About two years ago a contest was inaugurated, and promoted by the press throughout the country, to secure "the best summary of the political faith of America." The City of Baltimore of fered a substantial prize. There were many contestants. Their manuscripts. were examined by a committee of dis. tinguished citizens and publicists, and their award was in favor of Mr. William Tyler Page of Maryland, a de scendant of President Tyler, whose summary of the faith and ideals of American patriots was as follows "The American's Creed. I believe in the United States of America as a government of the people, by the people, for the people, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign nation of many sovereign states; a perfect Union, one and inseparable, established upon those prin ciples of freedom, equality, justice. and humanity for which American pa triots sacrificed their lives and for tunes. I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love it; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to re spect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies." Not the least admirable feature of this fine creed is that practi cally every word of it is taken from the august documents or lofty utter ances upon which our national life is founded or in which its ideals have been expounded. All Americans should recognize the quotations from the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Oath of Allegiance, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and the writings

and speeches of Washington, Madison, and Webster. Praise is due to the compiler for the skill and excellent discretion with which he selected and arranged these excerpts so as to make a composite of what is best and highest in America's self-expression and what is deepest and most vital in the duty of the citizen.

Quite independently of this, but animated by the same desire to formulate in a few words an expression of faith and devotion to which every American worthy of the name can pledge himself with the uplifted hand, the Honorable William W. Morrow, of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, has prepared and arranged a patriotic creed not in any way less impressive than that of Mr. Page, and, many may think, its superior in respect to the selection and arrangement of the materials. In quoting it we wish to call attention to the fact that the opening sentence is taken from the oath which is administered in the ceremony of naturalization and embodies the statement in which the newly inducted citizen affirms his faith, and that the concluding invocation is the formula with which the marshal closes his announcement of the opening of each day's session of the most august tribunal in the world, the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Morrow entitles his compilation "The American's Creed of Loyalty and Service." It is as follows: "I am attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, establishing a government of the people, by the people, for the peo

ple, whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; a democracy in a republic; a sovereign nation of many sovereign states; a perfect Union, one and inseparable, founded upon the eternal principles of liberty, equality, justice, and humanity. I am

therefore a lover of my country, and I dedicate myself to its service; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to respect its flag, and to defend it against all enemies. God save the United States."

Important Articles in

"The New Relation of the Federal Government to State and Local Commu

ities."

No one who is familiar with recent history can fail to be aware of the great increase in the power and authority of the national government and in the number and variety of its activities. That this gain has been made largely at the expense of the states can hardly be denied. How far it is to continue, and whether it will be accelerated and broadened by the almost illimitable use which Congress and the executive have had to make of the war powers of the nation, are most interesting questions; and they receive an interesting discussion in a paper, under the above title, by Professor Howard Lee McBain, in the National Municipal Review for January, 1919. He begins with a consideration of the possible or probable carrying over into the times of peace, or at least through the period of demobilization, of some of the functions of regulation, management, and control by the federal authorities which the war brought into existence. This includes, among other things, the question of a Peace Finance Corporation, the continued regulation of prices and allocation of materials, government ownership of the means of transportation and communication, and the regulation of the relations of capital and labor. On these points Professor McBain is by no means forgetful of constitutional limitations and their en

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forcement by the courts. On the contrary, he says: "When I hear talk about the democratization of industry by congressional action requiring labor participation in the management of plants; or the stabilization of industry by national control of raw materials, national taxation upon plants for idle days, and a national requirement that laborers shall be employed upon a yearly contractual basis; or the establishment of industrial peace by compulsory arbitration, compulsory recognition of unions, compulsory minimum wage scales, and compulsory maximum hours of work-when I hear talk of this kind, I cannot but wonder whether those who advance these proposals have any notion whatever of the legal difficulties that stand to be overcome." But without change in the Constitution or laws much can be accomplished by the extension of government aid, either directly or indirectly, through various promotional services, or by means of subsidies, loans, or gifts, the latter made easy by the fact that the taxing power of Congress is practically without limits, as is also the discretion of Congress in choosing the objects to which the money of the taxpayers shall be applied. On this subject the author remarks: "The principle has been accepted that the cost of industrial accidents is a cost properly borne by industry itself. It is not so clear, however, that sickness, old age, and unemployment are proper burdens of industry as such. Are they not rather burdens which society as a

whole should assume? And is it not appropriate that these burdens should be assumed by the national government rather than by our local units of government? We have no precedent for congressional action in such matters except the unrelated precedent of military pensions and the stupendous war risk insurance recently established. Congress certainly has no express power in the premises. But there is the general precedent of national aid to enterprises that are beyond the regulatory power of Congress, and there is the fact already mentioned that no act of Congress has ever been declared void on the ground that it imposed taxes for a private purpose. Proposals for the establishment of such schemes of insurance would be fought not only on legal grounds, but also with the age-worn slogan of paternalism. Yet sooner or later, they are bound to come."

But though he anticipates, and perhaps sympathizes with, a further great expansion of federal power, the author would not approve of making the states mere parochial institutions or helpless wards of the nation. "I hold no brief for federalism as a principle," he says, "and still less do I hold a brief for the rights of the states, either legal or moral. There is much that is arbitrary in our federal system and much. that is annoying. The division of powers between the nation and the states is by no means ideal. But I am not ready to see our federal arrangement sent to the institutional scrap heap; and in this I believe I am one of a vast majority of the American people. For wholly apart from the threadbare shib

boleth of state against national rights, every thoughtful person must recognize that in a country as large and diversified as ours, a division of powers which leaves to the states an important sphere of autonomy has certain obvious advantages in normal times of gradual economic and political change. Perhaps the chief of these advantages is the opportunity which it offers for experimentation under the urge of a localized public opinion that does not have to wait upon the conversion of the entire nation to its hopes or its beliefs. Our states are notorious copyists. Politicoeconomic experiments, proved and unproved, improved and unimproved, spread rapidly from state to state. Thus do acorns of real or phantasmal reform, planted in a single state, grow into sturdy, if often asymmetrical, national oaks. I look for steady expansion of national powers; but I should regret to see this expansion accomplished by constitutional amendments transferring to exclusive national control a large number of the powers now exercised by the states."

"That This Nation May
Endure."

A very fine and thoughtful paper, under the foregoing title, by Professor Wilbur C. Abbott, in the Yale Review for January, 1919, opens with the declaration that the one phrase above all others which echoes through the world today is: world today is: "The war is finished, the revolution has begun." Autocracy has been overthrown, but anarchy has raised its head; democracy is challenged; liberalism is on its defense.

"All the exploded fallacies of government and many new ones have found voices and followers in this chaos of utterance which is as yet largely without form and void. The effort to transfer the emotions and methods of soap-box oratory to the administration of an empire threatens to spread in spite of, perhaps even because of, the tremendous cataclysm which it has produced, till it is not impossible that many men may turn again to autocracy to escape anarchy." At present the world is mostly concerned with the establishment of enduring peace, the readjustment of boundaries, the claims of hitherto subjugated nationalities, the right of peoples to determine their own destinies. But the social disorder which is an outcome of the great conflict is a realm beyond the reach of diplomacy, and yet more important in its way than the problems upon which peace conferences deliberate. Essentially the indictment is drawn against the so-called "bourgeoisie" or middle class throughout the world-a class "against whose dominance the autocrat, the socialist, and the anarchist combine." What, then, the author inquires, is the origin of this class and what its title to dominance? What qualities has it which entitle it to retain its wealth and power? Why should it not be incontinently overthrown? There follows a review of the rise of the citizen-class from the ruins of feudalism, the splendid record of its achievements in every domain of civilization, its long struggle and eventual success against monarchy and absolutism, its acquisition of control over the world of industry, its enlistment of

the "lower" or "laboring" classes in the cause of popular sovereignty or democracy against crown and aristocracy, and the attainment of its position of predominance in the modern world. The result, according to Professor Abbott, is this: "We have on the one side aggregations of capital and machinery, such as the world has never seen, which are mainly in the hands of this now numerous capitalistic class, and we have a consequent economic inequality. On the other, we have a political system based on the rule of the majority, and a consequent political equality, which, whatever the difference between appearance and reality, is no less striking.

The equation in the minds of many men is therefore simple. It is merely to translate political into social, which is to say economic, equality." Three solutions are possible. The Prussian system offers the first. It is an autocracy which is not merely political but social as well. In its very best and least hideous form it is a minute and thorough paternalism, a despotism more or less definitely enlightened. Contemporary Russia offers the second solution. It is the dictatorship of the proletariat. There is no need to enlarge upon it. "The third solution is that afforded by the great democracies

pragmatic, individualistic, illogical, but on the whole workable and not predatory. It is a compromise between the extremes of anarchy and autocracy, and like all compromises unsatisfactory to the extremists. It involves two elements, business and government. Its progress is conditioned by the interaction between employer and employee in both fields, an interaction which is