Week by Week
THE COMMONWEAL Published weekly and copyrighted 1925, in the United States by the Calvert Publishing Corporation, 25 ~r Avenue, New York City, N. Y. L4"ICH.~L WTLLTA~S, E~litor Assistant...
...And the little carol was sung for the first time on Christmas Eve in the St...
...But there it sits, like the small boy armed with a hose who delayed a feminist pro- cession...
...Recent indications show that even in Congress some of the sinners are becoming impatient under treatment, not to say resentful...
...The Volstead Act supplies with memorable precision what the Constitution asks for, and enforcement of-ficials are only the more or less loyal defenders of the Act...
...Their estimates can now be rectified, and-- which is the point of great interest to us--the rectifi-cation is made possible by the care and industry of students in the United States...
...We have lis- tened to phonographs rendering the song on warm July nights...
...The document is rather noticeably bare of that fer-tilizing nitrogen which makes nipped illusions perk up and bloom anew...
...BUT there are many other instances, showing that the legal system actually in practice is finally depend...
...Evidences espe- cially of a change of heart upon the painful subject of indebtedness are not likely to be overlooked by keen eyes and brains in London or Paris...
...Historians are steadily coming round to a new estimate of the fatal year--an esti-mate which implies that, precisely because there ex-isted no common "clearing house" where discussion might be attempted successfully, a Germany only rela- tively more belligerent than its neighbors was forced to act--and blunder in the dark...
...It was composed by Franz Gruber, a Catholic church musician...
...Gruber was born in I787, and passed the seventy-eight years of his life as an organist and choirmaster in his native town...
...NOT more years ago than any middle-aged man can remember, presidential messages in this country at-tracted very little attention outside of it...
...One other observation fails in order, and is called for by the general tone of British press comment on the Coolidge message...
...But it appeared that he was not content to hold his own opinion and guide his personal acts by the opinion he held...
...Young students, especially, are enriched by positive, concrete knowledge of the things dealt with in their books...
...Two things might, accordingly, be tried...
...Older critics, working with- out the aid of the extensive apparatus built up by finan- cially unhampered American scholars, often assigned dates a century or two out of the way to paintings or carvings...
...At this hearing appeared the Reverend Firman A. Demaria of Asbury Park, who voiced his opposition to Sunday bathing...
...I believe," he said, "that the life of every individual should be so barricaded that it would be easy to do right and difficult to do wrong...
...and of course, Christmas would not be complete for many older-fashioned people if the great ballad (and the great voice) could not be "turned on...
...On the same day on which the newspapers recorded the fact that the court had suspended sentence on Stimmell with the suggestion that he devote himself to a study of how to mind his own business, there ap- peared elsewhere in these journals a despatch from Trenton, New Jersey, reporting a hearing at the State House on proposals to revise the Sunday "blue laws...
...Naturally enough, this achievement brings its reward...
...Today, a presidential message to both houses is a very different matter...
...Joseph Mohr, an assistant priest, had planaed a Christmas celebration and appealed to Gruber to set to music some lines he had penned...
...Few songs have identified themselves so com-pletely with the favorite music of all the world...
...When one remembers in this connection that Britain seems pledged to the affairs of the "dominions" rather than to continental politics, the value and importance of the League as a European institution and influence seems definitely assured...
...MEANWHILE,the periphery of the Europe prop- erly controlled by the League is cloudy and danger- ously unsettled...
...Bloated armies and navies, the pomp and circumstance of imperialism, the ceaseless territorial acquisition necessary to provide raw materials for manufacturing and executive jobs for a covenanted class, are luxuries that have to be paid for at one time or another...
...He asks, in a question that might be described as something less than oratorical, whether Mr...
...The Scotch immi-grants into Ulster did not come offering merely strong arms and willing hands, nor asking the bare justice of toleration for their religion...
...Three hundred years ago the shift of population was no less pronounced, but it happened to run west and south instead of east and north...
...The remaining billion has disappeared, some dramatically in the holds of sunken galleons and in the iron-bound chests of swarthy pirates, but the great bulk of it tamely enough at the hands of timid peasant folk un- convinced of the wisdom of government loans, who die (often violently) without revealing the cache...
...Upon sober reconsideration, the second action seems the best, because it is at once more speedy and more thoroughly in consonance with the en-lightened public mind...
...The newer and smaller nations, however, came into being during an epoch essentially anything but constructive in character...
...The administration of Negro disenfranchisement in some parts of the South is the most notable example...
...Even in England, which, as the mother of Parliaments, might be expected to take a little interest in how big daughter was making out, interest was apt to be perfunctory...
...A whole number of things with which European interests are vitally and sometimes painfully concerned, are apt, vulgarly speaking, to be given the air...
...The effect of this compact minority upon national legislation is vastly out of proportion to its numerical strength and moral significance...
...Her interpreta- tion of certain great Wagnerian r61es is still the best, and the magnificent fulness of her voice is constantly a source of rapture...
...Irony is not an American trait...
...Those who affect concern and mistrust at the relations between director and penitent, should be the first to see that what might be described as non-sacramental con- fession finds a speedy and unimpeded way to the dis- card where many educational fads and fancies await it...
...ENTHUSIASM over gold (meaning other people's) is not so general as it was in brave days when demo- cratic conventions met at Omaha...
...An ob- servation far more germane to the ethical point in- volved in this whole matter of debt collecting, is that if America stands out as a contrast today in solvency and prosperity, it is precisely because she has denied herself the things for which Europe is paying through the nose...
...Europe is still the unrivaled treasury of masterpieces created by all the Christian ages...
...or might authorize their representatives in Congress to remove Mr...
...There is, to an American, no inherent difference in debt, qua debt, when it is contracted by an individual and when it is contracted by a nation...
...Not all those who are "being done good" by these enthusiasts with the twisted mentality have the keen sense of humor of the invalid author of the once popular book...
...We are inclined to think he is entirely right...
...THE deputation of Glasgow citizens that went to London to interview the Scottish secretary on the sub- ject, and to devise ways and means whereby the Irish immigration into Scotland, which, we are told, is threatening "a veritable transformation of popula-tion," is to be met, may well hesitate when they regard the history of Irish-Scottish relations in retrospect...
...From the tone of Professor Cassel's article as reported, and from the nature of the remedies proposed to overcome this "hoarding instinct," we gather that the practice is on the increase...
...It is obvious that the Vatican, in confiding the work to an American in- stitution, was guided by circumstances which have re-cently modified the character of art scholarship...
...being Catholic, the sort of civilization which Scotch Calvinism and industrialism between them have evolved (and which must be seen to be believed) does not tempt them...
...John Ervine, the Muse of History is a conscious iron- ist...
...Here the problem is handled through state laws which, though they clearly violate the constitutional dictum, have "not been declared unconstitutional," and which therefore function...
...In short, having a country behind them that is now one of the commonwealth of nations, they refuse to accept the helotry and sour toleration of their faith that so many of their forefathers were forced to en-dure in the past, and in more countries than one...
...Herr Stresemann has ex-pressed the belief that if the League had been in ex- istence during 1914, the outbreak of the great war might have been averted...
...Remember, says Mr...
...A probation officer had been ordered to make a re-port to the court before sentence was imposed and this is what he had to say: "The defendant is a reformer with the usual mental twist that makes him think that everyone is wrong but him and once he forms an opinion, his mind doses and nothing can change it...
...Nicola Pharrkirche of Oberndorf by a chorus of children's voices...
...Each meant well and each was convinced that his remedy--and his alone--could make the patient well...
...There were, of course, the mystifying paragraphs deal- ing with a domestic political situation which no fel-low could be expected to understand...
...To find any trace of it in praise bestowed upon thrift applied to honoring obligations by one who happens to be rather a characteristic American, is to evince complete ignorance of American psychology...
...Incidentally, this agreement has the effect of strengthening three groups upon which the future peace of Europe seems largely dependent: Geneva, as the seat of the League and a place of meet- ing for national representatives...
...Lippman, "is, thank heavens, composed on the whole, not of worshippers of a sacred text, but of jurists and statesmen and human beings...
...IT seems pretty hard to believe that Mme...
...All the same, we hope the manly reply re-turned by one Columbia freshman to a questionnaire upon his intimate habits and complexes, will secure its abatementmat least during "bright college years...
...One imagines its reading was begun in a spirit of hope, proceeded in a spirit of resig-nation, and concluded in frank bad temper...
...THE observed tendency of the worm to turn at a certain point in treatment, has not stopped neo-scientists from sticking pins in him for their own pur- poses...
...Typical of this attitude, and the more noticeable because it comes from a friendly paper of liberal tincture, is the editorial quoted from the Daily Chronicle, and en-titled The Happy Land...
...Walter Lippman in the December issue of Harper's Magazine...
...Let Wis- consin properly word a statute authorizing its citizens to use and sell certain forms of alcoholic beverages...
...To have recourse to figures that are as exact as they are satisfying, authorities of the United States Mint have calculated that, of four billion pounds of gold produced since the year I5OO, two billion pounds is in vaults, somewhere or other, or passing to and fro, busied with what seems to be its natural function of creating financial crises in one country after another...
...BEING DONE GOOD S OME twenty-five years ago, a book by a Brooklyn journalist entitled, Being Done Good, had a wide circulation...
...the Constitution is a tree which can grow but which cannot even be pruned...
...Schumann- Heink's present appearance in New York City marks her fiftieth anniversary as a singer...
...and history as well as psychology demonstrates that the first will never be rooted out...
...The news of Roumanian intrigue, of Arab-Zionist conflict in the Near East, and of reaction in Hungary--to mention a few of the more striking contemporary disturbances--may sound a little like the introductory chapters in some wild romance of in-trigue...
...But in the background there are actually all the elements of social chaos and upheaval...
...Being Hibernian, they are aggressive and persistent...
...It is impossible to efface the second two without violating the first...
...By agree- ing to discontinue the control of Germany on January 31 , the nations allied to enforce the Versailles Treaty threw into the discard a device which never worked and was necessarily the source of continued danger- ous ill feeling...
...It seems increasingly clear that their present status cannot be considered perma- nent or even normal...
...In the young man's own picturesque words, the custom of treating incoming classes "like rats for purposes of ex- perimentation," has no warrant in sense or decency...
...WE should like to call particular attention to the article contributed to this issue of The Commonweal by Doctor C. R. Morey, the Princeton professor of archaeology who has been entrusted with the excep-tionally interesting and difficult task of cataloguing the treasures of the Museo Cristiano...
...the United States, however, has made the most complete and accurate record of these treasures...
...They have been influenced by the forces of disruption without having any fund of unity or ex- perience to fall back upon...
...At any rate, this hope is about the only possible resource available to the spectator who desires to remain optimistic...
...We were, therefore, very glad to see that the editor of Singing revived for the benefit of his readers, the history of the "Christmas masterpiece": "Like the melodies of Stephen Foster, the hymn was written by a man who was not ignorant of the fundamentals of musical art...
...A few vague ethical remarks on the peace of the world at large were not resented, so long as it was recognized that providence, in its wisdom, had already provided for its safe-keeping by the senior branch of the family...
...and finally, the pacific and reconstructive action of the existing German government...
...OF the residuary two billions, half is calculated (one wonders just how) to have gone into jewelry...
...It developed that the prisoner had torn down a poster in a street-car because he was of the opinion that posters interfered wi.th the view of those traveling in these public conveyances and it was the duty of all who preferred to look at the back premises of East-Side tenements to pull them down...
...It sets an example, but it says nothing about methods...
...If so, the financial history of post- war Europe is its best excuse...
...He argues that wet majorities in several states will employ nullification methods, the purpose of which "is to change the practical effect of the Eighteenth Amendment, even though its language remains the same...
...She must be holding her shapely sides just now as she hearkens to the latest grievance which hard- pressed Protestantism is uttering before a world con- siderably less sympathetic to such things than it used to be...
...The plaint comes from Glasgow and concerns the large number of Irish immigrants who are cross-ing the narrow seas and seeking work in the old Pic- tish port...
...A very good answer is oudined by Mr...
...For this, or other reasons, the alarm over the steady disappearance of the precious metal, voiced by Professor Gustav Cassel, of Stockholm, has not made the front page in any organ of the press we have seen, since it was uttered recently...
...When all the ills of the war period have been summed up, perhaps the most permanent will prove to be the shock adminis- tered to public confidence in governments as reliable stewards of the national wealth, and the conviction slowly and painfully acquired that, as the fruit of in- ternational operations over which none but a very small group of men have any control, the gold entrusted to government hands may turn (contra Midas-wise) into paper obligations of problematical value...
...Therefore, he said, Sunday bathing should be forbidden by law...
...In the message by President Coolidge to Senate and Con- gress, reported recently, he will be either a very hope- ful or a very imaginative man who discovers any...
...This solution is interesting, but one great obstacle stands in the way...
...Doubtless they will, in time, be saved by the removal of many inhibitions imposed by post-war treaties, quite in the same way as the aban- donment of interallied control of Germany has lifted a great danger from the Rhine...
...Lippman, that in a great many instances where the letter of the Constitution ran counter to the public will or to current practice, relief has been sought through the sanction of the Supreme Court...
...The Eighteenth Amendment, regard- less of a probable majority desire, will abide with us...
...The Ulster settlement was the first of many disreputable experi- ments in British imperialism, and those who believe that any imperialism is, in the very nature of things, doomed to ultimate failure, cannot but be interested in seeing this one recoil by virtue of the very economic situation it helped to create...
...Finally, the effect must be to deepen the general interest in what may properly be termed the ages of Christendom--the years which were, as most of us are coming round to see, bright with faith as well as beauty...
...Before them was land to be cleared, not of trees, but of its legitimate owners, who were to betake themselves, in the picturesque phrase of a few years later, to "hell or Connaught...
...Briefly, the professor's discovery is that, of all the gold mined, milled, melted, and molded since the discovery of the new world, a comparatively small proportion survives today in the shape of cur-rency...
...The writer, Edward B. Lent, was an invalid, who, through a long period of sickness, had retained a lively sense of humor...
...It was written almost on the spur of the moment in t818, in Oberndorf, near Salzburg...
...Nothing is misleading European statesmen at the pres- ent moment so much as the failure to understand this simple and direct point of view upon international obligations for whatever purpose incurred...
...A little mild self-congratulation was not considered out of place...
...It becomes apparent that the larger peoples of Europe (that is, those which had achieved a genuine political organiza- tion prior to the war) have been able to rise superior to the troubles of twelve years because they could draw upon accumulated resources of solidarity...
...Nevertheless, he did not doubt the inten- tions of his would-be benefactors...
...Now the reverend gentleman has as much right as any other individual to his opinion regarding either the sinfulness or the sinlessness of taking a dip in the ocean on the first day of the week...
...the French ministry, the stability of which lies in maintaining union between the foreign policy of Briand and the domestic program of Poinear6...
...The army of those who believe they are the only ones in the procession of life who are in step and that all can be brought into a correct "left-right" by Congressional enactments, is steadily growing...
...He had submitted to one special treatment after another in the hope that his sufferings might be relieved and in the end had ar- rived at the condusion that he had been "done"--and done good...
...AN implied condition is that they shall be there...
...Citizens inclined to see in the present chaos of the prohibition movement a great danger to the general well-being might organize a vast league in opposition...
...The hymn was, so to speak, a pi&ce d'occasion...
...What can be done...
...Behind them was the force of a Protestant government, which was using them to break a national resistance that had lasted three centuries...
...Recently, one Branson C. Stimmell appeared in Specia.1 Sessions for sentence on a conviction of injur- ing property...
...Wayne Wheeler's cohorts out of Washington on the ground that they constitute a pub- lic nuisance...
...THE COMMONWEAL Published weekly and copyrighted 1925, in the United States by the Calvert Publishing Corporation, 25 ~r Avenue, New York City, N. Y. L4"ICH.~L WTLLTA~S, E~litor Assistant Editors THo~s WATCH ~ WaLmm I-ImmY LoNc,~m Sruarr G~oms N. SHUSTn JOHN F. McCoRMICK, Business Manager Editorial Council_ T. L~WlO, SON P~c,c.,s J.~m J. Wm.SH Carat.ToN J. H. Ha~s R. D,~a~a S~'~NSl Bmrrm~M C. A. Wmoz.e Subscription Rates Yearly: $10.00 Single Copies: $0.20 WEEK BY WEEK T HE close of the year, while not universally charac- terized by the peace which the season suggests, does bear hopeful indications that the strife inherent in our era of war is gradually being allayed...
...Coolidge, when he bestows praise upon the sacri- fices now being made by pinched European nationals to meet their debt to this country, ever imagines that the effect of his words may be a decreased respect for a country which can pursue a debt-collecting course, without blushing for the surplus in its own coffers...
...OBVIOUSLY, the repudiation of prohibition in On- tario-as commented upon in these columns last week --is only relatively an object-lesson to the United States...
...Even now, there is no sign of such a change on the part of the debtor's heart as might soften the creditor's...
...ent upon the will of the Supreme Court, which, in the words of Mr...
...He was a native of Hallein, in Upper Austria, near Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart to whom the hymn has erroneously been ascribed...
...They form, we are told by the Manchester Guardian, "compact groups and they do not surrender their standards, fighting for them actively on municipal and educational coun-cils...
...While the Anti- Saloon League functions as a political organization, able to throw opinion solidly behind its propaganda, Congress will probably remain as unable to veer from strict enforcement as it has been in the past...
...IN meeting this unpleasant implication, one may leave aside, for the moment, the fact that the function of the President, as Americans understand it, is not to bestow largesse, but to be the mouthpiece of those who are the appointed stewards of the national wealth, which remains the property of the people even after it has been levied in the shape of taxes, and is always returnable in the shape of relief therefrom...
...Let other enlightened states follow suit, and the final result will be--as statesmen always wanted it to be-- a regulation of the business of alcohol by the com-munity affected...
...The writer, evidently a man of culture and classical education, envisages the Ameri- can elder statesmen as Olympians, dwelling "above the storms and snow and thunder, impervious to mere human suffering...
...Canadian law in the matter was only a sizable shrub which had merely to be yanked out...
...But undoubtedly nothing she has ever sung moved and thrilled so many people as the touching simplicity of her Sfille Nacht...
...ACCORDING to no less an authority than Mr...
...Such undertakings as the catalogue of the Museo Cristiano affords many Americans an opportunity to familiarize themselves with old-world art and culture in a way that would be impossible otherwise...
Vol. 5 • December 1926 • No. 7
