The Outlook 1915-09-08

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The Outlook SEPTEMBER 8, -1915 Offices, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York THE STORY OF THE WAR: RUSSIA STILL RETREATS After the fall of Warsaw speculation was rife as to whether the Germans would take the defensive across Poland or would press on after the Russians, who were hurrying. to reach their secondary defenses on the Kovel, Brest-Litovsk, Grodno line. Three weeks after Warsaw, Brest-Litovsk and all of the fortresses in the second. line have fallen except Grodno, which may be German be- fore this issue of The Outlook reaches our readers. At any rate, Grodno is no longer of much use to the Russians, who, as we write, are strengthening against invasion their third barrier, which runs parallel to the railway through Riga, Dvinsk, Vilna, Lida, Slonim, Baronovitchi, and Rovno. Brest-Litovsk is a little more than one hundred miles east of Warsaw. One hun- dred miles in three weeks is the present speed rate of the German steam-roller. The Kaiser’s Juggernaut is traveling as rapidly as it has traveled at any time since KX began to roll down the Carpathians more than three months ago. But, even at this rate, Petro- grad and Moscow are several months away, and the latter part of October will see the advent of the storms which herald the winter that defeated Napoleon. Although the Austro-Germans must be worn by their long, unflagging advance, a fact that is indicated by the statements of Teutons captured by the Russians, there is yet no sign of a slowing down. Riga and Vilna, on the northern end of the Czar’s ter- tiary defense line, are imperiled as this is written. railways leading east from them, would almost certainly mean a farther recoil of the Rus- sians. Inthe south, where the Teutons have been comparatively quiet for several weeks, an offensive movement has been reassumed and the Russians have lost some of their positions on the Zlota Lipa. ew men can more than guess what the Grand Duke Nicholas is thinking. He has Their loss, with the capture of the_ steadily avoided a decisive engagement, as Joffre avoided it in the first weeks of the war, and as Lee shunned it after he evacu- ated Petersburg. What his reasons are— whether a shortage of munitions, a demoral- ization of his men, a lack of confidence in his generals, an insufficiency of officers, or a combination of these—we cannot say, nor can we more than conjecture when he will elect to make asolid stand. But there are no indi- cations that the Russians are demoralized; their retreat seems to be orderly and seems to be conducted without the loss of much ma¢#érie/. The Germans found no booty to boast of in War- saw nor in Brest-Litovsk. And, so far as the capture or destruction of the integral Russian armies is concerned, Hindenburg and Mac- kensen seem to be no nearer to that than they were a month ago, despite the claim of the German War Office that the Germans have taken more than one million Russian prisoners since the Galician campaign began. DARK DAYS FOR THE. ALLIES It is indisputable that these are trying times for the Allies. For many days England and France, on the western front, have gained nothing worth reporting in these pages. Italy’s progress lately has been very slight, and, in fact, Italy has thus far been something of a disappointment to the over-confident among her friends. Ifthe Russian tide is soon to turn, there is certainly no indication of it in the present situation. Partisans of the Allies must place their greatest hopes to-day in developments in the Balkans and at the Dardanelles. And in the Balkans, while the diplomacy of the Allies has still brought no great outward changes, the rumors increase to the effect that Bulgaria has been won over by the Teutons and Turks in consideration of the cession to Bulgaria of a portion of Turkish Thrace. The statement has been made that Bulgaria has been frankly wait- ing for the highest bidder; what we do not know is that she has accepted any bid. 55

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56 THE OUTLOOK Reports to this effect as we go to press are only newspaper speculation. From the expedition of 150,000 soldiers and several war-ships that Italy has sent against Turkey the Allies just now have their brightest immediate hope. Of «the Allies, Russia has had the heaviest losses, and, if she cannot save herself, France, Eng- land, and Italy must save her. More than any single event, the fall of Constantinople would lighten the load on Russia. THE FAILURE OF THE ZEPPELIN The failure of the German submarine warfare on English commerce has_ been matched by the failure of another vaunted instrument of offense, the Zeppelin. Before the war we were taught to consider the Zep- pelin one of the Kaiser’s strongest cards. As months passed without its taking a trick, we inferred that he was holding this ace in re- serve, up his sleeve. But, with more than a year elapsed without a substantial aggressive achievement accomplished by the German dirigibles, we can rate the Zeppelin a failure so far as offensive warfare is concerned. Since the beginning of the war there have been eighteen Zeppelin raids against England, yet Mr. Arthur J. Balfour, First Lord of the British Admiralty, is authority for the state- ment that by these aircraft “no soldier or sailor has been killed or even wounded, and only on one occasion has damage been in- flicted which could, by any stretch of language, be described as of the smallest military importance. . . . I am assured by the Home Office that during the last twelve months seventy-one civilian adults and eight- een children have been killed, and that one hundred and eighty-nine civilian adults and thirty-one children have been injured.” Mr. Balfour said that, in his opinion, the failure of the Zeppelins has been due to the fact that they attack at night, and usually on moonless nights, when “landmarks are elu- sive, navigation difficult, and errors inevita- ble and sometimes of surprising magnitude. The Germans constantly assert, and may sometimes believe, that they dropped bombs on places which, in fact, they never ap- proached.” It is a proper, legitimate function of aircraft to attack works and buildings of military value even though civilians in the neighbor- hood may be endangered. But when, as the result of eighteen raids, not a single fighting man has been killed and only on one occasion damage “ of the smallest military importance ”’ accomplished, while eighty-nine civilians have been killed, it is a question if such warfare ought not to lose the sanction of international law. A QUEER CONSPIRACY There is yet much to be made clear con- cerning the alleged conspiracy to rob the holds of vessels carrying supplies to the Allies and to destroy these ships after. they have been looted, for connection with which six men recently were arrested by detectives of the New York Police Department. Of the six men under arrest five were born in Germany or were born in the United States of German parents. Of these five one was a mate and four were captains of lighters engaged in loading steamers with sugar for the Allies. The first one to be arrested ad- mitted that he was a member of a conspiracy to steal sugar and other goods from cargoes destined for steamers. The sixth man is a dealer in second-hand furniture, in whose store were found 141 bags of sugar said to have been turned over to him by the thieves. These arrests were the first results of an investigation begun by the police after fires or fire bombs had been discovered on several steamers loaded by the lighters whose captains are now under charges. The police seem to be divided between the theory that the fires were started to hide the sugar thefts and the theory that the fires were caused by agents of Germany solely to hamper the Allies. The suspicion of the police was first extited when a fire broke out in the sugar-laden British steamer Devon City while she was still at her pier in the Hudson River. Aboard two other British steamers, the Knutsford and the Cragside, mysterious fires were found before the ships had put to sea, while fire bombs were found among the sugar bags carried by the steamers Kirkeswald and Bankdaleé, both British, when they had arrived respectively at Marseilles and Havre from New York. Inasmuch as the loading of these steamers was closely watched by detectives, and inas- much as the process of packing sugar into sacks is performed by machinery, the police believe that the bombs were placed in the cargoes on the lighters # ¢ransitu from the refinery to the steamers. However this may be, and whether the fires were intended to destroy the steamers as a direct blow at the enemies of Germany or whether they were 8 September i ee el le ee eS

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1915 THE intended merely to cover up the sugar thefts, enough serious evidence has already been found to make it imperative that this queer conspiracy be probed to the bottom. DEFECTIVE AMERICAN SUBMARINES After resting for five months in the murk three hundred feet below the surface of Honolulu Harbor, the submarine F-4, a coffin for twenty-two men, has at last been raised and put in dry dock for examina- tion. As we go to press, only one body has been identified in the submarine, frag- ments of others have been found mingled with the sand and other débris that filled the vessel, and it is believed that other bodies may have fallen out or have been pulled out by marine creatures through the great holes that have been found in the ves- sel’s sides. It has not yet been determined whether these holes were the cause of the disaster to the submarine or whether they were made when the little craft was being lifted from the harbor bottom. But the preliminary findings of the Board that has investigated the sinking of the sub- marine contain a grave indictment of all the boats of the F class, of which there remain three in our navy: the F-1,°F-2, and F-3. It is worth noting, by the way, that the F boats are by no means the oldest sub- marines in our navy. The Board of Inquiry, which consisted of Commander Sumner E. Kittelle, Lieutenants Milton S. Davis and Hugh Brown, and Charles T. Westcott, Jr., of the Marine Corps, has reported to the Navy Department that, while the structure of the hull of the F-4 had been regularly inspected and was apparently in good condi- tin when the vessel took her fatal plunge, “the storage batteries were always in a state of being more or less electrically ‘ grounded,’ due to the leakage of electrolyte,” a grave condition which “ obtains in all the boats of the F-4 class of submarines.” It is further found that the storage batteries of the F-4 evolved excessive quantities of dangerous hydrogen gas, a condition that is also found on all the F boats; that furthermore, on March 6, 1915, a hydrogen explosion took place on the F-4 which seriously damaged the vessel’s battery deck and her storage bat- teries. Moreover, it was found *that ‘sea water has at times seeped into the cells of the storage batteries of the boats of the F class, causing the evolution of chlorine gas, WEEK 57 which gas is quickly destructive of life.” Finally, it is reported that the “ action of the F-4 has, in common with the other boats of the same type, in diving or in trimming down, been irregular, and the depth to which such a submarine torpedo-boat would descend is uncertain, and the method of checking such a descent is dependent more upon the skill of the commanding officer than upon the mechanical appliances of the boat.” The Board declares that the officers and men of the F-4 were aware of the defects of the vessel and were as diligent and alert in han- dling her as could be expected of any crew. While the Board says that it is yet too early to announce the probable cause of the acci- dent to the submarine, in pointing out certain vital defects common to all boats of the F class the Board has shown that a good deal of the criticism directed at the Navy Depart- ment for alleged flaws in our submarines has been well founded. Since the modern submarine was adopted by the navies of the world the United States has had only one fatal accident with these vessels. Unless we want to invite a repetition of the F-4 disaster, all the submarines of the F class should at once’ be withdrawn from service and not used again until and unless the defects which this investigation has revealed shall have been remedied. We cannot ask our sailors to ship in floating coffins. THEODORE ROOSEVELT ON UNPREPAREDNESS AGAINST WAR On the 25th of August Mr. Roosevelt addressed the citizen soldiery at the training camp at Plattsburgh on the importance of preparedness against war. This address was characteristic, both in its crisp, combat- ive sentences in condemnation of the pacifists. and hyphenated Americans and in its catho- lic recognition of the value and beauty of peace and the patriotism of our naturalized citizens. It is, he said, an abhorrent thing to make a wanton or an unjust war, but it is also a contemptible thing to be unwilling to fight for the right. And again, the worst thing that could befall this country would be to have the American Nation become a tangle of jangling nationalities, but there exists no finer body of American citizens in this coun- try than those citizens of German descent who are Americans and nothing else. This address has been so widely circulated that it is as needless as it would be difficult to give any abstract of it. In its main spirit and

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58 THE OUTLOOK purpose there was, with two exceptions, nothing to which any member or admirer of the present Administration could object. There were two incidental references which, in the place and under the circumstances, would have been better omitted. <To illustrate the necessity of preparedness for the fulfillment of our National duty Mr. Roosevelt criticised our having tamely submitted to seeing Amer- ican citizens murdered both in Mexico and on the high seas without action on our part: ‘* We have treated elocution as a substitute for action.” And in another part of the address he condemned America’s failure to protest against the invasion of Belgium, which he declared, under the Hague Con- vention, ‘it was our boundén duty to do.” After the speech, and just before leaving the camp, he called the reporters about him and dictated to them a statement in which he repudiated the notion that it is the duty of loyal citizens to stand by the Presidént, right or wrong: “In all public policy, above all in international policy, the right of any Presi- dent is only to demand public support be- cause he does well, because he serves the public well; and not merely because he is President.” For permitting this speech to be made, Secretary of War Garrison on the following day called to account General Wood (who as Commander of the Department of the East had invited Mr. Roosevelt, as well as many other representative men, to visit the Platts- burgh camp), and notified him that “there must not be any opportunity again at Platts- burgh, or at any other similar camp, for any such unfortunate consequence.” In the judgment of The Outlook, all that Mr. Roosevelt said, both in his speech and in his subsequent interview, was sound, and needs to be said. Mr. Roosevelt would have avoided some just criticism and would have prevented his opponents from diverting pub- lic attention from the main question to the subordinate one of his own want of regard for the proprieties if he had chosen some other place for his criticism of the Adminis- tration than a military camp containing men of great variety of opinions and presided over by an officer under the direction of the Administration. But there was no possible ground for calling General Wood to account for any real or fancied impropriety in the speech. General Wood could not have de- manded the right to revise the speech before it was delivered. No self-respecting Ameri- 8 September can would consent to deliver a censored speech under such circumstances. He could not have called the speaker to order, which a presiding officer might do for unparliamentary language in a parliamentary body; and to have replied to the speaker by defending the Administration would have been to repeat the impropriety which by such defense he impliedly criticised. If Secretary of War Garrison thought Mr. Roosevelt transcended the proprieties of the occasion, and wished to criticise him for so doing, he should have done so in an open letter to Mr. Roosevelt, not in an implied reprimand to General Wood. It is unfortunate that this incident has been used by newspapers and politicians as an excuse for injecting partisanship into the question of National preparedness. All three men involved in the controversy are open advocates of adequate National defense. The help of Americans of all parties is needed in the wise solution of this vital problem. EX-GOVERNOR LONG y, Massachusetts has just lost one whom she likes to think a typical statesman of hers. At the age of fourteen John Davis Long, a poor boy, made his way from his home in Buckfield, Maine, to Massachusetts.. He worked his way through Harvard. Though his college class was unusually brilliant, he graduated with distinction. He went into law and made a success. Then he went into politics. He became a member of the State Legislature, Speaker, Lieutenant-Governor, Governor. As Governor he was notable because of two things. In the first place, he had smashed the old Republican machine. In the second place, he was the only Republican of whom Ben Butler was afraid—and no wonder. Mr. Long had attained a personal ascendency due to stubborn adherence to principle. Then Mr. Long went into National politics. He served with distinction in three Con- gresses. In 1897 President McKinley made- him Secretary of the Navy, and, though Mr. Long was qualified neither by strong inclina- tion nor special experience, the invitation was the more welcome because of the likeness between the two men in general disposition. Mr. Long’s service of five years in the De- partment under Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt was marked by a willingness to utilize the knowledge of naval experts. Mr. Long’s service covered the impor- tant epoch of the perplexities of the Spanish

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1915 War. Every student of affairs is glad that he himself has authoritatively described’ it in his two-volume work ‘‘ The New Amer- ican Navy.” Since his return to Massa- chusetts he had been called that State’s foremost citizen. Certainly he showed him- self as public-spirited in private as in public life. Mr. Long knew how to treasure and de- velop the resources within himself. When disappointment or disillusionment came—as in two notable instances, his loss of the Senatorship and of the Vice-Presidency, they did come—he could still be content. He seemed to exert a more far-reaching influ- ence when driving about in his buckboard and visiting the farmers near his summer place than he did when on the stump, even though his oratory was. of a high order. Among his resources was a gift for versifi- cation, as shown among other writings in his translation of Virgil’s Aineid. He kept his capacity for vigorous argumentation at the top notch. He was always a positive per- He could not relapse into the lethargy Above all, son. even of a cheerful pessimist. he had a genius for kindliness. THE PANAMA CANAL AND , WORLD HISTORY The completed Panama Canal and the great war were both born within a month, and the record of Canal-carried traffic during the eleven months of its existence furnishes a striking commentary upon the history and the progress of the contest overseas. Naturally enough, the war cut down tre- mendously the number of vessels which would otherwise have passed through the Canal. The overwhelming predominance of the Eng- lish navy is graphically recorded in the fact that no German or Austrian vessel has used the great waterway. Three French vessels, two Italian, six Russian, eighteen Swedish, forty-one Norwegian, thirty-five Chilean, twenty-four Danish, seven Dutch, three Hon- duran, six Japanese, two Nicaraguan, two Panaman; and four Peruvian complete the total list of those ships, other than American or British, which passed through the Canal. The bulk of the traffic recorded was trans-- ported in British and American bottoms— four hundred and seventy-one vessels being of American registry and four hundred and sixty-four British. The tolls levied on this traffic, not including $80,872 on vessels of the United States Gov- THE WEEK 59 ernment, a collection made necessary by the repeal of the Tolls Exemption Act, amounted to $4,343,383. Over the running expenses of the Canal a paper profit of $230,833 was shown. This is the record of the material value of the Canal for the first eleven months of its existence. A discussion of the effect which the Canal has had upon world sanitation will be published shortly in The Outlook as the second of Professor Blakeslee’s articles on the influence of the Panama Canal. The importance of this phase of the Canal ques- tion is suggested by the published utterances of Surgeon-General Gorgas. In his recent book on “ Sanitation in Panama” he makes the interesting prophecy that the great centers of civilization will ultimately, as a result of the conquest of the tropics by sanitation and mod- ern medicine, return to the vicinity of the equator. He bases this prophecy upon the belief that the centers of civilization will inevi- tably gravitate to the place “ where a given amount of labor will produce the largest amount of food.’’ Of the relation of the Panama Canal to this expected phenomenon he says: “When this great migration of population has fully commenced, I believe that the peoples of that day will look back upon the sanitary work done at the Canal Zone as the first great demonstration that the white man could live as well in the trop- ics as in the temperate zone. I am inclined to think that at this time the sanitary phase of the work will be considered more impor- tant than the actual construction of the Canal itself, as important to the world as this great waterway now is, and will be for generations to come.” CITY MANAGERS In an article in the “ National Municipal Review” Mr. Richard S. Childs, the chair- man of the National Municipal League’s committee on the commission plan of gov- ernment for cities, replies to the question, How is the commission-manager plan getting on? in the words “ Very nicely, thank you.” The idea began to be put in effect less than three years ago. ‘To-day nineteen cities have city managers, and others are to have them. Dayton, Ohio, is the largest and pays its man- ager the largest salary, $12,500. Twelve of the cities have less than 12,000 population. The populations vary from 1,324 to 116,577. Fears that local politics would interfere in the choice of the best available expert in

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60 THE OUTLOOK municipal management have proved ground- less, and a surprising thing is that almost all of the managers chosen have been from out of town—obtained by advertising and scrutiniz- ing records, just as a good business firm might do. It is reported that the plan ‘‘ seems to have increased service without correspond- ingly increased expense.”’ Often the manager, having control of all departments of city work, can utilize one department to help another, as in Sumter, where the manager refused to buy shovels for street work when the water department had plenty of idle shovels. Again, ‘“‘ Highly typical of the new spirit is the failure to fill the office of director of public safety at Dayton and Springfield. It was a charter position, but not altogether necessary inas- much as the fire and police departments are already well unified and require little overhead co-ordination. How long would such an exempt position with its good salary have remained vacant under the old régime ?” The plan is still in the experimental stage. In some cases, at least, and especially in small towns, the manager system seems to fit the case exactly. It is not “one-man gov- erninent,”’ because the commission hires and oversees the manager. THE EDUCATION FOR TO-DAY Two notable addresses were recently given before the National Education Association, in convention at Oakland, California. In one of these, Mr. L. B. Avery, assistant superintendent of the schools of Oakland, pointed out the danger of making efficiency in getting things done the final test of the teacher. ‘The trouble with the efficiency system is that it asks, not ‘Is he honest ?’ but ‘Can he deliver the goods?’ not ‘Is it right ?? but ‘Is it scholarship?’” Thus it tends to a material basis and material ends in education. But the real end of education is not merely efficiency in getting things done, but character. ‘‘ No doctrine of efficiency can take the place of human love and loyalty and devotion ; no-material accomplishments can take the place of inspiration and aspira- tion molding human life.” The other address, by Mr. D. B. John- son, President of Winthrop and Industrial College, Rock Hill, South Carolina, urged the importance of the rural school, and gave, if we may judge from a_ brief report,’ an admirable characterization of such a school. ‘It must educate the chil- 8 September dren for country life instead of away from it. . . . It must train the children for their future work in the home, on the farm, and in the social life around them ; it must be a community center of education, instructing both children and adults in terms of country life and pointing the way to community wel- fare.” It must relate all studies more closely to agricultural life, and its teachers should be not only capable of giving instruction in such subjects, but also should be good community leaders. Statistical reports presented at the meet- ings of this Association, as the result of an investigation carefully planned and carried out in every State of the Union, showed a lamen- table lack of adequate preparation in the majority of teachers in the rural schools, nearly one-third of whom have had no pro- fessional training for their work. Dr. John- son’s recommendation that the school must be a community center was confirmed and illustrated by the added suggestion of Mrs. Mary Austin, who has been investigating the school question for Mayor Mitchel, of New York, and who urged the substitution of the community drama for the privately owned theatrical enterprise, as a remedy for social unrest and moral wastage. A “HARMONY SPECIAL” One week in every month the president, vice-presidents, general manager, freight, passenger, and publicity agents, attorneys, and other employees of the Atchison, To- peka, and Santa Fé Railway use a train called a ‘‘ Harmony Special ”’ to get in touch with the public. The train goes from one end of the system to the other. It stops at each station long enough to permit the offi- cials aboard to talk with the farmers, stock- men, merchants, manufacturers, and other shippers. There is need of such talk. On the one hand, the people at large do not understand all the difficulties and intricacies of the rail- way situation due to increased cost of main- tenance and operation ; on the other hand, railway men are not as familiar as they might be with the troubles confronting the people. This was the sensible view of Mr. Ripley, the President of the Atchison system—or the Santa Fé, as it is called in the West. As he said, ‘‘ We will tell our story to the people and ask them to tell theirs to us.” To do this directly he instituted the ‘‘ Harmony Special.”’ ‘Harmony work has developed: into a

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1915 THE feature of our business,” remarked Mr. Rip- ley recently. ‘‘ The campaign was a success from the start, and now it is a part of every official’s duty to perform a harmony stunt when occasion demands.” So one week a month half a dozen offi- cials are drafted for a trip over a division. There are twenty-four divisions, and the plan calls for a tour of each twice a year. The superintendent makes up a short train, and a town-to-town tour takes place. ‘The railway officials meet the farmers and mer- chants at some convenient spot—some school or club or the city hall or the court-house. Sometimes there is a lunch. The railway company has a chance to advertise at first hand its agricultural department, by which it is carrying out experiments and acquainting farmers with the results; its industrial de- partment, by which it prepares the path for new industries; its colonization depart- ment, by which it sends desirable people into the communities; and its engineering department, which passes on plans for pub- lic works, especially bridge construction and drainage improvements. The people thus have a chance, if they wish, to complain of rates or service and to criticise the railway at first hand. Judging from the tone of half a dozen no- tices of the “ Harmony Special” which we have noted in Kansas and Oklahoma papers, the scheme became popular at once. For instance, the Coffeyville, Kansas, “ Journal ” describes the movement as “a sort of evan- gelistic campaign,”’ and affirms that the rail- way men “are carrying a message—a very vital one—direct to the people and preach- ing to them a religion of co-operation between the common carriers and those that use them, advocating a principle of live and let live.” Another Kansas paper, the Ottawa “ Her- ald,” says : The Santa Fé is the people’s kind of road because it is operated by men who understand the people. .. . The Santa Fé officials didn’t come to Ottawa to-day, as royalty or as million- aires, in high silk hats. . . . The porter on the train never said anything more truthful than when he answered an inquiry concerning the general manager’s private car by the reply, “ We hain’t got no private cahs, boss, but you'll find de gen’al managah in his business cah on de reah ob de train.” There is thus a friendlier feeling on the part of the public. Direct evidences of it ire seen in the reduction in lawsuits, in the WEEK 61 number of cases tried by the State Railway Commissions, and in the number of hostile political agitators in the State legislatures. Other railways, take notice ! THE POPE AND THE WAR Americans have been somewhat puzzled by the recent interview of a French writer with Pope Benedict XV. While Cardinal Gas- parri, Secretary of State, on the Pontiff’s behalf has denied the correctness of the interview as published, the question arises, Why any interview at all? ‘Two expressions of Italian opinion just at hand are interesting. On the one hand are those who see in the Pontiff’s act an expression ‘of the immense moral power which may be exerted by pure and noble religious sentiment unstained by political presuppositions or aspirations,”’ to quote a phrase from the ‘“ Giornale d’Italia ” of Rome, a daily newspaper of high standing and authority. On the other hand are those who discern in the interviéw an indication that, despite the external signs of warlike patriotism shown by some of the Roman Catholic priests and bishops, the Vatican is not so much on the liberal and democratic as it is on the con- servative and autocratic side. Thus, says a writer in the Radical ‘‘ Voce ’’—a journal of scholarly character and with an intellectual constituency—the Church ‘is in her rightful place, in agreement with her qwn sentiments, with the record of her past, and with her instinct of self-preservation.”’ “La Voce” quotes from the interview as follows: “*‘The Church is opposed to war, is pacifist. Should she not succeed in conjuring war she remains neutral in the midst of the belligerents, waiting to seize the opportunity to throw herself between the contending parties as peacemaker.’ Such a statement by the Pope,” says ‘‘ La Voce,” “represents the theory of pacifists, whether laymen or ecclesiastics,’”’ and the ‘ Voce” continues: But note the difference. Lay pacifists, con- fronted_ by the violations of the law of nations and of humanity, have become advocates of war, they have declared war upon war, they have recognized the fatal necessity of defense... . Neutral countries, like North America, cannot hide their impulsive sympathies with the coun- tries which have been . . . downtrodden, and find it difficult not to overstep the bounds of official neutrality, so much does it seem to them against nature to remain indifferent spectators

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62 THE OUTLOOK of this conflict, which is not a conflict between states but a conflict of human principles. Only the Great Catholic Pacifist remains sincerely neutral in the depths of his political conscience, and in order to justify a policy so little humane is obliged to take refuge under another formula—that is to say, the Pope can- not erect himself judge between two belliger- ents who fling similar accusations against exch other ; God alone is judge of their actions. THE LAW OF GUARANTIES As to the second part of the interview, in which it is indicated that, as a result of the war, the relations between.the Holy See and Italy may be modified, ‘‘ La Voce ” notes that the Pope admits having organized the forces of the Clerical party in the interest of the Holy See against Italian intervention in this conflict, the implication being that, despite the Law of Guaranties, the war would necessarily diminish the Pontiff’s liberty and authority. By the Law of Guaranties the Italian Govern- ment gives to the Pope the inalienable guar- anty of ‘‘ the Apostolic buildings, the territory covered by the Vatican and Lateran with all the annexed buildings, gardens, and grounds,” and also the papal villa at Castel Gandolfo. These properties cannot be taxed or appro- priated to public use. Furthermore, the Government assigns to the Pope an annual and perpetual allowance of $645,000, which allowance the Popes, however, have never accepted. The Pope may also use the Gov- ernment postal and telegraph service practi- cally without expense. ‘La Voce” quotes the Pope as saying in the interview : We have confidence in the present Govern- ment, but we fear that we may find ourselves exposed to the uncertainties of Italian public life. What will to-morrow bring forth? How would the people take a defeat? How will they comport themselves in case of victory? Every movement of this people, the most mobile on earth, reacts here, and to-day we feel ourselves less protected. What would be the outcome of a defeat ? inquires the Radical paper, and replies: ‘“« Possibly a republic.” What would be the outcome of victory? Possibly a govern- ment increasingly democratic in character.” Who is to save the Papacy from these perils, asks “‘ La Voce,’”’ against the uncer- tainties of a parliamentary régime and the possibility of future revolutionary movements ? Germany, answers ‘“ La Voce ;” simply be- cause, as it asserts, ‘‘ alone among the nations, before our war Germany formally inquired of 8 September the Italian Government what would become of the Law of Guaranties in case of war.” This may-or may not be significant. In America there has always been abun- dant and ready sympathy for Italian liberals in their fight with the old order of things. We believe in Cavour’s motto, “A free Church in a free State.”” At the same time it is impossible to withhold a certain measure of pity forthe Pope. Elevated to the supreme place in a hierarchy incrusted with inveterate tradition and jealous of its rights, “ the pris- oner of the Vatican ”’ utters a pacifist plaint. A NATIONAL JEWISH MILITARY UNIT There are twenty thousand Jews in the armies of Great Britain. Fifty thousand are fighting for their German Fatherland. One hundred and seventy thousand are soldiers of Austria, and in the Russian ranks are thre¢ hundred and fifty thousand. Even in Servia —David among the nations—are twenty-five hundred Hebrew soldiers. After two thou- sand years Israel stands divided at Armaged- don. Except for those who have made Amer- ica their promised land, all the great divisions of the race are arrayed one against the other. «Everywhere these descendants of Macca- bean warriors, of whom Agrippa, the Em- peror, complained that they were “ the only people who think it a disgrace to be servants of those to whom all the world hath sub- mitted,” are serving under Gentile officers and following a Gentile flag. In only one instance has a great nation heeded the pride of a people and allowed its Jewish volunteers to fight as a national unit, commanded by Hebrew officers in the Hebrew tongue. After seventeen hundred and eighty-two years there is again the nucleus of a Jewish army, although but a mule trans- port corps, included in the British forces fighting at the Dardanelles. Its history is romantic. It reads like a bit of Chronicles transplanted into the twentieth century, beginning with a reversal of the exodus from Egypt into Palestine. For ‘ these Jewish soldiers of Great Britain are young Zionist Colonists from Palestine driven into Egypt with their homeless families. Dispossessed because they preferred exile to Turkish citizenship with its concomitant re- ligion, threatened with conscription into a “holy ” war (to them accursed), they fled into Jaffa, and were there transported by the United States cruiser Tennessee to Alexan

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1915 THE dria, where they claimed protection from Great Britain. Once in Egypt, many of the younger Zionists begged to be «allowed to enlist a British-Palestine battalion from among the refugees. Permission was granted, and the “ Zion Mule Corps” was formed. They were given a scant six weeks’ training and were sent to exact the traditional eye for an eye from their Turkish enemy at Gallipoli. That they have acquitted themselves with much of the old Maccabean valor is shown by the following extract from a letter written by Sir Ian Hamilton, printed in the ‘“ Day,”’ a New York Jewish paper : General Headquarters, Medtn Expeditionary Force, 10 fuly. 1915. It may interest you to know that I have here, fighting under my orders, a purely Jewish unit. As far as I know, this is the first time in the Christian era such a thing has happened. The men who compose it were cruelly driven out of Jerusalem by the Turks, and arrived in Egypt with their families absolutely destitute and starving. A complete transport corps was there raised from them for voluntary service with me against the Turks, whom they naturally detest. These troops were officially described as “ Zion Mule Corps,” and the officers and rank and file have shown great courage in taking water and sup- plies up to the fighting line under heavy fire. One of the private soldiers has been specially recommended by me for gallantry, and has duly received from the King the Distinguished Con- duct Medal. (Signed) IAN HAMILTON. COLLEGE NEWSPAPERS AND LIQUOR ADVERTISEMENTS The ethical code of newspaper advertising has made a tremendous advance since the days when Addison’s “ Spectator ” appeared in the motley company of clairvoyants, quack remedies, and other forms of commercialized buncombe. Most of this advance can be placed to the credit of the last two decades. A stepping-stone in the history of this reform is recorded in the action of an organization over which the editor of another ‘‘ Spectator ” presides. The Associated College News- paper Publishers, representing thirty-nine of the leading college newspapers of this coun- try and Canada, have voted that henceforth all liquor advertising shall be barred from the columns of the newspapers within the Association. Expulsion from the organiza- tion will be the punishment for any newspaper that violates this rule. The Convention at WEEK 63 which this decision was made was recently held in the offices of the ‘ Columbia Daily Spectator,” at Columbia University, New York. Mr. Morris P. Schaefer, of Columbia, is President of the Association. That the action taken is representative of a widespread opinion is shown in the fact that the Asso- ciation includes in its membership the news- papers of Harvard, Yale, Amherst, Brown, Dartmouth, Kansas, Colorado, Massachu- setts Institute of Technology, Michigan, Purdue, Syracuse, Texas, Toronto, Tulane, Washington, Williams, and Wisconsin. SANITARY RELIEF WORK IN SERVIA Dr. Richard P. Strong, the head of the important Sanitary and Bacteriological Com- mission sent out to Servia by the American Red Cross and the Rockefeller Foundation, cabled recently that with an additional $20,000 and his present equipment he would soon be able to complete the work of suppressing the typhus which only a few months ago threat ened the people of that country with exter- mination and was a very real danger to America itself. Ten thousand dollars was immediately cabled to him by the Red Cross, and an equal amount by the Rockefeller Foundation. When this Commission reached Servia in May, it found the greater part of the non- combatant population in a most appalling state of destitution and disease, with a death- list of several hundred each day, and new cases appearing in alarming numbers. It is estimated that fully one hundred thousand men, women, and children lost their lives from the typhus in the space of three months. Many of the foreign Red Cross doctors and nurses who had been working in the military hospitals were stricken with the disease, and four American doctors died from it. In view of such conditions, the achievements of Dr. Strong—and the International Health Board of English, French, Servian, and American physicians of which he was made Medical Director—are little short of miraculous in controlling the epidemic and_ establishing proper sanitary conditions in so short a space of time. In the extracts from Dr. Strong’s diary published in the August number of the ** American Red Cross Magazine ”’ he gives briefly some idea of the difficulties encoun- tered, and an indication of the efficient meth- ods which have been so successfully employed

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64 THE in their solution. In referring to hospital conditions he says: “T found conditions in a very alarming state. . .. The hospital had some two hundred and fifty typhus cases, and they were all badly neglected. The wards themselves were in a dreadful condition. There were no disinfect- ants, and no means of bathing the patients, and no clean clothes or bedding for them.” And again: “ Nish, May 26. This morning I had an important session with the International Health Board. I am glad to say that my trans- portable disinfecting and bathing plants have just been finished and will be sent to Skoplje to-morrow for use. It consists of one car which contains a boiler for generating steam, and a second car, formerly a refrigerating car, which is practically a huge autoclave, and into which the steam is turned for the disinfection of the clothes ; a third car, in which there are fifteen shower baths. The individuals are to have their hair clipped, to be bathed, and their clothes dis- infected by steam while they are bathing. Their clothes will be ready for therh to put on after their bath. Before they clothe themselves they are sprayed with petroleum. It is the idea also to vaccinate them immediately afterwards. Sev- eral thousand people can be bathed and disin- fected in a day by this means, and the cars can be moved from city to city.” In addition to the task of eradicating the typhus and putting the country on a sanitary basis, there has been the need of measures to prevent an outbreak of cholera during the hot weather of the summer. ‘To accomplish this large quantities of cholera vaccine were sent out by the American Red Cross. Dr. Strong gives an interesting description of the methods employed, as follows : I reached here at 5:30 this morning, and after breakfast completed arrangements for the inocu- lation of the troops against cholera. At ten o’clock we began the inoculation, and continued until about 12:30. Everything went off smoothly and satisfactorily. The men took off their coats and removed from the arm the left sleeve of the undershirt. The arm is scrubbed with soap and water, and then another attendant paints a little tincture of iodine over the place where the inoculation is to be made. The men pass along in rows, and after they are inoculated another attendant paints the arm again with tincture of iodine. One man can inoculate about seventy-five patients in an hour. AGRICULTURAL RELIEF IN SERVIA The ravages of disease, added to the devastation caused during the early months of the war by the Austrian troops, has made OUTLOOK & September the matter of relief work in Servia perhaps next in importance to that so efficiently car- ried on ir Belgium by the Commission for Relief in Belgium, although in the case of Servia the lack of food has not been so seri- ous a factor as in Belgium. In addition to the notable undertakings of the Sanitary Commission, and the units sent out by the American Red Cross to the military hospi- tals, much effort has been made to relieve the terrible distress of the women and chil- dren, driven from their homes by the inva- sion and crowded into the disease-infested cities. The Servian Agricultural Relief Com- mittee of America, with its various branches, has as its special object the restoring of these women and children to their little home farms in the outlying districts, supply- ing them with clothing and the barest neces- sities of life, and furnishing them with seeds and simple agricultural implements, with which to raise food. The Servian troops, although of course obliged constantly to protect their frontiers, have been able to assist in the agricultural work to a consid- erable extent. What is needed now, how- ever, is a serious and scientifically man- aged effort looking toward the agricultural rehabilitation of the devastated sections of the country. With this purpose in view, the Agricultural Relief of Allies Committee, in England, has sent a special Agricultural Com- missioner to inquire into the needs of the farming population, and to recommend and install systematic measures for rehabilitation. If a similar Commissioner could be sent from America also, he would undoubtedly render along reconstruction lines service equally effi- cient with that performed by Dr. Strong and his assistants along lines of sanitation. Among other agencies in the United States engaged in relief work in Servia may be mentioned the Committee of Mercy, under whose auspices the ‘“* Automobile Squad ”’ of Columbia College students, and others, went to Servia on June 26 to assist in the work of sanitary relief and distribution of supplies, and the Serbo-American National League, which has raised since the beginning of the war over $133,000, composed principally of con- tributions of small amounts from the Servians of America. ‘This fund, which has been de- voted principally to Red Cross work in Servia, represents very real sacrifice on the part of those who have contributed to it, as most of the Servians here are poor people, and the dollars they have given have in thousands of

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1915 cases covered the cost of actual necessities of life which have been cheerfully given up for the sake of their suffering countrymen and women. The greater number of Servians in this country, moreover, are those who have never lived in the Kingdom itself, but have come from the other side of the Danube, having come to America to escape the op- pression of their Austrian rulers. THE CHILDREN OF FRANCE Where a town or village in France is to be defended, officers in command of the region order its evacuation, so that the helpless women and children may not suffer destruc- tion. These poor women and children, how- ever, are without men to protect them and do not know where to go. They start along the road and walk for days and nights looking for shelter. They furnish a pitiable spectacle. The French Government has tried to do what it could for them. It has sent many children to the south of France, and wherever possible they are retained with their mothers. The Government gives to each woman having a brother, husband, or father in the army, who supports her, twenty cents a day, and to every child whose supporter has gone to the frontten cents aday. This, however, leaves wholly unprovided for the women who are alone and the children who have no father or male relative in the war. As the Government is overwhelmed wiih war expenses, these unfortunates have had to be taken care of by charitable institutions or individuals. For instance, Miss Valentine Thomson, a daughter of the present French Minister of Commerce, has devoted herself to caring for the helpless women and chil- dren. She is looking after some thousands of them, and hopes to arrange to maintain as many as forty thousand at various places in the south of France. She is now at Bordeaux directing this work. THE WORK AT YVETOT A year ago the exigencies of war required the razing of all villages in the region of the Belfort fortifications in Alsace. When the population of the city of Belfort, say thirty thousand persons, and the populations of the outlying villages, were sent away, it was diffi- cult to know what to do with the children, some of whom are orphans. Accordingly charitable Americans in Paris, headed by Mr. THE WEEK 65 Frederic R. Coudert, the well-known New York lawyer and publicist, came to the rescue. Mr. Coudert and his friend M. Cruppi, formerly the French Foreign Minister, went to Belfort, gathered the children together and brought them to an old seminary at Yvetot, between Havre and Rouen, where there were places for some four hundred beds. The wife of the Sub-Prefect of that town, Madame Piettre, voluntecred to take charge of the chil- dren, and asked the inhabitants to contribute beds, which they did with a will, some of them taking mattresses from their own chil- dren to give to the Belfort children. ‘The Government agreed to let the children have the building and also one or two school in- structors. ‘The people about furnished them with some clothing, although the children are still lacking in that respect. Money was raised to give food to the children. It costs from twelve to fifteen cents a day to feed each one. The history of this colony has been inspir- ing. The children have gained in weight and they are happy and contented. Since the beginning of the war many of them have lost their fathers, but have not yet been in- formed of that fact. Some of the old men in the village have already undertaken to teach the boys trades, and the older girls are rapidly learning housework. It is expected that some of the children who are com- pletely bereft of support may remain at Yvetot in industrial schools which the Sub- Prefect and his wife hope to establish. The charity of Americans abroad has brought the colony on thus far, but in order to carry it safely through until the end of the war American donations from this side of the water are necessary. Any funds may be sent to Mr. Coudert, at 2 Rector Street, New York City. Donations of clothing may be sent direct to Madame J. L. Piettre, Yvetot (Seine-Inférieure), France. In addition to the children at Yvetot, Mr. Augustus F. Jacacci, the well-known art critic, and Mrs. Robert W. Bliss, the wife of the First Secretary of the American Embassy at Paris, have gathered together some twelve hundred French and Belgian children who were in distress and have placed them in institutions under the care of good nuns, where they are well looked after. But pro- vision has to be made for food for these chil- dren also, and all funds over the minimum required for the Alsatian children will be used for them.

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66 THE CAN WE COMPROMISE P Germany is evidently in a mood to recede from her former position regarding sub- marine warfare. The American Govern- ment has protested against the attacks by German submarines on merchantmen with- out provision for the safety of passengers and crews. . It now appears that in response to these protests, and particularly in response to the intimation that the United States might take some action, Germany wishes to offer to the United States some “ concessions.” On Wednesday of last week it waseven announced that Germany had indicated her adherence to our declarations regarding submarine war- fare ‘“‘in principle,” and her intention not to attack without warning passenger steamers. The Ambassador stated in writing that the German answer to our Government’s last Lusitania note contains the following : Liners will not be sunk by our submarines without warning and without safety of the lives of non-combatants provided that the liners do not try to escape or offer resistance. This is the most significant indication of the change in Germany’s mood, from that of indifference concerning the world’s opinion of her to an evident desire to win back the esteem of the peoples she has alienated. The reasons for the change of mood on Germany’s part may be surmised. Primarily it is due to the failure of the German sub- marine campaign. The torpedoing of help- less merchantmen, with the loss of non- combatant lives, has been dramatic, tragic, murderous ; but it has not been successful. It has not seriously hurt English trade and it has stiffened English resistance. It has resulted in the loss of an unknown but large number of German submarines, and, what 1s more serious, of a large but unknown num- ber of trained submarine officers and sub- marine crews. can be more easily replaced than the men who understand the navigation of sub- marines and can endure the conditions of submarine warfare without loss of efficiency. And by her course Germany has alienated neutral nations. Americans need have no illusions as to any desire on the part of the German Government for American friendship for its own sake, in order to believe that Germany is wise enough not to wish to incur at this time the disadvantage that would come from any action on the part OUTLOOK The submarines themselves - 8 September of the United States Government in restrict- ing further access to American resources and increasing the access to those resources on the part of Germany’s enemies. For these reasons the German Govern- ment is apparently seeking’ some way by which it can at least modify the policy that has been associated with Grand Admiral von Tirpitz. The report published the middle of last week, that the German Admiralty sug- gested that the submarine which destroyed the Arabic had possibly foundered, indicates that the German Government would not find un. welcome an opportunity to escape from its dilemma. It had already been hinted by Ambassador Bernstorff that the commander of the submarine which sunk the Arabic may have exceeded his instructions. If it should prove to be true that this submarine had been lost at sea, Germany could leave the case conveniently unexplained. In con- sequence of her so-called concessions, it is suggested that Germany will expect the United States to make strong representations to Great Britain against the British blockade of Germany. So far, it is not acknowledged that there will be an abandonment of illegal submarine attacks on those non-combatants who are in other than passenger ships. This is the suggested form of compromise which Germany offers. Ought America to offer compromise in return ? Emphatically, No. As the New York “ Tribune ”’ well says: If Germany has now decided to forego her campaign of murder, it is no more a concession than would be the similar decision of a black- hand operator who, faced with the necessity of suffering the consequences of his crimes or of consenting to live under the law, elected to give up the bomb and the knife for his own comfort. It is not to suit any purpose of the United States that Germany has yielded—if she has, in fact, as seems probable. It is not any right that she has surrendered. We shall owe her nothing because she consents to let our women and children live on the high seas. There is no favor here, no “ concession.” But Germany’s crime is not merely that she has murdered Americans. Germany’s crime on the high sea is that she has mur dered non-combatants. If she is to abandon her criminal course, it is not enough that she assures us that she will no longer kill Ameri- cans. She must stop her whole policy of piracy. She must stop her lawless attacks on merchantmen, whether passenger steamers

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1915 or not. She must stop killing non-combatants. In the note sent by the American Government to Germany on May 13 the President directed Germany’s attention to the rule safeguarding on the seas “the lives of non-combatants, whether they be of neutral citizenship or citizens of one of the nations at war.” We are not merely here stating, therefore, the attitude of The Outlook; we are restating the attitude of the American Government and of the American people when we say that if Germany is to satisfy the American people and comply with the principles and. demands expressed by the American Government she must see to it that no merchant vessel of any kind is attacked without warning and without ample provision for the escape of all non-combatants, whether they are Americans or not. To assent now to what is suggested as a compromise would be to acquiesce in the establishment of a new and lawless method of warfare. This the United States cannot afford to do. THE SHORT BALLOT As we go to press, the Constitutional Con- vention of the State of New York, now in session at Albany, is struggling with the most important question which can come before it —the question of the Short Ballot. A deci- sive majority in a test vote and a remarkable speech by Senator Root, the President of the Convention, indicate that the Short Ballot principle will be embodied in the new Con- stitution. Ifso,no minor defects should pre- vent the people of the State from ratifying it, for it will be the greatest step taken for more than a hundred years in favor of open, honest, efficient, and popular State government. This is a strong statement, but it is sup- ported by the facts of history and experience. What is the Short Ballot and what is its history ? It has nothing to do with the size or form of the paper which the voter places in the ballot-box. The Short Ballot idea of gov- ernment might be expressed in a ballot as large as a bed-sheet, and the long ballot idea in a ballot as small as the page of a news- paper. The Short Ballot advocates want few elective officers, who shall possess large powers of administration and appointment, but who shall be directly responsible to the people. The long ballot advocates want THE SHORT . BALLOT 67 every government official, from Governor to dog-catcher, nominated by party conventions and elected by the people. The political bosses, the lovers of patronage, the office- seekers, the supporters of the ‘“ system,” and the members of the ‘‘ Old Guard ” are all long ballotmen. They profess to be the only Simon-pure upholders of true democracy, because they claim the right of every voter to have a voice in the selection of every gov- ernment official As a matter of fact, by giving the voter a list of ten, forty. fifty, or a hundred names from which to select at an election, the long ballot men confuse him, throw dust in his eyes, and retain the actual power in their own hands. They thus be- come ‘the system,” the “invisible govern- ment.” ‘They are really despots, not demo- crats. Their methods gave us for many years the worst city governments in the world, and many of our State governments have been not much better. The long ballot principle has fostered bribery, corruption, irresponsi- bility, and inefficiency. We have no less an authority than Senator Root himself—and no man has a more intimate knowledge of the inside history of American politics, the ma- chinery of its nominations and elections, and its methods of invisible control than he has for saying that for many years tie Govern- ment of the State of New York has been worse than the Government of Venezuela. The political history of American cities and States proves conclusively that the long ballot principle has been a failure ; it does not work for the benefit of the people ; it works only for the benefit of the ‘* machine.” But when confronted with this unanswera- ble argument the long ballot advocates reply : ‘‘ We, too, are in favor of reform, but it must be a practical reform. ‘The Short Ballot is visionary and unpractical. It is new-fangled, like the initiative, the referendum, and the recall. It is striking at the foundations of the republic. It won’t work.” History again shows them to be wrong. The Short Ballot is as old-fangled as the feder- ation of the United States itself. It is the chief foundation stone of the Federal Gov- ernment. There it has worked successfully for a century and a quarter. It is almost the only political principle,of our forefathers which has lasted unmodified since the Federal Constitution was framed. And where, during the last twenty years, it has been applied to American municipal government it has worked

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68 THE OUTLOOK so well that it has driven out corruption and developed efficiency until, as Senator Root said in his Albany speech, “‘ the government of American cities to-day is, in the main, superior to the government of American States.” The first Constitutional Convention of the State of New York was held in Fishkill Village in 1777. Those who have read Theodore Roosevelt’s interesting ‘“ Life of Gouverneur Morris” will remember that Morris was a delegate to that Convention and that he strenuously endeavored to intro- duce the Short Ballot principle into the State Constitution. He advocated the election of a single executive or governor directly re- sponsible to the people and having the power to appoint the military and civil servants of the State. But with the majority of the delegates ‘‘ the remembrance of the contests with the royal governors was still fresh, and the mere name of governor frightene! them. . He did not let the memory of the wrong-doing of the royal governors blind him ; he saw that the trouble with them lay, not in the power that they held, but in the source from which that power came. Once the source was changed, the power was an advantage, not a harm, to the State.” But his fellow-delegates “nervously strove to save their new State from the danger of executive usurpation by trying to make the executive practically a board of men instead of one man, and by crippling it so as to make it ineffective for good, while at the same time dividing the responsibility so that no one need be afraid to do evil.” Gouverneur Morris failed at Fishkill, and, from that day to this, long ballot inefficiency has prevailed at Albany. ‘To-day not one voter in a thousand, outside of those who have some official or selfish interest in the matter, knows even the names of the com- plex executive board which he has helped elect to administer the business of the State. But Morris went to Philadelphia and played an important part in framing the Federal Constitution of 1789. He helped to make it a Short Ballot Constitution. Under it the citizen votes for one Executive, with vast powers of judicial, military, and civil appointment; a Representative in Congress ; and two Senators. Every intelligent voter is familiar with the names, the character, and the acts of these four men. The result is that, with almost no exception, every President of the United States has been profoundly 8 September attentive to public opinion in making his ap- pointments. No President who flouted public opinion could withstand the objurgations of his party even if he cared nothing about his own political success. How any sensible man, with the practical object-lesson of the Federal Government constantly in his view, can doubt the wisdom and efficacy of the Short Ballot principle we do not understand. What works in the National Government will certainly work in the State governments. The Federal Gov- ernment for a hundred years has been the best government in the world, and at the same time some of the State governments have been among the worst governments in the world. For this reason we repeat that the action of the Constitutional Convention and the people of the State of New York on the Short Ballot is crucial. If New York adopts it, other States are likely to follow the exam- ple, and a new and important era may thus be inaugurated in our National life. A DEMOCRATIC MEASURE The proposal made at the Constitutional Convention of New York State to confine the suffrage to those who can read and write the English language has been defeated, partly, perhaps chiefly, on the ground that its adoption would endanger the entire amended Constitution by massing against it the foreign vote. We should like to see an opportunity given to the people of the State to pass upon this amendment, and therefore we should like to see it hereafter brought before them as a separate amendment. We believe that it is intrinsically right, not because this is an Anglo-Saxon country, not because the Eng- lish-speaking people are more intelligent than the people of other races, not because they are entitled to any special privileges or pre- rogatives ; but for this very simple reason : It is essential to the success of democracy that the people should be able to discuss with one another the various propositions submitted to them for their decision. If they are to do this, it is essential that they should have a common language, in order that they may engage in such discussion. If they cannot understand each other’s tongue, they cannot understand each other’s arguments. Therefore every voter in a democratic com- munity should be able, not only to understand

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1915 his neighbor, but to communicate with him both by voice and pen. To do this he must be able to use whatever is the prevailing lan- guage of his country. In Italy democracy should require of the voter familiarity with the Italian language; in France, with the French language ; in Norway, with the Nor- wegian language; in America, with the American language, which happens to be also the English language. The fact that progressive manufacturers are maintaining, at their own expense, schools for the instruction of their working people, because they find that a knowledge of the English language is essential to team work in the factory, confirms the belief that such knowledge is essential to team work in the State. If the State were to provide night schools for adults in all districts where there is any considerable number of foreign-speak- ing residents, such provision would go far to overcome their objection to a Constitutional provision requiring a knowledge of the Eng- lish language as a condition of the suffrage. LETTERS TO UNKNOWN FRIENDS What has the United States, with all its opportunities, done more to bring righteous- ness and equity into the affairs of men than did Babylon ? S. J. W. Read Rawlinson’s ‘‘ Ancient Monarchies,” Volume III, chapters one to five. Two sentences must suffice here: “A savage and inhuman temper is betrayed by these harsh punishments, . . . one that leads its possessors to sacrifice interests to vengeance, and the peace of a kingdom to a tiger-like thirst for blood.” Compare with this any fair account of what Mr. Osborne is attempt- ing todo in Sing Sing and what Miss Davis is attempting to do on Blackwell’s Island. Please give us your interpretation of Prov- erbs xvi. 7: “ When a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” A. M. W. Proverb is defined by the Century Dic- tionary as ‘‘a short, pithy sentence express- ing a common fact ascertained by experience or observation.”” The Proverbs of the Old Testament are not, and do not assume to be, infallible statements of divine law. They are popular expressions of a common experience, and that common experience is that obedi- ence to the law of God generally makes for LETTERS TO UNKNOWN FRIENDS 69 happiness, and, specifically, for the promo- tion of friendship. Do you believe in predestination? If a sol- dier dies on the battlefield, was his death in accordance with divine providence? Was it ordained from the beginning of his life that he should end thus? E. I see no reason to believe that God has fixed all the incidents and events of any man’s life in detail. On the contrary, I believe that He has left to his children a large realm in which they are free to determine, by their own choice, their course of conduct and the consequent events. How may old age be made bearable when deafness and other similar disabilities attack one? I have taken up china-painting; but my eyes will fail me later. B. Aa i. Do not borrow trouble. Enjoy your eye- sight while you have it. Do not suffer from blindness before you are blind. As to deaf- ness, I know a gentleman who is so deaf that he always carries an ear-trumpet with him and offers it to any gentleman with whom he wishes to converse; thus, adjusting himself to his deafness, he continues to be a social favorite. In general terms it may be said that the way to be happy, under any limitations imposed upon us by our health or our external condi- tions, is to accept them, if we cannot change them, and adjust our life accordingly. The bird which beats itself against the cage does not get freedom. ‘The bird that accepts the cage and sings its song in the cage is happy itself and makes others happy. Have there been any prophets since Christ who add to the great prophecies which are of value to those who wish to know the truth? Or is it sufficient to know the old prophets and the teachings of Christ ? R. M. The prophets, we are told, spoke as they were moved, inspired, guided, by the Spirit of God. ‘There is no reason to suppose that God has ceased to move upon the spirits of men and to inspire and guide them. Cer- tainly there is nothing in the New Testament to warrant any such opinion. Peter ex- pressly declares that the promise of the Holy Spirit is to all who will receive it, and Paul bids us pray that we may be filled with all the fullness of God. On the other hand, there is no reason to suppose that anything has been added to the substantial truths respecting God and his relations to his chil- dren which are taught in the Old and New Testaments. ‘Their teaching that God loves

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70 THE OUTLOOK and serves and sacrifices himself in love for his children leaves nothing beyond to be desired or even to be conceived. The proph- ets since that revelation are guided, not to add new truth, but to show how the truth of love —the love of God to man, and the love of man to God and to each other—is to be applied in all the changing situations and conditions of our human life. Lyman ABBOTT. A WOMAN’S RIGHT We should like to see the Constitutional Convention of New York State adopt a clause providing that a ballot-box be put in 8 September Constitution, and that all women who are entitled to: vote at school or other elections should be invited to drop a ballot in this box if they desire the ballot for themselves or fo: their sisters; and that if a majority of the authorized women voters express a desire fo: the ballot it should be given to the women oi the State. The question whether women shall vote or not should be determined by them for themselves, not by the men for them. ‘To impose political responsibilities upon them without knowing whether they wish to assume them or not is neither demo- cratic nor just, and the women who have already had some experience in_ political responsibility are the ones to determine whether that responsibility shall be laid upon other women and extended to all subjects. every polling-place in the State at the first general election after the adoption of the LEST WE FORGET The Government of the United States would be constrained to hold the Imperial Gerrnan Government to a strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities, and to take any steps it might be necessary to take to safeguard American lives and property and to secure to American citizens the full enjoyment of their acknowledged rights on the high seas.—American note of February 10 on the German war zone decree. On March 28 the English steamship Falaba was torpedoed by a German submarine and over a hundred non-combatants were killed, including one American. On May 1 the American steamship Gulflight was torpedoed by a German submarine. Her American captain died from shock and one other American was drowned. On May 7 the Lusitania was torpedoed by a German sub- marine and over a thousand non-combatants were killed. More than a hundred Americans were among the dead. American citizens act within their indisputable rights in taking their ships and in traveling wherever their legitimate business calls them on the high seas, and exercise those rights in what should be the well-justified confidence that their lives will not be endangered by acts done in clear violation of universally acknowledged international obligations, and certainly in the confidence that their own Government will sustain them in the exercise of their rights. The Imperial German Government will not expect the Government of the United States to omit any word or any act necessary to the performance of its sacred duty of maintaining the rights of the United States and its citizens and of safeguarding their free exercise and enjoyment.—A merican note of May 13 on the sinking of the Lusitania. On May 25 the American steamship Nebraskan was torpedoed by a German submarine. Only her actual resistance to capture or refusal to stop when ordered to do so for the pur- pose of visit could have afforded the commander of the submarine any justification for so much as putting the lives of those on board the ship in jeopardy. The lives of non-combatants, whether they be of neutral citizenship or citizens of one of

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1915 THE HOUSE OF GOVERNORS IN BOSTON 71 the nations at war, cannot lawfully or rightfully be put in jeopardy by the capture or destruc- tion of an unarmed merchantman.—- American note of June 9. On June 28 the English steamship Armenian was shelled by a German submarine and several Americans were killed. On July 9 the English steamship Orduna, carrying American passengers, was attacked by a German submarine, but escaped. The very value which this Government sets upon the long and unbroken friendship be- tween the people and Government of the United States and the people and Government of the German nation impels it to press very solemnly upon the Imperial German Government the necessity for a scrupulous observance of neutral rights in this critical matter. Friend- ship itself prompts it to say to the Imperial Government that repetition by the commanders of German naval vessels of acts in contravention of these rights must be regarded by the Government of the United States, when they affect American citizens, as deliberately un- friendly.— American note of July 21. On August 19 the English steamship Arabic was torpedoed by a German submarine ; among the killed were two Americans. THE HOUSE OF GOVERNORS IN BOSTON SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE OF THE OUTLOOK WENTY-SIX States of the Union were represented by their chief ex- ecutives at the Conference of Gov- ernors in Boston August 24-27, and eleven former Governors came too, while three members of President Wilson’s Cabinet dropped in more or less informally, but always appositely, during the sessions, which were held in the historic State House. This is the eighth meeting of the ‘“ House of Govern- ors,’ and the value of the conference was never more striking than in this troublous year. The State House was lavishly trimmed, inside and out, with bunting, flags, and ropes of laurel. Some loyal’ Bostonians thought this detracted from the colonial charm of the famous Bulfinch front. But from steps to dome a patriotic welcome radiated that was perhaps more impressive, after all. When the sergeant-at-arms, with his cockade hat and his white and gold staff of office, preced- ing the Goyernor of Massachusetts, ushered the executives into the Senate chamber, where their sessions took place, it was a stately. ceremony, witnessed by crowded galleries. The official welcome of State and city, given by Governor Walsh and Mayor Curley, was extended not only to the assembled Gov- ernors, but also to the representatives of the Conference on Universities and Public Serv- ice, which held its sessions in another part of the State House August 24-25. Meanwhile all Boston, outside the classic walls, was ar- ranging an overwhelming series of luncheons, automobile trips, parades, carnivals, and clam-bakes for its distinguished guests. When the heads of twenty-six States dis- cuss a public question, a great deal of valu- able information is brought out. Thus, in the first session, when ‘ Governor’s _initia- tive,” the short ballot, and the co-operation of Governors in preparing State budgets were the subjects of the papers read, the discussion was lively. Governor Fielder, of New Jersey, told of the working of the short ballot in that State, and the increased power and responsibility of the Governorship, while former Governor Adams, of Colorado, pro- tested against creating forty-eight monarchies in sucha way. The general trend of opinion, however, was that no Governor could do his best for the people and the laws while many State officials and commissions, not appointed or removable by him, controlled a large part of the State administration. In his address of welcome Governor Walsh, of Massachusetts, referred to the topic in the following words : Of late it is becoming generally understood that the business efficiency indispensable for good government can be secured only by con-

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72 THE OUTLOOK centrating power and responsibility as the fathers planned. Governor Alexander, of Idaho, began his appeal with the remark : There must be responsibility somewhere. It is essential that the Executive have more power and more responsibility, and this could be checked by the proper exercise of the recall. This subject of increased powers for State executives, and also the topic of conserva- tion, seemed in advance to be likely to hold a large place. But, as a matter of fact, the interest centered almost entirely on the two other topics—the abolition of capital punish- ment, which included clemency for prison- ers, and the necessity of military prepared- ness. Like a jury drawn from all over the land, the House of Governors is affected by public sentiment. The Southern executives wished to uphold the South’s desire for law and order, and, though the Governor of Georgia was not there and the Frank case was never mentioned, it was never forgotten for an instant by speakers or audience. ‘The States that have abolished capital punishment spoke through their executives. The States that have not abolished the death penalty explained and questioned. Former Governor Blease, of South Carolina, won applause by his practical pleas for prison reform, and then as quickly forfeited sympathy by identifying mob law with the principles of liberty. Governor Goldsborough, of Maryland, answered him warmly, saying that the best people of the South did not approve such a sentiment. It wasshown that Virginia juries had the right to include in their verdict, ‘‘except for one crime,” a commutation of the death penalty to imprisonment for life. South Carolina has a law to-day, lately declared constitutional by her courts, under which the city or county is liable for two thousand dollars to be paid to the family of a victim of mob law; and the first damages paid under it were to the family of a Negro who was lynched. Wisconsin and Maine, without the death penalty for murder, have fewer murders in proportion to population than Illinois, for example, whose Governor spoke against capital punishment with great force. This discussion was so warm and long that an extra hour was set apart for it next day. On the second afternoon of the Conference Secretary Daniels took the Governors out to Boston Light on the battle-ship Wyoming, to review part of the fleet. [A picture of this review appears on another page.—THE 8 September Eprrors.] On the third day Massachusetts mobilized. her. citizen militia, seven thousand strong, encamped one company on the Com- mon for twenty-four hours, and gave a mon- ster parade for the visitors. These two object- lessons and a talk by former Secretary Meyer at luncheon on the last day made the discussion of National preparedness vivid and practical. The Senate Chamber was not large enough to hold the crowds, so the session was moved to the House of Representatives. Almost every Governor spoke, and every speech was in favor of adequate preparedness. Governor Dunne, of Illinois, suggested that every col- lege and university that receives funds from the State or Nation should be required to give a military course as part of its curriculum. Even “the most hardened advocates of peace,”” he thought, must admit the need of preparedness. Governor Hammond, of Minnesota, said that the great fraternal in- surance orders could be led to institute mili- tary drills. Governor Fielder, of New Jersey, contrasted the $600 to $1,000 a year which each soldier in the regular army costs the Nation with the $33 required to maintain a citizen soldier, and urged an extension and reorganization of the National Guard of every State. At present the insecurity of enlist- ment, the fear of labor that the militia will be used for strike duty, and the fact that business men do not encourage employees to join the militia are all against the growth of the citi- zen soldiery ; but these objections can all be removed by patriotic co-operation. The facts were brought out in further discussion that all the present munition factories were within one hundred and fifty miles of New York and could easily be destroyed by an invader, leaving unarmed America helpless. Our present ammunition for coast defense would not last more than half an hour. Governor Goldsborough, of Maryland, cited the descent of the British upon Wash- ington in 1812, and said that devotion and patriotism were not enough—there must be efficient preparation. “It needs two,” he said, ‘‘ to make peace, but only one to make war.” Governor Stuart, of Virginia, was in . favor of substantial increase in preparedness. Governor Walsh urged the education of boys toward becoming citizen soldiers when they become citizens. Governor McGovern, of Wisconsin, urged the education of adults also. While the United States spent more on her army and navy then other nations, she was also the most unprepared, and he laid this

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1915 largely at the door of the persistent, heavily endowed international peace propaganda which for years had ‘“‘ mentally chloroformed ” the American people. The decree of any court in the United States is based on force, and arbitration between nations must fail without force behind it to establish its de- crees. There was no dissent expressed from this strong speech, and it was evident that the unanimous sentiment of the Conference in this closing session was for direct measures of preparedness. The tollowing telegram was sent to Presi- dent Wilson : THE CONFESSIONS OF AN UNDERGRADUATE: MORE REPLIES 73 The Governors of the several commonwealths of the Nation, in conference assembled, desire to tender to you an expression of their confi- dence and support in this hour of deep interna- tional concern, and to assure you of their readi- ness to follow your leadership in all matters which you may deem best to promote the honor and maintain the peace and welfare of the Nation. The President in his reply expressed thanks and a wish that he could be at the Conference. Next year the House of Governors will meet in Salt Lake City. B. THE CONFESSIONS OF AN UNDER- GRADUATE: MORE REPLIES Since the publication of “The Confessions of an Undergraduate,” in The Outlook for July 28, letters have been coming in to us from readers all over the country, who have been aroused by that article to protest, to indorse, to question or otherwise to comment upon the writer's statements. replies ; others we print herewith. Some readers have jumped to conclusions concerning the college and class of the writer of the “ Confesstons.” We have already printed some of these The positiveness with which some of these conclusions have been expressed indicates how easy it ts to substitute false inference for knowledge. Is it true that the college leaves the new-made graduate with an “‘ incapacity for work’’ 2 Ts it true that college life is an invitation to loaf and take one's ease? Ts it true that college instructors are for the most part dry, uninspiring, tncapable of teaching ? activities “have swallowed up the circus” of study ? even honors can be obtained with an incredibly small amount of work ? that there are castes in college life that tend to snobbishness ? Is it true that the “side shows” of athletics and undergraduate social Ts it true that degrees and Ts it true Ts it true that there as in the college an irresistible tendency to conformity in opinion and to the destruc- tion of independence of mind? Ts it true that among undergraduates serious subjects of conversation are taboo? Such questions as these are raised by the “ Undergradu- ate's’’ confessions, and have evoked answers and discussions from our readers.— THE EDITORS. SELF-REFUTED URIOUSLY enough, thecircumstances related by an undergraduate in The Outlook for July 28 contradict the rather pessimistic conclusions with which he sums up the benefits of his college career. The very fact that an undergraduate writes such a well-constructed article demonstrates that college life has developed his literary and critical acumen. As to the facts related, the chief is that his zeal for work has decreased. Yet we find him very early in life appearing in one of the largest-circulating weeklies. This fact alone is most extraordinary. It was his college which impelled him to come into the lime- light of up-to-date journalism! Certainly the college has not repressed his zeal and capacity for work in this respect. On the other hand, the college has not impaired his ability to think for himself, as he griev- ously supposes. For again the article itself warrants the belief that it is worthy of a prominent place in the thought and discus- sion of the American people. His material,

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74 THE OUTLOOK as he presents it, forms the best rebuttal for his arguments. F. M. W. Pennsylvania, THE HOME AND PARENTS ACCOUNTABLE Certainly no fair-minded person can ‘say that it is the duty of the college to act the part of a nurse; that it should take a boy after he has reached the age of eighteen and make a man of him. This is something the boy must do for himself, and he usually will do it, if the parents have done their part. CF: New Hampshire. Our educational institutions need just what this discussion promises to bring about. But watch out and see if in its final analysis this discussion does not prove to be a serious indictment of our American homes. C.. 35 Georgia. A GERMAN POINT OF VIEW In the German universities students are not required even to attend the lectures and recitations. If they are absent, it is their own fault, and they are never called upon to explain any absences. When, however, their period of study is over, they must pass ex- amination in all branches of studies which they pursued during the entire residence at college. ‘This is a part of that wonderful system by which the German people have developed into the most efficient nation in the world. What would happen to men like the ‘‘ Undergraduate ” under sucha system is unpleasant to conjecture. German students are matured when they enter college, and they are ready to make the most of their opportunities. “The American student, either sincerely or otherwise, professes a dislike for one who studies and graduates with honor ; they call him a “ grind.’’ Witness the estab- lishment of the Kappa Beta Phi Society at some of the universities. On the other hand, many German students commit suicide when they fail to pass their examinations, so serious are they with their college work. We see, then, that the German student develops into a better man under a “loose” system of training than does the American student under a more severe discipline. The blame must lie with the undergraduates in our uni- versities. There is, however, hope that the colleges in this country will gradually adopt the German system of doing individual and independent work. Under such system stu- 8 September dents who were wont to depend upon others will develop independent power or they will be left out of the race. 5. B. New York. THE COLLEGE UNDERWORLD There is much to be said for the college underworld, those who are not altogether absorbed in the side-shows—the grinds, the working students, the radicals, the freaks. The number and the later importance of these classes is often underestimated, and their prophet, in fiction and in “ confessions,” has not yet arisen. But their records will, if — ever written, be much more diverting and inspiring than the normal, athletic, unoriginal career of the “regular fellow.” L. M. B. New York. IN COLLEGE AND OUT **'The Confessions of an Undergraduate ” suggest, in my opinion, no cause for alarm about present college methods and values. I hope that from them no world-reforming zealot will take his cue. The defects in col- lege life found and noted by the junior con- fessor are, of course, not peculiar to college life alone. They are peculiar to the whole course of life, highly characteristic of human existence—in fact, the very elements from which failure gets its sting, success its glow, and life its lasting ‘‘ Yucatan” flavor. True, the confessor has found many defects which really exist in college life and in the life of many college students. But beyond the campus gates he will find the same defects again. Stupid customers, boring tasks, unexpected situations, distractions of body and mind, fixed social conventions, and hidebound views—all of these so-called obstacles the successful merchant - of fifty-five has left behind him, crushed to the ground and min- gled with the dust of a path, such as the Turk’s used to be, in which no grass was ever known to grow. With the many problems of life that have kept him from taking certain actions at certain times the mature person is so familiar that he sees in them no novelties for publication. They are appropriate only as “ The Confessions of an Undergraduate.” Of late years it has seemed to me that a university diet has been too freely fed to persons with other appetites. I very seri- ously doubt whether it is the best thing for the happiness and efficiency of the race that every one should spend his life until he is

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1915 THE CONFESSIONS OF AN twenty-five or thirty years of age in some- body else’s class-room listening to some- body else’s lecture or reading somebody else’s book. But college life is only the life of the stu- dents who go to college. It is as malleable in the hands of the students of strong desire and will as is any other kind of life—busi- ness, professional, or what not. It is as much a man’s work to make his life in col- lege as it is anywhere else. College life is not preparation for life. “It is life. C2. 5 Nebraska. FOUR VIEWS OF THE “ FRAT” I could not join the fraternities, so did not worry about it; but at the same time I felt almost from the beginning of my college course and continued to feel all through col- lege the ‘social damnation ”’ your writer of the ‘‘ Confessions ” referred to. I agree with your writer that a large part of the benefit of going through college is in the mingling with one’s fellows. I have continued to feel the loss of better acquaintance with my college mates all these years since I graduated. M. S. S. New York. I am always profoundly sorry for the sen- sitive chap who is out of the “frat” circles. He comes to feel that he is not as good as the other fellow who was “bid,” and this tends to make him lose confidence in himself. In short, I am inclined to believe that the smaller colleges are not the place for frater- nities. They serve to divide the student body up into cliques, play too large a part in school politics, and are a generally reprehen- sible factor in such university life. The qualifications of a “frat” man seem to be money and extreme social é/at. R. J. L. Pennsylvania. I am a sorority member, but did not become one until the middle of my college course, and I am sure that had the opportu- nity not been given me I would have been as happy and as recognized outside as in my group. I do not believe that the “line” between the “‘ Greeks ” and the “ barbs ” isa definite one, and the right kind of “ barb” can gooverit. I recall now some of the splendid friends that we had as a group—girls who perhaps did wish they were members, but who never were ingratiating, who held up their heads and were gloriously independent. UNDERGRADUATE: MORE REPLIES 75 I know I can say as much for the fraterni- ties. I fear for the person who does not see beyond these social standards and know that ‘‘a man’s a man for a’ that.” I do not think my college community exceptional. The grouping system is an evil, but the blame for the resulting unhappiness rests considerably with the individual who cannot *‘ see things whole.” CoB. Wisconsin. Fraternities as I found them were simply collections of students with mutual interests ; in schools with no fraternities the same cliques or crowds existed. The ‘“ caste” created by fraternities exists more in the ‘‘ barbarians’ ” mental processes. than in the mind of a fraternity man. W. H. M. Ohio. REMEDY—A YEAR AT WORK The average college boy—or university man, as he likes to be called—has spent his summer vacations previous to as well. as during his college course in silk shirt and white flannels on the tennis court, or driving the family automobile with a load of pretty girls. Of course the argument always is, he has a hard year ahead of him and must have a good rest and a vacation free from care and responsibility. Nonsense! Is it any wonder, then, that in college “he gets an incapacity for work,”’ or “ finds it pleasanter to lie on one’s back under the trees and smoke a pipe and discuss the baseball team ”’ ? He has little or no idea of how the money was earned with which he buys tennis balls or smoking tobacco. If he had earned that money himself, doubtless a four-dollar tennis racket would -have met his needs as well as an eight-dollar one, and given him just as much pleasure. The writer’s observation is that the great majority of undergraduates have little or no appreciation of the value of money. Comparatively few have ever earned five dollars at good hard work, either physical or mental, and then spent it to see just how many of the necessities of life it would buy or how much pleasure it would give them. The demand for violets and taxicabs and the number of poker games and movie shows might be materially lessened thereby. As a remedy the writer would even go so far as to advocate several months’ work for the college boy in an office, factory, or out- side for the year after high school. Dur- ing this year he should try to decide upon his future line of work. Then, one year older,

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76 THE OUTLOOK with added experiences and glimpses of how the other three-fourths of his fellow-men live, and some conception of what he is going to college for and what he will do with his edu- cation when he gets it, he will be now ready to leave the family home and parental care. During this year’s apprenticeship in the school of the world some may get out of the notion of higher education. But, for the most part, it would be those whom a college course would not benefit greatly. Those who did continue their study would enter with greater 8 September self-confidence but less sclf-esteem. Their more mature judgment would be sought in their fraternity and club councils, and they would be “bigger men” in the class and college. It seems that in this mad rush for higher education we have wandered away from that “‘ Relic and Type of Our Ancestors’ Worth ” typified in proper home training, the judg- ment of mature years, and a knowledge of the value of money. B;-B. New York. COMMISSIONER DAVIS AND: HER CRITICS EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENCE LLEGING that conditions in the A New York City Penitentiary are far from healthy and humane, a number of New York citizens, most of them writers or social workers, recently wrote to Com- missioner of Correction Katharine Bement Davis recommending to her certain changes in the Penitentiary equipment and régime. The signers of the petition were Frederic R. Coudert, Norman Hapgood, Mary Heaton Vorse, Marie Jenney Howe, Vera Board- man Whitehouse, Norman de R. White- house, Louis Wiley, Joseph O’Brien, Rose Young, Susan Glaspell, Ida Rauh, and Vera Flaherty. They declared that “ the facts we present are obtained in the main from Frank Tannenbaum.” Before this petition had gone to Commissioner Davis, this young man, who had been sent to the Penitentiary at Black- well’s Island for disturbances connected with the invasion of the churches by the un- employed in the winter of 1913-1914, and who, since his completion of a year’s term recently, has been studying and advocating prison reform, brought to the attention of The Outlook the alleged facts which form the basis for the petition. The same statements furnished also the basis for the investigation of the Penitentiary recently conducted by the State.Commission of Prisons. The Commission found the facts to be substantially as alleged, reported twenty-three recommendations for the ameli- oration of conditions on ‘the Island,” and condemned the Davis régime as “ too severe, harsh, and repressive.” It has been said by friends of Miss Davis, including Mayor Mitchel, that the Prisons Commission’s investigation was a “ political investigation with a purpose,” and certainly to an unprejudiced observer who has carefully studied the facts it seems that the Commission was itself “‘ too harsh ”’ in its arraignment of New York’s Commissioner of Correction. But the accusation of political bias cannot be made against the group of citizens that spon- taneously urged Miss Davis to consider re- forms in the management of the “‘ Pen.’”’ The findings of the Commission and the recom- mendations of this body of disinterested citi- zens contain substantially the same charges against the situation at the Penitentiary under Miss Davis—namely, the following : 1. That the administration of the Penitentiary is too severe, harsh, and repressive, and that the Warden should be retired. 2. That over a thousand prisoners are con- fined two ina cell, with an air space of about 180 cubic feet, which is a grave menace to health. 3. That healthy prisoners are doubled up in the cells with prisoners having tuberculosis and other diseases. 4. That healthy prisoners eat and work with prisoners having tuberculosis. 5. That prisoners in the primary and second- ary stages of tuberculosis are not provided with special diet. 6. That all prisoners are confined in the cells about 14 hours every working day, about 36 hours over Sundays and holidays, and about 60 hours when a holiday immediately precedes or follows a Sunday—except tor meals and attend- ance at religious services. 7. That prisoners are confined in the cells from one hour to an hour and a half each work- ing day after the noon meal. 8. That the cells are insufficiently fumigated.

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1915 9. That tke blankets are not kept clean. 10. That prisoners are not allowed daily news- papers. 11. That prisoners have not sufficient facilities for cleanliness. 12. That prisoners are not supplied with night- shirts, sheets, or adequate underclothing. 13. That prisoners are not allowed to pur- chase sanitary articles such as soap, tooth- brushes, and hair-brushes. 14. That no fire drills are held in the non- fire-proof shops where the prisoners work. 15. That prisoners are punished for the viola- tion of rules of which they have no knowledge. 16. That the punishment cells, known as “coolers,” are not equipped with a bed, and that the prisoners sleep on the stone floor with only one double blanket, and receive only bread and water twice a day for their sustenance. 17. That no definite time of punishment is fixed for imprisonment in the “cooler” in ac- cordance with the nature of the offense, and that the prisoners under punishment are con- fined there in some cases up to ten days or until released by the Warden. 18. That the punishment includes confinement in the “cooler,” loss of privileges, and some- times also loss of commutation. 19. That prison guards on various occasions have struck prisoners with clubs‘and with their fists. . 20. That on two occasions a hose of about fifty-pounds pressure was played upon prisoners who were making a disturbance in their cells. 21. That no indoor recreation is allowed to the prisoners except occasional concerts. 22. That no outdoor recreation is allowed to the prisoners. 23. That the Department of Correction is directly responsible for the adniinistration of the New York Penitentiary at Blackwell’s Island, and has shown at this institution neglect of sani- tary precautions and indifference to the physical, mental, and moral welfare of the prisoners. Some of these charges Miss Davis, in a conversation with me, declared to be false and some grossly exaggerated. Others she admitted to be true. Some of the evil con- ditions she was remedying when I saw her, which was the day after she had received the recommendations of the Citizens’ Committee, but before the Prisons Commission had made its report. Others she was unable to remedy because the funds needed for the purpose had not been granted her by the city. It is unfortunate that Mr. Tannenbaum did not take his charges directly to Miss Davis _ before giving them to others as ammunition for an attack on her; but there is no doubt that with all this smoke there was some fire.- It was undeniably hard on Miss Davis that COMMISSIONER DAVIS AND HER CRITICS 77 the criticism of her rule should have come at a time when she was planning the change which has already brought about a great improve- ment in the institution on Blackwell’s Island— namely, the transfer of unpopular Warden Hayes from the Penitentiary to another post. In Warden Hayes’s place the Commis- sioner put Mr. John J. Murtha, who had been in charge of the Reformatory for Boys at Hart’s Island. I visited the Penitentiary three weeks after his inauguration, and found a tremendous change for the better. On his recommendation the Commissioner has ap- proved the installation of twenty-eight lava- tories in the prison, provided the expense of this improvement does not prove prohibitory. Upon the same condition, white coats, caps, and aprons will be provided for all prisoners who serve as cooks, waiters, bakers, and barbers, the prisoners will be provided with individual sanitary drinking-cups, and a fence will be built around the grounds where the prisoners get their exercise, ‘‘ not so much to keep them in,” says Commissioner Davis, ‘as to keep others out.” Additional steam laundry machinery has been put in, and several prisoners informed me that ‘“ we don’t find vermin on our clothes that come back from the laundry any more.” The short prison hair-cut is no longer com- pulsory, and thus men are no longer forced to go back to the world “ across the river” bearing a mark of their disgrace. In the past, prisoners visibly affected with contagious diseases were separated from the others so far as was possible, but cases were reported of prisoners suffering from such diseases in earlier and less apparent stages being allowed to mingle with their fellows. Mr. Murtha is co-operating with the prison physi- cian and with the Board of Health in arrang- ing for frequent examinations of prisoners in order to detect dangerous diseases in their incipient stages, and in a few months the prisoners will have the benefit of a series of talks on personal hygiene by reputable phy- sicians. Inmates about to be shaved by the prison barber now lather their own faces with their hands instead of submitting to a com- mon shaving brush and cup. More important yet among the reforms that have gone into effect at the island insti- tution within the past month are the abolition of the practice of the carrying of clubs by the keepers, the grant of half a day’s outdoor exercise to every man in the prison on Sundays, and of mattresses for the

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78 THE OUTLOOK use of prisoners confined in the “ coolers,” as the solitary confinement cells are called. These changes are more vital, but hardly less valued by the inmates of the prison, than several others directly affecting their personal comfort, such as the provision that prisoners may write one letter a week at their own expense in addition to the one on which postage is paid by the city, permission for the prisoners to have matches in their cells, and greater generosity in allowing the prison- ers magazines and newspapers for their entertainment. The most interesting of the innovations of the new Warden, however, I had the good fortune to see in the process of formation. This was the Mutual Welfare League, an organization aimed to establish, so far as is compatible with prison discipline, government of the prisoners, for the prisoners, by the prisoners. Every man in the institution is eligible for membership in the organization, which holds its meetings every week or two in the prison chapel. The Warden attends these meetings and hears whatever complaints delegates of the different prison committees may have to report. On minor matters of discipline he asks the prisoners for their opinions, and if he approves their recommen- dations he adopts them. The first meeting of the Mutual Welfare League, “‘ a name,” explained the chairman, ‘‘which means that we guys all stand to b help each other,” was more interesting than any “prison drama” ever produced in a theater. The drama was real; every prisoner felt that he was on trial. Every one was in deadly earnest. The only Negro in the room, who pleaded his importance on the grounds that ‘“‘every good flock of sheep has one black sheep to every thousand white ones,” was booed from the platform when he tried to deliver what he called “ an appealiation for the commendation and _ recognization of Heaven.” His attempt to lead a camp- meeting hymn was drowned in shouts of “This is no revival. This is a business meeting. Give usa chance to talk business.”’ After committees on the various branches of organization had been appointed, a smallish, smooth-shaven man, with the browof a student but with the manner of a man born to com- mand, asked for permission to address the meeting. He told the men that the success or failure of the new régime was “ up to them.” The prison, “ which had been a heli, they could make a decent place, fit for men 8 September to live in.” If they did their part, he told them, the folks “ across the river ” would see to it that the old rule of iron was never restored. When the applause that followed his remarks had subsided, a lean-faced man with the slouch of a sailor nominated him for permanent chairman. The-man who had been speaking asked to be excused from accepting the honor of the nomination. He explained that only four persons knew that he was in the Penitentiary, that if he were elected to the chairmanship the public through the newspapers would hear of his incarcera- tion and that he would lose the position which he expected at the expiration of his term to resume in his vocation. When the meeting broke up, I mixed with the men and showed them a copy of the recommendations the committee of citizens had sent to Miss Davis on Tannenbaum’s information. Many of them remembered him. Some of his charges were exagger- ated, they declared. For instance, none of them remembered that a man had ever been put in the “ cooler ” for “ the simple act of reading a newspaper.” Several of them also denied the charge made by the Prisons Commission to the effect that keepers had struck prisoners with their clubs and fists. A few, however, said that this had happened. But the consensus of opinion seemed to be that on the whole “ Frank’s’’ statement was a fairly accurate picture of the conditions that had ex- isted in the Penitentiary under Warden Hayes, conditions that had fortunately been almost entirely eliminated by Warden Murtha, so far as the facilities at his command permitted. The justice of many of the criticisms brought against the administration of the Penitentiary seems to be established by the fact that many of the conditions criticised have been remedied since the criticisms were made. The statement that the per- sons charged with the administration of the Penitentiary lacked “ humanity and sym- pathy ” was undoubtedly true in some de- gree so far as Warden Hayes was concerned. If Commissioner Davis has been at fault, however, it has been mainly in placing too much confidence in the Warden who recently left the Penitentiary, and who at no time gave her grounds upon which she could have reasonably preferred charges against him under the high protection afforded him by the | civil service laws. Most of the credit for his elimination and for the inauguration of a man of more modern views must be given to Dr.

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1915 A GLANCE Davis, who planned this change before the storm of criticism burst upon her. There is no doubt that conditions in the New York City Penitentiary have been intol- erable, and that they are now made endur- able only by the reforms put into effect by the ‘new Warden with the Commissioner’s ap- proval, and in view of the growing hope of the adoption by the city of Miss Davis’s plan to move the Penitentiary to larger, more sani- tary, and more modern quarters on Hart’s Island. Commissioner Davis, who has to deal with the details of governing more prisoners than . are under the supervision of any other prison official in the country, State or municipal, cannot be held to blame for the lack of phys- ical equipment and accommodations which A GLANCE THE SOCIALISTIC STATE I do not like the Paradise On Earth you promise, safe and snug : Your fended levels; pangless, smug Apotheosis of the Nice. You want the Automatic State, You crave the Griefless Universe, You seek some charm that will disperse The fierce, marauding bands of Fate ;— A timid-minded tyranny Where weakness to its level brings Potential potentates and kings, And th’ one god is Security ; Where safe within his sheltered place The prophet of the Routine Mind Shall wax and propagate his kind, And leagued negations rule the race. But most you seek escape from Pain, Escape from Risk, escape from Strife ;— You’d level all the peaks of life To one intolerable plain. Well, when you’ve found your safe retreat— Your land where none of nature’s rude, Clawed, monstrous humors may intrude— Your shore where no rough waves may beat— Your smooth machine that needs no thought — Your table where all men are free To gorge on mediocrity— Your temple out of tremblings wrought,— IN PASSING 79 is the cause of most of the wrongs in the Penitentiary. The fault lies with a long line of city administrations that have refused to grant the appropriations needed to bring the * Pen” up to date, and with an apathetic public that has never spurred these adminis- trations into action. Mr. Tannenbaum, who is the bitterest critic of Dr. Davis, says that “‘ Commissioner Davis found the Penitentiary four hundred years out of date, and it is still three hundred and fifty behind the times.” But is not the accomplishment of fifty years’ progress dur- ing the two years that she has held office in the face of all the obstacles that have been placed in her way by small-minded politicians, a pretty good record for New York’s woman - Commissioner ? Grecory Mason. IN PASSING It’s likely I’ll be dead . . . if not, I’ll buy me a tin beak and go And pick my living with the Crow, Or with the outcast Wolf I’ll trot! * * E. Phillips Oppenheim and Gene Stratton- Porter are among the authors who are telling the readers of the New York “ Times ” what the ‘“‘ six best novels in English” are. The question cannot be regarded as au- thoritatively answered, however, until Harold Bell Wright and Laura Jean Libbey have spoken. * * * I gave the boy who delivers the groceries A few He a ticket toa war melodrama recently. days later he described the play to me. described it as if he were a discoverer. ** Tt was the darnedest thing you ever saw,” he said. ‘You get what it’s about easier than you do a regular show, on account of them talking it out. But it seemed kind of funny at first to hear them chewing the rag like that. It didn’t seem real, till you got used to it, like a regular show does.” ‘** What do you mean by a regular show ?” I asked him, puzzled. He meant, I learned, the movies. _I cross- questioned him. He has been going to the movies every time he could get hold of a spare nickel for seven or eight years, and he is now fifteen. He has been to a few vaude- ville shows ; he has seen a couple of circuses.

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80 THE OUTLOOK But the war play was actually the first spoken drama he had ever attended. It was a novelty to him. I gathered from what he said that he felt like encouraging it. He took a liberal attitude towards this new thing, the spoken drama. It was quaint, it didn’t move fast enough, it was too long, too many things happened in one place, and there was an abiding strangeness in hearing the spoken words. But on the whole the queer experiment had made a big hit with him. “It’s funny,” he repeated, “it’s darned funny to hear them chewing the rag like that every time they’re getting ready to do some- thing. But I kind of liked it when I got used to it. Though, of course,’ he concluded, ‘it ain’t a regular show.”’ The movies have been shown to millions of people during the last ten years. ‘They have chased a certain type of cheap melo- drama off the boards. I wonder how many thousands, how many hundreds of thousands, of people there are, from twelve to twenty years old, who regard them as the “ regular show,” and to whom the spoken drama would be more or less of a novelty. ** It is morally wrong, the Germans say, for America to export arms to the English, French, and Belgians. And who knows better than Germany the proper moral attitude towards Belgians in particular ? 7 It costs more to live in America than in Europe—and it’s worth it, too. “ * Some of my acquaintances tell me I should get as excited over England holding up a cargo of cotton as over Germany sending a hundred American citizens to their death without warning. I. may be cold-blooded in my attitude towards cotton, but I have never yet wept when a bale of cotton was torn to pieces, nor have I laughed with a bale of cotton that sat across the table from me, nor been angered with a bale of cotton, nor proud of a bale of cotton. Perhaps Americans are not sentimental enough about cotton. Perhaps those Euro- pean critics who represent us as loving wealth above everything have not, after all, under- stood how cruelly unresponsive we can be to the hot, agonized, human cry of a bale of cot- ton that has been temporarily inconvenienced on its travels. We are a young people. When we have 8 September been softened and cultured and Prussianized by time, we may learn that a bale of cotton is worth more than a man’s life. * * Acontroversy as to whether sharks really eat people or not has been dragging its slow length along through the letters-to-the-editor columns of the New York papers for some months. If there are no such things as man-eating sharks, then I am forced to the conclusion that an aged nautical gentleman whom I met some years ago in the vicinity of a seamen’s home on Staten Island is a person to be dis- trusted. He was the only person I ever encountered who smoked a pipe and chewed tobacco at the same time, and the veins on the backs of his hands were very blue and very knotty, and in his mild and faded eye there was a milky innocence. His father before him had been a sea- faring man (he said), and in the thirties of the last century had been cast away upon the coast of Borneo, among the Dyaks. These Dyaks were not persons whom his father (who was a fastidious man) would voluntarily have chosen as his associates. His father (who was an alert man) observed that they were great gamblers. His father (who was a natural born leader) speedily acquired great influence among the Dyaks, and (because his father was a pious man) endeavored to make them stop gambling. His father succeeded (for his father was .a persuasive man) in making his Dyaks promise to give up every gambling game except one. ‘This game his father (who had an inventive turn of mind) named Shark Loo. It was a variation (so his father, a man always inter- ested in games of chance in a purely scien- tific way, told him) of Fly Loo. In playing Fly Loo each gambler contributes a coin to a pool; each gambler is provided with a lump of.sugar ; these lumps of sugar are arranged in a row; the gambler upon whose lump of sugar a fly first perches takes the pool. The Dyak version (my informant’s father was shocked to note) consisted in trussing up Chinese pirates (who infested those coasts and were frequently captured by the Dyaks) to the ends of long bamboo poles, and letting them into the sea off the ends of wharves and boat landings. ‘The Dyak whose Chinese pirate first attracted a shark won the pool. This sport, which his otherwise docile Dyaks would on no account give up, so wrought upon my informant’s father (who was a humane man) that he eventually left Borneo,

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1915 HOOVER AND or he might otherwise have founded a dynasty there, and my informant might have been King of Borneo at the present day. If you wish further information from the Rightful Heir to the Throne of Borneo (as his.father, who died a melancholy and dis- appointed man, always called him) look for an old gentleman in whose eye of faded blue there dwells a milky innocence. And listen to him with seemly reverence, for (like his father before him) he is a sensitive man. * * President Wilson’s friends always make a point of agreeing with his Mexican policies the very first moment they can find out what said policies are. * * The Kaiser still tells the world, occasion- ally, how he loves humanity. Perhaps he arranged to cut it down in quantity soas to lessen the strain of loving it all. HOOVER AND HOW AN AMERICAN HAS DIRECTED THE FEEDING OF MILLION. HOW DID HE ESCAPE BRITISH PRECEDENT? MUCH HAS AMERICA DONE FOR THE BELGIANS? HAVE THE BELGIANS DONE FOR THEMSELVES? THE BELGIANS 81 Ernst Lissauer himself, according to recent publications, has lost most of his enthusiasm for his notorious ‘“‘ Hymn of Hate.” Mithri- dates is the only man on record who could ever fuss around with poison, even poison he made himself, without getting at least a stomach-ache. P 9 I met a young minor poet the other day— perhaps you know the type, he is “ revolu- tionary’ and “virile” in his verses, but lisps when he talks about the Blond Beatht and the Thuperman—who said to me, * Don’t you think this war is getting to be a SJrightful bore?’ It takes something more than merely fifteen or eighteen million men under arms, with the fate of democracy in the balance, to awaken any active interest in these young geniuses who are comrades of the cosmic urge and underwriters of the oversoul. ~ Don MARQUIS. THE BELGIANS TEN HOW HOW MUCH WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO BELGIAN RELIEF IF THE RELATIONS BETWEEN GERMANY AND THE UNITED STATES SHOULD BE BROKEN? BY LEWIS R. FREEMAN such talent for organization as H. C. Hoover has displayed in feeding the Belgians, we would be a good year nearer the end of the war than we are to-day.” So spoke a well-known Member of Parlia- ment with whom I chatted for a few minutes one evening after the House of Commons had arisen. Scarcely less striking was the tribute paid the forceful, incisive American engineer who heads the Belgian Relief Com- mission by a prominent London banker with whom I recently discussed the success of the new war loan. ‘“‘With Hoover’s remarkable ability as an organizer, his genius for bringing order out of chaos, we of the city were already familiar, and as a consequence we felt certain that, in one way or another, the starving Belgians were going to be fed. But that the whole s lL: England could have availed herself of work of relief, involving the handling of huge sums of money and colossal shipments of clothes and provisions, should be carried on as efficiently and economically as an estab- lished business is almost incredible. It is an actual fact that over £12,000,000 ster- ling have been expended—some of it in the far corners of the world—at a cost of less than a half of one per cent... Nothing like it has ever been heard of before. And this, too, mind you, in the face of the fact that in the whole jolly business, from first to last, there have been no established precedents to go by.” Precedent is the most highly enshrined of all fetishes in the heart of the British finan- cial world called ‘‘ The City,” and Hoover’s Yankee penchant for riding over this same precedent without coming a cropper is the principal reason why they speak of his

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82 THE OUTLOOK achievements in connection with Belgian re- lief with a wonder that is not unmixed with awe. His contempt of precedent—his readi- ness to hew a direct new road instead of wasting time following the sinuosities of an old one—is the main element in Hoover’s success. He himself will tell you that. ** What brought you through those first terri- ble months when primal chaos reigned in Belgium, and before your present system was in working order ?” he was asked re- cently. ‘ The fast accompli,” was the prompt reply. ‘If a thing was really necessary, we did it first and asked permission afterwards.” Here is an example of what Hoover means by the fact accompli. Before his organization was fairly on its feet there came a moment when a huge quantity of food was needed immediately to prevent the actual starvation of many thousands of Belgians:: The Com- mission had the food on hand in England, and the “proper” procedure would have been the orthodox one of requesting the Government, via the usual red-taped channels, for permission to move it, a course, however, which Hoover knew only too well would result in a series of delays that would prove absolutely fatal to the success of his plans. The necessary cars—in spite of the fact that all rolling stock was supposed to be held subject to the Government’s call for military exigencies—were secured by direct applica- tion to the tailway people, and in record time the supplies were transported to the seaboard and put aboard steamers which had been provided in an equally ‘‘ high-handed ” man-. ner. When the last bag had been stowed and the hatches battened down, Hoover went in person’ to the one Cabinet Minister able to arrange for thé only ‘things he could not pro- vide himself—clearance papers. “If I do not get four cargoes of food to Belgium by the end of the week,” he said, bluntly, “‘ thou- sands are going to die from starvation, and many more may be’ shot in food riots.” “Out of the question,” said the distin- guished Minister. ‘‘ There is no time, in the first place, and if there was there are no good wagons to be spared by the railways, no dock hands, and no steamers ; moreover; the Channel is closed for a week to merchant vessels whilé troops are being transported to the Continent.” “T have managed to get all of these things,’’ Hoover replied, quietly ; ‘and am now through with them all except the steam- ers. This wire tells me that these are now loaded and ready to sail, and I have come to have you arrange for their clearance.” The great man gasped. ‘ There have been—there are even now—men in the Tower for less than you have done,” he ejaculated. “Tf it was for anything but Belgian Relief— if it was anybody but you, young man—lI should hate to think of what might happen. As it is—er—I suppose there is nothing to do but congratulate you on a jolly clever coup. I’ll see about the clearance at once.” “You must love Hoover as much for his humanness as you admire him for his quickness of mind,” one of his fellow-workers on the Commission said to mea few daysago. ‘ He is a chap of many sides, and his adeptness in dealing with men has been scarcely less a factor in the success of our work than has his genius for organization. You have heard, doubtless, that Lloyd George has the reputation of being the most persuasive man in England. Well, afew months ago, when we were trying to simplify our work by arranging for an exten- sion of exchange facilities on Brussels, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer ‘sent for Hoover. . I will tell the story as Lloyd George himself told it to some friends at the Liberal Club a few days later : “© ¢« Mr. Hoover,” I said, “I find I am quite unable to grant your request in the matter of Belgian exchange, and I have asked you to come here that I might explain why.” Without waiting for me’ to go on, my boyish- looking caller-began speaking, gesturing with one hand and clinking coins in his pocket with the other. For fifteen minutes he spoke without a break—just about the clearest ex- pository utteraricé I have ever heard on any subject. Ht tised not a word too much, nor yet a ‘word ‘too few... By the time he had finished- I had come’ to realize, not only the importance of his contentions, but; what was more to the point, the practicability of grant- ing his request. So I did the only thing pos- sible under the circumstances—told him-I had never understood the question before, thanked him for helping me: to understand it,’ and saw to it that things were arranged ‘as he wanted them.’ ” Hoover’s directness of thought and speech make him quite the most satisfactory man to interview I have ever encountered. He has nothing of the cryptic or euphemistic type of ‘‘ interviewee ;” neither does he wax reminis- cent or anecdotal; nor yet does he answer (Continued on page following illustrations)

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Current Events Pictorially Treated PHOTOGRAPH FROM PAUL THOMPSON HERBERT C. HOOVER, HELPER OF THE BELGIANS Mr. Hoover was born in Iowa in 1874; graduated from Stanford University in 1895; was appointed chief engineer of the Chinese Imperial Bureau of Mines, 1899; has been director in many large mining enterprises ; and is now Chairman of he Belgian Relief Commission. In the last-named capacity his efficiency is indicated by this statement of Mr. Lloyd rge: “ For fifteen minutes he spoke without a break. By the time he had finished I had come to realize the practi- lity of granting his request. I told him I had never understood the question before, thanked him for helping me to understand it, and saw to it that things were arranged as he wanted them.” See article entitled “ Hoover and the Belgians ”

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PHOTOGRAPH BY BAIN NEWS SERVICE ; A SWIMMING CLASS IN THE NAVAL TRAINING. SCHOOL AT NEWPORT MEMBEKS OF THE NAVAL MILITIA CLEANING UP A TORPEDO AFTER IT HAS BEEN FIRED IN EXPERIMENTAL WORK . The photograph was taken on one of the American battle-ships during its recent summer cruise “PREPARATION AGAINST WAR”—LESSONS THAT SOME OF OUR YOUNG SAILORS ARE LEARNING

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FRANK L. POLK, THE NEW COUNSELOR OF THE STATE DEPARTMENT President Wilson is to add to the personnel of the Department of State, as Counselor, Mr. Frank L. Polk, who has 1 Corporation Counsel of the city of New York. He succeeds Mr. Lansing, who is now Secretary of State. Mr. P k is a grandnephew of President Polk ; he was born in New York in 1871; was graduated from Yale in 1894; served in the Spanish War; was Treasurer of the Bureau of Municipal Research; is a close friend of Mayor Mitchel, and last year received a bullet intended for the Mayor by a would-be assassin

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4 : Pet 4 $F, 7 aN ha be Pee | ae Nod 5" ly PHOTOGRAPH FROM BAIN NEWS SERVICE THE CROWN PRINCE OF ITALY AS A BOY SCOUT Prince Humbert, the heir apparent to the throne of Italy, was born September 15, 1904, and is therefore about t celebrate his eleventh birthday. He is the only son born of the union in 1896 of Victor Emmanuel III, King of Italy, and Princess Elena, daughter of Nicholas, King of Montenegro

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HOOVER AND your questions by asking others. He simply tells you, with a remarkable lucidity, as much as he deems expedient of what you want to know—and goes on with his work. Itis said that he will take a prepared list of questions and dispose of it as a machine gun does a belt of cartridges, or, with equal facility, cover a single subject in a few sharp, incisive, yet entirely comprehensive sentences. It was .after the latter fashion that he handled my inquiries as to the progress of the Com- mission’s work yesterday. “What do you want to know ?” he asked abruptly, after we had snatched a hasty lunch- eon at a long table with a half-dozen mem- bers of the Commission and retired to his office. “The past, present, and future of Belgian Relief work,” I answered in a feeble attempt at pleasantry. ‘“‘ Very well,” replied Hoover, coolly accept- ing my comprehensive order as literal. ‘Only you must pardon me if lack of time compels me to answer in five minutes a question on which I might well speak for five weeks. ‘Beginning without any supplies, equip- ment, or organization, we are to-day, directly or indirectly, feeding close to ten million peo- ple in Belgium ‘and northern France. ‘This is more than the commissariat of any one of the belligerents is supplying, and half as many as all of them together. From the beginning business principles have been ap- plied in every department, the consequence being an incalculably higher efficiency than could otherwise have been attained. As a specific example of practical economy, I may state that we are to-day buying wheat in Argentina, transporting it to Belgium, milling it, and converting into bread which can be sold with a small profit’at ten per cent under the prevailing price in London. Good food and better sanitary conditions have effected a steady improvement in general health, so that the death rate is now lower by twelve per cent than that prevailing before the war. “T find that it is not generally known that of the $60,000,000 we have expended, only about $10,000,000 have been derived from charitable sources. . The other $50,000,000 have come, in one way or another, from the Belgians themselves. The proportion of their own load which the Belgians are carry- ing has increased right along, and their efforts have, naturally, been strongly directed toward making it possible for them to carry it all. This goal, I regret to say, is not yet THE BELGIANS 91 clearly in sight. I have just artanged with the German authorities to have the Belgians allowed a portion of their coming harvest equivalent to one-twelfth of their demands for a year. “With this, and with such stores and funds as. we now have on hand or, in sight, the Belgians can be fed until the first of the coming year. If the war is not over by that time, we shall again be forced to ask America, and the rest of the world, for further assistance. In this connection it. may be interesting to ‘note that, while the United States has contributed more in the aggregate to Belgian relief than all other countries combined, the per capita contributions of several. other nations greatly exceed our own. Ausiralasia’s seventy cents for each inhabitant makes .our six cents look rather small, and even Canada, with all her hard times and other war burdens, is well ahead of us. I am confident, however, that our country’s generosity in this cause is bounded only by the needs of the Belgians, and look forward to receiving from her whatever we need, and whenever we need it. What the needs are will be made known in good time. _ Is there anything else you want to know?” “One thing only,” I replied. © ‘“‘ What would be the consequence to Belgian Relief work of a severance of diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany ?” ‘ Beyond saying that this contingency has been fully considered and provided against, that matter is, obviously, one upon which it would not be proper for me to speak at this time. You may assure the people at home, however, that the work in which they have played so important a part will go on, what- ever happens.” I may add that I am informed on the best authority that the Belgian Relief. Commis- sion, realizing from the first that all. Ameri- cans would have to be withdrawn from Bel- gium in the event of trouble between the United States and Germany, has, trained and ready, a complete staff of neutrals fully com- petent to carry on the work along its present lines. This staff would, for the most part, be made up of Scandinavians, and at its head would be a Dane of high standing and estab- lished qualifications for the work in. hand. Finally, I may also say that, come what’ may, the masterly business ability, the keen diplo- macy, and the broad humanity of H. C. Hoover will be available in the furtherance of Belgian relief as long as such work has to be carried on.

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THE GOLD OF THE WORLD BY WILLIAM ATHERTON DU PUY T noon on the ist of August, 1914, A that eventful day when Europe was going to pieces like a clay pigeon in the air, one of those ferry-boats from the deck of which most Americans get their first look at Manhattan was nosing out from the Jersey side. A stalwart young man gripped the rail at the bow, scanned the river some- what furtively, and peered anxiously toward the prospective landing. Now and again his eye ran searchingly among the wagons behind him on the deck. An observer whose curiosity had been piqued might have discovered elements of the unusual about the cargo that was here being borne across the Hudson. He might have counted the seventeen cage-bodied mail wagons of the city of New York that seemed to have the boat all to themselves. He cer- tainly would have noted that a blue-coated policeman sat beside the driver of each. A closer examination would have shown the mesh-inclosed wagons to be securely pad- locked. Inside, sitting on piles of mail bags which looked much solider than the usual post-office sacks, were men—one in each wagon—nervous, watchful, evidently con- scious of the pistols which hung handily at their. belts. Obviously this was not the every-day noon trip of that old ferry-boat. As a matter of fact, the craft had been magically converted into the richest treasure ship that ever put forth since the world began. Every mail- bag in each of those caged wagons contained $30,000 in twenty-dollar gold pieces. There were a thousand such bags aboard the boat, and their aggregate value was thirty million dollars in actual minted coin ready for the spending. Thus early was the United States playing a curtain-raising part in that great game of gold-shifting that has now been going on for more than a year. Thus early was Europe calling for gold in mobilizing her financial re- sources for the struggle that was to come. Already had the sub-treasury at New York been emptied, so that Uncle Sam had found it necessary to hurry the yellow metal from other points to replenish the exhausted hoard. New York had fallen back on Denver, where the Government has its greatest store- 92 house of gold. The call was for $75,000,000 worth of bullion, and the bars of yellow metal came forward by express, a wagon load or two at a time—167% tons of pure gold sent across a continent, enough all told to load five freight cars. Then had come the demand for actual coin, and the Philadelphia mint was drawn upon for $50,000,000. Usually such transfers are made through the express companies and go in broken lots, but on this occasion there was need of haste and the Treasurer of the United States commissioned an assistant, Frank J. F. Thiel, to take the gold over to New York with the aid of the postal authori- ties. It was he who gripped the rail of the ferry-boat that carried the golden cargo and thought of the opportunity here presented for a modern Captain Kidd. It was he who led the procession of wagons that wound through the streets of Manhattan to the sub-treasury and spent hours unloading bags, the value of which was not surmised by any member of the passing throng. This was one of the first moves in the game of gold that is to-day being played with a terrible desperation and which may at any time determine the result of the European war; it was the first skirmish between the advance guards of marshaled gold and mo- bilized credits that are now locked in a death- grapple. For the nations have a way of recruiting gold as they do their armies, intrenching it in treasure vaults, fortifying it roundabout with the credits that make mod- ern war possible. From America they had been calling in their gold reservists, those “iron men ” that feed guns and gunners. To those who were watching the gold movements it is now evident that Europe knew that the war was coming. In May, three months before it broke, American securities began to be sold to such an extent that it was necessary for the United States to send many millions of dollars in actual gold across the Atlantic to make good the debits on the European ledger. Steadily the demand for gold increased through June and July, until New York was drained dry and the financiers were mystified. The shipments from the Denver mint and the Philadelphia sub- treasury were made before the war broke.

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THE GOLD OF THE WORLD 93 Such demands for gold had never been ex- perienced before, and have been explainable only by granting that certain European finan- ciers knew that the war was coming. France called for most of the gold during this period. Germany had made her prepara- tions earlier. For two years the experts at the American mint watching the flow of gold had wondered why so much of it went to Germany. After the war began the demands steadily increased, until in October they amounted to $40,000,000. Altogether, Europe drew from America $175,000,000 in actual gold. Then the tide turned. In December the United States received from Europe $4,000,000 in gold; in January, $6,000,000 ; in February, $11,000,000; in March, $25,000,000. By the middle week in June the rate of arrival had been established at about $3,000,000 a day. When Europe buys more from the United States than it sells to it, there is a balance which must be met. Europe gains a credit in America either by selling or depositing securities or by sending over gold. Since American bonds are owned extensively abroad, their sale is the method most resorted to in preventing the flow of gold to the United States. America is thus getting back from Europe large quantities of its gilt- edged securities. Serious inroads into the European gold reserves have not yet been made. For that matter, American financiers do not want Europe to send over its gold. America has enough of it for her own pur- poses, and her interests will be better served if Europe keeps its gold that it may main- tain its credit and therefore continue to be a customer. Yet the gold is coming at the rate of five tons a day and can’t be stopped. ‘The Bank of England the other day informed the. sub- treasury at New York that shipments of two and one-half millions in gold a day might be expected; soon they were arriving. A French bank sends gold direct to a similar institution in New York to establish a given amount of credit. A European firm, pur- chasing merchandise, sends actual gold in payment, because it is cheaper to pay ex- press on gold than exchange on its paper. But when gold is sent the physical money is handled by an express company. If the gold in question should amount to $2,000,000, the express company would send two of its Stoutest bonded wagons to the wharf for it. There the gold would be taken off the ships in bags, much like sacks of coffee from Brazil. The principal difference lies in the bulk of the packages. Ten thousand dollars is carried in a bag about the size of a twenty- five-cent sack of flour. It weighs thirty- eight pounds. Each of the express wagons loads on a million dollars, which weighs 3,800 pounds and is a good two-horse load. The van then drives away to the firm to which the gold is billed, unloads, and the driver collects the express charges. It is but a transaction in freight. The recipient of such a payment, usually being without a safety vault, sends it around to his bank, where it is deposited to his credit. A peculiar thing about the gold that is being received from Europe is that practically all of it is United States coin. This Gov- ernment has some $600,000,000 in gold coin knocking about the world, and the where- abouts of much of it is unknown. It is sim- ply said to be “in circulation.” The quan- tities of it now coming from Europe indicate that much of it has been in the treasure vaults of other nations. Of the receipts of a single typical week, with a total of $17,500,000, all but $500,000 was American coin. It often happens that gold bars are re- ceived in these shipments. Just now the gold coins of England are beginning to come over, and among them the yen of Japan, which seems to indicate that Japan is aiding in financing Great Britain, which nation, though sitting at the crossroads of the world’s commerce and owning more gold mines than any other country, has the smallest gold supply of any of the great Powers. China, too, is sending much gold, doing it in a novel way. The Chinese saw off a piece of the big bamboo of which they make so many uses, fit plugs into the ends, fill it with gold, and send it over by United States parcel post, thereby demonstrating a greater confidence in that service than does Uncle Sam himself. There is $1,750 in one of these bamboo containers, and it comes 6,000 miles for $1.60, a smaller charge than the United States pays for transporting a similar amount from one sub-treasury to another. This flow of gold, after it has found its way into the banks of New York, is sent by them to the sub-treasury, where the banks receive paper.curreney for it. Be it coin or bullion, it is weighed, tested, usually melted,

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94 THE OUTLOOK and credit is given only for actual pure gold turned in. Coin that has been in circulation ‘or bars that have been handled have lost weight. The heart of a gold bar might have been bored out and some other metal of simi- lar weight substituted. The Federal assay office may not be deceived by any ruse. It sees to it that, for every cent paid out, the exact equivalent of pure gold is taken in. From all sides now the gold is coming. At the end of the first year of the war the United States has received all the gold that was drawn from it by Europe’s financial mobilization. Its hoppers are wide open, adjusted by now to receive a stream which is steadily increasing in volume. ‘Thére is more gold in the Treasury to-day than ever before. That this gold should lie idle would be in violation of all precedent. ‘That it should be made the basis of more credit is as natural as it is for a farmer to employ the returns of last year’s crop in seed and fertilizer for a new planting. So, the students of finance argue, does the advent of a great prosperity cast a shadow before. Money in America is bound to be plentiful for the use of industry and development. It will be available to nations not at war whose credit is good, and will establish new commercial ties. It will bring all Europe, at the end of the war, beg- ging the United States to finance its recon- struction. The gold that is pouring into the United States only augments a supply already ac- cumulated that appalls him who attempts to measure it. Uncle Sam’s gold hoards may be discussed only in terms of the superlative. They are, for instance, the greatest in the world. No agency since time began has ever massed anything like the actual gold that is in the possession of the old gentleman with the boots and the whiskers—nor half of it. On the Ist of July, this year, there was in the United States Treasury $1,380,000,000 in actual gold. This is exclusive of gold in circulation, amounting to $600,000,000, which, if included, would bring the Nation’s gold to very near the two billion mark. The gold in the Treasury alone is an amount so great that the figures convey no idea to the human mind. It is_ practically incompre- hensible. Let us try, however, to visualize this yellow hoard, to take its measure, to convert it into terms that can be appre- ciated. If the 2,663 tons of yellow metal in the Treasury were converted into those golden 8 September calves that have been worshiped - literally and figuratively through the centuries, and if each calf were of the liberal weight of 200 pounds, there would be a herd of them more than 25,000 strong, with not a farm east of the Mississippi large enough to graze them. If the gold of the Nation were loaded into freight cars, each bearing its full capacity weight of 60,000 pounds, it would require eighty-eight cars to hold it. If the Govern- ment should want to spirit away its treasure to some hiding-place and should call upon the combined forces of the army and navy to bear the gold into the mountains, every man of the 140,000 would carry a weight of forty pounds, with a value of more than $10,000. If it were loaded into army wagons, it would take 3,000 mules in a procession twenty- five miles long to move it. This actual, physical gold is kept in bomb- proof, burglar-proof vaults at the different mints and sub-treasuries. There is no one man who knows the combinations to these vaults. One attendant will know part of the combination, another a _ second part. There are’ time-locks through which no agency may penetrate until they have run their course. The Denver mint boasts more gold beneath its roof than is concentrated at any other spot in the world. It is now holding $500,000,000 of this measure of value. Part of this 950 tons of gold is in coin, put up in $10,000 bags and stacked away like wheat in a granary. Then there are gold certificate bars which weigh about thirty pounds and are worth some $8,000 each. The bars are stamped with their value, are filed away, and corresponding amounts of paper money are issued against them. Any man who would rather have the gold than the paper merely has to present the latter to get the former. The actual existence of this gold for the redemption of the currency that is issued against it is the fact that makes the paper money of the United States absolutely worth its face value. Great Britain, for instance, acquires gold and issues several times its value in paper upon. it. There are many other gold bars at Denver against which there is no outstanding paper. They are of various sizes and represent mis- cellaneous purchases from producers. If the need for currency increases, gold certificates will be issued against them. San Francisco was the point of greatest > Teo fh fF ob wet me ns -:

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1915 concentration of gold until about ten years ago, when it was decided that an inland city like Denver would be a safer place for a hoard that was growing to such vast propor- tions. Very quietly shipments from the coast to the mountain city were begun and steadily kept up until $250,000,000 in actual gold had been transferred. But San Fran- cisco still has the neat little sum of $310,- 000,000 in gold, and ranks next to Denver as a treasure city. There are $250,000,000 at New York at present, $210,000,000 at Philadelphia, and smaller amounts at New Orleans and Washington. To appreciate the strength of the position of the United States in the gold market of the world, it is necessary to range it alongside of the other great nations and measure its stock against theirs. It is the policy of the United States Mint to collect with infinite care the gold statistics of the world. George E. Roberts, until recently Director of the Mint, compiled comparable figures for that period previous to the appearance of those disturbed conditions that indicated the coming of war. While the United States distributes its gold in various sub-treasuries, most nations of Europe concentrate theirs in one great gov- ernment bank. It is this fact that forced the United States before the war to yield the palm to Russia for having the greatest accu- mulation of gold under a single roof. At the time Mr. Roberts got his figures together there was $634,000,000 in the Bank of Russia, as against $500,000,000: at Denver. Russia had this amount of gold as a national total, but the United States had about a billion and a half of gold altogether, or nearly two and a half times as much as Russia if the store of all its treasure-houses were counted. France at the same time was crowding Russia for prestige as the possessor of the greatest single store of gold. The Bank of France had $632,000,000, or only $2,000,000 less than Russia. So, while each of these nations had more gold under a single roof ' than had thé United States, and were the greatest gold-hoarding nations next to it, their combined stores were much less than the total amount in Uncle Sam’s strong-boxes. ‘There are no figures available that will indicate the present status of the French and Russian hoards, but it is regarded as certain that they have so shrunken as to give the Denver vaults world precedence. It is rather surprising to note that Austria. THE GOLD OF THE WORLD 95 and Italy had more actual gold in their treasuries than had Germany and Great Britain. These four nations had, roughly, about $200,000,000 each in actual gold. This, it should be remembered, is aside from that in circulation among their peoples. Their combined gold amounted to much less than that of the United States alone. That Europe is already suffering from a lack of gold is obvious. The pinch has been so great in England that she has been draw- ing freely upon the supply of France. That frugal nation has called upon its citizens to dig up their hoarded gold and exchange it for Government paper; the people’s re- sponse has been to pour millions. into the treasury and bolster up credit in this time of need. Russia has forbidden the export of gold. The finances of Germany are reported to be near the breaking point. With the yellow metal flashing in the spot- light of the world it becomes interesting to note that its predominating importance is very largely modern. From the standpoint of the vast amount of gold in the posses- sion of man to-day, there was practically none of it so held a little while ago. At the beginning of the nineteenth century there was not more than $300,000,000 in the pos- session of mankind. The comparative small- ness of this amount may be realized when it is remembered that $450,000,000 worth of gold is how produced every year. Yet a cen- tury ago, in that decade between 1810 and 1820, the average annual world production was below $8,000,000. The last half of the nineteenth century produced ten times as much gold as the first half, and production is now four times as great as it was then. In 1850 there was in the treasury of France but $15,000,000. So does it begin to be shown that gold in quantities is a very modern product. Asa matter of fact, it has come into being in the last twenty-five years, during the lifetime of the present generation. That span of a quarter of a century since 1890 has been the golden era of the world, a period during which the nations have broken into a com- mercial bloom of which they had never before been capable—a bloom that was made pos- sible because mother earth gave birth to almost limitless gold, which has become the basis. of almost. limitless credit. To what extent the pouring forth of gold is responsible for the vast accomplishments of the present generation is a matter of fascinating con-

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96 THE OUTLOOK jecture. But certain it is that world-girdling enterprise has sped like a surf-rider on the crest of the gold wave. The year 1850 marked the passing of the old era. It was in 1848 that James Marshall picked up a lump of gold in the tail-race of Sutter’s sawmill in El Dorado County, Cali- fornia, and started the greatest of gold stam- pedes. In 1851 two impecunious prospect- ors one day scraped up three pounds of gold- dust from the bed of a stream in’ Australia, and thereby opened the way for the building of Ballarat, the finding of two gold nuggets that weighed one hundred and eighty pounds apiece, and the entry of the South Sea conti- nent into the sisterhood of the great pro- ducers of gold. Soon thereafter the world was yielding as much gold in a year as it had formerly pro- duced in a decade. For the forty years ‘that followed these discoveries every twelvemonth gave birth to the then remarkable amount of $100,000,000. But it was a gold-hungry world, and, aside from a steady increase in commerce and industry, no very obvious effect was produced. The year 1890 marked the second stage in the opening of the gold flood-gates that had remained closed through the centuries that they might perform a certain peculiar service to man when the time was ripe. About that period gold was discovered in the Transvaal. Among the pioneers were an Englishman named Forrest and a Scotch- man named McArthur. ‘These two collabo- rated and evolved a process for extracting gold that had the effect of multiplying the output of the world by four. Forrest and McArthur perfected the cya- nide process, a treatment which dissolves the gold out of the ore and then precipitates it from the solution. This made it possible to extract the yellow metal from otherwise refractory ores; low-grade rock which formerly could not be worked at a profit was now treated ; the tailings from mines, rock that had already been handled by the old processes, were worked over again. Since the world began probably no process devised to perform a single task has yielded such profits. Yet the names of its inventors are not known to one man in a day’s ride. Here was the call sounded for the awaken- ing of the slumbering wealth of the ages. The dry figures of the world’s production of gold through the twenty years that followed tell the story better than words. They are 8 September like a Western town that sends forth the chal- lenge, ‘‘ Watch us grow.” . GOLD PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD Year. Yield. Year. Yield. 1890.... $113,000,000 1900.... $255,000,000 1891.... 130,000,000 1901.... 263,000,000 1892.... 146,000,000 1902.... 296,000,000 1893.... 157,000,000 1903.... 337,000,000 1894.... 181,000,000 1904.... 347,000,000 1895.... 198,000,000 1905.... 380,000,000 1896.... 202,000,000 1906.... 402,000,000 1897.... 236,000,000 1907.... 412,000,000 1898.... 286,000,000 1908.... 442,000,000 1899... 306,000,000 1909... _ 454,000,090 Having’ Oncé established a” pace * of $450,000,000 a year, gold has been steadily pouring forth at about that rate ever since. The weight of the gold produced each year would be equal to that of twelve thousand able-bodied men. It would take a thousand draft horses to haul it. It would make a string of twenty-dollar gold pieces which, if laid in a row, would extend three hundred and fifty miles. : Great pains has been taken by the mon- etary experts to trace this gold after its pro- duction, to locate the present abiding-place of the yellow metal that came forth during that first twenty years of big production that fol- lowed the development of the cyanide ‘proc- ess. The world has been combed for figures that would indicate the amount of it that was used in the industries—that found its way into the plate on the world’s sideboards, the rings on the world’s fingers, the gilding of the-world’s domes, the filling of the world’s teeth. From available statistics it is estimated that a billion and a half of that five and a half billions has thus been taken out of circu- lation. Of the four billions remaining the United States got nearly a billion. Those ‘mysteri- ous sink-holes of the East—the vaults of the Indian princes, the cellars of the Chinese mandarins, the tombs of Egypt—are esti- mated to have absorbed another billion. Cer- tain it is that the,gold which flowed into those nations disappeared. A mandarin who was recently converted to Christianity and con- vinced of the reliability of Occidental banks brought four tons of gold from his cellars and deposited it. A substantial Egyptian yeoman not long ago bought a piece of land for £25,000, and to make payment appeared with a train of donkeys with gold packed on their backs. Such people are heavy gold consumers. This left but two billions of this first two colo lay | hun proc fortl ling the « E in g basis and | with great was it pu of pu new Natic cent. circul than were nowh of bu: Av The « possik would Conti thrust hills w oned, | ing, sl of acc went f pushec from t of the Is tl leashin May it War th; the spi

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1915 decades of big production for the needs of the treasuries of all those nations except the United States. This, however, is a very great quantity of gold, and its production would unquestionably have had the effect of cheapening that metal had it not been that the nations of the world were during that period adopting the gold standard, thereby creating an almost unlimited demand. With gold as their standard, the treasuries of Europe yawned in emptiness and beck- oned to the yellow hosts. The nations of South America adopted the new standard ..and began to accumulate reserves. Such colonial possessions as Canada attempted to lay away stocks of gold that amounted to hundreds of millions. Japan drew upon the production of the East. The floods poured forth and were drunk up as might be a trick- ling stream-among the prairie-dog holes of the desert. Everywhere that gold found itself lodged in government treasuries it was made the basis of credit, and there was commercial and industrial expansion. The United States, with its mints and assay offices next door to ‘great producing regions, bought all gold that was offered. Every day for two decades it purchased the equivalent of a wagon-load of pure gold. During the first decade of the new century alone the gold stock of the Nation increased one hundred and six per cent. National banks enlarged their note circulation stupendously; bank loans more than doubled. Nowhere else in the world were such hoards of gold accumulated, and nowhere else was there the vast expansion of business. A wave of accomplishment swept the world. The credit-breeding influence of gold made possible stupendous undertakings such as would have appalled an earlier generation. Continents were cut apart, tunnels were thrust through mountains and beneath rivers, hills were welded together and floods impris- oned, railways defied all nature in their build- ing, ships became cities afloat. The fever of accomplishment seized many men. They went forth on wings and conquered the air, pushed back the snow mantles of mystery from the Poles, shackled the disease dragons of the tropics. Is there not basis for the belief that the un leashing of prisoned gold has caused all this ? May it not even be held that the frenzy of war that has seized Europe has its basis in the spirit of expansion borne on a flood of THE GOLD OF THE WORLD 97 gold? Likewise is it not possible that the issue of the war will be determined by the preponderance of gold and the credits it makes possible ? The treasuries of all the world are open to whoever presents an ounce of gold and asks money for it. Wherever that gold is offered the price that will be received is $20.67 an ounce. The United States has paid that sum for every ounce that has come into its treas- ury since 1792. It paid that price for a ton yesterday, and will buy a like amount to- morrow at the same figure. When gold is mined,’it flows naturally to the nearest governmental mint or assay office. There are no middlemen nor opportunities for bargaining. No one will pay more than $20.67 an ounce, nor will anybody take less, for the governments of the world will buy or sell any amount at that figure. It is therefore natural that the producing mines should turn the current of their output into the treasuries of nations. The stream that has been gushing forth for two decades and a half has worn a channel that is the shortest route to those storehouses. They were empty when it began; many of them to-day have vaults like cells in a penitentiary filled with tier upon tier of golden bars. The yellow flood flows undiminished. There are those who begin to wonder when the end will be. Can the treasuries of the world continue indefinitely to receive the ceaseless stream ? No nation on the gold basis can refuse to buy. When it does refuse to accept gold, its own currency system necessarily will collapse, for it will have denied the standard of value upon which that system is based. But, bull the gold market as they will, the combined nations of the world have already failed to sustain its value. Since the gold wave got well under way in the nineties, the prices of the commodities that men use, measured by that standard, have steadily in- creased. The rise in prices is not peculiar to one commodity nor to one community nor to one nation. ‘The coming of bumper crops has not affected it; tariff reductions have gone unheeded. For all articles in all climes the consumer is paying more in that universal standard of value—gold. The one explanation is that gold is cheaper. Its production in such vast quantities would convince the observer who subscribes to the principle of the law of supply and demand that gold should be cheaper, were it not for

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98 THE OUTLOOK the existence of an unlimited demand. How these balance is evidenced by the showing that gold makes in the market. Measured in the food and clothing that it will buy, a ten-dollar gold piece is to-day worth about as much as seven dollars was twenty years ago. Men of foresight conjecture as to the pos- sibilities of the future, when new mines may be found, new processes developed, when THE SOLDIERS 8 September even greater production may be_ brought about through circumstances that cannot now be foreseen. They may well. surmise that a day will come, even. under a continuation of the present conditions, when the treasuries of nations will be glutted to overflowing. Such a man might even imagine himself, half a century hence, exchanging a double eagle for a loaf of bread. OF THE SHOPS (AN IMAGINARY LETTER) BY AL PRIDDY ELLO! You remember Nancy Ellen Higgs, her as talks aloud to herself and hasn’t two ounces of blood in her body; the Sheep-end Road woman? She hung out her red petticoat at me not so very long ago, one night I was swaggering home from work. All because I hadn’t ’listed. ‘‘ Put it on an’ let me goo,” she howled in that whimperish voice of hers. Worse to it, all the women in the row set up a howl, and it got me for fair. The womancan beso naggin’! Well, then Dick Crompton come back with an arm gone and two eyes blistered by German gas. Exhibit A, as you say over in your ’Merican law cases. petticoat determined me. I’d offer. Blest if the Sarjent would take me! You know me, too. Not a small tendon in me or anything the matter. I’m as likely a chap as a lot of them namby-pamby bookies up at the London universities. But no go. Not wanted ! That got me mad, I tell you. The women would have a lot to say about it, and how could I explain? Besides—well, I had the fever by that time. I wouldn’t count it a bad lot to come home like Crompton, even! The “ Rule Britannia!” thrill, you know. But no go. The Sarjent said he couldn’t take me. I asked why? Wasn’t I bodily fit? Iwas. Wasn’t I intelligent enough to tell a button from a bullet? Iwas. Well, then, why couldn’t I go as well as the sporty bucks, the quail-fed lords, and the bookies from Oxford and Cambridge? Then the queer twist was given the affair. The Sar- jent said: That and the. ‘“* Kitchey wants you chaps to serve Eng- land at your machines ; said for us to go easy and not take so many of your kind. You see the point, don’t you ?” The idea had its funny side. Men like me being purposely kept away from the trenches to run the machines for the war! I couldn’t get out of thinking that I was just running the machines in the shop for John Curtain Checkwynd and his limmy-sined wife. It was a twist—that. <zfchey wanted me to work!: Not Checky! That lifted up the job a bit, as you can imagine. Only it wasn’t the first time my job had been put just a little bit higher than the tuppennies and sixpences of my wage, you know. Pennywell, with the red nose and his mixture of drink and thought, once put,a poser to me on Saturday, after the factories closed and we were making the walk between here and Rifton-Uppers. Here were two factory towns, said Penny, both making cloth out of cotton. | Only eight miles separated, too, and linked together by every sort of similar interests. But how dif- ferent! You know the places; our place up and coming and worth looking at, from the town buildings down to the class of bobbies that swaggered with their sticks. Better wages, houses, and food. Rifton- Uppers just the opposite—sick-looking houses and sicker-looking streets, mud and cheap folks, and a general aspect of dreadful night about everything. Well, said Penny, with that funny cock of his jib when he had some- thing wise on board, you see the difference in these two places, both of them factory cities making cotton stuffs. Why is the difference ?

pro: sticl invc and mor mor Jimr mor thre: fi near ing 1 fine . some was what joys i want eating drink that | war anoth it was Tal nose. every Realiz Englis spreac long Went lord. Well,

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1915 THE SOLDIERS For the life of me I couldn’t toss it at all. [ reckoned in drink and all such things. No, said Penny, it’s just because Rifton-Uppers makes a thick cotton thread and we make a thin’un. Just the difference in the thickness of a piece of manufactured thread makes this vast difference in the sort of human stuff the nation is to turn out ! I wouldn’t swallow that college nonsense of course, as if the thread we spin can make any difference such as that ! Easy enough, said Penny, when you look it square in the nose. Riften spins coarse and strong thread, and that means more auto- matic machinery. Because the thread hardly ever breaks—it is so coarse—it doesn’t take so much skill to do the work. ‘That means a smaller wage, less to spend on rents, less prosperity for butcher, baker, and candle- stick maker, and a worse form of life for all involved. You’ve got to reckon it that way, and vicey-versey. We’ve got the fine thread, more skilled work, bigger pay, better houses, more recreations, and all the rest. So, Jimmy lad, the cotton thread you spin is more than a wage-getter; it is actually a thread of life ! That give me a creepy sort of feeling. I nearly caught myself the next Monday morn- ing regarding the thread I was spinning—a fine. South Sea Island two-hundreds—as something of a little magic god! My job was a bit lifted up then, for I realized that what I was working at was determining the joys and sorrows of the whole town ! I added what Penny said to what Kitchey wanted of us, and maybe I didn’t begin to see my work in a different light. Then the next staggerer was Loyd-Jud, of the Checker. When a Cabineter, one of the biggest men since Gladstone, and no quail- eating namby-pamby, come out and said that drink was doing us more harm than war, and that except us workingmen sobered up the war would fall through, my job got still another boost. ‘Two thoughts showed that it was true. Take this self-same Penny .with the red nose. He’s an old stager, as you know, in every way. A very aristocrat of the machine. Realizes all its English traditions. How we Englishmen invented the factory system and spread it abroad and all that. Isn’t so very long ago that Penny got a big check-up. Went in one Monday morning drunk as a lord. Thought he’d carry it through, too. Well, Shirt-Sleeved Meggs, the overlooker, OF THE SHOPS 99 come along, saw Penny wobbling about and give him the hook. Not only that, but a temperance sermon as well. Shirt-Sleeved Meggs, who never drinks from less than the bottle, the biggest swiller in the Kingdom, preaching temperance ! Penny never has got over it. If it had been a parson or a W.C. T. U. or some- thing you could answer back, well—but Meggs ! Penny said that Meggs had to come to it because of the machinery. Finer it gets the finer we have to get or else thirgs go to smash! That’s why manufacture is rubbing out the drink, and the machine navy, and the machine army ; but. it does give me a creepy feeling just to think that my job is giving us these temperance kick-backs. You can’t answer it, either. Loyd-Jud was right. This does put a meaning into my job. I begin to see that Kitchey has made quite a point. But the thing’s more of a nightmare than I’d ever considered it in my wildest dreams. I never was so puzzled about my job as I’ve been in these last weeks. I’d always thought it to be just a matter of a wage and a rolled- up sleeve. I can plainly see I’ve been under a delusion. We chaps thought we’d have another strike. Checky was getting rich at his end out of the war rush. We wanted our finger in the pie too. It was such a nice, drippy gooseberry pie, and Checky was only sharing the dry end with us and rubbing his own belly. . Well, just as we’ve always done, out we went on the old, familiar motto: “We want to have our ears tickled with the rattle of bright ginneys.” Just a money matter, you will understand. On the old, familiar plane. Then the earthquake struck us—and struck Parley-ment took over the ‘fac- tories—if it wanted them. That was quitea laugh on Checky, you can bet. The chaps had many a drink and laugh over it in the ‘‘ Merry Donkey ” parlors. Checky had been too greedy and had overreached! Said Penny, with the red nose, “‘ At last, chaps, the day of the workingman has come. No more shall capital rule it over us. Our Liberals in office have brought us to our day. ‘Sarah, seven more glasses and make it stout!’” The joke was on the capitalists! The nation owning the mills and doing what they pleased with them! ‘That was a new thing in Eng- land. Even if the Socialists had volunteered Checky, too.

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100 THE OUTLOOK the thought long ago, here it was! Well, this job of mine back of the machine was getting lifted up to a pretty stiff and impor- tant height. If it meant that much to a nation in war ! Now we shall be the bosses, said Penny. Wait and see! It’s Socialism pure and strong. Who would have thought it? So we stayed out on strike, feeling that we’d won. But not a bit of it. Govern- ment sent.down one of its men to meet us. Penny told us to give it to him strong. So we intended. Then we got another shock. We’d given him the terms on which we’d go back to work—so many hours and so much an hour—when the chap laughed, as if it was a joke. “Pardon me,” he said, “ but I rather relish that, men. Now let me insert our—Govern- ment’s—rateof settlement. You quibble about wages. Are the men in the trenches bothering about them? No! Neither shall you. You are just as important to the King now as the soldiers in the trenches. In a way,more so! This is a war of munitions. The war is to be fought out on the shop floors. And you talking about how many hours you will serve and for how many pennies? I tell you what you will have to do. It’s conscription ; though of a different sort. You men will have to get back to your machines within the next week or Government will make you! Yes, make you; just as she would make a regiment of soldiers go to this or that place at the front! As for hours—you are the King’s soldiers—the men behind the soldiers ; and if Government finds that she needs you twenty hours a day, with only four for rest, you will work that number of hours without a word, just as the soldiers do in the trenches, exactly. Our industries are just as impor- tant as the trenches. Both must be- subject to the same discipline. Now do you under- stand!” And bless me if they didn’t pin buttons to our coats—which we are as proud of as if they were V.C.’s. And bless me if all sorts of things didn’t begin to take place. Some chaps from the States they call “ efficiency men” were run in by Government and all sorts of new notions proposed. The papers were full of what ought to be done for us chaps to make us produce the most in the shops for the Kingdom. You’d think the parsons had us. Men mustn’t drink only so much— because it made them unfit for the machines. You know that the men at the front before 8 September they go into action have to be fussy about clean underwear? Well, these “ efficiency ” chaps begun to speak about us men keep- ing ourselves clean so that we wouldn’t get poisoning. They begun to preach to our wives how to feed us, and tell us that in America the big industries get “ efficiency ” by seeing that the men have schools and churches and clean milk and clean homes and all that sort of thing. It was quite startling and put my job in a broader light than I’d ever seen it. What with what Kitchey and Loyd-Jud said about me and all that’s been done you may well believe that I feel a bit top-lofty and that my job never meant so much as it does to-day. That Higgs woman hasn’t wafted no red petticoat at me lately. | swagger about with my “ In the King’s Serv- ice” button. I tell you, there’s dignity in my work at last. I’m every day conscious that my work is for the nation’s safety and victory, not just to buy Mrs. Checky a new fur or a new jewel. My new feeling is summed up in what I once saw in your America, that time I ran over to set up some machinery. It was one summer morning. I was standing on the shore of the sea. A big factory shadowed the water where I stood. Tony, a Porty-gee, stood in a muddy boat just off shore raking the ocean floor for shellfish. Inside that big factory were all sorts of immigrants— Jews and Irish, Porty-gees, English, and Poles, and a lot of others. They were work- ing in a hot room, bossed all day, and busy at machines that only stopped for dinner and supper. Their lot seemed hard. On the other hand, there was Tony, the fisher in his little boat. He planted nothing, but he got good catches. He got all the profits from his work. He had no boss over him. He was next to nature, and it all seemed so much better a life than was lived behind machines. But I got to know Tony better. His sort of work made him go off alone, giving the other fishers the slip, just to reap the advantage of a good pocket of shellfish. He hated law, because a city health officer had warned him away from the sewer where the shellfish were thickest. He never stopped being a Porty-gee, having nobody else to speak to. chap. You’d never build any democracy on that kind of worker. On the other hand, in spite of all the hardships of their lot, there were all those immigrants in your mill. t He was a suspicious and sulky. mo! and tow mat effic fair evel shill A : thin; prise man inter hom what seen butt and ; more muni of he Way | ig earne body’ in the the t mean hood too. work made this, bottor churc}

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1915 THE SOLDIERS least they came together, with their preju- dices and all that—came together from all parts of the world. And just because the mill and the work brought them together and made them rub shoulders at a common job, you know, as well as I do, that out of it is born your real American democracy ; for the American factories gulp in the greatest majority of the immigrants of the first gen- eration, and have them in charge more than any other institution, and do, in a way, mix them up into a sort of American mince pie. So, after all, from a patriotic and not a wage standpoint, give me that factory and its workers, rather than Tony, the Porty-gee, and his primitive form of work. Here’s the way it all points out: if there is so much temperance and morality and high human meaning and “ King’s Service ” in these penny jobs of ours, why on earth isn’t this end of the stick taken hold of more and the penny end less? As it is now, all this morality meaning and temperance preaching and King’s business significance are bent towards the penny end. That’s what’s the matter with your American and with German efficiency—fine stuff to get it—temperance, fair play, and all that sort of thing ; but the eventual thing, in the eyes of the firm, is the shillings and sixpences it brings to the till. A sort of “godliness is profitable in all things ”’ notion that cheapens the whole enter- prise. What are German pensions and Ger- man compensation acts if the real, at heart, intention is just to keep a lot of willing men at home to become gun meat? Just the same, what a cheapness to all this new twist I’ve seen; us men wearing “ King’s Service” buttons, being made temperate and moral, and all that, if the only real intention is to get more money out of us, in the end, or more munitions? Evidently there’s been no change of heart in any of us ; only a more diplomatic way of putting the old case. I’m first of all a man, secondly a money- earner. And, without taking up with any- body’s Socialism at all, I want my day’s work in the shop to mean “ King and Country ” all the time, not just in a pinch. I want it to mean temperance and morality and brother- hood all the time and aboveall. And it can, too. Just as the schools mean it, so our work can manufacture the stuff that men are made from. The mill’s the right place to do this, too, when. all’s said and done. The bottom goes out of our civilization when the church turns money-mad. Why isn’t it true OF THE SHOPS 101 with our work? Isn’t work’s national and human worth being shown ? That’s what I want my day’s work to mean to my King and to my country and to man- kind. I’d feel like a soldier then instead of feeling like a—well,a “hand.”” That’s what: Checky might do with his mills, too ; instead of bending every one of these human ard national meanings towards profits, if he just used his factories for the nation and for men, like the old lords and battle-men used their property—TI tell you there’d be a stir in the world of the right sort. Profits would take care of themselves then. For Checky’s profits are only intended, when you think about it, to be used to bring these things about in a roundabout way. He is a temperance- society man and pays heavily to it. He is willing to be levied on to help in the war and to help the church make souls better. So his mills work that way, anyhow. Why not let him say, ‘“‘ My factories do this,” rather than to have the delusion that his money does it? I tell you, boy, this job of mine never looked so big as it does to-day, and the smoke of a factory chimney makes the same patriotism glow in me as glows in the soldier at the sight of. the smoke of an exploding shell. For this war’s showing all of us that the day of the sword as a nation maker and vic- tory.winner is going by. When the sword was the nation maker, who ever thought of using it merely to win loot? Now the facto- ries and the men in the factories, bosses and all, have displaced to a considerable extent the sword as a nation maker and victory winner. Oughtn’t it to. be counted just as . low an act for any man of us to use them for mere wages and money returns ? God has changed the tool of warfare from the sword to the factory; the real soldiers are uniformed in overalls and armed with wrenches. After the war’s over—mark this well and write it down in the fly-leaf of your brain pad—I’m going to perform a new cere- mony. I’m going to take my oil-smeared wrench which I’ve worked with in the shop throughout the war, for King and country, and I’m going to leave the grease and oil smears and the dents onit. It’ll be hung over the fireplace, draped in the colors. ‘Imagine my grandchildren pointing it out and saying : “ That’s what granddad helped win the World War with !” Sincerely, Tom Briaes, “ I.K.S.”

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BY THE WAY An Italian translation of Dr. E. E. Hale’s famous story, “ The Man Without a Country,” has, it is reported, been circulated in Italy ina cheap pamphlet edition for the purpose of arousing patriotic feeling. A writerin the “ Chris- tian Register,” noting this fact, tells us that he once asked Dr. Hale if he really felt his great patriotic story as deeply as he made his readers feel it, and that he received a most emphatic affirmative response. A California farmer’s wife who knows how to use an automobile says in “ To-Day’s:” “I would like to see more women who have a family of little ones have cars—not the women who can hire help, but those who must do their own work and care for their little ones as well. These women have little time for recreation and pleasure ; but with a car they can put the little folks in and get more rest and pleasure out of one day’s outing than from a week on the beach.” She adds: “I could tell you of dollar after dollar we made because we owned the car —the opportunity would not have been ours otherwise.” Writing in “ Life” about short stories, Mr. E. S. Martin says: “For narrative stories it is hard to beat the Bible. The Bible stories are all about as short as they can be made. The longer-winded Bible story-tellers were herded by the editors with excellent judgment into the Apocrypha. Mr. Dana used to cite the story of the Crucifixion as a model for news stories.” A new fog whistle is being tried out on a line of coastwise vessels, with the object of doing away with the annoyance which the shrieking siren causes passengers at present. The whistle is attached high up on the forward mast. In this position, it is claimed, the whistle will con- vey its warning to other craft as well as at present, while passengers’ ears will be relieved the din. The West is beginning to appreciate its own scenery and to buy pictures of it, says Birger Sandzen in the Chicago “ Fine Arts Journal,” and as a result several artist colonies have sprung up in the West, notably at Phoenix, Arizona; Taos, New Mexico; at Los Angeles, San Diego, and picturesque Carmel-by-the-Sea, in California; at the last-named colony many well-known painters spend their winters, and the Chase School of Art is located there. A subscriber writes that when she came to live in New York City she tried to get a copy of.such municipal ordinances as would concern a householder. She was informed that the ordinances were not supplied by the city, but that possibly she could obtain a copy by pur- chase from the printer. The printer did not care to sell a single copy, but “hinted that a large order might have attention.” If these conditions still prevail with regard to getting 102 information about the laws that householders must obey, they should certainly be changed promptly. Ignorance of the law should not have the excuse that the makers of the law do not tel! what it is. A machine that will add figures up to a duo- decillion, or a figure 1 followed by thirty-nine ciphers, is on exhibition in the Panama-Pacific Expositions at San Francisco and San Diego. An exchange calculates that if the entire solar system were made up of drops of water, the number would be only about one one-thousandth of a duodecillion. Columbia University, New York City, is to offer a course of study this fall that will equip students for active commercial life. There will be courses in accounting, in social organization and business, in business finance, and in machin- ery and methods of manufacture and trans- portation. How much postage ought you to put on a letter to Shanghai, China? Most people would probably say, five cents; but an American resi- dent in Shanghai points out that any stamp book sold in any United States post-office will inform its purchaser that the rate is two cents. Further, he avers that certain departments at Washington seem to be ignorant of this fact, as within his knowledge they have placed five- cent stamps on franked envelopes sent to Shanghai. The Health Department of New York City has required druggists to discard medicines which are labeled “ sure cures.” These concoc- tions must now be described as “ remedies.” The great success of correspondence schools of various sorts has led to the establishment of what is described asa “ National labor college” to be known as the People’s College, and to be officered by well-known Socialists. Eugene V. Debs, National leader of the Socialist party, is to be President, and hopes to make the college of “ real service in the social revolution.” Sir Christopher Wren, the architect who built St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, is again coming into fashion, “ House Beautiful” asserts: “ The most practiced architects are adapting his style to modern conditions. The influence which has so long been indirect is now becoming a definite school and is exerting a fresh and powerful effect upon American architecture.” His style is “chiefly distinguishable by its taste- ful renaissance spire rising not from the roof but from its own base on the ground.” Mr. J. P. Morgan, entirely recovered from his wounds, recently came down to business as usual, arriving at his office in Wall Street un- guarded and with a bearing that caused the onlookers, according to the newspapers, to break into a spontaneous cheer of welcome.