man. The restrictionists ought to be de-. lighted with the present condition.

RESTRICTION ON TRIAL

One of the chief values of this period of rest in immigration is that it gives the country an opportunity to study the effects of a small immigration before adopting a new policy. There have been many efforts to restrict immigration by placing measures looking toward that end on the statute-books. This country is now experiencing a condition which the restrictionists could hope to create only by a drastic programme of legislation. This condition is likely to continue for a period sufficiently long to test fairly both the economic and social effects of such a policy without definite commitment to it.

All the indications point to a moderate immigration for a period of at least five years, including the one which has just elapsed: While the war continues it is clear that immigration will be very small. The war gives no present promise of closing within a year. It may draw in other countries than those now directly involved.

The after effects of the war will also be restrictive. Casualties affecting millions of men of the type that furnishes the bulk of the emigrants, those under forty-five years of age, are reported. Of those who return to their homes from the front, large numbers will be suffering from their experiences in the trenches, or will bear the marks of their injuries. The immigration laws of the United States forbid the admission of those having defects or ailments which may affect their capacity to earn a livelihood. Moreover, the countries at war will be likely to take steps to keep their able-bodied men at home in order that reconstruction may not be delayed. Even Italy, should she come through the conflict unscathed, or be only a moderate sufferer, it is believed by some Italian students of emigration, would send across the Atlantic, for a time at least, fewer of her laborers than formerly. Professor Vittorio Racca, of the New York University, at one time of the faculty of the University of Rome, and an investigator of social and economic conditions for the Italian Government in neighboring countries, thinks that the demand for labor in France and other countries bordering upon Italy, and the opportunities to be found in Albania and the southern part of Asia Minor, which may be closely related to his country politically, will absorb a considerable

portion of the energies of the Italian people and serve to reduce emigration to the Americas. It must be recognized, also, that economic conditions here are not likely immediately to stimulate such a large influx as that which preceded the war.

Some observers of immigration believe, however, that the widowed, with home ties cut, and the marriageable, who, owing to a dearth of eligible mates at home, may look abroad, will furnish many emigrants to the United States. They will be aided in reaching this country by relatives and friends already here. It is thought by their co-religionists here that, regardless of whether Russian Poland secures an autonomous government or not, political and economic conditions there will be so unfavorable for the Jews that a rapidly augmenting stream of Jewish emigration will set toward the United States as soon as the passage to the coast is cleared.

This country should not adopt a policy regarding so powerful a social and economic force as immigration without full knowledge of what it is doing. We can now supply ourselves with definite information which will aid in determining our attitude without undue pressure from any special interest.

FOR A TARIFF COMMISSION

A Tariff Commission League has been organized in Chicago, the object of which is thus officially defined:

To inaugurate and maintain a country-wide campaign to create and crystallize public sentiment, that will demand of Congress the creation of a scientific, non-partisan Tariff Commission with a fixed annual appropriation to secure its permanency, and giving it the broadest powers possible under the Constitution, including initiative investigation, power to hear complaints, report and recommend such tariff changes from time to time as may be necessary fairly to distribute the benefits and burdens among all the people and prevent the periodical demoralization to business due to general tariff revisions based upon party expediency and substitute therefor a scientific adjustment of rates by items and schedules from time to time based upon the economic needs of all the people.

The organization of such a Commission has the indorsement of a large number of prominent business men and prominent educators. Its business support is indicated by the fact that Mr. James J. Hill has agreed to take the chairmanship of the Advisory Committee; its intellectual support by the fact that among those who have announced themselves as

favoring the proposal are Presidents Arthur T. Hadley, Nicholas Murray Butler, and Frank J. Goodnow, on the Atlantic coast, and Presidents David Starr Jordan and Benjamin Ide Wheeler, on the Pacific coast.

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Such a plan was urged by The Outlook in the fall of 1913, and subsequent events have confirmed our judgment then expressed. There are certain departments in which a consistent and continuing policy is of the utmost importance for the welfare of the country, in which almost any policy is better than one which is continually changing. The country has already begun to recognize this fact. What we need is a clear discrimination between what should be flexible and what should be inflexible in our government. secure a settled banking policy we have organized a Federal Reserve Banking system. To secure some permanence in our inter-State commerce we have organized an Inter-State Commerce Commission. To secure a permanent policy to promote National defense we need, as pointed out last week, a National Defense Commission. To secure stability in our international economic relations, so that our business men may know what they have to depend upon and so that the changes made in the tariff may be determined not by local interests but by the National welfare, we need such a permanent, non-partisan tariff commission as is proposed by the Tariff Commission League.

THE INTER-SETTLEMENT
PLAYERS

Among the many societies of the present day devoted to the drama none is more significant than the Inter-Settlement Players of Boston. This organization is composed of the young men and women who belong to the dramatic clubs of ten of the city settlements, and for this reason is a new and important factor in the movement for a civic, or people's, theater.

This society was the result of an interesting experiment in competitive dramatics. For some years it has been the custom at one of the settlements, South Bay Union, to give a prize to the group that produced the best play. Two years ago the Inter-Settlement Dramatic League was formed for the purpose of competition between the different settlements. A committee was formed of the dramatic coaches, and standards set for judging and marking each play produced. Those that attained the required standard were allowed

to go on circuit among the settlements, and a system of exchanged plays was thus inaugurated. Enthusiasm was greatly stimulated by the offer-as prize-of the privilege of playing before the American Drama Society.

A few months ago the Inter-Settlement Players were organized in response to the demand for an organization which should acquaint the different groups with each other's work, stimulate a spirit of friendly competition," and at the same time raise the standard of dramatic production. At the fortnightly meetings lectures were heard on plays and play-giving and performances by outside clubs witnessed. The two great accomplishments of the year were the Twelfth Night Revels and the Peace Pageant of Beulah Marie Dix.

The possibilities of such an organization are, to a large extent, unlimited. It has numbers, varied ability, and enthusiasm. The working youth who are its members take to dramatics because of its contrast to the monotony of their working day, and they are enthusiastic and ambitious. Shakespeare and Galsworthy are none too difficult, and even so subtle a play as the "Passing of the Third Floor Back" has been excellently done. Composed of immigrants of different nations. it is possible to get the proper spirit into such plays as the "Melting Pot" and the "Pot of Broth."

The educative value of this organization may be anticipated by noting the results of five years of Irish plays at one of the settlements. Whereas only crude humor was appreciated at first, now the audiences seem to appreciate all the subtleties of Yeats and Synge.

With their system of exchanging plays, making it possible to furnish a neighborhood with frequent performances of "wholesome and artistic" drama interpreted with sincerity and spontaneity at prices within the reach of working people, the Inter-Settlement Players are conducting a sort of people's theater. theater. It might well develop from this beginning into the kind of theater so strongly urged by Percy MacKaye in his "Civic Theater," which every community so badly needs.

A HOME RULE CRUSADE

An automobile trip for municipal home. rule is one of the spectacular features of this summer's campaign in New York for giving the cities of that State a chance to govern themselves. Mayor Cox, of Middletown, the president of the Mayors' Association, and its

secretary, William P. Capes, are making an automobile tour of the State in the interest of real home rule. In the words of Secretary Capes: "Our first request is for a grant of powers specifically outlined. We then ask for the constitutional right for the people of each city to draft, adopt, and amend their own charter, subject to the Constitution and general laws applying in terms and effect to the entire State. The cities of Ohio, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Washington, and Oregon are now enjoying this grant of power. Our proposal provides all the necessary safeguards to protect the urban population against special selfish or partisan interests, for it places the power in the people.

First,

we propose that the Legislature shall immediately prescribe by general law the manner in which the cities shall draft their charters. Secondly, our proposal provides that every municipal law-a new charter or an amendment thereto-shall be submitted to the people for adoption. We believe that this will stabilize municipal government and make it truly representative.

These modern crusaders are being enthusiastically received and are educating the people, and even if the Constitutional Convention should be deaf, or endeavor to give a stone for bread, it is only a question of time when the right of real local self-government will be granted. To date, fifty cities are lined up back of the campaign.

Some idea of the Legislature's interference with local affairs may be gained from the fact that the total number of bills that became law since 1910 was 4,260, of which 983 were special city bills.

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"Within five years," the Mayor declares, "Buffalo has had to go to the Legislature for authority to spray its shade trees; Newburgh, for permission to close and sell tion of a street; Little Falls, for permission to pave streets without preliminary petition; Syracuse, for authority to sprinkle its streets; New York City, for the right to use for municipal purposes a part of the Hall of Records, a building it had built and paid for. Many instances will doubtless be recalled where in your own city delays in securing needed legislation to permit you to do the things which have been found necessary to be done have resulted in waste of time of your officials and the money of the taxpayer. We emphatically assert that the 7,000,000 people who live in the cities are competent to manage their own municipal business honestly and efficiently."

AN OUTLAW STATE

In the lynching of Leo M. Frank there is the consummation of vast modern tragedy. None of the great Greek dramatists told a story more elemental, more sweeping, more clearly inexorable. It is a story of primitive passion, of villainy and intrigue, of degradation and sorrow, of human forces working relentlessly to a destined end. And in it all the great tragic figure is not that of the young Jew, but that of a State-Georgia.

In such a tragedy as that individuals count for little. Those who have appeared as protagonists are but interpreters or spokesmen. The real actors in this drama have been the larger figures that transcend individual lives and characters-such figures as were represented in the miracle plays or morality plays of old. And among these great figures in this tragedy the most dominant figure of all and the most sinister is that of the Mob.

From the beginning and throughout to the end the baleful presence of the Mob guided the action. Before its evil power Public Opinion cringed. In order to placate it even the Court turned aside from its accustomed course. And when at last Orderly Government in the person of Governor Slaton undertook to withstand the Mob's decree and set its own will against the Mob's will, even then the Mob only bided its time and renewed its determination to have its way.

Leo M. Frank, dead at the hands of lynchers, may yet do more for Georgia and for justice than any living man throughout this case could have succeeded in doing.

Accused of a most atrocious murder, which could have been committed only by a degenerate, this young superintendent of a pencil factory was put on trial in the summer of 1913. Outraged by the atrocity of the crime, certain people in Georgia, and particularly in Atlanta, where the crime was committed, and in Marietta, where the murdered girl's family live, insisted that a victim be found to pay the penalty, and they fastened upon young Frank as the one whose death would most surely satisfy their desire for vengeance. was here that the spirit of the mob began its perfect work. There have been good people who have denied that the trial was conducted under the influence of the mob. They simply did not know what now, in the culmination of the tragedy, all who have eyes must see. It was at the very beginning of the trial that a greater question arose than

It

the question, Which was to prove more powerful, the mob or the State of Georgia? That was the question before the Court, although it was not stated in any indictment, argued in any address of counsel, mentioned in the judge's charge, or included in the verdict of the jury. Because of the mob the militia was placed in readiness for duty. Because of the mob the prisoner was kept where he could not face his accusers and the

jury at the time of the verdict. During the whole process of appealing the case the mob kept up its threats. When, through the observance of technicalities, the part that the mob had played was finally kept out of consideration by any court, State or Federal, and the Frank case was brought before the Prison Commission, where the mob's action and influence could be weighed, the mob itself made its voice heard audibly and menaced those who had power to recommend commutation of sentence. At last the case was brought before the Governor, who was as brave as the mob and dared ignore its demands. Governor Slaton, after reviewing the case, and even taking into consideration the refusal of the Prison Commission to recommend commutation of sentence, commuted the sentence from the death penalty to life imprisonment. In doing this Governor Slaton did not in the least interfere with the prerogative of the jury. He had the legal and moral right to do what he did, and the State should have backed his decision with all its power. But the Governor in this did defy the mob, and the mob knew it and snarled its threats. Against the Governor the mob could not take revenge, for the Governor himself saw that during the rest of his term the mob was held in check. But within a few days he left office. It was fitting that the first overt act embodying the spirit of the mob after Governor Slaton's retirement should be the assault upon Frank by a murderer.

Then, on Monday of last week, late at night, twenty-five men, agents of this mob, whose power had been growing throughout these months, went to the prison where Frank was kept under the care of the State, overawed the warden and the guards, swept through the dormitory of the prison and dragged Frank from his bed, carried him in automobiles within two miles of the birthplace of the girl of whose murder he had been convicted, and there hanged him to a tree.

Thus the question that was raised at the

beginning of Frank's trial was answered. The State of Georgia had allowed the mob to have its way in the beginning, and at the end the State had to bend its will to the will of the mob, and there on the tree with Frank was hanged whatever was left of the sovereignty of Georgia's people.

Herein is the tragedy. A State that has bowed to the will of the mob, that has been mastered by the mob, is no longer worthy to be called a State. No one who values his life or who relies on the spirit of justice to protect him and his from the savage element in his fellow-men wants to live in a mob-ruled community. The elementary reason why men form themselves into governments is that they may protect their persons and incidentally their property against irresponsible assault from without and within. There are

high motives that send civilized men into savage places. Soldiers go there in response to the command of those whom they are sworn to obey. Missionaries go there at risk of life in order to serve their fellow-men. Scientists, in disregard of danger, go there in order to contribute to the world's store of knowledge. It is hard to understand why anybody should choose to go to Georgia now except for some such reason. Georgia, as a State, has abandoned civilized government. In exigencies Georgia has proved that she will have recourse, not to civilization, but to the mob. The State of Georgia has defied the public morals of the Nation, and she is in her present mood not fit to be regarded as a member of the Nation's family of States. She has invited ostracism. She has chosen to walk alone, and she will. She has elected to have the company of the mob, and she cannot complain if she loses the company of civilized society. She has hung out a sign, "Beware of the mob," and she must not be surprised if she finds that she has to forego the companionship of the neighbors.

There are, we are sure, thousands of people in Georgia who believe in civilization. For all such who are yet forced to live in Georgia the rest of the Nation will have profound sympathy. More than that, for those people who willingly choose to remain in Georgia for the purpose of rescuing their State from its present tragic plight, the rest of the Nation must surely offer every possible aid and give promise of effective co-operation. They have a hard task before them. When, on its first page, "The Jeffersonian," a weekly paper edited by Thomas E. Watson,

for many years a political power in the State, prints such sentences as these: "A Vigilance Committee redeems Georgia and carries out the sentence of the law on the Jew who raped and murdered the little Gentile girl, Mary Phagan. Let Jew libertines take notice "—those Georgians who hate and detest the mob will know something of what it means to be a Russian patriot who has to fight the Black Hundred. And the Nation can rejoice that there are Georgians who have had courage to speak out instantly. In the very place where the lynching occurred, the Rev. Randolph R. Claiborne has spoken: "A century will hardly wipe out the stain. The responsibility for the stain on Georgia's honor rests upon the men whose consciences led them to defy her courts." Says the "Brunswick News:" "Georgia hangs her head. the proud commonwealth of Georgia vying with bloody Mexico in the outlawry business? ... Leo M. Frank was but a single atom in this great world of ours. He had but one life to give, and yet in the giving of it a magnificent commonwealth has been shrouded in a shame that a quarter of a century of time will not eradicate. . . . The reason? Aye, that is the question, the reason. It is because we have been ruled by weaklings, because we have allowed false doctrines to be taught to the youth of the State.

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Those who have perpetrated this disgrace, who trampled law and order and decency under foot, should be brought to justice or else we should trail in the dust forever our beloved ensign, Wisdom, Justice, and Moderation." Thomas W. Loyless, President and Editor of the Augusta "Chronicle," in a statement to the New York "Times," after expressing his shame for his State and declaring that the leader in the agitation was Watson, concludes: "Perhaps in time we will be able to wipe out the stain of this murder; for whether Frank was guilty or innocent, it was none the less a murder, and a cowardly and brutal murder at that. But the crime against the individual is of less importance and consequence than the crime committed against the State and against civilization." The Savannah "Press" denounces the mob as guilty of "treachery" to the State. So the quotations might be continued-from the Atlanta "Constitution," Governor Slaton, President Meldrim, of the American Bar Association, who is a citizen of Savannah, and others. To such as these, Americans from all parts of the country should give their support.

And while Georgians remember the shame to their State, let not Americans, North and South, East and West, forget that this is a shame for the Nation. What has happened

in Georgia may in a measure happen to any American community that allows the spirit of the mob any privileges. Every American community should take warning from this tragedy. If disaster comes to this country, it is as likely to come through this spirit of the mob, through this tolerance for lawlessness, as through any other cause.

THE AMERICAN MERCHANT

MARINE

Neither those who advocated nor those who condemned the Seamen's Act, passed by the last Congress and designed to better the living conditions of sailors and to protect the lives of passengers, can afford to ignore the effect of that measure upon our merchant marine. What has happened since the passage of that bill can be discussed without prejudice to the humanitarian desires which in a large measure prompted its creation. The ques

tion is simply what the Nation is willing to pay for the benefit received under this act.

The cost of this measure to the growth of the American merchant marine, particularly upon the Pacific Ocean, is made manifest by the announcement that the Pacific Mail Steamship Company has sold its five largest steamers, the Manchuria, the Mongolia, the Korea, the Siberia, and the China, because when the La Follette Seamen's Law goes into operation in November it will become impossible to compete with foreign lines upon the western ocean. This transaction will leave only one American steamer in the trans-Pacific trade the Minnesota, owned by the Great Northern Steamship Company of Seattle.

It is true that these five steamers will not be lost to the American flag for the present, for they have been sold to the Atlantic Transport Company of West Virginia. Whether, after the war is over and neutral ships can no longer demand the high freight rates which they are now receiving, these five ships will be continued under the American flag remains to be seen. The fact that the American merchant marine has been practically swept off the Pacific Ocean is significant enough for immediate attention.

For those who support without qualification the present Seamen's Act we present for