less than eighty per cent qualified electors or native-born citizens of the United States, or some subdivision thereof," and making any violation of the provisions of the act a misdemeanor subject to fine and imprisonment. The Ambassadors of the British and Italian Governments at once made representations to the Department of State to the effect that the Arizona law was in violation of the privileges accorded to the two countries under treaties with our Government. The State Department thereupon requested the Governor of Arizona to defer issuing his proclamation of the law. Under the Arizona Constitution and statutes it is made the duty of the Governor to issue that proclamation forthwith," upon the certification of the returns by the Secretary of State. 66 A joint action by Italian, Japanese, and Chinese residents of Arizona was brought in the United States District Court in California; and that Court has decided that the Arizona law conflicts with the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and is therefore void. The full text of the decision has not yet reached us; but the Court is reported as saying: If under guise of police regulation a State can prohibit an employer from employing more than twenty per cent of alien labor, it can prohibit him from employing more than five per cent; and if five per cent, any at all. The Supreme Court of the United States recently has held that the right to labor is a right of property. An alien cannot be deprived of the right of property under the Constitution of the United States. The reports of this decision do not indicate that the violation of treaty rights has been brought to the attention of the Court or passed upon by that body. The Attorney-General of Arizona has announced his intention to appeal from this decision to the United States Supreme Court; and that appeal will be welcome as the first step in the possible settlement of the question of the power of the Federal Government to define and enforce the rights of aliens under the Federal Constitution. This ought also to define decisively the authority of the Federal Government to enforce the provisions of treaties made with foreign Powers, for any State law affecting aliens may involve a treaty between the United States and their native country. No more important question can come before the Supreme Court; and the so-called antiJapanese legislation in Californía and the 20 January endeavor in this State to limit the employment of aliens on public works indicate, among other movements, that the time is ripe for the final settlement of a question of a peculiarly irritating nature. Three Presidents have successively warned the country of the danger inherent in the present situation. SECRETARY GARRISON Before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs Secretary Garrison again came forward in defense of his recommendation for an increase in the personnel of the army. "I think the American people for the first time," the Secretary said, "have been seriously aroused through the newspapers to consider the matter of National defense. I am hopeful that one result will be a proper attitude towards those who are devoting their lives to this branch of the Government." The immediate measures in which Secretary Garrison is interested are those providing for the enlistment of the regular army up to the full strength, of its present organization, the increase of the number of officers by one thousand, and the establishment of a reserve force and reserve organizations which can be called into service when need arises. Secretary Garrison again warned the Committee that the mobile army would be further decreased to the number of twenty-five thousand when the garrisons in the Canal Zone and Hawaii were filled. He said that the proposed measures were the least expensive way of furnishing an adequate military force prepared for war. Certainly the measures advocated by Secretary Garrison and the General Staff of the army represent a conservative solution of the problem of National defense, and the passage of these measures cannot by any stretch of the most elastic imagination be construed as a step towards turning the United States into an "armed camp.' It is, however, at least one step away from the unintelligent attitude of those who expect upon the outbreak of war to find a million men springing to non-existent arms as from the sowing of some miraculous dragon's teeth of Chautauquan mold! THE WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE Woman suffragists have now taken their turn with the National Prohibitionists in submitting their cause to the decision of the tendent of Education, Dr. John H. Finley. The Commissioner's statement of the principle involved seems to The Outlook admirable in every way. "As Commissioner," he says in his decision, "I would give every possible aid in my power to promote devotion to duty, zealous service, and efficiency on the part of the teachers of the State, to prevent neglect of duty and inefficiency, and to eliminate incompetence, and I attribute only such high purposes to the Board of Education in its action in this case. But I am of the clear opinion, which I am obliged to follow, that these ends and purposes will not be served by selecting, or seeming to select, for stigma or reproach such a reason for temporary absence from school duty as is offered in this case, or inferring, or seeming to infer, inefficiency from the mere fact of motherhood. "If, as this honorable Board appears to hold, married women teachers should end their services on maternity, this policy (which I cannot believe sound in principle or wholesome in practice) can be made possible only through legislation making it lawful to discharge because of marriage a teacher in service." It seems to The Outlook that it is a selfevident proposition that the criterion of fitness to serve as a teacher in the public schools should be made solely dependent upon the individual's success with her work. The question whether a woman is married or single should, in itself, constitute reason neither for employment nor for dismissal, even though we think that there is fair question whether motherhood does not in itself increase a teacher's capacity for understanding and for the giving of instruction. THE DANGERS OF THE SUBWAY Investigation of the causes of the recent accident in New York's subway, whereby one woman was killed, many persons were semisuffocated, and hundreds were terror-stricken and distressed, began with promptness and celerity, but dragged slowly from day to day without reaching definite results in its first week of inquiry. So far that is, up to January 13-the discussion in the press has been more suggestive than the testimony before the Public Service Commission. It is agreed that the trouble all came, not from the burning of any car, but from the effects of fumes and smoke. These in turn came from the burning out of the "splices" between the ends of cables carrying powerful currents of electricity at high voltage which in transforming chambers was fed in lower voltage to feeder wires whence it reaches the third rails. The cables are carried in conduit boxes in the walls of the subway, but, as they are too heavy to handle in great lengths, splicing-boxes or small rooms are provided every three hundred feet, and here the ends of two lengths of cable are spliced in what looks much like a plumber's "soft joint." Each splicing-box has a door opening into the subway and a manhole leading to the street. Whether in this case the cable was too old and should have been replaced, or whether too much current was carried on one cablefor to overcharge a cable with too great voltage will force an escape or short circuit as surely as an overcharged water-pipe will burst under pressure—or whether, as Mr. Hedley, the General Manager, seems to intimate, the causes of short circuits are inscrutable, which other experts do not believe, are questions of evidence. But to prevent the subway from being filled with poisonous fumes is only a question of skill and expense. The Public Service Commission's electrical engineer, the very day after the accident, made a clear and valuable report, in which he recommended that the splice-rooms be cut off from the subway proper by walling up the present doors and using for access the manholes only. Others say that mineral insulation for the wires should take the place of rubber and oil. Others advise separate subway passages for carrying the wires. Firmness on the part of the authorities and an expenditure of money by the leasing company commensurate with the danger to life involved can certainly make such a horrible destruction of life as was threatened on January 6 impossible. Meanwhile certain questions are being asked which it is hoped the various inquiries now going on will answer. For instance : Why did almost an hour elapse after the accident before the Fire Department was notified? Why should not some effective light be furnished by storage batteries in subway cars? Why cannot the subway itself be lighted by a system independent of the motive power? How long will it take the leasing company to obey the Public Service Commission's instructions to provide steel cars in place of wooden or 66 combination" cars? Should there not be more manholes or emergency exits, and more chance for smoke and fumes to escape? Is it safe to run wooden cars on the elevated roads? If not, what is to be done about it? On January 13 the elevated roads had a bad "tie-up" from a short circuit. Ought not the third rail to be better guarded? In case of accidents passengers may have to walk along the line. Are the admitted defects and dangers of the old subways being remedied in building the new ones? These and other questions suggested by experts and by the users of the subways are entitled to serious attention. The Public Service Commission itself has been attacked for alleged laxness in controlling the corporation which operates the subways and for not enforcing rigidly its own orders. In the case of the elevated railway accident of December 9 reported in The Outlook of December 23 under the head "Reckless Railroading," a coroner's jury rendered a verdict charging the officers with "culpable negligence," and a Grand Jury is to pass on the facts. The President of the Interborough Company, Mr. Theodore Shonts, its General Manager, Mr. Frank T. Hedley, and other officers and directors, including August Belmont and Cornelius Vanderbilt, are named in the verdict of the coroner's jury. THE FIGHT FOR THE FORESTS This year the annual meeting of the American Forestry Association took place in New York City. Had the Administration at Washington shown greater attention to the Association, its annual meetings might have been continued in the National capital, but under any circumstances it may be a good thing to meet in various parts of the country, and thus emphasize the Association's widespread char acter. We are glad to record that the close touch with the Forest Service always maintained in the Washington meetings was also accentuated this year, the address of Mr. Graves, the United States Forester, deservedly taking most prominent place. No one seems better able than is Mr. Graves to warn us concerning the activities of those opposed to public control of National resources in general and of forests in particular. Not so much is heard now as formerly about the activities building, the design of which was finally awarded to the firm of McKim, Mead & White, of New York. The building, when completed, will embrace not only accommodations for the museum and art school, but will also contain a large auditorium to be available for the use of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. Both in exterior and interior the building is restrained in detail, and depends for its very successful effect upon the beauty of its proportions and the simplicity of its lines. For the purchase of works of art there is at present available the income from an endowment of one million dollars given by Mr. William H. Dunwoody. For the maintenance of the museum there will be a city tax of one-eighth of a mill and contributions from the Society of Fine Arts. The policy of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts under its director, Mr. Joseph Breck, will be to collect a representative exhibit of paintings, sculpture, and of the decorative arts of all countries. More than half the material exhibited in the Institute will be contemporary art, illustrating in about equal proportions the work being done in the United States and in Europe. The new museum is, however, to be much more than a mere storehouse of artistic achievement. It is upon the utilization rather than in the collection of examples of artistic enterprise that the emphasis will be placed. As Mr. Breck well said in a recent address: "In no way can a museum better further the interests of modern art than by affording inspiration and instruction to those who design and execute the familiar objects which surround us in our daily life. No nation has ever produced great art which was not successful in the production of the decorative arts. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that great art is impossible when ugliness is rampant in the homes." If Such is the ideal and purpose of the great South Kensington Museum in London. the Minneapolis Institute of Arts fulfills in any measure the same function, it will form a valuable contribution to our American civilization. As will be seen in the illustration of the Renaissance room of the new museum published in this issue, the old museum idea that an art collection was merely a mechanical mixture of art objects has been very successfully abandoned. The display of pictures and furniture of a period in a manner commensurate with the dignity of the objects shown immeasurably enhances their art value and their effect upon the observer. In the display of art objects it is more than quite possible that we have in recent years learned much from the instinctive artistic self-restraint of the Japanese. THE OPENING EXHIBIT In the pictures secured for its opening exhibit the Minneapolis Institute of Art may well take pride. Among modern pictures there were five oil paintings and twenty-two water-colors from the brush of Winslow Homer. There was a gallery of pictures by Whistler, Dewing, and Tryon, loaned from the National Gallery of Art through the courtesy of Mr. Charles L. Freer, of Detroit. From Mr. Freer's Chinese collection there were two panels from an old screen of the Ming period. French Impressionists were well represented in another room. A group of twenty-two very important pictures by nineteenth-century artists were shown from the collection of Mr. James J. Hill, of St. Paul. In this group there were six paintings by Corot, two by Courbet, two by Daubigny and Delacroix, six by Millet, two by Rousseau, two by Troyon, and one by Dupré. The older masters in the exhibition were shown in the period rooms devoted to Gothic, Renaissance, and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Among the most interesting pictures included in this latter class were examples of the work of Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Ruysdael, Goya, and the English portrait painters. CARDINAL MERCIER Belgium is emphatically a Roman Catholic country. The immense majority of its citizens' professing a religion are of the Roman Catholic faith, as is shown by the part of the incomes of the clergy of all denominations paid in 1913 from the Government treasury, namely, 7,318,200 francs to Roman Catholics, 117,000 to Protestants, and 32,000 to Jews. At the head of the Belgian Roman Catholics is the Cardinal Archbishop of Mechlin or Malines the French form now coming into general use in preference to the English, which is, of course, an adaptation of the indigenous Flemish Mechelen. "Mechlin lace" will, however, doubtless remain in current use. It may seem strange that the Primate of Belgium should take his name from this town, when we recall the old saying summarizing the characteristics of Belgian cities: "Nobilibus Bruxella viris, Antwerpia nummis, Gandavum laqueis, formosis Bruga puellis, Lovanium doctis, gaudet Mechlinia stultis." (Brussels rejoices in noble men, Antwerp in money, Ghent in halters, Bruges in pretty girls, Louvain in learned men, and Mechlin in fools.) At all events, on the excessive increase of the hierarchy of the Netherlands in 1559— one of the causes of the unrest in the then Spanish provinces-Pope Paul IV raised the Cathedral of St. Rombold at Mechlin to an archiepiscopal metropolitan dignity, and the first Archbishop was Antony Perenot de Granvella, the hated Minister of the Regent, Margaret of Parma. The present Archbishop, Cardinal Mercier, is a far more lovable character, as may be gathered from his portrait on another page. It shows the prelate as he appeared in London, where he spent a few days on his return journey to Belgium from the Papal Conclave at Rome. The Cardinal mingled freely with the people and won much popularity among Protestants as well as Catholics. No one could question his intense patriotism, and yet none of his utterances gave an indication of a lack of tact. This, however, did not, it is said, characterize a recent pastoral letter, which was unnecessarily severe, so the Germans claimed, against their government in Belgium. It is reported that the letter was confiscated and the Cardinal practically imprisoned in his own palace, but that most of the priests refused to obey the order of the German commander not to circulate the pastoral letter, on the ground that their orders come from the religious and not from the military authorities. MEXICO: THE Continuing the struggle for liberty to which the President referred in his Indianapolis speech, the two ex-bandits Villa and Zapata are moving their forces in two directions to the attack upon Carranza, lately referred to unkindly by Huerta as "the fourflusher." Since General Obregon, formerly the ablest of Villa's generals, definitely gave in his adhesion to Carranza, the latter's chance of making strong resistance to Villa's heretofore all but irresistible attacks has become stronger. The reoccupation of Puebla by the Carranzistas after a severe fight was |