or Allingford, and perchance not even Watermeads.

Hypselometopy is really dangerous, however, only when it is organized. Sometimes one feels as if there were a mania for organization in this country; we are inclined to forget that if things are healthy they grow naturally, and if they are forced they become unhealthy. Who can imagine a League for the Preservation of the Drama in the London of William Shakespeare? or Poetry

Societies, with presidents and honorable secretaries, meeting in Wordsworth's cottage, or in Burns's? In every age précieuses have been ridicules-save to themselves; and this is one proof that they lack a sense of humor. That they can appreciate Shaw may show them to have a sense of wit, or else a high conceit which makes them (in their own eyes) superior to their plodding and duller neighbors.

The cure for the disease has been

hinted at; but the sad thing is that the patients rarely realize they are ill. When they do, the cure has already begun.

You have, gentle reader, become aware that the affliction derives its name from

nós and μéтwоv. It is not a new illness, but it is increasing. Perhaps that is a good sign; for once a hypselometopic patient is cured, he is a snob no longer, and may become actually intelligent.

MEMBERS OF THE JAPANESE PARLIAMENTARY DELEGATION AND JAPANESE GUESTS

1. Hideo Higuchi, of the Kensei Kai (Progressive party). 2. K. S. Inui, Secretary of the Delegation. 3. Kunimatsu Hamada, of the Kokuminto (Nationalist party), ViceChairman. 4. Juichi Nozoye, of the Seiyu Kai (Liberal party). 5. Rokusaburo Nakanishi, of the Seiyu Kai (Liberal party), Chairman. 6. Takeo Tanaka, of the Kensei Kai (Progressive party), Director. 7. Naota Kumagai, of the Seiyu Kai (Liberal party). 8. Tobei Nakamura, Secretary of the House of Representatives. 9. Yelkichi Hikita, of the Seiyu Kai (Liberal party). 10. Nozubo Kawai, Assistant Secretary of the House of Representatives. 11. Senpei Yajima, of the Koshin Club (Independent Club). 12. Tarao Kawasaki, Secretary of the Delegation.

N this land of many metropolises and

Yet

if one could see a motion-picture record of its tour he would witness a veritable cvclone of American hospitality and friendship.

The Japanese party which landed at San Francisco on May 25 was composed of eight members of the Japanese Diet, representing four different political parties. They were accompanied by two secretaries of the House of Representa. tives and two secretaries of the delegation who joined the party in this country.

The object of the mission was primarily to pay a return compliment to eleven American Congressmen who

much of the United States as possible within the brief period of forty-five days. They were eager to ascertain the trend of public opinion in this country on questions of the day, particularly the limitation of armaments. They had no other object, political or diplomatic.

The party came as the direct representatives of the Japanese people to call on the direct representatives of the American people. Therefore their reception everywhere was quite different from the ordinary exchanges of courtesy. They were welcomed with simple cordiality and open-hearted friendship wherever they went, including California, where their receptions were all happy disappointments. In return this spirit was splendidly entered into by the Japanese members. At Pittsburgh, for

instance, the hosts and guests stood with arms around each other's shoulders. "This, by the way, in a dry country," as one guest observed.

The mark of respect and distinction was as omnipresent as that of cordiality. Many cities extended to the party the privileges of the municipality, and in Washington a rare courtesy was paid them when, on the motion of Mr. Mann, former majority leader, the House declared a recess in order to meet the members of the Japanese Parliament. Congressmen whom the visitors had entertained in Japan last year escorted the Japanese delegation from the diplomatic gallery to the floor of the House, where they were received most cordially. This ceremony was repeated in the Senate.

The party visited the four principal cities of the Pacific coast and four more on the Atlantic coast, and on the way they stopped also at Denver, Chicago,

and Pittsburgh. They were entertained by Americans some twenty times at luncheons and dinners and an equal number of times by Japanese. The farewell banquet in San Francisco was given by the City Church Federation, while the final banquet in New York, the night before they sailed, was given by the Federated Churches of America. These naturally had their distinctive features of farewell and God-speed.

It will surprise no one to learn that American reporters were most frank in putting their questions. But it may surprise many to learn that the Japanese members were equally frank at all times and never did they evade a single query. Perhaps the following questions, arranged according to the number of times they were asked by reporters, are indicative of public interest in certain phases of Japanese-American relations:

1. "What is Japan's attitude toward disarmament?" This question was never omitted anywhere.

2. In California the questions of Japanese immigration and assimilation were frequently put.

3. In the Middle West and the East many questions were asked regarding business conditions in Japan.

4. A remarkable number of persons inquired as to the extent of Japan's prohibition movement.

5. A few sought information on the status of the Yap controversy.

6. Others asked what progress, if any, had been made by Bolshevism in Japan. 7. There were many questions concerning suffrage, especially of women. 8. The "Open Door" question in China was touched upon.

9. The Shantung question, however, and the Siberian situation seemed to have been forgotten.

The party sailed from New York for Europe on July 9. This is written after their departure, but I think I am not mistaken in making the following general observations:

1. The Japanese visitors agreed that friendship with the United States is absolutely essential.

2. Discontinuance of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance would be seriously misconstrued in Japan.

3. The continuance of the Anglo

Japanese Alliance must not provoke American misunderstanding.

4. The presence of anti-Japanese sentiment in parts of America is due to misunderstanding.

5. Japan should seek a thorough understanding with the United States.

6. They were convinced that the American public is intensely interested in securing international agreements on the limitation of armaments..

7. American initiative looking toward disarmament will undoubtedly meet a popular welcome in Japan.

8. The visiting Diet members, irrespective of their political ties, said they would exert their influence in promoting right relations with the United States.

But the march of events moves faster than modern transportation. While the party is still en route to Europe the socalled disarmament conference has become a certainty. America and Japan will both profit from the fact that these eight members of the House of Representatives, duly selected for the mission by.Japan's four political parties, are returning to their home land as firm friends of America and peace.

OU ask me the following question:

YOU

Assuming that the coal inter

ests ought to so manage the production, transportation, and distribution of anthracite that there should be neither extortionate prices for coal nor danger of shortage that would produce serious general discomfort and suffering, and assuming also that this year, at least, the conditions are not such that it has been impossible to mine a sufficient quantity of anthracite and to find railway facilities for transporting it, then is there existing any legal way of bringing this about by the National Government? If there is no such existing way, then what would be the proper line of legislation or public agitation or National action to provide such means?

WILLIAM M. CALDER

United States Senator from New York

In reply I would say that operators should forward anthracite coal while the conditions are favorable unless they (C) Harris & Ewing are prepared to be condemned by the public because of failure, as business men, to anticipate the needs of their customers. They know to a nicety the amount of coal which must be bought in each community, and they have cars and labor to deliver this coal, which can be stored with no physical difficulty. It is hardly possible that the want of capital can be an element in this matter, for the sale of anthracite coal in each community is a definite and certain matter and extends over a short period of months.

The first step in this matter is legislation requiring full knowledge by the public from week to week of the facts regarding coal-plant capacity, production, shipments, and storage at mine and

in consuming districts, and prices at mine, at wholesale, and at retail. If these facts were issued by an agency in which the public had confidence, competition might regulate the matter and bring about a condition more satisfactory than that from Government control.

If competition and public opinion based on facts do not so regulate the matter, the publicly known facts would certainly form a necessary and an intelligent basis for further legislation.

At the outset the public must determine whether or not coal is charged with public interest and use. It is my own belief that it is, and that the recognition of this fact need be no cause of

anxiety to other industries not SO charged with public interest.

Last spring, when it was reported that there was a shortage of coal stocks on hand, disquieting statements were issued by the Railroad Administration, the Inter-State Commerce Commission, the United States Geological Survey, and by other Governmental agencies. The Federal restrictions on the export of coal and on the price of coal were lifted. The outlaw strike of the switchmen occurred simultaneously with an extraordinary export demand which preempted the use of dockage facilities at Hampton Roads; the New England demand for soft coal was thrown into the field from which New York gets its coal, and this congested the railways to New York and New England. The Northwest had to make its coal shipments before the lakes had frozen and the high prices were drawing the coal in other directions. The public was deluged with the babel of conflicting reports, largely propaganda in its character, from soft and anthracite coal operators and from the wholesalers and retailers.

Orders by the Inter-State Commerce Commission giving priority in transportation of coal were issued without notice or hearing. Railway facilities were congested and coastwise shipping left idle.

The public was thrown into a panic, so that anthracite coal sold as high as $27 a ton in Massachusetts and soft coal as high as $20 a ton at Hampton Roads. The Government itself paid $18 a ton for soft coal for the Shipping Board at New York, and through the War Department was obliged to pay $11

a ton for soft coal at the mines, sometimes dealing through four and five brokers, which coal was originally sold by the mine operators, including a profit, at from $3 to $3.50.

At the end of the panic it was found that there had been no shortage of soft coal-in fact, that the production had been five hundred and fifty-seven million tons for the year, against approximately four hundred and fifty-eight million tons for the previous year. It was also found that the railways had moved, on the average, one hundred and ninety-one thousand coal cars weekly, compared with one hundred and fiftyfour thousand weekly during the previous year, and that railway priority orders and special privileges had been made subject to sale by those to whom they had been freely granted. The location of coal was sold rather than the coal itself. Railway facilities, dock facilities, and even harbor facilities,

were monopolized by coal speculators, seriously interfering with general business and industry.

This panic occurred during a most active coal propaganda, yet during a period in which the Federal Government itself was enjoined by the coal operators, in the Maynard case, from securing information, on the ground that coal was not a Federal matter, and while one of the States (Indiana) was restrained by the coal operators in the Vandalia case, on the ground that coal was not a State matter.

The panic probably cost the public a billion and a half dollars. A large coal operator appearing before the Senate Committee contradicted this statement, and said that the cost was not over six hundred million dollars and might not have been over two hundred million. The Inter-State Commerce Commission reported that the extra cost to the railways alone was over $100,000,000.

The soft-coal panic was followed by a hard-coal panic-for similar reasons and with unknown losses.

In view of these and other facts, I introduced a bill in Congress predicated upon the recognition that coal was charged with a public necessity and use. This legislation might have controlled the matter through the system of licenses. This bill was reported in the closing hours of the last session and amended to require the reporting of full information as a first step.

There is now before Congress a bill which if simplified by amendment may enable the Government to take this first constructive step. Further Governmental action may then be unnecessary except in so far as facts develop which require action by the Department of Jus tice.

Kissrain of Garden

Washington, D. C.

H

ERE is a story, a typical story, one of hundreds of stories that are known and of thousands that can only be guessed.

Tagavna, an Armenian girl, arrived not long ago at Ellis Island on her way to join a fiancé in New York City. The law made it necessary for her to be married in the presence of an agent from Ellis Island.

Tagavna, black-eyed and with blueblack hair, interested the agent, who found her intelligent and understanding. He found also that she was to marry a man whom she did not know. He had been selected by her uncle, the marriage had been arranged by mail, and the prospective bridegroom had paid Tagavna's passage.

"Aren't you afraid to marry a man you have never even seen before?" asked the American worker, as they went toward the Municipal Building and marriage.

"It is better to marry a stranger than to be massacred," was Tagavna's simple reply.

Were Tagavna's matrimonial venture an isolated one, the whole question of these blind marriages would pass as an incident in the routine of immigrant life. But the workers at Ellis Island have come to regard this ever-increasing influx of affianced brides with something like disgust. And it is quite obvious that the numbers are already considerable from the most casual visit to the corner room, in which agents of different philanthropic organizations sit in the midst of pretty green ferns and streams of gesticulating and excited groups, all talking in broken English or simply with their hands.

Though marriage is as old as the 'd, still styles change in achieving

even that. When fighting was the most important male occupation, men fought for their women; when strumming a guitar became a recognized accomplishment, sighing lovers regaled their lady loves with serenades. With the industrial age, men changed their tactics. Money came to the top as an argument and men made fortunes to win their brides.

But it took the World War to bring out a widespread utilization of two ultramodern improvements: photography and the mails.

Post-war Europe is not a happy place in which to live. There is little work and a great discrepancy between wages and the cost of living. So all those who can are fleeing to America as a refuge from every trouble. Women have always found in marriage protection against many ills, and the suffering women in far lands now seek that protection with strange men in America.

The unknown does not seem to frighten these women who know so much misery. Marionettes in the hands of life, unable to fashion their lives as they would wish them, even if they were at the stage of development permitting them to build castles in the air, these women of disorganized Europe try any avenue of escape from that which they know.

The philosophy of the simple-minded. Their imaginations do not carry them far enough ahead to show the possibility of an even worse fate in the future to which they are striving. It is all God's will; fate has the future settled, and there is no dodging the inevitable. What need of thought for the future? It is provided for.

Often immigrants applying for steamship tickets in Europe, fearing that they may not pass the physical test required

by the American immigration laws, send a substitute whose rosy cheeks and robust physique are quite apparent. It never dawns on the original applicant that the test would have to be faced again at Ellis Island. There is room for just one thought-to get the muchcoveted ticket and to reach America. Beyond that lies the unknown, and, being unknown, it rouses no doubts and no fears.

Playing Cupid was not a frequent occupation in pre-war days for the workers at Ellis Island. Now one philanthropic organization alone there handles from fifty to one hundred marriage certifi cates during the week given out in New York City. There are approximately as many that come in from other sections of the country. Several of the other organizations which handle the mar riageable cases at Ellis Island report about the same number every week. Each certificate means that some woman came here and married, often an utter stranger, but a resident of the United States.

"Do most of them know their future husbands?" I asked one of the busiest representatives-a veritable Cupid in a shirt-waist and skirt.

"Know them?" she queried with a sidelong glance. "Well, some of them knew each other in childhood-I sup pose that is knowing each other."

For centuries, in many of the peasant communities of Europe, girls have mar ried - they still marry strangers. I remember my landlady's daughter in Bulgaria. Her mother never permitted her to remain alone with her fiancé in the same room, nor were they allowed to walk in the public park without proper chaperons. The wedding night was their first tête-à-tête, and even then

a houseful of guests caroused noisily until dawn.

The fact that men living in the United States should take a chance on getting strange women from Europe for wives grows out of one of the difficulties that new residents have to face in the United States. Women, when possible, usually marry for economic improvement, and this is especially true of the immigrant women in America. Immigrant men rank low in the American scale for some time after their arrival; this is quite apparent even to the equally ignorant immigrant girl, and she looks higher for a husband. Also, as women assimilate more rapidly those American standAards which touch upon women and their relationship with men, the gulf between the immigrant man and woman widens.

"No man can beat his wife," has been the summing up of the immigrant woman's emancipation in America. I have heard this from dozens of them. So when the immigrant man wants a "good" wife, which often means one who will accept reasonable beatings, he has to look to the Old World for her.

These men too, like their women, have too little imagination to build air castles, and so can suffer no disappointment.

But even simple psychology rebels at times, and, although dozens and dozens of immigrants get married at the door to America, there are also many who balk at the last moment. It is always the woman; I have never heard of a man refusing his photo-bride, though whether this is from honor or stupidity I cannot say. To me, a hope of the future lies in the women rebels, for they are rebels, and they stand a step beyond the subservient slave, the product of Old World conditions.

Having looked through the batches of marriage certificates, all duly classified, lying on the desks of the workers at Ellis Island like death sentences to individuality and progress, I started out on a quest for the insurgents. Perhaps it was an unconscious need for proof that women are not all slaves to destiny and their relatives. The thought of those hundreds of women pouring into America, submissively accepting unknown husbands without friendship, romance, love, or any of those backgrounds which we have grown to regard as essential to marriage, was depressing. There were so many like Melomene, the Greek girl who came to marry a man selected by her uncle, a prosperous merchant on Madison Street. The marriage had been arranged by mail, so when Melomene arrived at Ellis Island it was her fiancé who met her. The couple were permitted to land in the company of an agent, whose duty it was to see them properly married at the Municipal Building.

Melomene was a girl from the city; she was dressed in no striking peasant costume; she might have been an American girl from some small Middle Western town. The agent escorting the couple became curious, since she herself was a woman, and another woman's point of view touched her.

It is probable that the uncle was the best judge in this case, for there is little hope of wisdom in such a girl.

The troubles of the great world of immigrants in New York City have certain focal points, and the different national immigrant homes are frequently the stages for the different melodramas and tragedies of alien life. Those people who are happily settled, who need no help, do not find their way to the immigrant homes. It is the failures, the rebels, and the victims of tragedy who seek refuge in the maturer wisdom of their countrymen who are already in touch with America and naturally many grades above them in education. In these homes are found the records of human vacillation and despair, of human independence and courage.

What a difference between Melomene and Orsolina, the first of the rebels I met when I went to these homes!

Orsolina was illiterate, and no longer very young-but then a woman of thirty is old in southern Italy. She had worked as a servant in Italy all her

A cousin of hers in the Italian village had received a letter from another cousin in Ohio. All immigrants seem to be cousins-is not everybody from the same village a dear one? Or at least an uncle? Besides, relationship helps in answering questions at Ellis Island. In this letter the cousin said that there was a friend, a widower with children, looking for a nice, hard-working wife. Orsolina listened to the letter and entertained the suggestion. It would be a relief to be out of service, and, besides, it would take her to America.

Nicola sent a picture by return mail of himself and two children. Orsolina was satisfied. Nicola sent her a steamship ticket, and in due time she arrived at Ellis Island. There it took only a few questions to reveal the fact that, instead of two children, Nicola had five! Orsolina rebelled.

"I have been a servant all my life," she said to the Special Board. "I thought I'd marry and have a rest. There can be none with five children. I do not want to marry him."

Nicola was crestfallen. But, since

Orsolina was an able woman, she was released in care of the Italian Home.. She soon found work with a family, having first made certain that she could return Nicola the money advanced for the passage to America.

A few weeks later she sidled quite apologetically into the room of the director at the Home.

"Would you write me a letter, signor?" she asked.

He wrote it. It was a letter to Nicola, who had returned to Ohio, in answer to a quaint note from him.

The director later wrote a second letter. Then he heard no more for several months.

A few weeks ago Orsolina suddenly appeared. She was resplendent in her American clothes. A new look was in her face.

"I'm marrying Nicola," she announced. "He's a good man; I won't mind the children."

Liduska, a Czechoslovak widow, young, with a three-year-old girl, was another prey to a cousin's letter from Pennsylvania telling of a nice widower in need of a wife. Photographs were exchanged. The bargain was struck. Liduska sold the little property she had, bought her own ticket-she is one of the few women about whom I heard who did so -and arrived at Ellis Island. She met Vaslav, the prospective bridegroom, and, with Slavonic stoicism, married him. They went to live in a small house he owned in New Jersey.

Two weeks later, Vaslav arrived unexpectedly at the Slavonic Immigrant Home to see the director. He was in obvious distress.

"She's gone!" he blurted out as soon as the director was within earshot.

"How? when? Sit down and tell me," suggested the director.

"She left," began Vaslav; "said she wouldn't and couldn't live with me. Took her little girl and went to a cousin's in Pennsylvania. Can't I make her return? I like her, and-she's my wife, after all."

"I advised him," concluded the director, "to take his loss philosophically and to wait. It was impossible to make him see the futility of keeping a woman against her will."

This was two months ago, and Liduska has not yet returned. She had learned that there were more evils in life than she had imagined.

Pavlina also stands out as different from the drab majority, for she had an ideal and carried an illusion.

She came in answer to an advertisement for a wife published in an American-Czech newspaper that a cousin in America had sent to her. The inevitable photographs had been exchanged; Milo sent her the steamship ticket, and here she was.

Milo was from Minnesota, and he was delayed on his journey. So while awaiting his arrival at Ellis Island Pavlina drew castles in the air. Seated on a hard bench in the midst of the hubbub, the tears, and the crying children of the detention room at Ellis Island, Pavlina

had woven a picture of a heroic man, inspired probably by cheap lithographs and postal cards of dashing cavaliers with beautiful long and curly mustaches -true conquerors of women.

And then Milo arrived. He was quiet, fair-haired, with a very small mustache. His manners were gentle, his speech faltering, his eyes showed intelligence and thought.

Eagerly Pavlina asked whether she was forced to marry him or not. She was assured she was not, that she could return the amount of the steamship ticket, when she had earned it, and so be under no obligation to Milo.

Pavlina was admitted under guardianship of a cousin in New York and went to work. But Milo did not despair, and with the persistence of a quiet man he made himself agreeable. Then Pavlina told him that even if she could overlook the fact that he did not have a long and curly mustache and did not look or act like a hero, still she would never agree to live in Minnesota, and that he would have to get work in New York.

Milo, who, besides owning a farm in Minnesota, was a tailor by trade, tried to find work in New York, but failed. Then he slipped away quietly to Chicago, determined to establish himself there and so win the imperious rosycheeked girl.

Two months later Pavlina came to the Slavonic Immigrant Home one day, perturbed and worried.

"I've decided to marry Milo," she announced to the director, "but I can't find him. His sister in Minnesota hasn't heard from him either. Probably he's waiting to get settled before sending his address."

So Pavlina had kept up a correspondence with Milo's sister! But Pavlina had to wait another month before she heard from Milo. Then only were the difficulties smoothed out' successfully.

It is often hard to account for the psychology of immigrants; they do things without any apparent explanation. There is a curious lack of logic in their actions, an irresponsibility, perhaps due to the want of imagination. Where there is a plan, an idea, it is usually the sign of superior brain power, and it was this which changed still another girl's fate from that of the ordinary immigrant. A superior mind stepped inand Franceska's entire life entered a different channel.

A cousin in America once again acted as marriage broker between Franceska and a nice young Pole, Boguslav by name. The pictures proved satisfactory. He sent the ticket, and she sailed.

But romance-real romance-stepped in to mar this prearranged marriage.

In the steerage Franceska met a man, who was also a Pole. He had lived in America before, but had gone back with the Polish Legions to fight for Polish freedom. He called himself John. He spoke authoritatively, he wore good clothes, and he told such wonderful tales about America and its many opportu nities. Franceska listened with bated breath. The thought of Boguslav, her

fiancé, faded from her mind as the ship drew nearer to the New World.

John, being an American citizen, was immediately released by the immigration authorities, whereas Franceska was detained until her fiancé should call for her. Then the marriage would take place.

The following day the fiancé arrived. Questions were asked and answered. The cheeks of the girl glowed throughout the examination; but, after all, that was not unusual. Was she not facing her future husband?

The wedding took place, and the couple sped away to a small town in Pennsylvania, which was the bridegroom's home.

Another of these childhood marriages; but apparently this was a congenial one. The couple seemed anxious to get married. The official mind was satisfied and forgot little Franceska and her romance.

Two days passed. Then official Ellis Island was suddenly thrown into consternation. Another young man, also calling himself Boguslav, had appeared, asking for Franceska, his bride.

Investigations started up like mushrooms overnight. And soon the real romance lay uncovered in all its simplicity. But it had taken a real mind to evolve the plot. Ellis Island, lulled into dullness by the familiar flat psychology, had been tricked by a bit of unusual awak. ened brain work.

The plot must have been hatched in the dark corners of the steerage, when John held Franceska's hands in his whispering to her of the New Worldhatched in John's Americanized mind. After he had stepped off the Ellis Island ferry, he returned for her the next day, taking the name of her offi cial prospective husband. Small wonder that she blushed and seemed eager for the wedding the wedding of her choice and not a picture marriage.

"What did you do?" I asked the Ellis Island official when he had finished telling the story.

"Do?" he said. "Nothing. After all, the law does not insist that a woman keep her word. All we are concerned with is her safety. And that was surely established. We advised the young man to get a wife in America."

These are but a few of the stories that were told to me by workers in the field of immigration, for they reach into hundreds. Having listened to them all, I decided to make a special trip to Ellis Island to get the official view-point on these marriages by photography. I went in to see one of the high officials.

"Isn't there a very great number of women coming in to marry men they don't know?" I asked this man.

"No, there is not," he answered. Perhaps I looked dazed.

"We have no official knowledge of picture marriages," he added; "the women that come have known their fiancés in childhood. Our records show this." My faith in records tottered.

But my opinion of the simple immigrant mind took a sudden jump upward. It takes a simple psychology to evolve a simple and effective lie.