ity, that tax evasion costs France every year a sum large enough to balance the Budget, provide a sinking fund, and stabilize the franc. What was needed was not a Socialist Minister (even a few weeks of Socialist power would ruin France), but a Ministry with the courage to impose necessary new taxes and then to collect them.

Though the Briand Cabinet is not sufficiently a coalition Ministry, it has a chance to save the situation. All friends of France will hope that it may.

If the trying financial crisis seemed completely to dominate French opinion during 1925, the year was notable in revealing a correspondingly cheerful fact on the economic side, namely, an unprecedentedly good trade balance-an apparent paradox. It proved to be of first importance in the attempt to settle the French debt to America.

OR Italy 1925 was the Fascist high-water mark as well as the culminat

ing point in the popularity of Benito Mussolini, the great

The

Fascist leader. year steadily developed his eloquence and appeal. For instance, the other day, to call attention to the seventh centenary of the death of St. Francis of Assisi, Signor Mussolini declared:

In Dante Italy showed poetry's highest flight; in Leonardo, the profoundest reach of art and science; in Columbus, the hardiest navigator; and in St. Francis, the holiest saint, whether of Christianity or of humanity. Restorer of the religion of Christ, St. Francis was also one of the first Italian poets. His brother-monks who went to the East were at once missionaries of Christ and of Italy.

This passion for Italy (we have its proof in the magnificent popular subscription to pay the Italian debt to us) is the base of the Fascist movement. To succeed, however, that movement needed. discipline even more than enthusiasm. According to Mussolini, the Italian parliamentary system has never led to that end. "Parliament," he asserts, "cannot function if the party having the largest number of adherents is not assured of a solid majority protecting it from all the plots of the little groups in coalition." He obtained the passage of such a protecting law, favoring the Fascists, and during 1925 followed it by some even more surprising measures. The climax

Regarding another measure, prohibiting workmen's syndicates save by Fascist organization, the "Osservatore Romano," the Vatican organ, recalls Leo XIII's pronouncement concerning the natural rights of workmen to form associations. In other words, the new project was a restriction, not only of political liberty, but also of the conception of universal social organization.

There were also Fascist measures against the liberty of the press. Their boldest attack upset the management of the Milan "Corriere della Sera," the most eminent and gratifyingly the most widely read of Italian dailies. During 1925 it often reached 1,000,000 copies a day, and rarely fell to less than 800,000. When it became known that Senator Luigi Albertini and his brother Alberto had been expelled from the management, the sale of the paper, it is said, fell by some 75,000. In 1914 the "Corriere" was the first Italian journal to espouse the Entente Allies' cause. After the war it was equally courageous in affirming that the conquest of Dalmatia was not in Italy's interest. It favored Signor Mussolini's participation in the Government. Taking its stand on the firm principle of the Constitution, however, it opposed the march on Rome and all the revolutionary Fascist tendencies.

To sum up, despite Mussolini's immense services to his country in a time of her great need, the year 1925 showed beyond a doubt that he had gone much too far. Constitutional government had indeed collapsed.

Germany

FOR

'OR Germany, in the first place, really hardly less for France, indeed, for the whole world, the greatest event of 1925 was the Locarno Treaty. As the Paris "Temps" says, "One may now feel that the war is actually at an end."

In February the base of the Treaty, at the suggestion of Lord d'Abernon, British Ambassador in Berlin, was put forth by Herr Stresemann, German Foreign Minister. After being elaborated at Paris and London, the timely suggestion developed into an event the most striking not only of the year but of our epoch.

What makes it peculiarly striking is the fact that its conclusions were reached entirely within the limits of the Versailles Treaty; hence all the rights of the Allies

An equally striking feature is the fact that seven of the principal European nations pledged themselves to submit their differences to arbitration. You may think perhaps that the Locarno Treaty really does not do more than apply the League of Nations' Covenant to a limited area. But it does do more.

(1) It replaces for this area the somewhat vague system of military aid from all the League members by a formal guaranty on the part of England and Italy.

(2) It defines more specifically what are legitimate acts of self-defense and what may be regarded as acts of war.

(3) It erects a Permanent Commission of Conciliation. Conflicts may be submitted to this Commission before being submitted to the League Council.

(4) It defines more exactly the procedure to effect the decisions of the World Court.

(5) It takes away the liberty of going to war if settlement is not reached by this means.

The signature of the Locarno Treaty marked the end of one period of history and the beginning of another. More particularly it registered the welcome fact that a German Parliament and President, both supposed to be strongly and obstinately nationalist, had passed and signed the enabling law.

Coincident with the final signature, the first detachments of the British Army of Occupation left the Cologne zone. Had Germany fulfilled her disarmament promises, the British would have departed on January 10, 1925, agreeably with treaty provision. The evacuation gives enormous satisfaction to all Germans save, perhaps, to the thousands of Fräuleins now the wives of English soldiers and to the Cologne merchants, with whom the "Tommies" and their officers have left tens of thousands of dollars every week.

At the same time the French began to reduce by a third the number of their soldiers in the zone occupied by them... All questions concerning soldiers in the occupied zones are to be centralized in Paris and dealt with by the Ambassadors' Conference.

Though German commerce and industry are still considerably dislocated, Germany is producing more wealth than she consumes. The future, by reason of the advance of 1925, promises more economic and political stability than she has known since the war.

The year 1925 has thus been a significant period for Europe, and conse-. quently for America.

T

HE next time any one tells you that people are not interested in the war you can laugh loud and long and send them to see "The Big Parade," by Laurence Stallings. I got to see it half by accident myself. Not because I've lost interest in the war, but merely because the rather too supercilious critics or some of them had half damned it with rather faint praise.

But there was a kind of familiar sameness about the men I saw piling in to get tickets, and, incidentally, they weren't getting any tickets either. Sold out! Well, you invariably want something you can't get, so in I went and got the worst seat in the house-in a box. Where do theaters get the nerve to charge as much as they do for these abominations of desolation?

In other words, I wasn't the only one there no thanks to the critics; and by

the time the orchestra started up the entrance, the aisles, the stairs, and the seats were jammed-right up to the roof. With whom? That's the point! With ex-service men, with their wives, their sisters or other fellows' sisters-and numerous friends. It looked like a regimental reunion, from mental reunion, from condescending colonel to formerly abject shavetail, and from bumptious sergeant to happy-golucky private. Most of them were a trifle better upholstered than seven years ago; but, as I said, they were very much there as many as could get in.

That box, when I got to it, already had five other men in it. You could have spotted them as service men at a mile. The word must have been passed around. Pity about those critics! It is a safe bet that the nearest some of them ever got to the war was seeing parades on the avenue.

THIS is, in brief, a war film. And

when I say "war" I do not mean a sham battle in the suburbs of Peekskill either. This means that some folk, and particularly our women folk, won't like it; but it will "get" them, just the same. For they will be thrilled, they will unavoidably laugh, and they will have their hearts torn to shreds for that, mesdames, is war for you! Let us put it right in front of you-with all its horror and its comedy, its agony and its gayety, its ruthlessness and its infinite love and sacrifice. Perhaps you may not like it, madam, but that audience dropped seven years and forgot itself.

Men roared at times and slapped one another on the back. With broad grins they sang along with the orchestra of that highly popular if indiscreet "Mademoiselle of Armenteers." They hummed "You're in the Army Now" when the

Any bole is "The Better 'Ole"

bugles played it, verse after verse. They muttered imprecations under under their breath, and then for a while sat in grim and breathless silence. In an hour or so they experienced anew the whole gamut of emotions that meant for them an infinity of experience. For the Great Adventure-hate it, if you will-is a very cherished memory to millions of us every-day humdrum men.

There were deft and cunning touches on the part of folk who knew what they were about. Little touches- even to the cow stable-the haymow and manure pile thereof! It made me ache to see those buddies getting off their shoes. And here and there, if you will pardon me, ladies, there were men in that audience who unconsciously quite unconsciously -scratched while they guffawed. And do you remember, sergeant, how furious. "madame" was when we "policed" those barnyards?

As for the company mess-well, you could actually smell those beans and that amazing coffee, so useful in getting gravy or grease off your mess kit. There were our late friends the "M. P.'s," of course, getting earnestly and grievously misunderstood, as usual, and-oh, well, it was the real stuff, right down to the mademoiselles. And the buddy behind me forgot he was not in Bar-le-Duc, or Martignas, let us say, and whispered, "Oh-la-la!" in my ear.

And suddenly just as it came to us the war arrived. There was the roaring by of interminable trains of

motor trucks jammed with men. And there was Jerry in a plane who swooped down and got you with his machine gun. And there was the abiding horror of trench warfare, barrages far too real, and that worst of all things, a heartbreaking "walking charge," timed walking, against those murderous machine-gun nests, with the wiping out of men-rows of men, who dropped like stone or who sank and scrambled about.

Well, it is all there, good people-incredibly real, incredibly tragic, and therefore true to nature. Such a picture as this should be kept ready and waiting, and when saber-rattling numskulls begin prophesying war they should be made to see it again and again-many times. They will go away quiet and abashed. The Great War may well have been the "war to end war" it was said to be if, now and then, people can see it as it really was, without the glamour of romance so usually cast over it.

"This is no picture," declared the man behind me; "this is the real thing. You can't fool me! That there's the road through Fismes! And you don't get a bunch of hard-boileds like that hanging around movie studios!"

Neither do you. The actual war scenes were so obviously true that if you forgot for an instant you were only looking at a picture you caught your breath and wondered how the Signal Corps ever did it, and how King Vidor ever got those films released for his picture!

THIS is how it was. The whole battle

was planned by general officers of the Second Division, and it was carried out to the bitterest detail by thousands of overseas men who simply re-enacted performances indelibly branded into their memories. It was a duplication of Belleau Wood; the harrowing advance, with everything complete-artillery, barrage, tanks, planes, and ambulance corps. The whole personnel of a Legion post took over a "billeting" episode in a French village, largely improvising as they went along, and simply brought down the house!

So, for the background of a wellworked-out plot we have army life at the billet and at the front, and the story is that of three buddies and a farm girlthe buddies from as diverse homes as was usually the case, and all exceedingly well acted. The farm girl, Renée Adorée, had only to re-enact her own experiences, having been among the refugees fleeing from the Belgian border.

"The Big Parade" will bring back poignant as well as hilarious memories to members of the old A. E. F. It will fascinate and thrill innumerable men who did not and could not go over. The schoolboy will learn at first hand what war really is like as will the aforesaid. saber-rattlers. And many an old "vet" will go back again and again and see it, for, with all its cruel realism, they will recall comrades, places, doings, tragedies, and heroisms one never will, or can, or should forget. CHARLES K. TAYLOR.

By DON C. SEITZ

NOR the century and a half since the clash at Concord and Lexing

Fo

ton the press has been acclaimed, largely in its own columns, as the Palladium of Our Liberties. Before it came into being the statue of Pallas Athene, erected in public places, was considered the special guardian of these precious entities. They were wholly taken over when the new Constitution guaranteed the freedom of the printed word by the able editors, to whose credit it must be said that most of them were faithful to their trust. That they were bitter, partisan, and unfair can be readily admitted. But, like the watch-dog, they had an honest bark and did not sleep on duty.

It may be stated, however, that a wellfed watch-dog is less apt to be vigilant than one with an unsatisfied appetite, and profound observation leads to the conclusion that this rule applies to editors. The old vigilantes were not overfat. Their occupation was hazardous, their support small, and their friends few. Fighting party issues with savage zeal, they were only too frequently not supported by the party. Yet each stood by his colors and grew lean in purse and person for the cause.

P

OURSE and person have become plump in the profession to a degree unimagined so late as a decade ago. The self-constituted Palladium is groggy, and there are cracks in its pedestal. One of the many discoveries that came with war-time inflation was that profit-making could be made the rule and not the exception in journalism. The discovery came first in London, where the amazing Harmsworth success, following upon the creation of a halfpenny paper for people who had just learned to read, had made it possible for that astute publisher to capitalize his property and unload a great share upon the public without disturbing his control. This gave him real millions.

Millions made millions. Soon the Harmsworths, Alfred and Harold, were magnates. The war made other men rich, and these saw in London newspapers a great source of income from investment, with the result that colossal

Don C. Seitz

FOR many years Don C.

Seitz has played a leading part in American journalism. As the business manager of an outstanding metropolitan daily during the period of its greatest success, as a student of American history and a fearless critic of American life, he has made for himself an international reputation. For twenty-five years his hat has been hanging on a peg in the office of the New York "World." With the beginning of the new year he transfers his hat and himself to The Outlook office. He joins The Outlook as a member of its Board of Directors and of its staff.

The Outlook Company rejoices in the addition of this notable voice to its editorial council. His vigor, his forthrightness, and his knowledge of men and affairs will mean. much to readers of The Outlook during the coming months.

capitalization followed, in which were bulked all the publications of consequence except the "Times" and the Labor Party's "Herald," with the public holding the bag. The "Times" was taken from the Harmsworth interests by the lusty purse of the American-bred Astor family, and still thunders in solitary grandeur. The others are pocket pieces, profitable, unimpressive, and of no sort of public use. Noble lords preside over their boards, just as they do at directorates of soap and rubber companies.

W

E have not yet reached this stage in America, but seem to be on the way. Traditional newspaper poverty has kept the public out of the newspaper field. Frank A. Munsey once floated a bond issue covering his magazines, but none are outstanding. Bernarr Macfadden, of physical culture fame, advertised a stock issue a year ago to float his "Evening Graphic." The rush to subscribe did not upset Wall Street. William R. Hearst recently mortgaged a batch of his publications to the amount of $12,000,000 in bonds, but how far the citizenry invested is not revealed. Readers of Mr. Arthur Brisbane's "To-Day" column get the impression that he bought most of them out of his salary as editor of the "Evening Journal." Mr. Hearst, is, however, something of a syndicate himself, owning twenty-six daily newspapers and a halfscore of magazines. He will be in a good position to capitalize as soon as he can secure a chartered accountant's certificate that he is making money-which is the British method of pocket-picking.

Beyond this, American newspapers are the properties of individuals, estates, partnerships, and close corporations. Few are longer owned by their editors. The work is done by hired men, some of whom are paid nearly as well as the union compositors, though working under a less certain tenure of employment and a more shifting scale.

Wages have more than doubled in mechanical departments, but have enjoyed little hoisting in the brainery, save to those favored beings who can have their output syndicated. These pets of

the press are egregiously overpaid, but cost their employers nothing. Their lucubrations are distributed at a profit over the land, and aid in keeping down the earnings of other men. Mr. Hearst is extremely liberal in this respect. Besides the gilded Brisbane, who illuminates eighty-five papers each day with his scintillations, a score of artists and writers are richly rewarded at the expense of competing sheets in the rural districts, in many of which the parent publication is on sale before the syndicated matter gets to press. Mr. Hearst thus has his cake and eats it, while there is more frost than frosting on the article supplied the local editor.

This system of syndicating is a large factor in destroying individuality in our newspapers, besides shutting the door of opportunity in the face of talent. It adds to the number of mute, inglorious Miltons and suppressed Hampdens of the countryside. Few realize the enormous extent upon which the press in general relies upon canned goods for filling. Numerous syndicates exist profitably through the supply of features, and all large dailies maintain syndicate departments. The sale of their by-products runs up to a pretty penny, permitting, as already noted, the payment of large salaries to specialists, comic artists, and even poets. The incomes of Edgar A. Guest and Walt Mason, for example, would make Tennyson and Longfellow feel like pikers. The creator of "Mutt and Jeff" has been at it for a quarter of a century, and can almost be suspected of using stencils. He has become rich enough to maintain a racing stable. H. T. Webster and Maurice Ketten would hardly care to change places with many bank presidents. George McManus is a plutocrat, and Tom Powers deserves to be.

These cases are cited, not in a carping spirit, but to show how small a part individualism has in making the common garden variety of newspaper, and also to explain how the exclusion of latent talent from the field tends to make the sheets commonplace and uninfluential.

Syndicated editorials are also sent out from a central plant, and are used to a considerable extent. Thus newspapers become standardized, like Ford cars, whose parts are said to be available at five-and-ten-cent stores, and have the flat flavor of cold buckwheat cakes.

Howe are some Kansas specimens. Both have become appanages of syndicates and punky. Whoever hears anything any more from a Cincinnati, Louisville, or Springfield, Massachusetts, newspaper? Yet once the exchange editors followed with eager shears the leaders of Murat Halstead, Colonel Henry Watterson, and Samuel Bowles. Their papers still exist, but life is gone from them. The Field Marshal rides no more, and the StarEyed Goddess of Kentucky sleeps with the daisies. The Springfield "Republican" lives on, but not up to its reputation. What has happened? Are the communities less intelligent, or are the editors.

The fault, perhaps, lies with both. We recall the. Athenian jester who held up a dried fish by the tail and so caused an audience to turn away from the oratory of Anaximines. "See," he cried in triumph, "a dried fish is more interesting than Anaximines." To meet dried-fish competition editors have been swept off their feet and have followed the false gods to their own moral destruction. Their business managers are of the sort who are able to only sell circulation, and not results. The buying power of the mass has become the fetish of the advertiser,

land, and what "your Uncle Dudley" says is supposed to "go." But it is always what "Uncle Dudley" says, not the "Globe," which escapes responsibility -and power!

For, much as the critic may cry out against the anonymity of the press, that is the source of its might. The opinion of a great newspaper represents a consensus of the courage, the learning, the wisdom, and the judgment of the men who make it. An editorial signed John Smith is John Smith's opinion, and nothing more. There are plenty of John Smiths, but mighty few New York "Worlds" or Manchester "Guardians." Their words weigh accordingly.

"But," says the critic, "we should know who it is that attempts to influence us. Why should this writer who assails be allowed to hide behind the name of his newspaper?" For the good reason cited above, and for the further reason that the newspaper does not hide. It is the only force in the world that performs all its acts in the open. It needs more than the insight of an individual's view to stand guard over affairs of public concern. We look out for the locomotive, not the engineer.

no

The ready apology for this sort of recalcitrance is that "people are longer influenced by editorials," which is not true. The editorials are no longer influential because they have no force behind them, no potential purpose, no punch. The study is how to mix milk and water rather than blood and iron. The greater a newspaper's circulation, the weaker its editorial policy is certain to be, perhaps on the theory that there are just so many more people whose feelings must not be injured. The management seems deliberately to strive in a colorless indirection, instead of glorying in its strength.

OULD it not seem the first of all impulses on the part of the owner of a widely circulated publication to exert himself in the interest of his subscribers? Apparently it is not. The greater the circulation, the less appears to be the unselfish impulse. Eager minds do not develop with financial success, and money is notoriously timid. The monks who took vows of celibacy and poverty were on the right track. They know that singleness of purpose could not be maintained in any other way. Perhaps some time we shall see such a dedication to editorial duty, but it is not likely to appear in the daily field. The costs of operation are too great, the energy required can only be generated by industrial effort. Asceticism can have no place from now on in great establishments beyond the reportorial staffs. The boys are, and probably will be, kept lean and hungry, like the pigs that hunt truffles under the oak trees in Picardy.

Thus the newspaper has come to make itself more of a convenience than an influence. It prints the department-store bargains and gives radio programs each day. It also chronicles with much detail the doings of the movie heroes and heroines, their hectic lives and complicated marital affairs. It also reveals in pages of agate the incomes of our fellow-citizens. Some news is printed if it happens early enough in the day to get in. Most news