A NOTE OF OPTIMISM

Little noticed among the more spectacular news, the Laval triumph in the French Parliament has a potential significance beyond any political speech or "dope" story about the Ethiopian war. After leaders of the various parties, including Fascist and Communist alike, had struck the keynote of unity and faith in democracy, the French Chamber, by an overwhelming vote dissolved the semi-military leagues and prohibited Frenchmen from carrying firearms. True the "freedom of the press" was curtailed by an act making punishable an incitement to assassination, but actually the freedom of the press under any government was never so all-inclusive as to include anarchism.

A short time ago friends of democracy were very much on the defensive, and shaken by the rise of dictators under various political labels. Now, however, there is cause for revived hope and aggressiveness of democrats everywhere. Mosley does not flourish in Britain, Huey Long is dead, and France junks its politico-military menaces. In those countries where democracy has struck its roots down deep over the course of centuries, hybrid foreign importations of the Stalin or Hitler variety wither in an unfavorable clime.