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charge of the House, and I'll tell you right now, every time one of these Yankees get a ham I'm going to get a hog.

In providing public buildings the country is thus confronted with two problems: first, the impossibility of supposing that Congress can determine, within many thousands of dollars, just the sum required for a public building; and, second, the fact which Mr. Garner points out in homely but forceful language, that so long as public buildings are provided as a basis for political prestige and as a satisfaction for private greed, a system of graft must continue. As an evidence that one or both of these defects are involved we have but to glance at some examples from the latest building appropriations of Congress. We find, for instance, that the town of Vernal, Utah, with a population of 836, with postal receipts of about $6,400, and with a yearly rental for its present quarters of $836, is to have a new building costing no less than $50,000. Nor is this all. It will cost the Government $3,565 yearly to maintain that building.

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This is the kind of thing which has been going on in shameless fashion for years. his minority report to the Public Buildings Commission, appointed by Congress in 1913 to make a study of this whole question, Postmaster-General Burleson stated:

No standard whatever has apparently been observed in authorizing buildings or determining in advance the limits of cost. As a consequence many expensive buildings have been authorized for places where the needs of the Government do not warrant their construction, and widely varying limits of cost have been fixed for buildings in which the needs are the

same.

Mr. Burleson recommended, therefore, that no appropriations be made where the postal receipts were less than $15,000, where the population was less than five thousand, or where the annual rental was not in excess of $1.000. As to determining the size of the building, Mr. Burleson said :

The definition of the public building policy must rest upon the decision of the question as to whether authorizations of buildings shall be based upon political or economic grounds. If the former, the policy depends for its justification upon the Nationalizing influence of Government architecture. . . . The true policy is one under which buildings will be authorized primarily for utilitarian purposes. . . . At the same time requirements of broad public policy as well as ideals of architecture may be satisfied in a reasonable degree.

ARCHITECTURE AND

PUBLIC BUILDINGS

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It would be hard to locate a public pronouncement which was at once so full of meat and yet which seemed to betray so great a misunderstanding of the relations of architecture to the public buildings of a great nation," comments Mr. Charles Harris Whitaker, of Washington, the editor of the “Journal of the American Institute of Architects." He adds:

How is it possible that men have come to think that because a building is to be erected for utilitarian purposes it has no connection with architecture-except to satisfy the architectural requirements "in a reasonable degree." The House of Representatives betrayed the same attitude when it applauded the reference to the "æsthetic dreamers" in the supervising architect's office. Esthetic dreamers indeed! What else can they be when they are handed the order to design a $50,000 building, and when the most elementary knowledge of architecture tells them that a $20,000 building would serve every purpose and permit architecture to play an honest rôle ? . .

For years they [Congressmen] have encouraged a public building policy which ignores the first elements of architecture-that the building shall be worthy of the purpose and the purpose worthy of the building.

On every public building authorized for a community. . . where the appropriation provided for a building is out of all proportion to the needs of the community, every participant becomes a party to the crime against architecture. Wherever an architect allows his love of the monumental to interfere with his duty of planning and designing a building which shall give the maximum convenience, comfort, and efficiency with the minimum of expense. . . another crime is committed in the name of architecture.

How may inaccuracy of estimate, elimination of graft, and proper æsthetic embodiment be attained? Mr. Whitaker suggests the following method:

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The supervising architect's work should begin with a bureau of estimates. bureau should examine and report upon every request for a public building, and would thus provide Congress with an intelligent survey of the situation. In the case of a post-office, for example, the bureau would make a study of the needs of the town; its past and probable future rate of growth; the amount of postal receipts; the character of the postal service, whether concentrated or widely distributed; the floor space required to take care of present needs and provide for

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THE WEEK

expansion; finally, the cost of the building which these needs would justify. In the course of a year or two, as Mr. Whitaker adds, such a bureau would have accumulated sufficient data to enable it to deal with these problems without labor or expense.

Is it too much to hope that Congress will see this opportunity and provide means whereby accurate knowledge may be obtained and laid before it ?

A SUBSTITUTE FOR SING SING

Among the measures passed by the New York Legislature there are two which deal with a subject of National importance. These are the Sage Bill and the Towner Bill for the selection of a site for a prison to take the place of Sing Sing. There are two sites owned by the State, both in Dutchess County. Each bill provides a method for deciding between these two sites, but the methods differ. The Legislature evaded the responsibility of making a decision between these two methods by passing both bills and leaving it to the Governor to decide between them.

The Towner Bill provides for a commission, the majority of which are to be chosen by the Governor. This commission is to choose between the Wingdale and the Beekman sites. It, however, would provide for the erection on that site of an old-fashioned prison with cell-block and other features which modern views of punishment and reform condemn. It sanctions plans that have already been drawn, authorizes the employment of the architect who drew the plans, and specifies the fee that he should receive.

The Sage Bill, which was drawn up after a personal investigation by Mr. Sage, the introducer of the bill, and which has the approval of the Prison Association, provides for a commission, of which three State administrative officers shall be members; and it leaves to this commission authority to decide not only between the sites but also as to the plan of the building and the character of the prison, and enables the commission to save money in the use of funds for the plans and erection of the building.

Of these two bills the Sage Bill is manifestly the better one. It not only provides for a new prison as a substitute for mediæval Sing Sing, as the Towner Bill does, but it also makes it possible, as the Towner Bill does not,

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for the building of a farm prison colony where prisoners will have a chance for reform as they have not in a prison of the cell-block type.

To fasten upon the State the old cell-block idea in the form of a modern building would be to hamper the whole movement for prison reform in which Thomas Mott Osborne has succeeded in interesting the entire country. The right solution of New York's prison system is a matter of National concern, for not only will it affect the greatest congested population in the country, but it will have much to do with the solution of the prison problem in every other State.

CERVANTES AND SHAKESPEARE

The date of the tercentenary anniversary of Shakespeare's death can be said to have a double claim to fame, if we are lenient enough to disregard the discrepancy between the Gregorian and the Julian calendars. It was on April 23, 1616, that Cervantes died at Madrid.

The life story of Cervantes could have supplied enough material for a dozen plays from the pen of Shakespeare. Indeed, the story of Cervantes reminds one in many ways of the adventurous days which attended upon so many of Shakespeare's contemporaries. The Spanish novelist would not have felt a stranger to the soldierly labors of Ben Jonson, for he himself served gallantly in war. And Christopher Marlowe, Robert Greene, Thomas Dekker, George Peele, and Thomas Kyd, each and all would have felt a sympathetic understanding for the Spanish writer who suffered so much both from the toils of the law and the hardships of fate.

The greatest of Cervantes's adventures is paralleled only in the romances of Defoe, and not even Defoe has imagined a more perilous experience than befell the great Spanish novelist at the hands of the Barbary pirates. It is not surprising that one who, like Cervantes, had seen war and the results of war at first hand, and who had experienced in such bitter form the disillusionment of great adventures, should have taken upon himself the task of satirizing the old romantic tradition which came to his contemporaries through the imitators of Amadís de Gaula.

How far the development of his satire on the current literary tradition of Spain carried him beyond his original intent is a familiar story to all those who have read the always

modern story of "Don Quixote." Cervantes's presentation of the manners and the customs of his time belongs among the few great efforts to crystallize within the limits of a single writer's work the follies, failures, and successes of an age. The coarse humor of Boccaccio, the catholic understanding of Chaucer, the vision of Shakespeare, the humanity of Cervantes-it would be an ungracious task to attempt to apportion to each of these its separate fund of tribute from the commonwealth of literary distinction.

It is interesting to remember that, just as Cervantes in his attempt to satirize an older literature created a new medium of expression, so Fielding, in attempting to satirize (in similar manner) the repellent virtues of Pamela, added to the world of English letters a broadened understanding of the function of the novel. The parallel between the development of "Don Quixote" and "Joseph Andrews" supplies an interesting incident for literary discussion.

ANOTHER HERESY HUNT

In 1903 charges of heresy were brought against Professor Borden E. Bowne, of Boston University, one of the keenest and most scholarly theological teachers in the Methodist Church. His supposed heresy consisted in holding what may be entitled the new theology. As soon as the case could legitimately be brought before the Court the charges were dismissed. Similar charges have now been brought by the same complainant against Dr. George P. Mains, though they are not brought in the same fashion. He has been the publishing agent of the Methodist Church for the last ten years. Four years ago he published a book entitled

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· Modern Thought and Traditional Faith," in which he took substantially the same positions as those maintained by Dr. Bowne. One of the heresy hunters in the Church has now written "An Open Letter to the Methodist Public," the object of which is to prevent the re-election of Dr. Mains as publishing agent. The writer of this letter frankly

confesses that he takes this method to oust Dr. Mains from his position because it is impossible to secure his conviction by the Conference to which Dr. Mains belongs.

It is a curious and somewhat suspicious coincidence that his charge against Dr. Mains is not brought until more than four years after the publication of his objectionable book

and almost simultaneously with the announced purpose of Dr. Mains not to stand for reelection because of his years. He has passed threescore years and ten. The character of the charge against him may be deduced by our readers from his accuser's quotation of the following sentence from his supposedly heretical book:

I have learned to accept the fact that the Bible, as other great literatures, takes into itself the elements of social development, including tradition and fable, and, however it may be shot through with the sun rays of inspiration, it is a book very human in its character, faithfully reflecting the thought processes, early and late, of the races with which it deals.

We may add that in this book there is nothing out of harmony with the doctrines taught concerning the Bible and theology by many, if not by most, of the orthodox theological seminaries in the United States.

We suppose that the Methodist Church will recognize the right of Dr. Mains at seventy-one years of age to lay aside the onerous duties of his office, and we write this paragraph simply to advise our readers that his non-election will not indicate that the Methodist Church has gone back on its previous decision in the case of Dr. Bowne. We venture to say for that Church that, while it neither accepts nor rejects the modern view of the Bible and of theology, it will continue to hold to the right of its members and its ministers to discuss all such questions freely within the Church, and it will continue to measure both members and ministers by their spiritual faith, not by their conformity to ancient tradition.

THE CITY CHILD, PLAYGROUNDS
AND THE POLICE

A useful neighborhood conference took place the other day in a big kindergarten room of the New York Teachers College. It was called by a Mothers' Association interested in getting more play space for the children of the upper West Side-where the parks are green and ample, but also where the policeman is ever vigilant to keep restless young feet on the hard asphalt walks.

These mothers wanted to know what lies behind the rough shout of the " cop," "Hey, you kids, beat it off that grass !"-what the police themselves think about it. So they asked the Police Commissioner to come and talk. He did not come, but he sent Sergeant Ferré, an embarrassed, upstanding officer

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