charged with investigating responsibility for the war and in the Council of Four the second view has prevailed, for the very first of the articles submitted to the plenary Conference by the Council of Four arraigns William II of Hohenzol lern, "not for an offense against criminal law, but for a supreme offense against international morality and the sanctity of treaties."

It is therefore proposed that Holland be asked to surrender the former Emperor, and that the German Government be required to hand over to the Allied and associated Powers persons accused of having committed acts in violation of the laws and customs of war, and to undertake to furnish all documents and information of every kind necessary to insure knowledge of the incriminating acts, discovery of the offenders, and "the just appreciation of the responsibility."

There is nothing which the Peace Conference has to do more important than to carry out the provisions of these articles.

THE NEW COVENANT OF
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

Like a wise statesman, President Wilson has changed his mind regarding the proposed plan of a League of Nations., On March 4 at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, in advocating the adoption of the first draft, he said:

I must say that I have been puzzled by some of the criticisms-not by the criticisms themselves-I can understand them perfectly even when there was no foundation for them-but by the fact of the criticism. I cannot imagine how these gentlemen can live and not live in the atmosphere of the world. . . . I have heard no counsel of generosity in their criticism. I have heard no constructive suggestion.

From the same platform and on thesame occasion Mr. Taft said that he welcomed the criticisms, that some of them were constructive, and that debate and discussion would undoubtedly improve the Covenant of the League. Mr. Wilson has now come to Mr. Taft's view, and the result is that the Covenant has been amended and some of the suggestions which on March 4 the President felt were not constructive have now with his approval been incorporated into the revised version. In the amended version of the Covenant issued last week by the Paris Conference there has been some rearrangement of language and some clarification of expression. The vital and important additions or modifications are as follows:

1. The Monroe Doctrine is specifically recognized.

2. The right of member nations to withdraw from the League on two years' notice is stated.

3. Purely domestic questions are not

to come within the sphere of the League's decisions or control.

4. No nation is to be made a trustee or "mandatory" for colonial administration without its consent.

5. New nations in addition to the original members may be admitted to the League by a two-thirds vote of the Assembly (formerly called the House of Delegates), provided such new nations. give effective guarantees of their intention and capacity to conform to the principles and regulations of the League.

6. In order that decisions of the League may be made effective (except in cases of procedure, administration, and the admission of new members) they must be adopted by unanimous vote.

In addition to these specific amendments the new covenant names Geneva, Switzerland, as the capital of the League, and states that the following nations are the original or charter members of the League:

United States of America, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, British Empire, Canada, Australia, South Africa, New South Wales, India, China, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Ecuador, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Hedjaz, Honduras, Italy, Japan, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, Serbia, Siam, Uruguay;

and adds that these States have been invited to become members, namely:

Argentine Republic, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Paraguay, Persia, Salvador, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Venezuela.

A significant thing about these lists is that Mexico is neither an original nor invited member of the League. Whether this is because the charter members do not regard Mexico as having at present a sufficiently stable government, or whether it is because the Carranza Administration has recently and publicly denounced the Monroe Doctrine, we do not know. Whatever the reason, Mexico is at the present moment in an unenviable position. The omission of her name from this worldwide organization is a conclusive answer to those who have felt that criticisms of the Carranza Government are prejudiced and unjustifiable.

AMERICAN OPINION ON THE
LEAGUE

The general amendments to the Covenant will, we think, be approved in the United States. They embody the important constructive suggestions made by such men as Mr. Taft, Mr. Hughes, and Mr. Root, already fully reported in these columns. They will doubtless meet the sincere objections of those Senators who felt that the original form of the Covenant did not sufficiently guarantee the National initiative and National authority of the United States. The amendments do not, however, mollify the antagonism of such irreconcilables as Senator Borah,

Senator Reed, and the New York "Tribune." The TheTribune," in a very pessimistic editorial, thinks the whole thing is hopeless. It calls Article X (which guarantees member nations against territorial aggression or conquest) “iniquitous,” and Senator Borah says it is a "breeder of war." The New York "Tribune" says that the Monroe Doctrine amendment "is plainly a fraud," and Senator Borah calls it "inadequate and inappropriate." Senator Reed says of the modified Covenant that," on the whole, the document is worse than originally drawn."

We do not think these pessimistic views, however, are representative either of the Senate or of the country at large. Our own judgment is that, after an ap propriate amount of discussion, the Senate will probably ratify the amended Covenant.

But intelligent men and women at home and abroad will not imagine that even a ratification by the United States Senate and the opening of the League's offices in Geneva are immediately going to bring about a millennium. The proposed League is a hopeful experiment, and we believe one worth trying. Its success or failure at the outset depends, if not wholly, at least in a very important respect, upon the character and ability of the appointees made to the two administrative bodies-the Assembly and the Council.

The first Secretary-General has already been named. He is Sir Eric Drummond, of Great Britain, well known in English official life, although not a man of international reputation. He has since 1900 held various responsible positions in the British Foreign Office and is at present private secretary to Mr. Balfour, Minister of Foreign Affairs. He is therefore thoroughly familiar with diplomatic procedure and administration.

THE BOLSHEVIKI ON THE

DEFENSIVE

Those who believe in the ultimate unity and freedom of Russia have been greatly encouraged by the reports last week of military successes on the part of the troops of the Omsk and co-operating Governments. Admiral Kolchak's Government, which has its seat at Omsk and controls Siberia, has evidently succeeded in organizing an army of considerable military efficiency. Its troops have been moving westward, and incidentally the Bolsheviki in the Archangel section are threatened with being cut off. That will simplify the situation in Archangel, where our troops have been all winter and from which they are now being withdrawn. It is said that the Czechoslovak and Allied forces have had no part in the western advance against the Bolsheviki. This

means that the Omsk Government has become strong enough to carry on its operations unaided. Undoubtedly this fact will greatly strengthen the movement for formal recognition of the Omsk Government by the Allied Powers.

POSTMASTER-GENERAL BURLESON

The dissatisfaction throughout the country with the policies and methods of the Postmaster-General has become something more than a tempest in a teapot. Although fighting has ceased, the war is not technically over, and Mr. Burleson is therefore managing the telegraph and telephone systems of the country, as well as the transportation of mail, under war legislation which is still in effect. For the first time in the history of the telephone, we believe, a State-wide strike was declared in Massachusetts. It was so serious and got so far beyond the control of Mr. Burleson that the State officials of Massachusetts asked if the management of the telephone in that State could not be delegated to them. It has now been settled by granting all the demands of the employees. Why the demands were not granted in the first place by Mr. Burleson without going through all the turmoil of a strike has not yet been explained.

There has been very general complaint that the efficiency of the Post Office has deteriorated. The last straw appears to have been laid upon the back of a suffering public by the suppression of some news telegrams offered for transmission by the New York "World." These telegrams contained criticisms of Postmaster-General Burleson, and the Western Union Telegraph Company would not accept them. The PostmasterGeneral now says that the suppression was done without his knowledge or approval, under a regulation which existed in the days of private management. It appears that there was a regulation against libelous matter; but criticism of public officials has not, until the present war period, been considered even by the telegraph companies as libel.

Mr. Burleson has issued a tu quoque statement saying that the general criticism of his course is due to a conspiracy of the newspaper and periodical publishers, who object to the higher second-class rates and the zone system of postage, which he has advocated and introduced. He even goes further and attempts to shift the responsibility for the present unsatisfactory second-class regulations to the shoulders of ex-Justice Hughes, who, he says, as chairman of a special commission, advocated an increase of second-class rates. He implies that advertising has become such a feature of American newspapers and periodicals as to be a detriment instead of a benefit to the public.

In this connection it is a little interesting to note that his fellow Cabinet member, Secretary Wilson, of the Department of Labor, has issued a proclamation publicly urging American merchants and manufacturers to advertise, and saying that advertising is a public service.

It may be said in reply that the majority of newspaper and periodical publishers in this country do not oppose an increase of second-class rates if that is necessary to meet proper expenses. What they object to is the zone system of postage, which promotes sectionalism.

The chief dissatisfaction with the present administration of the Post Office Department has reached such a pitch that some influential members of Mr. Burleson's own political party have asked for his resignation. In contending that he has been a failure as a public official it is not necessary to prove that his administration of the mails, the telegraph, or the telephone has been either unjust or inefficient. His principles and theories may be as philosophically right as a mathematical demonstration, but the fact still remains that he has got the country by the ears and has created everywhere a sense of extreme irritation. One of the important functions of a Cabinet officer is to manage the country as well as manage his own Department. No matter how upright the general manager of a corporation may be, if he irritates his workmen so that they strike, his office employees so that they cannot do their best work, and his customers so that they dislike to deal with the company, the President and Board of Directors are pretty likely to ask for his resignation.

AN APPROPRIATE

ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL

A committee of women of the city of New York, whose work, beginning modestly, has now attained the dignity of a National movement, proposes to buy the birthplace of Theodore Roosevelt at 28 East Twentieth Street, New York, and the adjoining property, 26 East Twentieth Street, for the purpose of establishing a permanent Roosevelt memorial in the city of his birth. The house No. 28 will be restored so as to appear as nearly as possible as it did in Colonel Roosevelt's boyhood. He describes the house and his life in it in a very readable chapter of his autobiography. It is proposed to make this biography. It is proposed to make this particular building a sort of Roosevelt Museum, with memorabilia and objects of various kinds closely associated with the life of this great citizen of the State of New York. But it will be much more than a museum, for, with the adjoining house, it is proposed to make it a center of Americanization and citizenship. The Woman's Roosevelt Memorial Association

is endeavoring to raise a fund of a million dollars, not merely for the purchase of the property, but to provide an endowment by means of which the two buildings composing Roosevelt House may be made, to use their own words,

a center of citizenship activities, a living thing, a place where the boys and the girls of America—and the men and women as well, foreign born and native alike will come together in citizenship activities, in order that their understanding of America may become deeper and keener, and in order that the great ideal of practical service to our country, of indefatigable activity in its behalf, shall stir and move with vivid power all Americans that frequent or visit "Roosevelt House."

The Association deserves success, and as it is composed of some of the most active and influential women of the city, who are going about their work in a practical and efficient way, it doubtless will succeed. Its purposes have the approval of members of the Roosevelt family. Those interested are invited to write to the Woman's Roosevelt Memorial Association, care of the New York Trust Company, 1 East Fifty-seventh Street, New York City. Full information about the project will be sent in reply.

THIRTY-SEVEN NEIGHBORHOOD

HOUSES UNITE

Thirty-seven neighborhood houses in New York City, including the College, Henry Street, Union, and University Settlements, Greenwich House, Madison House, and the Hudson Guild, have formed a union to act for all of them and to increase their influence. The office of the new organization, known as the United Neighborhood Houses of New York, is at 289 Madison Avenue, and this is to be made the center of information about the work of settlements and community houses throughout New York. Its plans include an appeal to city, State, and National authorities in cases where action is necessary to safeguard the public health, effort to promote improvement in public education, and work along lines which will make for the comfort, convenience, and good order of the community. A labor arbitration service is contemplated, and legislation is to be asked for and pressed. The constitution of the new organization provides that it may take steps to create a favorable public sentiment upon any matter falling within the sphere of activity of community houses.

The officers of the United Neighborhood Houses are: President, Mrs. Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch; Vice-Presidents, Judge Thomas C. T. Crain, Mrs. Cyrus Sulzberger, and Mrs. Max Morgenthau, Jr. Among the members on the Service Committee, which will be con

cerned with the administration of this organization, are Professor Stephen P. Duncan, Mrs. Henry P. Davison, Adolph Lewisohn, and Mrs. Henry Morgenthau. The Council will consist of five representatives from each settlement, including directors of the institution, workers, and spokesmen for the people of the neigh borhood.

The war-time period demonstrated the admirable work which the settlement houses are fitted to do. Owing to their close contact with the people in their respective neighborhoods, they were appealed to for help by the Red Cross, the Fuel Administration, the Food Board, the United War Work Campaign, and various other organizations interested in Americanization. This brought forcibly to the attention of the settlements their vast responsibility and opportunity, and determined them to form such an organization as would enable them to broaden the scope of their work and put it upon a sounder basis.

With an enlarged neighborhood programme it has been proposed that a public health service be installed, whereby the city may be divided and health centers established to help in carrying out health propaganda and education. A club service; an arbitration board, whose object should be to assist in the impartial arbitration of labor disputes; the extension of the co-operative movement to a scheme covering the industrial neighborhoods of the city-these and many other instrumentalities, such as household economics service, Americanization, hospital social service, etc., are being considered.

THE MUSIC SCHOOL
SETTLEMENT

The audience that came to Aeolian Hall, New York City, recently, to enjoy some good music were not disappointed in their anticipation. The occasion of the gathering was the twenty-fifth annual Spring Festival Concert of the Music School Settlement of 55 East Third Street. The success of the concert was evident from the enthusiastic applause which the players of the various numbers received.

The Music School Settlement has four orchestras-the Elementary, the Junior, Senior, and Community Orchestras. Two of these took part in the festival, the Elementary Orchestra, conducted by Miss Fannie Levine, and the Senior Orchestra, conducted by Mr. Melzar Chaffee. The accomplishment and playing of these orchestras was a pleasant surprise to some who attended one of these Music School concerts for the first time. The music selected-by Bach, Beethoven, Grieg, and others was well adapted to the ability of the pupils, who

The Music School Settlement is doing a unique and commendable work. A thousand children of various races pass in and out of this settlement school, and the teachers, a hundred in number, through their patience and self-sacrifice thus call forth from these young people the songs, so to speak, of many lands, which are enriching what we may call America's music. A love of music is the basis of the school, but its work is by no means confined to musical technique. Its influence is cultural, social, and ethical in the broadest sense.

Like all growing philanthropic undertakings, the need of funds increases with the growth. Those connected with the Music School Settlement would like to enlist the patronage of interested music lovers financially well equipped. A little circular issued by them states that one thousand dollars will endow a scholarship, fifty dollars will give a child a scholarship for one year, and for one hundred dollars the giver will become an "Annual Patron. Checks may be sent to Frank H. Simmons, Music School Settlement, 55 East Third Street, New York. All praise and help are due the men and women in this work of placing in the possession of these young people the golden key of music which will open to them the doors of the other fine things of the soul.

WHAT A HOTEL-KEEPER THINKS OF "BOOZE"

pro

One of the most interesting letters of the many we have received on the hibition question is the following from the proprietor of an excellent hotel in one of the largest cities of New York State:

The other day I had luncheon with one of the greatest tobacco merchants of this country of ours. It was the day after the "booze" election in Michigan. If you recollect, a hotel-keeper was quoted as saying that the "Drys" had carried the election by fraud and the returns were false; my friend the tobacco merchant quoted this hotel man. I sent for the copy of your esteemed periodical containing "Keeping Detroit on the Water Wagon " [The Outlook for April 2] and read him what the Governor of Michigan, the Mayor of Detroit, and the Chief of Police of Detroit had to say on the subject. When I had finished, he said, "I am sold," indicating that I had made my point. The inclosed clipping [embodying a statement in the New York

"Times" from the Association Opposed to National Prohibition, which describes an alleged crime wave in the District of Columbia after it went "bone dry "] is so manifestly unfair that it almost requires no answer, but the pro-German brewers and the distillers (German, Hebrew, and American) are making a desperate effort to save a business which through their grasping greed has brought the pleasures of alcohol down to the lowest possible point of degradation. When the social glass might have been served to us under proper regulations and restraint, they have dashed it from our lips.

I sell "booze;" it is part of the hotel business. I make a good profit and take a certain pleasure out of it, but I do not believe that the intelligence of Americans should be insulted by any such false impression as the anti-prohibition crowd desires to leave. Yes, crime is on the increase everywhere, but I have no doubt that it is less in Washington, D. C., than it is in cities of similar size where booze is sold and the saloon runs rampant.

In conclusion, I am not a prohibitionist, I am an Anti-Saloon Leaguer. I believe firmly that nature and nature's God has given the world all through the centuries alcohol in some form for the good of the world, but the American saloon cannot exist longer. It is a menace to health, public safety, and good citizenship, and I believe some time in the future we will return to our cups, but not under the present system.

HOTEL-KEEPER.

We know our correspondent and his hotel and believe he speaks as a competent and sincere witness of the folly of the liquor-saloon supporters who are now posing as defenders of beer and light wines.

A GOOD EXAMPLE

As a former Governor-General of Canada, and through his recent visit with Lady Aberdeen to the United States on a semi-official war mission, the Marquis of Aberdeen is well known to the Amer ican people. An article by him on his grandfather is to be found in this issue.

The Aberdeen "Free Press" gives an interesting account of Lord Aberdeen's action in parting with a considerable proportion of his great estate in the north of Scotland. About thirteen thousand acres of the lands within which Haddo House stands will be retained. The rest of itabout thirty-seven thousand acres are to be sold, with the approval of his heirs and with the sanction of the Court, whose sanction, as we understand it, is neces

led to the sale, Lord Aberdeen's action is a significant and valuable example for men of wealth in both countries to follow. If we are to meet successfully the great peril to civilization threatened by the Bolshevist movement, those who possess both intelligence and wealth must co-operate in a movement for a better distribution of both intelligence and wealth-of intelligence by a system of free education, including industrial education, and of wealth by just such measures as are being taken in connection with and really as a part of the sale of so large a portion of the Aberdeen estate. If the leveling which is sure to take place in the present reconstruction period is directed by the higher and better elements in society, it will be a leveling up; if it is not so directed, it will be under the control of the unscrupulous and the unintelligent, as it is now in Russia, and it will be a leveling down.

FIUME AND THE LEAGUE

OF NATIONS

to our Senators and Representatives. And the President, without consulting with them, and without reporting the arguments against his position, without even reporting the facts on which action must be based, has notified the Powers that no other view than his can America regard as consistent with the principles for which she has fought and upon which only she can consent to make upon which only she can consent to make peace. "The compulsion is upon her to square every decision she takes a part in with those principles. She can do nothing else."

This document Italy evidently, the other Powers apparently, have taken as America's ultimatum. Possibly Italy may modify her claims in the Adriatic rather than risk the withdrawal of America from the Feace Conference; but an agreement, even should one be obtained by a surrender of what her people evidently regard as a just and necessary claim, upon such a demand coming from what is probably now the wealthiest and most powerful nation on the globe does not augur well for future international peace by amicable diplomacy or judicial arbi

RESIDENT WILSON startled the tration.

Porld by a statement given out on
PRE

April 23 respecting the controversy be-
tween Jugoslavia and Italy, a statement
which, with apparently good reason, has
been regarded as in effect an ultimatum.,
In this statement he presents the argu-
ments in support of the claims of Jugo-
slavia, but not the arguments in sup-
port of the claims of Italy; and he as-
sumes the right to decide the question at
issue between these two peoples.. That
issue was briefly defined in The Outlook
for January 15. We define it more fully
on another page, and give to our readers
the arguments used by the advocates both
of Italy and of Jugoslavia.

A far more important issue to the world has, however, been raised by PresiIdent Wilson's action.

A League of Nations, however ingeniously framed, would be of little use if any nation could at any time issue an ultimatum which the other nations must accept or see the League dissolved; and it would be of no use if any representative of a nation, acting on his own authority and without consultation with his own government, could issue such an ultimatum. This is what President Wilson has done. The Council of Four has not accepted his view of the question whether the city of Fiume should be put under Croatian or Italian control. The American people are not well informed on this question. The discussions which have taken place in the Council have not been reported to them. Their knowledge on the subject is derived from vague, unauthorized, and often contradictory rumors. No pains have been taken to give accurate information even

Jugoslavia as a state does not yet exist. It is a nation in the womb. What its boundary lines are to be, and what its international status, are yet to be determined. If it is impossible to settle by conciliation or compromise, or, conciliation and compromise failing, by arbitration, the question what shall be the boundaries of an unborn state whose very existence depends upon the will of the World Powers, and whose protection depends on the good will of its neighbors, there is no question which can be so settled. If one Power may enforce its own judgment upon so complicated and difficult a problem as that which is presented by what is miscalled the Fiume question, the democracy of nations is still hardly so much as a hope, hardly more than a dream.

It is affirmed and it is denied that the President's statement had before its issuance the approval of Clemenceau and Lloyd George, and the affirmative report and the denial are apparently of equal authority. The President's statement is interpreted by some as an address to the people of Italy over the heads of its official representatives, by others as an explanation to the people of America of their representative's action; but there is nothing in the document itself to indicate to whom the President addressed it. If he hoped by his appeal to win the sympathies of the Italian people for the settlement which he proposes, he must by this time have abandoned his hope. The union of Italy in support of the Italian claims as formulated by its representatives in Paris appears to be substantially unanimous.

Though the Italian Premier has left

Paris to report to his constituents at home, Italy has not withdrawn from the Conference. At this writing we are not without hope that wiser counsels may yet prevail and that some compromise may be found that will allay the irritation which the prolongation of this dispute has excited in both peoples. It is of the utmost importance to the whole civilized world, not only that Italy and Jugoslavia, but that the Latin and the Slavic races, should be true and loyal friends in defending civilization against the perils which formerly threatened from the autocracy of the kings and which now threaten from the dictatorship of the mob.

It does not owe him food and clothing and shelter. It may supply him those necessities as incidental means to an end, but not as part of its debt to him.

It does not owe him expressions of sympathy and affection. It may have sympathy for him, and even affection; but whatever feelings it has are the natural product of its humane spirit, not a part of its debt.

It does not owe him any effort to relieve him of the painful consequences of his crime. Some of those consequences are material, some are spiritual. They may involve loss of property. The community does not owe it to the criminal to make good any of that loss. They may involve the incurring of distrust on the part of his fellow-men. The community may put the criminal into the way of earning a renewal of faith in him; but it does not owe it to the criminal to try to re-establish that faith for him.

The first duty of the community is not to the criminal. It is protection of the law-abiding citizens from future. crimes and reparation to the law-abiding citizens by the criminal for past crimes.

To the criminal, however, it has a duty also. It owes to him such a course of discipline that he and those who are in his frame of mind will acquire, if possible, first, a motive to make such restitution as is in his power; and, second, if possible, an adequate sense of his guilt and a resolve not to repeat his crimes in the future.

It is not vindictiveness on the part of the community that leads it to such a course of treatment for the criminal; it is, rather, an intelligent sense of justice, and of its own duty.

In the community of nations, Germany is in the position of the criminal. Undoubtedly Germany is suffering