AMERICAN STATESMEN IN

R

EUROPEAN EYES

ECENTLY Mussolini had occasion to write a letter to General Cavallero who was retiring from the Ministry of War to devote himself to the manufacture of armaments. Mussolini thanked him in advance for his expected services in the latter field where much remains to be done, in spite of a certain Mr. Kellogg.' The Berliner Tageblatt (Berlin independent daily), with gentle irony, adds its tacit comment by headlining the dictator's statement. From such rapier thrusts in our direction we turn uncomfortably to the friendly gesture of the London Observer (Conservative weekly) which has pleasant things to say about Ambassador Houghton: "The American Ambassador holds what is now the most important diplomatic office of its kind in any capital. Whether for our own sakes or for his, we cannot pretend to be sorry that he missed election to the Senate in the recent campaign. At this juncture in the world's business Providence evidently had another opinion of where the biggest work was to do. Mr. Houghton does not wear his heart upon

his sleeve, and it is pos

mechanical devices. He is the Great Peptoniser. Two or three years ago the secretary of a woman's club wrote to me in London. She said that the members wished to study drama during the coming winter, and would I be good enough to tell her the name of a good book on the subject? During the preceding winter they had studied music, and during the winter which preceded that one they had studied philosophy. I told her of the names of a number of books, and added that I was interested to observe that her

society devoted three or four months to the study of music and philosophy. In our effete country, men devoted their lives to the study of one of these subjects! . . . Life is too easy for people here, and money, when it comes, comes too quickly and too bountifully. It may be that America is about to enter on a period of great flowering. On several occasions in The Observer I have stated that America seems to me to be in the same state of exuberance and fervor that England was in when Shakespeare was a boy. I have described Mr. Eugene O'Neill as the Marlowe of America, and on the whole I still believe that to be a true description, although I know of no man of genius who suffers from such grotesque lapses as Mr. O'Neill. Out of this ferment of vivid lives something superlatively great must presently emerge, and it may be that a boy is now playing in some village of America who is destined to be America's Shakespeare. The stuff is here waiting to be distilled into poetry. The young alchemist will find richness all round him.

THE ABSURDITY OF
ANTI-EVOLUTION
LAWS

UROPE in general and England in

critic for the New York World. Writing in the London Observer, Mr. Ervine says:

On the one hand, there are the generosity and responsiveness to idealism of America, and the indubitably beautiful architecture. On the other hand, there is the mob-mood, the timid gregariousness, the fear of individuality and the terrible impatience with prolonged effort. The desire for culture is keen, but it does not cause many people to devote their lives to its pursuit. The American wants quick results. Quick, quick, quick. He does not write a letter when he can telephone - his telephone service is fine, his postal service is awful - and he is daft about telegrams. He is becoming hysterical about speed, and childlike about

cover from amazement and grief at the American attitude toward the realities. of science. The Manchester Guardian (British liberal weekly) shakes an admonishing finger and talks of a 'reductio ad absurdum' American thought:

The law which was passed to preserve the school children of Arkansas from the contamination of Darwinian biology seems likely to save them the trouble of acquiring much other useful knowledge. It is illegal in Arkansas to let any child into the secret that he is either 'descended or ascended from a lower order of animals.' An inquiring

scholar may well wonder how it could be possible for him to have descended from something lower than himself. The object of the law, however, is to prevent him from ever asking any such questions. And here is the difficulty. Knowledge, after all, is one, and it is hard to find a modern dictionary or encyclopædia which is innocent of all illegal references to evolution. The Encyclopædia Britannica, with its voluminous essays not only on biology itself but on Darwin and all the other arch-heretics who have followed him, is clearly beyond the pale of the law in Arkansas. So, too, is that standard work of reference, Webster's International Dictionary, which declares that the theory of evolution is 'based on facts abundantly disclosed by every branch of biological study.' Thus most of the reference books in schools and libraries in Arkansas must be toppled from their shelves, outlawed, banned, or possibly burnt. In the view of some of the chief opponents of the law that is the best thing to be done with them, for thus, in an extreme example, could its absurdity be best demonstrated.

THE EUROPEAN
AS TOURIST

IN AMERICA

ECAUSE of the for

midable cost to foreigners of travel in the United States, it is rare to find travel articles devoted to American routes and facilities for sightseeing in the European press. The Neue Züricher Zeitung (Swiss democratic daily) recently published a brief article on the joys of touring on this side of the Atlantic:

'In Europe, one sees strange lands, strange peoples. In America only different aspects of one land and of one people. certain variations from the general type. One can best come to know the main type by a prolonged

stay in one place, preferably Chicago; travel shows one the deviations, the Chinese in San Francisco, the Mexicans in Los Angeles, the negroes in the South. Europe shows the visitor primarily a past; America has only the present to show. It makes a ludicrous effect when America talks of the past some 200 years. It makes a painful effect when one is shown the tiny remnant of the Indians which has not been annihilated, and when an Indian lets himself be photographed for twenty-five cents.'

The writer marvels at the efficient standardization which characterizes tours in the United States, especially in the national parks. The trip proceeds as if by magic. Baggage seems to take care of itself automatically. "The tourist, an atom in a large mass, has no cares; his only duty is to keep watch for the times of departure.' The European traveler does not find the railroads as comfortable as they might be for long journeys, and

POOR UNCLE SAM!

Arizona, and New Mexico that remind one of Africa; one learns to know, in the course of trips by automobile, the sections of Colorado that are like Switzerland, and the beautiful cities of the West; one sees everything that one cares to see, and the richness and beauty of the land keep one in a state of wonderment. And during the whole journey there is no annoyance whatever from passport officials and customs inspections.'

ANGLO-
AMERICAN WAR?

Ttude of many Ameri-
HE complacent atti-
of many

cans and Englishmen toward the 'impossibility' of an Anglo-American war under any conceivable circumstances is bitingly attacked in the National Review, a London Tory monthly edited by J. L. Maxse.

'We should not care to go so far as to say that a great many Americans seriously contemplate war with Great Britain,' says the editorial, 'though there are far more Jingoes in the United States of America than the Times, for example, is aware of -they probably outnumber the Pacifists. They are a political power, and it is notorious that any politician on the make becomes extremely popular whenever he manifests against England. As we had a sufficient dose of war from 1914 to 1918 to last us for some considerable time, we obviously want, and need, Peace, which is incontestably the greatest British interest. We are more likely to get it if we recognize that not a few Americans are always spoiling for a row with us, and are never so happy as when they are fulminating against John Bull, after the manner of Big Bill Thompson of Chicago. They don't always mean all they say. It is a habit to blackguard the British, but a dangerous one, as one fine day, in their excitement, they may manoeuvre a weakkneed Washington Government into a position from which it would be difficult to withdraw without "trouble." We should envisage this eventuality, and do everything in reason to avoid it.'

'AMERICA celebrates the Hoover victory.'

complains particularly of the sleeping cars and the observation platforms, which have room only for 6 or 8 people. But he finds compensation in that 'the greatest reward of such a journey is the impression gained of the tremendous unity and diversity of the country. Everywhere one diversity of the country. Everywhere one meets the same race of men, the same customs, but also a variety bestowed by nature. One travels through the industrial sections of the East, the infinite corn and wheat fields, and the cotton belt; through the parts of Nevada,

E

GYPT'S flat Mediterranean coast prevents Alexandria from being seen until one's ship enters the great harbor. Then, in front and to the left, is the Mohammedan quarter. Shapeless, blank-walled houses whose windows give only on inner courts overhang the dirty and irregular ways. To the right of the steamer pier lies modern Alexandria, with trams, motors, traffic police. Could this have been, for a thousand years, the gorgeous capital of the Ptolemies? Did Cleopatra's needles-now of the Thames Embankment and New York's Central Park once rise imperiously in the Place Mehemet Ali? The senior clerk in Claridge's Hotel, just up the avenue,

From the Nile to the Euphrates

says yes. He is as familiar with Egyptian history as with the tricks of sly porters and touts down at the steamer landing.

All day long, except for the quiet noon hours, one may rub shoulders with Arabs, Greeks, Sudanese, Syrians, Turks. Some are musicians, some sweetmeat vendors. White-turbaned clerics go cheek by jowl with brown-skinned water carriers, beggars, lazy bazaar tenders. Another side of Egypt is conjured up by other side of Egypt is conjured up by mention of pyramids, heat, the strange odor of camels, the Valley of the Kings, the far distant desert, like a limitless sandy sea.

'We never made a better investment, from whatever point of view we may look

at it.' Thus speaks an Englishman of the Suez Canal. Even so, it is not attractive to the tourist. Port Said, its Mediterranean entrance, is where one takes the train for 'the mother of the world,' Cairo.

Cairo's modern half is built on Western lines, with fine hotels and broad, clean boulevards. No hostelries are superior to the Continental, Savoy, Shepheard's, the Semiramis. Cafés abound, many of them with gaming rooms. 'Scarcely any,' adds an English commentator, 'are suitable for ladies; especially does this remark apply to Cafés Concerts. Americans, however, will have their own ideas of what is what in Cairo!'

To-day, Cairo is the most renowned

city of all Africa. Its Azhar University has just rounded out a thousand years, somewhat to 1.. mgastonishment Grany an Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard man. Graceful mosques, museums rich in relics of the Pharaohs and ancient Egyptian civilization, a library filled with Arabic manuscripts and Persian miniatures these invite one irresistibly. The spell of Egypt is too strong to withstand altogether.

CAIRO

Cowling, Ewing Galloway

He who stops in Cairo without mounting the Citadel may count his visit as naught. Saladin, that insatiable conqueror, built up this great stronghold in the twelfth century, to hold Cairo against the attacking hordes. Though occupied now by the British military the Citadel shows wonderfully interesting fortifications, and three mosques. Most notable of the mosques is that of Mehemet Ali, an alabaster pile standing high and white against Cairo's sky-line. Thirty miles of the Nile unfold from the Citadel's summit. Far off stand pyramids, sharp against the half-light of early morning or evening.

Few Western pastimes are missing at Cairo. Cafés Dansants are the Egyptian equivalent for New York's night clubs. As in Paris, places of amusement run the whole gamut of social desirability. There are Luna Parks, polo grounds, and tennis courts. Dress dances occur nightly at the hotels, and the English theatre awaits dramainclined visitors. Nearby Heliopolis, 'City of the Sun,' where Potiphar's wife lived and loved, has a golf course and first-class race track. In short, this old capital of the Caliphs is a winter

Egypt's capital is not only the happy abode of vacationists. Many delightful excursions to historic spots start from Cairo. One goes to the American Express, or Thos. Cook & Son, or Cox & King and exchanges so many pounds Egyptian for an infinitude of pleasurable novelty novelty - Memphis and the pyramids,

THE GREAT PYRAMID

it was smooth surfaced, but the shiny outside blocks were long ago pulled off and taken to Cairo for building purposes. Active visitors can scale the Cheops pyramid in a short time. From the summit one sees the Nile, Cairo's minarets, the great plain where the French vanquished the Mamelukes, the site of Memphis, a multitude of tombs

lying on all sides. Among the most prominent pyramids in view are those of Chephrenes and Mencheres. If one proffers a few piastres to an Arab, he will run up and down the Cheops or Chephrenes pyramid in nine minutes.

Most famous of all Egyptian excursions is the Nile journey from Cairo to Luxor and Assuan. One's steamer has sitting rooms on the upper deck, whence one sees Egypt's matchless and cloudless sunset. 'At last comes the moon, the great moon of Northern Africa, bringing into view in soft

Ewing Galloway clarity every outline of hill or bank, tree or building.'

Those who take the Nile trip are earnestly recommended to René Francis's Up the Nile, a pamphlet published by The Sphinx of Cairo and obtainable there. Luxor, crowning glory of the Nile Valley, faces the broad stretch of river and plain reaching away to the stern and serrated Theban hills. A superbly open building is the many-pillared Luxor Temple. From it one may take that unforgettable ride across the desert to the Temple of Karnak, passing along the famous Avenue of Sphinxes.

Egypt leads naturally to Palestine. From Cairo to Jerusalem is but an overnight trip, in the best of sleeping cars. The Holy Land, as everyone knows, has an infinitude of attractions for the pilgrim and casual sight-seer. Motoring is the favorite means of transportation, since one may stop at will and make many side excursions otherwise impossible.

BAGDAD ON THE TIGRIS

Ewing Galloway

THE OLD CAPITAL of Harun-al-Rashid lies to-day in the British mandated territory of Iraq. This photograph shows a 'koofa,' or boat made of skins, on the river.