bers of the board of agriculture by two "regular Democrats," and at the next meeting of the board Wilson was ousted, and with him several faculty members, on the ground that they were "red." There was no pretense that the fight was other than a political one. The Oklahoma Leader, the official organ of the Reconstruction League, interpreted Walton's latest changes in the board as a betrayal of the common people; while the American Legion and the Democratic newspapers applauded it as a victory for "regularity" over "radicalism." Only here and there a protest was made against introducing political considerations into the choice of a president for a state school, or against hiring and dismissing faculty members because of their political affiliations.

'PARDON AND PAROLE INITIATIVE PETITION.-An initiative petition is being circulated by the United Commercial Travelers of Oklahoma, the Travelers' Protective Association, and others, to amend the state constitution by creating a board of pardons and paroles. If the amendment is adopted it will limit the governor in exercising the power to pardon, parole, reprieve, or commute sentences of persons convicted of crime, to the recommendations made by this board. The attempt to establish a similar board by legislative enactment some years ago was declared unconstitutional, but the dissatisfaction with the unlimited power of pardon and parole now in the governor's hands has continued, and the present petition is its result.

NOTES FROM TEXAS

PREPARED BY THE EDITOR OF NEWS AND NOTES

WORK OF THE SECOND AND THIRD CALLED SESSIONS OF THE THIRTY-EIGHTH LEGISLATURE.—The failure of the regular session of the Thirty-eighth Legislature to pass certain essential appropriation bills made necessary the consideration of such measures in the two called sessions which adjourned finally June 14 (the first called session lasted but an hour). Practically all of the time of the special sessions was devoted to a consideration of financial measures, one of the few exceptions of any importance to this being the bill creating a separate State Department of Banking. This was followed by a bill changing the name of the Department of Insurance and Banking to Department of Insurance and the head to Commissioner of Insurance.

At the end of the second called session the appropriation bills came to a total of $46,523,909 (including those passed by the regular session). As it seemed certain that appropriations of this amount would result in a treasury deficiency of some $7,400,000, Governor Neff vetoed practically every measure calling for any appropriation from the state treasury and called the legislature into another called session to the end that appropriations and revenues might be bal

anced. However, at the end of the third called session the net reduction was but $3,721,000. This probably means that the state treasury will show a deficit of some $4,000,000 at the end of two years unless the new tax measures bring in more revenue than they can reasonably be expected to produce.

HIGHWAY AMENDMENT NULLIFIED. - The Thirty-eighth Texas Legislature voted to submit a constitutional amendment to the people on July 28 to take the control of designated state highways from the different counties where it now resides, and vest it in the State Legislature. It also imposed in the Legislature authority to levy excise taxes exclusively for the support of state highways. At present the State Legislature has power to levy excise taxes (in the form of occupation taxes) but one-fourth must be expended on the public schools.

By congressional act every state that vests control of its state highways (to be designated) in the legislature is entitled to federal aid equal to the amount expended by the state on these roads. Not over seven per cent of the state's roads can be designated as state highways.

At present there is no connected and uniform system of road construction. Each county has control over all its highways. The amendment would leave control of all roads in the counties except that portion designated as state highways. That portion would be constructed and maintained by the state from state taxation, supplemented by the federal aid. The amendment also vested authority in the legislature to compensate those counties that have already made valuable improvements on state highways from their own funds. The proclamation of the governor setting July 28 as the date of the election was revoked on July 10 upon advice from the attorney general.

A provision in the present state constitution requires that a proposed amendment be published in a newspaper in each county once each week for four consecutive weeks, beginning at least three months before the election. The highway amendment was not mailed to the newspapers for publication until after June 4. Since the election was called for July 28, it is obvious that the constitutional provision requiring publication to begin at least three months before the election was not complied with. In response to an inquiry from the secretary of state, the attorney general ruled that this provision of the constitution was mandatory and that failure to comply with it exactly was fatal, and the election if held would be null and void. The time allowed states to comply with the federal requirement and make themselves eligible for the federal aid to supplement state funds expended on roads will not expire until after the Thirty-ninth Legislature meets in 1925, and the people will yet have time to vote on the change in the constitution if the question is submitted to them. There is a constitutional requirement that amendments be submitted at regular sessions of the legislature.

Since the attorney general's opinion has been rendered, there has been considerable conjecture regarding the validity of the Prohibition and Free Textbook amendments. It is alleged in many quarters that they were not adopted strictly according to the constitution, and attorneys have already attacked the soundness of the Prohibition amendment upon this ground. If it is shown that the three months requirement has not been complied with in the case of either of these amendments it will probably prove fatal to them as in the case of the highway amendment. However, the attacks so far seem to have been centered around the proposition that the amendments were not printed for the required length of time in all the counties of the state, not that publication was not begun three months in advance of the election. If previous decisions of the courts in election contests can be taken as a criterion, in order to successfully contest the amendments on this latter ground, it will likely have to be shown that the failure to publish in some counties changed the result of the election.

BOOK REVIEWS

EDITED BY MALBONE W. GRAHAM

University of Texas

CRESSON, W. P. The Holy Alliance: The European Background of the Monroe Doctrine. (New York: Oxford University Press,

1922. Pp. x, 147. $1.50.)

In a lengthy introduction (35 pages) the author gives an account of the early years of Tsar Alexander, of the influence of his instructors and of the "Young Liberals," how, on his accession to the throne at the age of twenty-three, he was cast into the whirlpool of international problems brought on by the activity of Napoleon, how he sought to realize a condition of peace for the people of Europe under beneficient, if despotic, governments, how he dragged the powers on in pursuit of Napoleon after the battle of Leipsic and concluded the Treaty of Chaumont to drive Napoleon out, and later brought about the Holy Alliance.

The main body of the book deals with the reception of the Holy Alliance, its early policy, especially in relation to the establishment of monarchies in the American colonies, the congresses from Aixla-Chapelle to Troppau, and the announcement of the Monroe Doctrine.

In the preparation of this work Mr. Cresson, sometime secretary of the American embassy in Petrograd, has had the advantage of access to material never before open to the student, particularly in the Russian archives, where one would naturally expect to find the most valuable material relating to the Holy Alliance. He has also made use of other sources, both manuscript and printed, hitherto little used.

This is not a book for the casual reader, but for the scholar, especially those interested in the deeper intricacies of early nineteenth century diplomacy. Possibly some even of the latter class may be surprised to learn that the bringing of the United States into the Holy Alliance was ever seriously considered in Europe (58, 78, 81, 85, 87), even after the Alliance had started on the downward road of reaction and repression. It was because the powers hoped to take advantage of differences between the United States and Great Britain to offset the "preponderating influence of Great Britain."

Other things brought out in the book which are not matters of common knowledge are, the serious consideration given by the powers to the establishment of Bourbon dynasties in the Spanish colonies-Canning was not averse to this, but was unwilling to make it a condition of recognition; that the desire to acquire Florida

was not the only reason why the United States held up recognition of the Latin American states-some of the powers let it be known that they would "view in an unfavorable light the acknowledgment of the independence of the colonies at this time by the United States" (90); that there was a real fear in Europe of the future influence of the United States in European affairs (67, 79, 86).

The following quotation from the instructions of John Quincey Adams to Middleton, minister to Russia (1820), sounds as if it might have been written yesterday:

To stand in firm and cautious independence of all entanglements in the European system has been a cardinal point in their [United States'] policy from the peace of 1783 to this day.

Yet in proportion as the importance of the United States as one of the members of the general society of the civilized nations increases in the eyes of the others, the difficulties of maintaining this system and the temptations to depart from it increase and multiply.

The importance of Mr. Cresson's contribution to the scholarship of diplomacy has been very well summed up in the "Foreword" by Doctor James Brown Scott:

The value of this little work is out of all proportion to its size. It makes clear the aim and purpose of the Tsar, Alexander, in forcing the Holy Alliance upon his unwilling confederates, it shows the relation of the Monroe Doctrine to the Holy Alliance, and it enables the unprejudiced reader of the Old as well as the New World the better to understand both.

DAVID Y. THOMAS.

University of Arkansas.

KORFF, BARON SERGIUS A. Autocracy and Revolution in Russia. (New York: Macmillan Co., 1923.)

This book illustrates the advantage of a firsthand acquaintance with the subject under discussion. Baron Korff understands the people whom he is discussing his own people—and can speak with sympathy and discernment concerning their problems. His viewpoint is that of a liberal; and his book will doubtless be looked upon with equal distaste by the radical, who sees in Bolshevism the panacea for all social problems, and by the reactionary to whom the word Russia is still a red flag signifying danger and contamination. To both his definition of Bolshevism as a "pathological excrescence on the body of Revolution" should be of clarifying force. If one can get the viewpoint that the Revolution "has brought with it some improvements of the social order that have come to stay," and that Bolshevistic excesses are to be regarded in the same light as the unfortunate French Reign of Terror, then