item of revenue in the Far East, but based on a legitimate need rather than on its power of corruption.

ARE THE PEOPLE LOSING THEIR RELIGION?

E

|LSEWHERE we print two contributions in answer to the question, "Is the Church losing the people?" I am much more interested in the question, "Are the people losing religion?" Identifying religion with its institutions has been a common blunder. When Jesus foretold the destruction of the Temple, he was thought to prophesy the destruction, of religion and to be guilty of blasphemy. But the effect of breaking the alabaster box was to diffuse throughout the then known world the fragrance of its contents. When the Lutheran Reformation denied the authority of the Church, the Reformers were persecuted as spiritual anarchists. They were thought to deny the authority of religion. The Quakers were persecuted in England by the Church because ecclesiastics could not understand how any one could believe in God who disbelieved in the Creed and refused the sacraments. Meanwhile the religion of doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God has gone on increasing in power and in variety and richness of expression, sometimes by the aid of the churches, sometimes in spite of their opposition.

Last month I attended a Conference of girls, members of the Young Women's Christian Association in a number of Eastern colleges. This Conference was held at Silver Bay, on Lake George, lasted a little over a week, and was attended by between seven and eight hundred eager college students. The mornings were spent in attendance upon classes and lectures; the afternoons were given to recreation, the evenings to addresses. The one theme of this Conference was the Christian religion, but that religion in the various forms of its activity. Among the topics treated were the Fundamentals of Christian Faith, the Bible, the Character and Person of Christ, Prayer, the New Industry. Every day the sessions were opened by a devotional service well attended, and on Sunday a large congregation filled the auditorium at a preaching service in the morning and at a vesper service in the evening with a missionary address by Miss McKenzie.

The attendants were of course mainly Americans, though fourteen different foreign nationalities were represented. All Protestant denominations were there and, I was told, some Roman Catholics and one or two Jews. They had all traveled at their own charge to get the benefit of this post-graduate course in

the religion of Jesus Christ. The meetings were entirely free from emotional excitement and from theological controversy. The spirit of the leaders was not

critical but constructive and practical. One morning was devoted to a questionnaire, when every kind of serious

religious question was cordially welcomed by the leader. The spirit which pervaded the entire assembly was one of intellectual and spiritual freedom. No dogmas were taken for granted. Nor was there any appearance, either in the public meetings or in the private conversations, of a merely intellectual curiosity. The Conference was to be followed by other somewhat similar conferences continuing throughout the summer. And I am told that this was but one of forty similar Summer Schools of Religion, held in various parts of the United States from the Lakes to the Gulf and from Sandy Hook to the Golden Gate. There might easily have been twice the number of attendants at this particular conference if room could have been found for them. As it was, the gymnasium had to be converted into a dormitory.

As I looked into the faces of these seven or eight hundred eager, joyous, serious-minded girls, some of them from Japan, China, India, and the Philippines, as I remembered that this was only one of several similar conferences to be held in this camp, and that this camp was only one of some forty similar camps devoted to a like purpose, and that thus there would probably be gathered in this country this summer not less than thirty or forty thousand girls voluntarily assembling for the study of the spiritual life, and at least as many more who would have joined them if that had been for them possible, and as I reflected that these were the future mothers of America and that it is the mothers and fathers, not the governors and legislators, who will make the America of the future, the question whether the Church is losing the people took the second place in my estimation.

Those who believe that the Church is the foundation on which religion is built may well ask with anxiety the question, "Is the Church losing its power?" I believe that man is incurably religious and that the churches are instruments which he has organized to express and promote his religious life. If he finds that they do not relieve him of the burden of his sins and his failures but only give him theories of atonement, do not endow him with power to live nobly but only prove to him that such power was given to the saints and martyrs of past times, do not make him acquainted with God but only give him definitions of God, he will leave the churches and form some new organizations to take

WHAT GENERAL
DAWES MAY DO

HY is it that a man who finds it hard work to lug a pail of water a few feet to moisten a parched flower-bed will, lacking a caddy, blithely carry a bag of golf clubs up and down hill all afternoon in the broiling sun? It is because the incentive in one case is merely a sense of duty, while in. the other case it is an aroused emotion. directed by a keen interest. In most cases the problem of getting a difficult task done is the difficulty of finding in that task an appeal to the emotion directed toward an interest. It would have been inconceivable for the hundreds of thousands of men who went into the war to suffer their hardships and to face death if within them there was not a motive power-an absorbing interest and a sustained feeling.

To most people the very term budget is a destroyer of interest and a damper on emotion. How is it possible for the ordinary man to divert his interest from baseball or business to so arid a subject as laying out a plan for public expenditure?

And yet General Dawes, the newly appointed Director of the Budget, filled the auditorium of the Interior Department with an assemblage described in a special despatch to the New York "Evening Post" as "a political massmeeting in Madison Square Garden, a college class-room, a football rally, and a Salvation Army street-corner gathering all rolled into one, with just a touch of the atmosphere of the old Eden Musée." President Harding, Vice-President Coolidge, Secretary Hughes, Secretary Hoover, and the rest of the Administration leaders were there on the platform. There were bureau chiefs, and subordinates by the scores and hundreds. Many were turned away for lack of room. And the whole object was to consider the very commonplace and ordinarily uninteresting subject of economy.

General Dawes has made Washington, temporarily at least, interested in the subject of the budget. He has even succeeded in putting for the time being the budget on the daily newspaper's front page. What he may do before he fin

ishes is to put into the hearts of the ordinary citizens of the country the feeling that something has got to be done to prevent waste and to check extravagance in the Government. We have a budget law on the statute-books. The enactment of it is likely to occupy the place in the record of the present Administration that the enactment of the Federal Reserve Law occupies in the record of the last Administration. But the budget law will achieve its purpose fully only if it has behind it the aroused and continued interest of the people of the country in governmental economy.

made the headlines of a single issue of that journal the text of his sermon. Little of good could he find in the news. Battle, murder, and sudden death, divorce, and dishonor seemed to him to be the chief items on the news menu of the "Times," a newspaper whose slogan is, "All the News That's Fit to Print." From this text he drew the conclusion that the world had fallen upon evil days. It was a time for ominous shakings of heads. In short, if we may paraphrase our impression of his attitude, he felt that the Republic was bound for a more or less canine destiny.

Except for one fact, this might be the logical conclusion to draw from the news items in almost any issue of any paper. This fact is one which Jeremiahs of every generation have been too prone to overlook. The trouble is, perhaps, that Jeremiahs have seldom had train

Some years ago the late Senator Aldrich said that if he could "run" the Government he could save $300,000,000 a year without lowering, governmental efficiency. That was before the days of billion-dollar Congresses. After noting the total appropriations by the Sixtysixth Congress, which ended its sessions last March, what far higher amount would Mr. Aldrich name now?

As contributing towards the Aldrich economy, at least two-thirds would doubtless have come from budget reform; the rest from departmental reorganization.

The enactment of the Budget Bill and the naming of a strong man as Budget Director reassure us as to two-thirds of any saving now anticipated, because of the paring down of extravagance, duplication, and wasteful demands on Congress for appropriations by the executive departments and bureaus. The remaining third of the saving may be realized by the Administration's programme concerning the reallocation of those departments and bureaus.

ting, and now that salary is to be taken away! There are many similar cases.

Of course many of those dismissed will find jobs elsewhere. To this end the United States Chamber of Commerce and local trade bodies throughout the country are co-operating. The Merchants' Association of New York City has on file the qualifications of experienced stenographers, typists, clerks, examiners, and court reporters from the Government Service. It will give information concerning these persons; their services can be secured at salaries of from $1,000 to $1,400 a year.

II

Next in the Administration's programme is saving in buying supplies. In this connection the striking suggestion has been made that the present War and Navy Departments be combined in one Department of National Defense. The present departments have a common purpose, and their separation means material waste. It means waste when they have no chance to compare their acts in similar services. It means waste when one Department, as I hear, bids for material which the other Department has disposed of at a ridiculous price for junk.

But, whether these departments be combined or not, the suggestion calls attention to a main cause of waste, namely, the lack of one purchasing and selling agency and of a common stock

room.

The Administration's programme, therefore, contemplates the establishment of a Bureau of Supply, independent of any executive department. This bureau would buy, store, and distribute material to the departments and commissions and to the municipal government of the District of Columbia. Every

requisition from them would have to be accompanied by a certificate, showing that an appropriation was available for the particular payment.

III

The next step is that of both economy and efficiency through the grouping of agencies. After talking with the Presi Ident I discovered that a desire to save expenditure was not the only motive of the Administration's programme. Equally strong is the wish in reallocating bureaus and even departments to make them truly efficient. Each department should be made up of bureaus having the same major purpose. Take the present Department of the Interior, for instance. It is composed of bureaus having two distinct purposes. On the one hand, its General Land Office, its Geological Survey, its Bureau of Mines, its Reclamation Service, its Park Service, its Bureau of Capitol Buildings and Grounds, show it to be a Department of Public Works. On the other hand, its Bureau of Education, its Indian Service, its Bureau of Pensions, and its supervision over St. Elizabeth's and the Freedmen's Hospitals and Howard University show it to be also a Department of Public Welfare. Hence, why should not the Interior Department be divided into two new bodies, the Department of Public Works and the Department of Public Welfare? If the War and Navy Departments should be united, the addition of a Department of Public Welfare would merely bring the Cabinet posts to their present number. The President is in earnest as to the creation and development of a Welfare Department.

Why not have this separation, particularly when, as Senator McCormick outlined in his bill of last December, providing for such a transfer, the De

for

partment of Public Works should include the Supervising Architect's office (now in the Treasury Department), the United States Engineers' office and the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors, the Mississippi River Commission, the California Débris Commission, the Board of Road Commissioners Alaska, and the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds (with which the Capitol Buildings and Grounds Office should be combined), all now in the War Department, together with such independent bodies as the Federal Power Commission, the Commission on Fine Arts, and the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway Commission?

And, in like manner, why not have a Department of Public Welfare, particularly when it should comprise the Public Health Service and the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, now in the Treasury Department; the Children's Bureau and the Women's Bureau, now in the Department of Labor; as well as the United States Employees' Compensation Commission, the Federal Board for Vocational Education, the United States Social Hygiene Board, and the supervision over such institutions as the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers and the Columbia Institution for the Deaf?

All this is sufficiently drastic, but it is not the only revamping desirable. For instance:

The State, not the War, Department should have the Insular Bureau.

The Department of Justice should really include the Secret Service divisions from the Treasury and other departments, difficult as this may be to bring about. But surely it would seem appropriate that the Department of Justice should have the authority now vested in the Internal Revenue Commissioner with respect to enforcing the Prohibition Act. Finally, the office of Alien Property Custodian, it would appear, belongs in the Department of Justice, and nowhere else.

As to the Department of Agriculture, it is indeed strange that the Botanical Garden should be outside of its charge.

Perhaps most important of all are the changes which might be made in the Department of Commerce. This Department should have control of all our commercial relations. Why, then, should the State Department have a Foreign Trade Bureau? Similar agencies ought, to be consolidated under one management. The Department of Commerce should also have the Patent Office, now in the Interior Department, and might well have the Coast Guard (the union of the old Revenue Cutter and LifeSaving Services), now in the Treasury Department; the Lake Survey Office and the Inland and Coastwise Waterways Services from the War Department; the Hydrographic Office and Observatory from the Navy Department; finally, the Weather Bureau from the Department of Agriculture.

However these particular suggestions may work out, there must be a general regrouping of Government activities.

All are agreed as to that. To this end the President has named Walter E.. Brown, of Toledo, Ohio, as Chairman of a Joint Congressional Committee, provided for by Senator Smoot's resolution, introduced a year ago, to propose the changes which can be effected without legislation and to draft a bill for those which cannot. The Senate members of

Bain

WALTER F. BROWN Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee to propose changes in the organization of the Government

this Committee are. Senators Smoot (Vice-Chairman of the Committee), Wadsworth, and Harrison, and the Representatives are Messrs. Reavis, Temple, and Moore. The Chairman is not a member of either house of Congress.

The

The appointment of this Committee has been hailed with satisfaction. Said a Senator to me to-day: "I have in mind one Bureau whose personnel could be cut down by two-thirds with an increase of efficiency. There is much dead wood to cut out. It may be a painful job. It's like having a useless tooth out. But it has got to be done. families in all our States contribute sixty or seventy dollars apiece to keep the Government going.. After visiting Washington and seeing extravagance and duplication and waste throughout the departments, the head of the average household is likely to demand that the Administration act with the efficiency which would characterize any ordinary business concern.' The announcement of a programme of lopping off of offices and of employees has caused consternation here. Of course it is only natural that, especially in these times of high cost of living, men and women cannot face the prospect of unemployment with calmness. But at any time the inveterate habit of dependence on the Government, which naturally grows about the employees here, would be rudely shaken by such a radical measure as is now proposed. The em

ployees have become so roused that not a few of them have started an antiAdministration propaganda intended to affect members of Congress and, through the influence of those members, check the Administration in its programme, especially where new legislation is involved. A Senator showed me a huge stack of letters which he had received on this subject, many of them threatening. Of course Senators and Representatives have to think of their "home fences."

The President is intent on departmental reorganization. It is said that he made it a condition as to the acceptance of office by his Cabinet nominees. One of them, at least, made it a condition of his own acceptance. Yet how much good will it do for a secretary to favor the reform if every one of the employees in his department is conducting an opposition campaign?

The employees' activity has aroused the President. A notably kindly man, he can be stern if necessary. He has warned the employees that any indulgence in anti-Administration activity will result in their dismissal from their present positions.

As to centralization of offices and resulting efficiency, a Senator remarked: "The country has gone wild on the subject of extra commissions, on the plausible theory, of course, that their work is more impartial than a similar work. would be under some appropriate Cabinet head. That idea underlay the more radical Packer Bill, which recently came within three votes of passing the Senate. But the House bill triumphed, was accepted by the Senate, and saved us one more commission. There is sometimes safety in numbers. But who will not deny that the Shipping Board would be more efficient were it now in the Department of Commerce under Hoover?"

In his entire programme of Government economy and efficiency the President, I am convinced, is animated only by the desire to do his whole duty by the people. He is acting solely because he believes in the principle of economy and efficiency in running the Government of the United States, just as he did when he was running the Marion "Star." A talk with him has convinced me that this desire absorbs his whole thought, to the exclusion, of course, of any political aspect.

As to that aspect a prominent Republican Representative remarked: "If Harding were not acting from principle, he would be forced as party leader to act from expediency. Unless, a year from next November, the Administration can point to the triumph of both economy and efficiency, demanded by budget and departmental reform, the present Senate majority will be reduced and the huge House majority may even be wiped out. Three years and a half from next November, under similar circumstances, Harding himself may be a 'goner.' Nor would any Republican have a chance. The people's temper is aroused. They have been doormats long enough."

ELBERT F. BALDWIN.