Week by Week
October 27, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 597 tion and...
...They merely regarded their social Hardly any congress where labor has met to define its code as a kind of "natural law" which ruled the human aims has missed featuring on its agenda as a factor universe...
...But in the long run, Professor F URTHER machine-gun murders in...
...Deems Taylor have collaborated in bringing won rather by a steady decrease in youthful mortality to a conclusion...
...Heckscher, are of such importance as to merit status as great pubONE other thing sticks out from the Legion doings lic issues...
...Published weekly and copyrighted 1925, in the United States by the Calvert Publishing Corporation, 25 Vanderbilt Avenue, NO doubt the movement which culminated in the New York City, N. Y. general strike was a movement of impatience...
...How many more scintillant politi- Legion for what now seems to be a settled plan to cal obituaries will be issued before the coal-strike follow their next year's convention by a visit to Paris problem is settled...
...But even so, scouting alone the little crowd which Jesse James gathered round him can never be sufficient...
...To leave childhood its all too brief holi- FROM the very beginning, the taint of patronage day of innocence, while reinforcing, by means that all weighed upon the institutions founded in 1780 by good fathers, mothers, and guardians have at hand, Robert Raikes and John Nichols, who, by the way, the instinct that warns it against what is unclean, were only following an example given very many years perilous, or of ill report, may be unscientific...
...Chicago have Thrasher is right in saying: "The abolition of the once more concentrated attention upon the 1,313 gang, even if it co i1d be accomplished, would not regangs which the city is said to possess, by actual count...
...But they disappeared when the old, and very academically debating solutions would be a calamitous decrepit "Marne taxi-cab" lumbered and spluttered up deferring of evil to a posterity which, however the aisle of the big hall, bearing messages from Gen- innocent, must certainly reap the fruits...
...with the remark that "the one significant movement Sudden death, as a glance at the obituary column any for popular education contributed more to the submorning in the week will show, is terribly common...
...If society must accept this system, the Marne taxi-driver under fire...
...The result of adopting her suggestion, others who have bitterly opposed what the New York Miss Owings claims, will be that the girl or boy who State Housing Commission has already been doing, has had the advantage of it will attain the period he says : "A group of tenements which were con- where life poses its problems in personal and urgent October 27, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 599 fashion with "a wholesome and unemotional attitude occasion to call attention to a sharp decline in the toward them...
...Certainly no projected United States than in greater care and circumspection during adult opera has ever aroused so much curiosity and hope...
...mood to nothing American that does not sound a barbaric, or at least a rebellious, note...
...The records ume upon the occasion of its first decennial...
...He advocates with considerable eloquence an of life" before they encounter adolescence, and that adaptation of the London plan, under which hovels responsibility for giving this information must be have been replaced with houses rented on a basis of shared between parents and that nebulous entity, "the "what the tenant can afford to pay...
...an "extra-curricular" activity...
...Whereas TschaiIT is interesting to note that the Daily News of kovsky could derive from Beethoven without disqualiLondon, which specializes in religious statistics, has fying himself as a Russian citizen and Puccini could 6oo THE COMMONWEAL October 27, 1926 find exquisite materials in Chinese legends, a composer the outskirts of respectability-instead of upon rewho lives under the beneficent rule of the Constitution spectability's bosom...
...It was urged in their favor, with entire who is forced to his conclusions either from personal candor, that they tended to make the poor "more impressions or from talk where doctors of medicine tractable and obedient...
...The dour political battle will continue...
...recreation, as permanent, there is apparently no way He answered : `We'll do the same as the boys ! We'll out excepting to undertake-as Mr...
...The 598 THE COMMONWEAL October 27, 1926 lads who once sang all along the roads of France a demned in 1885 as being, even at that date, unfit for song anent the impossibility of "getting rich" in the human habitation, are today, forty years later, still army, will show that their appreciation of something occupied...
...Many boys there would be able to approach this impressive sum-total, no large become demoralized even without the gang...
...Bad urban district is free of the gang evil...
...It is a season of acute reached, there has been a decline of 1,775,973, or susceptibility with a strong leaning to the heroic and nearly 40 percent in scholars registered...
...Will this romantically resurrected opera its activities, are not less, but greater...
...Gangs on the whole, none of our American "movements" in Chicago do not, therefore, differ essentially from displays a healthier spirit...
...Perhaps a few weaknesses other's favorite haunts, and gradually get into the that have cropped up in its history need correction, but habit of undertaking "community" enterprises...
...a few of those disposed to assume, summarily, the role of justice in person...
...This peculiar view is sometimes the result without which higher wages and fairer contracts would of circumstances that challenge reflection...
...Professor Frederick Thrasher disorganizing forces consequent upon the confused conoffers this definition in a recent contribution to The ditions where American life is in process of ferment Survey : "The gang is an interstitial group originally and readjustment...
...life...
...This is precisely proved is that avarice, immunity to the emotional apthe point of view which a man like Lloyd George can peal, and inability to see beyond the dollar sign, of defend with lung and muscle...
...the advance made during the last ten years, and which Mr...
...The Spectator opines that no final in a body...
...arity, morale, group awareness, and attachment to a Thus far the remedial energy expended on the local territory...
...But following the many reports of hosworld catastrophe of 1914...
...But through space, conflict, and planning...
...It is a season of intense curi- Tablet, in commenting on the situation, refuses to osity...
...One hardly tiously believe in getting what they want through leg- needs the assurances of the French envoy, who is not islation, must emphatically condemn...
...tellectual teeter-totter of his party, gives way to the resurrected spell-binding of England's Senator Borah CONGRATULATIONS are due the American -Lloyd George...
...Olin Downes suggests that the future may lie have pushed up the average duration of life from fifty- rather with the American effort which Miss Millay one to fifty-six years, one suspects that it has been and Mr...
...There of the coal industry showed that the miners were drift- are worthy people who question the significance of ining precariously near to the verge of starvation, that ternational junketings on such a scale as a Legion visit the government seemed powerless to better conditions, to Paris, and who will ask, with all the air of posing and that the owners-who for generations have a tough question, what will be proved when all the steadily drawn fat checks as dividends-were unwill- dust has settled...
...Almost everyone has a good instance of how quickly far-reaching social known professional gangsters who in private life were changes sometimes eventuate...
...But the practical-minded were has shown, for instance, that foundlings, when they not greatly impressed...
...I asked one of and the consequent centralization of amusement and them [at Gagny] if he wasn't afraid of the shells...
...We have now tested the value BERTRAM C. A. WINDLE of socialism as an aid to labor, and we know that it is Subscription Rates Yearly: $10.00 Single Copies: $0.20 a fraud and a sham which can only ruin the genuine labor movement...
...move the unwholesome influences with which the boy Though other thriving centres of population may not in gangland is surrounded...
...Under the Trades Unions Act, exaggerated, disfigured, or plain lies, it would have the decision taken by labor in June was clearly ab- been a gesture that might well have brought to an normal...
...the piling of terri- try to live within a radius which leaves them free to torials and Algerians into cabs and motor-buses upon exploit leisure hours as fully as possible...
...It had more important things to talk about...
...Replacement is a slow and ing in a day ! What a scenario ! Gallieni's rigid and expensive process: New York City is only now witsoldierly account of a battle whose credit was filched nessing the rebuilding of an old and jaded district into from him, not published until after his death, gives a residential "Tudor City" which will be the abode only its technical outline, but even he has a word for of a salaried class...
...It dustries, carried on at night or under special circumis not at all surprising that they should take refuge in stances of strain, the shorter week had already been...
...Doubts may have existed as to the Paris housing problem...
...Possibly the elimination of prohibitory legislation as a source of subterranean inWHAT IS A GANG...
...And there is duplicate the melodic triumph of Madame Butterfly the puzzling menace of cancer, with which the life of and gain a place in the standard repertory...
...Almost every advance that the trades unions have secured in wages has been nulliWEEK BY WEEK fied or minimized by restricted production or rising W ITH Lord Oxford, more widely remembered as prices due to the false spirit which socialism has Herbert Henry Asquith, resigning in high dudg- spread throughout industry...
...October 27, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 597 tion and that should be taken a great deal more THE COMMONWEAL seriously than Lloyd George can be...
...A modern metropolis, that writers for the screen, in search of something to as Lewis Mumford and others have long since pertwist the heart-strings, are neglecting it as the back- tinently remarked, is a place where industry concenground for one of their stories...
...Teaching being is only ineffective in ineffective or unloving hands...
...mendation of Miss Chloe Owings, "social hygiene lecHeckscher, returning from a trip abroad, announces turer," who has just been telling the New York Parthat England and Germany have long since been work- ents' and Teachers' Congress that children should be ing out architectural problems in a spirit of social wel- "equipped with complete knowledge of the processes fare...
...come might also help...
...Scouting is the reply of the welfare worker weedy lot, between prosperous and urbane districts...
...It would be interesting to analyze the ment of Sunday schools happened to synchronize with figures upon which Professor Irving Fisher relies for the industrial movement and the very low and matehis confident bet that by the year 1999 we shall have rial views then current concerning the "betterment" of "become a nation of centenarians...
...mate footing than being a "hygiene lecturer," knows Within the last twenty years, in other words from that the innocence of childhood is not the accident it the year 19o6, when the peak of attendance was seems to the positive mind...
...Appropriately enough, the memorandum of the Industrial Christian Fellowship, representing leading churchmen, appeared as a token of public good will...
...But this curiosity, if not misdirected by the waste any tears over the exodus, or to believe for a glum joy-spoilers who are so busy among us, does not moment that the statistics disclose a waning interest extend to biological processes-in fact, a certain blind- in religion, and we concur heartily...
...After . MICHAEL WILLIAMS, Editor all, there may be something in the suggestion of Sir Assistant Editors THOMAS WALSH HELEx WALKER Ernest J. P. Benn, successful publisher, whose book, HENRY LONGAN STUART GEORGE N. SaUSTER If I Were a Labor Leader, is well worth reading...
...The man who more the mines) will pretty well take care of itself...
...We talk a great deal about good citizenmoney would not have been able to buy them is all the ship, but how can we expect these miserable apologies greater because they are ten years older, ten years for homes to give forth good citizens...
...Therefore the boulevards...
...ness to them is of the essence of a healthy and normal childhood...
...The strike itself may be compared to a gesture of sudden, tired wrath...
...But How much can be done toward remedying the situaregardless of such matters, Mr...
...There are even those who tell us that its incidence must be accepted as one of the "ransoms" humanity As Puccini's Turandot, a swan-song draped graceis paying to the accelerated tempo and rhythm of life...
...Witt Bowden, in his foregather, such things do not reinforce the hope that very painstaking work, Industrial Society in England any marked advance in longevity is taking place in Toward the End of the Eighteenth Century, reviewed the "middle years," or that the old, old limit of the in The Commonweal some time ago, dismisses them psalmist is to be reckoned on any more confidently...
...It is rather wonderful the house, but the city itself...
...to the growing anxiety of society, and doubtless scoutThey fight each other's battles, take a liking to each ing is an excellent thing...
...One of the most unsettling things results that are not particularly cheering to recall...
...the flash of genius in the brain of the grizzled Some of them may sacrifice a valuable part of their old colonial general, denied the post his genius merited lives to suburban train service, but the majority will and already marked for death...
...If this tation brought over by Colonel and Deputy Yves estimate is accurate, the war at the mines will have Picot, would have been felt as a slight upon French almost the same duration and political effect as the hospitality...
...plane...
...But in a broader, only a veteran, but a "mutile," to be sure that the more humanitarian sense, the "rebellion" of those cheers which greeted the vanguard of the delivering who toiled in the mines, and of those who sympa- army in 1917 will be repeated with even greater volthized with them, was quite justifiable...
...But to spend years of precious time visit...
...Which way shall the future go...
...One former generations does not seem to have been shad- considers the matter a little incredulously, remembering owed...
...must never hazard a peep beyond the horizon...
...jection of the workers than to their emancipation...
...spending for the public weal ought to be a social rule, have overlooked a few rather essential matters...
...It is characterized by the following types of statistics of crime have been gathered in a thousand behavior: meeting face to face, milling, movement and one places, by a thousand and one agencies...
...They had grown used to lisreach a sturdy age and are released from institutions, tening to proposals whose realization seemed schedfind themselves so ignorant of ordinary social practice uled for some dim and distant future...
...voluntary, unpaid, guaranteed by no parti-religious authority, was haphazard in the extreme...
...But it happens also to late so widely presented as America's reaction to the be a point of view that should be given due considera- war, are very far from telling the whole story...
...AUGUST HECKSCHER, in proposing that the poor...
...private citizens...
...the sudden and ill-advised 14,000 people who rush to their jobs in the Woolworth swerve to the east observed only by one scouting air- Building want to be as near that building as possible...
...The resistless march trates workers in such numbers that they cannot be of the grey columns on the capital, with two armies redistributed over a very large residential area...
...The point, sadder, and perhaps ten years wiser...
...No doubt the doubtedly one reason why the coming musical season tightening of legal and police processes might terrify will be unusually stimulating and compelling...
...And thereby hangs a tale which formed spontaneously, and then integrated through is at the present moment peculiarly pertinent...
...got in the habit of considering "east-sides" and "westsides" permanent fixtures which cannot be displaced S HARP dissent on our part goes out to the recomwithout violating something like a law of nature...
...In country CONSIDERED from the point of view of their per- districts, it tended to fall into the hands of the spinster sonal helpfulness, there is something a little remote members of the local vicar's or squire's family, with about statistics...
...It is precisely here that we see the popularity of the Sunday schools maintained by the danger...
...Gallieni's sortie from Paris will always remain UNDOUBTEDLY the fundamental problem is not in the high-light of the war...
...the swoop on the German right along crowded apartment houses are an inevitable consethe Ourcq, a stratagem that Foch will not be able to quence of Woolworth Buildings in dense array, and better four years later-and fifteen years of planning therefore the realty and construction costs of these and scheming by the German war staff gone glimmer- houses increase constantly...
...It was a step which Unionists, who conscien- end one phase of an old, old friendship...
...Heckscher suggo wherever they go ! Only I wish I'd known, so I gests-the reconstruction of a part of the metropolicould have brought along something to eat.' " tan area by the state and philanthropy on behalf of MR...
...Anyone who knows children on a more inti- various non-Catholic bodies in England and Wales...
...It is necessarily what may be in post-bellum Missouri...
...But marked, "die of being themselves...
...as well as the solution proposed by Mr...
...about them is that they often seem directly contrary Moreover, and not by any coincidence, the establishto observation...
...But than any other human being typified the ceaseless in- there is always the question: Who will regulate them...
...Without analyzing the statistics that lie behind that Puccini was a man who grew old and stiff rapidly...
...But what, to be boys' as defined by society, are largely created by the precise, is a gang...
...In any case, the failure to accept the invisolution can be arrived at within two years...
...Most men, as an English writer recently re- It should be interesting and it may be great...
...Lord Oxford was, no tility to Americans abroad which the press has carried doubt, technically correct in holding that the general and which enquiry has shown again and again to be strike was illegal...
...The demand of the amiable, trustworthy and sometimes even religious as worker for more abundant leisure is nothing new...
...eral Foch, the French President, and the French Premier...
...It is still possible to prevent by the slums of New York be replaced with sanitary tene- legislation the further growth of "Woolworth Buildments financed by private philanthropy and state subsidy, calls attention at any rate to the fact that sordid ings" and to foster the decentralization of urban livliving conditions can be bettered...
...Yes-regulate produceon from the leadership of British Liberalism, a rather tion and prices, and the problem of wages (even in, picturesque moment has arrived...
...But perhaps the system need not be considered permanent...
...The conflict...
...In certain inas to fear the companionship of normal persons...
...Until the more eleLong ago it became apparent that, granted certain mental institutions-the school, the family, the comeconomic and social conditions, the gang would appear munity-realize the complexity of the growth of youth as naturally as flies are an inevitable deduction from and prepare themselves to foster it adequately, there unsanitary drainage conditions...
...Europe-it is said-is in a receptive other strenuous health apostles becomes its aim...
...The result of though they lead to varied conclusions, they all this collective behavior is the development of tradition, enforce one truth : that not the race, not heredity, but unreflective internal structure, esprit de corps, solid- the child is the father of the man...
...But it before by Saint Charles Borromeo...
...It said nothing about legality or illegality...
...In other words, the gang is a group problem has generally taken the stand that more beneof fellows who fall in with one another somewhere ficial associations must be created to take the place of in a part of town which sags, like an old house on a the gang...
...The retreating on their front...
...Of course, it may well be that the London at Philadelphia...
...One thing, at least, that will be ing to recognize the facts in the case...
...Experience be an illusory gain...
...fully round a Chinese fairy-story, draws nearer to the inevitable New York premiere, echoes of its effect THE prevalence of heart trouble and of chronic in- upon continental audiences are listened to with deepfections which endanger life, though they do not check ening interest...
...We seem to have ing...
...He JonN F. MCCoRMIcK, Business Manager opines that the whole fuss could be settled easily if business men were selected to lead the trades unions in Editorial Council r. LAWRASON RIGGS JAMES J. WALSH a business-like fashion...
...The London sentimental solution...
...To realtors and community...
...Deems Taylor is un- tion is still a matter of conjecture...
...But at present it seems that there is no possibility that it will get a favorable hearing from any of the parties concerned...
...This is the unimpaired value of a plan is not best suited to the solution of our American symbol...
...To the layman, the poor...
...Were THE FIVE-DAY WEEK the "interstitial areas" referred to by Professor Thrasher eliminated, crime would not cease, but gang T HE five-day week that now seems to be on us is criminality probably would...
...The general strike," he says, CARLTON J. H. HAYES R. DANA SKINNER "has cleared the air...
...It is by no means one wonders if the ambition to be local and native sure that the world will he the gainer if ever the above all things else does not enshackle our musical eighty-year limit promised us by Professor Fisher and creativeness...
...That does not imply is little enough hope for a time when the "gang," offera comparison between flies and mortal men: it merely ing an easy and adventuresome way out of daily signifies that those who feel that government has no drudgery, will be completely eliminated as a force that hygienic function, that economy and not salutary makes for lawlessness and crime...
Vol. 4 • October 1926 • No. 25
