papers, there is no possibility that any coal operator could or would resist demands which are founded upon justice.

This statement of the case naturally made a profound impression, but, in spite of the high standing of its author, it has been accepted with marked reservation by many of Mr. Hewitt's warmest admirers. "If," it was said, "the controversy has been over the right of the union to restrict employment to its own members, why were we not told so two months ago? Why was not this point so much as mentioned in President Baer's statement of the operators' position, and why was his main argument directed against the presence of any union whatever among the miners?" The country, therefore, was not entirely unprepared for President Mitchell's reply to Mr. Hewitt. This reply was very brief indeed. Mr. Mitchell did not argue the question of the possibility of arbitration, or the right of workmen as well as stockholders to make collective agreements binding upon the minority. He simply insisted that Mr. Hewitt had missed the issue now being contested. "The members of the miners' organization," said President Mitchell, "have never sought to prevent non-members from working with them in the mines, and they have no intention of seeking to abridge the right of any mine worker to become or not to become a member of the organization in the future."

Mr. Mitchell's assertion is, unfortunately, a little too sweeping to carry conviction. Unions, when they have the power, are as likely as corporations to insist upon their own interests, regardless of the rights of others—and an insistence that all their fellow-workmen must enter their organization is one of the most frequent of their demands. But the possibility of unreasonable demands on the part of the union is no argument against arbitration. Indeed, from the public standpoint it is another argument in its favor, for the public must protect itself against the dictation of class selfishness on either side. Mr. Hewitt declares that it is intolerable for any man or set of men not occupying public office, "whether representing capital or labor," to decide upon the conditions upon which labor shall seek its living. If that be true, the present contest over the conditions of labor is pre eminently one which arbitrators repre

senting the public conscience may fitly be called upon to decide.

The day following Mr. Hewitt's interview urging the impracticability of arbitration in the present strike there was telegraphed from Pittsburg an interview with Justice Shiras, of the United States Supreme Court, which has received much less attention, but deserves more. In it Justice Shiras said:

Arbitration is the logical method of settling labor troubles such as this one, which affects the general prosperity and comfort of a great enforcement of this arbitration is a subject section of the country. The method and for the lawmakers of the Nation, but arbitration itself is logical. There is now one great difficulty standing in the way of an arbitracorporated. Until they are no law can be tion. Many of the labor unions are not inmade binding, as no contract or agreement could be enforced upon them, while the operators, on the other hand, could be held liable.

This opinion of Justice Shiras seems to us to indicate the line which the thought of the country is taking, and must take, as the result of such a crisis as the present. The demand for compulsory arbitration is not coming from the labor unions. They are perfectly willing that a set of men representing labor shall determine the conditions of employment. It is not coming from the syndicates of capital. They are willing that a set of men representing capital shall determine these conditions. Both sides are willing that the public should suffer while they fight out their battles. But the public also is becoming alert for the protection of its own interests, which are disastrously sacrificed when the conflict between unions and syndicates prostrates a whole industry. For this reason the heavy hand of the law must be laid upon both sides to compel both to accept the arbitrament of the public sense of justice. Already, despite what Mr. Hewitt says, the law compels arbitration when two men lay claim to a home; and the public interest is vastly less jeopardized by a private conflict over the ownership of a home than by a private conflict over the control of an industry on which the whole public depends.

This, however, relates to future legislation. The more pressing question now is, What may the public demand in the present crisis before legislation may be had? In our opinion, it was the duty of the coal companies to accept the arbitra

stand the West, and the West to comprehend the East. A few years ago there seemed to be developing in the Far West a new kind of sectionalism; a distinct and menacing severance of feeling. The events of the last few years have carried the country past that danger point. The West is knit to the East as the East is to the West, by ties which never can be broken; but, in spite of the habit of travel in this country, there will still be in all sections many people who will never look beyond their own horizon; who must learn the habits and spirit of other sections through books.

The Outlook has noted from time to time of late years the increasing number of books interpretative of Southern life, explaining the Southern point of view, making the Southern attitude towards certain grave questions comprehensible by the Northern reader. Not long ago, Miss Ellen Glasgow's "The Battle-Ground" was commented upon as an admirable interpretation of the older and later Virginia life, at once vivid, sympathetic, and dispassionate. Miss Glasgow writes as a Virginian who knows at first hand and almost by instinct the material with which she is dealing. Mrs. Mary Tappan Wright's "The Aliens," which came not long ago from the press of Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons, has great value as a revelation of the social ideas, the charm of manner, and the peculiar bent of thought on certain questions disclosed in an old Southern community.

Although not a Southerner by birth, Mrs. Wright has evidently made a very close and sympathetic study of the delightful old Southern college town which she describes, the location of which many readers will have little hesitation in fixing. The novel is written in a rare dispassion ateness of spirit, and the result is a contrast of Northern and Southern ideals and breeding which is not only very interesting, but which is of great importance as bringing about a better acquaintance between two sections of the country which have been widely separated, not only by differences of conviction, but by social traditions and methods of intellectual training. It has been an easy matter for Northern writers, entirely ignorant of actual conditions in the South and with no adequate realization of the difference of

historical conditions between the sections, to comment dogmatically on the Southern attitude on the race question; such a story as "The Aliens" puts the candid reader in a different temper; and while it will not bring him to the point of view of a certain group of Southern people, it will make their attitude comprehensible.

Still more definite in its disclosure of old Southern conditions is Mr. Walter H. Page's "Rebuilding of Old Commonwealths," which bears the imprint of Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Co. The great majority of books dealing with the South which have come into the hands of Northern readers have either pictured the Southern society before the war, or the negro since the war; for the most part the Southern farmer has been out of sight.

Mr. Page's three essays have to do with this "forgotten man;" with the class who constitute the democracy of the South as contrasted with its aristocracy. It is of old "Jeff Meddlin," who lived in a ramshackle house, plowed a poor farm, and only twice in his whole life went out of the county in which he was born, that Mr. Page writes; his children and grandchildren Mr. Page has in mind. He describes their lack of educational opportunity, their isolation, the conventional leadership to which they were subjected in politics, and the still more conventional and unfruitful leadership to which they were subjected in religion; with the result that they fell far behind in the race, that their country is still largely undeveloped, and that the "forgotten man" is in sore need of being remembered. The Southern people cannot be correctly divided into "gentlemen " and "poor whites." The number of large landed proprietors and slaveholders has always been greatly exaggerated; this is true also of the elegance and elaboration of their life, although not of the charm of their manners. The great mass of the Southern people came of honorable, sturdy stock; they were in no sense aristocrats: and they are very much like the rural population of other parts of the country. In describing the background of the lives of these people and of their inheritance, Mr. Page has contributed a deeply interesting page to past and to present history; and his book serves the purpose, not only of showing the need of the notable educational movement in the South, which is

one of the most impressive and hopeful signs of the times in this country, but of giving that movement added impulse and stimulus.

To these books of interpretation may also be added, for the Northern reader who wishes to understand the policy of the Old South, its logic, its historical causes, and its inevitable development, Mr. William Garrott Brown's "The Lower South in American History," which bears the imprint of the Macmillan Company, and the scope of which has already been pointed out to the readers of The Outlook. It is not a history, but an essay in the department of history which it is to be hoped Mr. Brown will cover more thoroughly and completely in the future. It is a sketch in large outline, admirably done, which ought to be in the hands of every Northern student of life on this continent.

A Great Instrument

The paper prepared by Dr. James H. Canfield, Librarian of Columbia College, to be read at the conference of the Young Men's Christian Associations held at Christiania, Norway, recently, discloses a vitality in the spirit and work of the Young Men's Christian Associations in the United States and Canada which will not surprise those who have kept themselves in touch with Association work, but which ought to give all the friends of that work fresh courage and zeal. There are few instruments for the betterment of young men of greater possibilities of usefulness and power than the organization known as the Young Men's Christian Association. When one thinks upon its significance, first, as an organization of world-wide dimensions; second, as officered and directed by young men; and, third, as dealing with the enthusiasm, the force, vitality, and idealism of youth, its possibilities for good seem practically unlimited.

The growth of what is known as The Students' Movement, which has been reported from time to time in the columns of The Outlook, is one of the most hopeful signs of the times among the religious movements of the world, and therefore among those movements which look for

the betterment of the race. When that movement was inaugurated, no one suspected its latent possibilities; no one dreamed that such a band of students in the leading colleges and universities could be knit together and develop such enthusiasm and such practical power for good. The Young Men's Christian Associations afford a still larger opportunity in the same direction because they are more inclusive and deal with a larger constituency. It would be a great piece of good fortune if a man of genius, profoundly religious in spirit, thoroughly ethical in the interpretation of religion, and with high capacity for practical action and executive work, should aspire to a place at the head of the Young Men's Christian Associations. If the possibilities of the organization were revealed by the interpretation of some great leader, untold good could be wrought in the shortest possible space of time, not only in reviving and vitalizing religious interests, but in invigorating all the nobler impulses in civic and business life.

Dr. Canfield's report ought to give the men who are directing the work of the Associations on this continent a new sense of responsibility and a still broader conception of the duty which rests upon them; because opportunity is always duty. During 1901 seven millions of dollars were raised in some form for the Association, to be used for buildings, endowments, support, payment of debts, and extension; in twenty-three cities new buildings for Association uses were dedicated, in fifteen cities large additions were made to buildings already existing, in eighteen cities. new buildings are under construction; fifteen railroad buildings were opened, thirteen more secured, three college buildings completed, and nearly three and a half millions of dollars raised and expended for current expenses; the real estate interests of the Associations now amount to nearly twenty-three millions of dollars, invested in more than four hundred buildings; there are over fifteen hundred Associations, with a membership of about three hundred and twenty-five thousand. These facts relating to what may be called the housing and machinery of the Associations are significant alike of the widespread interest in its work and of the confidence of men of judgment and means

No recent phase of the extension of the Association's work has been more interesting than its application to the army and navy. When war began between the United States and Spain, the International Committee of the Associations was quick to perceive both its opportunity and its duty. A plan of work was promptly agreed upon, providing for a local branch in each regiment, brigade, or encampment; and in large tents, under the charge of secretaries, the work of the Association as carried on at home was substantially reproduced. The General of the Army and the Secretary of War at once recognized the movement, and Association tents are now practically a part of the army equipment. During the past year there were six hundred and thirty-two army posts from Cuba to Alaska, in Hawaii and the Philippines. Not less important has been the work for railroad men. The first Railroad Association was organized thirty years ago; there are now more than one hundred and seventy such Associations, with a membership of more than fifty thousand, in possession of more than one hundred buildings, with many new buildings in process of construction. In all parts of the country railroad men

Of College Associations there are now over six hundred, with a membership of thirty six thousand. The Association has found lodgment in thirty-eight theological seminaries. One of the most important results of the work of the Association among students has been the increase in earnest and systematic study of the Bible, which now occupies a more prominent place in the work of the Student Committee probably than ever before in the history of American colleges. The educational work of the Association, its very important departments of physical training, its work for colored men and among

schools, and the enterprises it is now conducting in foreign countries, are all expressions of the deepening and widening life of an organization which has already rendered great services, but which is on the threshold of the fullest utilization of its opportunities.

There was a time when the Association was identified in the minds of a good many people with religious work of a conventional or pietistic nature, and when the typical member of the Association was thought to be a man of excellent intentions, but lacking in virility, energy, and manliness. This impression is certainly not justified by the leaders of the Associations to-day. The Association men as a rule are among the energetic, wide-awake, vital men, sincerely religious without being pietistic in temper or speech; practical workers among their fellows, without cant or phariseeism. The Association has great tools to work with; it can hardly fail to make a wise use of those tools at a time when the possibilities of increased force of combination are being so clearly recognized in the world of practical affairs. Breadth of view of the religious situation and needs of the country, a catholic spirit, and a large, far-sighted policy, will give Association work a scope and significance which it has not yet attained.

The Quest for Good

There can be no more beautitul, satisfying, and uplifting quest in this world than the quest for the good, not only for ourselves, but in others. It is a fallacy that good is to be sought only at a distance; that the divine is to be found only in the unusual; that virtue exists only in the past; that genius belongs pre-eminently to other times and countries. Those who appreciate and enjoy goodness, divine qualities, beauty, and genius, when they have taken on obvious and noble forms, are fortunate; but they are in no sense discoverers; they simply are wise enough to accept what is put into their hands, and to recognize what stands in their path. There is a higher wisdom than this: it is the wisdom which comes to those who can discern goodness, beauty, truth, and genius before they have disclosed themselves in obvious ways. It is