September 7, 1927

'Washington Irving in person, but Mrs. William Cumming Story, president of the association which has bought the old house, thinks it quite well established that the old-bachelor author made it his town residence when he was living at Sunnyside, probably in the three years ending in 1856.

It is quite appropriate that the house should be owned and managed by the National Patriotic Builders of America, which has for its aim the fostering of the patriotic ideals of the Fathers of the Republic.

The author of the "Knickerbocker History" cannot be too much honored by the people of New York City. He laughed genially at their Dutch ancestors, but he loved them,

War Dangers in Peace Time

THA

HAT officers and men enlisted in the service of their country often lay down their lives in performing their duty has been illustrated again and again in collisions, submarine disasters, and gun explosions. This element of danger in peace is a part of the needed preparation against war, and lives so sacrificed are truly those of patriots.

In the case of the recent collision in Japanese waters in which a hundred and twenty-nine lives were lost, the two destroyers and two cruisers involved were engaged in war maneuvers on a dark, foggy night and without lights showing. The danger was excessive and overzeal in the endeavor of the destroyers to outflank and pass the cruisers led to the disaster. Within the same month thirtyeight men were killed and forty-seven were wounded by an explosion on a Japanese mine-layer, the Tokiwa.

As was fitting, honors have been paid by the Emperor and people of Japan to all these men who suffered in the nation's service, and Americans who recognize courage and devotion to country will join in sympathy for Japan's disastrous loss.

the best use of his time by doing some of his traveling by airplane. He went from New York to Toronto by air, and also by air from Toronto to Detroit to visit Henry Ford and to see the automobile and airplane factories there.

In choosing M. Maurice Bokanowski as their representative to the American and Canadian Bar Conventions, French lawyers selected one of the most distinguished members of the present coalition Cabinet. He came, in response to the American barristers' invitation, not only as the delegate of the association to which he brings credit, but also in a sense as the personal representative of two of the foremost French advocates whose duties prevent their attendance, Premier Poincaré, and the batonnier Aubépin, president of the French bar.

M. Bokanowski is young as men go in politics in France. He has held his seat as Deputy only since 1914, but in the

financial debates that marked the crisis

between 1924 and 1926 he won prompt recognition. He was appointed member of the Commission of Commerce and later of the Committee of Finance, where in 1922-4 he occupied the vital post of rapporteur général. During the Poincaré Ministry of 1924 M. Bokanowski was Minister of the Navy, and when the present Cabinet was formed a year ago he was called forward again, this time as Minister of Commerce.

In 1925 M. Bokanowski visited Washington as member of the Caillaux mission for the settlement of the French debt to the United States, and he holds progressive views on the question of reciprocal commerce between the two countries.

The Minister will find many things aside from the Bar Convention to study while he is in the United States. Under his direction come not only the mails, telephones, and telegraphs, which are all Government monopolies in France, but radio and aeronautics as well. It was by M. Bokanowski's department that facilities were placed at the disposal of the American transatlantic fliers. Americans, therefore, remembering with pleasure the cordial French reception to our aviators, have special reason for welcoming M. Bokanowski to this country.

Appointments to the Legion of Honor

THE French have always been most

gracious in their recognition of American merit, as demonstrated in their bestowal of the Legion of Honor upon leading citizens of this country. The list published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on August 17 included five American names, of which one was a promotion, and four appointments. The appointments were Albert N. Connett, Jr., of the Guaranty Trust Company;

Charles F. Goddard, managing director of the United Shoe Machinery Company; Edwin Scott, artist; and H. A. Webster, painter and etcher. The promotion was that of Walter Gay, artist, to the rank of Commander.

Mr. Gay first went to Paris to study art in 1876, having begun his career in 1873 by painting flower subjects. He studied under M. Bonnat, and was a constant exhibitor at the Paris Salon. The large picture "Benedicite," now in the museum in Amiens, and "Las Cigarreras," in the Luxembourg Gallery, are his work, and his pictures have also been purchased for the London, Boston, and Metropolitan Museums. Mr. Gay Mr. Gay was made a Chevalier in the Legion of Honor in 1894, and promoted to Officer in 1906.

The French ministries have a happy talent for rewarding home merit with the Legion of Honor in most unexpected

places. The Legion is by no means confined to the rich and the great, and social pedigrees are so utterly discounted as to make this organization one of the

most democratic honor societies in the world. Among these summer appointments, two will suffice to illustrate the point. On the list of the Minister of Commerce appears the name of M. Fargeas, a mail carrier who has been in the service for thirty-three years, and who was named for meritorious service. On the list of the Department of Agriculture is the Widow Hamant, mother of nine children, eight of whom are living and still attached to the soil. "For the dignity and the activity of her life," reads the notice of this woman who has been husbandless for twenty years, and who has nobly conducted her farm with the help of her young children, "she deserves to be cited as an example."

All honor to the Legion of Honor for such recognitions. Bottomley Redivivus

The Outlook for

When he reached his Sussex home, says a press despatch, "bands played, flags were hung out," and (climax of rural popularity) he "has been asked to present prizes at local fairs and has been cheered wherever he appeared in public."

Bottomley was convicted of a mean fraud-the misuse of money raised by

his "bond clubs" in which ex-soldiers, workers, and poor people generally invested. He had ability of a sort; we described him at the time as financial necromancer, orator extraordinary, journalist amazing, and hater of things American. His "John Bull" weekly had

an amazing circulation; what he offered his public was, wrote Mr. P. W. Wilson, a fellow-member of Parliament with Bottomley, "the pointed paragraph, the impudent but amusing sneer, the exposure of petty scandal, and great swelling words of discontent, denunciation, and vague aspiration." He made money by his howling patriotism.

Millions of half-educated and excitable people believed in him. It is quite likely that "John Bull" may be revived and Bottomley once more be a rallyingpoint for hysteria.

Egypt's "Grand Old Man " Dies

Z

AGHLUL PASHA is dead, and in Brit

ish Government offices in London there must have been sighs of relief. At the age of seventy-six years, Zaghlul was the inspiring head of the Egyptian Nationalist movement. Without him, agitation against British suzerainty is likely to subside, as similar agitation did in India after Gandhi was removed from active public life. The Suez Canal is unthreatened for another period.

Always irreconcilable and always energetic, Zaghlul concentrated and organized Egyptian unrest. From 1888, when the British occupied his country, he devoted himself to the cause of freeing Egypt from alien rule. Sometimes at home in Cairo and sometimes in exile, he never relaxed his will and never lost a chance to further his purpose. The period in which he centered international attention upon himself began with the termination of the World War, when he demanded recognition of Egyptian independence. He rose to be Prime Minister after Great Britain granted Egypt autonomy in 1922, and resigned his post rather than accept the penalties laid down by the British Government for the assassination of its representative in Cairo, Sir Lee Stack. Since then, although British recognition has been refused to Ministries formed by him, the Egyptian voters have persistently returned his party with a majority in Parliament. King Fuad, the nominal

September 7, 1927

ruler, has been forced to carry on the national affairs with minority Cabinets. The latest crisis arose from army reforms proposed by the Nationalist majority, and British battleships were ordered to Alexandria and the Suez Canal after a year of practically armed truce. But a general election, called in the hope of breaking Zaghlul's power, resulted in the capture of nearly nine out of ten of the legislative seats by his followers. The governmental deadlock continued, with Zaghlul as President of the Chamber.

What will happen with Zaghlul gone is uncertain. His party may temporarily lose spirit, or less shrewd heads may get control of it and drive it to extremes which will cause British intervention. The one thing certain is that no other Egyptian leader has his brains, the astuteness which made him avoid fatal breaks. The British hold on the Sudan and the vital Canal will be made easier. As always, time plays for the Empire, and death often proves its best friend.

Hungary's Prime Minister

'HE good boys in school are never

THE

well known. It is the bad ones that form the topic of discussion. So it is with Count Stephen Bethlen, of Hungary, who since April 15, 1921, has uninterruptedly held the reins of office, and who therefore goes his quiet, efficient way without very much being said about him.

The Peace Treaty, which reduced. Hungary to less than one-third of its former size, introduced countless new problems, political, social, and economic. As in most other European countries, the following years saw a mad succession of Cabinets, who were expected to work immediate miracles, and, failing, found themselves deposed. When, after many years of parliamentary life, Count Bethlen came to the helm in 1921, the country was in a chaos. Within a few months King Charles, who had been forced to abandon his throne by the Revolution of 1918, made his second and ill-advised attempt to regain it. What followed was one of the bitterest pages of Hungarian history, when, in reply to the demand not only of her neighbors, but of the Great Powers, the nation was compelled

to deliver up its crowned King and to pass the Dethronization Act, which put an end to the Hapsburg succession.

The National Assembly was completely shattered by these events, and proved incapable of passing constructive legislation for the development of the bicameral parliamentary system and the Suffrage Bill. It was dissolved at the suggestion of Count Bethlen, and the second National Assembly gave him the

support necessary for the passage of the reform bills. One of his most important achievements was obtaining the sympathy and support of the League of Nations for the financial reconstruction of the country, a program which was carried out in unexpectedly short time. The last elections for the new Par

Wide World

John St. Loe Strachey
1860-1927

liament, in December last, brought in an overwhelming majority in the Prime Minister's favor, demonstrating the continued faith of the country in his guid

ance.

He is now well into the seventh year of Premiership, the longest record of present-day Europe, and there are no signs of diminishing influence.

Count Bethlen has many affinities with the United States. He is, first of all, a great sportsman, fond of tennis, golf, and shooting. His wife is active in the literary world, with several novels to her credit, and his eldest son, who wishes to develop a business career for himself. is working in a bank in New York.

China Retells the Old Story
THE Nationalist movement in China,

that appeared triumphantly united a few months ago, now seems fatally divided. The radicals of Hankow and the moderates of Nanking are trying to come to some understanding while--with General Chiang Kai-shek in retirement after having led their victorious advance from Canton in South China to the Yangtze Valley in central China-the northern militarists advance. Marshal Feng Yu-hsiang, the "Christian Gen

eral," is now the nominal head of the Nationalist forces, but it is not certain what he intends to do.

General Sun Chuan-fang, of Shantung, has been pushing the Nationalists back from his strategically important province and threatening Nanking. Behind him, Marshal Chang Tso-lin, of Manchuria, titular "Generalissimo" of the northern armies, is reported to frown slightly on Sun's successes, fearing that he is gaining too much power. So disunity threatens the northerners also.

Unabashed, Premier Pan Fu, of the Peking administration, which still claims to be the rightful Government of China, has declared in an interview that "the expediency of calling upon the United States, Great Britain, and the other Powers to fulfill their promises of willingness to take up the matter of treaty revision with regard to China is being carefully considered." In other words, whether South or North is winning at the moment, the need to appeal to an evidently steady demand of public opinion forces the "top dogs" to challenge the privileged position of the Powers in China. The one thing upon which the Chinese are able to agree is their desire to get the "foreign devils" out.

John St. Loe Strachey

A

MONG the most understanding friends of America in England was John St. Loe Strachey. English to the marrow, imbued with the feeling, deeper than any formulated conviction, that an Englishman who has inherited advantages and opportunities owes whatever power they give him to the public service, conscious of the Empire as the background of every English problem, he had that breadth of mind that enabled him to look at another people that had none of the traditions which make England what it is and understand that people's life and ways of thinking. His death on August 26 at the age of sixtyseven brings to many Americans who were acquainted with him through his writings and his influence as a publicist a sense of loss.

From 1897 to 1925 he was editor and

proprietor of the "Spectator." Under his direction the "Spectator" not only maintained the high place that it had under R. H. Hutton but grew in influence. One might almost say that its position among weekly journals of England corresponds to that of the "Times" among daily newspapers. It had, and still maintains, a view of world affairs which was at once British and cosmopolitan.

On his retirement he relinquisbed con

trol of the "Spectator" to another understanding friend of America, the originating and active spirit of the EnglishSpeaking Union, Evelyn Wrench.

In English politics Mr. Strachey belonged by nature and circumstance in the middle of the road. When the Irish question became acute, he naturally found himself among the Liberal Unionists. Although the issues of the '80's and '90's had passed, he remained to the end liberally conservative or conservatively liberal, temperamentally averse to extremes. He could not be either a "die-hard" or a "Red." He foresaw the war, or at least the danger that Germany was bringing on; and during the war he was a valiant defender of the cause of the Allies. His career is a fine example of what high journalistic standards are when embodied in an active, intelligent, and informed personality.

Germany's Flag Controversy
THE

HE flag controversy which New York's debonair young Mayor inadvertently brought to a head upon his visit to Berlin has long been one of the most vexatious questions in German political life. Strong as republican Germany may be, the Government has never

felt able to enforce unqualified allegiance to the republican colors, and the flag of Imperial Germany remains the symbol of the Fatherland to the monarchist elements in German national life. In 1926 even the Government challenged the republican flag and in an amazing decree the Luther Cabinet instructed the foreign representatives of Germany abroad to place the old Imperial colors alongside the new. This aroused a storm of opposition among the liberal elements of the Reichstag. The Luther Government was defeated, and was replaced by a Cabinet formed from the same groups which had supported Luther, but headed by Chancellor Marx. It was then decided that the regulation of the former Government would be carried out until a commission could find a compromise flag.

Since then the Nationalists, with their monarchist sympathies, have continued to fly the old flag, the republicans and Socialists stand by the new. In the present instance the Berlin hotel at which Mayor Walker was to be entertained refused to fly the republican colors out of respect for its Nationalist clientele, and fell under the boycott of the city Council and of the state of Prus

sia. The Federal Government, however, satisfied its scruples with an ineffectual protest, and its representative attended a dinner where the American flag and the flag of Imperial Germany were the chief decorations.

The flag has become a symbol of the continuing struggle between republicans and monarchists; it is an issue on which clash the old order and the new in the life of modern Germany.

A Challenge to Ireland

D

RAMA on a national scale is being staged in Ireland. President Cosgrave, of the Irish Free State, has put the future of his Government in the hands of the Irish people. After defeating his antagonists of the radical republican faction, both in the lower chamber of the national Parliament and in two critical by-elections in Dublin, he has dissolved the Parliament and called for new general elections. The move is not mere shrewd politics, as some of his critics have said, but statesmanship informed by practical political sense of a high order.

Warnings of the present conflict ap

September 7, 1927

peared last year when Eamonn De Valera, once chief of the Sinn Fein irreconcilables, quit that party and formed a new faction under the name of Fianna Fail. In contrast with his earlier refusal to take any part in the affairs of the Free State, he began to advocate entry of Irish republicans into the Parliament if and when the oath of allegiance to the King should be abolished. That oath he continued to regard as treason to the cause of Ireland. Then, this spring, the success of his faction in winning over forty seats in the Dail Eireann, the lower chamber, put the temptation of power more definitely in his way. In combination with the Labor Party and the National League, both opposed to the Government, he saw a chance to control a narrow majority in the chamber and overthrow the Government. So he agreed to take the oath as a formality not binding upon the members of his faction, and the Fianna Fail delegates took their seats. Only by virtue of the abstention of one National League member from voting, it will be recalled, did the radicals fail to turn the Government out.

President Cosgrave, having faced his foes in the Parliament and barely escaped disaster, adjourned the session to await the outcome of two doubtful byelections in the capital city of Dublin. If the Government should win them, observers predicted, he would carry on in office with his Ministry and count on a demonstration of constructive economic policy to strengthen his position gradually. But Dublin-with the memory of the killing of Kevin O'Higgins, the Foreign Minister, still keen-spoke for the Government candidates by smashing majorities. Cosgrave at once did the unexpected and challenging thing. Instead of accepting a temporarily safe position, he threw the issue to the country.

In effect he has said to the Irish people: "You have seen the crisis and the threat. You have seen the attempt to upset the Government responsible for the treaty of peace with England that has put you in charge of your own affairs for the first time in seven centuries. You have seen O'Higgins wantonly murdered by assassins. Now do you want the old strife and turmoil back, and English soldiers again in Ireland, or do you want the present order continued? Dublin has spoken in no uncertain terms. But the voice of the capital is not enough. It is for you to say."

Thus confronted by a responsible executive and an irresponsible agitator, it is inconceivable that the people of Ire

11

land will fail to choose the reality of the Free State.

forces. The standards of 1805 are still useful even in 1927.

G

REAT liners recently entered the Port of New York, and their passengers recounted tales of victory over unprecedented seas. The captain of the Martha Washington told of winds of Force 12, and newspaper accounts of the storm repeated this awesome figure without any very clear indication that the writers of the headlines knew what Force 12 meant. It sounded bad enough, in all conscience, but it was used by the ship news reporters in the manner of an incomprehensible nautical term beyond the understanding of landlubbers.

Force 12 and the eleven numbers which are applied to winds have a history of nearly a century and a quarter. It dates back, then, well into sailing-ship times, and owes its invention to the ingenuity of that famous British hydrographer, Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort. In 1805 he was in command of the store-ship Woolwich, and wished to find a method of rendering his ship's log both concise and comprehensive. He developed a table of wind strengths, based on the effect of the wind upon sailing ships, which ran from zero to twelve. When the wind was of Force 0 a full-rigged ship with all sails set would be without steerage way. With the wind at Force 12 it would be scudding under bare poles. At Force 5 this same ship could carry its royals while sailing on the wind. A coasting smack at Force 5 would have to begin to shorten sail.

The winds as Beaufort described them, translated into terms of velocities, are as follows:

I

ing of America

Na world in which dictatorship (whether of the Soviet or the Fascist variety) is trying to grapple with democracy (whether in politics or in industry or in any other sphere of life) America, working out the experiment of democracy, is bound to be misrepresented and misunderstood. In America, under a developing democracy where not only are the people in control of their Government but wage-earners and consumers are coming more and more into ownership and control of industry by democratic methods, there is a wider diffusion of well-being than has existed anywhere else at any time on such a scale. Naturally, therefore, in such a country as Russia and among such parties as the European Communists anything which can be used to discredit American democracy is seized upon. Mr. Hillquit, an American representative of the opponents of the democratic experiment, uses the language of the Communists in denouncing the Sacco-Vanzetti case as "one of the most striking instances of capitalistic vindictiveness in dealing with working-class captives in the class war." Quotations of this sort from statements made in Russia, Germany, France, and Italy might be made indefinitely.

But misrepresentation based on real misunderstanding is to be found elsewhere abroad. It seems to be hard for Europeans to understand us. This has been revealed anew by remarks upon the Sacco-Vanzetti case.

This is partly due to the fact that Europe cannot understand a country in which there are no permanent barriers between classes. Europe, it seems, cannot realize that many men in this country are both capitalists and laborers, both bourgeoisie and proletariat-to use terms that in the United States really have no meaning or have meaning only in relation to those groups that are bits of Europe transplanted. Only those in America use the term class war who live in a foreign atmosphere and think in foreign terms.

There is another reason why Europe does not understand the United States. The American legal system is entirely different from the European. One instance may suffice. In France, for example, a case on appeal may be tried wholly anew, as Professor Eugene Wambaugh, of Harvard, pointed out at Williamstown the other day, while here.