The Outlook 1915-11-03
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The Outlook NOVEMBER 3, 1915 Offices, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York THE STORY OF THE WAR: SERVIA IN DANGER The Balkan situation remains the center of war interest. ‘The statement of the Mar- quis of Lansdowne in the House of Lords last week was surprisingly frank and illumina- tive. He admitted that ‘“ the progress of the campaign in northern Servia has been such as to render it highly improbable that the Servian army will be able to withstand for any great length of time the attacks to which it is exposed from the Austro-German forces on the north, aided as these are by the stab in the back which Servia is receiving at the hands of Bulgaria.” From Lord Lansdowne’s statement it ap- pears that Great Britain had up to that time landed only 13,000 troops at Salonika. With some natural bitterness, he made it clear that these troops were landed under an under- standing with Venizelos, then the Greek Premier, that Greece would aid the Allies and carry out her treaty with Servia. Greece’s second failure to keep a pledge to the Allies —the first was to support by her forces the attack on the Dardanelles—has left the situ- ation in the Balkans about as bad as it could be so far as immediate results are concerned. How large a French force may now be in Greece or on the borders of Bulgaria is uncer- tain, but reports indicate that it has already moved forward beyond the border of Bul- garia and has been in conflict with Bulgarian troops. Greece has declined Great Britain’s offer of Cyprus and continues her policy of “armed neutrality.” A late report says that King Constantine is to put himself at the head of his army. Servia well deserves the ardent tribute paid to her courage and military ability by Lord Lansdowne. As represented in a cartoon in this issue of The Outlook, Servia is much in the position of a nut between the two arms of a nutcracker. The Austro-German army under General von Mackensen has advanced (up to October 27) perhaps forty miles south of the Danube, and has also spread out east and west. It is only about two hundred miles from Belgrade to Sofia by rail, and it would hardly seem possible that the Ser- vians in this section can long resist the Bulgarians and the Austro-Germans ad- vancing on either front. On October 27 it was reported that these two armies had effected a junction. Inthe other part of the field—that is, along the railway which runs south from Nish to Salonika—the Bulgarians have cut the railway in three places: Vranja, Uskub, and Veles. Whether they can hold these points permanently, or whether, as some reports indicate, the Bulgarians are not as yet in real force in this section, but are making dashes at one point after another, is uncertain. Uskub is a very important place, as it is in itself a town of some consequence and a railway junction between the main line and the road that goes to Mitrowica. Veles is the southernmost point touched by the Bul- garians, and has been captured and recap- tured two or three times, if the despatches are correct; on October 27 it was said to be once more in the possession of the Servians. The campaigns in Servia must follow the lines of the great railways and the valleys in which they lie, as was shown in this narrative last week. THE ULTIMATE GERMAN DESIGN The ultimate design and purpose of the German drive in the Balkans towards Con- stantinople have been widely debated. The immediate result of success (it must be remembered that the Allies may yet inter- pose a large force on the road to Constanti- nople) is evident enough—a straight road would be open from Berlin to Constantinople, troops and munitions could go from Germany to Turkey if the former has them to spare, food supplies from the East could go to Germany, and the position of the Allies in the Dardanelles would be in danger. The German papers are declaring very freely that there will follow an attack upon Egypt and 527
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a India, or, as the ‘“‘ Hamburger Fremdenblatt ” terms it, “‘a blow at the heart of English world supremacy.” This scheme is grandiose, but not alto- gether probable of execution. That Ger- many’s dearest wish is to strike a deadly blow at Great Britain is beyond dispute. She has not been so far successful in this. Look for a moment at the history of Ger- many’s campaign against England : Germany first endeavored to build up a fleet which should outclass that of Great Britain, although she had no colonies, to speak of, to be defended, and England had to de- fend by her fleet Australia, India, Egypt, and Canada. England refused to be outclassed, and Germany failed. Next in her campaign- | ing she chose the road through Belgium because that would give her the coast and a point of advantage for direct attack on Great Britain, and for this purpose she made at great cost a drive at Calais; and again she failed. Then she attempted to starve Eng- land by a blockade, treating the waters about Great Britain as in the war zone, and torpedoing every merchant vessel that was bringing her supplies. By this submarine campaign she aroused against herself the indignation of all the neutral Powers and created and solidified a strong anti-German sentiment in the United States, but she in- flicted no serious military damage on Great Britain. Again she had failed. ‘Then she undertook to make a successful raid on Great Britain by a Zeppelin fleet. Her Zeppelins haveirritated Great Britain, have inflicted some slight injury, but as a military campaign the effort has absolutely failed, and there is no prospect that it will, from a military point of view, accomplish anything. Her direct attacks on Great Britain have come to naught. Then she endeavored to induce Bulgaria to betray the cause of Balkan unity. In her eastern campaign Germany drove back the Russian troops. This accomplished, she transferred one of her two greatest generals and a portion of her army to the south for her drive through Servia and the Balkans. That this was merely or mainly to rescue her Turkish ally is highly improbable. Her ulti- mate object, it may be fairly assumed, is not only to control Mesopotamia and Persia but also to control the Suez Canal, and so threaten England bothin Egypt and in India. There is an interesting parallel between Germany’s plan of campaign and that of Napoleon a century ago, though Napoleon 528 THE OUTLOOK 3 November reversed the process. He first essayed to attack Great Britain’s eastern possessions through a campaign in Egypt, and, that fail- ing, attempted a direct attack by invasion across the Channel, which also failed. Ger- many may succeed in relieving Constantinople and in opening a pathway for herself to the Mediterranean through control of the Balkans. We do not believe that she will succeed in any campaign by land against the Suez Canal. Such long-distance invasions have rarely been successful. They failed in the case of Napoleon both in his Egyptian and his Rus- sian campaigns. They failed in the case of England in her attempted invasion of her American colonies. More important than munitions of war is food for the army and the people. One indication that Germany is becoming hard pressed in this direction is the fact that she has just put out decrees regulating the use of food and the price of food far more strin- gently than before. Even the use of milk is now regulated by milk cards, like the bread cards long in use; and one report which pur- ports to have reached London directly from Berlin speaks of ‘‘ housewives’ riots ” in which women in their struggle to procure food broke store windows and doors. On another page we speak of the horror and indignation aroused by Germany’s execu- tion of the English nurse Miss Cavell. ON THE OTHER WAR LINES The Italian campaign was notably vigorous in the week under discussion (October 20- 27). Despatches from Rome have claimed valuable gains by Italy’s armies both in the Trentino region and in the attempt against Trieste. For a time last week it was believed that the Italians had captured Gorizia, which has been sometimes called the key to Trieste. This, however, was soon contradicted, but it is evident that gains have been made in this direction. ‘Trieste is apparently not easily assailable from the sea, and it must be ap- proached from the north. Gorizia, twenty- two miles from Trieste, guards the approach to the Carso Plateau. Railways run to the east and west sides of the Plateau in the valleys, but these are commanded by the Austrian forces on the Plateau, and it seems necessary first to capture Gorizia and then to storm the heights which guard the Plateau. The civilized world has protested and is protesting against the barbarism and vandal-
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1915 ism of the Austrian attacks by aeroplane bombs upon Venice. Under the pretense of attacking the Naval Arsenal, bombs have been dropped so close to St. Mark’s that its narrow escape is almost a miracle; the point actually hit was the Piazzetta in front of the ducal palace. The Scalzi Church was actually damaged, and the fine ceiling with its beautiful fresco by Tiepolo was irrepara- bly injured. To destroy or injure St. Mark’s, which is one of the glories and triumphs of art and man’s love of the beautiful, would be _indeed to cap the climax of the acts of van- dalism and barbarism which have disgraced the Teutonic allies. The most striking as- pect of this warfare on art is its gross stu- pidity. If St. Mark’s had fallen, one can imagine the chorus of execration which would have gone up from the whole world. Fierce fighting continued during the week both on the Russian line and on the Franco- Belgian line. Again and again Germany has hurled assaults at the position near Dvinsk and Riga, but without success, and the week’s fighting seems to indicate a stiffening of the Russian military backbone rather than a yielding. Snow is already falling in that region, and there are still hopes that Ger- many’s Russian drive may have reached its limits for the season. A DANGEROUS PLOT DISCOVERED The arrest of five men charged with con- spiracy to blow up vessels carrying munitions of war and munition plants in this country, when taken in connection with the Dumba correspondence and with the fact that there unquestionably have been actual attempts to blow up vessels and munition plants, must be regarded as an indication of the lengths to which criminal effort may go. It is too soon as we write to judge positively how far this conspiracy extends, but it would be folly to dismiss it as the action of “ cranks.” That theory might possibly answer in such a case as the attack of Holt or Muenter upon Mr. Morgan, but there are too many men admit- tedly concerned in the conspiracy now partly unveiled to make this view even conceivably tenable. The apparently amazingly frank statements by Robert Fay, the leader of these .men, was probably intended to mis- lead. He claims to have been a provisional lieutenant in the German army, to have in- vented various explosive appliances, to have been furnished with money by the German THE WEEK _money come from? 529 Secret Service, and to have come to this country with the sole intent of attaching his ingenious explosive bombs to the rudder- posts of vessels carrying munitions of war, with the bomb so adjusted that it would explode when the ship was at sea. He says he saw Captain Boy-Ed and Captain von Papen, of the German Embassy, and avers that they forbade him to carry on his plans in the United States, but suggested that he might go to Canada—apparently on the theory that murder (for the killing of non- combatants on merchant ships is murder under international law), while deplorable in this country,might be very desirable in Canada. Fay and his associates had money, and the indications as we write are that he had much more money than he has admitted; that instead of $4,000 he must have had $30,000, and probably larger sums. Where does this That is the problem on which our police and governmental authori- ties are at work as we write. It is ardently to be hoped that, if the money was raised in this country, the sources from which it came will be exposed and condign punishment visited upon the criminals; if it came from Germany, a new and serious problem arises between the United States and that country. GENERAL BOTHA AND BRITISH COLONIAL POLICY The Outlook has already recorded the facts concerning General Botha’s campaign for the conquest of German Southwest Africa. The story of how, despite a rebellion in his own forces which he had first to subdue, this former leader of the Boers in their war against England traveled almost twelve hun- dred miles through a practically waterless desert, won three pitched battles, captured eleven important towns, and secured the capitulation of the German Imperial Gov- ernor, is already a matter of history. The loyalty to the British Government shown by this former antagonist was accepted through- out the world as a striking testimony of the wisdom of British colonial policy in the present day. Now added testimony comes concerning the success of this policy in the report of the elections to the House of Assembly of the Union of South Africa. The followers of General Botha, Premier of the Union, have been assured of very much more than a safe majority. The Nationalists, who opposed the military operations against German South
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530 Africa and who are now attempting to defeat a plan to despatch a contingent of the Union forces to Europe, were decisively beaten. Their party was victorious only in the Orange Free State, where their votes were cast in favor of General Hertzog, one of the Premier’s most bitter opponents. General Hertzog, however, it may be added, during the up- rising of last year placed his services at the disposal of General Botha. THE LAKE MOHONK CONFERENCE What is an Indian ? Webster’s Dictionary says that he is ‘‘ one of the aboriginal inhabitants of America: so called from the supposed identity of America with India.” But this definition, while it may answer ordinary school-book purposes, does not go far enough—certainly not far enough for the Indian himself nor for those who have taken upon themselves the task of seeing that the present descendants of the original Americans get their rights in the civilized communities of which they have become part through no act or desire of their own. For the past thirty-three years teachers of Indian schools, missionaries whose work lies among the Indians, Government Indian offi- cers and employees of the service, and wealthy men and women who have labored for the Red Man’s welfare without compensation have been meeting at Mohonk Lake, in the Shawangunk Mountains of southeastern New York State, to exchange views and adopt recommendations which they have urged upon the Federal Government with varying degrees of success. This year the Conference con- cluded that the confusion as to the Indian’s legal status lay at the bottom of many of his long-standing ills. Troubles of this kind first claimed attention when the Government recognized the Indian’s title to reservation lands, which of late years * have developed great value through the dis- covery of oil or minerals, or from the increas- ing natural value of this property as farming or timber land due to the march of civiliza- tion and the settlement of the Western Ter- ritories. In many instances these lands have been bought from the Indians and opened to settlement, and the proceeds have been de- posited in the United States Treasury to the credit of the various tribes. The division of this purchase money has made many Indian families wealthy, but it has also raised up a THE OUTLOOK 3 November multitude of impostors who claim a share in the division by virtue of Indian blood. Another phase of the problem has been the definition of what constitutes a “ full- blood ” Indian and what a “ mixed-blood.”’ In a laudable effort to save the Indian from the wiles of unscrupulous white men who have induced him to barter his inheritance for a fraction of its value, the Government, in at least one instance, provided that only those of ‘“ mixed blood” could dispose of their lands. This law has proved of little value to the Indian, because in many cases those who | have robbed him have been able to convince the courts that their victims had enough white blood in their veins to bring them within the “ mixed-blood ” class, although in many cases this fraction of Caucasian blood was so small that to all purposes the victim was wholly Indian. Certainly it did not give him the education or the ability to guard his property. : THE ORGANIZATION OF THE {NDIAN BUREAU Fully as important as the definition of the legal status of the Indian and the codification of the laws regarding him—another vital point discussed at the Mohonk Conference— is the ever-apparent necessity for the reform in the organization of our Indian Office itself. A reform in the Indian Office is not a ques- tion of personality, but of system. Neither the present head of the Indian Bureau, Mr. Cato Sells, nor the able commissioners who have preceded him are in any way responsi- ble for the bad inheritances which have come down in the Office from the distant past. Mr. Frederick A. Cleveland, Director of the Bureau of Municipal Research of New York City, who has recently conducted an extensive investigation into the management of the Indian Office, at the Mohonk Conference pointed out some of the fundamental criti- cisms that can be made of our present system. The Indian Office is so organized, he said, that there is an inevitable confusion between its functions of trustee and guardian. There exists also an inevitable confusion of the functions which in a military organization would be called those of staff and line. The superintendents on the reservation lack the responsibility and authority necessary for carrying on their work. ‘The Central Office at Washington, which should devote its chief energies towards the inspection of the field forces and the formulation of an Indian policy,
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1915 THE is now overburdened with small administra- tive details which should never require its attention. Mr. Cleveland recommended that the Commissioner be made a _ permanent officer, that Congressional appropriations should not be limited by minute specifications to the payment almost of particular employ- ees, and that reports to the Central Office should not be made matters of opinion but of fact. For instance, no inspector should be called. upon to decide whether a building or a school is unsanitary or not, but he should give detailed reports similar to those made by modern dairy inspections as to ventilation, drainage, and other details capable of exact statement. Ex-Commissioner Valentine indorsed heart- ily the recommendations of Mr. Cleveland and outlined further a proposed organization of the Indian Department under a. permanent head assisted by a well-paid body of commis- sioners analogous in function to that of the President’s Cabinet. In the opinion of The Outlook, Commissioner Valentine’s sugges- tions must ultimately be adopted if our Indian problem is ever to reach a satisfac- tory solution. The law creating such a com- mission as Mr. Valentine and others have proposed, when enacted by Congress, should avoid the political pitfall of naming the par- ticular commissioners who are to undertake the work. PORTO RICO The Lake Mohonk Corference, as its full name implies, deals not only with the Indian but with other races no less uneducated and dependent which have come under the Ameri- can flag since we began to assume our share of the ‘“‘ white man’s burden.” The natives of Porto Rico, judging from the testimony of such well-qualified witnesses as Governor Arthur Yager, of Porto Rico; Manuel V. Domenech, Commissioner of the Interior ; Jorge Dominquez, a member of the Insular Board of Health; and Howard L. Kern, Attorney-General of Porto Rico, are, many of them, even more in need of help than the aboriginal American. Governor Yager em- phasized the singular fact that the Porto Kicans absolutely refuse to live up to one of the generally accepted laws governing the birth rate. In all civilized communities hard times and increasing difficulties in their strug- gle for existence have invariably checked the growth of population. Not so in Porto Rico. There the laboring classes have gone on WEEK 531 increasing until at the present time over- population threatens them with actual starva- tion. Since the American occupation of the island the population of Porto Rico has grown from 900,000 to more than 1,100,000. “Tt is a bit discouraging,” remarked Gov- ernor Yager, “to find that, whatever we do to ameliorate his extreme poverty, the Porto Rican increases his family fast enough to more than offset the better living conditions we have given him.” The only remedy Mr. Yager could see was emigration; and since the Porto Rican has proved that he cannot endure transplantation to.a distance, he recommended that the Government help the Porto Ricans to emigrate to Santo Domingo, which is only eighty miles away and possesses virtually the same climate, soil, and vegetation as Porto Rico. Porto Rico now has three hundred inhabi- tants to the square mile, a density of popula- tion greater than that of China and equal to Japan’s. And when the fact is considered that agriculture is the island’s almost sole industry, it can be said that, taking into account the facilities for supporting life, Porto Rico is the most thickly populated country on the globe. In addition to this fundamental trouble, the Porto Ricans have a political grievance. They feel that the United States is not doing the right thing by withholding from them citizenship in the great American Nation. By citizenship they do not mean the power to vote at Nationalelections, although they expect that this will come in time as they develop in educa- tion and knowledge of American institutions. They believe, however, that they already have reached the point where their island is fit to have a territorial government as the first step in preparation for statehood. The Lake Mohonk Conference is in sympathy with their desire for American citizenship, and has recommended to Congress that they receive that privilege. THE PHILIPPINES Concerning the Philippines, the most enr- couraging aspect of the present problem presented at the Conference dealt with the progress in the matter of education. The Hon. Frank L. Crone, Director of Education in the Philippines, pointed out many things in the Philippine system which might well be studied with profit by. American educators. The most interesting feature lies in the method by which the different school grades
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eee are made sufficient unto themselves. The courses of study are divided into units which permit pupils to leave school, if obliged to do so, at certain periods, with something definite accomplished which goes far toward meeting their life needs. ‘The pupil who drops out of school in the Philippines is not left hanging in the air, as it were, half-way between the college education which he cannot acquire and an elementary education still incomplete. Despite the great progress that has been made, however, there still remains a large number of Filipino children of school age unprovided for under the present system. The most disconcerting information laid before the Conference in regard to the Philip- pines concerned the injection of politics into the Philippine administration under Governor- General Harrison. There-is evidence that Gov- ernor-General Harrison, since the first days of his appointment, has come to realize that certain of his earlier efforts towards the Philippiniza- tion of the service and towards the removal of officers who had labored faithfully under a previous administration were uncalled for and hurtful to the prestige of the United States. The case of the Chief of the Land Office, Colonel Sleeper, who was supplanted by a Filipino, since resigned, has already been brought to the attention of the American people. According to one speaker at the Conference, Professor Thomas Lindsey Blay- ney, the resignation of such men as Mr. Dean C. Worcester, Dr. Heiser, and Gov- ernor Forbes has proved a loss to the development not only of the Philippines but of the cause of good government throughout the Orient. Professor Blayney quoted a Filipino citizen as saying : When the American flag is lowered, if it ever should be, I feel that the United States will be remembered by three principal contributions to our national life: first, a splendid system of public instruction ; second, an excellent judicial system; and, thirdly, an all-pervading system of petty Tammany politics, to the fostering of which the present administration has very largely contributed. And I feel that the last of these three contributions will far outshadow in effect the results of the other two, to the ever- lasting misfortune of my race. The picture drawn in this quotation is doubtless too black, but it certainly sums up in graphic form the danger of making our colonial policy the football of partisan politics. Politics, like charity, should begin at home ; unlike charity, it should stay there. 532 * THE OUTLOOK 3 November RAILWAY RECEIVERSHIPS The “ Railway Age~Gazette ”’ publishes a striking article from which we learn that eighty-two railways in the United States are now operated by receivers. These railways have a total mileage of forty-two thousand miles, and a total capitalization, including stock and bonds, of considerably over two thousand million dollars. Two-thirds of these roads which have gone into bankruptcy under private management and are now operated by receivers appointed by the courts are in the Southwest. This very unpleasant record of railway management in the United States does not include railways which are paying no dividends or very inadequate dividends to the stockholders. Only those roads, of course, are on the list which have been unable to pay interest on their bonds or funded debt, and have therefore become bankrupt. The “ Railway Age Gazette” is of the opinion that this startling record of failure on the part of the railways is due largely, if not chiefly, “‘ to pernicious State regulation.” If the ‘‘ Gazette ” desires to draw a comparison between Federal regulation and State regula- tion with the hope of creating public opinien in favor of Federal regulation, we are cor- dially in sympathy with its effort. If, however, its purpose is to discredit the general principle of Government regulation, we dissent. There is no doubt that many of the railways have unjustly suffered from conflicting, unreason- able, and unwise State laws. But the cure for this evil is not an abandonment of the general principle of regulation, but a con- centration of the power to regulate in the Federal Government. Certainly the pres- ent financial straits of the New Haven, the Rock Island, the St. Louis and San Fran- cisco, and the Denver and Rio Grande systems cannot be ascribed to Government regulation of any kind, but to palpable private mismanagement, all of it injudicious and some of it corrupt. It is true that great rail- way builders and managers must have im- agination and vision. They must often build roads which cannot pay at present but may pay in the future. But even this vision and imagination must have some kind of regula- tion. A bank president who loans money on insufficient security to bolster promotion schemes is soon restrained both by his stock- holders and by Government authority from sacrificing the present welfare of his deposi- tors and stockholders to future visions. While no kind of a receivership can save
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yn- he 25- Sg AieeT ae 1915 THE some roads, which consist merely of “two streaks of rust and a right of way,” as a matter of fact railway receiverships have generally been financially successful. Re- ceivers are Government officers. If Govern- ment regulation can be applied successfully to railways through receivers, it is certainly possible to apply it successfully through a Federal Commission. The Inter-State Com- merce Commission has some patent defects. One is that it acts both as prosecuting attor- ney and as judge in railway matters. But the general principle upon which it is based is sound. If the people of this country, both shippers and investors, do not accept the fundamental principle of Government regula- tion and work together to make it a success, general Government ownership, with all its difficulties and dangers, is inevitable. A FIT MEMORIAL TO HENRY WARD BEECHER A meeting was held at Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, on Sunday evening, October 17, attended by the Jubilee Singers from Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, “ college descendants ” of the original Jubilee Singers, and addressed by Dr. Lucien C. Warner, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Talla- dega College ; the Rev. A. P. Miller, pastor of the Nazarene (Colored) Church of Brook- lyn; Mr. George W. Crawford, a Negro attor- ney of New Haven, Connecticut, a graduate of Talladega College ; and Dr. S. Parkes Cad- man, pastor of the Central Congregational Church of Brooklyn. Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis presided. The object of this meeting was to give added impulse to -a National movement for the erection of a memorial to Henry Ward Beecher by raising a fund of _ fifty thousand dollars to endow a Henry Ward Beecher Department or Professorship in Talladega College, Alabama. It is quite time that some memorial was erected to Mr. Beecher in the South by his friends, and no memorial would be more fitting or more in harmony with his own feeling than such a living monument as is proposed. One of the first anti-slavery reformers, Mr. Beecher was always a friend of the South. Though often classed with the abolitionists, and, with a catholic spirit quite characteristic of him, often speaking on the same platform with them, Mr. Beecher never sympathized with the spirit of Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison or with their platform which. de- WEEK 533 nounced all slaveholders as man-stealers. His passionate love of liberty for himself and for others never found expression in the bitter denunciatiohs so characteristic of the radical abolitionists. When the war ended, he was one of the first to share in enforcing the counsel of General Grant, ‘‘ Let us have peace,” and to insist that the only permanent reconstruction possible was one ihspired by a spirit of manful trust and confidence be- tween the North and the South and of good will between the black race and the white race in the South. He never shared in the short-sighted philosophy of Northern radicals who thought that if the ballot was given to the emancipated slaves the emancipated slaves would be abundantly able to protect their own rights and interests. A radical in the results which he sought to accomplish, an opportunist in the methods which he would employ, he maintained the doctrine that suf- frage was a natural right, while, with a wise inconsistency, he advocated the grant of a limited suffrage to the Negro at first. ‘I do not expect,” he said, ‘‘ to see universal suf- frage in the South ; but if the Southern peo- ple will not agree to universal suffrage, let it be understood that there shall be a property and educational qualification. Let it be under- stood that men who have acquired a certain amount of property and can read and write shall be allowed to vote.” At the same time he urged, as an indispensable and funda- mental element in reconstruction, the Chris- tian education of the Negroes, an education which would enable them to prove them- selves worthy of citizenship. ‘‘ You may pass laws,” he said, ‘‘ declaring that black men are men and that they are our equals in social position; but unless you can make them thoughtful, industrious, self-respecting, and intelligent—unless, in short, you can make them what you say they have a right to be, those laws will be in vain.’’ It took more than a quarter of a century for the Nation to realize the truth of this posi- tion, now generally recognized, but in Mr. Beecher’s time unpopular alike in the North and in the South. In a sense it may be said that the whole educational system of the South for blacks and whites alike is a monu- ment to Mr. Beecher and the men who co- operated with him in leading through the dark days of reconstruction toward the light. But it is surely fitting that not only the friends of Mr. Beecher but all those who believe in the principles so courageously and
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534 eloquently advocated by him should join in emphasizing that belief by attaching their names to a definite and well-organized plan for carrying out in the Southern States the principles which he advocated. The treasurer for this fund is Mr. Franklin H. Warner, the Treasurer of the Board of Trustees of Talla- dega College, 287 Fourth Avenue, New York City, and funds sent for the Beecher Memorial should be so designated by the sender. THE EPISCOPAL BOARD OF MISSIONS The Outlook reported last week the pro- test of the so-called Catholic party in the Episcopal Church against the participation by representatives of that Church in the Panama Conference, on the ground that their presence would be an affront to the Roman Catholic Church. Ata meeting of the Board of Missions in New York City last week, after a very serious debate, a motion to rescind the action of the Board last May which provided for the sending of dele- gates to the Conference was defeated by a vote of 26to 13. Thereupon the Bishops of Fond du Lac, Washington, and Mar- quette, the Dean of All Saints’ Cathedral in Milwaukee, and the rector of Trinity Church of New York City resigned from the Board. With the exception of the Bishop of Washington and the rector of Trinity Church, the resigning officials represent the group of ‘Catholic’ dioceses in the Central West. These dioceses for the most part, although geographically extensive, do not contain large populations, and have an official repre- sentation in the government of the Church entirely out of proportion to their representa- tion in the membership of the Episcopal Church. As The Outlook pointed out last week, the invitation to the Panama Conference and the statement of its purpose were guarded with the utmost care from any phrase or word which could give offense to Roman Catholic Christians in Central and South America, and only by an arbitrary interpretation can ani- mosity or anti-Roman Catholic propagandism be read into those statements. ‘The repre- sentatives of the Protestant bodies who ar- ranged for the Conference had no sectarian purpose in mind and were scrupulous to avoid any suggestion of such a purpose in their statement of the aims and scope of the purposes of the Conference. This is so obvious that to most men it will seem as if a THE OUTLOOK 3 November fight had been forced on an issue which does not really exist. The opposition to participation in the Congress rests on two grounds: antagonism to any official participation by the Episcopal Church in any work with other Protestant churches, and the unwillingness of. the group of men who are specially interested in the Conference on Faith and Order to take any step which would raise further obstacles between the Episcopal Church and the older historical churches. The action of the Board of Missions can create such an obstacle only if the interpretation of the men who withdrew’ from the Board last week is accepted by Roman Catholic Christians as a definition of the purposes of the Conference. This division is a great misfortune; if pushed to extremes, no one can foresee what disasters it may bring upon the Episcopal Church. Certain things are obvious: it weakens the position of the Episcopal Church in its endeavor to be a leader in the attempt to bring divided Christendom together again ; and it must involve, if logically carried out, a very serious attack on the work of a Church whose Missionary Board has conducted that work with great ability, intelligence, devotion, and statesmanship. One wonders if the men who have taken this action have seriously weighed what it may mean, in this critical hour in the world’s history, seriously to weaken the attempt to preach the Gospel of Christ to peoples who are already asking whether Christianity has any real hold on the nations which profess it. MR. DANA AND HIS BOOK Was it not Dickens who said of the poet Gray that he was walking down to posterity with a single book under his arm? And Richard Henry Dana, the one hundredth anniversary of whose birth was celebrated recently in Sanders Theater, Cambridge, Massachusetts, with “‘ Two Years Before the Mast ” under his arm, has joined the poet Gray. It is true that Mr. Dana wrote other books of professional importance and high intellectual quality ; but, as Mr. Bliss Perry said in his interesting address on “ Dana as a Man of Letters,” for all practical purposes the popu- lar verdict in Mr. Dana’s case is not likely to be reversed. He was the son of a poet, and whoever reads “‘The Buccaneer” to-day will find ancestral fitness in the parentage of the
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me CD SQN Sn Swe we mh 1915 THE WEEK 535 author of ‘‘Two Years Before the Mast;’’ for no one could have written ‘The Buc- caneer” without an intimate knowledge of the ocean and a genuine love for it. ‘There was every promise that Richard Henry Dana, 2d, would follow the well-marked path of boys of his ancestry and breeding in Massa- chusetts. Such boys are usually prepared for college in the Boston Latin School and graduated from Harvard; and Mr. Dana was likely to become a distinguished lawyer. These things might have happened in regu- lar course to young Dana if his eyes had not given out during his junior year in col- lege. From his boyhood, moreover, he had been possessed by a passion for the sea; and if it had not been for the strong influence brought to bear upon him by his family his inclinations would have led him into the United States navy. When a tem- porary disability of a very fortunate kind, as it subsequently appeared, threw him out of the beaten track, he promptly took to the sea, not as an amateur sailor nor as a gentleman on a voyage for his health, but as a common seaman. He shipped as a sailor before the mast on the brig Pilgrim for a two years’ voyage around Cape Horn, trading on the Western coast as far as California. He liked the life and he lived it without flinching, with the result that he combined the aptitude and skill of a cultivated man with the technical knowledge and personal experience of a common sailor. ‘There was no arduous duty, no nasty weather, no harsh treatment that the sailor faced in the regular round of his work, which young Dana did not know at first hand. “Two Years Before the Mast” was a personal narrative of a sailor’s life at sea; and, although written by a junior in Harvard College, it is the most accurate record of the sailor’s life that has appeared. But it was more than a mere record of a voyage ; to the simplicity and directness of ‘ Robinson Crusoe” it added the indefinable touch of the accomplished writer and the imagination of a man who was always conscious of the wonder, mystery, and splendor of the sea and sky. Mr. Perry says very happily of the book : Like Defoe’s most famous narrative, it had its natural beginning, its natural series of cli- maxes, and its due return to the starting-point. No artificial literary plot could be better curved than that.outward voyage of the brig Pilgrim in August, 1834, the timeless sojourn in the new land of California, then the long beat home- ward of the ship Alert around the Horn and up past the equator and into Boston Harbor in September, 1836.. Dana was fortunate, above all, in his youthfulness. He wrote at twenty- two. The book was published in 1839 and passed rapidly through many editions. It was reprinted in England and distributed by the British Board of Admiralty throughout the British navy, and finds a place in the library of every American man-of-war. Mr. Dana was an authority on international law. Born in 1815, he died in Rome in 1882, and was buried in the Protestant Cem- etery in Rome, a place dear to those who love English poetry. Mr. Moorfield Storey and Mr. Choate recalled Mr. Dana’s distinc- tion as a lawyer and his courage as an oppo- nent of slavery at a time when such opposition involved social ostracism. ‘The world has forgotten these things, as it forgets most bio- graphical details ; but it remembers the man who wrote “Two Years Before the Mast,’ and it cherishes the book as one of the real books in American literature. A DREAM BOOK The Hearst newspapers, which make it their business to stir up bad feeling between the different classes of society and between nations, have been indulging in one of their most elaborate misrepresentations of the Japanese. They have published in the most sensational way and with blood-curdling illus- trations two installments of a book entitled “The War between Japan and the United States ;”’ the alleged translation of this book, with illustrations, covers two pages of some, if not all, the Hearst newspapers, and is obviously intended to convince the readers of those journals that what Bernhardi did in the way of defining German plans for the future the Japanese writer has done in defining Japanese plans for the future. There is, however, this great difference : Bernhardi is a well-known German military officer ; the author of ‘‘ The War between Japan and the United States ” is obscure and, the Japanese say, an unknown person. This book was written three years ago and published anonymously. It attracted very little attention and the sale was less than two thousand copies. Japanese familiar with conditions at home declare that it made no
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536 impression and was promptly forgotten. In the screaming headlines of the two install- ments in the Hearst newspapers it is charac- terized as ‘‘ Japan’s most popular book, issued by its powerful and influential Defense Asso- ciation.” The title of this book, if correctly translated, would read “‘ The Dream Story of the Japanese-American War.” It was a piece of invention, like many stories of its kind, and it was not issued by the authority of the National Defense Association because, among other reasons, there is no such association. The book was published in 1913. In 1914 a National Defense Board was organized, of which the Prime Minister is President, and which consists of seven military experts. This Board is similar to the Board recently organized in Washington. The author of the dream book put on it the imprint of the “National Association of Military Affairs,” an organization which never had any exist- ence. The book itself is preposterous ; and the condensed translation is more preposterous than the book. Japanese who have compared the two call attention to wide divergences between them, and to-the introduction of entirely new matter in the translation. In the latter Americans are described as a dirty people, both as to their persons and their clothing. In the book they are described as a cleanly people, and, as evidence of their care of their garments, the great number of laun- dries in the country and the army of Chinese employed as laundrymen are pointed out. The description of the naval battle by which the United States fleet is destroyed stamps the anonymous writer as a person with the imagination of aschool-boy. The plan of cam- paign in the Philippines and the strategy that secures the possession of Honolulu are cn the same level. The fall of San Francisco and the other cities between San Diego and Port- land, the seizure of all United States property in Mexico, with the definition of the fifty clauses in the treaty which the United States Government is to sign on its knees, would be sufficient to stamp this ridiculous book as a cheap excursion into fairyland in the mind of any responsible editor. These fabrications might be ignored but | for the fact that, as a rule, readers of the Hearst papers have no other sources of infor- mation. In this case the fabrication is ‘pecu- liarly infamous because it charges the respon- sibility of a-dream book on the Government of Japan. THENOUTLOOK 3 November CHILDREN AND ART The Outlook has already chronicled the autumn announcements of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City so far as they refer togrown-ups. But equally interest- ing announcements have to do with children. There is to be a special guide for their use. It will consist of pamphlets, each describing a field that may be covered in one visit’ to the Museum. The subjects of the pamphlets are Egypt, Stories fromthe Bible, Greek Myths and Tales, Heroes and Heroines of Legend and History, Armor, Paintings and Painters. Think of the latent importance to the child of the armor collection in the Museum ! Perhaps the very suit of armor which the child sees also saw the Battle of Crécy. The child may also follow the tournament from Ivanhoe’s day on to the contest in which Henry II lost his life—and here is the very graven armor which the monarch did not live to receive from its maker ! The child is to be further benefited by the use of models. In our natural history museums there is an almost universal use nowadays of groups of animals, birds, fishes, mounted and arranged with great skill. In a museum of art why should there not be also the use of small costumed groups of figures in architectural surroundings to show the manners and customs of past civilizations or epochs? We are glad to say that the Metro- politan Museum has already undertaken to reproduce a series of such models. The first is the medizeval banqueting hall of Penshurst, in which every detail of the room will be carefully carried out; the tapestries, tables, stools, etc., modeled after well-known exam- ples of the period, and the use of the room shown by means of figures of knights, ladies, and retainers faithfully dressed in contempo- rary costumes. With such a model, all the tapestries and tables, the furniture, armor and costumes belonging to any of the museim collections should have a new meaning; and the historical novels of the period—those of Sir Walter Scott, for instance—will also take on a new significance and vividness. THE BOSTON MUSEUM Work for children in art has also been emphasized by the Boston Museum of: Fine Arts—especially in its series of stories for children, begun two years ago. Boys and girls over ten years old were asked to come to the Museum on Saturday afternoons for pictures and stories. In response, an average of a
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~~ a == weuU=TlUwwrhlClCOrlClCU WTHUTOCUlCUC COO CUO CU — wv __ —_ - > ly fee apaataaaail 1915 THE hundred children has been present every Saturday. They dubbed the stories ‘‘ Museum Movies,”’ for of course the stories were illustrated, and they often inquired to make sure that the pictures would be changed each time. With due acknowledgment to the watchfulness of custodians, most of the boys and girls showed by their behavior that they were ready to be welcomed by the Museum. It is interesting to note that by far the larger proportion were boys, and still more inter- esting to note that the boys were always the more attentive. The Museum visit was also something of a game, for in each gallery the children were allowed to find for themselves the objects shown on the screen. For in- stance, in the story of Theseus the illustra- tive objects were a model of the Acropolis at Athens, and vases of Theseus and the Mino- taur, etc. The speed with which the children recognized these objects was almost breath- less, the Museum report says, and, though their description of what the statues, vases, and paintings meant was incoherent, there was an undoubted sense of familiarity with the objects. The result of the Boston ex- periment is that children of to-day, fed on the Sunday comic supplement and the ordi- nary “movies,” may be interested in a statue, classic in its reserve and simplicity. As the Museum. report concludes, a room full of Greek vases, instead of being the meaningless place it is to so many of their elders, may become to these children a ‘happy hunting-ground.” THE WORCESTER MUSEUM The Worcester Art Museum begins its story hours with children nine years old or older, and with younger children if accom- panied by grown-up friends. Its stories are always illustrated with stereopticon views of architecture, paintings, etc., of the country and period with which the stories deal. For instance, last year’s series was based on the history of painting, and the final story’s sub- ject was “ Things To Be Seen Outdoors.” With that as a text the story-teller made some landscape drawings illustrating the effects of air, distance, and time of day upon the colors, lights, and shadows of the out-of-doors, ex- plaining so vividly as he drew that even the youngest of the children present paid strict attention. This year, instead of an attempt to traverse the ages with a single branch of art, the field will be confined to three coun- tries in which art has been particularly spon- WEEK 537 taneous, rich, and varied, namely, Greece, France, and Japan. Other story-tellers may be glad to have the Worcester list of subjects concerning Greece : Pan and the wild folk of woods and waters. The gods of Olympus. The adventures of Theseus and other heroes. An Athenian boy’s home twenty-three centu- ries ago. Douris the potter. The Doric house of Hephaistos. The Ionic house of Athena. Two hundred years in the making of Greek statues. Stories Greek sculptors carved on temples. LEPROSY Recent experiments in the treatment of leprosy instituted by Dr. Victor G. Heiser (formerly of the Philippine service, who has just resigned from it) and his assistants in the Philippines have yielded such significant results that the International Health Commis- sion of the Rockefeller Foundation is making a special inquiry on the subject with regard to the experience that has been obtained in all parts of the world. In pursuance of the policy of the American Government to improve the condition of the people of the Philippine Islands, the Govern- ment physicians, notwithstanding the centu- ries of failure, resolutely attacked the problem of the treatment of this disease. In a short time some advance was recorded. For in- stance, a number of lepers were reported as being cured with the X-ray treatment, but, unfortunately, the cures were not permanent, and in a few years the disease reappeared ; yet this step was an advance. Of the many and varied treatments em- ployed, the use of chaulmoogra oil has given the most consistently favorable results. Chaul- moogra oil has been used with more or less success for many years in various parts of the world, but it was found that the continued use of the oil produced so much nausea that it was impracticable for all but a very few. Exper- iments were then begun, and it was found that when the oil was mixéd in certain propor- tions with camphor and resorcin it could be given hypodermically without causing nausea. This new treatment was begun in 1911, and produced results more encouraging than any heretofore reported. For instance, we find in the United States Public Health Reports of September 5, 1913, and January 2, 1914, records of four cures ; in the report of Octo-
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538 ber 16, 1914, an account of twelve cases placed under this treatment, with the follow- ing results : Per cent. NE CINE i sina nhs basin iced seas i1.11 Apparent clinical recoveries........... 44.44 Showing marked improvement......... 33.33 Showing only slight evidence of improve- 11.11 The publication of the foregoing facts led to the employment of the treatment in a number of foreign countries, and reports of its successful use are beginning to appear. Recent advices from Manila state that during the past few months twenty-three additional lepers have been discharged from the leper hospitals as cured. This treatment, asserts Dr. Heiser, is ap- parently passing out of the experimental stage, and it may be stated with reasonable certainty that it arrests the disease regard- less of its type or duration in almost every instance, and in many cases has effected per- manent cures. Recently the International Health Commis- sion of the Rockefeller Foundation has taken steps to circulate details of this treatment in all countries in which leprosy occurs, with the hope that if a larger number of workers in different parts of the world undertake its use the study of the reports may point the way for further advancement in finding a true specific cure for a terrible disease. MR. BRYAN AND DR. TUPPER We printed in our issue of last week a letter from Dr. Henry Allen Tupper, for- merly Commissioner of the International Peace Forum, in. which he stated that cer- tain allegations made in The Outlook of October 6 in an article on Mr. Carranza by Mr. Edward I. Bell were not only unjust, but without any foundation in fact. Dr. Tupper, since the publication of his letter of protest in The Outlook, has shown us an auto- graph letter from ex-Secretary Bryan, who Says: I have read your answer to The Outlook and am glad to confirm the truth of your statements in so far as they relate to me and to any matters within my knowledge. We accept this evidence as conclusive, and think our readers should so accept it, in so far as it regards Dr. Tupper’s connection with the Secretary of State and the Adminis- tration in Washington during his investiga- tions in Mexico. THE OUTLOOK 3 November NATIONAL DEFENSE If an ounce of experience is worth a ton of theory, the following letter from a soldier of the British army in the trenches in France is at least as valuable as a column of editorial opinion on the question of military prepared- ness or National defense. We are glad to print it here as an illuminating contribution to the discussion of the National defense problem : To the Editors of The Outlook: I have been very much interested in read- ing of the increasing importance which the question of military preparedness for war is assuming in America. In view of the fact that since August, 1914, I have been an infantryman in an old-line British regiment, a brief account of my experience in learning the business of soldiering may be of interest to some of your readers, particularly to those who believe that the making of a soldier is a matter of weeks merely, and that volunteer armies can be recruited, trained, and placed in the field in three months’ time. It may be well to state, first, that I am an American, born and bred, and that I have assumed the popular English alias, Atkins, for the dura- tion of the war only. , In common with all of my comrades in one of the first units of Lord Kitchener’s first citizen army, I believed that within a few weeks of enlistment we would be fighting side by side with the seasoned regulars of the first British expeditionary force. But after three months of hard work we began to appreciate the tremendous difficulties of the task we had in hand. During those three months we had worked from 5:30 in the morning until 4:30 in the afternoon every day in the week, Sunday excepted. And yet at the end of that time we had mastered only the fundamentals of squad, platoon, and com- pany drill, and some elementary knowledge of battle formations and of the use of our rifles. We were no more cohesive than so many grains of wet sand. We were still so many individuals, fretting under the restraints of discipline, and no more fit to be called soldiers than apprentices of three months are to be called skilled mechanics. My battalion was recruited chiefly from what is known in England as the “ lower middle classes.” Many of the men had been used to a healthy out-of-doors life; but even these were far from fit for the rigors and hardships of soldiering. How much less
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1 . d t s $ 1915 THE CASE OF MISS CAVELL so were those indoor workers—the clerks, the shop assistants, the small merchants—fit forit! All of these men had enlisted through patriotic motives. They were willing and eager to go on active service. But it was not until they had been through months of the hardest kind of work—Swedish drill, route marching, company and battalion drill on the barrack square, field teaming for both offen- sive and defensive work —that they were phys- ically efficient. Ten or twelve weeks’ train- ing would never have given these men the physical stamina enabling them to endure the terrible fatigues of a rapid strategic retreat like that from Mons. They would have dropped out on the roadside by tens of thousands, to be gathered in by the swiftly advancing enemy. At the end of six months we were as hard as nails. We had endured many hardships through a very inclement autumn and winter, during which there had been no let-up in our work, no matter what the weather. Chang- ing methods of warfare have, of course, brought great changes in methods of mili- tary training. Machine guns are supplanting rifles, bombs and hand grenades are sup- planting the bayonet. The increasing dead- liness of modern weapons has made open warfare about impossible. If men are to live to do any fighting at all, they must live for a large part of the time under ground. All of the revolutionary changes in method meant corresponding changes in the charac- ter of our training. It is now necessary that a large percentage of infantry units be effi- cient machine-gunners. No one can hope to become really efficient in the use of this weapon in less than three months’ time. And so we went on from week to week and from month to month, and it was not until we had been trained for nine months that we were sent to the ‘‘ Somewhere Trench” to take our part in the greatest war in history. Four months of active service in France has convinced us how necessary, how vitally necessary, those nine months of preparation were. We had been unconsciously acquiring the ability to act instinctively, and this is unquestionably the most important as well as the most difficult thing that a soldier must gain. Work must.always be done with the sureness and promptitude of instinct. Otherwise, in the heat of battle, when all men are laboring under the stress of great excitement, the soldier is lost and useless. Battalions must be units in the strictest sense 539 of the word. Orders must be obeyed with- out a moment of hesitancy. With my own year of experience as a criterion, I am firmly of the opinion that, in order to become even fairly good soldiers, men must have at least a year of training. .The will to be defenders is nothing unless there is back of it long and careful prepara- tion. I am speaking, of course, of infantry- men, the least skilled of all soldiers. Other branches of the service—the engineers, the field artillery, etc.—require a much longer period of training. Whether America, in view of the past year’s developments, should adopt a policy of compulsory military service is a question. But, to my mind, there is no question that it should make the training of her citizen armies thorough if it is to have any value. Yours sincerely, LANCE CORPORAL JAMES N. HALL, Machine Gun Section, the —th Royal Fusiliers, British Expeditionary Force, France. THE CASE OF MISS CAVELL When the Lusitania and the Arabic were torpedoed and sunk, Americans were urged to suspend judgment until the German Gov- ernment could have an opportunity of pre- senting its statement of the facts. This was right and proper. In the case of Edith Cavell, the English hospital nurse shot in Belgium by the German Government, there is no need of waiting to sift the facts. They have been stated on the authority of the German Foreign Office, and appear in the official statement of our own Minister to Bel- gium, Mr. Brand Whitlock. Miss Cavell was charged with having aided English and French soldiers as well as Belgian citizens of military age to escape from that part of Belgium which is under German jurisdiction by right of conquest. This was a violation of German military law. Members of the court martial that tried Miss Cavell report that she confessed to the truth of the charges against her, and this confession is accepted by our Minister and by the Eng- lish authorities. It is true that she did not have an opportunity to discuss the charges against her with the lawyer assigned to her defense, nor was her lawyer permitted to see any documents of the prosecution before the trial. This, however, was in accordance with German military practice, and her lawyer has stated to the counselor of the American
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540 Legation that her defense was as complete as possible, and the Court had all the facts presented to it. Her trial lasted two days and ended October 8. She was shot at two o’clock in the morning of October 12. The period between the time of her sentence and her death was occupied by the American Minister and the Spanish Minister in endeav- ors to secure the delay of the execution with the hope of obtaining clemency. The view of Minister Whitlock is expressed in the following letter which he addressed to Baron von der Lancken, German Governor of Brussels : I have just learned that Miss Cavell, who is a British subject, and consequently under the protection of my Embassy, was this morning condemned to death by sentence of court mar- tial. Without going into the causes which led to such a severe sentence, and one which, if all the reports which have reached me are correct, is more severe in this case than in all others which have been tried by the same tribunal, I hope to be able to appeal to the sentiments of humanity and generosity of his Excellency the Governor-General on behalf of Miss Cavell, in order that the sentence of death which has been passed against her may be commuted, and that this unhappy lady be not executed. Miss Cavell is the head nurse of a surgical institute of Brussels. She has spent her life in alleviating the sufferings of others, and at her school have been trained numerous nurses who, throughout the world, in Germany as in Bel- gium, have kept watch at the bedsides of pa- tients. At the beginning of the war Miss Cavell gave her services to German soldiers as well as to others. Failing other reasons, her humanitarian career is of a nature to inspire pity for her, and, in advance, to secure her pardon. If the information given me is correct, Miss Cavell, far from hiding herself, with laudable frankness admitted all the facts laid to her charge, and the information she supplied was the cause of aggravating the sentence passed upon her. P It is with confidence and hope of its being favorably received that I pray your Excellency to present to the Governor-General my request for grace in favor of Miss Cavell. It is said that there was an apparent lack of good faith on the part of the German authorities in failing to keep their promises to inform the American Minister fully regarding the trial and sentence. But this is a matter of minor importance. Belgians, English, Germans, and Americans all agree that Miss Cavell was tried by court martial, in accord- THE OUTLOOK 3 November ance with German practice, was sentenced to death, and was shot. Our Government does right in not making any official protest to Germany because of the execution of Miss Cavell. All that we have a legal right to ask for our own citizens or for the citizens of another nation under our care is that, when accused of crime, they shall be tried in accordance with the laws of the country in which they are living. Unless we were prepared to affirm that the trial of Miss Cavell by court martial was in violation of German military law, we could not offi- cially make any protest against her trial and execution. But this is no reason why the American people -and the American press should not voice the deep and passionate indignation which is with practical unanimity aroused in this country by this crime against humanity. In fact, the indignation of the American peo- ple is the hotter and their protest the more determined and outspoken because they believe that the trial and execution of Miss Cavell were in accordance with German mili- tary law. Itis not of great importance to the world that Miss Cavell has passed out of it; her death will not put an end to hospitals, nursing, and the humane care of wounded and suffering soldiers. But it is of importance to the world to know whether the philosophy of law and government which prompted the _ execution of Miss Cavell is to prevail in the civilized world. The world-wide protest against the trial and execution of this hospital nurse is aroused, not by the fact that it is an exceptional act, but by the fact that it is a typical act. The German Foreign Office says that it was necessary in order to preserve the morale of the German army. How greatly the militaristic views of the German War Party of to-day differ from those of the noble- minded and high-spirited Germans of a pre- vious generation is strikingly illustrated by a comparison of the rules of warfare prepared by a German patriot of splendid type, Francis Lieber, LL.D., and issued to the armies of the United States in the field in April, 1863, by the Secretary of War. Among those rules, which still prevail in the United States army, appears the following article : Martial law is simply military authority exercised in accordance with the laws and usages of war. Military oppression is not martial law; it is the abuse of the power which that law confers. As martial law is
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TO AN 1915 executed by military force, it is incumbent upon those who administer it to be strictly guided by the principles of justice, honor, and humanity—virtues adorning a_ soldier even more than other men, for the very reason that he possesses the power of his arms against the unarmed. The American Government, the American War Department, the American army, and the American people believe that, in spite of its horrors, it is possible in war to maintain some common principles of humanity. The German War Office frankly says that it is not. This goes far to explain why Germany is to-day cut off from the sympathies of a very large majority of the American people. TO AN UNKNOWN FRIEND BELIEFS OF THE UNBELIEVERS Dear Sir: You recall to me an address which I de- livered last winter before the Young Men’s Christian Association of New York, in which, as you remember it, I expressed my belief that the beliefs of the unbelievers point toward the Christian faith in a personal God, whose helpfulness to humanity is interpreted by the lives of the best men and women, and pre-eminently by the life and character of Jesus of Nazareth ; and you ask me for the grounds on which this statement was based. An adequate statement of those grounds would require a book, or at least a pamphlet, but I can suggest to you the clues which I have followed in reaching my conclusions. This perhaps I can best do in the form of question and answer. Question. Is the universe a happenstance, a chaos, gradually growing, without law, order, or intelligence, into a creation, or is it the product of an Unseen Power producing and controlling it ? Answer. “Amid the mysteries which be- come the more mysterious the more they are thought about, there will remain the one absolute certainty, that he is ever in presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, from which all things proceed.” —Herbert Spencer : Religion: A Retrospect and Prospect. Question. Is this Power a mere material force without intelligence or character, a purely unmoral power ? Answer. “If, on the other hand, they ask, ‘How are we to verify that there rules an . UNKNOWN FRIEND 541 enduring Power, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness ?’ we may answer at once: ‘How? why, as you verify that fire burns— by experience. It isso; try it. You can try it; every case of conduct, of that which is more than three-fourths of your own life and of the life of all mankind, will prove it to you. Disbelieve it, and you will find out your mis- take, as sure as, if you disbelieve that fire burns and put your hand into the fire, you will find out your mistake. Believe it, and you will find the benefit of it.’ This is the first experience.” —Matthew Arnold : Litera- ture and Dogma. Question. Righteousness ? What is right- eousness, and how can we know that it exists ? Answer. “Goodness is a kind of beauty. The moral law, like the Jaws of physical na- ture, rests in the long run upon instinctive intuitions, and is neither more nor less ‘innate’ and ‘necessary’ than they are... . Some there are who cannot feel the difference between the ‘Sonata Appassionata’ and ‘Cherry Ripe;’ or between a gravestone- cutter’s cherub and the Apollo Belvedere ; but the canons of art are none the less ac- knowledged. Some there may be who, devoid of sympathy, are incapable of a sense of duty; but neither does their existence affect the foundations of morality. Such pathological deviations from true manhood are merely the halt, the lame, and the blind of the world of consciousness, and the anat- omist of the mind leaves them aside, as the anatomist of the body would ignore abnor- mal specimens.” —7. H. Huxley : Essay on Hume. Question. Ideals of beauty differ. So do ideals of morality. Does history furnish us any standard of moral character and conduct to which we can refer and by which we can measure these various conflicting ideals ? Answer. “ About the life and sayings of Jesus there is a stamp of personal originality combined with profundity of insight which, if we abandon the idle expectation of finding scientific precision where something very dif- ferent was aimed at, must place the Prophet of Nazareth, even in the estimation of those who have no belief in his inspiration, in the very first rank of the men of sublime genius of whom our species can boast. When this pre-eminent genius is combined with the qual- ities of probably the greatest moral reformer
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542 and martyr to that mission:-who ever existed upon earth, religion cannot be said to have made a bad choice in pitching on this man as the ideal representative and guide of human- ity ; nor, even now, would it be easy even for an unbeliever to find a better translation of the rule of virtue from the abstract into the concrete than to endeavor so to live that Christ would approve our life.”"—/ohn Stuart Mill: Three Essays on Religion. Hewhowillaccept John Stuart Mill’sadvice, and endeavor so to live that Jesus will approve his life, and, seeing in him that goodness which is a kind of beauty, will strive manfully to realize that goodness in his own conduct and character, and will in his experience make trial of the question whether there is a Power not ourselves that makes for righteous- ness, will gradually find his way to some measure of acquaintance with the Infinite and Eternal Energy in whose presence we all have our life, and who becomes the Be- loved Companion to those who listen to and obey his voice. A WEEK FOR GOOD BOOKS The story runs that an intelligent mother in New York City, eager to guide her boy and yet throw a certain responsibility upon him, allows him to go to the theater from time to time and to select his own plays, subject to her veto; the understanding being that he shall under no circumstances se¢ an immoral play. Some time ago he was given the necessary money to buy two tickets. He brought the tickets to his mother. They were for a play about which she knew nothing, but the title of which was unpleasantly suggestive. She said to the boy: ‘‘ Are you sure this play is the kind of play you ought to see?” and he replied, promptly: ‘ Yes, mother; ‘ Life’ says it is vulgar but not immoral.” The chief peril to which American children are exposed is not immorality but vulgarity. The Outlook has already pointed out the various ways in which sound taste and health- ful views of life in children are assailed by the so-called ‘Comic Supplement,” many of the movies, and a good deal of the current literature written especially for them. icans are extremely alert in some ways and extremely dull-minded in others. One of the most severe comments ever made upon the country was the statement that it has ruth- THE OUTLOOK Amer-° 3 November lessly cut down its noblest forests to furnish the material on which the sensational news- papers are published. It has felled its forests to spread vulgarity, exaggeration, and cheap- ness throughout the whole country. The Boy Scouts is one of the organiza- tions which is substituting virile and manly for debilitating conditions, and is supplying healthful means of activity for the imagina- tion and the body of an army of boys, many of whom get into serious mischief and some of whom go to absolute ruin because the normal activities of their nature and the normal demands of their imaginations are not met. The Library Commission of the Boy Scouts of America proposed to the retail book trade that the first week of December be set aside as Juvenile Book Week, and asked all booksellers to unite in urging the public not only to shop early, but to buy the best books for their children. Appeals will be sent to librarians asking them to collect and exhibit the best books, the aid of the pulpit will be invoked, newspapers will be furnished with special articles, and women’s clubs will have the opportunity of doing work of the very first importance in this connection. It is hoped by this co-operative campaign of pub- licity to direct the mind of the country to the necessity of guarding the minds of its chil- dren from the demoralization of the cheap and exaggerated story. This admirable plan has been indorsed by the American Booksellers’ Association and by the American Library Association, and has therefore received the stamp of approval from two of the most im- portant agencies for the distribution of books. Mr. Franklin K. Mathiews, Chief Scout Librarian, in an address to the American Booksellers’ Association, emphasized the fact, so often overlooked, that books, although merchandise, are something more ; and that both the bookseller and the librarian are made responsible by the things in which they deal and give to the public. ‘The answer of some booksellers, when they are urged to discrimi- nate against the bad book, ‘“ Business is business,” is based on .a theory which may now be said to be exploded ; for Americans have learned that any form or method of business which sacrifices the customer is in the end bad business. The great defect in the business methods of this country has been the sacrifice of the larger revenue for the immediate profit. No country has ever killed the goose that lays the golden egg more
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1915 A WEEK FOR thoroughly than has the United States. A dollar to-day, in the practice of a host of Americans in all kinds of business, has been much more important than ten dollars next week. The fallacy of selling the cheap book because ‘ business is business ”’ is exposed by the fact that a well-written and whole- some book has just as much appeal in it and is just as salable as the book that tells pictur- esque or clumsy lies to its readers. Out-of-door sports have come to fill a great place in tne lives of boys, as they should, but it is a mistake to suppose that boys no longer read. Mr. Mathiews, who has been investigating the matter, reports that in the schools of a large city, when the question was asked the children as to what they. did be- tween Friday afternoon and Monday morning, it was discovered that the largest: percentage of them spent their time in reading. In another city one boy sent in, the titles of ninety-eight books which he had read during his summer vacation; and those who watch the habits of boys in camp or at hotels cannot fail to be struck by the fact that as soon as the exercise hour is over the reading hour begins. In spite of increased activities, read- ing is still the principal recreation of a host of boys. And many of these boys are still reading the nickel novel, which has taken the place of the dime novel of a generation ago. It is true that there has been a decline in the sale of the nickel novel ; and a writer in the New York “ Times,” who has himself been an author of these one-hundred-thrills-for-a- nickel books, says that the decline of ‘‘ Shorty Muldoon” and others whom he. names. has been due, not to a crusade, but to the moving- picture shows ; which means that the mischief has changed its form, but has not been ended. These books are not at all the kind of book which Anthony Comstock spent his life in destroying. Their offense is not that they are immoral, but that they are untrue and intellectually vulgar. They are not indecent, but exaggerated ; and they fill the minds of boys with the same sort of mischievous rub- bish with which the cheap novels fill the minds of shop-girls. Mr. Mathiews describes a book of this type in which the captain of a new submarine craft is sixteen years of age. He had already served a world-wide appren- ticeship and is a ** world-known expert in the handling of submarine torpedo-boats.” With this brilliant youthful commander two other sixteen-year-old heroes were associated who are also masters of the art of submarine boat- 543 building and direction. They had all taken medals at Annapolis, and they had served as instructors in submarine work at that institution. To boys who read this sort of rubbish the discipline of education, the painful pursuit of knowledge, are wholly eliminated, and life becomes an easy and brilliant job in which the highest rewards are attainable without a struggle and at an age which would have driven the heroes of an earlier time to despair. The sin of these books is intemperance. They are a form of cheap whisky. They not only intoxicate, but they destroy the tissues of the brain and contribute to the fostering of that lack of discipline which is shown in every department of life in the United States, from the brutal hanging of a man by a mob in Georgia, the overturning of a steamboat tied to a dock, the blowing up of the streets of New York, to the so-called “ gentleman’s mark” in the colleges and the failure of municipal government. These cheap stories do not stimulate the imagination; they dissi- pate and waste it, and so destroy the greatest power with which boys and girls are endowed. They relax the attention to such a degree that it is impossible to hold the attention of their victims except by what are called thrills. * A thrill a minute ” is a phrase not uncom- mon in theatrical advertisements and is highly significant of the widespread relaxation of brains and will in America. The vulgarization of the American mind involves the loss of the highest possibilities within the reach of American democracy. The most serious objection to the vulgar “movie ”’ is its cheapening of love ; its blur- ring of the standards of intercourse between men and women; the free and easy man- ners which lower the girl in the sight of the boy—and there is nothing more impor- tant than that boys should hold girls and women in high respect. The idealization of women, which at certain ages protects boys to whom religious principle does not appeal, is an invaluable possession. ‘The cheap movie and the cheap book which trades in thrills tear this idealism up by the roots; and the tragic thing about it is that the boys do not want them—that they want the real thing and take it eagerly when it is offered to them. Juvenile Book Week is a matter of National interest and importance. Booksellers, book publishers, and librarians must co-operate ; but they ought to have all intelligent Ameri- cans behind them. GOOD BOOKS
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“REPUBLIC OR MONARCHY IN CHINA P A POLL OF THE CHINESE PRESS ’ \HE question of changing the form of government from a republic to a monarchy is being discussed in China. There are three sets of people there : those who want monarchy, those who do not care, and those who defend the Re- public. I ‘Those who want monarchy are so active and their influence is so powerful that prog- ress on the permanent Chinese Constitution has been held up until the question reaches a definite decision. It may be significant that Tang Hua-lung, Minister of Education, an apostle of republicanism, has gone on a long sick leave. The Shanghai ‘China Press ” interprets his illness as due to the drastic development of the monarchical movement. It also hints that the absence of the Vice-President of China, Li Yuan-hung, who is President of the Tsanchengyuan, or Council of State, is due to the same reason. A Chouan Hui, or “ Preparing Peace Society,” a pro-monarchy organization, has been organized to further monarchical dis- cussion. This, says thé “ Yahsiya Jih Pao” (the “Asia Daily Gazette”), ‘should be welcomed by those who are patriotic at heart. If they cannot openly advocate the cause, they may at least remain tacitly sym- pathetic.”” ‘The paper proceeds : td There are four classes of people as far as the question of the Chouan Hui is concerned. First, the extreme opponents. These are notorious rebels, who do not like to have the form of government changed for fear that their long- cherished ambitions will be frustrated forever. Secondly, ambitious opportunists, who expect that in five or ten years they may have a chance to become the President of China, and therefore do not like to see the Government changed. Thirdly, ambitious people without employ- ment. They usually have some energy and per- sistence so long as they have some influential men to look up to for support. They are, how- ever,a heterogeneous lot without much scruple, and will easily forsake their supporters when it suits them better. The last class is the theoretical doubters. These are people of high intellect who have not realized the unsuitability of the republican form of government for China, but are attracted by the examples of other nations and wish to follow. Three points are worthy our attention: (1) Is 544 the self-government ability of our people suffi- cient for a republic? (2) In view of the general desire to occupy a high position, will not the peo- ple struggle for the Presidency? (3)-An efficient army is necessary for the existence of the nation. Can universal military training be efficiently car- ried out in a republic? Another consideration is that of tradition. Concerning. it the Peking “ Daily News ” says: It is an interesting speculation whether any country that had the tradition of monarchy and the population of which was practically of the same race would make a success of a republic. It cannot be claimed that France has supplied the answer. .. . There are only two republics that have been indubitable successes in modern days, the United States and Switzer- land. France has alternated between a repub- lican and a monarchical form of government, and it would require courage to affirm that she has yet made her final choice. The Peking paper regards a monarchical restoration in China as a certainty, and pooh-poohs the idea that it was at all “‘ neces- sary to search the mind of a distinguished American [Dr. Goodnow, President of Johns Hopkins University, and formerly adviser in China to the Chinese Republic] for the exact formula of the moment.” According to the judicially minded ‘“ Na- tional Review’’ there are only two main issues : The first is, Do the people—that is to say, the majority of the thinking part of the peo- ple—want to revert to the monarchical form ? The second is, Is such a return a wise step at the present time ? II The Peking “ Daily News ” declares that 999,999 out of every million Chinese who think about the matter desire good govern- ment, but are quite indifferent as to the label it bears, and proceeds : What real difference would it make to a pri- vate citizen of the United States of America if President Wilson became a constitutional mon- arch to-morrow? And the further question may fairly be asked, “ What real difference would it make to any private British subject if King George were a President instead of a King?” The answer is, “ None.” In the two countries named, the systems of government are practi- cally identical, except that the titular head is changed in the one every four years, while in
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REPUBLIC OR MONARCHY IN CHINAP the other he holds office for life and is succeeded by a member of his family. Security of life and property, the basis ofall progress, exists equally in each country, and it would be impossible to point to any gain or loss sustained by either country in the past fifty years that would not have been gained or that would. have been avoided if the United States had been a mon- archy and Great Britain a republic. III The question of monarchical restoration is an issue both of principle and of expediency. As to the first, should the monarchy be re- stored, there would inevitably be a southern outbreak. A Peking paper thus expresses it: “The south looks upon the northern settlement at Nanking [the establishment of the Republic] as .a fundamental bulwark against a recurrence of ancient wrongs. . . It i is a living fear there that if the Republic disappears ... the ancient agencies of na- tional environment will drive us to the re-estab- lishmenit of a system not unlike the régime that was shattered in 1911.” As to expediency, one argument against the restoration is found in the personality of President Yuan Shi-kai. For, as the same paper proceeds to say, “it can hardly be doubted that the President would be entitled to the scepter.” It adds the warn- ing, however: ‘‘ Such a scepter would be but a bauble if it passed into the hands of the President in circumstances that might be interpreted by the nation in the sense of a seizure.” An indication of the expression of south- ern radical republican sentiment, which reaches as far north as Shanghai, is that three Chinese were killed and ten injured by the explosion of a bomb the other day at the office of the new paper started at Shanghai in support of the monarchist movement, the “ Yahsiya Jih Pao,” already mentioned. The Shanghai ‘China Press ”’ informs us that this attack was not unexpected either by the managers of the paper or the people who lived in the neighborhood, as since the announcement that a pro-monarchy paper would be started there have been per- sistent rumors that such an outrage might happen. At first the republicans simply laughed at the monarchist proposals, if we may judge from the sarcastic editor of the Huangchung “Jih Pao” (‘* Daily Gazette ”’) : I, a little pupil in the primary school, have long been thinking about the dangers that await 545 us at the Presidential-election and have- been searching my mind for a method with which to prevent the evil. Now from what I learn from the newspapers about Dr. Goodnow’s views and the aim of the Chouan Hui, I can go to school with my mind at ease. Later, however, the monarchist agitators, who instanced certain shortcomings of the Republic as a reason for overturning it, were taken more seriously, as we note from an editorial in the Shengchow “ Jih Pao” (Daily Gazette). It inquires: ‘‘ Who is responsible for the failure of new methods which have proved successful in foreign lands? No success will result if you take up the root and expect the top to produce fruit.” This idea is developed in the ‘‘ Ta Chung Hua” (the “ China Review ”’) by Liang Chi- chao, and it is the more impressive because Liang advocated monarchy at a time when China was establishing a Republic. He says : Why should I have opposed you when you suggested the first change of government and oppose you again now? Because a change in the conduct of a government isa sign of prog- ress, while a change in the form of a govern- ment is a sign of revolution. A signof progress leads a nation to progress, and.a sign of revolu- tion leads it to revolution. I have always opposed a revolution, hence I am opposing you now as I opposed you before, for a revolution always retards the progress of a nation. Ten years ago I said certain things, and to-day my words have proved to be true, though they have never been heeded. I hope ten years later my countrymen will not have occasion to regret that they did not heed the words I am now speaking. Liang has been called the foremost scholar of China. Heisalso one of the reformers of 1898. With Kang Yu-wei, he managed to save his life by flight at the time of the Empress Dowager’s coup d@état, when eleven of his associates were beheaded. In 1911-12, after the revolution, he favored a settlement which would retain the Emperor, but bound by a con- stitution and a representative government. Liang becamea Minister in Yuan’s Cabinet, but resigned, and has since resisted all invitations to return to Peking. He declares that he is now concerned only in criticising the conduct, not the form, of government. ‘ To criticise the form... is like one who tries to enter a house without ascending the steps.’”’ The Republic has not been established long, he says, yet now we are witnessing some of its founders interested in a movement to overturn it. ‘* Constitutional and non-constitutional de- note the conduct of a government,” affirms
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546 Liang, ‘‘ while republican and non-republi- can denote the government’s form. ‘To say that because you wish to reform the conduct of the Government a change of its form is necessary is nonsense.”’ If the adoption of a Constitution is the wish of the monarchical agitators, asserts Liang, their wish can be fulfilled under the Republic. To say that what cannot be done under a Republic, he adds, is capable of being done under a mon- archy is not understandable. The most powerful argument advanced by those who advocate a change, as Liang ad- mits, is that a Presidential election is liable to cause a disturbance of the peace. It is for this reason that ten years ago Liang did not associate himself with the advocates of republicanism. But the newly promulgated Presidential election laws, he notes, practically provide a life term for the President. As to any assumption at dictatorship by Yuan, Liang points to Mexico, where “ Diaz acted like a despot under the mask of a Re- public. Now, comments Liang, grimly and signifi- cantly, if Diaz had tried to change his govern- ment into a monarchy at all, its life would have been much shorter. Admitting that a monarchy holds sway over many people by virtue of a kind of hyp- notic power, Liang further warns: People worship and reverence and believe in idols which they place in fine and costly edifices, but if a hooligan comes and throws these idols over, kicks them, and leaves them in the gutter, even if they are replaced in their former posi- tions, will they continue to inspire belief and reverence? From time immemorial the people of monarchical countries have always regarded their kings or emperors as possessing a divine right and have always been: cautious not to criticise them carelessly. But once a country changes its government into a republic, this awe and respect for the king is lost forever. Liang does not close without warning monarchical agitators that technically their attempt to change the existing form of gov- ernment is a rebellious act. In this connec- tion the Shanghai ‘“‘Shun Pao” also asks: “Ts it lawful or legal for the republican people of this country to discuss changing the form of the government into a monar- chy? The governments of the past dynas- ties arrested and executed men who at- tempted to alter the form of government.” Liang concludes : On what does the firmness of the foundation of a state depend, and how may the throne be THE OUTLOOK 3 November bequeathed from one generation to another? It depends on the fact whether or not, when a law is promulgated or an order issued from the government, it is obeyed and respected by every person in the country as much as he respects his own life. Now, in trying to found a new dynasty the first thing you are doing is a breach of the law. You may be likened to one who, being anxious to get married, enters the house of a girl, takes her away, and marries her, regardless of whether she has had a good char- acter. When she becomes your wife, you will of course have no right to blame her for unchastity. The Peking ‘‘ Gazette ” publishes a signifi- cant article by Mr. Simpson, the corre- spondent of the London “ Daily Telegraph,” better known under his pen name of B. L. Putnam Weale. Admitting that Dr. Good- now’s recently published memorandum is the strongest case which can be made out for the revival of the Empire, Mr. Simpson says : Had those suggestions been gravely made in any country but China by a person officially employed it is difficult to know what would happen; certainly there would have been san- guinary outbreaks which would have arrested international concern. Even had an English- man in China published or caused to be pub- lished, . . . that Englishman, we say, would be liable under the Orders in Council to summary arrest and imprisonment. It would only need information sworn against him by any respon- sible persons . . . to have the long arm of Eng- lish law stretched out with dire results. In spite of any plea of privilege, the possibility of tumult and widespread internal disturbances would have'quite rightly forced a British Court to take action. But this is not all. There is here to be recognized, this critic thinks, as a motive force the power of Japan. Instead of being “a Chinese Washington—the father of his coun- try,’ says Mr. Simpson, there is no logical reason why Yuan Shi-kai should not become an Asiatic Napoleon, for a time at least—that is to say, until all is prepared in Japan! Another Peking paper refers to Japan in this connection as follows : It is part of the political learning of the Far East that in the days of the Manchus the Japa- nese planned not so much to annex China as a protector as to seat an Emperor of Japanese blood on the throne of the decadent descendants of Kanghsi and Chienlung. And the theory that is now suggested must be considered neither unreal nor fantastic, because it must be the inevitable and logical outcome of our capit- ulation to the Japanese ultimatum, plus the post- _poned demands in Group 5.... The opportune moment in the future for the negotiation of
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eovowwr PS 8 ne ee par was 1915 WEST POINT AND PREPAREDNESS Group 5 will have arrived on the very day that witnesses the rebirth of an empire in China, particularly if such an event occur before the conclusion of the war in Europe. In the Shanghai “ National Review ”’ the Rev. Dr. Gilbert Reid calls attention to the old Chinese habits of slowness, thoroughness, and all-round consideration as necessary to the problem, and says that ‘‘ any change in the form of government should be effected by WEST POINT NE of the most serious problems () confronting this country is that of utilizing in an economical way its vast potential resources for defense. The movement to co-ordinate and develop military training in our land-grant colleges and military schools, to lay the basis for an officers’ reserve by means of such camps as those at Plattsburgh, and to place our organ- ized military forces in closer touch with our great unorganized democracy are vital steps in the right direction. Much remains to be done, however, before even the best features of our present system can be said to be employed to the fullest advantage. It is in this connection that we publish for the con- sideration of our readers an interesting sug- gestion which comes to us in a letter from Mr. R. J. Sterrett, a United States Attorney of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Mr. Sterrett writes : I suggest that West Point be open to any boy who wants to enter, just as Princeton, Harvard, and all our universities now are open to any boy who can pass the entrance examinations. This would be very advantageous from the standpoint of the boy who would thus be - enabled to get a college education without cost, and it seems to me it would be a very great advantage to the Nation. We would then have, scattered throughout the country, men who had laid the foundation for a technical military edu- cation and who could be called upon in crises. One of the arguments which appeals to me very strongly is based upon the fact that ability and merit are so often found among those who have neither influence nor money and who would find it absolutely impossible to secure that influ- ence which isnow necessary for a Congressional appointment. The ability would be discovered if given only the opportunity. Graduates, of course, under such a system would far exceed the number necessary for service in the army, but some method could 547 the will of the people,”’ and concludes, as will many another observer : If China passes safely through the exciting discussion as to republic or monarchy, she will have proved her capability for being a Republic ; but if the discussion passes into a wrangle, and the excitement into turmoil and disorder, she will have proved that she is suited, not for a republic, not even for a constitutional monarchy, but for a dictatorship and absolutism. AND PREPAREDNESS easily be selected whereby the very best men out of each class could be commissioned, while the others were allowed to go their way, like any other ordinary college graduates, but carried on the reserve lists. It would be very much like put- ting the Plattsburgh idea ona permanent basis. Mr. Samuel Gompers, of the American Federation of Labor, in a recent letter tc Major-General Leonard Wood, wrote : While the organized labor movement of the country advocates peace, it advocates peace founded upon justice, and not peace at any price. Our experience with the practical affairs of life has taught us that we can secure justice and recognition for our necessary demands only when we are prepared to protect our demands and to enforce our ideals of justice. The prin- ciples which underlie the policies of the labor movement are in general the same fundamental principles that underlie any relation of life, whether as individuals or as a nation. There is always a danger associated with military service growing out of professionalism. The greatest protection against the dangers of militarism can be secured through making mili- tary training voluntary and as general as pos- sible and through fostering in the citizens the best conception of their duties as American citizens. One method that would promote this purpose is to make the naval and military National schools open to any one who desires to enter and who has the necessary qualifications, just as entrance to all other institutions of higher learning is open to those who desire to take courses in those institutions. These two expressions of opinion will doubtless receive no little critical attention. In the form in which they are made, how- ever, it seems that they are not at present entirely practical. Of the facilities available at West Point for carrying out such a project as is suggested by Mr. Sterrett and Mr. Gompers, Colonel Townsley, the present Superintendent of West Point, writes in his
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548 last annual report that, in his belief, 1,200 or 1,300 cadets is the limit to which the Academy can be extended because of lack of available and practicable space for the erection of new accommodations. There arises, too, the thought that the necessary reserve of officers can be more economi- cally provided in other ways. According to Colonel Townsiey, however, there does exist an immediate opportunity for increasing the present complement of cadets by filling (without any radical departure from present practice and in a manner fully in accord with democratic principles) the numerous vacancies in the cadet corps which now exist under our present system of appointment. In partial agreement with the suggestions made by Mr. Sterrett and Mr. Gompers is Colonel Townsley’s belief that the present custom of appointing cadets to West Point by Congressional sanction—a custom which has endured for ninety years—should be abolished by legislative enactment. ‘Two years ago, in his annuai report, he said : These cadetships belong to the people of the district, State, Territory, etc., and should be open competitively to all the youths eligible to compete, and it is my recommendation that a law be enacted requiring competitive exami- nation to be held for each vacancy, that youth to be appointed who passes successfully the best mental examination, and who is physically and morally qualified. The examination ques- tions should be prepared by the Academic Board, and a successful passing of the competi- tive examination should qualify a youth to enter, so that no other mental examination need be required. The details of conducting such examinations should, I think, be left to the Secretary of War. By announcing in the local papers some ten months or a year in advance that such a competitive examination will be held, stating its scope, it is believed that there will be a large number of eligible youths who will present themselves for examination in each district from which a vacancy is to be filled. As is well known, some Congressmen do make their appointments to West Point as the result of competitive examinations. It would, indeed, be well if this practice could be given the immediate sanction of law. Fully in accord with Colonel Townsley’s views is a similar recommendation made by Inspector-General Lieutenant-Colonel D. C. Shanks published in his report for 1914 to the War Department. We believe Colonel ‘l’ownsley’s views in regard to the appointment of cadets should THE OUTLOOK be made an integral part of the military pro- gramme presented by the War Department to the next session of Congress. They rep- resent a progressive and rational advance towards the broadest and most democratic utilization of the splendid facilities for military training at West Point. There is no reason why they cannot be put into immediate effect. For discussion and for future considera- tion, if not for immediate acceptance, it may be worth while to reprint here another suggestion of a kindred nature which has been put forward by the “ Army and Navy Journal.” After a discussion of the difficul- ties faced by both England and Russia owing to their lack of trained officers, the ‘‘ Army and Navy Journal” continues : We have for many years had the idea that it would be well to educate together for, say, the first two years the young men destined to serve as Officers in the army and in the navy. That this is feasible is shown by the comparison of the studies followed at the two Academies dur- ing the past two years. By establishing on the strict lines of military control a school for the preliminary instruction of young men destined for the two services, and reducing to a finishing course of two years the present curriculums of the Military and Naval Academies, we might be able to increase the output of those Academies much more than double. It would no longer be necessary to subject their pupils to the present sifting proc- esses, for this sifting could be done at the pre- liminary school or schools, and only selected pupils granted the privilege of further instruc- tion; and the classes could be enlarged to the full limit of the possibilities of instruction. Association with the services for many years has satisfied us that great gain would result from the establishment of youthful acquaint- anceships and friendships between the officers of the army and navy, such as the adoption of this plan would favor. The scheme might be enlarged so as to permit the instruction at the preliminary school, or schools, of as many young men as were desirous of military training, with the prospect of a commission in the army when- ever their services were required. Certainly the idea of a new academy at which the officers of the army and the navy should both receive the preliminary education for their professions is an appealing one. © If such an academy could be located somewhere in the interior of the country, its political value in bringing home to the citizens of the Central States a realization of the needs and worth of the army and navy might prove as great as the worth of its military product.
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mw YS OP OF mm ~ ' THE NATIONS AT WAR I—THE HEROIC BELGIAN ARMY SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE FROM PARIS Y \HE Belgian authorities-have recently published an account of the opera- tions of their army during the first five months of the war—July 31 to Decem- ber 31, 1914. It is the habit of official reports to be unin- teresting, and the scribe of the Belgian Gen- eral Staff has tried earnestly to live up to this tradition. - But the dramatic value of the events shines out between the lines of his dry-as-dust prose. When the Germans crossed the frontier in the first days of August, the Belgian army numbered approximately 120,000 men, only fairly well equipped and disciplined. The record for the first two months is almost monotonously heroic. ‘The plan of the Belgian campaign was simple in the extreme—to hold back the German advance by every desperate expedient so as to give their allies, France and England, time to come up. The commanders of their for- tresses were ordered to hold out at any cost so as to give the allies time to come up. Driven out of one position after another by overwhelming forces, the Belgian field army organized a new defensive line farther back. And always the order was to hold as long as possible in order to give the allies time to come up. But, strain their ears as they might, the plucky little Belgian army did not hear the familiar tune of the bagpipes announcing that help was at hand. The first time they saw the uniform of their allies was on October 4, when 2,200 British marines arrived at Antwerp. This meager help was doubtless encouraging, but it came too late to save the city. Driven out of Antwerp, their last fortress, the Belgian army took up once more its re- treat. The German wave swept on, over- running all but a pitifully small corner of the country. It was on October 15 that the Bel- gians reached their last defendable position— the River Yser. ‘There were 82,000 of them left after the two and a half months of con- tinual retreat, but they had only 48,000 rifles. It was of immense importance to their allies that the Germans should not cross the Yser. The French and English promised help, and asked the sorely tried Belgians to hold the line—for forty-eight hours. The Germans—150,000 of them—were hot on the Belgians’ trail. It was exceedingly important for them to get across the river. The battle raged furiously for fifteen days. Hold for forty-eight hours? In one of the trenches a Belgian regiment held for seventy- two hours without relief. On the 23d one officer reported: “My troops are utterly worn out, their nerve is gone, they are likely to become panic-stricken at the slightest un- toward incident.” There were no reserves to send him. He was ordered to go on holding. The First Rifles lost all but six of their offi- cers and 325 of their men. But they did not retreat. On the 27th the dikes were opened and the rising water began to bring relief to some points on the long, thin line. Some substan- tial reinforcements began to arrive from the allies. But on the 30th the German attack reached its climax. At Ramscappele they broke through the line. But in a counter-attack which lasted all that afternoon and well into the night the Belgians, helped at last by two battalions of French, recaptured Ramscappele and re-established the line. “The enemy,” says his report, “. . . did not develop any further activity, and the intensity of the bombardment diminished. ‘The Battle of the Yser was over. . . . ‘But the losses to the Belgian army. .. were estimated at 14,000 killed and wounded. The infantry was reduced to 48,000, with 32,000 rifles, and more than half our artillery was temporarily out of action.” Things have been relatively quiet along the Yser since those momentous days. ‘The Germans have tried to find an easier place to break through. But the most remarkable feat of the Belgian army is not told in this record, which closes with the end of last year. The Belgians would have been more than excusable if after the Battle of the Yser they had felt that they had done their share—or, rather, that, having done so much more than their share, they could rest on their laurels. But whether God and their allies intend to help them or not, the Belgians intend to help themselves. ‘Their field army to-day is almost as. large as when they entered the cam- paign. It is very much better organized and 549
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550 equipped. Among other things, they have more than doubled their aviation corps. Their output of ammunition is greater than their consumption. Their ample reserves in munitions are growing daily more ample. They have accomplished this marvelous reorganization in spite of the fact that there is not enough left to their country to make a fair-sized township. The most remarkable thing is that they THE OUTLOOK 3 November have been able to fill up the gaps in the ranks. In spite of the occupation of their territory, in spite of the dispersion of their population, the young men of Belgium have managed to find their way to the recruiting station. And the Belgian, army to-day is better prepared for a second campaign than it was for the first. ARTHUR BULLARD. Paris, France. II—GREECE AND THE WAR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE As stated in The Outlook two weeks ago in the preface to the piece of correspond ence entitled “‘ Beneath the Balkan Outburst,’ Mr. Bouck White, the writer of this article, ts a well-known American Socialist who has just returned from a tour in Turkey and the Balkan Peninsula, where he gathered the information and views presented in this and his former letter —Tue Epirors. , \HERE is a reason why it may prove advisable to postpone Greece’s en- trance into the fracas. She has over a million nationals in Constantinople and Asiatic Turkey. The fate that is being meted out to the Armenians by Turkey gives caution to Greece. Her own peo- ple there are under that suspended sword, and the thread that holds it is eroding into ever more hairlike dimensions. I was talking with a Greek of Constantinople, a merchant of that city with international con- nections reaching as far off as Norway. When he learned that I was an American, he was all graciousness ; for he had received his educa- tion in Robert College, whereby all Americans thereafter were to him a theme of gratitude. He talked freely and of all manner of things. But I asked him what he would do if Greece got into war with Turkey. At once terror caught hold upon him. His fine expansive- ness froze up. He looked around to see if spies had been overhearing. He let me see that there were certain topics that must not be discussed, and shrank into a cowering animal. The last night of my stay in Constantinople another Greek came to see me at my hotel. I must not identify him too perfectly, for his high and semi-official position would at once mark him out to the authorities. It is suffi- cient to say that he is one of the most promi- nent of all the Greeks in Turkey. I received him in the public room of the hotel. But his nervousness betrayed that he was ill at ease there. I suggested that we go up to my room to talk. Replying that such a course would be much the more prudent, he followed me up. When we were seated and the door was shut, he confided to me what was on his heart. He wanted to know—for news from the outside world doesn’t get into Constanti- nople—what were the prospects of Bulgaria’s entrance into the war. ‘“For,’’ said he, ‘‘ with Bulgaria in, the only frontier of exit for us would be closed. It is conceivable that events will arise making it needful for us to leave the country ; and it may be that we had better go now while the way is clear.” A premature declaration of war on the part of Greece would expose a million of her people to a massacre such as is destroying Armenia. For the Allies could not get to the Bosphorus in time to save them. That same million of people, however, if the Allies begin to march across Bulgaria towards Tur- key, could easily be a trump card in the game. For Turkey is verging towards internal con- vulsion. Her war on the Allies is entirely unpopular. The Greeks in her population are opposed to it, the Armenians are hostile to it, the Arabians are sullen towards it, the Kurds are apathetic to it. Among the Turks alone is the war in favor, and with only a fraction of these. The Old Turks hate the war, because it was forced upon the country by a Young Turk régime. But the Young Turks themselves are split on the subject. The Greek who came to my hotel the last night of my stay, and who is in an official
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1915 position to know the inside story of things, related to me an incident that is significant as to the cleavage in the Young Turk party. It will be remembered that Turkey got into the war by one of her battle cruisers firing on a Russian port in the Black Sea. The Turk- ish Minister of Marine, a Young Turk of prominence, was in a club in Constantinople playing cards. A messenger entered, and told him that one of the boats in his navy had fired on the Russians, thus creating a casus belli. The face of the Minister went white. “ I didn’t know anything about it!” he gasped out; ‘“‘T didn’t know anything about it.’” Enver, the War Minister, .at the behest of his German owners, had forced the issue over the heads of fellow-members in his own Cabinet and to their entire ignorance. The Young Turks who are opposed to the war are known as the Liberals, in distinction from the Enver Pasha clique. The war in Turkey is the work of a minority of a minority. I should estimate that the war party there does not number five per cent of her total population. If opportunity were given for public opinion, fully ninety-five per -cent would vote for peace at any price. I doubt if a more un- popular war was ever seen at any other time or place. The importance of this fact in its military outreach is quickly comprehensible. As the war continues and the economic pinch accu- mulates, Turkey’s internal unrest will mount. Here is the explanation of her madness on the Armenian theme. The Enver clique is THE NATIONS AT WAR 551 more in danger from rebellion within than from dreadnoughts without. To eradicate one of these dangers the order has gone forth to obliterate once for all Armenia from the world’s map. And the obliteration is proceeding. Once embarked on that terrific pathway, there is for Enver and his group no reversing. ‘The Greeks would be the next to come under the ax. And they know it. Therefore the unrest among them; an un- rest not loud—unrest dare not speak in Tur- key above a whisper—but deep. ‘There is no newspaper to voice this unrest, no machin- ery for organizing it. ‘Therefore it is as yet inarticulate and impotent. If a nucleus of some kind could appear, it would be a rallying center around which would gather the heaped-up discontent of a kingdom. Such a nucleus the appearance of Allied battalions on the Thracian Plain would be. Bulgaria is the natural door to the Bosphorus. From Adrianople clean to Marmora Sea stretches a prairie with scarce a tree to break the expanse, hardly a hillock to roughen it. The Allies, once debouched upon that plain, would sweep all before them. At the sight of them the forces of discontent in Turkey would lift their heads with might. The Turk- ish army, caught in that Thracian Plain be- tween enemy columns in front and revolution in the rear, would have no stomach for the fight. The march into Constantinople would be a military parade. And the Enver Pasha- Talaat Bey régime would perish in a night. Bouck. WHITE. III—SERVIA: THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN M4 \HE war is distributing its burdens and losses over all the countries engaged ; but there are three nations in no way responsible for the war upon which the heav- iest burdens have fallen—Belgium, Poland, and Servia. It isnot possible on any rational ground to hold the Servian people responsi- ble for the action of a fanatic. Burke said it was impossible to indict a whole nation ; it is equally impossible to charge a whole peo- ple with an assassination. Of these victim countries Servia is in many respects the most helpless and her case the most appealing. She lies geographically in the path of the storm. Her history has been one long tragedy. For five hundred years she was under the rule of the Turks; and every one now knows what that rule means, and especially what it meant during the centuries when Servians were doomed to illiteracy because their schools were closed, when their young boys were taken away to serve in Turkish armies and their young girls to find places in Turk- ish harems. And her later story has been a tragedy. Elderly people now living in Servia have gone through five wars and are now en- tering the horrors of the sixth. Within fif- teen months Servia has been twice invaded by Austrian armies and has twice driven the invader over the frontier. She has been swept by a terrible epidemic of typhus fever ; many of her villages have been depopulated ;
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552 the whole country has been put into mourn- ing. The result of these invasions was the destruction of the crops and of the instru- ments by which crops are raised; and this, in a country in which nearly ninety per cent of the population live by the soil, was a blow at the very life of the people. The villages that lay in the path of the Austrian armies were depopulated. Men, women, and chil- dren went in every sort of conveyance and by foot to the southern part of the country ; little villages were overcrowded ; all the con- ditions of life were demoralized and disease found quick germination in a soil prepared for it. And now the newspapers announce that the German armies are going to “‘ smash through Servia,” and they have already crossed the frontiers. What will be left of Servia when these armies have “smashed” their way through it is impossible to imagine, so little is left of certain parts of the country now. ‘That the Servians will make a resolute defense is evident. They are brave fighters, and, although Servia’s population does not exceed four and a half millions, over five hundred thousand men have been mobilized ; and these men are already rendering a good account of themselves, as they have done in every recent war. After the Balkan wars it seemed at this distance as if Servia were exhausted; but Americans did not know either the temper of the Servian people or the resources of the country. Now, with German army corps at the north and Bul- garian army corps at the south and east, they are facing a terrible situation with calm cour- age and high resolution. The first endeavor to aid them was the furnishing of agricultural implements so that the work in the fields could be renewed ; and under the efficient management of the Servian Agricultural Relief Committee prac- tical and effective aid was rendered. The people, decimated by disease and suffering the loss of active men by the casualties of war, put their women in the field; and the Servian peasant women are not only capable of hard work, but are skilled in agriculture as well as in domestic service. It is due to them that the country has been able to stand the economic strain of three years’ war, as it is due to the women of France that the armies in the trenches are able to remain at the front and are sustained by the atmos- phere of devotion, courage, and faith which the women of France have created, and which THE OUTLOOK 3 November makes them equal sharers with the men in the defense of the country. The two great forces of destruction, war and disease, have fallen most heavily on the Servian children; and to-day the pressing problem for Servia, and for Americans as well, is the care of between five and ten thousand children made orphans by war and disease. Their fathers have fallen at the front, their mothers have died of typhus fever. An American physician, Dr. Strong, aided by American physicians and volunteer nurses, arrested the spread of the disease and practically extirpated it. ‘To these same Americans in large measure is credit due for arresting cholera on the threshold of the country. To Americans now belong the supreme duty and privilege of saving the orphans of Servia. These children are not orphans in the ordinary sense. They have not only lost their fathers and mothers, but they have lost all personal relations with the world about them. Many of them are in parts of the country which are strange to them ; they do not know who their relatives are; some of them do not know their own names. They are wandering about the country, in the fields and woods, caring for themselves or dying for lack of care. They are feeding themselves as animals feed them- selves, wandering in little forlorn bands about desolate parts of the country, or, if they are near villages, they go to these villages and are fed. Perhaps never in the world has there been such a pitiful condition as that of these thousands of friendless, homeless, and shel- terless children. During the summer they have been sleeping in the woods and open fields ; but winter is already approaching, and it is not difficult to imagine, if one is willing to face the truth, what will happen to the greater part of these homeless wanderers. Many of the municipalities have tried to farm out some of them by twos and threes ; but the peasants find it difficult to maintain their own children; and can care for other children only intermittently and for short periods of time. The children are half clothed. Those who stay near the towns try to sell matches and papers or do errands; they stand on the bread line, although many of them are so young that they do not know what the bread line means, and they are cared for by the older children. Some of them are beggars ; and they come in little throngs to funerals because the Servians never pass a beggar, and it is customary in that country to
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1915 give something to every attendant at a funeral in memory of the dead. Madame Slavko Grouitch, the wife of the Permanent Under- Secretary for Foreign Affairs at Nish, who made a tour of the United States last spring securing money for the people of her adopted: country, recently returned to Servia, takmg doctors and nurses and equipment for a hos- pital for babies and young children among these orphans. Recent letters from her state that within a fortnight after her arrival the hospital was organized in tents, with seventy cases ; and she expects, with the help of Dr. Strong, to- have a building with one hundred beds as soon as it can be cleaned and put in order for the purpose. Madame Grouitch’s work will be enlarged as means and circumstances permit. The story of the life of these homeless wanderers makes a heartbreaking appeal to all who know the situation personally. A soldier who had been wounded returned to his home ona ten days’ leave only to find that his wife had died of typhus and that his two children were alone in the little house without food. He took them to St. Helen’s Home and begged with tears in his eyes that they might be received there. But it was HOW IT SEEMED TO MARCH IN THE SUFFRAGE PARADE 553 impossible ; the home was already overtaxed, and the soldier was compelled to return to the front and leave the children to make their own way and take their chances. This is one of a thousand stories. ‘The problem is not only physical, it is also moral. Those of the children who survive are in danger of becom- ing beggars and criminals. The Relief Com- mittee, of which Dr. Eliot is Honorary Presi- dent, and which has the active co-operation of a number of influential and deeply inter- ested American men: and women, has its headquarters at 70 Fifth Avenue, New York, and has already been able to send considera- ble sums of money to still the cries of the children and to save them from starvation and worse. Miss Losanitch, a Servian lady whose father was at one time Minister to England and a member of the Cabinet, and whose brother-in-law is now a member of the Cabinet, is presenting the condition of these suffering children with the eloquence of deep sincerity. It is very much to be hoped that Americans, who have done so much for other countries, will not forget Servia in her hour of need, and that the cries of the children will be met by generous gifts to the Relief Com- mittee. HamILton W. MABIE. HOW IT SEEMED. TO MARCH IN THE SUFFRAGE PARADE BY ONE OF THE MARCHERS SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE frage parade because my mother wouldn’t let me. Next year, in 1913, I wanted to march, but my husband asked me not to. This fall both my conservative parent and my radical husband were less than passive in | DIDN’T walk in New York’s first suf- their opposition. Perhaps mother’s earlier picture of me, alone, a banner in either hand, escorted by mounted police, brass bands, and hooting urchins, trudging in solitary defiance up the center of a busy thoroughfare—a pic- ture very clearly in her mind a few years ago— had faded. Now she hoped for a few hun- dred other misguided daughters to blur the sharp distinction of ther own. As for hus- band, I think he had had a lesson in the publicity value of parades. He’d have been glad himself to make part of the human semaphore which called New York to stop, look, and listen. A few days before the fateful Saturday I dropped a small flat-iron on my foot. That morning it was still swollen and painful, and, had it been a dance or a reception, I’d have stayed at home. The temptation was severe. But I thought of that first officer killed in the American Revolution, whose name is on the cannon in the Boston State House, and how as a little girl I had been taken to see and admire this memorial to a far-off ancestor, and decided that it was “up to me” to suf- fer for democracy. Three o’clock on the afternoon of Octo-
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554 ber 23, and a glorious day. Evidently the weather man is no anti, since he sends sun- shine and breeze enough to flaunt a thousand banners gayly. As for music, every band in Greater New York and some beyond blows like the breeze to-day. First it’s ‘‘ Tipperary,” then “ Tipperary” again, and once more ‘Tipperary’? as we wait those cold and weary hours along the side streets while the main body of the parade swings up from Washington Arch. A long, long wait, and a chilly one. Doorsteps are hard and un- responsive seats, evoking visions of comfy armchairs drawn up beside the fire at home. After fifty false alarms, suddenly: down the line comes the signal, ‘‘ Make ready.”’ Quickly we slip into place. The marshals look us over, straighten out bends and kinks, and then, as the band strikes up, begin to count time, ‘* Left, left, left / You’re not in step, there ; other foot, now.”’ At last we move, we begin to swing along together in some- thing like rhythm. Nearer and nearer we come to the avenue. In a couple of minutes we'll be out of the side street. My heart is thumping louder than the band. Dear heaven, we’re there! Now, heads up! By the time we had gone two blocks I had forgotten everything I had expected to feel. All my girlhood mother had repeated that a lady should never allow herself to be con- spicuous. To march up Fifth Avenue had promised to flout directly one’s early train- ing. Iwas mistaken. ‘There’s no notoriety about it. When it’s done along with twenty- five thousand other women, nothing could seem more natural and of course. I felt no target for the curious. As well expect a ripple on a great river to win remark. There’s no place for self-consciousness, and so timidity, too, disappears. Embarrassment is left at the street corner, and one is just a part, a singing, swinging part of a great stream, all flowing in the same direction toward the same goal. Suddenly the mean- ing of words learned long ago from books came to me, hit me, so that I understood: mob psychology, solidarity, unity—I felt them all. I remembered what an older woman had told me—that when she marched she wanted to sing, to embrace, and to weep. All at once I knew why in olden times the Church and State made frequent use of such processions. THE .-OUTLOOK I saw that we had left these things too long to men. Women need them too, to stir them to conviction, to turn our common sisterhood from words into something throb- bingly alive. It wasn’t all smooth going. By five o’clock, when we reached Fifth Avenue, the wind had risen, and the banners became increasingly strenuous. Some burst their moorings and soared upwards with the breeze. The long garlands of laurel which bound us together, stretching from rank to rank, grew weightier with every block. After we had. passed the reviewing stand at Forty-second Street my feet began to rebel. ‘‘ Not another step, not another step,” they seemed to shout as we plodded ahead. Sometimes the music ceased and only the marshal’s voice remained to give us the time—“ Left, left, left’ punc- tuated with clapping from the curb. They tell us that two hundred and fifty thousand people watched us walk from Wash- ington Square to Sixtieth Street. In all that way I-never heard a hoot or a jeer or even an unkind word. Generally they cheered and sang and applauded as we passed. And all through the hours, from three to seven, from sunlight till the moon came out, the chilly sidewalks never once were clear of the curious. As we marched along I did not see the crowd. I never heeded the many policemen battling with the encroaching throng. Once, when we were marking time, an indignant woman burst through the side lines and de- manded of an overworked officer, ‘* How can I get to the Grand Central Station in time to take my train?” ‘ Well, ma’am,” he drawled, * T don’t see any better way than for you to fall into line and marchthere.” ‘ What, lin a suffrage parade!’ she shrieked; ‘‘ I wouldn’t so demean myself,” and flounced away. An- other time I’d have thought that funny, but as we took up our procession I wondered what she meant. ‘Thousands and thousands and thousands of women walking in protest before the bar of public opinion—could that be an unworthy thing? Could this, my new elation of dignity and appeal, multiplied twenty thousand fold, carry no impression to those who watched? Would even a Czar of autocratic Russia dare to disregard so great a demonstration of his people ? M. D.
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CARTOONS OF THE WEEK Stanley in the South Bend (Indiaaa) Tribune De Mar in-the Philadelphia Record VAUDEVILLE! #4 1 ee s ) THE NEXT STEP “GOOD MORNING, CARRIE !”— GOOD MORNING, sam} GOOD-BY TO VILLA RECOGNITION TO CARRANZA De Mar in the Philadelphia Recora , Sterrett in the New York Tribune A CONFLICT COMING “1D RATHER HAVE A PLATE!” INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS VS. EXTERNAL TAMMANY OBJECTS TO THE NEW CONSTI- DEFENSE TUTION BECAUSE IT MAKES THE SPOILS HARD TO GET
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From Punch (London) CARTOONS OF THE WEEK Cesare in the New York Sun GANYMEDE AND THE GERMAN EAGLE Sultan: “ Of course I know it’s agreat honor to be taken up like this; still; I’m beginning almost to wish the bird had left me alone.” WW? VE Q Lr) A y) ERVA PIES ANAL With THE BALKAN SITUATION THE TURKS FIND THEIR POSITION SOMEWHAT UNPLEASANT From Prosveshcheniye (“ Enlightenment”), New York WILL THE NUT-CRACKERS BREAK WHEN THE PINCH COMES, OR IS IT ALL OVER FOR THE NUT? From the Berliner Tageblatt THE TWO OFFENSIVES General Joffre: ‘‘ What’s the matter, old chap? It’s lovely weather!” : General Cadorna: “ Maybe! But excuse me, I must be off to make a report to headquarters !”” A SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN BY THE RUSSIANS—THE ROUT OF RUM GERMANY ADMITS THAT FRANCE’S WEATHER IS FINE, BUT THINKS IT IS STORMY IN ITALY
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Current Events Pictorially Treated PHOTOGRAPH FROM BAIN NEWS SERVICE CAN ENGLAND’S PRIME MINISTER SUCCESSFULLY BEAR HIS GREAT BURDEN? The above photograph of Premier Asquith, like other recent ones, indicates that he is aging somewhat under the strain of his tremendous responsibilities, but it does not of course show the effects of his recent illness. His recovery will be welcomed alike by all Englishmen and by all fair-minded Americans who appreciate the’ high plane on which he has conducted his country’s Government in its greatest war
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PHOTOGRAPH cau UNDERWOOD & UNDEKWUOD ONE OF INDIA’S NATIVE RULERS WHO IS SUPPORTING GREAT BRITAIN A striking proof of the wisdom with which England has, as a general thing, ruled her colonies is seen in the military loyalty of her Indian subjects in the European war. The Maharajah of Patiala, whose portrait is printed above, is only one of many eminent Indians who have offered their services tothe King. He is only twenty-four years old; his country is described as “the premier State of the Punjab”
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smaf are tuoyar Jo Auvut ‘990'90Z jnoqe jo uorze[ndod & sey 4] “‘passarppe did SUBIUO[LSSey TT, 3Y} 0} satystdy OHS OY} SHIGNIIO FT “ABA URYTLY oyy Sursmp zj6y wt Aoyxany Aq Ppaetepuaiins sea 41 yoy S(NVq SpULPIqeYUT ssoym 0} 0} ‘adver jo 310d yueziodul uv Mou si eylUoles VIANAS dIAH OL SADYOA GAGNVI AAVH SAITIV AHL HOIHM LV LYOd NAAND AHL ‘VMINOTVS BOIAH3S HdVYDOLOHd W303W WOHS HevYDOLOHG “‘eoquoTessay T, Jo A}19 Zuatoue ay} Jo
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COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD THE QUEEN OF BULGARIA AS A NURSE IN THE HOSPITAL GARDEN IN SOFIA, BULGARIA’S CAPITAL PHOTOGRAPH FROM PAUL THOMPSON EXHAUSTED SERVIAN SOLDIERS SLEEPING BY THE WAYSIDE THE WAR IN THE NEAR EAST
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PHOTOGRAPH BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD A SERVIAN WOMAN AND HER BABY The horrors that have befallen so many European women and children during the present war make the above picture of a pleasant-faced mother and her contented child an agreeable subject for contemplation. The other side of the shield, in a description of the miseries of the homeless Servians, will be found elsewhere in this issue
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- Bay oT ee 2 a COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD THE WOMAN SUFFRAGE PARADE IN NEW YORK CITY Twenty-five thousand women, according to conservative estimates, marched in procession Saturday, October 23, through one of the principal thoroughfares of New York City to attest their devotion to the cause of woman suffrage. A woman who marched in the parade gives her personal impression on another page
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LIBERTY IN GERMANY BY RAYMOND B. FOSDICK Mr. Fosdick has been assistant Corporation Counsel of New York City and late» Commissioner of Accounts for the city. He spent the year 1913 in Europe as a representative of the Rockefeller Bureau of Social Hygiene in the study of police organization.— THE EDITORS. OW free are the German people? H In the privileges of citizenship, in the expression of opinion, in the routine of daily life, what measure of liberty do they enjoy? To what extent does the existence of a military and governmental bureaucracy curtail what Jefferson called “natural rights”? Are they hampered or hedged about in any unusual way? Would Americans under German rule feel any limi- tations to the personal freedom to which they have been accustomed ? . I do. not speak now of the abnormal con- ditions which exist at present in Germany as a result of the war. We hear much of the censoring and suspension of newspapers and of official acts in relation to the public which bear the stamp of an unrelieved abso- lutism.. But such conditions are inherent in any war situation. During our own Civil War even the writ of habeas corpus was occasionally suspended and our whole civil life was largely dominated by a military bu- reaucracy. *Iam speaking now of the every- day liberty of the German people in normal times. And the question is pertinent, not only in. throwing an interesting side-light on the German Xwuétur, but because of this fur- ther consideration which naturally arises in the minds of Americans: If Germany should win in this. struggle, what sort of. freedom, what measure of liberty, what kind of life, would she bring to her new dominions ? Let us suppose that a large number of Americans, accustomed to our conceptions of liberty, have acquired citizenship in Germany. Among the first things brought. forcibly to their realization would be the lack of what we generically term ‘freedom of speech.” German citizens may not express their opin- ions in the préss or in public assemblies with the unrestricted latitude which characterizes our discussions here. For example, the Imperial Press Law? provides that a copy of each paper and periodical not purely de- ! Federal Industrial Code of 1869, supplemented by law of May 7, 1874. voted to the interests of the arts and sciences must, immediately upon distribution, be de- livered to the police authority of the place of publication. This means that a copy of every issue or edition of a newspaper or a magazine must be sent to police headquarters for censorship. Every German police depart- ment has a thoroughly organized press bureau where periodicals are read immedi- ately upon receipt. If such a law were in force in this country, the editor of The Outlook would be obliged to send a copy of this issue to Police Commissioner Woods as soon as it came from the press, while the editor of the New York “ Evening Post” or the morning “ World ” would have to send copies of each of their several daily editions: In censoring the newspapers or periodi- cals sent to headquarters‘ the German police are endowed with wide powers. They can proceed criminally against an offending editor under the provisions of the German criminal code, or they can confiscate the periodical in question. Generally they. do both. -Con- fiscation may occur either with or without judicial decree. That is, the police may obtain a court order directing that a certain edition of a periodical be confiscated, or, in specific cases, they may act on ‘their own initiative, obtaining the court order after the confiscation has been made. In the latter case, however, the court order is.more a matter of form than anything else, for even if the court declined to confirm the action of the police—a circumstance that rarely occurs— the damage would have been done and the editor would be without redress. . For exam- ple, suppose we had a similar’ law jin this country and the Boston ‘ Evening: Tran- script ” printed something to which the police found legal objection. ‘They would immedi- diately confiscate the entire edition wherever it was being sold—on news-stands, in the hands of newsboys, or in the mail. The court might subsequently refuse to approve the action of the police, but by the time it handed down its decision, two days later 565
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566 perhaps, the demand for that edition would be gone and the editor of the “ Transcript ” would have no right of action against the police officials. The grounds upon which the police may confiscate a periodical and proceed criminally against an editor are very elastic. The chief reason—at least the reason most frequently invoked—is that an article in a_ periodical incites to treason, offends the Emperor or ruler of a state, urges disobedience to the laws, or incites to acts of class hatred. (I am quoting the statute almost verbatim.) And it is noteworthy that every one of these grounds that I have cited is justification for an administrative order of confiscation with- out judicial decree. As to what kind of article incites class hatred or is offensive to the Emperor the police are the judges. ‘To an American the ways of the German police in this respect are past understanding. In April, 1913, ‘“ Vorwarts,”’ the radical Berlin newspaper, published a small comment in the shape of an editorial on the alleged conduct or mis- conduct of the Crown Prince at a perform- ance at the Wintergarten, a vaudeville theater in Dorotheenstrasse. The story ran that the Prince had invited two of the actresses to his box and had laughed and chatted with them during the performance. ‘ Vorwarts,” telling the story almost as I have given it here, ended up with some such comment as this: ‘‘ And this is the young man who is to rule over the destinies of the German people in the coming generation!’’ The. edition containing this article was immediately con- fiscated by the police and the editor heavily fined. In other words, the police judged the article to come within: the statute as being offensive to the Emperor, as indeed it proba- bly was. By the same reasoning the police confiscate newspapers whose comments on the politics of the day are considered dangerous. Simi- larly, the provision in the statute which relates to inciting acts of class hatred is stretched by the police to cover severe criticisms of the social and civic life of the Empire that appear in the more radical papers. Figures as to the number of confiscations made by the police of the German cities are not obtainable, but in Vienna, Austria, where a somewhat similar law is in force, seventy confiscations were made in the first five months of 1913, the objectionable material consisting, for the most part, of anti-military articles that THE OUTLOOK 3 November dealt in various ways with the Balkan situa- tion. Similar to the limitations on the freedom of the press are the restrictions which the Ger- man authorities throw about the right of public assembly. The Imperial law ' makes it obligatory for every society or club which engages directly or indirectly in political activ- ity to file with the local police department within two weeks of organization a list of its officers and a copy of its constitution. All subsequent changes in constitution or officers must in the same way be communicated to the police. The constitution and its amend- ments must be in the German language, unless otherwise permitted by the higher authorities. If such a law were in force in New York City, for example, the records of the Young Republican Club of Brooklyn, of the Woman’s Suffrage party, and of every district organization and boys’ marching club would be on file at police headquarters. The Imperial law goes even further. Public meetings for the discussion of political sub- jects must be announced twenty-four hours before to the local police authorities, and a written consent obtained.- The announce- ment must include the name of the chairman, who must be approved by the police. This chairman is held responsible for the character of the meeting and the preservation of order. To each such meeting the Police Department must send two representatives, who are em- powered, for certain causes specified in the act, to declare the meeting adjourned. Among these causes is any discussion that may tend to incite to crime—a provision sufficiently elastic to afford the police justification for closing any heated political meeting. Further, the proceedings in every assembly of this kind must be in the German language, a provision which at once destroys the possibility of meet- ings of newly naturalized German citizens who, perhaps unfamiliar with their adopted ‘language, desire to discuss political affairs in their own tongue. Fancy a meeting in Tremont Temple, Boston, or in Cooper Union, New York, called to discuss political grievances, perhaps to attack some political boss or machine. Under the German system, two policemen would occupy a prominent place on the plat- form, one of them busily engaged in taking down in shorthand the remarks of the speak- ers. If a speaker became too bitter in his statements, the police would motion to the 1 Vereinsgesetz, April 19, 1908.
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1915 chairman, who would caution the speaker to be careful. If he persisted, the policemen wouldarise and declare the meeting adjourned. If this were Germany, the people would long ago have learned that the word of a policeman is not to be disputed and they would quietly disperse. Reserve policemen are always in waiting in the precinct stations, and the short sabers which they carry and which they do not hesitate to make use of are ugly weapons in a crowd. The German law provides a doubtful solace in the shape of a review by the administrative courts of the actions of the police in matters of this kind. A decision handed down two weeks after a meeting, however, even if it declared that the remarks of a certain speaker did not justify the police in closing a meeting, would hardly be a recompense to people whose assembly has been summarily dismissed. Not only in matters relating to freedom of speech, but in the more intimate details of daily life, would our American-Germans—if I may invert the phrase—find their habits of action circumscribed by law and the police. On every side and at every turn they would be confronted with “ regulations.” In many cases these regulations are made by the local police authorities rather than by a legislative body. Thus in 1913 the Police President of Berlin decreed that automobiles of certain specified colors were barred from Unter den Linden and the Tiergarten, evidently because he thought these colors inharmonious with the general scheme of things. A similar order prohibited the use of an automobile horn with a particular bugle-like note, as that was the kind of horn used by the Emperor on his cars. Again, the Berlin Police Presi- dent issued ordinances regulating the length of hat-pins and the methods of purchasing fish and fowl. He decreed that a prospective purchaser shall not touch a shad in order to determine whether there is any roe and shall not handle a fowl to verify a market-woman’s praise of its tenderness. These regulations are by no means dead letters in Berlin. There are very few laws in Germany that are allowed to lie unenforced. A glance at the published compilation of police regulations in any Ger- man city will bring to light similar examples. Thus in Stuttgar: a driver may not snap his whip as he guides his horses in the street; a customer may not fall asleep in a restaurant or a weary man on a park bench; a cab-driver may not leave his position in front of the railway station during the hours in which the LIBERTY IN GERMANY 567 police decree he shall be on duty ; a driver may not hold his reins improperly or go through the public streets without having the owner’s name in a conspicuous place on his cart or carriage ; a delivery boy may not coast on a hand-cart; a passenger may not alight from a train on the side away from the plat- form or while the train is in motion; children may not slide on a slippery sidewalk ; a citizen may not be impertinent to a police official nor offer any affront to his dignity. These regu- lations are not only negative, they are often positive ; not only general, but particular and directed against specific parties. Thus a house-owner must sprinkle his street in hot weather when ordered by the police, or a certain striker must refrain from picketing when so directed, or a given contractor must remove building encumbrances on demand. It is important to note that violations of these innumerable ordinances are punished, not by courts of law, but by the police them- selves. This extraordinary power? lends to the police of Germany a legal importance difficult to comprehend when looked at from the point of view of American institutions and conceptions. The contrast becomes even more marked when the method by which the police carry out this function is taken into consideration. In the majority of cases there is not even a semblance of judicial procedure ; no witnesses are called, the accused has no opportunity to explain. The policeman who observes the violation in question files a report with his superior officer; this official deter- mines the penalty, and in due course the defendant (if such he may be called!) is notified of his impending punishment. The penalty is imposed by an official who does not see or hear the accused and who knows nothing of the case except through the un- challenged testimony of the policeman who makes the charge. Often a week or ten days will elapse before the accused receives noti- fication of the penalty. Sometimes it comes as a complete surprise, punishing him for a violation which he committed unconsciously or the circumstances of which he has forgot- ten. In Berlin the notice of punishment is accompanied by a blank post-office order in case the penalty is a fine, so that the accused may be put to no inconvenience in coming personally to police headquarters. If after one week no attention is paid to the notice, the police make a levy on the defendant’s property for value to the amount of the fine, ! Strafprozessordnung, Section 453.
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THE OUTLOOK or the defendant is arrested to serve his alternative sentence. The system which we have just outlined is in force throughout Prussia. In southern Germany certain modifications obtain. In Wiirttemberg, for example, the theory exists that the defendant has an opportunity to ex- plain before the penalty is imposed. In prac- tice, however, it is assumed that the defendant has made his explanation to the policeman who reports him. Thus a police officer sees a driver who he thinks is asleep, and the driver denies to the policeman that he was sleeping. This is held to be an “ explana- tion.” Three or four days later the man is notified that he must pay a fine. ‘“ We always take the officer’s word as truth,” said the chief of the Stuttgart police in discussing the matter with the writer. This absolute reliance on the word of the policeman holds throughout Germany. That the judicial powers of the German police are abused is to be expected. In Stuttgart, a quiet, peaceful city of 300,000 population, 40,000 police penalties are im- posed each year. At this rate, under the same system, St. Louis should have approxi- mately 100,000 police court cases in a year and New Orleans 55,000. As a matter of fact, however, St. Louis had in 1914 only 24,000 such cases, while New Orleans had 22,000, and of these cases one-third at least were for drunkenness, which, under ordinary circumstances, is not punishable in Germany. In other words, there are ten times as many punishments for misdemeanors in German cities as in American cities. This compari- son is necessarily rough, but it serves to indi- . cate the excessive use of judicial powers by the German police. showering over us like hailstones,” says Karl Weidlich, himself a loyal subject of the Em- pire. ‘A German citizen who has not had at least one such punishment must be looked for with a lantern !” - The sweeping power of the German police is a matter of continual astonishment to an American. Recently in Berlin it was thought that a number of families were violating the police provision forbidding the use of attics for sleeping purposes. The police there- upon forcibly entered the houses, ascended to the attics, and tore out the heating appa- ratus installed by the landlords. Their idea was to make it impossible for any one to sleep there in the future. The police of Hamburg temporarily confiscated the entire ** Police judgments are- 3 November stock of a dry-goods house, carting it away in vans. The charge was that the owner had violated one of the laws in regard to the hours of labor. In Berlin any police lieu- tenant in charge of a precinct or officer of equal or higher rank can order a house searched and property seized. No authority is required in the shape of a writ or a war- rant. All that is necessary is a suspicion that incriminating evidence exists. If a seizure is made, the police official must, within three days, apply to the court for authority to keep the evidence in question. If the application is denied, the seizure must be returned, but the victim whose house has been searched is without redress. ‘I can search my neighbor’s house and lock him up for twenty-four hours, although he may be as innocent as a lamb,” a Berlin lieutenant told the writer. It is in connection with the national regis- tration system, however, that our American- Germans would feel most intimately the paternal attitude of the Government. It must be remembered that the liberty to change one’s domicile within the state is, his- torically, a recent right in Germany. Even yet it is surrounded with many restrictions. Briefly, the present laws oblige all persons in a community to report their arrival, de- parture, or change of dwelling within the police boundaries. A citizen who moves, for example, from Coblentz to Berlin must, within twenty-four hours after arrival, file with the police of the latter city his Anmeldung, or announcement of appearance. This gives his name, his business, the day, month, and year of his birth, place of birth, his religion, his former residence, and whether he is mar- ried, single, or widowed. If he is a foreigner or a transient, and stops at a hotel, the hotel proprietor must notify the police of his ap- pearance. A man of any nationality who spends a single night at a hotel or lodging- house in any Gerrhan town or city has his name filed at police headquarters, although in the case of foreigners it is not customary to procure the detailed information required of German citizens. Not only must a new arrival in a German city announce himself to the police, but in many places he must present a certificate of character (Adzugsattest) from the police of the locality which he left. He is also gen- erally required to produce other documents of identification, such as his birth certificate, his marriage certificate, or his army discharge
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1915 papers. In many towns and cities the police of the community from which he comes are communicated with and an inquiry made as to whether he has a past criminal record. Similarly, if there is a birth in his family, if he employs a new servant, if he has a visitor from out of town, or if he changes his resi- dence within the city limits (Umme/dung), the police must be notified. If he moves away from the city, he must not only announce the fact (Admeldung), but must obtain from the police a character certificate to be presented to the police of his new residence. No laws in Germany are more rigidly en- forced than those relating to the registration system. ‘Evasion is difficult, and, when de- tected, is severely punished. In 1912 there were 26,876 penalties imposed by the police of Hamburg for violations of the announce- ment law. ‘These violations, for the most part, concerned the failure or neglect of householders to notify the police of the arrival of newcomers within the required time. The policemen on their beats are continually checking up new arrivals, and special squads of detectives cover hotels and lodging-houses. In most cities hotel registers must be sent to police headquarters every month for exami- nation and comparison. It is difficult for any one successfully to conceal his identity. Residence can easily be traced. Attempts to evade debts or. escape the attentions of friends or foes can easily be defeated. In Berlin, where the system has been in operation since 1836, 12,000,000 cards are now on file, and the bureau, employing 200 men and occupying 130 rooms, is one of the principal branches of the department. Its size is evidenced by the fact that the letter “H” alone fills ten rooms, while the letter “S$” occupies fifteen. Indeed, the enormous detail involved in this system is perhaps its most striking point. The cards give the names of all persons who were born in Ber- lin or who have at any time been in Berlin. For example, a card shows the name of Carl Schmidt, his place and date of birth, his par- ents’ names, and the successive residences where he has lived in Berlin, with the date of moving from each; the date of his marriage, and his wife’s maiden name (cross-indexed to his wife’s family card); the names of his serv- ants; the names of his children, and dates of birth and death ; religion, if any ; and, finally, his criminal record, if he has one. When Carl Schmidt, moving to Berlin from Diisseldorf, registers at police headquarters, the police LIBERTY IN GERMANY 569 authorities write to the police of Diisseldorf to ascertain, not only the truth of the state- ments which Herr Schmidt makes in his Anmeldung, but to determine whether he has a criminal record. It is possible that Herr Schmidt was not born in Diisseldorf, but his criminal record, on file in the town of his birth, follows him from place to place, and the Berlin authorities are free to refuse to allow him to live in Berlin in case his record is not desirable. If a citizen wishes a certificate of character for an employer, he can obtain one from the police that is authentic as far as the criminal record is concerned. Or if he wishes to know where his father was living sixty years ago, or the name of a servant in his mother’s family twenty-five years before, he can obtain the information in three or four minutes at police headquarters. That a registration system like this or anything resembling it could ever be success- fully adopted in the United States, or in any country whose political philosophy is less paternal than Germany’s, is difficult to believe. To a German there is nothing offensive in the fact that the coming and going of a pri- vate citizen in the ordinary routine of his life should be recorded at police headquarters. It is simply indicative of the solicitude of the state for its own. It is a systematic, domes- tic arrangement, representing internal order and discipline. It is part of the German passion to have everything in its place. In- deed, to a German the failure of a state to keep an accurate record of every citizen implies disorder. Utter amazement was ex- pressed by more than one German official when informed by the writer that the United States has no such system. ‘‘ How do Amer- icans keep track of each other? How would you find a person whose address you had lost? How do the police know where any- body is living ?”——these were their invariable questions. To an American, on the other hand, the right to be let alone, to go his way without the knowledge of any one if he so pleases, is part and parcel of his conception of liberty. A system which made necessary a police record of his coming and going, and which gave friends or foes an opportunity to find him when he desired not to be found, would be intolerable. Finally, our American-Germans would dis- cover that, so far as its influence and duties are concerned, citizenship in Germany is a far different thing from citizenship in the United States. True, they could vote for
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570 members of the Reichstag at the elections, but in the machinery of the Empire the Reichstag plays a surprisingly unimportant part. The Bundesrath, or upper house, is the really determining factor in Imperial legislation, and the members of this body are appointed by the crowned heads of the several states that make up the Empire, the Emperor himself, as King of Prussia, appoint- ing seventeen out of fifty-eight. In other words, the power of the Kaiser in shaping legislation is almost absolute, and the fact that only fourteen votes in the Bundesrath are necessary to defeat an amendment to the Imperial Constitution shows his tremendous control over the political growth of the Empire. As was evidenced only recently in the Zabern affair, when the Imperial Chan- cellor snapped his fingers in the face of a unanimous vote of censure, the Reichstag occupies a subordinate position, and plays only too often a humiliating part. While its mem- bers are chosen on a theoretically democratic basis, a system of rotten boroughs obtains, which is fairly comparable with that existing in England a hundred years ago. Originally the Reichstag electoral districts were laid out in such a way that every 100,000 inhabitants had the right to choose one member. Since 1871 there has been no redistricting of the Empire, and the populations comprising the various constituencies have become grossly uneven. Berlin, with more than two million people, is entitled to but six seats, and the lack of proportion in other great cities, and particularly in the more radical industrial centers, is as flagrant. Certain towns of over 300,000 inhabitants are represented in the same proportion as country towns of 30,000. A comparison of twelve of the most popu- lous districts represented in the Reichstag with twelve of the least populous shows that 170,000 voters elect as many representatives as 1,950,000 voters. The long fight for the redistribution of seats has been defeated by the Kaiser’s Government because of its fear ’ of a radical element in the Reichstag. The Reichstag can, moreover, be dissolved by the Kaiser and the Bundesrath at any time and for any reason, an action which has fre- quently been taken since 1871. Twice it has been dissolved for refusing to pass bills in- creasing the size of the army. In every case in which it has been so dissolved the new Reichstag succeeding it has obediently sup- ported the plans of the Kaiser. Even in local government our American- THE OUTLOOK 3 November Germans would find that under ordinary circumstances their voices would carry little weight. In all the Prussian municipalities and in many cities and towns in Saxony and other German states the so-called three-class system of electing town councilors is in force. Under this scheme all voters are grouped into three classes according to their taxpaying strength, each class electing one-third of the candidates to be voted for. Thus, in the municipal elections in Essen in 1900, there were three voters in the first class, 401 in the second, and 18,991 in the third; but the three voters of the first class elected one- third of the whole municipal. council, while 404 votes out of nearly 20,000 elected two- thirds of it. In 1912, in Berlin, there were 936 voters in the first class, or 0.2 per cent ; 32,096 in the second class, or 8.3 per cent ; and 353,704 in the third class, or 91.5 per cent. A recent classification of the electors of 114 Prussian towns showed that 8,600, or 1.3 per cent, fell in the first class ; 49,950, or 7 per cent, in the second ; and 629,360, or 91.7 per cent, in the third. In some towns it happens that a single voter forms the first class by himself, and thus elects one-third of the membership of the municipal council. Up to the present time Germany has been impregnable against the assaults of democ- racy. In place of popular government a huge bureaucratic machine holds the country in an iron grip. Among high German offi- cials there is no feeling of any responsibility to the people as the ultimate source of authority. The people are governed for their own good, very much as children are controlled by their parents. It is not for them to ask the why or wherefore. Their function is to odey. In the higher official circles open contempt is expressed for popu- lar government even in the limited form in which it is exercised in the municipalities. Occasionally this contempt takes on an almost brutal aspect, as was instanced but recently in the case of a certain Zandrat or royal provincial governor in East Prussia whose functions include the supervision of various phases of town and city government within his jurisdiction. On the door of his resi- dence, and bearing the Imperial arms, ap- peared this notice: ‘‘ Burgomeisters are to use the back stairs.” Germany’s watchword is not ‘“ freedom,” but “‘ discipline.” The development of liberal principles has received but little encourage- ment in the last sixty years. The energies
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1915 of the nation have been totally absorbed in industrial and military development, and the impassioned liberalism of 1848, which gave a momentary promise of a new era in Europe, has been supplanted by the hard, rigid spirit of autocracy. Dr. Liebknecht’s FITTING THE SALARY TO THE JOB 571 recent protest against the expansion of Ger- many to embrace her conquered territories gains an added significance. ‘A model of political reaction like Germany,” he said, “has no vocation for the réle of deliverer of nations.” FITTING THE SALARY TO THE JOB BY BEATRICE DENISON N these days of rising taxes, municipal | experts are seeking every possible op- portunity -to check the advance. ‘The latest serious move in this direction is the effort New York City is making to correct inequalities in the public pay-roll.. A recent investigation disclosed ludicrous, even amaz- ing, “ misfits” in the matter of salary paid and service rendered; for example, several office-holders were found.to be drawing two and three thousand dollars a year for sealing letters, copying lists, etc.—ordinary office-boy work which was worth, at the maximum, seven dollars a week. In lesser degree, this discrepancy between service and compensa- tion in the body municipal prevails all over the country. Too seldom, indeed, can “ For value received ” be truthfully written on town office-holders’ salary vouchers. No less amazing than the frequent “ mis- fits ” is the indifference with which the public regards the question of its municipal pay-roll. Frequently its attitude towards the average incumbent of a town or city “ job”’ is good- naturedly contemptuous. It secretly thinks of John Smith’s eighteen-hundred-dollar clerk- ship as an evidence of his political dexterity rather than asa measure of his clerical ability. And much too often this attitude is justified by the fact that John Smith, when thrust out into the keen competition of modern busi- ness, finds his clerking service rated at twelve hundred dollars a year instead of eighteen hundred. A simple operation in subtraction shows where six hundred dollars of the tax- payers’ money has been wasted; and when this remainder is multiplied by hundreds and thousands, it is easy to see how such waste leads to a greater indebtedness and a conse- quent higher tax rate. This has happened to New York City, which finds itself confronted with the neces- sity of “cutting to the bone” its 1916 budget. The lowest possible estimate of the money needed for city expenses in 1916-is $210,000,000. This is truly a fearful budget ; hence it is necessary to cut it down wher- ever the chance is found; it has been esti- mated that the establishment of fair salaries in the various departments will save no less than $1,100,000. Mayor Mitchel has an- nounced in the daily papers that a drastic cut will be made in the wages and salaries of New York City employees. Such a method of attacking the invading army of city debt shows courage and civic loyalty on the part of the men who enforce it. But there is considerable danger that it will prove to be a political boomerang. ‘The economizer of to-day may find himself the martyr when the next election comes around. No more ungrateful task was ever con- ceived of than cutting the salaries of city office-holders. So long as it remains an ab- straction everybody agrees that it is a good . thing ; but when it ceases to be a theory and becomes a fact, and ruthlessly lops off the unearned section of the actual John Smith’s actual pay, woe to the man who authorizes it and to the administration behind him! Imme- diately wails of distress by the score arise, not only from the victim himself, but from his relatives and friends. ‘These advocates be- siege the appropriating powers with the most convincing arguments that, however just the whole cause of salary reduction may be, this case of Smith is an exceptional one. He has been in the service a long time, he has worked faithfully, has accumulated a family, and so on and so on. ‘* There are nothing but exceptional cases when you start in to reduce salaries,” a New York City official remarked sadly when this subject was under discussion a’few days ago. The method which is to eradicate the evils
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572 of overpaid, and in some cases underpaid, positions has been successfully tried out by big business in all parts of the country. It is the system of “ standardization ”’ by which salaries are fixed on a purely business basis. When this is applied to municipal affairs, the work that a city employee does will be paid for according to the valuation of that partic- ular kind and grade of work in the business world. Like the law, standardization is “ no respecter of persons.” The work of an overseer of ‘‘ White Wings ” in the Street- Cleaning Department is to have such a defi- nite standard of value that if Julius Czesar himself should return to lead these cohorts he would be paid no more than an unknown immigrant who proved that he could handle the job. The difference would be in Czesar’s ability to advance rapidly in power ; for under the standardization system promotion will be possible for every employee according to his fitness for it, In perfecting this plan New York City has established the Bureau of Standards. Cre- ated about two years ago by the present Board of Estimate and Apportionment, it has conducted its work on such broad lines and has done it so thoroughly that its schedules and standards can be used as a model by smaller cities and towns throughout the coun- try. The theory back of the whole project may be summed up in two words: fair pay. This does not mean the very lowest pay for which the city can entice men and women into its service; on the contrary, it is inter- preted as liberal compensation for work per- formed. In order to establish bases for its recommendations the Bureau has taken great pains to discover the market value of each particular kind of work. The first step was to investigate the work actually done by each office-holder. Cards containing questions about their work were issued to all employees, who filled them out and passed them on to the department heads for verification. An experienced investigator was then sent to observe the work and check up the statements. With these data the task of finding out just what the particular work of any position was worth in the business world was simplified. In making this survey the Bureau soon found it necessary to guard against the “human equation” in the answers, and so this clause was added to the instructions : Do not exaggerate the importance, difficulty, or supervisory nature of your work. Such ex- THE OUTLOOK 3 November aggeration will result in the necessity of revising your card after conference with the Bureau head and the Commissioners. From these cards a picture chart of each department was constructed by which, at a glance, the entire work and expenditure of a whole city department may be seen. These charts are of great service in showing up dis- crepancies in wages and salaries ; for exam- ple, in one branch of New York City work it was discovered that there were six overseers, all doing the same grade of work, but one of them was drawing a salary of $2,550 a year and another was drawing only $1,050 a year. In order to determine the market value of the many classes of work which a city needs, inquiries were made of leading corporations, such as the insurance companies and public utility corporations, department stores, large contractors, charitable organizations, business and banking houses, not only in New York City, but also in the larger American cities and in the National Government at Washing- ton. Careful consideration was given to differences in conditions and methods. In those employments in which private corpora- tions are paying inadequate salaries or taking advantage of unemployment or market con- ditions the Bureau of Standards has recom- mended salaries somewhat higher than private corporations pay, believing that ultimate econ- omies can be achieved by employing the services of a better class of workers than can be had under these adverse conditions. The proposed rates for the lowest-paid class of manual laborers have been based on conclu- sions drawn froma study of the cost of living in the city of New York. The Bureau of - Standards acts upon the theory that. the city does not wish to pay less than the minimum wage upon which a normal, self-respecting family can subsist. One of the most important recomimenda- tions which the Bureau makes is that a range of salary rather than a fixed rate should be established for the majority of positions in the city service. ‘The most progressive private corporations and cities in this and other coun- tries have tested the efficacy of this method. It makes possible the steady promotion of an employee who proves his right to an advance in salary by his steadily increasing ability. For example, in a certain grade of bookkeep- ing work the minimum salary would be $1,320 and the maximum $1,680, with two rates in between. A new appointee to this
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1915 SOME COMMON grade would go in at the minimum salary, with the knowledge that if he proved himself capable he would be advanced. Of course he is also eligible to promotion—if he de- serves it—to still higher grades, with still higher ranges of salary. The final decision on the extensive recom- mendations of the Bureau of Standards has not yet been made. The last word is with the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, the eight men who control the expenditures of the city of New York. Under the law the an- nual budget has to be adopted by the Board before midnight of the thirty-first day of October, and changes may be made up to FALLACIES ABOUT BLINDNESS 573 the last minute. Nobody knows how far the Board will go in its standardizing plan, to what extent it may temper justice with mercy. What everybody does know, however, is that departmental estimates are now being consid- ered upon the assumption that proper salaries must be paid, whether this involves reduction or advance. If the example of the New York City government in this phase of municipal man- agement is followed throughout the country, it will mean the saving to the taxpayers of many millions every year. In a manner this is an attack—though it may be a small one— upon the unequal distribution of wealth. SOME COMMON FALLACIES ABOUT BLINDNESS ’ BY CLARENCE HAWKES Mr. Hawkes was totally blinded by an accident in 1883. Since then he has written an astonishingly large number of books, articles, stories, and poems, and has been a popular lecturer on natural history —TuHeE EpirTors. HERE is probably no abnormal con- dition of life so little understood and appreciated’ and about which so much that is erroneous has been written as that of blindness. The very conditions under which the blind live are so extreme and startling that there has gradually been built up about them a world of fable and fancy as extravagant, if not as thrilling, as the world of fairy stories. It is to correct some of these erroneous ideas, as well as to point out other facts which are little less remarkable, though truthful, that this article is written. I have had hundreds of people ask me if I could tell color by the sense of touch. How any sensible person could get the idea that it is possible to tell color from the sense of touch is amazing. It is probably partly due to the fact that the public wants to believe all sorts of wild things about the blind, and also because some blind folks, partly in fun and because they like to astonish their friends, have practiced a sort of magic at their ex- pense. I knew a blind horse dealer who could really tell the color of a horse by the sense of feeling, but the color itself had noth- ing to do with the feat. It was all performed through the fact that different colored horses had different textured coats. With some colors the hair was fine, while others were coarse ; some coats were smooth and others rough. Most blind people know the colors of the common flowers, and when a friend places a bouquet in your hand you are always able to recognize the flower by either the perfume or the touch, so one can usually make a very good guess as to the color, although in these days of new shades and widely variegated flora even that little artifice is rather dangerous. It is also a very common question to have seeing people ask the blind if they can tell the denomination of different bills by the sense of touch, and many folks have told me that they knew blind people who could. There is only one general rule concerning bills that gives any clue at all as to their denomination, and this has so many excep- tions as to be entirely worthless. Bills larger than one dollar are usually printed upon heavier paper than dollar bills— or at least that has been my impression, but the Treasury Department might tell me that even that conclusion is erroneous. Most blind people carry a pocketbook with several compartments and keep their bills of
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574 different denominations in different compart- ments, so they know where they are. In that way they can readily make change and give the impression that they can tell bills by the sense of touch. There are things that they can do by the sense of touch which are even more remark- able, such as threading a needle by placing the end of the thread on the tongue and shoving the head of the needle along until the thread is thrust through the eye, or replacing delicate springs in a typewriter and keeping the machine in order. I recently success- fully adjusted the reproducer on a graphonola which had become discordant. This is a very delicate piece of mechanism, and its adjustment is usually attempted only by an expert. It would seem almost as wonderful for one without the sense of sight to trace the margin on a printed page of a book or newspaper to feel where the type leaves off and the un- printed page begins. Yet I can do that, while I have known blind people who would read raised print through four thicknesses of a silk handkerchief, or play a piano with a spread placed over the keyboard. To tell the weight of paper in ream lots within five or ten pounds merely from feel- ing one sheet would seem to call for a very expert sense of touch, yet that is possible, as well as to tell much about the texture and quality of the paper and how it was prepared for book use. It is probably due as much to the extrava- gant things that have been written about them as to the rather harmless practices of the blind people themselves that so many erroneous statements have got abroad. ** The Rosary,” by Mrs. Florence Barclay, with all its admirable qualities, and notwith- standing all that it has doubtless accomplished for the blind, abounds in amazing portrayals of the condition of blindness. Readers of “The Rosary ” will remember that a crafty Scotch doctor devises the plan of putting in charge of a blind artist, as his nurse, a former sweetheart from whom he has be- come estranged. While the artist is suspicious of the voice, which reminds him strongly of his friend, although the nurse is using another name, yet he finally succumbs to the subter- fuge and is deceived for several weeks until she at last reveals her identity. The entire plot of the story hinges on this deceit. The fact is that such a deceit would be impossible. ? THE OUTLOOK There is as much personality and charac- ter in the human voice as there is in the face. It is just as reasonable to say that you would not know your friend by looking on his coun- tenance as that a blind person would not know his friend by the voice, especially when the friend was a sweetheart. If the voices of a thousand people were tested and analyzed, they would be found to be as individual as the faces of their owners. I have never in my life met two people whom I could not tell apart by their voices after I came to know them fairly well. If the voice of nurse Rosemary had not given her away to her blind artist lover, then there is a mentaland spiritual aurasurrounding every one which would. This sense is very strong between the sexes, and had the young man loved the woman as much as we must believe from the story, even her presence, had she uttered not a word, would have been as apparent to him as the fact that he lived or breathed. On one occasion the crafty doctor sits in the woods upon a log, with the blind artist on one end of the log and his sweetheart on the other, while he tries to persuade the artist to receive the young lady again into his life. The blind man stands within a few feet of his affinity, yet does not know she is there. Now the blind are possessed of a sense perception of solid bodies within a radius of ten or twelve feet which would have told him of this presence had not his aching heart stood him in that stead. But perhaps the most ludicrous of all Mrs. Barclay’s imaginings is that whereby the blind artist sits in his library in an easy chair in the middle of the room, with a blue string leading to the piano, a green one to the type- writer, and a yellow string to the bookcase. To one who without sight is in the habit of going straight to whatever he wants in the house and putting his hand on it without any fuss, of going into the street unattended, hailing a street car, and doing shopping in many stores of the city alone; to one who takes long lecture trips traveling unattended, this sitting in the library with a colored string leading to each piece of furniture is the fun- niest thing in literature. Yet, with all its faults, ‘‘ The Rosary,” with its strong appeal to the seeing for their sym- pathy and co-operation with the blind in their efforts to master the conditions of their lives, has doubtless done much good.
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TWO POEMS BY ELIZABETH BERTRON FAHNESTOCK BROTHERHOOD For years we had stood together And toiled at the self-same task, With a hand that was worn to leather, And the face of an age-old mask. Where the narrow walls confined us We had dreamed, as a bondsman can, Of a world made free for brothers— And a kingdom of every man. We had dreamed of a space unbounded Where the eye sees far and clear, With never a thought for nations— Ours was a world frontier ! And to-day it was that I found him When we stormed on the other trench, With a hell-fire hot all round us, And a deadlier poisoned stench. There he lay, like a wild beast slaughtered, And a stain on his mouth like wine, And eyes that stared, unseeing, To the heaven that’s his and mine. Perhaps, at to-morrow’s dawning, I too shall be lying there, In the only peace and freedom That he and I can share. HOME DAYS The wind blows high o’er the garden wall, With a strong salt sting of the sea, And the heaving tide, where the great ships ride, Sends its old-time call to me. The wind blows low from afar away Where a white road winds to the west, And the wild birds call, while the grain grows tall In the land that my heart holds best. But the ships may sail, and the land lie fair, And the winds round the world blow wild, But what care I, for I heed no cry Save the voice of one little child.
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BY THE WAY The purchase by a wealthy syndicate of the Wright aeroplane interests seems to indicate the belief on the part of capitalists that the air- ship is soon to have a wider field of usefulness. The prospective activity of the new corpora- tion’s securities was wittily hit off in the remark of an investor, “ That stock will soar!” New York City’s subway, surface, and ele- vated lines carried an average of nearly 4,925,000 persons a day in the year ending June 30, 1915. As the population of the city is placed at 5,333,537, it seems that there is one ride. a day for almost every inhabitant. ; Miss Anita King, described as “a slip of a girl,” has driven alone across the continent in an automobile. She left the Pacific coast on September 1 and arrived in New York October 19. She carried messages from the Mayors of San Francisco and Los Angeles to the Mayor of New York City. Billy Sunday, at his recent meetings in Omaha, Nebraska, is reported to have paid his respects to current literature in these words: “ Wish I could sentence fifty of the popular writers of to- day to the penitentiary for the stuff they write.” “ A careful reader of The Outlook” corrects our statement on page 344 (October 13th issue) that “ Old Abe,” the famous stuffed eagle, ap- peared in the recent Washington parade of Civil War veterans. “Old Abe” himself was burned in the fire that destroyed the Capitol at Madison, Wisconsin, a few years ago. He was represented only by proxy in the recent proces- sion. Our informant adds this interesting note: “My husband was one cf those who carried ‘Old Abe’ in the war, and in one or two hard battles too.” On a recent day there were in New York Harbor 224 steamers, 14 square-rigged ships, and 114 schooners—nearly three times as many, it is said, as were usually to be found in the harbor before the war. Of the sailing ships all but one were scheduled to sail for the Argen- tine Republic. The infinite variety of electrical devices received a recent addition in a drying machine that is intended to do away with the office towel. A currentof hot perfumed air is thrown from an adjustable funnel on either hands or face. The current is regulated by a pedal. The sanitary advantage of this substitute for the towel is apparent. Amusements may be regarded as a pretty good thermometer of prosperity—in good times they are well patronized, during hard times peo- ple have no money to spend on them. Judged by this standard, the South has no cause to 576 complain. A despatch from Memphis, Ten- nessee, to the “ Dramatic Mirror” says that the theaters are doing an excellent business not only in Tennessee but in other parts of the South. “The cotton crop,” it says, “while not large, is selling for fancy prices, and other crops are also bringing good money,” and the amusement world shares the benefit. The voyage of the Snark several years ago in the South Pacific terminated somewhat un- fortunately, but the adventurous trip was prolific in “copy” for the voyagers. Jack London, the owner of the yacht, made a book about it; so did his cook; and now Mrs. London publishes a diary, “The Log of the Snark,” giving a woman’s impressions of the tropic seas visited by the Snark in the course of her long and romantic cruise. “The Dramatist,” discussing “ Hamlet ” and finding faults in its construction, thus asserts its own independence: “ Technicians approach Shakespeare’s work with the foregone conclu- sion that his plays are perfect and that it is rampant ignorance to attack them—that the expert’s only option is to point out their vari- ous virtues and dwell on their eternal fame. That is not the habit of this journal, and, so long as grass grows and errors exist, it never shall be.” Of a modern comedy, “ The Boomerang, ” the “ Dramatist” is less critical, Characteriz- ing it as “ the cleverest comedy in New York,” the critic’s verdict is: “ The play as a whole is one of the rare specimens that surpasses the ideals you may form of it before visiting the Belasco.” Will a dog run from a rabbit? “ Office Ap- pliances,” in describing the trip of the Station- ers’ Convention through Glacier Park, says that several observers testified that they saw a rabbit chase a dog from its sojourning-ground in the park. Other members of the Convention de- rided the story, saying that the “ rabbit ’’ was one of those pretty black and white animals that know well how to make _ themselves shunned. The original observers return to the attack by making affidavits that the rabbit was a real one, and by submitting a photograph of themselves as men unlikely to prevaricate about a matter that did not concern business! “ Them roads is vile with them automobyles,”’ “ Life” makes a Tennessee mountaineer say as he sat in front of his lonely cabin while the horseman drew rein on the deeply rutted road. “ Why, do many come up here ?” asked the sur- prised visitor. “ Many? Why, stranger, I don’t believe there air a week but what one goes by !”