Hindsight

A

NY prophet who wants an easy job should apply for the task of forecasting the result of the American Amateur Tennis Championship. At least for the past six years it would have been safe for a prophet to have foretold the victory of William T. Tilden 2d over William Johnston in the finals.

Six years is a phenomenal period to maintain supremacy in so strenuous a game as lawn tennis-a game which demands the maximum co-ordination of physical force and mental control.

Each year sees an addition to the ranks of youngsters. Some day one of them will wrest the crown from Tilden. Who that will be is not yet manifested.

The Voice of the Bells

ON

N Sunday of week before last the air in the neighborhood of Park Avenue and 63d Street vibrated to an unaccustomed music. It was then for the first time that New York was listening to a carillon, the greatest in the world. Made in Croydon, England, for the Park Avenue Baptist Church, the gift of Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., in memory of his mother, it will continue to spread music of a rare kind through those skies.

A carillon is a set of bells tuned to the notes of the chromatic scale upon which music in two or more parts can be played; that is, airs with accompaniments, sonatas, fugues, and other forms of music. The bells are played either by a carillonneur or automatically. The term carillon is applied, with technical correctness, to sets of twenty-five or more bells. The carillonneur produces his music by means of a clavier, constructed on a principle somewhat similar to that of the manuals and pedals of an organ. The keys are of wood.

The carillon is a development of the chime, from which they differ rather in size and tonal importance than in quality.

Even by comparison with the worldfamous carillons of the Low Countries of Europe, the New York bells are said to be marvelous. Fifty-three bells, varying from a huge bourdon weighing no less than thirteen tons to silvery bells of the most delicate timber, will ring out songs for us at regular intervals, chiefly hymns, no doubt, though, if required, they could render, it is said, the most complex melodies and enchanting harmonies.

Bell-founding is one of the most inter

In

esting and difficult exemplifications of applied metal work. It is historic in its significance and immensely complex as to its technic. It combines art with industry, draughtsmanship with labor. England it has flourished, more or less steadily, since the thirteenth century, and, though excelled at certain periods by their competitors of the Netherlands, English founders have cast some of the most wonderful bells in the world. One firm, now active in Loughborough-the Taylor firm has been active since the fourteenth century.

Carillons in Sky-Scrapers
Why Not?

THE

HE art or craft of founding the modern carillon, or extended chromatic compass of bells, may be said to have reached its apogee on the Continent in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. Among its most illustrious exponents were the two Hemonys, Francis and Peter. From their time on the Belgian and Dutch skill in casting bells gradually diminished, only, however, to be emulated and at last excelled by the English founders who made their headquarters at Loughborough and at Croydon, a suburb of London.

Many Americans in their foreign wanderings have been fascinated by the loveliness of the bells attached to the old

churches of Bruges and Antwerp, Alkmaar, Haarlem, Rotterdam, and Malines. But carillons are now used for secular as well as for religious purposes. The Town Hall at Rotterdam has been enriched by one made in England. There is no reason why sweet chimes should be monopolized by cathedrals. They could add beauty to the grim life of the laborer just as fitly as they lend charm to the externals of religion. A belfry in Times Square might prove more potent even as an advertisement than the most garish and absurd electric signs. And the dark sordidness of many grimy factories would repel less if for the hootings of the present midday whistles intelligent capitalists were to substitute the appeal of carillons.

Anglo-Saxons, as a rule, affect indifference to æstheticism. But in their hearts they also crave beauty. It was at Loughborough that, only a few years ago, the first flawless demonstration of what chimes might mean was made in a tower especially constructed in the Taylor works for a set or chromatic scale of thirty-seven bells. Since then the Taylors and their most notable competitors, Gillett and Johnston, of Croydon, have improved vastly on what was once regarded as a supreme achievement. And it is probable that a carillon will soon ring in the imposing Victoria Tower at Westminster as a memorial to the Bri

and Irish peers who laid down their lives during the late war.

S

What's Wrong with
Reclamation?

ECRETARY WORK'S policy concerning reclamation as he states it in his interview in this issue of The Outlook is simple and clear. Those who attack it cannot do so under any misunderstanding. It is stated so definitely and in such terms that the principle on which it rests is evident and unmistakable.

Mr. Saklatvala announced that he would carry on subversive and revolutionary propaganda, that he would work for revolution, and that the workers of the world before controlling the world would have to face cold steel. Because of his violent pronouncements, the American Government ordered his visa canceled.

The American Government's
Point of View

WH

HY did the American Government feel it necessary to take notice of the opinions of this comparatively obscure man? In answer to that, the following can be accepted as authenti

Justice to the irrigator who, year after year, has met his payments to the Nation which advanced the money and to those projects that are meeting their payments on time requires that irrigation debts to the Government should be collected as taxes are collected.

Those who are criticising Secretary Work for his policy because they find it inconvenient to pay what they can pay should get little sympathy from the rest of the Nation.

This policy of justice also requires that the benefit of reclamation should go, not to the land speculator, but to those who employ the land for the purposes for which it was reclaimed.

Ideas in Quarantine

S

OME have greatness thrust upon

them.

Shapurji Saklatvala was not born great, and by nothing that he has done has he achieved greatness; but he has suddenly become a personage whose opinions are quoted far and wide in the press, whose personality has been portrayed in pen pictures to satisfy the curiosity of millions. His sudden rise to eminence he owes to the ban pronounced against him by the United States Department of State.

A native of India, Mr. Saklatvala went to England, studied law, and in time became a member of Parliament, representing a constituency near London. He is a Communist. As such he is committed to the overthrow of all non-Communist governments by force.

He had intended to attend the sessions of the Interparliamentary Union, which is to meet in Washington in October. Having received a visa on his passport,

Under the law the Secretary of State, acting by the authority of the President, is charged with preventing the admission. to the United States of certain classes of aliens. Among these are the following:

(a) Aliens who are Anarchists; (b) Aliens who advise, advocate, or teach, or who are members of or affiliated with any organization, association, society, or group, that advises, advocates, or teaches, opposition to all organized government;

(c) Aliens who believe in, advise, advocate, or teach, or who are members of or affiliated with any organization, association, society, or group, that believes in, advises, advocates, or teaches: (1) the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States or of all forms of law. This law was enacted during the war. Congress later rescinded most of the war legislation, but on June 5, 1920, this act, as amended and restated, was specifically extended to remain in effect until further action should be taken. It is clear that Congress felt strongly on the matter, since when the law was extended the House voted for it unanimously and the opinion of the Senate was so clear that it was not considered necessary to call for a division.

This law is constantly being enforced through the refusal of visas to persons of little or no influence. The Administration does not see how the Secretary of State could continue to enforce the law if a person who was clearly barred under its terms were permitted entry merely because he happened to be a member of the legislative body of a foreign nation, or because great publicity attaches to his case. If the law is wrong, if it is not the intent of the American people that there should be a quarantine against revolutionary ideas, Congress has the

right to change the law. If, on the other hand, the law stands, the Secretary of State, in the fulfillment of his duties, should, it is held, be expected to enforce it against high or low, obscure or notorious.

The Interparliamentary Union is not a body organized or directed by the Government of the United States. Delegates to its meetings are not, it is understood, chosen from the various legislatures which participate nor are they nominated by their respective governments. On the other hand, any member of a legislature may attend who signifies his desire to do so.

Some months ago the Department of State authorized its consular officers to extend visas to persons desiring to attend the conference to be held in Washington, and under this blanket instruction a visa was granted to Mr. Saklatvala. Subsequently Mr. Saklatvala indulged in a series of incendiary speeches both within Parliament and without, and these speeches were brought to the attention of the Department and, being duly confirmed, placed Mr. Saklatvala clearly in the category of "those aliens who advocate and teach the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States or of all forms of law," in the sense of the act of October 16, 1918, as amended June 5, 1920.

Certain newspapers have taken up alleged aspects of the case which the Department believes have no foundation in fact. The exclusion of an alien has

nothing to do with the question of free speech, yet perhaps the most commonly quoted criticism of the Government is that the United States restricts freedom of speech, whereas Great Britain does not.

There are references to the meetings in Hyde Park, where all sorts of revolutionary theories are propounded. Equally in the United States there are similar revolutionary speeches every Sunday on Boston Common and elsewhere. Nothing more violent is said in London than in this country, and in both cases the Government does not restrict the freedom of speech. On Boston Common, however, it is Americans who are attacking their own Government, just as in London it is British citizens who are attacking the British Government. Should similar speeches be made in Hyde Park by Americans, the chances are they would be very promptly stopped, and there seems to be no reason why the American Government should admit rev

olutionary foreigners to attack our institutions.

Assertions are freely made that this country is unique in that it alone refuses to admit dangerous foreign agitators. As a matter of fact, similar laws are in effect in most foreign countries. As an example of this, it may be pointed out that when recently there was a Communist Party Conference at Glasgow, the British Home Secretary refused to allow "alien Bolshevik delegates known to have been engaged in revolutionary and subversive activities to enter the country to attend the Conference." There seems little difference between this regulation and the American law.

Certain papers, and notably Mr. Saklatvala himself, have made the suggestion that he was excluded at the instance of the British Government. This assertion is declared to be absolutely and unqualifiedly false. The British Government has not approached the American Government in the matter, either formally or informally. As the event has shown, the British Government considered the matter one to be decided solely by the United States in accord with American law.

Legal-But is it Wise?

SUCH

UCH is the attitude of the American
Government.

No doubt exists of the right of the Department of State to exclude this alien. Under the law it is certainly exercising its power and seems to be performing its legal duty. Whatever reasonable criticism can be directed against the State Department must be based on something besides an assumption that it is exceeding its authority.

The American Government acted legally. The question still remains, Did the American Government act wisely?

If Mr. Saklatvala were seeking to become a permanent resident of the United States, his exclusion would be in full accord with the settled policy of the American people. We have enough cranks here already. Those who want to become members of the American family must be in accord with American ideals. There is no such reason for excluding cranks as casual visitors. Our institutions are not so fragile that blasts of hot air from a transient guest can shatter them. If the law regulating the admis

tors, it should be changed. There is no reason why our Government should invest people like Mr. Saklatvala with distinction. That he was ill-mannered enough to call Secretary Kellogg a liar and defamer indicates that he would have probably brought discredit upon himself and his theories if he had come and talked. It is true that he might have said things which would have compelled the authorities to deport him. The Nation might well have taken that risk. It is true that the State Department had the choice between two evils-one that of attempting to quarantine ideas, the other that of risking prolonged controother that of risking prolonged controversy with a trouble-maker. Such a choice should be resolved in the favor of liberty. Freedom has its risks, but, other things being equal, they are not as great as those attending suppression and restraint.

It is repeatedly said that nowhere in the world is external restriction placed upon the minds and manners of men as it is in America. This charge cannot be sustained, but the fact that it can be sustained, but the fact that it can be made indicates the tendency in America against which we should be on our guard. From the anti-evolution law of Tennessee to the ban on straw hats after the 15th of September there is a constant force in America tending to impose conformity. If we believe sufficiently in American institutions, we shall not fear what foreigners may have to say about them. America has been known to convert Socialists and Communists. We certainly do not serve the cause of American democracy by thrusting greatness upon the Karolyis and the Saklatvalas.

P

The Spirit of the
Northwest

ATRIOTS on both sides of the three thousand and odd miles of border line separating the United States of America from the United Provinces of Canada have been wont these many years, since the War of 1812, to magnify the intercommunal amity which has made the fortification of that long frontier unnecessary. More happily expressed, the northern border of our States and the southern boundary of the Dominion are fortified by friendship. The unveiling of the Harding Memorial at Vancouver on September 16 by the Canadian Americans of British Columbia

that have concretely come to pass, an evidence of mutual states of mind in the northwest of the North American Continent joining across an arbitrary demarcation. Nowhere a barrier, the international line in the west provides very little more bump than the corresponding geographical definitions between States and Provinces. It is, indeed, becoming more of a link than a separation.

Harding made his last speech as President of the United States in Stanley Park, Vancouver, on July 26, 1923. It was a becoming valedictory; characteristic of the large-hearted man, appropriate on the Pacific coast to a peaceminded President. Canadians consider it the most welcome phrasing of these particular international relations that has come officially and responsibly from the American side in the present generation. On the spot where his parting words were spoken in the cause of good sense between neighboring peoples of the same race and traditions his memorial now stands near the wide rose gardens of Stanley Park in an amphitheater of fir spires that are ever green.

The western provinces of Canada differ in many ways from Quebec and Ontario and eastern Manitoba. They are very young; young as communities, young in habit of mind, young in finding irksome distinctions that are, or have become, comparatively meaningless. Vancouver has far more commercially in common with Seattle than it has with Toronto; French-Canadian Quebec has nothing very tangible of joint interest with Winnipeg except the termini of grain-hauling railroads, whereas Winnipeg is fast developing joint enterprises with the Twin Cities of Minnesota. A sensible amount of first-class American agricultural immigration comes north into Alberta and Saskatchewan from the Western States. It is in the younger west of Canada, and particularly in the northwest, that a matter-of-fact Americanism not at all a matter of sentiment -expresses itself in the relations of men. The Fourth of July is as much of a celebration in British Columbia as is Dominion Day on the first of July. At opposite ends of the same week they constitute one big declaration of the same kind of independence. On July 4 of this year for six miles south of the border the Pacific Highway was congested to a standstill with United States motor traffic bound north into British C bia a Columbia that was, for th

ing neighbors, broad-gauge American in habits and customs as well as British in name to spend their week-end holiday. Labor Day took effect almost equally in an abandonment of labor internationally. Nothing in language or manner or attitude distinguishes the luncheon clubs of Vancouver from their affiliated organizations, on the hither side of the unfelt line; nothing but the hymn that each sings at the end of their get-together repasts, and even in that the melody is the same whether the words be "God Save the King" or "My Country, 'Tis of Thee."

Something of this actuality the Presi

T

dent about to die caught in his valediction. And the International Kiwanis, engraving his words in bronze on the memorial they have built, have only raised an enduring and visible token of the convictions their common experiences have taught them. "American" in the northwest of America means something -not so much a common heritage as a mutual future in which the bordering provinces and the States may share. The Harding memorial stands for something much more unifying than the annexation which in this parting address an American President himself expressly repu

diated.

HEY are celebrating just now in England the centennial of the steam railroad. The date of the birth of the railroad as a means of transportation is shrouded in some obscurity. The centenary festival is therefore based upon a historical event arbitrarily cho

sen.

This event was the public opening in September, 1825, of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, in the north of England, on which, for the first time, a locomotive or "traveling engine" was used to haul passengers and freight over metal rails. On this occasion a stationary engine drew the loaded cars or wagons up the steepest incline or grade and lowered them on the other side. At the foot of the grade a "traveling engine" was coupled on and driven by George Stephenson. The train consisted of thirty-four open wagons-the first six loaded with coal and flour, next a special coach for the directors of the company and their friends, then twenty-one wagons with temporary seats for ordinary passengers, and at the end of the train six more wagons loaded with coal. "The signal being given," says a contemporary observer, "the engine started off with this immense train of carriages, and such was its velocity, that in some parts the speed was frequently twelve miles an hour; and at that time the number of passengers was counted to be four hundred and fifty, which, together with the coals, merchandise, and carriages, would amount to near ninety tons"! The exclamation mark is my own. To-day in

the United States the heaviest engines and tenders alone weigh considerably over two hundred tons and freight trains of over four thousand tons weight are not unknown.

No one can read, even superficially, the history of steam-railroad transportation and condemn out of hand what the

future may have in store for aerial navigation, even in the face of the terrible disaster which recently ended the career of the Shenandoah. In a hundred years the mileage of the railways of the world, exclusive of trams and trolleys, have grown from less than one hundred miles to approximately seven hundred thousand miles. And yet, says the biographer of George Stephenson, "the idea. of traveling at a rate of speed double that of the fastest [horse-drawn] mail coach appeared at that time so preposterous that Mr. Stephenson was unable to find any engineer who would risk his reputation in supporting his 'absurd views.'... George Stephenson's idea was indeed at that time regarded but as the dream of a chimerical projector. It stood before the public friendless, and scarcely daring to lift itself into notice for fear of ridicule. The civil engineers generally rejected the notion of a Locomotive Railway; and when no leading man of the day could be found to stand forward in support of the Killingworth mechanic, its chances of success must have been pronounced but small. But like all great truths, the time was surely to come when it was to prevail."

George Stephenson, who drove the en

gine, which he himself had built, at the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, if not the inventor of the steam railroad and the locomotive, was at least their father and founder. He was the son of a laborer in a coal mine near Newcastle, not far from the Scottish border, and was born in 1781. He never went to school, the family being too poor for that. At fifteen years of age he was assistant fireman on a stationary engine at the mouth of a coal pit, earning a shilling a day, and his highest ambition was to become an engineman. He was eighteen years old before he even learned to read. But genius has its own methods of obtaining an education, and, having learned to read and at nineteen to write his own name, he began to take lessons in arithmetic from a Scotchman, paying his teacher fourpence a week. He used to model engines in clay and to take his own engine to pieces, when he became an engineman, in order to become familiar with its mechanism. It was not long before he achieved a local reputation as a skilled mechanic, and many were the wheezy and leaky engines, unable because of defects to keep their pits clear of water, which he cured.

He was of course early familiar with "rail-ways." As early as 1676 wooden rails in the neighborhood of Newcastle were laid from the mouth of the coal pits and wagons on wheels which fitted these wooden rails were drawn by horses. Next, in order to protect the wooden rails from rotting and wear, thin plates of iron were nailed upon them. Then cast-iron rails were substituted for the wooden ones and cast-iron flanges were fastened to the wagon tires to keep the wheels upon the track. In the year 1800 one Benjamin Outram substituted stone props for wooden sleepers in the horse. railroads used in the coal mines. His invention was called an "Outram road," which was finally shortened to "tram road," whence sprang the words “tram” and "tram car," used in England to this day.

The first idea of steam locomotion was to have a steam-propelled vehicle use ordinary carriage roads for its path of progress. It is said that a Frenchman in 1641 was imprisoned in a madhouse by the authorities because of the importunities with which he annoyed them to listen to his description of an invention by which he could employ steam propulsion to navigate ships at sea and move carriages on land. In 1772 an American,

Oliver Evans by name, invented a steam carriage for common roads, but it was never practically developed. Stephenson appears to have been the first seriously to work upon the conception of a locomotive to run upon "rail-ways." At all events, he was the first to believe that the power of adhesion would drive a smooth-wheeled engine upon a smooth rail, and in 1814 he built such an engine for the "rail-way" at a coal mine at Killingworth. The principal partner in the mine was Lord Ravensworth, who backed Stephenson financially in building his locomotive. The machine worked satisfactorily, and in honor of his financial backer Stephenson named it "My Lord." Fifteen years later, at the age of forty-eight, Stephenson built the first practical passenger locomotive in a contest for a prize of $2,500 offered by the promoters of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. This was the famous

W

Rocket, which embodied all the general principles of the modern locomotive, notably the forced draught created by sending the exhaust steam through the smokestack. The Rocket is now, I believe, preserved at Newcastle as a memento of Stephenson. It is really his monument, for it is the grandfather, with an immense progeny, of all the locomotive engines in the world.

Stephenson was not merely a man of one idea. He was an amateur naturalist of no mean pretensions; he invented a safety lamp for miners, which was called in his honor the "Geordy" by his enthusiastic co-workers, although it was superseded by the more perfect appliance invented by Sir Humphry Davy; he was a railroad builder and engineer as well as a great mechanic; indeed, his range of interests was so wide that Ralph Waldo Emerson, who met him in England in 1847, when he was approaching his

seventieth year, spoke of him as one who "had the lives of many men in him."

In his youth Stephenson was an athlete; in his old age, if one may judge from his portrait, he was a handsome figure of man. Extremely popular with the hundreds of workingmen with whom he was associated and whom he employed, and regarded with respect, admiration, and even affection by scores of Englishmen of the highest social position, he was always a man of self-respect, self-possession, and yet of modesty. More than once offered a knighthood by the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, he courteously but persistently declined the honor. He had no need of the title, nor has his memory need of the honor it was intended to convey. As plain George Stephenson he ought to be, and will be, remembered as one of the great benefactors of mankind.

HEN a few weeks ago I received an invitation to take part in a Conference on American Relations with China at Johns Hopkins University, I hesitated. A glance at the list of sponsors upon whose judgment I was to rely for assurance that the Conference would be worth while made me a bit dubious. I saw only half a dozen names familiar as students of Far Eastern affairs. On second thought, the absence of experts was reassuring. If one would not gain much more knowledge of China and her difficulties, at least one might find out what the average American citizen thought about her problems.

The Cohort of Veterans
bx my arrival at Johns Hopkins,

the preponderance of elderly men and women was disconcerting. Was young China going to be judged by old America? I soon found that most of these older people were really less American than Chinese. They could speak of thirty years of residence in China without much gusto-in fact, that seemed to them of less importance than was a trip to China in summer to some of the younger ones. In the hall I occasionally caught the sound of that full, voluble Chinese language, only to be surprised to find that an American bishop was talking to a Chinese student.

In and about the convention room were sprinkled the solemn faces of young Chinese students; solemn because conscious of the importance and the gravity. scious of the importance and the gravity of the meeting, for the fate of their country hung, not upon the decisions of country hung, not upon the decisions of this Conference, but upon the series of events that must follow it. They were gracious, friendly yet not forward, communicative without self-assertion, and altogether quite at home. The tall, full, jovial countenance and figure of Alfred Sze, the Chinese Minister, with his absolute self-possession, tended to complete this picture. Much smaller in stature, but with a maturity and a severity that intensified the Chinese sense of dignity, was the person of Dr. P. W. Kuo, former President of Southeastern University, at Nanking, China. According to the order of the programme, Dr. Kuo was the meat of this sandwich we had come to Johns Hopkins to devour. I say sandwich, because the programme ended in inverse order of its beginning. Mr. Charles Crane, former Minister to China, was the first speaker and the last, the thin slice of bread, so to speak. Minister Sze was the second and the next to the last, or the butter and jam. With all due respect to the Americans, who were the spices, if you will, the really difficult task of bringing China herself into the Conference fell to Dr. Kuo. It is hard to refrain from flattery in this instance.

Here was a Chinese, educated, versatile, gifted, in the anomalous position of having to present himself, as it were, as evidence of the great culture and refinement of the oldest civilization in the world. In thirty-five hundred years from now America will be as old as China is now; but then China will be seventy-five hundred years old. It can't be helped. Yet here was Dr. Kuo obliged to listen to praise of his country that was refutation of unjust criticism; to accept sympathy from this youngest of nations, when it is we who in our infancy had nourished ourselves on the affluence of China. It is well to point out that the China trade, which gave us our start as a nation, at a time when Europe was trying to kill the little Republic, was at the same time the self-same trade that began to undermine the power and glory of China. We have grown to eminence, and China is temporarily in eclipse. So it must have been very hard for Dr. Kuo to remain free from resentment at the very praise spread broadly, as though the spices claimed the importance of the meat. Yet through it all Dr. Kuo maintained a poise and a dignity that were touchingalways ready to answer questions, always ready to give information without appearing to persuade, always ready to deny allegations without appearing to whitewash his country.

Mr. Crane expressed the fear that the