rates of the Mediterranean to whom the European governments, and even his Federalist predecessor, John Adams, had truckled in a cowardly manner. And when he effected the Louisiana Purchase, one of the great events in the history of the United States, he said that the inhabitants of Louisiana were "as incapable of self-government as children." He himself recognized that the Louisiana Purchase was not quite consistent with his T The Latest Novelty in Dictators HOUGH I had the good offices of the Foreign Minister and the Governor of the National Bank in seeking an audience with the Greek Dictator, not till to-day did I get close to him. The near view revealed what street appearances did not, namely, that Theodore Pangalos is better looking than his portraits represent him. Like Mussolini, he is not a tall man, but more aristocratic in face and manner; his is also a far more martial figure than that of the Italian Dictator. De out militarily and categorically, as I had expected from one whose profession was soldiering. His accents were decisive without being sharp. The Outlook's Editor in Europe ticework of the gallery overhead, he had the vision of many a feminine skirt not reaching the length prescribed in his startling early edict! The Greek Dictator has apparently assumed a more extensive responsibility for the conduct both of social and political affairs than has the Italian. Anyway, Pangalos believes in being a drastic Dictator. If his political opponents cast slurs upon his methods, out go the opponents; the island of Santorin already contains many summarily exiled A spite this, the Greek's voice did not ring thither. Some senior officers of the army thither. Some senior officers of the army have also been compulsory retired. large number of officials have been dismissed by decree without, it is said, any meeting of the Cabinet. Newspapers have been widely suspended and others sharply warned of a similar fate. Although he is said freely to employ unparliamentary language on occasions, his words, as I heard them, were measured and deliberate. Moreover, he looked as if he meant them. When he said, "We regard you Americans as our compatriots," I was sure of it. Then he added: "You, influenced by Greek culture, have shown generosity to us for a hundred years and under all circumstances. I want to express the Greek Republic's gratitude to the great American Republic." Certainly these simple words betrayed no "big head" or spread-eagleism. Indeed, the Greeks have had proof aplenty of our admiration for their history, philosophy, and art, and of our liking for them. Our compatriots here have stood well with every Government, whether of King or President. And yet, in one sense at least, General Pangalos is an ideal Dictator, for he gets things done. More real work has been accomplished, he claims, in the past six months than in many preceding years. Moreover, he gets things done at once. No interminable parliamentary talkeetalkee. Time saved. For instance, one morning the Greeks awoke to find that, quite unwittingly, they had all become the Government's creditors. Overnight the Dictator had decreed a forced loan, and in this wise: He had reduced by a quarter the nominal value of all the bank notes above thirty cents in our money in circulation. He had compulsorily converted this quarter into scrip of a 6 per cent loan. Nor was this all. He had also compulsorily funded some of the outstanding Treasury bonds. There's deflation for you! Yet it was necessary, and instantly necessary, to balance previous perilous inflation. Greece now avoids the dangers threatened from her floating debt and from the difficulty of contracting an external loan. Yet it seems strange to us foreigners, just the same, to find one end cut from our 50, 100, 500, and 1,000 drachma notes, the remainder being worth 37.50, 75, 375, and 750 drachmae. General Pangalos is certainly an avenging angel as regards economy. He has ordered each Cabinet Minister to cut down budgets by some $300,000 apiece. Two of the Ministries have already effected economies by over twice that sum. A ALL these figures are eloquent. Like those for Italy, they make men everywhere, no matter how strong supporters of representative government they may be, see that just now for certain countries a dictator's strong hand is necessary. This is particularly true in Greece. As General Pangalos has said, the war left both social and political dislocation in its wake, the political disturbance being evident by parliamentary bankruptcy. In consequence, "there was failure of parliamentarism in the consciences of more than one democratic people. Now the Greek people is democratic both by temperament and by tradition. Yet it was so disgusted with its parliamentary representatives as to demand the National Assembly's prorogation. . . . And now the Deputies have for a certain time been abolished, so that under a strong government the political services may be purified." This abolishment means dictatorship with a vengeance. But if any one thinks that the mass of the people is not behind the new rule, which means efficiency, he should see the thousands of letters now coming in to Pangalos, saying: "We need no more Deputies. Do not allow these talking-machines to return. We have confidence in you." Acting on this, when President Con douriotis recently resigned, it was perfectly natural for General Pangalos to propose himself as successor, especially as power had been grasped, not only by a military chief but also by one who was as well the leader of a Liberal Republican group. The election took place under extraordinary conditions fixed by the Dictator himself; they excluded alike the candidacy of members of the royal family and of a still more redoubtable person, namely, Eleutherios Veniselos, now living in Paris. And yet some critics even opine that, by another possible stroke of state, the new President, despite his republicanism, may be found to have smoothed the path of monarchist restoration! For Pangalos was overwhelmingly elected. He says that he relied "on the army and on the national conscience." No one who did not put the army first would seem to have much chance, albeit in this supposedly democratic country. President Pangalos adds: "The results of the election constitute not so much an election as a popular revolution. This victory, however, will not make me im placable. I shall not hesitate to hold out my hand to whoever accepts it." What a meteoric rise within a twelvemonth! On June 25, 1925, by a military-naval coup, General Pangalos and Admiral Hajikiriakis ousted the existing Michalalopulos Cabinet. But Pangalos was on top, becoming Premier and Minister of War, the Admiral becoming Minister of Marine. Greece, it was remarked at the time, then ceased to be a republic and became a diarchy. On January 3, 1926, it became an autocracy, for on that date General Pangalos proclaimed himself head of an absolute dictatorship. "Henceforth," he declared, "with the help of the army and navy, I will govern as Dictator. In a few months Greece will have a fleet dominating the Mediterranean's eastern basin and will have the strongest army in the Balkans." These words certainly have an aggressive ring. To some they seemed bombastic. Certainly the program has hardly been realized. As President, the Dictator is naturally interested in strengthening his position. To this end he proposes to reform the Constitution, taking ours as a model. That means, first of all, more power to the executive and less to the legislative branch of the Government. But before the election General Pangalos had already made up his mind in the direction of constitutional reform. The story is retailed here that in case of his election he would choose the American Constitution to follow as model, and in case of failure the French! E XCELLENT as the new President is in most respects and increasingly excellent as his government is, the question one hears is, "How long will he last?" This does not mean primarily, as in the case of Mussolini, the hint of assassination. No; it proceeds from a defect in the Greek character-the possibility of getting bored. Even the ancient Athenians voted for the ostracism of Aristides because weary of hearing him called "the Just." This tendency applies also to some modern Greeks, even though their blood connection with the ancients may be slight. Or, aside from personal predilections, how long will it be before there is any popular protest from a people educated in representative government against this cool suspension of it? At present the populace is not only calm, but sympathetically calm. It likes the strong hand, it likes the economical hand. It even likes the individual hand. And yet some one said the other day that the Greeks were apathetic. One could hardly ever accuse them of that, no matter what their other qualities may be. They are simply tired of professional politicians and parliamentarians, and want a change. Again, it is urged that Pangalos is an ambitious man and is bending everything to serve his personal ends. Pangalos is a very ambitious man. It has been town talk for years. Not only Pangalos, however, but every Greek seems to be ambitious. Certainly every one who has ever gained anything during his country's history has had to fight for it against competition singularly subtle. Ambition, however, never hinders the expression of proper patriotism, and I have yet to hear the sincerity of the Pangalos kind denied by any responsible judge. Doubtless both Pangalos and Mussolini are quite as ambitious for the prestige of their respective countries as they can possibly be for their respective selves. They are determined that those countries shall have internal discipline and external fame. For the moment their rule is necessary in both lands. Athens, Greece. T The Collapse of the Vanderbilt Crusade By WILLIAM BOARDMAN KNOX HE disaster which has recently overtaken the enterprises of Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr., patrician publisher of penny tabloids and youthful crusader of "clean journalism,” is essentially the disaster of adolescence amuck, of a dream nobly conceived and badly executed, a forlorn hope bravely but inadequately led. Nor is it without its moments of triumph and its distinct measure of accomplishment, although these things are probably small consolation to the five thousand stockholders, forlorn tail to the Vanderbilt journalistic kite, who have been rather rudely crashed to earth. At the time of writing his smash seems almost irrevocable. His family, after contributing $1,080,000 in a vain endeavor to set his floundering journals on even keel, have definitely withdrawn all support. One of his papers has suspended publication; another is in the what they would have been had there When Vanderbilt came to Los Angeles hands of a receiver; while the third, the PHY Miami "Illustrated Daily Tab," always the smallest of the Vanderbilt newspapers, is rocking along without apparent destination, its circulation and advertising deflated in direct ratio to the collapse of the Florida boom. Unfortunately, fundamental weaknesses and vagaries in Vanderbilt's character make it difficult to hold him up as a martyr to clean and independent journalism, for beneath the welter of personalities, bickerings, and mismanagement, always attending handmaidens on failure, lie basic causes which would surround a more stable character with something of the dignity of inevitable tragedy. But even ultimate failure does not alter the fact that Vanderbilt succeeded in establishing a string of newspapers which, if nothing more, were a vigorous and untrammeled expression of the character and point of view of their founder. Papers of this type are almost unknown on the ultra-conservative Pacific slope, nor are they so common in the rest of the country as to be passed without mention. Furthermore, Vanderbilt attained in Los Angeles, perhaps of all communities in the country the most highly organized and dictatorial in its attitude toward the press, a following, figured by stark totals of paid circulation, greater than that of any paper west of St. Louis. Throughout a period of nearly two years he repeatedly proved that he held the political destinies of the city in the hollow of his hand, and there are many things in Los Angeles that for a considerable time will be different from HYSICALLY he was a tall, angular youth of amiable approach and awkward carriage, with a shock of curly hair, and a long, almost lantern jaw which had a pronounced tendency to droop. His speech was hesitant, almost stammering. His whole demeanor suggested conscious inferiority shot with moments of unrestrained egocentric selfglorification. The financing of his original operations was accomplished with the assistance of Mr. E. T. Lewis, of Pennsylvania, an itinerant promoter who had been involved in the Atascadero Estates Development in northern California, to whom Vanderbilt gave implicit confidence. Lewis had previously proved himself a master in gaining the financial support of that nebulous and long-suffering person known as the small investor, and Vanderbilt's determination to have a paper as truly democratic in ownership as it was to be in spirit dovetailed with his idea of practical promotion exactly. The inevitable result was a popular sales campaign with flamboyant advertising, high-pressure salesmen, free lunches and ballyhoo, with long queues of prospective investors trailing through the embryo Vanderbilt plant, and a considerable proportion of the original stock sold in small blocks on the partial-payment plan. Vanderbilt himself, in a paroxysm of democracy, originated a system of preferred subscriptions, whereby any one paying $5 was to be a participating shareholder with a vote for a portion of the Board of Directors. The outward appearance of the first issue of the Los Angeles "Illustrated Daily News" was as innocuous as the whirl of its office and its later career were colorful. In make-up it approximated the conventional tabloid, except that its columns were scrupulously bare of anything that could possibly be construed as crime or scandal. Its editorial page was headed "The Public be Served," a phrase which Mr. Vanderbilt took occasion to remark was a deliberate paraphrase and public repudiation of a more famous saying credited to one of his ancestors. As a natural appointment of his position as a man of the people, Vanderbilt took to himself the appellation, "Your Publisher," and the paper always thereafter referred to itself as "Your Paper." By the same token, the editorial columns were usually largely devoted to intensely personal narratives of Mr. Vanderbilt's comings and goings, his meals, his friends, his automobile trips. Mentally he was an incarnate sublimation of the psychology of adolescence. His yearning to stand before the public as a great commoner amounted to an obsession. For five years he had driven his opposing family to the ultimate limits of boredom and exasperation by his importunities that he must in some manner attain personal independence and become something in his own right. With the launching of his career as a cub reporter for the New York "Herald" all his nebulous dreams crystallized in a burning desire to become a great publisher as quickly as might be. He had thrown himself into his work with a feverish intensity which, instead of burning itself out or settling into a steady flame, had driven him relentlessly from pillar to post in blind search for bigger and wider opportunities. He had played with news syndicates, with advertising agencies; her all his reporters, Vanderbilt himhad even considered buying a magazine. He was highly strung, super-sensitive, timid before strangers, ruthlessly dominating among his familiars and satellites, quick to forgive a real wrong, but relentless toward a fancied slight. When he arrived in Los Angeles, he was still groping, and there specific opportunity first presented itself. self was undoubtedly during the first few months the most indefatigable. Day and night his automobile went tearing about the country in search of "beats" and pictures, and of his exploits there was always a full account on the editorial page the next day. But, in spite of his strenuous efforts, the problem of adequate compilation of news was from the first acute and never satisfactorily solved, and the paper, its only contact with the outside world a single-wire service of a news association whose night wire was frankly largely devoted to feature material for evening papers, and with all news savoring of crime or scandal by inviolable order barred to its columns, remained to the last a more or less stereotyped rewrite from early evening bulldogs of competitors in the morning field. Hardly did Vanderbilt have opportunity to look about him before the staff was torn to pieces by succeeding waves of dissension. Prevented by his own paradoxical sense of inferiority from gaining the loyalty and support of his employees, who, in turn, found themselves tied down by regulations which violated all their experience and instincts, he was almost immediately confronted with a situation bordering on open revolt, which necessitated a complete rebuilding of his staff, and from that time forward the internal history of Vanderbilt Newspapers, Inc. was a history of constant intrigue and constantly changing executives and staffs. One thing, however, Vanderbilt remembered his promise to crusade in the interests of the great common people against vested interests of all descriptions and thereby won for himself .that place in the heart of his public which all his future mistakes were never able to take away entirely. At that time the all-powerful Chamber of Commerce and allied associations of business men had three pet projects-the Los Angeles Community Chest, the Los Angeles Coliseum, and the recently organized Crime Commission. Two of these were headed by R. H. Pridham, President of the Chamber, and the third by Harry Chandler, owner and publisher of the Los Angeles "Times." Against all three Vanderbilt launched successive attacks with all the vigor and invective at his command; nor was there over-delicate sparing of personalities. While circulation grew by leaps and bounds, open war was declared against him by the Chamber, and for a short period the "News" presented the paradoxical spectacle of a paper whose advertising diminished in direct ratio to its increase in circulation. These outbursts were followed by a partially successful campaign against the administration of the California Veterans' Bureau under Lewis T. Grant and a drive for more adequate school accommodations. Underneath this brave front, however, office discord, inadequate news service, and the solid opposition of organized business soon began to take their toll. Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr. Two expensive exploitation contests failed to justify themselves, and a little later an attempt to increase revenue by raising the street price of the paper to two cents resulted in a violent drop in circulation, which never was recovered. Nothing could be more typical of the Vanderbilt psychology than that he should suddenly decide, in the midst of gathering clouds, to launch the San Francisco "Herald" and the Miami "Tab." His characteristic restlessness, spurred by his growing sense of futility and inability to cope with the problems with which he was confronted, drove him back into his perennial search for new and greener worlds to conquer and new scenes for the re-enacting of old triumphs. From then on he was less and less at his office and more and more he devoted himself to restless tours between his three papers. Meanwhile with each failure and change of management his papers became more conciliatory, more neutral, more colorless in tone. Still, as late as 1925 he retained so much of his early strength that he was able almost single-handed to re-elect the incumbent Mayor of Los Angeles against the united opposition of the conservative element and the flaming hostility of every newspaper in the city except the "Scripps Record," and the Hearst papers, which maintained a silent neutrality. Vanderbilt and Vanderbilt policies really ceased to be a vital force in the direction of the papers in the fall of 1925, when Mr. Harvey Johnson, of Chicago, came to California with carte blanche as the joint representative of the publisher and of General Cornelius Vanderbilt, who had by that time become more or less heavily involved. Under Johnson's régime virtue and conciliation were carried almost to the point of obnoxiousness. The paper which a few months before had openly defied the Chamber of Commerce now found itself soliciting signed articles from its officers. Special pages were devoted weekly to Rotary, Kiwanis, and kindred service clubs, against whose leaders a short time before Vanderbilt had been crying anathema. Lecturers were sent up and down the coast to bespeak the support of business organizations and tell of the reformation of Vanderbilt policies. But the antidote was too strong, or came too late, and served only to alienate those of the paper's supporters who still remained loyal. From there the descent was sharp and rapid. THE HE ultimate fate of the Vanderbilt crusade is of course a matter of pure speculation. The San Francisco "Illustrated Daily Herald" has apparently gone forever, while the Miami "Illustrated Daily Tab" was so essentially a child of the Florida boom that it is hard to see a basis for its continued existence. The Vanderbilt magazines-"Vanderbilt's Weekly" and "Vanderbilt's Farmer"—were never more than supplements to the Sunday editions of his papers, and his syndicate has for two years existed in name only. The Los Angeles "Illustrated Daily News," on the other hand, has factors definitely in favor of its survival. There is an element of Los Angeles business and civic life which in the Vanderbilt paper has for the first time found articulate expression, and which will probably be very loth to permit the press of the city to again fall under the complete dominance of Mr. Harry Chandler and the noisy and alien Mr. Hearst. Furthermore, a complete collapse would bring the Vanderbilt name very close to involvement in an insolvent popular stock promotion, a thing which it seems reasonable to suppose will not happen. From the point of view of his own ambitions and of those who supported him, Vanderbilt has failed, but in his failure he has left a mark on Los Angeles and on American journalism that will not immediately be erased. N EVER in the history of New York banking has there been such a display of money as that recently offered to public inspection by the Chase National Bank at its Park Avenue branch, in the heart of Gotham's exclusive residential district. It is an exhibition that might well be described as one of all the money of the world, for the 30,000 and more specimens on view represent the exchange tokens of every land under the sun and cover a period of five thousand years, or since man first adopted a medium for his bartering activities. The money loaned to the bank for its educational treat by Farran Zerbe, of Tyrone, Pennsylvania, numismatist extraordinary, is the largest and most valuable collection of coins, currency, and trade tokens in existence. Before the World War knocked monetary standards topsy-turvy the collection was calculated to represent $50,000,000, but to-day its owner declares, somewhat paradoxically, the Sphinx alone could voice its value. The collection is complete from the gold colpata of southern India, the small Fish-hooks and nails and other inconvenient substitutes for our present tokens of exchange By ROSS DUFF WHYTOCK est coin ever minted, to the eight-daler "I had supposed the collection to be Interest in the display is not confined to collectors or those who are versed in numismatic lore. It has a popular appeal, for the well-labeled cases of coins, tokens, and currency unfold in a gripping way the romance of money. Here are fish-hooks that are money north of the Arctic Circle; copper crosses that purchase wives in the heart of the Dark Continent; bank notes issued by John Law, of Mississippi Bubble fame; twenty-five-cent gold pieces, minted in California's nuggety days; hand-wrought nails that were cash of the early New England realm. The cases containing specimens of Chinese money are strangely fascinating. In their early use of metal money the Chinese sought to make the coin conform in shape with the thing which it would purchase. Several of the coins are shaped like the human body, indicating that they could be used solely in the purchase of clothing. Other coins are spade-shaped, and such were used in the buying of agricultural implements. Several of these early Chinese coins are in the shape of a razor and were used for the purchase of knives, spears, and such articles. Those persons who conceive of money only in the form of metal coins or currency will be surprised to find that tea, salt, tobacco, and cheese have been used, or are still in use, in many countries as cash. Here are bricks of tea, bearing strange inscriptions, that are used for money in the interior of Tibet and in Mongolia; rock salt that passes for cash in northern Russia and Arabia; cheese, artistically stamped, that was used in North China up to one hundred years ago; and strips of licorice-soaked tobacco, pierced so they can be strung as necklaces, and which are made in Petersburg, Virginia, for circulation in many of the islands of the South Pacific. The only known specimen of money issued by the American Indian is in the Zerbe collection. It is a one-dollar note, and was printed for the Cherokee Nation in 1862. Mr. Zerbe was for fifteen years on the trail of this lone dollar bill before he traced it down and secured it for his collection a short time ago. Another recent addition to the collection is a United States bill that is of a $2 denomination on the face and $1 on the back. The printing error was not discovered until a package of the notes reached a bank in Michigan a few months ago. Among the interesting specimens of early American money is a note issued in 1775 by the Sons of Liberty in Boston. It has a face value of twenty-four shil Chinese and Swedish coins described by Mr. |