the tragic precipice of suffering and disillusionment.

But the record was so against the Administration that the wayfaring man had no need to err therein. At first the President held America back from her plain path at a time when every day of delay meant the needless sacrifice of American lives, through haste and waste in the final inadequate preparation. When the President had at last decided that the war did concern us, he urged upon our allies the impractical conclusion of a peace without victory. When the triumph came, again the President failed in leadership for America. When the veil of secret diplomacy was lifted, there was disclosed to the American people a league of political alliance which might keep the United States perpetually embroiled in South America, in Europe, throughout the world.

The American people compared all this with the common-sense leadership of John Hay and Elihu Root and Theodore Roosevelt, at a time when the modern foreign policy of America touched high-water mark in effectiveness and wisdom. By comparison the Wilson leadership seemed doctrinaire and visionary and theoretical and contrary to the National policies and ideals of America.

To be sure, the economic burdens growing out of the war figured powerfully and resentfully in their conclusion. They expected some waste through our tardy entrance into the war, but not such a stupid orgy of waste as appeared in great ineffective areas of effort. And since the conflict ended the American people have not been impressed at all with the quality of brain stuff that has been at work in Washington upon the problems of economic stabilization and reconstruction. Their hopes of a better order under a new Administration may not have been high, but they at least felt like the Kentucky mountaineer about whom young Teddy Roosevelt has been telling in his speeches, who went into a railway restaurant in the Kentucky mountains to get something to eat. And the waitress brought him the food and swished away again; and in the course of a quarter of an hour she swished back and said, 66 Will you have more tea or coffee?" And the mountaineer said: Gal, if this yar stuff in this yar cup is tea, gimme coffee; but if it's coffee, gimme tea. I'm bound to have a change."

66

And that is about what there is to it-North, South, East, or West. There are a few incidents in the eastern part of the country which are worthy of particular mention. The enormous majority for Harding in the State of New York of course had little

to do with the personality of Presito do with the personality of Presidential candidates. The separate National ballot gave this great State, and especially the great city of New York, the chance it was looking for to vent its vast resentment upon what it conceived as Wilsonism. And then, taking up a fresh ballot for State purposes, it almost cooled off enough to put the very magnetic and democratic and widely trusted Al Smith across for Governor again.

My judgment is that it would have been a mistake to do it, and that the electorate halted just in time, if for no other reason than that the experience of the last two years at Albany has shown the futility of having a Legisla ture of one party and an executive of another. Even with the best of intentions, the results for practical progress are very poor. Throughout the State of New York there are greatly increased taxes and expenditures and also widespread demand for measures of advance for the farmers and industrial workers. The measures of advance can come only as fast as the State can properly administer them and pay for them. The new Governor-elect, Nathan L. Miller, is, to my mind, almost ideally fitted by his demonstrated ability and wide experience in practical affairs for the leadership of the commonwealth in the present juncture.

The farmers saved Miller in New York. The industrial workers in the cities pretty generally supported Smith. And hereby hangs a tale. The FarmerLabor party did not poll a large vote, but it is the most significant group in the electorate. In the great Eastern States, where farming is on the decline and the factory workers are arousing to better industrial relations, it behooves the Republican party, now so widely in power, to study both the farm and the factory and provide relief in time; the farm out of gratitude for what the countryside has contributed to Republican success, the factory out of regard for the safety of the party in a day when the electorate may be in a far less exuberant mood of decision; and both for the sake of the democratic unity and economic welfare of the Republic. Governor Smith's chief error in New York has been his failure to understand the psychology and the environment of the up-State farmer. This was shown in his attempt to force through a milk commission bill to fix the price of milk at the cow, and also in his veto of the Daylight Saving Repeal Bill, which ran counter to the habit and comfort and convenience of practically every farmer in the State.

The contests for the United States Senate are especially illuminating. Wadsworth in New York, Brandegee in Connecticut, Moses in New Hamp

shire, are returned with firmness against a strong minority opposition. Tradi. tional progressivism did not avail, op position to woman suffrage did not avail, the cry of Cox against the "Senatorial oligarchy" did not avail; the people were for these Senators be cause upon the matter which the elec torate regarded as fundamental these men were for America.

The racial prejudice-Irish and Ger man and Italian-helps to account for the great Harding vote in New York City and in Boston. Prohibition was quite generally lost sight of, like woman suffrage, in the main decisions, although it was not simply the countryside but 0 the dry countryside that pulled Miller through into the Governorship of New York.

The Socialists seem to have gained, but not so materially. Here again, in spite of the impulse given to Socialism by the futile and ineffective leadership against it at Albany last year during the regular and extraordinary sessions of the Legislature, the tidal drift to wards Republicanism and traditional Americanism held everything else in check-Socialism, prohibition, suffrage resentment, the tariff, all the rest.

Just to show, however, that independence is not a lost art, the electorate in New York insurged valiantly against the tidal drift in the case of Governor Smith, and the city of Ogdensburg turned somersaults of decision. In that community the electors, according to the most recent returns, chose Harding the Republican for President, picked Smith the Democrat for Governor, turned to Wood the Republican for Lieutenant-Governor, then back to Harriet May Mills the Democrat for Secretary of State, although here the contest was close and the figures may be reversed; then they chose the rest of the Republican State ticket, next: Democratic Mayor and a Republican Common Council, next a Democratic Recorder, and then a Republican Dis trict Attorney and a Republican As semblyman, and finally picked the Democratic State Senator; and, to cap the climax, two thousand wrote in the name of a woman for the School Board If the infection of Ogdensburg spreads the days of the leadership of a political machine are numbered.

The tumult and the shouting dies, and, alas! already feuds lift their heads between the lines of the despatches from Marion. Soon there will be quak ing fears and aching hearts and disap pointed hopes where only yesterday was the universal exuberance of victory. And the Republican leadership will face, with what success doth not yet appear, the enormously difficult prob lems of the new age upon which we have entered.

B

W

ESTWARD and skyward from The Outlook's windows poises Diana, Goddess of Hunting. Earthward from the slim beauty of her gallant figure lies Madison Square Garden, combining in its form and its presiding genius the religion of Ephesus and the architecture of Spain. Madison Square Garden, as most Americans know, is the great assembly hall of New York City, which has sheltered under its wide roof during its useful lifetime all manners of human activity. There Buffalo Bill pursued his lumbering bison; Barnum and Bailey and Forepaugh have used it for their tent. It has witnessed the birth of motordom and testified to the conquest of the air. It has been the home of creeds and the battleground of politics. It has heard Alexander Dowie and William Jennings Bryan. It has seen the election of a Negro President of Africa, and it has echoed to the voice of Theodore Roosevelt calling a nation to war.

Yes, Diana has had many tenants housed in the vast structure over which she presides, and now flaming posters on the walls of her home declare that dit is again dedicated to an art and a pro

fession which goes back in history far beyond recorded time-the art and profession of human combat as finally regimented by the late lamented Marquis of Queensberry.

After languishing for a number of years, boxing for decisions and purses has been legally restored in New York State and the Garden has been captured by a gentleman well and favorably known to the sporting world as "Tex Rickard," who is devoting its familiar hall to the promotion of prize-fighting and the filling of his own ample purse.

Since boxing has been legally restored to the metropolis and has chosen to take up its abode under The Outlook's windows, it seemed but a natural thing to pay it a call, an act to which Mr. Rickard manifested no observable objection and a privilege which he seemed willing to extend to an editor of The Outlook as freely as to any one else with the necessary cash for a ticket.

I am not an authority on what our French allies call le box. I do not even pretend to be able to sort out of a welter of blows the various steps which lead to the award of a close decision on points. I think I can tell when a man is knocked out. I can observe closely enough to know whether a boxer is being hit in the stomach or the jaw. I believe I can recognize a left hook when I see one started. I say when I see one started advisedly, for I once saw one started in my direction from the general

Photograph by H. H. Moore, of the Outlook staff

vicinity of a gentleman with a cauliflower ear, a nose which resembled in its general outline the course of the river Meander, and a leathery complexion which seemed to have been pounded loose from its substructure by a series of fistic controversies which might well have begun in the Roman Colosseum. This veteran of the ring was endeavoring to teach me the principles of selfdefense.

"Lead for my chin," he said, genially. I swung with all my force for the point indicated. He had made no attempt to guard his face, and the blow appeared to cause him some surprise.

"I meant lead for my chin like this," he tapped my own reflectively with his right. "I didn't mean hit it like " I saw a left hook started in my direction, and it was not until some time later that I learned that his sentence had been completed by the word "that." So I say advisedly that I think I can distinguish a left hookat least during the initial stages of its progress.

When I presented myself at the portal of Mr. Rickard's colosseum, I found that quite a few others had been before me and had gobbled up most of the available calling cards which Mr. Rickard requires from guests seeking his hospitable roof. Only a few priced (with war tax) at eleven dollars each remained. Evidently the art of boxing finds more willing or more opu lent patrons than the art of Thespis. I confess that most of the patrons who surrounded me looked as though they

"WESTWARD AND SKYWARD FROM THE OUTLOOK'S WINDOWS POISES DIANA, GODDESS OF HUNTING. EARTHWARD FROM THE SLIM BEAUTY OF HER GALLANT FIGURE LIES MADISON SQUARE GARDEN"

would have to labor several hours even at modern union wages to acquire the necessary admission fee, but perhaps it is unsafe to judge the size of purses by the cut of coats in these enlightened days. And probably few of Mr. Rickard's guests ever felt called upon to waste their substance on first editions of Shelley or lessons in æsthetic dancing. I entered the Garden just before the preliminaries began. A babel of voices rose from the floor and floated down from the galleries. It was a wellbehaved crowd seeking its place in orderly fashion. It was a neighborly crowd exchanging appropriate repartee across vast spaces and greeting old acquaintances with back-slapping and shouts of "Ah, there, Bill."

I found my seat at last, located between a puffy-faced citizen and a keeneyed youth in a slouch hat who appeared to know the ancestry, past performances, and future prospects of all the evening's entertainers. I hesitated to enter into conversation with this gentleman lest my ignorance of the game prove mortifying, but I was soon assured as to his generosity of view-point, for every remark which I ventured drew forth an encouraging and invariable, "You said it, Bo." It was good to know that one had "said it," even if one was not entirely certain as to what. one had said. A survey of my other neighbors disclosed an almost exclusively masculine gathering, though here and there a woman's face showed in the tobacco smoke. A red-headed gentleman whom I had mistaken for the Mayor of New York in search of information as to the proper method of conducting a meeting of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment proved, on closer examination, to have no such claim

to fame. Doubtless I was surrounded by many other worthies of the sporting world, but, alas! I knew them not.

Promptly on the appointed moment the lights in the ceiling of the great hall grew dim. Beneath the second gallery a circle of light remained, punctuated here and there by the red exit signals. Over the inclosure known exit signals. Over the inclosure known as the "squared ring" a huge chandelier blossomed into light, a circular cloth cutting off its rays from most of the assembled multitude. Later I was to discover that the figures in the truncated cone of illuminated smoke beneath the chandelier seemed strangely familiar to my eyes. I could not trace the familiarity to any recollection of an actual scene until suddenly I remembered a daring study of light and movement in the prize ring from the brush of George Bellows. As the hall darkened the babble of the crowd changed to a concerted roar a roar made up of vowel sounds which rose and fell like surf on the shore. The referee, a cat-footed gentleman in white, stepped into the ring. Two boxers in gorgeous bathrobes took their places in opposite corners, surrounded by their rubbers and seconds. The referee fingered their bandaged hands in search of concealed horseshoes and dynamite. An announcer, who needed the voice of William A. Prendergast but who did not possess it, went through the time-honored practice of introducing all the distinguished gentlemen as sociated with this particular bout. A gong like the gong on a hurrying ambulance signaled for silence, and the two featherweights stepped forward. Shorn of their gorgeous apparel, the slender figures faced each other. The gong sounded again, and the fight was on.

It was a six-round bout. A good deal of damage was done to the circumambient air but little to the contenders. The boxers appeared to tire more from their own exertions than from the effect of the blows which they ex changed. After each round they came back grinning for more. The blows appeared to be either short jabs without much force or wide swings which glanced harmlessly from the sweating bodies. Once, indeed, one of them slipped to the floor for a four-second count, but he climbed up again, ducked into a clinch, and appeared little worse for the punishment he had received.

:

My pudgy left-hand neighbor observed, feelingly: "I paid eleven dollars for this seat. What didja pay for yours? Eleven dollars? Ain't it rotten to pay such money to see such lemons?" I wondered how long his corpulent form would withstand the pounding of even such lemons as these two striplings.

The ring cleared. A new set of contestants advanced. They were very earnest souls, but a bit erratic in their methods. There were body blows exchanged where the smack of glove and flesh was heavy enough to be heard far from the ring. At each such blow the roar of the crowd swelled in exultation. It was plain that fighting rather than boxing met its deepest desires. The voice of a crowd is a strange and eloquent thing. You need not tell me that animals with but a single cry have any difficulty in expressing all of the basic emotions-hate, fear, courage, despair, admiration, and disgust. All of these emotions manifested themselves in the E varying roar which filled the wide walls of the Garden. The yappings of indi vidual voices could be heard only from those who were near by. Twenty feet away they were swallowed up in a tumult which came from fifteen thou sand throats, but which voiced the emotions of the crowd as though it came from a single pair of lungs.

As the second fight progressed the blows which fell upon the eyes of one of the contestants seemed to promise an early closing hour, but he fought back gamely and in the end won the decision.

The third bout produced two men unequally matched in weight, but with the balance of skill falling heavily in favor of the lighter man-127 pounds against 140. He carried the fight with him in every round of the ten, dropping his opponent in the seventh and eighth each time for eight counts. More than once he seemed on the verge of landing a knockout blow. He kept his opponent at a distance with his straight right arm, while he landed with his left almost at will. Once his opponent, cling ing to the ropes with his left arm and feebly attempting to ward off the blows which broke through his defense, caught a series of left jabs in the stomach which left him white and reeling. The lighter boxer fought with his chin

tucked in, his blows seeming to spring from a complete co-ordination of mind and muscle. He was a fighting machine which bored tellingly through his opponent's guard. My pudgy friend on the left saw only the failures of the loser, and again voiced his disapproval of the management in failing to provide bet ter food for his fare. But the crowd thought otherwise. It was an occasion upon which good boxing combined with hard fighting won its complete approval.

For the fourth and last time, the ring cleared, and this time the two contestants were greeted with a boom of flashlights and redoubled cheers. They were contestants for the right to challenge for the light-weight crown. It was the bout of the evening-scheduled to go fifteen rounds to a decision or to a knockout if such a happy event was in store for the eager crowd.

For a time the contest seemed an even one, but as the fight wore on it was obvious that the gentleman in the green tights suffered more than his purple-panted opponent. Again and

again the gladiator in green saved himagain the gladiator in green saved himself by swiftly ducking under his opponent's extended right for a clinch. Always green broke away reluctantly at the command of the white-haired referee. The end came in the tenth round. Following his green-clad opponent into the corner, the knight in purple drove a straight right to green's jaw. Green went down for the count of nine, and as he rose to his feet he of the purple clothes followed his opponent as he toppled and slithered along the ropes. Purple caught him again as he clung to the opposite side of the ring with a series of terrific blows to his unguarded jaw and face. The one in green wilted limply and hung helplessly over the lower barrier; only the gong saved him from being counted out. But when the bell rang again for the eleventh round Green's seconds had thrown up the sponge. As the end came the whole crowd stood on their seats yelling and cheering, and then hastened out into the cool October air.

Overhead the stars were shining faintly and Diana, Goddess of Hunting, faintly and Diana, Goddess of Hunting,

BHAI BANDI

loomed darkly against the cloudless sky. What of your new tenants, Diana? Do they hunt as you would have them hunt? Do they play the game as you would have it played? If Diana could speak, I wonder what her answer would be?

Even in that far-distant time when Utopia has come to earth I think there will be boxing a-plenty. It is a clean sport, or can be made so, but I think that in Utopia they will order some things differently. I think the ringside in Utopia will be surrounded by cleanlimbed athletes who are themselves willing and unafraid to exchange hard blows. Perhaps in Utopia the ringside seats will go to those with the best bodies and not to men with the fattest purse. The pudgy gentlemen whose fear of losing bets is only exceeded by their fear of personal blows will be relegated to the top gallery or beyond. And those who fight in a squared ring will fight, not for greater purses than the salaries of kings and presidents, but for the love of a manly game. But Utopia lies a long way ahead.

HE of a hot May afternoon

motherland you taught us how to

army? Because the Seventy-first Pun

the of the cantonment station, and on the platform a surge of dark-skinned men in the KingEmperor's khaki, whose cheers almost drowned the utmost efforts of the full regimental band. Those who climbed the bridge across the tracks to discover the cause of the tamasha could see the center of interest. It was a group of three-a man, a woman, and a little dog-all garlanded to stifling with the flower wreaths which an Oriental hangs upon those whom he delights to honor. It was the farewell tribute of the Seventy-first Punjabis to their Depot Major, just starting home for

six months' leave.

The crowning glory of the demonstration was an address printed in gold, the composition of the regimental Chrysostom. Much time and labor had gone to the framing of its quaintly precise sentences, but if spontaneity was lacking genuine feeling was there. "Honored and Beloved Sir: In these days of bustling activity, when mere words are held of small account, we have assembled here this afternoon not to give you a formal farewell but to tell you how greatly you have won our respects and made a portion of our affection and best memories your own. You, sir, embodied in yourself the cardinal virtues of a successful officerkind but not indulgent, strict but not stern, noble but not proud. As an Englishman true to the finest traditions of

encouraged us to meet on the broad plane of humanity, ignoring all accidental differences of race, rank, and age. You set for us an example of service and sacrifice, and have shown us how to make ourselves worthy sons of our motherland and loyal soldiers and citizens of the British Empire."

The Major was in no mood to be touched by ornate phrases. He was suffering physically from the usual prickly heat of India, augmented by frangipani blossoms down his neck, but he was also undergoing the even more acute mental anguish that afflicts an Englishman who has done his duty and is confronted by an emotional public recognition of the fact. Embarrassed as he was by the spectacular praise, he was touched too. This was not an ordinary leave-taking; the service which it service which it crowned had been far outside the commonplace. The Major's voice was a little husky with something more than the ubiquitous Indian dust as he began his reply. He looked over the crowding dark faces to the tall chaplain who had been his comrade in the struggles, the disappointments, and the triumphs'that were the background of this scene, and they exchanged an understanding smile as the Major's voice deepened on the key-word of their common effortbhai bandi-brotherhood.

Why should there be more bhai bandi among the Seventy-first Punjabis than in any other part of the Indian

only native regiment. The position of a native convert is always painful. He is an outcast even to the Untouchables, lower than the pariah. Even the army cannot ignore caste, that tradition which is in the blood of every Hindu, and the position of a native Christian soldier among his Hindu-can one call them comrades under the circumstances? was SO strained that as the number of native Christian soldiers increased it seemed not only advisable but necessary to unite them in a regiment of their own. In 1917 this was done, and the Seventyfirst Punjabis were brought together, company by company, from other regiments. Their first station was at Ferozepur, and from there they were moved to Quetta, where they got into serious trouble. It is not strange that most of the converts are of the low castes-a religion that preaches equality naturally has a stronger appeal to a man who is at the hopeless bottom of the ladder than to one who is serenely secure of his position at the top. The convert is hated by the caste he has left and despised by the high caste, and when the

men

of the Seventy-first Punjabis walked through the Quetta bazaars they were greeted as bhangi (sweepers) and kafir (infidels). Endurance, to them, presently ceased to be a virtue, and trouble ensued in which some lives were lost. As a result the regiment was at once transferred to Bussorah, where