The holiday season is an appropriate time for retelling the story of John Wesley and the close-fisted steward. "Make all you can," cried Wesley in one of his outdoor sermons. "Amen!" exclaimed the thrifty steward. "In the second place," said Wesley, “save all you can." Again an enthusiastic "Amen!" "And in the third place," said the exhorter, "I say, give all you can. Give all you can to every worthy cause." "There now," wailed the disappointed steward, "he's gone and spoilt it all!" This is perhaps the best time of the year to "spoil" one's saving propensities for the sake of helping some good cause or adding joy to the lot of some unfortunate.

The Berkeley (California) high school Greek Club has started a bi-weekly paper in the Greek language. The first issue consists of four pages with an insert-the latter being the menu, in Greek, used at a banquet given by the Club in celebration of the new achievement. This periodical is said to be the only Greek paper published in the United States by a high school. It was printed from type purchased by the Greek Club, on a press owned by the school.

What is a "horse power"? Has it any rela tion to the pulling power of a horse? A contemporary answers the question thus: "If a horse walks two miles per hour and hauls a load which requires 131 pounds pull to haul it, the horse will be developing one horse power. It is also sometimes figured that a horse will pull about 1-10 of his own weight. In actual work, a horse would be working too hard to develop one horse power for ten hours a day. . . . It must be remembered that many horses can develop as high as five or six horse power for short periods of time."

The eight-hour day seems to be pretty well established in New York City for the domestic helpers known as "day workers;" they come at 8 A.M. and leave at 5 in the afternoon, with an hour for lunch. This advertisement seems to foreshadow a still shorter day:

JAPANESE, expert cook, butler, useful, five hours' work daily; wages $20; willing, capable, experienced; excellent English; reference. Address Shimi, etc., etc.

The tragedy of Lincoln's assassination was brought to the minds of multitudes by the announcement of the death on December 5 of Colonel William Withers, leader of the orchestra in Ford's Theater in Washington the night the President was shot. Colonel Withers was stabbed by the assassin as the latter was making his escape. Colonel Withers gave the police the details of the tragedy and named Booth as the culprit.

"Collier's" publishes an amusing cartoon showing a brewer, a saloon-keeper, and a bartender weeping as a figure labeled "Michigan"

leaves the saloon door to look at the rising sun of "Prohibition." The caption, parodying Tennyson's familiar lines, reads: "You bet there'll be some moaning at the bar when I put out to see!" "Collier's "says that "Michigan" might just as well have been called Nebraska or South Dakota or Montana, for all four States went dry on November 7, but that the most significant thing about the situation is that cities such as Seattle and Denver also on that date said good-by to the saloon.

A woman who had lived through momentous periods of European history, the Dowager Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, died the other day at the advanced age of ninetyseven. She was a granddaughter of George III of England. Born in 1819, she was married at twenty-four, and outlived both her husband and her son, who were successively Grand Dukes of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

The new Pennsylvania Railroad grain elevator at Baltimore, a subscriber writes, will outclass the one at Girard Point, Pennsylvania, mentioned on this page a few weeks ago. The Baltimore elevator can accommodate five vessels five hundred feet in length at one time. Dock spouts, each capable of spouting 40,000 bushels an hour into a ship, are located every sixty feet along the side of the pier. It is not claimed for this elevator that it is "the largest in the world," but merely that it is worthy of note even in a country distinguished for “big things."

According to an offical report, twelve hundred Indians from the Canadian reserves have enlisted for active service in the war. Indians

at the front, it is said, have proved themselves excellent riflemen and possessed of great powers of endurance. Last year Indians contributed over $7,000 to war funds, and Indian women have been noteworthy contributors of knitted socks, mufflers, and other comforts for the soldiers.

A friend writes to The Outlook expressing his astonishment that another journal should publish an advertisement of a new kind of playing card having a peculiar mark on the back to tell the initiated what is on its face. To him this suggests the gambler's marked cards. The cards, however, it seems, are patented, and the patentee claims that they are perfectly fair, because the players all know that they are marked and try to outdo each other in reading the face from the back. Apropos of this, it may be remarked that a request to see these cards in one of the largest department stores of New York City resulted in the statement that "no playing cards of any kind are sold in this store." The reason given was that the proprietor, whose name is a household word, has always regarded cards as dangerous playthings.

PRESIDENT WILSON'S NOTES

TO THE NATIONS AT WAR

THE

On December 21 President Wilson sent what are in most respects identic notes to the Governments of all the Allies and the Central Powers. In these notes the President" is not proposing peace; he is not even offering mediation." He sets forth the great desirability of immediate peace in the interest of the nations at war, of the neutral nations, "lest the situation of neutral nations, now exceedingly hard to endure, be rendered altogether intolerable," of the smaller and weaker peoples of the world, and of civilization itself. Therefore the President suggests that all the nations at war make an avowal of their respective views as to the terms upon which the war might be concluded. He does not suggest the means to accomplish this, and only in general terms offers to serve in the

cause

sirable.

or even to take the initiative if de

The President specifically declares that he is "somewhat embarrassed to offer it [the suggestion] because it may now seem to have been prompted by a desire to play a part in connection with the recent overtures of the Central Powers." In fact, he had, he says, long had it in mind. Nevertheless, the President would have done well to wait until the formal reply of the Allies to Germany had been sent (it will be ready almost immediately), and thereby have avoided creating the impression that he was trying to forestall their demand, voiced by Lloyd George, that the Central Powers should state plainly the chief terms which they would accept before a peace conference proposal could be considered. this is the spirit in which the President's notes were written, they will not further his desire to have the United States act as mediator.

If

Whatever may be said of the motives or general attitude of the President, from one statement in the note we radically dissent.

WEEK

This statement is as follows:

And yet the concrete objects for which it [the war] is being waged have never been definitely stated. The leaders of the several belligerents have, as has been said, stated those objects in general terms. But, stated in general terms, they seem the same on both sides.

The whole political, diplomatic, and military history preceding the declaration of war and during its course contradicts this statement.

We must reserve final comment upon the President's action until our next issue.

THE STORY OF THE WAR;

A NEW FRENCH VICTORY AT VERDUN

The extent of the new advance by General Nivelle against the German positions before Verdun is perhaps best shown by the official announcement from Paris on December 18 that the total number of prisoners taken in the operations of December 15 amounted to 11,387.

So far as the ground taken in this attack is concerned, the advance was not large measured in miles or fractions of a mile, but it was important because through it the French gained possession of a hill near Louvemont which enables their guns now to bear upon the peninsula made by the river Meuse, one of the first sections to be abandoned by the French and occupied by the Germans.

Thus General Nivelle, on the eve of his relinquishing separate command of the French forces at Verdun in order to assume the general command of all the French armies in the Franco-Belgian field, makes what has been called a "parting gift to his army."

OTHER WAR NEWS

Berlin continues to report advances of the German and Bulgarian forces in Rumania. They pushed northward through the eastern part of Rumania, and last week crossed the Buzeu River. The place chosen for a firm stand of the Russians has been fixed along the line of the

Sereth River and that the battered Rumanian forces have been passed along behind the Russian army and are recruiting their strength beyond the Sereth.

Athens reports that the Greek King has agreed to the demands of the Allies; that most of the Greek army will be moved so far south as to cease to be a danger to the Allies; and that the treacherous attacks on British and French marines at Athens on December 1 will be made the subject of conference and probable reparation.

On the other hand-and this is a good illustration of the contradictory news which comes from Greece-it is stated that the King has issued an order to arrest Venizelos as a traitor. Such an order, if it really has been issued, is more an emanation of spite than anything else, as Venizelos is safely guarded by the Allies near the Salonika lines. A sentence in Lloyd George's great speech before the House of Commons on December 19 indicated that the new Prime Minister and his War Council propose to take strenuous and drastic measures to deal with the Greek situation.

A statement from Dr. Zimmermann, the German Secretary for Foreign Affairs, asserts that at different times submarines belonging to the Allies have sunk without warning five German steamers, which he names. It is probable that the Governments of the Allies will reply to this accusation when the circumstances have been examined, and we certainly think they should do so. Meanwhile we have technical German defenses against charges of destroying merchant ships without regard to the rules of war, and in some cases without regard to the German promise to the United States. In one case, where a British ship captain tried to ram a German submarine and was taken prisoner, fear had been felt that he would be executed as was Captain Fryatt. Thereupon the German Government cannily reports that it has no such intentions, for the captain's ship had a gun on board and was therefore a cruiser, and therefore, again, had a right to fire on an enemy. This is a happy conclusion so far as the captain is concerned, but is simply another way of asserting that any ship carrying a gun may be treated as a man-of-war.

The Marina case still hangs fire; if our Government has replied to German representations, no one knows what it has said; Great Britain declares that the Marina was in no sense a transport. As to the sinking of the American steamship Columbian by a

German submarine, Germany's defense is that, having once been stopped and allowed to go on its way, the Columbian sent out in every direction wireless warnings of the presence of a submarine; this, it is claimed, was a hostile act, and justified the recapture of the vessel and its sinking, after the crew had been put in boats.

THE CHIEF OF STAFF
BEFORE CONGRESS

We have already reported the views of the Chief of Staff, General Hugh L. Scott, upon the lesson of the mobilization of the militia upon the border. In a hearing before a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs General Scott reiterated his views of the militia situation, and then proceeded to outline his views of what is necessary for the country in the way of military preparedness.

General Scott not only made an excellent plea for universal training, but also unconsciously provided an excellent argument for the establishment of a real Council of National Defense. The function of a real Council of National Defense differs greatly from the function of that Council created at the last session of Congress. A real Council of National Defense should be composed of representatives of Congress, the executive branch of the Government, the army and the navy, and leaders from civil life. It should be charged with determining the general outline of our National military policy, and presenting to Congress in authoritative form a balanced military policy based upon a carefully-thought-out consideration of our resources and our needs.

We said that General Scott unconsciously supplied an excellent argument for the establishment of such a Council of National Defense by his recent remarks before the Senate Committee. At this hearing he attempted to estimate the size of the standing army required by a mathematical calculation of the forces which could be brought against this country, a calculation which ignored many of the considerations that a statesmanlike council would necessarily take into account. His estimate included a combination of the forces of Great Britain, Canada, and Japan, an estimate that trespasses not only upon the field of civil statesmanship, but upon common sense. A real Council of National Defense would have relieved him of the temptation to commit this trespass.

1916

GENERAL WOOD ON UNIVERSAL TRAINING

If what General Scott had to say on the military side of universal training was good, what General Wood had to say was doubly So. He indorsed all that General Scott wisely said as to the uneconomic, unreliable, inefficient, and extravagant nature of our present volunteer system, and then went on to describe the military and social advantages of the system which he desired to see substituted. General Wood advocated a system which provides for six months of intensive military training for boys when they reach the age of nineteen. This would be followed by thirty days of training at the age of twenty-one. The thirty days' training would be followed by enrollment in a "National Reserve "regiment, entailing liability to service until the age of twenty-nine. Under this system those most likely to be called into actual service would be between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-two, a period in which the average man has not yet acquired permanent family obligations. General Wood very wisely opposed payment for this service, saying that payment would destroy that feeling of National obligation which should be one of the chief objects of universal service. He said:

Universal service is the only really democratic system, and I believe it would be thoroughly popular if people could realize that the rich man and the poor man alike would have to share its burdens. I have found enthusiasm for it everywhere when I have made people understand that no one is to be allowed to buy his way out. The labor leader and the district leader in New York alike are responsive to the idea under those conditions.

General Wood continued by saying that he did not believe in a large standing army, as his scheme if worked out would eventually give the Nation a reserve army adequate to make the country secure against invasion. The standing army should be kept only for manning permanent garrisons. General Wood voiced his belief that universal training would serve better than anything now known to give a sense of nationality to our immigrant population. He said: "I believe its effect in cutting down crime and improving the morality of the Nation would be startling. Our huge murder rate, now many times greater than that of Europe, would be divided by ten."

Perhaps it may be worth while to restate

883*

here what seems to us the fundamental principles which should guide our military legislation.

We want a Council of National Defense such as we have already described in our comment upon General Scott's remarks before the Senate Committee.

We want a standing army large enough to do all our Federal police duty, to fulfill our obligations to protect Porto Rico, Hawaii, and the Philippines, to guard our borders from such immediate disorders as have been threatened in times of peace by Indian wars and now by Mexican anarchy, and to man the permanent defenses of our harbors.

We want a navy large enough to furnish reasonable protection from invasion, and to provide us with a means to fulfill our obligations toward our smaller neighbors and towards the support of international law.

We want universal training, not only as a means of providing our country with the only adequate and economic method of National defense, but also to provide our citizens with the discipline which comes from the recognition of a vital social obligation to the land in which they dwell.

OUR PATIENCE WITH CARRANZA

Patience, like some other virtues, in excess may become a fault. We wonder if the patience of the United States in dealing with Carranza has not begun to reach this stage.

For almost four months the people of this country, irrespective of party and oblivious to a remarkable degree of the usual excitement of a political campaign, have waited with praiseworthy patience for the outcome of the conferences between Mexican and American commissioners, meeting first at New London and later at Atlantic City. Twice the Commission adjourned, the first time with apparent likelihood of dissolution, the second time with apparently good prospects of an agreement being reached. On the latter occasion a proposition for Carranza's ratification or disapproval was carried to the First Chief by one of his commissioners. Carranza was asked to give his acceptance or approval not later than December 9. But when his reply did come, ten days after the appointed date, it was neither acceptance nor rejection, but another request for more time."

Carranza's request is based on his un

willingness to agree that hereafter the United States should be free to send its soldiers across the border at any time in pursuit of Mexicans who had raided American soil.

Meanwhile the Mexican-American Commission has adjourned until some time in January. And as the advance of the season has made New York City more a center of social life than Atlantic City, for the benefit of the Mexican commissioners the next conferences will be held on Manhattan Island.

With the ordering home of 17,000 more National Guardsmen comes the announcement from the War Department that the force on the border will be reduced to 75,000 men and kept at that strength until there is a definite clearing of Mexican skies.

Americans who have no material interest in Mexico, as well as those whose sons and brothers are condemned to patrol the border, may well begin to ask if our patience in waiting for Carranza to accept or reject the recommendations of his commissioners has not begun to be a fault.

THE LITERACY TEST AGAIN

An immigration bill substantially similar to the one which was vetoed by President Wilson a year ago has again been approved by both houses of Congress. The literacy test, which President Wilson objected to in the old bill, is contained in the new one. In their time Presidents Taft and Cleveland also vetoed bills containing similar provisions.

With some exceptions, this test will exclude "all aliens over sixteen years of age, physically capable of reading, who cannot read the English language or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish." One important class of persons excepted from the necessity of meeting this test is that class of persons seeking admission to the United States to avoid religious persecution in the country from which they have come, when that persecution involves a restriction or denial to any class or sect of such alien of the means or opportunities of obtaining an education sufficient to comply with the literacy test hereinbefore provided." This clause in quotation is an amendment to the former bill and is an important addition.

The House voted for this bill by 308 to 87, and the Senate by 64 to 7. The support of the measure thus seems more than strong enough to make it a law over the President's veto. Nevertheless he ought to veto the proposal, for the literacy test is an un-American

provision, entirely contrary to the traditional. spirit of American government and American political philosophy.

PROHIBITION NEWS

Boston, on Tuesday, December 19, voted to remain a wet city by a majority of over twenty thousand. The prohibition question in Boston has been made a very live issue during the past few weeks because of the activities of Billy Sunday and the efforts of the Anti-Saloon League and many prominent citizens of Boston to turn the capital of Massachusetts into the dry column. On the list of those who signed the advertisements of the Massachusetts Anti-Saloon League are to be found such names as Dr. Charles W. Eliot, Bishop William Lawrence, Major Henry Lee Higginson, the Rev. Paul Revere Frothingham, Mr. B. Preston Clark, Mr. J. Randolph Coolidge, Jr., Dr. Richard C. Cabot, Dean Edmund S. Rousmaniere, Professor William Z. Ripley, Mr. Robert A. Woods, and the Rev. Dr. Elwood Worcester.

The election was naturally a serious disappointment to those who hoped to make Boston dry, for the wet majority was much larger than at the election a year ago. It was hoped that with the aid of Billy Sunday, who did so much to turn Michigan into the dry column, the dry forces might be victorious. That the drys even hoped to carry the city of Boston is perhaps significant of the change in the general attitude toward the prohibition question.

Meanwhile at Washington there is waging a controversy over the Sheppard Bill, designed to make the District of Columbia dry. An amendment to the Sheppard Bill designed to permit a referendum vote in the District of Columbia as to whether it shall go dry or not is, as we write on December 20, deadlocked in the Senate. Another amendment to this amendment, designed to permit women to vote on the liquor question if it is decided to allow a referendum, passed the Senate by a vote of nearly four to one. The Sheppard Bill has now been before the Senate for nearly two weeks, to the exclusion of other business. It is being backed by the Anti-Saloon League and the prohibition forces of the country.

It is generally supposed that the prohibition sentiment is much stronger in the West and South than in the East. Much evidence can be found, however, to prove that the sentiment for prohibition is stronger in the East