Week by Week
WEEK BY WEEK Joining the World Court MR. JAY PIERREPONT MOFFAT, charge d'affaires ad interim at Berne, has signed papers making the United States a member of the World Court. It is assumed that...
...It is clear, however, that every repressive act by the marines injures the standing of the United States in Latin America and elsewhere...
...When any positive enthusiasm sweeps the mind of humanity, its corresponding condemnations are always more thorough than just...
...It became apparent that the Los Angeles movie dictator, unlessoned by divers experiences as Republican campaign manager, had let his fingers venture into another hornets' nest...
...But it is overwhelmingly true that the prosecutor was seriously hampered by those who contradicted their earlier testimony to the grand jury and their statements to the people's attorneys...
...It is not what one would call a pleasant thought...
...Even our curiosity would not be satisfied, for the most powerful of telescopes would be unable to disclose whether or not the rocket reached its goal...
...And can we do anything at all except prepare to check them as soon they begin...
...Trouble in--Haiti NUMEROUS aspects of the outbreak in Haiti are probably not to be understood before a commission investigates the matter thoroughly...
...Janus and the Churches JANUS was distinguished among the gods for his ability to be two things at the same time...
...Nock quotes with approval, in this connection, the political tradition of the European country in which he spends a good deal of his time: easily identifiable as France, though he does not name it...
...Stimson properly stresses the second rather than the first, because it happens to be the program of the United States...
...Reading it one finds that governing Haiti is about as simple as operating the stock market...
...Stelze, the virtual abandonment of the cinema commission, and a good many remarks...
...Grundy of Pennsylvania, we recommend a copy of the Secretary's report...
...The City of Tomorrow MORE and more attention is being given to plans for the future city, and with good reason...
...The limit in height has not yet ben indicated, for while it may be impractical to go much beyond a thousand feet, the cost of building higher being out of all proportion to the revenues that may be expected, the advertising value which the world's tallest building always possesses may easily result in skyscrapers several hundred feet higher than any now contemplated...
...The willingness of other powers to respect American wishes is a tribute to the nation's international position and a bid for pacific cooperation...
...To date the warfare has resulted in the dismissal of Dr...
...farm values have developed encouraging tendencies, though they have still far to go before reaching the 1914 standard...
...Carl Milliken, the Hays secretary, had not been appointed to the executive committee of the Federal Council for purely spiritual motives...
...Evidence justifies the belief that our bright and belligerently titled neighbor is partly covered with vegetation during part of the year, but the bets are ninety-nine to one that no higher forms of life prevail...
...Between Haitian resentment of what is considered Yankee uppishness, and American conviction that all talk of democratic rule on the island is hopelessly Utopian, there exists a body of moderate opinion which feels that Haiti is not being prepared for the self-government destined, according to the convention of 1915, to begin in 1936...
...The men could not be transferred to other prisons, equally overcrowded...
...We might as well be dead as stay in here," one of the leaders told Warden Jennings...
...Thus we have been given another index to the widespread cunning and artificiality upon which our lives repose...
...Officialism is constantly aware of this, and consequently no one is ever hanged...
...This would abrogate the rule of evidence which prohibits the district attorney from impeaching his own witnesses when they turn hostile...
...Judge Charles C. Nott, jr., who presided at the trial, called attention to the absurdity of a code which obligates a district attorney to abide by the testimony of witnesses he has summoned, in face of a clear demonstration that these same witnesses have no appreciation whatever of an oath binding on conscience...
...Life depends upon the presence of water, and that in turn upon temperatures above freezing and below boiling...
...Stuff Auburn with guards until they outnumber the prisoners two to one, but so long as it contains men of the temper of the recent mutineers, and so long as conditions there are such as to keep them idle, bored, irritable, deprived of all hope and interest in existence, the chances for another rebellion are great...
...He knew the outbreak was coming: "I am sitting on a volcano," he told the Commission of Correction in October...
...Shooting at Mars WE VIEW with somewhat more than customary alarm the plans of a German professor to fire a rocket at Mars...
...This commission has now been dissolved, owing (it is alleged) to the discovery that Dr...
...Nock with limpid and disarming candor, or at least the threat of terrorism, is the simple and sufficient remedy against all officialism...
...We, on the whole, are inclined to feel that it does...
...Agriculture in 1929 THE greater part of the report of the Secretary of Agriculture is very pleasant reading...
...All of which means that the legislative and judicial departments of the so-called "international state" have never been firmly joined...
...The people among whom I live keep themselves continually framed up to hang somebody, no matter whom, from the head of the general government to the policeman on the beat...
...Now these have all been so zealously unearthed and so completely destroyed that joining up merely showers the United States "with new rights and privileges," as Mr...
...It is in order, then, to remind ourselves that they were neither heartless killers nor mindless tools, but the heroes and martyrs we called them when we collectively urged them to enlist, or wept, singly, over their deaths...
...Perjury itself ranks well up in the lists of crimes...
...The League of Nations has established a union of European peoples which can...
...We Americans are mainly capable of only sporadic or private violence...
...So far so good...
...Nock's prescription, however freely we may accept his diagnosis...
...To quote the words of the bulletin: "If the United States remains in the country until the American officials there are convinced that revolutions will not occur following withdrawal, it is argued that the United States will remain in Haiti indefinitely...
...The Prison Disorders THE reaction to such desperation as was manifest at Auburn last week is necessarily complex...
...Men who feel like that will attempt the impossible at any opportunity...
...This might have some effect, but it is a mistake to suppose that any show of power will prevent a really desperate man from defying it...
...It alone would be effective against prohibition, which is merely the virulent attack of officialism from which America happens to be suffering at this moment...
...Stelze was also receiving pay checks from Mr...
...Stimson's letter of explanation can hardly be attacked in any serious way...
...Terrorism, says Mr...
...THIS is going to be a tough prison from now on," Acting Warden Sullivan averred...
...Will Hays...
...But there is room for another sort of protest or assertion which shall be neither political nor militarist, whether these papers are making it or not...
...Forty percent of our rural population resides on pieces of land either too small or too poor to afford anything like a competent subsistence...
...Nock, in resisting the encroachments of officialism, for people to evade bad laws-laws, that is, opposing "the common conscience of mankind...
...But our Secretary of State points out that "the Court took its existence and became effective not by the action of the League, but under a statute and protocol separately signed by over fifty states, not all of whom are League members...
...But the rest of the report is not particularly flattering...
...But we cannot join in the hasty condemnation of Warden Jennings, whose situation for the past six months has been about as embarrassing and perilous as a man can be exposed to...
...Our knowledge of conditions at Auburn has been gained from the reports of the Prison Association and the newspapers, it is neither intimate nor profound, and the acting warden's was both...
...There are just two important differences...
...Those who seek light upon it can do no better than consult the special bulletin prepared and published by the Foreign Policy Association...
...As for the rest of the universe, our ignorance regarding it is so nearly complete that we can merely observe that life-supporting planets are necessarily as rare as pheasants on Fifth Avenue...
...It follows that, though some forms of organic existence are possible on Mars and Venus, the conditions remain quite unfavorable...
...England and the Sea NEWS of the violent storms which have buffeted England summarizes a heavy toll of lives and property...
...From a military point of view the recent shooting was necessary, but whether the underlying policy is justifiable remains another question entirely...
...do much to safeguard peace through moral and economic sanctions...
...The eminent Amherst astronomer had obviously been annoyed by various newspaper supplement speculations on our cousins of Mars...
...Today, in the surge and impetus of the movement toward peace, the repudiation of the war tends to become, in many minds, a repudiation of those who fought the war...
...There is comfort in the laconic statement of Mr...
...And the United States has joined with other nations in renouncing war as an instrument of national policy...
...Untying the Prosecutor's Hands OUT of the fiasco which resulted from the trial of George McManus for the Rothstein murder has come a movement for a sound reform in criminal procedure...
...In New York City, for instance, the world's tallest building is nearing completion, and plans for one which will surpass it are already under way...
...For a while at least modern inventiveness was scorned by the elements, and a cosmopolitan people remained as helpless as stormbound vikings of old, adrift in their craft...
...There was talk of revising the Baumes laws, and there were preparations for appropriating $30,000,000 for model prisons...
...Someone has recommended that until the new prisons are built, troops and guards be concentrated at Auburn and Dannemora in such numbers as to impress all prisoners with the futility of attempting to escape...
...Our first sympathies, of course, are for the family of the dead keeper, and for the wounded guards...
...In the past, it is true, we have expressed some favor for similar attempts to reach our satellite, the moon, and perhaps this new-found prejudice toward interplanetary rockets requires some explanation...
...The skyscraper may be the most stately product of modern civilization, but its advantages are not always beyond question in cities where the width of streets was determined long before it became necessary for buildings to rise above five stories...
...The movement from farm to city is slowing up, and we are approaching something like stabilization of the rural population...
...Even the Channel was not to be crossed either by sea or by air...
...As at present amended, the Court is so constituted that the United States need fear no rendering of any advisory opinion on a matter which it considers vital...
...Hoover: "If Congress approves, I shall dispatch a commission to Haiti to review and study the matter in an endeavor to arrive at some more definite policy...
...But though the two remain separate and constitute what may be termed a "dual monarchy of international good-will," it is obvious that both need a codification of international law and a tribunal which is empowered to render decisions in cases where opposition might eventually mean war...
...Of course few people who followed the trial will believe that the state lost its case because of the recalcitrance of those it called to the stand...
...On the whole, we consider adherence to the World Court as constituted a sound and goodly diplomatic achievement...
...To anyone puzzling over the selection of a Christmas present for Mr...
...But nothing could be done to avert the impending outbreak...
...The men in this institution have been coddled too much...
...Accordingly, one reaches the conclusion that what is now functioning as a Permanent Court of International Justice is simply a resurrected and revitalized Hague Tribunal...
...Accustomed as we are to rapid transportation facilities, to housing which draws upon community engineering for a host of services, and to devices which interpose mechanics between action and energy, we seldom remember how gradually and laboriously these things were developed...
...What may be said against it must come from supporters of the League idea...
...our admiration is for the state troopers who braved the fire of the convicts in order to rescue the warden and quell the mutiny...
...What they must not be are institutions wherein even the silences are loud with the words which Dante saw above the gates of hell...
...AT FIRST it was difficult to see how the Court did not mean the League also, and how adherence to it could fail to hamper the special kind of international doctrine sponsored by the Republican party as a substitute for defeated Wilsonism...
...The detective work was done by the Churchman, an Episcopal weekly, and the resultant discomfort was great indeed...
...Then suddenly nature cuts through our plans, and while she reigns we are back inside the limitations of our forefathers...
...but for all of that, one can discern a certain core of right in the movement...
...We could not well do without their aggregate contribution to agricultural production, yet their rewards are conditions of living so low that they are unable to send their children to school-a privilege supposed to be within the reach of everyone in America...
...It is assumed that the Senate will ratify the action and that none of the nations which must agree to the conditions laid down by Washington in 1926 will dissent...
...Public opinion, anxious to avoid the machinations of Geneva, could easily show that in its original form the protocol of the World Court bristled with snares and traps...
...The state, as represented by Warden Jennings, the Commission of Correction and Governor Roosevelt, was actually helpless, because you cannot make up in six months for the negligence of six years...
...and he did not hesitate to describe these flights of imagination as absurd, though they appeal to a public "willing to believe, and wishing to be convinced, that there is life elsewhere in the universe...
...It is conceivable, at least, that a random rocket of such proportions as the German scholar intends might cause the greatest damage and suffering, upon our neighboring planet, without resulting in any advantage to us...
...Punishment for it should not be made a legal impossibility...
...Regrettably enough this reversion involves, owing to our trust in inventions, a great deal of tragedy and misfortune...
...A recent flurry leads one to believe that he has a certain popularity in American ecclesiastical circles...
...In only one way could we know that the Professor's aim had been accurate and his rocket properly designed...
...No one questions the advisability of protecting the accused in every way commensurate with justice, but when the laws are drawn so that the hands of its administrators are tied, they defeat the very purpose for which they were enacted...
...Albert Jay Nock proposes in the last number of Harper's Magazine...
...But over here they really believe it and are ready to back up their belief, not only with their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor, but with the leg of a chair or whatever first comes handy...
...A little more than a decade ago, our own enthusiasm was for war, and we are not very proud now to recall some of the things we said of our foes...
...when it is practised to circumvent an officer seeking to establish the guilt for a crime, it becomes doubly reprehensible...
...During many days Britain was reduced to its physical dimensions -a little island, hemmed in by waters upon which it was hazardous to venture...
...The newspapers which are offering cash prizes for stories illustrating "the cockney spirit in the war," and which publish almost daily editorial protests against the current insistence upon certain aspects of the conflict as "indignities to the spirit of our dead," may be mere jingo or anti-Labor sheets working to embarrass the MacDonald government and the cause of peace...
...Certainly the present rate of skyscraper development without a corresponding development of streets and facilities for traffic movement cannot be kept up much longer...
...In Defense of the Dead THE reaction in England against what is termed "war realism" will be promptly and, it is probable, justly criticized...
...At any rate, one feels that Mr...
...We conclude that Professor Greene did an excellent job of debunking, and recommend his admirable address to all the pseudo-representatives of his profession...
...To do this is not to defend war, but to tell an inspiring truth, and if this is what the English papers are doing, they are right...
...They must be perpetually ready to make it so hot for the bad lawmakers ultimately responsible that bad laws will not be enforced or repeated...
...All the circumstances probably responsible for the outbreak in July, unrest, overcrowding, lack of sanitation, boredom-conditions which the Prison Association had two years ago predicted would result in disaster-were still present...
...When in the course of human events it becomes necessary, etc'-how many times we have heard these noble words...
...Salubrious Science WE ARE indebted to the Deerfield Scroll for an account of Professor Warren Greene's address on the constantly engrossing topic, "Is there life elsewhere in the universe...
...It is rare, indeed, that shipping confronts so many perils, or that the industry of a country is so badly maimed by the sea...
...Unwilling to be soft-soaped, various editors and leaders went on to declare that Mr...
...The sad truth, of course, is that this salutary tradition proceeds, not from a general principle, but from the specific French temperament...
...It is not enough, says Mr...
...Some time ago the Federal Council of Churches in America organized a commission of motion pictures, at the suggestion of the Reverend Charles Stelze, its publicity man...
...Thereby a long and acrimonious debate, which has created antagonistic organizations and well-nigh disrupted placid homes, may be brought to a close...
...and it is useless to think we can follow Mr...
...If, as all prison authorities are agreed, it resulted from conditions which cannot be removed for another three or four years, are we not to expect more riots...
...It makes the point that in giving its adherence to the World Court the United States is living up to a traditional desire to promote arbitration of international disputes, without making so much as a bow to the League of Nations...
...That would be if the Martians should return his fire...
...Nevertheless it seems to us that his statement is too simplified to serve as an explanation of the riot...
...Whatever else the incident may mean, it certainly does manifest the ability of an alert religious journalism to do its own kind of reporting with verve...
...Well, the moon, need it be said, is uninhabited, while if there is no good authority for supposing that Mars supports life, neither is there any good for supposing that it does not...
...Atmosphere is likewise essential, and depends upon the planet's bulk...
...Liberty through Violence NO MORE startling way out of our prohibition troubles has appeared than Mr...
...What the model prisons which New York is to build must be like is for penologists to determine...
...This is surely the most important point, but the man who knows what to do about it is far wiser than ourselves...
...This summarizes the benefits which have followed occupation, analyzes the present economic and political situation and lists the arguments for and against the existing program...
...Stimson says...
...and the creation of a Farm Board provides an instrument through which we may expect, at least, some effective utilization of the Department's discoveries...
Vol. 11 • December 1929 • No. 8
