The Guide Post

A

HUNDRED years ago, Americans who

were 'internationally minded' were privileged to enjoy Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, then published in Philadelphia. In the year 1844, E. Littell of Philadelphia removed his printing and publishing business to Boston, where THE LIVING AGE took the place of the predecessor periodical. Littell explained in a foreword to the first number of THE LIVING AGE that the removal from Philadelphia was principally for the reason that in Boston he would receive the foreign periodicals earliest, since that port had been recently selected as the American terminus of the first steamship line connecting Great Britain with the United States. But arrivals did not always synchronize with publication requirements, for in THE LIVING AGE bearing the date May 11, 1844, it is recorded: 'As we go to press we hear the noise of the steamer's arrival and know that our periodicals are on board, but we cannot use them for this number. At the time this was written, sailing vessels still made the quickest transatlantic crossings, but the steam packets were considered more dependable as to schedule and were principally used for the mails. So it was that Littell declared nearly eighty-five years ago, as we have had frequent occasion to note, that 'the steamship has brought Europe, Asia, and Africa into our neighborhood,' also stating that 'much more than ever, it now becomes every intelligent American to be informed of the condition and changes of foreign countries.' But the early numbers of the magazine sought to inform intelligent Americans of the condition and changes of foreign countries, principally by reprints from the British press. It was not until a more recent period that the publishers conceived that the main purpose of the periodical, which has never changed, could best be served by including important and significant translations into English from the press of foreign countries.

To paraphrase the proverb, the way of the translator is hard. His art is so difficult that it may never be claimed that translations, however well done, can (Continued on page 396)

World Records

-As recognized and recorded monthly by the editors of THE LIVING AGE.

Readers are invited to call the attention of the editors to items appropriate for this department.

TRANSATLANTIC TRAVELERS. William and Daniel O'Brien, twin boys aged four months, who are the youngest holders of passports ever to cross the Atlantic, recently arrived at Liverpool by the White Star liner, Celtic. They traveled in the care of a stewardess on the ship, their mother having died the day after they were born. The young travelers had been sent to live with their grandmother, a Mrs. Collins, of Trevis Street, Barry Decks, South Wales, and they reached their destination happy, safe, and sound. MATRIMONY. A divorce after but forty minutes of married life is claimed by the Times (London) as the world's record for the 'shortest marriage.' The husband was a workman in Leningrad, and his wife a girl of humble station. They were wed by Soviet law, and left the magistrate's office. In less than three-quarters of an hour they reappeared to ask for and obtain a divorce. They had spent their brief honeymoon on a tram, quarreling as to where they should live. They could not agree as to this, but agreed not to live together.

MURDER AND SUICIDE. The first recorded case of suicide in an airplane, accompanied also by murder, is claimed by Belgrade dispatches in a tragic narrative in which the fiery passions of the Balkans and the picturesque lethal possibilities of modern air navigation were fatally combined. Sergeant Major Firowica, one of the most daring air pilots in Yugoslavia, took his sweetheart aloft for a ride in the sky. Soon they quarreled, and Firowica turned his plane downward in a death-dive. He was killed instantly. The young woman lived only long enough to murmur that they had disagreed, the Sergeant Major then having exclaimed desperately, 'Now we die together!'

BARREL ROLLS. Eighty 'barrel rolls' were recently made by Thursder Johnson, St. Paul (U. S. A.) aviator, before he was forced to descend. For those who don't know, a 'barrel roll' is described as a manœuvre whereby a plane turns upon its axis with a screwlike motion as it proceeds upon its forward flight. It is difficult for the pilot of the plane to endure because of the uncontrollable nausea induced. The previous consecutive barrel roll record was twenty-six. It was in doing a slow barrel roll too close to the ground that Lieutenant (Continued on page 400)

World Travel
Calendar

A Ninety-Day Forecast of Picturesque and Distinctive Events Abroad

NATIONAL CELEBRATIONS. January 5th, Epiphany Eve, celebration of the 'Galette du Roi'; February 12th, Mardi gras. NATIONAL HOLIDAY. March 7th, Mid-Lent celebration (Mi-Carême).

CANNES. February 8th through 12th, Mardi gras festivals.

LOURDES. February 11th, Day of Our Lady. NICE. February 8th through 12th, Mardi gras festivals.

PARIS. January 1st, Fête of the Circumcision (parades and exchange of gifts); 3rd through 11th, Festival of St. Geneviève; 4th, 6th, 11th, 13th, 18th, 20th, 25th, 27th, concerts by Paris Symphony Orchestra; February 1st, 3rd, 8th, 10th, 15th, 17th, 22nd, 24th, concerts by Paris Symphony Orchestra; March 1st, 3rd, 8th, 10th, 15th, 17th, 22nd, 24th, 28th, 29th, concerts by Paris Symphony Orchestra; 26th through 28th, Foire aur jambons (Ham Fair).

ST. MALO (NORMANDY). February 27th, Great 'pardon' of Newfoundland fishermen.

GERMANY

NATIONAL CELEBRATION. February 3rd,
Bonfire celebration of Little Candlemas.
BERLIN. January 1st, International Riding &
Driving Tournament opens; 26th, 'Green
Week' and Hunting Exposition opens.
(Continued on page 380)

E

WORLD INTERPRETATIONS

JANUARY 1929

1

WORLD TRAVEL

MR. COOLIDGE PREPARES FOR MR. KELLOGG'S PEACE UROPE is still echoing with President Coolidge's Armistice Day speech, in which he rebuked the Powers for their failure to disarm and in the same breath proclaimed that 'world standards of defense require us to have more cruisers.' Coming at a time when the ratification of the Kellogg Treaty is shortly to be discussed, both in the United States and abroad, his speech strikes even the most friendly European critics as lacking in tact; and, though the subsequent debates in the British House of Commons have been censored before publication in the British press, it is known that the question was frankly asked: 'Are we contemplating war with America? That the questioner was promptly hushed does not make his question any less significant.

Of course foreign comment overlooks one phase of the situation. So far as the United States Senate is concerned, the ratification of the Kellogg Treaty is made easier and not

NUMBER 4337

way, any Senator, however belligerent, should be willing to vote for the renunciation of war in theory, if he were

Punch, London

more difficult by preparedness pronunciamentos by "President Coolidge and President-Elect Hoover. Anomalous as

AMERICAN DOVE: 'Cock-a-doodle-doo!'

Kellogg Treaty if they thought it would interfere with a programme for adequate military preparedness. Stated another

assured that the United States would make adequate provision for war in reality.

Of course the chief danger in the present situation is the possibility of competition in naval armaments between Great Britain and the United States a rivalry which would not be any less menacing to the peace of the world because the United States at present undoubtedly does possess an economic strength which would enable her to build more ships in less time than Britain. The world is now face to face with the very problem that was foreseen at the close of the World War, when Colonel House and President Wilson, especially the former, sought to persuade the British that they had more to gain than any other nation by proclaiming the future freedom of the seas' in war as well as in peace.

1

The British standpoint is easy to understand and commands ready sympathy. The island of Great Britain supplies only a quarter of its own food and cannot exist unless the sea-lanes leading to its ports are kept open. The present British Government believes that the

M. POINCARE STUMBLES AND GOES ON

A

YMOND POINCARÉ, after having been forced to resign the premiership in one of the most curious upsets in French parliamentary history, is Premier once more. This is his fifth occupancy of the office, and he now has the distinction of being the first Premier of France who does not at the same time head a government department. In his last Cabinet, which was overthrown by the Radical Socialists early in November, M. Poincaré was Finance Minister; but in the present ministry he has given up this post to M. Henri Chéron. The reason for this unusual step is to be found in the fact that France is at present carrying on a series of extremely important diplomatic negotiations, to which M. Poincaré wishes to devote his undivided attention.

only way to assure the safety of the sealanes is an adequate supply of small cruisers, capable of defending commerce everywhere on the high seas. But small cruisers require naval bases not too remote, and the American Government cannot entrust the defense of its own immense sea-borne commerce to small cruisers, because it lacks the necessary naval bases. Its demand to which President Coolidge lent support in his Armistice Day speech is for a number of larger cruisers, to which the British Admiralty is unalterably opposed. On this point the Geneva Naval Conference broke down completely, and there seems no near prospect of agreement, unless the Labor Party, with its traditionally pacific policy, should come into power at the British General Elections next Spring.

If the two countries now the greatest naval powers in the world fail to reach agreement, competition in naval armaments seems inevitable; and three centuries of British naval history show how dangerous such rivalry is to the peace of the world. Spain, Holland, France, and Germany have successively challenged the supremacy of British naval power, and have been crushed in consequence.

It is all too easy to draw from those facts a deduction as inexorable in its logic as it may be terrible in its consequences. That such gloomy forebodings are suggested while the Kellogg Peace Treaty is awaiting ratification by its signatories must be discouraging to every friend of peace.

The political crisis through which France has just passed, and which led to M. Poincaré's momentary downfall, was occasioned by the sudden reappearance of the old bogy of Clericalism - which in France means the meddling of the Catholic Party in the affairs of a laicized State. The upset came as a complete surprise; for only last June the Poincaré Government had an overwhelming majority in the Chamber, and public confidence was generally thought to have increased since that time.

The whole upheaval was caused by what now seems to have been a ludicrous blunder in the Finance Ministry, though it may have been a deliberate effort by it may have been a deliberate effort by some unidentified politician to precipitate a crisis and thus work off a grudge against Poincaré. Some twenty years ago, the French Government expelled all monastic orders from France. This had numerous embarrassing results, not the least of which was the gradual substitution of Italian for French missionaries in the French colonies. Someone appears lately to have come to the conclusion lately to have come to the conclusion that it would be a good thing for the French to have their own missionaries especially since France had always been jealous of Italian influence in her colo

nies, particularly those in French North Africa. Accordingly, two articles - soon to be known all over France as Articles 70 and 71 - were providing for the restitution of limited rights to several monastic orders slipped into the pending Budget. M. Poincaré consulted several members of his Cabinet individually concerning these articles, but did not bring them formally before a Cabinet meeting. It was here that his arch enemies, M. Joseph Caillaux and M. Louis Malvy, both of whom had been convicted of treasonable practices while Poincaré was President during the War, but who have nevertheless since managed to make their way back to some degree of political power, saw their chance for revenge.

Their party, the Radical Socialist, was about to hold a national conference. Four members of Poincaré's 'Cabinet of National Union' were Radical Socialists. Malvy and Caillaux used their influence to persuade the party which has always been noted for its anti-Clerical feeling to vote a resolution condemning the now famous Articles 70 and 71 of the Budget. This compelled the resignation of the four Radical Socialists in the Cabinet; for, by not protesting, they had lent their tacit approval to the measures that their party spurned. Not the least amusing feature of the whole proceeding was the spectacle of each of these ministers attempting to explain how the disputed articles had slipped by him without his knowledge, when the Budget which contained them had been available in printed form for several weeks!

In spite of this loss of four ministers out of his Cabinet of twelve, M. Poincaré has been able to make a new choice among the innumerable French parties and to form a new Cabinet in which the Radical Socialists are not represented at all. He has lost M. Herriot; but he still has a majority of forty-eight votes in the Chamber of Deputies and is therefore expected to be able to maintain his fifth Cabinet in power.

That he should do so at this time is of almost as much importance to the world at large as it is to France. With new steps being taken to settle the vexed questions of reparations, war debts, and disarmament, it is highly desirable that French opinion be voiced by a strong government. Had M. Poincaré been unable to return to power, much past negotiation would have had to be done over again. Now, however, it seems certain not only that he will be able to keep the franc, which he stabilized several months ago, at its present position, but also that he will be able to continue negotiations which may solve three of Europe's most troublesome post-war problems.

MR. HOOVER WOULD SEE

O

FOR HIMSELF

THE WORLD OVER

man is likely to accuse President-Elect Hoover of provincialism. In the course of his conspicuous career as a professional engineer and as a *reconstructive specialist in catastrophes,' he has lived and worked on every continent save one. But Mr. Hoover has hitherto possessed no first-hand acquaintance with South and Central America, though two terms as Secretary of Commerce have, of course, given him a wide knowledge of Pan-American trade relations, as seen from the United States.

His present journey, therefore, has two obvious motives. It will add to his knowledge of the nations with which he will have to deal during the next four years, and of their leaders. While it would be idle to pretend that during the whirl of official visits and receptions which mark his tour Mr. Hoover can gain any very profound information of political or economic conditions in the nations he visits, he will nevertheless, as the semiofficial representative of the United States, gain that vivid, and very real though not readily definableunderstanding of the affairs of other nations which no amount of theoretical knowledge can convey and which can come only from having seen with one's own eyes.

Mr. Hoover's visit should also make easier his future task of fostering PanAmerican good will. The smaller nations of the two Americas have sometimes seemed to suffer from a kind of international inferiority complex. Unmindful that some of the greatest nations of history have also been the smallest in territory and population, they allow themselves to feel overshadowed by the very bigness of the Colossus of the North.' The countries which Mr. Hoover is visit

ing ought by all the laws of reason to stand in close and permanently friendly relations with the United States. Although the newspapers have not yet reported Mr. Hoover's use of the quotation, THE LIVING AGE recommends to Mr. Hoover, as appropriate for an occasional postprandial speech, lines used by Senator William Edgar Borah, of Idaho, when he was discussing the relations between Mexico and the United States:

'God has made us neighbors

Let Justice make us friends!'

Certain it is that the Latin-American nations share with the United States nations share with the United States essentially similar forms of government essentially similar forms of government and common economic interests. As customers of the United States, the LatinAmericans are second only to the Europeans. United States investments in Latin-American countries amount to nearly five billion dollars, and the United States' annual trade with them amounts to about two billion.

Yet the relations of the United States with her Latin-American neighbors, though close, have never been free from constraint. Language has been one barrier, and the differences between Latin and Anglo-Saxon customs and ideals another. But the gravest barrier to mutual understanding, and the barrier most difficult to remove, has been the suspicious attitude of even the largest and most powerful and most powerful Latin-American states as they contemplate the stupendous growth of the United States.

Latin Americans, then, should find a peculiar gratification in the fact that the first act of the internationally famous President-Elect is to pay them a visit in spite of the circumstance that his goodwill voyage is made on fighting ships. will voyage is made on fighting ships. The result of the tour should make far pleasanter the official relations which will pleasanter the official relations which will begin next March. But Mr. Hoover's

325

task will still be sufficiently difficult, due in part to his inheritance of the Coolidge policies, which Hoover has unreservedly approved. These have never been popular in Latin America.

The journey of the President-Elect suggests an interesting query. Mr. Hoover already possesses a unique knowledge of European states and statesmen. His Latin-American tour will provide him with a somewhat similar, though more cursory, knowledge of men and affairs in South and Central America. Thus equipped with an international knowledge and acquaintance that few Presidents have possessed, will Mr. Hoover as President fall into the same error as did an illustrious predecessor within recent years, and attempt to be his own Secretary of State?

It may be claimed with confidence that the most efficient and successful administration of the office of President of the United States requires that this high functionary should, in most matters affecting international relations and in many matters involving internal policies, remain somewhat in the background, while his Cabinet members 'feel out' public sentiment, try experiments, and, inevitably, make mistakes. A Cabinet member sufficiently loyal will try to have it this way. Appeal can then be made to the President, who, with fuller information, and advantaged by sober second thought, should set matters right, and so receive credit for most real achievement and escape as much blame as possible for bungling. In other words, an Executive, with a Cabinet, should be a court of last resort and not of original jurisdiction. It is only by such methods that PresidentElect Hoover will be able to escape the wear and tear and strain and utter devitalization resulting from the responsibilities of the most onerous and exacting public office in the world.

MUSSOLINI PLANS THE FUTURE ITALY

Tuon and respect for tradition hold

HE merciless grip in which conven

the minds of even the most outwardly unconventional of men is one of the more amusing anomalies of human nature. The conqueror, the fire-breathing dictator, no matter how secure he seems in his position, eventually feels the need of cloaking the nakedness of his power in the garments of recognized, conventional authority.

Benito Mussolini, Dictator of Italy, seems to be moved by much the same desire. Perhaps the rumors that his daughter is to marry an Italian prince will remain only rumors. But his whole political life, from his appointment' as Prime Minister by the King in the conventional manner, after the Black Shirts' highly unconventional march on Rome in 1922, to the final approval of his latest law setting up the Fascist Grand Council as a legally recognized organ of the Italian State, has been one long process of breaking the conventions (in most cases those established by the Italian Constitution), and then carefully legalizing the position that he had reached by extra-legal means. He has never hesitated to break the rules; but he has been just as quick to make new rules afterward to justify his action.

The Dictator's latest successful experiment in justifying his position the legalization of the Fascist Grand Council as the dominant organ of the State is the crowning glory of six glory_of_six years of autocratic rule. By it, Fascism becomes no longer a party in a parliament that nominally governs Italy, but the government of Italy itself. It is as if, by amendment to the Constitution of

the United States, one particular party

were empowered to draw up all laws, control all nominations for public office, and dictate the succession to the presidency. Also the new Grand Council Law provides for a successor to Mussolini. himself, and thus for the permanent continuance of the régime.

com

The Fascist Grand Council posed of the Prime Minister (Mussolini), the Cabinet officers, the President of the Senate, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, and leaders of all branches of the Fascist organization - has long been in existence, but has never before had its prerogatives clearly defined. The new law, passed by the Senate by 181 votes to 19, with only such unenlightened' persons as the world famous physicist and medical authority, Vito Volterra, and the great philosopher, Benedetto Croce, dissenting, now gives the Council four principal powers. First, it is to draft all important legislation. Second, it is to approve candidates for Parliament, who are not only to be suggested by subsidiary Fascist councils, but are to be the only candidates upon which the electorate votes, and, when elected, are to pass upon laws

which the Grand Council itself initiates. Third, it is to name all ministers, including the Prime Minister and Head of the Government (Mussolini's present official title), and is to proceed immediately with drawing up a list of persons suitable to take Mussolini's place when he dies. Finally, it is to dictate the successor to the throne itself, should any question over Victor Emmanuel's heir arise.

A question of much interest is whether Mussolini, in bringing about the passage of a law which gives the Grand Council such wide powers, has to any extent abdicated personal control. Not enough of the internal organization of the Council is known to make possible a categorical reply; its meetings are known to be secret, its members are immune to arrest save at the Council's own command, but its method of voting has not been announced.

The Dictator, however, is proceeding as if his personal position remained unchanged. He has just announced a crowded programme for the winter and early spring, ending with the election in April of a new legislature by the new method of voting, which insures a unanimously Fascist Chamber. Presumably he is counting for continued personal authority upon those talents which led a brilliant but somewhat unintelligible Italian savant who recently visited the United States to call him a 'charismatic leader' - a gentleman who has a miraculous influence upon his listeners. Certainly the Duce's prestige remains undiminished among his people, and it undiminished among his people, and it seems likely that Mussolini and Fascism have come to Italy to stay.

MEXICO ORGANIZES THE FORCES OF
REVOLUTION

MEXIubled history, has safely passed
Μ
through the combined trials of a presi-
dential election, the assassination of a
president-elect, and the appointment of
his successor; and she has ended with a
stable government which rules in law
and commands the respect of the nation.
José de Leon Toral, self-confessed assas-
sin of the late President-Elect Obregón,
is condemned to die; both he and his
supporters have accepted the court's
decision without murmur. Emilio Portes
Gil, broad-shouldered and thick of jowl,
has publicly taken the oath that makes
him Provisional President of the Mexi-
can Republic for a term of fourteen
months. And Plutarco Elias Calles, once
pointed out in fear as the dark man who
would make himself another Diaz, dic-
tator of his country, has at the close of
his presidential term stepped quietly
down from official position.

EXICO, for the first time in her

Calles, however, is a man of tremendous energy, of firm purpose. What are his plans, now that he no longer holds the official position which for six years provided an outlet for the blind forces of idealism that swell within him? Will he retire to the model farm, twenty miles

El Universal, Mexico City

EMILIO PORTES GIL

A MEXICAN CARICATURE of the new President, who succeeds President Calles for an interim term of fourteen months.

from Mexico City, that is the pride of his private life? Will he go back to his home state of Sonora on the Pacific, to take up again the educational work that first brought him into political prominence? He has said no. Instead, he will carry forward his struggle for the welfare of the workman and the farmer, his fight against factional rule, against the 'personalized' government that has been the curse of Mexico since the days of Porfirio Diaz: but he will do so in a new way. The only man in Mexico sufficiently powerful to maintain harmony between the various revolutionary groups, Calles has set out to build up a great National Revolutionary Party, a sort of political federation of the agrarian, labor, and Obregónista forces of the country, fused into a single political weapon capable of defending the liberties of the people. It is a work of education and of organization, in which Calles

is gathering together all the forces of the Revolution Revolution which in Mexico always means the revolution against Porfirio Diaz and the rule of the men on horseback.' When the work is done (the aim is to complete it before new presidential elections take place next November), the Mexicans will have been organized into the strongest and most inclusive political party the country has ever knownwith Calles at its head.

It is possible to see in this tremendous personal undertaking the development of a sort of Mexican Fascism based upon loyalty to the State, the formation of a single national political party that will sweep its leader into power when the interim presidency of Gil comes to an end. Equipped with the prestige he already enjoys, and with such an overwhelming new force behind him, it would be easy for Calles to rule again. But such a purpose is foreign to everything that he has said and done since Obregón's assassination.

His aim, to judge from what he says, is to weld the forces of democracy into an organ of such towering force that Mexico can never again slip back into