THE IRISH SITUATION

A

NOTHER advance has been made

THE WEEK

ideal of a Junior Republic-to place the duties, privileges, and responsibilities of

in molding into existence the citizenship on boys and girls for a period of, say, five years before they grow into manhood and womanhood.

Irish Free State. The Dail Eireann, which is now sitting as a Constituent Assembly in a Provisional Parliament, has passed a bill ratifying the Constitution of the Free State as placed before the Assembly. This Constitution puts into binding form the agreement between the Lloyd George Government and the representatives of Southern Ireland in what is now known as the London Treaty. Only slight and few amendments were urged by the Dail Eireann. The emphasis still remains on political and religious freedon in Ireland and in the Irish Free State as a "coequal member of the community of nations forming the British Commonwealth of Nations."

There is no doubt whatever that the British Parliament will give its assent and ratification to the action of the Dail Eireann, and that issue is not likely to be changed at all by any result in the general election now about to take place in Great Britain. Finally, as we understand it, this fundamental law for the Free State will be submitted to a referendum of all legal voters in Southern Ireland, and there is hardly a shadow of a doubt that it will be accepted and put into effect.

Southern Ireland at least will thus gain autonomy and self-government, although not absolute independence. The feeling is growing among Irishmen that such freedom of action and opinion as has long been granted to the people of Canada is and ought to be all that the Irish people should require.

A JUNIOR REPUBLIC FOUNDED IN FRANCE

A

N English boy, with the suggestive name of Dash, has just been elected president of the first Junior Republic in France. In that Republic there are not only French and English boys and girls, but also those of some other nationalities.

They are thirty-two to forty in number, and they are now engaged in drawing up a constitution for their Republic (based on the French Constitution) and in other details of their new government.

The Republic has been founded at Chavagnac, in the department of the Haute-Loire. Chavagnac was Lafayette's birthplace, and hence is a peculiarly appropriate region in which to start the American endeavor. More perhaps than any one of his day Lafayette would have sympathized with the

It will be interesting to see how the junior city of Chavagnac will be governed by its embryo citizens.

KANSAS AND THE KU KLUX KLAN

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CCORDING to newspaper despatches from Topeka, Governor Allen, of Kansas, takes the Ku Klux Klan seriously. There is a natural disposition to laugh at the Klan and to deride its pretense of being a high moral censor while at the same time it encourages every kind of racial enmity. Thus it cleverly holds out a lure to the Jew hater, to the Negro hater, and the Catholic hater. Its ultimate absurdity is in utilizing the attractiveness of a secret society by its weird customs, its mummeries, and its midnight rides, while at the same time it neglects no avenue of publicity and its secret negotiations have a background of photographers, searchlights, and automobile curiosity-seekers.

The Klan has played some part in politics lately, but it has not seemed to be a great or serious menace. But Governor Allen finds in this revival a great deal that is serious and a great deal that is dangerous. He declares that it has brought into Kansas "the greatest curse that can come to any civilized people— the curse that arises out of the unrestrained passions of men governed by religious intolerance and racial hatred." Specifically, he charges that the Klan has disobeyed the State law by not taking out a charter, as is required of all fraternal and social organizations; and that it has committed the shocking offense of seizing the Mayor of the town of Liberal in Kansas, of carrying him by force to a secluded place, and there whipping him because he had refused to allow the Klan to hold a meeting in a hall he owned.

Governor Allen denounced the unAmerican idea "that we can improve the conditions in the State by turning the rights of government to a masked organization which arrogates to itself the right to regulate the individual."

Finally, the Governor summed up his case by denying that the people of Kansas desired religious instruction from masked men whose characters and capacities are concealed by disguise.

It is the custom of the present Governor of the State of Kansas to follow up conviction by action. He concluded

the address he was making by announcing that he had directed the AttorneyGeneral of the State to take action against officials of the Ku Klux Klan with a view to expelling them from the State. This sounds arbitrary, but it is to be supposed that whatever may be done in the matter will be done through the courts and under the law, for certainly neither Governor Allen nor the State of Kansas would wish to fight the Klan by its own methods.

SIXTY YEARS OF SURGERY

HE advances of the last sixty years

TH

in medicine and surgery in this country were vividly set forth recently by Dr. W. W. Keen, of Philadelphia, in an address before one of the meetings of the Convention at Boston of the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Keen is eighty-five years old, has been practicing medicine and surgery for sixty years, and is now Professor Emeritus in Surgery at the Jefferson Medical College. The occasion of his address was the presentation to him by the Boston Surgical Society of its Bigelow Medal.

Dr. Keen went a little back of his own experience to describe what he was told by his elders was the state of things before 1846, when anæsthesia was discovered; then an operation was "a horrible ordeal for patients, surgeons, and witnesses." It is no wonder that during the five years just preceding the introduction of anæsthesia there were only an average of thirty-seven operations a year in the Massachusetts General Hospital. Astonishing as it may seem, "in the 80's and even into the 90's there were in most hospitals no trained nurses." The use of the medical thermometer was practically unknown until well into the 60's.

Dr. Keen doubts if there were half a dozen thermometers in the Army of the Potomac, and the medical custom of judging a fever then was by placing the hand on the arm or neck and estimating the temperature, not in degrees, but as "slight," "considerable," "high," etc. Vaccination, anæsthesia, and antisepsis have been, Dr. Keen believes, the three greatest blessings in the realm of medicine since the Christian era began. In the treatment of diphtheria it was not till 1895 that the "blessed antitoxin was discovered and, presto! as if by magic, tracheotomy for diphtheria became infrequent, and for years past, one may say, has been unknown."

We must quote one more instance which illustrates, as it seems to us, in an exceedingly practical way the igno

rance and lack of reasoning in the adverse comment upon surgical and medical progress-the kind of comment that is made by perfectionists who assert that if a medical treatment does not save every case it is a failure. Dr. Keen says:

Surgeons who removed ovarian tumors were persecuted. As a student, I even heard them called murderers in the Jefferson clinic because "two out of three of the patients died." It ought to have been worded, "one out of every three recovered," for every recovery was a rescued life. Now, thanks to McDowell, the Atlees, Pasteur, and Lister, and many others, the mortality is less than one in a hundred. The entire address, as we find it in the Boston "Transcript" for October 26, is illuminating and intensely human. No one can read it without joining heartily in the speaker's general conclusion as to the advance of the profession: "We are gradually throttling disease at its birth and preventing its onslaught upon the health of the world."

year, has lost, temporarily we hope, some of its appeal.

This race between Canadian and American fishing schooners was initiated three years ago. The victory in the first race went to America. The second year the question of eligibility poked itself up over the horizon. The race went to the Canadians. The third year the question of eligibility produced an even greater stir. Added to this controversy was the question of racing rules and the apparent muddling of the contest by the committee in charge. A jumble of signals in the first race of the series resulted in Bluenose, the Canadian defender, and Henry Ford, the American challenger, sailing over the line only to find that the victory of the Ford was declared null and void. The second race of the series again found the Ford the first across the finish line. Her captain insisted that the cup was his and only consented to race again after prolonged argument. The next two races were won by Bluenose. Her last victory has been protested by the captain of the Ford on the ground that Bluenose carried no official observer and used a staysail which was not part of her regular equipment. The whole affair bore

more resemblance to those unhappy controversies with Lord Dunraven than to the whole-hearted sportsmanship which one would like to find among skippers whose vessels are made to keep the sea in all weathers.

Let us hope that another year may find the contest re-established on a basis of mutual confidence and good spirit. Possibly one cause of friction could be eliminated by limiting the contest to fishing vessels which had been operated commercially for a period of five years. It seemed to us when the race was first initiated that the requirement that all entrants should have at least one season on the banks was not strict enough.

Bohemoths if the Whatsat Bohemoths are not stronger than the Hoozis Wildcats, but on the other hand...

We thought in writing this that we had painted the picture with too high colors. We find, however, that sometimes truth outruns fiction. Observe the following passage taken from the New York "Sun:"

West Point has enough within it to play Yale to a tie. The Elis might get together against the Army and at last become that unified team for which everybody is looking. If the Yale men would blunder enough the Army would defeat them. . . . Some things West Point can do better than Yale; some not so well. The outcome favors either team under certain developments. If both play approximately a perfect game Yale has the fringe on the rug the better of it.

Underwood

ALVIN MANSFIELD OWSLEY, THE NEW HEAD OF THE AMERICAN LEGION

The game in question turned out with a tie score of 7-7. Doubtless the writer of this paragraph pointed to his prophecy with pride on this account. He could have pointed with equal pride to the same Delphic utterance no matter whether the Army or Yale had won. We can see no excuse for such writing exgramme for the Legion can be summed cept that of filling space. There are up under four heads. We find him sport writers who do succeed in making quoted in the New York "Tribune" as the game of football intelligible and enjoyable for the lay observer, but they are few and far between.

Perhaps the recent developments in radio telephony will do something to make such space-filling prophecies as we have quoted unpublishable. We hope so, but we doubt it. The developments to which we refer are the broadcasting of the progress of football games directly from the field. In New York City, on Saturday, October 28, for instance, crowds listened to the cheering of the great throngs that witnessed the game between the University of Chicago and Princeton University. Play by play, they were able to follow the gallant fight which ended in a typical Princeton finish-a victory snatched from what seemed like almost certain defeat.

THE LEGION AND ITS NEW COMMANDER

THE

THE American Legion has again met in annual session. This year the National Convention was held at New Orleans. For its Commander it chose Mr. Alvin M. Owsley, of Texas, who served during the war as a major and later as lieutenant-colonel. He took part in two offensives with the Thirty-sixth Division. He is a former Assistant Attorney-General of Texas, which office he resigned to become assistant director of the Legion's Americanization Commission. He is a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute and of the Law School of the University of Texas.

Apparently Commander Owsley's pro

follows:

There are just four things that the Legion means to push, just four things that are on our standard. They are rehabilitation, hospitalization, and adjusted compensation, Americanization. We're going to fight to a finish for adjusted compensation, and we'll win it, too. I will give everything I have to this service.

The Legion has also placed itself on record as opposing the recognition of Soviet Russia, urging preparedness against future wars, fighting the proposals to give amnesty to war-time offenders, standing for the prosecution of war profiteers, and demanding the removal of Brigadier-General Sawyer from any connection with the care of disabled

veterans.

There is a very real lack of appreciation of what the Legion has done in improving the condition of the disabled and incapacitated veteran. The Legion has been a powerful force for the elimination of red tape and official sloth. Part of this lack of appreciation is due to the fact that the public has heard little from the Legion leaders except the demand for the passage of the Adjusted Compensation Act.

It might be a good plan if the minutes of the first National Convention of the Legion could be made part of the regular order of the meeting at every subsequent Convention. There were speeches and resolutions at that first Convention which are deserving of remembrance by those who now have the guidance of the Legion in their hands.

T

THE CASE OF

MR. BUCKNER

HERE has just come to our desk a pamphlet which tells a story that in its outward circumstance I would seem to be of concern only to the family and neighbors of the man about whom the story centers; but in its inner significance the story has no bounds of parish, State, or Nation.

For eleven years the Rev. J. D. M. Buckner served the Methodist church in the small town of Aurora, Nebraska, as its minister. During that time he not only so conducted the material affairs of the church that it became stronger financially, but evidently developed in the church moral and spiritual vitality. It is not easy to measure the invisible, but some indication of the kind of service that this minister rendered is to be found in the fact that in a little more than a decade the gifts of the church for benevolent purposes had increased from three hundred to three thousand dollars and that he drew to the church men who by their works proved their loyalty to the church's cause. He was not a young man when he came to Aurora. He had been a preacher for over thirty years, and had served the Methodist Episcopal Church for nearly all that time. He is now a man sixty-seven years of age, mature in thought, experienced, with much of the spirit of youth, but without its recklessness. What he believes and what he teaches is the result, not of sudden impulses, but of long consideration. During all the time when he was at Aurora, and for ten years at least preceding that, he openly taught the views, amounting with him to conviction, which may be summed up in this expression of his: "I believe that the hope of the Methodist Church and of all churches lies in the triumph of the new and modern conception of the Bible and of the function of Christianity as applied to the modern problems of a torn and disordered world."

In May of this year he sent to certain newspapers of the State an article in the form of a letter to the several editors. A substantially correct idea of the nature of this article can be obtained from the following quotations:

A good many years ago I decided God was good. This conclusion was reached from two sources: The teachings of Christ and my own personal experience. As I studied the teachings of Christ and my own personal fellowship with God I decided my God is good. That faith has grown with years and I believe it more strongly to-day than ever in my life.

When I read in the Bible anything

1 How I Lost My Job as a Preacher. By J. D. M. Buckner. Obtainable from C. V. Howard, New York City, or J. D. M. Buckner, Aurora, Nebraska. 50 cents.

1922

which reflects on the goodness of God, All Scripture I do not believe it. must be measured by the life and teachings of Christ....

When I was pastor at David City and we were studying the conquest of Canaan, a girl asked me if it were right for the Hebrew soldiers to kill I said, the women and children. "No." Then another girl said, "Why did God tell them to do it, then?" I said, "God never told them to do it. I have The writer was mistaken." been asked many, many times why God hardened Pharaoh's heart ten times and then brought ten plagues upon innocent people which caused untold suffering. For twenty-five years I tried to fix it up, but always failed to satisfy the people or myself, until finally I had the courage to say, "God never did it. My God is good."..

I cannot believe that God killed 185,000 of the Assyrian army one night, that he told Joshua to hock the horses, that he told the Jews they could sell spoiled meat to the Gentiles but not to the Jews, that he commanded that if a boy did not obey his parents he was to be killed, that if a man gathered sticks on the Sabbath to make a fire he was to be stoned to death, and that if any one worshiped any other God he was to be killed. None of these things is like my Heavenly Father.

૧

...

How did we get our Bible? First a
religious folk produced a religious
literature; second religious folk
selected the Bible from that literature.
Now we have a religious folk that
I must stand
interprets the Bible.
with Christ and his teachings and
with my own personal experiences
with God, and all Scripture must be
measured by this standard. All the
problems and questions in life which
are constantly meeting us must be
settled on the basis that God is good,
and all other questions adjusted to
that standard. I can only believe in
a good God. I can love, admire, de-
vote myself, worship, follow, obey
only a good God.

J. D. M. BUCKNER,
Pastor M. E. Church, Aurora, Neb.

As a consequence of this article or letter he was called to account in a personal communication by the Rev. Homer C. Stuntz, his ecclesiastical superior as Resident Bishop in the Omaha Area. This communication also warned Mr. Buckner that his published letter was certain to increase the difficulty of his appointment to a parish in the coming Methodist Conference. Just before the Conference met Mr. Buckner reiterated his views in a farewell sermon to his church. At the conclusion of that sermon he spoke as follows:

Forty-two years ago when I stood face to face with God in settling the question of preaching, I promised God if he would let in the light I would walk in it; if he would reveal the truth, I would obey it. The thing I have always wanted to know was the will of God and I have been ready to do it at any cost. I have lived up to that pledge to this day. None of you

ceive of the Church as a body composed of the free sons of God.

It is an issue of the spirit of religion.

And of all the phases of this issue this is the most fundamental. On the one hand stand those who conceive of religion as an arbitrary system devised by the Almighty, imposed upon men for their observance at the peril of their eternal welfare. On the other side are the men who conceive of religion as the response of men to the approach of God to them and their growth in the understanding of him and his dealings with them.

This threefold issue is one that has arisen again and again in the Church. It is the issue between those in all ages and in all churches who fear freedom and those who welcome it, between those who believe that faith needs some protective covering, and those who believe that faith, if it is really living, grows stronger by being left open to the nour ishment of truth.

T

In spite of the humiliation of experiencing removal from the active ministry, in spite of the greater burden of the hardship which the action of the conference had brought to his wife, Mr. Buckner expresses no personal resentment. MUDDLING THROUGH In his pamphlet he sets the issue forth, not as a personal one, but as a question concerning the future not only of the Methodist Church but of the Church in all denominations. He presents his pamphlet as a defense of younger ministers against the intimidation of the action of the Bishop and the Conference, and defends the Methodist Church at large "against unwarranted assumptions from this particular incident."

In some cases in the past this issue between arbitrary authority and liberty in the Church has been characterized by the pugnacious and controversial spirit of the advocates of liberty; in this case the advocate of liberty has shown a spirit of charity and good will and an understanding of the point of view of his opponents which we hope all those who believe in the cause for which he has been sacrificed will imitate.

The issue which has been raised in Mr. Buckner's case is threefold. It is an issue of justice.

Even a criminal is allowed his day in court; Mr. Buckner was not allowed any public hearing, any chance to plead his case openly before the body that was to judge him.

It is an issue of liberty.

When a man enters such an order as that of the Jesuits, he surrenders his liberty of thought because the organization is avowedly autocratic. When, therefore, any church takes such action as that taken in Mr. Buckner's case the old issue is again raised as between those who conceive of the Church as a body ruled by divine right of the ecclesiastical authorities and those who con.

HE British have a habit, in which they take a kind of unconfessed pride, of somehow muddling through. Certainly the change of Government which has just taken place in Great Britain, and which is likely to be a historical event of the first importance, was and still is more or less muddling.

On another page a correspondent in London gives a vivid and entertaining picture of the somewhat haphazard way in which the thing was done-haphazard of course only in externals. The regular technique of change of government was followed. The Prime Minister, Lloyd George, resigned; and the new Prime Minister, Andrew Bonar Law, was formally invited by the King to organize a Ministerial Cabinet. As we said in last week's Outlook, the new Cabinet distinctly represents the old-fashioned ruling class of Great Britain. As one runs down the list, the titles of marquis, viscount, duke, earl, knight, strike the attention. There is no avowed representative of labor in the Cabinet, and few commoners, although the Prime Minister himself is a commoner and is one of four of the thirty-seven Prime Ministers who have governed Engiand for two hundred years to rise to his commanding position without the background of a college or university education. Seventeen of the thirty-seven were graduates of Oxford, thirteen of Cambridge, one of the University of Edinburgh, and two completed their education at Eton College, while Disraeli and Lloyd George had sufficient training in the classics and in French to pass their bar ea

nation. In a striking sense, modern England has turned to men of letters to guide her destinies. She is now going to try the practical man of business. The change is worth watching.

In a great speech at Glasgow, Lloyd George in his happiest vein, while professing a personal friendship for Bonar Law, poked more or less fun at the list of the new Ministers. "Look at them!" he said; "there is not one of them in achievement, in experience, in talent, that their best friends would compare with those whom they have supplanted. Why was it done?"

Of course such a Cabinet, although dignified and highly respectable, is only a makeshift. After the general election, which takes place in November, and through which both Lloyd George and Bonar Law will appeal to the country, there will be a new realignment.

It is interesting to observe that the ranking member of the new Cabinet next to the Prime Minister, although holding by no means the most important office in the Ministry, is the Marquis of Salisbury, the eldest son of Lord Salisbury, the great Conservative Victorian Prime Minister. His title is an ancient one, and his seat is that famous Hatfield House, in Hertfordshire, which was the scene of so many dinners and conferences when his distinguished father was Prime Minister, who represented in his person and policies the highest type of Government by the peerage in Great Britain-a type which has probably passed away forever. This passing is a gain, perhaps, for the plain people, but a decided loss to the literature of political anecdote and reminiscence.

Of Lord Salisbury, the father, a delightful story is told in the recollections of one of his private secretaries. A dinner was being given by Lord Salisbury at Hatfield House, one of the great establishments of England, and one of the guests was a neighbor of Lord Salisbury's, a country squire whose pedigree was more impeccable than his education in the fine points of literary allusion. Next to this ruddy-faced squire sat a young whippersnapper of a diplomatic secretary, who in an argument in which he had teased and irritated the squire, finally called the old gentleman a "Philistine." "A Philistine!" exclaimed the old squire somewhat heatedly, "what's that?" Lord Salisbury, who had overheard the discussion with some concern, and felt that his old friend was being impolitely chaffed, and yet could not quite bring himself, as host, to rebuke the young secretary openly, saw his chance. He leaned forward and quietly remarked: "Don't you know what a Philistine is? A Philistine is a gentleman who is annoyed by the

jaw-bone of an ass."

The young secretary naturally subsided. We hope that the new Lord President of the Council, the present Lord Salisbury, possesses his father's sense of humor. He may need it before he gets through with the complications of his new office.

The name of the Marquis of Salisbury's younger brother, Lord Robert Cecil, is familiar to Americans as the leading English advocate of the League of Nations. Lord Robert was in Lloyd George's Cabinet, but is not in the Bonar Law Ministry. The Marquis is the bearer of a title three hundred years old and is the owner of an estate of twenty thousand acres.

In his Glasgow speech Lloyd George referred to the resentment of British labor against a Government of Conservative peers as a possible "hurricane." This phraseology is perhaps an exaggeration due to the stress of a popular campaign, for Lloyd George is a pastmaster in appealing to the emotions of a popular audience. Nevertheless we think it somewhat surprising that so astute a politician as Bonar Law should have formed such a Cabinet with any idea that it could be permanent.

W

IN WETTEST
NEW YORK

ETTEST of all wet towns is New York City, the wet press tells us-wetter by far than in preVolstead days-and its wet, wet drink is whisky. The whisky trade, a mere infant industry before the Amendment, has attained colossal proportions, we learn, and it behooves the American business man to look into this, as it furnishes many a helpful suggestion. He will discover

1. The folly of advertising. Until prohibition came, not only the newspapers, magazines, and billboards of America, but its night-time sky, loudly advertised strong drink; yet how little was sold! Now that the advertising has ceased, do we not wade in strong drink-even swim?

2. The folly of window-dressing. Those pyramids of innumerable wellfilled bottles were supposed to attract purchasers. To-day our dealers in strong drink provide the true enticement: Out of sight, out of mind.

3. The folly of indiscriminate sales. When any one could buy, trade languished, quite naturally. Now that only a chosen few can buy, trade thrives.

4. The folly of price-cutting. How difficult it was in those dull pre-Volstead days to dispose of two cocktails for a quarter! Charge a dollar and a half

each, and behold! the problem is solved. 5. The folly of pampering one's customers. By making their places of business conveniently accessible (a hundred to the mile), and embellishing them with works of art, and providing extravagant free lunches, the purveyors of strong drink drove customers away. Under the present system, which makes the tippler travel long distances and furnishes disgusting places of business, as a rule, with melancholy and dire loneliness giving them an air of depression thrice depressed, it is a struggle to serve drinks fast enough.

Albeit slowly, the American business man will doubtless come to recognize that the trick of building up trade is in reality very simple-i.c., kill it! Just now, however, we hear him echo that cry of the wet, wet press: "Oh, save us from this awful whisky! On high moral grounds we demand beer and light wines, as of old, for in them lies our only hope of sobriety."

But reflect. To-day, when beer and light wines have vanished, and when every one is forced to consume unlimited quantities of whisky, there are fewer evidences of intoxication than formerly. That familiar sight of a poor wretch staggering along the street, or babbling on a doorstep, or being "pulled in;" that familiar sound of raucous singing in the small hours; that familiar odor of alcohol on the breath-where are they? With rare exceptions, gone foreverabolished by the universal and benign consumption of unlimited whisky!

Were it not for our devout confidence in the asseverations of the wet, wet press, we might almost mistake this whisky-ridden metropolis for the astonishingly dry town it actually is. Inasmuch as polls are at present so popular, we visited a neighboring establishment the other day and polled the representative New Yorkers who make up its staff. Of each representative New Yorker we inquired, "At how many places can you -you yourself, not you generically-obtain drinks?" The answers ranged from "None" to "Eight"-a single "Eight." "Eight" at most in the wettest of wet towns, where until the Amendment any representative New Yorker had his choice of thousands!

But let us not allow mere figures to deceive us or trust too blindly the testimony of our own senses, when a press guided by the well-known journalistic passion for truth declares: "Day by day, in every way, we are getting wetter and wetter." By accepting this assertion at face value we prepare ourselves for a task that awaits us all-the task, namely, of perusing in the right spirit Sir Conan Doyle's new volume, "The Coming of the Fairies."