are or ought to be as regarded by Christ's disciples. The recognition of these three principles (1) that religion has to do with the whole of life, (2) that laymen are better equipped to give instruction on some topics than clergymen, (3) that co-operation in certain phases of religious activity is possible for the churches without modifying their distinctive forms either of thought or of worship-would, if thoroughly apprehended by the clergy, be capable of creating a new interest in their work and adding to certain aspects of it a new efficiency. to arouse a sentiment which will result in the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, let them apply the principle of that Amendment to the observance of Sunday. The Nation has a right and duty to see that every citizen, so far as possible, shall have one day of rest in seven. How the citizen spends that day should not be determined by the conscience of others. Dr. Manning recently well summarized the situation when he said: This proposed campaign for stricter Sunday laws is one of those wellmeant but misguided efforts which do harm instead of good to the cause they are intended to serve. It is impracticable, wrong in principle, and based on a narrow and imperfect conception of the Christian religion. It would do far more to drive religion out of the hearts of the people than to draw them toward it. We have no right to try to compel religious observance of Sunday by law. The law should forbid all unnecessary business on Sunday, and thus as far as possible secure to all their right to Sunday as a day of freedom from their ordinary occupations and of religious observance if they wish so to use it. Further than this the law may not rightly go. As to recreations and amusements on Sunday, the Christian Church has never laid down any rules in detail, though individuals and groups have done so. The Church gives us the great principle that this is the Lord's day, and leaves us to apply it according to our own consciences and circumstances. In a similar manner Religion, Education, Commerce and Trade, Citizenship, etc., were treated at successive conferences. The plan is here noted because it seems to us to suggest a method which might be adopted very widely with such modifications as varying conditions suggest. The two features which are essential are the recognition by the churches that religion covers a wide range of topics and that laymen might well be called in to render the services of teachers. Thus in a village where evening services are sustained with difficulty the churches might well unite for, say, six weeks of union meetings in which a physician would treat one evening the laws of health as laws of God and what obedience to them by the individual and by the community requires; a lawyer would speak another evening on the duties of citizenship and what they involve in a free Republic; a teacher a third evening, on what education means and what the community should do to provide it; and a merchant a fourth evening, on what trade and commerce In the East, Princeton, Harvard, Pennsylvania State, Pittsburgh, and Boston College have been outstandingly successful. In the South the Georgia School of Technology scored a remarkable series of victories, although its record has been marred by the protests against the eligibility of some of its players and their conduct during the games. In the Western Conference, Ohio State again achieved pre-eminence. On the Pacific Slope the University of California deserves mention. Among the games of particular interest which may be cited were the defeat of Williams by Amherst, the defeat of Chicago by Michigan, the defeat of Michigan by Ohio State, the defeat of Yale by Princeton and Harvard, the defeat of Minnesota by Iowa, the victory of Dartmouth over Washington University. and the disappointment which Cornell suffered by the unlooked-for addition of another defeat upon the record scroll of its traditional contests with the University of Pennsylvania. One of the few unhealthy features of the football season is the manner in which many of the sporting writers of the daily press misuse their opportunities to present the game to the public. There are some very honorable exceptions to this statement, but there is emphatically too little realization of the character of the amateur spirit, too much blind partisanship, too much transposition of the spirit of the prize ring to the gridiron to make the usual comment on football a wholesome thing. Some day the average sporting writer will wake to the fact that most college students and graduates are not interested in mythical championships or in wordy comparisons between elevens which have not met on the gridiron. When such a happy day arrives, it may be harder for the sport writers to fill their columns, but their columns will be more easily read by intelligent followers of this great American game. WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT, THE HERE have been few plays on the New York stage this year which have given the reviewers so much trouble as "The Tavern." Putting the traditional finger on the traditional flea is an easy task compared with the labor of classifying this curious drama. It is advertised as a satire, and advertisements of theatrical productions have never been known to lie. But somehow this easy classification does not seem to be wholly adequate. There are moments during the progress of the play when it in turn appears to be a rather dull melodrama, a burlesque of a melodrama, a farce, a tragedy, a whimsy, and a poignantly jocular treatment of things which are not in the least humor ous. The scene of "The Tavern " is laid where its title would indicate. It is a play in two acts and one long, continuous thunder-storm which rumbles and crashes the whole evening through. The chief characters are an irascible landlord, his trembling son, a servingmaid, a bewildered hired man, a gov ernor, his wife, daughter, and prospective son-in-law, and an assorted group containing highwaymen, officers of the law, and the keeper of an insane asylum. The leading figure in the play is a wandering observer of mankind, whose main contention is that "all the world's a stage" and he is its audience. The observer is played by Arnold Daly. The characters are costumed in garments which range from the early eighteenth century French and English to a movie-director's idea of a Gloucester fisherman. As to the plot, the present cost of white paper prohibits any complete description. It could be adequately described only in one of those breathlessly amorphous sentences in White Studios This is the maiden all forlorn, and the Governor whose prospective son-in-law she has which a child recounts a whole day's When Barrie creates a whimsy, he When a musician jazzes a conventional theme, he changes its time, but still retains its tonal structure. It seems as though the authors of "The Tavern" had taken a dramatic theme and, instead of changing its key or its time, had merely shifted the range of its notes, just as a pianist might slide his fingers a few spaces along the keyboard and play a piece through with willful disregard for the ensuing dis sonance. You do not know anything more Perhaps "The Tavern" is a real man which heads this editorial, "What's it all about, anyhow?" OUR NATIONAL PARKS some UR National Parks are thing more than playgrounds. Those who attempt to infringe on their beauty and wildness have falsely represented them as enjoyed chiefly by Eastern millionaires at the expense of Western development. Nothing could be further from the fact. Their appeal has been to large numbers of people from all sections. They form but a small part of the entire National reservations, but all the more they deserve and require especial protection. The difference between the National Forests and the National Parks shows why the complete conservation of the National Parks is imperative. The law permits water power, irrigation, lumbering, and hunting in season in National Forests; it permits none of these in National Parks. In practice, National Parks are small areas set apart within National Forests. To destroy the differentiating principle is to nullify the purpose of former Congresses in making National Parks; it is to return them to the status, in all but mere name, and to the conditions of the National Forests. We cannot permit this to be done. Our National Parks are our National Museums of native America, bearing much the same relation to the National For ests as a museum of natural history, for instance, does to the great city park in which it stands. The general principle underlying the protection and conservation of the National Parks is simple, but its application is difficult. It is quite conceivable that beauty may sometimes have to give way to a pressing public need. But the tendency has been to encroach, not to save cities, but to save money. Commercializing the people's property bas been insidious and persistent. There is sound sense in a dictum of Mr. Payne, the present Secretary of the Interior, and a stanch supporter of the National Parks, that "it is not safe to encroach upon the National Parks for any commercial purpose." This is emphatically a case, where safety lies on the conservative side. We should not take any risks; injury once done cannot be undone. These reservations, few in number and small in comparison with the total Governmental reserves, form a link between the wild life of America and our day; they preserve noble and beautiful examples of natural marvels; they show American wild animals living natural lives in their natural habitats. It is our duty to protect them faithfully for our own enjoyment, and to pass them on to generations which would otherwise not have remaining examples of all this. The present immediate danger to the National Parks is twofold-the attempt to encroach on them for water power and the attempt to divert their streams and lakes to irrigation. The situation has recently been debated in The Outlook in letters from Mr. W. J. Hannah, of Big Timber, Montana, and Mr. J. Horace McFarland, the President of the American Civic Association, on the one hand, and Senator Walsh, of Montana, on the other. It is evident from this correspondence that, however plausible the argument may be that it is possible to use the Parks for commercial purposes and still leave them beautiful, it would involve grave danger to their special and peculiar character. Mr. McFarland says of the situation in the Yellowstone, where it is proposed to establish an irrigation reservoir for the benefit of a comparatively few farmers, the issue is plain: "It is either completely to give up the Yellowstone as a spectacle or completely to retain it as a spectacle. It cannot be handled on a compromise basis and still have it worth while as a Park." It is proposed to introduce several irrigation bills threatening the Yellowstone Park at the next session of Congress. A friend of the National Parks who is thoroughly in touch with the situation writes us as to this: "The nature of any private privilege granted in any National Park, whether it be for power or irrigation or mining obsidian for teething rings, makes not a straw's difference. The first one granted, whether ference. The first one granted, whether by the Water Power Commission or by Congress, will open the door, and complete commercialization of all the National parks inevitably will follow in time." It is pointed out that it is quite possible to take the water for irrigation outside the Park, for, as Secretary Payne says, "The water doesn't stay in the parks." The effort is to get free reservoir sites inside the Park and to avoid expense generally. In reply, the advocates of preserving the Parks intact say that there are alternatives, in many cases better alternatives except in respect to the cost of reservoir sites; that there is no instance where modern engineering cannot solve the problem engineering cannot solve the problem outside of National Park boundaries; and that, if the end to be gained is not worth the cost of purchasing sites and erecting possibly more expensive works, it certainly is not worth the destruction of the special character of our National Parks. It will be seen that this is the business of the people themselves. Their remedy is simple. Let them instruct their Representatives in Congress. The second new danger to the Parks, that from the greed for water power, arises from the fact that Congress, in passing the Federal Water Power Act, did not, as it should have done, exempt the National Parks from the operation of the Act. The law was passed in a hurry, was supposed to have been killed by the President's "pocket veto," but, under a precedent found when the friends of the measure were bringing pressure to bear, was signed. Secretary Payne averted the danger for a time when he obtained an agreement by the Water Power Commission that it would grant no leases in the National Parks until Congress should have an opportunity to amend the law. That this should be done by Congress admits of no question. If it is not done by the present Congress, the new Administration after March 4 should certainly prove its interest in the large and vital subject of conservation by acting promptly. As the law now stands, the Water Power Commission, which consists of the Secretaries of War, the Interior, and Agriculture, may grant half-century leases in National Parks and Monu ments to build dams, power-houses, transmission lines, and other structures, necessary or convenient, without other advertisement than what it thinks is necessary to bring out other and perhaps more advantageous bids. It is true that a Secretary of the Interior who cares for the National Parks as Secretary Payne does might balk any effort to persuade the Water Power Commission to grant injurious privileges. But when we remember what happened at the time of the Ballinger controversy it is clear that we must not depend upon it as a certainty that the public interest will always take precedence over private interests. As the other members of the Water Power Commission might perhaps be influenced by the fact that it was created for the express purpose of stimulating the use of water power, the Secretary of the Interior would be the single natural and legal defender of the National Parks. The responsibility for our National Parks and the power over them ought not to be in one man's hands, nor in three men's hands; they should return to the open forum of Congress, where they have rested for half a century and where they belong. N sists in being wise in time." It is easy to see now that if all Americans who are convinced that we should unite with our allies in any terms that we make with Germany had put themselves strongly behind the Lodge reservations we should in all likelihood have by this time established a technical as well as an actual state of peace. It is, or ought to be, equally clear now that the Treaty with the Lodge reservations has practically lost what chance it had of adoption. It has been intimated that President Wilson may now submit the Treaty again to the Senate with the Lodge reservations, thus attempting to put his opponents in a hole. If he does so, the Senate probably will not accept the Lodge reservations and the Treaty. Since those reservations were framed, a great deal has happened. The American people have made it evident that they are not only opposed to the Covenant of the League of Nations, but also to the participation of America in the contentions and broils over European bounda ries. If America had been allowed to sign the Treaty with the exception of the Covenant eighteen months ago, it is very possible that very possible that many of those quar rels might have been prevented. Now the quarrels have been entered into and are past the stage of prevention. England and France and Italy are in dissension over the terms of the Treaty. If we should sign the Treaty now even without the Covenant, we should have to take sides in those dissensions, and that the American people are plainly unwilling to do. There are two possible courses open: One is to accept the Treaty of Versailles with new reservations eliminating the United States from the League of Nations as at present constituted, and also-and this is equally, if not more, important-declaring that the United States declines to commit itself to the maintenance of the Treaty's territorial arrangements. We should thus join with our allies in the Treaty of Peace and would leave to the party which by a great popular mandate assumes the administration of the Government on March 4 the duty and right of adjusting our international relations. The other method is to adopt a declaration promulgating a state of peace, corresponding to the declaration promulgating a state of war, and announcing at the same time that the United States will hold Germany accountable as a defeated enemy and will concede to her no rights except such as are later to be determined upon. The first course is intrinsically simpler, and, if accepted by the other signatories, including Germany, to the Treaty of Versailles, would automatically establish the peace as a victorious peace and place the United States in a position of enforcing all the terms upon Germany excepting those which are strictly territorial. The delay of the last two years, however, has allowed opposition to such a course to grow, and we think it is very doubtful whether any such plan can be carried out. Moreover, Mr. Harding is committed to the other course. He has said that as soon as a resolution establishing a state of peace is submitted to him he will sign it. Whether such a resolution would be equivalent to separating ourselves entirely from our allies or not will depend upon its terms. Such a resolution would not necessarily put us in a position of aloofness. Indeed, it might strengthen us with our allies. There is absolutely no doubt that the United States is as devoted as ever to the principles for which the Nation really fought. American soldiers did not fight to settle the boundaries of the Banat of Temesvar, or the access of Poland to the sea, or any other European territorial question. The United States fought because Germany, by her disregard of the law of war and of the 66 laws of nations, by her menace to all free peoples, had invaded America's soul. The American soldiers were much nearer the truth than their President when they said that they fought to can the Kaiser." To say that if we do not sign the Treaty or accept such and such terms we have fought in vain, is to allow one's emotions to blind one's reason. America has done what she set out to do. She has proved that any country which defies civilization and espouses international anarchy invites its own destruction. The best thing that the United States can do now is to employ every practicable measure First, to see that the countries which Germany most immediately injured, France and Belgium, shall not be menaced soon again, and for that reason the United States should concede to both France and Belgium those physical barriers of defense which are necessary for their safety. The Franco-AngloAmerican Treaty now pigeonholed in the Senate may not be necessary if France is permitted to have a proper frontier. If she is not permitted to have a proper frontier as a consequence of Mr. Wilson's objections, then that Treaty ought to be revived and signed Treaty ought to be revived and signed with reservations eliminating all reference to the Covenant of the League of Nations in it. Second, to insist that Germany make proper reparation to France and Belgium and other countries she has injured and render up her criminals to justice. Third, to keep everlastingly at the task of defining and applying international law, not only by conventions, treaties, and the most practicable form of international courts of law, but also by the announcement of policies devoted to that end. SOME CHRISTMAS ADVICE AND A WORD TO THE UNWISE I CHRISTMAS, 1920 CHOOSE CAREFULLY YOUR GIFTS FOR CHILDREN should not allow our children to keep any creature in confinement. Avoid giving books on hunting, robbery, murder, or war. We do not wish to accustom the child mind to thoughts of agony and death. Choose toys that are interesting and instructive, which will be enjoyed by the average child and leave no destructive impression on the mind. A child's mind receives and holds early impres sions-those transmitted in play; this has been proven by the kindergarten method of child training. M. L. H., Humane Education Press Bureau, Boston, Massachusetts. II Do not give your child any water to drink on Christmas day. People have been frequently drowned in water. By no means give your child a plant for Christmas. Some plants grow into trees, and on some trees people have been hanged. Above all, do not let your child warm itself beside the grate where the stockings are hung. They burned Joan of Arc at the stake, and, unfortunately, made use of fire in so doing. The only appropriate Christmas gifts for your child are a pair of blinders, a gag, and a nice piece of sanitary cotton to stuff in its ears. Better yet, follow Mark Twain's advice concerning boys, and put your child in a barrel and feed it through the bung until it reaches the age of twenty-one. Seriously, the advice which has been sent to us by the Humane Education Press Bureau seems to involve one of the most curious misunderstandings of child psychology which we have seen in a long time. A child's mind develops as the mind of the race developed. It possesses in little all the primitive instincts of the race. The way to develop these instincts for the good of the child and the good of society is not to ignore these instincts, but to sublimate them in useful and effective. action. A boy who has been given a gun, taught its dangers, trained in its accurate use, is not the boy who will run amuck. A child who is given a pet and taught to care for it is not the child who O not choose such gifts as whips, will develop a streak of cruelty. Books swords, or guns. DO We do not wish to encourage our children to play at games of whip ping, fighting, or any cruel sport. Do not give a live animal, kitten or puppy, to a small child who will not know better than to hurt it. Do not give to children a caged bird -since Liberty is our watchword, we should be chosen with judgment and common sense, but if you are to eliminate all stories which deal with robberies we should have to blue-pencil the story of the good Samaritan. It is strange that any one needs to be told that, if a child is brought forward step by step to an understanding of life, the bitter disillusionment and moral (C) Underwood & Underwood POLICE HOLDING BACK CROWD DURING THE ATTACK ON THE UNION CLUB IN NEW YORK CITY. NOTE THE AMERICAN AND SINN FEIN FLAGS CARRIED BY IRISH SYMPATHIZERS disaster which sometimes follow, the sugar-coated pill method of education will have little chance to supervene. THE GREEN HYPHEN T HE news from England of the burning of the Liverpool docks by Sinn Fein sympathizers, of the murders of policemen and Government officers in Ireland, and of the tragic reprisals which have followed, has found a disconcerting echo on our own shores. Supported by the Hearst papers, encouraged by professional propagandists, Irish sentiment in the United States has manifested itself in an emphatically unAmerican way. Prior to America's entrance into the war some of our German-American citizens incurred public condemnation by putting the interests of their fatherland above the interests of their adopted country. We called them hyphenated Americans. This same opprobrious epithet deservedly belongs to Irish-Americans who are to-day quite as disregardful of the interests of America as any of those half-citizens who applauded the sinking of the Lusitania. Two weeks ago The Outlook told briefly the story of an assault upon a New York theater by Sinn Fein fanatics who objected to the British flag in the decorations displayed for Armistice week. On Thanksgiving Day certain other Irish-Americans, coming out of St. Patrick's Cathedral, where a mass had been celebrated for the repose of the soul of Terence MacSwiney, discovered the British flag flying with the flags of America and France from the second-story windows of the Union Club. Disregarding the appeal of venerable Monsignor Lavelle, the Sinn Feiners attempted to battle their way into the Union Club and destroy the British flag. A pitched battle followed between the members of the club and the mob, which was at last driven off by the police after the mob had riddled windows of the club with bricks and stones and several people had been injured. When we remember that just a short while ago the funeral of MacSwiney was permitted to traverse the streets of London, guarded and protected by the English police, and that the marchers in this funeral were even permitted to carry the banners of the so-called Irish Republic, the intolerance and fanaticism of our Irish-Americans is made doubly obvious. Irish-Americans are seeking to embroil America and Great Britain. It is no new effort that they are making, but the continuation of a policy which goes back for decades in the history of AngloAmerican relationship. Regarding these Irish-Americans as Irishmen, and not as Americans, it can be said that they are doing more to hurt their cause in this country than they know. America this country than they know. America has shown a generous interest in Irish problems, and has felt a whole-hearted hope that a solution might ultimately be found for the historic unhappiness of Ireland. But whatever of sympathy remains is being rapidly alienated by the conduct of Irish sympthizers within our own gates. They are in danger of the same public reaction which the extravagant sympathizers with Citizen Genet met when, during Washington's Administration, he violated the hospitality of America on behalf of a foreign Power. WHO WERE THE PILGRIM FATHERS? The entire Anglo-Saxon people are celebrating this fall the landing of this particular group of immigrants three centuries after it occurred. Why? Who were the Pilgrim Fathers? From the fourth century, when the Roman Empire under Constantine made Christianity the religion of the state, to the close of the sixteenth century, the Church as established by law demanded uniformity in belief, in worship, and in ecclesiastical organization. Any violation of this uniformity the governments under the control of the Roman Catholic Church punished as the most heinous of crimes. The Protestant Reformation weakened but did not destroy their assumption that all loyal citizens must think the same thoughts and employ the same ritual in religion, but that assumption passed over into the Lutheran Church in Germany and the Established Church in England. Henry VIII, when he broke away from Rome, had no idea of introducing liberty into his Kingdom; and Queen Elizabeth was equally resolute in her endeavor to prevent nonconformity whether by Protestants or Roman Catholics. The Puritans, while in a minority, appeared to repudiate this doctrine of religious uniformity. Lord Rosebery, himself a Churchman, delivering the address at the setting up of the statue of Oliver Cromwell in London, defined the distinctive characteristic of the great Puritan leader in the following terms: "He [Oliver Cromwell] was a practical mystic, the most formidable and terrible of all combinations; the man who combined the inspiration, apparently derived, and in my judgment really derived, from close communion with the supernatural and the celestial-the man who has that inspiration associated with the energy of a mighty man of actionsuch a man as that lives in communion with a Sinai of his own, and he appears to come down to this world below |