delegates and even the British secretariat remained, or it might be at Paris, or at some other new meeting-place.

If we accept the press accounts of Ismet Pasha's statement to the correspondents after he had refused to sign the treaty, it would appear that not so much the question of the Capitulations as the economic clauses were unacceptable to the new Turkish Government. Ismet laid great stress on the assertion that it would be "economic slavery" for his country to subscribe, as he said, to vast contracts and concessions made by former régimes, especially during the Allied occupation, without even knowing what they were. And again he declared, according to the correspondents' report, that he wanted the world to know that the treaty was refused because "it strangled us economically." The average observer cannot see in this contention anything that is impossible of discussion and agreement.

Ambassador Child has been active in trying to bring the disputants together, and, according to the latest advices we have had, still maintains hope that the negotiations may be renewed.

So the matter stands as we are going to press with this issue. It seems hardly thinkable that Turkey should attack the British or French forces and thus begin a war which would be injurious to the world at large, but which would almost certainly result also in defeat and complete loss of political power for the Turkish party now in the ascendancy and to whom concessions have already been granted that would have seemed monstrous a year ago.

DEATH FROM A DISTANCE

THE

THE loss of life at Hilo Bay in Hawaii on February 4 was not remarkable because of the number of persons who died (ten or twelve), but because of the nature of the disaster. These people, chiefly fishermen, were overwhelmed and drowned by an enormous wave which traveled between two and three thousand miles in the Pacific from the place of its origin. This great distance was traversed by the wave in six and one-half hours. Its cause was undoubtedly an earthquake, but no one knows precisely where that earthquake occurred. The seismographs in various parts of the world approximated the position, and that position was in a part of the Pacific Ocean where no islands exist. Therefore the eruption of the earth was evidently at the bottom of the sea, and it is not impossible that it may have forced some portion of the bottom of the sea above the surface so as to form an absolutely new island. That,

however, will have to be verified by navigators.

A wave such as this which created havoc at a distance of nearly three thousand miles is usually called a tidal wave, and the question is often asked why the word tidal is used, when the wave has no connection whatever with the tides. The explanation is that tremendous waves for which there was no obvious explanation were once thought to be caused by some condition of the tides, and accordingly the term tidal wave came to be used for any extraordinary ocean movement of the wave nature, although all, or almost all, of such waves are as a matter of fact produced by earthquakes just as was this which devastated the coast of Hawaii.

THE BRITISH WAR

A

DEBT

TENTATIVE agreement has been reached for the settlement of the debt of the British Government to the United States Government, growing out of cash advances and other expenditures during the European War.

Put in its simplest terms, this debt now amounts to four billion six hundred million dollars ($4,600,000,000). The British Government is to have sixty-two years for the payment of this amount. In other words, annual payments will be made that in sixty-two years will wipe out both the capital sum and the interest. For the first ten years interest will be at the rate of 3 per cent; for the balance of the term interest will be at the rate of 32 per cent. This plan has been worked out by the American Debt Funding Commission in conjunction with Commissioners of the British Government. It is announced that the British Cabinet approves of the plan, which means of course that Parliament will ratify it.

It now only remains for the Congress of the United States to ratify the agreement. There will be undoubtedly a vigorous debate when the plan is officially laid before Congress by the President. This is right. Congress, representing the American people, has a duty carefully to consider and thoroughly to inform itself regarding such a vast financial operation on the part of the Government, but it is ardently to be hoped that the debate will not be long, nor conducted on a partisan basis. American and British experts of the first rank have worked the plan out, and if it is promptly adopted it will undoubtedly be a most important step in the stabilizing of international finance in the English-speaking world.

The American objections to the plan are from two curiously opposite points of view. There is a large body of wellinformed Americans, represented by intelligent statesmen in both houses of Congress, who think that the American Government is exacting too much from the British. There are also, apparently, members of Congress who think the terms are too easy for the British. The latter base their criticism on the fact that the American Government borrowed large sums of money from its citizens, by the sale of Liberty Bonds, on which it is paying from 32 per cent to 44 per cent; that the proceeds of this borrowing were lent to the British; and that the British are now paying 3 and 32 per cent to the American Government, while the American Government is paying to its citizens 3% and 44 per cent.

On a strict, cold, mathematical, financial basis all this is undoubtedly true. We believe, however, that if it were possible to get a referendum from the taxpayers of the United States, they would regard this slight difference in interest as a very small and welldeserved contribution to our partners and allies in the Great War. If it had not been for the British and the French, the United States would sooner or later have had to fight Germany singlehanded. That is why there is a not inconsiderable public opinion in favor of cancellation of the war debts.

Those who think the United States can "go it alone," commercially and socially and politically. independent of the rest of the world, will estimate these things on a per centum basis. Those who have come to realize that the civilized nations of the world must all stand or fall together will regard the proposed settlement of the British debt as seemingly advantageous to the United States-so much so, indeed, that they shrink a little from he coldness of its calculation, and wish that somehow or other it might have embodied a little more generosity. If, however, the generousminded can forget its mathematical frigidity, we think that those who want all war debts paid as nominated in the bond will do well not to strain too much the quality of their mercy.

and Shakespeare and then diverge in as many directions as there are lists of books. One might as well try to pick out a list of such books for some one else as to try to pick out a husband or a wife for a friend. But there is no proof that both of these efforts will not be attempted again in the future as they have been so frequently in the past.

There is a problem of selection, however, which involves a smaller element of personal preference than the selection of a book or a life partner. It is a problem suggested by the opening of the tomb of King Tutankhamen.

If you were to carry with you into a mausoleum objects representative of our twentieth-century civilization, what would you select? What would you choose for the benefit of some archæologist of the year 6000 which would give him as adequate an idea of our civilization as the objects in the Egyptian tombs have given us of life along the Nile four thousand years ago? Remember that the Egyptians used models as well as full-sized articles. In your speculations you need not confine yourself to objects which could be placed full-sized in a burial chamber.

It would be interesting to know what the American people would most like to have preserved for a remote posterity. Besides, of course, a Ford car.

WOMEN'S RIGHT TO FAIR PLAY

"W

'HAT we know as men we cannot profess to be ignorant of as judges," said a judge of the Illinois Supreme Court in an opinion as to the constitutionality of a law framed to protect women workers against excessive working hours. In these words he touched the ultimate reason why laws applying to the labor conditions of women as women are justified by humane considerations.

Two cases are about to be argued before the United States Supreme Court in which this principle is involved. It would be improper and impertinent to speculate as to what the decision will be, but we may indicate briefly the nature of the question.

Minimum wage laws relating to women exist in thirteen of our States and in Great Britain, France, Norway, Austria, Argentina, and eight of the Canadian provinces. The principle was approved by the United States Supreme Court in the Oregon case some six years ago. It might seem, therefore, odd that there could still be a legal dispute as to whether minimum wage laws for wo

men are Constitutional. But new aspects of such questions arise, and it is perfectly proper for litigants to ask for such a decision from the Supreme Court as will deal fully with the basic issues.

Not long ago the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia by a decision in two cases in which a majority of the judges concurred declared that such a minimum wage law as now exists in the District is unconstitutional. One judge only, Mr. Chief Justice Smyth, dissented. Both opinions are elaborate and discuss the matter almost exhaustively.

The two cases are practically one and the same. A girl elevator operator in a children's hospital was receiving a monthly wage of $35. The Minimum Wage Commission of the District fixed the least monthly wage to be paid women workers of this kind at $71.50. Unfortunately for this girl, Willie Lyons, the result was that she was discharged, and a man operator employed at a monthly wage less than $71.50. Later the hospital and the girl brought actions to enjoin the Minimum Wage Board from enforcing the order. On these facts the cases were tried, carried up to the Supreme Court of the District, and will now come before the United States Supreme Court.

The majority opinion of the Court was based on the Constitutional right of every woman to make contracts for wages. It holds that a wage-earner has as good a right to accept low wages as she has to insist upon high wages. To interfere with this freedom of contract, in the opinion of the decision, would be to violate the duty of courts "to be watchful for the Constitutional rights of the citizen and against any stealthy encroachments thereon." The decision can find no vindication for the Minimum Wage Law as a proper exercise of the police power. It says: "High wages do not necessarily tend to good morals, or the promotion of the general welfare. The standard of virtue and morality is no higher among the prosperous than among the poor. Their worth can not be measured in dollars and cents, or promoted by a legal subsidy." Over and over again the decision emphasizes its belief that the police power cannot be employed, as it says, "to level inequalities of fortune." The decision finds it altogether beyond the power of Congress to fix wages as between private individuals, and holds that this is what the fixing of a minimum wage means. The decision finds no excuse for such fixing of wages; even although Congress declared the purpose of the act to be necessary "to protect the women and minors of the District from conditions

detrimental to their health and morals resulting from wages which are inadequate to maintain decent standards of living."

On the other hand, Chief Justice Smyth is certain that it lies within the right of Congress, and not of the courts, to decide whether such a law is called for, and that the Court's authority is limited to the single question, Has Congress a right to pass the act? He finds that right under the police powers inherent in all legislative bodies. He boldly declares that the act is not necessarily illegal because it interferes with freedom of contract, and concedes that it does so interfere. But he adds: "Every statute exerting police power interferes with freedom of contract," and he quotes a decision in a famous case in which it is stated that the right to make contracts is subject "to the essential authority of Government to maintain peace and security, and to enact laws for the promotion of the health, safety, morals, and welfare of those subject to its jurisdiction."

Comparing the question of hours of labor with that of wages, Justice Smyth finds that wages have as close a relation to health and decent living as hours of labor do. Now it is well established that the States may through commissions limit the hours of labor of women and children if considerations of health, decency, and morals show that it is desirable. The same thing, so this dissenting Judge's opinion holds, applies to the hours of labor. He adds: "In a broad sense, the act is not a wage-fixing measure, but a measure to prevent the confiscation of a working woman's labor by those who have the economic power to do it."

The question whether or not Congress was right in believing that there should be a minimum wage law in the District of Columbia, says Justice Smyth, does not affect its constitutionality. It was for Congress to decide that.

As

a matter of fact, Congress acted after an investigation in which six hundred women workers were interviewed, half of whom were earning less than $8 per week and over two-thirds of whom were earning less than $10 a week, while the least sum for which board and lodging in the District could be had was $35 a month. The inquiry showed that forty-five per cent of these six hundred women had to have outside assistance in order to live with reasonable comfort.

Legislators and courts alike have in recent times broadened their ideas as to the police powers of States and Congress. It is evident that on the construction to be placed on this point will

chiefly depend the forthcoming decision of the United States Supreme Court. Nothing is more improbable than that it

women and children in industry may be guarded by special and adequate legislation.

T

HE very name suggests familiarity, personal interest, even affection-the movies.

The church is revered, the school is respected, but the movie is almost loved. Actors are objects of interest and sometimes of admiration, baseball players are heroes, but movie stars are familiar friends. Government commands loyalty, but the movie house commands devotion.

Few copies of this issue or any issue of The Outlook fall into the hands of people who do not at least occasionally go to the performance of motion pictures.

Not all of those who go even frequently to the movies share the common devotion, feel special friendship for the stars, or mix with their interest in the pictures any feeling of affection; but all have some opinion about the movies based on experience.

We want our readers to write to us freely about the movies. We want to know what they think of them, what the children of their acquaintance think of them, what their neighbors and their friends and their friends' neighbors and their neighbors' friends think of them. We want to know especially what experience they have had with them, what

they have seen in the movie houses, that is significant and forms the basis of their judgment.

What has led us to ask these questions of our readers is the following communication. It comes from one who has been active as a neighbor and citizen in city, village, and suburb and as a participant in the development of a wholesome, joyous, and friendly community life. We print it not as the expression of our views but as a stimulus to our readers and as an example of the effect of one experience on an intelligent and public-spirited observer. Following this communication is a statement of some of the problems of the movies as we see them. One argument for the censorship of the movies is presented in this communication, and therefore we state some of the arguments on the other side. For the present we wish to withhold an expression of our own opinion on these disputed questions, partly because we want our readers to base their letters on their own experience, not on our judgment, and partly because we expect our own judgment to be influenced by the arguments and the experiences which our readers will put into their letters.-THE EDITORS.

N May 14, 1921, a law was passed in Albany empowering the Governor to appoint a commission of three, to be known as the Motion Picture Commission of the State of New York, to regulate the exhibition of motion pictures in this State. This body is popularly known as the Censors. No motion picture may be legally exhibited before the general public in the State of New York without a license or permit granted by this Motion Picture Commission.

The Commission has the right to refuse licenses to pictures only if they are obscene, indecent, immoral, inhuman, sacrilegious, or of such a character that their exhibition would tend to corrupt morals or incite to crime. No picture

1 To any picture which had been exhibited before August 1, 1921, the Commission was required by the act to grant a permit for further exhibition, provided application for such permit was received within thirty days after the act went into effect. A permit might be revoked, however, on the reasonable complaint of responsible citizens. Several such permits have been revoked.

1

pose.

the Commission to date has cost a little over $70,000, while it has turned over to the State treasury about $100,000 in license fees.

The American people, quite properly, like to do their own thinking and choosing in the matter of their entertainment, and so they resent censorship as something which seems to distrust their good judgment and decency. The typical American is undoubtedly the most decent and refined person in the world to-day, but he is very innocent, even green, about some things. Few of those who oppose the censorship realize what unpleasant experiences complete liberty of choice in the way of motion pictures would involve them in. And it must be remembered that a large proportion of all movie audiences are children, most of whom crave excitement, have the prurient curiosity natural to adolescence, and have no critical faculties whatever. To subject these young people to opportunities to see such vicious movies as those rejected by the censors

would be a crime. Then, too, it is a fact that hundreds of children who attend the movies belong to families too poor to provide alternative entertainment of a high class or too ignorant or inarticulate to counteract the effect of bad movies by wise teaching and influence. A man whose film had been rejected by the Commission said he could not understand their objection. "Why," he said, "this film is not meant for people like you. It would be shown below Fourteenth Street." And yet our poorer and less well educated families are as anxious as any in the land that their children should acquire upright standards of thought and behavior.

Unfortunately, Mr. Hays, who, though an employee and representative of the producers, avows high aspirations for the industry with which he has cast in his lot, also opposes the continuance of the Commission. He said recently in an address before the General Federation

W.

of Women's Clubs: "There is one place, and one place only, where the evils can be eliminated and the good and great advantages of motion pictures retained, and that is at the point where and when the pictures are made. It can be done then and there, make no mistake about that." The Motion Picture Producers and Distributers of America, Inc. (of which Mr. Hays is President), announce as their purpose in their formal articles of association, "establishing and maintaining the highest possible moral and artistic standards in motion-picture production." Even if, for the sake of argument, it be granted that this organization will live up absolutely to its stated purpose, are there not other producers besides those in Mr. Hays's organization? If no outside power existed to curb the general exhibition of motion pictures, is it not likely that new independent producers would organize to stage salacious films for the sake of the

money to be made out of them? And what restraint would there be over foreign films? Some of the nastiest films come from abroad. What power could keep these out of our theaters?

As it is, some of the films rejected by the New York Commission have been exhibited in New Jersey, where there is no censorship. People from New York go over to certain theaters across the river where it is known that low scenarios are given.

Two bills to abolish the Commission have been introduced in the Albany Legislature. At the time of writing no date has been announced for a public hearing. All those interested in maintaining a high standard for our movies should watch the newspapers for notice of this hearing and attend, if possible. In the meantime it would help matters to write protests against these bills to one's representatives in Albany.

B. A.'s communication is the result of observing the New York State Motion Picture Commissioners at work for several hours. It presents, of course, only one problem, censorship, in one State, New York. That problem, however, is one of the most difficult of all problems connected with motion pictures, and New York City, being the principal point of distribution for films, as well as being the largest city in the country, gives to any action on the part of New York State National effect.

Censorship is an unpopular word. It implies repression, arbitrary power, a displacement of public opinion by the opinion of a bureaucrat. Those, however, who advocate official public censorship of motion pictures point out the difference between censorship under conditions in America to-day and the sort of censorship to which John Milton gave a bad name and for which no free people will stand. In the old days the censor was an arbitrary official representing not the public will but a monarch or a privileged class. His duty was to see that nothing was done or said by the common people or by any individual that would encroach upon the privileges of the class or the monarch. To-day the censor is not in that sense a censor at all. He is an officer representing public opinion, and his duty is to see to the proper administration of a law providing for a certain kind of licenses. censor is therefore rather a licenser.

The

Every one admits that in the presentation of moving pictures, as in the presentation of plays on the public stage, there must be some discrimination. The whole dispute concerns the way by which that discrimination shall be exercised.

The usual way is to permit the public presentation of anything which any producer or exhibitor thinks expedient, and

then to hold him responsible before the courts for any violation of the law safeguarding public morals. This is the method adopted concerning the publication of books and periodicals. No public official is assigned to publishing houses to see what "copy" is accepted and to edit it before it goes to press. If a publisher decides to publish something morally degrading, he is permitted to do so; but, then, if the police or other officials are awake to their duty, he is arrested and tried, and, if found guilty, punished. This is the plan followed with regard to motion pictures in, for example, Massachusetts. Last fall there was an energetic campaign for the establishment in that Commonwealth of a licensing system or censorship. The question was submitted to the voters, and it was decided in the negative. Massachusetts therefore has deliberately chosen to trust to the ordinary police power of the State as exercised through the courts after offenses have been committed. By those who believe this is the right way to hold the movies up to proper standards it is believed that producers, distributers, and exhibitors will all be more likely to exercise the needed discrimination themselves if they know that a violation of public morals will be prosecuted, and if they find that their responsibility for this discrimination is taken over by an official board. The opponents of censorship say that the real problems of the movies are not met by censorship. No government censors can deal legitimately with any other questions than those of elementary morals, and therefore censors leave untouched and unremedied some of the worst evils. Vulgarity, sensationalism, irreverence, may be as corruptive as any open violation of a sense of decency and morality. If films violating standards of good taste are licensed, they gain a

W. B. A.

currency which they would not have otherwise. Thus the public gets a false sense of security, it is argued; and the producers or exhibitors do also, for even with a licensing board in operation the exhibitor may find himself called before a court. Moreover, it is said that the power put into the hands of a licensing committee is too great to be exercised by any administrative body, for it may be used to the ruin of the business. Theoretically the censors may represent public opinion, but practically they represent only their own personal views of what public opinion is, it is argued; and their rejection of a film is really thus the imposition of the standards of a group or class upon the public. If a film is contrary to law, the producer ought to be punished according to law, but if it is not, then, ask the opponents of censorship, why set up the authority of a board? The real censors, they say, should be the public, and if public standards are disregarded there is reason then, not for censorship, but for law enforcement.

In favor of censorship we refer to the arguments made by W. B. A. in the communication printed above. To these arguments others might be added: that, whereas the law punishes the exhibitor, who is often as much a victim as the public, censorship brings the responsibility home to the producer, who ought to be held responsible; that the law cannot make the nice discrimination that trained minds and administrative positions can make; that theater-goers, whom opponents of censorship would make the real censors, are not the whole public, and are in fact selected from the public by the very films themselves, so that the worst films would attract the worst censors; and that the necessary technicalities of legal procedure cause such delays that incalculable harm may

be done by a film before it is removed from public performance, and that in the meantime by the very legal operation the harmful film is likely to be widely advertised.

Apart from this question of censorship, however, there are many other questions.

What are communities doing not merely to prevent the exhibition of bad films but to promote the exhibition of good films?

Has a white list-a public listing of wholesome films-been tried anywhere successfully?

Are exhibitors in the towns and villages of America as eager to maintain high standards as the people generally?

Are there any exhibitors who in their several communities are leaders in improving the standards?

Are the films shown in small towns

and villages to-day better than they were ten years ago or five years ago? Are children benefited or injured by motion pictures?

What makes people hesitate to let their children go to the movies? Is it because the movies affront their intelligence? Or set low standards of art? Or provide poor entertainment? Or tend to degrade standards of morals?

Are the sort of people that control the moving-picture houses and moving-picture producing or distributing companies the sort that ought to have the power they exercise?

To what extent should the nature of the movies be determined by what is fit for children? Have adults a right in this respect that children are bound to respect? Or is the interest of children so large in the movies that it ought to be controlling?

Are the people that go to the movies representative of all sorts and conditions in the community?

Are there any tendencies discernible in the movies that indicate the creation of a new form of really fine art?

We shall welcome letters from our readers who would like to enter into a discussion of these and other questions concerning the movies. We cannot promise to print all of them or any of them; but we promise that we shall read them with interest and will do what we can to let The Outlook serve as an exchange of ideas on this subject. We shall understand that we have liberty to print any letter or print any passage from any letter, giving or withholding the name of the writer as we think best, unless the writer of the letter gives word to the contrary.-THE EDITORS.

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HAT manner of man is Edward Terry Sanford, the East Tennessee judge who has been appointed to the United States Supreme Court by President Harding? Is he another Butler, or another Brandeis? What can the people of the country expect from him? Questions such as these are to be expected, and deserve answer. The present-day conception of the Supreme Court as the ultimate director of public polity, susceptible only to the wearisomely tedious machinery of Constitutional amendment, makes of vital importance the attitude and environmental background of each Justice. The mental cast of the members of the Nation's high court is conceivably of far more importance to our welfare than that of the Secretary of State, or of the President.

Upon such matters as the sacredness of capital, as contrasted with the sacredness of man; the conflicting rights and values of collectivism and individualism; the ingress of governmental agencies into realms hitherto kept for private initiative, the present Supreme Court is constantly passing; its decisions call for statesmanship of the highest order. Already the members of the Court are sharply divided into conservatives and progressives. The recent appointments of Mr. Justice Sutherland and Mr. Justice Butler have been heralded as gains for those who prefer things as they are-especially so, as former Justice Clarke was a moderate progressive. What manner of man is Mr. Justice Sanford?

Edward Terry Sanford is not a Landis, nor an Anderson; nor is he a Sutherland, nor a Butler. The fears of the liberals on this point may as well

Keystone

EDWARD TERRY SANFORD, NEWLY APPOINTED JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT

be stilled. He is more of the mental stripe of Mr. Justice Holmes than of Mr. Justice Brandeis; yet his openness of mind, breadth of culture, and innate liberalism of thought class him, in my mind, as a distinctly valuable addition to the Supreme bench. He possesses what I would call, for the want of a better word, a justiciable mind.

The fact that he is a Republican is the least important thing about him, The unanimity with which the members of the Democratic party in Tennessee and elsewhere in the South have in

dorsed him and sought to aid his appointment indicates in a measure the esteem in which he is held where known. Labor leaders, capitalists, Democratic Congressmen, Republican Governor, Democratic Legislature, urged his choice. There have been hints of opposition from one individual only, and that vigorously denied. Democratic editors were as zealous for Judge Sanford as if he were of their own party. The South is proud of the new Justice, and presents him to the Nation as a true representative of that spirit of idealism and common sense which has distinguished our material and ethical advance in the two past decades.

When I said that the fact that he was a Republican was the least important thing about Judge Sanford, I did not mean to infer that he is without convictions, or political agenda. Far from it. Unlike many of his party in the South, he is not a Republican for revenue only. He is an East Tennessean, and to those who know the South this is an illuminating political classification.

In the Civil War East Tennesseans were notable for their fidelity to the Union. The State won the sobriquet "Volunteer State" during that war, not only by her contribution of two hundred thousand men to the Stars and Bars, but by the hundred thousand who fought for the Stars and Stripes. East Tennesseans owned few slaves; they had a pronounced strain of Scotch-Irish, which made them tough, tenacious, liberty-loving. They had scant sympathy for Jeff Davis, Alexander Stephens, slave-owners, or States' rights. More than all that, they loved the Union. From the days of John Sevier and the short-lived backwoods State of