also the elimination of war, there would be strong presumption that the United States would not be indifferent to any infraction of the peace, even if legally there were full liberty of action to do otherwise. This statement may seem more or less a truism to most Americans, but it was made most effectively by the one man who could best reassure the French as to the frank American realism which is already making of the program of outlawry something different from its original form. 223 It is probable that before this is printed the multilateral treaty "renouncing war as an instrument of national policy" will be signed. There are even good reasons for thinking that it will also be ratified. Just what does it achieve? It does not cover all war. Not only is the right of self-defense reserved, but also what the Canadian Government has so well defined as "coöperative defense," which is the proper description of the "sanction" of the League. In addition to this, as the British Government pointed outand others were grateful for itthere are certain areas outside national frontiers, "the welfare and integrity" of which are part of their own security, in which the signatories are to reserve liberty of action. This means a reservation covering both the Monroe Doctrine and intervention. There is therefore a very large set of reservations, so large, indeed, as to cover most of the declared issues on which most modern wars have been fought. Who is to say when the use of force is permitted under the reservation and when it is covered by the treaty? The answer has already been given. We are. It is at once clear that the "renunciation of war" is still very incomplete. Two great problems lie before it. On the one hand it must apply some distinction between "war" that is renounced and "defense" which is permitted— for in a general way all three reservations, even the Monroe Doctrine, fall under the broad category of defense. Then on the other hand there must be built up and applied the alternatives for war. On this last point, Mr. Kellogg has avoided all discussion by simply using the vague phrase of M. Briand's note of last June; international disputes are to be settled by "pacific means." Now, apart from diplomacy-which will grow rather than lessen in the new era, when other things than armaments furnish the weight to arguments-the "pacific means" are four: Arbitration and the Court for juridical process, leading to a judgment or decree; Conciliation and Conference for political disputes. Upon all these devices the world is at present working. We ourselves are studying just now the possibilities of arbitration among the American states, and President Coolidge has already called for a conference on this problem. But the most important institution for the settlement of political disputes is one in which we have had less experience than most of the rest of the worldinternational conference. This may seem to be a strange comment, in view of our recent memories of Havana and the not so very distant triumphs of Washington. But the very fact that we think of successful conference in these terms shows our lack of experience. International conferences are diplomatic in character. Now there never was a more penetrating remark with reference to diplomacy than that attributed to Metternich, that the greatest diplomacy is that which avoids triumphs. It is the kind that secures a point by getting the other party to make it. This is not all the art that underlies agreement; genuine coöperation and mutual confidence also play their rôle. It is impossible here to go into these matters in detail. As far as we are concerned, we have a tendency to make either one of two major mistakes, to treat a conference as though it were a mere commission, in which agents of governments exchange the contents of their instructions, or on the other hand, if it be a conference of plenipotentiaries, to dominate by a strong statement of a powerful case. Meanwhile Europe is slowly learning another technique. Future historians may find that the schooling in the conference method which is going on at Geneva is a more important element in the safeguards of peace than the application of juristic methods at the Hague. In this procedure we have no share. But we should not on that account fail to reckon with it when we come to consider the future steps to be taken. The slogan to outlaw war must not keep us from the day's work upon the instruments of peace. GREEK DANCE MARGARET TOD RITTER Sappho is dead. Gods of her pagan faith, Making no sound, singing no song, unstrung Forever and forever. She is dead. Zeus, Artemis and Aphrodite come To that dim spot where her last word was said. And one has hyacinths to cover up ND now-divorce is outstripping marriage. Recent reports A from the Census Bureau show that while marriage is increas ing at the rate of 1.2 per cent, divorces are increasing 3.1 per cent. But really now, is there any reason to be disturbed at these figures? Isn't divorce merely another natural phenomenon, one of the many parasitic evils that are constantly attacking a living organism-in this case, marriage? If the concept of marriage is tenable, healthy, it will survive. If it is weak, outworn and essentially untrue for this age, it will be destroyed in the struggle for social existence. Marriage can claim no exemption from evolutionary laws. Whether it survives or perishes depends wholly upon its power of adaptability to new conditions, the chief of which is the economic independence of the modern woman. But whether marriage stands or falls, it will be interesting to watch the imminent conflict-a conflict that can no more be prevented than the erosion of mountain peaks or the recurrence of the aurora borealis. A 22 VIGATION," the newest of air words, is the science of determining one's position in the air by means of the stars and sun. But more than that, it is a perfect example of flexibility in a living language. "Navigation of the air," the obvious root of the new word, was cumbrous and unwieldy. So to speed up the notion, some one hyphenated the words into the handier compound "airnavigation." Finally, some genius saw a legitimate new word concealed in the kernel of an old one, stripped away all superfluities, and "avigation" leaped forth to become a compact, philologically justifiable word for a new and very real thing. T the cost of five cents a day, all employees of the General Motors Corporation will have a two thousand dollar life-insurance and accident benefits of fifteen dollars a week. More than 200,000 workers are thus insured for a total of four billion dollars. The insurance is issued without medical examination, is extended to all employees without regard to age, and permits even those who are physically impaired to share in the benefits. The plan is coöperative; that is, the Corporation and the employee share in the payment of the premiums. Good business. Good for the life-insurance company, the employer and the employee. Group insurance is something that benefits every one, and taxes no one unduly. It is a step nearer to the peaceful relation of those old cartoon antagonists Capital and Labor, who seem to be meeting oftener these days around the polished council table than in the deadly grapple of the strike. 721 USIC and still more music, has been the cry of most great educators since the time of Plato. In Book III of "The Republic," Socrates is outlining to Glaucon the essentials of the true education, and after summarizing the differences between good and bad music, Socrates says: "We attach such supreme importance to a musical education because rhythm and harmony sink most deeply into the recesses of the soul and take most powerful hold of it, bringing gracefulness in their train, and making a man graceful if he be rightly nurtured in them. And he that has been duly nurtured therein will have the keenest eye for defects, whether in art or nature, and feeling a most just disdain for them, will commend beautiful objects, which he will gladly receive into his soul and grow to be noble and good. . . . For I believe, Glaucon, that music ought to end in the love of the beautiful." The modern exponent of this viewpoint is John Erskine, poet, musician, novelist and educator. As president of the Juilliard School of Music he is advancing the idea that music in high schools and colleges should receive recognition equal to that granted history, mathematics or literature. No nation is ultimately happy, he contends, unless each individual in it has an opportunity to study the art of music. Not a new idea, but a grand one. Not a revolutionary experiment, but like most other great advances, John Erskine's theory of music in American life is a harmonious blending of past truths with present needs. SECRETAR 23 ecretary KelloGG's name is a red flag in certain “liberal" quarters, and it has been the fashion, until quite recently, to belabor him for his conduct of affairs with Nicaragua and Mexico. But it is not unlikely that the name of Frank B. Kellogg, having outlived the shafts of contemporary journalism, will be written into the record as one of the great peacemakers of history. Under the terms of the Kellogg treaty, the six high contracting powers (England, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States) agree "in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an instrument of policy in their relations with one another." Will the Kellogg treaty turn out to be another empty tabernacle of peace, another scrap of paper to be violated when the critical moment ticks some fevered nation into a war of aggression? Certainly, the treaty is so hedged about by interpretations and moral reservations as to make it extremely difficult to hold the contracting powers to anything specific. But the main clause is optimistic, and the spirit of the treaty is leveled dead against the idea of war. Frank Kellogg may have built a real temple of peace, or he may have only added another brick to the substructure of that grand edifice. G 23 ENE TUNNEY, strangest of prize-fighting champions, seems to have more than a professional interest in physical condition. His desire for bodily perfection is a constant life-motive, approaching the stoicism of those fine temperate philosophers who lived far from the prize-ring. Tunney's utterances are astounding revelations of self-dedication to an ideal. "I conserved energy four years in order to win the title from Dempsey," he says, and then proceeds to explain what he means by conserving energy. "I spent most of my time alone, not frittering away my nervous strength in useless social chatter. I ate sparingly, and only twice a day, of foods that I knew agreed with me. I never drank tea, coffee or alcohol, and [strangest of all] I never allowed myself to get tired from physical exercise." One may not approve Tunney's late profession, but one has to admire the wisdom of his training program. To speak exactly, Tunney never "trains"; instead, he arranges his food, sleep and work so as to be constantly in the pink of condition. Pugilism is by no means the noblest of vocations, but many a man whose work is theoretically loftier than Tunney's could check the process of flabby deterioration by culling a leaf or two from the champion's "Book of Hours." 22 HERE can be no academic independence in this or any country until a strongly organized union of college professors challenges the present dictatorship of the Board of Trustees-or, in the case of State universities, the State legislatures. Salary, choice of curriculums, independence in matters of speech and written expression of opinion-these are some of the fields in which college professors have no liberty. As isolated individuals they have no tangible power of any kind. We await the day when an Academic Manifesto, beginning "Teachers of the World, Unite!" is nailed to the doors of every Trustee Chamber in the country. Until college teachers are banded together in a protective union, there can be no hope for academic freedom or educational progress. D 22 URING those long, lonely winter evenings in a million homes situated twenty miles off the main traveled roads, what book is most diligently thumbed, what pages most breathlessly turned? |