The organization of popular amusements is a great and necessary part of the social art. No wise man will despise it. You in America have always been an open-air people. You were a people of farmers long before you had begun to develop your factories and, now that you have developed a great industrial population, you have begun again to take to the road and the open air. I confess that I am amazed at the scale and rapidity of your athletic developments. You were thinking a great deal about football fifteen years ago, for did I not see the Harvard stadium crowded for the annual match between Harvard and Yale, and for at least a month before that great event feed as part of my daily intellectual diet upon the vaticinations of the daily press as to the relative form of the contending teams? But there have been immense developments in the football world since then. Here is an incident which certainly impresses the foreign visitor. There was a match quite recently between the Universities of Wisconsin and Illinois in the stadium at Urbana. The stadium at Urbana, be it observed, is constructed to hold sixty-seven thousand spectators (I wonder what Abraham Lincoln, who used to do justice in a little court-house near by, would have thought of this) and was erected by the patriotic zeal of the alumni of the university. On that great day a stream of special trains ran out from Chicago at intervals of fifteen minutes to the scene of the encounter, the first train starting at 6 A. M., the last returning at 2 o'clock the next morning, and conveyed to and fro thirty thousand enthusiasts from that great city. Thirty thousand human beings willing to travel eight hours by train for a football match! What a diffusion of athletic interest through the community is implied by such a transaction!

Golf also has come in with a vengeance. Fifteen years ago it was practically unknown. Now it is universal and practised by old and young alike of either sex with inflexible pertinacity and ardor. The business man, relaxing the stoical pursuit of dollars to the brink of the grave, and having made his sufficiency, now bends his will to the improvement of his game on the links. First he tries to break a hundred, then to break ninety,

and then, if he proves to have skill, to get round in seventy-six. The country clubs are fitted out with every luxury, the greens are carefully watered, a new and very effective creeping grass has been discovered, and no pains are spared to make the links as good as science and money can make them.

All this is, of course, very expensive. Golf is in the main a rich man's game, but not altogether. There is a nine-hole municipal course on the outskirts of Buffalo, hard by the gleaming waters of Niagara, upon which the factory hands play in their hundreds of an evening when released from industrial toil. All this constitutes an immense change. A new lingua franca has been created for the whole continent. Wherever you travel, from the Atlantic shore to the Pacific coast, from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico-there is one almost unfailing bond of common interest-the ancient and royal game of golf.

America has not yet become a country of book-lovers. For one traveller consuming a book in a railway-car you will find a hundred occupied with magazines or newspapers-more particularly with newspapers. American journalism was somewhat of a portent to a European traveller fifteen years ago, for you realized sooner than did our newspaper men in the old country the huge new public for the printed word which the primary schools in an industrial democracy were creating, and the kind of intellectual or non-intellectual food which that public demanded. But many of your methods have now been adopted for better or worse in the old country, and your newspaper is therefore not quite so great a shock to us as it was. It has, however, developed in two quite distinct directions, one of which seems to me to be bad and the other good, in recent years. The daily paper has swollen beyond all recognition in size. On week-days it is a formidable armful. On Sundays it is a whole library. There cannot be a single day in the year in which the New York Times does not print more words than are contained in the Gospels, or a Sunday on which it is not more verbose than the Old Testament. In these amazing miscellanies every want is supplied except that of a sustained and continuous interest. Fashions, athletics,

novelettes, art and politics, social scandals, crimes and divorces, anecdotes and intimacies, any little detail which can flick the jaded curiosity of the idler, above all tons of local gossip, are collected by some powerful machine and discharged with diurnal punctuality at the head of the American citizen. It is amazing how he bears up under the load, how making a long voyage he buys the papers of one zone after another as the news-vendor invades the car and obtrudes them on his attention. The American newspaper, a thing in the main of deftly chosen scraps and patches, is like the cinematograph and responds to the same craving. It offers not food for reflection, but a vast canvas of miscellaneous word-pictures, imposed upon a huge scaffolding of lucrative advertisements. Here there is no perspective, no accentuation of the important issues, no careful differentiation of the transactions of the day according to any standard of intrinsic significance. It is easy to see that the high lights and the low lights upon the theatre have not been arranged by Clio, the muse of history. But what matters? Newspapers are made to sell, as razors are made to cut, and, judged by this test, American journalism is a brilliant success. Fifty-five million papers are sold every day to an eager and impatient public.

The growth in the sheer bulk and volume of the more important newspapers must not be misinterpreted. It is not, unless I greatly err, the result of a growing appetite for reading among the American public. Nor is it the fruit of an enlarged intellectual curiosity. Indeed, the explanation is not to be found in the intellectual sphere at all. The phenomenon is purely commercial and serves as an additional illustration of that surprising increment of material prosperity to which I have already drawn attention. The newspapers have swollen because the advertisements have increased and for no other reason. A sufficient powder of literary material must be sprinkled over the illimitable table-land of commercial jam..

I cannot think that in thus swelling out its dimensions the newspaper press has added to its intellectual usefulness, however serviceable this process may incidentally be to the dissemination of knowledge as to salable commodities. There

is, however, another direction, and that of the utmost importance, in which the press of America has made clear and evident progress during the past fifteen years. There are many Americans papers to-day which are awake to the outside world.

This was not the case fifteen years ago. At that time it was impossible to follow with intelligence the course of world events in the American daily press. Occasionally there would be a shaft of light upon a particular topic, but then in the most tantalizing way darkness supervened and a month might elapse before the subject was again referred to. There was no continuous supply of information from abroad. There was no continuous commentary upon world affairs. It was impossible for any American reader, however desirous he might be to inform himself, to obtain from the daily press any just appreciation of the general situation of politics. A divorce, a murder, a sensational case of graft, the death or illness of an important public character-were quite sufficient to divert or to arrest or even to dry up the most promising flow of information upon the most important themes in the region of foreign affairs.

I notice a great change now. An artist might symbolize it by a fresco depicting the giant figure of America, the symbols of material wealth thickly strewn around her couch, slowly waking up to the world. In several American newspapers-it would perhaps be invidious to particularize-it is possible to find news which is both careful and well selected as to the happenings in foreign lands. Some papers are more adventurous and make a definite effort to direct the public judgment. Moreover, the New York Times, which has perhaps gone farther than any other organ in the direction of disseminating foreign news and accompanying it with an appropriate commentary, has come-thanks to the air mail-to exert an influence all over the Union and not merely in the Eastern States. There are many households in which this excellent paper figures as the second organ, read in the evening or a day late, while the local newspaper is read at the breakfast-table.

Moreover, for the more serious student there is now an admirable periodical entitled Foreign Affairs, edited by Professor

Archie Coolidge of Harvard University. Add to this the numerous clubs for international affairs, the special "WorldMind" alcoves in public libraries, the summer school at Williamstown, which attracts distinguished publicists from every country, and it will be seen that the thinking part of the American public is by no means content with an attitude of indifference to the larger movements of the world. It is true, indeed, that these interests have not as yet sunk very deep or spread very wide. The great mass of the population is still mainly and almost exclusively concerned with its own immediate interests. Nevertheless there are clear signs of a change. New tendencies are at work. There is a discernible enlargement in the field of vision, and a certain weakening of the time-honored bastions of American self-sufficiency.

Such a change might naturally be expected to result from the slow but certain growth of culture and knowledge; but it has, of course, been accelerated by America's entry into the war. Now the war has not exercised the great moral effects in America with which we in Great Britain are familiar. The country was not in it long enough. The sacrifices were by comparison slight. Australia, for instance, with only five million inhabitants, lost more men in killed than the whole of the United States. Only in Princetonwhere the fine eagerness to engage was matched by a lamentable loss of life-was I conscious of the war as exercising a continuing influence over the genius of the place. But the war has at any rate stirred up an interest in general politics which did not previously exist. The young men in the universities are curious about Europe. Moreover, they have conceived a respect for Great Britain. The feeling toward my country is unquestionably more friendly than it was fifteen years ago. This I attribute mainly to our recent confraternity in arms and also in part to the Irish settlement and the funding of the war debt.

Nevertheless, it is clear that America does not propose at present to enter the League of Nations. You are a very prosperous and therefore a very conservative nation, ready to scrap everything except political ideas. "We are well enough as we are, why should we change?" is the

thought which naturally occurs to the citizen reflecting on an expanding balance at the bank. So the great political maxims of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Monroe Doctrine, the doctrine of non-intervention, still retain their empire on the public mind. They are regarded as faithful servants not lightly to be dismissed.

Moreover, the League of Nations question has become fatally interwoven with party politics. To the hard-shelled Republican the League is Mr. Wilson's League and therefore abominable. If Mr. Wilson had wished to get his League accepted he should have taken the Republican reservations, but he was obstinate, and now even the acceptance of the reservations will fail to reconcile the party to the League. The Republican does not argue the League on its merits. It is sufficient for him that it bears marks of a Wilsonian origin. All the Republican leaders, the late Senator Lodge included, were League men before Mr. Wilson became a convert to the idea. But Mr. Wilson's imperious handling of the question alienated them. Strong party feeling swept them away from their moorings, and a very violent gale of public opinion will be needed to sweep them back.

Such gales or blizzards are not unknown in America, and occasionally hurtle with devastating force through the golden orchards of worldly-wise content. The passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting the sale of intoxicants, was the result of such a blizzard. A tempest suddenly rose in the Protestant churches which swept the politicians in Washington off their feet. What has happened once may happen again. If the ministers of religion bestir themselves, if the women in America take up the League as they do in England as our one and only shield and preservative against war, then America is bound to come in. The reasons which are so easily multiplied against participation, as, for instance, that the covenant is badly drawn, that it involves inconvenient commitments, that Japan is a member and raises awkward questions, that America must consider her foreign populations, that the British dominions are represented in the assembly, that the League is too strong, or again that the League is too

weak-all these reasons will fall away and be replaced by reasons equally cogent on the other side. At present, however, the League is so unpopular that even Mr. Davis was afraid to blazon it on his banner. He undertook to refer it to a plebiscite.

This anti-League feeling must not, however, be construed as indicating a simple return to the old spirit of isolation. The war has generated a great and unmistakable interest in world affairs among the leaders of American intelligence. Noththing impressed me more than the eagerness with which I was interrogated by my friends and acquaintances in the Eastern States with respect to the course of European policy and more particularly of British party struggles. Fifteen years ago there was far less interest and far less knowledge. Now there is not only interest and knowledge but a desire to make America's weight felt in the balances of world policy, provided only that this should not be done through the instrumentality of the League. Disarmament conferences by all means, so long as they are summoned by the President of the United States and not by the Council of the League, and sit at Washington, not at Geneva. Americans in the League Secretariat, in the League Commissions, by all means, so long as they are not official representatives of the government but act in a private capacity. Let war be outlawed, so long as the enforcement of the decree of outlawry be not intrusted to the League of Nations, which has been constructed for the purpose. The good Republican, in fact, is anxious to do his duty to the world, but does not want to be shown the way by Mr. Wilson.

I do not deny that there is an influential body of men standing quite apart from the professional politicians who deplore America's abstention from the League, and are anxious that she should take up her membership. These are the university intellectuals. In the American seats of learning men are apt to view the situation very much as it is regarded in my own country. They say in effect: "The League is by no means perfect, but it is doing good work for peace and conciliation and the promotion of humane causes. Moreover, it is the only permanent instrument constructed to this end. Therefore it ought to be supported."

These views, it is true, are held at present by a comparatively narrow circle. My impression, however, is that the personal eminence of the men who hold League opinions will by degrees secure for them a larger audience.

The political enfranchisement of women is so recent that it is impossible to forecast its future consequences for American life. It may, however, be noted that this was the first presidential election in which families were divided in political allegiance. Not that the women tended to vote one ticket rather than another, but that they were disposed to vote according to their inclinations and that these in some cases differed from those of the male members of the family. In one home with which I am acquainted the father voted for Mr. Coolidge, the mother for Mr. Davis, and the daughter for Mr. La Follette. It may be added that notwithstanding these variances complete harmony and good humor prevailed.

If the American women have not taken up the League of Nations as a distinctively woman's cause, they show abundant evidence of a growing concern in public welfare. Fifteen years ago the political self-consciousness of the American woman was a young, rare, and tender plant. Now it is robust and plentifully evident. Women's conferences, women's clubs, women's leagues, women's organizations for other than purely social purposes are greatly multiplied.

How far feminine influence operated in procuring the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment I cannot say, but those who contend that prohibition has come to stay in America are justified in pointing to the woman's vote as a factor likely to operate in favor of its continuance. Needless to say, no change which has come over America in recent years is more continually and ardently discussed than this daring piece of social legislation. By some it is vehemently denounced as a breach of the Constitution, as an intolerable interference with individual liberty, as the prolific parent of lawlessness and crime; by others it is defended as a heroic and successful remedy for a deep-seated social evil.

I am disposed to think that the world is not yet in a position to form an accurate estimate of the results for good and evil of this remarkable and audacious experi

ment. That it has been productive of serious evils is incontestable. The law is very widely evaded and more particularly by that class of society to whom the state most naturally looks for an example in the strict maintenance of law. It is said, and the statement is not seriously challenged, that anybody can get a drink who knows how, provided, however, that he is careless of price and quality. In the maritime cities the Americans are resisting the revenue laws now, just as they fought against them in the decades which preceded the Revolution. Only there is this difference: the old laws were imposed by a government in London; the new law is the work of the American democracy itself. These are grave and incontestable evils. Every American lawyer and statesman deplores them. Nothing can be worse for the morale of a country than a widespread disregard of the law. Already Americans complain of the terrible prevalence of serious crime in their country, and of the great difficulty in securing convictions for murder. And now with prohibition, the forces making for lawless action and a cynical disregard for legality are enormously increased. When a firm impudently describes itself as "official bootlegger to the Cabinet and the Supreme Court," it would be idle to deny the magnitude of the evil.

On the other hand, it is contended that far less liquor is drunk in the States under prohibition than was formerly consumed. I imagine that this is unquestionably true. Though the rich people who want liquor can obtain it at a price, the same facilities are not open to the poor. Employers of labor tell us that labor is more regular in consequence of prohibition, and that the industrial output of the country has been materially increased. Moreover, a saloon which operates in a back room and is liable to a police raid offers fewer temptations to the ordinary passer-by than a saloon flaunting its wares in the full light of day.

My belief is that the continuance of the Eighteenth Amendment will ultimately depend upon the extent to which the manufacturers can prove that the amendment

is good for trade. As yet we have no figures which enable us to reach a conclusion. If, however, the American public becomes convinced that the new law has added to the industrial output of the country by abolishing drunkenness among the workers, then I cannot imagine that the decision will be reversed by reason of the fact, deplorable as it may be, that the rich can, by taking a little trouble, supply themselves with alcoholic refreshment at a high price. It is by its dollar-earning power that prohibition will eventually be judged. At present there is some reason to think that it may be good for business and calculated to strengthen America's competing power in the markets of the world. So long as this opinion prevails among hard-shelled "economic men," the temperance idealists have auxiliaries powerful enough to enable them to maintain the position. The experiment, however, is far too new to enable us to pronounce with confidence as to its effects upon industry.

The Eighteenth Amendment was, I imagine, a great triumph of social and religious idealism. It is also illustrative of a tendency in American political thought which may have been latent fifteen years ago, but was certainly not obvious to the traveller's eye. I allude to the growing disposition to regard the sacred fabric of the Constitution as admitting of improvements.

Fifteen years ago I was told on all hands how very difficult it was to alter the Constitution, and how unlikely it was that serious changes would be made in view of the exacting requirements of the Constitution. Now it seems to me that the American people are beginning to view the masterpiece of the Philadelphia Convention with diminished reverence. Have you not in recent years carried without apparent difficulty three important amendments, and is not a fourth under consideration as I write these words? Shade of Madison! The day may even come when America will say of the house which you designed for her, that in this age of steam and electricity it would be the better for considerable improvements.