Week by Week

...But the assumption implied in calling Protestant colportage in Catholic Brazil "Christian education" is so flagrant that The Commonweal feels almost a relief in departing from its customary suavity and letting the South American, its editors, subscribers and supporters, know that It considers their Issue "volume one, number one," a little monument of impertinence, arrogance and bad taste...

...Under what amounts to the dictatorship of General Ibanez, the reigning President, an era of disestablishment in fact seems to be impending for the land of nitrates...

...The conduct of missionary enterprise in far lands is the business of any church that cares to undertake it, and how far it is best carried out at long range and under "educational" auspices is equally their concern...

...Indeed his memory recalled even other ominous details...

...Occurring during 1917, this great display of produce and peanut-stands on the Chicago municipal pier had been preceded by an unprecedented blowing of the Thompsonian "horn" and innumerable promises of profits to the deserving...

...IN VIEW of the pronouncement of the Holy See against immoral hterature, contained in the Acta Apostolicae Sedls published a month ago, special Interest attaches to an article by M. Louis Renaudin in a recent issue of La Vie Catholique, which sums up the results of a debate upon what the reading public is getting used to hear described for it as "the crisis In the novel...

...These "offenders," the best jurists now serving Chicago, are forced to ask for election independently...

...INCUMBENT upon every editor or editorial board from time to time is the unpleasant duty of modifying statements which, in the light of later knowledge, are seen to be misstatements...

...Hughes of the United States Bureau of Standards, and by Professor Harvey of Princeton, and are briefly recorded by our contemporary Science...

...The voter going to the polls sees a shining array of twenty names, recommended to Democrats and Republicans alike, and belonging for the most part to men who have already sat on the bench worthily...

...It provides that a person convicted of a felony after having been found guilty of two "major felonies"—defined by the statute and running the gamut from burglary to perjury—shall be declared an habitual criminal and sentenced to life imprisonment...

...H OMICIDE statistics as gathered by the Prudential Life Insurance Company indicate that the number of murders committed in the United States during 1926 was smaller than the 1925 figure...

...Documentary evidence to show that the Soviet directors were willing to expend a great deal of time and money on organizing nationalism in the Orient exists in such easily surveyed abundance that doubt is hardly permissible...

...As we write, the returns from the election of June 6 are being counted and there is no way of telling whether the courts have become intimately "affiliated" with the ThompsonCrowe government...

...But we did all want to see Governor Alvan Fuller look into the matter and tell us frankly what he thinks of it...

...It was once imagined that the light produced by these living things was due to a kind of slow combustion of their own substance...

...The Idea of parole notwithstanding, it is useless to experiment with men who have proved themselves incapable of using freedom sanely...

...Some years ago a school of historians existed, in England and elsewhere, who busied themselves propagating a legend according to which the Celtic and Catholic Irish were constitutionally incapable of evolving any kind of material civilization or comfort...

...That now turns out to be an incorrect idea, for it seems that during the processes of digestion some special material is formed which, when acted upon by an enzyme, also produced in the body, is caused to shine...

...Besides, life imprisonment of habitual offenders ought, to some extent, free the state of the inglorious and truly hideous duty necessarily associated with the "death house," whose proliferation in the columns of the meaner press Is an offense to dignity and humanity alike...

...All these forms of light come from living things, for of course the "fox-fire" Is not produced by the wood Itself but by bacteria preying upon it...

...It is quite as wrong to sentence a man unfairly as to take him out of jail by force and hang him to the nearest tree...

...How these noctilucae produce their light has been a subject of Intensive study, for it Is quite certain that the very best incandescent lamps which man can devise come nowhere near them In efficiency...

...George Brennan, has agreed that the list of candidates recognized by both major political parties shall not include the jurists who have been proved offensive by history...

...None of us knows definitely that Judge Thayer was actually biased...

...The present race for funds, as staged by bootlegging gentlemen and the AntiSaloon League on parallel tracks, has brought the prohibition problem to a stage quite as ironically comic as the celebrated race in which Mr...

...Francois Maurlac, perhaps the foremost among the younger French novelists since the war, believes that the novel languishes because essential matter for drama Is failing the present generation of writers...

...If this law Is conscientiously enforced...

...WE HAVE expressed the conviction that Sacco and Vanzetti were not convicted of crime with that impartiality toward evidence which satisfies public opinion that justice has been legally done...

...The idea of what was once called 'love' is something as remote from their conception of life as the Court of Versailles...

...that its flourishing commerce overseas was reflected in the fine mansions built by its burgesses...

...For years the Chicago judiciary has enjoyed unusual opportunities to uphold civic virtue...

...We learn that he is "endowed with those social gifts which North Americans so often have reason to envy in their LatinAmerican fellows...

...How could one overlook such a deed of calamitous virtue...

...Modern youth has ceased to believe in such things...

...If China were to become a communistic nation directed to a large extent from Moscow...

...This must have been done reluctantly, however, owing to the loss of trade that must inevitably follow...

...Was it devotion to a communistic ideal which stirred up all the activity?- Perhaps to some extent...

...These facts have not been denied by Mr...

...that he is endowed with the Pentacostal gift of tongues, and that his presence in this country on a whole-time job is for the purpose of "forwarding the program of Christian education in South America...

...Those who would learn of its ancient splendor and the ruin that descended upon it as late as 1652, may be referred to the text, views and plans in Hardyman's History of the City of Galway, probably one of the rarest and most unique of local histories, and one which it is rather surprising has never been reprinted in a modern edition...

...if it resolved to cut adrift from every European country and close its harbors to trade...

...Nevertheless, they are well worth hearkening to in a country where exactly the same steady infiltrations are finding their way into the printed word, with no less lamentable results to art...

...Admiration for the culture and affection for the citizens of Confucius's land were hardly the determining motives...

...We know that it contained within its walls fine churches and foundations, of which last the College of Saint Nicholas, with 1,200 scholars, was the chief...

...Episcopalianism has been here in force for some time, and a good many of our most prominent grandfathers have been brought up in it...

...Under a half-tone of a benevolent and spectacled face, considerable information upon Dr...

...It is In this sense that Chesterton spoke so great a truth when he declared that the Catholic vision was 'the most romantic thing In the world.' " r HYSICISTS have long been aware of the existence of what Is known as "cold light," In other words, light which Is shown by fireflies, glowworms, etc., which cause the phosphorescence In the water seen at times in the wake of a ship as well as the "fox-fire" of rotten wood...

...Now that the Episcopal Church has practically decided to begin the exorcism of the Eighteenth Amendment, one may legitimately hope that the desirable ultimate "casting out" is a little nearer than it was...

...Tupman once engaged without breaking any speed record...

...But when all the splendor had died away, a circuit judge came riding like the Red Cross knight and saved the profits, almost to the last dollar, for the city treasury...

...M. Renaudin's remarks are addressed primarily to a French audience and consider the crisis rather from its artistic than Its moral side...

...Robert Crowe, and the amenable though Democratic Mr...

...In fact, the second method might sometimes be considered admirable if it were compared with the action of a prejudiced court...

...But really one cannot get rid of the impression that the Russians have hoped to do certain things which for some reason or other sound familiar...

...it has once or twice associated the government of the people with gross scandal...

...Now the Governor, with that fine sense of practical values which we have consistently admired in him, has gone further than duty demanded...

...The conclusion has, therefore, long since been obvious...

...It is in its nature to grow by what it feeds upon and it is seldom satisfied with merely nugatory measures...

...Coblenz and Dr...

...Great fiction, he says, "lived on the conflict between passion and the resistance which religion, morality, social prejudices or even worldly honor, if you will, offer to it in our souls...

...There is no more interesting city in the world than this isolated seaport "furthest-west," nor one where the relics of ruined prosperity preach a more striking sermon on the quality of the national life that was struck down by the alien invader three and a half centuries ago...

...The Chicago Bar Association and numerous other agencies have tried hard to educate citizens regarding the issue, but several decades of free schooling have not, it must be confessed, justified anybody in assuming that education has any real punch...

...How far this duty is generally discharged has nothing to do with the case in point, and must not deter The Commonweal from admitting that a recent reference to the conditions of religious instruction in Chilean schools presented a roseate view of the facts which does not appear to be justified...

...From a somewhat dusty file we rescue a two-page sheet entitled the South American, dedicated to "Educational Advance in South America," a column of which is taken up with the activities of a certain Dr...

...What trials, therefore, may be in store for Chilean Catholics, who compose the immense majority of the population, can only be conjectured...

...The present Anti-Saloon League purpose seems to be to make an impression on the MiddleWest, where prominent organs of publicity, official reports of spreading contempt for law and the simply unquenchable thirst of a multitude have combined to threaten aridity...

...It is, one confesses, a little difficult to see why the Soviets should have gone to such lengths in trying to "educate" China...

...The parallel here indicated is impressive, but having received a considerable amount of training in such matters, the Oriental will probably see the point for himself...

...This has been no easy task, owing, on the one hand, to the cowardly intimidating dramatics of certain radical sympathizers, and, on the other hand, to the difficulties which a man not personally associated with the judiciary naturally finds in reviewing legal evidence...

...Of course Russian violation of a solemn treaty obligation is implied, and there was every reason why Britain should have proceeded to break off diplomatic relations...

...Quite obviously if this education were the mighty "weapon of democracy" about which we hear so much...

...Manifestly a country in which 12,000 people are slain annually has some right to exact heavier punishment through courts of law in order that the "force of fear" may be felt...

...Nevertheless there is always danger that alarmed recourse to measures like capital punishment will defeat its own purpose, by too great a readiness to exact the death penalty, by making violent criminals tend to become monstrous desperadoes, and by organizing that humanitarian resentment of capital punishment which is a constant in modern civilizations...

...From an article in the London Tablet, we learn that state support will shortly be withdrawn from churches and church institutions, chaplains from the army, and religious instructors from the schools...

...Our own happy experience of a church supported by voluntary contributions and free of all control from government should not blind us to the fact that conditions in Latin countries are different...

...The committee itself, formed as it is of three eminent Massachusetts citizens notable in a very special way for their confidence in and readiness to work with public opinion, is about as good a guarantee as one could hope to get that unfairness will be absolutely eliminated from the final decision regarding the fate of Sacco and Vanzetti...

...If these figures give any index to the convictions of Chileans generally, the kindly intentions of General Ibanez in regard to religion need not cause undue alarm...

...By appointing a separate advisory committee to examine into the case independently, he has assured the public that there is no desire on the part of Massachusetts authority to smother any information bearing on the problem...

...It Is also worthy of remark that those who contributed to the debate were not satisfied to deplore, but go on to suggest remedies, and that most of them regard the crisis as one of misdirected growth rather than decay...

...Wayne B. Wheeler...

...It will free the community of men who generally tend to become murderers and who are often really "psychopathic cases...

...Admittedly money can accomplish a great deal in the field of political action...

...The most recent researches have been made by Dr...

...The circuit judges, qualified in some measure to supervise municipal finances, have time and time again prevented the current of gathered dollars from irrigating the front yards of deserving political henchmen, the most epochal occasion being the aftermath of Mayor Thompson's illustrious "pageant of progress...

...THE necessity of referring to South America this week may excuse reference to a matter which pressure upon our Week by Week columns compelled us to neglect at due date...

...if it decided to divest itself of its own merchant class and run its business affairs through a "central committee"—then the gentlemen whose favorite color is red would acquire a prodigious expanse of fertile territory out of which to extract a detail sometimes referred to as wealth but usually spoken of by them as "commodities...

...Anticlericalism, it is a common experience, seldom stops halfway...

...Is this expectation justified...

...But Mr...

...This means that they must expect voters, only a few of whom are really trained and many of whom are cannily bossed, to scratch the ballots and so wreck the plot...

...Braga is supplied...

...Erasmo Braga, "Secretary of the Brazilian Committee on Cooperation and Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil...

...This will gratify people who yearn for greater security and it will also please those who have been active in promoting various plans for crime prevention...

...CHICAGO is square up against another struggle for an upright non-political judiciary...

...To those who still credit the myth, the old glories of Galway are not a bad retort...

...Three names are new, however, and it is precisely these three upon which municipal corruption stakes its hopes...

...However opinions regarding that church may vary, there is no danger that anybody will accuse it of constituting a "foreign element"—by which is usually meant somebody like a wine-loving, hard-working and eminently desirable Italian—or of being unfamiliar with the purpose of native institutions...

...How could the illustrious Thompson, once more master of the municipal citadel, help making haste to see that such a thing did not happen again...

...If their secret can be guessed then there will be an advance in illumination greater far than even the substitution of electricity for gas or of the latter illuminant for lamps and candles...

...A political coalition comprising the Mayor, his bosom friend Mr...

...THE news that historic Galway is at last to be a port of call for trans-Atlantic liners stirs the historical imagination...

...Wheeler ought to think twice before he assumes that it will buy law or morality...

...Mayor Thompson would never have been obliged to assume the burdens of office...

...The results will tell...

...These same judges have, for instance, the right to appoint park commissioners—who in turn are sultans dispensing (or in a position to dispense) numerous jobs requiring nothing more strenuous than an occasional leisurely drive past the bears of Lincoln Park...

...M. Henri Massis, one of the best of French critics, assents, but believes that the conflict can be rediscovered if only things of earth are looked at under the aspect of eternity...

...and that even in penal days it served as a refuge for the hard-pressed Catholics and was the point through which they maintained contact with their brethren overseas...

...The judges should be men who know what the greatest living enemy of Ring George wants, and who are ready to act upon what they know...

...They are substitutes for the names of the "great offenders" whose vigilance has no place in the Thompsonian democracy...

...By comparison the habitual criminal act, which has just become a law In the State of California, seems to us an unusually sane preventive measure...

...ACCORDINGLY a master-mind has devised a remarkable plan for translating this conclusion into practice...

...It has been known to elect senators and representatives...

...The essential conflict that Christianity never fails to awaken in us," he tells the despondent young novelist, "is the mainspring of drama In our moral and social life...

...It is a pleasant thought that the haven which has seen so much of Ireland's best leave her forever, may now become the point at which men and women of Irish blood get their first glimpse of the land of their fathers...

...He has contented himself with sounding an alarum and emitting a slogan—"Money, and a lot of it...

...Meantime there is comfort in the fact, recorded by the Tablet, that a law of many years' standing permitting parents to remove their pupils during periods of religious instruction in state schools has hitherto been taken advantage of by no more than from 2j^ to 5 percent...

...It is, judging from evidence, much more likely to purchase contraband hooch...