as delinquent current taxes. Reza Khan, the powerful Minister of War, pledged his support, and the back taxes began to come in. The simple general rule was laid down that each year a taxpayer in arrears should pay an amount on arrears to equal his current taxes. Dr. Millspaugh admits that the collection of back taxes would probably have been impossible had it not been for the existence of a strong army and the co-operation of Reza Khan, for the reform methods of the Americans made a good many enemies. The tax collector is never popular, even in the United States. Dr. Millspaugh has refused another three years' contract with the Persian Government for the reason that the Persian Government wants to "clip" his wings and curtail the powers which he exercises. To carry on his work effectively for the next three years he be G vices of the Millspaugh group in Persia -these are but two of many examples of a kind of service rendered that does not foreshadow a political and economical control. In the past, a backward country that accepted the help of a foreign group of experts usually found that the country giving the help hoped to profit in some way. Turkey many years ago took von der Goltz to reorganize her army, and before long Turkey was trailing the kite of Berlin. Persia selected American Government experts because she entertained no fear that Americans, under cover of concessions or loans, would attempt to interfere in the politics of that country or attempt to dominate its Government. Americans may well be proud of the work of Millspaugh and his small group of Americans in this ancient land, the land of Xerxes, Cyrus, and Darius. Holland Drives Back the OD created the world," runs an old saying, "except the Netherlands, which were created by the Dutch." Since time immemorial it has been the custom of nations in need of land to make war upon a weaker neighbor. Pacific little Holland, feeling the pressure of a population far denser than that of Germany in 1914, makes war upon the sea. Well might Albrecht Dürer, coming centuries ago to the Netherlands, remark, "The wonder of Holland is the water, for it is higher than the land;" well may the little province of Zeeland have for its motto, "Luctor et emergo" (I struggle and emerge.) To understand the reasons for Holland's new and greatest attack upon the sea it is necessary to remember two things: First, that Holland, despite her population of over 460 to the square mile, is essentially an agricultural country. Second, that, as a result of this, agricultural methods are probably more intensive in Holland than in any other country in the world, that land of average fertility sells for from $450 to $500 an acre. And, keeping these facts in mind, we shall not be surprised to learn that Holland is at present at work on the largest engineering enterprise ever undertaken by a small nation, the greatest and most costly reclamation work ever attempted by a nation large or small. By FRANK SCHOONMAKER five or thirty years to spend two-thirds Hoorn, Edam, and Marken, beloved of tourists. Ever since the seventeenth century it has been the dream of Dutch engineers to drain and reclaim at least a part of this area. As early as 1641 plans were brought forward for reclaiming, with the aid of 160 windmills, a southern arm of the Zuider Zee, known as the Haarlemmer Meer, but it was not until two centuries later that this plan was actually carried out. Since then numerous proposals have been made for draining the Zuider Zee as a whole. The present plan is, with a few modifications, that brought forward by Lely in 1892. Repeated investigations have proved it to be the most economical, the most practical, and the best. closing and reclaiming the Zuider wished to reclaim an area equally great THE plan, as it now stands, for in- The Zuider Zee, together with the Wadden Zee and Wieringen Lake, forms, as can be seen from the accompanying map, an immense shallow arm of the sea which cuts deep into the Netherlands and divides the province of Friesland from North Holland proper. Muddy, choppy little inland sea that it is, full of treacherous sand-banks and almost shut off from the North Sea by a chain of islands, it is nevertheless this Zuider Zee which makes Amsterdam a seaport. And along the shores of this same bay lie the picturesque "dead cities" of Volendam, Zee calls, first of all, for a heavy inclosing dike from North Holland, via the island of Wieringen, to the Frisian coast near Zurig. An inland, fresh-water lake, fed by the Ijssel River, will thus be created. The next step will be to dike off, pump out, and reclaim four polders. These four tracts of land, lying in some cases as much as sixteen feet below sealevel, have been laid off so that they contain as much clay and fertile soil as possible, and as little sand. Up to the present the actual work, undertaken in 1920, has gone along very slowly. The national treasury has, until recently, found itself unable to supply the necessary funds, and in the years 1920-5 comparatively little was accomplished. However, about two years ago Volendam, a Dutch city that is going dry ly, $36,000,000. It will probably be finished in 1934. the Government, finding the money TH available, decided to press on more rapidly with the work. It was hoped thus to avoid some of the interest costs, which will amount altogether to over onefourth of the entire expenditure. It was therefore decided to proceed as soon as possible with the construction of the great inclosing dike from Wieringen to the Frisian coast and simultaneously with the diking off and reclaiming of the northwestern polder, known also as the Lake Wieringen polder. Both of these are now under way. The main inclosing dike, from Wieringen to Friesland, will have a total length of about 181⁄2 miles. This huge barricade, even heavier than the one already constructed from North Holland to Wieringen, will rise on its seaward side to a height of twenty-four feet above water-level and will be over one hundred feet wide. Space will thus be provided on it for a road, several electrical conduits, and a double-track railway. Through the center of this dike will run a ship canal, two-thirds of a mile wide, direct to the port of Amsterdam. The cost of this inclosing dike, including sluice-gates, locks, etc., has been estimated at 90,000,000 guilders, or, rough HE fresh-water lake into which the Ijssel River will empty will be of approximately 250,000 acres. The Ijssel, a delta branch of the Rhine, carries about one-ninth of that river's water to the sea, and the Ijssel Lake must be large enough to accommodate any flood. The level of this lake will be some fifteen inches below that of the sea, and the polder land will average from five to fourteen feet below the level of the lake. The areas of the various polders will be as follows: Polder Northwestern Southwestern Southeastern Northeastern Total Acres 50,000 140,000 232,000 130,000 552,000 These 552,000 acres of new land will, of course, constitute the most important benefit to be gained from the enterprise as a whole. A commission was appointed by the Government to investigate the prospective value of this huge area. Thanks to a very accurate survey of the bottom of the Zuider Zee made some time previously, it was ascertained that between eighty and ninety per cent of the reclaimed soil will be exceedingly rich clay and the rest mostly sand and peat. After subtracting five per cent of the total area to allow for roads, canals, ditches, etc., the value of the land was calculated on the basis of carefully obtained figures. It was found that seven or eight years after draining, when the land will have acquired full capital value, it will be worth approximately $204,000,000. Meanwhile that is to say, during this period of seven or eight years -the land will be held by the Government and either leased or cultivated. This, it is expected, will yield a revenue of some $38,000,000. There are, in addition, numerous advantages in having an immense freshwater reservoir-Lake Ijssel-in the center of Holland. During periods of summer drought good fresh water is exceedingly scarce in the provinces of Friesland and North Holland. Drinking water for cattle is difficult to obtain and irrigation is almost impossible. So acute is this annual shortage of water that agricultural societies in these two provinces have estimated the value of an unlimited fresh-water supply at $2,000,000 a year, representing, at five per cent, a capital value of $40,000,000. The beneficial effects of Lake Ijssel upon shipping must also be taken into consideration, for upon this too the shortage of water has a disastrous effect. The water-level in the canals of Friesland falls so low during the summer months that canal boats are often forced to move about half loaded. And, since the cost of conveyance by water in the province of Friesland alone amounts to some $6,000,000 per year, it is evident that an adequate water supply would save a not inconsiderable sum every year. B. Reclaiming 552, 38,000,000 So much for the actual budget of the enterprise. But there are other gains less easily calculated. The great increase in national wealth and the stimulus that this will give to foreign trade, new land thrown open to a crowded people, employment provided for thousands of workers over a long term of years, the gain in national prestige-all these too. And Holland has taken all these things into consideration. She has set her face toward the future, and quietly, in her methodical, determined way, she is going about her business, waging a bloodless but bitter war against her hereditary enemy-the sea. A general map of the Netherlands showing the area to be reclaimed T The Eighteenth Amendment By CHARLES FORREST MOORE HE time has come when we must decide whether in this country the sovereignty of the Govern ment shall be recognized and respected or the individual citizen be permitted to yield obedience to the law only when and to the extent it may suit his convenience or pleasure to do so. The safety of our Republic and the stability of its institutions are in many ways endangered; but it is my purpose at this time to consider only that threatened break in the line of our defense occasioned by the attitude of a considerable number of our people toward the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution and the statutes which have been enacted to enforce it. That my views concerning this very important matter are not born of a lifelong prejudice nor result from a fanatical obsession may be indicated best by a personal explanation, for the serving of which purpose it may be pardoned. I was brought up in the country, and in a home and community of wholesome sobriety, where the question of prohibition was seldom raised, for the very good reason that there seemed to be no real need to consider it. Stored away in some inconspicuous place in the house in which I was born and reared there was always kept a scant supply of spirituous liquors, procured on a duplication of Paul's prescription to Timothy, which was carefully rationed in limited quantities, and that only in case of illness or extreme depression. For the reason that the necessity for legal restraint was so remote within the scope of that small world to which the vision and experience of my youth were confined, the question gave me no serious concern until I had reached mature1 years; nor was I even then greatly dis turbed, for I had acquired the habit of looking upon it as none of my special business. 'HE question of prohibition began to TH be more and more agitated; yet, partly because I had little faith in the chance of its adoption, and more because I had other things to occupy my time and thought, like many others, I drifted into a state of acquiescent neutrality. There I remained until prohibition became the law of the land, and few there were who knew whether I was for or against it. Indeed, I scarcely knew myself. If, pending the long fight for the adoption of the Amendment, I had been required to take an open stand, the chances are I should have allied myself with the opposition. Eighteenth When, however, the Amendment was finally written into the Federal Constitution and the statutes providing for its administration were enacted, I felt, as I have always felt, that it was the duty of every good citizen to respect the law, though I was not even then conscious of any special obligation to make its enforcement a part of my own effort. Ample provision seemed to have been made for the creation and maintenance of an adequate force to put the law into effect; then why should I not leave the work to those who were employed to do it? So I continued to sit still, as thousands have done, without so much as uttering an audible protest against the countless flagrant violations of the law of which I could not fail to have knowledge. After a while it dawned upon me, as I believe it is dawning upon a multitude, that I was no longer justified in offering nothing more than a passive resistance. to the spirit of lawlessness. The conviction has come to me that no good citizen can content himself with less effort in behalf of law and order than is exerted by those who would destroy them. There is an obligation that every man owes to himself, to his family, and to his country from the performance of which he cannot excuse himself if he would retain his self-respect. One who indulges in serious thought cannot fail to be amazed by the senseless and fallacious arguments that are made against prohibition by certain writers and public speakers who ought to know. better. PERSONALLY, I do not know of any argument that is made, or that has ever been made, in favor of the liquor traffic that should appeal to any wellinformed man of sanity who is entirely free from bias or personal interest. I am well aware that some very intelligent and appeals are based entirely upon what Now, as a matter of fact, no law was ever enacted in the history of this country that was given more preliminary publicity or subjected to quite so much or so prolonged discussion. Surely it cannot be claimed that the friends of the liquor traffic were taken unawares, and I will do them the credit to say that never at any time did they permit their vigilance to relax for a single moment. The Eighteenth Amendment was adopted in strict conformity with the provisions embodied in the Constitution for its own revision. They tell us that it was not submitted to a direct vote of the people. Neither was the Nineteenth, nor the Fourteenth, nor any other that was ever adopted. If an attempt had been made to effect a change in that manner, the opposition would have objected on the ground of its being unconstitutional. The fact is, prohibition reached its goal by pursuing the ordained course in broad daylight. Moreover, it should not be forgotten that it is infinitely more difficult to amend the Constitution in the manner prescribed than it would be to change it by a popular vote. The majority of the voters in any thirteen States could have prevented the adoption of the Amendment if they had been so disposed; and so the majority of the voters in any thirteen States can prevent its repeal. they allege to be unavoidable circum- C stances which are urged in mitigation. The best they can say for it is that, in their opinion, it is a necessary evil. That it is an unmixed evil I am persuaded, for in all my experience and observation I have not discovered a single individual who, so far as I could ascertain, received any personal benefit whatever from the use of intoxicants as a beverage; but I have beheld a countless number who have suffered grievous injury from such use. And in this I am persuaded my testimony must be corroborated by all who consent to speak the truth. Once in a while some one advances the statement that it is not so much the Prohibition Amendment to which they object as it is the manner in which its adoption was accomplished. One not fully informed would suppose from their talk that a half-dozen narrow-minded preachers, four or five chronic dyspeptics, a couple of temperance cranks, and a few designing politicians had got together on a dark night in the back room of somebody's basement and there, behind closed doors and drawn curtains, whispered their agreement to adopt the Amendment; then put it into effect by posting it on the front door of the courthouse early the following morning, before any one else had got out of bed. ERTAIN individuals who can conceive of no other respectable excuse for their opposition to the law assail it because, they assert, it is an encroachment upon their personal liberty, forgetting that every law on the statute-books in the same manner impinges on the individual freedom of all who would violate it. Society cannot exist except by the enactment and enforcement of measures which regulate and restrain individual conduct. Traffic rules are not made to obstruct progress on the public highway, but rather to expedite it. Likewise the activities of men are restricted, not for the purpose of curtailing the freedom of their movement, but that they may keep moving in perfect safety. If there were only a half-dozen stars in the heavens, they might all roam at will, with little danger of colliding; but because there is a countless multitude of these celestial bodies their paths were ordained from the beginning. The man who believes in the supremacy of the law and the orderly administration of government is hard pressed for an excuse when he seeks to unleash the liquor traffic in the name of personal liberty. It strikes me as a bit peculiar that these zealous guardians of individual freedom have not sought to oppose legislation restraining traffic in drugs on Get Travelwise Do You Plan a Vacation in America this Year? CANADIAN AND AMERICAN NATIONAL PARKS All are particularly alluring. Write for booklets, special summer rates, details EVA R. DIXON, Director Outlook Travel Bureau 120 East 16th Street the same grounds; for the drug habit is indeed even more personal than drunkenness, since the man addicted to the former is not so apt to become a public nuisance as the latter. He sins against himself, but is not so much a menace to the public welfare. The man who is soothed and stupefied by his narcotic is not so prone to disturb the peace and dignity of the State as one made boisterous and belligerent by drink. TH HERE are still a few-not many, but a few-who for the want of a moral pretext seek to justify their hostility to prohibition by the antiquated argument that we are now deprived of the revenue which formerly accrued from the liquor traffic. First of all, the weakness of that argument lies in the fact that when a proper accounting is had it is manifest that the license system has never been profitable to the people. There was never a day in the existence of that policy when it did not cost them infinitely more than they got out of it. I could never understand the economic wisdom of swallowing a dollar's worth of booze in order to put a dime in the public treasury. Better, indeed, pay the tax direct, and save ninety per cent. The other system is too much like killing one's self smoking cigarettes in order to accumulate enough coupons to buy a coffin. Aside from that, no moral ques tion can ever find its answer in dollars and cents. No price that could possibly be paid for the privilege of bartering liquid death would adequately compensate the resultant injury. Upon the same ground of economic necessity one may quite as readily justify licensing the gambling den or the brothel. These privileges sold to the highest bidder would yield a tidy sum. Very many who do not dare assail the purpose of prohibition have advocated the repeal of the law on the ground of its alleged failure. The truth is, it is not the law that has failed, but some of the people who are responsible for its enforcement. No statute of which I have any knowledge has within itself the principle of self-enforcement; and, with all due respect for the powers that be, there are certain localities and some public officials that have not at any time made an honest attempt to put the law into effect. If all the other statutes on the books were administered with the same lack of diligence, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would be as valueless as they are inalienable. When the violators of this law are apprehended and brought before the bar of justice as promptly as we deal with the thief or the highwayman, and when the courts pronounce sentence with the same readiness and severity that they exercise toward other offenders, there will be a revision of opinion concerning the efficacy of the law. Let a few judges habitually follow the example of the Pittsburgh judge who passed sentence upon a wholesale and arrogant bootlegger, fining him the sum of $10,000 and giving him two years in jail to think it over, and when the next Census is taken the figures will show such a falling off in the ranks of the booze peddlers as to threaten an early extinction of the species. The frequent violation of a law is no reason for its repeal, in any event. Many thousands of violations of the traffic laws are reported each year. Will any one, on that account, contend that these regulations should be abolished? On the contrary, it should be an incentive to a more vigorous prosecution of offenders, and I do not doubt it will have that effect. To exercise leniency in the enforcement of any statute for the reason that it is unpopular and frequently disregarded is the surest way to encourage lawlessness. If the people are permitted to acquire the habit of observing only those measures that meet with their personal approval, we may as well abandon all organized government. Amendment or repeal by contempt should never be tolerated. THE important thing at this time is not so much to convert the public to a belief in the merits of prohibition as it is to induce those who already believe in it to let their faith be known. Those who are hostile to the law do not refrain from amplifying and broadcasting their views; neither should the rest of us keep silent. We are too much inclined to leave the defense of the principle of the law and its enforcement to the professional moralist and the hired man. There is need for a definite and distinct expression of the sentiment which I am sure dominates the public conscience. I am firmly convinced that a majority of all the people in this country, and an overwhelming majority of the better classes, believe in the law. The trouble is too many of us keep silent when we ought to be heard. If I had no other reason for allying myself with the advocates of prohibition, I should be constrained to do so for the sake of the association afforded. That a great many good men and women do not favor the policy of the law there is no denying, and I am far from impugning their motives or assailing their respectability; nevertheless the fact remains that practically all of criminal intent and all the adherents of the under-world are against the Eighteenth Amendment, and I do not care to have my picture taken in that group. |