Week by Week

...It is said that Pope Pius X, so lovably simple in his personal life, never tired of observing the activities of his accomplished Cardinal...

...The correspondent of the United Press secured from Alexis Rykov, president of the Council of Commissars, a statement explaining that religious persecution in Russia is not merely a myth but actually impossible...

...Birthday luncheons are no rarity but the Toronto one in its great outpouring of respect and admiration for a statesman, financier, jurist and educator found uniqueness in the address of its honored guest...

...But the Fordham conferences are doing their share of it handsomely...

...Study of history, economics and political science has placed at the world's disposal a vast amount of knowledge which ought to be utilized practically...

...Others probably went in quest of a Shavian autograph...

...These omissions have been supplied by Father Edmund A. Walsh, S. J., replying to Rykov in the New York Telegram...

...Fleet Street is right...

...Doubtless those who had never seen the Tower listened carefully to the guides through that fine old memorial...

...But since even this campaign of enlightenment failed to impress everybody of that "great truth of science," man's descent from a monkey, the government laid hands upon a long list of victims whose crime was to have faith in God...

...Journalists everywhere, we should think-even those sold, heart and soul, on imperial economic union-must feel a thrill of exultation at the action of the English Saturday Review-Recently the editors of this weekly, which is officially Conservative with overtones of progressivism, published a severe criticism of Lord Beaverbrook's new party...

...Rykov failed, it is true, to specify what the government teaches or how the "local authorities" arrive at their decision...

...Catholics and those who revolt against modern materialism will imbibe fresh enthusiasm in his comment on the religious war in Russia: "Canada is Christian...

...His Eminence, Cardinal Hayes, in inaugurating the feature on March 3, placed a proper emphasis on its purpose when he stated that it "is not to triumph nor to boast, not to attack nor to blame but to serve...

...Stalin Takes It Easy IF STALIN thinks it necessary to warn his party against overconfidence and to condemn party members who "fail to realize the necessity of consolidating our present achievements in collectivization," we may take it as a definite sign that the peasant hostility to the campaign for a complete socialization of agricultural holdings has not been less widespread or grave than it has been described in the foreign news...

...Reaching as it does, literally by the millions, the most representative class of the American public-the old-line, traditional, native stock-including hundreds of thousands of professional men and women, it has solidly established itself as a weather bureau for registering the movements of public opinion in advance of their outward manifestations in the polling booth...

...The results will, no doubt, be very interesting...

...Almost immediately afterward the board of directors, who had fully countenanced the editorial, woke up to find that their opinions had changed...

...For the danger of all such devices is that they tend to produce mere passive receptivity...

...But these advantages are not great enough to justify the abandonment of our tradition of an unrestricted migration of nationals...

...Two notable lectures by Father Mahony are evidence that this spring session will ably follow up the work of its predecessor: a third will conclude his summary of the modern revolts, and Father Joseph A. Murphy, S. J. will follow with his series on humanism...

...Financially the National Council, which secures the use of the National Broadcasting Company facilities without cost, will be burdened with the necessity of keeping up a high standard of program and a staff to answer the many inquiries expected as a result of the weekly talks...

...Such opportunities are not many, and it is to be hoped that full advantage will be taken of this one...

...Children are more and more "exposed," as some critics complain, to the mere processes of education...

...Honor in Fleet Street THE founder of England's new United Empire party, Lord Beaverbrook, may be merely trying to create news to boost the circulation of his own papers...

...Another Digest Poll As EVERYBODY who knows the inside facts of the publishing business is aware, the Literary Digest is much more than simply a highly popular review of public opinion...

...It is still too early to judge definitely of this event...

...Who knows but what the triumphant slogan of future runners for governor may be: "I studied at Princeton...

...Hoover's remedy "which consisted chiefly of reassurance...

...The quota proposed is four times the number of persons leaving the United States to reside in Canada in 1929, but it does not matter whether this is small or large...

...and probably a great part of that public still maintains its allegiance...

...There will be no peace until there will be peace established in the souls of men...

...They had seen the Beaverbrook light over night, and had become United Imperialists en masse...

...Teaching by Radio THE National Education Association plans to appoint a commission to investigate the application of radio to teaching...

...They walked out, to a man...

...Only sixty-five, he seemed vigorous and alert, interested in the affairs of tomorrow as deeply as he had ever been in those of the past...

...But what is especially remarkable is the statement that "we cannot collectivize farms by force...

...It is a happy circumstance, therefore, that the National Council of Catholic Men has been able to utilize a nation-wide network for a weekly hour as a Catholic contribution to the religious and spiritual life of America...

...Grooming for the Limelight IF THE universities can do anything about it, coming generations will not be without trained public servants...

...Of mingled Irish and Spanish descent, he was educated at Stony-hurst by the English Jesuits and at home by a family inured to the customs of international diplomacy...

...If it were sixteen times greater, Canadians would still find in the bill something unflattering...

...Judging from the various directors and committees appointed, the programs are assured a religious and cultural success...

...It is, I think, the duty of Canada not to remain silent, but . . . to take the lead, if needs be, in arousing other nations, and thus to produce a world opinion that man is subject to divine laws...

...This resulted in the Law of Separation, in the alienation of church property, and in the dissolution of religious orders...

...In so far as the little matter of reducing the number of ships is concerned, however, there was an almost complete lull...

...But these possibilities will not necessarily be realized merely by meeting the Association's first and most obvious stipulation: that educational broadcasting be free from "all advertising, commercial and propaganda features...

...In so far as closed churches are concerned, they are merely buildings which the local authorities have agreed to devote to other purposes...

...And in the measure that it serves, and only in that measure, will it succeed...

...When air lectures are so incorporated with sound classroom practice as to stimulate this positive attention, they will indeed justify the Association's present confident hopes...

...We do not profess to know his motives (his judgment is not here in question) and in admiring the latest protest against his policy, we speak not as partizans but as journalists...

...it is work for everyone everywhere...

...It would be strange if the United States should offer this offense, for while we may have suffered occasionally from the unrestricted border, Canada has certainly not been without cause for complaint...

...There will still remain the problem of adjusting them to known psychological requirements...

...Under that tradition the United States and Canada have developed an understanding and sympathy which cannot be duplicated in the history of nations...

...Anybody may believe anything, this proponent of revolution declared, although the teaching power is lodged entirely with the government...

...If this is less true than we should like it to be, there is nevertheless some value in psychological credit...

...The Catholic Radio Hour WITHIN the past decade the radio has been recognized as one of the most effective mediums for the dissemination of news and information...

...Fleet Street, says the despatch, regards the wholesale resignation as "a remarkable gesture in behalf of independent journalism...

...Ontario's Chief Justice ALMOST simultaneous with the appointment of Mr...

...At least, this has been the case right along until now, when it is stirring the whole country with its poll of 20,000,000 citizens on the subject of prohibition...

...What a curious war for "science" It is quite as if the Council of Commissars were bent on proving that man has descended not from a monkey but from the crocodile, the vulture and some prehistoric monster now comfortably forgotten...

...For the immediate future, at least, the outlook is bright...

...Rumors that the meeting would end with a three-power pact were set afoot and then sturdily denied...

...The central incident in his career as a papal diplomat was the breaking off of relations with the French government...

...This journal does not pretend to anything like the scientific accuracy of the Digest, with its enormous and well-tried system of reaching the public...

...Whatever the reason, that indifference has the most far-reaching consequences...

...And even this danger may be averted if wise banking policies and gold control are adopted in time...

...Such dramatic conversions occasionally do take place in the journalistic world, but the editorial staff of the Saturday Review declined to accept this one with philosophy...

...The idea is one which some Catholic university might well take up with the idea of encouraging participation in civic service...

...Hughes to the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Toronto was celebrating the eighty-sixth birthday of Sir William Mulock, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario...

...In several respects he astonished Rome by his eagerness to utilize modern devices like the telephone and even to participate in modern sports like golf...

...Its most sensational achievement was in 1928, when it amazed even the most hopeful Republicans and dumbfounded the Democrats by foretelling the defection of several southern states from their hitherto rock-bound allegiance to the Democratic party...

...but he finds it impractical to push the program further at present, especially since it would mean organization of the backward and remote regions where conditions are "unfavorable...

...The funds available will insure the continuance of the hour for the greater part of the year...

...To relieve this confusion cannot be the work of a small group of men...

...Then he declared for the liquidation of the property owning peasantry "as a class," and certainly his policy through January and February showed that he meant just that...

...Cardinal Merry del Val NEWS that Cardinal Raphael Merry del Val died suddenly following an operation was more than relatively a shock...

...For several years Georgetown and Southern California have taught the gentle art of foreign diplomatic service and their graduates are at present trekking from Cairo to Auckland...

...Indications that M. Briand would appear to make a plea for the security-pact idea were likewise dispelled by a change in the political weather...

...Anent the Soviets IF THE ways of Soviet Russia are devious, one must admit that they are trodden relentlessly...

...It ends on a characteristic note of optimism...

...Healthy collectivization must be based upon the active support of the peasantry...

...Only 50 percent of the peasantry are now on collectivized farms...

...Sir William is probably better known in the United States in his capacity as chancelor of the University of Toronto, that institution which affiliates with itself various religious universities in mutual helpfulness without sacrifice of their individual systems of history and philosophy...

...Time after time, with what might be termed scientific accuracy, it has broadcast in advance the outcome of presidential elections...

...That has been the normal trend of European diplomacy during the past decade and there is no immediately discernible reason why it should break off now...

...The experiment is well worth making...

...Now comes Princeton with the announcement of a school of public and international affairs, which will seek to train young men "for active participation in public life...

...We can see that such a rule might be welcomed by labor in the northern tier of states, and we can see that it might help the authorities to check the smuggling of aliens into this country by giving them a closer control over border movements...

...But the very fact that the Digest has taken up this subject is the clearest possible proof that there must be a revolutionary reversal of prohibition sentiment throughout the country...

...it affects us all disastrously...

...An enlightened policy, surely, but not one which sounds like the Stalin of the last year...

...THERE is, for these reasons, a particular significance in the present poll on prohibition...

...The suggestion has not been lacking in recent criticisms...

...It is doubtless safe to say that by far the great majority of the Literary Digest's public was solidly for prohibition in the beginning of the ignoble experiment...

...In this merging of common interests, he played a prominent part so that it is not surprising to find him, on his birthday, voicing a catholicity of ideas which places him in the leading ranks of public men today...

...Then there is just this addendum: "The only fly in the ointment is the danger in a few years of gold shortage and long gradual deflation like the deflations after the Civil War and after the Napoleonic Wars...

...That this new physical miracle is "a powerful instrument of education, of far-reaching importance," with possibilities of "enriching and supplementing the work of schools in many directions," is of course true...

...Invitations may be obtained at Fordham University, the Bronx, or Room 750, Woolworth Building...

...The importance of his work as secretary of the Congregation of the Holy Office and the breadth of his knowledge have kept him one of the most famous personages in Rome, though he will of course continue to be identified primarily with the reign of Pius X. When he was permanently appointed Secretary of State in 1903, Cardinal Merry del Val was the most cosmopolitan prelate in a cosmopolitan Church...

...It is to be hoped that American Catholics will promptly realize the importance of this fine work and guarantee its permanence...

...Such action will become known to the suffering Russian people and may give them such courage and unconquerable determination as with God's help will result in overthrowing the rule of those who deny the monarchy of God and would make a hell of this earthly paradise...

...It should have a real measure of success, if the experimenters continue to remember that no device is a substitute for mental activity...

...France, having tied the Conference into a knot, proceeded to put itself in a state of governmental coma...

...And while one observes no tendency on the part of the public to favor well-instructed candidates for office, it is hardly beyond the realm of the credible to suppose that there may be a change of heart...

...The Soviet government in 1925 founded the Association of the Godless," said Father Walsh, "which has prepared 250,000 skilled propagandists who operate under the ministry of public instruction through the schools, trade-unions and the army, seeking to penetrate into every home...

...Knowledge is poured into them in more and more ways, but unless they can be brought to welcome it alertly, appropriate it, actively make it their own, it is largely wasted...

...His daily Mass was celebrated at the tomb of this humble pontiff, to which a crowd of simple Romans likewise came in a spirit of reverential pilgrimage...

...Amid so much that is contradictory and but ill understood, these conferences are providing an opportunity for all who are interested to seek direction...

...Most historians feel, however, that the Vatican had been misled by agents who failed to secure adequate information regarding the drift of affairs, and that French anticleri-cals would have insisted upon a triumph under any circumstances...

...but we will hazard a prophecy that the Digest's poll will result in showing that a great majority of the 20,000,000 voters canvassed will register their belief that it is time to go back to a saner system of controlling drink than the rigid one of national prohibition...

...Quota for Canadians THE first objection which everyone should raise to the bill for establishing quotas on immigrants from other American countries is that it proposes to limit the number of arrivals from Canada...

...Cardinal Merry del Val remained loyal to the purposes of the era of Pio Decimo...

...We feel relatively sure, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, that Briand will eventually journey to London, insist that "policies" are quite as important as ships, and engineer some kind of "regional security pact" which everybody will sign despite a few qualifications on the part of the United States...

...A body of men who will give up their jobs rather than reverse their published views does honor to us all...

...Even programs conforming perfectly to "the same impartial tests as texts" will still be only experiments from the viewpoint of teaching technique...

...With us and by us, it is intended to convey the revealed teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one Saviour for all mankind...

...Professor Fisher's Optimism AGREE with it or not, you are likely to concede that Professor Irving Fisher's analysis of present business and financial conditions in a new book entitled The Stock Market Crash and After (The Macmillan Company) is the most complete yet made...

...Professor Fisher maintains that the "general plateau of the stock market" remains more than 50 percent higher than it was in 1926, that stable money has promoted business, that investing in common stocks is safer than ever before, and that the effects of the crash were "largely psychological...

...It seems to us that this sympathy is worth preserving...

...The Fordham Conferences AS FATHER Michael J. Mahoney, S. J. said in opening the spring conferences at Fordham University Church, the indifference to religion in the modern world is due not so much to the inaccessibility of the public to religious teaching as it is to a confusion of purpose and lack of certitude...

...But it differs from the weather bureau in the fact that it is invariably correct in its forecasts...

...It will be interesting to see how long it will hold good...

...Or he may honestly believe that free trade among the dominions, combined with a tariff stiff-arm for the rest of the world, is desirable and feasible...

...For earlier this winter, Stalin's own attitude was that of the party members whom he now dismisses as "adventurous...

...He commends the efficaciousness of Mr...

...A youngster who wrestles with it in the hope of some day helping society to conduct its business efficiently ought to get very much farther than someone who takes a purely theoretical interest in the matter...