Week by Week

...Perhaps the whole history of ancient America yet remains to be discovered and written...

...The experience of occasional scholars and period experts, who from time to time have been tempted to Hollywood by the offer of large, if temporary, salaries, has not been encouraging...

...Nor is this all...

...MEANTIME, it is a pleasure to read a comment by Mr...

...By sheer force of example it elevated the tone of district administration throughout the United States...

...Meighan, who was on his way to Ireland to take part in a film when caught by the interviewer, takes a common-sense view of the matter and his words sound convincing...

...The great majority of Christian citizens," he repeated, "will never submit to a new legacy of alcohol trade...

...The French mind, unlike the British, is a consciously historical one...

...Plunging into a flooded river to rescue a companion who had been carried away by the torrent, Father Vaughan, who was a strong swimmer, struggled for hours against the current, supporting the rescued man with one hand while with another he fought his way to one submerged tree trunk after another, until both were in safety...

...1 HE success of the Tulane expedition to the hitherto little explored regions of Mexico and Central America, once more calls attention to the' remarkable age of American civilization...

...Wirth has been one of the first and ablest to call attention to the necessity for reawakening the German Catholic political consciousness...

...At its proper time and in its proper place, we are pretty sure to have the full text of Dr...

...1 HIS view may be entirely wrong-headed—it may be but a variation of the old "perfide Albion" cry, and it certainly fails to take due heed of the help so heroically given, the heavy sacrifices in life and limb, cheerfully borne by the island empire, or the load of taxation its people have assumed...

...Enter into the race, therefore, of his own accord Mr...

...It has not forgotten the Napoleonic era, and one may be quite sure it does not omit to draw the parallel that exists between Pitt's scheme of fighting France through the northern powers, and Sir William Grey's opportunity to crush the German menace through republican France...

...But, having won their campaign, the retention of its fruits has become more than a point of honor with what Mr...

...The tomb of "King X," with its elaborate sculpture and its evidences of funereal ritual, is likely to become as renowned as the resting-place of the now notorious Egyptian monarch, King Tut...

...The conviction seems to be penetrating the head of even the professional optimist that conferences, when all that is brought to them are irreconcilable views and a sense of grievance on both sides, are largely sparring for wind...

...but though the young men were not always conservative, the Daily News was...

...From the extract cabled by the Associated Press it is evident that for the doctor, no mirage at all of light wines and beer glimmers above the sands of Volstead...

...It is not difficult to see what those traditions have been...

...Hope for the party would seem to lie in the formation of what it has never possessed before—a definite political and social platform based upon the traditions of Catholic Germany...

...Kane's scheme is a pretty frank indication that this phase of effort is over and that the technician is in control...

...The total amount of the subsidies that poured into the laps of German, Russian and Austrian princes, between 1750 and 1815 will probably never be known...

...Not the least of his achievements was a campaign for the erection of Newman College, the Catholic centre at the University of Melbourne, begun by Archbishop Carr and finished by Archbishop Mannix...

...Kane's plan of education in its conventions is likely to secure is a still slimmer chance of unfettered talent breaking through them...

...The parasitic scheme of attempting to reduce novels and stage plays to the screen play, will not do...

...r EW men in American journalism have been so successful as Victor Fremont Lawson, whose death is mourned far beyond the limits of his city of Chicago...

...1 HE resignation of Dr...

...In an effort to tear the mantle of Robert La Follette into shreds, and dispose anew of the political destinies of the West, a Republican caucus was held to contest the nomination of the great senator's son...

...We should regret any marked abandonment by Wisconsin of the forwardlooking policy which was so characteristic of it as a commonwealth...

...It is rather surprising how little attention the big journals in London and England generally give to any consideration of the psychology that has been produced in the French mind, official and unofficial, by the absolutely unprecedented circumstances under which the war was fought and finished...

...Its protection now absorbs the energy and challenges the pride of many thousands of masterful and ambitious men, too long condemned to a role that kept them out of the public consciousness for six days in the seven...

...The attention of patrons of what was still an innovation was directed to boundless horizons, to a prospect of dramatic presentation of the world's classics, which, as some compensation for the silent gesture, would bring its own contribution of "closeups," "fade-aways," "visions," arid "cut-ins...

...That journal, under its new editorship, maintains the high standard which has always existed, and we refer to it again because the issue for August contains an article on San Juan Capistrano Mission in California, which will be found of great interest to Catholics—whether they are acquainted with that spot or not...

...conservative maxims were flung abroad recklessly...

...In advertising phrase, it was to be "drama dIus...

...and when the cigars had withered, it was found that Mr...

...His career will be followed with interest, because he has proved himself, during long and difficult years, singularly able, righteous and disinterested...

...His further statement that "we in this industry are paying genius prices to mediocrity," rings much more like the knell of "easy money" than a tocsin call to "better movies...

...Kane has some hard things to say with reference to the adaptations of novels which producers, in close combination with ambitious publishers, have given to the screen...

...But that it exists is undeniable...

...We think it would become clear that despite one case—or even a hundred cases—to the contrary, environment is the strongest factor in the development of a human being...

...Unfortunately, that is a difficult thing to do...

...The conquered ground is doubly precious, first as an earnest of re-acquired influence in the state, then as a sally-point from which new and further-reaching encroachments upon the human will are to be directed in no far future...

...Meantime it is guarded by hooded dragons and watched by a Cyclopean eye...

...i\ N heroic and hard-working Australian priest, Father P. A. Vaughan, has just died at Wiesbaden, Germany—the belated victim to an act of gallantry performed by him some years ago while on a mission in the province of Victoria...

...The great leaders—Gorres, Ketteler, Mallinckrodt— were committed to what is termed "Volkstum...

...His share in the upbuilding of the Associated Press—a great share—was bound up with a firm desire to make this cooperative news agency cautious and 382 THE COMMONWEAL September 2, 1925 dependable...

...Prescott had already paid some attention to similar strange traces...

...Neither was the 380 THE COMMONWEAL September 2, 1925 devastation endured by the nations which bore the brunt of Napoleon's ambitions, at all comparable to that which fell on the bulwark provinces of France...

...Under the imperial system, a tripartite arrangement was not bizarre because the power of the crown remained a final arbiter of whatever the parliamentary bodies decided upon...

...It may have set up its own standard of what constitutes good news, but it has kept a firm eye on actualities and details...

...Like the appointment of Mr...

...IT needs only a moment's reflection to perceive that what would really be secured by a chain of scenario chairs at seats of learning, would be more and more standardization, and less and less prospect of any connection between the new arts and the old ones persisting, even in its attenuated form...

...Wilcox had been selected to "purge the state of radicalism...

...Young men learned how to write English in the rickety old offices which were rather typical of Mr...

...Cannon (by request) had resumed his seat, make somewhat of a contrast, and a sharp schism would seem to impend...

...So eloquent, indeed, did the Bishop grow as he described the felicities of aridity for his fellows from moister lands—by so many minutes did he exceed the space allotted each speaker, that his hearers, either unable to bear the vision of an ideal they had failed to reach for a moment longer, or just plain tired, took the unusual and unchristian course of begging their visitor to conclude his remarks and rest his case...

...Mencken calls the Baptist-Methodist bloc...

...It will be interesting, and not least of all because it continues to show that man, no matter how far removed from or anterior to European civilization, was engrossed in the practice of the arts and concerned with an immaterial destiny...

...and his simple grave will continue to be a notable place...

...but the newer science virtually discredited the methods and theories of Prescott...

...Oratory waxed furious...

...THE offer of President Kane, of the "Robert T. Kane Productions," to endow a chair of scenario writing at one of the more prominent universities at $5,000.00 a year, or, if rumor does not lie, at about the weekly salary and takings of some of the more authentic stars, need not be taken too seriously...

...Maya culture, extending not merely to the arts like pottery, but also to intricate engineering feats and knowledge of practical science, is testified to by newly gathered collections that rival anything found, hitherto in archaeological remains...

...But while this may be considered the immediate cause of Dr...

...In company with his archbishop, who was on his way to England and Ireland in 1920, he was removed from the liner, Baltic, by a British destroyer, and landed at Penzance instead of Liverpool...

...The psalmist has told us that "in bitterness there is no wisdom...

...And charity, like honesty, is a splendid insurance policy...

...A kind of oldfashioned American candor and simplicity governed the paper, which only seldom condescended to be sensational and which issued its endless pages of advertising with a judicious care none of its rivals could emulate...

...Cannon's discourse, including the portion that his fellow Christians at Stockholm were not worthy to hear...

...N OW, however (as would be the case in any modern republic) the Catholic Centrum is a kind of badly pummeled buffer between conservatives and radicals...

...Wisconsin has meant something definite and salutary in the conduct of politics...

...1 HE sensational venture of Mr...

...Nor is it likely that the cold statistics furnished by the Reverend Henry Carter (of England) had any better luck, though they showed that, contrary to general impression, consumption of alcohol in England has been reduced 41 and drunkenness 59 percent by the sane exercise of a control that war exigencies left in the energetic hands of the British government...

...Browning and his "Cinderella Mary" was probably hurried to its denouement by the cheap perfume sprayed over the millionaire's adoption of his temporary child by those newspapers which specialize in pictures and putrid probing...

...1T is rather interesting to take note of the temperate expectations aroused in England by Caillaux's visit on debt-funding business, and to compare them with the confident expectations that used to be aroused in days when it was considered only necessary for the old allies to "get together" for some mutually satisfactory scheme to evolve itself...

...and that if a waif is given the proper sort of physical, mental and religious training, he will usually prove an honorable asset to those who have taken him to their hearts...

...Small wonder that it should be torn in places and badly mauled in others...

...But there is still less wisdom in refusing to take account of it, and in failing to recognize a plea in abatement that is none the less actual because it may not be officially uttered...

...Therefore America cannot be anything but grateful to Mr...

...The British government's preference for seeing it end without any counter-invasion, or the holding of a nation to ransom through the same armed means used by Germany in 1871, is seen in that same French mind as largely due to the fact that Britain's aim in eliminating her rival for a long term of years had been secured, and that new political combinations, always possible in the future, rendered it inadvisable to press the conquered enemy too hard...

...For the latter course he could see "no footing in the people's mind or in justice...

...FATHER VAUGHAN was a prominent worker for education in the newest of all the continents, and his loss will be severely felt...

...W HAT distinguishes your true-blue dry advocate from commoner men is his immunity to any figures or forms of argument save such as buttress his case...

...The dead priest is thus described by a friend in the London Universe —"A truer Australian, or a more lovable personality, could not be imagined...

...Under present circumstances the conservative policy of the Right parties dominant in the Reichstag, renders it next to impossible to pass legislation favorable to the unprivileged...

...It became the favorite home reading of Chicagoites—the paper that was trusted, respected, and followed...

...ACCORDINGLY the voting public—for in Wisconsin senators are chosen by popular vote—is faced with the job of distinguishing between various shades and tints of Progressive conviction...

...Yet it is also true that the lonely man selected not a little girl, but a woman—and suffered the consequences...

...1 HE impression latent in the average French mind is that the war was Britain's to the full as much as France's—that by fighting it on France's frontiers, she secured an inestimable advantage, and one which, seeing the development of air and submarine offensive might very possibly never occur again...

...But taking the comparative value of money today and early in the nineteenth century, it must have been a staggering sum, and if any demand for its return was made, history keeps no record of it...

...McGovern, whose period of service as governor entitles him to more respect than he might otherwise have, and who entertains a fondness for the memory of "Bob...

...It is even a strenuous task to cleanse the G. O. P. itself of a fondness for the emancipatory past...

...But it is quite evident that what he has in mind in proposing a break-away to original work, is not a movement of the continuity writers to meet literary and artistic standards, hitherto discarded to such an extent that the novel or play reaches movie patrons in a form that their very authors would fail to recognize, but a rigid imposition of its standards from the very start...

...But there is a good deal of difference between facing this fact and endowing the thousands engaged in making pictures with a double dose of original sin...

...An operation performed in Germany was apparently successful, when heart trouble supervened, and he passed away on August 8. The brave act which undermined the noble priest's health was widely reported in the Australian and English press at the time...

...And so Victor Fremont Lawson is signally worthy of remembrance because he npt merely respected the ethics of his profession, but proved those ethics profitable...

...Lawson for his long and varied service...

...Will Hays as movie czar, it has all the air of being one of those gestures made from time to time by an enterprise which has come to be the second or third in the country in point of capital invested, towards the critics of the new art...

...I HAT must have been a rosy picture of dry America with which Bishop James Cannon of Washington, D. C, regaled his hearers at the Universal Christian Conference at Stockholm, Sweden, recently...

...Upon many an occasion it attacked conditions in municipal and state government with a vigor that influenced elections...

...Childhood is a trust, a great and life-giving trust, to those who seek the radiance of its innocence...

...1 HE views which fellow conferees at Stockholm got a chance to hear when Dr...

...They wished, without conceding that modern liberal assumptions are correct, to build a government that would have social solidarity for its chief practical purpose...

...The sympathetic tone of the article by William T. Clerk may be judged from his statement regarding the foundation of the Franciscan missions in California, that "no similar achievement was ever recorded in the history of the world...

...Wirth, like several other very notable Centrists, is deeply interested in agrarian and labor reforms...

...Acting," he declares, "is difficult, tedious work, and the additional strain imposed by the orgies one reads about would be too much to bear...

...At a time when western newspapers paid much more attention to political squabbles than to accurate newsgetting and public service, Mr...

...The keen business minds that have taken charge of the situation are by now pretty well assured of what the public wants—or rather, since the mere movie habit has become an international trait, of what it will stand and pay money to see...

...W HEN referring in a previous issue to the death of Professor Carroll Mitchell, we took occasion to refer to the excellence of the articles and the illustrations in Art and Archaeology, the organ of the Archaeological Society of Washington, of which Professor Mitchell was editor for many years...

...Father Vaughan figured in another occurrence which caused widespread comment at the time, and which was one of the less fortunate incidents of the war...

...and all Mr...

...All of which is important because it signifies how utterly rudderless the political situation in the Northwest was left by the death of La Follette...

...All of us will hope that the drab publicity given the business will not have the effect of discouraging those whose homes are empty from adopting an orphan or a homeless child...

...Father Vaughan, who at the time of his death was secretary to Archbishop Mannix, left Melbourne with the Australian pilgrimage to Rome last April, and was striken with illness in London...

...Happiness has come to so many people through opening their domestic doors to some strange waif, that it would really be a service in the interests of national wellbeing to collect data showing how often the instinct of motherhood or fatherhood has been satisfied by the orphanage or the foundling home...

...But each new discovery merely reemphasizes the brutality and religious ruthlessness of these ancient Americans...

...Lawson began to make the Daily News an evening journal of perfect independence and more than usual integrity...

...On the other hand, German students and explorers in South America feel that they are coming upon dependable vestiges of pre-Spanish Christianity...

...The ark in which our Bible commentators of the newer and drier school have deposited their "cake of raisins" and flasks of grape-juice will soon have new and surprising contents...

...A discerning writer in Hochland points out the anomalous position that the Catholic group has been forced into since the close of the war...

...A sense of grievance and inequitable treatment is a poor contribution to bring to any conference...

...Lawson in that they were wholly devoid of pose and advertising bent...

...Where it touched upon national issues, this policy was occasionally unsteady and wrong, but it helped to make the state government a model for its neighbors...

...Thomas Meighan, president of the Catholic Movie Guild, upon the all too-familiar press accounts September a, 1925 THE COMMONWEAL of "Hollywood orgies," as given to a correspondent of the London Universe...

...Wirth's withdrawal, the fundamental reason for Centre party troubles is much deeper and broader...

...Perhaps their barbaric code is the reason why they perished so swiftly and so utterly...

...An enterprise as fitful in its takings-on and layings-off W;as bound to attract a large proportion of the unstable and undesirable...

...If the present candidates are not carefully scrutinized, there is a chance that Wisconsin will cease to mean anything...

...Nor has there ever been another such tragedy as the wilful spoliation of both missions and Indians in their secularization and subsequent ruin...

...He lived to hear the college described by the Oxford debating team as the best equipped they had seen on their tour of the world...

...Lord Salvesen, a distinguished Scotch jurist, and president of the Scottish Public House Reform League, drew a distinction between regulation and prohibition at which one can imagine his listener from America shaking his head...

...The bad odor in which Hollywood has fallen is seen by the Catholic actor as largely the result of a tendency in the press to exploit public relish for its screen favorites, male and female, by too readily describing every culprit in an unsavory case as a "movie star," no matter how tenuous his or her connection with the screen may be...

...A decade ago, there was much talk of the "possibilities of the movies...

...He feels that the rights of German workingmen must be respected, not only because such an action will guarantee the stability of the country, but also because Catholic social principle is definite and uncompromising on the subject...

...His achievement in 1919 was a spectacular victory for forces of bigotry and tyranny of which the people at large, distracted by the entry of their country into war and world politics, hardly suspected the power or even the existence...

...It was not, however, totally unexpected...

...Josef Wirth, former Chancellor of the German republic, from the ranks of the Centre party, is the most serious indication that has yet come to light of disturbances within the great Catholic organization...