The Outlook 1915-09-22
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The Outlook SEPTEMBER 22, 1915 Offices, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York THE STORY OF THE WAR: IN RUSSIA With the struggle for control of the cross- ings of the Dwina River between Riga and Dwinsk still undecided as this is written, the fate of those strongholds is yet in the bal- ance. These towns can hardly remain Rus- sian if the Germans cross the river which connects them, but the Slavs are defending the eastern bank of this deep, swift-flowing stream with the tenacity for which the Rus- sian soldier is famous when at bay. From all accounts, the fighting in this quarter is as deadly as any that has yet occurred in the war, and the Dwina is swelled with the blood of both Russians and Germans. In the meanwhile the Russians have been gaining near the southern end of their line. They claim that last week they captured twenty-two thousand soldiers of the enemy in Galicia, and the official Austrian report admits that the Emperor Francis Joseph’s men were obliged to fall back from the Sereth River to the Stripa ‘before supe- rior enemy forces.”” A despatch to Lon- don from Amsterdam had it that Em- peror William has removed General von Kluege, commander of the Eighth Division, who was blamed for the Austro-German check on the Sereth. German newspapers declare that Kluege resigned at his own request, but the fact is unimportant in the face of the indubitable evidence that the Austrians at the right of the German battle- line are still the weak point in the Kaiser’s offensive. If a Russian soldier is not equal to a German, he may be more than equal to an Austrian, and in that consideration lies a good deal of Russia’s hope in these dark days for the Slavic nation. ZEPPELINS AGAIN lhe Zeppelins, like the submarines of Germany, fight by fits and starts. Last week was a busy one for the big dirigibles. In all, they raided the east coast of England five times, once penetrating the London dis- trict. Two raids were harmless, but in the one in which the heart of London was bom- barded the official statement gives the casualties as twenty killed and eighty-six wounded—nearly half of the persons struck being women and children. One soldier was killed and three injured. The other victims were all civilians. According to the estimates of the London newspapers, more than one hundred and fifty casualties resulted from the week’s work of the death-carrying diri- gibles. Still the Zeppelin cannot be called a mili- tary success, except for scouting purposes, and for such work it is inferior to the aero- plane. To the best of our information, no military works of importance have been destroyed in England by Zeppelins, and only a corporal’s guard of fighting men bomb- smitten. And so far as “ war” on non-com- batants is concerned, the Zeppelin has been vastly inferior to the submarine, which with one fell blow annihilates a thousand civilians. THE ARABIC AND THE ORDUNA The events of the last few days must have been a great trial to the emotions of those newspaper editors who hailed as a great diplomatic triumph for America the issu- ance of Ambassador Bernstorff’s pledge that ** 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.” Either these editorial optimists were greatly deceived in Count Bernstorff or he himself was deceived in his Government. It rather looks as if the Ambassador were trying to play America.and Germany off against each other and were in.danger of being crushed between them. When the German Foreign Office refuses to fulfill Count Bernstorff’s promises to America, the active diplomat pleads for time while he makes new and im- portant representations to his Government’; in the meanwhile time is gained for Germany to torpedo another ship, an event which pro- vides the Ambassador with an opportunity to make more futile promises. ‘The German note on the Arabic and the 155-159
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a = oll FROM THE ** worto *? (NEW YORK) HE TRIED TO BITE note on the Orduna are very disappointing to those who relied on Count Bernstorff’s reas- surances to bring about a settlement of the issues raised by German submarine warfare. Germany justifies the torpedoing of the Arabic on the plea that the captain of the German submarine was convinced that the White Star liner was intending to ram him, although it is the unanimous testimony of the passengers and officers of the liner that the ship made no attempt to do this. It appears that the Arabic did change her course before being torpedoed, but this seems to have been done with the idea of going to the assistance of the Dunsley, which had just been attacked. If Germany’s excuse on this point is accepted, German submarine commanders can use one victimized vessel as a decoy for others, tor- pedoing the oncoming rescue ships on the plea of self-defense ! “The German Government most deeply regrets that lives were lost through the action of the commander,” runs the note, but is “‘ unable . . . to acknowledge any obili- gation to grant indemnity in the matter, even if the commander should have been mistaken as to the aggressive intentions of the Arabic.”’ But if America and Germany cannot reach ‘‘a harmonious opinion on this point,” Ger- many would be willing to submit the differ- 160 ME, YOUR MAJESTY ences of opinion to The Hague for arbitration, assuming that, “‘as a matter of course, the arbitral decision shall not be admitted to have the importance of a general decision on the permissibility or the converse under interna- tional law of German submarine warfare.”’ Even more unsatisfactory is the German position in regard to the Orduna, the Cunarder that was attacked without warning on July 9. Germany frankly admits that the captain of her submarine disobeyed his orders by attacking the ship without warning, but remarks that on account of the weather con- ditions he was unable to ascertain the nation- ality or the character of the Orduna. Are we to believe, then, that Germany’s “ orders ” to her submarine captains hold good only on sunny days with the sea dead calm ? LLOYD GEORGE AND LABOR What would England do without the Hon- orable David Lloyd George? He has done more to awaken his countrymen from the lethargy that still holds many, and that has kept England from performing her full share of the labor of the Allies, than any other Eng- lishman ; one is tempted to say that he has done more to arouse them than even the Zep- pelins. In the days of peace he called upon the country to do the right thing by the work- Qo — fm A Fe es Rm oe —r
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THE ingmen ; now he is calling upon the working- men to stand by the country. In particular, Mr. Lloyd George is asking the labor unions to suspend certain rules which are well enough in time of peace, but which to-day hinder the output of munitions in maximum volume. He especially asks the unions to suspend the rule which prevents unskilled workers from working beside skilled men. The Government, Mr. Lloyd George told the Trade Union Congress at Bristol, has kept its word to labor by stopping private war profits in munition factories. ‘The facto- ries now under Government control as to profits employ ninety-five per cent of all the workers engaged in this industry. ‘‘ The Government,” said Mr. Lloyd George, ‘‘ can- not equip the army at-this time unless the unions suspend during the war all instruc- tions barring unskilled labor, and all restric- tions tending to prevent a maximum output. Therefore there must be no stoppages.” After quoting from a union circular which urged laborers not to work at their full ca- pacity, the Minister of Munitions said: ‘‘ This means that there has been deliberate attempt to restrict the output in guns, the making of which is vital to the protection of the lives of men at the front. Is there any one here who will defend an action of that kind ?”’ This was answered, it is reported, by loud cries of ‘‘ No.” Wherever he goes Mr. Lloyd George seems to win over to the National Recruiting Campaign even the most rabid unionists and Socialists. Could he have five minutes face to face with every laborer in Great Britain, we venture to say that it would not be long before Kitchener’s army would have allthe ammunition and equipment needed for the great drive which Lord Kitchener himself announced for May, but which has never materialized. DR. DUMBA AND THE SLOVAKS Dr. Dumba justified his recent indiscretion by the expressed desire to save his country- men working in the munition factories of America from what he characterized as indus- trial white slavery. This generous impulse has not been appreciated, apparently, by all of those in behalf of whom he violated the canons of diplomatic usage. Since his recall has been requested many statements have appeared from former Austro-Hungarian sub- jects in this country supporting the stand WEEK 161 taken by our Government in regard to Dr. Dumba. The following quotation is from a typical utterance of this kind made in an open letter and signed by the Slovak Political Federation of the Eastern States of America. In part it reads: In connection with Dr. Dumba’s improper conduct, we refute and protest against his statement that the Slovaks in America are sub- jects of Austria-Hungary, and that he or his agents or those of Germany can in any way influence our people working in the munitions factories. We will in the future, as we have been in the past, be loyal to the United States, where we found our new home after leaving our old coun- try, from which we were driven because of the oppression of the Hungarian Government, which would not allow us to speak our own language and educate our children in Slovak schools. The very fact that out of the three million population in the Slovak country fully one million were driven away to the United States, owing to political and economic persecution, is sufficient proof that there is no reason why we should be used as tools for Mr. Dumba’s and the German agents’ unfair and anti-American aspirations. We assure the American public that our brother Slovaks have no intention to attempt and will not in any way attempt to help to cripple any legitimate industry in this country. Such a statement seems fully in accord with a proper realization of the duties of American citizenship and of the ethical and social consideration for which an emigrant to our shores renounces his former allegiance. From a source less prejudiced against the Austrian Minister comes a still more signifi- cant condemnation. Mr. Herman Ridder writes in the New York “ Staats-Zeitung :” We have held Dr. Dumba in high respect. . . . Any diplomatic agent, however—and we have had many such accredited to Washington—who so far forgets himself as to assume to bring it within the province of his duties or privileges to foment industrial or other troubles in this country forfeits by such act the credentials which he brings with him. We wish that the “ Staats-Zeitung ” might see similar indiscretions of other foreign agents in as clear a light. THE NEW MEXICAN SITUATION As was fully expected, Carranza’s reply to the request of the so-called Pan-American Conference to join in a proposed general
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162 THE OUTLOOK conference over Mexican affairs was a posi- tive refusal, an equally positive declaration that outsiders must not meddle in Mexican affairs, and a renewal of his assertion that he and his followers alone represent the Consti- tutional movement for self-government, that they are rapidly acquiring control of the country, and ought to be recognized as its government. What was unexpected in Car- ranza’s reply was the expression of a willing- ness to meet in conference over matters of international as opposed to domestic Mexican questions. Accordingly, when the diplomatic repre- sentatives of the six Central and South American countries meet in conference with Secretary Lansing in New York City, as they will do shortly after this issue of The Outlook goes to press, they will have before them the acceptances of the Villa and Zapata ele- ments, the refusal of Carranza, and appar- ently no probability of any representation in the proposed conference of elements of Mexican national life which do not closely adhere to one of the two chief factions. That anything of value in settling Mexican affairs can come from such a conference, if it is held, seems highly improbable. What will be done as to accepting Car- ranza’s proposal to confer on international affairs is doubtful, with the general opinion leaning to the belief that it will be refused. For this country to join in such a conference would go a long way, it would seem, toward the recognition of Carranza as the head of a responsible Mexican government. There is no question that Carranza has been gaining ground and Villa losing ground. It seems more than probable that before long Carranza’s position will be not unlike that of Huerta. In that case our Administration will be faced with the question whether it is advisable to recognize Carranza, to ignore him and perhaps use its influence against him, or, finally, to undertake itself to enter Mexico and put in power a Mexican govern- ment which might obtain the support of fair-minded Mexicans who are weqry of the interminable strife. That the number of Mexicans who are so disposed is larger than is generally understood, while the number of fighting revolutionists is much smaller, is a consideration which should enter into the decision. Meanwhile the continuance last week of the border fighting between Mexican bandits or guerrillas and Americans who resist their raids may easily lead to serious 22 September clashes. Whatever else happens, it is the plain duty of the American authorities to protect American life and property. THE NAVAL ADVISORY BOARD Secretary Daniels has appointed his. Naval Advisory Board. If the personnel of the new Board is to be taken as an earnest of its accomplishments, the country is to be con- gratulated. Headed by Thomas A. Edison, it consists of twenty-three members chosen by ballot by the eleven leading scientific societies of the country dealing with those branches of science of chief importance to a modern navy. The names of the men on this list, as is to be expected from the technical nature of the achievements which warranted their appoint- ment, are somewhat unfamiliar to the general public. There is Mr. W. R. Whitney, Di- . rector of the Research Laboratory of the General Electric Company, leader in the perfection of the metallic electric lamp fila- ments and the development of wrought tungsten; Mr. Robert S. Woodward, Presi- dent of the Carnegie Institution for the Ad- vancement of Science and an authority on astronomy, geography, and mathematical physics; Mr. Arthur Gordon Webster, an authority on sound and its production and measurement; and Mr. Hudson Maxim, inventor of the Maxim gun and maker of the first smokeless powder, adopted by the United States Government. Mr. Maxim is also, it may be remarked in passing, the inventor of a scientific method of constructing poetry, which is even deadlier than his gun or his powder. Automobilists will be familiar with the name of Andrew L. Riker, President of the Locomobile Company, and of Mr. Howard E. Coffin, Vice-President of the Hudson Motor Company. Mr. William Leroy Emmet, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, who directed the develop- ment of the Curtis turbine, and has been chief promoter of the system of electrical propul- sion for ships which has recently been adopted by the navy; Mr. Spencer Miller, inventor of a ship-coaling apparatus ; and Mr. Elmer Ambrose Sperry, inventor of a remarkable gyroscopic stabilizer for aeroplanes, are also on the list. It is the general purpose of Secretary Daniels to ask from this Board advice in regard to the practicality of inventions which are submitted to the naval authorities and in Ss =~ ss - ® ©. | 2S xe ee Oe ere i ~ ee - Be | fon
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1915 THE regard to the development of scientific methods in naval warfare. A tendency which has been manifest in some quarters to regard this new Board as a panacea for all the ills the navy is heir to is of course quite beside the point. If the new Board succeeds in adapting its civilian expe- rience and acknowledged competence to the particular needs of naval administration, it will, however, perform an important and patriotic service. SIR WILLIAM VAN HORNE By the death of Sir William Van Horne, in his seventy-third year, there disappears from the railway life of the Western Hemi- sphere one who had earned the title of master builder. Like Sir Thomas Shaughnessy, the present President of the Canadian Pacific, Sir William was born in the United States. On the other hand, our great railway genius, James J. Hill, was a Canadian by birth. When only fourteen years old, William Cor- nelius Van Horne, a poor Illinois boy, went into railway work. From a salary of one hundred and fifty dollars a year he was to rise to one of sixty thousand. His studies in telegraphy having made him capable, he became an operator on the Illinois Central, advancing thence through various positions on various railways until, at the age of forty, he went to the general managership of the Canadian Pacific. He rose to the vice-presi- dency, to the presidency, and to the chair- manship of the Board of Governors of that railway, and developed it into one of the largest systems in the world. He superin- tended the extension of the road to the Pacific coast, and was present at the ceremonies of driving the last spike. He also added to it the steamship services on the Pacific and on the Great Lakes. Although he retained his office as Chair- man of the Canadian Pacific Board until his death, Sir William became specially interested after our Spanish War in the development of Cuba, and created a railway system there now more than three hundred miles in length. He was also an efficient director in a large number of other corporations. But Sir William himself. was even more picturesque and interesting than was his rail- way work. In the first place, he was a well- known art critic and patron; his gallery of pictures and porcelains at Montreal is among the notable collections on: this continent. WEEK 163 What is not so well known is the fact that he himself was an excellent artist. Again, his opinions on economic and political subjects were always eagerly sought. He.became more Canadian than the Canadians themselves ! For instance, he was wont to oppose reci- procity between the United States and Canada as follows: ‘“‘Our trade is $97 per capita ; that of the United States is $33. In other words, the water in our mill-pond stands at 97, theirs at 33, and they want us te take away the dam.” THE LATEST EXAMPLE Under the title of ‘“ Wolf, Wolf!” The Outlook recently called attention editorially to the habit of indiscriminatingly charging the ‘interests ’’ with all kinds of misdeeds, and noted the fact that if legislation fails of the beneficial results predicted by its sponsors the failure is often ascribed by them, “ not to its unwisdom, but to the organization of the ‘interests’ to defeat it.” The most recent illustration of this habit of crying ‘ Wolf, Wolf!’ is furnished by Senator La Follette, who discovered some time ago that the coun- try is “the victim of a vicious and menacing conspiracy ” of the shipping interests, and who now declares, if correctly reported, that the assertion that the shipping bill for which he was responsible will drive American ship- ping from the seas is a gratuitous assertion not based on fact. An effective comment on this statement is contained in a few lines recently received from a well-informed observer in Yokohama ; “We live in exciting times, what with the funeral of the Pacific Mail and the farewell of the American flag in the Pacific! Noone believed that such a thing could or would really happen. American common sense or pride would save things at the last moment was our belief. Even the Japanese Govern- ment would not believe it, and sent an official to the Pacific Mail agent in order to guarantee the probability of the truth of the story. And you should hear the American merchants rave and rage! Cargospace is hard enough to get over here now, and the Japanese ships naturally hold space for Japanese shippers first. And the hundreds of tourists who are coming out this fall, and the mails for us and Manila! Even the State Department’s des- patch box will go by Japanese ships here- after! The British are unsparing in their criticism of American common sense; and already certain cheap Japanese jingoes say,
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164 ‘You see, the Americans are afraid of us; they cannot compete with us, they withdraw for fear of trouble.’ ” There is no doubt that the American deep- water. sailor has been terribly abused and exploited in the past, and that the wretched conditions under which seamen labor have been improved by most ship-owners only under compulsion. One has only to read the history of Samuel Plimsoll in England to appreciate the opposition to humane reforms in seafaring life. The just criticism of Sen- ator La Follette is, not that he is mistaken in trying to remedy abuses, but that the remedy he proposes does not work and is therefore no remedy at all. A POPULAR DEAN Readers of The Outlook recall the dismay and sinking of heart with which Thomas Hughes read the news that Dr. Arnold had died. Dr. Arnold had been for so many years a part of his world that it seemed incredible that life could go on without him. Many a graduate of Columbia University, in New York, had the same feeling when he read the announcement that Dr. J. Howard Van Amringe had come to the end of his journey. The dean of a college has every chance of unpopularity. In some institutions his chief function is to protect the president’s popu- larity by relieving him of the duties of dis- cipline. Dr. Van Amringe, whom the stu- dents of Columbia have known for many years as “Van Am,” was one of the few deans who are both respected and beloved. His career with the University began in 1856, when he entered as a freshman ; it terminated five years ago, when, after a service of more than fifty years, he resigned his active connec- tion with the University. He began teaching Greek while he was still in the University, filling the position made vacant by the absence of Professor Drisler. ‘Three months after his graduation he was a member of the Faculty in the Department of Mathematics. At the end of five years he was full professor in that department. In 1894 he resigned in order to become Dean of the School of Arts, and a year later hé was advanced to the position of Dean of the University. Dr. Van Amringe was an authority on mathematics and the editor of several works in that field. Like most other popular college deans, he was a thorough disciplinarian ; he was pre- eminently just; he was always sympathetic, and understood the student point of view. THE OUTLOOK 22 September He was one of the older men who recognized the educational and moral value of athletics, and at the tragic moment when the Faculty decided that Columbia should withdraw from football activities the Dean stood alone in opposition to that movement. At the close of the football season a year later a mob of two thousand students stormed the Faculty Club and, after singing a song dedicated to the Dean, insisted that he should make a speech, telling him at the same time, with all the zeal and noise of an undergraduate crowd, that they wanted football. He told them that he knew what they wanted, but that he could not give it to them; that they had behaved with dignity, and that if they would keep on behaving with dignity there was no telling what they might get—and eventually they got football. Five years ago, when Dr. Van Amringe resigned, the expressions of affection from undergraduates and from alumni were an eloquent testimony to the profound affection in which he was held. He had become to thousands of men an incarnation of the Columbia spirit and traditions, and his ap- pearance at any university function was a signal for a tumult of cheers. Dr. Van Amringe was a vestryman of Trinity Church, New York City, and a member of several societies in the Episcopal Church, in the activities of which he was deeply inter- ested. In a spirit of humor he had always made a mystery of his age, and it was a standing joke between him and the students, the latter indulging in all kinds of guesses. In 1909 the roses sent to him to indicate his age were two hundred and twenty-five. At the time of his death he was in his eighty- first year. THE FATHER OF THE SHORT BALLOT We have in previous issues, and elsewhere in this issue, pointed out the fact that the adoption of the Short Ballot principle -in the new State Constitution of New York is the most important forward step in the structure of State government that has been taken in more than a century. The story of the rapid and surprising progress of the Short Ballot movement is an interesting one. It is told by the unusually well informed Albany corre- spondent of the New York “ Evening Post” in a recent issue of that journal, from which we condense the following account: In 1904, Richard §. Childs, whom the
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1915 “Post ” calls “ the youthful father of the Short Ballot,” was graduated from Yale. He is the son of William Hamlin Childs, a business man of large interests in this city, who has been one of the National leaders of the Pro- gressive party. Richard Childs, “the first time he entered a polling-place to cast his vote,” discovered the utter confusion into which the voter’s mind is thrown by the long list of candidates on the ballot from which the voter is to make his. choice. He began to make inquiries, and found his fellow-citi- zens in the same state of confusion as him- self. After considerable and careful study of the history of elections in this country he came to a conclusion which he expressed in the following statement : 1. That only those offices should be elective which are important enough to attract. and deserve public examination. 2. That very few offices should be filled by election at any one time, so as to permit ade- quate and unconfused public examination of the candidate, and so as to facilitate the free and intelligent making of original tickets by any voter for himself, unaided by political specialists. “Childs first expounded this simple doc- trine,” says the “ Post’s” correspondent, “in an article in The Outlook in 1909. The article was widely read and commented upon at the time. Others had argued for appoint- ive instead of elective officers in the name of increased efficiency of government ; Childs pleaded for the same cause in the name of an increased effectiveness of the voter.” Single-handed, he began to interest public men in his idea. -He obtained the co-opera- tion of such publicists as President. Wilson, then President of Princeton University, and Professors Frank J. Goodnow and Charles A. Beard, of Columbia University, and such practical politicians as James Wadsworth, then Speaker of the Assembly at Albany and now United States Senator for New York. There was formed under Mr. Childs’s execu- tive direction the Short Ballot Organization to carry on the propaganda. This organiza- tion is still in active existence. Its chief function has been to collect and disseminate throughout the country the facts concerning Short Ballot efficiency and Long Ballot cor- Tuption and failure. It has been active in promoting the idea of commission govern- ment for cities, and has done more than any other single agency to bring about the prac- tical and. successful adoption of the city THE WEEK 165 manager plan of municipal government by twenty-six American cities. We think the “ Evening Post” is quite within the mark in saying that this is a remarkable civic record for a man who is not much over thirty years old. “THE BATTLE CRY OF PEACE” If an editor of a newspaper has an idea to convey and wishes to put it before his readers in striking form, his first step is to select a title or headline that will catch the eye. If he happens to be an editor of an illustrated publication, he can sometimes assist the pres- entation of his idea by graphic pictures, and that is about the end of the expedients which he can adopt to secure a hearing for his thought. The director, or, if you choose, the editor, for that is what he really is, of a moving- picture concern has a distinct advantage over his newspaper brother. If he has an idea to present, he can use a series of headlines, and tie each one of those headlines to reality with a vivid picture accompaniment that is as effective and instantly understandable as a straight blow from the shoulder. He can reach the mind of those who only run and never read, just as well as the minds of those who read ana never take the trouble to run. His audiences are broader than any dramatist of the past has ever reached. His medium is as far-reaching and as fluid as the world and the waters thereof. To the theme of National preparedness against war Mr. J. Stuart Blackton has effectively applied the tremendous resources of the youngest of the arts. He has taken as his theme Hudson Maxim’s book on ** Defenseless America.” On the facts given therein he has tellingly presented the story of an invasion of America which, with the story of the events of the past year in mind, cannot be condemned as melodramatically impossible by any think- ing man. In translating the destruction: of Louvain into the terms of Times Square and Long Island, in re-enacting against an American background the tragedies and terrors of the great war, he has brought home, as no series of editorials nor any number of lectures could ever have done, the need of strengthening the defenses of this country. Mr. Blackton’s moving-picture play ‘‘ The Battle Cry of Peace” does more than present the dangers of war. By its
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166 instructive illustration of the weapons of war it shows concretely the need of preparedness, not only in ma/érie/, but in men trained to handle these modern weapons. There are doubtless thousands of people in this country who have never seen a soldier under arms. ‘There are very many thousands more utterly unfamiliar with the developments and tools of naval warfare. ‘“ The Battle Cry of Peace ” will do much toward remov- ing the popular fallacy that the fleet is only for the protection and convenience of the immediate coast-line of the country. The battle-ships which steam majestically across the screen in Mr. Blackton’s photo drama are as of direct concern to the Middle-West- ern farmer as they are to the Gloucester fisherman or to the New York banker. Mr. Blackton’s film has had the indorse- ment of the Navy League, the National Security League, the American Red Cross¢ and the American Legion. It deserves the attention and consideration of every com- munity in which it is shown. THE “HYMN OF HATE” The Outlook for October 28, 1914, pub- lished the text of Ernest Lissauer’s ‘‘ Hass- gesang ” or “ Hymn of Hate.” Some time ago the poet disavowed the poem, declaring that it had been written as “a result of a passionate impulse in the first week of the war,” and that the verses were aimed not at individual Englishmen but at “ the English will to destroy.” Be this as it may, it is encouraging to note that the larger-minded among the Germans have never taken the poem seriously. For instance, the Berlin ‘ Tageblatt,” which re- flects, so it is assumed, the opinions of Dr. von Bethmann Hollweg, the Imperial Chan- cellor, says that it read Lissauer’s ‘“‘ Hassge- sang ’’ when it appeared with “ unconcealed disapproval.”” The paper continues : "It is utterly devoid of real patriotism, and merely like a rubber stamp of “ Gott strafe England /” [God punish England] to pander to certain instincts which unfortunately come to the fore in exciting times. A careful investiga- tor knows that brave men in trenches are nearly always free from this “hate.” It is chiefly preached by persons whose heroism varies with their distance from the front. It is a necessity to keep this Hate Song and similar products out of books for the young. This warning as to books for the young is also taken up by the “ Kélnische Volkszei- THE OUTLOOK 22 September tung,’’ the well-known Cologne paper and one of the chief Catholic organs in Germany. It declares : A Christian cannot read Lissauer’s Hate Song to-day without having it go against his grain. ... The object of these lines [of the “Volkszeitung”’] is to start a popular agitation to keep the Lissauer song out of all books des- tined for school-children. We ask the German press to give the widest publicity to this agitation. We now learn that Herr Lissauer has written to the Berlin “ Tageblatt’’ saying that his ‘‘ Hassgesang”’ is not intended for the young. In any event, the above excerpts prove what all who know the German people well have constantly as- sumed—namely, that the German nation as a whole is in sympathy neither with the ex- tremes of Prussian militarism nor the wicked expressions of hate for the enemies of Ger- many. NEW YORK STATE’S APPLE AUCTIONS One of the most difficult problems for solu- tion is the bringing together of the farmer and the consumer. Much more attention has been paid to this matter in the last few years than ever before. The earliest efforts of scientific agriculture were made in the direc- tion of increasing the product of the farm. Nowadays the emphasis is being placed upon the need of distributing farm products to the best advantage of both farmer and con- sumer. A notable experiment in this direction is being made by the New York State Depart- ment of Food and Markets under the leadership of Commissioner John J. Dillon. Under the auspices of his department there has been begun a system whereby the apples of the fruit-growing districts of the State may be sold on the farm at public auction. In the past the apple-selling season has witnessed a contest between the individual growers and the organized buyers. The result has been that no public standards of market value have been established, and that both the farmer in the back country and the consumer were placed at the mercy of the middleman. ‘The Department of Foods and Markets decided to help this situation by organizing auction sales right in the orchards. The farmers themselves requested and arranged for these auctions. Instead of a dozen men, each dick- ering for his own orchard, they grouped their holdings and offered twenty thousand barrels
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1915 THE to the highest bidder. The buyers were invited to inspect the fruit as it hung on the trees, and then came out with a fair open bid for what they thought it was worth. The first sale of this character, held in Red Hook, New York, resulted in establish- ing a public wholesale price for apples run- ning from fifty to seventy-five cents a barrel above the prices established at private sales. It resulted also in bringing into the competi- tion many buyers who had heretofore never come in contact with the farmer. These buyers, a large percentage of whom were foreigners, realized that under the new sys- tem they might become independent of the middlemen upon whom they had relied in the past. That this system of public auctions represents the application of no new principle will be realized when it is said that by this method the bananas that arrive in New York City from the largest shippers and importers, almost all the California fruit, the two or three million dollars’ worth of Almeria grapes which reach New York City each fall from Spain, Sicilian lemons, and Florida oranges are all disposed of in this public and efficient manner. ‘The interesting and vital factor in the case rests in the fact that the work is being undertaken by New York State for the bene- fit of its own farmers and its own consumers. It is the ultimate hope of the Bureau of Food and Markets to establish in New York City a union freight terminal to receive and distribute food products. This terminal will contain, it is planned, auction rooms, display rooms, and ample facilities for the sale as well as the physical handling of farm prod- ucts. This terminal would serve as a whole- sale market-place from which both the grocer and the jobber who could best render the very necessary service of distribution could eco- nomically obtain his supplies. The plans of the Department also contemplate more effi- cient methods of assembling, grading, and packing food products at the producing cen- ters. Its work in this direction is to be strongly commended and encouraged. A FLYING SQUADRON Very little has been heard of flying squad- rons in this war, but Dr. Charles M. Shel- don, in a recent number of the “ Congrega- tionalist,” gives a very interesting account of a lying Squadron bent on the destruction of the liquor traffic in this country. This Squad- ron, Organized in the interests of the prohi- bition movement, in two hundred and thirty- WEEK 167 seven days visited two hundred and fifty-one towns and faced over one million people. Every speaker in the Squadron—and many of them were well-known men and women— was expected to deliver two addresses each day, and at the close of the campaign it was noticed that no speaker was delivering the address with which he started. ‘The inci- dents and experiences of the campaign edu- cated not only the audiences but the speak- ers, and the speeches developed under the pressure of actual conditions. These speeches were given in all sorts of places—in* churches, theaters—often with the worst possible acoustics, to suffocating crowds, and under the narcotic influence of bad air. Dr. Grenfell, who lives out of doors, - found the air of the American church and hall in many places stupefying not only to the audience but to the speaker, and declares that on one occasion, in spite of every effort, he fell asleep while he was being introduced. Two of the most extraordinary facts about the campaign were the stimulating, healthful effects on the speakers, and the disclosure of the wonderful completeness of railway management in America. The speakers found it impossible to have regular habits ; they ate when they had to and what they could get. But, whether it was the moral influence of a good cause or the general determination to keep well, the Squadron ended its career in better condition than when it set out. The plan of campaign, which covered a - large part of the continent, required the most detailed arrangement of trips, dates, and times. During the two hundred and thirty- seven days, which included the winter months and a tour in every State in the Union, not a single accident delayed a train, not one meet- ing was missed, and the Squadron ended its crusade with the deepest respect and admira- tion for the American railways and the men who manage them. The expedition was an expensive one, but it was financed without trouble, and when the Squadron closed its tour the audiences had contributed over $175,000. ‘The sales of books provided for nearly all the expenses of the secretaries, and after all other obligations of every kind had been met the residue was divided between the speakers and musicians pro rata. Not an unpaid bill was left in any town. It is hardly necessary to say that the compensation did not in any instance equal the income which the speakers would have
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168 received had they followed their regular pro- fession, nor in any instance did any speaker receive a regular salary for service while with the Squadron. It is impossible to sum up the results of such a dramatic, picturesque, and effective attack on the liquor business. The: Prohibi- tionists of the State of Washington declared that the visitof the Squadronin that State gave them ten thousand votes. Similar testimony was given by Arizonaand Oregon. This movement can hardly be effectively met by some of the arguments which the liquor business is send- ing out to meet the prohibition attack. One of these arguments is that all the effective nations engaged in the present war—Eng- land, Germany, France, Russia, Italy—are given to the drinking of liquors of various kinds, while the only prohibition nation en- gaged in the struggle is Turkey! This is probably a piece of unconscious humor. ARCHAOLOGY AND WAR One goes hardly anywhere to-day, without seeing conditions affected by the European war. ‘This obtains in nearly every domain of life and learning—even in that quiet, de- tached domain of archzology. In Egypt, where the largest archzeological work has been conducted, the war has had its patent influence. There are now no English or French expeditions working in Egypt, and of the three concessions in the region of the Pyramids, granted respectively to Ger- mans, Austrians, and Americans, the first two are now canceled and the work abandoned. As to the American expedition under the auspices of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, we have at hand an interesting description from Mr. Story, one of the workers, who has just returned to this country and with whom the “ Christian Science Monitor” of Boston prints an interview. One condition affecting the lives of for- eigners living in Egypt this year has been the apprehension of native uprisings, and for this reason, says Mr. Story, there has been some restriction in the journeyings of archzeologists. Another factor has been the encampment of many thousand Australian troops. ‘ Indeed, their presence proved a little too interesting for us while we were at work excavating, since more than once the bullets came spat- tering around us from the rifle ranges where they are continually at firing practice.” Mr. Story explains the slowness of obtain-* ing the results desired because most of the THE OUTLOOK 22 September tombs in which relics are found were plun- dered centuries ago by the natives and by the Romans, seeking for gold and _ precious stones. Not only have most of the jewelry and ornaments been stolen, but the natives and the Romans seem to have had the notion that something of value might be concealed in the statues and vases, and smashed them to bits wherever they were found. Thus sometimes a hundred or two hundred tombs must be opened before an unplundered one containing anything of value is revealed. The American work has now been trans- ferred to Deir-el-Bersheh, to obtain relics needed to fill a gap in the Egyptian Mid- dle Empire collection at Boston. Several pieces of the desired type had been recently found at Deir by the Cairo Museum. Speak- ing of this Museum, all the Government con- cessions, it should be noted, require that half of the relics discovered shall go to that institution. Largely through this means, the Cairo Museum has now become the most complete in the world. THE SPIRIT OF ITALY Articles written under such a caption as ‘With Italy War is Business Only ” leave a bad taste in the mouth. Hence The Outlook is not surprised to receive a letter from an Italian resident protesting against the assump- tion by some newspapers in this country that merely material motives actuate Italy in the present war. It is true that the conquest of new national and defensive frontiers by Italy is an imme- diate and tangible object. But another im- mediate spur is Italy’s defense of the law of nations and the liberty of small nations against the violence of Prussian militarism. No one who has been in touch during the winter with the leaders in the movement for intervention, says our correspondent, could fail to recognize the profound moral charac- ter underlying Italy’s action. As a member of the family of nations, Italy is pledged to defend the principles of nationality, the safety of small states, the popular liberties. The movement for Italian intervention was directed with almost religious fervor, says our corre- spondent, by those ready for the sacrifice to be demanded in the cause of the ideals of democracy as opposed to the menace of military autocracy. Our correspondent con- tinues : What triumphed in Italy was the blast of an awakened people’s righteous indignation .. .
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1915 inspired by love of country and of freedom. ... It seems strange indeed .. . to hear the out- bursts of popular feeling characterized as “ arti- ficial demonstrations.” . . . The Italian people were beside themselves at the almost accom- plished betrayal of Italy into the net spread for her. As one simple peasant expressed it, “ We will have no one come and alter the laws of our state.” That was at bottom the popular feeling, joined to indignation and amazement at the German treatment of the invaded provinces of France and Belgium. . . . The issues involved in this war vastly transcend those contemplated by the so-called “armed peace” of Europe. It isa rising up again of military feudalism, whose specter we had all thought never to see again since it was laid by the French Revolution. We may add that our correspondent’s letter was called forth by an article in a New York paper from the pen of ex-Mayor McClellan, of New York, who ascribed the most materialistic motives to Italy. THE PRIBYLOV FUR SEALS That the fur seals of the Pribylov Islands have so increased since the passage of the protective law of 1912 that the resumption of limited commercial sealing is advisable for the welfare of the seal herds is the con- clusion of the special commission sent to the islands last summer by the Bureau of Fisheries of the Department of Commerce. The law of 1912 provided that the killing of all seals, with the exception,of a few needed by the natives of these northern islands, should be stopped for five years, and that five thousand three-year-old males should be maintained as an annual breeding reserve during the life of the treaty suspending pe- lagic sealing which was concluded by the United States, Russia, Japan, and Great Britain in 1911. The Commission finds that the law of 1912 has fully done what was expected of it, the annual herd of pups during 1914 being almost twice as large as it was in 1909. The Commission has reached the conclusion that there is a considerable overstock of male seals, and that “ this constitutes the principal undesirable feature of the herd as found in 1914. The welfare of the herd demands that some of them should be killed in 1915.” “ The productive capacity of the seal herd,” reports the Commission, “‘ is equal to that of a1 enterprise representing an invested capi- tal of at least $10,000,000. As such it is worthy of the highest effort for efficient administration,” and, since seals are highly THE WEEK 169 polygamous, ‘the important question will always be what proportion of the young males may be killed with safety ?” This year there are available to be killed 31,751 males, from whose skins the Govern- ment could get a revenue amounting to $932,745, whereas the continued suspen- sion of sealing will bring about a useless and even harmful excess of males and a mini- mum loss in skins of $2,700,000 to be di- vided among the nations involved. ALASKAN FISH AND INDIANS Fully as important as this investigation of the seal herds by which man has fixed the proper proportion of males to females as one to thirty, despite the fact that nature continues to bring into the world bull and cow seals in about equal numbers, is an investigation into the condition of the Alaskan fisheries recently conducted by Deputy Commissioner of Fish- eries E. Lester Jones. Mr. Jones found a widespread disregard of the fisheries laws in Alaskan waters ; in fact, he says: “ I amad- vised by reliable authority that up to this year there had not been a single conviction by a jury in Alaska fon a violation of the fisheries laws.”’ Vast as are the resources of Alaska, Mr. Jones fears that the salmon, herring, cod, trout, and other fish will go -the way that our buffalo have already gone unless adequate conservation measures are soon adopted and enforced. His most important recommendations are that the full control of the fisheries be vested in the Department of Commerce; that herring and the edible portions of other food fishes be no longer used in the manufacture of fer- tilizer and oil; that a license tax be imposed upon all fishing gear; that all power-boat trolling be forbidden ; that at least five new Government hatcheries be constructed and that all hatcheries now in operation be taken over by the Government ; that an annual close season be established, and that the length of the present weekly close season be increased ; and that the protection now afforded gulls and similar water-fowl destructive to young fish and fish eggs be removed. Incidentally, Mr. Jones made a very impor- tant tour of inspection of the native com- munities of Alaska. He found that the natives, mainly of the Thlinket and Aleut tribes, are “‘ as a class independent, lazy, and unreliable. . . . Thewhite man has done little to encourage their uplift, and is largely to
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170 blame for the demoralized condition of the mind and body of the native to-day. “The saloon prevails wherever the white man settles, and has had more to do with the undoing and ruination of the Indian and the Aleut than all other causes put together ; and where saloons are not to be found liquor reaches them in the guise of pay and bribes. The white man’s lack of care and regard for the sanctity of the native’s home is the crime of Alaska. In many sections the wife and daughters are dishonored, and any resistance from the husband and father or brother is overcome by bribes and threats and liquor, until even the men have all their best impulses deadened and seem to be un- manned.”’ Nevertheless, Commissioner Jones found one island where a cannery was being oper- ated entirely by the natives, with the excep- tion of the bookkeeper and superintendent, and ‘‘ it was a pleasure to note the condition of the place and the generally gratifying ap- pearance of the natives.” Commissioner Jones praised the work be- ing done in Alaska by the Bureau of Educa- tion of the Interior Department. THE PANAMA CHRISTIAN CONGRESS An international assembly of delegates from North America, Latin America, and Great Britain is to meet next February in the city of Panama—the Congress for Chris- tian Work in Latin America. The need of drawing together the twenty-one republics of the two Americas has been increasingly felt for twenty years. While commercial interest is keenly alive to what it can gain from Latin America, Christian interest should be no less intent on what it can*give to urgent needs. Lord Bryce in his recent book on South America states the case thus: “ Both the intellectual life and the ethical standards of conduct of these countries seem to be entirely divorced from religion.” The social menace of such a condition has induced several South American governments to co-operate with the efforts of the Young Men’s Christian Associations. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay have for two years past paid traveling expenses for part or all of the delegates from their seats of learning to the Continental Student Camp held an- nually in Uruguay and furnished by the Army Department with all the needed tents THE OUTLOOK 22 September and other equipment. Eminent representa- tives of the co-operating governments and others make official visits to the encamp- ment and highly commend its influence. | ts ten days of Christian companionship, united sport, and serious conference disarm preju- dice and awaken thoughtfulness. THE SPIRIT AND METHOD OF THE CONGRESS The spirit in which the Panama Congress will take up its work is admirably expressed as follows: “While frankly facing moral and spiritual conditions which call for missionary work in Latin America, and while presenting the Gospel which we hold as the only adequate solution of the problems which these condi- tions present, it shall be the purpose of the Panama Congress to recognize all the ele- ments of truth and goodness in any form of religious faith. Our approach to the people shall be neither critical nor antagonistic, but inspired by the teachings and example of Christ, and that charity which thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth. In the matter of Christian service we will welcome the co-operation of any who are willing to co-operate in any part of the Christian programme. We should not demand union with us in all our work as the condition of accepting allies for any part of it.” ; The work to be taken up by the Congress has ‘been apportioned to eight commissions for investigation and report on the conditions in Latin America. A great mass of material for a comprehen- sive and scientific study of existing conditions has already been gathered in some hundreds of reports from the field of work. These, after discussion by the commissions, are being revised by an editing committee, from whom they go back to Latin America in printers’ proofs for criticism there. Returned and re-edited, they are to go to each of the 500 delegates for study before the Congress meets. ‘This finely systematized preparatory work will doubtless prove as productive in efficiency as a similar scheme proved at the Ecumenical Conference in 1910 at Edinburgh, where the Panama Congress was projected. Dr. John R. Mott, the vigorous and states- manlike President of the Edinburgh Confer- ence, is the leader of the movement to be shaped at Panama. For entertainment of the Congress the
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1915 Government of Panama has offered the National Institute buildings for day meetings and dormitory accommodations, and the new National Theater for evening meetings. Bulletins of detailed information concerning this epoch-making enterprise can be had by application to the Rev. S. G. Inman, Secre- tary, 156 Fifth Avenue, New York. THE DUTY OF AMERICA The duty of the American Government to the people of America, and of the people of America to each other, is very clearly defined in the preamble to the Constitution of the United States: ‘We, the people of the United States, in order to insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our pos- terity, do ordain and establish this Constitu- tion for the United States of America.” To accomplish these results for the people who dwell within the territory of the United States the Government has been organized and the President has been elected to his high office. To the fulfillment of this duty he is pledged by his solemn oath to support the Constitu- tion, and for this ._purpose he has been intrusted with extraordinary powers by his fellow-citizens. It is his duty to insure domestic tranquillity. The people have a right to carry on their industries in peace undisturbed by violence from within or threatenings from without. When a foreign Power attempts through its representative in this country to disturb the peace and interfere with the industries of the people, it is the duty of the President to maintain peace and protect those industries. He has no option. Whatever personal risks to himself, whatever political risks to himself or his party the fulfillment of that duty may involve, Mr. Wilson could not do other than demand the withdrawal from this country of the agent of Austria when it was discovered that he was using his influence to disturb the domestic tranquillity. This duty does not depend upon treaty, but it is emphasized and enforced and _ in some sense extended by our treaty with Austria-Hungary. This treaty, quoted by the New York “Sun” of September 11, provides that inhabitants of Austria-Hungary residing in this country shall enjoy “the Same security, protection, and privileges as THE RUTY OF AMERICA 171 natives.” The President’s action in de- manding the withdrawal of Ambassador Dumba was a duty which he owed, not only to the citizens of the United States, but also to the citizens of Austria-Hungary resident in the United States, and so to Austria- Hungary itself. It is the duty of the President to do all in his power to “provide for the common defense.”’ There are some men and women in Amer- ica who believe in and advocate the doctrine of non-resistance. Some of them think this is an essential doctrine of Christianity. It is entirely legitimate for them to believe in non-resistance, to practice it themselves, and to endeavor to persuade their fellow-citizens to believe in and to practice it. But it is not legitimate for them to ask that the Presi- dent of the United States or the Congress of the United States shall adopt and act upon the policy of non-resistance. ‘The President of the United States has been elected for the very purpose of providing for the common defense. For this purpose he has been con- stituted Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of the United States. If he should fail to do what he thinks necessary to pro- vide for the common defense, and to use the powers with which he has been intrusted for that purpose, he would be false to his oath. American men, women, and children have been massacred in Mexico, and as we write these lines it is reported that three American soldiers on American soil have been shot to death by bandits on Mexican soil. It is the duty of the President of the United States to provide for the defense of Ameri- cans peacefully residing in Mexico and to pro- vide for the defense of Americans residing on the border. And it is the duty of Ameri- cans, regardless of party and of the section in which they happen to reside, to call on the President to fulfill this duty and to assure him of their support in fulfilling it. Itis not the President’s duty to determine whether Huerta, Carranza, or Villa shall be the Presi- dent of the Mexican Republic; but it is his duty to see that, whoeveris Mexico’s President, American life and property along the border and within Mexican territory is defended. No fear of war and of consequent cost to his country could justify the failure to fulfill this duty which the Constitution lays upon him. American citizens have been murdered at sea by a piratical warfare, contrary alike to established international law, the rules of
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172 civilized warfare, and the essential principles of humanity. It is the duty of the President to defend Americans in their right to travel unmolested and unthreatened upon _ the world’s highways. This duty is explicitly laid upon him by the Constitution. For this purpose he is made Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy. We think he has the further duty of uniting with other nations to defend the rights of non-combatants, whether citizens of America, of other neutral nations, or of the belligerent Powers. This duty is not, however, in expressed terms laid upon him by the Constitution, as is the duty to provide for the defense of American citizens. The world has a right to expect this of America, because it is a civilized nation and is inter- ested in maintaining civilization. But beyond that, every citizen, however humble his state, has a Constitutional right to demand of the American Nation, and therefore of the Presi- dent of that Nation, this defense of his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on sea and on land, whatever it may cost. The American Nation is maintaining an attitude of neutrality in the present European conflict. It does not follow that it is the duty of every individual American to main- tain an attitude of neutrality. believe that Germany is fighting for her lib- erty against European Powers and that these Powers have combined to crush her do right to sympathize with Germany, and they have a right to give to the German Empire any aid which they can give without violating the laws of the United States. Those who be- lieve that the Allies are fighting a spirit of militarism as dangerous to civilization as the militarism of Napoleon a hundred years ago do right to sympathize with the Allies, and have a right to give to them any aid which they can give without violating the laws of the United States. The question whether the individual American shall sympathize with and give aid to the Germans or the Allies is a question which each individual has a right to determine for himself. This is one of the liberties which has always been recognized as belonging to the citizens of neutral nations in time of war. It is one of the liberties which the President and the Congress are solemnly bound by the Consti- tution to secure to the citizens of the United States. It is a liberty which both Germany and Austria have recognized as belonging to their citizens in previous wars. Mr. Francis Bannerman, a dealer in war goods, in an THE OUTLOOK Those who . 22 September address delivered at Cornwall-on-Hudson and reported in the Cornwall “ Press,” gives some interesting incidents illustrating the practice of Austria and Germany. At the close of his address he distributed to those present a little package of cartridges from which the bullet and powder had been taken and in which, in lieu thereof, a knife-blade, pencil, button-hook, or nail file had been inserted. They looked like real cartridges, but were harmless. ‘‘ The majority of these cartridges in their original form,” said Mr. Bannerman, ‘“‘ were made by our friends in Germany and Austria, and sold during the war with Spain to the Spanish.” It is legitimate for those who do not believe in giving aid to the Allies to persuade their fellow-citizens, if they can, not to lend them money or sell them arms or ammunition ; but it is not legitimate for them to call on Congress to forbid the sale of arms and ammunition, or to ask the Administration to discourage war loans, or to engage in secret conspiracies or boycotts for the suppression of commercial relations with the Allies. This is to deny to Americans the liberty to decide for themselves whether they will aid either of the belligerents in this world conflict, and, if so, to which of the belligerents that aid shall be given. So long.as this Nation re- mains neutral, the advocates of non-resistance have no more right to forbid the friends of one of the belligerents from furnishing it money or munitions than have those who believe in the righteousness of the belliger- ent’s cause to compel the non-resistant to furnish money or munitions. The liberty of each individual American to decide this ques- tion for himself is one of the liberties which the Constitution has secured to all American citizens. To avoid the pains and perils of a conflict an individual may sometimes surrender his tights, but he may never be faithless to his duties. It is the duty of the American Na- tion to insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, and secure the blessings of liberty to those who have in- trusted themselves to its protection. No fear of war or of the disaster which sometimes comes from the mere fear of war can justify the American Nation or its chosen repre- sentatives in failing to do all in their power to fulfill loyally this duty laid upon the Nation by the very nature of government, and by it solemnly assumed in the opening words of its Constitution.
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1915 WHAT DO YOU MEANP 173 WHAT DO YOU MEAN P From the newspapers one would judge that all Americans are divided into two camps—pacifists and militarists. No one claims to be a pacifist; no one claims to be a militarist. But these two words fly back and forth as thick as shrapnel on the field of battle. We should like to halt this wordy war long enough to ask the two camps: What do you mean by pacifist? What do you mean by militarist ? The dictionaries give very little help to one who wishes an answer to this question. Pacifist is not found in Stormonth, in Webster’s Unabridged (1896), in the older Century Dictionary, nor in the New Standard Diction- ary (1913). Militarist appears in Webster as obsolete, in Stormonth not at all, in the Century as ‘one who advocates a warlike policy,” and in the Standard as “ one who believes in or advocates militarism.”’ For the meaning of these words as used in America in this year 1915 we must seek a later authority. We find it in an article by Pro- fessor R. B. Perry, of Harvard University, published in the ‘* New Republic ” of June 19. Professor Perry defines pacifism as a com- bination of non-resistance and neutralism. Non-resistance, commonly but erroneously confused with unselfishness, as a matter of fact, under present conditions, means saving one’s own skin and one’s own feelings while others suffer. Neutralism means refusing to take sides in the presence of a great struggle, and manifests itself in the present crisis in the attitude of those who declare that all parties are equally to blame or equally inno- cent, ‘an easy-going policy, for it saves the pain of decision, and permits the mind to muddle along in a state of flabby vacillation and procrastination.” Militarism Professor Perry defines as the spirit which regards war as necessary and irremediable, made necessary by the instincts of human nature. The first sign of the radi- cal militarist is a fatalistic acquiescence in war; the second, suspicion or misanthropy. ‘““ He who goes about with scorn or truculence or cold suspicion written on his face will find it reflected in every face he sees. On the other hand, a child wins kind words and kind looks because he so unhesitatingly and confi- dently assumes that he is going to get them.”’ Between the pacifism which is non-resist- ance under all circumstances and to all injus- tice and the militarism which regards war as necessary and irremediable, made necessary by the instincts of human nature, there is an essential, uncompromising, and irreconcilable hostility. But between love of peace and courage to fight there is no hostility. On the contrary, preparedness against war and pre- paredness for peace are identical. We pre- pare for peace by preparing against war. There may be some militarists in America who desire war and are dazzled by a vision of its glory, though we have never met with such nor with any expression of such opinion in American utterances. There doubtless are some militarists in America who regard war as an inevitable and permanent necessity and who have no faith in any plans to get rid of war and substitute peaceful methods for the settlement of international controver- sies. But such militarists are few in number. There certainly are a good many pacifists in America who put peace above justice, and whose love of peace is nothing more than a fear of war, and these pacifists are rein- forced, curiously, by that portion of our fellow-citizens who sympathize with Germany and desire her victory, and who hope to promote that victory by promoting not merely an official but a moral neutralism in America. But there are very few who really hold that no price is too great to pay to secure peace; very few men who would allow the kidnapper to carry off their children, or a big brute of a man to assault their daughters, or even a bur- glar to rob the bank of which they have been put in charge, without offering resistance. If to desire peace is to be a pacifist, prac- tically all Americans are pacifists. If to be willing to fight at the call of duty to defend life, liberty, and property when _lawlessly assaulted is to be a militarist, then practically all Americans are militarists. With Professor Perry, we condemn both “ the extravagances of a false pacifism and of a false militarism. In so far as they are committed to this extrava- gance both propagandas must be rejected. It is an intolerable dilemma which forces one to choose between being a sentimentalist and a reactionary. The great majority of think- ing men must decline to be either. . . .” You are opposed to militarism. What do you mean? Do you mean that you are opposed to the doctrine that war is necessary and irremediable and there is no hope of ever relieving society from its intolerable burden ? Then we are with you. You are opposed to pacifism. What do you mean? Do you mean that you are opposed to the doctrine
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174 that a government should allow its citizens to be oppressed, robbed, murdered, or en- slaved without resistance to the wrong-doer ? Then we agree with you. One may abhor war, and abhor even more the cowardice which allows the strong to see the weak trampled under foot without coming to their defense. One may love peace, but love justice more. If anything is to be accomplished effec- tively for National defense and international peace, those who put National defense first and international peace second and those who put international peace first and National defense second must combine their forces. To counteract these two forces of pacifism and militarism, those who believe in a true peace founded on law, maintained, when necessary, by force, must work together. LETTERS TO UNKNOWN FRIENDS Kindly explain why God shoula not be pres- ent visibly in the physical plane of his creation as well as he is in its spiritual plane, since he is omnipresent. The author ofa visible book is a visible man; that of an engine, a visible engi- neer ; that of a melody, an audible singer ; why not that of this physical universe physically tangible also? Pe: BF, God is spirit, and spirit is, by its very nature, invisible. We do not see the spirit of the author or the engineer or the singer. We see the physical form which that spirit animates. ‘The spirit of God animates the entire universe. We see him in the world which he is continually making, modifying, molding, changing, using, as man’s spirit uses his body. ‘That we may see more clearly his moral nature he has dwelt in the Man of Nazareth, so that we may understand how he dwells in all men and what kind of men he wishes us to be by his dwelling in us. If the Bible, or any particular version of it, is, in a peculiar sense and different from all other books, the word of God, it would seem that there should be unmistakable credentials of its origin and character, entirely apart from any deliverances of councils, assemblies, churches, or churchmen, and all so plain that wayfaring men, though fools, need not err. Will you point me to this evidence? N. The evidence that the Bible is different from other books is found in the fact that wherever it has. gone it has produced an THE OUTLOOK 22 September influence different from that produced by any other book or books. I think it was Whit- tier who said, “I believe that the Bible is inspired because it is inspiring.” Too much, however, has often been claimed for it by its admirers. It is not wise to claim for it more than it claims for itself, and what it claims for itself is that it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. If you question whether this is true, give it a trial. A very successful business man once said to me that the best book for a young man to study in order to succeed in business was the Book of Prov- erbs. When Dean Stanley’s mother died, Dr. Jowett wrote to him to read for inspira- tion and comfort the fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth chapters of John. If you will use the Bible in the spirit of these two counsels, use it for its teaching respecting the laws of life, for its reproof of an evil spirit and evil habits, for its useful- ness in pointing out practical ways of cor- recting what is evil, and for the light which it throws on the ever new problem how to live a right life, you will find in the results the evidence that it is, not inde 2d all that the church has sometimes claimed for it, but all that it claims for itself. Can you explain to me how Christ’s death atones for our sins? -How can the death of one man save us? M. Y. W. I do not believe that Jesus Christ died to induce God to forgive sins, that is, to appease God’s wrath; nor to enable God to forgive sins, that is, to satisfy his law. Not merely the death of Jesus Christ, but his whole life of humiliation and suffering, culminating in his death, was the means by which God Jor- gave sins. The forgiveness of sins, or, to use the New Testament phrase, the remission of sins, is the sending away of the sin itself, not merely the sending away of the punishment. The Lamb of God “takes away the sin of the world.” There is no way by which an unsuffering person can lift another person out from his sin, can cleanse him from his sin, can deliver him from his sin, without suf- fering with him because of his sin. A _par- ent who does not feel the shame of his son’s sin cannot save his son from that sin. In the story of the prodigal son it is said that the father had compassion on the son—that is, he suffered with him in his degradation. It was this suffering for him which led the father to go out and meet him. When the
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1915 son was ashamed of his own sin and the father was ashamed of the son’s sin, they were atone. At-one-ment—that is, reconcili- ation—was accomplished between them. It is because the Gospel declares to us that our God loves us and suffers with us in the shame and ignominy of our wrong-doing that we can come to him and in him find newness of life. 3 LyMAN ABBOTT. THE CASE OF MR. JAMES We applaud men of other nations when they become American citizens, but we are disposed to pass severe judgments on Ameri- cans who transfer their allegiance to other countries. Mr. Henry James has become an English subject and has furnished an easy mark for cheap journalistic wit. The Outlook regrets that Mr. James has changed his alle- giance, but it believes that the reason for his action entitles him to entire respect and ought to arrest the attention of those Americans who know that a great war is being waged in Europe, but have as yet not the slightest conception of the real issues involved in the struggle. —Too many Americans think it one of the numerous wars which have been waged between rival nations, differing from them only in magnitude. They think it can be settled, as other wars have been settled, by a group of diplomatists sitting around a table and dividing conquered territory as thieves divide plunder. They hug their prosperity, thank God that we are not as other nations are, and rejoice in the opportunity of pushing American business interests. Mr. James has a different view; he has become a British citizen because he thinks that the higher interests of civilization are at stake, and that no ‘man to whom humanity, national integrity, popular government, and in- dividual freedom are dear can remain neutral. A host of Americans who could not follow Mr. James and become English citizens feel with him that the priceless ideals, traditions, and principles defined and achieved in the age- long war for freedom of thought and action are now in imminent peril, and that in some way every man who holds the inheritance of freedom as a sacred trust ought to make his sacrifice and render his service in this great crisis in the life, not of England, France, and the other nations immediately involved in the war, but of the human race. If he is correctly reported, Mr. James feels OF INTEREST TO CLASSICAL FARMERS 175 that in a war between fundamental principles no man who is loyal to the rights of human- ity can remain neutral. That conviction is shared by thousands of Americans who refuse to put ease in place of conscience and to whom liberty is more precious than pros- perity. Mr. James has long been one of the Americans to whom the adjective ‘“ distin- guished ”’ could be applied ; there have been in him and in his work those qualities of ripe- ness, refinement, and dignity which are by no means common among American writers. Of late years the “subtle psychologist” in him has gained on the artist, and he has made fiction as difficult to the average reader as text-books in philosophy; but he has written a group of short stories and a few novels which belong to the literature of the world. The London “Times” recently de- scribed him as a “writer of genius, whose works are an abiding possession of all Eng- lish-speaking peoples.” Those Americans who regard any criticism of American morals, manners, and taste as disloyal long ago ac- cused him of lack of patriotism, as if patri- otism were an affliction like blindness instead of an open-eyed and fearless passion for the best in a nation, as love is a passionate long- ing to evoke the best in an individual. When a foreigner comes to the United States, makes his home here, does his work here, and finally becomes a naturalized citizen, we commend him. While we regret that Mr. James is no longer an American citizen, we see no reason for criticising in him what we commend in a foreigner. OF INTEREST TO CLASSICAL FARMERS There is nothing in modern farming which holds greater promise than the increased cul- tivation of alfalfa in regions suitable to its growth. As a forage plant and as arestorer of fertility to the soil it is gaining friends on every hand. Of the cultivation of alfalfa, of the introduction of new varieties, and of new methods of handling this useful legume the “Rural New Yorker,” whose pronounce- ments in regard to the latest agricultural developments may always be regarded as both conservative and authoritative, has this to say: A new wave of interest in alfalfa is spreading over the Eastern States. It comes with the
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176 spread of sweet clover and trial of the new Siberian varieties of alfalfa.... We think these new varieties are likely to succeed on many kinds of soil where the old kinds failed or merely half lived. As we know them better we shall have greater respect for them. The variety known as Semipalatinsk has not seemed to us very desirable for Eastern farms, and yet Professor N. E. Hansen, who brought these alfalfas from Siberia, writes: “The Semipalatinsk will surprise you, I think, after the first year. This variety makes abundant hay on eight inches of rain, but as to what these alfalfas will do with you can only be determined by actual trial. It seems specially adapted for transplanting in cultivator rows, as itis sure to grow even in the driest of seasons. Its seed-shelling habit is no special objection, as one pound of seed by transplanting will set twenty acres.” This matter of transplanting the seedlings will seem like a small thing to many of our farmers. Yet we believe it will be quite largely practical within ten years. We want to be very careful in talking about this new alfalfa culture. What we believe is one thing. What we expect our friends to believe is quite another. At any rate, alfalfa is coming faster than ever. Of course the American farmer is to be highly commended for his courage in ventur- ing into the newest of the untried realms of alfalfa culture. He will doubtless follow carefully the advice of his agricultural papers and of the experimental stations as to the preparation of his land for this experiment in modern farming. If he wishes to be very up-to-date, we recommend for his perusal an agricultural ‘ Bulletin,” written by one Colu- mella of Gades, who flourished about the mid- dle of the first century a.p. Fall plowing was no novelty to Columella, nor has any twentieth-century farmer ever realized more fully than he the necessity of preparing a suitable seed-bed for the reception of his alfalfa. Three times in the spring did Col- umella recommend the harrowing of the ground to be devoted to alfalfa, which, how- ever, he did not call alfalfa, a Moorish name, but medica. He asked, too, that the stones be removed (he never saw a New England hillside in the full glory of its stoniness) and that the clods be carefully pulverized. In “A Virginia Farmer’s” excellently human edition of Cato and Varro, Columella’s advice is thus in part well translated : When you have so got the land in good order, lay it off after the manner of a garden, in beds ten feet wide and fifty feet long, so that THE OUTLOOK it may be possible to let in water by the paths, and access on every side may be had by the weeders. Then cover the beds with well-rotted manure. At last, about the end of April, sow plentifully so that a single measure (cyanthus) of seed will cover a space ten feet long and five wide. When you have done this, brush in the seed with wooden rakes; this is most important, for otherwise the sprouts will be withered by the sun. After the sowing no iron tool should touch the beds; but, as I have said, they should be cultivated with wooden rakes, and in the same manner they should be weeded so that no foreign grass can choke out the young alfalfa. The first cutting should be late, when the seed begins to fall ; afterwards, when it is well rooted, you can cut it as young as you wish to feed to the stock. Feed it at first sparingly, until the stock becomes accustomed to it, for it causes bloat and excess of blood. After cutting, irri- gate the beds frequently, and after a few days, when the roots begin to sprout, weed out all other kinds of grass. Cultivated in this way alfalfa can be mowed six times a year, and it will last for ten years. We do not know whether Columella’s fear of the iron implement was prompted by the thought that the crowns of the young alfalfa plant might be injured, or by that same superstition which retarded the acceptance of the metal plowshare, and of which Newbold, the New Jersey pioneer in the field of modern agricultural machinery, was the victim. It will be remembered that New- bold’s neighbors were gravely of the opinion that the metal share both poisoned the ground and made the weeds grow! We know more of the theory of soil fertility and of the reasons for cultivation than did the contemporaries of Newbold and President Jefferson. We know, too, much more of the part played by bacteria in the successful cul- tivation of alfalfa than did either Varro or Columella. This is by no means to say, however, that the practice of agriculture has changed much in principle since the days of the Roman Empire. In the whole range of farming, from green manuring to the ‘* modern” movement back to the land, there is little enough that the farmers near Rome, New York, could teach those that once lived near its namesake, the Eternal City on the Seven Hills. ; We suspect, too, that any good farmer ol Varro’s time would have turned up his nose at the American who could not be persuaded to plant alfalfa because “the darn thing grew so fast you had to spend your whole time cutting it!”
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THE ANGLO-FRENCH COMMISSION IT COMES TO NEGOTIATE A HUGE LOAN WHICH THE UNITED STATES MUST MAKE IF IT WISHES TO SELL ITS SURPLUS WHEAT AND COTTON “\, NE of the most important events of () the war in its relation to this country is the arrival in New York of a spe- cial commission, representing England and France, which has come to negotiate, if possible, a great loan in this country of from half a billion to a billion dollars. The commission represents the Allies. The purpose of the loan is not directly to enable them to prosecute the war, but to enable them to continue to do business with this country. The bulk of this business is not, as many people suppose, the purchase of munitions. It consists chiefly of purchases of wheat, cotton, and other staples, as well as clothing, shoes, horses, foods, and the like. Serious interruption to this business is indicated by the sensational fall of foreign exchange through London from 4.85 to as low as 4.50. These figures tell the whole story to the financial expert, but to the ordinary man unfamiliar with the technique of international financial operations such a statement means little. Some people, even of considerable mercantile prominence and training, appear to think that the value of the English sov- ereign has fallen. But the problem is really a simple one and can be easily understood if it is translated out of financial jargon into human, every-day terms. A SIMPLE EXPLANATION OF ‘ FOREIGN EXCHANGE ” Many people confuse the value of the English pound sterling or sovereign with the value of drafts on London. ‘The gold in an English sovereign is worth, and will continue forever to be worth, $4.86 and a fraction in American gold. A draft on London, how- ever, expresses only what the American banker or merchant is ready to pay for an order entitling him to so many sovereigns in London. It is not the sovereign that has fallen from $4.86 to $4.50, but the price of drafts. Mr. Smith, an American, sells a thousand pounds sterling worth of cotton to Mr. Brown, an Englishman in London. The price agreed upon for all such transactions is commonly expressed in English money—pounds, shil- lings, and pence. In ordinary times the finan- cial routine is as follows; Mr. Smith makes a draft on Mr. Brown for a thousand pounds. He could, if he chose, send a messenger over to London and get the thousand sover- eigns, but the expense of such a method of getting his money would be so great as to be prohibitive. Mr. Smith’s office is in New York. There is another merchant in New York, Mr. Jones, who owes money in Lon- don. He has bought English goods and wants to pay for them. Like Mr. Smith, he does not want to send a messenger to Lon- don with his money. He is looking about for some means of paying his bill easily and cheaply. He finds out at a banker’s that there is another merchant, Mr. Smith, who has drawn a draft on London for a thousand pounds. He buys it of him through the bank, and mails the draft to London. Mr. Brown, through his English banker, honors the draft. Mr. Jones thus easily pays his debt, and Mr. Smith, with equal ease, gets the money for his cotton. In ordinary times Mr. Jones will not pay Mr. Smith $4.86 per sovereign or $4,866.50 for the thousand pound draft. He will deduct the interest for the time the draft is in transit and the amount for some other minor expenses. This reduces the value of a draft for one pound on Lon- don to $4.84, which is the standard rate, with slight fluctuations. Gold is shipped in ordi- nary times from England to America or from America to England only in small quantities, because the barter or exchange of products between the two countries is such that the business between them, as in the case of Smith, Jones, and Brown, can be settled by drafts. This is why all American tourists in Europe are able to take their money in the form of letters of credit or travelers’ checks. GOLD CANNOT TAKE THE PLACE OF CREDiT In this abnormal time of war, however, importations from England to this country are interrupted and checked. The large sums of money ordinarily spent by American trav- elers in England and France have ceased. There are fewer American merchants buying English goods, and they have less need of drafts on London to pay their debts. The price for drafts has therefore steadily fallen from $4.84 to $4.50 per pound ster- 177
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178 ling, just as with a falling off in demand the price of shoes or books or furniture or pic- tures or any other commodity falls. The result is that if Mr. Smith to-day wants to sell a shipment of cotton to London and makes the price in sovereigns, he must either get the sovereigns themselves from London or he must take the risk of losing money on his drafts. But he cannot get the sovereigns themselves, even if he should go over in person, because, while England is legally on a specie payment basis, English merchants will not pay out large sums of gold from motives of loyalty. Some means must therefore be found, if American merchants are to ship wheat, cotton, shoes, and clothing to England, of getting back to a steady and reliable basis of payment. This in its last and simple analysis is why the Financial Commission has come over from England and France. England and her ally, France, have made a futile effort to settle this difficulty by shipping gold to this country—and there have recently been some large and spectacular shipments—but England cannot drain herself of gold, for, while she can carry on her domestic commerce with paper money, she must have gold as a basis for her international obligations. THE NEEDS OF THE UNITED STATES If England and France can place a loan of seven hundred and fifty or a thousand mill- ions in this country and get American in- vestors to lend the money, no gold will go abroad. The proceeds of the borrowing will be placed to the credit of England and France, and when they buy goods from this country they will pay for the goods by orders on the American bankers with whom they have deposited the proceeds of the loan. There are two reasons why this enormous loan ought to be accepted in this country. First, it is essential for the military success of the Allies ; and their success means the political, moral, and financial welfare of this country. Second, the loan is essential to American com- mercial prosperity, because it is the only way by which we can be enabled to ship our sur- plus wheat, cotton, and manufactured prod- ucts to the Allies or to European neutral nations. In wheat and cotton alone we have an enormous surplus stock on hand. If some such arrangement as that proposed by this European commission is not made, the United States will suffer seriously in its finance and commerce. THE OUTLOOK 22 September THE PERSONNEL OF THE COMMISSION There is a singular personal, as well as financial, interest connected with the visit of the Anglo-French Commission. It consists of five Englishmen and two Frenchmen, all distinguished in the world of finance. One of the Englishmen is Viscount St. Aldwyn, formerly Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, who was widely known as an English statesman in the stormy days of Mr. Gladstone’s final leader- ship of the Liberal party in England thirty years ago. Lord Aldwyn has twice been Chancellor of the Exchequer in the English Cabinet, an office which requires exceptional financial talent and skill ; for under the direc- tion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer are made up the budgets upon which the entire system of British taxation and Government expenditures rests. The most picturesque member of the Com- mission, however, is Baron Reading, who is now Lord Chief Justice of England. His name before he was raised to the peerage was Sir Rufus Isaacs. He is a Jew, the son of a London merchant ; he ran away to sea as a young man, returned like the Prodigal Son and entered his father’s business, became a stock-broker and made a failure, and finally studied law. He has now reached the high- est possible pinnacle in the British legal pro- fession. Few Jews have become British peers, for it is hardly half a century since all disabilities were finally removed from Jews in England and full Parliamentary rights bestowed upon them. Lord Reading’s rise in his profession and in Government office is indicative not only of his exceptionally brilliant ability as a lawyer, but of England’s freedom from racial and sectarian prejudice. The importance of the deliberations of this Commission to the vast cotton-exporting interests of this country is recognized in the special character as experts of two other members of the Commission. Sir Edward Holden, head of the largest bank in England, the London City and Midland Bank, Ltd., having total assets of about $650,000,000, and one thousand branches, is a leader in cotton trade finance. He visited the United States about four years ago, and with Ameri- can bankers devised a method of safeguard- ing cotton bills of lading. Another member of the Commission is Mr. James Hope Simp- son, General Manager of the Bank of Liver- pool, Ltd. His bank is: very largely inter- ested in the cotton transactions of Liverpool, which are so important to the cotton-export-
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1915 ing interests of the United States and the cotton-manufacturing industry of Great Britain. GERMAN OPPOSITION It is credibly reported in the daily press that pro-German sentiment, quite possibly fostered by the German Government, in the Middle West is likely to interpose difficulties in the way of the success of this Anglo-French Commission. The proper exportation of wheat is so essential to the industrial prosperity of the West that we cannot believe that Western bankers and investors will let personal preju- dices interfere with the legitimate prosperity of the country. Mr. James J. Hill, who THE END OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 179 knows the wheat business of the Great North- west as well as any living American, says in an interview in the “ Wall Street News” that the United States will have to export not less than 375,000,000 bushels of its bumper wheat crop this year. ‘This enormous export trade must be largely carried on through London. “It is the farmer,” he says, “‘ who is most concerned here, who stands to lose if we re- fuse to make reasonable credit arrangements for the movement of our crop, or if that arrangement should be long delayed. In the interest of this country no time should be lost in the establishment of a European credit account for the marketing of the surplus food product of the United States.” THE END OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION to thirty-three the delegates to the New York Constitutional Convention adopted for submission to the voters of the State the revised Constitution which was summarized in The Outlook last week. The thirty-three who opposed the adoption of the revised organic law were almost all members of the reactionary group of machine Repub- licans which has opposed the Short Ballot and practically every progressive amend- ment suggested to the Convention, or Tam- many Democrats, whose excuse was that the proposed Constitution would give neither enough home rule nor a fair representation in the Legislature to New York City. The opposition to the Constitution was made up of five Republicans and twenty-eight Demo- crats. B' a vote of one hundred and eighteen PROGRESSIVE AND UNPARTISAN REFORMS The progressive leaders in the Conven- tion say that they had hardly dared to hope for as many reforms as the tentative Con- stitution contains. There was _ surprisingly little bitterness in evidence during the five months that the body was in session, which was in marked contrast to the Convention of 1894, when the Democrats, after vainly try- ing to defeat the adoption of the revised instrument, left the convention hall in a body and passed resolutions of protest. Senator Root, the president of the Conven- tion, did not exaggerate when, in reviewing the work of the Convention, he said: “ This Convention has risen above the plane of partisan politics. It has refused to make itself a vehicle for party advantage except as faithful service to the State reflects.credit on a party and redounds to its advantage. It has refused to play the game of practical politics. No caucus, no secret conference, has marred its deliberations.” As a proof of the absence of the partisan spirit, Mr. Root produced statistics showing that of the thirty-three amendments passed by the Convention, twelve had been adopted by a unanimous vote, twelve by a majority of more than ten to one, two by a majority of more than seven to one, two by a majority of more than four to one, two by a majority of more than three to one, and three by a ma- jority of more than two to one. There were one hundred and sixteen Re- publicans and fifty-two Democrats in the Convention. Practically all the important progressive amendments received an affirma- tive majority of the delegates of both parties. Ninety-seven Republicans and twenty-eight Democrats voted for the Short Ballot, with fifteen of each party against it ; one hundred and one Republicans and thirty-six Demo- crats supported the measure which gives the Governor the initiative in the budget, with only two of each party opposing. One hun- dred and two Republicans and eighteen Democrats carried the Home Rule proposi- tion against two Republicans and fifteen Democrats, while there were one hundred and three Republican and thirty-two Demo-
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180 cratic votes cast for the Judiciary article, and only one Republican and two Democratic votes cast against it. As we said last week, the three provisions of the Constitution of the most far-reaching importance are the Short Ballot article, which makes the Governor, the Lieutenant-Gov- ernor, the Attorney-General, and the Comp- troller the only State officials to be elected ; the provision for a scientific budget to be initiated by the Governor; and the granting of the principle of home rule to the cities of the State. These phases of the Constitu- tion are of National interest because they form the basis of a probable reconstruction of State government which we hope will spread throughout the Union. A BOSS WHO AMUSINGLY OVERREACHED HIMSELF A very important feature of the Short 3allot provision is that it does away with the right of the Senate to confirm or reject the Governor’s official appointments. More political graft and corruption has probably been promoted by this Senatorial power than by any other political agency in the State. - When the late Senator Platt, for example, was the acknowledged Republican boss of the State of New York, no Governor, with- out an almost impossible fight, could hope to have an appointee confirmed who was not satisfactory to Mr. Platt. It is astonishing that the political bosses and their friends let this measure go through the Convention as easily as it did. Nobody seems to know just how it happened, but an inkling of the matter may be found in the records of the Convention. .When it was apparent that the Short Ballot advocates were going to win in their attempt to make the Governor a real executive, Mr. Alfred E. Smith, better known as “ Al” Smith, a Tammany Assemblyman from New York City, taunted them with insin- cerity. He pointed out that one section of the Constitution professed to make the Gov- ernor actually Governor, while another section, giving the confirming power to the Senate, made the Senate actually Governor. Or, to use his own words: ‘ Now, if you mean it, and want to do it right, just take it [the power of the Senate to confirm appointments] out of there, and let the Governor appoint anybody he likes, and don’t have him begging around the doors of the Senate.” a When Mr. Smith was asked if he would vote for such a provision, he replied: “ Yes, THE OUTLOOK 22 September sir; I am going to offer that as an amenc- ment ; I am trying to get you to vote for it.” We suspect that Mr. Smith thought the Republicans would not vote for so radical a provision. But they did, to the surprise of everybody who knows how tenaciously Sena- tors hold on to their political power. Such was the genesis of one of the most surprising and far-reaching reforms of the new Consti- tution. ‘The Governor of the State of New York, if the Constitution is adopted, will, in respect to his appointments, be less hampered than the President of the United States. VOTERS WHO MAY DEFEAT THE CONSTITUTION Those who are familiar with political con- ditions in this State are of the opinion that there are four large classes of voters who may regard the new Constitution unsympa- thetically, even if they do not oppose it: First—The farmers may regard the increase of the salary of the Governor from $10,000 to $20,000 and of the salaries of Assemblymen from $1,500 to $2,500 as gross extravagance. We hope they will stop to consider that the same Constitution that makes these increases will reduce the ex- penses of the State by hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars by cutting down the number of departments, by creating a scientific budget of State expenditures, and by adopting the principle of serial bonds. Residents of the rural districts, it is asserted, will be opposed also to the provision of the Constitution which will enable the counties to abolish all local assessors and put all assess- ments for taxation into the hands of county officials. We believe this to be an advance in economy and efficiency. In some locali- ties to-day, under our confused tax laws, there are four different assessments on the same piece of property. The alleged objection of the farmers to the Tax article falls to the ground because each county can decide the question by its own choice, and because the Tax article in the Constitution is to be submitted separately. Second—Organized labor is reported to be disappointed with the new Constitution, not because of what it contains, but because of what it does not contain. The labor lead- ers wished it to be more explicit upon indus- trial questions, such, for example, as the minimum wage. One of the well-known labor leaders is an ardent advocate of the initiative and referendum and is an oppo- nent of the Short Ballot because he thinks
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1915 every workingman ought to have something to say about the choice of every State official. How much influence he can exert against the new Constitution remains to be seen. Both he and every workingman ought to remember that Mr. William Barnes’s attack upon the minimum wage, workingmen’s compensation, laborers’ pensions, and other social legislative proposals was defeated in the Convention, so that the new Constitution really protects the wage-worker, at least by implication, more than ever. Third—The police of the city of New York are alleged to be disappointed because the right which they now possess of appeal to the courts from the decisions of the Police Commissioner was not incorporated into the new Constitution. We hardly think, how- THE VOICE OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 181 ever, that as a body they will vote against the Constitution, which does not curtail their present rights in this direction. Fourth—Public school teachers and other municipal employees are supposed to be vexed because the provision for municipal home rule gives the city authorities the power to decide as to their salary and take away from them the opportunity of appealing to or log-rolling in the Legislature. In spite of these differences of opinion, we hope that people of the State will have enough interest in the common welfare to adopt the Constitution. It will do more to suppress graft and corruption and abolish “invisible government”? than any political enactment adopted by the State of New York for many years. THE VOICE OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE BY GEORGE KENNAN war began, the Russian people through their representatives in the Duma have given free expression to their thoughts and feelings concerning the domestic problems which the gigantic struggle has made so im- portant and sourgent. The Duma, it is true, has twice been convened before since the war began, but its first session was limited to a single day, and its second to two or three days, and on neither occasion had it time or opportunity to consider or discuss questions of domestic policy. Now, at last, the voice of the people has been heard in the Taurida Palace, and has begun to exert a controlling influence in national affairs. Russian papers just received here contain a mass of interesting information with regard to the historic session: of the Duma which began in Petrograd on the 1st of August. The legislative hall was crowded to overflow- ing; the Ministers were all present ; the dip- lomatic boxes were full; and in the space allotted to thenewspaper men and the public there was hardly standing room. Among the interested spectators were General Ruzski, commander of one of the Grand Duke’s armies, scores of wounded officers in uniform, and a large number of Sisters of Mercy in hospital dress. After prayer and the singing of the national anthem, M. V. Rodzianko, the presiding NOR the first time since the European officer, opened the session with a patriotic address, which was followed by speeches from the Premier, the Minister of War, the Minister of Marine, the Finance Minister, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Speeches were then made by selected representatives of the various political parties, beginning with the Monarchists and Nationalists of the extreme Right, and ending with the Social Democrats and Labor group of the extreme Left.- The most significant sentences in the address of the Premier were the following : ** We unhesitatingly face the truth, and rec- ognize the fact that the war threatens to be long and to demand renewed efforts and sacrifices. We are inflexibly determined to make such efforts and sacrifices, and we re- gard it as a necessity as well as a moral duty to take this course only with the sympathetic co-operation of the legislative chambers.” “The Government, for its part, will lay before you only bills demanded by the war. Other legislation, intended to improve the peaceful conditions of Russian life, will be temporarily laid aside, because this is not the time for programme speeches on _ political policy in general.” “The Emperor has graciously directed me to inform you, gentlemen of the Duma, that he has ordered the Council of Ministers to frame legislation which will give the Polish people, after the war, the right to organize
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182 freely their own national, cultural, and domes- tic life upon the basis of autonomy.” (Long- continued applause.) “ But in the heterogeneous population of our great Empire it is not only the Poles who, in this year of war, have shown their loyalty to Russia. Our domestic policy, therefore, must be characterized by impartial and benevolent regard for the interests of all true citizens of Russia, without regard to nationality, language, or form of religious belief.” (Loud applause.) “Success, sooner or later, will be ours; and while the conflict lasts may there be in Russia only one party—the party of war-to- the-end ; and only one programme—the pro- gramme that aims at victory!” (Loud and long-continued applause.) General Polivanof, the Minister of War, showed of what the nation is capable by stating that in the second reserve, and includ- ing only the young and vigorous, there were enrolled more than eight million men. Of this reserve, he said, it would be necessary at present to call out only a small part. The most vital and urgent need of the army, he declared, was not more men but more artil- lery, machine guns, rifles, and ammunition. The Germans won their victories not so much with men as with artillery—especially heavy guns—and an unlimited supply of high- explosive shells. | Russia’s deficiencies in these respects must be made good by the establishment or enlargement of manufac- tories capable of turning out war supplies. The most striking feature of all the speeches made in the Duma on this historic day was the determination expressed by both Minis- ters and Deputies to carry on the war to a victorious end, regardless of time and regard- less of sacrifices, losses, and defeats. War- saw was then being evacuated, and the Russian armies were being steadily driven back along the whole front; but not a single note of apprehension or discouragement was heard. In his opening address President Rodzianko said: ‘“* This war is attended with infinite difficul- ties and tremendous sacrifices; but the greater become its dangers the more inflexi- ble becomes our determination to carry it through to the only possible end—the com- plete defeat of our enemies.” Hardly had he finished this sentence when the whole assembly, in a blaze of enthusiasm, broke out into a great and long-continued storm of applause. From that time until THE OUTLOOK 22 September the end of the day every speaker in every political party insisted, with all possible em- phasis, upon the necessity of carrying the war through to a decisive and victorious conclu- sion ; and every expression of this view was greeted with tremendous applause from all parts of the chamber. The first attack upon the Government began when the Opposition benches were reached and Paul Milyukov rose to speak. This distinguished leader of the Constitu- tional Democrats declared that the temple of victory could not be erected upon the shift- ing sands of an unorganized people. ‘The nation was strong enough, but it must be informed, consulted, and given freedom to combine and act. In depriving the citizens of Russia of a chance to participate ‘in the management of the war and in making invid- ious distinctions between different classes of the population the Government was making a terrible mistake. In this great crisis a// citizens were ‘/rue citizens’ (referring to words used by the Premier), and it was shameful to keep in Siberian exile such patriots as Bourtsef and such innocent and loyal citizens as the banished members of the Second Duna. Bourtsef, he was informed, had just been pardoned, and that was a step in the right direction ; but an amnesty should be given to all political offenders. The Government erred also in discrimi- nating against and oppressing such so-called ‘alien’ nationalities as the Jews and the Ukrainians. These people too were “ true citizens of Russia,’’ and yet the authorities were shamefully ill treating the Jews, and were alienating even the Ukrainians of Ga- licia by sending to govern them the off- scourings of the provincial bureaucracy. This war, he said, was ostensibly being waged in defense of smaller and weaker nationali- ties, and there was a glaring inconsistency between the attitude of the Government toward such nationalities abroad and those within the boundaries of Russia. Milyukov also attacked the Government’s attitude toward the press and its foolish attempt to restrict freedom of speech. “In these momentous days,” he said, “if the newspapers are not given some freedom and independence, the people will lose all faith in them and will believe any absurd or mis- chievous rumor that may get afloat. Already the Government has had to contradict offi- cially alarming reports that are in circulation in the peasant villages. It is only through
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1915 the press that the nation can be enlightened and organized. To bring out all the latent strength of the people you must allow free intercommunication of ideas. If you prevent that, you weaken the nation and reduce popular thought to a state of anarchy. Still more is this true of the voice of the Russian people which you are now hearing in the Duma. If you whiten out obnoxious para- graphs in the published reports of the speeches, you will produce a disheartening impression, and will deprive the nation of the hope which is now its main support—the hope upon which it founds its faith in a triumphant conclusion of the war and a better future.” The text of nearly all the speeches of the liberal Deputies was furnished by the Premier when he referred to the necessity of giving “impartial and benevolent regard to the interests of all true citizens of Russia, with- out regard to nationality, language, or form of religious belief.’? Almost every speaker contended that in this time of war all citi- zens were “true citizens,’ and that the ambiguous word “true”? should be elim- inated because it furnished a basis for dis- crimination. Deputy Friedman, who spoke for the Jews, declared that his coreligionists had made as great sacrifices, had shown as much patriotism, and had fought as bravely as any class of the population, and yet their condi- tion was worse than ever. ‘“ Before the war,” he said, “ the leader of the Opposition, in commenting upon the treatment of the Jews, declared that we ‘were approaching the time of Ferdinand and Isabella.’ I now say to you that we have reached that time and passed it. The Jews of the fifteenth century had not shed their blood in defense of Spain. The Jews of to-day have shed their blood in defense of Russia, and yet they are accused of disloyalty and treachery, and are not only oppressed but are deprived of all rights. We knowvery well where the accusation and the oppression come from— they come from there ” (pointing at the Min- isterial boxes). ‘It is the Russian Govern- ment that is persecuting us, not the Russian people. More than half a million Jews have been driven from their homes on our western frontier by order of the military authorities, for the alleged reason that they were spies and traitors and could not be trusted near the field of active military operations. Jews were even driven out of insane asylums. In Mogilnin more than five thousand men, THE VOICE OF THE RUSSIAN PEOPLE 183 women, and children were expelled on foot in a single day. I myself saw the expulsion from Kovno, and among the expelled fugi- tives were the families of Jewish reservists and Jewish ladies who had been working with Russian ladies in the Red Cross. I even saw among these exiles wounded Jew- ish soldiers who had been decorated with the Cross of St. George for distinguished gal- lantry in battle. Jewish reservists who were actually on their way to the front to fight passed their own wives and children, who were being sent out of the country in freight cars like cattle. The cars were needed for the transportation of war supplies, and yet in one place there were 110 cars filled with Jews who had been sentenced to deportation. “ T have before me a letter from a Russian Jew who came back from America to fight for his country. In this letter he says: “«T returned to Russia by way of Arch- angel, simply because I cared more for my country than for my life or for the freedom I was enjoying in the United States. I entered the army, lost my left arm nearly up to the shoulder in battle, and was sent back for treatment to the province of Courland. Hardly had I reached Riga when I met in the railway station my own mother, who was being expelled from her home by order of the military authorities. Tell the gentlemen who sit on the benches of the Right that I do not regret the loss of my arm. What I do regret is the loss of my dignity as a human being, which I did have in the United States.’ ” After describing many other harrowing cases of cruel discrimination against the Jews, and after referring to the almost complete suppression of the Jewish press, Deputy Friedman said in closing : “ It is for you, gentlemen of the Duma, to speak the word and take the action which will rescue the Jews from their desperate situation, and give them the rights of Rus- sian citizens fighting for their country. Whether you will do this or not I cannot know ; but, if you do, you will not only dis- charge a debt of honor, but perform an act of wise statesmanship which will serve the interests and increase the greatness of our Fatherland.” At the conclusion of the speaking, and in proceeding to the “ order of the day,” the Duma adopted by an overwhelming majority the resolutions of the Nationalists and Octo- brists, which were in the following words: “We pay homage to the glorious and
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184 unprecedented achievements of our valiant army and fleet, and we trust that this year’s experience will strengthen the determination of the nation, and of our allies, to carry the war to a triumphant end. We believe that victory can be most quickly secured by en- listing the whole population in the work of providing supplies, and we believe, further- more, that this result can be attained only by reconciling discords, forgetting past political conflicts, and inducing the Government to regard impartially the interests of all true citizens of Russia, regardless of nationality, language, or form of religious belief. ** We are convinced that speedy victory can be secured only by a Government which is united with the country, and which has. the country’s confidence and support. We trust that the Government, with the co-operation of the Duma. the Council of the Empire, and the people, will surmount the difficulties which have hitherto stood in the way of adequately supplying the army with munitions, and we also trust that persons who are responsible for defects, evils, or maladministration will receive the severest legal punishment, no matter what their official positions may be. ‘- With the expression of these opinions and beliefs the Imperial Duma now passes to the order of the day.” An attempt was made by the Constitu- tional Democrats to amend the resolutions by striking out the ambiguous word “ true ” in the second sentence, so as to make the clause read: “‘ By inducing the Government to regard impartially the interests of all citizens of Russia,”’ etc. The Monarchists, however, wished to be able to discriminate between classes by call- ing some of them “true” and others not ‘“‘ true,” so, with the help of the Nationalists and part of the Octobrists. they rejected the amendment by a vote of 191 to 162. The Progressives made an attempt to amend the resolutions by including in them a declaration favoring a responsibility of the Ministry to the Duma, but this amendment also was rejected, even the Constitutional Democrats regarding such a change as inex- pedient at the present time. From this brief review of the first day’s session of the Duma it may seem as if few concessions were made by the Government and the ruling majority to popular demands ; but the voice of the people was heard never- theless, and on the following day the legisla- THE OUTLOOK tive chamber enlarged the Army and Navy Committee—which may perhaps be called the Council of National Defense—by adding twenty-three members, including nineteen liberals. Among the latter were-Milyuko, and Shingaref, the two great leaders of the Constitutional Democrats. ‘The Committee then reorganized by electing Shingaref as chairman. Never before since the dissolu- tion of the Second Duma has a Constitu- tional Democrat been put at the head of the most important of the Parliamentary com- mittees. Among the men who voted for Shingaref was Purishkevich, a Deputy who for years has been one of the bitterest of the reaction- ists, and who only a year or two ago declared, in the course of a debate in the Duma, that if he did not spit upon the liberal who was then addressing the house it was only be- cause he could not spit as far as the tribune. But Purishkevich has been serving with the Red Cross at the front, and his experience there seems to have changed his opinions, and almost his character. When, just before the election for chairman of the Army and Navy Committee, Markof 2d, another re- actionist, said to him, ‘‘ I hope you’re going to vote for our candidate,” Purishkevich replied caustically, ‘‘ I don’t need a nurse to tell me how to vote, but if you want to see my ballot, here it is,” and he showed him a ballot bearing the name of the Constitutional Democrat, A. I. Shingaref. “All right!” said Markof 2d. “ We'll remember this when you come up for re- election in the province of Kursk.” ‘‘T don’t care for your province of Kursk,” replied Purishkevitch. ‘ What I want is the defeat of Germany.” Among other significant indications of a change in the political atmosphere are the pardon of the revolutionist Bourtsef and the Finnish patriot Svinkuvud, both of whom are now in Siberia, and the sudden relaxation in the severity of the press censorship. For months before the meeting of the Duma from one to three columns were whitened out in the Petrograd “ Reitch” every day, but in the first two days after the Duma assembled hardly an item was expunged. It is perhaps a safe prediction that, as the difficulties that confront the Government in the conduct of the war increase, just in that proportion the rights and privileges of the people will be enlarged, and concessions will be made to the spirit of democracy.
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Current Events Pictorially Treated é b &. } i. £ : =. & sapvmendl BY INTERNATIONAL NEWS SERVICE OF STATE AT WASHINGTON The demand on the part of the United States for the Ambassador’s recall followed his unsatisfactory explanations as to his schemes for fomenting industrial troubles in American plants that are manufacturing munitions of war Dk. DUMBA, THE AUSTRIAN AMBASSADOR, LEAVING THE DEPARTMENT
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RICHARD S. CHILDS The father of the Short Ballot Movement which has led to the City Manager Plan in city governments and is likely to change the basic structure of State government in this country. See editorial comment on another page
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PHOTOGRAPH BY AIME DUPONT A POPULAR AMERICAN AUTHOR AND DRAMATIST Miss Jean Webster (who has recently become Mrs. Glenn Ford McKinney), an attractive picture of whom appears above, is widely known as the author of “ Daddy Long Legs,” a story which has been very popular both in book form andasadrama. Her latest novel,” My Enemy,” is now running as a serial in the “ Century Magazine”
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SULyj1aq AoU10}}Y JU4SIC] pure ‘PayopY JOALW ‘spooA, JouoIsstuWOD 921/0g jo aduasaid ay} Ul ‘TyeEP AWD ay} Jo yung Ul [[IIp B YFnosyy Suros usuradyod Areuoieqosd smoys uoIVaysNI[I BYT, *AQUuOYJa DIAID JOJ UOIZE}NGAaI B Suluurm aie OYM Us peules} jo Apoq & Mou are UBtADITOd $,431> YIOX MON SSILNG WIFHL WOA-ADVAd AHL AO SNVIGUVAD ONINVdAUd GOOMYESONN PF GOOMYZONN AS HdYH9OLOHd epo1reg 38 sdooxz3 uvstieury Aq poinqdyd se[tis8en3 ee a ee eae ee ee
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, ee ws a COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD THE LORD CHIEF JUSTICE OF ENGLAND IN HIS ROBES OF OFFICE Baron Reading (formerly Sir Rufus Isaacs), Lord Chief Justice of England, has come to America as the Chairman of an Anglo-French Commission that is expected to negotiate with American bankers one of the greatest loans of inter national financial history. This loan, though the United States Government has no official part in it, is essential to the maintenance of American trade with the Allies
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THE FUTURE OF THE PANAMA CANAL SECOND ARTICLE PANAMA AND THE CONQUEST OF THE TROPICS BY GEORGE H. BLAKESLEE HITE men. may live.in safety in the deadliest regions of the tropics —this is the great lesson of Pan- ama. ‘The sanitation of the. Canal Zone,” as Surgeon-General Gorgas states, .“‘is a world event.” -It has demonstrated that if sufficient care is taken and enough: skill and money are expended men from a temperate climate :may work in the tropics for years together with little: more risk.to health than at home. « It has proved that:the vast. poten- tial food supplies-from the hot, fertile middle belt of the world. may be made ‘available for the use of the thickly. populates countries of Europe.and America. This achievement: at: Panama. was. _made possible by the American sanitary success in Cuba during the military occupation of that island by the United States. Yellow fever was then the great terror of the foreign pop- ulation in Havana, and the American medi- cal experts determined to stampit out. Sur- geon-General Gorgas says, in describing their work: ‘I do not think there ever was a city in the history of the world that for.two years and a_ half ‘was! .so”: industriously ‘ swept, scrubbed, and.cleanéd from':one end. to, the other, and from :top to ‘bottom,’ as. Havana was .'. . [yet] it looked.very much as if the cleaner and better: hygienically we got the city, the worse we.were making yellow fever.” The American :doctors ‘stood. by the ‘side of their’ dying: patients ‘appalled and helpless, not knowing .whence: thé disease came nor how to prevent: it. :oFinally,. however;. by what has been called .‘‘the -most mathemat- ically convincing experimental work ever car- ried out in a medical subject,’’. the sanitary officers of the army proved that yellow fever is communicated by the: bite! of: an infected female stegomyia mosquito, and:by no other means. : This:showed the world ‘for the first time how to ‘fight the disease : by attacking these mosquitoes, destroying’ their breeding- places, killing: those at large, and screening the houses. As a result Havana, which for one hundred and fifty years had continually suffered from yellow fever, was at once entirely freed from this scourge. Of great importance, also,. was the re- duction in the number. of deaths from malaria. Shortly before the Americans came to Cuba the Englishphysicians in India-had discovered that malaria is carried only. by.the anopheles mosquito. « A crusade against the anopheles was carried out therefore in Havana, with the result that the annual number of deaths in the city from this disease was reduced from between four-.hundred and eight hundred a year to.the present average of. ten. to twenty. The sanitary.success in-Cuba had scarcely been - completed when :the . United States secured the Panama: Canal:Zone. The de- tails: of:the work in Havana .were not gen- erally, known, and .the stegomyia theory of the transmission” of - yellow: fever was not universally accepted even by sanitary experts. The * British: Medical Journal ” said in 1901 of the experiments. in Cuba, ‘‘ At the most, they are suggestive.” Fortunately, however, the sanitation of the Zone was placed in charge of Colonel: Gorgas, who -had super- vised the work in Havana: Here at the Isthmus of Panama, with its fifty miles of jungle and its two fever-stricken cities, was a supreme test whether modern scientific and sanitary methods could conquer thetropics. Probably no other spot in the world had such a bad record. - The general instruc- ' tions to the pilots of the British merchant ma- rine said at that time, ‘The Panama Canal district is one of the hottest, wettest, and most feverish regions in existence.’” In the old Spanish days the fever exacted a frightful toll as the tinkling donkey trains crossed the Isthmus trail with loads of gold and silver and the viceroys and- their suites and the conguistadores passed back and forth. In 1698,-when William Paterson, the founder of the Bank of England, attempted to lead a settlement to the Isthmus and ‘ wrest the keys of the world from Spain,” his colony of twelve hundred persons was almost wiped out by these tropical scourges. Soon after the United States had’ obtained California it sent a regiment of .810 men to garrison the new possession ; eighty of these soldiers died from disease as a result of simply cross- 193
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194 ing the Isthmus. During the building of the Panama Railroad, in 1850—5, yellow fever killed so many of the workers that. it. was said, though with much exaggeration, that every tie on the track cost a human life. When the French arrived, the medical knowl- edge and the sanitary methods of that time were powerless to check the disease. Every Frenchman who came to Panama knew that he would probably have yellow fever, and that one out of every three on the Isthmus would die. To stay and work on required heroic courage. The Old Guard of France never showed such losses in the battles of Napoleon as did the French engineers at Panama. When four hundred years’ efforts had failed to conquer the yellow fever, could the United States succeed? If not, there would be no Canal. Control of this scourge or abandonment of the enterprise was the con- dition which Colonel Gorgas believed he faced when he took charge of. the sanitary work in 1904. “I think it due to the French,” he wrote some years later, “ to say that we could not have done a bit better than they if we had known no more of these trop- ical diseases than they did.” The test came in the early summer of 1905. Theanti-mosquito methods.of Havana were unable to prevent the spread of a yellow fever epidémic, since the efforts of the sani- tary experts were hindered, thwarted, andmade well-nigh-useless by the red tape of United States Government regulations. It.is hard to realize that Panama,-to-day a synonym for unmatchedefficiency, wasin these early months a scene of governmental disorder... As the number. of new cases of yellow fever and of deaths increased, the employees and the offi- cials became more suspicious of. the newly adopted anti-mosquito methods. tore down the wire nettings from their veran- das, and the Executive Board of the United States Canal Commission recommended that ‘ some other sanitary engineer with different methods should be placed in charge. Finally, when in June there were sixty-two cases of yel- low fever, with nineteen deaths, a wild panic seized the American workers, and they rushed for the ships to take them back to the United States. It was only the lack of sailing ac- commodations.that. prevented the scattering of the entire working force and the col- lapse of the Canal enterprise within a year after its beginning. Fortunately, Colonel Gorgas was strongly supported by the newly Men -even. THE OUTLOOK appointed Governor of the Canal Zoue, C. E. Magoon ; the red tape was cut and he yellow fever stamped out. This was the real completion of the Panama Canal ;' the uncer- lying problem had been solved. But other tropical diseases were rampnt at Panama which had to be controlled before life and health would be reasonably safe on the Isthmus.. Malaria «was the most wide- spread.- Though not so fatal.as yellow fever, it constantly weakened.the physical strenyth of the workers, lowered their vitality and de- stroyed their efficiency... Surgeon-Geieral Gorgas said, “The amount of incapacity caused by. malaria is very much greater than that due to all other diseases.combined.”’ It was also much more difficult to check than yellow fever, for the stegomyia mosquito is in general a house mosquito and can be more readily destroyed than the anopheles, the carrier of malaria, which breeds in swamps, high. brush, and pools, and flies longer dis- tances. By heroic methods malaria was con- trolled. In: addition to giving the workers quinine as a preventive, affording them the best possible hospital care as soon as they were taken sick, and screening their houses, the sanitary experts. in the early months of this fight for health “cut down 16,000,000 square yards of brush a_ year, drained 1,000,000 square. yards of. swamps, cut 30,000,000 square yards of grass, maintained nearly 3,000,000 feet of ditches, emptied 300,000 night-soil cans and 1,000,000 garbage cans,.and fumigated 11,000,000 cubic feet of residential space.’”’ These heroic methods were successful. In 1906 there were 821 cases of malaria in the hospital. for every thousand of the Canal workers; in 1913 there were but 76 per thousand. Pneumonia also had to be combated, precau- tions taken against bubonic plague and cholera, and the general health of the community safe- guarded. New water and drainage systems were installed.in Colon and Panama and the city streets paved. and kept clean. All this resulted :in keeping the Canal workers well and efficient and in making the Canal Zone a healthy place to live in. The French, during the nine years of their construction work, with an average force.of 10,000, lost, accord- ing .to. the estimate of Surgeon-Gencral Gorgas, over 22,000. The Americans, with an average force of 33,000, lost by disease during practically the same length of time only about 4,000. The average death rate in -the entire Zone, including both natives and
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COPYRIGHT BY CLINEDINST GENERAL WILLIAM C. GORGAS General Gorgas was bora in Mobile, Alabama, in 1854; received the degree of M.D. from Bellevue Hospital Medical College (New ork University), 1879; became a surgeon in the U. S. Army in 1880; exterminated yellow fever in Havana, 1898-1902; in 1904 became chief sanitary officer of the Panama Canal; was appointed Surgeon-General of the U. S. in 1914
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A MALARIAL MOSQUITO “* English physicians in India had discovered that malaria is carried only by the A xofheles mosquito.”” In Panama malaria was greatly reduced by exterminating these mosquitoes foreigners, and_ in- cluding the two cities of Colon and Pan- ama, was reduced from about 50 per thousand in 1905 to a minimum of 18.19 in 1909. This is con- siderably lower than the average - death cities as New Orleans, THE YELLOW FEVER MOSQUITO **Vellow fever is communicated by the bite of an infected female States alone some ‘ - Stegomyta mosquito, and by no other means. . . Yellow fever has rate in such American been one of the world’s greatest scourges, and it has been mastered ” A “HARMLESS ” MOSQUITO This mosquito (Culex sollicitans), though it does not carry disease, has long been a great pest in the Eastern States, but improved methods of fighting it have lessened its numbers The sanitation of Havana and of Pan- ama is surely a “world event.” First of all, it has conquered yel- low fever. During the past century this scourge has cost the people of the United 500,000 lives and many millions of dol- Washington, and Fall River. The death rate from disease among the Americans only, including women and children, was in 1913 but 3.16 per thousand. These results prove that health even in the tropics is a purchasable commodity; that money, skill, and unceasing vigilance, together with the knowledge of the transmission of yellow fever and malaria, can buy relative freedom from tropical disease. In the Pan- ama Canal Zone the total health bill of the United States during the ten years of the construction of the Canal, including expenses for both sanitation and general health, was $20,000,000, or, roughly, five per cent of the total cost of the Canal. 196 (These pictures are drawn on a slightly different scale, being of course much enlarged) lars, yet, when an old- type yellow fever epi- demic struck New Orleans in 1906, and panic seized the people, the United States Public Health Service, by the enforcement of Panama methods, quickly and effectively stamped out the disease. ‘That was the last yellow fever scourge in this country. American methods have won an even more striking victory in Brazil. The two chief sea- ports of that country, Santos, the great coticce port of the State of Sado Paulo, and Rio ce Janeiro, the capital of the Republic, had for many years never been free from attacks of yellow fever. In both harbors there were times when foreign merchant vessels were unable to leave, most of the sailors being ~_ - ae Oo oe dee eck a tm
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Vu Ge PHOTOGRAPH BY PAUL THOMPSON SANITATION WORK AT COROZAL Employees of the Sanitary Department spreadiug oil along ditches to prevent mosquitoes from breeding dead or seriously sick. The ships had to wait for new crews to come.from Europe. Even men-of-war were not exempt; the Italian Lombardia lost 135 out of 400 men. Santos was sometimes practically | abandoned by its inhabitants, who fled to the hills. The fever could not be stamped out in these Brazilian ports any more than in Havana until the anti-mosquito methods had been discovered and applied. In Santos some improvement was made when new docks were built, for these did away with many of the breeding-places of the stegomyia mosquito ; but the scourge still continued. Finally, Dr. Adolpho Lutz, the Director of the Bacteriological Institution of the State of Sao Paulo, learned of the revo- lutionary work in Havana, probably through Dr. Horace Lane, President of the American MacKenzie College in Sao Paulo, and resolved to put the yellow fever discovery to a practi- cal test. He carried a number of stegomyia mosquitoes from a region where yellow fever did not exist to a considerable distance, where they were permitted to bite yellow fever vic- tims. The mosquitoes were then taken to stil another district, free from yellow fever, where they bit a number of persons who offered themselves for the experiment. Those who were bitten contracted the disease. After this additional demonstration of the sound- ness of the mosquito theory, the authorities followed the Havana methods in Santos, and completely exterminated the disease. In Rio, the Rev. H. C. Tucker, the repre- sentative of the American Bible Society, called to the attention of Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, the lead- ing Brazilian scientist, the details of the work carried on at Havana. For two years reports and pamphlets of the United States Govern- ment and personal letters from the American sanitarians in Cuba were furnished to Dr. Cruz. By adopting the plans which they outlined he completely stamped out yellow fever in Rio. These same methods were then successfully extended to the other coast ports of Brazil. A much more recent victory was won in Iquitos, the Peruvian rubber port, near the head-waters of the Amazon. ‘The place had rarely been free from yellow fever; but an American surgeon, secured from the United States, stamped out the disease in about six months. Yellow fever has been one of the world’s greatest scourges, and it has been mastered. Surgeon-General Gorgas believes that it will 197
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198 entirely disappear within two or three dec- ades, and that the next generation “ will look on the yellow fever parasites as we do on the three-toed horse—as an animal that existed in the past, without any possibility of re- appearing on the earth at any future time.” More difficult to control, from the sanitary point of view, than the coast and river ports of Brazil, is its vast jungle-covered interior. This is the most extensive fertile section of the globe which has not yet been occupied by civilized human beings. While it is mar- velously productive naturally, it has an almost deadly climate. Can white people live here even temporarily and make it subservient to civilization? This vital question the Panama Canal has answered in the affirmative. In the interior of Brazil, over five hundred miles beyond Manaos, which is_ itself nearly one thousand miles from the Atlantic and is remembered as the city from which Colonel Roosevelt emerged from the jungle, there are two hundred miles of rapids on the Madeira and Mamore Rivers, the great tributaries which flow into the Amazon from the south. For many years the necessity of a railway around these rapids has been real- ized, but three different attempts to build the road, before the days of the new sanitation at Havana and Panama, completely failed, just as the French failed at Panatna, because of the ravages of tropical disease. But in 1907 the Madeira Mamore Railroad Com- pany, a United States corporation with head- quarters in New York, undertook the: task. It placed Dr. Carl Lovelace, an American physician, in charge of the sanitation. He and the forty other physicians who assisted him during the five years of the work put into force here, in the interior of Brazil, the methods used at Panama. ‘They proved that these torrid, rain-soaked jungles of the Amazon could be made fit places for the tem- porary homes of white men. It cost their company $1,000,000; but they won. In summarizing their work Dr. Lovelace says in a recent letter: ‘ Porto Velho is a town which we built de novo, in one of the most malarial places in the world. By dint of screening the houses and oiling the mosquito- breeding waters we reduced malaria in that town to a mere fraction of its former inci- dence. . . . We proved that in tropical Brazil, just as in tropical Panama, white men may live, and live on a high plane of endeavor. Panama was, however, our model and inspira tion.” THE OUTLOOK Another striking example of what Panama is doing for health in the tropics is seen in the sanitation of Guayaquil, long known as “the pesthole”” of Ecuador. So bad were conditions there that a couple of years ago the Government of Ecuador asked the United States for sanitary assistance. In compliance with this request Colonel Gorgas was sent to make a thorough investigation of the situa- tion. He later presented a series of recom- mendations which are now being carried out by the great English engineering house of J. G. White & Co. The result is that the harbor and city of Guayaquil will soon cease to be a menace to the health of the west coast of Central and South America. What Guayaquil is doing will probably be accomplished before long in all the ports within easy sailing distance from Panama. The rigid quarantine which is maintained at the Canal is a most powerful incentive to them to take measures to avoid the business disaster which disease brings to tropical ports. Surgeon-General Gorgas summarizes his faith by the expression: ‘‘ Panama means the eventual sanitation of all Central Amer- ica.” Large sections of the Central American and the Caribbean lowlands have already been made sanitary, not through govern- mental action, but by a business corporation, the American United Fruit Company. Some years ago, in the seventies, when one of the founders of this company was attempting to build a railway in Costa Rica, tropical disease took four thousand lives for the first twenty- five miles of the road. An unacclimated white man could hardly stay a week in this region and live. Yet to-day, after the intro- duction of modern sanitation and the appli- cation of the lessons of Cuba and Panama, the United Fruit Company. operates, free from. tropical scourges, cultivated areas aggregating about five hundred square miles. These lands are all in the Caribbean region, and most of them in the low-lying and natu- rally deadly sections of Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, and Colombia. The company is responsible for the health of 65,000 em- ployees and dependents. It operates nearly one thousand miles of railway and ninety steamers which come in and out from these shores. Yet a year ago it did not havea single quarantinable disease on any of its estates or on any of its steamships. The death rate throughout its extensive posses- sions has been steadily reduced until it is
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£ din oe gat. — genes vice gy mee EE at ee | A HOSPITAL FOR SUFFERERS FROM MALARIA AND OTHER .TROPICAL DISEASES “The sanitary conquest of the tropics, one of the greatest achievements of all history, has been practically accomplished within the . past seventeen years” now nearly as low as that of the older countries in the temperate zone. ‘This former wilderness has been turned into one of the most productive regions of the globe. This result has been obtained only by much money, scientific knowledge, and unceasing vigilance. If men should attempt to clear any of the coastal lands of the Caribbean with no more precautions for health than they would use in the United States, most of them would be dead or incapacitated within a few months. The United Fruit Company has spent nearly half a million dollars on hospitals and permanent sanitary equipment, it keeps a competent staff of physicians at every settlement, and the past year ex- pended about $355,000 to preserve the health of its employees and dependents. But this financial outlay has paid, even from a_busi- ness point of view. ‘The company had demon- strated that a private corporation can operate successfully on a large scale, with safety to the health of those concerned, in one of the worst sections of the tropics. In tracing the results of the sanitation of Panama, it is a long jump from the Caribbean to the Transvaal and Rhodesia. Yet it was to these countries of South Africa that Surgeon-General Gorgas was officially in- vited, somewhat over a year ago, that he might point out how the excessive death rates and the undue sickness there could be re- duced. After investigations of some weeks he made valuable reports, in January and February, 1914, in which he described the methods by which malaria, which was the scourge of the white settlers in Rhodesia, might easily be prevented and pneumonia and certain other diseases among the native Negroes in the Transvaal mines might be greatly lessened. He explained how the death rate from pneumonia among the black workers in Panama had been reduced from 18.74 per thousand in 1906 to 1.30 in 1912, and stated that the mortality from pneumonia among the blacks in the Transvaal mines, which had reached a maximum monthly average of 15 per thousand in 1913, would undoubtedly be reduced to about 2 per thousand by the adoption of the sanitary 199
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200 THE OUTLOOK system used at Panama. If these American methods are carried out in South Africa, thousands of lives will be saved and health and efficiency greatly promoted in this newly developed region. In the world-wide fight against tropical diseases the United States has won other victories than those at Cubaand Panama. It has carried through the first systematic and successful attempt to eradicate hookworm from a whole people. In Porto Rico, where probably ninety per cent of the entire popula- tion were infected, the 22 Septembe: work in India and other Oriental lands are under consideration: On almost the other side of the globe from Panama, in the Philippine Islands, -American sanitarians have proved that an entire coun- try, though in the tropics, may be made rela tively healthy. They have reduced the death rate in Manila, the capital, from an average of 46 per thousand to 24. By digging eight hundred artesian wells they. have brought to large sections of the archipelago pure drink- ing water instead of their former polluted supply. They have disease has been large- ly eradicated in the towns and cities ; and in our own Southern States, where some two million people were suffering from it, whole regions have been made healthy and efficient. So striking have been the results obtained that the Rockefeller Founda- tion has organized the International Health Commission to. assist other governments in stamping.out the dis- ease in tropical and semi-tropical lands. From reports and in- vestigations it has been. estimated - that hookworm infects fifty percent of the laboring practically stamped out smallpox, which formerly averaged about 45,000 deaths a year; and, by the most careful preven- tive measures, have kept cholera and _ bu- bonic plague away from the _ islands. Their success has brought . representa- tive sanitarians from nearly all of the Orient to the Philippines in order to study the methods by which these triumphs have been brought about. These Philippine offi- cials have also organ- ized the Far Eastern Association of Tropi- cal Medicine, made up of representatives population of Egypt, PxoTocraPt ev Harris & EWING seventy-five per cent RICHARD P. STRONG of the various Orien- tal. countries, which, a7 y oa, NJ a ~ ; + . ° Over a year ago, Dr. Strong made a study of certain diseases cf through its meetings of the population of Peru which for centuries have afflicted that country.” More re- é South China, sixty cently Dr. Strong has been engaged in fighting the typhus fever and discussions, com- which threatened to exterminate the inhabitants of Servia to eighty per cent in India, and ninety per cent in Ceylon; and is prevalent in nearly all tropical countries, including those of Central and South Amer- ica. It had been supposed that the mere heat of the tropics made its inhabitants list- less, lazy, and often useless ; but.it has been definitely proved that, in a large measure at least, these traits are due to diseases, of which hookworm is one of the most debilitat- ing. ‘The International Health Commission has already arranged to assist in fighting the disease in the British West Indies, British Guiana, Egypt, Costa Rica, and throughout the Republic of Panama; while plans for municates the discov- eries and achievements in one land to all the others, and leads a united attack upon tropical disease. While. the Americans publish in the Philippines more medical material of scientific value to tropical sani- tarians than all the rest of the Far East combined, they nevertheless give full credit to the splendid work of others, especially of the British physicians in India, who discovered the methods of the transmission both of malaria and of bubonic plague. Yet another means by which the United States is influencing the sanitary control 0: the tropics is the establishment of medicai > 2 te bee A tk eee
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1945 schools especially endowed to investigate tropical diseases. The foremost is the re- cently founded Department of Tropical Medi- cine of Harvard University, which is in charge of Dr. R. P. Strong, formerly Director of the Government Biological Laboratory at Manila. This Harvard School has already made im- portant discoveries. Over a year ago Direc- tor Strong and his assistants made a study of certain diseases of Peru which for centuries have afflicted thatcountry. They succeeded, for the first time, in proving the precise nature and character of these scourges, and made hopeful progress towards perfecting a successful means of vaccinatién against one. of them. The sanitary conquest of the tropics, one of the greatest achievements of all history, has been practically accomclished within the past seventeen years. Within this period it has been proved that malaria is transmitted by the anopheles mosquito (1898), yellow fever by the stegomyia mosquito (1900-1), and bubonic plague by fleas carried by rats (1906). These and other scarcely less important discoveries, although much remains -to be done, have given enough, knowledge of tropical diseases to serve as a basis for their control. “ But this knowledge would be of little value if it were not properly applied. © Here is the great significance of Panama. It has given the first complete world demonstration that even the pest-holes: of the tropics may be made safe and healthy. Seventeen years ago, for any considerable number of whites to go from the temperate zone into the tropics for any length of time was more dangerous than to go into battle. To-day it is scarcely more dangerous, where modern sanitation has been established, than it is to stay at home. This victory over the tropics has results of far-reaching consequence for the world as a whole. It opens up the resources of some of the most extensive and richest parts of the earth’s surface. Brazil and Central Africa are almost limitless in area and in fertility, THE FUTURE OF THE PANAMA CGANAL 201 ana are becoming constantly ‘more essential since the agricultural lands of the temperate zone are already reaching their limit of expan- sion. Panama has shown that it is now pos- sible, as it was not seventeen years ago, for great commercial companies to turn hundreds of square miles of jungle into tropical gar- dens, and to employ, without undue sickness and death, large forces of both native and white laborers and overseers. This is an achievement of world magni- tude. But has Panama proved more than this? Surgeon-General Gorgas says: “I believe that again great tropical empires will be known, such as existed in the early history of man—such as Egypt, Babylon, and Nine- veh; that from the period of the Panama sanitation willbe dated the beginning of the great white civilizations in these regions.” But whether “ great white civilizations ” in the tropics are now possible and probable is still an unsolved question. Other eminent sanitarians are not so hopeful as Surgeon- General Gorgas. It is doubtful whether a great white civilization can exist in Central Africa, the white inhabitants living there permanently, rearing children from genera- tion to generation, and maintaining health, efficiency, and civilization to compare favor- ably with that now existing in the United States. The problem is, in a way, a new one since Panama has given the first exam- ple of a disease-free life in the hot middle belt of the world. Notwithstanding the won- derful health record on the Isthmus, it is well known that many individuals in both Panama and.the Philippines have been unable to continue for any period of years, without a change, the routine of a tropical life. It would be a pity to solve at once all the problems of the tropics and leave nothing for the future. Panama has proved enough for the present. It has robbed the tropics of its terror; it has made possible healthy and efficient life within its borders; it has given the key to unlock the remaining treasure stores of the earth.
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BERKSHIRE HILLS THE Z a x a “A >< vA < es AN
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THE COUNTRY CLUB AND THE ABANDONED FARM BY HENRY HOYT MOORE WITH PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR CITY man or woman occasionally A reclaims one of the outworn farms that are all too numerous in the remoter parts of New York or New England; but this individual ‘ back to the farm ” move- ment furnishes probably only a slight offset to the “away from the farm” movement which for years has been depopulating the country and further crowding the cities. The individual city resident must be possessed of money and perseverance if hé can make the farm pay dividends of any sort when the origi- nal owner thereof has given up the job as hopeless ; and he frequently finds his life on the reclaimed farm as dreary socially as did his predecessor. But what a single experi- menter, working alone, finds impracticable can often be accomplished by a combination. The farmer’s worst foe in the conflict with his surroundings is often his isolation ; the city man has learned the advantages of work- ing with his fellows, in‘ business, in sport, and in social enterprises. This lesson of combination which has been learned by city people is now being put to use by some of them in making the aban- doned farm region again populous, attractive, and profitable at least in dividends of pleas- ure and health. If the farmers abandon their farms, here surely is the opportunity of city residents, in groups, to get “back to the farm” in a different way—to obtain attractive country homes at a modest cost; to get into the genuine unspoiled country ; to take their own social life with them; to restore to the land its elemental charm in the conservation of forests and game. The attempt of one such group of city men to do this is here outlined. Selecting a region midway between*New York and Boston, in the outlying Berk- shire Hills, they quietly began through one of their members to buy up abandoned or run-down farms. Farmers are proverbially willing to sell if they can get their price for their landed possessions ; and most of the hill farms in the ‘more remote districts of New England and the Middle States are held at reasonable figures. Many farms, indeed, can be bought at absurdly low prices—for much less than the mere cost of the buildings on them. The farms bought by this group of men included the shores of a beautiful lake, several hundred acres in extent, from which a brook led to a depression which was |ater dammed up, the resulting pond being stocked with trout. The lake itself provided good fishing and fine opportunities for swimming’ and canoeing ; its shores, heavily wooded to the water’s edge, made, after a certain amount. of clearing had been done, ideal sites for bungalows and cottages. Several thou- sand acres were thus secured, mostly at nominal prices. A club-house was then built —not an imitation of the palatial home of a metropolitan club, but a reconstructed farm- house that happened to be conveniently situ- ated near the lake. Here members could come or send their friends, sure of a wel- come, and of wholesome if not luxurious fare during a week-end or a longer visit. The prime appeal of this enterprise to reclaim the abandoned farms was in this case a love of sport—hunting and fishing. Deeper than most men’s love of business is their love of the open road and the forest path, of the gun and the rod. Some hundreds of thou- sands of years perhaps are behind us in our instinct for a life outdoors, for hunting game and catching fish, while for only a few mil- lenniums have we troubled our brains about markets and profits. ‘The average man likes the feel of a gun in his hands, and these average men joined hands in forming this association for giving them the opportunity of using the gun when they get it. The club breeds pheasants and mallard ducks in large numbers, employing expert gamekeep- ers to care for the birds. ‘These are liber- ated when grown, and form part of the hunting attractions of the estate. Deer have become plentiful on the club’s domain, and under the State’s restrictions furnish exciting sport during the open season. Wildcats, foxes, coons, and Canadian ‘“ snow-shoe ”’ rabbits find coverts in the forests of the estate, and multitudes of birds of prey are drawn to the 203
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M-HOUSE OCCUPIED FAR AN UN 2 ta A _— =) % o N Z ~ S) +) - Dd =) rs D e = S) > a o Ss) a < =“ = < 4
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q90qa SMALVYM AHL OL GaYaAAWIL ATIAVGH SI messi ema ef UTC TVA Se TSF (GTS
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NOT FAR FROM THE CLUB’S PROPERTY IS A WONDERFUL VIEW FROM A POINT APPROPRIATELY CALLED “SKYLAND”
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THE CLUB’S BUNGALOWS ARE INEX ) t, BUT THEY MAKE CHARMING SUMMER HOMES FOR THE FAMILIES OF THE MEMBERS
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THE. GAMEKEEPER’S PET—A FIVE-DAY-OLD PHEASANT THE YOUNG PHEASANTS ARE A STRIKING EXAMPLE OF PROTECTIVE COLORING—THEY SEEM TO MELT INTO THE EARTH
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THE COUNTRY CLUB AND THE ABANDONED FARM locality by the presence of tender young pheasants and toothsome wild ducks. In the attractive log cabin of.the club’s presi- dent one sees a splendid mounted specimen of the great horned owl. ‘“ Some. people may feel that it is not pleasant to shoot an inoffensive deer or a harmless rabbit,” said this gentleman; ‘but few humanitarians would have any compunction about killing that fellow. He was simply a slaughterer ; he killed twenty-six of our ducks before we got him—just ate a part of the head of each victim and then went on with his slaughter.” 209 camping out will thoroughly enjoy a summer in this vast preserve ; the woman who prefeis simple comfort in a pretty bungalow on the lake shore with the society of congenial neighbors and of week-end visitors, and who finds one of her chief pleasures in watching her children grow sunbrowned and healthy while living their life in the woods and on the waters, will be found here. The advantage of cheapness of land has for the club’s mem- bers the added benefit that comes from cheap building material for the bungalow ; for the club’s forests are theirs for the cost of cutting ON THE TROUT POND—A SWAMP TRANSFORMED INTO AN ARTIFICIAL LAKE Hawks, too, are destructive of the game birds, and must be kept in check. The head gamekeeper informed me that he had killed as many as six hawks in one day while they were seeking tender tidbits among his young charges. But while hunting and fishing appeal to the men of this abandoned farm community, it is the quiet and beauty of the region that brings the women and children to it. The fashion- able woman will not regard life at this club as specially attractive ; her place is at the dressy summer hotel or the more pretentious cot- tage of mountain or seashore. But the woman who can get genuine pleasure from them down and sawing them into lumber. An attractive summer home, the writer was assured, can be built here for about seven hundred dollars ; and if the city luxury of a bathroom is demanded, the cost might still be within a thousand dollars. On some of the more exclusive game pre- serves which have been formed by wealthy individuals of late years, there have been difficulties in respect to the relations of the proprietor with the surrounding population. But the club in question has always main- tained a friendly attitude towards its neigh- bors. They find their best market’ at: the club-house ; they assist in building the bun-
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210 THE OUTLOOK galows and the boats; they are the chauf- feurs and the mechanics and the helpers, finding attractive work and good pay on the club’s estate. And once a year the club’s baseball nine and a nine made up of the young farmers of the adjacent territory meet in generous rivalry. The game that the writer saw was surely a thriller! The score, which happened to be 17 to 7 in favor of the club’s nine, does not indicate the closeness of the struggle up to the fateful seventh inning. But after the contest was over all hard feel- ings as to the umpire’s decisions, and all debates as to critical points in the game, were forgotten in the delights of a picnic arranged by the club, at which sandwiches, coffee, watermelon, and ice-cream cemented the friendship which it has always been the club’s aim to maintain between its members and all its neighbors. Sitting around a cheerful open fire in the president’s bungalow on a cool summer eve- ning—for the evenings even in midsummer are almost always cool enough in this high altitude to make a wood fire attractive—one hears the story of the club’s growth from small beginnings ; of the various steps by which its thousands of acres have been secured ; of the increasing attraction which its varied activities present to the wives and children of the members; of the glorious frosty nights in the fall, when perhaps a coon hunt may be organized, and of its exciting incidents in the scramble across country of dogs and hunters ; of the delights of game suppers ; of the fascination of the new weap- ons which the art of the gunsmith provides ; of the winning of trophies on the clay courts; of fishing by moonlight on the lake; and finally of the charm of a week-end visit to the club in the winter, with the pleasures of old- fashioned sleighing, of skating, and of hunting on snow-shoes—and one realizes that the abandoned farm country has come to its own again in this new usefulness that has made it a recreation ground for the disinherited lovers of nature whose lot has been cast in the cities. THE YOUNG PEOPLE SPEND MUCH OF THEIR TIME ON THE LAKE oo oe O86 88lUetllUelU lm
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A PEEP INTO THE EDUCATIONAL FUTURE BY DOROTHY CANFIELD FISHER of a man’s life depends not ‘on the calendar but on the geographical posi- tion of his home. There are in remote parts of India tribes who still dwell in the stone age, and everybody knows one or more phi- losophers who live about a.p. 2015. In my own case, living on a side road on the flank of a mountain in Vermont, it goes without saying that I am living about fifty years ago. We do things for ourselves. ‘That is the mark of a bygone generation. When we want roast chicken, for instance, we do not sit down at a table and order roast chicken. We go out after dark, select our fowl, cut its head off, pluck it, dress it, and in due time roast it. Bread for us means procuring the yeast, the flour the salt, and the water, and combining these ingredients in the right proportions. We buy our milk from a neighbor. We fetch it home ourselves, and Se w:se man has said that the date we are intimately cognizant of the source of it. If the cow is indisposed, we go without milk for a few days, and we aid ‘our neighbor in the strenuous undertaking of giving the cow the inevitable linseed oil. We plow and har- row Our own garden, sow and water and weed it, and when the vegetables are ready we pull or cut them ourselves, wash and prepare and cook them. If we did not do these things, we would go without vegetables. Stone age simplicity could go no further. Like the other inhabitants of 1855 or | thereabouts, we read for the most part serious books. Not long ago I had been perusing several extremely serious books relating to the practicability, or lack of it, of Socialism, of communized effort as a basis of human life, when carried out in details. Each author had a different opinion, not only about the desirability of this principle of organization, but about its possibility. While I was con- scientiously trying to weigh their different arguments pro and con I was called away from home to look over an open-air school, said to be a very modern school—-in deed, the most modern of schools.. I took the night train from home, spent the night comfortably asleep in that magic carpet the sleeping-car, and woke up five hundred miles and about a hundred years from home. For in that first half-hour of fresh vision when one looks at a new thing and really sees it I perceived that my various authors were discussing the feasibility of a condition which had unobtru- sively arrived under their very noses. And everybody else was so used to it that it passed unnoticed. I took a big street car—an enormous, for- midable structure it seemed to me, used as I am to going out to the barn to hitch up before getting to town. ‘This was soon filled with plainly dressed people (it was early in the morning), who absent-mindedly dropped a five-cent piece in a little machine, and who with equal negligence pushed a button when they wanted the great machine to stop. They were so accustomed to the use of this huge common carrier that it was as wholly theirs as ever the family horse had been their fathers’. ‘Io use it was automatic as pulling on the right rein to go to the right. And as I looked out of the windows and saw the big city waking up for the day I saw a hundred other instances of this automatic acceptance of what is still being argued about in books. All over the city white-uniformed men drove white carts up one street and down. another. At each house they: stopped, took out one or two loaves of bread, and left them in the kitchen.. ‘The women in those kitchens re- ceived this manna from heaven without a blink.. They had, so to speak, pressed a button and bread ensued. They knew no more about yeast than I know about a spinning-wheel. And mixed in with these white carts drove other white carts laden with bottles of milk, received by those same housekeepers with the same obliviousness, of the processes by which milk is secured. No personal acquaintance with the vagaries of a cow there, no rejoicing over the arrival of a calf. They had dropped a nickel in the slot (that is, they had telephoned to a milk com- pany to supply them with milk), and from that moment to the end of their lives they need never give the matter another thought, beyond earning the money to pay for it. Everything reduced itself to that. If you had enough nickels to drop, you could extract anything you pleased from the slot. Vege- table carts, meat wagons, everything was at hand, and laundry wagons whisked away the soiled clothes and brought back clean ones. 211
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212 Nor need these moderns give any thought to the problems of sewing. There was another slot provided for that. We passed block after block of show windows displaying every possible variety of ready-made clothes that could be desired by any possible woman. All that was needed was an ample enough supply of nickels. _ I fell to wondering what they aid do with their time, these people who never had to think of yeast, or thread, or the right diet for chickens, or which is the best soap for wash- ing clothes. As far as I could judge from the scraps of conversation I overheard on the street cars, in the shops, on the streets, they thought chiefly of how to make the money to oil all this vast machinery. That was natural enough, I thought, seeing how vastly important money was to them, and their faces looked so like other people’s, like faces of 1850 (or, for that matter, like faces of 1550, judging from contemporary por- traits)—they looked, in short, so remarkably like everybody else—that I saw no reason to fear that the new system was especially bad for the human organism. But at once I asked myself uneasily, how about the children? Until they are of age to begin to earn the nickels which thereafter they spend their lives pushing into slots, what can they do that is their very own in this new world of getting and spending money? In an existence totally separated from all close connection with the vital proc- esses of life, how can the child ever learn anything about the real nature of things? One of these adults, brought up under the old system, knows perfectly well (although he may have forgotten it for practical purposes) that bread does not grow in loaves done up in waxed paper. But how can a child who sees nothing but the button pressed and the desired object produced ever come to close enough grips with real processes to know where he is in the world, what kind of world it is, what the nature of things is? How can he strike his tap-root deep enough into the subsoil of actuality to sustain him all through the droughts and storms of compli- cated modern life? His father is for the most part invisible, making money. His mother is busy spending it as conscientiously as she knows how. Neither of those proc- esses can be well shared by a child. His home is as full of buttons to be pressed as his father’s money can buy and his mother’s ingenuity can devise. Was it, I wondered THE OUTLOOK uneasily, a very good form of activity for the child to do nothing but to press them and passively to accept the resultant phenomena ? And yet, in all this world of infinitely sub- divided effort, what high lookout place could there be where children could see things in a true perspective ? And then I came to the school, and saw that these prodigious moderns had thought even of that contingency. In this very latest thing in schools a lookout place has been provided. I stared at that place for some time before I suddenly recognized what an old friend it was, although each detail as it drew my attention in turn had a familiar look. I saw, first of all, a big plot of ground, grassed deep, shaded by fine old trees, with a number of picturesque, smallish, dark-green, open, shed-like buildings clustered near a large old-fashioned house. Through the gate in the fence streamed a procession of chil- dren—some who had come in automobiles, and others again on the two standing feet of them, as the Celtic phrase goes. All of these children had one trait in common. Without exception they all turned in at the gate eagerly and hurried along from the street into the big green inclosure. Mostly they skipped and jumped as they arrived, although some were too intent on their purpose for that. They ran about like children who return home from a visit and who take up the familiar oc- cupations with spontaneous zest. One little, little boy squatted for a prolonged, patient inspection of a small plot of ground fenced around with stakes. ‘It’s my garden,” he explained to me. ‘I was in a hurry to get here to see if the seeds have come up yet.” * When did you plant them ?” I asked. “ Yesterday,” he said, almost applying his eye to the ground in his hopeful search. I left him there to see what the elegantly attired twelve-year-old just out of a costly limousine wanted so much to do that she must run at break-neck speed down the path and into one of the bungalows. What she wanted so much to do was to snatch a broom and with it to sweep off the catkins fallen from a birch tree on the walk. Out in the middle of the grassy plot a mixed crowd of boys and girls played ball. Near me two eight-year-olds strove with a burning-glass to concentrate sunlight enough to set fire to a pile of fluff. Beyond them, grave and intent, a little girl—a very, very little girl—tied a white oilcloth apron over a beautiful smocked dress and, sitting on her heels, began to daub
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NG
4 f) & Zz, Q oy —% < oO % 2} he ae, 7 4 EATH COLD-Ww ; we Pe N 4 fe ad * + tor we RGM, Bg 8. , of Gull - eS 4 . P eg an a e , yale, Oe bt 4° gins ey . - - SO MUCH MORE FUN TO BUILD YOUR OWN PLAY-HOUSE
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214 green stain on a chicken-coop. The coop looked as though the child herself had con- structed it. It sheltered a biddy and a brood of chicks.. The little girl painted on, oblivious of the screaming fun of a tag-playing crowd of children near her. She chewed her tongue earnestly as she labored. Her ex- pression was of entire and unalloyed bliss. Her hat fell off unnoticed, and I remarked that it came from New York, from a very expensive importer’s on Fifth Avenue. ‘The little girl went on in silent ecstasy daubing green stain on the rough slats of the chicken- coop. . I tucked all these heterogeneous facts away in my memory, meaning to try later to arrange them so that I could make sense out of them. ‘hey vaguely suggested some- thing to my mind. But there was too much going on then to philoscphize. More children, arriving in cars or hand in hand with fathers or moth- ers, gave these parents a hasty peck and hastened down the walk with that same air of arriving at the center of things. There rose from the scattered assembly that free roar of chatter and laughter and shouting which delights the ear of a child-lover and to an imaginative eye hangs above a crowd of happy children like a shimmering aroma of vitality. Then a big gong sounded, and I followed the children into a large sunny room with a fireplace and a piano. It looked like the living-room of a home, wit! enough chairs set to accommodate an eacra number of. children. The children sat down in rows and took up hymn-books. This was evi- dently to be the “ opening exercises.” I watched. them with interest, a little sar- donic, having heard that it was becoming increasingly difficult to devise ‘“ devotional exercises ”’ which would not offend one or another of these twentieth-century dwellers, bickering about the degrees of a faith which means little enough to any of them. Also I watched for the inevitable bored and herded expression which children always assume on such occasions. So far there was none of it. They sang a hymn very heartily, the little, little ones shouting lustily and _tunelessly after their delicious manner, wagging their heads in time to the strongly marked rhythm. The others sang quite in the middle of the note. And they really sang, all of them. Then the principal stood up, companion- ably close, not on a platform, but directly in THE OUTLOOK 22 September front of the littlest of all, who sat cross-legged on the floor. She asked for a volunteer to lead them. AA little girl trotted forward im- mediately. She stood there before the room- ful of children, quite without self-conscious- ness, opened her dewy child’s lips and began “The Lord is my shepherd.” At once all the others, a hundred and fifty of them, caught her up and went on, “I shall not want.” ‘Their children’s voices rolling out those sono- rous old phrases-rang in my ears for many a day after that. The little leader went back to her place, and a little boy’s hand shot up. He was beckoned forward and announced, ‘‘ The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.”” The others needed no more clue, and went on with him, ‘The world, and they that dwell therein.” I caught the splendor of the words with: an inexpressible pleasure, ‘‘ Who shall stand in his holy place ? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.’’ Could there be, I wondered, a skeptic so bickering as not to feel his heart soar high to hear that age-old affirmation made again by those fresh souls? After several more of these superb old poems had been thus recited the principal bowed her head, and all the black and brown and flaxen heads bowed with her. ‘Thz little, little boy sitting on the floor near her took a fold of her skirt in his chubby hand and held it tightly while every- body recited in unison the prayer to our Father which makes us brothers of all mankind. At the end the little boy raised his head and gave his teacher a radiant, sudden smile, by the light of which I made out the answer to my question. ‘That was the smile a child gives his mother. And there was the meaning of it all. I took it in with a stinging of eyelids. This was his home. He ran away with all his might from the pleasant, charming house, well kept, abundantly furnished with buttons- to-be-pressed, which was all the twentieth century permitted his loving parents to give him ; he ran away from that to his real home. It was not his parents’ fault. Never have parents taken such anxious thought about their children’s best interests as now. In fact, his mother was showing the finest and highest devotion to his best interests by giv- ing him up thus to this other home, which could cope with the artificiality of modern conditions so much more successfully than she could single-handed. With this key in my hand, everything else I saw there duiing a very momentous day of
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1915 sightseeing was clear to me. The twentieth century has turned its back squarely on the old-fashioned home close to all the processes of actual life. That muchI had seen on my way through the streets of the city. I knew, too, from those serious books I had been reading that the twentieth century was very uneasy about the effect of this new régime on the children, and that in a hundred dif- ferent vlaces‘and in a dozen different ways fumbling attempts were being made to find something which would better fit the needs of children. But here was the completest answer to the new problem. And what was it? There, in 1915, in an ultra-modern city, I stood in the midst of an old, old-fashioned home, where every process was open to the child’s eye, where he took part in all that goes to make a home, where, above all, there was not a button to be pressed. And this old, old-fashioned home called itself the very latest thing in schools! With twentieth-cen- tury precision and accuracy it had analyzed the ideal of the old home and it had recon- structed everything: in it of value to children. Then I really began to visit the place and to know what I was seeing. I was not to be put off the track by any talk of modern pedagogics or special phonic systems of teaching reading.. Everybody nowadays has a special phonic system of teaching reading, and, so far as I can see, they all have about the same effect on the children. The secret of that school lay deeper. It lay deeper even than the “entirely outdoors feature” of which I had heard so much. I had been rather suspicious about this. It sounded *“‘faddy ” to me to go to the trouble of keep- ing children outdoors in a Northern zero cli- mate when the universal experience of the race is that it is more convenient to work indoors in warmed rooms; but I was dis- armed at a blow by the principal when I put a cautious leading question to her: ‘“ Now, about this outdoor business? How impor; tant zs it, anyhow ?” She answered, calmly: “Oh, not so very. It’s not the ‘real point of my school at all. It’s just a handier way to manage.” And when I stared rather open-mouthed to have the wind taken out of my sails in this man- ner, she explained, patiently tolerant of my slowness of comprehension: ‘ Why, it’s so much more practical and feasible. ‘The chil- dren are infinitely healthier because they are out of doors all the time, and they don’t lose time from being at home sick. They’re A PEEP INTO THE EDUCATIONAL FUTURE 215 almost never absent from sickness. And, since they never get nervously tired or tense, as they do indoors, they can accomplish much more school work when they’re here. Then it costs about a sixtieth part as much to run up a bungalow of rough lumber open on three sides as it does to build a carefully constructed modern school building and then install a costly system of artificial ventilation and heating. It costs such a lot first to shut the air out and then let it inagain.” As sim- ple as-Columbus’s egg, I reflected a little breathlessly, as she went on: “ Our buildings don’t cost as much as small hay-barns, and we find they serve their purpose better than the elaborate, plate-glassed, hardwood-fin- ished, polished modern school-house. They cost a city nowadays almost as much to build and maintain as a hospital, you know.” Well, there was sense to that, I had to admit; but, as 1 had thought this a school which catered to very well-to-do families, I was surprised at the emergence of the very un-American element of thrift. A further inquiry elicited the fact that the principal, who has evolved this school out of her inner con- sciousness and the spirit of the times, did not consider it only as a school for those particular hundred and fifty children, but as an irrefu- table proof of what might be arranged any- where for any children, and (with the excep- tion of the crowded districts, of New York City, which are exceptions to all rules) what might be arranged more easily, with less expense and time for material preparation, than the imposing, glittering-windowed edifices for which Americans so devotedly give up so large a share of their taxes. It was an idea so new to me that it was startling, and so entirely feasible that even its newness could not prevent me from seeing visions of colonies of such schools, as the principal went on to explain her idea to me. We were watching a first-grade class in reading. ‘They were sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking up from their books from time to time to watch a yellowbird which flew'in and out of the shed-like room, gathering jute for her nest from a bit of raveled rope. ‘‘ They don’t need expensive apparatus,” said this very modern educator-woman to me ; “ they don’t need anything complicated ; the simpler things are, the better. And simple things cost so much less! If the same amount of money— oh, much less!—as is now spent for coal, and janitor-service, and sweeping halls, and oiling floors, and washing windows, and all
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—— $s a aaa 3 S 7 ee 4 i GROWING A TAP-ROOT HAPPY THOUGH SEWING AT TWELVE ABOVE ZERO
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A “PEEP INTO. THE: EDUCATIONAL FUTURE the upkeep of a:beautifully finished: moderna building, could be'spent in giving the children more.space, all the fresh air there is, natural surroundings, -home-making processes © in which they share, and better teachers—” She did not finish her: sentence, but I looked around me, knew what she would say, and saw its truth. Natural surroundings—there was the key- note of the matter. Given those, an ‘énor- mous number of problems. of education solved themselves. The question of so- called “discipline,” for instance, does not exist. The children ‘“ discipline” them- selves, just as they do in any large, well-run family. In -all that crowd of free, active children there was not one who was not too busy and happy to waste time in quarrel- ing. They helped run that school. Their own conviction seemed to be that, if they did not, everything would fall to pieces. Arid how they throve in that divine responsibility for the common welfare ! They made their own book-shelves and waste-paper baskets, and stained them green. They had stained each new bungalow school- room as it was put up. They had arranged the apparatus in the gymnasium ; they were laying out, landscape-gardener fashion, a neg- lected corner of the grounds. When some- thing broke or wore out, it did not- vanish into thin air and return mended. The chil- dren themselves took counsel how it should be repaired and then did the repairing. in their own shop. And the kitchen! that was a joy to the eye of a housekeeper. It was a real kitchen, such as any of the little girls might have later on to work in, and not-that dreary product of artificiality, a domestic science laboratory. There, too, the work that was done was set, like everything else there, in a true, sound, and sincere relation to real life. and-butter pudding that morning ; not merely to learn how to make it, not merely in order to have it listlessly tasted by each one, as in duty bound, after all the bother of making it, but, just as should always be the case when food is prepared, because some one wanted very much to eat it, because it was needed for the school lunch. And, when lunch-time came and we all sat down to plainly, daintily set tables, waited upon by members of the family (for by this time nothing could have convinced me that those hundred and fifty children were not all brothers and sisters), the bread-and-butter The girls were making a bread- , 217 -pudding was a main feature:of the-meal. | It was excellent,-andit was appreciated by those children—who - all. knew-“its : history—in’. a fashion most gratifying to «the sixth-grade cooks. Being an:enthusiastic cook myself, I could share: their’ penetrating satisfaction, . which nobody but a cook ever. knows, as they heard the hearty clatter of silver on china as the spoons: scraped the saucers for the last bit.: Then a small- girl near me jumped up on her chair:and shouted, ‘“‘ Three cheers for the bread-and-butter pudding!” leading the ensuing: hirrahs with her napkin like an undergraduate cheer-leader. I should say that there would be no difficulty in keeping up an interest in cooking in that school. After lunch everybody rested—as I thought nobody but a philosopher ' or a Nea- politan knew how to. The children wrapped themselves.in blankets and sleeping-bags and lay flat on the floor, and the teachers did the same. ° For fifty.minutes the world held its breath. I looked about me almost with awe to see all those American personalities sub- mitting themselves voluntarily to the influence of meditative.calm. Some of the children, especially the littler ones, fell soundly asleep, and several continued to sleep rosily and deeply long after the others had risen and were taking up their multifarious activities. The older ‘boys and girls looked steadily up at the green-stained rafter of their school “rooms.” or out at the sky. I wondered what they were thinking about. It occurred to me that probably their fathers and mothers had never in all their lives given so longa time to quiet reflection. It also occurred to me that .they were probably building a wall against nervous prostration and nervous indi- gestion, and the other wild beasts which assail modern life. After the rest hour was over everybody came back to life like an acrobat bounding into the center of the ring. I leaned from a window and, ‘unobserved, watched a crowd of boys and girls struggling mightily with concrete—mixing it, pushing their hoes through the heavy mass, ‘cracking stones like little road-makers, bringing sand in wheel- barrows. ‘They were constructing a concrete walk. And as I watched them labor till the honest drops stood on their foreheads I heard a ghostly whisper in my ears, the whisper of innumerable parents who all over the country cry: “ We can not-get those children to do a single bit of work at home. In my day the boys did chores and the
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218 girls did—” The whisper died away as I realized that in a modern home practically no interesting, constructive work suitable for a child is left to do. ‘There are only a few rags and tatters of meaningless drudgery, the fringe which has not yet been taken over by machinery. The fourth-graders I saw cleaning out their hen-house and carrying warmed water to their biddies had no ob- jection to work gua work. Only they need work which, in their own phrase, they can see the sense of. Do I hear an ironic question, ‘‘ What has keeping hens to do with the multiplication table ?”? If I do, I will lay it low with the bold answer, ‘“ It has everything in the world to do with the multiplication table!”: If I have not specifically mentioned the methods of teaching reading and writing and spelling in this most modern of schools, it is because I have an ingrained skepticism as to. the importance of differing methods for teaching those subjects. 1 have seen so many of them work equally well. I saw. many and many classes of these outdoor children being in- structed in all these .subjects.. They were excellent classes, making fine progress in book-learning ; they were being very well taught, but no better taught than in a good many well-managed modern schools.’ And yet I was not at all surprised to hear that children going out from. this . school into other, indoor, big-building schools are -usually a year in advance of their.contemporaries in all the regular. branches of .school studies. That is due, not to the technical excellence of their teaching, which is duplicated in many a conscientious school, but precisely to the.tonic THE OUTLOOK and exhilarating effect of concrete walks and keeping hens and making bread-and-butter pudding which meets with applause, and, bet- ter than applause, with good appetites. It comes from a steady diet of non-vitiated air, from frequent jumpings up and run- nings about in outdoor air, from the sense of spaciousness and calm which outdoors brings with it’; it comes from the poise and lack of strain which result from natural surround- ings. Ah, other teachers, teach they never so wisely, need not expect their charges to pass such good examinations in long division as children who have measured the boards to make a fence around their own garden. Everything hangs together in this world ! And, because everything hangs together, I have spent a good deal of time since I saw that embodiment of modern ideals for educa- tion in wondering what it really meant. It is not Garyism, it has nothing to do with the industrial organization of modern society ; it affects the very essence of the child’s inner life. What will it mean in the end? Does it mean that those children who grow up used to simple, natural surroundings, in which a child’s soul and mind are at home, will, as adults, so appreciate these blessings that they will insist that all schools shall be like theirs? Will they turn over their babies to a school- home where the almost lost art of an intimate relationship with life as a whole is preserved ? Or will they go further still and reconstruct their own homes on that basis? I don't know. Nobody knows. But, though I don’t know where the road leads, I do not fear, as I look back on those clear-faced, vital, vigorous children, to-leave the future in their hands.
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BELGIUM UNDER THE GERMANS BY T the top of the spire of the Cathe- A dral at Antwerp I noticed the German flag flying the other day as from a masthead. As I could not remember ever having seen a flag flying from a church spire before, I made bold to ask a passing German soldier if that were the Germancustom. He seemed rather mystified and somewhat sus- picious at first, but, evidently thinking I appreciated the spirit in which it had been placed there, he answered, laughing : ** Not in Germany, no ; but in Belgium it is good.” It was in keeping with the general spirit of the German occupation, which is quite plain to any one traveling in Belgium to-day. The Germans regard Belgium as a conquered province, and are treating it as such. This is the dominant impression I received from a recent tour of the almost conquered courtry, and I would be surprised if the Germans denied that to be their attitude. Whether Germany intends to incorporate Belgium into the German Empire may require an expres- sion from Berlin, but one need only travel through the country to see the, signs of Im- perialism everywhere. It has two common physical expressions: the black, white, and red sentry boxes, which seem always to figure prominently in the landscape, no matter where you stand-in any Belgium city; and the great signs, fairly shouting the German Impérial dominion, “ Kaiserliche Gouvern- ment.” These signs are to be seen over the doorways of all German governmental offices in Belgium, and they frown down on the Belgians in a manner that is not to be mis- taken. The Germans do not let the Belgians forget for an instant that they are a conquered people. And yet the Belgians do not in any way admit it. They cannot escape the admission that the Germans have defeated their army and overrun their land. ‘The mailed fist is far too harsh and omnipresent to be denied ; but the Belgians have held firmly to the belief that it is only a temporary occupancy, and it has helped carry them through the severe nervous strain under which they have been living. ‘Two minor incidents that occurred to me in Liége helped me to get the Belgian point of view. I saw a street vender selling little buttons ARNO DOSCH bearing the portraits of the King and Queen of Belgium, and, while this would not have struck me as noteworthy in Brussels, where nearly the whole population flaunts its loyalty by wearing the portraits of Albert and Eliza- beth, it was another matter in Litge. The iron hand is much more prominent there. So I asked the vender if he was not afraid of offending the Germans. He was only a street vender, but he rose to the situation. Stepping back and placing his hand on his heart with perfect dignity, he replied without a trace of heroics, ‘‘ We are always Belgians.”’ The other incident showed me the subtlety of the Belgian point of view and also gave me an inkling of the subtlety of their activities. I noticed that the military authorities had taken possession of the City Hall and were appar- ently carrying on the details of city govern- ment. When I commented on it, the Belgian with whom I was walking smiled and replied, “The Germans think they are running Liége. For the present it may even seem so.” That was all he said, but. the way he smiled to himself made me feel that he could have told me a good deal more if he had had a mind to. At that moment I caught a cross-glimpse of the German occupation of Belgium that I should like to-have the reader keep in mind in all I say. It remained con- tinuously in my mind, at least subconsciously, during the three weeks I was under the Ger- man flag, and I cannot give a truthful report of what I saw without first emphasizing this angle of approach. For all the military show and all the unescapable severity of the mailed fist, there was danger in the air. There was a hollow sound, somehow, in the tread of the German troops. In Belgium I felt that I was on the half-formed crust in the crater of a volcano which might at any moment melt and boil over. Belgium is so little conquered in spirit that it is kept from instant revolt only by the hope that the Allies will soon drive the Germans out. The ultimate feelings of the Belgians were expressed by the mild little wife of a school-teacher in Antwerp. “If the fortunes of war should give Bel- gium to Germany,” she said, “ there will be a rebellion immediately, and it will not end until the last Belgian patriot is dead. And I too,” she added, with sudden vindictive- 219
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PHOTOGRAPH FROM BAIN NEWS SERVICE THE GERMAN FLAG FLYING FROM THE SPIRE OF THE CATHEDRAL AT ANTWERP
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BELGIUM UNDER THE GERMANS ness, “ will account for at least one German soldier, if I have to cut his throat in his sleep.” I entered Belgium from Bergen-op-Zoom in Holland early in December. A steam tramway—what is called in Belgium a ‘‘ neigh- borhood ” line—was operating as far as the outskirts of Antwerp. It was the nearest approach to a railway which was operating across the Dutch frontier that day, and it had not been running for a week. It had been abruptly stopped by the German authorities, and as abruptly permitted to run again. Three days later it was stopped again, and when I came out after nearly three weeks it was still not running, and I had to make: my way as best I could by street cars, afoot, and in carts to the first town on the line in Hol- land. There were three ways to go from Ant- werp to Brussels: a canal boat that ran at uncertain intervals twice a week; a train to Louvain, which just failed to make connec- tion with another vicina/ tramway to Brussels and took all day ; or we could go, as most of the Belgians were going, in carts to wrecked Malines, where other carts met us from Brus- sels and took us to Vilvorde, the farthest point reached by the Brussels street cars. Going this way took from six o’clock in the morning, when the vicinal left Bergen-op- Zoom, to five in the evening, when the street car swung around the corner of the Gare du Nord in Brussels. The last time I had seen the Gare du Nord—in fact, the last time I had seen Brussels—was the day when Louvain was burned. The square in front was roped off and two machine guns were being placed so that they could command the princi- pal streets of approach. The guns were gone now, but the square was still kept clear of civilians by a guard of civilian police. The Belgian gendarmes seemed curiously out of place here. ‘The last time I had seen any was in the strip of Belgium still held by King Albert and his army. But here they were under the Germans in the same uni- forms. There was this difference in their behavior, though. With their own army they were jealous of their power which they exer- cised over the civilian population in defiance of the soldiers. Here they took their orders from the German military authorities, and did as they were told. My first inclination was to go to the com- fortable Palace Hotel, but I could see that it 221 was full of German staff officers, and I did not care to live under their scrutiny. So I went on into the heart of the city and picked the quiet Hétel de la Poste, to which only Bel- gians go. ‘There were two reasons for this decision. I had already sensed the hostile feeling and I knew that there would be a con- tinuous nervous strain wherever there were soldiers. I also knew enough of the German army’s way of doing things to realize that I might go about unmolested for a month as long as no soldier took exception to my presence, but if any German soldier, no matter what his rank, objected to me, the whole German army would stand behind him in his objection. Now that I have brought up this point, I should like to make it clearer, because it seems to elucidate so many things that have happened during the German occupation of Belgium. With the German army its soldiers are always first. There are no rights in com- parison with their rights. ‘The word of any soldier is accepted. A thousand Belgian civilians of the highest character would not be sufficient to prove his word false. ‘This was even true in the case of some of the first regiments which crossed Belgium, in which there were whole companies of low, even criminal, records. You can trace the course of these regiments by burned villages. It was from these villages also that the verified stories of atrocities came. I feel privileged to speak on-this subject be- cause I have at no time stood sponsor for a sin- gle story of atrocity, although I have frequently heard these stories on such good authority that I was tempted to break my rule of relat- ing only what fell under my eye. I did not happen to see any atrocities, so I have not described any. But it is obvious to any one visiting Belgium now what the situation was regarding atrocities at the beginning of the war. ‘The criminally minded soldiers in the German army had a much greater opportu- nity to vent their brutal wrath than similar men in the French, English, or Belgian armies, because the discipline in the German army is much less strict. I know this state- ment will come as a surprise. We have all” heard a great deal about the- marvelous organization of the German army. I have seen it in operation and marveled at it too. But, in spite of the organization, there is an astonishing lack of personal discipline in the German army. At the beginning of the war, when I was following the German army along with other
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COPYRIGHT BY BROWN & DAWSON A POSTER SIGNED BY THE “REBELLIOUS” MAYOR OF BRUSSELS, BEFORE HE WAS TAKEN TO PRISON IN GERMANY
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COPYRIGHT BY BROWN & DAWSON GOVERNOR-GENERAL VON BISSING IN THE BRUSSELS ART MUSEUM The German authorities reopened the Art Museum asa part of their_ programme of assuming Imperial dominion over Belgium. eneral von Bissing is seen examining a bust by Meunier, the famous Belgian sculptor PHOTOGRAPH BY BROWN BROTHERS IN FRONT OF THE GERMAN MILITARY HEADQUARTERS AT ANTWERP
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224 THE OUTLOOK American correspondents, it used to surprise us to have half a dozen privates step out of the line of march and each insist on examining our passports immediately after they had been passed upon by their colonel, but we thought it mere curiosity combined with a certain bumptiousness. The amount of drinking in the German army also surprised us. But the lack of discipline in the German army did not impress me until after I had been with the armies opposing them in the western theater of war. Then, when I returned to Belgium, I could see how undisciplined the German troops are. It came to me with a shock of surprise. I was walking up through the Grand Place on the evening of my arrival in Brussels, admiring the quaint fagades of the old guild houses, when I was accosted by a rough, drunken voice, asking what I meant by star- ing at the buildings. I turned to find the bulky figure of a German sentry in a fleece- lined leather coat, swaying on unsteady legs. He had a rifle, doubtless loaded, and a fixed bayonet. His face was flaming with rage which his tongue was too inarticulate to ex- press. pee? i é It seemed incredible that. he’ should..find: . fault with my stopping to admire the buildings, but this was no time to explain. -Two.days later I would not even have stopped without casting a glance around to see if there were not some such figure at hand, but now I had to make my peace as best I could with a drunken man earrying a dangerous weapon. My anger rose, too, at the necessity, but I had to hold it in restraint while I turned his thoughts by asking him :the way. He was the first of fifty-three sentries I saw in Belgium drunk on duty. Most of them were in Antwerp and Liége, but there were eleven in Brussels. In addition I saw many others not on duty who were drunk. They were carrying only their revolvers. At this time the people of Brussels had been expecting the lid to blow off the kettle any hour of the day for four months, and they fully anticipated that the act of a drunken German soldier would start it. That nothing had happened was due to the self-restraint the citizens of Brussels imposed upon them- selves. The admonitions of Burgomaster Max before he was taken to prison in Ger- many also had their good effect. They alone could have controlled the three hundred thousand Marollians in Brussels, a race of habitual street fighters. Of them the Ger- 22 September mans are openly fearful, and not without cause. During my days in Brussels I took occasion to cultivate the acquaintance of the Marollians. in their own cafés, and, if they carry out one-tenth the threats I heard, if it ever comes to a retreat, the German garrison will have to fight its way through the Marol- lians to get out of the city. ‘ I had already become pretty well acquainted with the deeper feelings of the Belgians when I witnessed a significant scene in Brus- sels. I have to run ahead of my story to relate it here where it belongs, but the story of the Belgians under the Germans is so mixed and has so many angles that I have about given up the attempt to tell it in orderly reporter style. On a Sunday afternoon on the Rue Neuve, when the peaceful shopkeepers were out stroll- ing with their pretty wives, three drunken German marines came staggering along, taking up the whole street. I noticed them first when one put his hand on the arm of a passing woman. He was not rough about it, but offensively familiar. The woman shrank away, at the same time pushing along her husband to keep him out of trouble. Three German officers, in shiny, helmets and long pearl-gray cloaks, were passing at the time and had just as good a view of the occurrence as I did, but they only laughed and turned to see what else the marines did. Two giris were walking along, and one of the other marines put his arm about the waist of one and tried to kiss her.“ Her feelings were outraged, of course, and ‘she pulled* herself loose, but the officers only laughed again. aS This went on for an hour, and probably longer. I followed, curious to see what would happen, until the Rue Neuve was about cleared. By that time my nerves were unable to stand any more, and I had to swallow my real desires and take a long walk © out to the edge of the city, where there were no German soldiers. Now if I, a stranger and a neutral, was worked up to a point of hysterical desire to strike those men and bring them to their senses, think what it must have been for the citizens of Brussels! And this, after all, was a minor occurrence of no importance. But what gave me food for thought was the indifference of the German officers. A great many, possibly two hundred, officers saw those drunken marines, and not one made any protest. "The question occurred ey =o Sete mh OH Fe oe oe Pelee Cl lies
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1915 to me insistently in my long wa‘k : Why did not the German officers order these men under arrest? ‘They must have known that they were as dangerous as firebrands in a powder factory. Were they trying to incite the people of Brussels to a show of resist- ance? ‘That is what the people of Brussels think. I am*not prepared to say that this is not so, but there is a simpler explanation in the general lack of discipline in the German army. To illustrate this further I am tempted to relate an occurrence that did not come under my eye, but I took pains to have it verified on unimpeachable authority. Before .the people of Brussels were ordered to take down their flags a German soldier came into a restaurant and peremptorily ordered the Belgian flag removed. The restaurant man- ager complying at once, the soldier entered a barber shop across the street and gave the same order. But there happened to be a mem- ber of a civilian committee in the barber shop who knew that the order to remove Belgian flags had not been given. He disputed the soldier’s right to give orders ; the soldier struck him, and in a‘moment they were in a scrim- mage on the floor. The Belgian was the better in a scuffle, and after a minute the soldier broke away, blood streaming down his face, and rushed around a corner, where he jumped into the front seat of a waiting Ger- man automobile and drove away. In the back seat were two German officers. In any other army those officers would have been court-martialed, but not in the German army. A report identifying the officers was made to the military governor, but nothing came of it. While this was going on, of course, a crowd was gathering, but passing through it and pacifying it were all the barbers, the waiters from the restaurant, and other level-headed citizens. It has been so every time a dan- gerous situation has.arisen in Brussels. Brus- sels has been that near explosion numberless times, but there have always been level-headed men about to prevent trouble. The situation fascinated and appalled me, I did not see how it could last, especially as I had a taste of official insolence myself. Driving from Brussels to Litge in a Dutch automobile flying the American flag beside the hood, I-was stopped just beyond Tirle- mont by an angry little officer of a Prussian regiment. I had just shown the pass to the sentries on the edge of Tirlemont and the automobile was going slowly, when the little BELGIUM UNDER “THE GERMANS officer jumped into the road twenty yards ahead, waving his hand at us. The Dutch chauffeur prepared to draw up and stop beside him, but that was not enough, and before we reached him he was stamping his foot with rage. Before we had really come to a stop he pointed at ‘the American flag, and cried out in English, ‘‘ What’s that thing there ?” I had never had any one speak slightingly of my flag before, and I came dangerously near to doing the most foolish thing possible. Instead, I put my hands in my coat pockets, where they were safe, and got out. How- ever, I fear he was no ruder to me than I was to him. ** T don’t know what you are talking about,” I replied. ** T mean that—that flag,”’ he finally blurted out. I thought fora moment that he was going to say something else. ‘‘ What’s it doing there ?’? It is impossible to convey the slur in his words. I explained it was there because it was my flag and was on an automobile I was using. ‘*‘ Take it down, take it down,” he cried in a fresh burst of rage. I was in no mood to do it, naturally, and I stepped forward to argue the point. “Take it down,” he shouted; “take it down, I say. ‘There’s no flag here but the German flag.”’ I had determined that the least I could do for my flag’s honor was to make him take it down; but, unfortunately, my story has an anticlimax. The Dutch chauffeur had no honor at stake, and while I had my back turned he struck the colors. I grant that the use of your flag in another country is a mere courtesy allowed you, but since this war began I have carried the Amer- ican flag on automobiles with the French, English, and Belgian armies, and it never received anything but honor before. Such occurrences are, perhaps, mere sur- face indications, but they show how hard it is to live with the German army of occupation. In fairness it must be said that armies of occupation are always hard to live with, and the German army has had no easy time of it. The Belgians have as little personal contact with the Germans as possible, and are pointed in avoiding it. Let a German soldier enter a café in Brussels and in a few minutes every table near him is empty. I was told that I would see the ostracism in full working order in the more fashionable
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1 * Sacae t ta ee “ep eT wo Se COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD THE PALACE OF JUSTICE IN BRUSSELS, USED AS A BARRACKS BY THE GERMAN INVADERS awe oe ee) a Qa Re
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| ee, ee ee ee BELGIUM UNDER THE GERMANS 227 part of town, so I took a No. 3 car run- ning out on the Avenue Louise. There were three women sitting in the first-class end of the car when we reached the Rue de la Loi, where two German officers got aboard and entered. Immediately the three women arose and stepped out on the platform. They were not brusque about it, because they were gentlewomen, but they rode for many blocks on the rear platform. No other women entered while the officers remained, and they became very conscious. One was a fine type of man and he was extremely uncomfortable, but the other did not seem to care. Coming back on the same car an old lady little short of eighty was about to get pain- fully off the car when a German officer stand- ing there offered to assist her. * Don’t touch me,” she said, sharply, and received assistance from the conductor. The officer was a German of the “ gemiith- lich’? type. I-doubt if he had ever deliber- ately offended any one in his life. He was completely upset by the occurrence and walked away. I got off the car on the boulevard to watch a command of marines pass. At their head was a good brass band, and as they started up from a halt they flung their legs forward in the goose-step and slapped their rawhide boots on the pavement. An elderly Belgian standing near me was shaking with laughter, so I asked what amused him so. “Oh, it is very, very comical,” he an- swered, and chuckled to himself as he walked away. The whole situation was reminiscent of the South. That offers us a parallel of understanding. Brussels is making a brave effort to keep its pride, but we can spare a little sympathy for the army of occupation too. I had an opportunity of seeing a situation which will go down in Brussels history. I was taken by Madame Carton de Wiart, wife cf the Belgian Minister of Justice, to see how she lived in her own house surrounded by German soldiers. Her husband, who headed the Belgian Commission which went to the United States. had left Brussels with the Court at the beginning of war, but she re- mained with her four young daughters. Her house is one of the line flanking the Parliament on the Rue de la Loi, across the park from the Royal Palace. The park, dear to the hearts of the Bruxellois, and still containing remnants of the trenches used in the Revolution of 1830, was closed and was being used as a gasoline depot. The street, too, was closed by sentries, but I was allowed to go through. All the other houses in the long block are full of German offices and German troops, but she has kept her house, and no soldiers have been allowed to go above the first floor. She showed me the written order on the newel-post forbid- ding the billeted soldiers to pass. ** The officers tried to convince me at first that I did not need that sign,” she said. ***Oursoldiers are good boys,’ they explained ; ‘they will not harm yeur young family.’ But I told them there might be soldiers there some day who were not inclined to be so ~ good, and then it would be too late.” “ How did they happen to let you stay ?” I asked. * But it is my house,” she replied. ‘“ The King gave it to me, and it is mine until he takes it away.”’ * Did you tell the Germans that?” I asked. “Why, yes, of course,” she said. I could see why she was still there. No one could help admiring her “ spunk.” In Belgium’s tragedy there is the comic relief, and it helps the Belgians a little. On German staff automobiles there are flageolet players beside the drivers, who might be called the heralds of German imperialism. I shall never forget the first one of these I heard echoing through Louvain’s narrow streets. They played different bars for different purposes, the commonest composed of two short and one long, high note. To hear this dozens of times a day would have been too much for the Belgians if the Flem- ish in their nature had not turned it into a joke. Whenever a Belgian hears that now it no longer symbolizes his country’s inva- sion, but his lips frame the phrase which can be translated best as ‘We are done for.” Flemish is, of course, a little broader than that, but, coarse joke that it is, it has brought endless consolation. I think the Marollians must have thought of it first. They have been responsible for most of the comic relief. I have no doubt that some of their pranks have already been told, so I will confine myself to the tales I heard from the Marollians themselves in the course of many visits to their cafés. Their quarter, with its steep, winding, narrow streets, hugs the hill on which the Palais de Justice stands. This impressive
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building is a barrack now, and shortly after Brussels was oceoupied two 77-millimeter guns were swung into position near it, com- manding the Marollian quarter. Inciden- tally, they are there yet. As soon as they were placed, from every house in the quar- ter where there was an extra length of stove- pipe a dummy cannon was shoved out of a window. The soldiers made the Marollians take down the stovepipes, but they could not arrest a quarter of a million people. Regular patrols were placed in the quarter then, so the half-grown Marollian boys organ- ized to patrol the streets also. Sticking carrots through the tops of old derby hats, they contrived fair imitations of the German helmets, and for arms they carried broom- sticks into the ends of which knives had been tied. They patrolled the streets as conscien- tiously as the Germans, and changed the guard as regularly. Every time the German governor issued an.order the Marollian com- mander did likewise, and his was pasted up beside the other. One of the orders issued by the German governor was hardly more than a piece of advice to the people to go back to what work they could find. It was not unkindly meant. But the Marollians posted an order directing no one to return to work, giving as a reason, “‘ Brussels is temporarily closed for purposes of enlargement.” When white paper was pasted over this, a group of Marollians kept staring at it until the German sentry asked: them what they were doing. “We are looking at a map of Germany after the war,” one of them coolly replied. They were confining their attention to making threats when I was in Brussels. In fact, they had been restraining their humor for sometime. Theirlast outburst had been too much for the Germans. ‘The boys who were pretending to do sen- try duty, varying in age from fifteen to eighteen, marched down in front of the Bourse one day, carrots through their hats, broom- sticks, and all, and drew up in parade forma- tion. “ Direkt nach Paris,” their leader cried, and they all did the goose-step backwards up the hill. Most of them are in jail yet. The coal mines and the beet-sugar factories were alone busy in Belgium last’ winter. In the country districts people have been able to worry along. The burned towns and the 228 THE OUTLOOK 22 September industrial centers present the chief problems. The refugees are largely from the burned districts ; andin southern Belgium, particularly the Province of Luxembourg, the country lies devastated and deserted for miles on end. No one will turn a hand towards rebuilding. Out of several thousand destroyed buildings I saw in various parts of Belgium, not one was being replaced. Out of the partly destroyed buildings I saw only a few re- paired. The owners were awaiting the events of war. Meanwhile the country is going bank- rupt. Practically every one in Belgium is converting everything he can into cash and getting that cash over the Dutch frontier. The week I entered Belgium notices had just been posted throughout the previnces of Flanders, Antwerp, and Limbourg calling upon the farmers to make out lists of their farm animals. The farmers knew that the next step was confiscation, so they hastened to slaughter and take to market all their cattle. In consequence there was a glut of meat, and that meat will be sorely needed later on. In many parts of Belgium cattle are also being killed because the winter feed was taken. Throughout the country the farmers have been selling every -variety of food. All flour and grain was being used up about the time I arrived in Belgium, but the grain from America sent through the Com- mission. for Relief in Belgium was already beginning to come. It was being sent by canal boats from Rotterdam to Brussels, Antwerp, Liége, and other centers of dis- tribution east of an imaginary line running from Antwerp to-Mons. West of that line the people were compelled to shift for them- selves, as they were living in the actual war zone. There has been just one way to get relief to the Belgians—through the Commission for Relief in Belgium, of which Mr. Herbert Hoover, an American mining engineer living in London, is Chairman. He consigns the food to Mr. Brand Whitlock, the American Minister in Brussels, who is responsible for it. He has made an agreement with the German military authorities in which it was stipulated that none of it was to be taken by the army. When I left Belgium, this agreement had been in operation over a month and the Germans had respected it. The actual distribution of the food did not present a difficult problem, except in the matter of transportation. The Belgian — 2 ae ae Gee ak
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—_— F Te "a ._ OS 7, a 1915 National Society of Relief was already well organized and fully competent to take care of the details. I had an opportunity of seeing it at work, and it was by far the best thing of its kind I had ever seen. It was also warmly praised by Mr. Ernest P. Bicknell, who had charge of the distribution of relief for the American Red Cross both in San Francisco and the Ohio floods. He was in Belgium as a member of a committee from the Rockefeller Foundation making a report on Belgium’s needs. The other two mem- bers of the committee were Mr. Henry James, Jr., and Dr. Wickliffe Rose, who checked the hookworm in the South. They were making a very thorough investigation. The most serious problem in the distribu- tion of food arose from the billeting of sol- diers. There were at least two hundred and fifty thousand in the German army of occu- pation, many living in hotels and many more billeted. Mr. Whitlock considered this difficulty, and, with the assistance of the German authorities, made a workable arrangement. Through the Belgian National Society he was able to keep a check on every house and every hotel in the country. Each reported the percentage of food in the establishment eaten by soldiers. Where this was food received from the United States he was able to give definite figures showing how much the soldiers ate. These figures were ac- cepted by the Germans and equal amounts were delivered to Mr. Whitlock’s agents in advance. The service that Mr. Whitlock is giving in Belgium can hardly be overestimated. It is appreciated by both the Belgians and the Germans. He has the ability to see both sides of any problem. He is the ohly per- son who can act. Without him the distribu- tion of American food would be impossible. It is difficult to describe in its fullness what it means to live in an invaded country. While I was in Belgium I tried constantly to put myself in the place of an ordinary Belgian citizen, but, though I talked with many, I feel that I failed to comprehend how much the German soldiers grate on them. There were some things, though, that any one could understand. The new German governor, Freiherr von BELGIUM UNDER THE GERMANS Bissing, took up his duties in Brussels about the time I arrived. Rumor, heralding him, said that he had been appointed because his two predecessors had been too lenient with the Belgians. Before accepting this explana- tion I waited to see what he would do. Immediately after his arrival he posted an order announcing what he considered the prerogatives of his office. As “ the German Imperial Governor of the Province of Bel- gium,” to translate his own phrase, he said he expected “all the prerogatives and per- quisites that were exercised by the King.” This was the first formal announcement the people of Belgium had received that their country was considered a German prov- ince. It was a hard enough blow to bear in silence, and they felt that the reference to their beloved King was rubbing it in. Four or five days later another notice was posted placing a war indemnity on the country of $8,000,000 (40,000,000 francs) a month. A “fine” the Belgians called it, but the notice referred to it as a contribution for the support of the army of occupation. I hap- pened to be near the post-office in Brussels when one of these notices was posted there. Immediately, of course, a crowd gathered to learn the character of the new Imperial mandate. It took me only a minute to get close enough to read, but already it had been liberally spat upon. The last impression I had of Brussels as I left was formed by a bicycle company of the German army. It was a dull Sunday morn- ing, and people were going along the street pondering upon the new burdens which had been placed upon them, and unusually grave for Belgians. ‘They seemed to be wondering what the outcome of it all would be. Down the street the bicycle company rode, scattered from curb to curb, and trailing along for a block or more, and they were all singing ‘“‘ Die Wacht am Rhein.” I have heard the German soldiers sing * Die Wacht am Rhein ” as they went for- ward to battle, and it was magnificent. It stirred the blood and your heart went out to the men who were singing so lustily. But sung that Sunday morning, far from the battle-line, beating upon the ears of a people already bowed down with sorrow, it was, to say the least, in atrociously bad taste.
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DR. JOHNSON ON THE GREAT WAR BY ARCHIBALD RUTLEDGE HIS whole remarkable affair must have happened, { am sure, by one of those beauteous mischances which can be brought about by the erratic and per- verse logic of fairy law. At all events, one evening just at dusk I found myself entering a dingy but respectable little tavern in the heart of the city where I live. Seated at the table whereat I was accustomed to rest and dream were two strangers. But, as the table had long since been mine by right of occupa- tion, but more particularly because it was the only one in the place, I took a chair beside it. As I was drawing this into place I gave my new-found companions a keen glance, which was, I fear, not altogether friendly. Instantly I recognized ‘both of them! One had long been the chief of my heroes of literature ; the picture of the other, since the beginning of the great war, had been appearing some- what frequently in American newspapers. The first of my companions was none other than the celebrated sage Dr. Samuel John- son; the second figure was Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, the unofficial spokesman of the German cause. And no sooner was their recognition accomplished than I realized that I might be able to record a memorable con- versation. If my character was not Boswell- jan, at least my present opportunity was. That these two men, at once so able and yet differing so radically in their conceptions of the true values of life, were to speak on the great war I had no doubt. And I hoped that they would confine their conversation to the moral aspects of the war; for while the copious stream of Dr. Johnson’s thought would enable him to express himself on any subject, I did not believe his opinions on the military features of the war would be of par- ticular value. Very humanly, he might lack depth of wisdom where he lacked accuracy of knowledge. But I was sure he could settle, at least to my satisfaction, some of the great moral questions related to the war which were vexing the reason and the con- science of the world. Ever since I had first come under his influence I had been an admirer of his eminently shrewd and pro- found judgments on moral matters. Without further ado, I shall record the conversation which ensued: 230 Dr. Johnson. Sir, what have you to say in defense of Germany’s rape of Belgium ? Dr. Dernburg. Military necessity fully justified it. Besides, when we got to Brus- sels we discovered that Belgium and England had an understanding. Dr. Johnson. But, sir, the crime was com- mitted before the victim’s guilt, if guilt it be, was discovered. ‘The burglar murders the good man of the house, then attempts to justify himself when he finds a weapon in the room where the crime was perpetrated. Come, sir, do you not know, are you so ignorant as not to know, the futility of such talk ? Dr. Dernburg. But Germany was at- tacked—compassed by enemies who were jealous of her superiority and who had plotted to destroy her. Germany did not want to fight. Dr. Johnson. Pooh, sir! ’Tis likely that England, then, forced Germany into the war! Sir Edward Grey made a direct offer to the Kaiser to mediate the matter. If Germany had not wished to fight, the war would never have begun. Dr. Dernburg. The German people are for this war—to a man they are for it. And that is because they were attacked ; they are battling in defense of their Fatherland. Dr. Johnson. Ha, sir! For the German people I have the deepest respect. They fight valiantly; but they have been cruelly misled. No, sir, the moral leaders of Ger- many have blundered colossally. And what answer is to be given the people of Germany when they discover that they were forced by their leaders into a fight against nations which were striving to avoid war? Dr. Dernburg. ‘The German people will never ask such a question. I mean they will be too loyal ever to think of such an absurdity. Dr. Johnson. No, sir, you mean no such thing. You mean they will be kept in igno- rance. But the truth, sir, will some day prevail. It will be known at last. Dr. Dernburg. But to return to the case of Belgium. Germany was clearly in the right. If you were in a burning house, and your only escape was through a lady’s boudoir, would you not violate that privacy in order
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DR. JOHNSON ON to save your life? That is what Germany did—that is all she did. Dr. Johnson. No, sir; Germany did one other thing. Dr. Dernburg. And what was it? Dr. Johnson. Germany not only violated the privacy of the lady’s boudoir; Germany murdered the lady. Sir, it will not do, it will not do! You do not see your way to the question, sir. Your own great Lessing has said, ‘I may do as I wish and as I please, but the ways of Heaven remain the ways of Heaven still.” Dr. Dernburg. Any individual or any state has a right to act in self-defense. Ger- many has only sought to preserve her own existence. Dr. Johnson. Alas, sir! the existence, in- dividual or national, which seeks to preserve itself at the expense of its nobler instincts becomes thereby an existence which is of no benefit to itself or to humanity. Dr. Dernburg. Do you not, then, believe in self-defense ? Would you not take every means to protect yourself ? Dr. Johnson. No, sir, not if I must do so at the expense of innocent persons. If he who I considered my enemy stood behind an innocent person, I could not thrust the innocent man through in order to reach my enemy. And in this case, sir, Germany had sworn to protect the innocent. Belgium; at least, she solemnly promised never to do what she has now deliberately done. Dr. Dernburg. Diplomatic promises are understood to mean only as much as the welfare of the state which makes them will allow. The welfare of the state is always to be considered first. Dr. Johnson. Do you mean, sir, the ma- terial or the moral welfare of the state ? Dr. Dernburg. always deal with material things—with facts—and never with theories. Dr. Johnson. Sir, if morality be not a fact, in nations as well as in individuals, life is a sad delusion. If it be not a fact, “the pillared firmament is rottenness and earth’s base built on stubble.” Personal ‘integrity, the proof, the pledge, the earnest of morality, is the greatest fact in human existence. Now, sir, if the state is supreme, as you declare the German state to be, and if its material wel- fare is considered before its moral welfare, how are the peoples whom it dominates to consider their moral obligations, their “imponderables,” as your own Bismarck calls them ? THE GREAT WAR 231 Dr. Dernburg. Yet under this system which you denounce Germany has become the greatest nation of the earth. The very efficiency of the method has justified its worth. Dr. Johnson. No, sir. German efficiency has proved its material worth; its moral worth is a far different question, and that perhaps this great war will decide. Dr. Dernburg. Every one denounces Germany. It is fashionable among ail English-speaking peoples. Dr. Johnson. Alas, sir, such talk is puer- ile and futile. You cannot imagine how poor a figure you are making. Never repeat to any one what you have said to me._ Ger- many, sir, has denounced herself. She has written herself down. Your reason is embar- rassed in defending your country, because your country, sir, persists in renouncing the principles of humanity. ’ Dr. Dernburg. Why is every one against the Fatherland? , Dr. Johnson. There is much sympathy, sir, for the German people. But the world is against official Germany, because official Germany is a bully. Again, sir, official Ger- many does deliberate wrong; and then she Stoutly attempts to justify her malefactions by detestable sophistries. Dr. Dernburg. No English mind will ever trouble itself to see the German point of view. Dr. Johnson. Why, sir, I am open to conviction. Dr. Dernburg. If you were a German, you would approve the sinking of the Lusitania. Dr. Johnson. No, sir, not if I were Satan himself. Nor will I believe that the heart of the German people approves it. It was a crime of official Germany. A greater out- ward crime has been thoughtlessly committed | by the German people themselves. But I do not denounce them; they have been trained to it. Dr. Dernburg. What crime? ~ Dr. Johnson. Why, sir, the universal shout of approbation which went up from the German people. Bah, sir! “It smelt to heaven.” When a nation applauds mur- der, its conscience is dead. Dr. Dernburg. It took great skill on the part of the submarine commander to sink such a vessel as the Lusitania. That is one reason why the German people are proud of the exploit. Dr. Johnson. I can understand, sir, how there might be a solitary individual of your
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232 sinister processes of mind. But am I to be- lieve that there is a great nation which reasons as abominably as you do? I[had not thought that malevolent perversity could win so strong a hold over so large a portion of humanity. Dr. Dernburg. Your talk is insulting to one of German blood. Dr. Johnson. Tut, tut, sir! He. who takes offense on the loss of an argument is doubly beaten. Dr. Dernburg. Ihave lost no argument. I still maintain that Germany has been right in all her acts. Dr. Johnson. Sir, two thousand years ago Josephus, the historian of the Jewish race, discovered in the Germans then residing in Rome the self-same characteristics which you now so stubbornly display. ‘“ As is well THE OUTLOOK 22 September known,” he wrote, ‘‘ these Germans have no power to reason when ‘their own interests are at stake.” Dr. Dernburg. Germany has been right in all things. By her glorious armies she has vindicated, and will continue to vindicate, her right. Dr. Johnson. “Have done, sir, have done ! If your country is virtuous, your manner of talk has disgraced her ; if she is not virtuous, you have disgraced yourself by defending her crimes. And that’s an end on it, sir. A moment later the two men had risen and had passed out into the night. But here is the conversation. And I might add that this incident has completely justi- fied in my mind James Boswell’s idolatry of Dr. Johnson. BOOKS ON JAPANESE RELATIONS T the close of the war the immigra- A. tion question will come before the country in a very practical form. Perhaps no question before the country is more important than an adequate settlement of the whole immigration question and a just, well-defined, and definite policy for the future. On this question information is to be welcomed, and therefore Professor Millis’s book on “The Japanese Problem in the United States ’’? ought to have wide reading. It furnishes material necessary to allay the fears of those who are. apprehensive of another race problem in the United States, and it will do much, among dispassionately minded people, to counteract the unchristian and unintelligent propaganda which is preach- ing in season and out of season the necessity of war with Japan. Two of the most potent agencies in the endeavor to secure a good understanding between Japan and the United States are the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ and the Japan Society. The Federal Council some time ago appointed a Commis- sion on Relations with Japan, and Mr. Millis, who is a Professor of Economics in the Uni- versity of Kansas, made an investigation of ! The Japanese Problem in the United States. By A. H. Millis. The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50. conditions on the Pacific coast as part of a general study of the Japanese in the United States, their occupations, land holdings, and the general feeling towards them. At the same time the Commission sent a memorial to the President and Congress. There is probably no question of greater importance before the world than the future relations of the Far East and the Far West. The Japanese problem. in this country relates mainly to the admission of immigrants and their treatment after they have arrived here. Many statements of their numbers have been made, most of which have been widely at variance with the truth. Between 1908 and 1913 more than 32,000 Japanese arrived in this country, while 31,777 left. California has about sixty thousand Japanese, and Washington about fourteen thousand, according to the “ Japanese-American Year Book,’’*in which the total number of Japanese in the country is estimated at 95,617. Mr. Millis found them, as Dr. Gulick has contended, very responsive to environment, very imitative, studious, and quick to learn the habits and ways of those about them, as well as very ambitious to be received on a basis of equality. He finds that their stand- ard of living is constantly rising and their houses are improving. The adults learn
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1915 BOOKS ON the language rapidly and their children are extremely studious. In Mr. Millis’s judgment, they have unusual capacity for assimila- tion. He regards the question of inter- marriage between the races as unimpor- tant, and is of opinion that the mixture of races is not unfortunate in its results. At the same time, he holds the view that races must be on practically the same level in order that marriage between them may be successful. The first expression of strong opposition to Japanese immigration was heard at a mass- meeting at San Francisco in 1900. Five years later the Board of Education of that city announced its intention to separate Chi- nese and Japanese pupils from the other students in the public schools. The agitation which followed this proposed segregation re- sulted in the agreement with Japan made in 1907, by the terms of which only former residents, parents, wives, or children of resi- dents, and settled farmers or workers upon farms were admitted to this country, and in every case they were required to bring pass- ports from their own Government. The Japanese Government has so rigorously ob- served the terms of this agreement that there is bitter complaint in Japan. So far as the control of immigration from that country is concerned it is already thoroughly secured. Mr. Millis’s book is compact of useful informa- tion, and covers the whole situation with great thoroughness. It furnishes full statistics of Japanese immigration and residence in this country, the representation of the Japanese in the various industries, their work and business in the Western cities, and in agriculture in the Western States other than California, with a full discussion of the Japanese as agricultural laborers in California and the Japanese farm- ing in that State. It presents a clear state- ment of the alien land legislation in the same State, and it discusses Japanese characteristics, the problem of assimilation, and makes various suggestions touching the whole question. The much-discussed Alien Land Law is ana- lyzed with great clearness. It provides that the Japanese may lease and occupy houses, factories, warehouses, and shops without restriction, lease land for residential and com- mercial purposes, that they may lease land for agricultural purposes -for-a term not ex- ceeding three years, and that they may hold land now owned until death or sale, but that upon death it may not be succeeded to by those ineligible to citizenship. This legisla- tion was not the first discriminatory legislation JAPANESE RELATIONS 233 which has been adopted, but it was the first to deprive the Japanese of any substantial right already granted, and very vigorous pro- tests were made on the ground that it was not only essentially unfair and discriminatory, but inconsistent with treaty provisions and opposed to the spirit of fundamental princi- ples of amity between the two nations. Those who have opposed this legislation have said in criticism of it that it was not only unneces- sary but unconstitutional, because it impaired the titles of land already held. Though it does not confiscate property now owned, it restricts the right to sell that property, and is to that extent an impairment of title. The situation created by the passage of this legislation emphasizes two principles which must be adopted if serious disturbances are to be avoided in the future: all matters relating to immigration must rest in the hands of the National Government, and all relation- ships between this country and other coun- tries must be controlled by the National Government. If State legislatures are to deal with these matters, foreign governments must treat with every State in the Union in- stead of with the United States. The situation created, if followed to its logical results, would be not only absurd but impossible. The limi- tation of immigration and all other conditions necessary for the safety and welfare of the country can be secured through diplomacy at Washington without offending the honor or dignity of foreign countries. Mr. Millis’s book is addressed to Ameti- cans ; “ America to Japan”! is addressed to the Japanese. It is an answer to a similar series of papers published under the: title “Japan to the United States,” issued last year under the auspices of the Japan Society, under whose auspices this volume is also published. The two books are unique in the history of international intercourse and point the way to the new order of things which - must come if the world is to be protected from the stupidities of race hatred and the horrors of race war.'! These volumes are a joint effort on the part of two powerful nations, not simply to secure sound diplo- matic relations, but to bring about a mutual understanding between the peoples of the two countries. Among its contributors are Drs. Eliot and Butler, Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Gary, Mr. Hamilton Holt, Mr. Brandeis, Mr. Kennan, Presidents Jordan, Angell, Putnam’s Sons, ork. $ t America to Japan. Edited by Lindsay Russell. G. P. J New ¥ DBs,
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234 Judson, and Wheeler, Mr. Root, Professor Jenks, Dr. Griffis, and other Americans of position who speak authoritatively and from personal knowledge of the matters which they discuss. Among these matters are The Duties of Aliens, Sanctity of Treaties, International Ethics, Good Will, Racial Dif- ferences, ‘The Industrial Development, Finan- cial Relations, The Rights of Labor, Inter- national Peace, Treaty Obligations, Christian Internationalism. It will be seen that, although the volume has many distinguished contribu- tors and touches on many themes, it has both THE OUTLOOK 22 September unity and practical importance. It is an exposition by many hands, in many styles, of the purpose of the Japan Society, which is to diffuse among the American people more accurate knowledge of the aims, ideals, rights, industries, and the economic conditions of the Japanese Empire. Amid the storm of war such a book as this is a harbinger of the return of sanity and good will. It is a cor- rective of false impressions and an antidote for the poison of race misunderstanding and hatred, the propagation of which finds recep- tive soil in ignorance. COMMERCE AND FINANCE INTELLIGENT VS. UNINTELLIGENT SPECULATION BY THEODORE H. PRICE , \HAT the war is certain to work great changes in the economic world every one now admits. Speculation is an effort to foresee change, and, as generally understood in business, speculation implies an effort to profit by the changes foreseen. The word has many other definitions. We need not quarrel over them. Twenty-seven years ago D. G. Watts, one of the most brilliant and successful specu- lators New York has ever known, wrote an article upon “‘ Speculation as a Fine Art” in which he said : “‘ Speculation is a fine art, and requires a high order of talent in the artist. Before entering on our inquiry, before considering the rules of our art, we will examine the sub- ject in the abstract. Is speculation right? ‘It may be questioned, tried by the highest standards, whether any trade where an exact equivalent is not given can be right. But as society is now organized speculation seems a necessity. Is there any difference between speculation and gambling? The terms are often used interchangeably, but speculation presupposes intellectual effort; gambling, blind chance.. Accurately to define the two is difficult; all definitions are difficult. Wit and humor, for instance, can be defined ; but, notwithstanding the most subtle distinction, wit. and humor blend, run into each other. This is true of speculation and. gambling. The former has some of the elements of chance; the latter some of the elements of reason. We define as best we can. Specu- lation is a venture based upon calculation ; gambling a venture without calculation. The law makes this distinction ; it sustains specu- lation and condemns gambling. ** All business is more or less speculation. The term speculation, however, is commonly restricted to business of exceptional uncer- tainty. The uninitiated believe that chance is so large a part of speculation that it is sub- ject to no rules, is governed by no laws. This is a serious error. We propose to point out some of the laws that govern in this realm.” Aithough Mr. Watts belonged to a past generation and has been dead many years, his essay is such salutary reading just now that I would like to quote all of it. That is impossible, but as it is far better than anything I can write, and may save many a man from foolish speculative ven- tures, I have reprinted it in pamphlet form and shall be glad to mail a copy to any one sending his name and address, with a two- cent stamp for postage, to me at 15 Wall Street, New York. If those so applying could find time also to write a brief letter suggesting the financial and commercial subjects upon which they would like to hear from me in the pages of The Outlook, it will be much appreciated. One who writes for the public always finds it
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1915 difficult to know what has public interest, and for this reason the letters that I occasionally receive from the readers of The Outlook are most helpful. I have selected speculation as the subject of this article, because the enormous balance of trade in favor of the United States and the flood of gold with which the country is being inundated are creating a condition that is almost certain to issue in the wildest out- burst of speculative activity the world has ever known. For the calendar year ending December 31, 1915, the excess of merchandise exports over imports will probably be more than $2,000,000,000. To settle this enormous balance Europe is sending us gcld in quantities previously unheard of. On June 23 the reserves of the National banks amounted to $1,840,000,000, or $778,000,000 move than the amount which they were required by law to hold. This surplus is now probably increased. The State banks and trust companies out- number the National banks about three to one, and their surplus reserve is probably as large. At a low estimate the total banking reserve of the country is at least $1,200,000,000 in excess of the legal require- ments. To get at the possible loan expansion this surplus reserve is multiplied by six, as the legal reserve averages about 16 per cent of the deposit liabilities, and increased loans always mean increased deposits when gold is not being exported. It is, therefore, possible for the banks to increase loans by at least $7,000,000,000 without impairing their reserves. The in- ducement to do so is great, because interest rates are low and bank earnings will be small unless the deposits are fully employed. Some there are who prophesy a financial cataclysm about two years after the war is over ; but such predictions are unheeded while there is $7,000,000,000 of unemployed credit to be had at the banks, and the counsels of conservatism will probably continue to be dis- regarded until hope can no longer minister to desire by borrowing. That the result will be a continuous trans- fer of property at advancing values from the less to the more optimistic is almost inevita- ble; and it is equally probable that but few will be immune from the contagion that the stories of money quickly made will engender. Already this is evident.. The fortunes COMMERCE AND -FINANCE 235 which have been made out of “‘ war orders ” and ‘war stocks ” have fired the imagina- tion of the public, and men who are usually deaf to any suggestion of speculation are willing to listen to proposals that are adven- turous in the extreme. It is useless to argue against an epidemic. Preventive medicine may stay its progress and a quarantine may lessen the number of its victims, but no method of vaccination or isolation has yet been discovered that will secure men against the infection of the spec- ulative spirit. Perhaps it is just as well that this is so. Many things of great value to mankind that would not otherwise be undertaken are initiated in the hope of inordinate gain that pervades the community during periods of great speculation. Frequently, if not generally, the pioneers undercalculate the risk or the capital required and fail, but if the enterprises thus started are needed they are likely to be carried on by others to ultimate success. Such experiences are recorded in the his- tory of nearly every railway built in this coun- try. Almost invariably the first promoters have lost their money; but, beneficial and necessary as the roads have proved to be, many.of them would never have been built at all if the spirit of speculation had not led men to see the distant future as impossibly near at hand. Human development is like the rising tide. It has its resurgence and its undertow, and my object in writing this article upon specu- lation is not to combat an ineradicable instinct but to reduce, if possible, the financial mor- tality that follows an unwise indulgence of that instinct. Of course there are no rules by which ab- solute safety in speculation may be secured, but there are some which, if regarded, will help us to avoid complete disaster. First.—Don’t speculate upon the advice of another. Your operations should be the expression of your own convictions, and your convictions the result of your own study. If the information necessary to enable you to form an intelligent opinion is not to be had, then do nothing. SEeconp.—Don’t attempt to deal in more than one thing ata time. The human mind is finite, and no one can keep himself fully informed as to many things at once. TuHIrD.—Don’t overtrade or assume greater risks than your capital justifies, and
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236 always allow for a margin of error in your calculations. Fourtu.—Always keep your line of re- treat open. Many things may happen to change your opinion, and it is important that you should be able to act promptly. Recol- lect that your buying has helped to advance prices and that your selling will accelerate a decline. Many forget this and regard the market as a thing apart from themselves in which they can buy and sell without deflect- ing values. FirrH.—Don’t assume the super-risks of speculation for the sake of a small profit, and don’t hesitate to take a loss when you find yourself mistaken. In the vernacular of the market, “cut your losses short and let your profits run.” Most people do precisely the reverse. r They are content to accept a small profit, but will fight against taking any loss until it has become so big that they are frightened or disabled and beat a panicky retreat. Pride of opinion and a reluctance to admit one’s self in error is probably the explanation of this fatuity. It is the most dangerous habit of the spec- ulative mind, and ultimately works the ruin of most speculators. The self-confidence that makes men willing to take risks is so incompatible with the self-detachment that can interpret the logic of changed conditions that the permanently successful speculator is hardly ever found. SIXTH AND Last.—If you must speculate, don’t do anything else. It is a dangerous business at best, and is certain to lead to dis- aster unless it has your whole attention. No sane man would attempt to pilot a boat down the rapids of the St. Lawrence and write a book at the same time; and it is equally impossible to speculate and run a business or practice a profession simultane- ously. ‘ Many men attempt it and fail in their voca- tion as well as in their speculative avocation. THE OUTLOOK This statement does not, of course, apply to those who invest their surplus earnings in securities or property that is paid for and put away, but it is emphatically true of those who trade on margin in the hope of profiting by market fluctuations. It will be noticed that most of these rules are “ Don’ts.” They might be indefinitely increased, and some may think they could be summarized in the phrase ‘“ Don’t speculate at all ;” but such advice would be unheeded as long as human nature remains what it 1s. The speculative instinct is universal. It has been implanted in us for a good pur- pose. It is responsible for much of the world’s progress, but, like every other in- stinct, it may be foolishly or illegitimately abused. My object has been to point out the dangers of unintelligent speculation, rather than to decry the entirely natural desire of men to exercise the gift of prescience that is God-given and Godlike. It may be that I have preached a counsel of perfection ; but he who essays to navigate the dangerous sea of speculation will find that the utmost vigilance is necessary to avoid its mines and shoals and to weather its storms, and no one should attempt the voyage in ignorance of its hazards. Most of all, we need protection against ourselves, the weakness of the human mind and the delusion that permanent success is to be achieved in speculation, or anything else, except by painstaking, intelligent, and per- sistent work. Genius has been defined by Frederick the Great as “a capacity for taking infinite pains,” and by Edison as “one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspira- tion.” He who would rise above the level of mediocrity in any department of life will do well to keep these epigrams constantly in mind.
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THE READER’S VIEW PRICES AND THE PANAMA CANAL At various times when the Panama Canal proposition was before the people for their con- sideration and acquiescence in the taking of their money for the building thereof, I saw the argument in print, and often enough for it to impress upon my mind the argument, that when the Canal was once completed there would be such a reduction in the cost of transporta- tion of certain commodities that the consumer would be benefited by a reduction in the price of the commodities he might wish to buy. Now that the Canal is open and a revenue is being received by our Government (according to statements I have seen in papers recently), I ask the question, Why am I paying as much for coffee, tea, bananas, oranges, lemons, etc., as I did before the Canal was opened ? Do you suppose it is due to war conditions? Do you suppose such an argument was pro- pounded to keep thé masses quiet until the burden could be strapped securely upon their backs? Please do not conclude by the question I have asked that I am not a loyal citizen, for I am and want true American liberty maintained even to the point of the bayonet, if need be. Reading, Ohio. E. E. CROCKETT. A BIT OF NEW YORK HISTORY In your issue of September 8, containing an otherwise excellent article commending the “Short Ballot,” there is an error of history which I beg to point out, wherein you say: “ Gouverneur Morris failed at Fishkill, and, from that day to this, long ballot inefficiency has pre- vailed at Albany.” In lauding the work of Morris a grave injus- tice is done to John Jay, whose legal ability and wisdom resulted in his framing the Constitution of the State at Fishkill in 1777 (ratified later at Kingston), under which we had the Short Ballot for over seventy years. While it is true that Jay’s Constitution did not give the people a Governor with sole power of appointment, etc., such as Morris is stated to have striven for, it granted instead a small “Council of Appointment,” selected by the Governor and in which he sat, besides another small similarly appointed “ Council of Re- vision,” having veto powers. Under such an executive council, liké that of the Swiss Con- federacy to-day, all the officials of the State, including the mayors of cities, the judges, and chancellors on a life tenure, were appointed, except the Assemblymen and Senators, the latter ona property qualification. While it was charged that corruption and political favoritism ensued, yet the plan remained unchanged until 1821, when the Governor was given the sole power of appointment; and finally in 1846, by the Constitution of that year, the plan was radi- cally changed. This was the result of the great popular movements of that period, which then agitated not only this country, but France, Germany, and Italy, culminating there in the revolutions of 1848. By this Constitution sweep- ing changes were made; among them the council was abolished and nearly every office made elective by the people; and so it remains to-day. Jay’s views on the frame and scope of gov- ernment, both Federal and State, were more practical and more in harmony with the spirit of the Republic than those of Morris: besides, he had a judicial mind, which Morris lacked. * WILLIAM E. VERPLANCK. Fishkill-on- Hudson. THE GALVESTON STORM The copy of The Outlook which has just come gives an account of the storm which vis- ited Galveston recently. I have no interest in Galveston, but I wish to correct one or two errors in the article. I am the rector of the Episcopal church at Marlin; Texas, and was spending my vacation in Galveston at the time of the storm. I used to be a surveyor and me- chanical engineer, and consider that I am fairly competent to judge of matters of that kind. [ walked nearly the whole length of the wall two days after the storm and saw the rest from an automobile on two different occasions, and saw no break in the sea wall. Not only that, but I did not see any of the material which composed the riprap which had been washed over the wall. On three occasions I spentan hour or so at the point where the picture is taken which purports to show riprap that was washed up by the waves. The riprap is composed of red granite, and the material shown in the picture is mostly blocks of concrete which belonged to the boule- vard. I was in Galveston for a week after the storm, and spent most of the time along the sea wall, and did not see a piece of the granite of which the riprap was composed that had been thrown over the wall by the water or by any other force. It is true that about two-thirds of the boule- vard was undermined and driven away by the force of the water, and the houses within two squares of the sea wall were nearly all washed away or otherwise damaged, but I do not think that the damage js as great as the article in The Outlook of September 1 would seem to indicate. Marlin, Texas. (REv.) ROLLA Dyer. 237
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BY THE WAY There are in Illinois nearly seven hundred consolidated rural schools, and most of these schools have a trained teacher of agriculture and another of domestic science. During the summer, when the schools are closed, school work continues, for these teachers visit each pupil at his or her home on the farm every ten days. In this way teachers and pupils keep in touch, and the long vacation does not interfere with work in these important departments of education. New Orleans is reported to be planning the expenditure of over a hundred million dollars on internal improvements and on the develop- ment of her port facilities. Lovers of dumb animals have established hospitals for wounded horses in France and Italy. These are known as Blue Cross Hos- pitals. A fund for their maintenance is in charge of Mrs. Elphinstone Maitland, 829 Park Avenue, New York City, and those who sym- pathize with the dumb sufferers from the war are asked to contribute. The West is winning many laurels in com- petitive events this year. A Chicago man won the golf championship; a San Franciscan is supreme in lawn tennis; and “ Miss Detroit ” —a motor boat from the City of Motors—took back from the East a coveted prize, the Gold Challenge Cup. “T called all hands on deck, as the sea was wicked-looking ; had a consultation, and decided to use oil. Our method of using oil was to fill an oil feeder and to squirt it overboard on both sides whenever we saw a big curler threaten to break astern of us ; and truly the effect was mar- velous.” So says a yachtsman in describing a wild run along the inhospitable coast of South New Zealand. One member of the crew, he says, was skeptical about the use of the oil, but “ before long he was crying for more.” Good-fellowship among neighbors in cities may be promoted by “block parties.” Describ- ing two festivals of this character, the Brooklyn “Eagle” says of one, “ The block was closed for the evening, and decorated with flags and lanterns ; dancing in the street, races, and other sports were on the programme ;” of the other, “One of the novelties of the evening was the ascension of a large balloon, and there was also a fancy costume contest, with prizes.” Sir Robert Ball, the astronomer, while lectur- ing in this country, suffered several mishaps during a severe storm in Iowa. His ears were nearly frozen, his audience of young people were inattentive, he had trouble in securing a conveyance, etc. But, he says,in his “ Reminis- cences,” the greatest trial of his life came when a man who was conducting him from the hall 238 called out to the driver “the following awful words: ‘ Drive the old gentleman to Burr’s!’” “ The first time a man hears himself described as ‘old,’” says Sir Robert, “ he receives a terrible shock, and this last blow was indeed crushing !” The majority of American railways, accord- ing to a recent investigation, are in favor of changing the fiscal year from June 30 to December 30. Among 200 roads, operating 271,857 miles of railway, only 17 per cent, it is - stated, voted to maintain the present arrange- ment. An up-to-date North Carolina dairy farm is described in an exchange as putting its milk on the market mainly in the form of ice-cream. Four men milk the sixty-five cows with electric milkers run by power produced on the farm. Artificial ice is also made on the place for trans- forming the milk into ice-cream. “Do you believe in the Sunday newspaper for children ?” a parent asks the editor of the “ Guide Book to Childhood.” “On the whole,” is the answer, “the Sunday newspaper, aside from the comic supplement, is better reading than the daily edition of the same paper. Many parents give their children the Sunday news- paper, but burn the comic supplement first. But there is much better reading available for Sunday than thenewspaper. Let the home see that the best magazines, the choicest books of pictures, the latest worthy books, are opened for the first time on Sunday, and they will drive out that which is not so worth while.” Motorists in southern Europe must sometimes put up with privations which money cannot cir- cumvent. Mr. William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., in- describing in the “Club Journal” his experi- ences during a motor trip in Spain and Portu- gal, says: “ After a hard and sleepless night on filthy beds [in Badajoz] we emerged from our ‘hotel’ and, partaking of a cup of chocolate which we made ourselves rather than venture on the hotel cuisine, we gladly made a start.” Notwithstanding these privations, however, the journey is described as a most interesting one. “What are the six best novels?” asks the New York “ Times,” and publishes answers from several well-known novelists. William J. Locke prefers “ Tom Jones,” “ Tristram Shandy,” “ David Copperfield,” “ Henry Esmond,” “ The Cloister and the Hearth,” and “ The Egoist.” Eden Phillpotts says, “ With the best will in the world, I find your question beyond my power to answer.” Owen Johnson names “ Tom Jones,” “ Tess,” “ Robinson Crusoe,” “ The Cloister and the Hearth,” “Lorna Doone,” “ Vanity Fair.” W. L. George says that if perfection of form is the criterion, “there is only one English work with claims, ‘ The Way of All Flesh,’ by Samuel Butler.”