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Hitlers

Victory

publiccondem nation of the expulsion and tstates inplain

terms

the universitys adherenceohe r inciple of f r ee

speech. Harriss resignation is, moreo ver, declared t o be

en-

tirely volun tary and not he result of any prelimina ry bar-

gaining. As for the stat em ent of the university hat t sus-

tains

the

action of Dean Hawkes, that is plainly nonsensical

in v i ew

of

the fact that it has just reversed the action in ques-

tion. T h e inc iden t s c losed bu t i t will not be forgotten.

Any administrat ive off icer w il l now hink

twice

before ex-

ercising his disciplinary auth ority n

a

way ikely to arouse

a legitimate suspicion tha t he has forg otte n he universitys

promise to respect the stud ents right of free speech.

w

EN

THE

AMERICAN

FRIENDS Service Com-

mittee celebrated i ts f i f teenth anniversary at the end

of Ap ril, thad very reason to be proud of its record.

Fou nded in the s t ress of the W or ld W ar , i t wa s no t sat is -

fied

to be the agency responsible fordistr ibutingmore han

25,000,000

inmoney andgif ts in kind to he war - to rn

peoples of E uro pe; nor

to

rebuild portions of the devastate d

regions w i t h the abor of w ar ot i jectors: nor to br ing nto

areas charged with bi t terness the healing iairness an d erenity

whichare

so

often he peculiar

marl: of

t h e F r i e n d s . T h e

development

of

Quaker centers abroad,

in

cooperation with

F r i en d s

of

other coun t r i es , became, to adopt heQuaker

rerminology;

a concern. No onevisiting these cen ters n

France, Gelma ny, Austr ia, Switzer land, and elsewhere could

fail o be impressed by th e hold theyhave secured on t h e

loyalty o internationalis ts . T h e sending of capable persons

ab roa d for special services of goo d-will ha s become an estab-

lished and effective practice of the co m mi tte e. In periods of

distress am ong he most ser iously oppressed worke rs n he

Uni tedSta tes heFr iendshave als? brough t succor an d

cheer ; hey have, for example, been feeding some 30,000

childre n in the min ing regions a t least one meal

a

day. But

~o

enterprise of the Fr iends Comm ittee yet under taken sur-

passes in social significance its peace cara van s, qua ds of

youn g people s torming hecountryside

on

behalf of peace,

or

i ts scholar ly but adv enturous inst i tutes of international re-

lations,whichhavegrown rom imple xper imentsuntil

they

now

include summer

sessions

at Haverford, Wellesley,

and N o r th w es te r n. T o t h e co m m it teeourcongratulations,

and our hopes for a long l i fe

of

fur t he r pioneering.

T

HE TRAGIC DIEATH by drowning o E d w a r d T

Scott ,editor

of

the ManchesterGuardian cannot

be

less

than

a

severe blow to that distinguishednewspaper,as

it

is

a

loss

to

l iberalism everywhere. T h e son of

C. P. Scott,

whose long career ended only last year , E. T. Scott was a n

excellent journalis t , an editor of great abil i ty and judgment,

a most competen,t leaderwriter . Wi t h theaid of W. P.

Crozier ,he

news

editor ,eadullymain ta ined

the

super ior i ty of t h e Manchester Guardian He w as

a

resolute

l iberal who could have been counted on not to sacrifice his

pr inciples under any pressure. Indeed, he held h e s traight-

est course in he crisis of las tyearwhen here was much

Femptation to an editor to yield to the superficial clam or for

nat ional un i ty n the face of wh at w as falsely epresented

t o b e

a

national crisis. Th er e ar e so f ew m en of M r. Scot t s

abil i ty and journalis t ic conscience t o be found in journalism

anywhere ,that the disappearance of one of t h em m ak es t h e

wh ole wor ld poorer .

P

USSIA

h s now

to choose between a f rankly

reactionary overnmentnd a liberal dictatorship.

Whe ther t s eader s will accep t the o rme r a ther

than exper imenC with

,the

lat ter depends largelyupon he

cou rage of theCath olic ar ty . I n any case the l iberal

par t ies of the decade-old We imar Coa li t ion are

now

i n

th

minori ty and they no longer can govern the la rges t German

state n accordance withnormaldemocrat ic methods.

T h a t

is the mean ing of

Adolf

Hit ler s g rea t vo te in the P russ ian

,elections.

It

has placed the fascist leader , for h e f irs t ime

since hi5 spectacular rise, in a position to bargain for politicd,

power . AlthoughheNa tional Socialists and ,theirllies

did not win enough seats in the Prussia n Diet to give them

an abso lute majority-together hey lack only nine vote s

the N azis were returned as the argest s ingle par ty. wha t

is more mpor tan t ,

no

major i tygovernment can be erec ted

without them.

I n h e n ew D i e t h e r e w i l l be 422 votes, so t h a t 212

are necessary to a major i ty .Even if

i t

were possible to

br ing the Social Democ rats and Comm unists together , which

is no t d reamed

of,

these two Marxian par t ies would con t ro l

between them only

150

sea ts . Th e W ei m ar Coal it ion , which

under Pr ime M in is ter Braun has ru led Pruss ia s ince 1920,

an dwhic h nciude s Ithe Cath olicCenter , heSta tePar ty ,

an d the Social Democrats , now has al together only 162 seats.

T h e p a r t i e s of theNationalis tOpposit ion,ncluding the

Nazis, the Nationa lists, and several min or groups, com mand

203 votes in the n e w Diet . T h e on ly workab le combinat ion

that wouldguarantee a relat ively tablemajor i tygovern-

ment would have toembrace heparties

of

the Nat ional i s t

Opposit ion

on

theonehand nd

the

CatholicCenter

or1

theother .Obvious ly uch a combinat ionwould esult

in

a

reactionarygovernment,

for

it

would be dominated

to

a

considerableextent by Hi t le ra n dH k g e n b e r g .T h u s t

is

l e f t lmos t n t i r e ly to theCatho l ics , ndpar t icu lar ly t0

Chancellor

,BTuning,

leader

of

the

Catholic

Par ty, to decide

w h e t h e r o r , not

to

make th i s compromise w i t h

the

forces cd

react ion. r imar i lyhrough Brinings political

skill the

Nazis have thus f ar been kept out of the Ge rma n govern-

ment . The Chanc ellor as hown them nomercy in re-

pell ing heirat tacks. I t appears s if Br i i ningm u s t

now

either urrender to the fascists, or else go o he extreme

length

of

suppor t ing, a minori ty dictatorship in Prussia.

If

the Catholics choose the lat t er course, they

will un-

questionably be inviting troubl e, for i t is to be doubted that

the par ty which has shown i tself , the argest and strongest

in russia

will

meekly submi to being governe d by a

minori ty group especially in view of the f a c t h a t that

mi no rity is composed of its wo rn enemies.

But the

only

alternative seems to be forBri iningand hemodera tes ta

admit defeat and give way to the r ight radicals. How ever ,

it is possible that power

will

have

a

sobering effect

on

Hit ler .

H e has alrea dy show n himself willin g to tem per his policies

a sh e r o w t h of his movem ent as rought him more

strength. Indeed, only six weeks ago he revised his repara-

tions policy so

that

today

it

ishardly to be distinguished

f r o mB r i n i n g s .H a r d as it may seem, an l l iance

with

Hit ler may be

the

safest course fo r Briini ng.

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The Nation

Repeal the Eighteenth Amendment.

T

E NATION has been slow to come to the belief

that the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment is

inevitable and necessary. It is now firmly of the.

opinion that every effort should be made to remove this issue

from the arena of immediate politics by reverting to the

condition which existed prior to the adoption of the amend-

ment. While never for a moment, as our readers are well

aware, in favor of legislating goodness into people, we have

been among those who felt that prohibition, in its first years,

bestowed untold benefits upon the working classes and con-

tributed a great deal to the post-war prosperity of the

American people by depriving the brewers and distillers of

their share of the purchasing power of the nation and turn-

ing it into other and better channels. For this and other

reasons we have clung to the hope that there would be a

genuine and honest attempt to enforce prohibition and that,

after it was no longer smart to violate the law, conditions

would steadily improve. Here and there we do see signs

of improvement, but on the whole, as the years have slipped

by, conditions have steadily grown worse so far as the

violation of the law is concerned. The Nation, therefore,

is compelled to join those who favor the reamendment of

the Constitution, admitting that a false start has been made

and that the step must be retraced.

We have come to our decision today to join the forces

urging repeal primarily because of the now entirely demon-

strated hopelessness of obtaining enforcement from the

government in this era of a collapsing capitalistic system.

At Ieast until the government is largely made over, there

is obviously no chance of an efficient or honest effort to

enforce the law, orto arouse public opinion to its support.

.The government is today absorbed in saving itself, and will

be for a long time to come. Mr. Hoover is plainly as much

of ti hypocrite in the White House on this issue as were

Mr. Coolidge and Mr. Harding. The best that can be

e&d for him is that he, like his predecessors, cannot control

his own officials; that the prohibition service and parts of

the judiciary are so corrupt and so false to their oaths of

o&e as to make it impossible for the Chief Executive to

ekain their fidelity to their trust. We beIieve that, given

g2 Executive who deemed law enforcement a prime duty,

and a civil service of the honesty and incorruptibility of the

Germans before the war and of the British at this hour,

it would be possible to secure an enforcement which would

practically do the trick. Today the President keeps up the

false pretense of enforcement, as be misrepresented the wet

Wickersham report, makes no effort to eliminate politics in

the enforcement service, is oblivious to growing corruption,

growing defiance of the fundamental law and the Constitu-

&on itself. There is no prospect that his successor will

do anything else. Under the circumstances what is there

kft but to ask for repeal?

We hope that both the parties in their coming con-

wmtions will let the world know exactly where they stand,

that they will not be content with vague generalities, that

they will definitely demand repeal. As our readers will

til, wt have for years been urging a popular referendum

upon this subject-that referendum which the dry forces

now seem graciously disposed to grant. We had envisaged

the taking of a ~011of all the voters of the country by.the

Congress ; we have believed that it could be authorized at

a single session, and that Congress could provide such a

nation-wide referendum without having to go through the

process of amending the Constitution. A Congress which

could vote at the outbreak of war for a census of all our

youth between certain ages, and could c reate almost over-

night the machinery for reg istering those liable to the draft,

could also find a way of achieving a referendum on the

prohibition question in a short time, provided that it, and

the Administration, seriously undertook to do so. W e are

now, however, prepared to go farther. We urge that the

Congress take advantage of the amending clause of the

Constitution, vote a substitute amendment abolishing the

Eighteenth, and call upon the several States to ratify this

change, not by their legislatures but by conventions specially

elected for the purpose of passing upon this question and

upon no other.

This is a device never yet utilized by the Congress,

which has heretofore asked ratification of amendments in

the other constitutional way, that is, through ratification by

three-quarters of the legislatures of the Union. It has the

obvious advantage that delegates to such conventions need

only answer one question:

Are you for repeal, or are you

against it; are you wet or dry? There could be no equivo-

cating, no hiding behind other issues, for no other could

come before these conventions. There would thus be offered

to the voters of the States a genuine referendum. If they

were opposed to revocation through the recall of the Eight-

eenth Amendment, they could make it plain by electing dry

delegates to such conventions.

Should the conventions decide in favor of retaining the

amendment, there would be nothing left, we admit, but to

continue the process of education until reform was achieved.

As far back as April 17, 1929, The Nation said editorially

that the existing condition is intolerable, that there must

either be enforcement or repeal. Since that time conditions

have grown so unspeakably worse that there appears to us

today to be no alternative to repeal. That does not mean

that we are to turn the country over to the saloon or to

the liquor traffic. PracticalIy ever since The Nation was

founded in 1865 its editors have looked upon the drink traffic

as one of the greatest of evils, and have hoped for the day

when it would be so limited, if not abolished, as to end the

horrible waste of human lives and treasure which the old

saloon system invoIved. We shall continue to fight for rigid

control and for the reeducation of the country in the direction

of temperance.

But for the moment this end must be sub-

ordinated to the question of repeal, and so must the question

of what system shall take the place of the present rule by

bootleggers. The one and only thing today is so to ma=

public opinion that the party conventions will act, and after

them the Congress-both, we hope, before the coming

summer ends. The slate must be wiped clean before the

new start is made.

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May 4,

19321

The Nation

503

W h y . W e Must Cancel

F

all theopponen ts of cancelat ion> o r reduction of

wardebtsamongourpolitic al leaders-and those

opponents include, u nfor tunately, near ly al l our po-

litical leaders-Senator Bora h is with out hou bt the most in-

telligent.

His

argumentagainstex-Governor Smithspro-

posal in theSenate was i n some respects

a

model of what

such

an

argument should be.

M r . Borah began by con tend ing tha t the Uni ted Sta tes ,

in i t s und ingsett l em pts, has already canceled them a j o r

par t of the debt originally owing to it. A t the time of those

set t lements ,he holds, we reduced the debt f rom a total of

$12,000,000,000

to apitalized present value of only

$5,S00,000,00 0-a ancelation

of

approximately $7,000,-

000,000.

Th is invo lved a scalingdown of Great Brita ins

obligations by 19.7 percen t, of Frances by 52.8 per cent,

and of Italy s by 75.4 per cen t . M r . B orah then went on t o

subject Mr. Smiths roposal to

a

realistic analysis, and

showed-what T h e

Na t ion

pointed out in comm enting upon

M r . Smiths plan last week-that i t would not , in the direct

way

t he

ex-Governor assumed it would, lead to any increased

purchases here by the All ied nations, and that i t a mou nted, in

reality , o cancelation.

T h e

nex t s tep n

Mr.

Borahs argu-

ment

was to contend that there was

no

reason to assume tha t

our ebtors could not meetheir bl igat ions to us. He

poin ted ou t . tha t our deb t ca l led fo r on ly 2.45 per cent of

\ , the o ta l budget of Be1gium;only 3.75 per cent of that of

Great Britain, only 1.41 per cen t of th at of Italy, and only

2 65 per cent of tha t of F ranc e; and th at even these amounts

have been mo re han ,offset by the receipts

of

these nations

f rom Germany . And finally, Mr. Borah con tended , it would

be futil e for us to cancel the debts as long as present condi-

tions in Eu rop e prevail.

I should be delighted to see

a

program proposed which

would have for,ts purpose relieving t h e conditions in

Europe

[but]

the economic wa r, the financial war, has never

ceased. .

.

Somlong s the

peace

treaties remain unrevised

and. in their present form, there will be that continuation

of intellectual, emotional, and spiritu al wa r, and there will

be, in

my opinion, no disarmament in Europe

of

any mo-

ment

or.

of any worth.

T h e . g r e a tweakness of this apparently formidable argu-

men t l ies in he rucial hings hat t does not say. M r .

Borah alks of the economic war ,

by

which he can only

mean the world-wide system-of s trangd ating- , tar if fs , but he

has not a wo rd of rebuke for the United States , the country

t h a t

is

mo re responsible t ha n nyothe r or hat system.

He talks of. t h e size of thedebts n elat ion onational

budgets , hut has -nothing to say about the much more rele-

vant problem of transfe r, the prob lem of selling an excess of

goods to us of . this-amount--a problem wh ichour tariff

p oli cy a tt em p ts o m ak e i n d u b l e . Mr. Borahs position ap-

parently is that we capn ot cancel or reduce Europe; debts

to us unti l . a sor t of *millennium has been achieved, u ntil

Europe is cleansed of her sins and was hed in, th e blood of

the lamb. He is shocked at the milita ry expe nditu res of our

debtors, but he does not say one word abou t our

o ~ n

ili-

tary expen ditures, which this year will am o u n t t o $721,000,-

000,

greate r than that of any

of

the countrie s he criticizes.,

B u t M r . Borah s argument i s

weak

not o n l y i n its om i s

donsbu t in its affirmations. H e declares th at t h e

key

t

the European situat ion, good or bad, is the reparations prob-

lem. If Europe annot solve theeparations problem, if

they are unable to ad jus t that problem, i t

is

useless

t o tak

to the Am erican taxpayer about aiding Europe by canceling

debts. I t is cur iou shat t as never occurred ,to

ilk

Borah to look at his own statement f rom the other s ide. His

proposition

to

Europe-and incidentalIy our own present

df-

ficial proposition-is in effect this : ha t or he s ak e of re

stor ing economic stabil i ty in the world, France and England

and I ta ly shou ld cu t down the , r epara t ions d ras t ica l ly o rifie

them out entirely-that these countries should mak e the sacri-

fices, and tha t the Un ited Sta tes should not sacrifice

in

t u r n

one penny of itsclaims on them. Does M r . Bornh , o r does

anyone else, seriously expecp that Europe will accede to such

a proposal? T h e ation has never believed that he Uni ted

States should forgive the debts without

a qnid p r o quo We

may announce quite plainly to OUT European deb tor s tha t we

will wipe out heir obligat ions o

us

only on co ndit ion that

theyw i p eout Germanys obligations o them; Un t i l b s

make such

a

statem ent we cann ot expect Europe o act.

T h e deb t payments, which Mr. Borah

is

so

anxious

to

preserve fo r us, am oun t o $270,000,000 a year. O u r na

tional income in 1929 was est imated at 84,000;000,000. On

the basis of present indices of t radeandemployment ,

that

income has shrunk toa present rate of about

56,000,000,000.

As

long

as

thepresent depression lasts, herefore, w e may

assume ourselves natio nally to be losing an income of

28,-

000,000,000 a year. Bu t

Mr.

Borahwill be ableproudly

to

point to the fact that while we are losing i t , we are sa ving

-if

thedebtsare eal ly paid-$270,000,000. T h a t

is Lwe

are saving near ly a penn y in paper debts for every dollar

we

are losing in stagnation.

How

, to Save

HE inconsistencies

of

our ede ral Veterans

Bureata

have been. ma de pu.blic offen enough.

It

would

h a r d l y be necessary to discuss th em now if the ques-

tion

of government economy were not so furiously to the fdre

in a period of hard times and of national inability to balance

the budget. Pres iden tHoover ,while he wa s proposing,

a?

a ma tter of economy, a compulsory fur lough for governm ent

employees which would take

9

percen t rom

a

salary

$1,350 a

year, also proposed cuts n payment

of

allowances

towarveterans .The a t te r educt ionsam ounte d o f ro-

$23,000,000

to

$59,000,000,

accordin g to various estimates,

o r f rom 2 to near ly 6 pe r ce nt of

a

veterans budget of one

,billion dollars. O ne may note incid enta lly hat he Federal

Childrens Bureau w il l probably suffer

a

cu t i n i t s b u d g e t of

at least 25 per cent.

T h e c,u,ts proposed by t heAdmin is t r a t ionw er e to

be

made not in general but in the fol lowing direct ions:

No

per-

son havingan income of

$1,500

(ifs ingle)and $3,500 X

marr ied) and $400 addit ional for each depe nden t ( in other

words

no

personpaying federal income tax ) should be en

rtitled to any allowance or pension o r free hospitaliza tion ex

cept hose sufferin g from com bat disability. Secon d,

no

pea-

son receiving free reatment or subsistence n a gove rnm ent

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The Nation

[Vol. 1: 4; No. 3487

~ktt~pital or home should receive more than $20 a month if

without dependents or $75 a month if with dependents.

To

many taxpayers it may come as somewhat of a surprise that

~a part of the money they pay for the conduct of the gov-

ernment should go to the support .of persons who are already

earning incomes equal to their own. The wisdom of these

eirts,small as they are and slight in comparison to the entire

veterans budget, would seem to be obvious to everyone.

Indeed, one may go farther and point out that those veterans

who are paying income

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