Week by Week

...EASTER fell late this year, and there Is interest in a letter from Rome, published by La Vie Catholique, on the movement—inaugurated some years ago by the League of Nations—to make it a fixed date, like Christmas, and in the present state of negotiations on the subject...

...Unfortunately, the middle-western educational experiment waned...

...and, led by the aged archbishop of Mexico City, the cortege of princes of the Church began a tedious journey to the United States...

...They may succeed in welding together those wheezy echoes of Voltaire and Bob Ingersoll which have been floating round rather lonesomely in "radical" book-shops, irregular collegiate societies and certain literary settlements...

...Will Durant, to give the folks a series of metaphysical treats...

...Besides, an American has good reason for using such a week as this for some random appreciations of what has been done for music in his country...

...Except for hydrogen, it is the lightest of the elements, and since it !s not inflammable, like hydrogen, is in great demand for the inflation of balloons and dirigible airships...

...At times like these one Is ashamed of the writing profession...

...One recalls similar European urges, some of which have borne fruit In notable Catholic revivals...

...Regulations have been issued forbidding the use of wooden bedsteads in lodging-houses, roller towels in public and business washrooms, and powder puffs and sponges in barber-shops...

...THE effect of the Jalisco train tragedy upon the situation in Mexico lies chiefly in the fact that it afforded the government an opportunity to accuse Catholics of rebellion and outrage...

...JLJUT there are lower depths than these...

...and the alert enthusiasm of one generation gave way to the crabbed prejudices and political time-serving of another...

...Curiously enough, the brigade is composed of people whom one might normally expect to find employed elsewhere...

...Would not a wider welcome to music and a deeper understanding of its purpose tend to make those common festivals— notably liturgical worship—in which melody figures, more worthy of the ends for which they are planned...

...Monsignor Seipel, though unwell and anxious to retire from political activity, had thrown all his energy into the struggle...

...She never sold her love, and that is a lot more than perhaps we can say for many other women...

...It certainly is strong language...

...INDIANA never sent a better man into public life than Albert Beveridge...

...The victory gained under Monsignor Seipel's leadership guarantees, therefore, the stability of the schools for some time to come, and has perhaps rendered it secure for a generation...

...The spirit of the time is against them, in spite of all the signs of a vigorous and intensifying religious practice...

...But much as the educational aspect of such a week seems to indicate a rather strenuous effort to "get culture" by hook or crook, there are genuine reasons for welcoming the movement it symbolizes...

...Great orchestras and opera companies, a growing number of talented virtuosos and effective ensembles, testify to a fervent popular support of the art...

...For the rest of us, however, their coming may well offer the occasion for wondering how long the utfcer chaos in Mexico is to endure...

...Speculation is useless concerning Mr...

...Even the evening complement of the august New York World, which spoke out bravely against newspaper vultures, has sat in voraciously at the handsome repast...

...We have sometimes noted protests, scattered here and there, against definitions of the present Mexican oflicials as "scoundrels...

...One has never felt sure previously that Professor Durant was convinced of the reality of sensation...

...But it is probably true that the man himself had grown too scholarly and too individual for his constituency...

...They recall what Taine and even Huxley had to say on this matter, and they have read the words of Goethe stigmatizing epochs in which faith is somnolent as sterile and doomed to oblivion...

...Its manifold virtues fade from the landscape, and one sees its prevalent venality, its obedience to gross and lecherous minds, its lack of understanding for the truth that writing can be, not the spoon which serves hale food, but the needle which injects venom...

...One certainly cannot suppose that the abysses of amorous sentimentality and crude cruelty revealed by the principals in the case have been plumbed by many...

...There is even to be, we are informed, a questionnaire on music, which broadcasting and newspaper reproduction will make so widely available that only dogged determination can keep any individual from discovering how little he has found out concerning tempo and counterpoint...

...One must admit, however, that the narrow margin by which the Christian Social party's victory has been gained reveals the extent to which the country has been demoralized by war...

...Its real meaning, however, is better seen when one notes that— unless some claim is made for Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge—it is the only book worthy of comparison with the best offerings of modern scholarship which has been written about the national political scene by one who himself figured upon it...

...and turning to portions of these records recently, we were not surprised to find that the future was anticipated in viciousness and cringing meanness, in that kind of servility for which Uriah Heep is a classic symbol...

...Almost immediately the exile of eight members of the hierarchy was ordered...

...Yet there are some very perceptible sources of hope, and because of these The Commonweal says very earnestly that no welcome to the forces outlined by Mr...

...This is by no means empty praise when one remembers what the role of that state in the national adventure has consistently been...

...and they profited, because their platform idol was a man who, in spite of mistakes and some questionable political philosophy, had the integrity and zeal of a genuine statesman...

...Strangely enough, one hears much of literary and other intellectual "returns" to Christianity, but gets little indication that the great mass of the impoverished are recovering confidence in traditional institutions...

...For Austrian Catholics the election was fated to decide primarily the status of education in the new republic...

...This discernment of merit is surely one reason why we ought to find it worth while generally to observe the work of such organizations as the Society of Saint Gregory...

...Surely the nation ought to be able to rest from its labors, confident that the general advance in melodiousness deserves a creditable mark, if not a blue ribbon or a gold medal...

...but he possessed so much real personal energy that these eccentricities of gesture and enunciation became, and for years remained, "signs" of what good public speaking was...

...Professor Keeson has now succeeded in causing this very light gas to assume the condition of solidity...

...But apart from the deplorable mental states which the name and legality of the organization must symbolize for all who know something of religious experience, the whole tenor of the business drummed up by Messrs...

...One is reminded of some fantastic legendary brigade of ghouls spreading carcasses about for the delight of buzzards...

...Even though Socialist antagonism to Catholic belief has lessened since the war, it still regards the training of the young as essentially a secular matter...

...Under the constitution inherited from the old empire, religious schools draw subsidies from the government treasury and are thus assured of maintenance costs...

...N A T I O N A L M U S I C W E E K " is with us...

...Eager to broaden his understanding of history and political institutions, resolved to get "at the facts" about currents of activity running round the world, he made no pretense at being interested in that mere political cunning which counts for so much in the business of getting votes...

...The distinguished Jesuit, Father Glanfreschi, well known as a speciahst in the physical sciences, was dispatched to Geneva by Cardinal Gasparri, and a conference was held, attended by representatives of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Archbishop of Canterbury...

...In the first place, he showed what the colleges which sprang up in the Middle-West after the Civil War, at the close of the pioneer days, could do for a young man straight from the soil, and ambitious— like so many of his neighbors—to serve the country and still do well privately...

...Besides, being men of intelligence, they cannot but weigh the pragmatic consequences of widespread anti-religion...

...Could anything be more comforting than the existence, in an era when the sages of Jamaica are booming an organization of atheists more youthful than discriminating, of scattered groups of Catholic students eager to make the lore of Christendom their private property...

...But why go on...

...Similarly, the New York Telegram, following its recent change in ownership, could think of no better recipe for establishing itself in the hearts of its countrymen than employing the inimitable philosopher and punster, Mr...

...He represents so much that is noblest in the peculiar intellectual texture of the Hoosier state that an enumeration of his quaHties would sound almost like a catalogue of democracy's cardinal virtues...

...Is not "the man who hath no music in his soul" as pitiable and undeveloped now as he was in the sixteenth century...

...But because these regulations are extended to limit the number of passengers in street-cars to 140 percent of the proper seating capacity, with a few extra on rear platforms, and prescribe such alleviations as celluloidcovered straps and adequate ventilation in all cars, Eustace Smith, secretary of the Canadian Electric Railway Association, declares they are "ruinous" and "impossible" and would put some companies out of business...

...We ourselves get little indication that the youth of the land, either male or female, is storming the peaks of an intellectual Darien for the victory of Catholic culture...

...Sponsored by governors' proclamations, starred by pageants, recitals and choral performances, festooned by innumerable exercises in schools, the seven melodious days wind on...

...Robinson, it must be admitted that his remarks will be stared at a bit incredulously by many...

...It promised...

...This recent sacrifice is, therefore, a part of veteran experience to them...

...Shipman, who is described as a "famous playwright," declares: "There is one great thing we can say for Ruth Snyder...

...One thinks of a new laity no longer content with routine, which will discover that Patmore was a poet and emulate his practice of searching Aquinas for practical wisdom...

...These lines are written at a time when the United States has reaffirmed its determination to adhere rigidly to the principle of tolerance...

...The Life of John Marshall abides, of course, as a singularly thorough study of a man who, as much as any other, determined the structure of American government...

...Peggy Hopkins Joyce, Woodward the incomparable "de-bunker," and that fiery reverend issime John Roach Straton have all served their turn as reporters...

...Having for its purpose the development of liturgical music according to the direction offered by the Motu Proprio, it enlists the cooperation of choir-masters and organists with a view to improving the character of an ecclesiastical art which is far too frequently abandoned to chance...

...This feat is an extraordinary conquest on the part of science, and may easily be followed by the solidification of air and other gases—perhaps even by a successful attempt to reach, in the laboratory, absolute zero itself...

...The young Beveridge was an orator with more than a few mannerisms...

...and its able treasurer, Mr...

...THE later Beveridge was a political philosopher...

...The display may have a relative moral significance, proving as it does that "middle-class comfort" is not a synonym for happiness...

...There is even some reason to fear that the writing urge, in so far as it is young and Catholic, veers toward Greenwich Village more strongly than it did in the 'nineties...

...Their duty has been to rule the old Mexican dioceses, sacred by reason of a long tradition of holiness and service, through the multiform catastrophes of a newer time...

...This year the society is to convene in Cincinnati during the two days following May 29...

...Shipman's sense of moral values: he does not even know how to dispose of his adverbs...

...After meeting the organist, a learned and competent man, the traveler was surprised to learn that the little church repertory included many works by American composers...

...Smith and Hopwood is decidedly trivial...

...That point, which has never yet been reached in any experiment, is 452° below the zero of Fahrenheit...

...George Fisher, Box 312, Times Square Station, New York City, assures us that he will be glad to send details to all those concerned...

...D R . FORBES GODFREY, Minister of Health in the Ontario cabinet, has announced a vigorous campaign against various agencies likely to spread communicable diseases throughout the province...

...Homer Croy, writing in World's Work, the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, Incorporated, is doing a flourishing business in general and blossoming on campuses in particular...

...But with all due credit to the vision and observation of Mr...

...There seem to be quite a number of "godless clubs" at various universities, as might be expected under existing conditions...

...A country ruled by them is verily a place in which neither law nor manly philosophy can exist...

...An American traveler through Switzerland was astonished recently, as he passed a small village church, to hear a fine rendition of a pipe-organ selection which he recognized as having been written by a Chicago musician...

...Beveridge was badly beaten in two campaigns—the first defeat being due to the wholly impractical movement of Roosevelt Progressivism, the second being administered by the Klan...

...Perhaps Miss Maurine Watkins, who made a lurid exposure of disheveled justice in Chicago, is merely being cynical in supplying the "yellow press" with the same kind of material her play seemed to deplore...

...Encouraged by her example, various members of the theatrical profession, Willard Mack at their head, have brought forth picture-paper dithyrambs on the subject which years from now will make the cheques received in payment generators of remorse...

...That is why we decided to publish Mr...

...It was widely conceded that Socialist power in the republic had reached its peak, and that, as conditions of an economic and social character improved, it would be less and less easy to arouse public affection for anything savoring of Russian experiments in government...

...Boys who followed him into college were all "Beveridge marked...

...It is suppposed to be the temperature of space, and the belief prevails that, when it is reached, all motion of the molecules of gases ceases...

...A N E X P E R I M E N T of extraordinary interest is just reported from the University of Leyden, where for many years investigations under almost incredible conditions of low temperatures have been carried on...

...There is no loud clamor for Saint Augustine's masterpieces, even in very fine bindings...

...Some of these ruffians have left behind them a record of student hfe in the United States...

...OF THIS no finer indication could be given than that afforded by the steady progress of the Society of Saint Gregory of America...

...If once convinced that general benefit to the world would result from the innovation, to raise the matter at the coming Ecumenical Council, but expressed reluctance to make any change forthwith...

...So far, there have been no mass meetings of passengers to save the imperiled corporations...

...ACCORDING to Mr...

...Every one of these men has been tried by fire...

...Samuel Shipman's contribution to the Daily Mirror, one opines that there is no bottom to nonsense...

...ONE should always be cordial to good news...

...Rising from Mr...

...The Snyder case is, of course, not the first to arouse a monstrous and morbid curiosity...

...But everything implied by that principle, as well as every other good thing guaranteed by our constitutional administration, has been plucked from the people of Mexico by a band of ruffians who still find "explainers," if not any longer admirers, among us...

...Since the rise of Madero and Carranza, history south of the Rio Grande has been one long series of disreputable episodes—of lies offered as truth, of robbery termed reform, of spoliation by military force labeled "socialization...

...Far more indicative of general disarray, of cheapness and viciousness of mind, is the organized effort to please the public appetite for such details as are bared at the trial...

...After the pros and cons of the matter had been discussed at some length, an answer was returned by the Papal Court...

...Some time ago, Professor McLennan, F.R.S , of Toronto University, liquified this gas, which was originally thought to exist only in the sun, but is now known as a natural product...

...At a time when England is mournfully prepared, for reasons financial, to say farewell to Sir Henry Wood and his illustrious orchestra, we can sympathize with Londoners even while rejoicing in our own abundant musical and near-musical wealth...

...The gi-eat doubters of the time—and there are sincere and noble agnostics in every time—realize that a negation of belief in Divinity can never be wholly categorical in character...

...When the question was mooted some two or three years ago, an appeal was made to Rome to take the matter into consideration...

...But one uses it here, not under stress of emotion, not in mere wrath, but with that calm clarity which is demanded by intelligence...

...Henry Morton Robinson's The Lay Reader, which appears elsewhere in this issue, although we were frankly puzzled by the lack of overt evidence for the movement it so enthusiastically describes...

...But to the end he remained so faithful to his concept of conduct and so ready to be of service that no excuse need be made for repeating what was said at the beginning of these remarks—that, with the passing of Albert J. Beveridge, the greatest of Indiana's public men has gone...

...But no other similar topic has initiated the wholesale distribution of comment, of gaudy statement of fact, which the New York press has thrown round the proceedings in Justice Scudder's court...

...So far so good, and expressions of approval are greeting the new by-laws from all sides...

...Apart from his personal achievement, a vigorous interest in the development of American historical research, displayed to full advantage in the raising of funds, made numberless scholars his debtors...

...IT WOULD be hasty, indeed, to assume that the notorious murder done in Queens Village indicates the state of suburban culture...

...Professor Keeson is the first person to successfully solidifv helium...

...Here the matter rests, but it may be added that Father Glanfreschi is busied at the present time with private studies tending toward a general reform of the calendar, of which, no doubt, the incidence of Easter would form a part...

...Editors, confronted with an ample array of dismal topics inviting comment, may be pardoned the haste which they display in clutching greedily at any random rainbow...

...Women and children first" seems to be the general response of those who travel to the wail of those whose slogan must be, "Take care of the nickels and the passengers may take care of themselves...

...This in itself would mark the author as distinguished...

...Robinson could be more enthusiastic, cordial and sincere than its own...

...The number of trained organists and directors vitally Interested in subjects related to the Motu Proprio is large and growing, just as the excellence of much ecclesiastical music written or newly introduced In this country is being recognized abroad...

...In order to accomplish this, he cooled it down very nearly to absolute zero...