Part 22

He is a poor patriot who can wish a new administration anything but success--at least in policies unrelated to party differences--and it is creditable to the American people that the new President enters upon his difficult task amid general good-will. His lack of previous acquaintance with “the way the thing is done” in Washington, though it excited the apprehension of some of his warmest friends, proves to be a positive advantage. If precedents are broken they are not his, and sometimes the breaking is done with a naïveté just this side of innocence, as in the discountenancing of the time-honored but expensive and meaningless inaugural ball. The President evidently realizes his responsibilities and the conventional obstacles that must be cleared out of his path if he is to accomplish much for the good of the country. The idealism of his inaugural address, with its appeal for the coöperation of “honest, patriotic, and forward-looking men,” is already being supplemented by practical action so fraught with “saving common sense” as to seem revolutionary.

Seen in the retrospect, what could be done more wise or simple than the shunting of the office-seekers to the heads of departments? What more useful or self-respecting than the announced policy of disapproval of legislation carrying “riders”--of which, by the way, a flagrant example is found in the Panama tolls exemption, to which both the President and the Vice-President have announced their opposition? What more direct or reassuring than the kindly words of warning to Central American revolutionists? What more prompt than the announcement through the Secretary of State that the United States cannot ignore its responsibilities toward Cuba? or, again, through the Postmaster-General, that there is to be no wholesale looting of the offices, with the object-lesson of the retention or promotion of several public servants of marked efficiency? or, still again, the immediate action through the Secretary of War and the Attorney-General toward the safeguarding of the public interests in Niagara Falls? What more prudent than the disentanglement of our relations in the Far East from financial loans to China? These events, occurring in the first fortnight of the administration, display a point of view of government as an instrument of public service which, though it may do violence to traditions, makes thoughtful citizens exclaim, “Why not?”

It is not to be expected that we are to have another Era of Good Feeling, or that, when questions of party policy arise, Mr. Wilson’s opponents will yield their convictions. He cannot fail to meet with many a storm, within and without party lines; but he will do much to advance his ideas if he shall preserve the poise of direct and unsophisticated common sense which he has shown at the beginning.

LAWLESSNESS IN ART

THE EXPLOITATION OF WHIMSICALITY AS A PRINCIPLE

The recent admirably arranged exhibition in New York made by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, and including a full representation of the work of the Cubists and the Post-Impressionists, has proved in one respect a veritable success, namely, in point of attendance. If not, as one critic puts it, a _succès de scandale_, it has been a _succès de curiosité_. It contained pieces of historic work of great beauty by eminent painters of France and America--Ingres, Daumier, Puvis de Chavannes, Childe Hassam, Alden Weir, and others, but no great point was made of their inclusion and they were not the attraction for the crowds. What drew the curious were certain widely talked-of eccentricities, whimsicalities, distortions, crudities, puerilities, and madnesses, by which, while a few were nonplussed, most of the spectators were vastly amused.

At the spring exhibition of the National Academy of Design, which followed, one unaccustomed visitor was heard to say to another, “Oh, come on, Bill, there’s nothing to laugh at here.” It will be impossible to repeat the Parisian sensation another season; and, happily, the eccentricities have served to awaken a new interest in genuine types of art, both in and out of their own exhibition, and have furnished that element of contrast which is useful if not essential in the formation of a robust taste.

Meanwhile, for the benefit of the young and unthinking, it is well to keep on inculcating the fact that while art is not a formula, nor even a school, it is subject, whether in painting, sculpture, poetry, architecture, or music, to certain general principles tending to harmony, clarity, beauty, and the stimulus of the imagination. A fundamental error is that its laws are hampering, the fact being that it is only as one learns them that he can acquire the freedom of individual expression. The exploitation of a theory of discords, puzzles, uglinesses, and clinical details, is to art what anarchy is to society, and the practitioners need not so much a critic as an alienist. It is said that a well-known Russian musician has begun a new composition with (so to speak) a keynote of discord involving the entire musical scale, as a child might lay his hand sidewise upon all the notes of the piano it can cover. A counterpart of this could have been found in more than one ward of the recent exhibition. One can fancy the laughter over the absinthe in many a Latin Quarter café of those who are not mentally awry, but are merely imitators, poseurs, or charlatans, at learning that their monstrosities, which have exhausted the interest of Paris, have been seriously considered by some American observers. They have only been trying to see how far they could go in fooling the public. But he laughs best who laughs last, and we believe that Americans have too much sense of humor not to see the point of this colossal joke of eccentricity, or to endure its repetition.

NIAGARA AGAIN IN DANGER

THE COMMERCIALIZING OF GREAT SCENERY

One need not be afraid of exaggerating the peril to the beauty of Niagara in allowing its waters to be used for commercial purposes when a man of such moderation and public esteem as Senator Burton of Ohio says, as he did in the Senate on the fourth of March:

I want to say, Mr. President, that in all my experience in either house of Congress I have never known such an aggregation of persons to come here seeking to rob and to despoil as those who have come here after this power. If there is any one who wishes them to succeed he must answer to the country for it. They not only desired the water above the Falls, but they now desire to withdraw the waters below in the rapids, which are second in beauty only to the Falls themselves. Persons have come here under the guise of public spirit, or even of philanthropy, when it was but a thin veil to conceal a scheme to get possession of the waters of the Niagara River. We ask that for a year this law be continued to stay the hand of the despoiler.

The law referred to was the Burton Act under which for three years the assaults of the commercial interests have been stayed. Even with a concession to the companies of 250,000 horse-power instead of 160,000, Mr. Burton, owing to a filibuster by Senator O’Gorman, was not able to secure the desired extension, and the Falls seem to be at the mercy of those who are interested in turning great scenery into dividends. We are much mistaken if the new administration does not find some way of thwarting this form of vandalism. Meanwhile it is well that public opinion should be directed upon senators and representatives.

Of the damage that has already been done Senator Burton says: “... The ruthless hand of the promoter has been laid upon this river; and thus the cataract has been diminished in size and the scenic effect has been impaired not only by diminishing the flow and the quantity of the water, but by structures on the banks.” A question of jurisdiction has been raised as between the State of New York and the National Government, though the river as a boundary line has long been the subject of an international treaty. The fact that the taking of water for commercial purposes whether on the Canadian or the American side has virtually the same effect on the river makes joint action of the two countries imperative.

The willingness to destroy or impair great scenery by commercializing it, whether at Niagara or in the Yosemite National Park, makes it necessary that the fight for our natural treasures should be kept up with vigilance. Happily, the good judgment of the late Secretary of the Interior, Warren L. Fisher, has blocked the attempt of the city of San Francisco to destroy the wonderful Hetch Hetchy valley by converting it into a reservoir of water for drinking and power purposes,--which confessedly can be had elsewhere in the Sierra “by paying for it,”--the Secretary wisely holding that such a diversion of the valley from the original purpose of its reservation is too important a matter to be determined by any power but Congress. Three Secretaries of the Interior--Hitchcock, Ballinger, and Fisher--are thus on record against the ruthless project of the city authorities, and we believe it will not be more successful with Secretary Lane. Should its advocates go to Congress, it must be remembered that the same principle underlies the defense of Niagara and of Hetch Hetchy--the conservation of great scenery for the ultimate benefit of mankind.

[Illustration: OPEN LETTERS]

ON THE COLLAPSE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CLUB

_My dear MacWhittlesey_:

No, I have not become a pessimist. If I ever was an optimist, I am certainly one still. But to my mind the only use of being an optimist about the universe is that one can the more boldly be a pessimist about the world. That you may see I can discern the good signals as well as the bad, I will tell you three recent things with which I am thoroughly delighted. With brazen audacity, I will even put first the one topic you know all about and I know nothing about. I am thoroughly delighted with the election of the American President, with the election of the French President, and with the victory in the Balkans. You may think these three things have nothing to do with one another. Wait till I have done explaining things; it will not last long or hurt much.

[Illustration]

Don’t imagine I have any newspaper illusions about any of the three. I am a journalist and never believe the newspapers. I know there will be a lot of merely fashionable fuss about the American and the French presidents; I know we shall hear how fond Mr. Wilson is of canaries or how interested M. Poincaré is in yachting. It is truer still, of course, about the Balkan War. I have been anti-Turk through times when nearly every one else was pro-Turk. I may therefore be entitled to say that much of the turnover of sympathy is pure snobbery. Silly fashions always follow the track of any victory. After 1870 our regiments adopted Prussian spikes on their helmets, as though the Prussians had fought with their heads, like bisons. Doubtless there will be a crop of the same sort of follies after the Balkan War. We shall see the altering of inscriptions, titles, and advertisements. Turkish baths may be called Bulgarian baths. The sweetmeat called Turkish Delight may probably be called Servian Delight. A Turkey carpet, very much kicked about and discolored, may be sold again as a Montenegro carpet. These cheap changes may easily occur, and in the same way the international world (which consists of hotels instead of homes) may easily make the same mistake about the French and American presidents. Thousands of Englishmen will read the American affair as a mere question of Colonel Roosevelt. Thousands will read of the Poincaré affair as a mere echo of the Dreyfus case. Thousands have never thought of the near East except as the sultan and Constantinople. For such masses of men Roosevelt is the only American there ever was. For them the Dreyfus question was the only French question there ever was. They had never heard that the Servians had a country, let alone an army.

The fact in which the three events meet is this: they are all realities on the spot. Most Englishmen have never heard of Mr. Woodrow Wilson; so they know that Americans really trust him. Most Englishmen have never heard of M. Poincaré; so they know that Frenchmen know he is a Frenchman. Neither is a member of the International Club, the members of which advertise one another.

Do you know what I mean? Do you not know that International Club? Like many other secret societies, it is unaware of its own existence. But there is a sort of ring of celebrities known all over the world, and more important all over the world than any of them are at home. Even when they do not know one another, they talk about one another. Let me see if I can find a name that typifies them. Well, I have no thought of disrespect to the memory of a man I liked and admired personally, and who died with a tragic dignity fitted for one who had always longed to be a link between your country and mine; but I think the late W. T. Stead was the unconscious secretary of that unconscious International Club. The other members, roughly speaking, were Colonel Roosevelt, the German Emperor, Tolstoy, Cecil Rhodes, and somebody like Mr. Edison. In an interview with Roosevelt, Rhodes would be the most important man in England, the Kaiser (or Tolstoy) the most important man in Europe. In an interview with Rhodes, the Kaiser would be important, Mr. Edison more important, Mr. Stead rather important; Bulgaria and M. Poincaré not important at all. Interview the Kaiser, and you will probably find the only interviewer he remembers is Stead. Could Rhodes have been taken to Russia you would probably find the only Russian he had really heard of was Tolstoy. For the rest, the Nobel prize, the Harmsworth newspaper group, the Marconi inventions, the attempts at a universal language--all these strike the note. I forgot the British Empire, on which the sun never sets, a horribly unpoetical state of things. Think of having a native land without any sunsets!

This International Club is breaking up. Men are more and more trusting men they know to have been honest in a small way; men faithful in one city to rule over many cities. Imperialists like Roosevelt and Rhodes stood for unrealities. Please observe that I do not for one moment say insincerities. Tolstoy was splendidly sincere; but the cult of him was an unreality to this extent, that it left large masses in America and England with a general idea that he was the only Christian in the east of Europe. Since then we have seen Christianity on the march as it was in the Middle Ages, a thing of thousands, ready for pilgrimage and crusade. I don’t ask you to like it if you don’t like it. I only say it’s jolly different from Tolstoy, and equally sincere. It is a reality on the spot.

Well, just as Russia and the Slavs meant for us Tolstoy, so France and French literature meant for many of us Zola. Poincaré’s election represents a France that hates Zola more than the Balkans hate the Turk. The old definite, domestic, patriotic Frenchman has come to the top. I can’t help fancying that with you the old serious, self-governing, idealistic, and really republican American has come to the top, too. But there I speak of things I know not, and await your next letter with alarm.

Faithfully yours, _G. K. Chesterton_.

ON HOW TO GET SOMETHING BY GIVING SOMETHING UP

_From a Victim of the Comparative-Statistics Habit_

_My dear Harold_:

Can a man go in for tobacco and do his duty by the United States Navy? Life seems to be getting more difficult every day. I can no longer enjoy my after-dinner cigar as I used to. The trouble is not physical. My nerves are in good condition. My heart behaves quite as it should, occasionally rising into my mouth with fear, sometimes sinking toward my diaphragm with anticipation, but for the most part going about its work without attracting notice. I sleep as soundly as I ever did. The quality of the tobacco they put into cigars nowadays may be deteriorating, but I am easy to please. No; the trouble is with my conscience. I simply find it impossible to smoke without feeling that I am recreant to my social obligations.

[Illustration]

Don’t imagine I am referring to my family. It is old-fashioned practice to show how the money disbursed upon tobacco by the head of a household might buy a home in the suburbs and endowment insurance for the children. To-day the sociological implications of a box of cigars are much more serious. To-day no man of conscience can light his pipe without inflicting injury on the United States Navy. All the comfort goes out of a cigar when one reflects upon what one might be doing for the encouragement of education among the Southern mountaineers. Now and then I like the feel of a cigarette between my lips; but can a man go in for cigarettes as long as the country stands in such bitter need of a comprehensive system of internal waterways?

I imagine I am not making myself quite clear. What I mean is that there are so many good causes abroad nowadays, and the advocates of each and every cause have no trouble in showing how easily they might manage to attain the specific thing they are after if only you would consent to sacrifice something that your own heart is rather set upon. Just imagine if all the money that is burned up in tobacco were devoted to the expansion of the fleet! Can there be any doubt that within a year we should take first place among the naval powers? Provided, that is, the English and the Germans and the Japanese did not give up smoking at the same time that we did. It may seem far-fetched to argue any close connection between a ten-cent cigar and a ten-million-dollar dreadnought. That is what I have been trying to say to myself. But I cannot help feeling that if the day of Armageddon does arrive, and the Japanese fleet comes gliding out of Magdalena Bay, and the star of our national destiny goes down into defeat, I shall never be able to forgive myself for the cigar I insisted on lighting every night after the children had been put to bed. As it is, I suffer by anticipation. The Japanese fleet keeps popping out at me from my tobacco-jar.

You will say I am oversensitive to outside suggestion. Perhaps I am. The fact remains that the naval situation in the Pacific is what it is. And there are so many other national obligations. We do need a fifteen-foot channel from the lakes to the gulf. We do need free schools for the poor whites in the Tennessee mountains. We do need millions to rebuild our railroads. All these demands press upon me as I sit facing my wife across the table and timidly light my cigar. Yes, I smoke; but I look at my wife and wonder how she can live in unconscious proximity to such startling moral degradation.

Perhaps I am oversensitive, as you say, but these suggestions from the outside keep pouring in on one in an irresistible stream from many different directions. You simply cannot escape the logic of the comparative mathematicians. A naval officer of high rank shows that because of the wanton destruction of bird-life in the United States our farmers lose $800,000,000 a year from the ravages of insect pests; “so that good bird laws would enable us to sustain an enormous navy.” Not so big a navy as this distinguished officer imagines, of course, because the internal-waterways people will want a great deal of that bird money, and the Southern education people will ask for a handsome share. It does not matter that personally I have never slain birds either for their flesh or their plumage, but I share in the indirect responsibility. Instead of idling in my chair with a cigar, I ought to be writing to my congressman, demanding the enactment of adequate bird laws in the name of our naval supremacy in the Pacific and the defense of the Panama Canal.

Such is the established mode of procedure to-day. If one is planning the expenditure of a very large amount of public money, let him point out how easily the money may be saved or earned by somebody else. If I have seemed to harp too much on the man with the cigar, it is because he is the classic type of the victim in the case. Just consider what a trifling favor one is asked for--merely to give up a nasty, unsanitary habit, and not only be happier oneself, but bring happiness to the big-navy man, the internal-waterways man, the Association for the Encouragement of Grand Opera among the Masses, the Society for the Pensioning of Decayed Journalists, the Society for Damming the Arctic Current on the Banks of Newfoundland, the Society for the Construction of Municipal Airships. These enthusiastic gentry find no habit too hard for the other man to break, no economy too difficult for the other man to adopt, and no remedy too complicated for the other man to put into effect. Smith is amazed that any one could refuse him $200,000,000 for the navy.

“Why, look at your birds and your insect-ridden crops!”

“You grudge me the money for a hundred-foot automobile highway from New York to San Francisco?” says Jones. “Why, consider your wasteful steam-engines, with their ridiculous loss of ninety-seven per cent. of the latent coal energy!”

“Double the efficiency of your steam-engines, and you have enough for a dozen automobile highways.”

You see, that is all that stands in the way, Harold, a mere trifle like doubling the efficiency of the steam-engine.

“I want $5,000,000 to build a monument twelve hundred feet high to Captain John Smith and Pocahontas,” says Robinson. “You can’t spare the money? Sir, take the revolving storm-doors in New York City alone, which now represent so much wasted human energy, and harness these doors to a series of storage batteries, and you will have your $5,000,000 back in the course of a year.”

Will some one kindly run out and electrify all the revolving doors in New York City?

I have a confession to make. My heart goes out to the shiftless American farmer. He is responsible for almost as many good causes dying of lack of nutrition as is the habitual smoker.

If the American farmer would plow deep instead of merely scratching the soil, we could blow Japan out of the water. If he would study the chemistry of soils, we could give free railroad rides to every man and woman in the United States between the ages of thirty and forty-five. If we would build decent roads, we could pay off the national debt.

In other words, if the American farmer could be persuaded to make his land produce, say, only ten times its present yield, the millennium would be here in a jump.

I sometimes think that to the truly social-minded person the most immoral spectacle in life is an unscientific American farmer smoking a five-cent cigar in a buggy mired up to the axle on a country road.

Yours, _Simeon Strunsky_.

[Illustration: IN LIGHTER VEIN]

OLD DADDY DO-FUNNY’S WISDOM JINGLES

BY RUTH MC ENERY STUART

THE MOSQUITO