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violate a law for which they have no respect. They excuse theft and robbery, not only as practiced in Russia on a large scale, but as practiced by criminals in all countries, by the argument that the law against theft and robbery is not enforced because it cannot be enforced and that it cannot be enforced because it ought not

only way to find sound settlement satisfactory to two countries. I ask you to exert your influence to have it established. KANEKO.

In the article to which Viscount Kaneko refers (The Outlook for September 12, 1923) he says: "I have come to the conclusion that the appointment of a joint

to have been passed. Is it possible that high commission by the two Govern

the bootlegger has converted some of our most respectable people to the criminal's philosophy?

Every one has the right in this country to speak his mind, so long as in doing that he does not invade the rights of others; but every one also must be ready to take the consequences of speaking his mind and not complain if the mind that

he reveals strikes some of his fellowbeings as not a trustworthy guide on questions of public or private morals. Some of Dr. Butler's supporters have complained because Dr. Butler's speech

has elicited from certain sources the comment that what he has said shows that he is not a suitable head of a great university and they have denounced such an opinion as an invasion of the right of free speech. Many of these same supporters of Dr. Butler would be among the very first to seek his removal if, instead of arguing ardently against the prohibitory law, he had argued against the laws maintaining the right of property. What has aroused criticism of Dr. Butler is, not that he opposes prohibition, but that he has seemed to place his opposition on grounds which are destructive of all law.

A Cable from Japan

V1

ISCOUNT KENTARO KANEKO has long been familiar with American life. He has been in intimate touch with American statesmen. He is one of the liberal-minded leaders of Japan who understand much of the difficulty which has risen from Japanese immigration into this country.

We publish a recent cable from Viscount Kaneko to Harold T. Pulsifer, President of The Outlook Company:

I deeply regret that discriminatory clause in Immigration Bill passed in Congress. Should it be enacted will do great damage to peaceful relation between Japan and America. I am more convinced of necessity to have joint commission, my article on which you published last September. America Japan question now agitating on both sides of Pacific. Should be taken out of politics and referred to such commission, whose thorough investigation and impartial consideration are

ments is the only hopeful method of solving these complicated and difficult questions between Japan and the United States. For the appointment of such a of America furnishes abundant precehigh commission the diplomatic history dent." The precedents which Viscount Kaneko cites relate to the Alabama

claims, the fisheries dispute with Canada,

the coastal trade on the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes, and the northwestern boundary dispute.

While there is some similarity between these international difficulties and those which confront America and Japan, the present situation differs in one very marked respect. The disputes with Great Britain were on purely international matters. The situation which causes unhap

piness for Japan is one which deals with a purely domestic policy. Would Viscount Kaneko, for instance, be willing to submit to a joint high commission the question as to the conditions under which Chinese immigrants would be permitted to enter Japan? We are certainly under the belief that Japan would not be will. ing to arbitrate her own exclusion policy towards China, and Japan is entirely right in her position in this matter.

The Outlook ardently hopes that Congress will follow the advice of the President and postpone final action on the exclusion clause of the Immigration Law until after there has been time to replace the gentlemen's agreement with a definite treaty. Such a treaty could be absolutely reciprocal in terms, a fact which would certainly acknowledge that equality which Japan feels has been denied her by the acts of our Government.

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held before the Committee on Rivers and Harbors, House of Representatives, p. 5, the Willis Bill as passed by the Senate states: "That when used in this Act-(a) the term 'oil' means oil of any kind or in any form, including fuel oil, oil sludge, and oil refuse." No limitations are contained in this definition to "crude mineral oil." Furthermore, the lighter forms, such as gasoline and kerosene, are especially toxic to aquatic life and are slightly soluble in water.

We will change our statement to read: The Willis Bill ought to limit its provisions to mineral oils at the present time. The statement of fact concerning gasoline and kerosene relates to a matter on which Mr. Radcliffe is doubtless better informed than the editors of The Outlook. The expert upon whom we relied for our information takes a different view of this matter from that of the Deputy Commissioner of Fisheries. But Mr. Radcliffe, The Outlook's expert, and The

Outlook can all unite on the statement that gasoline and kerosene are undoubtedly better out of the water than in it.

Mr. Radcliffe believes that present efforts should be directed to the elimination of oil pollution from floating craft. He writes:

Our oil-burning merchant ships increased from 239 vessels of 650,364 gross tons in 1914 to 1,826 vessels of 9,017,000 gross tons in 1923, the world tonnage for these years being 1,721,000 and 16,478,000 gross tons. In 1923 the United States tonnage of oil-burning merchant vessels, therefore, exceeded sixty per cent of the world tonnage of this group, and the tonnage of our oil-burning vessels was about three times that of our coalburning vessels. Congress has authorized the calling of an international conference on the subject of pollution outside of territorial waters. In view of our own preponderance of oil-burning vessels, it is important that we should provide for the stoppage of pollution from floating craft within territorial waters before such a convention is called into being.

We do not believe that if the Willis Bill were amended to limit its require ment to mineral oils there would be any rightful objection to including land plants among the agencies prohibited from dumping oil upon the waters. The Ichief aim of all those interested in this matter, however, should be to get into active operation legislation which will curtail the present pollution of our waters. Experts disagree as to some of the methods of accomplishing this. There is no disagreement as to the end which must be achieved.

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By ELBERT FRANCIS BALDWIN
The Outlook's Editorial Correspondent in Europe

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groups oppose each other, and each has its "lunatic fringe," to quote Theodore Roosevelt.

TH

The Monarchists

HE "lunatic fringe" of the first group (the Bloc National) is the monarchist element, not yet dead despite the Republic's more than half-century of distinguished record.

There are two kinds of monarchist fringe, the Royalist and the Imperialist, namely, the Orleanist and the Bonapartist. The "party of the first part," the Orleanist, calls itself the Action Française. As if it were living centuries ago, it believes in action by a hereditary party leader rather than by a Parliament. Its titular leader is, of course, the lightweight Duke of Orleans, "the heir of the forty kings who made France," in the words of the slightly misleading party manifesto. Events in Italy inspire the authors of the manifesto to add that Mussolini's success shows what a leader can do and what a Parliament cannot. The active man of affairs for the Royalists in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the French Parliament, is Léon Daudet, a lively, loquacious, ubiquitous, and irrepressible person.

The Imperialist or Bonapartist party naturally finds its supreme leader in Prince Victor Napoleon and its parliamentary man in Prince Joachim Murat. Like the Action Française, so this party chooses a title, the Appel au Peuple, masking its real purpose-indeed, the "Appeal to the People" seems less frank. Its principal plank would confer supreme authority on the chief executive of the state, whoever he might be. That means ultimately, in the Imperialist vision, a Prince-President, as in the case of Louis Napoleon, and then the same kind of lightning transformation as took place when he suddenly evolved into Napoleon III, Emperor of the French.

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pression of both money and labor waste. They justly claim that the same amount of governmental work might be done by fewer functionaries; that more money would accrue to the state by simpler and juster taxation and that more money would come to the citizen if state monopolies were revised so as to return enterprises not normally under state control to private undertakings.

The Fédération des Républicains Rénovateurs has similar economic aims, and in addition would brush up parliamentary manners a bit.

The Fédération Républicaine also wants tax reform. It is anti-monopolist, but it would abolish personal taxation and replace the land tax.

Then comes the Fédération des Républicains Démocrates. It stands strongly for state control of all industries involved in the National defense, and in foreign affairs for the Poincaré "energetic policies," to quote its manifesto-indeed, so stand most of the other parties.

Finally follows the similar Parti Républicain Démocratique et Social, with the accent on the "Social." It would extend woman suffrage, give a bonus to large families, prohibit strikes in public service industries. It is highly Poincaresque in its insistence on German disarmament and debt payment, as on its opposition to Bolshevism and its equal approval of any constitutional Russian state recognizing Russian debts.

proclaiming itself at the same time no enemy to private property. In foreign affairs it stands for strong defense measures, a full satisfaction of the demands of France, and a modification of the League of Nations giving it greater executive power.

Still another brand of Socialism is the Parti des Socialistes Chrétiens. These Christian Socialists favor a state subsidy to large families, universal woman suffrage, real proportional representation, the establishment of the referendum, and the neutralization of the Rhine's left bank. The party is largely directed by Marc Sangnier.

Finally we have the Parti Socialiste Unifié, as representing more the kind of thing we have been wont to call Socialism. It stoutly resists the transfer of any public service corporation from state control and demands far fuller protection for labor union rights, especially to the famous and all-embracing C. G. T. (Confédération Générale du Travail, or General Confederation of Labor), of which it is the backbone. It also would see the Rhine's left bank neutralized. Its chief spokesman is Paul Boncour. The Communists

esque in its insistence on German dis- Now, leaving the ten parties which

The Bloc des Gauches THE second great group in the French

Parliament is also made up of five parties and constitutes the Bloc of the parties and constitutes the Bloc of the Left (Bloc des Gauches). In most if not all Parliaments the Conservatives sit on the presiding officer's right, the Radicals on his left.

Here in France the party of the Left with most conservative instinct is the Parti Radical National. It has been of immense help to Premier Poincaré, for it has generally supported his policies, internal and external.

Closely following this lead is the Parti Radical Socialiste. Its particular reason of being seems to be to assert that one can be a Socialist without the least Bolshevist squint, for its manifesto repels any alliance "either with Rome or with Moscow."

Another sort of Socialist is the Parti Républicain Socialiste, with ex-Premier Painlevé at its head. This party demands a progressive repartition of taxes,

really form the active force in French government-making, we come again to a "lunatic fringe." This fringe depends from the Radical Socialist Bloc des Gauches. It is a Communist fringe. Like the monarchist, this is made up of two elements.

The first calls itself the Union Socialiste Communiste. It is not the simonpure article. It tries to be a bridge from Socialism to Communism in the way it supposes Karl Marx would advise.

The real Moscow garden variety of Communism is furnished by the Parti Communiste, without any "Socialiste" to deceive you. These precious politicians declare that only by seizing large private fortunes can you pay the public debt of France, that the state must own not only all transportation and mining enterprises but also all banking, insurance, and industrial companies, that an armed proletariat must replace the existing army, and that France must ally herself with Soviet Russia.

France will not do this. But every one will be surprised if, on May 11, the electoral pendulum does not swing slightly towards the Left.

Valescure, April 16, 1924.

Mr.

A

Murphy-the Politicians' Politician

N artist in love with his art. A politician who loved politics for the sake of politics. A gamester enjoying the athleticism of his game. Not for the spoils only, though never without the spoils; not for victory only, though jealously cultivating victory. I think if we accept this view of Charles Francis Murphy all his life can be explained by its light.

First, what was his material profit? His estate was surprisingly small, probably less than Richard Croker's, which was much less than expected. As money goes, he was a very ordinary millionaire in a city containing over a hundred persons each with an income of a million a year and several thousand millionaires. Money, clearly, was not his first god.

Yet it must be noted that he was a thrifty, marked member of that race which has produced Henry Ford and Andrew Mellon. Before he was twenty-five years old he had saved $500 from day wages, at a time when two dollars a day was extra good pay. Therefore it is not fair to assume that all of even his comparatively small fortune came solely from political sources. He knew how to save, he knew how to guard an investment.

Consistently, from the beginning he refused all tribute from gambling and from the social evil, formerly the most conspicuous elements of graft. The "cleanness" of New York in the present generation is due as much to Mr. Murphy as to the change in public attitude toward gambling and prostitution.

There was a saying long credited to Mr. Murphy, "Tammany takes only honest graft." Whether or not he ever uttered the words, he abided and forced his associates to abide by their signifi

cance. It is not necessary to examine the obvious contradiction in the term to realize that by "honest graft" the "Boss" meant something like a broker's commission due him and his associates for "placing" the contracts.

This "broker's commission," this "honest graft," amounted seldom to more than ten per cent of the amount of the contract, and it had to be split in many ways. If Mr. Murphy came in for any, it was only a small share of it, and I have talked with one of his friends who asserts with conviction that Mr. Murphy himself always scrupulously avoided personal profit from municipal contracts. Many times, and especially in the later years, there was no "commission" at all. One of his later edicts was, "Tammany must keep out of the schools." The

By RICHARD BARRY

N the weeks just preced

IN

as

ing the Tammany leader's death, Mr. Barry had three talks with him. As a result of these talks, Mr. Barry here presents Mr. Murphy the politicians' politician; as one might describe Keats as the poets' poet and Turgeniev as the novelists' novelist. To Mr. Barry such differing men as W. J. Connors, Will Hays, Hiram Johnson, R.M. La Follette, General Leonard Wood, and the late President Harding acknowledged their interest in Mr. Murphy's methods and respect for his mastery of the technique of politics. Mr. Barry's article seems to us a sympathetic but not favoring, a human but judicial, interpretation.

The Outlook's view of Murphy as a tribal chieftain was given last week.

Boss's reply to criticism of the taking of any "commission" was that "some one would get it; why not us?"

The life-work of the Boss was almost entirely devoted to other considerations than securing and parceling out graft. For years he stood as a bulwark within Tammany, stanchly preventing the looting of city and State, yet such was the vulnerable nature of his place and history, and the history of the organization, that he could neither claim nor accept the proper credit.

In one of my talks with Mr. Murphy I said: "Why don't you dissipate some false ideas about Tammany by saying publicly that your chief function is the establishment of a sort of clearing-house for political ideas; that you have equipped yourself as a kind of barometer to register the public pulse on candidates and issues, and that you can remain on the job only as long as you guess right?" He replied: "That's it. Write it yourself. You got it straight."

I asked him how he got his equipment. He referred me to others, being either modest or else cognizant of the fact that when a man has many tongues to wag for him he does not need to wag his own. As a relaying point between the people and officialdom, he came near being

selfless. For instance, in commenting on the observation that Tammany might prove a burden to Governor Smith in securing votes for his Presidential nomination outside of New York State, Mr. Murphy said to me: "If it will help Smith I'll agree to step into an airship the night he's elected and get out for good."

His relation to woman suffrage is also a case in point. Several leaders of the Women's Party say he turned the National tide in favor of the Suffrage Amendment. Though his personal predilection was against woman's suffrage, his sole object was to interpret the popular will, but through officials of his selection.

He came to rule, not by accident, but by design, the alert design of his own puissant mind. When he was thirty, the leader of his Assembly district, Eddie Hagan, died. Pending an election it was up to the city leader, then Richard Croker, to appoint a successor. It was night, but Murphy heard that a rival would approach the Boss early in the morning. He set about to get an emissary to Croker that night, and he did. The emissary had to go to a Turkish bath. At first the Boss was annoyeddoubly annoyed that he should be disturbed in his repose and that the decencies of recent demise should be so rudely overborne. But, on second thought, he conferred the district leadership on "the young fellow who beat the starting gun."

After four years, when the old Boss had retired, and when his appointed successor, Lewis Nixon, had failed, and a triumvirate was appointed composed of MacMahon, Haffen, and Murphy, and the triumvirate came to sit in meeting and have its picture taken, the youngest, least conspicuous, least-known member, Mr. Murphy, without canvassing his colleagues, without hesitation, sat in the central chair.

How did he manage it? So far as MacMahon and Haffen were concerned one of them has often said that it was like an eruption of nature; when anything was to be done, Murphy was on the job; no one ever asked for him in vain; he seemed to have no time for himself, but all his time for Tammany. Haffen lived in the Bronx; MacMahon on the West Side; Murphy within four blocks of the Hall. The others came once in a while; Murphy practically lived there, and if not actually there he always could be reached in a few minutes.

In the slang of his followers, he was "no buck passer" and "no stringer." He

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said "yes" or "no" promptly to everything. And he always kept his word.

Not everything Tammany does is sinister. For instance, I know an apartment-house owner in Manhattan who, a few years ago, was on the verge of a $ $50,000 loss because he could not proceed with a building owing to delays in the municipal departments of inspection. In desperation, and at the suggestion of a friend, he made a trip to Fourteenth Street and saw Mr. Murphy, and told him his grievance. The interview occupied less than five minutes. At the end of it Mr. Murphy turned to the phone and "fixed" the matter. The municipal departments began functioning within an hour. For this "service" no price was either asked or given, and the beneficiary was not a member of the organization, though I will add that since that time he has voted the Tammany ticket straight in every election.

The general outlines of the new zoning law were settled in Mr. Murphy's office. The Boss was called in only because the contrary interests and ideas at stake could not agree and all longed for soluItion. He listened; gave his decision; and his decision, in which self-interest, and even Tammany's interest, played no part, was final.

The largess of Mr. Murphy was similar to that of the chieftains of his tribe before, with, and after him, but it was a little more instantaneous and unobtrusive. He made it a rule never to ignore any appeal of distress from his own district. No question was ever asked as to political, racial, or church allegiance. There was not even any question as to the merit of the claim, save that it be OK'd by some voter. Appeals have been made to him at midnight, as he left the Hall on his way home, for coal or provisions, and he has had the relief delivered before morning. He never waited for the next day; he did it then. A fund was made up of contributions from others in the district, but when it ran out Mr. Murphy always supplied any deficit. That charity was practically a bottomless pit. When thanks were offered him, he always diverted them with, "Don't thank me; it's the organization.'

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Like Orientals, New Yorkers, high and low, love despotism. It cuts red tape; it avoids the delays of bureaucracy; it administers both mercy and punishment He swiftly; it elevates lowly favorites sensationally and degrades respectable altitude with crude cynicism; above all, in a city whose gods are efficiency and action it introduces these deities into the complexities of politics, and especially does it render gracious for its friends this introduction.

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Mr. Murphy was, in this sense, a des

pot.

If the theory of democracy, an enlightened citizenry individually and constantly vigilant to maintain its functions unimpaired, were a fact, there would have been no Mr. Murphy.

Consider the method of his choice. The presumably élite of the party are selected in the primaries, where all good citizens should vote. Do they?

About two thousand thus form the county committee, and they meet once a year. No one has ever seen a complete attendance of the county committee.

In the last twenty-two New York county committees one could find names of National importance in nearly every phase of life; men of the highest education, of the most finished expression, of honorable attainment in the professions and in business. Invariably they willingly abdicated in favor of a man of no formal education, who spoke ungrammatically, though very seldom; who never issued a written order; who began life as a saloon-keeper, and who ended it striving to overcome the handicap of his origin in securing the selection of his favorite for the National Presidency.

As Emerson said, power flows irresistibly to him who can and will wield it. Here was a lowly Warwick who knew how to wait, how to build power slowly but surely. His genius was constructive; it synchronized with the growth of the city of which he was as much a part as its subway. He spent his first twelve years as leader of the Hall in cementing the structure of city solidarity, precinct by precinct, ward by ward. He then went into New York State, county by county, in the same way. It was an arithmetical progression. In eight years he "possessed" the State of New York, the first Tammany chief who had dared aspire above the Bronx. For two years past he had been spreading beyond, through the Nation. At his death he had as an ally for his organization, within the Democratic party, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and (sub rosa) Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey, and Illinois, with perhaps others.

His method changed with the years. Before he was fifty he used the mailed Before he was fifty he used the mailed fist; later the gloved hand. When he read Devery out of the Hall, his was a brutal, frontal assault; it was a fight to the finish; either he or Devery had to be destroyed.

However, once having established a reputation as a hard hitter, he let it work for him and achieved his best effects through delightful contrasts. When in 1920 there was a revolt among a small group of young district leaders, engineered by Hearst, who gave them wide publicity as the "new rulers of Tammany," Murphy let the thing spread until it reached a formal vote in the county

committee and the "revolting" youngsters had shown their hand. Then, after they had been defeated in open meeting, Murphy sent for them to come to "headquarters"-instantly. Not one but went expecting to be deposed, humiliated, and marked for indefinite enmity from the Boss. That would be in line with precedent.

However, Mr. Murphy was oil itself. He softly told them more than they themselves knew of the abortive effort to oust him, assured each that he would be retained as district leader, and he concluded by giving each some special mark of favor. Thus did he, on occasion, pour cement into his structure.

Remember McClellan, Sulzer, and Hearst. McClellan, made Mayor of New York by Murphy, set about to dis-. place the Boss, but the moment he was out of office Murphy "broke" him easily. Sulzer, put by Murphy into the Governor's chair, turned to rend his benefactor; but Murphy had him impeached and cast out of office. Hearst, frequently used by Murphy as an ally, tried now and then to leave his orbit as a satellite of Tammany; but Murphy always outguessed him, and in the last instance that of the 1923 judiciary ticket

brought upon him overwhelming defeat. And yet when McClellan and Sulzer and Hearst came humbly back to the Hall, Murphy accepted each in turn, wiping out McClellan's past, forgiving Sulzer, and out-salaaming Hearst.

His ideal of service to Tammany always subordinated his own feelings. If all other political ideals of service were as faithfully observed as Mr. Murphy observed his, much less would have to be written either for or against Tammany.

If he did realize that he could serve his own tribe best by serving the general public well (which is claimed for him with excellent logic), was Mr. Murphy too highly paid for that service?

Political moralists easily may here stress their points of view, but let us consider it from a monetary point of view. Job E. Hedges, as receiver of the Metropolitan street railways, has a salary of $50,000 a year, which is but half the amount paid Shonts for a similar job. His is the receivership of a physical property, somewhat limited, that in a generation or two may be scrapped in favor of newer transportation systems.

Mr. Murphy, on the other hand, was the self-appointed receiver in political bankruptcy of a vast community incompetent to handle its own governmental affairs. For this service he modestly voted himself an income probably less than that received by Mr. Hedges, while he carried on, in trust as it were, the political functions of a commonwealth of six million people.

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