In one of his published letters Skobeleff wrote: "The position of affairs in Central Asia changes not every hour but every minute. Therefore, I say: 'Vigilance, Vigilance, Vigilance!'" The warning conveyed in his remark has lost nothing of its timeliness at this moment, in which a comparison of European imperialism revived and hailed by Japan as a welcome excuse for the dismemberment of China, with the quasi-gentle methods of Soviet Russia in tanning the Asiatic hide, cannot fail dangerously to impress the peoples concerned. In Central Asia as everywhere else in our stricken world, great tasks are awaiting for clear brains and clean, strong hands directed by something better than the hollow ethics paraded by the West bent on fleecing the East under the old, old, long discredited slogans. Pretentious talk needs backing by correspondingly handsome deeds, or sham reform, riding in the Devil's wagon, will have to pay the Devil's accustomed fare.

CONGRESS AND POETRY

BY VIRGIL L. JONES

It is quite possible that the people of the United States do not think of Congress as having anything in common with Shakespeare or with any of those who have climbed the slopes of Parnassus, but it is a fact that there are times. when the Soviet of Soviets that sits at Washington is inspired, if not by Shakespeare or as Shakespeare was, by the memories of the Fifth Reader and of the "pieces" spoken on Friday afternoons in the little red schoolhouse. Such times are memorial occasions and periods when some great issue, such as the League of Nations, is being debated.

The first session of the Sixty-sixth Congress, May 19, 1919, to November 19, 1919, had full opportunity to express itself on the first Memorial Day after the close of the great war, as well as to debate the treaty and the League of Nations, to say nothing of prohibition and of vocational rehabilitation for soldiers. Though it showed marvelous discretion in avoiding the concrete facts, it discussed labor and capital. It talked much of Bolshevism, and it excluded Berger. It occupied 9470 double-columned pages of that well known serial publication, the Congressional Record, with its wit, wisdom, eloquence, and poetry, including the speeches of Senator La Follette. Of this rude and undigested and indigestible mass, quotations from real and alleged poets, 182 in number, aggregating 1662 lines, make up about ten pages. Twenty-five Senators supplied fifty-three of the quotations and sixty Representatives the rest.

As might be expected, it was the League of Nations, that new and strange genie released from the bottle by President Wilson, General Smuts, or somebody else, that called up more fragments of poetry from the vasty deep than did any other subject, for it is the League of Nations, rejected

by the Sixty-sixth Congress, that will give this Congress a niche in the Temple of Fame or a reserved seat in the Ninth Circle of the Inferno. Almost a third of the quotations, fifty-five, are to be found in speeches directly or indirectly concerned with the League of Nations. Memorial Day was deemed worthy of about a third as many. The Conscript Fathers were able, however, to scatter flowers upon such unpromising subjects as the Plumb Plan, the Cold Storage Bill, the Federal Reserve Act, the Coal Situation, and the Daylight Saving Bill. Gray's "Incense Breathing Morn" and Harry Lauder's "O It's Nice to Get Up in the Morning," descended from Muses of different lineage, joined festive hands to do honor to the last subject.

There is considerable variety in the Congressional repertoire. Not less than sixty poets are represented among those whose music is thus embalmed for posterity. Some of the quotations are not easy to place, for a Congressman is, as a rule, content to say: "In the words of a great poet," instead of naming the gentleman. There are valuable exceptions, however. The Congressmen who quoted from the poems of W. H. Anderson, J. J. McKenna, and Judge Caldwell were considerate enough to mention author and poem together. A casual reader might not have recognized the author from the poem alone.

The Congressmen, good lawyers that the most of them are, cling closely to the traditional in selecting their poets. They are little likely to assist in debauching the taste of the nation committed to their care by going after false gods of Cubist or Futurist or Neo-Futurist poetry. Shakespeare heads the list with twenty-four appearances, and he is followed by Pope with nine. On the other hand, the only poem printed in the Record that could be justly classed as "New Poetry" is one entitled "Cheer Up!" by Cary E. Norris, who had written it for the American Socialist. When it was read into the Record a member instantly asked. "Does the gentleman think it wise for us to put this kind of rot into

the Congressional Record?" His criticism was intended to apply to the sentiments of the poem, but even the most advanced New Poet could hardly regard "Cheer Up!" as so great a poem as Gray's "Elegy."

Since Congressional poetry is eminently safe and sane, it is not surprising to find many of the old favorites well represented. Burns, Byron, Gray, Kipling, Longfellow, Lowell, Tennyson, and Wordsworth are quoted three times each or more. Browning, Collins, Cowper, Emerson, Goldsmith, Keats, Milton, and Shelley are not forgotten, though they are in less favor than the preceding. Whitman and Poe appear not at all. The Menckens and Dreisers, who are so busily saving this country from itself, should ponder and ruminate over the awful effect of McGuffey's Readers and of sterilized professors of literature, shown in the handing on of the conventionalized, fossilized product of Augustans, Elizabethans, and Victorians and the rejection of the only two "undoubted poetic geniuses produced by America." Whitman, the Abraham Lincoln of verse, is not yet welcomed by the pundits of Capitol Hill. It will, however, please America's aesthetic saviors to know that the "Hound Dawg" song was quoted, and discover that there are Congressmen who admire Edgar Guest and Frank Stanton.

There are pet quotations as well as pet authors. One from "Rob Roy's Grave," by Wordsworth, has the role of Abou Ben Adhem. An examination of all the forms of this quotation used will show some variation from the original:

1. "That they should take who have the power

2.

And they should keep who can" (Poindexter). "The good old plan

That they shall take who have the power,

And they shall keep who can" (Lenroot).

4.

Let him keep who can" (Fletcher).

"The good old rule, the simple plan,

That they should take who have the power,

And they should keep who can" (Brandegee for Major
Seaman).

Little, of Kansas, and Monahan, of Wisconsin, both found use for "Vice is a monster-." The quotation of "The rank is but the guinea's stamp" is apparently a perquisite of the speakership, for it was employed only by Messrs. Cannon and Gillett.

War poetry was used extensively, especially in the orations on Memorial Day. Annette Kohn's "In Flanders' Fields" wins first prize among the war poems, for it was quoted three times. Only one Congressman quoted from McRae's poem. Rupert Brooke, Alan Seeger, and Edith Wharton are in company with writers much less well known. Wilbur Nesbit's "Your Flag and My Flag!" was honored with a full length appearance. Among the old patriotic songs the favorites seem to be "America" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

The American public should awake to the fact that much of the verse used by Congressmen is imported. About twothirds of the entire quantity is from British authors. It can not be doubted that this is the result of British propaganda. It should be investigated at once by all that vociferous multitude who stand for "America first," meaning: "Let's embroil ourselves with England, if possible." Our ancient enemy, British Gold, must have been lobbying behind the scenes; otherwise Longfellow, as the most quoted American poet, would not trail behind the notorious Tory, Pope, and receive only one-sixth of the notice given the celebrated British imperialist, the author of Henry V.

The importations are almost purely British. Our former ally, France, is almost forgotten. She is represented by Rostand, who is quoted once. The rest of Europe is similarly neglected. A quotation from Von Logau appears, though it is not certain that the quoter knew of any relationship between Von Logau and "Though the mills of the gods grind slowly." One man made an effort to capture the Greek vote of his district by quoting from a versified history of some early Greek squabbles, written by one Homer.