helping to clear up the question of postal revenues than for each and every department of the Government to account for its own use of the mails. There is no need to abolish the system of franking Government matter. The Government should have the right of free approach to the citizenry through the mails. The departments ought to be able to send out such material as in their judgment is necessary to the conduct of their business. Even the Treasury Department might well be permitted to send out four identical circulars to a single citizen if it so desires and finds it too expensive a job to check over its mailing lists.

All such use of the mails, however, should be charged to the officials or departments availing themselves of the franking privilege. Perhaps some departments, perhaps some Congressmen, are not sending out enough letters to show that they are on the job! Perhaps not. In any case, let us have the figures and let the Postal Service have the credit for work duly performed.

The Pope and the Nation

P

OPE PIUS XI has proclaimed the doctrine of the rule of Christ as

King, not only over the hearts of men, but over all temporal things and all nations and governments. He has declared that this supremacy of Christ consists of a threefold power-legislative, judicial, and executive. He insists that the safety of nations depends upon the ruler's as well as the people's "public testimony of reverence and obedience to the empire of Christ." The right to rule, the Pope declares, is not derived from the people, but from "a mandate from the divine King." When princes and legitimate rulers recognize this fact, order and tranquillity, according to the Pope, flourish and grow strong. The reason for this the Pope states in the following words: "When citizens see that their rulers and the heads of their states are men like themselves, or are for some reason unworthy or culpable, they will continue even then to obey their commands because they will recognize in them the image of authority of Christ, the God-Man." And as this kingdom of Christ embraces mankind more widely, so much more, the Pope declares, will brotherhood and peace prevail.

The encyclical, "Quas Primas," Primas," through which this doctrine was promul

P. & A. Photos

gated and by which the "Feast of our Lord Jesus Christ King" was instituted to be celebrated on the last Sunday of October each year, was issued by Pius October each year, was issued by Pius XI on the 11th of last December; but the full text of the document only recently reached this country. We have deferred comment upon it, therefore, until now, when we might have the full text before us. The importance of the encyclical is not primarily because of its religious appeal but because of its possible political significance. The question that arose when the first reports of the encyclical reached this country was whether the Pope was undertaking to reestablish the position of the Roman Catholic Church as a super-sovereign state. That was a question not clearly answered in the fragmentary reports at first sent by cable. What answer does the full text of the encyclical give?

With much of what the Pope said Christians of all denominations will agree. Whoever believes that Jesus of Nazareth has set forth an ideal in his life and teachings beyond that of any other which mankind has, whoever believes that Jesus in some way imparted

to men the power to attain that ideal, will clearly acquiesce in the statement that if the spirit of Jesus ruled the hearts of men throughout the world all that the Pope says concerning domestic tranquillity and international peace would come true. In this sense the feast which the Pope has instituted is one in which Christians of all denominations might cordially participate. It has been suggested that Protestant as well as Catholic participation in this feast each year would be a recurring influence for Church unity and would bring Christians together in an acknowledgment of their common allegiance.

If this encyclical were confined to the acknowledgment of moral and spiritual supremacy, it would undoubtedly be a great power for unity and justice and for the allaying of suspicion and controversy. But it does not stop with promulgating faith in the moral and spiritual supremacy of Christ. It suggests the exercise of compulsion and declares definitely a form of authority which will arouse suspicion instead of allaying it and create a spirit of resistance.

A thorough examination into this en

cyclical is not necessary for the discovery of those passages which will put people in free nations on their guard. Among such passages are the following:

That this Kingdom is principally a spiritual one and to it belong spiritual things, the passages of the Holy Bible referred to above show, and Jesus Christ Himself confirms by His deeds. ... When He was about to be proclaimed King by the multitude that admiringly crowded about Him, He declined the title and honor, and retiring hid Himself in the desert. Finally, He announced before the Roman Consul that His Kingdom "was not of this earth." . . . Moreover, since Christ has received from the Father an absolute right over all created things, so that they all are subject to His will, they would err grievously who would take from the Christ-Man power over all temporal things. Yet, because on earth He abstained completely from exercising that power and despised possessions and the care of worldly things, so He has permitted and permits rightful possession of them, but He commands that the possessors must serve Him. . . . Nor is any distinction made between individuals, the home, or civil society, since men are no less under the power of Christ when united in society than as single individuals. . . . What We said at the beginning of Our Pontificate about the breakdown of the principle of authority and of respect for government may fittingly be said again: "They have driven Jesus Christ," We then lamented, "out of laws and public affairs." Authority suddenly appears to be something derived not from God. but from men, and consequently its foundations totter. . . .

Now when We, therefore, command that Christ our King be venerated by Catholics throughout the world, We are providing for the special needs of Our own day a very effective remedy against the pests which pervade human society. The plague of our age is what is called laicism, with all its attendant errors and impious motives.

.. The Church has been refused the right which comes from the very law of Jesus Christ to teach all peoples, to make her own laws for the spiritual government of her subjects in order to bring them to eternal happiness. Little by little the Christian religion has been made the equal of other and false religions and has been lowered to their level. The Catholic religion was made subject to the civil power and was practically abandoned to the control of rulers and magistrates. . . .

We also celebrated this year the Centenary of the Council of Nicea and thus commemorated the definition of the dogma of the consubstantiality of the Word made Flesh with the Father,

a dogma upon which is founded the truth of the sovereign rule of the same Christ over all peoples. . . .

.. The Church which was established by Christ as a perfect society cannot but demand as her right, a right which she cannot renounce, full liberty and independence from the civil power. Moreover, the Church, in the exercise of her divine ministry of teaching, ruling and guiding to eternal happiness all who belong to the Kingdom of Christ, manifestly cannot depend on the will of others. The civil power, too, must allow to religious orders and sodalities of both sexes the exercise of a like liberty since they, over and above being a help to the Church and her pastors, also cooperate greatly in the extension and development of the Kingdom of Christ. . . .

The annual celebration of this feast will also become a means of recalling to the nations their duty of publicly worshiping Christ, that to render Him obedience is not only the duty of private individuals but of rulers and governments as well. It will recall to them also that at the final judgment the Christ Who has been ignored, despised, and even driven from our midst, will revenge Himself for all the injuries He has received. His royal dignity demands that society as a whole should conform itself to the commandments of God and to the principles of the Christian life, first by the stabilization of its laws, then in the administration of justice, and above all things in preparing the souls of our young people for the acceptance of sound doctrine and the leading of holy lives.

To reduce this from the general to the specific, what does this encyclical mean concerning the American public school system?

Does this mean that the Roman Catholic Church claims an authority to determine what shall be taught in the common schools of America?

Does it mean that the Roman Catholic Church declares that it is the duty of the nation under the universal law of Christ to support such schools as the Church may establish for the teaching of children in "sound doctrine and the leading of holy lives"?

Briefly summarized, the argument of the Pope may be understood as follows: Christ is King of all peoples and nations. His law, which he will enforce ultimately by vengeance, is one superior to all other laws not only in spiritual but in temporal matters. Not exercising his temporal authority himself while on earth, he left to his Church the right of exer

cising that authority. This authority of Christ's command is vested in the Pope as Vicar of Christ. The ultimate object of the Church is to control and rule Christ's kingdom, which includes all peoples and nations whether they acknowledge Christ as King or not. Under the law of Christ, which it is the duty of the Church to establish and carry out, all nations should conform to this authority in their laws and in their education of the people.

It has sometimes been said that no Roman Catholic can be elected President of the United. States. So far as this is an expression of religious bigotry and intolerance it is un-American. But it may be an expression of that fear of theocracy that springs from the spirit of civil liberty. History has shown that there is no greater menace to civil liberty than a theocracy, whether it is the theocracy of a Roman Catholic hierarchy or the theocracy of a Puritan commonwealth. Authority to promulgate, judge, and execute the law must be confined to the civil power if we are to maintain the institutions on which we have established this Republic.

The Strike Ends in Vic

tory-for the Public

I

N every great strike the public is a party in interest. Usually it is the party that suffers most and gains least. In the anthracite strike just ended the public was, for once, the winner.

Thanks for this are due partly to the stubbornness of both sides in the controversy, partly to the non-interference of the President, partly to circumstances, and partly to the good sense of the public itself.

By stubbornly continuing their warfare till they were both exhausted manager and miner have permanently lost their power to terrorize the coal consumer. The billion dollars which, it is estimated, this strike has cost may not be, after all, too high a price to pay for the freedom which the public has won. Certainly it has brought no commensurate gain to either of the combatants. If the result of the strike is the virtual end of such conflicts in the anthracite field, it is due not to the terms of the settlement, but to proof that hereafter such conflicts will not pay. If both sides had not hoped last summer to gain something more than they have now, they might

have had then what at great cost they have now. There is absolutely nothing in the terms of settlement which might not have been agreed upon without a strike.

Briefly those terms are as follows:

Work will be resumed under the terms of the old contract. Once each year either party may propose modifications of the wage scale. If after fifteen days of conference no agreement is reached, all issues in controversy will be referred to two outside men-one selected by each side from three candidates proposed by the other. If necessary, these two men may select a third. In ninety days these two (or three) men must reach a decision. By that decision both sides agree to be bound. Questions as to "cooperation and efficiency" are referred to the existing "Board of Conciliation," which shall proceed at once to "equalize wages" in accordance with the former contract. In all other respects the award of the Anthracite Coal Strike Commission (established by President Roosevelt) shall continue in force for four and a half years.

Of course it would have been better if the combatants could have been forced by law to keep the peace. We do not allow gangs to fight in the streets, even though they might learn by experience. But in this instance Congress, in its wis

dom or indolence, declining to consider the recommendations of the Hammond Commission and the President, provided no law. Lacking the authority of law, the President with wise self-restraint refused either to play the rôle of supplicant or, in the absence of compelling emergency, to bring to bear upon the combatants the extra-legal authority of his batants the extra-legal authority of his exalted position.

In support of the President's policy was the force of circumstances. Since the great anthracite strike of 1902 substitutes for anthracite have come into

use.

There is now no such dependence upon anthracite as there once was; and during the strike coal cellars which formerly knew only anthracite have been filled with coke or soft coal, or have been replaced by oil tanks, or have been altogether abandoned with the introduction of gas as a heating fuel. So the people, even if inconvenienced, could wait.

And wait they did-with admirable patience. They suffered discomfort, in some cases real privation; but they refused to be stampeded. They refused to be mobilized behind either of the warring forces. They ignored the yelping politicians. Since they could not clear the street of both gangs, they let them fight it out. They were simply amused by the action of the Senate in urging the President to do something without giving him.

authority to do anything. And by waiting they won. They followed the best of American traditions. At this time, when agitation for Government interference at every provocation has become a fad, it is most reassuring that some forty million people in the most densely populated and supposedly least American part of the country should show such distinctively American self-reliance.

Now that the people have established their freedom, let them keep it. Public opinion may well impress upon Congress the necessity of passing such a law as the President has asked for. In the future if coal miners and mine managers cannot reach a decision in a dispute then some tribunal should have the authority to reach a decision for them. Gangs have no inalienable right to settle their quarrels by fighting in the streets. Those who have a monopoly, whether of ownership or of labor, in a natural resource have no inalienable right to withhold that resource from use while they settle their own quarrels. The public right is paramount. The best way, however, for the people to secure their right is to see that the invasion of it becomes profitless. Many have learned that other fuels have certain advantages that anthracite lacks. They will serve themselves as well as the public by making these advantages known. A permanent market for these

other fuels will have a wholesome effect upon those autocrats of labor and capital who have hitherto had the consumer at

I

their mercy. Competitors will provide a more certain restraint upon them than any which Congress can devise.

OWE an apology to a department of American university education

the Schools of Journalism. But before expressing it let me explain the circumstances which make it necessary and proper.

Every thoughtful observer must recognize that in the journalism of the day there are two marked tendencies—one of betterment and one of deterioration. The tendency towards deterioration has been defined by the term "yellow journalism," a phrase which is now accepted as proverbial. Theodore Roosevelt engaged in active journalism for ten years -from the time he ceased to be President in 1909 until his death. His last act, on the evening before he suddenly and unexpectedly passed away, was to correct the proof of one of his editorials for the Kansas City "Star." In the first article of his career as a newspaper man, one which he contributed to The Outlook, he recognized the noxious tendency in American journalism in these words:

Yellow journalism deifies the cult of the mendacious, the sensational, and the inane, and, throughout its wide but vapid field, does as much to vulgarize and degrade the popular taste, to weaken the popular character, and to dull the edge of the popular conscience as any influence under which the country can suffer. These men sneer at the very idea of paying heed to the dictates of a sound morality; as one of their number has cynically put it, they are concerned merely with selling the public whatever the public will buy-a theory of conduct which would justify the existence of every keeper of an opium den, of every foul creature who ministers to the vices of mankind.

The opposite tendency in journalism has no picturesque phrase to describe it, but it was well defined a few weeks ago by an editorial writer of the New York "Times" who conducts, in that admirable newspaper, a wise and readable department entitled "Topics of the Times:"

A newspaper, to live a real life, must make a profit for its owner. But this may be, and with the best newspapers is, incidental to the accomplishment of

other and higher ends. This is true to some degree of every business, but it is true in greater measure of newspapers than of other enterprises wherein the commercial aspect is of necessity more prominent. The newspaper is, or can be, highly efficient in the furthering of causes both good and bad. . . . If the publication of a newspaper is from one point of view a business, from others it is a sort of personal activity with the usual personal responsibilities.

The danger to American life of "yellow journalism," as it was defined by Roosevelt, does not appear to me to be very great. As a people we are generally sound and wholesome and eschew what is consciously vicious and corrupting. But there is an insidious danger in what may perhaps be called, for lack of a better term, mediocre journalism.

James Bryce, later Lord Bryce, the distinguished and beloved Ambassador distinguished and beloved Ambassador from Great Britain to the United States, once said that the greatest danger that threatens democracies is mediocrity. Herodotus, two thousand years before him, intimated the same thing. Lord Bryce was a democrat in spirit although officially a British peer. He made a lifelong study of democracies in all parts of the world. He wrote a book on the constitutional and social structure of the United States which is a monument of wisdom and learning. It is the incomparable and unbeatable standard of its kind. His judgments on democracy are to be taken with confidence. Not corruption, not money worship, not bootlegging nor banditry, is the besetting sin of American life, but mediocrity. We are not bad, we Americans, but our tastes are rather commonplace. We appear to be contented with mediocre jazz, mediocre story magazines, mediocre conversation, mediocre pronunciation, mediocre movies, mediocre Senators and Congress men, and last, but not least, with mediocre newspapers.

I once heard Martin Littleton, now an eminent lawyer of New York City, but formerly a citizen and attorney of Texas, say that Texas has more scenery and less to see, more cattle and less milk, more

rivers and less water fit to drink, than any other State in the Union. Similarly it might be said that our American newspapers contain more printed matter and less literature than any other newspapers in the world, if measured by that favorite standard of statisticians, "per capita of population." About the only field of activity in which Americans will not tolerate mediocrity is sport. There we insist upon the highest form of excellence and the most careful system of training.

Whether our mediocrity creates the newspapers or the newspapers create our mediocrity is a puzzling question. I think it is probably a little of both. The spirit of genuine criticism even in our metropolitan papers seems to be moribund. In pointing out this defect I except the field of music; some of the most competent and discriminating judges of this art write daily for the New York papers. But our journalistic literary criticism consists largely of personalities and description. To find analytical and comparative interpretation of pictorial and plastic art we have to go to a monthly magazine and read in "Scribner's" the articles of Royal Cortissoz, the best of their kind, I venture to say, in the world. As for our dramatic criticism, it is with few exceptions amusingly puerile. I quote from some comments of the dramatic critics on popular plays now on the New York stage: "A performance so perfect that it stands just this side of paradise." "It reaches to the stars." "Keeps you trembling on the edge of your seat." "Brazen and bright." "Light, sparkling, debonair, and naughty." "Something doing every minute." These gems of appreciation, all taken from the critical columns of the best papers of New York, are quite comparable to the description by the manager who, in a current newspaper advertisement, calls the performance of "those snappy show girls" in his variety theater a "smashing burlesque wow."

With these charming examples of journalistic taste before me, I gave way to a not unnatural depression, and in two recent articles in The Outlook intimated that the lately inaugurated Schools of Journalism were rather useless appendages of our colleges and universities because there appeared to be nothing about them which was counteracting the tendencies towards the mediocrity above recorded. I confess I thought of them as mere technical or vocational schools, the

chief purpose of which was to enable the reporter, when he got a job, to "pull down" a fatter weekly pay envelope. I spoke from ignorance, and I apologize.

Mr. Willard G. Bleyer, Director of the course in journalism in the University of Wisconsin, in a most courteous letter, which falls like coals of fire on my head, sends me a leaflet stating the general principles and standards of education for journalism adopted by the Association of American Schools and Departments of Journalism. I had said in one of my articles that what the newspaper writer needs, male or female, daily or weekly, is a sound, liberal education, a broad and discriminating knowledge of the history. and literature, first of his own country, and then such as he has time to get of other times and other countries. I find that the associated schools of journalism are of the same opinion. leaflet begins by saying:

T

For their

Because of the importance of newspapers and periodicals to society and government, adequate preparation is as necessary for all persons who desire to engage in journalism as it is for those who intend to practice law or medicine. No other profession has a more vital relation to the welfare of society and to the success of democratic government than has journalism. No other profession requires a wider range of knowledge or greater ability to apply such knowledge to current events and problems than does journalism. Adequate preparation for journalism, therefore, must be sufficiently broad in scope to familiarize the future journalist with the important fields of knowledge, and sufficiently practical to show the application of the knowledge to the practice of journalism.

After this admirable preamble the leaflet sets forth twelve specific requirements which are considered essential in any well-conducted school of journalism.

I wish I had space to quote them all. Requirement No. 4, however, will suffi ciently indicate their high quality. It is stated "that the four-year course required for the bachelor's degree in journalism shall normally include history, economics, government and politics, sociology, literature, natural science, and psychology or philosophy. A reading knowledge of at least one modern foreign language is desirable."

Here is a scheme of education broad enough for any man or woman into whatever trade or profession he or she may enter. If faithfully followed by teachers and pupils, it may make of our American newspapers the greatest engines of popular culture that the world. has ever known. I take off my hat to the directors and professors of the Schools of Journalism who have adopted the leaflet I have quoted as the expression of their creed and purpose.

HURSDAY, January 21, 1926. This trip is a perfect joke. My thirty-seventh, and a winter crossing. I was all set for uproarious things. This is Thursday evening. We might well be on a Hudson River boat. Up here in the writing-room is vibration from the engines, in my cabin it is absolutely motionless. But it is amazingly restful after my busy month at home. I slept nine hours. I have all my pictures and pretties about and am having a fine time with myself. Such a nice lot. of people!

Sunday, 24th of January. The foregoing is the joke. For ever since Thursday we have been piling up the most amazing seas. At midnight my steward

-none other than little Miller, who crossed with us three years ago on the Van Buren-came in and screwed on both iron shutters. The wind was beginning to sing. At four this morning came radio S. O. S. reporting the 8,000-ton Antinoe in dire distress. The Roosevelt (you would know T. R. would) instantly left our course to follow indicated trouble. Every one on board, I believe, has been watching out over these wind-swept mountainous seas. I was on the glasscovered deck, saw a huge wave bearing down, stepped aside, and two big, heavy panes of glass burst and fell at my feet.

just his trouble and hold his own. Commander Fried promises to stand by. Twenty-five men are depending on us. Our staterooms, the entire ship in chaos. Several are hurt, my friend Mrs. W. has broken her ankle. Overturned furniture smashed and crockery shattered. We think of those twenty-five poor souls hanging on our nearness and encouragement. Every one eager to share, to see it through. It is hazardous to move about. Spent the afternoon in a screweddown chair in the Social Hall. Could watch through the porthole behind me. Couch, tables, chairs with people in and about them were picked up by a davenport, accompanied by a stout gentleman, and all landed on the other side of the boat in a heap. You never saw such a genial lot of people. Only a few were frankly scared; first voyage, etc. Dr. Cochran, of the American Church, Paris, on board with his nice sister and niece. Commercial Attaché Miller is on his way to his new post in Rome. It really is too rough to write. Our engine is going just enough to help discount storm.

Sunday night. Sleet and rain, waves like bombs batter the ship. I wish you could see my stateroom. Trunk and chair brought up under the wash-stand; my bed pulled the securing hooks out by the roots, and moved right out into the