FOUNDED

1865

NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21,1923

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N.

4,

UDENDORFF, at least, is henceforth out of the game

-that
is one consolation t o be drafromrecent
eventsinGermany.The
expected monarchistputschtook
p l a c e b u t t h e monarchistsweredividedintoWittelsbach
and Hohenzollern, South German and North German camps,
and accordingly the first coup failed. Ludendorff, after all,
was a Prussianalienin
Munich, andHitler,leader
of the
fascistforces, is an Austrian.Theirswas
a strange alliance, and their beer-house revolution a singularly uninspiringperformance.Hitler,firingmelodramaticallyintothe
air to force attention from a feverish crowd, and escaping
from an unheroic encounter with the
police woundedonly
by the violence with which he threw himself on the ground
when the firing began, has lost his glamor; and Ludendorff,
once commander of an empire's forces, is an unsympathetic
figure spending the night in a police cell and obtaining release by a promise to be good-which,
once released,he
interprets to mean nothing.

ITLER and Ludendorff werenotdefeated,

however,
because they were monarchists, but because they were
thewrongkind
of monarchists.The
civil officials whom
theyarrested,andwho
soon turnedthetables
on the
short-lived revolution, were no devoted republicans.They
are Wittelsbachmonarchists,
devoted to Crown Prince

No. 3046

Rupprecht of Bavaria, whom they hope to crown emperor

of all Germany. They distrusted Hitler
as likely t o play a
lone hand, and Ludendorff as too close t o t h e old Kaiser.
This conflictpossibly explains Dr. Stresemann's readiness
to permit the former Crown Prince and Kaiser to return to
Germany. Discredited as theystillare by theirfiight to
Holland-and the Kaiser, curiously, by his second marriage
-the return of the Hohenzollerns must increase the division
in the royalist forces and weaken the cause of the Wittelsbachs. It is playingwith fire, butfire is sometimesthe
best weapon against fire. The Allieswilldo well to make
no protest which will restore the martyr's halo to
Hohenzollernbrows.
Picturesoftheir
lonely life in exile have
helped restore a sympathy which theylostin
1918, and
new measures are likely t o help rather than hurt them.

HIS flurry of excitementabout

thereturn
of the
Hohenzollerns and about the
beer-hall revolution has
permittedtheinternationalreparationsconferencetodie
almost unnoticed.
called thepotherabout
it aMuch
Ado About Nothing when it began, for it was plain from
the beginning that M. Poincar6 would accept no limitation
of hisfreedom of action. We does not want to save
Germany from collapse and Europe from decay. Dayby'day
he is advancing in hisnegotiationswiththe
big German
industrialists who are more powerful than their
Government,
andcompletingtreatiesforthesubjection
of conquered
economic provinces. Thatthesetreatieshave
no sounder
footing than the wrecked Treaty of Versailles does not concern him; in his mind's eye that tragic ruin still stands intact, and when President Wilson in an armistice-day address
asserts that France and Italy have torn it into waste-paper
he is only angry. We prefer the blunt if cynicalhonesty
of Bethmann-Hollweg'inAugust,
1914, when he declared,
of the invasion of Belgium,"This is contrary to international law." It was no more so than the conquest of t h e
Ruhr. M. Poincare refused to join in an international
expert inquiry which would concern itself with anything more
far-reachingthan
Germany's
capacityto
paywhich, we
know, is nil. We are proud that Mr. Hughes
refused to stultify himself by sharing in so piffling an enterprise. M. Poincarb is now planning a study by the
Reparation Commission of this limited field; on that commission his representative, no technician but a hack politician, Barthou, holds the casting vote.
LOYD GEORGE'S American tour seems to have given
him a sort of springboard from which to dive
back
into British politics and to have
healed the feud between
him and his former chief.
If anything was needed to complete the reconciliation with Mr. Asquith, the announcement
of an election on December G upon the tariff issue provided
it. An election upon thg.tqiff,@sye means a return to the
good old days for marry ESb@&"@ho IjayW?yQd thqmelves
rather at a loss in thc
'bf b o s t - h l :
$&Gne
of them but won his:dipf&$e'ip3~$$e gcpool o f ffee frade
in his younger days. ' ~ - h i H h , ~ ~ ~ ~ i ~ "i$h;%lJu,uying
ia':~lw~%~
issue in hard times,
and it would be fash:t% Jp&ji:$te
a

The Nation

568

[Vol. 117,No. 3046

interesting aspect of the election in New Yorlt State

t h e knockout blow delivered by the voters to Hearsts political ambitions. I n New York City the Republican nominees
for justices of the Supreme Court, sponsoredby Mr. Hearst,
were snowed under by majorities of morethan 100,000,
despite Hearst and the other newspapers. In Syracuse the
Hearstcandidate f o r mayorwas badly defeated,andthe
Hearst newspapers of the morning after election day were
reduced to featuring the fact that the Republican candidate
SRAEL ZANGWIEL continues ,his habit of blunt truthfor mayor, supported by the Hearst newspapers, had carried
telling. It would have been betterfortheworld
as
Rochester. But it is very old citizen of Rochester who
things have turned out, he writes, if you had never gone
remembers the day when Rochester did not elect the Repubin [to the World
at all. There would then have been
lican candidate for mayor, and the palmiest days
of Rocha draw and militarism would have been killed instead of
ester Republicans long antedated the advent of Mr. Hearsts
reviving in other countries. This is, perhaps, speculation,
Mr. Hearst is
afternoonnewspaper.Politicallyspeaking,
but the evidence is increasinglywith Mr. Zangwill.
dead,
It
does
not
matter
whether
he
calls
himself
RepubEhut outImmigrants,instead
of holdingouthospitable
lican,
Democrat,
Independence
Leaguer,
or
what-not
in the
hands, he said in a speech which some of his auditors refuture; the politicians
will no longer fear him. Mr. Mursented.
how did
get your country?
You took it
phys announceddeterminationneveragaintopermitthe
by force from the Indians, and your duty
is to hold it in
Hearst papers in his pure
home, however, is not likely to
trust for humanity. You call it Gods own country. For
affect theircirculation.Perhapsthemostextraordinary
Gods sakemake it so. Newspapercomment does not infeature of theextraordinary,growth
of some newspapers
dicate that Mr.Zangwill was altogether right when he said
in
recent
years
is
that
they
grow
most
when
their editorial
of America:
can stand criticism.
Main Streetand
Babbitt have proved that.
You are too big for flattery, pages have Ieast influence.
so big that you can hear the truth. . . . You are so good
Thirty thousand women
employed
in the confectionery,
that, Iike Ford,you become theeasyprey
of crooks and
paper-box,
tobacco,
collar,
and
shirt
industries
and in merAndyet,essentiallyhe
is right.Wearetired
cantile establishments in New York Stateare receiving less
of .toadyingforeignspeakerswhodisguisetheirpropathan sixteen dollars a week. More than one-fourth of the
gandaininsincere fla+tery. Mr. Zangwills bluntnessmay
womenemployedin
these factoryindustries
and more than
sting for the moment, but in the long run
we will thank
one-fifth of the women employed in the States mercantile estabhim
it. The man who gave us the mirror of ourselves
lishments are receiving less than twelve dollars a week. Thouas melting-pot Bas a %right to beshocked by our presentsands of women in these industries and in mercantile estabday attitude to ,our ,immigrants.
lishments
receiving less than ten dollars a week.
HESE figures are taken from study made by the Bu- .
ECRETARY MELLOWS proposals for changes in Fedreau of Women in Industry of theStateIndustrial
eral taxation are perhaps put forward as
much in the
by 60,000 women workommission of thewagesearned
ope of preventing a soldiers bonus as with the idea that
ers inNew
Let us see what this means, The
lowest
Congress will enact them as they stand. To defeat the prowage that will support a family of five at a minimum level
posedbonus is certainly worth accomplishing in itself,
of health and decency is about $2,200 a year-forty-odd
dolthough it is
questionhow f a r a n executivedepartment
lars a week. Almost all women workers,marriedand
unshouldgoin,propagandizinginthat
way. Of course Mr.
married, contribute practically every cent they earn to the
Mellon is correct in insisting that the country cannot have
upkeep of the home. If a woman had only herself to support
both lower taxes and the bonus, and the reductions that he
she would come near to starving on ten, twelve, or sixteen
suggests are well devised to obtain support both from those
dollars a week. With
children,
parents,
younger
brothers
withsmalland
those withlarge incomes. The proposed
and sisters dependent upon her, the figures printed
above
cut in the normal rates to
3 and 6 per cent, instead of 4 and
present a picture of utter desperation.
8 percent,willappealtopersons
of moderateearnings,
while the suggested reduction for surtaxes from
a maxi0 turnaninstitution
scholarlyand advanced remum of 42 per celit on $200,000 and over t o 25 per cent on
search into a business college specializing in commer$100,000 andoverwill
commend itself topersonswith
cial geography would be easier if it were not for attachlarger incomes. A change in surtax rates will doubtless be
mentsfromthepastthat
call out inprotest.There
are
opposed by agrarian elements in Congress, but Mr. Mellons
graduates whose professionalstanding
is injured, whose
belief t h a t his plan would produce as great
revenue
memories are disturbed, whose love of true scholarship is
is
throughcheckinginvestmentintax-exemptsecurities
outraged.Thus,
following theprotest of theWashington
probably well founded. Inanyeventthescandal
of that
Alumni Club againstthecommercialization of Clark Uniendedbyforbidding
kind of tax-dodgingoughtto
versity, comes another signed by a score of persons promifurther issues of tax-exempt bonds.
nentineducation
on the Pacific Coast. ThePacificCoast
alumni, like others,demandtheretirement
of Wallace W.
$%I&&
MGfp&,;&&nd
sachem
of
Tammany
Atwood,
the
president
of
Clark,
because
they
say his poli:
+@
: +$
:&weXHegrs,t:s- TfiltKv, lying newspapers
cies do not command the confidence of faculty or student
Tammany no longer
out if his FoTe it; Tasr$
body, have led to the loss of certain of the best teachers,
felt
- ~ ~ ~ H b anewspapers.
rst
It controls
and have lowered the scholastic standing of the university.
New:y&kCiti
withoutbenefit of thepress.Themost
of theprotestincludethedeans
of three
Thesigners

Liberalvictoryuponthefree-tradetradition
of Great
at leastthe Liberals will enter this election
Britain. But
with their ranks united, and if Labor and the Liberals can
avoid too many three-cornered contests they should be able
to avoid the anomaly of the present Parliament, in which
the Conservatives, with less than 40 per cent of the voters
behind them, have a majority of 87 members.

...

F.

.^. .
.

* , C C

Nov. 21.19231

The Nation

schools and six other professors in the University of Oregon, the heads of the departments of psychology at Leland
Stanford University and the University
of Utah, two professors in the University of Washington, two in Washington State College, and one each in the University
of CaliforniaandtheUniversity
of SouthernCalifornia.The
protest of these men will doubtless be ignored because they
have only scholarshipto recommend their views andnot
large bank accounts available for endowment funds; but the
facts that the freshman class at Clark this year is about 45
instead of 90, and the enrolment in the graduate school 75
instead of 160, may prove more convincing.

569

and get rich selling sardines o r saddles or shoe polish t o t h e

government-as did most of the clients of the business concern that waxes so eloquent over the Unknown Soldier. Arso
we never realized quite
sweet and decorous it is to die
for ones country until exposure of conditions in the Veterans Bureau taught us how bitter and humiliating it is,
when mutilatedor diseased, to be left alive but
neglected.

NTER S. S. McClure, publisher of

denouncing all welfare work and declaring:
There is nothing the matter with the United States except
the weaklings and whiners, mainly newly arrived foreigners,
and the parlor socialists, uplifters, and do-goodswho encourE are happy to have in this country Fridtjof Nansen, age them-and these last includesuch magazines of synthetic
bolshevism as
Nation. . . . Their pleas f o r social, industechnically a subject of the kingdom of Norway but
trial, and moral anarchydisgust the American workingman.
actually a citizen of the world and a dweller in the sphereof
Worse than that, they bore -him.
trueliberalismandhumanitarian
devotion. It would be
Enternext
S. Stanwood Menken, president of theNahard to name a more useful and unselfish figure inworld
tional Security League, with a plea for world understandaffairs during the years of chicanery and intrigue that have
ing, by which, as he explains, he means
cannon and airfollowed the World War. Without resting after his
splencraft:
did efforts in relieving the Russian famine, Dr. Nansen has
Our young people read the red and yellow journals, and
applied himself to the even more perplexing problem of the
Nation and the
with the same perverted sense
a
reliefandrepatriation
of a million Greekrefugeesin
as
those
of
another
time
peeked
into obscene literature. When
country whose totalpopulation is about five millions. Alwe,
of the National Security League, ask for support in awakenthough it has been reportedthat Dr. Nansenishereto
ing
people, the smug,self-confident American citizen dissolicit funds f o r relief, he states that his mission
is only
misses the matter by saying,
am through with
. I
totell of conditions, leavingtheraising
of money to orwonder what effect this viewwould have onLeninsCouncil,
ganizationsinAmerica.Hesays:
if they had theairshipsready
which they willsoonpossess,
and the wickedwhim to extend their area of rapine and anMy real purpose incomingto
America was todo
what I
nihilation t o our shores. That these devils, committers of every
could t o enlighten public opinion as to the true state of affairs
crime against God and man, might do so is possible at any moin Europe today and the dlfficulties with which we are faced.
ment, andyet we are totallyunprepared for defense against
The fact is that Europe now,five years after the armistice,
them.
is in a worsecondition, if anything, than it was in 1918 a t
the endof t h e war, and the only possibility of reconstruction
Thus The
notonlybores
its readers,but it furlies in international cooperation.
nishesthemwith
a perversesubstituteforpornographic
While we do not agree with
Nansen that the League of
thrills ; at the same time it exposes New York City to the
Nations is theroadtointernational
cooperation, we do
imminent danger of an air raid from Moscow, 6,000 miles
believe in such cooperation, and we look forward hopefully
away.Or,
as
Swinburne so well put it, Fiddle, we
to t h e day when America shall seeits duty and its destiny.
know, is diddle; and diddle, we take it, is dee.

..

THERtimes,othermanners.Thewatchwordsthat
were good enough to die for from 1914 to 1918 are
often singularly inappropriate to the politics of 1923. This
has been brought home t o a group of ex-service men
a
littletowninFrance,
who chose as theinscriptionfor
a
monumenttotheirfallencomrades,Guerre
la guerre
(War against war). The
local public officials thought this
sentimentwas all r i g h t a k i n t o t h e famous1 sloganthe
war to end war-but
the national Government, which in
France has the power to censor inscriptions onallmonuments,orderedthewords
removed. No wonder. As one
surveys the world from the Eiffel Tower, he realizes that
the war to end war was a falsehood, or else that it didnt
succeed; neither of which alternatives the French Governmentcares to admit.InAmerica
we are morenaive(we
wouldnt have gone into the
otherwise), and Armistice
Day has just passed off with a recrudescence of all the old
phrasesand no official protestagainsttheirincongruity.
Thus a business concern advertised its patriotism and its
knowledge of Latin by concluding a review of commercial
a tribute to the Unknown
ccndltions f o r itsclientswith
Soldier: Dulce et decorum estpropatria
mori. Yes,
yes; doubtless it is sweet and decorous to die for ones country, but is also sweet, if not so decorous, to remain behind

HEStatesandtheuniversitiescontinuetotakeup
it
poetryin a serious way. Theuniversitiesbegan
with Percy Mackaye at Miami and Robert Frost at
Michigan,poetsresident.ButtheStateshave
gone themone
betterandhave
produced an amazing array of poetslauG. Neihardt; California, Ina
reate.NebraskaclaimsJohn
DonnaCoolbrith; New York,EdwinMarkham;Vermont,
Robert Frost (Mr. Frost does double duty) ; Pennsylvania,
Florence Earle Coates; Wyoming, E. Richard Shipp;
rado, Nellie BurgetMiller;and
Oklahoma, Violet MacDougal(recentlyappointed
by GovernorWalton).
In her
second venture, however, the University of Michigan really
carries off the honors. She has imported a laureate, Englands own laureate,forher
own resident poet. Tothose
of us who have cherished the vague idea that kings and
laureates must never leave the lands they rule and of which
theysing,thepresence
of RobertBridgesat
Ann Arbor
seems somehow disturbing. However, our knowledge of
Mr. Bridgess passionforEnglish undefiled by Americanisms and such corruptions of the ancient tongue leads us t o
suspect that he comes to Michigan not
much to elevate
the poetry of the United States as to correct its grammar
its speech. Perhaps,-after all, Mr. Bridges
andtopurify
knows best his own powers.