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This picture of a Northern coast town, by a notable American modern, is full of drama, ably painted, and interesting in its arrangement of sharply defined black and white shapes

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Volume 147

The Outlook

December 21, 1927

Number 16

The Navy and the President

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VERSHADOWING for the time being what the President said in his Message about the Navy is e Navy officials' plan for the buildng of twenty-six new cruisers, three airlane carriers, five fleet submarines, and ghteen destroyer leaders, besides bateship replacements, over a period of five ears. Of these items the largest is that or modern 10,000-ton cruisers. As thus ated the program seems very great. ut viewed year by year it does not em quite so extraordinary. It will cerinly not supply us with enough cruists to make our cruiser strength correbond to the battleship ratio of 5-5-3 stablished between ourselves, Great ritain, and Japan by the Washington reaty. In order to make our cruiser rength correspond to Great Britain's e should have to build twenty cruisers three years. This will give us about fteen. It therefore cannot be called a ompetitive program in any sense.

This program complies thoroughly ith what the President said in his Mesage: "This country has put away the Old World policy of competitive armaents. . . . We know now"-that is, fter the Naval Conference at Geneva hich failed of agreement "that no greement can be reached which will be nconsistent with a considerable building rogram on our part. . . . The failure to gree should not cause us to build either nore or less than we otherwise should." These words of the President should nake clear what the purpose of any aval program is which he may approve. t is to supply a deficiency in our Navy which was caused by the policy of leting our natural naval development lapse while waiting to see what the result of a aval conference on cruisers would be. If the present program seems large, it is Decause there is need of making up for ost time.

Of course Congress will scrutinize this program, as it ought to scrutinize it. In determining naval policy the civil arm should be supreme. But the needs of

THE WEEK

our Navy are obvious. As the President says, our Navy "is a guaranty of peace and security at home, and when it goes abroad it is an instrument for the protection of the legal rights of our citizens under international law, a refuge in time of disorder, and always the servant of world peace."

By its action in providing for the elevation of guns on two of our battleships the House of Representatives has indicated its readiness to strengthen the Navy.

Naval strength need not mean naval rivalry.

Sane and Safe Air Commerce

J

UST how far should the National Government regulate aviation? InterState commerce, trade promotion, the air mail, safety-all admittedly enter into the problem. It is natural, on the other hand, that builders, engineers, and companies carrying on commerce and transporting passengers by air should have the fear that Government may clog and hinder while trying to help.

The conference lately held at Washington did much to bring about a common understanding. Thus Mr. Frank P. Bell, head of an air line which carries mail from the Pacific Northwest to Salt Lake City, said: "MacCracken has been a godsend to us fellows out in the mountains, and at this conference we had an interchange of ideas that was for me, at least, one of the biggest experiences of my fifteen years in aviation."

Secretary MacCracken, thus praised, is the head of the Aeronautic Division of the United States Department of Commerce. In this conference he showed sympathy with the practical views of the delegates. For instance, Clarence Chamberlin and others protested against too close regulation of the flying schools, and gained their point for at least the coming year. The general feeling expressed by the delegates was satisfaction. with what the Department has actually done, mingled with some fear as to what

might happen if in the future the politicians got hold of the Bureau.

Many important points were discussed, such as changes in classifying pilots' licenses, the insurance on air risks, the adoption, or not, of the "Handbook for Designers" prepared for the Department with the aid of army engineers, the meaning of the statistics as to air accidents. As to the last, the most striking figures were those that showed that in 165 accidents 146 were to unlicensed planes and in 132 cases the pilots also were unlicensed.

Doubtless this is only the first of many such conferences.

Team-work is as much needed in air commerce as in football.

Veteran Lovers of Peace

T

HE award of the Nobel Peace Prize is always of world interest. In the past the judges have often been able to find prize winners who have done something which at least aimed at the concrete and positive, something more than and different from argument or idealism. The list includes the names of Roosevelt, Wilson, Root, Dawes, Chamberlain, Briand; the very first award was to Henry Dunant, founder of the Red Cross; and later the Peace Prize went to the International Red Cross Committee. One definition of the foundation specifies as requisites that the recipient should be a person who had "worked most or best for the fraternization of nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies, or the calling or propagating of Peace Congresses."

But good work may be done by writers and speakers as well as statesmen. No one will challenge the justice of the award just made, which divides the prize for 1927 between Professor Ludwig Quidde, of Germany, and Professor Ferdinand Buisson, of France. Professor Buisson began to write on world peace sixty years ago; he is now eightyseven years old, and is still, we believe, President of the League for the Rights

of Man; his earliest colleague in the search for liberty as a prerequisite for peace was Garibaldi. Professor Quidde, of the University of Munich, is also a veteran advocate for world peace and served a prison sentence for offending the Kaiser by too plain speech against militarism; he has been President of the German Peace Union for thirty-five years.

One editorial writer, speaking of this Nobel award, cites as a peace act the memorial of 128,770 British citizens to the Prime Minister solemnly vowing never to perform any war service. It is just the reverse.

A Noble Library

I

LLITERACY has its advantages. A man who cannot read is spared the nuisance of examining the mass of circulars that clutter the desk—and waste-basket -of every person whose name is in the telephone book; the man who cannot. write is never asked to indorse a note for a friend. But for those who read and write the administration of public libraries is an extremely important function of government. This is what makes the report of Dr. Herbert Putnam, Librarian of the Library of Congress, one of the most significant of those departmental reports which have just been presented at the opening of the Seventieth Congress of the United States.

Congress has a good many sins to answer for, but its notable achievements do not always receive the popular credit which they deserve. One of these achievements is the construction and maintenance of the Library of Congress. The Library was founded in the year 1800 on an appropriation of $5,000. It is now housed in the largest building of its kind in the world, the construction of which was begun in 1886 and completed in 1897 at a cost of a little over $6,000,000. Its beauty speaks for itself to all those who visit the National capital.

The Library of Congress contains over 3,000,000 printed books and pamphlets, the third largest collection in the world, and an enormous number of letters, manuscripts, and maps which are of priceless value to the student of history and biography. Its decorations.

The Library and National Education

TH

HE peculiar and perhaps most interesting feature of the Library of Congress is that its Librarian, Dr. Putnam, conceives of it as a kind of National university. It co-operates with other libraries, both public and private, all over the country by supplying at cost information on cataloguing and bibliography. "Books are lent to other libraries for the use of investigators engaged in research expected to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge."

In carrying out this educational conception the Librarian, with the cordial and hearty support of Congress, has devised a unique plan. In conjunction with the Library, a "Trust Fund Board" has been created by Act of Congress consisting of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Congressional Joint Committee on the Library, the Librarian, and two persons appointed by Librarian, and two persons appointed by the President. This Trust Fund Board is empowered to receive gifts and bequests of money from private donors and to spend the principal or income, as the donor may designate, "for the benefit of, or in connection with, the Library, its collections, or its service."

There are various ways in which this unique plan of privately endowing a Governmental institution may greatly extend the public usefulness of this National Library. Among them, Dr. Putnam has instituted privately endowed chairs, like those of a university, with expert incumbents who will aid students and research workers in using the resources of the Library in various branches of history, science, and the arts. Those who are interested will do well to obtain from the Librarian a brochure entitled "The Library of Congress and Its Activities." It may surprise some critics of democracy to find how efficiently Congress has acted in the administration of this institution.

Intelligence is the surest safeguard of democracy, and the welladvised use of books is the surest way to cultivate intelligence.

A Proposed Sentencing Commission

both of painting and sculpture constitute G

a veritable museum of the fine arts.

As a physical achievement alone the Library of Congress is a credit to democracy.

484

OVERNOR SMITH, of New York, has made a proposal for the treatment of criminals that is deserving of the most sympathetic consideration and study.

At present when any one accused of crime is tried and convicted he is sen

tenced by the trial judge. Under th law certain punishments are attached certain crimes. One might almost s that the law has drawn up a price-list crimes indicating how much each crir shall cost the perpetrator. Penalty measured according to the nature of t crime committed. W. S. Gilber phrase about letting the "punishment the crime" fairly describes the prese system. In comparatively modern tim this system has been made more flexibi More consideration now is given to t proper treatment of the criminal a less to the exact measurement of t crime. But in general our systems punishment are based on the old conce tion that the penalty exacted is in t nature of a payment.

The modern and more enlighten view is that penalty is not retributiv but protective and curative. It shou be for the purpose of safeguarding s hand, and, on the other hand, restori ciety against the criminal, on the o the criminal, if possible, to a norm condition. To put it otherwise, o criminal laws should be designed, fir to make the criminal safe for societ and, in the second place, to make hi safe for himself.

What Governor Smith proposes is confine the court to the single duty determining in cases of felony wheth the accused is guilty or not, and then leave the decision as to what should done with him to a sentencing boar The function of this board would be determine the proper disposition to made of the felon-whether, for exa ple, he should be sent to a hospital insane asylum, or be sent to prison, an if sent to prison, for what term and u der what conditions of parole.

Arguments against this proposal a easily contrived. The judge who tries criminal may be presumed, it may said, to know all the facts, and ther fore to measure the felon's guilt. As matter of fact, however, sentences a often unequal even when they are su posed to be determined by the guilt; an guilt ought not to be the determinin factor, but the relation of the particul criminal to society. Such a sentencin board, it may be said, might tend break down that sense of justice tha rests upon the impersonality of the lay But impersonality of the law has no created a sense of justice so much as sense of what it costs to commit crim

Governor Smith does not propose tha this plan be put into operation by th Legislature at once. He suggests rathe

The Outlook, December 21, 102

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that it should be submitted for study to a commission to make a report after a public discussion.

Governor Smith's proposal is an interesting step in the direction of making punishment fit, not the crime, but the criminal.

Outside the Fold

THE

HE prop on which Governor Smith, of New York, has leaned to support his contention that New York State does not need and ought not to have a prohibition enforcement law has been knocked from under him by no less an authority than the United States Supreme Court.

The Governor has contended that enforcement may be made by police and troopers acting for the State. The Supreme Court says not. No doubt local officers may stop a crime committed under their noses without asking whether the criminal is violating Federal or State law. But search, arrest, and seizure without warrant, on suspicion, cannot be so made, and State officers cannot serve Federal warrants.

New York and Maryland, we understand, are the only States that have no State prohibition laws; and even Maryland has county and local ordinances.

The case decided reverses a decision of a Federal circuit court. The men connected will now go free because State troopers without a warrant searched their car on mere suspicion and found some Canadian ale. Justice Brandeis, of the Supreme Court, said: "We are of the opinion that the admission in evidence of the liquor wrongfully seized violated rights of the defendants guaranteed by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments."

When the Amendment gave States "concurrent power" to enforce its provisions, it assumed that they wished to uphold the Constitution. New York says it does not.

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to what he said in August; but somehow he has seemed to convince doubters by these words which he addressed on December 6 to the members of the Republican National Committee:

This is naturally the time to be planning for the future. The party

Herbert C. Hoover

will soon place in nomination its candidate to succeed me. To give time for mature deliberation I stated to the country on August 2 that I did not choose to run for President in 1928.

My statement stands. No one should be led to suppose that I have modified it. My decision will be respected.

After I had been eliminated the party began, and should vigorously continue, the serious task of selecting another candidate from among the numbers of distinguished men available.

Candidates for the Republican nomination who have been waiting for their followers to become convinced that the President was not going to run in 1928

should now be able to assure their followers or be assured by their followers

that the field is free. Foremost among

those whose names are likely to be presented to the Republican Convention at Kansas City next June are, of course, Herbert Hoover, Frank O. Lowden, and Charles G. Dawes. Since both Dawes and Lowden come from the same State, they are not likely both to be formally presented to the Convention; but it seems most probable that each will receive votes. Mr. Merritt in his editorial correspondence from Washington in this issue comments on the political situation in the Republican Party as a conse

quence of Mr. Coolidge's following u the word "choose" with the word "will

But politicians are slow to believe; even Mr. Hughes had to remind them that he had already said he "would neither seek nor accept the nomination."

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The State of the Country

PRE

RESIDENT COOLIDGE'S Message t Congress was delivered too late fo comment last week. It is a long Mes sage, and one that cannot be adequately summarized in brief space. Among th subjects with which he dealt the mos controversial include farm relief, floo control, Muscle Shoals, a Department o Education, and lynching. What he sai about farm relief is far from satisfactory to those who want either some form o price fixing or a subsidy. What he said about flood control is far from satisfac tory to those who wish the Federal Gov ernment to meet all the cost of protect ing lands along the Mississippi. Wha he said about Muscle Shoals will not sat isfy those who think the Governmen should make of it a model power plan for the production of fertilizer. Wha he said in recommending a Departmen of Education will be opposed by thos who believe that the tendency to bureau cracy in the Federal Government need to be not encouraged but withstood And what he said about lynching wil alienate those, especially in the South who believe that such an evil should and can be dealt with by the States. these and other subjects there will b occasion for comment as measures deal ing with them come before Congress.

As to the maintenance of prosperity, the President believes that it depends upon the maintenance of confidence.

O

Party Maneuvering in the Senate

As the Senate of the United State

assembled the Democrats migh easily have organized it. Their number exactly equals the total of other Senator

regular Republicans, irregular Repub licans, insurgent Republicans, and the lone Laborite. Somewhere among thes classes the one vote necessary to make a Democratic majority easily could have been found. The Democrats were a some pains not to find it.

There are several reasons which may have inspired, in varying measure, the unwillingness of the Democrats to as

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