their imagination turns to a dictator, a man of destiny, who shall incarnate the divine will of the old superstition and lift society by main strength out of the morass in which it seems to be bogged. Parliamentary government and a dictatorship are the diametrical opposites of each other. It is the nature of parliaments to debate, of dictatorships to command.

But democracy and dictatorship are not entirely incompatible. A dictator may be elected by a popular vote, and no dictator can remain indefinitely in power unless he has popular approval. Yet it may happen that those who support the dictatorship are not

the same as those who would control a majority in parliament.

But this opens a problem too broad for discussion here. The difficulties of modern government spring primarily from the fact that our people are divided by conflicts of economic interest that are closely related to their political convictions and their whole philosophy of life. Those difficulties do not spring from the particular form of government a country has. They cannot be solved by political devices. The problem calls for a broader social treatment that will tend to diminish these conflicts of interest, even if it cannot entirely eliminate them.

[A NOTE upon this brilliant, newly discovered author appears in Life, Letters, and the Arts of the present issue.]

WOE to the man who has a heart and who reads our Rumanian newspapers. Can he sleep quietly a single night with the cruel deeds now being done in doomed Bessarabia on his conscience? Worse crimes have never been committed in the history of the world. Even Abdul Hamid, the Red Sultan, would have shuddered at the sight of them. Yet they are being committed at the very door of the civilized West, and in times of peace. They are being committed by regular army-officers, with the authority of their govern

ment.

1 From Le Quotidien (Paris Radical daily), December 13 and 14

VOL. 328-NO. 4268

Rumanian prisons ring with the cries of innocent people pleading for help. Their sufferings are a matter of common knowledge, but the whole press conceals the truth, and I have been persecuted and reviled because I dared to proclaim that truth. I must tell all civilized mankind of the sufferings of my harassed country.

As I write these lines, a trial by court-martial is being held at Bucharest the trial of Morarescu, one of Bessarabia's many torturers.

Morarescu is an army officer whose unexampled cruelties have forced his superiors to bring him, and twenty of his associates whom he compelled by threats of torture and death to do his bidding, to justice. But my readers should not be too hopeful that justice will be done.

For, though the twenty unwilling accomplices are under lock and key, their commander Morarescu walks about in freedom. Such is Rumanian justice.

What is the charge against Morarescu? He and the detachment under his command were stationed on the Dniester border when refugees from Ukraine, fleeing from Soviet misrule, sought sanctuary in Bessarabia. Morarescu drew up a very simple code of conduct for himself and his men: he was to defend the Rumanian frontier against invasion. It was an assignment that might be turned to profit. He ordered any boat that tried to cross the Dniester to be fired upon, and any refugees who succeeded in reaching the Rumanian side to be shot on the spot. He thus performed his duty. Then he turned to private business. The bodies were searched and stripped of their clothing and valuables. With the proceeds he bought Ukrainian horses. The corpses were consigned to the rapid waters of the Dniester.

Now let me quote from even our semi-muzzled Rumanian papers:

'Ex-soldiers who are now workingmen and shepherds have testified with the utmost candor to the horrors in which they participated on the Dniester. They cannot tell the whole story; it is too long and dreadful. Shooting en masse, men mutilated and beaten, women and children massacred. Soldiers wept and refused to shoot down people who knelt before them begging for mercy; but Morarescu threatened them with flogging and death if they refused. A mere gesture toward the hand grenades that always lay upon his desk, and the poor troopers obeyed his command.'

One witness stated: 'I have received as many blows from him as I have hairs upon my head.' Another, a peasant boy who was then serving his term

as a soldier, testified: 'We shot the mother of a three-year-old baby. The man who shot her brought the little one to Morarescu. The latter asked: "Haven't you shot down that thing yet?" "What harm can he do, sir?" pleaded the soldier. "Send him after his mother." And the soldier murdered the child. To refuse would have been to invite his own death.'

Other soldiers testified that they were ordered to shoot every prisoner on the Dniester, including those who surrendered. One night they stumbled upon a group of refugees, including women and children, who fell on their knees pleading for mercy. The soldiers shot them down as they knelt there, while the children cried: 'Father! Mother!'

A soldier named Caroma testified: 'Once when I and some officers were shooting a group of refugees we noticed that one of them was still living. Morarescu personally gave him his coup de grâce with a revolver shot; then resumed playing on his cither.'

A corporal named Zacharia related how Morarescu flogged him until the blood ran and then asked him why he had been punished. When Zacharia answered that he did not know, the brutal officer said: 'Because I want you to remember that to-night four men will meet at the border, two from our side and two from the other. You must wait till they have met and then shoot them on the spot.' The corporal added that he shot only the men coming from the Ukrainian side, as he had an opportunity to warn the two from Bessarabia in advance.

Four Jews were arrested. Morarescu spent the entire night drinking wine with them and playing the balalaika, ordering them to dance to his accompaniment. At dawn he shot every one of them.

A soldier named Bologan testified: 'I never killed but one woman, one

child, and one man, and that under threats from my lieutenant.' Another soldier, named Luxandrei, testified that he took part in shooting two women, two men, one child, and one Rumanian soldier named Gorge, also under threat of being shot himself if he refused. "They could very well have been brought back to our quarters alive, but our lieutenant did not want to bother with prisoners.' When the presiding officer of the court-martial asked this soldier why Morarescu had once ordered him court-martialed, he said: 'For disobedience to orders. I refused to kill innocent people. My conscience will give me no peace for those I have killed already.'

A Jewish merchant named Katz was ordered shot by Morarescu for alleged Bolshevist sympathies. He He succeeded in escaping, but was recaptured, and Morarescu promised to liberate him for five thousand lei. He paid that sum, but Morarescu again arrested him and demanded more money, which Katz refused to pay. The

mayor of the town asked that he be liberated, stating that he was innocent of the charges brought against him. By way of answer, Morarescu picked up a mandolin and sang :

'I killed three to-day;

I'll kill six to-morrow.'

The following night an unknown person fired four shots at Katz in jail. They missed him, however, and in the morning Morarescu came in and exclaimed:

"Too bad they did n't kill you!'

The defendant is a wild-eyed man of exceedingly dark complexion, and dresses like a dandy. He invariably comes late to his hearings, and always attends them with a cynical smile. He admits his crimes, and listens to the evidence against him with indifference. His only defense is that he was stamping out Bolshevism.

[Since this article was written, Morarescu has been acquitted by the court-martial before which he was tried. — EDITOR]

[THE author has been a prominent Pacifist leader and writer in Germany since long before the war.]

A PERSON Who knows me only from my speeches in Parliament or on the public platform, or as chairman of the Twentythird World's Peace Congress, where I had to preside in three languages, may be surprised to know that I was for many years a frightful stutterer. In fact, I was the worst stutterer I ever heard, and in certain situations my weakness almost drove me mad, as it probably did the people who had to listen to me.

By the time I was old enough to take thought of the matter my defect was already firmly fixed upon me. I stuttered because I knew I stuttered and because I was afraid of stuttering. But when some emergency made me forget myself entirely I could oftentimes speak as well as a normal person.

I stuttered far less at home and among my schoolmates than when I was talking with strangers. I was at my worst in a social gathering. It was a torment for me every time we had a dinner party at home, and it was a martyrdom to accept an invitation to a neighbor's. More than once, when I presented myself as a guest at a strange house, servants who did not know me slammed the door in my face with fright when they saw me choking and gasping and unable to utter a word.

My worst, and yet psychologically

1 From Vossische Zeitung (Berlin Liberal daily), December 20

my most interesting, experience was at school. Oftentimes I could answer a question smoothly and promptly, but more frequently I exploded into a sort of staccato trill-if such a thing is possible that ended only when the teacher called upon some other pupil to answer. My ability or inability to express myself did not depend upon whether or not I knew the answer to the question asked me; but I spoke better when I was so interested in the subject that I forgot my weakness. I did best of all when a question was not addressed to me individually but to the class as a whole, and we pupils competed with each other in giving quick and accurate replies. I had little difficulty in giving an answer that one of my fellow students did not know. But if the teacher stood up in front of me and addressed the question to me directly I was practically incapable of answering him intelligibly.

One of my hardest tasks was to translate orally from other languages. My sheer physical effort on such occasions was so intense that my desk would shake and the perspiration would stand out on my brow. Nor did my difficulty bear any relation to how well or how poorly I was prepared. I suppose the teacher suspected that I stuttered to cover up my ignorance, but I can say with a clear conscience, as I look back upon that period of my life, that this was not the case. I should have admitted I did not know my lesson rather than endure the torture of stuttering.

Another interesting aspect of my

weakness was that I stuttered comparatively little in mathematics. I happened to be about the only pupil in my particular class who had any gift for this subject, and was often called to the board to demonstrate a theorem or a problem that my classmates could not do. Like most stutterers, I could repeat a poem that I had learned by heart with ease if I could once get over the first word. When that was safely behind me I sailed on smoothly to the end.

So my speeches and recitations in school never troubled me after I once got started, and in fact I was elected anniversary speaker for our literary society. I experienced little difficulty in speaking my parts in school plays and private theatricals. I moved about upon the stage, where I felt myself in an entirely different world, not as Ludwig Quidde the stutterer, but as the character I impersonated- and in fact with such aplomb that once when an-, other player forgot his lines and the prompter wasn't on hand, I improvised to fill up the gap. But this lasted only as long as I was playing my rôle. When the piece was over and we young folks stayed behind for a little chat I stuttered as hopelessly as ever. For I was my very worst in the company of young ladies, and avoided them whenever I could; for their giggling and amused glances always put me in a panic.

My first course of treatment was when I was six years old, and at an institution recommended by our family physician. Little rolls of cloth were placed under my tongue and I was drilled in speaking- and reading-exercises. I was the youngest patient and could already read, but could not pronounce the letter c, for example, and did not know whether I should say Zato or Kato. Like most similar treatments, this increased my self-confi

dence for a time, but the improvement did not last.

When I was about twelve years old another attempt was made to cure me of my habit. The teacher under whom I was placed was a very intelligent, emotional, and rather theatrical and hypnotic person. He made me recite poetry, the more dramatic the better, and seemed to have a pretty high idea of my elocutionary ability. I still retain from that period a lively memory of Bürger's Lenore and the ballad about Edward whose sword was so red. When my course was over I could express myself faultlessly as Hamlet, Mark Antony, Wallenstein, or Jeanne d'Arc, and I could repeat to perfection the breathless 'Hurre, hurre, hopp, hopp, hopp,' of Lenore's ride. But I stuttered just as badly as ever in ordinary conversation.

During my teens my affliction grew steadily worse. It was not particularly noticeable in the family, but my father's friends kept speaking about it whenever they met him and saying something ought to be done for me. I rebelled against any more 'courses' and 'treatments,' for I was convinced that they were useless. Whenever they were suggested my plea was: 'Let me get through with my examinations. Then I'll devise a treatment for myself, and I won't enter the university until I'm cured.'

Chance took me to Aachen in the autumn of 1876, just after I had passed my examinations. A gentleman there had an infallible, secret remedy for stuttering. I had no faith in it, but thought I might as well go there as anywhere, if only to please my family. While I was at Aachen I was also introduced to the director of an institution for the deaf and dumb who really was a great help to me.

But first of all I had to take the infallible, secret cure which a promi