Week by Week
WEEK BY WEEK EVIDENTLY the chief lesson to be derived from ¦"-' the attitude of Bishop James Cannon, jr., before the Senate Lobby Committee is that the Committee should dissolve as promptly as...
...Senator Frelinghuysen...
...Ever since the erection of the Poe Memorial in the City of the Calverts, he has been unhappy over the misquotation from The Raven carved at the base of the statue: "Dreaming dreams no mortab ever dared to dream before...
...Yet here is incomparable beauty...
...Whether the addresses have been listened to attentively by members of other faiths, or if some have been led as a result to modify their intellectual attitude, no one is in a position to know...
...The rear-admiral says at the beginning of his article that the project, occasionally mentioned, of taking sightseers to the Antarctic would be dangerous folly, but the sweltering reader of his account can fairly accuse him of doing a good deal to encourage it...
...statesmen in Washington shameless enough to be anxious to risk permanently America's economic welfare merely in order to make political capital out of presumptive hard times next November...
...Representations failing, he took matters into his own hands one night, went out with a flashlight and chisel and cut off the superfluous "s...
...If Mr...
...The consensus of opinion among business leaders to whom the question was propounded is that very few men are worth such a reward, but that there are a few, so infinitely vaulable that they are worth just as much as society can afford to pay them, either in honor or in wealth—which, in some cases, is a great deal...
...Fontaine stands alone, in militant ardor, among connoisseurs...
...Is any man in himself equal to 200 ordinary mortals...
...As usual, each industry wanting a tariff sees only its own case, not the general problem...
...For the first time the wets have a thoroughly respected candidate standing on the major issue June 18, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL 175 A Million a Year of prohibition and backed by a strong party machine...
...Fort must be convinced that it does not...
...Fort vs...
...But there is another side to the picture...
...Plenty of artists have suffered to achieve, but so far as we are concerned, Mr...
...Meanwhile, our proposed dose of tariff has made her legislators tremble...
...Bishop During whole weeks its pryings have Cannon had no significance whatever apart from Declines publicity appeal...
...The result is political unrest, together with a drop of 32 percent in her exports and of 16 percent in the value of her currency...
...However, the rear-admiral does his best writing when he leaves this discussion and launches upon description...
...Catholics have taken their part in it with distinction and the investment of time, energy and money is sure to pay a handsome profit eventually...
...IT IS a pleasure to comment upon the success of the Catholic Radio Hour to date...
...and so great is their appeal to the honest hunter that they are as important to the Alaska tourist trade as Wagner festivals are to the inn-keepers of Miinchen...
...those who support Mr...
...This sea, "monotonously flat, treacherous in its power and shifting surfaces," is a complete contrast to "the Antarctic, immobile, appalling in its grandeur and silence...
...Not because we have strong convictions on the subject of "mortal" as against "mortals," but because it is someone's business to have them...
...A hundred and fifty miles away one can see them glistening in their jeweled splendor...
...And it is the business of the Biological Survey to see that the said brownies continue to exist...
...This assumes, of course, that the present depression could have been avoided—a very doubtful assumption...
...On the shores of its "abysmal ocean" is some life, "but in the interior there is no life at all, nothing but snow and ice, except when occasionally in the summer months a bird is found wandering on some mysterious errand of its own far in from the sea...
...The latest, which will be decided by the time this issue is in our readers' hands, is in New Jersey, The and the interest lies in the Republican New Jersey nomination for United States senator...
...Other cuts followed which, "though in no instance in proportion," effected a total saving of $12,000,000, and rescued the budget...
...Various Considerably newsPaPer agencies report wholesale t, „ campaigns of extermination, prospectors Pro Bear , , , n and cattlemen are buying new as well as better rifles, and fellows who can see a target fairly well are not minding the general business depression...
...This is the fairest test so far of popular sentiment on the prohibition question, at least in one party in one state...
...1 HE non-political reasons for the success, to date, of intransigeant Grundyism seem to be two...
...1 HE two leading French business organizations, the General Confederation of French Production and the National Association of Economic Ex-j-jjg pansion, have jointly sent a strong warnrp .„ ing to the Ministry of Commerce in Paris on the subject of the impending American tariff...
...A successful ambassador to Mexico, a former partner in one of our greatest banking houses, the father-in-law of America's hero-of-the-air, a man universally respected, stands on a wet platform against a convinced dry politician and against a politician of the flag-waving, straddling, fine-figure-of-a-man variety...
...The great danger is of a forced landing on the broken ice of the Arctic Sea...
...Redington...
...Most of those who support Mr...
...And Senator Frelinghuysen's vote will represent those people who do not care very much what happens in this matter, but who do like to hear eloquent speeches and are entranced by old, vague, political shibboleths—America first, a moderate tariff, the people's sacred rights, etc...
...It belongs in what we may call the realistic school of political idealism, that sees the "res publica" as a present and almost personal reality, as did the togaed race in the days of its austere greatness...
...Gratitude, ordinary decency, would certainly suggest that those who have received so much should grant to the government at least the little that is required to observe this law of the land...
...At the North Pole the strain is less, because the altitude for flying is low...
...Perhaps the point is of no great importance...
...This is what President Machado of The Argentine Cuba has just done...
...Why should anyone mix up in this way a cynical realism and a fanatical quasi-morality ? How can Dr...
...Jameson for anti-Smith campaign purposes in Virginia...
...and the publicity attendant upon this particular expedition has been so sustained and exhaustive that the freshness its commander imparts to his account is an agreeable surprise...
...WEEK BY WEEK EVIDENTLY the chief lesson to be derived from ¦"-' the attitude of Bishop James Cannon, jr., before the Senate Lobby Committee is that the Committee should dissolve as promptly as possible...
...Of all European protests, this is perhaps the most impressive...
...The mountains "rising from the sea or the flat plain of the barrier only a few feet above sea level leap up into the air ten or fifteen thousand feet...
...Is he merely insensitive to it...
...Morrow must be convinced that the present situation needs mending...
...Meanwhile, as we write, the tariff is becoming more and more a piece in an elaborate political chess game...
...IF YOU are a millionaire industrialist, or a fabulously salaried expert, and your country is at war, there is nothing extraordinary in your consenting Cuba to serve it with information and advice Balances Her for a dollar a year...
...to stand up in their beautiful little home cities and say to public audiences, 'I violate the law and I am proud of it...
...1 HE thrill and hazard of such a flight come to us vividly in the following sentence: "I can still feel the plane slipping at the top of its climb, and feel it rise as food was thrown over and it just topped the divide and straightened out toward the Pole...
...Bishop Cannon set out to put the state of Virginia into a pseudo-dry Republican roster...
...One feels that Cannonism has, to date, been beaten pretty thoroughly and that, while prejudice and fanaticism still flourish mightily, this particular form of expressing it is destined to a good, long vacation...
...He has represented to whatever may be the proper authorities in such cases that the word should be "mortal...
...Or is it so negligible, in comparison with the taking of a glass of beer or whisky, that he is willing to condone it if its beneficiary would pour the whisky down the sink?, ACCORDING to Outdoor Life, the Denver sportsmen's publication, Alaska's famous big brown bear is on the verge of disappearing...
...he has probably cited original texts and first editions, and, we dare make avowal, has grown eloquent over the cacophony of sybillants and the strong concreteness of the singular number...
...Does he endorse Dr...
...and that a native resident may kill one whenever he adjudges it dangerous to property...
...This cannot but be inspiring, as the doing of a dramatically right thing for undramatic reasons is always inspiring...
...IT IS not easy to think of parallels to the devoted action of Edmond Fontaine, arrested in Baltimore the other day as a direct result of his enthusiasm for the poetry of Edgar Allan Pour 1'Art Poe...
...Raising a crop of fuss and feathers now about the $65,300 used to do it with is to engineer Bishop Cannon into the category of martyrs...
...It comes from the leading industrialists and financiers of the republic, not from politicians or isolated soreheads...
...There seem to be some men— perhaps twenty out of 100,000,000—who so exceed their fellows in some special way that they are almost superhuman, all social historians to the contrary notwithstanding...
...There can be no other important reason for voting for either...
...Criticism of this document by Stewart Edward White contends, however, that no protection at all against outside sportsmen is given in the regions where the bear abounds...
...Wilson's Plea that evil...
...WNE of the most interesting pieces of writing produced by the Byrd expedition is the rear-admiral's own summary, in the Sunday Times, of his Artie versus his Antarctic impressions...
...Meanwhile it is of general interest to note a little governmental matter which has arisen in connection with the brown bear...
...One hopes merely that the standard set will be maintained—a hope which, in view of what has been achieved, is not wholly unpresumptive or slight...
...1 HERE is a remarkable paragraph in Dr...
...Professor Charles Hodges, in a recent series of articles, has been pointing out that these hard times are a cyclic, world-wide phenomenon, not to be cured anywhere by a tariff, but rather by the lapse of time and a reduction of inventories the world over...
...Redington of the United States Biological Survey has just mimeographed and sent around a composition entitled, Alaska Bears Still Have Legal Protection...
...this forces the plane's load to be kept down, although, as the land is barren of life, all the explorers' supplies must be carried with them...
...The Catholic body has assuredly profited in more ways than one—instruction, consolation, justifiable pride...
...Rich-man against his own working-men...
...they usually run away unless wounded by a hasty and inaccurate shot...
...The Bishop's challenge to the Committee's authority and his blunt refusal to supply the information requested are, we think, due to the advice of some good lawyer who knows the facts...
...The long-standing depression in the island has straitened the government's resources, and heroic retrenchment was resolved upon...
...Doubtless it is of some interest to find out what happened to the $65,300 supplied by Mr...
...Hence, the man who will voluntarily cut his salary in two to help balance his country's budget, is really, to paraphrase Horatio, more antique Roman than anything we recognize as modern...
...that the restricted areas are negligible...
...And likewise a large part of the people, feeling the pinch of the business depression, have fallen into the fallacy of supposing that since a small dose of tariff has seemingly proved good for the heart, a larger dose will prove better...
...The protective tariff has given them two prices for every article they manufacture . . . special deference is shown to wealth in courts and legislative halls . . . partiality is shown by every executive who has actually called out the militia to protect Mr...
...The Arctic "supports life along its shores . . . from the musk ox, the northernmost animal, to the Arctic bear and fox, birds, seals and fish...
...Ambassador Morrow vs...
...This vote will be worth watching...
...In the Antarctic there is the complicating necessity of flight at great heights to clear the mountains of the dead continent...
...Here is a real showdown for the Anti-saloon League, not an unknown college professor fighting an unscrupulous state organization, nor an exponent of the workman's beer pail fighting a defender of American womanhood...
...Dooley was levying upon geography unfairly in his classic statement that two candidates were "as far apart as the Poles and as much alike...
...We do not know what the judge will do with him...
...Even on the floating ice of the great sea itself, life is found...
...We all feel, however philanthropic we may be in narrower fields, that even a poor government is richer than we are...
...SPRINGTIME is the season of primaries...
...All that should have been denounced in no uncertain terms during the campaign by those who hoped to profit by it...
...In this he repeats, simply and interestingly, the already fairly well-known facts that enter into the use of planes in the two regions...
...He succeeded owing, in considerable measure, to the prejudices which dry workers could arouse against a Catholic and a Tammany man...
...Brown bears such as these are among the most attractive and entertaining of extant beasts...
...Naturally one cannot estimate the effect...
...On behalf of such a decorous and valuable animal we are prepared to go almost any length...
...Musical additions to the program have likewise reflected, at least in a measure, the mystical and artistic aspects of life in the Church...
...They are planning reprisals, repudiating the Monroe Doctrine, fuming at the American Caliban, and European merchants in Buenos Aires are secretly rubbing their hands with delight...
...What unguessable, impenetrable processes of thought can have led to an argument like this...
...Art and poetry," he told the judge with whom he found himself conversing almost immediately afterward, "cannot bear up under the strain of seven years' waiting to have that error corrected...
...There seem to be some i76 THE COMMONWEAL June i8, 1930 North or South Pole...
...and the lack of coherence and impartiality in its procedure has been quite evident...
...They look a trifle ferocious, but our editor makes the following claims for them: vegetarianism is sponsored by all excepting a few as a principle...
...What an interesting problem for Mr...
...That account is calculated to show that Mr...
...But quite apart from the circumstance that the Committee was not legally constituted to investigate such matters, everybody knows the essentials of the story already...
...Part of the rear-admiral's comparison is made from the technical viewpoint of the flying explorer...
...The radio hour, with all its mingled virtues and faults, is now a central cultural influence in the United States...
...Primaries It 1S an almost unparalleled situation...
...Wilson dare to beg men to be "grateful" specifically because they have benefited by the evil of favoritism...
...The President's first act was to reduce his own salary from $25,000 to $13,000...
...1 HE recent disclosure that Eugene C. Grace of the Bethlehem Steel Company receives a salary of over $1,000,000 a year led the New York World to gather the opinions of a number of prominent American business men on the subject of such mammoth remunerations...
...It is always easy to lose the edge of wonder about any topic, however intrinsically wonderful it may be...
...We should crown him with bay...
...Their letter suggests a tariff war against American goods as a measure of reprisal, and warns America in no uncertain terms that we live by our foreign trade and that we are threatening to kill the goose that has been laying our golden eggs...
...One can imagine that many a European ends every day with a fervent prayer that we will still be foolish enough to allow the Hawley-Smoot bill to become an act...
...The excellence of last year's harvests has made it impossible for her to sell her two chief products—wheat and cattle...
...The Poles are only enough alike, apparently, to emphasize their complete difference...
...Argentina is almost a laboratory case in point...
...The addresses, delivered for the most part by two prominent and scholarly members of the faculty of On the Air the Catholic University of America, have been distinguished for intelligence, poise, grace and fervor...
...This seems to be true, and it is the inevitable fly in the Socialist ointment...
...But with the inBudget citements and excitements of war lacking, the patriotism that is willing to surrender concrete cash justly due for services rendered is a much rarer thing...
...Is any man worth a salary so disproportionate to the average wage...
...And yet I have known wealthy men...
...White is correct, there will soon be no Alaska brownies...
...It is perhaps a little significant of our times that such men are nowadays almost entirely the heads of great business enterprises, rather than politicians or artists or philosophers...
...He belongs, if anywhere, on the roster of Neros whose Rome is now burning...
...Clarence True Wilson's plea for prohibition recently published in the Herald Tribune: "What shall be said of the rich man who owes more to this government than any other class ever owed to any other government since the world has stood...
Vol. 12 • June 1930 • No. 7
