SYMPATHY.

(Detroit News.)

THE little things in life, as well as the big events, pry loose the grip of self-reserve and free the phases of human nature. It's worth while to watch the crowd in the downtown streets of a city when it parts to make way for the swift flight of an ambulance hurrying along to the accompaniment of gongs. All philosophical speculation on the reality or matter-of-factness of its errand is secondary to the compassion that manifestly floods every being there. Perhaps no one among all who witness the passing of that vehicle has any definite conception whatever of the appearance or condition of the patient it bears, or is going for. An abstract human being does exist, and there is consciousness of his suffering; so that nominalism may not be so extinct, after all, as realism and materialism would declare. The strongest man, walking to his work, with health proclaimed in his every stride, is checked in his course for the moment. Something very much like a picture takes form in the eyes of the most unimaginative.

Tugging at the most self-centered heart there is a little wish that it could do some office, however slight, looking toward the banishment of all disease and pain.

A MOST informing volume, entitled "Social Reform and the Constitution," by Frank J. Goodnow, has recently been published by The Macmillan Company in the American Social Progress Series. Dr. Goodnow is Eaton Professor of Administration Law at Columbia University, and he has essayed the task of endeavoring to ascertain "to what extent the Constitution of the United States in its present form is a bar to the adoption of important social reform measures which have been made part of the reform programme of the most progressive peoples of the present day." The subject is one of absorbing interest and the author discusses the demands of social reform, the constitutionality of political reform and that of government regulation aid, the power of Congress to charter interstate commerce corporations, and the attitude of the courts towards measures of social reform. A table of cases cited in the book adds greatly to its value. An interesting chapter is one on the power of Congress over the private law in force in the United States, how far this power has been exercised and what influence it has had upon our Law.

The great social problems before the United States today come under three general heads of Government Ownership, Government Regulation and Government Aid. Dr. Goodnow shows what has been done in the other countries as well as in ours in various directions of social reform. From this comparison the question arises whether the United States can solve its social problems with any hope of success under the constitutional law as it is enforced today. This involves the legal relations between the Federal Government and the States of the Union. Delicate questions regarding constitutionality have to be settled by the courts before much headway can be made.

The chapter on Government Regulation covers a wide field and constitutes one of the most important portions of this book, upon whose pages are stamped the mark of thorough and

earnest research, ripe experience and legal analysis that make it particularly valuable at a time when much loose thinking and speculation are taking the place, in many quarters, of studious and scholarly investigation into the vital problems, political and social, that confront the nation.

A carefully prepared Index completes the helpfulness of the work for the busy man who wants to find information regarding particular points and controversies.

IN editing "The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787" Max Farrand, Professor of History in Yale University, has put all students of American institutions under a debt of gratitude. The object was to gather in a single work of three volumes the mass of documents and available records in a trustworthy and dependable form. The material was scattered and in some cases, through subsequent revisings of manuscripts, had become different in mode of presentation from the original records. In the work under review much is made public that hitherto has not been published, and the utmost care has been taken to reduce mistakes and inaccuracies to a minimum. A special index makes it possible to trace the origin and development of every clause in the Constitution, and enables reference to all the subject-matter in Professor Farrand's work bearing thereon to be readily found and collated.

In the preparation and editing of a collection like this, involving immense labor and discrimination, the editor was assisted by a number of scholars of wide reputation.

The manufacture of the work leaves nothing to be desired; it is excellent typographically and in annotations.

ONE of the politicians who bulked large in the public gaze, particularly in the last year of his life, was Tom L. Johnson, who, as Mayor of Cleveland, fought a dogged fight in the interests of the people against the street railway monopoly there. A sympathetic life of this remarkable man has recently appeared from the pen of Carl Lorenz (The A. S. Barnes Company, New York). The life of Johnson was a succession of struggles and battles against tremendous odds, almost from the cradle to the grave; it contains many of the elements of a Greek Tragedy, and his career added a picturesqueness to our modern political life that will probably not be duplicated in the future. He made scores of enemies; he was denounced and derided as a Socialist,

and as one who, where privilege and vested interests were concerned, was iconoclastic in his ideals. The story of his career, with its many vicissitudes; his peculiar disregard of the conventionalities of society; and his downright honesty and purposefulness of endeavor n the field of municipal reform and social uplift, will stand out in the annals of his time as things to be remembered with gratitude.

His last years were sad and embittered by family misfortunes and by his long, heroic fight against an incurable disease, but the calibre of his character, and the buoyancy of his self-confidence and altruistic faith, remained with him until the end. Tom L. Johnson has left a legacy to his fellow-citizens and to his country. He brought much joy and sunshine into the lives, not only of his friends, but of many of his enemies. His activities were extraordinary, his personality dominating every action of his life.

This book traces his entrance into politics; his occupancy of the Mayoral chair at Cleveland, Ohio; his fight in behalf of the people's rights; and his final days, when he became almost a pathetic figure to the country at large, which watched the last lingering · illness with almost a personal touch of feeling and good will. We commend this book to all who would become acquainted with a character that, with all its rough edges, peculiarities and unconventionalities, stood out as true and honest and aboveboard. The story as told by Mr. Lorenz is fascinating and stirring.

Havelock Fisher

Social Reform and the Constitution. By Frank J. Goodnow, LL.D. The Macmillan Company. $1.50 net.

The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787. By Max Ferrand, Editor. Yale University Press. 3 volumes. $12.00 net. Tom L. Johnson. By Carl Lorenz. $1.50 net.

The A. S. Barnes Company.

THE EDITORIAL REVIEW wishes its subscribers, readers and friends a happy and prosperous New Year. We feel sure that they will be pleased to hear of the success that has attended the magazine during 1911. Its circulation has increased manifold, in all sections of the country. It has found its way into not only libraries, both general and special, but also into schools, as coöperating in the practical study of current topics, and into our State Departments; has traveled into Canada and across both oceans-in fact, wherever in private homes, offices, educational and other institutions there are thoughtful readers and earnest students of the problems of today and the possible developments of tomorrow, this indispensable magazine is a welcome guest, and makes new friends.

Tributes of praise and esteem have been received from leading newspapers, and many editorials have appeared eulogizing the manner in which the subjects of the specially contributed articles are presented to the reader.

Our mail bag continues to bring us words of appreciation and encouragement from individual subscribers and readers. One from the West writes:

"I have been particularly well pleased with the sample copy of the November number and trust I may find the various numbers throughout the year as interesting."

Another is sorry that he has only recently made the acquaintance of THE EDITORIAL REVIEW. He says:

"I have THE EDITORIAL REVIEW for November, and feel almost personally aggrieved that I have not known of THE EDITORIAL REVIEW until I received the copy mentioned.

"When I make the statement above, I feel very much as Governor Richard Oglesby seemed to feel some time about twenty years ago when he had a certain interview with a reporter of the Chicago Daily News, who had gone to see Uncle Dick to tell him that the News believed that if he would consent to be a candidate for the Senate he could break the deadlock which was at that time thriving largely in the legislative halls in Springfield. Uncle Dick could hardly be turned away from the fireplace where he sat with a large volume which seemed to absorb his entire mind and attention. The reporter was told that this book had taken about all of his time and attention for the past three days, allowing him little sleep, and only about half his usual number of toddies. Uncle Dick looked up from his book long enough to say to Paul Hull, representative of the Daily News, that he, Hull, was a fool to have ridden so far and so fast in the chill November day, but that the news representative was not as great a fool as would be the some-time Governor of Illinois if he complied with the suggestion-to go on back to Springfield and tell his friends in the Legislature, and also to tell the managing editor of the Daily News that he did not have sufficient sense to become the Senator from Illinois at his at that time ripened age of seventy-six, because he had only learned three days before, that such a man as Montaigne had ever lived, and that he proposed to finish all English translations of that writer before he did anything else.

"You may apply this story to me as indicative of my ignorance of THE EDITORIAL REVIEW."

A clergyman exercises the right of changing his mind and