as those of these two brilliant examples, were valuable and substantial.

But in fact Mr. Page was more interested in public affairs and in history than many of the readers of his delightful stories knew. In proof of this may be cited his biography of Robert E. Lee, his books called "The Negro-the Southerner's Problem" and the "Old Dominion," his excellent article on "Jamestown and Civil Liberty" (published in this journal at the time of the Jamestown Centenary), and many special articles and essays. One valuable outcome of his Ambassadorship was the publication last year of his book on "Italy and the World War," of which Mr. Gino Speranza in an elaborate review in The Outlook said: "It is a book wherein restraint, a high sense of loyalty, and a passion for fairness are evident in every chapter."

Only Mr. Page's intimates know how strenuously and faithfully he carried on the heavy and responsible war work at his post, to the detriment of his own health and to a physical reaction that led to his official retirement and perhaps to his recent death, at the age of sixtynine, at his ancestral Virginian home.

The natural bent of the genius of Thomas Nelson Page was toward the short story. We recall two full-fledged novels, "Gordon Keith" and "Red Rock," but, while these are true yet romantic pictures of Virginia social life perhaps twenty years after the Civil War, they do not have the appeal of his short stories of the old régime, and of these the titles that recur to mind at once are "Marse Chan," "Unc' Edinburg," and "Meh Lady." One minor but yet essential trait of Page's stories of Southern life was that he knew how to write Negro dialect. Together with Joel Chandler Harris and H. S. Edwards, Page revolutionized the stiff, absurd, unmusical dialect attributed to the colored people by earlier story-tellers and playwrights and reproduced the real talk of the Negroes with its softness, richness, and simple humor.

Mr. Page's enduring reputation as a writer will rest on the short stories named above. They belong to American literature. Of them, and of him, we may repeat what we said fifteen years ago: A Virginian of the Virginians, he has been the secretary and recorder of a form of social life which had the charm of lavish hospitality, of gracious manners, of a generous habit of life, and of a keen sense of personal dignity. Of that old order there are no more charming reports than "Meh Lady" and "Mars Chan," nor are these unaffected and deeply human interpretations of a vanished social order likely to be surpassed in the future. They give one that sense

International

THOMAS NELSON PAGE

of finality which comes only from those things which are so adequately done that the imagination rests content in them.

S

FASCISTI
TRIUMPHANT

UPPOSE the young Americans who served overseas returned home to find America in chaos. Suppose they saw the men who stayed at home engaged in overturning the safeguards of American liberty. Suppose they saw the factories and the other means of production paralyzed by a combination of theorists and robbers. Suppose they saw that men who had escaped service in the trenches and on sea-washed decks were engaged in an attempt to line their own pockets at the cost of the country. Suppose they found rich profiteers escaping taxation while the mass of the people were paying in taxes at least onequarter of their income. Suppose they found their country facing the appalling calamity of a general strike. Suppose they saw the Government at the worst cowardly and at the best powerless in the face of the situation. Suppose they found politicians taking advantage of the disorder to build up a mighty force of office-holders to whom they could give jobs in return for political support to their own ambitions. Suppose they found the railways and the other public utilities under the burden of this bureaucratic body of office-holders breaking down. Suppose they found that thus the Government, instead of being a safe

guard and a protection, had become a means for exploiting the Nation. Suppose they found that the strong men in power were bargaining for their own advantage and the men of good intention were either weak by nature or weakened by circumstance. Suppose they saw their country engaged in foreign adventures which at their best the country, thus weakened, was ill prepared for and which in no case was the Government willing to follow to their conclusion. And then suppose that these veterans, organized as the American Legion is organized, but devoted, not to their own advancement, not for any bonus for themselves, not for the glorification of their own past deeds, but for the salvation of the country from disaster, had proceeded to take matters in their own hands; had organized vigilance committees; had rejected with contempt the idea of acting in secrecy, or under cover of darkness, or in disguise, but had, on the contrary, adopted for themselves a public symbol of orderly government derived from the traditions of the race. such as the speaker's mace in the House of Commons, and had adopted some distinctive mark of dress by which they could be recognized as legionaries everywhere. Suppose they had devised for themselves signals by which any number of them in a neighborhood could be summoned in an instant like the MinuteMen of Massachusetts. Suppose they had gone systematically to work to fight openly the disruptive elements in society. Suppose that when the general strike came they rushed to the public service, manned the abandoned trains, peopled the deserted factories with workers, and kept circulating the Nation's life-blood. Suppose these legionaries, having scattered the organized groups of chaosmakers, and having renewed the courage of the people to turn to productive industry without fear of intimidation, turned themselves to the renewal of the Government. Suppose in State after State they got political control and finally secured a majority in Congress and placed their leader in the White House.

That is something that could never happen precisely in that way in the United States, because the vastness of the country, the temper of the people, and the nature of American institutions are sufficient to prevent, not only the application of such remedies for social and political ills, but even such a situation from arising. Nevertheless it is by imagining such an event happening in America that Americans perhaps may understand what has happened in Italy.

Most of the Fascisti are young; and those that are not young in years have the spirit of youth. Sometimes it is thought that youth is radical; but here

is an example of youth acting with vigor and initiative in a spirit which is in the broadest sense conservative. It is be

cause these men and women had suffered in the war to preserve the fruits of Italian liberation that when peace came they were willing to continue to suffer and serve to preserve them.

In order to understand what has happened in Italy we in America must remember that the Italian background is different from ours. As a free nation Italy is very young, much younger than the United States. The people of Italy have welded for themselves fragmentary states into a comparatively new nation. This people, or rather this group of peoples, have no long experience in governing themselves. In this respect they are like most of their neighbors on the Continent of Europe. Their history has been made, not by repeated appeals to the ballot, as ours has been, but by appeals to the bayonet. To us it would be a strange and fearful thing to have to resort to direct action; but to the peoples of Europe, and in particular to the people of Italy, in whose memory are still fresh such figures as those of Metternich and Napoleon III as enemies of their liberty, the natural thing is to turn to direct action as a means of release against wrong.

What has happened in

(C) Keystone BENITO MUSSOLINI, LEADER OF THE

FASCISTI

Italy is in essence a normal revolution. That is why it is not strange that the Fascisti come into power with the approval, not only of the people as a whole, but of leaders in their army and their

navy, and, most significant of all, of their King..

The week that has passed since Mr. Roselli wrote his article which appeared in the last issue of The Outlook has seen the fulfillment of what was there predicted. The Fascisti have marched upon Rome; Mussolini, their leader, has, at the request of the King-a request which he could not refuse-taken up the reins of government. He has formed a Cabinet of youth. It is also a Cabinet of inexperience in political management, but it represents, not only the Fascista movement as such, but other elements in the nation that are sympathetic with the object that the Fascisti have set before them. Mussolini has announced his policy in foreign relations as "not a policy of adventure, but one of friendship to those nations displaying friendship for us," and his policy in internal affairs as "one of strict economy, discipline, and the restoration of our finances."

We repeat the hope that Mr. Roselli expressed last week-that the Fascisti will not allow themselves to become permanently a political party, but that, as soon as they have reorganized the Government, they will withdraw and remain a moral force holding all political parties to account.

A

FEW days after the Treaty of Sèvres was signed I called on Marshal Foch and asked his opinion on the subject.

"It is quite good," he answered, "but on the condition that 300,000 French and English bayonets be sent at once over there to enforce its execution."

Since France and England had neither the means nor the will to send those forces to the East, the Treaty of Sèvres could not be, and never was, enforced.

That sums up the whole story of this unpleasant Eastern affair.

It was not a matter of sympathy or artificiality. It was only a question of power and facts. That is what both English and French had forgotten from the beginning.

The French were the first to realize their mistake, for the only reason that during many months they had had to fight the Turks in Galicia, without the hope of any benefit whatsoever. When they had fought long enough, when they had come to the conclusion that the absurd struggle had lasted sufficiently, they hastened to make peace with the Turks, who immediately made ready to turn on the Greeks.

BY RAYMOND RECOULY

The English were highly displeased with this Franco-Turkish Agreement and strongly blamed the French for it. The latter answered that they neither could nor wanted to fight the Turks; the only way left to them was to make peace. This answer, though logical and full of good sense, did not satisfy the English.

For he does not know the English who thinks that a logical argument, however strong, can influence them! It is difficult to conceive their contempt for logic and reason when applied to politics. France's readiness to mix up logic with politics or diplomacy seems very extravagant to them. Facts alone appear to them to be of any importance.

Well, facts have just shown the English that the French were right about the Eastern question. Then only have they yielded to necessity. They have at last accepted the solution which France had proposed; that is, give back to the Turks Asia Minor, Constantinople, and Thrace.

The great British plan was to use the Greeks against the Turks in order to push them back into Asia. nately, the Greeks were not in a position

Unfortu

to fill the part, especially if it were to last a long time. The burden placed upon their shoulders was too much for them to bear; they were completely crushed by it.

A glance at a map will suffice to show that the Greek army could not possibly maintain itself so far from its base, on the far advanced positions that its chiefs-the civil more than the mili tary ones-had been foolish enough to choose.

Twelve years ago I traveled all over that country during a journey in Asia Minor from Smyrna to Koniah, the old capital of the Turks, through AflaounKaraissar and back to Constantinople.

One has scarcely left the coast, crowded with Greek villages and redolent of Greek memories, when the rail. way climbs three thousand feet through endless windings to the highlands. which appear to the traveler as a land of desolation and death. No civilization, no fields, scarcely any villages. From place to place a few meager fields which just enable the few inhabitants to stave off starvation. A Turkish shepherd clad in his big coat made of rigid felt reaching to the ground, with a hole for the

E

head, may be seen watching his flock grazing amid the rocks.

It was a pure folly to maintain a big army so far from its base. All faults and follies have to be accounted for. As this one was most serious, its consequences were therefore terrible.

If only the Greek divisions had been content to protect Smyrna and the near "hinterland"! Backed by strong and well-fortified works, they might perhaps have held their own for a while; they might have stopped the Turks, thus givhing the diplomats and statesmen time to arrange for the evacuation of Smyrna in exchange for serious advantages; for instance, a kind of autonomy for the city, under the control of the Great Powers, the protection of the Greek minorities, etc.

But sooner or later the Greek army would have had to give up Smyrna. Sooner or later we should have been forced to negotiate with the Turks. The pity of it all is that we should have waited so long.

The opposition between French and English politics has greatly contributed to increase the difficulties of the Eastern problem; it has greatly delayed its solution.

Who is responsible for this inopportune opposition? Both, without any doubt. In Paris as in London both Governments could plead guilty.

Immediately after the armistice M. Clemenceau, who never took much interest in Eastern affairs, gave the English the impression that France would not be very pressing in her demands on the East, more particularly as to Syria. The English were not long in drawing their own conclusions. Circumstances having given them a high hand over the situation, they immediately let loose all their ambitions, and gave the direction of their Eastern policy into the hands of sub-agents whose only aim was to undermine French influence at any

cost.

It was the Golden Age of the PanArabic dreams, with all its delusions and all its extravagance. An Oxford professor, metamorphosed into a colonel, the famous Lawrence, gave free vent to his adventurous conceptions, without any regard for the reality of things. He built up chimeric empires for his country over whose destinies the Emir Faisal and his brother Abdallah, the Bedouin Ringlets, sprung from the depths of the Arabian desert, were to preside for the greater good of England. Add to this Lloyd George's distinctly anti-Turkish and pro-Greek disposition of mind.

When one analyzes this policy and tries to discover its chief reasons, one finds a number of elements derived from various origins; foremost, undoubtedly, financial influence, which Lloyd George has always willingly obeyed; then remnants of liberal politics, the anti-Turkish tendency of the old Gladstonian doc

trine; the imperialistic idea of utilizing circumstances definitely to grab Constantinople and the Straits.

All these elements combined have conduced to warp British policy and hide from the British the great Mohammedan interests that are in the charge of England.

Lloyd George stubbornly maintained his views, just as he did in regard to Russia. It was all in vain that part of the British public, the Foreign Office, and those of the Colonial Office still more, opposed him, showing him the breakers ahead. He was deaf to all, until the day of awakening when he had to yield to hard facts.

Happily, the English are great opportunists, the greatest in the world; they always surrender to facts. Lord Curzon accepted an agreement in Paris which a few weeks previously would have made his hair stand on end.

The concessions made by Englandand one must insist on the point-are most important. In order to come back to the road of moderation and good sense the British Government had to go very far!

Thanks to the force of facts, much more than to human will power, France and England have at last come to an agreement over the essential points of the Eastern problem. Many still remain to be solved. Serious differences of opinion may still arise as regards the capitulation, the care of the minorities, the Straits, etc. But what is still to be done is of far less importance than that which has already been accomplished.

It now remains to develop the results already obtained. It was with the Eastern as much as with the reparations question that France and England had conflicting interests. On the former of those questions their interests are now, on the whole, reconciled. Both Governments owe it to themselves and their peoples, whose only wish is to be united, faithfully to try to settle their divergences on the latter also.

The statesmen have been far more to blame over this matter than the public. For on either side of the Channel the almost totality of the country has a distinct feeling that any Franco-British quarrel would not fail to bring about quickly disastrous consequences. Unfortunately, both Governments, instead of forestalling differences, or at least settling them as soon as they arose, have let them multiply. It is not surprising that under such conditions the evil grew.

One point still remains obscure; it is the one dealing with the relations between the Angora Government and the Soviets. What are those relations? What is the exact influence the Bolsheviks have over the Turks?

The Soviet Government has made a noisy and unexpected irruption in the Eastern negotiations. It has expressed the desire not to be left out, and wants to take part in all discussions. Thus, to use a popular expression, we see Lenine stepping into the Czar's shoes! It is not

the first time, however, that we have witnessed such a thing.

This Sovietic "Bat"-certainly far less pleasant to look at than the one that was shown us by Russian artists-alternately shows its paws and its wings. According to circumstances, it calls itself a bird or a mouse! Sometimes it says that there should be no boundaries, and that the old diplomatic methods should be abandoned. At other times, on the contrary, it appears more imperialistic and more jingoist than the Ministers, generals, and diplomats of the Czar ever proved to be.

That Russia holds a high interest in the settlement of the Constantinople and Straits question cannot be denied.

Any decision taken without consulting her runs the risk of being merely a provisional one.

But one may well ask to what extent is Lenine's Government, considering its origin and tendencies, qualified to speak in the name of the whole of Russia and to pledge her signature. This signature, even supposing it were given, might very easily be disavowed by its successor, when eventually there will be one.

With regard to the near East, the French thesis has prevailed. And now that the French and English Cabinets have come to an understanding, the opportunity should be seized for tackling the big question of reparations and trying to reach an agreement over it.

The two points of view are certainly divergent. But so it was with the Eastern problem. Public opinion in France as well as in England welcomed with a sigh of relief the news that both Governments, after many vicissitudes, many efforts, had at last come to an understanding. Its joy would be tenfold if an understanding could be reached over the reparations question. There will be need for concessions on both sides; but in both countries all reasonable men realize that, and are ready to do their bit.

I have just returned from a two months' stay in the United States. I have talked to a great many peoplebusiness men, political men, journalists, diplomats-about the reparations question. I am under the impression, from what I could gather from these conversations, that the United States will not do anything in the matter until it is shown a programme of Franco-British co-operation. As long as France and England go on pulling asunder, the United States has decided to stand aloof. It has no wish at all to mix up in a family quarrel, which, viewed from so far off, seems unreasonable and ridiculous. But when France and England present the United States with a complete programme, drawn up by both parties, asking for their support, the majority of Americans will not sanction their Government's standing aloof. They will bring pressure to bear upon it, and the latter will promptly have to yield. For in no country in the world are the political men more easily swayed by public opinion. Paris, France.