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held, it is understood that the mother country is to take the important step of declaring that the British Dominions have attained the dignity of full nationhood.

The Australian Prime Minister, Stanley M. Bruce, has created the greatest surprise of any of the statesmen at the Conference, by declaring that the American leaders in the War of Independence prepared the way for the present British Commonwealth of Nations. Speaking as guest of honor at a luncheon given by the American Chamber of Commerce in London, he said:

"All thinking people must realize that there was something wrong in the attitude of the British Government, which did not recognize the aspirations and ideals of young peoples. But now a new British Empire has grown up, and Australians are enjoying the great heritage of freedom and autonomy to which the forefathers of the American people did much to contribute."

Then he made his English listeners gasp by asserting that if Australia had been a nation at that time she would have fought alongside the Americans.

Furthermore, he said that Australia understands the American repugnance to getting involved in European affairs. Both countries, he continued, are anxious to keep free from European entanglements and carry on their own development, and at the same time to assist in increasing the prosperity and happiness of the world. He pleaded for a better understanding of America by Europe, and also for more consideration by America of the troubles through which Europe has passed and the great economic problems of reconstruction which she is still facing.

That an Australian should come to

present the case of America so forcibly from within the Empire is an unprecedented and cheering development. And as these new colonial states attain their deserved dignity and influence in the affairs of the Commonwealth it is a good augury for future relations between the British nations and the United States.

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ship and property and of imprisonment if he returns to Italy. A special office of political investigation, to be run by the Fascist militia, is to be charged with surveillance of all individuals or elements regarded as subversive.

Meanwhile, from Paris, comes news that Colonel Ricciotti Garibaldi, grandson of the famous Italian patriot and ostensibly the leader of the anti-Fascist movement, has been arrested and has confessed to French Secret Service agents that he accepted large sums of money from officials of the Italian Government for arranging plots against Mussolini and then denouncing the plotters to the Italian police. Mussolini has been accusing France of failing to prevent conspiracies against Fascism within her borders, and telling his adherents that Italy would not endure the French attitude. Italian mobs have stoned and invaded French consulates, and relations between France and Italy have been seriously strained. But the Garibaldi confession appears to throw a new light on the whole situation.

What sort of game is being played in Italy, one inevitably asks, that her Government picks trouble with a neighbor on such pretexts and at the same time is forced to impose a system of suppression of all criticism at home and abroad which can be compared only with the Bolshevik terrorism? Mussolini has apologized to France for the offensive demonstrations against her by Fascisti; but the question yet remains. The material progress of Italy under Fascism is undisputed. But there are some prices too high to pay for material welfare, and one of them is the sacrifice of the civic liberties for which men have struggled through centuries.

One of the tests of the suitability of a governor, whether elected or appointed, is his ability to go among the people without wearing a steel shirt. The ironclad and inexorable scheme that Fascism has become gives cause for wonder whether every one is so happy under it as its advocates assert.

[graphic]

Belgium Defied

annulled, and the frontier troops are in- SINCE Dr. Baldwin's correspondence

structed to fire on any one attempting to cross the frontier without a passport. Italian correspondents or other citizens abroad are warned against circulating accounts tending to impair the credit of the Italian state or harm the national interests, under threat of loss of citizen

on "Goliath and David," printed in this issue, was written China has abrogated her treaty with Belgium. This leaves the situation precisely as Dr. Baldwin foresaw and foretold it. In this dispute Great Britain has approved Belgium's stand.

Advice to Both Houses

To the Drys:

P

ROHIBITION came to America because you fought for it.

It

world from your main objective. Be jealous lest in carrying on your battle you sacrifice hard-won ideals of liberty and private conscience which free men have thought worth dying for. To vio

this code would destroy our whole system of government. When a nation is free to revise its law, the plea for nullification has no place in any argument save that for revolution. If you wish to

came as a result of a campaign late these principles in the protection of join belated battle with the drys, do so

reaching back many decades.

You have dreamed of a dry America free from the political corruption and social debauchery of the liquor trade. You have dreamed of an America where children would be safe from the menace of the saloon; a land in which the earnings of the people would be devoted to the comfort and improvement of family life; a Nation free from the shackles of poverty, crime, and insanity, which are the natural sequence of alcoholic indulgence.

You have shaped the laws of the Nation to give at least lip service to this dream. Its substance in large measure still lies hidden in the future.

If you will study the course of history, you will find that no dreams are ever entirely achieved. You will find that liberties are never won, that democracy is never attained, that no ideal is ever so secure that its opponents may be ignored and its possession ranked as a permanent asset of mankind. The war for liberty, democracy, and social ideals is a continuous war. It is a war in which many victories may be won, but a war in which there can be no final victory. Triumph perches on the banners of the leaders of this war only so long as they remain on the firing line. Defeat is the portion of those who lay down their arms to rest.

So in writing the Eighteenth Amendment into the Constitution of the United States your dry forces secured only a strategic point from which your fight for a dry Nation might be advantageously continued. You have lost ground because you have refused to recognize the fact that the war in which you were engaged had merely entered into a new phase. Your job is a plain one. It is to use such weapons as you possess against the main object of your attack. The citadel you set out to storm was the political power of the liquor trade. Keep this objective in mind. Do not divide your forces. See that your army is free from mercenary soldiers. See that your scouts are men chosen for their integrity of purpose as well as their skill.

Don't waste your time on petty campaigns and abortive attacks which distract the attention of the Nation and the

other principles is to lay your flanks open to a counter-attack of menacing proportions. Fight hard and fight fair.

To the Wets:

PROF

ROHIBITION came to America partly because most of you failed to fight against it. You failed to fight either because you believed that a prohibition law could never be placed in the Constitution of the United States, or because you were afraid or ashamed to stand up in social and political company with the liquor trade and be counted. By Constitutional methods open to every body of citizens and by an overwhelming majority, the Congress of the Nation and the Legislatures of the States decreed the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. You had your chance then to fight for the retention of the saloon if you desired it or for modified control of the liquor business if that seemed best.

You, at least those of you who have no sympathy with the liquor trade, lost the fight against the Eighteenth Amendment in large measure by default. In a nation such as the United States no fight need be permanently lost. If the principles of personal liberty and individual independence which you have rediscovered since the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment are valid principles, if they are inconsistent with the ideals for which the drys fought, you still have an opportunity to convince the Nation of the soundness of your views.

You can join Senator Wadsworth in urging that the Eighteenth Amendment be made permissive instead of mandatory. That is your privilege as American citizens. You can join others in urging the complete repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. That is your right as a member of our representative democracy. Beware, however, lest in any campaign that you undertake you wage your battle along lines tending to destroy the rules of law and order under which your property and lives are protected and you are yourselves given a free hand to propose such changes as you desire to make.

Americans have learned to fight their political battles according to a definite code. The abuse or the destruction of

on the same terms and conditions with which they fought for the abolition of the saloon.

If you would fight the drys, remember that you must be prepared with something more than an attack upon the undoubted evils of the present situation. You must be prepared with a solution of the liquor problem which offers a convincing alternative to both prohibition and the saloon. You must discover a solution to a problem which has baffled the best minds of many nations. Have you such an alternative? The Nation is ready to give a hearing to your answer.

T

The Elections

HERE is nothing unusual in the mid-term reaction against an Administration at Washington. For about a generation following the end of the Reconstruction Period Republican Administrations were regularly confronted in their second term with a Democratic majority in the House. It was not until 1898 that a Republican Administration maintained a Republican majority in Congress throughout its term. Again in 1902 the Republicans maintained their majority, but by a reduced margin, as they did in 1906. During these years only twice did the swing from a majority to a minority forecast a change from a Republican to a Democratic Administration. In 1910, however, a change of a Republican to a Democratic majority foreshadowed the coming Wilson Administration. Similarly in 1918 the change from a Democratic to a Republican majority in the House and the Senate indicated the swing to the Republicans that later carried Harding in. In the mid-term election of 1914 the Democrats almost lost their majority, but did not lose the next Presidential election. In 1922 the Republican majority was reduced from 169 to about a score; but the reduction then indicated no ground for hope for the Democrats in the forthcoming Presidential campaign.

In the election this year the usual reaction has taken place. A Republican majority of nearly 60 has been reduced to about a score. The most marked

[graphic][graphic][graphic][subsumed]

Harry B. Hawes, Democrat, of Missouri

change has been in the Senate. There the loss of seven doubtful seats, together with the uncertainty as to what will happen to the Republican candidates elected from Pennsylvania and Illinois when their right to seats in the Senate will be challenged, makes the control of the Senate after March 4 next a question.

Actual control of the Senate during the Seventieth Congress in so far as balance of power is concerned will almost certainly be with the little group of nominal Republicans who by themselves are called Progressives and by others Insurgents or Radicals. Powerless to enact legislation on its own initiative, this group, combining with the like-minded in the other party, will have the chance to decide what legislation shall or shall not be enacted by casting its strength with either Democrats or Republicans.

Partisan advantage appears to be with the Democrats; but it is an advantage that is hazardous; for if the Democrats control they will be held responsible, and responsibility is not always welcome to an opposition party.

Of the seven doubtful seats which the Democrats captured, five somewhat naturally belong to them. These are from the border States of Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arizona. There, where Democratic majorities are the normal thing, it was natural that Weller, Ernst, Williams, Harreld, and Cameron would give place to Democrats when the issue was one simply of nominal Democracy or nominal Republican

Millard E. Tydings, Democrat, of Maryland

Keystone

Alben W. Barkley, Democrat, of Kentucky

Newcomers to the Senate-although elected this month,

ism. Of the displaced Senators four
were good average Senators as the aver-
age goes and one, Cameron, was below
standard and did not always exert his
influence in the public interest. Carl
Hayden, who comes up from the House,
is almost certain to make a better Sena-
tor for Arizona and the country than
Cameron has made. The other four also
came up from the House. Harry B.
Hawes, of Missouri, has displayed con-
siderable ability, as has Alben W. Bark-
ley, of Kentucky. Millard E. Tydings,
of Maryland, and Elmer Thomas, of
Oklahoma, have been less heard of.

The severest blow to Republican pres-
tige was the defeat of Senator Butler.
The President's appeal to the voters of
his own State to re-elect his friend and
close political associate was unsuccessful.
It probably did the President no harm,
for it was counted to him for political
righteousness as an evidence of gratitude
and friendship. Mr. Butler's successful
opponent, former Senator David I.
Walsh, was wise enough vigorously to
deny that Coolidge was the issue.

Senator Wadsworth's failure in New York was the consequence of his own unwisdom. He attempted to commit his party to a wet policy and at the same time to appeal to dry votes. He went down on an issue of his own choosing. He undertook a straddle on prohibition at a time when no man's legs are long enough to reach the two precipices of the issue, and he naturally went into the chasm. Robert Wagner, who displaces

him, is an unknown quantity in National affairs.

On the Pacific coast the outstanding feature was the strengthening of the Republican position in an off year. That California would vote strongly Republican was a foregone conclusion; but both Oregon and Nevada have elected Republican Governors in the place of Democrats, and Frederick Steiwer, a Republican, is apparently sure of election in Oregon, in spite of the fact that the candidacy of Senator R. N. Stanfield, running as an independent after being rejected by his party in the primary, split the Republican vote. In California the Republican landslide was remarkable, Senator Shortridge's plurality being some 250,000 and Lieutenant-Governor Young's plurality in the election for Governor being nearly half a million.

Out of the elections emerges one prominent figure as a Presidential candidate the popular Governor of New York, "Al" Smith. His success has been due primarily not so much to the support of any policy or policies he represented as to his own personality. He is thoroughly human. He knows, not only the subjects with which he deals, but the people whom he represents. He is a wet, unmistakably and unreservedly; but he doubtless received many dry votes because he was "Al" Smith.

No Republican has emerged as an outstanding figure to challenge the leadership of President Coolidge.

Abroad, especially on the Continent

[graphic][graphic][graphic][merged small][merged small]

Elmer Thomas, Democrat, of Oklahoma

Carl Hayden, Democrat, of Arizona they will not take office until March 4, 1927

of Europe, the elections have seemed to be interpreted as a revolt against prohibition. It is true that of the referendums on the subject the majority were carried by wet votes. But their effect upon National policy directly is exactly zero. New York and Illinois have nominally petitioned Congress to let the States interpret prohibition each for itself, but Congress will not do that withcut a revolution in opinion, of which there is no sign. Nevada has expressed an opinion that prohibition is a failure, and has called for a convention of States to repeal or amend the Eighteenth Amendment. Wisconsin voted in favor of an alcoholic content of 2.75 per cent -which means nothing in the face of the present Volstead Act. Montana voted to repeal its State enforcement law; but Missouri, Colorado, and California voted to retain their State laws to enforce prohibition. In northern California the vote at one time ran four to one in favor of repeal, but the huge plurality piled up by the cities in favor of repeal vanished altogether before the overwhelming dry vote of the rest of the State. The results of the referendums in eight out of the forty-eight States have thus no direct or practical effect upon the Constitution, the National Prohibition Law, or National prohibition enforcement. Because of the futility of some of these referendums, a great number of those who believe in prohibition and its enforcement refrained from voting altogether. To that extent the wet

majorities were misleading. So far as these referendums indicate anything, they voice the recognized dissatisfaction, especially in the cities of the country, with prohibition as it is. Nowhere is there any sign of a desire for the return of the saloon, and very little sign of any

Keystone

Frederick Steiwer, Republican, of Oregon

desire for the return of the legalized private liquor traffic.

Apart from prohibition the elections indicate no outstanding National issues; and even including prohibition no issues manifestly dividing the voters on party lines.

Was He an Oafish Country Lawyer?

H

By LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT

Contributing Editor of The Outlook

ISTORY, as a literary art, is in

a constant state of flux. It never becomes fixed and permanent like a sheet of marble, but apparently must be plowed up and recultivated by each succeeding generation like a field. Take the case of Abraham Lincoln. Perhaps no man in history, with the exception of the Carpenter of Nazareth and possibly Napoleon, has been more studied or has had more written about him. It might be supposed that his character and qualities were by this time thoroughly understood. And yet one mistaken tradition about him still curiously persists.

Week before last I gave an account in these pages of a new book of American impressions by St. Loe Strachey, editor of the London "Spectator." Mr. Strachey is probably the best informed of living Englishmen on American history. He confesses that he is almost half an American himself in sympathy and interest. He devotes four chapters of his book to

four representative Americans-Jefferson, Emerson, Whitman, and Lincolnand I do not know where in shorter compass may be found a more sympathetic and understanding interpretation of these four men who are racy of our soil and civilization. Lincoln he adores, and he knows him as few men on either side of the Atlantic in my generation know him. Yet he gives currency to a Lincoln tradition which is erroneous in fact and impossible in psychology, although it seems almost hopeless to try to eradicate it from the popular conception of the Great Emancipator.

Mr. Strachey says that Lincoln entered the White House, on assuming the Presidency, an "oafish country lawyer." If the word "oafish" here means awkward, ungainly, or plain to the point of ugliness, it may perhaps pass. But the connotation shows that Mr. Strachey accepts the not uncommon idea that up to March 4, 1861, Lincoln was mediocre in intellect and achievements, that his law

practice came pretty close to pettifoggery, but that by a sort of miracle his experiences in the first few weeks of the Civil War transformed him into a statesman.

Mr. Strachey is not to be blamed for this notion. It is one entertained by many of Lincoln's countrymen and prevailed even among some of his contemporaries. Hugh McCulloch, Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, says of Lincoln in the spring of 1861:

Mr. Lincoln had no educational advantages in his early life. In appearance he was unprepossessing, in manners ungraceful, in taste unrefined, or at least peculiar, but he was warmhearted and genial. In knowledge of men, in strong common sense, in sound judgment, in sagacity, Mr. Lincoln had no superior. He was unassuming, patient, hopeful, far-seeing.

William Allen Butler, one of the really great leaders of the New York bar in the latter half of the nineteenth century, who was a devout supporter of Lincoln and whose law partner was Lincoln's intimate friend and political appointee, says in his reminiscences:

Lincoln, who had not added materially to his reputation by the short and often undignified speeches which he made on his way to Washington, and whose entrance into the National capital surreptitiously, to avoid possible plots and conspiracies in Baltimore, had excited some ridicule, now stood forth on the steps of the Capitol and delivered his inaugural address. This was the first of the many declarations which have made his public utterances, from the moment he took the oath of office to the day of his martyrdom, unique and immortal.

I select these two quotations from distinguished contemporaries and supporters of Lincoln as an illustration of the beginning of the legend which Mr. Strachey now repeats. Hugh McCulloch intimates that the first fifty-two years of his life were those of an ignoramus; Mr. Butler, that he could not even make a speech worth respect until he was inaugurated but from that moment his public utterances were of a unique and immortal character. If this were true, the intellectual conversion of Abraham Lincoln would have been more miraculous than that of St. Paul.

Of course it is not true. Lincoln did not suddenly step from vulgar ignorance into supreme comprehension. His entire

life, from the time when, at the age of twenty-four, he stood as a candidate for election to the Illinois Legislature until, at the age of fifty-two, he delivered his First Inaugural, was one long, steady but unconscious preparation for his great ca. reer as a National statesman. He was, it is true, uneducated in the technical sense of the word. But as a youth he had read over and over again some of the best writings in English literature, and when he had no book at his command he pored over the English dictionary. Reading the dictionary to get an education may seem a little like studying a book of etiquette to acquire politeness. Nevertheless there is something in it. Some forty years ago my room-mate and I in a small New England college, before the days of entertainment now afforded by bridge or cross-word puzzles, used to amuse ourselves occasionally during a long winter evening with Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. I would open the heavy book at random and read the words in the order in which they appeared and see for how many of them my room-mate could give an intelligent definition. He would then take the book and, opening it at another place, would put me to the same test. It is surprising how much this trifling game helped us in our written work. Lincoln's home-made study of English early gave him a telling style. Take, for instance, this passage from an announcement to his constituents in the legislative election of 1836:

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).

If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon as my constituents, as well those that oppose as those that support me.

While acting as their representative, I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is; and upon all others, I shall do what my own judgment teaches me will best advance their interests.

Not only is this tersely expressed, but it contains the germ of the political philosophy which enabled Lincoln as President to lead his people out of the wilderness. There is not much ignorance or pettifogging or lack of dignity. here.

William Allen Butler was a man of

broad cultivation and ripe judgment. When I found that he said that Lincoln's speeches on his way from Springfield to Washington to assume the Presidency were corimonplace and undignified, I felt that here was testimony in support of Mr. Strachey's conception. But I took the trouble to look up the speeches for myself. They have all, even the shortest of them, been printed in Lincoln's complete works. The journey took from February 11 to February 27, 1861, and there are thirty-one speeches in all, some made on formal occasions to mayors or Legislatures, some being mere words of welcome to groups that had gathered at the stations as his train passed along. It should be remembered that as President-elect he was facing an awful crisis which he hoped would not, but which eventually did, result in civil war. He had wisely to refrain from any assertions which would accentuate sectional hatreds or

jeopardize his future conduct of affairs. The thirty-one speeches taken as a whole are masterly in this respect. Without rancor or threatening they breathe the deepest sentiments of patriotism and morality and lay down general principles of National conduct. The only possible ground for the assertion that they lacked dignity may be found in one or two jocose allusions to his own lack of physical attractiveness. Lincoln's beautiful farewell address at Springfield is fit to be associated with his Gettysburg speech and his Second Inaugural. It is so well known that it needs no quotation here. In greeting the Germans of Cincinnati he said:

In regard to the Germans and foreigners, I esteem them no better than other people, nor any worse. It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles -the oppression of tyranny-to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything to crush them.

Sound doctrine for hyphenates!
To the New York Legislature he said:

It is true that, while I hold myself the humblest of all individuals that have ever been elevated to the Presidency, I have a more difficult task to perform than any one of them. . . . I do not propose to enter into an explanation of any particular line of policy, as to our present difficulties, to be adopted by the incoming Adminis

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