Week by Week

...it led to gross abuses in the redistribution of property which, ever since the first revolution, has been the thorniest of problems...

...To prevent a long siege of battle and disorder in the disheveled country would be an act of service and political intelligence without parallel in this decade...

...1 HE Bowery is no longer the frontier of New York...

...one may "doubt" the wisdom of trying to use the Constitution as a regulator of what citizens shall pour down their throats...

...When he points out that this "system" is invading the realm of conscience and liberty, Governor Ritchie is pointing directly at the major problem of our time and age...

...Forty-five years ago, five branches of the society joined to form a diocesan union...

...The fact that Czecho-Slovakia lies between the two is a point of great interest but also a strategic possibility in so far as the further unification of the Balkans is concerned...

...Berdjajew's creed is simply that the Revelation of God to man has, in religion, its counterpart of love—the revelation of man to God, the creative transformation of earth by the religious human being into a thing worthy of Divine acceptance...

...1 HE wonder is that the one error which is the source of the two evils, has taken so long to bite itself into men's consciousness...

...Obviously, a Christendom which can cherish such ideas is not irretrievably remote from the West...

...But such notable texts as the statement of his "idea of man" by the Russian philosopher Berdjajew, included in the volume mentioned, have already attracted wide attention in Germany and ought to be read carefully here...

...Is there a man who can perform it...

...Men who have grown used to abdication for their livelihood's sake, show an amazing docility when political demands are made upon them which affront natural law...

...The names of the contributors need not be given here, for the reason that, though eminent in their own circles, they are men about whom the West knows nothing...

...On the whole, however, the United States very nearly ignored their coming...

...At the recent meeting of the Southern Maryland Society, over which Governor Ritchie presided, Dr...

...The rally will be another manifestation of the wonderful spread of an organization which for six and a half centuries has worked in many countries for the greater glory of God and the more general support of all lawfully constituted authority in the state...

...But every new act of repression, every display of armed brutality, will strengthen the might against him, allied with which the justly embattled convictions of a Catholic populace patently stand...

...But we know there will go through it everywhere the kindness of Christ, which sees the poor and even the prodigal, not as burdens upon society, but as pledges of an endless, all-embracing communion...

...Liberty is bred in responsibility...

...Its value lies in the clarity with which divergent views are expressed, and in the thoroughness with which the individuality of the Orient is explained...

...Grizzled members of the sober Saorstat who once sat in at Westminster, if any such are left, must feel a reminiscent glow as they look across St...

...The other is a growing conviction on the part of the controlled that government is part and parcel of a social system which it is too late to seek to change, and that the only practical way of relieving its pressure is by securing as quickly as possible a share of the material wealth which experience tells them confers relative immunity and restores relative dignity to the individual...

...Through the second, "the government is becoming more and more a dominating system of social control, by which some of the people undertake to impose their personal and moral precepts upon all of the people everywhere, regardless of whether the conscience and convictions of those who are affected are ready to sanction and submit...

...Read and re-read at the distance of a few days, the impression grows that, in sharply questioning two main tendencies of our distracted day, the executive from Annapolis put himself squarely abreast of the best contemporary thought...

...Here again American opinion has clarified, even if one might wish for far greater definiteness and realism...

...w E NEED not be astonished that the promotion of understanding between the Catholic churches of the West and the East should be most active in the Germanic countries...

...It is significant and quite in the spirit of a society which has made such remarkable strides in such a comparatively short time that the keynote of every speaker who has addressed the committee in charge of arrangements for the event has been recognition of the fact that the rally must not be regarded as the culmination of work done, but as the commencement of a greater effort on behalf of God and the community...

...Thus there came into being, among other things, the "Little Entente" which hedged Germany round and rendered politically impossible the reconstruction of the Austrian empire...

...What was once called "an Irish night" with an implication no one missed, has been a common experience...

...A place for those who cling miserably to vacant seats on park benches, who sit all day in branch libraries reading endless newspapers, and who sometimes, when fortune favors them, get a chance to carry huge advertisements for cheap trousers or tumble-down restaurants round the city on their backs...

...Finally, however, the actual existence of revolution in Mexico is being more and more firmly taken for granted...

...Responsibility is nourished by initiative...

...The inability of France to think in terms of economics was, perhaps, less clear to her friends than to her enemies...

...It is the nondescript retreat of those whose vitality life has sapped...

...Europe, South America's old banker, was, on the whole, an easy-going creditor...

...GOOD parliamentary manners, like good wire, have a tensile breaking strain, and the bitter class feeling that has been aroused through the British administration's resolve to hobble the labor unions by a series of limitations on their right to declare strikes and collect funds has been too much for decorum in what used to be termed, with what justice we leave others to determine, "the best club in Europe...

...One may "deplore" the failure of enforcement...

...1 HIS question is sure to be asked many times in the near future...

...How far this tolerant attitude was contingent on an intelligent reading of the Monroe Doctrine is not to the point...

...Now comes the announcement that, on behalf of Catholic Charities, Cardinal Hayes will erect a large house for homeless men...

...The Argentine delegate's remarks merely had reference to the high tariff wall confronting the imports to the United States from his own country, and the hardship worked upon farmers there, who are adopting a slogan of "Buy from those who buy from us...

...Neither the one nor the other can survive an economic condition where interlocking trusts and cartels concentrate control within the hands of a group that is insignificant in numbers, but supremely significant in the wealth and resources at its command...

...Many frailties and vices have been written into the history of the Bowery...

...Finally, he declared that unless the major political parties took some frank and sensible stand on the matter, there would be no reason for either's existence—which is also a fact, though one less widely admitted...

...Balderston of the New York World, inserted, as by an afterthought, at the end of his detailed account of the stormy session of May 2, when labor members "bawled," "shouted" and "shook their fists" across the Chamber, do we learn that "the Tories . . . equaled their opponents in rowdyism and the bandying of insults...

...He accused the same amendment of being "the primary source of the lawlessness and contempt for law which now prevail throughout the land"—an equally obvious fact...

...From time to time The Commonweal has noted conventions and other important events bearing upon what was being done in Central Europe on behalf of church unity...

...We refer to the very partial manner in which rowdy scenes are reported whenever the storm-cone is hoisted above the clock tower by the Thames...

...Inevitably, favorable economic and political relations have something to do with the "exchange of the spirit," and of course Russian thought, religion and life were subjects which thousands of German prisoners had perforce to study during war-time years...

...When a parliamentary bear garden is being written up for American consumption, fair-minded Americans would be just as pleased as not to have the names of all the bears...

...It has undoubtedly influenced Mexican Catholics to cast their sympathy and their influence upon the side of revolutionary movements...

...Hence two very terrible things are taking place in the contemporary world...

...But an addition to their discomfiture appears in the blunt anouncement by the correspondent of the New York Herald Tribune that most opposition to Governor Smith as a "wet" is actually camouflage, the real cause being his religious belief...

...But the real sources of uprising in the unfortunate country never have been and are not religious...

...What is happening is simply the development of resentment felt against a minority which has attempted to carry out its autocratic program by force of arms...

...We understand that the projected house is to contain lodging rooms and dormitories, an employment bureau and a chapel...

...WHAT promises to be the greatest religious demonstration ever seen in New York will be held in the Yankee Stadium on May 22, when 100,000 members of the Archdiocesan Union of the Holy Name Society will gather to express their reverence for God and their loyalty to their country...

...Documents Relating to Eastern Christianity is the title of a rather extensive work into which two competent students have crowded a great variety of material relating to the spiritual differences between Russia and Europe...

...On the other hand, the firm declarations of the exiled hierarchy that they have taken no part in fomenting military uprisings against their enemies is widely received with tacit respect, owing largely to the clearness with which they, their compeers in the United States and their superiors at the Holy See have advocated peace...

...We would like to know why, when the antics of "Tom" Griffiths, "Bill" Jones, "Will" Thorne and other rough-hewn legislators arc in question, full discredit is given by name, and why a veil of anonymity covers brawlers on the other side of the house who forget the good manners so notoriously a part of public-school and university training to join in the verbal scrimmage...

...The treaty signed with Hungary grants certain specific rights in Fiume and virtually establishes an understanding between the two countries on the basis of mutual interest...

...A place for many more than we sometimes suspect, forgotten and lonely in a city which is no respecter of persons, however kindly it may be in the bottom of its heart...

...1 HE clash between labor and capital in Britain is Britain's affair...

...These innocent pronouncements are likely, however, to induce further tremors in Republican systems, which would, it seems, like nothing better than to be cannily silent about the issue in view of open Democratic affiliation with it...

...What is to the point is that the political forethought which very wisely extends its protection to investments and loans made by our nationals south of the Isthmus of Panama should never be so stated as to give any grounds for the belief that financial accommodation is being offered at a price which South American patriotism may judge too high to pay...

...Small wonder that central Europe is beginning to find the "Little Entente" a bit frayed, and that French statesmen are making every effort to bolster it up...

...J_/IKE all statements which deal with vital realities, Governor Ritchie's recent address before the Maryland Society of New York earns a right to sober and deliberate reflection...

...Anxious to consoHdate her military victory, France labored for the establishment of political advantages which would do much to protect her against possible future German attacks...

...T HE presence among them of exiled Mexican bishops has deeply moved American Catholics, who see in these sorely tried princes of the Church representatives of a persecuted nation...

...Butler declared that the amendment in question was the work of "the invisible government, which operates from the invisible capital at Westerville, Ohio"—a perfectly obvious fact...

...Hungary is a great agricultural country...

...But there are good reasons why none of its implications should be missed...

...Thus an advance in the direction of truth has been registered which, though slow, is none the less salutary and effective...

...Those familiar with the history of South American development in the past may well rub their eyes at hearing even a hint of such retaliation...

...That is why President Nicholas Murray Butler is creating such havoc by the mere device of making a few platitudinous remarks...

...1 O GO on hammering into people's heads the truth that the Eighteenth Amendment is a legal fact which must be taken seriously is a destiny with which not many men in public life can afford to identify themselves...

...but one must not even mention the terribly definite word "repeal...

...In the remarks recently addressed to the Pan-American Commercial Conference at Washington by Senor Luis Duhau of the Argentine republic, there is no need to see any reflection of history as it is being made in Central America...

...By the first, declares Maryland's Governor, "the investment banker is controlling the sinews of business, trading no longer in the savings of men, but in the most powerful agency that has yet appeared, the organized credit of men...

...We are not witnessing the formation of a crusade or a Thirty Years' War...

...Now occasion presents itself to chronicle the appearance of what may well be the first of many significant dossiers bearing on the subject...

...But there is no other part of the great metropolis which displays so much of poverty's backwash—tired women in frayed dresses of years ago, old men who capture a smoke from discarded stubs of cigars...

...Calles may win out, provided he can keep his army intact—a matter which depends largely upon his ability further to impoverish the country for the sake of paying his troops...

...Reports beyond number—the gruesome Jalisco train-robbery among them—indicate that the peril is desperately serious and may lead to an all-engulfing catastrophe...

...But this association was designed with absolutely no view toward economic development...

...Only through a chance remark of Mr...

...George's Channel and read the report of last night's contribution to statesmanship in their morning paper...

...Through a series of adroit manoeuvres, Germany clinched the bulk of Russian trade, being aided here by the inability of various British statesmen to think straight...

...Any minority strong enough or cunning enough to build its prejudices into the fabric of government, finds the ground prepared for it in advance by economic masters...

...We here have often said that the tyranny of Calles could have only the inevitable effect of all tyranny...

...The control of wealth by finance, and the control of individual conscience by the state are precisely the things which are troubling thoughtful men and women, who feel that the edifice of society is threatening to paralyze the Christian will and the Christian soul under the sheer weight of its materialism...

...Gaudy viciousness of a dozen sorts has vanished with once prosperous gilt fagades and shady diamond stickpins...

...One is a growing anonymity— what might almost be termed a "facelessness" in all controlling bodies, political or otherwise, which renders it humanly impossible to attach blame for abuse of power to any definite person or group...

...In some places they have certainly acted to help form military units Interested in bringing the present situation to a halt...

...One little observation, however, is in order here, because it concerns the enlightenment American readers have a right to expect and is symptomatic of a habit that has been growing upon American correspondents in London...

...Charges of bad faith, threats and suspensions, cries and countercries that in any other atmosphere would result in personal encounter and call for remedies of an antiphlogistic character, have been frequent during the past fortnight...

...By general admission, however, the official statements of the Mexican government have only a propaganda value, rigid censorship being applied to all published news or comment...

...and, in a country where opposition parties are as useless as Sanskrit encyclopaedias, it led to a stiffening resolve to create antagonistic military forces...

...If, then, the decision in Mexico is once more veering to the battlefield, who is responsible...

...Italy is mistress of the Adriatic...

...This attempt naturally alienated all foreigners active in the country...

...There is some very interesting evidence for this point of view...

...It is true Senor Duhau carried his suggestion of possible counter-measures to the extent of foreseeing legislation tending to "oppose the introduction of American capital...

...The press seems to have been reluctant to engage in a discussion of whether or not President Calles's statement that the bishops had fomented rebellion was reliable...

...Of it we shall have more to say at a later time...

...next Sunday, representatives of 330 branches will send delegations to the great demonstration at which the Cardinal-Archbishop will speak on the work which has been accomplished in the intervening years...

...COMMERCIAL come-togethers as a rule avoid complicating their very practical discussions by introducing contentious questions of international policy...

...As a matter of fact, it set up in Central Europe a system of commercial impasses which well-nigh made trade impossible...

...it is time to inscribe the virtue of hope...

...On the other hand, Italy, taught by a regime of resolute dictatorship how to build up prosperity, began to plan a northward development which now bids fair to be realized, at least in part...