The Outlook 1914-06-13

Page 1

The Outlook JUNE 13, 1914 LYMAN ABBOTT Editor-in-Chief HAMILTON W. MABIE Associate Editor THEODORE ROOSEVELT Contributing Editor R. D. TOWNSEND Managing Editor THE ST. LAWRENCE RIVER TRAGEDY The most dreaded and the most common cause of marine disaster is fog. When a great ship like the Empress of Ireland is feel- ing her way in fog-covered waters, let her course or speed or signals be what they may, it is certain that her captain and his officers are alert, that they are straining ear and nerve for indications of approaching danger. Yet fog collisions or the wrecking on the coast of fog-bewildered vessels are constantly reported. Nothing is more deceptive to eye and ear than things half seen or sounds. imperfectly heard in a fog-laden atmosphere. Under such circumstances there may be perfectly honest misunderstanding of signals and shouted messages. ‘There may also be recklessness or stupidity or gross neglect. Which of these things was responsible for the destruction of the Canadian Pacific liner by the collier Storstad is to be the subject of rigid inquiry by a royal commission of inves- tigation. ‘The members of this commission will be Lord Mersey, chairman of the British commission which investigated the ‘Titanic disaster ; Justice Ezekiel McLeod, of New Brunswick; and Justice Routhier, of the Admiralty Court of Quebec; with George Vaux, representing the British Board of Trade, sitting as an advisory member. It is to be hoped that the commission will not only report as to responsibility and conduct, but will take up the ques- tion whether -anything can possibly be done to lessen the danger of collision in fog. Is the present signal-practice clear, simple, and uniform? Could there be added one or more other signals to advantage ? Have the maritime nations united in common action to insure uniform practice? Is there truth in the belief expressed by some experts that submarine bells can be used to signal from ship to ship, as well as from a stationary point to ships ? ‘The fog danger is so universal and terrible that human ingenuity and efficiency should be centered upon its solution. CONFLICTING STATEMENTS The public statements made by Captain Kendall, of the Empress of Ireland, and Cap- tain Anderson, of the Storstad, are in some points flatly contradictory, although it is pos- sible that some of the differences are explain- able. As in the sinking of the Monroe off the capes of Virginia, each captain had seen the other’s vessel before the fog settled down between them. The Empress had passed Rimouski, below Quebec, on her way to Liverpool. The Storstad was feeling her way up the river. It was about two o’clock in the morning of May 29. Captain Ken- dall’s story is that after the fog came down and the Storstad’s lights had disappeared he stopped his ship. What followed he thus describes : At the same time I blew three short blasts on the whistle, meaning, “ I am going full speea astern.” The Storstad answered with the whistle, giving many prolonged blasts. I looked over the side into the water and saw that my ship was stopped. I blew two long blasts, meaning, “ My ship was under way, but stopped, and has no way upon her.” He answered me again with one prolonged blast. It was very foggy. About two minutes afterward I saw his red and green lights. I shouted to him through the megaphone to go full speed astern; at the same time I put my engines full speed ahead, with my helm hard aport, with the object of avoiding, if possible, the shock. Almost at the same time he came right in and cut me down in a line between the funnels. After the collision Captain Kendall shouted through his megaphone demands that the prow of the Storstad be pushed and held in 321

Page 2

322 the break it had made, to keep the Empress from filling, but that no attention was paid to his call. Captain Anderson, of the Storstad, declares that he did try to hold the bow of his ship against the side of the Empress, but that the latter had such a headway as to twist the Storstad’s bow out of the hole. He de- clares that when he last saw the Empress before the collision she was going fast ahead and should have been well ahead of ‘his course. Upon the horrors that followed the crash- ing of the one ship into the other amidships it is not needful to dwell. The Empress filled and sank within twenty minutes. Many of the passengers went down in their state- rooms. Among those wno were lost were Laurence Irving, son of the famous actor Sir Henry Irving, and himself an actor of ability ; Sir Henry Seton-Karr, the explorer and hunter; and many Salvation Army delegates who were going to the great Army confer- ence in London. Seventeen citizens of the United States were lost. Altogether, the number of dead is put at 1,024+—less only in the records of marine calamities than the ‘Titanic’s loss of 1,595. Many of the bodies found showed injuries received from wreck- age or the collision, or perhaps in the strug- gle to escape to the upper deck. ‘That any of the Empress’s life-boats were launched at all was due to Captain Kendall’s quick action in rushing along and releasing their fastenings. By these boats many lives were saved. In every respect Captain Kendall, after the col- lision, acted with courage and decision ; his own life was saved by the barest margin. ‘The Storstad, her company’s public statement says, lowered every one of her boats and sent them to the rescue, although she was herself in danger of sinking. In the brief struggle for life and safety after the ship went down there were instances of heroism and helpful- ness, as well as touching and heartrending cases of separation and suffering. SAFETY AT SEA Beyond the deep sympathy of ‘he whole world for the survivors who have endured such disaster and for those who are stricken by the loss of friends and relatives, there should be a fixed determination to press to action the question of safety at sea, now that the public’s attention is fixed on the subject. ‘The ‘Titanic’s loss stirred public sentiment to the point of forcing legislation, and something THE OUTLOOK 13 June was accomplished; but, if we are not greatly mistaken, there is need of something further. Ilowever this particular disaster may have been caused, whether the blame is to be laid on one man’s recklessness or stupidity, or is to be divided, is for the court of inquiry to determine, and public opinion should be slow to condemn until that determination is made. But we can all insist that steps be taken to secure proper construction of ships (double hulls and longitudinal compartments for monster passenger ships ought to be obliga- tory), proper fitting of ships with safety apparatus and boats, proper drill and training for officers and men, and a due and reasona- ble proportion of seamen on every ship whose competency to handle life-boats and ropes has been tested. The La Follette Bill, which has passed the Senate, ought to be taken up at once in the lower house. If it is defective or wrong-headed, let it be improved or amended. If another commission is neces- sary to find out what we ought to do about safety at sea, let it be appointed. ‘The one thing not to do is to let questions upon which thousands of lives may depend go unsolved, and indifference take the place of action. WHAT KIND OF MEXICAN MEDIATION IS POSSIBLE? Whether the mediation at Niagara Falls had met a temporary obstruction or whether it had reached an zmpasse seemed an open question last week. ‘The question whether the Constitutionalists should be admitted to the conference or whether they were willing to enter the conferences except under such con- ditions as would make real mediation for the future of Mexico impossible was the stum- bling-block. The plan which had all but reached acceptance was, in brief, as currently reported, that Huerta should appoint a Cabinet Minister acceptable to the United States and the Mediators, should then resign, and let this Minister take his place as Provis- ional President, with a cabinet or commission of four members also acceptable to all con- cerned ; a constitutional election under guar- antees of fairness would follow. It will be noted that Huerta himself took the reins of power under precisely the same method now proposed, and that therefore the legality of the position of his successor under this plan would rest on the action of a ruler whose claim we have refused to recognize, although

Page 3

1914 that claim was based on the same alleged constitutional process now proposed. Underlying the whole question of media- tion is the unescapable and basic fact that to bring about a recognized government, with a sound political condition and reform in the land-hoiding and other vital questions, the United States must either take and hold con- trol itself or must secure united action by the two great factions into which Mexico is divided. ‘To establish with Huerta’s consent a provisional government in central and southern Mexico while Carranza’s forces hold the vast territory to the north and are unwilling to work with Huerta or any one deriving power from him seems hopeless. A public: statement by the Mexican dele- gates at Niagara last week declared that General Huerta’s personality would not prove an obstacle to the reaching of a satisfactory conclusion, and that neither mistaken pride nor personal interest would prevent Huerta’s withdrawal on condition that ‘“* Mexico shall be politically pacified, and the government succeeding his shall be such as to count on the acquiescence of the governed and on the support of public opinion, which constitute the real basis for peace and stability in any country.” It is significant, however, that the dele- gates declared that Huerta would not con- sider anything which could hurt the sover- eignty of the Mexican nation or be construed as an imposition from outside. ‘This, they hastened to add, would not necessarily pre- clude the interior pacification of Mexico. On the other hand, General Carranza, who appears to be setting up a form of govern- ment which would make him nominally Presi- dent of Mexico, has not shown willingness to mediate on Mexico’s internal affairs nor to enter into an armistice during mediation. Our Government is anxious that the Con- stitutionalists should be represented in the mediation; but the Mediators representing the A BC countries seem unwilling to admit Carranza’s representatives on terms so im- practicable.as to make any agreement reached impossible of execution. The desirability of laying an embargo upon arms and ammunition sent to Mexican. ports from the United States was under considera- tion last week. As it stands, the Constitu- tionalists can import arms through Tampico and the Federals through Puerto Mexico and west coast ports. ‘Io put a blockade on these ports during the armistice would be THE -WEEK 323 objected to as an act of war or as invading the trade rights of foreign nations. ‘The President could, however, issue an embargo forbidding arms to be shipped from the United States, and as the importation of arms into Mexico certainly will not aid a peaceful solution of Mexican questions, and as there is great fear that these arms might, if negotiations fail, be used against the United: States, the argument for an embargo is a strong one. THE LAKE MOHONK CONFERENCE The twentieth annual Conference at Lake Mohonk for the promotion of international arbitration in three respects marked an ad- vance over previous conferences. The attend- ance was larger than ever before, and the capacity of the great hotel was fully tested. Estimates of the relative expense of a battle- ship and a university and graphic pictures of the horrors of the battlefield were absent from the discussions. ‘The men who occu- pied the attention of the Conference were largely men eminent for their expert knowl- edge of international law, and the papers read were chiefly devoted to giving those present either accurate information as to what. had been done to promote the substitu- tion of the appeal to reason for the appeal to force, or to telling them what were the next steps to be taken to secure this desirable consummation. It is impossible, within the limits of a para- graph, to give any general report of the meet- ings, which lasted throughout two days, and it is difficult to make selection from among so many noteworthy contributions to the general cause. Among them two especially attracted the attention of the auditors. One of these was a paper by Sefor Don Federico Alfonso Pezet, the Peruvian Minister to the United States. In substance it was the same as that which he delivered before the Clark University Conference last fall. It was rumored that this paper is to be printed for special distribution. We hope that this rumor is true. It deserves much wider reading than it will get in the pub- lished proceedings of the Conference. In it the author contrasted the immigrants to North America and to South America, the first, coming hither to build homes, and bringing with them the elements of free government ; the others, coming to conquer and exploit, and bringing with them the despotic ideas of medizval Spain. The paper would have

Page 4

324 been remarkable coming from any author, and was doubly remarkable coming from a representative of Peru. The publication and wide reading of this paper in both North and South America would do much to pro- mote a better mutual understanding between the two continents. MR. MOORE AND ARBITRATION ‘The other noteworthy contribution was the opening address of the presiding officer, the Hon. John Bassett Moore. He recognized the practical advance which has been made towards the pacific settlement of international disputes during the twenty years since this Lake Mohonk Conference was called into existence. But he regarded the general arbitration treaty submitted to the United States Senate in 1903, amended by the Senate, withdrawn from the Senate because of that amendment, but finally resubmitted and adopted in 1908, as a decidedly back- ward step. This treaty, our readers may remember, provided for the submission of all differ- ences of a legal nature to the Permanent Court of Arbitration established at ‘The Hague, * provided, nevertheless, that they do not affect the vital interests, the inde- pendence, or the honor of the two countries, and do not concern the interests of third parties.” ‘lhe Senate amendment provided that in each case of such submission the special agreement defining the matter in dis- pute must be submitted to and approved by the Senate. Said Dr. amendment was to Moore: *'The effect of this require a new treaty to be made before any question could be submitted to arbitration.” ‘lhe effect of these treaties, our readers may remember, we characterized at the time as being sol- emnly to agree that, if any question arose between us and the other party to the treaty, we would submit it to arbitration if, when the question arose, we agreed to submit it to arbitration. We thought at the time that such a treaty was valueless, ex- cept as an expression of opinion in favor of arbitration. Dr. Moore made it clear that it was worse than valueless. ‘* The result of this action,” he said, ‘is that, so far as the United States is concerned, it is in practice more difficult to secure international arbitra- tion than it was in the early days of: our independence.” And he proceeded:te demon- THE OUTLOOK 12 June strate the truth of this statement by a series of historical incidents illustrating the truth that prior to these treaties questions were submitted to arbitration by our Executive without any previous reference of the matter to the action of the Senate. In our judgment, the next step to be taken in this movement for substituting judicial pro- ceedings for war as a means of settling inter- national disputes is the creation of a permanent judicial tribunal, corresponding to the Inter- national Prize Court, which was provisionally established at the last Hague Conference, and then the gradual formation of the habit of referring all international disputes as they arise to this tribunal without any attempt beforehand to define what questions may and what questions may not be submitted to it. An international habit of submission to arbitration will prove much more valuable than the general declaration of a purpose to submit hedged about with a great variety of qualifications and exceptions. ON SECOND THOUGHT Consistency has been variously regarded as a jewel and as the bugbear of little minds. By popular opinion. it has been placed high in the catalogue of political virtues. Often, indeed, a politician is given more credit for staying wrong than for even the sincerest of eleventh-hour conversions. A man divided against himself has little standing with Mr. Average Citizen. Perhaps because it is so mentally convenient to have our public men stay ‘‘ put”! President Wilson recently experienced the fire of criticism which comes to every man who ‘changes his mind.” ‘The occasion was not of international importance ; but it brought forth considerable comment from the press and from those most directly concerned. Certainly it can be said without fear of con- tradiction that the President’s actions were not extraordinarily tactful. Here is the story in brief of the President’s misadventure : Some time ago the President accepted an invitation to speak at the reunion of Confed- erate veterans on June 6. ‘There followed an invitation from the Grand Army of the Republic to deliver the Memorial Day address at Arlington Cemetery. This second invitation the President declined. ‘hen came a storm of adverse comment, to which the President apparently yielded. On the morning of Memorial Day itself a statement was issued

Page 5

1914 THE from the White House which reads as follows : When the invitation was extended by the committee representing the Grand Army of the Republic of the District of Columbia, the Presi- dent informed the committee that he did not think the occasion would be opportune for the delivery of an appropriate address, and because of this he felt that he must decline the invita- tion, agreeing, however, to attend a memorial service ata later date. Evidently a false con- struction has been placed upon his action, and therein lies the reason for the change of pro- gramme. The President was not willing that his absence should be misconstrued. In the interval between the President’s first declination and his acceptance the com- mittee in charge invited the Speaker of the House, Mr. Champ Clark; to deliver the chief address. ‘The President’s acceptance, while putting Mr. Clark, of course, in second place upon the programme, gave him a tactical advantage, which he was not slow to accept. The combination of the aftermath of the Baltimore Convention, which Mr. Clark has by no means forgotten, and the resentment felt by the Grand Army veterans for what they regarded as a tardy and somewhat doubtful reparation for an unnecessary slight, made the President’s position an em- barrassing one. As a natural result, so far as applause and popular reception were con- cerned, the Speaker of the Hause carried off the honors. of the day. The fact that Mr. Clark’s star-spattered speech was distinctly inferior to that of the President had appar- ently little influence with the audience. While it is unfortunate to have the motives of any man misunderstood, an appearance of irresolution and of bowing to political press- ure is not the surest method of having one’s statement of motives accepted at its face value. THE BALKAN ATROCITIES The report of the Commission sent last year by the Carnegie Peace Endowment into the Balkan Peninsula to investigate the al- leged atrocities is interesting reading. It carefully distinguishes the atrocities of the first war from those of the second. In the first war the atrocities were committed by Turks, and then by Christian inhabitants of Macedonia, rather than by the Balkan regular troops. ‘Fhe Macedonians had been When they saw downtrodden for centuries. WEEK 325 a day of judgment coming, they took advan- tage of it to hasten affairs by giving horrible vent to their pent-up feelings. But when the second war broke out, in which by a fatuous policy Bulgaria pitted herself against Servia and Greece, a frenzy seemed to have seized upon all the combatants. The atrocities of these wars take us back to the most somber days of the Middle Ages, or even to the times of the Assyrian con- quests. Ostensibly the Balkan wars were for the deliverance of Macedonia, and yet in Macedonia the inhabitants themselves com- mitted fearful atrocities, and they were fol- lowed in the second war by the soldiers of the Balkan States. ‘Fhey alk showed them- selves forgetful of the most elementary rules of justice, despite the fact that in its begin- ning no war seemed more justified by noble motives than did the first Balkan conflict. No matter what the selfish calculations of politicians, says the report, a sincere enthusi- asm then animated the soldiers, who ran to aid their brothers oppressed under an intol- erable yoke. In this spirit, Montenegrins, Servians, Bulgarians, and Greeks were ac- claimed as liberators by the Christian popu- lations of Macedonia and Epirus. From this condition there was a swift descent to cupid- ity, pitiless cruelty, a forgetfulmess of natural regard for the child, the weakling, or the wounded, abolition of all respect for woman, a blind fury for destruction simply for the sake of destruction—in a word, the exalta- tion of all the evil passions, ordinarily disci- plined by social restraints, but which break out when the social order is dislocated and make the human beast appear far below the brute. BULGARIANS AND GREEKS In weighing the charges made by the Greeks against the Bulgarians, and by the Bul- garians against the Greeks, it appears that the Greeks suppressed mentionof the provocation which the inhabitants may have given to the Bulgarians, that the Bulgarians’ accountissilent as to the manner im which their own reprisals were carried out, that both narratives contain inaccuracies, and that neither of them tells more than a part of the truth. The Com- mission concludes that the Bulgarians acted under some provocation, but that their reprisals were mone the less lawless and unmeasured, and that the Greek troops gave themselves up openly to a debauch of lust and killed many peasants. wantonly and without provo-

Page 6

326 THE OUTLOOK 13 June cation, burning their homes and destroying their villages. The Commission also exposes some false reports. For instance, the commissioners found the Greek bishops of Doiran, Kavalla, and Serres in perfect health; and yet the Greek press had announced, with pathetic details, the massacre of these prelates. In general, the Balkan reports exaggerated the number of victims, of houses burned, of ex- tortionate sums of money demanded. The report concludes that no Balkan State seemed to know how to make the laws and customs of modern warfare respected; in- deed, there was no clause of international law relating to land warfare or to the treat- ment of the wounded not violated by every one of the belligerents. And yet these bel- ligerents were signatories to the Hague Treaty ! ““LANGLEY'S FOLLY” FLIES One of the great tragedies of science was summed up in the despatch from Ham- mondsport, New York, announcing that * Langley’s Folly,” under the skillful man- agement of Mr. Glenn H. Curtiss, had made a very brief but successful flight. Mr. Curtiss, it is announced, now hopes to continue his experiments with the Langley aerodrome on a much larger scale. It will be remembered that Samuel Pierpont Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institu- tion, was one of the great pioneers in the art of aeronautics. He was the first to establish scien- tifically the principles upon which the propul- sion of a plane surface through the air has since been successfully accomplished. Fol- lowing his experiments at Allegheny, which demonstrated the practicability of mechanical flight, the construction of a flying-machine was attempted. In 1893 a model built in ac- cordance with the laws which he had discov- ered was completed. It was not until May, 1896, however, that the first successful flight of this model was made. On that day his “ aerodrome,” weighing about thirty pounds and ‘measuring about sixteen feet in length, with wings twelve and thirteen feet from tip to tip, was flown for one minute and a half— the full period for which it was supplied with fuel and water. By 1903 the full-sized aero- plane which Mr. Curtiss has now flown was built and ready for launching into the air. ‘Then occurred the series of mechanical trag- edies which nearly cost the life of Mr. Man- ley, the engineer who had invented the light steam-engine with which the aeroplane was equipped, and which brought down upon Professor Langley’s head the storm of de- rision and abuse that made Congress feel it impossible or impolitic for it longer to con- tribute to the support of his experiments. Langley died in 1906, believing that he had invented a successful aeroplane, but unable to prove his case in the court of popular judgment. While scientists and aviators have accorded to Professor Langley full credit for the dis- covery of the laws of flight, in recording this tardy vindication of his practical experiments it must not be forgotten that in December, 1903, just nine days after the final failure of Professor Langley’s apparatus, the Wright brothers made four flights in a motor-driven biplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, one of them of half a mile in a brisk wind: The Wright machine in no wise resembled Pro- fessor Langley’s tandem plane flying-machine. The inherent difference between the system adopted by the Wrights and that adopted by Professor Langley is summed up in a state- ment made by Mr. Wilbur Wright in 1908, which we quote from a recent issue of the New York *‘ Sun :” Langley and other experimenters had favored wings set at a dihedral angle—that is, each slant- ing upward from the center, where they joined. They hoped by this means to secure a stable equilibrium. We believed that this device would work well in still air, but that in the shifting, troubled air of outdoors it would add to the danger of turning over. ... We curved our wings down a little at the tips, after the fashion of the soaring gull—a rough-weather bird. . . . They were made of cloth fixed to two rectangu- lar wooden frames, fastened one above the other by wooden braces and wires. The cloth surfaces were arched by ribs between these frames to secure the curved surfaces of birds’ wings, which Lilienthal had shown were essen- tial to the best results in flying. The flight of Professor Langley’s original machine over Lake Keuka detracts in no way from the achievement of the Wright brothers ; but it furnishes a striking commen- tary upon the patience, courage, and the genius of its inventor. GOLF IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE The victory in 1913 of Francis Ouimet over the veteran golfers Ray and Vardon gave America hope that perhaps once more she might have a chance of winning the Blue a no = es Pew OO wm es oe

Page 7

1914 THE Ribbon of the golfing world—the champion- ship of England. With this hope in mind, ten of our best golfers went this year to England. Only once before has an Ameri- can won this title, and, apparently, from the lack of success which attended our ten emis- saries, the hope of repeating the solitary vic- tory of Mr. Walter J. Travis is still remote. Invaders are always at a tactical disadvan- tage, as Ray and Vardon found out last year when, with all the strength of their profes- sional prestige, they were finally forced to acknowledge defeat at the hands of a boy still in his early twenties. Unfamiliarity with the grounds, strange environment, and over- whelming predominance of home players make a victory on foreign soil a noteworthy event. ‘There seems to be no other explana- tion, however, of the early defeat of all our best in this last British tournament than that British golf is stillon a higher general level than that of its American cousin. In this English tournament, of the ten Americans who started, Jerome D. Travers, whose picture, together with that of Francis Ouimet, appears else- where in this issue, was beaten in the first day’s play. Francis Ouimet survived until the third round, and on the fourth day Charles W. Evans and Harold Webber, the last American survivors, were forced out of the contest. The English championship was won by a compara- tively unknown Scotch golfer, Mr. Jenkins. As some consolation for the loss of the British championship, it may be recorded that Francis Ouimet later won the champion- ship of France. Golf in France is, of course, on no such substantial basis as in England and Scotland; but the result of the French tournament may be made a_ subject of gratulation when it is added that the final round was a strictly American affair. In this our open champion had as his rival Francis J. Topping, of Connecticut, who had previ- ously defeated both Evans and ‘l'ravers. It is to be hoped that England will send a strong delegation of her players to take part in the American amateur championship this summer. If we cannot defeat England on her home ground, it would at least be pleas- ant to return her favor in kind on this side of the Atlantic. THE PRESBYTERIAN CENERAL ASSEMBLY AT CHICAGO Presbyterians pride themselves on the democratic form of their governing body. As a matter of fact, two-thirds of the churches WEEK 327 of the Presbyterian denomination are in places of less than 2,500 population, whereas two-thirds of the membership of the entire Church is in places of more than 2,500 pop- ulation. Now representation in the General Assembly is based not upon the membership of the Church, but upon the number of min- isters in the Church. ‘Thus one-third of the membership of the Church elected two-thirds of the commissioners. This means that the rural districts dominated the Presbyterian Assembly recently held at Chicago. This fact accounts in a measure, perhaps, for the conservative attitude of the Assembly. The frontier missionary who came to the Assembly saw the city problem in the terms of the country town; and he could not grasp the necessity for a big movement in the city which demands not only statesmanship of a high order, but the expenditure of compara- tively large sums of money in order to suc- ceed in the midst of problems which are often staggering. Little criticism, however, can be made of the Assembly as non-repre- sentative of all types and conditions of men or on the ground that it was in spirit undemo- cratic. The following figures will indicate the make-up of the laymen in the Assembly : Farmers, 91; merchants, 40; business men, 24; lawyers, 20; doctors, 16 ; bankers, 13; clerks, 11; ranchmen, 11; retired, 11; manufacturers, 8; real estate dealers, 8; agents, 7; teachers, 6; lumbermen, 6; pub- lishers, 4; postmen, 4; salesmen, 4; editors, 4; grocers, 4; carpenters, 4; professors, 3 ; insurance, 3; machinists, 3; barbers, 3; print- ers, 3 ; secretaries, 3; bookkeepers, 3. There were two of each of the following : druggists, dentists, capitalists, railway men, inspectors, civil service, undertakers, and nurserymen. There was one of each of these: porter, baker, carpet-fitter, miller, coal dealer, mechan- ical engineer, contractor, abstractor, collector, locomotive engineer, social center director, florist, freight agent, mine-owner, superin- tendent of county schools, manager, janitor, collector of revenue, grain dealer, missionary, blacksmith, laborer, postal clerk, civil engi- neer, university president. One man was scheduled as an ‘“‘ invalid.” Eighty-two gave no occupations, but in nearly every case these were business men in big cities. If one were to include the farmers as ‘“‘ workingmen ”— although many of these were undoubtedly men of some wealth—it is probable that about one-third of the lay commissioners were workingmen. Even though some of those

Page 8

328 THE OUTLOOK 13 June who call themselves “‘ machinists,” or “ print- ers,” or “railway men,’ may be owners of plants or business enterprises, it is reasonable to suppose that the proportion of mechanics and laborers in the Church had their fair share of representation in this General Assem- bly. This situation was rather surprising, for it has always been said that the courts of the Church are dominated by professional and business men who are out of touch with the life of the common people. As one looked over the list of commissioners, it was appar- ent that there were comparatively few lay- men of National reputation among them. Not many of the ministers had reputations beyond their own denomination, and there were comparatively few who were prominent even in this field. ‘The Assembly was made up. for the most part, of the hard-working mass of men who are doing things unobserved and unheralded. THE TEMPER OF THE ASSEMBLY The election of the Moderator, Dr. Mait- land Alexander, of Pittsburgh, was one of the most unusual in the history of the Assembly. When the last Assembly pulled Dr. John ‘Timothy Stone out of the front seat—dressed in a gray suit he had bought that morning in Atlanta because he wanted to get away from all formality and be comfortable—and made him Moderator, it was because the commis- sioners had become tired of politics and wanted to deal a smashing blow to the poli- ticians who had come to the Assembly after months of wire-pulling. While a few men played politics in Chicago in a small way, it is fair to say that politics had very little to do with the election of Dr. Alexander. Four or five other candidates had been mentioned, and it was fully expected that each of them would be nominated; but immediately fol- lowing Dr. Samuel J. Niccolls’s speech in which he presented the name of Dr. Alex- ander, Dr. Aquilla Webb, of Louisville, who was his chief opponent, seconded the nomi- nation. ‘There were no further nominations. By a unanimous and a rising vote Dr. Alex- ander was swept into the Moderator’s chair. The commissioners voted enthusiastically in disapproval of “all secular uses of the Sab- bath, including all games and sports in civil life and in the army and navy.” Some of them hissed a speaker who advocated that the word “ commercialized” be inserted be- fore the word “ games.” “ If you insert that u word, it will open wide the gate to all other kinds of amusement on the Lord’s Day,” said one of the commissioners. Several ministers protested against the Assembly’s action, saying that such interpretation of the Scriptural injunction simply led to crime and anarchy. ‘They pleaded for the working peo- ple to whom they individually ministered, declaring that they would by no means com- mit themselves to. the wholesale denunciation of Sunday recreation. When the Assembly finally voted upon the question and passed the resolution—without the insertion of the word ‘commercial ”’—almost unanimously, there was hearty applause by the commis- sioners. . The report of the committee having under consideration the relation of the Assembly to Union Theological Seminary was a disappoint- ment. After serving eleven months, it sim- ply asked for a continuation until next year, when the chairman, Dr. Mark Matthews, of Seattle, promised to bring in “a complete and final report.” During the whole course of the Assembly there seemed small chance for any kind of liberal candidate or policy if the question under consideration was theological. THE ASSEMBLY AND SOCIAL SERVICE It was gratifying to record, however, that the Assembly did make an advance in regard to some social questions from the position taken by the Assembly held in Atlanta a year ago. At Chicago it was voted unanimously and without a single speech in opposition to stand by the Board of Home Missions in its social service programme. ‘The action of the Assembly in this particular was second only to the remarkable election of the Moderator. For anentire year certain groups throughout the Church have been formulating an attack upon the Board, although it had lost something of its momentum by the time it reached the Assembly in Chicago. ‘* Some people have come here to-day to see a fight, but there won’t be any fight,” said Dr. Edgar P. Hill, of Chicago, when he made his speech in the name of the Board. And he was right. There probably were some reasons for some of the criticisms of the Board, but the com- mittee in considering the entire subject felt that neither the committee nor the Assembly could afford to get into a discussion of petty details. It pointed the way toward the big, broad road and told the Board to walk in it.

Page 9

1914 THE If the Board fails to make the best of its chance during the coming year, then the next Assembly will deal sharply with it. Practi- cally an entire reorganization of the Board was planned by the Assembly. An, indication of the drawing together of the various boards in the Church was mani- fested in the suggestion offered by Dr. Arthur J. Brown, Secretary of the Foreign Board. This board at the close of the year had a debt of nearly nearly $300,000 resting upon it. A committee of strong men was asked for to raise enough money to clear this indebted- ness. ‘* Why not have the same committee raise the money needed by the Board of Home Missions ? It is in debt about $97,000,”’ said. Dr. Brown. Such a committee was ap- pointed, the Moderator acting as chairman. A few years ago such a thing would have been next to impossible, for it was thought that these two big boards of the Church—one representing the work in the United States, and the other the work in foreign coun- tries—were rivals because they were so zealous “to do the Lord’s work.” This co-operation between Home and Foreign Mission Boards is a form of progress which both conservatives and liberals can welcome. A NEW UNIVERSITY For many years past a good many Meth- odists in this country have been interested in the plan of founding a university in Wash- ington, and the plan has now matured and borne fruit. A very fine site on the hills northwest of the city has been purchased, and two buildings of white marble—a Hall of History and a Hall of Philosophy—have been completed. ‘The new institution is to be called the American University. In view of the long agitation looking to the founding of a university at Washington which should have behind it the support of the Nation, it was a mistake, in the judg- ment of The Outlook, to use the word ‘** American” in connection with the new in- stitution. ‘The American University in Wash- ington certainly conveys the impression that the institution is National fn the strict sense of the word. This criticism is made without any reflection on the spirit or character of the new university. ‘The use of the word “ American,” like the use of the flag, needs to be guarded; in our judgment, the word “ American” ought to be reserved for a possible American university. At the dedication President Wilson made 329 some interesting remarks. He described the inauguration of the University as ‘a great adventure of the mind, an adventure of the immortal part of us, which, if it do its work as it should be done, may leave its mark upon mankind for all time.’”’ He declared that he did not know of any fight which is more heartening than fighting for the ideals of scholarship ; that he had never pretended that you could make a scholar in four years, and he quoted a Yale friend who said that, after teaching for twenty years, he had come to the conclusion that the human mind had ‘an infinite body of resources for resisting the introduction of knowledge, and that it takes considerably more than four years to break down the defenses and begin the high enterprise of scholarship.” ‘The President expressed the hope that there would be lec- turers in the new University who can interpret life, and recalled Carlyle’s description of Teufelsdréckh, ‘ professor of things in gen- eral,’”’ declaring that nobody can be a suc- cessful professor of anything in particular unless he is also a professor of things in general, because unless he knows how the thing he is teaching is related to other things he does not know anything about it. ‘This definition, it is to be feared, would exclude a great many teachers in all fields of educa- tion; and, it may be added, a good many men in public life as well. WEEK THE JACOB RIIS PARK One of the last things that Jacob Riis did was to write an article called *‘ The Story of Sea Breeze.” It was published in The Outlook for the 9th of May, just before he died. All his life Jacob Riis followed the guidance of his big heart, and it led him to all kinds of service for his fellow-men; but those who knew him best realize that the service from which he got the greatest hap- piness was that which he rendered to chil- dren, and Sea Breeze is a monument to this special kind of service which he rendered to the children of New York City. That article tells the story better than we can tell it here. It is enough to say that the outcome of it is a park by the sea where children whom the city slums have inflicted with crippling forms of tuberculosis will find hope for recovery, and where wage-earners convalescing from illness will find recupera- tion hastened. In the issue of ‘The Outlook for last week Mr. Roosevelt incorporated in his tribute to ?

Page 10

330 his friend Jacob Riis the suggestion that this park be called the Jacob Riis Park. We hope that the city will honor itself by giving the park this name. The idea has occurred to many of Jacob Riis’s fellow-citizens who have known what he did for the children of the city. A community is judged by what it prizes ; and New York will do honor to itself, and we believe will truthfully give expression to its own sense of value, if in this way it shows how it prizes the memory of such a man. RAILWAY WORK IN ALASKA Three men have been appointed to take charge of the locating work in preparation for the construction by our Government of rail- ways in Alaska. The men are William C. Edes and Thomas Riggs, Jr. (whose por- traits appear on another page), and Frederick Mears. Mr. Edes was formerly chief engineer of the Northwestern Pacific Railway in Califor- nia, and for the last twenty-five years has been the chief locating engineer in the railway work of the Santa Fé and Southern Pacific lines. Mr. Riggs has been connected with the Coast and Geodetic Survey. He was one of the chief engineers in the surveying work of the Alaskan-Canadian boundary ; he sur- veyed the Alaskan boundary line from the Pacific coast to the Arctic Ocean. Lieutenant Mears is a cavalry officer in the army. He is the only man from the army appointed for this work. For some time he has been employed in the Canal Zone; he was chief engineer of the Panama Railway, and was recommended for advancement by Colonel Goethals. He has also had civil ex- perience as an engineer on the Great Northern and Rock Island systems; in the former as an engineer under the guidance of John F. Stevens, then as chief engineer of that road. It is interesting to note that when the re- location of the Panama road was under- taken he was assigned to the work by the same John F. Stevens, who had become Chairman and Chief Engineer of the Isthmian Canal Commission. The above appointments were made by President Wilson, but were not confirmed by the Senate, as Senate action is not required. A joint resolution, however, was passed by Congress, giving the President special author- THE OUTLOOK 13 June ity to appoint Lieutenant Mears to his new work, A FRENCH HEROINE Mme. Poulain, the wife of a signalman on a French railway, would certainly receive a Carnegie hero medal if she were in this country. Her husband had charge of a signal- box on the outskirts of St. Denis, a suburb of Paris, and was on guard from six at night until six in the morning, while his wife was on duty the other twelve hours. He had just signaled the 3:3 train in the morning and was waiting in his little cabin to hear the 3:15 express go by, when he was shot. His cry for help. and the barking of his dog awoke Mme. Poulain, who sprang from her bed, threw on a wrapper, and crossed from her little house to the signal-box close by, and found her husband lying across the threshold. He was only able to say, ‘‘ Some one has shot me,” before he lost consciousness. She ran for water, lighted a lamp, and while bathing her husband’s face heard the whistle of the 3:15. She sprang from her husband’s side, set the signals which permitted the train to pass, made the proper entry in the record book, and returned to her husband. Several people came to her aid, an express for Paris was stopped, and the wounded man placed in a compartment. He died before reaching the Nord Station in Paris. Mme. Poulain continued the service throughout the night, signaling and entering each train, At six o’clock, when she had finished her duties, she went to the Nord Station and fainted beside her husband’s body. Her heroic devotion to duty has evoked enthusiasm throughout France, and there is a general demand that she be decorated with the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. Cer- tainly that ribbon, so coveted by Frenchmen, could not be more worthily bestowed. SATURDAY CLOSING It is a satisfaction to chronicle the estab- lishment of a liberal-closing policy adopted for the summer ménths by a number of the large department stores in New York City— such stores as Altman’s, McCreery’s, Lord & Taylor’s, Wanamaker’s, Vantine’s, Bonwit Teller’s, and Franklin Simon’s. . Those which have previously closedat noon on Saturday dur- ing July and August will now close for the en- tireday. For the month of August only other establishments, such as Oppenheim & Collins’s.

Page 11

Ww al- er id “A 1S 1e 1914 THE will close all day. One department store will even close at four o’clock on Friday, so as to give its employees a chance to get well into the country on that day, and thus have two clear days away from the city. This policy is not the result of any sudden movement. It is in line with the steady progress made towards this end by enlight- ened department-store managers during the past two years. ‘These managers have real- ized that, to take the problem at its very lowest rating, such a course as the present would increase the efficiency of the workers for the time when they are actually at work far more than would be any loss to the business by reasons of an all-day closing on Saturday. Of course, relaxation from work for two con- secutive days, with the certainty that this is to continue weekly throughout the summer, will act as a tonic on the health and spirits of the workers. In order to make the policy effective, there should be co-operation on the part of shoppers. Most of them can make their Saturday morn- ing purchases on other days of the week. And most of those who order goods from a dis- tance can, if they will, refrain from sending mail requests to the stores at the end of the week. Perhaps nothing has occurred in which the altruistic and humane as well as the prudent business elements are more evident than in the Saturday-closing movement. THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF ARTS Six years ago, in Washington, the Ameri- can Federation of Arts was formed. Its aim was to bring into closer relationship the art interests of the country. It has just held its fifth annual Conven- tion, and the meeting took place in Chicago. The delegates represented art museums, as- sociations of painters, sculptors, architects and craftsmen, art societies, and clubs. It is worth while to note what the Federa- tion is doing. During the past year it has sent out no less than twenty-three traveling exhibitions. ‘hey have gone to a hundred and fourteen cities and towns, covering the whole country. Some of the exhibitions have been valued at over fifty thousand dollars each. An aggregate of three hundred thousand persons has visited these exhibi- tions. This in the first place. In the second, the Federation has kept in constant circulation WEEK 331 seven illustrated lectures on art. In the third place, we would again call attention to the Federation’s monthly illustrated maga- zine, ‘“* Art and Progress.”” It, as well as the foregoing factors, has done much for the upbuilding of a more intelligent and wide- spread appreciation of art. Senator Root, one of the organizers of the Federation, recently pointed out the value of art to the individual because of the ennobling influence of a love of beauty. He expressed our own conviction that “from the cultiva- tion of taste and the opportunities for its enjoyment will come a material increase of happiness for the people of America.”” Some of the increase will be due to the work of the Federation of Arts. WORK AMONG THE LUMBERMEN Few persons realize what the Young Men’s Christian Association is doing for the lum- bermen in New England and the Far North- west, among the white pines of the Middle West, among the yellow pines and the cypress swamps of the Gulf Coast, and in the Far West. Every one knows that lumbering, like every other modern industry, demands the maximum of all-round efficiency, and that to this end machinery must be kept at the top notch. But machinery represents only a_ part of the cost of producing lumber: two- thirds of that cost is represented by labor. Hence the lumber operators will welcome whatever increases the efficiency of labor. Labor is efficient where the laborers are happy. ‘To make them happy there must be co-operation between employer and em- ployees. ‘The Industrial Department of the Young Men’s Christian Association has established in many sections a building, usually pro- vided by the emplover, who generally adds an annual maintenance contribution. ‘The employees, on their part, voluntarily bear some of the cost and responsibility of the work. In these buildings varying phases of life are included; the buildings are equipped with social and game rooms, a reading-room and library, a gymnasium and swimming-pool. baths and _ bowling-alleys, and a motion-picture outfit. The dozen or more buildings already erected—some of them architecturally worth while, too—and the work which they are doing make one

Page 12

realize the many-sided character of the Young Men’s Christian Association. TRUST LAWS AND LABOR A great deal of misunderstanding and con- fusion is likely to arise when any measures are proposed affecting labor organizations. That is partly due to the fact that the old relation of master and servant no longer exists and can no longer exist in our great industries, and yet the law regarding em- ployer and employee is based on that old individualistic relation. Consequently labor legislation must in its nature be radical in the sense that it must go to the roots of things, for the great industrial change has been radical. At this time, when Congress has been considering two important measures affecting labor unions, there has therefore arisen a great deal of misunderstanding and confusion. ‘The two measures to which we refer are two provisions in the so-called anti-trust bills. Both of these provisions have been de- nounced as class legislation, as attempts to give special privileges to labor unions, as efforts to placate the wage-working voters by special legislation placing them outside the reach of lawful authority. As a matter of fact, whatever defects there may be in the phraseology, both of these provisions are attempts to render the law consistent with the change in industrial conditions. One of these provisions is designed to exempt labor unions and farmers’ associations from the operation of the Sherman Anti- Trust Law. Whether it does so there seems to be some doubt. We do not wish to be- lieve that the President or any member of Congress acquiesced in the passage of this provision on the ground that it did not really accomplish what it purports to accomplish. The real object of the provision is justifiable in both common sense and morals, and its passage without a dissenting vote ought to, if it does not, represent the recognition of the House of Representatives, without regard to politics, of the fact that labor unions ought not to be prosecuted under the Anti-Trust Law. ‘The effort of Congress in a former session to enact such a provision by means of a ‘rider ’’ on an appropriation bill was a subterfuge that deserved condemnation. The enactment of this provision in the open as an essential part of a trust measure, after full 332 THE OUTLOOK discussion, is in comparison soupageems and deserves commendation: Why should labor unions be exempted from prosecution under the Anti-Trust Law? Everybody recognizes that the laws which are applicable to certain groups or classes are not applicable to other groups or classes. It is right to lay upon automobile drivers re- strictions from which pedestrians are exempt ; it is right to require by law from the liquor dealer what no one would think of requiring from the dealer in clothing ; itis right to limit the operation of steamboats by regulations which do not apply to sailboats; it is. right to exact from corporations what is not ex- acted from firms. Likewise it is right to apply to those who manufacture or deal in merchandise a law which is not made appli- cable to those who work for wages. And if a law which was devised for the regulation of those who manufacture or deal in mer- chandise has proved in practice to apply to wage-earners, to whom it was not intended to apply, it is right to exempt the wage-workers, just as it would be right to pass a law ex- empting pedestrians from the operations of an automobile law which had proved to place a needless restriction upon pedestrians. Whether there should be a distinction in law between one category or group of people and another should be determined by the nature of the difference between the two groups or categories. If the difference has no relation to the object of the law, then that difference ought not to be recognized in the law; but if that difference has a material bearing on the object of the law, then it ought to be recognized in the law. What is the object of the Anti-Trust Law ? It is, briefly, to prevent monopoly. Accord- ing to Bouvier’s ‘‘ Law Dictionary,”’ monop- oly is ‘‘ the abuse of free commerce by which one or more individuals have procured the advantage of selling alone all of .a particular kind of merchandise to the detriment of the public,” or ‘any combination among mer- chants to raise the price of merchandise to the injury of the public.” The whole question whether labor unions should come under the operation of the Anti-Trust Law rests upon the question whether labor is merchandise or not. From the point of the slave-holder, of course, labor is merchandise. The slave is as truly a valuable piece of property as a horse. From the point of view of some economists labor is regarded as a commodity which, like pota- 13 June

Page 13

1914 toes, or steel, or water-power, is offered by the owner in the highest market and sought by the buyer in the lowest market. ‘This is the only ground on which the application of the Anti- Trust Law to labor unions can be defended. This view o: labor as a commodity is rightly becoming obsolete. Slavery is no longer countenanced among civilized people. The idea that one man can have a property right in another man is no longer defended by reasonable people. With the abandon- ment of that idea must be abandoned the idea of labor as a commodity, for labor con- sists of human beings. The man who wishes to buy potatoes, or steel, or water power buys a thing; a man who hires labor for a wage employs a human being. The man who sells potatoes, or steel, or water power gives that which is separate from himself, but a man who offers his labor for a wage offers himself. The purchaser of a commodity does not inquire whether the seller is thrifty or has good habits; all that he wants to know is whether his goods are all that the seller represents them to be. ‘The man who hires labor, on the other hand, is very much concerned with the habits, the character, of the person he hires. Such a difference as this the law ought to recognize. If it does not recognize it, the law ought to be changed. ‘The United States courts have declared in substance that the Anti-Trust Law does not recognize this difference between the rights that a man has in things that he happens to own and the right that he has over himself. Since the Anti-Trust Law does not recognize the difference, Congress ought to amend the law. It ought to do so openly and freely. The avowed object of the amendment which the House of Representatives unani- mously passed last we2k was to recognize this difference and to make it impossible here- after for laboring men who are organized for the common protection of themselves to be treated by the courts as men who have com- bined for the purpose of monopolizing a commodity. This provision applies also to farmers’ organ- izations. It is sufficient to say that the farmer is the most individualistic of individuals, and no other danger is quite so remote as that of a farmers’ monopolistic organization. Any- thing which can legitimately be-done to en- courage co-operation among farmers should be welcomed as a public benefit. The other provision in the anti-trust meas- TRUST LAWS AND LABOR 333 ures which affects labor unions is that which prohibits the issuance of injunctions in labor disputes except when necessary for prevent- ing irreparable injury, and then only in re- sponse to a written application; prohibits the issuance of injunctions against peaceful primary boycotts and peaceful picketing : in addition, declares that such peaceful boy- cotts and peaceful picketing shall not be con- strued to be illegal. This provision seems to us to be cautiously planned and to provide by statute nothing but what has been judged permissible by at least some of the higher courts of the land. There is no reason why the courts should attempt to enjoin men from refusing to deal or for persuading others to refuse to deal with an employer with whom they have a controversy. Nothing in this provision legal- izes the attempt to enforce such a boycott by coercive or violent methods, or by attempting a secondary boycott—that is, the refusal to deal with those who decline to join the boy- cott. There is no reason why the Court should attempt to enjoin men from peace- fully attempting to persuade others not to work for an employer with whom they have a controversy. ‘This is peaceful picketing, and it ought to be distinctly understood to be well within the law. ‘There is nothing in this provision which legalizes the attempt to enforce the desires of strikers by coercive measures of any kind. In this provision, with regard to injunctions, there is and ought to be nothing that is not as applicable to the employer as to the employee. ‘The English labor law goes even further than this provision, and, as we understand it, declares that it is not unlawful for two or more to do what one may do. Inasmuch as it is lawful for an individual to refuse to deal with a former employer, it would be lawful for any number to refuse to deal with their former employer. It can be seen that the English provision is more extensive in its application than the provision in the pro- posed Anti-Trust Law. We believe that it is right that by some such provision labor unions should be definitely and generally secured in rights which the courts have on occasion conceded to them. There is no question here whether labor unions should be regulated or not. Labor unions equally with any other large bodies of men should be kept subject to the sovereignty of the whole people. ‘The question is whether labor shall be treated as a commodity, and

Page 14

334 whether men shall be allowed to do jointly what every one is and ought to be allowed to do singly in the control of his own labor. THE OLD STOCK AND THE NEW A good deal is being said about the loss of influence in politics, morals, and manners of Americans of the “ old stock ’’—the men and women who have been long acclimated, so to speak, in the air of the New World and who have had the largest opportunities of education under popular institutions. Richard Grant White defined an American as one whose ancestors had come to this country before the Revolution. The men and women who lived together through the vicissitudes and anxieties, and bore the sacrifices, of that long and exhausting struggle shared a unify- ing experience and became an independent people; but they did not become a nation. They had many fine traits of personal and political character; they honored religion, supported education, and developed a spirit of sturdy self-reliance. The more foiiunate among them in point of ease of condition and cultivation were men and women of dig- nity and refinement of taste. They had a sound sense of form in architecture, as many old Colonial houses and churches show. It is only necessary to compare the Capitol at Washington with the building in which the Postal Department is housed, or the beauti- ful lines of the City Hall in New York with the meaningless mass of the Post-Office, to recognize the presence of a feeling for archi- tecture which seemed to disappear in the chaos which overtook the country a genera- tion later, and from which it did not emerge until within the recollection of people now in middle life. Its churches had dignity, like St. John’s in Portsmouth or St. Paul's in New York or St. Michael’s in Charleston, or a fine simplicity like the church in Old Lyme. Their colleges were schools of culture rather than of vocational efficiency, and their libra- ries were full of standard books. ‘Their music was narrow in range, but it was free from vulgarity. The “old stock ”’ was largely descendent of the English, French, and Dutch—races of active intelligence and energy of will. The early immigrants to the New World were largely, though by no means entirely, of the various Protestant faiths. Love of liberty was in THE OUTLOOK 13 June their blood, and, as time went on and the habit of free action became ,fixed, they de- fined, first in idea and later in action, an ideal of freedom which has become the fundamental faith of the American people. They gave the Colonies leaders in the great debate which preceded the Revolution ; they developed generals of high ability, who were also men of noble disinterestedness of nature and successfully led the amateur Colonial fighters against professional soldiers trained in Europe. In the critical years that followed the war they held the country back from anarchy, and to the difficult task of framing a Constitution for the new and inexperienced Nation they sent a large group of highly educated and able men. For many years public affairs were largely in their hands, and they devel- oped political leaders of a high order of sagacity. The “old stock” gave the Nation its moral and political ideals and met the crisis of the Civil War with a courage and _patriot- ism which showed that it was not ofly sound at heart, but had not lost the inspiration of faith nor the ability to deal strongly with difficult and perilous conditions. That war created a nation, and the war which liberated Cuba made Americans con- scious that they had become a nation with the responsibilities of a nation in the world. It is as idle to talk of maintaining the old policy of seclusion as to talk of bringing back the old practice of cutthroat competition ; both are outgrown. ‘The National life has broadened and deepened, and a nobler idea of the place and function of a nation in the modern world is defining itself. With this widening of ideas and interests there has come another group of men and women from the Old World who are rapidly creating a ‘‘ new stock,” and many thought- ful Americans are asking whether in making the house so free to all who want to share its protection we are not endangering the ideals of the family and jeopardizing the spirit and faith which are the most precious possessions bequeathed by the men and women of the “old stock.” It is certainly true that the gates have not been properly guarded against crime and disease; though, The Outlook holds, the selective process ought to be made in Europe rather than in’ New York. It is also true \that the absence of intelligent methods of distribution has led to the practi- cal segregation of great numbers of new-

Page 15

1914 comers into localities which are almost as definite in boundary as the old pales in medi- zeval cities. With a lack of foresight which has been criminal in its stupidity we have brought in small armies of men and women ignorant of our language, laws, and habits, planted them in isolated colonies, done little or nothing to show them how to be Ameri- cans, left them to the leadership of agitators, and then, when they have become turbulent and lawless, have accused them of violating the hospitality of the Nation. As a matter of fact, hospitality has never been offered them. ‘They have been brought over in ship- loads, carted like freight to distant points, and dumped in a mass like usable human refuse. They have been worked ; they have not been Americanized. It is not necessary to agree in detail with Mary Antin’s impassioned protest against restriction of immigration, ** They Who Knock at Our Gates” (Houghton Mifflin Company), to get from it a very different impression of the character of the immigration of late years than that which finds expression in such phrases as ‘*“‘retuse of the Old World,” “scum of Europe.” If her plea is too broad in its demand for unrestricted entrance into the country, it is a timely and eloquent pro- test against prejudice and racial ignorance. These men and women of the “ new stock,” Mary Antin declares, bring not only new working power to the service of the country, but fresh faith in liberty and a passionate belief in education—two wf the fundamental articles in the creed of the “ old stock.”” The chief service of this eloquent book is the clearness with which it “‘ brings home to the ‘old stock’ its responsibility ” for evil con- ditions among the ‘ new stock,” and its co- partnership with the newcomers in the ills, real or imaginary, which are charged to their account. In a recent address to the Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark Bishop Lines said some things on this subject that may well awaken thought : If you make note of those who are making contributions to medical science, to political and social studies, to charitable undertakings, to plans for the improvement of community life, you will find as many names which are new among us as names long familiar in this coun- try. Descendants of what one may call the “old stock,” where prosperity has been reached, are living in a good deal of luxury and ease upon money earned by those who went before LETTERS TO UNKNOWN FRIENDS 335 them, without a very serious and useful purpose and not contributing much to the world’s better life. It may fairly be questioned whether the old stock is showing as much vigor as the new. If the new generation of young men and young women are going to live upon the gen- eration before, without exertion, without sense of responsibility, they will be displaced by the children of the newcomers, to whom the future of the country will belong. It is better to stir up this new generation which desires ease and luxurious living, freedom from exertion, than to spend our time in anxiety over what the new- comers will do with us. We need also to feel as we have not before a mission to the newcomers, who have in them such elements of power and so great desire to take advantage of the new opportunities in life. We need a larger outlook, a better appreciation of the conditions and the changes which are surely coming. This means the cultivation of more neighborly kindness, more friendly com- munity life, getting closer together for the com- mon good. LETTERS TO UNKNOWN FRIENDS “THE OLD RELIGION” Last Sunday I preached in a town of five hundred. Before 1 began an old gentleman, now a farmer, formerly a preacher, said to me, in that dear, brotherly way, a manner indicat- ing deep solicitude and sympathy for the young and tender, “ Brother, we are old-fashioned here. Just talk to us in the old-fashioned way, and give us the old-fashioned religion.” I have heard this expression so often and have become so excéedingly tired of it that I want to know what it means. This is a question which many young ministers are asking. I am glad you have put the question so plainly, and I will try to make my answer plain. ‘The difficulty about doing so is that there is no one answer to the question. The phrase ‘ old-fashioned religion ’? sometimes means one thing, some- times another. Religion and theology are not the same. We go to church to get religion. . We are dissatisfied if instead we get theology. It is true one cannot preach religion without teach- ing theology ; but it is also true that one can teach theology without preaching religion. The preacher cannot so commend and inter- pret the Bible to his congregation that they will wish to use it, as Paul says it was given to be used, “ that the man of God may be . . . thoroughly furnished unto all good

Page 16

336 works,”’ without teaching, impliedly or ex- plicitly, some belief respecting the nature and value of the Bible. But it is perfectly possible to present a doctrine of the inspira- tion and revelation of the Bible without in- spiring in the congregation the least desire to make use of the Book. It is not possible to inspire men with a reverence for Jesus Christ and a desire to be like him without, impliedly or explicitly, teaching some doctrine concerning the person of Jesus Christ. But it is perfectly possible to preach a sermon insisting on the divinity or the deity of Jesus Christ, insisting that he is ‘“‘ Very God of Very God” and “of one substance with the Father,” without arousing the least desire in the congregation to revere him, to follow him, or to be like him. Whether the the- ology which the preacher teaches is old theology or new theology, the congrega- tion are not satisfied unless, in the teaching of that theology, whether old or new, the preacher succeeds in inspiring in them some- thing of that life of conscience, reverence, hope, and love which is essentially the same now that it was in the Apostolic days. Professor Eucken has made it clear that religion is not an opinion to be entertained by the intellect, but an experience which transforms the life. It is for this experience that men and women go to church. Jesus Christ said of himself, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.’”’ This should be the purpose which the minister should set before himself in every sermon. This life may be communicated through the intellect. ‘The minister may inspire this life by making that seem rational which before seemed irrational, or that plain which before seemed mysterious. But religion is more than instructing the intellect. This life may be communicated through the imagination and the emotions. The minister may be naturally an artist ora dram- atist, and may use his artistic or dramatic ability as the instrument by which he quickens the spiritual life of his hearers ; but the spirit- ual life is more than the picture or the emotion. The minister may be able to speak directly to the spiritual nature of his congregation, awaken it from its sleep, set it in action, in- spire it to take control. And if you ask me what I mean by the spiritual life, I reply: The life of the conscience, which recognizes and appreciates the difference between right THE OUTLOOK 13 June and wrong; of reverence, which aspires to all that is right and pure and holy in life ; the hope which in defeat anticipates future victory, and in victory anticipates a greater victory to-morrow ; the love which finds joy in service. I mean what Edward Everett Hale meant by his famous motto: ‘“ Look up, not down; forward, not backward; in, not out; and lend a hand.’”’ The minister who reaches, arouses, strengthens this life in his congregation, whether he does it through the intellect or through the imagination or through the emotions or by the direct expres- sion of his own experience, whether he does it through new theology or old theology, through Methodist theology or Calvinistic the- ology, yes, whether he does it through Prot- estant theology or Roman Catholic theology, is preaching. If he does not inspire this life, he is not preaching at all; he is lecturing. When we call for a doctor, we do not wish him to instruct us in medicine ; we wish him to give us such counsel as will enable us, if we obey it, to get off of our bed and go to work. When we go toa lawyer, we do not wish instruction in law; we wish him to draw for us a contract which will hold or give us coun- sel which will help us out of a difficulty. So, when we go to church, we do not wish far instruction in theology, old or new. We wish a gift of life which will enable us to meet our dangers with greater courage and our diffi- culties with clearer moral perception, to bear our burdens with greater patience and meet our temptations with greater strength. When the Negroes in their camp-meeting sing “‘ The old religion is good enough for me,” what they mean is, the preaching, the praying, the singing which inspires this kind .of life are the preaching, the praying, and the singing that they want. This is not, however, always what is meant by “Give us the old-fashioned religion.”’ There are no theologians quite so wedded to the old theology as the lay theologian. He knows nothing about theology except its phraseology. He wants to hear the old phrases. A prison warden once said to me “that there was no congregation gathered under any church roof which had any mem- bers more conservative in their theology than some of the members gathered in a prison chapel. This kind of lay theologian makes little use of his Bible, except perhaps to read a chapter every day in family prayers, but he wants his minister to say that it is infallible ;

Page 17

1914 BUSINESS AND he makes no attempt to follow the example of Jesus Christ, but he wants his minister to tell him that Jesus Christ is divine ; he makes no attempt to lead a new and divine life, but he wants to hear the word “ regeneration ”’ in the pulpit. Such a man is rarely satisfied with any preaching which really makes men desire to use the Bible as a guide, to follow Jesus Christ as a leader, to lead a new life of unselfish service and sacrifice. The less a preacher satisfies such a hearer, BUSINESS AND A POLL OF HE other day at Washington some manufacturers and business men asked the President to postpone most of the Administration’s anti-trust pro- gramme because: 1. Business throughout the country is hesi- tating. ; 2. The unemployed are numbered by hun- dreds of thousands. 3. Abundant capital awaits investment. 4. Much of the proposed legislation is a cause of unemployment of capital and labor at this time. The President declined to postpone the legislation. He declined for three reasons: 1. It is better to enact legislation now than later, for uncertainty is the worst thing that can happen to business. 2. It is better to pass the moderate meas- ures now proposed than to invite the peril of extreme measures caused by the accumula- tion of more radical forces. 3. The present business depression is “merely psychological ’’—indeed, there is ‘no material condition or substantial reason why the business of the country should not be in the most prosperous and expanding condition.” As to psychology, the New York “ Sun” (Ind.) submits, editorially, the following dialogue : Citizen Outofwork, hat in hand, accosted the Professor as he came out of Candid House: “T have a wife and four small children—” “You only think you have,” said the Pro- fessor; “your state is merely psychological.” “ T haven’t had any work for six months, since the factory—” | PSYCHOLOGY 337 the better ; but if, in his preaching, he can create in his congregation the kind of life which Jesus Christ created by his parables, Peter by his revival preaching, and Paul by his more theological discourses, the grumbling of the traditional lay theologian will generally be lost sight of and forgotten in the enthusiasm of the new life, as the patch of snow in a shaded nook is forgotten, even if it has not melted, in the general affluent life of spring. LyMAN ABBOTT. PSYCHOLOGY THE PRESS “ Fie,” cried the Professor, taking off his eye- glasses and waving them in a wide gesture of deprecation ; “ don’t you know that non-employ- ment is merely psychologicai ?” “ My wife and children are actually hungry—” “ Nonsense, my dear sir; hunger is merely psychological.” “My brother has just been ‘fired’ by the X, Y, & Z Railroad; the railroad people said they had to reduce expenses.” “ How ridiculous! Expenses of railroads are merely psychological. So is your brother’s dis- charge.” “ Professor, will youlend me a dollar? When better times—” “ This is. most unbecoming language. What times could be better than these? Times are merely psychological. So is your assumed need of a dollar.” The Rochester ‘“ Post-Express ” (Rep.) remarks that, when the President says there is no material condition or substantial reason why the business of the country should not be in the most prosperous and expanding con- dition, it zs prosperous and must be. The President’s philosophy the ‘“ Post-Express ” interprets as follows: ‘ Depression is an effect—metaphysicians are certain about that —and an.effect must have a cause; scien- tists are unanimous on that point. But in this case there is no cause. Hence it follows that there can be no depression.”’? On this philosophy the “ Post-Express” comments thus : It is a beautiful and comforting theory which ought to be true; and, if it does not always seem so, we may attribute it to the difficulty of realiz- ing the consciousness of the condition desired. Some people find it hard to get the conscious-

Page 18

338 ness of satiety on an empty stomach, and it is hard, there is no mistake about it. President Wilson believes, according to the Buffalo ‘“* Express ” (Ind. Rep.), that such a policy as the Democratic party is now pur- suing is necessary to satisfy the conscience of the country. The “ Express” adds: Never did a patient and loyal country hold itself in a better state of mind toward Govern- ment policies than has been shown toward the acts of the Wilson Administration. Nobody prophesied hard times, everybody stood pre- pared to turn to the best account possible every act of Government, everybody hoped for the greater prosperity that had been promised. Yet the President himself is now obliged to ac- knowledge the existence of serious business depression, and the only explanation he can offer is that it is psychological. One of his own supporters, the New York “Times” (Ind. Dem.), rallies the Presi- dent, declaring that when he tells his visitors that there is nothing in the world the matter with them save their own fears, they ought to try with all their might to believe him. “ If they succeed, why, the thing is done, and business is prosperous again!” But the “ Times ” objects as follows : Ask a big business man or a well-informed financier or a close student of economic condi- tions what is the matter with business, and not one of them would venture to be so cocksure as the President is when he says that there is “abundant evidence” that the trouble is “merely psychological.” Most business men, we think, would say that one of the troubles was Washington. . . . Such a policy as the Demo- cratic party is now pursuing, he said, is “abso- lutely necessary to satisfy the conscience of the country.” That is to say, while we have busi- ness on the operating-table, and are amputating here and there a limb and removing organs which seem to us to be superfluous, we are doing nothing more than the “ conscience of the country ” demands. .. . Did the Western gentlemen get any comfort out of his words? Very cold comfort, we imag- ine. Honest men trying to do an honest busi- ness see something more substantial in their way than psychological phantoms. Says the Washington “ Herald” (Ind.): ‘« President Wilson pronounces the complaint from which the Nation’s business is suffering as a ‘state of mind.’ . He believes that business depression prevails all over the world and is nothing but ‘a state of mind,’ THE OUTLOOK and that great prosperity is not far distant. Now, whatever may be the condition in other countries, the ‘ state of mind’ in the United States ‘is easily accounted for by an avalanche of legislation, pending for months, intended to regulate business enterprises, no one knows how. Under such circumstances, a ‘ state of mind’ in the Nation is as natural a complaint as a ‘state of mind’ in the indi- vidual who has been bound hand and foot and his house set on fire.” To the Chicago “ Evening Post” (Prog.) the promise of a policy that will restore con- fidence to business is not to be found in the present attitude of the Wilson Administra- tion. It is unfortunate, asserts the ‘“ Post,” that there should be an evident design to force by legislation a competitive condition in home industries at the very moment when the concentration of thought and effort is needed to meet the bigger competitive strug- gle in the world arena; in particular, the ‘* Post” adds, “the character of the anti- trust legislation now being driven through Congress under White House orders holds small promise of peace in the world of busi- ness. It means a continuation of inquiries and prosecutions in the courts.” Most newspaper critics agree with the con- demnation of such a generally doughty sup- porter of President Wilson as is the New York ** Evening Post” (Ind.). It calls Mr. Wil- son’s attention to the fact that his visitors were asking that one of the causes of a psychological condition be removed. If the trouble were in things over which we have no control, adds the ‘** Evening Post ’’—that is to say, if it were in bad crops or the exhaustion of capital through overconfident enterprise—the President might well say that his visitors were looking in the wrong direc- tion for relief. But this is not the case. The “ Evening Post” adds, concerning the proposed bills : If there were a clear case for these bills, a case grounded on their inherent merits and necessity, it would be right to pass them, whatever their immediate effect upon business. But with their case highly doubtful in itself, with no time for their proper consideration or amendment, and without any sign of serious public demand for their enactment, the all but universal desire on the part of the business world for their postponement is, in the present condition of trade and industry, entitled to most serious consideration.

Page 19

THAT “BAD EDUCATION” SOME COMPLAINTS AGAINST THE CLASSICS Are Latin and Greek as taught in our schools and colleges wasting the time and hindering the education of boys and girls ? for April 18, declared that they are, and gave his reasons. Walter Phelps Hall, in The Outlook Last week we printed statements from readers who, taking issue with Dr. Hall, believe in the study of the classics. Fall, This week we quote from letters that come to us in support of Dr. Later we shall print some narratives of personal experience—some on one side, some on the other, of this controversy —Tue Ebirors. LARGELY DECORATIVE r \HERE is a tale of two suburbanites who got to the gates just as the train drew out. Although the lady seemed composed, she gave attentive audi- ence to the man, who was expressing his disappointment explosively. Finally, turning to him, she said, “ Thank you, sir.” Although I have not felt obliged to become emphatic over our educational ideas, I feel inclined to turn to Mr. Hall with a “ Thank you, sir.” I live in a community that insists upon Latin and Greek. I admit their excellences. I am glad to have wandered along those parasangs of the Anabasis, for they went through charming country. I almost think I care for the dullness of Czsar’s egotistical company and the muddle of his indirect dis- course. Nevertheless, although the experi- ence leaves me complacent—as do the vol- umes of Clarendon’s “ History” on Mr. Crothers’s shelves—the effect has been largely decorative. My friends and I went down to Harvard after four years of Latin and Greek. We were well prepared for the entrance exami- nations and came off creditably. Sometimes, however, I resent those years. I had an aptitude for drawing, but had to sacrifice it for Latin. I, too, wondered what counter- point was—and still wonder. I had a de- light in English literature, but had to sup- press it for Greek. Ancient history went with the ancient tongues, and our inheritance of English history fell due only in the way of small and irregular income. Astronomy opened worlds that promised spiritual as well as mental expansion; but it was only a glimpse—enough to enable us to pass the Harvard paper. The same may be said of physics. The point is that the classics loomed up too largely. ° Though the classics are “ cultural ’—I hate the word—their culture in my own experience not only excluded culture from other sources, but was in itself superficial. I am badly educated even where I should know better. In the betwixt-and-between period to which I belonged a boy read little more than Ceesar, Cicero, and Virgil, and the Anabasis and Homer; and he could rarely become enough at home with the language to have literary feeling. This half-accomplishment is joyless. It is all an instance of O ¢empora ! O mores! Grandfather’s classics were potent for gen- tlemanly charm and intellectual richness ; but did he not, like Pope, know his nature from Virgil rather than from nature? Was he not literary after a more academic fashion ? Darwin had not startled grandfather with a monkey; Edison had not bewildered with his tricks ; Impressionists had not jumped over the wall into a new territory of music, painting, and writing ; industrialism did not whir and Socialism send off sky-rockets. To-day we are in a State of affairs. The past has its dues; but the present and future are insistent in new ways and from all sides. Since one does not have capac- ity for it all, one must subordinate and reject. Where this process applies educa- tionally one must, if one would be a modern, move the classics from the shelf of handy books. Frank B. ROWELL. Groton School, Groton, Massachusetts. INTELLECTUAL SNOBBERY In my preparation for entering college I was advised on ail hands of the value of Latin and Greek. -To my advisers I always put the question, Why? The inevitable answer given was that the study of these languages provided a superior mental training. On reflection, I made note of the fact that practically all of my advisers had themselves 339

Page 20

340 been given a classical education, and, feeling that I knew something of average human nature, I was somewhat suspicious of my advisers’ motives. In college most of my acquaintances and friends were men in the classical department, many of them standing very high in their classes. I soon took note of the fact that, with one or two exceptions, these men knew practically nothing of what was going on in the world. ‘They could not sustain a respectable discussion on matters which were of public interest. Neverthelesse we of the scientific department were ever looked upon by those of the classics as living, intellectually, upon a little lower level. Good fellows they were, but intellectual snobs, with nothing to be snobbish about. Why are the classics taught? For ex- actly the same reason that the average farmer does not plow deep enough; for the same reason that you cannot get stringless string beans in the average market to-day; for the same reason that engineers until lately uni- versally built dams straight or arched with the convexity down-stream instead of up- stream; in short, we largely educate to-day in the manner we do because our forefathers did so. \We do what is customary instead of what is efficient. My opinion is that we teach the classics because the majority of us are intellectual snobs, more politely expressed by the term conservative. P. E. BReInic. Allentown, Pennsylvania. CONSERVATIVES TO BLAME The old argument in favor of the study of dead languages, that it furnishes mental train- ing, reminds me of an overzealous parent I once knew. He had a great horror of the effect of idleness on his children. ‘To avoid this at one time, instead of finding something useful, profitable, and pleasant for them to do, he set them the task of piling stones, then scattering them, and _ piling them again, merely to keep them employed. Thus he rendered their work not only irksome, but revolting—made himself in their eyes an unreasonable tyrant and defeated every pur- pose he had in view. Perhaps the strongest argument and the real underlying reason for this compulsory study of these so-called classic languages is that which the farmer offered to justify his carrying to the mill on horseback his grain in one end of the sack, and, to balance it, a THE OUTLOOK 13 June rock in the other—that his father did so before him, and what was good enough for his father was good enough for him. W. R. TURNER. Knoxville, Tennessee. I have found just one man who reads his Horace for the pure joy of it. Among those of my acquaintance who believe, on the other hand, that the important place of the classics must be lowered are college professors, students of recognized standing, cultivated men of affairs, and professional men of wide sympathy and clear insight re- garding educational needs. Wherever the banner of progress and sane educational bet- terment is raised, there I generally find the opinion strongest that the exaggerated im- portance and the dominating position of the classics must be destroyed. Little can be accomplished, however, so long as mankind is at least seventy-five per- cent conservative and the static rather than the dynamic type of mind is encouraged by our outworn educational nostrums. Let the conservative present his case and he will hang himself. ‘To most of his argu- ments no answer is necessary. Not long ago I heard the president of one of our leading colleges say that ‘‘ there never has been, there never will be a subject of such great value for mental discipline as the study of the classics.”” This statement satisfied him. No proof of any kind was adduced. As well say that the application of steam to the locomo- tive is the last word in transportation. I quoted the above statement to a teacher of Latin, and added that the trained psycholo- gist, by the use of the laboratory method. was the one to whom the problem should have been submitted. His reply was that he disbelieved in mental measurements for nor- mal and sub-normal minds alike, and that psychology was all “rot” and had never done anybody any good, at any rate. ‘Truly, the conservative is unmindful of what may prove to be his strongest defense. The Greeks were not bound by tradition. They cut out new paths. They were inde- pendent, progressive, radical; and, in conclu- sion, I contend that what I ask for in con- nection with this *‘ perennial debate ’’ is more nearly in conformity with the real spirit of Greek freedom and culture than the dogmatic assertions and assumptions of those who are struggling to retain a superior position for the classics and who fail, in reality, to com-

Page 21

1914 THAT ‘*BAD prehend the true meaning of the Greek genius. WILLIAM CHURCHILL GERRISH. 16 Winthrop Hall, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The teaching of the classic languages nowadays is merely the result of a heritage, a tradition, begun back in medizeval times, when what teaching there was existed in church schools only, in which Latin was the official language. Weall know what it meant, some centuries ago, to have even the slight- est education. Ifa man could translate a little Latin into his mother tongue, he could not be tried by a civil court for any crime. He could claim “ benefit of clergy ’’ and be tried in an ecclesiastical court—and the eccle- siastical court was very likely to pardon, or to inflict comparatively mild punishment. As centuries passed -schools slipped from the control of the Church, and benefit of clergy was no more. But no people cling to tradition and custom as do schoolmen the world over. And so Latin, and Greek too, for that matter, remained a basic part of the usual school curriculum. And now some disrespectful and doubting inquirer stands up and asks why it is that children should spend so large a fraction of their whole school time in the technical study of languages that have been dead and buried these many years. [Immediately there is a great hunting for reasons—and of really good reasons there is none, for the simple cause that it is not based upon reason at all, but upon unreason- ing custom and tradition, coupled with a prestige handed down some several hundred years. CHARLES K. TAYLor. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. MENTAL DISCIPLINE? Let any one inquire into the number of educated English-speaking persons who are at home with Shakespeare and then ask himself whether it is likely that any but the patient scholar that has made a lifetime study of Greek can. feel at home with A‘schylus, Sophocles, or Euripides. The contention that Latin is useful for understanding such quotations as occur in English literature, and such words and ex- pressions as are used in some sciences, in law, and in the daily press, is exceedingly far- fetched. One can learn their meanings as easily as if they were English, without studying declensions and conjugations or going through the Orations of Cicero or the Commentaries of Czsar. It is no more diffi- cult to learn the meaning of statu guo than 341 to learn the meaning of exterriteriality ; the lawyer learns the meaning of ex parte with as much ease or as much difficulty as- he learns the meaning of jurisprudence, substan- tive law, or retroactivity; the student of philosophy and mathematics learns almost unconsciously what is meant by @ priori, a posteriori, a fortiori, and reductio ad absur- dum; and the reader of the dailies soon becomes familiar with szze gua non and other like expressions commonly used. Indeed, nearly all these expressions, having been gen- erally adopted, have practically become English, and there is no more reason to print them in the awful italics than there is to accord that mark of distinction to radius, focus, ervsipelas, the elusive dacil/us, or the notorious appendix. A. study which is undertaken and pursued under compulsion ; which inspires the stu- dent with neither love nor interest; which is acknowledged alike by pupil and teacher to be a mere formality; in which the pupil but glances at the subject, knowing that the teacher will require no more; which, in brief, is regarded by nearly every pupil as either a burden or a joke, and by nearly every teacher as something that the student should be rushed through, lest the one should lose his courage and the other his ‘“‘ job ”—such study, in such circumstances, is not likely to supply the mind with either kinetic or potential energy. I made my advanced studies in a leading engineering college. We were compelled to study botany, a subject which is not entirely foreign to that profession. However, the connection is rather remote, and we did not see it, nor had it entered our calculations that, in order to learn how to build a bridge, design a dynamo, or integrate a differen- tial equation, it was necessary that we should know aught about lactiferous tissues, dichotomous branching, or Gymnosperme. We therefore paid scant attention to botany. and showed respect as scant for its ex- pounder. Although he was a venerable old man of much learning and refinement, we saluted him every day on his arrival with more than twenty-one torpedoes ; the salute continued throughout the recitation ; some- times his impeccable silk hat would be stolen and later returned with a dead cat or a toad inside ; and no student considered himself disgraced by accompanying the snapping of the missiles with the tuneless snoring of un- concerned slumber. Yet we all passed our examinations, sometimes with high marks. Few subjects have so high a disciplinary EDUCATION ”’

Page 22

342 value as botany if studied with sympathetic earnestness. But what was the value of it to us, who thus slighted and abused it? I presume the case is still worse with com- pulsory Greek and Latin, for it is difficult to find in these languages such beauty and other elements of attraction as the natural sciences possess, but to which the mind of the unwill- ing student is impervious. If a man is a psychologist, he will declare that psychology is a key to all else, and that no one may call himself cultured unless he knows at least the fundamental laws of that myste- rious science ; if he is a naturalist, he will pro- nounce it a sin not to teach zoology and botany to the rising generations ; if he is a physician, he will exalt the value and preach the ne- cessity of giving instruction in anatomy, physiology, hygiene, and dietetics; if he is a politician or a lawyer, he will find sufficient evidence to prove that every man and woman should know at least something of politics and law, and so on ad infinitum. Were I to select a body of men to prepare a curriculum for general education, I should exclude all specialists and choose sensible men of fairly broad culture, free from hobbies, and accus- tomed to breathe a catholic atmosphere. Montclair, New Jersey. Austin LANNoR. In my college days Latin was recommended particularly for lawyers and doctors, because, it was said, much law and many legal phrases and maxims are written in Latin and not in English. Now every lawyer knows that all modern law books are written in English and not in Latin, and that if they were written in Latin the law Latin would be a closed book to the student who pursued the study of the classical authors in college, and he would be compelled to learn an entirely new language before he could read the Latin in which some of our older law has been written. Likewise, I venture to say that the physician who writes his prescription in Latin gets scant assistance from his knowledge of classical Latin, if per- chance he is unfortunate enough to remem- ber some of that. It is not yet nine years since I gradu- ated from college, and I don’t remember any Greek at all. I couldn’t now read a single line of it without arduous study both in grammar and lexicon. My present knowl- edge in Latin is limited to two rules which I have tried hard to forget, but have so far found it impossible. They are * Utor, fruor, Jungor, potior, and vescor take their object THE OUTLOOK 13 June in the ablative,” and that other bugbear of school days, “ Ad, ante, con, in, inter, ob, post, pre, pro, sub, and super, and some- times circum, compounded with verbs take the dative.” May the day speed on when | can consign these remaining two rules into oblivion, together with all the rest of my Latin and Greek, and when I may learn something more useful! It is ¢déeas that discipline and develop the mind. PuHares HEss. Chicago, Illinois. MINISTERIAL POINTS OF VIEW I wish to add my note in protest to the overemphasis of Latin and Greek in our high schools and colleges, and I would add Hebrew in our divinity schools. ‘These lan- guages should be made elective in all schools. I have devoted the best part of thirteen best years to the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The time spent was wasted so far as real values are concerned. My objection to the so-called humanities in our curriculum is that they do not teach humanity. And for a divinity student to devote one- half or more of his time to the study of Hebrew when there is so much he ought to know is a sin. James E. Barpour. Pawtucket, Rhode Island. FROM My observation has been that many, espe- cially young men, drop out of high school and absolutely refuse to go to college be- cause they fear the grind over Latin and Greek. ‘They don’t want to be humiliated. I endured it, however, thinking it was the only way to fit myself for the work of the Christian ministry —that is, to have an A.B. degree. But the sense of failure and defeat which followed me because I could not mas- ter those dead languages robbed my college course of fully half its good for me. Leen, lows. Guy J. FANSHER, S.T.B. I studied the classics four years in school, then four years in college. At the theological seminary I had one very hard year of Hebrew, and afterwards read by my own choice almost the whole Hebrew Bible. As I look back, I have had for many years (I am over seventy years old) a feeling that I had been imposed upon. Ihave had many experiences like the following: I was riding in a compartment of a railway carriage in Italy full of lively

Page 23

1914 THAT ‘‘ BAD Italians. It was soon discovered that I was an American, and at once the whole company was eager to get at me with a childlike enthusiasm. There I sat, eager myself, and they all eager about me, but not a word could we say to one another. I thought back of all my years of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and, if you will let me speak after the manner of ‘men, I felt like a fool. . I sat in the car that day and felt “‘ mad ”’ about my education. And I think it was one occasion in which a man is “angry and sins not.” I must add that of all my reading that which has most profoundly affected my life has been the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. To me it has been the most simple, the most profound, and the most practical teaching in the world. And it is a great mercy that you do not have to be able to read it in the original Greek. You can only allow me space to give one other great element of my education, the acceptance of the wonderful doctrine of evo- lution. This was not a gift of Latin or Greek or Hebrew, but of science—not a godless science, but a science brimful of God. Of old there were cave-dwellers. I feel as if all the early part of my life I had been a cave-dweller. In my later years I have come out into the most brilliant sunshine. I do not live in a lost world. I am not ofa fallen and cursed race. For ages upon ages the great, good God with a majestic step that never hurries but never rests has been bring- ing on the better thing in this world and all worlds. The teachings of Jesus Christ, illu- minated by this noble teaching of science, have been by far the greatest educational power of my life, in sharp distinction from the long and weary years of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. C. THE AIM OF EDUCATION I am a student in my second year at college. Ever since I entered high school the classics have been a block in my path. In my first year at high school I took the classical course, but the next year I entered the general course, and followed it till gradua- tion. I consider my course the most rational that could be chosen under the circumstances, but it had some disadvantages. I did not have as good teaching in German or French as those who took the college course, nor were my associates as pleasant. When, at the last moment, I found that I EDUCATION ” 343 could go to college, I had not enough mathe- matics, Latin, physics, or biology to obtain a I had to enter college as a spe certificate. cial student. I intend to be a librarian. I must know much about languages, literatures, modern problems, science, and history. One cannot learn everything, and I have tried to study the most important things; but when my friends are graduating I know I shall long to be with them. I shall have done as much work as they, a good deal of it the same work ; but because they have had Latin and I have had other things which I consider more practical, they will receive a degree and I only a “certificate of work completed.”’ Lucy M. Buker. Waltham, Massachusetts. It seems that the chief business of man in this world is to make a living. Certain it is that the great majority are putting up a hand-to-mouth contest with the great forces of nature in order that they may exist on the earth and get bread and meat for their families and clothes for them to wear; and they are trying, too, to help their children make a start in life, hoping all the time that the children may not have so hard a struggle as the parents had before them. It seems to me that it would be safe to say that education is something that ought to enable the great masses of mankind to make a more success- ful fight in the way of contending against nature. If that is so, a study of the classics would be of little help to them. Of course these remarks do not apply with equal force to the leisure class—the idle rich. And yet the rich of to-day may be the poor of to-morrow. A man with a very limited education ought to be able to find pleasure in the simple things of life, like flowers and trees, the rocks, the beauties of the rainbow or the snowflake, the silk and tassels on the corn, the grass beneath his feet, or the stars over- head. In fact, too much classical knowledge might shut off his vision. A man who never saw a book written by human hands ought to be able to realize how wonderful must have been the Supreme Being when he made this world to think of such things as music and song and poetry and laughing babies. Yes, indeed, a man may be familiar with the classics and yet have a poor education. G. H. CARROL.

Page 24

KEEPING FREIGHT ON THE MOVE BY LAURENCE HILLS ’ \HE railway is the great harvester. Wherever man labors its fingers reach to reap the fruits of his toil and take them to the market or the mill. It is never idle; it is never still. The husband- man, the toiler in the mine or the mill, may knock off his labor and lie down to rest, but this great harvester of all the fields of indus- try never stops for a minute. The railway sows as well as reaps. Reach- ing out with arms that stretch from sea to sea, it collects from the fields and from the mines the raw material and scatters it again like so much seed among the millions who work in shop and factory, and then waits to harvest. the finished product. ‘This in turn it distributes again among millions of consumers. The railway binds the man who has with the man who has not. Upon the manner in which the railway thus collects and distributes the fruits of toil de- pends the welfare of all of us. If this great harvesting machine were to stop or slow down for an instant, practically all business would stop. ‘The slightest hitch in its work- ings can create a commercial disturbance, can vitally affect the daily activities of many millions of workers. Fortunes could be lost, ruin and destruction wrought, if this machine which both sows and reaps were defective, if all of its parts were not devised to work in perfect harmony and so adjusted to meet the needs of commerce that its work as a har- vester is done without delay. Scientific man- agement, the co-ordination of the labors of many men, is represented in the way the rail- way handles the raw material and the finished product, and thus lays the foundation for all business. The problem involved in the movement of freight by rail in this country is one of the greatest complexity so far as its physical aspects are concerned. In parts of our country freight must be hauled over some of the longest stretches and steepest grades in the world. In other parts of the coun- try so congested is the population and so haphazard the early railway development that junction and freight transfer points are in many instances not over five miles apart, and the freight must be collected and dis- tributed over a great ganglion of railway tracks. ‘To devise a system by which freight 344 can be handled expeditiously under these conditions and not lost has taxed the inge- nuity of experts in the railway business. The system which has been devised is no doubt far from perfection, in witness whereof there is the continual complaint of shippers of de- lays, but that it is as good as it is, consider- ing the conditions in this country and the difficulties on every hand to be surmounted, is nothing short of marvelous to the layman once he starts investigating the way the rail- ways do it. Under our present system of railway regu- lation delays in freight movement and inability of a railway to afford proper facilities for ship- pers are regarded as just as proper subjects for complaint and investigation as are the rates charged. A railway can be compelled to increase its facilities and change its sched- ules if it is proved upon investigation that it has failed to perform its duty in these respects though able to do so. Conse- quently, it is incumbent to-day upon the rail- ways to see that the system employed is the one that will give cause for the least complaint. With the question of rates this article has nothing to do. That in itself is an intricate question involving the physical part of the problem as well. It is the railway traffic man who must concern himself with rates. It is the railway operating man upon whom devolves the physical handling of the enor- mous traffic created by the industry of our toiling millions, and into his calculations the question of rates never enters at all. With him it is a question of moving and keeping track of over 2,000,000 freight-cars passing over the rails of our country and of the mill- ions of less-than-car-lot shipments contained in many of these cars. Necessarily the physical handling of all this freight is a matter of enormous detail. The system employed to-day has been gradu- ally worked out through a long period of years by intelligent men conversant with all the problems of railway operation, whose chief object in it all has been to keep the com- merce of the country moving at all times with the greatest smovthness and despatch over our steel highways and their numerous byways. In the year 1910, for example, the railways (Continued on page following illustrations)

Page 25

PHOTOGRAPH BY PACH BROTHERS JACOB A. RIIS Friend of the children and of the poor. In last week’s Outlook was told the life history of this great-hearted Janish-American, who died on May 26. In this week’s issue, on another page, there is some further account of the park which it is proposed shall be named after Mr. Riis

Page 26

ea a. te. aw A BLACKFOOT INDIAN CHIEF Twelve Blackfoot Indians from the Glacier National Park Reservation, in Montana, lately visited New York. “ Lazy Boy,” above depicted, is the oldest of the twelve; he was a warrior thirty years ago and is a splended specimen of an Indian type PHOTOGRAPH BY BYRON

Page 27

COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD GEORG BRANDES The famous Danish critic is now visiting this country. An editorial discussion of his position in the literary world and of recently expressed views by him appeared in The Outlook last week

Page 28

COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD THE AMERICAN CAPTAIN, J. M. WATERBURY ay x’ COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD THE ENGLISH CAPTAIN, F, W. BARRETT THE INTERNATIONAL POLO CONTEST

Page 29

Aan mall ge PO FROG sting COPYRIGHT BY AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION FRANCIS OUIMET COPYRIGHT BY INTERNATIONAL NEWS SERVICE JEROME D. TRAVERS AMERICAN GOLFERS AT SANDWICH Mr. Francis Ouimet and Mr. Jerome Travers were two of the ten American golfers who traveled to England in the vain hope of capturing the amateur championship. Mr. Ouimet, however, later won the championship of France See editorial comment

Page 30

YOK MON Ul UOTZL}S [esyUID puvIL 9Y} JO coUvIZUA UTeUT 9Y} I9A0 paoryid oq 03 ‘suey jo ‘uL[noD sanf Aq eanzdynds jo ooald & ut eINSY [C1ZU2 oY} ST ,, Peadg JO pod,, oy} JO onzeys NIQULTIS & AloyeUdoiddy GidadS JO dOD ‘AUNDUAW AO OSUYOL ANV AVAH NOSdWOHL INvd AG HdVYDOLOHd sozvid [eIp pozepnotes A[azed113 Ur UO SaSpa s,mopeys oy} Aq paxszeur SI OUT} OY} PUue ‘}eAO st MOPEYsS S}] ‘a}LULIZ poystjod jo stay “sggt so ssvpo 043 Aq AjIsioatu_ BIquIN[OD 03 pajuaseid used sey [eIp UNS U0}-U8Ez;y STYT, TVIG NOS HAISSVW AONV THAON V HOIAZT NIMOZ AB HdVHSOLOHd

Page 31

JUSWIUIOD [VUOZpPasaG “VASeTY Ut UOINIysU0D AemTTeI SIVI JURUSPNETT YIM 49e 0} OFT] [IAI WOIJ UOSTIAA JUSPISeIg Aq pozutodde sisoulsua oY J, ZUSWIUIZAOY JO YIOM AreutuNeid ay3 ut ‘AULIe $9ze}S po}UL ey} jo ‘uf ‘SODIN SVWOHL Sada ‘D WVITIIM NOILVIOOSSV SS3Ud NVOINSWY AG LHOINAdOD NOILVIOOSSY SS3Ud NVOINSWY AG LHDINAdOD

Page 32

= a i wa PSS FQ DDS OSS la a i ee A i a ee ee) ee “ee ee © re oe — A1eja190S J19y} pue ‘soyedolap UvITXdP oy} ‘O1ONS[W pur ‘eseqey ‘Zan31Ipoy S®IOUIS OIE FYSII OY Fe ! SolIe}9I90S IBY} purys SIOZVIPIW SY} Puryoq + (a[14D) ZareNg Oprenpy pue ‘([Ize1gq) euey ep oltwog ‘(vuljUesIy) UOEN *S O[NWOY ‘siozEIpayy ay} £ saze1S pazIUQ 9Y} UlOIJ So}eBa[ap ‘reWIe7] “y Yydeasof sousnf pue UUBUYE7T “AY YLepes J ‘(soyesajap ULIUEUTY 9Y} 0} ArejoIDas) Bspod ‘qd *H “AWW Jvedde zySu 03 Ya] wo STIVA VUVOVIN LV NOISSAS NI ADNAUNAANOD .SHYOLVIGAW AHL NOILVIDOSSV S83Hd NVOINSWY AG LHO'4AdOO ay =

Page 33

carried 1,026,491,782 tons of freight, or 11.16 tons for every inhabitant. ‘To move this great amount of business required 2,135,121 freight-cars. The revenue de- rived by the railways from this movement of freight amounted to $1,926,940,028. The 2,135,121 freight-cars traveled in that year 635,450,681 miles. These figures give some idea of the vast- ness of this traffic. That it exceeds the pas- senger business is shown by the fact that there were only 47,095 passenger-cars trav- eling around in that same year, and they covered only 549,015,003 miles. Likewise they earned only $629,452.643, not quite a third of what the freight-cars brought in from their travels. If we take the individual railway, we find that it handles many thousands of freight-cars in aday. A railway such as the New York, New Haven, and Hartford, for example, moves on an average 35,000 freight-cars in a day. Oa some systems a greater number is handled, though the number does not de- pend, of course, as much upon the mileage of a system as upon the size of the population which it serves, and the New Haven practi- cally serves New England. How is the traffic represented by the num- ber of cars handled? How is it possible to keep track of all these cars, this vast amount of freight, to keep it moving along the rails without delay, so that the great channels of commerce may not be clogged, that our peo- ple may be fed, our industries supplied with raw materials and their products reach con- sumers? In the passenger end of the rail- way business human intelligence is supplied to surmount some of the transportation diffi- culties. Not only can the passenger transfer himself at terminals and make connections, but he can use his own intelligence to direct his movements. ‘The freight-car cannot ; and yet it must make more devious journeys than the average individual makes, and often finds itself in a yard along with 10,000 other freight- cars, where it would remain without making a sound unless somebody with the system all in his head came along and started it moving again. And, in the same manner, after it leaves the big yard, somebody must know just when it is due to go down the little branch line, this time with only two or three compan- ions gathered from different corners of the country, but brought together gradually by this system as they have neared the little branch line for which all were destined. . KEEPING FREIGHT ON THE MOVE 353 Within the compass of this article it is not possible to go into the vast amount of detail by which this is accomplished. But that the average person may understand what is going on in the freight-yard through which he passes perhaps in his Pullman car, that he may have a fair idea of the way in which the shipment which somebody starts moving a thousand miles away finally reaches him, here, briefly and roughly, is the system of the rail- way man: In the first place, in this country and throughout the railway world, there are now two grand divisions of freight. ‘There is ear-load freight, in which the car is the unit ; and there is less than car-load freight—the ** L. C. L.” of the railway man—in which the package or shipment is -the unit. The movement of freight, the handling of a freight-car, depends a great deal upon the class to which it belongs. ‘The car-load freight and the less- than-car-load freight cars move over the plains and the mountains as fellow-travelers. It is when they reach yards and terminals that their ways part, just as do those of the first-cabin passenger and the man in the steerage. The next division of the freight business of this country is made on a basis of its character with reference to its requirements as to time and its endurance as a traveler. Though one kind will get more considera- tion than another, all will travel together gen- erally. Just as abroad passengers travel in three classes, so here freight travels in three classes, and these classes are designated by colors, so that the railway man will know them. The three colors used are red, green, -and white. Perishable freight is red, time freight or merchandise is green, and slow freight, like coal or grain, is white. There is a similar classification of the less-than-car-load freight, except that here there are only two classes and two colors. Ifthe package or shipment is perishable, it is red ; if not, it is green. Now in the handlmg of freight-cars in the freight-yard all this is not told on the car. In fact, these travelers are mute. Most of them give no indication as they stand herded together of what they contain ; nor at the time of their arrival in a yard, perhaps, do they ever tell where they are going. But their cards do this, for every freight-car when it starts on a journey must have a card, else, like a:child, it- would get lost. The cards travel with the cars, but not on the cars. They are carried by the freight-train conductor in

Page 34

354 the caboose. They make up what is known as his “ papers.” The first thing the sea captain does at the conclusion of a voyage is to deliver up his ship’s papers. ‘The first thing the freight- train conductor does upon reaching the end of his run is to take his “train papers” to the yard office. They tell all about his train just as the papers tell all about the captain’s ship, so that the rule of the rail is the same as the rule of the sea. The papers which the train conductor will turn in when he reaches port will consist of a bunch of cards, and these cards will be of the three colors—red, green, and white. The cards will tell all about each car. They will show the contents of the car, the date of shipment or when or from what road-it was received, its weight, destination, and route. Generally, there are two cards for each car— that is, if the car is making a long journey. Then it must have another card called “a home-route card.” The home-route card is pinned on to the other card when it leaves it own line and goes on a foreign journey. It is important, because it is the only way by which the car will ever get back again to where it started from. A home-route card shows where and from what road it was received; it also gives the date when it began travel- ing on the other line. Here, then, is the key to this wonderful system by which you see cars shunted back and forth in yards by the snorting switch engine or moving in a sixty-car train behind the big Mallet or Mikado locomotive. It is all done by these cards. The trainmen and yardmen play with these cards of red, green, and white as you do with your pack of cards. They are sorting them and dealing them out again all day long. As they are sorted, so the cars are shifted and sorted out in the yard. This interesting game of cards the railway men play has got to be almost a science. If you are in this branch of the railway service, you start in to learn howto play it as a boy, and you will still be playing it as a man, knowing all the time that every card is a car, and that as you handle the cards so you must handle the cars. This shuffling and sorting of cards goes on every day and every hour of the day in the yard office. Perhaps this office is in the station. More often you will see its roof poking up over the roofs of the freight-cars. Just as the yardmen shift and make up into trains the cars in the freight-yard outside, so THE OUTLOOK 13: June the clerks in this office sort and arrange the red, green, and white cards representing each car. In every railway freight-house at a trans- fer-point there are long rows of pigeonholes arranged by series of numbers. This is for the home-route cards. This is so that a car may find itself, may journey homeward over the route it followed when it left its own line. In this you have one of the most important features of the railway card game, for it is just as important to keep foreign cars, as they are called, moving towards home as it is to keep freight moving towards its destina- tion. ‘That the great railway machine shall operate effectively, shall reap and sow and perform its wonderful functions, there must be a proper diffusion of freight-cars. A congestion of freight-cars in one part of the country and a scarcity of them in another would not do at all. To avoid this, the railways have what is known as the fer diem charge for foreign cars—a charge that a rail- way pays after a certain interval for the cars that do not belong to it. ‘To reduce this fer diem charge as much as possible and to keep the foreign freight-cars moving toward home is part of the game the railway men play with their pieces of colored pasteboard in the freight-house. Not only do they know what cars they are handling, but they know whether their road is long or short of foreign cars. All this counts at that stage of the game where some of the pieces of cardboard are supposed to fall together and make up a train. If you visit the office in a big transfer yard, you are very likely to be reminded of a broker’s office by the way a boy will be work- ing with these cards. He is working over a long row of pigeonholes much as the boy in the broker’s office works over the board. These are the home-route cards, and have nothing to do really with the freight aboard the cars. When a road receives a car from another road, it keeps the ‘“‘ home-route card ” made out by that road and puts it in one of these pigeonholes. If it is going to hand over this car to still another road, it will make out its own home-route card, which will go to this other road and show what road the car must be returned to. Suppose a car is re- ceived at a certain transfer-point, such as the big Harlem River yards of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, ‘Where the trunk lines dump most of their

Page 35

1914 cars bound for New England. The home- route card will show that a car was received from the trunk-line road at the Harlem River yard. The New Haven is under obligations then to return this car to the point where it got it, though it may take its time in doing so. The road receiving the car from the New Haven in like manner will return it eventually to the New Haven at the place where it received it It is in order to know just where to send back the car that the home-route cards are kept in the pigeonholes. When the New Haven, for instance, gets the car back from the other road at Boston, say, some one will look up its number in these pigeon- holes. There they will find its home-route card, made out by the road from which the New Haven got it originally, telling just where the car was delivered; and it is up to the New Haven then to see that the car gets back to this point. Thus, in a general way, a freight-car retraces its way by picking up these home-route cards stored in the pigeon- holes in the various yards through which it passed on its journey to the consignee. Whether or not it will make the journey back at once and over the exact route it came depends upon circumstances. ‘The chances are that it will not, but, on the contrary, will pursue a devious route and go hundreds or thousands of miles out of its way. Suppose at the freight-yard where it is finally unloaded they are short of their own cars, and the only empty car happens to be this foreign car which has come from the West via New York. It would be all right if the freight waiting for an empty car was des- tined for New York, for that would send this car along in the right direction, but perhaps this is produce being shipped to some place in Maine. It has got to be handled, and, with none of its own cars available, the freight agent takes this car and sends it up there to Maine. Up in Maine they may need a car to go to some point in Massachusetts, and they will use this car again; but at the first point where it can be spared it will be sent back to the point called for on the home-route card, and thus eventually get home. This use of freight- cars is called “car abuse,” because it is a habit of all roads, great and small; sev- eral times it has been necessary to increase the per diem charge in order to keep the evil within bounds. This handling of foreign cars, as has been said, is only one part of this railway card game. The other is, of course, seeing that KEEPING FREIGHT ON THE MOVE 355 all loaded cars are kept moving, and moving in the right direction. Let us follow the long freight-train as it nears the big city and finally comes to a halt in the freight-yard on its outskirts. As it has entered the yard the towerman has switched it onto one of several receiving tracks. First the heavy locomotive, which has pulled it over the plains or the moun- tains, its job now finished, uncouples and seeks the roundhouse for rest and refresh- ment. At the same time the caboose empties itself of its crew. First to drop off probably is the conductor, for every freight-train has a conductor, just as the passenger-train has ; he is in charge of the train and knows every- thing about it: the weight and contents of every car and just where it is bound. In big and busy yards they cannot afford to leave this train standing there long, for other trains are due in and will need room on the receiving tracks. Hence the first thing the conductor does is to hustle to the freight- yard office with the ‘“ papers ” of his train. As the train stands on the receiving track the men in the yard know no more about it than about the ship from a foreign port that has just dropped her anchor. And here is where the yard office. which few people see, comes in. Up in this yard office, poked away perhaps among the freight-cars, a clerk will be wait- ing for the conductor’s papers—for his wheel report, his switching list, and his little stack of red, green, and white cards representing his train. From these papers of the con- ductor this clerk will proceed immediately to make out a new batch of cards for purposes of his own road. The cards the conductor has just turned in will be kept in the office merely for future reference if anything goes wrong. On the new cards he makes out the clerk will show the kind and class of freight in each car, the date it was re- ceived, the initial letters of the road owning the car, the weight of the car and contents, and, finally, will mark on the card the route it is to take over the road in its journey beyond this point and where it is to be switched. This is called “ re-routing.” The man who performs this work is.called in the railway business a train clerk. He sits all day or all night in a freight-house and never sees the cars. His is not a familiar job to most of us; yet he is one of the most important functionaries in this whole system of moving: freight. Master of his own railway map is the rail-

Page 36

356 way train clerk in the freight-house. It is he who really keeps the commerce of the coun- try moving properly. He is the brains of the freight-car in its journeyings. He directs it along the main lines and along the branches. He makes it cut corners or go around circles. Out on the roads of steel reaching into the mine or the mill the freight-car does as he directs, seeking side-paths at his command and finally fetching up at the proper siding to be loaded or unloaded. As men play with checkers, so he plays with cars, but without a board. His board is the railway map, which he curries in his head. In fact, all he does is to write “via ’”’ and the name of some place or places on this map—and so the car moves. The movement of our enormous crops, the feeding of the millions, depend very much upon how these train clerks, scattered all over the country wherever railways come together, perform their duties and upon what they write upon these cards. Upon this work of the train clerk, too, depends practically all the work of the yard outside. The switch engine which you will see presently breaking up the train which has just come in, dropping and picking up cars on the turmoil of tracks which make up a freight-yard, is carrying out his moves, for it is from these cards which he makes out that the yardmen know upon what tracks to place the cars of the train. From the cards is first made out a switching list for the move- ments in the yard, and it is this which ac- counts for the chalk marks you see on the freight-cars. With the switching list a man called a chalker goes along the train as it stands on the receiving track and begins chalking the cars, writing on them the route point for which they are bound now as a re- sult of the work of the train clerk. As a car lopes along on its journey it accumulates many chalk marks—red, green, yellow, white, depending upon the roads that have handled it, each having its own color. Gradually some of these chalk marks become blurred, but the railway men, strange to say, can always pick out their own. The yardmaster is the potentate of the freight-yard. He makes up trains and he makes up train crews, but in all of this he is governed by what the train clerks have writ- ten on the cards. The yardmaster, too, gets a switching list of the train from the train clerk, and it is he who assigns the switch engine and a crew to break it up. With its great array of tracks and its hun- THE OUTLOOK 13 June dreds of cars, the big transfer or terminal yard to the ordinary traveler is nothing short of bewildering ; but these men know the differ- ent tracks as we know the streets of our city. There are yards in this country with nearly one hundred miles of track in them and cov- ering many acres. At one New York yard there is, on an average, five thousand cars moving in and out in a single day, while five thousand more are standing on the tracks. Every freight-yard is divided into three parts—receiving, forwarding, and classify- ing tracks. These tracks have names and numbers, but the yardmen know them with- out the aid of sign-posts. They know them as the woodsmen know their trails, and they will shift freight-cars about all day long in such a place without making a mistake. Generally there is a track for each main point of the system in the classifying section of the yard. In sorting the freight-cars among these tracks it is very important that the red- card freight—the perishable—shall be in such a position that it will be hauled out first. Hence it is that in many yards two switch engines do the work of breaking up a train, one at each end of the classification tracks. One of the switchers will pusu the perishable freight onto one end of the track, while another will take the slower freight and put it on the other end. Being at the end nearest the exit from the yard, the perishable will be taken out first as the classification tracks are emptied, and next will come the merchandise. Every road has a tonnage limit for its freight-trains, depending upon the size and power of the locomotives and the grades. In making up a train from the classification tracks the yardmaster must therefore be governed by the weights of the cars. Cars are picked up from a classification track until the tonnage limit is reached. It may be eight hundred tons or it may be two thousand tons. The freight-trains you see may vary in the number of their cars, but the tonnage will be about the same, for every road tries to haul as much as it can to in- crease its train-load, and thus keep down the cost of operation. Once the tonnage limit is reached, the caboose is put on, an engine and crew are selected by the yardmaster, the conductor climbs aboard the caboose with his papers, and the train is off to the next big trans- fer-point, where all this will be done over again. Eighty trains a day are handled in some yards, from which one can estimate the

Page 37

1914 celerity with which this shifting process is accomplished. So expert have the yard- men become that fifty and sixty car trains are broken up, classified, and made up in an hour’s time. The freight service has its trains de /uxe, like the passenger service. It has freight- trains which travel on schedule, and it has freight-trains which are just sent out on the line to travel along as best they can. Here come in the red, green, and white cards again; for it depends very much on the color of a car’s card what train it is allowed to travel on. If it is fortunate enough to have a red card, it will no doubt get on what is known as a “symbol”’ train—a train that runs on a regular schedule and makes regular stops. The symbol is denoted by letters and a number stuck up in the little cupola of the caboose. ‘The extra train shoved out on the line to take its chances will have a num- ber and the letter X. Once it leaves the yards, its movements are directed by the despatchers. Were all freight handled in car-load lots, here would end the problem of the railway man; but much freight travels in smaller units. This compels the railway to maintain at transfer-points what is practically a sepa- rate yard. This L. C. L. freight must be picked out from the train as it is broken up, and, instead of being placed on the classi- fication tracks, it must be hauled to what is known as a transfer-house—always the APPEARING IN PRINT 357 center of the L. C. L. yard. What occurs at the transfer-house is similar in a way to what occurs in the other part of the yard. The transfer-house has long platforms, with three or four tracks between each plat- form. Loaded cars are placed on one side of a platform, empties on the other. In each loaded car is a checker and an assistant. In each empty car is a stevedore to put away the shipments. The checker loads the trucks and directs them to the proper car. Perhaps you have ordered a piece of fur- niture to be sent to you from the West. If its journey has been a long one, it will have been through several transfer-houses, first at the beginning of its journey, and then at the end. In the middle stage of its journey, when it passed over the trunk line, it traveled in a through car and was not disturbed. But when it reaches your own road it will begin to be segregated, will be herded with other L. C. L. shipments, until finally, by this sift- ing process in several transfer-houses, it will get in a car with other pieces of merchandise all bound for your town. In the last transfer-yard this car will fall in perhaps with car-load cars also bound for the same place, and so will make up the drop-and-pick-up train, which will stop in the night at your own freight-yard. The railway’s job is done then, for in this final freight-yard all class distinction necessarily ceases, and the strawberries wait with the coal to be hauled away to the man who needs them. APPEARING IN PRINT BY ROY S. DURSTINE HE people who read the daily news- papers have never learned to be interviewed. When they are sud- denly brought into the limelight, they haven’t the slightest idea of how to act, what to say, or what not to say. They feel vaguely that the ogre Publicity, or its less cordial sister Notoriety, is approaching in the person of the mild-mannered and gen- erally tired young man who has come to ask them questions. If they wish to shun notoriety, they are usually too flustered to give an innocuous impression. If they are anxious to obtain publicity, they are ordinarily too eager to give an orderly narrative of the facts. The naturally interviewable person is a rare animal. This isn’t going to tell them how. It’s sim- ply going to tell something about the behavior of the people from whom it is the reporter’s business to get certain facts which you, on the following morning or the same afternoon, may read in straightaway fashion. The great number of episodes described every day in the paper that you buy for a cent or two, and described with pretty marvelous accuracy under the circumstances, is rather conclusive proof that the art of interviewing has been

Page 38

358 going along nicely even though the art of being interviewed has been badly neglected. The only wonder is that the papers ever get anything perfectly straight. One of the managers of a big New York hotel said recently that in all his experience he had never known the papers to print the correct facts about anything that had occurred in his hotel. It happens that this hotel makes no effort to help the papers. In fact, the authorities are still adhering to the old policy of hampering the newspaper men just as far as they are able. But there is another explanation, a better one, for the situation deplored by this hotel man. It is that no two persons will recount an incident in precisely the same way. Con- vince yourself of this. The next time two people come hurrying into a room where several friends are sitting listen to their stories of the events that immediately pre- ceded their coming. Perhaps they saw a couple of taxis collide or heard an old gentle- man having an altercation with a street-car conductor. If one starts to tell about it, the other will contain himself just so long, and then he will interrupt to make a correction or two according to the remembrance that he has. Reporters are just men like ourselves, trained in observation a little more than men in almost any other walk of life perhaps, but none the less just men. To one a certain aspect will loom up greater than to another. De- tails that stand out clearly in this man’s mind will seem negligible to that man. Add to this frailty of human nature the difficulties that arise when each reporter is obliged to get his facts from another person, and suppose no two reporters happen to talk to the same person, and truth becomes a miracle. We shall get uniformly perfect stories in all the papers only when all men see things alike © and when any one who is about to create a piece of news—a murderer, for instance—is obliging enough to give the newspapers ad- vance notice, so that they may have repre- sentatives there. As it is now, the attitude which people take in regard to seeing their names in print may be determined, as a rule, very readily. If they are going to appear in a good light, there is no objection. If the light is to be at all opaque, there is apt to be a decided effort to stay out of print. A reasonably prominent ‘citizen goes to a big public dinner at one’ of the great hotels. THE OUTLOOK 13 June If he finds his name among the twenty or thirty persons noticed among the tables, he experiences a mild glow of pleasure. He must be getting known. He tell his wife, however, that he wishes these papers would let a man dine out without telling the whole world about it. His wife probably notices that he shows no immediate intention of suing for libel, and if she looks carefully she will see him turn again to that page before he puts down his paper and leaves the breakfast table. But if this same citizen’s limousine, on the way home from the dinner, happens to run into a taxicab—if somebody is hurt, an ambulance is called, and names are taken all round—then that citizen prefers that his name be left out of the account. The light now is slightly clouded. It isn’t the clear, cordial, warming light of the some-of-those-present-were refer- ence to him. Dividing people, very roughly. into three classes, there are those who never want their names in print, there are those who always want their names in print, and there are those who have no opinion on the subject, because, rarely seeing the papers, they don’t recognize the possibility. There is a classic case that illustrates the type that never wants its namein print. Not many years ago in one of the Eastern cities a man prominent and respected in the com- munity was murdered under circumstances that were not to his credit. From the moment when the first reporter hustled to that man’s home on the evening of the shooting until the present day not one word has been uttered for publication by any member of the dead man’s family. There was no effort to set things straight before the public. No apology, no denial, no extenuations, were offered. The family simply shut itself off from the rest of the world. Certain newspaper men were assigned, of course, to watch this silence. There was no telling when it would be lifted, for other families had started out this way and later altered their attitude. But this family was different. Its position was as far removed from feigned reticence as innocence is from coquetry. The newspaper men recognized the genuine, discouraged their editors from keeping up the watch, and soon it was dis- continued. That family’s behavior is often mentioned in newspaper offices as the only example on record of its kind. It is men- tioned with deep ‘réspect, too, for no one

Page 39

1914 scents quicker or despises more completely the notoriety-seeker than the reporter. There are families who never want their names in print who believe in the old idea that a woman should appear in print just three times in her life—at her birth, at her marriage, and at her death. The men of the family are permitted to stretch this to cover such events as becoming officers of prosper- ous corporations, but otherwise they shun the printed page as they would the plague. If they are appointed to some honorary recep- tion committee, the prospect of an announce- ment seems to make them suffer acute physi- cal pain. The theory of the clear and opaque lights doesn’t hold in their case. They just don’t want to see their names in print. One wonders how they. bring themselves to order visiting cards. Possibly if the daily papers were engraved they would feel differently about publicity. There is another person who is just as averse to reading his name in the papers, but for a reason unrelated to personal taste. He is the man who would lose his job if he did. ‘The under-officials of railways and big corpo- rations belong here. ‘The big men’s secre- taries are in the very van of this category. ‘They wouldn’t venture an opinion on the day of the week if they thought they were going to be quoted. It is much easier to interview the President of the United States than the assistant secretary of anything. ‘These men, who can feel their official heads falling off with every word spoken by them, are most keen in their efforts at self-obliteration when a newspaper is mentioned. “I’m from the ‘Star,’” says a reporter. “Is the president of your company in ?” “I’m not quite sure, but I’m fairly certain that he’s just left town for the day, although, of course, I shouldn’t want to be quoted on that,” is the answer. If the reporters depended upon such per- sons for their news, there would be no daily papers. There would be nothing but cor- porations and associations and _ societies, adorned by assistant secretaries. It seems such a pity for people to be like that when there are men who know so well how to talk openly without forgetting their own interests for a second. Take a good, able lawyer, for instance, like one who was once told that a newspaper man wanted to ask him whether one of his clients was about to be investigated by the Government. The lawyer admitted his visitor at once. b APPEARING IN PRINT 359 “Of course you can readily appreciate,” said the lawyer, when the preliminaries had been cleared away, “ that a lawyer must con- sider the affairs of his clients with the same sanctity that a newspaper man _ considers communications given to him in confidence. But for your own information I can tell you confidentially that there is not even the be- ginning of an investigation.” Could anything have been more neatly done? The paper could not even print the information that there was nothing to print, and yet it had been perfectly advised and had no possible excuse for faking. The great difficulty, of course, in drawing any sharp distinctions between types is that people often shift readily from one category to another as suits their purposes best. Not long ago an automobile rolled up to the office of a justice of the peace in a village near New York. Two men and two women stepped out. Every city editor in New York had on his desk, two hours later, the story of an elopement in which the daughter of a prominent banker was one of the chief fig- ures, and her father’s second assistant sub- clerk was the other. The justice was run- ning for re-election that fall. ‘The local editors, who were also the local correspond- ents of the New York papers, could help him. Hence the knot had scarcely been tied be- fore the justice telephoned the editors-corre- spondents all about it. Along in the evening a reporter from one of the conservative New York papers called at the great banker’s city home. ‘The mother of the presumable bride received him. ‘“* I’ve come to ask about your daughter’s wedding,” said the reporter. ‘My daughter’s zAat?’’ asked the banker’s wife. ‘“* Her wedding this afternoon at Blankville.” “Why, my daughter isn’t married,” she laughed. ‘‘ Whatever put that idea into your head ?” ‘“‘ Qur information comes from the justice who performed the ceremony,”’ answered the newspaper man. ‘“ He’s either mad or a rogue,” declared the mother. ‘** Have you heard the story ?” ‘** Not a word of it.” ** May I see your daughter ?” ‘** She’s in the country at a friend’s house to-night. No, don’t ask me for the number. I’ve just been talking to her on the ’phone,

Page 40

and I shouldn’t want to alarm her. We’re expecting news of her father every minute.” “ He’s landing from Europe to-morrow, isn’t he ?” “Tee.” “ We tried to reach him by wireless.” “ You did ?” she asked. ‘‘ Yes,”’ and the reporter watched her care- fully as he finished ; “ the wireless was out of kilter to-night.” He thought he saw a little sigh of relief. For the next five minutes the reporter . jammed his head, or, better perhaps, gently pressed his head, against the stone wall of that woman’s flat denial. He was sure of his ground at first, but gradually his certainty was undermined by the manner, more than the words, of the lady who was receiving him. She didn’t grow angry. She was sim- ply firm and calm, and always good-humored. There had been a mistake in names—that was all. He really must believe her. What object could she have in concealing the facts if the marriage were really performed? Her denial wouldn’t annul it if she wanted it annulled. The reporter ran out of modes of attack and withdrew. Half-way down the block he met a man from a less conservative paper— decidedly less conservative. This man wasn’t at all the sort of person to talk to a woman such as he had just left. He would be pre- sumptuous, rude, impertinent. So the re- porter induced the newcomer to turn around, explaining that he had just come from the banker’s house and that he would repeat all he had learned. It was growing late, and the man from the less conservative paper knew that he could rely implicitly on his friend. The interview was described in detail. ‘Oh, that won’t do at all,” exclaimed the second reporter. “* You can write that, if you want to. I’m going to write a regular story.” And he did. He described the runaway pair eluding the girl’s mother and stopping to tele- phone her only after they were safely mar- ried. He built up a circumstantial romance, indefinite enough to fit almost any young man and young woman, yet seemingly possessed of intimate detail. He was an adept at the art of faking. He spoke of the mother re- ceiving the news and tearfully admitting, exclusively for his paper, that it was true, and hysterically wondering what her husband would say when he returned from Europe the next day. The first reporter’s city editor sent for him 360 THE OUTLOOK when he appeared for work the following afternoon. ‘The reporter explained precisely what had occurred, for there is complete frankness between a city editor and his staff. “Well,” said the editor, “I guess you’d better go up and see her again to-day, and ask her how she liked the two stories. I'll have her husband covered by the Wall Street office. I should think the good safe story you wrote would make you pretty solid with her.”’ The reporter went. The banker’s wife received him. “ I’m so sorry about this story,” he began, producing the fake. “ I feel partially respon- sible for it, too, and I want to explain.” She took the clipping from him. His explanation was broken off in the middle when he saw her reading the story with twinkling eyes and a smile playing about her lips. “Oh, isn’t it good?” she brokeout. “ May I keep this copy ?” “Good!” fairly shouted the reporter. “Why, it’s a direct contradiction of every- thing you told me last night.” ‘‘T wonder how they got their informa- tion,” she mused aloud. ‘Of course it’s a little too romantic, but who mind’s that ?”’ ** Madam—” began the conservative man. ‘* Now, please don’t be angry for what I told you last night,” she protested. “ You see, I thought that was the best thing to do at the time. But now my husband is home, and he took everything better than we ex- pected, so Elsie and I are rather glad that such a complete account has been pub- lished.” How would you classify that woman ? Perhaps she has served, at any rate, to shade us into a consideration of the class that always wants its name in print. There are two kinds of people like that—those who love it for its own sweet self alone, and those who love it because it gets them some- thing. A winter or two ago some folk-dances were held in the ball-room of a famous Fifth Avenue house. The society reporters were there—tall hats, gardenias, and all—for it was an occasion when Charity came out of the lowly places and became expensively gowned. Into this assembly wandered a regular re- porter, sent to write a picture story beyond the ken of the social scribes. He was at the side of the room gathering color in chunks when a short, puffy little man, of middle age, 13 June rr a a a a a a eae | 7S = a

Page 41

1914 a great deal too carefully dressed, and with a slick-backed hair-cut, paused beside him. The newspaper man was making the mistake of taking notes. ‘** Reportuh ?” queried the small person. ““ Yes,”’ smiled the other. “You may say that I am here,” and with a wave of his fat hand, fringed with shimmering nails, the little man moved off majestically. Now this reporter happened to have a working remembrance, born of many dinner seasons, of every worth-while-to-remember face in New York. He hadn’t the remotest idea of the identity of this man who had so generously bestowed his name upon the pub- lic prints. So he thought that something ought to be done about it. Therefore he searched out some one who could supply the name, and in the paper the following morn- ing appeared the dialogue which had oc- curred, much as it is given here, with the addition of the man’s full name. That’s the difficulty in fooling with the picture-story man. Some of his pictures are bound to be portraits. There really are people who will risk their necks for the satisfaction of finding their names in the paper the next morning. There was an amateur aviator who did that once. He had been making elaborate prep- arations for so many days, twanging the wires of his plane so critically and wisely, observing the weather so judiciously, and altogether posing as such an expert that, when a fine day came and his assistants an- nounced in the hearing of the newspaper men that all was ready, there was nothing for it but to fly. He cut spirals and figure eights ; he hopped straight over a ten-foot fence ; he all but looped the loop. Most wonderful of all, he came down safely, and then lost his nerve and admitted’ that he hadn’t meant to do it. But he got columns in the papers, anyway, though it wasn’t ex- actly the sort of publicity that he wanted. At the public dinners given every winter by societies and associations there are always perfectly strange people who approach the press table, introduce themselves, and shake hands all around, and then go away as sud- denly as they came. ‘The inference is obvi- ous, but the hint is never taken. Some are more bold about it. They come up in a great hurry, ask “the boys ”’ if they are get- ting everything they want, snap their fingers at the wine-stewards, and lay a card on the APPEARING IN PRINT 361 table containing half a dozen names. There it remains. Some psychologist will have to tell us about this phenomenon—the same man who ex- plains why people always look at themselves first in a kodak picture. He can give us an insight, too, into the brain of the self-styled ‘‘ publicists ” who go to tremendous pains to organize societies to celebrate something, because they love pub- licity for its own dear sake. If one of their speeches happens to wedge into the paper, they éxperience almost convulsions of pleas- ure at this opportunity of reading their favor- ite author, and if any newspaper man fastens upon himself the responsibility for having caused that speech to appear, the “ publicist ”’ will stand for anything up to and possibly including manslaughter from the newspaper man after that. For a man of this tvpe delights to picture himself reluctantly submitting to being interviewed—a process that he abhors so greatly that if the reporters don’t search him out ever so often he will send typewritten statements by himself into the newspaper offices. He is the mainstay of the clipping bureaus and the most prolific of contributors to “ Who’s Who.” Policemen, too, like to see their names in print. Of course there are some officers who actually do melt into the crowd after they have brought over a moving-picture rescue in a park runaway, or slid down a smoking ladder with their arms full of uncon- scious children. But there aren’t enough like that, fortunately for the newspapers, to choke up the news sources. Yet their anxi- ety to get in the papers isn’t at all like the brazen vanity of the publicity-seeker. It is rather a mixture of childish wonder and a vague feeling that some indefinite man-higher- up in thedepartment will thump his desk as he reads and exclaim, ‘ Now, ¢here’s a good cop !” Somebody telephoned to one of the news- paper offices once that a riot was in progress between some shirt-waist strike-breakers and some pickets in one of the streets near Fifth Avenue. A reporter went up to see, but by the time he arrived the street was desolate. He approached the policeman at the corner. “Thought there was a riot going on here,” said the reporter. ‘* Riot, nuttin’,” returned the officer. “Couple 0’ boobs got in a argument and a little crowd collected, that’s all.’’ ‘* That’s too bad!” said the reporter.

Page 42

362 THE OUTLOOK “It’s a dull afternoon for news, and we were hoping, down at the ‘ Sphere’ office, that it was a good fight.”’ * You folks ’a’ been underestimatin’ this strike all along,” quickly put in the police- man, at once alive to an opportunity. “ Didn’t look like much when it started, but—listen. I’m standin’ here at what’s probably the busiest little corner in New York, lam. Up runsa guy and tells me there’s a fight startin’ down the block there. ‘There’s a detail supposed to be watchin’ that buildin’; but do I leave it tothem? Notachance! I seen to® many rows like that get away from a man. I beats it down the street, pushes in through the crowd that has swelled up big by that time, blockin’ the traffic from curb to curb, and I takes them two wops, or whatever they was, and raps their heads together and tell’s ‘em to beat it! I s’pose you'll find McGinnis’s name on the blotter. He come up just as I’d finished and took ’em to the station-house. I had to get back here on me post. What’sthat? My name? Oh, you don’t want it, do you? Hey! don’t go away mad that way. It’s Burke, ‘I’.—that’s my initials—and, say, you can go as far as you like with that fight. It was a peach while it lasted. So long! You bus-driver, come on! Do you want me to carry you across ?” And then, before the newspaper man had reached the curb, the policeman called after him : ‘Say, what paper ‘Il thatbe in? To-night ?” There is nothing of this ingenuousness in the attitude toward the public prints of that master hand, the politician. ‘Io him, in office or out, publicity is the breath of life, and also frequently the bread and butter. Con- sequently he has made getting it a fine art. On the days when a politician wants to appear before the public he can weave an excellent feature story out of the veriest cob- web of facts. And all the time he appears to be carelessly dropping one ill-advised ad- mission after another in the way that most effectively piques the curiosity of the most seasoned interviewer. On the days when he thinks it best to drop out of sight until some- thing has blown over, he can belittle the most stupendous facts just as adroitly. He, for one, has not neglected the art of being inter- viewed. He would make the greatest news editor that ever lived ; his sense of news value is perfectly tuned to the average before him. From this average he darts into subtleties or lapses into platitudes until every man be- 13 June fore him firmly believes that there is an intangible link, which no one shares, between himself and the politician. These recent campaigns in which civic betterment has been the cry have produced a strange new type of politician—the ama- teur. One of these had for many years, in his private business, kept himself separated from the newspaper man by plate glass, ma- hogany, and subordinates. The first day that the political reporters sent in word that they would like to see him he fairly tumbled over chairs getting to them. He shook hands fervently all around; he patted a few backs, roared with jovial laugh- ter at the slightest provocation, and was so eager to talk about his side of the contro- versy waging just then that he tangled up his points so that no one could get the drift of his argument. It took the careful question- ing of a thoroughly trained man to draw out an orderly recital of what this suddenly fledged interviewee had on his mind. And then he almost embraced the man who had made the others understand. With repeated felicita- tions and very public admonitions to his office staff never to keep any of these gentle- men waiting, he retired, flushed and uncom- fortable, to his office, pressed a button, and told his secretary to get the very earliest editions of all the afternoon papers. ‘Is it really him ?” exclaimed the news- paper crowd, incredulously. Now, let’s talk about the best of the three classes—the people who are indifferent about it. They are the ones the newspaper man likes best, and he usually writes. his best stories about them. One summer afternoon, in the tangled skein of streets that lies in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge, an undersized boy of fifteen was clubbed to death by three bigger boys because he wouldn’t buy them ice-cream sandwiches. He dropped upon the dirty floor of the candy store as the three scuttled out of the door. The ambulance doctor found that there was nothing he could do, and it remained for the sharp-faced youngster who tended the soda-water fountain to tell the police who the boy was and where he lived. Later that evening the dead lad’s sister and father went to the morgue to say that they wanted the body, and still later the newspaper men found the sister sitting in a dim corner of their flat, her hands upon an oilcloth table top, looking straight ahead. Ww sk av tr di fo th to

Page 43

J 1914 APPEARING IN PRINT 363 The presence of outsiders seemed to make no impression upon her. There had been a stream of strangers in the little rooms ever since the death had brought the family into a short-lived prominence in the neighborhood. Curiosity had called many neighbors, utterly or almost unknown to the girl and her father. She had, apparently, been talking about her brother with these people, and very naturally she kept on talking with perfect: simplicity. ** He wasn’t an awful good boy,” she said. ‘He got in fights, like all boys do, but he never went with no gangs and he never talked about nobody having it in for him.” She went on to tell of her mother’s death, three years before. “To-morrow we were all going to the cemetery together,” she sighed. ‘“‘ Now we’ll go, anyway.” ‘4 Publicity, notoriety—they were unknown to her. Yet the men who stood in that little room with her that evening were conscious of having that rarest of opportunities—the opportunity of seeing a human being acting perfectly natural in spite of the fact that she knew she was talking for publication. The type is even purer in children. It’ is well illustrated by the story of a little girl farther north, where another span of steel crosses the East River. Under it there are shady pavilions where the children of the community come together to play. There one afternoon in summer a little girl of six and a little boy of three were sitting side by side on the hot concrete floors. Neighbors saw them there, and smiled at the companion- ship, which had persisted from a day when their families had lived in the same tene- ment. Now their elders quarreled, but the youngsters continued to play together. An hour or so later the little boy was found on the landing near his father’s flat. The child who came upon him ran to the corner drug store and said that a baby was dying two doors down the block. The am- bulance surgeon made a diagnosis of convul- sions, and, since the little fellow’s family was away for the afternoon, bundled him into the ambulance. As they were crossing a trolley track on the way to the hospital the little boy died. That evening a coroner’s physician rolled back the collar around the boy’s neck and found a piece of string knotted tightly into the throat. The police sought out the little girl and took her to the boy’s flat. There she was asked whether she hadn’t strangled her baby playmate. She crumpled up as if she had been struck. Two well-meaning but instinc- tively brutal detectives stood over her and exhorted her to tell the truth. The dead baby’s mother sat in a corner, her apron over her head, rocking and moaning over her grief. A sharp-tongued sister shook her fist in the little girl’s face. It happened that some newspaper men had come with the police into the room. One of them went over to the child and knelt beside her, holding her drooping head on his shoulder. He whispered encouragement and confidence into her ear, and gradually he drew her attention away from the tempest about her. Soon she stopped crying and looked at him with trust. They went into another room. There she told him with the sincerity of child- hood that she had led the little boy back to the tenement, and that they had parted at the doorway. Whathad happened after that she knew no better than he. — Little Billy had been fond of picking up scraps of cloth that fell from the bundle of the ragpicker as it was bumped down the stairs. He liked to play horse with these strips. Perhaps he had tied one end to the banister and looped the other about his neck. He often begged her to play with him like that. He was alone, and he must have slipped down a step or two on the stairs. That was her expla- nation. The reporter felt that he had done the best day’s work of a season when he led the little girl back into the room where the de- tectives were waiting and told her story for her. They took her by the hand and led her back to her family. ‘The newspaper man’s reward was that he had a central figure for a corking story—the sort of figure that was typical of the person who didn’t care whether her-name was printed or not. Children are better types because the grown-ups sometimes suddenly develop an unwonted interest in the papers. There was the case of a penniless woman who had a fam- ily of six, and who was discovered by a charity society the week before Christmas. From the offices of this organization the story of this woman’s pitiful plight was given to the newspapers. The stories that appeared had the desired effect. Every newspaper office was flooded with: contributions for the family. In came the letters inclosing dollar bills, two-dollar

Page 44

364

bills, sometimes checks for small amounts. Each evening a reporter from every paper trudged through the snow to give the un- happy woman the contributions for the day. On the third evening one reporter found that no one in New York was following the pa- pers more closely than this woman. ** Aw, ye’ve got a fine paper, so ye have,”’ said she. ‘This makes $26 ye’ve brought me since Choosday, and the ‘ Blade’s’ only come up with $3, and they had a picture of us too!” Sometimes an acquired acquaintance doesn’t bring such a favorable opinion. It works the other way and the gratitude is missing. <A story was once telephoned into a newspaper office by one of its police-station reporters about a very fat man who cooled off each evening in summer by filling his bath-tub with cold water and lying in it to read, allow- ing a constant stream to flow from the fau- cets and out through the exhaust pipe. The reporter went on to say that on the evening in question he had fallen asleep over his novel, and had unconsciously permitted his foot to rest against the outlet. He had been submerged and found all but drowned after the tenants in the flat below had notified the landlord that a flood was in progress some- where upstairs. THE OUTLOOK 13 June “Go as far as you like with that yarn,” the police reporter had laughed. ‘“ He never sees a newspaper.” But on the following afternoon the reporter who had written the story was electrified to learn that this same fat man had sued the paper for libel for $50,000. It required a great deal of argument to make him see that he would only make himself more ridiculous by pressing the suit. Occasionally an editor, especially on the more radical papers, underestimates the sen- sibilities of this kind of man. What one of these editors once said on such an occasion is very often repeated to new reporters. He had sent out a man to interview a somewhat obscure ex-prize-fighter who was in some sort of trouble. In an hour or so the reporter called up his editor. ‘*He hasn’t anything to say,’’ came the message over the wire. “ You go back and ask him all over again,” snapped the editor. “T’ve been back twice,”’ insisted the re- porter, “* and he says that if I come back again, he’ll knock me into the middle of year after next!” ‘You go right back to that man’s house,” cried the chief, *‘ and tell him he can’t intimi- date me !” COMMERCE AND FINANCE A WEEKLY ARTICLE BY THEODORE H. PRICE SOME OF THE BEST BOOKS ON BUSINESS FIRST AM frequently asked for a list of the books a business man _ should read. Presumably, such requests imply a belief that he who writes must read. ‘This is not the fact. Some of the world’s profoundest thinkers and most trenchant writers have been men who read but little. John Bunyan, Robert Burns, and Horace Greeley are con- spicuous examples of great writers who were not readers. They were, however, close ob- servers. They saw things that others failed to see, and their vision, broadened by sympa- thy and lighted by imagination, was pictured forth in words that will be remembered long after more scholarly authors are forgotten. But these were men of genius, and the ARTICLE literary genius, like the commercial or finan- cial genius, is independent of education or the lack of it. Most of us are plodders, and the plodder, whether in business or in litera- ture, if he is to succeed, must avail himself of the philosophy and experience of others as recorded in the books. Having thus confessed to mediocrity by admitting that [ have read and forgotten many books upon financial and commercial subjects, I feel that I will not be considered didactic if, from among those remembered I recommend a few volumes as likely to in- terest the many men who desire to know the ** best books on business.” The literature of business, or business

Page 45

1914 economics, is enormous. No one can hope to have read it all or presume to say that any of it is worthless. The test of time rather than that of individual judgment is the safest one to apply, and for this reason it is better to commence with an enumeration of those books that are classic in authority. The early writers upon economic subjects dealt almost exclusively with political economy, but in doing ‘so they laid down principles that are eternal and as soundly applicable to business intercourse and policy to-day as they were centuries ago. Xenophon, Plato, and Aris- totle were the founders of political economy. The “ CEikonomikos,” or “‘ The Economist,” of Xenophon exalts agriculture as the only original source of wealth in much the same spirit that we consider peculiar to the South- ern Democrats in the Sixty-third Congress, and one can almost believe that President Wilson has adopted a ‘ Xenophonian ” policy toward Mexico when we read the fol- lowing passage in the essay upon the Athenian Revenues : ‘Tf any man can have so wild a notion as to imagine that war will contribute more to the increase of riches than peace, I know no better way to decide the controversy than by appealing to the experience of former ages. It is an absurd supposition to imagine that peace will weaken our strength and ruin our authority and reputation abroad, for of all governments those are the happiest which have continued longest without war.” The economic doctrines preached by Aris- totle in his ‘‘ Ethics ” and his “ Politics ” are essentially the same as those of the twentieth century, though the Socialists claim that in his abhorrence of inordinate wealth and the trade of money-lending Aristotle was the founder of their political party. In his ‘“‘ Republic” Plato expounds the law of enlightened self-interest and combina- tion which men have ever since been unsuc- cessfully trying to subvert by legislation like the Sherman Law and the many other ineffec- tive statutes that have preceded it. He says: “That which gives rise to society is our inability to satisfy our own desires and the need we have for a large number of things. Thus, necessity, having compelled men to com- bine with one another, society is established for the sake of mutual assistance. . . . One gives té another what he has in return for what he has not, only because he believes it will be to his advantage.” ‘(The italics até mine.) COMMERCE AND FINANCE It would be possible and delightful to con- 365 tinue indefinitely this examination of the po- litico-economic enthusiasms of to-day in the light of Greek philosophy, but enough has been said to indicate the enjoyment that will be found in a “ shelf of books on business ” that commences with Plato’s “ Republic,” Aristotle’s “ Ethics” and “ Politics,” and Xenophon’s ‘“‘ Economist.” The last-named book contains one sentence which should be emblazoned upon the wall of every office in the country. It is: ‘* We may then exclude money also from being counted as wealth, if it is in the hands of one who does not know how to use it.”’ The economic philosophy of the Romans, in so far as they had any, was similar to that of the Greeks, and there are no Latin writers upon the production and distribution of wealth whose books can be regarded as classic. There is, in fact, but little in Roman literature that relates to such subjects. This is not surprising, for trade and industry were not popular with a people whose ideals were chiefly military and whose revenues were nvainly derived from plunder and oppressive taxation. Even the clerical philosophers of the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, who aspired to explain nearly all the phe- nomena of life and society, seem to have been unconscious of the economic problem, and the craze for and belief in alchemy was the only attempt made to solve it before the development of loan and deposit banking, which commenced with the establishment of the Bank of Venice in 1587. From that time on the extension of com- merce and civilization has been concurrent, and money, wealth, and credit have been the subjects of a constantly increasing literature. Most of this literature was at first desultory and crude, and it was not until 1776, when Adam Smith’s ‘“ Wealth of Nations ” was published, that political economy took scien- tific rank. That the Declaration of Independence was given to the world in the same year is a coin- cidence that will impress Americans, but the two'things were not related except in so far as they marked the commencement of an era of independent and scientific thought which etill persists to the benefit of humanity. No brief summary of Adam Smith’s great work is possible. It is the foundation of economic science, and must be read by all those who aspire to even rudimentary knowl- edge of the subject. The premises of the entire argument

Page 46

. are stated in the opening sentence as follows : “The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always in the immediate produce of that labor or what is purchased with that produce from other nations.’’ Prior to the time of Adam Smith, and since, much confusion of mind has existed as to the source of wealth, and nearly all economic fal- lacies and many commercial misadventures have sprung from the idea that wealth could be produced without labor. If he had done nothing more than formulate this convincing statement of the truth, Adam Smith would be entitled to the permanent gratitude of an in- dustrious world the product of whose labor productively invested has made the extension of a beneficent civilization possible. Following Adam Smith came Thomas Robert Malthus, whose ‘‘ Malthusian ” theory that poverty could be cured by limiting the population is his chief title to fame, and Dawd Ricardo, who died in 1823. ‘ An Essay on the Principle of Population,” by Malthus, and Ricardo’s *‘ Principles of Political Econ- omy ” would be interesting, but not essential additions to a library of economic literature. He who has read and mastered Adam Smith will find profit and enjoyment in the utilitarian theories of Jeremy Bentham as expounded in his “ Introduction to the Prin- ciples of Morals and Legislation.”” While his style is somewhat turgid and his theme but remotely related to the science of economics as now understood, his attempt to measure the rectitude of all actions by the utility of their result is interesting as almost the first serious effort to substitute economic for theo- cratic morality. It would, however, be a mistake to linger too long over the divertisement of Bentham’s entertaining theories, and so delay our study of John Stuart Mill, whose treatise on ‘The Principles of Political Economy ”’ is the sec- ond greatest book on the subject. Its. au- thority is still undisputed. and Mill’s lucidity of statement and inexorable logic will prob- ably never be surpassed. - In the introduction to his “ Political Econ- omy” Mill Says: “ For practical purposes political economy is inseparably intertwined with many other branches of social philoso- phy. Except on matters of mere detail, there are perhaps no practical questions, even 366 THE OUTLOOK 13 June. amongst those which approach nearest to the character of purely economical questions, which admit of being decided on economical premises alone.”’ It is not surprising, therefore, to find that Mill in all his writings, and he was volumi- nous, emphasized the economic aspect of every question. Even in his essay on * The Subjection of Women,’’ one of the first arguments in favor of political equality for the sexes, he considers the subject almost entirely from the standpoint of the economist. After reading the ‘ Principles of Political Economy,”’ he who finds enjoyment in philoso- phy will be tempted to acquire a wider ac- quaintance with Mill’s works. This will be enjoyable, but not essential, for the two vol- umes especially devoted to the subject con- tain about all that it is necessary to know of the ‘* Principles of Political Economy” as expounded by Mill. After John Stuart Mill there come a host of writers who have dealt informingly with the machinery of banking, commerce, and government finance. First among these in eminence and author- ity is Walter Bagehot, who, in addition to being the editor of the London “ Econo- mist,” wrote charmingly on many subjects. Though he lived from 1826 to 1877, the modernity of his style and humor reminds one of Bernard Shaw. He explains the general inutility of litera- ture by saying that ‘“‘so few people who can write know anything,” and adds that “ busi- ness is really pleasanter than pleasure, though it does not look so.” His essays on “ The Search for Happiness,” ‘“ The Virtues of Stupidity,” end ‘“ The Tyranny of Conven- tion’ all have the charm with which he invests his ‘* Lombard Street,” the book by which he is best known, and which is proba- bly the best description extant of the Bank of England and the English financial system. Undoubtedly it should be read by every one who has any reason to inform himself on the subject. Having finished Bagehot, we may proceed to an eclectic consideration of the books of the twentieth century upon business and economics. ‘They are numerous. It is a busy age. Wecan only read a few, and our discussion of them must be brief. The “ Principles of Economics,’”’ in two volumes, by Professor F. W. Taussig, of Harvard, is the most recent and, to me, the most readable discussion of economic phe- nomena that has lately been published. The a 2 oe. ah £2. oe ame c oOo = Oo 24

Page 47

-— F— re 7 > w 1914 COMMERCE AND FINANCE 367 recognized authority of the writer and the clarity of his style entitle his works, in my opinion, to the first place among contempo- rary books for thinking business men. After Professor Taussig, Senator Burton’s ‘Financial Crises and Periods of Industrial and Commercial Depression ” may be read with profit. The author, Theodore E. Bur- ton, is one of the present United States Senators from Ohio, and his book deals circumstantially with the various periods of commercial depression through which this country has passed since the beginning of the nineteenth century. What he has to say in regard to the periodicity of panics will be found peculiarly interesting just now. “The Purchasing Power of Money ; Its Determination and Relation to Credit, Interest, and Crises,” by Professor Irving Fisher, of Yale, might next be read. It is a powerful exposition of the “ quantitative theory ” of money and the effect of credit and the veloc- ity of its transfer or exchange upon prices. It will greatly illuminate a study of the new banking systems which are about to become operative in the United States. Along with Professor Fisher’s book it might be well to read ‘“ Money and the Mechanism of Exchange,” by Professor W. S. Jevons, of Oxford. It was written nearly a generation ago, and a comparison of the two books will show the progress that has been made in the interval toward exactitude of thought upon financial subjects. This is largely due to the improve- ment that has been made during the past thirty years in the collection and compilation of commercial and financial statistics, and the more definite correlation of economic cause and effect thereby made possible. The “ Science of Statistics ” has, in fact, become a distinct department of economic study, and Professor Richmond Mayo-Smith, of Columbia University, has written two books under this general title. ‘The second volume, which is devoted exclusively to ‘ Statistics and Economics,” will be found valuable for occasional reference when determining the weight to be given to the statistical factors in any problem. Experience has shown that in economics, as in bridge-building, absolute reliance upon mathematical conclusions may be disastrous unless a large margin of safety is allowed for possible error. The “ History of Modern Banks of Issue,” «Wall Street and the Country,” and ‘“ The Principles of Money and Banking,” by Charles A. Conant, will also be desirable additions to the library of the banker and the business man. The first named of Mr. Conant’s books is distinctiy' the best history of bank- ing that has ever been published, and is com- pact, comprehensive, and entertaining. Those who are concerned with the English machinery of investment and speculation will be informed and interested by “The [London] Stock Exchange,” by Mr. F. W. Hirst, the present editor of the London “ Economist.” In the scope of its dealings and its peculiar traditions and rules the English Stock Exchange is absolutely unique, and Mr. Hirst has dealt cleverly with these aspects of his subject, which are not by any means lacking in romance. In a chapter on “ Wall Street” he makes some comparisons between English and American methods which are rather invidi- ous to the New York Stock Exchange. It is only fair, therefore, to recommend as an antidote to Mr. Hirst’s book ‘ The [New York] Stock Exchange from Within,” by Mr. William C. Van Antwerp, whose per- sonal experience as a member of the Exchange has enabled him to write an effective volume in justification of its existence and methods, There are many other books with regard to the New York Stock Exchange, but the American who reads the daily newspapers is already sufficiently familiar with the sub- ject. President Hadley, of Yale College, now a director of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, wrote a book some ten or twelve years ago upon “ Railroad Transportation, Its History and Laws,” that is still recognized as the best treatise on the subject thus far produced. It can be prof- itably read in connection with “ Railway Misrule,”’ a very recent book by Mr. Edward Dudley Kenna, formerly Vice-President of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad. Another new book is “Trade of the World,” by Mr. James Davenport Whelpley, which will be found immensely stimulating to the American merchant whose dreams of commercial conquest now extend overseas. The list lengthens beyond my first inten- tion, but I must add just two more books without which it would be incomplete. One is a “ Primer of Finance,” a little paper-covered pamphlet prepared by a New York banker, Mr. F. J. Lisman, for gratui- tous distribution among the young and those who are ignorant of the first principles of

Page 48

368 THE OUTLOOK 13 June investment and thrift. Every business man would do well, in my opinion, to put a copy of it in the hands of each of his employees from the office boy up. ‘The other is ‘“ The Economic Interpretation of History,” by Thorold Rogers, Professor of Political Economy at Oxford. The charm of Profes- sor Rogers’s book will be sufficiently indicated by the headings of some of its chapters. He writes of “‘ The Economic Side of History,” “The Social Effect of Religious Movements,”’ “The Historical Effect of High and Low Prices,” “The Policy of Government in Undertaking Service and Supply,” in a style that is both educational and fascinating. As I run through its pages again, I am almost persuaded that ‘* The Economic Inter- pretation of History” should be the first rather than the last volume in our collection. I am certain that he who reads it once will thereafter keep it constantly beside him. In a subsequent article I propose to sug- gest a few more books which may be de- scribed as the lighter literature of commerce and finance. Although we are a Nation of business men, few of us realize how much of entertainment and human interest there is in the biography, romance, and fiction that is a by-product of our commercial lives and activities. THE NEW BOOKS EGYPT IN TRANSITION’ ‘The present volume is singularly informa- tive and valuable. Its text has a preface from the man who remade Egypt and the Sudan—the Earl of Cromer. Mr. Low’s account has chiefly to do with the transition which ensued after the conclusion of Lord Cromer’s period of reconstruction—that is to say, the period which lay between the re- conquest of the Sudan by Lord Kitchener and his return to Cairo as British Agent and Consul-General. Most descriptions of Egypt begin with the Nile mouths and work up towards the tropical provinces; not so Mr. Low’s ; he starts with the Sudan, and thence follows the course of the river downwards. ‘The Sudan thus forms the first feature of the book. ‘This is fortunate, for most peo- ple are less acquainted with Sudanese than with Egyptian affairs. The volume has spe- cial interest to us Americans in its signifi- cance for our rule in the Philippines. As Lord Cromer points out, one reason for the success of the Sudanese administration is be- cause the Sudanese officials have been left to themselves. There has been no interfer- ence from London, and supervision from Cairo has been limited to guidance on a few important points of principle. The British agents employed in the Sudan have been carefully chosen, and have been mainly, though by no means exclusively, soldiers. tEgypt in Transition. By Sidney Low. The Mac- millan Company, New York. $2.50, - The civilian element is now being gradually increased. -The civil service was at first car- ried on almost exclusively by army officers, and it is not now modified because it has worked badly, for it has not, but because: army officers in civil capacities are liable to be suddenly removed, as was shown during the South African War. Another reason for the success of British administration in the Sudan is that the officials, both civil and mili- tary, have been well paid; and still another, that the leave rules have been generous. A period of nine months is quite long enough for any European or American to remain in such a climate as that of the Sudan; more- over, a man “‘is liable to get into a groove and to attach an undue importance to local circumstances, which loom large on the spot, but which are capable of being reduced to more just proportions by change of climate, scenery, and society.’”” We may well heed these hints for application in the Philippines. As to Egypt, Mr. Low frankly confesses that the British are not really popular there. Of course the benéfits produced by British occupation are recognized by large numbers of the Egyptians, who would shudder at the thought of changing the régime. ‘ But they have no love for us personally,” asserts Mr. Low, and adds: The Englishman has the capacity to-win the esteem, and even the affection, of primitive or semi-barbarous peoples. You see that,-for in- stance, in the Sudan. . . . But when we have to rule civilized or partly civilized communities, ill PI pr

Page 49

1914 we are less successful in conciliating our sub- jects. We have the defects of our qualities, the defects which have made difficulties for us in Ireland, in South Africa, in Bengal, and in French Canada. .. . The educated European- ized Egyptian, for his part, finds it hard to be at ease with us. He prefers the Continental type of European. But what of the peas- antry?... They ought to be grateful to us. Thanks to the English, the fellah can now live at peace on his farm, undisturbed by the fear of a sudden raid from tax-gatherers or marauding pashas. ... The Egyptian peasant . . isno longer aserf. Above all, he has his water supply secure. The English engineers have poured the life-giving fluid through the canals. But it is more than doubtful -whether the English received credit for these reforms. .. . I believe the peasant thinks less of the reforms than of the grievances under which he still suffers, or believes himself to suffer. . . . The peasantry do not know us; the superior classes do not want us. As regards religious influence, ‘‘ We are not Christianizing the East,” declares this author. ‘* The Mohammedan world is farther THE NEW BOOKS 369 from conversion to the faith of the West (for my part, I believe the Buddhist and Brahmin world also) than it was three centuries, or even ten centuries ago.” Even the frequent statement that Orientals are adopting the morality, if not the creed, of Christendom, seems to Mr. Low more than doubtful. If so, can Mohammedanism reconcile itself with modern progress? Yes, as shown, for instance, by the spread of technical education and especially by the education of women At all events, the British have still a task to perform in Egypt, which, as Mr. Low says, cannot be completed for many years to come. For it will be long before Egypt is adapted to that self-government, combined with freedom from foreign dictation, for which the British have been preparing her. Certainly, with all its limitations, the occupation of Egypt has been perhaps the most honorable episode in recent British history. Mr. Low’s book may not afford all the information desired, and the index is inadequate to that furnished. But his judgments are often remarkablydiscriminating. Ten Thousand Miles with a Sled. By Hudson Stuck. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. $3.50. Archdeacon Stuck, whose conquest of Mount McKinley is one of the greatest mountain- climbing achievements on record, here tells about a series of winter journeys with dog sleds in the Alaskan interior. This, it seems, was part of the Episcopal Church’s work, and it is of interest to note that Dr. Stuck credits Bishop Rowe with knowing more about Alaska than any living man, as being the only person who has visited all the missions of the Church in Alaska, yet adds that even Bishop Rowe has not set foot in large areas of the country. So vast is that great land awaiting exploration and development ! This volume is even more readable than Dr. Stuck’s “ Ascent of Denali.” It tells of people as well as of things. Dr. Stuck has traveled from ten to fifteen thousand miles in Alaska; he knows the Indian and the Eskimo as a coun- try clergyman knows his parishioners; he has helped them fight their worst enemies— whisky and tuberculosis; he writes about them freely and with sympathy. The book is most attractively printed and illustrated. Life-Histories of African Game Animals. By Theodore Roosevelt and Edmund Heller. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. Two vols. $10. These two substantial volumes are elaborately illustrated with photographs, drawings by Mr. Philip R. Goodwin, and by faunal maps. They present the scientific side of the Smithsonian African Expedition of 1909-10, headed by Mr.-Roosevelt, and in which Mr. Heller was associated, as well as of the more recent African journeys of Mr. Heller. The authors ask themselves what light their observations throw on the habits and _life- history of game animals. After introduc- tory sketches of the history and _ biological character of the country studied, and a most interesting discussion of the fasci- nating topic of coloration, they take up one by one the great animals, like the lion, the hippopotamus, the elephant, and the buffalo, and describe also very many of the lesser creatures. In several of the chapters there are incidentally told stories of hunting and adven- ture which hold the attention of the non-scien- tific reader closely. The first volume especially abounds in passages of this kind. In the main, however, the intention is scientific rather than popular. As we understand it, the life-histories of the animals are primarily written by Mr. Roosevelt and the technical matter by Mr. Heller; but each has aided in the other’s work both in construction and revision. Even the reader devoid of technical knowl- edge as to animal differences in species, habitat, and distinctive characteristics readily sees that a great field of special observation has yielded material for valuable generalization as well as specific description and classification. The chapter on coloration in particular is illuminat- ing and clear; it is both understandable and interesting to the average intelligent reader,

Page 50

while the life-histories are stirring and full of human as well as animal experience. Stepdaughter of the Prairie (A). By Margaret Lynn. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.25. With the exception of two chapters all these sketches appeared in the “ Atlantic Monthly,” which is one of the best avenues of approach to the thoughtful reading public in this country. The chapters read together have a great deal of charm; they constitute a kind of informal auto- biography of a child’s mind, and especially of a child’s imagination. They picture very sym- pathetically, because they invoke the imagina- tion, the life of a child in a prairie country— a child who early observes and, above all, sees things not with the eye only, but with the mind. A very pleasant vein of humor runs through these sketches and furnishes both vitality and variety. The story of the child’s excursion into bookland is delightfully told, and will be appre- ciated by every child who remembers early adventures with books, good or bad. Then there are relatives and visitors who come and go in a prairie home; there are first glimpses of the city; there are impressions of the seasons and of the environing life about the home, with domestic and neighborhood experiences which supply both humor and reality to the narrative. Altogether this is a volume to be read quietly and in moments of leisure. It has flavor and quality. Secret of the Night (The). By Gaston Leroux. The Macaulay Company, New York. $1.25. These adventures of “ Rouletabille ” have a kind of breathless interest. From the moment the journalist-detective reaches Russia until he makes his affectionate good-by to the Czar one expects a bomb to explode, a pistol to fire, or a cup of cold poison to be administered. There is no rest from intrigue, suspicion, and sudden death. It is not only true that he who runs may read, but in order to read one must run. The whole story gallops from beginning to end. There are passages which are over-written, and there are pages which may be skipped, but the reader will skip a chapter at his peril. He must be on guard every minute. As a piece of literature this story is not to be recommended ; nor is it to be recommended as anarcotic. It belongs to the order of stories which are called “rattling.” Bedesman 4. By Mary J. H. Skrine. The Century Company, New York.’ $1. This little-story has atmosphere and simple charm. It tells about a little boy who is the son of an English laborer in a stone quarry. The boy has an extraordinary capacity for ab- sorbing facts, a vivid imagination, and what seems to be an inborn love for historical study. All this is recognized by an Oxford professor who happens upon the boy. He is sent toa school founded centuries ago partly as acharity, 370 THE OUTLOOK 13 June and becomes “Bedesman 4.” ‘An _interest- ing personal situation arises when this boy, David, having become a brilliant and cultivated scholar, is tempted, or might have been tempted, by his love for a girl of high culture and family connections to ignore or despise his father, mother, and sister, all of whom remain in a low social position. David is even putin the trying position of suddenly finding his sister a maid- servant in the household of the girl he admires. The reader rejoices in the fact that David proves to be a gentleman as well as a scholar, that he never loses his respect and love for his family, and that his nobility of conduct under very trying circumstances, instead of estranging him from the girl he loves, endears him to her. Set to Partners. By Mrs. Henry Dudeney. Duffield & Co., New York. $1.25. One may always expect in Mrs. Dudeney’s novels a strong and unusual situation. It is slow in developing here, because the author is so painstaking in first developing the characters. But the position of Angelina comes to be singu- lar enough, for she loves two men, is not legally married to either, but devotes herself to both. Price of Love (The). By Arnold Bennett. Har- per & Brothers, New York. $1.35. This is one of the shorter of Mr. Bennett’s Five Towns stories, but in texture and technique it is the same kind of thing that is found on the large scale in “ Clayhanger ” and “ An Old Wives’ Tale.” The faithfulness of his observation of ordinary and uninspired people is amazing, and it is in this that the interest lies. There is little imagination, or plot, or humor in the book; yet the author does succeed in holding one’s interest in his minute building up of the traits and tem- peraments of a few essentially commonplace persons, the object being to show that even every-day life in undistinguished circumstances has in it material worth looking at closely. Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases. Edited by George L. Burr. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. $3. The original narratives available have been carefully edited, with introductions and notes. Cotton Mather’s “ Memorable Providences” and “Wonders of the Invisible World,” and In- crease Mather’s “ Remarkable Providences,” are known in some form to many readers; but those who think of the witchcraft delusion in America as relating only to New England will get new light by reading of the cases in New York, 1665-70. For pure fantastic wildness in witch evidence commend us to Richard Chamberlain’s “ Lithobolia, or the Stone-Throw- ing Devil” The entire subject is fascinating and curious. Morocco the Bizarre. By George Edmund Holt. McBride, Nast & Co., New York. $2. Where is the line between Occident and Orient drawn more sharply than by the Straits

Page 51

' ; . ; H E L 1914 THE NEW BOOKS 371 of Gibraltar? No one can have crossed those straits from the Rock of Gibraltar to the city of Tangier without being conscious of this. Mr. Holt’s picturesque and graphic descriptions emphasize the contrast. With regard to the future of Morocco, he calls attention to what has not always been considered as such an im- minent peril as he seems to regard it—namely, the possibility of an uprising by the Mohamme- dans of all Africa. In this event, he asks this question, ‘‘ Would the Mussulmans of Europe and Asia stand by inactive?” Perhaps not. But, even so, we cannot accept our author’s prophecy that the horde from the East “ would crumple Europe like a paper-bag.” America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat. By Wu Ting-fang, LL.D. The Fred- erick A. Stokes Company, New York. $1.6). Dr. Wu Ting-fang is well known in this coun- try, where he was Chinese Mifiister at Washing- ton. Since his return to his own country he has been both Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Justice for the Provisional Govern- ment of the Chinese Republic—we notice that the title-page says “ Provincial.” His just-pub- lished volume comments on our Government, business methods, prosperity, education, and our ideas of freedom and equality. This com- ment is not altogether unlike that of European observers. But when Dr. Wu criticises our manners, customs, costumes, and especially our women, his comment probably reflects the opin- ions of his countrymen, and of the Japanese as well. Concerning costumes, for instance, he inquires: Why do we dress at all? First, I suppose, for protec- tion against cold and heat; secondly, for comfort; thirdly, for decency; and, fourthly, for ornament. Now does the dress of Americans meet these requirements ? First, as regards the weather, does woman’s dress pro- tect her from the cold? The fact that a large number of persons daily suffer from colds arouses the suspicion that their dress is at fault. The body is neither equally nor evenly covered, the upper portion being as a rule nearly bare or very thinly clad... . As to the second point, comfort, I do not believe that the wearer of a fashionable costume is either comfortable or contented. . . . I feel confident that physicians will sup- port me in my belief that the death rate among American women would be less if corset and other tight lacing were abolished. .. . As to the third object, decency, I am not convinced that the American dress fulfills this object. When I say American dress, I include also the clothing worn by Europeans, for both are practically the same. It may be a matter of education, but from the Oriental point of view we would prefer that ladies’ dresses should be worn more loosely, so that the figure should be less prominent. .. . The fourth object of clothes is ornament, but ornaments should be harmless; ... yet .. . it does not appear that they are. With these sentiments, the author is indig- nant at any introduction of foreign attire, either for men or women, into China. He says: If the newly adopted dress were, if no better than, at least equal to, the old one in beauty and comfort, it might be sanctioned; .. . but when it is otherwise why should we imitate? Why should the world assume a depressing monotony of costume? Why should we allow nature’s diversities to disappear?... Chinese ladies, like their Japanese sisters, have not yet, to their credit be it said, become obsessed by this new fashion, which shows that they have more common sense than some men. I have, however, seen afew young and foolish girls imitating the foreign dress of Western women. Indeed, this craze for Western fashion has even caught hold of our legislators in Peking, who, having fallen under the spell of clothes, in solemn conclave decided that the frock coat, with the tall top hat, should in future be the official uniform, and the swallowtail coat with a white shirt front the evening dress in China. I need hardly say that this action of the Peking Parliament aroused uni- versal surprise and indignation. All who know Dr. Wu will not be surprised at his pleasant, easy-going attitude with regard to American matters, his quick appreciation of the many things to admire which he has found in this country, and at his recommendation of them to his countrymen. But he is more inter- esting when he adversely criticises. His book deserves wide reading. Men and Women of the Italian Reformation. By Christopher Hare. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York. $3. When we speak of the Reformation, we think, first of all, of Germany. But why not also of Italy? Why should we forget the precursors of the Reformation in Italy: St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, Dante, Catherine of Sienna, Arnold of Brescia, Savonarola? Certainly Mr. Hare does not propose that we shall forget the less well known reformers of the sixteenth cen- tury—Italian Protestants, indeed, who showed the devotion and fortitude of the early Christian martyrs. The present volume is largely made up of interesting biographical matter concern- ing them, and includes illustrations of such six- teenth-century worthies as, among others, Car- dinal Pole, John Calvin, and Vittoria Colonna. Mr. Hare’s reputation as a historian should be emphasized by the present volume, and its read- ing should be an inspiration to every one. Russia: The Country of Extremes. By Madame N. Jarintzoff. Henry Holt & Co., New York. $4. A good many books are being published about Russia nowadays. One of the most pleas- antly written is the present volume. At times, indeed, it invites to that kind of restful reading which we associate with a fireside and dressing- gown and the hour before retiring. Yet it con- veys a great amount of information, and, in particular, it shows Russia as emphatically the country of extremes. It tells us about Russian children and students, about Russian love of nature and types of character, about Russian piety and the clergy, about unorthodoxy and the monastic prisons, about the educational revolutions and the political life. In many cases the extremes are dreadful and portentous with what may take place in the future. But every- thing is put before us by an author who under- stands the art of entertaining as well as that of instructing the reader.

Page 52

There is a big difference in points of view: A learned bishop was once taken to task by some of his denominational brethren on the charge of exhibiting conceit at variance with the spirit of humility. “It is not conceit,” replied the bishop,.with that ponderous bearing that silenced opposition. “It is not conceit, brethren. It is the consciousness of superiority.” Many readers will be surprised to know that the Cape Cod Canal is so far advanced that the Boston Yacht Club has laid out its August cruisé by way of this new route. The canal is sixty-eight miles long, and will shorten the pas- sage from New York to Boston by sixty-six miles. When we know that vessels of 25,000,000 tonnage now go around Cape Cod ina year, and that wrecks on that coast are numerous, the value of the canal needs no argument. The New York Browning. Society (58 West Fifty-eighth Street, New York) asks for the col- laboration of all lovers of Browning to pre- serve in the caskets in which Robert Browning placed them the autographs of the love letters of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. After the death of their son these letters were purchased from his estate by Mr. Sabin, of London, who desired to keep the entire series of five hundred and seventy-one letters complete. He now offers them to the British ‘Museum, where they should be placed, for the purchase price plus ten per cent. The purchase price was $32,000. Which is better, capacity for hard work or brilliant qualities? The great surgeon Sir Frederick Treves is quoted as saying that if he were compelled to undergo an operation he would be very careful to select a surgeon who was not brilliant. “ Hard work,” says he, “ pro- duces better results than brilliancy.” And Mr. E. C. Church, head of the Bureau of Supplies of the Department of Water Supply, Gas, and Electricity of New York City, in talking about efficiency, says: “It is necessary that there be no ‘indispensable’ men. Such ones are the most dangerous units in any organization, for sooner or later they are taken sick or die, or get better positions elsewhere, and the work suffers, since they were ‘indispensable’ and there is no one prepared to take their places.” Eggs from China are not exactly “ fresh eggs”’ in the breakfast sense ; but if eggs are to be put in cold storage at all, it appears not to matter much how far they are carried. In Cali- fornia last month eggs from China were tested by Professor E. M. Jaffa, of the State Pure Food Laboratory, who said that in every re- spect but weight they were equal to California cold-storage eggs. 372 _BY THE.WAY An English writer compares the pay of Ameri- can naval officers with that of similar officers abroad. An American admiral draws, he says, $15,000a year, while about $9,000 is allotted to the same rank in Great Britain, and $4,500 in Ger- many ; and all other grades of officers are paid equally well in proportion. Mlle. Jeanne Duportal has been given the degree of Doctor of Literature at the Paris Sorbonne. She is the first woman to receive this degree at the Sorbonne. A curious law point as to aeroplanes has been raised in France. A landowner brought suit to compel a manufacturer of aeroplanes not to pass over his land at a height of less than six hundred feet, alleging that the aeroplanes fright- ened away his game, were likely’ by landing to injure crops, and might endanger workers in the. field. How far above the earth do land property rights reach? Does any corporation hold an older charter than that of Trinity House, London? It was granted by Henry VIII on May 20, 1514, and the four hundredth anniversary was observed last month. Queen Elizabeth intrusted this master mariners’ association with what con- stitutes one of its chief modern duties by hand- ing over to it authority to erect beacons and other marks for the guidance of navigators around the English coasts. It has other duties connected with pilotage, docks, seamen’s con- tracts, and the merchant sea service generally. If any one wants to know how to “ set a hen,” let him write to the United States Government. A special circular on this point is issued by the Department of Agriculture. Its appearance in- dicates the fullness and minuteness with which the Department is furnishing useful knowledge on an immense number of topics. Several correspondents call attention to the fact that in The Outlook’s review of “ Founda- tions of Science” Dr. Jules Henri Poincaré, of Paris, its author, is referred to as “ the greatest mathematician now living.” This eminent French mathematician died July 17, 1912. The oldest member of the British House of Commons is said to be Samuel Young, who is ninety-two years of age but still an active debater. He is a Protestant, but he represents in Parliament the Catholic constituency of East Cavan, Ireland, and is a member of the Irish National party. By a photographer’s error a picture in The Outlook of May 23 was wrongly entitled “ Climb- ing the Heights in Nevada.” A correspondent points out that it represents part of the beauti- ful scenic highway in Cafion City, Colorado, known as the Sky-Line Drive. TT a ee