Certain Delicate Susceptibilities

...Neither men nor communities are to be pro- scribed for thinking differently from somebody else on questions concerning which they have a right to speak...

...John Stapleton 2Io Mediaeval Healing...

...Yet Texas could offer a better plea on the score of bigness and, though its separation into several states was generally expected when it was admitted to the Union, no impelling cause for such a carving up has yet been presented...

...To the American People...

...There is no rule of thumb for such things...

...Although these regions nat198 THE COMMONWEAL December 29, I926 urally contain more active seeds of disunity than American states, experience has shown that in this country the same disappointment is likely to be en-countered...

...Volume V New York, Wednesday, December 29, 1926 Number 8 CO Certain Delicate Susceptibilities...

...There are always in reserve the appeal to reason and the power of a just cause...

...If relatively large area were accepted as implying a probable need of division, Californians who feel per- turbed to the breaking-point because some of their fellow-citizens did not agree with them would have a strong case...

...Presto I A "movement" is started to make twins of California, which has been a unit since the old days of the Franciscan missions, erecting it into a duality of states with a medial line dividing north from south...

...To push it aside is one of the high duties of the citizen...

...It is not realized by many Americans, particularly Easterners, that if the sprawling bulk of California were spread out on the Atlantic coast it would reach from Charleston, South Carolina, to Bos- ton, with an average width of 2oo miles inland...

...223 Joseph B. Koncevicius 207 The Wind (verse)..Borghild Lundberg Lee 2o9 Whither the Child...

...The world has not outgrown the need of toler- ance...

...A large experiment in isolating and defining such entities in Europe and Asia was made by the framers of the Treaty of Versailles, and their success has not been overwhelming...

...If Baltimore were made a state by itself, con- flicts between the delicate susceptibilities of the eastern and western "shores" which would be left, might easily develop into more serious proportions than the old quarrel between town and country...

...Even taking the geographic lines of the state system as they are, there is much to recommend them...

...Even though it is true that the northern half of Cali- fornia registered its will against state enforcement of the Volstead Act while the southern half declared for it, and though there was the same cleavage on six other local questions, discerning residents of the com- monwealth will easily find many more things on which they are united than things on which they flock apart...

...When Washington wrote in his farewell ad- dress that "of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports," he evidently intended his words to have a definitely practical meaning...

...When the Constitutional Convention of 1787 seemed hopelessly adrift, and the differences of some of its most distinguished members appeared to be irrecon- cilable, only a rash man would have predicted that out of such a welter of confusion there would issue the great charter under which Washington became Presi- dent two years later...

...Anna McClure Sholl 2o9 La Verna of the Stigmata...

...Out of his long experience in observing the failings of a people in working out their own material destiny under insti- tutions set up by themselves, he knew the truth of every syllable in these words of permanent guidance...

...Czecho-Slovakians, Transylvan- inns, and Syrians have found new provocations to fly at each others' throats, prospectively or at present, in place of the old ones...

...President Coolidge has emphasized as earnestly as Washington the part that religion must have in the progress of the nation which, strive as it may, can never rely ultimately upon the power of finite wisdom existing among the multitudinous units which compose it...

...It is notoriously easy to evoke the human passions of rivalry, envy and selfishness in every form, particularly after a great war which has disturbed the equilibrium of the world's temperament...

...Hate, the powerful poison which is capable of sapping the strength of any government, is a potion constantly offered to the lips of democracy...

...Just now, in California, rankling discontent over accept-ing equality of the fights of others to have opinions is producing a type of agitation which has become rather familiar at times in different parts of the United States...

...It is thrice fortunate for America that leaders have arisen in every stage of our history to point to the surest way of obtaining the permanency and efficacy of republican institutions...

...Size, density of population or temporary rift of opinion is not a sufficient cause in itself for splitting up a state...

...Tolerance is the antidote to the poison...

...Political complications make it apparent in every generation that many problems which bewilder citi- zens or incite them to angry rejoinders, threats and desperate expedients can be worked out by the ap-plication of the principles of the Christian religion...

...THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Reoiew of Literature, The Arts, and Public ARairs...

...A better case could be made out for the periodically mooted project of setting off New York City as a state, which would bring temporary surcease of the cries for home rule emanating from the metropolis...

...F. M. Verrall 211 CERTAIN DELICATE SUSCEPTIBILITIES I NTOLERANCE of opinion takes many forms...

...Public opinion in Texas blends better than the blizzards of its "Panhandle" blend with the zephyrs of San An- tonio...

...Maryland could be pocketed in a corner of California without squeezing the rest of the Sunshine State uncomfortably, yet divisions between the propertied interests of Baltimore, in which half of the population is concentrated, and the rural or semi- rural sections cause recurrent thunderclaps of dis-cord...

...Bruce of Maryland...

...This was true in the early days of the republic and it is true now...

...But a better argu- ment than a disturbing alignment on local questions in an election, in which neither section voted solidly, or almost solidly, will be needed before such radical sur- gery with the state system is likely to be attempted...

...A marvelous change came over the gathering after Franklin had proposed "humbly applying to the Father of Light to illuminate our understandings...

...As to size, there is the case of Maryland at the other extremity...

...In-deed, it is doubtful if a man in whom intolerance is an ingrained trait could ever be fully satisfied, un- less he were shut up in a little compartment, where he could change his mind as often as he wished and never find anyone to dispute his imperial will...

...NTENTS i97 t99 2o2 2o 3 204 Communications...

...Week by Week...

...Harvey Wickham Kosciuszko: A Lithuanian...

...It would spend all its own revenue in its own way for local purposes and Up-State could devote itself blithely, without let or hindrance, to those problems of a local nature and interest on which it has set its heart...

...Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island would be emboldened to claim as big a share of largess from Wall Street's wealth as ingeniously directed demands made by voluble politicians could bring them...

...Yet rivalry between Manhattan and the outlying boroughs would almost surely become keener if the greater rivalry of all the boroughs with Up-State were done away with...

...The spectade of a band of joyous brothers in a homogeneous state, all having the same natural interests and marching serenely to the polls on election day to vote "Aye" with unanimous voice, is still afar off...

...Without these principles as a universal solvent, people and statesmen are helpless in the face of difficult situations which are bound to arise in a popular govern- ment...

...D. W. Fisher, Ernest Brennecke, Jr., Roderick Gill, James J. Daly, George N. Shuster, Grenville Vernon, Katherine Br~gy, Frederick H. Martens, Lurton Blassingame, Henrietta Dana Skinner 2i 7 The Quiet Comer...

...Gouverneur Paulding, Theodore Maynard, Marie Blake, Edgar Daniel Kramer, Kenneth S!ade Ailing, Speer Strahan, May Lewis, E. W. Chandler z IS The Play...

...The Facts of Fascism...

...The city would then stand out more conspicuously as the cultural, financial, industrial and maritime capital of the country, a sort of modern Athens combining art, literature, business and adventure...

...There is, of course, no inherent reason for keeping California or any other state indefinitely within the present geographical delineations if sound considera- tions, deliberately weighed, call for a change in ac-cordance with constitutional forms...

...It has been detected that the preponderance of votes in the northern counties in the recent election was different from the preponderance in the southern counties...

...In fact, citizens of democratic countries, in which decisions are made by majorities, may well ask if a homogeneous political entity can be found any- where, or whether it seems destined to remain merely a visionary project...

...R. Dana Skinner 216 Books...

...A poir~t rarely considered with thoroughness by those who are impatient to reduce the size of political units, is whether any greater degree of homogeneity of opinion would be attained ultimately by the suggested recasting...

...The necessity for it will not be done away with if California, or any other state, is broken up into parts...

...Its area of approximately 16o,ooo square miles is three times that of New York and more than three times that of all New England...

...212 Poems...