army and the navy are under the control of Ministers who are responsible directly to the Emperor. To change that control without affronting the people's regard for the sacredness of the Emperor's person and authority requires statesmanship, and the fact that a great change was brought about by the late Mr. Hara, who was assassinated for his liberal tendencies, was proof of the statesmanship of that eminent Prime Minister. Now Admiral Baron Kato, according to a despatch from the well-known publicist B. W. Fleisher to the Philadelphia "Public Ledger," is facing a very acute situation in which the militarists and the anti-militarists are ranged against each other, and, as a consequence, the Prime Minister is threatening to resign.

The issue has arisen out of the withdrawal of the Japanese forces from Siberia. The presence of those forces in Siberia long after the war and after the American forces which went in at the same time were withdrawn was one of the obstacles to the belief on the part of many Americans in Japanese good faith. When the Washington Naval Conference was adjourned last February, Japan had given promises to withdraw from Siberia as soon as possible consistently with the protection of Japanese civilians there. The cynical were inclined to regard such a promise as worthless, inasmuch as there would always be a good excuse for keeping troops to protect civilians under the circumstances. Nevertheless, Japan has been taking measures to fulfill her promise, and Japanese troops have been evacuating the region. Indeed, so far as the evacuation goes, it was reported that Russian Communists and Russian AntiCommunists have troops concentrated ready to dispute with each other the right to take the place which the Japanese troops are leaving. The crisis in the Japanese Government has arisen, not over the withdrawal of the troops themselves, but over the disposal of arms and ammunition, which include some of the material left by the Czechoslovakian army which evacuated Siberia two years ago. It is now reported that, contrary to Japan's promise to keep out of factional fights in China, a large quantity of these munitions have been sold to the Manchurian military despot, Chang Tsolin. The disposal of these munitions in this way puts Japan in a position of ally to one of the most disturbing factors in the Far East. It had been repeatedly charged that Japan has been secretly abetting Chang's aggressive tactics, and this sale of arms seems to confirm that allegation. According to the "Public Ledger" despatch, this sale was made under the authority of the Japanese military chief of staff without eonsulting with the Japanese Government.

It is such action on the part of military authorities without the consent of the civilian Government of Japan that has repeatedly put Japan in an embarrassing position in her relations with other Governments. Admiral Baron Kato is evidently undertaking to make this a test case. On the one side, there are the Japanese army officers who want to be accountable to nobody but the Emperor, and on the other side are Admiral Baron Kato, his War Minister, General Yamashina, and the former War Minister, General Tanaka, who wish to have the military party subordinate to the authority of the civilian government. "If the chief of staff is unyielding," says the special despatch from the correspondent of the "Public Ledger," "Baron Kato will offer to quit the Cabinet as an alternative."

It is evident that Japan is passing through a period of development in which political decisions will be of the utmost moment and consequence. Not only will Japan's own prosperity and progress depend upon these decisions, but also good relations between Japan and other nations. All the evidence which has come to us indicates that Admiral Baron Kato is on the side of progress in Japan and international justice and peace. The very fact that he is making a fight on this issue is reassuring to the best friends that Japan has in other countries, and it confirms their faith in her.

HOW FRANCE AND AMERICA ARE HELPING EACH OTHER

N the steamer Chicago, from Havre, France, on September 19, sailed a large number of American students returning from a summer abroad to their respective colleges and universities.

But there also sailed forty-two young French men and women who attracted equal notice. They had been selected for the scholarships offered by our colleges and universities. These students will join about a dozen others, also scholarship-holders, who are remaining in America for a second or third year of study.

The French Government furnishes transportation to and from the American institutions. A large number of the students will remain in the East because of the expense involved in traveling to our Western colleges and universities; perhaps most of the students will be attracted to our institutions of the Middle West.

As to scholarships and fellowships in French universities for our college men and women, it is gratifying to note that the number of them has been increased from 50 to 62. These fellowships are in addition to those some thirty in num

ber-maintained by the American Field Service Fellowships Society, and also to those privately founded. The last named were in large measure established to commemorate the heroism of Americans who died in France during the war.

Further information concerning the scholarships in French universities may be obtained by writing to the American University Union, 1 Rue de Fleurus, Paris.

A

OXFORD DEBATES IN AMERICA s readers of The Outlook know, there is at present in this country a debating team from the University of Oxford. Already Oxford has met Bates on its home grounds. The decision in favor of Bates was rendered both by judges, according to the American plan, and the audience, according to the British method. An editorial discussion of Anglo-American methods of college debating has already appeared in The Outlook, and in a forthcoming issue there will be an article by Ralph M. Carson, the American Rhodes Scholar who was President of the Oxford Union last year.

Concerning the Oxford-Bates debate the New York "Evening Post" says:

The three Bates debaters regarded themselves as a team, they carefully divided their "points," they shunned repetition, and they filled their speeches with a maximum of unassailable "evidence." The British debaters, on the other hand, spoke as individuals, did not mind contradicting one another slightly, were intent on thought rather than facts, and gave no attention to rebuttal.

The Oxford team is to speak at several Eastern universities before its return to England. At Harvard, at any rate, the debate is to be carried on according to the English system, as the audience will give the only decision which will be rendered. At Harvard each speaker will have the floor for fifteen minutes and there will be no rebuttal. The Harvard debate will be held before this issue is published, and the subject defended and attacked will be: "Resolved, that the United States should immediately join the League of Nations."

A NEW UNIVERSITY
ATHLETIC CODE

VALE, Princeton, and Harvard have

Y formulated an athletic agreement

which is admirable. Of course this agreement does not indicate any radical departure from present practices, as some commentators would have it, but is very largely merely a codification of the public opinion of these three universities. It puts in explicit terms ideals which have been generally held by

graduates and undergraduates of Yale, Princeton, and Harvard.

The terms of this agreement are worthy of study by all those who are interested in cleaning up the amateur athletic situation in America. The present regulations, supplementary to those already in existence, include, first, a requirement that

The university committee on eligibility shall, in advance of competition, require of each candidate for competition in any sport a detailed statement of the sources of his financial support, including any sums earned during vacation. In the case of each athlete who is shown to have received financial aid from others than those on whom he is naturally dependent for support, the committee shall then, in advance of his competition, submit the facts to the committee of the three chairmen (representing the three universities), which shall decide upon his eligibility.

In cases in which the motives for extending aid to an athlete are not clear to the committee of the three chairmen, that committee shall take into account failure on the part of the athlete to maintain a creditable record in his academic course in character, scholarship, and willingness to meet his obligations, as evidence that a continuance of financial aid to the athlete on grounds of character, scholarship, and conduct seems unwise, and that therefore the committee may have to declare him ineligible.

An athlete is barred from participating in college sports if at any time he has received any pecuniary reward from any connection with athletics, and a student is also barred from any athletic team or crew who receives, "from others than those on whom he is naturally dependent for financial support, money by gift or loan, or the equivalent of money, such as board and lodging, etc., unless the source and character of these gifts or payments to him shall be approved by the committee of three chairmen on the ground that they have not accrued to him primarily because of his ability as an athlete."

Two important sections of the new agreement state that any student who transfers to Yale, Harvard, or Princeton from any college or university shall be ineligible to represent these institutions in any sport in which he represented his former college or university except when playing against the university from which he transferred, and that the "three universities wholly disapprove of all propaganda, either through special inducements or through disparagement of other institutions, to induce boys in the schools to go to a particular institution."

Concerning coaches, the agreement says that "it should be the aim of each university, as far as practicable, to have

Levick

MISS GLENNA COLLETT, WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S NATIONAL GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP

AT WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS

the coaching of all teams done only by members of its regular staff," and that "while under contract no coach shall write for publication on the subject of athletics without first submitting for ap proval by the university authorities any articles intended for publication."

The agreement prohibits athletic practice prior to the week before the universities open, reduces the length of athletic schedules, and forbids post-season contests. Two wise provisions require that athletic schedules shall include so far as possible only contests with teams representing institutions setting similar standards of eligibility and that athletic publicity shall be subject to constant supervision and study in an effort to lessen undue emphasis upon athletics in general and football in particular.

THE WOMEN'S
GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP

You

OUTH has been served in the women's amateur National golf championship as well as in the men's, for the victory in this year's tournament has gone to Miss Glenna Collett, of Providence, Rhode Island. In the finals she defeated Mrs. William Gavin, of England, by five up and four to play. Four former American title-holders fell by the

way during the progress of the tournament. In the final match Miss Collett scored a forty-three and a thirty-eight for a total of eighty-one strokes in the morning round. Any man not in the first flight who plays nine difficult holes in thirty-eight strokes generally feels like going home and buying himself a cup. Such a score is ample testimony of the quality of Miss Collett's golf.

The tournament was held at White Sulphur Springs, Virginia.

LÉON BONNAT

E hereby express our gratitude to

WE hereby express ours, for print

ing on the editorial page of its issue for September 22 a delightful article on the late Léon Bonnat, the French artist who died last month at the ripe age of eighty-nine. Bonnat was one of the most popular and successful of French portrait painters during the last half-century, and made a fortune with his brush. Many well-known American artists were pupils in his studio from time to time, such as: Edwin H. Blashfield, President of our own National Academy; H. Siddons Mowbray and Henry Oliver Walker, the distinguished mural painters; Charles Y. Turner, widely known for his figure and historical paintings; and William A. Coffin, of the National Academy, and author of the "Times" article.

Bonnat was apparently a great personality as well as a successful artist. Indeed, it is his personality as portrayed by Mr. Coffin that is of special interest to the layman. He did not indulge in "blurbs" in his studio; the highest commendation which he ever gave to a pupil was, "Pas mal!"-not bad. It is evident that he believed that genius is composed of perspiration as well as of inspiration, for, "a remarkable and accomplished draughtsman himself, he insisted upon his pupils working incessantly to arrive at the fairest measure of success they might show themselves capable of achieving." Although he had what some painters scorn, a social success as a portrait painter, it did not spoil his intellectual standards, as the following anecdote related by Mr. Coffin indicates:

One time when I was in his studio in his fine house in the Rue Bassano, Bonnat had, among other canvases on his ten or twelve .big easels, a portrait of Mayor Hewitt, a most excellent work by the way, and a full-length picture of an American gentleman socially well known, in hunting costume, as he appeared on his estate in Scotland. He told me he was one of my compatriots, naming him, and then, indicating the Hewitt portrait, he said: "Mais, voila un homme intelligent."

During the war Bonnat worked actively in an association, of which he

was the founder, for the benefit of families of artists who had been killed in the conflict, and co-operated in full sympathy with the American Artists' Committee of One Hundred, which was organized for the creation of a relief fund for the families of French soldierartists. That Committee, by the way, is still in existence and is proposing to continue its aid to the dependent widows and children of French artists during the calendar year 1922. It may be that there are some who read these lines who have had pleasure from the canvases of Bonnat and may like to express their pleasure by sending a contribution to William A. Coffin, Chairman of the American Artists' Committee of One Hundred, 58 West Fifty-seventh Street, New York City, for the benefit of these artists' families.

CLARK OF THE OREGON

WE

E do not think often nowadays of the anxieties and feats of the Spanish War. The death of RearAdmiral Charles E. Clark brings back vividly, however, an adventure which was rightly a nine days' wonder at the time of its occurrence. It will be remembered that while Cervera's whereabouts were unknown Captain Clark was intrusted with the dangerous task of bringing the Oregon from the Pacific coast to augment the Atlantic Fleet. He left San Francisco on March 19, 1898, and sixty-seven days later steamed into Jupi ter Inlet, on the coast of Florida, unharmed and ready for battle. There was no Panama Canal in '98, and between Captain Clark and his destination lay the turbulent waters of the Horn and possible attack by a Spanish torpedo-boat.

During Captain Clark's historic voyage he passed Captain Joshua Slocum voyaging alone around the world in the little nine-ton Spray. Slocum did not know of the declaration of war against Spain. It was therefore an alarming sight to find the Oregon flying the signals C B T, which meant, "Are there any men-of-war about?" Captain Slocum signaled back, "No," and as the Oregon passed by hoisted the international code flags which meant, "Let us keep together for mutual protection." In the account of his voyage he wrote that Captain Clark did not seem to regard this signal as necessary! We wonder if any naval officer can tell us whether or not Slocum's signal was made out on board the Oregon. Slocum says that the Oregon's great flag dipped beautifully in reply to the lowered colors of the Spray. We suspect that if Captain Clark had made out the Spray's final signal he would have replied to it in a manner worthy of Slocum's gallant jest.

Rear-Admiral Clark was seventy-nine

THOMAS E. WATSON, OF GEORGIA cessfully led the people in the art of self-government, which is the art of political and social self-restraint. Nothing could be further in purpose and character from such a man than one who seeks and obtains power over the people by inciting their passions and intensifying their prejudices; and yet it is to this opposite extreme that the name demagogue has come to be applied. Undoubtedly, many a true leader of the people in self-government has found it impossible to lead by virtue of reason alone, and undoubtedly many a man who has mounted to power through popular passion has served some good end at one time or another in his career; and therefore the determination whether a man is a demagogue in the one sense or the other has been at times a matter of opinion rather than of demonstrable fact.

To many thousands of persons in the South, and particularly in his own State of Georgia, Tom Watson (as he liked to be called), who died on September 26, was a demagogue in the good old sense. He was regarded as a leader of the op

pressed and unprivileged in their struggle for emancipation. As one eulogist, writing in the Atlanta "Constitution," said of him on the day after his death: "As a practicing lawyer, when he traveled from one end of Georgia to the other in criminal cases, in which he specialized, he invariabiy fought the battle of the defendant and not the prosecutor. . . . It was this spirit for the man who was down, for the farmer who was struggling, for the laborer who was fighting the tide, that made him the idol of the poor." As a consequence, Watson gained a following which he commanded as few officers can command their men even in time of war. As another eulogist said of him in the same newspaper: "When "Tom' Watson appeared before his people, he played on their emotions like a master of the violin plays on his delicate instrument. . . He molded the opinions and thoughts of his followers like so much putty, and with most of them it was only for him to say and for them to do."

No man can attain this position in any community without exceptional ability. Tom Watson was a man of mental vigor and brilliance. Proof of his ability abides in some of the books he wrote, notably his two-volume work "The Story of France," which is a picture of France as distinctive as Carlyle's "French Revolution," and, like Carlyle's book, is as much a portraiture of the author as of his subject.

Unhappily, the gifts of Thomas Edward Watson were ill employed. His power to sway the people by eloquence was perverted again and again to the arousing of racial animosities, religious prejudice, and class hostilities. His influence was immeasurably hurtful to right relations between whites and blacks in his State and elsewhere. He aided the unthinking hate of the Jews as Jews. He made it more difficult rather than less difficult for conscientious Roman Catholic and Protestant citizens to live in amity side by side. And he tended to arouse in the minds of all who were poor a feeling of distrust for all who were rich, without regard for character. During the war he was an obstructionist. He sought to prevent the sending of selective service men for the war overseas. His periodicals, "The Weekly Jeffersonian" and "Watson's Jeffersonian Magazine," became so hostile to the effective prosecution of the war that they were excluded from the mails. After the war he made himself notorious by bringing unsubstantiated charges of the most atrocious character against American overseas officers. His constructive record is very slight.

Born in Columbia County, Georgia, Thomas E. Watson was a student for

T

POLITICAL
CONVENTIONS

HE Republicans and the Democrats have held their conventions in the State of New York, the one at Albany, the other at Syracuse. Each gathering marked the return of the convention system for the nomination of State officers.

A friend of The Outlook who was an eye-witness of the Republican Conven tion at Albany writes to us of it as follows:

It seemed strangely something that hadn't the reason it once had. There were over a. thousand persons (delegates), I believe, all very much alike in appearance and manner of speech. I never saw so many people together who were so much alike.

"What does your political-philosophical makeup say to this?" asked a friend.

I said it seemed much of the same thing.

"Yes," said he. "It is all Governor Miller."

I told him I didn't object to that, and I didn't. But I kept on thinking, "Is this the best we can do with a serious job?" Groups here and there were talking like stock brokers. About twelve men were upstairs slate-making at the Ten Eyck [a well-known Albany hotel]; and in the lounge both men and women were yawning and asking, "When do we eat and is it fixed yet?"

Really, at both Syracuse and Albany one man has been doing all the thinking for the State. This is not so anywhere else in the world to-day. We are back in the good old '90's, bag and baggage, in this State.

Not quite, we believe, for now the delegates to party conventions are chosen by direct election by the party voters in the direct primary. As a consequence, in the conventions this year the personal quality of the different delegations was much improved over the old days of unrestricted selection by the bosses; but the failure of the Convention as a deliberative self-governing body was as marked as it always has been and always will be, except in those special cases when the public is greatly aroused over political conditions. A thousand men and women meeting for two days only are incapable of reflection or of self-mastery. A convention is essentially a social function; useful enough in its way as a means of bringing a thousand representatives of the party from all parts of the State into closer touch and unity, and sometimes helpful to the leaders as offering an opportunity for a test probe of public opinion while the slate and platform are being made. But the real work of preliminary jockeying and final decision is always done by a few outstanding political personalities who meet more or less secretly in a hotel suite, and not in the convention. It is in the human nature of the situation, and it cannot be changed by statute.

The chief surface features of the two Conventions appear to have been somewhat as follows. The Republican gath ering was dominated almost completely by the leadership of Governor Miller. His term of office has been marked by an economical and intelligent direction of government, and his unusual ability both as a party manager and exponent of public opinion has made him the chief asset of the Republicans in New York. He swept the slate practically clean of the State officers who served with him during his first incumbency, and selected an entirely new ticket, with the exception of State Treasurer, to stand with him for his second campaign. There seems to have been a reason in every case, and the Republican public has taken little umbrage at the Governor's drastic action. His course in this matter is a most practical admission of the

need of the so-called short ballot in State government, which means in essence that the Governor should have authority to select the chief State officers who really make up his Cabinet and who should be chosen for their team-work qualities. Governor Miller has fulfilled the short-ballot idea by a short cut of gubernatorial pressure upon a Convention which was absolutely beholden to his renomination. Of course nobody but a candidate in the position of Governor Miller could accomplish the reform in this way.

The Democratic gathering was characterized by a struggle for control between the forces of William Randolph Hearst, the well-known editor, and the forces behind Alfred E. Smith, former Governor of New York. This Convention had less of the self-governing quality than the Republican Convention. The Republicans at least nodded assent to what they knew beforehand was going to happen. The Democrats had not the slightest idea of what was going to happen until they heard it from the Tammany machine leader at the final session; and then they also cordially acquiesced. Hearst was repudiated and Smith was again made the standard-bearer of his party. The Republican platform is dignified, orderly, economical in its tendency, conservative, and practical. The Democratic platform has a great deal of humanness in it, but is stuffed with schemes of municipal operation and with ideas and suggestions of government action for human welfare which would probably swamp a municipal or State