THE ELECTION

I

N general the voters throughout the country on election day recorded their dissatisfaction with some of the policies and administrative methods of the Republican party.

Two years ago the Republican party went into power with a great sweep; but it has failed to do all that was expected of it by numerous groups of people. The very excess of the vote in 1920 made a sweep in the other direction almost inevitable. Such a swing of the pendulum almost always happens in the middle of a National Administration's term of office. In this case it has not taken the control of Congress from the Republicans, but it has reduced their majority in the House of Representatives from 169 (over two to one) to about 20.

Among the factors in this election not the least was that of personality. This is something that ought never to be lost sight of in a democracy. Probably the most interesting episode in the elections was due in large measure to this factor. The victory of "Al" Smith in the contest for the Governorship of New York State was the victory of a winning personality. A good many people make the mistake of thinking that personality in politics means a hand-shake; as a matter of fact, the plain people in America quickly distinguish between the man who seeks their votes by kissing their babies and the man who has real human interest in them. Alfred E. Smith thinks of political issues in the terms of human beings. This was illustrated when he was in the Legislature, as Mr. Davenport pointed out in an article in The Outlook over four years ago. When he considered such a measure as the bill for widows' pensions, he pictured to himself and to others the effect of such a bill on the woman who faces the danger of having her children taken away from her. He is a man who values the affection of the common people, but equally values the respect and approval of uncommon people, just as he is willing to incur and even invite the disapproval of men whose designs are sinister or whose methods he believes bad. Not a few, we believe, voted for "Al" Smith

NOVEMBER 15, 1922

because they wanted to see overwhelming support given to the man who had routed Hearst and now has the opportunity of regenerating Tammany. Governor Miller's high-minded, efficient public service deserved approval. That it did not receive it in the form of the re-election of Governor Miller is mainly due to the personality of his opponent.

The factors in the general election cannot be analyzed fully at present, but some of them can be enumerated. Among them are discontent with the hodgepodge Fordney tariff; the griev ances against the Government which many people, particularly farmers, have on account of their economic burden; the sense of injustice which was developed in many groups of people as a result of the Administration's handling of the coal and railway strikes; the sense of outrage on the part of veterans of the war because of the Administration's methods of dealing with the veterans' interests, and, in particular, their humiliation at the President's action in making his personal family physician a brigadier-general in virtual control of the veterans' interest without justification in Dr. Sawyer's record in the war or in public service or in his course since his appointment; and the fact that most of the dissatisfaction with prohibition worked against the Republicans.

So far as we can see, there is no evidence that views on the Administration's foreign policy-concerning, for example, the League of Nations, the Naval Treaty, the Near East, foreign debts, etc. -had any weight one way or the other. In Massachusetts Senator Lodge received a rebuke largely because of the feeling that he resorted to political prejudices in the electorate at the expense of loyalty to certain principles in which he was supposed to believe. In Indiana ex-Senator Beveridge received an adverse vote very largely because of the feeling on the part of many service men that Mr. Beveridge was lukewarm, if not actually pro-German, during all the early stages of the war.

In New Jersey the victory of Mr. Edwards for the Senatorship over Mr. Frelinghuysen is a definite victory for the anti-prohibitionists; but it is not

purely such, for New Jersey was affected by the general dissatisfaction of the country with the Republican party.

Where Republicanism stood for progressive policies, even though it involved some radicalism, the sweep against the Republicans was checked. In Iowa Mr. Brookhart won a victory over his Democratic opponent because he had already led a revolt in his own party against standpatism; and in Pennsylvania Mr. Pinchot was elected Governor, not only as a Republican, but as an exponent of Rooseveltian progressivism.

At the same time where the Republican nominations had been captured by those who stood openly for policies regarded as Bolshevist the Republicans were defeated as soundly as when they stood for standpatism. Senator France, of Maryland, an apologist for the Bolsheviki of Russia, and ex-Governor Frazier, the Non-Partisan League and Republican candidate for Senator in North Dakota, alike met defeat.

On the whole, the people of the country have said to the Republican party: We made you steward two years ago. You have, however, presumed too much upon the confidence we then reposed in you. Take warning.

SECRETARY HUGHES ON AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

I

N an important political address at Boston shortly before the election campaign closed Secretary Hughes took occasion to tell clearly his conception of America's duty and limitation in foreign affairs. "Friendship for all nations, alliances with none" was the keynote. He strongly urged co-operation by America in the new International Court of Justice, in proper methods of furthering the public health of the world, and in the fight against commerce in narcotics and traffic in women and children. He would maintain American rights abroad, but by calm insistence rather than by threats.

But beyond such matters as these he deprecated interference in questions distinctively European, for, he declared, "the fundamental and pressing problems of Europe are political problems involv

ing national hopes and fears; deepseated convictions as to national safety and opportunity; national ambitions, in some cases long cherished, in others recently awakened; established policies which have become postulates in the thought of peoples. Each nation is its own judge in such matters of policy and, whether acting in or out of groups, will follow its own interests save as some special exigency may control."

As to the new situation in the Near East, Secretary Hughes had already expressed his view of American duty by making public a paragraph from a private letter written by him in which he said: "I conceive it to be the duty of the country to continue to safeguard American lives and interests, to give succor to the destitute and oppressed, and exert our influence in the interest of peace, against cruelty and brutality, and for the proper protection of minorities. We shall not withhold any practical measures of mercy or threaten where we do not intend to execute." In the Boston address he took pains to point out that the terrible incidents of the Greek retreat through Anatolia should be borne in mind, even though they did not palliate the barbaric cruelty of the Turks in Smyrna, and he referred with pride to the fine relief work by American officers and American philanthropy. He repeated his assurances that everything possible and proper should be done to safeguard American citizens in Turkey, our institutions and commercial interests there, the freedom of the Straits, and the rights of minorities. But, as we declined to go to war with Turkey when we entered the Great War, despite the Turkish massacres in 1915, it is futile for Americans to talk of war when other countries are arranging peace. "At no time," he added, "has the Executive had any authority to plunge this country into war, even a holy war. I know there are those who think we should have threatened, even if we did not intend to make war. The Administration does not make threats which it does not purpose to carry out. The American people cannot afford a policy where the words spoken on their behalf do not mean all that is said. When we threaten we shall execute."

The Secretary of State will find the positions thus taken sustained by the large majority of sensible citizens.

A MAKE-BELIEVE

IMPERIAL WEDDING

deeply con

THE SULTAN AWAITS THE END

the former Kaiser has by it alienated his family and the monarchical party in Germany. As a ruler of Germany William is, as Germans say, "Kaput," or, in our slang, "all in." If it is true, however, as cable despatches say, that at the wedding of William to the Princess Hermine of Reuss (a widow with five children) the bridegroom signed himself "Wilhelm II" and the bride was addressed as the Queen of Prussia, it would be a proper thing for the German Government to point out that no one has a right to those titles even by a stretch of courtesy. Prussia is now a component part of the Republic of Germany, and has no royalties. The empty grandiloquence of non-existent titles was merely one phase of the attempt to throw a false glamour of imperial grandeur over what is really a rather melancholy social event, particularly to those Germans who have deeply honored the devoted Kaiserin, who died only a year and a half ago.

did." If he had been wisely guided, for instance, he would not have put out his "Memoirs," for apart from their being a queer jumble of fact and fable, the general verdict is that they showed astonishing ignorance and lack of political and personal judgment. They differ widely from the book to which the former Crown Prince's name is attached, for that was in the writing at least moderate, quiet, and in good taste, however unsound in exposition of history it

may be.

question

It has always been a whether, in rough parlance, Wilhelm II was more a knave or a fool. Probably history will answer that he was a good deal of both. That he was a megalomaniac is sure; but, just as such a thing is recognized in criminal law as criminal insanity as seen in the perverted viciousness of a distorted mentality the possessor of which knows murder to be murder and yet commits the crime, so the former Kaiser cannot be excused because of his self-conceit from his large share of guilt in the colossal crime of the World War.

THE SULTAN'S GOVERNMENT

DISPLACED

or content with declaring Moham

Nome

med VI deprived of the office of Sultan, to be regarded henceforth only as Caliph of the faithful, or of driving out his Ministers, including the Grand Vizier, Tewfik Pasha, the Angora Nationalists under Kemal declared through their representative in Constantinople, Rafet Pasha, that from noon on November 4 the administration of the Great National Assembly of Turkey was estab lished in Constantinople.

This is premature, to say the least. The Allies still have armed forces in Constantinople, and, while they have agreed to all intents and purposes that Nationalist control over the city should be established, it would be only decent for the victorious Turkish army to await the sessions of the proposed peace conference at Lausanne before setting up their Turkish Republic. But when, as despatches of November 5 state, Hamid Bey, the military representative of the Angora Government, practically ordered Allied troops out, and in a note to the Entente demanded evacuation by the Allied forces, the Council of Allies promptly refused his demands as impertinent. They naturally resent the peremptory demand and are unwilling to leave Christians and Jews at the mercy

The Kemalist Turkish army may now be harmless and well conducted, and no doubt Greeks and other Balkan nations have been guilty of excesses, but in view

LABOR'S SETBACK IN ENGLAND THE size of the Labor Party's reprean exceedingly important matter. If it is large enough to hold the balance of power when helped out by other members of radical or Socialistic views, then both Liberal and Conservative antiGeorge members may regret the breakup of their coalition. For this reason the falling off in the Labor vote at many municipal elections two weeks before the general election has excited lively discussion. The setback has been attributed to indifference, but more probably it is due to a feeling that the Labor leaders have gone too far in urging the nationalization of industries and a levy on capital to reduce municipal taxes. Other party leaders are urging their candidates not to make the mistake of underestimating the Labor vote on November 15. In the municipal elections Labor candidates lost in over half the contests; in London its membership in the councils or districts fell from 574 to 215. On the face of it the result seems to favor the Conservatives, and therefore there has been talk of possible union be tween the Asquithian and Lloyd Georgian Liberals.

The most notable event of the campaign up to a week before the election has been the address by the new Prime Minister before a woman's association in London. Mr. Bonar Law was urbane, quiet, and reasonable. He could not agree with those who looked upon the break-up of the Coalition as the death of a beautiful thing, and illustrated his view by a story so applied to the Coalition as to indicate that, however beautiful it may have been, it was now decidedly dead He retorted on Lloyd George's question as to why the Conservatives thought he was all right to save England in wartime but not good enough to serve it in peace by the story of the wounded drummer in a hospital who thought it would do him good to beat his drum once more; they let him, and he got well, but the other patients died.

THIS WILL BE THE AMERICAN-OWNED UNITED STATES EMBASSY AFTER THE BRAZIL EXPOSITION ENDS

Frank L. Packard, Architect; Dwight P. Robinson & Co., Inc., Constructors

worked out the theme that England requires rest, recuperation, and political harmony rather than sensationalism and dissension. Under Lloyd George's administration, he said, all felt, "We don't know where we are to-day and cannot tell where we shall be to-morrow." Stability and what Americans now call "normalcy" are his ambition.

Mr. Law's speech was notable for his expressions of friendship for England's allies in the war, and America as well as France was warmly greeted. Reversing the recent utterance attributed to Mr. Kipling, the Prime Minister said he considered that by entering the conflict the United States had gained her soul and lost her money.

AMERICAN HOMES FOR
AMERICAN AMBASSADORS

F

ORTUNATELY, the time is passing when the oft-repeated bit of fun about Joseph H. Choate when he was American Ambassador to England is applicable everywhere. The story relates that Mr. Choate was accosted by a London policeman on a wet, windy night. "I say," demanded the Bobby, "what are you doing out this beastly night? Better go home." "I have no home," said Choate. "I am the American Ambassador."

American embassies, "as itinerant as a house-boat," to use the characterization of General Horace Porter, former Ambassador to France, are gradually being displaced by "little White Houses" in the capitals of the world. The change from the old haphazard policy of turning new envoys loose in strange cities, subject to the rapacity of landlords and real estate agents, is added evidence of the discovery of a "new diplomacy." Incidentally, it indicates relief from the peculiar condition of a democracy necessarily choosing its representatives from the wealthy.

The latest and most impressive addi

tion to the American diplomatic ménage is the Embassy building recently completed in Rio de Janeiro. It is now serving as the United States Government Building at the Brazilian Centennial Exposition, and is used for the reception of visitors and the showing of educational exhibits. With the close of the Exposition it will become the official headquarters of the United States in Brazil and the home of the American Ambassador.

This is the third building operation of the kind the Government has attempted. The Legation in Peking was completed in 1906, at a total cost of $180,000 for grounds, building, and equipment. The cost of the building and improvement of grounds at San Salvador, to be completed this year, will be $60,000. The Brazilian building cost $300,000.

The United States first invested in real estate in a foreign capital in 1884, when a legation building was purchased in Siam. In 1920 these premises were exchanged with the Government of Siam for other quarters in a more desirable section of Bangkok. In 1891 an official residence was purchased in Morocco; in Japan, 1896; in Turkey, 1907; and in Cuba and Panama, 1916. An Embassy building was recently purchased in Chile, and on May 22, 1922, the deeds transferring the home in London donated by J. P. Morgan to the Department of State for Embassy uses were formally executed.

The Government, therefore, at this time owns quarters in ten capitals out of forty-seven in which diplomatic representatives are normally maintained. An embassy is owned in only one European capital, London. Economy can hardly be pleaded as justification, for the embassy grounds of other governments in London, Paris, Berlin, Washington, and other centers of government have increased enormously in value,