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should take an active part in local politics. I don't mean by that that every woman should go in for a political career-that, of course, is absurd but you can take an active part in local government without going in for a political career. You can be certain when casting your vote you are casting it for what seems nearest right-for what seems more likely to help the majority and not bolster up an organized minority. There is a lot to be done in local politics, and it is a fine apprenticeship to central government. Local politics are very practical, and I think that, although practical, they are too near to be attractive. The things that are far away are more apt to catch our eye than the ones which are just under our noses; then, too, they are less disagreeable.

Political development is like all other developments. We must begin with ourselves, our own consciences, and clean out our own hearts before we take on the job of putting others straight. So with politics; if we women put our hands to local politics, we begin the foundations. After all, central governments only echo local

ones.

After hearing Lady Astor's opinions on current and critical political questions and after reading the accounts of her success as a Member of Parliament, we wonder if the old aphorism, "Virginia is the mother of Presidents," may not have to be changed to-Virginia is the father of stateswomen!

INCORPORATE THE LABOR UNIONS

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N another page a labor leader, Mr. Ellis Searles, protests that the demand for the incorporation of labor unions comes primarily from "the union busters" of the country. With this we totally disagree. We also disagree with his statement that if the unions were incorporated and held legally accountable for the fulfillment of their contracts they would be "subject to the whim of hostile courts." This is also Mr. Gompers's publicly stated view. If the courts of the United States are hostile to labor, which we by no means believe, the quickest way to eradicate that hostility is to take the unions out of a special and favored class of the public over which the courts have no control.

With Mr. Searles's assertion that laoor is not a commodity we are in entire sympathy. Commodity is a thing; service is rendered by a person. If a man comes to your house to sell you melons, and you know how to judge melons, the character of the man does not concern you. If a man applies to you for a position as gardener and he and you are going to work together in growing melons, it is of great importance that

I

WHAT AN
IMMIGRANT

IN THE
CABINET
THINKS OF
IMMIGRATION

T has been said that America is no longer a land of opportunity. It has been said that we have crystallized into a classdivided nation. The only trouble with these statements is that they are not true.

One of the proofs that they are not so occupies a place in the Cabinet of President Harding-James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor.

Secretary Davis was born in Wales. He came to this country as a boy, and worked, when a young man, as an iron puddler. At twenty-one he was president of his local branch of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel, and Tin Workers of America.

We recently wrote Secretary Davis, asking him for a photograph of himself as a boy, and he replied: "Unfortunately, during the early days of my life in America our family had very little money to spend for such luxuries as photographs and portraits."

We wanted that picture to go with an article which the Secretary has written for us on the problem of the immigrant. No one is better equipped than Secretary Davis to appreciate what the immigrant Owes America and what America owes the immigrant. The article will appear in an early issue of The Outlook.

you should know his character and that he should know yours. If a man sells you a commodity, the relation between you and him is that of seller and purchaser. If a man sells you his labor, the relation between you and him is that of co-operators in a common enterprise. At the root of much of our present industrial disturbances is the fact that both employer and employee treat labor as a commodity. The result is that the laborer is often indifferent to his employer's interest and the employer is often indifferent to the interests of labor.

But it is also true that men may contract to furnish service and that they may be held accountable for not furnishing what they agree to. A surgeon contracts to perform an operation and to attend the patient after the operation and dress the wound. If in the middle of the operation he should cease work or strike in order to get a larger fee than he agreed upon beforehand, he could be criminally punished for malpractice

that is, for not furnishing the service which he had agreed to furnish. Society recognizes this principle in some forms of employment. Mutiny at sea is a crime. Mutiny is simply a strike against performing a service which the sailors had agreed to perform in signing the ship's articles. If Mr. Searles were on a transatlantic liner and suddenly the engineers, the firemen, and quartermasters declined to do their work and the vessel was in danger of shipwreck or the boilers threatened to explode, would he not be among the first to insist upon the forcible completion of the seamen's contract and their punishment when they reached port for breaking the contract?

Mr. Searles makes many bald assertions which cannot be sustained by the facts. He says, for example, that the prime purpose of corporations is to evade responsibility. He either ignores or is ignorant of the elementary principles of corporation law. Corporations are suable and can sue. If they are fined, the stockholders share the loss pro rata. In some cases, as, for example, in National banking corporations, the directors of the corporation are doubly liable for the fulfillment of contracts. Mr. Searles says that there are all kinds of associations in commerce which are not incorporated. If he means that those associations are not amenable to regulation by law he is of course mistaken. The courts, on the complaint of the Federal Trade Commission, have just dissolved one such association-the association formed for mutual benefit by the dealers in hardwood lumber. It is true that associations for mutual benefit which do not make legal agreements only have to comply with certain special regulations for such mutual benefit associations. But the labor unions are associations formed, not merely for mutual benefit, but to enter into contractual obligations. They either ought not to enter into these obligations or, if they do, ought to be so constituted that they can fulfill their contracts.

The trouble with the labor unions today is that they want to eat their cake and keep it. They want to hold employers to contracts, but they do not want to be held themselves. Mr. Gompers has recently admitted upon the witnessstand that the trouble with many unions is that they are in the hands of unscrupulous and petty leaders. His remedy for this condition is patience, with the hope that the long processes of education will make bad men good, although with delightful inconsistency he does not rely on such processes in dealing with bad employers. The really effective way to make unscrupulous and irresponsible men careful-whether they are employers or labor leaders-is to

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impose responsibilities upon them and hold them accountable.

Nor do we think that the advantages of the incorporation of labor unions would be wholly one-sided. The very tone and tenor of Mr. Searles's article indicate what we believe to be the fact that to-day labor unions and labor-union leaders are looked upon with distrust suspicion, irritation, and sometimes anger by the public at large because of their sabotage, their violence, and their unwillingness to abide by their own word. If they were incorporated, that very fact would give them the social standing which they now feel they lack. The phrase, "dignity of labor," is a much abused and misused one. If, however, labor unions are to have the social dignity which Mr. Searles subconsciously feels they lack and which we believe it would be socially desirable for them to possess, one of the quickest ways in which they could achieve this dignity would be to incorporate themselves, become responsible entities, and take their place with other citizens who regard the courts and judicial procedure, not as hostile engines of a despotic government, but as the best device which democracy has discovered for the settlement of human disputes. When Mr. Searles speaks of judicial procedure as "the whim of hostile courts," does he not come dangerously near to allying himself and the cause which he has at heart with the attitude towards society which is entertained by the thug, the pickpocket, and the swindler? Labor leaders of the intellectual ability of Mr. Searles and Mr. Gompers are doing their cause as well as their country disservice in attacking the courts. If there is injustice in American courts, what labor leaders should do is to join with their other fellow-citizens, who have placed their property and treasuries under the direction and protection of judicial procedure, in reforming court abuses rather than to ally themselves with lawbreakers as enemies of the courts.

The Outlook does not wish to be classed with "the union busters" of the country. It desires to see the unions incorporated because it desires to see them dignified and strengthened so that collective bargaining can go hand in hand with social justice. If, however, the labor unions wish to place themselves or to have society place them outside of the pale of the courts, they will find that this is the surest way to shipwreck. History shows that no class, whether it be composed of the wealthy or of the so-called proletariat, can long exist in nations that believe in constitutional government without being willing to submit to the rules and regulations of law which society at

large has framed for its self-protection.

FAMILIAR SPIRITS

S

AUL, King of Israel, was but one of the long line of those who from prehistoric days have sought the aid of witches and mediums to raise the spirits of the dead. When Saul went, disguised, to consult the woman at Endor who had a familiar spirit, and fell "all along on the earth," overcome partly by his superstitious fear of the woman's message and partly by his faintness from hunger, he cut a ridiculous figure. His conduct in this, as in other instances, serves, not as an example to be followed, but as a warning. His effort to find in the supernatural a support for his wavering faith and his timid will resulted only in enfeebling his will and corrupting his faith.

What happened to Saul has happened to many thousands of others in the ages before him, and in the ages since, and in our own day. What is called Spiritualism is chiefly, if not wholly, an attempt to escape from the normal duties and responsibilities of life by recourse to counsel and direction from the dark. For one who has the purpose of seeking clues to new truths of science through so-called mediums by a cold and impartial examination of evidence, as the chemist or physicist seeks such clues in the undisturbed seclusion of his laboratory, there are hundreds who are seeking by such means either new sensations or some comfort and solace in sorrow, or some power which they can substitute for their own will and character in the control of conduct.

We publish on another page an article by Vilhjalmur Stefansson which gives an interesting portrait of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and incidentally an unconsciously self-painted portrait of the great Arctic explorer. We do not doubt either the intelligence or the sincerity of conviction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but we do not think that his message brings a new revelation of truth and power.

Against the application of scientific methods to the search for truth no one who loves truth would wish to place any obstruction. There may be differences of opinion as to the regions in which such search for truth are most promising; as to the methods applicable in particular cases; and as to the evidence necessary for the formulation of working hypotheses. These differences are common to all realms of science. With such we are not here concerned. It is not this aspect of so-called psychical phenomena that has aroused the public interest and has given audiences to such men as Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. What sends people to the lectures of Sir Oliver and Sir Arthur

and to the séances of mediums is not a scientific impulse; it is the great desire to communicate with the spirits of the departed whom they know, and from whom they want to get some word that will make life worth while.

Since the war, when the fact of death was impressed upon the minds of many hundreds of thousands by the dramatic experiences of battle and sudden calamity, this desire has been intensified. It is, in fact, not a scientific but a religious phenomenon. There is in the minds of these hundreds of thousands a sense of wrongness, and a consequent effort to make some connection with the Higher Powers. This, as William James has pointed out in his "Varieties of Religious Experience," is the essence of religion. There are, however, helpful religions and hurtful religions, true religions and false religions, religions that build up and strengthen character and No one can religions that demoralize. observe thoughtfully this phenomenon without wondering how far it is a symptom of spiritual and moral health, and how far it is a symptom of a breakdown in spirit, morals, or mind.

No amount of evidence that the spirit of man survives bodily death is of itself, or can be made to be, of service to a true and wholesome religion. It is not what a man believes, or even knows, about life in a future existence that constitutes faith; it is rather his attitude toward life and the kind of life that he lives resulting from that attitude. The only kind of eternal life that counts is eternal life here and now. Even the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, which constitutes one of the articles of belief among his followers, did not of itself put life and heart into his disciples. It was the kind of life that Jesus lived and was able to impart to his disciples that was the source of their power and the substance of their faith; and it was not merely his bodily appearance after death that seemed significant to them, but rather the sense of his presence with them in spite of death. It was not the fact that he walked with them to Emmaus that made their hearts burn within them, but what he said to them on the way. If Sir Arthur Conan Doyle will bring to the world a message of power and life, it will not matter much where he gets it. If he can secure such messages as a result of his experiences, no one will question their validity. But the mere fact that a man who has a reputation for knowing something about evidence and who has had some scientific training in medicine reports that he has seen spirits, and has obtained from them some description of the circumstances of life after death, has no bearing whatever upon that faith

which moves mountains and transforms character.

Religious faith does not depend upon the kind of evidence that one gets either in the laboratory or séances; it is a matter of experience that is open to the child as well as the adult, the ignorant as well as the learned. The faith of a child in his father or mother is not something that you can implant by a process of reason or argument, or the production of testimony and evidence. The attorney who argues before a jury may bring the minds of that jury to a state of certainty concerning a fact, but he cannot by that same process implant in the minds and souls of the jury his own faith in a friend or a parent or a God. Evidence may convince a jury, but it cannot of itself change them from bad men to good men, from selfish men to unselfish men, disloyal men to loyal men. It is only faith that can do thatsometimes faith in a fellow-man, some

times faith in a country, but supremely faith in a Power not themselves that makes for righteousness.

All around us in this world there are forces conspiring to develop and fortify faith. They are to be found in the records of the race, in the institutions of religion, and in the influence and power of those who have themselves grown through faith. If any man finds these forces unavailing, he will find no support for true faith in any mere evidence that the spirit of man survives the death of his body.

In the future, as in the past, men will seek some easier way to faith than the rugged path of adherence to the law of self-restraint and service, or what in the much misunderstood language of Scripture is called virtue and love. Those who believe that the universe is ruled by a Power that would supplant chaos with order, self-indulgence with selfcontrol, and greed with love have in

themselves at least the elements of faith. For that faith they do not depend upon the witness of their eyes, or their ears, or the mere report of facts concerning the past or present, or the possible future. They can derive it only from those who have that faith and prove it by their lives.

Those who seek for faith in signs or wonders or in spirits called from the vasty deep will seek it in vain. Not even Jesus, who brought immortality to light, turned the thoughts of men to the search for evidence of life after death. On the contrary, he warned his disciples against such search and enforced his teachings by the parable in which he represents Abraham as answering the rich man in torment, who besought that one might be sent from the dead to cause his brothers to repent, and saying: "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”

PAPER MADNESS

FORTUNATUS HAD A PURSE THAT WAS NEVER EMPTY NO MATTER HOW MUCH HE TOOK FROM IT-AUSTRIA HAS A PURSE THAT GROWS EMPTIER THE MORE SHE PUTS IN IT-MR. GREGG TELLS WHY STAFF CORRESPONDENCE FROM WILLIAM C. GREGG

I

F the Genoa Conference considers countries in alphabetical order, Austria will be first; there is, however, much pre-Conference help being arranged.

Lloyd George recently dressed a window showing Austria in a stabilized Loan Gown. It attracted attention; the fashion was established. Now France and Italy are also making "Loan Gowns" for Austria. Czechoslovakia is making a loan to take the place of an old coal loan. The latest news is that Holland is contemplating a loan to Austria.

There is some psychology in all this, but more business. The Bank of England owns the Anglo-Austrian Bank. Englishmen own the principal Danube navigation companies. They have large commercial relations with Czechoslovakia, which sells to Austria. Why should not England loan nine million dollars to Austria under such circumstances, especially as she has a mortgage on a lot of Gobelin tapestries as security?

France recently bought the Laenderbank, one of the large Vienna financial institutions. She has industrial interests in Austria and since before the war has held a controlling interest in the Southern Railroad Company, the only large Austrian system not Government owned.

Italy, by the Versailles Treaty, ex

tended her northern boundary into Austria, including the great port city of Trieste. The Italians very properly supported this new acquisition by a friendly and expanding policy in Austria. They have acquired mine properties, as well as Austrian banking and commercial interests.

Surely these three Allies have business in Austria which must be looked after. They would not be the clearheaded, practical people we know them to be if they failed to try at least to improve bad conditions. There is, however, another side of business, called politics. Business and politics are always Siamese twins. Many think that they should be separated, but the operation is not performed, because a vital circulation involves them both.

Politically, France wants to be the big sister to the little entente composed of Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Jugoslavia. They can prevent Austria from joining Germany, and together with Poland they present a solid barrier against Soviet Russia. France is interested in the development of trade routes east and west.

The political interests of Italy differ enough from those of France to make the two nations rivals in southern European society. Italy wants trade routes north and south, so that she can resume her very extensive pre-war business

with Germany. She also bids for business with the little entente by playing the rôle of big sister number two. She has recently presided over three conferences in Italy in which the little entente, Austria, and Hungary came together and improved their mutual relations.

One conference was held in Rome, one in Portorose, and one in Venice. In the last the dispute between Austria and Hungary over west Hungary was settled by giving it to Austria. If you add the Genoa Conference, you may call Italy the Convention Country of Europe.

Political rivalry makes it hard to work out the purely business part of loans to Austria to re-establish her credit. I can see all kinds of lions in the way of a good solution. The danger is that England will be content with a temporary business advantage resulting from her loan. She may also foreclose on the tapestries later.

France and Italy may be opportunists. All the world is being financed in a happy-go-lucky manner. England, France, and Italy are not holding their own expenditures within their Government incomes, so we can hardly expect them to plan and impose on Austria such a financial reform as they themselves are not able to adopt, but only to talk about.

So we can prophesy that the credits

to Austria will be given by England, France, and Italy with many hopes of benefits to themselves, with many warnings to Austria, and with some plans for supervision, but with no absolute grip on Austria's collar.

Austria reminds me of the Hawaiian natives; fine looking, friendly, and estimable, but they lack character. The Austrians have never before had selfgovernment. They are not capable of it at present, because they lack patriotism and self-control, two essentials in a republic. These qualities are at present all too scarce in any country, hence the world travail.

While staying in Vienna I have been buying some antiques. I have made large and small purchases in many stores. With one exception, they have urged me to accept a bill at a lower price than I paid, ostensibly to save me part of the Austrian export tax, but when I demurred they bluntly said that they couldn't afford to pay the 7 per cent sales tax. Of course this tax was included in the price. They collected the tax from me, but refused to pay it all to their Government. With exceptions noted later, the Austrian people appear well dressed and well fed. There is a much greater variety of food here than last year. Any one who has the money can get anything to eat or drink. There are over 250,000,000,000 paper kronen in circulation. There is very little unemployment, so every one has money, more or less. To be sure the money is worth little-seventy kronen to one United States cent-but the people have learned that it won't do to hold onto something that is falling in value, so they spend their money on themselves.

The theaters are crowded, so are the movies. One day we saw over one hundred thousand people at and around the race-course. A man may think it better to bet his money on a horse-race than to put it in a savings bank.

And this brings me to the reason for the degradation of the Austrian kronen. They were worth before the war 20 cents apiece, and at the time of the armistice 10 cents. Then people called themselves a democracy, but practiced Socialism. The Government gave every one a job, especially old soldiers. They bought food at high prices and sold at low prices. They imported coal to operate the railways and hauled people for as low as six cents per 100 miles. The first year the Government deficit was enormous; the kronen fell rapidly in value, prices started up, and the wages of state employees were increased. This increased the deficit. There was only one way to meet a deficit-with the printing-press-and vast quantities of paper money were issued.

Theoretically, inflation would work all right if all wages and prices could be increased as rapidly as the value of the money decreases, but it is not humanly possible. Theoretically, when money is falling in value, it is useless to save it. It should be spent for something sub

stantial, but it must not be held. Consequently there is great temptation to spend it for food, drink, and pleasure. It is a good time also to borrow money, if possible, and to go in debt. The chance is in favor of one paying his debt at half what it cost him. If I borrow a thousand kronen on a sixty-day note, and the krone loses one-half its value in sixty days, I am a big gainer, and the lender a big loser.

There is a case in Vienna where a man bought a house full of furniture before the war, on credit. The bill was not paid until recently. The courts decided that the man who bought the furniture need not pay more than the number of kronen called for in the original bill, so the debtor sold one chair for the needed amount and squared the account.

There are many strange phases of this financial spree. On the surface it does not seem criminal, but below one can find the old people neglected or dead; the middle class, who were not used to work, are undernourished or living scantily by selling their possessions. The proportion of unfortunate people is much larger under present Vienna conditions. Many stores are filled with jewelry, furniture, pictures, and curios that have been sold for what they would bring by people who had no choice. Much of this junk is of small value, and the owners realized little from its sale. Thousands of people are working for just enough to keep them fairly alive. I am not referring to skilled labor or common labor of a heavy type, but household servants, employees in hotels, clerks, and porters. Their appearance is semi-genteel or downright shabby. They are fairly used to the life now, and make the best of it.

I was in Vienna just a year ago. In referring to my notes at that time, I find that there were 90,000,000,000 paper kronen in circulation, with a total gold value of $128,000,000.

Now there are 250,000,000,000 kronen in circulation, with a gold value of only $35,000,000. Loss in total value of all paper money in one year, $83,000,000.

It is interesting to see that the more paper money they print, the less the total amount is worth. It is possible also to understand the Vienna complaint that there is not money enough in circulation. If, for instance, the total of next Saturday's factory pay-rolls in Austria amounted to $35,000,000 in gold, it would take the entire 250,000,000,000 kronen to pay them, leaving no money for other transactions and none in the banks.

It is also interesting to reflect that, theoretically, if Austria could raise $35,000,000 in gold, she could buy up and burn up all her 250,000,000,000 paper kronen.

To such a depth of depreciation have sunk the promises of Socialism masquerading in the costume of democracy. To such a depth has sunk a country which used freedom as a license; first,

to spend what they had, and then what they hadn't, until no one does them honor and they mock at themselves.

Yet Austria four years ago was in about as good shape as any other warweary nation. No country has been free from crimes against itself, including the United States, which has had a weak Congress that creates deficits to please the Socialistically inclined.

Which is the most dangerous step in the downward path-the first, the middle, or the last? America has made the first deficit step already, and seems about as complacent as the poor Austrians were when they started down.

The problem for England, France, and Italy is first to stop the Austrian deficits, then retire the present worthless paper currency, issuing a new currency with a safe amount of gold or gold equivalent behind it.

If all the credits were concentrated for this latter purpose, it would be possible of achievement, but there is not power enough inside and outside of Austria to make her reduce her expenditures to come within her income.

We have heard statements that the first decision of Genoa would be that budgets must be balanced before help could be expected. There will be no special need of help after budgets are balanced, for the whole deplorable disaster of depreciation has been caused by deficits. The exchange value has also been depressed by the same failure to balance the trade of a country by selfdenial.

Austria, for instance, has worlds of forests close to Vienna and elsewhere. She could swear a mighty oath that after next September she would not import another ton of coal until her financial health was restored. She would have to change her locomotives to wood-burners and use only wood in industry and the home, a perfectly possible thing for a courageous nation to do. But Austria is not courageous; she prefers credits and coal to chopping wood and developing a national spirit.

The Vienna papers recently reported that the Senate at Washington had appropriated $50,000,000 as a loan to Austria. On March 17 one paper, in commenting on the supposed good luck of Austria, estimated that they could live for a year on the $50,000,000. Twothirds of Austria think only of favor to come from outside. The other third realize their inability to make Austria stand alone and are sick at heart.

How many people in the United States are thinking about getting something from Congress, without realizing that A stands for Austria and America as well, and both can fall from the same cause—lack of patriotism and lack of self-denial? Austria is making some effort toward reforms, but, to me, the only solution is strong outside control or the division of the remnant of the once proud Empire among the adjacent countries. Italy alone might take a mandate to govern her.

T

THE CRIME WAVE AND LAW ENFORCEMENT

HERE is food for anxious thought

in the crime wave sweeping over the United States, particularly when it is borne in mind that it comes on top of an appalling state of habitual lawlessness. In 1918 Cleveland had twenty times as many murders as London per one hundred thousand of population. In 1921 Chicago had fourteen times as many as Berlin. There is more crime among the two hundred thousand Sicilians in Chicago than there is among the four million in Sicily. We have much the same habits, institutions, and ideals as the Canadians. We are divided by only an imaginary line, and yet in 1913 there were eight times as many murders south of the border as north of it. Burglary insurance in the United States has increased 543 per cent in the past five years, and so the story goes. Where will this end? What are the causes? Of course so great a problem is complex. One individual can see only a section of it. Nevertheless from the experience of four years as the official head of the Police Department in a typical cosmopolitan American city of half a million people it is possible to observe some of the forces that have brought us into our present path and continue to drive us along it.

THE

HE American people are of an obliging, accommodating nature. They have a way of passing laws to please those who want them, and those who seek new laws of a reform nature seem to have a kind of childlike faith in the power of a statute to better human conduct. Then when the act is passed and becomes law those communities which did not want it or those large elements in the population who are opposed to it look to the law-enforcing agencies to veto it by non-enforcement. The attitude of the lawmakers seems to be that a new law will leave everybody happythe reformers because they have what they want upon the statute-books, and the rest of the community because it will be relieved of agitation and everything can go on as it did before. Some of the political leaders, influential in controlling legislation, frankly approve of this method of procedure in private and confidential conversation, but would never publicly say so, and the course of events shows that they but reflect the usual attitude of the American people.

The attempt to deal with a situation in the method just described and how it works when brought in contact with the human machinery of a police depart ment is well illustrated by an ordinance passed by the city of Buffalo some years ago which forbade the sale of liquor on the same floor on which dancing was going on. This ordinance sought to achieve a very laudable purpose. The drawback was that there were some high-grade, perfectly respectable res

BY GEORGE S. BUCK

taurants whose patrons drank so little liquor as to lead to no unseemly conduct, and who deeply resented this interference with their indulgence in the fad of dancing between courses. So the management of the Police Department let it be known that certain restaurants might have dancing, but the rest could not. Now the officer on the beat is a very suspicious and an extremely practical man. He at once argued with himself that if certain places were allowed to profit by violating the law some one higher up received pay for it, not necessarily in cash but in some way-in political support or friendship. Perhaps directly across the street from one of the restaurants favored with permission to have dancing was one to which that privilege was denied. The patrolman on that beat reasoned with himself somewhat like this: "Braun, on the north side of this street, is just as decent a fellow as Greuner, on the south. It is not fair to give this privilege to Greuner and to deny it to Braun. What is more, Braun has given me many a good cigar and hot coffee on a cold night, just out of the kindness of his heart. Now if Braun starts up dancing I am not going to see it. I shall just turn my back." After a time Braun found he could not stand the competition from Greuner's dancing attractions, so he started up. The same situation and the same reasoning applied elsewhere, and before long dancing and liquor selling were going on all over without any more regulation than if the ordinance were non-existent, except that, because the law was there and could be enforced at any time, the door was wide open for unscrupulous members of the police force to exact tribute on the threat of enforcement.

This incident illustrates perfectly the viciousness of laws which express excellent views of conduct but which run counter to the settled habits or fixed desires of a part of the community. These may not in themselves be criminal and are more a matter of morals or social customs than of governmental regulation. There arises first the resentment of those regulated, which brings pressure on the police to ignore the law; this is followed by "easing up" on some, which spreads to all, because of the human qualities inherent in those charged with the duty of law enforcement. By and by there is a gust of public indignation over non-enforcement and everything is shut up tight; as soon as the gust passes the old forces reassert themselves and the vicious circle starts over again, leaving in its wake a constantly increasing contempt for law.

As Mayor I was able to cure this particular trouble by insisting that the ordinance be amended to permit dancing and liquor selling on the same floor, provided the Mayor was first satisfied that the place was fit to be licensed, and

a fee for such permission was fixed at $100. The effect was magical. The respectable part of the community which was determined to have dancing with its meals was satisfied; and the ordinance almost enforced itself, because every restaurateur who had invested $100 in a license became a volunteer police officer to prevent unlawful poaching. Formerly, when a lawbreaker, he dared not start a prosecution against a fellow-lawbreaker, but when he had paid the fixed rate for his privilege he was entitled to protection, and he got it as a matter of right.

This is as simple and complete an illustration as can be found of the great advantage of laws which fit the ideas of the community. It is impossible to legislate successfully in advance of the prevailing standards of the people. Perhaps an autocrat may mark out a goal and force his people up to it, but certainly a democracy cannot do it.

It must always be borne in mind that the majority of men on a police force are honest, decent fellows. They want to command the respect and good will of the community. They cannot help reflecting the opinion of their neighbors. If the community regards a law as foolish, the officers will not have much heart for its enforcement. In addition to this, the average man wants to avoid trouble and to hold his job in peace. He does not need to be told to shut his eyes to breaches of the law. He will quickly take a hint. From the attitude of his superiors he decides what is expected of him, and if they are not keen for the punishment of all offenders, he is quite ready to be lax in the performance of his duties. In short, the police reflect very accurately the attitude of their employers on the subject of law enforcement.

IN

N almost every campaign involving the choice of a Mayor the question is fought out, "Shall the town be open or shut?" A multitude of our new voters do not even know what this means. If answered, "Yes," it brings in a time when gamblers can run openly, when prostitutes and pimps can ply their trades and advertise their business freely. It means that honest, faithful service by the police is discouraged. Men who have distinguished themselves by long and efficient work are passed by when promotions are made or are assigned to posts where their qualities are least effective. Every grafter on the force is busy and prosperous. The slime of falsehood and venality is everywhere. Almost every kind of crime can secure some degree of immunity, and the whole force is demoralized. The terrible thing about the whole business is that the question is submitted to the public so camouflaged that only the wise ones see the real issue. Imagine the roar of protest that would go up if a referendum

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