For a time democratic Athens was a veritable Bolshevist paradise. But when the ranks of the rich became depleted, when none cared longer to engage in any profitable industry, the public revenue fell until there was no money to support the happy idlers. The rich were tortured in the vain hope that they would produce hidden treasure; but the public treasury remained empty. This period of riotous profligacy followed the happy conclusion for Athens of the Theban war. When the Athenian proletariat discovered that the state was about to pass under the yoke of Philip they hunted down the remnant of the wealthy class that still remained, executed some, banished others and sold still others into slavery for "betraying the Athenian state and leaving it helpless before its enemies." Shortly afterwards Athens came under the despotism of Philip, who speedily conscripted this proletariat for forced labor. For a hundred years afterwards, however, Athenian writers in bewailing their loss of liberty blamed the fall of Athens upon the "rich," who failed to arm and equip a force to fight Philip. All the wisdom of her philosophers, all the art and learning whose loss the world still mourns, fell before the onslaught of this triumphant democracy. The culture of the few could not prevail against the greed of the many. Domestic conditions became so intolerable that a majority of the Athenians welcomed the stern but salutary rule of the tyrant. For they had learned that the tyranny of a despot is easier to be borne than that of universal poverty. One does not have to interrogate the future to learn whither Russia under Bolshevism is tending; one has but to look to the past. Like causes cannot produce unlike effects. Under given conditions national eclipses can be predicted as surely as the eclipses of the planets. _Los Angeles Times_, May 4, 1921. NAPOLEON'S CENTENNIAL The hundredth anniversary of the passing of Napoleon centers attention anew on one of the baffling figures of all time--a man at once attractive and repulsive; a soldier of infinite courage who on at least one occasion acted the coward; a master strategist who, to the last, seemed never to fully grasp that strategy by which he almost recast a world. He found Europe feudal and left it modern. He opened up new realms of knowledge to the servants; revolutionized military tactics; founded lasting industries; gave a new birth to French law; mocked and yet fostered freedom. More volumes have been written regarding him than any other character in history--one excepted. Nevertheless, he still remains the most elusive, the most unsatisfying genius that the world has ever known. His accomplishments have by this time been fully set forth and properly valued. We know that he stands practically alone as the greatest strategist of the ages. Cromwell, on a smaller scale and within a far more limited sphere, more nearly approaches him, perhaps, than does any other.