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T

This outburst, coming from a total stranger a mere traveling acquaintance -startled me, to say the least.

I was on my way to Portland, Oregon, and, as the train was crowded, I had taken a seat in the smoker beside a typical lumberjack. He was a tall, husky-looking chap with sandy hair and the sort of blue eyes that seem to bore holes straight through you.

We fell into conversation about the weather, and had wandered on from topic to topic in a leisurely fashion. Somehow or other, I happened to mention the Centralia tragedy, where I. W. W.'s were accused of shooting down soldiers marching in an Armistice Day parade last November. There was an instantaneous change in my neighbor. His face became tense and before I knew it he had snapped out his startling admission.

Fortunately for me, I was able to gather my thoughts together before replying, for my chance acquaintance kept right on with:

You think it's funny I'm a wobblie'? Well, why shouldn't I be? The way the papers talk, you might think I was a sort of Jo-Jo, the man-eating ape. But the funny thing is that a year ago I was a hero. Yes, sir, I was eleven months in France. Didn't have one of those coffeecooling jobs either-right up on the front line, that's where they put me. I nearly got mine, too. Was gassed and shot through the chest. Just look at that."

He pulled open the old army shirt he was wearing, and showed me an ugly scar just above the heart.

"Don't look like much, maybe, but it sure got me for a while. I was over six months in the hospital with that. Well, when I got out of the Army I went back up to the woods an' asked for a job. The boss said, sure, he'd give me one. And so then I told him I was pretty soft and asked him to break me in easy-like-you know, an easy job for a week or two until I toughened up, as I was pretty soft after all those months in the hospital. "Well, what do you think he done? rave me a pick-an'-shovel job. Can t it? But, I ask you, what was I

The intrepid lumberjack is an "under dog" in name only when he climbs into such dizzy eminence as this. At this great height, his bird's-eye view of the social order may indeed make him "see red "

BY C. LUTHER FRY

to do? I didn't like it, but I couldn't say nothin'. I'd have been fired right there, probably, so I give it a try. Stuck at it for nine days. It was tough, though. After the second day I got to coughin' nights. Two nights I didn't sleep at all. Then, too, my hackin' away used to keep the other boys awake. Of course they didn't say nothin', but it made me feel

rotten, anyway.

"At the end of the ninth day I couldn't stand it no longer an' I went to the boss an' told him. He just up an' told me that there wasn't no other job, and if I didn't like the one I had I could quit. Well, I did. There wasn't nothin' else for me to do. I just couldn't keep goin' no longer.

An' then I went to see the company doc an' asked him to give me somethin'. He did he gave me the jolt of me life. First he asked me how long I'd been with the company, an' then he wanted to know when I'd been injured. I told him it was in France, an' then watcha think he told me? He said he couldn't do nothin' for me, since I hadn't been injured on the company's ground. An' me having just paid them a dollar for me, hospital fee!

"An' then he come out with the advice that I write to the Government at Washington-to some bureau or other-an' ask them what to do. Honest, buddie, he told me that! And they wonder why we're Red!"

The scorn and bitterness with which he spit out the last few sentences was diabolical. I felt that the man had brooded over this injustice until it had become an obsession that had suffused his whole personality with hate.

In an effort to turn the conversation from himself, I said. "But why join the I. W. W.? How's that going to help you?"

Like a flash he came back with:

"Well, what else can we fellows do? Political action ain't possible for us boys. In the first place, we don't live long enough in one place to have a vote. An' even if we did, what good would it do us? Take them Socialists, they spend twenty years campaignin' an' elect Victor Berger to Congress and then what? Why, then, the Senate just naturally throws him out on his neck. Or look at them five Assemblymen in New York that were kicked out. That's how far you get with political action. No, sir, the only thing left is direct action. I didn't used to think so, but after the way I've been treated lately I've come to see things different. I tell you, if you got money you can get away with murder, but if you're a poor sucker like me they'll pinch you for readin' the

Declaration of Independence. Honest to God, it's a fact."

As he went on he became more and more excited, and his voice rose louder and louder. Men around us could not help but overhear. Two traveling salesmen began eying us with mild hostility. Others did the same. Suddenly my neighbor became aware of this. He looked around with a defiant air, hesitated, and then lapsed into a moody silence.

I, too, became thoughtful. Here was a man who had been forced to live in an atmosphere of heat and hate until he saw

the world through bloodshot eyes. His outlook on life was the result of an economic and spiritual environment that was unusually efficient in turning out anti-social beings. He therefore should be looked upon, not as an isolated revolutionist, but rather as a significant symptom of a sick society.

But, you say, as long as a man holds rabid views he is a social menace, no matter how just and square he thinks his

cause.

True, but the only way to make such a man a social asset is to improve his

economic and spiritual environment. As long as we leave him a prey to every destructive influence in society he will think destructively. Raids and arrests, persecutions and deportations, will not permanently help matters. Russia and Prussia sadly attest to the futility of such enterprises.

Rather, we have to undertake the far more difficult task of making such a man's life more normal-of giving fuller and freer expression to his personality. It is only when evolution ceases that revolution begins.

A

NEWSPAPER item appeared a few days ago which told of a system which a certain English city once used in the election of its mayor. I do not vouch for the historical accuracy of this item, but it may possibly be of value as a text for a discussion of our present primary system. According to the story, this English city chose its mayor by the simple process of seating the candidates for that office in a circle and placing in the lap of each candidate a pan of beans. Into the center of this circle was then introduced an elector of the genus Sus. The outcome of the election was determined by the choice of the electoral pig. That candidate became the mayor from whose lap the pig first took the sustenance of life.

I happened to read this interesting item to a friend who in 1912 and 1916 had voted for Theodore Roosevelt in the Republican primaries and who in 1920 had followed this by optimistically voting in the Republican primaries for Leonard Wood. "Well," he remarked when I had finished, "that would be a great improvement over our present American Presidential primary system. Under the pig plan the people might really have a chance to secure the candidate that they desire. I move that we start an agitation for votes for pigs.'

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Perhaps my friend underestimated the present value of the primary system. But I do not think that he much underestimated the popular opinion of its worth. If you ask the average voter, "Why is a primary?" the chances are that he will

answer, "A primary is an institution designed to determine what the people want in order that the politicians can give them something else." Doubtless it might also be found that the average voter exaggerates the faults of our present system, but the faults are there, and some of them can be easily defined.

Our present primary system for the election of delegates to the conventions of the National parties is cumbersome and costly. No man can run effectively in the various State primaries without the expenditure on the part of his friends of penditure on the part of his friends of what seem to the rank and file of the voters huge sums of money. It cannot be denied that the rank and file of the voters have come to look on large campaign funds, no matter for what purpose they are expended, as dangerous and reprehensible.

The present primary system makes for factional bitterness in that it brings to the contest for delegates to a convention all of the partisanship which has characterized the final National elections in November. Our country is governed by party government, and so long as this system endures anything which tends to disorganize the functioning of our parties tends towards the dissolution of government efficiency.

Our present primary laws are as diverse as our divorce laws. Surely contests leading towards the nomination and election of a National President should be conducted under rules which show some approach at least towards unity of form and spirit.

Our present primary laws do not operate efficiently even within the present range of their possibilities. In the first place, in some States no contests are held to enable the voter to secure even a chance to express his preference. And where contests do occur this same voter frequently fails to put in an appearance at the polls on primary day.

But even if our primary system were developed to its highest possible point of efficiency along its present line of operation, would the result be any more satisfying? To wax utopian in imagination, would all our troubles vanish even if contests for instructed delegates were held in every State of the Union, and even if in every State of the Union every voter voted? It cannot be denied that most voters would reply, "No!" Under such an imaginary development one of two alternatives might be expected by critics of our present system. Either conventions would be deadlocked and the delegates forced to disregard (or be excused from regarding) the popular plurality, as at present, or they would be reduced to the innocuous desuetude of the electoral college. It seems to me that if we are to continue our present system of party government, such a devitalization of our party conventions would not be wholly desirable. Heaven knows our conventions have been disappointing in the past, but the way to cure their weakness is not to make them still weaker. There are those who want to destroy every political organ which functions. badly, just as old-time physicians pre

International

scribed blood-letting for every ill. Bloodletting frequently removed the ill, but, unfortunately, it also frequently removed the patient at the same time.

Here is the case, or at least part of the case, against our present primary system in National elections. Where is the cure to be found?

Every proposition to reform our Presidential primary system which I have seen runs up against the simple fact that our National elections are operated by the separate States. Under our Constitution, every State controls its own primary laws looking towards the election of a President, because of the fact that our Constitution provided, not for the direct election of the President, but for the choosing of State electors who were to select the President.

Therefore no radical reform can be made of our present primary system without a Constitutional amendment permit ting the Federal Government to control the manner in which delegates to the National conventions are to be chosen. It would probably prove impossible for the States to agree upon the selection of a single primary day for the entire United States, simple and advantageous as such a proposition for inter-State co-operation might seem to be, without the assistance of an amendment to the Federal Constitution. There are those who feel, after a study of the events of the last twelve years, that the time may be almost ripe for an amendment making National election machinery National.

If such an amendment were adopted, what plan would you propose of primary reform? There is one general principle which must be borne in mind in the formulation of any such proposition:

No scheme to secure a. more accurate registration of the popular will will be accepted by practical politicians if at the

same time it tends towards the disintegration or dissolution of our present party machinery. We must recognize the fact. A party machine is not of itself bad, any more than a revolver is bad. But both can be put to bad use. Both have been.

As a basis for discussion rather than as a definite proposal, let me outline a plan which might or might not be an improvement on our present system.

Let us first pass first pass a Constitutional amendment placing the control of Presidential primaries and the organization of our National parties under the Federal Government. Let us then by Federal statute provide for a system of which the following is a general outline.

In the summer preceding each Presidential election require each National party to elect delegates to a National convention to be held on a specific date. Do not elect these delegates by popular primary, but by the old caucus and convention system, safeguarding this system in every possible way by provisions for proper publicity and proper representation. Under such a system an open party caucus in each election district would send delegates to a county convention, from which delegates would be sent to a State convention, from which delegates would be chosen for the National convention. Such a system would enable the average voter to have a share in his party politics if he so desired, while at the same time it would not tend to disrupt the party organization. It may be said that the great bulk of party members would take only such interest in such a selection of delegates as they have taken in similar selections in the past. The reader may be able to calculate what this interest would be by counting up on the fingers of his or her left hand the number of times he or she has taken part in a party caucus or a party primary.

Of course there would be nothing in such a system which would prevent delegates who favored a particular candidate from seeking the suffrages of their fellowvoters on the basis of a promise to support such a candidate if selected for service in any of the successive conventions.

Chosen by this method, the National delegates would assemble on a designated day, elect their customary officers and committees, and adopt a party platform, as in the past. Then comes a radical change. Let these National conventions name for the Presidency, not one candidate, but the five that can muster (either by direct or preferential balloting) the greatest number of votes in the convention. It seems that any man having any pretense to a National following could at least secure the votes of one-fifth of the delegates to a National convention without having recourse to the bitter factional fights which have taken place in the preconvention campaigns in the past.

Having designated five party candidates for the Presidency, each party would be required to hold a single National primary on a specified day within less than a month after the National convention. It is possible that something like the Oregon system, under which that State itself circulates the views of candidates for public office, might be introduced to remove any necessity for the use of individual campaign funds, but that is not a proposition necessarily included in my present tentative plan.

At this single National primary the voters of each party would have a chance to cast their ballots for a Presidential nominee without any fear that their choice would be upset by secret manipu lation or shady bargains between the managers and tired delegates in smokefilled committee rooms. This National primary should be conducted under a system of preferential voting by which each voter designates his first and second choice for the Presidency. First-choice votes would have a value of two, and second-choice votes a value of one; the candidate who received the highest number of votes being chosen as the nominee for the Presidency, and the candidate who received the second highest number of votes the nominee for the Vice-Presi dency. Every candidate who consented to enter this popular primary would nec essarily agree in advance to accept second place on the ticket if he failed to win the nomination for President. To make this pledge more attractive, the Vice-President should certainly be permitted to sit in the President's Cabinet and his salary should be raised to not less than half that which the President himself now receives. Of course Presidents and ex-Presidents might properly be exempted from making this pledge, the Vice-Presidential nomination in case an ex-President ran in second place going to the third man on the list.

Perhaps such a primary-day election would bring out almost as large a party vote as the November elections them

selves bring to the polls. The likelihood that any of the leading candidates would be excluded from such a primary is small. The possibility that the popular choice would be disregarded would be absolutely nil. Whether or not it would result in the selection of better candidates is a subject for argument rather than for proof.

There are objections, and serious ones, to this plan for a pre-primary convention, as to all plans for political reorganization. One will perhaps immediately occur to every one with any political experience. The Democrats, under such a system, might nominate for the Presidency a man from a surely Democratic State, like Mississippi, instead of from a doubtful State, like Ohio. But there are those who think that we have paid too much consideration to such political formulas in the past, and that we are growing nationally enough minded to disregard such measures of political expediency. Still another practical objection can be found in the fact that, no matter how beautiful in theory a preferential election or primary may be, the system has never appealed greatly to popular fancy. A third objection might lie in the fact that such a system might produce a ticket representing two irreconcilable factions.

Other objections will occur doubtless

They may want to present it to their readers.

P. S.-After you have successfully demolished the theory of primary reform proposed in this article, and after you have erected a burglar-proof theory of your own, it might be well to consider a third thought. How much of our present dissatisfaction with our primary machinery is due to the defects in that machinery and how much is due to the shortcomings of the men and women who are operating that machinery? It was Viscount Bryce, I think, who somewhere said that the New England colonists could have made any kind of a Constitution work. At the present time do we need more improvement in our governmental machinery or more of the spirit of those New England colonists?

A good woodsman prides himself on his ability to make anything from a toothpick to a ten-room cabin with his ax. Are we utilizing our Governmental machinery as a good woodsman utilizes his ax, or are we refusing to play the game unless we are provided with a triple-expansion, double back-action, self-ejecting, nickle-plated buzz saw every time we are called upon to split a little kindling? Do we need Constitutional amendments or constructive action? Do we need better theory or better practice? I wonder. Do you?

W

HAT happened after I left Warsaw on May 2, on a Y. M. C. A. service mission to the Polish troops, swiftly resolved itself into two exciting and unforgetable phases. The first might be called "On the Heels of the Bolsheviki." The second might be called "On Their Toes," or, better still,

66

Going West," for that is what we actually did, and came near doing it in more ways than one when we evacuated Kiev.

To-day, in the free state of Danzig, where this is being written on brief leave, one is tranquilly remote from battles and Bolsheviki. The days are warm and sunny, but the bathing is like jumping into the salt water of an ice-cream freezer. In these peaceful surroundings the events of the past two months seem almost incredible.

My orders were to find the Third Polish Army, under the command of General Rydz-Smigley, probably at Baronowicze, near the Polish-Bolo eastern frontier, about three hundred kilometers. from Warsaw. Arriving in this Russian town at 3 A.M., I found that the army had moved south to Lunience. I lost no time, for the intervening territory consisted of bad swamplands alive with mosquitoes. The food and water were entirely unfit for human consumption. It took me almost three days to cover one hundred

RICHARD STANLEY DAVIS

miles. I finally arrived in Rowne on a Polish troop train, in a box car with some forty soldiers, straw, and harnesses, reminiscent of war days in France on those tense "40 Hommes ou 8 Chevaux" journeys.

I had now reached the last large town before one reached the front. The Poles had established a line here and held it. They had begun an offensive, and General Rydz-Smigley had jumped his army due east to Zytomierz. There is a broad Russian highway between these two towns, and over this route, in the offensive on Zytomierz, this Polish army traveled one hundred and thirty kilometers in twenty-four hours. I was now on the heels of the Bolos, with a unique opportunity to render American Y service to these thousands of poor, tired, ill-fed, ill-clothed chaps. I was also to see just what Bolshevism means, and to witness its effects where it had flourished for more than a year, departing toward the east door as the Poles entered from the west. But the Bolos did not anticipate such a meteoric advance of the Poles, and the thousands of prisoners pushed back into the Polish centers made still another side of an ever increasingly complex story.

I was now close to the advanced ranks of a great Polish drive. If I could find means of transportation for supplies, I could possibly reach General Rydz Smigley and be with the outposts, and if the advance stopped I could serve the great mass of troops who were bringing up the rear. We have a Y canteen in

Rowne, doing a tremendous work twentyfour hours daily. From the army headquarters I secured the use of a five-ton truck and loaded fifty cases of chocolate bars, about fifty thousand pieces. Two days later I arrived in Zytomierz.

The army had preceded me, and the town had fallen about four days before my arrival. You perhaps recall reading of the horrible massacres of Zytomierz, sometimes spelled Gitomir, and of Kiev. For all time, believe me, reading from a

HIS CHOCOLATES ARE SHELLED

An amusing incident happened on my arrival. I missed the General's car on entering the city, and found myself on the great cliffs of the city overlooking the Dnieper. A Bolshevik shell exploded right over my truck, which almost caused a complete loss of chocolate bars for the Polish soldiers, to say nothing of the one

GENERAL PILSUDSKI, PRESIDENT OF POLAND, AND HIS TROOPS

distance a cold reported account of barbaric crimes is an entirely different thing from arriving on the scene while the sickening evidence is still there. Some day I will write the facts-unless I can forget, as God knows I hope I can.

But we cannot tarry in Zytomierz, for this Polish army is moving fast. Kiev, due east, is the objective. I had obtained two three-ton Pierce-Arrow trucks from the General, and by driving one of them myself was able to keep fairly good pace with the Staff cars. At the first halt I gave chocolate to the soldiers and talked with the peasants. The peasants here in Ukraine hailed the Poles as saviors. The welcome was genuine and spontaneous from all but Communists and Jews.

At 6 A.M. of the 8th we entered Kiev, the sacred city of the Russians. Along the route some fearless Polish sympathizers threw flowers and cheered. the march. But they were not many; the Bolsheviki before evacuating the city had issued flaring proclamations that they would surely return in two weeks, and woe unto him who showed any friendliness to the Polish soldier. Every house and store in this beautiful city was boarded shut. One could not buy a piece of bread for any price. I cannot see how the people existed during the weeks immediately preceding the Bolsheviki evac

solitary American with the entire Third Army. About that time the General hove in sight, and it was good to hear him laugh at my close call. From a more sheltered location we watched the retreating Bolshevik hordes on the other side of the Dnieper, while the Poles shelled them with all the artillery at hand.

In Kiev food prices were beyond all reason. Ordinary staples had advanced sometimes several thousand per cent, and shoes, stockings, and ordinary wearing apparel could not be had at any price. The Bolshevist money presses were working day and night while the troops. looted the better and wealthy citizens. Naturally no one of any repute could

ONE OF THE FAMOUS POLISH POSEN CAVALRYMEN

For a month the Poles occupied Kiev. The life in the city again became nearly normal. People slept without fear. Business was resumed. The city was cleaned. Children could play. Food was becoming less expensive. The dawn of a new day seemed to have begun, in which life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were actualities.

Then came the crash.

God only knows what the hasty withdrawal of the gallant Polish arms means to the citizens who are left behind, in Kiev, the Holy City of the Russians.

Fifteen times during the past four years of war Kiev had been captured, occupied, and evacuated, by as many armies. Even the smaller school-children could run off the different conquering armies on their finger-tips, much as our boys and girls memorize the Presidents. There were the Germans, the Austrians, the Russians, Denikine, Petlura, the Bolsheviki, etc., etc., and now came the Poles, making the sixteenth invasion. There was precious little left behind that was portable, that was not buried deep in the ground, as one army made way for the next. Private property in Kiev is a thing of antiquity; even private thoughts were a menace until the Poles began the process of good government, order, law, and individual freedom. It was only with extreme difficulty that one could buy a pound of bread.

FOLES RESTORE CONFIDENCE

In three weeks the majority of the shops, restaurants, theaters, and offices were open and ready for customers. Communication with the outside world was resumed. Confidence was re-established. People believed in this army and its soldiers.

My fourth week in Kiev I shall never forget. We had opened our home for the Polish soldiers and officers. The opening day was memorable. General RydzSmigley paid high and feeling tribute to the work of the American Y. M. C. A. We had received two carloads of supplies. Another was en route from Warsaw. Day and night we toiled, getting ready for the coming months, and rendering every possible service to resting soldiers and to the troops in the trenches who held the 30kilometers radius bridge-head across the Dnieper, so that the Bolo could not pass.

Wild, uncertain rumors of many battles to the north and south reached our ears. The Bolsheviki were apparently making a supreme effort to break the Polish lines of communication. They were trying at all costs to keep their parting word to the people to return in two weeks or a