AS Divergent Views of the Financial Future INFLUENCES THAT WILL DETERMINE THE DURATION OF PRESENT CONDITIONS-ARE WE IN THE "TRANSITION PERIOD"?— The Transition Period AMERICA AND EUROPE BY ALEXANDER DANA NOYES S one landmark after another is passed in the world's readjustment of finance and industry to the new economic era, events occur at intervals which remind us that the process is not completed in the affairs of any country; that we may, indeed, be to-day only in its earlier stages, and that the longer future, whether of economic conditions in a single state or of economic relations between them all, is almost as much an undetermined question as it was eight years ago. The position of the United States has seemed and still seems to be assured by the circumstances and sequel of the war. Yet the character of the recent industrial movement in this country causes a certain perplexity, and our financial relationship to other countries is surrounded with a curious atmosphere of doubt whenever the question is raised, what is to be the upshot of it. Meantime, changes of sweeping and dramatic character are occurring elsewhere in the world, yet without bringing any clear conviction as to their effect on economic relationships. Prosperity has now continued without a setback in the United States for a longer consecutive period than the country's peace-time history can perhaps produce in memory. Not all of our industries have flourished equally. Some of them have indeed complained of difficult times; it is also true that frequent intervals have occurred of what may be called relaxation in the pace of industrial activity. But this relaxation has been brief of duration, never disturbing to public confidence, unaccompanied by any of the demoralization in credit and disaster to individual business enterprise that invariably marked the "trade reactions" which used to occur at two or three year intervals under the old economic regime. As a matter of fact, each successive pause in the movement of expansion, each moderate curtailment of production adjusting itself to the temporarily reduced consumption, has thus far invariably been followed shortly by the speeding up of both consumption and production to an activity exceeding all previous experience. AT and Counter T the same time it has become increasingly noticeable that considerations which were accepted, two or three decades ago, as sure to make or mar American prosperity are regarded nowadays, if not with indifference, at least as secondary influ- Influences ences. Profitable agriculture, rising prices such as would Influences themselves enhance the earning power of producing enterprises, a prosperous Europe which would create increasing demand for our exportable products-one or all of these conditions precedent used to be regarded as indispensable for continuance of good times. American prosperity was considered to be impossible when none of them existed; when grain and cotton growers were in distress, prices falling, Europe's capacity to buy decreasing, and our export trade to Europe declining. That has, in most respects, however, been the very course of events which has marked the past three years which we describe as our period of greatest prosperity. The inference came to be widely drawn that prosperity in the United States is nowadays shaped by something else, that neither profitable home agriculture nor a financially flourishing outside world is essential for its continuance. Visible circumstances seemed to bear out the supposition. Industrial production and consumption repeatedly rose above their already almost unprecedented magnitude. Profits and dividends of manufacturing and distributing companies increased; industrial managers, bankers, politicians, and, not least of all, our foreign competitors, agreed in testifying to the exceptionally high scale of American prosperity. In the political situation it was recognized as contributing the greatest element of strength to the party in power. NEVERTHELESS, several questions The Questions of Doubt of doubt are still raised from time to time regarding the longer future. They have partly originated from an underlying belief that human experience, in the alternations of finance as of other fields of achievement, will in the long run repeat itself, even if in a different way. More often, however, they have had their basis in a feeling that we are not now at the end of the transition period from the old to the new economic order, but possibly only in the beginning of it. When, it is suggested, even American finance and trade (not to mention Europe's) have passed through at least four distinct and contrasting phases since 1918, is it unreasonable to ask whether the present condition of what is sometimes described as "stabilized prosperity" in the United States may not conceivably be only another phase, longer-continued than the rest but equally destined in due course to change into still another? As one usually hears it, the inquiry regarding our own future raises several distinct questions. Some of them have recurred at every slackening of trade activity. Can the present American prosperity, in the nature of things, be indefinitely continuous? Will not the country's buying capacity be checked at some point, especially when future requirements have for so long a period and on so great a scale been anticipated by "instalment buying"? If that were to happen, should we not then be confronted with the problem either of over-production or of vanishing profits from production limited to consumption? That result has already been brought about in the grain and cotton industries. It was the basis of a recent and very urgent appeal by the oil trade for the government to help it in forcibly restricting output, so as to remedy a condition of over-production and unremunerative prices which was explicitly declared already to have become desperate, and the effort to curb the excessive production has thus far failed. As against the acknowledged over-production in numerous crude materials, steel and textile manufacture is confronted with a capacity of production far beyond the maximum consuming power. Each has successfully avoided recourse to the old-time war of prices, but the slow decline of prices has continued. It was a United States senator from Pennsylvania, a leader and spokesman of the administration party, who lately in a public speech described the industrial position of the moment as one in which "there are plenty of orders but no one is making any money." HIS description could hardly have fit ted the various great producing corporations which have lately been raising dividends and distributing accumulated surplus as a result of increased earnings. But the question then arises whether this may not mean a Large and Small situation in which only the Producers very large producers can meet the problem created by declining prices, and what would be the effect even on the large producers, if the recent high rate of consumption were suddenly to decline. Such shrinkage has already come occasionally into sight, in purchase of materials for the motor-car and building-construction trades. Next it is asked if, in the process of great industrial expansion, accompanied by recurrent excessive speculation on the Stock Exchange and in land, the country (Financial Situation, continued on page 48) Behind the Scenes THE BIG AUGUST FICTION NUMBER A NOTABLE ARRAY OF SHORT STORIES A Keeper of Tradition by Don Marquis Author of "When the Turtles Sing," "The Old Soak." New Deal by Wilbur Daniel Steele A great story of the new frontiers sought by the younger generation, by a master of the short story. The Brain That Lived Again by George S. Brooks, co-author of "Spread Eagle." A strange story of the transfer of a human brain. by Hilda Mauck A rollicking story of a Phi Beta Kappa who changed her tactics. AND The Startling Solution of the "Canary" Murder Case by S. S. Van Dine The sudden and unexpected denouement of one of the most exciting serials ever published in this magazine. UNUSUAL NON-FICTION FEATURES Creative Co-Ordination by Michael Pupin A message from physical science which assails theological bickerings, by the great inventor and scientist. A Kentucky pastor sees division as the promoter of tolerance. A unique point of view. THE "CANARY" MURDER CASE: Summary of Preceding Chapters ARGARET ODELL, a famous Broadway M beauty known as the Canary, is strangled at about midnight in her New York apartment. Her jewels have been stripped from her, and her rooms ransacked. The phone operator of the building says that no one entered by the front door; and the side door is found bolted on the inside. The Canary was accompanied home by Kenneth Spotswoode, an admirer, who left her at 11:30 P. M. While he was waiting for his taxicab, the Canary screamed, and Spotswoode spoke to her through the door. John F.-X. Markham, New York's District Attorney, takes up the investigation, assisted exofficio by his friend, Philo Vance, a young social aristocrat and art-collector. Sergeant Heath has charge of the case for the Police Department. Four men come under suspicion-Charles Cleaver, a gambler; Doctor Ambroise Lindquist, a neurologist; Louis Mannix, a fur importer; and Tony Skeel, a professional crook who called at the Odell apartment at 9:30 on the night of the murder but went immediately away. Skeel's fingerprints are found in the apartment, and he is arrested but later is released because of insufficient evidence. Vance does not believe that Skeel is guilty, and outlines a theory, based on psychology and art, that the murderer is a superior and educated man, and that the robbery was only a blind. He admits there might have been two men present during the commission of the crime. Not so long ago a tropical revolution meant a hacienda full of barefoot rascals who sooner or later would be squelched by a handful of marines. And out of these things Stephen Crane and Richard Harding Davis would some time fashion masterpieces. Many of us thought that kind of literature was at an end. But take heart. Commanding the American marines at Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua, is Capt. John W. Thomason, Jr. Capt. Thomason, best of any, has recorded the late war in a book called "Fix Bayonets!" for which he furnished both pictures and text. We await with relish his book, if he will do one, on this Nicaraguan business. We should enjoy the conversation of the marines who now spend their days at Puerto Cabezas washing clothes and cleaning rifles while headquarters Corporals distribute gossip to the effect that the lucky stiffs of the 4th Regiment at San Diego are all shoving off, destination China. No seagoing marine ever wants to be where he is, especially if he is at Puerto Cabezas. In the old days he called at a dozen countries a year, tried out the trolley-cars, spoke to the señoritas over the convent wall, tested the native vino, sent a postcard home and shoved off for the next station. Capt. Thomason, a good marine, never takes sides in an international situation which he elects to write about. He simply describes the simple soul's undoing and death. He should be able to do a fine book about Nicaragua. Then, if Secretary Kellogg has literature as well as liberty at heart, he will send this officer to China in time to depict the international expeditions now embarking for that unhappy country. (Editorial in New York World.) Here's service. For leading this number of the magazine is "The Marines See the Revolution," by Captain John W. Thomason, Jr. The captain thanks the editorial writer for his kind words but requests no further urging of the state department to send him to China. Captain Thomason, by the way, is now stationed in Washington and views what many would consider a soft berth with a sceptical eye. "I don't know how I'll like it," he says. "I've never been away from troops before." He has To think of China is to think of missionaries just at present. Harrison Collins has had an unusual opportunity to observe, and he presents "Those Absurd Missionaries" in unusual fashion. been a teacher in Japan for thirteen years. Since 1917 he has been professor of English in the college at Hiroshima. Mr. Collins is a native of Minneapolis. "A Flight to the Unknown" is the story of one of the grandest adventures which could come in a sealed package to any one. Tom Gill was ready for adventure, as his history will show. Born in 1891 in Philadelphia, he attended, at the proper age, the University of Pennsylvania. And says he: Late in my senior year it came to me that the prospects of a life passed in cities chained to some office desk promised to be even less alluring than the taste of swine to a Mohammedan. Forestry seemed to offer most of the things that make life endurable. It was touched with romance and the allure of the unknown. It spoke of solitude and far away things also it held fair prospects of three meals a day. So I went to Yale and at the end of two years walked out with the somewhat optimistic title of Master of Forestry. The next summer found me cruising yellow pine timber in Alabama where I had bartered my youth and technical knowledge at the rate of seventy-five cents a day. About that time a telegram from the Forest Service offered me the position of Forest Ranger in Wyoming. It had been, I remember, one of those days when the mercury panted up against the top of the thermometers so I bought a couple yards of green ticket and went out to Wyoming. When it got forty below, I wondered why the Alabama summers had seemed opppressive. All that was back in 1917. The Big Disturbance broke loose and I cast about for some way of taking part in the general hysteria. I became a flyer and in the process of becoming left a couple bicuspids in the cowls of an airplane. I was busily winning the war cloaked in the decent obscurity of a Second Lieutenancy when I chanced to misplace the flying field for twelve hours on a cross-country flight and was immediately promoted. When the war went bankrupt I faced the fact that if I knew anything in life it was forestry and flying. The market didn't seem cluttered up with demands for these highlyspecialized services, but the Forest Service expressed a willingness to take another chance on me. It was during this time that my mysterious friend tangled up my horoscope with the Mexican venture. The remarkable story of the new plan of research instituted by Henry E. Huntington whereby the original manuscripts and great collection in the Huntington Library will be made available to scholars of distinction who in turn shall publish their findings, is told for the first time in a general magazine by George Ellery Hale, who is a trustee of the foundation. Doctor Hale is honorary director of Mount Wilson, and one of the founders of the National Research Council. News of Mr. Huntington's death came just as the article was going to press. Doctor Frederic Damrau's article in the March number "Must We Send Our Doctors to the Alms house?" aroused considerable comment, some of which is printed in following pages. Doctor Damrau is a native of Brooklyn and is a specialist in nervous and mental diseases. He is a graduate of Long Island College Hospital and the Army Medical School. He served as a medical officer in the army from 1917 until 1921. Kyle Crichton is manager of the Albuquerque Civic Council. "Who Says the Road Show Is Dead?" is the result of his sad experience in trying to book shows for the New Mexican health centre. He was born in a mining-town in Pennsylvania, now deserted, and graduated from Lehigh. Then, according to the usual formula, he became a newspaper man. Bad health sent him to New Mexico and good health couldn't drive him out again. Charles J. McGuirk has the distinction, in this changing land, of living in the house in which he was born thirty-eight years ago. The house is in West Orange, N. J. He's another newspaper man. He has also indulged in the allied activities of publicity, scenario, and magazine writing. "Old Soldier" is one of those stories which get you by the throat. It is particularly appropriate in this number which appears just a few days before the sixtyfourth anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg. Thomas Caldecot Chubb is a native of East Orange, N. J., and a graduate of Yale, class of 1922. Until he departed for Europe recently, he was ship news reporter for the New York Times. Several of his poems have appeared in this magazine. Thomas Boyd presents in this number another of his fine short stories of Ohio, "Grandfather's Dog." Mr. Boyd here writes of his native heath, and this story together with "An Ohio Fable," "Good Roads," and "The Salt of the Earth," recently published in this magazine, represents some of his best work. His novel "Through the Wheat" was the first of the realistic war books, and created a stir at a time when the public was supposed not to want "war stuff." A new edition of the book Tells story of great Huntington plan for study of Anglo-Saxon thoughtGeorge Ellery Hale with illustrations by Captain Thomason will be published in a few months. Mr. Boyd and his wife, Woodward Boyd, are living in Ridgefield, Conn. John Hall Wheelock reads his remarkably fine 'Affirmation," as a part of the Phi Beta Kappa poem at Harvard on the day this number appears. It is a signal honor accorded only to leading contemporary poets. Mr. Wheelock's first book of poetry since 1922, "The Bright Doom," will appear shortly. The author graduated from Harvard in 1908. He is a member of the book editorial staff of this house. James B. Carrington recently retired from his duties as editor of Architecture to his retreat in the Connecticut hills, where he is renewing his friendship with the birds. His lyric poetry is always filled with an intense love of nature and his reputation as an amateur naturalist has been spread by his writing and lectures. Evelyn Hardy graduated from Smith College in 1924. She went abroad to study, obtained a position with the American Consular Service, and recently married an Englishman, H. J. Kitchin. S. Foster Damon is an instructor in English at Harvard and author of two books on William Blake. Since William Lyon Phelps will soon depart for his summer home in Michigan, this story of how he is regarded in his adopted land will not be amiss. It is in a letter from Dean Bartowe Thompson, of Lansing, who writes: The picture of William Lyon Phelps "Blazing Away on the Augusta, Ga., Links" (April number) reminds me of an incident which occurred last September and it may interest readers of "As I Like It." While driving down to Huron City, I stopped a native who was urging some cattle along the country road and inquired the location of the Phelps homestead. The reply was characteristic of the Irish blue-eyed individual. After pointing out the way he added, "Yes, I know him well. He's a kind of a golf player." Royal Cortissoz made the principal address at the opening session of the American Federation of Art in Boston on May 18. His subject was "Our Debt to the Past." Receives honor John Hall Wheelock delivers Phi Beta Kappa poem at Harvard Teacher in Japan-Harrison Collins tells interesting tale of "those absurd missionaries" |