Sasha Elkin. What most of our admiring friends from without the Pale failed altogether to see is the price that the rank and file of the East Side youth must pay for their ideals. Between the Sashas whose families were heart and soul with them in their strivings and aspirations and the unattached, unshackled converts who, like myself, had been fortunate enough to have come to America without their elders, there lay the great majority of the new generation who were in constant tragic conflict with the traditions and the sensibilities of their unhappy, outraged fathers and mothers. I don't know what Louis Gurevitch was thinking about, but surely his missionary zeal was running away with him when he imagined that he could convince his poor old parents of the futility of their faith by smoking cigarettes at their table on Saturdays and challenging their god to strike him dead on the spot. It only resulted in his father's driving him out of the house despite the fact that he was the family's chief support. The foolish chap repented of his nonsense soon enough, and kept coming to his mother and offering her his wages; but she would have none of his help.

"Apostate," she would cry bitterly, "why did you not die in my womb? You have broken my heart. Lord of the world, how have I sinned that you have given me such a kaddish?"

And there was Sam Menkin, who got himself arrested in the course of one of those never-ending cloak strikes. When his aged father and mother got wind of the affair they came rushing to the magistrate's court, Mr. Menkin, a former rabbi and still a pillar of the synagogue, with his patriarchal white beard, and his wrinkled wife with her peruque and long earrings, the day being a Saturday. Sam saw an opportunity in his discomfiture, and proceeded to address the court on the hypocrisy of the law and the essential unChristian spirit of all government, and the court rewarded him with a sentence to the workhouse. Whereupon Mrs. Menkin flung herself at the feet of the magistrate, and in a medley of sobs and

broken English implored that her boy be given a "show," because he was a good boy, only a little weak-minded, and that he had never been a criminal before, and would never offend again. Sam, however, seemed to resent his mother's defense of him, and was about to arise for another lecture, when his mother turned upon him with a storm of Yiddish invective, and threatened to denounce him as an old hand at the game and as the author of all her woes, because, if he had behaved himself, she could have remained in Russia all her life.

The Menkins' predicament was only a sample of the state of affairs throughout the Ghetto. The quarter was one huge battle-field, where the ancient war between the old conservative generation and the radical youth was continually being fought out. A chasm of misunderstanding yawned between fathers and children. Nearly every home had its little soul tragedy, and the grief of the elders was heightened by its undercurrent of disappointment. They had hoped that in America their faith would see an intense revival at the hands of their offspring. Freed from the hampering interference of a hostile world, Judaism would once again come into its ancient glory. That was why they had often referred to the United States as the new Jerusalem. Moreover, they had prepared to make sacrifices, so that the opportunities which had been denied to themselves in the old countries might come to their children. Here where education was free their sons would become doctors, teachers, and engineers, and be the pride and the joy of their families and the leaders of their communities. And instead of all this they found themselves helpless and ridiculous in a strange world, their young men and women drifting away from them in a manner which was far worse than apostasy to the dreaded creed of the Gentile.

If we were not all as fortunate as the Elkins, neither were we all as sincere. The worm at the core of East Side radicalism and intellectualism was its fatal attraction for the weak, the light-headed,

the neurotic, and the immoral. Every true and genuine faith will have its destructive side. In an old civilization like ours, littered with the wrecks of established creeds, there must be tearing down before there can be any building up; only too many of our comrades seemed to be unaware that revolution is preeminently a positive, constructive philosophy. Sometimes it was selfishness and more frequently it was obtuseness that kept them from seeing that the ethical obligations demanded by the new faith were more exacting than those of the old. It was not the idealism and the aspiration of the thing that had converted them, but the liberation it afforded them from the irksome practices and restraints of the synagogue. There was my fellow-countryman Marcus Hersch, who religiously attended all the radical entertainments and excursions and called himself a Nietzschean because he believed in free love, and prided himself on his free-thinking because he did not fast on the Day of Atonement. And there, to illustrate the opposite tendency, was the neurasthenic Joe Siegel, with his melancholy eyes and hanging head, who went about moping over the sordidness of this capitalistic world, the stupidity of the mass of mankind, and the remoteness of the social revolution as if they were personal sorrows. To see these two, and the scores of others like them, often made me wish that they could be persuaded back into the ancient fold. If they could only return to the solid ground of the old despotic religion and the preoccupations of some exacting business of the kind they had been brought up in, I thought, they would become sane people again.

These, however, are only the dark poles of a world that was otherwise full of light and hope and courage. The majority of us took life bravely as we found it, and, moved by a divine discontent, strove untiringly to make it better and to improve ourselves by way of preparation for it. All our lives long we had dreamed of emancipation and democracy and a nobler personal life, and here under the freedom of American skies we eagerly set about to

put our ideals into practice. It was essentially an Old-World dream which had not yet been dispelled by the rude realities. of the New World. East Side radicalism was only the flowering of a deep-seated racial culture which had not yet been wrecked by collision with the sober practicalism of America. The disintegration of this culture and this idealism was to follow only later, when the Ghetto entered upon the process of welding itself to the broader life of the country in which it was flourishing, when the Old World and the New World began to react upon each other and to remold each other.

This, if I view the complexion of things in my old beloved society aright is the stage through which the Ghetto, and in a minor degree the lesser foreign colonies, is passing. It is the period of transition and denationalization, when the alien has ceased to be his ancient self and has not yet become his new self. It is a period of chaos, of the decay of ideals and racial temper, when a man's whole spiritual constitution breaks up into its separate atoms, to be regrouped and rebuilt toward a new life. It is "Americanization," the liquid state in which the immigrant is no longer a foreigner and not yet an American.

To me, who have lived the life of the Ghetto in its sturdiest days, this degeneration comes with the poignancy of tragic death. As I wander through its streets and mingle with its people I feel like a lone survivor in some devastated world. A new generation unknown to me is in possession. The revolutionary socialist has shrunk into the politician, and clamors for votes from the tail-end of a motor-car as he once angled for souls from the top of a soap-box. The fine, idealistic youth has awakened to the realization that idealism in a competitive world brings nothing but starvation, and with characteristic energy has flung himself into the money scramble, determined to convince his neighbor the clodpate that when it comes to a game of grab and grow great, he can beat him at his own tricks. He has never lacked the supposedly rare talents for this sort of thing. The difficulty was to per

suade him that it was worth losing his immortal soul for. Now that life has somehow brought him around to it, watch him, I pray you, making headway in the race for success. He is rapidly transforming the firm names on the avenue, and taking his seat on boards of education and mayor's committees and in the Houses of Congress, and thinking every now and then, when business is not pressing, of his fiery youth, which is cinders and dust.

The institutions have gone with their makers. That excellent socialist newspaper, which we used to maintain by our savings and our enthusiasm, and which in the old days ran a quotation from Marx. for its motto, the burden of which was, "Workers of all lands, unite!" now announces in red ink that it has the largest foreign-language circulation in America and that its books are open for inspection. While another member of the old radical press invites its readers (in ink of identical shade) to contemplate the soul-stirring fact that it carries more high-class advertising than any other newspaper in the quarter, and that it addresses itself to a public of intelligence and high-purchasing power. As for the "Zukunft," I have not the heart to investigate its present condition. If it is still on the news-stands, it certainly does not dominate them as it once did. It appears to be completely overshadowed by a veritable bumper crop of "comic" weeklies and ten-cent monthlies, with pretty-girl covers. ning school where I acquired the rudiments of a cultural education is now plastered up with monster signs which inform me that the institution guaranties to turn out a successful bookkeeper in one month and a first-class stenographer in three. Ibsen and Gordin and the Russian dramatists have virtually relinquished the stage to the "adapted revue" and Mr. Chaplin, and the tired business man shrieks with delight where the sweat-shop intelligentsia of a decade ago would have hooted with indignation. The poets are still there, stationed at police headquarters to spread the under-world scandal to a decadent public.

The eve

And the lecture platform creaks to the tread of the perfunctory hireling who spouts of efficiency and advertising methods at ten dollars an evening.

There, as my prejudiced eyes see it, is your profoundest tragedy of Americathis inevitable annihilation of imported civilizations. It is a tragedy, however, lightened by a vast, rollicking farce and at broad beam of hope. For into the melting-pot leaps not only the alien immigrant, but also his neighbor, the first citizen; and when the ingredients have interacted and blended, there is, I like to believe, only a temporary loss and an ultimate great gain. The East Side has been inoculated with "Americanism," and is dying of the effect. But its splendid vitality, its youthful enthusiasm, its fine aspiration toward genuine democracy, are things that cannot die. They are only spreading abroad and passing into other hands. The insurgent from Russia and Poland and Lithuania has raced to America to deliver his message of trust and hope for a better world, and now he is fainting from exhaustion. But America has laid hold of his message. I look about me in this great country, and everywhere I am struck with a fresh note of faith and idealism. The old complacency, the old conservatism, the old pig-headedness, is visibly giving way to a broader, keener outlook upon life. I see a determined groping toward a new, meaningful literature, a significant, self-conscious sincerity, a militant democracy, a revaluation of accepted values. I observe that intelligent Americans are no longer disposed to speak flippantly of spiritual things, that college men are no longer eager to break strikes, that thoughtful men and women of the more fortunate classes regard themselves no longer as a superior race of beings, but as the sharers of common burdens and responsibilities with the rest of mankind, that earnest American statesmen are coming to look upon the solution of social problems as the primary business of government. No, the spirit of the old Ghetto is emphatically not dead. It has contributed to the revitalization of America.

"THE

HE Jenkinses? Close-grained, square edge, and sound? Me? Naw, sirree! I'm a lumber inspector. I ain't no prizefighter."

Mr. Phil Chester, grizzled veteran of the yellow-pine belt, faced the general manager of the Pine-Tree Lumber Company, wholesalers, and spoke his mind. Due to his more or less explosive temperament, his much-used nickname was "Pop-gun."

"Well, what 's all that got to do with your inspecting the Jenkins car of rough timbers?" asked Mr. Blake, the manager.

"That there order specifies close-grained short-leaf. Them Jenkinses ain't got no such timber."

way o' shovin' bad stock past inspectors, an' there 're three to one. I got all due respect for you, Mr. Blake, an' I can't fergit the Pine-Tree Lumber Company pays me my seventy-five a month an' traveling expenses; but I also got a perfectly natural likin' for my own hide to stay where it belongs. Naw, sir; if you don't want to lose money or to lose a good inspector, I suggest you put a younger man on this here job. I ain't equipped in the laigs to do it."

"Go get Norman," Mr. Blake ordered. As Pop-gun started out, the manager asked, "What do you think of Norman?" "Bob?" The old inspector's weatherbeaten face wrinkled into a smile. "He's

"They accepted my order for one carload of square edge, sound, close-grained pine. They are to be given ramp inspection and be paid accordingly." He added coldly, "I expect to get what I bought, and pay them for what I get."

"I tell you their short-leaf timber is so doggone short you can't see no grain in it. It 'u'd take three prize-fighters to make that inspection 'stid o' one. They 's three of 'em-ole Billygoat Alf an' two buck sons, Gabe an' Caleb. They're reg'lar desperadoes."

"I fail to see what the personal reputation of the Jenkins family should have to do with your taking up this car of lumber for order A-722."

one timberjack's highest form of compliment to another. Mr. Blake's look of annoyance left his face.

"Go get him." The old inspector went.

Robert Norman was slightly larger and heavier than the average man, slow of speech, but alert-eyed, erect, compact, muscular. His hair and eyes were black. It was rumored about the general offices of the company that Norman, who had been added to the inspection force only a few months previous, was a college man and an athlete. His work to date had shown that he knew perfectly well how to grade and tally yellow pine.

He came in with Uncle Pop-gun, bowed to the girl stenographer, entered the railedoff section of the office, and stood quietly

"You don't, hey? Maybe you did n't hear how they beat up Pete Markey and chased Bill Sullivan half-way to town. They was inspectin' for the Yellow Pine Corporation. Them Jenkinses have got a

manager abruptly asked:

"Did you ever take up stock from the Jenkins mill, near Wessing?"

"Yes, sir."

The eyes of Uncle Pop-gun widened. Every other inspector who had been to

that mill had a thrilling tale to spin when he got back to report. Norman had never before mentioned his trip to Wessing.

Mr. Blake's eyes had a twinkle in them as he studied the new inspector. The girl stenographer, at her desk near the doorway, had stopped writing; she seemed tremendously interested. Robert Norman alone appeared unconcerned.

"Did you have any trouble?" "None to speak of."

"Mr. Norman," she said, with a sort of stammering eagerness, "you had better listen to Uncle Pop. Those Jenkins men are really bad, and—and—” Norman said:

"They interest me, Miss O'Hara." He was looking at her dimples.

The young man passed quietly out through the auditing department and down into the street below.

He looked at his watch, touched the

gun.

Mr. Blake took up a sheet of paper from his flat desk-top. He handed it to Norman.

"That is copy of our order A-722, placed with Alf Jenkins & Sons, Wessing. The railroad has placed a car for its loading, and Jenkins has asked for an inspector. By the terms of the order we are to give them ramp inspection and pay them according to our inspector's report."

Norman looked over the order. The written specifications and figures showing sizes do not register as mere words and figures in the mind of an inspector: he sees mentally the size, grade, and grain of each item listed. As he read, Norman's brain registered mental pictures of the lumber itself.

The grizzled inspector, the manager, and the girl stenographer watched Norman's face and waited for him to speak. The young inspector's shaven face was expressionless. He placed the copy of the order inside his tally-book, thrust the little book back into his right hip pocket, bowed to Mr. Blake, and turned to go.

Uncle Pop-gun caught his arm. "Bob," he counseled earnestly, "I been at this game a long time. You take my advice an' stick a gun in your jeans."

Norman's dark eyes glimmered; his firm lips were slightly curved as he answered: "I did n't need a gun when I went there before."

Miss O'Hara looked scared. She was amazingly pretty to be a competent secretary. Norman liked the way she smiled; the dimples at her lip-corners were interesting.

measure, then drew out his cigar-case. He rarely smoked himself, but cigars are more or less necessary in the business of a lumber inspector. He went into a store and refilled the case.

It was only a fifteen-mile run to Wessing Station. He swung down from the train, which had merely paused to let him off, and looked about.

It was a typical sawmill village. On the other side of a railroad siding, which he faced, east of the main line, was a long row of lumber ramps, burdened with freshly cut pine.

Now and then an ox-team appeared, driven by a negro as slow-motioned as the oxen, drawing in an eight-wheeled wagon loaded high with long sticks of timber. Each wagon-load was removed by waiting negroes, the scented yellow sticks being shoved up on the ramps, which were built sloping from the ground up to a point overhanging the siding slightly higher than the tops of gondola cars. After the unloading, each ox-team was headed back into the far woods for another load. The few white people Norman saw were lazily loafing about, seeking shelter from the hot sun's rays. They seemed interested not at all in the affairs of others and very little interested in any affairs of their own. It was a hot, dusty, isolated, sleepy little village.

The young inspector spoke to no one. He moved along beside the ramps until he found a section bearing stock cut to the various sizes and lengths as shown on order A-722. A "gon" was placed in front of the ramps, awaiting its load. He jotted down its number and initial in his tally