forced the King of England to sign a charter conceding certain rights to them.

On June 18, 1815, the allied nations at Waterloo ended Napoleon's attempt to impose an autocratic and militarist empire upon Europe.

Magna Charta did not do everything for England. The Petition of Right was still to come, and, later, the overthrow of the theory that the king rules by divine right. In France the Declaration of the Rights of Man was still to come, and in Italy the revolution at Milan, the advance guard of what was to follow there and elsewhere in the affirmation of the rights of democracy.

And now, when the forces of autocracy and democracy are facing each other on many a battlefield of Europe, it is well to recall that just seven hundred years ago the English barons struck the first blow for freedom, and that just a hundred years ago England, Holland, and Prussia struck at the power which would have dominated Europe.

The significance of the Magna Charta centenary at this time was effectively indicated by Elihu Root, former Secretary of State, at a meeting at Albany, in which, holding up the German Government of to-day as a foe of human liberty, he said:

"The first theory of the ancient republics, that the state is all in all and the individual derives his rights as a member, is the principle which was applied in Belgium. It is the principle which was applied to the Lusitania. Its logical and inevitable result is that the state is free from those rules of morality by which individual men are bound.

"The other, asserted in the Great Charter, by logical and inevitable result, binds the state by the rules of morality which the individual recognizes, and the supremacy of that rule of right, governing all men and all states and powers, is the hope of mankind.

"The assertion of that great and cardinal principle seven hundred years ago we celebrate to-night as the greatest of all events in the political development of modern liberty."

Governor of the State of Vera Cruz at one time under President Madero, is considered a devout Zapatista, and his elevation to the Presidency was a move that has been expected since a coolness became noticeable between the Chihuahua chieftain and the Morelos guerrilla.

More important than the political whim which put a new puppet in the Presidential palace at Mexico City was the development of the attitudes of Carranza and Villa as a result of President Wilson's stand of June 2, when he called upon the warring factions to settle their differences and establish peace..

The replies of Villa and Carranza to the President's communication are just what one who knows them would have expected of them. Villa's attitude, as usual, is more reasonable than Carranza's. In a telegram to the "First Chief" Villa urged that "we should seek means that would permit the reunion and reorganization of the Constitutionalist party, even though it be indispensable to make sacrifices of self-esteem." the short-sighted stubbornness that has been all along characteristic of him, Carranza's reply to this overture was an invitation for all the factions opposed to him to lay down their arms and recognize his leadership.

With

Villa's reply to the Wilson note is devoted mainly to a justification of his break with Carranza. He blames the He blames the obstinacy of the old man from Coahuila for the failure of all attempts at reconciliation between them.

Carranza's reply to the American pronunciamento is a bid for recognition, pure and simple. He renews the usual promises of domestic reforms and of safety for the lives and property of foreigners if he is recognized, and says that he should be given this honor by the "governments of other nations . . because the Constitutionalist Government is how actually in definite possession of sovereignty, and the legitimate exercise of sovereignty is the essential condition which should be taken into account when deciding upon the recognition of a government."

Carranza's claims are presumptuous and much exaggerated. Zapata still holds Mexico City, while Villa, with much of central and most of northern Mexico in his power, is deadlocked with Carranza's best general, Alvaro Obregon, at Leon in Jalisco. The report of General Obregon's death was false, but he has been badly wounded, and it may

THE COMMENCEMENT SEASON

In the present Commencement season the colleges founded on and definitely committed to Christianity will hear many ringing reaffirmations of the power of Christianity to save the world from a repetition of the tragedy of war brought on by greed and ambition.

Dr. Hibben at Princeton has already spoken in no uncertain tones in regard to the present crisis. He recalled the point of view of those who believe that war is normal and inevitable and must be perpetual—“ the great national prophylactic." He asked whether the way of war is the only way to realize a people's destiny. "Is it necessary to descend into hell before we can begin to climb the steep ascent of heaven?" The older generation, he said, cannot answer that question; it must be answered by the younger generation, with whom it is possible to prove that the kind of vigor which comes through war may be developed in peace. "Peace," he said, "is a situation, an external setting, the guarantee of a free exercise of all our powers, without fear of the menace or intrusion of foreign foe to challenge or control that freedom;

it is the opportunity

which man may nobly use or shamefully abuse.' No nation, he said, had ever been conquered from without unless there had been weakness within. He affirmed his belief that through the darkness which now prevails there is brighter light ahead. Christianity is approaching its supreme test. It rests on the coming generation to restore to the law and love of Christ their ancient power.

Men of National reputation on whom Princeton bestowed honorary degrees were Thomas A. Edison, the inventor; Myron T. Herrick, American Ambassador to France at the outbreak of the war; George W. Goethals, Chief Engineer in final charge of building the Panama Canal and first Governor of the Panama Canal Zone; Theodore N. Vail, President of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and pioneer organizer of the railway mail service of the United States; and Franz Kneisel, eminent musician and leader of the Kneisel Quartette.

The Rev. Dr. Percy S. Grant, of New York, speaking at the College of the City of New York, which is the capstone of

structure,

expressed his belief that at present the educated man thinks of his education as a private advantage rather than a public asset, called attention to the fact that graduates of colleges sometimes develop into party bosses, and declared that the successful man is the dangerous man in a democracy, which, in his judgment, is safer in the hands of its proletariat and in listening to their demands than to the demands of the successful classes. Education in this country, he said, is a source of inequality. Many of his auditors must have felt that Dr. Grant had lost his perspective when he went on to say that the college degree, fraternity, alumni association, and academic dress create differences and place. the college-educated man upon a plane of advantage that is undemocratic. There are colleges, it is true, in which there are many undemocratic elements, but such sweeping criticism defeats, its own ends.

THE SHAW PLAYS IN NEW YORK

Seven plays by George Bernard Shaw in one season is a record made in New York this year. Only Shakespeare has done as much, which lends color to Mr. Shaw's typically Shavian assertion that he can equal and sometimes surpass the immortal bard in the business of playwriting. As a money maker the four managers who produced the Shaw plays this year would probably put him in the lead.

Mrs. Patrick Campbell opened the season in October with "Pygmalion," which The Outlook reviewed at that time.

Next came Granville Barker, at the persuasion of the Drama Society, from London to allow New York to judge of his ultra-modern methods of play-giving. He led off with "Androcles and the Lion," in which Shaw sends the early Christian martyrs to the lions singing as defiantly as any band of presentday agitators. For pietistic reasons the play was practically a failure in England. Here more than a thousand members of the Drama Society pronounced it the best of twelve plays given in New York this year. It received almost as many votes for first place as the next two plays together, while " Pygmalion won second place.

Mr. Barker's success was so immediate that he followed with "The Doctor's Dilemma." This time the medical profession is the iconoclast's target. Mr. Shaw handles the

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doctors so roughly that one shudders at his fate if sickness ever delivers him into their hands. Nevertheless, Mr. Barker scored again. Only the necessity for vacating Wallack's old theater forced Mr. Barker to close his adventurous and triumphant season.

Eleven years ago Arnold Daly, the actor, and G. B. S., as fond admirers like to familiarize the playwright, were in the happy relation of patron and pupil. Mr. Shaw found that only Daly could rightly interpret him. Now he will have none of him. In spite of this, Mr. Daly has braved the Shavian wrath and reproduced in New York this spring three of Shaw's comedies. Years ago You Never Can Tell" won instant réclame by its opening scene between dentist and patient. Its twentieth-century enfants-terribles are as amusing now as when the century was just begun. To this was added "Arms and the Man," perhaps because any war play of any date now seems certain to please. It is doubtful whether its references to "those wretched Servians" would get past the censor in England to-day. Certainly the fun it makes of the professional soldier would never please the recruiting sergeant. However, if the rumor be true that no less than five war plays are now being prepared for next year's consumption, they must go far to lead "Arms and the Man in the public's favor.

CANDIDA AGAIN

Four times since 1904 Arnold Daly has given "Candida " in New York. The part of Marchbanks, the poet, was his first great opportunity, and with each succeeding production he has added something to its sincerity and power. Eleven years ago it was the most bitterly discussed play of the year. The critical public saw in it a challenge to Nora of "The Doll's House." For popular appeal there is little comparison. On the first night of "Candida's " revival this year the curtain rose on a queue of would-be patrons stretching from box-office to street. Ibsen's audiences were never so insistent.

The seventh and last of the Shaw plays this year was an uncommon production of "Captain Brassbound's Conversion," given six times at the Neighborhood Playhouse on Grand Street. This is the little theater given to the East Side for its very own. The Henry Street Settlement has long had its company of players drawn from the Italians and Hebrews of Little Italy and the Ghetto, which is its neighborhood. Hence the thea

ter's name. Since its opening last fall the beauty of the building and the productions chosen for it have been the talk of the town. So much had been printed of the Playhouse that a nightly crowd of uptown curiosityseekers bid fair to oust the rightful audiences from their seats. When " Captain Brassbound" was given, they came from Columbia and Morningside, from Gramercy Park and Washington Square, to do homage to Shaw,. the idol of the "highbrows," or, as they call themselves, the "intellectuals."

FROM FARM TO TABLE
BY AUTOMOBILE

By readjusting established rural delivery routes and by introducing some of the principles of scientific management in this branch of the Post-Office Department, PostmasterGeneral Burleson saved $511,262 in operating expenses from April 1 to May 29. This money was devoted to the establishment of new routes and to the extension of existing ones, so that 87,850 additional families, or approximately 441,750 additional individuals, are now reached by Uncle Sam's rural mail carriers.

In accordance with the resolution of Congress on March 3 last, the familiar horse and buggy of R. F. D. routes will soon be supplanted by a chugging automobile on routes where there is enough business to warrant the change. Some romantic" city folks " summer-boarding in the country will miss the plodding russet horse and rattling, dusty buggy, whose driver always had time for loquacious lingering over the reins by the painted tin box mounted on a post at the roadside; but the quaint and picturesque must give way before the modern and efficient.

The motor postman will serve routes not less than fifty miles in length, and the employment of these modern Mercuries will bring the world's news fresh to many families who have heretofore had to take it stale. The appropriation for this motor service will be available on July 1, and the first of the power-driven rural mail wagons will take the. road a month later.

One valuable result of the installation of this modern service will be the tapping of rich truck-growing areas within twenty-five miles of the cities which by the motor routes will get parcel post rates on packages over one pound in weight from twenty to forty per cent cheaper than heretofore. This, the Post-Office Department believes, will mean an

"immediate stimulation of local parcel post exchange, especially of the farm-to-table service."

THE SCANDAL AT ANNAPOLIS

It is a pretty kettle of fish that has been stirring at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. The standard of honor among the "officers and gentlemen" who are some day to defend the dignity and reputation of the United States on the sea is pathetically low, if there is truth in one-half the stories alleging cheating in the recent annual examinations at the Naval Academy.

Already the Court of Inquiry appointed by Secretary Daniels has recommended the dismissal of seven midshipmen for "cribbing" in the examinations, and apparently the corrupting canker of dishonesty has eaten far into the student body.

The cheating was discovered in the examinations in French and Spanish. Advance copies of the examination papers in these subjects were found in the handwriting of one of the midshipmen, and it developed that more than a hundred students had had access to this "good dope."

The midshipman whom Rear-Admiral William F. Fullam, Superintendent of the Naval Academy, accused of being the man mainly responsible for the circulation of this

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dope Isaid it had been mailed to him from an anonymous source, but the Board of Inquiry has reached the conclusion that the papers were stolen from the rooms of the French and Spanish Departments. There are several ugly rumors afloat, one to the effect that a midshipman attempted to bribe an employee who mimeographed some of the examination papers, another to the effect that an instructor aided the midshipmen in getting advance knowledge of the nature of certain examinations.

There must be fire beneath all this noisome smoke.

Unwholesome as the morals of some of the students appear to be, however, there is apparently a need of reform of some of the regulations of the Academy. No such scandal as this one ever developed when the honor system was in use at Annapolis a few years ago. Critics of certain features of the present régime at Annapolis declare with apparent justice that the discipline of the institution has grown unbearably severe, until there are a score of regulations" which seem to belong rather to a young ladies' boardingschool than to a corps of officers well on

towards maturity." It is to be hoped that the Board of Inquiry will look into such allegations as these, which have been frequently made from responsible sources, as well as the more immediate matters which the commission was formed to investigate.

THE SEAMEN'S BILL AND

AMERICAN SHIPPING

Prophecies as to the effect of the La Follette Seamen's Bill upon the growth of an American merchant marine are already coming true.

It will be remembered that this bill, in the passage of which the Seamen's Union was actively interested, goes further than any existing laws either in this country or abroad in the regulation of the conduct and control of ships at sea. It is in many ways a drastic tenement-house law of the ocean, and a law which contains many humane requirements that are highly to be commended. If, however, a tenement-house law on land should prove to be so drastic and unreasonable in form that all the owners of buildings under its regulations were forced to tear them down and move into a neighboring State, there are not many who would regard such a law as wisely drawn. Whether or not on the sea a similar destiny is in store for our merchant marine it is perhaps too early to say. Evidence to the effect, however, that the Seamen's Law may have improved out of existence the jobs of many of our American sailors is not wanting.

Mr. Robert Dollar, of San Francisco, who owns nine vessels built in American ship-yards, most of which were transferred to American registry upon the outbreak of the European war, has announced that he expects to put his vessels under the Chinese flag when the Seamen's Law goes into effect in next November. The Pacific Mail, operating ships to China and Australia, is intending, it has been announced, to take on no new business after August 1, and to give up its present trade routes when the La Follette measure goes into effect. It is also reported in the New York Evening Post" that the Great Northern liner Minnesota will be withdrawn from Oriental commerce. In this same paper Mr. Robert Dollar is reported as saying that he was attending a meeting of Japanese business men in Japan when the news of the passage of the La Follette Bill was received. He said the news occasioned an enthusiastic