MARKING TIME IN THE
IRISH CONFERENCES

MIST of vagueness and uncertainty envelops the negotiations for peace in Ireland. It is known that the English Prime Minister laid before Mr. De Valera a plan that might serve as a basis for discussion. It was announced that this plan would be laid before Parliament in outline, if not in detail, but later this statement was canceled, and up to July 26 no official version of the plan has been offered.

Meanwhile Mr. De Valera has gone to Dublin to consult with his "Cabinet." One Sinn Fein organ, the "Irish Bulletin," which has been regarded heretofore as De Valera's mouthpiece, declares that Ireland will accept nothing but complete independence. This is not taken very seriously, for it seems highly improbable that the Sinn Fein leaders would enter into elaborate peace parleys if they were set on impossible demands.

Public opinion continues to believe that some form of Dominion government similar in many points to that in Canada or South Africa offers the only possible solution. The difficulty is in persuading Ulster that she can be guarded against political and economic oppression by any all-Irish parliament that would have a large Sinn Fein majority. General Smuts believes this can be done, and it is understood that he is laboring to convince the Ulster leaders.

Tactically, Mr. De Valera seems to have shown skill and acuteness. He has refrained from violent and extreme declarations, which is not true of his Ulster opponent, Sir James Craig. The Sinn Fein leader has thus seemed to put his opponents in the wrong, yet up to this writing he has not publicly committed his following to anything. It is quite possible that, in the last analysis, the blocking of progress in a settlement will be due to Sinn Fein obduracy quite as much as to Ulster aloofness-"rigid and unyielding" are terms applied to Sir James Craig's utterances by the London "Times."

Lord Northcliffe, now in this country, points out that England could no more consent to a strategically independent Ireland than New York could consent to a strategically independent Long Island. But he believes also that the proposal of a central parliament for all Ireland and separate parliaments for Ulster and the south leaves the door open for unity. The best hope for peace is in the coninuing and growing belief that the Irish people are so thankful for the pres

AUGUST 3. 1921

ent relief from violence that they will insist on its permanence.

FAMINE RELIEF FOR RUSSIA

D

ROUGHT has brought about a state of affairs in Russia calling for immediate relief. A large portion of the crops have not come to maturity and millions are now facing death by famine. As the remainder of Europe, owing to its exhaustion from war and the prevalence of the drought is not in a position to aid the Russian sufferers, Maxim Gorky, who stands high in Soviet councils and is regarded as the literary spokesman of that unhappy country, has made known the situation to the American Government and urged it to aid in the work of relief.

In reply to Gorky's appeal for American relief Herbert Hoover, as Chairman of the American Relief Administration, by cablegram has made known to Gorky the conditions upon which such relief can be obtained. Among the conditions outlined by Mr. Hoover is, first, and as a sine qua non, "the immediate release of the Americans now held as prisoners in Russia." Other conditions as summarized by Mr. Hoover are: (a) That the Moscow Soviet authorities give a direct statement to the Relief Administration representatives in Riga that there is need of our assistance; (b) that American representatives of the Relief Adminis

Underwood

tration shall be given full liberty to come and go and move about Russia; (c) that these members shall be allowed to organize the necessary local committees and local assistance free from Government interference; (d) that they shall be given free transportation of imported supplies with priority over traffic; that the authorities shall assign necessary buildings and equipment and fuel free of charge; (e) that, in addition to the imported food, clothing, and medicines, the children and the sick must be given the same rations of such local supplies as are given to the rest of the population; (f) that the Relief Administration must have the assurance of noninterference of the Government with the liberty of all its members.

When these conditions are complied with, Mr. Hoover states, the Relief Administration, within its resources, is prepared to undertake to supply "all children and invalids alike without regard to race, creed, or social status," and further he declares that its representatives in Russia will engage in no political activities. The conditions outlined, as he fully explains, are in no sense extraordinary, but are identical with those "laid down and readily accepted by the twenty-three governments in whose territories we have operated." Such a clear and positive statement places the burden of accepting or rejecting American relief squarely upon the

Soviet Government of Russia. They are such conditions as any self-respecting government or organization engaged in charitable relief must insist upon.

That the Soviet cannot be trusted without restrictions such as Mr. Hoover demands even to look after the children of its own people is amply shown in an article elsewhere in this issue called "Russia's Next Generation." The moral breakdown under Bolshevik rule has resulted in physical suffering, character deterioration, and criminal abuse of Russia's children. Any aid the Relief Administration can give must be partial and temporary. The question at once arises whether such relief might not be more than counterbalanced by the consequent bolstering up of the credit of the Bolshevist minority which is responsible for what Sir Paul Dukes rightly calls the appalling conditions among Russian children.

BLASPHEMY AND FREE SPEECH

OME four years ago we reported the conviction of a Lithuanian lecturer named Michael Mockus under a Connecticut statute originally passed in 1642 and then aimed against witchcraft as well as against blasphemy, but later amended and moderated. The interest in the case was in the plea that insult to the Christian religion and its followers was defensible as free speech.

Now some friend sends us pages from a law journal which report another blasphemy case against this same Michael Mockus which came before the Maine Supreme Court recently. Here, again, is the question how far the principle of free speech allows contumely to the religious convictions of others.

The report shows that Mockus, in commenting on various pictures which he threw on the screen, used almost inconceivably indecent, insulting, and filthy expressions about God, Christ, and the Virgin Mary. It is perfectly clear that as a mere matter of public decency no man should be allowed to utter such language in any public place. And this would be true, no matter whether the insults were directed to Christianity, or Moslemism, or Judaism. Conviction was obtained in this case under a Maine statute which makes it an offense to use "profanely, insultingly, and reproachfully language against God" or against the other members of the Trinity or the Christian Scriptures. Whether or not this is theoretically the best method of legally forbidding the kind of thing above described is an open question. A non-Christian (say, for instance, a Jew) might reasonably ask that his sacred convictions and feelings also should be protected against such an offense.

The lower court was undoubtedly

right in holding that the offense did come under the statute, and the defense, therefore, was again founded on the definition of the individual's right to speak freely of his own convictions. The lower court held that the offense was not at all mitigated by the Constitutional rights of Mockus to express opinions or to controvert the opinions of others. The Supreme Court in an elaborate and admirable decision not only upheld the lower court as to this, but asserted that the statute "in no manner conflicts with our State constitutional guaranty of religious freedom and freedom of speech." The presiding Justice, Judge Philbrook, most vigorously commended the definition of liberty set forth by the justice of the lower court and commended it as "a charge which for clearness of thought, beauty of diction, accuracy of law, and impartiality of statement is seldom equaled."

It is for the purpose of enforcing and commending this excellent definition that we have thought it worth while again to refer to the attacks of Michael Mockus on religion and the religious feeling. The definition referred to by Judge Philbrook is as follows:

The great degrees of liberty which we enjoy in this country, the degree of personal liberty which every man and woman enjoys, is limited by a like degree of liberty in every other person, and it is the duty of men, and the duty of women, in their conduct, in the exercise of the liberty which they enjoy, to consider that every other man and woman has the right to exercise the same degree of liberty; that when one person enters into society-and society is the state in which personal liberty existseach gives up something of that liberty in order that the other may enjoy the same degree of liberty. It is a conception that perhaps some people find difficult to understand, but it is the conception of liberty which we enjoy.

A GOVERNOR UNDER INDICTMENT

Th

HE State of Illinois is undergoing the singular experience of having its Governor under indictment on a charge of embezzlement, yet refusing to submit to arrest on the ground that he would thereby violate his obligation to the State to carry on his functions as Governor.

It would be improper, and indeed impossible, to form at a distance an opinion as to the charges and countercharges in this unfortunate affair. The allegations upon which the county Grand Jury acted charged Governor Small with conspiracy together with the Lieutenant-Governor, Mr. Sterling, and Mr. Vernon Curtis, a banker, to misappropriate or misuse the daily balances of the State in the banks. The Governor

denies with vigor the inference that he and his colleagues drew any profit from the handling of State funds. He declares that the Attorney-General has fathered these charges because of political enmity; and, moreover, intimates that moneyed interests have combined to defeat the will of the people in making him Governor, and that they are backed by certain politicians and certain newspapers. These influences and interests he describes as acting through "a whole gang of character assassins and character defamers."

Lawyers are interested particularly in the contention that a State Governor by submitting to arrest after indictment would surrender his official rights and commit an act of political treason. The Attorney-General, on the other hand, insists that the sole question is whether the Governor is or is not guilty of the charges, and asks whether the defense for refusing to obey the courts would apply if a Governor should commit murder while in office.

SOLDIERS AND MOTHERS

THE

HE United States Senate has passed two measures of much human appeal, the Soldiers' Relief Bill and the Maternity Bill. The first is also known as the Sweet Bill, from the name of its introducer in the House, Representative Sweet, of Iowa. The passage of this bill should be followed by quick and thorough aid to the needy soldier, for it consolidates into one bureau the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, the Board for Vocational Education, and so much of the Public Health Service as relates to disabled ex-service men. Such consolidation ought to save the soldier from the waste of time and money due to separated and overlapping bureaus. As it passed the House the bill provided for the new bureau to be under the Treasury Department, but as it passed the Senate the bureau was to be independent and under the President. While the Senate's action is assumed to be prefatory to the establishment of the bureau in the new Department of Public Welfare, as recommended by the President, Mr. Sweet, in recently writing to The Outlook, said that "it would be a very easy matter to transfer the new bureau from the Treas ury Department to the Welfare Department" in case the pending bill establishing that Department became law.

The Maternity Bill, also known as the Sheppard-Towner Bill, from the names of its sponsors in the Senate and House, was first suggested by Miss Julia Lathrop, Chief of the Children's Bureau in the Department of Labor. That Bureau, assisted by an Advisory Committee consisting of the Secretary of Agriculture, the Surgeon-General of the

Public Health Service, and the Commissioner of Education, is to carry out the provisions of the Act. The bill provides for co-operation between the Federal Government and the States in respect to the public protection of maternity and infancy. It appropriates annually ten thousand dollars to each State, and, furthermore, annually an additional sum of a million dollars is to be given to the States, proportionately to their populations, in return for an equal sum from them for the maintenance of the services and facilities of the Act. Any State desiring to avail itself of the benefits of the Act must submit to the Children's Bureau, for its approval, detailed plans including provision for instruction in maternal and infant hygiene through public health nurses, consultation centers, extension courses by qualified lecturers, and other methods-the type of maternal care and instruction in infant welfare used in a New York City district during recent years, where the death rate of babies has been reduced from 144 to 85 per thousand births. (The most recent available statistics show that every year in the United States some 23,000 mothers and nearly 250,000 children under one year of age die from

PIUS VII AND NAPOLEON AT FONTAINEBLEAU

Fontainebleau, the scene of many historic events, among them the encounter between Pius VII and Napoleon I, is to be the seat of a music school for Americans

causes most of which are preventable.) President Harding has given his hearty support to the measure; he says: "I assume that the Maternity Bill, already strongly approved, will be enacted promptly, thus adding to our manifestation of human interest."

THE BATTLESHIP AND THE BOMB

however, 2,000-pound bombs were dropped, not upon, but alongside of the battleship the effect was crushing, for they opened the seams of the vessel below the water-line. Because of the great resistance of water, the explosion expends its energy against the vessel.

It is to be remembered in connection with these experiments that the advantage was with the bombers. The battleship was motionless, proving a much easier target than a moving vessel. The weather, moreover, was favorable. A squadron of naval vessels steaming along in a mist or fog might possibly be put out of commission if bombs could be dropped alongside of them as they were alongside this helpless German battleship; but the problem, which was not presented off Norfolk during these experiments is to find the squadron in a fog, to be able to fly over it, and to be able to drop the bombs on a moving target with sufficient accuracy.

The experiments seem to the layman hardly an argument against building battleships, but they are certainly an argument for developing aircraft and their auxiliaries.

THE AMERICAN MUSIC SCHOOL AT FONTAINEBLEAU

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ANY American tourists in France go to Fontainebleau. More should. It is only thirty-six miles from Paris. Its forest is perhaps the most famous in France. Its palace was for centuries the residence of the French sovereigns.

The beautiful Louis XV wing is now an American conservatory of music for graduate students from this country, and a hundred students recently began their first term there.

The opening day was declared a holiday at Fontainebleau. The town had already given a hundred thousand francs toward the support of the school.

The principal courses are in composi

I jump to conclusions upon the an

nouncement of the results of scientific experiments. To say, as some have said, that the battleship has been rendered obsolete because the German battleship Ostfriesland was sunk by 2,000-pound bombs dropped from airplanes is to jump at conclusions with the bland optimism shown by a frog in the presence of a bit of red flannel. It is obvious, however, that the sinking of the Ostfriesland will modify many judgments concerning the value of aerial attacks on naval vessels.

Some naval experts have said that bombs dropped upon modern armored battleships would not sink them. This seemed to be proved true of bombs weighing 1,000 pounds or less. When,