Chan, we need not feel surprise. Hardly does the theme admit them. But there is a veracious and attractive picture of the plantation life as it was after Lee's surrender; there is the summoning of courage to deal with the new order of things, and there is the gradual dawning of a new conception. The author sends his boy hero in cheerful mood to face the new world and to hold his own in it, not without struggle, but without bitterness. In such young men as Sinkler Ashley obviously lay the hope of the New South.

Young Ashley actually applied for an appointment to the United States Military Academy. He went to Washington, and had a personal interview with Lincoln, who granted his wish, overruling the objections of Stanton. Sinkler was standing near Ford's Theater on the night when Lincoln was shot. Much happens in this tale, the like of which could have occurred in no other period, and all is tolerantly and truly described, with many a genuine touch of personal character and of domestic manners. for the dramatic interest of the novel, the promise of which is somewhat over-emphasized by the title, we must often take the will for the deed; for, as it appears to me, the author, with every intention of writing a stirring narrative, never quite succeeds in doing so. But the thing is noble-spirited, and it has a true relish of the past.

As

What would a scholar living in the remote future make of our minds and of our civilization if he had only these books to judge by-books almost eccentric in the marked difference with which they reflect upon life and criticize it? I think he would be forced to conclude that we were a nervous, courageous breed of men, restless, inquiring, fond of sensation even in our soberest moments, and almost unduly interested in our own characters and our own souls.

CLARENCE H. GAINES.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

A NATIONAL SERVICE

SIR:

Your return-I am speaking to George Harvey personally-to the Editorship of the REVIEW has not been in vain; as the result of the election shows. Your Coolidge or Chaos article duplicated the service which your War Weekly rendered to the nation. It roused American citizens to a realization of the real issue before them and of its transcendent importance, and gave them the battle cry which led to an unequalled victory. The whole country is indebted to you for that; as also for giving it every three months a magazine which for substantial and timely value of contents and for beauty of dress has no superior in the world.

Boston, Mass.

SIR:

W. J. FLETCHER.

DETACHMENT FROM ENTANGLEMENTS

Nothing could have been more timely than your publication of Professor Philip Marshall Brown's discussion of a Policy of Political Detachment. It was not only an instructive presentation of the principles of this nation as established by its founders, but it was also singularly pertinent to the Protocol of Peace which the League of Nations is at this very moment trying to foist upon the world as a new and still more pernicious version of the scheme of the Holy Alliance. Professor Brown has done America a service in writing, and you in publishing, that article.

New York.

SIR:

TWO MEN OF WISCONSIN

ALANSON HILLIARD.

Wisconsin is vindicated. I had often wondered what manner of State it could be, that tolerated the political domination of Senator La Follette. Now I see that it is not wholly given over to anti-American fads and crazes, but there is a saving remnant. Justice Rosenberry's splendid article in the September NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW on Law and the Changing Order shows him to have a far keener perception of our political and social progress than Mr. La Follette possesses, and at the same time to have toward it a policy as sane, thoughtful and practical as the Senator's is crazy and potentially ruinous.

It is a striking contrast that Wisconsin presents, with these two so different men filling two of its highest offices. But what bitter irony there is in the suggestion that a legislative body animated by the spirit of a La Follette should be invested with power to overrule the judgments of a court presided over by jurists of the Rosenberry type!

Washington, D. C.

SIR:

WILLIAM HEMMENWAY.

PROHIBITION AMONG THE YOUNG

In the September issue of the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW there was a letter by Joseph J. Ayd. I too had read the articles by Professor Erskine and by Mr. Levitt referred to in it. In his letter Mr. Ayd tries to condemn the Prohibition Amendment, but since his arguments are simply generalizations, not well based, they are not very convincing.

I will take up a few of his remarks to show their weakness. First, he says "our best citizens privately despise it." He probably bases this statement on the fact that some of the more sporty element among the wealthy class, who get wide publicity, do despise it and just privately enough to escape punishment at the hands of a too lax enforcement. However let us remember that larger and better class of people who do not use liquor at all and do not despise the Amendment but rather rejoice in it for keeping liquor from being given such a prominent place in American life.

Again, Mr. Ayd says: "Prohibition is not ethically justified." Are there any people of observation and understanding who have not seen people of intelligence, endowed mentally with more than average ability, and with the training necessary to make them very desirable citizens, who were controlled by the liquor habit and transformed, for the time being at least, into something to be pitied, their usefulness to society and themselves temporarily injured if not permanently destroyed? Seeing, as he must have, the lives of many individuals ruined, would he wait until that ruin was made still more general before contemplating reform and before thinking that reform ethically justified?

The remarks made by Mr. Ayd, and those by Professor Erskine, in regard to the attitude of young people toward the Prohibition Amendment, are the points where they vary farthest from exactness. I am one of the young people of the United States; I have recently graduated from college and since that time I have been closely associated with High School pupils and also with young people in the business world, and I have not found conditions to justify the remarks of either writer. Again they have taken one small class and called it the whole. And those among whom the conditions mentioned do exist are not the best, the most intelligent or the most influential among the young people, but represent a class with no serious thoughts for the wellbeing of themselves, let alone a thought for social welfare.

Cleveland Heights, Ohio.

PAUL D. DICKENS.