Raw material for plowshares. The for the ranks are unknown, and a man is taken from the fields or from the mill by the first who finds him. Then, after a sufficient number of crimes against persons and things have been committed, alone or in company, and are fastened on him, his life stands forfeited if he finds himself within reach of the other camp. When retribution is stalking him, he has ripened into a soldier and will fight.

Thus, while he will fight, it is fear that drives him and not patriotism. There is no lofty uplifting emotion, nothing of the spiritual in it. If the other side chooses to avoid an engagement, there is no need to press for one, because one's own life is not endangered by conflict avoided. Hence it is that in those rare cases when the opposing "armies" come within measurable distance of each other, it is still no mean problem to bring them to grips. A dash for the enemy and his vigorous pursuit is a thing unknown, and I leave to your imagination what would happen should these people be faced by soldiers, even a handful, to whom duty is almost religion, determined on the extermination of criminals calling themselves patriots.

Nicaraguan soldiers turn in their arms in accordance with the Stimson agreement

that it would be perfect if the United States were to give Nicaragua the status of Cuba. There is no resentment over the fact of intervention by us, but, on the contrary, the hope is often expressed by the partisans of each side that we will make our control permanent. While this doubtless comes in large part from distrust of their fellow-countrymen, there is room there for much comfort to all Americans who are not confirmed critics of their own Government, in that it recognizes that our ministrations are disinterested and helpful.

We, the sons of the "Colossus of the North," are in as pleasurable a state of excitement as are the natives, for we hope that the end of this duty for us is near and that home is almost in sight. We still have the disarming to do, and further ahead is the unpleasant problem of suppressing the blood feuds engendered by the war. Moncada's army is turning in its arms to-day, somewhere above Tipitapa, and to-morrow I resume negotiations to the same end with Cabulla, the local Liberal leader.

He has heretofore failed to acknowledge any superior or to make himself subject to any control, self-imposed or otherwise a young man of about twenty-four years, stocky and strong, illiterate, unable even to sign his name, a mixture of Indian, Negro and German

blood, bold, ruthless, cruel, and lustful, the very epitome of bestiality.

He tells me that he will follow the example of his chief, Moncada (Moncada denies him), and turn in his arms. Ten dollars a rifle to men of his command, who have worked a lifetime and never seen ten dollars, is a fortune not to be resisted. The majority will not struggle against the temptation; but those who dare not present themselves for a share in the golden harvest will flee to the hills, to continue their depredations until tracked down and brought to account.

LATE

ATER. I am just back from a conference with Cabulla, and such a conference! Picture a half-drunken mob of vicious or vacuous men led by such a man as I have already described, some eight hundred of them on horseback. All except a large staff and a few women of the household were stopped at our lines, and, leaving the main body yelling and giving vivas, while a mounted band played the "Marseillaise," the "General" and entourage advanced under our escort.

Cabulla, decorated with a large redplush plush sash bearing some ennobling motto, was nobly drunk. His mistress, who is reputed to be an old sweetheart, forced to marry another, and now widowed by Cabulla's own hand rode

by his side, while five other women and one little girl were close at hand. The General with drunken chivalry assisted his inamorata to alight, placed a chair for her at the table, waved his men back, called for his secretary, then lapsed into silence, and the conference was on.

The secretary, a man of some eloquence who dearly loved to hear his own voice, did all the talking, answering out of hand without referring any question to his chief. In a word, they are ready

L

to lay down their arms if Moncada, the chief of chiefs, says so, but

They have no doubt that Moncada has so spoken. The only trouble is that he has not addressed himself directly to them. That, then, is wanted, for unless they draw some recognition from Moncada they will have even a harder time in proving themselves Liberals rather than bandits. Then too, just what does peace mean to them personally, is another question they want answered.

Will some of the minor political jobs allocated to the Liberals go to them, and how far will the promised immunity extend? They told me to-day they "did not want to be killed like dogs." When that question of amnesty comes to mind, I wager nearly all of them visualize some gruesome deed that needs forgetting, for this countryside holds them in terror with all reason.

The end of our stay is nearer, but not yet.

OUIS LOUCHEUR is one of the foremost economists of our time.

He it was who during the war negotiated the clever Franco-German trade exchange with Walter Rathenau. M. Loucheur has now carried through to success an equally remarkable undertaking.

A year ago last September, at Geneva, I heard him propose the convoking of an International Economic Conference. The subsidence of political insecurity, and particularly of the monetary fluctuations, called the greater general attention to such remaining obstacles to commercial freedom as import and export prohibitions, customs formalities, unreasonable tariffs.

The Economic Conference was carefully prepared, as has been no other. It adjourned at the end of May. Nearly two hundred delegates were present and over a hundred and fifty experts. They came from fifty-five countries. What is more, they represented all shades of opinion.

They were appointed by the various Governments, but, not being "the spokesmen of official policy," were the freer to express their individual views. As may be fancied, these differed widely and sometimes wildly. While there was no chance of complete agreement on many points, there was recorded progress along general principles looking towards greater equality of commercial treatment. In especial, the Conference at its close declared that "the time has come to put an end to the increase in tariffs" and frowned on other fiscal charges imposed on imported goods.

Now, as showing how hard it is to get states to work economically together, we have the spectacle of the very Power more than any other responsible for the Conference apparently contravening its

consumption. This is due largely to the competition of water power and of oil and to technical improvements which make a given amount of coal go further than formerly.

Despite these things, coal production has continued to expand. Result, overproduction in certain countries.

Here in France accumulation at the mines increased because of general overproduction on the Continent, due to the British coal strike and to the consequent diminution of supplies from the north. Most of the coal imported into France comes from England; the next largest amount comes from Germany, with very much smaller amounts from Belgium, Luxemburg, the United States of America, and Holland. During the past few years Germany has increased by six times her coal exports to France; one of the reasons, as reported, has been the offer from German collieries in respect to current contracts provided French buyers should enter into purchases of coal for delivery during the next year. This competition has also stimulated the British to much lower prices.

The French decree will be an additional blow to the already sadly complicated coal situation in England. As far as the present season is concerned, however, fortunately, French licenses have already been granted for delivery of English coal during June, July, and August for nearly three million tonsnot very dissimilar from the usual amount.

The pinch will come later. First, the probable shutting down in demand will add poignancy to the unemployment situation in England. According to the British Secretary for Mines, an average of nearly four thousand workers is employed for every million tons of coal produced a year. Second, there will be inevitable reaction in the

conscience, but he writes in good Eng

S'

EVERAL years ago a senior member of the Authors Club encouraged a junior with the compliment, "I'm sure that you write rotten poetry because I get what you're driving at."

What primitive man really delighted in was the simple lay of the tribal poet; but, as the local medicine-man or shaman well knew, primitive man could be more deeply impressed by mysterious symbols and high-sounding language that conveyed no exact meaning. Naïve humanity is still in awe of oracular and sibylline utterances demanding specially qualified interpreters, and there is still no lack of super-sophisticated shamans, literary medicine-men, and high priests of poetry to proclaim the superiority of the occult and cabalistic. Nevertheless there remain among us those who love the directness and power of poets of the true line from Homer down through Chaucer to John Masefield, and who prefer to take our poetry and our verbal puzzles separately.

There is always mental strength in the work of Maxwell Bodenheim, though, because of a perverse theory, that strength is too often misdirected in distorting language for the purpose of attaining novel and bizarre effects. To realize how direct Mr. Bodenheim can be and sometimes is in his latest volume, "Returning to Emotion," read the conclusion of "Daniel Boone," a poem reflecting a recollection of a rude print of the old pioneer seen in boyhood: Yet, in the moment when I saw you Threatened, strong, and alert In the wilderness, an instinct

1

1 Returning to Emotion. By Maxwell Bodenheim. Boni & Liveright, New York.

$2.

Told me that you were a poet
Forced to use his eyes and muscles
In the place of words and spoken
rhythms-

Writing one, long poem
On a space of ground
Afterwards known as Kentucky.

2

That true young poet, George O'Neil, comes with a second book, "The White Rooster." He is well equipped with imagination and a fine sensitiveness and is, in his full fervor of self-expression, so hard or impossible to understand that he is in danger of being prematurely hailed as great by the select few. One of the groundlings would suggest that with all his gifts he requires a severer selfdiscipline toward intelligibility. In one of his plainer passages Mr. O'Neil thus describes a snake sloughing its skin:

He glued his throat upon a scarlet rock And dragged his body through a fern, And shot his tongue into a cloud of gnats.

Then, with a wavy turn,

He slid into a groove where violets Laid on his length a purple stress, Peeling him, as he pulled across their roots,

Of all his brittleness.

Though so much free verse, has small excuse for pretending to be anything but prose rearranged for typographical effect, here is one of our younger poets, James Rorty, whose free verse chants and sings and fully justifies its being

both by its music and its meaning. Mr. Rorty's themes are modern, American, and strongly influenced by a lively social

2 The White Rooster. By George O'Neil. Boni & Liveright, New York. $2.

the Sun," is the opening stanza of a poem called "The River:"

Given a broad-flowing river, a calm and lordly river,

Peace may be made with a green bank sloping, a red cow drinking, Trees, and white houses, the ripe corn shedding

Pollen for bees to go bearing and sharing

Up the warm valleys.

Peace may be made, and happy songs for singing

Under the blue sky, softly, quietly singing

Beside the broad river.

Saints, warriors, and the mellowed past again play their part in Robert P. Tristram Coffin's second collection, "Dew and Bronze." But, though the statelier bronze may have its attractions, there is more charm in such drops of dew as these three stanzas, which, at the close of a poem on the author's dog, form a fitting epitaph on such a comrade as every boy should have:

Rest lightly on him, Earth, for he
Was thistledown to you,
A very West wind when he raced
With eager games in view.

Somewhere on the Blessed Isles,
Where dogs have all their will,
He chases swift till all is blue
His endless woodchucks still.

I envy all the little gods

Who know his phantom dim, And romp and play and have his love Until I come for him.

With a combination of energy, imagination, and restraint wholly admirable, James Weldon Johnson offers in "God's

Children of the Sun. By James Rorty. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.75. 'Dew and Bronze. By Robert P. Tristram Coffin. Albert & Charles Boni, New York. $1.50.

Trombones" free-verse versions of versions of seven Negro folk-sermons such as were chanted and thundered by old-time colored pulpiteers-fervent, grandiloquent exhorters who "preached a personal and anthropomorphic God, a sure-enough heaven and a red-hot hell." Mr. Johnson's good taste has rejected dialect and low comedy, and his interpretations are genuinely and deeply moving. The eight illustrations by the Negro artist Aaron Douglas finely supplement the text. Altogether, the book is the most interesting of those here mentioned, and the one that most richly deserves a permanent place in the library.

Perhaps the most striking poem in "Eve Walks in Her Garden," by Louise Ayres Garnett, is the opening "Ballad of the Doorstone" with its Irish flavor and vigorous directness. But read this sardonic couplet that ends a brief description of a very old and ailing woman: When you ask how she fares, she says with a prod

At the doddering ashes: Worse, thank God.

Cowboys, rustlers, horses, and cattle again furnish Edwin Ford Piper themes for his new collection, "Paintrock Road," and quite a little powder is burned in the longer poems. There is a tender and personally reminiscent touch in such shorter pieces as "A Little Boy Rides" and in "Six Yoke," which follows:

I sit by the trail in the misty moonlight

And see the old bull-teams swing up through the night.

Bull-whacker,

bull-whacker,

wagon wheels pass

your

No creaking of axle, no bending of grass.

O moody bull-driver, throw off yoke and chain

Turn out your tired cattle to graze on the plain.

They are white, they are roan, they are spotted and red,

The shadowy oxen,-the ghosts of the dead.

Witches, werewolves, women wanton and weird, melancholy mermaids, and haunted houses figure prominently in Marjorie Allen Seiffert's "Ballads of the Singing Bowl." When, in the course of her ballads, Mrs. Seiffert commits a

5 God's Trombones. By James Weldon Johnson. The Viking Press, New York. $2.50.

"Eve Walks in Her Garden. By Louise Ayres Garnett. The Macmillan Company, New York. $2.

'Paintrock Road. By Edwin Ford Piper. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50. Ballads of the Singing Bowl. By Marjorie Allen Seiffert. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $2.

lyrical murder, and she frequently does, the assassination is managed so musically, romantically, and with such a notable absence of inherent cruelty that it is a pleasure for all concerned, including the reader.

According to learned commentators of various orthodoxies, the Song of Solomon is purely symbolic; with that precedent imminent, it would possibly be sacrilegious to doubt whether in "Penelope, and Other Poems," Sister M. Madeleva has always clearly distinguished between love human and love divine. Never mind. Her work reveals a nature of more than usual loveliness, and here is one of her lighter lyrics, "Fantasy," that demands no special interpretation:

Do you suppose

The cherry tree's white furbelows,
The pretty frills the jonquil shows,
The maple's curious, knotted bows,
The first, pale ruffles of the rose
Are baby things that April sews
For the sweet world to wear?
Who knows?

"Astrolabe," by S. Foster Damon,10 is a collection of clever and interesting cynicisms which a hopeful and too consciously scholarly young poet does well to get out of his system before coming out from under the lamp and into the sun. The first two stanzas of "Dusk: N. Y. C." present a recognizable picture and mood:

The round and hot sun lingers, softly lighting

A solitary cloud with violet.

On the rich sky an aeroplane is writing

In smoke the name of a cheap cigarette.

The skyscrapers, as placid as young sibyls,

Smile on the traffic's pandemonium. A hand, gigantic and invisible, scribbles

In flame the name of a new chewing gum.

If only because of the author's high accomplishment in other fields, John Galsworthy's small collection, "Verses New and Old,"" would deserve attention; but his songs in which he remembers Devon are well worth reading for their own sake; and "Errantry" is so expressive of this fine playwright's attitude toward his world that it seems compulsory to quote, though inadequately, the first stanza:

'Penelope, and Other Poems. By Sister M. Madeleva. D. Appleton & Co., New York. $1.25.

10 Astrolabe. By S. Foster Damon. Harper & Brothers, New York. $1.50.

11 Verses New and Old. By John Galsworthy. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.50.

Come! Let us lay a crazy lance in rest, And tilt at windmills under a wild sky! For who would live so petty and unblest

That dare not tilt at something ere he die,

Rather than, screened by safe major-
ity,
Preserve his little life to little ends,
And never raise a rebel battle-cry!

Good verse for and about children is notoriously rare; so here is a little of that commodity from a neat collection, "Everything and Anything," by Dorothy Aldis: 12

On stormy days when the wind is high Tall trees are brooms sweeping the sky.

They swish their branches in buckets of rain,

And swash and sweep it blue again.

But is Webster obsolete, and is the newest generation being taught to pronounce "again" to rhyme with "rain"?

To those who remember the early days of Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey there will always be an appeal in poetical partnerships; and here are two very recent graduates of Dartmouth, R. A. Lattimore and A. K. Laing, collaborating to produce an exceedingly thin yet fairly promising volume of verse." The most effective of the poems, "Seven Men," informs one that, while its heroes are "gay blasphemers," worldlings, and epicures,

Yet they are gallant livers,
Both whimsical and wise,
World fighters, world forgivers,
With courage in their eyes.
Their souls are sold, all seven,
And mine is lost as well
Through doubts about a heaven
That sends such men to Hell.

Heroic youth is so enamored of damnation, isn't it?

While "The Georgetown Anthology," edited by Al. Philip Kane and James S. Ruby, Jr.," is primarily of value to the alumni and undergraduates of Georgetown University, a wider historical and personal interest is awakened by the inclusion of "Maryland, My Maryland," by John Ryder Randall, '52, and verses by such graduates as John Boyle O'Reilly, '89, Maurice Francis Egan, '89, Condé B. Pallen, '80, Robert J. Collier, '94, and Thomas Walsh, '92.

Verse, Second Series," edited by John Farrar," consists of verses that have appeared in the literary monthly, the "Bookman," and is considerably enlivened by Mr. Farrar's personal impressions of the poets included.

15 The Bookman Anthology of Verse, Second Series. Edited by John Farrar. The George H. Doran Company, New York. $2.

Fiction

THE SECRETARY OF STATE. By Stephen McKenna. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $2.50.

As the title implies, this is a political novel, and British politics seem to be even less like a bed of roses than our own. "The Secretary of State" continues the saga, begun in an earlier book, "Saviours of Society," of the life and achievements of Ambrose Sheridan. A newspaper owner and member of the Cabinet, Sheridan has emerged from the maze of after-war politics, "to proceed Napoleonically from triumph to triumph." The editorial brilliancy and personality of a Northcliffe, the ruthlessness of a Bottomley, and the adventurous ability of a Churchill are met in him. Around him seethe Prime Ministers, Colonial Secretaries, while the old reactionaries among the peerage tolerate him because of his marriage to Auriol Otway, daughter of Lord Otway.

A prologue explains Sheridan's discarded first wife and Auriol's former fiancé, Max Hendry. The return of Max Hendry after trying to forget Auriol in Chile provides a familiar triangle. Naturally, the family of Ambrose Sheridan have politics three times a day, all days, with Auriol writing long political entries in her diary far into the night. 'The intricacies of contemporary British politics and society are interestingly described, and the romantic figure of Ambrose Sheridan stalks through them, making his kills like a lone wolf.

SAINT IN IVORY. By Lorine Pruette. D. Appleton & Co., New York. $2.50.

This historical romance, unusual in both theme and treatment, tells in vigorous yet often poetic prose the story of St. Genevieve-worker of miracles even from her simple childish days in Nanterre, become in time the powerful protectress and patron saint of Paris, consulted by kings, honored by warriors, and revered by the people. The accepted facts and traditional miracles of the saint's career are employed with telling effect, but she is made a very human woman; in her youth no more than half holy, giving a girl's love, against her will, to her playmate and lover, Euric, at the same time that she yearns with mystic fervor to become the Bride of Christ. The varied incidents of the tale are well selected or imagined to bring out its pictorial quality; it passes before the reader's eyes rather like one of those old processional paintings, so full of rich color and dark shadows, with here and there the golden high light of kingly crown or saintly halo.

BROTHER JOHN: A Tale of the First Franciscans. By Vida D. Scudder. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. $2.

Professor Scudder, of Wellesley, here presents with fine imaginative and historic perception the spiritual experiences and creedal dissensions of the early members of the "Little Order of the Brothers of Our Lady Poverty." Their founder, Francis of Assisi, is so recently dead that his influence and example are strong upon them, and their talk about him gives indirectly a portrait of his nobility, humanity, sweetness, and gentle humor. The disciples at first follow literally Christ's precepts as to poverty, and mahy of them hold that not

This enthralling story of America's making has been unanimously acclaimed as the "ideal history for the layman." William Allen White calls it "a history that any citizen can read without boredom-the kind of history that sensible, practical men can read." Wars and politics of the usual history are displaced by a balanced account of our national growth and culture. No one who wants to understand his age can afford to miss this book, which is not so much a history as it is a piquantly fresh interpretation.

A New Poem by Edwin
Arlington Robinson
Tristram

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Islanders

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Autobiographies

By William Butler Yeats The story of Yeats' life which "offers such a variety of riches that I can hardly see how anyone could fail to enjoy it. This is a book to own, to read, and read again."- New York Evening Post. $3.50 Your Money's Worth By Stuart Chase and F. J Schlink

The amazing revelations of this book take you behind the scenes of Big Business and Advertising and show you why you rarely get value for what you pay. It is recommended by Dr. Henry Seidel Canby, Dorothy Canfield and other noted critics. To Be Published July 5. $2.00

This Believing World

By Lewis Browne

Eighth Large Printing