banks for the terms under which they would accept public money for deposit it has often been their practice to get together and agree upon a minimum of interest. The Brotherhood bank at Cleveland has thrown consternation into the old-line group by taking a different view. It said that public funds were entitled to receive the highest rate of interest that could be afforded that the banks, including its bank, could afford to pay a higher rate than the 32 per cent the established bankers had agreed upon. They offered 4 per cent and were offered the repositoryship of large amounts of county funds. The oldline bankers resented the entrance of labor into the capitalist field, and their influence has been strong enough to obtain the withdrawal of large amounts of public funds which had found lodgement in the labor bank. There is an unwritten law which says that the stockholders are entitled to make most of the profits in banking, notwithstanding the fact that it is largely the depositors' money which makes the profits possible, the latter often outweighing the former in amount ten or twelve times over. In this manner the stockholders of some of our large banking institutions have received dividends sometimes as high as 20, 30 or 40 per cent interest on balances. The engineers' bank at Cleveland, and other labor banks, propose to destroy this "relic of capitalistic privilege," as their literature calls it-and that they are already accomplishing their purpose is one of the reasons why the Cleveland Clearing House Association has been actively hostile. The Brotherhood and other labor banks take the ground that bank depositors have never yet received their just dues, and propose to see to it that they are better treated in their institutions. Their idea of cooperative banking is that profits belong just as much to depositors as to stockholders. They propose to pay the latter a maximum dividend of from 6 to 10 per cent, when earned, and to distribute surplus earnings to the former in increased interest rates. At the end of the first year of its existence the Cleveland bank had $10,000,000 assets. A 6 per cent dividend was declared on the stock, and what is said to be the first depositors' dividend ever paid in this country, one per cent, was also credited to every depositors' account, and there still remained a surplus of $40,000. The Brotherhood bank at Cleveland and the other labor banks differ in most other respects but little from banks generally. Fifty-one per cent of the stock belongs to the Brotherhood as an association, and the balance is owned by its members. In fighting this new institution, its enemies, who fear the threat to their ancient prerogatives, have found that a bank in which labor plays the double role of depositor and stockholder promises to be no unworthy antagonist in fighting for its rights in the long privileged field of banking. Labor banks open tremendous vistas of labor building a cooperative world within the shell of the old profit-sharing system. This extraordinary development means that labor is recognizing the key importance of credit in industrial struggles, recognizing, too, that they have in their own union funds and in the deposits of their members an enormous power which they have hitherto wasted. THE DIGEST'S FIRST YEAR The past thirty days have marked the largest increase of The Timid Sex Condensed from The Atlantic Monthly (Feb.) Robert M. Gay ECENTLY I had to address 30 or 40 business men. Three men sat in the front row; the rest ame in, sliding sideways into the rst seat they came to. They all anted to sit in the back row, or, ailing that, in the row nearest the ack row. When I addressed the roup a second time, a week later, I oticed that the courageous three had anged their seats. They were inelligent men, and they could hardly e called bashful. They had no reaon to be scared. For some reason, owever, a seat was a haven of refge for them, into which they slid s soon as they could. I do not think hey reasoned it out. No. I look pon their particular choice of a seat s so instinctive as almost to deserve he name of "reflex action." I think I nderstand it, too; because I also ave sat in the last row, or deprived f that refuge, behind a post or a fat ian. Of course, this habit is not wholly > be ascribed to timidity. Other subonscious motives play their part. here is, for example, deep-seated in very manly breast a determination ot to be, or at least not to appear o be, interested in anything that any eacher, lecturer, or preacher may ay; and it is merely masculine to register this obscure impulse in any way short of audible groans. Women, on the other hand, are courageous church-goers, concert-goers, lecturegoers, without whose encouragement most of the public talkers of the world would have to go out of business. Now, no woman minds at all walking the length of a room and sitting in the front row, even when the room is full of people. In fact, she rather likes it. If she sees a seat in the front row, she goes for it; and her ears do not get red either. Watch her as she sails down the aisle at a lecture or in church, cool as a cucumber; and then watch her husband as he slinks after her. In 2. At the theatre, he is not averse to sitting in the front row, because he has a ticket. This gives him courage. He will even politely precede his wife down the aisle, if he can conspicuously display a seat-check as an advertisement that he is not callously trying to obtrude himself upon the public gaze. But at a reception, or an afternoon tea, if he is so unfortunate as to have to attend one, he shows a quite remarkable expertness in fading into recesses and corners, or, if none offer, in gravitating into the company of his fellows. a mixed company he behaves like pepper or sawdust sprinkled on water. However much he may circulate for a time, he will eventually drift together and cohere. Women have never fully comprehended the significance of the axiom that "if we don't all hang together, we shall all hang separately.' Most women would rather hang separately than adopt that as a rule of conduct. This delicate organization of the male, his instinctive craving for self-effacement, makes him work well in groups, and, at a football game or a political convention, he may overcome his inhibitions even to the extent of making a great noise. Women on these occasions find the sudden lunacy of their husbands, fathers, brothers, and lovers a more interesting phenomenon than the game itself, or the order of business. "Can it be possible," they seem to be asking themselves, "that these men are the same timid creatures who sit meekly through three hours of after-dinner speaking, or even through a long-winded lecture, or opera, merely because they are afraid to get up and leave?" Yes; they are the same. They would sit through anything rather than make themselves conspicuous by getting up singly and leaving. 3. A friend of mine once agreed to deliver a course of lectures to an audience of school-teachers. After his first appearance a lady whom he knew, said: "You did very well. Nobody left. So-and-so began a lecture here last month with 600 and ended with 50." "And are they likely to do that with me?" he gasped. "Of course, if they don't get what they want," she answered, smiling sweetly. "We're busy women, and can't afford to waste an hour listening to something that doesn't profit us.' A man, asked how he enjoyed my friend's lecture, would have slapped him on the back and said, "Fine! Fine!" and this without any reference to the truth. For a man would feel only one timid impulse to avoid any discussion of the lecture, to which he would probably not have listened. 4. I seem to remember from my own schooldays that almost any girl was of a braver type than almost any boy, if by brave is meant unaffected by the limelight. It is open to question whether any girl ever shrank as obliteratingly as most boys, or any boy ever willingly stood up and faced a mixed class as composedly as most girls. When, moreover, a boy did shrink, he knew that all his sex sympathized; and when, without any hesitation, he did stand up, he knew that all his sex looked upon him with surprise, derision, or disgust. For a boy to stand up and speak a piece without boring into the floor with his toe, smirking at the window, twirling a button, or rumpling his hair, was for him to proclaim himself to his sex as peculiar, if not downright girlish. 5. I discussed these things with a teacher of acute observation. She agreed with me that the males always sat in the back row if possible, and that they assumed a kind of protective coloration by looking as bored or as illiterate as they could. "But," she said, "if you want a complete vindication of your theories, simply observe the respective manners of a woman addressing five men, and of a man addressing five women. You will find that the woman, if only she is becomingly gowned, is enjoying herself, while the man, whatever his appearance, is suffering." "Then you think that clothes make a difference?" and "Of course. If the woman is all dressed up, she is all the more at her ease; but if the man is all dressed up, he is all the more miserable. Haven't you ever noticed, also, that a man is never happy if he suspects that his clothes attract attention, while a woman is never really so happy as when she knows hers do? Consider brides and grooms. I have perceived that brides maids of honor and bridesmaids wished to be looked at, while the grooms and the best men and the ushers hoped that they would not be looked at. And consider a man with a new hat, and then consider a woman. The man looks as if he wished you to think the hat was last year's; but the woman would be very angry if she thought you thought hers was.” "Now you are getting near home," said I. "I always have a feeling that I look half-witted in a new hat." N Scouting from Jersey to Japan Condensed from Our World (Feb.) TOT long ago there occurred in Paris an International Conference which received no great amount of publicity. One hundred and thirty-four delegates from some 35 countries met together, representing a world-wide movement involving millions of people, affecting the life of boys, and through them the lives of men and women throughout the civilized world. This significant gathering was the International Conference of officials of the Boy Scout Movement. The average American does not realize the extent of the Boy Scout Movement. There is hardly a nation in which some part of the Scout program is not promoted today. Egypt numbers 6,000 Scouts; Irak, according to official figures from Bagdad, has 10,000; in the mountains of Albania, there are no fewer than 500; and a roll call of all Boy Scouts of the world would amount to much over a million names. Of these, America is easily in the lead, for she numbers nearly one-half a million boys upon her records. England comes next with about one-half of that number. It is an inspiring thought that after the ravages of war, these Boy Scouts the world ever are pledged to the high principles of loyalty and friendliness and it is an inspiring thought that in every country, no matter how hard may be the circumstances of their lives, men are still to be found with sufficient unselfish devotion to give of their best energy, without recompense, to the service of boyhood. For the essence of the Boy Scout Movement is that it is a volunteer Movement. The boys give of their best energy and their highest service to the community with. out recompense; and the devoted men who act as their Scoutmasters give of their time, their energy, their hearts and their minds, to the service of the future citizens of the world, entirely without pay. Scouting is a man's game cut down to boy's size. He goes into the country to learn woodcraft and campcraft; he scurries around the city streets hunting for Good Turns. His imagination is stirred by the Scout uniform and the Scout handclasp and salute; his moral principles are ensured through the Scout Oath and Law. The best proof of the efficiency of the Boy Scout Movement is that boys like it. Significant is the fact that as an English school boy stalks stealthily through his native woods, a slanteyed Mongolian is slipping among stalthe Japanese cherry trees, a wart little Scout in South Africa drags his trek cart over the veldt, a group of French boys are carrying their Scouting staves, and our own American boys are gathering underbrush for their camp fire. The essentials of the program are the same and the spirit of Scouting is the same in every country of the world. The spirit of brotherhood and service which know as the Scout spirit calls upon each to give of his best efficiency for the good of the whole. we Scouting finds its natural affiliation in supplementing the work of two of our greatest national institutions the school and the church. To the school it appeals, because, as one of our leading educators has remarked, it is "pedagogically perfect." The Scout method is learning by doing, which is strictly in accordance with the modern theories 719 of teaching. By means of activities which he likes. the Boy Scout is led to acquire a whole fund of useful information which he could hardly get from text books. Scouting wins the endorsement of the church because of the Scout Oath and Law. Before he becomes a Scout, a boy must promise, "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my Country, and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight." The law to which our little Mexican neighbors subscribe is a little altered in form from ours, but all over the world, from the little Mohammedan Scouts in Africa, from the Greek Catholics in the Balkans, to the young Orangemen from Protestant Ulster, Boy Scouts are making the same promises. Perhaps the most significant event in the history of Scouting OCcurred in 1920 when 25,000 boys representing 33 nations, met at Olympia, England, for the big Scout Jamboree. The Americans consisted of 301 Boy Scouts, selected from all over the country, the very finest flower of our American boyhood. There they met other boys selected from all the other nations for their especial qualities of leadership and all engaged in Scouting activities and pageants typical of their nations. It was the first International meeting of boys in the history of the world. The 301 American boys were organized into eight Jamboree troops, the first of which consisted of the famous Denver Scout Band. led by the twelve-year-old drum major. Each troop carried with it as mascot, some pet, at the special request of the officials. Later these pets and mascots were given away by the different troops, the American tortoise being bestowed upon a group of boys from New Zealand and the Florida crocodiles given to some boys who lived in a country where no crocodile had ever flourished. A procession of the Scouts of all nations, the League of Youth, with their flags and emblems, truly representative of the movement that in twelve years had reached so many boys and was destined to reach mil. lions more, opened proceedings, le by the loud and thrilling Scottish pipers. American Indians with pictaresque costumes, translated their life in the open by songs and dances. Maoris came dancing with spears and shields. Every competition between the different nations, ended with cheers for each other and friendly handshakes. Some of the events covered fire fighting, accident, physical training, cycling, trek cart work, camp cooking, and camp making. America concentrated on the Indian display; Ireland on legendary spectacles; Scotland put on a pageant showing the highland gathering and an historical episode; Wales gave an excellent Colliery display; France showed a day in the life of a Chevaller; Sweden brought physical training and Swedish exercises, and Switzerland, wrestling, soccer and handball. Transvaal sent a display representing native life in Africa. Blond giants from Denmark; dark graceful boys from Spain; sturdy boys from New Zealand; clear-eyed lads from all lands, were all one in their keen comprehension of sport, for every Scout is a brother. The world needs men of strong character, full of energy and good will and initiative, capable of daring, but knowing how to sacrifice their own interests for the common welfare. We must train our youth the world over, to full this high mission. We must protect them from demoralizing influences and give them activities that will interest them and at the same time de velop them, so that when their time comes they may play their part worthily in the greatest game of all -Life. |