Week by Week
628 THE COMMONWEAL October 23 , I929 the United States, which has fervently underwritten the hope expressed in the Kellogg treaties, will attempt to the best of its ability to avoid any...
...It is an excellent suggestion...
...It is a problem for engineers...
...If the limit is high, nothing has been gained, if it is low enough for safety, it will be broken...
...The subject is of interest to those who care about the agencies of civilization in the past, as well as to all who realize that manuscript-making embodies definite art counsel for the present generation...
...That the peon normally enters the United States illegally and free of charge...
...Ford, the lesser, however, has given us an account of his recent visit to the President which looks like the genuine article...
...The most to be hoped for, generally speaking, is neutrality--surely a disturbing fact in view of the devotion of a large part of the leisure of a large part of western humanity to the films...
...It is fairly plain that political, educational and industrial leadership is destined to remain largely in the hands of men...
...The marks of reality are not upon them...
...that these are likely to regard definitely feminine problems with a shrug of the shoulders...
...But it is otherwise with the automobile...
...I told the President," said Mr...
...The intellectual unreality of the experience probably unfits it to be a first-rate agent of moral degeneration...
...There will be no disagreements here...
...Ending competitive building is, true enough, one part of the answer...
...This movement, the greatest Indian migration of all time, will have to be curtailed for the same reasons that dictated the Immigration Act of I924...
...It is one important line of attack in what future historians will look upon as the great lost cause of our time...
...For obvious reasons, we hope that this negative argument will prevail...
...Its effect, he finds, "is bad, and it so acts upon human minds as to render improvement difficult...
...airplane accidents are on the increase, but they are increasing only one-tenth as rapidly as operations are expanding...
...Adequate meteorological service must come first, of course, and devices along the lines of the autogiro which will obviate landing difficulties, and the danger consequent upon motor troubles...
...This being true, it must automatically be granted to Father Martindale that the "assault upon thinking" involves an assault upon speech and memory...
...Another part of the same field is envisaged by Professor Charles Henry Beeson's edition of a copy of Cicero's De Oratore, as written out and revised by the abbot of Ferri~res during the ninth century...
...Another is that part of the revenue comes from liquor which will ultimately be sold and consumed in the United States...
...Chesterton in a recent article in America, knows much less about his own first principles than the old Manichee, but Manes he can be found acting on them just as Up-to-Date consistently...
...THE problem of compulsory chapel is a real one in many of our colleges...
...It may be Tariff cheerfully admitted that the diverse new rate increases are not of central Doldrums importance at the Capitol, even though they might ultimately become most interesting to consumers...
...For the same reason, the airplane should some day be safer than any form of land travel, at least safer than the automobile...
...Of course the newspapers frequently print long interviews with men who have just come from the President's office, but too often these interviews read like speeches prepared the night before...
...Part of the specifically religious impulse which gives such tremendous strength to the defense of prohibition is beyond doubt this same Manichaean hatred and suspicion of matter...
...Other issues are involved, of course...
...Amid such diversity of opinion, it would seem as superfluous to hear the word of the Association against the Prohibition Amendment as that of the Anti-saloon League...
...that he veers between deplorable living conditions and a startling readiness to avail himself of community help...
...THEREseems to be almost as much disagreement in this country about the effectiveness of Canada's liquor control system as there is about the Our Liquor merits of prohibition...
...Limit the speed at which an automobile can travel to an absolutely safe mark, and you do away with all of its advantages...
...THE new Manichee, says Mr...
...There is a good reason for it: the seas are free of obstacles, and there is no congestion...
...Is there any future for the Presidency, do you think...
...More Indians have crossed the southern border in one year than lived in the entire territory of New England at the time of the Plymouth settlement...
...One period is taken as the subject-matter for each volume...
...But, equally, it unfits it for any sort of tonic or strengthening function...
...So far the bulk of the supporting applause has come from Bishop James Cannon, who avers that "the time has come to put the buyer and seller on exactly the same footing before the law--as equally hostile to the great purpose of the Eighteenth Amendment...
...This statement is in perfect accord with repeated declarations emanating, at least semi-officially, from the Vatican itself...
...Princeton's current attempt to solve the problem is interesting-though not, perhaps, as interesting as the student complaint which prompted it: "There has not been sufficient opportunity to learn a religion in the university chapel...
...He grants (what certain educators are not willing to grant) that the movies are useful in schools "for helping children's imaginations to lay hold of what they could often not otherwise understand or realize...
...but of course a social world basically agricultural in character could afford no such ventures in independence as are now normal in our urban universe...
...To aid in finding that solution is both an opportunity and an obligation...
...And his confreres agreed that all antiques which cannot show a birth certificate antedating I8oo should be taxed 5 ~ percent of their value upon arrival here...
...The Catholic Church seeks neither privilege nor preferred status in Russia but only common justice and the freedom now recognized and accorded her by all other civilized nations as indispensable for her spiritual mission...
...Approximately one out of fifteen of the present generation of Mexicans has left his homeland for the United States...
...We are for a system which will bar all summer visitors to our northern national parks unless they sign an agreement to make a winter visit at least once in five years...
...It will probably prove to be a step beyond the alternative system, of trying to unite students of diverse forms of faith, and perhaps of none, in one type of religious service...
...CHARGED in the federal court of New York with using the mails to defraud, Mr...
...It is a piece of the lurid metaphysic of the Two Kingdoms...
...There is no need for wild experimenting, for hit-ormiss innovations...
...but the further concession that only trucks operated by members of the Market Truckmen's Association can deliver to the commission houses is arbitrary and burdensome both to grower and consumer...
...Of course he says nothing about the vast spiritual problem which the Mexican immigrant situation creates for the Catholic Church, and which has not yet been even adequately estimated...
...In response to this excellent, and surely significant, 632 THE COMMONWEAL October 0.3, 1929 piece of criticism, a number of discussion groups have been formed which may be attended instead of the chapel exercises...
...We have wanted to know what goes on when the Behind great financiers, industrialists, merchants and so forth call upon the the Scenes President of the United States: what they find to talk about, outside of the weather, and their pleasure at meeting...
...As such it must be met and mastered, if a sane belief in licit enjoyment and voluntary selfdiscipline is ever to replace the present dispensation...
...It is strange that in a country where more than half of the inhabitants expect a five months' winter, so little attention should have been given to making the best of it, and so much time should be spent twiddling thumbs in front of radiators and complaining of the season...
...The President asked him how the automobile business is getting on...
...MacDonald, influenced by sentiment upon which he must rely for the continuance of his party in power, is clearly the advocate of "freedom of the seas" in every practical form...
...Here, certainly, is something to remember: that it is the greater crime to steal the tithe than the whole, from the few than from the many, and from the rich than from those who can less afford it...
...But aside from this common purpose of all entertainment, and from the question of the quality of the entertainment purveyed by the usual film, it is true that the mere mechanical circumstances of film projection make intellectual stimulation virtually impossible...
...To date the forces of opposition have triumphed, but...
...Nevertheless there is hope that the excluding term of the compact between the truck owners and commission merchants will be set aside by the action of Commissioner Byrne A. Pyrke of the State Department of Agriculture and Markets...
...The economic and social theories clustering around the difficult question of drink can be debated and perhaps compromised...
...Here are large but nevertheless relatively inexpensive books, which adhere to a distinctive method of presentation...
...The President asks you courteously about the progress of your business, and you, in turn, ask him about his...
...It is not amiss to remind ourselves of a further application of these facts which Mr...
...Speed regulations which do not promise much in the first place are tried because nothing better offers...
...He answers, perhaps, that the outlook is very, very good...
...That would be it, of course...
...The movies do offer a substitute for thinking, which fact is probably the basis for their universal appeal...
...We have seventeen national parks in this country, in area larger than the state of Massachusetts, and yet it is a safe bet that for the number of people who make use of them in winter, the total acreage might as well be the size of Boston County...
...MR...
...THE settlement of the truck drivers' strike that had threatened New York City with a famine of fresh fruits and vegetables, presents some Middlemen unsatisfactory features...
...Next month, for instance, the Mediaeval Academy of America will bring out two works of more than usual erudition...
...but they have the reality and effectiveness that go with first-hand knowledge and the wish to be scrupulously fair...
...October 23, 1929 THE COMMONWEAL 631 All forms of entertainment, of course, ease the burden of the actual in this way to a greater or less extent...
...SAFETY ALOFT ECENT statistics furnished by the British Board of Trade show that ships are safer than the railroad, the airplane or the automobile...
...It destroys thrift...
...not without uneasiness of heart...
...With the Court's conviction that the Robin Hood motive "is highly improbable" no one will quarrel...
...it is to be hoped that he will be given full co6peration...
...How reasonable this all seems...
...How much essential religion will accrue to each student as a result cannot, of course, be determined beforehand...
...THE latest voice to be raised against the movies is the distinguished voice of Father Martindale...
...Though what used to be called "feminism" is now commonly interpreted in the language of economics, enough of it spills over to color the main currents of civilization...
...Finding engineers equal to it has long been a task of leading industrialists...
...and he will charge full speed at a pedestrian trusting that Providence and his brakes will prevent a tragedy if the walker should stumble or fall...
...All that he calls good is mind as distinct from matter, or even in antagonism to matter...
...But to such as these one must turn for concrete information regarding the intellectual pursuits of our ancestors--pursuits so fascinating because they have, in this way or that, influenced all of us...
...The really encouraging promise for the future of aeronautics is that there is no longer any confusion about what must be done to insure the maximum safety...
...Waggoner's Robin Hood story was that money was needed in order to save his bank at Telluride from ruin, and that to protect the depositors who had trusted him, he swindled the rich eastern banks...
...The task ahead of us, then, is to make this new freedom genuinely emancipatory--to see, on the one hand, that industrialized activity does not crush woman or treat her with poisonous injustice, and to curtail, on the other hand, the excesses of irresponsibility...
...both the connection that a Catholic calls healthy and that which he calls sinful...
...ONE is glad to see that the German correspondent of the New York Times Book Review has recently interrupted a lengthy search for someThe Long thing to write about by commenting discreetly upon the History of Art which Story of Art the Propylaen Verlag of Berlin is gradually bringing nearer its conclusion...
...It seems eminently worth stressing the point that not all contemporary German literature is dangling between Eros and a thoroughly dyspeptic Mars...
...Nevertheless this campaign, which might mean so much for the general welfare, promoting both health and happiness, has our support...
...For instance, it is he whom we occasionally hear saying "that true Christianity must not be sacramental, because it must be purely spiritual...
...But one strong root from which that opinion derives strength is the conviction that "international entanglements" have brought, and may again bring, the country into conflict...
...This, of course, is merely a confirmation of other surveys which have been made in the past twenty years...
...The judiciary having decided that the buyer in a liquor transProhibition portation case cannot be found guilty, Senator Sheppard is drafting a bill designed to place the aforementioned buyer in jail...
...The issue at stakemthe flexible provision amendment--has afforded a magnificent opportunity to test the President's strength...
...Finally, it either alienates or "decivilizes" the Oriental, in whose life it is taking an increasingly important place...
...New York City could ill afford a protracted strike which would drastically curtail the supply of necessary foodstuffs but it can take little satisfaction that this particular one was avoided by such a compromise...
...The informative text, curtailed to reasonable limits, is entrusted to a competent authority who is usually also a fairly tolerable writer...
...it is our summers which are of Winter intemperate...
...It is a pleasure to reflect that publishing of this sort can now be undertaken enthusiastically in the United States, which even fifty years ago fancied that the "dark ages" belonged to the more ferocious type of unicorn...
...Of course the hope is that eventually it, too, may be made to yield...
...628 THE COMMONWEAL October 23 , I929 the United States, which has fervently underwritten the hope expressed in the Kellogg treaties, will attempt to the best of its ability to avoid any situation leading to war...
...Somehow one rejoices over Books in this restriction, which indicates that America more or less reclusive learning still has a measure of control over materials...
...The drivers were given a merited raise in pay and Triumphant a shortened work-day...
...He will drive too fast in fog and on slippery pavements, despite warnings...
...THOUGH the great majority of books are published most unwillingly for only a few, occasional volumes proudly appeal to a limited Mediaeval audience...
...WEEK BY WEEK ~ERSISTENT rumors to the effect that a pact is soon to be signed between the Vatican and the Soviet Union have been followed by equally persistent and more official denials...
...Waggoner defrauded six New York banks out of $500,000 ; the Clarke brothers defrauded 25,000 people out of nearly $5,000,000 and their separate sentences aggregate less than Mr...
...Senator Vandenberg exposed the iniquities of antiquities--the presence of ultramodern worm-holes in table legs, the abundant supply of Louis Quatorze varnish, the assumed senility of twentieth-century teacups...
...that he does stay here and does mingle his blood with that of the dominant racial groups--these are facts, really familiar facts, which Mr...
...that he hires out through an employment agency as a seasonal laborer in some specialized agricultural pursuit, or as a railroad hand...
...Chesterton might well have made...
...Even today, outside of stunt and experimental flying, the airplane is reasonably safe...
...They remain formally sectarian m accordance with the terms of Princeton's their foundations, and yet are in actualNew Plan ity so non-sectarian that the requirement of daily or weekly religious attendance loses the authority of that corporate conviction which is necessary to maintain it at any level of fruitfulness and reality...
...The RevSovietism erend Edmund A. Walsh, S.J., who and the knows the situation well, appears to Holy See have settled the matter by declaring: "It is clear that the attitude of the Holy See toward the present Soviet government has not changed in any respect and cannot be expected to change until the fundamental and inalienable rights of Catholics in Russia are respected by the Soviet Union...
...But in spite of these concessions, he draws up an impressive indictment against the representative film...
...THUSbaldly itemized, his argument may sound too sweeping for conviction...
...The supreme ability of woman to reflect dominant trends and ideas is probably no greater than it ever was, but widening circles of activity carry her farther from the primordial influences of church and home...
...America looks confidently to its representatives, sure that they will possess tact as well as good intentions...
...ably be extensively disagreed with...
...Yet there are several statements in the report of the Association's recent survey which cannot well be disputed...
...Waggoner was charged with fraud, and the benevolence of his intent should not properly have influenced a decision...
...The spread of the radio loud speaker has at last made him aware of all that his ears have been suffering...
...It is somehow easier, in these days, for a "strong personality" to leave an impression with women than with men...
...geography, science, natural history...
...If only the world can manage now to be a little more frank, a little more courageous, in bringing hidden issues into the open l The Kellogg treaties banning war mean nothing unless the causes of war are sincerely borne in mind...
...Charles Waggoner of Telluride, Colorado, pleaded guilty The and was sentenced to Atlanta penitenColorado tiary for fifteen years...
...And yet most of us spare our leisure time for summer only--it is then we go abroad to look upon the land...
...The right men have been found in other situations...
...But one simply can't have everything...
...No doubt they will be found in this...
...Hoover summarizes skilfully...
...For both the alignment of military and economic energies on the continent is of sovereign importance~ The obvious inference is that France and Italy need to be viewed not as countries morally inferior to the very noble lands which have recently permitted their governing executives to issue a joint peace statement, but rather as countries beset with political Jproblems not yet solved...
...Three instruments will solve almost all of the airplane's problems, and they are now being developed: the radio beam, which willkeep a pilot true on his course, bring him to his destination through darkness and fog, and enable him to land safely even when he cannot see the ground...
...The hypnotic contrast of darkness and light, the dazing magic of continuity which excludes the intervals for mental breathing demanded by the rhythms of normal existence, induce the type of attention in which both the critical and the contemplative powers are completely relaxed...
...The sixteen published volumes of this series constitute, to our way of thinking, the most valuable general work in the field, and are likewise a fine testimonial to the enterprise of greatly handicapped German editors...
...The United States will attend the coming armament conference fully aware that its peace is not endangered by any immediately conceivable "balance of power...
...ORGANIZED WOMANHOOD F THE especial perils to which women are exposed, none is perhaps so impressive now as want of guidance...
...Waggoner's fifteen years...
...Such happy knowledge is, unfortunately, withheld from France and Italy~ To both these countries aloofness from international entanglements is out of the question...
...How it can succeed we do not know: the only way to silence street cars and automobiles is to abolish them, and the only way to silence a loud speaker is to hit it with an ax...
...Meanwhile at least one October 23, I929 THE COMMONWEAL 629 advance has been made...
...It is a brave man who will venture to predict that the existing coalition of Democrats and disaffected Republicans can maintain the necessary united front...
...There have been too many speakers on different subjects, leaving no impression of continuity...
...When these things are finally perfected, and when all inland cities are provided with suitable landing fields, the plane should be approximately as safe as a ship at sea...
...In so far as rational discussion of the subject is impossible, this is the element that makes it so...
...He detests as a sort of degradation all connection with coarse and concrete things...
...It is the enemy of thought, speech and memory...
...There is, however, the interesting chance that the law may be passed, declared unconstitutional, and thereupon presented to the country as a proposed amendment...
...On the basis of the Department of the Interior's figures for previous years, it is estimated that almost three million people entered our national parks during the summer months just past...
...It "weakens the outworks of virtue" and debauches the will...
...Father Martindale confesses that, on the rare occasions when he attends the movies, he attends "with terrific enjoyment...
...it is directly responsible for the anti-noise campaign which has developed such a numerous and notable following of late...
...A still better one would be to impose a ioo percent tax...
...The resultant referendum might then provide a real opportunity to test the nation's real sentiment regarding Volsteadism...
...To everyone interested in such books, the series may be warmly recommended...
...a mystical fear of drink as drink will go on operating as an instinct even after its superstructure of theory has been knocked over...
...Ford, "that the outlook for the automobile industry is very good...
...In them, doctrines and perplexities will be canvassed informally, under the leadership, respectively, of Dean Wicks, Professor H. Alexander Smith and Professor Paul Elmer More...
...The part of Cassandra has meanwhile fallen to Senator Hawes of Missouri, who pointed out the circumstance that I49,ooo cases are now pending in the federal courts, that the penitentiaries are a little like Emporia, Kansas, on circus day, and that the proposed law "would put another army of millions of men and women in the lawless class...
...In the October issue of Current History, for instance, Warehouse the Reverend Alfred Edward Cooke of Denver declares that drinking and crime are increasing in Canada, while Professor Carleton Stanley of McGill University finds that temperance is being promoted...
...NEITHER the heats of summer nor the chill winds of debate have availed the Senate anything in so far as the tariff is concerned...
...But at least one of its charges is undeniably sound...
...It is significant that our author arrives at the following conclusion: "It is impossible to predict what form of restriction will be applied to Mexican immigration, but it seems certain that restriction of some sort must come...
...It is our springs which fail us--short, sloppy and treachAcceptance erous...
...No one can quarrel with that...
...WHILE we do not agree with all the inferences in the article on Mexican immigrants which Mr...
...He has declared his intention of investigating the situation...
...Over here the record is not so remarkable...
...Though a thousand are killed each year in New York, and more than half as many in Chicago, nothing can be done about it...
...Blessings which the Church has conferred upon women need to abide, but we have also...
...That morals and will power are specifically weakened is more debatable--but mainly for this very reason...
...and since a goodly number of "strong personalities" happen to be smart, agnostic and suggestively epicurean, feminine audiences have been known to wax rampantly apostolic for ideas which, a generation ago, would have sent a lady to bed with a hot compress and a cup of sassafras tea...
...Since this tendency is rooted in varied social and individual necessities, it cannot well be dubbed deplorable...
...Perhaps it is too sweeping...
...Then there is added a truly remarkable corpus of illustrative material, sufficing to initiate all but the unwilling into the genetic and other characteristics of an art...
...Far from showing any tendency to mitigate its persecution of religion, the Moscow government, during the past twelve months, has reasserted its hostile intent by new discriminatory legislation, by enlarging the activities of its anti-religious department, by arbitrary imprisonment of Catholic dignitaries, such as Bishop Sloskan, and by generally renewed assaults on all churches...
...Glenn E. Hoover contributes to the current Mexican number of Foreign Affairs, we are quite Immigrant ready to assert that the paper merits Workers careful reading as the most effective treatment of an important subject we have seen...
...Christianity, which emancipated woman, set no arbitrary limits to her development...
...Under this arrangement the farmer, who has adopted long-distance automobile hauling to shorten the chain of distribution, will find another link added, since he will be compelled to transfer his produce in New York City, or its environs, to one of the accredited trucks...
...How speed will ever become consistent with safety we do not know...
...And yet, supposing that we are all mistaken about the amount of Canadian liquor drunk by Americans, supposing that all the liquor made in Canada or imported from abroad is consumed by 63 ~ T H E C O M M O N W E A L October 23, 1929 Canadians, even so the per capita consumption among them has declined more than one-half since 1912...
...It is the size of the sentence imposed on him which will cause many of us to scratch our heads...
...No radio beam will keep a driver from crashing into a telephone pole, and no automatic device will stop him from trying to beat a train to the crossing...
...Old tomes, indeed...
...THE city resident has for years endured without much complaint the thunders and grumblings that are the voice of the streets at night, deemThe Voice ing this more conducive to repose, at any rate, than the noises of the country...
...But the groups will at least be the gainers by having partaken in candid discussion under the direction of men who are cultured, honest and humane...
...IN THE United States, the months from December to March are ideal as winters go...
...an automatic pilot which will keep the plane level without any attention from the aviator, and a new altimeter which will show altitude above the ground instead of above sea-level, obviating the danger of flying into hilltops...
...EDSEL FORD has answered a question which from time to time has bothered us no end...
...And therefore we believe it essential to the peace movement that the precise extent of our national naval independence be set forth clearly as soon as possible...
...of the City Strangely enough, it is the addition of music to the harsh sounds of wheels and motors that has now driven him to protest...
...British commercial planes, for instance, have flown 4,458,ooo miles during the past five years, carried II3,OI2 passengers safely, had only two accidents and fifteen deaths...
...but it will not yield to the oblique arguments which assume it to be a mere social doctrine...
...He finds that "films can be extremely beautiful, amusing and interesting...
...Actuated by bitter experience, we should gladly advocate even a i,ooo percent tax...
...One is that the $70,000,000 which Canada collects annually from the liquor traffic, and which is set aside for roads, schools and charities, would, under prohibition, all go toward relieving the suffering bootleggers...
...Probable or not, it had no bearing on the case...
...A British public consciousness willing to maintain naval parity is not bent upon ruling the waves...
...And Mr...
...His strictures (which are to be found in the Do Movie current number of Studies) will probFans Think...
...and that women themselves may, ultimately, see the world in distorted perspective...
...Professor Edward Kennard Rand's Survey of the Manuscripts of Tours will throw light from an important source upon the processes of mediaeval publishing...
...No one has any clear idea of what can be done to keep the roads and streets safe for either the pedestrian or the motorist...
...AN INTERESTING triple play in the current prohibition spectacle involves the Philadelphia Circuit Court of Appeals, Senator Sheppard Promoting and Congress...
Vol. 10 • October 1929 • No. 25
