6 Is an All-Powerful Legislature Desirable? placed upon it. It is virtually a proposal to abolish the Constitution itself, for, if Congress is held down by no reservations, it can freely disregard that fundamental document. It becomes the judge of the constitutionality of its own acts. and from its conclusions there can be no appeal. For example, the Constitution says that Congress shall not establish a state religion or interfere with any one's free exercise of his own. If Mr. La Follette should have his way, Congress could establish the Roman Catholic, the Methodist, the Presbyterian, or the Christian Science as the state church, levy taxes to support it, and visit heavy penalties upon non-conformists. At present Congress cannot create titles of nobility; under Senator La Follette's plan it could do so without stint. Congress cannot now suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus (except at stated crises), abolish trial by jury, or levy taxes on goods imported from one state to another; if the veto power of the Supreme Court is removed, it will have power to do all these things. The fact that it will have to abuse its power and disregard the Constitution itself, in order to pass such laws, does not affect the point; the point is that the Supreme Court is the body which prevents the law-makers from overriding the Constitution and passing laws in violation of its provisions, and thus the La Follette amendment would remove the one restraining influence in the government that protects the people from this kind of exploitation and tyranny. So long as we have a written constitution, with all these safeguards and limitations, there must be a guardian hand, representing the people, protecting the people from unwarranted encroachments; if the Supreme Court did not exist, therefore, something performing the same duty would have to be invented. Mr. La Follette has stated his issue inaccurately; he should frankly propose that the American people abandon its Constitution and adopt the parliamentary system. That would be a subject or a highly interesting discussion. Europe and the Will to Peace T HE world has been much more impressed by the present meeting of the League of Nations Assembly than by any of its previous gatherings. Certainly a body of men whose plans and discussions can claim columns of space, day after day, for many weeks, in American newspapers, is an important influence in the world. This is a final test of success whose significance cannot be ignored. It is easy to minimize this organization and to point to what may seem to be its list of minor achievements. It is doubtless true that the most important developments since the War in the promotion of peace and disarmament have been accomplished outside of the League itself. Against such achievements as the Washington Conference, with its definite steps for naval limitation and its provision for the peaceful adjustment of Far-Eastern quarrels, and the Dawes plan for the settlement of German reparations, the League has to its credit minor triumphs such as the Austrian loan, its part in the settlement of the Italo-Greek dispute a year ago, and the creation of the International Court. This year's session, however, has launched the machinery for a more effective system of arbitration than the world has had before. It has taken steps toward the admission of Germany as a member-a new and previously unpopular recruit which is really essential to the successful working of the League. It has also laid plans for a disarmament conference, which will probably convene next year and consume many months in an effort to do something for the armies of the world in some degree comparable to the limitations that the Washington Conference put upon naval competition. But the definite performances of the present session, important as they are, do not constitute the League's most important work. Mankind Mankind is gradually learning that the mere coming together, year after year, of many of the world's leading statesmen, who devote their time for many weeks to the great subject of peace, is the most-permanently important thing about the League of Nations. That the League machinery may be inadequate for certain definite tasks, that it may easily fail even at critical moments, that it may disappoint its admirers, be flouted and even jeered at all these things are true, and they are equally true of most great causes that have exercised a profound influence on human history. They are all true of Christianity itself. Yet the fact that Europe is thinking more of peace than of war is of incalculable value. Its best brains are now devoting their energies to formulating plans by which the antagonistic nations may be kept from flying at one another's throats, whereas formerly these same brains were busily occupied with plans for aggression and conquest. From 1870 to 1914 Germany spent her days and nights devising ways to fire her people's minds with "the will to war." That was the best possible method of making war inevitable. The great function of the League of Nations. is to create in the minds of Europe the "will to peace." That is similarly the most successful means of making peace inevitable. The result will be, that nations will be more careful in the future about springing to arms or about creating a situation out of which war is the only way. breathe more easily and look forward more reassuredly to the future as this great scheme of reorganization goes into effect. The Golden Age has not returned, but certainly a new prospect has opened to an exhausted world. There is one group, however, utterly dissatisfied with the Dawes report and actively conducting a campaign for its obliteration. The Steuben Society of America is an organization of German immigrants and their descendants. Its purpose is to preserve intact “the German influence in American life," to uphold the Deutschtum as a distinct oasis in the American organization, to insist on the German language as the spoken tongue of Americans of German origin. Its great mission, that is, is the extension of hyphenism. In war days much was heard of the Steuben Society, but since the Armistice it has been quiescent. The campaign of Mr. La Follette, however, has again enlisted its activities, and "Why We Are for La Follette" is the title of a broadside to which it is giving wide dissemination. The main reason these German-Americans are for La Follette is apparently because his election will tend to bring about a revision of the Treaty of Versailles which would relieve Germany of her present responsibilities The Steuben Society and the Dawes and restore her to her old position in the Report HE Dawes report, providing at economic and political system. Among several other resolutions of similar tenor is the following: last a satisfactory plan for the RESOLVED, That we deprecate the Dawes settlement of the European problem, is generally hailed as one of the great accomplishments of the time. It is the only plan that the several governments of Europe have found upon which they could agree. Great Britain accepts it as the ultimate establishment of peace. France, most difficult when it comes to readjusting her relationships with Germany, stakes her political and economic future upon it. Germany, though called upon to make heavy sacrifices and really to put herself in a receivership, has solemnly pledged herself to abide by this new agreement. Practically all parts of Europe and the United States at last plan as lacking in latitude for the application of reconstructive principles, as a mere makeIshift which does not adequately meet the requirements of the crisis in the world's affairs, and as an instrument in the hands of the international bankers and the irreconcilable enemies of reconstruction and the world peace to exercise the power of enslavement against generations yet unborn. There are many queer side issues to American politics, and this little battle waged by a waged by a certain element among German-Americans for the defeat of the Dawes plan is one of the comedies of the campaign—a dash of humor, however, not without its ominous significance. 8 "Friendly" Assistance to Disraeli and McKinley Premier Macdonald and His T Motor Car HE morality of public men is always a deeply interesting subject, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries. The United States has recently uncovered a scandal in the Federal Government that caused good citizens black despair. A Secretary of the Interior awarded oil contracts on the public domain to a well-known millionaire, who afterward gave him $100,000 in a black satchel. Both parties to the proceeding are now under indictment and awaiting trial. Simultaneously Mr. Macdonald, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, has become involved in a transaction which, at least on the surface, has most unpleasant implications. He receives a gift of $150,000 from a Scottish millionaire as an endowment of a motor car, and, a month afterward, bestows a baronetcy upon his benefactor. Are there any similarities in these two transactions? In certain ways they are not unlike. Both Mr. Macdonald and Mr. Fall personally profit from money gifts bestowed by men to whom, by virtue of their official positions, they grant important favors. Curiously enough the defenses of the two men are the same. Mr. Macdonald explains that Sir Alexander Grant, his benefactor, is a life-long friend, whose purpose in making the gift is purely personal and that the subsequent governmental favor extended to him has nothing to do with the endowed motor car. That is precisely what Mr. Fall says about Mr. Doheny and his $100,000. There is one great difference in the two transactions. The bestowal of a baronetcy is quite an insignificant favor compared with the alienation of great oil reserves set apart for the use of the Navy. The existence of one more of these baubles does not prejudice the public interest, whereas the ravishment of great public properties is a serious matter. Yet the fundamental principle is not different in the two cases. Should the holder of an official position use that posi tion for private advantage? Mr. Macdonald's defenders of course insist that he has not done this; that the two transactions have no relation with each other, and not improbably that is the fact; yet the record still stands and it is almost as important that a Prime Minister should avoid the appearance of evil as that he should avoid evil itself. For the case of Cæsar's wife, true at the beginning of the present era, still holds good. To what extent can a public official accept financial assistance from sources other than the Government itself? The question has come up in many forms. It was no secret that Daniel Webster, while Senator from Massachusetts, was financially assisted by public-spirited citizens of his state. William McKinley's debts in bankruptcy were paid by a group of friends who knew that these debts would make impossible his nomination for the Presidency. Benjamin Disraeli, as Prime Minister of Great Britain, was almost as famous for his debts as for his bons mots and was probably more worried by the money lenders than by the distracting domestic and foreign politics of his day. His latest biographers, Monypenny and Buckle, have described how a friend assisted him in these crises. and how Disraeli's gratitude led him to offer a peerage in reward. This is almost a parallel case to Mr. Macdonald's, the significant point being that Mr. Montagu, Disraeli's benefactor, declined to accept the proffered honor. The history of these and of other cases of gratitude indicates that the wise. public man is he who keeps himself carefully aloof from all financial obligations. The temptation is great, the innocence of the whole proceeding in many cases apparent—as in that of Mr. Macdonald-but the public has an amazing talent for malice and misinterpretation. There are few of McKinley's admirers who do not wish that his financial embarrassment did not constantly come to the fore, demanding explanation, and Mr. Macdonald's motor car, harmless as it is, will plague him for many years. An Invaluable Training for Citizenship between the ages of twelve and eighteen become enrolled, but also young women who, as citizen scouts, learn to take active parts in the lives of their neighborhoods and as wage-earners or service-givers become true assets to even larger communities. Thus the Girl Scouts have become an influence of the utmost value and significance in the lives of American girls and women. The austere womanhood of Sparta stressed but one phase of development, the physical, and the courage that so often goes with the well-muscled human being. But the womanhood of America profits by the experience of the centuries. For there is the mental phase too, and the spiritual. T WAS once the boast of Sparta that her womanhood stood as well prepared as her manhood to carry to victorious conclusions the many wars of her dominion, for, in accordance with the law of Lycurgus, not only the young men but also the girls of Lacedæmon were practiced in the exercises of the stadium and the field. By a somewhat analogous process the womanhood of the United States is becoming daily a more capable and more highly developed factor of the nation's citizenship. The organization of the Girl Scouts takes the place of the Tablets of Lycurgus. It has become the dominant influence in the lives of thousands of girls who two decades ago would have Married Women and Maiden Names remained until old age claimed them, uninformed, undeveloped physically and to a certain extent mentally, and of less than full value to the country. Now these girls become at an early age, some of them as early as eight or nine, units in a group system that trains them in three interests that will become most vital to them: home, health, and citizenship. The Girl Scouts organization was founded in 1912 by Mrs. Juliette Low, in Savannah, Georgia. The original enrollment was but a handful, but in the course of a trifle more than a decade it has grown to 130,000 members, with organizations in every state and in Hawaii, Porto Rico, and Alaska. The complete registration of the Girl Scouts Incorporated, as they are now called, with headquarters at 189 Lexington Avenue, New York, amounts to 203,762 members. The extraordinary development of this movement can be explained by one thing only: the tremendous demand and appreciation of the work it accomplishes in taking girls at a formative period in their lives and instructing them in mental and physical hygiene and in the use of their minds and bodies to the benefit of their communities and, beyond these, of their country. The proof of the maturity and soundness of the training that it supplies may be found in the fact that not only do girls I N REFUSING to pay a married woman's salary unless she signs her husband's name to the payroll, the Interior Department has forced to the light one of the minor issues of the feminist movement. The Interior Department has followed the example of the State Department, which for years has declined to issue passports to a married woman except in her husband's name. The reluctance of certain advanced women to adopt a married cognomen is apparently increasing. It is the way the apostles of the new era assert their independence, and prove to the world that a woman is a woman for a' that. The idea evidently prevails that the assumption of a man's name is a relic of slavery, an outworn reminder of the days when woman was merely a chattel, a relic of barbarism. Is it a fact that the use of a common name by all members of the family, and that the name of the husband and father, is a survival of the pre-glacial age, and therefore a badge of the inferior moral status of woman? It would be interesting to have the views on this subject of certain profound students of the family relation, such as the late Professor Sumner, of Yale. One would especially like to hear him, with his amazing knowledge of human institutions and his fine 10 Feminism in the Fiji Islands and in the United States and ironic gift for lucid exposition, dilate upon this topic. Not improbably Professor Sumner would quickly show these Washington feminists that the use of a husband's name, far from being a mark of inferiority and subjection, was an eloquent sign of woman's improved status in civilized society. The fundamental reason why a married woman takes her husband's name is the preservation of family unity. Certain social philosophers -possibly misguided men-regard the evolution of the family as the greatest fact in European civilization. Certainly the nations in which the family organization is most sacredly preserved are the ones in which the position of woman is most dignified and independent. The family, in the European or American sense, does not exist in Mohammedan or Oriental countries, and certainly the status of woman in Turkey, in Persia, or in China. is one that the average American or European woman would hardly care to have for her own. Even Miss Alice Paul, the leader of the present agitation, probably does not aspire to destroy the family as the great social unit. The use of an identical cognomen by all family members-husband, wife, and children-is not only a great social convenience, practically indispensable for the purpose of identification, but it is also, properly considered, a not unlovely symbol of this fine relationship. But why the husband's? Why not use the wife's name, as, in certain exceptional cases, is sometimes done? The reason is because every family should have a head, not necessarily for purposes of social dominance, but for the purpose of tracing descent. That descent is traced through the father is one of the greatest triumphs of civilization. It is the basis of morality in all modern communities and it is the highest tribute which the world pays to the worth of woman. It has taken civilization countless ages to reach this exalted conception. In primitive societies descent is traced not through the father, but the mother. This is known as the matriarchate. The reason is obvious: in such communities sex relations are so promiscuous that the father is unknown. There are many savage tribes to-day where the descent is traced through the mother. Such is the practice among the Fiji Islanders, the Senegalese, and the lowest races of the Congo and Australia. Mr. Donald B. MacMillan has recently told us that the matriarchate prevails among the Esquimaux. All these savages make woman the head of the family, for the father is unknown. The fact therefore that, in Europe and in those nations (such as the United States) that are merely Europe transplanted, the family name is the father's name, simply indicates the improved status of woman which is perhaps the greatest social achievement of the ages. Of course the adoption of the husband's name by the wife is merely one essential phase of this custom. Even the most advanced feminists follow the practice, in one form or another. It is Miss Paul's theory that the use of a man's name by a woman is a mark of subjection. But Miss Paul herself bears a man's name her father's. Is it not just as degrading to be the "chattel" of one's father as of one's husband? Nor is the problem solved by a woman taking her mother's name, for that, again, is her grandfather's and so the odium remains. Possibly one solution would be for husband and wife, on marriage, to discard their old appellations and assume a new and common one; but that likewise destroys family unity, for even the most advanced Americans like to retain a certain association with their fathers and mothers. There is apparently no way out of it, except the continuance of the present usage, with the distinct understanding that it is merely a social convenience, indulged in for preserving family unity, making clear that American social life has risen above the stage of the matriarchate, and chiefly perhaps, saving embarrassment certain occasions, such as registering at hotels and traveling on steamships. Meanwhile there are other far more important matters demanding the best energies of those who are seeking to improve the position of woman and the family. on |