Week by Week

...From every other point of view, however, they acted in contemptible fashion, risking neither life nor job at a moment when fellow-mortals were in supreme need of assistance...

...Such despicable selfishness ought to be made impossible...

...We all know, too, that Mexico has been passing through a very serious revolution, during which civic protest against tyranny was brutally put down by military force under circumstances involving quite unbelievable barbarities...

...Twenty or thirty years ago, unless his route happened to lead him through some army post...

...But Mexico cannot count upon inexhaustible reserves of patience...

...PHILOSOPHERS who believe, with the Frenchman, that all life is a comedy to those who think, may well have spared a quiet smile at the recent centenary celebrations held in honor of Samuel Crompton, the inventor of the spinning mule...

...Henry Ford, of charges brought against the Jews by his official organ, the Dearborn Independent...

...In all the world there is nobody so deplorably able to see a wisp of hay and ignore a haystack as an American government employee of the lower ranks...

...There was much in the scene to interest Americans in a very especial manner...

...But one hopes some other means will be found in this country than the frank acceptance of the principle of conscription...

...That is why press notices, although never a sure index to the popularity of a play, on numerous occasions cut short its life before the public has a chance to give expression to its more practical verdict...

...We are particularly glad to see that the proposal to build a shrine on the site occupied by the church at St...

...In a word, they have committed themselves to a status quo enforced by arms through the connivance of the United States...

...Now Father La Farge announces that, following a gift from the United States Catholic Historical Society, Mr...

...Complacent sergeants of the old school had strange tales to tell of guards visited and inspected on occasion by the officer of the day "in mufti...

...He lis a positive guarantee, to all who know his generosity and his public spirit, that the work undertaken will not stop until the goal has been attained...

...Smith, it is difficult to understand why the University of North Carolina has published Southern Literary Studies, a series of lectures concerned more or less with American books and culture...

...P R O M P T publicity for good plays seems to emerge as the first practical result of the formation of the Church and Drama Association...

...But for some months past we have grown accustomed to peculiar actions...

...The first help he received came from the Brome family, which made a donation of the site...

...The second is the full retraction, by Mr...

...The tragedy occurred within plain view of many prisoners and their guards...

...One fancies that the sage himself, if he follows publishers' announcements from his celestial hacienda, must be quite as astonished as the earthly reader to dis cover that he once said such and such things to a select group...

...Both of them, however, need a period of closeting with public opinion...

...and indeed, intervention in order to guarantee a peaceful election would be logical in view of the Nicaragua and other precedents...

...He did as much as any other southern litterateur of his time to awaken his neighbors to some consciousness of intellectual energy...

...The assumption that all citizens can be forced into uniform when war is declared is the real source of the whole monstrous thing called modern militarism...

...George C. Jenkins has promised his personal assistance to the plan...

...One feels sure that when time comes to observe the Calvert tercentenary in 1934, "Old St...

...This is no small tribute...

...A N INSTITUTION that can observe its five hundredth birthday under circumstances that prove it more flourishing than ever before is entitled to a regal festival...

...Many an organization has promised more and done less...

...The apostolic nuncio, the king and queen of the Belgians, a host of prelates, diplomats, statesmen, heads of educational institutions, clergy, scholars, practical men of affairs, gathered to witness the passing of an historic moment and to see how Louvain's "university town"—where a throng of scholastic buildings is encircling the historic castle of the dukes of Arenberg—is nearing the first stage of completion...

...There is likely to be plenty of provocation south of the Rio Grande...

...One hopes that the rocking will prove much like an old-fashioned shaking of a plum-tree upon which more than relatively spoiled fruit Is endangering the health of all...

...The prejudice against wearing uniform when off duty is an old one in both countries...

...The movement is well worth watching and encouraging...

...Smith's memory, that the Indian's most remarkable purpose has been to lead professors astray into figures of speech...

...MARYLAND origins are so priceless a part of the national heritage that everything done to keep their memory green Is a patriotic as well as a religious service...

...Frank Gillmore, treasurer of the Actors' Equity Association, in his recent annual address, said: "We do know of two or three plays this season which have been saved by the Church and Drama Association and at a time when its machinery was not complete, indeed, when its influence was negligible compared to what it will be in a few months and in a few years...

...But after all, said Indian ought to be hugely content...

...Perhaps it would be more appropriate to wonder why it is that United States bureaucratic employees develop a llteralness of mind which seems finally to stunt their imaginations and even their emotions...

...The war and the adoption of a service dress approximating common sense have broken down this tradition of selfeffacement on the part of our fighting forces, and on the whole the change is for the better...

...But it is not often that one sees the malady in a form as virulent as that manifested at Sing Sing...

...1 HE idea that wealth and labor should be conscripted during times of war has, one sees, made some impression in the United States...

...He has supplied the material for unborn operas and dramas...

...Bishop Francis C. Kelley has, we believe, the distinction of being the first American upon whom Louvain has conferred the doctorate in letters...

...Our public service seems hidebound with red tape...

...To imagine a similar condition in the United States, one should have to conceive of the army and navy as so fiercely committed to hostile candidates as to be ready to fight at the slightest provocation...

...The sight of an occasional uniform amid our drab and anonymous crowds, even though it is now shorn of the gold lace and glitter that, according to the Moor of Venice, made ambition virtue, serves at least as a pleasant reminder that activities still exist among us unconnected with the great principle of doing the best that one is able to do for oneself...

...But all of us know that the reason why Calles will end eight years of "government uninterrupted" is precisely outside intervention—the arms embargo and what led up to it...

...The inference seems to be that United States patience is contingent upon Mexican ability to develop domestically as she has done during the last eight years...

...In the second place, no citizen who feels that a given war is unjust can be forced, with any degree of righteousness, to take part in it...

...He has proved not only the anvil on which we wrought out our national genesis but the background against which Europe contemplates with undiminished interest the early centuries of our national existence...

...When he died in June, 1827, the total value of his goods and furniture was estimated at $85.00, with debts considerably in excess...

...It is very appropriate, therefore, that the task of reconstruction should have been entrusted to the Reverend John La Farge, a Jesuit and a descendant of an old Maryland family...

...It was possible for a traveler from overseas to spend many months in America without once catching a glimpse of the costume that is now a fairly familiar sight in the streets and railroad stations of any big city...

...Bernard Shaw tells us sum up the industrial system in a distich: "Half ignorant . . . turn an easy wheel that sets sharp wits at wrack to pinch and peel...

...He has furnished the potential material for a national drama and a national opera...

...Ford in it...

...This fact in itself would predict a great social struggle for the coming months...

...Stephenson out of jail or Mr...

...On the one hand it announces: "When President Calles completes his term in 1928, Mexico will have had eight years of government uninterrupted by revolution...

...and so the beneficence of the new world will help to conserve the treasures of the old...

...supplied a means of contrast for our highly institutionalized life...

...Papers like the World have had little sympathy for this protest and no space for the barbarities...

...C. Alphonso Smith was a very good, within limits a commendable, scholar...

...If the standard of judgment applied to current plays by the Association reflects a broad and sane understanding of the best the theatre can offer, then its work should have a lasting value far greater than the promise held forth by last season's vague platform...

...These people, long faithful to their Episcopal traditions, have carefully preserved the history of the land during the many years which have passed since they came into possession of It...

...T w o events designed to pry the Americaif public loose from dangerous consignments of explosive intolerance to which it has been clinging for dear life have occurred during the past week...

...It is dictated, of course, by popular resentment of the fact that some people who remained in safety while soldiers were fighting and their families were enduring privation of every sort, emerged into peace with huge fortunes...

...The structure is to serve henceforth as Louvain's Institute of Art and Archaeology...

...But this minimum seldom satisfies them...

...The University of Louvain opened its commemorative exercises with a truly international splendor...

...Crompton's strange story, like that of many and many another inventor, enforces the fact, often observed, that the inventive mind belongs rather to the contemplative than the active category of thought, and that, of all human beings, inventors are apt to be the least worldly...

...Today the levee en masse has become a sure guarantee that pride will battle the thing out to the end, which is always catastrophe...

...Perhaps never since the close of the middleages has there been seen such a distinguished academic procession...

...If the receipts of the first two weeks are not large enough to bring the return higher than the minimum—or to promise a higher return in the near future—the play is abruptly asked to betake itself elsewhere...

...THE Church and Drama Association tries to handle this difficult situation by circularizing its members, by using the radio and every other prompt means of increasing attendance at a worthy play...

...Incidentally, one hears that United States charity is also coming to the assistance of the BoUandists, that remarkable society of hagiographers which, like so much of scholarship at Louvain, has been sorely tried by financial hardship...

...Obviously Catholic support, in so far as it is genuinely a political factor, will go to the second candidate, who incidentally has declared himself in favor of religious tolerance...

...Speaking at a Fourth of July celebration, Senator Royal S. Copeland declared that "not only shall there be a conscription of man-power, the force of which must face the cannon's mouth, but there shall be a conscription of wealth and labor of every sort...

...For the great invention, out of which untold millions have been made, was little benefit to the inventor...

...One hopes, however, that the State Department will preserve strict isolation from the scene...

...As far as one can divine at present, the issue of importance is the conflict between the party in power, which will support General Obregon, and the No-Reelectionists who have proposed the name of General Gomez...

...We do not desire to see Mr...

...It is supposed that the attitude taken by Washington may have some effect upon the situation...

...Mary's City is meeting with a warm welcome...

...On the other hand it declares: "Thanks largely to the good sense of the American people, Mexico has in the last year been spared" an interference with her domestic development...

...But the prison guards not only failed to undertake this rescue themselves, but refused to allow any convict to go out and neglected to notify the warden...

...These accusations, destined to create ill-feeling against a race where at most there was reason only for some disapproval of individuals, have done incalculable harm...

...All three might easily have been saved if someone had been sent to their rescue...

...In the first place, it testifies to an over-centralization of government of a kind which would have been impossible in the past...

...The first is the confession of Stephenson, generalissimo of the Indiana Klan, that iniquities committed through the use of Hoosier state and city government "will rock the nation...

...The long list of those upon whom honorary degrees were conferred also includes several Americans, among them four members of the hierarchy...

...But we must also bear in mind the military character of the several candidates, each of whom is supported by an army...

...In England, the reluctance to advertise the profession of arms went further still...

...The eagerness with which European antiSemitic groups swallowed what Mr...

...Ford's paper had to say was particularly ominous...

...But the difficulty lies in the rental terms exacted by most theatreowners...

...Just how much this means may not be apparent to the average theatregoer unfamiliar with the financial arrangements on Broadway...

...A "mystical, religious man," with no talent whatever for the rough and tumble of business, and with the love of music that often crops up in surprising places in the north of England, Samuel was fated to see his revolutionary device exploited by cannier minds and to end his days earning a few shillings by putting together wringing and washing machinery for humble neighbors...

...They usually demand a definite percentage of the gross box-office receipts with a minimum guarantee...

...REGULATIONS recently issued by the War Department at Washington providing that uniform is to be worn daily at army posts by officers of the land forces and only permitting the wearing of citizen clothing within definite limits, bring the practice of the American army in line with that of continental nations and mark a departure from the custom hitherto observed both in Great Britain and the United States...

...That, to say the least, is a peculiar action on the part of journals which profess to support both democratic institutions abroad and an anti-imperialistic policy at home...

...Someone has commented upon this mean streak by saying that nothing better could be expected from the kind of man who is willing to become a prison guard...

...The drowning was taking place outside the prison, and their concern lay with the interior of the prison...

...IN VIEW of these circumstances, it is a little difficult to understand the New York World's comment on the situation...

...An anvil-wrought "genesis" is, to begin with, so unusual in itself that if we have really managed it there is a feather of some size in our caps...

...It might be assumed that any good play with sufficient financial backing to carry it through the first two or three weeks would gather its own momentum by word-of-mouth praise...

...I T CONTAINS numerous paragraphs quite as remarkable as this: "Whether idealized or not, the Indian of Cooper has...

...Their followers need to learn that efforts to arouse racial and group antagonisms within the United States are seldom more commendable than a small boy's zeal in promoting the extinction of the house-cat by the family watch-dog...

...Go to a municipal hospital and somebody will spend hours, if need be, getting your name and address on the proper line...

...ON THE Fourth of July, three people were drowned off the pier of Sing Sing prison...

...The days when rulers fought their wars with professional soldiers were days in which fighting still bore some resemblance to a legitimate use of peace power...

...The true meaning of this comment is a trifle hard to discern...

...One is tempted to say, with all due charity to Dr...

...Previous interferences on behalf of some Mexican candidate—notably those fostered by President Wilson— have done incalculable harm...

...It also proves that the meanness of commercialism, like charity, begins at home, and that the rare spirits whose genius and ingenuity it exploits must look elsewhere for their reward than to those who, in the unforgettable words which Mr...

...This was the first Catholic house of worship to be erected In the English colonies and was also the first English Jesuit mission in this country...

...The Louvain centenary is, therefore, an hour of glory in which all of us can take a share for personal as well as general cultural reasons...

...But precisely because one gladly recommends such a verdict on Dr...

...It is an easy explanation, but it suffers from the fact that many such guards are really splendid fellows...

...The venerable library, restored to pre-war beauty through the generosity of United States citizens, was solemnly reopened...

...Technically they were quite correct...

...It is easier to see that the Indian was an "anvil" we thumped pretty hard, for more practical purposes than setting up a pretty "background" for Europeans to look at...

...This conception of future armed struggles has been making the rounds of various circles in Europe...

...Mary's" will be definitely near a revival of its old religious glory...

...This moral privilege ought not to be surrendered, no matter how great the pretext...

...V ERY probably good professors (of whom there are, surely, not so few as is generally assumed) ought to insert codicils in their wills specifying that none of their lectures shall be published post mortem...