in its substance. In essence militarism consists in the exercise of power over the civil processes of government by the military. In Prussia and countries of autocratic character military dominance is exercised by autocratic methods. The hereditary rulers of an autocracy are military. There is no way by which the people can get rid of this military domination except by revolutionizing their form of government. There are in this country no hereditary rulers with military privileges. Over the regular army the civil authority is supreme. The control of the standing army in this country is wholly in the hands of the people and the people's civilian representatives. In America, therefore, Prussian militarism is impossible.

The

Democracy, however, is not immune from the evil of militarism in another form. exercise of the power and the will of the professional soldier can be exercised through pelitics. This form of militarism showed itself in the French democracy at the time of the Dreyfus case. It was military power exercised through politics that sent Dreyfus to Devil's Island and withstood so bitterly the course of justice that the very Republic was endangered. Against this form of militarism this country seems to have been heretofore well protected by the spirit of its people. So pronounced is public opinion in this country against militarism that officers in the regular army, no matter how high their rank and no matter how great their services, do not hold public office, are not members of Congress, cannot be Governors of States, do not participate in political organizations. No one would think of removing these restrictions from the officers of the regular army. But the HayChamberlain Bill has done what amounts to the same thing by creating a class of professional soldiers not subject to these restrictions. The militia officer may be a member of Congress, a Representative, or a Senator; he may be the Governor of a State; he may be the boss of a political party. The power of the militia officer even as it is has been shown by the activities of the militia organization in influencing the present Congress. This power is increased many fold by making the militia officer a professional soldier of the United States and by giving to him a finan cial interest in his military position while not removing from him any of his political powers.

This is military bureaucracy. If the Federal Post-Office was not under complete

Federal authority, but was a part of the State organization, and yet the chief posts in the Post-Office Department were paid by the Federal Government, we might in this way create a bureaucracy which we might call postalism. If the railways of the country were managed by the States, and great railway magnates nevertheless received pay from the Federal Government, so that they had financial interest in Federal politics without being subject to Federal control, we should have a railway bureaucracy which we might call railroadism. In precisely the same way the Hay Bill has instituted a State military organization in which the officers, though not a part of the regular army, and therefore free from its restrictions, have a financial interest in Federal politics, and thus may be said to have formed the beginnings of a military bureaucracy, which is correctly termed mili

tarism.

This Nation needs, and ought to have, a moderate but adequate standing army consisting of professional soldiers wholly subject to civilian authority and without political influence. It ought also to have a citizen soldiery consisting of men exercising in full their civilian rights but without any professional or financial interest in the development of the military establishment. The organized militia, as organized by the Hay Bill, is neither the one nor the other. If this country shall ever suffer from political domination by the military, as France did during the Dreyfus episode, it will be through such a politico-military body as the Hay Bill has now legalized.

"JUSTICE"

Six New York theater managers, we are informed, declined to book Galsworthy's drama "Justice." The reason was that they were convinced that the playgoers of this country would not forsake vaudeville and musical comedy for a play so serious in purpose. The success of "Justice" has shown that these theater managers were mistaken and the courageous producers of the play were right, and that even the New York mind, so often satirized for its alleged moral limitations, is capable of responding to a serious play if it is really a play and if it is well acted.

Doubts about the possible success of such a play were, however, not wholly without

1916

being given of which any community might be proud. The idea was to present the atmosphere of Shakespeare's time as a background for a eulogy of the man. Little maids offered the visitor confections made by themselves after seventeenth-century recipes. At one side of the inclosure was a Shakespeare garden," in which was found almost every flower mentioned in the plays. Near it was Shakespeare's house," a model made by the boys themselves. Farther on was the "Globe Theater," also made by the boys, with their own decorative posters.

Taking a seat under the guidance of a courteous Boy Scout, the spectator beheld a picturesque procession of the varied characters of old-time London-laborers, artisans, fops, courtiers, watermen, gayly dressed ladies, flower-girls, acrobats-all presenting characteristic groupings found in the old London streets.

Then came dances and games-a morrice dance," prisoners' bars," "loggats." A group of strollers sang "Drink to me only with thine eyes." A young girl played old English ballads on a harpsichord-. “Cherry Ripe,” etc. Then came tableaux -Robin Hood and his Men in Sherwood Forest, Raleigh with his Indians brought from America, Queen Elizabeth honoring her great captains, etc. [A photograph of one of these scenes, that of Queen Elizabeth and her captains, is reproduced in the picture section. THE EDITORS.]

The audience being sufficiently suffused with the feeling of the times, the performance of Shakespeare's plays at the Globe Theater began. A real Elizabethan theater-going crowd, hundreds of them, personified by children, assembled. On the stage-a historically correct one-the tragedy of " King Lear was presented, with real pathos; then "Midsummer Night's Dream," with a genuine comedy spirit; then "Hamlet," given and received with commendable dignity and seriousness.

Then came the formal tribute to Shakespeare, recited by Genius, a young girl—

And so on. The reader may well be more interested in some facts about the production of this East Side tribute to Shakespeare than in the further enumeration of the special features of such a pageant.

Twelve hundred children took part in this realistic performance. They were selected from thirty-two thousand pupils in fifteen different schools. The names of the pupils who

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took part in " King Lear" will indicate the racial background of many of the performers: Abraham Schwartz, Aaron Pfefferholtz, Philip Klammer, Lillian Erenteil, Florence Bero, Minnie Zimmerman, Joseph Licht, Samuel Rechtman. The costumes were historically correct, a great amount of research work having been done to make them so. Hundreds of teachers helped thousands of pupils and parents in the cutting and sewing of these garments.

A pupils' orchestra consisting of seventytwo pieces furnished appropriate instrumental music, while a glee club of pupils sang such songs as Where the Bee Sucks,' Who is Sylvia?" I know a Bank," etc., with expression and intelligence.

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Shakespeare had been the center of study in every class in these schools for several weeks. The children learned the stories of the plays; they sang the Shakespearean songs; they memorized quotations; they drew pictures suggested by the plays.

The vast amount of labor involved in the training, the costuming, and the supervision of the pageant and plays was participated in by hundreds of enthusiastic teachers and school officials. This genuine Shakespearean revival reflects credit on the entire teaching staff interested, from President Willcox, of the Board of Education, down. Among a host of names that should be mentioned space permits the inclusion only of those of Mrs. Anna M. Lütkenhaus, the author of the scenario, Mr. Gustave Blum, who assisted her, and Mr. I. E. Goldwasser, District Superintendent, who did most of the executive work.

If the East Siders of the oncoming generation are not enthusiastic devotees of the Shakespearean drama, it will be, one observer felt, only because with growing prosperity they may have moved over to the West Side. And if they do move there, they will carry to their new home an enthusiasm for the great dramatic genius of England that is not always to-day found in the habitat of the so-called "highbrows."

Another impression gained from this East

Side tribute to Shakespeare was of the wealth of New York City-not its material wealth, but its wealth in humanity, its riches in possessing a population half assimilated though

it be, which in the midst of hard conditions can yet cherish ideals of beauty in literature and art and devote time and thought to their expression. H. H. MOORE.

Mr. Guy Emerson,

Secretary the Roosevelt Non Partisan League,

12 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York City: My dear Sir-Neither a Republican nor a Progressive, but a lifelong Independent who has, however, generally voted with the Republican party, I write to express the hope that your Committee will succeed in its efforts to promote the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt at Chicago. Some men of excellent moral character, but limited moral ability, measure all questions of conduct by guessing what will be the probable results of any course proposed. In public life these men are politicians, sometimes very skillful politicians. Some men of greater vision and greater courage have power to perceive great principles of righteousness and ability to apply these principles to the complex situations of modern life and courage to follow their lead whatever may be the immediate cost to themselves or to others. In public life these men are statesmen, sometimes great statesmen. With them history classes Burke and Chatham, who for seven years fought an apparently hopeless battle against Lord North and George III; Mr. Gladstone, who sacrificed his own political career and split his party because he was resolved to do justice to Ireland; Abraham Lincoln, who declared that the question before the country was simply, Is slavery right or wrong? If

ong, the Federal Government could not hteously allow it in territory under its sdiction.

For five years Mr. Roosevelt and I were mately associated. We met each week in contorial conference to consider what course The Outlook should pursue in dealing with public questions. He never asked how a given course of conduct would affect either the fortunes of The Outlook or his own politi

cal prospects; always he addressed himself to two questions: What is right? and, What can wisely and effectively be done to promote the right? It is for this reason I count Mr. Roosevelt among the world's great statesmen.

It

It was the duty of this Republic to protect the persons and property of American citizens peacefully pursuing lawful vocations in Mexico, whatever that protection might cost. would have been wise to invite the South American republics to join us in promoting protection to all peaceable inhabitants of that unhappy country. It was the duty of the Republic to protest against the invasion of Belgium in violation of a sacred treaty, and to do all in its power to protect non-combatants from assault in violation alike of humanity and international law. It would have been, it still would be, wise to invite other neutral nations to join us in such protest and such protection. But under the present Administration the Democratic party has asked, What is safe? not, What is right?

In the present crisis the Nation needs a great statesman, not a skillful politician; it needs a man who measures conduct by fundamental principles of righteousness, not by probable prospective consequences. The Nation proved in the Civil War and again in the Spanish-American War that it possesses both conscience to see the right and courage to pursue it, provided it has a statesman as its leader. It needs now such a leader to awaken its conscience and to inspire its courage.

For this reason, neither a Republican nor a Progressive but an Independent, I hope to see Mr. Roosevelt nominated and elected as President of the United States. Yours sincerely, LYMAN ABBOTT.

Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York,
May 22, 1916.

SEUMAS MACMANUS.

To the Editors of The Outlook:

I appreciate the American spirit of fair play which induced you to ask my good friend Seumas MacManus to say what he thought of the efforts of my friends in Dublin to unmask the arch-hypocrite.

Your own comments are somewhat surprising. You say:

That imagination and a simple idealism, which takes little account of the human difficulties that must be met in a spirit of compromise in all political relations, furnished the chief motive power in the recent uprising in Dublin, is, we think, indicated by the tone, spirit, and rhetoric of the Irish contributions which we here present to our readers.

I have noticed that you, too, "have seemed to take little account of the human difficulties which must be met in a spirit of compromise in all political relations," in cases like Belgium, the Lusitania, and even Mexico. And I know the underlying reason for this distinction. Herr von Bissing tells us the Belgians are a nation of children; from the lofty heights of the Prussian superman he lectures Cardinal Mercier about imagination, simple idealism, and so forth. From the lofty heights of the Anglo-Saxon superman you lecture us Irish. Now one of our missions in this country is to make you forget that you are an Anglo-Saxon superman, and to make you remember that you are that far better and nobler thing, a plain American.

The "human difficulties" you have in mind are, first, the English and the Anglicized American conviction that the British Empire must be preserved at all costs; and, secondly, the determination of the English people to keep the Irish in a position where they can never become a menace to that Empire. With these human difficulties we Irish have compromised ever since Isaac Butt started the Home Rule movement. My friends Eoin MacNeill and Padraic Pearse were loyal supporters of John Redmond in that compromise. Their confidence was abused. English society, English finance, the English army and navy, conspired, first, to maintain a campaign of the "menace type among English and Irish Protestants; second, to arm and drill Irish Protestants

against the "compromise;" and, thirdly, to cow Asquith, as they have done, and thereby to kill the compromise. That brought my comrades back to fundamentals once more. England spurned us with scorn even when we did compromise and try to be friendly. We are back once more where our fathers were; we are told that the alternative is no Irish nation or no English Empire. You know our choice; and it is a little surprising to an admirer of American manhood to find you putting on the von Bissing sneer at inferior races.

Again, you condemn my comrades "because in the hour of Ireland's greatest need and largest opportunity they had not the vision to put aside the memory of ancient wrongs nor the wisdom to choose the surest path to the liberty and freedom for which they were willing to die."

I know what this "rhetoric " about "vision" and "wisdom" is due to. It is due to the "imagination" and "the simple idealism" of your childlike faith in English generosity and English justice. You do make me smile.

But I am not able to smile when you present an English political tract of the narrowest Prussian type as a statement of the case between my country and the foreigners who hold it on the same tenure as Belgium and Servia are held. It makes sad reading for one who wants to believe that there are such things as American scholarship, American independence of thought, and American manhood.

I suspect you are a little bit ashamed of the Anglo-Saxon superman attitude, especially after Kut-el-Amara and Gallipoli. You are beginning to see that if the Anglo-Saxon superman must be beaten by his Prussian rival unless America comes to his aid, it does not follow that America need skulk behind the English fleet for all time. Through her yellow ally England has gently reminded you just recently what is the exact meaning of Anglo-Saxonism, i.e., the subservience of America as well as of all other countries to the interests of England. In your comments upon your Irish contributors you display symptoms of a return to a sane and