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HERE have been recently appearing in the public press of both England and the United States attacks on the Jews as the alleged instigators of hidden conspiracy, revolution, communism, and anarchy, by means of which, it was asserted, they hope to arrive at the world's leadership. Not a single week has passed, we were told, without a strike directly due to this conspiracy, no matter where troubles have occurred, whether in Russia, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Turkey, Portugal, France, at Britain, or America.

he first feeling toward such propa

ganda, the chief medium of which is a singular book called "The Protocols," was one of contemptuous indifference. But, as its influence on uninformed minds should not be underestimated, it has seemed wise to a number of prominent Americans to make a protest. Among those men are Cardinal Gibbons, ex-President Taft, ex-President Eliot of Harvard, Robert Lansing, Herbert Hoover, Charles Evans Hughes, Alton B. Parker, Rabbi Wise, and Henry Morgenthau. These men - Catholics, Protestants, and Jews-declare that one of the grave problems of the present day concerns the rights of religious and racial minorities; that minority groups are being subjected to tyranny and oppression; and that "the alleged interests of the state have ever been the excuse of officials for persecuting a religious minority." The statement continues:

As for the excuse that persecution is for economic rather than religious or racial reasons, why is it, then, that it includes women and children as well as multitudes of men who are not engaged in business, and why does it not include men of other faiths who are notorious for the kind of financial dealings that are objected to? If persecution is primarily racial, rather than religious, it is none the less reprehensible. Race prejudice and religious bigotry are twins.

With regard to the "Jewish conspiracy" in particular, the statement, admitting that there are Jews prominent in some movements dangerous to society and government, adds:

It should also be recognized that Jews are prominent in most beneficial movements; that Jews are among the most intelligent, patriotic, and philanthropic citizens in our country, and that all dangerous movements include non-Jews.

Jews, like other people, are good, bad, or indifferent, and they have no monopoly of any one class.

The signers of this protest also appeal to all people of good will "to condemn every effort to arouse divisive passion against any of our fellow-countrymen, to aid in eradicating racial prejudice and religious fanaticism, and to create a just and human public sentiment that shall recognize the father hood of God and the brotherhood of

an element which has played a tremendous part in upbuilding the character of the American Nation.

One department of the Boy Scouts of America is known as "the Seascout Department." Its programme of activities not only prepares a boy for emergencies on water and on land, but it gives him a varied and interesting knowledge of seamanship. This organization is open only to registered Scouts at least fifteen years old and at least one hundred and twelve pounds in weight. The smallest group of Seascouts which can be organized must contain at least nine members.

Like the more familiar side of Boy Scout work, the Seascout Department grades its groups according to proficiency. The various classes are known by the names of different types of vessels; the lowest grade is the sloop class, the highest the ship class. The whole movement is organized in accordance with proper nautical terminology, but the programme of the movement is adapted both for boys who are fortunate enough to live near water and those who are marooned inland.

The Seascouts have an Admiralty Board, of which General George W. Goethals has just been elected Chairman. Mr. James Wilder is Chief Seascout, and those to whom this movement appeals will secure his enthusiastic support by addressing a letter to him at 164 East 38th Street, New York City. Mr. Wilder writes us: "I believe we've struck the thing that will do more for America than all the tomfool spellbinding we've heard for the last few years." Knowing Mr. Wilder, we feel that sea-loving Americans should second his appeal with the command, "Make it so!"

sure

COMMON WORSHIP

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N Episcopal service held in a Congregational church is sufficiently exceptional to be worthy of record.

This occurred recently at the Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church, Brooklyn. The full Episcopal service was read by the Rev. Drs. F. W. Norris and Robert Rogers, of the Church of St. Matthew and the Church of the Good Shepherd, respectively. The pasto of the Tompkins Avenue Church, the Rev. Dr. J. Perciva! Huget, made a hearty address of welcome and the sermon was preached by Canon E. A. Burroughs, Canon of Peterborough Cathedral, England, and chaplain to the King. He said in part:

Although it is not the first time I have preached in a church not of my own denomination, it is the first time I have witnessed the evidence of Christian unity and fellowship as dis

played here to-night. . . . It moves me deeply. . . . The whole world is waiting for a Christianity which is both catholic and free.

For society as a whole there are certain advantages as well as disadvantages in the differences among individuals and races. In religious experi ence as a whole there are also certain advantages and disadvantages in existing differences. But in the conduct of church services there is an advantage when people of widely different religious experiences can find a common expression of their fundamental unity by joining together in a liturgy that is ancient and inclusive.

THE PICTURES OF NICOLAS ROERICH

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HETHER Slavic art shows itself in Pavlova's dancing, in Tchaykovsky's music, in Turgenev's writings, or in Roerich's paintings, we must acknowledge a strange, subtle appeal not found in the art of any other race. Particularly is this felt in the pictures of Nicolas Roerich. Some of them are at present on exhibition at the Kingore Galleries, New York City; before long they will be taken to Chicago for exhibition there.

Many of them seem crude and fantastic. But even in some of the most fantastic you apprehend the painter's wish to express either purely imaginative sweeps of fancy, or his notions of primal forms or of primitive man; in others you feel his symbolism. Though his figures of men are often small and insignificant, and indeed quite lost in the landscapes, you have the feeling that human instincts and human ideals are being born in what may appear at first an apparently impersonal cosmic effeet. And so you are not surprised to learn that some of these canvases illustrate the painter's idea of the stone age and some of "pagan Russia," those longago periods when Vikings and Phonicians and Scythians held sway. In those periods Nicolas Roerich has really lived, moved, and had his being.

He grew up on his father's ten-thousand-acre estate in northern Russia, amid its primeval forests and lonely lakes. He gloried in the solitude of nature. His early attention was absorbed by the many mounds under which lie buried the Vikings of old, recalling the ages antedating the advent of Rurik, the founder of Russia, as we know it. (The artist's name, Roerich, by the way, is derived from Rurik.) Erelong the young Nicolas began excavating these mounds-secretly, because the law forbade it. He found bones, battle axes, belts, and brooches a-plenty. His mind became charged

"THE TREASURE."

PAINTED BY NICOLAS ROERICH IN 1919 AT VIBORG

An aboriginal creature, in the left lower corner, is hiding some treasure. The figure and the coming dawn are symbolic of present-day Russia

with the legendary doings of distant days.

In turn, his art is charged with that lore. It is at once real and imaginative. Real, because his clouds actually float, because you are conscious of the cold, clear, sub-Arctic atmosphere; imaginative, because you see enchanted palaces of barbaric beauty, because old folk tales are illustrated before you. All have the quality, not of the sensuous well-populated south, but of the virile scantily populated north.

Of the two non-Russians whose art has appealed to Roerich one is Wagner, whose "Nibelungenlied" music-dramas Roerich illustrated in the Moscow Opera scenery; the other is the yet more mystic Maeterlinck, whose influence on Roerich is shown in a "Princesse Maleine" series.

For the moment Roerich is gloriously "a man without a country." He would not accept the high post offered him by the Bolsheviki.

FORGETTING 1920

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a great many people in America the year that has just left us was depressing. In their memories it will remain as a time of low vitality, of disappointed hopes, of an idealism submerged in sordid selfishness, or, if not quite that, a year of painful awakening and rather unpleasant realities.

We have in mind two different groups of people who are glad to have 1920 out of the way.

One group consists of those who, having felt the exaltation of self-sacrifice during the war, have discovered that such feeling is not permanent either in themselves or in others. Having con

fused their exalted feelings with idealism, they have been led to the conclusion that ideals are evanescent. Four years ago they were looking forward with dread to the possible entrance of the United States into the war. They loved peace, partly because they believed peace was right and partly because they knew it was comfortable. Then, when at last the United States became a partner in the task of restraining the madness of Germany, they consoled themselves with the thought that America was making war in order to end war. This, they came to believe, was to be the last great conflict of the centuries, and in that faith or hope they took their part in the task. Their souls were uplifted. Ahead of them was a vision of a golden age in which men would no longer strive with one another, but, instead, would work together for the common good. They found comfort in the thought of peace without victory. They were convinced that the hundreds of thousands of young men who went into the war were seeking to establish a federation of the world, a parliament of man. Their faith was confirmed by the extraordinary personal triumph which the President of the United States received in western Europe, amounting almost to adoration. Two years ago their hopes were high. They saw the man whose words had kept their emotions stirred throughout the long months of fighting, who had set forth in the name of the peoples of the world a programme of peace and imposed it upon the statesmen of other nations, who had, as they conceived it, won in the name of America a peace without victory-this man they saw the apparently dominating figure of th

Peace Conference, the molder of the new world order. Though their hearts were made sick by the deferring of peace through the year 1919, they held fast their faith. And then came 1920 and the end of all their expectation.

Another and a very different group are glad to rid themselves of the year 1920. They never wanted peace without victory. They saw from the beginning that the only peace that is ever worth while is peace through victory. They did not pin all their hopes and all their faith on any machinery for making the world ever in a year or a decade or a century. They were content with the great task that was actually accomplished. Still they find 1920 an unpleasant memory.

"What do I think of 1920?" asks one of these. "I do not want to think about it. I want to forget it. It has been almost completely a year of negation, and negations are never inspiring. It has been a time not of getting on the right track but of getting off the wrong track. It has been a year of destruction rather than construction. It is all very well to say that it was necessary to tear down before we could build up, but I am always more interested in the erection of a sky-scraper than in its demolition. Specifically, this last year has seen the world engaged in a struggle to untangle the chaos of the Peace Treaty. It has seen the United States bending its colossal strength to the defeat rather than the election of a candidate for President. It has seen the army of commerce and industry marking time while it engaged in the painful but necessary process of deflation, and the end of this process is not yet. I look forward to 1921 with the hope that it will be a time of affirmation. I am sick and weary of negations."

Others there are, however, who have found in 1920 great satisfaction. They are those who believe that truth is always better than falsehood, that emotions are an unstable foundation for faith or life, and that no more can be expected of a year in history if it records the substitution of reason for emotion and truth for a dream. It is

discovered that liberty meant struggle and strife. And their descendants sixty years ago were not seeking safety or peace. They were seeking liberty; some of them in one way, and some in another. But they sought it so eagerly that they were willing, like their forebears, to fight and die for it. And the Americans that went across the sea to fight in France and Flanders were not seeking to establish a permanent peace. Nor were they seeking any kind of safety. What they were seeking was to defend liberty. Individually and collectively they scorned safety. It did not matter to them whether freemer. were safe or not. What did matter to them was that there should be in the world a power that denied freemen their right to be free. They hated war because they found it uncomfortable and full of restraints, but every one of them reserved the liberty, if he chose, of going to war again. And they proved that freedom is not only compatible with law, but can flourish only under law. Their contempt for their enemy was not only because he was a tyrantand freemen always have contempt for tyranny--but because he was lawless.

During the war the real purpose of America was obscured, and for a time it almost seemed as if it might be thwarted. Peace was made an objective instead of freedom and justice. It seemed as if idealism was almost confounded with pacifism and emotional exaltation with virtue. And with the end of the war came a new danger to the real ideals of America. For month after month we were told almost without contradiction that unless an enduring peace were established by some compelling process the war against Germany and the resultant victory would prove to have been in vain. What will make 1920 memorable is the emergence of the truth from beneath that error. In that year men learned that peace with compulsion is no true ideal of freemen. In that year was established the true objective of the war-a new ideal of freedom under the law.

that the real victory in the Great War was won in 1920. America did not fight to make the world safe for democracy. Americans are not the kind of people to seek a safe world. Their forefathers were willing to leave a land where they might have been safe and sought a wilderness where they were distinctly unsafe. What they left their native land for was not safety but liberty, and for that they were willing to endure and to die. They were not the kind of people to seek peace first. They were therefore not disappointed when they

ON A NUMBER OF

THINGS

E have taken the liberty of numbering certain paragraphs in the following letter which

comes from a correspondent who seems to suspect The Outlook of undue sympathy for a number of isms. Our replies to these numbered paragraphs appear in the same order.

In accordance with the wishes of several voters, this communication is

submitted to you for publication in The Outlook at your earliest convenience.

(1) Since the five Socialists were expelled from the New York Assembly the editors of certain papers and magazines have manifested a maudlin sympathy for the ousted Assemblymen, which has encouraged the Reds to a great extent. Hence the time is propitious for an earnest consideration of the real facts pertaining thereto.

(2) The fundamental principle of political Socialism, together with its synonyms, Communism, Sovietism, and Bolshevism, is that of collective ownership, which no intelligent person believes can be installed peaceably, for it implies the inauguration of a régime very similar to what is now in vogue in Russia: viz., confiscation, rapine, and slaughter.

(3) Treason is an overt attempt to subvert the government to which the offender belongs. Therefore any one who defends the Reds in their diabolical efforts to acquire power and overthrow our present form of government becomes particeps criminis in the said offense.

(4) Debs became the idol of the Reds when he preached sedition and inculcated disloyalty to our Government. As a deserved punishment, Debs is now serving a long sentence in prison. Victor Berger was expelled from Congress because of his disloyalty and enmity toward the United States. The Reds consider him a martyr to their cause. Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman were deported along with many other Reds wholly because they manifested an earnest desire to disrupt our present form of government by inculcating treason and manifesting contempt for our laws.

(5) Although the five Reds expelled at Albany have thus far refrained from committing such acts as Debs or Berger were guilty of, yet their alliance with the Socialist party is prima facie evidence of their desire to overthrow our Government. Hence their expulsion was, and always will be, highly commendable.

(6) Another source of joy to all Reds is the advocacy of free speech by the major political parties, and which was ratified by millions of loyal Americans, regardless of the fact that free speech does not prevail in any civilized country. Free speech becomes a misnomer when its exercise is restricted by condign punishment. Speech is free enough now to proclaim anything worthy of being uttered.

Hitherto politics has generally been regarded as that division of ethics which deals with the government of a people and which assumes to safeguard their peace, prosperity, and happiness. But unless a marked change is made in its operations, a new definition should be applied. WILLIAM WEST.

Cranford, New Jersey.

(1) We know of no newspaper or magazine save of an extremely radical tendency which has sympathized with the ousted Socialists themselves. The liberal and conservative press which

has complained against the ouster of the Socialists has been interested only in the principles violated in that ouster. It ought to be possible for citizens in a free nation to distinguish between sympathy with individuals or their beliefs and recognition of principles involved in dealing with those individuals.

(2) We see no objections to any one advocating a change of the American Government either into a communistic republic or into a monarchy so long as he advocates the use of Constitutional means to effect the end desired. If Americans are not intelligent enough to see the fallacy in the arguments put forward to advance such ends, they are not intelligent enough to be intrusted with self-government.

(3) Defense of the doctrines of the Bolsheviki and a defense of the right of an electorate to representation in an American legislative body are two separate and distinctive things. They cannot be put in the same category.

(4) Debs and Berger were punished for direct violations of law. Berkman and Goldman are almost as far removed in theory and practice from Debs as they are from the New York "Times." Debs believes in making the Government everything, Berkman and Goldman in making the Government nothing. At least this was their view when they were expelled from the United States as aliens convicted of crime. We have heard rumors that after an experience with Bolshevism in its own home they have come to see that America is not as bad as they thought.

It

(5) Alliance with the Socialist party may be prima facie evidence of a desire to change our Government. does not necessarily imply a desire to The dif

overthrow our Government. ference between these two positions must be, as we have said above, clearly and distinctly drawn.

(6) We are bewildered somewhat by the sentiment in this paragraph. Perhaps our correspondent differs from us in the definition of free speech. Free speech to our correspondent apparently means the right to say anything at any time without responsibility for the result. On the contrary, free speech means no such thing. It means the right to express one's views in speech or in writing, but it does not involve freedom from liability for the results which spring from what is said or written. Our correspondent is free to call his next-door neighbor a thief. There is no censor appointed to tell him in advance what he may or may not say. But if his neighbor is not a thief the neighbor can sue him for criminal libel, and if he cannot justify his charge he may go to prison or be

forced to pay a heavy fine. In speech, as in other things, freedom does not mean license.

A SHADOW OVER A PLEASANT LAND

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SHADOW has fallen on a pleasant and familiar land, the land of Barrie's make-believe. Perhaps those who saw "Dear Brutus" two seasons ago might have foretold the coming of this shadow, for there were elements in that play which hinted at darkening skies. At least in retrospect and in the presence of "Mary Rose" these warnings of an approaching change seem visible.

Barrie's new play, "Mary Rose," belongs in a world that never was on land or sea, but, unlike Barrie's other-world dramas of the past, the warmth of sunlight has almost disappeared and left in its place an eerie and tragic dreamland, peopled by fairies without delight and wraiths of souls lost to both the world of men and the world of dreams.

Mary Rose is the daughter of a middle-aged couple whose life is unclouded save by the memory of a strange happening of her childhood. When Mary Rose was a very young girl, they had taken her to a lonely place in the Hebrides, where in the midst of a loch lay a tiny island called in Gaelic "The Island That Likes To Be Visited." Left alone on this island, the little girl disappeared for a month, to be found again after thirty days with no memory of her absence and no trace of whatever

experience she underwent, save a certain remoteness of spirit which touched her only at lengthening intervals.

Her parents have concluded that when it came time for her to marry they must tell her future husband of this strange interlude in an otherwise normal life. Her lover is told the story when he asks for her hand, but the mystery does not deter him from making her his wife.

After their marriage and the birth of her son she journeys with her husband to the Hebrides and brings him to The Island That Likes To Be Visited. They picnic thereon, but when the time comes for them to depart voices heard only by Mary Rose call her away and she disappears.

It is no thirty-day interval which intervenes before she is brought back to her old father and mother and her husband, now a gray-haired captain of the Royal Navy. Thirty years have passed, her son has long since been lost in the vastness of Australia, but to Mary Rose this changed world does not exist. She is still the slender girl-wife who vanished from this mortal earth on the strange Island That Likes To Be Visited.

Much of what happens after her return is left to the reader's imagination. The last scene of the drama, like the first, is played in the deserted and broken mansion which was once her home. In the first scene of the play her son has returned in search of the familiar places of his youth. The play is a vision which he sees in one of the darkened and deserted chambers of his old home. The last scene of the play