ears in the direction from which the sound comes."

"Let Well Enough Alone"

outcome is favorable to its frazzled nerves.

One thing that Professor Foley points out is that it takes 4,000,000 tons of coal

chose a mule for his figure of speech, but it is a fact that few railroad officials willingly assume the responsibility for initiating changes in wellestablished railroad practice. "Let well enough alone" is too apt to govern the career of the railroad man, whose school of training almost invariably consists of

this country. Cannot the railroads discover a less wasteful and more efficient method of signaling than setting several cubic miles of air into violent motion merely in order to reach the senses of a few individuals?

In the Path of the Tornado

railroad men.

The "Railway Age" has recently reported experiments with whistles, conducted by the Canadian Northern Railroad, and especially the Chicago and Eastern Illinois. In the latter case the whistle was placed on the front of the locomotive and at the focus of a curved sounding-board of sheet metal. It was found that much better results were obtained, from the point of view of the railroad-audibility down the track. But nothing was reported concerning the point of view of the residents of communities close to railroads, the inference being that those who conducted the tests were not particularly interested in the suppression of needless noise. However, the public will not quarrel with the motives that may lead the railroads to adopt efficient whistl a long as the

HEN a tornado, like the high winds that have lately devastated Japan and still more lately St. Louis, whirls in its devastating course, leaving death and destruction behind it, there is little that can be done but to succor the injured, bury the dead, and rebuild the houses. Study of the causes and courses of such storms may suggest local measures to protect life (such as the tornado cellars so common in certain sections which seem especially in danger), and perhaps building on securer and deeper foundations may be of future avail. Whatever science and modern improvement in construction may suggest should surely be studied and adopted, but so far and in the main the tornado is a terror beyond man's power to curb.

The havoc wrought at St. Louis on September 29 was particularly deadly

and destructive because it swept through a residential section. Its death roll was reported as between seventy and a hundred; the injured, as about 1,200; the number of houses and business buildings destroyed, as perhaps 5,000. Its only parallel in St. Louis was the tornado of 1896, which was reported to have killed about two hundred people and to have ruined 8,000 houses.

Needless to say, St. Louis is a strong and progressive city, and it is already rapidly repairing the physical damage wrought. In its grief for its citizens injured or distressed by the loss of relatives and friends St. Louis has the sympathy of all America.

"Resurrection"

THE

HE current moving-picture representation of Tolstoy's "Resurrection" is not only a notable piece of dramatic expression, but through its rapid visualizing of the action it becomes a clearer presentment of the author's purpose than the too turgid and too prolonged novel itself. This purpose was described in The Outlook when the book "Resurrection" appeared as that of a man, not only committed by conviction to the purification of his fellows, but dominated by a passionate sense of his own responsibility for their salvation.

As with the novel, so with the film play, the picture of careless sin and

166

thoughtless passion is subject to criticism for its realism. It would be inexcusable if it were not shown in order to deepen the contrast with consequent degradation, remorse, and then the beginning through sacrifice and human love of moral and spiritual resurrection; so that, to quote again The Outlook's editorial discussion of Tolstoy's aim, "no one can question the passionate moral impulse which breathes through the book and which gives it something of the force of a gospel." Tolstoy's economic and social philosophy was not well reasoned and his realism was often offensive, but his impulse for humanity's regeneration was sincere.

It is odd at this moving picture to see the tense stress of the average "movie" audience growing deeper as this woman, betrayed and abandoned as a girl, sunk in the depths of dissoluteness, insensible apparently to any touch of feeling, grows respondent and self-sacrificing, while her former lover, now a man of wealth and station, who stood helpless in the jurybox when she was convicted of murder, leaves everything and accompanies her over the desolate steppes to Siberia, dragging her sled when she is ill, tending her like a loving servant. The feeling that the audience carried away was not one of degradation but of nobility attained by sacrificial suffering.

As a film drama "Resurrection" is a remarkably finished piece of work; and for once, at least, the acting of the two principal parts was comparable to that of the old-time stage players at their best.

Sweden Wins the
Scandinavian Cup
ST

IX-METER yachts from seven nations were brought across the Atlantic to contend last week for the Scandinavian Gold Cup on the historic waters off Oyster Bay. America, the eighth of the contending nations, was represented by the veteran Lea, which has been in competition since 1922. Finland, Norway, Holland, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, and Great Britain had chosen as their champions Merenneito, Noreg, Admiraal De Ruyter, Mati, May-Be, Lily, and English Rose. The conditions for the Gold Cup required that one of the contesting vessels win a total of three races. After the first three races all those yachts which had not won a first place were eliminated, When that time came, America, Holland, Italy, and Great Britain found themselves out in the cold. The contest between Finland, Norway, and Sweden-a second Battle of the Baltic-went to the extreme limit pos

sible, victory finally perching upon the colors of Sweden.

Although Lea did take one second place, and although she suffered bad luck through the bungling of the Race Committee, it appears that our European competitors can teach us much concerning the design of small yachts built under the rule to which the six-meters are

constructed. Both in the design of their hulls and the cut of their sails the foreigners appeared generally superior to the best that America could produce. Particularly noticeable was the jib carried by the Swedish May- Be, a huge affair which trimmed well aft of the mast. Wiseacres declared that May-Be could never carry such a reaching jib on a beat to windward; but May- Be did, and held a course as close to the wind as her competitors. This jib of May- Be was cut in accordance with the conclusions of some of the recent oversea experiments in the aerodynamics of sails. There will be many jibs like May-Be's on American yachts this coming season.

The Race Committee introduced one

novelty in its procedure which deserves copying. After the first day's race the names of the yachts which crowded the course and the names of their owners were published in the daily press. After that experience, in the following races the yachts were very much less troubled by over-eager spectators.

Again, the World Series

THE climax of the baseball year has

come with the opening of the World Series. The supremacy in the American League has been easily gained by the New York Yankees; that in the National League has been won on a nar row margin by the Pittsburgh Pirates closely pressed by the St. Louis Cardi nals and the New York Giants. As we write, half a dozen or more "ghost wri ters," with some help from the eminen players whose names head their articles are arguing subtly and elaborately as to the outcome of the World Series. The fact that, of course, neither of the con tending clubs has played the other dur ing the League pennant games gives a

October 12, 1927.

special zest to the arguments as to their relative strength. Have the Yankees the "edge" because of their formidable batting champions-Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri, all home-run heroes-or have the Pirates a pitching superiority and general solidity of form that shall win?

The most spectacular event of the baseball year was Babe Ruth's feat in breaking the record of home runs made. by him six years ago: in 1921 he made 59; in 1927 he made 60. Six years is a long time in a ball-player's active life; and the odds were against this event's happening.

No one seems to doubt that this World Series will be a fair and square fight. Baseball, like that other popular professional "sport," prize-fighting, has had its black and rowdy episodes, but no single charge of bribery or treachery has been sustained based on events since the

in July. Professor Hobbs has left it in charge of Professor J. E. Church, the well-known meteorologist, who will be aided by other scientists in keeping up the radio reports of observations all through the winter.

As was pointed out in The Outlook last May, there is a splendid chance of getting clues, through the study of the blizzards of the great Greenland icecap, to some of the baffling weather mysteries of the ocean, and thus helping to make more definite the knowledge and predictive possibilities of our North American weather service.

There is hardship to be endured in this service, and it calls for courage and sacrifice. Its members will not gain sensational renown, but they are devoted servants of science, and should so be honored.

There was a time when baseball was in a very large sense the National sport; now football and the squared ring have in single events drawn greater crowds and more interest. Yet in the aggregate the interest and attendance at the professional ball games is still enormous, and there is a bit of truth in the tradition that baseball crowds are a crosssection of democracy-it is an chance whether you sit next to an Italian laborer shouting to Lazzeri, "Poosh him up, Tony," or next to a venerable college president who has been a fan for decades.

An Arctic Weather Station

GR

REENLAND has often been called a vast weather-breeder. It is therefore an ideal place for a weather station. As an editorial writer in the New York "Times" puts it, "If storms could be broadcast from Greenland forty-eight hours before they strike Atlantic shipping lanes, it would be an incalculable help to navigation."

This is now possible; such a weather station now exists (strictly speaking, one station and two sub-stations). Under the auspices of the University of Michigan, and with the financial aid of the Guggenheim Foundation, Professor William Hobbs headed an expedition to Southwest Greenland the past summer with the express object of studying Greenland's peculiar wind and blizzard conditions and establishing a permanent weather station there. Professor Hobbs selected a site at Mount Evans, a hundred and twenty miles inland from an almost unpronounceable fjord on the east side of Davis Strait. The station began to send out reports the last week

THE

HE French have many a laugh at the expense of the Americans, to whom everything "back home" is "the largest in the world." In order, perhaps, to save their members from being completely swamped by comparisons, the Association of French Interpreters with the A. E. F. sent out a circular letter to the members outlining a dozen or so points on which France is supreme. They probably came in particularly handy at the period of the American Legion Convention. The letter runs:

France has:

The highest monument in the world, the Eiffel Tower, which is 980 feet high.

The largest metallic viaduct in the world, the Viaduct de Carabit, near Saint-Flour. It also has the greatest height above the valley it serves and the greatest span.

The largest steamer built since the World War, the Ile-de-France, 42,000 tons.

The fastest electric train in the world, from Paris to Vierzon, on the Paris-Orleans line.

The largest reinforced concrete bridge in the world, at Saint-Pierrede-Vauvray (Eure).

The largest airport in the world, Le Bourget, outside of Paris.

The largest aviation hangars in the world, at Orly (Seine).

The largest subterranean canal in the world, the Rove Tunnel at Bouches-du-Rhône.

The most powerful searchlight in the world, at Mont-Valerien, one billion candle-power.

The largest alternating current gen.erators in the world, at the S. E. F. M. factory, at Gennevilliers, which give 50,000 kilowatts of power.

The largest radio station in the

167

world, at St. Assise, which has seventeen pylons, sixteen of them 820 feet high.

The fastest steam trains in the world, running from Paris to Aulnoye, on the Belgian frontier, traveling 61 miles an hour.

Pretty good, we say, for "effete Europe."

The Forester Replies

IN

N August we printed three articles by Arthur M. Baum under the title "Why Our Forests Are Burning Up." These articles were severely critical of the Forest Service. They constituted, as we said at the time, "a longstifled protest of the field force." They were not, however, particularly aimed at the Forester, who is Chief of the Forest Service, or his administration. When in 1925 we printed an article by Mr. W. C. Gregg on the Forest Service, accompanying and following that article with editorials, we 'took special pains to see that the Forester was apprized of what we were to do and was offered an immediate opportunity for reply. On the occasion of the printing of Mr. Baum's articles, however, there was no such reason for suggesting to Colonel Greeley, the Forester, that a reply would be in order. Mr. Gregg's attack was directed upon certain phases of the administration of the Forest Service. Mr. Baum's articles, on the other hand, had more to do with the organization of the Forest Service and its weaknesses occasioned, not only by the habits into which a bureau naturally falls, but also by the laws under which it operates.

Nevertheless we have received from Colonel Greeley a long and elaborate reply to these articles. The real reply which we think was called for is action by Congress. But Colonel Greeley's reply, wholly volunteered, deals with matters which cannot well be ignored.

It has been impossible for us to print Colonel Greeley's reply as it stands. In the first place, considerable time has elapsed since the publication of those articles, and detailed consideration of statements in them cannot well be expected of readers after an interval of a number of weeks. This is a matter of justice to Colonel Greeley as well as of interest to the reader. In the second place, Colonel Greeley's reply was much too long for publication.

In as early an issue as practicable we shall restate the main question as to the efficiency of the Forest Service as we see it, together with such a statement from Colonel Greeley as is allowed by our space and may be desired by him in view of our summary of the question.

168

P

EOPLE do not get into fights simEOPL ply because they are are angry. Neighbors often go on for years squabbling and despising each other without the sort of violent quarrel that would call-in a modern civilized community-for intervention by the police or appeal to a court. They get into that kind of fight usually because there is something at stake important enough for them to be ready to use force, if necessary, to gain their will.

Even in a state of society kept in order by a regular army and police, in which private fighting and civil wars are not tolerated, there are certain issues which we would not submit to the courts such as the election of our officials. We would not think of permitting even the Supreme Court to choose the President. Instead, we substitute ballots for the bullets so often used in some Latin and Oriental and Slavic countries, and let the will of the majority-as registered in votes-rule. But we still call the contest a campaign, and the ballots of the majority imply a power to shoot more bullets if the issue had been submitted to a decision by force of arms.

Nations are supposed to go to war because they hate each other. But hatred

alone would never be a sufficient cause of war. The simple facts of relations between individuals apply, in different terms, to nations. When there is war or a threat of war, it is essential not to accept as an adequate explanation the hatred to which it may be attributed, but to inquire into the causes of the hatred. There will be found the true explanation of the war. The hatreds that end in war are, in general, only the extreme form of a determination to gain the national will regarding some contested issue. Nations fight because they have the will to insist on their own views of their own rights or interests rather than yield to an antagonist or submit to a decision by a third party, a private person would have to do. Between nations, as between men, judicial settlement of disputes has come increasingly into play, though more slowly. But the mere existence of courts of arbitration or of international justice can never make this method of dealing with controversies between nations effective. The only thing that can make. them count is the desire to use them. They may encourage the will to rational rather than violent adjustment of such controversies. But they do not create

as

The Outlook for

it. Rather, that will creates the agencies by which it can operate, and the existence of courts is evidence that it is, in some measure, active. The direction of the will is the important thing.

So there is significance in the vote at this year's session of the League of Nations in favor of forbidding all wars of aggression and declaring that all pacific means must be employed to settle differences of whatever nature which may arise between states before recourse to arms. Poland proposed the resolution. The Assembly-the lower chamber of the League, including all its adherents voted unanimously for the principle: and the Council-the upper chamber, including the big Powers and elected states-requested the Secretary-General to bring the proposal to the attention of all states members of the League. These two decisions indicate a growing will to deal with international issues by recourse to courts rather than to arms.

This not only does not mean an end of wars, but it cannot mean an end of international conflicts. international conflicts. It does mean

that more of them will be settled in court, and fewer by combat. When a country has confidence both in its case and its strength, it can afford to plead before a tribunal. When it doubts its strength, it is not likely to go to war. When it is not sure of its case, but is

October 12, 1927

certain of its strength, it tends to go to war. But against such nations the mind of the majority has surely turned. So we have the nations voting for amicable settlement of quarrels. It is a principle we have traditionally advocated in America and sometimes practiced. We can be glad to see it making headway in Europe.

Peepshow Biography

L

IBEL LAWS protect the living, but not the dead. When an English writer some months ago made reckless charges against the character of William Ewart Gladstone, there was no recourse to be had at law for the vindication of the Great Commoner's. name. A member of the Gladstone family called the author a liar and foul fel-low, was sued and won, and thus by indirect but effective means succeeded in calling the defamer of the dead to account.

The means employed by Viscount Gladstone, the Prime Minister's son, is quite exceptional. As a rule the dead have to take their chances with biographers and historians. A spirit of sportsmanship alone should make a writer careful of the reputation of those who cannot call him to account. In this case at least the spirit of sportsmanship is a sound ally of the love of truth.

It seems, however, to be the vogue among biographers nowadays to treat their subjects as if they were characters in fiction to set up in their own minds a theory as to motives and then to accumulate evidence of testimony or hearsay to substantiate it. Reputation, indeed, is treated as if it were something essentially a bubble and biography as essentially a pin to prick it with.

In Paxton Hibben's life of Henry Ward Beecher, which has just been published, there is little, if anything, new. No man in American history lived more obviously in the eye of the public than this great anti-slavery leader and preacher of freedom of the mind. To his achievement as a liberator of the souls of his generation from theological fears and from shackling conventions the author of this biography pays full tribute; but he has created a character, to whom he gives the name of Beecher, that is as essentially a product of his own mind as if he had written a novel with this character as its hero. To it he has given the air of verisimilitude by elaborate documentation; but the sources to which he refers are at best the ingredients of the mixture that he pours into the mold

of his own design. Mr. Hibben's method may be illustrated by one sentence. After quoting from a letter that an inveterate enemy of Mr. Beecher's had sent to a newspaper, the biographer writes: "No names were named, but the bottom dropped out of Henry Ward's stomach the moment he heard of it." Of course that is a novelist's trick, not a biographer's account of what he knew to have happened. Mr. Hibben has gone even beyond such authority as he cites. For example, he writes:

Sam Wilkeson, Jay Cooke's Man Friday in what the Brooklyn Eagle called the "Northern Pacific swindling games, was Henry Ward's business partner in the firm of J. B. Ford & Co., publishers of the "Life of Christ" and the Christian Union, and Col. John H. Puleston, another partner in the same firm, was Jay Cooke's New York representative in floating the Northern Pacific "pool." It was perhaps natural enough, therefore, that in January, 1870, Henry Ward Beecher should receive from Jay Cooke & Co. $15,000 worth of stock in the Northern Pacific Railway, for the express purpose of "influencing the public mind to favor the new railroad. Beecher's aid," it was provided, "included the use of the Christian Union newspaper."

There was, of course, nothing dishonest in Beecher's share in this transaction.

What Mr. Hibben means by this last sentence we do not know, for the charge that he brings against Henry Ward Beecher is of the most serious kind of breach of journalistic ethics—the acceptance of money from a special interest in exchange for editorial influence.

As authority for his statement Paxton Hibben cites this passage in Oberholtzer's life of Jay Cooke:

Governor Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, if he were not in the "pool" had the opportunity to invest in lands in Duluth. Wilkeson employed himself in New York in an attempt to place the names of Henry Ward Beecher and Horace Greeley upon the subscription list, with some pleasing concessions to them as to the time and manner of paying their installments. Beecher was to have $15,000 and Greeley $20,000, both being reckoned first-rate powers in influencing the public mind to favor the new railroad (Note. Wilkeson to J. C., January 31, 1870, and Fahnestock to J. C., Jan. 25, 1870. At Greeley's death his interest was $10,000). Beecher's aid included the use of the Christian Union newspaper to which Wilkeson

169

contributed a series of articles highly eulogistic of the Northwest.

There is here not the slightest evidence that Mr. Beecher received a cent or that he employed the "Christian Union" as a means of promoting interests of the railroad. As a matter of fact, at that date Henry Ward Beecher was not the editor of the paper. An examination of the files of the "Christian Union" of that date reveals nothing that could be construed as an attempt on the part of the paper to influence its readers on behalf of the railroad.

If this is the "new biography," then the "new biography" is old, old stuff. Of course, like a true "debunker," Paxton Hibben makes the great climax of his book the now almost forgotten Beecher-Tilton case. In telling the story of that scandal Mr. Hibben cites as his authorities newspaper items and the ex parte statements of Mr. Beecher's bitterest enemies as if they were irrefutable evidence. As a matter of fact, the newspapers of that day, even those regarded as respectable, were often a match for our modern tabloids. A good part of Mr. Hibben's book is of the stuff that Freudian dreams are made of. Mr. Hibben' seems to think that Henry Ward Beecher invented "necking," and he can think of nothing better than that fantasy to build his biography on.

It would hardly be fair to say that such a book as this is nothing more than the tabloids in binding; but it is fair to warn the readers of it that when they may think they are reading the biography of a great man they are in fact reading contemporary scandal.

What News Is Worth While ?

A

umn

YOUNG man recently disappeared from his customary haunts. President of the Reynolds Airway Corporation at twenty-one years of age, he had suddenly dropped out of sight. The daily press made a great mystery of it. Column after colwas filled with-not news, for nothing seemed to be known. After the newspapers had aroused public curiosity to a high pitch concerning this mysterious disappearance, the young man was discovered in St. Louis. Tired of New York life and the importunities of his friends, he had sought new pleasures in Chicago and St. Louis and escaped from boredom by masquerading under an assumed name. When his disguise was penetrated, he was much annoyed. It was the old story of a poor little rich