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Good Manners
By LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT
Contributing Editor of The Outlook

NE of the most palatable, if not most nutrient, fruits of civilization is good manners. I do not know that politeness or courtesy was in the mind of Moses when he wrote the Ten Commandments. But the man who does not use profane or vulgar language, who does not indulge in mean or slanderous gossip, who honors his parents, who respects his neighbors' privacy and property, has the foundation of good manners. Cornelius Nepos, the Roman biographer who was a friend of that polished gentleman, Cicero, said that the success of a man's career depends upon his manners-mores cuique sui fingunt fortunam. One of the great English champions of courtesy was William of Wykeham, who six hundred years ago founded the famous Public School or College of Winchester. An interesting account of the respect which is paid to custom or manners at Winchester will be found on another page. Every schoolboy-at least every English schoolboyknows that Wykeham's motto was, "Manners makyth man."

It cannot be said that good manners have yet become a marked characteristic of the American people. We are, on the whole, honest, efficient, philanthropic, and willing to help in a crisis; but we are inclined to ignore the value of finenesses of behavior. We seem to think that

American travelers in France could be house-broken of their habits of "joshing," it would save some international irritations. Every "100 per cent" American who is insistent that we ought to have no foreign entangling alliances, either judicial or financial, because Washington warned us against them, ought to be equally insistent upon the observance of international good manners, because Washington urged their importance. Mr. Charles Moore, of the Library of Congress, has just published through the Houghton Mifflin Company a charming facsimile and variorum edition of Washington's "Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior." The sixty-fourth rule is this:

Break not a Jest where none take pleasure in mirth. Laugh not aloud, nor at all without Occasion, deride no mans Misfortune, tho' there seem to be Some cause.

American tourists might profitably commit this rule to memory.

All that can be said in defense of American bad manners is that we are no more vulgar abroad than we are at home. A moving-picture actor dies whose claim to popular admiration is that he was extremely handsome and made several hundred thousand dollars a year out of his supposed beauty, and a mob of

nicety of manners is a superficial quality curiosity seekers riot over his coffin, in

almost indicative of weakness. Consider some of the phrases that are current in our daily life. There are "road hogs" among our automobilists and "end-seat hogs" in the open cars of our trolley systems. Botanists tell us that our wild flowers are being irretrievably destroyed by greedy picnickers and landscapists that our scenery is being ruined by greedy advertisers.

The trouble that some American tourists have been making in France is due, not to contempt for the French, but to contempt for good manners. An American will sacrifice his life for the French, but he will not sacrifice the amusement he gets from making clownish fun of their depreciated franc. The other day a clubmate of mine, in protesting against a piece of thoughtless gaucherie on the part of a fellow-member, said he really thought the first qualification for membership in a club of gentlemen is that a candidate should be house-broken. If

their pushing and struggling for a place of vantage, so that the police have to be called in. There is nothing immoral in this. It is the simple result of bad man

ners.

Among the rights of man is not included the right to elbow and shove other

people and step on their toes. Thomas Jefferson is the patron saint of democratic equality. But, while he bitterly fought against aristocratic despotism, he never advocated the abolition of good manners. He was a democrat in politics, but an aristocrat in personal relations. One of the most instructive paragraphs in the recently published "Life and Letters of Thomas Jefferson," by the Englishman, Francis W. Hirst, is the following:

His manners, wrote his grandson, were of the polished school of the Colonial government-courteous and considerate to all, never violating any of those minor conventional observances which constitute the well-bred gentleman. When Randolph [Jeffer

son's grandson] as a lad was out riding with Jefferson, they met a negro, who bowed. Jefferson returned the bow. Randolph did not. "Turning to me, he asked: 'Do you permit a negro to be more of a gentleman than yourself?" Once during his Presidency he was returning on horseback from Charlottesville with a company of friends whom he had invited to dinner. Most of them were ahead of him. When Jefferson reached a stream over which there was no bridge, a man standing there asked to be taken up behind and carried over. After they had crossed Jefferson's companion asked the man why he had allowed the other horsemen to go by without asking them for this favor. He replied: "From their looks I did not like to ask them. The old gentleman looked as if he would do it and I asked him." He was much surprised to learn that he had ridden behind the President of the United States.

These observations on the value of good manners have been suggested by thinking upon the life and death of another great American democrat and great American gentleman-President Eliot, of Harvard. Much has been said about the profound influence he exercised upon American education. No doubt his place in history will be that of one of the foremost educators of his time. He made many valuable and original contributions to the science and art of teaching. But so far as I am concerned his greatest influence was in the field of manners. I knew him only slightly, I met him in his own home only once, and I heard him. speak not more than half a dozen times. But it seems to me that the most significant tribute to his character is that of an educational colleague, Dr. Hunt, Professor Emeritus of English at Princeton: "Never have I seen a more signal example of what Matthew Arnold would call 'urbanity,' a more courtly and gracious illustration of the gentleman and scholar."

But Dr. Eliot's high learning and high bearing did not destroy his human sympathy. He was an uncondescending friend of the fishermen of the Maine coast where he had his summer home. His life and works show that a man may be a reformer without self-righteousness, a scholar without pedantry, may be dignified without being pompous, and may possess a sense of humor without being farcical. He was, in a word, an exemplar of good manners. Those who despair of good breeding in this country. may take hope when they consider that Charles William Eliot was an American through and through.

I

The Meaning of the Y. M. C. A. Conference at Helsingfors
Special Correspondence by FRANK B. LENZ

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WATCHED them arrive. They

came from nearly every country under heaven. They came by air, by rail, and by land to Helsingfors, the beautiful capital of Finland. The whiteturbaned Christian leader from India, Mr. K. T. Paul, created a sensation by flying from Stockholm. Delegates from Constantinople flew over from Reval, the near-by capital of Estonia. The Chinese delegation came by way of Russia. A special ship carried the American delegates from New York. Twenty American boys came in from Lapland, where they had been vacationing.

The Scotch came in their kilts and bare knees, the Chinese in flowing silk gowns, the Indians in turbans, the Egyptians in red fezes, and the Negroes from America and Africa with shining black faces. Never before had the people of Finland seen such color exhibited in human form. They marveled. They stared. They followed with open mouths. They lined up in front of the

meeting-places and waited for hours to
catch glimpses of these strangers.

As I write these lines more than fifteen
hundred young men and boys from fifty-
two nations are in session at the most
remarkable international gathering of
the whole summer. The oldest and
largest Christian international organiza-
tion, the World's Alliance of the
Y. M. C. A., is holding its nineteenth
World Conference here August 1-6. The
first World Conference was held in 1855.
Eighteen Conferences in all have been
held. The nineteenth was planned for
Helsingfors in 1913, but was forbidden
by the Czar of Russia. This is the
first World Conference since the war,
and it is being held in a free country
that has a republican form of govern-
ment, prohibition, woman suffrage, and
the world's greatest runners!

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THE

HE delegates have come from all parts of the globe to discuss and take action on the leading problems. facing the youth of to-day. Youth is in revolt. Youth is bewildered, and the Y. M. C. A. is learning why. For two years serious studies have been carried on in Asia, North America, Europe, South America, and parts of Africa to determine what young men and boys are thinking in regard to the problems of nationality, race, sex, home, vocation, and sports. The general subject of the Conference is "Youth Facing the Christian Way of Life in a Changing World." The dominant and unique idea and plan is that youth is actually speaking for itself on a world scale.

Six cultures are represented at the Conference: the Teutonic, the AngloSaxon, the Scandinavian, the Slavic, the Oriental, and the Negroid. More than thirty languages are spoken, yet I found three languages only being used as the official means of communication-English, French, and German.

and Egypt

World's Committee of the Y. M. C. A. as well as General Secretary of the American National Council; Colonel Badelscu, head of the National School of Physical Education of Rumania; Professor R. Dyboski, head of the English Department of the University of Krakow; Archbishop Söderblom, of Upsala; Mr. K. T. Paul, outstanding Christian leader of India; and Dr. Herman E. C. Liu, of the National Y. M. C. A. of China.

A strong group of well-known leaders DEMOCRACY is at work at Helsingfors.

are in attendance. Among these are
Lord Radstock, of England; Prince
Oscar Bernadotte, brother of King Gus-
tav of Sweden; the Metropolitan of the
Greek Orthodox Church, of Corfu,
Greece; General Chiekel, of the Polish
army; Judge Adrian Lyon and Mr.
Fred W. Ramsey, of the United States;
Judge Fahani, of Cairo; Canon E. S.
Woods, of Cambridge; Dr. John R.
Mott, newly elected Chairman of the

This is one of the features of the gathering. I have just named a list of outstanding speakers, but these men have been listening more than they have been talking. The genius of the Conference is in the method of arriving at conclusions. The entire Conference is divided into fifty smaller groups, with a chairman, interpreter, and secretary for each. A variety of races and nations are represented in each group. Every one of

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the topics-sex, home, vocation, nationality, sports, race are thoroughly discussed and the group mind arrived at in a democratic way. The combined thinking of all the groups is then gathered up in the expert leaders' meetings, and their conclusions are referred back to the entire Conference at the close of each day. The thinking of many is better than that of one. Nothing is "put over" by brilliant oratory. CONFER is the watchword of the Conference.

Here, for example, at the close of the first day's discussions are the outstanding conclusions: Twenty-five groups placed sex at the head of the list, as the most important problem facing youth. Fourteen groups put sex second. The home was placed first by seventeen groups. Many felt that these two problems were inseparable.

The reasons for the priority of sex were: (1) Motion pictures, sex drama, modern fashion in dress; (2) effects of materialistic conception of life and Freudian psychology; (3) economic conditions, leading to postponement of marriage; (4) increased prostitution and venereal diseases since the war; (5) inadequate sex education in home, school, and church; (6) weakened parental control; (7) modern passion for freedom; (8) intense desire of young people for a larger measure of physical enjoyment; (9) bad housing; (10) modern craze for new dances.

Needless to say, these disclosures were a ringing challenge to the Y. M. C. A., as well as to every other organization working for youth, to combat and replace evil amusements, bad literature,

A Committee of the Conference at Work

and every other destructive force operating to the detriment of youth. It was pointed out that the application of the teachings of Christ as well as a vigorous educational program were necessary to gain this end.

The Conference is a triumph for good will. I will is forgotten. American boys are learning by personal contact that not all Germans are of the arrogant, beer-drinking variety. Some striking friendships have sprung up between the

The five other topics are being dis- boys of these two countries. Poles and cussed with equal frankness.

A

NOTHER feature of this Conference is the fact that 231 of the 1,548 delegates are older boys-mostly about seventeen years of age. Never before in any of the World Conferences has the voice of youth been heard. Older men did the talking. It was they who determined policies and told the boys what was best for them. All the boys here represent groups of boys in their own lands. There are seventy-eight boys in the American delegation. I did not learn until my arrival that the coming of the majority of these chaps was made possible by a fund which was raised by 25,000 American boys-more democracy! All these younger fellows, 231 of them, are living together in a near-by high school. They are crowded but happy in their "Indoor Camp," as it has been dubbed. Fellowship and friendship on an international scale in the actual laboratory is being developed. It is not a "stunt." The boys are actually mixing, and the precipitation is a rich product. They are giving the best they have as they face together the great issues which to-day are challenging them. Their presence here has a wholesome influence on the older men of the Conference. Their voice has registered.

Germans are learning how to discuss burning issues without heat. French boys are discovering many admirable traits of their German neighbors. White boys from America are having their eyes and minds opened by black boys from Africa. Japanese and Americans work together on closest terms.

There is manifested in every group a will to actually understand the other fellow's view-point. Considering the difficulties of language, race, traditions, cultural backgrounds, and national prejudices that have been overcome, I feel that this Christian Conference is one of the most remarkable held in many years. It is not simply a demonstration staged as a "spectacular stunt." It has proved the belief held by an increasing number that men and boys can get together to discuss their differences if they are motivated by idealism and a spirit of fairness and good will.

But the spirit of open-mindedness and fellowship would have been suppressed and thwarted had not the mechanism for co-operation in the form of discussion groups been provided. It must also be remarked that a sense of interdependence had been previously created by the extended inquiry on the subjects before the Conference. Delegates came, not to proclaim a particular national viewpoint, but to pool their experiences and

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CERT

ERTAINLY the French Parliament, just adjourned, has shown itself weak, undisciplined, menacing.

Weak, because, instead of having a backbone of its own, it lent itself to the vagaries of the Prime Minister of the day, Edouard Herriot, and finally ended in not knowing what it wanted itself.

Undisciplined, because it unintelligently resisted all efforts, no matter how necessary, towards financial reconstruction.

Menacing, because extreme Socialist influence was seen to be ever more prominent and powerful, a spirit of subtle disorder which, carried to the limit, .would render impossible any democratic parliamentary government.

Menacing, moreover, from another cause encroachment on the executive branch. More and more the legislative branch has been emphasizing its right to summon Cabinet Ministers and question them. By consequent sermonizings and reprimands it has smartly indicated the courses of conduct of those Ministers; otherwise, it has added, an adverse vote in the Chamber would force them from office, the Chamber having the exclusive right to make and dominate Cabinets. Indeed, it has worked this interpellatory system so continually as practically to reduce the executive branch to a mere subsidiary part of the legislative. The Chamber committees, in this control of Cabinet Ministers, have become really, as M. Poincaré has just pointed out, executive civil and military organs, making normal Cabinet life intolerable.

Menacing, furthermore, because of the multiplicity of ever-shifting parliamentary groups, continually maneuvering in order to upset the powers that be and to claim for themselves as many Minis

The Outlook's Editor in Europe

terial portfolios as can possibly be got. Among these groups the largest is the Radical-Socialist, with 136 members. Next comes the Democratic-Republican Union of the Right, with 102 members, of whom perhaps ex-President Millerand is the most notable. Then come the Socialists, with 98 members, led by the astute Léon Blum. Following these are the Socialist-Republicans, with 40 members, and the Radicals, with the same number, of whom MM. Briand and Loucheur are the most prominent. Following this are the groups known as the Democratic-Republican of the Left, with 34 members, and the Republican, with 32. Now appear the Communists, with 28 members, led by the effervescent Marcel Cachin; the Independents, with 27; the Independents of the Left, with 16; and, finally, the Democrats, with 14.

WH

HAT to do with all this complication? Overthrow the system and go back to old-fashioned royalism. So proclaims daily the "Action Française," proclaims daily the "Action Française," the organ of Léon Daudet and Charles Maurras. Have a king, as of yore one far above parties and private concerns of all sorts, one embodying all the country's vital interests and, through the principle of hereditary succession, securing continnuity as well as singleness of leadership and purpose. Of course, as a matter of consistent doctrine, the "Action Française" has something to offer.

No, not that. Hear "La Volonté," if you like, whose editor, Albert Desbarry, wanted to bring the war to a close by any means and at whatever cost. The views of this journal are the well-known views of this journal are the well-known views of Joseph Caillaux, as expressed in his plan for "crossing the Rubicon" and making himself a sort of Cæsar in the critical days when Clemenceau was stirring up France to fight to a finish.

No, again. Hear the Fascist echo of "Le Nouveau Siècle," whose editor, Georges Valois, has broken away from his former paper, the "Action Française." The monarchy ideal, as you may gather from his newspaper, has not always been lived up to. Moreover, from the point of view of practical poli

tics, how, after so long and successful experience of Republicanism, could monarchy again take root in France? That is not saying, however, that an antiCommunist, anti-pacifist, Fascist scheme of personal power could not take root there. It has done so in Italy, and there have been imitations more or less close in Spain, Portugal, Poland, Greece, and Turkey. Why not in France also?

In a different class stands "La Liberté" with Pierre Taittinger playing the part of a tribune at the head of the jeunesses patriotes, whose anti-Communist, anti-pacifist spirit has not so far materialized in any very definite political form.

None of these things are for us, says "Paris-France," speaking for the "sons of the Revolution," recently described in The Outlook. They are also against parliamentary government, but are against Fascism as much as against Communism. They propose government by a small group of ten men, such as France had under the Directorate. It would carry out what its protagonists learned from action in the war, as distinguished from mere present-day words. It would proclaim the value of technical knowledge, of organization, of unity of command, above all, of superiority over politicians.

Then come the other and betterknown newspapers, reflecting more robust republican opinion and showing that experience has already condemned the schemes advocated by the above journals. Take the plan for a directorate of ten, for instance. Its historic prototype revealed the fact that it never worked smoothly, while it promptly degenerated into petty squabbles and rivalries among the ten.

The eleventh-hour conversion of an obstinate Parliament, now adjourned, shows what the right men at the right time can do. The only thing, then, for France, one would suppose, is simply to be content with present possibilities, amending them as best she may. The splendid accomplishments of the past few weeks certainly afford ground for hope.

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By IMOGEN B. OAKLEY

Late Chairman of Civil Service Division, General Federation of Women's Clubs

N a recent number of The Outlook instances were given of the dismissal of prohibition enforcement agents whose only offense was the zealous performance of their duty, and after each instance of zeal and consequent dismissal the editor asked, Why?

For the simple reason that the Volstead Act places all enforcement agents under political patronage and opens wide the door to the most flagrant practices of the spoils system.

A

s first passed by Congress, the act conformed to the National Civil Service Law in providing that all offices in the new bureau should be put in the classified service. President Wilson sent the act back to Congress with his veto. The drys had a substantial majority in both houses, but it soon became evident that the two-thirds majority required to override the veto could not be furnished by the dry vote alone. Mr. Volstead therefore, to conciliate his opponents, agreed to an amendment which exempted all enforcement agents from the usual Civil Service rules and turned them over as spoils to the victors. Enough Senators and Representatives willing to sacrifice their principles for the sake of more patronage were found to make the required majority; the bill was passed over the veto with a rush; and then began "an orgy of office trafficking unequaled since the days of Andrew Jackson and the Civil War." Court records of the Court records of the trials of dishonest and incompetent enforcement agents show that ex-saloonkeepers, ex-bartenders, and men who had served jail sentences were and still are-appointed to places of trust in the Prohibition Bureau, and the number of faithful trained agents dismissed because of political pressure is only another proof of the power given to unscrupulous political leaders by the exemption clause in the Volstead Act.

A year after the act became nominally effective I asked the chief enforcement agent of a populous district how he was getting on. "Very badly," he said. "One-third of my employees are ignorant, untrained men who do not know how to make a report and in whose testimony I can place no confidence. Another third, I have reason to believe, are ex-saloon-keepers and ex-bartenders, whose aim is to fill their pockets and incidentally make the law ridiculous and unpopular. The remaining third are

honest, capable men, but I cannot do all the work required of me with only onethird of the necessary force. And the And the worst of it is that I have to take every man, no matter how incapable, whom man, no matter how incapable, whom the political bosses send me, and I dare not dismiss any man, however ignorant or dishonest, if he has a big politician behind him." And then he added, "I used to be lukewarm over the Civil Service laws, but now I am red hot."

T1

HE National Civil Service Reform League, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, and the National League of Women Voters have protested against the exemption clause in the Volstead Act from the minute it was first proposed, but, singularly enough, they have never had the co-operation of the men and organizations one would naturally suppose most eager to further any attempt to make the act effective. Mr. Volstead, as an advocate of the spoils system, has stood firm for the exemption clause, and apparently has never recognized its disastrous consequences. The Anti-Saloon League and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union have objected to the repeal of the clause for three reasons:

First, because it is absolutely necessary that prohibition agents be dry by conviction and in practice, and under the impersonal Civil Service Law there is no guaranty that this necessity will be met. One is tempted to retort, "Have all the enforcement officers appointed by political patronage been dry by conviction and in practice?" But the mild answer that turns away wrath is that, since prohibition agents are not in the classified service, the National Civil Service Commission has made no rulings concerning them, and what it might or might not rule in case the clause were repealed can be only a matter of conjecture. The universal ruling, however, that every applicant for office must produce the testimony of ten reputable citizens of his own community that he is an honest and lawabiding man sufficiently covers any hypothetical case and makes it highly improbable that any drunkard, exsaloon-keeper, ex-bartender, or man with a criminal record could be appointed to any responsible position whatsoever.

The second objection is that it is absolutely necessary that a prohibition agent suspected of evading or violating the law be instantly dismissed, and under Civil Service rules instant dismissals are im

possible. Again we would fain retort, "Have all agents suspected of dishonest practices been instantly dismissed under the present system of political patronage?" But again the most convincing answer lies in the law itself. The chief of every Government bureau is empowered by the law to dismiss on the spot any offending employee, the only obligation laid upon him being that the reasons for dismissal must be given in writing and must be neither political nor religious. The offending employee is allowed three days to justify himself, but his explanation must be addressed to the chief who dismissed him, and with that chief rests the final decision. In fact, it is only in the classified service that instant dismissal is possible, for under the spoils system no officeholder, whatever be his sins of omission or commission, can be discharged without the permission of the political leader who appointed him.

The third objection is that under the Civil Service Law an applicant for the position of enforcement agent must show three years of legal training, and many applicants who otherwise might be especially fitted for that special service would be automatically disqualified. For the third time, the answer is that, since prohibition agents are exempt from examination, the Commission has made no ruling concerning their special qualifications. In analogous positions in the Bureau of Internal Revenue one year's legal training is required, and there seems no reason to suppose that three times that amount would be required in the Prohibition Bureau.

The Anti-Saloon League has offered from time to time to support a bill to repeal the exemption clause of the Volstead Act, but always with the proviso that all agents in actual service shall be "covered in❞—that is, retain their offices without examination. No genuine advocate of the merit system could accept any such proposition, but a compromise bill has been submitted to the present Congress which provides that prohibition agents shall be placed in the classified service, and that all now holding office shall take the prescribed examination, and those failing to pass shall be promptly dismissed.

The advocates of the merit system do not claim that if the Prohibition Bureau be placed in the classified service all enforcement agents will be certified saints

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