habit.  The  vatic  gesture  serves  as  a  vehicle  of  any 
communication  no  matter  how  casual,  trivial,  or 
merely  pretty.  A  breathless  anticipation  of  eternal 
beauty  and  heavenly  preciousness  exhales  a  strained 
atmosphere  of  a  sublimity  both  exclusive  and  pre- 
carious. Sense  intoxication,  immensely  skilful  and 
self-conscious,  counterfeits  vision. 

Though  he  developed  separately,  he  is  in  a  sense 
the  extreme  efflorescense  of  the  movement  which  took 
definite  form  and  set  forth  a  precise  program  under 
the  leadership  of  Stephan  George  in  Die  Blatter  fiir 
die  Kunst,  during  the  nineties.  That  magazine  was 
for  a  time  the  organ  of  an  esoteric  poetical  brother- 
hood of  excruciating  sensitiveness  and  finesse.  The 
brotherhood  has  passed,  but  the  spirit  has  remained. 
Its  devotees  repudiate  whatever  is  readily  perceptible 
to  the  common.  The  impact  of  reality  upon  the 
mind  is  by  them  removed  to  the  extreme  limits  of 
the  aura  of  crepuscular  intimations  fringing  the 


sphere  of  normal  perception.  Their  consciousness 
spurns  the  ministrations  of  the  naked  sense.  Emo- 
tion and  sense-life  are  sustained  by  a  high-power 
microscope. 

The  German  movement  is  not  an  isolated  sport 
in  the  poetry  and  art  of  nineteenth  century  Europe. 
It  took  a  decided  form  first  in  the  Romantic  Move- 
ment in  Germany.  It  rose  again  in  the  French 
Symbolists  and  in  some  of  the  Neo-Celts,  and  is  now 
seeking  rebirth  in  the  Imagists.  It  is  closely  asso- 
ciated with  the  musical  and  pictorial  arts,  especially 
the  latter,  from  which  it  borrows  much  of  its  tech- 
nique of  the  reproduction  of  the  world  of  the  eye. 
It  seeks  to  mirror  nature  in  a  consciousness  one- 
sidedly  visual,  and,  to  a  lesser  degree,  auditory. 

Its  chief  shortcoming  lies  in  the  poverty  of  its  in- 
ner life.  Its  emotionality  is  subtle  sense  excitement. 
Its  spirituality  is  an  exquisite  mask  of  the  utmost  re- 
finements of  a  rarified  animalism.  Its  ethos  is  a 
sensuality  from  which  has  been  refined  away  its 
proper  relevance,  its  matter-of-fact  gravity  and 
downright  honest  desire  for  material  fruitfulness. 
What  remains  is  an  intense  but  impoverished  gesture 
of  creativeness. 

The  attitude  of  the  recording  self  in  this  poetry  is 
that  of  a  spellbound  inactivity,  of  a  breathless,  pass- 
ively intense  waiting  for  the  spontaneous  arrival  of 
t^he  unutterable,  which,  like  the  king  in  Maeter- 
linck's Seven  Princesses,  never  comes.  It  lacks  the 
nai've  identification  of  the  conscious  self  with  the 
impulses,  motions,  and  activities  swaying  it,  which 
is  the  essence  of  the  mood  of  true  lyricism.  Its  in- 
ward quality  is  largely  that  of  prose  which  is  meas- 


560 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


ured  by  the  degree  to  which  the  recording  conscious- 
ness keeps  clear  of  the  sway  of  the  activities,  emo- 
tions, and  ideas  transmitted  through  it.  Its  emo- 
tional participation  in  its  subjects  is  that  peculiar 
introspective  mood  in  which  self-conscious  gesture 
takes  the  place  of  nai've  utterance.  "  I  will  pour 
forth  my  soul  with  hands  stretched  out "  is  the  con- 
cluding and  culminating  line  of  The  Bride.  True 
lyricism  is  not  introspective. 

The  irrelevance  of  mere  visual  finesse  intruding 
on  the  essential  mood  is  shown  in  the  characteristic 
last  stanza  of  the  poem  Memories  from  Childhood. 
The  poet  remembers  the  sweetness  of  his  boyhood, 
glorified  as  it  was  by  the  companionship  of  a  gifted 
and  sympathetic  mother,  who  used  to  play  and  sing 
to  him.  The  picture  concludes: 

His  large  eyes  fastened  with  a  quiet  glow 
Upon  the  hand  which  by  her  ring  seemed  bent, 
And  slowly  wandering  o'er  the  white  keys  went 

Moving  as  though  against  a  drift  of  snow. 

Such  self-mirroring  as  in  the  first  line,  and  the  eyes' 
search  for  unusual  and  strained  refinements  of  ex- 
ternal analogy  in  the  remaining  lines,  destroy  sin- 
cerijy  of  emotion  and  freeze  lyrical  warmth. 
.However,  with  all  its  shortcomings  of  externalism 
and  inner  sterility,  this  poetry  has  a  claim  on  our 
attention  as  an  expression  of  a  type  of  individuality 
developed  by  modern  civilization  and  as  a  conspicu- 
ous feature  of  the  literary  life  of  a  century.  And 
Rilke,  as  one  of  the  most  distinguished  representa- 
tives of  this  type,  both  in  substance  and  workman- 


ship, will  repay  careful  reading  with  many  subtle 
thrills,  many  suggestions,  and  many  admissions  to 
modern  emotional  sophistication. 

These  remarks  on  Rilke  have  been  called  forth  by 
translations  of  a  selection  from  his  many  books  of 
poems  by  Jessie  Lemont  (Tobias  A.  Wright;  New 
York).  In  view  of  the  immense  difficulties  of  her 
task,  she  has  acquitted  herself  with  remarkable 
fidelity  and  a  considerable  degree  of  success.  Aside 
from  the  common  difficulties  of  metrical  translitera- 
tion from  German  into  English — difficulties  inher- 
ent in  the  far  greater  number  of  unstressed  final 
syllables  and  the  greater  rhythmical  weight  of  un- 
stressed syllables  generally — she  had  to  contend  with 
the  obstacles,  often  insuperable,  raised  by  the  author's 
exquisite  verbal  skill  and  by  his  preciosity.  Fre- 
quently, with  the  illusive  veil  of  the  latter  torn  by 
the  exigencies  of  English,  there  appears  the  naked 
prose  of  the  matter,  as  in  lines  like :  "  He  will 
awake,  will  read,  will  letters  write,"  in  which  the 
inversion  crudely  emphasizes  the  uninspired  con- 
tent. Harshness  of  sound  and  rhythm,  inadequate 
renderings  of  subtleties  of  matter  and  diction  are 
unavoidable.  Yet,  to  those  to  whom  Rilke  in  the 
original  is  inaccessible  and  to  those  sympathetically 
interested  in  the  suggestions  gained  from  comparison 
of  metrical  translations  with  their  originals,  the  book 
will  prove  valuable.  The  translations  are  prefaced 
by  an  illuminating  though  somewhat  panegyrical 
appreciation  of  Rilke,  by  "H.  T." 

MARTIN  SCHUTZE. 


B 


The  Romance  of  the  Realists 


'E  HE  NEVER  so  STERN  a  realist,  the  poet  must 
yet  obey  his  romantic  spirit.  For  poetry  is  distin- 
guished from  prose  by  a  desire  that  broods  upon  its 
own  activity,  returning  upon  itself  as  a  lapsed  wave 
is  caught  up  and  carried  forward  by  the  sea.  It  is 
this  that  renders  the  subject-matter  of  poetry  indif- 
ferent. Any  subject  is  "  poetic  "  which  the  artist  can 
invest  with  his  personal  ardor.  It  is  "  prosaic  "  to 
the  degree  that  he  intellectualizes,  that  he  resists  its 
immediate  claim  upon  him  for  the  sake  of  imposing 
a  more  considered  accent.  That  toward  which  the 
artist's  instinct  drives  him  is  "  poetic  " ;  that  which 
he  accepts,  as  an  object  for  the  exercise  of  his  technic 
or  the  play  of  his  intelligence,  is  to  this  extent  the 
subject  matter  of  prose. 

Primitive  poetic  impulse  seems  to  be  toward  a 
perception  of  the  external  world.  The  mind  of  the 
poet,  playing  in  the  vague  childhood  of  the  race,  dis- 
covers earth  and  air,  the  seas  and  the  planets,  with 
wonder  and  delight.  It  is  only  later  that  he  discov- 
ers his  own  personality,  and,  as  he  progresses,  the  in- 


volution of  that  personality  with  a  complex  and  in- 
apprehensible world.  Much  of  the  poetry  at  the 
close  of  the  last  century  was  the  poetry  of  men 
defeated  by  the  coils  in  which  they  found  them- 
selves, fooling  with  surface  fripperies  and  fra- 
grances. What  marks  contemporary  English  poetry 
is  its  preoccupation  with  the  personal,  a  preoccupa- 
tion stimulated  and  directed  by  the  increased  com- 
plexity of  our  life.  It  is  not  so  much  that  the  splen- 
dor of  a  sunlit  wind-ridden  earth  or  the  terror  of 
space  and  thunder  have  lessened,  as  that  the  prob- 
lems we  have  more  frequently  to  face  are  those  of 
one  personality  impinging  on  others;  and  moreover 
that  we  have  new  knowledge  about  personal  rela- 
tions no  less  revolutionary  than  the  new  knowledge 
about  impersonal  ones  which  shook  the  mid-nine- 
teenth century. 

Inasmuch  as  the  majority  of  her  poems  deal  with 
this  novel  world,  Jean  Starr  Untermeyer  is  a  mod- 
ern person.  All  art  is  to  a  degree  pathological.  It 
is  a  means  of  throwing  off  waste  emotion.  It  is 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


561 


medicine  for  the  sick  soul.  So  she  makes  her  frank 
declaration : 

Not  for  Art's  sake, 

But  to  rid  me  of  an  ancient  sorrow. 

And  since  to  the  sensitive  mind  the  knowledge  of  its 
own  loneliness  is  always  intensely  present,  it  is  here 
her  emphasis  lies.  If  she  dwells  upon  the  soul's 
essential  solitude,  however,  it  is  without  sentimental- 
ity and  often  with  a  stringent  challenge. 

The  authenticity  of  Growing  Pains  (Huebsch) 
lies  in  the  poet's  surrender  to  her  mood.  A  surrender 
which  is  yet  not  an  abandonment,  which  is  con- 
trolled by  the  cleverness  of  the  technician  as  well 
as  by  the  author's  realistic  bias.  Here  are  "  no  songs 
for  an  idle  lute."  If  this  seems  a  bold  statement, 
an  examination  of  the  poems  gives  it  validity.  Not 
all  have  the  same  highly-wrought  quality,  but  all 
seem  to  have  been  evoked  by  the  pressure  of  life 
itself,  by  the  demands  of  body  and  brain.  The  power 
of  investing  vulgar  experience  with  beauty  is  patent 
in  the  color  and  odorous  pungency  of  Autumn;  in 
the  mellow  gravity  of  A  Man;  in  On  the  Beach, 
with  its  sure  resurgent  cadences,  the  infibulation 
of  human  passions  with  the  vast  heave  and  murmur 
of  the  sea;  in  Spring,  perhaps  the  most  sustained 
poem  in  the  book,  certainly  one  of  the  most  penetrat- 
ing. There  is  little  verbal  music  in  these  poems, 
despite  the  author's  fine  rhythmic  sense.  She  cares 
rather  for  a  word's  adequacy  than  for  its  resonance. 
But  her  work  has  the  virtues  of  that  defect.  For 
the  sheer  power  of  its  imagery,  no  less  than  for  its 
characteristic  ironic  vigor,  High-Tide  is  fairly 
typical : 

I  edged  back  against  the  night. 

The  sea  growled  assault  on  the  wave-bitten  shore. 

And  the  breakers, 

Like  young  and  impatient  hounds, 

Sprang,  with  rough  joy  on  the  shrinking  sand. 

Sprang — but  were  drawn  back  slowly, 

With  a  long,   relentless  pull, 

Whimpering,  into  the  dark. 

Then  I  saw  who  held  them  captive ; 

And  I  saw  how  they  were  bound 

With  a  broad  and  quivering  leash  of  light, 

Held  by  the  moon, 

As,  calm  and  unsmiling, 

She  walked  the  deep  fields  of  the  sky. 

In  contrasting  this  with  another  first  book,  that 
of  Alter  Brody — A  Family  Album  (Heubsch)  — 
one  comes  to  a  sharper  realization  of  those  quali- 
ties which  make  a  poet  out  of  a  realist.  For  while 
he  has  a  kinship  with  the  maturer  artist,  the  lack 
of  her  restraint  and  sophistication  sometimes  twists 
his  sincerest  efforts  into  a  blurred  and  pensive  sen- 
timentality. His  book  is  a  confusion  of  power  and 
weakness:  the  power  of  a  harsh  veracity  and  irony, 
the  weakness  of  youth  brooding  over  love  and  death. 


For  Mrs.  Untermeyer's  acute  self-analysis  Mr. 
Brody  substitutes  a  more  objective  if  less  keen  appre- 
hension of  his  environment.  He  is  more  nation- 
ally minded  than  the  other  poet,  he  is  at  once  more 
self-conscious  and  less  concentrated.  He  lingers  on 
his  racial  affiliations;  dwelling  on  the  Russian 
village — with  its  "  sweet-sounding,  time-scented 
name  " — where  he  was  born,  and  upon  the  New 
York  Ghetto  to  which  he  came,  with  the  same  fond 
accent,  the  same  receptive  lucidity.  In  the  Ghetto 
twilight  he  regards  the  old  tenements, 

Watching  the  tired  faces  coming  home  from  work, 
Like  dry-breasted  hags 
-  Welcoming  their  children  to  their  withered  arms. 

And  he  asks: 

Is  that  ugly? 

That  dreamy-eyed  little  ragamuffin  urinating  so  contem- 
platively on  the  pavement, 

Patterning  that  square  patch  of  sunlight  into  circles  and 
ellipses 

With  such  intense  absorption — 


Fearlessly, 

They  thrust  their  dry  branches  against  the  sky; 

Long  since  the  wind  rifled  their  blossoms 

And  scattered  their  foliage  on  the  ground — 

Now  they  stand  sternly  erect, 

Naked  and  strong, 

Having  nothing  to  lose. 

Mr.  Brody  simply  asserts  himself  to  be  a  realist. 
Understanding  the  demands  such  a  philosophy  of  art 
puts  upon  the  poet,  he  strives  unremittingly  to  fulfill 
them.  There  are  many  lapses  and  immaturities ;  he 
is  often  verbose;  and  sometimes  his  verse  moves  in 
the  alert  progressive  rhythms  of  prose  rather  than  the 
strophic  curves  of  his  chosen  art.  But  there  is  the 
note  of  a  significant  voice  here. 

Without  any  expressed  theory,  Mrs.  Untermeyer 
achieves  what  Mr.  Brody  seeks.  In  spite  of  a  more 
limited  and  delayed  output,  perhaps  because  of  it, 
she  comes  more  nearly  to  the  core  of  poetic  realism. 
Both  poets  deal  with  familiar  things,  finding  their 
themes  in  the  homely  street,  the  common  face,  the 
eventualities  of  the  day.  Both  prefer  the  use  of  un- 
rhymed  free  verse,  probably  for  its  greater  strict- 
ness and  terseness.  Of  the  two,  Mr.  Brody  is  more 
apt  to  bejewel  his  verse  with  lovely  phrases  than 
to  startle  with^the  unequivocal  adjective.  The  fact 
that  Mrs.  Untermeyer  succeeds  more  frequently 
seems  to  be  due  rather  to  strenuous  self-criticism 
than  to  any  fundamental  difference  in  attack.  Ca- 
pacity to  see  the  beauty  in  things  common  and 
grotesque,  the  grasp  upon  and  plumbing  of  experi- 
ence with  the  courage  of  the  intellect,  these  are  the 
hallmarks  of  their  method,  as  well  as  the  gifts  of 

their  art'  BABETTE  DEUTSCH. 


562 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


The  Cult  of  Brutality 


1  T  is  A  COMMON  PLATITUDE  that  every  extreme, 
from  politics  to  literature  breeds  its  own  violent 
antithesis.  Yet,  familiar  though  the  axiom  may  be 
and  numerous  though  its  examples  are,  it  is  always 
a  fresh  fascination  to  watch  its  workings  in  a  new 
movement  in  art,  a  new  ethnic  cause,  a  renewed 
dispute  in  literary  esthetics.  Literature  partic- 
ularly records  these  swings  of  the  pendulum  with 
an  almost  mathematical  regularity.  From  the  rude 
vigor  of  the  Elizabethans  to  the  polished  artifice  of 
Pope,  from  the  pietistic  elegance  of  Vaughan  and 
Herbert  to  the  straightforward  simplicity  of  the 
Lake  poets,  one  can  trace  the  reactions  not  only  of 
poetry,  but  of  the  age  that  produced  it.  In  our  own 
time  we  see  the  preponderant  swing  toward  a  free 
but  earth-planted  naturalism.  The  revulsion  from 
a  purely  decorative  literature,  from  mere  verbal 
color  and  esthetic  adroitness,  has  brought  about  work 
of  the  most  opposite  sort;  the  return  (foretold  by 
Synge)  to  brutality  as  a  fresh  starting-point  is  one 
of  its  outstanding  results.  We  witness  it  in  Eng- 
land in  the  narratives  of  Masefield,  in  the  miniature 
dramas  of  W.  W.  Gibson,  in  certain  phases  of  the 
poetry  of  Rupert  Brooke,  Siegfried  Sassoon,  and 
other  young  Georgians.  In  America,  thanks  possibly 
to  the  still  predominating  Puritan  tradition,  the  re- 
action has  been  slower  and  less  pervasive.  But  it 
already  has  its  protagonists.  We  see  its  manifesta- 
tions in  the  work  of  Carl  Sandburg;  in  certain  of 
the  ruder  passages  of  Edgar  Lee  Masters,  Arturp 
Giovannitti,  Wallace  Gould;  in  some  of  the  street 
pictures  of  Roy  Helton.  And  now,  with  a  brutal 
intensity  of  his  own,  comes  John  Crowe  Ransom 
with  his  first  volume  innocently  entitled  Poems 
About  God  (Holt). 

The  title  itself  is  misleading.  Even  the  author's 
prefatory  advertisement  conceals  the  book's  harsh 
anger,  its  fierce  humor.  In  his  prologue,  written 
in  France,  Mr.  Ransom  says: 

The  first  three  or  four  poems  that  I  ever  wrote  (that 
was  two  years  ago)  were  done  in  three  or  four  different 
moods  and  with  no  systematic  design.  I  was  therefore 
duly  surprised  to  notice  that  each  of  them  made  con- 
siderable use  of  the  term  God.  I  studied  the  matter  a 
little,  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  this  was  the  most 
poetic  of  all  terms  possible;  was  a  term  always  being 
called  into  requisition  during  the  great  moments  of  the 
soul,  now  in  tones  of  love,  and  now  indignantly;  and  was 
the  very  last  word  that  a  man  might  say  when  standing 
in  the  presence  of  that  ultimate  mystery  to  which  all  our 
great  experiences  reduce. 

Wishing  to  make  my  poems  as  poetic  as  possible,  I 
simply  likened  myself  to  a  diligent  apprentice  and  went 
to  work  to  treat  rather  systematically  a  number  of  the 
occasions  on  which  this  term  was  in  use  with  common 
American  men.  And  since  these  occasions  fairlv  crowded 


into  mind  even  at  the  most  casual  inventory,  I  also 
likened  myself  to  a  sovereign  and  a  chooser;  and  I  very 
quickly  ruled  that  I  should  consider  only  those  situations 
as  suitable  in  which  I  could  imagine  myself  pronouncing 
the  name  God  sincerely  and  spontaneously,  never  by  that 
way  of  routine  which  is  death  to  the  esthetic  and 
religious  emotions. 

What  is  misleading  about  these  ingratiating  sen- 
tences is  the  emphasis  that  is  put  on  a  subject  which 
is  dropped  time  and  again  (usually  to  the  volume's 
advantage),  an  emphasis  which  is  likely  to  lead  to  a 
false  appraisal.  For  Mr.  Ransom  is  less  concerned 
with  the  whims,  turns,  and  injustices  of  an  anthro- 
pomorphic deity  than  he  is  in  the  use  of  God  as  good 
material.  In  spite  of  his  honest  protestation,  Mr. 
Ransom  delights  in  employing  his  Creator  (or  rather, 
his  creation)  for  artistic  effects;  he  uses  him  to 
tighten  up  a  phrase,  to  round  a  rhyme,  to  raise  a 
dull  narrative  to  a  higher  or  more  dramatic  pitch. 
When  he  forgets  his  program  altogether,  he  succeed,s 
with  far  greater  ease.  Thus  the  poem,  One  Who 
Rejected  Christ,  drags  in  a  sacred  allusion  by  the 
very  hair  of  its  head.  Its  actual  impulse  is  far  from 
a  spiritual  one.  Instead  of  religious  indignation  or 
ministerial  unction  there  is  a  hard,  bucolic  satire  that 
ends: 

I'm   not   like   other   farmers, 

I  make  my  farming  pay ; 

I  never  go  in  for  sentiment, 

And  seeing  that  roses  yield  no  rent 

I   cut  the   stuff   away. 

A  very  good  thing  for  farmers 

If  they  would   learn  my  way; 

For  crops  are   all  that  a  good   field   grows, 

And  nothing  is  worse  than   a   sniff  of   rose 

In  the  good  strong  smell  of  hay. 

The  whole  volume  bristles  with  this  acerbity,  a 
pungence  often  carried  to  an  unusually  bitter  climax. 
Mr.  Ransom  pursues,  with  remorseless  vigor,  a 
stark  honesty,  a  bitter  truth ;  he  cares  little  whether 
his  frank  expressiveness  startles  the  unprepared  or 
disgusts  the  squeamish.  Examine  Grace,  with  its 
brusque  blend  of  beauty  and  ugliness.  Here  he  has 
dramatically  evoked  the  partners  plowing,  the  hired 
hand  who  prayed  "  to  live  in  the  sunshine  of  His 
face"  and  (through  "an  overdose  of  grace")  col- 
lapsed underneath  the  broiling  sun,  the  contrast 
of  the  man  dying  in  the  midst  of  his  vomit  and  the 
calm  setting  with  its  half-ironic  loveliness.  Dumb- 
Bells  is  scarcely  less  effective,  with  its  blunt  cartoon 
of  thirty  fat  men  "reducing": 

Dripping  sweat  and  pumping  blood 
They  try  to  make  themselves  like  God. 

In  A  Christmas  Colloquy  there  is  less  roughness; 
a  quieter  if  somewhat  too  extended  irony  points  the 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


563 


poet's  revolt.  And  in  poems  like  Wrestling  (as  by 
a  coarser  Robert  Frost),  Prayer,  Noonday,  Grace 
(with  its  gustatory  catalogue),  and  Geometry  the 
original  candor  mounts  with  a  stronger  individuality. 
A  fragment  from  the  last-named  may  illustrate : 

My  window  looks  upon   a  wood 

That  stands   as  tangled  as  it  stood 

When  God  was  centuries  too  young 

To   care   how    right   he    worked,   or   wrong, 

His  patterns  in  obedient  trees ; 

Unprofited  by  the  centuries 

He  still  plants  on  as  crazily 

As  in  his  drivelling  infancy. 

Small  though  the  range  may  be,  Mr.  Ransom's 
manner  is  varied  enough.^  The  lines  run  from  the 
surprisingly  powerful  to  the  incredibly  banal,  from 
epithets  that  are  forceful  to  phrases  that  are  both 
flatulent  and  flat.  Nor  are  the  crudities  confined 


to  his  treatment;  they  often  bury  his  racy  lines  in  a 
flood  of  cheap  philosophizing  couched  in  a  wearying 
meter.  Mr.  Ransom  is  fond,  for  instance,  of  ring- 
ing many  changes  (not  too  skilfully)  on  a  single 
over-stressed  rhyme — and,  betrayed  by  a  rather  in- 
sensitive ear,  he  commits  still  further  musical 
atrocities.  This  tone-deafness  allows  him  to  perpe- 
trate rhymes  as  false  as  those  employed  by  the  School 
of  Popular  Songs  for  One-Fingered  Pianists — 
"rhymes"  as  vaudevillian  as  "girl — world,"  "down 
— ground,"  "way — parley."  His  hext  book  will 
doubtless  eliminate  such  gaucheries.  It  is  to  be 
hoped  that  the  growing  sophistication  hinted  at  in 
the  first  paragraph  of  his  introduction  will  not  over- 
refine  a  gift  that  has,  for  all  its  rawness,  individual- 
ity, strength,  and  the  promise  of  stronger  things. 


Louis  UNTERMEYER. 


London,  May  10 


I 


AM  NOT  SURE  whether  a  change  in  the  editor- 
ship of  the  Times  is  a  matter  which  directly  con- 
cerns literature.  Perhaps  it  does,  and  in  any  case 
it  is  always  interesting.  In  this  particular  case  it 
is  even  more  interesting  than  usual.  The  retiring 
editor,  Mr.  Geoffrey  Dawson  (ne  Robinson),  has 
allowed  it  to  be  known  that  he  has  resigned  because 
he  feels  that  Lord  Northcliffe  is  dissatisfied  with 
him.  And  Lord  Northcliffe  is  dissatisfied,  he 
imagines,  because  of  the  divergence  between  the 
policy  pursued  by  the  Times  and  that  pursued  by 
the  other  journals  under  his  lordship's  control.  This 
divergence  may  have  been  for  years  a  source  of  irri- 
tation to  Lord  Northcliffe — and  of  pride,  mixed 
perhaps  with  apprehension,  to  Mr.  Dawson ;  but  the 
knowledge  that  it  existed  will  probably 'come,  as  a 
surprise  to  the  general  public.  Mr.  Winston 
Churchill  years  ago,  when  he  was  a  member  of  a 
Liberal  cabinet,  remarked  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons that  he  was  not  moved  by  what  appeared  in 
the  Daily  Mail,  whether  in  its  halfpenny  or  its 
threepenny  edition ;  and  it  has  always  been  supposed 
that  the  difference  of  general  purpose  between  the 
Times  and  the  Daily  Mail  was  much  what  might 
be  supposed  to  exist  between  a  fifteen-inch  howitzer 
and  a  field-gun.  Both  took  their  part  in  the  artil- 
lery preparation  of  any  position  which  Lord  North- 
cliffe desired  to  storm. 

But  this  being  so,  the  difference  which  Lord 
Northcliffe's  control  has  made  to  the  Times  has 
been  in  one  direction  surprisingly  small.  In  the  di- 
rection of  successful  management  it  has  of  course 
been  great;  but  even  those  persons  who  prophesied 
the  collapse  of  its  prestige  under  the  new  regime  are 


still  obliged  to  admit,  whether  they  will  or  not,  that 
it  is  our  first  paper.  I  have  heard  many  surprising 
results  ascribed  to  the  change  in  its  ownership.  I 
have  heard  it  said  that  the  whole  course  of  our  war 
administration  would  have  been  changed;  that  the 
Asquith  Government  would  not  have  fallen;  that 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  would  not  have  become  Prime 
Minister ;  and  that,  according  to  the  views,  of  the 
speaker  the  war  would  either  have  been  won  earlier 
or  not  at  all — if  Lord  Northcliffe  had  not  secured 
effective  control  before  the  war  began.  On  these 
points  I  offer  no  opinion.  But  I  am  certainly  of  the 
opinion  that,  whatever  may  be  the  use  to  which  the 
prestige  of  the  paper  is  put,  its  prestige  remains  very 
much  the  same.  The  persons  who  describe  the 
Daily  Mail  as  the  worst  influence  in  our  public  life 
and  who  .believe  that  the  Times  is  merely  the  in- 
strument of  the  creator  of  the  Daily  Mail,  continue 
to  rely  on  the  Times  as  the  ultimate  court  of  appeal 
so  far  as  news  is  concerned. 

Perhaps  the  subtle  divergence  of  policy,  percepti- 
ble only  to  Lord  Northcliffe  and  to  Mr.  Dawson,  has 
done  this  without  our  being  aware  of  how  it  is  done; 
and  the  appointment  of  Mr.  H!  Wickham  Steed  as 
editor  may  be  the  beginning  of  the  end.  In  five 
years  perhaps,  by  one  of  those  Napoleonic  changes  to 
which  Lord  Northcliffe  is  addicted,  it  may  suddenly 
appear  as  the  first  morning  paper  entirely  devoted  to 
colored  pictures;  and  a  link  with  the  past  will  be 
gone.  But  somehow  I  do  not  really  anticipate  that. 
I  give  Lord  Northcliffe  credit  for  being  the  greatest 
journalistic  genius  this  country  has  ever  produced; 
and  I  imagine  hjs  genius  is  capable  of  understanding 
the  mechanics  of  the  Times  as  well  as  those  of 


564 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


Answers  or  Comic  Cuts.  Mr.  Steed,  besides,  is  a 
highly  respectable  journalist,  who  is  believed  to 
understand  the  Jugo-Slav  question.  I  am  sure  he 
will  not  be  a  party  to  anything  vulgar  or  rash. 

Meanwhile  what  we  are  all  anxious  about  is  the 
fate  of  the  Times  Literary  Supplement.  This  is  a 
quite  separate  paper,  not  given  away  with  the 
Times,  but  it  is  under  the  same  management  and 
equally  subject  to  the  nod  of  our  journalistic  Jupiter. 
It  has  nevertheless  pursued  a  policy  distinctly  diver- 
gent from  that  of  its  owner's  other  papers;  and  it  has 
been  acclaimed  as  the  most  telling  opponent  of 
Northcliffism  extant.  It  is  not  perhaps  guite  that, 
because  it  preaches  for  the  most  part  to  the  con- 
verted; but  it  is  a  very  distinguished  upholder  of 
liberty  and  the  humanities,  including  among  its  con- 
tributors that  almost  excessively  idealistic  writer, 
Mr.  A.  Glutton  Brock.  One  has  wondered  for  a 
long  time  why  his  lordship  stood  it ;  and  indeed  one 
might  imagine  that  he  would  be  anxious  to  suppress 
it  on  other  grounds  than  those  of  policy.  It  has  long 
dull  articles  about  ideals,  and  for  the  rest  is  made 
up  of  correspondence  on  the  text  of  Shakespeare  and 
the  principles  of  English  prosody  and  of  pages  on 
pages  of  reviews  of  books,  most  of  which  probably 
seem  to  Lord  Northcliffe  as  unreadable  as  the  books 
themselves  would  be.  It  is  generally  supposed  that 
only  the  amazing,  inexplicable  fact  of  its  continued 
success,  witnessed  by  unimpeachable  circulation 
figures,  has  hitherto  held  his  hand;  but  no  one 
knows  how  long  this  will  continue.  Therefore 
when  any  change  overtakes  the  Times,  we  all  feel  a 
little  nervous  about  the  Times  Literary  Supplement. 

I  came  across  this  question  of  circulation  enter- 
tainingly the  other  day  in  another  circle  of  ideas. 
Mr.  Monro,  the  founder  and  proprietor  of  the 
Poetry  Bookshop,  is  in  a  semi-demobilized  condition 
and  is  applying  himself  to  the  resumption  of  affairs. 
As  a  result  he  discovered,  I  understand,  that  Mr. 

De  la  Mare  now  leads  the  field  and  that  Mr. 

(whose  name  I  won't  mention,  because  I  think  it 
not  so  creditable  to  us)  is  an  honorable  second. 
Poetry  hath  her  best-sellers  no  less  than  fiction  and, 
I  suppose,  always  had,  even  when  Swinburne  limped 
first  past  the  post  with  an  edition  of  600  copies,  400 
for  sale  in  Germany.  But  if  it  is  now  a  more  sub- 
stantial thing  than  it  was  to  be  a  best-seller  among 
the  poets,  some  of  the  credit  for  that  happy  fact 
must  go  to  Mr.  Monro. 


He  founded  the  Poetry  Bookshop  in  1912 — an 
important  year,  the  year  after  the  publication  of 
Rupert  Brooke's  first  volume.  He  founded  it  to 
meet  the  very  real  difficulty  caused  by  the  fact  that 
a  person  who  wanted  in  those  days  to  buy  a  book  of 
verse  often  failed  unless  he  had  great  persistence  and 
a  profound  expert  knowledge  of  J:he  publishing 
trade.  The  ordinary  bookseller  met  all  inquiries 
with  a  perfect  ignorance  and  a  sullen  determination 
not  to  help.  If  you  supplied  him  with  the  fullest 
details  of  publisher  and  price,  he  would  still 
meditate  for  months  on  the  desirability  of  allowing 
such  dangerous  stuff  to  pass  through  his  shop.  Of 
course  he  never  in  any  circumstances  stocked  it.  All 
this  was  changed  by  the  Poetry  Bookshop,  where 
(broadly  speaking)  they  stocked  nothing  else;  and  I 
think  that  the  future  historian  of  English  literature 
will  mark  1912  as  a  turning-point.  I  do  not  mean 
that  Mr.  Monro  provoked  a  Renaissance  by  opening 
a  shop,  but  I  am  of  opinion  that  his  enterprising 
(and  as  it  has  turned  out,  entirely  successful)  action 
was  one  of  the  most  important  of  a  number  of  symp- 
toms \vhich  began  to  be  obvious  at  about  the  same 
time.  In  or  about  that  year  a  new  public  interest 
in  verse  arose  and,  I  think,  the  demand  gave  a  cer- 
tain healthiness  to  the  supply.  It  induces  a  more 
normal  and  more  human  state  of  mind  to  \vrite 
what  has  a  chance  of  pleasing  than  to  produce  in 
the  void ;  and  poets  who  never  thought  of  abandon- 
ing verse  because  it  was  unpopular  really  did  begin 
to  write  a  little  better  when  they  seemed  to  have  a 
greater  chance  of  a  hearing. 

Someone  said  wistfully  to  me  the  other  day  (a 
poet  of  course)  that  he  wished  he  could  see  a  history 
of  English  literature  written  some  hundred  years 
hence.  By  Jove!  So  do  I.  I  am  convinced,  and 
have  always  maintained,  that  we  are  indubitably  at 
the  beginning  of  what  can  only  be  called,  in  an  un- 
comfortable term,  a  movement;  but  I  am  certain 
that  as  yet  we  know  very  little  of  its  eventual  extent 
and  character.  Our  view  of  it  has  changed  a  good 
deal  in  the  six  years  that  have  passed  since  the  ap- 
pearance of  Rupert  Brooke  and  the  first  volume  of 
Georgian  Poetry  and  the  foundation  of  the  Poetry 
Bookshop.  Reputations  have  risen  and  declined. 
New  promise  has  appeared.  The  works  of  Mr.  De 
la  Mare  sell  briskly.  It  is  a  curious  and  entertain- 
ing world;  and  I  do  wish  that  I  could  live  for- 


ever. 


EDWARD  SHANKS. 


Sun  Glamour 


The  day  has  brought  me  sun-loaned  cheer, 
And  to  unchangeable  ways — change. 
But  dusk  is  here  to  make  them  strange, 
Making  them  clear. 

'     -     HAZEL  HALL. 


THE  DIAL 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor  CLARENCE  BRITTEN 

In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program: 

JOHN    DEWEY  THORSTEIN   VEBLEN  HELEN    MAROT 


TH 


.HE  TREATY  WITH  GERMANY  SHOULD  BE 
summarily  rejected  by  the  Senate.  It  is  contrary  to 
the  view  of  world  peace  laid  down  by  President 
Wilson  both  before  and  after  the  United  States 
entered  the  war.  It  is  in  specific  violation  of  the 
fourteen  points  and  hence  of  the  terms  of  the  Armis- 
tice. It  is  opposed  to  the  theory  of  the  League  of 
Nations  and  commits  such  a  league  to  the  defense 
and  administration  of  territorial  and  economic  ar- 
rangements which  are  wrong  in  principle  and  im- 
possible in  practice.  The  treaty  should  be  rejected 
as  a  matter  of  national  honor,  of  national  safety, 
and  of  national  service  to  the  world.  Such  rejec- 
tion will  undoubtedly  give  opportunity  for  a  better 
peace — a  peace  of  honor,  generosity,  and  mutual  ad- 
vantage— between  Germany  and  the  United  States. 
It  may  have  the  same  effect  on  the  peace  between 
Germany  and  her  other  enemies.  Far  from  hav- 
ing a  modifying  influence  on  the  exactions  of  the 
Allies,  the  presence  of  the  United  States  in  their 
ranks  has  apparently  given  them  confidence  to  de- 
mand terms  which  but  for  our  guarantee  would  be 
obviously  impossible.  Our  withdrawal  from  the 
Conference  at  this  time  is  likely  therefore  to  con- 
tribute to  an  earlier  stabilization  of  Europe.  And 
in  any  event  the  freedom  of  the  United  States  from 
responsibility  for  the  present  Treaty  is  a  necessary 
condition  of  its  support  and  participation  in  a 
genuine  international  organization  of  the  world,  the 
necessity  for  which  will  be  greater  than  ever. 

15 Y  AND  LARGE  THE  TERMS  OF  THE  GREAT  PEACE 

were  drawn  to  secure  two  objects;  one  offensive — 
the  destruction  of  Germany ;  one  defensive — the  pre- 
servation of  the  present  economic  and  political  sys- 
tem. Obviously  it  was  impossible  to  destroy  all  of 
Germany.  It  is  less  obvious,  but  equally  true,  that 
in  the  process  of  destroying  a  part  of  Germany  the 
Allies  have  breached  the  defenses  of  the  old  order. 
In  the  long  run,  it  makes  little  difference  whether 
the  German  government  signs  the  Treaty  or  not.  If 
the  Treaty  is  rejected,  the  Allies  will  enforce  its 
terms  without  the  aid  of  German  official  machinery. 
If  the  government  accepts  the  Treaty,  the  Allies 
will  for  the  time  being  have  the  aid  of  a  German 
executive  organism  obedient  to  their  wishes.  In 
the  first  case  the  Entente  governments  will  very 


shortly  find  themselves  dealing  directly  and  at 
once  with  the  "  kept  classes  "  of  Germany,  ,who  will 
collect  the  required  tribute  from  the  masses  of  the 
population.  In  the  second  case,  the  officials  will 
form  an  additional  class  of  intermediaries  between 
the  Germans  who  produce  and  the  Allies  who  claim 
the  product.  But  the  governing  and  owning  classes  of 
Germany  already  rock  in  the  storms  of  revolution. 
To  insure  the  final  and  complete  overthrow  of  both, 
it  only  remained  for  the  Allies  to  make  the  position 
of  official  or  capitalist  not  worth  fighting  for.  And 
in  this  the  statesmen  have  succeeded  admirably. 
The  terms  are  indeed  "  ruinous  " — they  will  ruin 
the  two  intermediary  classes  in  Germany  and  iron 
the  population  out  into  decentralized  socialism. 
When  this  has  been  accomplished,  the  burdens  laid 
upon  Germany  will  rest,  not  (as  is  usual)  upon  tax- 
collecting  classes  that  profit  in  spite  of  burdens,  but 
directly  upon  the  flat  masses  of  the  German  people. 
Whether  the  capitalist  system  caused  the  war  is  a 
somewhat  academic  question.  Certainly  it  made 
the  peace — a  peace  with  terms  so  heavy  that  Ger- 
man capitalism  will  be  crushed  out  of  existence, 
and  the  subject  classes  of  Germany  will  be  united  in 
a  hatred  born  of  nationalistic  rebellion  and  the  class 
war.  This  animosity  will  have  for  its  object  the 
foreign  "  kept  classes  "  whose  only  capitalistic  func- 
tion, as  far  as  Germany  is  concerned,  is  the  absorp- 
tion of  profits.  Here,  then,  for  the  first  time  the 
class  that  owns  and  the  class  that  works  appear  in 
the  undecorated  roles  of  the  taxer  and  the  taxed. 
Whether  or  not  this  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the 
old  order  will  have  an  appreciable  effect  upon  the 
taxed  classes  in  the  allied  countries  remains  to  be 
seen.  Already  it  seems  safe  to  predict  that  allied 
and  German  labor  will  find  friendship  in  adversity. 
All  this  escapes  those  critics  who  seize  upon  the 
easiest  interpretation  of  the  Treaty  and  ,find  the 
Allies  in  danger  of  killing  the  German  goose  that  is 
expected  to  lay  the  golden  eggs  of  indemnity.  The 
figure  does  not  go  far  enough.  The  real  goose  is 
an  international  bird;  as  long  as  labor  and  brain 
power  in  Germany  and  elsewhere  are  organized  foi 
production  incident  to  the  preservation  of  life,  the 
goose  lives.  It  is  the  system  for  collecting  the  eggs 
that  is  everywhere  in  danger. 


566 


THE  DIAL 


1  HE   CHIEF   USE   OF  A   LEAGUE   OF   NATIONS   FOR 

the  great  silent  majority  of  the  earth  should  be  as  a 
form  of  liquidation  for  empires  in  esse  and  in  posse, 
to  release  the  millions  of  India,  Egypt,  and  Ireland 
from  British  and  the  millions  of  Korea  from  Japan- 
ese dominion — to  save  the  millions  of  China,  Rus- 
sia, and  Africa  from  threatening  imperialistic  am- 
bitions. The  great  danger  of  the  Covenant,  as  was 
promptly  seen  by  its  advocates,  was  in  Article  X 
which  seemed  in  effect  to  validate  existing  empires. 
The  final  arrangements  preliminary  to  the  Treaty, 
and  the  Treaty  itself,  give  no  comfort  to  those  who 
hoped  for  the  first  and  feared  the  second.  The  case 
of  Ireland  is  the  most  advanced  of  those  of  nations 
seeking  self-government.  Sir  Edward  Carson  has 
forbidden  Lloyd  George  to  receive  the  American 
Commission  sent  to  raise  the  Irish  question  at  the 
Peace  Conference.  The  English  occupation  of  Egypt 
is  the  most  outstanding  case  of  international  treach- 
ery on  the  part  of  a  European  nation.  At  the  bid- 
ding of  the  Egyptian  bondholders,  English  guns 
were  turned  on  Alexandria  in  1882  and  the  prom- 
ising nationalistic  movement  under  Arabi  Pasha 
was  crushed.  The  English  government  promised 
solemnly  in  the  sight  of  all  Europe  to  withdraw  from 
Egypt.  After  continuing  its  occupation  for  thirty- 
two  years,  it  declared  a  protectorate  over  Egypt  in 
1914.  For  nearly  five  years  the  United  States  re- 
fused formal  recognition  of  this  act.  Only  a  few 
days  ago  President  Wilson's  complacency  triumphed 
over  his  conscience;  he  accepted  the  protectorate, 
adding  a  little  pious  piffle  to  the  Egyptians  about  the 
folly  of  their  attempts  at  self-determination.  The 
whole  of  India  is  a  burning,  seething  sore.  Literally, 
millions  are  engaged  in  a  demonstration  against  the 
economic  exploitation  of  the  country  under  British 
authority — and  particularly  against  the  withdrawal 
of  all  civil  rights  from  Hindus  by  the  Rowlatt  Acts. 
The  voices  of  Robert  Williams,  Robert  Smillie,  and 
George  Lansbury  are  raised  in  their  behalf  in  a  call 
to  their  countrymen  "  to  join  us  in  our  protest 
against  the  bombing  and  shooting  of  unarmed  men 
and  women,  and  in  our  demand  for  a  public  in- 
quiry into  these  outrages."  In  this  connection  it  is 
interesting  to  remember  that  England  has  always 
professed  to  hold  India  as  trustee  for  the  Indian 
people  on  the  same  principle  as  that  implicit  in  the 
system  of  mandatories  under  the  League  of  Nations. 
It  is  with  little  confidence  in  the  light  of  the  news 
from  Egypt  and  India  that  we  contemplate  the  pros- 
pect of  handing  the  rest  of  Africa  over  to  England 
as  mandatory.  The  Japanese  atrocities  in  Korea  are 
likely  to  be  duplicated  in  Shantung — underwritten 
by  President  Wilson,  the  United  States,  and  the 
League  of  Nations.  The  connection  of  this  state  of 
affairs  throughout  the  world  controlled  by  the 
Executive  powers  of  the  League  with  the  future  of 
Germany  under  the  Treaty  is  obvious.  Germany 
is  to  take  her  place  as  the  chief  of  the  martyr  nations 
-^the  exponent  of  their  wrongs,  the  leader  in  their 
plea  for  justice  and  in  their  movement  for  freedom. 


It  would  be  another  ironical  turn  of  history  that 
should  make  Germany  the  hope  of  freedom  in  the 
world,  and  enroll  the  nations  that  fought  for  liberty 
and  self-determination,  in  a  League  of  Free  Nations 
as  misnamed  as  the  Holy  Alliance. 

.    AODAY  WALT  WHITMAN  IS   ONE   HUNDRED  YEARS 

old.  During  the  century  since  his  birth  his  States 
have  evolved  a  scene  very  different  from  that  crude 
and  spacious  panorama,  extending  westward  from  a 
narrow  selvage  of  provincial  elegance  to  a  fabulous 
frontier,  which  seems  to  us  the  congruous  back- 
ground for  his  rugged  figure.  Yet  we  feel — those 
of  us  who  attend  him  at  all — that  he  was  spiritually 
more  nearly  our  contemporary  than  were  any  of  the 
other  men  of  letters  whose  centenaries  we  have 
lately  celebrated  or  are  soon  to  celebrate.  Many  of 
them  represented,  more  easily  and  intimately  per- 
haps than  Whitman  the  poet  ever  represented  any- 
thing, the  textures  of  the  particular  segments  of  life 
that  enclosed  them ;  but  in  a  large  loose  way  Whit- 
man the  man  increasingly  typifies  for  us  the  general 
canvas  of  that  life.  At  the  same  time,  and  even  while 
the  scene  which  he  proclaimed  as  American  recedes 
into  a  conveniently  remote  golden  age  in  our  nation- 
al consciousness,  Whitman  the  prophet  advances 
upon  us  as  spokesman  for  what  we  like  to  think  are 
our  enduring  ideals.  No  doubt  this  is  the  normal 
career  for  the  prophet:  his  time  melts  into  history 
as  a  single  luminous  page;  he  himself  is  purged  and 
canonized  as  its  surviving  hero.  Now  if  there  is 
any  social  validity  in  this  prophet-making  process,  it 
is  perhaps  less  futile  than  many  think  it  to  be  to 
cull  from  the  master's  works  passages  of  plausible 
contemporary  pertinence — "  prophecies."  Not  that 
the  prophet  will  actually  have  anticipated  the  con- 
ditions or  events  to  which  his  words  are  thus  ap- 
plied, but  that  he  will  enrich  his  readers'  desires 
and  thoughts  with  something  of  the  combined  dig- 
nity and  familiar  warmth,  of  the  clearer  and  closer 
community  of  purpose,  that  accrues  from  a  continu- 
ing tradition  and  that  no  age  can  achieve  for  itself 
in  isolation.  Therefore  it  is  not  necessary  to  believe 
that  when  Whitman  wrote  Years  of  the  Modern  he 
was  predicting  the  kind  of  European  war  we  have 
just  passed  through,  or  the  sort  of  peace  we  are  de- 
bating, or  the  Russian  Revolution,  or  any  fortunate 
sequels  to  any  of  these  events,  in  order  to  warm 
our  newer  faith  in  freedom  at  the  fire  of  his  lines : 

What    historic    denouements    are    those    we    so    rapidly 

approach? 
I    see    men    marching    and    countermarching    by    swift 

millions, 
I  see  the  frontiers  and  boundaries  of  the  old  autocracies 

broken, 

I  see  the  landmarks  of  European  Kings  removed, 
I  see  this  day  the  people  beginning  their  landmarks   (all 

others  give  way). 
What  whispers  are  these,  O  lands,  running  ahead  of  you, 

passing  under  the  seas! 
Are  all  nations  communing?     .     .     . 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


567 


w 


HY    SHOULD    NEARLY    EVERYBODY    INDULGE    A 

conviction  that  he  can  write  poetry?  Relatively 
few  unequipped  amateurs  think  themselves  painters 
or  sculptors  or  composers.  Are  the  other  arts  pro- . 
tected  from  tyro  invasion  by  the  obvious  recalci- 
trance of  their  media,  while  poetry,  whose  stuff  is 
after  all  only  the  words  that  Everyman  uses  to 
transact  his  daily  affairs,  looks  to  be  an  easier  busi- 
ness? Whoever  has  to  read  manuscripts  for  a  pub- 
lication which  prints  verse  will  be  suspicious  of  that 
solution,  for  he  will  long  since  have  become  con- 
vinced that  more  unskilled  pens  attempt  poetry  than 
attempt  fiction,  drama,  or  criticism — whose  stuff  is 
equally  words  and  whose  patterns  look  even  easier  to 
the  unpracticed.  Is  it  because  rhythm  is  more  funda- 
mental in  us  than  the  plastic  impulse,  and  earlier  de- 
mands its  satisfaction  ?  The  popularity  of  dancing, 
from  the  elaboration  of  new  steps  to  the  vogue  for 
unskilled  "  interpretive  "  license,  lends  plausibility 
to  that  hypothesis.  Yet  music  is  also  a  rhythmic 
art,  and  drumming  is  easier  to  acquire  than  scan- 
sion— why  then  are  we  not  deafened  by  amateur 
drummers?  Finally,  there  is  the  notion  that  com- 
posing poetry  is  somehow  a  necessity  to  adolescence, 
like  first  love,  which  it  almost  universally  accom- 
panies. If  the  will  to  unskilled  versifying  were  only 
confined  to  the  adolescent!  Nevertheless  one 
guesses  that  this  notion  looks  in  the  right  direction. 
For  poetry,  as  Carlyle  or  somebody  else  has  said,  is 
essentially  autobiographical;  and  if  the  urge  to  talk 
about  ourselves  is  acutest  in  adolescence,  the  itch 
lingers  long  in  most  of  us.  Poetry  is  intimate  gossip 
sublimated,  raised  at  its  best  to  the  rath  power  of 
intensity,  and  yet  protected  from  a  too  raw  curios- 
ity and  the  risk  of  indiscretion  by  the  fact  that  it 
is  poured  into  molds  accepted  by  convention.  All 
men  want  to  talk  about  themselves  as  fully  as  they 
can  with  social  safety;  therefore  all  men  hanker  to 
write  poetry.  Some  are  content  to  believe  that 
rhyme  is  poetry,  and  produce  the  pallid  invertebrate 
verse  that  is  perhaps  rifest  in  New  England;  others 
are  persuaded  that  sentiment  is  also  requisite,  and 
flood  the  Southern  newspapers  with  flowery  wed- 
ding and  funeral  pieces;  the  half-literate  discover 
poetic  diction,  and  drive  magazine  editors  to  drink 
'early  on  Monday  morning;  undergraduates  make 
the  acquaintance  of  sonnets,  ballades,  villanelles,  and 
rondeaux,  and  polish  off  tracings  that  resemble 
poems  much  as  tissue  patterns  resemble  dresses.  Ob- 
serving all  of  which,  iconoclasts  conclude  that  rhyme, 
meter,  sentiment,  poetic  diction,  and  metrical  pat- 
terns only  hobble  Pegasus,  and  mount  him  bareback 
for  free-versatile  flights.  Schools  arise  and  stiffen 
"  lazy  verse  "  with  new  gear  in  place  of  the  discarded 
harness.  And  shortly  there  is  a  "  poetic  renaissance." 


HE  MEN  OF  THE  RED  SPECIAL  WHO  WERE  SAVED 

from  deportation  by  the  generous  efforts  of  Charles 
Recht  and  Caroline  A.  Lowe,  are  now  being  re- 
leased from  Ellis  Island,  penniless,  three  thousand 


miles  from  home.  The  government,  under  whose 
authority  they  were  arrested,  imprisoned,  and 
brought  to  this  city  refused  to  accept  any  respon- 
sibility for  returning  them  to  their  homes.  If  they 
had  been  convicted  of  crime  and  served  sentence 
they  would  be  entitled  to  transportation,  but  being 
innocent  under  the  law  they  have  no  such  claim. 
This  monstrous  injustice  of  the  government  must  be 
made  good  by  private  charity.  THE  DIAL  will 
receive  contributions  and  see  that  they  are  used  to 
enable  the  men  to  reach  home. 


/\  LETTER  IN  ANOTHER  COLUMN  GIVES  A  SPECIFIC 

instance  of  the  atrocities  committed  by  soldiers 
against  their  fellow  citizens.  We  have  repeatedly 
called  attention  to  the  refusal  of  the  War  Depart- 
ment to  take  any  cognizance  of  such  outrages,  except 
where  negro  soldiers  were  involved,  and  to  the  offi- 
cial approval  extended  by  the  Adjutant  General  to 
persons  inciting  them.  As  the  attack  on  The  Call 
was  alleged  to  be  in  support  of  the  Victory  Loan, 
protest  was  made  to  Secretary  Glass.  His  reply  is 
that  of  a  true  Southern  gentleman.  He  deprecates 
lynching  but  refuses  to  hold  the  lynchers  responsible. 
It  is  the  "  incendiary  "  nature  of  articles  in  The  Call 
which  is  at  fault,  just  as  it  might  be  the  hideous  na- 
ture of  the  crime  of  rape.  He  has  no  word  of  con- 
demnation for  the  men  who  acted  as  judge,  jury, 
and  executioner  upon  the  offending  newspaper  —  no 
apology  for  his  loan  workers  who  egged  them  on. 
In  this  he  merely  repeats  the  attitude  of  his  chief. 
Mr.  Wilson  calls  inciters  to  mob  violence  un-Amer- 
ican, but  nevertheless  continues  to  honor  and  trust 
them,  as  he  will  doubtless  continue  to  honor  and 
trust  Mr.  Glass. 

JVlANY    READERS     OF    THE     DlAL     HAVE     NOTED 

the  omission  of  the  price  in  connection  with  the  titles 
of  books  reviewed.  This  is  made  necessary  by  a 
ruling  of  the  Third  Assistant  Postmaster  General. 
In  the  mind  'of  this  functionary  all  reviews  are  in 
the  nature  of  advertisements;  the  only  motive  he 
can  conceive  for  the  mention  of  such  a  commodity 
as  a  book  is  to  sell  it;  and  accordingly  in  his  view 
the  pages  of  this  magazine  devoted  to  reviews  of 
books  should  be  charged  postage  at  the  rate  for 
advertising  material  and  trade  journals.  He  is 
willing  to  suspend  this  ruling,  provided  the  price 
of  the  book  is  not  mentioned.  It  is  superfluous  to 
point  out  that  this  interference  with  long-estab- 
lished custom  is  in  line  with  the  attitude  of  repres- 
sion for  which  the  Post  Office  Department  has 
become  noted.  The  only  remedy  we  can  suggest 
is  that  librarians  and  other  readers  who  are  inter- 
ested in  price  as  well  as  the  size  of  books  send 
their  protests  directly  to  the  Third  Assistant  Post- 
master General,  or  to  their  representatives  at  Wash- 
ington. 


568 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


Communications 

ONE  FUTURE  FOR  AMERICAN  POETRY 

SIR:  It  would  be  difficult  to  ascertain  whether 
the  discussion  of  an  art  is  usually  a  sign  of  its  birth 
or  of  its  dissolution.  A  corpse  is  most  convenient 
for  dissection.  But  in  the  case  of  American  poetry 
it  is  almost  unnecessary  to  remark  that  there  has 
been  as  yet  no  body  of  verse  worthy  the  name;  and 
since  the  awakening  interest  in  such  things,  vouched 
for  by  their  publication,  cannot  indicate  post- 
mortem curiosity,  we  can  afford  to  assume  that  there 
is  an  immediate  flowering  in  preparation  for  the 
submerged  art  in  this  country.  Meanwhile,  come 
what  will,  the  discussions  are  stimulating  and  ex- 
hilarating, and  especially  so  the  clear-headed  critical 
estimates  of  Mr.  Conrad  Aiken,  who,  though  a 
member  of  the  craft,  retains  a  delightfully  un- 
'  partisan  attitude  toward  the  members  of  every 
school,  group,  and  chorus.  Yet  it  is  impossible  to 
please  anybody  all  the  time,  and  Mr.  Aiken's  classi- 
fication of  American  poetry  leaves  me  convinced  and 
unsatisfied.  Convinced  as  to  the  state  of  our  poetical 
product,  unsatisfied  with  the  remedy  offered. 

To  Mr.  Aiken  there  seems  a  middle  dish  between 
vulgar  sentimental  sugar-candy  and  recondite  pea- 
cock's tongues;  the  ham  and  eggs — may  I  say — of 
verse,  appetizing,  nourishing,  and  generally  avail- 
able. He  laments  its  absence  from  the  American 
menu.  In  Browning's  words,  "the  poets  pour  us 
wine,"  some  so  sweet  that  it  sickens  us,  others  of 
so  condensed,  complex,  and  occult  a  flavor  that  we 
take  it  puzzled,  in  tentative  sips.  The  plea  is  for  a 
medium  grade,  palatable  but  with  body. 

One  classification  suggests  another;  and  when  I 
came  in  the  same  hour  upon  Landor's  tribute  to 
Browning  it  occurred  to  me  that  in  this  poem  lay 
the  basis  of  another  and  truer  division,  applicable 
in  almost  every  instance,  and  pointing  to  a  possible 
poetical  future  in  a  country  whose  artists  have 
shown  a  tendency  toward  clarity,  conciseness, 
cleverness,  and  away  from  sentimentality: 

Browning !   Since  Chaucer  was  alive  and  hale 
No  man  hath  walked  along  our  roads  with  step 
So  active,  so  inquiring  eye,  or  tongue 
So  varied  in  discourse. 

The  linking  of  these  two  names  is  impressive  in 
itself.  These  are  men  outside  the  great  tradition  of 
English  poetry,  who  strive,  not  after  sensuous 
imagery,  the  purple  patch,  incense-breathing  melody, 
but  for  intellectually  stimulating  analysis  and  glee- 
ful, ironical  portraiture.  English  poetry  has  been 
dominated,  from  Spenser  down,  by  all  that  is  sweet 
and  lovely  in  music,  picture,  and  sentiment.  Shake- 
speare, able  to  do  as  he  pleased,  finally  threw  his 
great  weight  into  the  scale  on  Spenser's  side,  donned 
for  his  tragedies  gorgeous  trailing  robes,  and  spoke 
in  elegiac  music.  Milton  is  a  high  priest  of  har- 
mony; Wordsworth  (at  his  best),  Blake,  Coleridge, 


Keats,  Shelley,  Tennyson,  Swinburne,  Rossetti 
utter  the  emotional  and  lyrical  cry.  But  the  appeal 
of  Chaucer  and  Browning,  together  with  that  of 
Byron  and  Burns,  at  their  highest,  is  based  upon 
detached  and  philosophic  observation  of  the  human 
comedy.  The  characteristic  works  of  these  four 
men — such  as  the  Prologue,  Fra  Lippo  Lippi,  Don 
Juan,  Tarn  o'  Shanter — indicate  their  attitude 
immediately.  Keen,  critical,  humorous  observers  of 
human  nature  are  they  all,  'attempting  other  man- 
ners only  at  the  risk  of  becoming  rhetorical — as 
witness  Burns  in  his  love  songs.  The  grand  divi- 
sion is  in  attitude.  Spenser  leads  a  group  of  poets 
who  were  in  the  main  seekers  after  the  beautiful, 
preeminently  receptive  and  emotional.  And  Chau- 
cer, no  less  English,  heads  a  smaller  list  of  those 
who  loved  truth  and  its  ironies,  and  an  active  intel- 
lect, more  than  the  singing  robes. 

Many  of  us  are  sick  of  that  ubiquitous  insipid 
sweetness  which  results  from  a  too  absolute  sur- 
render to  that  main  tradition  of  "  the  light  that 
never  was  on  sea  or  land."  The  past  glories  of 
English  poetry  are  largely  due  to  the  creation  and 
re-creation  of  that  light ;  but  the  age  and  the  land 
in  which  we  live  are  too  clear-eyed  to  appreciate  the 
beautiful  illusion.  Many  of  us  also  have  a  prefer- 
ence for  Keats,  but  his  purple  is  foreign  to  our 
garish  day;  and  an  attempt  to  imitate  him  now  is  as 
futile  and  shallow  as  the  piano  reveries  of  ten  years 
ago.  Perhaps  the  future  lies  with  those  who  are 
able  to  look  at  modern  things  in  modern  daylight, 
and  who  are  willing  to  report  them  without  throw- 
ing about  them  any  glamour  of  age,  distance,  or 
exotic  custom.  In  this  realistic  age  all  the  old  para- 
phernalia of  romance,  once  so  natural,  spontaneous, 
and  true,  seems  trashy  and  affected.  The  tinsel  is 
frayed;  the  tricks  are  stale.  There  must  exist,  on 
every  hand,  waiting  for  the  seeing  eye,  exquisite 
ironies,  comparable  with  To  a  Louse,  The  Bishop 
Orders  His  Tomb,  and  The  Vision  of  Judgment. 
Our  own  most  distinctively  national  verse  has  in- 
cluded lesser  attempts  in  the  Chaucerian  tradition. 
Some  of  the  Biglow  Papers,  On  Lending  a  Punch 
Bowl,  and  The  Last  Leaf — and  a  few  of  the  etch- 
ings of  Emerson — are  natural  and  forthright  utter- 
ances in  that  vein. 

Those  who  try  to  prettify  modern  life  and  ad- 
venture, in  the  manner  of  Masefield  and  Noyes, 
receive  an  immediate  and  impermanent  reward. 
They  have  poured  new  wine  into  ancient  and  leaky 
receptacles.  And  no  great  modern  master  in  the 
other  school  has  arisen,  though  Edwin  Arlington 
Robinson  in  this  country  has  shown  the  way,  and 
with  Robert  Frost  we  turn  with  finality  from 
Tennyson  and  look  freely  about  us.  The  future 
may  be  his.  But  America  has  not  yet  been  ex- 
pressed. For  the  most  part  attempts  at  poetical 
utterance  have  been  limited,  even  in  the  hands  of 
a  man  like  George  Sterling,  to  endeavors  to  imitate 
the  inimitable  in  sonnet  and  lyric.  We  have  wished 
to  reproduce  beauty  in  mood  and  speech,  but  beauty 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


69 


is  a  foreign  element  to  our  nation ;  there  is  no  sin- 
cerity in  our  rhapsodies.  It  is.  to  Chaucer,  and  not 
to  Milton,  that  we  must  turn  for  "  freedom,  virtue, 

MAXWELL  ANDERSON. 
New  York  City. 

THE  PATH  ON  THE  RAINBOW 


SIR:  I  am  asking  for  a  little  space  in  which  to 
protest  Mr.  Louis  Untermeyer's  review  of  the  an- 
thology of  American  Indian  verse  in  your  issue  of 
March  8.  Or  perhaps  it  amounts  to  a  protest 
against  giving  a  book  of  such  national,  one  might 
say  international  interest  to  be  reviewed  by  one 
whose  mind  has  so  evidently  never  visited  west  of 
Broadway. 

Mr.  Untermeyer  describes  himself  as  a  "  mere 
man  of  letters,"  a  more  limiting  title  than  I  should 
have  chosen  for  him,  but  it  begins  to  be  a  question 
in  America  whether  a  man  is  entitled  to  describe 
himself  as  a  man  of  letters  at  all  who  so  compla- 
cently confesses  his  ignorance  of  and  inability  to 
enter  into  the  vast  body  of  aboriginal  literature  of 
his  country,  literature  that  rises  to  the  saga  form 
easily  comparable  to  the  great  works  on  which  Euro- 
pean literature  is  built,  and  to  epics  that  for  sonority 
and  richness  of  figure  approach  and  at  times  equal 
the  epics  of  Homer.  That  these  treasures  of  native 
literature  are  not  yet  available  in  that  easy  edition 
de  luxe  which  Mr.  Untermeyer  appears  to  desire, 
is  very  largely  due  to  the  large  number  of  persons 
who,  like  Mr.  Untermeyer,  apparently  can  not  get 
at  literature  in  any  other  form.  The  movement, 
however,  to  aid  the  average  American  to  under- 
stand what  his  own  land  has  to  say  through  the 
medium  of  a  homogeneous  race,  will  not  be  helped 
by  making  such  reviews  a  mere  statement  of  limita- 
tion. 

I  agree  with  Mr.  Untermeyer  that  The  Path  on 
the  Rainbow  might  have  been  acconjpanied  by  ex- 
planatory notes  to  the  advantage  of  most  readers. 
I  may  say  here  that  the  only  thing  that  has  pre- 
vented me  from  publishing  such  an  edition  of 
American  verse,  is  the  difficulty  of  finding  a  pub- 
lisher for  anything  that  smacks  of  scholarship  in 
that  direction.  But  I  feel  that  the  failure  to  get 
anything  out  of  the  edition  as  it  stands  is  wholly 
Mr.  Untermeyer's.  It  would  be  a  great  deal,  for 
instance,  to  have  fully  established,  as  this  volume 
does,  that  vers  libre  and  Imagism  are  in  truth 
primitive  forms,  and  both  of  them  generically  Amer- 
ican forms,  forms  instinctively  selected  by  people 
living  in  America  and  freed  from  outside  influence. 

I  feel  quite  sure  that  I  said  enough  in  the  intro- 
duction to  enable  the  thoughtful  reader  to  discover 
that  Imagism  is  an  incomplete  form,  as  recognized 
by  the  Indian,  requiring  melody  and  the  beat  of 
drum  or  pounding  feet  to  fulfill  itself.  It  should 
have  been  fruitful  to  the  thoughtful  poet  to  consider 
just  how  far  the  Indian  could  carry  this  form,  as 
instanced  in  the  Marriage  Song  of  Tiakens,  which 


I  am  sure  I  could  have  passed  off  as  Greek  by  the 
simple  change  of  name. 

Even  more  interesting  it  is  to  note  how  stanza 
structure  is  built  up  out  of  the  unrhymed,  un- 
measured lyric,  as  is  shown  in  the  collection  of  songs 
from  the  Southwest..  And  what  a  lot  of  discussion 
might  be  saved  us  if  Mr.  Untermeyer  could  have 
made  the  observation  which  this  volume  suggests, 
and  further  inquiry  could  but  confirm,  about  several 
things  that  Imagism  is  not.  It  is  not,  with  the 
aboriginal,  merely  descriptive,  and  never  merely 
decorative. 

The  incident  which  the  reviewer  recounts  as  re- 
lated to  him  by  Mr.  Robert  Frost  is 'true  enough; 
it  may  be  found  by  the  curious  in  Burton's  Ojibway 
Songs,  and  since  Mr.  Burton  so  frankly  admits  his 
error,  he  would  not  object  to  my  saying  that  it  is 
not  the  only  mistaken  translation  he  made.  When 
one  considers  how  many  readings  of  Sappho  and 
even  of  Shakespeare  are  in  doubt,  it  is  not  surpris- 
ing that  Indian  verse  should  occasionally  suffer  at  the 
hands  of  the  translator.  It  is  also  true  and  ought  not 
to  seem  surprising,  as  Mr.  Untermeyer  suspects,  that  • 
Indian  poets  are  like  other  poets,  occasionally  banal 
and  commonplace,  but  it  is  again  pertinent  to  suggest 
that  something  more  than  a  "  mere  man  of  letters  " 
is  required  for  the  appreciation  of  literature  which  is 
different  from  one's  owTn,  or  the  fashion  of  the  hour. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  read  banality  into  the  par- 
ticular examples  given  by  Mr.  Untermeyer,  any 
morfe  than  one  reads  triviality  into  an  army  singing 
John  Brown's  Body  because  the  words  are  trivial. 
I  did  not  translate  the  particular  verse  instanced  by 
Mr.  Untermeyer,  but  what  must  always  be  taken 
into  consideration  behind  Indian  songs  is  democracy 
of  thinking  and  feeling.  The  communal  life  of  the 
Indian  leads  to  a  community  of  thinking  which  made 
many  words  unnecessary,  made  the  words  a  spring 
for  the  release  of  emotion  which  might  be  anything 
but  banal.  Ten  thousand  American  boys  in  a 
foreign  land  singing  Home  Sweet  Home  is  a  very 
moving  thing,  and  twice  ten  Indians  at  the  ragged 
end  of  winter,  when  the  food  goes  stale  and  their 
very  garments  smell  of  wood  smoke,  singing  the 
maple  sugar  song  might  sing  a  great  deal  of  poetry 
into  it,  poetry  of  rising  sap,  clean  snow  water,  call- 
ing partridge,  and  the  friendly  click  of  bass  bowls 
and  birch  bark  sap  buckets.  If  Mr.  Untermeyer 
could  get  his  mind  off  the  Indian  Anthology  as  a 
thing  of  type  and  paper^  he  might  have  got  some- 
thing more  out  of  it.  He  might  even  have  launched 
into  a  dissertation  on  the  horrible  banality  of  poetry 
under  complete  democracy,  and  have  further  sup- 
ported it  by  turning  over  a  few  pages  to  songs  of 
the  Southwest  where  everybody  knows  the  abori- 
ginals live  in  terraced  houses,  and  the  stanza  form 
advanced  with  the  increase  of  privacy  and  individu- 
ality of  living.  No  one  who  reads  the  Hako  cere- 
mony of  the  Pawnees,  realizing  that  the  Pawnee 
country  is  open,  rolling  prairie,  lifting  toward  long 
level  mesas,  can  fail  to  be  struck  with  the  way  in 


57° 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


which  the  shape  of  the  lines  is  influenced  by  the 
contours  of  the  country.  It  was  in  order  to  show 
just  such  local  influences  that  the  poems  in  the  An- 
thology were  grouped  sectionally  rather  than 
tribally. 

That  all  these  things  seem  to  have  been  missed  by 
the  reviewer  raises  again  the  question  as  to  whether 
we  can  ever  have  anything  which  is  American  litera- 
ture, sui  generis,  until  literary  judgment  begins  to 
be  American  and  leaves  off  being  thoroughly  New 
Yorkish. 

MARY  AUSTIN. 

Santa  Fe,  N.  M. 


THE  SCHOOL  PROBLEM  IN  RUSSIA 

SIR:  In  your  issue  of  April  19  under  the  title  The 
Soviets  and  the  Schools,  Mr.  Lomonossoff  gives  a 
brief  survey  of  recent  educational  reforms  in  Russia 
and  concludes  his  article  in  the  following  words: 
"  But  it  is  an  enigma  to  me  why  both  Provisional 
Governments  overlooked  the  school  problem."  This 
conveys  a  false  idea  and  leads  the  reader  to  believe 
that  all  the  reforms  mentioned  in  his  article  are  to  be 
attributed  to  the  Bolshevik  leaders.  These  are  un- 
doubtedly also  Mr.  Lomonossoff's  views. 

The  following  facts  will  prove,  however,  that 
some  of  his  assertions  need  revision. 

In  the  first  place  Mr.  Lomonossoff  tries  to  im- 
press the  reader  with  the  fact  that  the  secularization 
of  schools  is  entirely  the  work  of  the  Bolshevik 
school  authorities.  This  is  not  the  case.  In  the 
Vyestnik  Vremennavo  Pravitelstva  (the  organ  of 
the  Provisional  Government)  for  1917,  no.  89,  we 
read: 

For  an  actual  and  uniform  realization  of  general  in- 
struction all  the  elementary  schools  included  in  the  school 
system,  or  all  those  which  receive  state  grant  for  their 
upkeep  or  for  the  salaries  of  the  personnel,  among  others, 
the  church  schools  under  the  control  of  the  Greek  Ortho- 
dox Church,  as  well  as  the  Church  Seminaries  and  two- 
class  schools,  are  herewith  transferred  to  the  Department 
of  Public  Instruction. 

Mr.  Lomonossoff  further  states  that  "  the  main 
reform  of  the  Russian  schools  consists  of  the  crea- 
tion of  a  continuous  school  system  which  was  in  the 
process  of  creation  already  in  November."  In  this 
Mr.  Lomonosan?  contradicts  himself.  The  Bolshe- 
viki,  as  is  wofl  known,  came  to  power  only  in  No- 
vember. How,  then,  could  a  continuous  school  sys- 
tem have  been  in  creation  at  so  early  a  date,  if  it 
had  not  been  worked  out  by  some  other  than  the 
Bolshevik  authorities?  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  re- 
organization of  the  entire  school  system  was  the 
product  of  the  Provisional  Government  and  was  de- 
creed as  early  as  June,  1917  (Vyestnik  Vremennavo 
Pravitelstva  1917,  no.  85).  The  third  and  last 
point  to  which  I  would  like  to  call  Mr.  Lomonos- 
soff's attention  relates  to  his  statement  with  regard 
to  the  Soviet  orders  which  "  abolished  directors  and 


inspectors  of  public  schools — those  Czarist  agents  of 
public  '  unenlightenment '  who  have  through  some 
misunderstanding  survived  the  Provisional  Govern- 
ment." I  wish  to  remind  the  writer  that  a  decree 
abolishing  the  Curator's  Council,  and  with  it  its 
autocratic  machinery,  the  directorates  and  inspecto- 
rates of  school,  was  issued  by  the  Provisional  Gov- 
ernment on  September  26,  1917.  (Vyestnik  Vre- 
mennavo Pravitelstva,  1917,  no.  178).  That  the 
decree  was  not  actually  carried  out  is  not  the  fault 
of  the  Provisional  authorities.  The  November 
coup  d'etat  which  brought  about  the  Lenin-Trotzky 
regime  simply  precluded  any  further  action  and  left 
to  the  succeeding  authorities  to  carry  out  all  or  parts 
of  the  school  program  outlined  by  the  various  Minis- 
ters of  the  Provisional  Government. 


Washington,  D.  C. 


THERESA  BACH. 


BRUTES  IN  UNIFORM 

SIR:  A  patient  came  into  my  office  this  morning 
whom  I  expected  a  week  ago.  When  I  asked  him  why 
he  didn't  come  at  the  appointed  time  he  said  he 
couldn't,  he  couldn't  show  himself  in  the  street. 
When  I  asked  him  why^*he  said  his  face  was  all 
swollen.  And  when  I  asked  him  the  cause  of  the 
swelling,  he  stated  rather  reluctantly,  as  if  the  sub- 
ject was  too  painful  to  dwell  upon,  that  he  had  been 
beaten  up,  beaten  up  on  May  first  by  a  lot  of  uni- 
formed rowdies,  when  he,  accompanied  by  his  wife, 
visited  the  new  building  of/rue  New  York  Call. 
His  wife,  who  was  pregnatr,  was  also  struck,  and 
whether  it  was  the  blow  or  ;  he  shock  of  the  whole 
horrible  proceeding,  she  sour,  had  a  hemorrhage  and 
a  miscarriage.  In  his  wildest  dreams,  he  stated,  he 
could  not  have  imagined  any fh 'rig  so  brutal,  so  ugly, 
so  utterly  wanton  and  i  uel. 

And  nevertheless  n!:  these  uniformed  rowdies 
went  scot  free  and  ?*vn.  received  a  quasi-approval 
from  official  headqu..'  rs — from  the  Secretary  of 
the  Treasury. 

It  has  become  stomary  to  characterize  any- 
thing autocratic,  <-;  -ess,  or  brutal,  as  Prussian.  To 
one  who  is  not  a  .ypocrite  such  characterization  is 
mere  camouflage.  It  is  false  and  hypocritical.  For 
such  lawless,  u;  provoked  brutality  never  could  have 
taken  place  in  Prussia  or  anywhere  else  in  Germany. 
There  was  only  one  country  where  such  unprovoked 
attacks  on  innocent  and  peaceful  men,  women,  and 
children  did  take  place;  that  was  Russia  under  the 
regime  of  the  Czar.  But  even  there  the  moujiks 
and  the  black  hundreds  had  to  be  made  drunk  be- 
fore they  would  commit  murderous  excesses  and 
brutalities.  And  some  people  who  happened  to  be 
victims/of  the  Russian  pogroms  claim  that  our  uni- 
formea  rowdies  excelled  in  cruelty  and  brutality 
even  the  Russian  pogrom  makers. 


New  York  City. 


WM.  J.  ROBINSON,  M.D. 


571 


Notes  on  New  Books 

THE  YEARS  BETWEEN.    By  Rudyard  Kipling. 
153  pages.     Doubleday,  Page. 

"  The  remarkable  Tightness  of  Rudyard  Kipling," 
exclaims  the  jacket  on  this  new  volume  of  his 
verse.  But  in  a  score  of  these  poems  any  unpre- 
judiced reader  will  be  struck  by  his  remarkable 
wrongness.  He  is  unhesitatingly  and  consistently 
wrong  about  Ireland  (in  Ulster),  about  revolution 
(in  "The  City  of  Brass"),  about  the  peace  (in 
Justice),  and  even  about  Shakespeare  (in  The 
Craftsman).  Mr.  Kipling  has  learned  nothing,  nor 
has  he  changed  anything;  his  morality  still  rests  on 
the  Calvinistic  dogma  that  "  he  who  lies  will  steal, 
who  steals  will  slay,"  the  medieval  notion  that  the 
sword  is  a  cleansing  implement,  and  the  Hebraic 
identification  of  justice  and  punishment.  No  doubt 
this  simplicity  in  wrong-headedness,  this  predictabil- 
ity in  error,  on  the  part  of  reaction's  most  vehement 
spokesman  holds  a  certain  encouragement  for  lib- 
erals: a  mind  so  obviously  wrong  about  women 
(The  Female  of  the  Species)  will  probably  be  dis- 
trusted when  it  considers  labor  (The  Sons  of 
Martha) ;  and  when  it  patently  misinterprets  the 
American  spirit  (The  Choice),  it  is  likely  to  be 
held  suspect  about  Russia  (Russia  to  the  Pacifists). 
But  what  does  it  offer  lovers  of  poetry,  of  whom  no 
inconsiderable  number  have  in  the  past  been  moved 
and  refreshed  by  Mr.  Kipling's  muse?  Unhappily, 
very  little.  His  mental  rigidity  now  has  its  analogue 
in  a  poetical  arteriosclerosis:  the  fixation  of  idea  is 
gloved  by  a  manner  stereotyped  even  to  its  period- 
ical slovenliness.  There  was  a  time  when  a  new 
Kipling  volume  was  the  earnest  of  another  remark- 
able 1'envoi.  Well,  this  book  has  had  two  titles 
(for  it  'was  to  have  been  called  GethseiHane)  and 
thus  contains  two  title  pieces;  but  what  there  is  to 
choose  between  the  Uofgerel  ballad  Gejhsemane— 
of  which  the  last  lines  might  be  a  grisly  parody  of 
Edward  Lear — and  the  cryptic  near-prose  of  the 
new  piece,  To  the  Seven  Watchmen,  is  a  metaphysi- 
cal question  one  is  glad  to  leave  to  the  publisher. 
Nothing  else  in  the  book  is  so  incredibly  bad  as 
these,  and  the  general  monotony  is  broken  by  echoes 
of  the  old  Kipling.  Sometimes  there  is  the  mount- 
ing cadence,  as  in  The  Sons  of  Martha : 

It  is  their  care  in   all  the  ages  to  take  the  buffet  and 

cushion  the  shock. 
It  is  their  care  that  the   gear   engages;   it  is   their  care 

that  the  switches  lock. 
It  is  their  care  that  the  wheels  run  truly,  it  is  their  care 

to  embark  and  entrain, 
Tally,  transport,  ^and  deliver  duly  the  Sons  of  Mary  by 

land  and  main. 

Oftener    there    is    the   lightning    epithet:      France 
"furious  in  luxury,  merciless  in  toil"  ;  or  "  brittle 
intellectuals  who  crack  beneath  a  strain  " ;  or  "  He  - 
learned  to  deal  the  far-off  stone  and  poke  the  long, 
safe  spear."     But  such  echoes  recur  only  about  as 


often  as  one  forgets  that  one  is  reading  Kipling. 
Of  his  old  breathless  joy  in  the  world — the  mul- 
tiple personality  of  the  sea,  the  spell  of  the  Orient, 
the  harvest  mood,  the  silence  and  sun  of  the  downs, 
the  fragrance  of  wood  smoke  at  twilight — there  is 
here  not  a  note.  War's  the  thing  here,  and  war 
caught  in  conventional  generalizations  and  abstrac- 
tions. Magic  has  given  place  to  eloquence — an  elo- 
quence conventional  and  thin,  or  forced  and  shrill. 
Monosyllabic  diction  and  a  neat  balance  in  phras- 
ing sometimes  contrive  to  simulate  stark  vigor,  but 
any  favorite  stanza  from  the  early  poems  will  be- 
tray the  simulation  as  a  verbal  pose.  There  is  econ- 
omy of  utterance  in  The  Years  Between;  there  is 
also  a  lamentable  economy  of  emotion.  Was  Mr. 
Kipling  doing  nothing  but  economize  during  the 
great  war? 

LANTERNS    IN    GETHSEMANE.     By  Willard 
Wattles.     152  pages.     Button. 

If  there  is  any  fine  secret  in  mysticism,  it  is 
hardly  to  be  looked  for  in  evangelical  prefaces. 
Willard  Wattles'  volume  of  mystical  verse  would 
gain  immensely  if  he  let  it  speak  simply  and  suffi- 
ciently for  itself.  Not  that  it  would  speak  with  un- 
failing clarity  and  charm,  but  that  it  would  to  a  - 
degree  lose  the  Moody-and-Sankeyism  of  the  prose 
that  precedes  it.  The  book  is  very  uneven.  It  opens 
with  a  poem  reminiscent,  in  its  liquid  syllables  and 
erotic  symbolism,  of  Symons'  translation  of  St.  John 
of  the  Cross.  This  is  followed  by  one  whose  open- 
ing stanza  promises  rich  entertainment: 

The   little   lonely   souls   go   by 
Seeking   their   God   who    lives    on    high 
With  conscious  step  and  hat  and  all 
As  if   on  Him  they  meant  to   call 
In   some   sad   ceremonial. 

But  the  commonplace  conclusion  of  this  poem 
intimates  the  disappointments  that  are  to  follow. 
The  sincerest  convictions,  even  if  they  are  touched 
with  the  romance  that  is  never  absent  from  religion,^ 
do  not  of  themselves  make  good  poetry.  Mr.  Wat- 
tles seems  to  be  always  sincere.  His  sense  of  the 
poetic  is  not  so  sure.  Where  he  is  simple  and  con- 
crete he  gets  an  effect  that  is  original  and  convinc- 
ing. But  he  is  uncritical  of  his  own  work  to  such 
an  extent  that  one  could  wish  he  had  not  gathered 
these  poems  into  a  volume  until  the  mystic  veil 
dropped  at  least  from  his  critical  faculty. 

A  STUDY  OF  ENGLISH   METRICS.     By  Ade- 
la^de  Crapsey.     80  pages.     Knopf. 

Adelaide  Crapsey,  in  her  brief,  intense,  and  so 
reserved  life,  in  her  tragic  death  at  Saranac  Lake  in 
1914,  and  in  her  singularly  original  and  haunting 
verse,  published  posthumously,  is  one  of  those  per- 
sonalities that  are  destined  never  to  be  very  widely 
known,  but  who  by  a  faithful  few  will  always  be 
admired — reverenced  even — as  one  of  the  most 
authentic  and  appealing  voices  in  modern  poetry. 


57 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


But  this  thought  would  never  occur  to  those  who 
made  their  first  acquaintance  with  her  through  the 
present   slim   gray  volume.     A   Study,  of  English 
Metrics — further  work  on  which  was  interrupted 
by  the  author's  death — can  only  by  the  most  vivid 
imagination  be  conceived  as  the  work  of  a  woman 
who  possessed  in  herself  a  creative  gift  of  a  very 
high  order.     In  purpose,  in  scope,  and  in  treatment 
Miss  Crapsey 's  book- — which  we  have  only  as  one 
completed  fragment — is  most  distinctly  analytic,  sci- 
entific— I  had  almost  said  pedantic.     Her  material 
is,  in  Shakespearean  phrase,  "  words,  words,  words." 
The    relationship    of    poetry    and    metrics,    not    to 
scansion  or  rhythm  proper  but  to  "  phonetic  word- 
structure  " — this  is  her  thesis  and  she  develops  it 
here  with  a  patience  and  thoroughness  that  must 
seem  to  many  appalling.    The  fundamental  question 
is  that  of  poetic  vocabularies:  Miss  Crapsey  selects 
certain    poets — Milton,     Pope,    Tennyson,     Swin- 
burne, Francis  Thompson,  and  Maurice  Hewlett — 
for  special  study.     She  dissects  numerous  poems  by 
these   men,    dwells  on   the   various  peculiarities   of 
phonetic  usage  and  syllabification  and  by  means  of 
elaborate  tables  arranges  the  work  of  each  man  as 
analyzed  by  herself  in  a  series  of  columns  which 
•show  the  percentages  of  words  of  different  phonetic 
value.      Nevertheless,    through    all    these    abstruse 
pages  one  perceives  the  operation  of  a  sound  instinct, 
an  instinct  which,  like  that  of  Edgar  Poe  or  Ste- 
phane  Mallarme,  realizes  the  close  connection  there 
is  and  always  must  be  between  the  utterances  of 
genuine    poetry    and    the    technical    machinery    of 
words,   syllables,    feet,    meter,    and   rhythm.      One 
would  have  liked  to  see  Miss  Crapsey  laboring  on 
the  phonetics  of  men  like  John   Gould   Fletcher, 
Carl  Sandburg,  Conrad  Aiken,  Robert  Frost,  Max- 
well Bodenheim;  but  in  defense  of  our  author  one 
should  remember  that  the  poets  she  selected  offered 
the    best    opportunities    for    constructing    a    solid 
foundation  for  a  theory  which,  had  it  been  com- 
pleted, would  probably  have  been  more  than  equal 
to  the  task  of  analyzing  modern  poetic  tendencies. 
And  in  any  case,  no  one  who  believes  poetry  to  be 
a  serious  and  important  part  of  the  individual  life 
can  question  the  very  real  value  of  the  motives  that 
prompted  Miss  Crapsey  to  make  these  studies,  so 
unfortunately  interrupted.     And  those  who  persist 
in  regarding  the  author  as  a  pedant  or  a  mere  thesis- 
maker  will  find  in  her  own  verse — particularly  in 
the  exquisite  Cinquain — the  one  quality  that  forgives 
even  the  dryest  discourse,  and  justifies  it — genius. 

POEMS.  By  Gerard  Manley  Hopkins.  Edited 
with  notes  by  Robert  Bridges.  124  pages. 
Oxford  University  Press. 

The  chief  interest  in  these  posthumous  poems 
lies  in  their  metrical  eccentricities.  The  author's 
preface  has  much  to  say  concerning  various  types  of 
rhythm — "  running,"  "  sprung,"  "  logaoedic,"  of 


counterpoint,  of  "  hangers  on,"  of  "  outrides,"  of 
lines  "  rove  over,"  and  so  forth.  He  utilizes  in  much 
of  his  verse  the  sprung  rhythm,  which  was  em- 
ployed in  Greek  and  Latin  lyric  poetry,  and  in  Piers 
Ploughman,  but  which  he  says  has  not  been  used  in 
English  since  Elizabethan  times,  Green  being  the 
last  to  recognize  it. 

The  subject  matter  of  Father  Hopkins'  poetry  is 
too  prevailingly  theological  to  gain  a  wide  reading. 
On  becoming  a  Jesuit,  he  burnt  his  early  verse  as 
unsuited  to  priestly  ideals,  but  later  he  began  writing 
again.  His  style  possesses  a  teasing  quaintness,  an 
antique  tone  oddly  incongruous  with  the  time  of 
publication.  The  poems  frequently  are  cbscure,  ex- 
cessively so,  as  if  the  writer  deliberately  strove  to 
mystify  his  readers.  The  lack  of  intelligibility 
usually  results  from  unwise  condensation,  or  from 
the  omission  of  relative  pronouns,  as  in  the  line: 

Squander  the  hell-rook  ranks  sally  to  molest  him. 

These  poems,  seen  in  manuscript  by  only  two  or 
three  persons  during  the  author's  lifetime,  and  pub- 
lished thirty  years  after  his  death,  show  a  kinship 
with  the  roughness  and  obscurity,  as  well  as  with 
the  force,  of  Browning  and  Meredith.  They  ex- 
press a  strange  talent,  but  will  claim  few  readers. 


POEMS.      By   Geoffrey   Dearmer. 
McBride. 


pages. 


A  perusal  of  this  small  volume  will  probably  in- 
cline the  reader  to  the  opinion  that  Geoffrey 
Dearmer  is  somewhat  over  recognized.  One  finds 
him  personable  and  graceful,  but  rather  the  journey- 
man and  junior  in  craft  and  habit.  And  although 
he  exhibits  considerable  easiness  in  the  ceremonial 
of  poetry,  he  is  a  little  infrequent  in  his  command 
of  its  rare  and  precise  magic.  Such  lines  as: 

Now  at  setting  day 

Moored  water-lilies,  pale  as  argent  sky, 
Cling   to   the    twilight,    fading    silently. 

are  of  promise;  the  promise  however  is  nearly  for- 
gotten when  we  read  "  Hate  is  strong  but  love  is 
stronger."  Moreover,  though  such  clear-struck 
images  are  not  exactly  few  in  these  poems,  never- 
theless with  Geoffrey  Dearmer  poetry  seems  to  be 
a  matter  of  parts.  There  is  hardly  a  poem  here 
which  possesses  central  conformity,  or  the  totality 
and  interior  fusion  which  are  a  part  of  the  chief 
requisites  to  poetic  importance.  Keats*  Before  Ac- 
tion has  many  lines  of  distinction,  but  it  struggles 
with  a  feeble  end;  The  French  Mother  to  Her 
Unborn  Child  has  a  finished  dignity,  yet  is  not 
quite  final;  The  Strolling  Singer  is  furnished  with 
a  certain  graceful  currency: 

A    little    sylvan    man    with   beckoning   eyes 
And  limbs  of  lithe  expression. 

It  appears  to  be  currency  however,  not  coinage;  and 
as  such  it  can  be  said  to  do  not  very  much  more. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


573 


than  keep  solvency  and  peace  with  the  reader.  The 
Poems  show,  rather  fitfully,  a  sensitive  though  not 
very  energetic  perception,  a  sense  of  scene  and,  a 
very  considerable  feeling  for  appearances  and  as- 
pects. But  the  author's  imaginative  intercourse  with 
the  world  is  neither  particularly  rich  nor  particu- 
larly various.  His  scope  of  sensibility — so  far — 
seems  not  very  extensive,  and  his  penetration  not 
intense.  His  distinguished  parts  are  lines  rather 
than  poems,  and  are  relatively  few  to  carry  a  good 
deal  that  is  unmemorable.  He  should  probably 
be  regarded  rather  conservatively  until  he  has  pros- 
ecuted some  poetic  journey  home. 

POEMS.      By    Michael    Strange.      172    pages. 
Brentano. 

Unlike  many  who  attempt  vers  libre  Michael 
Strange  has  command  of  rhythm  and  skill  at  design. 
These  desirable  prerequisites  are  not  sustained  how- 
ever by  a  real  creative  power.  Instead  we  get  dec- 
orative effects,  thin  tapestries  of  emotions  not  over- 
strong,  a  sense  of  straining  for  depth,  echoes  from 
an  incongruous  mixture  of  Whitman,  French 
decadents,  and  English  esthetes  of  the  nineties.  Still 
the  decoration,  although  tending  to  the  rococo  and 
the  impossibly  bizarre,  is  suggestive  at  least  of 
beauty;  and  a  few  poems,  notably  in  the  section 
called  Moods,  deserve  preservation  as  worthy  ex- 
pressions of  the  reactions  of  a  sensitive  aloof  youth 
to  an  especially  excited  world. 

THE   DRUMS   IN   OUR   STREET.     By   Mary 
Carolyn  Davies.     131  pages.     Macmillan.    . 

Mary  Carolyn  Davies  seemed,  a  few  years  ago, 
a  name  to  conjure  with.  She  was  doing  many  slight 
poignant  poems  that  promised  even  more  than  they 
gave.  Nearly  all  showed  a  sense  of  that  dark  un- 
conscious out  of  which  life  springs  like  a  roused 
tiger.  Nearly  all  were  marked  by  a  strong  nervous 
pulse,  by  a  vivid  metaphor,  an  evocative  adjective. 
Whether  the  popularity  these  gifts  rightly  brought 
her  itself  led  the  way  to  their  easy  destruction  is 
not  sure.  Possibly  she  has  a  volume  of  unpublished 
poems  which  belie  the  things  she  sees  fit  to  print. 
At  all  events  The  Drums  in  Our  Street  are  cal- 
culated to  rouse  the  emotions  of  the  naive  sentiment- 
alist, to  thrill  the  blood  of  the  populace,  and  to  chill 
the  hopes  of  the  critic.  The  very  traces  of  Miss 
Davies'  early  skill  waken  a  graver  disappointment. 
She  never  seemed  like  a  drummer  before,  and  this 
book  makes  her  look  too  much  like  the  merchant's 
conception  of  one.  The  theme  that  seems  most  to 
engage  her  in  these  poems  is  the  way  in  which  war 
threw  men  and  women  suddenly  into  that  intense 
relation  which  peace  takes  longer  to  mature.  The 
boy  and  girl  who  become  engaged  before  he  goes 
off,  the  man  and  woman  who  marry  in  tragic 
romantic  haste,  before  the  love  life  is  permanently 
stopped,  these  small  innumerable  dramas  intrigue 
her  beyond  all  others.  War  has  distorted  and  dis- 


rupted the  sexual  life  as  profoundly  as  it  has  af- 
fected any  other,  and  it  may  well  be  that  after  the 
war  the  whole  edifice  of  our  morality  (in  its  etymo- 
logical sense)  will  be  reconstructed.  Miss  Davies 
however  is  content  to  continue  romanticizing,  as 
careless  here  as  elsewhere  of  the  deeper  issues  in- 
volved. That  these  can  be  adequately  treated  in 
poetry,  witness  among  the  greater  poets,  Robinson, 
among  the  younger  men,  T.  S.  Eliot.  Withal, 
there  are  moments  when  the  author  catches  her  old 
singing  voice.  Smith,  of  the  Third  Oregon,  Dies  is 
typical  at  once  of  her  most  flagrant  faults  and  her 
familiar  sensitiveness.  "  Autumn  in  Oregon.  .  . 
and  pheasants  flying — 

Gold,  green   and   red, 

Great,   narrow,   lovely  things, 

As  ( if    an   orchid    had   snatched    wings. 

But  such  passages  are  few  and  far  between.  And 
the  approach  to  prose  that  her  simple  diction  always 
made  is  hastened  by  a  facile  sentimentalism. 

JOYCE  KILMER:  POEMS, -ESSAYS,  AND  LET- 
TERS. Edited  with  a  memoir  by  Robert  Cortes 
Holliday.  2  vols. ;  559  pages.  Doran. 

In  this  memorial  edition  the  best  of  Joyce  Kilmer's 
writing  in  both  prose  and  verse  has  been  brought 
together  within  four  covers.  All  his  best-known 
later  poems  are  here,  including  five  which  he  sent 
from  France;  and  there  is,  besides,  an  ample  selec- 
tion from  his  first  book  of  verse,  A  Summer  of  Love, 
which  has  long  been  out  of  print.  Two  or  three 
essays,  a  story,  and  a  playlet,  all  abounding  in 
Kilmer's  joyous  humor,  are  given  in  the  prose 
volume.  The  most  interesting  and  valuable  of  the 
prose  however  is  in  the  numerous  letters,  for  in  them 
the  personal  charm  of  the  young  poet-journalist  is 
more  intimately  revealed  than  in  his  studied  writ- 
ings. They  help  those  who  did  not  know  him  to  un- 
derstand how  he  won  the  admiration  and  affection 
of  the  hundreds  who  did.  Kilmer's  work  as  a  re- 
viewer, which  must  have  been  voluminous  and  was 
certainly  interesting,  is  not  represented  in  these 
volumes.  With  this  possible  exception,  there  is  prob- 
ably everything  here  that  he  would  have  wished  to 
preserve,  and  probably  there  is  little  here  that  he 
would  have  wished  away. 

The  memoir  by  Kilmer's  friend  and  literary 
executor  is  written  with  the  verve  and  enthusiasm 
of  Kilmer's  own  best  manner.  Nowhere  do  these 
sparkling  pages  betray  any  disposition  to  senti- 
mentalize their  hero  or  to  represent  him  as  anything 
but  what  he  actually  was — a  large-bfained,  large- 
hearted  American,  gloriously  young  and  strong  and 
energetic,  with  an  extraordinary  talent  for  the 
written  and  spoken  word  and  a  positive  genius  for 
making  people  love  him.  Page  by  page  the  portrait 
grows  until,  at  the  end,  one  feels  that  he  has  known 
this  man.  If  Mr.  Holliday's  estimates  seem  at  times 
a  bit  too  admiring,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  they 
are  usually  concerned  not  with  Kilmer  the  writer, 


574 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


about  whose  merits  anyone  may  judge,  but  with 
Kilmer  the  man,  who,  by  abundant  testimony, 
captured  the  imaginations  of  all  who  knew  him. 

If  the  riant  and  virile  spirit  of  Joyce  Kilmer 
were  not  so  antagonistic  to  all  pathos,  there  would 
be  in  this  definitive  edition  of  his  writing  a  certain 
pathetic  interest.  For  this  is  all  we  shall  ever 
have  from  the  man  who  was  killed  in  action  on 
July  30,  1918,  being  then  in  his  thirty- third  year. 
But,  as  it  is,  one  feels  that  his  death,  like  his  life 
and  all  his  work,  must  have  been  jubilant.  He 
was  a  happy  warrior,  both  at  home  and  at  the 
front,  and  he  would  have  made  as  excellent  a  poet 
laureate  to  the  American  Army  as  Theodore  Botrel 
has  been  to  the  French.  His  life  was  an  incessant 
boyhood,  although  he  packed  into  the  last  decade 
of  it  a  full  lifetime's  activity  and  accomplishment. 
Life  was  still  opening  before  him  and  was  never 
more  dear  to  him  than  when  he  cheerfully  laid  it 
down.  And  so  one  may  say  that,  although  it  was 
tragic,  his  death  was  not  sad. 

CANDLES  THAT  BURN.  By  Aline  Kilmer. 
68  pages.  Doran. 

Mrs.  Kilmer  need  fear  no  comparison  with  her 
husband.  Using  the  simplest  ways  of  expression, 
she  yet  avoids  the  commonplace  by  her  grace,  her 
whimsicality,  her  quiet  sincerity,  her  sensitiveness  to 
beauty.  The  children's  verse  excels  most  of  that 
sort ;  the  poems  on  the  death  of  Rose  and  on  Joyce 
are  moving.  Furthermore,  she  has  voiced  a  religious 
sense  in  something  better  than  a  banal  hymning — a 
rare  accomplishment. 

ANTHOLOGY  OF  MAGAZINE  VERSE:  1918. 
Edited  by  William  S.  Braithwaite.  285 
pages.  Small,  Maynard;  Boston. 

Mr.  Braithwaite's  Anthology  has  become  so  in- 
stitutional, in  a  sense,  as  hardly  to  call  for  review. 
One  knows  now,  in  advance,  what  to  expect  of  it. 
It  is  always  copious  and  over-inclusive,  contains 
always  a  great  deal  of  mediocre  but  creditable  verse 
— and  here  and  there  a  poem  which  it  might  be 
pleasant  to  be  able  to  reread  ten  years  from  now. 
One  suspects  that  the  motive  of  the  venture  is  as 
much  commercial  as  literary.  Otherwise  one  finds 
it  hard  to  explain  the  presence  here  of,  say  at  least 
one  half  of  the  material.  Mr.  Braithwaite's  list 
of  books  published  during  the  year  is  useful.  His 
list  of  critical  articles  would  be  better  if  it  were 
more  complete:  it  has  a  little  the  appearance  of 
favoritizing  the  editor.  The  critical  summaries  of 
the  year's  "  best  books  of  verse  "  are  what  one  ex- 
pects from  Mr.  Braithwaite — fulsome,  uncritical, 
and  guided,  in  several  instances,  one  is  sure,  by 
motives  more  personal  than  esthetic.  How  other- 
wise is  one  to  explain  the  eulogy  of  The  Lover's 
Rosary,  by  Brookes  More?  One  regrets  that  Mr. 
Braithwaite  is  not  a  little  more  conscientious. 


THE  WRITING  AND  READING  OF  VERSE.    By 
C.  E.  Andrews.     327  pages.    Appleton. 

How  TO  READ  POETRY.    By  Ethel  M.  Colson. 
179  pages.     McClurg;  Chicago. 

Since  the  laws  that  Pope  laid  down  in  his  Essay  on 
Criticism  were  definitely  and  successfully  broken  by 
the  Romanticists,  the  science  of  poetry  has.  been  hazy 
and  fragmentary.  Most  people,  in  fact,  have  refused 
even  to  think  of  it  as  a  science,  and  have  viewed 
poets  with  much  the  same  awe  that  they  would  show 
whales,  and  have  considered  them  as  fortuitous  as 
ambergris.  Lately  however,  a  more  exact  curiosity 
has  grown  up.  Mr.  Patterson  and  Miss  Lowell 
with  their  phonographic  experiments,  and  a  certain 
M.  Verrier  with  a  metronome,  have  been  doing  im- 
portant foundation  work  in  what  is  perhaps  the 
oldest  of  the  arts.  In  The  Writing  and  Reading  of 
Verse  Lieutenant  Andrews  tries  always  to  keep 
these  researches  in  view.  One  notes  with  interest 
that  this  somewhat  elementary  essay  into  poetical 
exactitudes  tends  rather  to  break  up  the  old,  fast 
theories  than  to  confirm  them.  Especially  is  this  fact 
apparent  in  the  chapter  on  free  verse,  and  in  the 
stimulating  treatment  of  the  meters  (one  may  safely 
use  the  word  in  the  plural)  of  blank  verse.  Yet  as 
a  work  of  science  the  volume  is  not  an  entire  suc- 
cess. It  is  confused  in  its  attitudes,  propounds  vague 
theories,  and  lays  much  more  stress  on  the  a  prior- 
isms  of  Lanier  than  on  the  sound  thinking  of  Tro- 
fessor  Gummere.  Only  when  considered  as  a  com- 
pendium of  hitherto  uncompiled  facts,  as  a  textbook 
in  a  course  on  writing  poetry  that  still  remains  to  be 
given,  does  the  book  gain  undisputed  value.  Lieu- 
tenant Andrews  has  furnished  that  much-needed 
article,  a  new  saddle  for  Pegasus. 

Miss  Colson's  book  is  of  a  quite  different  category. 
An  indiscriminate  enthusiast,  she  belpngs,  no  doubt, 
to  Hermione's  Little  Group  of  Serious  Thinkers. 
Her  motive  in  writing  is  to  convert  the  quarter- 
educated  into  the  half-educated — indeed  a  praise- 
worthy aim.  As  for  her  conclusions,  she  gives  them 
best  in  her  own  words: 

Everybody  should  read  poetry. 

Why? 

Because  everybody  loves  it.  (For  particulars  see 
Chapter  I) 

Again  why? 

Because  everybody  loves,  needs,  desires,  seeks  enjoy- 
ment, and  the  reading  of  poetry,  properly  performed  and 
pursued,  makes  for  universal  enjoyment  of  a  high,  rich, 
rare,  inexpensive,  highly  diversified,  never-ending  and 
ever-vernal  order.  (For  further  particulars  see  Chapter 
II) 

How  then  to  extract  this  enjoyment  from  poetry,  to 
cause  poetry  to  yield  its  rare  treasure  in  plain  and  pain- 
less manner,  in  a  word,  "How  to  Read  Poetry?" 

Why,  good  sir  or  madam,  perfectly  simple  and  easy. 
Read  poetry  just  as  you  would  bathe  or  dress  or  write 
a  letter  or  eat  your  dinner  or  play  golf  or  take  a  car 
down  town. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


575 


The  New  Era  in  American  Poetry 


OUTCASTS  IN 
BEULAH  LAND 
By  ROY  HELTON 

"  Roy  Helton  takes  an  incompe- 
tent clerk,  or  a  tired  mill-girl, 
or  a  city  boy  and  a  turn  of 
twine,  and  makes  ballads  out  of 
them  as  romantic  as  they  are 
real." — Louis  Untermeyer  in  The 
New  Era  in  American  Poetry. 
$1.30  net 

By  ROBERT   FROST 

"  An  authentic,  original  voice 
in  literature."  —  The  Atlantic 
Monthly.  Mr.  Frost's  first  vol- 
ume, "A  Boy's  Will"  ($1.00 net), 
brought  him  wide-  recognition. 
It  was  followed  by  "North  of 
Boston"  (Cloth,  $1.30  net, 
leather,  $2.00  net),  and  "Moun- 
tain Interval"  ($1.25  net). 

By  WALTER 
DE  LA  MARE 

"  The  Listeners  and  Other 
Poems"  ($1.30  net)  brought 
Mr.  de  la  Mare  a  wide  public 
in  this  country.  It  was  followed 
by  "Peacock  Pie"  ($2.25  net), 
a  volume  of  poems  for  children, 
equally  popular  with"  older  read- 
ers ;  and  "Motley  and  Other 
Poems,"  $1.35  net. 

By  FRANCIS  CARLIN 

Of  "My  Ireland"  ($1.30  net), 
T.  A.  Daly  writes  in  the  Phila- 
delphia Record:  "All  the  strings 
of  the  Irish  harp,  passion  and 
pathos,  faith  and  fire,  humor  and 
hope,  Mr.  Carlin  plays  upon  with 
skill  and  just  enough  careless- 
ness to  make  his  touch  thorough- 
ly human  and  therefore  thor- 
oughly Irish." 


Apart  from  its  value  as  an  ap- 
praisal, the  volume  is  notewor- 
thy as  a  summary  of  the  lead- 
ing "  movements "  and  figures 
since  Whitman.  Its  lavish  quo- 
tations from  the  poets  under 
consideration  make  it  a  sort  of 
critical  anthology. 
"  A  book  of  highest  distinction. 
It  is  a  book  of  the  greatest  value 
for  its  scope,  its  detail,  and  its 
opinions." — Chicago  Daily  News. 
$2.25  net 


By  LOUIS 
UNTERMEYER 

"—  -  and  Other  Poets  "  ($1.25 
net)  is  a  volume  of  delightful 
pasquinades  on  the  modern 
school.  In  "These  Times" 
($1.25  net)  we  have  "  the  an- 
swering call  of  the  new  cen- 
tury." "The  Poems  of  Hein- 
rich  Heine"  ($2.25  net)  is  gen- 
erally conceded  the  best  English 
translation  of  the  great  Jewish 
lyrist. 

By  MARGARET 
WIDDEMER 

"Among  the  foremost  of  Amer- 
ican versifiers  when  she  touches 
the  great  passionate  realities  of 
life,"  says  The  Living  Age. 
"  She  sings  with  a  voice  full  of 
tender  and  exquisite  loveliness," 
says  the  Boston  Transcript. 
"Factories  and  Other  Poems" 
($1.30  net)  is  Miss  Widdemer's 
first  volume,  "  The  Old  Road  to 
Paradise"  ($1.25  net)  is  her 
second. 

THE  HOME  BOOK 
OF  VERSE 

By  Burton  E.  Stevenson 

Cloth,  one  volume,  $10.00  net. 
Cloth,  two  volumes,  $12.50  net 
Half  Morocco,  one  volume, 
$14.00  net.  Half  Morocco,  two 
volumes,  $25.00  net. 


POEMS  ABOUT 
GOD 


A  book  that  with  much  humor 
has  also  much  humility.  It  is 
touched  with  many  a  whimsical 
turn  of  thought  and  phrase,  and 
lit  with  a  pervasive  glow  of  in- 
direct mental  illumination.  "  Ro- 
bustly spiritual,"  says  the  Bos- 
ton Herald.  $1.25  net 

By  CARL  SANDBURG 

"  To  me,"  writes  Clement  K. 
Shorter  in  the  London  Sphere, 
"he  is  clearly  one  of  the  most 
far-sighted  critics  of  life  that 
the  world  of  poetry  has  re- 
vealed." "Chicago  Poems  " 
($1.35  net)  was  Mr.  Sandburg's 
first  volume.  "  Cornhuskers  " 
($1.35  net),  published  in  1918, 
is  his  second. 

By  PADRAIC  COLUM 

"  Wild'  Earth  and  Other  Poems  " 
($1.25  net)  introduced  to  Amer- 
ican readers  one  of  the  chief 
poets  of  the  Irish  Renaissance. 
"  To  take  life  and  present  it  ob- 
jectively requires  a  restrained 
talent,"  says  the  New  Republic. 
"  Padraic  Cplum  captures  a 
spirit,  a  vivid  semblance,  and 
lays  it  before  the  reader." 


Of  "  Poems  of  Earth's  Mean- 
ing"  ($1.25  net),  the  Boston 
Transcript  says :  "  We  find  a 
quiet  and  sure  satisfaction  in 
his  poetry.  It  stands  apart 
from  the  struggle  and  intensity 
of  the  moment,  while,  as  its  title 
indicates,  the  poet  listens  to  the 
unchanging  beauty  of  the  uni- 
verse." 


Henry     Holt     and     Company's     new     poetry     circular, 
"About  Poets  and  Poetry,"  will  be  sent  upon  request 


|f  fill  IP 

Henry  Holt  and  Company 


Publishers  of 


When  writing  to  advertisers  please  mention  THE  DIAL. 


576 


THE  DIAL 


May  31 


Books  of  the  Fortnight 

War  and  Love,  by  Richard  Aldington  (94  pages;  Four 
Seas  Co.;  Boston),  succeeds  the  author's  Images — Old 
and  New,  and  contains  poems  written  between  1915 
and  1918.  In  a  foreword  to  F.  S.  Flint  Mr.  Alding- 
ton says:  "Here  I  have  written  less  for  myself  and 
you  and  others  who  are  interested  in  subtleties  and 
more  for  the  kind  of  men  I  lived  with  in  camp 
and  in  the  line.  .  .  .  Perhaps  I  have  lost  some- 
thing by  this."  .  .  .  Whatever  he  has  lost  of  the 
cold  fire  and  chiseled  form  of  the  Images  is  richly 
returned  in  a  warmer  passion,  a  new  humanity.  Al- 
ways the  honest  artist,  he  is  now  the  honest  reporter 
of  war — and  of  love  in  wartime,  though  it  drives 
him  to  meter  and  rhyme  and  an  intensification  of  sex 
that  recalls  Donne.  There  is  ecstasy  and  exquisite 
suffering  in  these  poems,  but  not  sentimentality.  The 
war  has  produced  no  more  genuine  poetry. 

The  Beloved  Stranger:  Two  Books  of  Song  and  a  Diver- 
tisement  for  the  Unknown  Lover,  by  Witter  Bynner 
(100  pages;  Knopf),  is  probably — as  William 
Marion  Reedy  maintains  in  his  preface — a  collabora- 
tion between  Witter  Bynner  and  "  Emanuel  Morgan," 
his  alias  in  the  notorious  Spectrist  hoax  (see  THE 
DIAL  of  April  25,  1918,  page  410).  One  wonders 
whether  even  Mr.  Bynner  can  draw  an  exact  line 
between  what  is  his  and  what  is  his  alter  ego's  in 
these  brittle,  economical,  often  merely  clever,  some- 
times very  moving  poems.  Bynner  must  be  allowed 
their  Oriental  flavor — the  Chinese  simplicity  and  the 
Japanese  suspense — their  neat  (occasionally  too  neat) 
balance  in  phrasing,  and  their  passion — when  they 
have  passion,  which  such  pieces  as  Lightning  and 
Laurel  have  richly.  Are  the  others — those  that  are 
bizarre  instead  of  exotic,  clever  instead  of  intense — 
really  Morgan's?  Having  put  forth  Bynner  as  Mor- 
gan in  Spectra:  New  Poems  (Kennerley),  is  the 
team  now  attempting  to  put  forth  Morgan  as  Bynner 
— that  is,  inverting  the  hoax  to  catch  us  on  the  re- 
bound ? 

The  Passing  God,  by  Harry  Kemp  (156  pages;  Bren- 
tano),  has  by  way  of  sub-title  Songs  for  Lovers.  And 
some  of  them — as,  for  instance,  Hermitage — do  sing. 
Others,  like  Resurrection,  have  fetching  conceits. 
Most  of  them,  however,  are  magazine  verse  of  about 
the  right  blend  of  sentimentality  and  cynicism,  and 
deal  pretty  conventionally  with  familiar  passions, 
hopes,  fears  and  inconstancies.  Many,  indeed,  are 
devoted  to  ladies  of  the  olden  time,  among  which 
one  is  a  long  but  seldom  distinguished  narrative 
poem  about  Cresseid,  "  inspired  by  the  medieval 
Scotch  of  Robert  Henryson  " — and,  rather  wanly,  by 
Chaucer.  The  volume  cdntains  A  Commendatory  Ad- 
dress to  the  Gentle  Reader  by  Richard  LeGallienne. 

The  Pursuit  of  Happiness,  and  Other  Poems,  by  Benja- 
min R.  C.  Low  (136  pages;  Lane),  is  the  fourth  vol- 
ume of  verse  by  the  author  of  The  Sailor  Who  Has 
Sailed.  The  title  poem  is  a  sequence  of  fifty-five 
sonnets.  Mr.  Low's  muse  ts  rather  short  of  breath 
and  is  too  much  given  to  abstractions,  to  literary 
diction  and  to  combinations  of  monosyllables  and 
pauses  that  are  more  rough  than  vigorous.  The 
reader  is  rewarded,  however,  by  a  dashing  vigor 
of  epithet  and  verb,  a  not  infrequent  originality,  and 
an  occasional  lyric  flight.  Browning  has  influenced 
this  poet  both  for  good  and  ill. 

Nursery  Rhymes  of  New  York  City,  by  Louis  How  (71 
pages;  Knopf),  has  a  note  of  pure  lyric  whimsey. 


The  Mountainy  Singer,  by  Seosamh  MacCathmhaoil  (125 
pages;  Four  Seas  Co.;  Boston),  is  an  American  re- 
print of  the  "  pedlar's  pack  of  rhymes  "  by  the  poet- 
dramatist  whose  English  name  is  Joseph  Campbell. 
Published  in  Dublin  in  1909,  these  slight  but  fragrant 
lyrics  of  Irish  legend,  mysticism,  and  nationalism 
have  been  too  long  out  of  print. 

Types  of  Pan,  by  Keith  Preston  (73  pages;  Houghton 
Mifflin),  collects  the  deft  and  slangy  verses  of  the 
dual  personality  who  is  "  Pan "  to  the  readers  of 
"  B.  L.  T.'s "  Line-o'-Type  column  in  the  Chicago 
Tribune  and  Associate  Professor  of  Latin  to  the  stu- 
dents at  Northwestern. 

A  Hundred  and  Seventy  Chinese  Poems,  translated  by 
Arthur  Waley  (243  pages;  Knopf),  convey  in  unpre- 
tentious, artless  free  verse  the  simplicity  and  direct- 
ness that  make  the  substance  of  Chinese  poetry  charm- 
ing. The  manner  of  their  translation  scarcely  sug- 
gests the  studied  literary  artifice  that  governs  its 
form.  A  valuable  expository  essay  and  a  critical 
bibliography  precede  the  poems. 

Baudelaire's  Poems  and  Prose  Poems,  translated  by  F. 
P.  Sturm  (192  pages;  Brentano),  devotes  more  than 
fifty  pages  to  a  characteristic  gossip  by  James  Hune- 
ker  on  the  life,  labors,  and  legend  of  the  "  extraor- 
dinary poet  with  a  bad  conscience.  .  .  .  Exist- 
ence for  such  natures  is  a  sort  of  muffled  delirium." 
Mr.  Huneker  contrives,  dealing  sanely  with  Baude- 
laire, to  deal  justly  with  Poe,  and  to  cast  momentary 
illumination  on  DeQuincey,  Hawthorne,  Gautier,  Whis- 
tler, Manet  and  many  another.  But  was  Baudelaire 
really  "  the  last  of  the  Romanticists "  ?  .  .  .  The 
translations  are  indifferent. 

Cervantes,  by  Rudolph  Schevill  (388  pages;  Duffield), 
is  the  third  of  the  Master  Spirits  of  Literature  Series, 
and  sustains  the  high  character  of  its  predecessors. 
The  results  of  Professor  Schevill's  brilliant  scholar- 
ship and  penetrating  criticism  are  interesting  to  the 
general  reader  and  indispensable  to  students  of  the 
Spanish  Renaissance  and  of  its  greatest  figure. 

Contemporary  Spanish  Dramatists,  by  Charles  Alfred 
Turrell  (397  pages;  Richard  G.  Badger;  Boston),  is 
the  only  representative  collection  of  modern  Spanish 
plays  available.  The  volume  comprises  Electra  (Gal- 
dos),  The  Claws  (Rivas),  The  Women's  Town 
(Quintero),  When  the  Roses  Bloom  Again  (Mar- 
quina),  The  Passing  of  the  Magi  (Zamacois),  and 
Juan  Jose  (Dicenta).  The  translation  is  obviously 
conscientious  but  rather  stiff  and  uncolloquial.  The 
introduction  serves  to  place  the  dramas  in  their 
frame  of  contemporary  Spanish  literature,  and  the 
volume  is  a  valuable  comment  on  the  present-day 
life  of  Spain. 

Everybody's  Husband,  by  Gilbert  Cannan  (36  pages; 
Huebsch),  is  a  short  one- act  fantasy  in  which  a 
young  bride  discourses  with  her  maternal  ancestors 
about  the  problem  of  the  eternal  masculine.  It  is  no 
mark  of  literary  strength  that  it  recalls  Maeterlinck's 
The  Betrothal — badly  diluted. 

The  Undying  Fire:  A  Contemporary  Novel,  by  H.  G. 
Wells  (229  pages;  Macmillan),  is  less  a  novel  than 
an  eloquent  conversation  which  becomes  a  sermon 
and  gets  interrupted  by  an  operation.  It  combines 
Mr.  Wells'  two  current  interests,  God  ,and  education, 
in  a  book  that  may  be  regarded  as  spiritually  the 
sequel  either  to  God  the  Invisible  King  or  to  Joan 
and  Peter,  but  which  is  more  readable  than  either. 


1919 


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A   NEW  BOOK   OF  VERSE  BY 
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The  PASSING  GOD 

SONGS   FOR  LOVERS 

By  HARRY  KEMP 
Introduction  by  Richard  Le  Gallienne 

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book  worth  while.  12mo.  Net,  $1.25 


POEMS    AND    PROSE     POEMS     OF 

CHARLES  BAUDELAIRE 

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BRENTANO'S,    Publishers,   New  York 


NEW    POETRY    AND     DRAMA. 

catholic  tales 

By  DorotKy  L.  Sayers 

Immemorial  themes  are  here  moulded  into  a 
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and  catch  his  breath  with  the  daring  beauty 
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In  these  verses  there  is  the  pungency  of  a 
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father  noah 

By  Geoffr-ey  WHitwortH 

What  were  Noah's  emotions  and  thoughts  in 
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Tree's  first  volume  of  poems  is  notable  not  only  for 
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THE  PURSUIT 
OF  HAPPINESS 

AND    OTHER   POEMS 

By   BENJAMIN  R.   C.   LOW 

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Strings,"  etc.  Boards,  gilt  top,  $1.50  net. 

There  is  new  beauty,  as  well  as  old,  in  the  many 
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of  modern  versifiers,  there  is  a  quiet  loveliness 
abiding  and  blossoming  even  in  our  own  time. 

SONGS  WHILE 
WANDERING 

By  LIEUT.  A.  NEWBERRY  CHOYCE 

Author  of  "Memory:  Poems  of  War  and  Love," 
etc.  Frontispiece.     Cloth,  $1.25  net. 

This  English  soldier-poet,  wounded  in  action, 
has  just  completed  a  lecture  tour  through  the 
West,  South  and  Middle  West,  and  his  impression 
of  our  country,  people  and  customs  is  described  in 
lyric  verse  of  interesting  quality. 

Belles  Lettres 
DOMUS  DOLORIS 

By   W.   COMPTON  LEITH 

Author  of  "  Sirenica,"  "  Apologia  Diffidentis,"  etc. 

Cloth,  $1.50  net. 

A  new  volume  by  the  eminent  essayist,  whose 
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quently compared  to  the  golden  prose  of  Walter 
Pater. 

A  Frenchman's  Interpretation  of 

PRESIDENT  WILSON 

By   DANIEL   HALEVY 

Translated  by  Hugh  Stokes.  Cloth,  $1.50  net. 

"  Within  the  limits  of  a  volume  Inevitably  des- 
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son to  the  people  of  France.  Mr.  Halevy  has  here 
produced  what  is  little  less,  in  its  way,  than  a 
masterpiece."  —  The  New  Republic. 

THE  LETTERS  OF 
ALGERNON  C.  SWINBURNE 

Edited  and  with  an  Introduction 

By  EDMOND  GOSSE,  C.  B.  and  T.  J.  WISE 

Two  Volumes.     Cloth,  $5.00  net. 

This   is  the   first   comprehensive   collection   of  the 

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practically  the  whole  period  of  his  adult  life  from 

February,   1858,   to  January,   1909. 


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Chimney-Pot  Papers,  by  Charles  S.  Brooks  (184  pages; 
Yale  University  Press),  carries  on  the  essay  tradi- 
tion of  Hazlitt  and  Lamb  with  that  studied  artless- 
ness  whose  other  name  is  charm.  It  should  be  popu- 
'  lar  with  all  who  cherish  a  literary  wardrobe  laid 
away  in  lavender. 

Nowadays,  by  Lord  Dunsany  (20  pages;  Four  Seas  Co.; 
Boston),  relies  on  poets  and  dreamers  to  lead  us 
back  from  our  ugly  materialism  to  simple  and  beauti- 
ful things.  In  spite  of  some  passages  of  characteristic 
fantasy,  the  little  essay  is  thin  reading.  It  is  the 
first  issue  in  the  publisher's  Seven  Arts  Series. 

The  Lucky  Mill,  by  loan  Slavici,  translated  from  the 
Roumanian  with  an  introduction  by  A.  Mircea  Em- 
perle  (219  pages;  Duffield),  is  an  example  of  extreme 
simplification  in  novel  writing.  Action,  psychology, 
background  are  of  the  most  primitive ;  and  yet  we 
are  reminded  as  in  Dostoevsky  that  the  primitive  is 
infinitely  complex. 

The  Silent  Mill,  by  Hermann  Sudermann  (204  pages; 
Brentano),  has  many  of  the  faults  and  few  of  the 
virtues  of  the  author's  other  studies  of  passion.  As 
a  handling  of  the  perennial  eternal  triangle  it  de- 
serves commendation  only  in  that  it  confines  the  plot 
of  a  novel  to  the  pages  of  a  novelette. 

Our  House,  by  Henry  Seidel  Canby  (308  pages;  Macmil- 
lan),  is  just  the  sort  of  novel  a  groping  college  pro- 
fessor would  write.  It  is  not  only  that  his  heroines 
remind  him  of  the  ladies  that  Botticelli  and  Leonardo 
used  to  paint,  or  that  Walter  Pater  is  a  conversational 
stalking-horse.  The  problem  before  die  young  hero 
is  conceived  from  the  academic  point  of  view,  and 
the  material  in  which  he  works  out  its  solution 
(especially  Bohemia)  is  the  product  of  an  academic 
imagination.  The  author-  enters  a  technical  defense 
of  his  tepid  story  by  dating  it  from  the  Spanish  War. 

Aristokia,  by  A.  Washington  Pezet  (214  pages;  Cen- 
tury), is  one  more  version  of  Looking  Backward. 
The  proletariat  suffer  the  nonsense  of  moneyed  and 
titled  aristocracy  to  come  to  full  flower  in  a  small 
hothouse  territory  called  Aristokia.  If  the  execution  of 
the  story  is  not  as  successful  as  the  conception  is 
promising,  it  is  because  the  author  takes  too  lightly 
the  obligation  to  answer  the  questions  the  situation 
raises,  and  too  seriously  the  obligation  to  be  always 
humorous. 

Claire,  by  Leslie  Burton  Blades  (269  pages;  Doran), 
has  unique  interest  for  a  story  of  adventure,  since  the 
conflict  about  which  the  story  centers  is  that  between 
divergent  philosophies  of  life.  The  characters  are  a 
blind  artist,  a  woman  of  fashion,  and  a  Spanish 
recluse.  This  first  novel  promises  a  writer  of  intel- 
lectual distinction. 

The  Clintons  and  Others,  by  Archibald  Marshall  (407 
pages;  Dodd,  Mead),  is  a  volume  of  short  stories 
which  appear  to  have  been  worked  up  from  material 
left  over  from  the  author's  more  excellent  novels. 

The  Cup  of  Fury,  by  Rupert  Hughes  (350  pages;  Har- 
per), is  a  war  story  lazily  written  for  lazy  readers. 

Belgium,  by  Brand  Whitlock  (880  pages;  Appleton), 
compacts  in  two  volumes  the  epic  story  of  that  coun- 
try-'s  suffering  during  four  and  a  half  years  of  mal- 
treatment and  misrule.  It  is  a  fitting  monument  to 
mark  the  buried  past. 


Fighting  the  Flying  Circus,  by  Captain  Edward  V.  Rick- 
enbacher  (371  pages;  Stokes),  chronicles  the  deeds 
done  with  the  fine  courage  that  youth  puts  at  the 
service  of  any  cause.  If  there  is  no  more  of  the  war 
in  this  story  than  there  is  of  the  world  in  a  college 
freshman's  letters  home,  no  fault  is  to  be  found  with 
the  author  on  this  account.  Perhaps  it  is  too  much 
to  ask  one  man  to  fight  a  war  and  understand  it  too. 

The  American  Air  Service,  by  Arthur  Sweetser  (384 
pages;  Appleton),  recalls  the  days  when  the  United 
States  proposed  to  overwhelm  Germany  with  materiel, 
instead  of  following  the  Russian  plan  of  smothering 
her  with  men.  Sixteen  chapters  on  preparations  in 
America  and  abroad  are  inadequately  illuminated  by 
one  chapter  on  performance  at  the  front.  The  men 
got  there,  but  for  the  most  part  the  materiel  didn't. 
Mr.  Sweetser's  book  stays  with  the  materiel. 

The  Century  of  Hope,  by  F.  S.  Marvin  (352  pages;  Ox- 
ford University  Press),  is  a  philosophical  history  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  in  which  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished Oxford  humanists  "  endeavors  to  exhibit 
the  growth  of  humanity  in  the  world,"  taking  as  a 
leading  theme  "  the  development  of  science  and  its 
reactions  on  other  sides  of  national  and  international 
life." 

The  Clash,  by  William  H.  Moore  (333  pages;  Dut- 
ton),  is  a  study  in  conflicting  nationalities,  now  ap- 
pearing in  a  seventh  and  revised  edition.  The  author 
treats  specifically  the  problem  of  the  French  in  Can- 
ada, but  his  fair  and  candid  analysis  is  not  without 
its  applications  to  Ireland,  to  Poland,  and  even  to  the 
United  States.  His  stand  for  recognizing  large  na- 
tional groups  rather  than  attempting  to  assimilate 
them  might  well  be  pondered  by  the  "  treat-'em- 
rough "  school  of  Americanizers. 

/ 

The  League  of  Nations,  by  Mathias  Erzberger  (331 
pages;  Holt),  published  in  Germany  in  the  summer 
of  1918,  shows  how  far  representative  German 
thought  can  travel  in  four  years  of  bitter  isolation. 
If  the  belligerent  League  of  Nations  is  to  develop  into 
a  peaceful  co-operative  society,  the  German  contribu- 
tions to  this  subject  will  not  be  entirely  lost. 

The  Prelude  to  Bolshevism,  by  A.  F.  Kerensky  (3-12 
pages;  Dodd,  Mead),  consists  of  a  stenographic  re- 
port of  the  author's  testimony  on  the  Kornilov  rising 
before  an  official  commission  of  inquiry,  together 
with  his  later  explanatory  annotations.  Kerensky 
makes  it  clear  that  Kornilov's  erratic  demands  pro- 
posed to  annul  the  Revolution;  but  he  has  difficulty 
in  explaining  away  his  choice  of  such  a  commander- 
in-chief. 

Democracy  and  the  Eastern  Question,  by  Thomas  F.  Mil- 
lard  (446  pages;  Century),  examines  the  dynastic 
reactionary  influences  and  imperialist  commercial 
policies  of  Japan  with  particular  attention  to  China. 
The  author  does  not  pretend_  to  be  impartial  in  sym- 
pathy, but  as  publisher,  editor,  and  correspondent  in 
the  Far  East  he  is  equipped  with  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  the  situation. 

India's  Silent  Revolution,  by  Fred  B.  Fisher  (192  pages; 
Macmillan),  reports  the  changes  that  are  coming 
over  Indian  life.  The  author  resided  in  India  dur- 
ing the  Curzon  regime  and  visited  it  again  under  the 
more  enlightened  government  of  Montagu.  Indus- 
trialization and  home  rule  and  the  caste  system  are 
described  and  appraised  according  to  American  stand- 
ards. 


IQI9 


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579 


ARISTODEMOCRACY 

From    the    Great    War    Back 
to    Moses,    Christ    and    Plato 

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A  History  of  the  United  States,  by  Cecil  Chesterton  (333 
pages;  Doran),  is  an  interpretation  of  our  national 
characteristics  in  terms  of  our  political  history.  The 
benefit  of  seeing  ourselves  through  another's  eyes  is 
notorious,  and  if  we  cannot  mention  Chesterton's  book 
in  the  same  breath  as  Bryce's,  we  may  at  least  wel- 
come it  with  the  same  gesture  of  friendliness. 

Sir  George  Etienne  Cartier,  Bart.,  by  John  Boyd  (443 
pages;  Macmillan),  is  a  biography  that  approximates 
a  political  history  of  Canada1  from  1814  to  1873. 

Collapse  and  Reconstruction,  by  Sir  Thomas  Barclay 
(315  pages;  Little,  Brown;  Boston),  the  work  of  a 
veteran  traveler  and  international  lawyer,  is  a  de- 
tailed examination  of  the  European  situation  in  the 
light  of  American  principles,  as  ejmbodied  in  the 
Fourteen  Points.  The  author  is  a  Federalist  and  he 
indicates  the  difficulties  of  making  nationalism  coinci- 
dent with  statehood. 

British  Labor  and  the  War,  by  Paul  U.  Kellogg  and  Ar- 
thur Gleason  (504  pages;  Boni  and  Liveright),  gives 
in  detail  the  attitude  of  various  British  labor  groups 
toward  the  problems  raised  by  the  war  and  recon- 
struction. It  is  a  guidebook  to  the  new  social  order. 
Over  100  pages  of  appendices  make  the  volume  in- 
valuable for  documentary  reference. 

The  Six  Hour  Day,  by  Lord  Leverhulme  (344  pages; 
Holt),  advocates  a  drastic  reduction  in  hours  on 
the  ground  that  a  72  hour  week  arranged  in  two 
shifts  of  36  hours  each  would  effect  a  great  economy 
in  production.  In  other  essays  and  addresses  included 
in  the  book  the  founder  of  Port  Sunlight  discusses  the 
industrial  questions  of  the  day. 

Management  and  Men,  by  Meyer  Bloomfield  (591  pages; 
Century),  is  mainly  a  compendium  of  the  changes 
in  the  organization  of  industry  as  developed  in  the 
British  Labor  Movement.  For  the  rest,  the  book  is 
but  one  more  of  many  recent  optimistic  efforts  to  prove 
that  a  happy  unity  between  English  workers  and  their 
employers  is  being  consummated. 

The  Shop  Committee:  A  Handbook,  for  Employer  and 
Employee,  by  William  Leavitt  Stoddard  (105  pages; 
Macmillan),  provides  a  comprehensive  account  of  the 
development  of  the  Shop  Committee  system  which  was 
organized  in  a  few  cases  before  the  war,  and  of  the 
system  organized  under  the  direction  of  the  National 
War  Labor  Board.  Mr.  Stoddard  was  an  adminis- 
trator of  the  National  Board.  The  Shop  System  as 
it  has  developed  in  this  country  is  a  scheme  for  keep- 
ing the  peace  and  handling  labor  disputes  before  they 
become  widespread  or  complex. 

Crime  and  Criminals,  by  Charles  Mercier  (290  pages; 
Holt),  discusses  the  jurisprudence  of  crime  from  the 
medical,  biological,  and  psychological  points  of  view. 
The  author  is  in  reaction  against  those  who  attribute 
crime  to  the  sole  influence  of  either  environment  or 
heredity,  and  he  seeks  to  give  due  weight  to  impov- 
erished surroundings,  defective  physical  equipment, 
and  malicious  adventure.  His  position  is  usually 
sound,  but  his  treatment,  in  spite  of  his  wide  official 
practice,  does  not  trust  sufficiently  in  the  authority 
of  case  and  example. 

Social  Work,  by  Richard  C.  Cabot  (188  pages;  Hough- 
ton  Mifflin;  Boston),  is  an  attempt  to  provide  the 
social  worker  with  a  technique  for  medical  diagnosis 
and  social  treatment.  It  deals  with  that  common 
ground  upon  which  doctor  and  social  worker  join 
forces. 


A  Selected  List  of  Poetry 

The  following  list  contains  THE  DIAI/S  selection 
of  the  more  important  volumes  of  verse,  anthologies, 
translations,  and  books  about  poetry  issued  since  the 
publication  of  its  Christmas  List  on  November  30, 
1918  (page  512).  The  references  between  brackets 
are  to  issue  and  page  of  notices  in  its  columns. 

Collected    Plays   and    Collected    Poems.      By    John    Masefleld. 

2   vols;    1161   pages.      Macmillan   Co.    [Feb.8:118] 
The    Years    Between.       By    Rudyard    Kipling.       153     pages, 

Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.      [May  31:571] 
The    Wild    Swans    at    Coole.      By    W.    B.    Yeats.      114    pages. 

Macmillan    Co. 
The    Mountainy    Singer.     By    Seosamh    MacCathmhaoil.      124 

pages.    The  Four  Seas  Co.,  Boston.    [May  31:576] 
The  New  Morning.     By  Alfred  Noyes.     172  pages.     Frederick 

A.  Stokes  Co.      [May  17:524] 
The    Tree    of    Life.      By    John    Gould    Fletcher.      125    pages. 

Macmillan  Co.      [Feb.  22:189] 
War  and  Love.     By  Richard  Aldington.     94  pages.     The  Four 

Seas  Co.,  Boston.     [May  31:576] 
The  Beloved  Stranger.     By  Witter  Bynner.     99  pages.     Alfred 

A.  Knopf.      [May  31:576] 

Counter-Attack,  and  Other  Poems.     By   Siegfried  Sassoon.     64 

pages.     E.  P.  Button  &  Co. 
Look!     We  Have  Come  Through.     By  D.   H.   Lawrence.      163 

pages.      B.   W.  'Huebsch. 
Chamber  Music.     By  James  Joyce.     36  pages.  B.  W.  Huebsch. 

[July  18,1918:70,  and  Sept.19, 1918:201] 
Minna    and    Myself.       By    Maxwell     Bodenheim.       91    pages. 

Pagan  Publishing  Co.      [April  5:356] 
The  Ghetto,  and  Other  Poems.     By  Lola  Ridge.     99  pages.     B. 

W.  Huebsch.     [Jan.25:83] 
Banners.     By  Babette  Deutsch.     104  pages.     George  H.  Doran 

Co.      [May  17:524] 
A    Family    Album.      By    Alter    Brody.      132    pages.      B.    W. 

Huebsch.     [May   31:560] 
Lanterns  in  Gethsemane.     By  Wiljtard  Wattles,     152  pages.  E. 

P.   Dutton  &  Co.      [May  31:571] 
Poems  About  God.    By  John  Crowe  Ransom.    76  pages.    Henry 

Holt  &  Co.      [May  31:562] 
The  Passing  God:   Songs  for  Lovers.     By  Harry  Kemp.     166 

pages.     Brentano's.      [May  31:576] 
Colors    of   Life.      By    Max    Eastman.      129    pages.      Alfred   A. 

Knopf.      [Dec.28, 1918:611  and  Feb.22:202] 
Young    Adventure.      By    Stephen    Vincent    Benet.      95    pages. 

Tale  University  Press,  New  Haven.      [Jan.25:96] 
Growing  Pains.     By   Jean   Starr  Untermeyer.      64   pages.     B. 

W.  Huebsch.    [May  31:560] 

ANTHOLOGIES 

The  English  Poets:  Selections  with  Critical  Introductions. 
Vol.  5:  Browning  to  Rupert  Brooke.  Edited  by  Thomas 
Humphrey  Ward.  653  pages.  Macmillan  Co.  [Apr.  19:430] 

Corn  from  Olde  Fieldes:  An  Anthology  of  English  Poems 
from  the  Fourteenth  to  the  Seventeenth  Century.  By 
Eleanor  M.  Brougham.  John  Lane  Co.  [May  31:582] 

A  Book  of  the  Sea.  Selected  by  Lady  Sybil  Scott.  472  pages. 
Oxford  University  Press.  [May  31: 5 82] 

Fisherman's  Verse.  By  Williams  Haynes  and  Joseph  LeRoy 
Harrison.  312  pages.  Duffield  &  Co.  [May  31:582] 

TRANSLATIONS 

170  Chinese  Poems.     Translated  by  Arthur  Waley.     243  pages. 

Alfred  A.   Knopf. 
Chinese  Lyrics  from  the  Book  of  Jade.     Translated  from  the 

French   of  Judith  Gautier  by   James  Whitall.      53  pages. 

B.  W.    Huebsch. 

Coloured  Stars:  Versions  of  Fifty  Asiatic  Love  Poems.     By  B. 

Powys  Mathers.      62  pages.     Longmans,  Green  &  Co. 
Baudelaire's  Poems  and  Prose  Poems.     Translated   by  F.   P. 

Sturm.     135  pages,   Brentano.      [May  31:576] 
Poems       By   Rainer   Maria   Rilke.      Translated   by   Jessie   Le- 

mont.     65  pages.     Tobias  A.  Wright.      [May  31:559] 
The    Kiltartan    Poetry    Book:     Prose    Translations    from    t 

Irish.      By   Lady   Gregory.      112    pages.      G.    P.    Putnam's 

Sons.      [Apr.5:359] 

CRITICISM 

Convention  and  Revolt  in  Poetry.  By  John  Livingston 
Lowes.  346  pages.  Houghton  Mifflin  Co.,  Boston.  [May 

A  New   Study   of  English   Poetry.      By   Henry  Newbolt.      357 

pages.     E.   P.   Dutton  &  Co.      [May  31:545] 
Formative   Types   in    English   Poetry:    The    Earl    Lectures   < 

1917.     By  George  Herbert  Palmer.     310  pages.     Houghtoi 

Mifflin  Co.      [Mar.8:253] 
The   New   Era   in   American   Poetry.      By    Louis   Untermeyer. 

364  pages.     Henry  Holt  &  Co. 


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Current  News 

Those  who  sit  by  their  cozy  firesides  assembling 
out-of-door  anthologies  are  sometimes  as  amusing 
as  the  sad,  watery-eyed  gentlemen  that  the  swinging 
doors  disclose,  glass  in  hand,  indulging  in  the  indoor 
sport  of  "  watching  the  ball  game  "  on  the  news- 
ticker.  And  yet  to  the  producing  of  anthologies 
there  seems  to  be  no  limit  short  of  the  range  of 
subjects  in  which  anthologists  can  interest 
themselves. 

Robert  Frothingham  admits  in  his  introduction  to 
his  Songs  of  Men  (Hough ton  Mifflin)  that  "with 
such  an  idea  as  the  title  indicates,  it  was  inevitable 
that  the  old  favorites  be  overlooked  and  that  '  many 
a  gem  of  purest  ray  serene '  should  be  rescued  from 
obscurity."  But  a  careful  perusal  of  this  collection 
warns  one  anew  that  inevitability  is  rarer  than 
accident.  This  personal  scrap-book  will  make  more 
appeal  to  indoor  people  whose  imaginations  revel  in 
a  fighting  outdoor  life  than  to  lovers  of  poetry. 

Seek  the  quieter  atmosphere  of  Maude  Cuney 
Hare's  Message  of  the  Trees  (Corrihill,  Boston). 
This  volume  is  made  up  chiefly  of  poetry  with  an 
occasional  passage  in  prose  and  dates  from  Deuter- 
onomy and  the  old  Chinese  to  our  younger  group 
of  poets.  The  lover  of  poetry  or  of  nature  can 
stroll  through  Mrs.  Hare's  park  of  some  two  hun- 
dred trees,  assured  either  of  the  message  or  of 
poetry — pefhaps  of  both. 

Williams  Haynes  and  Joseph  LeRoy  Harrison 
advertise  that  in  Fisherman's  Verse  (Duffield)  they 
have  brought  up  such  a  catch  as  "  Izaak  Walton, 
James  Whitcomb  Riley,  Andrew  Lang,  and  Robert 
Bridges."  Looking  closer  one  finds  the  catch  in- 
cluding no  more  unimportant  specimens  than 
Vaniere,  Goethe,  Scott,  Pope,  Dobson,  Donne,  and 
Wordsworth,  although  in  a  mood  better  adapted 
to  fishing  than  to  poetry. 

Turning  now  to  the  open  sea,  we  find  many  of 
these  familiar  figures  better  represented.  A  Book 
of  the  Sea  (Oxford  University  Press)  contains 
representative  sea  poems  from  the  Bible,  from  the 
Greek,  Latin,  Italian  and  French  languages,  and 
even,  with  an  unobtrusive  generosity,  six  from 
America,  four  of  which  are  Whitman's.  This  pro- 
vokes a  question  as  to  why  the  States,  which  with 
their  sea  and  coastal  beauty  have  produced  a  large 
number  of  marine  canvasses,  have  at  the  same  time 
produced  so  few  good  sea  poems.  Where  is  our 
tradition  of  the  sea?  This  book  indicates  that  it  is 
still  in  England. 

In  Victory!  Celebrated  by  Thirty-Eight  Amer- 
ican Poets,  brought  together  by  William  Stanley 
Braithwaite  (Small  Maynard),  we  are  permitted  a 
glimpse  of  the  esoteric  celebration  in  which  thirty- 
eight  poets  indulged,  presumably  during  the  time 
that  many  of  their  less  expressive  countrymen 
thronged  the  streets.  Is  it  perhaps  because  we  wit- 
ness this  celebration  after  the  fact,  that  we  imagine 
we  found  more  spontaneity  and  genuine  emotion  in 


the  streets  on  November  6  last  than  we  find  in  most 
of  these  poems?  Or  are  we  once  more  victimized 
by  Mr.  Braithwaite's  capricious  judgment? 

The  Poetry  of  Peace,  selected  by  Irene  Leonard 
(Oxford  University  Press),  is  a  collection  of  poems 
in  which  many  of  the  authors  indicate  that  the 
lenses  of  their  vision  are  bifocal,  for  they  give  us 
meditative  poems  of  war  and  peace  in  their  various 
relations.  There  is  genuine  poetry  here,  written 
with  rare  exceptions  by  well-known  English  and 
American  poets.  There  is  no  reference  to  the  war 
just  ended,  and  no  poets  of  the  younger  school  are 
included,  although  a  few  of  those  represented  are 
still  living.  This  collection  leaves  one  the  per-, 
suasion  that  the  best  war  poetry  is  produced  after 
and  not  during  war.  A  belief  that  is  not  disturbed 
by  Verse  for  Patriots,  edited  by  Jean  Broadhurst 
and  Clara  L.  Rhodes  (Lippincott),  a  selection  of 
war  songs  and  poems  produced  during  the  last  five 
years. 

Corn  from  Olde  Fieldes,  edited  by  Eleanor  M. 
Brougham  (Lane),  purports  to  be  "an  anthology 
of  English  poems  of  lesser  known  writers  of  the 
earlier  periods."  While  the  reader  will  feel  at 
home  among  these  poets  ,and  will  recognize  a  large 
part  of  the  later  poems,  many  of  the  selections  are 
little  known  and  some  of  the  anonymous  pieces  will 
be  discoveries.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that,  at  its  popular 
price,  this  book  will  justify  its  existence  by  bring- 
ing the  rich  beauty  of  the  earliest  English  poetry 
to  a  wider  public. 

Contributors 

Winifred  Kirkland  first  became  known  several 
years  ago  as  a  writer  of  novels  and  short  stories. 
More  recently  she  has  contributed  editorials  to 
weekly  journals  and  articles  to  a  number  of  reviews. 

Carl  H.  Grabo,  a  member  of  the  faculty  of  the 
Univers!  .  c  Chicago,  is  author  of  The  World 
Peace  and  After  (Knopf).  This  volume  was  re- 
viewed in  THE  DIAL  for  September  19,  1918. 

Carl  Sandburg's  first  volume  of  verse,  Chicago 
Poems,  and  its  successor,  Cornhuskers,  (Holt)  were 
reviewed  by  Louis  Untermeyer  in  THE  DIAL  for 
October  5,  1918,  under  the  title  Strong  Timber. 

Eunice  Tietjens,  associate  editor  of  Poetry:  A 
Magazine  of  Verse,  has  lived  much  abroad.  One  of 
the  products  of  her  travel  is  Profiles  from  China 
(Seymour),  reviewed  in  THE  DIAL  for  April  16, 
1917.  Mrs.  Tietjens  is  now  preparing  a  volume  of 
verse  for  autumn  publication — Body  and  Raiment 
(Knopt). 

Eden  Phillpotts  is  an  India-born  Englishman, 
now  living  in  England.  He  has  written  a  number 
of  novels,  several  plays,  and  two  volumes  of  verse — 
The  Iscariot  (1912)  and  Plain  Song  (1917). 

Hazel  Hall,  a  resident  of  Portland,  Oregon,  has 
recently  become  a  contributor  of  verse  to  Eastern 
magazines.  v 

The  other  contributors  to  this  issue  have  pre- 
viously written  for  THE  DIAL. 


i9'9  THE  DIAL  583 


"Keep  the  Faith" 

The  integrity  of  the  American  people  is  challenged. 

Fifty  thousand  American  men  are  buried1  on  the  battlefields  of  France 
where  they  fell  in  fulfillment  of  the  pledge  given  by  the  American  peo- 
ple that  a  war  against  German  autocracy  should  end  .  in  a  democratic 
peace. 

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VOL.  LXVI  NEW  YORK  NO.  792 

JUNE    14,    1919 

BACK  TO  PRINCIPLES Robert  Dell  587 

MORNING    Verse '.     .     Katharine  Warren  589 

FINLAND — A  BULWARK  AGAINST  BOLSHEVISM      .     .     .   Lewis  Mum  ford  590 

TURMOIL  IN  SPAIN Arthur  Livingston  593 

INDIA'S  REVOLUTION Sallendra  nath  Ghose  595 

PROPAGANDA  IN  SCHOOLS Charles  A.  Beard  598 

THE  CAPTAINS  OF  FINANCE  AND  THE  ENGINEERS       .     .  ThorstelnFeblen  599 

IN  MY  ROOM  I  READ  AND  WRITE.    Verse    .     .     .     Mary  Carolyn  Davles  606 

EDITORIALS • 607 

COMMUNICATIONS:     O    Tempora,    O    Mores !.— Roads    to    Freedom.— Inter    Arma    Silet  6lO 
Labor. 

NOTES  ON  NEW   BOOKS:     War    and    Revolution    in    Russia,    1914-1917.— Bolshevism.—  6l2 
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586  THE  DIAL'  June.  14 


(H.  G.  Wells'  New  Novel  is  Already  in  the  Second  Edition) 

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far  countries. 

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AHE  OFFICIAL  COMMENTARY  on  the  Covenant  says 
that  "  if  the  Nations  of  the  future  are  in  the  main 
selfish,  grasping,  and  bellicose,  no  instrument  or 
machinery  will  restrain  them."  Exactly  the  same 
thing  might  have  been  said  and  no  doubt  was  said 
by  our  remote  forefathers  about  individuals.  Yet 
we  have  succeeded  in  restraining — I  do  not  say 
eradicating — the  selfishness,  the  cupidity,  and  the 
bellicosity  of  individuals  by  preventing  them  from 
.being  a  law  unto  themselves.  There  is  nothing 
intrinsically  impossible  in  restraining  nations  by  the 
same  means ;  the  difficulty  is  that  too  many  of  those 
that  profess  to  will  the  end  do  not  will  the  means.  It 
is  assumed  that  a  nation  must  always  be  a  law  unto 
itself,  just  as  no  doubt  it  was  once  assumed  that  the 
individual  must  be.  The  obstacle  to  any  genuine 
international  organization  is  the  conception  of  the 
sovereign  independent  state  and,  if  we  really  wish 
to  try  to  get  rid  of  war,  we  must  first  of  all  abolish 
the  sovereign  independent  state.  Some  means  must 
te  devised  for  depriving  the  state  of  authority  out- 
side its  own  borders  while  leaving  it  autonomy  with- 
in them.  The  present  Covenant  makes  no  attempt 
to  do  that;  the  whole  structure  of  the  League  is 
built  up  on  the  good  faith  of  governments — an 
insecure  foundation. 

The  measure  of  the  disappointment  which  the 
Constitution  of  the  League  has  caused  among  those 
that  were  the  first  to  welcome  President  Wilson's 
idea  may  be  gaged  by  the  declaration  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  French  Socialist  Party.  In  the  manifesto 
adopted  at  the  National  Congress  of  the  Party  last 
week  the  opinion  was  expressed  that  the  new  organ- 
ization will  be  nothing  but  "  a  league  of  Capitalists 
having  at  their  service  an  international  White  Army 
for  the  purpose  of  fighting  the  social  revolution 
everywhere."  The  manifesto  in  which  this  passage 
occurs  was  adopted  without  a  vote  being  given 
against  it  except  by  the  extreme  left  of  the  Party, 
which  proposed  an  alternative  text  even  less  com- 
plimentary to  the  League  of  Nations;  the  former 
"  Majoritaires  "  abstained  from  voting,  but  on  the 
ground  that  the  manifesto  condemned  the  policy 
followed  by  the  party  during  the  war.  The  decla- 
ration about  the  League  of  Nations  therefore  prob- 


ably expressed  the  unanimous  opinion  of  French 
Socialists  and  I  should  say  the  nearly  unanimous 
opinion  of  the  Socialists  of  Europe.  How  can  it  be 
otherwise  when  they  see  the  five  great  powers  which 
will  dominate  the  League  backing  all  the  enemies 
of  the  Russian  Revolution  and  inciting  Roumania 
to  overthrow  the  revolution  in  Hungary?  Bitter 
indeed  has  been  the  disappointment  of  the  Social- 
ists and  Labor  parties  of  Europe  at  Mr.  Wil- 
son's acquiescence  in  such  proceedings  as  these.  The 
Roumanian  attack  on  Hungary,  incited  or  rather 
ordered  by  the  Allies,  is  not  only  an  unwarrantable 
interference  in  the  internal  affairs  of  another  coun- 
try but  also  a  breach  of  the  Armistice.  What  con- 
fidence can  be  placed  in  a  League  of  Nations 
inaugurated  by  such  measures  as  these?  Moreover, 
a  League  of  Nations  on  whose  council  five  powers 
have  five  representatives  and  all  the  others  only  four 
has  an  unpleasant  resemblance  to  a  Holy  Alliance. 
Another  cause  of  profound  disappointment  is  the 
utter  inadequacy  of  the  provisions  in  the  Covenant 
relating  to  disarmament.  The  peoples  of  Europe 
have  been  told  that  this  was  "  a  war  to  end  war" ; 
their  great  hope  was  that  it  would  at  least  end 
compulsory  military  service  and  huge  conscriptronist 
armies;  they  now  see  that  there  is  not  the  remotest 
probability  of  its  doing  anything  of  the  sort.  Perhaps 
their  feelings  on  the  subject  are  fairly  well  repre- 
sented by  the  following  passage  in  the  manifesto 
of  the  French  Socialist  Party  already  mentioned: 

The  party  denounces  the  hypocrisy  of  the  French  rulers 
who,  after  having  exploited  the  ignorance  and  credulity 
of  the  masses  of  the  people  by  making  them  believe  that 
the  war  was  merely  one  for  national  defence,  for  the 
free  self-determination  of  peoples,  for  the  destruction  of 
militarism  and  the  suppression  of  armaments,  are  now 
devoting  themselves  to  giving  this  war  a  purely  imperial- 
ist and  capitalist  solution  whence  will  inevitably  issue 
fresh  conflicts  unless  the  international  proletariat  soon 
becomes  master  of  its  destinies. 

Since  nothing  is  to  be  gained  by  blinking  the 
truth,  I  am  obliged  to  say  that  it  is  not  only  the 
League  of  Nations  that  has  caused  disappointment. 
When  Mr.  Wilson  first  came  over  to  Europe,  he 
was  enthusiastically  welcomed  by  all  the  liberal 
elements  and  by  the  masses  of  the  people  in  every 
country.  On  him  were  fixed  the  eyes  of  all  that 


588 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


sincerely  desired  to  remove  the  causes  of  war  and 
establish  international  comity.  I  should  be  depart- 
ing from  the  truth  if  I  said  that  Mr.  Wilson's 
position  was  still  the  same.  He  has  not  placated  his 
enemies — they  have  never  been  so  violent — and  he 
has  not  retained  the  confidence  of  his  friends.  When 
I  last  wrote  it  was  believed  that  Mr.  Wilson  would 
leave  the  Peace  Conference  rather  than  yield  to 
the  demands  of  the  French  Government  in  regard 
to  the  Saar  Valley  and  the  Left  Bank  of  the  Rhine. 
He  has  agreed  to  a  compromise  in  regard  to  the 
Saar  Valley  which  must  inevitably  make  it  a  cause 
of  new  dissensions.  The  annexation  of  the  territory 
by  France  would  be  at  once  more  honest  and  less 
dangerous  to  the  peace  of  Europe  than  this  hybrid 
solution.  And  how  can  Mr.  Wilson  reconcile  with 
democratic  principles  the  handing  over  of  the  inhab- 
itants of  the  Saar  Valley  to  the  control  of  a  direct- 
orate of  five  persons,  of  whom  only  one  will  be 
chosen  by  the  inhabitants  themselves?  A  few  days 
ago  I  should  have  been  obliged  to  say  that  no  man 
in  history  had  had  a  greater  opportunity  than  that 
which  Mr.  Wilson  had  lost.  He  has  indeed  made  a 
stand  in  regard  to  the  Italian  claims,  but  are  the 
Italian  claims  in  fact  any  worse  or  any  less  consist- 
ent with  the  Fourteen  Points  than  the  claims  of 
other  Allies,  of  France  or  Japan,  for  instance?  Great 
Britain  is  no  more  blameless  than  the  others.  It  is 
British  ambitions  in  Egypt  and  Mesopotamia  and 
Persia  that  have  weakened  Mr.  Lloyd  George's 
hands  in  the  conflict  with  French  and  Italian  im- 
perialism. We  have  imposed  our  rule  on  Egypt  in 
defiance  of  the  wishes  of  the  inhabitants  and,  when 
they  rose  against  us  in  defense  of  their  liberties,  we 
suppressed  the  rising  with  a  severity  which,  if  the 
accounts  be  true,  should  make  us  hold  our  tongues 
in  future  about  German  atrocities.  I  do  not  know 
how  far  the  accounts  are  true,  for  the  Government 
as  usual  has  deprived  us  of  any  but  the  most  meager 
information.  L'Humanite  published  on  April  26 
a  pathetic  and  very  moderate  account  by  Zagloul 
Pasha  of  the  wrongs  of  his  country;  M.  Francois 
Crucy,  who  interviewed  the  Pasha  on  behalf  of  the 
paper,  said  that  England  was  dishonored  by  what 
had  happened.  I  agree  with  him.  And  I  fully 
understand  the  feeling  of  Frenchmen  and  Italians 
that,  so  long  as  our  government  acts  in  this  way,  it 
is  not  in  a  position  to  oppose  the  imperialism  of  their 
governments.  It  was  perhaps  because  Mr.  Lloyd 
George  felt  that  too  that. he  deserted  Mr.  Wilson 
in  the  matter  of  the  Saar  Valley  and  supported  the 
French  demands  which  he  had  hitherto  opposed. 
That  able  American  supporter  of  European  im- 
perialism, Mr.  Frank  H.  Simonds,  has  said  that 
Mr.  George  bowed  "  to  the  will  of  British  Parlia- 


ment and  British  public  opinion."  Mr.  Simonds  is 
mistaken  about  British  public  opinion.  The  British 
Parliament,  although  it  is  only  four  months  old, 
no  longer  represents  public  opinion.  The  by-elec- 
tion at  Central  Hull  has  shown  that  the  ministerial 
coalition  cannot  even  hold  a  seat  which  it  won  in 
December  by  a  majority  of  10,000.  The  issues  be- 
fore the  electors  of  Central  Hull  were  conscription 
and  the  imperialist  ambitions  of  the  Allies;  they 
realized,  as  the  public  in  general  now  realizes,  that 
the  former  is  the  logical  result  of  the  latter.  Central 
Aberdeen  has  now  given  the  same  verdict.  That  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  was  subjected  to  pressure  in  this  coun- 
try is  true;  perhaps  the  bitterness  of  his  attack  on 
Lord  Northcliffe  in  the  House  of  Commons  the 
other  day  wtis  an  indication  of  annoyance  at  having 
yielded  to  that  pressure.  Everything  that  Mr. 
Lloyd  George  said  about  Lord  Northcliffe  was  true, 
but  it  was  just  as  true  when  Lord  Northcliffe  put 
Mr.  Lloyd  George  into  power  and  the  latter  is 
rather  late  in  finding  it  out.  Moreover  the  attack 
would  have  carried  more  weight  if  Mr.  George  had 
not  once  more  followed  Lord  Northcliffe's  policy. 

Mr.  Wilson's  compromise  in  regard  to  the  Saar 
Valley  has  also  weakened  his  protest  against  the 
Italian  claims.  Italy  has  in  fact  a  much  better 
claim  to  Fiume  than  has  France  to  the  Saar  Valley, 
for  there  is  a  large  Italian  population  in  Fiume — 
Italians  claim  that  it  is  even  the  majority — whereas 
there  is  no  French  population  in  the  Saar  Valley.  In 
protesting  against  the  Dalmatian  annexations  guar- 
anteed to,Italy  by  the  iniquitous  treaty  made  when 
she  entered  the  war  Mr.  Wilson  is  on  stronger 
ground.  But  how  much  stronger  would  have  been 
his  position  if  he  had  taken  a  firm  stand  long  ago 
against  all  such  claims  from  whatever  quarter  they 
came!  It  was  in  his  power  to  make  conditions  when 
America  came  into  the  war  and  he  has  had  many 
opportunities  of  making  them  since.  The  facts  that 
he  never  signed  the  Pact  of  London  and  that  Europe 
is  to  so  great  an  extent  dependent  on  America 
economically  and  financially  give  him  an  unique 
position  at  the  Peace  Conference.  The  opponents 
of  imperialism  in  France  itself  regret  that  Mr. 
Wilson  should  have  waited  until  now  to  make  his 
stand.  M.  Marcel  Sembat,  who  was  a  member  of 
the  Viviani  and  Briand  Ministries  during  the  war, 
wrote  in  L'Humanite  on  April  25 : 

President  Wilson,  why  have  we  waited  so  long? 
Despair  follows,  as  you  well  know,  on  hope  deferred.  We 
are  tired  of  listening  in  vain.  Have  you  not  had  occasion 
to  intervene  in  the  Fiume  question?  Can  you  not  see 
the  great  standing  armies  rising  again  in  spite  of  your 
promises?  Was  not  the  ferocious  appetite  of  conquest 
roused  and  threartening?  Why  did  you  not  sooner  appeal 
to  the  conscience  of  the  Nations,  in  which  was  your 
strength?  Why  did  you  so  long  endure  that  we  should 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


589 


be  thrown  back  under  the  rule  of  the  old  Diplomacy? 
Have  you  not  read  that  interview  given  by  the  Gen- 
eralissimo of  the  Allied  armies?  The  French  paper  that 
reproduced  it  was  seized,  but  surely  you  have  read  it 
and  have  thought  upon  it  and  understood  its  full  mean- 
ing? Is  it  not  more  intolerable  in  your  sight  that  in  the 
name  of  France  the  Rhine  Frontier  should  be  demanded 
in  perpetuity  than  that  Italy  should  demand  an  Italian 
town?  Now,  since  you  have  at  last  spoken,  since  you 
have  gone  straight  to  the  peoples  over  the  heads  of  their 
Governments,  since  you  have  broken  that  oppressive 
silence,  will  you  not  complete  your  task?  Speak  once 
more;  tell  us  all  your  anxieties,  your  struggles,  your 
aspirations  and  do  not  let  us  fall  back  once  more  into 
the  silence  of  death. 

As  the  Daily  Herald  said  a  few  days  ago,  there 
is  only  one  remedy  for  the  tangle  into  which  the 
Peace  Conference  has  got  itself — to  return  to  prin- 
ciples. It  is  because  principles  have  been  abandoned 
and  appetities  let  loose  that  the  tangle  has  come 
about.  Only  America  can  force  the  Conference  to 
return  to  principles  and  a  distracted  Europe  looks 
to  you  and  to  Mr.  Wilson  to  do  it.  Every  coun- 
try in  Europe  is  seething  with  discontent  and  un- 
rest. In  Belgium  there  is  bitter  resentment  against 
the  Allies,  especially  France,  on  account  of  the 
neglect  with  which  Belgian  requirements  are  being 
treated.  Belgium  has  been  sacrificed  to  the  cause 
'of  the  Allies,  she  has  been  occupied  by  the  enemy 
for  nearly  five  years,  her  industry  is  ruined,  she  is 
bankrupt,  and  the  majority  of  the  population  are  out 
of  work.  Now  that  the  victory  is  won,  she  is  treated 
as  a  negligible  quantity  and  put  on  a  level  with 
Haiti  and  Uruguay,  although  before  the  war  she 
was  economically  a  more  important  country  than 
Italy.  A  detestably  selfish  policy  has  been  followed 
toward  her  at  the  Peace  Conference  by  certain  Al- 
lied Governments,  and  the  Belgians  allege  that  the 
French  Government  is  intriguing  against  them  in 
Luxembourg.  If  the  Allied  Governments  wished 
to  see  Bolshevism  triumphant  all  over  Europe,  they 
would  not  have  acted  otherwise  than  they  have. 

There  is  a  general  strike  in  a  great  French  pro- 
vincial town,  which  neither  the  French  nor  English 
Press  has  been  allowed  to  mention.  The  French 
Socialist  Party  has  become  once  more  definitely  rev- 


olutionary; M.  Albert  Thomas  and  M.  Renaudel 
have  signed  an  electoral  program  which  declares 
that  a  revolution  is  necessary  and  that  it  will  prob- 
ably begin  with  a  temporary  dictatorship  of  the 
proletariat.  This  program  was  accepted  last  week 
by  the  whole  of  the  National  Congress  except 
the  extreme  left,  which  did  not  consider  it  suf- 
ficiently advanced.  The  Party  decided  to  affiliate 
itself  only  temporarily  to  what  is  called  the  Second 
International,  which  recently  met  at  Berne,  on  con- 
dition that  it  purge  itself  of  M.  Vandervelde,  M. 
Branting,  and  other  Socialists  that  are  compromising 
with  bourgeois  governments,  that  it  return  to  the 
class  war  and  irreconcilable  opposition  to  bourgeois 
parties  and  governments,  and  that  it  follow  the 
example  of  Russia,  Hungary,  and  Germany  by  im- 
mediately orientating  the  International  towards  the 
social  revolution.  If  these  conditions  are  not  com- 
plied with  it  is  probable  that  the  French  Socialist 
Party  will  adhere  to  the  Third  International  founded 
by  the  Russian  Bolsheviks,  to  which  the  Italian  and 
Swiss  Socialist  Party  are  already  affiliated.  In  its 
manifesto  which  has  already  been  mentioned  the 
French  Socialist  Party  denounces  the  conditions  of 
Peace  imposed  on  Germany  as  being  "  calculated  to 
reduce  the  German  people  to  slavery,"  expresses  its 
sympathy  with  the  Russian  Revolution,  condemns 
the  policy  of  the  Allies  in  regard  to  Russia,  and 
instructs  the  Socialist  deputies  to  vote  against  the 
budget  and  all  military  and  civil  credits  on  pain  of 
exclusion  from  the  party.  I  have  already  quoted  the 
declaration  of  the  party  about  the  war,  which  it 
attributes  to  the  "  imperialism  and  nationalism  of 
all  the  European  States  small  and  great." 

Such  are  some  of  the  events  that  are  happening  in 
Europe  while  our  statesmen  and  our  diplomatists 
squabble  over  frontiers  and  scraps  of  territory.  The 
gods,  one  would  imagine,  must  have  marked  them 
for  destruction :  unfortunately  they  may  also  involve 
others  than  themselves  in  their  ruin. 

ROBERT  DELL. 


Morning 


I  hope  that  I  shall  know  when  the  moment  comes, 

So.  I  can  be  glad. 
I  think  it  will  give  me  that  clear  sharpness  of  joy 

I  have  never  had 

To  slip  past  the  edge  of  sense,  to  throw  off  the  old 

Worn  garb  of  distress, 
And  poise  an  instant  naked  and  free,  then  plunge 

Into  nothingness.  „  ,,, 

KATHARINE  WARREN. 


59° 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


Finland — A  Bulwark  Against  Bolshevism 


.HE  war  which  was  to  make  the  world  safe  for 
democracy  has  come  to  a  fitting  close.  The  de 
facto  government  of  Finland  has  been  recognized 
in  almost  the  same  breath  that  acclaimed  the 
monarchist  elements  in  Western  Siberia.  Scarcely 
was  the  announcement  made  when  the  ambassador 
of  the  present  Finnish  government  disembarked  on 
the  shores  of  the  United  States.  The  regime  he 
represents  has  on  its  own  confession  thrown  Finnish 
citizens  into  jail  by  the  thousands,  and  has  denied 
the  ordinary  rights  of  participation  in  politics  to 
thousands  more.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper 
that  the  elder  statesmen  of  the  Quai  d'Orsay  should 
recognize  Finland — for  what  it  is  worth.  The  basis 
of  the  recognition  is  what  makes  the  act  interesting. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  great  war  Finland 
has  been  a  disaffected  country.  National  struggles 
and  class  struggles  have  been  perplexingly  inter- 
mingled, for  the  reason  that  Finland  is  a  zone  of 
contact  where  the  Slavic  and  Teutonic  civilizations, 
one  moving  eastward  and  one  westward,  meet;  and 
in  general  the  common  people  of  Finland  seem  to 
have  been  the  victims  of  two  contentious  foreign 
ruling  classes,  who  have  now  compromised  their 
differences  for  the  laudable  purpose  of  keeping  the 
mass  of  Finlanders  in  subjection.  General  Man- 
nerheim  himself  sums  up  in  his  personal  inheritance 
the  main  characteristics  of  the  present  ruling  classes. 
Born  in  Finland,  of  Teutonic  Junker  stock,  and 
trained  in  Russia  under  the  Czarist  regime,  he 
brings  to  the  government  of  his  native  land  an 
enviable  equipment  in  cruelty,  arrogance,  rapacity, 
and  chicane.  To  the  degree  that  he  fails  to  repre- 
sent the  Finnish  people  he  represents  the  more 
adequately  'the  present  government. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  wat  the  ruling  classes 
turned  with  a  single  mind  to  Germany  for  aid  in 
throwing  off  the  incubus  of  Russian  bureaucracy. 
Volunteers  were  enlisted  for  training  under  German 
military  discipline,  and  preparations  were  made  to 
attach  the  conduits  of  power  to  a  switch  manipu- 
lated in  Berlin.  The  Finnish  ruling  classes  realized 
that  without  the  intervention  of  an  alien  military 
government  they  were  impotent.  For  ever  since 
the  revolution  of  1905  the  common  people  of  Fin- 
land had  drifted  toward  Socialism,  and  but  for  the 
timely  intervention  of  the  Czar,  popular  govern- 
ment, through  a  coalition  of  peasants  and  workers, 
would  have  swept  the  tax-collecting  classes  into 
limbo.  Hence  the  dual  character  of  Finnish  nation- 
alism. To  the  worker  it  meant  freedom  to  par- 
ticipate in  the  international  class  struggle;  to  the 


moneyed  classes  it  meant  the  guarantee  of  their 
personal  ascendancy  within  the  national  domain. 

How  specious  was  the  ruling  classes'  fear  of 
Russification  became  apparent  as  soon  as  the  Keren- 
sky  regime  was  established  in  Russia.  The  Finnish 
Socialists  were  then  in  the  majority,  as  against  all 
the  conservative  parties  in  combination,  and  in  July 
1917  they  promptly  seized  the  opportunity  to  de- 
clare Finland's  political  separation  from  Russia. 
Germany  was  not  yet  in  a  position  to  play  its  ap- 
pointed role  in  the  domination  of  the  Finnish  prole- 
tariat, and  the  Allies  were  still  (nominally)  op- 
posed to  Prussian  methods  of  rule.  Accordingly 
the  conservative  parties  joined  issue  with  the 
Socialists  on  the  question  of  independence,  and  were 
able  to  stall  the  works  successfully  by  procuring  a 
dissolution  of  the  Diet.  Then  four  months  of 
political  frustration  followed.  Just  as  the  new 
parliament  was  about  to  meet  in  November  the 
overthrow  of  the  first  Russian  republic  took  place, 
and  the  reins  of  government  fell  into  the  hands 
of  unmistakably  proletarian  groups,  functioning 
through  the  Soviets.  Instantly  the  Finnish  home 
rule  problem  was  turned  upside  down.  The 
Socialist  party  now  declared  its  adherence  to  Soviet 
Russia,  and  the  conservatives  resuscitated  their 
project  for  national  independence. 

Up  to  this  time  the  Finnish  Socialist  party  had 
limited  its  activities  to  the  established  parliamentary 
fields.  It  had  worked  cautiously,  and  with  that 
rigorous  internal  discipline  so  characteristic  of 
continental  Socialism.  Protection  to  labor  and  the 
eight-hour  day  and  equal  suffrage  for  municipalities 
were  the  measures  it  demanded — the  sort  of  thing 
even  a  Republican  Congress  might  pass  under  the 
whip  of  a  Democratic  president.  The  small  conr 
servative  majority  in  the  November  Diet  refused 
to  consider  these  apparently  innocent  demands,  and 
in  consequence  of  their  refusal  the  Socialist  Party, 
operating  with  the  federation  of  labor  unions,  de- 
clared a  general  strike — November  15,  1917. 
The  result  was  civil  war,  accompanied  by  the  usual 
manifestation  of  violence,  bloodshed,  and  disorder. 
During  this  period  the  Red  Guard  had  the  upper 
hand,  and  acts  were  committed  by  isolated  groups 
of  the  baser  sort,  breaking  loose  from  restraint, 
which  the  Finnish  Socialist  party  does  not  attempt 
to  palliate.  The  number  of  people  killed  has  been 
variously  estimated.  In  the  book  compiled  from 
official  documents  by  Dr.  Henning  Soderhjelm  the 
actual  tally  is  624,  and  the  most  biased  estimates 
do  not  mount  much  above  a  thousand.  It  is  well 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


591 


to  remember  these  figures  for  the  purpose  of  com- 
parison, and  to  bear  in  mind  that  they  were  not 
executions  by  a  government  but  the  work  of  mobs 
which  had  defied  their  government. 

The  immediate  outcome  of  this  general  strike  was 
a  success.  The  Agrarian  Party  swung  over  to  the 
Socialists,  and  the  bills  which  the  Socialists  had 
presented  were  enacted.  But  the  Socialist  measures 
were  passed  only  to  be  delayed,  and  they  were  de- 
layed only  to  cause  another  general  strike.  As  a. 
result,  civil  strife  broke  out  again  in  January  1918, 
with  a  Red  government  establishing  itself  in  the 
towns  of  the  south,  and  the  White  Guard  organiz- 
ing itself  under  General  Mannerheim  in  the  im- 
pregnable morasses  of  the  north.  Left  to  themselves, 
the  Whites  were  defeated. 

From  this  time  on  the  fate  of  popular  govern- 
ment in  Finland  was  bound  up  with  the  general 
situation  in  Europe.  First  came  the  "  peace  "  treaty 
of  Brest-Litovsk.  There  the  representatives  of  the 
White  elements  appeared  in  order  to  give  their 
sanction  to  the  dismemberment  and  prostration  of 
Soviet  Russia,  and  to  extend  an  invitation  to  the 
German  imperialists  to  combat  the  "  menace  of 
Bolshevism  "  by  invading  Finland.  (This  White 
government  was  incidentally  recognized  by  France 
at  the  same  time — a  significant  preface  to  present 
day  politics.)  Now,  Finland  contains  scarcely  more 
than  3,200,000  inhabitants,  and  only  a  relatively 
small  military  force,  well  munitioned  and  victualed, 
was  needed  to  destroy  the  ill-organized  Red  Guards. 
In  'the  spring  Mannerheim's  troops  pressed  down 
from  the  north,  and  von  der  Goltz's  army  estab- 
lished its  base  and  moved  upward,  and  between 
them  the  people's  government  of  Finland  was 
macerated  out  of  existence. 

The  pre-revolutionary  voting  strength  of  the 
Finnish  Socialist  Party  was  above  370,000.  This 
body  was  the  backbone  <of  the  revolution,  and 
consequently  the  mainstay  of  the  people's  govern- 
ment. An  autocrat,  under  no  matter  what  czar  he 
had  perfected  his  education,  could  not  rule  a  coun- 
try while  such  a  large  body  of  people  were  robust 
in  health,  sound  in  mentality,  disciplined  in  leader- 
ship, and  undiminished  in  numerical  strength. 
Nevertheless  Mannerheim  intended  to  rule,  and  the 
kept  classes  were  unanimous  in  seconding  his  inten- 
tion. To  achieve  military  power  was  one  thing: 
to  suppress  all  political  rivalry  was  another.  Thanks 
to  Mannerheim's  sound  training  under  the  ancient 
regime,  he  was  able  to  combat  that  infirmity  in 
dealing  with  the  masses  which  is  so  constant  a 
source  of  instability  in  a  capitalist  government 
tainted  by  the  most  ordinary  standards  of  human 
decency. 


The  details  of  Mannerheim's  methods  have  no 
place  outside  the  police  court  records  of  sanguinary 
crime,  or  the  psychoanalyst's  monograph  on  the 
phenomenon  of  sadism.  Wholesale  imprisonment 
and  widespread  summary  execution  represent  but  the 
superficial  aspects  of  his  attempt  to  suppress  popular 
(social-democratic)  government.  According  to  a 
report  of  representatives  of  all  the  Scandinavian 
Socialist  parties,  conditions  in  the  camps  for  the 
detention  of  Red  prisoners  have  been  indescribably 
horrible.  Starvation  and  filth  have  accomplished  in 
slow  inexorable  fashion  what  lead  and  steel  do  hap- 
pily in  a  shorter  period.  This  report  is  corroborated 
by  the  independent  testimony  of  a  correspondent  of 
the  New  Statesman  (London),  in  a  communication 
dated  February  1919.  He  adds  the  systematic  em- 
ployment, of  torture  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining 
evidence  to  the  list  of  the  present  government's 
crimes.  These  statements  are  now  confirmed  by  an 
indisputably  respectable  authority.  On  the  admis- 
sion of  the  official  head  of  the  Finnish  Economic 
Mission,  published  in  the  New  York  Times  for 
May  24,  "  the  White  Guards 'took  70,000  prisoners 
and  promptly  put  them  on  trial,"  condemned  a 
"  few "  to  death,  and  gave  more  than  8,000 
sentences  of  more  than  eight  years  in  prison.1  Hence 
the  estimates  of  the  representative  of  the  People's 
Government  in  America  do  not  require  any  stretch 
of  the  imagination  to  become  credible.  Given  in 
round  numbers,  they  err  on  the  side  of  conservatism. 

Executed:  10,000. 

Died  in  prison:  10,000. 

Exiled:  50,000. 

The  New  Statesman  correspondent  is  probably 
nearer  the  correct  figure  when  he  asserts  that  be- 
tween 15,000  and  20,000  were  shot  out  of  hand 
without  any  form  of  trial,  and  that  not  less  than 
13,000  and  not  more  than  18,000  met  death  in  the 
notorious  prison  camps  between  June  and  October 
1918  through  lack  of  food  and  water.  In  all  about 
100,000  Socialists  out  of  a  total  electorate  of 
900,000  have  been  either  killed  or  disfranchised. 
Naturally  those  who  were  promptly  executed  were 
the  leaders  in  the  Finnish  Socialist  movement, 
educated  for  their  positions  by  more  than  a  decade 
of  slow  -parliamentary  experiment.  Hence  when 
the  chief  of  the  Finnish  Economic  Mission  informs 
us  that  the  erstwhile  rank  and  file  Socialists  are 
"  bitter  against  the  leaders  who  deserted  them,"  it 
is  plain  that  he  uses  the  word  "  desert "  in  a  pecu- 
liarly Pickwickian,  or  diplomatic  sense. 

With  thousands  of  their  fellows  killed,  their 
leaders  executed  or  exiled,  their  funds  gone,  their 
most  active  members  imprisoned,  their  journals  sup- 
pressed, their  political  activity  curtailed,  one  would 


592 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


suppose  that  the  Finnish  Socialists  might  well 
weaken  in  enthusiasm  for  their  creed.  For  theirs 
was  a  martyrdom  without  the  consolations  of 
eternal  beatitude.  The  statistics  of  the  latest  elec- 
tion prove  otherwise.  The  new  Socialist  repre- 
sentatives number  80  out  of  a  total  of  200,  and 
when  due  allowance  is  made  for  the  starved,  the 
executed,  the  exiled,  and  the  jailed  it  appears  that 
the  Party  has  positively  gained  in  strength  under 
persecution.  Notwithstanding  their  position,  the 
Socialists  are  not  represented  in  the  present  govern- 
ment, and  as  long  as  the  dictatorship  of  Manner- 
helm  continues — with  the  connivance  and  subsidy 
of  the  Big  Four — practically  one-half  of  the  popu- 
lation of  Finland  will  be  living  under  an  alien  and 
autocratic  rule. 

We  have  now  reached  a  point  where  it  is  pos- 
sible to  estimate  what  recognition   of  Finland   by 
the  Allies  implies.     Primarily  it  carries  on  an  im- 
portant     governmental      tradition — continuity     of 
policy.      The   Allies   have   stepped    into   the   place 
"vacated  by  the  defeated  autocracy  of  Germany,  and 
.-are  supporting  the  methods  so  ably  developed   by 
the  Mannerheim-Vbn  der  Goltz  regime.    This  sup- 
port has  been  of  threefold  nature:  financial,  muni- 
tionary,  and  moral.    As  for  the  first,  it  is  pretty  well 
authenticated  that  a  shipment  of  gold,  intended  to 
stiffen   the  Kerensky  regime  before  the  American 
government  realized  that  the  first  republic  was  on 
its  last  legs,  was  halted  before  it  reached  Russia, 
and  that  it  has  since  been  diverted  into  the  channels 
of  such  law  and  order  as  White  Terror  stands  for. 
Since  the  debacle  of  Germany  the  munitions  have 
naturally  been  supplied  from  Allied  sources,  includ- 
ing America,  and  the  British  fleet  has  gone  so  far 
as  to  contribute  naval  support  to  military  operations 
around  the  Baltic.     This  has  strengthened  the  in- 
ternal control  of  the  counter-revolutionists,  and  has 
made  possible  an  interventionist  campaign  in  Russia. 
Finally,  the  Allies  have  backed  these  material  con- 
tributions with  a  "  moral "  offensive.     They  have 
taken   the  opportunity  through  the  daily  press  to 
whitewash   the  sanguinary  exploits   of  the  White 
Guard,  and  to  reinforce  this  expression  of  approval 
by  diplomatic  recognition  of  the  government  which 
this  guard  keeps  in  power.     Thus  the  perpetrators 
of  a  wholesale  reign  of  terror  were  received  openly 
into  the  ranks  of  the  defenders  of  Belgium  against 
the  iron   rule  of   Germany.     Doubtless  they  will 
prove  to  be  valuable  adjuncts  to  the  present  League 
of  Governments. 

The  story  of  the  White  Terror  discloses  the 
manifest  unfitness  of  the  Mannerheim  government 
to  rule  Finland.  Was  it  in  spite  of  this  unfitness 
or  because  of  it  that  the  Allies  have  bolstered  it  up  ? 


The  question  becomes  pertinent  when  one  inquires 
— unfitness  for  what?  Unfitness  obviously  for  asso- 
ciation with  free  peoples,  with  governments  that 
exist  by  the  consent  of  the  governed,  with  those 
that  deny  that  there  is  any  necessary  nexus  between 
might  and  right.  But  the  covert  clique  of  govern- 
ments that  has  taken  unto  itself  the  task  of  con- 
trolling the  world  is  not  concerned  with  these  old- 
fashioned  liberal  shibboleths.  It  exists  to  keep  the 
economic  status  quo  intact,  and  it  is  willing  to 
utilize  any  more  or  less  powerful  group  which  has 
the  same  end  in  view.  All  the  better  if  in  the 
Baltic  region  the  Allied  governments  can  supply 
munitions,  money,  and  moral  authority,  and  allow 
the  hired  forces  of  the  Junker-capitalist  groups  to  do 
the  dirty  work. 

There  is  an  obvious  fitness  in  the  Mannerheim 
government  for  the  commission  of  the  sanguinary 
task  of  extirpation  imposed  upon  it  by  the  logic  of 
the  situation  in  Russia.  Finland  is  a  bulwark 
against  Bolshevism:  the  stronger  the  present  gov- 
ernment becomes,  the  stronger  grows  this  bulwark. 
With  plenty  of  material  equipment,  such  for  ex- 
ample as  the  famous  Lewisite  exterminator  now  in 
the  hands  of  the  United  States  Government,  there 
is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  a  White  Guard  in- 
vading Russia  should  not  be  able  to  live  up  to  its 
past  performances,  and  possibly  (for  Lewisite  seems 
to  make  it  possible)  to  go  beyond  its  best  achieve- 
ments in  the  way  of  butchery  and  torture.  Three 
million  Soviet  adherents  in  slavery,  and  three  hun- 
dred thousand  ready  for  execution,  would  represent 
the  scale  of  extermination  and  suppression  conform- 
able to  the  requirements  of  the  Russian  situation. 
Doubtless  the  Soviet  system  could  be  swiftly 
prostrated  by  such  an  application  of  Finnish  law 
and  order,  and  a  gentlemen's  government,  consist- 
ing of  the  remaining  population  (if  any)  could  be 
erected,  in  accordance  with  the  principles  of  self- 
determination,  nationality,  and  democracy. 

Apparently  the  Prussic  spirit  is  unconquerable. 
It  has  left  the  corpse  of  Germany  only  to  enter  the 
governments  of  the  Allies.  In  Germany  however 
it  had  the  decency  to  expose  the  nakedness  of  its 
brutality,  whilst  with  the  Allies  it  is  petticoated  in 
President's  English.  The  situation  about  the  Baltic 
throws  a  white  light  upon  that  struggle  of  nations 
which  is  also  a  struggle  of  classes.  By  means  of  its 
illumination  we  can  penetrate  the  "  hypocrisies  and 
patent  cheats  and  masks  of  brute  force  "  and  realize 
how  far  the  economically  autocratic  democracies, 
led  by  America,  have  fallen  from  their  grand  and 
utterly  unfulfilled  aim  of  setting  the  world  free. 

LEWIS  MUMFORD. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


593 


Turmoil  in  Spain 


O  PAIN  is  IN  UPHEAVAL  today  through  the  con- 
temporaneous maturing  of  two  great  movements, 
each  aiming  at  a  transformation  of  the  political  and 
social  order  of  the  nation.  The  "one  is  called  in 
Spain  the  "  regionalist "  movement;  the  other,  the 
Spanish  manifestation  of  the  same  social  unrest 
which  is  sweeping  the  world,  is  industrial  in  char- 
acter and  aims  at  nothing  less  than  the  social  revolu- 
tion. The  repressive  measures  now  being  taken  in 
Barcelona  against  the  syndicalistic  and  revolutionary 
socialist  agitators,  coming  as  they  do  on  the  heels 
of  the  spectacular  political  events  of  December  and 
January,  make  confusion  between  the  two  move- 
ments very  easy  when  they  are  viewed  from  abroad ; 
all  the  more  since  the  regionalist  movement  is  itself 
a  very  complex  one,  taking  on  different  aspects  in 
different  places  and  provoking  in  each  case  different 
reactions  on  the  part  of  the  various  political  parties 
in  Spain. 

The  "  regionalist  "  movement,  as  a  whole,  is  a 
concerted  attack  on  the  Spanish  bureaucratic  gov- 
ernment centralized  in  Madrid.  It  is,  in  other 
words,  a  political  movement,  aiming  at  a  decentral- 
ization of  governmental  control  by  a  recognition  of 
the  great  historic  "  regions  "  of  Spain,  to  be  erected 
into  autonomous,  or  even  into  independent  states, 
with  the  national  unity  entrusted  to  a  system  of 
federalization  of  some  form  or  other.  In  two  regions, 
particularly,  this  agitation  for  regional  autonomy  is 
intensified  by  a  local  nationalistic  propaganda  of 
more  or  less  ancient  origin.  The  Basques  and  the 
Catalonians,  by  virtue  of  their  non-Spanish  language, 
literature,  and  race,  are  appealing  to  the  principle  of 
self-determination  for  "  oppressed "  nationalities. 
The  enthusiasm  thus  imparted  to  the  movement  in 
these  regions  has  made  it  powerful  enough  to  become 
an  issue  throughout  the  whole  peninsula,  where  the 
problem  of  bureaucratic  maladministration  is  just 
as  serious  as  in  the  Basque  provinces  or  in  Catalunya. 
The  "  Spanish,"  as  opposed  to  the  Basque  and  Cat- 
alonian,  autonomist  program  is,  in  fact,  only  a  device 
of  the  Spanish  constitutional  parties  to  find  a  form- 
ula whereby  the  dissatisfaction  with  the  present 
monarchy  general  throughout  the  country  may  be 
removed,  while  at  the  same  time  making  all  possible 
concessions  to  Basque  and  Catalonian  nationalism. 

The  "  Spanish  "  movement,  lacking  the  separatist 
patriotic  animus,  aims  simply  at  a  political  reorgan- 
ization of  the  nation,  as  the  basis  of  a  moral  and 
social  renovation  of  government  in  Spain.  The 
proposed  reorganization  is  however  radical  enough 
to  arouse  determined  opposition  in  bureaucratic 


circles,  and  in  all  those  social  groups,  the  aristocracy, 
the  clergy,  the  army,  which  most  directly  profit  by 
the  present  system  of  centralization.  The  Spanish 
monarchy  is  of  the  approved  constitutional  type. 
The  King  governs  in  name  only,  while  the  real 
"  government "  rests  in  a  cabinet,  responsible  to  the 
Cortes,  which  is  in  turn  elected  by  a  universal  and 
obligatory  suffrage  for  men  over  twenty-five.  While 
the  age  limit  for  voting  might  seem  rather  high,  a 
very  considerable  case  can  be  made  out  for  the 
democratic  character  of  the  Spanish  constitution. 
In  actual  operation  the  constitution  does  not  show 
all  the  virtues  it  seems  to  promise  on  paper.  The 
cabinet  has  control  of  the  entire  administration  of 
the  country  through  its  power  of  appointment  to  the 
executive  offices  of  the  state,  the  political  provinces, 
and  the  larger  municipalities.  This  power  it  is  able 
to  exercise  in  controlling,  not  only  the  vote  of  the 
deputies  to  the  Cortes,  but  also  the  local  election 
machinery.  Hence  political  "  bossism  "  on  the  one 
hand ;  and  on  the  other  a  spoils  system  which  makes 
politics  a  matter  of  group  warfare  and  compromise, 
rather  than  a  conflict  of  ideas.  A  defect  of  theory 
also  develops  in  this  mechanism  as  it  radiates  over 
the  Peninsula  and  encounters  the  thirteen  ancient 
geographical,  economic,  and  social  regions,  differing 
in  habits,  interests,  traditions,  and  even  in  language, 
out  of  which  the  modern  Spanish  state  has  been  con- 
structed and  of  which  only  the  two  Castilles  and 
Andalucia  may  properly  be  called  Spain.  For 
the  centralized  government  operates  through  gen- 
eral laws  and  regulations  applicable  to  the  nation  as 
a  whole.  In  order  thus  to  satisfy  its  specific  indi- 
vidual needs,  a  given  locality  or  region  must  appeal 
to  the  central  government,  where  it  meets  not  only 
bureaucratic  inefficiency  or  rapacity,  but  also  the  con- 
flicting interests  of  other  regions,  each  competing  for 
special  favors  and  each  jealous  of  regional  discrimin- 
ations. 

The  Spanish  regionalists  contend  that  these  evils 
can  be  corrected  by  reconstituting  the  government 
from  the  bottom  up.  They  would,  first  of  all, 
abolish  the  present  forty-nine  political  and  adminis- 
trative provinces,  which  date  from  1833.  Then  they 
would  establish  complete  municipal  autonomy,  build 
up  from  representatives  of  the  municipalities  a  par- 
liament to  govern  each  of  the  thirteen  ancient  "  re- 
gions," and  finally  reach  the  state  government, 
whose  functions  would  be  strictly  limited  to  inter- 
regional, as  we  would  say,  interstate,  affairs.  Ex- 
treme regionalists  would  make  participation  in  this 
central  government  on  the  part  of  the  regions  op- 


594 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


tional,  and  at  all  times  free.  Others  would  give 
greatest  strength  to  the  national  unity.  In  the  one 
case,  we  should  get  a  state  as  loosely  centralized  as 
the  British  Empire;  in  the  other  a  union  as  compact 
as  that  of  the  United  States. 

This  program  finds  its  major  support  in  the  so- 
called  parties  of  the  left,  the  Reformists,  the  Re- 
publicans and  Radicals,  the  Socialists.  Since  1898, 
moreover,  the  government  parties,  Liberal  and  Con- 
servative, have  been  progressively  inclined  to  con- 
cessions in  the  direction  of  these  proposed  reforms. 
They  have  never  gone  much  farther,  however,  than 
a  proposal  of  municipal  autonomy  coupled  with  gen- 
eral changes  in  systems  of  appointment  and  election, 
judicial  procedure,  and  methods  of  taxation. 

While  doubtless  the  bureaucracy  could  thus  com- 
promise at  almost  any  time  with  the  "  Spanish  "  re- 
gionalist  movement,  it  has  never  been  able  to  pacify 
the  nationalists  of  Catalunya  with  such  superficial 
changes.  All  the  forces  of  discontent  which  operate 
in  Spain  generally  rage  with  particular  violence  in 
the  region  of  Barcelona,  Gerona,  Tarragona,  and 
Lerida.  These  districts,  owing  to  their  wealth  in 
water  power,  have  a  monopoly  of  the  cotton-textile 
industries  in  Spain.  With  one-tenth  of  the  total 
population  of  the  nation,  Catalunya  pays  one-fifth  of 
the  taxes,  buys  one-half  of  the  imports,  and  sells  one- 
third  of  the  exports  of  the  whole  nation.  No  amount 
of  special  legislation  on  the  part  of  Madrid  has  ever 
reconciled  the  Catalonians  to  the  control  by  the 
central  government  of  these  great  and  separate  in- 
terests. 

This  stubbornness  is  the  product  of  an  idealistic 
middle  class  movement,  now  nearly  a  century  old. 
We  do  not  make  it  older  than  that  for  several 
reasons:  first  of  all,  Catalunya  has  been,  since  the 
twelfth  century,  identified  with  the  destinies  of  the 
rest  of  Spain.  Furthermore,  the  autonomy  she  now 
demands  is  not  the  autonomy  she  lost  in  1715.  But 
more  important  still,  the  present  fervor  of  national- 
ism among  the  Catalans  is  of  nineteenth  century 
manufacture  and  has  gone  through  the  same  pro- 
cess of  development,  which,  since  the  French  Revo- 
lution, has  characterized  all  nationalisms.  In  the 
first  half  of  the  past  century,  Catalonian  national- 
ism was  a  matter  of  philological  and  anthropological 
research.  Philologists  discovered  the  distinctness  of 
the  Catalan  dialect,  its  affiliations  with  Southern 
France,  the  Provencal  type  of  its  literature.  From 
the  pedants  the  patriotic  torch  -passed,  after  the 
"Floral  Games"  of  1858,  into  the  hands  of  the 
poets.  Between  1860  and  1880  we  have  to  seek  in 
Catalan  literature  the  nearer  origins  of  a  def- 
initely anti-Spanish  spirit.  The  years  between  1880 
and  1898  we  may  distinguish  as  the  political  era  of 
Catalan  nationalism.  Then  political  societies  began 


to  flourish,  with  declarations  of  independence  and 
programs  for  regional  autonomy.  Not  less  than  ten 
predecessors  to  the  recent  petition  of  November  25 
are  to  be  counted  in  these  years,  the  most  important 
being  that  signed  at  Manresa  in  1892.  After  the 
crisis  in  Catalonian  industry,  resulting  from  the 
Cuban  and  Spanish-American  war,  the  nationalistic 
movement  assumed  its  present  industrial  character, 
industrial,  that  is,  in  the  Spanish  sense  of  the  term. 
For  since  that  time,  the  nationalistic  sentiment  has 
been  identified  with  the  cause  of  prosperity,  protec- 
tion, and  the  full  dinner-pail.  It  has  won  to  its  side 
the  important  industrial  capitalists  and  large  ele- 
ments among  the  business  and  working  classes.  At 
no  time  however  has  it  interested  those  proletarian 
energies  which  are  now  concentrated  in  the  agita- 
tions of  the  Syndicalist  Union  or  the  revolutionary 
General  Federation  of  Labor.  The  present  Catalan 
League  represents  the  fusion  of  Conservatives,  Lib- 
erals, Reformists,  Radicals,  Republicans,  and  Social- 
ists. To  the  left  of  this  it  does  not  go. 

As  compared  with  the  Catalonian  movemen.t,  the 
Basque  agitation  for  regionalism  presents  only  the 
distinctive  trait  that  in  the  Basque  Provinces  power- 
ful Carlist  elements,  of  clerical  and  definitely  reac- 
tionary tendencies,  seem  to  have  taken  control  of  the 
movement  in  some  localities.  The  impulse  here  is 
the  same  that  translates  itself  in  France  and  Italy 
into  the  demand  for  proportional  representation. 
Various  local  majorities  expect,  through  regional 
autonomy,  to  make  good  a  power  they  can  never 
hope  to  realize  as  a  weak  national  minority.  Both 
the  Basque  and  the  Catalonian  demands  would  be 
satisfied  with  the  extreme  program  of  the  Spanish 
regionalists.  Neither  movement,  that  is,  is  strictly 
separatist  in  character.  In  fact,  the  petition  of  last 
November  is,  in  this  respect,  less  radical  than  the 
constitution  of  1892.  The  same  reservation  applies 
to  the  question  of  the  monarchy.  Since  1898,  the 
Catalan  movement  has  known  moments  when  the 
republicans  were  in  a  majority.  As  a  whole,  the 
Catalanists  could  not  regard  the  monarchy  as  incom- 
patible with  any  form  of  autonomy  which  would  def- 
initely rid  them  of  bureaucratic  control  from  Mad- 
rid. The  Basque  movement  meanwhile  has  power- 
ful enemies  of  the  present  dynasty,  who  prefer 
however  something  still  more  reactionary  and 
absolutistic. 

The  regionalist  movement,  in  its  three  aspects, 
bears  thus  only  a  tactical  relation  to  the  revolution- 
ary labor  movement,  which  is  as  hostile  to  the  re- 
gionalist programs  of  political  reform  as  it  is  to  the 
centralized  government.  The  subversive  General 
Federation  of  Labor  usually  finds,  that  is,  in  the  con- 
ditions of  passive  regional  resistance  to  the  govern- 
ment, a  favorable  opportunity  for  revolutionary 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


595 


agitation  and  for  a  general  strike.  On  the  other 
hand  the  regionalists  utilize  the  threat  of  such  in- 
dustrial troubles  to  coerce  the  government,  which 
just  as  stolidly  is  inclined  to  retort  by  masking  gen- 
eral repression  of  regionalist  propaganda  behind  its 
assault  on  "  anarchy."  Francisco  Ferrer  is  only  the 
most  celebrated  victim  of  such  tactics. 

The  best  disciplined  groups  of  industrial  revolu- 
tionists are  in  Catalunya  and  Andalucia.  Barcelona 
contributes  about  65,000  members  to  the  revolution- 
ary Federation,  while  about  three  thousand  more 
come  from  Lerida,  Gerona,  Tarragona,  and  the  agri- 
cultural regions.  Not  over  forty  thousand  paid  up 
members  report  to  the  Federation  centers  in  An- 
dalucia, with  the  strongest  groups  in  Seville, 
Cordoba,  Cadiz,  and  Malaga.  These  figures,  the 
latest  issued  by  the  Federation,  are  based  on  reports 
of  1911.  Since  1915,  new  sections  have  been  formed 
in  La  Corunya,  Sarragossa,  Valencia,  Gijon,  and 
La  Felguera.  The  Woodworkers  and  Builders  of 
Bilbao  and  the  Glass  Workers  of  Madrid  are  sep- 
arately organized  but  are  affiliated  with  the  Fed- 
eration. Solidariedad  Obrera,  the  organ  of  the  Fed- 
eration, claims  at  present  a  total  of  107,000  ad- 
herents for  the  whole  group.  But  its  action  is  not 
by  any  means  so  limited  as  these  figures,  or  its  open 
organization,  would  imply.  In  the  last  four  months 
there  have  been  general  strikes  in  Lugo,  Burgos, 
Badajoz,  and  Valladolid  of  "  bolshevik  "  character, 
though  these  localities  are  not  claimed  by  the  revo- 
lutionary organization. 

These  figures  suggest,  not  so  much  weakness,  as 
lack  of  discipline  on  the  part  of  labor  forces  in 
Spain.  We  are  doubtless  witnessing  only  the  begin- 


ning of  a  period  of  turmoil,  which  will  be  of  prop- 
agandist, rather  than  reconstructive  character,  and 
tend  to  a  compacter  organization  of  the  revolution- 
ary elements  of  the  country.  Of  this  trend  the  Gov- 
ernment has  been  perfectly  aware.  While  it  was 
meeting  the  regionalist  agitation  with  a  revised  ver- 
sion of  the  Maura  proposal  for  local  autonomy  made 
in  1907 — Maura  was  again  chairman  of  the  Extra- 
Parliamentary  Commission — it  was,  under  Roman- 
ces, meeting  the  revolutionary  threat  with  the  meas- 
ures of  social  reform  well  known  to  English  and 
American  liberalism.  Along  with  lavish  concessions 
in  wages,  working  hours,  and  protection  for  working 
men,  it  was  organizing  labor  in  its  own  public  utili- 
ties, and  stimulating  cooperative  management  be- 
tween owners  and  workers  in  private  industries.  In 
both  of  these  tactics  it  could  rely  on  a  definite  pre- 
ponderance of  governmental  forces.  Meanwhile, 
however,  the  military  clique  accomplished  during 
April  what  amounted  to  a  seizure  of  the  govern- 
ment, creating  circumstances  which  compelled  the 
resignation  of  Romanoes,  and  left  labor  face  to  face 
with  military  reaction  in  a  situation  which  prom- 
ises still  to  seek  something  else  than  a  political 
solution.  Doubtless  the  present  elections,  the  re- 
turns from  which  are  just  coming  in,  will  show  lib- 
eral forces  strong  enough  to  restrain  the  military 
and  to  conciliate  the  workers.  The  bureaucracy  will 
find  itself,  when  the  present  crisis  passes,  still  in  con- 
trol ;  and  the  Spanish  public  will  find  itself  in  Spain 
in  the  presence  of  organized  labor  working  in  rela- 
tive harmony  with  organized  capital. 


ARTHUR  LIVINGSTON. 


India's  Revolution 


I 


N  THE  LIGHT  of  the  evolutionary  growth  of  revo- 
lutions and  their  constant  approach  to  more  ideal 
goals,  it  is  of  extreme  interest  to  estimate  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  present  revolution  in  India.  This 
revolution  has  come  out  of  desperation,  and  to  the 
goal  of  absolute  freedom  it  must  go.  Whether  it 
succeeds  now  or  not,  it  has  already  contributed  a 
new  and  radical  idea  to  the  progress  of  humanity, 
which  will  be  a  permanent  gift  to  international 
thought.  This  contribution  comes,  perhaps,  nearer 
the  goal  of  idealism  than  that  of  any  other  revolu- 
tion, because  the  contribution  is  that  highly  ideal- 
istic and  inspiring  one  of  passive  resistance. 

In  its  inception,  the  Indian  revolution  was  passive 
in  character.  Though  in  the  latter  stages  it  lost 
its  original  character  and  switched  towards  active 
resistance,  yet  it  never  lost  sight  of  the  spirit  of 
passivism.  Even  the  recourse  to  violence,  forced 


upon  the  people  by  the  British  government,  was 
more  a  protest  against  brutalities  and  barbarities 
committed  on  the  unarmed  and  unfed  masses  by  the 
alien  autocrats.  It  was  adopted  only  when  they 
were  not  allowed  to  voice  their  silent  protest  against 
the  alien  laws  that  legalize  and  perpetuate  the  en- 
slavement of  themselves — one-fifth  of  humanity. 

The  desire  for  freedom  has  been  growing  stronger 
and  stronger  day  by  day.  In  1917  the  British 
authorities  recognized  the  revolutionary  tendencies 
by  the  appointment  of  the  Rowlatt  Commission  to 
investigate  revolutionary  conspiracies  in  India.  By 
this  act  alone  they  acknowledged  the  invalidity  of 
their  title  to  rule  India  against  the  will  of  her  315 
millions  of  people.  In  1919,  driven  to  desperation 
by  the  continued  growth  of  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment, the  Government  introduced  the  infamous 
Rowlatt  Bills  and  had  them  passed  against  the 


596 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


unanimous  voice  of  the  Indian  members  of  the  Legis- 
lature Council  who  are,  of  course,  in  the  minority. 
These  Rowlatt  Acts  revived  the  Spanish  Inquisition 
and  the  Star  Chamber  of  the  Tudor  and  Stuart 
period,  in  their  worst  forms.  According  to  their 
provisions : 

1.  Any  Indian  is  subject  to  arrest  without  trial,  upon 
suspicion,   and  detention  without  trial   for   an  unlimited 
duration  of  time. 

2.  The  burden  of  proof  rests  upon  the  accused. 

3.  The   accused  is  kept  ignorant  of  the  names  of  his 
accusers  and  of  witnesses  against  him.     The   accused  is 
not  confronted  with  his  accusers  or  with  witnesses  against 
him,    and   is   entitled   only   to   a  written   account   of  the 
offenses  attributed  to  him. 

4.  The  accused  is  deprived  of  the  help  of  a  lawyer,  and 
no  witnesses  are  allowed  in  his  defense. 

5.  The  accused  is  given  a  secret  trial,  before  a  Com- 
mission of  thr^ee  High  Court  Judges,  who  may  sit  at  any 
place   they   deem   fit — in    a   cellar   if   they   choose.     The 
method  of  their  procedure  or  their  findings  may  not  be 
made  public. 

6.  Trial   by  jury  i&  denied.     The  right  of   appeal   is 
denied.     "  No  order  under  this  Act  shall  be  called  into 
question  in  any  court,  and  no  suit  or  prosecution  or  other 
legal  proceeding  shall  be  made  against  any  person  for 
anything  which  is  in  good  faith  done  or  intended  to  be 
done  under  this  Act." 

7.  The  accused  may  be  convicted   of   an  offense  with 
which  he  is  not  charged. 

8.  The  prosecution  "  shall  not  be  bound  to  observe  the 
rules  of  the  law  of  evidence."     Prosecution  may  accept 
evidence  of  absent  witnesses.    The  witnesses  may  be  dead, 
or  may  never  have  existed. 

9.  The  authorities  are  given  power  to  use  "  any  and 
every  means  "  in  carrying  out  the  law  and  in  obtaining 
confessions.    In  other  words,  torture. 

10.  Any  person  possessing  "  seditious "  documents,  pic- 
tures  or   words,   intending  that   the   same   shall   be   pub- 
lished or  circulated,  is  liable  to  arrest  and  imprisonment. 
According    to    the    definition    of    "  sedition,"    absence    of 
affection   for  the   British  'Government   would  be   legally 
held  to  mean  disaffection  against  it. 

11.  Men   who  have   served   prison   terms   for   political 
offenses  may  be  restricted  to  certain  specific  areas,  must 
report  regularly  to  the  police,  cannot  change  address  with- 
out  notification   of   authorities,    and   must   give   securities 
for  good  behavior.     They  can  never  thereafter  write  on 
or  discuss  or  attend  meetings  on  any  subject  of  public  im- 
portance including  even  social,  religious,  and  educational. 

12.  Any  person  (even  the  family)  voluntarily  associat- 
ing with   an   ex-political   prisoner  may  be   arrested   and 
imprisoned. 

13.  Search  without  warrant  of  any  suspected  place  or 
home  is  provided  for. 

The  people  of  India,  led  by  that  great  passive 
resistance  advocate,  Mr.  M.  K.  Gandhi,  and  that 
spirited  soul,  Mrs.  Sarojini  Naidu,  raised  their  voice 


of  protest  by  observing  the  6th  of  April  as  a  national 
Day  of  Humiliation  and  Prayer.  All  over  India 
shops  were  shut  and  general  mourning  was  observed 
as  a  silent  protest  against  the  passage  of  the  Rowlatt 
Bills.  But  undue  interference  of  the  authorities 
prevented  them  from  even  making  a  passive  demon- 
stration of  protest.  Shops  were  opened  at  the  point 
O'f  bayonets,  passive  resistance  leaders  were  kid- 
napped and  transferred  to  unknown  destinations, 
and,  according  to  the  London  Herald,  twelve  per- 
sons in  one  city  were  flogged  for  destroying  govern- 
ment notices. 

For  a  number  of  days  following  the  Day  of 
Humiliation  and  Prayer,  th'e  country  was  quiet. 
But  suddenly,  on  April  n,  the  whole  of  India, 
from  Bombay  to  Calcutta  and  from  Kashmir  to 
Madras,  went  on  a  general  strike.  That  day  wit- 
nessed the  greatest  display  of  passivism  the  world 
has  ever  seen.  People  threw  themselves  in  front 
of  tram  cars  and  moving  trains,  and  succeeded  in 
their  attempts  to  induce  their  fellow-workers  to  stop 
work.  They  refrained  from  picketing  and  all  other 
direct  action. 

This  extreme  passive  renunciation,  the  like  of 
which  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  history  of  any 
country,  brought  in  that  extraordinary  unanimity 
among  all  classes  and  all  creeds.  High  and  low, 
rich  and  poor,  Hindu  and  Parsee,  Mohammedan 
and  Brahmin,  were  solidly  united  against  the  foreign 
rulers,  for  the  emancipation  of  their  Motherland. 
Hindus  went  to  Moslem  mosques  and  prayed  along 
with  their  Mohammedan  comrades  in  the  orthodox 
Mohammedan  style;  and  the  Mohammedans  went 
to  the  Hindu  temples  and  prayed  in  the  orthodox 
Hindu  style,  clasping  the  hands  of  their  Hindu 
brothers  as  they  knelt,  praying  for  the  same  great 
ideal — the  freedom  of  India.  Such  a  thing  as  this 
is  unique ;  it  is  possible  only  in  India  where  freedom 
of  toleration  for  differences  of  opinion  exists  in 
practice,  and  is  not  a  dead  letter.  This  fraterniza- 
tion of  two  widely  different  religious  sects  is  a 
contribution  to  the  real  civilization  which  is  to 
come,  and  India  is  well  proud  of  it.  Though  the 
revolution  may  be  suppressed  by  sheer  brute  force, 
still  this  contribution  will  live  through  all  time. 

Even  with  this  fraternization  the  British  officials 
interfered.  Mosques  and  Temples  were  ordered 
closed  and  surrounded  by  police  and  military  guards. 
The  people  were  forced  to  disperse  by  fire  from 
machine  guns  and  bombs  from  aeroplanes — the 
"  civilized  "  weapons  of  Christian  nations. 

Naturally,  as  might  have  been  expected  in  any 
other  country,  passive  protest  of  the  masses  was 
ineffective,  and  the  people,  losing  patience,  resorted 
to  active  methods.  They  began  destroying  banks 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


597 


and  postoffices,  demolishing  government  buildings, 
destroying  bridges  and  means  of  communication, 
blowing  up  railway  trains  carrying  troops  to  kill 
them,  and  attacking  Englishmen.  All  this  was  by 
way  of  open  challenge  to  the  right  of  alien  domina- 
tion and  economic  exploitation. 

It  was  at  this  juncture  that  Mr.  M.  K.  Gandhi 
called  upon  the  people  participating  in  the  passive 
resistance  movement  to  refrain  from  all  further  acts 
of  violence,  declaring  that  attacks  upon  Englishmen 
and  other  lawless  acts  constituted  a  blot  on  the 
movement  for  which  the  people  should  atone.  He 
then  fixed  three  days  for  fasting  in  atonement  for 
acts  of  violence.  And,  according  to  the  London 
Times  for  April  25,  his  followers  did  three  days 
fasting  as  "  penance." 

But  the  situation  was  out  of  control.  It  became 
so  serious  that  the  Governor  General,  on  the  I4th 
of  April,  announced  in  unmistakable  terms,  that  he 
was  "  satisfied  that  a  state  of  open  rebellion  "  existed 
in  India.  Thereafter,  Mr.  Gandhi  retired  from 
the  field,  and  the  moderate  elements — the  Home 
Rulers — rallied  to  the  side  of  the  Government  and 
denounced  the  movement,  thus  repeating  the  history 
of  the  Russian  Revolution  of  1905. 

New  India,  however,  had  tasted  of  the  cup  of 
freedom  and  went  on  its  march  toward  emancipa- 
tion. By  the  2Oth  of  the  month  nearly  half  of  the 
entire  country  was  placed  under  martial  law.  The 
following  day  the  Governor  General  issued  an  ordi- 
nance ordering  deportation  to  the  Andaman  Islands 
for  life,  or  the  extreme  form  of  punishment,  for 
political  suspects  tried  under  martial  law.  He  for- 
bade the  publication  of  all  newspapers  except  those 
first  passed  upon  and  censored  by  government 
agents. 

Following  the  martial  law  order,  all  news  from 
India,  meager  as  it  had  always  been,  ceased.  It 
was  not  until  the  Afghans  on  the  northwestern 
frontier  invaded  India  on  the  9th  of  May  that  any 
news  was  permitted  to  reach  America.  The  news 
stated  that  the  Afghans  were  guarding  the  Khyber 
and  Bolan  passes,  the  only  two  passes  connecting 
India  with  Afghanistan,  and  through  Afghanistan 
with  Russia.  The  Afghans  further  sent  a  mission  to 
Moscow,  thereby  violating  the  treaty  of  1880,  by 
which  the  British  had  forced  them  to  relinquish 
their  right  to  treat  independently  with  other 
nations. 

These  facts  are  especially  significant  when  we 
consider  that  the  Afghans  were  supplied  with  ma- 
chine guns,  apparently  from  some  European  source, 
and  that  Hindu  revolutionists  have  been  stationed 
in  Moscow  working  with  the  Russian  Socialist 
Government  since  November,  1917.  Furthermore, 


an  article  published  in  the  Bombay  Times  of 
April  1 5th  stated  that  the  Bolsheviki  had  forwarded 
£25,000  sterling  to  Bombay.  The  same  paper 
quoted  a  telegram  from  Helsingfors,  in  March, 
predicting  the  outbreak. 

News  coming  from  India  at  the  present  time  is 
very  meager.  But  this  is  certain:  the  revolution  is 
on,  as  also  are  the  massacres  perpetrated  by  the 
British  on  the  masses — atrocities  compared  with 
which  German  barbarities  in  Belgium  sink  to 
nothingness.  These  atrocities  are  carried  on  by  the 
very  power  which  'has  been  given  the  "  mandatory  " 
of  practically  half  the  habitable  world  by  the  con- 
ference of  old  diplomats  sitting  at  Versailles.  This 
much  is  also  certain:  Britain  will  sacrifice  much  of 
that  habitable  area  before  she  will  give  up  India. 
She  will  give  China  to  Japan,  she  will  give  up 
many  of  her  other  possessions,  but  desperate  and 
bleeding  India,  and  the  route  leading  to  India,  she 
will  hold  by  every  means  from  diplomacy  to  liquid 
fire  and  poison  gas. 

Whatever  the  outcome  of  the  present  revolution, 
India  has  shown  that  it  is  not  lagging  behind  any 
other  nation  in  idealism  and  radicalism.  The 
Hindus  and  Mohammedans  have  been  cemented  by 
the  closest  ties.  Younger  India  has  shown  to  the 
world  what  it  desires  and  what  it  must  have  for 
self-existence.  India  has  determined  What  it  needs 
and  it  is  also  determined  to  get  it.  The  people 
will  not  adopt  violent  means  simply  for  the  sake 
of  violence.  By  birth  and  by  heritage  they  abhor 
it,  in  practice  as  well  as  in  theory.  But  if  their 
passive  efforts  are  met  by  active  and  brutal  opposi- 
tion, they  will  not  hesitate  to  adopt  those  measures 
for  the  time  being,  to  smash  to  pieces  all  civilized 
Christian  methods  of  subjection,  and  to  smash  them 
once  for  all. 

In  idealism  and  radicalism  India  is  not  inferior 
to  the  inspired  idealists  of  other  countries.  In 
some  parts  of  the  country  the  people  are  attempting 
to  adopt  communal  ownership  of  land  and  property, 
and  to  revive  their  indigenous  democratic  village 
community  system.  They  have  succeeded  in  a  few 
sections,  such  as  in  the  Punjab,  where  the  revolution 
has  gained  a  strong  foothold.  The  official  press 
states  that  the  "  fanatical  "  Hindus  are  demanding 
expropriation  of  landlords,  and  communal  owner- 
ship and  control  of  the  earth!  It  is  true  that  these 
"  illogical  "  and  simple  Hindus  have  always  held 
that  the  land  belongs  to  the  people,  and  now  they 
are  determined  to  see  that  this  becomes  a  reality. 
The  social  and  economic  ideals  of  the  people  to  the 
north  of  the  Himalayas  are  not  new  to  the  Hindus. 

SAILENDRA  NATH  GHOSE. 


598 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


Propaganda  in  Schools 


A  •    u 

-/-AMERICA  s  PART  in  the  great  war  was  just 
and  needed  no  specious  apology.  Nevertheless  the 
Department  of  Education  in  New  York  City  issued 
such  an  apology  for  use  in  the  schools  in  the  form 
of  A  Syllabus  of  the  World  War,  with  instructions 
to  principals  of  high  schools  to  present  the  docu- 
ment to  all  their  pupils  "  in  the  most  efficient  and 
inspiring  manner  " — to  use  the  language  of  Mr.  Et- 
tinger.  All  additional  material,  runs  the  notice  to 
principals,  must  be  "approved  by  the  principal  be-, 
fore  it  is  used  in  the  class  room."  Apparently  the 
purpose  of  this  publication  was  to  make  clear  to 
high-school  students  the  nature  of  the  German 
system  against  which  we  waged  war  and  to  ex- 
pound the  reasons  which  induced  our  government 
to  take  up  arms. 

In  large  part  the  pamphlet  is  confined  to  state- 
ments of  fact  which  the  most  exacting  historian 
will  not  question.  Facts,  however,  do  not  always 
tell  the  whole  truth.  For  example.  This  sylla- 
bus states:  "Great  Britain  responded  [to  Belgium's 
appeal  in  support  of  her  integrity"!  with  a  note  to 
Germany  warning  her  to  respect  Belgium's  neutral- 
ity, and  when  Germany,  disregarding  the  warning, 
invaded  Belgium,  E"ngland  declared  war,  August " 
4."  This  is  a  truth,  but  not  the  whole  truth.  It 
implies  that  the  invasion  of  Belgium  was  the  cause 
of  Britain's  entrance — an  interpretation  contrary  to 
the  plain  record  of  the  British  WTiite  Book. 

On  July  29  Sir  Edward  Grey  warned  the  Ger- 
man Ambassador  in  London  not  to  be  misled  into 
assuming  that  Great  Britain  would  stand  aside  in 
case  Germany  and  France  were  involved  in  war; 
on  July  30  he  wrote  to  Sir  E.  Goschen  that  Great  ' 
Britain  would  not  bargain  in  the  matter  of  Belgian 
neutrality;  on  July  31  he  stated  that  the  "  German 
government  do  not  expect  our  neutrality";  on  the 
same  day  he  declared  "  the  preservation  of  the  neu- 
trality of  Belgium  might  be,  I  would  not  say  a  de- 
cisive, but  an  important  factor  in  determining  our 
attitude";  on  August  2  (before  Belgium  was  in- 
vaded) he  assured  M.  Cambon  that  "  if  the  Ger- 
man fleet  comes  into  the  Channel  or  through  the 
North  Sea  to  undertake  hostile  operations  against 
French  coasts  or  shipping,  the  British  fleet  will  give 
all  protection  in  its  power."  Is  it  too  much  to  say, 
therefore,  that  on  this  vital  point  the  syllabus  mis- 
leads teacher  and  student? 

The  account  (page  42)  of  the  Russian  Revolution 
is,  to  put  it  mildly,  not  warranted  by  any  authentic 
records  that  have  come  through  to  us.  To  as- 


cribe Kerensky's  failure  to  "  the  opposition  of  the 
extremists,  Lenin  and  Trotzky,"  is  too  simple  a 
solution  for  a  highly  complicated  historical  problem. 
Lenin  and  Trotzky  are  then  accused  of  "betraying" 
Russia  into  the  hands  of  the  Germans.  If  this  means 
anything,  it  means  that  Lenin  and  Trotzky  con- 
sciously and  wilfully  delivered  Russia  into  the  "hands 
of  the  Kaiser  and  his  war  lords.  Even  the  strongest 
opponent  of  the  Lenin  regime  must  admit:  that  this 
is  at  best  merely  an  allegation.  To  raise  it  to  the 
level  of  an  established  fact  to  be  used  in  the  school 
room  is  to  fly  in  the  face  of  all  canons  of  historical 
evidence.  The  Brest-Litovsk  treaty  is  represented 
as  the  wilful  deed  of  these  two  leaders — apparently 
conditions  in  Russia  and  the  refusal  of  the  Allies 
to  render  aid  having  nothing  to  do  with  it. 

Finally,  by  what  warrant  does  the  Department 
of  Education  carry  on  a  campaign  among  the  school 
children  of  New  York  in  support  of  universal  mili- 
tary service  as  a  permanent  public  policy  (pages 
67-71)?  Surely  it  is  a  historical  fact  that  general 
conscription  stands  upon  the  books  as  a  temporary 
measure  to  meet  a  great  emergency.  The  advocacy 
of  universal  service  as  a  settled  national  policy  is 
therefore  nothing  but  propaganda — wise,  honorable, 
correct,  let  us  admit  for  the  sake  of  argument — but 
nevertheless  propaganda.  Our  schools,  it  would  ap- 
pear, are  not  the  places  where  conflicting  views  of 
future  policy  are  to  be  fairly  considered,  but  insti- 
tutions for  propaganda. 

To  sum  up,  this  pamphlet,  considered  as  a  his- 
torial  document,  is  no  credit  to  the  Department 
of  Education,  and  as  a  piece  of  patriotic  argument 
will  defeat  its  own  purposes.  America's  cause  was 
just — its  defense  needs  no  misuse  of  facts. 

What  of  the  children  whose  minds  are  to  be 
fashioned  under  this  syllabus?  They  cannot  be 
cut  off  from  the  public  libraries  where  they  may 
learn  of  things  not  included  in  the  whole  book 
of  complete  orthodoxy.  This  being  so — with  boys 
and  girls  reading  far  and  wide  in  many  books  and 
magazines,  listening  to  many  voices  in  the  outside 
world — will  not  the  teacher  who  recites  without 
comment  this  syllabus  come  to  judgment  and  be 
confused  and  confounded  in  the  presence  of  open- 
eyed  and  wondering  youth?  Has  the  Board  of 
Education  considered  the  moral  effect  of  such  a  pre- 
dicament upon  its  teachers? 

And  where  do  the  trained  teachers  of  history 
stand?  Why  was  the  preparation  of  this  pamphlet 
taken  from  their  hands  and  nothing  but  the 


igig 


THE  DIAL 


599 


"  assistance  "  of  a  few  of  them  invited?  Are  they  to 
be  mere  phonographs  reciting  by  rote  lessons  pre- 
pared and  approved  by  superintendents  and 
principals?  If  so,  of  what  use  is  their  long 
special  preparation — their  habits  of  research 
and  truth-testing — their  knowledge  of  the  use 
of  documentary  evidence?  Have  we  not  the 


right  to  ask  that  history  in  the  schools  be 
entrusted  to  the  collective  body  of  trained  his- 
torical teachers? 

If  this  syllabus  is  what  we  are  to  expect  from  the 
public  schools  in  the  coming  age,  then  we  must  look 
elsewhere  for  education. 

CHARLES  A.  BEARD. 


I 


The  Captains  of  Finance  and  the  Engineers 


N  MORE  THAN  ONE  RESPECT  the  industrial  system 
of  today  is  notably  different  from  anything  that  has 
gone  before.  It  is  eminently  a  system,  self-balanced 
and  comprehensive;  and  it  is  a  system  of  interlock- 
ing mechanical  processes,  rather  than  of  skilful 
manipulation.  It  is  mechanical  rather  than  manual. 
It  is  an  organization  of  mechanical  powers  and  ma- 
terial resources,  rather  than  of  skilled  craftsmen  and 
tools;  although  the  skilled  workmen  and  tools  are 
also  an  indispensable  part  of  its  comprehensive 
mechanism.  It  is  of  an  impersonal  nature,  after  the 
fashion  of  the  material  sciences,  on  which  it  con- 
stantly draws.  It  runs  to  "  quantity  production  " 
of  specialized  and  standardized  goods  and  services. 
For  all  these  reasons  it  lends  itself  to  systematic  con- 
trol under  the  direction  of  industrial  experts,  skilled 
technologists,  who  may  be  called  "  production  engi- 
neers," for  want  of  a  better  term. 

This  industrial  system  runs  on  as  an  inclusive 
organization  of  many  and  diverse  interlocking  me- 
chanical processes,  interdependent  and  balanced 
among  themselves  in  such  a  way  that  the  due  work- 
ing of  any  part  of  it  is  conditioned  on  the  due  work- 
ing of  all  the  rest.  Therefore  it  will  work  at  its 
best  only  on  condition  that  these  industrial  experts, 
production  engineers,  will  work  together  on  a  com- 
mon understanding;  and  more  particularly  on  con- 
dition that  they  must  not  work  at  cross  purposes. 
These  technological  specialists  whose  constant  super- 
vision is  indispensable  to  the  due  working  of  the 
industrial  system  constitute  the  general  staff  of  in- 
dustry, whose  work  it  is  to  control  the  strategy  of 
production  at  large  and  to  keep  an  oversight  of  the 
tactics  of  production  in  detail. 

Such  is  the  nature  of  this  industrial  system  on 
whose  due  working  depends  the  material  welfare  of 
all  the  civilized  peoples.  It  is  an  inclusive  system 
drawn  on  a  plan  of  strict  and  comprehensive  inter- 
dependence, such  that,  in  point  of  material  welfare, 
no  nation  and  no  community  has  anything  to  gain 
at  the  cost  of  any  other  nation  or  community.  In 
point  of  material  welfare,  all  the  civilized  peoples 
have  been  drawn  together  by  the  state  of  the  in- 
dustrial arts  into  a  single  going  concern.  And  for 


the  due  working  of  this  inclusive  going  concern  it 
is  essential  that  that  corps  of  technological  specialists 
who  by  training,  insight,  and  interest  make  up  the 
general  staff  of  industry  must  have  a  free  hand  in 
the  disposal  of  its  available  resources,  in  materials, 
equipment,  and  man  power,  regardless  of  any  na- 
tional pretensions  or  any  vested  interests.  Any  de- 
gree of  obstruction,  diversion,  or  withholding  of  any 
of  the  available  industrial  forces,  with  a  view  to  the 
special  gain  of  any  nation  or  any  investor,  unavoid- 
ably brings  on  a  dislocation  of  the  system;  which 
involves  a  disproportionate  lowering  of  its  working 
efficiency  and  therefore  a  disproportionate  loss  to 
the  whole,  and  therefore  a  net  loss  to  all  its  parts. 

And  all  the  while  the  statesmen  are  at  work  to 
divert  and  obstruct  the  working  forces  of  this  in- 
dustrial system,  here  and  there,  for  the  special  ad- 
vantage of  one  nation  and  another  at  the  cost  of 
the  rest ;  and  the  captains  of  finance  are  working,  at 
cross  purposes  and  in  collusion,  to  divert  whatever 
they  can  to  the  special  gain  of  one  vested  interest 
and  another,  at  any  cost  to  the  rest.  So  it  happens 
that  the  industrial  system  is  deliberately  handicapped 
with  dissension,  misdirection,  and  unemployment  of 
material  resources,  equipment,  and  man  power,  at 
every  turn  where  the  statesmen  or  the  captains  of 
finance  can  touch  its  mechanism;  and  all  the  civi- 
lized peoples  are  suffering  privation  together  because 
their  general  staff  of  industrial  experts  are  in  this 
way  required  to  take  orders  and  submit  to  sabotage 
at  the  hands  of  the  statesmen  and  the  vested  in- 
terests. Politics  and  investment  are  still  allowed 
to  decide  matters  of  industrial  policy  which  should 
plainly  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  the  general  staff 
of  production  engineers  driven  by  no  commercial 
bias. 

No  doubt  this  characterization  of  the  industrial 
system  and  its  besetting  tribulations  will  seem  over- 
drawn. However,  it  is  not  intended  to  apply  to 
any  date  earlier  than  the  twentieth  century,  or  to 
any  backward  community  that  still  lies  outside  the 
sweep  of  the  mechanical  industry.  .  Only  gradually 
during  the  past  century,  while  the  mechanical  in- 


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dustiy  has  progressively  been  taking  over  the  pro- 
duction of  goods  and  services,  and  going  over  to 
quantity  production,  has  the  industrial  system  taken 
on  this  character  of  an  inclusive  organization  of 
interlocking  processes  and  interchange  of  materials; 
and  it  is  only  in  the  twentieth  century  that  this 
cumulative  progression  has  come  to  a  head  with 
such  effect  that  this  characterization  is  now, visibly 
becoming  true.  And  even  now  it  will  hold  true, 
visibly  and  securely,  only  as  applies  to  the  leading 
mechanical  industries,  those  main  lines  of  industry 
that  shape  the  main  conditions  of  life,  and  in  which 
quantity  production  has  become  the  common  and 
indispensable  rule.  Such  are,  for  examples:  trans- 
port and  communication,  the  production  and  indus- 
trial use  of  coal,  oil,  electricity  and  water  power, 
the  production  of  steel  and  other  metals;  of  wood 
pulp,  lumber  and  other  building  materials;  of  tex- 
tiles and  rubber,  as  also  grain-milling  and  much  of 
the  grain-growing,  together  with  meat-packing  and 
a  good  share  of  the  stock-raising  industry. 

•  There  is,  of  course,  a  large  volume  of  industry  in 
many  lines  which  has  not,  or  only  in  part  and 
doubtfully,  been  drawn  into  this  network  of 
mechanical  processes  and  quantity  production,  in 
any  direct  and  conclusive  fashion.  But  these  other 
lines  of  industry  that  still  stand  over  on  another 
and  older  plan  of  operation  are,  after  all,  outliers 
and  subsidiaries  of  the  mechanically  organized  in- 
dustrial system,  dependent  on  or  subservient  to  those 
greater  underlying  industries  which  make  up  the 
working  body  of  the  system,  and  which  therefore 
set  the  pace  for  the  rest.  And  in  the  main,  there- 
fore, and  as  regards  these  greater  mechanical  in- 
dustries on  whose  due  working  the  material  welfare 
of  the  community  depends  from  day  to  day,  this 
characterization  will  apply  without  material  abate- 
ment. 

But  it  should  be  added  that  even  as  regards  these 
greater,  primary  and  underlying,  lines  of  production 
the  system  has  not  yet  reached  a  fatal  degree  of 
close-knit  interdependence,  balance,  and  complica- 
tion ;  it  will  still  run  along  at  a  very  tolerable  effi- 
ciency in  the  face  of  a  very  appreciable  amount  of 
persistent  derangement.  That  is  to  say,  die  in- 
dustrial system  at  large  has  not  yet  become  so  deli- 
cately balanced  a  mechanical  structure  and  process 
that  the  ordinary  amount  of  derangement  and  sabot- 
age necessary  to  the  ordinary  control  of  production 
by  business  methods  will  paralyze  the  whole  out- 
right. The  industrial  system  is  not  yet  sufficiently 
close-knit  for  that.  And  yet,  that  extent  and  degree 
of  paralysis  from  which  the  civilized  world's  in- 
dustry is  suffering  just  now,  due  to  legitimate  busi- 
nesslike sabotage,  goes  to  argue  that  the  date  may 


not  be  far  distant  when  the  interlocking  processes 
of  the  industrial  system  shall  have  become  so  closely 
interdependent  and  so  delicately  balanced  that  even 
the  ordinary  modicum  of  sabotage  involved  in  the 
conduct  of  business  as  usual  will  bring  the  whole  to 
a  fatal  collapse.  The  derangement  and  privation 
brought  on  by  any  well  organized  strike  of  the 
larger  sort  argues  to  the  same  effect. 

In  effect,  the  progressive  advance  of  this  industrial 
system  towards  an  all-inclusive  mechanical  balance 
of  interlocking  processes  appears  to  be  approaching 
a  critical  pass,  beyond  which  it  will  no  longer  be 
practicable  to  leave  its  control  in  the  hands  of  busi- 
ness men  working  at  cross  purposes  for  private  gain, 
or  to  entrust  its  continued  administration  to  others 
than  suitably  trained  technological  experts,  pro- 
duction engineers  without  a  commercial  interest. 
What  these  men  may  then  do  with  it  all  is  not 
so  plain;  the  best  they  can  do  may  not  be  good 
enough;  but  the  negative  proposition  is  becoming 
sufficiently  plain,  that  this  mechanical  state  of  the 
industrial  arts  will  not  long  tolerate  the  continued 
control  of  production  by  the  vested  interests  under 
the  current  businesslike  rule  of  incapacity  by 
advisement. 

In  the  beginning,  that  is  to  say  during  the  early 
growth  of  the  machine  industry,  and  particularly  in 
that  new  growth  of  mechanical  industries  which 
arose  directly  out  of  the  Industrial  Revolution, 
there  was  no  marked  division  between  the  industrial 
experts  and  the  business  managers.  That  was  be- 
fore the  new  industrial  system  had  gone  far  on  the 
road  of  progressive  specialization  and  complexity, 
and  before  business  had  reached  an  exactingly  large 
scale;  so  that  even  the  business  men  of  that  time, 
who  were  without  special  training  in  technological 
matters,  would  still  be  able  to  exercise  something  of 
an  intelligent  oversight  of  the  whole,  and  to  under- 
stand something  of  what  was  required  in  the 
mechanical  conduct  of  the  work  which  they  financed 
and  from  which  they  drew  their  income.  Not  un- 
usually the  designers  of  industrial  processes  and 
equipment  would  then  still  take  care  of  the  financial 
end,  at  the  same  time  that  they  managed  the  shop. 
But  from  an  early  point  in  the  development  there 
set  in  a  progressive  differentiation,  such  as  to  divide 
those  who  designed  and  administered  the  industrial 
processes  from  those  others  who  designed  and  man- 
aged the  commercial  transactions  and  took  care  of 
the  financial  end.  So  there  also  set  in  a  correspond- 
ing division  of  powers  between  the  business  man- 
agement and  the  technological  experts.  It  became  the 
work  of  the  technologist  to  determine,  on  technologi- 
cal grounds,  what  could  be  done  in  the  way  of  pro- 


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601 


ductive  industry,  and  to  contrive  ways  and  means 
of  doing  it ;  but  the  business  management  always 
continued  to  decide,  on  commercial  grounds,  how 
much  work  should  be  done  and  what  kind  and  ^ 
quality  of  goods  and  services  should  be  produced; 
and  the  decision  of  the  business  management  has 
always  continued  to  be  final,  and  has  always  set  the 
limit  beyond  which  production  must  not  go. 

With  the  continued  growth  of  specialization  the 
experts  have  necessarily  had  more  and  more  to  say 
in  the  affairs  of  industry,  but  always  their  findings 
as  to  what  work  is  to  be  done  and  what  ways  and 
means  are  to  be  employed  in  production  have  had 
to  wait  on  the  findings  of  the  business  managers  as 
to  what  will  be  expedient  for  the  purpose  of  com- 
mercial gain.  This  division  between  business 
management  and  industrial  management  has  con- 
tinued to  go  forward,  at  a  continually  accelerated 
rate,  because  the  special  training  and  experience  re- 
quired for  any  passably  efficient  organization  and 
direction  of  these  industrial  processes  has  continu- 
ally grown  more  exacting,  calling  for  special  knowl- 
edge and  abilities  on  the  part  of  those  who  have 
this  work  to  do  and  requiring  their  undivided  in- 
terest and  their  undivided  attention  to  the  work 
in  hand.  But  these  specialists  in  technological 
knowledge,  abilities,  interest,  and  experience,  who 
have  increasingly  come  into  the  case  in  this  way — 
inventors,  designers,  chemists,  mineralogists,  soil  ex- 
perts, crop  specialists,  production  managers  and 
engineers  of  many  kinds  and  denominations — have 
continued  to  be  employees  of  the  captains  of  in- 
dustry, that  is  to  say,  of  the  captains  of  finance, 
whose  work  it  has  been  to  commercialize  the  knowl- 
edge and  abilities  of  the  industrial  experts  and  turn 
them  to  account  for  their  own  gain. 

It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  add  the  axiomatic 
corollary  that  the  captains  have  always  turned  the 
technologists  and  their  knowledge  to  account  in  this 
way  only  so  far  as  would  serve  their  own  com- 
mercial profit,  not  to  the  extent  of  their  ability 
or  to  the  limit  set  by  the  material  circumstances 
or  by  the  needs  of  the  community.  The  result 
has  been,  uniformly  and  as  a  matter  of  course, 
that  the  production  of  goods  and  services  has  ad- 
visedly been  stopped  short  of  productive  capacity,  by 
curtailment  of  output  and  by  derangement  of  the 
productive  system.  There  are  two  main  reasons 
for  this,  and  both  have  operated  together  through- 
out the  machine  era  to  stop  industrial  production 
increasingly  short  of  productive  capacity,  (a)'  The 
commercial  need  of  maintaining  a  profitable  price 
has  led  to  an  increasingly  imperative  curtailment 
of  the  output,  as  fast  as  the  advance  of  the  in- 
dustrial arts  has  enhanced  the  productive  capacity. 


And  (b)  the  continued  advance  of  the  mechanical 
technology  has  called  for  an  ever-increasing  volume 
and  diversity  of  special  knowledge,  and  so  has  left 
the  businesslike  captains  of  finance  continually 
farther  in  arrears,  so  that  they  have  been  less  and 
less  capable  of  comprehending  what  is  required  in 
the  ordinary  way  of  industrial  equipment  and  per- 
sonnel. They  have  therefore,  in  effect,  maintained 
prices  at  a  profitable  level  by  curtailment  of  output 
rather  than  by  lowering  production-cost  per  unit 
of  output,  because  they  have  not  had  such  a  work- 
ing acquaintance  with  the  technological  facts  in  the 
case  as  would  enable  them  to  form  a  passably  sound 
judgment  of  suitable  ways  and  means  for  lowering 
production-cost ;  and  at  the  same  time,  being  shrewd 
business  men,  they  have  been  unable  to  rely  on  the 
hired-man's-loyalty  of  technologists  whom  they  do 
not  understand.  The  result  has  been  a  somewhat 
distrustful  blindfold  choice  of  processes  and  per- 
sonnel and  a  consequent  enforced  incompetence  in 
the  management  of  industry,  a  curtailment  of  output 
below  the  needs  of  the  community,  below  the  pror 
ductive  capacity  of  the  industrial  system,  and  below 
what  an  intelligent  control  of  production  would 
have  made  commercially  profitable. 

Through  the  earlier  decades  of  the  machine  era 
these  limitations  imposed  on  the  work  of  the  ex- 
perts by  the  demands  of  profitable  business  and  by. 
the  technical  ignorance  of  the  business  men,  appears 
not  to  have  been  a  heavy  handicap,  whether  as  a 
hindrance  to  the  continued  development  of  techno- 
logical knowledge  or  as  an  obstacle  to  its  ordinary 
use  in  industry.  That  was  before  the  mechanical 
industry  had  gone  far  in  scope,  complexity,  and 
specialization ;  and  it  was  also  before  the  continued' 
work  of  the  technologists  had  pushed  the  industrial 
system  to  so  high  a  productive  capacity  that  it  is- 
forever  in  danger  of  turning  out  a  larger  product 
than  is  required  for  a  profitable  business.  But 
gradually,  with  the  passage  of  time  and  the  ad- 
vance of  the  industrial  arts  to  a  wider  scope  and  % 
larger  scale,  and  to  an  increasing  specialization  and! 
standardization  of  processes,  the  technological  know- 
ledge that  makes  up  the  state  of  the  industrial  arts 
has  called  for  a  higher  degree  of  that  training  that 
makes  industrial  specialists;  and  at  the  same  time 
any  passably  efficient  management  of  industry  has 
of  necessity  drawn  on  them  and  their  special  abili- 
ties to  an  ever-increasing  extent.  At  the  same  time 
and  by  the  same  shift  of  circumstances,  the  captains 
of  finance,  driven  by  an  increasingly  close  applica- 
tion to  the  affairs  of  business,  have  been  going 
farther  out  of  touch  with  the  ordinary  realities  of 
productive  industry;  and,  it  is  to  be  admitted,  they 
have  also  continued  increasingly  to  distrust  the 


602 


June  14 


technological  specialists,  whom  they  do  not  under- 
stand, but  whom  they  can  also  not  get  along  with- 
out. The  captains  have  per  force  continued  to  em- 
ploy the  technologists,  to  make  money  for  them,  but 
they  have  done  so  only  reluctantly,  tardily,  sparingly, 
and  with  a  shrewd  circumspection ;  only  because  and 
so  far  as  they  have  been  persuaded  that  the  use 
of  these  technologists  was  indispensable  to  the  mak- 
ing of  money. 

One  outcome  of  this  persistent  and  pervasive 
tardiness  and  circumspection  on  the  part  of  the 
captains  has  been  an  incredibly  and  increasingly 
uneconomical  use  of  material  resources,  and  an  in- 
credibly wastful  organization  of  ;  equipment  and 
man  power  in  those  great  industries  where  the 
technological  advance  has  been  most  marked.  In 
good  part  it  was  this  discreditable  pass,  to  which 
the  leading  industries  had  been  brought  by  these 
one-eyed  captains  of  industry,  that  brought  the 
regime  of  the  captains  to  an  inglorious  close,  by 
shifting  the  initiative  and  discretion  in  this  domain 
out  of  their  hands  into  those  of  the  investment 
bankers.  By  custom  the  investment  bankers  had  oc- 
cupied a  position  between  or  overlapping  the  duties 
of  a  broker  in  corporate  securities  and  those  of  an 
underwriter  of  corporate  flotations — such  a  position, 
in  effect,  as  is  still  assigned  them  in  the  standard 
writings  on  corporation  finance.  The  increasingly 
large  scale  of  corporate  enterprise,  as  well  as  the 
growth  of  a  mutual  understanding  among  these 
business  concerns,  also  had  its  share  in  this  new 
move.  But  about  this  time,  too,  the  "  consulting 
engineers "  were  coming  notably  into  evidence  in 
many  of  those  lines  of  industry  in  which  corpora- 
tion finance  has  habitually  been  concerned. 

So  far  as  concerns  the  present  argument  the  or- 
dinary duties  of  these  consulting  engineers  have 
been  to  advise  the  investment  bankers  as  to  the 
industrial  and  commercial  soundness,  past  and  pros- 
pective, of  any  enterprise  that  is  to  be  underwritten. 
These  duties  have  comprised  a  painstaking  and  im- 
partial examination  of  the  physical  properties  in- 
volved in  any  given  case,  as  well  as  an  equally  im- 
partial auditing  of  the  accounts  and  appraisal  of  the 
commercial  promise  of  such  enterprises,  for  the 
guidance  of  the  bankers  or  syndicate  of  bankers  in- 
terested in  the  case  as  underwriters.  On  this  ground 
working  arrangements  and  a  mutual  understanding 
presently  arose  between  the  consulting  engineers 
and  those  banking  houses  that  habitually  were  con- 
cerned in  the  underwriting  of  corporate  enterprises. 

The  effect  of  this  move  has  been  two-fold:  ex- 
perience has  brought  out  the  fact  that  corporation 
finance,  at  its  best  and  soundest,  has  now  become  a 
matter  of  comprehensive  and  standardized  bureau- 


cratic routine,  necessarily  comprising  the  mutual 
relations  between  various  corporate  concerns,  and 
best  to  be  taken  care  of  by  a  clerical  staff  of  trained 
accountants;  and  the  same  experience  has  put  the 
financial  'houses  in  direct  touch  with  the  technolo- 
gical general  staff  of  the  industrial  system,  whose 
surveillance  has  become  increasingly  imperative  to 
the  conduct  of  any  profitable  enterprise  in  industry. 
But  also,  by  the  same  token,  it  has  appeared  that  the 
corporation  financier  of  nineteenth-century  tradi- 
tion is  no  longer  of  the  essence  of  the  case  in  cor- 
poration finance  of  the  larger  and  more  responsible 
sort.  He  has,  in  effect,  come  to  be  no  better  than 
an  idle  wheel  in  the  economic  mechanism,  serving 
only  to  take  up  some  of  the  lubricant. 

Since  and  so  far  as  this  shift  out  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  into  the  twentieth  has  been  com- 
pleted, the  corporation  financier  has  ceased  to  be 
a  captain  of  industry  and  has  become  a  lieutenant 
of  finance;  the  captaincy  having  been  taken  over  by 
the  syndicated  investment  bankers  and  administered 
as  a  standardized  routine  of  accountancy,  having  to 
do  with  the  flotation  of  corporation  securities  and 
with  their  fluctuating  values,  and  having  also  some- 
thing to  do  with  regulating  the  rate  and  volume 
of  output  in  those  industrial  enterprises  which  so 
have  passed  under  the  hand  of  the  investment 
bankers. 

By  and  large,  such  is  the  situation  of  the  in- 
dustrial system  today,  and  of  that  financial  business 
that  controls  the  industrial  system.  But  this  state 
of  things  is  not  so  much  an  accomplished  fact  handed 
on  out  of  the  recent  past ;  it  is  only  that  such  is  the 
culmination  in  which  it  all  heads  up  in  the  im- 
mediate present,  and  that  such  is  the  visible  drift 
of  things  into  the  calculable  future.  Only  during 
the  last  few  years  has  the  state  of  affairs  in  industry 
been  obviously  falling  into  the  shape  so  outlined,  and 
it  is  even  yet  only  in  those  larger  and  pace-making 
lines  of  industry  which  are  altogether  of  the  new 
technological  order  that  the  state  of  things  has 
reached  this  finished  shape.  But  in  these  larger 
and  underlying  divisions  of  the  industrial  system 
the  present  posture  and  drift  of  things  is  unmis- 
takable. Meantime  very  much  still  stands  over  out 
of  that  regime  of  rule-of-thumb,  competitive  sabot- 
age, and  commercial  log-rolling,  in  which  the  busi- 
nesslike captains  of  the  old  order  are  so  altogether 
well  at  home,  and  which  has  been  the  best  that  the 
captains  have  known  how  to  contrive  for  the  man- 
agement of  that  industrial  system  whose  captains 
they  have  been.  So  that  wherever  the  production 
experts  are  now  taking  over  the  management,  out 
of  the  dead  hand  of  the  self-made  captains,  and 


1919 


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603 


wherever  they  have  occasion  to  inquire  into  the 
established  conditions  of  production,  they  find  the 
ground  cumbered  with  all  sorts  of  incredible  make- 
shifts of  waste  and  inefficiency — such  makeshifts  as 
would  perhaps  pass  muster  with  any  moderately 
stupid  elderly  layman,  but  which  look  like  blind- 
fold guesswork  to  these  men  who  know  something 
of  the  advanced  technology  and  its  working-out. 

Hitherto,  then,  the  growth  and  conduct  of  this 
industrial  system  presents  this  singular  outcome. 
The  technology — the  state  of  the  industrial  arts — 
which  takes  effect  in  this  mechanical  industry  is  in 
an  eminent  sense  a  joint  stock  of  knowledge  and 
experience  held  in  common  by  the  civilized  peoples. 
It  requires  the  use  of  trained  and  instructed  work- 
men— born,  bred,  trained,  and  instructed  at  the  cost 
of  the  people  at  large.  So  also  it  requires,  with  a 
continually  more  exacting  insistence,  a  corps  of 
highly  trained  and  specially  gifted  experts,  of  divers 
and  various  kinds.  These,  too,  are  born,  bred,  and 
trained  at  the  cost  of  the  community  at  large,  and 
they  draw  their  requisite  special  knowledge  from 
the  community's  joint  stock  of  accumulated  ex- 
perience. These  expert  men,  technologists, 
engineers,  or  whatever  name  may  best  suit  them, 
make  up  the  indispensable  General  Staff  of  the  in- 
dustrial system;  and  without  their  immediate  and 
unremitting  guidance  and  correction  the  industrial 
system  will  not  work.  It  is  a  mechanically 
organized  structure  of  technical  processes  designed, 
installed,  and  conducted  by  these  production 
engineers.  Without  them  and  their  constant  at- 
tention the  industrial  equipment,  the  mechanical  ap- 
pliances of  industry,  will  foot  up  to  just  so  much 
junk.  The  material  welfare  of  the  community  is 
unreservedly  bound  up  with  the  due  working  of 
this  industrial  system,  and  therefore  with  its  un- 
reserved control  by  the  engineers,  who  alone  are 
competent  to  manage  it.  To  do  their  work  as  it 
should  be  done  these  men  of  the  industrial  general 
staff  must  have  a  free  hand,  unhampered  by  com- 
mercial considerations  and  reservations;  for  the  pro- 
duction of  the  goods  and  services  needed  by  the  com- 
munity they  neither  need  nor  are  they  in  a/iy  de- 
gree benefited  by  any  supervision  or  interference 
from  the  side  of  the  owners.  Yet  the  owners,  now 
represented,  in  effect,  by  the  syndicated  investment 
bankers,  continue  to  control  the  industrial  experts 
and  limit  their  discretion  arbitrarily,  for  their  own 
commercial  gain,  regardless  of  the  needs  of  the  com- 
munity. 

Hitherto  these  men  who  so  make  up  the  general 
staff  of  the  industrial  system  have  not  drawn  to- 
gether into  anything  like  a  self-directing  working 
force ;  nor  have  they  been  vested  with  anything  more 


than  an  occasional,  haphazard,  and  tentative  con- 
trol of  some  disjointed  sector  of  the  industrial  equip- 
ment, with  no  direct  or  decisive  relation  to  that  per- 
sonnel of  productive  industry  that  may  be  called  the 
officers  of  the  line  and  the  rank  and  file.  It  is  still 
the  unbroken  privilege  of  the  financial  management 
and  its  financial  agents  to  "  hire  and  fire."  The 
final  disposition  of  all  the  industrial  forces  still 
remains  in  the  hands  of  the  business  men,  who  still 
continue  to  dispose  of  these  forces  for  other  than 
industrial  ends.  And  all  the  while  it  is  an  open 
secret  that  with  a  reasonably  free  hand  the  produc- 
tion experts  would  today  readily  increase  the 
ordinary  output  of  industry  by  several  fold, — 
variously  estimated  at  some  300  per  cent  to  1200 
per  cent  of  the  current  output.  And  what  stands 
in  the  way  of  so  increasing  the  ordinary  output  of 
goods  and  services  is  business  as  usual. 

Right  lately  these  technologists  have  begun  to 
become  uneasily  "  class-conscious "  and  to  reflect 
that  they  together  constitute  the  indispensable 
General  Staff  of  the  industrial  system.  Their  class 
consciousness  has  taken  the  immediate  form  of  a 
growing  sense  of  waste  and  confusion  in  the  manage- 
ment of  industry  by  the  financial  agents.  They  are 
beginning  to  take  stock  of  that  all-pervading  mis- 
management of  industry  that  is  inseparable  from  its 
control  for  commercial  ends.  All  of  which  brings 
home  a  realization  of  their  own  shame  and  of 
damage  to  the  common  good.  So  the  engineers  are 
beginning  to  draw  together  and  ask  themselves, 
"What  about  it?" 

This  uneasy  movement  among  the  technologists 
set  in,  in  an  undefined  and  fortuitous  way,  in  the 
closing  years  of  the  nineteenth  cenutry;  when  the 
consulting  engineers,  and  then  presently  the  "  effi- 
ciency engineers,"  began  to  make  scattered  correc- 
tions in  detail,  which  showed  up  the  industrial  in- 
competence of  those  elderly  laymen  who  were  do- 
ing a  conservative  business  at  the  cost  of  industry. 
The  consulting  engineers  of  the  standard  type, 
both  then  and  since  then,  are  commercialized  tech- 
nologists, whose  work  it  is  to  appraise  the  in- 
dustrial value  of  any  given  enterprise  with  a  view 
to  its  commercial  exploitation.  They  are  a  cross 
between  a  technological  specialist  and  a  commercial 
agent,  beset  with  the  limitations  of  both  and  com- 
monly not  fully  competent  in  either  line.  Their 
normal  position  is  that  of  an  employee  of  the  in- 
vestment bankers,  on  a  stipend  or  a  retainer,  and 
it  has  ordinarily  been  their  fortune  to  shift  over 
in  time  from  a  technological  footing  to  a  frankly 
commercial  one.  The  case  of  the  efficiency  en- 
gineers, or  scientific-management  experts,  is  some- 


604 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


what  similar.  They  too  have  set  out  to  appraise, 
exhibit,  and  correct  the  commercial  shortcomings 
of  the  ordinary  management  of  those  industrial  es- 
tablishments which  they  investigate,  to  persuade 
the  business  men  in  charge  how  they  may  reason- 
ably come  in  for  larger  net  earnings  by  a  more 
closely  shorn  exploitation  of  the  industrial  forces  at 
their  disposal.  During  the  opening  years  of  the 
new  century  a  lively  interest  centered  on  the  views 
and  expositions  of  these  two  groups  of  industrial  ex- 
perts ;  and  not  least  was  the  interest  aroused  by  their 
exhibits  of  current  facts  indicating  an  all-pervading 
lag,  leak,  and  friction  in  the  industrial  system,  due 
to  its  disjointed  and  one-eyed  management  by  com- 
mercial adventurers  bent  on  private  gain. 

During  these  few  years  of  the  opening  century 
the  members  of  this  informal  guild  of  engineers  at 
large  have  been  taking  an  interest  in  this  question 
of  habitual  mismanagement  by  ignorance  and  com- 
mercial sabotage,  even  apart  from  the  commercial 
imbecility  of  it  all.  But  it  is  the  young  rather  than 
the  old  among  them  who  see  industry  in  any  other 
light  than  its  commercial  value.  Circumstances 
have  decided  that  the  older  generation  of  the  craft 
have  become  pretty  well  commercialized.  Their 
habitual  outlook  has  been  shaped  by  a  long  and  un- 
broken apprenticeship  to  the  corporation  financiers 
and  the  investment  bankers ;  so  that  they  still  habitu- 
ally see  the  industrial  system  as  a  contrivance  for 
the  round-about  process  of  making  money.  Ac- 
cordingly, the  established  official  Associations  and 
Institutes  of  Engineers,  which  are  officered  and 
engineered  by  the  elder  engineers,  old  and  young, 
also  continue  to  show  the  commercial  bias  of  their 
creators,  in  what  they  criticize  and  in  what  they 
propose.  But  the  new  generation  which  has  been 
coming  on  during  the  present  century  are  not  simi- 
larly true  to  that  tradition  of  commercial  engineer- 
ing that  makes  the  technological  man  an  awestruck 
lieutenant  of  the  captain  of  finance. 

By  training,  and  perhaps  also  by  native  bent,  the 
technologists  find  it  easy  and  convincing  to  size  up 
men  and  things  in  terms  of  tangible  performance, 
without  commercial  afterthought,  except  so  far 
as  their  apprenticeship  to  the  captains  of  finance  may 
have  made  commercial  afterthought  a  second  nature 
to  them.  Many  of  the  younger  generation  are  be- 
ginning to  understand  that  engineering  begins  and 
ends  in  the  domain  of  tangible  performance,  and 
that  commercial  expediency  is  another  matter.  In- 
deed, they  are  beginning  to  understand  that  com- 
mercial expediency  has  nothing  better  to  contribute 
to  the  engineer's  work  than  so  much  lag,  leak,  and 
friction.  The  four  years'  experience  of  the  war 
has  also  been  highly  instructive  on  that  head.  So 


they  are  beginning  to  draw  together  on  a  common 
ground  of  understanding,  as  men  who  are  concerned 
with  the  ways  and  means  of  tangible  performance 
in  the  way  of  productive  industry,  according  to  the 
state  of  the  industrial  arts  as  they  know  them  at 
their  best;  and  there  is  a  growing  conviction  among 
them  that  they  together  constitute  the  sufficient  and 
indispensable  general  staff  of  the  mechanical  in- 
dustries, on  whose  unhindered  team-work  depends 
the  due  working  of  the  industrial  system  and  there- 
fore also  the  material  welfare  of  the  civilized  peo- 
ples. So  also,  to  these  men  who  are  trained  in  the 
stubborn  logic  of  technology  nothing  is  quite  real 
that  cannot  be  stated  in  terms  of  tangible  per- 
formance; and  they  are  accordingly  coming  to  un- 
derstand that  the  whole  fabric  of  credit  and  corpora- 
tion finance  is  a  tissue  of  make-believe. 

Credit  obligations  and  financial  transactions  rest 
on  certain  principles  of  legal  formality  which  have 
been  handed  down  from  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  which  therefore  antedate  the  mechanical  in- 
dustry and  carry  no  secure  conviction  to  men 
trained  in  the  logic  of  that  industry.  Within  this 
technological  system  of  tangible  performance  cor- 
poration finance  and  all  its  works  and  gestures  are 
completely  idle;  it  all  comes  into  the  working  scheme 
of  the  engineers  only  as  a  gratuitous  intrusion  which 
could  be  barred  out  without  deranging  the  work 
at  any  point,  provided  only  that  men  made  up  their 
mind  to  that  effect — that  is  to  say,  provided  the 
make-believe  of  absentee  ownership  were  discon- 
tinued. Its  only  obvious  effect  on  the  work  which 
the  engineers  have  to  take  care  of  is  waste  of 
materials  and  retardation  of  the  work.  So  the  next 
question  which  the  engineers  are  due  to  ask  regard- 
ing this  timeworn  fabric  of  ownership,  finance, 
sabotage,  credit,  and  unearned  income  is  likely  to  be : 
Why  cumbers  it  the  ground?  And  they  are  likely 
to  find  the  scriptural  answer  ready  to  their  hand. 

It  would  be  hazardous  to  surmise  how,  how  soon, 
on  what  provocation,  and  with  what  effect  the  guild 
of  engineers  are  due  to  realize  that  they  constitute  a 
guild,  and  that  the  material  fortunes  of  the  civilized 
peoples*  already  lie  loose  in  their  hands.  But  it  is 
already  sufficiently  plain  that  the  industrial  con- 
ditions and  the  drift  of  conviction  among  the  en- 
gineers are  drawing  together  to  some  such  end. 

Hitherto  it  has  been  usual  to  count  on  the  in- 
terested negotiations  continually  carried  on  and 
never  concluded  between  capital  and  labor,  between 
the  agents  of  the  investors  and  the  body  of  workmen, 
to  bring  about  whatever  readjustments  are  to  be 
looked  for  in  the  control  of  productive  industry  and 
in  the  distribution  and  use  of  its  product.  These 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


605 


negotiations  have  necessarily  been,  and  continue  to 
be,  in  the  nature  of  business  transactions,  bargain- 
ing for  a  price,  since  both  parties  to  the  negotiation 
continue  to  stand  on  the  consecrated  ground  of 
ownership,  free  bargain,  and  self-help;  such  as  the 
commercial  wisdom  of  the  eighteenth  century  saw, 
approved  and  certified  it  all,  in  the  time  before  the 
coming  of  this  perplexing  industrial  system.  In  the 
course  of  these  endless  negotiations  between  the 
owners  and  their  workmen  there  has  been  some  loose 
and  provisional  syndication  of  claims  and  forces  on 
both  sides;  so  that  each  of  these  two  recognized 
parties  to  the  industrial  controversy  has  come  to 
make  up  a  loose-knit  vested  interest,  and  each  speaks 
for  its  own  special  claims  as  a  party  in  interest. 
Each  is  contending  for  some  special  gain  for  itself 
and  trying  to  drive  a  profitable  bargain  for  itself, 
and  hitherto  no  disinterested  spokesman  for  the 
community  at  large  or  for  the  industrial  system  as 
a  going  concern  has  cut  into  this  controversy  be- 
tween these  contending  vested  interests.  The  out- 
come has  been  businesslike  concession  and  com- 
promise, in  the  nature  of  bargain  and  sale.  It  is 
true,  during  the  war,  and  for  the  conduct  of  the 
war,  there  were  some  half-concerted  measures  taken 
by  the  Administration  in  the  interest  of  the  nation 
at  large,  as  a  belligerent;  but  it  has  always  been 
tacitly  agreed  that  these  were  extraordinary  war 
measures,  not  to  be  countenanced  in  time  of  peace. 
In  time  of  peace  the  accepted  rule  is  still  business  as 
usual;  that  is  to  say,  investors  and  workmen  wran- 
gling together  on  a  footing  of  business  as  usual. 

These  negotiations  have  necessarily  been  inconclu- 
sive. So  long  as  ownership  of  resources  and  in- 
dustrial plant  is  allowed,  or  so  long  as  it  is  al- 
lowed any  degree  of  control  or  consideration  in  the 
conduct  of  industry,  nothing  more  substantial  can 
come  of  any  readjustment  than  a  concessive  mitiga- 
tion of  the  owners'  interference  with  production. 
There  is  accordingly  nothing  subversive  in  these 
bouts  of  bargaining  between  the  federated  workmen 
and  the  syndicated  owners.  It  is  a  game  of  chance 
and  skill  played  between  two  contending  vested  in- 
terests for  private  gain,  in  which  the  industrial  sys- 
tem as  a  going  concern  enters  only  as  a  victim  of  in- 
terested interference.  Yet  the  material  welfare  of- 
the  community,  and  not  least  of  the  workmen,  turns 
on  the  due;  working  of  this  industrial  system,  with- 
out interference.  Concessive  mitigation  of  the  right 
to  interfere  with  production,  on  the  part  of  either 
one  of  these  vested  interests,  can  evidently  come 
to  nothing  more  substantial  than  a  concessive  miti- 
gation. 

But  owing  to  the  peculiar  technological  character 
of    this    industrial    system,    with    its    specialized, 


standardized,  mechanical,  and  highly  technical  inter- 
locking processes  of  production,  there  has  gradually 
come  into  being  this  corps  of  technological  produc- 
tion specialists,  into  whose  keeping  the  due  function- 
ing of  the  industrial  system  has  now  drifted  by  force 
of  circumstance.  They  are,  by  force  of  circum- 
stance, the  keepers  of  the  community's  material  wel- 
fare; although  they  have  hitherto  been  acting,  in 
effect,  as  keepers  and  providers  of  free  income  for 
the  kept  classes.  They  are  thrown  into  the  position 
of  responsible  directors  of  the  industrial  system, 
and  by  the  same  move  they  are  in  a  position  to  be- 
come arbiters  of  the  community's  material  welfare. 
They  are  becoming  class-conscious,  and  they  are  no 
longer  driven  by  a  commercial  interest,  in  any  such 
degree  as  will  make  them  a  vested  interest  in  that 
commercial  sense  in  which  the  syndicated  owners 
and  the  federated  workmen  are  vested  interests. 
They  are,  at  the  same  time,  numerically  and  by 
habitual  outlook,  no  such  heterogeneous  and  un- 
wieldy body  as  the  federated  workmen,  whose  num- 
bers and  scattering  interest  has  left  all  their  en- 
deavors substantially  nugatory.  In  short,  the  en- 
gineers are  in  a  position  to  make  the  next  move. 

By  comparison  with  the  population  at  large,  in- 
cluding the  financial  powers  and  the  kept  classes, 
the  technological  specialists  which  come  in  question 
here  are  a  very  inconsiderable  rfumber;  yet  this 
small  number  is  indispensable  to  the  continued  work- 
ing of  the  productive  industries.  So  slight  are  their 
numbers,  and  so  sharply  defined  and  homogeneous 
is  their  class,  that  a  sufficiently  compact  and  in- 
clusive organization  of  their  forces  should  arrange 
itself  almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  so  soon  as  any 
appreciable  proportion  of  them  shall  be  moved  by 
any  common  purpose.  And  the  common  purpose 
is  not  far  to  seek,  in  the  all-pervading  industrial 
confusion,  obstruction,  waste,  and  retardation  which 
business  as  usual  continually  throws  in  their  face.  At 
the  same  time  they  are  the  leaders  of  the  industrial 
personnel,  the  workmen,  the  officers  of  the  line  and 
the  rank  and  file ;  and  these  are  coming  into  a  frame 
of  mind  to  follow  their  leaders  in  any  adventure 
that  holds  a  promise  of  advancing  the  common 
good. 

To  those  men,  soberly  trained  in  a  spirit  of  tang- 
ible performance  and  endowed  with  something  more 
than  an  even  share  of  the  sense  of  workmanship, 
and  'endowed  also  with  the  common  heritage  of 
partiality  for  the  rule  of  Live  and  Let  Live,  the 
disallowance  of  an  outworn  and  obstructive  right  of 
absentee  ownership  is  not  likely  to  seem  a  shocking 
infraction  of  the  sacred  realities.  That  customary 
right  of  ownership  by  virtue  of  which  the  vested 
interests  continue  to  control  the  industrial  system 


6o6 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


for  the  benefit  of  the  kept  classes,  belongs  to  an  older 
order  of  things  than  the  mechanical  industry.  It 
has  come  out  of  a  past  that  was  made  up  of  small 
things  and  traditional  make-believe.  For  all  the 
purposes  of  that  scheme  of  tangible  performance 
that  goes  to  make  up  the  technologist's  world,  it  is 
without  form  and  void.  So  that,  given  time  for  due 
irritation,  it  should  by  no  means  come  as  a  sur- 
prise if  the  guild  of  engineers  are  provoked  to  put 
their  heads  together  and,  quite  out  of  hand,  dis- 
allow that  large  ownership  that  goes  to  make  the 
vested  interests  and  unmake  the  industrial  system. 
And  there  stand  behind  them  the  massed  and  rough- 
hanrded  legions  of  the  industrial  rank  and  file,  ill  at 
ease  and  looking  for  new  things.  The  older  com- 
mercialized generation  among  them  would,  of 
course,  ask  themselves:  Why  should  we  worry? 
What  do  we  stand  to  gain?  But  the  younger  gen- 
eration, not  so  hard-bitten  by  commercial  experience, 
will  be  quite  as  likely  to  ask  themselves:  What  do 
we  stand  to  lose?  And  there  is  the  patent  fact 
that  such  a  thing  as  a  general  strike  of  the  techno- 
logical specialists  in  industry  need  involve  no  more 
than  a  minute  fraction  of  one  per  cent  of  the  popu- 
lation; yet  it  would  swiftly  bring  a  collapse  of  the 


old  order  and  sweep  the  timeworn  fabric  of  finance 
and  sabotage  into  the  discard  for  good  and  all. 

Such  a  catastrophe  would  doubtless  be  deplorable. 
It  would  look  something  like  the  end  pf  the  world 
to  all  those  persons  who  take  their  stand  with  the 
kept  classes,  but  it  may  come  to  seem  no  more  than 
an  incident  of  the  day's  work  to  the  engineers  and 
to  the  rough-handed  legions  of  the  rank  and  file.  It 
is  a  situation  which  may  well  be  deplored.  But  there 
is  no  gain  in  losing  patience  with  a  conjunction  of 
circumstances.  And  it  can  do  no  harm  to  take 
stock  of  the  situation  and  recognize  that,  by  force 
of  circumstance,  it  is  now  open  to  the  Council  of 
Technological  Workers'  and  Soldiers'  Deputies  to 
make  the  next  move,  in  their  own  way  and  in  their 
own  good  time.  When  and  what  this  move  will  be, 
if  any,  or  even  what  it  will  be  like,  is  not  some- 
thing on  which  a  layman  can  hold  a  confident 
opinion.  But  so  much  seems  clear,  that  the  in- 
dustrial dictatorship  of  the  captain  of  finance  is 
now  held  on  sufferance  of  the  engineers  and  is  liable 
at  any  time  to  be  discontinued  at  their  discretion 
as  a  matter  of  convenience. 

THORSTEIN  VEBLEN. 


In  My  Room  I  Read  and  Write 

In  my  room  I  read  and  write. 

Somewhere  men  cry  out  and  fight, 

Struggling  for  the  thing  they  need; 

Somewhere  women  reach  and  take 

What  time  withholds,  and  wrench  and  make 

Days  into  something  odd  and  new. 

They  say  words  which  are  wild  and  true. 

They  bend  life  like  a  rod  of  glass 

That  they  have  heated  in  the  flame 

Of  their  wills.    They  would  know  shame 

If  they  did  not  bring  to  pass 

Mighty  things  for  beauty's  sake 

And  truth's.    And  they  will  never  sheathe 

The  sword  they  fight  with  while  they  breathe. 

Shelter,  clothing,  food  and  ease 

May  not  beat  them  to  their  knees ; 

Need  of  touch  and  word,  and  rest 

Will  not  hold  them  from  the  quest. 

All  in  good  time,  after  stress, 

As  they  know  well,  they  shall  possess. 

Somewhere  men  and  women  take 

What  time  withholds,  and  wrench  and  make 

Life  into  something  strange  and  new. 

Women  seek  for  what  is  true. 

Under  wrong,  men  turn  and  fight. 

In  my  room  I  read  and  write.     .     . 

MARY  CAROLYN  DAVIES. 


THE  DIAL 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor 

In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program: 

JOHN    DEWEY  THORSTEIN   VEBLEN 


CLARENCE    BRITTEN 


HELEN   MAROT 


THE  TREATY  WITH  AUSTRIA  IN  INCOMPLETE 
form  is  now  before  the  American  people.  So  far  as 
may  be  judged  it  approaches  more  nearly  the  Brest- 
Litovsk  model  than  the  Treaty  with  Germany.  The 
duty  of  liberals  in  the  Allied  countries  toward  it  is 
therefore  even  clearer  than  toward  the  German 
Treaty.  It  is  the  duty  which  rested  upon  every 
German  and  Austrian  liberal  in  regard  to  the  peace 
of  Brest-Litovsk,  and  which  some  of  them  fulfilled. 
It  is  to  repudiate  both  compacts  utterly,  and  allow 
them  to  be  ratified,  if  it  must  be,  only  under  pro- 
test. No  other  course  of  action  has  any  moral  sanc- 
tion. As  to  its  practical  value,  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
already,  under  vigorous  and  forthright  criticism 
of  liberal  journals,  the  Allied  nations  are  disposed  to 
make  the  German  reply  a  basis  for  modification  of 
terms — in  other  words  to  substitute  a  negotiated  for 
a  dictated  peace. 

THE  TREATIES  WITH  GERMANY  AND  AUSTRIA 
are  a  clear  proof  that,  however  much  the  Allies  may 
want  a  League  of  Nations,  they  want  other  things 
more.  Indeed,  France,  Japan,  and  Italy,  the  three 
predatory  members  of  the  Alliance,  from  the  first 
regarded  the  League  as  a  menace  to  their  aggressive 
policies  and  made  their  acquiescence  a  matter  of  pur- 
chase at  a  ruinous  price.  England  wishes  a  League 
only  as  a  validation  of  her  empire,  is  unwilling  to 
sacrifice  any  of  her  possessive  rights,  and  is  under 
suspicion  of  seeking  to  use  the  mandatory  system  for 
imperialistic  ends.  The  United  States  wants  the 
League,  but  is  unwilling  to  sacrifice  to  it  her  posi- 
tion in  the  Western  Hemisphere.  Even  with  these 
reservations  it  might  still  be  possible  to  launch  the 
League  by  virtue  of  the  measure  of  hope  and  good 
will  that  remains  in  the  neutral  and  defeated  na- 
tions, including  China  and  Russia,  but  by  the 
Treaties  this  last  hope  is  frustrated.  The  victors 
will  not  yield  any  of  the  attributes  of  a  "  strong 
peace  "  to  secure  the  League.  On  the  part  of  the 
first  four  partners  this  attitude  is  so  bound  up  with 
territorial  and  financial  claims  as  to  be  readily  un- 
derstood, but  on  the  part  of  the  United  States  it 
is  explicable  only  in  terms  of  national  hypocrisy  and 
stupidity.  No  one  believes  that  Mr.  Wilson  would 
have  sacrificed  the  essential  features  of  his  new 
world  order  to  the  humiliation  and  spoliation  of 
Germany  if  he  had  not  realized  that  the  country 


behind  him  demanded  such  humiliation  and 
spoliation.  And  to  what  end  ?  Certain  interests  in 
this  country  may  profit  by  the  ruin  of  German  in- 
dustry, but  the  business  of  the  United  States  as  a 
whole  can  only  suffer.  We  have  no  legitimate  re- 
venge to  seek  from  Germany,  no  great  injury,  mate- 
rial or  moral,  to  make  even.  We  have  inflicted 
vastly  more  harm  on  Germany  than  we  have  re- 
ceived. Our  attitude  is  to  be  explained  solely  by 
a  survival  of  war  psychology.  We  are  still  stupid 
and  blind  from  hate,  and  unfortunately  that  hate 
has  extended  itself  to  Russia.  The  Armistice 
balked  us  of  what  we  regarded  as  legitimate  prey — 
the  destruction  of  German  cities  and  the  massacre 
of  Germans  on  German  soil — and  in  these  circum- 
stances we  have  found  an  outlet  for  our  feeling  in 
our  former  ally.  Thus  we  have  made  it  impossible 
to  use  the  forces  that  are  sincerely  interested  in  a 
new  international  order,  and  we  are  compelled  to 
resort  to  the  doubtful  process  of  wishing  such  an 
order  on  our  suspicious  and  half-unwilling  asso- 
ciates. In  other  words  the  United  States  is  de- 
termined to  sacrifice  the  one  tangible  object  for 
which  it  fought,  not  to  material  advantage  or  to 
calculated  revenge,  but  to  a  state  of  mind.  And 
for  that  state  of  mind,  which  blocks  his  own  en- 
deavors, Mr.  Wilson  is  largely  responsible.  He 
is  reaping  the  fruit  of  his  panic-stricken  war  policy. 
When  he  suspended  free  speech  and  trampled  upon 
opinion,  when  he  gave  the  country  over  to  the  mob 
law  of  security  leagues  and  defense  societies,  when 
he  sold  his  bonds  on  atrocity  stories  and  set  up  a 
department  of  public  falsehood  by  way  of  prop- 
aganda, he  was  preparing  exactly  such  a  situation 
as  he  will  confront  on  his  return — a  country  which 
will  not  renounce  any  of  the  fruits  of  victory  which 
others  are  gathering,  which  will  not  make  place 
for  Germany  and  Russia  in  the  new  order  of  the 
world,  because  it  is  still  "  in  no  condition  to  do 
business." 


PRESIDENT  WILSON'S  RECENT  SPEECHES  IN  PARIS 
will  do  little  for  his  own  credit,  the  service  of  his 
country,  or  the  honor  of  her  dead.  On  May  10  he 
delivered  an  address  before  the  French  Academy  of 
Moral  and  Political  Sciences  in  which  he  delivered 
himself  of  his  usual  well-laundered  sentiments: 
My  view  of  the  State  is  that  it  must  stop  and  listen  to 


6o8 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


what  I  have  to  saj  no  matter  how  humble  I  am.  ...  I 
have  always  been  among  those  who  believe  that  the  great- 
est freedom  or  speech  was  the  greatest  safety.  ...  In 
this  free  air  of  free  speech  men  get  into  that  sort  of  com- 
munication with  another  which  constitutes  the  basis  of  all 
common  achievement. 

One  pauses  aghast  at  this  oily  hypocrisy.    Mr.  Wil- 
son knows  that  there  are  hundreds  of  his  fellow- 
citizens  in  prison  for  speaking  their  minds,  not  to 
the  State  but  to  spies  set  by  the  State  to  trap  them. 
He  knows  it  because  he  has  just  commuted  the  sen- 
tence  of  .such   a   fellow-citizen — William    Powell, 
of  Lansing,   Michigan — from  twenty  years  to  one 
as  punishment  for  saying  in  private  that  the  stories 
of    German    atrocities   were    propaganda,    that   he 
could  not  believe  in  President  Wilson,  that  the  war 
was  a  rich  man's  war.     One  year  of  confinement  in 
Leavenworth,  which,  with  the  unearned  increment 
of  tuberculosis,  means  death,  and  $5,000  fine  which 
has  already  reduced  this  man's  family  to  beggary! 
This  is  President  Wilson's  conception  of  free  speech. 
We  submit  that  he  has  made  the  French  Academy 
of   Political   and   Moral   Sciences   the  victim   of   a 
hoax  which  would  be  silly  if  it  were  not  tragic. 
Mr.  Wilson's  Memorial  Day  Address  is  likewise 
notable   for  establishing  a   complete   antithesis   be- 
tween words  and  deeds.     It  has  the  same  fulsome 
quality  as  the  address  to  the  Academy,   the  same 
hollow    rhetoric — but    here    tragically    misplaced. 
"  It  is  delightful.     .     .     .     It  is  more  delightful." 
The    world    cares    little    for    the    stages    of    Mr. 
Wilson's    hedonism.      It    cares    even    less    for    the 
tawdry  second-hand  verbal  ornament  of  one  who 
cherishes  the  platitude  as  a  figure  of  speech.     But 
when  he  makes  the  death  of  his  soldiers  an  argu- 
ment for  the  cause  which  he  has  betrayed,  the  mind 
of  the  reader  is  divided  between  amazement  at  the 
effrontery  and  horror  at  the  sacrilege.     "  Shall  1 
ever  speak  a  word  of  counsel  which  is  inconsistent 
with  the  assurances  I  gave  'them  when  they  came 
over?"     This  is  quoted  from  his  address  at  New 
York  before    his    second    departure    for    France. 
Then  it  was  a  promise ;  now  it  is  a  broken  promise. 
"  Here  I  stand  consecrated  in  the  spirit  of  the  men 
who  were  once   my  comrades   and   who   are   now 
gone  and  who  left  me  under  eternal  bonds  of  fidel- 
ity."   One  is  forced  to  ask:    Where  does  Mr.  Wil- 
son stand?     Perhaps  at  Fiume.     What  are  those 
eternal  bonds?    The  recognition  of  the  British  pro- 
tectorate in  Egypt,  the  cession  of  the  Saar  Valley 
to  France,  of  South  Tyrol  to  Italy,  of  Shantung 
to  Japan,  the  starvation  of  Russia,  the  economic  war 
after  the  war  against  Germany.     It  is  too  much  to 
expect   that   he  should   characterize   these  achieve- 
ments in  truthful  language.     He  has  properly  left 
that  to  Mr.  Debs.     It  is  perhaps  too  much  to  ex- 
pect that  he  should  refrain  from  exalting  himself 
in    the    light    of    what    he    would    like    to    have 
done    in    place    of    these    things.      But    that    he 
should    accept    them    in    the    name    of    the'    men 
who   at    his   bidding   died    for    a   better   world    is 
blasphemy. 


I  HE  AMERICAN  FEDERATION  OF  LABOR,  IN  CON- 
vention   at  Atlantic   City,    is  pondering   no  less   a 
problem  than  the  future  of  the   State.     Is  indus- 
trial   democracy,    so   warmly    and    vaguely    recom- 
mended by  President  Wilson,  to  come  as  the  gift  of 
a   government    of   politically    federated    geographic 
areas,  controlled  by  a  labor  vote,  or  will  this  democ- 
racy be  first  arrived  at  within  self-controlled  pro- 
duction units,  destined  finally  themselves  to  achieve 
federation  and  to  replace  the  whole  geographic-rep- 
resentative system?      If    Federated    labor    and    alt 
labor  is  to  make  an  intelligent  choice  between  eco- 
nomic and  political  means,  such  a  selection  must  be 
conditioned  by  a  choice  between  a  future  built  from 
the  bottom,  and  one  that  hangs  from  the  top.  With 
all  due  deference  to  the  A.  F.  L.'s  deliberations  as 
to  the  advisability  of  its  participation  in  a  Labor 
party,  it  may  be  said  that  labor  has  already  made 
its  choice  of  means  and  ends.     It  is  not  necessary  to 
call  on  Russia  for  proof.    Great  Britain  will  serve; 
the  December  elections  found  British  labor  not  im- 
potent but  politically  indifferent;  by  the  extension 
of  the  shop-steward  movement,  and  by  the  initiation 
of  strikes  in  sharp  succession,  British  labor  has  work 
a  near-dictatorship  and  has  even  succeeded  in  sweep- 
ing into  its  control  a  group  hitherto  subservient  to- 
reactionary  control — the  police.     In  Spain  the  Con- 
federacion  General  del  Trabajo  devotes  itself  not 
to  the  manipulation  of  political  machinery  but  to 
the  sabotage  of  government.     Canadian  authorities 
find  themselves  practically  powerless  before  a  laboi 
movement  which  embraces  not  only  the  employees  of. 
private  industry  but  an  army  of  the  servants  of  thu 
State.     And  the  United   States   itself  offers  shan. 
enough  contrasts  between  indifferent  and  ineffective: 
voting  and  earnest  and  powerful  direct  action.  The- 
War  was  not  the  sole  author  of  today's  distrust  of, 
the  political  State;  perhaps  the  Peace  has  done  even 
more  to  alienate  the  people  from  the  political  or- 
ganisms which  are  supposed  to  represent  them.     If 
the  War  brought  the  breakdown  of   bureaucracy, 
the  Peace  has  done  as  great  a  disservice  to  the  re- 
ligion of  nationalism.     The  State  has  been  proved 
both  impotent  and  morally  irresponsible.     The  ten- 
dency of  the  time  is  toward  decentralization  and  a.. 
new  beginning.     Neither  State  Socialism  nor  State 
Capitalism,    with    their    common    dependence    on 
geographic-political  machinery,  can  be  accommodated 
to  a  new  era  that  promises,  not  to  bring  men  to- 
gether in  horizontal  layers  that  cut  straight  across 
every  economic  relationship,  but  to  unite  them  in 
vertical  self-governing  units   as  their  work  unites, 
them — in  the  factory  in  the  day  time,  rather  than 
in  the  club  or  on  the  street  corner  at  night.    Direct 
action  is  a  tremendous  protest  against  the  existence 
of  a  system  of  artificial  relationships  and  political 
indirection,    and    a    demand    for    the    recognition 
of     production     groups — economic     successors     to 
the    family — as    the    natural    elements    of    a    so- 
ciety   devoted    to    the    achievement    of    industrial 
democracy. 


THE  DIAL 


609 


-LANEM  ET  CIRCENSES  WAS    THE  FORMULA  FOR  THE 

politicians  of  Imperial  Rome,  on  which  they  relied 
to  keep  the  underlying  population  from  imagining 
vain  remedies  for  their  own  hard  case.  Mutatis 
mutandis,  in  the  vernacular  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, this  would  be  as  much  as  to  say,  "  The  Bread 
Line  and  the  Movies."  This  is  not  a  literal  transla- 
tion of  the  Latin  motto.  It  amounts  to  an 
equivalence  of  practice  rather  than  an  equivalence 
of  words — panis,  of  course,  is  Latin  for  "  bread  " 
rather  than  "  the  bread  line" ;  and  the  nearest  mod- 
ern equivalent  for  circenses  would  perhaps  be  "  the 
ballfield  "  rather  than  "  the  movies."  But  then,  as 
the  Romans  would  say,  tempora  mutantur. 

Panis,  of  course  signifies  "  bread  "  a  product  of 
the  baker's  art,  rather  than  the  breadline,  which  is 
a  product  of  the  associated  charities.  But  in  effect, 
as  it  comes  into  this  Imperial  Roman  motto,  panem 
signified  that  certain  salutary  minimum  of  bread 
without  which  the  underlying  population  could  not 
be  counted  on  to  tolerate  the  continued  rule  of  the 
Imperial  politicians  and  of  those  vested  interests 
that  were  entrusted  to  the  care  of  the  politicians. 
So  it  appears  that  the  politicians  of  Imperial  Rome 
allowed  the  underlying  population  a  ration  of  act- 
ual bread,  at  some  cost  to  the  vested  interests.  It 
appears  that  the  astute  politicians  of  Imperial  Rome 
dared  go  no  nearer  to  the  modern  democratic  in- 
stitution of  the  bread  line.  To  those  democratic 
statesmen  who  now  bear  up  the  banners  of  the 
vested  interests — also  called  the  standards  of  Law 
and  Order — this  prodigal  conduct  of  the  Roman 
politicians  will  perhaps  seem  weak  and  little-minded. 
But  something  is  to  be  allowed  in  extenuation  of 
their  pusillanimity.  The  politicians  of  Imperial 
Rome  had  not  the  use  of  liberty  loans  and  machine 
guns;  and  then  the  underlying  population  of  that 
cruder  age  was  perhaps  less  patient  and  reasonable, 
less  given  to  promises  and  procrastination.  Tem- 
pora mutantur.  The  democratic  statesmen  of  the 
twentieth  century  are  more  fortunate  in  both  re- 
spects. More  particularly,  the  mechanical  ap- 
pliances for  preserving  law  and  order  have  been 
greatly  perfected ;  and  by  suitable  fiscal  methods  the 
underlying  population  which  is  to  be  "  kept  in 
hand  "  can  be  induced  to  pay  for  these  mechanical 
appliances  by  which  they  are  to  be  kept  in  hand. 
So  the  statesmen  of  the  twentieth  century  are  en- 
abled to  let  the  bread  line  serve  in  place  of  the  bread, 
and  thereby  to  save  the  net  output  of  the  Republic's 
industry  more  nearly  intact  for  the  use  of  the  kept 
classes. 

But  in  the  matter  of  circenses,  too,  there  has 
been  change  and  improvement  during  these  inter- 
vening centuries  since  the  Glory  that  was  Rome. 
Political  practice  runs  on  a  more  economical  plan 
in  this  businesslike  age.  The  Roman  circenses  ap- 
pear to  have  cut  somewhat  wastefully  into  the  ordi- 
nary "  earnings  "  of  those  vested  interests  for  whose 
benefit  the  Roman  Imperium  was  administered; 
whereas  the  movies  of  the  twentieth  century  are  a 


business  proposition  in  their  own  right,  a  source  of 
"  earnings "  and  a  vested  interest.  And  in  ordi- 
nary times  of  peace  or  war  the  movies  supply  what 
appears  to  be  required  in  the  way  of  politically 
salutary  dissipation.  Yet  in  time  of  stress,  as  is  now 
evident,  something  more  enticing  may  be  required 
to  distract  popular  attention  securely  and  keep  the 
underlying  population  from  taking  stock  of  the 
statemen's  promises  and  performance.  At  a  critical 
juncture,  when  large  chances  of  profit  and  loss  for 
the  vested  interests  are  in  the  balance,  it  may  be 
well  to  take  thought  and  add  something  to  the 
workday  routine  of  the  movies,  even  at  some  ex- 
pense. In  case  of  urgent  need,  to  stabilise  a  doubt- 
fully manageable  popular  sentiment,  the  rant  and 
swagger  of  many  subsidised  heroes  and  the  pomp 
and  circumstance  and  moving  show  incident  to  a 
victory  loan  should  have  a  salutary  use  of  the  same 
kind;  expensive,  no  doubt,  but  then  the  cost  need 
not  be  borne  by  those  vested  interests  that  are  to  be 
safeguarded  from  the  corrosive  afterthought  of  the 
underlying  population.  And  then  there  are  avail- 
able such  heroic  spectacles  as  a  "  victory  fleet,"  to- 
gether with  parades,  arches,  and  banners, — miles  of 
banners  and  square  miles  of  heroic  printed  matter; 
costly,  no  doubt,  but  also  doubtless  salutary.  So 
also,  in  -case  of  need  there  is  something  to  be  made 
of  such  a  thing  as  an  overseas  flight;  particularly 
if  it  be  abundantly  staged  and  somewhat  more  than 
abundantly  advertised.  It  is  a  potent  resource, 
capable  of  lifting  the  common  man's  afterthought  in- 
to the  upper  air,  instead  of  letting  it  run  along  the 
ground  of  material  fact,  where  it  might  do  mischief  ; 
costly,  no  doubt,  but  then  the  cost  need  not  be 
counted  so  closely,  since  it  is  the  common  man 
who  pays  the  cost,  the  same  common  man  who 
is  forever  in  danger  of  getting  into  mischief  by 
reflecting  unduly  on  what  the  statesmen  have  been 
using  him  for.  And,  of  course,  since  it  is  the  com- 
mon man  who  is  to  be  relieved  of  afterthought,  it  is 
only  reasonable  that  the  common  man  should  pay 
the  cost.  , 

Panem    et    circenses:     The   Breadline   and   the 
Movies. 


BENJAMIN  GLASSBERG  HAS  BEEN  DISMISSED 
from  the  New  York  public  schools,  for  stating  ( i ) 
that  the  Soviet  regime  of  Russia  had  been  maligned 
in  America,  (2)  that  testimony  to  this  effect  had 
been  suppressed  by  the  State  Department,  (3)  that 
a  teacher  in  New  York  could  not  tell  the  truth 
about  Russia.  The  first  two  statements  are  the 
exact  truth  as  proved  by  Colonel  Robins'  testimony 
before  the  School  Board;  the  third  is  proved  by 
Mr.  Glassberg's  dismissal.  So  much  for  suppres- 
sion of  truth.  As  for  the  propagation  of  false- 
hood, the  Board  continues  to  demand  that  teachers 
make  enthusiastic  use  of  the  official  Syllabus  of  the 
World  War  exposed  by  Professor  Beard  in  an 
article  in  this  issue. 


6io 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


Communications 

O  TEMPORA,  O  MORES! 
I 

SIR:  Does  anyone  realize  in  what  preposterous 
conditions  we  live?  Do  the  readers  of  THE  DIAL 
understand  that  the  police  can  enter  my  front  door 
at  any  time,  go  to  my  reading-table  and  there  find 
circulars,  pamphlets,  and  magazines,  and  that  I  can 
be  imprisoned  for  five  years  for  possessing  "  unlawful 
literature  ?  "  Do  you  understand  that  the  man  who 
passes  on  such  questions  is  invariably  one  who  is  ig- 
norant and  unread  and  that  he  naturally  classes 
unknown,  poorly  and  cheaply  printed  publications 
with  the  strange  and  terrible?  Do  you  realize  that 
one  must  be  first  arrested  before  he  can  know  what 
is  "  unlawful?  "  Do  you  know  that  some  of  Bos- 
ton's May  day  paraders  were  given  18  months  for 
having  copies  of  the  Revolutionary  Age  and  the 
Rebel  Worker  in  their  possession?  Do  you  realize 
that  in  proportion  as  one  is  intelligent  enough  to 
make  efforts  to  learn  what  is  going  on  in  the  world 
he  renders  himself  liable  to  this  five-year  seclusion? 
Do  you  realize  that  there  is  plenty  of  matter  in  THE 
DIAL  which  any  magistrate  would  include  in  the 
category  of  "  unlawful  "  and  are  you  willing  meekly 
to  submit  to  such  tyranny  ? 

Marblehead,  Mass.         WALTER  C.  HUNTER. 
II 

SIR  :  A  good  many  of  us  Americans  have  supposed 
that  the  operation  of  the  Draft  and  Espionage  Acts 
insofar  as  they  imprisoned  men  and  women  for  hold- 
ing or  expressing  views  contrary  to  those  of  the  gov- 
ernment must  be  repulsive  to  President  Wilson's 
sense  of  fair  play  and  common  decency.  We  felt  that 
although  he  championed  the  Draft  Act,  and  sanc- 
tioned the  Espionage  Act,  he  did  so  only  from  the 
conviction  of  war  necessity;  and  we  expected  him  to 
come  out  of  the  war  preserving  at  least  -the  modicum 
of  democratic  feeling  which  would  lead  him  at  once 
to  redress,  insofar  as  lay  in  his  power,  the  wrongs 
committed  under  the  operation  of  these  measures. 

The  Armistice  came,  and  we  watched  and  waited. 
We  have'  been  watching  and  waiting  for  very  nearly 
seven  months,  and  not  a  single  decent  word  or  act 
has  come  from  the  Administration  in  regard  to  the 
fifteen  hundred  men  and  women  who  have  been  cast 
into  prison  for  holding  independent  opinions  in  a 
country  which  our  newspapers  and  our  school-books 
tell  us  is  a  democracy.  Instead  of  an  immediate  and 
general  amnesty — which  would  have  in  a  degree 
cleaned  the  soiled  skirts  of  the  government — we 
have  witnessed  a  fraudulent  play  in  which  batches  of 
fifty  political  prisoners  have  from  time  to  time  been 
released  or  had  their  sentences  reduced  in  varying 
measure.  Behold  our  generous  government  in  the 
role  of  merciful  dispenser  of  pardons! 

This  is  no  amnesty ;  it  is  the  veriest  pretense.  Mr. 
Wilson  has  been  more  interested  in  telling  Europe 


why  he  is  a  democrat  and  why  the  rest  of  the  world 
should  imitate  the  sterling  example  he  sets,  than  he 
has  been  in  bringing  about  a  little  house-cleaning  in 
the  United  States.  Is  it  any  wonder  that  the  Entente 
diplomats  did  not  take  his  fourteen  points  seriously 
when  they  saw  how  little  his  professions  squared 
with  his  practice?  Of  course,  Mr.  Wilson  may  not 
have  wanted  them  to  take  his  points  seriously — but 
that  is  a  different  matter.  We  have  in  the  continued 
holding  of  almost  all  of  the  political  prisoners  a  liv- 
ing proof  of  Mr.  Wilson's  innate  casuistry  and  ca- 
pacity for  insincere  and  hypocritical  action.  The 
President's  conception  of  democracy  is  at  best  flimsy 
and  shallow,  for  it  takes  no  account  of  the  economic 
reorganization  which  must  come  before  any  real  de- 
mocracy can  exist,  but  even  the  idea  of  democracy 
which  he  vaunts  and  claims  himself  the  spokesman  of 
is  being  fundamentally  violated.  So  long  as  he  holds 
these  men  and  women  in  prison,  so  long  must  we 
consider  him  actively  insincere. 


New  York  City.. 


RAMON  P.  COFFMAN. 


Ill 


SIR:  The  writer,  like  thousands  of  others,  tries  to 
have  respect  for  the  press  of  the  country.  He  feels 
that  the  editor  is,  at  least  in  a  way,  a  representative 
of  public  opinion  and  principles.  Yet,  if  you  will 
just  fairly  and  impartially  think  it  over,  you  will 
bear  me  out  when  I  state  that  just  as  independent 
men  in  religion  are  leaving  churches,  so  are  people 
in  a  political  sense  losing  respect  for  newspapers  and 
politicians.  The  writer  has  twice  volunteered  in 
defense  of  his  country,  and  this  last  time  he  deemed 
it  his  duty  to  do  his  part,  small  though  it  was,  to 
end  the  military  jag  of  the  now  William  the  Con- 
quered. 

Much  is  written  in  our  reactionary  press  about 
spies  and  alien  enemies  being  responsible  for  the 
discontent.  This  is  only  partly  true.  Thousands 
of  patriotic  people,  including  soldiers  and  sailors, 
are  registering  kicks.  And  another  thing:  who 
is  to  blame  for  these  spies  being  here?  I  an- 
swer advisedly ;  I  was  connected  with  the  "  Aid 
for  Information,"  Navy  Department,  which,  strip- 
ped of  all  language,  simply  means  a  detective,  and 
was  stationed  at  New  Orleans.  Six  of  us  were 
thus  detailed.  We  were  informed  that  we  were 
to  act  as  detectives  to  detect  enemies  and  draft 
evaders.  Very  little  time  was  devoted  to  this;  in- 
stead, we  were  used  to  coddle  and  hound  soldiers 
and  sailors,  to  watch  their  every  move.  A  few  of 
us  could  not  stand  these  contemptible  proceedings 
and  asked  to  be  sent  back  to  the  Naval  Station,  but 
this  So-called  American  Protective  League,  better 
known  among  us  as  the  American  Pimp  League, 
continued  these  childish  tactics  until  the  writer, 
violating  military  ethics,  at  the  request  of  comrades 
and  their  sisters  and  wives  who  had  been  insulted, 
forwarded  a  sixteen-page  memorial  to  the  President 
of  the  United  States.  This  never  came  out  in  the 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


611 


press.  People  who  have  the  proper  conception  of 
freedom  of  speech  also  desire  to  see  that  blessed 
privilege  restored.  The  Democratic  Party,  above  all 
other  organizations,  is  stopped  from  curtailing  free 
speech.  It  almost  owes  its  life  to  its  stand  in  1798 
against  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Laws. 


Memphis,  Term. 


GEO.  F.  WALLACE. 


ROADS  TO  FREEDOM 

SIR:  There  is  much  in  Mr.  Durant's  critique 
of  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell's  "  Roads  to  Freedom  " 
with  which  I  should  like  to  take  issue.  His  view  is 
so  hasty  that  it  fails  to  grasp  the  meaning  of  some 
of  Mr.  Russell's  most  careful  arguments.  Take 
this  passage,  for  instance: 

He  approaches  the  social  question  always  from  the 
point  of  view  of  the  artist,  and  tests  each  plan  by  asking 
"What  will  it  do  to  art?"  .  .  .  there  will  be  a  minimum 
wage  for  all,  even  for  those  who  will  not  work;  the 
creative  impulse,  the  constructive  disposition,  may  be 
trusted  to  keep  all  but  a  few  men  busy  .  .  . 

But  Mr.  Bertrand  Russel  approaches  no  question 
from  the  point  of  view  of  the  artist;  his  point  of 
view  is  that  of  a  philosopher,'  and  it  is  so  broad  that 
it  would  be  futile  to  try  to  isolate  it  as  a  personal 
or  even  typical  stand.  As  a  philosopher  he  is,  to,  be 
sure,  Concerned  with  the  significance  of  the  creative 
in  human  experience,  which  he  admits  is  given  to 
but  a  few.  His  argument  is  that  a  minimum  wage, 
sufficient  to  meet  the  bare  necessities  of  life,  should 
be  given  to  all,  regardless  of  whether  or  not  they 
work.  But  what  man  among  us  is  satisfied  with 
the  bare  necessities  of  life?  Only  the  elite,  those 
who  do  not  live  by  bread  alone,  will  not  be  only 
too  willing  to  work  for  their  share  of  the  luxuries. 

In  this  little  book  no  differentiation  is  made  'be- 
tween the  necessities  and  the  luxuries;  but  it  is  not 
the  function  of  a  philosopher  to  draw  the  line  ex- 
ceedingly nice  between  values  that  would  vary  in 
every  locality.  Contrary  to  Mr.  Durant's  asser- 
tion, "  the  powerful  competitive  impulses  of  men," 
as  well  as  the  evil  tendencies  in  human  nature  gener- 
ally, are  carefully  presented  and  examined  in  this 
work  in  such  measure  as  they  influence  the  prob- 
lems considered. 

Indeed,  says  Mr.  Durant,  if  one  may  add  a  word  of 
criticism,  the  impression  left  by  the  book  is  one  of  over- 
simplicity  and  unreality;  it  has  about  it  an  air  of  jejune 
and  ideologic  youth.  It  has  all  of  Kropotkin's  gentleness 
and  many  of  his  delusions ;  but  it  has  little  of  Kropotkin's 
patient  grappling  with  difficult  details.  It  has  beauty, 
such  as  one  has  come  to  expect  from  Bertrand  Russell; 
but  it  is  a  fragile  beauty;  a  sentence  or  two  from 
Nietzsche,  one  fears,  would  smash  it  into  sweet  regrets. 

There  is  nothing  of  the  fragile  in  Mr.  Bertrand 
Russell;  his  work  will  weather  the  Nietzschean 
bombast,  as  his  spirit  and  truth  will  weather  per- 
secution. Perhaps  that  is  why  England  fears  him, 


as  Germany  never  feared  Nietzsche.  He  is  as 
dangerous  as  Jesus  in  the  temple,  as  Socrates  in  the 
market  place. 

In  a  world  and  a  civilization  that  pursue  facts  to 
the  exclusion  of  truth  and  idea,  Roads  to 
Freedom  will  doubtless  seem  to  many  unreal 
and  simple.  Our  German  philological  methods 
have  reached  a  stage  where  a  man  who  sets  out  to 
organize  facts  and  ideas  instead  of  merely  compiling 
them  is  regarded  with  suspicion.  His  efforts  are 
called  youthful  by  incompetent  critics  who  are  in 
the  habit  of  applying  that  adjective  to  what  they  do 
not  begin  to  understand. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  the  charge  of  simplicity. 
If  "  oversimplicity "  means  anything,  it  means 
pseudo-simplicity,  the  characteristic  of  the  monistic 
mind — briefly  the  habit  of  judging  every  problem, 
in  all  its  aspects,  in  terms  of  one  substance,  one 
principle,  or  one  categorical  imperative.  To  accuse 
Mr.  Russell  of  this  is  to  fail  to  grasp  the  meaning 
and  application  of  neo-realism. 

It  has  none  of  Kropotkin's  "  grappling  with 
difficult  details,"  because  it  has,  in  fact,  nothing  to 
do  with  details.  It  deals,  on  the  contrary,  with 
ideas,  theories,  attitudes  of  mind.  It  rests  upon  the 
mature  wisdom  of  a  profound  and  difficult  meta- 
physic,  the  result  of  a  life-long  study,  a  philosophy 
which  has  not  as  yet  been  successfully  refuted.  The 
attitudes  of  mind  with  which  it  deals  are  the  real 
roads  to  freedom,  and  they  are  not  "  goals  "  as  Mr. 
Durant  supposes,  as  well  as  the  American  publisher 
who  gives  it  the  misnomer,  "Proposed  Roads  to 
Freedom."  For  the  nature  of  freedom  is  such  that 
those  who  seek  it  cannot  race  toward  it  and  seize  it; 
the  concept,  in  this  case,  must  precede  its  realization. 


New  York  City. 


GORDON  KING. 


INTER  ARMA  SILET  LABOR 

SIR:  In  his  recent  communication  John  J. 
McSwain,  Captain  of  Infantry,  proposes  an  advisory 
commission  to  study  and  advise  Congress  and  the 
War  Department  as  to  military  training.  I  am  not 
questioning  the  advisability  of  military  training  or 
otherwise  but  I  wish  to  point  out  that  among  all  the 
professions  and  occupations  he  suggests  for  per- 
sonnel there  is  not  the  slightest  suggestion  that  labor 
might  desire  to  be  represented  on  such  a  commis- 
sion. In  my  judgment  labor  is  more  entitled  to  an 
opinion  on  the  questions  involved  than  any  other 
class  of  society.  It  is  confessedly  the  larger  and 
in  my  opinion  from  present  manifestations  has  the 
more  intelligence.  "  They  will  sometimes  be 
generous  to  Labor;  but  they  will  never  be  just  to 
Labor.  They  will  speak  to  Labor;  they  will  speak 
for  Labor;  but  they  will  not  let  Labor  speak." 


Urbana,  111. 


JOEL  HENRY  GREENE,  M.D. 


6l2 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


Notes  on  New  Books 

WAR  AND  REVOLUTION  IN  RUSSIA,  1914- 
1917.  By  General  Basil  Gourkb.  420  pages. 
Macmillan. 

The  author  of  this  latest  book  about  Russia 
possesses  all  the  distinction  that  adheres  to  obsolete 
titles.  He  was  chief  of  the  Russian  Imperial  Gen- 
eral Staff  from  November,  1916  to  March,  1917, 
and  he  was  commander-in-chief  of  the  western 
armies  from  March  to  June  of  the  latter  year,  un- 
til he  was  relieved  of  his  post  by  the  Kerensky  gov- 
ernment. That  he  is  alive  today  and  able  to  write 
his  memoirs  at  Paris  is  due  to  the  happy  animosity  of 
the  first  revolutionary  government,  which  did  him 
the  favor  of  sending  him  into  exile.  He  writes  an 
account  of  Russia's  participation  in  the  war,  from 
the  stages  of  mobilization  onward,  with  the  author- 
ity of  one  who  was  at  all  times  among  the  high 
command;  and  if  one  may  judge  by  his  openly 
avowed  attitude  toward  the  first  revolution,  he 
writes  with  a  singular  freedom  from  the  desire  to 
please.  No  mere  courtier  would  ever  at  this  late 
stage  of  the  world's  progress  admit  that  he  advised 
the  provisional  government  that  the  revolution 
should  be  stalled  for  the  duration  of  the  war,  and 
that  he  urged  them  naively  "  not  to  forget  that  the 
man  who  cannot  satisfy  his  elementary  material 
necessities  does  not  require  liberty."  In  deciding 
between  the  continuance  of  the  war  and  the  welfare 
of  Russia  Gourko  was  at  one  with  the  politicians  of 
the  western  democracies  in  urging  that  the  benefits 
of  internal  reorganization  be  sacrificed.  But  he  was 
honest  enough  to  see  that  there  was  a  clear-cut  alter- 
native. If  this  had  been  perceived  by  the  western 
democracies,  the  road  to  the  present  chaos  would  not 
have  been  paved  with  so  many  futile  gestures  of 
benevolence. 

BOLSHEVISM.     By  John  Spargo.     389  pages. 

Harper. 

The  latest  dissertation  of  John  Spargo  has  a 
pair  of  antipodal  appeals.  For  the  unsuspecting 
popular  reader  it  presents  a  simple  undramatic  and 
substantiated  history  of  the  Socialist  movement  in 
Russia,  from  the  underground  agitation  of  Herzen 
and  his  disciples  to  the  debacle  before  the  hosts  of 
Bolshevism.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  excellent 
propaganda  for  the  Russian  Social-Revolutionary 
party,  which  is,  it  can  be  guessed,  the  legitimatized 
Socialist  faction,  being  closely  affiliated  with  the  In- 
ternational Bureau.  Naturally,  it  has  Spargo's  sup- 
port; to  it  is  consecrated,  he  believes,  the  eventual 
democratization  of  Russia.  Although  now  being 
Bolsheviciously  persecuted,  it  was  the  group  behind 
the  Constituent  Assembly,  and  in  that  body  is 
Russia's  hope  of  recovery  from  chaos.  Spargo  an- 
nounces that  he  takes  no  stock  in  any  of  the  material 
presented  by  anti-Bolshevist  campaigning,  neither 
journalistic  horror  headlines  nor  the  Sisson  docu- 


ments; nevertheless  his  book  is  a  passionate  effort 
to  destroy  faith  in  every  phase  of  Communist 
thought  or  activity.  Surely  the  Communist  pro- 
gramme, though  dangerous  and  doomed  sooner  or 
still  sooner  for  the  political  ash-heap,  cannot,  judg- 
ing from  its  rapid  spread,  be  utterly  rotten  and 
destructive.  Spargo  does  not  think  so:  "  The  Bol- 
shevist, wherever  he  may  present  himself,  is  the  foe 
of  progress  and  the  ally  of  reaction."  And  so  his 
case,  since  the  evidence  is  preponderantly  from  Rus- 
sian Socialist  (not  Bolshevist)  sources,  obviously 
seems  biassed  in  favor  of  such  more  sober  democrats 
as  the  Social-Revolutionists.  With  the  radicals 
publishing  propaganda  for  Bolshevism,  and  the  So- 
cialists clamoring  for  justice  to  the  International 
programme,  only  a  few  voices  raised  in  defense  of 
the  bourgeoisie  are  lacking  to  complete  the  Russian 
babel.  Although  Mr.  Spargo's  book  is  a  valuable 
aid  to  an  understanding  of  the  politico-economic 
struggle  in  Russia  and  the  dangers  of  Bolshevism, 
it  would  be  more  trustworthy  if  it  were  less  right- 
eously Socialistic. 

THE  LETTERS  OF  ALGERNON  CHARLES  SWIN- 
BURNE. Edited  by  Edmund  Gosse,  C.  B.  and 
Thomas  James  Wise.  600  pages ;  2  vols.  Lane. 

This  collection  of  Swinburne's  letters,  wrongly 
described  in  the  introduction  as  the  first,  is  dis- 
appointing to  those  who  will  turn  to  it  for  a  revela- 
tion of  his  personality.  It  is  a  comment  on  Swin- 
burne's interests  rather  than  on  himself.  It  ap- 
pears that  Messrs.  Gosse  and  Wise  have  had  access 
only  to  the  poet's  correspondence  with  friends  who 
like  themselves  were  of  the  stiff,  academic  sort  be- 
fore whom  he  felt  bound  to  conduct  himself  with 
elegance  and  discretion,  to  whom  he  was  bound  by 
common  interests  in  scholarship  and  esthetics. 
These  interests,  it  should  be  added,  counted  for 
more  with  Swinburne  than  with  any  poet  of  equal 
fame.  In  none  does  personal  experience  furnish  so 
little  inspiration  and  material  for  poetry;  in  none 
does  literature  and  the  history  of  literature  give  so 
much.  Greek  tragedy,  the  Latin  decadence,  Medi- 
eval romance  and  lyric,  Renaissance  and  especially 
Elizabethan  drama,  French  Romanticism — he  satu- 
rated himself  in  all  periods  and  practiced  a  multi- 
tude of  forms.  His  heroes  were  literary  heroes — 
Marlowe,  Shelley,  Landor,  Victor  Hugo,  Mall- 
arme,  Baudelaire.  Of  these  literary  interests  and 
idolatries  the  present  volumes  are  a  record.  One 
pursuit  in  which  Swinburne  succeeded  the  romantic 
critics  of  the  preceding  generation  was  the  recovery 
and  attribution  of  Elizabethan  poems  and  plays, 
and  with  this  subject  more  than  half  his  letters  are 
concerned.  The  letters  which  come  closest  to  hav- 
ing personal  value  are  those  which  bear  evidence 
of  the  gusto  with  which  he  wrote,  and  read,  and  re- 
called poetry.  "  I  have  added  yet  four  more  jets 
of  boiling  and  gushing  infamy  to  the  perennial  and 
poisonous  fountain  of  Dolores.  O  mon  ami!" 


igig 


THE  DIAL 


613 


<f  Inner  history  of  the  war  made  public.  England 
in  uproar  over  sensational  disclosures  in  Viscount 
French's  book." — Press  Dispatch. 


"1914"  The  Memoirs  of 


FIELD  MARSHAL  VISCOUNT  FRENCH 


Introduction  by  Marechal  Foch 

The  complete,  uncensored  and  authoritative  account  by  Viscount 
French  of  the  operations  of  the  British  armies  under  his  command  during 
1914  including  the  dispatch  of  the  British  armies  to  France,  the  re- 
treat from  Mons,  the  battles  of  the  Marne  and  Aisne,  the  siege  and  fall  of 
Antwerp,  and  the  first  Battle  of  Ypres. 

Ever  since  the  signing  of  the  Armistice  the  world  has  been  waiting 
for  the  real  facts  of  the  war,  so  long  hidden  by  the  censor's  pencil,  and 
particularly  for  the  authentic  memoirs  of  the  Allied  leaders,  from  which 
the  final  history  of  the  conflict  will  be  written.  As  the  first  of  these  memoirs 
by  a  commanding  general  of  the  present  Allies,  "1914"  promises  to  take 
its  place  as  the  most  important  war  book  of  the  year.  Frontispiece  and 
maps.  $6.00  net. 


THE  BOUNDER 

By  ARTHUR  HODGES 

"It  is  a  good  deal  to  say  that  American  literature 
is  being  enriched  by  work  that  almost  indisputably 
spells  genius,  and  yet  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say 
that  readers  of  Thackeray  or  Dickens  must  have 
felt  much  the  same  when  first  they  read  'Vanity 
Fair'  or  'Dombey  and  Son'  as  the  reader  now  feels 
who  peruses  'The  Bounder.'  " — Philadelphia  Press, 
$1.60  net. 


ROUSSEAU  and  ROMANTICISM 

By  IRVING  BABBITT 

Rousseau's  world-wide  influence — far  greater  than 
that  of  the  ordinary  man  of  letters,  and  comparable 
in  some  respects  to  that  of  the  founders  of  religions 
— is  of  late  years  receiving  increasing  recognition. 
Professor  Babbitt  takes  him  as  the  chief  figure  in 
tracing  a  great  international  movement  from  the 
sentimentalists  of  the  18th  century  to  the  present 
day.  $3.50  net. 


CONVENTION  AND  REVOLT  IN  POETRY 

By  JOHN  LIVINGSTON  LOWES 

"It  is  the  first  balanced  and  sane  study  of  poetic  technique  that  we  have  had  since  the  radicals  began  re  - 
arranging  the  frontiers  between  poetry  and  prose." — Chicago  Evening  Post.  "Not  often  in  the  whole  range 
of  modern  criticism  does  one  come  across  a  volume  as  valuable  from  the  student's  viewpoint,  as  marked  with 
erudition  and  excellent  judgment,  and  withal  as  delightfully  readable." — Baltimore  News.  $1.75  net. 

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614 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


It  is  more  like  the  landscape  in  Browning's  Childe 
Roland  [he  writes  to  Lady  Trevelyarn  from  Mentone] 
than  anything  I  ever  heard  tell  on.  A  calcined,  scalped, 
rasped,  scraped,  flayed,  broiled,  powdered,  leprous, 
blotched,  mangy,  grimy,  parboiled  country  without  trees, 
water,  grass,  fields — with  blank,  beastly,  senseless  olives 
and  orange-trees  like  a  mad  cabbage  gone  indigestible;  it  is 
infinitely  more  like  hell  than  earth  and  one  looks  for  tails 
among  the  people.  And  such  females  with  hunched  bodies 
and  crooked  necks  carrying  tons  on  their  heads,  and  look- 
ing like  Death  taken  seasick.  Ar-r-r-r-r!  Gr-r-r-r-rn! 

Now  and  then  a  bit  of  criticism,  literary  or 
political,  is  delivered  with  the  trenchancy  which 
we  expect  from  the  author  of  the  sonnets  On  looking 
into  Carlyle's  Reminiscences  and  The  White  Czar. 
"  You  are  thoroughly  right  about  the  waste  of  tos- 
sing such  things  to  the  feeders  on  such  rotten 
acorns  and  mouldy  rye  as  Epics  of  Hades  and  the 
like.  Who  the  deity  is  the  author — Louis  or 
Lyewis  Morris,  Tennyson's  under-butler  ?"  In 
general,  however,  Swinburne's  Letters  prove  that 
poetry  was  a  form  of  expression  more  natural  to  him 
than  prose.  ^ 

THE  CONSCIENTIOUS  OBJECTOR.  By  Major 
Walter  Guest  Kellogg.  141  pages.  Boni  and 
Liveright. 

Major  Kellogg  represented  the  army  on  the  com- 
mission of  which  Judge  Mack  and  Dean  Stone  were 
members.  He  has  a  military  mind;  the  confusion, 
repetition,  and  mistaken  emphasis  of  his  book  show 
that.  He  is  haunted  by  what  he  cannot  under- 
stand and  he  returns  to  it  again  and  again.  One 
of  these  things  is  conscience.  The  cases  of  men  like 
Mennonites  and  Molokans,  who  are  constrained  by 
the  external  law  of  a  sect  to  avoid  bearing  arms  or 
wearing  buttons,  he  can  understand  or  at  least 
classify.  The  absolutist  and  the  political  objector 
are  beyond  him.  As  for  emphasis,  Major  Kellogg 
is  much  impressed  by  his  own  wisdom  and  good 
will  in  permitting  objectors  to  appear  before  his 
court  without  standing  at  attention  and  saluting. 
He  has  great  sympathy  with  officers  assigned  to  the 
charge  of  conscientious  objectors  and  thus  deprived 
of  the  opportunity  for  active  service  in  France: 
"  It  is  not  surprising  that  in  a  certain  few  cases 
the  patience  of  the  officer  was  so  exhausted  by  the 
maliciously  annoying  attitude  of  various  objectors 
in  his  charge  that  he  lost  his  temper  and  maltreated 
them."  He  adds  that  "  the  Secretary  of  War,  in 
one  or  two  instances,  ordered  investigations  and 
took  disciplinary  action  against  those  responsible." 
He  does  not  say  that  the  disciplinary  action  resulted 
in  the  honorable  dismissal  of  the  officers.  Major 
Kellogg  never  visited  a  disciplinary  barracks,  but  is 
under  the  impression  from  hearsay  that  the  ob- 
jectors were  fairly  treated.  He  must  have  known 
of  the  way  in  which  the  Hofer  brothers  were 
tortured  to  death  in  the  Federal  Disciplinary 
Barracks  at  Alcatraz  Island,  but  he  does  not  men- 


tion it.  On  the  whole,  if  we  needed  evidence  of  the 
ineptitude  of  the  War  Department  in  dealing  with 
conscientious  objectors,  and  of  its  ostrich-like  belief 
in  the  virtue  of  concealment,  we  should  find  it  in 
Major  Kellogg's  uncomprehending  observations, 
and  in  Secretary  Baker's  perfunctory  introduction. 

MILITARY  SERVITUDE  AND  GRANDEUR.  By 
Alfred  de  Vigny.  Translated  by  Frances  Wil- 
son Huard.  320  pages.  Doran. 

In  the  South  of  France,  cresting  a  great  rock 
half  circled  by  the  Rhone,  stands  a  monument  to 
two  religions.  To  this  Palace  of  Avignon  the 
French  kings  brought  the  Popes  of  Rome  for  the 
period  of  their  Babylonish  Captivity.  To  the  out- 
side world  the  Palace  presented  huge  defenses  com- 
parable in  strength  to  the  cliff  itself,  while  the  deep 
walls  of  the  courtyard  were  pierced  with  Gothic 
windows  giving  upon  chapels  with  high  groined 
ceilings,  and  great  rooms  rich  with  the  colors  of 
Renaissance  art.  .  .  The  Popes  passed,  and 
finally  the  kings.  Enemies  of  the  new  Republic 
crowded  the  frontiers;  France  became  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  an  armed  camp,  and  to  the  Palace  of 
the  Popes  came  "  military  servitude  and  grandeur." 
Gothic  windows  were  bricked  up ;  beams  to  support 
new  barracks  floors  were  driven  into  chapel  walls, 
one  tier  above  another;  pictured  saints  were  alto- 
gether blotted  out  beneath  alternate  layers  of  smoke 
and  whitewash.  France  had  found  a  new  religion. 

To  "  the  wholly  active  life  of  the  soldier "  of 
that  day  Alfred  de  Vigny  brought  "  an  entirely  con- 
templative nature."  As  a  child  he  "  saw  in  the 
Nobility  one  great  family  of  hereditary  soldiers  " 
and  "  thought  only  of  growing  to  a  soldier's  size." 
Through  his  father  he  knew  intimately  Louis  XIV 
and  Frederic  the  Great.  Toward  the  end  of  the 
Empire  he  was  "  a  heedless  school  boy  .  .  . 
ceaselessly  dizzied  by  the  guns  and  the  bells  of  the 
Te  Deum."  "  Then  more  than  ever,"  he  says,  "  a 
truly  ungovernable  love  for  the  glory  of  arms  took 
hold  of  me;  a  passion  all  the  more  unfortunate  be- 
cause it  was  the  exact  time  when  .  .  .  France 
began  to  be  cured  of  it."  Each  year  of  the  Restora- 
tion opened  with  the  hope  of  a  new  war  and  closed 
in  peace,  leaving  De  Vigny  long  inactive  "  between 
the  echoes  and  the  dreams  of  battles,"  learning  from 
the  dead  routine  of  garrison  life  and  the  stories  of 
old  soldiers  "  what  there  is  that  endears  in  the 
savage  life  of  arms." 

The  modern  Army  is  blind  and  dumb  [he  says]  .  .  . 
It  wills  nothing  and  its  action  is  started  with  a  spring. 
It  is  a  big  thing  that  others  control  and  that  kills.  But 
it  is  a  thing  that  suffers,  too!  .  .  .  Looking  from  nearby  at 
the  life  of  ...  armed  troops,  it  will  be  truly  seen  that 
the  soldier's  existence  is  the  saddest  relic  of  barbarism 
subsisting  among  mankind.  I  have  said  so  and  I  believe 
it  is,  next  to  capital  punishment!  But  it  will  be  seen 
also  that  nothing  is  more  worthy  of  the  interest  and  the 
love  of  the  Nation  than  this  sacrificial  family  which 
sometimes  gives  the  Nation  such  wondrous  glory. 


1919  THE  DIAL  615 


EXCEPTIONALLY  IMPORTANT  AND  TIMELY  NEW  BOOKS 

NEW  SCHOOLS  FOR  OLD 

The  Regeneration  of  the  Porter  School 
By  EVELYN  DEWEY 

The  tendency  of  the  age  is  toward  a  fuller  sense  of  community  of  interest  and  effort,  and 
nowhere  is  there  greater  need  or  promise  than  in  the  field  of  its  application  to  education. 
Miss  Dewey's  book  describes  the  actual  experience  of  a  school  in  a  small  and  isolated  district, 
which,  through  the  wisely-directed  energy  of  its  teacher,  became  the  center  and  mainspring 
of  community  endeavor,  a  social  outlet  for  young  and  old.  Mrs.  Harvey,  the  teacher  of  Porter 
School,  thoroughly  realized  that  only  by  the  co-operation  of  the  township  could  anything 
like  permanence  for  her  work  be  secured.  From  the  first  she  has  never  worked  for  the  peo- 
ple of  Porter,  she  has  done  things  with  them.  Beginning  with  the  school,  she  used  the  ma- 
terial developing  from  its  problems  to  build  ideals  and  practical  knowledge  such  as  make 
for  success  in  any  locality,  and  their  value  has  been  so  evident  that  when  she  leaves  Porter 
her  work  will  not  die. 

This  account  of  the  re-creation  of  a  community  through  its  school  is,  in  fact,  a  most  inspiring 
revelation  of  the  great  and  progressive  possibilities  lying  close  at  hand  for  those  who  seek 
a  check  for  the  increasing  disintegration  of  American  country  life. 

Fully  illtcstrated.    Cloth.     I2ma.,  net,  $2.00 
Schools  of  To-morrow  By  JOHN  DEWEY  and  EVELYN  DEWEY 

A  general  surrey  of  the  best  work  that  la  being  carried  on  to-day  In  America  as  educational  experiments.         Net,  $1.60 

New  York  Times:  Undoubtedly  the  most  significant  educational  record  of  the  day. 

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Ban  Francisco  Chronicle:  Not  a  cut-and-drled  handbook  of  educational  theory    ...    a  helpful.  Inspiring  book. 

Creative  Impulse  in  Industry  By  HELEN  MAROT 

A  Proposition  for  Educators.  Professor  JOHN  DEWEY  In  an  extended  review  In  The  New  Republic  describes  this 
as  "  the  most  sincere  and  courageous  attempt  yet  made  to  face  the  problem  of 'an  education  adapted  to  a  modern  society 
which  must  be  Industrial  and  would  like  to  be  democratic."  Net,  $1.50 


Labor  and  Reconstruction  in  Europe  By  ELISHA  M.  FRIEDMAN,  Editor  of 

"American  Problems  of  Reconstruction" 

Mr.  Friedman  in  this  book  describes  Impartially  the  means  undertaken  or  proposed  In  sixteen  countries,  belligerent 
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The  Freedom  of  the  Seas  By  LOUISE  FARGO  BROWN 

No  better  introduction  to  a  much-discussed  problem  could  be  desired.  For  those  merely  desiring  to  be  well  Informed 
on  a  constantly  recurring  subject  it  is  sufficient;  while  by  its  invaluable  bibliographical  notes  it  leads  easily  to  a  more 
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A  Society  of  States  By  W.  T.  S.  STALLYBRASS.  M.A.  (Oxon.) 

MR.  STALJ..YBRASS  shows  that  two  possible  methods  for  regulating  International  relations  have  demonstrated  their 
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The  State  and  the  Nation  By  EDWARD  JENKS,  M.A..  B.C.L..  Author  of  "Law 

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Russia's  Agony  By  ROBERT  WILTON,  Correspondent  of  the  London  Times  in  Russia 

There  is  probably  no  term  of  equally  recent  origin  so  often  in  print  as  Bolshevik  and  its  derivatives.  Readers  of  the 
London  Times  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  Mr.  Wilton's  knowledge  of  Russia  is  equalled  by  that  of  very  few  persons. 
"  No  such  comprehensive  and  straightforward  account  has  yet  been  given,"  says  the  New  York  Times,  "  of  the  condi- 
tions In  Russia  which  led  to  the  outbreak  of  the  revolution  and  the  emergence  of  Bolshevism."  No  definition  of  that 
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6i6 


THE  DIAL 


June  14 


Among  all  the  clamorous  voices  offering  inter- 
pretations of  the  Great  War,  De  Vigny  speaks  for 
France.  From  Germany  comes  the  war  of  macht 
and  schrecklichkeit,  from  England  the  sportsman's 
war,  from  Russia  the  war  of  blind  sacrifice,  and 
from  America  the  war  of  plodding  industry.  But 
France  has,given  and  still  gives  to  war  a  martyr's 
sacrifice  and  a  martyr's  exaltation — a  spirit  echoing 
in  the  shout  of  Paris  headlines  on  the  day  of  victory: 
"  Le  jour  de  gloire  est  arrive!" 

FIELDS   OF  THE   FATHERLESS.     By  Jean   Roy. 
307  pages.     Doran. 

TUMBLEFOLD.  By  Joseph  Whittaker.  284 
pages.  Button. 

The  color-note  of  Fields  of  the  Fatherless  is  a 
lifeless  gray.  Accompanied  by  a  monotony  of  short 
sentences  and  insignificant  details,  the  author  tells 
of  her  dreary  existence  as  an  illegitimate  child,  bar- 
maid, factory  hand,  and  domestic  servant  in  Scot- 
land— the  tragedy  of  the  soul  yearning  for  wider 
horizons  than  those  that  imprison  it.  The  book  is 
not,  however,  exciting  enough  to  interest,  passionate 
enough  to  move,  or  introspective  enough  to. consti- 
tute a  human  document.  Tumblefold,  sketches  of 
boy  life  in  English  slums,  also  falls  short.  Joseph 
Whittaker  has  acquired  sufficient  journalistic  skill  to 
etch  with  startling  distinctness  the  hideous  life  of 
poverty-stricken  children,  but  he  hopelessly  blurs  his 
sharp  outlines  with  an  incongruous  sentimentality 
and  a  conventional  fictioneering.  As  it  is,  he  achieves 
several  excellent  stories  for  juvenile  consumption 
and  one,  The  Woman  Who  Lagged  Behind,  of 
genuine  merit  for  adults.  The  strange  thing  about 
both  books  is  the  complete  absence  of  revolutionary 
protest  in  them.  Their  authors  apparently  console 
themselves  with  thoughts  of  a  beneficent  God  and 
the  scanty  joys  of  the  poor;  they  seem  to  have  abso- 
lutely no  touch  with  present-day  social  movements. 

AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  GOVERNMENT  OF 
MODERN  STATES.  By  W.  F.  Willoughby. 
455  pages.  Century. 

Many  students  of  political  science  have  been 
turned  from  a  thorough  inquiry  into  this  important 
department  of  education  by  the  intricacies  of  sup- 
posedly elementary  textbooks.  To  meet  the  lack  of 
adequate  yet  simple  introductory  books,  Professor 
W.  F.  Willoughby  has  written  a  clear  exposition 
of  the  government  of  modern  states.  In  method,  the 
author  has  departed  from  the  usual  custom  of  weav- 
ing a  description  of  political  principles  with  pages 
of  explanatory  matter,  citations  of  cases,  and  other 
details  which  the  student  of  "  Gov.  i,"  looks  upon 
with  awe  and  resignation.  He  has  limited  himself 
to  a  study  of  principles,  and  has  pointed  out  with 
admirable  clarity  the  many  nice  distinctions  in  gov- 
ernment political  organization  which  account  .for 


the  many  differences  in  procedure  obtaining  in  vari- 
ous states.  Besides  elucidating  principles  by  show- 
ing their  applications  to  typical  states,  he  has  em- 
phasized the  fitness  of  particular  political  organiza- 
tions to  the  temper  and  the  development  of  differ- 
ent peoples. 

The  shortcomings  of  our  own  political  organiza- 
tion enforce  recognition  when  we  are  brought  face 
to  face  with  the  administrative  and  legislative  dif- 
ficulties which  confront  us  in  any  attempt  to  accede 
to  a  demand  for  more  democratic  control  of  govern- 
ment. The  inflexibility  of  the  Constitution,  the 
possibility  of  an  amendment's  being  passed  which 
may  not  reflect  the  wishes  of  the  electorate,  the  over- 
lapping of  the  administrative  functioning  organs  of 
government,  the  duplication  of  organization  because 
of  our  multiple  system,  and  our  unscientific  method 
of  budget-making  are  but  a  few  of  the  questions 
which  Professor  Willoughby  presents.  In  addition, 
an  excellent  index  refers  to  every  detail  of  political 
organization  discussed  in  the  text.  In  short,  The 
Government  of  Modern  States  is  both  an  enticing 
introduction  to  the  study  of  political  science,  and 
a  quick  reference  work  for  those  whose  understand- 
ing of  political  principles  has  become  a  little  hazy. 

THE  PRESENT  CONFLICT  OF  IDEALS.  By 
Ralph  Barton  Perry.  549  pages.  Longmans, 
Green. 

Aviation  is  the  image  which  Professor  Perry's 
swift-winged  survey  of  the  world  of  modern  thought 
naturally  suggests.  He  moves  with  insouciant  ease 
through  the  pure  ethers  of  reflection  and  charts  the 
orbis  terrarum  animae  with  the  nice  precision  of  a 
metaphysical  expert.  The  result  is — well,  a  some- 
what impressionistic  photography.  The  latitudes  of 
competing  philosophies  and  the  longitudes  of  con- 
tending national  ideals  are  all  duly  observed  and 
noted,  but  in  the  final  representation  laboriously 
hewn  .paths  are  apt  to  appear  as  erratic  streaks: 
storied  edifices  sit  squat  upon  the  ground,  while 
the  serrated  fortifications  blur  and  lose  their  teeth. 
But  for  all  this,  the  chart  is  a  good  guide,  and  a 
timely.  We  have  come  to  an  hour  of  appraisal  in 
things  of  the  mind  no  less  than  in  affairs  of  the 
forum  and  the  mart  and  it  is  good  to  have  before 
us  a  book  which  can  give  a  broad  report  of  the 
mind's  labors  in  the  decades  which  have  so  lately 
been  sealed  into  the  dead  past.  To  be  sure,  in  this 
hour,  a  man  is  like  to  have  the  feeling  that  he  is 
walking  in  a  land  of  ghosts — ghosts  that  ought  to  be 
decently  laid  by  now — when  he  finds  himself  once 
more  quarreling  with  Absolutist  quiddities  or 
gasping  amid  Realistic  rarefactions:  but,  in  fair- 
ness to  Perry,  he  has  given  as  little  of  this  as  need 
be,  and  has  centered  his  effort  upon  the  humaner 
and  more  living  elements  in  the  philosophies  of  the 
generation.  As  he  truly  says,  we  are  on  the  verge 
of  a  new  age  in  which  not  merely  the  map  of  Europe 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


617 


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6i8 


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but  the  map  of  the  human  mind  will  be  changed; 
and  it  is  a  wholly  sensible  effort  at  construction  to 
prepare  for  this  certain  change  into  the  new  by  a 
square  and  comprehensive  regard  of  the  old.  For 
making  this  possible  in  a  readable,  suggestive,  and 
quite  manfully  up-to-date  volume,  Professor  Perry 
deserves  all  good  will,  and  his  book  bon  voyage. 

But  one  really  must  say  a  word  more.  Professor 
Perry  takes  us  up  into  a  high  place  and  shows  us 
all  the  philosophical  dominions  spread  out  below — 
including  his  own.  That  is  the  odd  thing  about  it: 
he  has  apparently  learned  to  fly,  but  has  not  suc- 
ceeded in  detaching  himself;  and  when  we  examine 
our  vehicle  a  little  closer  we  discover  that  we  are 
borne  aloft,  not  in  an  aeroplane,  but  in  a  kite  se- 
curely tethered  to  the  New  Realism.  What  this 
may  mean,  in  full  effect,  must  be  left  to  the  read- 
er's discovery.  It  is  not  merely  that  there  is,  on  the 
author's  part,  a  bias  in  favor  of  his  own  convictions: 
that  surely  is  a  virtue,  if  convictions  mean  anything. 
But  it  is  the  nature  of  these  convictions  that  some- 
how forbids  genuine  flight.  Neo-Realism  calls  it- 
self rationalism,  intellectualism,  and  prides  itself 
upon  being  passionless  and  devoid  of  intuition.  By 
that  very  count  it  is  void  of  the  power  to  move 
men,  void  of  life,  empty  of  help.  Perry  skims  the 
surface  of  modern  thought;  his  own  school  is  but 
an  eddy  in  the  moil;  there  is  no  depth,  no  current, 
no  drive.  Doubtless,  philosophy  is  so  accepted  and 
so  intended  by  the  New  Realists;  but  the  result  is 
that  this  display  of  the  varieties  of  thought  leads 
but  to  a  general  impression  of  the  footlessness  and 
haplessness  of  all  intellectual  labor,  to  a  kind  of 
suicide  of  the  Realistic  premise.  And  it  gives,  too, 
to  the  expositor,  not  even  the  power  which  should 
be  legitimately  his,  as  guide  and  prophet.  He  moves 
familiarly  and  discursively  through  the  field  of  con- 
temporary thought,  but  for  all  his  cultivation  he 
makes  no  plant  grow  therein;  indeed  one  might 
add  that  he  is  singularly  adept  in  destroying  the 
dynamogeny  of  the  authors  he  treats  whose  philo- 
sophical convictions  are  rather  more  living  than 
those  of  the  Realists.  Self-conscious  intellectualism, 
dissected  out  of  organic  life,  always  has  been  (and 
how  can  it  ever  be  anything  else?)  a  condition  of 
moral  paralysis.  It  is  no  fault  of  Professor  Perry's 
agreeable  exposition  that  his  book  leaves  the  reader 
unperturbed,  uninspired;  rather  it  is  the  miasma  of 
his  philosophy,  which,  like  a  dead  thing,  draws  him 
back  into  the  company  of  the  ghosts. 

CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS.  By  Charles  S.  Brooks. 
184  pages.     Yale  Univ.  Press.     New  Haven. 

Mr.  Brooks  dons  his  carpet  slippers  with  an  un- 
disguised relish  that  is  disarming,  and  carries  the 
reader  over  discoursive  pages  with  such  a  fund  of 
good  humor  that  the  first  impulse,  which  is  to  brdnd 
him  old-fashioned,  yields  place  to  the  enjoyment 
which  comes  with  recognition  of  the  companion- 
able quality  in  his  essays.  Chimney-Pot  Papers 
might  be  termed  essays  in  relaxation,  written  quietly 


and  gracefully.  The  very  titles  give  a  cue  to  the 
mood,  for  Mr.  Brooks  can  wax  pleasantly  digres- 
sive over  such  topics  as  On  Going  Afoot,  On  Turn- 
ing into  Forty,  and  On  Going  to  a  Party.  The 
author  splinters  no  lance  in  defense  of  these  familiar 
excursions,  nor  does  he  apologize  for  his  obvious 
likfng  for  those  things  which  the  majority  have  over- 
looked in  their  mad  haste  to  be  modern.  After  all, 
no  one  is  so  modern  that  he  will  not  someday  "  turn 
into  forty  " — unless  the  violence  of  his  haste  shat- 
ters his  span — so  why  not  write  about  it,  especially 
if  it  can  be  done  with  grace  and  good  humor?  But 
when  it  comes  to  discoursing  upon  the  difference 
between  wit  and  humor,  as  Mr.  Brooks  has  the 
temerity  to  do,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  essayist 
has  pilfered  his  point  of  view  from  a  forgotten 
freshman  theme. 

IN  THE  ALASKAN  WILDERNESS.  By  George 
Byron  Gordon.  247  pages.  Winston;  Phila- 
delphia. 

Narrative  charm  in  a  book  of  exploration  is  a 
quality  which  appeals  to  the  average  reader  when 
geographical  exactitude  and  recondite  scientific  de- 
ductions are  lost  on  him.  This  book  has  much  of 
the  former  to  commend  it,  though  the  author's 
observations  indicate  that  he  is  capable  of  profundity. 
Dr.  Gordon  and  his  brother  crossed  nearly  the  entire 
width  of  Alaska  in  a  canoe.  Their  craft  was 
launched  at  Fairbanks  on  the  Tanana  River,  a 
point  which  they  evidently  reached  by  steamers  from 
White  Horse  by  way  of  the  Yukon  and  the  Tanana. 
They  floated  down  this  stream  a  distance  of  some 
two  hundred  miles  to  where  it  is  joined  by  the  Kan- 
tishna  River,  and  thence  poled  against  the  current 
another  hundred  miles  or  more  to  Lake  Minchu- 
mina,  in  which  the  Kantishna  has  its  beginning.  A 
ten-mile  portage  brought  them  to  the  Kuskokwim, 
and  it  was  on  this  river  that  they  traveled  to  the 
sea.  So  far  as  geographical  information  is  concerned,, 
the  book  gains  little  importance  from  the  fact  that 
no  white  men  had  ever  followed  this  route  before^ 
it  gains  much,  however,  from  the  author's  unortho- 
dox point  of  view.  His  sense  of  humor  is  unfailing. 
He  looks  upon  adventure  as  mainly  a  spiritual 
matter,  and  what  is  to  the  orthodox  explorer  merely 
a  means  to  an  end  becomes  to  him  a  noteworthy 
incident.  The  book  is  interesting  for  its  minutiae 
quite  as  much  as  for  its  travel  data.  Thus  a  hungry 
lost  dog  that,  failing  to  hear  the  call  of  the  wild, 
joined  their  party,  is  the  basis  of  several  good  pages. 
Further  parentheses  are  reasons  for  retaining  the 
Indian  name  "  Denali  "  for  what  is  called  Mount 
McKmley  on  the  maps,  and  some  excellent  re- 
marks concerning  the  inaptitude  of  missionaries 
in  discouraging  tribal  ceremonies  and  dances 
among  the  Kuskwogamiut  Indians.  An  anthro- 
pologist of  some  note,  Dr.  Gordon's  chief  concern 
on  this  .trip  was  the  study  of  the  Indians,  and 
he  gives  some  enlightening  views  of  their  arts,  cus- 
toms, and  languages. 


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Books  of  the  Fortnight 

Democratic  Ideals  and  Reality,  by  H.  J.  Mackinder  (266 
pages;  Holt),  throws  the  problems  of  international  re- 
construction against  their  ultimate  geographic  back- 
ground. The  author  dogmatizes  too  confidently  about 
the  political  elements  considered,  and  the  book  is 
stronger  in  its  perception  of  realities  than  in  its  ap- 
praisal of  ideals.  But  Mr.  Mackinder  is  a  vivid  ex- 
ponent of  the  new  regional  geography  and  his  con- 
ception of  the  World  Island,  the  Heartland,  and  the 
role  of  seamen,  horsemen,  and  plowmen  in  the  devel- 
opment of  civilization  amply  makes  up  for  his  defects 
in  political  comprehension. 

International  War, by  Oscar  T.  Crosby  (378  pages;  Mac- 
millan),  discusses  the  causes  of  war  and  the  means 
for  curing  them.  Written  before  the  entrance  of  the 
United  States,  it  was  withheld  from  publication  until 
the  principles  advocated  had  crept  even  into  the  coun- 
cils of  statesmen. 

Towards  New  Horizons,  by  M.  P.  Willcocks  (213  pages; 
Lane),  is  an  English  woman's  attempt  to  evaluate 
the  contributions  of  the  war  to  a  new  order  in  reli- 
gion, science,  literature,  labor,  and  politics — a  plea  for 
a  fresh  beginning,  with  an  entirely  different  objective. 

Reconstruction  and  National  Life,  by  Cecil  Fairfield  La- 
veil  (193  pages;  Macmillan),  purposes  to  suggest  an 
historical  approach  to  the  problem  of  reconstruction 
in  Europe,  viewed  as  a  matter  of  national  adjustment. 
As  an  interpretation  it  is  superficial;  as  a  history,  in- 
complete. 

American  Business  in  World  Markets,  by  James  T.  M. 
Moore  (320  pages;  Doran),  exploits  the  plausible 
commercial  possibilities  of  what  the  author  believes  is 
going  to  be  a  Business  Man's  Era.  There  is  nothing 
in  his  postulates  to  show  that  he  has  been  alive 
during  the  last  generation. 

Efficient  Railway  Operation,  by  Henry  S.  Haines  (709 
pages;  Macmillan),  is  a  technical  treatise  covering  a 
field  familiar  to  the  author  as  administrator,  opera- 
tive head,  and  ^engineer.  There  is  a  short  introduc- 
tion on  the  evolution  of  the  railway. 

Punishment  and  Reformation,  by  Frederick  Howard 
Wines  (481  pages;  Crowell),  appears  now  in  a  third 
edition,  with  additions  and  revisions  by  Winthrop  D. 
Lane,  of  the  Survey  staff.  By  incorporating  the  latest 
contributions  to  criminal  anthropology,  to  the  study 
of  the  individual  delinquent,  and  to  the  rehabilita- 
tion of  the  criminal  through  occupational  and  politi- 
cal therapy,  Mr.  Lane  has  given  the  freshness  of 
youth  to  a  classic  that  was  far  from  senility.  Punish- 
ment and  Reformation  is  a  book  for  the  citizen,  as 
well  as  for  the  social  worker  and  the  official,  and  to 
the  extent  that  it  succeeds  in  tempering  the  judgment 
of  the  whole  community  it  is  above  all  things  a  book 
for  the  criminal. 

A  New  Municipal  Program,  edited  by  Clinton  Rogers 
Woodruff  (392  pages;  Appleton),  brings  together  com- 
pactly the  experience  gained  in  municipal  administra- 
tion since  the  organization  of  the  National  Municipal 
League  in  1894.  It  is  the  work  of  a  committee  em- 
bracing such  capable  students  and  administrators  as 
Drs.  Lowell,  James,  and  Fairlie,  and  Messrs.  Childs, 
Wilcox,  and  Woodruff. 

Democracy,  by  Shaw  Desmond  (332  pages;  Scribner),  is 
a  pocket  flashlight  illuminating  a  political  scene  which 
the  genius  of  Gissing,  Bennett,  Wells,  and  Cannan  has 
already  made  as  bright  as  day. 


Bureau  of  American  Ethnology,  Annual  Report,  1910-11 
(819  pages;  Government  Printing  Office),  is  dated 
1918.  It  is  a  rich  storehouse  of  Seneca  fiction,  legends, 
and  myths.  The  chief  fault  of  this  wide  margined, 
bulky  volume  is  that  of  so  many  other  government 
publications — it  was  never  meant  to  be  read. 

The  Last  Million,  by  "Ian  Hay"  (Major  Ian  Hay  Beith; 
203  pages;  Houghton  Mifflin),  is  no  King  Canute's 
chronicle,  attempting  to  sweep  back  the  tide.  Major 
Beith  takes  the  war  for  granted  and  writes  of  accom- 
modation rather  than  of  rebellion;  he  sits  down  inside 
a  finished  universe  to  chat  familiarly  of  what  hap- 
pens when  the  object  of  construction  is  destruction 
and  death  is  the  day's  business.  The  new  volume  no 
more  lives  up  to  The  First  Hundred  Thousand  than 
the  peace  has  lived  up  to  the  war. 

The  War  Romance  of  the  Salvation  Army,  by  Evange- 
line  Booth  and  Grace  Livingston  Hill  (356  pages; 
Lippincott;  Philadelphia),  shows  alarming  symptoms 
of  that  attudinizing  from  which  the  war  activities  of 
the  Salvation  Army  were  notably  free.  The  sequence 
of  prosperity  and  decay  is  familiar  in  the  history  of 
earlier  mendicant  orders;  does  it  threaten  to  repeat 
itself? 

Anatole  France,  by  Lewis  Piaget  Shanks  (241  pages; 
Open  Court;  Chicago),  is  a  biographical  record  of  its 
subject  with  some  critical  comment.  It  is  a  question 
whether  an  Anglo-Saxon  can  penetrate  the  secret  of 
Anatole  France,  but  Professor  Shanks  has  illuminated 
his  subject  conscientiously. 

Reading  the  Bible,  by  William  Lyon  Phelps  (131  pages; 
Macmillan),  exhibits  the  author  in  the  act  of  carrying 
a  very  light  burden  of  coals  to  Newcastle.  If  the 
theological  students  who  first  heard  these  collected  lec- 
tures were  not  already  convinced  that  the  Bible  is  good 
reading,  there  was  little  here  to  win  them  to  new 
tastes. 

Luna  Benamor,  by  Blasco  Ibanez,  translated  by  Isaac 
Goldberg  (209  pages;  Luce;  Boston),  is  a  collection 
of  short  stories  of  which  the  most  pretentious  gives 
title  to  the  volume.  This  is  a  Jewish-Spanish  love 
story,  heavy  with  local  color.  The  short  tales  which 
complete  the  volume  are  in  the  staccato  manner  of 
Maupassant,  mere  local  situations  without  the  sugges- 
tion of  wider  application  that  makes  Maupassant  a 
fabulist. 

The  Home  and  the  World,  by  Sir  Rabindranath  Tagore, 
translated  by  Surendranath  Tagore  (298  pages;  Mac- 
millan), is  the  first  novel  by  the  distinguished  poet  of 
modern  India.  It  is  a  story  of  Hindu  family  life 
affected  by  the  storm  of  revolution  in  the  world  out- 
side. The  narrative  consists  of  successive  confessions 
by  the  three  characters :  Nikhil,  the  moderate  husband ; 
Bimala,  the^  enthusiastic  wife;  and  Sandip,  the  inter- 
loper, who  introduces  into  the  home  the  mingled  ele- 
ments of  patriotism  and  passion.  The  unpretending 
realism  of  the  book  and  its  philosophy  are  of  the  East 
and  true;  the  weakly  managed  complication  and 
imported  conclusion  are  of  the  West,  and  imitated. 

The  Valley  of  the  Squinting  Windows,  by  Brinsley  Mac- 
Namara  (296  pages;  Brentano),  is  an  epic  of  mean- 
ness. The  author  attempts  to  do  for  the  Irish  novel 
what  Synge  did  for  the  Irish  drama,  and  the  result 
is  an  interesting  piece  of  pessimistic  realism,  some- 
what Hardyesque  in  effect  The  malignant  spirit  of 
the  valley,  nurturing  carefully  the  memory  of  the 
heroine's  early  sin,  wreaks  destruction  of  soul  upon 
all  those  involved,  and  finally  blots  out  her  hard- 
bought  dream  of  proud  atonement. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


62 1 


NUMBERS 

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human  and  moving. 

II.  Between  Fires,  a  folk-drama  of  southern  Italy, 
portraying  the  fierce  passions  of  a  primitive  people. 

III.  The  Crack  in  the  Bell,  a  play  of  mood  and  at- 
mosphere, the  locale  of  which  is  Independence  Square. 

IV.  There's  a  Difference  is  a  comedy.  In  which  the 
author  has  shown  unusual  ability. 

V.  Like  a  Book,   another  comedy,   containing  keen 
characterizations   of   artistic   and  literary   folk. 

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A  delightfully  human  book  on  the  Omar  Khayyamfof  the  Bible 

with  an  exact  translation  of  the  original  text.    How  It  came  to  be 

written  and  who  wrote  It  (and  It  was  not  Solomon) ,  why  additions 

were  made  to  the  original  text  and  the  whole  Interesting  story  is 

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BLIND  ALLEY 

"  '  Blind  Alley  '  Is  an  extraordinary  novel. 
But  It's  more  than  that.  It  Is  a  cry 
in  the  night." — Chicago  Dally  News. 

431  pages.     $1.75  net. 
LITTLE,    BROWN    &    COMPANY,    Publishers,    Boston 


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THE  DIAL 


June  14 


Current  News 

Arnold  Bennett  says  somewhere  that  he  wants  to 
meet  "  the  man  who  will  not  willingly  let  die  the 
author  who  is, not  yet  dead."  Up  to  date  very  few 
war  books  have  been  successful  enough  to  warrant 
keeping  their  live  authors  alive  just  on  their  ac- 
count. For  the  most  part,  books  about  the  war  are 
really  more  disappointing  than  the  war  itself;  they 
cast  d  kind  of  pale  glamour  over  the  surface  of  the 
ocean,  instead  of  hunting  out  the  caves  where  the 
storms  are  made. 

Mr.  Nicholson,  for  instance,  proves  beyond  per- 
adventure  that  finesse  is  not  an  unattainable  quality 
in  fiction  which  plays  with  war  intrigue  (Lady 
Larkspur;  171  pages;  Scribner).  Heretofore  spy 
stories  have  been  dragged  before  summary  mental 
court  martial,  and  promptly  sentenced.  But  here 
is  an  instance  where  judgment  may  well  be  de- 
ferred, for  the  author  has  exercised  restraint  and 
a  becoming  degree  of  art  in  weaving  his  mystery.  In 
fact,  were  it  not  for  the  disclosure  on  the  wrapper, 
one  would  become  securely  enmeshed  in  the  plot 
before  discovering  that  there  is  so  much  as  a  secret 
agent  on  the  premises. 

Besides  Mr.  Nicholson,  there  is  just  now  Mrs. 
Victor  Rickard,  a  compatriot  of  Mr.  Bennett's 
with  an  eye  for  background  and  a  hand  for  good 
writing  (The  Fire  of  Green  Boughs;  328  pages; 
Dodd,  Mead).  With  a  crisp,  vivid  style,  perhaps 
too  obviously  imitative  of  Wells,  she  has  posed  for 
a  section  of  London  stay-at-home  society  the  holo- 
caust of  youth  in  Europe.  As  a  student  of  char- 
acter however  she  is  unsatisfactory.  Labels  may  do 
well  enough  for  subsidiary  persons,  but  we  demand 
more  than  strangely  assorted  posters  when  we  meet 
Dominic  Roydon,  the  magnetic  clergyman,  and 
Sylvia  Tracy,  the  heroine.  Mrs.  Rickard  gives  us 
little  aid  in  our  search  for  hidden  mechanisms  and 
motives — that  is,  for  the  storm  caves  of  character. 

War  memoirs  and  letters  and  that  sort  of  thing 
are  quite  generally  losing  their  edge;  perhaps  be- 
cajise  fighting  experiences,  though  varied,  tend  finally 
to  fall  into  classifications,  and  are  capable  of  rising 
into  life  again  only  at  the  touch  of  genius.  The 
Active  Service  Series  (Lane)  furnishes  two  new 
cases  in  point — A  Handful  of  Ausseys,  by  C.  Hamil- 
ton Thorp  (296  pages)  and  Some  Soldiers  and 
Little  Mamma,  by  Helen  Boulnois  (203  pages). 
Here  the  yield  in  profit  to  the  reader  is  fairly  pro- 
portional to  his  zeal ;  which  is  perhaps  inversely  pro- 
portional to  the  number  of  times  he  has  read  the 
same  thing  before.  A  novel  setting  gives  certain  ad- 
vantages to  Macedonian  Musings,  by  V.  J.  Selig- 
man  (188  pages;  Macmillan),  a  volume  that  brings 
together  a  series  of  sketches  and  semi-essays  seeking 
to  present  a  picture  of  life  in  the  Salonica  campaign, 
of  which  "  those  at  home  knew  next  to  nothing." 
But  the  attempt  suffers  from  too  much  straining 
after  verbal  brightness,  and  from  too  great  reliance 
on  the  capital  "  I." 

Ruth  Dunbar's  Swallow   (246  pages;  Boni  and 


Liveright),  although  it  is  designated  as  a  book  "  for 
after  the  war,"  rivals  any  of  its  predecessors  in 
hysterical  fervor.  Not  many  of  them  in  fact  can 
boast  of  passages  to  match  this  gem: 

Then  something  happened  in  Europe.  A  gallant  rab- 
bit stood  between  the  hole  where  its  babies  trembled,  and 
a  band  of  coyotes.  France  and  England  placed  themselves 
beside  the  rabbit.  I  waited  for  America  to  go  in  with 
France  and  England.  America  did  not  do  it.  But  I  for 
one  could  not  go  on  selling  ten-cent  loaves  in  waxed 
paper.  It  was  my  chance,  and  the  chance  of  every  young 
man  in  America,  to  adventure  generously. 

The  Swallow  is  fiction,  but  it  is  based  upon  the 
actaal  experiences  of  a  survivor  of  the  Lafayette 
Escadrille,  who  seems  to  have  been  as  careless  of  the 
disposition  of  his  war  reminiscences  as  he  was  of 
his  life  in  battle.  .  . 

Readers  whose  thirst  for  vicarious  suffering  has 
survived  the  war  will  relish  Eleanor  Porter's  Dawn 
(338  pages;  Houghton  Mifflin).  Miss  Porter's  ap- 
peal to  the  tear-ducts  of  the  "  glad  "  cult  might  be 
followed  by  a  plea  for  financial  aid  for  some  new 
war  "  drive."  Actually  it  asks  for  no  donation 
other  than  a  generous  outpouring  of  sentimentality. 
The  more  normal  reaction  to  it  is  not  unlike  that 
which  might  be  expected  to  follow  the  sipping  of 
sweet  brine. 

As  between  sentimentality  and  grossness  there  is 
little  to  choose.  The  disgusting  material  fished  up 
for  exhibition  by  Fernand  Vanderem  (Two  Banks 
of  the  Seine;  412  pages;  Dutton)  is  capable  of 
treatment  by  an  artist;  but  we  rebel  when  an  oily 
raconteur  of  suggestive  stories  capitalizes  it.  The 
plot  of  this  novel  is  insipid,  the  characters  trivial, 
the  setting  lifeless,  the  whole  without  sparkle  or 
insight.  The  narrative  might  well  have  escaped 
being  written  in  French ;  there  is  yet  a  chance  that 
it  will  escape  being  read  in  English.  .  . 

The  Bookman  has  recently  celebrated  the  rebirth- 
day  that  marks  the  end  of  its  first  half-year's  resi- 
dence in  the  house  of  Mr.  Doran.  As  heir  to  a 
literary  tradition  developed  in  the  forty-seven  vol- 
umes of  the  senior  Bookman,  the  remodeled  pub- 
lication carries  a  considerable  burden  of  responsibil- 
ity, to  which,  when  it  changed  hands,  it  added  an  ob- 
ligation to  cultivate  a  field  somewhat  wider  than 
the  ancestral  acres.  Today  with  a  forty-eighth  vol- 
ume on  the  shelf,  The  Bookman  deserves  well  of  the 
old  friends  it  has  kept  and  the  new  ones  it  has 
acquired.  4'^ 

Contributors 

Arthur  Livingston  is  Professor  of  Romance 
Languages  at  Western  University,  London,  Ontario, 
and  a  member  of  the  Royal  Commission  of  Venice, 
an  academy  of  history  and  letters.  For  the  term 
of  a  leave  from  his  professorial  duties,  Dr.  Livings- 
ton is  associated  with  the  New  York  headquarters 
of  the  Foreign  Press  Service. 

Katherine  Warren  is  an  instructor  in  English  at 
Vassar  College. 

The  other  contributors  to  this  issue  have  pre- 
viously written  for  THE  DIAL. 


i9i9  THE  DIAL  623 


At  a  dinner  given  by  THE  DIAL,  May  22,  in  honor  of  Pro- 
fessor George  V.  Lomonossoff  and  Mr.  L.  A.  Martens,  at  which 
five  hundred  guests  were  present,  a  resolution  was  passed  "  re- 
affirming our  faith  in  the  Russian  people,  our  sympathy  with  their 
effort  to  establish  democratic  institutions  of  their  own  choosing, 
and  our  protest  against  all  forms  of  military  intervention  and  eco- 
nomic blockade  designed  to  modify  such  institutions  and  exploit 
the  country  in  the  interest  of  foreign  powers  ";  also  pledging  "our 
best  efforts  to  persuade  our  government  to  recognize  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Russian  Soviet  Republic." 

In  order  to  give  the  American  people  an  opportunity  to  de- 
mand repudiation  of  the  policy  which  the  executive  has  applied 
toward  Russia,  the  following  protest  has  been  drawn  up. 

A  Plea  for  a  Just  American  Policy  Towards  Russia 

We,  as  citizens  of  the  United  States,  call  upon  the  Congress  of 
the  United  States  to  bring  about  the  abolition  of  the  blockade  against 
the  Russian  Soviet  Republic.  Without  declaring  war  upon  Russia 
we  have  permitted  the  blockade  to  bring  death  to  hundreds  of 
thousands  every  month,  by  starvation. 

We  urge  the  immediate  recall  of  all  American  troops  in  Rus- 
sia, and  the  abandonment  of  attempts  to  secure  special  troops  for 
service  there.  That  is  no  service  for  the  soldiers  of  a  democracy. 

We  earnestly  protest  against  our  government's  conniving  or 
collaborating  with  any  counter-revolutionary  groups,  such  as  those 
of  Kolchak  or  Denikin,  servers  of  a  discredited  monarchical  regime. 

We  hold  that  the  American  government  must  do  nothing  that 
will  hinder  the  Russian  people  from  determining  their  form  of  gov- 
ernment, in  accordance  with  their  own  economic  and  political  ideals. 

In  sum,  we  demand  that  Congress  exercise  its  constitutional 
functions  for  the  purpose  of  creating  a  genuinely  democratic  foreign 
policy,  consistent  with  the  traditions  of  a  nation  which  cherishes 
honorable  memories  of  the  revolution  by  which  it  was  founded,  and 
the  civil  war  by  which  it  was  perpetuated. 


(Signed) 


Affix  your  name  to  this  plea  and  send  it  immediately  to  your 
representatives  and  senators,  with  as  many  additional  signatures 
as  you  can  get. 


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624  THE  DIAL 


A  Publishing  House  That  Is  Alive  to  the 
World-Wide   Spirit  of   Revolution 

IRVING  KAYE  DAVIS  &  CO.,  Book  Publishers 

77  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 

WE  are  publishing  the.  writings  of  authors  who  dare  to  be  rebels.  We 
are  trying  to  reflect  the  rising  social  current  of  the  age  —  the  revolution 
in  thought,  the  revolution  in  ethics,  the  revolution  in  art,  and  the  revolution 
in  industry.  Boiler-plate  literature  does  not  appeal  to  us,  and  we  believe  it  is 
becoming  increasingly  nauseating  to  large  groups  of  intelligent  people.  We 
hold  that  the  public  is  entitled  to  an  absolutely  free  press,  and  we  shall  pub- 
lish books  of  burning  truth  which  may  corrode  and  scorch  the  timid  flesh  of 
our  literary  pundits.  Any  book  that  is  vital  and  interesting  cannot  be  too 
strong  nor  too  plain  to  suit  us. 

REVOLT!         -  -  -  By  Harold  Lord  Varney 

(416  pages,  illustrated  by  Cropper,  Price  $2.00) 

This  startling  labor  novel  is  one  of  the  literary  sensations  of  the  year.  Orders  cover- 
ing almost  the  entire  first  edition  are  in  hand  before  the  book  is  off  the  press.  In  pre- 
senting Harold  Lord  Varney  to  the  reading  public  we  are  introducing  a  writer  whose  talent 
is  as  unusual  as  his  personality.  He  writes  the  theme  that  he  has  lived  —  the  wild,  the 
bizarre,  and  the  exotic. 

HURRAH    FOR    SIN!          A  SorJ  of  a  Book,  by  Charles  W.  Wood 
Illustrated  by  Art  Young.     (Price  $1.00) 

At  his  best,  Charlie  Wood  makes  people  think;  at  his  worst  he  makes  them  laugh.  Here  he  is  at 
his  damndest.  HURRAH  FOR  SIN  !  is  the  most  intimate  lot  of  revolutionary  vaudeville  you  ever 
missed.  It's  the  sort  of  stuff  that  no  "  respectacle  "  publisher  would  print  and  that  every  "'respectable  " 
person  longs  to  read.  Wood  knows  that  either  he  is  crazy  or  the  world  is,  and  he  has  decided  to  make 
the  best  —  and  funniest  —  of  it. 

Other  Books  in  Preparation 

THE  I.  W.  W.  TRIAL.  -  -  By  David  Karsner 

(Price  $1.25) 

THE  NEWEST  FREEDOM.       -       By  Leigh  Danen  and  Charles  Recht 

A  great  book  on  the  wreck  of  the  Constitution.     (Price  $1.50.) 

THE  RUBAIYAT  OF  A  REBEL.          -  By  Wilfred  Gribble 

Poems  of  the  Class  Struggle 

HOUSE  OF  SPIDERS  By  James  Waldo  Fawcett 

(Price  $1.50) 

This  Is  part  of  our  program.  Other  volumes  will  follow.  We  want  to  put  you  on  our  mailing:  list.  We  want 
to  send  you  our  catalog.  We  will  publish  the  books,  but  it  is  you  —  our  unknown  friends  —  who  will  read  them  and 
give  them  success.  Others  who  have  tried  to  be  untram  melled  have  failed.  But  we  are  just  innocent  enough  not 
to  worry  about  that.  If  you  are  interested  in  *^<-  expert  mont  _wlll  you  send  us  your  name? 

IRVING  KAYE  DAVIS  &  CO.,  Publishers,  77  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


THE  WILLIAMS  PHlN  PINO  COMPANY,  NEW  YOBK 


The  Ruin  of  Bourgeois  France 

THE  DIAL 


VOL.  LXVI 


NEW  YORK 


NO.  793 


JUNE    28,    1919 

Summer  Reading  Number 


ECONOMIC  UNITY  AND  POLITICAL  DIVISION    ....    Bertrand  Russell  629 

THE  RUIN  OF  BOURGEOIS  FRANCE .      Robert  Dell  632 

ON  THE  ROAD  TO  EPEN.    Verse Elizabeth  J.  Coatsworth  634 

A  WORD  ABOUT  REALISM Nancy  Barr  Mavity  635 

WAR  Music.    Verse Helen   Hoyt  637 

THE  VOYAGES  OF  CONRAD .     .     E.  Preston  Dargan  638 

A  PARASITIC  NOVEL Robert  Morss  Lovett  641 

FEODAR  SOLOGUB Katherine  Keith  643 

THE  TRIAL  OF  POLITICAL  CRIMINALS  HERE  AND  ABROAD  .  Robert  Ferrari  647 

BELATED  TRANSLATIONS Edith  Bone  650 

THE  WAYS  OF  GENIUS Clarence  Britten  65 1 

EDITORIALS %. 653 

COMMUNICATION:     The  Question  of  Nationalism 656 

CASUAL  COMMENT 657 

NOTES  ON  NEW  BOOKS  :      The  Secret  City.— Blind  Alley.— Cesar  Napoleon  Gaillard.—  658 
Jim,  the  Story  of  a  Backwoods  Police  Dog. — The  Roll-Call. — The  Song  of  the  Sirens. — 
Yvette. — Flesh  and  Phantasy. — Temptations. — Red  of  Surley. — Against  the  Winds. — Midas 
and  Son. — The  Flame  of  Life. — The  Emblems  of  Fidelity. — Why  Joan? — The  Boy  Scouts 
Book  of  Stories. — Good  Old  Stories  for  Boys  and  Girls. 

BOOKS  OF  THE  FORTNIGHT 666 

A  SELECTED  LIST  OF  FICTION .  670 


THE  DIAL  (founded  in  1880  by  Francis  F.  Browne)  is  published  every  other  Saturday  by  The  Dial  Publishing  Com- 
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matter  at  the  Post  Office  at  New  York,  N.  Y.,  August  3,  1918,  under  the  act  of  March  3,  1897.  Copyright,  1919,  by 
The  Dial  Publishing  Company,  Inc.  Foreign  Postage,  50  cents. 

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6 26 ' THE  DIAL June 28 

A  VALUABLE  ADDITION  TO  THE  LIST  OF  BOOKS  ON  RECONSTRUCTION  IS 

The  Place  of  Agriculture  in  Reconstruction 

A  Study  of  National  Programs  of  Land  Settlement 
By  JAMES  B.  MORMAN,  Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Federal  Farm  Loan  Board 

With  the  idea  of  formulating  a  practical  program  of  land  settlements  in  the  United  States  for  discharged 
soldiers,  sailors,  and  marines,  the  author  has  collected  and  laid  before  his  readers  in  detail  the  solutions  to  the 
problem  which  have  been  tried  or  are  now  being  tried  in  foreign  countries,  notably  Great  Britain,  France  and 
Canada. 

Analyzing  and  relating  to  American  circumstances  this  experience  of  others,  Mr.  Morman  aims  to  poJnt 
out  those  definite  conditions  which  will  make  for  success,  and  others,  among  them  some  already  proposed 
measures,  which  can  only  result  in  failure.  It  is  a  singularly  valuable  book,  compounded  of  accurate  informa- 
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The  State  and  the  Nation  By  EDWARD  JENKS 

A  simple,  concise  and  direct  statement  of  the  necessary  functions  of  Government  outlining  the  historical 
development  of  that  sense  of  community  interest  and  responsibility  upon  which  true  citizenship  depends. 
The  author's  "  Short  History  of  Politics  "  is  a  widely-used  text-book,  and  he  has  written  also  a  book  on 
"  Law  and  Politics  in  the  Middle  Ages."  Cloth,  net,  $2.00 

The  Freedom  of  the  Seas  By  LOUISE  FARGO  BROWN 

A  systematic  tracing,  through  old  treaties  and  other  documents,  the  meaning  given  in  the  past  to  this 
somewhat  loosely-used  phrase.  It  is  very  useful  as  an  aid  to  clearness  in  future  discussions,  and  to  the 
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A  Society  of  States  By  W.  T.  S.  STALLYBRASS 

An  analysis  of  the  much-discussed  subject  of  a  league  of  nations  showing  that  such  an  agreement  is  a  logi- 
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New  Schools  for  Old  By  EVELYN  DEWEY 

The  book  is  an  interesting  account  of  the  application  by  Mrs.  Harvey  of  community  Ideals  to  the  regenera- 
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important  and  successful  educational  experiments  of  the  century.  Cloth,  net,  $2.00 

Creative  Impulse  in  Industry  By  HELEN  MAROT 

A  Proposition  for  Educators.  Professor  JOHN  DEWEY  In  an  extended  review  in  The  New  Republic  de- 
scribes this  as  "  the  most  sincere  and  courageous  attempt  yet  made  to  face  the  problem  of  an  education 
adapted  to  a  modern  society  which  must  be  Industrial  and  would  like  to  be  democratic."  Net,  $1.50 

Labor  and  Reconstruction  in  Europe  By  ELISHA  M.  FRIEDMAN 

Mr.  Friedman,  editor  of  that  valuable  symposium  "  American  Problems  in  Reconstruction,"  in  this  book 
describes  impartially  the  means  undertaken  or  proposed  in  sixteen  countries,  belligerent  and  neutral,  to 
deal  with  reconstruction  in  labor  matters.  It  is  of  value  to  employment  managers,  directors  of  corpora- 
tions, and  students  of  labor  problems  and  of  the  effects  of  the  war.  Net,  $2.50 
"For  those  who  are  patriotic  enough  to  be  constructive,  it  is  a  work  of  inestimable  value." — The  Public. 

Russia's   Agony      By  ROBERT  WILTON,  Correspondent  for  many  years  of  the 
London  Times  in  Russia 

There  Is  probably  no  term  of  equally  recent  origin  so  often  in  print  as  Bolshevik  and  its  derivatives. 
Readers  of  the  London  Times  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  Mr.  Wilton's  knowledge  of  Russia  is  equalled 
by  that  of  very  few  persons.  "No  such  comprehensive  and  straightforward  account  has  yet  been  given," 
says  the  New  York  Times,  "of  the  conditions  in  Russia  which  led  to  the  outbreak  of  the  revolution  and 
the  emergence  of  Bolshevism."  No  definition  of  that  term,  by  the  way,  is  more  clear-cut  and  definite  than 
Mr.  Wilton's.  Net,  $5.00 

Russian  Revolution  Aspects     By  ROBERT  CROZIER  LONG,  Correspondent 
for  the  Associated  Press 

Familiar  with  the  country,  and  speaking  Russian  fluently,  Mr.  Long  in  Russia  during  1917  had  opportuni- 
ties for  first-hand  observation  of  events  and  persons  which  make  his  acute  criticisms  and  portraits  un- 
usually interesting.  Net,  $2.50 

The  Clash  A  Study  in  Nationalities.     By  WILLIAM  H.  MOORE 

A  study  of  the  French-Canadian  friction  and  of  the  rights  of  an  alien  minority  In  any  country,  a  timely 
subject.  Net,  $2.50 

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Economic  Unity  and  Political  Division 


.HE  POLITICAL  UNITY  of  the  world,  which  is  the 
avowed  aim  of  the  League  of  Nations,  may  or  may 
not  be  achieved  in  the  next  few  years;  indeed,  any 
but  a  very  bold  optimist  must  incline  to  the  view 
that  it  will  not.  But  the  economic  unity  of  the 
world  has  been  furthered  by  the  war  to  a  very  sur- 
prising extent.  Conditions  are,  of  course,  still  ab- 
normal, but  we  may  expect  much  of  what  has 
resulted  in  the  way  of  international  economic  gov- 
ernment to  remain  for  a  long  time  to  come.  Certain 
Powers,  notably  the  United  States  and  the  British 
Empire,  control  the  supplies  of  food  and  raw  mate- 
rial sufficiently  to  be  able  to  decide,  throughout  the 
greater  part  of  the  civilized  world,  who  shall  starve 
and  who  shall  have  enough  to  eat,  who  shall  be 
allowed  to  develop  industries  and  who  shall  be 
compelled  to  import  manufactured  goods.  This 
power  is  the  result  partly  of  geographical  advan- 
tages, partly  of  armed  force,  especially  at  sea. 
Financial  strength  also  plays  its  part,  but  is  a  result 
of  geographical  and  military  superiority  rather  than 
an  independent  cause  of  dominion.  If  Germany  had 
won  the  war,  it  may  be  assumed  that  indemnities 
would  have  fundamentally  altered  the  balance  of 
financial  strength. 

The  necessity  of  rationing  supplies  has  created, 
unavoidably,  an  international  way  of  dealing  with 
problems  of  distribution.  Those  who  control  inter- 
national distribution  have  a  degree  of  power  ex- 
ceeding anything  previously  known  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  The  growth  of  industrialism  in  the 
century  before  the  war  led  most  nations  to  become 
dependent  upon  foreign  countries  for  supplies  indis- 
pensable to  life  or  at  least  to  prosperity.  Cessation 
of  foreign  supplies  would  mean  inability  to  support 
the  actual  population  in  health,  as  it  has  meant  in 
Germany.  Consequently  it  is  impossible  for  any 
European  nation  to  return  to  economic  independence 
except  through  a  period  of  intolerable  hardship,  in- 
volving death  or  emigration  on  a  large  scale.  Only 
extreme  heroism  prolonged  through  many  years 
would  enable  a  continental  country  to  free  itself 
from  the  economic  dominion  which  has  resulted 
from  the  war.  This  economic  dominion  has  given 
to  the  world,  as  regards  material  things,  a  new 
unity  and  a  new  central  authority. 


But  while  material  unity  has  been  more  or  less 
accidentally  achieved,  unity  in  any  higher  sense  has 
not  been  even  approached.  The  League  of  Nations, 
so  far  from  being  world-wide,  is  in  effect  an  alliance 
of  America,  Britain,  and  France,  with  Italy  as  a 
somewhat  doubtful  hanger-on.  Japan,  which  is 
nominally  a  member  of  the  League,  is  mainly  en- 
gaged in  the  attempt  to  absorb  China — an  enter- 
prise by  no  means  calculated  to  win  the  affection  of 
America.  From  the  Pacific  to  the  Rhine,  the  League 
of  Nations  appears  as  an  enemy  or  a  master,  not  as 
a  free  union  of  equal  democracies.  The  world  is 
thus  divided  into  three  groups :  the  Western  nations, 
the  outcasts  Germany  and  Russia,  and  the  Yellow 
Races,  among  whom  the  Japanese  are  masters  and 
the  Chinese  unwilling  servants.  It  is  in  such  a 
world  that  the  League  of  Nations  is  to  make  its 
debut. 

The  distinction  of  capitalist  and  proletarian  has 
been  made  familiar  by  the  writings  of  the  Socialists. 
But  this  distinction  has  now  taken  a  new  form: 
there  are  capitalist  and  proletarian  nations.  Russia 
and  Germany  are  proletarian  nations,  the  former 
still  on  strike,  the  latter  probably  about  to  make  a 
sullen  submission.  By  the  economic  provisions  of 
the  Peace  Treaty,  it  is_  secured  (as  far  as  such 
things  carr  be)  that  Germans  shall,  for  an  indefinite 
time  to  come,  be  very  much  poorer  than  inhabitants 
of  the  Western  democracies.  They  are  to  do  speci- 
fied work  for  the  capitalist  nations,  obtaining  pre- 
sumably wages,  but  not  profits.  They  are  to  be 
deprived  of  an  enormous  proportion  of  their  ships, 
coal,  and  iron,  .and  in  every  way  prevented  from 
competing  with  our  trade.  If  they  nevertheless  do 
find  ways  of  making  money,  they  are  to  be  deprived 
of  what  they  make  in  order  to  provide  reparation 
for  the  war.  Their  national  situation,  in  short,  is 
to  be  as  similar  as  possible  to  the  individual  situation 
of  a  wage-earner  in  a  capitalist  community.  Their 
reward  for  accepting  our  terms  is  to  be  that  they 
are  to  have  enough  to  eat  to  support  life;  their 
punishment  for  rejecting  them,  that  their  numbers 
are  to  be  reduced  by  starvation  until  they  submit. 
(This  is  a  slight  exaggeration  of  our  generosity. 
At  a  moment  when  large  numbers  of  German  in- 
fants are  dying  for  lack  of  milk,  the  Peace  Treaty 


630 


THE  DIAL 


June  28 


demands  the  surrender  by  Germany  of  a  hundred 
and  forty  thousands  of  milch-cows.)  In  industrial 
disputes,  we  are  accustomed  to  subjugation  of 
strikers  by  these  means.  But  it  marks  the  growth 
of  economic  ways  of  thought  that  the  methods  of 
labor  disputes  should  be  applied  in  dealing  with  a 
vanquished  nation. 

As  to  Russia,  it  is  as  yet  impossible  to  know  what 
will  happen.  It  is  conceivable  that,  by  sufficient 
determination,  Russia  may  succeed  in  becoming 
economically  self-sufficient.  If  so,  war-weariness 
may  compel  the  Allies  to  abandon  the  policy  of 
intervention.  But  if  Russia  is  not  willing  to  face 
the  hardships  involved  in  an  economic  boycott,  or 
if  the  Allies  can  raise  sufficient  armies  to  occupy  the 
centres  of  Bolshevik  power,  it  will  become  necessary 
for  the  Russians,  as  for  the  Germans,  to  submit  to 
our  terms  and  accept  whatever  form  of  government 
we  may  think  good  for  them.  The  Germans  were 
informed  that  we  should  be  more  lenient  if  they 
expelled  the  Kaiser;  probably  the  Russians  will  soon 
be  informed  that  we  shall  be  more  lenient  if  they 
restore  the  Tsardom.  In  that  case,  no  doubt,  they, 
like  the  Germans,  may  be  granted  a  peace  of  justice 
and  mercy,  not  of  revenge.  (The  peace  terms  seem 
to  me  to  combine  justice  with  mercy. — The  Bishop 
of  London.)  But  if  they  persist  in  Bolshevism, 
we  may  discover  what  it  is  that  the  Germans  have 
been  spared  as  a  consequence  of  their  adoption  of 
democracy. 

We  see,  in  the  two  cases  of  Germany  and  Russia, 
the  two  purposes  for  which  the  power  of  the  sword 
is  being  used,  namely  (a)  to  extort  economic  ad- 
vantages; (b)  to  impose  a  form  of  government  other 
than  that  desired  by  those  upon  whom  it  is  imposed. 
I  do  not  wish  to  blame  in  any  way  the  individuals 
who  are  carrying  out  these  two  purposes.  I  believe 
that  many  of  them  are  completely  blind  to  what  is 
really  happening:  they  feel  that  Germany,  as  the 
disturber  of  the  peace,  must  be  rendered  harmless, 
and  that  Russia,  as  the  perpetrator  of  endless 
atrocities  against  the  well-to-do,  must  be  forced  to 
adopt  again  the  "  civilized  "  government  which  it 
enjoyed  before  the  Revolution,  whose  much  greater 
atrocities  they  forget  because  the  capitalist  press  did 
not  exploit  them.  Others,  though  they  may  see  and 
regret  the  evil  that  is  being  done,  accept  it  as  inevit- 
able in  order  to  inaugurate  the  League  of  Nations; 
and  in  the  disarmament  of  Germany  they  see  the 
first  step  towards  universal  disarmament.  Many 
others,  again,  sincerely  believe  that  it  is  the  business 
of  a  statesman  to  think  only  of  the  interests  of  his 
ow.n  country:  they  feel  themselves  in  the  position  of 
trustees,  and  regard  "  sacred  egoism  "  as  their  duty. 
For  all  these  reasons,  it  would  be  foolish  to  attach 
moral  blame  to  those  who  direct  the  power  of  the 


Allies.  Like  everybody  else,  they  are  products  of 
circumstances  and  systems.  We  have  to  understand 
their  action,  and  to  form  an  opinion  as  to  whether 
it  is  for  the  good  of  the  world ;  but  if  our  opinion 
is  adverse,  we  must  go  behind  the  men  to  the  system 
which  has  produced  them,  and  ask  ourselves  whether, 
under  that  system,  anything  better  could  be  expected. 
The  capitalist  system  of  industry,  whatever  its 
merits,  has  not  been  found  conducive  to  perfect 
harmony  between  capital  and  labor.  It  is  hardly  to 
be  expected  that  its  extension  to  international  rela- 
tions will  produce  harmony  between  States,  or  that 
Germany  and  Russia  will  be  filled  with  ardent  love 
for  the  Western  nations  during  the  next  few  years. 
They  may  be  powerless  in  a  military  sense,  just  as 
labor  organizations  are;  but,  like  labor  organiza- 
tions, they  may  find  other  ways  than  war  by  which 
their  grievances  can  be  forced  upon  the  attention 
of  their  masters.  I  do  not  wish  to  be  misunderstood 
when  I  speak  of  "  grievances  " :  what  I  am  saying 
is  wholly  independent  of  the  question  whether  they 
are  justified  in  feeling  grievances.  I  say  only  that 
they  will  feel  them,  and  that  in  fact  their  economic 
position  will  be  less  fortunate  than  ours,  as  a  result 
of  their  defeat  in  the  war.  And  this  situation  is  not 
one  likely  to  inaugurate  a  period  of  international 
amity,  or  to  realize  the  dreams  of  those  who  died  in 
France  believing  that  our  aim  was  to  destroy  mili- 
tarism and  establish  universal  freedom. 

It  is  economic  considerations  mainly  that  have 
caused  the  severity  of  the  peace  terms  and  the  im- 
placable hostility  to  the  Bolsheviks.  (Those  who 
think  the  hostility  to  the  Bolsheviks  is  due  to  their 
atrocities  are  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse,  and 
are  failing  to  realize  how  their  own  horror  of  these 
atrocities  has  been  stimulated.  The  Tsar's  govern- 
ment was  guilty  of  many  more  and  much  worse 
atrocities,  but  it  was  not  to  the  interest  of  the 
capitalist  press  to  make  our  blood  boil  about  them.) 
Economic  considerations  of  this  sort  are  inseparable 
from  the  capitalist  system.  Probably  every  allied 
nation,  as  a  whole,  will  be  worse  off  economically  if 
Germany  and  Russia  are  ruined  than  if  they  are 
prosperous,  but  many  individual  capitalists  will 
profit  by  the  removal  of  competitors,  and  these 
individuals,  through  the  press,  have  power  to  mold 
public  opinion.  Moreover,  under  the  existing 
economic  system,  competition  is  the  very  air  we 
breathe,  and  men  come  to  feel  more  pleasure  in 
outstripping  a  competitor  than  in  the  absolute  level 
of  their  prosperity.  If,  by  slightly  impoverishing 
ourselves,  we  can  very  greatly  impoverish  the  Ger- 
mans, we  feel  that  we  have  achieved  a  valuable 
result.  This  state  of  mind  is  so  bound  up  with 
capitalism  that  we  cannot  hope  to  see  it  effectively 
removed  while  capitalism  persists. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


631 


I  do  not  despair  of  the  world;  I  do  not  think  it 
impossible  that  the  idealistic  aims  which  inspired 
many  of  those  who  fought  in  the  war  may  in  time 
be  achieved.  But  I  think  a  lesson  is  to  be  learned 
from  President  Wilson's  failure,  and  the  lesson  is 
this:  The  removal  of  international  rivalry,  and  the 
growth  of  real  co-operation  among  all  civilized 
nations,  is  not  to  be  attained  while  competition, 
exploitation,  and  the  ruthless  use  of  economic  power 
govern  the  whole  machinery  of  production  and  dis- 
tribution. It  is  scarcely  to  be  expected  that  the 
relations  between  States  will  be  immeasurably  more 
humane  than  the  relations  between  individuals 
within  a  State.  So  long  as  the  whole  organized 
machinery  of  the  State  is  used  to  defend  men  who 
live  in  idle  luxury  on  the  labor  of  others,  and  to 
obstruct  those  others  in  attempts  to  secure  a  more 
just  system,  the  natural  assumptions  of  men  who 
possess  authority  can  scarcely  be  such  as  to  restrain 
them  from  a  ruthless  use  of  force  in  their  dealings 
with  hostile  countries.  International  justice  and 
lasting  peace  are  not  to  be  secured  while  capitalism 
persists. 

It  is  especially  in  America  that  belief  in  funda- 
mental economic  reconstruction  is  needed.  America 
has  always  stood  for  the  ideas  which  are  now  known 
as  "  Liberal."  In  1776,  these  ideas,  as  embodied  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  represented  the 
Extreme  Left,  just  as  much  as  Bolshevism  does  now. 
But  even  the  most  advanced  ideas  cannot  be  allowed 
to  stand  still  for  a  century  and  a  half  without  rind- 
ing themselves  outstripped  by  later  comers.  Liberal 
ideas  are  admirable  in  circumstances  which  allow  a 
prosperous  career  to  any  tolerably  vigorous  person. 
Americans,  with  an  immensely  rich  and  fertile  con- 
tinent waiting  for  their  advent,  required  energy  and 
enterprise  and  initiative,  but  little  else.  They  pos- 
sessed these  qualities  in  a  supreme  degree;  they 
developed  their  continent  with  almost  incredible 
rapidity  and  skill.  In  the  course  of  their  progress, 
almost  against  their  will,  they  have  been  driven  into 
the  position  of  arbiters  of  the  world's  destiny.  They 
may  hesitate  for  a  time,  they  may  be  reluctant  to 
undertake  the  responsibilities  of  the  League  of 
Nations,  but  the  power  is  unavoidably  theirs.  With 
the  power  comes  responsibility,  however  they  may 
hesitate  to  assume  it;  and  from  sense  of  responsi- 
bility to  love  of  dominion  is  unfortunately  a  fatally 
easy  step.  The  United  States,  having  the  oppor- 
tunity of  ruling  the  world,  is  almost  certain,  before 
long,  to  acquire  a  taste  for  doing  so. 

The  sources  of  American  power,  so  far  as  can  be 
seen,  are  not  merely  momentary.  It  is  true  that,  at 
the  end  of  the  war,  America  has  certain  special 
advantages:  unimpaired  wealth,  few  casualties  in 
spite  of  large  numbers  of  trained  soldiers,  a  newly- 


acquired  fleet  of  merchant  ships,  and  an  opportunity 
of  securing  naval  supremacy.  But  apart  from  tem- 
porary advantages,  there  are_pthers  of  a  more  per- 
manent sort,  which  seem  likely  to  increase  rather 
than  diminish:  an  invulnerable  territory,  the  possi- 
bility of  complete  economic  self-sufficiency,  with  a 
rapidly  increasing  white  population,  already  larger 
than  the  white  population  of  any  other  single  State, 
and  full  of  all  the  qualities  that  promote  national 
strength.  No  other  State  can  compete  against  this 
combination  of  felicitous  circumstances.  Whatever 
America  may  vigorously  desire,  the  world  will  have 
to  accept.  So  long  as  America  is  content  to  believe 
in  the  Liberal  ideas  of  1776,  so  long  not  only 
Bolsheviks  or  Spartacists,  but  even  conventional 
Socialists,  cannot  hope  to  maintain  themselves  for 
more  than  a  moment  in  any  important  country :  their 
existence  will  be  inconvenient  to  American  capital, 
and  therefore,  through  the  usual  channels  for  edu- 
cating public  opinion,  odious  to  the  American 
nation.  We  in  the  older  countries,  where  oppor- 
tunities are  fewer,  and  "  la  carriere  ouverte  aux 
talents  "  is  a  less  all-sufficient  gospel,  are  turning 
more  and  more  towards  co-operation  as  against  com- 
petition, Socialism  as  against  plutocracy.  A  Labor 
Government  is  likely  in  this  country  at  no  distant 
date;  France  and  Italy  may  well  follow  suit.  But 
nothing  that  we  can  do  will  be  secure  or  stable  while 
America  remains  faithful  to  the  creed  of  ruthless 
individual  competition. 

We  are  thus  brought  back  to  the  point  from 
which  we  started :  the  economic  unity  of  the  world. 
The  Labor  Movement  must  be  international  or 
doomed  to  perpetual  failure;  it  must  conquer  Amer- 
ica or  forego  success  in  Europe  until  some  very 
distant  future.  Which  of  these  will  happen,  I  do 
not  profess  to  know.  But  I  do  know  that  a  great 
responsibility  rests  upon  those  who  mold  progressive 
thought  in  America:  the  responsibility  of  realizing 
the  new  international  importance  of  America,  and 
of  understanding  why  the  shibboleths  of  traditional 
Liberalism  no  longer  satisfy  European  lovers  of 
justice.  The  only  right  use  of  power  is  to  promote 
freedom.  The  nominal  freedom  of  the  wage-slave 
is  a  sham  and  a  delusion,  as  great  a  sham  as  the 
nominal  freedom  which  the  Peace  Treaty  leaves 
to  the  Germans.  Will  America,  in  her  'future 
career  of  power,  content  herself  with  the  illusory 
freedom  that  exists  under  capitalist  domination  ?  Or 
will  her  missionary  spirit  once  more,  as  in  the  days 
of  Jefferson,  urge  men  on  along  the  way  to  the 
most  complete  freedom  that  is  possible  in  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  time?  It  is  a  momentous  ques- 
tion; upon  the  answer  depends  the  whole  future  of 

the  human  race.  „ 

BERTRAND  RUSSELL. 


632 


THE  DIAL 


June  28 


The  Ruin  of  Bourgeois  France 


V_yNE  OF  THE  SHREWDEST  and  best-informed  ob- 
servers of  international  politics  that  I  know  said  in 
a  letter  which  I  received  from  him  a  few  days  ago : 
"The  economic  danger  of  France  is  the  key  to  the 
whole  future  of  Europe."  I  am  convinced  that  he 
is  right.  The  critical  economic  and  financial  situa- 
tion in  which  the  war  has  placed  France  is  also 
the  key  to  the  impossible  conditions  imposed  on 
Germany  by  the  Allies.  The  French  bourgeoisie  sees 
ruin  staring  it  in  the  face  and  its  only  hope  of  escape 
is  to  enslave  Germany  and  force  her  to  support 
France.  Nothing  else  can  prevent  the  inevitable  col- 
lapse or  avert  national  bankruptcy — and  that  means 
the  end  of  the  bourgeoisie  and  of  the  capitalist  sys- 
tem. The  peace  treaty  is  a  desperate  attempt  to  make 
Germany  support  France.  It  cannot  succeed.  For 
Germany  is  not  in  a  condition  to  give  the  support 
required  and,  even  if  she  signs  the  treaty,  she  will 
not  be  able  to  fulfil  its  conditions. 

The  French  bourgeoisie  has  committed  suicide  as 
surely  as  did  the  French  noblesse  of  the  i8th  cen- 
tury. For  more  than  a  century  It  has  been  the  rul- 
ing class,  but  the  days  of  its  ascendency  are  num- 
bered. M.  Charles  Maurras  recently  expressed  in 
the  Royalist  paper,  L 'Action  Franchise,  the  opinion 
that  revolution  is  imminent;  he  believes  that  it  will 
come  when  the  public  in  general  realizes  that  it  was 
deceived  when  it  was  told  that  Germany  would  pay 
for  the  war  and  realizes  also  the  consequences  of 
Germany's  inability  to  pay.  tie  is  almost  certainly 
right.  The  realization  may  be  a  matter  of  weeks 
or  months — it  may  take  longer — but  sooner  or 
later  it  is  inevitable  and  its  consequences  are  no  less 
inevitable.  The  revolution  may  be  preceded  by  a 
"White  Terror"  or  a  coup  d'etat  but  it  will  come. 

There  has  been  since  the  Armistice  a  formidable 
increase  in  the  cost  of  living  in  France,  which  was 
already  much  higher  than  in  England,  and  it  con- 
tinues to  increase.  The  GEuvre  said  on  May  22 
that  prices  in  Paris  had  risen  about  twenty  per  cent 
during  the  last  three  months,  that  is  to  say,  since 
the  institution  of  the  Government  booths  which, 
according  to  the  optimistic  prophecy  of  their  au- 
thor, M.  Vilgrain,  were  to  reduce  the  cost  of  living 
forty  per  cent,  in  a  fortnight.  Sugar  is  unobtain- 
able, butter  adulterated  with  margarine  is  $1.50  a 
pound;  potatoes  cost  five  cents  each,  French  beans, 
fifty  cents  a  pound,  and  the  prices  of  meat  are  fan- 
tastic— ranging  from  about  sixty  cents  to  $1.50  a 
pound.  Clothes  and  other  necessaries  are  propor- 
tionately dear  and  the  landlords  are  raising  the 
rents  about  fifty  per  cent.  In  these  circumstances 


it  is  difficult  for  the  poor  to  live  at  all,  especially 
as  wages  in  France  have  not  risen  during  the  war 
to  the  same  extent  as  in  England  and  their  increase 
is  much  smaller  in  proportion  than  the  increase  in 
the  cost  of  living.  Before  the  war,  wages  were  con- 
siderably lower  in  France  than  in  England  and  the 
cost  of  living  was  about  forty  per  cent  higher. 

The  present  high  prices  are  to  a  great  extent  the 
result  of  the  policy  of  M.  Loucheur,  whom  M. 
Clemenceau  has  placed  at  the  Ministry  of  Recon- 
struction. M.  Loucheur  is  interested  in  a  large 
number  of  industrial  concerns,  he  has  made  a  huge 
fortune  out  of  the  war,  and  his  notion  of  recon- 
struction is  to  promote  the  interests  of  himself  and 
his  fellow-profiteers  at  the  expense  of  the  consumer. 
An  illuminating  article  on  M.  Loucheur's  policy  by 
M.  Francis  Delaisi,  than  whom  there  could  be  no 
more  competent  authority  on  the  subject,  was  pub- 
lished in  the  Manchester  Guardian  on  May  15. 
That  policy  chiefly  consists  in  closing  the  French 
market  to  all  English  and  American  manufactured 
goods,  although  they  are  urgently  needed  in  France 
and  have  been  offered  at  low  prices;  only  raw  ma- 
terials in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  term — "  matieres  " 
brutes  "  as  distinguished  from  "  matieres  premieres  " 
in  general — may  be  imported  without  permission. 
M.  Delaisi  says  that  American  machines  actually 
bought  by  the  Roubaix  spinners  have  been  counter- 
manded by  order  of  the  Government  and  that  Ford 
motorcars,  bought  and  paid  for  by  the  State,  are 
rusting  in  the  port  of  Bordeaux.  I  may  add  that 
M.  Loucheur  recently  fixed  by  decree  prices  of 
paper  considerably  in  excess  of  the  market  value, 
because  the  French  paper  trust  happens  to  have 
large  stocks  in  hand  and  prices  were  beginning  to 
fall  in  spite  of  the  restriction  of  imports. 

The  high  prices  and  the  consequent  misery  are, 
therefore,  partly  the  consequences  of  the  deliberate 
policy  of  the  Government,  that  is,  of  the  bourgeoisie. 
Unrestricted  importation,  M.  Delaisi  says,  would 
enable  the  reconstruction  of  the  invaded  depart- 
ments to  be  rapidly  completed.  But  that  would  not 
suit  the  profiteers,  so  M.  Loucheur  has  announced 
in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  that  reconstruction  will 
not  begin  seriously  for  two  years  and  M.  Delaisi 
says  that  it  will  take  at  least  two  years  more  to  re- 
establish the  steel  works,  five  or  six  years  to  set  cer- 
tain mines  going  and  sixteen  years,  according  to  an 
official  report,  to  rebuild  all  the  houses.  The  de- 
vastated regions,  says  this  eminent  French  econo- 
mist,' "will  have  to  wait  till  the  factories  behind 
them  are  readv  to  work  for  them." 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


633 


One  of  the  excuses  given  for  this  policy  is  the 
necessity  of  keeping  up  the  rate  of  exchange  and  that 
excuse  has  until  now  kept  public  opinion  more  or 
less  quiet.  But  it  will  do  so  no  longer,  for  the 
rate  of  exchange  is  rapidly  falling  against  France 
in  spite  of  the  prohibition  of  imports  and  at  the  time 
of  writing  is  about  frs.3O.5O  to  the  pound  sterling 
and  frs.6.5O  to  the  dollar.  It  is  likely  to  go  on 
falling  unless  American  and  British  financiers  con- 
sent to  bolster  it  up  as  they  did  during  the  war. 
But  such  expedients  cannot  be  permanent.  Many 
financial  experts  consider  that  the  real  value  of  the 
franc  in  England  is  now  not  more  than  about  six- 
pence and  sooner  or  later  it  will  find  its  true  level. 
The  depreciation  of  the  French  currency  is  the 
natural  result  of  the  reckless  issue  of  paper  money. 
The  total  value  of  the  French  banknotes  in  circu- 
lation at  the  end  of  1911  was  $1,360,000,000;  in 
August  1917,  it  was  $2,400,000,000;  it  is  now  $8,- 
000,000,000.  Against  this  huge  issue  of  forced 
paper  currency  the  Bank  of  France  has  a  gold  and 
silver  reserve  of  only  £1,170,000,000.  Of  the  total 
value  of  banknotes  in  circulation  the  sum  of  $5,- 
400,000,000  is  a  loan  from  the  Bank  of  France  to 
the  State.  For  the  French  Government  has  now 
resorted  to  the  expedient  of  meeting  the  national 
expenditure  by  the  issue  of  paper  money.  A  further 
issue  of  $800,000,000  has  just  been  authorized — it 
is  included  in  the  total  quoted — of  which  $600,000,- 
ooo  represent  a  loan  from  the  Bank  of  France  to  the 
State  to  meet  the  deficit  on  the  budget  for  the  next 
three  months.  But  that  deficit  will  be  much  larger 
unless  the  holders  of  War  Bonds  ("Bons  de  la  De- 
fense Nationale")  now  falling  due  consent  to  re- 
new them,  for  the  receipts  from  taxes  for  the  three 
months  are  estimated  at  only  $560,000,000,  whereas 
the  estimated  expenditure  is  $2, 600,000,000.  The 
"Bons  de  la  Defense  Nationale"  are  repayable  three, 
six  or  twelve  months  after  issue  and  the  amount 
issued  and  unredeemed  up  to  January  was  $4,600,- 
000,000.  The  receipts  from  taxes  thus  meet  little 
more  than  one-fifth  of  the  current  expenditure  and 
the  balance  has  to  be  found  by  the  issue  of  paper 
money  and  by  borrowing  at  short  term.  The 
finances  of  France  are  being  conducted  on  the  prin- 
ciples of  a  spendthrift  "fils  de  famille."  The  Na- 
tional Debt,  which  at  the  outbreak  of  the  war  was 
$6,400,000,000  was  $33,600,000,000  three  months 
ago  and  is  still  increasing. 

For  this  state  of  affairs  the  bourgeoisie  has  a  heavy 
responsibility  by  its  obstinate  refusal  to  make  any 
contribution  worth  mentioning  to  the  cost  of  the 
war.  The  Income  Tax,  adopted  by  the  Chamber 
in  1909  and  hung  up  for  years  by  the  Senate,  was 


at  last  applied  in  an  emasculated  form  during  the 
war  in  spite  of  the  violent  protests  of  the  bour- 
geoisie and  its  organs  in  the  press,  but  even  now  its 
highest  rate  is  only  twenty  per  cent  on  the  largest 
incomes  and  that  rate  is  not  payable  on  the  whole 
of  the  income.  Moreover  the  whole  agricultural 
population — about  half  the  population  of  France — 
is  entirely  exempted  from  it  and  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  the  rich  make  very  imperfect  -returns 
,  of  their  incomes,  which  are  accepted  without  any 
serious  investigation.  In  any  case  the  income  tax 
has  produced  much  less  than  it  should  have  pro- 
duced even  at  its  present  rate  and  its  collection  is 
considerably  in  arrear. 

While  the  bourgeoisie  refused  to  pay  for  the  war, 
it  is  the  class  chiefly  responsible  for  its  prolongation. 
Almost  at  any  time  after  the  middle  of  1915,  plebis- 
cite would  have  resulted  in  a  large  majority  for 
peace  by  negotiation,  and  at  least  three  times  dur- 
ing the  war  the  feeling  of  the  country  was  so  strong 
that  France  was  within  an  ace  of  a  successful  move- 
ment to  stop  the  war.  Had  not  the  United  States 
came  in  when  they  did,  France  would  have  gone 
out  of  the  war  in  the  Spring  of  1917  and  in  May 
1918  the  internal  situation  was  again  critical.  But 
the  Parisian  bourgeoisie,  as  has  so  often  happened 
during  the  last  hundred  years,  succeeded  in  keeping 
its  grip  on  the  country  by  means  of  the  centralized 
Administration  and  persisted  in  continuing  the  war 
to  the  bitter  end — to  the  "Pyrrhic  victory"  which, 
according  to  M.  Clemenceau,  France  has  at  last  won. 
It  did  so  chiefly  because  it  believed  that  Germany 
would  pay.  Whenever  one  urged  that  the  cost 
should  be  counted,  whenever  one  tried  to  point  out 
the  inevitable  ruin  to  which  France  was  being  con- 
ducted, that  was  the  invariable  reply:  "Les  Alle- 
mands  paieront."  Many  people  were  even  deluded 
enough  to  believe  that  France  would  make  a  profit 
out  of  the  war.  The  indemnity:  that  was  the 
aim  for  which  the  French  bourgeoisie  continued 
the  war,  more  than  for  any  Imperialist  designs,  even 
more  than  for  Alsace-Lorraine.  The  general  pub- 
lic shared  the  delusion  to  a  great  extent  and  the 
belief  that  Germany  would  pay  alone  induced  the 
French  people  to  go  on. 

Now  the  bourgeoisie  recognizes  that  Germany 
cannot  pay  and  it  is  aghast  at  the  ruin  that  con- 
fronts it.  And  the  public  that  has  been  deceived  is 
beginning  to  realize  that  fact.  The  Government 
resorts  to  the  desperate  expedients  that  have  been 
described  in  order,  if  possible,  to  postpone  the  day 
of  reckoning.  On  the  one  hand  it  tries  by  the  peace 
treaty  to  make  Germany  support  France;  on  the 
other  hand  it  hopes  that  by  means  of  paper  money 
and  war  bonds  it  may  succeed  in  evading  the  solu- 


634 


THE  DIAL 


June  28 


tion  of  the  financial  problems  at  least  until  after 
the  general  election  and  in  bequeathing  it  as  a  legacy 
to  its  successors.  Poor  M.  Klotz  cannot  even  sug- 
gest a  possible  solution  of  that  problem ;  indeed  there 
is  none.  It  is  a  vicious  circle:  if  the  rate  of  ex- 
change falls,  French  importers  pay  more  for  every- 
thing that  they  buy,  but  it  can  be  kept  up  only  by 
restricting  imports;  if  imports  are  restricted,  prices 
will  go  on- rising  in  France  and  the  invaded  regions 
will  wait  for  their  reconstruction;  if  fresh  issues 
of  paper  money  continue,  the  currency  must  be  de- 
preciated and  the  exchange  will  fall  in  spite  of  the 
restriction  of  imports,  but  without  fresh  issues  of 
paper  money  it  will  be  impossible  to  make  both  ends 
meet.  Current  expenditures  can  be  met  in  no  other 
way  without  an  income  tax  averaging  something 
like  sixty  per  cent  all  round,  which  is  impossible, 
for  it  would  mean  either  starvation  for  people  with 
small  incomes  or  a  tax  of  100  per  cent  on  large 
incomes;  and  even  such  a  tax  would  not  cover  all 
the  liabilities  of  the  next  two  years. 

In  fact  France  is  insolvent  and  the  only  possible 
way  out  is  bankruptcy — the  repudiation  of  the  Na- 
tional Debt.  When  the  pressure  becomes  intoler- 
able, that  will  be  demanded  by  the  mass  of  the 
people.  During  the  last  three  months  Socialism 
has  made  immense  strides.  The  circulation  of 
L'Humanite  which  was  only  55,000  in  October, 
has  risen  to  more  than  200,000.  The  peasants,  dis- 
gusted with  the  economic  and  financial  conse- 
quences of  the  war,  for  which  they  were  never  en- 
thusiastic, are  turning  towards  the  Socialist  party. 
The  salaried  proletariat,  if  one  may  so  call  it,  is 
uniting  with  the  proletariat  paid  by  wages.  Actors 
and  scene-shifters  combine  in  the  same  Trade  Union, 
which  is  affiliated  to  the  General  Confederation  of 
Labor,  and  25,000  bank  clerks  on  strike  have 
marched  down  the  Grand  Boulevards  of  Paris. 
This  union  between  the  headworkers  and  the  hand- 
workers is  one  of  the  most  striking  signs  of  change. 
The  bourgeoisie  might  perhaps  save  itself  at  the 
eleventh  hour  by  accepting  a  large  levy  on  capital, 
but  it  is  probably  too  late  even  for  that  to  save  it 
and  in  any  case  the  bourgeoisie  will  never  consent 
to  any  pecuniary  sacrifice.  "These  people  are  quite 


ready  to  give  their  sons  to  be  killed,"  said  an  em- 
inent Frenchman  some  three  years  ago  of  the  French 
bourgeoisie,  "but  you  mustn't  ask  them  for  five 
francs." 

The  downfall  of  the  French  bourgeoisie  will  be 
the  penalty  of  a  selfishness  and  an  avarice  unsur- 
passed by  any  class  in  any  country  or  any  age.  For 
nearly  five  years  it  has  gambled  with  the  lives  of 
men  for  the  stake  of  a  crushing  indemnity;  and  it 
has  lost.  What  we  must  hope  for  is  that  the  So- 
cialist and  Trade  Union  leaders  will  be  strong 
enough  and  will  have  behind  them  a  sufficiently 
strong  organization  to  prevent  violence  and  blood- 
shed, for  the  wrath  of  a  deceived  and  ruined  people 
will  be  terrible.  And  there  is  not  too  much  time 
to  prepare  for  the  consequences  that  the  coming  ca- 
tastrophe in  France  will  have  for  the  rest  of  Eu- 
rope and  of  the  world. 

One  explanation  that  has  been  given  of  Mr. 
Wilson's  concessions  to  French,  British,  and  Italian 
Imperialism  and  of  his  lamentable  compromises  on 
his  principles  is  that  he  feared  to  precipitate  a  revo- 
lution in  France  if  he  retired  from  the  peace  con- 
ference. It  is  possible  that  the  explanation  has 
some  foundation  and,  if  Mr.  Wilson  had  such  a 
fear,  there  was  some  justification  for  it.  But  it  is 
not  a  sufficient  reason  for  his  capitulation,  for,  if 
the  fear  be  justified,  the  French  Government  at  any 
rate  would  have  yielded  rather  than  allow  Mr. 
Wilson  to  withdraw.  And  Mr.  Wilson's  capitu- 
lation has  only  made  the  revolution  more  certain. 
Had  he  stood  firm  and  secured  a  peace  in  accord- 
ance with  the  principles  which  he  laid  down  and 
which  the  Allies  and  Germany  accepted,  he  might 
have  saved  bourgeois  society  at  least  for  a  time. 
His  failure  is  regarded  as  the  final  failure  of  the 
bourgeoisie  and  has  convinced  the  mass  of  the  peo- 
ple whose  hopes  in  him  have  been  so  bitterly 
disappointed,  that  there  is  nothing  to  hope  from 
a  capitalist  society  and  that  only  a  radical  change 
can  make  possible  the  ideals  which  Mr.  Wilson 
aimed  at  and  has  failed  to  attain. 

Perhaps  the  future  will  show  that  Mr.  Wilson, 
by  his  weakness,  drove  the  last  nail  into  the  coffin 


of  European  capitalism. 


ROBERT  DELL. 


On  the  Road  to  Eden 


Trellised  grapevines  shall  be  our  walls,  with  the  patterned  interweaving  of  leaves  and  tasseled  spheres. 

And  the  broad  down-curving  thatch  of  an  apple  tree  shall  roof  us 

With  the  apples  like  little  round  lanterns,  honey-colored,  blurred  with  cerise, 

Swung  to  the  rafters  over  our  heads. 

We  shall  have  a  great  sunflower  on  its  stalk  for  a  grandfather's  clock, 

And,  if  you  miss  a  glimpse  of  the  sea, 

We  can  plant  a  strip  of  cabbages  along  the  horizon 

To  refresh  our  eyes  with  their  cool  frosted  green. 

ELIZABETH  J.  COATSWORTH. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


635 


A  Word  About  Realism 


'SCAR  WILDE  defined  art  as  the  telling  of  beauti- 
ful lies.  His  own  work  is  the  best  example  of  his 
theory.  The  working  out  of  such  a  doctrine  is,  at 
its  highest,  De  Profundis,  which,  written  in  the  in- 
sight and  the  inspiration  of  forced  asceticism  in 
prison,  becomes  a  travesty  in  the  light  of  later  events. 
Even  Reading  Gaol  falls  short  of  perfection  by  just 
those  conscious  repetitions  and  sounding  phrases 
which  indicate  that  the  poet's  eye  was  fixed  not  on 
truth  but  on  the  attempt  to  make  beauty  serve  a  lie. 
Wilde's  case  is  the  case  for  all  anti-realists,  whether 
their  banner  be  marked  Classic  or  Romantic.  Such 
labels  are  themselves  subject  to  gradual  revision  in 
so  far  as  they  indicate  living  tendencies.  It  is  one 
whom  the  professors  of  literature  dub  a  romanticist 
who  enunciated  the  eternal  motto  of  realism,  threw 
down  the  gage  of  defiance  to  the  whole  theory  of 
art  as  decorative  or  formal  or  symbolic  or  vague 
or  creative  of  a  super-real : 

Beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty;  that  is  all 

We   know   on   earth   and   all  we   need   to   know. 

The  realist  is  the  indomitable  searcher  after  that 
truth.  He  is  the  writer  humble  enough  to  conceive 
that  truth  as  the  world  gives  it  to  him  is  of  more 
worth  than  a  universe  created  out  of  his  own  omnip- 
otence. He  maintains  that  the  man  to  whom 
truth  as  he  sees  it  is  not  more  beautiful  than  any  lie 
can  no  more  create  a  work  of  art  than  he  can  live 
an  effective  life.  After  all,  since  we  are  not  God 
we  must  remain  subjects,  not  makers,  of  the  uni- 
verse. 

Many  of  us  have  no  personal  memory  of  the 
nineteenth  century  storm  against  Zola ;  we  were  not N 
even  intrigued  into  an  interest  in  Russian  novels  by 
the  necessity  of  reading  them  in  the  attic  or  the 
woodshed.  But  we  still  catch  echoes  of  a  concep- 
tion of  realism  which  shows  the  inconvenience  of 
static  terms  to  express  growing  processes.  Some 
aroma  of  distaste  still  clings  to  the  word ;  for  when 
a  friend  remarked  in  literary  company  that  realistic 
writing  is  the  only  kind  worth  doing,  the  remark 
was  not  ignored  as  a  platitude,  but  was  combatted 
with  some  heat  as  either  a  wilful  paradox  or  a 
woefully  erroneous  doctrine. 

When  this  odor  of  unsanctity  is  analyzed,  three 
distinct  connotations  of  the  term  realism  may  be 
detected.  The  first  is  the  view  that  realism  is 
non-selective,  photographic,  a  "cross-section  of  life"  ; 
the  second  is  the  notion  that  realism  consists  of  the 
outpourings  of  minds  morbidly  attentive  to  sewer- 
age, like  the  dirt  eaters  noted  in  books  on  abnormal 
psychology;  the  third,  brought  upon  us  by  the  ad- 


vent of  free  verse  and  the  return  of  the  three  volume 
novel,  accuses  realism  of  indifference  to  or  opposi- 
tion to  all  "form." 

The  modern  development  of  realism  has  certain 
definite  and  easily  discernible  characteristics,  but  they 
are  not  these.  I  do  not  know  whether  any  writer  has 
tried  to  give  a  photographic  presentation  of  a  single  . 
hour  in  a  single  life — if  he  seriously  tried  it,  he 
either  gave  it  up  or  landed  in  an  asylum  for  the 
insane.  Selection  is  not  a  desideratum  of  art:  it  is 
unavoidable.  Not  even  the  three  volume  novel 
would  suffice  for  a  complete  account  of  that  one 
hour.  A  "cross-section  of  life"  may  be  had  only  by 
living  through  it,  with  the  use  of  every  sense.  In 
his  crabbed  fashion,  Hegel,  who  said  many  true 
things  which  few  people  have  the  patience  to  read, 
wrote  that  "the  real  has  an  infinite  number  of 
marks."  It  can  never  be  fully  described.  This 
residue  of  distinguishing  marks  is  what  differentiates 
it  from  any  image  we  may  form,  however  elaborate. 

The  realist,  then,  like  everyone  else,  must  select. 
And,  like  everyone  else,  he  must  admit  that  his  rank 
as  an  artist  depends  on  what  things  he  omits.  When 
he  tries — faithfully  to  "hold  the  mirror  up  to 
nature,"  he  must  acknowledge  that  even  when  we 
look  at  a  landscape  we  do  not  see  it  all — the  vision 
is  modified  by  selective  attention.  What  will  be 
seen  depends  on  the  observer.  Thus,  when  op- 
ponents of  the  realists  accuse  them  of  wasting  four 
hundred  pages  on  the  unimportant,  when  the  pop- 
ular magazines  praise  their  own  "red  blooded  fiction, 
packed  with  action,"  the  difference  of  opinion  hinges 
on  what  things  are  important,  what  constitutes 
action.  Combing  one's  hair  is  of  course  as  genuinely 
action  as  is  committing  a  murder. 

The  sign  of  the  realist  is  that  he  refuses  to  admit 
that  murder  is  intrinsically  more  important  than 
hair-combing.  His  attention  is  focused  on  action, 
not  for  its  own  sake,  but  for  its  significance  in 
illumining  humanity,  in  aiding  our  visual  faculty 
to  picture  either  outward  appearance  or  inner  mood. 
Indeed  it  is  only  in  outward  semblance  that  thoughts 
or  emotions  are  ever  revealed.  Because  he  takes 
seriously  this  commonplace,  the  realist  cares  in- 
tensely how  things  look,  and  to  him  all  details  are 
important  which  help  us  to  see.  Action  and  thought 
or  emotion  are  as  body  and  mind.  Mere  adventure 
without  meaning  is  as  dull  as  noise  without  rhythm 
or  tune.  It  does  not  so  much  matter  what  happens 
as  how  and  why  it  happens.  Irrelevant  action  in  a 
story  is  annoying  as  a  fire  bell  rung  for  a  joke  is 
annoying.  We  demand  meaning  behind  events; 


636 


THE  DIAL 


June  28 


and  meaning  is  in  terms  of  the  human  mind.  On 
the  other  hand,  ideas  or  emotions  in  abstraction, 
with  no  body  by  which  we  can  see  them,  are  as 
futile  as  ghosts.  But  meaning  is  not  always  in- 
carnated in  the  most  exciting  events.  When  the 
realistic  writer,  therefore,  descends  to  the  appar- 
ently trivial,  beware!  For  in  literature,  as  in  life, 
the  trivial  is  most  often  the  way  of  revelation. 

When  the  realist  is  accused  of  preoccupation  with 
the  gutter,  he  may  well  retort  that  such  preoccupa- 
tion is  on  the  contrary  romantic.  Reaction  against 
the  assertion  that  tragedy  belongs  only  to  crowned 
heads  and  that  only  a  very  limited  range  of  experi- 
ence is  appropriate  to  treatment  in  art,  naturally  led 
to  a  kicking  of  blithe  heels  in  hitherto  forbidden 
pastures,  to  a  seeking  for  beauty  in  the  "totally  un- 
inhabited interior,"  and  to  impatience  with  the 
long-trodden  ways.  But  to  glory  in  the  sordid  as 
such,  to  exalt  the  romance  of  ugliness,  is  foreign  to 
the  whole  purpose  of  realistic  fiction.  It  is  sub- 
ordinating interest  in  humanity  to  interest  in  a 
dogma;  and  this  can  never  be  realism. 

It  lies  deep  in  human  nature  to  revel  in  doing 
what  we  have  been  taught  is  naughty;  the  force 
of  the  reaction  is  one  of  the  effects  of  a  too  close 
restriction.  But  the  "conspiracy  of  silence"  has 
been  so  long  broken  that  the  novelty  of  revolt  is 
wearing  off.  Our  serious  novelists  are  tiring  of  an 
exclusive  devotion  to  the  analysis  of  sexual  aberra- 
tions. They  can  no  longer  shock  anybody,  so  what 
is  the  use?  They  are  regaining  their  sense  of  pro- 
portion, which  means  neither  suppression  nor  over- 
emphasis. Compton  Mackenzie  and  J.  D.  Beres- 
ford,  for  example,  treat  of  sex  with  entire  candor  in 
its  relation  to  life.  But  their  books  deal  with  the 
religious  and  economic  adventures  of  their  heroes,  no 
less  fully  than  with  their  sexual  experiences.  Will- 
iam McFee  shows  the  same  fine  sense  of  the  com- 
plexity of  human  experience.  The  realists  are 
strong  in  the  faith  that  where  truth  is,  there  beauty 
will  be  also. 

By  "unpleasant  topics,"  the  detractors  of  real- 
ism usually  have  reference  to  this  question  of 
sex.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they  do  not  object  to  the 
topic,  but  only  to  the  topic  when  it  is  not  treated 
romantically.  So  long  as  we  have  "five  reelers" 
like  The  Gangster's  Girl,  and  plays  like  Camille, 
and  hundreds  of  best  sellers  whose  one  concern  is 
the  pursuit  of  a  woman  by  a  man,  with  the  implica- 
tion that  wedding  bells  ring  down  the  curtain  on 
interest  in  life,  we  cannot  hang  as  a  millstone  round 
the  neck  of  the  realist,  preoccupation  with  sex  and 
the  sordid  underworld. 

There  is  an  old  saw  to  the  effect  that  ortho- 
doxy is  my  doxy  and  heterodoxy  your  doxy. 


"  'Form'  is  my  form ;  your  form  is  no  form 
at  all,"  says  the  metrist  to  the  vers  librist,  the 
novel  of  "construction"  to  the  novel  like  Sinister 
Street,  which  closes  in  the  hero's  twenty-fourth  year 
only  because,  the  author  assures  us,  it  would  take 
too  long  to  continue  it  until  he  is  seventy.  But 
there  is  no  disorder,  says  Bergson;  there  are  only, 
different  kinds  of  order.  So  long  as  words  are 
written  in  succession  and  books  have  somewhere  an 
ending,  there  can  be  no  absence  of  form.  The  crea- 
tion of  new  forms  is  by  no  means  a  new  process. 
The  molds  into  which  an  age  pours  its  self-expres- 
sion have  always  been  remodelled  according  to  the 
needs  and  impulses  of  the  time.  No  one  nowadays 
writes  blank  verse  epics  or  uses  for  his  social  satire 
the  rhymed  couplets  of  Pope.  The  innovation  of 
blank  verse  in  Elizabethan  plays  raised  a  commo- 
tion fully  as  violent  as  that  directed  against  the 
Spoon  River  Anthology — which  itself,  by  the  way, 
far  from  adopting  a  new  form,  harks  back  to  the  . 
Greek  Anthology.  Form  is  nothing  but  the  chosen 
method  of  expression ;  and  so  long  as  expression  is 
sought  at  all,  just  so  long  must  some  method  be 
chosen  from  among  a  multitude  of  possible  methods, 
some  form  adopted  or  created.  Already  there  are 
expounders  of  the  formalistic  elements  in  free  verse. 
Already  there  is  some  recognition  that  the  psycholog- 
ical, biographical  novel  is  not  wanting  in  construc- 
tion, though  its  construction  may  differ  from  tha.t 
of  the  novel  wherein  the  hero  and  heroine,  each  un- 
mistakably labeled,  meet  in  the  first  chapter  and 
are  married  in  the  last.  Our  new  wine  must  have 
new  bottles.  The  only  question  to  be  asked  con- 
cerning form  is  whether  it  is  an  appropriate  vehicle 
for  the  substance  which  it  embodies. 

In  its  war  against  romanticism  as  a  literary 
method,  realism  by  no  means  disdains  genuine  ro- 
mance. It  is  concerned  only  to  draw  the  line  very 
sharply  between  romance  and  sentimentality.  Ro- 
mance may  represent  a  great  truth.  Certainly  ro- 
mantic elements  in  life  and  feeling  are  facts  to  be 
recognized  like  all  other  facts,  and  as  such  are  to 
be  reckoned  with,  not  denied,  in  any  veritable  pre- 
sentment of  life.  It  is  only  when  romance  is  set  up  as 
somehow  above  reality  instead  of  a  part  of  it,  that 
it  becomes  dangerous.  Sentimentality,  the  imitation 
of  an  emotion  for  the  sake  of  following  convention 
or  of  pointing  a  moral,  is  a  foe  to  all  originality  and 
sincerity  in  art.  The  trouble  with  the  romantic 
method  is,  that  it  has  set  up  a  hieroglyphic  system 
of  "proper"  feelings  and  situations  which  have  no 
relation  to  life  and  are  useless  as  interpretation, 
guide,  inspiration,  or  description. 

The  new  realism,  then,  is  opposed  to  falsification 
of  the  outward  or  inner  semblance  of  things,  for  the 


THE  DIAL 


637 


sake  of  symbolism  or  beauty  or  morality  or  for  any 
purpose  whatsoever.  Reality  never  looks  the  same 
to  two  different  people.  It  is  incumbent  on  the 
artist  only  to  present  the  truth  as  it  presents  itself 
to  him. 

The  new  realism  is  also  opposed  to  the  sub- 
ordination of  presentation  to  propaganda.  Truth 
for  truth's  sake,  might  be  its  slogan.  Life  is  its  own 
exceeding  justification.  To  reveal  humanity  to  it- 
self is  the  function  of  the  artist.  Shaw,  who  hates 
romanticism  as  stanchly  as  any  man  now  living, 
falls  short  of  being  a  realist  because  he  never  im- 
merses himself  in  his  characters,  is  never  interested 
in  them  for  their  own  sakes,  never  forgets  that  he 
is  a  preacher.  There  is  a  high  place  for  preachers; 
only  it  should  be  remembered  that  it  is  never  the 
same  place  as  that  occupied  by  the  artists.  The 
preacher  always  wants  to  do  something  to  reality; 
he  cares  less  about  understanding  it  than  about  push- 
ing it  along  in  the  direction  he  wants  it  to  pursue. 
It  is  the  mission  of  the  realist  to  comprehend,  not 
to  judge. 

Finally,  the  new  realism  is  a  foe  to  vagueness. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  seeing  too  clearly,  it 
holds.  Vagueness  in  expression  is  only  a  cloak  for 
vagueness  of  conception;  and  vagueness  of  concep- 
tion is  only  a  cloak  for  laziness.  The  reader  or  the 
writer  who  maintains  that  clarity  dissipates  his 
enjoyment  is  either  too  cowardly  or  too  indolent  to 
face  the  difficulties  of  precision. 

The  whole  mission  of  art  is  to  transcribe  impres- 
sions— sensuous,  mental,  or  emotional.  In  this  sense 
accuracy  is  the  final  test  of  style;  if  a  style  is  such 
that  it  can  recapture  a  fleeting  mood,  the  whisking 
tail  of  a  scampering  feeling,  the  aspiration  which  is 


by  common  mortals  indefinable,  it  is  after  all  simply 
an  accurate  style.  If  it  transcribes  beauty  so  that 
we  see  and  feel  beauty  as  the  writer  saw  and  felt 
it,  glorying  in  all  the  most  glowing  colors  of  diction 
for  the  purpose,  the  highest  which  it  can  attain  is 
an  accurate  presentment  of  that  beauty.  If  this 
seem  like  dragging  the  miracle  of  art  into  the  light 
of  common  day — why,  common  day,  though  greatly 
maligned,  remains  the  best  light  for  seeing  things. 

The  attainment  of  realism  may  be  expressed  in 
Carlyle's  fine  phrase:  "Finding  the  ideal  in  the 
actual."  Do  we  thus  steal  the  thunder  -of  the  pro- 
fessed idealists?  But  the  idealists,  the  mystics,  and 
the  symbolists  insist  that  the  actual  is  the  one  place 
where  their  ideal  cannot  possibly  find  abiding  place. 
It  can  be  found,  say  they,  only  in  Maeterlinckian 
grottos  or  Dunsany  temples — never  in  the  Bronx 
nor  along  the  Main  Street  of  Keokuk,  Iowa. 

The  early  "laboratory"  realists  may  indeed  have 
denied  the  ideal  elements  of  life,  fleeing  like  hermits 
from  the  sins  of  the  sentiment-ridden  world.  But 
their  modern  descendants,  so  far  from  reducing  life 
to  its  physical  elements,  write  whole  plays  about 
justice,  whole  trilogies  about  the  struggle  of  a  man 
and  a  woman  to  wrest  the  divine,  romantic  meaning 
out  of  the  dusty  business  of  printshop  and  boarding 
house  and  matrimony.  So  far  from  being  pessi- 
mistic, such  work  gives  us  the  only  hope  that  glory 
may  shine  over  life  as  we  have  to  live  it,  that  we, 
in  the  integrity  of  our  personalities,  are,  if  Bennett 
or  Galsworthy  or  Mackenzie  could  only  drop  into 
the  office  or  the  shop  some  morning  and  see  us,  every 
whit  as  interesting,  as  heroic,  as  Clayhanger  or 

Falder  or  Michael  Fane.  XT  ,  , 

NANCY  BARR  MAVITY. 


War  Music 


The  shame  and  blood  be  on  your  head ! 
You  it  was  their  hearts  that  led, 
Quickened  their  deluded  feet, 
Sang  them  to  their  own  deceit. 

Taunted  with  sounds  of  bravery, 
Lured  them  with  songs  of  victory, 
With  your  shrill,  shrill,  shrill  strains 
Drowned  their  hearts,  drowned  their  brains. 


O  rhythm  and  rhyme,  snaring  man's  will, 
O  treacherous  splendor  of  sound,  be  still ! 
Bugle  and  fife,  yours  is  the  blame ; 
Bugle  and  fife  and  drum,  be  still  for  shame. 

HELEN  HOYT. 


638 


THE  DIAL 


June  28 


The  Voyages  of  Conrad 


IN  1873,  A  POLISH  LAD  of  fifteen,  walking  in  the 
Alps  with  his  tutor,  dismayed  that  gentleman  by  a 
declaration  of  independence.  He  proposed  to  give 
up  his  country  and  career,  in  order  to  take  his 
chances  on  the  sea.  A  few  years  later  he  was  sail- 
ing on  the  Mediterranean,  that  "  nursery  of  the 
craft."  Then  he  realized  his  dream  by  becoming 
associated  with  the  English  flag — incidentally  learn- 
ing the  English  language.  He  went  on  far  voyages, 
seeing  little  of  Europe  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 
Finally,  he  accomplished  his  second  transformation: 
the  Polish  lad  became  a  great  writer  of  English. 
The  boy  was  named  Jozef  Korzeniowski — the  writer 
is  known  to  fame  as  Joseph  Conrad. 

The  adventurous  spirit  thus  manifest  is  charac- 
teristic of  Conrad's  mind  and  work.  Romance  is 
his  great  word,  genuinely  romantic  are  his  favorite 
heroes.  He  arrays  them  against  the  manifold  visage 
and  challenge  of  the  seven  seas.  He  is  primarily 
the  psychologist  of  mariners,  he  is  Henry  James  on 
a  South  Sea  Island. 

Let  us  follow  some  of  his  rovings.  The  real  voy- 
ages of  Jozef  Korzeniowski  concern  us  only  as  a 
basis  for  the  fictional  adventures  that  his  double, 
Conrad,  has  narrated.  We  know  that  a  dozen  ac- 
tual ships  and  scenes  served  as  a  springboard  for 
his  imagination.  The  publishers  of  his  tales  have 
recently  charted  for  us  the  voyages  undertaken  by 
his  dream-ships  in  seas  that  often  Conrad  alone  has 
adequately  celebrated.  We  will  cruise  with  these 
ships,  not  in  chronological  order,  but  widening  out 
from  the  author's  favorite  center.  Usually  his  ports 
of  call  are  found  in  Malaysian  waters  and  his  ordin- 
ary beat  is  that  of  his  hero,  Heyst — "  a  circle  with 
a  radius  of  eight  hundred  miles  drawn  round  a 
point  in  North  Borneo."  This  point  is  approxi- 
mately the  scene  of  Almayer's  Folly,  with  which 
book  we  begin  to  cruise. 

The  original  of  Alrnayer,  inadequate  and  shift- 
less dreamer,  had  been  studied  along  the  muddy 
banks  of  the  Pantai,  where  the  story  unrolls.  The 
breath  of  this  poisonous  backwater  eats  into  the 
characters  and  the  sunset  gold  of  the  Pantai  sym- 
bolizes the  vain  greed  of  Almayer.  Swathed  in  mist, 
the  river  hides  a  pair  of  lovers  and  their  canoe;  it 
is  a  sleeping  world,  wherein  all  the  ardent  life  of 
the  tropics  is  transferred  to  the  beating  hearts  of 
Dain  and  Nina.  Finally — and  this  is  the  actual 
voyage — Almayer  watches  his  daughter  and  her 
lover  depart  in  a  violent  brazen  light;  he  watches 
the  vanishing  canoe  that  holds  their  embracing 


figures,  and  he  dies  in  his  curses,  unforgiving  and 
abandoned. 

The  ardor  and  chivalry  of  the  Malays,  their  pas- 
sionate pride,  again  fascinates  Conrad  in  Karain. 
Our  circle  now  widens  out  to  include  the  Archi- 
pelago around  Borneo.  Karairt's  mad  avenging 
journey,  as  he  tells  it,  proceeds  from  the  monster- 
shaped  Celebes,  past  "  a  great  mountain  burning  in 
the  midst  of  water,"  past  myriad  islands  that  are 
scattered  like  shards  from  the  gun  of  a  demiurge, 
to  Java,  with  its  stone  campongs  and  its  slavish 
population.  Then  on  to  unhealthy  Delli,  where  a 
blossoming  thicket  hid  Karain  and  his  brother-in- 
arms, the  two  avengers;  and  there  the  deluded 
Malay  kills  his  friend  instead  of  the  too  ravishing 
woman  who  should  have  been  the  victim. 

This  is  an  intensely  tragic  voyage.  The  more 
epic  and  comic  Typhoon  is  a  tale  of  endurance  and 
conquest.  Reaching  beyond  the  Philippines,  its 
scene  is  laid  near  the  northernmost  point  of  the 
Malaysian  circle.  In  the  narrow  dangerous  China 
seas,  near  Formosa,  the  Nan-Shan  encountered  one 
of  the  worst  storms  ever  recorded.  She  was  saved 
by  the  dullness  and  obstinacy  of  her  Captain  Mac- 
Whirr,  a  man; — witness  his  name — of  no  imagina- 
tion. Just  as  his  stupid  dutiful  letters  home  are 
barely  read  by  a  yawning  family,  so  does  his  imper- 
viousness  disgust  Jukes,  the  livelier  chief  mate. 
_  MacWhirr  has  never  yet  been  in  a  great  storm,  but 
you  feel  that,  as  a  crustacean,  he  is  prepared  for  one. 
He  greets  the  danger-signals  with  the  obvious  re- 
mark that  there  must  be  "  some  dirty  weather  knock- 
ing about."  It  becomes  a  Typhoon  and  knocks 
everybody  about:  the  officers  scurrying  on  their  du- 
ties from  pillar  to  post ;  the  cargo,  namely  two  hun- 
dred coolies,  who  presently  begin  sliding  to  and 
fro  in  a  mass  of  boxes,  pigtails,  and  dollars.  They 
are  roped  in  like  an  unruly  herd.  Jukes  plunges 
down  to  the  engine-room  and  from  that  gleaming 
Inferno  the  boat  seems  submerged  by  the  greatest 
blow  yet;  tons  of  water  descend,  sufficient  to  wipe 
out  everything;  those  in  the  engine-room  stare  at 
one  another  aghast;  and  through  the  speaking-tube 
the  captain's  voice  goes  on  unperturbed,  attending 
strictly  to  business. 

When  the  Nan-Shan  was  virtually  a  wreck  and 
the  wind  fell,  they  were  caught  in  the  circular  whirl 
of  the  hurricane;  but  the  captain  and  the  boat  kept 
their  heads  up  and  came  to  anchorage,  to  the  aston- 
ishment of  Jukes,  the  reader,  and  all  the  seamen  in 
the  harbor.  Mrs.  MacWhirr,  in  a  far-off,  forty- 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


639 


pound  house,  stifled  a  yawn  at  the  captain's  dull 
account  of  his  voyage. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  Archipelago  are  the 
peregrinations  told  of  in  The  End  of  the  Tether. 
The  blind  Captain  Whalley  touches  bottom  as  mate 
of  the  coasting  craft  Sofala,  which  Jbeats  up  and 
down  its  sixteen-hundred-mile  circular  route 
through  the  Malacca  Straits.  Needing  the  money 
for  his  daughter,  Captain  Whalley  has  descended  to 
this  from  much  greater  voyages.  To  hold  his  posi- 
tion, he  has  concealed  his  oncoming  blindness,  de- 
pending on  the  eyes  of  his  faithful  Malay  serang. 
But  he  is  suspected  by  his  worthless  officers,  one  of 
whom,  near  Pangu  Bay,  piles  the  steamer  up  on  the 
reef — and  the  captain  will  not  survive  his  charge. 

Such  is  the  third  journey  in  Conrad's  chief  volume 
of  nouvelles.  The  others  of  the  trilogy  are  Youth 
and  Heart  of  Darkness,  both  of  which  are  reminis- 
cences. Who  has  not  read  Youth,  that  record  of 
gallantry,  endurance,  romance,  and  humor?  It  tells 
of  Marlow's  very  first  voyage,  beginning  far  out  of 
our  circle,  but  aiming  for  the  "  white  "  of  it,  for 
that  Bangkok  which  is  the  scene  of  Falk  and  from 
which  Conrad's  own  first  command  set  sail.  Mar- 
low's  boat  was  the  Judea — "  all  rust,  dust,  grime — 
soot  aloft,  dirt  on  deck."  But  on  her  stern  she 
bore  the  imperative  and  romantic  motto  "  Do  or 
Die."  And  Bangkok  for  Marlow  promised  all  the 
thrill  and  wonder  of  the  unknown  East. 

Bound  first  for  an  English  port  to  load  on  with 
coal,  the  Judea  spent  a  week  in  getting  to  the  Yar- 
mouth Roads.  There  was  a  gale;  she  shifted  bal- 
last; the  crew  were  set  to  the  "grave-diggers' 
work  "  of  righting  her.  After  long  delay  in  loading, 
she  had  a  collision  with  a  steamer,  and  waited 
three  weeks  more.  Another  gale,  300  miles  W.  of 
the  Lizards,  tore  up  the  old  ship  and  the  crew 
turned  to  endless  pumping.  But  still  the  battered 
craft  threw  out  "  like  an  appeal,  like  a  defiance,  like 
a  cry  to  the  clouds  without  mercy,  the  words  written 
on  her  stern :' Judea,  London.  Do  or  Die.' "  And 
for  Marlow,  aetat.  20,  the  faith,  the  endeavor,  the 
imagination  of  Youth  were  in  that  cry. 

Their  deck-house  was  blown  away  and  they  put 
back  to  Falmouth.  Three  times  they  put  back  to 
Falmouth.  The  crew  refused,  and  no  wonder,  to 
trust  that  leaky  and  bewitched  hooker,  now  six 
months  on  the  road  to  Bangkok  and  not  yet  clear 
of  England.  You  ask  if  they  ever  reached  Bang- 
kok? Almost.  They  finally  got  to  the  Indian 
Ocean,  they  neared  Java  Head — when  the  coal 
caught  fire.  Still  sailing  for  Bangkok,  "  Do  or 
Die,"  they  fought  that  fire  for  days  and  just  as  they 
seemed  to  conquer  it,  the  cargo  blew  up.  The 
ship  herself  blew  up,  after  a  steamer  had  taken  the 


wreck  in  tow.  But  the  crew  had  saved  all  they 
could,  and  Marlow,  in  charge  of  his  own  boat, 
presently  sighted  Java — his  first  vision  of  the  East, 
"  the  East  of  the  ancient  narrators,  mysterious,  re- 
splendent, and  somber."  The  Judea  did  and  died; 
her  second  mate  had  begun  to  live. 

From  the  year  of  grace  1900  dates  the  personal 
history  of  Lord  Jim  and  the  record  of  the  pilgrim- 
ship,  the  Patna.  She  was  a  rusty  lean  cosmopolite, 
who  at  some  Eastern  port  took  on  her  cargo  of  eight 
hundred  faithful  ignorant  cattle-like  pilgrims.  Her 
officers,  barring  the  untried  Jim,  were  all  scamps 
and  bullies.  Unlike  the  men  of  the  Judea  and  the 
Nan-Shan,  these  fellows  are  not  true  seamen;  and 
that,  with  Conrad,  always  spells  disaster.  His 
picture  of.  the  early  part  of  the  voyage  is  one  oL 
his  greatest  pieces  of  descriptive  writing.  After 
clearing  the  Strait,  the  Patna  headed  through  the 
"  one-degree  "  passage  for  the  Red  Sea,  borne  down 
by  an  oppressive  sun,  sailing  on  a  stagnant  ocean. 
Under  a  slender  shaving  of  a  moon,  not  far  from 
where  the  Arabian  Sea  joins  the  Red,  something 
happened.  '  A  collision  with  a  derelict  shook  the 
ship  and  the  souls  upon  her.  The  scared  officers, 
believing  her  about  to  sink,  took  to  the  boats,  aban- 
doned the  Patna  and  her  pil-grims. 

In  the  record,  shifted  and  twisted  from  a  dozen 
angles,  we  feel  all  of  human  dread  and  cowardice, 
all  of  human  pity  for  the  doomed  eight  hundred, 
who  yet  were  not  doomed  but  successfully  towed  by 
a  French  gunboat  into  Aden.  The  Patna  was 
saved.  Only  her  officers  were  damned.  The  rest 
of  the  story,  dealing  with  the  "  case  "  of  Jim ;  his 
wanderings  like  those  of  the  accursed  Jew,  his  atone- 
ment in  savage  Patusan,  will  concern  us  later. 

In  a  previous  voyage,  described  in  The  Nigger 
of  the  Narcissus  we  meet  with  foul  weather  off  the 
Cape  and  with  that  admirable  cook,  who  at  the 
height  of  the  storm  accomplishes  the  miracle  of 
making  coffee.  His  declaration  "  as  long  as  she 
swims  I  will  cook  "  becomes  the  motto  of  the  desper- 
ate and  dauntless  boat.  For  here  we  are  in  the 
presence  of  "the  dumb  courage  of  men  obscure,  for- 
getful, and  enduring."  Throughout  the  windings 
of  their  limited  and  superstitious  souls  there  has 
passed  the  taut  shiver  x>f  responsibility,  of  "  Do  or 
Die."  The  Narcissus  is  no  Patna.  It  is  with  ad- 
miration and  fellowship  that  Conrad  bids  these  sea- 
men farewell.  It  has  been  said  that  this  story  best 
"  conjures  up  the  actual  spirit  of  a  voyage,"  the 
smell  of  the  ocean,  the  ship  moving  through  the 
tropical  heat.  . 

We  have  already  twice  swung  around  the  Cape 
in  Conrad's  wake;  his  farther  reaches  take  us  into 
the  penetralia  of  the  West  African  Coast.  As  a 


640 


THE  DIAL 


June  28 


boy  he  had  dreamed  of  the  dark  and  dreadful  Congo. 
In  the  incomparable  Heart  of  Darkness,  under  the 
witching  spell  of  the  narrator  Marlow,  we  are  taken 
far  up  this  river,  which,  resembling  an  "  immense 
snake  uncoiled,"  buries  its  tail  in  the  tenebrous 
wilderness.  Kurtz,  that  leader  of  men,  has  lost  both 
his  moral  sense  and  his  life.  An  expedition  has 
been  sent  to  pluck  him  out.  The  steamboat  crawled 
along  the  gloomy  silent  Congo;  it  was  "like  trav- 
eling back  to  the  earliest  beginnings  of  the  world, 
when  the  big  trees  were  kings."  An  uncertain 
channel,  a  sluggish  atmosphere,  wonderfully  con-- 
veyed  in  the  telling,  saurians  on  sandbanks,  and 
especially  the  "stillness  of  an  implacable  force,  venge- 
fully  watching."  It  had  watched  poor  Kurtz  to 
some  purpose,  for  when,  after  experiences  with 
cannibals,  ivory,  attacks  from  the  jungle — when 
you,  I,  and  Marlow  reach  the  heart  of  darkness, 
we  find  that  its  powers  have  driven  Kurtz  to  head- 
hunting, megalomania,  and  the  point  of  death. 

Far-flung  tangents  from  the  circle  are  traced  by 
other  voyages  which  may  be  briefly  summarized. 
There  is  the  transatlantic  venture  by  which  the 
hero  of  Romance  comes  to  peril  and  thirst  and  the 
most  adorable  of  stately  senoritas  on  the  Spanish 
Main.  There  is  the  savage  brute  of  a  boat  (Sydney 
to  London)  which  slays  a  passenger  every  trip  and 
whose  cruel  anchor  catches  up  and  crushes  the 
mate's  sweatheart  before  his  eyes.  There  is  the 
Ferndale  (London  to  Port  Elizabeth),  on  which 
occurs  the  singular  incident  narrated  in  that  ob- 
scure book,  Chance.  If  Victory  has  most  of  Stev- 
enson in  its  scheme,  Chance  has  most  of  Henry 
James  in  its  method.  Gradually  Conrad  has  be- 
come more  interested  in  souls  than  in  ships;  also 
he  stays  longer  and  more  persuasively  in  the  society 
of  women. 

That  brings  us  to  his  inland  voyages,  which  are 
of  two  kinds,  geographical  and  psychological.  As 
regards  the  first  kind,  for  over  twenty  years  Conrad 
scarcely  saw  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  the  jour- 
neyings  which  traverse  that  continent — such  tales  as 
Under  Western  Eyes — are  to  my  thinking  almost 
negligible.  But  the  voyages  of  discovery  into  the 
varieties  of  human  hearts  and  situations  demand 
fuller  treatment.  They  demand  first  of  all  some 
reckoning  with  the  author's  philosophy. 

Traveling  always  from  one  place  to  another, 
shifting  imaginatively  from  standpoint  to  stand- 
point, Conrad  has  naturally  come  to  view  life  as 
a  great  panorama,  and  art  as  an  adventurous  cruise. 
Life  is  a  succession  of  scenes  and  the  "  master  of 
the  show "  is  the  goddess  Maia.  Illusion  is  the 
word  most  frequently  on  Conrad's  lips — illusions 
of  youth,  of  hope,  in  fact  the  "  darkness  of  a  world 


of  illusions "  in  which  his  best-beloved  romantic 
characters  appear  as  beautiful  vanishing  figure- 
heads. Sombre  and  splendid,  they  come,  they  flash, 
they  go.  "  Ports  are  no  good,  ships  rot,  men  go  to 
the  devil."  Conrad's  pessimism  becomes  more  sar- 
donic and  matter-of-fact  in  his  later  books.  But 
throughout  he  is  saved  by  his  absolute  love  of  the 
sea  and  seamen,  and  by  his  belief  in  a  certain 
steadiness  and  sturdiness  which  is  essentially  nauti- 
cal. We  have  seen  how  he  displays  courage  and 
character  in  his  best  sailors.  Again,  the  artistic 
compass  by  which  he  steers  swings  resolutely  to 
the  pole  of  Truth.  Sincerity  and~a  kind  of  austere 
control  guide  this  romantic  realist  who  can  on  the 
one  hand  define  literary  criticism  as  a  high  adven- 
ture of  personality — exactly  like  Anatole  France — 
and  on  the  other  achieve  restraint  in  the  deepest 
emotion  of  Lord  Jim  or  Lena. 

Conrad  is  professedly  not  "  literary  "  in  the  spe- 
cial sense.  He  lived  only  for  the  sea  and  did  not 
write  a  line  until  his  thirty-sixth  year.  It  is  nat- 
ural then  that  the  sea's  rhythm  should  be  found  in 
his  sentences,  something  of  her  swift  fickleness  in 
his  restless  eye.  He  has  often  compared  artistic 
creation  to  voyaging.  Each  effort  is  like  the 
"  everlasting  somber  stress  of  the  winter  passage 
around  Cape  Horn."  Each  story  gets  under  way 
as  leisurely  as  the  Judea.  There  are  voyages  into 
the  consciousness  of  a  hundred  heroes,  into  the 
thwarted  spirit  of  Kurtz,  into  the  self-deception  of 
the  Nigger,  a  voyage  of  discovery  to  learn  simply 
that  Captain  Whalley  is  blind,  another  outward 
tragedy  that  ends  in  inner  Victory.  From  this 
mental  and  moral  Odyssey  I  will  detail  only  a  few 
episodes,  which  will  likewise  serve  as  specimens  of 
Conrad's  constructive  technique.  There  are  two 
main  sorts:  the  voyage  that  flits  from  one  interest, 
group,  or  situation  to  another,  using  each  cursorily 
as  a  port  of  call;  the  voyage  which  proceeds  from 
one  psychological  standpoint  to  another,  plumbing 
the  depths  of  each  soul,  through  its  own  narrative 
and  confession. 

Of  the  first  kind,  the  epic  story  of  Nostromo — 
regarded  by  some  as  Conrad's  greatest — is  typical. 
We  know  the  immense  labor  that  went  into  this 
presentation  (based  on  almost  no  experience)  of  a 
South  American  republic.  The  result,  I  believe,  is 
a  tangle,  a  too  intricate  web.  The  adventurous 
interest  is  to  find  the  pattern,  which  is  not  zero  as 
in  musical  comedy,  but  nearer  infinity,  as  in  Balzac. 
In  fact,  Balzac's  method  rules.  From  an  initial 
situation,  in  medias  res,  we  travel  back  to  one  set 
of  people  and  then  to  another,  with  fresh  digres- 
sions and  dossiers,  eddies  and  whirlpools.  We 
sink  into  the  maelstrom  of  an  individual  experience 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


641 


to  emerge  into  the  muddy  froth  of  revolutionary 
parties.  We  are  led  astray  by  an  undated  log-book, 
which  produces  much  confusion  of  time  and  place. 
We  are  „  frustrated  by  unclear  sequences  and  con- 
trary winds  and  we  chart  our  course  in  a  dozen 
directions. 

To  this  excessive  ramble  one  is  justified  in  pre- 
ferring the  stiller  depths  of  Lord  Jim.  Here  Con- 
rad nearly  attains  his  desired  unity  of  effect,  the 
atmospheric  steeping  which  is  the  essence  of  his 
romanticism.  Here,  at  least,  there  is  a  single  sub- 
ject, a  mountain  of  a  subject,  which  we  cruise 
around  and  see  through  the  eyes  of  several  ob- 
servers. The  author  uses  his  pet  device  of  first- 
person  narration.  The  reminiscent  and  gloomy 
Marlow  first  appears  here  and  tells  us,  too  length- 
ily, nearly  the  whole  story  of  Jim's  failure  and  re- 
habilitation. But  that  is  only  one  point  of  view. 
There  is  also  the  inner  circle  of  Jim's  own  con- 
sciousness, gradually  becoming  distinct.  There  are 
the  successive  sidelights  thrown  episodically  by  the 
self-sufficient  Brierly,  by  the  French  captain,  with 
his  touchstone  of  honor,  by  the  merchant  who  re- 
trieves and  establishes  Jim  in  Patusan.  There  are 
the  crowning  lights  thrown  by  Jim's  dusky  sweet- 
heart and  his  chivalrous  brother-in-arms — spot- 
lights for  the  catastrophe. 

Here  again  space  and  time  are  introverted  or 
confused,  but  the  main  end  is  gained  and  we  have 
a  progressively  ascending  study  of  one  temperament 
mirrored  through  several  others.  .  .  In  Chance, 
these  others  are  quite  evidently  of  the  sort  usually 
chosen  by  Henry  James:  the  first-person  narrator, 
curious  but  limited  in  knowledge,  the  dull  conven- 
tional couple  who  guard  the  unfortunate  heroine, 
the  viewpoint  of  the  romantic  captain  who  weds 
and  saves  her. 

But  it  is  in  Victory  that  we  find  the  happiest 
amalgamation  of  the  true  Conrad  with  his  cosmo- 
politan masters — for  certainly  his  technique  is  much 
more  exotic  than  English.  With  Victory  we  are  in 
the  heart  of  Malaysia  again  and  we  are  furthermore 
in  the  hearts  of  the  various  actors  in  this  passionate 


drama.  The  magnanimous  self-tormented  Heyst 
is  set  off  against  the  cupidity  and  villainies  of  old 
Schomberg,  Ricardo,  and  "  plain  Mr.  Jones."  With 
most  of  these  we  stay  for  several  chapters,  while 
each  expounds  his  attitude  and  outlook.  They  are 
loosely  enclosed  within  two  outer  rings  of  observa- 
tion, that  of  the  semi-detached  narrator  and  of  the 
peripatetic  Captain  Davidson,  who  brings  news  of 
Heyst  and  the  girl  on  the  island.  The  triumph  of 
the  .book  is  the  girl  herself,  her  gradual  rise  from 
a  dull  sulkiness — Conrad  is  strangely  fond  of  sulky 
women — to  participation  in  Heyst's  scheme  for  her 
rescue,  and  finally  to  an  overwhelming  gratitude 
reaching  the  point  of  self-immolation.  Her  growth 
in  consciousness  and  effectiveness  is  a  marvel  of 
psychological  portrayal,  set  amid  stirring  deeds. 
The  Spanish  heroine  of  the  Arrow  of  Gold  (Double- 
day,  Page;  1919)  is,  on  the  other  hand,  already 
fully  grown;  almost  as  grown  as  her  creator, 
in  her  strange  mingling  of  deep  romance  and 
disillusionment.  e 

Mr.  Richard  Curie,  Conrad's  biographer  and 
critic,  has  found  over  ninety  strongly  realized  char- 
acters in  his  work.  What  a  power  of  vision  is 
needed  to  conceive  sharply  all  these  diverse  types! 
The  creative  mind  has  roamed  from  the  duellist 
Feraud,  of  Napoleon's  time,  to  the  chivalrous  dark- 
skinned  Dain,  from  caged  and  restless  English  girls 
(Bessie  Carvil,  Flora  de  Barral)  to  the  romantic 
Ninas  and  Seraphinas  of  exotic  strain.  Literally 
from  China  to  Peru  Conrad  has  voyaged  and  ob- 
served. He  has  depicted  vast  rivers  and  "  those 
seas  of  God  "  in  all  their  myriad  changes — sunny 
smiles  hurrying  into  darkness,  sluggish  peace  alter- 
nating with  riot  and  cruelty.  Much  has  he  trav- 
eled in  the  realms  of  gold — so  much  that  the  de- 
ferent reviewer  can  see  only  two  more  major  ad- 
ventures for  him  to  undertake.  The  first  would  be 
to  visit  this  country,  as  he  once  proposed  to  do.  May 
he  long  delay  the  great  Departure,  the  uncertain 
landfall  of  the  second  voyage! 


E.  PRESTON  DARGAN. 


A  Parasite  Novel 


T 

J-H 


.HE  REALTY  OF  CHARACTERS  in  fiction  depends 
on  a  multitude  of  adventitious  circumstances.  We 
believe  in  a  man  because  he  lives  in  a  known  town, 
on  a  particular  street,  at  a  special  number ;  because 
he  belongs  to  a  certain  religious  sect  or  political 
party ;  because  he  dresses  in  conventional  black  or  in 
sport  tweeds ;  because  he  has  a  squint,  a  wen,  a  stam- 
mer, or  smells  of  garlic.  One  of  the  methods  of 


the  realist  is  the  identification  of  characters  by 
families;  and  since  family  is  so  important'  an  in- 
stitution to  the  English,  we  should  expect  to  find 
that  method  greatly  in  vogue  in  the  English  novel. 
Thackeray  as  an  English  gentleman  recognizes  his 
characters  by  their  family  connections,  and  one  of 
the  ways  in  which  he  makes  his  whole  social  fabric 
convincing  is  by  carrying  his  families  on  from  novel 


THE  DIAL 


June  28 


to  novel.  A  modern  edition  of  Thackeray's  novels 
should  be  furnished  with  a  series  of  genealogical 
trees,  as  Hardy's  with  a  map  of  Wessex. 

In  The  Gay-Dombeys  (Macmillan)  Sir  Harry 
Johnston  has  reared  a  family  structure  of  his  own 
on  a  foundation  established  for  him  by  a  famous 
predecessor.  Dombey  and  Son  was  the  novel  in 
which  Dickens  dealt  most  specifically  with  the  theme 
of  family  and  the  curse  of  family  pride,  so  properly 
punished  in  the  misfortune  of  the  senior  Dombey — 
the  flight  of  his  wife,  the  death  of  his  son,  the  down- 
fall of  his  house.  Now  comes  Sir  Harry  Johnston 
to  show  us  the  family  revived  through  the  marriage 
of  Florence  Dombey  to  Walter  Gay,  whose  name 
yields  through  hyphenization  to  hers,  so  that  the  son 
and  heir  of  the  house  is  Paul  Dombey  III.  And 
accompanying  the  Dombeys  into  the  second  and  third 
generations  there  is  a  similar  projection  of  their  com- 
patriots in  the  world  of  Dickens.  Suzanne,  daughter 
of  Sir  Walter  Gay-Dombey  and  Florence,  is  married 
to  a  Lord  Feenix.  Harriet  Carker's  son,  Eustace 
Morven,  a  faithful  retainer  of  the  house  of  Dombey, 
is  the  hero  of  the  book.  His  inspiration  comes  to 
him  from  Professor  Lacrevy,  F.R.S.,  whose  sister, 
Adele,  is  his  first  love.  The  Toodles  stock  has  borne 
a  railway  promoter;  Sir  James  Tudell,  a  popular 
actress,  Bella  Delorme,  and  a  blackleg  journalist, 
Baxendale  Strangeways.  There  is  also  a  Sir  Mul- 
berry Hawk,  a  Barnet  Skettles,  and  a  Lord  Algernon 
Verisopht.  These  people  start  thus  with  a  certain 
inherited  reality  which  is  increased  by  a  resemblance 
in  character  or  position  to  personalities  of  the  day. 
That  of  Josiah  Choselwhit  to  Joseph  Chamberlain, 
and  of  Lord  Wiltshire  to  Lord  Salisbury,  are  most 
noteworthy.  For  the  rest  Sir  Harry  creates  his 
human  background  from  the  world  which  he  has 
known,  the  late  Victorian.  At  Sir  Walter's  party, 
with  which  the  tale  opens  in  1887,  the  characters 
above  noted  are  set  off  by  a  background  consisting 
of  the  Bancrofts,  Henry  Irving,  John  Hare,  George 
Grossmith,  Eric  Lewis-,  Beerbohm  Tree,  Ellen 
Terry,  Arthur  Pinero,  several  Rothschilds  and  Ox- 
ford Dons,  Arthur  Balfour  (who  talked  theology 
with  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward),  W.  S.  Gilbert,  Arthur 
Sullivan  (who  played  the  accompaniment  for  An- 
toinette Stirling  to  sing  The  Lost  Chord,  DuMau- 
rier,  Margot  Tennant  (Dodo),  Corney  Grain  (who 
delighted  everyone  with  his  parodies),  and  Oscar 
Wilde  (who  shocked  them  with  his  epigrams).  Al- 
together an  easy  way  to  get  the  human  stuff  for  a 
novel.  Why  is  it  not  done  oftener? 

The  method  of  the  story  is  equally  nonchalant. 
It  follows  for  a  main  thread  the  biography  of  Sir 
Eustace  Morven — explorer,  consul,  commissioner 
with  governing  power  in  tropical  Africa.  The  im- 


plication that  the  book  is  based  on  the  documents 
of  Sir  Eustace  gives  plausibility  to  the  African  ma- 
terial, for  which  Sir  Harry  Johnston's  own  career 
is  ample  authority.  The  second  episode  of  the  book 
in  interest,  and  the  first  in  dramatic  handling,  is  the 
love  affair  of  Paul  Dombey  II L  And  for  back- 
ground there  are  English  politics  and  administration 
represented  by  the  Feenixes,  Skettles,  and  Mulberry 
Hawks,  the  imperial  inefficiency  against  which  Sir 
Eustace  breaks  his  life;  there  is  English  society  at 
Sir  Walter  Gay-Dombey's  house  in  Onslow  Square 
or  at  Lord  Wiltshire's  or  Lord  Feenix's  country 
houses,  with  its  imperial  cynicism;  there  is  English 
religion  represented  by  the  orthodoxy  of  solemn 
Canon  S.  Edward  Dombey,  and  the  superstition  of 
the  Second  Advent  held  strongly  by  Eustace's 
mother ;  the  English  stage  represented  by  Belle  De- 
lorme; English  journalism  by  Baxendale  Strange- 
ways;  and  English  art  by  the  estheticism  of-Percival 
and  Lucretia  Dombey.  It  is  all  the  substance  of  ex- 
perience and  observation,  a  journalistic  record  of 
certain  aspects  and  episodes  in  imperial  England  put 
forward  casually  and  unpremeditatedly,  much  of  it  in 
letters,  „  the  rest  in  dialogues,  conversations,  and 
author's  narrative,  and  properly  introduced  by  the 
foremost  practitioner  of  the  English  journalistic 
novel,-  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells. 

Perhaps  the  chief  challenge  of  the  title  is  to  our 
recognition  of  the  changes  which  have  passed  over 
English  life  as  recorded  in  fiction  in  the  half-century 
interval  between  Dombey  and  Son  and  The  Gay- 
Dombeys.  One  difference  has  already  been  noted, 
the  greater  emphasis  on  the  background,  and  its  con- 
nection with  greater  issues,  political  and  social.  A 
second  difference  is  the  greater  uniformity  of  charac- 
ter, the  absence  of  startling  eccentricity  in  life  and 
grotesque  exaggeration  in  the  drawing  of  it.  But 
the  chief  difference  is  undoubtedly  in  the  moral  cli- 
mate of  the  two  books.  Both  contain  the  element  of 
illicit  love ;  but  while  Edith  Dombey's  flight  is  heav- 
ily weighted  with  moral  significance,  the  escapade  of 
Paul  Dombey  III  and  Lucilla  Smith  is  totally  with- 
out moral  implication,  the  whole  question  being  one 
of  beating  the  social  game.  The  Victorians  used 
passion  as  an  opportunity  for  renunciation,  and  that 
Mr.  Dombey  is  excluded  from  the  benefit  of  this 
unearned  moral  increment  shows  the  depth  of  his 
reprobation.  The  post- Victorians  (vide  Wells, 
Beresford,  George),  like  the  comedians  of  the 
Restoration,  use  it  as  a  test  point  in  the  contest  be- 
tween man  and  his  environment.  Their  theme  is 
not  the  spiritual  reward  of  sacrifice  but  the  social 
difficulty  of  "  getting  away  with  it."  Sir  Harry 
Johnston  is  of  their  school  of  thought. 

ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


643 


Feodar  Sologub 


I 


CANNOT  give  you  my  autobiography,"  Sologub 
wrote  the  editor  of  a  literary  almanac,  "as  I  do  not 
think  that  my  personality  can  be  of  sufficient  interest 
to  anyone."  And  so  we  know  nothing  of  the  man 
Feodar  Teternikov  beyond  the  fact  of  his  birth  in 
1864,  his  education  in  Petrograd,  and  his  early 
vocation  as  a  schoolmaster.  But  of  the  writer 
Feodar  Sologub,  the  egohood  of  Teternikov,  we  have 
the  testimony  of  more  than  twenty  volumes.  Of 
this  work  he  himself  states:  "  I  simply  and  calmly 
reveal  my  soul  ...  in  the  hope  that  the  intimate 
part  of  me  shall  become  the  universal."  Which 
irrelevantly  suggests  a  very  placid  child  seated  on 
the  nursery  floor  and  solemnly  exhibiting  his  glow- 
ing, variegated,  shifting  kaleidoscope. 

Unfortunately  only  four  books  from  this  extensive 
self-revelation  are  available  for  English  readers: 
The  Little  Demon  (translated  by  John  Cournos  and 
Richard  Aldington;  Knopf,  1916)  and  The  Created 
Legend  (translated  by  John  Cournos;  Stokes, 
Co.,  1916),  which  have  been  termed  the  In- 
ferno and  Paradise  of  Russian  literature,  The 
Sweet  Scented  Name  (edited  by  Stephen  Graham; 
Putnam,  1916),  and  The  Old  House  (translated 
by  John  Cournos;  Knopf,  1916).  Of  these 
two  are  novels,  two  are  collections  of  short  stories, 
all  are  philosophic  in  tone  and  symbolic  in  method. 
The  Little  Demon  is  the  depiction  of  an  idea,  built 
up  incident  by  incident  like  the  values  of  a  painting 
— gray  values  transepted  by  a  single  streak  of 
carmen,  the  adolescent  love  of  Liudmilla  and  the 
student  Sasha.  It  is  an  idea  of  evil,  resulting  from 
the  distortion  of  life  by  the  light  of  a  corrupt  imag- 
ination. Peredonov,  a  schoolmaster,  lives  with  his 
cousin  Varvara  Dmitrievna  in  the  little  town  of 
Skorodozh.  His  mistress  has  promised  that  if  he 
will  marry  her,  she  will  use  her  influence  with  the 
princess  for  whom  she  formerly  worked  to  have 
'him  made  an  inspector.  On  this  slight  peg  of  the 
coveted  inspectorship  hangs  all  the  drab,  noisome 
fabric  of  the  tale.  His  passion  to  attain  it  makes 
Peredonov  suspicious.  He  is  suspicious  of  Varvara 
till  he  smells  his  coffee  to  make  sure  she  has  not 
poisoned  it;  of  his  friends  till  he  protests  his  inno- 
cence to  leading  townsmen  to  circumvent  imagined 
slander;  of  the  princess,  whom  he  insanely  suspects 
of  wishing  to  seduce  him,  till  the  thought  of  "the  al- 
most cold  little  old  woman  smelling  slightly  of  a 
corpse"  makes  him  faint  with  savage  voluptuousness 
and  drives  him  to  sending  her  an  obscene  note  that 
thwarts  all  his  hopes  of  promotion ;  of  the  cat,  which 


looks  at  him  wildly  and  snarls  till  he  tries,  by  shear- 
ing her,  to  rid  himself  of  the  menace  in  the  elec- 
tricity of  her  fur;  of  the  playing  cards,  which  seem 
to  whisper  and  leer  at  him  till  he  pokes  out  their 
eyes;  and  finally,  above  all,  he  is  suspicious  of  the 
ramlike  Volodin,  an  old  friend  whom  he  holds 
senselessly  as  an  enemy  and  whom  in  a  frenzy  of 
insanity  and  drunkenness  he  eventually  kills.  From 
the  first  adagio,  where  he.  smells  his  coffee,  andante 
through  his  mistaking  the  pond  for  a  dirty  mirror, 
or  setting  fire  to  the  dining  room  because  of  a  gray 
imp  running  up  the  curtains,  to  the  fanfare  of  the 
murder,  the  incidents  blend  in  a  crescendo  of  mad- 
ness, the  madness  resulting  from  an  inherently 
warped,  malevolent  point  of  view.  It  is  the  man's 
own  nature  which  haunts  him  in  the  form  of  the 
little  demon — "  a  small,  gray  and  nimble  nedoti- 
komka  "  that  nods  and  trembles  and  circles  around 
him  and,  when  he  stretches  out  his  hand  to  catch  it, 
glides  swiftly  out  of  sight,  only  to  reappear  a 
moment  later  trembling  and  mocking  again. 

Vindictive,  carnal,  insane,  "  colgssal  in  his  petti- 
ness," Peredonov  is  nevertheless  a  tragic  figure. 
Because  he  is  acute  enough  to  realize  evil  in  him- 
self and  others,  he  throws  his  whole  life  on  the 
fires  of  his  bitterness;  then  dances  like  a  maniac  by 
the  light  of  the  holocaust.  Within  and  without 
the  stuff  of  ;his  world  is  hate,  and  there  he  stands 
alone,  with  only  the  consciousness  of  his  corruption. 

In  the  midst  of  the  depression  of  these  streets  and 
houses  under  estranged  skies,  upon  the  unclean  and  im- 
potent earth,  walked  Peredonov  tormented  by  confused 
fears.  There  was  no  comfort  for  him  in  the  heights  and 
no  consolation  upon  the  earth,  because  now,  as  before,  he 
looked  upon  the  world  with  dead  eyes  like  some  demon 
who,  in  his  dismal  loneliness,  despaired  with  fear  and 
with  yearning.  .  .  All  that  reached  his  consciousness 
became  transformed  into  abomination  and  filth.  All  ob- 
jects revealed  their  imperfections  to  him  and  their  imper- 
fections gave  him  pleasure.  When  he  walked  past  an 
erect  clean  column,  he  had  a  desire  to  make  it  crooked 
and  to  bespatter  it  with  filth.  .  .  There  were  neither 
beloved  objects  for  him  nor  beloved  people — and  this  made 
it  possible  for  nature  to  act  upon  his  feelings  only  one- 
sidedly,  as  an  irritant. 

Yet  amid  the  phantoms  illumined  by  his  own 
infernal  imagination,  his  perishing  soul  can  still 
murmur  wistfully:  "  Surely  everything  doesn't 
merely  seem  to  me.  There  must  be  also  truth 
upon  the  earth." 

The  keynote  of  The  Little  Demon  is  individual- 
ism, that  of  an  extreme  egotist  cut  off  from  his  kind. 
The  Created  Legend,  on  the  contrary,  is  essen- 
tially social.  "  I  love  the  people,  I  love  freedom," 
cries  the  heroine  Elisaveta.  "My  love  is  revolt." 


644 


THE  DIAL 


June  28 


In  the  latter  work  we  see  distinctly  the  advan- 
tages and  disadvantages  of  the  author's  stated 
formula:  "  I  take  a  piece  of  life  coarse  and  poor 
and  make  of  it  a  delightful  legend."  The  piece 
of  life  here  is  the  story  of  the  poet  and  chemist 
Trirodov,  who  establishes  an  out-of-door  school  for 
children  beyond  the  confines  of  Skorodozh,  in  which, 
as  we  may  remember,  dwells  also  Peredonov.  But 
where  we  formerly  looked  at  the  village  through 
the  black  glasses  of  egotism,  we  now  see  it  through 
the  rose  of  altruism.  Barefooted  children  and  in- 
structresses lightly  clad  in  gay  colors,  romp  through 
the  glades  of  Trirodov's  property,  where  by  chance 
comes  Elisaveta,  daughter  of  a  nearby  landowner, 
who  loves  the  poet  for  his  revolutionary  and 
humanitarian  views  and  eventually  marries  him. 

The  legend,  in  the  meantime,  makes  Elisaveta 
the  reincarnation  of  the  lost  queen  Ortruda  from 
beautiful  isles  in  the  Mediterranean  and  symbolic 
also  of  the  1905  revolution.  It  peoples  the  master's 
house  with  white,  silent,  spiritual  children  in  an- 
tithesis to  the  pink,  rollicking,  fleshly  boys  and  girls 
of  his  gardens.  Throughout  its  paragraphs  magic 
is  rampant:  Trirodov  changes  the  former  wicked 
owner  into  a  prism  which  he  keeps  on  his  desk  as 
a  paperweight ;  strange  melodies  are  heard  from  far 
away  corridors;  while  on  St.  John's  Eve,  putrid 
ghosts  representing  the  dead  institutions  of  old 
Russia  pace  the  Navii  footpath.  These  symbols, 
according  to  the  author,  should  be  treated  like  music, 
which  is  interpreted  differently  by  each  individual: 

It  does  not  matter  that  one  person  understands  a  story 
one  way  and  one  another.  .  .  Do  not  think  that  I 
refrain  from  explaining  ray  work  because  I  do  not  wish  to. 
Perhaps  I  simply  cannot.  I  was  in  such  a  mood  and  such 
a  poem  was  the  result. 

It  may  be  due,  psychologically,  to  this  verbal 
projection  of  a  mood  that  the  union  of  fantasy  and 
realism  sometimes  becomes  actually  grotesque  in 
Sologub's  longer  works.  A  mood  is  difficult  to 
sustain  in  an  extensive  piece  of  writing  and  when 
it  lapses,  its  expression,  is  forced  or  thin.  A  tired 
mood  in  an  author  follows  the  path  of  least  resist- 
ance and  embodies  itself  in  a  trite  or  inept  symbol. 
Moreover,  it  is  too  weak  to  stimulate  a  like  emotion 
in  the  reader,  and  so  his  attention  is  left  free  to 
notice  the  mere  technique  of  the  uncertain  parallel- 
ism. For  instance,  at  the  beginning  of  The  Created 
Legend,  in  the  account  of  the  sisters'  bathing, 
Sologub's  mood  is  one  of  joy  and  youth.  Intense 
at  first,  it  expresses  itself  in  words  whose  ease, 
rhythm,  and  relevance  arouse  the  same  feeling  in 
the  reader: 

It  was  a  bright  hot  midday  in  summer  and  the  heavy 
glances  of  the  flaming  Dragon  fell  on  the  river  Skorodyn. 
The  water,  the  light,  and  the  summer  beamed  and  were 
glad;  they  beamed  because  of  the  sunlight  that  filled  the 


immense  space,  they  were  glad  because  of  the  wind  that 
blew  from  some  far  land,  because  of  the  many  birds, 
because  of  the  two  nude  maidens. 

But  further,  toward  the  end  of  the  episode,  the 
rnood  wanes  and  the  same  figure  of  the  sun,  because 
of  its  forced  and  discordant  quality,  becomes 
ridiculous: 

They  made  their  way  silently  together  out  of  the 
pleasant,  cool,  deep  water  toward  the  dry  ground, 
heaven's  terrestrial  footstool,  and  out  into  the  air,  where 
they  met  the  hot  kisses  of  the  slowly,  cumberously  rising 
Dragon.  They  stood  awhile  on  the  bank  yielding  them- 
selves to  the  Dragon's  kisses,  then  entered  the  protected 
bath  house  where  they  had  left  their  clothes. 

This  same  involuntary  grotesqueness,  rather  than 
a  perverted  mind,  is,  I  believe,  the  basis  of  accusa- 
tions against  Sologub  of  pornography.  For  instance, 
descriptions  of  passion  or  beauty  are  frequently 
marred  by  suggestions  of  the  most  modern  or  prac- 
tical things.  Now  just  why  a  heroine  of  serious 
verse  may  ride  a  horse — even  astride — but  never 
a  bicycle,  or  why  combing  her  hair  is  a  poetic 
act  on  the  part  of  the  Loreli,  while  brushing 
her  teeth  is  not,  are  facts  for  future  doctors'  theses  to 
analyze,  yet  their  status  is  undisputed.  Similarly,  it 
is  unfortunate  when  Liudmilla  in  The  Little  Demon 
shows  Sasha  the  label  of  Guerlain,  Paris,  on  a  bottle 
of  perfume  before  scenting  him  with  it;  or  when 
Trirodov  hastens  for  'his  kodak  to  photograph  the 
body  of  his  mistress,  or  presents  Elisaveta,  on  their 
bethothal,  with  a  snapshot  of  his  nude  former  wife. 
This  last  may  be  Slavic,  and  it  may  even  be 
symbolic,  but  at  least  for  any  Anglo-Saxon  sense  of 
the  ridiculous,  it  is  beyond  th^pale.  Inconsistency, 
too,  adds  to  our  impression  that  Sologub  sometimes 
describes  passion  for  his  own  sake  rather  than  for 
the  sake  of  his  characters.  After  saying  through  one 
of  the  latter  that  a  free  feeling  is  always  innocent, 
and  reiterating  that  the  love  of  Liudmilla  and  Sasha 
is  pure,  he  nevertheless  subjects  her  to  forty  or  fifty 
pages  of  agonized  restraint  until,  with  Freudian 
inevitability,  she  dreams  that  she  is  embraced  by  a 
swan. 

This  occasional  awkwardness  of  style  is  entirely 
lacking  in  his  short  stories.  The  Old  House,  for 
instance,  which  is  the  account  of  a  day  in  the  lives 
of  three  women — the  grandmother,  mother,  and 
sister  of  Boris,  who  has  been  hung  for  anarchy,  is 
like  a  long,  prose  song.  It  is  a  song  of  grief,  with 
the  cadence  of  very  simple  words,  the  unity  of  dawn 
to  dark,  and  the  slow  rhythm  of  the  sun's  arc  across 
the  sky: 

When  the  midday  sun  rested  overhead,  when  the  sad 
moon  beckoned,  when  the  rosy  dawn  blew  its  cool  breezes, 
when  the  evening  sun  blazed  its  red  laughter — these  were 
the  four  points  between  which  their  spirits  fluctuated  from 
evening  joy  to  high  midday  sorrow.  Swayed  involun- 
tarily, all  three  of  them  felt  the  sympathy  and  antipathy 
of  the  hours,  each  mood  in  turn. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


645 


The  description  of  this  family  grief,  which  is  the 
motive  of  the  story,  shows  Sologub's  agreement  with 
the  revolution  more  fervently  than  do  any  of  his  other 
works,  although  even  these  are  never  free  from 
suggestions  of  political  unrest  and  intrigue.  For 
him,  the  matter  resolves  itself  into  a  revolt  of  youth 
against  the  established  order  of  tyranny  and  op- 
pression. Adult  radicalism  is  generally  shown  as 
something  ugly,  because  it  has  in  it  the  alloy  of 
self-interest  and  scheming.  But  the  rebellion  of 
youth  is  beautiful  because  it  is  magnanimous,  im- 
petuous, and  exultantly  fearless.  Not  even  the 
waters  of  all  the  cold  oceans  can  quench  the  fire 
of  daring  love,  and  all  the  cunning  poisons  of  the 
earth  cannot  poison  it.  "I  love  all  bigness,  all  im- 
moderation in  everything!  In  everything!"  Boris 
cries,  and  Natasha  answers :  "  Yes,  big  things,  things 
beyond  the  powers  of  man.  To  make  life  lavish. 
Only  no  stinginess,  no  trembling  for  one's  skin.  Far 
better  to  die — to  gather  all  life  into  one  little  knot 
and  to  throw  it  away!" 

The  brother's  opportunity  comes,  and  true  to  faith, 
he  stoutly  gathers  his  young,  good  life  into  a  single 
terrible  second  and  flings  it  to  destruction.  Boris 
the  beloved  boy  with  his  fine,  honest  eyes  is  hung 
in  the  prison  courtyard,  and  thereafter  from  dawn 
to  dark  and  from  dark  to  dawn,  the  tightening  of 
that  childish  neck  and  the  blackening  of  that  sun- 
burnt face  haunt  the  impotent  minds  of  those  who 
loved  him. 

The  other  translations  are  less  emotionally 
partisan,  and  so,  as  Sologub  is  intellectually  too 
cynical  to  be  a  consistent  propagandist,  they  are  only 
indirectly  revolutionary.  The  ominous  cloud  of  of- 
ficial and  Cossack  tyranny  hovers  always  in  the  back- 
ground and  even  the  prophecy  and  tenets  of  Bolshe- 
vism are  mentioned.  Elisaveta  dreams  of  hiding 
books,  ponderous  condemned  books  that  are  brought 
to  her  by  students,  workmen,  young  women,  school 
boys,  and  military  men,  all  of  whom  whisper  per- 
sistently, "Hide  them,  hide  them!"  till  finally 
there  is  no  hiding  place  left — and  still  the  books 
are  brought.  A  dull  provincial  supper  party  at  the 
Svetilovitches  is  raided  and  the  hostess  and  guests 
unjustly  searched.  Peredonov  visits  fellow  towns- 
men to  protest  his  loyalty.  And  Cossacks  ride 
abruptly  through  the  park  on  a  summer  evening 
flashing  their  knouts  promiscuously  across  the  shoul- 
ders of  strollers,  for  no  reason  except  that  their  leader 
is  drunk. 

In  The  Created  Legend,  Piotr,  looking  far  ahead 
with  unsuspected  clarity,  exclaims : 

There  will  be  a  reign  of  terror  and  a  shaking  up 
such  as  Russia  has  not  yet  experienced.  The  point  at 
issue  is  not  that  there  is  talking  or  doing  here  or  there 
by  certain  gentry  who  imagine  that  they  are  making 


history.  The  real  issue  is  in  the  clash  of  two  classes,  two 
interests,  two  cultures,  two  conceptions  of  the  world,  two 
moral  systems.  Who  is  it  that  wishes  to  seize  the  crown 
of  lordship?  It  is  the  kham  [serf].  It  is  he  who 
threatens  to  devour  our  culture. 

And  Elisaveta  responds: 

I  know  that  we  human  beings  will  always  be  frail, 
poor,  lonely,  but  a  time  will  surely  come  when  we  shall 
pass  through  the  purifying  flame  of  a  great  conflagration ; 
then  a  new  earth  and  a  new  heaven  shall  open  up  to  us; 
through  union  we  shall  attain  our  final  freedom. 

Brute  force  is  the  origin  of  all  ownership,  so  that 
the  proletariat  is  justified  in  reverting  to  it  to  turn 
the  tables  on  the  capitalist.  As  in  Bolshevism,  the 
immediate  aim  of  the  radicals  in  The  Created 
Legend  is  public  ownership  of  the  machinery  of 
production,  including  land,  which  is  to  be  divided 
into  ten  or  a  hundred  acre  lots  for  all  who  wish 
to  farm  it.  Constitutional  Democrats  merely  desire 
to  construct  a  pyramid  out  of  people;  Social  Demo- 
crats would  scatter  this  pyramid  in  an  even  stratum 
over  the  earth.  "  But  what  of  our  culture?"  cries 
Piotr,  and  Trirodov  answers  bitterly:  "The  value 
of  human  life  is  greater  than  the  value  of  these 
monuments!"  • 

If  Sologub  is  not  a  propagandist,  neither  is  he, 
like  H.  G.  Wells  for  instance,  a  dialectician.  He 
is  an  artist.  His  emotions  and  the  beauty  of  his  ex- 
pression are  more  important  than  his  ideas.  The 
Old  House,  with  the  remaining  stories  of  the  same 
volume,  and  the  fairy  tales  or  fables  of  The  Sweet 
Scented  Name  prove  that  at  best  he  can  verbally 
paint  a  mood  more  exquisitely  than  any  living 
Russian.  His  style  is  simple  and  very  facile,  yet  his 
originality  always  saves  it  from  the  triteness  of 
sentimentality.  Life  for  him  is  intense  and  he  de- 
picts it  clearly,  with  haunting  nuances  of  childish 
minds,  of  early  spring,  of  human  wistfulness,  of 
vague,  disquieting  Weltschmerz.  He  has  been 
compared  occasionally  with  other  Russian  authors 
who  like  himself  use  the  form  of  the  short  story 
more  frequently  and  more  successfully  than  another. 
But  it  is  this  indefinable  longing  in  Sologub  and  this 
Slavic  consciousness  of  all  humanity  which  to  me 
relates  him  most  closely  with  Dostoevsky.  As  in 
all  comparisons  of  writers,  there  are  some  super- 
ficial differences  of  method  between  them,  and  there 
is  likewise  a  fundamental  difference  in  breadth  and 
intensity  of  character — Dostoevsky  being  distinctly 
the  bigger  man — but  there  is  nevertheless  and<above 
all  an  essential  similarity  in  attitude  toward  their 
material — life. 

To  begin  with,  both,  either  through  author's  com- 
ment or  in  the  speeches  of  principal  characters,  re- 
pudiate this  same  life.  To  Sologub,  reality  is  tragic 
and  man's  only  liberation  from  it. is  through  his 
imagination.  But  even  this  is  uncertain,  for  life 


646 


THE  DIAL 


June  28 


with  her  pitiless  irony  destroys  all  illusions.  In  The 
Kiss  of  the  Unborn  the  mother  who  has  killed  her 
baby  by  abortion  is  forgiven  and  blessed  in  a  vision 
of  the  child  for  sparing  it  the  sordid  agony  of  living. 
The  white  children  of  Trirodov's  house  represent 
the  fantasies  of  tiny  sufferers  escaping  the  squalor 
of  existence  by  dreams  and  make-believes  Dosto- 
evsky,  in  the  creed  of  Ivan  Karamazov,  rejects  hu- 
man existence  even  more  definitely  and  emphatically. 
The  latter  says  to  Alyosha: 

I  accept  God  and  am  glad  to,  and  what's  more  I 
accept  His  wisdom,  His  purpose — which  are  utterly  be- 
yond our  ken ;  I  believe  in  the  underlying  order  and 
meaning  of  life;  I  believe  in  the  eternal  harmony  in  which 
they  s~ay  we  shall  one  day  be  blended.  .  .  .  Yet,  would 
you  believe  it,  in  the  final  result  I  don't  accept  this  world 
of  God's,  and,  although  I  know  it  exists,  I  don't  accept 
it  at  all.  It's  not  that  I  do  not  accept  God,  you  must 
understand,  it's  the  world  created  by  him  I  don't  and 
cannot  accept. 

Morally  too,  Sologub  and  Dostoevsky  respond  un- 
conditionally and  almost  in  unison  to  the  old  ques- 
tion: Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?  The  former 
says :  "  The  conscience  ripened  to  universal  full- 
ness says  that  every  fault  is  my  fault."  And  thus 
echoes  the  terrible  cry  of  his  predecessor,  "  I  am 
responsible  to  everyone  for  everything!" 

Toward  children  both  authors  feel  an  admiration 
and  love  amounting  to  reverence.  Sologub  holds 
that  only  children  really  live,  for  children  alone  are 
innocent.  One  critic  has  said  that  when  he  loves 
or  pities  an  older  person,  he  endows  him  with  child- 
like attributes.  Many  of  his  children  die  young  to 
spare  them  from  becoming  unlovable.  Mitya,  re- 
calling his  little  playmate  Rayechka,  observes:  "Had 
Rayechka  lived  to  grow  up,  she  might  have  become 
a  housemaid  like  Darya,  pomaded  her  hair  and 
squinted  her  cunning  eyes." 

In  The  Brothers  Karamazov,  Ivan's  entire  de- 
nial of  life  is  due  to  adult  cruelty  toward  children. 
What  have  these  to  do  with  the  suffering  which 
shall  pay  for  eternal  harmony?  Here  there  can  be 
no  solidarity  of  retribution,  because  children  are 
blameless  of  sin.  Through  all  eternity,  their  tears 
will  be  unatoned : 

Imagine  that  you  are  creating  a  fabric  of  human 
destiny  with  the  object  of  making  men  happy  in  the  end, 
giving  them  peace  and  rest  at  last,  but  that  it  was  essen- 
tial and  inevitable  to  torture  to  death  only  one  tiny 
creature  .  .  .  and  to  found  an  edifice  on  its  un- 
avenged tears,  would  you  consent  to  be  the  architect  on 
those  conditions?  .  .  And  can  you  admit  the  idea  that 
men  for  whom  you  are  building  it  would  agree  to  accept 
their  happiness  on  the  foundation  of  the  unexpiated  blood 
of  a  little  victim?  And  accepting  it,  would  remain  happy 
forever? 

Then  answering  his  own  question,  Ivan  concludes: 

Why,  the  whole  world  of  knowledge  is  not  worth  the 
prayer  of  one  child  to  dear,  kind  God.  .  .  While 
there  is  still  time,  I  hasten  to  protect  myself,  and  so  I  re- 


nounce the  higher  harmony  altogether.  .  .  I  would 
rather  remain  with  my  unavenged  suffering  and  unsatis- 
fied indignation,  even  if  I  were  'wrong." 

Both  in  Sologub's  Created  Legend  and  in 
Dostoevsky 's  Idiot,  Christ  is  represented  as  a 
modern  character.  In  the  first,  he  is  Prince 
Davidov,  a  celebrated  author  and  preacher  with  a 
"  tranquil,  too  tranquil  voice" ;  in  the  second  he  is 
Prince  Myshkin,  the  epileptic  hero.  And  strangely 
enough,  although  each  writer  admits  the  tremendous 
magnetism  and  power  of  Jesus,  both  agree  in  ex- 
cluding him  absolutely  from  truth.  But  here  their 
resemblance  ceases,  for  Sologub  sides  with  truth, 
Dostoevsky  with  Christ.  Trirodov,  Solgub's  ideal 
character,  with  proud,  Satanic  irony,  we  are  told, 
refuses  ever  to  stand  with  Davidov.  He  will  not 
accept  his  comforting  theories  or  listen  to  his  false 
eloquence  which  seeks  to  entice  the  weak.  There 
is  no  miracle  or  resurrection,  nor  has  a  single  will 
ever  established  itself  over  the  inert,  amorphous 
world.  "  I  know  the  true  path — my  path !"  He 
cries  bitterly,  "Leave  me  alone!"  Dostoevsky,  on 
the  contrary,  writing  his  brother,  exclaims:  "If 
anyone  can  prove  to  me  that  Christ  is  outside  of 
truth,  and  if  the  truth  really  does  exclude  Christ,  I 
should  prefer  to  stay  with  Chirst  and  not  with  the 
truth."  And  in  the  passion  of  these  very  words  he 
confesses  that  for  him,  truth  does  exclude  Christ. 
But  truth  is  merely  the  laws  of  nature,  while  Christ 
is  the  great  priceless  Being,  worth  the  whole  earth 
which  nature  has  aimlessly  clutched,  crushed,  and 
swallowed  up.  Truth  is  the  created  world  which 
Ivan  Karamazov  acknowledges  but  will  not  accept. 
The  man,  Jesus,  represents  all  suffering,  deluded 
humanity. 

Finally,  categorically  both  authors  are  symbolists, 
but  here  too,  there  is  an  essential  difference. 
Sologub's  symbols  are  numerous  hieroglyphs  of  mood, 
subject — according  to  himself — to  the  general 
pictorial  interpretation  of  each  reader,  while 
Dostoevsky's  are  rare  keys  to  unlock  the  very 
structure  itself.  For  instance  in  The  Possessed,  un- 
less we  realize  from  the  first  that  Stavrogin  personi- 
fies will,  the  book,  instead  of  being  a  literary  master- 
piece, appears  like  the  irresponsible  ravings  of  a 
lunatic.  Then  too,  as  we  have  seen  before,  Sologub 
is  fundamentally  an  artist,  whereas  Dostoevsky  is  a 
philosopher.  To  the  latter,  material  is  paramount ; 
to  the  former,  emphasis  falls  on  presentation.  Con- 
sequently one  has  vital  significance,  the  other  has 
ethereal  charm.  For  the  art  of  Dostoevsky  is  as 
loose,  spacious,  and  massive  as  life;  that  of  Sologub 
as  vivid,  intimate,  and  frail  as  a  dream. 

KATHERINE  KEITH. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


647 


The  Trial  of  Political  Criminals  Here  and  Abroad 


XOLITICAL  CRIME  in  the  United  States,  has  been, 
up  till  very  recently,  a  rare  thing.  In  Europe  it  has 
been  for  a  long  time  a  well  recognized  part  of  life. 
With  the  European  it  is  almost  as  familiar  as  other 
crime.  With  us  it  is  just  beginning  to  be  recognized 
as  a  form  of  crime  punished  by  the  statutes.  Just 
sb  long  as  thieves,  robbers,  burglars,  and  murder- 
ers were  the  objects  of  arrest  and  trial,  the  princi- 
ples of  court  procedure  and  the  lot  of  these  men  in 
prison  were  matters  which  a  Howard  might  in- 
vestigate, but  which  appealed  little  to  the  ordinary 
man.  Now  that  some  of  the  finer  spirits  in  this 
country  are  facing  trial  and  imprisonment  in  our 
dungeons,  now  that  the  man  in  the  street  is  begin- 
ning to  be  directly  affected  by  the  procedure  in 
court  and  the  treatment  of  the  prisoner  in  prison 
there  is  certain  to  be  a  creation  of  interest  in  both 
courts  and  prisons.  This  article  will  deal  only  with 
court  procedure,  and  will  use  some  recent  trials, 
especially  in  the  City  of  New  York,  to  illustrate 
the  principles  of  present  day  procedure  and  to  point 
the  moral  of  a  transformed  procedure  which  will 
more  nearly  do  justice  to  the  individual  and  to  the 
state. 

Everywhere  on  the  continent  of  Europe  the  pro- 
cedure in  criminal  trials  is  practically  the  same.  In 
countries  where  the  Anglo-American  system  prevails 
we  have  a  striking  contrast  to  the  Continental  Eu- 
ropean system.  In  Continental  Europe  the  jury 
is  judge  of  the  facts  and  of  the  law.  In  the  Anglo- 
American  system  the  jury  is  judge  of  the  facts,  and 
the  judge,  of  the  law.  In  the  first  system  the  jury 
is  tolerant;  in  ours  intolerant.  In  the  Continental 
system  the  jury  is  independent  and,  in  some  cases,  an- 
tagonistic to  the  wishes  of  the  judge.  In  ours  the 
jury  is  submissive  and  pliant  to  the  judge.  In  the 
foreign  system  the  defendant  is  given  the  last  word. 
In  ours  the  prosecution  has  the  last  say.  In  the 
first  system  the  jury  gets  a  complete  case — gets  all 
the  evidence  the  prosecution  and  the  defense  desire  "" 
to  present.  In  our  system  the  two  parties  are  lim- 
ited in  the  presentation  of  evidence  by  rules  of  proof. 
In  the  foreign  system,  because  of  the  lack  of  tech- 
nical rules,  there  is  little  waste  of  time  over  quirks 
and  quibbles.  In  our  system  an  infinite  amount  of 
time  is  thrown  away  by  long,  tedious,  useless  dis- 
cussions of  points  of  law  relating  to  the  admission 
and  the  exclusion  of  testimony,  or  evidence  of  other 
sort.  By  means  of  this  system  of  rules  we  keep  out 
a  great  deal  of  matter  the  Continental  European 
believes  essential  to  the  liberty  of  the  citizen.  A 
cardinal  doctrine  there  is  that  the  defense  is  free — 
a  formula  which  is  consecrated  by  centuries  of  strug- 


gle by  the  people  against  arbitrary  power.  This 
freedom  implies  freedom  not  only  for  the  defendant 
himself  to  give  evidence  as  he  wishes  and  in  the 
quantity  he  desires,  but  also  for  the  witnesses  he 
may  bring  forward  to  prove  his  case.  These  wit- 
nesses are  free,  too.  They  too  must  be  allowed  to 
testify  untrammeled  by  anyone. 

This  series  of  contrasts  is  long  and  striking.  Is 
justice  come  to  more  easily  and  surely  by  the  Con- 
tinental European  "than  by  the  Anglo-American 
method?  Centuries  of  oppression,  a  contest  long 
drawn  out  between  the  rulers  and  the  subjects, 
have  brought  the  Continental  Europeans  to  the  sys- 
tem which  in  criminal  law  makes  the  jury  the  judge 
of  both  the  facts  and  the  law.  Rivers  of  blood  ran 
before  the  people  conquered  the  right  to  be  tried 
by  a  body  of  their  peers,  and  not  by  governmental 
authorities.  Even  now  most  judges  are  not  directly 
elected  by  the  people,  but  are  appointed  either  by 
governmental  authority  which  is  hereditary  or 
which  has  been  elected  by  the  people.  The  situation 
is  in  this  last  case  like  that  of  our  Federal  judges  who 
are  appointed  by  the  President  who  has  been  elected 
by  the  people.  Even  in  the  case  of  the  judges  ap- 
pointed by  an  elected  governmental  authority  the 
Continental  European  is  wary.  Not  that  the  jury 
is  infallible,  or  that  it  is  always  on  the  side  of  the 
defendant,  and  particularly  in  political  cases,  on  the 
side  of  the  prisoner.  But  the  probabilities  are  that 
the  jury,  rather  than  the  judge  who  is  the  direct 
representative  of  the  governing  power  that  brings 
the  prosecution  will  give  the  defendant  a  fairer  trial. 

Because  of  the  reasons  that  have  brought  to  birth 
the  jury  of  law  and  of  fact  the  Continental  Euro- 
pean jury  is  also  tolerant,  and  independent  of  the 
judge  and  sometimes  antagonistic  to  him.  A 
hostile  attitude  of  the  judge  to  the  defendant 
will  almost  certainly  in  a  political  case  espe- 
cially cause  a  revulsion  on  the  part  of  the 
jury  an3  result  in  an  •acquittal  as  a  demonstra- 
tion of  power.  In  Anglo-American  countries, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  jury  is  meek  and  dependent 
upon  the  judge.  Our  system  of  evidence  conduces 
to  that  result,  and  history  reinforces  the  teachings 
snd  the  requirements  of  law.  Wide  differences  of 
opinion  have  produced  a  tolerance  in  Europe  of 
which  we  are  not  yet  the  possessors.  This  tolerance 
finds  a  prominent  place  in  the  jury  box  across  the 
water,  whereas  it  is  almost  unknown  in  this  coun- 
try, except  in  rare  cases  and  in* the  largest  cities. 
Minorities  are  not  yet  respected  here.  They  had  a 
vigorous  handling  during  the  Revolution,  and  a 
worse  handling  during  the  late  war. 


648 


THE  DIAL 


June  28 


Attorneys  present  a  spectacle  less  admirable  even 
than  jurors.  Up  to  this  war  no  one  had  dreamed, 
even  in  this  country,  which  had  had  continuously 
a  fairly  placid  internal  history,  that  lawyers — per- 
sons who  had  defended  criminals  of  the  common 
crime  sort  and  had  even  defended  murderers  of 
presidents,  and  had  been  praised  for  their  action — 
would  run  away  from  the  defense  of  political  pris- 
oners. But  to  that  we  have  come.  Any  lawyer 
who  dares  to  defend  such  persons  is  cut  and  con- 
demned by  members  of  his  profession.  A  great 
conspiracy  of  inaction  seems  to  have  been  entered 
into,  and  the  distinguished  members  of  that  learned 
profession  decline  to  stir  on  behalf  of  a  political 
prisoner,  no  matter  how  flimsy  the  evidence  to  sup- 
port the  charge.  In  Europe  the  tolerance  of  the 
profession  and  of  the  people  at  large  gives  wide  scope 
to  the  activities  of  a  lawyer.  It  is  considered  most 
honorable  to  defend  a  political  prisoner,  just  as  it 
is  even  still  considered  in  this  country — in  theory 
at  least,  for  distinguished  counsel  are  no  longer  to 
be  seen  in  criminal  courts — honorable  to  the  law  and 
to  the  State  to  defend  a  man  who  has  violated  any 
other  part  of  the  Criminal  Code. 

On  the  Continent  the  defendant's  lawyer  has  the 
last  word.  This  is  another  important,  indeed  in- 
dispensable right  the  prisoner  has  conquered  through 
ages  of  struggle.  The  theory,  of  course,  is,  in  our 
system,  that  he  who  opens  must  close.  But  this  is 
a  case  where  the  practical  instinct  of  the  Anglo- 
American  has  left  him  and  the  logical  instinct  has 
gripped  him  with  hooks  of  steel.  We  are  inclined 
to  laugh  at  the  French,  for  instance,  who  are  ana- 
lytic and  logical  and  build  up  systems  a  priori,  and 
we  a"re  loud  in  praise  of  our  own  instincts  which 
are  practical:  we  do  not  build  up  our  systems  of 
thought  and  action  by  a  priori  methods  but  by  trial 
and  error,  by  additions  and  modifications  to  the  al- 
ready existing  structure. 

How  does  it  happen,  then,  that  we  have  been 
led  astray  by  symmetry  (above  all  things  symmetry) 
and  the  French  have  departed  from  their  architec- 
tonic propensities  and  built  practically?  But  if  we 
wish  to  retain  a  fetish,  if  we  wish  the  prosecution 
to  close,  why  not  give  the  prosecution  first  say  on 
summing  up ;  then  give  the  defense  a  chance  to  com- 
bat the  arguments  advanced,  and  then  allow  the 
prosecution '  the  last  word  and  an  opportunity  to 
combat  the  defendant's  arguments?  But  Con- 
tinental Europeans  have  gone  farther,  and  laid 
down  the  fundamental  proposition  that  the  prisoner 
must  have  the  last  word.  There  the  prosecution 
opens  the  summinjg  up,  the  defense  answers;  and 
then,  if  the  prosecution  desires  to  rejoin,  it  may. 
But  if  it  does,  the  defense  has  the  last  word.  This 
is  practical  and  logical. 


Now  we  come  to  a  most  significant  element  in  the 
trial  of  a  case:  the  rules  that  govern  the  admission 
of  matter  to  be  presented  to  the  jury.  In  our 
system  we  have  an  elaborate,  intricate  body  of 
rules  by  which  evidence  is  admitted  or  excluded. 
In  Continental  Europe  they  have  no  such  system  of 
exclusionary  rules.  Everything  goes  in.  The  wit- 
nesses are  produced,  and  they  give  their  testimony, 
uncontrolled  and  unshackled.  The  witness  comes 
to  the  bar  and  relates  his  story  in  the  form  of  an 
uninterrupted  narration.  When  he  has  finished 
questions  may  be  asked  of  him,  but  during  his 
original  narration  he  is  free  as  the  air  and  can  keep 
the  floor  for  almost  as  long  as  he  wishes.  In  the 
Bolo  trial,  for  instance,  Caillaux  came  forward  and 
made  his  speech.  This  is  a  typical  example  of  the 
method  and  its  implications.  Under  our  system 
hours  and  hours  and  hours  would  have  been  con- 
sumed in  drawing  out  the  testimony  by  question 
and  answer.  In  the  actual  case  only  about  an  hour 
and  a  half  were  spent.  And  the  facts  that  came  out 
were  much  more  numerous  than  by  the  other 
method.  In  the  second  Masses  trial,  John  Reed 
was  called  to  the  stand  and  was  anxious  to  give  a 
detailed  account  of  the  origin  and  development  of 
his  hatred  of  war.  There  was  some  argument  as 
to  whether  any  of  this  was  admissible,  as  being  "  too 
remote "  from  the  issue,  therefore  irrelevant  and 
wasteful  of  the  Court's  time.  All  the  while  the 
Court's  time  was  being  wasted  by  the  argument -as 
to  whether  th<>  irest'mony  was  relevant  or  not. 
When  some  of  the  matter  was  finally  admitted  and 
the  witness  had  begun  to  narrate  his  experiences 
there  was  objection  by  the  District  Attorney,  and 
objection  again  by  the  Judge  himself.  A  great  deal 
of  the  evidence  the  witness  wished  to  give,  and 
which  would  have  been  not  only  relevant  but 
powerful  in  the  determination  of  the  conviction  or 
acquittal,  was  excluded,  and  the  rest  of  the  testi- 
mony the  defendant  gave  created  little  effect  because 
he  was  interrupted  often  and  the  atmosphere  created 
by  the  impatience  of  the  judge  was  detrimental  to 
the  legitimate  effect  of  the  story  upon  the  jury. 
Under  the  European  systems  this  could  not  be.  The 
judge  has  no  right  to  stop  the  mouth  of  a  man 
who  comes  to  the  witness  stand,  be  he  defendant  or 
other  witness.  Again,  in  the  Nearing  trial,  al- 
though the  judge  was  exceedingly  liberal  under  the 
rules,  although  he  gave  the  defendant  great  latitude 
upon  direct  examination  and  greater  latitude,  as 
was  natural,  upon  cross-examination,  the  impression 
upon  the  jury,  due  to  the  method  of  question  and 
answer  in  which  the  information  comes  piecemeal, 
disconnectedly,  and  in  uninteresting  fashion  to  the 
jury,  was  not  what  it  would  have  been  if  the  de- 
fendant could  have  given  his  testimony  in  narrative 


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form  and  untrammeled  by  rules  of  evidence.  The 
contrast  between  the  effect  upon  the  jury  of.  Mr. 
Nearing's  examination  on  the  stand  and  his  direct 
narration  to  the  jury  on  summing  up  is  instructive 
to  men  desirous  of  changing  our  system  for  the 
better.  But  the  point  is  this:  parties  to  an  action, 
and  political  prisoners  particularly,  ought  not  to  be 
subject  to  the  whims,  fancies,  or  mistakes  of  a  judge 
in  the  admission  or  exclusion  of  evidence.  The 
stakes  are  too  great.  It  is  better  to  get  in  too  much 
than  too  little.  And  our  system  lets  into  a  trial  too 
little  and  that  little  undramatically,  unimpressively, 
and  ineffectively.  Political  prisoners  lose  by  the 
exclusion  of  evidence.  "  Remote  "  or  "  proximate," 
the  evidence  ought  to  be  admitted.  Who  can  tell 
what  is  proximate  and  what  remote?  The  judges 
differ.  One  judge  is  more  liberal  and  allows  an 
exposition  of  theory;  another  is  strict  and  permits 
no  discussion  of  the  economic  or  political  or  social 
theory  of  the  defendant  but  limits  him  closely  to 
the  technical  issues  of  law  and  of  fact  in  the  case. 
For  instance,  Nearing,  under  the  Continental  Euro- 
pean system,  would  have  been  allowed  to.  give  a 
connected,  elaborate  explanation  of  the  origin  and 
development  of  his  beliefs.  He  began  to  detail  his 
experiences  in  the  Child  Labor  Committee,  and  the 
objection  came  with  the  ruling  that  that  was  too 
remote.  I  do  not  wish  to  criticize  this  ruling  of 
the  judge's — it  seems  ungracious  to  do  so  when 
Judge  Mayer  was  almost  as  liberal  as  a  judge  could 
be  under  a  hampering  system.  Other  matter  was 
admitted:  the  platform  of  the  Socialist  Party,  the 
War  Proclamation,  and  numerous  other  things  be- 
lieved to  reveal  the  intent  of  the  author  in  writing 
the  worlc.  Did  he  intend  to  cause  insubordination, 
disloyalty  or  refusal  of  duty?  Did  he  intend  to  ob- 
struct the  recruiting  and  enlisting  service?  All 
facts  whether  seemingly  relevant  or  ,  irrelevant, 
remote  or  proximate,  ought  to  be  allowed.  Who 
can  tell  after  the  trial  whether  a  thing  is  remote  or 
proximate?  And  all  the  more,  who  can  tell  before 
the  end?  The  remedy  is  to  allow  a  free  hand,  to 
permit  a  complete  exposition.  This,  as  I  have  found 
by  practical  experience  in  European  Courts,  actually 
saves  time,  and  presents  a  more  comprehensive  and 
vivid  view  of  the  case  to  the  jury. 

The  acquittal  of  Mr.  Nearing  and  the  conviction 
of  the  American  Socialist  Society — the  corporation 
which  had  been  indicted  with  him  for  the  publica- 
tion of  the  pamphlet,  The  Great  Madness,  seems  to 
point  to  a  compromise  verdict.  The  evidence 
against  the  Society  was  much  weaker  than  that 
against  the  individual,  yet  the  first  was  convicted 
and  the  second  freed. 

Nothing  can  be  more  shocking  to  the  average 
lawyer,  brought  up  on  the  pabulum  of  the  schools, 


than  the  suggestion  that  anything  is  wrong  with  the 
law  or  legal  procedure.  To  such  blind  followers 
of  tradition  I  recommend  a  reading  of  Bentham's 
Rationale  of  Judicial  Evidence.  Here  are  some 
of  his  choice  phrases,  sober,  steady  and  excessively 
temperate  and  devoid  of  agitatory  features: 

Evidence  is  the  basis  of  justice;  to  exclude  evidence  is 
to  exclude  justice. 

By  example,  by  reward,  by  compulsion,  by  every  means 
possible  or  imaginable,  we  shall  see  (every  man  does 
see  it  who  does  not  shut  his  eyes  against  it)  this  most 
mischievous  of  all  vices  propagated  under  the  shelter  of 
the  technical  system,  propagated  by  the  professed  and  offi- 
cial guardians  of  the  public  morals ;  and  among  the  in- 
struments of  this  disastrous  husbandry  are  to  be  found 
some  of  the  most  efficient  of  the  evidence-excluding  rules. 

From  the  above  description  of  the  nature  of  the  mis- 
chief may  be  deduced  the  description  of  the  persons  in- 
terested in  the  pushing  it  up  to  the  highest  possible  pitch; 
mala  fide  suitors  on  both  sides,  including  malefactors  of 
all  sorts,  their  accomplices  and  well  wishers ;  men  of 
law,  as  being  the  natural  allies  of  malefactors  and  other 
mala  fide  suitors;  under  the  technical  system  judges  and 
other  officials  as  well  as  professional  lawyers";  professional 
lawyers  under  any  system. 

Exclusion  (as  will  be  seen)  is  the  grand  engine  by  the 
help  of  which  corruption  has  been  enabled  to  gain  its 
ends ;  and  by  which  arbitrary  power  with  the  jus  nocendi 
it  enforces,  has  been  acquired;  that  faculty  the  acquisition 
of  which  is  so  delightful  to  the  human  heart  whether 
on  the  particular  occasion  in  question  there  be  or  be  not 
a  disposition  to  employ  it.. 

These  are  hard  words.  Bentham  did  not  mince 
matters.  No  espionage  act  prevented  robust  speech. 
We  today  need  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  rules 
of  evidence  breed  corruption  or  that  the  partnership 
of  Judge  and  Co.,  as  he  terms  the  combination  of 
judges  and  lawyers,  "  is  interested  in  depraving  the 
moral  and  intellectual  faculties  of  the  people  " ;  or 
that  just  as  "  alchemy  [is]  the  art  of  cheating 
men  on  pretense  of  making  gold,  astrology,  the- 
art  of  cheating  men  on  pretense  of  foretelling  future 
events  [so]  judicature — under  technical  rules — 
[is]  the  art  of  cheating  men  on  pretense  of  admin- 
istering justice  ";  or  that  law  is  a  "  fortuitous  con- 
cord of  technical  atoms " ;  or  that  it  employs 
"  devices  for  promoting  the  ends  of  established  pro- 
cedure at  the  expense  of  the  ends  of  justice"; 
or  that  the  habit  is  pernicious  "  of  eulogizing  juris- 
prudential  [that  is,  judge  made]  law  at  the  expense 
of  statutory,  sham  law  at  the  expense  of  real  law  " ; 
or  that  "  the  technical  system  of  rules  of  evidence 
is  the  mechanical  system  " ;  or  that  England  is  today 
the  slough  it  was  in  Bentham's  day,  for  England  in 
her  procedure  is  far  more  advanced  than  we  in  this 
country  are.  But  we  can  follow  the  great  legal 
surgeon  when  he  says,  seeing  that  the  exclusionary 
system  still  flourishes  in  all  its  luxuriant  rankness 
on  this  side  of  the  water,  that  "  jails  have  had  their 
Howard;  jurisprudence  waits  for  one." 

ROBERT  FERRARI. 


650 


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June  28 


Belated  Translations 


/\.NATOLE  FRANCE  published  his  Contemporary 
History — The  Amethyst  Ring  was  the  third  in  the 
series  of  four  books — twenty  years  ago  (trans- 
lated by  B.  Drillien;  Lane).  The  French 
read  it  whilst  the  Dreyfus  Affair  was  excit- 
ing every  kind  of  prejudice.  A  minority  of  in- 
tellectuals, and  all  the  young  men  of  ideals  just 
coming  to  knowledge  of  the  actual  world,  were 
struggling  against  strong  patriotic  generalities  and 
comfortable  absolutisms.  It  would  be  an  outrage 
to  the  Army  to  doubt  the  legality  of  a  judgment 
rendered  by  the  Council  of  War!  Seven  officers 
together  could  not  be  wrong!  The  Army  was 
exalted  by  the  Royalists,  who  were  rallying  to  the 
Republic  only  because  of  the  danger  to  the  Army's 
prestige,  and  by  the  masses,  eagerly  anti-Semite. 
The  state  was  seemingly  facile  and  corrupt. 

Even  M.  Bergeret  in  Paris,  the  last  in  the  series, 
was  published  before  the  end,  while  Anatole  France 
was  still  skeptical  of  the  triumph  of  justice.  He 
might  well  wish  to  encourage  toughmindedness 
about  the  human  species  under  a  republic.  He  was 
not  concerned  to  sow  seeds  of  that  faith  in  the  com- 
mon man  which  is  now  being  called  on  to  move 
mountains.  He  could  appeal  to  the  love  of  the  Few 
for  clarity  and  all  the  relativeness  of  life.  Aroused, 
the  Few  might  be  strong  enough  to  enforce  the 
criticism  of  self,  and  the  revision  of  the  Dreyfus 
condemnation.  He  struck  at  hypocrisy  on  every 
side. 

His  attack  is  energetic  and  beguilingly  skilful, 
and  his  enjoyment  of  it  is  pervasive  and  con- 
tagious. Indeed,  in  the  world  he  creates,  the  only 
probable  pleasure  he  recognizes  is  the  free  and  witty 
use  of  the  critical  intelligence.  M.  Bergeret,  lec- 
turer in  classics  on  a  provincial  faculty,  is  made 
thoroughly  to  enjoy  the  ruthless  activity  of  his  own 
mind.  His  pleasure  is  really  the  only  pleasure  in 
the  book.  The  rest  of  the  world  is  almost  joyless, 
except  when  now  and  then  someone  has  a  brief 
sense  of  power  or  success.  Madame  Worms- 
Clavelin  had  been  a  Paris  street  arab,  and  now 'she 
lived  in  good  society,  belonged  to  the  ruling  classes, 
and  in  all  her  intrigues  had  really  had  to  do  only 
with  men  of  the  world.  So  she  can  now  sometimes 
feel  mystical,  and  grateful  to  the  Virgin,  in  a  way 
she  never-  could  when  still  a  Jewess.  Young  Bon- 
mont  has  moments  of  agreeable  confidence  in  the 
power  of  his  money.  But  most  of  the  time  he  pro- 
tects himself  from  other  men  by  an  air  of  being 
tranquilly  and  steadily  disagreeable.  His  senti- 
mental mother  indulges  herself  with  every  possible 
romance,  but  is  never  able  to  love  her  lovers  trust- 


fully and  peacefully,  according  to  her  nature.  The 
Abbe  Guitrel  wins  the  bishopric,  but  his  opportunist 
way  with  life  is  not  made  out  pleasurable  to  him. 
M.  Bergeret's  constant  satisfaction  in  his  own  un- 
fettered intelligence  is  all  that  is  joyful. 

How  he  delights  in  humanizing  his  learning! 
His  speculations  about  the  nature  of  Hercules  make 
the  legendary  strongman  an  enigmatical  present 
fact,  affecting  our  everyday  consciousness.  Anatole 
France  has  always  found  it  particular  fun  to  fill  the 
world  with  such  realized  figures  from  the  past  that 
they  lose  their  historic  distance  and  have  some  imme- 
diate significance  that  is  disquieting. 

And  this  absorbing  activity  of  M.  Bergeret's  mind 
allows  him  to  keep  the  good  temper  of  an  Olympian. 
He  never  too  vividly  realizes  little  annoyances.  He 
never  gets  acrimonious.  He  is  generous  to  all  the 
smaller  satisfactions.  He  can  be  really  conscious 
that  arranging  his  library,  and  driving  nails  into  the 
walls,  is  a  sensuous  enjoyment,  a  way  to  feel  like  a 
voluptuary.  It  is  delightful  to  him  to  make  a  close 
relation  between  his  philosophy  and  his  devoted  little 
dog,  Riquet.  He  can  discuss  amiably  immortality, 
or  the  weakness  of  truth. 

The  Dreyfus  Affair  even  cannot  involve  M. 
Bergeret  in  the  general  ill-temper.  He  had  come 
out  against  the  condemnation,  and  had  been  hooted 
in  the  streets.  He  had  attacked  the  secrecy  of  the 
trial,  maintaining  that  France  could  not  plead 
reasons  of  state.  She  had  administrations,  but  no 
such  entity  as  the  state.  The  Army  was  as  much 
an  administration  as  the  departments  of  agriculture 
and  finance.  Military  justice  was  as  gothic  and 
barbarous  as  had  been  the  justice  of  the  feudal  lords. 
And  liberty  of  thought  had  never  any  more  sup- 
porters than  a  minority  of  the  intellectuals.  Popular 
enthusiasm  could  never  be  counted  on.  The 
Dreyfus  Affair  had  called  for  a  hard  kind  of  reason- 
ing that  only  thinkers  in  good  practice  would  be 
capable  of.  M.  Bergeret  is  skeptical,  but  not  ill- 
tempered — and  he  risks  his  livelihood  by  being 
openly  a  revisionist. 

While  the  other  administrations  in  France  may 
well  have  seemed  fallible  to  M.  Bergeret,  that  could 
not  have  been  his  judgment  of  the  Ministry  of 
Education,  which  first  promotes  him  on  his  pro- 
vincial faculty,  and  then  makes  him  professor  at  the 
Sorbonne.  It  must  have  been  consistently  loyal  to 
the  claims  of  the  mind.  And  M.  Bergeret,  not 
unaware  of  being  philosophically  subjective,  changes 
his  opinion  that  life  is  nothing  but  a  mold,  consum- 
ing our  decaying  planet  alone,  into  a  belief  that  all 
the  planets  may  provide  light  and  heat  for  life  and 


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651 


thought.  Even  on  this  earth,  life  sometimes  takes 
an  agreeable  form,  and  thought  may  perhaps  be 
called  divine.  When  he  is  to  go  to  Paris,  he  amus- 
edly discovers  too  that  he  is  not  a  detached  intel- 
ligence, but  that,  in  the  provincial  city  where  he  has 
lived  fifteen  years  and  been  betrayed  by  his  wife,  he 
is  tied  to  "  things  "  by  invisible  bonds,  and  that  he 
loves  the  very  earth  of  his  fatherland.  M.  Berger- 
et's  irony  and  good  humor  are  immensely  helped  by 
being  subsidized. 

The  question,  after  all,  however,  remains:  how 
far  is  M.  Bergeret's  pleasure  "  put  over  "  in  this 
translation?  What  will  be  the  American  reader's 
chief  memory  of  the  book,  now  that  the  world  feels 
congested?  Whilst  the  French  read  it,  they  were 
constantly  excited  by  its  manner,  amused  and  quick- 
ened by  every  turn  of  phrase.  Cinderella  was  given 
a  ball  dress  before  the  ball.  In  her  rags,  she  might 
have  stirred  up  a  good  deal  of  latent  socialism.  Per- 
haps she  might  not  have  engaged  the  prince!  M. 
Bergeret's  pleasures  of  the  mind  come  to  England 
and  America  in  a  rather  dreary  workhouse  uniform. 
Did  their  fairy  godmother  really  want  them  to  have 
a  good  time? 

Presented  without  fine  clothes,  the  way  a  bishop 
is  made  in  France,  is  disagreeable.  -A  Minister  of 
Public  Instruction  and  Public  Worship  is  cajoled  by 
pretty  women,  who  have  been  told  by  their  lovers 
to  push  a  priest  useful  to  them  quite  outside  the 


Church.  The  Abbe  Guitrel  has  declared  himself 
friendly  to  the  Government,  inclined  to  be  helpful 
in  its  difficulties  about  the  Separation  of  Goods. 
Once  appointed,  he  declares  himself  in  opposition, 
and  quotes  the  same  pastoral  letter  of  Pope  Leo 
XIII  to  support  both  declarations.  His  rival  for 
the  bishopric  has  been  an  honest  intransigent,  en- 
thusiastic for  the  ancient  faith,  who  has  not  been 
able  to  play  the  Minister,  and  the  Nuncio,  and  the 
Jews.  He  has  jerked  on  the  bare  hook  of  truth. 

In  their  dreary  grey,  too,  the  Breces  make  one 
lenient  to  radicalisms  that  would  be  abhorrent  to 
Anatole  France.  They  are  of  the  old  nobility,  who 
have  rallied  to  the  republic  as  Nationalists.  They 
are  all  for  the  Army  and  the  Church.  They  are 
full  of  ritualisms  and  superstitions — and  passionately 
anti-Semite.  Yet  gifts  to  the  Church  buy  for  the 
Bonmonts,  Jews  whose  name  was  Gutenberg,  a 
sort  of  inclusion  in  the  Brece  circle.  The 
Breces  are  dangerously  stupid  and  helpless.  Where 
can  the  general  reader  find  faith  in  the  ruling 
classes?  Or  is  it  true  that  he  still  likes  to  be 
hardheaded  ? 

M.  Bergeret  was  never  popular  with  his  fellow 
citizens  in  the  provincial  city.  They  found  him 
only  disquieting.  And  yet  they  had  the  stimulus  of 
his  witty  French.  He  speaks  boring,  rather  stilted, 
English. 

EDITH  BORIE. 


The  Ways  of  Genius 


IT  is  COMMON  among  amiable  critics  of  the  incon- 
clusive to  say  with  a  flourish  that  So-and-so  "  lived  " 
his  book,  or  his  opera,  or  what  not.  As  if  there 
were  any  distinction  in  that!  Some  nine  hundred 
ninety-nine  of  every  thousand  human  beings  do  that. 
The  thousandth,  the  genius  or  near-genius,  tor- 
mented by  a  malady  he  comes  slowly  if  ever  to 
understand,  must  write  or  compose  or  paint  his  life ; 
and  we,  recognizing  his  distinction,  say  lamely  that 
he  has  "  talent,"  or  "  temperament,"  or  "  genius." 
Whereas  it  has  been  held,  and  not  without  evidence, 
that  what  he  really  has  is  a  disease — certainly  a 
plague.  It  is  his  lot  to  be  challenged,  perplexed,  de- 
feated by  life  until  he  can  turn  it  into  something  (as 
the  philosophers  say)  not-life,  but  often  so  like  life, 
and  yet  so  curiously  more  than  life,  that  we  gape 
over  his  shoulder,  marveling  that  in  a  brief  while, 
with'  only  a  pen  or  some  pigments,  he  should  thus 
easily  win  through  to  what  we  have  struggled 
toward  in  long  sweat  and  blood. 

Probably  mankind  has  always  recognized  and  ac- 
corded distinction  to  this  creative  faculty.  But  has  it 


ever  been  understood?  Like  madness,  to  which  it  is 
perhaps  akin,  it  has  been  regarded  as  a  badge  of  the 
favor  of  the  gods,  a  vessel  for  divine  revelation,  or 
a  private  factory  of  truth.  Then,  in  more  sophisti- 
cated times,  it  has  been  treated  as  a  social  accom- 
plishment, a  supererogatory  elegance:  certain  men, 
having  taken  life  like  the  rest  of  us,  afterward  see  fit 
to  gossip  about  it  in  whatever  art  comes  handiest  to 
them.  But  that  neither  the  inspirational  nor 
the  representative  theory  is  adequate  to  explain 
genius  may  be  inferred  from  the  persistent  curiosity 
with  which  the  ordinary  man  regards  the  artist. 
The  farmer  who  halts  plowing  to  quiz  the  painter 
in  his  field  is  the  symbol  for  us  all.  We  have  never, 
to  borrow  Clerk  Maxwell's  idiom,  got  the  "  particu- 
lar go  "  of  the  artistic  temperament.  To  be  sure,  we 
have  had  plenty  of  books  which  studied  the 
periphery  of  the  artist's  interests;  but  have  we  had 
any  that  succeeded  in  plucking  out  the  heart  of  his 
mystery?  The  artists  themselves  report  only  the 
symptoms  of  their  disease. 

"  Romer  Wilson  " — one  has  heard  that  this  is  a 


THE  DIAL 


pseudonym  adopted  by  an  Englishwoman  and 
gathers  that  she  is  young — has  thrown  illumination 
on  the  matter  with  her  first  novel,  Martin  Schiiler 
(Holt),  which  the  publishers  advertise,  with  an  un- 
wonted restraint  that  compels  quotation,  as  "  one  of 
those  successful  novels  about  genius  that  comes  very 
close  to  being  itself  a  work  of  genius."  It  is  un- 
necessary to  decide  whether  the  book  is  the  latter  in 
order  to  recognize  that  it  is  much  more  than  the 
former ;  that  it  is,  indeed,  pretty  much  the  first  suc- 
cessful novel  about  genius  as  a  creative  force. 

Martin  Schiiler  is  a  composer  whose  own  notions 
about  his  processes  are  never  clear.  He  begins  life 
with  ambitious  plans  for  a  grand  opera  based  on  a 
fairy  tale  about  beautiful  maidens  spellbound  as  pea- 
hens, but  wins  his  earliest  successes  with  sentimental 
songs  and  waltzes.  From  Heidelberg,  where  he  has 
produced  a  promising  operetta,  he  is  carried  off  to 
Leipsic  by  an  extraordinary  young  patron,  Stein- 
bach,  to  whom  he  cries:  "  Oh,  my  mind,  my  mind! 
It  bursts  sometimes  for  the  experience  it  has  not 
got."  Already  he  has  begun  the  acquisition  of  experi- 
ence, which  at  first  he  seeks  with  calculating  direct- 
ness. He  has  seduced  and  deserted  a  young  girl. 
He  has  studied  in  Paris,  and  wooed  inspiration  with 
love,  alcohol,  opium.  From  beneath  the  corpse  of 
his  friend  Werner  (in  whom  the  author  has  sympa- 
thetically portrayed  frustrate  genius)  he  has  stolen 
the  libretto  for  The  Peahens,  but  is  so  wrung  with 
superstitious  terror  that  he  has  hidden  the  manu- 
script away.  As  for  the  musical  materials  for  The 
Peahens, 

the  beyond,  the  heavens,  the  desert  were  in  his  mind.  He 
was  not  yet  able  to  see  them;  but  every  mouth,  every 
emotion,  every  piece  of  knowledge,  every  attempt,  he 
came  nearer  to  them.  Some  day  he  would  be  able  to 
visualize  them,  some  day  to  realize  them.  Realization  for 
him  meant  to  be  able  to  turn  into  sound. 

No  experience  is  real  to  him  until  it  has  become 
music,  echoing  in  his  memory.  Of  the  raw  materials 
for  such  experience — loves,  quarrels,  exaltations, 
and  despairs ;  all  the  meanness,  cruelty,  and  ecstasy  of 
which  undisciplined  genius  is  capable — from  now  on 
he  has  enough.  He  steals  Steinbach's  fiancee,  Hella, 
and  then  wants  to  kill  Steinbach.  With  Hella  he 
runs  away  to  the  Alps  for  an  idyllic  interlude  of 
love,  thinking  he  has  done  with  music,  both  the  high 
art  of  his  dreams  and  the  lower  thing  of  his  practice, 
though  he  has  no  idea  what  else  he  will  do  beyond 
marrying  Hella.  Steinbach  concocts  a  musical 
comedy  from  sketches  Martin  has  abandoned,  and 
Martin  precipitately  drags  Hella  back  to  Leipsic  to 
produce  it.  His  next  piece  is  a  great  success  in  Ber- 
lin, where  shortly  he  becomes  very  much  the  man  of 
fashion — and  (Hella  dismissed  unmarried)  the  lover 
of  the  most  beautiful  matron  in  the  capital.  Then, 


at  the  apex  of  his  vogue  as  a  light  composer, 
Martin  hears  his  too  popular  song  of  the  moment 
ground  out  by  a  hurdy-gurdy,  on  the  instant  ex- 
plosively sickens  of  his  long  treason  to  his  vocation^ 
makes  a  murderous  attack  on  his  secretary  as  the 
embodiment  of  everything  that  has  debauched  his 
musical  integrity,  and  goes  to  his  villa  in  the 
Schwarzwald  to  escape  his  intolerable  defeat.  This 
is  the  mere  outline  of  the  emotional  material  that  be- 
came, as  fast  as  he  could  hear  it  inside  him,  Martin 
Schiiler  the  composer.  Now  in  the  Schwarzwald, 

he  sat  and  looked  across  his  large  writing-table  out  of 
the  window  in  a  dream.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had 
ever  experienced  a  clear  vision  of  the  past,  or  had  sought 
to  remember  anything  out  of  it.  Up  to  now  the  present 
and  future  had  been  sufficient  for  him.  He  had  never 
yet  drawn  upon  his  resources:  he  had  taken  everything 
out  of  the  air,  out  of  his  friends,  out  of  the  incidents  of 
his  life  as  they  occurred.  In  a  short  time  he  began  to- 
read  the  manuscript  of  The  Peahens. 

There,  and  afterwards  in  Munich — when,  ironic- 
ally, he  has  received  a  Nobel  prize  for  his  former,, 
too  popular  music,  "  because  the  world  thought  his 
day  was  over,"  and  the  Kaiser  has  made  him  a  count 
he  works  on  nothing  but  The  Peahens: 

He  wrote  entirely  from  the  memory  of  his  dreams,  and 
from  the  copy  of  those  visionless  thoughts  that  in  past 
years  had  with  pain  and  labor  expressed  themselves 
under  his  hand. 

On  the  night  The  Peahens  is  triumphantly  produced 
at  the  Berlin  Opera  House,  he  dies  in  his  box. 

That  is  perhaps  an  unnecessary  conclusion.  But 
it  does  emphasize  the  fact  that  the  real  life  of  this 
genius  was  his  music,  and  was  complete  when  his 
music  was  completed.  Nothing  that  happened  to 
him  in  the  crowded  years  of  maturing  emotion  be- 
came life  till  he  had  got  it  into  sound,  and  as  sound 
it  was  remembered.  "  I  can  never  recall  to  you," 
he  says  to  Hella,  "  except  in  music,  the  charm  of 
those  past  days."  In  the  beginning  The  Peahens  was 
a  vague  dream  which  he  could  not  put  into  words; 
and  that,  if  you  like,  was  "  inspiration."  Gradually, 
by  subjecting  himself  to  everything  which  could 
make  him  feel  and  by  learning  to  "  hear  "  his  feel- 
ings, he  acquired  the  power  to  put  that  dream  into 
music;  and  this,  if  you  care  to  call  it  so,  was  "  rep- 
resentation." But  he  was  never  vehicle  to  an  ex- 
ternal "  message,"  never  the  ordinary  man  living 
richly  and  "  translating  "  his  life  into  an  art.  His 
masterpiece  was  a  fabric  of  his  emotions  "  recol- 
lected in  tranquility  " ;  but  his  recollected  emotions 
were  sounds,  as  those  of  the  true  painter  are  lines 
and  colors,  and  those  of  the  true  writer  are  speak- 
ing phrases. 

By  the  perception  of  this  fact  Miss  Wilson  has 
distinguished  her  fine  novel  among  fictional  discus- 
sions of  genius. 

CLARENCE  BRITTEN. 


THE  DIAL 


ROBERT  MORSS  LOVETT,  Editor 

In  Charge  of  the  Reconstruction  Program: 

JOHN   DEWEY  THORSTEIN   VEBLEN 


CLARENCE    BRITTEN 


HELEN    MAROT 


IKE  CHANGES  IN  THE  IDEALS  AND  PRACTICES  OF 

literature,  which  lead  critics  to  question  whether  it 
is  longer  to  be  entitled  a  fine  art,  are  of  the  nature 
of  democracy.  No  longer  do  writers  form  a  caste 
apart,  an  institution  devoted  to  competition  in  the 
production  of  masterpieces,  seeking  like  Milton  "to 
leave  something  so  written  to  aftertimes  as  they 
should  not  willingly  let  it  die."  On  the  contrary 
in  these  days  of  popular  education  everyone  writes, 
or  threatens  to  do  so,  and  measures  his  success  not 
in  length  of  time  but  in  extent  of  space — not  by  fit 
audience  though  few  extending  in  a  thin  line  down 
the  centuries,  but  by  the  unfit  and  vast  assembly  of 
readers  scattered  over  the  whole  world,  who  for  a 
month  or  a  year  may  be  held  by  the  potent  charm  of 
a  best-seller.  Everyone  reads,  and  supplying  read- 
ing matter  to  an  immense  and  voracious  public  has 
become  a  business  like  supplying  it  with  clothes  and 
food.  This  public  is  uneducated  in  the  art  of  ex- 
pression. It  is  primarily  interested  in  subject  mat- 
ter. And  writers,  subdued  to  public  taste,  are  no 
longer  devoted  to  form,  seeking  subjects  that  will 
serve  as  material  for  epic,  tragedy,  or  sonnet  se- 
quence. On  the  contrary  they  spend  their  gifts  on 
finding  what  material  will  take  the  public,  and  adopt- 
ing a  form  which  will  serve  most  directly  and  pow- 
erfully to  convey  this  material  to  its  destination. 
Now,  the  chief  uses  which  a  democracy  has  for  lit- 
erature are  two — education  and  entertainment.  In 
both  respects,  it  must  be  admitted,  the  demands  of 
the  public  are  in  an  elementary  stage.  What  is 
wanted  in  education  is  a  rough  general  knowledge 
of  the  world  in  which  we  live  and  some  data  to 
direct  our  course  efficiently  in  it.  For  entertainment 
the  mass  of  men  are  dependent  on  appeals  to  the 
senses,  but  there  is  one  form  of  intellectual  enjoy- 
ment which  is  wide-spread,  the  satisfaction  of  curi- 
osity, the  emotion  which  is  stirred  by  novelty.  The 
questions  which  the  multitude  of  readers  ask  in  re- 
gard to  any  writing  are:  Is  it  true?  Is  it  impor- 
tant? Is  it  interesting?  Our  demands  for  truth  to 
life  and  for  guidance  in  the  efficient  conduct  of  it 
find  satisfaction  in  that  mass  of  material  drawn 
from  the  lives  of  human  beings  which  we  call  real- 
ism; and  our  demand  for  interest  is  best  served  by 
that  touch  of  novelty  and  timeliness  which  is  of 'the 
nature  of  journalism.  A  term,  then,  which  covers  a 
large  part  of  present-day  writing  is  journalistic 
realism. 

The  extent  to  which  this  term  has  become  appli- 


cable in  those  departments  of  literature  of  which 
formal  technique  has  been  most  characteristic  is  ob- 
vious in  modern  drama  and  poetry.  The  so-called 
renaissance  of  the  drama  is  due  to  the  discovery  by 
Ibsen  and  his  successors  that  the  stage  is  not  lim- 
ited by  technique  to  a  certain  prescribed  subject- 
matter,  but  may  deal  effectively  with  the  immediate 
realities  of  modern  existence.  The  renaissance  of 
poetry  is  due  to  the  same  discovery.  But  it  is  in  the 
novel  that  the  triumph  of  journalistic  realism  over 
technical  considerations  is  most  pronounced.  The 
novel  form,  owing  to  its  hybrid  origin  and  bour- 
geois history,  has  never  suffered  from  the  obsession 
of  sacrOsanctity..  Fortunately,  perhaps,  no  one  has 
ever  known  exactly  what  a  novel  is.  Certain  tech- 
nical principles  of  plot,  character  drawing,  and  back- 
ground development  have  been  held  to  constitute  a 
technique  of  the  novel,  to  which  the  characteristic 
modern  altitude  is  that  of  Mr.  Wells,  proclaiming 
Laurence  Stern  the  greatest  of  English  novelists  be- 
cause he  is  farthest'  removed  from  such  technique. 
Even  before  the  war  such  books  as  Number  5  John 
Street,  Children  of  the  Dead  End,  and  Ragged 
Trousered  Philanthropists  were  recognized  as  among 
the  most  powerful  examples  of  prose  narrative,  be- 
cause by  their  disregard  of  novelistic  conventions 
they  approach  infinitely  closer  to  life  and  lay  empha- 
sis with  infinitely  more  exactness  upon  its  overwhelm- 
ing and  tragic  facts.  The  war  has  given  great  im- 
petus to  such  writing,  to  such  journalistic  novels  as 
Mr.  Britling  Sees  It  Through  and  Blind  Alley, 
which  have  merely  a  thin  convention  of  fiction.  And 
the  actual  experience  of  war  has  given  birth  to 
narratives  of  a  reality  so  stark  and  terrible  that  the 
reenforcement  of  fiction  would  be  an  impertinence. 
The  extension  of  such  experience  among  men,  in- 
stead of  its  limitation  to  a  professional  soldiery, 
finds  evidence  in  the  difference  between  Le  Feu  and 
La  Debacle.  To  the  universalizing  of  such  experi- 
ence the  democratic  art  of  journalistic  realism  is  a 
witness.  We  are  reminded  once  more  that  literature 
is  a  fine  art,  and  that  as  in  all  education,  <so  in  the 
artistic,  as  in  all  entertainment,  so  in  the  esthetic,  is 
literature  best  fitted  to  serve  modern  men.  Only 
the  artistic  can  no  longer  render  this  service  by  devo- 
tion to  an  aristocratic  formula  of  his  ancestors,  of 
his  social  equals,  or  of  his  own.  Indeed,  it  may  be 
questioned  whether  the^greatest  literature  was  not 
always  the  unsought  result  of  an  unfathomable  com- 
bination of  the  Maker's  soul  with  that  of  his  fellow- 


654 


THE  DIAL 


June  28 


men — only  whereas  in  the  past  it  was  only  the  souls 
of  the  few  who  counted,  today  it  is  the  soul  of  democ- 
racy. At  least  this  is  certain :  the  true  esthetic  can- 
not be  imposed  from  without  by  individual  genius 
or  eccentricity,  nor  can  it  be  recovered  from  the 
past  by  study.  It  is  more  than  ever  before  the  im- 
mediate result  of  human  need,  human  aspiration,  hu- 
man agony.  It  cannot  be  complete  unless  it  take 
account  of  the  experience  of  the  entire  race,  in  which 
for  the  first  time  in  the  world's  story  the  soul  of  man 
is  tragically  one. 

IF    ADDITIONAL     EVIDENCE     BE      NEEDED    TO     CON- 

vince  the  peoples  of  the  world  of  the  vicious  con- 
stitution of  the  Great  Powers  at  Versailles  the 
latest  reports  on  the  Russian  situation  serve  that 
purpose  admirably.  On  May  26  the  Big  Four 
made  overtures  to  Kolchak,  the  terrorist  dictator  of 
Siberia.  They  laid  down  certain  conditions  upon 
which  they  would  accord  his  government  recognition. 
On  June  II  Kolchak's  answer  was  cabled  from 
Paris.  It  was  a  refusal,  according  to  the  New  York 
Sun,  of  practically  all  the  conditions  established  by 
the  peace  conference.  Did  that  demolish  the  plan 
of  reactionary  intervention?  By  no  means.  The 
Allied  and  Associated  Powers  knew  better  than 
Kolchak  what  they,  meant  by  their  conditions  for 
recognition.  They  gracefully  sent  a  reply  welcom- 
ing his  "  substantial  agreement  "  and  "  satisfactory 
assurances  "  and  renewing  their  promise  of  support 
as  set  forth  in  their  original  letter.  In  other  words, 
to  quote  the  original  letter,  "  they  are  disposed  to 
assist  the  government  of  Admiral  Kolchak  and  his 
associates  with  munitions,  supplies,  and  food  to 
establish  themselves  as  the  government  of  All 
Russia."  This  offer  is  based  upon  "  a  cardinal 
axiom  of  the  Allied  and  Associated  Powers  to  avoid 
interference  in  the  internal  affairs  of  Russia." 
Through  this  clotted  mass  of  contradictory  state- 
ment the  purposes  of  the  Big  Four  seem  nevertheless 
evident.  They  intend  to  disregard  the  weakness  of 
Kolchak's  army,  as  indicated  in  the  current  reports 
in  the  daily  press.  They  purpose  to  overlook  the 
direct  testimony  of  the  New  York  Globe  and  the 
Chicago  Daily  News,  published  on  the  authority  of 
their  Moscow  correspondent,  as  to  the  soundness  of 
law  and  order  in  Soviet  Russia,  the  willingness  of 
the  Soviet  government  to  make  peace,  and  the  steady 
increase  of  the  Russian  Republic's  strength  as  a  result* 
of  the  Allies'  obdurate  refusal  to  enter  into  friendly 
negotiations.  The  Powers  appear  likewise  willing 
to  treat  as  negligible  the  reactionary  monarchist 
character  of  the  Kolchak  group,  as  established  again 
and  again  by  neutral  observers,  and  described  as 
recently  as  June  15  in  the  conservative  and  circum- 
spect New  York  Times!  In  the  interest  of  vested 
privilege  the  Big  Four  will  set  out  to  overthrow  the 
now  soundly  established  Soviet  Republic,  and  will 
stake  their  integrity  on  a  government  feeble  in  mili- 
tary forces,  destitute  of  moral  authority,  and  com- 
pletely lacking  in  the  elements  of  a  democratic 


political  state.  If  the  Big  Four  are  indeed  ready  to 
put  this  Prussic  policy  into  effect  they  will  have 
drawn  a  clean  line  of  demarkation  between  the 
peoples  of  the  world  and  their  governments.  In, the 
face  of  such  a  coalition  of  reactionary  powers  there 
can  be  no  paltering:  the  recognition  of  Kolchak  is  a 
direct  and  final  challenge  to  all  liberal-minded  men. 
The  liberals  of  all  nations  must  either  unite  to  take 
up  the  challenge  or  condemn  themselves  to  impotent 
disintegration.  On  the  decision  of  liberalism  in  this 
crisis  the  very  existence  of  free  institutions  rests. 
If  it  cannot  fight  its  enemies  it  will  never  have  the 
privilege  of  living  with  them.  The  tolerance  of 
liberalism  can  be  secured  only  by  establishing  its 
strength. 


1  HE     THIRTY-NINTH     ANNUAL     CONVENTION     OF 

the  American  Federation  lived  its  short  life  beneath 
a  cloud  of  officialism  shot  through  with  gleams  of 
rough  reality.  From  a  fighting  past  the  Federation 
has  inherited  a  military  organization  that  falls  nat- 
urally into  line  and  staff.  And  like  the  staff  of  an 
army  at  peace,  A.  F.  L.  officialdom  polishes  its  but- 
tons, perfects  its  salutes,  and  trots  the  household 
troops  out  occasionally  for  a  sham  battle — leads  a 
convention  off  to  Washington  to  fight  for  beer,  the 
impending  loss  of  which  beverage  causes  President 
Gompers  to  fear  for  the  first  time  for  the  future  of 
the  country.  Mr.  Gompers  has  somehow  succeeded 
in  classifying  prohibition  as  Bolshevistic,  and  in  the 
higher  circles  of  the  A.  F.  L.,  as  in  the  Senate,  that 
word  sends  rattling  down  to  death  whatever  thing 
it  touches.  Nevertheless  there  are  memories  of  the 
pre-respectable  period  of  the  A.  F.  L.  that  will  not 
down — memories  of  open  warfare  once  and  again 
in  Colorado;  memories  of  a  day  when  the  Washing- 
ton headquarters  of  the  Federation  could  say,  re- 
ferring not  unsympathetically  to  the  McNamara 
case:  "It  is  an  awful  commentary  upon  existing 
conditions  when  one  man,  among  all  the  millions  * 
of  workers,  can  bring  himself  to  the  frame  of  mind 
that  the  only  means  to  secure  justice  for  labor  is  vio- 
lence, outrage  and  murder."  Even  today  come  ru- 
mors that  the  official  recognition  which  has  proved 
so  soothing  to  labor's  representatives  at  Washington 
and  Paris  has  not  yet  been  granted  everywhere;  in 
McKeesport  and  Homestead  and  other  towns  of 
Western  Pennsylvania,  A.  F.  L  organizers  must  hold 
their  meetings  out  of  doors  or  not  at  all — they  are 
Bolsheviki ;  in  Columbus,  Georgia,  A.  F.  L.  strikers 
are  shot  down — they  are  Bolsheviki.  In  "the  line 
of  the  army"  the  A.  F.  L.  still  has  its  fighters  who 
see  the  cause  of  the  oppressed  as  one  cause  and  do 
not  meet  rebellion  with  the  ready  damnation  of  a 
word.  Just  as  long  as  these  fighters  drag  the  old 
staff  with  them,  the  A.  F.  L.  will,  like  any  other 
army,  go  forward  backward. 

IT  IS  OBVIOUS  THAT  THE  ANTI-RADICAL  BILL  INTRO- 

duced  by  Senator  King  plays  directly  into  the  hands 
of  the  reactionary  kind  of  revolutionist.     This  mea- 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


655 


sure  is  a  forceful  example  of  the  sort  of  government 
the  nation  may  expect  when  the  National  Security 
League  consolidates  with  the  American  Protective 
League  and  establishes  (under  a  wooden  Kolchak) 
a  dictatorship  of  the  propertariat.  But  as  a  poten- 
tial law  for  a  constitutional  republic  the  King  bill 
is  baldly  ridiculous.  In  the  very  first  section  of 
this  "  act  to  protect  the  government  of  the  United 
States  "  it  writes  a  conspiracy  clause  for  the  first 
time  into  Federal  law,  annuls  the  first  amendment 
of  the  constitution,  proclaims  the  perfection  of  the 
form  of  government  it  aims  to  destroy,  and  estab- 
lishes the  crime  of  lese  majeste  on  a  basis  broad 
enough  to  hedge  the  entire  executive  establishment, 
from  Burlesbn  upwards,  with  that  immunity  from 
assault  and  criticism  which  becomes  a  sovereign  by 
divine  right.  The  height  of  stultification,  however, 
is  attained  in  the  fourth  section.  It  reads: 

Sec.  4.  Any  person,  firm,  or  corporation  who  shall  wil- 
fully make  or  convey  false  reports  or  false  statements 
or  shall  say  or  do  anything  except  by  way  of  bona  fide 
advice  to  an  investor  or  investors,  with  intent  to  obstruct 
the  sale  by  the  United  States  of  bonds  or  other  securities 
of  the  United  States,  or  the  making  of  loans  to  or  by  the 
United  States  .  .  .  shall  be  punished  by  a  fine  of  not 
more  than  $5,000  and  imprisonment  not  to  exceed  three 
years.  .  .  ." 

This  is  the  work  of  either  a  satirist  or  a  born 
fool.  It  would  be  difficult  to  believe  that  it  could 
•  be  anything  but  a  deliberate  attempt  to  prove  the 
propertariat  bias  of  the  bill,  were  it  not  for  the  fact 
that  an  official  of  the  National  City  Bank  could 
have  been  sentenced  to  prison  under  its  provisions 
the  other  day  for  saying  in  public — not  merely  to 
•  bona  fide  investors — that  further  loans  to  foreign 
governments  were  unjustifiably  risky.  These  objec- 
tions are  but  pinpricks  in  a  document  that  gapes 
with  constitutional  holes..  From  first  to  last  the 
King  bill  lives  up  to  its  name :  for  all  the  recognition 
it  accords  the  Constitution  it  might  have  been 
drafted  by  Lord  North  on  behalf  of  King  George 
III  for  the  express  purpose  of  frustrating  the  Amer- 
ican revolution.  Its  whole  intention  and  method 
run  contrary  to  the  Bill  of  Rights.  To  this  ex- 
tent the  measure  carries  with  it  an  antidote  for  its 
own  poisons.  Should  popular  opinion  be  supine 
enough  to  permit  enactment,  it  is  obvious  that  the 
first  criminals  to  be  arrested  under  the  act  (sen- 
atorial immunity  aside)  would  be  the  very  persons 
who  sponsored  and  promulgated  it.  Did  Senator 
King  see  how  wilfully  his  law  had  "  defied  and 
disregarded  "  the  Constitution  when  he  so  rigor- 
ously provided  for  his  own  punishment?  Were  the 
law  honestly  carried  out  Senator  King  would  be 
taught  how  dangerous  it  is  to  protect  an  institution 
by  the  subversive  experiment  of  doing  away  with 
it.  But  if  the  Constitution  is  still  a  serviceable  in- 
strument, that  sacred  document  will  at  all  events 
protect  Senator  King  from  the  results  of  his  own 
follies.  Let  us  trust  that  the  measure  will  not 
progress  so  far.  If  the  American  people  are  fully 
alive  to  the  dangers  of  counter  revolutionary  hys- 


teria, fomented  by  private  security  leagues  and  es- 
pionage organizations,  they  will  drive  the  bill  out  of 
the  Senate  before  it  has  a  chance  to  be  laughed  out 
of  court.  It  needs  only  a  concerted  protest  to  re- 
mind Congress  that  the  American  state  is  still 
enough  of  a  republic  to  be  opposed  fiercely  to  the 
protection  of  the  United  States  Government  through 
the  instrumentality  of  a  King. 

ARE     SELECTION     OF     CURRENT     FICTION     WHICH 

THE  DIAL  proffers  on  page  670  of  this  issue  has 
value  in  that  it  is  a  composite  photograph  of  the 
opinions  of  a  considerable  number  of  habitually  crit- 
ical readers,  a  rough  index  to  the  verdicts  of  many 
scattered  and  diversified  reviewers.  As  such,  it 
shows  the  lay  of  the  field.  And  the  query  raised 
by  the  present  list  is  a  familiar  one:  Why  does 
America  produce  so  little  serious  fiction  of  good 
quality?  On  this  list  the  English  titles  outnumber 
the  American  nearly  three  to  one,  although  the 
English  are  all  imported.  Moreover,  the  American 
books  are,  with  only  an  exception  or  two,  devoted  to 
adventure,  mystery,  or  humor ;  so  that,  in  this  season 
at  least,  we  have  one  established  name — that  of  Mr. 
Hergesheimer — to  oppose  to  the  roll  of  Conrad, 
Wells,  Bennett,  Galsworthy,  Swinnerton,  Delafield, 
Walpole,  Beresford,  George,  and  McKenna.  Last 
season's  shorter  list  showed  about  the  same  ratio, 
and  had  only  Mr.  Fuller  to  add.  The  Christmas 
list  was  more  evenly  divided,  but  since  some  of  the 
American  publications  were  posthumous,  offered  no 
more  than  Mr.  Cable,  Miss  Gather,  and  Mr.  Web- 
ster. The  very  sharp  contrast  in  the  current  list 
ought  doubtless  to  be  corrected  by  certain  qualifica- 
tions: English  novelists  appear  to  publish  more  fre- 
quently than  do  serious  American  novelists;  lately 
there  has  been  a  marked  increase  in  the  importation 
of  English  novels  (which  of  itself  connotes  a  short- 
age in  the  domestic  supply) ;  probably  more  Ameri- 
can than  English  novelists  have  been  temporarily 
deflected  into  journalism  by  the  war;  and  so  on. 
Such  considerations  soften  the  picture  a  little:  they 
scarcely  alter  the  fact.  In  the  production  of  best- 
selling  romances,  of  magazine  stories,  and  of  moving- 
picture  scenaries  we  have  no  real  competition;  but 
in  the  production  of  narrative  that  represents  life 
as  it  is  lived  we  fall  shockingly  behind  the  English, 
both  as  regards  quality  and  as  regards  quantity. 
That  it  is  the  fault  of  our  scene  or  the  fault  of  our 
public  are  familiar  explanations,  probably  true 
enough  in  their  degree.  But  the  scene  grows  stead- 
ily richer  and  the  public's  demand  for  good, fiction 
constantly  increases,  as  witness  the  number  of  im- 
portations and  translations  in  this  season's  list — and 
yet  the  production  shows  little  promise  of  catching 
up.  It  is  hard  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  the  sup- 
ply of  good  American  fiction  lingers  behind  the  de- 
mand for  it  chiefly  because  the  pens  that  ought  to 
be  engaged  in  its  production  are  too  well  paid  for 
maintaining  our  supremacy  in  the  best-seller,  the 
story,  and  the  movie. 


656 


June  28 


Communications 

THE  QUESTION  OF  NATIONALISM. 

SIR:  I  have  before  me  a  pamphlet  dealing  with 
the  first  Canadian  Jewish  Congress,  recently  held  in 
Montreal,  written  by  a  well-known  Zionist,  himself 
a  delegate  to  the  Congress  and  an  active  member 
of  its  various  committees.  It  is  supposed  to  be  an 
"  analytic  review  "  of  the  aims  and  objects  of  Can- 
adian Jewry,  as  crystallized  at  the  Montreal  Con- 
gress. In  the  flood  of  articles  dealing  with  the  sub- 
ject, full  of  eulogies  and  unwarranted  praise,  this 
particular  pamphlet  has  drawn  my  especial  attention, 
because  it  makes  at  least  an  attempt  to  deal  honestly 
and  critically  with  the  problem.  The  question  of 
nationalization  involved  in  a  discussion  of  this  nature 
will,  to  my  mind,  prove  of  interest  to  the  readers  of 
your  magazine. 

Now,  then,  the  author  of  the  Review  admits  from 
the  outset  that  the  Congress  has  failed  in  its  attempts 
to  form  "  a  general  Jewish  assembly,  where  all  the 
different  factions,  classes,  and  interests  of  Canadian 
Jewry  shall  concentrate  and  unite  into  one  solid 
front  to  stand  for  and  protect  their  common  inter- 
ests." He  does  not,  however,  see  the  causes  which 
are  responsible  for  the  failure.  He  fails  to  under- 
stand that  the  "  solidarity  and  unity  "  of  a  nation, 
under  the  present  system  of  society,  is  rather  a  myth. 
He  also  fails  to  know  that  the  so-called  democratic 
parliaments  (even  in  England,  the  cradle  of  modern 
parliamentarism)  do  not  truthfully  and  honestly 
represent  the  interests  of  the  nation  as  a  whole, 
simply  because  under  capitalistic  conditions  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  a  "  nation  as  a  whole."  The  epi- 
demic of  revolutionary  strikes  in  Great  Britain  fol- 
lowing upon  the  heels  of  the  last  general  election 
proves  conclusively  two  things:  First,  the  total  bank- 
ruptcy of  modern  parliamentarism  and,  second,  the 
big  chasm  in  the  one  and  the  same  nation — the  an- 
tagonistic class  interests  within  the  same  nation  pre- 
dominating over  the  artificial  national  interests. 

This  naturally  leads  us  to  another  question  which 
has  escaped  the  attention  of  this  "  critical  reviewer  " 
— namely,  the  question  of  the  necessity  or  even  the 
desirability  of  preserving  these  elements  which,  to  be 
sure,  have  played  a  certain  role  in  the  past,  but  which 
have  long  lost  their  usefulness,  nay,  which  have  be- 
come detrimental  to  human  progress. 

The  old  fundamentals  of  social  life,  which  are 
largely  responsible  for  social  injustice  and  inequality; 
which  have  brought  about  the  antagonism  between 
man  and  man ;  which  provoked  and  finally  produced 
the  world  war,  the  greatest  catastrophe  in  human 
history — those  fundamentals,  those  forces  are,  hap- 
pily, on  the  decline.  New  forces  are  looming  up  on 
the  horizon,  forces  more  of  a  social  than  of  a  national 
character.  But  among  those  forces  which  are  doomed 
to  disappear  in  the  New  Society,  Nationalism,  espe- 
cially religious  Nationalism — as  is  the  case  among 
the  Jews — is  the  most  reactionary  and  most  detri- 
mental to  progress. 


People  usually  distinguish  between  Nationalism 
and  Chauvinism.  It  is  claimed  that  Nationalism  is 
an  element  of  defense,  while  Chauvinism  is  aggres- 
sive. This  is  quite  an  erroneous  conception.  The 
difference  between  the  former  and  the  latter  is  only 
a  matter  of  degree.  Nationalism  arriving  at  a  cer- 
tain stage  of  its  development  must  necessarily  be 
transformed  into  Chauvinism.  Nationalism  is  con- 
sequently" the  origin  of  Chauvinism. 

Nationalism  principally  aims  to  attach  itself  to  the 
past,  the  past  with  all  its  dead  weight,  which  only 
hinders  the  forward  march. 

But  to  return  to  our  "  Reviewer,"  who,  notwith- 
standing his  critical  analysis,  has  great  faith  in  the 
Congress  and  its  ability  to  solve  the  Jewish  problem. 
I  marvel  at  his  optimism  and,  if  you  wish,  self-deceit. 
It  has  been  said  that  "  life  is  but  a  succession  of  un- 
successful attempts."  That  is  particularly  true  with 
regard  to  Jewish  life.  Our  reviewer  is  not  discour- 
aged. If  the  first  attempt  fail,  then  he  will  try  again. 
He  does  not  understand  that  the  causes  which 
contributed  to  the  failure  of  the  first  Congress  are 
inherent  in  the  Jewish  character  and  Jewish  life. 
He  is  proud  of  the  old  orthodox  Jew,  "  who  stood 
at  the  height  of  his  mission  and  instinctively  pre- 
served the  principles  and  interests  of  Judaism." 
Quite  so !  But  the  old  orthodox  Jew  is  rather  a  poor 
foundation  upon  which  to  construct  a  modern  state 
built  upon  socialistic  principles,  as  many  so-called 
national-socialists  dream  of  in  their  ignorance. 


Winnipeg,  Manitoba. 


J.  RICHMOND. 


Contributors 


Robert  Ferrari,  a  graduate  of  Columbia  Uni- 
versity and  its  Law  School,  is  a  New  York  attorney 
who  has  taught  criminology  in  various  universities, 
has  written  extensively  on  legal,  political,  and  soci- 
ological subjects,  and  is  editor  of  the  Journal  of 
Criminal  Law  and  Criminology. 

Katherine  Keith  (Mrs.  David  Adler)  is  the 
author  of  The  Girl  (Holt,  1917),  reviewed  in  THE 
DIAL  for  January  25,  1917.  Her  residence  is  in 
Libertyville,  Illinois. 

Edith  Borie,  a  graduate  of  Bryn  Mawr,  has  con- 
tributed book  reviews  to  various  periodicals. 

Elizabeth  J.  Coatsworth  was  graduated  from  Vas- 
sar  in  1915,  received  the  M.A.  from  Columbia  the 
following  year,  and  traveled  in  the  Orient  during 
1917.  She  has  recently  begun  contributing  verse  to 
the  magazines. 

The  other  contributors  to  this  issue  have  pre- 
viously written  for  THE  DIAL. 


The  Index  to  Volume  LXVI  of  THE  DIAL, 
which  is  concluded  with  this  number,  will  be  ready 
in  a  few  days.  It  will  be  printed  separately  and  a 
copy  will  be  mailed  free  on  request  to  any  subscriber 
who  sends  his  name  and  address  to  THE  DIAL,  152 
West  is'th  Street,  New  York  City. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


657 


Casual  Comment 

The  light  fiction  which  serves  as  traditional 
pabulum  for  summer  America  has  already  been  pub- 
lished, and  once  more  the  question  arises  as  to  just 
why  people  read  it.  Take  for  example  six  of  the 
more  'recent  novels.  All  of  them  will  be  mod- 
erately successful;  the  worst  will  sell  its  two  or 
three  thousand  copies,  and  the  most  successful  of 
them  will  probably  pass  the  fifty  thousand  mark. 
About  them,  all  together,  there  is  not  enough  de- 
lineation of  character,  not  enough  revelation  of 
eternal  truths,  not  enough  form  in  the  stricter  sense 
to  supply  the  matter  for  a  good  short  story.  The 
fact  remains  however  that  they  are  read,  and  that, 
on  a  hot  afternoon,  even  the  hyper-educated  find 
them  more  interesting  than  Dostoevski.  Such  being 
the  case",  it  is  perhaps  more  reasonable  to  search  for 
the  secret  of  their  popularity  than  to  berate  them 
for  lacking  of  qualities  to  which  they  do  not  aspire. 

It  is  in  Mary  Roberts  Rinehart's  latest  volume 
(Love  Stories;  352  pages;  Doran)  that  this  secret 
appears.  Of  the  seven  tales  in  the  book,  six  are 
occupied  with  the  business  of  getting  young  people 
mated;  the  seventh  is  the  happy  aftermath  of  a 
properly  pathetic  love  affair.  There  is  nothing  new 
in  the  matter  of  any  of  them,  unless  it  is  the  cir- 
cumstance that  five  are  laid  in  hospitals;  Mrs.  Rine- 
hart's method  of  handling  plots  is  sanctioned  by  the 
usuage  of  generations.  Yet  we  eat  the  stories  up; 
we  are  interested  in  the  very  primitive  business  of 
marrying  Joseph  to  Josephine  and  Joan  to  John. 

Mrs.  Rinehart  writes  with  immense  cleverness 
but  without  gusto.  She  impresses  one  as  being  able, 
if  she  wished,  to  produce  literature  of  permanent 
value,  but  she  is  tired;  she  patronizes  her  public  just 
a  little  and  her  characters  bore  her.  A  master  of 
light  fiction,  she  probably  realizes  the  shortcomings 
of  her  medium  as  much  as  do  any  of  her  readers. 

For  the  romance  with  which  Mrs.  Rinehart  in- 
vests the  modern  hospital — a  romance  gained  by 
making  ward  nurses  tender  and  young,  and  by 
metamorphosing  internes  to  spectacled  cupids — 
H.  C.  Bailey  must  turn  to  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  sanctify  professional  gamblers.  In  The  Game- 
sters (332  pages;  Button)  he  is  concerned  with 
wonderful  twins,  Eve  and  Adam  de  Res,  who  can 
impersonate  each  other  at  will,  and  who  wander 
all  over  Germany  outwitting  Frederic  the  Great. 
Mr.  Bailey  goes  at  breakneck  speed,  piling  incident 
on  incident,  but  he  writes  without  color  and  asks 
miracles  of  his  hero  and  heroine. 

Another  book  of  the  same  sort  is  A  Gallant  Lady 
(442  pages;  Duffield).  During  the  age  when  no 
novel  was  a  success  unless  it  purported  to  be  the 
memoirs  of  the  Vicomte  du  Pont,  sometime  Master 
of  Horse  to  His  Majesty  King  Felipe  XVIII  of 
Styria,  Percy  James  Brebner  could  always  be  re- 
lied on  to  crowd  more  highwaymen,  ladies  in  dis- 
tress, and  disguised  heirs-apparent  into  eighty 
thousand  words  than  could  any  of  his  contem- 
poraries. The  styles  have  changed,  and  in  these 


days  the  denouement  is  more  likely  to  come  as 
the  result  of  an  enemy  machine  gun  than  after  pis- 
tols and  coffee  for  two.  Mr.  Brebner  however  re- 
mains constant  to  his  former  ideals. 

When  Richmond  Haigh,  in  An  Ethiopian  Saga 
(207  pages;  Holt),  turned  to  African  folklore  for 
his  material,  one  hoped  for  something  new.  But 
in  the  breasts  of  Kundu  and  Koloani,  his  rival  Zulu 
chieftains,  and  under  the  black  skins  of  Jamba  the 
young  warrior  and  the  maiden  Mamelubi  beat  the 
same  hearts  that  fired  the  veins  of  Mrs.  Rinehart's 
nurses  and  animated  the  dukes  and  adventurers  of 
Mr.  Brebner.  The  chief  difference  is  one  of  style; 
Mr.  Haigh  has  adopted  a  pseudo-Biblical  diction 
and  heads  every  paragraph  with  a  proverb  trans- 
lated from  the  original  Kaffir  or  Swahiali. 

It  remained  for  Albert  Payson  Terhune  to  take 
the  last  step  and  transfer  the  romantic  emotions  of 
modern  society  to  canine  breasts.  In  Lad :  A  Dog 
(349  pages;  Dutton)  his  heroine  is  proud,  self- 
willed,  capricious,  his  hero  faithful  and  steady. 
Their  reactions  are  those  of  the  human  being  rather 
than  of  the  animal.  However,  Mr.  Terhune  as- 
sures us  in  a  postcript  that  Lad  was  a  real  dog,  and 
that  most  of  the  incidents  actually  happened. 

Romance  has  been  called  the  sugar  coating  of 
sex.  If  one  makes  this  coating  saccharine  instead  of 
sugar,  it  can  be  much  thinner  and  still  leave  the 
same  taste  in  the  mouth.  Such  at  least  is  the  theory 
on  which  Elinor  Glyn  seems  to  write.  For  her 
latest  novel  (Family; '3 15  pages;  Appleton)  she  has 
chosen  a  pot  reminiscent  of  Boccaccio,  but  she  is 
quite  humorless  and  more  than  a  little  nasty. 

With  art  as  the  term  is  commonly  understood, 
these  novels  have  little  connection.  There  is  no  life 
in  them ;  they  do  not  aim  to  portray  life.  Their  end 
is  simply  to  appeal  to  the  romantic  side  of  us;  to 
make  their  marionette  lovers  dance  for  our  amuse- 
ment. And  who  will  say  that  they  do  not  achieve 
their  purpose.  .  . 

Two  books  of  melancholy  interest  are  The  Whole 
Truth  About  Alcohol,  by  George  Elliott  Flint 
(Macmillan),  and  Beverages  and  Their  Adultera- 
tion, by  Harvey  W. Wiley  (Blakiston; Philadelphia). 
The  former,  though  opposing  prohibition,  lacks  the 
complete  bartender's  guide  which  the  temperate  Mr. 
Wiley  eruditely  incorporates  into  his  book;  but  it 
does  stimulate  the  sad  hope  that  there  remain  a  few 
ancient  spirits  not  outraged  by  the  attitude  of 
Horatius  Flaccus:  "  Nulla  placere  diu  neo  vivere 
carmina  possunt  quae  scribuntur  aquae  potoribus." 

From  Philadelphia  comes  the  announcement  that 
George  J.  C.  Grasberger  is  about  to  publish 
Gabriel  Sarrazin's  essay  on  Walt  Whitman,  as  trans- 
lated by  Harrison  S.  Morris.  The  manuscript  has 
been  stored  away  somewhere  ever  since  Whitman 
penned  his  own  notes  on  the  margins  of  the  original 
sheets.  Only  one  hundred  copies  of  the  new  volume 
will  be  printed — very  attractively  printed,  if  the 
preliminary  broadside  sets  the  standard — and  the 
proceeds  of  the  enterprise  will  be  used  to  purchase 
as  a  memorial  the  Whitman  house  in  Camden. 


658 


June  28 


Notes  on  New  Books 


THE    SECRET    CITY. 
386  pages.    Doran. 


By    Hugh    Walpole. 


"  There  is  a  secret  city  in  every  man's  heart," 
and  it  is  the  secret  cities  in  the  hearts  of  several 
Russians  and  Englishmen,  living  out  their  private 
tragedy  in  revolutionary  Petrograd,  that  Mr.  Wal- 
pole explores.  Durward,  the  Englishman  who  in- 
terpreted the  drama  staged  in  the  "  dark  forest  " 
at  the  Front,  where  Semyonov  and  Trenchard 
fought  for  the  love  of  Maria  Ivanovna,  is,  in  this 
sequel,  the  absorbed  spectator  of  another  drama. 
The  dominating  figure  is  still  Semyonov,  the  coldly 
diabolical  sensualist  and  cynic,  who  strangely  grows 
to  resemble  the  Heathcliff  of  Wuthering  Heights, 
in  love  with  a  ghost,  passionately  yearning  to  burst 
the  barriers  of  the  flesh  and  be  united  with  the  spirit 
of  the  dead  woman.  Unwilling  to  adopt  the  simple 
method  of  suicide — which  Russian  fiction  has  made 
almost  pleasantly  familiar — Semyonov  aims  to  ac- 
complish his  liberation  from  the  flesh  by  an  elaborate 
plot  involving  the  ingenious  torture  of  poor  Mark- 
ovich  and  the  wrecked  happiness  of  Vera  and  her 
lover  Lawrence,  an  English  Sir  Galahad — all  to  the 
end  of  forcing  the  tortured  man  to  murder  his  tor- 
mentor. After  several  Dostoevsky-like  scenes  of  hair- 
raising  suspense,  the  murder  is  rather  tamely 
accomplished. 

But  it  is  really  the  secret"  city  of  the  Russian 
soul  that  Mr.  Walpole  seems  most  eager  to  explore, 
even  though  at  times  he  turns  around  on  himself 
and  scoffs  at  his  own  discoveries.  This  task  of  in- 
terpretation was  a  little  easier  when  the  Russians 
were  fighting  for  the  Allies,  and  their  mystic  soul 
was  supposed  to  be  yearning  towards  the  sacred 
city  of  Constantine.  When  it  begins  to  yearn 
towards  Bolshevism,  it  gives  Mr.  Walpole  (or  Dur- 
ward) many  a  nightmare.  "  The  Russian  lives  in 
a  world  of  loneliness  peopled  only  by  ideas  .  .  . 
accustomed  from  babyhood  to  bathe  in  an  atmos- 
phere that  deals  only  with  ideas.  .  .  Russia 
moves  always  according  to  the  Idea  that  governs  her. 
.  .  The  same  face,  the  face  of  a  baby,  of  a  child, 
of  a  credulous,  cynical  dreamer,  a  face  the  kindest, 
the  naivest,  the  cruellest,  the  most  friendly,  the 
most  human,  the  most  savage,  the  most  Eastern  and 
the  most  Western  in  the  world."  Well!  This 
business  of  seeing  Russian  psychology  through  Eng- 
lish eyes  has  no  excuse,  says  Durward,  except  that 
it  is  English.  And  the  effort  seems  disastrous  for 
Englishmen;  Durward  and  even  young  Bohun  arc 
subject  to  hallucinations,  weird  seizures,  and  visions. 
If  this  is  the  way  Englishmen  are  upset  by  Russia, 
is  that  not  another  cogent  reason  for  hoping  they 
will  withdraw?  One  might  criticize  Mr.  Walpole 
for  a  frankly  irrelevant  eulogy  of  Sir  George 
Buchanan,  did  one  not  sympathize  with  his  relief  at 
rinding  something  he  was  sure  of — the  perfection  of 
the  Ambassador. 


BLIND  ALLEY.    By  W.  L.  George.    431  pages. 
Little,  Brown. 

The  journalistic  novel  has  come  to  be  recognized 
as  a  distinct  type  of  fiction — a  novel  the  motive  force 
of  which  is  not  story  or  dramatic  interaction  of 
character,  but  the  behavior  of  characters  toward 
passing  events.  Its  principle  is  not  action,  but  re- 
action. What  Wells  did  for  the  first  two  years  of 
the  War  in  Mr.  Britling  Sees  It  Through,  W.  L. 
George  has  done  for  the  last  two  (n  Blind  Alley. 
Both  books  are  by  competent  observers  of  English 
life  and  the  contrast  between  them  is  enlightening. 
The  exaltation  present  in  Mr.  Brrtling  is  gone  in 
Blind  Alley.  The  hope  that  ennobled  tragedy  is 
gone.  The  war  has  worn  itself  out  into  sordid  dis- 
illusionment. Mr.  George  cuts  a  cross-section  of 
English  society.  Sir  Hugh  Oakley — in  the  place 
of  Mr.  Britling  the  chief  reactor — is  a  patient, 
skeptical,  tolerant  observer.  He  is  patient  with  his 
wife,  who  represents  the  furor  teutonicus  at  its 
highest.  He  is  skeptical  toward  his  patriotic  profi- 
teering relatives.  He  is  sympathetic  toward  his  son, 
who  emerges  from  the  trenches,  wounded  in  body 
and  mind,  weary  and  cynical;  toward  his  older 
daughter,  whose  patriotic  passion  falls  off  from 
munition-making  to  illicit  love  for  the  munition 
maker;  toward  even  his  younger  daughter,  whose 
"  war  work  "  finally  leads  her  through  scandal  and 
the  divorce  court  to  a  marriage  of  repairs.  He  is 
tolerant  of  the  conscientious  objector,  and  of  the 
enemy's  point  of  view.  But  Sir  Hugh  is,  in  spite  of 
all  his  human  qualities,  not  quite  human.  The  most 
genuine  person  in  the  story  is  Frank  Cotterham,  the 
munition  maker  and  sex  sport  whose  affair  with 
Monica  Oakley  does  not  come  off,  because — well, 
because.  In  this  character  Mr.  George  has  made 
an  advance  in  subtilty  beyond  A  Bed  of  Roses  and 
The.  Second  Blooming;  but  when  he  says  Blind 
Alley  is  the  best  novel  he  has  written,  he  is  wrong. 

CESAR     NAPOLEON     GAILLARD.       By     Jean 
Farmer.      392   pages.      Payot   et   Cie. ;   Paris. 

If  the  recent  American  interest  in  France  has 
been  productive  of  many  volumes  of  compendious 
misinformation,  an  equal  French  interest  in  things 
American  has  been  of  even  greater  profit  to  the  pub- 
lishing world.  The  latest  Franco-American  book 
is  a  picturesque  novel,  Cesar  Napoleon  Gaillard  a  la 
Conquete  d'Amerique.  The  hero  of  the  story  is 
son  of  a  staid  functionary  of  Montelimar,  city  of 
Nougat.  Rebel  against  the  conservatism  of  Gail- 
lard  pere  and  of  the  Lyonnais  manufacturers  for 
whom  he  slaved,  he  emigrates  to  New  York.  There 
he  is  successively  dishwasher,  strikebreaker,  and 
waiter;  piano  player  in  a  bagnio,  circus  rider,  silk 
salesman,  and  finally  confidential  agent  for  Upland 
&  Co.,  a  prosperous  firm  of  liquor  dealers  which  M. 
Farmer  evidently  intends  to  be  typical  of  all  Ameri- 
can corporations.  As  is  quite  natural,  the  author 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


659 


stresses  throughout  the  story  the  differences  between 
the  two  countries  rather  than  their  similarities.  To 
believe  him,  all  American  hotels  have  2000  rooms 
and  2000  baths  while  all  French  hostelries  are  tiny. 
He  presents  American  business  as  gigantic,  efficient 
— and  dishonest;  the  typical  American  is  a  dashing, 
adventurous  fellow  who  takes  for  motto  "  Partout 
ou  j'accroche  mon  chapeau,  la  est  ma  maison,  mon 
foyer,  mon  doux  foyer  " — a  not  too  exact  Gallici- 
zation  of  "  Any  old  place  I  hang  my  hat  is  home 
sweet  home  to  me."  On  the  other  hand  his  typical 
Frenchman  is  fifty  years  behind  the  times  and  quite 
content  to  remain  there.  One  gets  no  echo  of  the 
French  talent  for  revolutionizing  the  world  every 
once  in  a  while,  or  of  the  fact  that  the  United  States 
is  lagging  politically  behind  most  of  Europe.  This 
omission  however  does  not  interfere  with  one's  ap- 
preciation of  M.  Farmer's  otherwise  keen  observa- 
tion of  American  life,  nor  with  one's  enjoyment  of 
an  adventure  story  extremely  jolly,  even  if  highly 
improbable. 

JIM,  THE  STORY  OF  A  BACKWOODS  POLICE 
DOG.  By  Charles  G.  D.  Roberts.  216  pages. 
Macmillan. 

Someone  has  offered  this  objection  to  animal 
stories,  that  the  cleverest  beast  he  ever  read 
about  was  not  quite  so  intelligent  as  the  most  stupid 
man.  The  indictment  hardly  holds  true  of  Jim,  the 
hero  of  the  first  story  in  this  collection,  for  his 
canine  astuteness  puts  most  of  the  human  beings 
that  surround  him  to  shame,  and  is  equaled  only  by 
that  of  the  omniscient  Tug  Blackstock,  his  master. 
Together  they  stalk  evildoers,  and  loom  up  as  figures 
of  almost-  legendary  heroism  against  the  familiar 
background  of  the  Canada  woods.  In  the  remaining 
tales  we  encounter  a  more  recent  setting  for  animal 
stories,  that  of  the  trenches.  One  of  the  tales  is 
concerned  with  the  adventures  of  a  shell-shocked 
mule ;  another  follows  the  flight  of  an  eagle,  released 
from  his  cage  by  an  exploding  75,  who  flies  at  a 
great  height  along  the  lines  and  receives  a  veritable 
bird's-eye  view  of  the  war.  These  animals  of  which 
we  read,  despite  epigrams  to  the  contrary,  are  really 
much  more  interesting  than  human  beings,  and 
Major  Roberts  rather  spoils  the  impression  by  im- 
posing on  them  the  purely  human  institution  of  a 
plot. 

This  he  omits  to  do  in  the  last  story.  Stripes, 
the  skunk  who  is  its  unconcerned  hero,  goes  calmly 
about  his  business  of  catching  field  mice  and  sucking 
eggs,  quite  indifferent  to  the  great  beasts  which  sur- 
round him.  Finally  he  is  attacked  by  a  very  fool- 
ish bear  cub,  deluges  it  with  slime,  and  falls  a  victim 
finally  to  its  revengeful  mother,  who  after  slaying 
him  with  one  blow  of  her  paw,  goes  on  about  her 
business.  It  is  all  casual  and  cruel  and  very  real; 
it  reminds  one  not  so  much  of  another  animal  story 
as  of  one  of  Tchekhov's  sketches  or  of  an  etching  by 
George  Bellows. 


THE   ROLL-CALL.     By  Arnold   Bennett.     417 
pages.     Doran. 

In  the  Roll-Call  Mr.  Bennett  returns  to  his 
Five  Towns  material,  projected  into  London  in  the 
person  of  George  Cannon,  the  son  of  Hilda  Less- 
ways.  He  returns  also  to  the  method  of  his  Five 
Towns  novels,  departing  from  his  swift  impres- 
sionistic treatment  of  London  in  The  Pretty  Lady, 
in  favor  of  a  treatment  at  times  so  replete  that  it 
suggests  the  uninterrupted  flow  of  uncritized  con- 
sciousness. The  book  recounts  the  career  of  George 
Cannon,  articled  pupil  in  the  offices  of  a  firm  of 
successful  London  architects.  He  is,  at  the  start, 
capable  of  being  impressed  because  Mr.  Haim,  the 
factotum  of  the  firm,  owns  a  house  in  Chelsea  and 
will  furnish  him  a  lodging;  capable,  too,  of  falling 
in  love  with  Mr.  Haim's  daughter,  gentle  unam- 
bitious Margaret.  He  means,  even  then,  to  become 
a  great  architect.  He  attains  that  ambition  with 
amazing  velocity,  through  winning  a  competion  for 
a  town  hall  in  the  north  of  England,  a  competition 
he  enters  individually  upon  impulse  furnished  by 
Lois  Ingraham.  Then  as  an  architectural  prodigy 
he  marries  the  pleasure-ravenous  Lois,  and  spends 
ten  years  cashing  in  his  fame  while  the  town  hall 
comes  into  physical  existence.  By  that  time  the  war 
is  on.  George  Cannon,  still  dissatisfied  with  his 
achievement,  suddenly  aware  that  there  exist  not 
only  degrees  of  success  but  all  kinds  of  success,  lands 
two  large  architectural  schemes:  one  a  barracks  in 
India;  the  other,  munition  factories  in  England. 
His  assurance  that  he  can  best  serve  his  country  as 
an  architect  is  shaken  by  the  appearance  of  Lucas, 
his  brother-in-law,  resplendent  in  an  officer's  uni- 
form. After  an  uncomfortable  dream  in  which  a 
voice  calls  the  roll  and  no  one  answers  to  the  name 
of  George  Edwin  Cannon,  he  applies  for  a  commis- 
sion. Mr.  Bennett  leaves  him,  after  a  slight  mili- 
tary experience  at  Epson  Downs,  lying  in  a  small 
tent,  his  feet  in  the  rain,  reflecting  that  there  is 
something  in  this  Army  business! 

The  temper  of  Mr.  Bennett  seems  to  be  con- 
sistently sardonic  until  he  reaches  the  final  episode, 
in  which  his  hero,  lifted  out  of  responsibility,  is 
happy.  George  Cannon  moves  through  a  kaleide- 
scopic  multiplicity  of  scenes,  from  Sunday  excursions 
and  studio  parties,  through  music  halls,  elaborate 
dinners,  to  the  opening  of  his  town  hall,  and  even  a 
military^  shopping  tour.  Always  Mr.  Bennett's 
treatment  of  this  social  background  is  deft  and 
finished.  At  the  Orgreave  luncheon,  "  Nothing  in- 
teresting had  been  said,  and  little  that  was  sincere. 
But  everybody  had  behaved  very  well,  and  had 
demonstrated  that  he  or  she  was  familiar  with  the 
usages  of  society  and  with  aspects  of  existence  with 
which  it  was  proper  to  be  familiar."  The  dinner 
in  the  overwhelmingly  splendid  flat  of  Irene 
Wheeler  illustrates  "  the  great  principle  of  con- 
spicuous ritualistic  waste  in  a  manner  to  satisfy  the 
most  exacting."  The  chromatic  toilettes  at  the 


66o 


THE  DIAL 


June  28 


Longchamps  Sunday  races  have,  in  a  stroke,  "  malo- 
dorous workrooms,  and  the  fatigue  of  pale,  indus- 
trious creatures  "  as  their  soil.  The  musical  comedy 
in  London  to  which  Lois  drags  George  has  its 
"  jocularity  pivoted  unendingly  on  the  same  twin 
centers  of  alcohol  and  concupiscence."  All  of  Lon- 
don display,  of  London  amusement,  of  London 
success  has  this  treatment,  clever,  sharp,  provocative. 
There  are,  on  the  other  hand,  scenes  of  definite, 
clear  reality :  Margaret,  designing  book  covers,  Mrs. 
Haim  serving  tea,  scenes  in  which  reality  is  evoked 
by  the  words.  But  for  the  most  part  the  book  is 
strident,  highly  seasoned.  Mr.  Bennett  insists  upon 
the  superlative  qualities  of  objects  and  experiences 
to  such  an  extent  that  he  quickly  fails  to  stimulate 
a  jaded  palate.  He  gives  you,  not  the  emotions  of 
his  hero,  but  a  list  of  adjectives,  miraculous,  won- 
drous, supreme,  sublime,  ineffable,  applied  alike  to 
motor  bicycles,  complexions,  sex  sensations,  and 
cathedrals.  The  result  is  a  sort  of  scenic  brilliancy, 
a  constant  illumination  as  of  too  many  electric  signs, 
with  almost  never  the  remarkable  daylight  of  The 
Old  Wives'  Tale  or  Clayhanger.  The  Roll-Call 
leaves  the  impression  that  Mr.  Bennett  wrote  so 
furiously  that  pages  fluttered  to  the  floor  without 
intermission  and  that  he  had  his  tongue  in  his  cheek 
as  he  heaped  high-sounding  adjectives  above  his 
adolescent  hero. 

THE  SONG  OF  THE  SIRENS.    By  Edward  Lucas 
White.     348  pages.     Button. 

It  would  seem  that  the  Freudian  wish  was  father 
to  the  thought  in  a  number  of  these  tales.  In  a 
prefatory  admission,  the  author  chooses  to  step  aside 
from  the  post  of  creative  responsibility  to  a  certain 
extent,  and  trace  his  plot-sources  in  dreams. 
"  Often,"  he  says,  "  I  wake  with  the  sensation  of 
having  just  finished  reading  a  book  or  story."  And 
in  the  case  of  one  of  the  tales  included  in  this 
volume,  he  returned  to  consciousness  "  with  the  last 
three  sentences  of  it,  word  for  word  as  they  stand," 
branded  on  his  sight.  This  is  an  interesting  con- 
fession, and  since  there  is  no  ethical  point  involved 
in  frank  plagiary  from  thev  subconscious,  we  do  not 
quarrel  with  the  writer  for  making  it.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  the  material  filched  from  the  unreal  has  as  a 
rule  been  welded  into  far  more  skilful  fiction  than 
the  tales  which  attempt  to  mirror  ancient  life  by  a 
parallel  modern  mood.  The  dream  stories  are 
authentic  in  a  certain  haunting  terror,  and  in  a 
baffling  verisimilitude.  They  are  not  particularly 
pleasant  tales,  and  there  is  at  times  a  somewhat  too 
bloody  vigor  in  the  transcription,  but  they  achieve 
a  definite  effect.  On  the  other  hand,  the  stories 
which  deal  with  ancient  Greece  and  Rome  are  less 
dramatic,  because  they  depend  upon  tedious  stretches 
of  "  small  talk  "  to  supply  the  needed  period-atmos- 
phere. Two  Roman  gentlemen  discussing  innova- 
tions in  underwear  hamper  the  early  pages  of  The 
Skewbald  Panther,  and  Caesar  slinging  cheap 


epithets  does  even  greater  damage  in  The  Fasces. 
(Among  Caeser's  choice  mouthfuls,  hurled  at 
Crassus  and  Clodius,  are:  "you  yoke  of  asses," 
"  you  bat-blind  idiots,"  "  you  nasty  little  tadpole," 
and  "  you  great  scurfy  toad.")  There  are  times 
when-  Mr.  White  seems  quite  willing  to  butcher 
Rome  to  make  a  writer's  holiday. 

YVETTE.  By  Guy  de  Maupassant.  Translated 
by  Mrs.  John  Galsworthy,  with  an  introduc- 
tion by  Joseph  Conrad.  259  pages.  Knopf. 
FLESH  AND  PHANTASY.  By  Newton  A. 
Fuessle.  211  pages.  Cornhill;  Boston. 
TEMPTATIONS.  By  David  Pinski.  325  pages. 
Brentano.  * 

Despite  academic  definition  the  shortstory  is  al- 
ways spilling  over  its  boundaries  and  invading  the 
shadowy  domains  that  separate  it  from  the  novel  on 
one  hand  and  the  Elian  essay  on  the  other.  All  the 
professional  disquisitors  are  agreed  that  this  modern 
literary  form  must  embody  a  plot  and  achieve  in 
exposition  the  coherence  of  brevity ;  but  not  until  the 
shortstory  is  as  dead  as  the  sophistic  oration  may  one 
reasonably  expect  it  to  follow  the  orthodox  pre- 
scriptions. Mrs.  Galsworthy's  translation  of  certain 
Maupassant  stories,  a  work  done  well  enough  to 
appear  now  in  a  fourth  edition,  shows  plainly  that 
at  the  very  sources  of  its  inspiration  the  shortstory 
was  a  thing  of  uneven  mood  and  measure.  Yvette 
is  almost  big  enough  to  occupy  comfortably  the 
broad-acred  pages  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post; 
A  Duel  is  small  enough  to  run  as  a  one-column  filler 
in  a  newspaper.  In  one  story  you  have  a  complete 
plot  woven  in  varicolored  threads  of  place  and  cir- 
cumstance; in  the  other,  a  small  sample  of  uniform 
color  and  texture,  snipped  out  of  the  plaid  fabric  of 
life. 

Since  the  shortstory  does  not  conform  to  a  single 
pattern  in  the  hands  of  a  Frenchman  and  a  master, 
it  is  futile  to  look  for  any  closer  approximation  to 
the  academic  ideal  even  in  well-schooled  America. 
If  Newton  Fuessle's  collection  gives  one  no  other 
assurance,  it  at  least  gives  one  this,  for  with  respect 
to  form  he  ranges  from  the  synoptic  narrative  of  the 
Million  Heir  to  the  fleeting,  sidewalk  impression  of 
Ten  Minutes  After  Six.  About  the  style  and  con- 
tents of  Mr.  Fuessle's  tales  there  is  little  to  be  said 
that  was  not  applicable  also  to  his  recent  novel.  The 
world  of  flesh  he  describes  with  a  photographic 
accuracy  which  is  occasionally  blurred  by  a  desperate 
endeavor,  untinged  by  inspiration,  to  escape  the 
hackneyed  in  metaphor;  but  the  world  of  the  spirit 
seems  rather  beyond  his  comprehension,  and  the 
touch  of  phantasy  one  finds  in  the  title  does  not 
enliven  the  tales  themselves. 

As  far  as  our  formal  thesis  is  concerned  the  trans- 
lation of  Pinski's  stories  of  temptation  brings  only 
further  proof.,  But  the  stories  themselves  tempt  one 
to  forget  the  thesis:  they  have  the  same  sharp, 
national  savor  that  salted  the  plays  and  stories  of 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


661 


Are  Dial  readers  different? 


'•pHIS  is  the  open  season  for  so-called  "summer 
•*•  reading" — popularly  denned  as  "hammock" 
or  "lighter  than  air"  reading.  We  know  a 
man,  however,  who  welcomes  Summer  as  the 
season  when  he  has  time  to  do  his  most  thought- 
ful reading.  He  may  possibly  be  an  intel- 
lectual curiosity — but  we  venture  to  believe 
that  there  are  many  Dial  readers  who,  like  him, 
take  their  Summer  reading  seriously. 

Here  are  five  notable  books,  both  fiction 
and  non-fiction,  some  of  them  just  off  the 
presses  this  week,  and  all  of  them  deserving  of 
a  place  in  any  constructive  program  for 
summer  reading: 

Saint's  Progress 

By  John  Galsworthy 

A  thoughtful  story  of  the  challenge  of  these 
"^  times  to  the  world  of  a  middle-aged  English 
vicar;  a  very  modern  story  of  the  loss  of  old- 
time  faith  and  of  the  gulf  between  the  genera- 
tions : 

"It's  going  to  be  a  young  world  from  now 
on,"  urges  the  new  generation  that  has  fought 
the  war.  "What's  the  use  of  pretending  it's 
like  it  was — and  being  cautious?" 

And  in  the  end  tne  older  generation  asks 
itself,  as  the  vicar  looks  down  at  the  face  of 
the  dead  boy,  "who  had  braved  all  things  and 
moved  out,  uncertain,  yet  undaunted:  'Is 
that,  then,  the  uttermost  truth,  is  faith  a 
smaller  thing?' ' '  (Published  June  20th,  $1 .60) . 


Democracy 

By  Shaw  Desmond 


/V    novel  of  the  British  labor  struggle  of  the 

hour  by  a  brilliant  young  Irishman. 
"It  is  the  living  voice  of  struggling  democracy 
itself"  according  to  the  New  York  Sun,  "more 
potent  than  programs,  louder  than  manifestos, 
and  more  interesting  than  either.  And  the 
remarkable  thing  is  that  anyone,  especially  an 
Irishman,  could  write  it  and  present  the  case 
of  labor  so  sympathetically  and  at  the  same 
time  'with  reservations,'  as  We  say  of  the 
covenant."  ($1.60). 

The  Mastery 
of  the  Far  East 

By  Arthur  Judson  Brown 

is  Japan  doing  in  Korea  and  China — 
and  why?  Is  Korea  to  be'a  Japan's  Ire- 
land? Why  did  Japan  first  oppose  and -then 
favor  China's  entrance  into  the  European  War? 
Here  is  a  new  book  of  the  very  first  importance 
on  this  subject,  of  which  the  New  York  Times 
says,  in  the  course  of  a  three-column  review: 
"Readers  who  have  learned  to  expect  violent 
partisanship  from  almost  any  writer  on  Far 
Eastern  affairs  will  be  delighted  by  the  im- 
partiality and  good  judgment  which  pervade 
this  entire  book."  ($6.00.) 


rj-i         ,T.  j  !"">      I     J  »7   • 

1 railing  the  Dolshevim  */r-     r-      i 

„  „  ,„,*», , ^  Miss  rmeal 

ffii    (  /Tfv/    I/I/      Arhnv-mn-n  «-? 


By  Carl  W.  Acfarman 

TV/TR.  Ackerman  went  into  Siberia  to  study 
Bolshevism  in  action.  In  the  course  of  his 
12,000  miles  of  travel  up  and  down  the 
country  he  talked  with  men  of  all  types  from 
droshky  drivers  to  officers  in  the  Czecho- 
slovak forces;  he  saw  the  crowds  of  men, 
women  and  children  that  slept  for  weeks  in  the 
railway  stations  for  want  of  a  better  shelter; 
he  saw  the  Russian  Co-operatives  in  action  as 
the  only  constructive  force  in  a  land  of  chaos. 

His  book  presents  an  unusually  graphic 
picture  of  conditions  in  bewildered  Siberia. 
(Published  June  20th,  $2.00). 


By  Mrs.  W.  K.  Clifford 

'"PHIS  exquisite  novel  of  English  life  involving, 
that  most  subtle  of  all  psychic  phenomena, 
the  reincarnation  of  personality,  is  causing  a 
great  stir  in  England.  Sir  Sidney  Colvin, 
Maurice  Hewlett,  W.  P.  Ker,  Percy  Lubbock 
and  Charles  Whibley  are  enthusiastic  about  it, 
while  Sir  Charles  Walston  has  sent  an  article 
on  it  to  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

No  wonder  no  less  a  critic  than  Keith  P,reston 
of  the  Chicago  Daily  News  hails  it  in  this 
country  as  "The  most  fascinating  novel  of  the 
entire  season."  ($1.50). 


Charles  Scribner's  Sons 


Fifth  Ave.  at  48th  St. 
New  York 


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the  Irish  Revivalists;  and  like  his  Gaelic  contem- 
poraries Pinski  seems  to  take  fresh  inspiration  by 
mingling  in  the  dim  nether  world  of  history  with  the 
mighty  men  of  old.  Isaac  Goldberg,  the  translator, 
does  well  to  remind  us  that  these  tales  are  more 
than  mere  elaborations  of  Talmudic  legend  or 
Jewish  history,  though  it  is  obvious  that  Pinski's 
nationality  is  a  deep  source  of  literary  strength.  It 
is  by  fusing  the  broken  colors  of  national  tradition 
that  he  achieves  the  white  light  of  wide  humanity: 
bereft  of  them  he  would  be  as  universal  as  medi- 
ocrity and  as  dull  as  mud.  Readers  who  enjoy 
Dunsany  and  Tchekhov  will  find  the  refreshing 
archaism  of  the  first  and  the  poignant  insight  of  the 
second  in  the  characteristic  Jewish  genius  of  David 
Pinski. 

RED  OF  SURLEY.  By  Tod  Robbins.    334  pages. 
Harper.  t 

AGAINST  THE  WINDS.    By  Kate  Jordan.    348 
pages.    Little,  Brown;  Boston. 

They  are  no  light  fiction  for  light  readers,  these 
two  books ;  no  hammock  novels,  no  anodynes.  Their 
authors  have  each  chosen  for  chief  character  a  young 
person  struggling  against  the  world  with  uncertain 
success :  Kate  Jordan  takes  a  Georgia  Cracker  girl ; 
Ted  Robbins  a  fisherman's  son  from  a  Long  Island 
village.  Both  authors  are  evidently  and  sincerely 
trying  to  write  a  very  good  novel;  if  they  have  not 
succeeded,  that  fact  is  not  to  be  held  too  strongly 
against  them. 

In  the  case  of  Mr.  Robbins,  the  failure  is  hardly 
due  to  his  theme.  His  idea  of  frustrated  genius,  of 
a  poet  defeated  by  the  very  circumstances  that  have 
produced  him,  is  worthy  of  a  much  better  book  than 
he  has  written.  One  decides  in  the  end  that  Red 
of  Surley  fails  because  its  hero,  as  a  man  of  talent,  is 
unconvincing;  only  as  the  skipper  of  a  fishing 
schooner  does  he  seem  real.  In  explanation  one  can 
only  say  that  it  takes  genius  to  portray  genius.  If 
Red  Hurley  did  not  reach  his  goal,  it  was  for  a  lack 
of  that  special  'sort  of  education  required  by  the 
literary  man,  and  of  this  his  creator  himself  has  none 
too  much. 

Miss  Jordan  has  not  attempted  so  much  and  has 
accomplished  more.  What  the  heroine  of  Against 
the  Winds  asks  of  life  is  not  fame ;  she  requires  only 
a  decent  living  and  her  share  of  happiness.  To  at- 
tain these  she  marries,  but  a  drunken  husband  fails 
to  supply  them.  Nature  abhors  a  vacuum ;  the  lover 
steps  in ;  and  since  Miss  Jordan  is  quite  moral,  cancer 
and  the  war  are  the  means  to  a  happy  existence 
promised  faintly  in  the  last  chapter.  The  author's 
philosophy  of  life — compounded  of  elementary  so- 
ciology, Presbyterianism,  and  a  reading  of  William 
J.  Locke — does  not  make  for  great  or  lasting  work. 
But  her  skill  in  the  business  of  writing,  like  Mr. 
Robbins'  determination  not  to  compromise  with 
reality,  promises  something  better  in  the  future. 


MIDAS    AND    SON.      By    Stephen    McKenna. 
418  pages.    Do  ran. 

Sir  Aylmer  Lancing  is  One  of  Our  Conquerors. 
America  has  given  him  his  opportunity  and  he  rides 
on  the  floodtide  of  fortune  to  fabulous  riches;  but 
at  the  crest  of  endeavor  Lancing  falls  a  victim  to  the 
law  of  compensation,  and  he  returns  to  his  native 
land  a  physical  wreck,  with  nothing  to  absorb  his 
intelligence  but  the  disposition  of  his  riches  and  the 
career  of  his  only  son,  Deryk.  The  stubborn  will 
and  unceasing  nervous  activity  of  Sir  Aylmer  are 
reproduced  in  his  offspring.  And  the  tragedy  of 
Midas  and  Son  is  not,  as  the  publishers  inform  one, 
the  tragedy  of  wealth,  but  the  tragedy  of  similar 
temperaments,  whose  very  power  to  mold  others  only 
intensifies  their  mutual  incompatibility.  Sir  Aylmer 
— very  much  like  his  Victorian  predecessor,  Sir 
Austin  Feverel — maintains  an  inscrutable  watchful- 
ness over  his  son's  goings  and  comings,  and  he  is 
enough  of  an  invalid  to  let  this  solicitude  break 
forth  into  open  control.  Idina  is  the  Lucy  of  this 
modern  tragedy,  and  it  is  over  the  fond,  clinging 
form  of  Idina  that  both  Midas  and  Son  finally 
stumble  to  grief.  Sir  Midas  dies,  for  all  his  riches, 
estranged  from  his  son;  and  Midas  Junior  inflicts 
death  on  himself,  for  all  his  erstwhile  love,  estranged 
from  the  world.  The  England  one  samples  in 
Midas  and  Son  is  but  the  thin  upper  crust  of  leisured 
and  titled  folk,  the  very  icing  of  society.  It  is  the 
same  England,  if  one  neglects  the  slight  advance 
toward  Elizabethan  candor,  that  Meredith  depicted 
a  generation  ago,  and  Miss  Austen  a  whole  century 
ago.  In  Sonia  Mr.  McKenna  described  this  par- 
ticular stratum  of  English  society  buckling  and 
twisting  under  the  pressure  of  war.  If  the  conflict 
had  effected  any  -fundamental  changes  in  the  social 
scene,  it  is  obvious  that  the  author  would  not  have 
been  able  to  write  another  book  without  changing 
either  his  location,  his  interests,  or  his  characters. 
In  the  very  breath  that  the  Webbs  and  Wellses  are 
proclaiming  that  Midas  and  Son  are  dead,  and  that 
the  new  social  order  has  arrived,  it  is  hardly  reassur- 
ing to  see  Mr.  McKenna  throw  his  hat  in  the  air 
and  shout  "  Long  Live  Midas  and  Son."  Really, 
the  war  should  have  changed  all  that,  unless  Midas 
and  Son  is  a  fictional  contribution  to  ancient  history. 

THE    FLAME    OF    LIFE.      By    Gabriele    D'An- 
nunzio.    403  pages.    Boni  &  Liveright. 

"Passion,  fire,  ardor,  tempestuousness" — thus, 
on  the  jacket  of  this  recent  addition  to  the  Modern 
Library,  do  the  publishers  salute  the  genius  of 
Gabriele  D'Annunzio — and  excite  the  curiosity  of 
their  readers.  Certainly  there  are  many  who  will 
fairly  revel  in  this  exotic,  highly-spiced,  and  am- 
biguous work  by  the  much  too  facile  Italian  who, 
in  the  transparent  disguise  of  his  hero,  Stelio  Ef- 
frena,  exemplifies  the  Nietzschean  epigram,  "  Poets 
act  shamelessly  toward  their  experiences;  they  ex- 
ploit them."  This  fact  alone  is  no  indictment,  but 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


663 


the  convictions  of 
Christopher  sterling 

by  Harold  Begbie 

Author  of  "Twice  Born  Men" 

This  is  the  story  of  a  man  who  was  so  faithful 
a  servant  to  his  conscience  that  he  followed  it 
even  when  it  brought  him  into  conflict  with  all 
else  that  he  held  dear  and  sacred.  It  is  the  story 
of  a  conscientious  objector — a  Quaker — who 
hated  war  sincerely  and  passionately  and  who 
could  not  compromise  with  this  hatred  when 
faced  by  the  supreme  crisis  of  our  age. 

Christopher  Sterling,  the  central  character  of 
the  book,  represents  a  class  that  is  numerous, 
widely  discussed  and  little  understood,  and  it  is 
as  an  interpretation  of  one  of  this  class  and  not 
as  a  special  plea  for  their  beliefs,  that  this  book 
has  been  written.  It  is  published  because,  as  a 
story  of  human  emotions  and  experiences,  it  has 
a  powerful  appeal  and  because  it  contributes  to 
an  understanding  of  a  type  which  has  been  and 
will  probably  continue  to  be  of  great  political  and 
social  importance. 

At  All  Booksellers,  $1.50  Net 


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THE  NEW  ORTHODOXY 

By  Edward  S.  Ames,  The  University  of  Chicago 
$1.00,  postage  extra 

This  book  is  a  popular  constructive  interpre- 
tation of  man's  religious  life  in  the  light  of  the 
learning  of  scholars  and  in  the  presence  of  a 
new  generation  of  spiritual  heroes.  Every  per- 
son dissatisfied  with  the  scholastic  faith  of  tra- 
ditional Protestantism  will  find  this  volume 
exceedingly  helpful.  "  This  book  will  un- 
doubtedly have  a  wide  circulation  because  it 
answers  so  satisfactorily  the  spiritual  questions 
which  are  uppermost  in  the  mfnds  of  most  of 
us  during  this  time  of  change." 

HOW  THE  BIBLE  GREW 

By  Frank  G.  Lewis,  Crozer  Theological  Seminary 
$1.50,  postage  extra 

This  is  the  first  single  work  to  record  the 
growth  of  the  -  Bible  from  its  beginning  up  to 
the  present  time.  It  presents  in  an  interesting 
way  the  entire  literary  development  of  both 
testaments,  and  shows  how  they  have  been 
handled  by  translators  in  the  production  of  the 
many  versions  which  have  appeared  through 
the  centuries. 

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from   the   Swedish.                                    . 

compares  the  American  method  of  assimilation  by  good 

MODERN  ICELANDIC  PLAYS 

will   with  the  Prussian   method  of  terrorism  as  seen  in 

Novels  and  Tales  — 

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MARIE  GRUBBE  by  Jucobsen, 

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GO8TA  BERLJNG'S  SAGA 

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by    Selma    Lagerlof.     (2    vol.) 
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POEMS   AND    SONGS,    and    ARNLJOT    GELLINE 

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from  the  Norwegian. 

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it  acquires  more  critical  point  when  taken  in  con- 
nection with  another  caustic  reflection  from  the 
same  pen,  easily  applicable  to  this  author,  "What? 
A  great  man?  I  always  see  merely  the  play-actor 
of  his  own  ideal."  In  the  present  volume  an  ob- 
servant and  healthy  cynical  reader  will  discover 
rather  a  superfluity  of  grimacing  and  play-acting, 
however  well  and  fluently  done.  This  is  not  to  say 
that  The  Flame  of  Life  is  an  inexcusably  mediocre 
thing,  or  that  its  fault  lies  in  offending  the  moral 
sensibilities  of  Anglo-Saxons.  Indeed  this  latter  is 
rather  a  salutary acriticism  of  the  Anglo-Saxon's  im- 
penetrable puritanism,  which  recoils  in  fatuous 
alarm  from  every  over-bold  hint  that  life  is  con- 
ditioned by  the  senses.  The  Flame  of  Life  merely 
insists  on  this  ageless  commonplace,  and  if  the  result 
is  frequently  puerile  and  wearisome  to  those  who  are 
no  longer  mentally  adolescent,  it  is  also  accompanied 
by  an  indisputable  fervor,  subtlety,  and  an  occasional 
flash  of  profound  insight  worthy  of  a  more  sub- 
stantial setting.  It  is  especially  to  be  noted  that 
D'Annunzio  is  a  thorough  expert  in  what  might  be 
called  borderline  states  of  consciousness:  he  is 
eternally  on  the  watch  for  those  inconceivably  deli- 
cate waves  of  impressions  transmitted  to  the  mind 
by  all  forms,  animate  and  inanimate,  whose  absorp- 
tion and  accurate  re-embodiment  in  words  consti- 
tutes one  of  the  gravest  responsibilities  of  the  artist, 
in  whatever  medium'  he  works.  In  the  present 
volume  there  is  just  a  trifle  too  much  of  "  the  lust 
of  the  eye,"  and  many  readers  will  question  whether 
D'Annunzio  has  really  proved  to  them — to  use  his 
own  words — "  how,  in  order  to  obtain  victory  over 
man  and  circumstance,  there  is  no  other  way  but 
that  of  constantly  feeding  one's  own  exaltation  and 
magnifying  one's  own  dream  of  beauty  or  of 
power."  There  is  no  truth  which  cries  out  more 
insistently,  more  justifiably  for  the  proof  which  The 
Flame  of  Life  fails  to  give. 

THE  EMBLEMS  OF  FIDELITY.    By  James  Lane 
Allen.     219  pages.     Doubleday,  Page. 

As  befits  a  veteran,  James  Lane  Allen  displays  a 
skilled  technique  in  book  planning.  His  latest 
work  is  an  example  of  his  ease,  his  grace,  his  ingenu- 
ity in  that  respect.  By  the  use  solely  of  interweav- 
ing letters  and  two  explanatory  diary  extracts,  he 
has  caused  no  less  than  sixteen  interesting  person- 
ages to  play  an  international  comedy  which  realizes 
several  highly  amusing  situations.  Unfortunately 
this  plot  is  coated  with  a  charm,  a  sentiment,  a 
Kentucky  whimsicality  which  cloys  a  little.  Mr. 
Allen,  after  all,  is  not  a  true  romancer  any  more 
than  certain  benign  and  agreeable  elderly  clergy- 
men are.  Like  them,  instead  of  creating  a  new  and 
wonderful  world,  he  merely  paints  a  thin  gloss 
over  the  actual — trusting  all  the  time  to  certain 
market-tested  colors.  This  clerical  similarity 
extends,  perhaps  it  may  be  added,  to  the  causing  of 
a  slight  monotony  to  the  reader. 


WHY  JOAN?     By    Eleanor    Marcein    Kelly. 
407  pages.     Century. 

Novelists  attempting  character  studies  should 
make  sure  first  that  they  have  climbed  somewhat 
above  the  level  of  the  people  in  the  story  and  then 
that  they  manipulate  a  powerful  enough  searchlight 
to  throw  illuminating  flashes  on  the  helpless  figures 
below.  As  a  searchlight  operator  Mrs.  Kelly  does 
not  inspire.  She  shows  us  environments  handily 
enough,  but  never  does  she  focus  clearly  on  the 
central  figure,  Joan.  In  the  uncertain  light  Joan 
is  an  expectant  mediocrity  drifting  through  various 
stages — husband  hunting,  Louisville  society,  domes- 
ticity, suffrage  work,  war  nursing — until  finally  she 
becomes  an  author  (the  reader  somehow  would  not 
care  to  read  her  writings).  Yet  there  is  evidence 
that  Joan  was  intended  to  be  an  altogether  different 
girl — to  attain  at  last  through  love  and  suffering  to 
real  self-expression.  Likewise  there  is  reason  for  a 
hope  that  Mrs-.  Kelly  may  do  better  next  time. 

THE  BOY  SCOUTS  BOOK  OF  STORIES.    Edited 

by  Franklin  K.  Mathiews.     424  pages.     Ap- 

pleton. 

GOOD   OLD   STORIES   FOR   BOYS   AND  GIRLS. 

Selected  by  Elva  S.  Smith.    320  pages.    Loth- 

rop,  Lee  and  Shepard;  Boston. 

Time  was  when  the  good  and  the  pleasant  were 
two  separate  categories  in  the  literature  of  youth. 
Boys  with  appetites  for  adventure  were  dieted  on 
specially  prepared  stuff  that  offered  little  prigs  and 
pious  precepts  in  place  of  strong  men  and  the  urge 
of  human  desires.  The  importation  of  Diamond 
Dick  into  the  garret  was  a  protest  against  the  regime 
of  Percy  in  the  parlor.  Mr.  Mathiews'  collection 
of  stories  is  a  protest  too,  prepared  in  the  full 
knowledge  that  every  great  motive  that  moves  men 
to  action  will  likewise  stir  the  ambition  of  a  boy. 
It  is  precisely  because  these  stories  were  written  for 
a  human  audience  rather  than  for  a  child  audience 
that  their  authors  (Mark  Twain,  O.  Henry,  Nor- 
man Duncan,  and  the  rest)  escape  that  air  of  con- 
descension which  still  lingers  in  the  brief  introduc- 
tion. 

If  youth  looks  forward  toward  rough  realities, 
childhood  is  busy  with  fancies  born  of  the  mysterious 
past.  Because  of  the  inherent  validity  of  the  com- 
mon distinction  between  child  psychology  and  the 
adult  habit  of  mind,  Miss  Smith  is  not  called  upon 
to  make  excursions  beyond  the  field  of  juvenile 
literature  in  her  search  for  Good  Old  Stories  for 
Boys  and  Girls — stories  by  such  authors  as  Ingelow, 
Ruskin,  Bjornson,  and  Browning.  Her  volume 
gathers  conveniently  between  two  covers  not  a  few  of 
the  classics  which  live  on  to  rebuke  the  shallow 
smartness  and  insolent  patronage  of  contemporary 
writing  for  children.  The  wise  parent  will  appre- 
ciate this  service. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


665 


Letters  to  Teachers 

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THE  DIAL 


June  28 


Books  of  the  Fortnight 

Saint's  Progress,  by  John  Galsworthy  (404  pages ;  Scrib- 
ner),  depicts  ar  family  of  clerical  gentility  brought 
into  raffish  and  disconcerting  situations  by  the  war. 
A  baby  born  out  of  wedlock  by  one  of  his  daughters 
challenges  Edward  Pierson's  social  position,  while 
the  skepticism  of  the  other  daughter  assails  his 
religious  convictions.  A  book  written  with  that 
"  inclination  toward  sentiment  in  the  presence  of 
beauty  "  with  which  Mr.  Galsworthy  reproaches  one 
of  his  characters.  (Review  later.) 

The  Gay-Dombeys,  by  Sir  Harry  Johnston,  with  an  intro- 
duction by  H.  G.  Wells  (398  pages;  Macmillan),  is 
reviewed  on  page  641  of  this  issue. 

Cynthia,  by  Leonard  Merrick,  with  an  introduction  by 
Maurice  Hewlett.  (350  pages;  Button),  is  the  third 
issue  in  the  new  uniform  and  definitive  edition  of 
Mr.  Merrick's  novels.  The  preceding  volumes  were 
Conrad  in  Quest  of  His  Youth,  with  an  introduction 
by  J.  M-  Barrie  (265  pages),  and  the  Actor-Manager, 
with  an  introduction  by  W.  D.  Howells  (332  pages). 
Further  introductions  are  promised  from  Arthur 
Pinero,  G.  K.  Chesterton,  Granville  Barker,  W.  J. 
Locke,  and  others.  The  edition,  limited  to  1500  sets, 
is  beautifully  printed  and  bound.  These  novels  were 
reviewed  in  Ruth  Mclntire's  essay,  An  Imperturable 
Artist,  in  THE  DIAL  for  June  6,  1918. 

The  Little  Daughter  of  Jerusalem,  by  Myriam  Harry 
(289  pages;  Button),  casts  the  author's  own  girl- 
hood into  the  molds  of  fiction,  and  vividly  depicts 
the  kaleidoscopic  contrasts  of  life  in  the  Holy  City. 
The  narrative  is  marked  by  impressionability  and 
keen  observation,  and  renders  something  of  the  inner 
development  of  a  highly  imaginative  child,  be- 
wildered amid  the  incongruities  of  many  religions 
and  diverse  races. 

The  Born  Fool,  by  John  Walter  Byrd  (448  pages; 
Boran),  is  a  detailed  story  of  character  development, 
written  with  poetic  appreciation.  One  of  those 
leisurely,  well-knit  English  novels  which  delight  the 
imaginative  reader,  but  irritate  those  who  regard 
speed  and  action  as  the  cardinal  principles  of  the 
art  of  fiction. 

Our  Wonderful  Selves,  a  novel  by  Roll  and  Pertwee  (349 
pages;  Knopf),  is  the  biography  of  an  individualist. 
Here  evidently  is  an  attempt  to  get  at  those  qualities 
of  mind  which  differentiate  the  independent  spirit 
from  the  conformer.  But  Mr.  Pertwee's  study  is 
superficial ;  it  has  scope  for  little  beyond  the  stig- 
mata of  genius,  and  his  zest  for  outwardness  as 
opposed  to  inwardness  of  action  has  tripped  him  into 
writing  a  story  which,  if  very  readable,  is  by  no 
means  significant. 

The  Convictions  of  Christopher  Sterling,  by  Harold  Beg- 
bie  (267  pages;  McBride),  attempts  impartially 
"  to  set  forth  the  antithetical  ideals  of  nationalism 
and  religion  "  in  war  time.  The  climax  of  the  story 
is  the  mistreatment  of  religious  conscientious  objectors 
in  the  English  prisons.  As  fiction  it  is  awkwardly 
written,  but  as  a  social  document  it  is  not  without 
interest. 

The  Two  Crossings  of  Madge  Swalue,  by  Henri  Bavig- 
non  (330  pages;  Lane),  commends  itself  above  the 
general  run  of  war  fiction  by  a  welcome  restraint  and 
a  freedom  from  hysteria.  The  narrative  is  French 
in  its  lean  crispness;  and  the  translation,  made  by 
Tita  Brand  Cammaerts,  has  lost  none  of  its  strength 
through  attempts  at  fine  writing. 


The  Yellow  Lord,  by  "Will  Levington  Comfort  (311 
pages;  Boran),  a  romance  of  adventure  and  love  in 
the  Orient,  borrows  the  Conrard  manner  and  achieves 
something  like  a  Conrad  atmosphere.  But  the  action 
outruns  character  and  it  remains  a  yarn,  if  a  very 
readable  one. 

All  the  Brothers  Were  Valiant,  by  Ben  Ames  Williams 
(204  pages;  Macmillan),  is  a  tale  of  a  whaler, 
written  much  as  Morgan  Robertson  might  have  writ- 
ten it — that  is,  for  summer  consumption. 

In  Secret,  by  Robert  W.  Chambers  (322  pages;  Boran), 
is  arn  easy-running  narrative  in  the  best  quantitative 
style.  The  heroine  proves  herself  a  worthy  Cham- 
bers creation  when  she  disrobes  to  swim  a  stream 
and  carry  cartridges  to  her  embattled  lover.  The 
war  perhaps  accounts  for  the  omission  of  the  cus- 
tomary illustrations;  but  the  introduction  of  German 
intrigue  produces  little  dilution  in  the  rich  essence  of 
the  author's  customary  theme. 

Red  Friday,  by  George  Kibbe  Turner  (253  pages;  Little, 
Brown),  is  not  a  novel  to  temper  the  cheerless  moods 
of  Blue  Monday.  It  purports  to  forecast  graphically 
what  might  happen  in  the  United  States  should 
Bolshevist  conspirators  gain  the  upper  hand,  and  it 
therefore  deserves  to  be  bound  with  those  fairy  stories 
for  the  feebleminded  which  described  what  took  place 
when  a  million  Huns  invaded  New  York. 

Anymoon,  by  Horace  Bleackley  (327  pages;  Lane),  is  an 
unbeliever's  attempt  to  picture  the  world  under  So- 
cialism, but  it  will  give  the  internationalists  no  sleep- 
less nights.  Instead  of  shattering  Socialist  fundamen- 
tals, it  merely' succeeds  in  shattering  art  fundamentals 
in  the  writing  of  fiction. 

Wolves,  by  Alden  W.  Welch  (236  pages;  Knopf),  a 
first  novel,  written  about  engineers  by  an  engineer,  is 
unsentimental ;  but  it  is  so  far  short  of  distinction  that 
the  reader  will  wish  the  author  knew  less  about  en- 
gineeering  and  more  about  fiction. 

The  Mystery  Keepers,  by  Marion  Fox  (315  pages;  Lane), 
represents  a  somewhat  involved  handling  of  what 
proves — in  the  last  chapter — to  be  "  hereditary  hys- ' 
teria."  It  depends  solely  upon  mystery  to  retain  at- 
tention and  sometimes  fails  to  sustain  even  this  ele- 
ment. 

The  Great  Modern  English  Stories,  compiled  and  edited 
with  an  introduction  by  Edward  J.  O'Brien  (366 
pages;  Boni  &  Liveriglit),  is  the  second  in  a  series 
of  short-story  anthologies  of  which  Willard  Hunting- 
don Wright's  Great  Modern  French  Stories  was  the 
first.  Few  of  these  tales  are  unfamiliar  or  inacessible, 
and  not  all  of  them  are  "great";  but  the  volume, 
which  concludes  with  biographies  and  bibliographies, 
will  be  found  more  convenient  than  most  collections 
of  the  kind  by  those  who  have  use  for  the  kind. 

Winesburg,  Ohio:  Tales  of  Ohio  Small  Town  Life,  by 
Sherwood  Anderson  (303  pages;  Huebsch),  is  a  prose 
Spoon  River  Anthology.  Acridly  written,  these  in- 
terrelated studies  of  half-articulate  people  who  do 
not  know  what  they  want  deal  more  often  than  not 
with  the  pathological,  but  they  deal  understandingly 
and  honestly.  (Review  later.) 

Temptations,  by  Bavid  Pinski  (325  pages;  Brentano), 
is  reviewed  on  page  660  of  this  issue. 

War  Stories,  selected  and  edited  by  Roy  J.  Holmes  and 
A.  Starbuck  (329  pages;  Crowell;  Philadelphia),  is 
a  collection  of  timely  narratives  half  of  which  had 
their  premiere  in  two  Philadelphia  periodicals  of 
common  lineage  and  respectability. 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


667 


r\.OUoti  \f  tLl  1      Syl  veste*  Vilreck 

A  Study  in  Ambivalence 

Author  of  "  The  Candle  and  the  Flame,"  "  Nine- 
veh" "  Songs  of  Armageddon,"  "  Confessions 
of  a  Barbarian,"  " A  Game  at  Love"  "  The  House 
of  the  Vampire?'  etc. 

F)ID  America  Know  Theodore  Roosevelt?  Did 
*-*  Theodore  Roosevelt  Know  Himself?  The  answer 
to  these  questions  is  contained  in  Mr.  Viereck's  re- 
markable study  of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  richly  illus- 
trated with  portraits,  facsimile  letters,  etc.  The 
uuthor  describes  a  secret  ^isit  .with  Dr.  Dernburg  to 
Oyster  Bay.  He  reprints  his  animated  correspondence 
with  Mr.  Roosevelt  on  the  subject  of  Belgium  and 
America's  neutrality.  He  also  discloses  Mr.  Roosevelt's 


WAS    THEODORE    ROOSEVELT 
A  HYPOCRITE? 


private  opinion  of  the  English.  The  book  introduces 
to  us  a  new  Theodore  Roosevelt,  totally  unsuspected 
by  the  majority  of  his  admirers.  It  is  a  fascinating 
attempt  to  apply  the  science  of  psycho-analysis  to  a 
great  contemporary. 

In  a  striking  introduction,  entitled  "  Apologia  Pro 
Vita  Sua,"  Mr.  Viereck  portrays  with  biting  sarcasm 
and  withering  scorn,  his  persecution  during  the 
period  of  the  war.  His  brilliant  portrait  of  America 
in  war  time  is  one  of  the  documents  that  will  furnish 
food  for  thought  to  the  historian  of  the  future. 


BENEDICT  ARNOLD  THE  FIRST 
BRITISH   PROPAGANDIST 


In  spite  of  its  name,  Mr.  Viereck's  preface  is  not 
an  apology,  but  an  indictment.  He  lays  bare  secret 
springs  in  our  national  life.  He  contrasts  the  so- 
called  German  Propaganda  and  the  Propaganda  fath- 
ered by  Lord  Northcliffe.  Benedict  Arnold,  he  tells 
us,  was  the  first  of  a  long  line  of  British  Propa- 
gandists. 

Price  $1.35,  DeLuxe  Edition  $10 

VIERECK  AND  THE  CRITICS 

"The  genius  of  the  writer  is  never  in  doubt."— Edward 
,T.  Wheeler,  President  of  the  Poetry  Society  of  America,  in 
Current  Literature. 

"  Mr.  Viereck  reveals  a  vast  knowledge  of  life.  '  .  .  ." — 
Charles  Hanson  Towne,  of  the  Vigilantes,  in  Town  Topics. 

"  I  knew  you  were  a  genius." — Gertrude  Atherton,  Mem- 
ber of  the  Vigilantes  and  of  the  Advisory  Council  of  the 
Authors'  League  of  America. 

"  Talent,  Mr.  Viereck  has — talent  and  a  wonderful  sense 
of  poetic  art;  and  courage  too." — New  York  Evening  Sun. 

"  Perhaps  no  poet  now  writing  is  more  proficient  in  the 
loud  symphonious  lay." — Atlantic  Monthly. 

"  Intellectually  .  .  .  the  heir  of  two  races,  and  we 
might  add,  of  three  nations,  for  the  combined  genius  of 
Germany,  England  and  America  has  gone  into  his  poetic 
crucible." — Prof.  James  Routh,  in  the  Bulletin  of  Washing- 
ton University. 

"  His  brain  is  a  diamond  that  flashes  forth  experience  in 
phrase  and  epigram  without  end.  .  .  .  Startling  ideas 
tumble  over  each  other.  .  .  ."—Cleveland  Plain  Dealer. 

"  The  Alexander  Hamilton  of  American  literature." — 
Alexander  Harvey,  in  the  St.  Louis  Mirror. 

"  Brother  to  Baudelaire,  cousin  German  to  Heine  pupil  of 
Poe,  disciple  of  Swinburne.  Rossetti  and  Oscar  Wilde;  yet 
for  all  that,  arrayed  in  singing  robes  of  his  own  original 
diction. — Life. 


JACKSON  PRESS,  Inc. 

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Every  true  friend  of  Russia  should  sub- 
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668 


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June  28 


Labrador  Days,  by  Wilfred  T.  Grenfell  (231  pages; 
Houghton-Mifflin),  is  a  collection  of  stories  of  ad- 
venture in  Labrador  and  on  the  surrounding  waters. 
Tales  of  fine  intent,  but  wooden  in  style  and  stiff 
with  sentimental  cliches. 

The  Curious  Republic  of  Gondour,  by  Samuel  L.  Clem- 
ens (140  pages;  Boni  &  Liveright),  collects  several 
short  newspaper  sketches  of  interest  chiefly  to  "  Mark 
Twain  "  enthusiasts. 

Out  o'  Luck,  by  J.  Thorne  Smith  (120  pages;  Stokes), 
narrates  further  haps  and  mishaps  of  Biltmore 
Oswald  as  a  member  of  the  U.  S.  N.  R.  It  is  lam- 
entable that  the  public's  unkempt  sense  of  humor  is 
without  the  standards  that  ought  to  preclude  the 
author's  wasting  his  genuine  wit  on  the  cheap  genre 
of  an  abortive  diary. 

Prefaces,  by  Don  Marquis  (278  pages;  Appleton),  is  a 
compilation  of  newspaper  humor  over  which  one  is 
invited  by  the  publishers  to  "  smile  with  Don  Mar- 
quis." Spontaneity  is  so  lacking  here  that  one  fancies 
instead  that  he  sees  the  conjured  smile  fading  under 
an  expression  of  creative  strain. 

The  Life  of  the  Party,  by  Irvin  S.  Cobb  (66  pages; 
illustrated;  Doran),  a  typical  Cobb  burlesque,  in  the 
form  of  a  single  and  very  slight  short  story,  has  been 
thrust  between  covers  to  give  that  large  public  which 
is  looking  for  "  something  easy  to  read  "  what  it  so 
evidently  wants. 

The  New  Book  of  Martyrs,  by  Georges  Duhamel  (221 
pages;  Doran),  comprises  a  series  of  hospital  sketches, 
reflecting  the  bravery  of  nameless  heroes  of  the 
French  front.  It  seeks  to  probe  below  the  surface  of 
mere  stoic  suffering  and  appraise  spiritual  values, 
but  Dr.  Duhamel  has  come  near  to  defeating  his  pur- 
pose by  adhering  too  closely  to  surgical  detail.  The 
pages  exhale  iodoform. 

The  Fledgling,  by  Charles  Bernard  Nordhoff  (201  pages; 
Houghton-Mifflin),  will  perhaps  be  accepted  by  men 
who  fly  as  the  truest  thing  yet  written  about  flying. 
Certainly  the  "  buoyant  bounding  rush  "  of  the  take- 
off and  the  "  utter  celestial  loneliness  "  of  the  upper 
air  have  discovered  in  the  author  something  more 
than  dumb  endurance. 

Good  Friday,  by  Tracy  D.  Mygatt  (52  pages;  published 
by  the  author,  23  Bank  Street,  New  York),  "a  Pas- 
sion Play  of  Now,"  is  dedicated  to  the  conscientious 
objector.  With  only  three  characters,  the  Christlike 
objector,  the  cynical  prison  doctor,  and  the  chastened, 
almost  humane,  prison  keeper,  Miss  Mygatt  has 
wrought  a  little  piece  full  of  deep  emotion  and 
touched  with  a  weird  dramatic  interest.  It  has  al- 
ready been  produced  in  Boston  and  Chicago.  Per- 
mission for  further  production  can  be  obtained  from 
the  author. 

Poems,  by  Iris  Tree  (144  pages;  Lane),  leave  an  effect 
not  misrepresented  by  these  lines  about  herself: 

I  am  the  jester  on  an  empty  stage 

Playing  a  pantomime 

To  spectres  in  the  stalls, 

Listening  at  last 

For  ghostly  mirth  and  phantom  hands  applauding. 

Not  that  the  daughter  of  the  late  Sir  Herbert  Tree 
has  written  no  verse  more  moving  than  this,  but 
that — thanks  to  strained  imagery,  forced  diction,  and 
too  little  to  say — the  effect  of  it  all  is  hollowness. 


New  Paths:  Verse,  Prose,  Pictures:  1917-1918,  edited  by 
C.  W.  Beaumont  and  M.  H.  Sadler  (164  pages; 
Knopf),  is  the  American  appearance  of  a  new  English 
anthology  which  was  reviewed  by  Richard  Aldington 
in  THE  DIAL  for  September  5,  1918. 

Rousseau  and  Romanticism,  by  Irving  Babbitt  (426 
pages;  Houghton-Mifflin),  "carries  to  a  conclusion 
the  argument  of  Professor  Babbitt's  previous  volumes 
— Literature  and  the  American  College,  the  New 
Laokoon,  and  the  Masters  of  Modern  French  Criti- 
cism " — whose  wiser  readers  will  avoid  this  undis- 
cerning  and  priggish  criticism  of  romantic  genius, 
imagination,  morality,  love,  irony,  and  melancholy. 
Others  should  be  warned  that  the  author's  classicism 
is  of  the  neo-pseudo-bluestocking  variety,  that  his 
spirit  is  that  of  the  smuggest  puritanism  (his  favorite 
word  is  "decorum"),  and  that  his  scholarship  is  the 
one-sided  erudition  of  doctrinaire  propaganda.  (Re- 
view later.) 

The  Life  and  Works  of  Arthur  Hall  of  Grantham, 
by  H.  G.  Wright  (233  pages;  Longmans,  Green), 
one  of  the  Publications  of  the  University  of  Manches- 
ter, is  a  careful  and  sympathetic  account  of  the  first 
man  to  translate  Homer  into  English,  who  happened 
also  to  be  the  first  member  expelled  from  the  House 
of  Commons.  Hall's  typical  sixteenth  century  ver- 
satility, and  his  sense  of  justice  and  modern  love  of 
equality,  no  less  than  the  choleric  and  stubborn  dis- 
position that  kept  his  life  stormy,  make  him  an  inter- 
esting study. 

An  American  Idyll:  The  life  of  Carleton  H.  Parker,  by 
his  wife,  Cora  Stratton  Parker  (200  pages;  Atlantic 
Monthly  Press;  Boston),  richly  deserves  the  place  it 
will  find  on  many  bookshelves — beside  the  Education 
of  Henry  Adams.  A  memorable  biography  of  a 
contemporary  American  liberal.  And  a  beautiful  love 
story.  (Review  later.) 

The  History  of  Normandy  and  of  England,  by  Sir  Francis 
Palgrave  (2  vols.,  1148  pages;  Putnam),  represents 
the  first  half  of  a  monumental  history  and  the  first 
fifth  of  the  equally  monumental  edition  of  Sir  Francis' 
collected  works.  (Review  later.) 

The  Oxford  History  of  India,by  Vincent  Smith (816  pages; 
Oxford  University  Press),  traces  the  development  of 
the  peoples  of  the  Indian  peninsula  from  prehistoric 
times  up  to  approximately  the  present  time.  A  many- 
sided  work,  embellished  with  numerous  maps  and 
illustrations.  (Review  later.) 

The  State  and  the  Nation,  by  Edward  Jenks  (312  pages; 
Dutton),  is  an  amplification  of  his  Short  History  of 
Politics,  now  out  of  print.  It  traces  the  development 
of  political  institutions  from  primitive  society  up  to 
the  present  day.  The  style  is  lucid,  the  temper  just, 
and  the  product  an  excellent  example  of  mellow 
scholarship.  (Review  later.) 

The  British  Empire  and  a  League  of  Peace,  by  George 
Burton  Adams  (115  pages;  Putnam),  examines  the 
possibility  of  a  coalition  of  English-speaking  peoples 
in  a  loose,  inarticulate  federalism  patterned  after  the 
British  Empire.  (Review  later.) 

The  Lost  Fruits  of  Waterloo,  by  John  Spencer  Bassett 
(289  pages;  MacMillan),  herewith  comes  forth  in  a 
second  edition.  It  deals  with  the  constitution  of 
peacedom ;  a  new  opportunity  for  creating  interna- 
tional order,  missed  by  the  Congress  of  1815.  Should 
not  a  third  edition  cover  the  lost  fruits  of  Versailles? 


1919 


THE  DIAL 


669 


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But  it's  more  than  that.  It  is  a  cry 
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THE  DIAL 


June  28 


State  Morality  and  the  League  of  Nations,  by  James 
Walker  and  M.  D.  Petrie  (141  pages;  Unwin; 
London),  is  a  two-sided  discussion  of  the  moral  basis 
of  international  statehood.  (Review  later.) 

Towards  the  Republic,  by  Aodh  de  Blacam  (110  pages; 
Kiersey;  Dublin),  is  the  second  edition  of  a  popular 
pamphlet  on  the  social  and  economic  ideals  of  an 
autonomous  Ireland.  It  gives  promise  that  the  Gaelic 
movement  will  not  stop  short  on  the  achievement  of 
political  isolation. 

Introduction  to  Mathematical  Philosophy,  by  Bertrand 
Russell  (206  pages;  Macmillan),  provides  a  valu- 
able approach  both  to  the  subject  and  to  the  author's 
earlier  Principia  Mathematics.  It  is  within  the  grasp 
of  anyone  familiar  with  elementary  mathematics. 
(Review  later.) 

The  Philosophy  of  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell,  edited  by  Phi- 
lip E.  B.  Jourdain  (96  pages;  Open  Court  Publish- 
ing Co.;  Chicago),  is  a  delicious  bit  of  philosophical 
spoofing,  as  solemnly  carried  off  as  the  Authors' 
Club's  memorable  "  Appreciation "  of  the  life  and 
works  of  the  non-existent  Larrovitch.  (Review  later.) 

Religion  and  Culture,  by  Frederick  Schleiter  (206  pages; 
Columbia  University  Press),  is  a  critical  examina- 
tion, from  an  ethnological  point  of  view,  of  the 
present  methods  of  classifying  and  interpreting  the 
data  of  religion.  Iconoclastically  it  attacks  many 
classical  theories  of  the  evolution  of  religion  as  a 
priori  and  arbitrary,  suffering  from  over-generaliza- 
tion and  premature  classification,  and  based  on  a 
study  of  religion  apart  from  its  cultural  setting.'  A 
wide  and  valuable  bibliography  is  appended.  (Re- 
view later.) 

The  Blind,  by  Harry  Best  (763  pages;  Macmillan),  is  a 
thorough  examination  of  the  causes,  the  conditions, 
and  the  treatment  of  blindness  in  the  United  States. 
The  tables  under  the  headings  the  Economic  Condi- 
tion of  the  Blind,  Blindness  and  Heredity,  Blindness 
and  Disease,  and  Blindness  and  Accident,  build  up 
an  adequate  statistical  background.  Dr.  Best  leaves 
no  part  of  the  field  uncovered,  and  his  work  will 
doubtless  take  its  place  in  the  United  States  as  a 
standard  text. 

Victory  Over  Blindness,  by  Sir  Arthur  Pearson  (265 
pages;  Dor  an),  is  an  authoritative  account  of  the 
methods  developed  by  St.  Dunstan's  hostel  for  blind 
soldiers  for  mitigating  one  of  war's  most  pitiful 
injuries.  Never  before  was  so  successful  an  enter- 
prise started  by  "  a  blind  leader  of  the  blind." 

Broken  Homes,  by  Joanna  C.  Colcord  (208  pages;  Russell 
Sage  Foundation),  a  study  of  family  desertion  and 
its  social  treatment,  should  be  put  alongside  the  Sage 
Foundation's  new  digest  of  American  Marriage  Laws 
in  Their  Social  Aspects  (by  Fred  S.  Hall  and  Elisa- 
beth W.  Brooke;  132  pages;  paper). 

The  University  of  Pennsylvania,  by  Horace  Mather  Lip- 
pincott  (illustrated;  249  pages;  Lippincott),  is  a  com- 
plete history  of  this  university  prepared  for  its  alum- 
ni by  the  Alumni  Secretary. 

Wool,  by  Frank  Ormerod  (221  pages;  Holt),  is  the  second 
of  a  series  on  staple  trades  and  industries.  It  deals 
with  the  genesis  of  the  product,  its  marketing,  its 
manufacturing,  and  its  disposal.  The  aim  of  the 
editor  is  to  supply  the  inexpert  reader  with  expert 
knowledge  upon  the  data  of  economics  and  industrial 
enterprise. 


A  Selected  List  of  Fiction 

The  following  is  THE  DIAL'S  selection  of  the 
more  important  fiction — exclusive  of  reprints  and 
re-translations — issued  since  the  publication  of  its 
Christmas  List,  November  30,  1918  (page  512). 
The  references  between  brackets  are  to  issue  and 
page  of  notices  in  its  columns : 

The  Arrow  of  Gold.    By  Joseph  Conrad.    385  pages.    Double- 
day   Page   Co.      [June   28:638] 
Java  Head.    By  Joseph  Hergesheimer.    255  pages.    Alfred  A. 

Knopf.      [May    3:449] 
The  Undying   Fire.    By   H.    G.   Wells.     229   pages.     Macmillan 

Co.      [May    31:576] 
Saint's    Progress.     By    John    Galsworthy.     404    pages.     Chas. 

Scribner's   Sons.      [June   28:666] 
Shops  and  Houses.    By  Prank  Swlnnerton.    320  pages.    George 

H.  Doran  Co.      [May  17:518] 
The   Roll-Call.     By   Arnold    Bennett.    ,417    pages.     George    H. 

Doran   Co.      [June   28:659] 
The   Secret   City.     By  Hugh  Walpole.     386   pages.     George   H. 

Doran    Co.      [June    28:658] 

The  Jervaise  Comedy.    By  J.  D.  Beresford.    283  pages.    Mac- 
millan Co. 
Blind  Alley.    By  W.   L.    George.     431   pages.     Little  Brown   & 

Co.      [June   28:658] 
Midas   and    Son.     By   Stephen   McKenna.     418   pages.     George 

H.    Doran   Co.      [June    28:662] 
The    Pelicans.     By    E.    M.    Delafield.     358    pages.     Alfred    A. 

Knopf.      [March    8:238] 

The  Gay-Dombeys.    By  Sir  Harry  Johnston.    398  pages.    Mac- 
millan Co.      [June  28:641] 
Martin   Schuler.    By  Romer  Wilson.     313   pages.     Henry   Holt 

&    Co.      [June    28:651] 
Twelve    Men     (short    stories).       By    Theodore    Dreiser        360 

pages.     Boni  &  Liveright. 
Winesburg,  Ohio  (short  stories).     By  Sherwood  Anderson.    303 

pages.    B.   W.   Huebsch.      [June  28:666] 
The  Mirror  and  the   Lamp.     By  W.    B.    Maxwell.     442   pages. 

Bobbs-Merrlll    Co.      [March    22:313] 
The  Challenge  to   Sirius.     By  Sheila  Kaye-Smlth.     442  pages. 

E.   P.   Dutton   &  Co. 
Bed  of  Surley.    By  Ted  Robbins.    334  pages.    Harper  &  Bros. 

[June  28:662] 
The   Yellow   Lord.     By   Will   Levington    Comfort.     311   pages. 

George   H.    Doran   Co.      [June    28:666] 
Sinister    House.      By     Leland    Hall.      226    pages.      Houghton 

Mifflin   Co.      [March  22:314] 
Lady  Larkspur.    By  Meredith  Nicholson.    171  pages.    Charles 

Scribner's   Sons.      [June   14:622] 
Christopher  and  Columbus.    By  the  author  of  Elizabeth  and 

Her    German    Garden.      435    pages.      Doubleday,     Page    & 

Co, 
Ma  Pettengill.    By  Harry  Leon  Wilson.    324  pages.    Doubleday, 

Page  &   Co.      [May  17:520] 


TRANSLATIONS 

The   Great  Hunger.     By   Johan   Bojer.     Translated   by   W.    J. 

Alexander   Worster    and    C.    Archer.     327    pages.     Moffat, 

Yard   &   Co.      [March   22:299] 
The  Amethyst  Ring.    By  Anatole  France.     Edited  by  Frederic 

Chapman.     304   pages.     John  Lane  Co.      [June   28:650] 
Jacquou    the    Rebel.      By    Eugene    Le    Roy.      Translated    by 

Eleanor  Stimson  Brooks.     415  pages.     E.  P.   Dutton  &  Co. 

[May   17:520] 
Nono:  Love  and  the  Soil.    By  Gaston  Roupnel.    Translated  by 

Barnet  J.   Beyer.     272  pages.    E.   P.   Dutton  &  Co.      [May 

17:520] 
The  Two   Crossings  of  Madge   Swalue.      By   Henri   Davignon. 

English    version    by    Tita    Brand    Cammaerts.     230    pages. 

John   Lane  &   Co.      [June   28:666] 
Temptations    (short    stories).      By    David    Pinski.      325    pages 

Brentano.      [June   28:660] 
Blood   and   Sand.     By   Vicente   Blasco    Ibanez.     Translated    by 

Mrs.   W.   A.   Gillespie.     356   pages.     E.   P.   Dutton   &  Co. 
The  Dead  Command.    By  Vicente  Blasco   Ibanez.    Translated 

by   Frances   Douglas.     351    pages.     Duffield    &    Co. 
Luna   Benamor    (short   stories).      By   Vicente    Blasco    Ibanez. 

209  pages.    John  L.   Luce  &  Co.,  Boston.      [June  14:620] 
Caesar    or   Nothing.      By    Pio    Baroja.      Translated    by    Louis 

How.     337  pages.     Alfred  A.  Knopf. 
Martin   Rivas.     By   Alberto    Blest-Gana.     Translated    by    Mrs. 

Charles  Whitman.    431  pages.    Alfred  A.  Knopf. 
Amalia:  A  Romance  of  the  Argentine  in  the  Time  of  Rosas 

the   Dictator.     By   Jose   Marmol.     Translated   by   Mary   J. 

Serrano.     419    pages.     E.    P.    Dutton    &    Co. 

The  Home  and  the  World.     By  Rabindranath  Tagore.     Trans- 
lated   by    Surendranath    Tagore.      293    pages       Macmillan 

Co.      [June  14:620] 
The    Lucky    Mill.     By    loan    Slavic!.     219    pages.     Duffleld    & 

Co.      [May    31:578] 


The  Line-up  1 


on  one  side — 
reaction 
violence 
war  without  end 


on  the  other — 
progress 
order 
peace 


ON  WHICH  SIDE  OF  THE  LINE  ARE  YOU? 

The  Dial  believes  that  the  only  way  out  of  the  present  world  chaos  lies 
straight  forward  along  the  path  of  industrial  and  economic  evolution. 
Reaction  breeds  hatred  and  hysteria  and  compels  violence.  Sane  inquiry 
and  investigation  of  the  principles  of  industrial  control  and  their  practical 
application  lead  to  progress  and  not  revolution. 

If  you  are  looking  ahead  and  not  back  you  will  need  the  constructive  dis- 
cussion of  these  problems,  which  is  the  outstanding  characteristic  of  The 
Dial's  editorial  policy. 

SPECIAL  SUMMER  SUBSCRIPTION  OFFER 

We  will  send  during  the  month  of  July  a  six  months'  subscription  and  the 
remarkable  novel,  "  THE  GREAT  HUNGER,"  on  receipt  of  $2.00.  A  SAV- 
ING TO  YOU  OF  $1.10.  GOOD  ONLY  FOR  NEW  SUBSCRIBERS. 

"  THE  GREAT  HUNGER  "  is  one  of  the  most  notable  books  of  the  spring 
season.  It  is  a  story  of  spiritual  struggle  and  development  peculiarly 
timely  in  its  appeal. 

"  So  touchingly  searching  and  sincere  that  it  interested  me  from  the  first 
page  to  the  last. "--John  Galsworthy 

'  The  reader  can  raise  his  hands  in  thankfulness  and  thank  the  powers  of 
Truth  and  Beauty  for  '  The  Great  Hunger.'  " — Boston  Transcript. 


Special  July  Offer 


THE  DIAL, 

152  West  13th  Street,  New  York  City. 

Enclosed  find  two  dollars   for  a  six  months'  subscription  and  a  copy  of  Johan  Bojer's  "The  Great 
Hunger."     This  is  a  new  subscription.     (Foreign  and  Canadian  postage,  25  cents  additional.) 

The  Dial,  6  months,  $1.50   

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672 


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June  28 


TWELVE  MEN.     By  Theodore  Dreiser. 

(Third  Edition)  $1.75 

"  Dreiser  at  his  best  In  his  new  book.  By  far  tho 
most  readable  and  interesting  book  of  all  the  late 
spring  output."  — New  York  Trioune. 

Also  by  the  same  author,  "Sister  Carrie,"  $1.90,  and 
"Free  and  Other  Stories,"  $1.75. 

(In  preparation  'by  the  same  author,  "The  Hand  of 
the  Potter,"  a  play  in  four  acts,  and  "The  Kiny  Tx 
Naked,"  a  1>ook  of  essays.) 

MEN  IN  WAR.    By  Andreas  Latzko. 

(Eighth  Edition)  $1.50 

Practically   universally   regarded   as   one  of   the   three 
greatest    books   produced   by   the   World    War. 
(In  preparation   by  the  same  author,   "The  Judgment 
of  Peace" — a  novel.) 


TRAVELLING 
James. 


COMPANIONS. 


By    Henry 

r.75 


"I  counsel  all  who  love  books  to  buy  this  one  before 
the  edition  is  exhausted." 

— William  Lyon  Phelps  in  the  New  York  Times. 


JIMMIE  HIGGINS. 


By  Upton  Sinclair. 

(Just  Published)  $1.60 

"  The  first   hundred   pages   are  enough   to   justify   the 
author  in  thinking  this  his  best  book." 

— H.  W.  BOYNTON  in  The  Review. 

THE    PRESTONS.      By    Mary    Heaton    Vorse. 
(Sixth  Edition)  $1.75 

"The    best    and    the    most    entertaining    story    of    an 
American   family  of   modern   American   fiction." 

— Review  of  Reviews. 


THE  SWALLOW. 


Donn     Byrne 

really  delightful   story." 


By  Ruth  Dunbar. 

says:     "This    is    a    beautiful 


$1.50 

book — a 


THE  PALISER  CASE.    By  Edgar  Saltus.  $1.60 

"Read  it  and  dare  to  go  to  sleep  over  it.  Who  says 
that  it  Is  not  the  Great  American  Novel?" 

— New   York   Sun. 

THE  CURIOUS  REPUBLIC  OF  GONDOUR. 
By  Samuel  L.  Clemens,  Author  of  Huckleberry 
Finn,  etc.  (Just  Published)  $1.25 

(One  of  the  six  volumes  in  the  well-known  PENGUIN 
SERIES  of  books  never  before  published,  by  Lafcadio 
Hearn,  Walter  Pater,  Henry  James,  Hermann  Suder- 
mann,  etc.) 

THE  GREAT  MODERN  ENGLISH  STORIES. 
Edited  by  Edward  J.  O'Brien. 

(Just  Published)  $1.75 

(In  the  Great  Modern  Story  series,  which  includes  the 
"Great  Modern  French  Stories."  In  preparation, 
"Great  Modern  American  Stories"  and  "Great  Modern 
Scandinavian  Stories. ' ' ) 


Notable  Summer  Books  —  Ready  in  July 


THEIR  MUTUAL  CHILD. 
ville  Wodehouse. 


By  Pelham  Gren- 
$1.50 


A  fasciua  .g  love  story,  with  a  delicious  satire  on 
"Eugenics"  and  "Society."  "A  wonderful  book,"  says 
Robert  H.  Davis,  "it  does  Wodehouse  proud." 

THE   TAKER.      By   Daniel   Carson   Goodman. 

author  of  Hagar  Revelly,  $i.  75 
Are  you  a  giver  or  a  taker? 

This  book  searches  the  souls  of  men  and  reveals  the 
beauty  of  a  fine  woman. 

"Mr.  Goodman  writes  with  a  power  that  reminds  us 
of  Thomas  Hardy."  —  Review  of  Reviews. 

THE  GROPER.    By  Henry  G.  Aikman.      $1.60 
A  first  novel  of  extraordinary  interest  and  merit. 

THE  STORY  OF  THE  RAINBOW  DIVISION. 
By  Raymond  S.  Tompkins.  $1.50 

Special  War  Correspondent  of  the  Baltimore  Sun,  with 
introduction  by  Major  General  Charles  T.  Menoher, 
who  commanded  the  Rainbow  Division  in  all  of  its 
battles. 

This  is  the  first  —  and  official  —  story  of  this  most 
famous  of  all  American  Divisions. 

IN  THE  SWEET  DRY  AND  DRY. 

By  Christopher  Morley  and  Bart  Haley.  $1.50 
The  most  timely,  humorous,  delightful  book  of  the 
year.  Profusely  and  humorously  illustrated  by  Gluyas 
Williams. 

THE  WILL  OF  SONG.  By  Percy  Mackaye,  in 
collaboration  with  Harry  Barnhart. 

Boards,  50  cents 

IN  PREPARATION: 

THE  CRAFT  OF  THE  TORTOISE.  By  Al- 
gernon Tassin. 

A  four-act  play,  which  in  its  theme  and  brilliant 
treatment  suggests  Shaw  at  his  best. 

INSTIGATIONS.     By  Ezra  Pound. 

(Full   announcement   later.) 

THE  MODERN  BOOKS  OF  VERSE.  The 
English  and  American  Anthologies,  Edited  by 
Richard  Le  Gallienne.  The  French  Anthol- 
ogy, Edited  by  Albert  Boni.  The  Irish  An- 
thology, Edited  by  Padraic  Colum. 

(Price,  £2.00  each.) 


REDEMPTION 
Leo  Tolstoy. 


AND  OTHER  PLAYS.      By 

(Just  Published)  70  cents 


Introduction  by  Arthur  Hopkins.  One  of  8  new  titles 
in  the  famous  MODERN  LIBRARY.  (72  titles  now.) 
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