50

THE OUTLOOK

nounce that Justice John H. Clarke, of the United States Supreme Court, has resigned, and that ex-Senator George Sutherland has been nominated by President Harding to fill the vacancy.

was

Justice Clarke born in Ohio sixty-five years ago, and is a graduate of the Western Reserve University, of Cleveland. He was general counsel of the New York, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad for thirteen years, but in spite of this so-called corporate connection has been regarded as so liberal in questions concerning property and labor that many conservative people have with shakings of the head looked upon him anxiously as an ultra-radical. It is true that in many recent important decisions of the Court he has stood with Justice Brandeis, who has long held so-called advanced views in industry and economics. Justice Clarke was appointed by President Wilson. He had served as a United States District Judge before he took his seat upon the Supreme Court bench. He is a man of literary taste and sympathy. He has been an ardent advocate of the League of Nations, and it is believed that he has left the bench in order to devote himself to a furtherance of the principles of the League.

The new Justice, Mr. Sutherland, was born in England sixty years ago, but received his academic education in this country and is a graduate of the Law School of the University of Michigan. He is a Republican; served as a member of the State Senate of Utah; and has been two terms, from 1905 to 1917, a member for Utah of the United States Senate, where he created for himself an enviable reputation as an authority on international law. He is a personal friend of President Harding's and has been President of the American Bar Association. He served as one of the advisers to the American delegation at the recent Armament Conference in Washington, where his views and advice were much relied upon. Mr. Sutherland is a man of broad and liberal views on legal, economic, and social questions, although he is generally regarded as more conservative than Justice Clarke. His appointment is a commendable one, and in making it President Harding has preserved the best standards and traditions of the Supreme Court.

settings for its screen pictures in a manner consonant with high ideals of the musical art.

The plans for the programmes of the theater are for most of the performances not greatly different from those of the best moving-picture shows. On every Wednesday, however, a musical recital and concert will take the place of the usual performance, and both the music and the performers will be of the highest rank.

The new theater is beautifully decorated and adorned with mural paintings. One novel feature is to be what is called "an ideal condition with reference to illumination," so that during the performance of a screen drama the auditorium remains light enough to read a programme.

A recent newspaper writer on the subject declares that here at last will be found "a concrete realization of the pet dream of the movie interests, discussed for nearly a decade, since first an orchestra with soloists was intro duced in an up-town theater incidental to picture presentation-the marriage of the art forms: music and the silent drama."

A COMMISSION OF

INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS

EN of the big universities of the Middle West are allied in athletics. In football, for example, they play one another for what is known as the Conference championship. The alliance is known as the Intercollegiate Conference. It is composed of the Universities of Chicago, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Indiana, and Northwestern, Purdue, and Ohio State Universities.

Recently the directors of physical education in these universities created a post of Commissioner of Athletics of the Intercollegiate Conference and appointed to that position Major John L. Griffith. The immediate occasion for the creation of this post was undoubtedly the exposure of certain evils in athletics which had developed in a number of colleges in this country, and among them at least one of the Conference universities. It will be the duty of Major Griffith to conduct an educational campaign on be half of a sound amateur spirit and a better sportsmanship. That Major Grif fith will undertake his task with no prejudice against a vigorous competition may be deduced from the fact that during the war he directed physical and bayonet training in the United States Army. Since the war he has been on the staff of the Department of Athletics at the University of Illinois.

When we learned of his appointment, we wrote to Major Griffith, asking for

information concerning his aims. In reply we have received a letter in which he says:

"In the first place, athletics, and, in fact, all of our physical education activities, have grown remarkably in the last few years and now challenge the attention and consideration of all. The politi cal party now in power was elected on a platform one of the planks of which calls for Federal encouragement of those matters which pertain to the physical betterment of our youth. There are now several bills before Congress which aim toward correcting conditions which the draft figures revealed relative to our physical unpreparedness for war. Twenty-eight States have passed compulsory physical education laws. Furthermore, there is more interest now in amateur athletics in the schools and colleges, judged not only by the increased number of participants but also by the size of the crowds that witness the contests, than ever before.

"The American people prefer to give expression to their physical selves in terms of competitive athletics. In Germany mass setting-up drills as featured by the Turners are popular. We have heard a great deal about a German system of physical education or a Swedish system or a Japanese system, but none of these have ever gained popularity in the United States. The American system embodies the sports and games that have been developed in this country in accordance with our National temperament.

"Our competitive athletics, so long as they are kept clean, are indispensable. They furnish an ideal. Every normal boy aspires to be a Paddock, an Oliphant, or a Thorpe. They furnish wholesome entertainment of an invigorating sort to thousands of spectators. Esprit de corps in the educational institutions is largely developed around the athletic teams. Good sportsmanship and the spirit of fair play, which are both needed to-day as never before in our social and economic life, can be taught better in athletics than in any other manner, and our fighting games furnish a splendid substitute for military training.

"As Commissioner of Athletics of the Intercollegiate Conference, it will be my duty to conduct an educational campaign to bring about a better understanding of the purposes and values of athletics; to explain the rules which the directors have adopted to safeguard athletics; and to enlist the support of students, alumni, and the general public in the observance and enforcement of these rules. It is hoped that this may be accomplished through the co-opera

INTERNATIONAL GOLF

T

HE photographer who took the picture (which appears on the next page) of the Anglo-American Golf Match on the National Golf Course at Southampton, Long Island, it is apparent, is neither a golfer nor a sailor. If he were a golfer, he would have picked out a more picturesque portion of the fairway than he selected for his photograph; if a sailor, he would have chosen one of the beautiful water-holes of the National course showing the blue and shining Peconic Bay in its setting of golden sand and evergreen pines and cedars. The National Golf Course is believed by American golfers to be one of the most trying tests of golf in this country, as it is certainly one of the most beautiful courses in its surroundings. It is one of those courses where the slightest deviation from long and accurate play is likely to involve the unhappy golfer in almost insurmountable difficulty. It was the scene during the latter part of August of a contest for the Walker Cup between a team of eight selected British amateurs-some of them Scotch and some of them English-and eight selected American amateurs. The British team came over this summer for the purpose of entering this particular match and the American amateur championship, which was being played over the Brookline Country Club course at Boston as this issue of The Outlook went to press.

On the first day of the contest on the National links the Americans and Britishers played foursomes-not four-ball foursomes, but the ancient and genuine foursome commonly but erroneously called in this country "Scotch four

some," in which the partners on each side play alternate strokes at the same ball. In this contest the Americans won three out of four matches. On the second day the eight Americans played in single matches against the Britishers. Jesse Guilford, Robert Jones, Charles ("Chick") Evans, Francis Ouimet, and Robert Gardner were the winners for the United States, while Messrs. Hooman, MacKenzie, and Darwin of England beat their American antagonists. Thus the cup was won by eight to four matches.

Mr. Bernard Darwin, one of the contestants on the British team, is not only an excellent golfer, but an excellent writer on golf. No contest of physical prowess that we know of has a more voluminous, permanent, and picturesque literature than golf. It has not only a long list of what might be called textbooks, but it has furnished the subjectmatter for innumerable essays and personal narratives and reminiscence. Perhaps this literature contains no single passage so eloquent or so classic as George Borrow's famous Apostrophe to the Bruisers of England, but it certainly has enlisted the services of some of the best out-of-door writers of modern times. Mr. Darwin belongs to this group of writers. He thinks that American golfers excel in putting:

There is no mistake about it that they are truly magnificent golfers. Up to the green they are fully as good as our men. I don't think they drive any better, but their pitching is surer and heavier. When it comes to the green there is only side in it. The lesson that Hagen taught us at Sandwich, where Mr. Walter Travis had taught us a similar lesson seventeen years before, was rubbed in yet again. Our men did not putt badly, judged

by British standards, but we do not begin to know what good putting is.

These Americans really can putt. They stand still and they hit the ball truly and with apparent ease.

If Benjamin Franklin were living today, he might add to the sayings of Poor Richard: Take care of the putts, and the matches will take care of themselves.

T

ADJUSTED
COMPENSATION

HERE have been many editorials written about the Bonus Billsome of them we suspect by editors who have never read it. The Outlook, as its readers know, is not in favor of the Bonus Bill as it stands, but even those who oppose it ought to be familiar with its provisions.

In the first place, it is not, as many seem to believe, a bill providing for a large lump payment to all men who served in the war. It is in essence the grant of a paid-up life insurance policy, the size of which is determined by the length of service performed. The only cash payment provided for is that to those veterans who, under the provis ions of the bill, would be entitled to receive not more than $50.

As passed by the Senate, the bill calls for the presentation of a service certificate to every honorably discharged veteran who applies for it. The value of this certificate is based upon the time of active service in excess of sixty days in the military or naval forces of the United States. This credit accrues at the rate of $1 a day for home service and $1.25 a day for overseas service. The certificate which the veteran is to receive equals the sum of his service

credit, increased by twenty-five per cent plus interest for twenty years at the rate of 42 per cent, compounded annually. This makes his service certificate approximately three times the value of his service credit. In any case, the service credit upon which the value of the service certificate is based cannot exceed $500 for a man who has done no overseas service and $625 for veterans who have performed any overseas service. Thus the largest paid-up policy which any man could receive would be approximately $1,875. Veterans falling into certain classifications, which we shall not enter into here, are excepted from the benefits of this bill.

There are four options open to the eligible veteran: If his adjusted service credit is less than $50, he can take payment in cash. If his adjusted credit is more than $50, he must choose between receiving what is virtually a twentyyear paid-up life insurance policy or he must elect to receive vocational training aid or to receive farm or home aid. If he selects the certificate, he cannot assign it or give it as a security for a loan except as provided by the Adjusted Compensation Bill. Prior to January 21, 1926, he can borrow from a State or National bank not in excess of fifty per cent of his adjusted service certificate. The bill provides that upon his failure to meet his notes the Government will pay the bank the principal and interest of its loan. It would be possible for a veteran to regain his certificate by paying the Government the money which it gave the bank, together with the interest at 41⁄2 per cent, compounded annually. After January 21 loans similar to those made by the banks can be secured directly from the Government by appli

cation through the Post Office Department.

After July 1, 1923, the veteran is entitled to receive in one payment or in installments an amount equal to 100 per cent of his adjusted service credit for the purpose of enabling him to make improvements on a city or suburban home or to purchase or make payments on such a home or farm or to pay off indebtedness existing on such a home or farm prior to the date of the application by the veteran. The amount which the veteran may receive for such a purpose amounts to 105 per cent of his adjusted service credit if the payment is made in 1924, 110 per cent in 1925, 120 per cent in 1926, 130 per cent in 1927, 140 per cent in 1928 and thereafter. The purpose for which this money is to be spent must be approved by the Secretary of the Interior.

As is widely known, disabled veterans are entitled to the benefits of the present Vocational Rehabilitation Act. The bill for adjusted compensation extends to uninjured veterans some of the benefits which have hitherto been reserved for disabled veterans. It permits all those who come under its provisions to receive 140 per cent of the amount of their adjusted service credit, to be expended at a rate of $1.75 a day on a course of vocational training.

As the bill was passed by the Senate, it provides for the development of arid or semi-arid lands to be settled by veterans, and it authorizes the expenditure of $350,000,000 for carrying out such developments. The bill also provides that the money for carrying out its provisions shall be paid out of and be a first charge upon the interest received by the United States on obligations of foreign governments, and that if this shall be insufficient the same shall be paid out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated.

We have not attempted to give more than an outline of the bill, nor does it seem possible to secure any exact estimate as to the amount of money which its provisions would require.

The chief objections to the measure as passed by the Senate seem to us as follows:

1. The enactment of this bill into a law will delay, and not hasten, the day when the disabled veterans of the war shall receive adequate care. These men should have the first call upon the attention of the United States.

2. By the inevitable inflation caused by carrying this bill into effect the business development of the country may be hampered to such an extent that the four million veterans of the World War will in the end lose more than they will gain.

3. The bill as passed by the Senate is

a fraud upon the men whom it purports to help, for it makes no real provision for meeting the obligation which it assumes. To provide for the payment by utilizing the interest on our foreign debt is a twofold deception. In the first place, it draws upon funds that are still to be collected, and, in the second place, it uses the funds in a manner not sound financially. If we receive the money from our foreign loans, that money be longs to a fund for the redemption of our Liberty Loans. To use the interest on our foreign debt for adjusted compensation and then borrow money for refunding our Liberty Loans would be taking money from one pocket and putting it in another and pretending that we had increased our available assets.

We hope that the President will veto the present Bonus Bill, as he has promised.

FOR EXAMPLE

A

GAIN we hear that "the most interesting magazine articles are never published"-a contention with which we entirely agree, as the most interesting magazine articles are never written. For example:

Inspired by the uprising against the Eighteenth Amendment, an Outlook contributor resolved the other day to prepare an article dealing, not only with prohibition, but with the Methodist Centenary, the tithing movement, the six months' evangelistic campaign for "one million souls by June first," the Interchurch World Movement of North America, the campaign for a "blue" Sunday, the movement to censor stage and screen-in short, the whole array of efforts since the armistice to accomplish incalculable good quickly and by forcethe force, that is, of the "drive" or of law.

We remember that a famous editor, when asked, "What interests people?" replied, "Themselves." By that test, here was unquestionably the most interesting article conceived in years. Every American would see himself portrayed; for, either as promoter, as participant, as disgruntled remonstrant, as beneficiary, or as more or less victim, every American has been affected-personally, even intimately. And observe. The contributor regards these phenomena as symptoms of a world-wide neurosis prevalent after the war, and during it, and, to a considerable degree, before it. Instead of "Get-Good-Quick Schemes," his article might well have borne the headline, "The Matter with Us All."

Very beautiful oftentimes are the symptoms neurosis will produce-visions, ecstasies, even a high creativeness. The contributor recalled Taine's ex

planation of Gothic architecture as the work of overwrought nerves. But he also recalled Taine's remark that "an army of masons" must labor constantly to keep the lacelike cathedral from tumbling down, so rashly has idealism outrun practicality. Does a similar wellintentioned unwisdom endanger the various efforts to make the world over speedily and by force? The contributor fears that it does.

Nothing could have been more beautiful than the impassioned zeal with which a by no means wealthy denomination subscribed $115,000,000 for good works at home and abroad-nothing, that is, unless perhaps one sees a finer devotion in the spectacle of more than two hundred thousand tithers vowing to give the first tenth of their income to the church. But what has resulted? Will anybody pretend that performance equals promise? It falls short-as was inevitable from the outset.

Then, too, the contributor finds something wonderfully dramatic in the scene where forty bishops went down on their knees to pray for success in their campaign to win "one million souls by June first." The achievement, however, was by official count rather less than a third of that number. Again, what more beautiful than the enthusiasm with which thirty denominations united in the most astonishing "drive" ever heard of? On the other hand, what more distressful than its failure? Still again, a certain austere beauty-of motive, at least-marks the quaint and wholly unsuccessful attempt to re-establish the Puritan Sabbath in a community consisting largely of Jews, Catholics, and freethinkers. As for the movement to censor stage and screen, the end is not yet, though, like the movement to outlaw tobacco and like the plan of a delightful Bostonian to institute compulsory church attendance, it has aroused a peculiarly scornful indignation among worldlings.

Which brings us back to our contributor, as he has a lively interest in worldlings and fears that, beholding the failures of a too impatient and too militant idealism, they will come to flout all idealism. They are in a bad mood already. They object to being "railroaded" into a state of ethical perfection by a "Prussianism" that, given its way, would "cause America to bristle with Verboten signs."

But how, he asks, can he lecture the idealists upon their virtuous vices-the phrase is his, not ours-without seeming to discredit such lasting good as they have accomplished? Immense sums have been raised for manifold benevolence yes, despite lapses. The Interchurch achieved much; who knows b

that it may have a better-planned and more enduring successor? 311,000 new church members represent that much gain, though "one million by June 1" was the goal. If a "blue" Sunday was an irrational dream, it at least did us the service of exposing itself as such. And if the censorship of stage and screen appears unwise, well, are we quite satisfied as to the wisdom of per mitting them to, follow their Own devices?

So the article has not been written. Daring, disturbing, intensely personal, and calculated to arouse discussion the country over, it promised all the elements of supreme interest, and yet what worthy end would it have served? Our too impatient and too militant idealists have learned. their lesson-or, at all events, the majority of them have-in anguish of soul. There is little danger of their again attempting a dozen times more than can in the nature of things be achieved. They are out of conceit both with haste and with force. And the minority, though as impatient and as militant as before, command no such following as before. Albeit slowly, the world-wide neurosis is passing. methods particularly those aiming to reach motive, in the belief that motive, once reached, controls conduct-are once more held in the esteem they deserve. In other words, we are returning to a recognition of the well-established principle of sane progress: From within, out.

Old

AHUMAN-NATURALIST

WR

E usually think of a naturalist as one who studies and writes about external nature-birds. animals, trees, and the rest. But all the great naturalists who have written literature rather than text-books have been what might be called human-naturalists; they have seen and loved external nature from the point of view of human nature. Decidedly this is so of W. H. Hudson, the English naturalist, who died lately after a literary career of nearly forty years, during which he produced a long list of stories, books of observation, and collected sketches and essays. All of these, even such a fanciful romance as "Green Mansions," with its marvelous heroine who talks the bird language, had their strongest interest in the author's own contemplative and appreciative love for nature and its effect on human character and ways of living.

Hudson's best-known and most elaborate books have to do with South America, but he was quite as much at home and quite as sincerely interested in the country lanes of England as in

the pampas of Uruguay and the Argentine. Thus quite lately his early book "Afoot in England," long out of print, was republished and was enjoyed as a charming record of rambles with more reflection, mood, and human interest than of close description. What one critic said of this little book well describes Hudson's writing at large: "Here is a mind and heart to know well, a personality deep and ardent, yet aloof in a kindly reticence, too." So with his "Shepherd's Life," in which the shepherds, their talk and traditions, even more than their sheep and dogs, formı the real subject. So of another book of English sketches in which he humorously exalts the intelligence of the pig as greater than that of the dog or the elephant and pleads almost rhythmically for mercy to the lovely, harmless snakes. His last book, "A Traveller in Little Things," is a series of talks about English village life.

South America, however, was his native land; there he was born, and there he lived many years on the boundless and lonely pampas and among the wild and tame guachos. He loved it all, and the main secret of his hold on his readers is that he instinctively conveys the vividness of this liking to them. He did not write for effect, but to tell what really interested him. "The Purple Land" and "Far Away and Long Ago" are full of his knowledge of the horsemen of the plains and include even talks with old men who remembered the British expedition to Uruguay in 1807.

Mr. Galsworthy declared of one of Hudson's books that "it immortalizes as passionate a love of all beautiful things as ever was in the heart of man." Truly Hudson's love of nature and man was deep and sincere; but "passionate" does not seem just the word; his written expression of the feeling was calm, sane. and friendly rather than ecstatic. He was not a poet at heart, as was Richard Jefferies, nor a scientific specialist like Fabre, nor a philosopher like Thoreau. His powers of observation were acute and his skill in combining realistic narrative with imaginative descriptions of nature in her wild or charming aspects was unusual.

The public learned to appreciate Hudson's work slowly, but libraries soon found that there was a constantly and gradually increasing demand for his books. One by one they have been republished from time to time; the "Naturalist in Plata" (much more than a handbook) has appeared in six editions. Happily, he lived long enough to enjoy this appreciation; and no doubt it was a great pleasure to him to be able to resign last year, as no longer needed, the British civil pension of £150 which

was accorded to him, as to other authors of little means, whose literary work is of sterling value.

I

DEBATES AND
BELIEFS

N the last week of September the Oxford University Debating Team will go to Lewiston, Maine, for a return match with Bates College. An account of the visit paid by Bates to Oxford appears on the next page.

We venture to say that very few Outlook readers, or daily newspaper readers, for that matter, in the United States, know that Bates College, numbering only a few hundred students, wears the crown of American intercollegiate debating. Certainly Bates has achieved no such National reputation as Center College, Kentucky, but then Center College achieved her reputation in football, and football provides a surer path to the front page than debating.

These Anglo-American debates afford us an excellent opportunity of comparing our own methods with those of the English universities. In the Oxford Union the whole body of graduate or undergraduate members present are the judges of the contest, and the side gets the decision which convinces the Union of the soundness of its views. In Amer ica, as we know, there are usually three judges who award the palm of victory upon the intellectual merits of the arguments advanced. The British system has as its aim the development of parliamentary debaters; the American system has as its goal the production of trial lawyers. The argument against the American system was never more cogently presented than by Theodore Roosevelt in his Autobiography. Mr. Roosevelt wrote:

Personally I have not the slightest sympathy with debating contests in which each side is arbitrarily assigned a given proposition and told to maintain it without the least reference to whether those maintaining it believe in it or not. I know that under our system this is necessary for lawyers, but I emphatically disbelieve in it as regards general discussion of political, social, and industrial matters. What we need is to turn out of our colleges young men with ardent convictions on the side of the right; not young men who can make a good argument for either right or wrong as their interest bids them. The present method of carrying on debates on such subjects as "Our Colonial Policy," or "The Need of a Navy," or "The Proper Position of the Courts in Constitutional Questions," encourages precisely the wrong attitude among those who take part in them. There is no effort to instill sincerity and intensity of conviction. On the con