system of orders obeyed, of dues assessed upon office-holders and of tribute collected, of rewards for the obedient and punishment for the refractory, of year-round goodness to the poor, of liberal "recognition" of those who work to get out the vote and watch at the polls.

VAR

ARE has been almost a cipher in his fourteen years in the House of Representatives at Washington. He has a record as an absentee when many important votes were taken. His boast has been his insignificant membership on the Appropriations Committee. He has followed the political principle of "addition, division, and silence." But in Philadelphia, where he was first a Councilman and then recorder of deeds, he came to power, and now that power is confirmed and made absolute by his succession to the throne vacated by those infinitely abler men, Matthew Stanley Quay and Boies Penrose.

Pepper, appointed by Sproul, thought his record at Washington entitled him to be returned to office as the result of a popular election. He announced himself a candidate last September.

Governor Pinchot entered the field against him last March, after calling a special session of the Legislature, which turned down several of the Governor's pet measures, such as the election reform and the liquor legislation bills.

A few days later Vare, seeing his shining opportunity, entered the arena against Pepper and Pinchot. He thought a platform advocating a modification of the Volstead Act to permit the use of light wines and beer was all the platform he needed. At the recent Senate investigation when he was requested to depart from a prepared written statement to answer questions concerning the probable effect of a modification he contented himself with saying that he was no lawyer; and plainly he required guidance in order to formulate logical answers to rational queries. He made the poorest possible impression as a witness; but those who have managed his successful campaign, thinking and acting for him as far as possible, are content to put before the people his party regularity and his moist philosophy, and do not care about the rest. Harry Mackay, City Treasurer of Philadelphia, as Vare campaign manager has been the Bunty or Tony Sarg who pulled the strings; and Vare has not made a move, nor said a word, nor signed on a dotted line, save at the behest of this astute politician, who turned every mistake of Pinchot or Pepper to the profit of his candidate, and saw his chance in the unfortunate division of the "reform" forces.

Pinchot said: "On the liquor issue I will stand, vote, and fight dry under any and all circumstances." He was "against the political gang in Philadelphia and in every other county in Pennsylvania." He cited Roosevelt's accolade, saying that the latter would have named him Secretary of State had he been elected in 1912, and declared that he was supported by the great majority of Pennsylvania women and by the 250,000 members of the United Mine Workers.

Vare in his statement confined himself to the issue raised by the Volstead Act, denounced it on the threadbare score of infringement of personal liberty, and concluded by saying, "I would advocate a law permitting the sale of light wines and beer."

No one who voted intelligently needed to be in doubt as to the stand of each of these candidates. One wet champion confronted two dry protagonists.

But when it came to the "show-down" at the polling-places in the primary, it is

perfectly certain that many wets voted for Pepper simply because these voters. could not endure the thought of being represented in the Senate by Mr. Vare. Mr. Pepper had previously indicated that he would act upon the issue as the popular preference of Pennsylvanians suggested; if most of the people wanted a modification of the Volstead Act, he would favor it; if the majority went dry, he would side with the majority.

It is also certain that many wet votes were cast for Pinchot because of a personal regard for the man and approval of his policies and practices. Thus in the coal regions the miners in many instances voted for Pinchot and Beidleman, wet candidate for Governor.

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As

s for the victory of Fisher over Beidleman in the contest for the gubernatorial nomination, it is significant to note that Fisher as a State Senator was chairman of the committee that investigated the Capitol scandal and vigorously pushed the prosecution. Under Governor Sproul, he was an excellent Commissioner of Banking. He won the stanch support of Joseph R. Grundy, head of the Manufacturers' Association and a very influential factor in Pennsylvania politics. Grundy and Pepper had a falling out, and Pepper had openly defied Grundy, so that the Grundy influence, used unreservedly in favor of Fisher as Governor, did not in the least. aid Pepper's Senatorial candidacy.

Beidleman had openly declared himself against the Grundy influence. He said: "I am antagonistic to everything that spells Grundyism." His candidacy was seriously embarrassed by the fact that while he was Lieutenant-Governor he had accepted a $5,000 check from Auditor-General Charles A. Snyder for appearing in a tax-collection case as his attorney. A curious circumstance is that the late Edwin H. Vare (brother of the Senatorial nominee) four years ago said that the acceptance of this money put him out of the running as a gubernatorial possibility. Yet on the present occasion William S. Vare accepted Beidleman as his running mate, and declared their political interests identical.

The eleventh hour upset in favor of Fisher after Beidleman had been crowned and hailed the victor is a heavy blow to Vare, since it shatters his hope of controlling the State as he controls Philadelphia. It is a blow to W. Harry Baker, chairman of the Republican State Committee, who had thrown the whole weight of his influence into Beidleman's candidacy and who could not afford the costly failure. With a Governor and a State administration under his thumb at

Harrisburg, Vare would have been czar of Pennsylvania, and he could reasonably expect, two years hence, to displace the other Senator from Pennsylvania, David Reed, of Pittsburgh, who has the powerful support of the Mellon interests. Vare intends to have himself made National Committeeman from Pennsylvania, in fulfillment of his design to play off both ends of the State against the middle and confirm his domination everywhere. But with Fisher instead of Beidleman at Harrisburg, he will find himself facing a high-minded and patriotic opponent whose mettle has been

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dication of the manner in which they should trim their own sails to catch the breeze whatever the trend might be. The wets have hailed the Vare nomination as proof that the people want "Volsteadism" modified, if not abolished. The drys are to some extent disheartened, even though, as has been indicated, the vote is not to be regarded simply as a wet-anddry referendum. And certain European nations, already skeptical regarding our "experiment" with prohibition, will see in the Pennsylvania result the proof on a large scale of a popular counter-revolution against a restrictive edict.

By

HARLES L. CARSLAKE, who served the Government for three years as a prohibition agent, told

me that he could easily have become a rich man during that period by accepting bribes.

In giving into this temptation Mr. Carslake said that he would have only been doing "the usual thing." But instead he lived on his $2,000 a year salary and, as an experienced detective, gave his best efforts night and day toward the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment.

to live up to his oath of office-that is, he did so as long as he was allowed to continue in the Government's employ. He was soon eased out of the Federal service. Now as a Burlington County detective and as a private operative he continues to expose violations of the Prohibition Law, as well as other laws. Things still go pretty hard for him. A big, husky man, with splendid courage and a strong character, he stands up under it all-disillusioned, angry, and a bit discouraged, but still plugging along.

He succeeded in making a record for NEXT week I am going to tell you of

seizures of trucks illegally transporting bootleg liquor. He played no favorites. He tried his best to get at the big bootleg operators. He made arrests both during his hours of duty and during the hours in which he was supposed to rest. Rum-runners throughout the whole State of New Jersey feared him as an efficient enforcement officer who could not be bought off. In short, he did his duty.

With what result?

Notes that he was carrying in the bank could not be renewed. He was forced to mortgage his farm. Pressure was brought to bear upon him. Attempts were made to blacken his reputation. He realized that he was in danger of going through a long siege of financial difficulties. He called his children together and told them frankly what he was up against. "I know that I have not given you the luxuries and advantages you should have. I know that things will probably get worse as I go along. I can very easily change all that by going the easiest way and taking my rake-off along with most of the others. What shall I do?"

"No matter what happens, dad, we don't want you to do anything crooked." Carslake continued to do his duty and

EXT week I am going to tell you of another honest Federal prohibition agent who did his duty. This man paid the price of dismissal and abuse with a complete physical breakdown.

"Decent people don't realize what a Government officer who does his level best is up against," ex-Agent Carslake said to me. "We act as a bumper between decent folks and the underworld, and the underworld seems to have all the best of it as far as crack legal and financial assistance is concerned. The people don't back us up. A great majority of those who eat and go to bed at regular hours have not the slightest conception of what is going on in this underground liquor traffic. Individuals don't seem to care anything about it until they themselves are hit between the eyes. Then they wake up. It has to be personal. Ordinarily they are not at all concerned and pooh-pooh the importance of the whole matter. But when it hits their own family then they become redheaded. There is a prominent man down in this neck of the woods whom no one could get excited about the continued violations of the dry law. But when, after a large party given at his home, almost all the young people were drunk and his own daughter was insulted, then

he went on a rampage to get every bootlegger in the country locked up."

"Mr. Carslake, what temptations do Federal agents have to face?" I asked.

"An agent who is at all feared by the 'leggers can obtain from them as much money in two weeks as he would draw from the Government in an entire year. After I had made a reputation of spotting and knocking down booze trucks I was offered $1,000 a week by the bootleggers if I would not interfere with their business. They also guaranteed to furnish me two trucks a week which I could seize so as to keep my record clean with the Federal authorities. From others I have been offered the lump sum of $10,000 cash to let their trucks ride. A representative of another gang offered me $500 a week while I was standing in a district attorney's office. It is nothing at all to be offered $1,000 by the driver of a single truck captured. Even in raiding little wash-boiler stills in some old shack on a side of a hill, it is customary to be offered from $250 to $300 to say nothing.

"A Federal agent living on a $2,000 salary and with no private income can't drive expensive cars of twice that cost and be on the level, and don't let anybody tell you that he can. Why do you suppose so many are anxious to get appointed as Federal agents at this small salary? I know agents who did not have anything more than the clothes on their backs when they came into the service and who have bought tens of thousands of dollars' worth of real estate, several expensive cars, and anything that an extravagant millionaire would wish.

"I remember an instance of a man who was taken on the force, flat broke. His clothes were all worn thin, and he hardly had enough money to buy a lunch. lunch. In a few days he appeared in

expensive clothes and displayed a diamond stick-pin. While sitting in the agents' room one day, the tailor 'phoned, saying that this man's suit which had been sent to him to press contained several one-hundred-dollar bills rolled up in the vest pocket. The tailor simply wanted to notify the agent that he had found the money. All the other officers in the room burst out laughing."

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HIS report of grafting among Federal prohibition agents can hardly be considered as news. Almost every one in and out of the Government service knows that such a condition exists. General Andrews admitted in his testimony at the recent hearing before the Senate Committee in Washington that 875 agents, or a very large proportion of the total number, had been dismissed for this reason. The important point to note, it seems to me, is that an agent can pile up a considerable fortune before he is caught, and then he is not prosecuted, but simply asked to resign. High officers of the Prohibition Unit have stated that the Government policy is not to bring any proceedings against a grafting agent or to have any publicity about it, but simply to require his leaving the service. Many of the ex-agents then make use of their experience by entering the bootlegging business themselves. Mr. Carslake mentioned an instance in which a rum truck was seized with an ex-prohibition director in command of it.

"Local police usually can't do anything about prohibition violations, even if they want to," said Mr. Carslake. "If they try to make unwanted arrests, they only cut off their own heads. People higher up won't stand for enforcement. A cop who is getting a salary of $100 or so a month and who is keeping up a home and has a wife and several children dependent upon him finds it hard to withstand the argument of the bootlegger, which runs something as follows: 'You have to live as well as I do. I am doing my best to keep my family in funds. This is a bum law, anyway, which was slipped over on us. You have got a right to take care of your kids too, so why not take this twenty-five dollars or fifty dollars and lay off? We'll take care of you on our weekly pay-roll.'"

In going about Camden and other South New Jersey towns I noticed how opcaly liquor was being sold. In some barrooms they do not even bother to draw the shades. There can be little question-but that the local officials know exactly what is going on. Policemen walk in front of and into these places, but nothing is done about it.

The prohibition agent not only has the financial temptation to resist, but he also

receives many threats of bodily harm; and he is quite well aware that in some cases he is dealing with desperate characters who would not hesitate to put him out of the way. "Several bootleggers told me," said Mr. Carslake, "that they would see to it that I died with my shoes on." "What kind of men go into the Fed

Charles L. Carslake

eral prohibition service?" I asked Mr. Carslake.

"Of course, you find some splendid men," he replied, "but in the main they are in the service to get as much out of it as they can. Some of them would steal anything from liquor to jewelry in making raids.

"It is so easy for a prohibition agent to make a great deal of money, and systems have been evolved which enable him to cover up his profits, so that it is very difficult to prove that he has actually made money from bootleg graft. It is usually arranged so that there is some excuse provided where he could have made this money in a legitimate way.

"With my record, I could easily have piled up a small fortune. It would not have been hard to get away with it. I could have bluffed it through and no one could have touched me. If I had done this, every one would have been on my side.

"There would be a good chance of enforcing this law to a reasonably high degree of efficiency if the Government would adopt the policy of locking a man up when it gets something on him. At up when it gets something on him. At the present time the moral fiber in this country seems to be very, very thin. With politics and the underworld hooked up together and so much underground influence working throughout the depart

ment, I don't think there is a chance of the law being enforced. If officialdom were knocked out, I think it could be done. It would have to be put up to the local people, however. A good deal of the red tape would have to be done away with. Some of the directors of public safety and other local officers would have to be sent to jail. I don't think there would be much trouble in making a good showing in enforcement if it was gone at in earnest."

"Do you mean to say that an agent who wishes to enforce the law is hampered in his efforts?" I asked.

"Of course he is. If you tread on the toes of men higher up or their friends, you are immediately called off. At various times the entire force of agents would be stationed on guard duty at certain out-of-the-way places, and, although we had no proof of the fact that we were being put there to be kept out of the way for some large movement of liquor, we all felt sure that that was the reason. Whenever I would get particularly active in knocking off a few of the eighty or ninety beer trucks that pass over a certain road each night I would get a telegram ordering me to some other part of the State. About half my time was spent upon the trains, going from point to point, for no particular reason that I could figure out, except to keep me out of the way. Upon one occasion I was taken off the road, where I had been making a great many seizures, and placed on warehouse duty for five days. Every bootlegger in the State knew it, and when I happened to make an arrest while off duty the rum-runner said: 'I thought you were in the warehouse. What are you doing out here?' Sometimes I would get the same beer-truck driver as many as six or eight times. I have heard of trucks being released when it was claimed the samples taken from the trucks were near-beer, and not real beer. We all knew, though it would be difficult to prove, that somewhere along the line these samples of near-beer had been exchanged for the samples of highpowered beer seized."

As I was leaving Mr. Carslake he said: "I admit I am pretty sore; but can you blame me? The supposedly good people don't back us up. Some of them that pretend to be good live two kinds of lives-daytime lives of respectability and nightime lives when they are not above breaking the law themselves. A little while ago I had with me a highly respected man who was strongly vouched for by the Federation of Churches, but he had his own arrangements for getting liquor and drank openly in the roadhouse we visited. It is a pretty discouraging proposition, I can tell you."

S democracy bankrupt? This is evident for an increasing number of thinking Frenchmen, and soon it will be what I believe you call a truism with them. Do not attach too much importance to the electoral storm of 1924. Educated opinion, which is what we are concerned with, was astounded by it, as was popular opinion also. Anxious, though not really fearful, for their "rights," a million civil servants succeeded in upsetting four million electors; and, the mischief done, men begin to ask one another with concern how to be rid of a régime which could allow of such upheavals.

But we must come to an agreement about the terms we use, for it is a controversial matter. I can call democracy the government of goodness and beauty. I can say that democracy is identical with demophily. I can assert that it is a government designed and carried on for the good of the people. Strictly, the word democracy means government by the people; or, more accurately, the régime which gives the control of the state to the most numerous-that is, to the least cultured; that is, to the less well informed; that is, to those least able to choose and act with freedom and discernment. The mediocrity of such a government must be obvious before even it is tried. But France has made the experiment, and Frenchmen are becoming less and less satisfied with it.

They need only to look at some historical landmarks. We had in 1789 a national monarchy which governed in the most general interests of the country and whose foundation and strength depended on numerous powerful and wellinstructed middle classes, the nurseries of civil servants, of political and judicial counselors. Nearly all Ministers of State came from their ranks, the remainder being supplied by the high and low Catholic clergy, the so-called noble class supplying chiefly the higher ranks of the services, but not exclusively. This régime exhibited certain titular and fiscal inequalities. It was to get rid of them. that we have this equalitarian revolution, this democratic evolution. What have we gained by it? Some small, fleeting advantages which were on the way to fulfillment in the simple course of time— small holdings have increased in the last

1 An editorial on this subject appears elsewhere in this issue.

By CHARLES MAURRAS

Editor of "L'Action Française"

thirty years much less than has been said -and we have lost tremendously.

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SEAFARING folk will understand our first catastrophe-the destruction of our navy. Before the Revolution Great Britain considered us as competitors and possible rivals at sea. After the tragedy which Waterloo decided the most ambitious of the French had to content themselves with second place. We now occupy the fifth. We have a fine colonial empire, but no ships to guard it! On the Continent the years 1792, 1814, 1815, 1870, 1914 stand for invasions not 1815, 1870, 1914 stand for invasions not equally menacing yet humiliating and destructive, whatever the result was. Does it not seem to you that five invasions in five quarter-centuries is a good deal for one nation? No such misfortune has, it would seem, happened to Great Britain since the year of our Lord 1066.

My friend Jacques Bainville points out in his "History of France" that the Germans, masters of Paris in 1814, calculated that nine centuries had elapsed since their eagles had flown over the heights of Montmartre. This appearance of the foreigner-or, as the Greeks were wont to say, the barbarian -on what our revolutionaries called "the sacred soil of the motherland" shows the disparity between what these last have promised and what the régime they invented has achieved.

In home affairs the same illusions. In 1785 we had the densest and most numerous population, taken absolutely, of all Continental and even insular European states. Our birth rate has declined and our population has steadily decreased for nearly a century; its decline dates from 1831. The rural population is thinning, and if the towns increase out of measure, neither the quantity of our production nor the quality of our method of production has improved in the democratic period. Pari passu, with the spread of democratic ideas, and especially since the Third Republic, our economic apparatus has depreciated because our economic life began to lose its vitality for want of guidance from above and initiative from below. The professional classes, especially in the provinces and the whole professional organization both town and country, were razed by the revolutionary movement; their partial building up again, undertaken after the storm, remained far below our needs.

I do not wish to speak abroad of the increase in crime, nor of the lowered morals, nor of the weakening of religious ties, nor of the various educational and judicial crises-subjects too painful, but which must be hinted at to explain the happy but expensive reaction which is taking place in the French mind.

This reaction has arisen in the intellectual classes the academic, literary, philosophic, and scientific worlds. It flows from the work of the best French minds of the nineteenth century, whether Catholic or anti-Catholic. Maistre, Bonald, Balzac, Veuillot, Le Play, Auguste Comte, and Maurice Barrès have taken part in this movement. To-day it is spreading throughout the country. The Frenchman is beginning to consider what he has lost in Europe and what is wrong in his own house. A walk through Paris or Versailles reminds him that most of her reputation as a nation, her authority. her prestige, come from the relics of what he used to call Old France and which reveals herself daily, young, fresh, and new in the esteem of the entire world. The Frenchman feels that he is first and foremost an inheritor. An inheritor of what and of whom? Not of the democratic age, which was rich in brilliant talent and generous impulse, but which has left. so few finished monuments or lasting works. We are the inheritors of the old régime.

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ND if the inheritance has decreased or has been increasing too slowly we are beginning to get some idea of the causes. They may be reduced to two:

(1) We have lacked authority, stability, moral and material order in the state; and this through the fault of democracy. Whether parliamentary, plebiscitary, imperialist, or republican, the democratic state is based altogether on popular election; which is as much as to say that it walks upside down. And the head changes so frequently that it has no opportunity of applying the few just ideas that come to it in this uncomfortable position.

(2) We have lacked the necessary public, social, and civil liberty-freedom of religion, of the family, of the commune, of the province, of profession, of handicraft-because the natural tendency of democracy is to make all political life an affair between the individual and the state. Anglo-Saxon wisdom has

in all times happily reserved this freedom, or at least curtailed it only very gradually. The tidal wave of logic has been so strong with us as to sweep away or threaten to sweep away house and home. This is one of the principal causes of depopulation; birds no longer come if you destroy the nests.

This double cause of national and social weakness is bound up for us with the history of democracy. Our foreign pol

icy has been poor because of the inadequacy by their training of those who hold high office-as admitted by the Socialist member Marcel Sembat; and we have not had that economic and moral stability which should correspond with the resources of the race and its territory, for hand in hand with the political impotence of democracy there goes the tremendous force of dissolution according to law. On this point an Eng

lishman of the last century made a singularly luminous and prophetic remark. It was after Waterloo. The victorious Prussians were all for dismembering us. But Lord Castlereagh said: "Leave them to themselves; France is already sufficiently enfeebled by her régime." And this régime formulates and sums up the blind destructive equalitarianism of democracy. Who can wonder that we have had enough of it?

S

OME years ago, writing in the "Bookman" and the "International Studio," I repeatedly called attention to what I believed to be a consistent campaign of disparagement directed against American painting in general and certain American painters in particular. I had reason to suspect that foreign influences and certain persons in this country of exotic and faddish predilections were working to discourage the American picture buyer's

And this, mind you, in the work of a painter who was, five to six years ago, accredited the foremost landscape painter of this country.

Note the following: A person may say, "Well, this is only one painter. Maybe Murphy sold too high years ago. Maybe he was over-boomed. Maybe he was not a first-rater, after all."

You

ion is against American painting. Mr. Christian Brinton tells us it is anachronistic. Mr. Leo Stein, writing some years ago in the "New Republic," tells us that America has produced one painter only, Albert Ryder. A certain foreigner, who maintains an art gallery in this city, dismisses American painting contemptuously, whether it be Inness, Homer, or any one you choose. And so

on.

art. I was met on all sides by incredulity and dislike. American dealers and painters hoisted human nature's servile and fatuous motto, "Don't start any thing." When a certain American painter died, and one of the most prominent magazines in this country was approached by his executors with the request that, in accordance with his expressed designation, I should be allowed to write a memorial appreciation of his work, the request was denied on the ground that I was a sort of fanatic who gratuitously stirred up trouble.

This was ten to a dozen years ago. To-day a certain type of American painting has depreciated a hundred to a hundred and fifty per cent in commercial value. A few nights back, at the American Art Galleries, New York, six pictures of J. Francis Murphy's sold for $16,600, as compared with the price of $25,200 originally paid for them. Here was the well-known "Road to the Old Farm," for which a price of $7,500 was paid in 1916, selling for $3,600. Here was the exquisite "Morning," for which the owner had paid $3,000, selling for $2,400. A disheartening depreciation.

Which is perfectly logical, perfectly open and aboveboard. The important thing is the fact that not only Murphy but a dozen other painters have gone down and out to a similar extent. And these painters have, so some persons think, represented the flower of a certain type of American painting.

To many persons, the matter will seem of little importance. Some people may even go so far as to think that painting is inherently an inferior art, an art that cannot rank co-equal in importance and indispensability with the arts of music and literature. Other persons will appreciate the fact that other countries have seen fit to encourage their art, to export it, to commandeer it, literally, upon occasions, for purposes of propaganda. This country has done none of these things. To the contrary, it has appeared to take a sort of pervert, fulsome gratification in disparaging its art. There is little doubt that one of its most successful painters, J. Francis Murphy, was subjected to a campaign of disparagement that came close to downright defamation.

It is obvious that if American painting, as an art manifestation, is inherently inferior, there is no use in trying to bolster it up with small-town optimism. The weight of portentous critical opin

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the other hand, there are persons who believe that American painting -our landscape painting in particularis, in a way, the finest development that this phase of the art of painting has so far shown. On this side of the fence one may note Mr. Cortissoz, Mr. Caffin, and (wonder of wonders!) Mr. James Huneker. So the thing simmers down to the question of what constitutes good art; and this writer does not presume to offer a definition of a subject that has been in debate since the world began. All that this article intends is to set down certain concrete facts, and certain sincere and significant allegations. Accepting as a working basis the hypothesis that American painting, in certain instances, has produced an exquisite blending and amalgamation of antecedent points of view, that is in itself intrinsically valid and beautiful, what do we find?

We find that the American public has practically no appreciation of the fact that this country has produced certain painters that can hang, so far as a consummate artistry goes, with any art of a like nature that the world has so far seen. We find that the average person