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The Outlook for September 28, 1927

sion she attended. Sir Austen Chamberlain, the British delegate, as Chairman, had suggested that Council members might wish to express opinions in a dispute between Hungary and Rumania before spokesmen for the two sides were heard. M. Dandourand, the Canadian delegate, interposed an argument in favor of hearing the cases for Hungary and Rumania first. The delegates of Cuba and Finland backed him up, and it was so decided. Count Apponyi, the venerable Hungarian statesman, rose to speak for his country-and so a victory was quietly recorded for the smaller nations.

to a thousand persons were killed. The destruction of houses, crops, and railways was enormous. The town and province of Kumamoto, on the island of Kiushiu, suffered most severely; but half a dozen other places were partly devastated.

In its recent losses and suffering from earthquake, flood, and famine Japan has the sympathy of the world. Its people and Government are strong and selfreliant, and now, as always, will quietly reliant, and now, as always, will quietly repair as best they can the damage inflicted and will carry on.

With Canada in the Council, there Smyrna Five Years After

will be a demonstration as to whether the mother country can control the votes of the Dominions, which will be of the greatest interest to the United States.

Typhoons and Tidal Waves

A

LMOST invariably the accounts of the typhoon which visited Japan and the hurricane which visited the west coast of Mexico attribute the wrecking of coast towns to tidal waves or to typhoon and tidal wave together. Many readers must have been confused by the use of the term, since the destructive waves were produced not at all by tides but solely by wind. Yet the term has been in use from time immemorial and doubtless will be in use to a remote future. It is a misnomer-as much a misnomer as "sunrise," and came into being in the same way, before the nature of the earth's rotation and of the typhoon's vortex were understood. The apparent rather than the real gave, in each case, the name to the phenomenon.

A typhoon is a violent whirlwind, and the term is used specifically of whirlwinds in the China seas because of their

terrible energy. One writer describes such a typhoon as "an air whirl like the little 'dust devils' that chase across hot fields on sultry days, but enormous, incomparably vast."

Such a vast whirlwind starts waves rolling toward the same point from various quadrants of its great circle. Finally, these numerous waves run together, pile upon one another, and come ashore as a wall of water with the force of the gale behind them. Resembling the pounding and the inundation that come where tides run exceptionally high, the phenomenon took the name of tidal wave, and continues to wear it despite our modern knowledge of the exact

cause.

In Japan, on September 13, according to varying estimates, from four hundred

the Disaster

A

T the end of September, 1922, the Smyrna disaster with its unspeakable subsequent horrors swept more than a million people out of Asia Minor. Most of them, a full million, found refuge in Greece, the only country whose immigration laws allowed their admit

tance.

Greece had been fighting one country or another for twelve years; its finances were in a bad state; its people were impoverished and discouraged. The advent of the refugees at once caused a housing problem, a food problem, and an unemployment problem. Visitors to Greece were shocked at the misery of the people. The newcomers were housed anywhere and everywhere in a most unwholesome state of congestion. They got their food from bread lines which, though eked out by governmental aid and private philanthropy from other lands, were inadequate. The few industries of the country had been smashed by the war, and

The boys, trained in trades and crafts, added to the employment problem, but they were skilled, and therefore advantageous to the citizenry. Near East Relief, the Government co-operating, trained girls as nurses. The Americans also started an anti-malaria campaign at Corinth, which wiped out the disease there. Its methods have been copied all over Greece under Government orders. They have also taught boys and girls modern farming methods.

Refugee camps are still in existence, but their appearance and their spirit are not of the sort that spells distress. A letter written about the first of this year by a young Greek educated in America, and who returned after a two-year absence to see the state of his native land, declares: "I have been amazed at the virility of the refugees and their stubbornness in making a place for themselves. Housing conditions are far from ideal in the refugee camps, but . . . they gave proofs of a determination toward new life. The settlements are overflowing with life, with energy, with health. The little children, who were half starved two summers ago, are husky youngsters by this time. Everybody seems to be working. Factories have sprung up here and there and everywhere.... Out of ashes and nothingness these Asia Minor people have brought about as much life and business enterprise as one could dare dream. In a few years they will be ruling Greece in every line of activity."

A Statesman of the Quarterdeck in China

there were few jobs for an endless army REAR-ADMIRAL MARK L. BRISTOL has

of job hunters.

Now, five years "after Smyrna," Greece has awakened to the fact that when she was generous she showed a wisdom unsuspected by herself. The new citizens sold the coats off their backs to establish themselves in trade. They set up shop with a few cakes or a dozen boxes of matches. When they had saved a trifle, they built shacks which served as dwellings and factories and shops. They learned trades in demand -the housing trades, for instance, since much building was needed in the emergency. They valued the kindness of the Greek shopkeepers who did not crush. their competition and they tried to show their gratitude by being good citizens.

There were thousands of orphans in the care of Near East Relief-boys and girls who must be trained for self-support and sent out as fast as they grew old enough to take care of themselves.

taken charge of American interests in the Far East as Commander-in-Chief of the United States Asiatic Fleet. The move is a good omen for the future in China.

In the Near East, as American High Commissioner to Turkey, Admiral Bristol has made quietly a remarkable record as a diplomatist. Drafted from the Navy for a delicate task, he discharged it admirably. Through all the complicated period that has followed the Armistice, while the Allies and the United States were trying to come to a workable understanding with the new Nationalist Turkey, he has watched over American interests and American institutions in the Near East. During the months of the Greek war with the Turks in Asia Minor and of the peace negotiations at Lausanne he kept his responsibilities clearly in view and commanded the respect and co-operation of both the

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Allies and the Turks. At the time of the Smyrna massacre, when the Turks pursued the fleeing Greeks into their port city and burned and sacked it, he was the inspiring and directing head of much of the relief work and made his ships

and forces available for it. He aided the repatriation of the Greek refugees, which Americans have carried through under the auspices of the League of Nations. When the Senate rejected the separate American Lausanne Treaty with Turkey, it was largely the wise action of Admiral Bristol that kept relations alive and led to the present working agreement between the two countries.

Now he has gone to an even more trying post in China. His first problem, which he has at once set himself to study, is whether the forces of marines should be kept there. They were sent to protect American citizens in the civil war, but danger seems to have passed. His larger problem is the whole question of relations with the Chinese, and he is eminently qualified to solve it. Admiral Bristol does not belong to the "shut 'em up-shoot 'em up" school of military and naval men. To put him in charge in China was an excellent decision.

Patriotism with Complications

W

HAT to do with the American merchant marine, which has been a steady loser of money, is again a question before the President and shortly will be a question before Congress. Though the task of finding private purchasers for the ships has been beyond the ability of those to whom it was given, there are ways of being rid of them. One is to permit the railroads to acquire them. The President is said to see both advantages and disadvantages in this proposal. The main advantage is said to be that, if the railroads owned the ships, the ships would get more business. The main objection is said to be that railroad ownership of the vessels would lessen competition in cargo carrying and increase friction between ship-owning and non-ship-owning railroads.

Another way of being rid of the fleet, finally, is not to provide for replacement as the ships become obsolete. This has the disadvantage that, while it would extricate the Government from the shipping business, it would leave the United States practically without shipping under its own flag.

Still, this matter of replacement constitutes the immediate question. An appropriation of $300,000,000 is necessary if the merchant fleet is not to be

allowed to deteriorate. The President

has been quoted as opposing such an appropriation. On the other hand, Chairman Madden, of the House Appropriations Committee, and Chairman Jones, of the Senate Commerce Commit

tee, have announced that they regard

such an appropriation as necessary and

Keystone

Rear-Admiral Mark L. Bristol, Commander-in-Chief of the United States Asiatic Fleet

that they will press for it at the forthcoming session of Congress.

The President, meanwhile, has made an appeal for patriotism as applied to the American merchant marine. It can be kept afloat successfully, he has been quoted as saying, only if American producers and purchasers insist that their products and foreign purchases be shipped in American bottoms. Might not this, however, as a going-and-coming brand of patriotism, lead to international complications? If American producers insist that American products go to England, for instance, in American bottoms, how could they object to a British insistence that British products sold to Americans be sent in British bottoms? It is rather too much to hope that American importers and exporters can choose both the ships in which the goods they buy shall come from Europe and the ships in which the goods they sell shall go to Europe.

If Americans generally should so insist, we should probably be in for a ship

The Outlook fo

ping war with at least some of the othe shipping countries. Competition on suc a scale needs something more than me patriotic desire. It needs organization.

Hughes and Smith

E

VERYTHING is settled as to th Presidential candidacies of 1928 Charles Evans Hughes is to be nom nated by the Republicans and Alfred Smith by the Democrats. This crysta lization of chaos has come about wit remarkable celerity. One week the R publican nomination was anybody's figh against everybody and the Democrati nomination was everybody's fight agains Governor Smith. The next week Hughe and Smith were as good as nominated.

But politics is always a syrup tha readily "turns to sugar." Rarely does remain so. It goes through a process re-solution, ferments, foams, fills twid its former space, sours, and finally, like as not, again solidifies into aci crystals.

The common belief that Hughes an Smith will be nominated probably mean little more than that politicians hav ceased to "mill" and have settled dow to business. The candidate who has commanding lead several months befor the time for choosing delegates is pro verbially in a dangerous position. Hi eminence enables all factions to combin against him, only to split up again afte he has been disposed of.

Still, the eminence of both Hughe and Smith is, for the time being, ver real.

Hughes came promptly into favo largely because of the belief that b stands above most of the controversie that trouble American thought at thi time, because his ability is undisputed because of the belief that his distir guished services as Secretary of Stat have made him a bigger man now tha he was in 1916; somewhat, also, becaus of the belief that he is the only Repub lican who can carry New York Stat against Smith.

The apparent belief of the Republi cans that Smith is the man they mus prepare to beat has been, no doubt, a element in bringing about the convictio that Smith is certainly to have the nom nation. But it has not been the mos important element. More importan perhaps, has been the announcement William G. McAdoo's determination no to be a contender for the nomination This was taken in many quarters a confession that he could no longer mus ter sufficient strength to hope for th nomination or even to hold the vet

[graphic]

September 28, 1927

power against the nomination of Smith. More important still is the fact that recognition of Governor Smith's ability in certain important lines has extended over a wider area.

Somebody and the

Other Fellow

UT

But all of these things together do not

mean that opposing candidacies are not formidable. Even the significant statement of Secretary of the Treasury Mellon that he is inclined to favor the nomination of Mr. Hughes does not mean that the demand for Mr. Hoover as a candidate has been withdrawn. Nothing that has been said or done indicates that the Western opposition to a candidate of the type of either Hughes or Hoover has at all lessened. Already, as this is written, Northwestern opposition to Hughes is beginning to be audible in the East. The Republican fight is still in the future, the Hughes sentiment merely something substantial "to shoot at." And Mr. Hughes remains personally in the fortunate position of one who does not seek the nomination.

Along the Democratic sector the situation is similar. Mr. McAdoo's withdrawal is in no sense a conceding of the victory to Governor Smith. The reasons which Mr. McAdoo gave for his withdrawal were good reasons, even if they did not entirely explain his action. Mr. McAdoo's personal strength, had he chosen to be a candidate, would undoubtedly have been less in 1928 than it was in 1924. But the elements of the party naturally and inevitably opposed to Smith are not necessarily less. Those Democrats who call themselves "progressive" and those Democrats who are dry are no less opposed to Smith now than they have always been. Whether they can find a candidate upon whom they can all unite is, of course, a question. But they were never all united upon McAdoo. It is to be remembered that the balance of power in the 1924 Convention was held by groups opposed to both McAdoo and Smith. The argument, sometimes heard, that there is no candidate to oppose Smith is not valid. There are many possible Democratic candidates of some parts. And, at the worst, there is always the "amiable unknown."

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ven, and Hartford Railroad to pay J. P. Morgan & Co. a fee of about a million. dollars for underwriting a preferred stock issue of about forty-nine million stock issue of about forty-nine million dollars brings into the news a term com

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preferred stock direct to the holders of its common stock.

Isadora Duncan's Art

monly misunderstood. The banking B

house which underwrites a stock or bond issue guarantees nothing as to the in

Isadora Duncan

tegrity of the issue, nothing whatever to buyers of the securities. It merely agrees with the corporation issuing the stock or bonds to sell the issue, and this sometimes entails an advance of money before all of the securities are disposed of.

In vetoing the underwriting agreement in the case of the New Haven road the Inter-State Commerce Commission neither approved nor disapproved of the practice. It acted alone on the ground of economy for the road, which is to use the proceeds of the issue mainly for discharging obligations to the Federal Treasury. The Commission held that, since holders of the road's common stock are to have the right of acquiring the preferred stock at the ratio of one share to four of common, the road should have no difficulty in disposing of the issue without underwriting. An extra million dollars will be made available thereby for repayment of obligations to the Gov

ernment.

The New York, New Haven, and Hartford has accepted the ruling of the Commission, and will offer the issue of

y a strange accident in Nice on September 14 Isadora Duncan, American dancer, was instantly killed. A long scarf which she was wearing caught in a wheel of the motor car in which she was riding and threw her to the street. Her death resembles that of her two young children fourteen years ago, which was caused by the plunge of a driverless automobile into the Seine. In her dress she affected flowing drapery. Indeed, she did much to influence woman's dress. What was once eccentricity in her has now become familiar. There is irony in the fact that the very means by which she contributed to freedom from the stiff and formal in fashion was her undoing.

Like many another artist, especially of the lower ranks, she lived her life frankly and carelessly. She did not distinguish between arbitrary conventions which curtail freedom and those principles of conduct on which real freedom rests. Her weaknesses have ended with her tragic exit from a feverish world. So far as she will be remembered it will be not because of her frailties or her mad freaks, but because of her artwhat many found to be an enchanting art.

If not quite Greek-for it was too modern for that-her art had some of the Greek qualities. It was not stilted or mechanical, like that of the traditional operatic dance, but emotional and natural. In her the dance was not acrobatic, but untrammeled, rhythmic, free, enhanced by the use of classic drapery.

The influence of this movement for the liberation of the dance from hampering traditions is seen not only on the professional stage, but also in the many schools of dancing throughout this country and even in our women's colleges.

For her attempt to employ the dance as a means of interpreting famous symphonies and other music Isadora Duncan drew on her head some derision. Her purpose in this attempt was perhaps not always understood. She did not pretend that she could "interpret" Beethoven or Brahms in the sense of explaining either. What she tried to do was to express by fitting movement her own emotional response to their tones and rhythm. Even so, to the great majority of those who appreciate and respect the art of music the emotional "reactions" of a dancer in the presence

[graphic]

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of great musical master works are negli atlantic flight of 2,350 miles, and made gible.

It was not her "interpretation," but her success in rescuing the dance from the stiff and the trite that gave Isadora Duncan's art its distinction.

A French Champion of America

A

FTER the Davis Cup contest the National singles tournament in tennis was something of an anti-climax. Whatever the outcome, the international tennis crown had passed from the United States. If Tilden had regained the National title, held for a year by a member of the French team, René Lacoste, it would have been hardly more than a consolation prize. But even that was not to be.

The once formidable Tilden went down in straight sets before Lacoste's imperturbable play. What beat Tilden was an almost perfect defense. Every shot that Tilden sent across the net into his opponent's court seemed to come back somehow. They may not have come back with the speed that other opponents of Tilden's have employed, but they came back. It was Verdun over again "They shall not pass." At the end of the three sets-11-9, 6-3, 11-9-Tilden, in spite of his superb physique, was all in. That he was is not surprising. Tennis at high speed is as strenuous a sport as is played. Those three sets were equal in the number of points played to many a five-set match,

Incidentally, American tennis galleries still have something to learn. They cannot be substitutes for referees or even linesmen. If the balls could be seen as well from the stands as they can from the place where the linesman sits, the linesman would be in the stands.

True Courage

IN

N two recent air flights the fliers have shown wisdom and moral courage in abandoning their eagerly sought objects in the face of conditions that made continued effort dangerous and reckless. More and more the world is distinguishing between brave men who push their adventurous voyages with thorough preparation, good judgment, and trained skill, and those who rush forward unprepared, ill-advised, and unskilled.

Schlee and Brock made a notable and really splendid achievement in their attempt to girdle the world in less time than has ever been made. They flew over 12,000 miles, including a fine trans

the distance from Harbor Grace to
Tokyo in nineteen days. On the four-
teenth day they were at Rangoon. If
Schlee and Brock had been able to carry
out their plan of crossing the Pacific,
stopping at Midway Islands and Hono-
lulu, they could easily have bettered the
record of twenty-eight days around the
world made with railway, steamship,
and plane by Evans and Wells. But to
attempt this flight became recklessness
when they found that no fuel was await-
ing them at Midway Islands. With ex-
ceeding reluctance, they yielded to the
many remonstrances cabled from this
country. Schlee said, "We could not
fight public opinion."

W

The Outlook for

The result was that the American press and people have given Schlee and Brock unstinted praise for wisdom and moral courage as well as for their un questioned great achievement.

The same thing was true of the i fortune of the two members of the Irish Free State Air Force, Captain McIntosh and Commander Fitzmaurice, who on September 16, in the monoplane Princes Xenia, started on the westward tri from Ireland to America. Three hun dred miles out they met a gale and heavy rain, and it was impossible t steer or make headway. For their cons mon sense in returning to Ireland, with out courting death, they have had and they deserve nothing but praise.

Was the A. E. F. Cheated?

HEN the A. E. F. went overseas ten years ago, there were all sorts of conflicting ideals of what the war was to accomplish. It was to be "the war to end war," "to make the world safe for democracy," "to establish world unity," "to end the menace of German imperialism," and according to the slogan most popular among the doughboys-"to can the Kaiser."

When the A. E. F. came home, people's minds were full of a strange mixture of relief, enthusiasm, and disillusionment. The war had ended in favor of the Allies. But there had been no surrender; instead, a severe Armistice. The Peace Conference failed to satisfy either the idealists who had forevisioned the globe democratized and unified or the realistic extremists who wanted to march to Berlin. Both of these groups declared that the war had been a failure and the professions of the statesmen a snare. But the soldiers-with few exceptions-voiced no such disappointment. At a mention of the Peace Conference they may have been inclined to crack a wry grin. Yet if they felt cheated, they did not say so. For one thing in which they were interested they had done. They had canned the Kaiser.

Now, with the second A. E. F. overseas ten years after, it is possible to estimate a little more soberly what was accomplished. The Kaiser has stayed canned, and no German monarchist has succeeded in finding a can-opener that seems likely to work, though several have been tried. And the doughboys' slang slogan summed up a fundamental purpose. For all the war of words about who started the war has not obscured the fact that the Teutonic system of economic organization and social culture

was seeking-consciously or unconsciously to extend its sway beyond the borders it then commanded. That tendency the war stopped, as earlier wars in history have stopped the expansion of other empires that threatened other na tions. No menace remains of German domination of any other country, much less of any "German domination of the world." Instead, in the gathering of the League of Nations Germany has prom ised to accept compulsory arbitration of all disputes by the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague-a result which it is impossible to imagine if the war had gone the other way.

The struggle was not a failure and the victory was not a farce. All the oratory about "democracy" and "world unity' meant comparatively little to most of the fighting men. But "the war to end war did mean something-and smashing the German military system and canning the Kaiser were realities. To them it wa evident that if this trouble-making force could be destroyed the world would be the better for it. They did not expect the world to become a perfect or evennecessarily a finer place to live in they did expect it to become an easie place to live in. And it has become both an easier and a better world for the ordi nary citizen than it would have been i Germany had been allowed to win. That would have meant intensive military and naval preparation all around the globe a world keyed and strained to the ut most pitch of nervous tension for the next inevitable struggle. Whatever the shortcomings of the peace settlementand they were admittedly many-life i far pleasanter for the average person than it could have been otherwise.

In that sense, "the war to end war was a realistic slogan. It did not and

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