will have much to do with his success or failure. Now, what are the factors in the situation which the business man must consider in determining what his attitude toward Obregon shall be? simple, and imperative.

They are, I think, few,

Obregon is not a radical. That helps a lot, to begin with. At best or at worst, as one's point of view may dictate, he is a liberal. Despite the fact that Obregon has two highly intelligent radicals on his staff of intimate official advisers, there is nothing to indicate that he purposes the sponsoring of any subversively revolutionary policies against which legitimate business interests must in selfdefense fight. The gravest danger is not that Obregon will insult foreign business interests, but that he will concede too much to them.

Let me hasten to explain fully what I mean here lest I be wholly misunderstood. I am trying to say only that if Obregon imitates the policies of Diaz, he will suffer the fate of Diaz. If in his efforts to conciliate foreign business interests he alienates the Mexican people from his administration, he will arouse in the Mexican masses an increasing distrust and hatred of the foreign investor and thus postpone further the day of settled business relations. Some months ago I wrote: "Mexico will not tolerate another Diaz. Her blundering and graftstained adventurings towards constitutional government since the fall of Diaz may have been a sad travesty upon democracy, but in them the Mexican people have tasted the wine of liberalism-a heady wine that never leaves a people as they were before."

This is the first fact to be kept in mind in any consideration of the pres

ent Mexican problem. If to-morrow foreign business interests could induce Obregon to hand them a blank check to be filled in by their maximum immediate desires, it would be the worst thing that could happen to the foreign investor in Mexico. Why? Because it would straightway turn the popular opinion of Mexico against Obregon, insure for him the fate of Diaz, Madero, and Carranza, and set the stage for the next Mexican revolution, with all the business losses that would entail.

It is, therefore, to the best interest of business men everywhere that Obregon succeed in establishing a genuinely liberal national policy that will at least measurably satisfy the majority of the Mexican people. Here is an instance in which intelligent selfinterest and political idealism are one and the same thing. Liberal statesmanship in the domestic politics of Mexico is the biggest asset conservative foreign business interests can have. Whatever may be said for such policies politically, manoeuvering for a return to the "strong government" of Diaz and angling for American intervention, are examples of the baldest business stupidity.

A FURTHER WORD ON WINGED
AMERICA

THE extensive correspondence called forth by the editorial on "Why not Use Our Wings?" that appeared in these columns three months ago justifies this further word on our national problem of aviation, which we are attacking only in timid and tentative fashion. It is unnecessary here to repeat the references to the primary

importance of aviation as part of our problem of national defense, civil development, and international relations. All this was discussed at length in the former editorial. But since then Mr. Harding has addressed himself to the problem, inviting consideration by the Senate and House of a Bureau of Aëronautics in the Department of Commerce. This suggestion is interesting in the light of Mr. Harding's announced determination to do away with the wasteful duplication of efforts by the several departments of the Federal Government. Is this proposal in line with a closer and more intelligent coördination of the work of the federal departments? Let us see.

The establishment of a Bureau of Aëronautics in the Department of Commerce would mean the creation of the twenty-second agency having something to do with aëronautics. The overlapping of departments in Washington is an old story. Our Federal Government is a veritable crazy-quilt of conflicting functions or, at best, duplicating efforts. It is difficult to make a plain statement of this overlapping of departments without being accused of an attempt at flippant humor.

For instance, Mr. Hoover, in an address before the American Engineering Council in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, illuminated this problem of scrambled jurisdictions by describing the Chinese puzzle the mariner has to wrestle with in the exercise of his duties. Mr. Hoover was not trying to be funny, but this was the result. I quote from memory. The mariner obtains his domestic charts from the Department of Commerce, his foreign charts from the Navy Department, and his nautical almanac from the Naval Ob

servatory and in some circumstances he gets sailing directions from the army. In a fog the mariner may catch radio signals from both the navy and the Department of Commerce, while he listens to fog-horns and looks. for lights and buoys provided by the Department of Commerce. If he sinks, it is the Treasury Department that saves his life. He anchors at the direction of the army, which depends upon the Treasury Department to enforce its will. The mariner's boilers and lifeboats are inspected by the Department of Commerce. His crew is certificated by one bureau of the Department of Commerce, signed off in the presence of another, inspected at sailing by the Treasury Department, and on arrival by the Department of Labor.

Do we want our aviators to get tangled in such a red-tape net? We do not. The implications of aviation in matters of national defense, civil development, and international relations are too fundamental to intrust to scattered subordinates. The problem is big enough to challenge the administrative genius and statesmanship of the ablest man in American public life. These early days of development will be the most critical period. It is now that we need aërial statesmanship, if we shall ever need it. The direction of our aëronautical future should be placed in the hands of the best man obtainable some man, if we can find him, who combines an H. G. Wells vision with a James J. Hill genius for constructive promotion.

Manifestly, we cannot attract to the post a man of the desired caliber if we make it merely a bureau in one of the federal departments. We must attach to the post a dignity commensurate with the man and give him freedom of

action and real authority. Under such conditions, any man would be happy to accept the post as an opportunity for far-reaching national and international service.

This is the least we should consider doing. The direction of our aëronautical future is a task that should not be left in the hands of private concerns. Stimulus and direction should be given by our Government. We are already two years behind Europe in this field. Great Britain and France began two years ago an organization of aërial effort far more ambitious and comprehensive than the program now suggested for the United States. Again, why not use our wings?

ALL-YEAR-ROUND POLITICAL PARTIES

Too frequently a political party is only a campaign organization, functioning feverishly while offices are being won, then falling into a patronage-gorged slumber while offices are being administered. When now and then, as under Mr. Wilson, a political party has soberly assumed an all-year-round responsibility for the exclusive control and administration of the Government, it has seemed to sunder rather than cement national unity of thought and action. Yet the biggest problem of our politics to-day is the discovery of ways and means of making our political parties function intelligently between campaigns as well as during campaigns.

I can best get at what I have in mind by the simple reporting of what is to me one of the most significant bits of political news that has come to my ears for many months. The Democratic party has employed a

Mr. Robert Goldsmith to act for twelve months of the year as director of research for the party. That is to say, the Democratic party is to have a studious gentleman, unhampered by the whims of a constituency, who, in addition to the gathering of “campaign material," may act as a sort of intellectual servant at large to Democratic senators, representatives, and party chiefs, unearthing for them authentic information on the problems before the Government, helping to put a basis of fact under all legislative discussion, helping to forestall snap judgments and to hamstring mere prejudice and passion in debate.

It is to be hoped that the leaders of the Democratic party will not permit this post to degenerate into a mere editorship of a campaign text-book. This appointment of a research director for a political party suggests the next great step in American politics. If the Democratic leaders will only see its full significance and develop it! Now, Mr. Goldsmith is a catholicminded gentleman, with an almost uncanny sensitiveness to sources of information, but he should be surrounded by a staff of research associates and given adequate funds for the organization of the work on a comprehensive scale. Then the Republican party should follow suit by the organization of a research committee under a capable director. Until something like this is done, we shall remain under the tyranny of catchwords, and continue the attempt to administer a world power with the tactics of parish politicians.

It would require a Senate and House of supermen to deal intelligently with all the problems that confront our legislators, if each legislator were ex

pected to unearth and master for himself and by himself the countless facts involved. Yet that is what we are asking of our senators and representatives. We elect to the Senate or the House a man from some small inland town, a man of nominal educational qualifications, a man who has neither read nor traveled widely, and straightway ask him to pass judgment for us upon the tangled and technical problems of our industrialism, and to aid in drafting for us a scheme of relations with the rest of the world which he has never seen and of which he, perhaps, knows next to nothing. This is not a flippant fling at our representatives. Of almost any American in their place the same might be said. A constantly changing body of elected representatives cannot be expected to have universal knowledge at their finger-tips. We must put back of the changing body of representatives a constant body of researchers. The researchers will provide the facts and the representatives will act upon them.

We often wonder why it is that England comes out of almost every conflict, military or diplomatic, with flying colors. The reason does not lie primarily with her premiers and cabinet members, but with the constant body of men who give their lives to the service of the Government. Secretaries of state for foreign affairs may come and go in England, but the Foreign Office goes on forever. Many of the brightest and best men from England's universities are attracted to permanent government service. These men become experts in given fields. When crises impend in British politics, the statesman can always touch the buzzer and call to his side the scholar

who supplies the facts in the case. This constant body of informed men is so vital a factor in British politics that it is almost true to say that the elected members of the Government are the "showmen" of British politics, while the sustained statesmanship is supplied by the men in the background.

Maybe we shall some day overhaul our civil service and achieve something of a like result, but in the meantime our most hopeful opportunity lies in the development of research committees within our political parties. In doing this we should be only tearing a leaf from the record of the British Labor party. Its research committee makes fundamental studies of any and every question that confronts the Government. Its assembled information is at the disposal of its servants in the Government, and is available when the party desires to make a statement to the country. With such a committee in each party, we might in time get away from the studied inanities of our conventional party platforms and achieve statements that would capture the imagination of the country and serve as blueprints of progress.

The party that first develops a comprehensive research department will gain an untold advantage over the party that retains the ancient hit-or

miss relation to facts. miss relation to facts. Its represen

tatives in the Senate and the House will, when the system is really in working order, hold a decided advantage over the representatives of the opposition. With both parties supported by such committees of research, the "Congressional Record" might become a document of compelling interest to the public. It may be suggested

that the research committees of political parties could not be relied upon for unbiased information, that they would bend facts to the exigencies of party politics. If, however, both parties had such committees, each party would know that the opposition, with the same facts at hand, would be on the alert for misinterpretation. The system would, in fact, enforce a refreshing sincerity in political discussion.

Under the research director of each party there should be numerous subdirectors in charge of special fields of investigation. The members of these The members of these committees should be "above the battle" of politics. They should be members of a sort of party civil service. The rewards of the work should be sufficient to attract able men to it as a life work. Then, maybe, we could evolve a sustained national policy, avoiding the serious losses of our present system of four and eight year swings of the partizan pendulum.

WHO IS GANDHI?

THE most interesting political personality in the world to-day is, without doubt, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the man who is sweeping India with his doctrine of passive resistance to British rule. The story of this Indian Tolstoy runs back over many years, but it was not until a few months ago that his personality began to commandeer space in our newspapers and magazines. Despite several discussions of his career that have appeared lately, I am persuaded that a brief study of his personality and program will be welcomed by the readers of THE CENTURY MAGAZINE. It is

predicted by some observers that within two years Gandhi's name will be upon the lips of the whole world, as Lenine's name has been since his assumption of power in Russia. Here, then, is the bare skeleton of Gandhi's story.

This man, who is called Mahatma (Saint) Gandhi by his devoted followers in India, was born fifty-two years ago near the industrial city of Ahmedabad. His ancestors were folk of cultivation and wealth. His father accumulated his fortune in trade, but later took part in politics. Mohandas received his early education in his native city. Later he was sent to England to study law. At an early age he began to show the ascetic and spiritual tendencies that to-day distinguish him. Before going to England to prepare for the bar, he became a teetotaler and a vegetarian and took the vow of chastity. After his legal education in England, he returned to India and for a time practised law in Bombay. His asceticism increased. He gave away the major part of his fortune and in effect took the vow of poverty.

After he had been practising law in Bombay for some time, he was sent to South Africa in connection with an important case. While there he became interested in the lot of his fellow Indians, some 150,000 of whom were in South Africa, chiefly in the Natal province. The situation between the South African Government and these Indians was similar to the situation created in California by the presence of a large alien body of Japanese. The same anti-alien feeling ran high. The South African Government undertook to stop further Indian immigration and to expel the Indians already there.