CRISES AT GENOA

T

HERE are conferences and confer

ences. To call such a gathering as that at Genoa by the same name

as that applied to the meeting of nations last winter at Washington is an indication of the poverty of language. No two gatherings could be more unlike.

At Washington there were nations which, however much their policies and purposes might differ, were willing to take one another's word as equivalent to a bond. Even the most disturbing incidents of the Washington Conference, such as some of the encounters between the Japanese and the Chinese and between the British and the French, served only to emphasize the fact that when any nation there finally pledged its word to a course of action there was no suspicion on the part of the representative of any other nation that that word would be broken. At Genoa, on the other hand, there are nations whose word is worth little or nothing in the eyes of other nations present. France, for instance, may cordially dislike England's purposes, but it does not distrust England's word. On the other hand, France and other countries, with very good reason, not only dislike Germany's purposes but also distrust Germany's word, and have no faith whatever in the words of Russia's present rulers.

Under these conditions it is not strange that the Genoa Conference has consisted of a series of crises. In diplomatic language, there has been incident after incident. One incident arises as soon as another is closed. To recount these daily occurrences of dangerous import would be wearisome. It would be useless to do so without at length explaining the moves in the game which these thirty-odd nations are playing.

In general, the nations gathered at Genoa seem to be taking sides according to the value they put upon good faith. The Bolshevist leaders from Russia put no value at all upon it, and the Germans put very little. Both the Russians and the Germans represent Governments which have been outlawed and which still bear the stigma of outlaws. They are governed somewhat by the psychology of the criminal, who thinks that, since every man's hand is against him, he is entitled to a living by his wits and is under no obligation to show good faith. When these nations were invited

MAY 3, 1922

(C) Underwood

TCHITCHERIN, RUSSIAN DELEGATE TO THE GENOA CONFERENCE, PHOTOGRAPHED IN THE GROUNDS OF THE HOTEL IMPERIAL AT SANTA MARGUERITE

to Genoa, they accepted certain conditions laid down. Britain needs very much the trade of both of these countries, and used her influence to induce the other nations to receive their acceptances in good faith. France had very good reason to be reluctant in this matter, for she has found that Germany, after giving her signature to the Treaty of Versailles, has ever since been seeking to escape performing her part of the contract. There was every indication that France was approaching Germany in a mood of reconciliation. It is reported by a certainly not over proFrench British correspondent, J. L. Garvin, that one of the French Cabinet Ministers, de Lasteyrie, was taking the train from Paris in order to have a thorough financial discussion with the Germans when, presto! the Germans did their best to justify all the French fears by announcing their treaty with Russia, which at best has added new difficulties to the observance of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

Of course all this has gone to prove, what seemed obvious before, that under present circumstances in Europe it is

impossible to hold an economic conference which is not primarily political.

THE BOLSHEVIKI'S AIM

NOR thus doing much to justify in the

FOR

eyes of the world the course of France toward her, Germany has been charged with stupidity. Perhaps Germany is not as stupid as she seems to be. The world's memory has proved short, and the sort of things Germany did only a few years ago are passing into oblivion. Germany apparently can count on other nations' forgetfulness. What she has done in this instance is to secure at least a finger-hold upon the rich resources of Russia, and she is probably ready to gamble on the chance that the Allies will overlook this act of bad faith as they have overlooked a great many other such acts.

The Germans were told that, since they had made this arrangement with Russia, they could not be admitted into the discussions of Rusian affairs, and they accepted their exclusion with apparent meekness. Moreover, they, as well as the Russians, were told that the Allies would preserve the right to declare any provisions of the Russo-German treaty which are in conflict with other treaties (for example, the Treaty of Versailles) null and void.

The Russians were told, too, that if they were going to continue in conference with other nations they must not be too truculent. The Allies' experts on Russia had met in London and prepared a report on Russian affairs which the Bolsheviki scorned in a statement which was issued by one of their officials. France promptly refused to sit with the Russian representatives until they made an explanation. In the meantime Tchitcherin, the Russian Foreign Minister, had issued a note in reply to the Allies' demand. The Allies had notified the Bolsheviki that their fifty billion dollar bill (which Dr. W. F. Johnson, in an article in this issue, exposes to the light of an incident in American history) was quite unacceptable. Mr. Tchitcherin withdrew the bill. The Allies had told the Bolsheviki that they would "write down" the war debts owing by Russia and postpone payment of interest, and even omit some parts of the arrears, and Mr. Tchitcherin agreed-naturally. The Allies had set certain conditions concerning the payment of debts and damages to foreign nationals;

Tchitcherin presented some counterconditions, among which was the very important one that the Bolshevist Government should be recognized. When this apparently mild note appeared, it was explained that this superseded the truculent letter first issued, and the French thereupon resumed relations with the Russians.

In all of this the aim of the Bolsheviki is obvious. They are in desperate need of two things in order to retain their power over the Russian masses. If they get those two things at Genoa, they will go home highly pleased with themselves. One thing is recognition. The other thing is money. They have found that their plan to revolutionize the world by destroying the governments of other nations and the medium of exchange is futile. They had so conducted themselves that they won and deserved international ostracism. According to an Associated Press despatch from Moscow, the Bolshevist Government had issued up to the last of March twentyfive trillions (that is, twenty-five thousand billions, or, if you please, twenty-five million 'millions) of paper rubles since the first of January of this year. That seems incredible; but the whole Bolshevist scheme is incredible except for the fact that it happens to be one of the facts of an incredible era. Now these Bolsheviki find that if they are going to exploit the Russian people further they have got to have the backing of other governments not only politically but financially. So they present their fifty billion dollar bill, and present other

to take the matter in her own hands, as the Treaty of Versailles authorizes, in order to protect her rights and interests. There has been a tendency in France toward a radical reduction of her military organization. Poincaré has been one of those who have cautioned his country against too rapid action in that direction, and now he points to the course of Germany and Russia as justifying his Cabinet in "daring to insist for the moment on eighteen months' military service."

Officially, however, the French Government is readier for compromise than Poincaré's speech would indicate-indeed, quite as ready for compromise as any one who knows what France has been through during the past two generations has any right to expect. The French delegation, in a statement concerning Lloyd George's proposal for a ten-year-peace treaty, has said: "It must be made clear that Germany and Russia have no aggressive intentions before the rest of Europe can agree to any such pact. If it involves the neutralization of frontier zones, it may be useful. If it involves later some form of reduction of årmies, it may be beneficial. France is ready to reduce if others do so, because this would decrease expenditures, but it must affect everybody and be without a loophole for violation."

France of course is right in saying that a peace treaty had better be written in something else than water.

PASSING THE BONUS BUCK

LANS to raise money for the payment

offer to withdraw everything provided they get recognition and cash.

THE PROPOSED

TEN-YEAR-PEACE TREATY

I'

T is perhaps not surprising that in the midst of such proceedings Mr. Lloyd George's proposal for a ten-year pact of peace all around sounds rather ingenuous to those peoples who have suffered most from the criminal exploits of the German Militarists and the Russian Reds. Indeed, it would not have been surprising if the French had suggested that before they made any more pacts perhaps it would be well to see that those already made were observed.

Indeed, Premier Poincaré is reported to have declared in a speech at Bar-leDuc, France, that all France has ever asked and all that she asks to-day is the execution of the Treaty of Versailles. "That," he is quoted as saying, "we must have and shall have. The peace of Europe depends upon it." He is reported as going still further in explicit statement by saying that he hoped that the Allies would be able to act in unison, but that France was prepared

sembled the efforts of a man who seeks to increase the length of a piece of string by cutting off one end and tying it on the other. Congress is apparently unwilling to find any new funds for the bonus, for it is still keeping an expectant eye upon the payment of interest money on our foreign loans. At present the thought of Congress involves using interest payments from Great Britain.

Such funds, if they are received, cannot be properly applied to the bonus. Such interest should be applied to our own Liberty Bonds. For our bonds were in part sold to the Nation for the purpose of securing funds to loan to our allies. If Congress wishes to prove its sincerity in the matter of bonus legislation, let it collect the needed money by the imposition of new taxes frankly levied for the purpose of paying the bonus.

The political aspects of the bonus question are accentuated by the fact that it is proposed to increase the cash payments provided for in the House bill and to abolish some of the really constructive features, such as the land settlement plan which was incorporated in the original measure put forward by the

Legion. That land settlements and industrial loans can be of practical and permanent assistance to ex-soldiers has been proved by the example of Canada.

In an early issue of The Outlook an article on the Canadian system of loans to soldier-farmers will be published.

BUYING OFFICE WITH PUBLIC FUNDS

W

E do not always agree with Senator Borah.. But we have · never doubted his independence of spirit and his readiness to fight for his convictions. This characteristic has been manifest in his public career ever since he rose to National prominence through his prosecution of the case against the murderers of ex-Governor Steunenberg.

If the Legion Post of Pocatello, Idaho, had realized this fact, they might have withheld their threat to drive Senator Borah out of public life because of his opposition to the bonus. In reply to the telegram from this Post Senator Borah said:

I observe in your telegram the threat which you impliedly make as to future political punishment. It was wholly unnecessary for you to make this threat. It reflected no credit upon you and it has had no effect whatever on me. When you come to that fight in which you propose to inflict punishment, you will doubtless be able to say many things in the way of censure upon my public service.

But one thing neither you nor any one else will be able to say, and that is that I ever sought to purchase political power by drafts upon the public treasury, or that I chose to buy a continuation in office by putting $4,000,000,000 upon the bended backs of American taxpayers.

I haven't much respect for the man who buys office, even though he pays for it with his own money. But the most slimy creature which disgraces American politics is the man who buys office by paying for it with appropriations out of the public treasury and charges his venal political obligations to the taxpayers.

Senator Borah's denunciation of the politician who pays for his re-election with appropriations from the public treasury constitutes an outstanding definition of an evil which is Nation-wide. It is particularly effective because it is accompanied by an act which might involve serious personal sacrifice.

finds in Riley's verse perhaps more frequently than any other sentiment, and this verse will remain his monument long after much verse that is subtle and intellectually more mature will have been generally forgotten. In this sense Riley erected his own monument; but his neighbors have now built to his memory a monument of their own, and it is in the same vein as his verse. It is a hospital for the care of stricken children.

At the exercises at this hospital, in Indianapolis, Secretary James J. Davis, of the Department of Labor, paid a tribute to Riley in which he recognized this gift of the Indiana poet. "If the very sight of a child, if the fancies, the joys, the little griefs of a child touch us all so deeply," said Secretary Davis, "how much more touching are the fancies and joys and griefs of a child who is broken and bent and crippled! Nothing ever moved Riley to finer strains of poetry than bright, happy childhood, but nothing ever more stirred the depths of his being than the sight of childhood blighted with pain and distress." Secretary Davis mentioned the incident, which was one of Riley's earliest recollections, in which Riley saw to it that a lame schoolfellow always had the first ride in the swing under the locust trees at recess. Perhaps it is not mere coincidence that Riley's State, according to Secretary Davis, is leading in the effort to aid crippled children. Close after Indiana come New York, and Ohio, and Michigan, and Virginia, Massachusetts, Montana, Missouri, Illinois, and the rest. "In New York City alone," said Mr. Davis, "there are 36,000 cripples. A census of the Nation's cripples has never been undertaken-we have shrunk from the painful task. But let us hope that the percentage in New York is unusual, and that the country as a whole has taken no such toll of human bodies." According to Secretary Davis, there is not a State in the land that does not, through public or private means, pay heed to the needs of crippled children.

Riley's verses on "The Happy Little Cripple" contain in very simple and perhaps, to some, sentimental language a sound philosophy; for in those verses Riley represents the cripple as wondering how his aunt could possibly be happy in a heaven where she did not have a chance to take care of him, for in heaven "they's nary angel 'bout the place with curv'ture of the spine." It is certainly true that the crippled children who are cared for in this hospital will do as much for the people of Indianapolis as the people of Indianapolis will do for them. In spite of wars and strikes and crime waves, this truth has been a dominant one in modern times.

Certainly such a hospital as the Riley Children's Memorial Hospital is as distinctive of the civilization of to-day as the amphitheaters and forums were of that of Rome.

HOME STUDY IN SING SING

U

NIVERSITY work among the inmates of a State's prison is a novelty; it is also an undertaking of fine intention and aspiration. Columbia University in its courses at Sing Sing is trying to bridge the gulf between aspiration and failure, ambition and despair. It started when Mr. Spencer Miller, Jr., visited the great San Quentin Prison in California and found there a genuine interest in education as a constructive element in rehabilitation. Mr. Miller later became an assistant warden at Sing Sing, and has done a great deal to carry out the idea. Elementary instruction already existed; Mr. Miller undertook to do something for the men who entered prison with a certain amount of education and needed something more. His argument was that if the modern prison idea is to make a man capable of resuming his citizenship, there could be no means more effective than education.

In the head of the Columbia Home Study Department, Mr. Levering Tyson, sympathy and co-operation were found, for he remembered that long before a Sing Sing prisoner had written to him asking for a course in Spanish, to be paid for after his discharge. This was not possible at that time. Now a scholarship fund for such purposes is in existence and an inmate is eligible for full scholarship for a year if he is approved by the Sing Sing Mutual Welfare League, the head teacher, and the warden.

Under this plan thirty-five such scholarships were established, but this proved pitifully inadequate, for eighty applications were received from the men, and many of them still await the generous impulse of those who may be interested.

What kind of courses do Sing Sing prisoners want? In reply, we are told that some of the courses asked for but not given for lack of funds are interior decoration, automobile construction, commercial art, traffic management, and certain musical courses. Among the courses now given are English composition, advertising and selling, Spanish, agriculture, foreign exchange, newspaper writing, photoplay composition, accounting, fire insurance, American history, philosophy.

One interesting example of the work is that of a prisoner who has had a play accepted by a Broadway producer. More general results have been increase in courtesy and friendliness on the part of the prisoners to their teachers and the

growth of a spirit of mutual service among the prisoners themselves.

A CORRECTION

IN hearings before the Committee on of

the House of Representatives, C. V. Knightley, of Boston, testified that seventeen Assyrians, women and children, deported from Ellis Island, the immigrant station in New York Harbor, landed at Constantinople and were then massacred. These people, it was finally ascertained, as a result of an investigation by the American High Commission at Constantinople, were Armenians, the party consisting of seven men, nine women, and three children (making not seventeen, but twelve women and children in all)-nineteen in the whole party. The Secretary of State, Mr. Hughes, has written to the Secretary of Labor, Mr. Davis, reporting the findings of the High Commission and saying that it appears that, "after leaving no avenue of useful investigation unexplored, the High Commission was unable to find the slightest evidence to substantiate the rumor." Similarly, a careful investigation by the Y. W. C. A. also proves the rumor to have been substantially false. The Migration Secretary of the Y. W. C. A. at Constantinople.personally interviewed four of those reported murdered -one of them being the mother in a family of five. Apparently there has been no sign that a single one of the nineteen was killed. In its issue of January 4, The Outlook, in commenting upon the hardships of deportation, referred to this rumor, not as a fact, but as a "story" which was "told of some Armenian women and children." We. are giving a great deal more space to the correction than to the original report of the rumor, both because we desire that justice be done to the Department of Labor, that is responsible for deportation, and because we are heartily glad that the story has been proved untrue.

LADY ASTOR

ADY ASTOR is one of the most ex

Ltraordinary and at the same time

most engaging of the distinguished persons that have recently come from the other side of the Atlantic to visit this country. As a matter of fact, she is not a foreign visitor at all. She is an American girl returning to see the home folks. She was born and raised-to use the Southern phraseology-in Virginia. Nancy Langhorne was the scion of an aristocratic but land-poor family. She had beauty, education, a quick mind, a warm heart, and a fine spirit-a heritage that is better than millions of dol lars so far as happiness and effectiveness

in life are concerned. About the time she was emerging from girlhood an American millionaire, William Waldorf Astor, emigrated to England and finally became a peer of the realm. His son married Nancy Langhorne, was elected to the House of Commons, and, finally, on his father's death, inherited his father's peerage and is now Viscount Astor. Thus it happens that the American girl from Virginia is Viscountess Astor.

When Lord Astor inherited his father's title, he was, under the British Constitution, transferred from the House of Commons to the House of Lords and his seat in the Commons was vacant. His wife, who believed in woman suffrage and was active in the suffrage movement in England before the war, determined to offer herself as a candidate. She made a splendid campaign in and about Plymouth, which constituency, after a triumphal election, she now represents in the House of Commons. Her husband, Lord Astor, has publicly said that it is not surprising that she should have been elected nor is it especially to her credit; what is surprising and much to her credit, he believes, is that she has made a success as a member of the House of Commons. Her common sense, her good humor, her human sympathy, and her brilliant, sparkling, and spontaneous style of speaking have given her real influence in Parliament.

She has come to America especially to attend the Convention of the National League of Women Voters, which has just concluded its sessions in Baltimore, and she has captivated everybody she has come in contact with since she arrived in this country about two weeks ago.

Personality is a most elusive and difficult thing to describe. It is far easier for Conan Doyle to explain or to photograph ectoplasm, a stuff of which he says spirits are made, than it is for a writer to express in printed words the effect of a flashing glance, or a rippling smile, or a spontaneous gesture, or the engaging hesitation of an instant while a speaker is eagerly choosing a word with which more effectively to take the already capitulating fortress of the hearer's mind. So it is not easy to describe Lady Astor's distinctive personality. One of the most effective slang phrases of the day is "have a heart." She manifestly has a heart. Indeed, at the dinner which was given in her honor on April 20 by the English Speaking Union, in New York, she said: "I didn't quite know whether New York audiences would be as kind as Plymouth audiences. I see that they are much the samé. They forgive shortcomings in the way of scholarly or oratorical attainments when they see that you are speak

ing from your heart. I usually do speak from my heart, for I have tried my head and found it wanting."

Lady Astor denies that she has come over here on a mission. "Can't a person come home," she inquired with a smile, "without being suspected of ulterior motives?" Uttering this defense with that little whimsical turn of voice and expression of countenance with which Theodore Roosevelt used to employ humor to point a moral, she denied that she is a personage and asserted that she is "but a symbol-a sort of a connecting link between all English-speaking peoples, a frail link, perhaps, but a link that is stronger than it looks." In her various speeches and interviews she has laid great stress-from "the motherwoman's point of view"-upon the necessity for the abolition of war and for an association of nations based upon human sympathy and human co-operation.

She has not criticised or advised the American people in the slightest degree, but she has made some allusions in a semi-humorous vein which are penetrating and significant. For example, when asked of her opinion of prohibition she replied: "All I can say with conviction is that I have never met the man or woman who has been made more unselfish or better by drink, but I have seen hundreds ruined by it." Asked regarding her views of the Irish question, her answer was: "The Irish question? There will be no trouble in Ireland if they will only look forward instead of back. I have no patience with anything based on ancient prejudices and ancient wrong. I have a great admiration for the Irish; I am part Irish myself; but

they will lose sympathy throughout the world if they do not stop fighting among themselves and start looking forward." She deplores the attacks of a peculiar personal nature made on Great Britain in the United States Senate. Personalities in politics she evidently thinks unsportsmanlike. "You know," she said, "if a member of Parliament made attacks of this kind in the House of Commons on the United States, it would not be tolerated by his fellow-members. 'It is not cricket!' they would exclaim."

But the reader must not get the impression that vivacity and ever-buoyant good spirits are the sole characteristics of this charming Anglo-American or Americo-Englishwoman. She has her serious moments, in which she gives expression to the fundamental truths of her political philosophy in a language of common sense that every one can understand. Perhaps her political philosophy cannot be summed up better than she has done it in the following passage of her address to the New York League of Woman Voters, which was delivered in the Town Hall of New York City on the very evening of her arrival from her transatlantic voyage:

can

I can conceive of nothing worse than a man-governed world except a woman-governed world-but I see the combination of the two going forward and making civilization more worthy of the name of civilization based on Christianity, not force,-a civilization based on justice and

mercy. I feel men have a greater sense of justice and we of mercy. They must borrow our mercy and we must use their justice. We are new brooms; let us see that we sweep the right rooms.

Personally, I feel that every woman