The Navy and the Nation

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HE new naval program has been put forward in the best way to startle the country and to alarm other nations. Hardly had Congress been assembled when it was announced that the Administration favored a naval program of a billion dollars. Newspapers ran headlines about "World's Greatest Navy Plan" and the confidence of "Big Navy Men" in the proposed "Huge Program." Even now we do not believe that the country understands that this program, which bulks so large in the total, is in fact only making up to the Navy what it has failed to get and might reasonably have expected to get by normal annual appropriations.

No country in the world today can make war without the approval of the United States. Both the moral and material support of America are essential. This fact was recognized publicly and specifically by Paul Claudel, the French Ambassador at Washington. In paying tribute to Myron T. Herrick, the American Ambassador to France, on the eve of his return to his post in Paris, Ambassador Claudel added that there were some things that were worse than organized warfare-for example, a state of anarchy and highway robbery. Though war, he recognized, is a clumsy weapon, and a great part of the world can do without it, it cannot be outlawed until there is law from which it can be driven out. In the meantime, M. Claudel pointed out, France is the country most in need of peace and the United States is the country able to do most for the cause of peace.

This is not primarily a tribute to America's good intentions. It is rather a tribute to America's power. If the United States were a feeble nation, nobody would dream of saying that other countries could go to war only with its consent. That its consent is now considered essential is one consequence of America's participation in the World War. Since 1918 the nations of Europe have had visible evidence of America's power, and therefore they will heed what America may say about peace.

For this reason, if we wish to exert an influence on behalf of peace, we must have a strong navy. What sort of navy it should be should be determined by the policy which it is designed to carry out. It may not be necessary for us to go to war ourselves; but it may be necessary for us so to police the high seas as to make a warring nation's position not only uncomfortable but ineffective.

Our Navy, therefore, will be doing its best work when there is no war. It is not merely a line of defense against an enemy; it is an arm of power for the maintenance of a peaceful policy. Without a battle it may earn far more than it costs.

During the past six years our Navy has been allowed to remain deficient in certain necessary elements. By what we believe to have been a mistaken policy the Administration has not urged and Congress has not provided the construction of cruisers and other auxiliary vessels year by year that would be requisite for the active operations of a fleet or for the protection of lines of communication and transportation routes. If we had constructed those vessels, nobody would have objected. The theory seems to have been that we might by

example prevent other nations from over-construction by giving an example of under-construction. Our example having had no effect, and the Geneva Naval Conference having come to no result, the Nation is now suddenly informed that it must make up for lost time.

There is one war which might be instituted by other countries without the consent of the United States, and that is a war by a coalition of countries against the United States. If American naval policy should give the impression of becoming aggressive, it would cease to be a policy of peace. Nothing could be more likely to create an impression abroad, and even at home, of aggressive intentions than the sudden announcement of a huge naval program. Our attempts to find out what that program really meant were not successful. The bill introduced into the House of Representatives at the request of the Secretary of the Navy authorized the President "to undertake the construction of the following vessels: Twenty-five light cruisers, nine destroyer leaders, thirty-two submarines, and five aircraft carriers." In that bill nothing was said about the time limit or the cost. Estimates bring the cost of these vessels to something like three-quarters of a billion dollars. It is supposed that in the original plan were included four battleships, to be built after the expiration of the naval treaty in 1932, and these may have been included in the so-called billion-dollar program. So far as we were able to ascertain at the time, nothing officially had been said concerning the period over which such construction should spread. In presenting this program to the House of Representatives the Secretary of the Navy, Mr. Wilbur, has at last made an explanation which is as near official as anything yet put forth. He has said that the plan for the seventy-one ships is intended to cover a period of eight years. According to this, the yearly appropriations would average less than one hundred millions, would in no year run higher than $141,500,000, and would for the last year of the period be as low as $10,400,000.

A cruiser costs each person in the country somewhat less than seventeen cents. To put before the country and the world a naval program that speaks in terms of billions of dollars for even yet there is talk of a twenty-year program that would mount up to the billions-instead of telling precisely what the Navy needs now and what it should have year by year is to mislead the country and our friends abroad alike.

There is nothing in the mind or purposes of the American people that warrants the apprehension which is said to exist in Great Britain and Japan concerning our naval plans. If there is such real apprehension there-as there is reported to be in certain quarters-it must be due to the way in which those naval plans were first announced. There is not the slightest evidence that these plans involve the country in any competitive building. We are not trying to outstrip any other nation. We are simply providing adequate weapons for the battle fleet that we have and reasonable guardians for our lines of communication. Secretary Wilbur's statement to the House comes rather late to correct a wrong impression. These words in it, therefore, need emphasizing:

"The program proposed, if carried out, will create a properly constituted fleet. . . . We have not such a fleet at the present time. Each postponement of the undertaking of essen

tial new construction increases the already pronounced inadequacy of the fleet in certain respects, and extends the period of that inadequacy still farther into the future. . . . Prompt adoption of the program proposed will retalt in a fleet adequate for National defense and will avoid excessive peak loads in future financial demands."

False economy and misunderstanding of the psychology of other peoples have led the Administration first to neglect the Navy, and then to make up for the neglect by the announcement of a program that sounds like a threat. Congress has not been wholly free from blame. It has some power of initiative and should have exercised it. The Navy is not, and never has been, a partisan issue. It is the business of Congress, without regard to party, to see that this country avoids its past mistakes in respect to the Navy and provides for the country a naval force which its peaceful policy requires.

Russia's "Cooler"

IBERIA was the land of anguish for political offenders S

under the Czars-its snow-bound wastes a symbol of dread. Now the Bolshevik Commissars are using its terrors of exile against recalcitrant members of their own party, and these actually former leaders of the Revolution that put the Soviets in power-Trotsky, Zinoviev, Radek, Kamenev.

Reports from Moscow had it that these former chieftains of the Red cohorts, together with enough others to make thirty, had been banished to remote points in Siberia-or equally remote points elsewhere-because of their antagonism to the policies of the ruling group. Later reports said that they had not yet been sent out of Moscow, but that they would be if they did not give up active opposition to the program of the Government. Siberia means silence and oblivion, and Trotsky and his crew can stand anything better than that. So they may find a way to stay somewhere near the orators' platform. But the decree of banishment against them shows the determination of Stalin, General Secretary and political boss of the Russian Communist Party. Happy days in what anti-Bolshevik refugees like to call "the Soviet Paradise."

The spirits of the Decembrists-those aristocrats who almost exactly a century ago dared to criticise the autocrat of all the Russias and suffered the penalty of confinement in Siberian exile-would smile grimly from the graveyard of their little church in Chita to see these gentry joining their train. For it happens that not one of the prominent Bolshevik rebels is a genuine Slavic Russian. Trotsky's real name is Bronstein, Zinoviev's Apfelbaum, and Kamenev's Rosenfeld, while Radek is by birth a Czech Jew and Rakovsky a Bulgarian. They all have held posts of power and influence, and three in particular: Trotsky, who commanded the Red Army; Zinoviev, who was President of the Third Communist International; and Kamenev, who, together with Zinoviev, once played a part in the ruling triumvirate in the Council of People's Commissars. But they criticised concessions to foreign capital and advocated a continued policy favoring the industrial workers in the name of class dictatorship, while Stalin and the group now in control want to conciliate the peasants and for

eign capital in order to save the Soviet system from economic collapse. So the secret Government police, known by their abbreviated title as the Cheka, have laid warning hands on the shoulders of the one-time leaders whom the inexorable Communist Party machinery has cast out.

One of the anomalies of the Bolshevik Revolution was that the Soviet secret police operated against old non-Bolshevik Russian social revolutionaries whom the Czar's secret police had pursued in their day-even Catherine Breshkovsky, known to so many Americans as the "Grandmother of the Russian Revolution." But a greater anomaly is to see the old punishment of exile turned against men who made the red sunrise of the Bolshevik October of 1917.

Whether or not Trotsky and his colleagues are actually sent to Siberia is less important than the decree of exile against them. For that decree probably marks the end of a period in Russia's Revolution, the period of irresponsible internationalism, and the beginning of a phase of economic reconstruction.

Two Conceptions of Religion

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ERTAIN Anglican bishops proposed some years ago that the Christian Church find unity by accepting as authoritative the Bible, the Nicene Creed, the sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Communion, and an episcopally organized ministry. Pope Pius XI has now responded to every such advance from outside his fold by declaring that the only basis of unity is submission to the authority of the Roman See. Certain Fundamentalists insist that the sole basis should be the Bible as interpreted by themselves.

In all this is implicit the idea that religion, specifically Chrstianity, is a form of doctrine. Bishop, Pope, and Fundamentalist differ widely on what that form should be; but they agree that it is a form.

Radically different is the idea that religion is not a form at all, but a kind of life. If this idea is true, then the formal unity of the Church would not be desirable, but deplorable. To make all people think alike is to destroy free discussion of the things that most matter; and freedom is essential to life.

There must be outward forms for life, but those outward forms are not the cause of life, but its expression, and they change as the life develops.

These two ideas of religion have been evident throughout history. One is clear and precise, the other is as hard to define as life itself, but as easy to recognize.

One idea views religion as a spiritual autocracy, the other as a spiritual democracy; one as a law imposed, the other as laws discovered; one as obedience to an external and unchanging code, the other as an aspiration to an ever onward moving ideal; one as an outward conformity, the other as an inward life; one as a jewel transmitted, the other as a seed planted; one as a plan, the other as an impulse. According to the one, unity must be visible and tangible because it is of authority. According to the other, unity cannot be seen or touched because it is of the spirit.

Where the one idea has prevailed, there has been subjection; where the other has prevailed, there has been liberty.

T

HE Democratic Party is not, as those who remember the Madison Square Garden Convention might expect, hopelessly ineffective-at least, not for the moment.

Its National Committee was able to transact its business and adjourn within four hours, and without friction.

It presented thirteen speakers at a Jackson Day dinner, and only one of them showed bad taste.

If only one perfectly clear note was sounded and that by the very man whose taste was not good-all notes were clear enough to be understood. If they were not in perfect harmony, they were all-again excepting that solitary one-near enough together to be not painfully discordant.

Clem Shaver has triumphed.

To this patient man it was said, not alone by Bildad and Eliphaz, that he was foolish to believe that Democrats would come to Washington and drink the milk of concord, that when they got here they would batten on the apples of discord. If the row did not break in the meeting of the National Committee, called to arrange for the 1928 Convention, it would certainly break at the dinner.

Yet Chairman Shaver brought his Committee meeting to a close in perfect order and in perfect temper, a delightful (to the Democrats) contrast to the way in which Chairman Butler, of the Republican National Committee, had handled his a few weeks before. And then thirteen hundred Democrats from all

parts of the United States and its possessions sat down together at dinner, thirteen orators addressed them, largely in the early hours of the morning of Friday, the 13th of January, and, despite all these omens of evil, there was no incident more untoward than that Governor Ritchie, of Maryland, discovered a zeal in excess of his good taste, and was soundly and artistically spanked by the Honorable John W. Davis, toastmaster and titular head of the Democracy.

By DIXON MERRITT

and blitherings of recent years may believe, forgotten utterly its old traditions. It still can do the unexpected.

Its National Committee selected Houston, Texas, as the meeting-place of the Democratic National Convention of 1928.

Probably no human being expected such a result-not even Jesse Jones when he put up his personal check for $200,000 as Houston's bid.

The contest was between Detroit and San Francisco-Detroit, the neighbor of Windsor and Walkerville; San Francisco, the home of McAdoo. A nice opportunity that contest was for the smoldering fires to break into flame. But a committeeman here and there decided to give Houston a complimentary vote-committeemen of all shades of personal preference as to candidatesand pretty soon they had "put Houston over."

As soon as the thing was done it became, to those not directly concerned in it, a matter of deep premeditation and tremendous significance.

Before the tellers had fairly announced the result an acquaintance from a Southern State came by where I was leaning against a post. He whispered, "That's Act One in a play entitled 'The Deflation of Al Smith." Ten steps behind him came an acquaintance from an Eastern State. He whispered: "That's a typical piece of Smith strategy; the South will vote for him when he is nominated in a Southern city."

It had nothing whatever to do with Smith or anti-Smith,

Still, the selection of Houston is a matter of considerable significance. It may be a prophecy. At least, it indicates the temper of the Democratic Party of 1928. The way out of a difficulty presented itself, and was taken -promptly. Unless the disposition of the party leaders changes between now and June 26, the same method will be followed in the Convention. It will be no matter for surprise if a nomination is made just as unexpectedly, just as promptly and just as well.

For the selection of Houston as the Convention city was a good selection. It

takes the Convention South for the first time in sixty-eight years, St. Louis and Baltimore being but border cities. Sectionalism, we all know, is not a good thing for the country or for parties. The North had had a monopoly of conventions long enough.

Two minutes after the selection of Houston was announced the report of the Committee on Resolutions was being read. Five minutes later it was adopted. And the meeting adjourned.

I suspect that there was pressure behind this. An attack on the two-thirds rule might have come in any slack minute of the proceedings. And that would have been, if not dangerous, at least embarrassing. The Smith men are supposed to be interested now in abrogation of this rule. But many anti-Smith men were exerting themselves mightily for its abrogation not so long ago, when they thought that a majority rule would enable them to nominate McAdoo. Just what they would have done if the question had come up-but it did not come up. The Convention of 1928 will open under the two-thirds rule.

T

HERE is less to be said about the dinner than was said at it-though considerable is to be said.

All of the speakers-with a single exception-stressed the importance of uniting upon those things concerning which Democrats are agreed, leaving out of discussion those things concerning which they are divided.

The exception was Governor Ritchie, of Maryland. He demanded that his party have the courage to face the prohibition issue, though, he said, with him it went much deeper than prohibitionto the principle that the States should be free to promote temperance by such means as suit their needs-and he commended Governor Smith, of New York, as the ideal candidate.

Mr. Davis, the toastmaster, reminded Governor Ritchie that the largest part of the population of the United States is neither prohibitionist nor anti-prohibitionist, that it believes prohibition to be an experiment not yet sufficiently tried, (Continued on page 158)

P

RESIDENT COOLIDGE, by going personally to Cuba to open the sixth PanAmerican Conference, centered international attention for the time upon the Americas. His new statement of the policy of the United States regarding relations between the countries of the American hemisphere thus became the most important international news of the world.

If the President himself had not gone to Havana, this emphasis could not have been given to the significance of interAmerican affairs. Not even Mr. Hughes, with his great prestige, could have accomplished the result. But the attention of the people of the United States follows the President, and the first visit of a Chief Executive from Washington to a Pan-American gathering caused other nations equally to give heed.

The greatest value in this decision of the President lay in recognition of the paramount importance of as good an understanding as possible with Latin America. Heretofore we in the United States have handled our relations with the republics to the south, on the whole, rather heedlessly. A series of events recently have altered this attitude-the Stimson mission to Nicaragua, the appointment of Morrow as envoy to Mexico, the flight of Lindbergh. The President's visit to Cuba was the culminating event that pointed the meaning of all the preceding ones.

President Machado, of Cuba, declared just before the opening of the Conference that Latin America should accept the Monroe Doctrine-which the Covenant of the League of Nations recognizes -as a basic guaranty of the security of American nations, and not attempt to Ideal with it as a Pan-American issue. The attitude of President Coolidge may bring about a new conception of the Doctrine as a possible agency of interAmerican confidence.

Last year showed a high-water mark in loans from the United States to Latin America of a third of a billion dollars. With economic and financial relations developing at this rate, and with air-mail

So.

France feels the actuality of that danger more acutely than we can. Belgium, if she were consulted, might show even more anxiety. She has had experience on her own soil of war in violation of treaties.

We Americans are much more inclined than Europeans are to trust to general declarations of policy and to the development of public opinion to make them effective. That, too, is natural. Our isolated position makes it easier for us to feel free to take this point of view. And we constitutionally dislike to say what we would do in future circumstances that we cannot exactly foresee. This makes us seem to Europeans hard to deal with. But we likewise consider them hard to deal with. The difficulty really arises from the difference between European and American conceptions of what it is necessary to do to prevent war.

Europe, from hard experience, prefers definite arrangements that specify just what shall constitute a breach of the peace and what every one shall do in case of such an offense. The Covenant of the League of Nations, of course, pledges the members to act together against an aggressor.

On our side, we can argue that if you cannot trust nations to keep their word when they renounce war, neither can you trust them to keep their promises about what they will do in case of

"aggression," however defined. In the end, any arrangement rests on the good faith of the parties.

So Secretary Kellogg has rebuffed M. Briand's suggestion of a treaty outlawing "aggressive" war. And the whole French Cabinet is to consider Mr. Kellogg's plan for a mutual declaration, to be signed by all the Powers, against war as an instrument of national policy.

Something, it may be hoped, will come of all the exchanges of notes. To fail to arrive at any understanding, through inability to adjust two differing theories of action with the same end in view, would leave us worse off than before the whole question arose.

Germany, so say the legal experts of five countries neutral in the World War, was unjustly branded by the Treaty of Versailles with the sole guilt of causing the conflict. Their findings, in 400 pages, are an answer to ques tions put by Senator Owen to an eminent Norwegian law scholar. He called into association with him experts from Finland, Holland, Sweden, and Swit zerland. But the problem of distribut ing some of the war guilt which so troubles the Germans has little bearing in the minds of most people upon their feeling about the policy of the German Government. From the practical as distinct from the historical point of view it would be better-even for Germany-to let it drop.

A

T this time of the year-this article is written in Christmas week-it is a little trying to open the square envelopes which constitute ninety per cent of the morning mail that lies on the breakfast table and find that, instead of containing pleasantly anticipated holiday greetings from friends, they are generally begging letters and circulars for all sorts of individual and incorporated charities. The fact is that the business of soliciting funds for this, that, and the other socalled philanthropic institution has become an organized nuisance. Many a man and woman whose names are in the telephone book will appreciate the truth of what I say even if they do not quite dare to blurt out the truth themselves. If, as he is said to, the Lord loves a cheerful giver, I sometimes wonder what his feelings must be at the following brief conversation which is typical of not a few American breakfast tables:

Husband (putting down his coffee cup and tearing open a square envelope with his thumb-a very reprehensible practice; he should have cut the envelope open neatly with his unused butter-knife or, possibly, with the tine of a clean fork, or, better yet, with a small silver letter-opener taken from his waistcoat pocket if he had been addicted to that commendable habit. Note to the reader: Cut this out as a reminder for next year's Christmas list of gifts suitable for relations.): "My dear, here is an appeal from the society of which your friend Mrs. Gotrox is Honorary President saying that $25 will help provide .fleece-lined bed-slippers for Eskimo children. What shall I do about it?"

Wife (with her usually placid and pleasant brow wrinkled a little by the inner struggle between her feeling of resentment and her sense of justice): "Well, if sweet Adeline Gotrox thinks she can get $25 out of us for her Eskimo children, she'll have to give me $25 for my Equatorial mothers!"

Husband (lifting his eyebrows in mild surprise): "Equatorial mothers?"

Wife (with staccato decision): "Yes! you know! My Society which is trying to raise a fund to provide the mothers of Equatorial Africa with electric fans!"

Husband (in a tone of mock resignation): "All right. But if that's the

144

By LAWRENCE F. ABBOTT

Contributing Editor of The Outlook

way organized philanthropy is to be run, I should like to add one more organization to the list. I would call it the A. S. S. P."

Wife (slightly puzzled): "A. S. S. P.? What does that mean?

Husband (triumphantly): "The American Society for the Suppression of Philanthropy!"

This is a lugubrious and discouraging frame of mind to be in about philanthropy. Luckily for me, a philanthropic appeal fell into my hands just before Christmas which puts the whole subject in its cheerful and proper light. The appeal came to a friend of mine in his morning mail, and, with his permission, I print it here:

Dear Mr. B—:

London, December 1, 1927.

I expect you know the story of the man who took his friend to the bar, and said, with a large and generous air, "Now then, what would you like?" to which the friend replied that he thought he would like a pint of champagne. "Oh!" said his host. "Well, try thinking of something nearer threepence."

What the Hampstead General Hospital would like is £10,000, and it would be a simplification of its finances if you were charming enough to send them a cheque for that amount in the enclosed envelope; but if you would prefer to think of something nearer threepence I shall understand. Not near enough to give you the bother of buying postage-stamps or postal orders; something in guineas, I suggest, which will give you no more trouble than the opening of your cheque-book. But just as you like, so long as you help us.

The Hampstead General and North West London Hospital, to give it its full title, which need not all be put on the cheque, has a debt of £10,000, and needs another £5,000 a year income in order to pay its way. I could give you further figures of its income and expenditure, of the number of patients attended, of the operations performed, but these might not interest you. More interesting, perhaps, is this: that where its Out-Patients Department now stands in Bayham Street, Camden Town, there stood once the house where Charles Dickens lived as a boy when his father first came to London. His father, you remember,

had that habit which was to descend to Mr. Micawber of living in the hope that something would turn up. It is thus that Hospitals have to live. They can make no provision for the gracious work they do; they just struggle on from year to year, hoping that men will always be generous, women always merciful. So, year after year, Hospital after Hospital makes its appeal to you; and, no doubt, day after day at this season you open such a letter, say to yourself with a shrug, "Another charity," and drop it in the fire. Which is why I began with a joke, as something to which one listens more readily. Having listened, will you not now be kind?

The reason why I, and not the Appeal Secretary, am writing-is writing -(every now and then the English language becomes quite impossible)— the reason then, why one of us and not the other is writing to you, is that there are people who look at the signature of a letter first; in which case, said the Appeal Secretary, my name would be more helpful; though whether his hope is that you will have heard of me, or his fear was that you would have heard of him, I do not know. Yet, as a professional writer, I could not but share this feeling that I should prove more readable of the two of us. So I am hoping that you have read this letter; but I must warn you that, as a professional writer, I am not satisfied to be read for nothing. The question of the Author's royalties is before you. Send what you can to me at the Hampstead General Hospital, and you will be glad and proud afterwards, and I shall be always

Your humble and grateful servant,

A. A. MILNE.

It appears that Mr. Milne is not only a charming playwright, a charming poet, and a charmer of children, but a charming beggar as well. If every American who has had a dollar's worth of pleasure out of "When We Were Very Young" and "Now We Are Six" would send that dollar to the father of Christopher Robin, the patients of Hampstead General Hospital could have at least a few cheerful luxuries. For hospital patients, like the king in Christopher Robin's poem of the king, queen, and dairymaid, do like a little bit of butter to their bread.