leaders, and the Club Camille Desmoulins was soon a reality."

T

HIS written campaign has roused the country, and different newspapers have either attacked it or opened their columns. "La Liberté" and the "Volonté," organ of the Cartel des Gauches, strangely enough, have been accepting articles attacking Parliament. At the At the numerous meetings, organized for educational purposes, the motto, "Parliamentarism must die or France is ruined," has divided the audiences into antagonistic groups.

"We are realists," Dominique explained to me. "We have watched the six hundred Deputies and three hundred Senators in the French Parliament, and we know that they do nothing but talk. They never act. In reality, the Government should govern and Parliament should only control. But it is quite evident that the Parliament does not control; all it accomplishes is to upset the Government and prevent it from governing. The system is fundamentally wrong. During the war our Parliament only disorganized the country; it certainly led it disgracefully. Once the war over, the Bloc National talked from 1919 to 1924. Then the Cartel des Gauches had its innings up to 1926; and what did that group do but talk and talk? Both the Right and the Left were equally ineffective.

"Our régime of partisan government is fatal to the interests of the country, and must be eliminated. And, since Parliament is the expression of this system, it too must be suppressed."

"Le Rappel" was used as a medium for starting the campaign, but an entirely new magazine, to be known as "Paris-France" will soon appear as the official organ of the Club, which will act as the nucleus around which local clubs will centralize throughout France.

"But it is not sufficient to destroy," Dominique went on. "France needs a social, economic, and financial reorganization. A political reform must attain it. Every big state must have a strong government, with the principle of authority and continuity well established. Two experiments have been made since the war: Communism in Russia and Fascism in Italy. Neither of these can be transplanted to French soil. The internationalism of Communism and the narrow chauvinism of Fascism are equally inapplicable. France needs a modern, nationalistic system, in accord with the French mind and the industrial

France, since the people are profoundly republican; both Napoleon I and III tried to re-establish the principle and failed."

T

IT

is not difficult to start a campaign of destruction. What is even more important is to have a plausible constructive plan, and it is here that the political acumen of the leaders of the Club Camille Desmoulins has shown itself.

"To insure a Government of authority and continuity, the Club is working for government by a group of ten men, a Comité such as we had under the French Directoire. To avoid disruption in the case of death, and also to insure the entrance of new blood, one new member would be introduced every year. All national questions would be settled by the Comité. The principle of decentralization would be firmly established; local problems would be settled locally. The Comité of ten would be assisted by a number of technically trained Ministers-men who really know their business, and in no way resembling the ignoramuses we have to-day. It would defend the interests of the Republic and yet remain modern. It would not be either Communism or Fascism. There would be no sudden reversals of Ministries, no partisan politics, no disorder. Naturally, even such a body must be controlled by the people, and we are in favor of a small Assembly, which will not have the power to change anything in the Government, as it does now. It would act only as a censor and an expression of opinion.

"Our problem in France," Dominique continued, "is to avoid both Communism and Fascism, for each is dangerous to the peace of Europe. We must all work for a united Europe, of which every nation is an integral part, for therein alone lies the guaranty of a lasting peace. I am convinced that there is such a thing as a European mentality, a spirit of accord; and it is this very lack which makes me fear Fascism, which so far has been the cause of several military encounters in southern Europe. I need hardly mention Communism, which is admittedly military in organization and aim. Fascism and Communism both develop irritability, violence, and bitterness. What we need in Europe are peace and united action between neighbors."

As

s soon as this virulent campaign was launched every newspaper asked the founders of the Club how they intended to rid the country of the Parlia

"Were our Parliament awake enough to see the handwriting on the wall," Mr. Dominique answered, "it would abdicate and not emulate the bad example of Louis XVI, on whom force had to be used. As the sentiment grew against it, which is the case among all classes of French except among the professional politicians, it would gracefully dissolve, naming ten men for the Comité, selected from among men of standing outside of its body. Not lawyers, but business men should be selected, men accustomed to organization and action. We do not want any talkers. Of course, if when the time is ripe and Parliament still continues its blind verbiage, then it will be necessary for the people to act—to overthrow the Parliament and select a Comité, an action both illegal and harmful for France, since it would involve force, We may be obliged to create a revolutionary movement-nationalistic, republican, anti-parliamentary, and professional. Meanwhile we are working along peaceful lines."

PIERR

IERRE DOMINIQUE here spoke of the new weekly magazine, "ParisFrance," under the guidance of Charles Albert, a veteran writer and worker in the syndicalist movement, who is to be the political director. His book, "Le Mouvement révolutionnaire," was translated by Mussolini in 1913 and published by him in the "Avanti” together with a preface from the Fascist leader. He is bringing the support of the syndical movement in France to the new movement, which is spreading rapidly into the provinces, and which will centralize around the magazine and its readers.

"The membership in the Club is already in the thousands and rapidly increasing in the form of subscribers to the magazine at a rate which exceeds a thousand per week, which is a formidable number, from our point of view. After all, the French people are intelligent and highly cultured. They know that if three people can never agree, which is invariably the case, it is just as impossible to get six hundred to act together. We must replace the bad system by a more intelligent one. But we must not destroy, as Communism does, nor must we use the whip, as does Fascism. We want to clean the Augean stables of parliamentarism with its interminable speechmaking and try to build a healthy house on a healthy foundation. Only then can there be peace in Europe and an adequate solution to the tangled situation in our Budget and finances. What we need is patriotism and action, not

T

HE rebirth of nationalism continues apace in Italy. Fascism has no more appealing trait than the ardent desire to be worthy of Rome's past glory and Italy's future destinies. You feel this as you witness daily the Fascist revival of the classic mode of salute. You feel it as you see men uncover whenever a Fascist band passes playing "Giovinezza," or even when some black-shirted singer breaks into a patriotic song. Of course you feel it not at all as you observe some impulsive Fascist snatch an innocent red carnation, Socialism's emblem, from the buttonhole

of an unsuspecting Englishman, or knock the stranger's hat off if not removed quickly enough when other men are removing theirs in passing a monument sacred to Fascism and, naturally, meaningless to the stranger. Yet one hardly expects. restraint from every Fascist.

N

ATIONALISM in Italy means expansion. The Italian population among European countries is second only to Russia's and Germany's, and is now increasing annually about half a million. The Italians need more arable, above all, more mineral territory. They have had to emigrate in great numbers. These emigrants may send their savings home, but they are working for the power and prestige of other countries. Why not for Italy's? Why not, then, have a greater Italy? France, with no increasing population, has many and vast colonies. Italy's are few and relatively unimportant. Says the "Popolo d'Italia" of this city: "We are now 42,000,000 Italians. We have thus gone ahead of the French population, and in a territory half that of France, more mountainous, and almost entirely lacking in raw materials." No wonder that Italians contemplate a wider horizon and a higher economic, if not political, status for their country. "Contemplate," do I say? That seems a mild word. Listen to Benito Mussolini,

the Fascist Duce or leader: "Our destiny has been and is on the sea. The sea is ours. No one can stop our inexorable will."

That's the talk the Italians like. But, interpreted by the extent of Fascist am

1 Last week Mr. Baldwin gave an account of Fascism's direction of internal affairs. This is another and contrasting story.-THE EDITORS.

344

The Outlook's Editor in Europe

bition, it seems grandiloquent, especially as one considers other present controllers of the prophesied "Italian lake" like Great Britain, France, and Spain.

upon Asia Minor should convenient pretext be afforded.

are one.'

AN

N empire means colonies. Hence it is just that in visiting Italy's most important colony, Tripoli, Mussolini should emphasize at one and the same time the colonial and the imperial idea when he proclaimed, with a studied. homage never before shown to the King:

Our august, gracious, powerful Sovereign, his Majesty Victor Emmanuel III-whom may God benignly protect and whom the whole people profoundly love-has deigned to send me to this land, forever Italian. You are, I know, obedient to the laws of my august Lord and King. Thus to-day, to-morrow, and always, observant of the precepts of the august Sovereign. of Italy, you will be protected by his just laws. His Majesty the King and the Italian Governor of Tripoli want this land, on which are frequently found the remains of immortal Rome, to return to its wealth, prosperity, and happiness.

Italy's present colonies as well as the mainland fail to cover Italy's need of raw material. It is not surprising, then, that two years ago Mussolini remarked, "Henceforth Italy looks to the East." Presumably that referred to Adalia, in Asia Minor, and its mines, the desire for which was plainly shown when the Treaty of Sèvres was framed (1920). As the Turkish fleet is non-existent, as the Jugoslavian is in its infancy, and as that of Greece is but a fraction of the Italian, Italy finds herself the greatest naval Power immediately off the coast of the coveted land. Moreover, she now possesses the Dodecanese Islands, just the ideal strategic base for a descent

o turn from colonies to foreign relations, the Fascist Government, it I must be admitted, has obtained increasing prestige. Count Volpits successes at Washington and London have dazzled the diplomatic as well as the financial world, while at Locarno no event seemed more reassuring than when Italy took her place alongside England as co-guarantor of the Rhine boundary.

Internal affairs having become progressively settled, Signor Mussolini, Foreign Minister as well as Prime Minister (always bent on giving the Italians something new to think about every weekanother mark of his genius), is showing his hand more and more in external affairs. Sometimes it is a half-humorous, half-sarcastic gesture, as, for example, when he speaks of the tens of thousands of Italian laborers across the northwestern border as "making the prosperity and greatness of France;" or, as he looks across the northeastern, affirming that "so long as the Brenner approach remains in Austrian possession Italy feels strong enough to defend the pass without the aid of other Powers." (Let the French writhe under the implication.) Or, more earnestly, as he looks farther afield in that direction, he points out the danger of preventing or even of retarding Germany's admission into the League of Nations. Or, still more aggressively, he denounces German provocation in the now Italian Tyrol. As to Italian policy there, he proclaims "a Roman equity" and adds:

This will be continued in these regions that, with great audacity, are sought to be inclosed in the circle of the German cultural community, whereas for us all the upper Adige is, and will remain always, in the political, historical, geographical, economic, and moral Italian integrity. . . . The native population of the upper Adige is absolutely outside of the number of the minorities, the objects of special agreements in the peace treaties. Italy will accept no discussion on this subject in any assembly or any council. Later he said:

Those people [the Germans] are not forgetting or abandoning their

former dreams. That shows how legitimate and necessary my intervention was. "An impulsive gesture,' does some one say? "an ebullition of ill feeling"? No. It was the act of a responsible Government chief who sees clearly and who is not afraid to speak up in order to be heard. Italy is ready, if necessary, to carry her banners beyond her present frontiers, but back, never!

This allusion to the possibility of hold-, ing provinces beyond the Alps and beyond the home seas, as the Roman Empire did, was surely not lost on any Fascist. In the peroration of some of his speeches the Duce is also apt to fan the flame of conquest, appealing to every Fascist's combative instinct by calling upon him to regard himself as a soldier who at any moment may be summoned to fight.

And here is one of the Premier's latest pronouncements:

There is a general suspicion in foreign countries that Italy is pursuing an imperialist policy. Nations, like individuals, if they really want to live, must have imperialistic tendencies. Italian imperialism is, first of all, an expression of dignity on the part of Italians who are beginning to feel proud of their country. It is the necessity of economic and intellectual expansion to a really young nation which has arrived late on the scene.

unity sixty years ago, she has been a state only four years. [Even some Fascists will hardly agree to this.-E. F. B.] ...

Italy must have her place in the world. She will seek it with good grace. The Allies, she hopes, will meet her legitimate aspirations halfway.

IT

T is indeed a new Italy. Italians have been blowing their trumpets because of the Norge's success. This is natural, because not only was the dirigible built in Italy, but the crew was mostly Italian and was commanded by a gallant Italian officer, Colonel Nobile. The papers, however, are not satisfied with noting a merely national achievement; they are drawing political conclusions therefrom and see foreign expansion therein. The Rome "Tribuna" says, not surprisingly: "Italian participation in this conquest is the conscious voluntary expression of the new moral climate which Fascism, led by a national hero, has vouchsafed to Italy."

Most recent happenings, whether at home or abroad, gratifying the great majority of Italians, have correspondingly added to the present régime's popularity, and to that of its chief in particular. The instant reaction, not only here in Italy, but throughout the world, after the two recent attempts to assassinate him prove this. On the latter occasion, so a Fascist paper asserts, he received no

First, the dictatorship remains practically a one-man concern. What will happen when Mussolini is no more? No matter how thoroughly he has won a great majority to his rule-and he has it has been won not only because of Fascism's accomplishments, but also because its leader was the increasingly compelling pledge of more. No other Italian can match him in that. Any other Duce must therefore be a poor successor and face a corresponding dislocation of affairs political, economic, social, moral.

The second menace is the suppression of public opinion in speech and press. Italians are proud of Charles Albert's Constitution of 1848, granting newspaper freedom. Not until July, 1924 (after the Matteotti crime), did the Government decree vexatious restrictions on the press, intrusting their execution to the provincial prefects. In January, 1925, these restrictions were still further aggravated, and are now at such a pitch. that the whole Italian press is practically forbidden to make any criticism of the Government. If any newspaper does, not only is its issue confiscated, but the entire enterprise is liable to indefinite suspension. This has recently been startlingly proved.

Such drastic rule is itself a confirmation of weakness under seeming strength. Let us hope that a system will be found insuring discipline and liberty alike. The state's duty is to protect life, liberty, and property. Fascism has done much to protect life and property, but its protection of liberty, though insuring some, leaves much to be desired.

"Live dangerously," is Mussolini's motto. It is a stirring one. The only criticism is that at times its exponent may mistake violence for strength. To interfere with Mussolini's magnificent strength would be a pity. He doubtless thinks the gagging of the press conserves it. To some others, however, gagging seems only a petty exhibition of intoler

ance.

N

O, the color has not all gone from Ellis Island. Though its dwindling pilgrimage, decimated by the Quota Law and by the new plan of inspection abroad, may have brought a tinge of rust to the hinges of our National gate, once stormed by a million a year, there is yet what the artists call atmosphere there.

Endearingly quaint and picturesque are the immigrants at times. The dainty little bodice from Bohemia is still in evidence; boys and girls from bonny Scotland occasionally come over disporting their kilts and tartan plaids; the Spanish and Italian men are still wearing corduroy velveteen; the mantilla has not been discarded by the adorable señoritas from Spain; the dark-eyed girls from Italy continue to put on white satin the day they land in America, no matter how cold the weather may be, just as if it were their wedding day; and the soberminded Amazons from the hinterlands of northern Europe mock solemnly at modern modes of scanty skirts by wearing sixteen of them at a time, with cowhide boots away up to their knees, defying all laws of comfort and symmetry.

True, the World War did much toward standardizing dress for the men and women of every European country. The literacy test in our Immigration Law of recent years may have played a great part, too, in its deterring influence upon the peasantry of those lands whence came in former years the oddly artistic rustics in their colorful costumes. Moreover, most of the immigrants who have come to America since the war had been furnished with American-made clothes and shoes by their kindred residing here.

It seems remarkable how quickly the edicts of fashion are heard around the world and how promptly they are obeyed throughout the cities, towns, and villages of every land. Just a few years ago there was not a Chinaman in America who didn't have his queue trailing well-nigh to the ground. To-day he goes pompadoured and wears tortoise-shell eyeglasses, no different from the bond salesman in the street carrying his brief-case. It has just been announced from the Near East that the women of Turkey are no longer required to wear veils. Surely, all the world is coming to a uniform. mode of dress except the poor Eskimo, whose styles are set by the thermometer. Another stabilizing force in the unifi

By REMSEN CRAWFORD

cation of dress, and one which must be given more than flippant note, is the foxtrot. American music has followed the flag over the seven seas and into the four corners of earth. The skipper of a

Rosalia Burdriak as she looked
when she came to
Ellis Island

United States Shipping Board vessel says that when he landed at the mouth of the Congo River, on the west coast of Africa, a half-dressed Negro wearing moon-shaped earrings came down to the landing chanting "Yes, We Have No Bananas," to the amazement of the American crew. Sailors back from the cafés of Mexico and South America say that "La Paloma," with its mandolins and castanets, has given way to ""Tain't

Gonna Rain No More," with its rattling banjos and Charleston step.

All these far-reaching, distracting influences have had the effect of robbing our newcomers at Ellis Island of some of the color that characterized immigration of former years. Aliens still bring their mandolins and guitars to Ellis Island and generally carry them swinging from their shoulders by brightly colored bands, troubadour style-these knightly amateurs, always amatory and romantic. But when they strike up their music in felicitous celebration of their landing here it is never a classic or a folk-lore song from their native lands, as it used to be. It is more apt to be "Yes, Sir, She's My Baby."

A case in point was when the three girl musicians, Rachel, Sonia, and Anna Maranz, from a remote Polish town, came over from their war-torn home town in Central Europe, bound for Indiana, and, though they could speak no word of English, played "On the Banks of the Wabash Far Away" with an almost ante-Volsteadian expression. These girls were the life of the party, so to speak, that day they spent on Ellis Island. With their luminous corn-silk hair, their brightly colored costumes, their versatility of language (excepting the English language), their delight at seeing such culinary prodigality, their amusement at such wassail as the gingerale bottles betrayed in this land of prohibition, their unrestrained merriment, their bubbling gladness at being at last this side the Statue of Liberty, and their "Banks of the Wabash Far Away," they were indeed the life of the party, and they are remembered yet by matrons, guards, doctors, nurses, everybody on the island, as irresistible proof that the old melting-pot of Uncle Sam is no myth. Some skeptical restrictionist will ask, "How does such a trifling incident prove any such thing?" The answer is this: These girls had relatives living in Indiana, and these relatives had already caught the infection of patriotism breathed into all true Americans by such songs as the "Banks of the Wabash." They had sent the music to the old home town in Poland, and it had already begun its work of Americanization. When the girls came in sight of the Statue of Liberty, their war-time terrors and sorrows were more readily forgotten and they could look forward to brighter and better lives by following the tinkle of

their mandolins to a visualized future home in Indiana. They could not as yet speak the words, but the music was enough. They were no longer Poles. They were not yet Americans, but they were in love with America, and that is about all that is necessary.

Another Polish girl who will dwell in the memories of all workers among the immigrants on Ellis Island was Rosalia Burdriak. Though just sixteen, she had come alone from away out on the Russian border, from a little town which had borne the brunt of devastation wrought by the occupation of three armies. She wore the clumsy clothes of an aged peasant woman, with a white handkerchief tied about her wealth of brown girlish tresses. When her masquerading was exposed by a woman interpreter, she said that her mother had made her wear the dress of an old woman for safety on her long journey alone, and then she added, with a roguish little wink, "But just you wait till you see me in Chicago!"

With the Scandinavians it is a matter of pride to be dressed in modern style when they come to America. Few immigrants pay so much attention to the neatness of themselves or their baggage. There is an old adage in the railroad room of Ellis Island to the effect that you can tell a Scandinavian by his trunk. They all have fine, strong, leather-bound trunks and suit-cases. The women sometimes dress their small children in the native costumes of the descendants of the vikings, as did Mrs. Henry Johanson, from the uppermost foothills of Sweden, when she came to the island with her three boys-Harry, Karl, and Henry. The little fellows wore jackets of yellow and breeches of blue-the familiar colors of Sweden and were, indeed, picturesque figures on the playground of the immigration station the day they spent there waiting for a train to take them to the Northwest, where all the Scandinavians go. Although it was cold that day, according to what New Yorkers call cold, these little pink-faced, honey-haired vikings from away up along the Arctic Circle went looking for banana trees on Ellis Island. New York seemed very tropical to the boys. Believers in the Nordic strain as the most assimilable kind of immigration would have been delighted at the sight of such healthy, happy, smiling, blue-eyed immigrant boys playing about the National gates, bedecked in their native costumes of blue and yellow.

Sometimes, too, but not often, the young women of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark arrive at Ellis Island wearing the native costumes of their countries,

lands. Bertha Erikson was one who did, but apologetically explained that she only wore the beflowered dress as a contrast to the American styles. "I wanted you to see for yourselves which is the prettier," she said in Swedish as we all looked on with lingering wonder and admiration. The flapper stenographer girls from upstairs, in abbreviated skirts, with their white stockings rolled down as far as the law will allow, were inclined to

Bertha Erikson, who wore her native
costume just to show American

girls the Swedish styles

giggle as they gazed upon Bertha's buff dress with its long, flowing skirts all ablaze with iridescent roses and painted bouquets. There was the charm of quaintness about the laced corsage and the beflowered bonnet she wore, and, lo! such peach-blossomed cheeks, such celestial blue in her eyes-just as though she had stepped right off the picture on a china cup or an Anders Zorn canvas!

she was the very last of the Swedish quota and others on the same ship were turned back.

Quite different was the fate of Margareta Storm, daughter of a white man, but born on the Malayan Peninsula, a zone of undesirables. It should be explained that there is a certain slice of this old earth, defined by certain longitude and latitude, from which no immigrants are allowed to come to the United States, except as students or on missions of temporary sojourn here. It is called in immigration parlance the barred zone.

Margareta's bronzed cheeks, from beneath which there gleamed a red blush of youth shining through the yellow, betrayed her as having been born of Oriental blood, though her name was German and she was so listed on the ship's manifest. Quizzed by the inspector, the child of fourteen broke down and wept. Interpreters in German and Spanish-she was just out of a convent in Argentina and could speak several languages, though a mere child-gleaned from her stammerings a story so full of pathos it would drive a moving-picture producer mad. Her father had been a rich jeweler in Germany, who, in roaming around the world in search of precious stones, had been attracted to the Malayan Peninsula, where rubies and sapphires abound. He married a native of that Indo-Chinese land; but his wife did not live long. After her death, and when Margareta was less than five years old, Hugo Storm resumed his wanderings and finally settled in Argentina. His fortune gone, he went to sea as master of a vessel, leaving Margareta in a seminary in Buenos Aires. More lately Storm married again. Life was offering little happiness for Margareta in her new environment. Out of the convent, she felt that she was in the way, though there was every outward evidence that her father's love of her and memory for her mother had not waned. She had grown wiser than her age, having lived in the world of books there in the seminary. She knew her father had a brother in America, a Lutheran minister, somewhere in the Northwestern States. She begged to be allowed to come to America. She would grow up as a servant in the home of her uncle, and just go on living in her books. Such was the poor girl's narrative, one of the most pathetic in all the annals of immigration. But her uncle never called at Ellis Island for Margareta. There might have been found a knot-hole in the law. She might have been admitted as a student. Missionaries on Ellis Island, regardless of their religious affiliations, took pity, but could