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The Asheville Convention

(Continued from page 543)

but it was a conference of those States with the three that would have seceded but for untoward circumstances. It was not strictly a conference of churchmen, but nearly so. Three bishops of the Southern Methodist Church participated -Cannon, Du Bose, Mouzon. If the last named has been less quoted in the newspapers than the other two, it is not because of any lack of ability. He is the ablest of the lot. But he has a reputation among newspaper men of "backfiring."

An eminent Baptist minister presided. Dr. E. Y. Mullins, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and probably the outstanding Baptist of the world, was absent because ill. He sent a letter which amounted to the keynote speech of the Conference. The Presbyterians were prominently represented and the other Protestant denominations less so. The Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the AntiSaloon League played a prominent part. The Junior Order of United American Mechanics, a one hundred per cent American fraternal organization, was represented. There was no evidence of Ku Klux participation, though I suppose it is impossible that all Kluxers were absent.

Except those to whom credentials were issued, nobody knows exactly what the Conference did. The business meetings were held behind closed doors. The necessity for that did not appear. Bishop Cannon said that it was meant to be a conference in the strict sense of that term, not a public meeting. What purported to be full reports were given to

tion to include an article from The Outlook in the platform. But they are going to turn it down because, while they say it accurately represents the attitude of the South, it isn't sufficiently against Smith."

When we got the platform-if that is the name of it-we had a three-column single-spaced denunciation of Alfred E. Smith, his wetness, his affiliations, and his political methods.

In some ways, the Asheville declaration was a better-written document than the Houston platform. On the whole, the speeches were better here. There were some indiscretions, but nobody was guilty of the promiscuous adjectivity which Bowers displayed at Houston. There were a few rabble-rousing sentences which laid Bower's best in the shade. I cannot forbear quoting two of them.

Chairman Barton: "The party is delivered, bag and baggage, into the teeth and claws of Tammany, red with the blood of all Democratic nominees."

Bishop Mouzon: "This is no mere threat to prohibition. It is the uprise of the lawless elements in the great cities against American civilization. We may be at the beginning of the downfall of American democracy."

So much for the Conference and the declaration. What of the campaign? I do not think that it is to be waged from the pulpit, exactly, but I do think that it is to be waged mainly from the ministerial office, or from a point very close to it. There is to be a Central Committee and State committees of two each, none of them publicly announced as this is written a few hours after the

close of the Conference.

Undoubtedly, effort will be put forth to win votes for Hoover. The Conference labeled Mr. Hoover with the words of Dr. Mullins: "The world citizen; the great humanitarian; the great organizer; the man of world vision; the man nominated by the people, not by

the politicians; the man whose personal habits, conscientious convictions, and political creed on prohibition are in harmony with his platform and on the ri side." A conferee started something of a demonstration when, paraphrasing revival hymn, he declared, "He was good enough for Wilson-he's good enough for me." The Conference really felt self at harmony with Hoover.

But the main effort will be not so much to make converts to Hoover as to prevent backsliding to Smith. T leaders of the Conference believed tha as sentiment in the South exists today, Hoover is the winner, at least in several of the States, and close to it in all They declared that all they have to fear is the intimidation of voters by threats of ostracism, by the raising of the Ne gro bugaboo, and by other methods coercion.

The task, then, of the organizat formed at Asheville is to prevent the Democratic Party lash from falling on the bare backs of those who recently have discarded the mantle.

I shall think it exceedingly strange this organization, made up largely o men who have scourged Congress a the legislatures, cannot itself wield a lash in this campaign. There was read fr the platform, by a conferee from Texas, the Federal statute which creates the felony of conspiracy to deprive citize of civic rights, and the decision of th Supreme Court declaring the right vote without coercion a right protect by the statute. The penalty is a fine of not more than $5,000, imprisonmen for not more than ten years, and ineligibility to hold public office. The Asheville organization will, undoubted undertake to see that this statute is enforced; and it will make that fact plain long before election in all of the communities that it reaches.

Preachers, I decided long ago, are t most practical of all practical politicians when once they take chips in the game

By IBBY HALL

From Publisher- To You
To

FUNDAL ENTALLY, our problem in this country is to solve our social questions through political action. Anything is good that tends to clarify the problems which present themselves and paves the way for intelligent discussion of the best solution. Conversely, anything that obscures the issue and throws dust over the problem is a distinct disservice. WE would place in the latter category the attack on Governor Smith's youthful political career as 582 a New York Assemblyman, by William Allen White. The sum total of Mr. White's remarks is an attempt to identify Governor Smith now with the reign of the saloon -a thing the Governor has declared he wishes never to see return. The effect of the charges-no matter when or how Governor Smith answers them is to obscure by a reminder of a past state of affairs (a day when a young man represented at Albany a wet district in New York) the country's present effort to solve the liquor question.

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White Looks into His Charges

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se w

Political Combat in Mexico

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d

In the Far East

563

Bolts

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Food of the Future

Mediums and Fortune-Tellers

Catholic Gains .

Another Disease on the Defensive

The Man Who Killed the Duel
Blackballed

Sanity Tests in Criminal Trials An Unprecedented Resignation Speeding Up Evolution

A Pipe Dream Coming True .

Windows on the World

By MALCOLM W. DAVIS

Editorials:

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Preacher Politicians

Articles :

Public Utilities and the Political Campaign

and the Shouting Dies".

The Oyster-Can Family . .

A Tale for Children by HARRIET
EAGER DAVIS, as remembered by
DELLA DIMMITT

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On Understanding the Catholic, by
EDMUND B. CHAFFEE
Picked at Random, by WALTer R.
BROOKS

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Three Modern Monsters

FRANCIS RUFUS BELLAMY, Publisher

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MALCOLM WATERS DAVIS
FRANCES LAMONT ROBBINS

WILLIAM L. ETTINGER, JR., Advertising Manager

WILLIAM A. GREVERS, Circulation Manager

The Outlook is indexed in the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature

THE OUTLOOK, August 8, 1928. Volume 149, Number 15. Company at 120 East 16th Street, New York, N. Y. Subscription price $5.00 a year. Single copies Published weekly by The Outlook 15 cents each. Foreign subscriptions to countries in the postal Union, $6.56. Entered as second-class matter, July 21, 1893, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., and December 1, 1926, at the Post Office at Dunellen, N. J., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1928, by The Outlook Company.

So far as The Outlook is concerned, it is well known that this magazine has always been for temperance, but has never looked upon the Prohibition Law, as at present conceived and administered, as the final word on the liquor question. During the last two years it has seen increasing evidences of the faults of the law and the unsatisfactory results that have flowed from it. It has become convinced that it is only a matter of time before another genuine progressive step toward temperance could be taken which would be as distinct an advance over the present Prohibition Law as that was over the open saloon.

BECAUSE of this conviction, it has hoped that either Mr. Hoover or Mr. Smith would come out in this campaign with a clear, definite plan which would solve the present problem. So far, neither candidate has done this, although Mr. Smith has signified that he will. FROM this point of view, it does not appear to what constructive end Mr. White's attack leads. It does not seem clear to us that he is fighting for or against any particular solution. He seems merely to be attacking for the fun of attacking. The sole usefulness we can see in his remarks is that they may act as a spur to both candidates to propose plans for action rather than issues for recrimination.

Francis Profers Bellamy

August 8, 1928

White Looks into His Charges
WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE stopped over in
New York on his way to Europe to an-
nounce that he had investigated his at-
tack on Governor Smith, and had proved
his charges.

The editor, addressing a Republican convention in Kansas in July, said, in effect, that the Democratic candidate was honest and courageous and able but a friend of the saloon, the gambler, and the prostitute.

Smith denied some of the charges and explained others, which dealt entirely with his record as a young legislator. He suggested that the Kansan had been misled by the propaganda sheets of one Rev. O. R. Miller, whom he described as "a professional parasite."

Since that time, Mr. White admits, he has had the Governor's legislative record investigated by two experts; he is now satisfied that he told the truth the first time. He is ready, he says, to submit photostatic copies of every vote.

"These detailed votes," he told reporters, "will show that he voted or is so recorded nearly a dozen years on the big controversial measures with the most

notorious saloon men in the Tammany

he is brave, he is intelligent. I don't question his motives. To get where he is with his crowd he had to do what he did, and from his standpoint it was probably worth the price. But the real point of interest in that record for the American people now, if Governor Smith will defend it, is the picture of Tammany putting the pressure on fine, aspiring young men like Al Smith, forcing them to use their courage, not upon the evils of Tammany, but in behalf of the friends of Tammany. The record will show how Tammany demands that a man of Governor Smith's intelligence twist that intelligence into a weapon for Tammany's use; how it overlays his conscience with Tammany psychology so that his loyalty is to Tammany when Tammany's interest clashes with that of his city, his State, or his country.”

Mr. White acknowledged that this was "the old record of a young man." Governor Smith would not comment.

Political Combat in Mexico

THE assassination of President-elect Obregon has brought the two main, and nearly equal, forces in Mexico out into open pitched battle in the political field

the end of which no one can foresee.

The moves have followed each other with a rapidity that shows how sharp is the struggle for power. The Obregonist agrarians accused Luis Morones, Secre

The Obregonistas, while urging that there be no death penalty for Toral, the slayer of their chieftain, insisted on an Party out of office. President Calles reimplacable fight to drive the Labor sponded by reiterating his belief, voiced immediately after the murder, that the Catholic faction was responsible for having stirred a fanatical believer up to the point of making the assault on Obregon -notwithstanding the fact that the Catholic clergy were doing what they could to aid in the police inquiry. The Obregonistas at once put forward a suggestion that Aaron Saenz, Governor of Nueva Leon, should become Provisional President in December at the end of the term of Calles. Saenz, however, indicated that he would support Calles for continuation in power.

The whole contest is still developing in too much confusion for the result to be certain-the Obregonistas driving for a decisive test of strength with the Laborites, and Calles striving to avoid an open conflict between the two strongest organized groups in his troubled country.

In the Far East

Two things stand out at the present moment in the Far East-the struggle between China and Japan for control in Manchuria and Mongolia, and the friendly attitude of the United States in

record on the saloon, the gambler, and the prostitute."

A detailed analysis of Smith's record as Assemblyman, published the same day by the New York "Evening Post," makes no mention of legislation affecting

prostitution.

"I am throwing no mud at Governor Smith," said Mr. White. He is honest,

Labor Party, which he heads, of complicity in the killing. Morones and the Labor leaders in the Cabinet of President Calles resigned "to assist in mainfamily" and to facilitate the investigataining the unity of the revolutionary family" and to facilitate the investigation of the crime. Morones disappeared and that he had quit the country. -it was reported that he had been shot

China under the direction of Nanking. Chang Hsiao-liang, the youthful Manchurian dictator, has rejected proposals of unification and broken off conferences with the Nationalists. Meanwhile, Inner Mongolia-bordering on Manchuriahas announced adherence to their cause. The Nationalists have countered by formally notifying Japan of the expiration of the Chinese-Japanese commercial treaty, which technically terminated in 1926, and proposing to deal with Japanese residents in China under Chinese law pending the conclusion of a new treaty. Japan has protested, citing a clause which provided that unless the treaty was replaced within six months it would hold for another ten years. The contention is important as a precedent, since there is a similar clause in the Chinese-Italian treaty which Italy proposes to invoke.

The situation is complicated by the seizure of the port of Chefoo by troops of Chang Tsung-chang, one of the defeated northern militarists suspected of close relations with the Japanese, challenging the authority of the Nationalists.

At the same time, the United States has withdrawn nearly fifteen hundred marines from China, on the ground that conditions are now safe for Americans there, and has announced the signature of a new treaty conceding the principle of tariff autonomy subject only to guaranties that American business shall have the same treatment accorded to the most favored nation. This prevents higher rates on American goods than may be charged against other nations if they maintain the terms of earlier tariff agreements. The Chinese-American treaty was preceded only two days by the announcement that the United States was ready for the step. It came as a surprise to the other Powers in the Far East, for whose action it establishes a none too welcome precedent. And in announcing that the United States asks in China "only that which we ask from every nation" the Washington Administration gave a broad hint of abandonment of extra-territorial privileges.

Bolts

THE extent of the deviation from party lines that is to come about in this year's campaign cannot, as yet, be measured; it seems certain, however, that there will be more of it than we have known in recent times.

The defection in the South, the critical Democratic battle-ground, is more apparent at the moment than in the West, the danger zone of the Republi

cans. The line wavers in the corn country, but it has nowhere actually broken.

The state of the Democratic line in the South is not so good. With the withdrawal of Senator Furnifold Simmons from the Democratic National Committee, the strip of normally Democratic territory in which the old war horses of the Committee have slipped the bridle extends from Chickasaw Bluffs, on the Mississippi, to Scotland Neck, on the Atlantic. Urey Woodson, of Kentucky, and Cordell Hull, of Tennessee, left the Committee at Houston. In the plethora of news little was said of their action. They, like Senator Simmons, made no statement. The reasons were doubtless not identical, but anticipation of an unpopular campaign probably figured in each case.

Senator Simmons has been consistently and outspokenly opposed to Governor Smith. He made in North Carolina the only definite and successful fight that was waged against the selection of Smith delegates. He has long been the Democratic leader in his State, and, so far as can be ascertained, he is just as powerful today. His action adds somewhat to the likelihood that North Carolina has ceased to be bound by the Democratic tradition; which, however, does not necessarily mean that it will return a Republican majority.

Along with Senator Simmons's resignation came the bolt of Robert L. Owen, former Senator from Oklahoma, and long a factor in Democratic councils.

Unlike Senator Simmons, Senator Owen made public his reason. He "would not stand for" a Tammany President. Governor Smith replied:

"Naturally, I am sorry to see Senato Owen leave the party because of my nomination. . . . My greatest regret comes from one of the reasons advanced, because it compels me to question his sincerity.

"In 1924, when the National Conven tion at Madison Square Garden was! deadlocked, Senator Owen called to see me at the Manhattan Club and asked me to use my influence to secure for him the support of the Tammany delegation and stated that with that support he felt he could get considerable delegates from other States for himself as a candidate for the nomination.

"His hostility to Tammany must have grown up in his heart in the last four years. In 1924 he was not only willing to accept its support but anxious to get it."

Senator Owen, after saying that he was going to consult "a friend" before he replied, disclaimed the "accuracy" the Governor's "memory."

In the East Democratic prospects appear to brighten. William H. Woodin President of the American Car and Foundry Company, and prominentl identified with many other large corpora tions, has come into the Smith camp Like Mr. Raskob, Mr. Woodin is a former Republican and a member of the Union League Club. Friends of Governor Smith attach considerable significance to his action. They believe many other Raskobs and Woodins are coming.

Hoover at Home

STUDENTS of Stanford attending th summer term of the University thronged over the lawns and even trampled some of the flowers by the Hoover homestead on the campus. Some of them bo torchlights. Others set off flares. Thes

were greeting Stanford's best-known alumnus.

Hoover climbed up onto a roadster and stood on the rumble seat. "Every man," he told his cheering auditor "had rather have a greeting like this from his own college men than from any other group in the country." The st dents gave the skyrocket cheer and called for Mrs. Hoover-another graduate. She responded, greeting especially those who were strangers to her, the "summer schoolers." And she inquires of them, "Are you going to march so can see you, or are you going to straggle?" They marched.

So the Republican candidate for the Presidency was greeted where he had been a student and where he had made his home. It is here that he has returned from his wanderings whenever he has