42 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
definite plans to give employment to laborers during the season when there is a lack of employment elsewhere. This was one object which the government of Geneva had in view in entering upon the business of constructing tenement houses. If this business is left to the chance of private enterprise there will naturally be less regard for that most desirable item of continu- ous employment. Some of the cities have also established official boards to cooperate with private organizations to facilitate uniform employment.
This sort of official conduct, to our minds, naturally suggests paternalism. But this is a subject of which the Swiss seem hope- lessly ignorant. There is no word to express the idea, and tfre idea itself seems wholly lacking. Their idea of democracy excludes paternalism. How all the people acting together or through their own chosen agents can be paternal is something they entirely fail to comprehend. I found a university professor who knew the term as applied to monarchy but he regarded its application to democracy as irrelevant.
JESSE MACY.
PARIS, FRANCE.
