strange country, and perhaps the French runners did not do themselves justice. A photograph of the French team appeared in The Outlook for May 4.

INVITING INSURREC

TION

THEN those who possess authority, whether in business, school,

W

or war, or for settling crucial international situations, fail to accept responsibility and dally or delay, they must accept the blame for the inevitable consequences. Authority that is not exercised ceases to be authority. The disturbing and alarming situation in Upper Silesia is only one more instance of the weakness of a policy of indecision on the part of the Allies.

Neither Poland nor Germany nor France is to-day in control of Upper Silesia. That control rests with the Allies, pending the final settlement under the recent plebiscite and the provision of the Versailles Treaty. The Treaty provision as to Upper Silesia, as we have already pointed out, declares that the boundary line shall be drawn by the Allies in accordance with "the wishes of the inhabitants shown by the vote, and to the geographical and economic conditions of the locality." An Inter-Allied Commission has occupied Upper Silesia during the preparations for the popular vote.

The Supreme Council of the Allies must make its decision. It probably was impossible for this decision to be made without due consideration; some delay was necessary; but the turbulent movements in Upper Silesia which have grown out of uncertainty as to the award strikingly illustrate the danger attached to this method of settling the disposition of a country whose people are divided in bitter antagonism. The theory of self-determination is beautiful to some idealists, but its practical workng is far from being easy or peaceful. It cannot be forgotten that for sound reasons the Paris Conference once decided to award Upper Silesia to Poland, and that it changed its mind as a concession to the Wilsonian ideas of self-determination, with the results that are now disturbing the peace of Europe.

Under the language of the Treaty, as quoted above, it is admitted on all hands that the mere fact of a majority vote in favor of Germany as against Poland, with the total vote regarded as a unit, does not mean that Upper Silesia must or should be awarded to Germany as a whole. Certain districts, strongly Polish in population, cast heavy majorities in favor of union with Poland. tricts, largely German in population, voted the other way. That a division

Other dis

a first prize of Fifty Dollars

a second prize of Thirty Dollars

a third prize of Twenty Dollars

Tell us truthfully of your revolts, if any, against your home life; also of your enthusiasms. If you are a woman, what do you really think of your men? If you are a man, let us have a critical estimate of your women folk. What complaints have children of their parents, and parents of their children? Do you approve of your neighbors? Be objective. Don't be introspective. You don't have to be bitter.

CONDITIONS OF CONTEST

1. Write your name (add a pen name, if you like, for publication) and address in the upper left-hand corner of your letter. 2. All letters must be typewritten on one side of the paper only. 3. Limit your letter to 600 words of average length.

4. Your letter, to be eligible, must reach us on or before

June 20.

5. We reserve the right to purchase for publication desirable letters not winning prizes.

6. Unavailable letters will not be returned.

7. The staff of The Outlook will be the judges of the contest. Address all contest letters to

CONTEST EDITOR, THE OUTLOOK COMPANY 381 Fourth Avenue, New York

line will be drawn is generally conceded. But while the decision hangs fire Polish feeling runs high. Nothing else could be expected in view of the whole history of the question. Nor is it surprising that the Poles, recalling the outcome of d'Annunzio's seizure of Fiume, remembering how the Allies refused to act in concert in behalf of the Russian people and against the usurpers under Lenine and Trotsky, recalling also other cases in which rebellion against authority resulted in the yielding of the Allies on point after point, were driven by national ambition for Poland's future to act outside the law.

We are shocked to read in our papers day by day reports that Germans are. firing upon Poles, and (if cable des

patches are correct), in at least one instance, on French soldiers; that Poles and Italians have been fighting in Upper Silesia; that German police forces have crossed a frontier and occupy a town evacuated by the forces of the Allies; that Poles have seized mines in territory which they fear may be allotted to the Germans, and that they are aided by bodies of Polish soldiers acting, of course, contrary to official Polish orders. But we should be more shocked when we read a statement in a cable despatch from Upper Silesia that "the Inter-Allied Commission to-day received a despatch from London saying that the Supreme Council had postponed making public the decisions of the plebiscite officials, hoping that this would tend to allay the

Polish activities when it became generally known." We may be surprised and displeased also when we read further in the cable despatch the assertion. that the Allied Commission is recruiting Germans for aid against the Polish insurgents.

All the statements just quoted are from current newspaper cable despatches. We are not now concerned to maintain the accuracy of all these despatches. Other incidents of a surprising character might be quoted in abundance. Accurate or not, there is substance enough in the accounts to Ishow that Upper Silesia is not only a danger point, but that the danger is not local. How, for instance, can we confidently expect Germany to yield to the demands of the Allies in the matter of reparation or in other ways to abandon her sly policy of delay and avoidance. when she sees that the Allies do not deal with power and promptness in other matters over which they have properly assumed authority?

There are signs that the leaders of the great Allied nations are learning the lesson that they must act with a united front; that they must formulate their decrees, not first to please one nation and then to please another nation, but to insure the safety of Europe and peace that will last; and that they must firmly enforce just decisions once reached.

WALTER HAMPDEN AND THE

I

AMERICAN STAGE

T is not often that a foremost actor of the present day ventures upon the hard task of repertoire playing. Indeed, there are few actors and actresses who are even willing to play divers parts. Most of them are content with playing themselves under the thin disguise of various names. Perhaps it is better, as Joe Jefferson said in effect, to cook one dish well rather than to cook many badly, but there will be few to deny that the player of many parts has the greater claim to dramatic honor. Emphatically of this class is Walter Hampden, an actor who deserves well of the American public, not only for his skill, but also because for many years he has manifested an understanding of that high dignity to which the stage may attain when it is treated with the respect and honor due to a great art. The little theaters and groups of selfconscious players who would arrogate to themselves all the virtues of the present-day drama have yet to produce an actor with the range, power, and pur pose of Walter Hampden. Critics who have no good word to say for the com

WALTER HAMPDEN AS HAMLET

At the Broadhurst Theater, New York City

mercial stage might well bear this fact. in mind.

Walter Hampden is now playing in one of the most ambitious repertoires which any present-day actor has attempted. It includes "Hamlet," "The Servant in the House," "The Taming of the Shrew," "Macbeth," and "The Merchant of Venice." "Macbeth" and "Hamlet" we have seen, and the latter at least belongs among the finest productions of this play in recent years. The

WALTER HAMPDEN AS MACBETH

At the Broadhurst Theater, New York City

poetry of "Macbeth" stood forth with unmistakable clearness, but the drama seemed to lack something of that vitality which we associate with the deeds of living men and women-and with Shakespeare's characters. The fact that some passages in "Macbeth" seeme-i of the stage stagey may have been due to Mr. Hampden's support rather than to any inadequacy in his own presentation.

Whether this was the case or not, vir. tually the same support in "Hamlet" failed to mar Mr. Hampden's presentation of the character which has teste! the powers of almost every great actor for three hundred years. Mr. Hamp den's "Hamlet" is one which could no have been created save by a profound and devoted student of literature and life. It is an honor to the American stage.

INCURABLY RELIG

IOUS

OME of the letters received in the

SON

War Prize Contest, the results of which were announced in last week's Outlook, indicate that to not a i few people the war was a kind of religious earthquake. Its horrors, its selfishness, the sufferings which it brought upon innocent children, the total disruption of social and economic life which followed in its train in many hitherto happy parts of the world, seemed to some people to prove that religion, or at least the teachings of institutional religion, are a mockery. It ought frankly to be confessed that there is some ground for this despondency.

But after a careful reading of all these letters and of many other war experiences that have been printed in various form, and after talking with men and women of all sorts who participated in the war, we are inclined to think that these catastrophic experiences-physical and spiritual-have not darkened but have cleared the atmosphere of the truest religious life. Some weeks ago we received a remarkable letter which confirms this conviction. The Editor of The Outlook had published over his own name, under the title, "What is the Use of Churches and Ministers," a review of a remarkable book, "What and Where is God?" by Dr. Richard Swain. The following letter came in response to that review from President Sniff, of Tri-State College, in the little town of Angola, in Indiana:

I want to tell you about that book review of yours. The book was Dr. Swain's "What and Where is God?"

Last night our engineering students, about five hundred men, met at their annual banquet. The President of the College, several members of the faculty, and several visiting

engineers of the Ali Association addressed the meeting

Professor Baler, secretary of the faculty, stood before the body of mea about 12 3: AM. He sud be bad a peculiar task which he would bot attempt at this te boer without their consent, after fair waming which he explained in fall in the first place be mentioned the book review by Dr. Lyman Abbott He mentioned the odd title of the book He told US that this bad gripped him that be resolved to commit it to memory and recite it on this occasion if he had their hearty ecasect He got their bearty consent at Cave

Now

90

a word abest these mea Their average is about twenty-one or twenty-two years. They come from all over the world, thirty-five foreign countries and forty-four Stites Nearly one-half of these men were in the late war, many of them minor officers. We have chapel service every morning and church services in three churches every Sunday, but these men do not go to chapel or church, barring a few.

This book review is philosophy and theology. I had read it and of course

was much interested in the splaccas experiment of Professor Bey. He began. It sounded good to me, but it best me to see bor marked was the sttembre They had cheered speakers up to this boar and so far it seemed to me that their interest was fine. But all the time of his delivery of the book review, taking fifteen minutes of time after midnight, there seemed the profondest of interest. It seemed odd to me. Here were hundreds of Des Dost of whom could not be persuaded to go into a church (Kening O the subject, What and Where is God""" intensely

to a book review

interested How would they act at

the close? As for myself. I fet as d I wanted to get up and shoot, and caz ca that crowd to shint. The Close £d come with the most remukatue task completed, and that ap5ence went into a tumultorus applause. strong and prolonged beyond any. thing on this occasion I believe any one in that crowd could have brought them to their feet with one tremenSoms short

From that time to :w I have asked myself. Why? There were speeches that were able, and some were brilliant, but that philosophic

and thecirbiri· book ZETHE Listened to as poting eise zat 114 say. Way! I JATE TOH TERE LD that is that these age me not driven from their ma's pl bons of relona. TLS Tdoas experiment of the turi r Professor BEHY VII The sur La given me Dew bige Sir men of this ȧly.

We print this letter, Dic beams o the implied tribute to the Ednur s journal—who, by the waN. IF DE FRUITE that we are making a pchat-mit de cause it is an extra:cdinary confe tion of the truth of the song of the French writer Sabatier, whr ore E marked that man is incurably religious" by which we take it be meant that man is not naturally pharisaical or theelogical, but is forever interested in the fine and intimate things of the spirit, and in man's relation to what Matthew Arnold called the Power not ourselves that makes for righteousness. This truth is also confirmed by the prize war letters published last week.

EDITOR OF LE MATIN," PARIS

I

F. at the end of three weeks in
America, after having had the bonor

of seeing her President and the advantage of speaking intimately with some of her statesmen, Senators, and business men, I had a message for the American people, I would give it the form of a prayer. And I think that Mr. Viviani, by whose side I have spent these three weeks, would join me in such a prayer.

This is what we would say:

"We ask you not to believe those who claim that France has forgotten the debt contracted by her towards America. It is a moral debt, because without America we could not have got the Kaiser on his knees, and by now we might be enslaved. It is a material debt that our children and the children of our children will not rest until they have paid.

"France's signature is good-whether it is to be found on a financial treaty or on a political treaty.

"She never goes back on it. She wil give her last ounce of gold as she would shed her last drop of blood to live up to her obligations.

"We ask you not to believe those who say that France is imperialistic. France has recovered Alsace-Lorraine, bone of her bone and soul of her soul; she asks for nothing more. If to-day she stil! has a powerful, active army, if she is occupying foreign soil, it is not because of any wish on her part to annex territory; it is not for the purpose of appropriating anything, but to enforce payment of what is due her.

-Where are her der stated fields? -Where are her wines fooded by a scantife process, and which cannot be restored before 1985?

"Life cannot be given back to the dead, but cities may be rebuilt, land again made fertile, mines reopened Who is to do this? Germany or France

"We ask you not to believe those who say that France systematically refuses all

reparation offered by Germany. France never has refused and never wi!! refuse any raw material that Germany can give to restore seven departments that were destroyed, the area of which equals that of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island combined.

"But France refuses and always will refuse German labor. For five years she had Germans on her soil whose work is there for all the world to see and it has been enough. She does not care to Lave, in the garb of the worker, the

same men who left in their soldier's uniform. She does not care to have foreign workmen who have laid down in advance the condition that if they come to laber in France they are to enjoy the full privileges of French workmen, including that of affliating with the Fed eration of Labor.

"We ask you not to believe those who say that we want to involve America in every quarrel, every intrigue, every complication in Europe. We understand perfectly that her desire is to keep away from these, and we shall always be eager to respect her traditions, proclaim her rights, and yield to her fair representations, as we have just yielded in the Yap and cable matters.

“We place American friendship above all material or frucial considerations. We do not ask America to take our place in the application of a difficult treaty: we only ask her not to make that ap plication still more difficult for us by encouraging unfair erposition and discouraging our just efforts.

-We ask you to have conflence in us, confidence in our honesty, confidence in our moderation, consience in our destiny. Even if we were alize in the world, forsaken by all, we would still find in ourselves strength square'y to face that destiny. But we ask you for that meral support which on this earth is sometimes of far greater value than mere material support. We need netfler men, nor busts, kur money, kor polyme we need 18 pustice.

-And we ask you to let justi.e full sway."