On March 6 last there was distributed among Americans in Mexico City a circular signed by the Brazilian Minister to Mexico stating that he was instructed by Secretary Bryan "to remind them of the President's advice to Americans to leave Mexico until conditions become settled." Thereupon a meeting of Americans citizens was held, a committee appointed, and a full statement was sent to Mr. Bryan by cablegram showing the terror and demoralization in Mexico City and the impossibility of following the advice to flee, and asking that the message be given to the press as the only way of getting the facts before friends and relatives. Mr. Bryan refused to do this; but recently the cablegram and later ones have been printed in the New York "Herald." The correspondence. forms an instructive corollary to Mr. Caspar Whitney's article on "The Plight of Americans" elsewhere in this issue of The Outlook.

Our American fellow-citizens in these appeals, among other things, declared:

Thousands of Americans and other foreigners scattered throughout the country find it quite impossible to leave their all or to abandon positions of trust in charge of business or property of owners in the United States and elsewhere. Duty compels them to remain.

The Mexican political situation is more chaotic and helpless than ever. The foreigners of other nationalities, our neighbors and friends, are now asking what course is open for them if conditions are such as to render it necessary for Americans to leave, and they look to Americans for counsel. . .

We are engaged in lawful and useful occupations. We respectfully ask from our Government effective guaranties of those rights and

If the foreigners should leave en masse, it would be to repeat the late sad experience of the Belgians. With many it means to leave behind the savings and other interests of a lifetime and to arrive in the United States or Europe virtually as charges upon public or friends..

The great majority of the fifteen millions of

Mexican people, unarmed and generally passive, are victims of violent deeds committed under the guise of revolution, and are praying for an end to the reign of disorder, bloodshed, rapine, and destruction into which the Madero revolution has degenerated.

The reply received from Mr. Bryan was a brief expression of sympathy, another reiteration of advice to leave Mexico, and a statement that Carranza joined in this advice, but had promised to do what he could to protect life and property. The committee of Americans, in a second message of remonstrance and appeal, included as an ironic comment on Carranza's promises the following list of things "done or decreed" by Carranza after he gained control of Mexico City :

The arbitrary taking from Mexicans and foreigners of property, including houses, horses, automobiles, carriages, furniture, money, and crops; the issuing of decrees so in contravention of right, fairness, and justice as to be almost incredible; the deliberate, persistent, and ill-concealed attempt to starve a city of 500,000 inhabitants, depriving them of water, fuel, and transportation; the shipping of defenseless women in locked cattle cars to Vera Cruz; the carrying away of the controllers of electric street cars, thus paralyzing transit; the closing of the courts and schools; the holding of priests for ransom; the arrest and detention of three hundred. business men who had assembled at the request of the general in charge of the city; the persecution of Spaniards; the suppression of the mails and the violation of sealed correspondence, both foreign and domestic; the removal of public archives and the stripping of public buildings; the open invitation to riot and loot; the sacking of churches and desecration of images; the killing of men and the outraging of women, are events too recent and well known to permit of their being overlooked in forming judgment. The wantonness of such acts renders it impossible to accept the professions of these factionists or their counsels as to the course to be pursued by foreigners.

Finally the committee adds: "Mexico is drifting toward total destruction, from which

a mistaken altruism is powerless to save it. The present struggle does not represent the efforts of a people to secure liberty and civil rights so much as a clash of personal ambition and revenge."

No wonder that Secretary Bryan again found it inexpedient to comply with a second request to give the appeals to American readers. The less Americans here know how Americans in Mexico feel and fear, the less dissatisfaction will exist about the lack of aid and sympathy from our Government to its citizens in distress.

THE WALSh-rockefeller

CONTROVERSY

His

Whatever chance there was that the Federal Commission on Industrial Relations would prove useful in helping to solve the acute industrial questions of the present seems to be disappearing. There has been plenty of heat in the industrial situation. What is needed is light. Chairman Walsh, of the Commission, has been contributing very little light and a great deal of heat. The investigations which he has conducted have been marked by a spirit of controversy rather than by a spirit of research. most recent achievement has been to engage in a more or less personal controversy with John D. Rockefeller, Jr. This controversy has to do with the Colorado strike. Mr. Walsh, in effect, charges that Mr. Rockefeller, contrary to his own testimony, exerted a direct influence in resisting the demands of the strikers and attempted to influence the policy of the State of Colorado by dictating letters that were to go out from the Governor of Colorado to the President of the United States and others. He publishes documents that he declares support his view. Mr. Rockefeller denies the charge and says that the documents, so far from supporting the view, controvert it.

Whether Mr. Walsh is correct or not in his opinions is of minor consideration. What is of first importance is the fact that by his course he is fast destroying any possibility that the Commission of which he is Chairman will serve the purpose for which it was created. It was not created in order to be an indicting and prosecuting body. There is already too much of the spirit of accusation and controversy in industry. Indeed, the industrial system of modern times has been largely a system of war. Labor organizations and capitalistic organizations have

engaged in struggle after struggle, which has involved the employment of violence and the shedding of blood. Which side has been right and which wrong in any particular controversy is not the chief question to be settled, but, rather, what means can be taken to put industry on a basis of peace and cooperation, instead of on a basis of war. This involves the gathering and compilation of facts in a spirit of free and judicial inquiry. Anything which injects into such inquiry the war spirit will defeat the very end to which that inquiry is directed.

In the belief that the only agency to carry on such an investigation is the Federal Government, a number of men urged the creation of the. Federal Industrial Commission. If the personnel of that Commission had been of the right sort, it could have contributed enormously toward the solution of the industrial problem: President Taft's appointees to that Commission were so unsatisfactory that the Senate failed to confirm them. President Wilson had the opportunity then to create a great Commission. When the appointments he had made were announced, however, they evoked little enthusiasm from those who were most deeply concerned in the matter. The course of the Commission since its organization has been continually disap-. pointing.

If the next Congress abolishes the Commission, as popular dissatisfaction may lead it to do, it will be due, not to any defect in the plan on which it was based, but to the temperamental disqualification of the Chairman for the duties to which he was called and his inability to see the great opportunity which he has had.

NEW YORK AND NATIONAL POLITICS

New York is usually a pivotal State politically.

Fortunately, to-day the temper of the Republicans at present in the saddle in New York is not representative of the temper of all the Republicans throughout the United States. This is fortunate for the Republican party, for were it otherwise defeat would be a certainty for the Republicans in 1916.

Swept into power in the midst of widespread dissatisfaction with the Democratic National Administration, and largely as a result of deep local disgust with four years of Democratic misrule, the Republican Governor and Legislature of New York seem to

THE NEW PRESIDENT OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA

The inauguration, on April 21, of Dr. Edward Kidder Graham as President of the University of North Carolina was an event of more than academic interest. Beautiful for situation at Chapel Hill, the University has been a leader in the development of the intellectual life of the State. The little group of students which went out from it with the enthusiasm of evangelists for education have changed the atmosphere and attitude of the whole State. Dr. Alderman,

Dr. McIver, and other members of that gallant band fairly demolished the old strongholds of prejudice against State education. North Carolina has always had a sturdy, independent, and aggressive body of citizens. From Colonial times taxation was associated in their minds with oppression; and it was very difficult to persuade the old-time North Carolinian that when he taxed himself for his own benefit he was not using arbitrary power for selfish ends.

The little company of educational apostles made a campaign which reached the whole State. They spoke in school-houses, in fact wherever they could get an audience, and carried home to the stalwart and vigorous people of North Carolina knowledge of the great educational needs of the State, and inspired them to meet those needs with adequate education. Now North Carolina is in energy and interest one of the banner States; and from it, in very large degree, started that great educational renaissance which has given the educational movement throughout the South religious fervor and apostolic consecration.

The new President of the University of North Carolina is a North Carolinian by birth and education. He was born in the pleasant old city of Charlotte, educated in the schools of that city, and was graduated from the University of which he is now the head. In 1894 he pursued graduate studies at Columbia University; and three years after his graduation returned to his Alma Mater, with which he has now been associated for sixteen years, as librarian, instructor, professor, and acting President. He has won the great regard of the students and the confidence of his associate professors. He is a firm believer in student self-government. A portrait of Dr. Graham appears on another page.

The exercises in Memorial Hall were presided over by the Governor of the State. Addresses were made by President Goodnow, of the Johns Hopkins University; Dr. Alderman, of the University of Virginia; and Professor White, of Harvard. The inaugural address was vigorous and direct, and outlined the future policy of President Graham for the University. One inevitable quality the State University must have: it must be sensitively alive in every vital point to the time, the needs, and the place of the people it serves. The University has recently adopted the motto, "Maximum Service to all People;" and it is rendering that service in many ways. It

has established correspondence courses for those who cannot leave their homes, summer schools for teachers, rural life conferences, night schools for Negroes of the local village, and road institutes for the builders of highways. It has sent out package libraries, extension bulletins devoted to the study of school problems, and a great variety of information relating to school, home, farm, city, and State. This extension work of the University is to be pushed further and harder ; and President Graham, who is still a young man, is an ardent believer in the public service of the University.

AMERICANS ON JAPANESE POLICY

Drs. Sidney L. Gulick and Shailer Mathews, returning from a visit to Japan as the representatives of the Federation of the Churches of Christ in America, recently gave an account of their work at a dinner in New York City. Both addresses were notable for directness and frankness.

Dr. Mathews, at the close of his address, spoke eloquently of the situation between Japan and China. Much of the news emanating from Peking, he said, is obviously colored by anti-Japanese feeling, and it is difficult to accept any of the reports on their face value; and this coloring of reports in the apparent interest of making trouble between the United States and Japan is a menace. America's interest in China is the maintenance of the open-door policy, to which Japan is fully and explicitly agreed. Count Okuma has repeatedly stated in his interviews with Drs. Gulick and Mathews that this policy is to be maintained, and they accept his statement literally.

As regards the integrity and sovereignty of China, which is also the interest of America, both Dr. Gulick and Dr. Mathews believe the statement made by the Premier. Baron Kato, in a recent address, declared that Japan intends to obtain her rights in China, no more and no less; but until Japan clearly indicates what she believes those rights to be there is a large area of doubt.

Not only the future prosperity but the national existence of Japan is involved in the maintenance of the integrity of China; for China under the control of European nations, with the unavoidable concessions and naval bases, would expose Japan to constant danger. As the result of her victory in the Russian war, Japan has obtained possession

of Korea and important concessions involving police powers in southern Manchuria. She is reasonably safe, therefore, against attack from the north. By the victory of Tsingtao she controls a third harbor on the coast, and is free, for the time, from German rivalry. If the present status is conserved, she may be said to be safe from immediate danger of attack through China. This status is always likely to be changed by the pressure brought to bear upon China by other Powers, and it is not difficult to see that Japan, remembering the last twenty years of European intervention in China, sees danger of further political control of that country.

If this is the extent of Japanese demands, and if the only purpose she has in mind is to build up an Asiatic Monroe Doctrine, the American people can hardly fail to sympathize with her. The Monroe Doctrine, however, was adopted as a means of self-protection, and has never been made an excuse for aggrandizement or interference in the governmental policies of American republics. The policy of Japan may be likened to that of the Monroe Doctrine so far as it seeks to protect itself through checking European aggressions; but it will be very different if it involves the establishment of Japan's predɔminant influence in the internal affairs of China.

This is the point at which America is drawn into the situation. Japan evidently intends to have a predominating influence in the development of China. If this influence is to be magnanimously in the interests of China rather than those of Japan, the world will applaud Japanese policy; but both Europe and America must be taken further into Japan's confidence. Japan's confidence. There is, in the opinion of Dr. Mathews, a general belief among the more intelligent Americans that it is better for China to develop under Asiatic than under European leadership. What remains uncertain is the nature of that leadership. Japan has a great opportunity for broad and generous statesmanship; and she has accomplished so much that it is possible for her to secure hearty co-operation between herself and the United States in maintaining the integrity of China and watching over China's interests.

A GREAT OPPORTUNITY

It is a supreme opportunity for the United States and Japan to show the meaning of their friendship, to demonstrate the power