346

nized in Europe if it is not entirely obvious to his critics in this country, was to make the United States a leading influence in the reëstablishment of Europe, working outside the machinery provided by Geneva.

Like a wise statesman, Mr. Hughes has not spent his time chasing illusions, but has contented himself with the attainable. That is, he has not exhausted his energies in an attempt-which would have been entirely useless-to enroll the United States in the League, but he has concentrated his energies on obtaining results with such agencies as have been placed at his disposal. The nation, by two unprecedented majorities, has voted against League membership; under the circumstances, there was nothing to do but to accept this as final, and to exert the influence of the country as beneficently as possible by other means. And the accomplishments, under these limitations, will affect the history of the world for centuries to come.

A New Principle in International

T

Relationships

HE greatest calamity of the forty years' history of Europe preceding the European War was the race for armament; it was the thing, indeed, that made the war itself inevitable. The statesmen who had sought the solution of that problem had ignominiously failed. Yet in this great work Mr. Hughes achieved a vast measure of success. It is easy to criticize the results of the Washington Conference such criticism, indeed, is widespread; yet, leaving aside all points of detail, this conference established one precedent new in international relationships, the effect of which can hardly be exaggerated. This is that the armament of an individual nation is not its own exclusive affair, but is a matter in which its neighbors, and possible antagonists, have a right to be consulted. This conception is so new and revolutionary that it is perhaps not yet properly estimated as the greatest achievement of the conference,

So far as navies are concerned, each nation is permitted to have just so many ships, and no more, as an association of naval powers assigns it. That the Washington Conference fixed this principle only in the matter of capital, or first line ships, does not affect the principle involved: that it will be extended to ships of all types is inevitable, and, indeed, demands for the limitation of subsidiary vessels are already in the air and will soon become realities. It is not unlikely that the same principle may be extended to land armaments, though it is clear that this question involves much greater complexities than that of sea warfare.

The Triumph of the Dawes Plan

T

HE forces that govern the world' are new ideas, attitudes, ways of thinking, and to have established in the consciousness of mankind this new conception—that each nation shall have, on land and sea, precisely the armament which its fellow nations, after completely considering all the necessities of the case, decide is its due portion-is an achievement of great magnitude. So far this principle has become effective only in the matter of battleships, but its extension to armaments of all kinds is among the probabilities of the future. It is democracy working on an international scale. It is the most certain guarantee of peace which modern history has brought forth.

But this is not the only achievement of the State Department under Mr. Hughes. He is the first Secretary of State who has found a practicable method of dealing with Mexico. Had he not withheld arms from the Mexican revolutionists a year ago, and supplied them to the established government, Mexico would have plunged into another ten years' orgy of blood and rapine. Instead of that, a Mexican President has recently obtained his office by legal means—almost the only one in the nation's history who has succeeded in ways other than by the murder of his predecessor. The Hughes policy was widely criticised at the time, but its wisdom is now apparent and will become

more so in the next twenty years. A minor item is Mr. Hughes's part in the reorganization of the State Department and the establishment of the embassies and legations on some basis that resembles dignity.

But probably the greatest achievement and the one to which attention has most recently been directed, is the Dawes plan. This scheme is now regarded in Europe as a workable, and, on the whole, a satisfactory and equitable solution of the reparations problem. The success in floating the $200,000,000 loan for the stabilization of German currency has given it a brilliant start. The nation on which it rests with especial severity, Germany itself, has recently made it the issue in a popular election and decided in its favor. The problem to which the statesmen of Europe had devoted more than twenty 'conferences" and "congresses," without definite accomplishment, has at last been solved, mainly by American assistance. A great tribute was recently extended in New York to Mr. Owen D. Young, the man who, above all others, is responsible for this reorganization.

"The plan," said Mr. Young, in his speech on this occasion, "could not have been created or adopted without America. The present government of the United States justly claims credit for this new advance in international affairs. The original suggestion of our Experts Committee came from our distinguished Secretary of State." Mr. Young was merely repeating the words that all the statesmen and publicists of Europe have recently used in even more emphatic terms; the plan that has made the beginning of a new day in Europe was based upon Mr. Hughes's speech at New Haven in December, 1922.

pressing is unquestionably that of the Allied debts. This is something in which this country has an immediate interest and in which it can render great service.

The several European governments owe the United States not far from $12,000,000,000. Of the larger creditors, Great Britain is the only one that has adjusted its obligations and that is paying them. Just what France and Italy will do is a question that is now occupying much public attention. President Coolidge, in his message, declares that the cancellation of these debts is not a matter to be discussed, and that may now be taken as the national policy. Yet the fact remains that, for some time to come, there is little likelihood that France and Italy will consent to a settlement on the British model; it is also clear that the payment Great Britain must annually make about $165,000,000-is a frightful load on British taxpayers and an influence seriously disorganizing British industry and finance. Economists and bankers agree that, even with the Dawes plan, there can be no solution of European ills until this question is settled. Indeed, the readjustment of the national debts, especially the debts owing to the United States, is regarded as an indispensable corollary of the Dawes plan.

Why Not a Dawes Plan for Allied Debts?

H

EREIN is another opportunity

for the American State Department. This question will doubtless be the leading item in our "foreign policy" for the next year. And does not the method for accomplishing the Dawes plan in itself point the way? A Dawes plan for Germany and reparations has proved a great success; why not a Dawes plan for Europe and for Allied indebtedness? The essential step would be the appointment of a new 'commission of experts," on which the United States. would necessarily have the chairmanship and the largest representation, for the collection of all the facts on European finance and European indebtedness and

348

the formulation of a final scheme for its liquidation. The ideas that guided the Dawes commission would also guide this new one. The first principle of the Dawes investigation was that Germany must pay its reparations; similarly the new commission could adopt as its slogan that the "Allies must pay" their debts.

The Dawes commission, however, was inspired by another consideration-an idea which it took four years of European fumbling to develop: that it was useless to attempt to collect from Germany what Germany did not have. Its purpose was to get from Germany every penny that Germany could pay. Is it not nearly time that the United States reached the same state of wisdom? Naturally we want every penny of that $12,000,000,000 that we can collect, nor are we "Shylocks" in insisting on it, for the debt is an honest and an honorable one. Yet Americans are not fools in business; and it is certainly folly to insist on payments that cannot be made, especially when this insistence is delaying European prosperity, and, for that very reason, our own.

The Allies assert, just as Germany did, that they cannot pay-at least to the full limit of the bond. Americans-at least those who make their opinions vocalinsist that they can do so. That is precisely what France said in the case of German reparations, and thereby delayed for five years a settlement which Frenchmen now admit is the best they can obtain. Why not study the question and find out what the Allies can pay, precisely as the Dawes commission studied Germany and discovered what Germany could pay? If there is no possibility of paying this full amount within an historic period, then Americans are not so ridiculous as to insist on the unattainable.

The idea of cancellation will not be considered, but the idea that should control is to obtain from the Allied governments just what they can pay and not to demand something which is not there. It would be the business of the new commission to investigate this problem in all its aspects and submit another Dawes report. The idea of modifying the bond

is not a new one. The terms made with the British amount to cancellation to the extent of about $4,000,000,000 in interest. This is not a trivial favor. Possibly the terms made with the European governments would be more favorable, possibly less; it would be the business of the commission to settle this and all other points. And it would consider the matter from other standpoints than that of the bill collector attempting to realize on his creditors' assets; the debt question has ramifications extending into industry and finance and the prosperity of peoples, to all of which the suggested body of experts would give due attention.

P

The Presidential
"Speech from the Throne"

RESIDENT COOLIDGE has abandoned the practice revived by Woodrow Wilson of appearing personally before Congress to deliver his annual message. Instead, he sends the written document to the House, where it is read to the assembled Senators and Representatives. The Wilsonian plan of a personal appearance was a revival of the practice of the first two PresidentsWashington and Adams. The Coolidge method is a reversion to the change introduced by Thomas Jefferson.

It is usually explained that Jefferson sent his message to be read because he was no orator and believed that he appeared to a disadvantage on the speaker's tribune. This is probably a mistake. Jefferson was a man of magnificent appearance: though he was not a glib and polished speaker, he never hesitated to make a platform performance when the occasion demanded it. His first inaugural, one of the greatest of American political documents, was publicly spoken, and, though not brilliantly, by no means unsuccessfully.

Jefferson was, above all, a political philosopher, and he had a well-thoughtout philosophic reason for his every public act. No man ever so heartily despised monarchy and royalty and their trappings. He had founded a great political

party, which still endures, for the purpose of reorganizing American society and American political institutions on democratic basis. He believed that forces were stealthily working to overturn the American Republic and to erect a monarchical state on its ruins. The Federal party he regarded as the instrument of such "reactionaries." As President, therefore, he determined to destroy everything that even remotely savored of royalty and aristocracy. At the Washington boarding house in which he spent the few weeks preceding his inauguration, he put aside the constant solicitations of his hostess that he take the seat of honor, insisting on sitting at the dinner table where chance had placed him.

Instead of the coach and four in which Washington and Adams had ridden to their inauguration, he leisurely walkedthe story of his horseback ride is an exploded myth. He suppressed the Presidential "levees" that were regular features of the two preceding administrations. Royalty again! But the performance that chiefly aroused his democratic ire was the Presidential address before the assembled houses. This, he insisted, was an absurd monarchical institution transferred to the free soil of America. In this contention Jefferson was right; the President's message, delivered in public with great ceremony, was nothing but the "king's speech from the throne." In Washington's and Adams's time, an address was always framed in reply, precisely as was done then, and is done to-day, in the

had passed; the possibility of American monarchists overthrowing the Constitution and placing a king on an American throne had long since vanished; a new President had come in, prepared, like Jefferson, to extend the democratic system to all the details of American life.

Woodrow Wilson appeared personally before Congress as a part of this general program. There was nothing of the "King's speech" in his manner or in his method. He believed that the President had become too remote a figure, that he needed to establish closer relations with Congress, and, therefore, with the people, that the drawing apart of the executive and the legislative branches had worked great ills in our public life. His personal appearances in Congress were merely part of his plan for bringing the two branches more closely together. The departure was one of the great successes of his administration.

There is little doubt that Jefferson, were he alive to-day, would speak his Presidential messages. In no way could he enter into such close relations with his beloved people. The radio-one can only faintly imagine how his scientific soul would have delighted in that!—would bring his voice into millions of American homes. Thus President Coolidge has a reason for personal delivery that even Woodrow Wilson did not have, and it is regrettable that he has given up this method of making himself part of the daily life of Americans.

S

AMUEL GOMPERS had two tasks

It is an eloquent indication of the change in American affairs, that, whereas the first Democratic President abandoned the Presidential speech in the interest of democracy, the latest restored it for precisely the same reason. A hundred years

as leader of American labor for the last fifty years: first, to improve the conditions of the working man, and, secondly, to keep the labor movement sane. The universal tribute paid since his death merely expresses the popular judgment that he succeeded in both these efforts. Even the notes of criticism. prove that, from these points of view, his life work was a triumph.

Ultra-conservative employers have not yet forgiven him for his strikes, for his

350

insistence on the eight hour day and increased wages, for his habit of looking at the industrial structure chiefly from the standpoint of the working man; on the other hand, ultra-radical labor leaders have not forgiven him for his adherence to the existing political and economic order, for his refusal to organize a separate labor party and accept the doctrines of "advanced thinkers" as to the proprietary right of labor in its output.

But

The collapse of the La Follette movement, after Gompers's endorsement, has been described as the great failure of his career. Properly considered, it was his greatest triumph. Labor's participation in a political party was the mistake against which Gompers had warned his followers for the past thirty years. he gave way in the La Follette instance, though with reluctance. The calamitous result was the strongest vindication he could have asked; it completely demonstrated that his consistent attitude had represented supreme wisdom. That the direction of labor may fall into less conservative hands, now that this strong personality has disappeared, is not unlikely; it will not be until this change takes place, however, that American industry will appreciate its debt to Samuel Gompers.

That the workingman is inevitably to obtain an increasing share in the profits of industry; that he is to labor fewer hours and under more healthful and congenial surroundings; that his children are to have better education, better household comforts, more enjoyment, even more luxurious living these truths are rapidly gaining a hold on the public mind. This is only another way of saying. that democracy is progressive, or it is not democracy.

The spreading of the American inheritance, material and spiritual, among the masses that is the American problem. This can be accomplished by working either within the present order or by destroying it and making a disastrous attempt to start anew. Expressed more tersely, it is to be evolution or revolution.

The way of Russia and of much European socialism is revolutionary, perhaps not unnaturally, for in a large part of Europe social abuses are so ancient and so deep seated that violence may be the only path of reform. For more than a thousand years, however, the genius of the Anglo-Saxon people has chosen the less disturbing and surer method. The long tested order has been preserved and, at the same time, the daily lives of the masses have been broadened. Gompers grasped this principle of progress as clearly as he grasped the merits of the European War and the duties of the United States in that crisis. This is the achievement that not only makes his fame secure, but points its lesson for all who succeed him.

The Courage of Scholarship

T

HERE is in the spirit of all research, be it in the sciences or in the arts, a quality of splendid intrepidity, and in the narrative of the leader of the Harvard Art Expedition into western China further proof of this is to be found.. Langdon Warner, fellow of the Fogg Museum of Art of Harvard University, accompanied by one other enthusiast recently graduated from the same university and by a Chinese interpreter and general factotum, lately journeyed from Peking in the east of China to the buried city of Edsin-gal in the far western corner of Inner Mongolia, across waste spaces that have not changed since Marco Polo's travels eight centuries ago.

In the course of agonizing marches through periods of bitter cold Mr. Warner's companion became severely ill. Even when the party had returned to Kanchow, a city in the far west of the Kansu Province, where he was afforded treatment, this heroic explorer did not forget the object of his quest. His mission then only half accomplished, seemed more important to him than the maladies of the flesh. There is in this the true flame of the enthusiast, the believer in a cause.

Mr. Warner pushed on to the western outpost of China proper, reaching the