Evening Star Newspaper, July 4, 1926, Page 17

EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORIAL FEATURES NEWS OF SOCIETY Part 2—16 Pages U. S. WORKMAN’S SPIRIT CAUSE OF HIGH WAGES William B. Wilson Declares Foreign Labor Held Back by Lack of Enterprise. BY DREW PEARSON. HY is the American work ingman the highest paid in the world? Why is it that when the Chinese coolie is paid only 50 cents a day and the British workman receives only about §2 a day man in the United States receives an average of $1.09 an hour, or about $8.50 a da This average wage for the American laborer wag worked out recently by the Department of Labor, and T took the figure to William B. Wilson, for- mer Secretary of Labor, to ask him the reason for the American working man’s amazing prosperity. Mr. Wilson, I knew, would give a thorough and careful reply. For Mr. Wilson was not only first Secretary of Labor and practically organizer of that department, but also Mr. Wilson is Scotch. You sense that fact imme- diately vou hear him roll his r's. and his middle name, Beauchop, when translated from the old Celtic, means “small son.” Mr. Wilson was born in Scotland, and one of his first recollec- tions was the coal strike which caused his father and his family to be evicted from their house and to emigrate to America. The Wilsons settled in the coal regions of Pennsylvanla, where vounz Wilson followed his father into the mines at the age of 9. By the time he was 13 he had survived one cave-n which had buried him for a short time., afl was the chief sup- port of his family. Was Elected Auditor. From a juvenile coal miner to Sec- retary of Labor is a big jump, and when I asked Mr. Wilson how he took it, he explained that when he was 21 he was elected auditor of Bloss town- ship by a vote of 475 out of 476. I in- ferred that he did not vote for himself. From township auditor to member of Congress, Mr. Wilson seemed to think, was only a short step and hardly worth explanation. After we had cleared away the pre- liminaries of the interview, I handed Mr. Wilson the recent compilations of the Labor Department which fixed the average wage of the organized Ameri- can workman at $1.09 an hour, and asked him_ the reason. American Produces More. “In the first place,” came the imme- diate reply, “the American workman produces more than any other laborer in any other country in the world. In the second place, he is alded by up-to- date and efficient machines. And. finally, the general policy which has been worked out by the American la- borer is roughly this: “*We and our employers have a mutual interest at heart. The harder we work, with a due regard for our health and safety, the more we pro- duce and the greater the amount to be divided between ourselves and our employers. The only difference be- tween us and our employers is on the point of how much constitutes a fair division of joint production. On this point we belleve in sitting down around a table and working out the problem on a basis as nearly equitable as the circumstances surrounding the industry will permit.’ Real Wage Differs. “That,” continued the former Sec- retary of Labor, “is a very general statement. I do not mean that all labor and all employers in the United States are guided by this principle, but the tendency is in this direction. “"Moreover, it is impossible to judge these figures which you have just handed me entirely on their face value. The real wage is not the money received, but the amount of buying power received. A dollar will buy more in Germany perhaps than in England. 1 believe that no figures exist today which show the relative real wages of the workers of the world. the organized work- | named are very young.” I pointed out. e high wages caused by the lack of population and the need of _development?” Vot entirely. I think that high wages in these countries are partly due to the pioneer spirit which fosters individual initiative. The men who hud the enterprise to emigrate also had the gumption to work harder and to deserve real wages. They have not been hampered by tradition and old conventions. They created new rules and new standards of work and wages.” Why should not wages be higher in Australia and Canada,” 1 asked, “since they are newer countries than the United States?” “Because those who settled the United States came at a time when Europe was in the throes of inter- nal strife. The middle classes were rebelling against the nobility and a great influx of these men who dared to shake off tradition came to these shores. In later years the emi- grants to the British colonies have not necessarily been men of great initfa- tive. Some have been subsidized by their government. Plan Curtails Demand. workers of England <don't know the meaning of indi- enterprise. They have their faith in socialism. In- applying the law of sup- and demand as in the United they reason that if they re- strict ‘the supply that the demand will increase, and they can then force their employers to pay them higher “The really vidual pinned reasoning would be all right, if they did not overlook the fact that when the supply is curtailed in every industry that the demand is also cur- tailed throughout the country. They Yorget that the workers in every other factory are trying to do exact- 1y the same thing and they accom plish exactly the opposite of what they desire.”" “Do the workers of the Continent apply the same reasoning?” I asked. “Yes, the continental worker has the same concept, except that he ene deavors to make private enterprise unprofitable in order to force the adop- tion of Marxlan sociallsm. Syndical ism—that is, socialism of different in- dustries—is quite general in France, while Marxian socialism is more prev- alent In Germany and the countries of Central Europe, such as Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia. “What little of this socialistic spirit exists among the workers of the United States was imported from abroad and is gradually disappearing.” ‘Wages Not on Decline. Mr. Wilson paused, looked out of the window at a group of workmen who were bullding an apartment op- posite his Washington home, and thereby gave me time to propound an- other problem. All of the countries paying high wages, I reminded him, ‘were new countries with sparse popu lations. On the other hand, the coun- tries which paid the lowest wages were the oldest countries, such as India and China, with the densest populations. ‘Therefore, with the population of the United States grow- WASHINGTON BACK TO HAPPINESS E are all searching separately and secretly for the ideal state of hap- piness—and ‘it's all very difficult! This natlon of ours is crowded with human souls craving for some sure spiritual guldance, for some new and cer- tain faith, for some inner light revealing the meaning and purpose of life. It was rather pitiful after the war to see the feverish way in which the men who had escaped and the women who had agonized be- hind laughing masks of courage tried to find the happiness which peace had promised. For a time there was an orgy of pleasure- making. One lived to the music of a Jazz band. Youth danced all over Europe, even in the countries stricken with ruin and starva- tion and disease. In London night clubs sprang up and flour- ished for people who were determined to be “gay,” untll exhaustion brought uneasy sleep. Theaters, “movies,” every kind of entertain- ment were thronged by those insatiable for pleasure. And yet somehow they were all bored. Over and over again 1 heard them whisper to each other at these shows, “I'm bored stiff. * * * Good heavens, what rot this is!" * Xk ¥ % It was a disease of the soul. this devastating sense of boredom which had followed the nerve strain of war time. All this so-called gayety was unsatisfying, and by degrees intolerable. There was no purpose in it, no meaning, no Joy. Even now, after that time of fever, the na- tion, as @ whole, has not found itself again, or become content with the humdrum drudgeries of life. One sees in all classes a restlessness of mood which did not belong to our character as a people before the war. It has affected the younger generation to whom the war is hardly a memory. They, too, get very bored if there is nothing doing In the way of excitement. Nobody is content to keep still. They are all rushing around in motor cars, which some of them can't afford, or on motor cycles with a girl In silk stockings on the “flapper bracket.” They are resentful of life, embittered, if their week's wage, or pocket money from their parents, is not enough to provide incessant entertainment in their spare hours. The “movies” are no longer a luxury, but a neces- sity of life. The wireless apparatus is installed above the chimney pots in order to bring comic songs into the parlor and jazz music to break the deadly spell of an evening at home. * K X X Yet there is no ideal state of happiness in all this. They are still restless and discontent- ed; they think that if only they had more money and more pleasure they might be per- fectly happy, but somehow the theory doesn't D. C, SBUNDAY MOR and most people belonging to our modern ctv- 1lization, are searching for an ideal happiness which is continually eluding them. It is partly the fault of an education which has unsettled the old certainties of the human mind and de- stroyed its old loyalties to a simple code of faith and duty. An the old days men and women did not expect much of this life. They put thelr hopes rather in some future life when thoy might get some splendid and eternal reward for all their drudgery and patience and poverty and hard «hip. But now to many people that faith in a future state of happiness is & poor and doubt- ful thing. The books they have read about evolution, and philosophy and odd scraps of acienco have destroyed their bellof in that re- liglous consolation. They are very skeptical of God. Anyhow, they want their happiness here and now. * ok K K Those novels they read &re rather disturb- ing. They deal malnly with ideal love, but, somehow or other, this love game has not worked out well in their case. The wife is rather sharp in her temper sometimes. She 18 losing some of her good looks. They bore each other, get on each other's nerves. Per- haps one day loyalty is strained beyond the breaking-point. If only they could find the ideal woman or the ideal man! Meanwhile, they are damnably unhappy. It is, perhaps, the curse of nerves. How is it that our grandfathers and grandmothers seemed to jog along so happily in this servi- tude of married lits, with many children and no cry for “easier divorce””? Perhaps we think too much, brood too much, are too sensitive to the little worrles and futilities of life. Perhaps we have wrong ideals of happiness. Everywhere, outside the ranks of those still satisfled with the old forms of faith—not very many in the nation, as a whole—there is a groping for some spiritual guidance which will glve a new meaning to this unsolved riddle of lifo. It is leading many people into strange paths, rather dangerous, I think. * ok ok % In London, at the present time, and I sus- pect also in other great cities, spiritualism of different brands is taking possession of many minds. Table rapping, crystal gazing. auto matic writing, spirit photographs, materializa- tions, are exciting the curlosity of intelligent men and women, desperate to find some new interpretation of life's mystery. Some of them tell me that they get comfort out of this. Some of them have tried to drag me into it, though to my mind it is all mixed up with the most sordid kind of fraud and has a disastrous effect upon the mentality—and sometimes the morality—of those who get drawn into these circles and seances, My letter bag is filled with correspondence NG, JULY 4, 1926. BY SIR PHILIP GIBBS disciples of Joanna Southcote with the assur- ance that when her boxes are opened by the bishops all will be well with the world. * ok ok K But vastly more numerous than all these strange sects and secret searchers behind the vell of mystery are masses of men and women who, without fanaticlsm or superstition and with no more than a wistful yearning, are try- ing to find some faith or code which will give an uplifting purpose in life, a straight road to follow, a goal ahead, an inner flame of happi- ness on their way. Not easy to find with so much confused thought about, so much de- structive criticism! Happy are those who go to some old church with simple hearts and no doubts. A good deal of dur political unrest is due to the destre of the human heart to be caught up by some tremendous interest outside the lNttle drudgerles of the dally round, and to be: come absorbed In some new effort to attain the ideals of human happiness. Socialism, even Communism, in its psychological aspects is not merely an economic theory. They are both substitutes for revealed religion, although the Russian blend of Communism is anti-Christian and declares that any form of religion is the “oplum of the people.” But it has its own priests, fanatics and inquisitors. It has estab- lished a tyranny of intolerance and dogma, to deny which is death. * ok ok Xk The soul of the people is distressed by many false prophets, confused by a multitude of counselors, and has no fixed faith or purpose such as united it in self-defense—and exalted it to great heights of sacrifice beyond the range of individual selfishness—in time of war. Now in time of peace it seeks to find some- thing to replace that spiritual intensity, and cannot find it in the nagging quarrels of pett politics, or in a round of pleasure, or in the squalor and poverty of back streets, or in their conditions. To me, there comes the conviction more and more that the happiness for which we all seek is to be found in a simplification of life. We must get back to simplicity in material condi- tions and social habits, avolding. as far as pos- sible, all those complications of modern life which torture our nerves and waste our ener- Life would be endurable but for its pleas- ures,” said a French philosopher. It would be endurable and good If we could get back closer to the earth and sky, limit our desires to love and beauty, the elementary needs of the bod: and liberty for the mind and soul. With a sense of humor, a little courage, a smiling tol erance and some faith in God life would not be too bad even in poverty and hardship. Per haps, after all, that is the ideal state for which the world is searching with a thousand theories. | the illusion of easy terms work. One may see that by the unconcealed bore. dom of rich folk who seek their pleasure on the Riviera, gamble at the tables in drive about in Rolls-Royce cars. piness one sees in some of those disillusion with life! Even they tained the ideal happiness with all The truth s that the people of our nation, from people—mostly women—who have taken up other theories of life, wildly fantastic, and in some cases quite mad. convinced that the British people are the lost Monte Carlo, What unhap: faces! What ave not at- their mon. tribe of Tsrael. just coming of Christ. The Theosophists under Mrs. Besant have produced a new young Indian—who claims to fulfill the second 1 receive pamphlets from Some of them are phones or messiah—a handsome the soul of But how can we attain this industrial and skeptical and nervous age, when the very a hopeless conflict of id a loud speaker? Simplicity is the hardest thing of all when the simple life in vibrations of the air proclaim als through the head- the people is being bawled at by every cheap-jack in Vanity Fair. (Copsright. 1926.) LIBERTY OF NATION IS BASED ON GOVERNMENTAL TOLERANCE Lust for Legislation, Extending So Far as to Attempt to Limit Science, Must ing at the rate of about one million a year, it would seem to be only a matter of time before American wages were reduced to the starvation level of Europe and Asia. Mr. Wilson, however, did not agree. “One of the factors which holds the Orientals back is their social system,” he said. “India is divided up into castes and it is impossible for a member of one to rise above the particular one in which he is born. In other words, the luck of birth governs the enterprise of the people of Indla. The same is true to a certain extent of the English and of the other peoples of Europe. They are bound up by tradition. ow I claim that one of the great- est saviors of peoples is hope. When Be Curbed If Freedom Is to Be Maintained. BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Former Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Tolerance and liberty are Siamese twins. When one dies, the other is doomed also. He who strikes at efther strikes at both. These princi- ples are threatensd now, both by governmental and individual action. From its inception until very re. cent years every amendment made to our Constitution extended the lib- ertles of the people. Now we are coming to an era when amendments are urged or passed which restrict the liberties rather than extend them. “However, my work in the Labor Department gave me some approxi- mate estimates. There is mnot the slightest doubt that the American worker is not only better paid than v any other worker, but can buy more with his money. The next best paid workers are in Australia; then comes Canada and. I believe, South Africa. “All of the countries you have a child is born in India or Europe there is little hope that he will ever rise above the station in life to which he is born. Without hope he has no inspiration to work. “But in the United States there is every hope and every incentive to work and to prosper. That, to me, is the great reason this Nation is what it is today.” (Copyright. 1926.) WAR TO END WAR HELD FAILURE, WITH PEACE NOW ENDANGERED BY JOHN BAKELESS. Editor and Author. The war to end war w And a new terrible than a failure. war, greater and more that which so nearly destroved civilization between 1914 and 1918, is a distinct probability. Fortunately, there are several elements in the international situa- tlon which just at present act as brakes upon war. But these are at best temporary. while the causes working to produce a new war are permanent. It is, thercfore, high time for serious thought on the part of the every day citizen, who will have to fight the next war, see his family suffer in it, and later pay for it in taxation. The old plan of leaving foreign affairs to diplomats and poli- ticians was tried before 1914. The re sults do not encourage us to try that plan again. The man in the street had abundant warning of what was coming long before the World War broke out, but he refused to believe the plain signs of the times. From 1878 until 1914 there was only four years when the world was at peace. From 1900 to 1914 there were only three vears when there was not distinct danger of a full sized Duropean war. War Horrors Predicted. The events of the World War, its weapons, the general alignment of the European powers, the invasion of Bel- &ium, the use of aircraft in war, and even the details of ~ technical journals, but in popular books, magazines and newspapers. ‘The danger of war and its disastrous results had also been described detail and with substantial accurac: But in spite of these warnings, th ‘World War came as a rude surprise, and this was especially true in America, for removed from the quar- rels and struggles of a distant Europe. Today, stice, we are living amid conditions essentially like those before the wa g& e has not been a single peace- . ar since the peace treaty was Instead, there has been fight- ing ‘#a\ Rusia, China. Poland, the Balk- ans, ica. and Asia Minor. There trench warfare | had all been predicted not in obscure | in| eight years after the arml-| have been at least two crises that con- talned the immediate prospects of an- other World War. And it is even said that at one time just after the great war, 25 small wars were being waged simultaneously. B Warnings of Big Disaster. These little struggles are warnings of a greater one to come, precisely as the small wars and war scarces of the years between 1900 and 1914 were warnings of the first World War, There were farsighted thinkers then {who saw what was coming. There are such thinkers today. They were not heeded then, and they are not being heeded now. These modern prophets of a future war are not irresponsible scaremongers. On | the contrary, they are distinguished leaders in science, poli and re- ligion—men like Dean Inge, Count Coudenhove, Kalergi, and Prof. Soddy, the Oxford chemist who won the No- Del prize. Nothing is more striking than the unanimity with which po- litical opponents who differ on all other subjects agree on this one— Mussolini, Francesco Nittl, Austen Chamberlain and Ramsay MacDonald, The fact that small wars are stili occurring ¢n an average of four or five a year and that it is still pos- sible to predict another sreat war after the close of the greatest and most disastrous war in history is In itself a very alarming fact. If shows that humanity has learned very little, It is clear evidence that the causes of war have not been uprooted. Underlying War Causes. What ave these causes? Volumes might be written on them, and vol umes have been written. But the underlying causes of war can be summarized in a very few words. Most of the nations of the { modern world.are seeking to expand, driven either by the pressure of their populations or by that combination of industrial, political and military mo- tives which we call “imperialism. The earth is not big enough for all the nations to expand at once, and so collislons are bound to occur until | some peaceful means of dividing it is invented. Such were the forces that produced the great war. Such are the forces that produce the small wars to- st (Coretsh. 10202 . Hand in hand with this, and bred of the same causes, is a tendency on the part of the States to gather in to the State government functions formerly exercised by the counties and municipalities. Worse than this, there i{s a tendency to draw from the States the powers which rightly lie therein and vest them in the Federal Government in Washington. All such movements are damaging to the United States and subversive to both liberty and tolerance. Our theory of government is that the in- dividual should be given every op- portunity and ald in developing him- self. We hold that America will stand or fall on the average of our citizens. We maintain that our Gov- ernment will be good or bad directly dependent on whether the average citizen in the country is of a high or low type. Tends to Atrophy Individual If you take from the individuals in the community the responsibility for the welfare of their own community, you not only destroy personal liberty thereby, but in addition, atrophy the individual. It is by the exercise of responsibilities that a man increases in ability and charac- ter. Remove such necessity from him and he not only does not improve, but tends to slip backward. This is all common sense. If you are train- ing for a foot race, the only way you can bulld yourself up is by running. You cannot do it by sitting in a swivel chair. At the same time, and sometimes coincident to this undue federaliza- tion, {s the passage of improperly re- strictive laws. There seems to be a bellef that every evil, old or new, can be cured by legislation. This is both unsound and untrue. Many of these attempts are made by good people and for good causes. That does not make them any more sound. We must make those people see that though it is slower and more labori- ous, the way to cure an evil is by example to build the moral stamina of the community so that that community; without pro- hibitary laws, will eliminate the evll itself. We do mot belleve in socialism. Why? Because the members of a soclalistic community are like so ma sheep. Their every action is dictated by the government. Laws of an improperly restrictive nature are akin to socialism, If we permit their passage unchecked, we will soon get to the condition where our peo- ple have as much freedom of action as a mannikin in a Punch and Judy “how, and as a result, as much char- ter and initiative. The valuable citizen is the citizen who does right when no one is looking at him. His morals have been educated into him, not legislated into him. In some instances this lust for leg- islation has gone so far that State Legislatures have attempted to pre- scribe a sclentific theory, It is idle tend to: to say that an attempt to legislate a state of mind is unAmerican in the extreme. Where will our liberty and tolerance be if our people decide upon such a course? All action of this sort 1s, of course, entirely and abso- lutely wrong. Tt is a combination of socialism and tyranny and destruc- tive of the very principles on which our republic was founded. Not only has this intolerance made itself felt governmentally in this country, but we find it around us in the every-day walks of life. Perhaps its most dangerous manifestation has been along religious lines. Religion furnishes idealism and builds the moral character of our people. It is a vital necessity for our country. We are told, however, that every man is entitled to worship his God in the manner his conscience dictates and that no one should distinguish elther for or against & man on religious grounds. We hold that a man should be judged as an individual citizen and on no other basis. We hold that no distinctions should be made between man and man in ordinary walks of life on religious grounds. We hold, above all, that religion finds no place in our politics. We have no State church and we must have none. (Copyright. 1026.) THORNY PROBLEMS SEEN IN PATH OF DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE Preliminary Discussions at Geneva Held to Show Need of Publicit Campaigns in Interested Nations. BY GEN. HENRY T. ALLEN, Commander of the American Army on the Rhine. In the domain of international rela- tions there are few measures that have been so consistently espoused by recent administrations of both parties of our country and so generally ap- vroved by public sentiment as the re. duction of armaments. It was, there. fore, entirely logical that Coolidge should send a delegation to the Preparatory Disarmament Com- mission. Indeed, his message to Con- gress in January emphasizing “dis- armament and limitation of arma- ment” as “the general policy” of this Government was the essence of Hugh S. Gibson's official statement at Ge- neva, as prepared in the office of the Secretary of State. But the difficulties connected with the subject are so many and so com- plicated that much patience must be exercised during the long period of study and preparation before the real conference can make a beginning. It is hoped that the United States will not only participate in all this work, but will co-operate in whatever plans, approved by other states of the world, promise success. Russia has thus far declined to par- ticipate in any degree in this world High Standards for Public Parks of U. S. Demanded by Organizations and People BY ROBERT STERLING YARD. Secretary National Parks Association. The hasty creation for political cam- paign purposes of a national park, which the National Park Service had not even seen and the Secretary of the Interior declined to recommend, stands in sharp contrast with present- day discussion throughout the coun- try concerning the national park sys- tem as a unique national institution. The maintenance of its standards and the need to differentiate national parks sharply from State parks, whose purpose is wholly recreationai, have recently become one of the live sub- Jects of the day. 1t happened that, on the very day that political expediency dealt this hard blow at national idealism in Con- gress, the United States Chamber of Commerce passed the following resolu- tion: | “The Chamber of Commerce of the | United States has earlier expressed its !interest in the creation of natlonal ! parks. It believes the primary re- |sponsibility of the Federal Govern- iment in the establishment or mainte- | nance of national parks is to preserve ( those features of our landscape where, in sufficiently large areas, the scenery is so unusually beautiful and is so characteristic of its kind, and where, consequently, it has so great an edu- cational or other value that it may be considered a heritage of the whole Nation rather than a recreational fa- cllity for.the inhabitants of adjacent territory. The primary responsibility for supplying recreational facilities for the people of States and munici- palities lies with the States and muni- cipalities themselves.” Composed of conservative business organizations in every State of the Nation, the United States Chamber of Commerce is necessarily the most con- servative of all. Its utterances on na- tional and business policy, having | passed the test of submission to all its member chambers by mail and the fire of an annual meeting, may confidently be accepted as the representative busi- ness sentiment of the country. Earlier in the same menth the Con- servation Council of Chicago, which consists of delegates from 46 organ- izations representing such wide diver- gence of personality as the Izaak Wal- ton League, the Chicago Federation of ‘Women's Clubs and the staid Chicago Club, also discussed national parks at an annual meeting. Its resolution follows: “The Conservation Council of Chi- cago sees the national parks system as a national institution of untold importance to the education as well as to the health, recreation and spiritual inspiration of the American people. “It should be conceived, not merely as a better system of playgrounds in a nation and age of playgrounds, but also as our superuniversity of nature, in which nature herself, in her loftiest manifestations of unique scenery and primitive life, is the supreme teacher.” From the Atlantic to the Pacific the institutional view of the national parks system has aroused, in that ap- parently sudden way that long-dor- mant public thinking often does, a lively enthusiasm. One of the earliest public outcrop- pings of this feeling occurred last Oc- tober when Secretary Work announced his purpose of advancing education with recreation in national parks ad- ministration. Until very recently rec- reation was conceived the sole purpose of national parks, but now the rapid growth of State parks and recrea- tional facilities in national forests per- mits the system to assume its greater status. Secretary Hoover expressed much the same idea at a public dinner in December in these words: “My own thought 'is that the national parks— the parks within the responsibility of the Federal Government—should be those of outstanding sclentific and spiritual appeal; those tlh;.t m;:.:‘nlque in their stimulation and inspi on.” 2 (Copyright 1826 undertaking, and in consequence must be a great deterrent, particularly to its border states, in their desires to conform to reductions. Likewise, should the United States decline to co-operate with the other states in the general security and reduction plans that may be envisaged, by sim- ply remaining neutral, our citizens would be at liberty to manufacture resident | 1nd sell ammunitions of war to other nations in war as well as in peace. The indeterminate attitude of the United States toward obligations that must be assumed if a just measure of reduction in armaments is ever to be attained, and Russia’s refusal to co-operate now or later suggest some of the difficulties that are to be met. The questions submitted by the foreign minister of Czechoslovakia, Dr. Benes, to the preparatory commis- slon reveal in a yet more marked measure the discussions that are out- lined and the almost fmpossible com- promises that must be made before a solution of the problem can be ob- tained. Questions to Be Answered. What are armaments, may they be distinguished as offensive and de- fensive, by what standards is it possi- ble to measure the armaments of one country against those of another coun- try, can civil and military aircraft be distinguished for purposes of disarma- ment, shall commercial fleets be con- sidered in naval armaments, what shall be the status of reserve forces, and shall disarmament be regional or general? These queries are only a few of those that are arising, but they are sufficient to show the almost in- surmountable obstacles that present themselves. The subcommittees have been as- signed their respective subjects which will require investigation and study over a period of two or three months before reports can be made to the preparatory commission. Viscount Cecil ds probably conservative in stat- ing that the general disarmament con- ference could not be convened before the end of next year. In the mean- time, there must be an educational campaign set in motion in all the coun- tries in order that public opinion may not only fully appraise the economic and human value of a reduction of armaments, but also that each coun- try may learn that it must make con- cessions in order to secure that boon. To say that our country with only one regular soldier to each one thou- sand population is practically dis- armed makes but a wan appeal to the smaller states, some of which are maintaining that war potentiality must be given consideration in any general plan of reduction, Again the importance of security will come to.the front as it did in the Geneva protocol of 1924 and as it did in the Locarno pacts. The United States also will be called upon to make concessions if its undoubted will to reduction of armaments is. to be realized. Irish Like Cock Fights. Cock fighting, though illegal in Ire- land, is still a popular sport, and often succeeds in evading the vigilance of the police. The fights take place in remote districts and motor cars full of spectators swarm out from the city. When the police hear of it they break up the assembly. Recently when they interrupted a match near Dublin_the -;ucmtors were found to include a clergyman, a senator and & member of the Dedl, § N THEATER AND SCREEN MUSIC AND BOOKS AUTOMOBILE NEWS DEFEAT OF CONFISCATION BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. T 18 one of the striking paradoxes of which cotemporary politics furnish many that the defeat of the extreme opponents of the old monarchial regime in Germany in their effort to expropriate the holdings of the former sovereigns by referendum should demonstrate to the satisfaction of the whole world that the German Republic has come to stay. Yet this is the conclusion which even the most nervous French com- mentators draw from the returns. It 1s true that the French, like all | other observers, have by this time appreciated that the German Repub- lic is and will remain German even before it is republican—that is to say that it differs as essentially from the French, not to say the American, Re- public as the Prussia of the last cen- tury differed from both the Bourbon and Napoleonic regimes in France. The kings are gone from Germany, in all probability for good, but Ger- many remains, with its own funda- mentally German characteristics. The first vears of the German Re- public were doleful in the extreme At the outset the revolution and the proclamation of the republic were not a consequence of any profoundly re- publican_development In the’ German Reich. The empire which fell with the complete defeat of the last months of the war was not only popular in Germany, but in the main satisfactory 1o all elements in the population. The Hohenzollern dynasty had made Ger- many great after having provided it with unity, and in the last quarter of the nineteenth century German industrial and economic expansion had been wellnigh unparalleled. Wilson Aided Revoluti President Wilson, more than any one else, was responsible for the Ger- man revolution, becaus his utter- ances, his refusal to deal with the German government, which repre: ed the old order, created the do conviction in the German mind that | peace could only be had by the exile of the kings and that such exile would insure easy terms of peace. The treaty of Versailles destroved There W an almost universal conviction within Germany that the allies had_broken faith in giving to republican Germany substantially as severe treatment as must have been the portion of mon- archial Germany, since no German ould conceive of more severe terms. The average German felt that he had turned out his emperor, upset his tem of government, obeyed the be- hest of the conqueror, only to find that these sacrifices had been without reward. The vears which followed from 1919 to the occupation of the Ruhr and the domestic and international com- plications of 1923 all had a severe effect upon the republican regime. It was artificial, it did not represent a national evolution or desire, and concomitant with it was a period of suffering and humiliation which sur- passed anything Germany had known | since the hevdey of the power of the | great Napoleon. By the end of 1923 {the republic had fallen to a state of widespread contempt. It existed: & | change seemed likely to produce even greater chaos. Therefore, it contin- ued, but enthusiasm for it was non- existent. Reichstag 1Is Divided. Meantime a curious but not unnat- ural development had taken place. The purely republican parties, which were hoth radical and democratic—the Socialists, the Center and the Demo- cratic parties—had lost control of the situation. a majority in the Reichstag. The cialist party had split and a ve siderable portion of the members had gone red and become Communists. What was left of the Socialists, to gether with the Democrats and Catho- lic Center, could no longer muster a majority in the German Parliament. An even more profound change was also taking place. The republican group was tending to break up over domestic issues. Between the Social- ists and the Democrats and Catholics there was a basis of agreement in the matter of the form of government, but both the Democrats and the Cath- olics tended to bourgeois, conservative principles in domestic legislation. Thus a new combination began to design ftself as early as 1924. This was an alllance between the Demo- crats, Catholics and the Peopje's party, which was the organization of big business. The basis of this combina- tion was simple. Big business accept- ed the republic as the only possible form of government for the immedi- ate future, although most of its mem- bers had been monarchists and a ma- Jority probably remained loval to the principle of monarchy. But all saw that to do business with the world, to get foreign loans and to limit for- eign occupation, it was necessary to placate, not affront, British and Amer- ican opinion, which might restrain French_action. ‘The Center and the Democratic par- ties could work with the People's par- ty on this basis, because they re- mained controlled by elements which had little sympathy with the radical doctrines of the Socialists. On the other hand, the People's party could not work with the Natlonalists, who remained insistently monarchial and opposed all reasonable efforts at conciliation abroad. Thus the first coalition, the Weimar bloc, which last- ed from 1920 to 1924, made way for a new block, which might be described by the name it ultimately earned, namely, the Locarno bloc. Bloc Pledged to Republic. The Locarno bloc was pledged to the republic, and it was assured on this issue of the support of the So- clalists, and thus of a majority in the Reichstag. It was pledged to concili- ation and settlement abroad, and thus again it enlisted the support of the Socialists. But it was hostfle to the radical measures of the Socialists, the most striking example of which was the- recent attempt to seize the property of the princes, and on radi- cal issues it had to look to the mon- archists of the Natfonalist parties for support. From 1924 to the present vyear, mainly through the Luther Strese. mann cabinet or cabinets, Germany has been ruled by the Locarno bloc, which has applied and fulfilled the Dawes plan and made the Locarno pacts, sought admission to the League of Nations and, broadly speaking, re- stored Germany's position in the world at large. It has brought Germany out of the moral and material morass of the years of defeat and paralysis. In_ this time it has been loyal to the republic. And in all human probabil- ity it has insured the survival of the republic, because during this time Ger- many has begun very slowly..but not They no longer mustered | “0- | sents a total merely half HELPS GERMAN REPUBLIC Failure of Move to Take Princes’ Prop- erty Strengthens Moderate Groups Bent on Maintaining Democratic Statu less surely, to climb out of the pit and to regain something of her old pros- verity and confidence. For vears the republic was weak because there was the permanent contrast for all Ger- mans between the vears of material welfare, when the Kaiser reigned, and those of indescribable misery under the republic. And in the same way there was the contrast between the Germany which was almost supreme in Europe up to the closing days of the war and the Germany which under the republic had to submit even to occupation of the Rhineland. The republic was probably saved by those who loved it least, namely, the Peoples party, because, as I said, the leaders of this party were the leaders of German business and recognized that Germany must have loans, for eign support and a measure of politi- cal protection not otherwise obtain- The situation was on all fours ) that in France after 1815. The Bourbon monarchy was unpopular, Paris despised it as having been brought back in the baggage of the victorious allies. But it was the only government the victorfous allies would deal with and it could and did serve France in this way. Bourbons Had to Go. In the end, of course, after 15 years, the Bourbons had to go because they ere incapable of understanding France, the France which had devel- oped through the revolution and the Napoleonic period. By contrast the German Republic seems likely to en- dure, because it has developed pre- cisely as the Bourbons failed to grow. Germany is not radical. It is as far from revolutionary as Britain, perhaps even farther; it could not permanent- Iy endure a republic which was con- trolled by the extreme left, or even by anything as radical as the Socfalist party. But what has happened is that the more moderate parties, the parties of business, big and little, of order and of authority. bourgeoise parties. In the European political jargon, have captured the republic and taken it out of the hands of the radi They have done this because business and the more intelligent elements on the conservative side have appreciated the fact that to attempt to restore the monarchy would bring bloody revolu- tion at home and infinite trouble abroad. while to adopt the republic would give them power and prosperity. But one must recognize that parallel with the process which has changed the control of the machinery of gov- ernment there has been a develop- ment in the radical camp. If the gov- ernment is controlled by the more conservative elements. there is always the vast mass of Socialists and even Communists on guard to see that the conservative element does not g0 too far toward the monarchical camp. The mere fact that fifteen million votes were cast for the seizure of the prop- erty of the princes indicates the strength of this force. The Luther cabinet has just fallen because it was | held by the Soclalists to have inclined too much to the right. Afraid to Set Precedent. Tt must not be assumed, either, that the proposal to seize the property of the princes failed because of the mon- archical sentiment in Germany. It actually failed because of the prop- erty sentiment, because all who had property. especially the great prop- erty-holding Roman Catholic Church, saw that if the principle of sefzure were once admitted it might be car- ried to unknown lengths if ever the Irndil‘ah got control of the machinery of government. Yet this 15,000,000 of votes repri large a | has ever been cast in a German elec- tion and about equals the vote cast for Hindenburg last year when he wad elected President. Thus it is clear that many hundreds of thousands of Catholics and Democrats broke away from their party to vote for expro- priation. And every one of these 15.- 000,000 would take up arms to prevent a restoration of the princes whose property they voted to seize without compensation. Had the German Republic remained in the control of the radicals, of the Socialists primarily, the end would have been the gradual consolidation of all conservative elements about the mass of monarchists and the restora- tion of the throne would have been a detail in the preservation of property and business against radical assault. This possibility disappeared when the People’s party accepted the republie and undertook to meet the perils com- ing from the radicals, which were di- rected against property; not the form of _government. Now, it is quite obvious that Ger- man business must have little real enthusiasm for a restoration. which would certainly be accompanfed by great bloodshed and be opposed by the solid block of 15000000 voters who favored expropriation, together with other millions who favor the re- public but shied away from a course which might in the end supply the warrant for other expropriations right down to the ultimate Marxian conception. On the contrary, the whole object of the German business must be to seek to draw to itself the support of the more reasonable mon- archists. Battleground Now Clear. The new battleground of German politics, therefore, begins to hecome clear. It is a battle within the frame of the republic to establish and con- solidate all the modern elements at the right and at the left to defend property and business against radical assault; it is an effort to muster the republican and the monarchist con- servatives against the radicals in the field of domestic legislation. But the basis of any such combination must necessarily be the tacit acceptance of the republic by these moderate mon- archists. Once a considerable ele- ment of the monarchists accept the republic and Locarno in principle, Germany may get majority govern- ment again, or at least a cabinet which will be ablé to rest upon some atable foundation in tHe Reichstag. In the past two years the Luther- Stresemann combination has lived by enlisting Socialist votes for {ts Lo- carno program and Nationalist votes against extreme radical measures. But it has Lved from day to day and its position been so insecure that there has a lack of continuity and ever-recurring contradictions of policy due to recurring crises. It has actually existed on sufferance and it fell in the end because it aroused the suspicions of the Socialists. ‘When Hindenburg became Presi- dent, I suspect that he actually, al though wholly unintentionally, dealt a death blow to the hopes of his former master. An honest man, he = (Continued on Third Page)