HAS THE LEAGUE TEETH?

T

HE first ten days' work of the delegates to the Assembly of the League of Nations at Geneva has resulted in a conviction on their part that active intervention is necessary in the Lithuanian and Armenian crises.

Acting in the first crisis, Great Britain, Belgium, and France have agreed to send troops for police duty to Vilna, in Lithuania, where a plebiscite is about to be taken. As to the second crisis, the Assembly voted unanimously to ask some Power at once to act as intermediary between Mustapha Kemal, the Turkish Nationalist leader in Asia Minor, and the Armenians, so as to save the remnant of that race.

The reported disaffection among the Greek troops in western Armenia, due to their disappointment at the outcome of the Greek election, only strengthens the power of Mustapha in the eastern and Armenian part of that region. The British delegates held out at first for the appointment of a commission representing all the Assembly member states. As no Power, said Mr. Balfour, one of the British delegates who had just arrived at Geneva, "has agreed

material force." The Serbian delegate, Spaleklovitch, recalled the fact that the American Senate last May had approved the use of the American fleet to succor the Armenians and that Mr. Harding was the Senator who reported the resolution.

THE CRY FROM CILICIA

to accept a mandate for Armenia," if UND

the League is to do anything but receive and send telegrams, the member states must agree to share the burden among them; otherwise " we are like people watching from the shore the survivors on a wrecked ship, sending them no aid except words of comfort as they are being swept away by the waves." René Viviani, one of the French delegates, thus replied to the English suggestion that a commission be appointed:

What will this commission do? How does it propose to achieve anything definite? Could it succeed where the League Council has failed? The League must do something more practical than appoint a commission or it will confess itself ridiculous before the whole world. The League has responsibilities without authority. If France's voice had been heard, the League would not be in a position of impotence today but could send an armed force to save Armenia. .. When a person is ill we do not refer him to a commission, we call the doctor.

NDER agreement among the Powers, France was to obtain control of Syria and Cilicia after the war. Her title to Syria is historic, proceeding from her deliverance of Lebanon from Turkish rule. But she has no such title to the adjoining province of Cilicia, which penetrates into Asia Minor and is largely inhabited by Armenians.

However, she occupied the region and gave great encouragement to the Armenians there in delivering them from the Turkish yoke. Much was done as well in the restitution of property to the returning Armenian exiles and in the rescue of women and girls from Turkish oppression. The Armenians were urged to re-establish themselves in the Cilician towns and villages; grants were made for the repair of churches and schools and for educational work. The Armenians were also encouraged to organize for police duty on a semi-military basis; arms were supplied to them.

After spending a billion francs in the Syrian and Cilician enterprises, the

Viviani was supported by Take French came to the conclusion that

they must surrender their arms. The kind of reception the Turks gave to this announcement is indicated by the report that they have now slaughtered some ten thousand Armenians at the town of Hadjin, including the hundreds of orphan children who had been protected in American orphanages.

Adana is the chief city of Cilicia, and has been the seat of the French Government. It was also the seat of the atrocities of 1915. More than a hundred thousand Armenian refugees are now in Adana or the near vicinity. Some of them have been in exile for four years, while others have recently fled from their villages, devastated by the Turks and Kurds. The prospect of a new massacre is all the greater because now, since the war, the Armenians of Cilicia have fought with and for the French. Thus the Armenians, having doubled the ill will of the Turks against them, have been continually attacked by bands of marauding Kurds and Turks, and even under French rule have not been able to gather in this year's crops.

America has more agents-missionary, medical, educational-than has any other nation in Armenia and Cilicia. The American Government and people owe every possible protection to those agents and to the oppressed Armenians.

"COLD-BLOODED MURDER"

the League's great weakness was that it had no material power, adding that "unfortunately some people only recognize

whole affair, and so decided to abandon Cilicia, informing the Turks however, that if they came into the province

66

HE state of Ireland goes from declared the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Sir Hamar Greenwood, before

the House of Commons last week, are plotting to destroy life and property in England as well as Ireland. "Coldblooded murder," was Sir Hamar's phrase to describe the killing of British officers in Dublin on Sunday, November 21. To the counter-charge of Sinn Feiners that the Government had massacred ten or more civilians by firing indiscriminately at the crowd attending a football match, the Chief Secretary replied that Sinn Fein gunmen came to the game with murderous intent, that the inclosure was surrounded by troops to effect their arrest, that this force was fired upon from the crowd when the arrest was attempted, and that in replying to the fire the casualties resulted. The House of Commons itself fell under the influence of the prevailing Irish violence when it hooted down and more or less manhandled one of its

own members, Joseph Devlin, an Irish Nationalist. Charges of governmental winking at "retaliations" continued to Le made and denied.

As in industrial troubles such as the Seattle affair, so in Ireland, the first and foremost thing in the apprehension of fair-minded people is to restore law and order quickly and thoroughly.

PRESENT-DAY VIENNA

ERR CARL JUNKER, editor of the Vienna "Österreicher Rundschau," writes to The Outlook concerning conditions in Vienna. In the delicatessen stores and in the meat shops, he says, one finds Swiss, Dutch, and Danish goods in large quantities, and some Austrian, but there are few purchasers.

in ruins that is the outstanding fact of the new era. Anything that can be spared has been sold; clothes are faded and full of holes; spirits are crushed, courage is lost. Former officials and officers, with the shabby remains of gold collars on their shabby uniforms, slink along, a newspaper package under the arm, or, in a long row, stand before some foreign bureau of charity and patiently wait until they are allowed to receive the longed-for gift. Officials, teachers, professors, physicians, surgeons, artists, authors, form the proletariat of to-day. For the day laborer earns seven hundred crowns a week, but, after long striving for its members, the Society of Vienna Journalists has finally won for them a minimum wage of fifteen hundred crowns a month. It is not only that the professional classes are suffering material want; spiritual want is seen in frightful degree. At the theaters stuff of lightest weight is played to suit the taste of the new rich. Books and serious pamphlets are not published because, as compared with the days before the war, the price of paper is sixty times as high; printing of paper is sixty times as high; printing costs fifteen times as much, and even transmittal by post twenty times as much.

What is the result of all this? In one week, according to official statistics, there were 430 births and 700 deaths, and countless children suffer from tuberculosis.

Most of middle-class society is now

A THANKSGIVING LETTER FROM A PARIS PADRE

UR soldiers acquired the habit of applying the name "Padre" to all chaplains, missionaries, and priests in France. One of them, the Rev. Stanley Ross Fisher, co-pastor of the American Church in the Rue de Berri, Paris, has sent a Thanksgiving letter from Americans in Paris to Americans in the United States. To Americans in Paris Thanksgiving Day is, he says, doubly hallowed because they link with it their Armistice Day celebration in memory of the seventy thousand young American patriots whose bodies lie buried in French soil.

Thousands of Americans, he affirmsengineers, architects, commercial salesmen, and whole office forces-have been sent over to Paris by American construction firms and other business enter

prises. The social and religious need of these persons must be added to those of the great body of American students in the Latin Quarter. Before the war there were some twenty-five hundred of those students; the number is now much greater, and will doubtless continually increase; indeed, the indications are that the many thousand American students who used to go yearly to Germany will now go to France for a long

time to come.

To cope with this situation the American Church in the Rue de Berri wants a central site, a new church edifice and parish hall, and, in the Latin Quarter, a student club building. For construction and endowment it needs two million dollars. It has been encouraged to be lieve that within three years various individuals, churches, and denominational boards will provide that sum. But immediate need cannot wait for three-year pledges. As practically all of the American welfare organizations which did such good work during the war and the armistice period have been withdrawn from Paris, there is imperative need for an adequate meeting-place for American young men and women offering an atmosphere not to be found in the theaters and restaurants. At least $150,000 should be immediately forthcoming to buy and equip a building for social activities, and to further the clean, efficient, purposeful lives of the young Americans who are studying and engaging in business in Paris. For their sakes, and in grateful memory of our compatriots who died in France, Mr. Fisher writes his letter to beg contributions for this work. Checks should be made out to Samuel W. Thurber, Treasurer, and mailed to Room 805. 14 Beacon Street, Boston. The Outlook

is glad to add its own plea for aid in this work.

A BAHAI TEMPLE IN CHICAGO

ERE are pictures of the temple which the Bahaiists hope to build on the shore of Lake Michigan just north of Chicago. George Grey Barnard goes so far as to call this "the first new conception in architecture since the Gothic."

The building was designed by Louis Bourgeois. It is intended to embody in architecture the single article in the Bahaiist creed, which is belief in the brotherhood of man. The building is intended to be the home of all who wish to worship, and in its detail symbolizes all the great religions of the earth. It is interesting to know that the architect has gone to astronomy for his inspiration, using the pure mathematical lines of that science as a decorative element instead of the vines, leaves, flowers, and human and animal forms of the past. With these lines he has produced the occult symbols of the nine great religions of the world, which are also represented by the nine faces of the temple.

Critics have voiced their disapproval of the fact that the second-story buttresses are placed over the doorways of the first story. Certainly this is a strik

DECORATIVE DETAIL OF THE BAHAI TEMPLE

ing departure from ordinary architectural practice, but apparently the architect has succeeded in convincing the committee of temple trustees that he was justified in this departure.

The choice of the Bourgeois design was approved by H. Van Buren Magonigle, President of the Architectural League.

A USEFUL CITIZEN

Bex

Y the death of John Franklin Fort, ex-Governor of New Jersey, a useful citizen passes from sight. But his influence should be enduring.

Though a poor man's son, he did not have to work his way through college, but after graduation repaid to his father the sums advanced for his education.

He began to practice law, and succeeded so well that he was appointed to a place on the District Court bench; later he became Presiding Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Essex County, and still later Associate Justice of the State Supreme Court. The most signal event of his judgeships was during his eight years' term on the Supreme

Court when he abolished the gambling in Atlantic City. The gambling forces were well intrenched as far as money was concerned- -one casino alone was valued at $100,000. But Judge Fort's decree, accompanied by a threat of the use of State troops, did the work.

After serving for eight years in the Supreme Court, Judge Fort was elected Governor. He served a three-year term which stands out in New Jersey history as the régime of the "new idea " in politics. A progressive in deed as in word, Governor Fort caused much progressive legislation to be passed, all of which caused him hard contests with reactionaries in his own party. He effected many reforms and improvements in government, his Civil Service and Direct Primary Laws being the most notable in those directions up to that time.

Mr. Fort began his political leadership in 1884 by acting as delegate to the National Republican Convention. He showed characteristic independence in favoring the nomination of Edmunds, though most of the New Jersey delegation were for Blaine. He was made chairman of the important Cre

dentials Committee. In 1896, again a delegate, he was again made chairman of that Committee, and, as such, made the Committee report which decided the fate of "Gas" Addicks, of Delaware. Addicks had brought a contesting delegation to St. Louis. The chairman's denunciation was a masterpiece of invective, and, together with his speech to its leader in placing Garrett A. Hobart in nomination for the VicePresidency, gave Governor Fort National rank as an orator. In 1912, having already shown his progressivism, he naturally worked for the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt and the success of the Progressive party.

Under the present Administration Mr. Fort served two years as Republican member of the Federal Trade Commission. He also acted as special envoy to Santo Domingo and to Haiti.

Mr. Fort was sixty-eight years old. He was a tall, handsome, dignified man, diffusing an impression of integrity, with a frank manner and hand-shake that any one might envy.

THE FREEDOM OF A CITY

has

Wide World Photos

THE LATE EX-GOVERNOR JOHN F. FORT, OF NEW JERSEY

It is estimated that there was a reduc

tion of fifty-four per cent in the amount of crime in Grand Rapids in the first year of prohibition from the average of the two years immediately preceding. In the month before prohibition went into effect there were 138 cases of intoxication in the police court; in the first month thereafter there were 9. Of course Grand Rapids had a start in

of

conditions in the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The purpose was to test the results of prohibition, high wages, and steady work in a typical American city. The plan was suggested by a letter written to the editors of the "Survey" by Justice Louis D. Brandeis, of the United States Supreme Court. Justice Brandeis wrote: "We shall soon have a year of freedom from what have been regarded as the main causes of misery unemployment, low wages, and drink. What have been the gains of the first year of this freedom? What further gains may be expected? What else must be done to make this a livable world?"

The findings of Mr. W. D. Lane and Mr. Bruno Lasker, of the "Survey's editorial staff, are set forth in the current issue of the "Survey" graphically, with maps, diagrams, and an unusually interesting group of photographs. The report is made readable by its many personal incidents and conversations with workers, their wives, and citizens generally. It is less statistical and more directly human than most reports of this kind.

As to prohibition, Mr. Lane declares: "Prohibition is a fact in the city. . . . The total amount [of alcohol consumed] is small in comparison with what it was. To all intents and purposes John Barleycorn is dead in Grand Rapids."

American cities, for State prohibition legislation went into effect in 1918.

High prices, high wages, and steady employment have raised the standard of living in Grand Rapids and have worked together with prohibition, the investigators say, to make the life of the average worker more comfortable and more enjoyable. Of course under such conditions there are always some extravagance and folly in expenditure, but, as a rule, the additional wages have gone into sensible things and the amount of small house building and the increase of savings deposits are notable. It is stated that in Grand Rapids, at least, wages have advanced faster than prices, and naturally a new and higher level of prosperity is found among wage-earning families. Factory conditions and health conditions are better; there are no more "blue Mondays,' fewer industrial accidents; tuberculosis and infantile mortality have declined among the working people. The chief of police, a former barkeeper and now an ardent prohibitionist, wrote to "Pussyfoot" Johnson in response to inquiry that the Grand Rapids police force has been reduced forty per cent as compared with what it was when liquor was sold, and that "men who were formerly bums are now earning a good living bums are now earning a good living and taking care of their families."

The investigators sum up moral con

ditions in Grand Rapids as follows: "Better times, in the first stages, have meant more self-indulgence. But the moral tone of the community is higher than it was ever before. While family discipline has somewhat relaxed as young people have become more than self-supporting, the increased earning capacity of girls has made for a relationship on more equal terms between young folks of both sexes. Absence of worry has made for a general liberation of mental energies, as yet often idly employed in frivolous pursuits, but beginning to introduce into the life of the community a desire for finer enjoyments and spiritual emancipation."

The whole impression made by this elaborate study is that of a prosperous, self-respecting American city making the best of exceptionally good opportunities and practicing liberty without license.

THE LANGUAGE OF THE GUTTER

A

MERICANS have made progress in

city government; but just now they have no reason for boasting. Their two largest cities have recently given occasion for Americans of self-respect to feel and express shame. The Thompson régime in Chicago and the Hylan régime in New York, the one Republican and the other Democratic, provide ample evidence that Americans are culpably careless in selecting administrators of their city governments.

A legislative committee has been investigating the alleged building graft in New York City. In the course of the investigation a letter of Mayor Hylan's was produced, and in consequence the Mayor was called as a witness. The details of the subject are not of National interest; but it is of some concern to all Americans that their largest city has a Mayor who can answer questions in language like this:

"If you've got anything prove it and shut up. You are not going to put

me in a hole for politics or political purposes. .. You're not going to

...

put anything over on me. If you've got anything, produce, produce. The quicker the better."

RATTLES OR COURTS
MARTIAL?

HANd again. Indeed, its head

AZING at Annapolis has shown its

never seems to have been completely submerged, despite the fact that all the midshipmen now in the Academy have pledged themselves to abstain from haz