The New Republic/Volume 1/Number 1/Editorial Notes

THE New Republic is frankly an experiment. It is an attempt to find national audience for a journal of interpretation and opinion. Many people believe that such a journal is out of place in America; that if a periodical is to be popular, it must first of all be entertaining, or that if it is to be serious, it must be detached and select. Yet when the plan of The New Republic was being discussed it received spontaneous welcome from people in all parts of the country. They differed in theories and programmes; but they agreed that if The New Republic could bring sufficient enlightenment to the problems of the nation and sufficient sympathy to its complexities, it would serve all those who feel the challenge of our time. On the conviction that this is possible The New Republic is founded. Its success inevitably depends on public support, but if we are unable to achieve that success under the conditions essential to sound and disinterested thinking, we shall discontinue our experiment and make way for better man. Meanwhile, we set out with faith.

APART from the narrow margin whereby the Democrats retained control of the House of Representatives, the salient feature of the election is the apparently reactionary revulsion of popular opinion. Progressivism of all kinds has fared badly. The Progressive Party has been reduced to an insignificant remnant. The unprogressive members of the older parties are much more conspicuous on the face of the returns than are their progressive brethren. If we may judge by the fate of the proposed woman's suffrage amendments, progressive legislation has fared as ill as progressive candidates. The revulsion appears to be complete. No explanation can explain it away, but how is it to be explained?

In all probability it is more than anything else an exhibition of fatigue. Popular interest has been strained by a political agitation which has lasted too long and has made a too continuous demand upon its attention. It is tired of Congresses which do not adjourn, of questions which are always being discussed and never being settled, of supposed settlements which fail to produce the promised results, and of a ferment which yields such a small net return of good white bread. The voter whose interest is flagging reverts to his baits. He had been accustomed to vote as a member of one party when business was good, and sometimes to change over to the other party when business was bad. Business has been undeniably bad. His attention was not diverted from the business depression by the impulse of new and attractive political objects. On the contrary, progressive politics and economics had ceased to be either new or attractive. So the good voter cast his ballot as one of the other kind of a partisan, and the bi-partisan system has regained some of its old vitality. Neither should the substantial contribution which President Wilson has made to this result be overlooked. His scrupulous loyalty to his own party, and his determination to govern by means of a partisan machine and the use of partisan discipline, has resulted in the recrudescence of merely partisan Republicanism, and the increased political importance of the individual voter of a close connection with one of the two dominant parties.

THE severest blow which non-partisan progressivism received at the elections came from the apparently successful Senatorial candidacies of Sherman in Illinois, Gallinger in New Hampshire, and Penrose in Pennsylvania. These three gentlemen are all of them machine politicians with unsavory records, who represent everything most obnoxious to an American progressive. They were to a considerable extent opposed by the progressive elements in their own parties. Yet they were all nominated and elected by popular vote, and no adherent of popular government can question their title to their offices. The meaning of the lesson is unmistakable. Direct primaries and the direct popular election of Senators will not contribute much to the triumph of genuine political and social democracy so long as partisan allegiance remains the dominant fact in the voter's mind. Bi-partisanship will continue until the end of time to produce its crop of Penroses and Gallingers. Nor can the bi-partisan system be broken down by occasional outbreaks of non-partisanship. That was the delusion of the former Mugwumps. The average American voter will cease to be partisan only in so far as political and social agitation uncover for him positive objects of political action which retain his interest and command his allegiance. For the time being, his interest is relaxed and he is drifting back to his former habits, but he is as certain to recover his interest as the grass is to grow after rain. It is only the old and the sick and the feeble who do not recover from fatigue and yield once again to the temptation and stimulus of positive political and social effort.

A RECORD of more than fifty volumes having already been produced under the bored attention of a Referee, the government dissolution suit against the U. S. Steel Corporation has at last straggled into the United States Circuit Court. Argument was begun a fortnight ago. Judges and counsel; clerks and secretaries; and stenographers who have grown up, married and settled down on the job; plaintiff, defendant and newspaper readers, all know that the decision, whatever it is, will no sooner be announced than preparations will begin for carrying the case to the Supreme Court. There the same record, built upon still more vertiginously, will appear again; the same counsel will present the same arguments; the same clerks, the same secretaries, the same stenographers, their progeny increased, will transcribe the same testimony; and Bill the Lizard, writing with his finger on the slate, may be expected to go on writing the evidence quite in the manner of the famous case of the Queen's tarts.

IT is rumored that a certain number of American statesmen are acquainted with the fact that the war was certain to produce severe unemployment this winter. You might think this knowledge would have cast a slight shadow over the congratulation which the Democratic Congress bestowed upon itself, that it might have received at least a little comment from the candidates, and some concerted thought from the states. Yet instead of adequate provision, what we seem to be witnessing is the usual drift into the suffering of the winter, amidst the appointment of hasty commissions to investigate, and the threats and shouts of the I. W. W. Public officials will feel themselves abused for not being able to do what they don't know how to do; there will be a scurry to provide beds and food; a few anemic employment bureaus will lift their timid heads.

And all the while the damning fact will remain that the problem could have been foreseen, that the first steps in its treatment are known. How then shall we explain to the men who are out of work why no adequate labor exchanges exist, why no form of insurance has ever been publicly discussed? What answer shall we make to their own simple diagnosis, which says that mayors and governors and legislatures are afraid to attack the private employment agencies or that the great mass of people are too preoccupied to care? They will point out that the cotton planters of the South were interesting to the whole nation; they will wonder why they, sitting dejectedly on park benches, are so little thought about. When their fighting blood stirs, and they say that they will be heard and felt, that they propose to sting us into recognition, shall we simply ask them to be quiet, to slink into corners, and to pardon us if we have failed to provide for what we could so easily have foreseen.

IT is fervently to be hoped that Switzerland will give credence to Minister Ritter's denial of attacks upon that country by the American press because it did not officially protest against the violation of Belgian territory. Whatever indiscretions may have been committed by irresponsible journals, we can assure Switzerland that there has been no organized attempt to inflame the minds of our people against that tall but thin republic. While as a nation we do not admit that Switzerland is in advance of the United States in any respect except alphabetically, we have only friendly feelings toward her, if any. We do not desire a war with Switzerland, especially at this time, when communications are so shattered that war could not be carried on with any degree of comfort. Lest this be thought national cowardice, let us hasten to add that if Switzerland invades our shores she will find us ready to a man to defend our hearthstones.

NEXT Thursday in the Southern city of Nashville the women suffragists of America meet in national convention. In view of recent political events, this may well prove to be the most momentous deliberation in the history of their cause. Up to the present the mission of the national body has been primarily educational. It is now inevitably political as well, and in this forthcoming convention it is called on to affirm its nation-wide political policy. The National Association must face the issue precipitated by the adventurous group which, adapting English tactics, attacks the Democratic party as a whole. This group frankly regards the Democratic party as "the government of the day," and seeks to drive it out of power in punishment for its failure to amend the constitution. Whether this policy is good or not, it is opposed to the strong non-partisan tradition of the National Association, and it is a question on which the parent body should clear its own mind. Then, again, the rival constitutional amendments need to be discussed on their merits. One, as is well known, is the straight amendment decreeing national suffrage. The other, devised last year, provides for submitting the question to the voters of each state by initiative petition. The supporters of the second amendment have national suffrage in view, but they believe the longest way round is the shortest way home. It is healthy that there should be rivalry on this question. On the question of party tactics, however, rivalry is a politer name for dissension. And if the suffrage agitation is to be anything more than political gymnastics, the less dissension and the more candid understanding, the better.

THOUGH events of historic importance are happening in Mexico to-day, it is almost impossible to find out anything about them. From the meager news which trickles into the newspapers we catch glimpses of revolutionary programs, of moving armies, of a country so profoundly disorganized that civil law has practically disappeared and all security laid at the mercy of military chiefs. We see "generals" in a convention founded on no expressed popular assent making decisions for Mexico which may at any moment provoke widespread violence and entail unforeseen international consequences. But the facts as they come through the newspapers are so bare, the interpretations are so haphazard and inadequate, that no one outside of official circles in Washington can secure any sort of consecutive impression of what is happening. We know that Huerta is gone, we gather that the Constitutionalists are divided; and there the average man's knowledge stops. He is still vaguely aware that American troops occupy Vera Cruz, but over the question of their withdrawal he has not sufficient facts to make up his mind. Yet when we remember that conditions in Mexico have several times within the last years brought us to the verge of war, that within a few months the United States has actually seized a Mexican port, the failure of the press to keep us informed seems like a wanton neglect of duty.

It is all very well to fill newspapers and magazines with denunciations of the secret and undemocratic diplomacy of Europe. So long as our own foreign relations are left in darkness Europe might well retort that it is not for us to throw stones. In regard to Mexico the newspapers have an opportunity of showing that popular diplomacy in possession of the facts is more hopeful than the European entanglements they denounce. It is no answer to say that the people are not interest in Mexico. It is the business of journalism to make important events interesting by making them intelligible, and in Mexico the possibilities are always so explosive that easy-going ignorance is out of the question. Moreover, when it is claimed that the sensations of the war in Europe make everything else dull, it would be well to remember that our greatest contribution to the world just now would be an example of how a thoroughly informed and powerful democracy can promote the national interests of a weak and struggling neighbor.

WHEN President Jackson first laid down the proposition that the President is the direct representative of the people, there was a furious outcry from Congress, and Jackson's claim was denounced as an arrogant usurpation of the constitutional prerogative of Congress. The present attitude of Congress appears to be one of acquiescence. In a recent debate Senator Thomas, of Colorado, referred to the President as one "whom the people regarded, and constantly regard more and more, as their representative, as the protector of their interests, as contradistinguished from members of Congress, who, of course, represented only states and districts in states." Nobody had a word of objection to make to this statement, although it was enough to make Clay and Webster turn over in their graves. Quite in line with the doctrine of the President as the only representative of the nation is the President's letter reviewing and commending the work of Congress, which was printed in the Record with Representative Underwood's grateful acknowledgments. It comes to this, that Congress no longer pretends to represent the general welfare, but simply local and particular interests. That being the case, there is manifest need for the adjustment of political structure to the representative function of the President. To discharge that function properly the President should have the right to introduce bills and bring them to vote. National interest should at least have as fair an opportunity of obtaining consideration as district interests.

THE opposition to a minimum wage law for women is curiously compounded of interested employers, abstract theorists and conservative and radical unionists. It presents a picture of the I. W. W., department store managers, Samuel Gompers, and a half dozen professional economists fighting side by side. The relation between republican France and autocratic Russia is a simple harmony compared to this group of allies so single minded for such various reasons. We do not pretend to have fathomed the reasons, for they range all the way from the reasons of employers who like sweating, through those of thinkers who believe in lassez-faire, to those of labor unionists who wish to monopolize the interests of the workers. In this network of confused opposition the New York State Factory Investigation Commission is now hesitating. The Commission is to report to the Legislature in January, but its decision is now in the making, and there is danger that the strength of the opposition may balk its recommendations.

Against every form of opposition must be weighed the supreme fact that there are industries in this State which do not pay enough wages to support life. Even if the minimum wage did not have behind it a long record of fairly successful practice, any proposal to end such a condition would be an experiment which New York State could afford to try, and should. No other agency has yet been suggested which reaches the most deeply exploited groups of women workers, and none which proposes in direct and dignified fashion to place within the state bulwarks below which American civilization shall not sink.

To those who complain that the sweated industries could not survive, the obvious and irrefutable answer is that industries which can't support themselves are uneconomic and should not be subsidized out of the health and sanity of their employees. If any subsidy is necessary, if the real cause of bad conditions isn't an intolerable inefficiency, then the subsidy should be public and frank. To those who fear State interference the reply is that voluntary action has failed. To those who point out that much of this sweated labor is incompetent the reply is that it must either be made competent or treated openly as a public charge. To those who realize the administrative difficulties of minimum wage legislation the reply is that wisdom and skill are made by experience.

ALTHOUGH Americans have responded with splendid generosity to the appeal of the starving Belgians, it becomes daily more apparent that no merely private philanthropy will suffice to meet this stupendous relief problem. Even in times of peace, millions of Belgians, because of their poverty, are chronically underfed; to-day starvation threatens to become universal. Year by year, despite a marvelously intensive cultivation of the soil, Belgium has become increasingly dependent upon foreign nations for her food. With the nation's ports now sealed by war, its railroads wrecked, its farm-horses killed or commandeered, its cattle gone, its harvest ungathered or confiscated, there is today no food for the six or seven millions of people still still huddled in the little kingdom. The cost of feeding a whole nation should not be borne entirely by philanthropic individuals.

What we propose is that Belgium's allies, England and France, deposit each month with the American government the sum of five or six million dollars, necessary for the most inadequate and partial relief of Belgian distress. Food could be shipped from this country, and by arrangement with Germany could be distributed that none of it would pass into the hands of Germans. The cost of such relief, even if it went further than mere food and amounted to one or two hundred million dollars during the year, could in the end be met by Belgium itself, or be paid for by the vanquished, and in any case it would be an inconsiderable item in the war budgets of the allied nations. The problem, however, is immediate. Unless something upon a national scale is done soon and is planned immediately, we shall witness the slow catastrophe of a whole people.

STUDENTS of financial phenomena are hard pressed for a satisfactory explanation of the increase of $111,000,000 in the gold holdings of the Imperial German Bank since the war began. Those of the Bank of England have increased even more ($162,000,000 since the low point in August), but that is different. London though its stock exchange is closed and notwithstanding the English moratorium, is still the money center of the world, and has the power to command gold from other countries. Germany is financially and commercially isolated from all the rest of the world, save, of course, Austria, which in this matter does not count. The Imperial Bank could have built up its gold holdings only out of the national resources. What were they? It is supposed that the Kaiser's famous war chest was emptied into the Bank, but that would account for only $60,000,000, so that $50,000,000 would still remain to be accounted for. Where did that come from? One theory is that it has been "gained from the circulating medium," which is to suppose that people, instead of hoarding gold privately, have actually been surrendering it for the bank notes. That is a wholly unsatisfactory explanation, one financial writer declares, "unless all previous principles of political economy have been turned upside down." And why not? One weakness of political economy has been to disregard human emotion of the sort that does not turn its principle upside down. That could easily happen, for instance, in a country where the brides prefer iron rings to gold ones, and married women send their gold bands to be melted up for the war fund, replacing them with iron, as they are doing now and as they did one hundred years ago, giving the Emperor his inspiration for that wholesale and inexhaustible symbol of distinction, the Order of the Iron Cross.