failure of justice, but from insensate rage and fierce race hatred.

The published accounts of the affair are much more explicit about the sickening details of the lynching than they are about the crime. Stanley is said to have killed three children and to have assaulted their mother. If the charge is true, there is nothing too strong to be said as to the man's depravity; no one could be surprised if in the red heat of indignation he had been lynched when he was caught. But there is a cold-blooded horror about the story of his being torn from prison two or three days later, dragged to the public square where thousands of men and women had collected, and there deliberately burned alive" automobiles loaded with onlookers,' "trees filled with boys," "little girls scattered through the crowd," are some of the descriptive phrases. In foreign countries when such incidents were quoted before the war as typically American-and they constantly were so quoted-an American was hard put to it to explain the savage acts. After this war such things may be the not unreasonable reply to charges of war atrocity.

stage. Readers of The Outlook will remember the delightful autobiographic talk which, at its urgent invitation, he gave them a few years ago. A portrait of Mr. Thomas appears on another page.

His road to success was arduous and exacting. Born in St. Louis, as a young man he went into railway work and has described very vividly his dinner-pail luncheons in company with other railway employees. Then he became a newspaper writer. His first play was produced in 1889. Since

that time he has written nearly a hundred plays, many of which have achieved large popularity. Among these are "Colorado, 'Alabama," ""The Earl of Pawtucket," "The Witching Hour," "The Harvest Moon," and "As a Man Thinks." Mr. Thomas is an accomplished playwright. He understands the mechanism of the art, and he knows instinctively, as well as by practice, the difference between the telling of a story in a novel and on the stage. He is also an artist in his ability to indicate character with dramatic distinctness and to develop situations so as to show their relation to one another and their action and reaction on people. He is, moreover, a thinker. The great majority of his plays have a background of motive which commands the interest of those to whom the play is much more than a matter of amusement.

Mr. Thomas has always treated the drama in a serious spirit, but with a light hand and with great skill. He has been deeply interested in politics, is a warm personal friend of President Wilson, and could have entered the diplomatic service if he had chosen to accept the appointment of United States Minister to Belgium. He has been prominent in political conventions, has presided at many public functions, political and otherwise, and is a speaker of charm and delightful humor.

Mr. Thomas's work in the practical management of the theater will be entirely that of the art director. It is said that in accepting this position he makes a great sacrifice; but one of the qualities which endear Mr. Thomas to many people is his genius for friendship; and it is largely due to this quality that he has been persuaded to accept a position which must interfere with his ability as a producer of plays. Those who heard or read his touching speech at the recent meeting in memory of Mr. Frohman will quite understand why he has consented to

devote himself to the continuation of the work of that brilliant manager.

JUSTICE FOR THE POOR
IN NEW YORK CITY

Since there went into effect on July 1 a law reorganizing the inferior criminal courts of New York City, it has led the cities of the country in the efficiency of its "courts of the poor."

These inferior criminal courts, as the twentynine magistrate courts (commonly called police courts) and the Courts of Special Sessions are termed, handle together nearly a quarter of a million cases each year in Greater New York. They thereby touch the lives of about one million persons, the majority of whom get their only conception of justice from the decisions of these courts. It is interesting to see how this gigantic responsibility is being met by our largest city.

One valuable feature of the new law, which is the result of the recommendation of the Committee on Criminal Courts of the Charity Organization Society, is the creation of a special court to handle all criminal cases in which either a State or city department is the complainant. Now the heads of the administrative departments of the city and State have a magistrate available with the specialized knowledge necessary for handling the highly technical questions involved in violations of such laws as the TenementHouse Law or Fire Prevention Law.

Another good feature is the establishment of one Board of City Magistrates for the entire city, replacing the former system by which there was one division of police courts for Manhattan and the Bronx, and another for Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond, with no proper interchange of records and information, so that a man arrested for the first time in Brooklyn might have gone free as a first offender although he had a record of a dozen convictions in Manhattan.

A third valuable reform is the separation of the Children's Court from, the Court of Special Sessions, where. it had suffered in matters of policy through being amenable to regulations intended for an adult criminal tribunal. The most important step taken toward making the wheels of justice run evenly, however, was in the administration of the ordinary police courts, which bear the bulk of the burden of meting out justice to

the poor.

The poor of the city had long been suffer

ing from the results of a rigid and arbitrary delineation in legal jurisdiction. A magistrate, before whom all criminals are first arraigned, could summarily try what are classified as "minor offenses," but he was powerless to dispose of "misdemeanors." These had to be held for a higher court-the Court of Special Sessions. Yet many of these wrongful acts called misdemeanors are of the most trivial nature. The line of demarcation, though arbitrary, is irregular and has no great moral significance. For instance, prostitution or pickpocketing come under "minor offenses," to be given a quick trial by the magistrate, whereas mixing garbage with ashes or using a street-car transfer which you pick up on the street-such crimes as these are "misdemeanors and were subject to the delays and red tape of a double trial. This was rather hard on the poor janitor who through ignorance alone violated some local ordinance, or the footsore laborer who saw a chance to ride and thoughtlessly took it; for these double trials meant an average of six days spent in the Tombs Prison before the offender was tried by Special Sessions, often to be followed by only a small fine or, as in hundreds of cases yearly, acquittal or discharge.

By the new law, however, a magistrate, sitting as a court of special sessions, may try and dispose of most of these petty misdemeanor cases, provided both the defendant and the prosecution are willing. This effects both a great economic saving to the city and an opportunity for the poor man to get a hearing, with efficient despatch rather than with delays out of all proportion to the importance of his case.

THE FLORIDA

NATIONAL FOREST

The Outlook has repeatedly had its attention called to the so-called slaughter of pine in the Florida National Forest. It appears that a Federal law permits the leasing of timber and turpentine rights inside the Government reservations; that after the turpentine is taken the tree becomes brittle and is blown down at the first strong wind; that the burning of the woods every spring, allowed by law, causes these trees, scarred by the ax and with turpentine and pitch flowing, to become columns of flame and to fall by the thousands.

The United States Forest Service explains that, in order to conserve by wise use the

resources of the National forests, turpentine rights in the Florida National Forest have been leased for three years, but that no trees smaller than ten inches in diameter four and one-half feet from the ground are allowed to be tapped, and that, in order to protect the trees, the operator is required to rake the litter away from the trees in the spring and to burn up the débris. The practice has gone on six years, and it is believed that the trees can be handled for at least twelve years. When they have ceased to yield gum in paying quantities, they will be felled and sold for lumber. In this way the full value of the timber is obtained.

The private owner, on the other hand, is mainly interested in getting the maximum yield within a short time, hence has adopted a wasteful system which kills the trees quickly and makes them inflammable. This, together with the tapping of trees often as small as four inches in diameter, has caused the protests. As far as the Florida National Forest is concerned, the protests that have come to us refer undoubtedly only to private or to alienated lands within it; but as these private lands were secured from the Federal Government before the National Forest was ⚫ created, the Forest Service has no jurisdiction over them and therefore cannot prevent the abuse. Alienated lands are:

All patented, entered, or granted lands the title to which has passed from or is in the process of passing from the United States under the different laws providing for the sale, entry, and disposition of Government lands. Granted lands include such lands as are granted to the railroads, whether surveyed or unsurveyed, and grants to the States of school sections where these sections were surveyed prior to the date of the withdrawal for National Forest purposes.

As to fire, it is a question of slowly changing the point of view of the people in the State. Little progress in protection, we believe, will be made until the State Legislature enacts a forest fire law similar to that in force in the States where the people are taking care of their forest resources; and this now includes both Northern and Southern States, the latter being Maryland, the Virginias, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Texas.

THE TAXATION

OF LAND AND BUILDINGS

Two years ago the Pennsylvania Legislature established a law empowering cities of the second class to try an experiment in

something which seemed to approach the principle of the single tax. The new law made a separation of land and buildings for taxable purposes. The buildings were to be subject to a gradual reduction of one-tenth in taxation until a minimum of fifty per cent should be reached. Nothing was said, however, as to how the total deficiency in taxation should be offset. One would suppose that it might be offset by a like increase in the tax on land. In Pennsylvania, however, there is no tax levied on land for State use; the tax on land is for local purposes only. There would seem to be a definite loss, then, in the total tax collected in Pennsylvania unless the incidence should be shifted from one domain to another, just as the Federal Government has attempted to shift the burden of taxation from sugar and other commodities to an income tax.

Be this as it may, the new Pennsylvania law was intolerable to the vested interests in Pittsburgh and Scranton, cities of the second class. Delegates from those cities came to Harrisburg, the State capital, and were heard by legislative committees. Though the onslaught on the new law was opposed by the largest group of protestants that had yet been heard on any piece of legislation in Pennsylvania, the Legislature changed front and passed a repealer bill.

This has now been vetoed by Governor Brumbaugh. The Outlook had to condemn his veto of the bill repealing the Full Crew Law. His veto of the bill repealing the tax law is in line with his attitude in securing the passage of the Workmen's Compensation, Miners', and Child Labor Bills. Aside from the principle involved, two reasons impelled the Governor to this particular veto: first, as the law has scarcely been tried, it is well to allow it to operate until a commanding judgment decrees its fate; second, to disturb it when such an overwhelming preponderance of opinion favors it would surely be unwise.

the Pennsylvania situation is confused by the fact that the old real estate tax system in Pittsburgh was absolutely inequitable. New York State never had the old Pittsburgh system, and therefore does not need a new law to replace it. In removing the injustice of classification, however, the Pennsylvania law included the exemption of improvements, and this does not meet Professor Seligman's approval. He favors placing an additional tax on the increment of land value, but does not favor exempting improvements from taxation.

Certainly the Pennsylvania legislation calls renewed attention to the proposal to reduce taxation on buildings, a proposal not identical with the single tax as propounded by the late Henry George; it is not a single tax, but a redistribution of the realty tax. Most persons admit that present realty taxation is unfair—that is, most persons with the possible exception of real estate speculators..

A prominent adherent of a revised system of taxation is Surgeon-General Gorgas. Such a shift, he declares, would force all land into use, would stimulate building, would lower rents, reduce overcrowding, and, finally, would add to the wage-earner's income. Writing to The Outlook on this subject, General Gorgas speaks of his experience in Havana and Panama during the past fifteen years as giving an added reason for his belief in lessening taxation on buildings the reason of sanitation. Dr. Gorgas asserts that reduced taxation on buildings would tend to increase the number of buildings, and hence would give more room and cheaper room to the poor. In particular, he thinks that it would tend to put vacant lots to the best use that is to say, to cover them with useful buildings. To a city sanitarian vacant lots have hitherto been one of the great nuisances. A final result in sanitation from the reformed taxation would, in his opinion, be to give employment to more men in building houses on these vacant lots and thus to lessen poverty, for the greatest cause of the large death rate in our big cities is the excessive poverty of the lowest classes.

SCHOOL-CHILDREN AS
CENSUS-TAKERS

That tireless and irrepressible social servant and inventor William R. George, of the George Junior Republics, has devised a new way of making boys and girls useful to themselves and to the country.

This plan consists in making the boys and

girls in the higher grades of the public grammar schools quasi-official census-takers. It is proposed to use first the older pupils in the country schools in the taking of an agricultural census. As to the public utility of such a census there can be little doubt. The method of Mr. George's plan would be as follows: The teachers would hold competitive examinations in the two or three higher grades for the honor of taking the census of the district. The youngsters who were the successful competitors would each be assigned his or her section of the district and would be given badges to indicate their positions during the school term or the school year. Then, whenever a request came from the United States Department of Agriculture or the State Department of Agriculture or the United States Census Bureau, these boys and girls would be sent out to get the desired information. Such inquiries and observations would not be likely to take at most more than two hours of their time, and the educational content of the work would be greater than a like time in the classroom.

No one will deny that an important element in mental training consists in learning to make correct observations and to draw correct conclusions from such observations. It is often and justly claimed that the school, and especially the country school, is too much divorced from the actual conditions and needs of the community in which it is located. Certainly few things could be better calculated to train the children in making correct observations and drawing from such observations correct conclusions and in arousing an intelligent interest in their local surroundings than this census-taking.

The plan was first tried last fall in the West Dryden School, in central New York, the school which Mr. George himself attended as a boy. The successful candidates in this school were given blanks to fill out which called for answers to these questions: number of men, women, and children in each family; number of acres owned or rented; number of cattle, horses, hogs, poultry, and other live stock; amount of hay, oats, potatoes, wheat, buckwheat, corn, and other grains grown, as well as any miscellaneous facts of consequence. A number of the young censustakers put down under this last heading the number, kind, and amounts of fruits grown, if any, and in some instances they put down, too, the forest products. The time consumed in securing the information varied from three

quarters of an hour to two hours and a half.

The teacher of the school said, in concluding his letter to Mr. George, in which he transmitted the reports compiled by his pupils: "They were enthusiastic and painstaking and eager to do more."

THE NEW YORK CONSTITU

TIONAL CONVENTION

The four papers on the Constitutional Convention published elsewhere in this issue represent the attitudes of the four great political parties in New York State-the Progressive, Socialist, Democratic, and Republican. We express our thanks and those of our readers to these gentlemen for their consent, at our urgent request, to present their views respecting the essentials of a State constitution in articles so brief as these. The limits of our space compelled this abbreviation.

The newspaper reports of all sorts of proposals, wise and otherwise, with which the Convention has been deluged have made many observers sympathize with the pessi mistic opinions of the Hartford " Courant:"

The more we read of the crazy schemes proposed for the New York Constitutional Convention, the more we feel that, if a quarter of them are adopted, the citizens will make a big mistake if they neglect to throw the whole draft into the discard.

We are inclined to think-at least to hope -that this judgment is erroneous as well as premature. When the Pennsylvania Tunnel was built under the North River, the engineers were required to give consideration to and report upon every scheme which was submitted to them, and the folly of some of the schemes surpasses belief. Nevertheless the sifting process was worth while, and out of even the follies some benefit was gained. If the Constitutional Convention succeeds in sifting out the crazy schemes with which it has been flooded, the liberty to submit them may prove to have been a real advantage to the people. The publicity of folly is sometimes the best cure for it.

The four articles which we publish indicate that the leaders of the four great parties, and we hope also the rank and file, are substantially agreed upon certain essential principles involved in constitution-making.

Lord Bryce, in his "American Common

wealth," gives an interesting characterization of modern American State constitutions :

Europeans conceive of a constitution as an instrument, usually a short instrument, which creates a frame of government, defines its departments and powers, and declares the "primordial rights" of the subject or citizen as against the rulers. An American State constitution does this, but does more, and, in most cases, infinitely more. It deals with a variety of topics which in Europe would be left to the ordinary action of the Legislature or of administrative authorities, and it pursues these topics into a minute detail hardly to be looked for in a fundamental instrument. . . . We find minute provisions regarding the management and liabilities of banking companies, of railways, or of corporations generally, regulations as to the salaries of officials, the quorum of courts sitting in banco, the length of time for appealing, the method of changing the venue, the publication of judicial reports. . . . We even find the method prescribed in which stationery and coals for the use of the Legislature shall be contracted for, and provisions for fixing the rates which may be charged for the storage of corn in warehouses.

Our correspondents are absolutely agreed in repudiating this method of constitutionmaking and in their definition of the true function of a State constitution as distinguished from legislation, and substantially agreed upon the certain fundamental provisions which they desire to see incorporated in the new Constitution of the State. They are agreed:

That "the framework of the State government should be so broadly stated that ample room remains within which to adapt ourselves to needs as they arise;" that the "guiding principle is, not to attempt to tie the hands of a bad Legislature, but make it essential for the people to elect a good one;" that the Constitution " may be fairly considered analogous to the skeleton of the human body around and within which legislative acts, local ordinances, and court decisions will construct the living, operating tissue of the government of the State and its local subdivisions."

That "not only ought the State to be free to deal with every question as seems best at the time, but the cities ought to have sufficient home rule to enable them to deal with their own peculiar and special problems unhampered by the rural villages;" that cities should be "free to choose their forms of local government and free to administer their