iyl^S 
 
 
 
 :m 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 D 509.F64 
 
 3 1924 027 928 716 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027928716 
 
WHAT EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD KNOW 
 ABOUT THE WAR 
 
WHAT 
 EVERY AMERICAN 
 
 SHOULD KNOW 
 ABOUT THE WAR 
 
 A SERIES OF STUDIES BY THE GREATEST 
 AUTHORITIES OF EUROPE AND AMERICA 
 COVERING EVERY ASPECT OF THE GREAT 
 STRUGGLE. DELIVERED AT THE NATIONAL 
 CONFERENCE OF AMERICAN LECTURERS 
 Washington, D. C, April 8-13, 1918 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 MONTAVILLE^OWERS ^ 
 Chairman of the Conference ^ 
 
 
 NEW ^S^ YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 \ 
 
Copyright, 1918, 
 By George H. Dorcm Company 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
EDITORIAL STATEMENT 
 
 Historical 
 
 The purpose of the National Conference of American lec- 
 turers, as stated in full in the opening address, is to organize the 
 American platform into power to win the war. The idea was 
 conceived and the method and program were proposed by the 
 writer as president of the International Lyceum Association of 
 America, which took the initiative, assumed the financial re- 
 sponsibility, issued the call, and conducted the Conference as the 
 representative of the largest number of public speakers and organ- 
 ized audiences of any non-partisan, non-sectarian platform in the 
 nation. 
 
 Delegates were invited to represent the Lyceums and Chau- 
 tauquas of the United States and Canada, Departments of the 
 National Government, the American Red Cross, the Council of 
 National Defense, the Woman's Committee of the Council of 
 National Defense, State Councils of Defense, State Boards of 
 Education, Chambers of Commerce, the Societies in the Speaking 
 Division of the Committee on Public Information, and in the 
 National Committee of Patriotic Societies. 
 
 The call was issued on February 20, 1918, for a Conference 
 to be held in the nation's Capital, April 8 to 13, 1918. One hun- 
 dred ninety-two delegates responded and registered, representing 
 eighty-nine dififerent associations from thirty-two American 
 States, two Provinces of Canada, and Newfoundland. Creden- 
 tials were issued to all delegates alike and invitations were sent 
 to the Members of the Congress of the United States, to the 
 Diplomatic Corps, and to the Administrative Departments of the 
 government. 
 
 The program, arranged by the chairman of the Conference, 
 was designed to cover the essential subjects and interests of the 
 war ; it continued through six days ; for five days, a general 
 Conference of three sessions per day ; the sixth day was devoted 
 to three special Conferences, one on Food, conducted by Herbert 
 Hoover, in the Food Administration ; one on the work of the Red 
 Cross by Orrin C. Lester, at the Red Cross Memorial; and one 
 on Child Life, by JuHa C. Lathrop, head of the Children's Bu- 
 reau in the Department of Labor. 
 
 V 
 
vi EDITORIAL STATEMENT 
 
 Each day of the general Conference was devoted to special 
 groups of subjects. Each subject was treated by a group of 
 distinguished men and women who concentrated into their ad- 
 dresses the very essentials of information in the different fields 
 of expert knowledge which they represented. To most of them 
 this request had been written: "Please tell within the time al- 
 lowed what you most desire the American people to know upon 
 this subject at this time." The result was a succession of great 
 pronouncements carefully prepared and wonderfully presented 
 under which the delegates rose to sublime emotion and enthu- 
 siasm, and the Conference took a distinct and powerful place 
 among the institutions of service developed by the emergencies 
 of the war. 
 
 This book contains these addresses. It is a highly concen- 
 trated, authoritative, broadly grouped and inclusive presentation 
 of the whole war struck off by many great men and women of 
 action; all the subject matter is unified by one great burning 
 impulse to serve the nation and the world in the war. 
 
 Every American should know what this book contains. It 
 interprets the past, reveals the present and gives direction for 
 the future. In fact and prophesy, in patriotism and oratory, 
 in plans demanding national and international action, in deeds 
 that make men and nations great, no finer series of studies has 
 ever been included within a single book, for there never has 
 been so great an occasion as this world war to call them forth. 
 
 These addresses, although each is complete in itself, should be 
 studied in relation to the groups. Taken together the statements 
 of Serbia, Belgium, France and England, made by their most 
 distinguished official representatives, compose a thrilling review 
 of the case of the country about which the war began, the 
 country that offended not yet suffered all, the country of the first 
 and present vast battle line, and the country that championed 
 first the cause of honor and of liberty. 
 
 So the case of the United States is stated in three addresses 
 by Louis Brownlow, Congressman Fess and Senator Owen; the 
 historical and social aspects of the war are seen in five extraor- 
 dinary addresses by Robert M. McElroy, John Bates Clark, 
 Rev. Father John A. Ryan, William English Walling and Gus- 
 tavus Myers; the problems, duties and standards of American 
 labor in war time, by Samuel Gompers, Frank Morrison and 
 Louis F. Post; the problem of food by Herbert Hoover, Alonzo 
 E. Taylor and Herbert A. Emerson ; the problem of finance by 
 James H. Moyle, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury; the 
 problems and duties of industry in the war by Secretary Red- 
 field of the Department of Commerce, and Louis F. Post, As- 
 
EDITORIAL STATEMENT vii 
 
 sistant Secretary of the Department of Labor ; the emergency in 
 education during the war and the changes necessary to educate 
 for the democracy of the future, by Commissioner Philander 
 P. Claxton, George A. Strayer, and Mary C. C. Bradford; the 
 work of women in the war, by Hilda M. Richards, Mary Synon, 
 Kathleen Burke, Mary C. C. Bradford, and Mrs. Frederick 
 Schoff ; the meaning and service of the Red Cross by Mrs. Peter 
 D. Crerar, Kathleen Burke, Harvey D. Gibson, John W. Davis 
 and Mrs. J. Borden Harriman. To these groups are added special 
 studies on distinct subjects by John Barrett, Bertram G. Nelson, 
 John H. Francis, Assistant Secretary of War Benedict Crowell, 
 Talcott Williams, Frederick A. Delano, and others. The Con- 
 ference ended in a detailed study of "Germany's Preparation for 
 the Next War," by J. B. W. Gardiner, Military Expert of the 
 New York Times. 
 
 For its success the Conference owes thanks, for service ren- 
 dered, to the following: George Creel and Arthur E. Bestor, 
 of the Committee of Public Information; Orrin C. Lester and 
 the management of the War Council of the Red Cross for the 
 fine compliment of the banquet tendered the Delegates ; Herbert 
 Hoover and F. C. Walcott, of the Food Administration; Julia 
 C. Lathrop, of the Children's Bureau, Department of Labor; 
 Paul M. Pearson, Chairman of the Committee on Attendance; 
 S. Eugene Whiteside, Chairman of the Committee on Finance; 
 Rainey Bennett, Secretary, and Paul Kemerer, Treasurer of the 
 International Lyceum Association. 
 
 The Futuee of the Nationai, Conference 
 
 Before the close of the second day the delegates were enthu- 
 siastic in their belief that a new institution with great possi- 
 bilities had been created. As the Declaration of Independence 
 and the American Nation itself, unthought of before Lexington, 
 were developed during the progress of the Revolution; as the 
 Emancipation Proclamation, unplanned before Sumter, was 
 evolved in the progress of the war for the Union, so epoch-mak- 
 ing forces will come out of this war. This Conference may be 
 one of them. The editor of a newspaper in Washington ex- 
 pressed in conversation this view as follows: "The National 
 Conference of American Lecturers came to Washington on Mon- 
 day morning wholly unknown ; by Tuesday morning Washington 
 had discovered that it was a new governmental institution; not 
 an institution of the administration, not a political institution, 
 but a governmental institution through which public opinion had 
 found a national voice." Upon the fifth day the delegates voted 
 
viii EDITORIAL STATEMENT 
 
 unanimously that the Conference should be developed into a per- 
 manent institution and the chairman was authorized to make the 
 preliminary arrangements for the Conference of 1919- 
 
 There is a distinct place and a great work for this National 
 Conference which is not now assumed by any other. The Ly- 
 ceums and Chautauquas provide large opportunity for public 
 discussion throughout the nation, but their management, their 
 function, and their results are often cast in local thought, and 
 they are in no wise wholly devoted to the consideration of funda- 
 mental, national and international interests. Likewise, other for- 
 ums, the college, the sectarian and occasional platforms, the po- 
 litical stump and the Halls of Congress, all have sharp limita- 
 tions of function, of opportunity, of subject matter, of partisan- 
 ship, of effect. 
 
 We need one National Platform to focus all these agencies of 
 the spoken word into a great national voice to discuss those vast 
 subjects — historical, governmental, economic, industrial and so- 
 cial — which form the body of our common interests and define 
 our national life. 
 
 The National Conference must be true to name and to prin- 
 ciple. It must have no commercial interests, no political rela- 
 tions ; it must advertise nothing ; it must promote no propaganda. 
 Born of patriotism in war and dedicated to national service, 
 the general welfare is its aim and truth its weapon. The sub- 
 jects discussed in the first Conference suggest the range and cal- 
 iber of its future work. 
 
 Such a National Conference speaking without color of par- 
 tisanship may become the Schoolmaster of the Republic, teaching 
 the Preachers of Democracy the lessons of the common good. 
 Thus it will develop a body of National statesmen who, trained 
 to solve all problems by the processes of world thought, will form 
 a conserving force in great emergencies to steady and lift national 
 action with the long lever of prophetic wisdom supported by the 
 counsels of the great. 
 
 Such an institution will command the support of the finest 
 American genius and the audience of the whole world. It will 
 become a powerful and righteous influence in the development of 
 a better civilization. 
 
 MONTAVILLE FlOWERS, 
 
 Chairman of the Conference. 
 
Editorial Statement . . 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 V 
 
 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 The World at War i 
 
 Montaville Flowers, Chairman of the Conference 
 
 The Field of Publicity 4 
 
 George Creel, Chairman Committee on Public Informa- 
 tion 
 
 The Case of Serbia 13 
 
 Mr. Lioubomir Michailovitch, The Minister from Serbia 
 
 The Case of Belgium 20 
 
 Mr. E. de Cartier de Marchienne, The Minister from 
 Belgium 
 
 France and the War 24 
 
 M. Andre Tardieu, High Commissioner of the French Re- 
 public in the U. S. 
 
 Great Britain and the War 35 
 
 The Earl of Reading, Embassador from Great Britain 
 
 The Latin-American Republics and the Pan American 
 
 Union 44 
 
 John Barrett, Director General of the Pan American 
 Union 
 
 The Spirit OF Canada AND THE United States . -51 
 Mrs. Peter D. Crerar, of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada 
 
 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 Washington in War Time . . . ._ . -59 
 Louis Brownlow, Commissioner of the District of Co- 
 lumbia 
 
 ix 
 
X CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Why Congress Declared War 68 
 
 Simeon D. Fess, Member of the House of Representa- 
 tives from Ohio 
 
 The Justification of the War with Germany . . 80 
 Robert L. Owen, Senator of the United States from Okla- 
 homa 
 
 Financing the War 87 
 
 James H. Moyle, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 
 
 The American Army 92 
 
 Benedict Crowell, Assistant Secretary of War 
 
 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 OF THE WAR 
 
 The Historical Background of the War . . . 105 
 Robert M^. McElroy, Head of the Department of History 
 and Politics, Princeton University. Educational Di- 
 rector of the National Security League 
 
 The Economic Interpretation OF the War . . .115 
 John Bates Clark, Professor of Political Economy, Co- 
 lumbia University 
 
 Social Changes Effected by the War .... 126 
 Rev. Father John A. Ryan, of the Catholic University 
 
 The Socialists of Europe in the War . . . .132 
 William English Walling, Economist and Publicist 
 
 Germany's Biggest Fraud — Social Reform . . , 150 
 Gustavus Myers, Historian and Sociologist 
 
 Women in Industry 165 
 
 Hilda M. Richards, Chief of Woman's Division, Depart- 
 ment of Labor 
 
 Women in Finance 171 
 
 Mary Synon, Treasurer Woman's Liberty Loan Commit- 
 tee 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 Women at the Front 174 
 
 Kathleen Burke, Honorable Delegate to the U. S. and 
 Canada of the Scottish Women's Hospitals for Home 
 and Foreign Service 
 
 Woman in Education ig2 
 
 Mary C. C. Bradford, President the National Education 
 Association 
 
 187 
 
 Mother 
 
 Mrs. Frederick Schoff, President of the National Con- 
 gress of Mothers and of the Parent-Teachers Associa- 
 tion 
 
 SOME AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN 
 THE WAR 
 
 The Function of American Labor in War Time . . 1^7 
 Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation 
 of Labor 
 
 Maintenance of American Standards of Labor . . 206 
 Frank Morrison, Secretary of the American Federation 
 of Labor 
 
 Maintenance of American Standards of Labor . . 214 
 Louis F. Post, Assistant Secretary of Labor 
 
 The PIroblem of Food 229 
 
 Herbert Hoover, Head of the United States Food Ad- 
 ministration 
 
 The World-'s Food 236 
 
 Alonzo E. Taylor, Head of Division of Utilities and Re- 
 search, United States Food Administrationj and Mem- 
 ber of Inter-Allied Conference 
 
 Factors in Future Costs and Prices .... 244 
 Herbert A. Emerson, Expert in the Production and Prices 
 of Food 
 
 The Four Minute Men 252 
 
 Bertram G. Nelson, Associate Director The Four Minute 
 Men 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The School Garden Army 257 
 
 John H. Francis, Director United States School Garden 
 Army 
 
 The Speaking Division, Committee on Public Informa- 
 tion 260 
 
 Arthur E. Bestor, Director of the Division 
 
 The Department of Education, Committee on Public 
 
 Information 262 
 
 Guy Stanton Ford, Head of the Department 
 
 What We Must Do to Win the War .... 265 
 Frederick A. Delano, Vice Chairman Committee of War 
 Savings and Member Federal Reserve Board 
 
 The Problems and Duties of Industry in War . . 269 
 William C. Redfield, Secretary of Commerce 
 
 EDUCATION AND GENERAL WELFARE DURING 
 THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 Education During the War and After .... 291 
 George D. Strayer, Professor of School Administration, 
 Teachers' College, Columbia University, Chairman Joint 
 Commission on Education, National Education Associor 
 tion 
 
 How Shall We Educate for the Democracy of the 
 
 Future? 297 
 
 Philander P. Qaxton, United States Commissioner of Ed- 
 ucation 
 
 The Province of Journalism in War .... 310 
 Talcott Williams, Dean of the School of Journalism, 
 Columbia University 
 
 Solving Problems of Immigrant and Alien . . . 318 
 Raymond F. Crist, Deputy Commissioner of Naturaliza- 
 tion, Department of Labor 
 
 Some Facts About Naturalization . . . .321 
 O. T. Moore, Chief Examiner, Department of Naturaliza- 
 tion 
 
CONTENTS xiii 
 
 PAOE 
 
 The American Red Cross 328 
 
 Harvey D. Gibson, General Manager of the American Red 
 Cross 
 
 The Province of the Red Cross 336 
 
 John W. Davis, Solicitor General of the Umted States 
 
 The Red Cross in France 338 
 
 Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, Representing the Speakers' 
 Bureau of the Red Cross 
 
 The Fourteenth Division and a Story . . . 346 
 
 Dr. F. M. Chapman, of the American Red Cross 
 
 Germany's Preparations for the Next War . . . 349 
 J. B. W. Gardiner, Military Expert of the New York 
 Times 
 
I: THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
I: THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 
 
 By Montavtlle Flowers, 
 
 President of the International Lyceum and Chautauqua Associa- 
 tion of America, Chairman of the Conference 
 
 The greatest problem in the world is now, as it always has 
 been, to find a perfect balance between the two extremes of gov- 
 ernment and liberty. Government at its extreme is represented 
 by the despotic Pharaoh, who used upon his personal caprice the 
 labors, lives and liberties of his family, his subjects and his 
 slaves. It has progressed through limited and constitutional 
 monarchy, representative democracy, and pure democracy, — the 
 liberty of the individual enlarging upon the way, until liberty 
 itself at its extreme often runs riot into license and anarchy. 
 
 That was the problem before the founders of our govern- 
 ment when they were framing the Constitution of the United 
 States. It was to find that poiSed center where government 
 would yield its maximum of power and service, and leave to the 
 individual its maximum of liberty and initiative; and the Consti- 
 tution has been called "the greatest document ever struck off 
 within a given time by the brain of man," and the framers of 
 that document stand out above all other groups in the annals of 
 politics, because of the near approach they made to a perfect 
 solution of that great problem. 
 
 These two tendencies seem to inhere in human nature; one 
 tendency which leads a man to grasp at absolute control over all 
 of his fellow men, and the other tendency which leads a man to 
 run away from any control by any of his fellow men. And it 
 seems to be the contingencies of country, birth and circumstance 
 which determine whether the individual shall take the one road 
 to absolutism or the other road to anarchy. 
 
 This struggle between the extremes of government and lib- 
 erty has appeared within all nations in historic times, but by 
 and by one of these tendencies gains ascendency and comes into 
 full fruitage, so that whole peoples and nations become definitely 
 
9 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 characterized either as patriarchal, despotic and autocratic in their 
 institutions, or they are free, liberty-loving and democratic. 
 
 Now, when people become so characterized, it is inevitable 
 that they shall come into conflict. Wherever liberty has dared to 
 raise the torch of hope, there a battleground has been dedicated. 
 But the scenes of this great conflict are found mostly in the north 
 temperate zone, where climate stimulates enterprise and incul- 
 cates the principle of change. The peoples of this zone do not 
 live millenniums without changing their governments, as do the 
 peoples of the torrid zone and of the far east. For a thousand 
 years it has been the chief game of these peoples to modify and 
 change their governments as children, at play, build up their block 
 houses, tear them down and build them up again. But within 
 the last four hundred years two new tendencies have come into 
 play and greatly have modifled this game. One is the increasing 
 tendency of one nation to get out of its boundaries and to inter- 
 fere with the governmental forms of its neighbors; the other is 
 the universal intercourse of all peoples with their consequent con- 
 flict of material interests. These two factors entering into the 
 old struggle between government and liberty, account for the 
 vast turmoil of the world war. 
 
 For heretofore the conflict between government and liberty 
 has always expressed itself in a revolution within one state, 
 wherein a group of people carrying the advance of liberty have 
 been struggling with the group of people who were maintaining 
 the absolute of government. But to-day we find ourselves in the 
 universal explosion of war between a group of great states rep- 
 resenting the best of liberty, and a group of states representing 
 the extreme of government. Now, as liberty at its best springs 
 wholly out of honor and right, and government at its worst rests 
 only on fear and might, it is impossible that these two groups of 
 states can longer run in parallel lines. They have crossed roads 
 and crossed swords. The world is at grips to-day in a titanic 
 struggle to determine which of these two great principles shall 
 come uppermost and direct the destinies of the nations in the 
 centuries just ahead. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen, we have met in a conference at the 
 seat of our government to study this great conflict. The pur- 
 pose of this conference is to bring into review the vast complex 
 of facts and activities which have been developed by this world- 
 war. It is to be, furthermore, a training camp for the men and 
 women on the American platform, to equip them for the new 
 duties and emergencies of the hour; that they may be highly 
 informed on what is being done in the world in order to lead the 
 instruction of the people in how to win the war; that they may 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 3 
 
 catch the vision of what is to be and herald it to the people ; and 
 that while pointing the way to win in war we may lay down the 
 foundations for the reconstruction of society in peace. 
 
 Great as is the power of the press, it must be reenforced and 
 supplemented by the appeal of the spoken word. For percep- 
 tion is clearer, emotions rise higher, and resolution springs into 
 quickest action in crowds where men and women, touching 
 elbows, listening to the same thoughts, feeling the same emotions, 
 and aglow with the same fire, are molded into a solid power 
 for mass action. 
 
 In former times the spoken word was the only means by 
 which mass action might be obtained, and in our country, in 
 these times, through the institutions which have been developed 
 by a free press, a free school, and a free platform — free speech 
 still has all of its original force. 
 
 Among those institutions so developed are the Lyceum and 
 Chautauqua, and these institutions have come to the seat of gov-, 
 ernment to dedicate themselves with all of their strength and 
 all of their soul wholly to the service of our government in this 
 emergency. And we have asked all other organizations that are 
 trying to create national public opinion by the spoken word to 
 join us in this national conference of speakers which is aimed 
 at that high efficiency which comes only through organization 
 and a full understanding of all the purposes, methods and activi- 
 ties that are in the field. 
 
 I congratulate you who have answered this call upon your 
 participation in this national conference. Bearing as you do a 
 large share of the deep responsibiHty of molding that public opin- 
 ion which is to sustain the nation in war and to help determine its 
 conditions of peace — it is highly desirable, indeed it is neces- 
 sary, that we assemble here in Washington to receive instruction 
 and inspiration from our great administrators of the govern- 
 ment and from the most capable students of world problems; 
 and that so far as it is wise, and possible, we may coordinate our 
 ideas and the messages which we are to carry throughout the 
 nation. 
 
 Thus, ladies and gentlemen, in the wisdom of great councils, 
 with full knowledge, sound statesmanship, and a burning patriot- 
 ism that has been kindled at tlie very seat of patriotism, let 
 us go forth from our nation's capital to the American platform 
 to lead the way to decisive victory in this war, to perfect national 
 life and to permanent international peace. 
 
THE FIELD OF PUBLICITY 
 
 Bt Geobge Cueei,, 
 Chairman, Committee on Public Information 
 
 If I have given you the support that Mr. Flowers has said, 
 it is because I have a very deep appreciation of the service that 
 you can render to the national cause, and I want you, every 
 man and woman of you, to understand it too, so that when you 
 go back across the country you may be messengers of govern- 
 ment who will aid here behind the firing lines as courageously 
 and as devotedly as the soldier and sailor on the firing line, 
 because one of the most amazing developments of modern war- 
 fare is that psychology has been called in to the aid of science. 
 We realize to-day that public opinion and public sentiment are 
 vital powers in the national defense and a very important part 
 in the national attack. The strength of the firing line is not 
 entirely in the trench, or in the barricade, but it is also in the 
 morale of the civilian population from which the firing line is 
 drawn. If we are united here at home, if we have indomitable 
 resolution, if we have our people standing shoulder to shoulder, 
 willing to make every sacrifice, we are going to have soldiers 
 at the front who will not fail us in the hour of need. But if we 
 allow ourselves to be torn by discontent, by peevishness, by 
 knocking, by partisanship, by racial prejudice, by a warfare of 
 creeds, we are going to fail on the firing line, because we will sap 
 the very foundation of its strength. 
 
 And so, in coming before you this morning, it is my privilege 
 to bid you go across the country in unity of thought and purpose. 
 
 It is for the education of public opinion that the Committee 
 on Public Information exists. Unfortunately, an amazing super- 
 stition has grown up in this country that the committee has been 
 instituted merely for censorship purposes, and not for construc- 
 tive reasons. Why, there has not been a day in the whole year 
 that we have been at work that our accent has not been on ex- 
 pression, and that we have not done everything in our power to 
 open up the business of the government to the inspection of 
 one hundred and ten millions of people so that they may realize 
 that this is their war and not a war of the administration or of 
 any of the other war making branches of the government. 
 
THE FIELD OF PUBLICITY 5 
 
 Always, — and this goes for peace as well as for war, — we 
 believe that public support is a matter of public understanding, 
 and those people who try to work in secrecy are people who have 
 not the good judgment to trust democratic common sense. 
 
 Now this attempt to inform the people all over the United 
 States and all over the world is being carried on in various 
 forms, — by the spoken word, by the written word, on the screen, 
 and by aeroplanes that drop matter from the skies. Why, in the 
 preparation of our literature we have gathered together over 
 three thousand historians. In the Four Minute Men alone we 
 have 21,000 speakers. A speaking division coordinates what 
 may be called "national voices," and sends them from coast to 
 coast. We have organized all the foreign language groups in 
 the country in various divisions to combat the racial problem 
 with a steady stream of argument both written and spoken. 
 Our representatives are in every capital of the world, in every 
 country, trying to make clear America's sincerity of purpose. 
 From the wireless station at Tuckerton are flashed a thou- 
 sand words a day to the Eiffel Tower, and from the Eiffel 
 Tower to Berne, to Rome, to Madrid and to Lisbon. Our cable 
 service to London meets the need of England, Scandinavia and 
 Holland. From Tuckerton also a service goes to Darien for 
 the South and Central American countries. We send our mes- 
 sages also by telegraph to San Diego, from San Diego to Cavite, 
 from Cavite to Shanghai and to Tokio, also from Shanghai to 
 Pekin, and from Pekin to Vladivostok, so we get our information 
 into Russia in that other way. 
 
 Our appeals are written on the ground in Russia, and from 
 there sent by messengers across the line into the enemy country 
 by aeroplane and over Russia itself to the villages and cities. 
 Our messages are taken into the theaters, and by motion pic- 
 tures we show the industrial, commercial and war progress of 
 our country. We have speakers going through prison camps 
 trying to drive home to the German prisoners the right and 
 justice of the position that America has taken. To all the sub- 
 ject races of Austria-Hungary we have tried to show that every 
 blow they strike for Germany rivets the chains of their slavery. 
 We have been trying through all these lands to drive home the 
 sincerity of purpose of America, and that the only hope of the 
 world lies in a peace that is permanent because it is based in 
 justice. Both in Europe and all over the United States we are 
 carrying on this work. 
 
 I have always had the feeling that, as far as possible, we 
 must develop private initiative if we are to go forward to the 
 best advantage in this struggle. I think there is nothing more 
 
6 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 dangerous than to have everything dictated from Washington, 
 to have the country put on a diet of spoon feeding, as it were. 
 What we want to do is to get people to carry on the work them- 
 selves, not as a part of government, but in cooperation with 
 government. I have always had the feeling that the Chautauqua 
 could do a great work, not by abandoning the old task, but by 
 doing the old task in a new way, a new spirit, the spirit of to- 
 day. And that's what every one of you can do, — go through the 
 country preaching the new message, and setting forth the new 
 truths and doctrines upon which we are building our future. 
 
 It has been said, I believe it was said of me and everybody 
 in the United States who did not like blood as a beverage, that 
 we were pacifists. Well, I think that every sane man in the 
 United States is a pacifist in the sense that he hates war. But 
 if they mean by "pacifist" one who is not willing to fight to-day 
 in defense of his free institutions, in defense of humanity, and 
 of a free civilization, they lie when they call us pacifists, and we, 
 above all other people, say there is no room in America to-day 
 for that sort of a pacifist. 
 
 Always in every national crisis you see two great divisions. 
 On one side are those who have no time for the petty personal 
 hates, who consecrate, their souls to a sworn resolution. On the 
 other side are those who give themselves over to the easy busi- 
 ness of hating, and whose conception of patriotism is no more 
 than Chauvinism, a desire to express themselves in vociferous 
 rantings, mob riot, and race hatred, and all that is cheap and 
 demoralizing. We have no room to-day for that in America. 
 There must be understanding of why we went to war. You 
 would think that everybody in the whole United States would 
 understand it. And yet there are thousands who are in ignorance 
 of the fundamental facts. 
 
 For three years we waited — for three years we had every 
 hope that those sane processes of adjustment that civilization 
 and international law have provided would bring an end to this 
 horror that was incredible to us. Why, it seemed that no people 
 in the world could be quite so mad as to destroy the very founda- 
 tions of the civilization that we have been erecting through the 
 slow centuries. And it was only when the sea was filled with our 
 dead, when ancient law was set aside, when the torch and bomb 
 were applied to our peaceful industries, and when we saw that 
 the Imperial German Government was dead to honor, decency 
 and humanity, that we took the sword. \ 
 
 And so I say you will find to-day attack on every hand. 
 You will observe men like blind Samsons trying to find weak 
 places in the temple, willing to tear it down and bury themselves 
 
THE FIELD OF PUBLICITY 7 
 
 in the ruins so they may destroy those whom they hate. And 
 they will ask you, why didn't we go to war before it was "too 
 late, too late !" They will demand why, when Belgium was in- 
 vaded, we did not rush into the war with Germany. You know, 
 and I know, and every human being knows, that it was a year 
 before the horror of Belgium came home to us, that when the 
 Belgian Commission came to this country in September, not a 
 voice was raised in the press, or in Congress, to say, "Let us 
 take the part of outraged Belgium." We could not understand 
 it, and a year went by, and as outrages piled up, our feeling grew ; 
 but we were resolved to justify ourselves as a nation by ex- 
 hausting every resource of international law and established pro- 
 cedure to bring about an adjustment, because those were the 
 things to which we were appealing, and when at last, as I say, 
 we took the sword it was after three years, during which every 
 person in the United States understood or was made to under- 
 stand that there was no other resource, that this was a war, not 
 for Belgium, not for ourselves, not for Serbia, but a war of 
 self-defense. 
 
 I want you to try to bring home to people that this is not 
 a war of chivalry. Thank God, we are fighting on the side of 
 humanity. Thank God, we are fighting for all that civiliza- 
 tion has taught us to hold dear. But nevertheless this is a 
 war of self-defense, to determine whether we are to have the 
 right to endure as free people or as vassals. So, as I say, 
 the thing to do to-day is to preserve unity, and the preservation 
 of unity lies in bringing home the truth, in meeting the lies that 
 are fostered by pro-Germanism on the one side and by partisan- 
 ship on the other. I listened to a speech the other night by a 
 man who was indicting America passionately on the ground that 
 everything had been done too late. This speaker asked why we 
 had not been at war three years ago. 
 
 In the greatest crisis in history, the critics have said, we 
 had no men ready, no guns, no aeroplanes built or equipped for 
 service, and insist that if we had had 17,000 aeroplanes on the 
 Western front right now the victory would be ours and not the 
 defeat that seems to be staring the Allies in the face. 
 
 There are one or two things that I want to take up with some 
 degree of particularity. First, the question of our state of pre- 
 paredness when we went to war on April 6. We were not pre- 
 pared, and I shall always be proud to my dying day that there 
 was no rush of preparation in this country prior to the day the 
 President went before Congress and said, "We are driven to 
 accept a state of war by the aggressions of the German Gov- 
 ernment." For to have held out offers of peace with one hand 
 
8 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 and drawn a sword with the other, to have affirmed our devotion 
 to peace and all the while have been preparing for war, would 
 have been to give the lie to our declaration that we would not 
 employ force until we had exhausted every resource at our 
 command for peaceful redress. 
 
 But when we did enter the war, our decisions were instant 
 and effective. Inside of one month after war was declared, the 
 traditional policy of the United States was set aside by the enact- 
 ment of the Selective Service Law. On June 5th a milHon 
 men were registered without any protest. In September, ninety 
 days after the driving of the first nail, we had thirty-two great 
 cities ready for occupancy by the selected men. You will hear 
 much ado made over the fact that a few overcoats were lacking, 
 etc., but no one has ever yet said that food was lacking, that 
 health precautions were lacking. When you think of the paper- 
 soled shoes, the embalmed beef, and the typhoid camps of the 
 Spanish-American War, and all the graft and nastiness incident 
 to that struggle, I tell you it is a tremendous thing that to-day 
 billions of dollars have been expended without a cent of graft 
 having been levied; that not a life has been lost by the govern- 
 ment's negligence, and that your boys, when they go into the 
 camps, are assured of medical care, assured of food, assured of 
 attention that has never been given to men as individuals before, 
 much less than in the mass. 
 
 Pershing landed his staff in France on July 3rd. To-day 
 thousands upon thousands are pouring across the ocean to take 
 their part, and although it has been the custom of the foreign 
 governments not to put their men on the firing line without at 
 least a year's training, to-day American soldiers are playing 
 their part on that great battle line in France. 
 
 They will tell you about ordnance, that we had no rifles, that 
 our boys were equipped with broom-sticks when we went to 
 war. As a matter of fact, we had six hundred thousand Spring- 
 fields and one hundred thousand Krag-Jorgereons, and if we had 
 thought it imperative we could have put a rifle in the hands of 
 every man in the camps. What we thought, even as England 
 thought, was that in those first few days the rudimentary train- 
 ing that could be gotten from the slob-sticks would serve the 
 purpose. I insist that only a psycho-analyst could find a dif- 
 ference between those sticks and real rifles for those early days 
 of training. And the people who complained are seeking not 
 to win the war, but to win another kind of a campaign at a 
 later date! 
 
 We found that the English in this country had developed fac- 
 tories for the production of the Enfield rifle, and it would have 
 
THE FIELD OF PUBLICITY 9 
 
 been stupid indeed to have persisted in manufacturing the Spring- 
 field rifle, so we accepted the Enfield as our rifle, with modifica- 
 tions. That is, we needed to rechamber the gun in order to 
 use our ammunition, and we found it necessary to make it more 
 rapid in firing, and so to-day you will find that we have a rifle 
 that is said by every one to be the best in the world. It fires 
 two bullets to the German Mauser's one! From April ist to 
 this April, one million of these rifles were manufactured and to- 
 day they can be produced at the rate of fifty thousand a week, 
 ample for every need. 
 
 There is also the criticism that we had no machine guns in 
 France, cited as another proof of our failure. We found that 
 the French machine guns were supposed to be the best in the 
 world at that time, and we said, "We will take your gun and use 
 it for our purpose while we are working on one that will meet 
 our needs." And so we did not have the American guns in 
 France during the last few months because we were using a 
 French gun as a result of Allied suggestion ; and all the time we 
 were working on the Browning, our own gun, and to-day the 
 Browning gun is the marvel of the war. In its last test it fired 
 twenty thousand rounds in forty-five minutes. A lighter gun 
 does not have to be set up; but can be shot from the hips if 
 necessary. Now we are producing machine guns at the rate of 
 two hundred twenty-five thousand a year. 
 
 They said also that we had no heavy guns in France. You 
 must understand this, that we did not go into this war in any 
 bumptious way, but in a spirit somewhat of humility. As far as 
 the knowledge and leadership of France and England were con- 
 cerned, we said to them, "You have been fighting for three years ; 
 we will take your advice," and we asked, "What about heavy 
 artillery?" and they said, "We have more than we can handle, 
 more than we know what to do with, and instead of burdening 
 your tonnage with shipments, let us use ours, so we can keep our 
 factories going and employ our labor." And so in the last few 
 months we placed two bilHon and a half dollars' worth of orders 
 with those factories, and while those were made in France and 
 England they were our guns that did their part ! 
 
 And there is a peculiar lie now being foisted upon the coun- 
 try to the effect that we were so picayunish, indeed so trivial in 
 our approaches, that when the French " 75," one of the great 
 pieces of artillery in the war, came over here, we have not de- 
 veloped any of them or manufactured any of them, because we 
 were trying to "improve" upon it. What is the truth? When 
 we got them over here we found the recoil mechanism of such 
 a nature that there was not a factory in the United States that 
 
10 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 could turn it out, and so before we could begin Oianufacturing 
 we had to go to work and try to develop factories for the pro- 
 duction of this mechanism. And so we have gone ahead and 
 made that mechanism and are now ready to produce the French 
 "75." This is an answer to the lies that have been uttered on 
 that score. 
 
 As I say, this is not pacifism or pro-Germanism entirely, but 
 due to the fact that we are a very impatient people and a people 
 who have always thought very highly of ourselves. By per- 
 sistent reiteration we have come to believe that we are the great- 
 est people in the world. We do iiot ask. anybody to prove it ; we 
 admit it! " '" 
 
 Now there is a decent self-confidence that I would not have 
 lessened in one degree, but at the same time sometimes after you 
 have made your boasts, and when no human being can possibly 
 live up to the expectations aroused by them, we try to find some 
 one to destroy. 
 
 It is much the way with the aeroplane business. On many 
 hands we hear the absurdity that one hundred thousand planes 
 can be sent to the battlefront in France. Why, do you know 
 that not at any time in the whole history of the war has either 
 side ever been able to put more than twenty-five hundred planes 
 in the air at a time? And when people talk about fifty thousand 
 planes or seventy-five thousand planes, why, they not only shame 
 their country, but they destroy our own morale, because they 
 build up expectations that no human being can meet. Every 
 plane in the air must have forty-seven men on the ground to 
 take care of it. 
 
 There is a need to understand why we put so much time on 
 the Liberty Motor. It was so there might be standardization to 
 allow us to cut down this number of men on the ground to, say, 
 fifteen or twenty ; and to-day I tell you the Liberty Motor is one 
 hundred per cent, perfect ! And within a week these people who 
 are running here and there shouting criticisms at the govern- 
 ment will have to admit that it is indeed a great motor. 
 
 The aeroplane program has of course been subjected to many 
 unavoidable delays. Think of the difficulties incident to the 
 carrying out of that great program. We had to go into the spruce 
 woods of the Northwest and compose labor difficulties before 
 we could proceed with the work. We had to build new saw- 
 mills. We had to invent new kinds of saws with which to do 
 the work, saws that would follow the grain and make all the 
 material available instead of only a fractional part. We had to 
 find new acids, to develop great factories, to get lubricating oil; 
 we had to get farms and plant 85,000 acres of castor beans. 
 
THE FIELD OF PUBLICITY 11 
 
 There was the question of housing also, concentrating men at 
 certain points. Hundreds of delicate parts and new chemicals 
 were to be developed. But within thirty days our aeroplane 
 program should be announced and it will deserve the confidence 
 of the American people, and will play its part in bringing the 
 victory and deserving the credit that every other department of 
 the government is deserving! 
 
 Now as to the Navy of the United States. Less than a year 
 ago it had a fighting force of eighty-three thousand men. To- 
 day it has a fighting force of three hundred and fifty thousand. 
 
 To-day there are one thousand vessels in commission; we 
 have taken over seven hundred by charter and purchase and 
 eight hundred and fifty are building. Our war fleet and our 
 destroyers are in the foreign waters helping guard the commerce 
 of the world. And whether in the waters abroad or in the waters 
 adjacent to our own country the Navy of the United States is 
 regarded as worthy of all dependence ; and I call your attention 
 to the fact that for five years the Navy of the United States was 
 shamed and derided and the man at its head made the subject 
 of attacks more vicious than any other public servant of the 
 present administration. If I single him out for particular men- 
 tion it is because I feel that the whole nation owes an apology 
 to Josephus Daniels. 
 
 Take the shipping question. With regard to this matter there 
 has been considerable criticism. We had to go to work and build 
 hundreds of new ways, new yards; we had to develop new 
 methods to meet the various new needs of water transportation. 
 We had to develop new workers and take others away from the 
 structural iron work and bring them into the shipyards. And 
 here again there was the acute problem of housing And yet 
 to-day that tremendous task is going forward, and I think the 
 tonnage problem will be met. 
 
 All of these things are new to America. They are on a scale 
 of unprecedented magnitude, and in the discharge of this task 
 no mere question of party allegiance has been considered. As 
 I say, I have been here a year, and never at any time have I heard 
 any man in connection with the administration or any other man 
 engaged in war work who ever thought in terms of Republican- 
 ism or Democracy. Look over these people who are doing the 
 work; you will find there that men have been called without re- 
 gard to party. And what is being done to-day is not the work 
 of a party but the work of a citizenship. 
 
 As I say, we heap shame upon the slacker, but lower than the 
 lowest slacker is the man to-day who thinks in terms of party or 
 partisan advantage! 
 
12 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 I say in one year we have discharged a great task well, and 
 I would not have you or any one else minimize the tremendous- 
 ness of the dangers that we face. It will not do to underestimate 
 the foe. We are going up against the greatest military power 
 that the world has ever seen, a power that for twenty-five years, 
 for fifty years even, has devoted its every thought to military 
 preparation, has devoted its whole life to the manufacture of 
 soldiers ; and to-day they have a mighty machinery that is going 
 to take perhaps our last dollar, our last life, in the effort to de- 
 feat. But I think the President's message in Baltimore has 
 made it clear to every one of you that we did not wait for three 
 years, we did not wait to prove the justice of our cause, only 
 to compromise that cause. We will never settle this war until 
 we settle it right ! No matter what any other nation in the whole 
 world may do, we will never consent to a peace that is simply 
 a peace of compromise. The only peace that we can possibly 
 stand for is a permanent peace based upon absolute justice. 
 These people shall have died in vain if it is no more than a 
 breathing spell. We desire nothing for ourselves that we do not 
 desire for the whole world. No thought of revenge or conquest 
 actuates us, but only a deep determination that this horror shall 
 be lifted from the world, that never again shall people be com- 
 pelled to live with a sword in their hands. We fight for a peace 
 that is not shadowed by autocracy. We fight for the right of the 
 world to go about its business in safety, that children may have 
 an opportunity to grow up in happiness. And, having drawn 
 the sword, we shall never sheathe it until justice and righteous- 
 ness and truth are established forever on the earth. 
 
 This is the spirit I want you to go abroad in, not a spirit of 
 hate or boasting, but with a deep conviction that we are in this 
 fight to win, not for ourselves, but for the world, for the future 
 of civilization ! I thank you. 
 
.erty 
 
 o^ t^e 
 
 THE CA^^Sa"^]^ ^^3 YOOi^ 
 
 By Mr. LiouBOMii^^ftafi^SjviTCH, 
 
 Tjk ^tmster from Serbia 
 
 The International Lyceum Association has made it its duty 
 to create a well informed current of public opinion on the ques- 
 tion of what it means to win the war. This is very opportune. 
 I feel very much honored in being invited to say a few words to 
 this distinguished audience about the present war as far as it con- 
 cerns my country and, at the same time, our common interests. 
 
 The Serbian question has always been considered a compli- 
 cated one, and its solution, as part of the Balkan problem, has 
 been regarded as offering the greatest difficulty. It has, in the 
 last decades, given so much trouble to the great powers that the 
 opinion has been created that the Serbian element, with its co- 
 nationals, the Croats and Slovenes, is a restless and turbulent 
 one, which, by its action, is threatening to disturb the peace of 
 the world. 
 
 Our enemies, now yours, Austria and Germany, have skill- 
 fully given our people such a reputation that it was known in 
 America as the country of scandals. The Serbians have been 
 unable to counteract this powerful enemy propaganda, and the 
 people of America adopted its views without discussion, as being 
 from a well informed source. 
 
 It required the present great catastrophe to arouse interest in 
 Serbia and the Serbians, or, perhaps it would be better to say, 
 in the Southern-Slav problem and give us the right and the pos- 
 sibility of describing to our friends our sufferings and our aspira- 
 tions. 
 
 The history of our people is the story of its continuous strug- 
 gle for existence. The Southern-Slavs, living as they do on the 
 main route which connects Europe with Asia, had in the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth centuries to defend this highway against 
 the invasion of the Turkish barbarians toward the west, and now 
 it defends it against the German-Hungarian invasion toward the 
 
 east. 
 
 Five centuries ago they sacrificed their independence m their 
 resistance to the Turks, thus fulfilling their duty to Christian 
 
 13 
 
14 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 Europe. A great French historian declared that the Southern- 
 Slavs made a bulwark of their breasts to protect civilization 
 against barbarism and that it was for this reason that they could 
 not cooperate in the progress of the world, though they have 
 been its pioneers. 
 
 In the present struggle Serbia has again sacrificed her in- 
 dependence and has fulfilled her duty to the civilized world, be- 
 cause, by her resistance, she has contributed to stem the inva- 
 sion of the enemies of civilization. But for Bulgarian treachery, 
 Serbia would have probably withstood the German-Hungarian 
 onslaught. 
 
 The geographical situation of the country in which our peo- 
 ple are living and the aspirations of certain barbarous tribes — 
 the Turks in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and now the 
 Germans, Hungarians and Bulgarians — to conquer the east and 
 west, are the main reasons for the tragic fate of the Southern- 
 Slav element. We have constantly resisted these barbarous in- 
 vasions, and in the struggle we were enslaved. 
 
 But at the beginning of the nineteenth century, in the center 
 of the Slav element, a little, independent Serbia was created. 
 The brave sons of our province of Shoomadia, taking advantage 
 of the decay of the Turkish Empire, rose against their oppressors 
 and organized an independent state, which was recognized as 
 such by the Berlin Congress in 1878. But only one-third of our 
 people were thereby freed from a foreign yoke, and the remain- 
 ing two-thirds were left under Turkish and Austrian dominion. 
 
 The Balkan war of 1912-13 definitely liberated the Serbian 
 element from the rule of the Turk. There still remained, how- 
 ever, the question of the liberation of those elements of our race 
 which are under the rule of Austria-Hungary. The fact that 
 after the Balkan wars, the Southern-Slav question was raised in 
 Austria-Hungary was one of the principal causes of the present 
 world war. 
 
 Germany has endeavored to secure for herself a route to- 
 wards the east through Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. But 
 Serbia, as well as the Southern-Slav element in Austria-Hungary, 
 was not disposed to be the agent of these German designs. All 
 the attempts by Germany and Austria-Hungary to establish 
 their influence in Serbia did not succeed. Serbia has been fight- 
 ing for thirty years against these tendencies. During that time 
 she had to pass through very serious internal tioubles, one of 
 which certainly is also known to you : the tragedy of King Alex- 
 ander Obrenovitch, through whom Austria-Hungary tried to 
 break the resistance of the Serbian people. It is necessary to 
 point out here that even Serbia's friends did not understand this 
 
THE CASE OF SERBIA 15 
 
 struggle, and that they knew but little about the real reasons 
 for it. Serbia was in a very difficult position and had to choose 
 either to become an accomplice of Germany, as had been the case 
 with her neighbors, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, or to resist 
 these designs of Germany openly and with all her might. She 
 has chosen this latter course, and we are now able to see that 
 she was right, because all of you were compelled to join in fight- 
 ing against these German desires of world domination and su- 
 premacy. 
 
 Together with Serbia our element in Austria-Hungary was 
 fighting the German ambition and lust of conquest. In Croatia, 
 Slovenia, Istria, Bosnia and Dalmatia, the Southern- Slavs had 
 openly protested and fought against this German-Hungarian do- 
 minion. The attempts upon the lives of their Austrian oppressors 
 and in connection with it the scandalous campaign for treason 
 against the leaders of our people were as many proofs of the 
 determination of our nation to fight to the bitter end the designs 
 of Germany. 
 
 Germany knew that the liberation and union of the Southern- 
 Slav elements, which are opposed to these ambitions, would have 
 prevented the realization of the German plan for world dominion. 
 Germany, therefore, decided upon the destruction of Serbia as 
 the representative and standard-bearer of the Southern-Slav 
 idea. She was only looking for a pretext. This she found in 
 the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand; and the 
 great world war was started. 
 
 I do not intend to explain here all that Serbia did in order 
 that this great conflagration should be avoided. When on the 
 twenty-third of July, 1914, Austria addressed to Serbia the well 
 known ultimatum, my country knew that her powerful neighbor 
 desired war. But she also knew that this war would set fire to 
 the whole of Europe. She therefore decided to make every con- 
 cession in order to avoid this tremendous conflict. 
 
 Serbia consented to imprison innocent people; to discharge 
 from the army officers who had committed no crime; to sup- 
 press patriotic societies ; to offer apologies for deeds of which no 
 one in Serbia was guilty; to revise the program of her schools 
 and even to change a paragraph of the constitution in order to 
 be able to suppress liberty of speech and of the press as was de- 
 manded by Austria-Hungary. 
 
 Serbia thus consented to impose upon her people a reactionary 
 system of government, thereby submitting to the greatest humilia- 
 tion for an independent state, and this only in order to avoid 
 this terrible war. She could not succeed in this because Germany 
 and Austria desired war. Serbia barred the route which leads 
 
16 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 towards Bagdad, and as she would not consent to be an accom- 
 plice of Germany in the latter's ambition to conquer the world, 
 she had to be crushed. 
 
 Unfortunately, except Serbia there was no other state in the 
 Balkans which was ready to resist the German plan. Not only 
 this, Bulgaria openly joined the Central Powers, and by her 
 treacherous attack on Serbia greatly contributed to the destruc- 
 tion of that country and the realization of the German plan. 
 
 At this point I may state that American public opinion often 
 has a wrong comprehension of the Bulgarian alliance with Ger- 
 many, ascribing it to Bulgaria's hatred of Serbia or to the sup- 
 posed aspirations of Bulgaria to a certain part of Macedonia. 
 This is absolutely wrong. The Balkan problem is not a problem 
 of Macedonia, it is a question of German supremacy, the move- 
 ment known as the "Drang Nach Osten." 
 
 Austria-Hungary as ally of Germany took advantage of the 
 assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand as a pretext to 
 start war, while Bulgaria made her so-called national aspirations 
 a pretext for throwing in her lot with the Central Powers. They 
 together attacked Serbia, the only opponent of Germany's plans 
 in the Balkans. 
 
 Was it not absurd for Bulgaria to become the ally of Germany 
 for the realization of her national aspirations? But we have 
 only to consider one fact ; that Bulgaria is fighting as the ally of 
 Germany and Austria-Hungary. The present war is a conflict 
 between two groups of peoples and of their combined efforts. 
 There is not any question of how this effort has been disguised 
 or under what pretext any state has joined one of these groups. 
 
 The military action and its result will be due to this common 
 effort. In the same way, the political result of this struggle will 
 be the final application of the principles of the group which shall 
 triumph. To fight on the side of Germany and at the same time 
 to declare that one does not approve of her political aims is, to 
 say the least, inconsistent. 
 
 It is immaterial for the success of the military action of the 
 AlHed troops and of the troops of the United States what the 
 political relations between the powers composing the enemy group 
 may be. What is important, is that the full military strength 
 of our enemies is arrayed against us and that we have to fight it, 
 if we desire to vanquish them. 
 
 On any point of the front, be it in France, in Italy or on the 
 Salonica front, the enemy is always one and the same. Whether 
 the Allies have against them, at any given point, Bulgarian or 
 German troops is immaterial for military action. Finally we 
 must not forget that it was solely on account of Bulgarian coop- 
 
THE CASE OF SERBIA 17 
 
 eration that the Central Powers were able to overrun Serbia, 
 and that by her action the route to Asia Minor has been opened 
 to Germany. 
 
 The Balkan problem — and in connection with it the Serbian 
 or Southern-Slav problem — is, from an international point of 
 view, very simple. The Balkan Peninsula is the route which con- 
 nects the east with the west, and all the invading hordes which 
 have tried to achieve the conquest of the world had to pass by it. 
 It is therefore necessary to create such conditions in the Balkan 
 Peninsula as will allow the peoples inhabiting it to develop them- 
 selves freely, as this is the only guarantee that they will be able 
 to resist the aggressive designs of any power. 
 
 The Southern-Slav element, once liberated and united, would 
 be the surest bulwark against any fresh attempt on the part of 
 Germany to impose her Kultur by force of arms. 
 
 Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, 
 says in his introduction to the book, "Southeastern Europe": 
 "The erection of the South Slav state will not only bring a noble 
 and long-suffering people under the rule of free institutions, but 
 it will put an end forever to that Teutonic dream of a 'Mittel 
 Europa,' which has played so large a part in the planning and 
 carrying on of the present war." 
 
 But the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes consider that they have 
 the right to liberate themselves from foreign yokes also in con- 
 formity with the principle of the self-determination of peoples. 
 Our nation does not claim anything that does not belong to it. 
 The Declaration of Corfu, signed on July 20, 1917, by the Ser- 
 bian Government and the representatives of the section of our 
 people still under the Austro-Hungarian dominion, states : 
 
 "The territory of the Croats, Serbs and Slovenes will com- 
 prise all the territory on which our nation lives in compact 
 masses and without discontinuity and where it could not be muti- 
 lated without injuring the vital interests of the community. Our 
 nation does not ask for anything which belongs to others and 
 only claims that which belongs to it. It desires to free itself and 
 establish its unity. That is why it firmly rejects every partial 
 solution of the problem of its freedom from Austro-Hungarian 
 domination." 
 
 This solution of the Southern-Slav problem is the only correct 
 and just one. By its very nature it includes the solution of the 
 Austrian problem without which there can be no lasting peace. 
 The existence of Austria-Hungary is the fault of Europe, which 
 thought that it was necessary for the maintenance of the world's 
 
18 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 peace. In spite of the experience of Italy during the wars she 
 fought for her unity and the experience of France in 1870, and 
 Russia in 1878, there still exists the belief that an Austria-Hun- 
 gary would have to be created if it did not already exist. 
 
 As a matter of fact Austria-Hungary has been the direct 
 cause of the present war. Owing to the existing conditions she 
 has been the agent of German militarism. To-morrow, after this 
 war is over, she may, if she should be maintained merely to save 
 her existence as a dynastic monarchy, become the agent of some 
 other imperialism. Nor could she exist on any other basis, be- 
 cause she is composed of elements which do not desire to be 
 ruled by her. 
 
 There is at present an open movement of the Czecho-Slovacs 
 and of the Southern-Slavs for the creation of independent states. 
 The Austrian question must be solved if there is to be peace in 
 Europe. This question will not be difficult of solution if the 
 right of self determination be given to the small nationalities. 
 
 The greatest tragedy of a small people that could be imagined 
 is the present position of the Southern-Slavs. They are com- 
 pelled, in the ranks of the Austrian and Bulgarian armies, to fight 
 against their own brothers in the ranks of the Serbian army. 
 They are also compelled to devastate their own country, and any 
 one who should refuse to do so is liable to the death penalty. 
 
 Our nation is fighting and is being sacrificed on both sides. 
 Our people are moreover being executed in Serbia as well as in 
 Bosnia, Croatia and Dalmatia. Our nation is being systematically 
 destroyed and our country is under the yoke of German, Austrian 
 and Bulgarian authorities. This is the fate of a nation which 
 refused to consent to be a tool of German imperialism and which 
 preferred to sacrifice its liberty rather than its honor. 
 
 But our people are convinced that all these sacrifices will 
 bring them liberty and union and that they will secure the right 
 to organize and develop themselves according to their own de- 
 sires. The Serbian people do not consider the present war as a 
 struggle for the rights of one group against those of another, but 
 see in it the victory of liberty and democratic principles against 
 brute force and imperialism. 
 
 The victory in which Serbia, as representative of the South- 
 ern-Slavs, firmly believes, means the duty of organizing society 
 on such principles as will secure for it in the future progress and 
 free development. For this victory Serbia has sacrificed every- 
 thing that a nation could sacrifice and is ready, with all of her 
 remaining force, to keep up the struggle to the bitter end and to 
 the last man. 
 
 The United States entered this war with all the strength of 
 
THE CASE OF SERBIA 19 
 
 its young manhood to help to extinguish the great fire in old 
 Europe, where the last remnants of corrupt institutions are being 
 consumed in the flames, and on the ruins of which will be built 
 up a new society, with free and progressive ideas which are so 
 brilliantly professed by all classes of the great American people. 
 The United States entered the conflict sincerely and openly for 
 the defense of the great principles of liberty. The Allies hailed 
 this resolute move of the American people with enthusiasm be- 
 cause it brought a powerful ally into the struggle. 
 
 The Central Powers and their satellites received the news 
 with much concern, because their new enemy does not only 
 threaten them with its military force but also with the strength 
 of the just principles it represents. The United States to-day 
 is giving splendid help to those who are fighting against the 
 criminal designs of the powers who aim at conquering the world 
 by sheer force of arms. 
 
 The sacrifices made by your nation are such as must assure 
 the triumph of the principles which were the direct reason for 
 its entry into the war. These generous sacrifices which the 
 United States is making to-day would not be justified if they did 
 not lead to the realization of these principles. We consider that 
 the winning of the war by the United States does not only mean 
 the defeat of the enemy but the victory which will assure a new 
 organization of the society of nations on new social and political 
 principles. It is for these reasons, ladies and gentlemen, that 
 Serbia is confident and believes in this victory and also in her 
 better future. 
 
THE CASE OF BELGIUM 
 
 By Me. E. de Caetier de Marchienne, 
 The Minister from Belgium 
 
 To-day is our King's birthday. He is forty-three years old 
 to-day, and on this very auspicious day it is a double pleasure 
 for me to address a few remarks on the attitude of my country, 
 on the reason why we are in this war. 
 
 I deeply appreciate the privilege which I have to-day, of ad- 
 dressing this distinguished assemblage of speakers and lecturers 
 who have the important task of molding the minds of the people 
 of your great country — the Land of Liberty. 
 
 The principles which you have always stood for, and for 
 which you are again fighting, are the principles which have al- 
 ways animated my little country and for which we, too, are again 
 fighting, shoulder to shoulder, with your own brave boys. We 
 are fighting for freedom and independence. Your soldiers will 
 not come back until it is all over over there; neither will ours 
 lay down their arms until the world is made safe for honest peo- 
 ple. I need hardly tell you that Belgium entered this war to 
 maintain her honor and her freedom, and to uphold her plighted 
 word. 
 
 Germany offered us a shameful bargain. She offered to 
 spare our country and to indemnify us, if we would let her pass 
 through to accompHsh her crime against our neighbor and her 
 neighbor, France. She wished to make us an accomplice in her 
 crime, and she gave us twelve hours in which to make up our 
 minds. That was eleven hours and fifty-nine minutes too much. 
 We spurned her base offer. We have suffered, but we have no 
 regrets. After all, as your great statesman, Benjamin Franklin, 
 said, "Honesty is the best policy," and as a still higher authority 
 has said, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world 
 and lose his own soul?" We have upheld our plighted word, we 
 have maintained our honor, and we have maintained our freedom 
 . . . for, in spite of the fact that our enemy has taken temporary 
 possession of all except about three hundred square miles of our 
 territory, our souls are free and every Belgian heart throbs with 
 devotion to our country and to our beloved King. 
 
 20 
 
THE CASE OF BELGIUM 21 
 
 Having tried in vain to bribe us by offers of immunity, 
 after finding their offers refused with scorn, the Germans re- 
 sorted to violence and intimidation. As one of their own poets, 
 Goethe, has said: "The Prussian was born a brute, and civili- 
 zation will tnake him ferocious." The truth of that prophecy 
 was shown in the scientific and systematic way in which our 
 towns were destroyed, our peaceful civilians ruthlessly mas- 
 sacred and our women and children subjected to nameless 
 wrongs. You all know the story . . . although many of the 
 details cannot be told until our witnesses are freed from the men- 
 acing claw of the German Eagle. I will not now go into all that. 
 Thomas Fuller, the English historian and clergyman of the seven- 
 teenth century, has said in his quaint way, "History is a velvet 
 study and recreation work." But I say to you that whoever 
 undertakes to write the history of the horrors committed by the 
 Huns of the twentieth century will have a task that will turn 
 his soul sick. We do not ask the future historian to take our 
 version of the story: simply take the German army orders and 
 the German proclamations ; the Germans are condemned out of 
 their own mouths; they not only admit their crimes, they even 
 glory in them. 
 
 One of the greatest of the crimes of Germany was the attempt 
 to enslave our workmen and to force them to work for our enemy 
 and against their own brothers. Tens of thousands of honest 
 workmen were torn from their wives and families, loaded on 
 trucks like cattle and deported to Germany. There they were 
 tempted by offers of high wages to work for our enemy and to 
 sign a so-called "voluntary contract" to engage in such work 
 . . . but they would not sign. They were subjected to starva- 
 tion . . . but they would not sign. They were tortured . . . but 
 they would not sign. Then, when broken down and dying, they 
 were sent back to their old homes in Belgium — for German effi- 
 ciency has no use for human wrecks. I heard the other day of 
 a poor boy who was brought back to his mother on a stretcher; 
 his hand was hanging over the side ; she took his hand to place 
 it back and make him more comfortable ; but, in his delirium, he 
 thought that the Germans were trying to make him sign a con- 
 tract, and with a last effort he pulled his hand away and shrieked, 
 "No, I will not sign" . . . and died. 
 
 Such has been the patriotic spirit of our workmen ; such is the 
 spirit of all classes of our people. The Belgians may be killed, 
 but they cannot be conquered. 
 
 Germany has finally tried another way to break down the 
 unity and patriotic spirit of the Belgian people. 
 
 As you know, our country is bilingual. Some of us speak 
 
22 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 Flemish and some of us speak French. But we have always 
 lived together in peace and quietness and in unity of spirit. 
 From time to time we have had our little differences of opinion 
 — just as political parties Tiave in every country that is alive and 
 vigorous — or just as husbands and wives are said to have occa- 
 sionally — but it has been all in the family. As a matter of fact, 
 it is this mixture of race and blood which makes our strength. 
 We are like concrete made from different elements, just as 
 your great nation is made. But the Germans thought they could, 
 place an entering wedge between our Flemish and Walloon pop- 
 ulations. They sought to fish in troubled waters, and to carry out 
 the old game of "Divide and rule." They tried to divide our 
 house against itself . . . but they "imagined a vain thing." In 
 the early part of the war, after having ravaged and massacred 
 in Flanders as well as in the Walloon district, after finding that 
 our people could not be intimidated, the Germans sought to sep- 
 arate Flanders from the rest of Belgium by flattering the Flem- 
 ings and pretending to be their special protectors. The German 
 authorities announced that they would, as a favor to the Flem- 
 ish population, establish a Flemish University at Ghent. But no 
 reputable Flemish professors would consent to aid the enemy by 
 teaching under German auspices. Two of those who refused 
 were arrested and deported. These were Pirenne, our greatest 
 authority on history, and Fredericq, who had been President of 
 the University of Ghent. Furthermore, our patriotic Flemish 
 boys refused to attend the courses. The Flemings spurned the 
 Prussian bribe. Flanders was not for sale. 
 
 Then the Germans found "certain low fellows of the baser 
 sort," and, by promising them political preferment, incited them 
 to start a movement for the separation of Flanders from the 
 Walloon provinces. A handful of these German tools met, and 
 having elected themselves to various offices, declared the polit- 
 ical autonomy of Flanders. They represented nobody but them- 
 selves . . . and their employer, the German Government. This 
 was one of the many stupid acts of the German authorities in 
 Belgium. I will give you an illustration of the spirit in which 
 this pretended "liberation" of Flanders was received. One day, 
 in the trenches, a short time ago, these German self-styled "lib- 
 erators" put up a sign inviting our Flemish soldiers to come 
 over and be free. The invitation was accepted, but not in the 
 way the Germans expected; for that night our good Flemish 
 boys "went over the top" and cleaned up the German trench . . . 
 and many of these Germans came back as unwilling guests of 
 their Flemish soldiers. 
 
 The only result of the German effort to divide Flanders from 
 
THE CASE OF BELGIUM 23 
 
 the rest of our country has been to arouse the most intense unity 
 throughout the land. All of our people have immediately rallied 
 together in defense of the unity of our country, whose motto is 
 like your own. You have the motto "E Pluribus Unum"— "One 
 Composed of Many" — and ours is "Union Fait la Force"— "In 
 Union There Is Strength." 
 
 In all of our temptations, trials and afflictions, we have been 
 blessed by having leaders of indomitable courage. I shall men- 
 tion only four of them . . . four who, like the Four Leaf 
 Clover, are an emblem of Good Fortune. These are General 
 Leman, the heroic defender of Liege; Burgomaster Max, the 
 patriotic protector of the people of Brussels; Cardinal Mercier, 
 that fearless Prince of the Church; and — King Albert, whose 
 birthday we celebrate to-day. 
 
 General Leman typifies our militant patriotism. He held 
 back the Germans for those precious days at Liege right at the 
 beginning of the war. He never surrendered the forts entrusted 
 to his care, and when finally he was captured after the Fort of 
 Loncin had been blown up, while still suffering from his wounds, 
 he wrote a most touching letter to the King in which he said : "I 
 sought death, but it would not come to me." 
 
 Burgomaster Max represents the spirit of civic liberty for 
 which Belgium has been celebrated for many centuries. He stood 
 fearlessly between the citizens of Brussels and their oppressors. 
 When the German general, seeking to intimidate the Burgo- 
 master, pulled out his pistol and laid it on the conference table. 
 Burgomaster Max quietly took out his fountain-pen and laid it 
 beside him. In one of his proclamations posted in Brussels the 
 Burgomaster declared : "As long as I am alive I will protect my 
 fellow citizens." For this reason (which the Germans consider 
 a crime) Burgomaster Max is now in a German prison. 
 
 Cardinal Mercier is the exemplar of true Religion, protect- 
 ing the people of every creed and of every faith from the fury 
 of the invader . . . the true Shepherd watching over the sheep 
 of every fold. 
 
 Our King stands as the embodiment of all these qualities. 
 He combines the spirit of patriotism, of civic and national liberty, 
 and personal courage. 
 
 There he stands, always at the head of his army, barring the 
 German hordes from Calais, and awaiting the proper moment 
 to advance, and, together with our Allies and your brave Amer- 
 ican troops, to sweep the invader from our soil and deliver our 
 people from the yoke of the oppressor. 
 
FRANCE AND THE WORLD WAR 
 
 By Me. Andre Tardietj, 
 High Commissioner of the French Republic in the United States 
 
 The duty entrusted to you is most important : First, because 
 in a democratic country the citizens must be fully aware of the 
 motives which are governing national action. 
 
 In the second place, because, during this war, and more ex- 
 tensively in this country than anywhere else, we are confronted 
 by an open or concealed German propaganda, even more dan- 
 gerous when concealed, and tirelessly distorting the truth. 
 
 I have been requested to speak about France. You will have 
 yourselves to speak about France for several reasons : 
 
 First, France is the battlefield on which the decision of the 
 war will be obtained. 
 
 Then, there is no country which has either suffered so much 
 on account of the war or done so much in this war. 
 
 Last, there is a symbolical meaning in the case of France. 
 When one knows well the policy of Germany towards France be- 
 fore and during this war, one knows all the policy of Germany. 
 
 You are men of action. I mean to put forth not words but 
 facts and figures. 
 
 THE MILITARY EFFORT OF FRANCE 
 
 You know the import and significance of the French effort. 
 
 It is the French effort which, three and a half years ago, by 
 breaking the first onslaught of an invader who felt certain to 
 carry an immediate success, has enabled all the democracies of 
 the world to arm themselves in turn and to come in and take 
 their part in a noble fight. 
 
 It is through the French effort, through its unconquerable 
 spirit at the Marne, through French tenacity and patience since 
 that time, that in front of the barbarous imperialism an impreg- 
 nable trench was dug, which the soldiers of Liberty will defend- 
 until victory is achieved. 
 
 In order to keep that Hne, from a population which, taking 
 into account the invasion of our Northern territories, does not ex- 
 
 24 
 
FRANCE AND THE WORLD WAR 25 
 
 ceed thirty-five million inhabitants, seven and a half million men 
 have been mobilized. 
 
 In the army zone proper, the sum total of our forces amounts 
 still to a little less than three million men. 
 
 Before the battle which is now taking place we were holding 
 over two-thirds of the western front. Since the beginning of that 
 battle, you know how we have been extending our front in order 
 to help our faithful and gallant British Allies. 
 
 You can therefore truly state to your audiences the follow- 
 ing facts: 
 
 First, from the beginning of war the action of France has 
 been a decisive one. Without France at the battle of the Marne, 
 when there were only six divisions of the British army, the Ger- 
 man plan "Victory Within Six Weeks" would have been carried 
 out. In the second place, at Verdun, as well as now, the French 
 army has asserted herself as the most powerful military weapon 
 at the command of the Allies, as their actual mainstay. 
 
 You ought furthermore to be reminded that the area of 
 France, before the invasion, did not exceed the two states of 
 Nevada and Utah put together. 
 
 This comparison may help emphasize the duty which Amer- 
 ican democracy must meet, if she has made up her mind, — I 
 know she has made it up, — to exert an effort equal to the effort 
 of French democracy. 
 
 THE INDUSTEIAL. EFFOET 
 
 In view of such an effort, in order to equip our army, we 
 had to set up entirely new industries. 
 
 Before the war our manufacturing capacity as regards "75 
 shells was 13,000 pieces a day. Nothing had been organized in 
 the way of a regular production of guns. 
 
 To-day we can turn our daily 250,000 shells for the 75 gun, 
 100,000 shells for heavy guns, and sixty guns of various sizes. 
 The bulk of our artillery outfit, now in line, amounts to 15,000 
 guns of every description. Our heavy artillery alone has grown 
 from 300 guns before 1914 to 6,000 guns at the present time. 
 
 The development of our aviation equipment could be empha- 
 sized through similar figures. 
 
 Through such an increase of our war manufactures produc- 
 tion, we have been enabled to turn over to our European Allies 
 up to October, 1917 : 
 
 1,350,000 rifles. 
 15,000 automatic rifles. 
 
26 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 io,cx)o machine guns. 
 8oo,ooo,ocx3 cartridges. 
 2,500 guns. 
 4,750 aeroplanes. 
 
 In the same way, since you have come into the war, we have 
 been able to guarantee that, provided raw materials should be 
 supplied, we could equip with guns and aeroplanes all American 
 divisions brought over to France before the 1st of July, 1918. 
 
 Thus America has been allowed a sufficient length of time 
 (this was necessary, I could not overemphasize this point) to 
 organize and to start along that line her own production. 
 
 THE FINANCIAL EFFORT 
 
 I need hardly say that this could not have been done without 
 money. Early in 1918, the grand total of the appropriations 
 granted by the French Parliament amounted to 104 billion francs. 
 
 Out of this amount 6 billion francs only had been received 
 from our European Allies before the coming of America into the 
 war. 
 
 As to our internal loans, they have been subscribed by over 
 6 million French individuals on a thirty-five million population. 
 
 The average individual subscription thus stands out as from 
 200 to 300 dollars, which means that France has been saved, 
 as far as loans go, by the small subscribers, by her own democ- 
 racy, in the same way as French democracy, militarily speaking, 
 has saved France and the world on the battlefields. 
 
 ■% 
 THE LOSSES SUSTAINED BY FRANCE 
 
 That is what we have done. 
 
 From a few more figures you will gather what we have lost 
 and what we have suffered : Killed in the battle, or dead from 
 wounds received on the battlefield, 1,300,000 men before the 
 present battle. Maimed, invalided out of the war, prisoners, 
 about 1,000,000 men at the same date. 
 
 On the whole, our working population has been decreased 
 by two million and a half men, that is to say, by a large propor- 
 tion of the younger and active elements of the nation. 
 
 As to the Hving able-bodied men, a million and a half are 
 working in our ammunition plants. 
 
 Thus, from a population of 35 million inhabitants, four million 
 of our men, for the last three years and a half, have been taken 
 from the general production of the nation. 
 
 The consequences resulting from this general shortage of 
 handwork are the following ones : 
 
FRANCE AND THE WORLD WAR 27 
 
 First, as regards agricultural production, our wheat crops re- 
 duced by two-thirds, from nine millions and a half to three mil- 
 lions and a half. 
 
 In the second place, the complete suppression of many of 
 our most necessary industries; for instance, our shipyards have 
 manufactured for over three years guns and shells only. 
 
 In the third place, the loss — for which we have not made 
 up as yet — of a large part of our railway rolling stock: 50,000 
 cars, locomotives, not to mention the exceedingly great dif- 
 ficulty of repairs as regards worn out rolling stock. 
 
 In January last, failing means for repairs, 2200 locomotives 
 and 26,000 cars had got permanently stuck. 
 
 In the same time our mercantile navy has lost on account 
 of the submarine warfare about 500,000 tons. 
 
 I ought last to point out to the slump of our exports to for- 
 eign countries as well as to our own colonies. 
 
 Such would be a fairly complete picture of the burden of 
 losses and trials which we have borne. How have we been 
 able to stand it? 
 
 SACRIFICES THROUGH WHICH FRANCE WAS ENABLED 
 TO MAKE UP FOR THESE LOSSES 
 
 Every single individual has done his best in a spirit of 
 national solidarity. 
 
 The old men, the women, the children, have taken the 
 burden of agricultural and of industrial work left behind by 
 the men in the Army and by munition workers. Then, as far as 
 there was a general shortage of necessaries, the emergency has 
 been met in a spirit of sacrifice in order that the soldiers and 
 the munition workers be kept fully supplied. 
 
 You are aware that the French Nation has always lived 
 mostly on wheat bread. Our pre-war consumption was 700,000 
 tons per month, our present consumption has been now re- 
 duced to 530,000 tons, a reduction of about 25 per cent. 
 
 Of course it was impossible to reduce to any great extent 
 the bread ration of the soldier. That ration, which amounted 
 in the first year of the war to 750 grammes, about 25 ounces, 
 has been progressively cut down to 600 grammes, a little over 
 twenty-one ounces. 
 
 But, on the other hand, as regards the civilian population, 
 we had to estabHsh the individual bread card allowing only 
 300 grammes, about ten ounces per day, which means barely 
 the third part of the average daily bread consumption of the 
 French peasant or workman before the war. 
 
28 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 In order to apply all the available cereals to the making of 
 bread, we have taken drastic measures, which I deem it impor- 
 tant to state here in detail. 
 
 First, with the exception of our Northern and Eastern dis- 
 trict, where no supply of pure drinking-water is available, the 
 supply of barley to the breweries has been suppressed. Sev- 
 enty-five per cent, of our barley crops have been thus kept for 
 food consumption. 
 
 Then feeding horses and cattle on cereals which could be 
 used for the making of bread has been prohibited. This re- 
 sulted in a decrease of fifty per cent, in the number of horses 
 in France, and in an important reduction of our cattle. We 
 have radically suppressed, on the other hand, all flour consum- 
 ing industries. The manufacturing of biscuits and of pastry 
 has been completely prohibited. The manufacturing of cereal 
 pastes, so useful, though, has been reduced by 90 per cent. 
 
 At the same time, as regards the restriction of consump- 
 tion in general, strict rules have been imposed on hotels and 
 restaurants, namely : absolute suppression of fancy bread, of 
 sandwiches, of "crescents," of brioches, of zwiebacks, of either 
 fresh or dry pastry, of all confectionery, of creams, of choco- 
 lates, of butter. 
 
 Restaurants and hotels have been further prohibited from 
 delivering food to their customers outside of the regular meal 
 hours. Regular meals have been reduced to two courses. 
 
 I heard that some Americans, who were in France a few 
 weeks ago, have been wondering why we have not yet the 
 meatless days. This suppression of meatless days resulted from 
 the lack of cereals for the cattle feeding, which involved the 
 killing of cattle, and the killing of cattle was meant, on the 
 other hand, to bring about a reduction in the human consump- 
 tion of these same cereals. 
 
 I may be allowed to add that, of late, my good friend Mr. 
 Hoover insisted that, as far as possible, we ought to try to 
 substitute the meat consumption to the consumption of cereals. 
 
 Gentlemen, I could go on for a long time quoting facts and 
 figures. 
 
 I could remind you that we have reduced our sugar con- 
 sumption by 49 per cent. ; our rice consumption by 61 per cent. ; 
 that our imports of dried vegetables have been reduced by 52 
 per cent. ; of oils and fats by 48 per cent. 
 
 Thus our material sacrifices have been heavy. They could 
 not have taken place unless the moral sacrifice had been ac- 
 cepted, unless every citizen had been ready to bear uncom- 
 plainingly any losses of lives, of money, of comfort, in order 
 
FRANCE AND THE WORLD WAR 29 
 
 to secure the necessary results: that is what French citizens 
 have done. 
 
 THE CASE OF ALSACE-LORRAINE SYMBOLICAL OF THE 
 JUSTICE OF THE CAUSE OF FRANCE 
 
 What then were the motives and the inspiration of the French 
 nation in doing its full duty and in bearing the burden of sac- 
 rifices unflinchingly? The understanding that our cause was 
 the cause of right. 
 
 In 1870, Prussia, when attacking France, had started the war 
 through the means of a falsified document: the well known Ems 
 telegram, falsified by Bismarck. At the end of the 1870 war, 
 Prussia had become the ruler of Germany. In order to es- 
 tablish her victory on territorial annexations, she took Alsace- 
 Lorraine. 
 
 She took Alsace-Lorraine despite of the solemn protest raised 
 by the selected representatives of the two provinces. 
 
 It was as follows: 
 
 DECLARATION 
 
 "Alsace and Lorraine do not consent to be made over to 
 alien masters. 
 
 "Associated with France, for more than two centuries, in 
 good as well as in evil fortune, these two provinces unceas- 
 ingly exposed to the blows of the enemy, have ever sacrificed 
 themselves for the cause of her national greatness: they have 
 sealed with blood the indissoluble bond connecting them with 
 French Unity. The object to-day of alien pretentions, they 
 proclaim in spite of every obstacle and every danger, under the 
 very heel of the invader, their unswerving loyalty to France. 
 
 "Before any peace negotiations have been entered upon, the 
 representatives of Alsace and Lorraine have laid upon the table 
 of the National Assembly a declaration setting forth in the most 
 explicit terms, on behalf of those provinces, their will and their 
 right to remain French. 
 
 "Yielded up, in despite of all justice, and by a hateful abuse 
 of force, to alien domination, we have a last duty to fulfill. 
 
 "We declare once again to be null and void a compact giv- 
 ing us away without our consent. 
 
30 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 "The vindication of our rights remains open forever, to each 
 and all of us, in the shape and to the utmost limits prescribed 
 by our conscience. 
 
 "Your brothers of Alsace and Lorraine, now separated from 
 our common family, Vifill preserve for France, while absent from 
 their homes, their filial affection, until the day comes when she 
 shall return to fill her accustomed place by our firesides." 
 
 This protest has expressed the vindication of right as well 
 as the experience of history. At the beginning of the XVIII 
 century, during the negotiations of the treaty of Utrecht, Prus- 
 sian plenipotentiaries said: "It is a very well known fact that 
 the inhabitants of Alsace are more French than the Parisians." 
 
 A few months ago General von Lowenfeld, in command of 
 the Prussian guard, wrote, on a report, the following marginal 
 note: "The French Lorrainers do not belong to our race." 
 
 To-day again, German generals, when troops are billeted in 
 Alsace-Lorraine, order their soldiers to consider themselves "in 
 enemy country." 
 
 During this very battle it has been known from documents 
 found with German prisoners that special precautions have been 
 taken when Alsatian and Lorrainers soldiers were shifted from 
 the Russian front to the French front in view of the offensive. 
 
 In 1871 the Germans imposed on a people the right of might 
 against the clearly expressed will of this people. 
 
 They are to-day claiming the same right of might: 
 
 First, in order to state that no peace discussion could be 
 agreed upon in case it would include the question of Alsace- 
 Lorraine, which, following their doctrine, must remain in the 
 hands of those who had stolen it. 
 
 In the second place, in order to put into practice in Lithuania, 
 in Poland, in Belgium an annexationist policy, similar to the 
 policy of which Alsace-Lorraine was years ago the victim. 
 
 DESPITE THE CRIME COMMITTED IN ALSACE-LORRAINE, 
 
 FRANCE FOR FORTY-THREE YEARS HAS SPARED 
 
 NO EFFORT TO KEEP PEACE 
 
 Immediately after the treaty of Francfort, the Germans ac- 
 cused us of aiming at a war of revenge. Let the facts answer. 
 
 In 1875 the Germans tried to provoke us into the war; we 
 kept cool and were saved by a British and Russian intervention. 
 
 From 1887 to 1891 the Germans repeatedly created frontier 
 
FRANCE AND THE WORLD WAR 31 
 
 incidents and made arbitrary arrests of French citizens; we 
 kept unmoved and took no action. 
 
 From 1904 to 191 1 they tried to put up a quarrel against us 
 in Morocco. We have carried negotiations in cold blood, and, 
 in order to keep peace, we have further handed over to Germany, 
 with a profound grief, part of our own Congo Colony. 
 
 During that period, the military preparations of Germany 
 outgrew our own in huge proportions. 
 
 From 1883 to 1913 the French military appropriations had 
 increased by 70 per cent., the German ones by 229 per cent. 
 From 1902 to 1913 France spent, for armament purposes, 980 
 million francs, Germany 2 billion and 200 million francs. 
 
 In 1905 we reduced by one year the duration of the com- 
 pulsory military service. In 191 1, 1912, 1913, the German's 
 Reichstag voted three laws increasing considerably the German 
 military establishment and resources. 
 
 Following that direct menace, at the end of 1913, as a vital 
 measure of safety to protect our very independence, we had to 
 establish again the three years' term of compulsory military 
 service. 
 
 In 1914, when Germany had decided to make war, we left 
 nothing untried in order to avoid war. 
 
 We accepted or suggested every kind of formula allowing 
 either of a direct negotiation, or of a mediation, or of an ar- 
 bitration, which would prevent war. Germany evaded every- 
 thing. 
 
 Even after the violation of our own territory of German 
 troops, in the first days of August 1914, we kept our own troops 
 five miles back of our border line. 
 
 Germany, moreover, had made such a definite decision to throw 
 us into the war, that she had ordered her Ambassador in Paris 
 to exact from France, as a guarantee of neutrality, the handing 
 over to the German Army of the fortresses of Toul and Ver- 
 dun. 
 
 From all this was bom in us an indestructible consciousness 
 of being in the right. 
 
 In 1871 we were victims of Prussian violence, through 
 which our territory and our national unity were mutilated. 
 
 During forty-three years we had suffered our pain in si- 
 lence. That was not enough. 
 
 After forty-three years, mutilated still and still peaceful, we 
 were attacked by the same foe. 
 
 Because we know that, we will fight to the last. 
 
 Frenchmen to-day would not fight well for a war of injustice 
 and prey. They have been fighting and will keep on fighting 
 
32 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 as long as necessary, because their right and the justice of their 
 cause are deeply impressed in their moral conscience. 
 
 That is why we felt profoundly grateful to President Wilson 
 for having voiced in a perfect way our own ideal. 
 
 The problem of Alsace-Lorraine, which for nearly fifty years 
 has disturbed the world's peace, has become, through the poten- 
 tial force of events in the course of this war, the symbol at the 
 same time of French rights and of human rights. 
 
 That is why we feel indebted to the President for having 
 placed this issue not on a ground of sentiment, but on a ground 
 of facts and justice, the only ground on which we are claiming 
 its settlement. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS RESULTING FROM OUR OWN EXPERIENCE 
 
 Conclusions are resulting from our own experience of Ger- 
 many before and during the war. 
 
 I. — On account of the perfection of its material organiza- 
 tion and of its condition of moral slavery, Germany is the most 
 dangerous weapon which ever was used by autocracy against 
 democracy, right and justice. 
 
 2. — Germany keeps her Allies, Austria, Turkey and Bul- 
 garia, under her own absolute control and authority: she makes 
 use of them, and they are serving her own purposes. In Count 
 Czernin's hypocrisy there is nothing but a means to divide, if it 
 were possible, the AlHes, at the command and to the benefit of 
 Germany. 
 
 3. — Following the collapse of Russia, Germany has gained, 
 as regards the continuation of war, advantages which cannot be 
 overstated. 
 
 Such are the facts, the weighty and grave facts, by which 
 we are confronted and which you must keep in front of your 
 eyes. 
 
 To counterbalance these unpleasant facts, some comfort, 
 though, ought to be derived from the consideration of other 
 features of the present situation. 
 
 I have dealt with the material and moral conditions of 
 France: your trust in France ought to be without restriction 
 or reserve. 
 
 Then Great Britain has given, during this war, the full 
 measure of her strength and of her loyalty. 
 
 The battle of the Marne won by the French, the safe keeping 
 of the seas by the British, are the two main facts which have 
 enabled all the democratic peoples of the world to come in and 
 to take their share in the struggle. 
 
FRANCE AND THE WORLD WAR 33 
 
 After Italy had exerted a big military effort, they went last 
 year through a crisis out of which they have now emerged suc- 
 cessfully and hold their front with the utmost steadfastness 
 
 Our other Allies, Japan, Belgium, Serbia, Greece and Por- 
 tugal, remain entirely true to us. 
 
 Our resources are huge, and your own, which are unex- 
 haustible, will now be added to them. 
 
 THE FRENCH-AMERICAN FRIENDSHIP v 
 
 Gentlemen, thank you for your friendly forbearance in allow- 
 ing me to deliver such a lengthy statement of facts. 
 
 This statement, though, would not be complete if I should 
 fail to point out to you the all-important meaning, in our com- 
 mon fight, of the special bond of affection and trust between 
 France and America. 
 
 A deep affection for and thorough trust in America are 
 entertained by every one of my country-men. 
 
 Priceless has been to us the strengthening and extension of 
 the wonderful bond of indestructible friendship between France 
 and America, of the sacred union of our hearts. 
 
 Priceless to us is the realization that we are now struggling 
 in a full community of purposes and aims, in a full devotion to 
 the same ideals, with the great American democracy. 
 
 All over this broad land of yours, carry this message of 
 every French citizen to every citizen of America. Tell them that 
 we trust you to the end. 
 
 And let me now say a last word about the common duties 
 which all the Allied nations must steadily bear in mind. 
 
 THE COMMON DUTIES OF THE ALLIES 
 
 The first duty is the national unity. Follow your chief. Act 
 like one single man. Forget political struggles. 
 
 We have done it; you will do it. 
 
 The second duty is interallied unity. It has been effected as 
 far as military command is concerned; this is all right; but it is 
 not enough. 
 
 That same unity must be truly and practically carried out 
 for all other purposes, such as war supplies, food, shipping. 
 
 This has not been done as yet ; it must be done. 
 
 The third duty is the unity of feeling and understanding as 
 to the conditions of victory. 
 
 Hear again what your President says; 
 
34! THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 "Germany has once more said that force and force alone shall 
 decide whether justice and peace shall reign in the affairs of 
 men, whether right, as America conceives it, or dominion, as 
 Germany conceives it, shall determine the destinies of mankind. 
 
 "There is, therefore, but one response possible from us: 
 force, force to the utmost, force without stint or limit, the 
 righteous and triumphant force, which shall make right the law 
 of the world and cast every selfish dominion down in the dust." 
 
 This is the truth which must be kept engraved in our minds. 
 
 As a last word let me quote you the sentence I read two days 
 
 ago posted all over New York : "We are in it ; we must win it." 
 
GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WAR 
 
 By The Earl of Reading, 
 
 Embassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 
 from Great Britain 
 
 I AM glad to have the opportunity of meeting you here to- 
 day, because I understand it will be your function in the future 
 to go out through the United States to present to your country, 
 in your own way, reasons why this great war is now being 
 waged, and also as I imagine, from the practical side of all 
 Americans, the best way to win the Victory! 
 
 I dare say it occurs to you — certainly it does to me — to won- 
 der how it is that you, like us, liberty-loving and peace-loving 
 as you are, should be engaged in the greatest war which has 
 ever been waged in the world's history. But it requires little 
 thought to understand the reasons. 
 
 You have all read and know the greater number of the causes 
 leading up to this conflict. If I pass them in brief retrospect it 
 is only to refresh our recollections, because with events that 
 move so rapidly, scenes that change so swiftly, impressions that 
 pile one upon the other with such striking rapidity, there is 
 perhaps a little danger of the real issues being lost sight of. 
 
 It seems ages and yet it is but some three and one-half years 
 since Austria launched her ultimatum to Serbia. It is a far cry 
 from Sarajevo to the Unitetl Gtates of America, but nevertheless 
 that ultimatum was the first step in a number of steps that even- 
 tually led to my country going into war and to yours — thank 
 Heaven, be it said — because from that moment, hating war as 
 you do and as we do, we realized that there was but one answer 
 to the challenge that had been thrown down to the world — an 
 answer that was given in inimitable language by your President 
 in his great utterance at Baltimore on Saturday last. 
 
 It was intended that there should be this great world war. 
 It was intended by Germany. Austria was but the hand to start 
 it. You will remember that demands were made upon Serbia; 
 demands which in themselves did not interest you, and really 
 scarcely interested Great Britain, save that they meant that one 
 small nation was to be crushed out of its sovereignty and its 
 
 35 
 
36 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 independence. Serbia submitted to the demands that were made 
 upon her by Austria, and accepted everything that was required 
 save two points, and those two she refused because they meant 
 an end to her autonomy, and she strove to get some modifica- 
 tions of them. The answer was one with which we are now, 
 alas, only too familiar. It was known equally well by Austria 
 and by Germany — for Germany was back of it all the time — 
 that if Austria insisted on the letter of these demands it meant 
 kindling the flame of the great war, for Russia was bound to 
 step in to help Serbia and France, in alliance with Russia, would 
 be involved. 
 
 All these considerations were very present to the minds of 
 the German Government who had determined that this was the 
 most opportune moment in which to begin their great scheme of 
 world aggression, of domination in order to satisfy their lust of 
 power. Consequently, in spite of every effort that was made by 
 Sir Edward Grey, then our Foreign Minister, who labored so 
 hard during all the years he was in office with the purpose of 
 preventing war, war became inevitable ! 
 
 War was inevitable, not because in fact there was no possi- 
 bility of arriving at a settlement. It was not that. It was because 
 Germany had determined that this was the moment and Serbia 
 was the pretext, and nothing on earth was to cause them to 
 abandon the best pretext that they had had at what, in their gov- 
 ernment's view, was the most serviceable moment. If there 
 remain any doubt about it, we have only to turn to the revelations 
 which have recently been made. We have the innermost facts 
 from the lips of those who were actually taking part in these 
 affairs, not only from ourselves, but from Germans. It is not 
 necessary to dwell at any length on these matters because they 
 are now so well established that I doubt whether even a mem- 
 ber of the German Government, if one could stand before you, 
 would dare argue that it was not Germany that caused the war 
 or strive to deny that the guilt for this awful crime rests on 
 the German Government alone. 
 
 What were the consequences ? Tliey did not fall as Germany 
 hoped. In the deliberations of her leaders there was no ques- 
 tion of a conference with Russia as was suggested by Sir Ed- 
 ward Grey. That wouldn't suit at all, because it might deprive 
 Germany of the war she wanted. 
 
 Then came the question of England. What would England 
 do? You know what happened. We were confronted by the 
 gravest problem ever submitted to any nation. Our government 
 had to determine whether it should enter this war; and some- 
 times it is not quite realized that England was bound by no 
 
GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WAR 37 
 
 treaty to involve herself. We were not bound by any alliance 
 to enter this war. We knew the causes of the war. We knew 
 what a war with Germany would mean. 
 
 We were under no illusions. But when Germany with unex- 
 ampled ferocity and unparalleled depravity entered Belgium and 
 determined that she would strike through Belgium come what 
 may, that Belgium men and women and children should be 
 sacrificed to the policy of terrorism, which was the great German 
 ideal — by that England knew the moment had come when the 
 great Government of Germany must be taught that treaties were 
 made to be observed, that conventions were sacred as a word of 
 honor. 
 
 We in England were bound like Germany to protect the in- 
 ternationality of Belgium, and by the self-same treaty that should 
 have held their hand. We did not invade Belgium, but we said 
 to Germany : "You do this thing at your peril ! England is in." 
 And without a moment's thought — to her honor be it said — 
 England threw everything that she had into the melting pot and 
 said: "Come what may, as a nation we shall be true to our 
 honor, which demands that we defend Belgium, and now we shall 
 fight the German Government to the very last." 
 
 And what has been the history in your own country — you 
 who are so far away from it? Three thousand miles of sea 
 lie between you and the lands over-run by these German hordes, 
 lands wasted by a devastation which is difficult of description 
 even by those who have seen it. You watched, you weighed, 
 you considered — not from fear, but because there were great 
 responsibilities naturally upon you, upon those who are your 
 leaders equally as upon our own. Every endeavor that was 
 possible and right was made to avoid armed conflict between you 
 and the German Government. There were months when your 
 very souls were stirred with indignation at what was happening, 
 and eventually, after there had been interchanges of notes, 
 there came acts which made it impossible for you as a self- 
 respecting nation, according to the views of your President, to 
 abstain longer from taking part. 
 
 Therefore America stepped in, and with it the whole plane of 
 that contest was raised because we know perfectly well — Europe 
 knows and those who do not know it have it to learn and will 
 learn it — ^that America has only fought and would only fight for 
 Liberty, that she would never fight for aggression or for world 
 domination, that her great ideal of Hberty and democracy was 
 that for which alone she would draw the sword. As in the past 
 so now, once it is drawn, when once you have started and it has 
 been made clear that only force can rule— as Germany apparently 
 
88 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 has taken care to make clear — then it is only with force she can 
 be met, it is only with the sword that she will be met! 
 
 Now a war is not won by brave men alone. For some time 
 America's courageous young men have been learning the busi- 
 ness of fighting and to-day many thousands of them are bearing 
 the brunt of flying shells. One has only to see them to under- 
 stand the courage and moral strength which characterize your 
 people; yet we know from our own experience that it is not by 
 those men alone that you can win the war. Victory requires far 
 more than valor and numbers. Victory demands all the re- 
 sources of science applied by the joint efforts of all the people. 
 This is a war, in truth, in which the production of commodities 
 and the enlistment of the services of the citizens of the state 
 are almost as necessary as the services of the man in the field. 
 I do hope that when you go forth to speak, you will make it 
 clear to all with whom you come in contact that victory is not 
 to be won only by the men in the trenches or the men in the 
 battleships or the men in the destroyers or the men at the guns. 
 Victory is to be won in some part by the men and women at home, 
 by the men and women who help produce the commodities, by the 
 services and sacrifices of the men and women who contribute 
 their all to the state. 
 
 America is at this moment in a campaign for a Liberty Loan, 
 which is only one form of service required of the people. You 
 are all asked to subscribe to it. It has always seemed to me that 
 contributing money is the least possible of the services that may 
 be asked, for it is no more than the subscription to an invest- 
 ment that has the great and rare advantage of being both safs 
 and remunerative. It is not often in our lives that we have the 
 privilege of meeting our patriotic obligations with advantage to 
 our purses ! In truth the Liberty Loan — as I have said — 
 and subscription to it, is the least of the matter. It has to be 
 done. It has to be impressed upon the public because everybody 
 has not the power to think it out for himself, although you might 
 think that by this time it was duly impressed upon public opinion 
 and that there is little opportunity of any one escaping it. But 
 it serves well to illustrate what is required. 
 
 The object of the Liberty Loan is to transfer money from the 
 purses of the citizens who have it, into the coffers of the United 
 States Treasury, so your country may pay for the goods and 
 services required for the prosecution of the war. Here you 
 have an advantage over ourselves, for the money your govern- 
 ment raises it pays substantially only to people in your own 
 country, so it soon finds its way around out of the Treasury 
 into which it is deposited back again into the purses from which 
 
GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WAR 39 
 
 it emerged. And perhaps, as it sometimes happens, by the time 
 it gets back there, there is a Httle added to it. Now that money 
 which is loaned to the government is paid out again for pro- 
 duction or services. To illustrjate the operation. It may be that 
 the government pays out the money to a man who is supplying 
 steel. He must employ workmen, he must purchase material, he 
 must keep his furnaces going. To perform these functions he 
 must pay out money. The people who get it spend it. It circu- 
 lates and eventually finds its way home to the purses of the men 
 who lent it to the government, to await the next Liberty Loan. 
 Again it will go back to the government — perhaps in larger 
 subscriptions because there will always be a little more in the 
 purse in consequence of what is happening — again it will be 
 circulated and again restored to the purse from whence it came. 
 Well, now, that is why you are able to meet the cost of war. 
 If it were not for that there would be difficulty in raising loan 
 after loan. 
 
 With this money the United States raises you do something 
 else for which we, as aUies, are very grateful indeed. You lend 
 Dollars to us — not money which we should be able to spend at 
 home, but in your great wisdom you lend the money so that it 
 should be spent in the main in your country and you take from 
 us a bond of indebtedness, which is perfectly right and for which 
 we again are most grateful. We use these Dollars to pay for all 
 the products that you are able to supply us, and so they also find 
 their way back into the purses of men and women who buy Lib- 
 erty Bonds, ready to begin a new journey when your government 
 calls for them. 
 
 There is much work and great need for these traveling 
 Dollars. Take for example ships, and here I would revert for a 
 moment to the British Navy. When the war broke out it so 
 happened that the British Navy had only just come to the end 
 of its summer maneuvers and in consequence, by the greatest 
 good fortune, it was ready and could be used immediately in 
 protecting our own shores and those of our Allies from Germany, 
 and in driving the German ships from the seas. Since those days 
 of August 1914, we have trebled the personnel of our navy in 
 spite of the enormous drafts of our man-power for all of our 
 industrial works and for military service. We have increased 
 our navy — it is perhaps not right that I should tell you by how 
 much. We have actually carried 13,000,000 men from one port 
 to another, and of these 13,000,000 men we have only lost, in 
 spite of all the submarine warfare, 3,500. And of these 3,500 
 that we did lose, 550 were lost in hospital ships by reason of 
 the attack that Germany chose to make upon them. 
 
40 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 We have carried, according to the best statistical computation 
 that has been made, 130,000,000 tons of material during that time. 
 It is impossible, really, for the mind quite to grasp what it 
 means. I only tell it to you, not to stagger you by figures, be- 
 cause when figures get so big they almost cease to convey any- 
 thing, but in order to impress upon you how necessary it is to 
 secure the maximum effort from every human being who de- 
 votes his services to the production of ships, or anything that 
 appertains to ships, so we may have the means of transporting 
 supplies from America to the seat of war. 
 
 Think for a moment of what is happening. There has, it is 
 true, been a great destruction of vessels by submarine warfare, 
 but there has also been a very considerable addition to the 
 vessels which are being used against the enemy, largely due to 
 the fortunate fact that there were so many hundreds of thousands 
 of tons of German shipping without your ports at the time you 
 went into the war. All those ships are being used, they are 
 being used along with the new vessels that are being built by us 
 and by you. Vessels are chartered from every source. Neutral 
 tonnage is being used as well as our own tonnage. 
 
 We are engaged — you and we — in striving to ascertain what 
 is the best way of utilizing every single ship, so that we may 
 put that ship to the best possible use in the common interest, with 
 an eye only to the common purpose. All ideas of commercial 
 rivalries and jealousies disappear in this war. You have but 
 one thought and we have but one thought — and that is, victory ! 
 
 Let it be impressed upon the man who is at work in the 
 shipyard, be he employee, clerk, ship-riveter, boiler-maker or 
 engineer, that every hour he puts in is equivalent to a shot at the 
 front. He too is a soldier, but I bid him remember every time 
 that he thinks he is tired or that the work is monotonous, as I 
 have no doubt it is, to repeat to himself, almost as if it were a 
 religious devotion, that there are men of his own kith and kin, 
 men of his own country under the enemy's fire in the trenches 
 at the risk of their lives and of their limbs, and that they are 
 doing it gladly and cheerfully, while he is safe in the shelter of 
 the shipyard. 
 
 The same truth should be impressed on all those who grow 
 food or are in any way concerned in the distribution of food. 
 They must understand that they too are contributing toward 
 victory. The Allies are not able to supply out of their own 
 resources the needs of their own people and of their armies in 
 the field. France which in peace times could feed her own 
 people is not able to do so now because all her man power is 
 at war and many of her women are engaged in war work. Tillage 
 
GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WAR 41 
 
 of the soil is left to the wives and children of the farmers, who 
 for all their good will and devotion have neither the strength 
 nor capacity to meet the enormous demands upon the produc- 
 tive power of that fertile country. In Italy similar conditions 
 prevail. 
 
 We in Great Britain have never produced more than twenty- 
 five or thirty per cent, of the food we consumed. A large pro- 
 portion of our supplies have been imported from this great con- 
 tinent of North America where you have the advantage of being 
 able to produce food in enormous quantities. In spite of your 
 ' superlative productivity the demands upon you are so great that 
 you are being asked to economize in the use of wheat and meat. 
 We note with pride and satisfaction that you are doing so with 
 the same spirit of cheerfulness and gladness that has marked 
 those young men of yours who have gone into the great battle 
 with a cheer, delighted to have an opportunity to strike a blow 
 for freedom and for democracy. You who are saving food are 
 truly serving for victory. 
 
 In this great struggle the farmer and all who help by tillage 
 to produce the foods that we require are also soldiers, and I beg 
 that they remember their obligation and their privilege. When 
 limbs are wearied and the hot summer sun invites to shade and 
 rest, let them say to themselves as the riveter and the boiler- 
 maker : "I must go on even if I am tired ; I must do my duty to 
 my country ; I must do my duty for Liberty." 
 
 These are but a few instances of service in the common 
 cause. The men who labor in the aeroplane factories, the powder 
 and gun makers, the woodcutters engaged in getting the spruce 
 or other timber required for ships and flying machines — all are 
 helping toward victory. This truth I beg you to impress upon 
 them, because sometimes it is lost sight of : — that there is dig- 
 nity and self respect in all work for the common cause. What- 
 ever form of service men or women are rendering so long as 
 they are contributing to the country's needs, they are helping to 
 win the victory. Let them know it ; let them feel it ; let them 
 realize it, and you yourselves will be doing — if I may be per- 
 mitted to say so — a very great service to your country. To 
 bring home to the men and women of this country the responsi- 
 bility that rests upon every individual to balance by sacrifice 
 at home the risk incurred by his brethren upon the battlefields 
 abroad; to make him visualize that thereby he too wins honor 
 is a great and splendid task. No greater service can be rendered 
 this country than to imbue it throughout its length and breadth 
 with the true spirit. 
 
 It has been brought home to me many times that the great 
 
42 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 majority of Americans have it, that they are keenly alive to 
 the issues and consequences of this momentous struggle, that 
 they are prepared to do their utmost for victory; but removed 
 by thousands of miles of land and v^rater from contact with its 
 dreadful experiences it is hard to bring home to them what war 
 means. Those of us who have lived with it and beside it during 
 long and perilous years know its terrors. We in England who 
 have had the war at our doors, to whom the enemy has carried 
 destruction by his ZeppeHns and his aeroplanes, by his coast 
 bombardments and other offensives, we are aware and under- 
 stand. But 'tis much more difficult when you are so far away. 
 
 Only the other evening as I stood at the door of the British 
 Embassy in Washington, seeing a guest out, I noticed the clear 
 beauty of the sky. My friend turned to me and remarked, "Isn't 
 it a fine night?" And unwittingly it came over me as I looked 
 across the spaces so clearly illuminated in the moonlight that it 
 is on just such nights as this at home in London that air raids 
 come, and that means that before dawn there will be a new toll 
 of defenseless men and women and children killed. The memory 
 of the menace of the bombs from the sky had bitten so deeply 
 into my mind that the mere aspect of moonlight, of the cloudless 
 beauty of the night, suggested the same thoughts to me 3,000 
 miles away that would have arisen in my consciousness on my 
 own doorstep in London. 
 
 Yes, we know what war means. We have had to pay the 
 tribute; we see our wounded on every street; we see the trains 
 come in laden with hurt men. Every one of us in one form or 
 another has lost some one. All our men are on the field of 
 battle. All that we care for is there. With eyes and hearts 
 strained to the utmost we follow the news from the front. 
 To us to-day's news and to-morrow's is interpreted in individual 
 terms, in terms of the peril of our sons and brothers. 
 
 I tell you this only that you may understand what it all 
 means. Very soon— already it is beginning — you will know. 
 When the blows begin to fall perhaps some of you may ask 
 yourselves, as very likely others ask themselves — "Is it worth it?" 
 And the answer is without hesitation: — "Yes, worth it, and 
 worth doing again and again." It would not be worth it if we 
 were merely fighting for territory or for the aggrandizement of 
 one power over another, but it is worth it if we realize that we 
 are fighting for liberty and justice ! 
 
 This war is the challenge of brute force to justice! Liberty 
 is to be crushed by military depotism if Germany triumphs. If 
 we succeed, if you and we, the Allies, win the victory — as we 
 certainly shall— then justice and liberty will prevail. The cause 
 
GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WAR 43 
 
 for which we are fighting is becoming almost a religion with us. 
 In this faith of freedom our hearts and souls and last resources 
 are enhsted. Through this great conflict we hope, in your Presi- 
 dent's words, "to make the world safe for democracy," to in- 
 sure that justice shall be done as between nations, and to redeem 
 the world from the peril that now menaces it. 
 
 And I would beg of you as you go Torth that you remember 
 above all things this : — the message you are to deliver is one asking 
 the people to make sacrifices to uphold the banner of liberty. 
 Only by faith and sacrifice can the power of wrong be driven 
 underground and the power of right enthroned on high for all 
 to see shine forever in the world. 
 
THE LATIN-AMERICAN REPUBLICS, THE PAN 
 AMERICAN UNION 
 
 By John Barrett, 
 
 Director General of the Pan American Union 
 
 It was my privilege when I received my first appointment to 
 represent the XJnited States in a foreign land, under the admin- 
 istration of a great President, Grover Cleveland, and under in- 
 struction of Walter Q. Gresham, then Secretary of State, to be 
 told what he told every other Ambassador and Minister who 
 went out : "Don't you ever, under any circumstances, go into 
 any silent chancellory, and allow a misrepresentation of facts 
 about the United States. And if possible, do not ever allow a 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs of any country to which you are 
 accredited to lie to you or to misrepresent the facts. And 
 moreover I say to you what I have said to every Ambassador 
 from Mr. Bayard down, that when there may be difficulty be- 
 tween the government you represent, the United States, and 
 the one to which you are accredited, do not immediately swell 
 yourself out and say that because you are the Minister of the 
 United States you are right. Remember that that other country 
 has a side to the question. When any problem is at issue be- 
 tween you, and you have studied it from your standpoint as the 
 Foreign Minister of the United States — before you communicate 
 with the State Department — before you send us one of those 
 excited telegrams that you want a gunboat or a fleet of ships, 
 as so many Ministers do, and thus hurt our prestige abroad — 
 make yourself for the time being the Minister of Foreign Af- 
 fairs for that foreign country where you are, and conceive what 
 his argument may be. Then take the two arguments, yours as 
 representing your country and his as Minister of his land ; weigh 
 them carefully and when you have reached your decision, cable 
 the State Department and we will back you up to the limit." 
 
 That was the diplomacy that was initiated in those days in 
 the history of the United States, and we have been building upon 
 it until, to-day, no nation in the world has a more competent 
 diplomatic and consular service than has the United States. 
 
 44 
 
THE LATIN-AMERICAN REPUBLICS 45 
 
 This is the character of American diplomacy, and in the light of 
 that diplomacy I address you to-day. 
 
 I am here to invoke your interests in one of the greatest op- 
 portunities, one of the greatest responsibilities, that the United 
 States has ever known in all its history, namely, its relationship 
 to its sister American republics and its opportunity for the ex- 
 tension of its prestige, its influence and its commerce among 
 all those countries, to open a basis of perfect freedom and inde- 
 pendence of action, where every country small or great shall have 
 the same privileges as every other country has in the relationship 
 of nations. 
 
 We do not appreciate Latin-America. We do not realize 
 the mightiness of these countries, their immense future; but we 
 must do it, because the United States will live or die as they live 
 or die, and they will live or die according as we live or die. 
 The more you study the problem the more you are convinced 
 that the development of these Latin-American countries in a 
 perfect relationship with our own country is of the greatest im- 
 portance to our own land. 
 
 Yonder, ladies and gentlemen, across the street from this 
 Memorial Continental Hall, stands a building which is absolutely 
 unique among the buildings of the world, the Pan American 
 Union Building. It is the only building in the world in which 
 a great council of nations, the plenipotentiaries of a large group 
 of nations, regularly, officially or by international agreements, 
 right through the year, on specified dates, meet to study and 
 consider the intercourse, the commerce and the friendship of all, 
 and to preserve peace among them all. Think of it, the only 
 place in the world ! The Hague is an intermittent tribunal now 
 entirely out of commission. The Pan American Union is work- 
 ing day and night throughout the year. 
 
 Go into the Governing Board room there and you will see 
 a room that inspired Mr. Balfour, that inspired General Joffre, 
 and all others who have been there when they were told that 
 on the field Wednesday of every month, around that table, are 
 seated the highest representatives in Washington of all the Amer- 
 ican repubhcs, and of two hundred millions of people. If you 
 had been there on the first Wednesday of this month, you would 
 have seen seated around that international council table the Sec- 
 retary of State of the United States; just at his right that re- 
 markable and highly refined Ambassador of Brazil, Mr. Da 
 Gama; upon his left you would have seen the new Ambassador 
 from Chili, a great statesman of that country, Mr. Aldunate. 
 There you would have seen also the Minister of Bolivia, whom 
 I might call the "Grand Old Statesman," who has been here 
 
46 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 nearly twenty years, Mr. Calderon; and the new Ambassador 
 of Mexico, and so on, each according to his rank. And there 
 each one of them — the Ambassador of little Panama, and of 
 Salvador, have exactly the same authority, the same work as the 
 Secretary of State of the United States or the Ambassador 
 from Brazil. And there you would have seen them for two 
 hours discussing the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. 
 
 And this is the climax of results. Since the final stone of 
 that building was laid, and it was dedicated about eight years 
 ago in this month, or indeed since the corner stone was laid a 
 little more than ten years ago, there has been no war whatever 
 between any two American republics; and I myself have seen 
 the influences exerted around that table that have prevented 
 six international wars upon the Western Hemisphere! 
 
 One of the greatest of Englishmen, after looking at that table 
 and at a photograph of that Council in session, made this ob- 
 servation: "I cannot help thinking that had there existed in 
 London, or in Berlin, in Paris, or in Vienna, a Pan European 
 Union, an All European Union, constituted upon the same 
 basis as the Pan American Union in Washington, where every 
 month the plenipotentiaries of all the European countries would 
 have met together hand to hand to work out the issues between 
 them — I feel confident that this great struggle would have been 
 prevented." 
 
 Such is the building within a stone's throw of you that has 
 had this influence and that gives this inspiration. This whole 
 land should have an intimate acquaintance with it and with the 
 methods by which we build friendship and preserve peace among 
 the nations. 
 
 I invite you to come with me into the building. There I will 
 show you the practical workings of the Union. I will shew you 
 a staff of sixty or seventy experts in international trade, educa- 
 tion, friendship; picked men and women conducting a corre- 
 spondence of many hundred letters a day in every important 
 language. I will show you a library of fifty thousand volumes, 
 the best collection of up-to-date Americana in the world, in which 
 every government of the Western Hemisphere deposits two or 
 three copies of its official documents, and where all the books 
 written on Latin-America, descriptive and historical, are imme- 
 diately placed ; a library that has one hundred and sixty thousand 
 indexed cards where you can study any phase, every phrase 
 whatever of the history, the development and the productions 
 of these countries. 
 
 There you will find a collection of twenty-five thousand 
 photographs, illustrating every city, town and hamlet and every 
 
THE LATIN-AMERICAN REPUBLICS 4.7 
 
 variety of human being in these republics. You will find a mighty 
 raised map of Central and South America that will indicate to 
 you every mountain peak, valley and city, and the outlines of 
 every country. There are great diagrams showing the popula- 
 tion, relationship and area of all these countries; the population, 
 and exhibits of their principal products, and two thousand maps 
 illustrate the countries in detail. And finally if you want to 
 look upon the beautiful I will show you the building itself of 
 which one of the greatest French architects has said, "It combines 
 beauty of carved stone, nobility of expression and practical 
 usefulness in greater degree than any building in America and 
 possibly in the world." 
 
 Do you all fully understand the meaning of the term Pan 
 America? It simply means All America. It was called "Pan 
 America" instead of "All America" because the word "Pan," 
 meaning "All," is common to the Portuguese, Spanish and French 
 languages. So instead of saying "All America," which would 
 not be understood in Latin-America generally, we say "Pan 
 America." 
 
 Pan America in its geographical sense means everything from 
 the Arctic to the Anarctic. But politically, Pan America means 
 twenty-one independent republics of the Western Hemisphere 
 from the United States on the north to Chili and Argentine on 
 the south. I hope and believe that the day is not far distant 
 when Canada, by some such process as she may elect, will be- 
 come at least an honorary member of the Pan American Union. 
 We have a chair similar to the other chairs which carries the 
 inscription "Canada." We have the coat of arms of Canada in- 
 scribed on the chair. We have a bronze figure of Champlain, 
 who, when he was conducting his negotiations with the Indians, 
 had so much to do with the development of the northwestern 
 part of the United States and Canada. Perhaps that might 
 be one of the great developments of the war, for just before 
 the war began I took up this question with Premier Asquith, 
 the highest oificial of Great Britain and of Canada, and it was 
 looked kindly upon ; I hope that after the war we may have the 
 benefit of Canada's cooperation, and that Canada may have the 
 benefit of the cooperation of all of these Central and South 
 American countries and of the United States. 
 
 But politically then at the present Pan America omits Canada, 
 it omits the British and Foreign Offices of the West Indies, and 
 also the British, French and Dutch Guiana in South America. 
 Remember this distinction when you are considering this ques- 
 tion. "Pan Americanism" means that every American republic 
 joins with every other to work for their common good. Is 
 
48 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 not that the ideal foi; which we are all struggling In the 
 world ? 
 
 Again do not speak of this world to the south of us as 
 Spanish-America. That is a common error of teachers, lecturers 
 and writers. Unless you refer to the Spanish-speaking countries 
 only. But Brazil, which has a larger isolated direct area than 
 the United States, speaks Portuguese and is not in any sense a 
 part of Spanish-America. It is Portuguese-America. The more 
 correct term is Latin-America, which includes everything from 
 Cuba and Mexico south to ChiH and to the Argentine. 
 
 I hear frequently another error. In Washington some of 
 our most prominent women in society speak of these Latin- 
 Americans as Spanish. They say, "She is a Spanish girl," when 
 referring to a young woman from one of the South or Central 
 American countries. Now every Latin- American is just as jeal- 
 ous of his nationality in respect to his own country as is every 
 person in the United States jealous of his nationality in respect 
 to our country. Do not then call an Argentinian a Spaniard. Do 
 not call a BraziHan a Portuguese. Do not call a Mexican or a 
 Cuban a Spaniard. Not that it is not an honor to be a Spaniard, 
 but if you are an American you do not wish to be called a German 
 or even British. You are an American ! 
 
 We make another mistake about these countries when we lump 
 them all together. There is a greater difference between Central 
 America and South America than there is between France or 
 England and the Balkan States. There is far less in common 
 between the States of Latin America than between the most re- 
 mote states of Europe. Yet we lump them all together and 
 rather patronize them and fail to speak of them in respectful 
 terms. We must remember and avoid these things because we 
 will never get close to these peoples and win their confidence 
 and secure their following unless we treat them with intelligence 
 and with discrimination as we desire to be treated by all other 
 peoples. The Golden Rule is just as potent in constructive 
 statesmanship as it is in constructive fellowship among men 
 and women. 
 
 For what are foreign affairs after all. We begin with the 
 father and mother, the brother and sister, under one roof. That 
 is the beginning of social organization. Then follows a little 
 group of families ; then a little ward or community ; then we 
 progress to the town or city; then to the county, then to the 
 state, then to the nation ; and then to the group of nations. When, 
 for instance, you come to the relationship of Argentina and the 
 United States you have the same relationship as between you 
 and your sister and brother, nothing different whatever except 
 
THE LATIN-AMERICAN REPUBLICS 49 
 
 that nations are the ultimate organization of society while the 
 family is the beginning of it. 
 
 Let me take you for a bird's-eye view of these countries to 
 the south of us. How many of you realize that you could pick 
 up the whole of the United States from Maine to Texas, put 
 it down in Brazil and have room left for New York three or 
 four times over? How many of you realize that while the 
 vessels of the world can proceed only a few miles up the Mis- 
 sissippi from New Orleans, the same vessels can go two thou- 
 sand miles up the Amazon ? How many of you realize that the 
 Atlantic port of Peru is twenty-two hundred miles from the At- 
 lantic Ocean and is only seven hundred miles from the Pacific. 
 And yet at that port I have counted a score of vessels loaded 
 with rubber that would steam for six days through the heart of 
 the continent of Brazil before they got to the ocean on their 
 way to Liverpool or New York. There is a city up the Amazon 
 River and right under the equator with a hundred thousand 
 population, with churches and street car lines. Do you know that 
 Rio de Janeiro is on the most beautiful river in all the world, 
 that it contains one million, four hundred thousand people who 
 spent fifty million dollars to build an avenue through the heart 
 of the city, tearing down buildings more beautiful than any- 
 thing in Washington? In Uruguay, just below Brazil, is the city 
 of Montevidio with five hundred thousand people, cultured and 
 refined ; in Argentina, Buenos Aires is the first Spanish-speaking 
 city of the world, the second Latin city after Paris, ranking after 
 New York and Chicago with a population of two millions. 
 Buenos Aires has the finest opera house in the world, the finest 
 newspaper building and plant in all the world, the finest club 
 house in all the world, and the finest race track in all the world. 
 
 The average man always thinks of Chili as the home of 
 chili con came. If you were to pick up the country of Chili and 
 lay it down on the United States, its southern end at San Diego, 
 California, the northern end would go up through Oregon to the 
 heart of British Columbia. Nearly three thousand miles of 
 coast line has Chili in the south temperate zone directly south 
 from this house in which we are meeting to-day. San Diego has 
 a half million people ; in Bolivia we could put Texas three times 
 over; Peru would contain Texas twice; in Equador you could 
 put the States of Virginia and Maryland, or you could put these 
 states also into Colombia or Venezuela. You could put all of 
 Germany and all of France into these little nations that I have 
 mentioned. They have also their history. In Lima, Peru, for 
 instance is a university with one thousand students, which was 
 old before Yale or Harvard were founded. 
 
60 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 The relation of these countries to the war I am not discussing 
 to-day. Being an international officer, an officer of the neutral 
 countries as well as of the countries that are at war, I cannot 
 discuss the political situation except to make a statement of 
 facts. There are twenty Central and South American countries 
 and thirteen of these have broken off relations with the enemy 
 of the United States and of the Allies without having any treaties 
 which bind them to take this action, without any compulsion on 
 the part of the United States or indeed without any urging on 
 the part of our government. Three of them, Brazil, Cuba and 
 Panama, have declared war. Seven have remained neutral. It 
 is not for me to discuss that fact at all ; they are acting according 
 to their best motives, their best reasons; the United States and 
 the Allies must regard that as the situation and hope that the 
 problem will solve itself. 
 
 To-day these countries are passing through a marvelous de- 
 velopment. As yet they are practically untouched in their re- 
 sources, and after the war they will come into an economic and 
 commercial development, a political and an educational develop- 
 ment that will astound the world. They will draw many men 
 and much capital; they will demand the best of our commerce, 
 the best of our finance, the best of our political advice ; and they 
 will unroll a future that will make every one of us proud that 
 they are sister republics in a great union with ourselves. 
 
 There is a fine sentiment for you to remember as a reason 
 why you should think of these countries with a degree of ob- 
 ligation. The peoples of these countries are men and women 
 like you. They have thoughts and minds like yours. They want 
 to benefit by our advice, they want our help and cooperation. 
 They want to love us if we will love them in return, and are 
 holding out the hand of friendship. Every one of these coun- 
 tries, every republic from Cuba and Mexico, on to the south, 
 wrote its declaration of independence modeled after our Declara- 
 tion of Independence ; every nation wrote its constitution modeled 
 upon the Constitution of the United States ; and every republic 
 gained its independence through the leadership of generals and 
 patriots who in their own histories, in their own biographies, 
 tell you that they, the George Washingtons of the Central and 
 South American countries, were inspired to make the struggle 
 for liberty — not for the example of a Csesar, a Hannibal or a 
 Napoleon, but every one from Bolivia on the north to San Martin 
 on the south was inspired to fight for liberty by the example of 
 our own immortal George Washington. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF CANADA AND THE 
 UNITED STATES 
 
 By Mrs. Peter D. Crerar, 
 of Hamilton, Ontario, Dominion of Canada 
 
 You will wonder why an old lady from Canada should be 
 called upon to speak to you this afternoon. But I have got a 
 message, a message which you can voice; you will be mouth- 
 pieces of this story that I have got to tell. Do you see that 
 yellow telegram? That is my entrance card into your meeting 
 this afternoon. That's the text that I will read to you, a tele- 
 gram that I received last Friday : 
 
 "Sincerely regret to inform you Lieutenant Allister John 
 Crerar, cavalry official, reported admitted second Red Cross hos- 
 pital Rouen, France; wounded in leg; severe. 
 
 (Signed) Director of Records." 
 
 Now, like all the mothers of the States, when we send our 
 boys out, we have to face just what came to me last Friday 
 afternoon. We mothers in Canada have looked after our sons 
 up to the time of this dreadful war as carefully, as prayerfully, 
 as hopefully, as you have looked after yoUr fine boys on this side 
 of the line. Particularly has it been the case, I believe, with 
 the sons of widows, like myself, for without their fathers to 
 guide them we have felt that they were under the special guid- 
 ance of God. God and mothers look after the sons of widows. 
 We are promised that "the sons of the fathers" shall be pro- 
 vided for. 
 
 Consequently, I brought up my fine sons, three of them, and 
 gloried in them ; but war came, and in 1914 the eldest boy went. 
 The second day after war was announced he said to me, "Mother, 
 I am in the militia ; I am a lieutenant in the artillery, and I must 
 go!" I said, "Surely; surely, my son; God will be with you. 
 Go !" And I stood on the top of the steps in my big house, and 
 I said, "Au revoir, Harry. Come back as good as you go." 
 "I will, mother!" 
 
 The next year, 191 5, Allister, who lies wounded in Rouen 
 
 51 
 
52 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 hospital, passed through the mihtary academy course, and I 
 saw him off with my blessing. 
 
 The third year, Malcolm, aged eighteen, just through his 
 Royal Military College course, kissed me and said, "Mother, 
 never be afraid!" and I said, "No." "Keep smiling, mother!" 
 "Yes, my son; I will keep smiling!" And the third son went. 
 
 Now, there is a place, gentlemen, ladies, where mothers can 
 not follow their sons. Mothers can not follow their sons to 
 war. Consequently, I have been cut out. But who has been 
 the mother to my sons in sickness "over there"? Why, people, 
 the Red Cross ! God is with them always, as he was in Canada 
 in our quiet home life. But I was of no use for the first time 
 in my life. I couldn't nurse my boys back to health. I had 
 to hand them over, and nobly and magnificently the Red Cross 
 have come to my rescue just as they will come to the aid of 
 every one of you American people that send your boys. 
 
 Plead, as you go on every platform through this United 
 States what I say, that the Red Cross is the mother of your 
 men, when they are away from their mothers. They look after 
 them in sickness. Look at this. Four days after that boy was 
 wounded in the leg I got full particulars. I have full confi- 
 dence that Allister will be out of it for the next five or six 
 months, and I thank God that he is in a Red Cross hospital! 
 He lies between clean sheets ; he has skillful doctors ; he has 
 trained nurses ; he has care and comfort of every kind. My 
 boy is looked after probably by many of the people that you 
 folks send, and right here I want to tell — I would like to shake 
 the hands of everybody — to say how glad I am your Red Cross 
 has helped the British Red Cross this last week so magnificently. 
 You have done well. You have done well, and you are going 
 to do better. That is what all this roomful of lecturers are 
 going out to say — "Well, we have done very well so far, but we 
 have to do better !" 
 
 And then, you know, the sort of feeling that I have with this 
 yellow telegram as my text, prompts me to tell you for a minute 
 of another yellow telegram that came to me on the third of 
 August last year: 
 
 "Regret to report Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Crerar died in 
 Red Cross hospital just behind Ceazy from an accidental fall." 
 
 His machine was up three hundred feet and something went 
 wrong. I will find out some time why "something went wrong" 
 virith the machine, and caused him to fall. The Red Cross hos- 
 pital for the three short hours that my baby lived cared for him. 
 
SPIRIT OF CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES 53 
 
 The Red Cross hospital saw that he was decently laid out for 
 interment. The chaplain wrote that he was buried. The Red 
 Cross office sent me a photograph of his grave and the position 
 in the cemetery. The Red Cross looked after him when mother 
 couldn't. 
 
 Now, please tell that story. You will be facing here in 
 America in the next few years just what we in Canada faced 
 nearly four years ago, and you will be living through just what I 
 lived through these few years, and you will come at the end 
 of it to feel that there is nothing in this world that is too big 
 to give to help the Red Cross help your boys. Do you get that — 
 to help the Red Cross help your boys ; because that is what it 
 means; and if you get that over to the people in the States 
 with your big hearts and your magnificent enthusiasm, I be- 
 lieve that you will make the most wonderful offerings that ever 
 have been made since this old globe was sent hurling through 
 space. I believe it, people ; I am sure of it ; and I am very, very 
 proud that I have been asked to tell you to-day what we in Canada 
 think of the Red Cross and to tell you at the same time how 
 grateful we are for the help you have already given and to ask 
 you in a very greedy sort of way, you will say, please to go on 
 helping us and helping the Red Cross ! 
 
 Now having made you see why I came here, I am going to 
 tell you a few little things about what Canada has done in this 
 last time of trial, and what you will, all of you, have to face in 
 a short time. The town I live in is Hamilton, Ontario. It was 
 chiefly founded, I beheve, by Scotch people. It is a quiet, com- 
 fortable city of about one hundred thousand inhabitants, and 
 from that little quiet Canadian city the best blood has gone, and 
 we have sent an average of seventy per cent, of our men — seven 
 men to every ten have gone. Now, if you can imagine what 
 Hamilton is now to what it was when my boys ran about the 
 streets, you can gain some conception of what I am trying to tell 
 you. It has old men, it has wounded soldiers — about ten to a 
 block, as you walk down the city streets. It has hospitals full. 
 But it has not lost its courage ! They say per capita Hamilton — 
 perhaps now you will say — "Isn't that just a bit of brag?" but I 
 will ask you to go to the statistics, and you will find that per 
 capita Hamilton has given more men, more money, than any 
 town in Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and it is pre- 
 pared to do more, and it will! 
 
 Now, you will find at the end of a short time that your men 
 begin to come back. I found my last boy was going, the other 
 two had gone, and I had a big house, and I thought to myself, 
 "Well, now, this is very selfish of me, an old lady, with all my 
 
64. THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 servants here in this big house, and the boys won't need it for 
 some time yet perhaps ; I will give it up to the returned soldiers 
 of Hamilton." And I opened the large drawing rooms, running 
 all the way down the house, nearly as long as this room, and in 
 these two years and seven months I have had the pleasure of 
 entertaining one hundred and fifty-two returned Hamilton sol- 
 diers. These are all convalescent soldiers who are so maimed that 
 they will not be able to go back to the front, for the Canadians 
 have convalescent hospitals in England where they send those 
 men who with care for a few months can return and stand up 
 once more against the unspeakable Huns. 
 
 Thousands of them have gone back, but those who, through 
 dreadful injuries, through gas, shock, or through any attack like 
 heart trouble, will not be taken back to the front in France, 
 they weed out and send back to Canada; and it is those cases, 
 the convalescent cases, not the hopelessly ill, but the convalescent 
 cases that I have been able to look after in my "Dunedin Home 
 for Convalescent Soldiers." 
 
 If I could only give you a picture of those boys, the women 
 in the United States would not be so frightened to let their sons 
 go across. For two years and seven months I have lived with 
 real heroes, though they were only private soldiers ! — real heroes ! 
 No tales of Greece, no tales of ancient valor, sung by poet 
 or told in story, can match the tales that these men have told 
 me, often with a funny little slang trend to it that just grips 
 you, that you know is the truth. Some of the tales have been 
 so horrible that I couldn't tell them to a mixed audience. I tell 
 them sometimes to people who can stand them; but there are 
 a great many other tales which I think I might perhaps give you 
 an idea of. 
 
 You have heard it said that there have been exaggerations 
 in the tales of the atrocities in Belgium. Now, I want to put 
 you in the place of a little cockney that lived for seven months 
 with me, very badly hurt. He had twenty-seven wounds in his 
 body. The doctor said to him when he was brought in, "li 
 you had had twenty-eight, my good man, you would have died !" 
 And he said, "I only had twenty-seven, you see, mamma, and 
 so I am alive !" But those poor twisted legs ! A shrapnel shell 
 burst in front of him and he had what they call multiple wounds. 
 He was telHng me one day that just before he went up to the 
 front, he was standing guard at the exit to a village in Belgium, 
 acting as a sort of policeman in this village, and he said, "I got 
 an awful scare, mamma, the first night, for out of the convent 
 at the end of the street there came the saddest procession I 
 ever saw. I thought it was a procession of ghosts." And I 
 
SPIRIT OF CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES 55 
 
 asked, "What did it look like?" He replied, "Well, there came 
 first about nine little children. They were the whitest, palest, 
 most sickly looking little ones I ever saw, and when they got 
 close up to me their poor little hands were just wound up in 
 white cloth. Each of them had a hand cut off. Some of them 
 looked as if both of them were cut off. The trigger finger of the 
 boys was cut off, so they could never fight. The little boys and 
 girls walked with nuns beside them, who had black veils over 
 their faces; and then followed the girls they had rescued, for 
 the Germans had passed through there." He said there could 
 not have been anything sadder. He said, "It made my blood 
 run cold to look at them, those white faces, and on these nights, 
 mamma, whenever I was on duty, we used to see this procession 
 of ghosts come out of the convent and go across down the road 
 in the darkness. They were not fit to face the light, after the 
 Germans had done with them." And that was a man who stood 
 there leaning on his rifle and saw them pass and told it to me 
 in his illiterate way. I am trying to give you the picture. They 
 were so dreadful that they were not allowed out in the daytime. 
 The nuns took them out at night. They took a certain round in 
 the environs of the village and came back, and the convent door 
 closed, and they went in. That is a little story of one man that 
 came back to Dunedin. 
 
 They told, of course, funny stories also. I do not know that 
 I feel very funny this afternoon. I do not think I can tell you 
 funny stories until after the war is over, and then I will be able to 
 tell you all sorts of funny stories, about what the Dutchman did 
 against the Irishman, and the Irishman against the Scotchman, 
 and all those kind of everlasting stories, which, as you know, 
 would live very vitally in a trench, where you have all sorts of 
 people alongside of you, like a lot of boys having a game to 
 keep things going. But we will have to learn the funny stories 
 after it is all over, because as I look down at this crowd of 
 people I have a sort of feeling as though I were putting ammuni- 
 tion into the breech of a gun for you all to fire ! 
 
 Believe me, that remark of John Oxman was the truest re- 
 mark in the world. John Oxman says, "The white fire of a great 
 enthusiasm is the strongest motive power in the world." He 
 strikes out electricity, which we always count as our big thing. 
 A great enthusiasm must be your white fire, and it will carry 
 you very far; it will carry you into the very hearts of the 
 audiences you are going to talk to; but you must have it first. 
 Believe me, if you go out half-heartedly, and if you do not take 
 plenty of the kind of ammunition that I am loading in your can- 
 nons this afternoon, your story won't have the impression that 
 
56 THE WORLD AT WAR 
 
 you all desire that it should have. And that is what I wan? you to 
 feel, that you are all mouthpieces, and you are perhaps the best 
 speakers that have been gathered here from all your states in 
 order to spread a story, and it depends upon you how that story 
 will take and what the result will be. You are the leaders of 
 that as long as you are able to hold the interest of the people in 
 the states to which you are going, and believe me there can be 
 nothing so vital in this April of 1918 as to get the American 
 people to realize the wonderful and the magnificent things they 
 are going to do. You are like children standing on the brink 
 of a stream; you are putting your foot in, and it's a bit cold, 
 and you do not like it. Now, people, tell them to plunge in. 
 Plunge in; be brave; be sure; be sure of the righteousness of 
 your cause, and nothing can hold you back. 
 
 Nothing has ever been gained in this world except through 
 sacrifice, except through giving up ; nothing from the sacrifice of 
 our Lord upon the Cross, right down to the sacrifice of the wife 
 of the youngest and poorest private that gives up her man. Do 
 not forget that sacrifice is the only way. We have found it in 
 Canada; we are bearing it; and through it all, believe me, there 
 comes the blessing that comes to all those who sacrifice, that 
 curious uplifting of the soul which only comes in that one way. 
 Pleasure does not give it to you ; financial success does not give 
 it to you; nothing gives it to you except that feeling in your 
 own soul that you have taken the right step, and that you are 
 doing it, and that you do not min^'ii all the angels of Heaven 
 are looking down upon yt)U"ifrtTie day you step out. That is 
 the only thing you must inspire America with, and if you do that, 
 believe me, my friends and cousin's of this great country, at the 
 end you will gain what we have already gained in Canada, a 
 deeper religion, a more profound faith that at the end all will 
 be well, and like us you will attain gradually "unto that peace 
 of God which passeth all understanding." 
 
II: THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 Prooerty of the 
 FORESTRY CLUB 
 Do not remove from, the rooFr 
 
II: THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 WASHINGTON IN WAR TIME 
 
 By Louis Browklow, 
 Commissioner of the District of Columbia 
 
 I WISH that all of the people of our country could know the 
 history of Washington. In the first place, Washington has al- 
 ways been distinct from other American cities — from other cap- 
 ital cities — always has been a city unique. 
 
 What has usually happened at this season of the year before 
 the war came upon us? Why, at this season of the year I 
 always knew that spring had come by the fact that the China- 
 berry trees in Rock Creek Park are breaking into bloom, and 
 it was always most enjoyable to walk through the other beauti- 
 ful parks of the city and to observe the magnolia trees and some 
 of the early fruit trees in full and beautiful blossom. Every 
 day I used to enjoy driving in Potomac Park, and to see the young 
 trees putting out their new, green foliage. I knew that it would be 
 only a little later when the dogwood trees would begin to bloom 
 in the ravine at Washington Park. Those were the things 
 with which, in the springtime, we of Washington charged our 
 minds. And at this season of the year, it was in these China- 
 berry trees, and the beautiful magnolia blossoms and the dog- 
 wood blossoming in the ravine at Rock Creek Park, that we 
 Washingtonians gloried to the utmost. 
 
 But now in the place of the green parks that abound in this 
 beautiful city, and particularly in that section of Washington 
 known as a part of the Mall, lying to the south along Seven- 
 teenth Street, where the green grass and the foliage of the trees 
 were apt to attract our attention in the early springtime, there 
 are now great white granite buildings and white marble build- 
 ings, housing the Red Cross, and the other temporary buildings 
 given over to the several departments of the government, and 
 near at hand is to be seen the beautiful white marble building 
 
 59 
 
60 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 of the Pan American Union, a permanent structure. How jeal- 
 ous have we been in the past lest anything encroach upon the 
 beautiful view of the park and the beautiful Pan American build- 
 ing as things of beauty. And just a few years ago all these 
 remained in undisturbed possession of that beautiful section of 
 the city, things we must not abandon to the encroachment of 
 business, or trade or traffic. Above everything else, Washington, 
 the Nation's capital, must be beautiful! 
 
 Three or four years ago I did not like to go to New York 
 City. I was a Washingtonian in heart and soul. But now all is 
 changed and I find myself at the head of the city government, 
 a municipality that has some city laws that would make the 
 most hardened New Yorker tremble with fear! 
 
 The things that trouble us most now are how can we get the 
 war work of the government accomplished in the best and quickest 
 possible way? How can we get our temporary office buildings 
 into position ready for use as quickly as possible? What we 
 need just now are buildings to house our war workers in. In- 
 deed we have forgotten our old ways; for a little while the 
 "city beautiful" idea is neglected, and we are devoting all our 
 attention to providing places in which the work of the govern- 
 ment can be carried on and in which to house the government 
 clerks. 
 
 On five different occasions Washington has been the center 
 of war activities. The first time, the city was a struggling little 
 village in a mud-hole, almost impassable, for the mud was deep 
 and sticky in our streets, from the Capitol, which was finished, 
 to the White House, which was but partly completed. Most 
 of the members of Congress had to live in Georgetown, where 
 there were a few boarding houses. One particular building 
 there is a very interesting and historical place — Washington's old- 
 est boarding house of which we have any record. It was opened 
 as a boarding house one hundred years ago. Mr. Jefferson was 
 the first boarder there, and with the exception of three or four 
 years during the Civil War, when it was used by the Union 
 forces for storing ordnance materials, it has been in continuous 
 operation, and, I understand, is now enjoying the most prosperous 
 period of its entire existence ! 
 
 At the outset it was thought by the founders of Washington 
 that the city would proceed eastward from the Capitol building, 
 and the city was laid out with that thought in view. But con- 
 trary to the views of the founders, the progress of the city has 
 been westward from the Capitol, and the Capitol therefore faces 
 a less popular section of the city than that which lies at its 
 
WASHINGTON IN WAR TIME 61 
 
 backdoor. Many of the original buildings of Washington still 
 remain. The Capitol has received some additions, and the White 
 House is not quite the same as it was in the early days of the 
 Republic, because, as you know, the British landed within the 
 confines of our city and succeeded in burning the White House 
 and the Capitol. But these were mere incidents in those early 
 and stirring days. The independence of the world itself was 
 only an experiment, and it was very doubtful whether democracy 
 then should triumph. It was receiving its baptism of fire on the 
 shores of this new world. 
 
 The next war was conducted far to the southwest, in Texas 
 and in Mexico. Most of the troops that were in that war were 
 recruited in the southern and western states. Washington saw 
 very little of the activity in connection with that war. At that 
 time we had built palatial hotels in the city. The first telegraph 
 office had been opened up just a year before, and the overgrown 
 country village was beginning to look like a real city in some 
 respects. The war, however, affected Washington but very 
 little, as I mentioned before. 
 
 The next war was a great struggle between the states. It 
 found Washington an unpaved, struggling town of about sixty 
 thousand people. It was not the beautiful city that you have 
 here now, but it immediately became the center of importance, the 
 heart of the Union. It became for the first time the capital in 
 fact as well as in name, and when, the day after Sumter was 
 fired on and the Federal flag floated over the capitol with a new 
 significance, for the first time the people of the north began to 
 see in Washington something more than a mere meeting place 
 for the administration and Congress. And the great defensive 
 was built up here before the time later on, in July 1864, when 
 the Confederate army penetrated the city, and was in the out- 
 skirts of the city — but you can see the bullet holes that were 
 made on that occasion. 
 
 The Civil War left Washington with an increase in popula- 
 tion of some forty thousand people. The city had grown from 
 forty thousand when Lincoln came here to a hundred thousand 
 before the close of the war, a sixty per cent, increase. Increas- 
 ing in population to the extent of forty thousand people, it was 
 impossible to get anything done here by local procedure, with- 
 out warrant of law. So in order to make room for the in- 
 creased population, they tore down houses and cut down banks, 
 to make streets through high banks, and paved the city, and 
 paved it with bad paving material, and it became necessary to 
 pave it over again the next year, and again, also, the next year, 
 perhaps, and contractors made enormous profits, and there was 
 
62 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 great scandal, and Governor Sheppard of the District of Columbia 
 escaped in exile to Mexico, but lived to be recalled and to be paid 
 honors at the hands of the residents of the city, and his statue 
 now stands in front of the Municipal Building. 
 
 It took a surgical operation to bring Washington, a struggling 
 village, back to the plane of a magnificent capital, which was 
 laid down in the first instance by General Washington and Mr. 
 Jeflferson, and Major L'Enfant. Since that time, Washington 
 has been a city, and since that time Washington, as I indicated 
 a while ago, has more or less affected the beautiful, and it should 
 have done it, because in the beginning it was designed to be a 
 beautiful city. 
 
 And I believe that every one of the one hundred and ten mil- 
 lions of Americans wish Washington to be a beautiful city. I 
 do not believe there is an American taxpayer who begrudges the 
 five cents each that is bestowed upon that beautification of his 
 capital, because this is not our town; this is your town. Wash- 
 ington is not a city of the people who live here; it is the city 
 of all of our people, and it is so regarded, I believe. 
 
 But now it is not beauty, it is not city planning, it is not 
 architecture alone, it is not a park system. It's war, war and 
 only war that confronts Washington. We have before us at the 
 present time the greatest problem that ever was faced by any 
 city in all the history of the human race. London is a city of 
 seven million people, the largest city in the world. It is the cap- 
 ital of a nation of forty-five millions of people, and London has 
 not been able, with the facilities that existed at the beginning 
 of the war, to take care of the war work of Great Britain. Ber- 
 lin had a population of about three million when the war began, — 
 the capital of a country of sixty-five or seventy millions of people, 
 and Berlin, with the facilities that it had at the beginning of the 
 war, was not able to carry on the war work of the German Em- 
 pire. So with Paris ; so with Vienna ; so with Petrograd. But 
 here we are a nation of a hundred and ten millions of people, 
 backed by greater resources per capita than are possessed by 
 the people of any of the other belligerent nations, and here we 
 are a little city of three hundred and fifty thousand only, and 
 we have to carry on the job of conducting the war shop for this 
 more than one hundred millions of people ! That is why I say 
 we have the greatest municipal problem ever faced by any city. 
 You would think that London, with seven millions of people, 
 perhaps not ideally housed, but certainly housed, you would think 
 that when that city lost hundreds of thousands of men that went 
 to the front, thousands and thousands of women who left the 
 city and went to the land, or went to the munition factories in 
 
WASHINGTON IN WAR TIME 63 
 
 the country, that London would not have a housing problem for 
 her clerks, but she has. The war so intensified the life of the 
 great British metropolis, the war so interfered with and so con- 
 gested the street transportation system, that London had to pro- 
 vide temporary housing facilities for no less than forty thou- 
 sand of her clerks in the war and admiralty offices, and built 
 those temporary houses, those dormitories and barracks, in St. 
 James Park and in Green Park, right between the War Office at 
 Whitehall and Buckingham Palace. We have not done anything 
 of the kind yet. Because there was so much to do in building 
 for the war offices here, we have not got to the temporary hous- 
 ing yet, although the problem is well under way, and we will 
 take care of these people within the next few months. 
 
 We had, just a year ago at the beginning of the war, a popu- 
 lation of 360,000 people. We now have a population of 450,000 
 people. We have grown 90,000 in twelve months, and I estimate 
 that if the war shall continue we shall increase at least another 
 90,000 in the next twelve months. That means it is hard to get 
 any place to sleep; it means it's hard to get anybody over the 
 telephone ; it means that it is impossible almost to get a seat on 
 the street car; it means that it will be difficult to get enough 
 water next summer; it means it is difficult to take care of the 
 health situation; it means that it is difficult to take care of the 
 garbage; it means that it is difficult to take care of the details 
 of possible fire menace, — and all the thousand and one things 
 that enter into the great problem of municipal housekeeping; but 
 we are not doing it for ourselves ; we are doing it for the coun- 
 try, we are doing it for you ; and we who live here are willing 
 and glad to suffer privation, to put up with inconvenience, and 
 to bring ourselves every hour of every day to the conscious un- 
 derstanding of the fact that our main business here is taking 
 care of the great central power plant of the war machine. In so 
 far as we in our daily life can do anything to assist the govern- 
 ment in carrying on the war, we feel that our efforts are well 
 worth while, and that we are not in the way in Washington. In 
 so far as we do not assist the work of that government, we are 
 merely hangers-on and lingerers, and the quicker we go some- 
 where else the better it will be for all of us. 
 
 Ninety thousand people have come in, I think, since the first 
 of the war. That was actually determined by a very careful 
 census taken in the first of November, and the increase then was 
 discovered to be fifty thousand. That did not take into account 
 the transients living in hotels who were not Hving within the 
 census, nor did it take into account some thousands of young 
 men who were at the camps within the city, — the American Uni- 
 
64 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 versity Engineering Training Camp, Camp Meigs, the Engineers' 
 Camp at Washington Barracks. It did not take into account some 
 thousands of young men in uniform, soldiers and sailors and 
 marines, who are living within the city. Since that census was 
 taken, the government has employed clerical assistance at the rate 
 of about eight thousand per month, and for every eight clerks 
 who come in at least two other persons are demanded. So I 
 believe that my calculation of ninety thousand increase for the 
 first year of the war, which does include the men in uniform, 
 because they are here in the city, and to a certain extent are a 
 part of the municipal life, — I am sure that that is conservative 
 rather than otherwise. 
 
 As long ago as last May I began to appeal to people to open 
 their houses to war workers. The first group to whom I made 
 the appeal were the pastors of the churches. Within a month 
 after war began I had a meeting of all of the pastors of the 
 churches of the city, Catholic, Protestant, Jews, and asked them 
 to appeal to their people, to people who never dreamed of taking 
 in lodgers, to open up their homes. The response to that appeal 
 was very good indeed. It has been followed by appeal after 
 appeal ; it has been followed by house to house canvass ; it has 
 been followed by other meetings, and the house to house canvass- 
 ing again resorted to : so that as to the housing facilities here in 
 Washington, — the sponge now takes up another drop of water 
 most reluctantly. We have almost reached a point of complete 
 saturation. We can house only a few more people here in the 
 houses already built. 
 
 And when it comes to building new houses it is difficult any- 
 where, but especially difficult here, because the government needs 
 so much building material for the buildings it is erecting that 
 it is almost impossible for the private builders to get any mate- 
 rial. Take for instance this new Washington Hotel in which we 
 are meeting to-day. It's many weeks overdue. It should have 
 been finished weeks ago, but we not only had the difficulty of 
 freight embargo, but the terrible blizzard last winter, and I re- 
 member on one occasion at least during the very bad cold weather 
 when the work on this building would have ceased completely 
 if I had not loaned the private contractors who were erecting this 
 building all the building sand that the municipality happened to 
 possess, which was at that time ninety cubic yards. It is im- 
 possible to get material to build new houses with, and if we had 
 the material it is almost impossible to get the labor ! 
 
 However, the conditions this year and the conditions so far 
 as housing are concerned that obtain in a great many industrial 
 cities where war work is being carried on are to be met by a 
 
WASHINGTON IN WAR TIME 65 
 
 measure which already has passed the House of Representatives, 
 is now pending in the Senate, and I believe the members of the 
 committee will pass it. It carries an initial authorization of some 
 sixty million dollars for housing, fifty million dollars to be spent 
 in housing the employees of industrial plants engaged in war work 
 all the way from Maine to California, and ten millions of dollars 
 for the war workers who are coming to Washington. 
 
 It is a very different problem. The mechanic whom you want 
 to go to your plant in Maine or Oregon has his family, and he 
 wants to take his family with him, and you must provide family 
 houses. We do not want any families coming to Washington, nor 
 women coming to Washington. All we want is thirty thousand 
 unattached girls who are coming here in the next twelve months. 
 The thirty thousand is not a figure of speech ; the thirty thousand 
 is about eighteen hundred less than the actual number as esti- 
 mated by the chief clerks of the various departments. We are 
 expecting twelve thousand girls here between now and the first 
 of July, twelve thousand girls between now and the last of June, 
 the end of this fiscal year. What are we going to do with them? 
 That's what we have to figure out. We have got to build homes 
 for them, and, as I say, this measure has not passed Congress 
 yet, but I believe I know something of the ideas of those charged 
 with this work. That is, we are going to build huge dormitories, 
 great Y. W. C. A. buildings, probably not under the direct aus- 
 pices of the Y. W. C. A., but I use that as a figure of speech 
 which you will all understand. Those buildings will give each 
 girl a comfortable room, the privacy that is necessary and de- 
 sirable, buildings where they are going to have recreation rooms, 
 gymnasiums, places to receive their friends and callers, places 
 for games, for dancing, for all of the things necessary to keep 
 the patriotic girls happy and contented. We are going to make 
 arrangements at the same time to get them food that will be 
 sanitary, wholesome, and at not exorbitant prices. We have got 
 to do it, because the girls who come here to do the clerical work, 
 the ten, fifteen, twenty thousand that already have come, the 
 thirty thousand that are coming here shortly, are just as neces- 
 sary to winning the war as the men that we are raising and send- 
 ing over seas to Flan3ers. We have got to take care of them, and 
 we are going to do it, and the girl anywhere in the country 
 who wants to do her part, who would come here, who is com- 
 petent to do it, who wants to come here and carry her share 
 of the burden of conducting this great central war machine, will 
 be well taken care of by the city and the people of the national 
 capital. 
 
 I do not know hardly what to say about the war machine it- 
 
66 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 self. I am looking at the thing as you see, only from the munic- 
 ipal angle. What I see in it personally is that it's extremely diffi- 
 cult to police a town that has grown ninety thousand, from three 
 hundred and sixty thousand to four hundred and fifty thousand, 
 in a year, extremely difficult to police that when you have ninety 
 vacancies on your police force ! 
 
 What I see mostly about the building of the enormous tem- 
 porary buildings, such as you see in the rear of the building 
 where you had your meetings yesterday, such as you see at Sixth 
 and B Streets on the site of the old Pennsylvania station, acres, 
 tens of acres, hundreds of acres of these huge temporary wooden 
 buildings have gone up, and it's my job to keep them from burn- 
 ing up, — with thirty vacancies on the fire department! 
 
 Years and years ago, — you know Washington always had the 
 habit of starting out by a system of over preparation, — Mr. Jef- 
 ferson and Major L'Enfant laid out a city here. We have not 
 begun to live up to their plan yet. You could take care of two 
 millions of people on the original plan of Washington if people 
 lived as crowded as they did in the days when that plan was 
 made. We always over prepared. Some sixty years ago, Mr. 
 Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was Secretary of War, and he 
 decided that Washington needed a more adequate water supply; 
 so he, as Secretary of War, got through Congress, and with the 
 assistance of General Meigs as Quartermaster General, built an 
 aqueduct which takes in water just above Great Falls of the Po- 
 tomac, and brings it to Washington. He was most severely criti- 
 cized for building an aqueduct that would take care of a city, in 
 the way people then used water, many, many times as large as 
 Washington was then. But we have been thinking it was all 
 right, that Mr. Davis knew what he was doing, and that we have 
 plenty of water. We had an aqueduct with a capacity of ninety 
 million gallons a day and a consumption of sixty million, and we 
 had a safe margin ; but since this war started our consumption 
 has gone up to eighty-eight million, not regularly, but on some 
 days, — up to within two million gallons a day of the capacity of 
 that aqueduct. We are going to have a hard time getting water. 
 The new concrete buildings that are building down on Potomac 
 Park for the offices of the War and the Navy Department, — for 
 the first time we have had to refuse them water, so they have 
 had to put in a pumping station to bring the water necessary 
 for consumption purposes up from the river itself. 
 
 It is awfully hard to keep up with the procession, with water 
 mains, with the sewers, with the fire department, with the police, 
 so that even when we look at the war problem only from the 
 angle of municipal functions, of the District Government, we 
 
WASHINGTON IN WAR TIME 67 
 
 have a tremendous job. But this is what we are going to do. 
 Where the city of seven million has carried on the work for a 
 nation of forty-five million, we, a city of three hundred and fifty 
 thousand, intend to do it adequately and sufficiently for a nation 
 of one hundred and ten million! If it is possible by as much 
 physical work as may be given, by as much mental work as our 
 capacities shall permit, and by a devotion absolute and entire, 
 we who are now in charge of your national capital intend that 
 your national capital shall live up to the obligations imposed upon 
 it by this, its greatest crisis. 
 
WHY CONGRESS DECLARED WAR 
 
 By Simeon D. Fess, 
 Member of the House of Representatives from Ohio 
 
 ( Just as soon as we found that Great Britain was going to be 
 involved in the war, we knew that it would extend to the open 
 sea, and in that case it was inevitable, almost, that the United 
 States would be involved, either in controversy or in actual strug- 
 gled At first, you will remember, there was an attempt of leading 
 «OTmtries to confine the war between the two original disputants, 
 Austria and Serbia. It was not long until the world saw that 
 was impossible. Later on it was attempted to confine it to a 
 certain region in Europe ; to limit belligerent territory. We soon 
 discovered there was no hope in that. When, as I said before, we 
 learned that Great Britain would be involved, we saw instantly 
 the grave possibilities, because the struggle would be between the 
 greatest military power of the world and the greatest naval power 
 of the world, and it would be a real fight when viewed from a 
 military standpoint between, as was originally stated, militarism 
 on the one side and navalism on the other, which has become 
 autocracy on one side and democracy on the other. That assured 
 us that the area of the war would extend to the open sea. Our 
 nation has been for decades coming to the position of a world 
 power, which must mean she is looking to the sea. No country 
 can become a world power that does not become a power on 
 the sea. Our country has been growing as a power on the sea 
 for a half century, and realizing that the open sea would likely 
 be an arena of warfare, and we having rights on the sea which 
 must not only be respected, but which must grow, it was our duty 
 to ascertain whether we could induce the belligerent countries to 
 agree upon a mode of naval warfare, that is, warfare that reaches 
 the sea, as neutral and belligerent rights have never been free of 
 doubt. Consequently, our nation addressed a simultaneous note 
 to all the belligerent powers immediately upon the outbreak of 
 war and asked them if they would agree to adopt the Declaration 
 of London, the result of a conference in 1909, five years before 
 this war opened, and accept that conference's report as the mode 
 
 68 
 
WHY CONGRESS DECLARED WAR 69 
 
 of warfare on the high seas. Unfortunately, for us, and the 
 world, the countries would not agree to it. In due time we sent 
 a second note and asked them if they would agree to certain 
 specific limitations of warfare on the seas so as to avoid any 
 ambiguity or misunderstanding whatever as to rights of the bel- 
 ligerents on the one hand and neutrals on the other. Our spe- 
 cific notes were very clearly stated, free of any ambiguity what- 
 ever. 
 
 First, that no belligerent country would sow the open seas 
 with floating mines. Second, that where belligerent countries 
 have a right to plant stationary mines along the coast, only such 
 stationary mines as would cease to be dangerous if broken away 
 from their moorings should be planted. And, third, that no bel- 
 ligerent should use the submarine except under the restrictions 
 of international law. 
 
 Those are the three, easily remembered. Unfortunately for 
 us, and I think for all the world, the nations did not see their 
 way clear to accept them. Having failed twice to induce the 
 belligerent powers to agree upon a stated warfare in limitation 
 on the seas, we did the only thing that was left us, or that any 
 nation could do. We withdrew formally both of these requests 
 and announced to all the world that we would now take our 
 stand on international law as it is written and as it has been prac- 
 ticed by all nations, including those at war, and we would hold 
 every nation to a rigid respect of that law, as interpreted in rule 
 and practice. That meant that of course we ourselves could not 
 violate it, nor even modify it in time of war without the consent 
 of all the parties in interest. That put an obligation upon us that 
 whether we wanted to or not we had to respect. 
 
 Now, ladies and gentlemen, notice the first embarrassment. 
 International law as written in the seventh article of The Hague 
 Conference gives to every belligerent country the right to pur- 
 chase munitions from a neutral country. That permits citizens 
 of a neutral country to sell munitions to a belligerent country. 
 That article was not only observed by the United States, but it 
 was urged in the conference by the United States as a peace 
 measure, and our country urged it for this reason; we are not a 
 military power ; we did not want to be compelled to build muni- 
 tion plants throughout our country ; we preferred to stand upon 
 the right that if we should become involved in war we could go to 
 the neutral countries and buy the things we need rather than be 
 compelled to build up a military regime here. It was looked 
 upon by us as a peace measure. And the right to purchase muni- 
 tions by a belligerent country from a neutral has not only been 
 practiced by the belligerents, but had been endorsed and demand- 
 
70 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 ed by Germany in both the Boer War and the Russo-Japanese 
 War. But when Germany saw her fleet driven off the sea by 
 the superior Briton to take refuge in the Kiel Canal, with her 
 enemy's fleet still on the sea, she realized that her right to buy 
 munitions was nugatory, because she could not deliver what she 
 could buy, while Great Britain could both buy and deliver. Then 
 Germany seized upon a pretext, and said, in substance, "Admit- 
 ting our right to iDuy, we demand that since we cannot deliver, 
 if you do not forbid sale to Great Britain you thereby become 
 an ally of our enemy." And we notified Germany that her in- 
 ability to purchase munitions is not America's wrong. It is Ger- 
 many's misfortune. And since this is a right recognized in inter- 
 national law, which we have demanded that all must respect, even 
 your misfortune is not a sufficient ground for us to violate it, 
 and we refuse to do it! 
 
 VpGermany made her purpose plain when she announced to us, 
 ^nd the announcement was made to Mr. Gerard, "We will not 
 trifle with America. After the war we will settle with you." 
 And then Germany began her book account. She told us that 
 if any German citizen or soldier was killed or wounded by an 
 American shell fired from a British or French gun, America 
 would have to pay for it. What was she doing that for? The 
 answer will be found in her promise to the people of Germany 
 that they would not suffer the financial burden of war. The war 
 had not gone on two years until Germany's promise to her people 
 that they would not need to pay the cost of the war because they 
 would collect an indemnity from their enemy, — two years was 
 sufficient to convince Germany that very probably these countries 
 would not be able to pay an indemnity. She was therefore quite 
 willing to pick a quarrel to lay the groundwork for a claim to 
 collect an indemnity from the only nation that could pay it. 
 That was America. And she began that groundwork for a money 
 damage in a book account because of the munition .question. ^ 
 If you have any suggestion or doubt as to what Germany"^ 
 have demanded of us if she could have had the power, think of 
 what she has demanded of Russia ; four hundred square miles of 
 territory and four billion dollars' indemnity is the sum to-day 
 that is announced. She thought America could pay, and what- 
 ever was necessary to do she was laying her claims so that she 
 would have a basis for it. 
 
 Another question of diplomacy that became difficult, because 
 we had taken our position on international law, was the blockade. 
 Great Britain began to blockade the coast of Germany. That 
 was her right. We informed the nations, and especially Great 
 Britain, "As long as the blockade is made efifectual, we will re- 
 
WHY CONGRESS DECLARED WAR 71 
 
 spect it." We also assured them that we will not respect it un- 
 less it is valid, and to be valid it must be effectual. No nation 
 can maintain a paper blockade. International law defines block- 
 ade. The blockading squadron must be a cordon of battleships 
 or war vessels capable of seizing and successfully taking any ves- 
 sel that undertakes to run the blockade. If a belligerent wants 
 to exercise the right under international law to blockade, the 
 United States will recognize it and respect it, provided it becomes 
 effectual, so that Holland cannot break it, and Denmark does not 
 break it, and Norway and Sweden and Spain do not break it. 
 But if a nation like England permits such a blockade that America 
 is expected to stay out and at the same time other neutral nations 
 may go in, and thus exclude America from trade while permitting 
 the vessels of other nations to carry on trade, then we will not 
 respect it because in that case the blockade is invalid, ineffectual, 
 and illegal, as well as indefensible. That is the gist of the 
 famous Lansing note of October 21st. After some sharp words 
 by us Britain closed up her cordon of battleships, put them out 
 into the offing, made them effective, and from that hour, ladies 
 and gentlemen, this nation respected the blockade as the right of 
 Great Britain to blockade the coast of her enemy. 
 
 The question at once was propounded by those in sympathy 
 with Germany, "You respected Great Britain's blockade of the 
 coast of Germany. Did you respect Germany's blockade of the 
 coast of England ?" No ; nothing to respect ! Never was there a 
 German blockade of the British coast. A nation cannot blockade 
 the coast of a country with her blockading squadron hiding 
 under shelter in the Kiel Canal where it has been from the be- 
 ginning of the war ! Germany did not call her restraints a block- 
 ade. Only some foolish Americans called it a blockade. It is 
 not known in international law as a blockade. 
 
 Germany, knowing she could not blockade the coast of Great 
 Britain, invented a new scheme. What was it? The barred 
 zone. She struck a line out in the open sea and announced to us 
 that "these are barred waters ; this is a danger zone, and if your 
 ships go into it they will be sunk." Why, ladies and gentlemen, 
 is that the penalty of running a blockade? Not at all. Interna- 
 tional law says that if a blockade is run the runner runs the risk 
 of total loss because if his vessel is seized, his cargo can be 
 confiscated; so can the vessel. But the vessel cannot be sunk; 
 and more than that, no nation is allowed to commit murder. The 
 extent of the penalty of running a blockade is the loss of the 
 vessel and cargo without any recourse in law. The owner will 
 have no recovery, because the blockade has been announced, and 
 
72 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 if it is broken the runner goes through at his own risk, and if 
 he is captured he loses all recourse of recovery. What did Ger- 
 many purpose? "If you go in these waters we will seize your 
 vessel and your cargo and confiscate them ?" No. "We will sink 
 your cargo and your vessel; we will sink the workingmen, the 
 crew, and we will sink every passenger on the ship ! We will 
 give no chance for escape." Germany substantially declared, "If 
 you go in these waters, we will commit open murder on the seas." 
 That was what she said to us when she was issuing orders about 
 a barred zone. 
 
 Many have asked whether we did not observe a barred zone 
 of the North Sea for Great Britain. Certainly not. The North 
 Sea barred zone is nothing more nor less than an announcement 
 of Great Britain that "these waters have been planted with 
 mines. These waters have been sown with mines by both Ger- 
 many and Great Britain; any vessel entering without direction 
 might strike a floating mine. Therefore it would be wise for 
 vessels coming in to follow certain instructions. Come to a cer- 
 tain port of call ; there take a pilot which will be furnished you, 
 and you will be piloted to a lighthouse immediately beyond which 
 you can go in perfect safety so far as Great Britain is con- 
 cerned." There was no order to stay out. There was an an- 
 nouncement that the water was dangerous. Every vessel fol- 
 lowed that instruction but two. Both of these went outside ; both 
 were sunk. Nobody to this hour knows whether they struck a 
 British or a German mine. But the British order was simply an 
 announcement of dangerous waters that it would be well for 
 nations to observe when they undertake to go through, while the 
 German announcement was an order "to stay out upon the pen- 
 alty of death, for if you don't we will torpedo you !" One offers 
 a way to reach an adjustment in court: the other is an adjust- 
 ment by the force of the torpedo. 
 
 The citizen who has thought that we were holding Germany 
 to a "strict accountability" and were loose with Great Britain 
 is misguided. We had our disputes with the British Government 
 also. The government was attempting to keep its pledge to stand 
 on international law and that we would hold every other country 
 to it ; and that is why we had such a bitter dispute. That is why 
 our dispute with Great Britain on the blockade and restraint of 
 trade was keen if not bitter. This is the volume on our dis- 
 pute with Germany. The volume on our dispute with Great 
 Britain is fully double this. That is, we had a good deal more 
 controversy with Great Britain than we did with Germany, but 
 our difference with Great Britain never extended to anything 
 beyond property rights, and property rights could and ought to 
 
WHY CONGRESS DECLARED WAR 73 
 
 be adjusted in a court. Our difiference with Germany extended 
 beyond property rights, and to the life of American citizens, and 
 you cannot take a money damage for the life of an American 
 citizen ! 
 
 Our final word to Germany on the barred zone dispute was, 
 "We will hold you to a strict accountability if any American citi- 
 zen suffers from this order." Ladies and gentlemen, the open sea 
 belongs to no nation ; it belongs to all nations. The open sea has 
 laws made by nations. Those laws are not made in the interest 
 simply of belligerent countries. They are made in the interest 
 of neutral countries as well, and America, as a neutral nation, 
 had as much ground to demand respect of her rights upon the 
 sea as Germany, as a belligerent, had as a war power. And 
 that is all we asked. 
 
 I made an address in the House of Representatives on the 
 eleventh of January, 1916, in which I spent most of my time in 
 discussing our relationship with England as affected by her vari- 
 ous orders in Council. A famous German scholar, then domi- 
 ciled in this city, but now interned, I understand, came to my 
 office because he seemed to like what I said and must have 
 thought I had some sympathy for Germany since he had the 
 audacity to ask me to introduce or at least favor a resolution to 
 compel Great Britain to lift her blockade to the extent of allow- 
 ing milk to go to the children in Germany. "Why," I said to 
 him, "Doctor, you are an international lawyer, and fully ac- 
 quainted with the rules and practices governing blockade. Amer- 
 ica is neutral. England has effectually blockaded your coast, for 
 this is in evidence by your request. America has no right, abso- 
 lutely none, to interfere with it, so long as it is made effectual, 
 and of course we shall not interfere with it." A great many 
 people unacquainted with international law thought America was 
 inhuman because we would not do what they were not aware 
 we had no right to do. We could not interfere with that 
 belligerent right unless we were ready to become unneutral, and 
 Germany found we would not. Then our trouble became im- 
 minent. The distinguished representative of this country at Ber- 
 lin was refused audience with the Emperor on the ground, as 
 he said, "I shall receive the representative of no country that 
 allows the sale of munitions of war to our enemies ;" and when 
 after months of waiting our distinguished representative^ sent 
 word through Von Hollweg not to bother further with his re- 
 quest to have an audience with the Kaiser. The Kaiser in five 
 days sent for Gerard — wanted to see him then! We were then 
 told, ladies and gentlemen, in unmistakable terms, that Germany 
 intended to hold America responsible. Here was the basis of a 
 
74 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 future demand to place the cost of this war upon us on the basis 
 that we did not do certain things that we had no right and could 
 not legally do at all. 
 
 Then finally came the submarine question, with all of its 
 dire possibilities when in the hands of a country dominated as 
 is Germany. Recognizing this danger, we made it clear to all 
 countries that international law must here be respected also. 
 We informed Germany that if she confines the use of the sub- 
 marine to the stopping of vessels, to the entering upon the ves- 
 sels, and to the searching of these vessels, all of which were 
 her belligerent rights, we shall respect all that. But it must be 
 confined to that. For that much is your right. But if a vessel 
 is sunk without warning, and no chance to escape, the nation 
 will hold her to a strict accountability. What was Germany's 
 answer? She declared that a submarine was so frail and car- 
 ried so few people that it was impossible for it to go out and 
 haul up to a large vessel with a large crew, and take it into a 
 prize court under the regulations of international law, that they 
 would be captured themselves if they undertook to do it, and 
 intimated an intention to ignore these requirements on the claim 
 that they could not do that. Then we replied in substance, "If 
 the submarine can not obey international law, then belligerents 
 must not use the submarine !" Germany's reply to that statement 
 was couched in no uncertain terms, for we were told in brutal 
 language/"There is no international law !" That is the word of 
 the head of the most brutal imperial government that has ever 
 been conceived in the imagination of man. "There is no interna- 
 tional law !" Think of it ! Then we knew what we were up 
 against. Ladies and gentlemen, if an American ship is on the sea 
 that is American soil. If an American citizen stands on the deck 
 of that ship he stands under the folds and protection of the 
 American flag, and upon American soil, and if he is attacked 
 by a war vessel it i y war! j 
 
 What did Germany do ? Her aeroplane attacked the Gushing; 
 a submarine sunk the Gulflight on which two American citizens 
 perished ; another torpedo sunk the British ship Falaba that 
 carried^^r. Leon Thrasher, an American Consul, and he per- 
 ished. {Dn April 22 the frightfully insulting announcement was 
 made oy the Imperial Government of Germany, published in 
 the American press, announcing that any American citizen tak- 
 ing passage on vessels flying the enemy flag, which would in- 
 clude the British, you know, did it at his own ri^fev That was 
 April 22. May 7 the tragedy of the war came on, and the Lusi- 
 tania, with her one hundred and fourteen American citizens and 
 a thousand or more citizens of other countries, went down in 
 
WHY CONGRESS DECLARED WAR 75 
 
 obedience to that brutal edict that — "There is no international 
 law now!" 
 
 Now, the world knows the story. We took the entire summer 
 trying to adjust this with Germany. Many citizens think our 
 proper course should have been an immediate declaration. Ger- 
 many's answers never were satisfactory but always suggestive at 
 a measure of strength, and finally, after the whole summer had 
 gone, and the nation in her anxiety over her failure because 
 she had been attempting to reach an adjustment in good faith, 
 Germany came with her answer, and her reply was not from 
 Berlin. The answer was from the submarine on the sea in the 
 attack upon the Sussex, which was a harmless English channel 
 vessel that carried nothing but passengers, simply as a ferry, that 
 could not have been dangerous under any sort of description or 
 definition, nor could it have been a battleship or a war vessel of 
 any kind; a harmless channel vessel; four hundred and fifty 
 citizens in jeopardy, whose lives were attempted to be destroyed 
 by the order of that cruel imperial government that undertook to 
 terrorize the world by its frightfulness. President Wilson had 
 reached the point where patience no longer could be counseled. 
 His parley with Germany became subject to severe unrest and 
 impatience. He sent word on April 25 that unless this act were 
 disavowed, and assurance given that no further attacks of this 
 character would be made, we would be compelled to break off 
 diplomatic relations with Germany. I think Germany realized 
 that the voice of the Nation was then heard, and that was exactly 
 what the Country would do because Germany came with her 
 answer, and specifically promised that there would be no further 
 attacks; and she gave an order to this effect to her submarine 
 captains, and if I mistake not our country received copies of the 
 order, so that there^could not be any ambiguity about their 
 meaning except this^here was one thing at the end of the note 
 that was a little dangerous, in which Germany said, "Germany 
 will expect the United States to adjust their difference with 
 England," and so on. We had to reply again. The President 
 did it with his usual facility in the use of the English language. 
 He did it by explaining that Germany must not make a condi- 
 tion of her adjustment with us any sort of a settlement with 
 England, because these matters were different. One could not 
 be confused with the other. Each had to stand on its own bot- 
 tom. He was right. But that was the only thing that was found 
 in the note that indicated to our people that Germany might not 
 keep her word to us not to resume. That was early in ic>i6.y 
 
 You know what happened. Times were heavy with possible 
 consequences; they were freighted with momentous possibil- 
 
76 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 ities all through 1916, and finally the decisive moment came. It 
 was on January 31, 1917, six hours before the order was to go 
 into effect, that our representative at Berlin was handed the star- 
 tling and astounding information that that night at midnight the 
 submarine warfare would be resumed. After assurances repeat- 
 edly given that no further attacks on unarmed merchantmen 
 would be made, the Imperial Government of Germany revealed 
 its real character by this sudden announcement, which reached 
 this country on the first of February. Two days later the Presi- 
 dent addressed Congress, and informed the country that he had 
 dismissed Bernstorff and recalled Gerard ; in a word had severed 
 diplomatic relations with Germany. He then stated his intention, 
 in case Germany persisted in her submarine order, to come before 
 Congress again. All the world will recall the numerous attacks 
 which followed. On the 26th of February the President again 
 came and asked authority for armed neutrality. Ladies and 
 gentlemen, it should be remembered that the President already 
 had this power, but I presume he wished the moral effect of a 
 vote of confidence by the law-making body. On the same 
 day I introduced resolution calling the 65th Congress into spe- 
 cial session on April 2nd, 1917, as the sitting Congress must 
 end by constitutional limitation on March 4th, and unless called 
 in special session the 65th Congress would not convene until the 
 following December. Knowing the imminence of war, I wanted 
 the law-making body in session. My resolution was not acted 
 upon. The 64th Congress died March 4th and members re- 
 turned to their homes. Attacks by the submarines were multi- 
 plying, and the purpose of Germany to make war on us was no 
 longer in doubt. The President sent out the call for a special 
 session of the 65th Congress to convene April i6th, but owing to 
 the aggression of the German war machine, he sent a hurry call 
 for April 2nd. 
 
 On that date he delivered his war message which became 
 at once the matter before the two Houses. 
 
 The temper of the Congress was well displayed by the con- 
 duct of the House. Its first duty was to organize. The political 
 situation was such that indefinite delay could have been had in 
 case it were desired. There were 215 Democrats, 215 Repub- 
 licans and 5 Independents. This was the membership of the 
 House April 2nd, 1917. If it had been thought desirable from 
 a partisan point of view the organization could have been held up 
 for a week by parliamentary strategy. But the temper of the 
 House was such that a few test votes were taken, the House 
 was organized by evening, and at 8.30 that evening the President 
 addressed the two Houses in joint session. 
 
WHY CONGRESS DECLARED WAR 77 
 
 The House took up the war resolution on the sth of April. 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen, many times I have been asked what 
 was the dominant thought of Congress when it took the fateful 
 step to enter this world war. My answer in a single sentence 
 is to defend our honor and save our lives as a nation. Our 
 honor had been assailed for at least two years, during which 
 time we were endeavoring to maintain a neutral position. 
 
 Our life was at stake from the beginning of Germany's de- 
 termination to use the submarine, although many members de- 
 clined to admit it. 
 
 Germany's perfidy was so hidden at times that most of us 
 refused to believe the facts. And not until confronted by over- 
 whelming and conclusive evidence would it be admitted. 
 
 I wish you to pay special attention to the Zimmermann note 
 of date January 19, 1917, twelve days before the resumption of 
 the ruthless submarine warfare, as evidence of national perfidy 
 unequal to anything in the history of civilization. This note was 
 drafted and signed by Mr. Zimmermann, the Secretary of 
 Foreign Affairs of the German Cabinet. Please note the date, 
 January 19, several days before the submarine warfare was re- 
 sumed. What is the purport of the note? A proposal to the 
 Government of Mexico to join Germany in a war with the 
 United States and to induce Japan to join, and the note further 
 authorized Mexico to act as intercessor between Japan and 
 Germany, and then the height of arrogancy was reached when 
 the note promised Mexico that in case she joined in the con- 
 spiracy Germany would cede to Mexico Texas, New Mexico 
 and Arizona! 
 
 Ladies and gentlemen, when that began to filter out to the 
 public people said, "Another lie! Germany would not do such 
 a thing as that!" Why, Bernstorff was domiciled here in the 
 capital of the Republic and the nations were at peace, and I 
 admit it was inconceivable that a powerful nation like Germany 
 would with her representative sheltered in the very capital of 
 this country itself be designing and intriguing to involve America 
 in war with Mexico and Japan,' with both of which we had had 
 pleasant relations in the past, although at times quite sensitive, 
 it is true, and the people felt that such perfidy could not be 
 true. But, ladies and gentlemen, the note never reached the 
 German Minister. It was intercepted on the border and brought 
 here to this city, and our authorities had it long before we 
 declared war. There can not be any doubt as to what Germany 
 meant. That was as conclusive evidence, coming right from the 
 German Government, as anybody could want. 
 
 And then we began to estimate the promise of Germany. 
 
78 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 Germany promised her people that the submarine campaign 
 would bring Great Britain to her knees by April. She believed it. 
 
 The German Government has been dismally disappointed in 
 three items. The first item was when Germany promised that 
 the people of Germany would not have to pay for the war. I 
 think they are rather doubtful about being able to keep that 
 promise to-day! The second was when the promise was made 
 by the Kaiser himself in the early August at Potsdam, when 
 he looked out over the people and said, "Your soldiers will be 
 back in their homes before the leaves fall from the trees." 
 That meant the war would be over in three months. Now, he 
 was honest, he was sincere, in this statement. Ladies and gen- 
 tlemen, he was thinking of the war with Denmark in- 1864. 
 That lasted a little over three weeks. They got what they 
 wanted. He was also thinking of the war with Austria in 1866 
 that lasted only a month, and they got what they wanted. His 
 mind was on the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 or '71 that lasted 
 less than six weeks; and with the German army in Paris a 
 treaty was concluded at Versailles that passed over from France 
 Alsace-Lorraine and an indemnity of four billion marks. The 
 longest war was less than six weeks ; the shortest one about three. 
 And now, certainly, after having gotten ready for forty-four 
 years with an empire built on the foundation of a perfect mili- 
 tary machine, so that every feature of it, including all the re- 
 sources of men and money, could be commanded by one head, the 
 Kaiser felt sure that when he promised that the soldiers would be 
 back in their homes in three months he was making a rational 
 promise which he could keep. But it is now approaching the 
 end of four years and the soldiers are not back yet, and in my 
 judgment they will only go back when they are driven across 
 the Rhine by the American soldiers ! 
 
 The third disappointment was their promise that the sub- 
 marine would bring England to her knees by the first of April. 
 You noticed them change that date to the first of June, and then 
 to October! 
 
 The submarine is a dangerous element, as everybody knows. 
 That pirate of the underworld — you can not tell where it is. 
 It is a most difficult thing to handle. It is not out of the way 
 yet, and one of our greatest problems is to clear the sea of the 
 submarine, desperate thing to undertake, we all admit ; but Ger- 
 many has not kept her promise, and I think the main reason why 
 she has not is because of the skill of the American gunner that is 
 now on the waves in the Irish Sea and the danger zones. Of 
 course, it is still dangerous, but this is what we feared — I want 
 everybody to get these few closing words — if the food on the 
 
WHY CONGRESS DECLARED WAR 79 
 
 sea could be successfully attacked by the submarine so that 
 the British and French and Italian could be isolated, and would 
 thus be deprived of their supply of food from across the sea, 
 Germany would make good her promise. We all know that 
 England must be fed from across the seas. As long as the sea 
 is open, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa can join 
 Canada and supply England's necessities, but with the sea closed 
 those countries can not supply much. The food must come from 
 America, because those other countries are three times the dis- 
 tance ; that takes three times the tonnage ; that makes three times 
 the hazard. You_£an not depend upon that source of supply, and 
 we saw it, and Ave recognized that if Germany through the sub- 
 marine could have secured control of the sea so as to shut off all 
 food, she would have a weapon in her hand, namely, starvation, 
 that is worse than any big gun she will ever invent ; if she could 
 have starved those countries through the submarine by stopping 
 all food, the first thing Germany would do to Great Britain and 
 to France would be to relieve them from further burdens of 
 indemnity. All she would demand would be to transfer her 
 fleet to Germany, and, of course, if these countries had starva- 
 tion facing them, and they knew it, that condition might be pos- 
 sible. Pause long enough to think of such fatality. Suppose 
 Germany could have come into possession of the British fleet 
 and the French fleet and joined them with the German fleet, 
 there would be placed under the direction of his lawless war 
 lord a power on the sea many times the ability of the American 
 fleet, no matter how brilHant would be our fleet. It would 
 not last twenty-four hours in a struggle with such a power. We 
 readily saw that not only had the honor of America been assault- 
 ed but here was the possibility of the very hfe of the nation being 
 in jeopardyj We decided to take orders no longer from any 
 nation that commaiidedjia to get off the sea, and cease to be a 
 nation until the ^ar is end«l| and we chose, my friends, as the 
 last resort, the only way, it seemed to me, that we could have 
 chosen. We at last decided to accept the challenge, and refuse 
 to allow the flag, that up to this hour had never been lowered in 
 dishonor, now to be dragged in the dust. We declared that we 
 would not allow it now to be dishonored. We were open-eyed to 
 the awful consequences of war voted a year ago Saturday, taking 
 the vote at three o'clock in the morning, to take the step to defend 
 the honor and the life of this nation. 
 
THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE WAR 
 WITH GERMANY 
 
 By RoBEET L. Owen, 
 
 Senator of the United States from Oklahoma 
 
 I WAS glad to leave the duties which otherwise would have 
 required my attendance at the Capitol this morning, in order 
 to have the opportunity of pointing out to you some things which 
 I hope will enable you better to serve the people of the United 
 States, in explaining to them the justification of the war with 
 Germany. It is impossible for any man within the brief time I 
 may detain you now to go into these details fully, and I shall 
 not attempt to do so, but I will point out to you where you can 
 find every necessary detail in the most compact form ; where you 
 may have at your disposal this record; and I am going to ask 
 you to take a few notes while I give you this record, because I 
 will point you to where you may get this evidence, overwhelming, 
 complete, convincing beyond anything that I could say to you 
 with your present limited time. 
 
 I call your attention to the Congressional Record, page 714, 
 of April 16, 1917, an address which I made to the Senate of the 
 United States on the justification of the war with the Imperial 
 Government of Germany; I call your attention to the arraign- 
 ment of William II by Siegfried Balder, a group of Germans in 
 Switzerland, who knew William II and who indicted him and 
 who give the details of the indictment on page loii (January, 
 igi8) Congressional Record. On page 1591, Congressional Rec- 
 ord of January 31, 1918, you will find the historical data justi- 
 fying this war with Germany, compiled by one of the great his- 
 torians of the United States, and submitted by me in an address 
 to the Senate, with much other interesting confirmatory data. 
 
 On page 3128, Congressional Record, March 2, 1918, you 
 will find some interesting data on Alsace-Lorraine, showing the 
 justification of the French in this matter. 
 
 In order to justly appraise what this war is, we must under- 
 stand its historical base. It is no new contest between the few 
 and the many, between autocratic government and democratic 
 government. It is a very old contest, It is a contest between 
 
 80 
 
THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE WAR 81 
 
 organized military forces marching under the banners of the so- 
 called "divine rights", to rule, against the military forces of the 
 democracy of the world, claiming the right for the people to 
 rule themselves ; the claim of Kings versus the claim of free men 
 to self government. 
 
 The most blasphemous document that ever appeared in his- 
 tory was the document known as the treaty of the Holy Al- 
 liance. It was nothing more than an ostentatious proclamation 
 and protestation of Christian virtue by the ruling heads of 
 the houses of Romanoff, Hohenzollern, Hapsburg and Bourbon, 
 declaring themselves to be servants of God, declaring themselves 
 to be the humble instruments of God by which and through 
 whom the doctrines of Christ should be carried out on earth. 
 It was a monstrous piece of damnable camouflage and hypocrisy 
 by which to robe themselves in the claimed attributes and vir- 
 tues of Christ while secretly they throve upon the misery and 
 the slavery of millions of human beings under military tyranny 
 and bondage at a time when their own courts were full of 
 personal corruption, when their courts were full of moral and 
 spiritual degradation. They set themselves up as the represent- 
 atives of Christ on earth in order to impress their people with 
 the conception that the Prince was synonymous with the great 
 Creator, that the Prince was the servant of God, appointed by 
 God as King and Ruler, that the Prince serves as the instrument 
 of God ; and William II still keeps up this deadly pretense of com- 
 panionship and of unionship and of partnership with God — and 
 with God at last in the Second place ! You may recall his early 
 telegrams sent to the Empress, where he explained to the Em- 
 press on more than one occasion that God had gloriously sup- 
 ported the Crown Prince! The only wonder is that he had not 
 conferred the iron cross of the first degree on his Teutonic 
 Hohenzollern God as a reward of military merit! 
 
 Let us go back to this famous treaty, the so-called treaty of 
 the Holy Alliance. It was modified in 1822 by what was called 
 the secret treaty of Verona, which I have had inserted in the 
 Congressional Record four times in the hope that somebody 
 would inadvertently read it. This secret treaty of Verona I 
 want you to listen to. It is vital. It contains the basis of the 
 present war. It contains the tap root from which this war has 
 sprung. It is the foundation upon which the Monroe Doctrine 
 was written. The secret treaty of Verona, Article I (this is 
 between Alexander I, the head of the Romanoff family of Rus- 
 sia, Frederick William of Prussia (Hohenzollern), Francis Jo- 
 seph of Austria (Hapsburg) and Louis XVIII, the head of the 
 Bourbons of France, who was put upon the French throne by the 
 
82 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 autocracies of Europe when N'apoleon was defeated at Water- 
 loo, 1815), alleges the following principles — in substance. Arti- 
 cle I sets forth the doctrine, 
 
 Whereas representative government is by its nature an- 
 tagonistic to the government of princes and the so-called popular 
 sovereignty is necessarily hostile to government by divine right, 
 we hereby solemnly agree that we will suppress this heresy 
 throughout Europe, and throughout the world, wherever it may 
 make its appearance. 
 
 Do you get that? It was a solemn covenant of deadly and 
 continuous war on popular government. Article 11 is to the 
 effect. 
 
 Whereas, the freedom of the press is the instrument through 
 which demagogues teach popular sovereignty, we hereby agree 
 to suppress the freedom of the press throughout ou/r dominions 
 and throughout Europe. 
 
 Do you get that? A solemn covenant between the autocra- 
 cies, the Divine few, to suppress the free speech of the ungodly 
 many. They have suppressed it in Germany and in Austria. 
 They are carrying out that Doctrine to-day. Under that secret 
 treaty of Verona, the people of Spain who had revolted against 
 absolute monarchy were assailed by the Bourbon , troops, the 
 troops of France, under Bourbon leadership (1822) and under 
 a subsidy paid by the King of twenty million francs per an- 
 num stolen from the taxes of the people. Under this treaty the 
 limited monarchy of Spain, recognizing to some degree the peo- 
 ple's rights, was overthrown and an absolute monarchy under the 
 same Prince established in Spain. 
 
 The same thing transpired in Italy, where the people had 
 adopted a limited monarchy under revolution, and Austrian 
 troops went in and overthrew the limited monarchy, leaving the 
 same Prince enthroned as absolute monarch with autocratic pow- 
 ers. Then these Divinely appointed representatives of Christ and 
 God arranged to send over their trained troops and hired mur- 
 derers with their naval forces to the western hemisphere for the 
 purpose of "reducing" the revolting colonies of Spain and Por- 
 tugal back to absolute monarchy. That meant the "reduction!' 
 of Mexico, that meant the reduction of Brazil and of the Ar- 
 gentine, and of Chili and Bolivia. It meant the reduction of all 
 the smaller, weaker republics of the western hemisphere; and 
 that meant that the United States would in turn have been sub- 
 
THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE WAR 83 
 
 jected then, a century ago, to these autocratic powers. The 
 United States, at that time, through Thomas Jefferson, and 
 Monroe, and our other leaders had the vision to see the future, 
 and they served notice in the message of Monroe to the world 
 in 1823 that the United States would not stand quietly by and 
 see the autocratic system of government established on the 
 western hemisphere, and we prevented those autocratic powers 
 from capturing the free people of the western hemisphere. 
 
 This is NO NEW fight ; it's the same old fight between autoc- 
 racy and democracy. And when this fight ends, there "won't" 
 be any autocracy! 
 
 I want to call your attention to the ideals of William II. 
 William II idealized force, ambition, dominion, William II all 
 his life idealized Alexander the Great, Frederick II and Na- 
 poleon I, and his trophies. He finally idealized "William II," 
 and "William 11" fulfills all the ideals which will be found in 
 "Frederick 11." 
 
 Let me call your attention to Frederick II, that infernal scoun- 
 drel whose statue is at the present still standing down here in 
 front of the War College on a pedestal and from which it ought 
 to be quietly and decently removed and dropped into the Poto- 
 mac! I do not believe in making any ostentation about it, 
 but I would do it quietly because his image ought not to be 
 permitted to stand there with any degree of dignity or respecta- 
 bility. He had neither one nor the other! He was born a 
 scoundrel, and he lived a scoundrel and he died one ! I do not 
 exaggerate it. I am not dealing and could not deal unjustly 
 with the treaty-breaking, murderous, self-serving scoundrel. 
 
 Let me call your attention to Frederick II. Frederick II 
 was trained by Frederick William of Brandenburg, who had built 
 up the first important army controlled by the Hohenzollern fam- 
 ily. So cruel was his father that he condemned this boy, Fred- 
 erick II, to death because at the age of eighteen he attempted to 
 escape from his military tyranny and go to France and live the 
 life of a man who might have some liberty. His father cap- 
 tured him and a young Lieutenant Katz who was with him, his 
 friend while escaping, and he had this boy, Frederick II, brought 
 out with his arms held firmly by a military guard, where in the 
 jail court yard the young lieutenant, his boon companion and best 
 loved friend, had his head chopped off with an axe, in order to 
 discipline this young boy. That was the kind of a lovely father, 
 Vice Gerent of Christ, which" Frederick II had, and Frederick 
 II proved fully worthy of him in the long run. Frederick II, 
 when he came to the throne, wrote a book called "Anti-Machia- 
 vell," in which he ostentatiously opposed the doctrine of Machia- 
 
84) THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 vein, Machiavelli having taught to princes the foul doctrine that 
 the way to diplomatic and imperial power was to disregard all 
 moral laws, and always do the thing which was expedient and do it 
 craftily, and do it with power and "get off with it." This book, 
 "Anti-Machiavell," was written by Frederick II and all of the 
 good people of Europe lifted up their voices and said, "God be 
 praised! Here at least is a Prince who comes to the throne and 
 recognizes the great moral law which God has writ in the heart of 
 mortal man!" Did he mean it? He did Not! It was a piece 
 of camouflage. It was peculiarly and intensely a Machiavellian 
 trick ; it was a Holy Alliance trick. He had scarcely more than 
 written the book before he gave a series of balls in Berlin to 
 which all of the diplomats of the various courts of Europe 
 were invited, and they were kept busy dancing and going to these 
 entertainments while Frederick II secretly was organizing a very 
 powerful army of fifty thousand trained men down on the edge 
 of Silesia, owned by Austria under the government of Maria 
 Theresa. He left one of these balls at midnight and threw him- 
 self at the head of these troops and grabbed Silesia before Aus- 
 tria had time to object! Anti-Machiavell and Vice Gerent of 
 Christ ! But there were three cities in Silesia which were armed 
 and walled cities, and he couldn't take those cities without a long 
 fight and losing many soldiers. Thereupon he made a treaty 
 with France to help him make war on Austria, and then he sent 
 a secret messenger to Vienna, to make overtures to Austria that 
 he would abandon France and join Austria as an ally if Aus- 
 tria would give up these armed cities. Austria agreed to it. He 
 got the walled cities. Austria let it be known that she had 
 made the deal with him. He branded it as a falsehood ! Anti- 
 Machiavell ! Vice Gerent of Christ ! He kept all Europe em- 
 broiled all his life long; always trying to grab additional prop- 
 erty and to make war for profit. If there be on the footstool of 
 the Lord a doctrine which is damnable, it is the organised murder 
 of men by war for profit! And that is to-day the doctrine of 
 William II. His House captured unjustly Schleswig Holstein 
 from Denmark for profit in 1862 in a three weeks' campaign. 
 His House captured territory wrongfully from Austria for profit 
 in 1866. He maneuvered — I may say "he" because I speak of 
 the Hohenzollern House — and made war for profit on France in 
 1870-1871 playing upon the pride of the French Court by a 
 trick engineered by Bismarck, of which afterwards he made 
 light, for which he afterwards took the "teutonic" credit; and 
 made a sudden assault on the French people, killing them by 
 the thousands, in order that the Hohenzollern might profit and 
 seize the coal mines and the iron mines of Alsace-Lorraine, Amd 
 
THE JUSTIFICATION OF THE WAR 85 
 
 now after the Reichstag had solemnly passed a resolution that 
 they were against indemnities, and they were against annexa- 
 tions, we see the resolution treated as a "scrap of paper" and 
 Esthonia, Ukraine, Livonia and Poland and other parts of 
 Russia ruthlessly seized by this military force representing the 
 Hohenzollern House. The record to which I have called your 
 attention deals with this present war, but the doctrine of force is 
 the doctrine behind this war and from which this war has sprung, 
 the doctrine of Machiavelli that "might makes right." 
 
 You will find that Hohenzollern doctrine on the cannon of 
 the northwest corner of the War Department, a cannon cast for 
 one of the Bourbons, "Philip," a cannon — you know the cannons 
 in those good old days were baptized with holy water and given 
 names. This cannon is called Le Mareschal le due de Humieves. 
 On the mouth of this cannon is the doctrine of force. It is a 
 French phrase "Le passe partout" — The cannon mouth is the 
 "gate-way through everything." On the base of this cannon is 
 the doctrine of force in a Latin phrase^Nec Pluribus Impar, 
 "not unequal to many," the cannon is "not unequal to many peo- 
 ple, and in the middle of the cannon is the doctrine of force in a 
 Latin phrase — Uitima Ratio Regum, "the final argument of 
 kings." The "mailed iist" the "cannon's mouth" ! Make no mis- 
 take about what this fight is. It is "the final argument of kings." 
 There is a king enthroned in America that will be, in the future 
 as far as human kind is concerned, the king of kings. That is the 
 "sovereign" people. That sovereignty is coming into its own. 
 It is proceeding among the peoples of all the world. Democracy, 
 the seed of democracy is planted now everywhere on earth, and 
 except for the cannon's mouth it would to-day be triumphant from 
 one end of Germany to the other. But those poor German 
 people have been intimidated; those poor German people have 
 been brought to a position where their brains are blighted ; where 
 they have been taught to follow their leadership implicitly, and 
 without question they have no longer the moral strength to rise 
 up and ds;mand their own rights ; they have not got the physical 
 strength. It's saddest of all to think they haven't the moral 
 strength. It's saddest of all to realize that a great intellectual 
 nation stands so low in morality that it would be willing to fol- 
 low at any cost this military leadership that urges murder for 
 profit. The German j opulation have fallen to the lowest moral 
 degree of any nation on the face of the footstool ! 
 
 It's an unfortunate thing now, but I think and firmly believe 
 that there will be gigantic moral reaction in Germany. I think the 
 time has almost come, it will come, when Papa JoflFre gets his 
 reserve troops in good action. 
 
86 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 In order to teach the American people, as you ladies and 
 gentlemen will do, they must understand the root of this con- 
 troversy. They must understand where it springs from. They 
 must understand that it is a war to the death between autoc- 
 racy, armed military power organized for profit, and the peace- 
 loving, liberty-loving, God-loving people of the whole world. 
 
 The Record, to which I was calling your attention, so abun- 
 dantly sets forth the data on which we were immediately jus- 
 tified in going into this war that I shall not take your time to 
 go into that at all. You will find it in great detail in the Record 
 which I have just given you. You will find it compactly stated, 
 just as compactly stated as you could possibly desire it, and you 
 will find in that all and more than all you need to teach the 
 people of the United States the absolute justification of their 
 entrance into this war. 
 
 The American people are awake now. In my own state of 
 Oklahoma, when I went there last December, I found that they 
 had made a house to house canvass, and there was not a house 
 in that state that was not invited to contribute to the Red 
 Cross, or contribute to the Liberty Loan or the War Savings 
 stamps — not a house unless it was overlooked by accident, and 
 I think it is typical of the balance of the United States; and 
 the Hohenzollerns will soon learn that when they showed their 
 cloven hoof, when they showed that their false pretense of being 
 compelled to go into this war as a pretended matter of self-de- 
 fense, when they showed that in point of fact it was the old, 
 old game of the Hohenzollerns, the determined purpose to have 
 dominion over the balance of mankind, as rapidly as they could 
 acquire it by military force — when they did that and made it 
 perfectly clear, and they got the United States to engage in this 
 enterprise with them, they have proved their own undoing. It 
 will be the end of autocracy. It may take another year ; it may 
 take two more years, it may take ten years ; but when it finishes, 
 there will be no Hohenzollerns left in power. And the world 
 will enter into a thousand years of peace and of brotherhood 
 and of moral and ethical righteousness. This is the battle of 
 Armageddon at last and while it crucifies mankind, mankind will 
 rise from this grave of tragedy to its just position, and demon- 
 strate at last that man is the child c God and the child of 
 righteousness and the child of justice, and will respond to the 
 Divine instinct that God put in the heart of every man. 
 
FINANCING THE WAR 
 
 By James H. Moyle, 
 Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 
 
 I WAS interested in the statement of Mr. Creel that he was 
 glad our country was not, in the outset, prepared for war. It 
 struck a sympathetic chord in my mind, in that it was in harmony 
 with our own claim that we were devoted to peace. There is 
 one element of preparedness to which I will call your attention 
 this afternoon, that looks providential, and that is the estimate 
 now placed on the Federal Reserve Banking System by financiers 
 who opposed its formation, but who now admit that it would 
 have been absolutely impossible to finance this war without it. 
 With it the finances of our country are not disturbed by the 
 figures involved, which almost stagger the intelligent mind when 
 contemplating the money, the wealth, that is going into this 
 war. Germany, it is said, thought that we were nothing but a 
 money-making, pleasure-loving, flabby people; that in any event 
 we would not be able to get into this war in time to be of material 
 service ; but it is money, as I understand the history of the world, 
 that has won wars, or at least has been just as essential as the 
 sacrifice of human life. _ 
 
 I trust that the figures to which I will refer will not become 
 dry to you. It is estimated, and I think the real amount will 
 exceed the estimate, that the actual amount that we will have 
 expended, including loans to the Allies, during the fiscal year 
 will be about eleven billions and a half of dollars. Up to to-day 
 we have loaned four billions seven hundred and sixty-five mil- 
 lions, and there is a total authorization of seven billions. The total 
 cost of this war, as it is estimated up to the beginning of the 
 year, is one hundred and twenty-one billions. The Allies, it is 
 said, have contributed about eighty billions of that amount, and 
 the Central Powers forty billions. The total wealth of the 
 United States, as estimated by the Actuary of the Treasury in 
 1912, was one hundred and eighty-seven billions. I am going to 
 speaic in round numbers only. It was estimated last year at 
 two hundred and fifty billions, and I have seen in some news- 
 papers statements that it is now three hundred billions, and tjhe 
 
 87 
 
88 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 further statement that this great wealth is more than all the 
 wealth of the British Isles, of France, of Italy, of Portugal and 
 Japan combined, and yet there has already been expended one 
 hundred and twenty-one billions of dollars in this war, and the 
 end is not yet. The gold of the United States amounts to a 
 little over three billions of dollars. I was in the sub-treasury at 
 New York not long since, and there I saw the vaults loaded with 
 gold. One room was filled with English coins melted into bullion. 
 Our nation has become a veritable store-house of the wealth of 
 the world. Our income, public and private — and this is estimated, 
 but I think intelligently, will be for this fiscal year about fifty bil- 
 lions. We are becoming accustomed now to speak of billions! 
 It was unheard of only a few years ago. Government income 
 from internal revenue nine hundred and seventy-three billions — 
 I mean millions! Excess profits tax, $1,226,000,000; incidentals, 
 $666,000,000; miscellaneous, $270,000,000; sales of public lands, 
 $185,000,000; Panama Canal toll, $6,000,000; total, $3,862,000,- 
 000. 
 
 All of the money expended by the United States from 1791 
 to 1917, as near as I can ascertain, is about $26,000,000,000, 
 including all its wars and all other expenses paid by this most 
 extravagant of all governments. It is said also from the best 
 authority that I am able to obtain that all the money expended 
 in all the wars of Europe during the same period, about one 
 hundred and twenty-five years, was $25,000,000,000, and yet 
 Great Britain has already expended for in excess of that sum 
 in this war alone. Germany has expended over $31,000,000,000. 
 Our Civil War was one of the most expensive of all wars, but 
 the nations at war are spending to-day in two months more 
 than was expended in the Cival War, and in three weeks more 
 than was expended in the Franco-Prussian war, and in two weeks 
 more than was expended in the Spanish-American war. It is 
 estimated that this war has already cost more than all the wars of 
 all time, and three times the debt of all the nations of the world 
 prior to this war. 
 
 I was in Raleigh not long since on the War Savings campaign. 
 One of the speakers related that a very wealthy man who, start- 
 ing in poverty, had amassed a tremendous fortune, but who had 
 said, "I have only one boy. He is in this war. I will give all 
 I possess and would pledge, for what I might become worth, 
 another hundred thousand dollars and start life anew, if I could 
 but know that that boy would return with honor and his life 
 preserved." I can appreciate that, because I have two boys in 
 the Army, and neither of them with bullet proof commissions, 
 nor would they accept them. 
 
FINANCING THE WAR 89 
 
 I observed, in one of the magazines, a statement that might 
 interest you, which attempted to estimate what could have been 
 accomplished with the money that has already been expended 
 in this great war, namely : 
 
 That it would have doubled the railroad mileage of the 
 United States, and that comes near equaling that of the rest of 
 the world. It would have established steamboat lines in every 
 corner of the world; rebuilt the world's cities on modern sani- 
 tary lines, provided schools and teachers for every child, and 
 abundantly endowed science, and yet it is being used to destroy 
 wealth, and more than all, to destroy life and produce misery. 
 
 To learn how to economize ; how to save and thereby enable 
 the government to meet the obligations thus incurred, is one of 
 the most difficult of all the problems presented to the people of 
 the United States. Unquestionably we are a spend-thrift nation, 
 so recognized. Germany relied on our love of money, luxury, 
 pleasure, unpreparedness and apparent unfitness for war. But 
 in my limited experience in connection with these Liberty Loans 
 and War Savings campaigns, I have found that wherever you 
 go, the moment that the real American has brought home to him 
 the gravity of the situation that confronts the country, he is 
 awakened and alive, ready and willing to do everything within 
 his power to carry on this great task; and to you, my fellow 
 countrymen, is given a wonderful opportunity of bringing home 
 to our people a knowledge of the facts, of the serious danger 
 that menaces the freedom of the liberty-loving nations. 
 
 It is said that prior to this war there were but three hundred 
 and fifty thousand bond-holders in the United States. There 
 were four million who subscribed to the first Liberty Loan; 
 there were nine million five hundred thousand who subscribed to 
 the second Liberty Loan ; and the Secretary of the Treasury will 
 be greatly disappointed, as will the administration, if there are 
 not from fifteen to twenty millions of people who subscribe to 
 the Third Liberty Loan. We must be transformed from a spend- 
 thrift to a thrift nation. We can not adequately meet this great 
 problem unless we furnish the required money. We can inflate 
 the currency by issuing paper, of course, but that will not pay the 
 debt. Nothing but thrift, nothing but saving, will suffice and 
 it will become more evident from day to day, as this war pro- 
 gresses, that it is absolutely necessary and indispensable that every 
 person, whether rich or poor, shall produce something and save 
 for the purpose of lending money to the government. It will 
 give the best security that exists and a fair rate of interest. 
 
 And when bonds are purchased they must be held. The 
 merchant must not take those bonds for merchandise except in 
 
90 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 emergencies. They must not be discounted upon the pubHc 
 markets. The government has no desire to interfere with legiti- 
 mate trade as long as made in good faith, but the man who puts 
 his bonds upon the public market and sells them there depresses 
 that market and destroys the power of the great government 
 to borrow money. It is going to be patriotic to hold these bonds, 
 just as patriotic as it is to buy them, and unpatriotic to sell 
 them, except as it becomes absolutely necessary. 
 
 We must all, every one, learn to save in order to buy bonds. 
 A quarter of a dollar per day means a saving of nearly a hun- 
 dred dollars in a year. Fourteen cents a day means fifty dollars 
 in a year, which in twenty years amounts to one thousand five 
 hundred and forty-eight dollars. It is estimated, I suppose— I 
 have obtained these figures from the gentlemen who provide the 
 information for these bond campaigns— that if we save one- 
 fourth of our incomes, and invest the same at four per cent., we 
 may be able to retire at forty-one years of age at full pay; 
 if we save one-third, we may retire in twenty- four years ; if we 
 invest one-fifth of it, then in forty-six years; one-tenth in fifty 
 years. One penny a day for every person in the United States 
 amounts to one million dollars — more than that, because we now 
 estimate our population in continental America at one hundred 
 and five million. It amounts in a year to three hundred and sixty- 
 five million — at one penny a day. Ten pennies per day means 
 nearly four billions of dollars per year. 
 
 This has been to me a most interesting statement: A dollar 
 horded is a "slacker" ; a dollar wasted is a "traitor," and a 
 dollar saved is a "patriot." 
 
 Dollars should be saved for the purpose of loaning them to 
 the government to provide for our boys the best food, the best 
 clothing, the best equipment, and all the protection that is possi- 
 ble ; to help them and save them and to enable them to carry 
 on the war successfully. They give their lives ; what should we 
 not do for them? They are our boys. It is our war. It is our 
 liberty that is involved and those who come after us. The 
 more we do for any cause the more interested we become in it 
 and the more willing we are to do more. Parents who give 
 their sons are more interested than those who do not. Those 
 who loan their money to help their boys are more interested 
 than those who do not. And as people become interested the 
 more freely will they give and do. 
 
 In conclusion, let me say that the expression billions, that is 
 now becoming such a familiar word, is something that was 
 almost new to the financiers of yesterday. I heard Mr. Frank A. 
 Vanderlip, President of the National City Bank, say not long 
 
FINANCING THE WAR 91 
 
 since that when he was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, the 
 government floated a two hundred million dollar bond sale- 
 two hundred millions, one-fifth of a billion — that it was con- 
 sidered something enormous. When we proposed to build the 
 Panama Canal and to expend four hundred million, it was 
 thought almost beyond reason. We know something about the 
 distance to the sun, the moon and the stars, and astronomers 
 attempt to tell us what their weight is. But I venture the asser- 
 tion that there's no living financier who has an intelligent con- 
 ception of what these billions mean to which we have been 
 referring; how such obligations are to be met and what effect 
 they are going to have upon the world. One thing we do know 
 is that it represents the debt of the people, that our Army is the 
 Army of the people ; that we are fighting a foe whose Army is not 
 the AVmy of the German people. It is the Kaiser's Army. To 
 him its officers swear allegiance, not to the people — not to the 
 government — but to the Kaiser only. That its officers, how- 
 ever young, in social and official circles, are placed above the 
 sages, philosophers and best minds of that country. Dueling, 
 I know, is tolerated if not encouraged in the highest institutions 
 of learning. It has been instilled into their minds and the very 
 fiber of their being as a means of developing the brutal and 
 hardening processes necessary to make unfeeling soldiers. That 
 they must prepare for war and conquest by war, has been the 
 great aim and object of the character whom they uphold; who 
 places himself upon an equality with God, and in this age of en- 
 lightenment arrogates to himself the divine right to rule not 
 only over willing dupes but over unwilling nations. 
 
 Some time after the opening of the war I received a letter 
 from an old friend who was in the Consulate at Kiel, Germany. 
 He said that that very day he had met a woman who said that 
 she had given her husband and three sons to her country, and 
 she wished she had more to give ! How much more should we be 
 willing to give to the cause of Liberty! War has been their 
 chief aim and purpose, and science and philosophy has been 
 made subservient to it. Its aim has been to build up a power 
 which liberty-loving mankind must destroy. It is the last great 
 and I trust final contest between feudalism and free govern- 
 ments; between Autocracy and Democracy. And we in this 
 country must each do our bit. It should be not only our duty 
 but a glorious privilege to do the part of a freeman in the great 
 fight, the great cause, the ultimate freedom of mankind. 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 
 
 By Benedict Ckowell, 
 Acting Secretary of War 
 
 I AM very glad of the opportunity of telling you what I 
 know to-night about the American Army, and I trust you will 
 believe that it would take a great deal to bring me here, unac- 
 customed as I am to speaking in public. I feel that we are all 
 working together in a great cause; we each have our place. I 
 happen to be here, and to know a few things, which I am anx- 
 ious that you should know also. I am going to try to tell you 
 about them. I have had very little opportunity to prepare any- 
 thing, but I have a few notes here, which, with your per- 
 mission, I will refer to. I want to be sure to tell you the truth, 
 and as the few figures I am going to give you are rather im- 
 portant, I have written them out this afternoon, in order that 
 I may give them to you correctly. 
 
 I feel that in this crisis of our nation you are playing a 
 very great part. Your responsibility is as great as the responsi- 
 bility of us here. You are, I hope, going to interpret in this 
 country the things that we are endeavoring to do here in Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 I am especially sorry that Secretary of War Baker is not 
 present to tell you about the American Army in a much better 
 way than I can possibly hope to do. He is, as you know, in 
 France, and is accompHshing a very important piece of work over 
 there. If he were here, I am sure that his personaHty would im- 
 mediately reach your hearts. He will soon be back with us, 
 however, and will tell us a great many things that we are so 
 anxious to know about the work of our Army across the sea, 
 and that it will be right and good for us to know about. I want 
 to say that Secretary Baker is a great chief to work under, and 
 his value to the country will better be known as the months and 
 years go by ! 
 
 The condition of the War Department to-day is, to my mind, 
 somewhat illustrated by the story of the man who was seen run- 
 ning pell-mell for his train. Reaching the station, he ran down 
 the length of the platform, but to his disappointment was unabk 
 
 92 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 93 
 
 to catch the last coach, and missed his train. As he came 
 sorrowfully back, one of the loafers on the station platform said, 
 ||Well, you missed your train, didn't you?" The man replied, 
 "Yes, I missed it all right; the trouble was not that I did not 
 run fast enough after I got started, but I didn't start running 
 soon enough!" And that is our difficulty to-day, that we did 
 not start soon enough, although we have done splendidly since 
 we have gotten our start. 
 
 I came here somewhat over a year ago, in a rather critical 
 mood, and, observing the condition of things, I was quick to 
 criticize the War Department. "Why weren't they ready for this 
 war?" I asked myself. But a very short study convinced me that 
 the War Department was not to blame. The difficulty was we 
 did not have the money. And then I shifted my censure to the 
 Congress, which hadn't provided us with the money, but a fur- 
 ther study soon convinced me that neither was the Congress to 
 blame, because they, the Congress, have done exactly what the 
 American people had wanted them to do. So we are all to 
 blame, you and I and all the others in this country, because 
 we did not want this land to be prepared, and we had indicated 
 that attitude very strongly, at every opportunity. The condition 
 of the country a year ago with reference to its ability to wage 
 war can be told in a few short sentences. We had an army of 
 about one hundred and twenty-five thousand men, well trained 
 for the warfare that had existed up to that time, but not trained 
 for the modern warfare. The area and equipment were notice- 
 able principally because they were lacking. We had a few rifles, 
 we had a little artillery, and we had exactly 1,350 machine guns. 
 Of those about a thousand were of mixed manufacture, and 
 about three hundred were Lewis guns, which we had bought for 
 the Mexican emergency. They shot British ammunition. The 
 General Staff, which is the brain of the Army, at that time was 
 limited to fifty-five men, fifty-five officers, and under the law 
 one-half of those only could be in Washington at one time. We 
 therefore had twenty-seven and one-half officers who were re- 
 sponsible for preparing for war! 
 
 The steps that were taken to meet the emergency were of 
 necessity taken very rapidly. War was declared on April 6th. 
 On May 17th the great law of selective service, the draft law, 
 was passed by Congress. This is based on the principle that 
 rights of citizenship in a democracy carry with them the obliga- 
 tion to defend those same rights. The President signed that 
 law the following day. May i8th, and so rapidly was this car- 
 ried out that on June 5th we registered about ten million of 
 our men. These were handled by the governors of the states 
 
94 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 and by the local boards, and from this registration men were 
 drafted. On September 5th the first men were called in. They 
 were called into incomplete camps that had been built during 
 the summer, which were rapidly finished after that date, on which 
 we had spent approximately two hundred million dollars. 
 
 The great problem then of the munitioning of the Army had 
 to be met very rapidly. The plans had been worked out during 
 the spring by the General Staff, and the officers who were here 
 in the different bureaus, and it was a problem not of going out 
 and ordering implements, but of creating the facilities to make 
 them. It had been well known that to make rifles, for instance, 
 would take perhaps eighteen months, and artillery the same 
 length of time. We had known this for years, but we were not 
 prepared, and these factories had to be built. The work was 
 started during the early summer, and has been rushed to rapid 
 completion. 
 
 I am going to touch upon a few of the points which have 
 been discussed, which I think you ought to know about, points 
 on which I believe you should be informed, and the question of 
 rifles is perhaps one of the first. 
 
 We had during the beginning of the war about five hundred 
 thousand of the Springfield rifles. We knew that the making 
 of rifles was one of the most difficult things in the world. Every 
 nation has a different calibered rifle. Ours was different from 
 all others. And although we were making a year ago a large 
 number of rifles for the British, and for the Russians, these 
 rifles were of a different caliber, and would do us no good unless 
 we should adopt their caliber. We had just two plants capable 
 of making our own rifles. They were at government arsenals, 
 one at Rock Island, and one at Springfield. The Springfield 
 Arsenal, by the way, has been making rifles continuously for 
 over one hundred years, always making the government rifle; 
 but when the war started, that manufacture was at such a low 
 ebb that we were making just twelve hundred rifles per month. 
 Our appropriation for rifles and pistols combined during the 
 year 1915-16 was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That 
 was enough to make about fifteen thousand rifles, or about, say, 
 twelve hundred per month. And our rifle factory at Rock Island 
 had been shut down completely, almost dismantled ; the workmen 
 had drifted away; and we had nobody there who could make 
 a rifle. The work was immediately started, the work of chang- 
 ing over the British Enfield Rifle to our own make. We re- 
 chambered that rifle for our cartridges, which were better than 
 the British. They were better because they had no flanges and 
 wouldn't jam, and they were further better because they were 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 95 
 
 more powerful. It took considerable time to do this, but the 
 manufacture of rifles was started during the summer. In the 
 fall when we first began to need rifles we did not have them, 
 and a great many of our men of the first training were without 
 rifles, which may have been a disadvantage. Some say it was; 
 some say it wasn't. Others were trained with wooden guns. 
 We were very much concerned over this six months ago. Like 
 a great many things, it has been overcome. Our troops have 
 had their rifles; they have had the training as fast as they are 
 ready to go to ship, and we could send them over, they were 
 given rifles, and to-day we are not confronted with lack of rifles ; 
 our production is so great that we have practically forgotten the 
 difficulty. We have made about a million rifles since the war 
 started, and I think we will have no difficulty on that score. 
 We think ours is the best rifle there is. Our boys are not 
 going to have any handicap on account of the rifle. 
 
 The machine gun was well known, but its tactical use had not 
 been developed until this war. We had in our Army a few 
 hundred machine guns when we went into this war, about thir- 
 teen hundred. This war has emphasized the need of machine 
 guns. They use them by the thousands. 
 
 The first thing we did was to try to determine the best 
 machine gun, and for that purpose we held a test open to all 
 who wanted to enter it. In May, 19 17, about a year ago, we 
 had the good luck to run across a good machine gun. I say "good 
 luck," because it was not known until that test that this par- 
 ticular gun was going to be offered, but the Browning gun, which 
 is the product of John Browning, a man who has had more to 
 do with our automatic firearms than any other man in the coun- 
 try, whose name should be familiar, or much more familiar than 
 it is, came up to scratch and offered two guns at this test, and 
 these guns did so well that before the test was over we were 
 beginning with our plans to manufacture them. Some of the 
 officers at this test took the first train to Washington, and told 
 us that we needn't wait any longer, that we had the guns. So 
 the work was started. 
 
 We had, I say, two guns, but we had four guns really. There 
 were two types, the light and the heavy. We had no drawings. 
 The drawings had to be made from these four models ; then the 
 jigs and the fixtures and the tools had to be produced, and work 
 which would ordinarily require a year or fifteen months was 
 hammered through, and to-day we have tested these guns out, 
 and are now producing in fair quantity. We produced in the 
 month of March some twelve hundred ; in July we will produce 
 ten or fifteen thousand without any doubt. 
 
96 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 Our troops in France, by the way, are armed with French 
 guns. We are getting everything we can in Europe. It saves 
 shipping, and there are a great many things which we have not 
 been able to produce in time in this country. Now, the two 
 types of machine gun, the light and the heavy, are quite differ- 
 ent in their tactical use. The light gun is really an automatic 
 rifle. The light Browning gun is fired either from the shoulder 
 or from the hip. It weighs sixteen pounds, about the weight of an 
 old-fashioned shot gun. Many of you have probably shot one 
 of these old ten-gauge shot guns. I have often shot them. And 
 the light gun, when you hold it at your shoulder, feels about 
 the same in weight and balance. But it will fire five hundred 
 shots a minute. Of course it won't keep this up. It has to cool. 
 Its purpose is to fire rapidly in succession one hundred shots or 
 two hundred shots. Then you cool it. Then the heavy gun is a 
 gun of position. It weighs about thirty pounds. It is water 
 cooled and is fired from the tripod. It can be trained for in- 
 stance on a certain point, and a certain part of a trench, and can 
 be fired there any time or any day. It does not vary. The 
 heavy gun, of course, will fire practically continuously, as long as 
 you want to fire it, at that same rate. The cartridges are pre- 
 pared on the belt, and all that is necessary is to keep changing 
 the belt. We believe these machine guns are the best in the world 
 for their particular uses, and, in saying this, I do not want you to 
 overlook other guns, which have their own particular uses, for 
 which they are just as good. The Lewis gun, for instance, for 
 its use, we believe, is the best in the world. We are using a great 
 many of them — all we can get in our aeroplanes. For the air- 
 craft gun, we believe there is nothing that will equal this Lewis 
 gun. 
 
 Artillery is one of our worries to-day. To manufacture 
 artillery takes a long time — big guns, a couple of years, and 
 lighter guns, six to eight months. But we had no plants to make 
 them before this war started, a year ago. There were only 
 two plants in this country that could make artillery, that could 
 make cannon, and in saying that I mean make it completely. 
 We had a few finishing plants, such as the Rock Island Arsenal, 
 the Army plant, or the Navy yard here, and these were only 
 finishing plants. The raw materials, the gun-forgings, which 
 are much more difficult, had to be made in the private plants, 
 and we were wholly dependent as to artillery in this country 
 upon the facilities of the Bethlehem and Midvale Steel Com- 
 panies. The situation was handled with a good deal of energy, 
 and the condition is much better to-day. Factories were started 
 and have been completed, and we are producing, or beginning — 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 97 
 
 just about beginning — to produce artillery in quantity to-day. 
 We now have a capacity of about twenty-five thousand cannon 
 a year in this country. We are not making them yet, but the 
 capacity is there and will be brought slowly into operation, and 
 by fall we expect to be producing at about that rate. During 
 this period our troops are being supphed by England and France. 
 Of course, in one way we can't have too many guns, too many 
 cannon, but the length of the line to be held in France limits 
 the number of guns that can be used, and the British and 
 French have a manufacturing capacity that is greater than is 
 necessary to hold that line, and they have asked us to send 
 our men there, and are willing and able to arm them with ar- 
 tillery as fast as they get them; and this we have done. Our 
 men have gone over as rapidly as we can send them, and the 
 minute they land they are armed with guns of the proper cali- 
 bers ; and this will continue until we are able to furnish our 
 own guns. 
 
 Aeroplanes constitute perhaps the most interesting and spec- 
 tacular and most important of our munitions. A year ago we 
 hadn't any to speak of, and we had nobody who knew much 
 about it. When the war started, the first thing we did was to 
 send a great number of our best men over, our engineers, and 
 what few men we had who understood flying, and as they came 
 back, we absorbed as rapidly as we could their ideas. We 
 started early to train our men. We have to-day well over a 
 hundred thousand men in the air service, and in France we have 
 over a thousand qualified flyers. We have been more fortunate 
 with our men than we have with our aeroplanes, as I will 
 explain ! You understand in this whole situation — you must 
 understand — it is an entirely new field for our manufacturers — 
 the manufacture of aeroplanes. There was nobody here who 
 knew much about it. We had to be guided by our Allies, for they 
 gave us the best they had, but their methods of manufacture are 
 not American methods. You can perhaps compare it to hand- 
 making of automobiles, compared to our methods. We do not 
 make automobiles by hand. Their methods of making aeroplanes 
 are practically hand-methods. When you know that there were 
 workmen's drawings of aeroplanes nowhere in Europe you will 
 realize at once some of the difficulties we encountered. We had 
 to get the plans and make the drawings, thousands of them, to 
 each plane. 
 
 Now, the aeroplane is not as simple as it looks. We have 
 first the plane ; then the engine to drive ; then it has to be armed 
 with two kinds of machine guns. The first shoots forward, 
 synchronized with the propeller. That is, it has to shoot through 
 
98 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 the propeller, and it must shoot at intervals so it does not hit the 
 blade. That is what they call synchronizing it. And the second 
 machine gun must be able to shoot in any direction. 
 
 We have, besides, the ratio equipment, the camera, and a 
 great many things that we knew nothing about — aneroids, to get 
 the height. And a complete aeroplane means an assembling of 
 all these things together. 
 
 Now, we had three kinds of planes to make. The first, or 
 primary training plane, was a large and slow flying plane, on 
 which we began. Of course, that was the first thing to get, and 
 last fall we were a good deal worried about them because they 
 were not going through on time; but we found that as soon as 
 we began to get going they came pretty fast, and within a very 
 few weeks every camp we had was supplied with planes, and we 
 began storing them, and we have been storing them ever since, 
 waiting until we have use for them. 
 
 Our method of manufacture is so different from the Euro- 
 pean that when we get going we go fast. We got our men pretty 
 well trained, and ready for the secondary planes, that is, the 
 advanced training planes, and the planes weren't there. We 
 could not begin. But we have now got the advanced planes, and 
 indeed just at this minute we are working on the battle planes. 
 Now, the battle planes are, of course, the fighting planes. We 
 think we are just beginning the production in volume of the 
 battle plane. We have produced a few, and we have sent some of 
 them abroad for testing. For two months we have been testmg 
 our battle planes, what few we have produced. These, by the 
 way, are equipped with the Liberty Motor, of which you have all 
 heard — probably heard that we have not got any ! Yes, we have ; 
 we have got a few ; we have made several hundred of them, and 
 they are going just as the planes did. We are not hand-making 
 these things, but we are manufacturing them, and they are gomg 
 very fast, and they are increasing very fast. We had a good 
 many changes. This was a new motor. We had some — I think 
 nine hundred and seventy changes were made during the manu- 
 facture. And a good many men have held up their hands in 
 horror that we have allowed all these changes. The fact is, that 
 these changes, most of them, were asked for by the Packard and 
 the Ford Companies, which were making them, in order to facili- 
 tate the manufacture; and the other changes were simple things 
 which were necessary. If you build anything, you can't foresee 
 everything at the start. I hope the changes have all been made. 
 The motors and the planes are now, we think, well started. As 
 far as I can find from our advisers, the Liberty Motor is a per- 
 fect success to-day. It is the most powerful motor in existence on 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 99 
 
 aeroplanes.^ An aeroplane set up, of course, is a pretty delicate 
 thing to ship, and we are a good deal worried about our ability to 
 ship these things to Europe. Shipping is a vital matter with us, 
 so we are preparing to assemble them there. We build the 
 planes; we set them up, and then we take them all apart again 
 and ship them in bundles. We have some fifteen thousand ma- 
 chinists in France and a great many to-day working in aeroplane 
 factories. These men will assemble our planes and set them up 
 as fast as we ship them to Europe. In the meantime, we are 
 depending on French and Italian planes. We have over one 
 thousand over there, not as many as we would like, but we are 
 doing fairly well. Some may tell you that our soldiers are pro- 
 tecting themselves from the German aeroplanes with pistols, but 
 you needn't believe it! We are taking care of ourselves fairly 
 well! 
 
 I want to touch for a moment on submarines. The fighting in 
 Europe, the fighting in France, the whole thing depends on our 
 ability to send men over there. If the submarine should prevent 
 it we, of course, couldn't fight. Now, the facts about submarines, 
 I am going to give you very briefly. The sinkings this year have 
 not the curve — we plot all these things in curves, and I am ac- 
 customed to speaking in curves ; and the curve is not going up. 
 What I mean by that is that the sinkings are not increasing. But 
 on the contrary the line of sinkings is gradually getting a little 
 less, not as much as we would like, but we feel that the thing is 
 somewhat in control. 
 
 The other factors of course that are important in submarine 
 matters are the rate of production and the rate at which sub- 
 marmes are bemg sunk by our Navy, which, by the way, has been 
 doing some wonderful work Without going into a lot of figures, 
 I can say that to us m the Army the situation is not only reassur- 
 ing but IS encouragmg. 
 
 I have been savmg until the last the question of the organiza- 
 tion of the Army, which is and must be a rather dull subject, but 
 it is the vital one. Organization is everything. Our program 
 has been rather difficult. It is easy to organize an industry. 
 It is easy enough to extend an industry even hurriedly, 
 but when you have to do them at the same time it is diffi- 
 cult. And that is what we had to do. We feel, however, 
 that we are improving a little at a time, and where we 
 made a lot of mistakes, and will make a lot more, they are becom- 
 ing less important every day, and there is undoubtedly a great 
 deal of progress being made. When it comes to organization, I 
 always think of an old incident that happened years ago. I was 
 in the steel business, and the steel corporation was being formed. 
 
100 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 and Andrew Carnegie, who had by far the best steel plant in the 
 country, was putting his plant into the steel corporation; and a 
 friend of his asked : 
 
 "Why, are you selling your steel plant, and your blast fur- 
 naces, and are you selling even your iron mines, and your raw 
 materials, your coal mines also?" 
 
 And Mr. Carnegie replied: "Yes, I am selling them, but if 
 they will leave me my organization, and give me a year, I will 
 beat them yet !" 
 
 And what he meant by that was that it is the personnel of 
 the organization that makes all these things. It is not the mines 
 or the steel plants, but it is the matter of organization ; and it is 
 that organization that makes our War Department, and we stand 
 or fall as our organization is good or bad. We think it is good ! 
 
 The General Staff is the most important part of our organiza- 
 tion — it is the brains of our Army, and we are now giving special 
 attention to that department of the work. We sent most of our 
 best men to France early in the war, which was natural, of course, 
 and our General Staff, which I think I told you was pretty small, 
 as the war started, dwindled to almost nothing. We are now 
 rapidly building it up, and we believe that the work it is doing is 
 counting. 
 
 I am going to say a word now about the different battle 
 fronts. I do not know that I can add anything to what all of 
 you know, but the chief theater of course is the western front. 
 The Germans are making a very powerful attack. This is the 
 strongest offensive, probably, that has ever happened anywhere. 
 They are endeavoring to drive a wedge between the British and 
 the French. They have done pretty well so far. They have 
 gone straight ahead, and only the weather has prevented their 
 doing better. They had a fine rain storm, and they got into 
 trouble; couldn't get their guns up, and that stopped them for 
 quite a while. We think they are beginning now to start off 
 again, and we must be ready for trouble there. There is no doubt 
 about it. The situation will be' serious for a long time at this 
 point. If they succeed in getting a wedge between the British 
 and the French we think they will try to drive the British into 
 the sea to the north and capture the channel ports. However, 
 we do not know, and they have been pretty successful in keeping 
 these things to themselves. We have of course tremendous con- 
 fidence in the troops at the front, and those who have recently 
 come from the front all say that the further you get from the 
 front the less confidence there is, and the nearer you get to it, 
 the more confidence there is of holding the line ! 
 
 Although our own troops have not yet been in this battle, 
 
THE AMERICAN ARMY 101 
 
 there has been some mention in the papers of a few engineer 
 troops which happened to be in the rear of the Hnes, and near 
 these lines, that is, near this wedge. The indications are, how- 
 ever, that we may hear in the near future of our troops being 
 really in it. 
 
 The eastern front is anybody's guess. It is in a chaotic con- 
 dition. And I must say we know very little about it. The resist- 
 ance of the Russians has been reduced to almost nothing, and 
 the Germans have been able, and the Austrians also, to bring all 
 their best troops over to the western front. They have left only 
 a few troops that aren't perhaps any good. 
 
 In Italy, the Italians have plenty of men, and we think they 
 will give a good account of themselves. They are undoubtedly 
 facing a large offensive in the near future by the Austrians, who 
 are concentrating and preparing to attack them. That reminds 
 me of a rather interesting thing on the western front. The at- 
 tacking troops are all Prussians. There isn't an Austrian on the 
 western front in this attacking party. In these combatant troops 
 there isn't even a Bavarian, but they are all Prussians. We can 
 draw a good many inferences from that. 
 
 Now, on the Macedonian front things are quiet. The situa- 
 tion is still dangerous. The Greek Army, however, is mobilizing 
 rapidly, and in a satisfactory way, and if they are let alone long 
 enough and there is no attack there, why, they will probably do 
 very well. 
 
 In Palestine the British have done a wonderful piece of work. 
 Starting with the defense of the canal — the Suez Canal, they have 
 gradually got going, and driven north until to-day they are well 
 north of Jerusalem and Jericho. Their ability to go further, how- 
 ever, depends wholly upon their ability to construct a railroad. 
 It is wholly a question of railroad construction from now on. 
 How much further they go depends on how much faster they 
 can build that railroad. And in Mesopotamia perhaps the same 
 condition exists. They have gone a long way. They have got to 
 keep going ahead ; it is up to their troops from now on, and it is 
 rather difficult. 
 
 You know, and I know, that the Army can't win this war 
 alone. We need the backing of every American; we need the 
 backing of the whole nation. The people have got to stand back 
 of it, and we are depending on all Americans, and we know that 
 they will stand back of us and help. The American people are 
 going to win this war, not the American Army ; or perhaps that 
 isn't quite right, but the people and the Army are the same thing. 
 We are all one. Now, that is the reason that I consider that 
 your work is of such tremendous value, and is just the same as 
 
102 THE UNITED STATES AT WAR 
 
 our work here. We are working down here; I hope you will 
 work, and I know you will never fail in telling the people what 
 we are trying to do. 
 
 The men in the uniform are only the few of this great num- 
 ber that must do this job. They can't get very far alone. I hope 
 you will go out and enlist the whole people of this country in this 
 war, and as soon as you do we are going to see the finish of this 
 German militarism that we are fighting, and we will never see 
 the end of it if you fail. We are going to do what we can here 
 in Washington in the Army ; we are all inspired by the example 
 of Secretary Baker, and I say again I am very sorry that he is 
 not here to-night. The President of this country, President Wil- 
 son, is the Commander in Chief of the Army. We are all, you 
 and I, the soldiers. Now, I know everybody is going to do his 
 duty. 
 
 I certainly thank you for listening to me this long, and I wish 
 you all the best of luck in your work. 
 
Ill: SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL 
 ASPECTS OF THE WAR 
 
Ill: SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL 
 ASPECTS OF THE WAR 
 
 THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE WAR 
 
 By Robert McNutt McElroy, 
 
 Head of the Department of History in Princeton University, 
 
 Recently Exchange Professor to China, now Educational 
 
 Director of the National Security League 
 
 It is an axiom among students of history that the causes of 
 great historical processes are never simple ; and this present war, 
 the greatest of all wars, is no exception to the rule, having its 
 roots far back in the mazes of racial, dynastic, religious and ter- 
 ritorial complications. A simple explanation would be an anach- 
 ronism. There are the racial antipathies, no less strong because 
 pure races do not exist. There is Russia's age-long ambition for 
 an outlet to the Mediterranean. There is Britain's pride in her 
 Admiralty; France's desire for revenge for the days of 1871. 
 There are the ancient racial complications which have caused 
 men to say of Austria that she is not an empire but a mistake. 
 These and a hundred others must be reckoned with when the day 
 comes for the historian to speak as an historian of the present 
 war. To-day no man who values his reputation as a scientific 
 historian will venture to pronounce an historical judgment upon 
 the more obscure questions of the war. For three things are nec- 
 essary before a real historical judgment can be pronounced : 
 
 We must know, if not all, at least the most essential facts. 
 We must be able to speak impartially and judicially, with a min- 
 imum of personal bias. We must be able to see the results, as 
 the tracing of cause and effect is a large part of an historian's 
 task. 
 
 All of these elements are necessarily lacking at present. It is 
 true that the world has been flooded with books of many colors, 
 each purporting to contain all the essential documents; but we 
 know that each is a brief for a particular party-in-interest, care- 
 fully edited with a view of making a certain definite impression. 
 
 105 
 
106 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 Many missing links will appear in each as the years roll by. 
 History will not be ready to pronounce her complete verdict for 
 half a century. We cannot say, for example^ whether the battle 
 of the Marne ranks with Marathon, Chalons and Tours, battles 
 which saved civilizations, until we are certain that our civiliza- 
 tion has been saved. To-day we do not know enough to speak 
 as the historian of the future will speak, but we know enough 
 to fight as the patriot, the friend of law and humanity, fights. 
 We have not all the facts, but we have enough to be certain that 
 we are fighting for our national existence, for free government, 
 and for the rights of nations. We know enough to justify even 
 the most judicial among us in subscribing to the view expressed 
 by one of the wisest among us, Elihu Root, whose words I wish 
 to read to you : 
 
 "The principles of our fathers must go down before this 
 German Moloch, unless the triumphant manhood of our republic 
 gives support. As surely as the sun shall rise to-morrow, if this 
 war ends with triumph of Germany, this country will become a 
 subject nation." 
 
 "A subject nation" — this is the opinion of a statesman, calm, 
 clear-eyed and accustomed to weigh his words. With America 
 a "subject nation," what chance would liberty have in any other 
 part of the earth? Representative government could no more 
 exist in a world dominated by Prussia than it was able to survive 
 in a Germany dominated by Prussia. 
 
 Fundamentally this is a Prussian war against a Germanic 
 idea; for the idea of representation, the Teutonic idea in gov- 
 ernment as we used to call it, was born in the forests of Ger- 
 many, if we may still venture to follow Montesquieu and a long 
 line of political philosophers of many lands who followed him. 
 For a time it seemed to have a chance of developing there into a 
 real system of government; but the demands of an age of war, 
 the need of quick decision and centralized power soon led to the 
 complete triumph of absofutism ; and the Teutonic idea ceased to 
 gain ground upon the continent. The spirit of Caesar again ruled 
 upon the mainland, except in the mountains of Switzerland and 
 in the lowlands of Holland, where the germ of representative 
 government still survived. Germany, the birthplace of free gov- 
 ernment, had "reverted to type." 
 
 But in the meantime, certain Teutonic tribes, as yet untouched 
 by Rome, had migrated to England, taking the idea of represen- 
 tation with them. From the landing of Hengest in 449 A. D. to 
 the arrival of Augustine and his 40 Roman Catholic monks in 
 597 A. D., the Teutonic idea grew and prospered in England as 
 it had never been allowed to upon the continent. During all 
 
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE WAR 107 
 
 those years "no foreign influence, not German in origin," says 
 Bishop Stubbs, "was admitted at all." The native Britons were 
 almost exterminated and the Saxons became the sole masters of 
 England. Their isolated position protected them and their ideals 
 of government from the pressure which, on the continent, had 
 made it necessary to sacrifice everything to military efficiency. As 
 the years passed, the county meeting came to maturity, a meeting 
 where sat representatives from each township, speaking and 
 voting for their constituents. Thus the Teutonic idea, beaten in 
 its native forests, flourished here in the seclusion of the British 
 Isles. Absolutism strove in vain to gain control. King after Icing 
 arose, filled with the Roman idea which came with Augustine, 
 and strove to imitate his brother kings across the Channel; but 
 each in turn was beaten. King John dared to aspire to absolute 
 rulership, and was forced to face his infuriated barons at Runny- 
 mede. Henry III tried it, and the grim, determined figure of 
 Simon de Montfort scattered his forces at Lewes, and issued the 
 summons which gave nationality to the Teutonic idea in England. 
 
 In 1265 the people's representatives, whom Earl Simon had 
 summoned, assembled at Westminster, and the idea of govern- 
 ment by a parliament representing all the people of England, 
 nobility, clergy and commonalty alike, took its place in history. 
 Against it the despotic Tudors, the treacherous Stuarts and the 
 dull Hanoverians struggled in vain. Earl Simon's Parliament 
 had given an ideal of government which could not be moved. 
 
 In 1760 George the Third came to the throne of England. 
 He had been reared under the ideal of government which by this 
 time dominated his Germanic fatherland. His ambitious mother 
 had dinned into his ears from childhood the words, "Be a King, 
 George," by which she meant an irresponsible, absolute monarch. 
 
 But in the path of his ambition stood the Great Prime Min- 
 ister, William Pitt, the man whose genius had changed the King- 
 dom of England into the British Empire ; the man of whom Fred- 
 erick the Great declared, "England has been long in travail, but 
 at last she has brought forth a man." With Pitt at the helm of 
 State, no man could hope to be a king in the sense in which 
 George the Third understood the words. The young monarch 
 therefore at once set himself the task of ridding himself of this 
 hero of popular government. He packed the cabinet against the 
 prime minister, and when Pitt demanded the breaking off of 
 diplomatic relations with Spain, in preparation for a war already 
 overdue for the land of England, he was beaten, and at once 
 presented his resignation, in words which show how completely 
 the Teutonic idea of government dominated him: "I consider 
 myself called to the post of Prime Minister by the people of 
 
108 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 England, to whom I consider myself responsible. I will not 
 remain responsible for measures I am no longer allowed to 
 guide." 
 
 His resignation was accepted with indecent alacrity, and 
 George the Third considered himself in a position to "be a King" 
 in England. It was a perilous moment in the history of free 
 government ; but an ally was at hand whose power the ambitious 
 monarch had too lightly considered. 
 
 In the early days of the Stuarts' fight against representative 
 government in England, the American colonies had been settled 
 by men who had faced the hardships of a new world in order to 
 preserve the right of self-government, the Teutonic idea, for 
 themselves and for their children. The philosophy of Calvinism 
 had given to these men a touch of fanaticism. They were grim, 
 determined men, easier to respect than to love, but intent upon 
 the one overmastering ambition, "that the government of the peo- 
 ple, by the people and for the people should not perish from the 
 earth." 
 
 In the American wilderness, during the century and a half 
 since the first immigration, they had developed the idea of repre- 
 sentative government as no other people had ever developed it; 
 and the American Revolution was, in its essence, not a local 
 victory, but a victory for the rights of man everywhere. With 
 the surrender at Y'orktown, won not by American arms alone, 
 but by the aid of France and the complication of European 
 politics as well, began the period of aggressive conquest for the 
 idea of representative government. The French soldiers, in their 
 intimate contact with the patriot armies of America, imbibed the 
 ideals of self-government; and soon the throne of the Bourbons 
 was rocking under the blows of war "for liberty, equality and 
 fraternity." A few years later Washington received from the 
 Marquis De Lafayette a key to the Bastille labeled "the soil of 
 despotism." 
 
 In England the victory of the representative idea was less 
 bloody but more complete. The rise of the younger Pitt, the 
 reform bill of 1832, the rapid development of the power of the 
 Cabinet, and the supremacy of the Commons followed slowly 
 but with the steadiness so characteristic of the British method. 
 To the fathers of the American Revolution, the liberal element 
 in England, America and France, we owe it, that to-day the citi- 
 zens of the British Empire, the sons of France, and the citizens 
 of the American Republic, together with a myriad of self-govern- 
 ment peoples throughout the world, own the same sovereign, the 
 "Sovereign People," and it is a source of pride to Americans, and 
 to Britains alike, that wherever their flags have been unfurled 
 
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE WAR 109 
 
 the love of that Sovereign has been the theme of poHtical teach- 
 ing. There have been many false steps, many mistakes, and not 
 a few deliberate crimes against the rights of that Sovereign ; but 
 in the main it is fair to say of these nations that popular govern- 
 ment has followed the flag. Men have criticized the British policy 
 in South Africa, but no one can deny that when the Boers were 
 conquered. Great Britain stepped aside and invited the conquered 
 to govern themselves. The American intervention in Cuba may 
 be criticized; but, after giving Cuba a sanitary code, a sound 
 administration, and a system of public education, we gave back 
 the island to its own people, to rule as they saw fit. Upon this 
 subject one need not argue ; one need only state the facts. 
 
 But, during all the years included in this survey, the Prus- 
 sians in "Northeastern Europe have never once been seriously 
 touched by the idea of representative government. During her 
 whole history this people, "a mixture of many races, with more 
 Slavonic than Teutonic blood," have cherished absolutist ideals 
 of government. In the history of Prussia we miss the stirring 
 ■"conflicts for the rights of man which lend a charm to Anglo- 
 Saxon history. There are no Runnymede Barons in the history 
 ■vf Prussia; no Simon de Montforts, no Oliver Cromwells, Pitts, 
 Washingtons, Lincolns or Lafayettes; Prussia, throughout her 
 history, as Professor Delbruck tells us, has been a Kreigsstaat. 
 She has been a Volk in Waffen. All of her history is military 
 history. Her worship has been in the sunless aisles of the great 
 cathedral where the black idol, Force, is adored. 
 
 And slowly, but with a terrible certainty, she has imposed her 
 will upon Teutonic Germany, until to-day Germany is but an 
 expanded Prussia. "To-day," said the historian, Charles Sarolea, 
 writing before the "war of the world" had begun, "the Germans 
 are governed more completely from Potsdam and Berlin than 
 the French were governed from Paris and Versailles. In reality, 
 Prussia has the ultimate and financial control." And it is to main- 
 tain this that the Teutonic Germans are to-day giving their lives. 
 
 "As a man thinketh in his heart so is he." And as a nation 
 thinketh in her heart so is that nation. A nation that trains her 
 sons to place their hands upon their swords when differences 
 arise is a military nation. England and America have come to 
 teach their sons to think first of peaceful means ; hence the cen- 
 tury of peace so lately celebrated between them ; hence that glo- 
 rious line of frontier between the United States and the British 
 possessions in Canada, unmarred by hidden mine or frowning 
 bastion. 
 
 The German philosophy, on the other hand, is the philosophy 
 of hate. 
 
110 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 "This demand for the peaceful rivalry of States,'' says Las- 
 son ^ ". . . is either an empty phrase in the mouth of simple- 
 tons, or a deliberate and hypocritical lie." "Ye shall love peace 
 as a means to new wars — and the short peace more than the long" 
 — says Nietzsche.^ And the fine mind of Maximilian Harden ^ 
 phrased it even more grossly, "Let us drop our pitiable efforts to 
 excuse Germany's action. . . . Not against our will were we 
 thrown into this gigantic adventure. We willed it ; we were 
 bound to will it. . . . Our force will create a new law in Europe. 
 It is Germany that strikes ! When she has conquered new domin- 
 ions for her genius, then the priesthood of all the gods will 
 praise the God of War." 
 
 Tannenberg declares:^ "Enthusiasm for humanity is idiocy. 
 Charity should begin among one's compatriots. . . . Right and 
 wrong are notions needed in civil life only." "It is foolish," says 
 Karl Peters,^ "to talk of the rights of others; it is foolish to 
 speak of a justice that should hinder us from doing to others 
 what we do not ourselves wish to suffer from them." 
 
 "Any one who cannot bring himself to approve from the bot- 
 tom of his heart the sinking of the Lusitania," says Pastor D. 
 Baumgarten, "... and give himself up to honest joy at this 
 victorious exploit . . . such an one we deem not true German." " 
 
 "The Teutonic race is called," says Ludwig Woltmann,'^ "to 
 circle the earth with its rule, to exploit the treasures of nature 
 and of human power, and to make the passive races subservient 
 elements in their cultural development." 
 
 And what is Kultur? Let a German speak: ^ "Kultur is a 
 spiritual organization of the world, which does not exclude bloody 
 savagery. It raises the demoniac to sublimity. It is above mo- 
 rality, reason and science !" 
 
 These are fair examples of the thinking that has at last cul- 
 minated in the enthronement of Hate. Hear the words of the 
 Poet, Heinrich Vierordt : ^ 
 
 ^"Out of Their Own Mouths." Appleton, 1917, Chapter III. 
 
 ^"Thus Spake Zarathustra," by Friedrich Nietzsche. Translated by- 
 Alexander Tille. 1896 edition, p. 60. 
 
 ^ Die Zukunft Herausgeben, Maximilian Harden, 89 band, pp. 68-69. 
 
 * Gross-Deutschland, die Arbeit des 20 Jahrhunderts. Von Otto Rich- 
 ard Tannenberg. 1911 edition, p. 231. 
 
 ' "Out of Their Own Mouths." 
 
 "Ibid, Chapter 11. 
 
 ' Politische Anthropologie. By Ludwig Woltmann. 1903 edition, p. 298. 
 
 ' "Die neue Rundschau." 1914 edition, Vol. 2, Article called "Gedanken 
 ini Kriege." By Thomas Mann, pp. 1471-1472. 
 
 " Text, "Out of Their Own Mouths," Appleton, 1917, which gives also 
 the history of the poem. 
 
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE WAR 111 
 
 Germany, hate ! Salvation will come of thy wrath. 
 Beat in their skulls with rifle-butts and with axes. 
 Let your clenched fist enforce the judgment of God. 
 Afterwards thou wilt stand erect on the ruins of the world. 
 
 Healed forever of thine ancient madness. . . . 
 
 Or this, from the Hymn to the German sword : i<* 
 
 1 have slaughtered the old and the sorrowful : 
 I have struck off the breasts of women ; 
 
 And I have run through the bodies of children 
 
 Who gazed up at me with the eyes of a wounded lion. 
 
 These are no parodies. They are real poems of the soul, a 
 soul perverted, and as black as hell itself. They speak not the 
 philosophy of the moment, the product of a state produced by 
 war ; but a philosophy which runs through Prussian history from 
 the beginning even to the end, which we hope is well-nigh here. 
 
 "The Prussians," said Goethe, "are cruel by nature; civili- 
 zation will make them ferocious." "Nature," adds Heine, "has 
 made them stupid, science has made them wicked."^^ 
 
 Such is our enemy, scorning the ideals which we cherish and 
 vaunting those that we loathe. And yet there are to-day in this 
 land of ours men high in office whose mission it seems to be to 
 induce our government again to enter into treaty engagements 
 with Prussianized Germany, a nation in which the philosophy of 
 hate and the creed of the Hohenzollerns are still in force. We 
 do not need to hark back to the ancient statements. Recent Ger- 
 man authorities have restated for us Germany's view of treaties. 
 
 "There is," says Lasson, "no legal obligation upon a state to 
 observe treaties ; but there is a dictate of far-sighted prudence. A 
 state cannot commit a crime. "'^^ 
 
 "There is," he adds, "but one sort of right — the right of the 
 stronger . . . this right of the stronger may be said to be 
 moral." ^^ 
 
 "No right," adds Professor Joseph Kohler, "is so inviolable 
 that it must not yield to necessity ; and in action dictated by 
 necessity there is no violation of right." ^* 
 
 And Bethmann-Hollweg, at the most critical moment in mod- 
 em history, declared that, "just for a word, neutrality, a word 
 which in war time has so often been disregarded — just for a scrap 
 of paper — Great Britain was going to make war on a kindred 
 
 ""Out of their Own Mouths," Appleton, 1917, for text and history 
 of the poem. 
 
 "Ibid. 
 
 "Ibid., quoted from Lasson's "Das Culturideal un der Kreig," 
 1868 edition, pp. 15-16. 
 
 " Ibid. 
 
 "Ibid. 
 
112 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 nation." i^ We are liable to the error of thinking of this expres- 
 sion as the fruit of an incautious impulse ; but it was not. The 
 Imperial Chancellor, whether consciously or unconsciously, was 
 but repeating the words of an ancestor of his Imperial Master. 
 On April ii, 1847, i" a speech from the throne, King Frederic 
 William IV, of Prussia, declared: "All written constitutions are 
 only scraps of paper," ^^ and Karl Schurz and other liberal spirits 
 turned their backs upon their homes and became loyal citizens of 
 America, whose ideals of government Washington has formu- 
 lated for all time in the words : "Observe good faith and justice 
 towards all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. . . . 
 Give to mankind the . . . example of a people always guided by 
 an exalted justice and benevolence." i'' 
 
 What hope is there from treaties with a nation which regards 
 them as binding only so long as they are to her advantage ? "The 
 state has no superior judge over itself," said von Treitschke, "and 
 it will conclude all its treaties with this tacit reservation."^' 
 
 "The German people," Otto Richard Tannenberg philoso- 
 phizes, "is always right, because it is the German people, and be- 
 cause it numbers eighty-seven millions." ^^ To such an argument 
 only one reply is possible. "We must make you less than eighty- 
 seven millions, and then, by your own logic, you will be wrong." 
 That now is the task before us ; and it is one which will demand 
 the power of a united America. Until that task is accomplished, 
 every real American should forget that he is a Republican, Demo- 
 crat, Prohibitionist, or Suffragist, and remember only that he is 
 an American. 
 
 "Only those states," says Frymann,^*' "can assert a right to 
 independence that can secure it, sword in hand." Our mission is 
 to prove this statement wrong also, for we fight, not only to 
 defend our land and her liberties, but to insure "life, liberty and 
 the pursuit of happiness" to weak nations as well as to strong; 
 to give to weak nations, as our ancestors gave to weak individ- 
 uals, the majestic protection of a law which operates even in their 
 weakness. 
 
 Germany's philosophy, by its very nature, makes Germany a 
 menace to all the nations of the world, and her actions have illus- 
 trated the ruthless and lawless character of that menace. 
 
 ""Goschen to Grey." Collected Diplomatic Documents relating to the 
 outbreak of the war. London, 1915, p. iii. 
 
 ""Out of their Own Mouths." 
 
 " Writings of George Washington, Ford Edition, 1892, Vol. 13, p. 311. 
 
 "Treitschke, "Pohtik," I, p. 38. 
 
 " "Gross-Deutschland." By Richard Tannenberg. 191 1 edition, p. 231. 
 
 ^° "Wenn ich Kaiser war." By Daniel Frymann. 1915 edition, quoted 
 by "Out of Their Own Mouths," 
 
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF .THE WAR 113 
 
 The United States and Great Britain, on the other hand, can 
 never become a menace so long as they train their sons in the 
 philosophy which to-day molds the thought of their citizens, and 
 so long as they continue to follow the path marked out by their 
 recent history. In every step of her expansion, except her treat- 
 ment of the Indians, an idealism pronounced if not always per- 
 fect has been America's guide. In the Mexican war she resisted 
 the temptation to hold all she had won, although both Germany 
 and England expressed a desire that she should do so. What she 
 did hold was sparsely inhabited, or inhabited by Americans; and 
 she paid for it although she might have kept it without payment, 
 not a customary method of international adjustment in the mid- 
 dle of the nineteenth century. And in thinking of this incident 
 it is only fair to judge it as of 1848, not as of 1918. 
 
 The colonial history of Great Britain is longer, and her record, 
 therefore, is less clear. Her Empire was founded by force, but, 
 beginning with the Quebec Act, and the lessons learned through 
 the American Revolution, she has delivered self-government 
 wherever she has gone, as rapidly as the peoples within her 
 spheres of influence have been ready for it. Her dominion col- 
 onies are as free and as self-governing as the United States her- 
 self. India, the Straits Settlements and Egypt, under England, 
 like the Philippines under the United States, are not yet ready 
 for self-government. But when the time comes when they are 
 able to stand alone, unless the new ideal of colonization is be- 
 trayed in the house of its friends, they too will be told to govern 
 themselves, with the benediction of their respective Suzerains. 
 
 But what of Prussia, and Prussianized Germany? For an- 
 swer, read the story of Alsace-Lorraine as a Reischland for forty 
 years. Taxation without representation (a vote in the Reich- 
 stag is merely a voice in a debating society, for the real power 
 lies in the Bundesrath, where Alsace-Lorraine was not repre- 
 sented), no local self-government, suppression of the right to use 
 the mother tongue; these are grim facts which stare one in the 
 face in the history of the subjugation of a people as able to rule 
 themselves as are any on earth. 
 
 A few years ago the German Kaiser threatened the city of 
 Strassburg with annexation to Prussia if certain clamors were 
 not speedily hushed ; and the Strassburg Socialist Party replied : 
 
 "We salute the Imperial words as the confession . . . that an- 
 nexation to Prussia is the heaviest punishment that one can threat- 
 en to impose upon a people. ... It is a punishment like hard labor 
 in a penitentiary with loss of civil rights." 
 
 With the Prussian Creed of crime daily in force before a 
 horrified world, no argument is needed to prove that Prussian- 
 
114. SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 ized Germany is a menace. She admits it ; she glories in it. "The 
 triumph of the greater Germany which some day must dominate 
 all Europe," said the German Imperial Proclamation of June 
 191 5, "is the single end for which we are fighting." 
 
 Why then do we fight? Because we have been attacked? 
 Because our peaceful citizens — men and women — have been de- 
 liberately murdered on the high seas, in contemptuous disregard 
 of the rights of man and of the rights of nations ? Because we 
 believe that if we do not fight our enemy upon the bloody fields 
 of heroic France, our children will have to fight them on the soil 
 of America? We fight for these reasons, of course. Any great, 
 free, powerful and independent nation must fight under such 
 provocation. But we have other and more compelling reasons, 
 reasons which add the touch of glory to the grim fact of war; 
 reasons which forbid us to sheathe the shining sword until our 
 mission is accomplished, our trust fulfilled. "Those whose lifted 
 eyes have caught the vision of a liberated world have said that 
 of the policy of blood and iron there shall be an end, and that 
 equal justice which is the heart of democracy shall rule in its 
 stead." These are the words of our President, interpreting the 
 heart, not of America alone, but of all peoples who have resolved 
 that the world shall not be Prussianized by force of arms. We 
 fight to insure peace. We bear arms to-day that in future the 
 world may enjoy unarmed those institutions which have made us 
 great and prosperous and happy; and we fight to-day to defend 
 a sacred inheritance which free peoples hold in trust for all hu- 
 manity. And we must continue to fight until its safety is as- 
 sured. 
 
 The Fathers of the American Revolution, facing a royal des- 
 pot, declared, in effect, that the territory which had been known 
 as the Thirteen British Colonies in America must be safe for 
 democracy, and they fought until they had made it safe. To-day, 
 in this land, the children of the oppressed of all nations rest 
 happy in that safety, breathing the air of liberty and equality. 
 
 In December, 1823, James Monroe, in his famous message to 
 Congress, applied that declaration to a wider sphere, announcing, 
 in effect, that the American continents must be safe for democ- 
 racy; and America has kept that pledge also. 
 
 And now the time has arrived when the welfare of mankind 
 demands the application of this same principle to a still wider 
 area. President Wilson's bold statement, "The world must be 
 made safe for democracy," means that our trust cannot be ful- 
 filled until the idea of government by the people is free to develop 
 in every land, unterrified by the menace of an armed and preda- 
 tory autocracy. 
 
THE ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF THE WAR 
 
 By John Bates Claek, 
 Professor of Political Economy, Columbia University 
 
 There is no activity of mankind that is not gravely modified 
 by war. When in primitive times the hand begins to wield a 
 sword instead of holding a plow handle, the man's whole life is 
 transformed, and when modern nations do a similar thing the 
 transformation is still greater. It reverses in detail the opera- 
 tions that we think of as economic. From wealth-creating the 
 nations turn to wealth-destroying and from life-sustaining to 
 killing. Apparently War has living men as its raw material, dead 
 men as its finished product and mutilated ones as its uncompleted 
 product. Destruction of the fine products of the shop and the 
 studio is a lesser by-product, and the tragic fate of women and 
 children the greatest of them. War searches out the best fruits 
 of centuries of development and puts a blight on them. It is 
 much more than cathedrals, libraries and art treasures, that shells 
 and torches mar and obliterate. There is rack and ruin of a kin- 
 dred sort in human life and the picture of it blazens itself, as it 
 were, on the sky, as an object lesson in the economic interpreta- 
 tion of war. It seems to mark it as simply and literally the hell 
 that General Sherman called it. 
 
 There are still more counts in the indictment. Peace accumu- 
 lates capital. Frugality added to industry makes men look to the 
 future well-being of themselves and their children and provide for 
 it by savings. They deny themselves something now in order 
 that they and their heirs may have more hereafter. This causes 
 the level of human living gradually and surely to rise until the 
 skilled laborers in advanced lands are able to enjoy much which 
 the great lords of a former day lacked. The marvelous mechan- 
 ism which, when it does its work rightly, turns out means of 
 comfort in profusion, finds its antithesis in diabolically effective 
 guns, shells, poisonous gases, zeppelins and submarines, for doing 
 a devil's work. The prima facie case against war is so over- 
 whelming as to make pacifists of those who look only at its sav- 
 agery. 
 
 The picture has another side. In warfare there are assailants 
 
 "5 
 
116 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 and defenders and their moral positions are strongly contrasted. 
 A basic motive of offensive war is economic. The present war 
 was begun as a quick grasp at a vast source of future riches, the 
 vision of which has dazzled an ambitious people for some decades. 
 The lure of a "place in the sun" has always invited warlike men 
 to invade lands on which that economic sun has shone and try to 
 eject the occupants. If they think of it as Germans do, they 
 probably regard it as turning Canaanites out of a promised land 
 and therefore entirely creditable. This view of the moral quality 
 of war for the sake of gain seems to have been inherited from 
 ancestors of an ancient time and to have expressed an inborn 
 trait. Tacitus tells us that the Germans of his day thought it 
 discreditable to gain by toil what could more quickly and easily 
 be gained by the sword. The paradox of war is not hard to ex- 
 plain. Neither old-time savages nor their modern counterparts 
 spend their own capital, pledge their own incomes and shed their 
 own blood for the sake of bringing on themselves the immediate 
 misery which war chiefly yields. It is enemies' blood that they 
 hope to shed and enemies' welfare that they strive to destroy. 
 If it is done in cold blood and from greed of gain, it may be 
 rational as an economic act — a quest of wealth — ^but in a moral 
 way the motive sinks it to the lowest level of guilt. There may 
 be something to be said for the cave dweller whose subsistence 
 was so meager that he must kill or drive off a neighbor to save 
 his family from starvation ; but what is to be said of a rich mod- 
 ern nation which, from ambition to be richer, brings on a colossal 
 war? If the single murderer whose motive is gain is doubly 
 debased, the nation that acts from this motive is assuredly so. 
 In both cases the utter wickedness of the attack makes the de- 
 fense a virtue of a high order. A man would be degraded who 
 would not defend himself and his family against a murderous 
 burglar, and so would a nation. War is a dual act and it is 
 impossible to merge attack and defense in one general action and 
 pronounce it right or wrong. The more utterly wrong is the 
 aggressive party the more right and praiseworthy is the defensive 
 one. Very unlike in the present war are the positions of those 
 who assailed Serbia, to clear the way for an oriental empire, and 
 those who resisted the attacks ; and between the moral position 
 of the two parties to-day whatever difference there is is caused by 
 the fact that one is violating the sacred rights of the world and 
 the other is pouring out its blood and treasure in vindicating 
 them. The moral gulf is as wide as that between the ethics of 
 paradise and those of the pit. 
 
 For our country and its Allies, the war is self-defense, extend- 
 ing itself over many a neutral country and over many generations. 
 
ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF THE WAH 117 
 
 Liberty is at stake and the choice we make is between leaving 
 descendants tributary peoples and leaving them free. Liberty, 
 as a permanent asset, thrusts itself into our economic estimates 
 as a supreme end and teaches us that there are things of such 
 fine value and measureless amount that no material goods we 
 can think of serve as a standard of appraisal for them. Liberty 
 do£SJ;rjriscend-£G<MiGmie--blessi«gs-in.its-scQpe. .It is so great an 
 end in itself_tbat-figbt-iRg-foTft-emiablesdBfensive war and glori- 
 fies^ tho^^ISdio-^taJt€-tbetr4rv e5-Tn -i t — The- attack which put the 
 freedqm.xif-iBaHy~states~iirjeopardy haSTtre-iowe'r-type- -of gain 
 mainly in view — the wxesting-away^-©4-ethe-r- peoples' "place in 
 the-stttt." --There is wealth for the defenders also at stake, since^ 
 the w ar which nT Otects onrseh^jamLQiir^ll ies wiirpf event the 
 impov"erishmg"of us all and will keep oj3en-tQ^usJ±£jat^ta-£uture 
 
 wealth— whi i li ^ ^\^ < h yr<p ftip war hnth wp anH nnr pnpmiVc wp rji 
 
 following. SerTdomand all approaches to it mean poverty ; free: 
 '^""^ fnr n ^^nritry ns Mall y m e'^"'^ com parative riches, and the- 
 alle gorical fi^re of it should carrv a cornucopi a. It follows that 
 
 crippllTIPJiparll y pnermV'! i s, i" a cpmnrlary ^ ^y. productive, and 
 
 the war whi ch puts^ ^f^rn n^ji f,j ^^n<ii±ii^ tn destroy us is, on 
 econoHrlL gioundl^ ational. This is clearly evidentTo" any one 
 who Will Ifcitd suiTie published German plans for governing con- 
 quered territory — plans that involve bleeding it to a degreettJaT' 
 would make life in it not worth living. 
 
 If we look, not merely at the defendant country, but at the 
 warring world in its entirety, what we see looks in the highest 
 degree irrational — a frenzy of destruction reversing the good 
 effects of the economics of peace. So does a fight between two 
 men; as a means of settling a quarrel it is a wicked absurdity. 
 If we look only at the defensive side — if we know it has been 
 unjustly attacked and is in great danger and ask what alternatives 
 are open to it — we see that it must choose between fighting and 
 submitting to conquerors. Fighting is then coolly rational instead 
 of foolish and nobly heroic instead of diabolical. I f ^ succes sful, ; 
 it will result in a vast benefit, economic and super -'"^"'iTTnuVTr- 
 WRSIiT'^ritr'the p7esent war, we fight for liberty for a large part| 
 of the world, we build our lives and our fortunes into a stately 
 edifice, material and immaterial, that will attest through future 
 years, not only the moral nobility of a war for freedom, but even 
 its-ec onomic fruit,f ulness. 
 
 Warfare is noT; inherently as complete a reversal of the wealth 
 creating activities as it appears to be. If we look far enough 
 and-^deep enough, we shall find in it an inherent function of the 
 organized life of men, and we can trace its working in all the 
 steps of their evolution up to the present point. It is a hasty first 
 
118 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 thought that makes war seem anti-economic in its basic purpose. 
 It deals indeed with the higher values that no ordinary currency 
 can measure. We cannot weigh life and liberty in the scales 
 against gold and find how much it is worth while to pay for them. 
 What is plain is that the material things that gold stands for fur- 
 nish a main object of offensive war and the necessity of guarding 
 them furnishes one prominent object of defensive war. The 
 leading prize of warfare since pre-Adamite days has been gain. 
 The community of nations has always had its bullies and robbers. 
 In the dawn of history individual men lived fraternally within 
 their little embryonic states while the states were anything but 
 fraternal toward each other, and from that time until a very 
 recent one, robbery of state by state has seemed natural and, to a 
 certain type of rulers, even legitimate. It was Frederick the 
 Great who has been quoted as saying, "We take when we can 
 and are never wrong unless we have to give back a part of what 
 we have taken." Within states civilization has done its benefi- 
 cent work; robbery is infrequent and robbers are not tolerated. 
 Policemen, ludicrously few in proportion to the whole population, 
 now seem to keep the peace, but it is the policemen with a vast 
 potential force behind them — that of the community as a whole. 
 Ever ready are the citizens to reenforce their officers at need. 
 The little active squad of peace preservers, with an unlimited 
 potential army behind them, have reduced to a negligible amount 
 the bullying and robbing of citizens. Very far back must we go — 
 farther than any authentic record can take us — if we wish to find 
 within single states a relation of man to man as abnormal and 
 savage in its practices and as immoral in its standards as fre- 
 quently is the intercourse of state with state. Wars of direct 
 territorial conquest — massed burglary and resulting murder 
 raised to the Nth power — still occur, and the greatest of them all 
 is now in progress. Yet there is now asserting itself against the 
 attack a world sentiment which is akin to that public sentiment in 
 local communities which keeps the peace within them. Deep in 
 human nature the protest against robbery exists and makes itself 
 audible. In the intercourse of state with state we lack means of 
 enforcing the protest except by war, but such a war by a defen- 
 sive league does the work that a world police will at some time 
 do and marks the nearest approach which humanity has thus far 
 made to the ultimate civilized state — the federation of the world. 
 For that and for no selfish purpose our own noble army in 
 khaki is fighting. 
 
 Without leagues nations, unhappily, have only available a 
 primitive mode of self-protection. They must live among other 
 nations as citizens live in a community where every one is his own 
 
ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF THE WAR 119 
 
 policeman, and must have his weapons always ready. A country 
 that claims to have reached the acme of civilization may collec- 
 tively play the low bully and act, in the community of states, 
 like a model of savagery. In this situation a vigilance committee 
 of nations is called for, and if the present Entente, including 
 America and all her Allies, will act as such a committee and in 
 that spirit win the war, it will mark the greatest advance in 
 world organization that has yet been attained. It will be a world 
 worth living in, in which there is a commonwealth of free states 
 devoted to peace and strong enough to preserve it. It will not be 
 the federation of the world of which Tennyson sang, but it will 
 be an advance over any form of organization that has thus far 
 existed on this planet. 
 
 It would weaken the case for such a le?gue to assume that any 
 argument in favor of it is necessary, but if one should enumer- 
 ate the benefits that it would confer on the world, it would make 
 an incomparable list, and on the economic side, which we are to- 
 day considering, its services to mankind would surpass that of 
 any institution for promoting material welfare. Freedom, indeed, 
 individual and national, quite regardless of the wealth a state 
 may enjoy under it, is, as we have seen, a supreme good, and a 
 country might well prefer to live poor and free rather than rich 
 and enslaved. Conquering empires have, in their day, given a 
 kind of peace to the world, but it has been peace with slavery 
 and poverty, and it is a peace plus freedom that means a life 
 worth living. Therejs a tran s cendent economic be nefit in secur- 
 it v for independenTnati ons great and small. Even in the realm 
 in which values of the cruder sort are measured, that for which 
 the Entente is fighting includes the greatest of prizes. There is 
 wealth in st ore f o r the world in a measure th at_ will help to" off set 
 its appallmg sac rifices if it can vindicaTe its g eneral freedom and 
 sti ll keep~t!Te~ peace. i t would be a sad mistike T o~l3nderva tue 
 ei ther t h^3^ t£j:'«^ ^oefff-iai- tJ ^ts-^warr^ a^tbeong^nd. .or tli§^' 
 rr iaterial gain s._th at will follow a ri p ;hteous en^ng o T it, orTthe 
 otKeK Very, very far reachmg in every sphere of human life, 
 lower as well as higher, will be the effect of bringing the conduct 
 of nations toward each other, not under the rules of a distant 
 millennium indeed, but under the simple canons of civilization as 
 they are found in a thousand communities in our country and 
 elsewhere. That will be a renovated world in which states shall 
 treat each other nearly as well as men do in a village of an ordi- 
 nary sort. 
 
 Primitive times have their lessons for us. Let us suppose that 
 there is a community consisting of two prehistoric men living, 
 each with his family, on adjoining land, and that the families are 
 
120 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 self-supporting and self -de fending, though ineifective in both 
 capacities. They work and hunt, fight off attacks, and then work 
 and hunt again and must always watch for enemies and keep 
 weapons in readiness. They must dig in their fields and drive 
 others away from them alternately, and the tilling and the fight- 
 ing are equally necessary parts of the wealth-creating process. 
 There is no inducement to raise crops if enemies are at once 
 allowed to take them. Where there is no ownership of anything 
 there is no wealth, and where preserving ownership is difficult 
 and imperfect there is very little. Self-protection is a necessary 
 and wealth-creating operation. From the dawn of civilization 
 to the end of it producing goods and guarding them must go on 
 together. 
 
 The assigning of these two functions to separate classes of 
 men is the first and most generic division of labor. Workmen 
 thereafter create wealth in one way and policemen in another, 
 and the constant personal protection of life and property are no 
 longer needed. Something like this will happen as soon as a score 
 of such primitive groups, consisting of a family or two each, 
 unite in a single community. The members of it will quit fighting 
 each other and will keep order within their settlement by some 
 rude policing that will leave most of their time free for other 
 purposes. What one of those other purposes is, however, is 
 much like the personal self-defense that they practiced before. 
 
 ,The community still has to defend itself from other communities, 
 and doing so is essential for producing wealth and is, therefore, 
 an economic function. Modern states still have to do this — which 
 means that war is always imminent in the crude condition of the 
 present world community. When the states have world courts 
 and police to enforce their laws they will keep the world order in 
 a civilized way. That they do not have them now proves that, 
 while single states are internally civilized, the world community 
 is ri ot so. 
 
 -"^ Our present task is to trac£-Jhe „economic el ement in the bar- 
 
 .barity of int ernation al _ dealing s at their worstT^rT'which they 
 
 yeproducg~cril3~m|gS3y^^5--fiut3red3ol^ 
 
 bribes 'wShinjfigming reach of each othe'F~iira~pTimitiv'e'wilder- 
 ness. Thave said that, in industrial life, the industrial and pro- 
 tective functions are badly done when they are performed by the 
 same person — that the tiller of the field is badly handicapped 
 when he must forever be on the watch for a lurking enemy, and 
 every now and anon stop to fight him and, on the other hand, 
 his self -protection is inefficient while he is absorbed in his work 
 of tillage. He cultivates little ground, gets small crops and runs 
 grave risk in getting them, and it is, therefore, highly profitable 
 
ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF THE WAR 121 
 
 for two men to specialize, each taking one of the functions and 
 becoming either a cultivator or a fighter. The man who is the 
 better cultivator should raise the crops and the one who is more 
 efficient with spear or cudgel should defend them. Formerly, 
 among American Indians, women were the farmers and men the 
 fighters, and, in spite of the lazy lives of the men, the division of 
 functions was good for all. Whenever this can be done on a 
 world-wide scale — whenever a world police can be created and 
 safely trusted to keep the general peace there will be a corres- 
 ponding economic gain for the world. That is a future goal, but 
 the present war is a beginning of progress in that direction. This 
 is the true nature of it. Our league — the Greater Entente, as we 
 may call it — is a vast alliance, which, as I have said, acts as a 
 vigilance committee of nations, and, when its work shall have 
 been victoriously done, will, in all probability, continue to func- 
 tion as a preserver of the world peace which it will have won at 
 terrible cost. 
 
 It is not as easy for a dozen peace- and justice-loving states to 
 repress one marauding one as it is for a dozen men to repress an 
 individual bully. This, however, is essentially what is now hap- 
 pening, and the present war is an uprising of the orderly part of 
 the world community against international robbery. What is 
 more, the latent possibility of such action as this by a group of 
 states is what has always given importance to that balance of 
 power which formerly kept Europe at peace through fairly long 
 periods. It did not suffice entirely to prevent war and it failed^ 
 to prevent the present one, but it was a potent influence and, if it 
 had been foreseen how vyidel y Germany's disturbance of the bal- 
 ance_would be resented/ it would probably have' prevented the 
 fatal attack on Serbia. As_ long as I be^alance lasted there was 
 al ways a cha nce that a quick union might be formed to repress 
 a piratical state. The nation which might have disturbed the 
 balance by grabbing the territories of another was deterred from 
 so doing by the danger that the other powers would resent the 
 action and would not confine themselves, in their resentment, to | 
 looking at the aggressor with grave disapproval. There was 
 always the chance that they would pass sentence on him and exe- \ 
 cute it. Very highly unintelligent is the contempt which one often 
 hears expressed for a balance of power as a peace-preserving in- 
 fluence. It is a principle that necessarily works and must work 
 in determining war and peace. The concert of great powers was 
 an inchoate federation that further evolution might have devel- 
 oped. A certain balance of power will have to be respected in 
 the peace which will be made after the present struggle. It is 
 the fatal shattering of a former equilibrium, which a German 
 
12£ SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 victory would now mean, that steels the world against permit- 
 ting it. We are all fighting because not one of us would be safe 
 if beaten. 
 
 It is evident that though the entire relation of states with 
 each other is still on a low plane, evolution is advancing and, in 
 this larger sphere as in the smaller one, the forces that will ulti- 
 mately keep the peace are growing. States must guard them- 
 selves and must do it in a costly and savage way till federations 
 become secure enough to do it for them. If, however, they must 
 always do this — if the prese effort to preserve freedom shall 
 fail and if the old murderous attacks on freedom continue and 
 are successful, it will be a question whether the human race de- 
 serves to survive at all. Under the existing world order war 
 does something that has to be done, given the fact that some 
 states play the part of savages; but if man is not capable of de- 
 vising a better and surer way to do it, he deserves to lose his 
 claim to rule the earth, and should let some more highly gre- 
 garious animal type evolve through countless ages of the future 
 to a position of supremacy. 
 
 What man has to do is to strengthen, in the present war, the 
 alliance that is fighting for freedom and may evolve into a per- 
 manent world organization that will give the race a right to sur- 
 vive. Our modest and immediate task is to identify the economic 
 costs of the war that may lead to this translation of the plane 
 of world life from a savage level to a civilized one. They are 
 far from consisting merely in the outlays made by the gov- 
 ernments. Vastly more than these are the total costs. There 
 are payments which do not go through the accounts of the treas- 
 ury. There are losses by the people themselves and direct de- 
 struction of portions of their property. The ruined villages of 
 France, the crippling of Belgium and the wastes created in Po- 
 land and Armenia, are costs of a very high order. On the other 
 hand, not all the special outlays now made by governments in 
 excess of peace outlays are merely costs of war. Some of them 
 bring economic returns. The restoration of ravaged lands and 
 ruined villages is salvage and so are payments to soldiers and 
 pensions for their families. Although these will constitute a vast 
 burden for the governments, they are gains to individuals who 
 receive them and tend to increase rather than diminish the gen- 
 eral welfare of the people. Outlays like loans to allies do not fig- 
 ure as costs, if the claims for repayment are honored, and expen- 
 ditures for ships, docks, manufacturing plants, etc., count only in 
 part, since a value survives in them. 
 
 In a sense costs to the government are costs to individuals, 
 since the people of the present furnish the income of the gov- 
 
ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF THE WAR 123 
 
 ernment and the people of the future will have to pay its debts. 
 Moreover, the greatest loss which war entails resolves itself, as in 
 the case of a Crusoe-like man who had to stop working and fight 
 off marauders, into the diminution of output of products of peace, 
 and the destruction wrought by instruments of war. The tools 
 of warfare themselves are in the highest degree perishable, and 
 in this is a large part of the waste which figures so extensively 
 in the inventory of losses. Of the powder that drives the shell 
 or explodes it there is nothing left after a single use and of the 
 shell itself usually nothing. The guns perish more slowly but 
 far more rapidly than do ordinary tools. Aeroplanes are short- 
 lived and ships deteriorate quickly in battle, and rapidly enough 
 at all times. The rails and rolling stock of railways, the road 
 beds and the machinery of munition works are overworked and 
 partly destroyed by the pressure that is put upon them in mili- 
 tary uses. These are prominent ways in which inroads are made 
 on wealth. If we make one inventory of national wealth on hand 
 at the outbreak of war and not on hand at its close, a second in- 
 ventory of the amounts which, within that time, would have been 
 added to the possessions of the peoples if no war had occurred 
 and a third of the expenditures for consumption that the war 
 has prevented, we shall have in the three accounts the entire ma- 
 terial costs of a war to the peoples engaged in it. 
 
 The three kinds of cost have diflferent effects. The forced 
 economy that war entails must not be merged with other effects 
 if we wish to take account of the result of the war on the later 
 condition of the several countries. The privation which the strug- 
 gle entails during its progress is a loss indeed, but it only compels 
 us to live less liberally than we have been accustomed to live. To 
 go without luxuries and comforts means to go without a certain 
 amount of wealth which we should otherwise have obtained and 
 used, but insofar as we actually forego these things their absence 
 adds nothing to the permanently impoverishing effect of the war, 
 even though we should cut our luxuries to zero and our comforts 
 to a half of what they were. The transient privation lessens the 
 permanent burden and we shall emerge from the war far better 
 off than we should be if our consumption had remained un- 
 changed. It is an absurd philosophy which advocates or tolerates 
 profuse spending in war time. 
 
 There is one major category of costs of war which we have 
 not yet enumerated and that is the non-material kind. We have 
 specified the actual destruction of goods, including the tools of 
 war themselves, and the non-production of wealth that would 
 otherwise have been created. In quantity these categories over- 
 lap each other. The mutually exclusive divisions of total costs 
 
124 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 of war are those stated in the preceding paragraph. To these 
 must be added the reduction of personal productive power of 
 men themselves. Killing men does not affect the material wel- 
 fare of survivors as do material losses. It lessens the need of 
 consumers' goods as well as the supply of them. Mkiming soldiers 
 and enfeeoling civilians by privations reduce their producing 
 power without lessening their needs. Indeed a great lessening 
 of the population by wholesale ravaging and starvation would 
 tend, in itself alone considered, to sustain the wage earning 
 power of the surviving workers. The Thirty Years' War is said 
 to have destroyed two-thirds of the population of Germany, but 
 it so ravaged that country and reduced its means of production 
 that one-third of the population was probably able to eke out a 
 more tolerable living than the whole could have done in the deso- 
 lated land. 
 
 It is the per capita producing power of the countries of the 
 world in the era following the war that will be of profoundest 
 importance and I must content myself now with saying that in- 
 sofar as the destruction of life in a barbarous war may destroy 
 the young, the very old and the weak, and allow a larger per- 
 centage of the able-bodied to remain, it may add to the per capita 
 earnings of survivors, while, if it cuts off chiefly the most capable 
 class of producers, it will lessen average earnings, and that is 
 likely to be its effect in the present war. 
 
 There are higher spheres of life into which the ravaging 
 forces may penetrate. They may affect civilization by cutting 
 nerves that are necessary for the higher life of communities. 
 They may disorganize them and, quite apart from the harm that 
 they do to individuals as such, may interfere so seriously with 
 their power to work together as to put an even greater economic 
 blight upon their lives than any other injury is likely to do. Prob- 
 ably Russia is losing more and suffering more from disorganiza- 
 tion within the country than it did from the guns of its enemies 
 before it followed the phantom that counterfeited peace and free- 
 dom. The world may or may not emerge from this war in a 
 shape that will make it perfectly secure against another, but a 
 victory which will leave a preponderance of power in the hands 
 of a commonwealth of free states will make the world com- 
 munity so much safer than it has been and so much more secure 
 against the anarchy that is costlier than warfare as to atone for 
 the almost inconceivable burden of the present struggle. If, as I 
 have affirmed, the Greater Entente is already such a vast free 
 commonwealth and destined to be the nucleus of one still vaster, 
 there is good hope of realizing the redeeming effect of the war 
 for which our inborn optimism has looked even under the gravest 
 
ECONOMIC INTERPRETATION OF THE WAR 125 
 
 discouragements. More than once within these years the thought 
 has come to us, "How can one be callous enough to measure 
 gain hereafter against the awful sacrifices of the struggle?" Yet 
 it is freedom for all humanity that is to be won. To-day, as 
 we watch and wait for news, it is the issue of the Armageddon 
 that we chiefly think of. On the one side we see a conquering 
 empire like that of Persians or Macedonians of old and, on the 
 other, a federation strong in force, noble in aim and compelled 
 by its nature to stand against war and for general freedom. 
 Its victory may not at once usher in the longed-for federation 
 of the world but it will unite more of it than any of us ever 
 expected to see in any union. It will prove that we live in God's 
 world, after all, and that the sun of prosperity that a part of 
 the world went to war for may soon shine in peace on the whole 
 of it. 
 
SOCIAL CHANGES EFFECTED BY THE WAR 
 
 By Rev. Father John A. Ryan, 
 
 of the Catholic University 
 
 I DO not believe there is very much value in attempting to say 
 what is going to happen after the war as regards social changes. 
 I have been reading so much on this subject that I am utterly 
 bewildered, and have come to the conclusion that I know abso- 
 lutely nothing about it. And I know that very few of the others 
 whose words I have read know any more than I do. 
 
 We are familiar with a great many startling predictions that 
 have been made as to what will occur in a social way when the 
 war is over. Perhaps the most striking of them, because of the 
 sources from which they come, are two that I have read in a 
 couple of sentences, from sources sufficiently conservative and 
 not at all from alarmists. The first is from the Cardinal Arch- 
 bishop of Westminster. In a recent address he says : 
 
 "It is admitted on all hands that a new order of things, new 
 social conditions, new relations between the different sections in 
 which authority is divided, will arise as a consequence of the de- 
 struction of the formerly existing conditions." 
 
 And the other authority which I want to quote is one with 
 which you are all familiar, I presume, — Mr. Schwab, President 
 of the Bethlehem Steel Company. He said at a dinner in New 
 York: 
 
 "The time is coming when the men of the working classes, 
 the men without property, will control the destinies of this world 
 of ours." 
 
 Now I take these two predictions as significant because, as 
 I say, of the conservative sources from which they come. They 
 are significant because they indicate at least how far this general 
 fear of immense changes that none of us like to contemplate has 
 taken hold of the people. 
 
 Now, I suppose there will be considerable changes after the 
 
 126 
 
SOCIAL CHANGES EFFECTED BY THE WAR 127 
 
 war in social conditions. Will they be as great before the war 
 is over as those which are taking place in Russia through the 
 intervention and ascendency of our friends the Bolsheviki? I 
 hope not. That, I suppose, is the extreme that any of us would 
 think at all possible. Will they go as far as to correspond with 
 the program which has recently been outlined, with which, I 
 suppose, most of you are familiar, by the labor group in Great 
 Britain, a document which was published some three or four 
 weeks ago? That is a pretty radical document. At least some 
 of the general principles stated in it are quite radical. So far 
 as the concrete proposals that are made are concerned, I do not 
 think that at this particular time they would be regarded as ex- 
 tremely radical. But there are some general principles inter- 
 jected about the increasing degree of taxation of wealth and other 
 principles, like the national ownership of the means of produc- 
 tion, which look like socialism. But these are rather general, 
 and perhaps do not mean so much as they appear to mean. 
 
 Will the changes in our own country after the war go as far 
 as that? I do not know. Nobody else does. 
 
 There are two or three propositions which I suppose we can 
 lay down as less doubtful than many of the others. The first 
 is that probably the government will continue to do a great 
 many things after the war that it has not done before the war. 
 I refer now to the United States. For example, if the govern- 
 ment management of railroads is successful, I have no doubt 
 that the railroads will never be returned to private ownership, 
 and personally I hope they will not. 
 
 If government management of industry or of public service 
 utilities is successful in that respect as regards the railroads, it 
 is inevitable that it will be extended to other public utilities. That 
 is not socialism; it is not a particularly radical departure from 
 what we have been accustomed to heretofore. That prevails in 
 many countries. In fact, in most countries, government owner- 
 ship of railroads prevails. 
 
 Will the government continue some of these other activities 
 with which we are getting familiar, — the regulation of the kinds 
 of bread that we shall eat, and these other regulations which 
 have been introduced, or will be, for the sake of winning the 
 war? I do not think so unless the need of the nation after 
 the war should be as great as it is during the war. Because this 
 interference with the individual tastes and desires of people, this 
 purely sumptuary regimentation, is so abhorrent to our individual 
 propensities, and especially to the individualism that we are used 
 to in America, that I do not think it can last at all. 
 
 Another thing the government is regulating, not exactly by 
 
128 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 law, but by suggestion and indirectly, is the places in which men 
 shall work; and it probably will do more. The first instance 
 of it is this device of enrolling all of the machinists of the country 
 with a view to calling them to work in the ship yards. Of course, 
 that isn't being enforced by law, but it may be; they have been 
 doing a lot of that in England — that is, telling men where they 
 shall work. Will that continue after the war? I do not think 
 so, unless the necessities of the people shall be as great after 
 the war as they are during the struggle. That again goes too 
 much against our desires for individual liberty. 
 
 The government again is interfering more or less directly 
 with profits of corporations, endeavoring to prevent profiteering 
 by fixing maximum prices in various directions, and with other 
 devices. Will that continue after the war as a means for pre- 
 venting people from reaping excessive profits? That seems to 
 be one of the two great evils of our industrial system. Not that 
 men get interest on capital or rent from land. I do not think we 
 should have a revolution or great, radical changes if merely 
 we had these to deal with. But one of the great evils is that 
 men get excessive profits, excessive rates of interest. Now, 
 the government is attempting to some extent to prevent this 
 during the war, because it is particularly reprehensible during 
 war. Will it continue to do so after the war? Well, I think 
 it probably will. Whether by the device of fixing maximum 
 prices or in some other way, I do not know. The method of 
 regulating these things by fixing a maximum price is still in quite 
 an experimental state, and we are realizing how very difficult 
 it is; although it has been, I suppose, on the whole, rather suc- 
 cessful since the war began. Something of that kind, or some 
 such device, undoubtedly, will have to be continued by the gov- 
 ernment to prevent excessive profit-making, because I do not 
 think that the ordinary, plain people are going to stand for ex- 
 cessive profit-making after the war as they stood for it before 
 the war. Perhaps one of the methods for preventing that will 
 be for the government to take over a certain amount of these 
 industries, those which more nearly approach the character of 
 monopoly; as, for example, the meat-packing industry, which 
 is not a monopoly ; but if competition fails to regulate the price 
 of meat, then I think that it is certain that the government will 
 be called upon either to take over the whole of such a business 
 or to enter into competition with the private concerns in car- 
 rying on that business. 
 
 Now, these are some of the changes with regard to the man- 
 agement and relation of government to industry that seem to me 
 to be fairly probable. 
 
SOCIAL CHANGES EFFECTED BY THE WAR 129 
 
 Now, as regards to labor, the other side of the industrial 
 situation. The labor unions do not seem to be as radical in this 
 country, at least as yet, as they are in England. They cer- 
 tainly have not — the labor unions have not — ^produced any docu- 
 ment to compare with that program of reconstruction which the 
 English unions drew up two weeks ago, to which I referred. 
 How far will the articulate labor elements in this country go in 
 demanding changes and improvements in their condition after 
 the war? I do not know. They probably will insist upon hav- 
 ing a greater voice in the management of industry and in the 
 determination of conditions in which they work. A good deal 
 of that demand is already recognized by people outside of the 
 labor world entirely. 
 
 For example, the program which was drawn up by the labor 
 policy board a week or two ago, of which Ex-President Taft 
 and Mr. Frank Walsh are members, marks quite a step in that 
 direction. I think that program was agreed to by all of those 
 representing both labor apd capital, and then the two persons 
 representing the public, Mr. Taft, the capital, and Mr. Walsh, 
 the labor element, camouflaged the idea that these two men rep- 
 resent the general public! But the beautiful thing about it is 
 they all agreed, and on a policy that is rather liberal, on the rec- 
 ognition, for example, of the closed shop where it now exists; 
 recognition of the right of labor to be dealt with as an organi- 
 zation, and the other recommendations which go a long way 
 towards recognizing the contentions and the philosophy of or- 
 ganized labor; and I think the most remarkable recommendation 
 of all was that contained in the concluding paragraphs of the 
 document, namely, the recognition by both sides that labor had 
 a right to a minimum living wage. So far as I know, that is 
 the first time that phrase has appeared in any important confer- 
 ence of employers and employees as marking something to which 
 labor was entitled ; and furthermore they interpreted the phrase, 
 "living wage," by establishing a minimum which should enable 
 a man to support his family and himself in health and reasonable 
 comfort. I think, I say, that is the remarkable thing and most 
 advanced thing that we find in that document. 
 
 Now, this is an indication of the changes, perhaps, that will 
 come for the benefit of labor. I hope they will come gradually, 
 step by step. We are all impatient, I suppose, in a time like this, 
 when we are in the midst of revolutionary changes of all sorts, 
 impatient of slow progress; but I think that fairly slow prog- 
 ress is about the only progress that will be permanent. _ 
 
 If you will pardon a personal word, there is an Irish clergy- 
 man with whom I have corresponded considerably, who recently 
 
130 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 reviewed a book of mine and had the nerve to say that the recom- 
 mendations for reform that I proposed were rather too conserva- 
 tive, that if written after the war had begun, I might be more 
 radical. He said we need courageous clearness, and the require- 
 ment of a conservative and careful and slow progress is out of 
 date. I was very happy when I read that because I used to be 
 accused by some of the brethren of my own religion as not being 
 quite fully orthodox. That statement of that Irish priest is an 
 indication of how far some of us have gone in the direction of 
 expecting radical changes. 
 
 I should say in general that after the war labor will insist 
 upon what I may call the philosophy of labor, unionism, being 
 adopted everywhere ; that is, the recognition at least of the right 
 of the laborers to deal with the employers through the representa- 
 tives of their organizations, and through different representatives 
 they have selected; not through representatives, necessarily, who 
 are working in this particular plant, for that is not unionism at 
 all. I think that much is clear, that there will be that much of a 
 gain for labor. 
 
 I think, too, that probably labor will have at least the begin- 
 nings of a voice in the management; not necessarily that mem- 
 bers of the labor unions will sit with the board of directors, 
 though I trust that will come to some extent ; but that it will be 
 recognized that they have something to say, not merely about 
 the conditions of labor, but about the organization as a whole. 
 
 Then I think that there will be some movement, or an ex- 
 tension of a movement, towards perhaps something like coop- 
 erative industry. That of course will have to come very slowly 
 in this country because we have not learned to pvit aside our 
 individuahsm and to make the sacrifices of our egoism, if that 
 is necessary to maintain cooperative organizations such as they 
 maintain in the mercantile business in England, and in some 
 other departments of economic activities. 
 
 But my one idea in general is, that we shall not get any per- 
 manent solution of our industrial problems until the worker is 
 somehow, through some device, or through many devices, brought 
 to such a situation that he realizes that he is interested in the 
 work that is being done, that he is interested in the concern for 
 which he is working, and that it is to his interest to promote 
 greater production. 
 
 Professor Clark has indicated to you that one of the great 
 things after the war, because of the great losses during the war, 
 will be greater productivity, greater productive powers, so that 
 after the war, more than ever, we shall want to get rid, if we 
 can, of anything like soldiering or shirking on the part of the 
 
SOCIAL CHANGES EFFECTED BY THE WAR 131 
 
 wage earners. Somehow, they will have, I say, to be put in 
 positions where they will see that they are not hirelings, that 
 they are interested in making the product of the industry in 
 which they work as great as possible. Cooperative production 
 would be one method to bring about that result ; but cooperative 
 production will have to come very slowly. Profit-sharing, per- 
 haps, — I will take out the "perhaps" — profit-sharing would be an- 
 other if we had the proper kind of profit-sharing, — if profit- 
 sharing were introduced in a proper spirit, if not introduced as 
 a substitute or as a means of preventing labor organizations. 
 The employers have a lot to learn, it seems to me, as well as the 
 wage earners, in this matter of the things that are necessary 
 to establish satisfactory relations between themselves and labor. 
 They have quite as much to learn as the wage-earner has. 
 
 The other day, up in New England, I was sitting in the smok- 
 ing compartment of the car, and heard two contractors talking 
 about the difficulties they were having with their laborers, and 
 about the, wisest thing from their own point of view that either 
 said was that there would be nothing satisfactory again until 
 two men were looking for the same job. We will not get any- 
 where in this country in the solution of our problems until that 
 kind of employer has been remade. 
 
 I think we all can see that the government is going to do 
 more in an industrial way than it has been doing before the war, 
 and that somehow labor is going to get more — have more of a 
 voice in the management of industry, and probably is going to 
 get more out of industry after the war. I thank you. 
 
THE SOCIALISTS OF EUROPE IN THE WAR 
 
 By William English Walling, 
 Economist and Publicist 
 
 No newspaper reader — I might say no intelligent reader, but 
 that is not necessary — no newspaper reader can have failed 
 to note the extremely important role played by the socialists in the 
 war in every country of Europe. In fact this subject is of such 
 vast proportions and has so many ramifications that it is entirely 
 impossible to go into it historically in a lecture. But probably 
 you would prefer that I should take the other method anyway. 
 I will give you a cross-section of the influence of the international 
 socialist movement on the war at the present moment, and I 
 will not go back any later than February, and I will try not 
 to go too far forward either. February of this year is the date 
 when the socialists of the Entente countries finally decided upon 
 a detailed program and course of action. 
 
 We do not expect Germany to win this war, but can we doubt 
 that such is the confident expectation of the Germans? And 
 how do they expect to win? Possibly by crushing military vic- 
 tories within the next month or two, but it is extremely unlikely 
 that this is their chief reliance. Their leading military men and 
 statesmen have repeatedly expressed the hope that they would 
 cause such loss and suffering in the Entente nations as to weaken 
 the morale of the civilian population to the breaking point. That 
 is the expectation of the German General Staff, the organization 
 of the German Government, that and nothing else. There is 
 no doubt about it. In fact all the greatest war authorities on 
 both sides say that there is little, if any, question that the war 
 will be settled in this way. 
 
 There can be no question that during all these many years 
 of preparedness Germany has been aiming quite as much to strike 
 at the morale of the civilian population of the enemy countries 
 as at their armies. As Ambassador Morgenthau says: "Ger- 
 many has not only orffanized herself, but she has taken equal 
 pains in disorganizing other nations." She has been as efficient 
 in one direction as in the other. Has any nation been more com- 
 pletely demoralized than Russia has been through the combined 
 
 132 
 
THE SOCIALISTS OF EUROPE IN THE WAR 133 
 
 eflforts of the German armies and the German propaganda? I 
 do not believe that there is a parallel in history. 
 
 There is no doubt whatever then of the main plan and hope 
 of the German General Staff in the Entente countries. It counts 
 confidently upon a revolutionary uprising of the anarchists and 
 socialists of Italy after a prolonged and terrible struggle be- 
 tween the Italian and Austrian armies. I believe this uprising 
 is confidently reckoned upon for this spring or early summer. 
 
 This is only the first part of the obvious calculations of the 
 General Staff. ' The prospect of completely conquering the Brit- 
 ish, French and Italian armies are almost equal to zero. The 
 prospects of so weakening and terrorizing the civilian population 
 of these countries as to cause a revolutionary pacifist uprising in 
 the shape of anti-war strikes are infinitely better. 
 
 This is what the Germans mean by their diplomatic offensive. 
 Let us not misunderstand it. They do not aim any longer at a 
 peace by compromise — in which Germany would keep part of 
 her territorial gains and her enemies would be compensated for 
 none of their losses due to German robbery and destruction. 
 They are not content to aim at a peace by negotiation, in which 
 the war-map would cut a large figure. They aim by peace talk 
 and anarchistic propaganda to stir up revolutions in the Entente 
 countries. That would spell a victory such as German arms alone 
 could never dream of. 
 
 There would be no need of peace negotiations. The Kaiser 
 would write down the future order of the world and the other 
 nations would give their consent in advance as the Bolsheviki 
 did at Brest-Litovsk. Moreover, no autocrat can be bound by 
 any power — not even its own word. This is the autocratic doc- 
 trine. It is being applied just as the Kaiser is interpreting his 
 own peace treaty to suit himself in Russia to-day, so he would 
 do in any neighboring country that revolution and anarchy put 
 into his power. Is there any doubt whatever about this? 
 
 This is new wine that has gone to the head of the German 
 militarists. They were far better able to stand the old wine of 
 military success. One year of intensified propaganda at the cost 
 of a few hundred millions gave them an empire beyond their 
 wildest and bloodiest dreams. The cost — a few hundred millions 
 — was less than the cost of a single month of the great war. 
 
 Can we be surprised then that the greatest hope, the effort 
 on which the Junkers are willing to spend the most in blood 
 and money, is to Bolshevize other countries? This hope of the 
 Kaiserites is shared by 90 per cent, of the German people. That 
 is not a mere phrase. That is a calculation as closely as I can 
 give it, the hope of approximately 90 per cent of the German 
 
134. SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 people to be able to Bolshevize Italy, then France and England, 
 then possibly America. Witness the editorials of the Majority 
 Socialist Feldpost, circulated in the trenches with government 
 consent. Here is how the Feldpost describes the aim of the 
 "peace offensive": 
 
 "We Germans desire nothing more than we desire an early 
 peace, but we decidedly refuse to submit to Wilson. . . . 
 
 "If we were in the first year of war it might perhaps be said 
 that Germany ought to set a good example, and that the others 
 would follow. But who can still seriously believe that Wilson, 
 Lloyd George, and Clemenceau would follow. Of course, if it 
 must be, we shall negotiate even with these 'statesmen.' But let 
 there be no deception about the fact that, as long as these poli- 
 ticians with their smashing schemes of conquest," — ^Mr. Wil- 
 son's smashing scheme of conquest — "remain in power it will 
 hardly be possible to reach an agreement. 
 
 "Unless the Entente peoples make an end of their present 
 governments, they will hardly get peace." 
 
 This is how two-thirds of the German Socialists react to the 
 teachings of the General Staff — or, shall we call these teachings 
 the political orders of the General Staff? The General Staff 
 issues its military orders and it issues its political orders, mili- 
 tary orders and political doctrines, and the Socialists take them 
 up. These Socialists demand, in Vorwcsrts, "the complete de- 
 feat" of our armies. But they do not mean "complete" defeat. 
 What they mean is defeat prolonged until the demoralization of 
 the civilian population, which the Feldpost and all the other pro- 
 war organs claim is already proceeding merrily and satisfac- 
 torily. What they mean, as the passages just quoted prove, is 
 defeat until pacifist revolutions have overthrown our govern- 
 ments. But why give the interpretation of the political orders 
 of the General Staff, as given by Socialist editors, when the 
 French Government has now put us into possession of those 
 orders themselves? 
 
 Now here follows I believe by far the most valuable docu- 
 ment discovered and published since the war, by far the most 
 valuable German document yet brought to light, I mean secret 
 document, more important, it seems to me, a hundred times more 
 important than the Zimmermann disclosures, because it includes 
 all of its Mexican- Japanese intrigue and propaganda. 
 
 "A circular issued by the press director of the German for- 
 eign office on February 23, 1915, and which was sent to all the 
 German Ambassadors, Ministers and Consuls, reads : 
 
THE SOCIALISTS OF EUROPE IN THE WAR 135 
 
 " 'There have been established within the territory of the 
 country where you are special bureaus for the organization of 
 propaganda in the countries that are in the war condition against 
 Germany. The propaganda will have for its object to propagate 
 social upheavals, accompanied by strikes, revolutionary explo- 
 sions, separation movements and civil war as well as an agita- 
 tion in favor of disarmament and the cessation of the present 
 bloody war.' " 
 
 Let me call your attention in particular to this juxtaposition 
 — "social upheavals, accompanied by strikes, revolutionary ex- 
 plosions, separation movements and civil war as well as an agi- 
 tation in favor of disarmament and the cessation of the present 
 bloody war." 
 
 That is revolutionary pacifism : Civil war between democrats 
 instead of the union of all democrats and democracies in war 
 against autocracy! In one word, Bolshevism — and two years 
 before the General Staif turned Russia over to the Russian Bol- 
 sheviki — two years, the identical doctrine here word for word, 
 to be spread all over the world, internationally. That is the es- 
 sence of Bolshevism. They are willing to spread it all over the 
 world, and they are willing to make any sacrifice in the hope of 
 spreading it all over the world. That is the position of the Ger- 
 man General Staff, just as the Bolsheviki and the General Staff 
 agreed perfectly about disintegrating the Russian army. That 
 was the exact purpose of the General Staff and that was the 
 prime purpose of the Bolsheviki. I will describe their motives a 
 little bit later. I am not accusing them of dishonesty personally, 
 or saying that they were mere creatures of the General Staff, but 
 I am saying how they have worked together, and how they are 
 perfect allies at the present time and will be for some time to 
 come, not because they agree fundamentally, but because they 
 agree upon practically every problem of importance to the hu- 
 man race that has come up up to the present time. 
 
 Did the General Staff, then, create the Bolshevik move- 
 ment? It certainly did not. The General Staff never puts it- 
 self to unnecessary trouble. It creates nothing it finds ready at 
 hand. Moreover, it knows that social movements that are not 
 artificially created are infinitely the more useful. I can per- 
 sonally testify that the Bolshevik movement has lain ready for 
 German use these last fifteen years. And can any intelligent 
 being doubt that the General Staff has known it? 
 
 Proceeding wisely and scientifically, the Germans have not 
 undertaken to invent any new movement whatever. They have 
 undertaken to utilize each and every movement which can be 
 
136 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 used for their purpose and to prevent other movements which 
 can be turned to such use. The Germans did not invent the 
 Bolsheviki, but they found in this relatively weak and obscure 
 movement the tool perfectly adapted to their purpose. They 
 then did everything in their power to aid and promote it and they 
 were able to help it in a thousand different ways. When the 
 Bolsheviki came into power in Russia, they did everything the 
 General Staff had calculated they would do. 
 
 But now to return to the immediate situation. Not only in 
 France and England but in America we are hearing ugly thi;eats 
 of a new war against our government from the rear. The Ger- 
 mans did not create this movement but they have adopted it. 
 This war from the rear has been initiated in large measure by 
 perfectly sincere persons without German connections. But all 
 Germans and pro-Germans — and their name is legion — are now 
 concentrating their entire attention on promoting this war. What 
 would otherwise be an insignificant spark they are fanning into 
 a dangerous fire. 
 
 Like all movements promoted by German intrigue and propa- 
 ganda, this new movement has been given a beautiful name. It is 
 called Pacifism or Internationalism, the Germans thinking that 
 they can operate far more successfully under a name which gives 
 them precisely the opposite of their real characteristics. This 
 new revolutionary pacifist movement aims to force all the Entente 
 governments to an immediate peace. It, therefore, can have one 
 effect and one effect only, to aid the most dangerous militarism 
 the world has ever known, to intensify and prolong nationalist 
 hostilities and to make warfare permanent. To operate success- 
 fully, how could such a movement have a better name than Inter- 
 national Pacifism, unless perhaps its alternative name, Interna- 
 tional Socialism, may be preferred as suggesting that it is a 
 people's movement? 
 
 Now since the 22nd of February the danger has ceased to be 
 general and has become definite and concrete. These pacifist 
 revolutionists are becoming more and more aggressive and trucu- 
 lent and the German intrigue which supports them is many times 
 more intensive and many-sided than any German intrigue of the 
 past. Some fifteen months ago the country was deeply stirred by 
 the exposure of the intrigue of the German Foreign Office under 
 Zimmermann in Mexico. The intrigue we are facing to-day ex- 
 tends to all the Entente countries and is one hundred times more 
 dangerous. In fact, this new intrigue is on a far more grandiose 
 scale than even the demoralization of Russia through the Bol- 
 sheviki, the Ukrainians and the Finnish White and Red Guards. 
 That agitation was confined to Eastern Europe. The agitation 
 
THE SOCIALISTS OF EUROPE IN THE WAR ISl 
 
 we are now confronting spreads throughout Western and South- 
 ern Europe to America. 
 
 Just remember, when a discussion arises between neighbors 
 as to which side Germany is on in a particular plot, generally 
 speaking she is on both sides. For example, we know the agita- 
 tion that was being conducted in Mexico by Germany against 
 the Ignited States. Do you doubt that Germany was supporting 
 an agitation in the United States against Mexico? How are 
 you going to have a war unless you inflame both sides, one 
 against the other? Which side was Germany on? She was on 
 both sides. "We must create separation movements and civil 
 wars." You can't create civil wars by favoring one side. You 
 must favor both sides. 
 
 Here is world-wide conspiiracy to take the world war out 
 of the hands of the Entente peoples and the governments they 
 have selected to represent them, and to place it in the hands of 
 socialistic minorities. 
 
 The question is asked, How can minorities hope to stop the 
 war? The answer is that these minorities have a powerful 
 strategic position in war industries and in transportation by land 
 and sea. While millions of able-bodied fighting men are at the 
 front, millions of war workers at the rear hold the fate of their 
 home governments entirely in their hands. 
 
 I do not mean to reflect in the slightest degree on the loyalty 
 of the war workers. On the contrary, I know that they are 
 loyal in America, very largely loyal in England and in France. 
 But this is the hope of the German General Staff, and this is 
 the plan of a very large part of the Socialists in all countries. 
 I could produce for you the various quotations from speeches, 
 resolutions, etc., if I spoke ten hours instead of one. But this 
 is not the United States Senate, and I suppose I will have to 
 confine myself strictly within my hour. 
 
 In order to create an anti-war strike movement that would 
 paralyze the government it is not necessary to secure a majority 
 of the people, but only a majority of the war workers. German 
 hopes and the German propaganda are, therefore, exclusively 
 centered in this direction, and the Socialist parties of Italy, 
 France, England and America have taken a position which 
 (whatever its motive) is entirely in line with the German plans. 
 
 I speak of the position of the Socialist organizations, but in 
 America at least this organization can no longer be called Social- 
 ist in any sense of the word. While numerous native American 
 Socialists have left the movement, the doors have been thrown 
 wide open to the Germans and pro-German foreigners who have 
 joined the party in large numbers. 
 
138 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 The situation in France and England is somewhat different, 
 although in both these countries non-Socialist pacifists and an- 
 archists have joined the movement in large numbers. I read a 
 report a few days ago in a German Socialist paper which stated 
 that there were five new German locals formed in one day. It 
 is only necessary to refer to the case of Wisconsin, where Victor 
 Berger secured about 50,000 Socialist votes (mostly Germans) 
 and 50,000 votes of German non-Socialists, men who have never 
 made and probably will never make again the slightest pretense 
 of being Socialists. 
 
 I have not time to go far into the Russian situation. Surely 
 the bottom of misery, ignorance and degradation has been struck 
 in that country, and there will soon be a turn for the better. But 
 even the temporary success of the Bolsheviki, which cannot be 
 denied, is invaluable for the purpose of the German propaganda. 
 As long as the Bolshevik success continues there will be powerful 
 elements among the workingmen of Italy, France and England 
 clamoring for a Bolshevik revolution and a Bolshevik termina- 
 tion of the war in those countries. If the Germans can retain 
 the Bolsheviki in power for a few months longer, they may serve 
 the most important purpose of all. That is, they may succeed 
 in spreading their anarchist propaganda to Italy and France. 
 At least this is the well-founded German hope. 
 
 Let us turn next to the country where the Germans have 
 already succeeded in spreading Bolsheviki, namely, Italy. As 
 late as the 5th of February the executives of the Socialist party 
 and the labor unions met and adopted the following resolution: 
 
 "The proletariat has no interest in formulating the concrete 
 aims of the war, because to do this would be to confuse the 
 principles by which the fut-ire international relations of peoples 
 will be organized with the irealizable pretense that these aims 
 can be obtained as the imn tiiate result of the war.'' In other 
 words, the Italian proleta-i t places its entire reliance upon a 
 revolution and pretends that nothing whatever can come from 
 an Entente victory. This resolution is to be read in the light 
 of the recent conviction of Lazzari, the Secretary of the Italian 
 party, for treason, and the fact that his position was endorsed 
 by the Socialists after his conviction. He admitted attempting 
 to use the entire machinery of the party to overthrow the gov- 
 ernment by violence and make peace at any price. Piire Bol- 
 shevism ! Indeed the Italian party is a member of the Zim- 
 merwald or Bolshevik International which pledged itself last 
 September to an international general strike to bring an im- 
 mediate end to the war. 
 
 The Socialists of France and the Laborites of England are 
 
THE SOCIALISTS OF EUROPE IN THE WAR 139 
 
 as yet not quite so revolutionary as those of Italy. At the inter- 
 allied Socialist and labor conference at London on February 
 22nd they refused to take the view of the Italian Socialists, 
 that a program of peace terms was valueless or that the war 
 could do nothing for permanent peace. The program actually 
 adopted was highly satisfactory to the Entente governments and 
 peoples, but that program was of such secondary importance that 
 it might almost be called camouflage. The chief purpose of 
 the conference and the sole object of a very large part of the 
 delegates was the endorsement of the plan for an international 
 socialist and labor conference to which the German Socialists 
 are to be invited. The peace terms' program adopted was solely 
 for the purpose of negotiations at this conference. The Ger- 
 mans would come with their program, which is of a diametrically 
 opposite character, and is based not on the right of peoples to 
 self government, but on the restoration of the territorial status 
 quo ante. Compromise terms would then be reached, the various 
 Socialists would return to their home countries and threaten their 
 governments with an international general strike unless there was 
 an immediate peace on this basis. The utility of this program 
 was thoroughly recognized by the German, Austro-Hungarian, 
 Turkish and Bulgarian governments when each and all of them 
 favored an international Socialist conference at Stockholm last 
 summer. For the same reasons the American, French and Brit- 
 ish governments refused to allow any of their citizens to attend. 
 
 This effort to revive the Stockholm conference is thoroughly 
 typical of the whole international SociaHst movement as it stands 
 to-day. In varying degrees all the Socialist parties of the world 
 are prejudiced in favor of Germany. Very few of them are pro- 
 Kaiser or pro-German government, but all are pro-German-So- 
 cialist. Not only were most of the parties organized by Ger- 
 mans, but the whole Hterature of the movement is overwhelm- 
 ingly German. It is this fact and not any love of Kaiserism or 
 willingness to yield to it that accounts for the pro-German stand 
 of these parties, and has given Germany her opportunity to 
 make use of them. 
 
 In no country of the world was there up to the war any tend- 
 ency for the SociaHsts to deny the Germans their position of 
 leadership in the SociaHst International. No Socialist or student 
 of Socialism can deny that both the good and the bad of the 
 movement come from Germany. Some of these Socialist ideas 
 are purely miHtaristic. For example, the principle of iron disci- 
 pline by which all minorities in the organization are repressed. 
 It was this principle that led the German Socialists at the be- 
 ginning of the war to give unanimous support to the govern- 
 
140 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 ment in the Reichstag, although 15 to 20 out of the no were en- 
 tirely opposed to the government and the war in the caucus. 
 This principle of discipline also enabled the Italian Socialists 
 to throw all the pro-war elements out of the party no matter 
 how numerous they have been. 
 
 Some of the principles of German Socialism may be defended 
 in Germany, while working nothing but evil when applied outside 
 of that country. Others of these principles while defensible in 
 time of peace are utterly indefensible in times of war. In both 
 cases this pseudo SociaHsm works for the benefit of German mili- 
 tarism. 
 
 For example, the German Socialists of all factions preach a 
 very militant form of democracy, including uncompromising po- 
 litical opposition to all but the most radical governments. Radical 
 democrats must sympathize with this principle in times of peace. 
 They can agree that even in war time it is the duty of every 
 democratic party to oppose an autocratic government with all the 
 means in its power, but to apply this principle in war times to 
 countries like France, England and America, where the demo- 
 cratic governments are engaged in a life and death struggle with 
 autocracy, is to reduce it to an absurdity. Yet the dogmatic 
 thinking the German Socialists have been able to spread among 
 the Socialists of other countries, has led them logically and nat- 
 urally to this conclusion. Witness the recent decision of the 
 French Socialists to withdraw all their representatives from the 
 war minority. 
 
 Again the Socialist principle of political warfare against cap- 
 italism has the support of radical democrats everywhere, but to 
 make this war against capitalism the main issue at a time when 
 the world is struggling to get rid of a feudal mihtarism that 
 comes straight down from the Middle Ages, is to serve the 
 cause not of progress but of reaction. 
 
 This strange perversion of the human mind effected by Ger- 
 man Socialist propaganda has been very clearly and strongly ex- 
 pressed by Herman Fernau, the German author of the famous 
 book, "Because I Am a German." As Fernau says : 
 
 "German Socialists and Russian followers of Lenine main- 
 tain that the war is an outcome of the capitalist system. Ac- 
 cording to their views, all the governments were nothing but the 
 servants of this wicked system; therefore they are all equally 
 responsible for the war. Consequently the Socialists summon 
 the workers of all lands to rise in a revolution. This seems to 
 them to avoid the recurrence of such a catastrophe. 
 
 "The spread of this theory is very agreeable to the German 
 
THE SOCIALISTS OF EUROPE IN THE WAR 141 
 
 Government. If all governments are equally responsible, then 
 the destruction of Prussian militarism is not the necessary ob- 
 jective of the war, and we may as well conclude any sort of 
 peace at any time. The hopes of the civilized world can, ac- 
 cording to this view, be left to some vague future revolution. 
 
 "It is easy to understand why the German Government is 
 willing to give passports to such international conferences as are 
 held at Stockholm ; the adoption of some such theory as is advo- 
 cated there is the only possible means of hushing up the inquiry 
 into the responsibility for the war, and so securing a com- 
 promise which will leave Wilhelm II in power." 
 
 Again we may understand why the German Socialists, liv- 
 ing in an autocracy like Kaiserland, have been revolutionary 
 in words and entirely loyal and conservative in deeds. But 
 again also this characteristic when spread by German Socialist 
 propaganda into other countries works exclusively for the benefit 
 of Kaiserism. Ultra revolutionary talk leads to nothing in Ger- 
 many, but the same talk exported into Russia, Italy, France and 
 other countries may lead to deeds — and deeds of a suicidal char- 
 acter. The recent experiences of Russia and Italy have shown 
 what can happen in those countries. In any democratic nation 
 where revolutionary principles become widely accepted revolu- 
 tionary actions may result. 
 
 The Kaiser has little to fear from such revolutionary talk. 
 The anti-war Socialists have only 20 out of 400 members in 
 the Reichstag. Recent elections have shown that they represent 
 scarcely one-tenth of the German people. Moreover, this is un- 
 doubtedly the weakest tenth. In all the strategic industries like 
 railways, coal mines, and steel mills the whole labor movement 
 is exceedingly weak, if tolerated at all. As the Vienna Socialist 
 organ says: 
 
 "At the eleventh hour the German laborers again tried to 
 turn fate by the general strike of January. But it was just this 
 strike that betrayed the weakness and discord of the German 
 working classes. Only a small part of the workmen took part 
 in the struggle; the majority went on quietly working; so the 
 strikers had to return to their work without results. Not even 
 the brutal methods of the Prussian officials, not even the unex- 
 ampled severe sentences of the court martial, caused any visible 
 excitement among the workmen. It became clear that the Ger- 
 man proletariat was unable or unwilling to influence the war 
 policies of the rulers." 
 
142 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 The overwhelming majority of the skilled laborers in all in- 
 dustries are pro-war Socialists. To characterize the pro-war So- 
 cialists it is necessary only to recall that the pro-war Socialists 
 of the Reichstag the other day refused to vote against the in- 
 famous Russian treaties forced by Germany upon the miserable 
 people of that country. Ebert, their spokesman, had the impu- 
 dence to contend in the Reichstag in February that the Ger- 
 mans are still fighting a war of defense. The position of Legien, 
 Hue and other conservative Socialist labor union leaders is that 
 German industry, the German working people and the labor 
 unions will advance their fortunes through German success in the 
 war. 
 
 The success of Germany in Russia — with the aid of the Bol- 
 sheviki — has immensely strengthened this faction, recent elec- 
 tions showing it more than twice as strong as the minority. In 
 fact the German people are so intoxicated over the Russian vic- 
 tory that they now hope by complete victory to Bolshevize West- 
 ern Europe and America. (After the President's last speech, 
 Vorwcei-ts said, "Now we must win a complete victory on the 
 west front also," that is, we are to be Bolshevized.) The Vienna 
 Arbeit er Zeitung, official organ of the Austrian Socialists, well 
 characterizes the German situation: 
 
 "But since the summer of 1917 democracy was gradually 
 driven to the defensive and imperialism commenced to gain 
 strength. The developments of the Russian revolution shattered 
 the Russian army and destroyed its fighting power. While the 
 English revolution of the seventeenth century created Oliver 
 Cromwell's incomparable revolutionary army, which raised Eng- 
 land from a vassal of France to the most powerful nation of 
 Europe, and while the French revolution of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury created the wonderful armies which defeated all the princes 
 of Europe and unfurled its victorious eagles from the Pyramids 
 to Moscow, the Russian revolution destroyed Russia's army and 
 laid the great empire open to helpless plunder. The ignorant 
 Russian peasant, devoid of patriotic feeling and political ideals, 
 was incapable of defending his revolution and his Fatherland 
 against the foreign enemy when the restraint of hard discipline 
 was removed. Germany suddenly saw its most feared neighbor 
 defenseless. The temptation to take advantage of its neighbor's 
 weakness was great. This temptation drove large masses of the 
 German people to imperialism." 
 
 But the German minority and anti-war Socialists are more 
 serviceable to the German Government, for they are the unchal- 
 
THE SOCIALISTS OF EUROPE IN THE WAR 143 
 
 lenged and accepted leaders of the international Socialist move- 
 ment. One of the leaders of the pro-war faction, Eduard David, 
 thus outlined the German governmental policy in the Reichstag: 
 
 "Germany must squeeze her enemies with a pair of pincers, 
 namely, the military pincer and the pacifist pincer. The German 
 armies must continue to fight vigorously while the German So- 
 cialists encourage and stimulate pacifism among Germany's en- 
 emies." 
 
 It is the anti-war Socialists who are most useful in carry- 
 ing out this policy. It is they who are the chief advocates of 
 an Internationalist Peace Conference to bring an immediate end 
 to the war. 
 
 The minority party at the samj' time puts oflf the coming revo- 
 lution to the Greek Kalends, *-hdt is, after the war. It is they 
 with their Socialist follower/ in all countries who are given to 
 revolutionary words withoi^' revolutionary deeds — except where 
 such followers happen to be Latins and Slavs. 
 
 Besides the anti-war faction just mentioned, the so-called 
 minority or independent Socialist party with its 20 representa- 
 tives in the Reichstag, there is a third or extremist group repre- 
 sented by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and other impris- 
 oned leaders. These are the German Bolsheviki. They differ 
 from the German minority in that they take their revolutionism 
 seriously. 
 
 The German Bolsheviki would match words with deeds. 
 They would undoubtedly initiate an immediate revolution, but 
 they are restrained by two closely connected facts. In the first 
 place, the German Government uses to the full its vast and effi- 
 cient system of repression against them, so that their revolu- 
 tionary fervor counts for nothing. In the second place, they 
 are the least numerous of the three German Socialist factions — 
 doubtless chiefly because of this repression. It may be doubted 
 if they represent more than two or three per cent, of the Ger- 
 man people — and this two or three per cent, is made up largely 
 of the least skilled and most ignorant. This faction is strong 
 neither in the labor unions nor among the educated proletariat. 
 Finally, the German Bolsheviki, like all other Bolsheviki, are agi- 
 tating for an international revolution to be directed against the 
 Kaiser only on the condition that it is simultaneously against 
 Woodrow Wilson and Lloyd George! If by any remote chance 
 these Bolsheviki ever get into power they would probably have 
 the same frightful effect upon the democratic cause as was seen 
 when the Russian Bolsheviki came into control in Petrograd. 
 
144. SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 Their weird doctrine can only be understood in view of its 
 weird double parentage. Its connection with Socialism is sec- 
 ondary; it is fifty per cent. Teutonism and fifty per cent, an- 
 archism. Here are two doctrines which, however complex, are 
 familiar. Add them together and we have completely explained 
 the mysteries of Bolshevism. 
 
 Having described briefly the three forms of German Social- 
 ism, we have sufficiently described the varieties of Socialism to 
 be found everywhere, except that the numerical proportions are 
 different in other countries. That body of Socialists which sup- 
 ports the government right or wrong, the nationalist Socialist, is 
 numerically the least important of all three factions in every 
 country except Germany. That is, where the government is 
 least worthy of democratic and SociaHst support, there the great- 
 est support is given. On the contrary, in countries where the 
 governments are most deserving of democratic and Socialist sup- 
 port, the pro-government factions are smallest. 
 
 But we need not proce'ed further with these distinctions. 
 There are certain propositions held in common by all Socialist 
 parties in all countries. All agree in the claim that the Social- 
 ists, and the Socialists alone, represent the people, the govern- 
 ments, therefore, having no legitimate authority whatever. All 
 agree, further, that the Socialist movement is the only interna- 
 tional movement. Both of these propositions are radically false, 
 not only for the movement as a whole, but for each and every 
 country. 
 
 There is not a single country in the world where the Socialists 
 can claim to represent the majority of the people, not even Rus- 
 sia. In a loose sense of the word the Russian peasants are So- 
 cialists, but they are not organized and do not therefore form a 
 real or effective part of the international movement — certainly 
 not in accordance with their numerical strength. The Bolshe- 
 viki, having the overwhelming majority of the peasants against 
 them, cannot and do not claim to represent more than a fraction 
 of the nation and they use violent means precisely because they 
 recognize themselves as being in the minority. The Bolsheviki 
 are approximately 50 per cent, of the urban population, and the 
 urban population is less than 15 per cent, of Russia. 
 
 When we turn to other countries, the numerical importance 
 of the Socialists grows less and less. In Germany, even includ- 
 ing that strange variety of Socialist which avowedly supports 
 the Kaiser, they number only a third of the nation, in Italy a 
 fourth and in France a sixth; while in America they are less 
 than three and one-half per cent. 
 
 But they have never failed, especially since the war, to claim 
 
THE SOCIALISTS OF EUROPE IN THE WAR 145 
 
 that they and they alone represent the people. It is this pre- 
 posterous claim that gives a fictitious importance to the Stock- 
 holm conference — a. fact that is fully recognized by the Ger- 
 man and Austrian governments. Already these governments 
 have had immense success with their propaganda in the Entente 
 countries. If in their efforts to secure a German peace they can 
 claim the support of a conference of the "peoples" of all nations 
 their work of disruption will be enormously facilitated. 
 
 The other claim that the Socialists are thorough internation- 
 alists and the only internationalists is equally impudent and pre- 
 posterous. Led as they are and always have been by the German 
 Socialists, who in turn are soaked through and through with 
 German ideas and ideas adapted solely to German conditions, 
 they are in reality the servants of the most aggressive and dan- 
 gerous form of nationalism that has ever been known. No more 
 effective means could possibly be devised of fighting internation- 
 alism at the present moment than indirectly aiding the German 
 Socialist through participation in the pseudointernationalist So- 
 cialist movement. 
 
 Only last summer the French Socialists adopted by an over- 
 whelming majority a program which contains a full appreciation 
 of the most important internationalism of our age, namely, that 
 formulated by Woodrow Wilson. The Allied Socialist Con- 
 ference at London on February 22nd also voted a full apprecia- 
 tion of Mr. Wilson's principles. Such service to the cause of 
 internationahsm as may have been rendered by some of the So- 
 cialists is completely and totally eclipsed by the internationalism 
 of Woodrow Wilson and Lloyd George — the elected spokesmen 
 of two great peoples. 
 
 'Yet the continued repetition of these Socialist claims — ^that 
 they alone represent the people and that they alone represent in- 
 intemationalism — so boldly made and so sincerely believed by 
 some of the fanatics making them, have made a deep impression 
 upon many persons. For example a certain class of "intellec- 
 tuals," amateur and self-appointed statesmen and advisers of 
 statesmen, typified by a well-known weekly, have in their ig- 
 norance and inexperience been deeply impressed. Also the sen- 
 timentalists in all countries tend to accept this Socialist leader- 
 ship at its own valuation. This last is the crowd that is deeply 
 impressed every time the word peace is uttered by the Ger- 
 man militarists — quite regardless of the fact that this propaganda 
 is an organic part of their plan for conquering and enslaving 
 humanity and holding it down by military power. 
 
 The problem of exposing and defeating this international 
 copperhead movement is not only the most important of the 
 
146 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 whole war, but it is the problem that is most pressing at the 
 present moment. The idea of an international Socialist con- 
 ference to agree upon a compromise and to compel the govern- 
 ments to accept that compromise by means of threats of a gen- 
 eral strike has recently been revived and it has been boldly pro- 
 claimed that this movement will come to a crisis within a month 
 or two. 
 
 The Bolsheviki and other party Socialists are reckoning upon 
 a period of military stalemate early in the summer. Mr. Sidney 
 Webb in an article in The New Republic definitely predicts that 
 about that time "the peoples will somehow take the matter out 
 of the hands of governments." Camille Huysmans, the secre- 
 tary of the International Socialist Bureau, openly takes the same 
 view, and says that Germany cannot be defeated and that the 
 Socialists must therefore settle the war. It is further asserted 
 by all these leaders that both sides are alike imperiaHstic, which 
 justifies and calls for Socialist intervention. 
 
 These assertions, however traitorous to the cause of democ- 
 racy and helpful to Kaiserism, might be ignored if it were not 
 that the Socialists and laborites in France, England, and Italy 
 have a great deal of power. I have already explained that the 
 German anti-war Socialists have no efifective power, but this 
 does not apply either to Italy, France or England. The case of 
 Italy needs no argument in view of the partial success of the 
 strikes and mutinies of last fall. As to England it will be re- 
 called that the most radical labor strikes have occurred largely 
 in these industries that are most indispensable to the government, 
 such as the railways, the mines, the steel mills and shipbuilding, 
 etc. Already France has had some very dangerous strikes. 
 
 The Stockholm conference movement does not dare to show 
 itself in its true colors. No better evidence can be found of its 
 consciousness of guilt and of its willingness to betray its fellow 
 citizens than the elaborated system of camouflage that has been 
 adopted. 
 
 We are reassured that the conference which is to be held in 
 Switzerland is not the same old Stockholm conference. Sidney 
 Webb in the article already mentioned calls for a full meeting 
 of the International Congress, "not necessarily at Stockholm, but 
 preferably in Switzerland." As a matter of fact the proposed 
 conference differs in no important particular from the earlier 
 attempts which began last May and were continued throughout 
 the summer. 
 
 Next we are told that the conference is not to be revolu- 
 tionary, that it does not involve revolutionary attacks on the 
 Entente governments. This is hardly in accord with Webb's con- 
 
THE SOCIALISTS OF EUROPE IN THE WAR 147 
 
 fession that the Socialists are banking upon the expectation that 
 "the peoples will somehow take the matter out of the hands of 
 the government." 
 
 We are further told by The New Republic that this is to be 
 a conference "not for compromise, but for conciliation." Yet 
 it would be absurd in this case to invite the German Socialists to 
 attend, knowing the opposition both of majority and minority 
 to nearly every one of the peace terms adopted by the Inter- Allied 
 Conference at London. The Manchester Guardian, perhaps the 
 leading mouthpiece of pacifism in England, explains the pur- 
 pose of the conference and states clearly that each nation will 
 have to surrender a part of its claims. But the peace terms de- 
 clared by the allied Socialists, which are practically identical 
 with those of Woodrow Wilson and Lloyd George, make rela- 
 tively few claims for Entente nations. They merely lay down 
 the basis for a democratic and lasting peace. If there are to be 
 any surrenders it would be the surrender of the rights and liber- 
 ties of some of the Slavic or Latin or non-Turkish populations 
 involved in the war. It is therefore absolutely clear that the 
 only possible purpose of an International Socialist Conference 
 would be to abandon some of the smaller peoples to the mercies 
 of Germany, Austria or Turkey. 
 
 This is well understood by the American Socialists. On Feb- 
 ruary 5th the Executive Committee of the American party met 
 and resolved that America should take part in the Brest-Litovsk 
 negotiations without any conditions and that we should drop all 
 demands whatever on behalf of the subject of the oppressed 
 nationalities of Europe. In other words, the American Social- 
 ists demanded that we accept the proposition made by Germany 
 of an immediate conference without conditions, that is, a con- 
 ference based upon the war map. That such an International 
 Conference would be based upon the war map is shown not only 
 by previous explicit statements of German statesmen, but by 
 their conduct at Brest-Litovsk. Most of this evidence was al- 
 ready in on February 5th at the time when the American Social- 
 ist party adopted the following remarkable resolution : 
 
 "We emphatically deny that it is necessary for the people of 
 the United States to spill their blood and waste their treasure in 
 order to rearrange the map of Europe. If rearrangement is nec- 
 essary, it can be more speedily and more effectively accomplished 
 by the peace conference. 
 
 "The present situation demands more than the mere state- 
 ment of war aims or peace terms. An agreement to enter into 
 peace negotiations is now imperative," 
 
148 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 In view of this illuminating statement which may be matched 
 by hundreds of others by leading French, British and Italian So- 
 ciaHsts, we can have no doubt as to the action that would be 
 taken by any Stockholm conference. 
 
 On previous occasions I have carefully analyzed the voting 
 strength of various elements of that conference. A majority of 
 the delegates would be out and out pro-Germans in the sense al- 
 ready mentioned. Of the remainder the overwhelming majority 
 would be Bolsheviki. The pro-Entente Socialists, who regard 
 the demands of the Allied Socialist Conference and of Woodrow 
 Wilson and Lloyd George on behalf of the oppressed nationali- 
 ties as a minimum would be in an infinitesimal minority, and even 
 they would be counted for the German designs — for they would 
 assent to the proposition that this conference and this conference 
 alone represented the peoples of the allied nations, that all gov- 
 ernments were equally without moral authority, and that the So- 
 cialists were the sole representatives of internationalism and gen- 
 uine pacifism. 
 
 The one great purpose of the European Socialists in the 
 present war is to settle it themselves independently of all gov- 
 ernments. As Mr. Arthur Henderson recently declared : 
 
 "Peace will come when the working class movement has dis- 
 covered by interchange of views the conditions of an honorable 
 and democratic peace, worthy of the unimaginable sacrifices the 
 people have made, and has pressed these terms upon the several 
 governments with the resolute declaration that peace must be 
 made on these terms and no other." 
 
 'Mr. Sidney Webb uses almost this identical language in The 
 New Republic. Webb says with brutal frankness: "If the 
 International Congress came to any substantial agreement the 
 war would have to stop." 
 
 The issue then is clear. Can we refuse to take up the chal- 
 lege? The Inter- Allied Socialist and Labor Conference at Lon- 
 don proposes to send a delegation to America very shortly to 
 secure the support of President Wilson for their epoch-making 
 proposal, that the Socialists shall be allowed to settle the war. 
 Either this movement must be check-mated or the democratically 
 elected governments of France, England and America might as 
 well abdicate. 
 
 Why hand over our governments and the fate of nations to 
 the Socialists? Why not rather to some other religious or polit- 
 ical sect? The Socialists are the one large organized body in 
 the world to-day which has the worst record in the war, which 
 
THE SOCIALISTS OF EUROPE IN THE WAR 149 
 
 has fallen farthest short of its professions, which has most per- 
 sistently served the purposes of German militarism not only in 
 Russia and Italy, but in America and every other country. Yet 
 this body, repudiated by all the great democracies after wreck- 
 ing one great nation — now asks that all governments — in this 
 crisis of crises — surrender their powers into its hands! 
 
 When I speak of the Socialists, I am speaking, of course, 
 not of Socialism, but of a certain organized body of men with 
 a certain political record. Just as when I speak of Republicans 
 and Democrats I speak not of republics and democracies, but of 
 certain specific political organizations. Socialism does not and 
 cannot come into the question. Some of the most violent anti- 
 Socialists of the world, such as the anti-Semites of Austria, call 
 themselves Socialists. And it will not be questioned outside of 
 Germany that the worst enemies of Socialism to-day are those So- 
 cialists of Germany who openly support Kaiserism. The other 
 factions in Germany and other countries that are working for 
 the immediate peace called for by the Kaiser are, anti-Socialist 
 only in lesser degree. On the other hand, the principles of inter- 
 nationalism, professed but never practiced by the party Socialists, 
 are being put into effect by Woodrow Wilson and Lloyd George. 
 
.A 
 
 GERMANY'S BIGGEST FRltJD— SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 By Gustavus Myers, 
 Publicist and Historian 
 
 All of us must confess to being victims. We were the vic- 
 tims of a monstrous imposture. It took us a long while to find it 
 out, but at any rate we have found it out. Unsophisticated and 
 credulous as we once were, we drank in the fairy tales of Ger- 
 many's being a paradise for all of its people. We never sus- 
 pected that this was the most far-reaching propaganda that the 
 German Government had incited. We did not dream that many 
 of our own writers and speakers, whose glowing eulogies of 
 Germany's social progress we read, were unconscious agents of 
 the Kaiser's publicity department. We fondly absorbed all of 
 the assertions about German social efficiency. Deeply impressed 
 by the many accounts we read of Germany's social marvels, we 
 were influenced to accept the claims made by the German Gov- 
 ernment of its being the most humanitarian of governments. 
 
 Curiously enough the most intelligent people were the more 
 imposed upon. It was they who read the heavy books and the 
 serious articles, and attended the lectures in this country, all of 
 which extolled Germany's alleged advanced social reforms. 
 
 It is remarkable, too, that we, who in this country developed 
 a perfect passion for the most searching inquiry into conditions 
 of all kinds regarding our own country, should not have thought 
 of testing the extravagant assertions made about Germany. In 
 fact many of the very writers who muckraked conditions in this 
 country were the identical writers who turned out articles and 
 books effusively praising the social activities of the German Gov- 
 ernment. For instance, there is the book by Frederick C. Howe, 
 who is now United States Immigration Commissioner, entitled 
 "Socialized Germany," in which he makes the point that Ger- 
 many is a very democratic-minded country. Some of these books 
 are of recent publication and are being extensively circulated. 
 Official American commissions went to Germany, complacently 
 accepted what they were told by German officialdom, came back 
 and embodied it in their reports. 
 
 These reports were published at the exoense of the American 
 
 150 
 
GERMANY'S BIGGEST FRAUD— REFORM 151 
 
 Government. They are in existence now. They are in all the 
 reference libraries in this country, and naturally a whole lot of 
 people who extolled German efficiency had to go to these reports. 
 So they were authoriiies. Our American people have paid for 
 the issuing of a whole lot of reports that the German Govern- 
 ment was most keenly interested in getting out. 
 
 The idealization of Germany became a general mania. At the 
 same time great numbers of equally superficial articles were pub- 
 lished in what are called the "popular" magazines and in the 
 newspapers. These accounts glorifying Germany's social pro- 
 gressiveness seeped through all the strata of our population. 
 This publicity was reenforced by a tireless radical propaganda 
 that, deriving its origin and stimulus from Germany, held up 
 the German Government's social legislation as a model for the 
 world to follow. 
 
 The iron discipline that you have heard about of the Socialist 
 party came from where? I was one of the leading writers of 
 the Socialist party for a great many years. Therefore I am not 
 in any way prejudiced. 
 
 To give themselves unusual significance these radicals boasted 
 that it was their parent movement in Germany which forced these 
 so-called reforms from the German Government. As this radical 
 movement became more Americanized its followers enlarged on 
 the assertions made by its German founders. 
 
 As a matter of fact these pretensions of the German Gov- 
 ernment are very old. They date back to the time of Frederick 
 the Great. This cynical slaughterer was the first to start the 
 pose of being a "social reformer." His object was, of course, to 
 chloroform his own people. He wanted to divert popular atten- 
 tion as much as possible from the rigors of autocracy, the ex- 
 actions of feudaHsm and harsh militarism. He left it as a tra- 
 dition to his successors that they must appear before their people 
 in the guise of conservers of that people's welfare. Bismark was 
 a very frank man. He prided himself upon being the servant of 
 the Hohenzollern dynasty, and el'borated in more modern times 
 this social reform imposture. This advocate of "blood and iron" 
 admitted in a speech in the Reichstag in 1881 that one of his 
 objects in pushing so-called reforms was to exalt and aggrandize 
 the Hohenzollern dynasty. He might have added that the great- 
 est object was to fool the German people themselves. Evidently 
 Bismarck did not have a very high idea of the intelligence of the 
 German people, for he reckoned that by throwing out legislative 
 counterfeits to them he could strangle the growing democratic 
 tendencies of the time. Events in the last few years have shown 
 that he was right in estimating that the radical movement in 
 
152 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 Germany could be easily bribed, drugged, and yoked to the cause 
 of Hohenzollerns. 
 
 Trained by Germany's educational system to look up with awe 
 and religious reverence to imperial authority, the German people 
 at large have believed what the government told them. They 
 believe it to this day. When they were told that other govern- 
 ments were antiquated and barbaric compared to the modernism 
 of the German Government they devoutly believed it. Even 
 such as were inclined to doubt it were swayed by their native 
 egotism which the German Government has systematically de- 
 veloped, to join in the general chorus of self-praise. Only a very 
 few spoke the truth, and their voices were lost, unheeded or 
 gagged. 
 
 The first object of the German Government, to befool its own 
 people, was successfully accomplished. As Germany became 
 more of an industrial state and its rulers dreamed more and 
 more of world conquest it delilDerately set out to create a world 
 opinion favorable to itself. With an overweening belief in their 
 knowledge of the technique of psychology they thought they 
 knew how to master the world's public opinion. As a part of 
 this campaign the German professors were employed to spread 
 abroad the picture of a glorious Germany, preoccupied with so- 
 cial reform. This screened from the world's view the real autoc- 
 racy that was feverishly rushing preparations for what we have 
 seen in its present huge war for conquest. While the Kaiser 
 during this time was volubly representing himself as the grand 
 guardian of the world's peace, his intellectual agents were used 
 as the decoys to blind the world to what was really impending. 
 
 The Germany that the world was allowed to see was a purely 
 fictitious one. It was a Germany portrayed as having a pros- 
 perous, protected and happy population. It was a Germany, the 
 world was assured, having the best schools, the most careful 
 provision for children and mothers, the most advanced laws for 
 farmers, the most progressive factory and housing conditions, 
 the greatest securities fpr accidents, sickness, old age. Its people, 
 the world was positively assured, were well-fed, their health con- 
 served by every safeguard, their morals high. Endless was the 
 reiteration that slums in Germany had been abolished and that 
 pauperism was almost unknown. 
 
 What was the cumulative effect of all this propaganda? The 
 evil that had been implanted in the United States showed itself 
 hideously during the war. In the minds of sections of our own 
 people an admiration for the German government and Germany 
 had been built up. Now came to the surface the teachings that 
 they had imbibed of the superiority of the Kaiser's government. 
 
GERMANY'S BIGGEST FRAUD— REFORM 153 
 
 Permeated with these ideas, they could not see Germany as it 
 actually was and is. Knowing nothing of the feudal autocracy 
 governing Germany, enslaving all thought and action, they could 
 not conceive that Germany was warring upon the world's free- 
 dom. So many of our writers had represented Germany as a 
 democratically-minded country that some of our people could not 
 understand that this was a clear-cut fight between a ruthless au- 
 tocracy and the democratic forces of the world. They did not 
 know the elemental fact that in Germany, especially its dictator, 
 Prussia, the common people have no real political power. None 
 of the extravagant accounts that they had read had told them 
 what is the fact, that all law-making power in Germany is ef- 
 fectively concentrated in the hands of the feudal nobility and the 
 rich and that no real reforms have ever been permitted by 
 Germany's governing classes. The propaganda in question had 
 kept from our people the truth concerning Germany's iron mili- 
 taristic system and the brutal political and industrial exploita- 
 tion of the mass of the German people. 
 
 If the German people were happy, as these writers effusively 
 described them, it must have been a peculiar sort of happiness 
 produced by long working hours, semi-starvation wages, fright- 
 fully congested housing quarters, chronic underfeeding and an 
 ever increasing pressure of pauperism. Ignorant of these actual 
 conditions, their minds filled with the agreeable pictures stimu- 
 lated by their reading matter, many people in this country re- 
 fused to believe that such an enlightened and humanitarian coun- 
 try as they imagined Germany to be, could be guilty of the fright- 
 ful atrocities so continually repeated. 
 
 No greater falsehood was ever spread than the fanciful claim 
 of the German government's superiority in social progress, and 
 none is so easy of complete refutation. All that the inquirer has 
 to do is to consult the German ofiScial reports themselves in 
 order to get the facts. Nothing so thoroughly exposes Germany's 
 pretensions as the facts which its own reports give. 
 
 The summary of facts which I am presenting here are all 
 taken from German ofiScial reports or other German authorities. 
 In this account I am not including war time conditions which are 
 abnormal; I am dealing solely with the normal conditions of 
 peace times. 
 
 First in order, the condition of the farmers will be con- 
 sidered. Notwithstanding Germany's industrial expansion in 
 recent decades. Germany has remained largely agricultural; the 
 occupational census of 1907 showed that of 26,827,cx)o persons 
 occupied, 9,883,000 were engaged in agriculture and 11,256,000 in 
 manufacture. 
 
154 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 There are two general classes of farmers in Germany sharply 
 separated both in law and custom. 
 
 Lording over legislation and bumptious with arrogant _ self- 
 importance, unyielding believers in the divine right of kings is the 
 compact league of Junkers or feudal land-owning aristocracy. 
 Far beneath them and constantly made to feel their lowly lot are 
 the millions of peasant farmers. 
 
 In this school system that I spoke about, their job is to 
 educate, definitely educate the lower classes so that they will be 
 content with their station in life and not aspire to rise higher. 
 That is the job of the schools there, and they do it. 
 
 While the peasants have but the tiniest bits of land — 36.3 
 per cent, of the farms in Germany are under one and a quarter 
 acres, and 22.6 per cent, one and one quarter to five acres — a 
 comparatively small group of Junkers own nearly 25,000,000 
 acres contained in estates of 250 to 500 acres and more. The 
 Junkers have their powerful organization, the Agricultural 
 League, which has been used with such force to enlarge the inter- 
 ests and power of the landed aristocrats that in sheer self-defense 
 the peasant farmers had to form their own organization, called the 
 Peasants' League. They had to form their own league, that is, 
 they recognized their standing at law as peasants, nothing else 
 but peasants. But the laws made by the Junkers deprived many 
 of these peasants of any influence whatever on legislation. Utider 
 these laws only farmers who pay taxes (and many peasant 
 farmers are renters) are allowed to vote, and even their vote is 
 confined to elections for the Reichstag, which is merely a debating 
 society without any real power. So the Peasants' League has, 
 therefore, had little or no political influence. As for moral 
 influence, that is a thing not recognized in Germany, where only 
 the doctrine of might commands respect. 
 
 Americans have heard much from the German propagandists 
 of the wonders done for the German farmers by the Prussian 
 Landschaften or Mutual Farm Loan Associations in extending 
 credit based upon land. The fact that it was for the single and 
 distinct purpose of benefiting the landed aristocracy that the 
 Prussian Landschaften was established by Frederick the Great 
 in 1767, and it has continued so to the present time. 
 
 Testifying in 1912, Dr. Kapp-Konigsberg, general director 
 of the Prussian Landschaften, made no secret of this fact, and 
 he further related that the millions of peasant farmers had re- 
 ceived little benefit from it. 
 
 "Of the estates," he testified, "which exceed 100 hec- 
 tares (a hectare is not quite two and a half acres) 66.3 per cent. 
 have availed themselves of landschaft loans ; the corresponding 
 
GERMANY'S BIGGEST FRAUD— REFORM 155 
 
 proportion in the case of peasant holdings is only 13.5 per cent." 
 These figures lucidly show who it is that have derived the bene- 
 fit from the much glorified Prussian Landschaften. 
 
 Another example of glowing German propaganda is the stream 
 of eulogies on the law of 1850 establishing annuity banks, other- 
 wise government credit institutions. This law has been cited 
 as an instance of Germany's advanced social legislation nearly 
 seventy years ago. What the eulogists have not told is that this 
 law was enacted by the Junkers for the express purpose of mod- 
 ernizing feudal tribute. 
 
 In many countries feudalism was swept away long ago, but 
 in Germany many of the peasant farms are still encumbered by 
 feudal servitudes. The feudal barons wanted to be sure of get- 
 ting these, so they had legislation passed making the government 
 practically responsible for these feudal payments. The annuity 
 banks issue annuity bonds, and the Prussian government guar- 
 antees them. These loans, made to enable the peasant farmer 
 to pay off feudal servitudes to the barons, run from 50 to 60 
 years. By the year 1909 the amount of these annuity bonds was 
 more than 500,000,000 marks. The millions of peasant farmers 
 have not only had to pay directly or indirectly crushing taxes 
 to support the militarist regime, but they have had to meet feudal 
 obligations put upon their land centuries ago. 
 
 To this very day the most severe restraints are placed by 
 law in Germany upon any attempt of agricultural workers to 
 better their condition. The German criminal code prohibits 
 agricultural workers the right to organize and strike. Every 
 person coming in or out of a rural community must register with 
 the local representative of the government or be reported to the 
 police. 
 
 This, of course, applies to women as well as men, for in Ger- 
 many the larger part of the farm work, and the heavy work at 
 that, has been done by women. In peace times it was a common 
 sight to note women hitched with cattle and dogs drawing plows 
 and carts ; they hoed, pitched hay and spread manure ; in Bava- 
 ria women acted as hod carriers; wielded heavy hammers in 
 breaking huge stones and did regular service as wood choppers, 
 heavy load carriers and other onerous jobs. In 1912 a woman 
 farm laborer received in marks about 38 to 48 cents a day, and 
 children over 12 years, 24 cents a day, in both cases without 
 board. Men farm laborers were paid 3 marks or 72 cents a 
 day. These wages were considered lugh by the employing 
 Junkers. The common meal of the German farmer in peace 
 times was merely a large bowl of soup and dry rye bread, with 
 a bit of sausage. 
 
156 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 These are but a few characteristic examples of the conditions 
 of the small farmers in Germany. 
 
 The lot of the millions of industrial workers in Germany has 
 been of the most debasing character. 
 
 In the United States the eight hour day has long been es- 
 tablished in many trades. But in Germany, up to the very be- 
 ginning of the war, the general workday was from 57 to 60 
 hours a week, and in some trades 12 to 14 hours a day were 
 common. Why have the work hours been so long and the wages 
 so low? One main reason is that German workmen did not get 
 the privilege to organize until long after other countries had af- 
 forded it as a fundamental right. Even to-day their meetings 
 are still under close bureaucratic surveillance and threat of disper- 
 sion by the police. How little freedom of action the German 
 people are allowed is graphically shown by the fact that at this 
 late day the German Social Democrats are making as one of their 
 demands the right of assemblage without police interference. 
 
 Controlling the government, intrenched Junkerdom has 
 adroitly devised laws forbidding any rights or any real political 
 power to the workers. 
 
 Under the old election laws, still in force, the Junkers control 
 the nation and the big propertied interests the cities. The vote 
 is graded according to the amount of taxes. 
 
 Property quahfication is still the universal system in Pi-ussia 
 and Saxony and the prevalent system in the cities of south 
 Germany. This system allows in Berlin, for example, one first- 
 class vote the same representation in the city government as 
 375 third class or workers' vote. 
 
 In the big textile mills of Saxony adult males have been paid 
 at the rate of 6 to less than 8 cents an hour or an average of 
 $3.33 to $3.75 a week. In March 1914 skilled workers in many 
 trades in Germany were getting average wages varying from 
 $5.58 to $8.16 a week. In the woodworking industry, employ- 
 ing 800,000 persons, the average weekly earnings of adult males 
 were $5.99 a week. An investigation in 1910 of certain wage- 
 earning families in forty German towns showed that although 
 the family's annual expenditure was $443.55, the average man 
 wage-earner's wage was only $360.89. 
 
 How, in millions of German workers' households, this def- 
 icit has been made up is no mystery. It has been made up in 
 part by the women and children being forced to work in fac- 
 tories, shops, mines, and in home sweatshops. 
 
 So low and insufficient have been the wages paid to men that 
 the putting to work of women and children often becomes a dire 
 necessity in many a worker's household. In 1913 there were 
 
GERMANY'S BIGGEST FRAUD— REFORM 157 
 
 9,500,000 wage-earning women in Germany. Large numbers 
 were employed in the factories of Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, 
 Baden, Wurtemberg, Hesse and Alsace-Lorraine. In the textile 
 factories of Saxony alone more than 400,000 women were em- 
 ployed. In Berlin, in 1905, there were more than 100,000 home 
 sweatshop workers, 80 per cent, of them women. Women in Ger- 
 man factories worked 11 hours a day up to 19 10, when govern- 
 ment regulation reduced the hours to 10 a day, and 8 hours on 
 Saturday. In home sweatshops, however, a 14 hour day was 
 common. 
 
 I am confining this paper of mine purely to facts. They are 
 necessary things to give and they are what we in this country 
 have never had. 
 
 The wages of women workers in Germany have been in- 
 credibly low. In the metal, electrical, paper, woodworking, chem- 
 ical, leather and rubber and other industries their wages, in 
 1914, averaged from 41 cents to 67 cents a day. Big textile 
 mills as late as 1917, notwithstanding the enormously increased 
 cost of living, were payihg women weekly wages of only $1.30 
 and $1.43. 
 
 In the metal trades, employing in 1916 a total of 266,530 
 women and girls, the war wage for women was only 71 cents a 
 day for the heaviest physical work causing severe physical strain. 
 
 One of the' things that was always brought up about Germany 
 in contrast with this country, according to many writers, was 
 that Germany had no child labor — no pauperism and no child 
 labor. In what they tell us, children there are looked after, 
 they are put to school — they have compulsory education — they 
 are all well fed, they are protected against disease. Let us see 
 what the facts are. 1 
 
 In the United States the evils of child labor have been 
 steadily reduced by the State and Federal legislation. In 1910 
 we deplored the fact that 150,000 children under 16 years of 
 age were employed in factories, and since then the federal act 
 has put it down to much less than that. But in Germany, in 
 1911, there was a reported total of nearly 600,000 children of 
 14 to 16 years employed in mills, mines and factories, and many 
 more who were unreported, that is, they made a practice of not 
 reporting any establishment where there were less than ten 
 people employed. Of this total of nearly 600,000 child laborers 
 in Germany nearly 430,000 were girls who were employed in 
 mines, factories and shops. It has been customary, very com- 
 mon, in Germany to employ girls in mines — salt mines, coal 
 mines, and so forth. Were it not for the earnings of women and 
 child members of workers' families, scant as these earnings have 
 
158 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 been, great numbers of working class families could not possi- 
 bly have existed on the wages of the men workers. That is 
 the reason why Germany was able to sell goods so cheaply, not 
 merely the underpaid labor but the number of women and chil- 
 dren employed there at starvation wages. 
 
 The Kaiser was always prating of the German nome and 
 what a wonderful institution the German family was. But the 
 members of the German working class family, men, women and 
 children, were usually engaged in outside drudgery, seeing little 
 of one another. One of the Kaiser's favorite devices to im- 
 press the rest of the world was to moralize on the excellencies 
 and superiority of German family life. His publicity staff took 
 up the imperial cue and elaborated with touching eloquence upon 
 the subject. 
 
 Most of this was mere iaction. The autocracy with its two 
 main branches, the Junkers and the industrial lords, cared no 
 more for the German home in peace times than they have in war 
 times. The greater the supply of woman and child labor, the 
 better satisfied they were. It fitted in with the aims of the mili- 
 tary machine, which needed the men for the barracks and war, 
 and it enabled the Junkers and industrial lords by getting the 
 cheapest possible labor to undersell the rest of the world. 
 
 At the same time, the boosters of Germany, always shunning 
 statistical facts, wove the most alluring stories of what a com- 
 fortable, satisfied class the German workers were. They told the 
 world nothing of the strikes constantly going on in Germany, 
 and the real meaning of those strikes. A strike in Germany had 
 a far greater significance than in other countries, because from 
 the earliest years the cowed German worker is taught to be 
 submissive to authority and to do nothing officially prohibited. 
 Fear of the bureaucratic authorities and of employers (who are 
 often one and the same) has been ground into his very marrow. 
 
 In these circumstances conditions must be triply unendurable 
 to induce him to strike. Yet from 1904 to 1906, according to 
 the figures of the German Imperial Statistics Office, there was 
 an annual average of 279,817 striking and locked-out workers in 
 Germany. From 1909 to 1913 the annual average was 327,593. 
 
 What was the result of these strikes in this much vaunted 
 paragon land of social justice? Employers at all times instantly 
 availed themselves of the cruel police methods and arbitrary 
 court power which in Germany are always at the disposal of 
 the employing magnates. I ask you to pay particular attention 
 to the figures that I am about to give. The German Statistical 
 Year Book, from which I am taking this, giving the outcome 
 of strikes and lockouts in Germany, reported that in 1912 only 
 
GERMANY'S BIGGEST FRAUD— REFORM 159 
 
 4.8 per cent, of the strikes obtained complete success, and 26.9 
 per cent, were partially successful. But 68.3 per cent., more than 
 two-thirds, of the strikes, were crushingly defeated. They were 
 browbeaten, intimidated, clubbed and starved back to work, with- 
 out gaining a single point. This in Germany, the grand home 
 of advanced social legislation. 
 
 The same authority— the German Statistical Year Book — 
 shows that in Great Britain and Ireland in the same year 74.5 
 per cent, of the labor conflicts resulted in full victory for the 
 strikers. In about 11 per cent, of the strikes the British, Scotch 
 and Irish strikers were partially successful, and only 14.3 per 
 cent, of the strikes were failures. In 1912 in Belgium 45.3 
 per cent, of the strikes were successful and 23.8 per cent, un- 
 successful. In Holland 27.5 per cent, of the strikes were suc- 
 cessful and 32.4 per cent, failures. 
 
 These figures and this contrast show German "Kultur" in 
 genuine operation. Of course, they don't agree with the re- 
 splendent tales spread broadcast about the marvels of the German 
 Government's paternal benevolence. Here again the German 
 Government must have had a contemptuous opinion of the cali- 
 ber of the writers who went to Germany on the much advertised 
 mission of describing German conditions. It estimated their 
 mentality rightly, feeling certain that they would never take the 
 trouble of consulting the dry but eloquent statistics which the 
 German Government itself published. 
 
 When we come to housing conditions in Germany we reach 
 a subject upon which the puffers of Germany have been enthu- 
 siastic. Their stock in trade has been an enumeration of its 
 "model dwellings." Thus they gave the impression that Germany 
 was a celestial land of "model dwellings." But these exhibits 
 did not in any way represent the habitations of the millions of 
 German workers. They were built for show and for officialdom 
 and for the legion of sub-officials, the petty officials of all kinds 
 of the German Government. In no country have the workers 
 been more frightfully overcrowded in demoralizing living quar- 
 ters than in Germany. 
 
 The cold facts are that since 1886 very little has been done 
 in legislation for improving housing conditions in Germany. In 
 fact all they have done is to make a few minor building regula- 
 tions. Not a law has been passed since 1886. 
 
 During that time the greatest transformation in housing condi- 
 tions has gone on in the United States and in some other 
 countries. But for more than thirty years, with the exception 
 of some minor building laws, housing conditions in Germany 
 have remained stagnant. 
 
160 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 Why? Chiefly because the voting power is centered in the 
 hands of the rich. Composed largely of landlords and land and 
 building speculators, the city councils have stubbornly opposed 
 any real housing reforms that would benefit the working class. 
 The same is true of rich and powerful obstructionists controll- 
 ing legislative bodies. 
 
 Not merely in Berlin but throughout all Germany the notori- 
 ous "barrack" tenement house is the usual living quarters for 
 the mass of workers, skilled and unskilled. In almost all Ger- 
 man cities it has been the rule to build these malodorous "bar- 
 racks," in series of blocks, one behind the other. Visitors seeing 
 only the ornate street exteriors could get no conception of the 
 repulsiveness of these dismal "barracks" in the rear. The apart- 
 ments facing the street are occupied chiefly by the well-to-da 
 The workers are shoved to the "barracks" in the forbidding 
 back passageways. Of five and six stories, these formidable 
 buildings are only 30 or 40 feet apart. The narrow courtyards 
 are wrapt in perpetual gloom. Few rooms ever see sunlight. 
 And in these working class habitations in general, bath facili- 
 ties are almost unknown, and the sanitary accommodations are 
 commonly of the most antiquated type. The family must supply 
 its own heat. The rooms are bare, no adornment or fixtures of 
 any kind furnished by the owner. 
 
 The Berlin housing census of 1910 showed that of 555,416 
 dwellings, housing a population of 1,996,994 persons, 
 
 That 40,690 dwellings consisted of one room. 
 
 That 186,756 dwellings consisted of two rooms. 
 
 That 180,850 dwellings consisted of three rooms. 
 
 That 62,676 dwellings consisted of four rooms. 
 
 The comparatively small remainder of five to seven rooms. 
 
 That 34,508 dwellings had no kitchen at all. 
 
 That in 41,115 households, roomers were kept. 
 
 That in 58,400 households, lodgers (renting beds by the 
 night) were taken in. 
 
 That a total of 64,031 regular roomers and 88,560 lodgers 
 were kept. But this was a very incomplete register. Many 
 families have concealed the fact that they kept lodgers. 
 
 The preponderance of working people, the Berlin housing 
 census of 1910 showed, were herded chiefly in one- or two-room 
 habitations. These workers were not unskilled laborers. They 
 were largely skilled workers. German writers on housing con- 
 ditions in Berlin stated that 45 per cent, of the families in 
 Berlin lived in one room. Whatever the proportion, it has been 
 considerable. But the two-room flat has been the usual working 
 class abode. These two rooms consist of a combination living 
 
GERMANY'S BIGGEST FRAUD— REFORM 161 
 
 and bedroom occupied day and night throughout the year, and 
 the other room a small kitchen, which likewise is pressed into 
 service as a bedroom. In these stuffy rooms there could com- 
 monly be found a family of four to six persons and boarders 
 and lodgers besides. Husband and wife and children often slept 
 in the kitchen, and the other room was let out to lodgers. 
 
 The housing conditions here described apply essentially to 
 practically all other German cities. They are general, not local, 
 conditions. In the United States we have some bad spots in some 
 of our largest cities, but comparing conditions in our country as a 
 whole to those in Germany as a whole, housing here is so far 
 superior to anything that Germany can show that by comparison 
 Germany is a backward country. In addition to rent, all German 
 workers with incomes of $225 or more a year have to pay 
 heavy local taxes and State income taxes. 
 
 In normal times the average German worker's family would 
 have been on the border line of near starvation had it not been 
 for the practice of taking in lodgers and roomers. Even with 
 the additional revenue thus extracted, the German skilled work- 
 er's income was so paltry that underfeeding was chronic. 
 
 Before the war there was a great consumption of horse flesh 
 or dog flesh. Otherwise only the very cheapest kind of meats, 
 usually swine products, ever came on the average skilled work- 
 er's table. The family seldom had fish, eggs or butter; sugar, 
 fruit, tea, chocolate and cocoa were equally rare. Coffee sub- 
 stitutes were largely used. With its food confined mainly to 
 milk, cheap meats, bread, pastry and potatoes and only occa- 
 sionally butter and eggs, the average expenditure of the average 
 skilled worker's family for foods amounted in peace times to 
 about $218 a year. The unskilled laborer's family fared, of 
 course, much worse. Much of the prepared food sold to the 
 German working class has been grossly adulterated. 
 
 The direct result of housing congestion, improper nourish- 
 ment and mothers being forced to work in factories, has been 
 an enormous infant mortality rate in Germany. 
 
 Excepting European Russia and Austria, Germany has had 
 the highest infant mortality rate of any registered country. The 
 average rate of Germany's deaths under one year per 100 births 
 for 1910-1914 was 17. During the same years the average infant 
 mortality rate for Spain, Bulgaria, Japan, Italy, Belgium, France, 
 England and Wales, Scotland, Switzerland, Holland, Den- 
 mark, Sweden and Norway, ranged from 16.5 to 7 per 100 
 births. German "Kultur" was twice or more as disastrous to 
 infant life as was the ordinary civilization of such countries as 
 Denmark, Norway and Sweden, 
 
162 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 During the very years when the rest of the world was being 
 entertained so lavishly with glittering narratives of Germany's 
 efficiency, the infant mortality rate in German cities was exces- 
 sive. The 1912 report of the Prussian Medical Department 
 Ministry of the Interior stated that per 1,000 of living children 
 the infant death rate in 1912 was 146 in Dusseldorf; 178 in 
 Berlin; 203 in Danzic; 203 in Breslau; 202 in Magdeburg; 212 in 
 Posen. New York City's death rate in 1912 was only 105 per 
 1,000 births. Boston's was only no. Cincinnati was 103. These 
 were strikingly low death rates for American cities considering 
 that in many of our cities there is a very large motley foreign 
 polyglot population. The problem of educating these elements 
 in health matters is by no means an easy one. Germany has no 
 such problem. Even facing this difficult problem, the infant 
 mortality rates of American cities with preponderant white popu- 
 lation is far less than that of German cities. 
 
 Now we come to the most plausible of all Germany's preten- 
 sions and the most hollow. We all know of the incessant brag- 
 ging about Germany's social insurance laws and the alleged 
 miracles they have wrought. Let us see what they are and 
 what have been the net results. 
 
 Germany's compulsory sickness and workingmen's insurance 
 system dates from 1883-84. Its invalidity and old-age insurance 
 dates from 1889. The word pension has a high-sounding signif- 
 icance, giving the impression of a sufficiency to cover normal 
 wants. But when we analyze the official figures of the German 
 Government this is what we find : 
 
 In 1914 the largest pension given did not amount to $1 a 
 week. The disabled had to get along on a pension of about 91 
 cents a week, and less in previous years. The sick invalid 
 in 1914 had to subsist on a pension of 95 cents a week, and 
 old age on a pension of less than Tj cents a week. Widows and 
 widowers, sick widows and orphans each received the extravagant 
 pension of between 26 and 39 cents a week. 
 
 How did they manage to live on these scant sums in a 
 country where the lowest possible scale of living costs an adult 
 $155 a year? The answer is that many of them, as the records 
 show, had also to draw poor relief alms to keep Hfe together. 
 They had to register themselves as paupers in order to get poor 
 relief funds. 
 
 Eulogists of Germany have had much to say about the social 
 insurance laws. But they have said nothing about these laws 
 being so counterfeit and such a sham that many of the recipients 
 of pensions were driven into depending upon pauper bounties. 
 
 The main convincing argument originally used in promoting 
 
GERMANY'S BIGGEST FRAUD— REFORM 163 
 
 social insurance laws in Germany was that they would protect 
 the people against want. 
 
 But paupej;ism has enormously increased in Germany. Ac- 
 cording to Dr. Friederich Zahn, Director of the Royal Bava- 
 rian Statistical Oifice, the number of persons receiving poor 
 relief from the public funds in Berlin increased yearly from 
 31,358 in 1891 to 55,601 in 1909. This was an increase in 
 pauperism from 1.99 per 100 inhabitants in 1891 to 2.64 per 100 
 inhabitants in 1909. Nor does this tell the whole story. It does 
 not include a large number of people receiving pauper benefits 
 from private societies and organizations of all kinds. 
 
 In Munich, Leipsic, Breslau, Frankfort-on-Main, Nurem- 
 berg, Dusseldorf, Elberfeld and other cities the increase in pau- 
 perism as Dr. Zahn specifically showed, went on continously. In 
 Bavaria, the richest agricultural state in Germany, the number 
 of paupers relieved, "excluding other members of the family", 
 steadily increased year after year from 189,484 in 1900 to 230,- 
 218 in 191 1. During the same period the expenditures for poor 
 relief in Bavaria increased from 1.5 marks to 2.1 marks. The 
 increase of pauperism went on contemporaneously in rural Ger- 
 many. For example the public cost alone of the rural poor re- 
 lief in Westphalia increased from 300,000 marks in 1886 to i,- 
 034,650 marks in 1909, and in Rhenish Prussia from 611,000 
 marks in 1886 to 1,697,000 marks in 1909. Part of this increased 
 expenditure was caused by the greater cost of suppUes, but the 
 bulk was brought about by a sheer increase in pauperism. 
 
 When a German admits himself a pauper he is plunged into 
 the very depths of legal as well as social degradation. Under 
 German law generally the man who officially becomes a pauper 
 loses even the phantom voting rights that he had. He is pro- 
 hibited from voting in the Empire, in the State, in the Commune 
 or even in the church. He is debarred from serving as a juror 
 and disqualified for all other civil capacities. He is not even 
 allowed the ordinary rights of settling anywhere. That in the 
 face of such drastic penalties, great numbers of Germans should 
 let themselves be classified as paupers shows the dire straits to 
 which they have been driven. 
 
 Many people have been surprised by the lack of morality 
 shown by Germany during the war. They would not have been 
 astonished had they known of the continual sweep of criminality 
 in the German Empire before the war. The number of con- 
 victions for crimes of all kinds was enormous. Juvenile crim- 
 inality was rampant. And from 1901 to 1910 about 178,000 
 illegitimate children were yearly born in Germany. These re- 
 sults were caused partly by prevalent social and industrial malad- 
 
164 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 justment, and in part by the scorn of morality made fashionable 
 and popular by German philosophers, militarists and their teach- 
 ers. 
 
 All of the conditions which I have here briefly described 
 were accompanied by the most startling wave of suicides. Here 
 was another patent fact passed over by the eulogists. If Ger- 
 many was such a heaven on earth, why should so large a number 
 of its people, especially its children, project themselves into 
 suicide ? 
 
 There were before the war 15 child suicides in Berlin to 
 every one in New York City. There were approximately four sui- 
 cides of adolescents in Saxony, which is an intensively industrial 
 state, to every one suicide in the United States. As for the 
 general suicide rate including all ages, it has been abnormally 
 high in many parts of Germany. During the five years ended 
 with 1913 the suicide rate per 100,000 of population was 32.6 
 in Saxony; 33.1 in the Province of Brandenburg, exclusive of 
 the city of Berlin; and 16.2 in Bavaria. It was twice as large 
 in Saxony, which is a state corresponding to many of our in- 
 dustrial cities and states, as it was in the industrial area of the 
 United States. During the same period the suicide rate of the 
 United States Registration Area was 16.1 per 100,000 popula- 
 tion. The suicide rate of the city of Berlin during the five years 
 ended with 1913 was, per 100,000 population, 35.8 against 17.2 
 for the City of New York, and 11 for London. 
 
 The foregoing facts are merely an outline of the actual con- 
 ditions long prevailing in Germany. When Dr. Karl Liebnecht, 
 member of the Reichstag, wrote in 1916 that "the German Gov- 
 ernment in its social and historical composition is an instrument 
 for the oppression and the exploitation of the working masses ; it 
 serves the interests of Junkerdom, of capitalism, and of Im- 
 perialism both at home and abroad," he stated a truth that in- 
 telligent Germans know but which few dared avow. The Ger- 
 man Government may still deceive the bulk of its subjects, but 
 with the diffusion of the facts the rest of the world will no 
 longer be imposed upon by what was always a colossal pretense 
 needing only inquiry to explode it completely. 
 
WOMEN IN INDUSTRY 
 
 By Hilda M. Richards, 
 
 Chief of the Woman's Division, Department of Labor 
 
 In these critical days of the war when the democracy of 
 the world is being fought for by the Allied countries, it would 
 seem superflous to have to emphasize to an American audience 
 the fact that women have a most important part to play in this 
 world struggle for freedom. And yet as I sense the attitude of 
 our country toward the woman power which could contribute 
 so much toward speeding up the production of war essentials, 
 I must confess that public opinion has not stimulated the en- 
 trance of women into the essential industries during war time. 
 
 We must learn the lessons taught by England and France 
 with regard to the part our American women must take to help 
 win the war. We must seriously consider the question which 
 confronts us, namely: "How can the woman power of America 
 be utilized so far as war industries are concerned?" American 
 women have, with true patriotic spirit, registered their desire to 
 serve wherever and whenever they may be needed. From coast 
 to coast thousands have volunteered to serve through a registra- 
 tion made by the Woman's Committee of the Councils of De- 
 fense. Illinois has 600,000; Missouri 300,000; Tennessee 250,- 
 000; Kansas 100,000; Mississippi 70,000; Oklahoma, 70,000; 
 Idaho 55,000. And if I were to go on naming all the states and 
 the total number of women registered for service, you would thrill 
 at the thought that our women have not been "slackers." Not only 
 have women registered their desire to serve throughout the coun- 
 try, but they have produced the essentials for the Army and Navy 
 and all other Departments which have needed clothing, food and 
 materials for our soldiers. In canned goods, drugs, tobacco, etc., 
 there are approximately 200,000 women; in textiles 275,000; in 
 occupations closely related to textiles there are over 200,000 
 women; knitting and hosiery mills 130,000; shoe manufactures 
 95,000. I wish I had but time to name the various war occu- 
 pations in which women are engaged for the production of 
 war materials from the manufacture of tents and kindred war 
 supplies to optical lenses and scientific instruments. 
 
 165 
 
166 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 To make the proportion of women employed in this country 
 on the same basis as England it is necessary to have the num- 
 ber employed 11,800,000 or an increase of 8,152,135. In times 
 of peace women of the United States were working in 295 
 trades and occupations out oi 303 listed by the census, and of the 
 industrial workers at the outbreak of the war more than 2,000,000 
 were women. 
 
 Within the next six months it is estimated by the Committee 
 on Public Information that we must furnish 1,000,000 workers 
 for Agriculture, nearly 400,000 for shipbuilding, 1,000,000 to 
 man ships, 250,000 for transportation, 250,000 for manufacture 
 and transportation of munitions and rifles. It is estimated that 
 four men are needed at home to maintain one fighting man at 
 the front and that at least one of these men is a "woman." 
 
 These figures are not given with the intention of presenting 
 statistics, but to bring home to you the fact that as our men are 
 drafted and the additional number of men are called to take 
 their places in war production, women must of necessity be 
 used to make up the required quota. 
 
 In this country we have not yet experienced the terrific pres- 
 sure that has been felt by England. They started in the war with 
 one and a quarter million more women than men. We started 
 with two million more men than women. In spite of this the 
 census bureau informs us that there are approximately 2,000,000 
 single women between the ages of 15 and 40 who are not em- 
 ployed and not attending school and therefore presumably a 
 large number available for employment. 
 
 I do not wish to convey the impression that women are 
 not now in industries and various government departments. The 
 Civil Service Commission states that approximately 20,000 women 
 have been appointed to positions since the war started. 
 
 Food 1,160 
 
 Fuel 331 
 
 Navy 48s 
 
 Commerce 317 
 
 Agriculture 2,253 In Washington 
 
 " 2,047 " Field 
 
 Emergency Fleet 276 
 
 Bureau of Engraving 4,000 
 
 Ordnance 2,618 
 
 Treasury Increased 2,000 
 
 15.487 
 
 Think of the additional number of women in the Red Cross, 
 Y. W. C. A. and other war relief organizations all doing splendid 
 war work. 
 
WOMEN IN INDUSTRY 167 
 
 What I do mean to point out is that women in industry are 
 needed as never before to help win the war, and if we can create 
 a putUc sentiment which will help in the passage of laws to 
 protect women in industry, we shall have taken a step toward 
 the proper readjustment that must necessarily take place during 
 the war and after the war is over. Women are to take their 
 places by the side of men in the reconstruction period after 
 the war and therefore women must take their places by the side 
 of men during the war. 
 
 To place women in industry where there are enough men 
 available and able to do the work, would be only to lower the 
 standards we have advocated these many years. We must not 
 encourage the women to take positions which men are ready and 
 able to fill, for this would lower the wage standard. Neither 
 should we encourage volunteers to take the place of wage-earn- 
 ers, thus supplanting their sisters who need the work and are 
 trained to do it. "Equal pay for equal work" with regard to 
 women has been the slogan adopted by the War Labor Con- 
 ference Board, composed of representatives of employers and 
 employees, which recently met, at the request of the Secretary of 
 Labor, to aid in the formation of a National Labor Program 
 for the period of the war. 
 
 With laws protecting women, with an equal wage standard 
 as that paid to men, with changes in machinery necessary if 
 women are to handle them, there is no reason why women should 
 not take their places in the industrial world in larger numbers 
 than ever before. When we know that 2,000,000 women are in 
 industries now and that they are in munitions, aircraft plants, 
 and other war industries, we may feel that the outlook for war 
 production is hopeful. 
 
 I am reminded of a woman who came to see me to say that 
 if instead of making men's neckties she could run her power 
 machine to produce soldiers' uniforms she would not feel so 
 tired at the end of the long day. This is indicative of the ten- 
 dency of many women who wish to turn from so-called non- 
 essential industries to essential industries. A spirit of restless- 
 ness has seized many of our women who want to change their 
 work. This is only natural because it is actuated by a patriotic 
 desire to do work which seems more directly to bear upon the 
 prosecution of the war. We must, however, bring home to these 
 women the fact that every woman cannot leave the post allotted 
 to her for other work, and that if a continuous stream of 
 women leave their present positions, such shifting will make 
 the problem of production more difficult and involved. 
 
 In an Ohio city the largest number of applicants for positions 
 
168 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 in a munitions factory were registered as school teachers and 
 servants. Both these types had become tired of their old posi- 
 tions and they could earn a larger salary at the new work offered. 
 
 We are awake in this country now, we know the responsibility 
 that rests upon the United States if the world is to be made safe 
 for democracy, and we must strike now if we are to uphold 
 the ideals for which we have stood. If women are needed in 
 the field, in the factory or for any work in this crisis, let us not 
 keep them from these tasks by old-fashioned ideas that have 
 long since perished in a modern world. Let us not thwart the 
 purpose which women are endeavoring to accomplish to-day 
 by a public opinion which says that we ought not to permit women 
 to go forth and serve. 
 
 If we place responsibility upon the women who are appointed 
 to carry on war work, we ought to place power in the hands of 
 these women so that they can accomplish their tasks just as 
 England and France have done. The time has passed when 
 we can afford to appoint women to advise men how to advise 
 women. 
 
 On January 3, 1918, the Secretary of Labor, when he es- 
 tablished the Employment Service, created a Woman's Division. 
 Although the scope of work of this Division has never been 
 outlined by the department, the possibilities of work which could 
 be undertaken are evident. ( i ) The placement of women in the 
 positions for which they are best fitted, whether the woman be 
 a college graduate, a specially trained woman, a munition worker 
 or a clerk or stenographer; (2) through the public employment 
 bureaus, city, state and federal, mobilize the women power of 
 the country for the work for which they are needed, shifting 
 the woman labor supply from those places where there is no 
 demand to those localities where it can be utilized; (3) study 
 the new occupations open to women with a view to the selection 
 of workers for those trades ; (4) as a result of such studies focus 
 the attention of the schools for industrial training on the need 
 for offering courses to train \yorkers; (5) assist in establishing 
 a welfare department that shall see that moral and physical 
 needs of the workers are not neglected; (6) stimulate public 
 opinion in order to protect women workers from exploitation; 
 (7) coordinate the agencies endeavoring to help the women 
 workers of the United States in order to effect close coopera- 
 tion among these agencies; (8) utilize the machinery available 
 for placing women on the land where they are needed; (9) look- 
 ing forward to the reconstruction period after the war, organize 
 a committee to look into the possible permanency of women in the 
 various war jobs, in order to provide regulations for such work; 
 
Women in industry i69 
 
 (lo) and last, but not least, in assisting in the dilution process, 
 provide, so far as is within the power of the Labor Department, 
 that women and children shall not be exploited during a war 
 fought for democracy, nor after democracy has been established 
 as a result of that war. 
 
 This is the work that a Woman's Division of the Department 
 of Labor could well do to serve the women and the men of 
 America. 
 
 The question has arisen as to whether the work of women 
 in industry will become permanent. My own judgment in the 
 matter is that many of the new occupations now undertaken 
 by women will be permanent after the war, for several reasons. 
 Many of the men who have left their work to fight, unfortu- 
 nately will not return. Still others will return maimed and crip- 
 pled. Others will not be content to go back to lighter forms of 
 work after their strenuous outdoor life. Thus the positions 
 which all of these men held will be filled by women. Then, too, 
 more women will be economically dependent upon their earnings, 
 possibly fewer will marry, and the woman who has taken the 
 place of her husband or son in industry, will become firmly 
 rooted. Therefore we ought to deal with the problem of the 
 entrance of women into new industries as a permanent one. 
 
 At this very hour the fate of the Allies hangs by a thread 
 "over there." Over here we have the courage, the strength, 
 the power, utilizing men and women for all tasks, to bring 
 victory where it seemed defeat might come. We women must 
 stand back of the President and the administration and do all 
 within our power to make a united people who must fight a 
 united foe. These are not the days for parleys, petty factions, 
 and dreams, but now we must do or die. The women as well 
 as the men cry out from the depths of their souls, "Give us 
 Liberty or give us Death." 
 
 When I was a little girl my father, a veteran of the Civil 
 War, used to tell me stories of the battle of Gettysburg and 
 other famous battles, and he always concluded with this moral — 
 "So you see, it is a great thing to be a good soldier." We 
 must all be good soldiers in this struggle that the history of 
 America will not have one "blot on the scutcheon." 
 
 When the history of this war is written, the women of all 
 nations will be praised for their heroic work, and I trust that 
 no country will be more proud of its women than our own. 
 
 Premier Lloyd George has said: "Woman's work in the 
 war has been a vital contribution to our success. It would have 
 been impossible to produce that overwhelming mass of ammu- 
 nition at the Somme had it not been for the work of the women. 
 
170 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 They have shown a devotion, a zeal, a courage which are be- 
 yond challenge." 
 
 Again Monsieur Flandin says: "What French women have 
 done to keep the courage of the nation during the dark days 
 cannot be measured in words. They have been the backbone of 
 national defense." 
 
 M. Tardieu, French High Commissioner, has recently stated: 
 "There is no line of mechanics in which our women have not 
 become proficient since the men have gone to war. And surely 
 what French women have done American women can do." 
 
 Thus have the representatives of the Allied countries voiced 
 their appreciation of the work of women in the world war. 
 When the part America is to play in this war has become a real 
 and penetrating factor for victory, what will the spokesman of 
 our country say about the women of America? 
 
 President Wilson pays this tribute to the women of America : 
 "I think the whole country has appreciated the way in which the 
 women have risen to this great occasion. They have not only 
 done what they have been asked to do, and done it with ardor and 
 efficiency, but they have shown a power to organize for doing 
 things on their own initiative, which is quite a different thing and 
 a very much more difficult thing. I think the whole country 
 has admired the spirit and the capacity and devotion of the 
 women of the United States. It goes without saying that the 
 country depends upon the women for a large part of the in- 
 spiration of its life. That is obvious. But it is now depending 
 upon the women also for suggestions of service, which have 
 been rendered in abundance and with the distinction of original- 
 ity." 
 
WOMEN IN FINANCE 
 
 By Mary Synon, 
 Treasurer of the Woman's Liberty Loan Committee 
 
 I AM sure that there is not an American in the country to-night 
 who is not in his heart and soul a soldier of the United States. 
 We women feel that we have proven our right to call ourselves 
 soldiers by the organization of the army of which Mrs. McAdoo 
 herself has been placed at the head in the field, and I take 
 pleasure in announcing to you to-night as the representative of 
 the Woman's Liberty Loan Committee that there are to-day 
 through the United States exactly — no, not exactly, because there 
 are more than five hundred thousand women behind the soldiers 
 of our country. 
 
 When you remember that a year ago there were less than 
 fifty women at the most, selling bonds through the United States, 
 you will understand how very remarkable has been this progress 
 of women into a highly specialized financial field. 
 
 The question of how it has been done is probably one of the 
 most remarkable in the world, because we had to meet alto- 
 gether new conditions. There was probably no condition newer 
 to women than the entrance into the field of finance; but to-day 
 every county in the United States has a woman chairman for 
 the Liberty Loan; and when you consider that there are thirty- 
 two hundred counties, and that we have thirty-two hundred 
 county chairmen, you will know what the organization means. 
 When you remember, too, that every county chairman has town- 
 ship chairmen working under her, to such number that we have 
 counted up forty-nine thousand five hundred township chairmen 
 in the country to-day, you will know to what that organization 
 has grown. There must be for every township chairman at least 
 ten workers — a very conservative estimate. You will also see 
 that our estimate of five hundred thousand is less than the actual 
 number, because the cities are not represented in that. When you 
 know that New York City alone has twenty-five thousand women 
 selling bonds; that Chicago has more than ten thousand; that 
 Boston has eight thousand ; St. Louis seventeen thousand ; Louis- 
 
 171 
 
172 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 ville, Kentucky, twenty-five hundred, and other cities— Kansas 
 City has almost ten thousand — then you know what it nieans 
 when we say that we have an organization of over a half million 
 in the field to-day. 
 
 Our check on this, I think, is another point of interest. We 
 have a pamphlet prepared to help us increase the interest of 
 the women. We estimated two months ago that we would need 
 a quarter million of those pamphlets. Several weeks ago the 
 quarter million was distributed and orders for more kept com- 
 ing in, so that we now have more than five hundred thousand 
 of those pamphlets sent only to active workers distributed out 
 through the states to-night. 
 
 I think, however, important as the organization is, the under- 
 lying significance is that all the women are interested in this 
 matter. How did this come to exist in exactly this way? 
 How is it possible? There are two reasons' for that. The 
 first, the fundamental reason of the actual establishment of 
 the committee, and the heart of the organization, the actual 
 heart of the organization, was due to the fact of one woman's 
 vision. On the 14th of May, 1917, the Secretary of the Treas- 
 ury called together a small group of women for a representation 
 of women in the Liberty Loan campaign, with the realization 
 that women would naturally be large factors in the contribution 
 to the loan. The Secretary was possessed of a very remarkable 
 vision — and I think that we women have always found that it 
 has always been the vision of a few inen that has advanced the 
 cause of women more than any other factor except woman's 
 own desire and intention to progress, and have brought about the 
 great successes that have attached to women's efforts. In order 
 to make the work of the committee most effective, the Secre- 
 tary established the committee, not as an auxiliary committee, 
 dependent upon any man's organization, as Mrs. Richards said, 
 in talking of how the work of women should be done — ^nor upon 
 a group of men to determine things for the women or to do 
 themselves for the women the things that they should do for 
 themselves, but an actual group of women who should look 
 after the interests of the women ; and this work was established 
 as a Bureau of the United States Treasury. We feel with 
 pride that we are the only executive committee of women in the 
 Government of the United States, and we feel that we should do 
 everything that we can to justify the faith that the Secretary 
 of the Treasury put in women. 
 
 The first act of the committee was to request the Secretary 
 that Mrs. McAdoo be placed upon the committee. The second 
 act was her election as chairman, an action thoroughly justi- 
 
WOMEN IN FINANCE 173 
 
 fied by the remarkable work that Mrs. McAdoo herself was too 
 modest to tell about, or even to allow to be discussed ! 
 
 The organization of the women which was accomplished, 
 brought together by them as a bureau of the Treasury, extends 
 over the forty-eight states, and also the District of Columbia and 
 Alaska. This organization began with a state chairman in every 
 state. The appointment was in some cases almost a command, 
 but the result has been that no woman who has taken over 
 the work has even once lapsed into inertia. There has not been 
 a woman in the country in the Liberty Loan campaign who has 
 fallen down on her job. It was hard work; there were difficul- 
 ties; there were at times discouragements that seemed to be in- 
 superable, but every one of them has been surmounted, and the 
 results accomplished. Not that we have not troubles yet — 
 there are plenty of them — but the spirit that carried the women 
 through the first and second Liberty Loans is carrying them 
 through the third loan to such a point that there are few com- 
 munications that come into the committee to-day detailing any 
 of these difficulties and discouragements. 
 
 I am glad to report that the great state of West Virginia, 
 through its legislature this afternoon, voted to invest two hun- 
 dred and fifty thousand of the state funds in Liberty Bonds 
 through the Woman's Committee. That, some of you might 
 say, is chivalry. We say it's hard work! 
 
 In the face of what has been done by women — for the woman's 
 organization raised one billion dollars in the second Liberty 
 Loan, and it is our hope and belief that we will raise more than 
 a billion dollars in the third Liberty Loan — we feel that the 
 advance of women into war finance is one of the most important, 
 the most significant and most vital factors brought before the 
 American people. 
 
 I have always known that both the men and the women of 
 America could fight shoulder to shoulder, if the call ever came; 
 and we know that this is a woman's war just as much as it is a 
 man's war, for in any war where men fight for liberty and 
 justice, women will be found helping; and this struggle is a 
 woman's war, and we want to prove that we are doing our share, 
 that we are standing shoulder to shoulder with the men who are 
 here for the sake of the men who are over in the trenches, and 
 that we are back of them to-night. 
 
WOMEN AT THE FRONT 
 
 By Kathleen Bueke, 
 
 Honorable Delegate to the United States and Canada of the 
 Scottish Women's Hospitals for Home and Foreign Service 
 
 It has been rightly said that we are passing at this time 
 through a very anxious moment. Before I actually speak of 
 the work of the women on the other side, I might express to 
 you, if I dare, standing here as a daughter of Britain, what I 
 believe to be the present state of mind of the women of Britain. 
 Oh, this is an anxious moment! I do not disguise it, but I am 
 not pessimistic. You bear in mind that Great Britain has always 
 won her battles by not knowing when she was beaten, by going 
 right on fighting! You keep that in mind and realize that we at 
 the present time are standing there before that far-flung battle 
 front, and although there may be some reverses, we shall never 
 know whether we are beaten or not, and in the end only victory 
 can come! And France will be standing there with us, and 
 America, with her boys mightily strengthening that battle line, 
 and though we all may waver, do not forget that we shall not 
 break ! 
 
 But we know there is a price to be paid, and while I may 
 speak to you to-day in the speech of a woman carrying the red 
 cross, and therefore a speech of tenderness, I beg of you to bear 
 in mind, to spread the word throughout this land of America, 
 that we women and you men and women, too, are going to de- 
 mand a price for the lives that have been lost as a protection and 
 an earnest of the future safety of the children of this and other 
 free lands. 
 
 We all long for peace in the world. But at the present hour 
 there is but one thought that actuates all of us, and that is that 
 at the final end of the conflict there may be a lasting peace, 
 and we mean to fight, and, if necessary, we will give every life 
 and every dollar in England, in France and in America without 
 once faltering in order that final and permanent victory and 
 peace may be the portion of the free peoples of the earth. 
 
 And if there should be any suggestion of a premature peace, 
 
 174 
 
WOMEN AT THE FRONT 175 
 
 we women in these lands that are striving for liberty would rise 
 in revolution ourselves and carry forward the fight! 
 
 I have been asked to speak to you to-night on the title of 
 "Women at the Front." And I can say to you that women have 
 filled a real place of bravery and of service at the front. 
 
 I think an instance that will indicate to you the bravery and 
 tenacity of the women at the front may be cited in the protest 
 that was made by the women on the east shore of England who 
 went to the Division Headquarters to protest against airplanes 
 being sent back to protect them, because they were only too 
 glad to take their share of danger, .and to fulfill duties to their 
 country without being looked after by the soldiery! Those 
 women were just as cool and plucky and brave as the men and 
 the nurses who went forth on the battlefield. Some of these 
 splendid earnest souls were engaged in relief work in an ammu- 
 nition factory that was three times blown up, and yet they 
 worked right ahead, and would not stop. They could not be 
 driven away. Their splendid example encouraged the girls who 
 were employed in the factory to keep on with their work. As 
 some of them expressed it, it really did not matter very much 
 what happened to them, so each one did her duty! Their duty 
 was performed every bit as well as was that of those women who 
 were actually within sound of the cannon. Yet being only mu- 
 nition workers and relief workers in ammunition factories, they 
 performed their duty without having much of the glory that 
 comes to the heroes of the battlefields. 
 
 I have come to speak to you more of the work of the women 
 performed directly on the battlefields, and gradually our women 
 are being assigned to those advanced positions. You go first 
 to those women who, under the various organizations, either of 
 the Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A. or the Red Cross, are working 
 rather far behind the lines, because the most efficient work in 
 the work of relief is almost always done at some distance from 
 the scene of battle. Recently I saw your women of America 
 receiving the refugees coming back by trainloads, and they were 
 so thoughtful and careful of the comforts and also of the feel- 
 ings of those who were wounded and sick. I saw them placing 
 their hands to protect the toddling and the wounded soldiers on 
 the trains, not allowing the very sensitive French that were com- 
 ing back in their sickness and pain to realize that these women 
 saw their weakness, but trying to stand behind them as a sort 
 of protection, doing it in a sort of accidental way so the sensi- 
 tive feelings of the French wounded were not hurt by a realiza- 
 tion of weakness. And that same tact and tenderness guided 
 them when they heard the faltering voices of those sick and 
 
176 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 wounded soldiers trying to sing the Marseillaise, and they took up 
 the refrain with the soldiers and sang it with the French people 
 so that the strains of that noble hymn of the French republic 
 rang out through the coaches in a really forceful and inspiring 
 way. There are so many ways in which they can tactfully and 
 tenderly stand behind and help and lend their strength to those 
 who are sick and wounded and weak. 
 
 And in Italy I have seen the splendid work done by the wom- 
 en of the Red Cross. I did not see so much of the work there 
 as in other countries, but I did see a great deal of the work 
 among the refugees. I saw there the processions of old men 
 weighted down by the burdens of years, and old women whose 
 homes and loved ones had been taken away and who saw no 
 future ahead but the grave. And there were mothers with little 
 children tugging at their skirts and whimpering and crying, not 
 understanding what all this trouble was about. These poor ter- 
 rified souls were dragged through rain and snow and mud in 
 the wake of the victorious German army. I have seen it time 
 after time, thousands of miserable refugees flying before the ap- 
 proaching armies, carrying their pitiful little possessions with 
 them. It has made my blood boil to see the homeless ones in 
 such misery. But the American Red Cross, ever alive and alert 
 to its duties, was there to welcome them, and the faces of those 
 people so grief-stricken, and the eyes of those refugees so filled 
 with tears, and their hearts so heavy because they had lost every- 
 thing, would brighten and take on a new appearance of hope and 
 joy because the ready and willing hands of these loving and 
 tender workers of the Red Cross were outstretched to help them. 
 
 In the devastated villages of France you catch the real spirit 
 of that wonderful country. There are some things in this life 
 that have not been written in books nor uttered by speakers 
 or orators, nor even thought of in their proper relation, and the 
 wonderful brave spirit of France is one of these. It is some- 
 thing mightier even than patriotism, more splendid even than 
 heroism. The spirit of the French people has made it possible 
 for the nation to live one life and to die one death when the 
 call came for such sacrifice. And you find that spirit throughout 
 the manhood and the womanhood of France. The French women 
 carry on their work of relief right under the guns that are 
 thundering out their deadly bombardment, practically on the battle 
 front, and yet managing to keep together the little business in 
 which the husbands and fathers had been engaged and which they 
 had built up. They are so anxious to send a few trinkets to the 
 soldiers at the front, although perhaps these same women them- 
 selves are almost starving for lack of food, 
 
WOMEN AT THE FRONT 177 
 
 In one French village an old lady was sitting under what little 
 was left of her house, sitting there amid the ruins of her little 
 home, under an improvised roof, selling butter and eggs to the 
 French soldiers and others who might come by to purchase. 
 Finally one lively lad happened along who felt the need of re- 
 freshment the moment he spied the little butter and egg estab- 
 lishment, and he fell to bargaining with the little old lady for 
 some of her foodstuff. She told him the prices, and he com- 
 plained that the price of the butter for his bread was too high. 
 "Why," he said, "you might as well sell out what you have here 
 anyhow, for these shells are flying around here thick and fast, 
 and the next one that strikes your little shack will bring it 
 tumbling to the ground !" 
 
 "That may be," replied the little old lady, "my house may 
 come down, but the price of my butter will not!" 
 
 You will note that the woman of the present day has very 
 little use for the man not at the present time doing his duty to 
 the utmost. I was passing through a French village one day, and 
 observed a peasant woman engaged in selling milk from door to 
 door. I stopped a moment to chat with her. Her husband was 
 standing behind her in a sort of apologetic way, — a poor little 
 specimen of manhood ; it did not appear as though he could fight 
 if he tried. His wife looked at me despairingly, and said, "This is 
 a terrible war. Think of it — think of it ! They have taken away 
 all my horses for the war that were of some use to me, and they 
 have left me this (indicating her husband) that is no use at all!" 
 
 I do not want you to think for one moment that, with all her 
 independence and bravery at the battle front, woman has lost her 
 sense of appreciation. She feels the deepest gratitude and ap- 
 preciation to the men who are dying for her and her loved ones. 
 You will observe that particularly among the women of France. 
 
 There are some amusing incidents among the sordid reali- 
 ties of the front. One strict rule of the British army is that 
 they cannot pilfer articles of food or of value in the towns where 
 they are billeted. One particular regulation is that they cannot 
 touch live stock unless actually attacked by it. Sometimes, how- 
 ever, this rule is winked at by the officers, and notably in one in- 
 stance that I knew of where one of our boys furnished his mess- 
 mates on three successive evenings with nice fried chicken, each 
 time solemnly making a report to his officer in charge that he had 
 been "attacked by the animal." But the next day the boys were 
 doomed to run into a whole mess of trouble. It seems that the 
 next time our soldier boy made his sortie on the chicken in the 
 road, he was observed by the farmer's wife who owned the 
 chicken. In other words, he was caught red-handed, and could 
 
178 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 not with entire truthfulness allege that he was being viciously 
 attacked by the animal when he appropriated it for dinner. The 
 farmer's wife rushed to the scene of conflict, and was prepared to 
 fight for her feathered property, but she wasn't quite quick 
 enough. Necessity lent wings to that soldier boy's feet, and he 
 got away with his prize. But the sequel was to follow. The 
 next morning the boys in the camp saw that farmer's wife ap- 
 proaching, her wrath apparently not one whit abated by the time 
 that had elapsed since the tragedy. There she was, coming over 
 across the field towards them, and the bravest of the boys was 
 deputed to go out and try to pacify her. Can you imagine his 
 amazement and consternation when she rushed up to him, threw 
 both arms around his neck and kissed him, then thrust a tiny 
 piece of paper in his hand ! As she looked at him for a moment 
 she smiled, though the tears were streaming down her face. Then 
 she turned in her funny wooden shoes and ran clattering away 
 across the field. The soldier brought the paper she had left 
 with him back to the camp where it was eagerly inspected by his 
 mates. On one side was the notification, — "To Mr. Thomas 
 Atkins, debtor, one chicken," and on the other side of the slip of 
 paper was written, — "Account canceled. With the love and deep- 
 est gratitude of the women of this village." And underneath 
 was this note: "Dear Tommy, — no matter what happens, we 
 women of France will always be your debtors." 
 
 There, too, in those ruined villages some of the great deeds 
 of heroism of the war may be recorded, though they would 
 have to be written in letters of blood. In one village the Ger- 
 mans had come in, and one German was fired on by some hidden 
 sniper from the village troops and killed. The German com- 
 mander, with characteristic brutality, ordered the populace im- 
 mediately to confess who had done the deed, stating that if the 
 person who fired the shot did not immediately acknowledge the 
 deed, every man in the village would be shot. He fixed a time 
 limit of ten minutes. The villagers looked at one another, but 
 no one seemed to know what to do. Five, six, seven, eight, nine 
 minutes passed. The people were in agony. Suddenly a brave 
 French woman stepped forward and confessed that it had been 
 she who had shot the German officer. She was promptly stood 
 up against a nearby wall and immediately shot. That night at 
 dusk a man crept into the village in the torn uniform of a French 
 soldier, and asked for safety. He had been hiding all day in 
 the woods outside the village. It had been he who had "sniped" 
 the German officer, and he explained how he had escaped out- 
 side the town, not knowing of the cruel edict of the German 
 commander nor of the tragic sequel of the French woman's 
 
WOMEN AT THE FRONT 179 
 
 bravery. It was only then that the people of that French village 
 realized the act of sacrifice that had been done by their friend, 
 the woman who had come forth voluntarily to acknowledge a 
 deed she had not committed, offering her life that the lives of 
 the others of that village might be spared! 
 
 Oh, I could relate story after story showing the spirit of sweet 
 sacrifice and devotion on the part of the splendid and loyal 
 women of France. 
 
 The wife of the mayor of a French town saw her husband 
 brutally shot by the Germans. She saw the soldiers then start 
 to pillage the town. Bravely she went to the German com- 
 mander and asked him what he wanted of the village, and she 
 would see that it was done. Then she went to the townspeople, 
 calming them. Finally, at sundown the Germans rode out of the 
 village. It was only then, some six hours after the death of the 
 husband, that that brave woman thought once of herself or her 
 great grief, and then that the danger to her townspeople was 
 over, and she had done all she could for others, she fell weeping 
 across the body of her man ! 
 
 Deeds of heroism are numerous on the front among the wom- 
 en, but the greatest deeds of valor, perhaps the most striking 
 deeds, have been on the front lines under the banner of the Red 
 Cross. And it may seem strange that this statement should come 
 from me who have been on the front myself — there is no place 
 for women on the front. The only women on the front now 
 are those placed there at the outbreak of war because of con- 
 fusion. They had to take anything in those days that they could 
 get. Those women have remained. In these days, however, 
 there is no place for women on the fighting line. When a great 
 retreat is ordered, the one idea of the men is to save the women, 
 and they ought only to have their military duties to think of, and 
 not have their minds diverted by the necessity of caring for 
 others. Women are really not in their place on the front, be- 
 cause man has to protect them^ and it is not man's duty now to 
 protect woman; but he should devote his entire attention to his 
 military duties and to winning the war. There are, however, a 
 certain number there, a number of girls, who wear the same uni- 
 form that I do. Pray do not think of me as a member of the 
 Scottish Women's Hospitals for Home and Foreign Service. 
 There is no such thing at the present time as Scottish or Cana- 
 dian. There is only one great Red Cross of all the world ! 
 
 Many deeds of heroism have been performed by the daugh- 
 ters of France and of Britain, the same as by the daughters of 
 America. These girls of ours went to Serbia in January, 1915, 
 went out there without any knowledge of the language. It did 
 
180 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 not matter that they did not; you do not have to know a lan- 
 guage to understand when a man is suffering and needs help. 
 Their wonderful sympathy was enough language to be under- 
 stood between them. We tried at first to teach the nurses the 
 language, but gave it up in the end as unwise. The first of the 
 nurses that went out studied the language all the way. They 
 reached their destination — the first unit to get into Serbia. The 
 Serbians were so glad they had come, and sent a deputation head- 
 ed by one of their generals to meet them. The girl who was 
 supposed to speak the best Serbian was delegated to respond to 
 his address of welcome, and sweetly she addressed the mighty 
 general thus: "Does your wife know you are here?" She had 
 gotten onto the wrong side of the page of her dictionary! Lots 
 of explaining was necessary to rectify the mistake ! They were 
 there, after all, not to speak, but to work. They went within 
 the sound of the guns and started to work. The Serbians gave 
 them a hospital with five hundred men. One must realize that 
 the Serbian wounded were many indeed. This is the third war 
 they have been engaged in in five years. The hospitals were 
 packed with sick and Wounded soldiers. The various buildings 
 that were available were used wherever possible. The Red Cross 
 went to the German authorities and told them they could not 
 nurse properly under those conditions. They were then given 
 six more buildings. The girls whitewashed the buildings that 
 could be used and cleaned them and carried the men on their 
 backs, for there were no stretchers, and got them into these six 
 buildings, and cleared their main hospital and commenced their 
 work. They realized soon the task before them, and wired home 
 for help, and a second, and third and fourth unit of the Scot- 
 tish Women's Hospitals went to Serbia. Only one unit was 
 able to work in the buildings. The other three units had to do 
 their work under canvas. In the district where we were work- 
 ing the percentage of mortality was eighty per cent. In our 
 jurisdiction we reduced that to twelve per cent. Our doctors 
 sometimes would write home about these hospitals, that were 
 like great white birds spreading their wings under the trees. It 
 all sounded very nice on paper, very patriotic. But at the scene 
 of the service it was different. The girls had to remain up all 
 night working with their patients in many instances. Storms 
 came up on occasions, and the girls had to leave their work and 
 go and hang onto the ropes of the tents to prevent the whole 
 thing from being blown away. Those girls worked right ahead, 
 a number of them laying down their lives in the service. We 
 lost seven women in Serbia in one hospital in one week ! Five 
 hundred women volunteered in fifteen days at home to take their 
 
WOMEN AT THE FRONT 181 
 
 places ! In order to realize what that means you must reahze 
 the conditions under which they worked. In the hospital at Nish 
 were one thousand Serbians. The hospital itself was an old 
 tobacco factory. No room was higher than twelve feet. Men 
 died by dozens and hundreds. Other numbers of men sat hud- 
 dled on benches waiting for comrades to die, that they might 
 have their beds on which possibly themselves to die! Into that 
 building those women went of their own free will, and two laid 
 down their lives. They serve for the men and also for the 
 women, because the Red Cross does not only take care of the 
 men, but also of the women and children. 
 
 But I cannot take your time further. I have already talked 
 too long. I could go on hour after hour telling incidents of the 
 wonderful service of the Red Cross abroad and at home. May 
 I just ask you all to take heart and to be of good cheer, as I 
 close? For our lines will not break. I speak with the courage 
 of my race. Of course one never knows to a certainty, but if 
 by any chance that line of Britain and France and America there 
 on the western front should break, our foes should remember 
 that we are fighting with our backs to a wall, and that wall is the 
 United States of America! You are coming on behind us, and 
 we know it, and if the great Torch of Liberty, which our men 
 are bearing aloft should for the moment fall, you are to pick 
 up that Torch and that Cross of the battlefield and carry it over 
 the fields of Flanders into Germany, that our dead may not have 
 died in vain. 
 
WOMAN IN EDUCATION 
 
 By Maky C. C. Bradford, 
 
 President of the National Education Association 
 
 After the stirring and marvelously appealing picture that 
 has just been given to us by this woman who has served the 
 world so well, it may seem a rather quiet picture that I have to 
 give you of the service which we believe must mean the second 
 line of defense, if civilization is not to perish from the earth. 
 I am tremendously proud to recall to you the fact that when 
 the government of the United States, acting as the messenger of 
 the spirit of America, sends out to the country its wishes, there 
 is one organization that possesses the key that unlocks the front 
 door of every home in the land, and that organization is the 
 public school system of the United States. There are only about 
 one hundred millions of us in this country. Seven hundred and 
 fifty thousands out of the hundred millions are teachers ; twenty- 
 two million five hundred thousand are school children ; and those 
 twenty-two million five hundred thousand school children rep- 
 resent about eighteen million homes — practically every home in 
 the land. And so when you reach the school, when you reach 
 the teachers and the school children, you have reached the entire 
 American people, because we all know that when a child goes 
 home and makes the demand upon the parent for something to 
 be done, because the teacher has stated that the nation wants it, 
 we know then that it is absolutely sure that that wish of the spirit 
 of America is to be carried out. 
 
 And so I come to-night to assure you that wherever I have 
 been in this great country — and in the past two weeks I have 
 been in five states and in ten cities — that wherever I have been 
 I have found the school system absolutely willing to stand as a 
 unit to be used in every way possible that the government wishes, 
 absolutely willing to change itself and the curriculum, to revital- 
 ize its curriculum by letting the people, the children, know the 
 relation of the things they study to life, to this great life and 
 death struggle that at the present moment means so much. 
 
 A great_ message has just been given to us by the woman who 
 has seen with her own eyes the horrors which we only feel sym- 
 
 182 
 
WOMAN IN EDUCATION 183 
 
 pathetically in our hearts. That great message appealing to the 
 American people to take the Torch of Liberty will reach, friends, 
 the length and breadth of this land through the teaching pro- 
 fession, through the schools that are the second line of defense ; 
 and I can promise her in the name of the twenty-two million 
 five hundred thousand school children to whom the future be- 
 longs, and the seven hundred and fifty thousand teachers, com- 
 missioned officers of the great army of soldiers of the common 
 good, that this nation shall say with the voice of the teachers 
 'and the voice of the children, that it shall repeat the immortal 
 utterance of the great Jofifre, — "They shall not pass!" They 
 cannot pass, friends, so long as the molders of the soul stuff of 
 the nation are making that soul stuff in the likeness of a citizen- 
 ship that can think straight, and is willing to work hard and can 
 love mightily, so mightily that it is willing to change living into 
 dying for the individual, if by so doing liberty may be preserved 
 alive. 
 
 History gives us no record, friends, anywhere of any great 
 work that ever was attempted where the sovereign population — 
 numbers of them — are not called upon to lay down their bodies. 
 Thank God, whether on the battlefield or at home in the struggle 
 to make the battle of permanent avail, nobody can lay down his 
 life, because life is eternal; but the laying down of the body 
 has come — the summons has come to countless civilians in every 
 great war that the world has ever seen, — into the stress and the 
 excess of work and the intensity of living, — living plus, living 
 plus! 
 
 If any of you know anything about school work, you will 
 know that every department at Washington sends out wishes and 
 desires and urgings to all the state departments of education. 
 And my task is compiling just that information, and I thought 
 I had a great big task before the war broke out in being the 
 official mother of the two hundred and seventy-five thousand 
 school children of my state, a big enough family to satisfy even 
 Theodore Roosevelt himself, I think! And after the war broke 
 out, and we had two million five hundred thousand, I considered 
 my family to be very, very respectable in size ! And although I 
 had just about as much as one human being could do in trying 
 to conduct the educational affairs of a great state, the fifth 
 largest state in territory in the Union, where getting about is not 
 so easy as one might think, after the war came, everything was 
 raised to the nth power ; and to-day there would be requests for 
 this, and to-morrow requests for that; but, thank Heaven, I 
 haven't yet had time nor inclination to say "No" to whatever the 
 spirit of America has wanted me to do through the government 
 
184 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 at Washington. And friends have said to me, when the war had 
 been on three or four months, "You cannot keep this up ! You 
 are going to kill yourself! And you know that was just like a 
 bucket of ice water thrown all over me, and I wondered and 
 faced it. And then I asked myself this, "In what way are you 
 better, in what way are you more important than the boys over 
 there, and some of them certainly will not come back, and if in 
 the effort to say 'Yes, yes, yes' to the spirit of America, you 
 should fall, a good soldier of the army of the- common good, 
 of the teaching profession of the United States, — if you should 
 fall ?" And this was my answer, friends, to myself : "What of 
 it? What of it?" If I were to die to-morrow saying "Yes" to 
 any appeal of the spirit of America, it wouldn't matter. People 
 pass, friends, but principles endure ! And so because I represent 
 the great army of soldiers of the common good, into whose keep- 
 ing is given the destiny of the citizenry of this nation to-morrow ; 
 because I represent those who must come true, if it is ever to 
 come true in fullness and in splendor, the mighty dream thrown 
 upon the screen of history by the God of Nations, the great dream 
 of a nation that could exemplify in its institutions human broth- 
 erhood, because that is the task of the teaching force of America, 
 to make the experiment of the human brotherhood in the demo- 
 cratic republic of the United States come true, fulfill a dream of 
 the God of Nations. Because of that I assure you that in 
 every single one of those eighteen millions of homes where the 
 twenty-two million five hundred thousand children live, over the 
 destinies of whom the seven hundred and fifty thousand teachers 
 preside, you have loyal souls, you have souls in love with the 
 loveliness of the vision of freedom, you have souls who have so 
 dominated their daily living that they are trying to think abso- 
 lutely straight in the present great national crisis, that they are 
 willing to work incessantly for the sake of this victory that must 
 be snatched from under the shadow of autocracy in order that 
 the Paradise of Peace may be regained; and I assure you that 
 that mighty army is capable of the great love for the nation and 
 the world that will make sacrifice seem easy and death but the 
 resurrection into the fullest and finest realities of life. 
 
 I assure you that the teaching force of the United States 
 stands ready with every teacher and every school child to do 
 everything that the nation wants. 
 
 I believe I was put on to talk to you about woman in edu- 
 cation, and I have been talking about the school system. Of 
 course, it is true that the great majority of teachers are women; 
 it is true that the elementary school teacher, of whom ninety- 
 nine per cent, are women, are the greatest number — form the 
 
WOMAN IN EDUCATION 185 
 
 greatest body of this teaching profession ! And yet I never can 
 think of women in education; I can just think of human 
 beings making other human beings in the Ukeness of the good 
 citizen. 
 
 Friends, may I tell you the kind of thing that I believe edu- 
 cation to mean? Because education and an educated leadership 
 is to be needed in the world now as it never was before. If 
 you want to see what a suddenly enfranchised nation, a suddenly 
 freed nation, without education is, just look at Russia. Night 
 before last I heard Count Tolstoi speak in Pittsburgh, and he said 
 that the number of illiterates in his nation was appallingly large. 
 Now we must have a better type of education than we have ever 
 had before. Not only the soldiers are making the world safe for 
 democracy ; we people at home are making the world safe for de- 
 mocracy, — but the teacher must keep it safe for democracy, be- 
 cause only through people who can think straight and are willing 
 to work hard and love mightily can real democracy remain upon 
 the earth ; and I insist that every child has a right to a perfectly 
 trained body, that trained body in instant, obedient and efficient 
 service of the perfectly trained mind; and the perfectly trained 
 mind in instant, obedient and efficient service of the something 
 in here, — and I do not care what you call it; you may call it the 
 soul, you may call it the moral sense, you may call it the con- 
 science, and you may call it the higher self. I like to call it the 
 spark of the most High God that baptizes the body of each human 
 being who comes into the world and makes of it the Temple of 
 the Holy Ghost; and none who has less than this trained body 
 and this trained mind, obeying instantly the spiritual dictum, 
 can be called an educated human being; and this is the kind of 
 education we must have after the war ! 
 
 Education must be linked to Hfe as it never has been before. 
 Education is the interpretation of life, — all life, — in terms of 
 truth, beauty, freedom, efficiency and service, and I like to spell 
 the last word with four letters, L-o-v-e! And when we have 
 education like that we shall in time have government that will 
 mean the science and art of living together in organized com- 
 munities so that righteousness may prevail ; and then we shall 
 have real civilization, — the expression in human institutions of 
 the highest ideal of all the people. 
 
 In a republic, friends, you cannot get anything out in the 
 nation that you do not first put into the schools. Germany's 
 false educational system for fifty-seven years has resulted in the 
 present war, and we must throw down the gauntlet educationally 
 as well as commercially and say that true American education 
 shall save the world, as German education has threatened to 
 
186 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 ruin it. And so it is a great and a splendid task that is before 
 us now. 
 
 In closing, may I give you, because it gives me a chance to 
 say something about women in education, — may I give you my 
 favorite legend? It is very, very old. It is taken from the 
 Sanskrit, and it runs somewhat in this wise: 
 
 "When the Lord Buddha was about to lay down his life, — his 
 body, — he called his disciples about him and he taught them many 
 thing's. And they asked him, saying, 'Lord, wilt thou ever come 
 again to earth ?' And the wise one answered, 'I shall come again 
 to earth after many ages.' And his disciples said unto him again, 
 'Oh, wise one, when thou comest again to earth after many ages, 
 where wilt thou come again to earth?' And the wise one an- 
 swered them yet again, saying, 'When after many ages I come 
 again to earth I shall come to an undiscovered country lying 
 across unknown seas.' And still they pressed him, saying, 'Oh, 
 wise one, when thou comest again to the earth after many ages 
 to that undiscovered country lying across unknown seas, how 
 wilt thou come again to earth ?' And the Lord Buddha answered 
 them, saying, 'When, after many ages, I shall come again to earth, 
 to that undiscovered country lying across unknown seas, I shall 
 conte in the form of many women, and where they are there shall 
 righteousness dwell. And when they speak there shall the spirit 
 of wisdom make itself heard, and where their shadow shall fall 
 shall home be, and under their footsteps shall come the roses of 
 Hfe. So shall I come again to earth after many ages to that un- 
 discovered country lying across unknown seas !' " And, friends, I 
 always like to think that the American woman teacher expresses 
 the coming again to earth of the Wise One with his gentleness 
 and his wisdom and his loving kindness, and his council and his 
 love. And so I ask you to believe that not only the American 
 woman teacher, but that the whole American public school system 
 stands to-day the second line of defense, reaching every home 
 in the land, moldihg each child in the likeness of the ideal citizen- 
 ship, so that the mighty dream of the God of Nations of a free 
 country, a happy country, an industrially free country, a country 
 full of loving kindness, may come to earth, and that by and by, 
 when we shall have regained the paradise of peace, snatched 
 from under the shadow of sorrows, that a great world league 
 shall come, where truth and righteousness and freedom shall 
 translate themselves into love, and the kingdoms of this world 
 shall have become the kingdoms of the Lord of love ! 
 
MOTHER 
 
 By Mrs. Frederick Schoff, 
 
 President of the National Congress of Mothers and of the 
 Parent-Teachers Association 
 
 It is just as a plain mother that I do speak to you, because I 
 have had seven children of my own, because some of them are 
 in the service to-day, and because I have had children of this 
 whole country under my observation and care for nearly fifteen 
 years. 
 
 The first thought of the mothers of this country to-day is to 
 help win this war, not only by sending their sons, but by doing 
 their full part in every way, by doing everything that the gov- 
 ernment asks us to do; and all through our country the mothers 
 are enlisted. I often say I have enlisted for the war just as 
 much as my son has enlisted, and am subject to the call and the 
 needs that come. 
 
 The Congress of Mothers, — it has covered this country; it has 
 organized the mothers of this country in ways that are far-reach- 
 ing. Twenty-one years of service lies behind, and much of the 
 great interest in children has come from the work that has been 
 done by the Congress, to give mothers a better opportunity to 
 understand how to bring up their children. 
 
 Now, mothers are thinking to-day in ways that they never 
 thought before. Once mothers were interested just in their 
 own homes, and did not think of a duty beyond that, but God 
 put motherhood into a woman's heart, and her work for life, 
 and her greatest work, is mothering the children of the world. 
 
 And mothers are thinking in world terms, in national terms, 
 to-day ; they are adapting their work to world conditions. They 
 know perfectly well that children come into the world innocent, 
 and pure, and with opportunities for good. 
 
 We know about the German children, too, and we know that 
 it was that dreadful system of education that has been put upon 
 Germany for generations that has made Germany what it is to- 
 day; that hateful theory that "might makes right"; that we do 
 not regard others' possessions at all, but that we can take what- 
 ever we choose if we have the power to do it. Now, it is that 
 
 187 
 
188 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 idea, and that system of education, that has brought about this 
 world war, and we women know it, we mothers know it; and 
 we believe that what a nation is giving in education is of vital 
 importance to that nation, and that we must take our lesson from 
 Germany, and see and know as a nation what is being given. 
 
 Now, in twenty-two million homes in this country seven- 
 eighths of the education of the people is being conducted and 
 the schools have one-eighth of the education to give. Up to 
 this time the government of the United States, until 1913, when 
 the Congress of Mothers requested the Bureau of Education to 
 put in a Home Education Division that would help the mothers 
 of this country to know how to bring up their children, — until 
 then parents were not recognized in any nation as educators. 
 We sometimes think that China is behind the world ; but when 
 we held our last conference here, just before the war, in 1915, 
 the Chinese Government sent a delegate to our convention, — 
 the government itself, — and asked me, under the auspices of the 
 government of China, to come out there and organize the mothers 
 of China ! Now, that was a recognition of what motherhood 
 means from a nation that we think is far behind. But here 
 in our country this Home Education Division has been put 
 into our National Bureau of Education. 
 
 Do you know that the educational part of our work in this 
 government is the most poorly supported part that there is in 
 the country? And yet it underlies the whole future of this 
 country! You can make what you will of these children, if 
 you will give the parents as well as the teachers all that they 
 need in this way, and that is one of the things that is the most 
 important for us to consider in the future. It is a national 
 question — what kind of ideals our country is going to have. 
 
 Now, what do we want to instill in the homes? We cer- 
 tainly want to teach respect for the rights of others. A nation 
 whose young respect the rights of others will not try to over- 
 power or to take from another nation what does not belong to 
 it ; and it is the making of the individual unit that will make the 
 nation what it should be. 
 
 So I believe that every nation should take up this educa- 
 tional work, and should see that it is put on such a basis that 
 every home in this land will have the light that is needed. 
 Child nature is the greatest science in the world. We have 
 doubled, trebled, quadrupled the output of the land by teaching 
 the farmers how best to plant their crops, and how to rotate their 
 crops, and how to conserve the soil. If we will develop that 
 divine spark of knowledge, and guide it in the way it should 
 be guided, we shall have doubled and trebled and quadrupled 
 
MOTHER 189 
 
 the knowledge and the efficiency of our children and of our 
 men and women of the future. 
 
 I am not speaking from theory. For eight years I have 
 had the responsibility in a big city of raising the money to pay 
 probationary officers' salaries, and ten thousand of the young 
 persons of the city under arrest passed under my observation 
 in that time, and I tell you it is a reflection on our civilization 
 that they are there. We are responsible. They are not. They 
 were not there from any fault of their own. 
 
 _ Another thing is this, friends, the most of the occupants of 
 prisons are men, and it is a reflection on us as mothers, fathers 
 and teachers if we are not reaching the boys as we ought to 
 because they are just as good as the girls, and we all know it! 
 
 And there we have been studying these questions in economic 
 and social ways, and in international ways. We have been 
 seeing the relation of the home to these persons, and we realize 
 that in the home lies the future of the world, and that we have 
 there to do the fundamental work of the world. 
 
 The Lord has been giving the women of this world, without 
 their knowledge, great possibilities of service. Over twenty 
 years ago in this country a few women got together and or- 
 ganized the National Council of Women, made up of all or- 
 ganizations of women in this country. After that, twenty-seven 
 nations organized groups of women. And that indicates the 
 possibility for reconstruction of the world, a machine made ready 
 to our needs; and even now with all the energy, and with all 
 the patriotism, we are looking forward and thinking what to 
 do after the war for reconstruction. 
 
 Lydia Borden is the president of the International Council of 
 Women, and she has been in this country for two years plan- 
 ning with American women what can be done afterwards. Eight 
 million women are represented in the Council of Women in 
 this country, organized into thirty national organizations, and 
 I have been honored to be chosen chairman of the Child Wel- 
 fare Department, and it is my privilege and duty to recommend 
 work for those eight million women. And after the war is 
 over, we will take up the question, and we will organize the 
 mothers, and we will enlist the aid of the various bureaus, and 
 get every nation to put into its Bureau of Education a Home 
 Education Division that will take in the parents, and we will 
 get the great statesmen, the great people who knew what the 
 cause of this war was, to try to put into every nation, certainly 
 all the allied nations, the education that will prevent a possibility 
 of it afterward. 
 
 Now, to tell you just a little of the war service of the 
 
190 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 mothers in this country: we enlisted last April almost as soon 
 as war was declared, before the Commission on Training Camp 
 Activities was formed. My son was on the border, and many 
 of our men were down in Texas, and I visited all of the camps 
 there in Texas, and I saw that the women of this country were 
 asleep to their duty, and that there was a need that was not 
 filled; that in every camp the government had done everything 
 it could hygienically, that it could not do better than it was 
 doing; but I found that feehng that an enlisted man who was 
 not an officer was just a little beneath them, not quite good 
 enough for them to have anything to do with; that the cities 
 were doing absolutely nothing for the one hundred and fifty 
 thousand men camped around them, and that a thousand bad 
 women were there to tempt them, that liquor was all around 
 them, and that the good women were not counteracting these 
 influences by organizing themselves. 
 
 I was authorized to form an army and navy camp in connec- 
 tion with every camp in this country. We began this work in 
 April. We appointed a national chairman, and we have formed 
 various necessary committees, and it has meant a great deal to 
 the boys to have that touch of home, home influence and the 
 hospitality of mothers extended to them. It does not hurt us to 
 speak to any man, and we say that any man that offers his life 
 for his country is worthy of our respect ! We do not care 
 from what home he comes, we can love him. Do you know, 
 friends, in the past we women have been blind to all these 
 things; we must go and see them or we do not know the condi- 
 tions. It is an abnormal condition when men can only meet 
 the wrong kind of women. These boys want the good things. 
 I am so proud of them. I have met thousands of them, and 
 eighty per cent, of those boys want the good things. 
 
 Down in Anniston, Alabama, we formed a committee, and 
 one of our congress women wrote to me and said, "Oh, we were 
 so frightened when we knew a camp would be installed here. 
 We thought wreck and ruin would follow it." But she said, 
 "These boys from the North have united the hearts and hands 
 of the North and South. We have found none but gentlemen 
 among them, and we honor the lads in khaki." 
 
 There was some design, I think, in President Wilson's trans- 
 ferring the North to the South and vice versa. It has united 
 us and made us understand each other, and it has been a 
 splendid and a good thing. 
 
 And I want to say a word, too, about our men who are in 
 office in Washington. I never speak without saying this. They 
 have won the gratitude of the motherhood of this country by 
 
MOTHER 191 
 
 taking the moral stand they have in regard to the camps. We 
 found the conditions before, but we had not found them very 
 long before the government found them; and they would not 
 allow liquor near the camps, and they put a clean zone around 
 the camps, and took liquor out of the Navy, and did all those 
 things that made it so much better and easier for the men, 
 and so much better for the mothers and everybody concerned; 
 and I believe we are the first nation that has put that strong 
 moral influence about the camps; and so we all feel so grate- 
 ful to the President and to Secretary Baker and Secretary 
 Daniels for all that has been done in that way. 
 
 Now, I want to tell you about what we have done. Phila- 
 delphia is the birthplace of the nation, and it was the right 
 place to begin the movement that would give the boys a little 
 of the home touch. And so just four of us held a meeting, 
 and we asked the mothers of enlisted men to come. We had 
 the best women of the city present. We did not invite them. 
 We had the notice in the papers, and they came. Well, to-day 
 we have the first United Service Club in America. That club 
 was founded as a result of that meeting. We have had over 
 one hundred thousand boys use it. We have had over twenty- 
 five thousand sleep in the beds that we have. Do you know, 
 friends, that in that city of Philadelphia, when this war began, 
 there were twelve thousand boys down in the Navy Yard there? 
 There are one thousand boys off duty every night, exposed to 
 the dangers of the tenderloin district, boys like yours and mine. 
 And they did not know it was a bad neighborhood; and the 
 people of Philadelphia did not know those boys were there. 
 
 And we provided a place where, for thirty-five cents a 
 night, they can get a bed with clean sheets every night, and a 
 shower bath, and a cafeteria, and reading rooms, and writing 
 rooms for the enlisted men. And the officers of the Navy said, 
 "Ladies, spare your efforts. It is not needed. The Navy is 
 doing all that is necessary. You need not do it." And the 
 Y. M. C. A. said, "You will never get the boys to go so far." 
 Why, they crowd that place; they sleep on the floor! We 
 opened another in Baltimore, and it has had to double its capa- 
 city, and the boys are just crowding in there, and the women 
 are there to greet them and give them the little mothering that 
 they may need. Do these boys want us to talk to them? No, 
 they pour their hearts out to us. One of the boys told me, 
 "I am ordered to France. I was just going back to say 'good- 
 by' to my mother when this order was given." It was a very 
 unhappy experience. The young man also said, "The girl I 
 have been engaged to for two years died last month" — and so 
 
192 SOME HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL ASPECTS 
 
 on. And I did not know this young man. He opened his heart, 
 and that is the way the boys do; and they are happier because 
 they can tell some mother about their troubles and can talk 
 about the home folks. We are going to open one of these clubs 
 in Washington at 134 Massachusetts Avenue, and our national 
 Congress is going to help us. 
 
 Now, friends, I want to tell you that the War Community 
 Service says our Philadelphia club is the model club in the coun- 
 try. We did not ask a penny of anybody. We have asked no 
 money from anybody for the Baltimore club, but knowing they 
 were giving to others, I said, if you want to help us in Washing- 
 ton we will be very glad to have such assistance as you can 
 give us. A sub committee of the War Community Service is 
 going to finance our house that we are going to erect here, and 
 leave us there to manage it. 
 
 Now, that is the cooperation that we are getting, and we are 
 sending our boys off happier and better. 
 
 And just one thing more I do want to tell you, friends, and 
 that is the need of talking to the mothers of this country about 
 the causes of this war. We knew that there were twenty-five 
 thousand mothers of enlisted men in Philadelphia, and with the 
 cooperation of the police every single week those mothers have 
 received invitations to our club, and we talk to them and tell 
 them why Mr. Hoover wants them to do thus and so, why the 
 Liberty Loan should be raised — and if you could see those 
 women ! One day there were women speaking five different lan- 
 guages that came there with their various peculiar customs and 
 their poverty and their sorrow, and looking so sad ; and a lot of 
 men came in with them, and the doorkeeper was going to turn 
 them away. He said, "This is a mothers' meeting, and the 
 fathers are not supposed to be admitted to-day." But the men 
 replied, "Our wives do not speak English, and they want us 
 to interpret for them what is said." So we permitted the hus- 
 bands and fathers to remain, and I never spoke to an audience 
 that listened with such rapt attention as those men did, and 
 those women came at every opportunity afterwards. They were 
 sad-hearted and worried because their sons were in the army, but 
 when they went away from our instruction they would say, 
 "We wish we had more to give !" 
 
 And now that is the work of Americanization that needs 
 to be done, and that is' the work that the Mothers Congress is 
 trying to do, to get at these mothers of enlisted men, the mothers 
 that do not understand, that do not read the papers, these foreign 
 mothers that cannot see why their sons should be called into 
 the service. That is the work we are trying to do. 
 
MOTHER 193 
 
 And, then, after this war is over, we shall not prevent future 
 wars unless we put into people the inspiration that God is above 
 us, that He is ruHng the universe, that His kingdom is an ever- 
 lasting kingdom and that it endures from generation to genera- 
 tion, and that we are here just for a little while to do our part; 
 and as my own son says, "Mother, we are going to die some time ; 
 what matters if it is a few days or months or years earlier, 
 if we are dying in a great big cause?" And isn't that what all 
 of the boys are saying to-day ? We women to-day are not willing 
 to stand, as the mothers of the past, and be protected. We are 
 in it just as much as the men. We must work. We can not 
 stop. We must go on. The tragedy is too great. 
 
 So that is the message that I have to bring to you, that 
 the mothers of this country are united, and that the people of this 
 country are united, and that we are going to do our part in 
 this greatest battle for morality — greater than the Crusades, and 
 that God must help us to win, because we are not dictating to 
 Him, but we are looking to Him to guide us. This is the greatest 
 war for morality, for the great spiritual influences of Hfe, that 
 has ever been fought, and it did not come to us by our seeking. 
 
 There is one thing I must say before I stop, and that is that 
 Germany, in its final propaganda against Christianity and moral- 
 ity, has asked the clergymen of that country to remove the 
 moral shackles of the women, in order that children may be 
 bred to be soldiers in the future, children of the state; and this 
 proposition has brought into revolt the womanhood of this na- 
 tion, and will bring into union with them the women of every 
 nation, because that is undermining the civilization of the world, 
 and because the manhood and the womanhood of the nation will 
 not stand for that sort of thing. It is worse than all the other 
 fearful things they have done, and that is one of the battles that 
 the women of the world, the good women of the world, just the 
 same as the good men and just as many of them, are fighting for. 
 And we stand together, fathers, mothers, teachers — all of us. 
 And we will stand with our government; we are proud of our 
 government; we have not any criticism to offer. 
 
IV: SOME AGENCIES WORKING TO 
 WIN THE WAR 
 
IV: SOME AGENCIES WORKING TO 
 WIN THE WAR 
 
 THE FUNCTION OF AMERICAN LABOR IN 
 WAR TIME 
 
 By Samuel Gompeks, 
 President of the American Federation of Labor 
 
 I WAS a bit perturbed when I received an invitation to come 
 here and lecture you lecturers ! It seemed like "carrying coals 
 to Newcastle." And then, when the subject was assigned me — 
 "The Function of American Labor in War Time," I could scarce- 
 ly find a thought, or rather, more than one thought, to express 
 the whole subject — one sentence: The function of labor in 
 war is to function! 
 
 I think that epitomizes the whole subject, and whatever frills 
 or furbelows may be woven to surround it are not going to make 
 the matter at all clearer. The question as it appeals to me sug- 
 gests the thought that there is in the minds of some the suspicion 
 that labor is not functioning in the war, and therefore it is neces- 
 sary that some one should say something as to whether it does 
 or not. 
 
 With us there have been no false notions from the beginning 
 of the European war. Those who were abreast of the times 
 and had something like an understanding of events national and 
 international, those who had undertaken to learn, either at first 
 hand or otherwise, if I may so dignify it, the philosophy under- 
 lying the German mind and the German activity, knew then 
 that the aim of German thought was to dominate the world. 
 
 Now, no one could find fault with the effort of the German 
 people to endeavor to control by intellectual force, by the power 
 of brain, science and understanding, in all the arts, in industry, 
 and in commerce. It is to the great credit of the people of at 
 least our own country that we were appreciative of the great 
 intellectual development of the people of Germany. Somehow 
 or other there were a few of us among the men of labor who 
 
 197 
 
198 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 understood not merely the exercise of this great power and 
 influence which Germans and Germany held over the world, but 
 that there was created a philosophy of economics and sociology 
 that undertook to blunt the minds of the people of the whole 
 world. 
 
 Whether designedly or not no one can now say, but truth 
 requires it to be stated that the philosophy of the l^larxian 
 socialism was nothing more nor less than the attempt of Ger- 
 man autocratic power from above to control the individuality of 
 the people. It was and is in economics and sociology the reflex 
 of the imperial form of government of Germany, presumably 
 based upon the people, but not with the initiative of the people 
 to control the government, but for the government to control 
 the people. 
 
 For years and years a propaganda was carried on in every 
 country on the face of the globe. Among the last to be im- 
 pregnated with that virus were England and the United States. 
 There was not an avenue through which the expression of the 
 labor movement of America could percolate into the minds of 
 the German people or the people of the other continental coun- 
 tries. 
 
 The socialist parties of Germany did not create the socialist 
 parties in these other European countries or in the United 
 States ; the German socialists' propaganda estabhshed German 
 branches in these other countries and in the United States ! They 
 published their newspapers, particularly in the German language ; 
 when they attempted to establish an English paper for years 
 and years they did not succeed, and one or two of those papers 
 now existing subsist upon the subsidies and support of the Ger- 
 man socialist press. 
 
 The labor movement of America was interpreted and written 
 about in correspondence to the European countries, particularly 
 through Germany, by the agents of the German socialists, and 
 never was there an effort made by the American labor movement 
 to secure some improvement in the condition of the workers but 
 what every feature of it and every phase of it was belittled and 
 perverted in the reports to the socialist press, and so communi- 
 cated to the readers of the socialist press in Germany and other 
 European continental countries. Our movement was decried, 
 our achievements belittled, our aims ridiculed, and our men 
 abused, insulted and misrepresented. Indeed, so much and so 
 far did this propaganda go that I am going to say something to 
 you lecturers that may be of interest to you, namely, that con- 
 sciously or unconsciously the great trusts in the United States 
 were playing into the hands of that game! First, the shipping 
 
AMERICAN LABOR IN WAR TIME 199 
 
 companies and the trusts were in cahoots to keep a channel wide 
 open between several of the southern European countries and 
 the ports of the United States ; and the condition of the people 
 brought here, lured here, was but little better, if as good, as it 
 was in their own country. They had less freedom here for they 
 were under the dominating eye of the superintendent, foreman, 
 or sub- foreman, or some sub-stratum of an officer! They had 
 had industrial serfdom when they had perhaps just a little bit of a 
 farm with the free air and the sunshine in their old homes. But 
 they were paid miserably here, and they had to pay tribute in 
 advance to some petty foreman in order to get a job, and it was 
 to the foreman's financial advantage to see that the turn-over 
 was greater than necessary in order that he might get his tribute. 
 
 But quite in addition to this, newspapers, daily and weekly, 
 were encouraged to be issued and printed in the languages of 
 their respective countries; and then in those newspapers, subsi- 
 dized by the shipping companies and by the trusts, could be 
 preached all the radicalism, so called, that they pleased. They 
 could advocate socialism, anarchism, or any other speculative 
 philosophy, so long as they roundly lambasted the American labor 
 movement and its officers. For these corporations knew that so 
 long as they could arouse bitterness and antagonism and prej- 
 udice against the representatives of the American labor move- 
 ment, so long as they could call into question our motives and 
 our honesty, they knew very well that they had the men under 
 their own power. They would encourage these newspapers to 
 preach the gospel of the "sweet by and by" if they could only pre- 
 vent the workers from realizing that they were living in the 
 bitter "now and now"; and hence the great difficulty which we 
 experienced in trying to reach the minds and to obtain the con- 
 fidence of these workers, the confidence and the respect to which 
 we were justly entitled. 
 
 And this socialist press in the German and the other foreign 
 languages was the means to propagate this philosophy of misery, 
 to propagate the thought that internationalism based upon the 
 idea that German power, German militarism, would be main- 
 tained for the purpose of preventing international war, while 
 at the same time preaching the doctrine to the peoples of the 
 other countries of the world that they need not fear Germany 
 or German military power. "What you and your countries 
 should do is to preach the gospel of internationalism, anti-mili- 
 tarism and anti-patriotism ; we will see that the peace of the world 
 shall be maintained," declared German socialists and socialist 
 philosophers and socialist philosophy. And the people of the coun- 
 tries of the world outside of Germany believed in them. That 
 
200 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 propaganda had gone on for more than forty years. We be- 
 lieved it; we were all of us lulled into a fancied security, and 
 then they undertook to preach the gospel of the immediate rec- 
 ognition of the universality of the brotherhood of man, and so 
 our peoples and our countries were comparatively easy prey, at 
 least supposedly so, in the minds of German efficiency and Ger- 
 man militarism and German imperiahsm, and we were unpre- 
 pared — had not dared to expect — to dream that such a conflagra- 
 tion would have set the world afire. 
 
 There is one thing upon which Germany did not count. She 
 believed that after all there is only one efficient method for the 
 conduct of any of the affairs of life, and that method autocracy — 
 power from the top to direct, and all others obediently to per- 
 form. There is one thing that this philosophy holds out of the 
 accounting — that once the conscience and the hearts of a free 
 democratic people are touched, there arises a unity of spirit and 
 action, which autocratic domination and efficiency cannot with- 
 stand, and before which it must quail. And that is what has 
 come. 
 
 The men of organized labor in America were called into a spe- 
 cial session through their duly constituted representatives on 
 March 12, 1917, or about a month before the United States 
 formally entered into the struggle, and at that conference was 
 discussed the attitude which the American labor movement should 
 maintain, whether in peace or in war. I am going to ask you to 
 permit me to read two or three paragraphs from a declaration 
 adopted by that conference by unanimous vote. I should say 
 that there were present 146 officers of national trade unions of 
 America. The paragraphs that I desire to read are as follows: 
 
 "The present war discloses the struggle between the institu- 
 tions of democracy and those of autocracy. As a nation we 
 should profit from the experiences of other nations. Democ- 
 racy can not be established by patches upon an autocratic sys- 
 tem. The foundations of civilized intercourse between individ- 
 uals must be organized upon principles of democracy and scien- 
 tific principles of human welfare. Then a national structure can 
 be perfected in harmony with humanitarian idealism — a structure 
 that will stand the tests of the necessities of peace or war. 
 
 "We, the officers of the National and International Trade 
 Unions of America, in national conference assembled, in the 
 capital of our nation, hereby pledge ourselves in peace or in war, 
 in stress or in storm, to stand unreservedly by the standards of 
 liberty and the safety and preservation of the institutions and 
 ideals of our Republic. 
 
AMERICAN LABOR IN WAR TIME 201 
 
 "In this solemn hour of our nation's Hfe, it is our earnest 
 hope that our Republic may be safeguarded in its unswerving 
 desire for peace, that our people may be spared the horrors and 
 the burdens of war, that they may have the opportunity to cul- 
 tivate and develop the arts of peace, human brotherhood and a 
 higher civilization. 
 
 "But, despite all our endeavors and hopes, should our coun- 
 try be drawn into the maelstrom of the European conflict, we, 
 with these ideals of liberty and justice herein declared, as the 
 indispensable basis for national policies, offer our services to our 
 country in every field of activity to defend, safeguard and pre- 
 serve the Republic of the United States of America against its 
 enemies whomsoever they may be, and we call upon our fellow 
 workers and fellow citizens in the holy name of Labor, Justice, 
 Freedom and Humanity to devotedly and patriotically give like 
 service." 
 
 It is the common understanding of all who know that it 
 was the American Federation of Labor that for more than thirty- 
 five years has given its whole-hearted effort in supporting the 
 principles of freedom and democracy as against socialism and 
 slavery and despotism ; it was the American Federation of Labor 
 which from the beginning of this international war had the per- 
 ception as well as it had the courage to declare its position in 
 unmistakable terms, and that now, in the crisis in which we have 
 flung ourselves, or rather, more truly speaking, into which we 
 have been dragged, the American labor movement is true to its 
 history, true to the traditions of labor, true to the long struggle 
 of the masses, groping in the beginning and yet groping and 
 struggling and sacrificing in order that some of the burdens placed 
 upon the backs of the toilers shall be relieved, until in our 
 time the whole concept has been changed. The worker is no 
 longer regarded, or would permit himself to be regarded, as 
 typified by the "Man with the Hoe" ; not with bent back or re- 
 ceding forehead — no, not with bent back and receding forehead, 
 but in the full stature of manhood, equal with all people of our 
 country. And quite apart from our loyalty to our republic and 
 the great cause in which it is engaged, this very difference of 
 concept is to be fought out, whether it shall be that the workers 
 shall be driven back into the centuries of darkness and misery 
 and almost despair, with back bent under the lash, and perhaps 
 the receding forehead coming with generations, or whether the 
 toilers of the world shall be, in addition to producers, men, with 
 living hopes and aspirations for a higher and a better day. 
 
 We have from the beginning of the war performed our duty 
 
202 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 whole-heartedly, without causing any reflections or making any 
 insinuations against those in other walks of life. I think if these 
 had had less care for private profiteering and more care for 
 our country and our people and our cause, there would be less 
 inconsistency. Only a few weeks ago, or rather about two months 
 ago, there were about twenty-five hundred men who had struck 
 work. It was regrettable. It was quickly adjusted, and the offi- 
 cers of the organization exerted all the influence and power that 
 they could, in order that the men would return to work. And 
 they did, and the press of the country just lambasted the work- 
 ers of America as though they had all been slackers and cow- 
 ards and traitors, when as a matter of fact there were more 
 than five millions of American workers engaged in war work, 
 and there was not a word of commendation as to their service. 
 
 Through the instrumentality of our movement, the American 
 Federation of Labor, we have pressed home upon the government 
 of the Utiited States, as we have in the affairs of industry and 
 commerce and transportation, this concept — that there isn't any- 
 thing in all the activities of our country, local, state, national, 
 or international, in which the human does not enter and that 
 the human side must be considered in every question in which 
 our people and our country are affected and that hence it is 
 necessary to have representation of the workers in every agency 
 of government and of industry. We have had larger representa- 
 tion and recognition of this character within this past year — 
 beginning four years ago, but within the last year — than at any 
 time in the history of our country, or perhaps of the whole 
 world. The Council of National Defense, the Advisory Com- 
 mission, the War Industries Board, the Shipping Board, the 
 Wage Adjustment Board, in all of them are representatives of 
 labor to help determine the conditions and the terms, and wages, 
 and hours of labor. 
 
 The Committee on Labor of the Council of National Defense, 
 with its various sub-committees, has concerned itself with the 
 question of labor standards and hours of labor and wages, sani- 
 tary conditions and housing. It was our committee which first 
 brought last year to the attention of the Council of National 
 Defense, and of this country, the terrific condition in which we 
 were all placed by reason of the fact that the workers had no 
 place where they could rest, where they could sleep, where they 
 could go after their hard day's work was completed, and that 
 if they did not have a place to sleep they would be unfit and un- 
 willing to work, and wouldn't work and couldn't work. 
 
 The agreements entered into between the representatives of 
 the Government of the United States, in the various departments. 
 
AMERICAN LABOR IN WAR TIME 203 
 
 and the organizations of the workers, have been made public 
 generally. There was a committee of five representing the em- 
 ployers, appointed by the employers associations ; a committee of 
 five of workmen appointed by the president of the American 
 Federation of Labor; each of these two groups selecting a rep- 
 resentative of the general public as their legal advisor. The 
 employers' group selected Mr. William H. Taft, and the work- 
 ers' group selected Mr. Frank P. Walsh. And an agreement has 
 been reached between these two bodies based on fundamental 
 principles of employment and relationship between employer and 
 employee; and a permanent board appointed by the President 
 of the United States. That great leader of thought, and speech, 
 and democracy has issued a proclamation putting the agreement 
 into effect as a war measure and during the period of the war. 
 
 I may say that I want to bring this thought to your atten- 
 tion, for I have learned it since my entrance into this hall, that 
 there is an effort being made with regard to one of the bills now 
 before Congress to make it unlawful, and stigmatizing it as 
 criminal, punishable with high fines and long terms of imprison- 
 ment, for any workman to engage in a strike. May I say this — 
 I think that I have indicated clearly and can show more fully 
 and conclusively that the aim and effort of American workers 
 is to continue work without interruption except as may be neces- 
 sary for rest and recuperation. But I say this to all whom it may 
 concern, that nothing will do more to create resentment than 
 to make it unlawful for men to stop work. Thus far we have 
 done wonderfully well. Thus far there has been no serious 
 interruption of industry or commerce or transportation. Thus 
 far the good, the influences of the representative men and 
 women in the labor movement of our country have been effec- 
 tive, but once take away the voluntary influence which we may 
 be enabled to exert, and to say that we have no power, no 
 influence of a voluntary character, and you have taken away 
 every instrument which we have been enabled to employ in order 
 to gain the good will and the voluntary continued service of 
 the workers of America. 
 
 And let me add this: No one has done more than the rep- 
 resentatives of the American labor movement to prevent the 
 propaganda of Germanism from succeeding in interrupting the 
 industries of our country. Even in some instances the men have 
 been urged, where a cessation of work would have been justifi- 
 able under ordinary circumstances, to be patient and again be 
 patient, even to the straining point, in order that production may 
 not be interrupted. I say this, as I have on previous occasions 
 declared, that it is possible that you may make a stoppage of 
 
204 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 work, a strike, unlawful, but you are not going to stop men from 
 striking, you will make men law-breakers in addition to strikers ! 
 Why is it necessary for the enactment of such a law? If all 
 the voluntary agencies had proven a failure; if there were no 
 prospect of even greater continued production by reason of the 
 last agreement which had been reached and to which I have just 
 referred, why, then there may be even some excuse, but to-day 
 there is absolutely none, and I give the warning of a patriotic 
 A^nerican citizen to our Congress not to commit the folly of 
 enacting such a law ! 
 
 I want to say something now wholly out of the order of 
 reasoning and of sequence, but I cannot help but bring this to 
 your attention. We have seen what has transpired in Russia, 
 within these past few months. No lover of liberty or lover of 
 mankind can look upon that scene, even in the far distance, in 
 his imagination or in his reading, without a feeling of great 
 regret and passion. Whether the people of Russia come back 
 in this war or not, one thing is assured, out of a spirit of hu- 
 manitarianism we must help the people as best we can. And we 
 will try to do it. If there had been in Russia a labor movement 
 such as we have in the United States of America, that Bolshe- 
 viki movement would never had landed into power ; if we hadn't 
 a labor movement in America, with all the elements making up 
 America and all the propaganda that has been going on, I haven't 
 the slightest hesitancy in saying that my best judgment is that 
 we would have had the Bolsheviki right in the United States ! 
 I do not know that we are quite so free from that now ! 
 
 There is another point that I want to make, and then I shall 
 leave you free to hear some of the others who are scheduled to 
 address you and who I am sure will interest you as well as en- 
 tertain you. 
 
 As one of the evidences of this tremendous progress that has 
 been made by the Aimerican labor movement, I desire to call 
 your attention to the years of agitation and educational campaigns 
 conducted in what was popularly known as the abolition of gov- 
 ernment by injunction. Neither you nor I have time to enter into 
 a discussion of this subject. Those who are sufficiently inter- 
 ested to have the detailed information can have some of it which 
 the American Federation of Labor can in part help to give you. 
 But as the result of this agitation and campaigns of education 
 and sacrifice of men who were willing to suffer for the right, we 
 have had enacted upon the statute books of the United States a 
 law, commonly known as the Clayton Anti-trust law. A sen- 
 tence in that law reads as follows : "That the labor of a human 
 being is not a commodity or article of commerce." That declara- 
 
AMERICAN LABOR IN WAR TIME 205 
 
 tion in itself is the most far reaching of any ever made by any 
 authoritative government of any country of the whole world. The 
 labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of com- 
 merce! If that declaration had been in existence prior to our 
 Civil War, slavery would have been abolished without that war, 
 for the slave's labor was the labor of a human being and was 
 regarded as a commodity and an article of commerce. That 
 declaration, now the law of our land, takes the human being, the 
 men, the women, the children, out of the class which character- 
 izes them and their labor power as commodities, inanimate, such 
 as this glass, this table, the chandelier, or a side of beef, or a 
 pound of pork. It constitutes a recognition of the human side 
 of the masses of our people, the workers before the law — the 
 physical, legal, industrial, political and social qualities of all the 
 citizens of America. 
 
 We are giving service to our country; we propose to give 
 service. We shall not permit ourselves during this war, or at 
 any time thereafter, to be lulled into any false paradise. 
 The propaganda of offensiveness, the propaganda of subtlety, the 
 propaganda to divert us from our humane, natural and patriotic 
 and logical course, the effort to divert us from this course will 
 fail, no matter by whom undertaken. We are going to stand 
 by the fundamental principles of our republic. We are glad to 
 declare that we are behind the government, the country, our 
 republic, our President, and our Allies, to fight this struggle to 
 the finish, and until democracy and freedom and justice shall 
 be enthroned throughout the world. 
 
MAINTENANCE OF AMERICAN STANDARDS OF 
 
 LABOR 
 
 By Frank Morrison, 
 
 Secretary of the American Federation of Labor 
 
 With our country engaged in a war that it may maintain the 
 heritage of its forefathers, organized labor takes its stand with 
 every other American institution and individual. 
 
 While there may be some small unpatriotic influences in this 
 country, I can not but believe that this influence will become to- 
 tally negative as the war progresses and our countrymen better 
 understand the issues involved. 
 
 Man is too prone to overlook the vital for the superficial. He 
 is liable, for instance, to be attracted by elements of incompe- 
 tency, of corruption, that are more or less inseparable from war, 
 and ignore the stupendous things our country has accomplished 
 since April 6 last. 
 
 Other nations may question our right to the claim that Amer- 
 ica has placed two million under arms, built cantonments and 
 camps, and placed itself on a military basis quicker than any 
 other people imbued with the doctrine of peace. 
 
 But no nation in all history can point to the declaration of 
 its authorized spokesman and show where he has so repeatedly 
 emphasized the views of his fellow countrymen that they war 
 for peace and without selfish aim. 
 
 Our President has revolutionized international statesmanship 
 and diplomacy, and our AlHes now see the folly of former prac- 
 tices that made this world an armed camp. 
 
 Our President has touched the fountain head of the trou- 
 ble — Militarism. The social cancer must be removed lest it 
 reaches the vitals of every free people. 
 
 I believe it is important that our countrymen keep this thought 
 in mind. It should be emphasized at every opportunity. Not 
 that we should ignore wrongs in our land, not that we should 
 submit to injustices by small groups that would exploit their 
 country while others give to their country. 
 
 If we are to win this war quickly each of us must consider 
 it our duty to urge our fellow citizens to conduct their lives 
 
 206 
 
AMERICAN STANDARDS OF LABOR 207 
 
 and actions that the unselfish motives of America in this war will 
 give greater support and courage to our chief executive in his 
 capacity as leader of the world's democracies. 
 
 This country is not at war with the German people that we 
 know — a people who were a part of the streams of immigrants 
 who came to these western shores and with a blending of blood, 
 of energy and aspirations, have made America what it is. 
 
 The German people, with their thrift, their industry, their 
 philosophies, their music and their art have been contributors to 
 the world's progress and civilization. 
 
 These qualities, in themselves, are desirable attributes of any 
 people. 
 
 But America's objection to Germany is the development of 
 a military machine that now menaces the peace of the world. 
 
 With an application, a skill and thoroughness, this monster 
 engine of war, linked up with every econormic and diplomatic 
 force the House of HohenzoUern can command, stands a marvel 
 of ingenuity and perfection. It is the amazement of peaceful 
 peoples, reared in an atmosphere of national fraternity and good 
 will. 
 
 The question, "What is the purpose of this military machine?" 
 is answered by the fact that it exists. Military castes are de- 
 veloped with domination the single in mind. A nation is put 
 on a drill sergeant basis for one object, and the object is now 
 challenged by the American people who have joined hands with 
 other peoples who refuse to be vassals, who will not be chained 
 to the chariot wheels of the twentieth century war lord. 
 
 No element in our national life realizes the value of freedom 
 and democracy to a greater extent than does the organized labor 
 movement. These principles are the bed rock upon which our 
 structure rests. Our movement is a continued protest against 
 autocracy, be it political or industrial, and when our government 
 calls for support in its present hour, the organized workers 
 respond because they are American citizens, and because they 
 must be true to their trade union principles. 
 
 It should not be understood that the unorganized worker, 
 in factory or office, is less patriotic than members of trade 
 unions. Assuming these two elements are imbued with the same 
 patriotic ideals, the organized worker is of greater value to 
 his country because of his ability to work with others, his faculty 
 for "team work" as it were. Our government has realized this 
 point, and in all affairs affecting the interest of wage workers 
 the government has consulted with organized workers, and has 
 appointed these workers on its various high commissions, com- 
 mittee and boards. 
 
208 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 While the trade union movement is devoting every energy 
 to patriotic work, it believes that patriotism does not consist en- 
 tirely of repelling those who would attack from the outside our 
 democratic form of government. 
 
 Another opponent to real democracy and sound citizenship are 
 those who would lower working standards and be given a free 
 hand in the employment of women, the mothers of men, and of 
 children, our future men and women. 
 
 On this subject representatives of the national and interna- 
 tional unions affiliated with the American Federation of Labor 
 said: 
 
 "The guarantees of human conservation should be recognized 
 in war as well as in peace." 
 
 This statement was made on March 12 of last year, when 
 these trade union officials, meeting in Washington, announced 
 that while the trade union movement abhorred wa^, it was be- 
 hind the government in this hour of peril, come what may. 
 
 Piresident Wilson quickly sensed the danger of destroying 
 or even weakening standards of labor secured after years of . 
 effort, and in an address to trade union officials on May 15, 
 1917, or six weeks after the declaration that a state of war exists 
 with Germany, he said : 
 
 "I have been very much alarmed at one or two things that 
 have happened, at the apparent inclination of the Legislatures 
 of one or two of our states to set aside even temporarily the 
 laws which have safeguarded standards of labor and of life. I 
 think nothing would be more deplorable than that. We are try- 
 ing to fight in a cause which means the lifting of the standards of 
 life, and we can fight in that cause best by voluntary cooperation. 
 I do not doubt that any body of men representing labor in this 
 country, speaking for their fellows, will be willing to make any 
 sacrifice that is necessary in order to carry this contest to a 
 successful issue and in that confidence I feel that it would be in- 
 excusable if we deprived men and women of such a spirit of any 
 of the existing safeguards of law. Therefore I shall exercise 
 my influence, so far as it goes, to see that that does not happen, 
 and that the sacrifices we make shall be made voluntarily and 
 not under compulsion which not mistakenly is interpreted to 
 mean a lowering of the standards which we have sought through 
 so many generations to bring to their present level." 
 
 The government has indicated that it intends to maintain 
 labor standards, and the Council of National Defense has stated 
 
AMERICAN STANDARDS OF LABOR 209 
 
 that before standards are reduced it should pass upon the ques- 
 tion, as it is better positioned, with its survey of industry and of 
 mihtary necessities, to consider the question. 
 
 While the demand for the wholesale importation of Chinamen 
 and Mexicans, and the unrestricted employment of women and 
 children has somewhat subsided, labor is vigilant and will not 
 yield gains made unless the national security and the success 
 of our military forces are endangered. Labor will accept the 
 word of President Wilson, but not the word of those employers, 
 their representatives in Congress and their newspapers that are 
 always found behind every reactionary move in support of the 
 dollar as against the man. 
 
 I believe labor's position is understood and appreciated by 
 sound thinking citizens, who have noted that despite calls for 
 the abolition of labor standards that the government has assisted 
 during the past month through mediation processes, in placing 
 the northwest lumber industry on the eight-hour basis. The 
 nation's packing industry will go on a basic eight-hour day next 
 month, through a decision by an arbitrator selected by Secretary 
 of Labor Wilson. 
 
 The placing of these important industries on the shorter 
 work-day basis indicates that our government accepts the in- 
 vestigations of the British Government, which discovered, after 
 practical tests, that long hours is no answer to the demand for 
 increased war munitions. 
 
 Considerable criticism has been leveled at the labor movement 
 by its enemies and many well-meaning but uninformed citizens 
 because of the activities of representatives of the Industrial 
 Workers of the World, an organization whose members refuse 
 to enter into a collective bargain with their employers and re- 
 serve the right to cease work at any time when in their opinion 
 there is the greatest likelihood that the employer will be com- 
 pelled to concede their demands. The representatives of cor- 
 porations that are hostile to the trade union movement assert 
 that the I. W. W. is part of the labor movement and hold the 
 labor movement responsible for all the acts and statements of 
 these irresponsible representatives of an organization that has 
 no following among the organized workers of the country, and 
 whose representatives can only receive consideration from the 
 unorganized employees of the employers who refuse to permit 
 their employees to form a union for their betterment under pen- 
 alty of instant dismissal. It is interesting to observe that the 
 philosophy of the employer, who refuses to permit his employees 
 to organize, is the very same philosophy which is observed by 
 the I. W. W.'s. They secure through their system of agitation 
 
210 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 as much for their labor as they can get and in any way they 
 can get it. The corporations that refuse to permit their em- 
 ployees to organize secure from each employee as many hours' 
 work each day as is possible for him to work and at the smallest 
 possible wage per hour, without giving any more consideration 
 to the individual than he gives to a piece of machinery. If 
 the employers want industrial peace, it is within their reach. 
 All that is necessary to secure it is to enter into a collective 
 bargain with the national or international union that has juris- 
 diction over their employees. I said before and I say now, as 
 long as there are I. W. W. employers, there will be I. W. W. 
 employees. When the I. W. W. employers cease to exist, then 
 the representatives of the I. W. W.'s will cease to carry on their 
 agitation, because there will be no one who will give them a re- 
 spectful hearing. 
 
 The packing house industry of this country has been revo- 
 lutionized. In past years representatives of the packing houses 
 refused to permit their employees to organize, but through the 
 efforts of the trade union movement and a commission ap- 
 pointed by President Wilson, that industry has been placed upon 
 the basic eight-hour day, with price and one quarter for over 
 time up to ten hours and price and one-half for ten hours, with 
 a substantial increase in wages. There will be no more I. W. W. 
 agitation among the packing house employees so long as the pack- 
 ing house representatives will continue to meet and enter into a 
 collective bargain with their employees. 
 
 The representatives of the Steel Trust have just refused to 
 grant a basic eight-hour day to their employees in their mills in 
 the Birmingham-Bessemer District. The Steel Trust and the 
 Bethlehem Steel Works should place themselves in harmony 
 with the conscience of the citizens of this country and concede 
 the basic eight-hour day to their employees. The conditions of 
 employment in the steel mills have been such that both the 
 United States Steel and Bethlehem companies have been in- 
 vestigated by committees and reports printed and circulated in 
 regard to the deplorable working conditions among their em- 
 ployees. Instead of two shifts in these industries when continu- 
 ous operation is needed, three shifts should be employed. It is 
 impossible for a man to work eleven hours for two weeks and 
 thirteen hours for the next two weeks and on the last day each 
 swing to work twenty-four hours straight and then have time for 
 healthful recreation and opportunity for development. 
 
 President Wilson has just appointed a Commission of twelve, 
 composed of five employers and five members of organized labor, 
 and two representing the public, to adjust by mediation grievances 
 
AMERICAN STANDARDS OF LABOR 211 
 
 between employers and employees, and in that way prevent the 
 cessation of industries during the period of the war. The com- 
 mittee has agreed upon a number of declarations as a basis for 
 adjusting disputes; among them is the right of the workers to 
 organize without being discriminated against for doing so, and 
 the declaration that the remuneration for a day's work should 
 be sufficient for a man and his family to live in reasonable com- 
 fort. 
 
 I am hopeful that the strike in the steel mills in the Birming- 
 ham and Bessemer district will be brought to the attention of this 
 Commission by the Department of Labor, and that the Commis- 
 sion will succeed in bringing about an adjustment, which will 
 recognize the basic eight-hour day in the steel industry and grant 
 a wage that will mean that each man working for these companies 
 will receive an amount sufficient to enable him and his family 
 to live in reasonable comfort. 
 
 The labor movement has been persistent in its agitation for 
 free schools, free text books and compulsory education. As a 
 result of the agitation, every state has now a compulsory edu- 
 cation law. Notwithstanding that fact. Secretary Lane in a 
 communication to Senator Hoke Smith, Chairman of the Senate 
 Committee on Education and Labor, said that the number of 
 persons in America that can not read and write is almost un- 
 believable. There are in the United States, Secretary Lane said : 
 
 "(or were when the census was taken in 1910) 5,516,163 per- 
 sons oven ten years of age who were unable to read or write 
 in any language. There are now nearly 700,000 men of draft 
 age in the United States who are, I presume, registered, who 
 can not read or write in English or any other language. Over 
 4,000,000 of the illiterates in this country were 20 years of age 
 or more. 
 
 "It would seem to be almost axiomatic that an illiterate man 
 can not make a good soldier in modern warfare. Until last 
 April the regular army would not enlist iUiterates, yet in the 
 first draft between 30,000 and 40,000 illiterates were brought into 
 the army and approximately as many near-illiterates. They can 
 not sign their names. They can not read their orders posted 
 daily on bulletin boards in camps. They can not read their 
 manual of arms. They can not read their letters or write home. 
 They can not understand the signals or follow the signal corps 
 in time of battle." 
 
 The trade union movement opposes the conscription of labor 
 unless wealth is likewise conscripted. 
 
 The claim that labor should be conscripted on the same theory 
 
212 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 that the country drafts its citizens for universal service is a 
 ridiculous assertion. The government conscripts its citizens for 
 service, the employer would conscript for exploitation. 
 
 Courts have repeatedly drawn a sharp line between civilian 
 and military life, and while in theory no one can deny the gov- 
 ernment's right to draft any citizen for any purpose it sees fit 
 when the nation's life is in jeopardy, the dollar should be forced 
 to surrender its per cent, rights just as labor would be called 
 upon to surrender its right of freedom. 
 
 Labor notifies these elements that urge conscription of labor 
 that it will go farther than they will and that it will be the first 
 to accept the government's dictum — if that time ever comes — 
 that every ounce of man power and every dollar and other evi- 
 dence of wealth must be thrown in the common lot with every 
 citizen on soldiers' rations that the nation may live. 
 
 We notify these employers and their spokesmen in the United 
 States Senate that they can not use the war to establish prin- 
 ciples of peonage that they long for when the days of peace re- 
 turn, while they insist on interest and on the establishment of 
 depreciation funds so that when the war ends it will be found 
 that they have not only maintained well rounded profits during 
 this period of stress but that the people have paid for their 
 equipment to make these profits. 
 
 The claim made in the United States Senate yesterday that 
 labor is not doing its share in this war is not supported by men 
 less interested in publicity than in securing facts. These claims 
 possess a value, however. They conceal deplorable working 
 conditions, lack of housing and a labor turn-over that has 
 amounted in some cases to seven men for every job in one month. 
 Labor suggests that strikes can be removed by removing causes 
 for strikes. We submit that if it is charged that labor will strike 
 without reason, and when conditions are satisfactory, that our 
 workers are so lacking in patriotism that our nation rests on a 
 foundation of sand. 
 
 Their remedy is force — a bayonet behind every worker. They 
 favor the Prussian idea, of which they allege such horror. 
 
 The trade unionist's remedy for strikes is a calm and dis- 
 passionate discussion of reasons for this condition, and then 
 prompt application of the remedy. 
 
 We appreciate, however, the mental attitude of men who 
 urge conscription of labor. They realize the changing order 
 from the day when workers were looked upon as separate and 
 apart from other portions of society, when workers were but 
 "hewers of wood and drawers of water," without voice and 
 denied a part in the affairs of our country. 
 
AMERICAN STANDARDS OF LABOR 213 
 
 It is impossible to stay progress, and it is impossible to 
 reestablish former conditions and former ideals. 
 
 In this world crisis labor only asks for conditions that will 
 permit it to maintain its productive powers and equip the com- 
 ing generation with an education. Labor takes its stand with 
 every other American in this world struggle for right. With a 
 triumphant peace none will gain more than the men and women 
 of labor, for they realize that with the acceptance of every demo- 
 cratic ideal the wage-earner, who has emerged from the age-long 
 serf, down-trodden and denied, will be morally, spiritually and 
 materially advanced. 
 
MAINTENANCE OF AMERICAN STANDARDS OF 
 
 LABOR 
 
 By Louis F. Post, 
 ^sistant Secretary of Labor 
 
 Inasmuch as I have the honor of representing here this 
 morning the Department of Labor of the United States, and as 
 you come from all over the country, as I take it, and are going 
 throughout the land to spread the information you may receive 
 over here, it may not be out of place to spend a moment or two 
 in describing or giving a background for the Department of 
 Labor, for it is but little understood. I know that most people 
 imagine it is a department of the American Federation of Labor, 
 of which my friends Gompers and Morrison have just been 
 speaking. 
 
 Now, the Department of Labor of the United States is the 
 baby department, the baby executive department, of the United 
 States Government. You know that the government is divided 
 into several departments, each having separate functions, with a 
 secretary at the head of each department, a secretary who orig- 
 inally in the formation of the government was a sort of private 
 secretary to the President, but who developed, as an official usu- 
 ally does, until there came to be ten distinct departments, each 
 having at its head a secretary, a member of the President's 
 cabinet. 
 
 When the Civil War had ended — something more than fifty 
 years ago, nearly sixty — some workingmen assembled in Louis- 
 ville, Kentucky, to talk over matters pertaining to the labor 
 situation. They had been fighting on both sides. There were 
 Confederate soldiers and there were Union soldiers; they were 
 wage-earners ; and they met in a sort of conference, because they 
 had found out, my friends, that notwithstanding they had been 
 fighting for their country, somebody else owned their country 
 when the fighting job was over, and they did not quite under- 
 stand it. They wanted to take steps, if possible, to protect them- 
 selves as business men, because the word "business" was then 
 beginning to occupy public attention. They were "business men," 
 a peculiar kind of business men. In one respect the wage- 
 
 214 
 
AMERICAN STANDARDS OF LABOR 215 
 
 earner is distinctly a business man. He has something to sell. 
 He has the product of his labor to sell, the potential product. 
 He is going to make something and wants to sell it. But he has 
 to sell it in advance for what is called "wages." I am going to 
 drive so many nails in a building, or, we will say, I am going to 
 lay so many bricks; and I want to sell those nails after they 
 have been driven, or those bricks after they have been laid, and 
 I have to do it in advance. When the workingman goes into 
 the market to sell his advance labor, he finds that he is just like 
 any other business man in selling goods, except he can never have 
 more than one customer at a time. Now, any of you knowing 
 anything about business men understands that a business man in 
 that situation who can never have but one customer at a time, 
 who cannot leave his counter or his shop to hunt up another 
 customer, is at a decided disadvantage. You see the difference. 
 The ordinary business man has a number of customers. He can 
 lose one and it does not count materially, because he can go out 
 and get another — he is hunting others all the time. But the 
 wage-earner, when he loses his customer, must knock off work 
 and. hunt for another customer. That puts him as a business man 
 at a disadvantage. And these men met in Louisville, Kentucky, 
 to see what they could do about this situation. 
 
 On that occasion, among other things, they declared there 
 should be a Department of Labor in the United States Govern- 
 ment, with a secretary at its head, to sit at the President's table, 
 to advise the President of the aspirations, the needs, the suf- 
 ferings, the disadvantages of the wage-earner, and thereby 
 enable the President to present their cause to Congress in his 
 own way, an intelligent way, which Presidents after Lincoln 
 had not always been in the habit of doing! 
 
 It was fifty years after that before wage workers got what 
 they asked for, — a Department of Labor, with a secretary at its 
 head who sat at the cabinet table. Fifty years ! Congress was 
 busy at that time, my friends, in protecting the public land. We 
 had a great domain of public lands at that time. There was 
 much danger of those lands getting up on their hind legs and 
 walking off into the Pacific Ocean, and so we would have lost 
 them all, and the Congresses of those days were accordingly very 
 busy. In fact, some of the habits of that early day have come 
 on down almost to the present time! — some of the habits of 
 Congress in fastening down and holding down those lands so 
 they would not run off into the Pacific Ocean ! and they did it 
 by giving titles to certain corporations, and these corporations 
 have held onto the lands faithfully and tightly ever since ! 
 
 Being so busily engaged in a more important matter, Con- 
 
216 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 gress was not able to accede to this request of the workingmen 
 who had been fighting the cause of the Union — and the cause 
 of the Confederacy, for that matter — but they came together 
 after a while and did what they could ; but it took twenty years 
 to even make one little break in the situation, and that little break 
 was the creation of a bureau of labor statistics, which was 
 given full power to collect any kind of figures it wanted, and fix 
 them up in nice shape for college classrooms. That was as near 
 as they attained to solving this problem for twenty years. Then 
 the agitation went on until there was no resisting it any longer, 
 and the Congress of some fifteen years or thereabouts ago made 
 a compromise; they created the Department of Commerce and 
 Labor, whereby they expected to settle the question by tying 
 business men and working men together, — those two kinds of 
 "businesses." It was the old story of tying two cats together 
 by their tails and then throwing them across the family clothes- 
 line in order to secure peace between the cats ! They created 
 the Department of Commerce and Labor. Well, now, of course, 
 you could not have a wage worker at the head of that. It had 
 to be a business man of the kind that can have more customers 
 than one at a time, and of the kind that can make money when 
 he does not work, — perhaps more money when he does not work 
 than when he does ! That kind of business man had to be at the 
 head of this department. Well, you can imagine what happened. 
 It went along ten more years, and finally they carved that de- 
 partment into two halves, — cut the cats' tails apart, so to speak, 
 — and they allowed the Department of Commerce to stand as 
 the ninth department in the government and created the Depart- 
 ment of Labor as the tenth. It had hard sledding for a while, 
 and has yet for that matter. Now, the significant thing that 
 happened was this : President Wilson made the first great, vital 
 error in his administration when he appointed a Secretary of 
 Labor. Here were corporation lawyers galore. Here were busi- 
 ness men a-plenty, every one of whom was thoroughly compe- 
 tent to run a department of labor in the interests of the wage- 
 earners of the United States as seen from the non-wage-earners' 
 point of view. And President Wilson, instead of doing that 
 perfectly plain, simple, easy thing, actually went out of his way 
 to hunt up a man who had worked for wages all his life to put 
 at the head of that department ! As I said, the first of the 
 great succession of errors of which he has been guilty clear down 
 to the present time was this appointment of a Secretary of 
 Labor! — because he put in that position as Secretary of Labor 
 William B. Wilson, a man whom I hope you will hear to-night. 
 The President put him in there the very first act of his adminis- 
 
AMERICAN STANDARDS OF LABOR 217 
 
 tration. It was one of the most serious errors of his adminis- 
 tration, as some of the corporation heads who were getting ready 
 for the fall campaign looked at it ! 
 
 I hope, without taking too much time, that I may have given 
 you a general idea of the background of that departmental work. 
 Now let me tell you a very significant thing about the Depart- 
 ment of Labor. It is the only executive department in which 
 the federal government — of all the ten departments it is the 
 only one that is vitalized with the human element. Oh, I do not 
 mean that the secretaries of the other departments are not 
 human, and I do not imply that the bureau heads in the other 
 departments are not human. Although we might admit that 
 those who have been on their jobs for a good while have got- 
 ten pretty well crystallized ! What I mean is that the real human 
 element exists in the Department of Labor as an essential part 
 of its functioning. Take, for instance, the Navy Department. 
 Well, that department is human in a sense, but its best human- 
 ity had to be devoted, until the present administration of Secre- 
 tary Daniels, to killing men instead of saving them. The pres- 
 ent secretary started a new regime, and paid for it pretty dearly 
 for three or four years as a result of the opposition of the "non- 
 producing" members of society, and so on! and humanity is 
 not the essential element of the Department of the Navy. 
 Neither is it in the War Department, nor yet in the Department 
 of Agriculture. This last named department is devoted to raising 
 food, etc. But if you turn to the annual reports you will find it's 
 the seed, it's the soil, it's the machinery, it's this method or that 
 method that occupies the Department of Agriculture. If there 
 is anything human in those departments, it never sees the light of 
 day, for those bureau heads never talk ! Now, the essential thing 
 of the Department of Labor is that it is a human department. 
 Let me tell you its purpose. 
 
 I do not know who framed it; whoever did it either knew 
 what he was about or else he didn't ! Here is what he said : "The 
 purpose of the Department of Labor shall be to foster, promote 
 and develop the welfare of the wage-earners of the United 
 States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their 
 opportunities for profitable employment." In specifying "prof- 
 itable employment" the man indicated that he either knew what 
 he was doing or that he did not ! If he was a wage-earner he 
 knew what he was about, because he had heard a good deal 
 about there being plenty of work, plenty of employment, and 
 knew that the trouble about the matter was that v/hile work 
 was plentiful wages were not. If it were an employer of the 
 old type, he did not know what he was writing, and it would 
 
218 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 look as though somebody had put that over on him! At any 
 rate, there is the human element. Let me give you an illustra- 
 tion of how that human factor seems to infuse the whole 
 department. 
 
 When this war broke out there came down here a great raft 
 of people to help show this government — administration, which 
 had got into power by accident! — how to run the government 
 in a time like this. They came down and offered their services, 
 many of them offering their services to the government for a 
 dollar a year, when they were getting fifteen or twenty thousand 
 dollars a year from their own corporations, to see to it that 
 the government did not forget that their corporations were 
 among the essential elements in winning this war! They got 
 the name of "Dollar a Year Patriots." I want, however, to say 
 this about the "Dollar a Year Patriots." I know some of them 
 to be real patriots. One of them in particular was a wealthy 
 man, a man who inherited his wealth and industriously made 
 more by his own effort. He was a lawyer, and he concluded 
 to get out and do his "bit" in the war, without looking for his 
 "bite," as Secretary Daniels puts it ! He came down here, and 
 happened to run across a friend, Herbert Quick, now a member 
 of the Federal Farm Loan Board. When this man came down 
 here from New York, Mr. Quick said, "Why don't you go to 
 the Department of Labor and find your place?" The man asked, 
 "What's that?" He thought it was the American Federation 
 of Labor. Well, the upshot of the conversation was that he 
 came in with us, and he is a real man, a real patriot, a real 
 worker, and has done one of the best and biggest jobs that has 
 been handled since the war began. One day, after he had been 
 with us six or seven months, we were talking over the day's 
 work in my office at the close of office hours, just before going 
 home, and he said, "Boys, I have had a remarkable experience 
 since I have been here." He went on : "My association with 
 the Department of Labor has given me an entirely new view of 
 life. I have had a liberal education here. Why, when I came 
 here I did not know there was anything human in labor. Oh," 
 he explained, "of course I knew John Smith, a laborer, and I 
 Hked him personally, perhaps, or I did not like him, but labor 
 in the mass, to me was not human. Labor in the mass meant no 
 more to me than the item of labor cost in my ledger." 
 
 Now, my friends, when he said that he summed up the whole 
 labor question in the United States. The people that employ 
 labor think of labor in the mass as nothing but an item of labor 
 cost in their ledgers. Some of them think of laborers as serfs, 
 who ought to be serfs. They look upon them perhaps as articles 
 
AMERICAN STANDARDS OF LABOR 219 
 
 of commerce, they look upon them as cattle,— at the best, as nice 
 cattle to be properly taken care of. There is the attitude of 
 mmd on the part of employers that has made the labor question 
 m this nation and that is more responsible than any other one 
 factor for the presence of the I. W. W. in this country ! 
 
 Now, we are asked about the maintenance of American stand- 
 ards of labor. Both the speakers who preceded me have touched 
 upon American standards of labor. Let us get it down to an 
 abstraction, to a general principle. We can catalogue labor 
 standards, of course. There is child labor. We are not allow- 
 ing profiteers to make profit any more out of the labor of babies. 
 We are not allowing women to be exploited in employments that 
 they do not want to serve in, and should not serve in, except 
 under the greatest stress. We have school conditions. We have 
 various other standards that have been reached. We have 
 almost— in fact, I think we can now say we have — reached the 
 basic eight-hour day as one of the accomplishments of organized 
 labor. But without attempting to catalogue, let us get at the 
 principal American standards of labor. How are you going to 
 decide or tell any one else whether a certain requirement is or 
 ought to be a standard of American labor or not? My judgment 
 is that there is only one way to do it. What is meant by Ameri- 
 can ? Do we mean the Hun ? Do we mean the German method ? 
 Do we mean the Junkers of America, or France, or Great 
 Britain, or wherever else they come from? Junkers are pretty 
 much the same the world over ! We do not mean that when we 
 talk about anything American. What do we hark back to? 
 Some people say to the Constitution of the United States. But 
 the Constitution of the United States can be amended. It has 
 been amended by the people. It can be amended by the Supreme 
 Court, and has been. But there is one American thing that does 
 not lend itself to amendment, and that is the first clause of the 
 Declaration of Independence, on which our government is 
 founded — that men are created equal, with certain unalienable 
 rights which cannot be taken away, among which are life, liberty 
 and the pursuit of happiness. Not that we originated it, but we 
 adopted it, and built a democratic government on that principle. 
 Some triflers have said men are not created equal, that there 
 are men six feet tall and men only four feet tall. But does that 
 make any difference in the equality of men? Some men may 
 lift more, some may have bigger brains, but all have equality of 
 rights under the laws and institutions of this country. That's 
 what our declaration means ! And when we depart from that 
 we are departing from Americanism, and if we are going to 
 depart from that we might as well let the Huns whip us and 
 
220 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 be done with it, as to whip them and be whipped in turn by the 
 Huns of our own country ! I am trying to awaken in you a 
 sense and understanding of what American patriotism means. 
 It does not mean merely winning battles nor winning the war. 
 It has to do also with what wars and battles are won for; and 
 our wars and battles are to be won for equal rights for all our 
 own people, and of all mankind the whole world over ! 
 
 Now, the American standards of labor — put them to that 
 test. That's the test to which they must be put. Go to one of 
 them in particular. We have heard it alluded to this morning, a 
 question of conscripting labor. My friends, I am as thorough- 
 going an Advocate of conscription for war as my powers and 
 abilities will permit. I believe in conscription in a democratic 
 country ! Thank God we had conscription here for filling our 
 armies. I believe that is the true way for a democracy to fight; 
 not to throw out the call as we have to do for our money. We 
 have to go begging for our money. We ought not to go begging 
 for our men. We should say it is the duty of every man of 
 proper age and physical abilities to serve his country, and it is 
 not for him to rush to the front and shout, "I know how to serve 
 it better than any one else, and here I am !" It is for the country 
 to say, "We need you!" and so long as the country selects hon- 
 estly and fairly toward all, that is the way to raise our armies; 
 and for that reason I am for conscription. For another reason, 
 conscription does not glorify war. Conscription makes of war a 
 crime which we must face, which we must be sorry for, but 
 which we must fight if need be to the bitter end as a democratic 
 people. The call for volunteers — well, some of you, I see, from 
 your gray hairs, and your no hairs ! who lived in the day when 
 we did have volunteering, back fifty years ago, — you know it 
 was not the best method. They tried conscription then, but it 
 failed. Why? Because that infamous feudalistic policy that had 
 persisted still continued. Any man who could put up three hun- 
 dred dollars could get out of going into the army himself. It 
 was on a dollar basis. We have conscription as a policy now. 
 It does not need to be defended. 
 
 Conscription for what? Conscription to maintain this demo- 
 cratic government democratic? No! We do not pretend that 
 our country is democratic. Democracy is a growth. Democracy 
 is not something we have attained to and which can live forever 
 upon the level lands until some one drives it off. Democracy 
 is a process. When the country was started on the basis of 
 equality for all, we had slavery for humans, and it persisted 
 until, like all bad things, it forced us into a terrific struggle, and 
 we got rid of it. We have had a feudalistic spirit coming down 
 
AMERICAN STANDARDS OF LABOR 221 
 
 to us, and it manifests itself in many ways. We have not had 
 a democratic country, but we have been making a democratic 
 country, and we are fighting this war for the right to go on 
 making this a democratic country. Let Germany win in this war, 
 my friends, and it will not have made any difference whether we 
 went into it or not; let Germany win in this war, and the bell 
 tolls the doom of democracy for centuries in all probability, for 
 generations certainly. We have got to win the war in order to 
 maintain our former right and our former opportunity of going 
 on developing our democracy from chattel slavery to freedom 
 from slavery, from no manhood suffrage to all manhood suf- 
 frage, from no woman's suffrage to — well, pretty nearly it, so I 
 might as well say it — to woman's suffrage ! From former condi- 
 tions in which men who worked for wages got together in the 
 quietest manner possible and sent a committee to their employers 
 and said, "Please, master, give us an hour or two less of work," 
 or, "Please, master, give us a cent or two more in pay" — from 
 the time when doing that was a c""".: ntil the time when the 
 leaders in the United States of the American labor movement 
 have as much responsibility, perhaps, as any other men, for the 
 waves of patriotism that have swept through our patriotic classes 
 in this country in the face of the war. Now, what are the stand- 
 ards of American labor, tested by democracy? 
 
 As to conscription for work, I will tell you what I think of 
 it. For war, have an army if need be, by conscription for every 
 government service, whether it be in the trenches, or in clerk- 
 ships, or in making munitions, or building ships, or raising food, 
 or doing any of the other things that are just as necessary to 
 winning this war as fighting in the trenches is. Conscription for 
 that, if necessary, yes ; but not the kind of conscription that some 
 people are so energetically urging just now. Secretary Wilson 
 sounded the slogan. He said early in the war, "The time may 
 come when we must conscript labor. If that times comes, let us 
 conscript labor, but let us conscript labor only for government 
 work, and not for any individual's profit !" The farmer who wants 
 labor conscripted for his farm, let him say, "Here's my farm, 
 Mr. Government!" The manufacturers that want labor con- 
 scripted, let them say to the government, "Here's our factory." 
 Conscript the laborer to work for the government, yes ; if we 
 come to that, weU and good ; but we must have no drawing of 
 the line in favor of the profiteer and against the worker ! 
 
 We have heard a great deal about labor and capital — I beg 
 your pardon, a great deal about capital and labor! From cer- 
 tain sources it is capital and labor; capital comes first in the 
 minds of some people ; they forget that the man who stands next 
 
222 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 to Thomas Jefferson for the democracy of this country declared 
 that labor stands before capital. It always has ; it always must, 
 and he advised labor to give up none of the advances that it had 
 made, for he knew that if it did give up the advances that it 
 had made, capital would have no conscience in taking advantage 
 of it and turning the country back again in the direction of 
 feudalism. "Labor comes before capital," said Abraham Lincoln. 
 It is more important than capital. Our business interests have 
 not quite recognized that, but the people of the United States 
 have come to see that it is true. They have quoted Lincoln on 
 the assumption that he meant that once upon a time labor pre- 
 ceded capital. Well, any little boy able to say his letters in a 
 day school would know that capital does not grow of itself. 
 Capital has to be made by labor. But though acknowledging 
 that labor had made the first capital, then they assumed that 
 capital went on using itself, perpetuating itself, and that labor 
 was a good thing to have hanging around for an emergency ! We 
 have all learned now, my friends, the truth of what Lincoln said, 
 that not only did labor produce the original capital, but labor pro- 
 duces all the capital there is ; labor reproduces capital ; labor 
 uses capital. Without labor nothing can be done by capital that 
 is done. Ahd we have learned it in this war. Why, it is not 
 five years ago that even college professors, and even lecturers 
 out on the platform, imagined that we did not need labor very 
 much. There was a whole lot of it, and we did not need it. 
 We find out now from the hysterical cries going up that we are 
 dependent on labor not only to win this war, but to live. Labor 
 is mankind at work making a living for mankind. We live from 
 hand to mouth. The rich lady or the idle gentleman who imag- 
 ines that he is living on the saved-up labor of his ancestors, — I 
 used to tell those people to imagine that they were eating the 
 saved-up eggs of their grandfathers, which, of course, were not 
 good for anything but political meetings and not considered just 
 the thing for that any longer! You do not live on the past. 
 Whoever lives without working to-day is living on the sweat of 
 somebody that is working to-day. And if you are not giving 
 an equivalent, you are a slacker ! I do not care whether you are 
 a slacker at a cost of a dollar a day or a slacker at a cost of a 
 thousand dollars a day. I prefer the dollar a day slacker to the 
 thousand dollar a day slacker, for it doesn't cost other people 
 so much to keep him ! Now, my friends, this war has impressed 
 that upon us. It has intensified that thought, that we are de- 
 pendent from day to day upon the labor of the day. 
 
 Oh, but you say, we are not dependent entirely upon wage- 
 working labor; other people work besides the wage-worker. 
 
AMERICAN STANDARDS OF LABOR 223 
 
 That's true, and it is one of the great misfortunes that we have 
 suffered under, that the intellectuals of this country have been 
 drawing lines, and the capitalists of this country, between the 
 labor that does not hire itself out to somebody and the labor 
 that does. The labor that does is like the old feudal labor ; and 
 there is other labor, and they point to the man who does big 
 things and accomplishes great results. I am in absolute sym- 
 pathy with the thought that all labor is labor, whether that of 
 guiding labor or that of the wage-worker. Whatever contributes 
 to the maintenance of the living of mankind is labor, and we are 
 dependent upon it. The labor that knows how, and charges 
 pretty well for its know how — there is such labor, but before 
 I hire that labor for the pubHc good I would like to know what 
 it knows how about. What is the know how ? Is it the way? Is 
 it knowing how to make things that we need and want, or is it 
 knowing how to get a lion's share of the things that somebody 
 else makes? That's where I draw the Hne between the labor 
 we want and the labor we do not. Productive labor is the thing 
 that we want. That which is not productive but is merely con- 
 sumptive, that's the kind we do not want. And this war will 
 have been fought in vain, will have been won in vain by us, 
 unless it leaves behind us a condition in which, as nearly as we 
 can adjust it, every man shall get the full product of his own 
 labor. He may say, how are you to measure it? Why, the 
 market measures it. A man may put a thousand bricks in a wall. 
 What is that labor worth? Well, what's the wall worth? What 
 would a man give for that labor? There are tests, if you have 
 freedom. We have not got it yet. When this war is over, I 
 think we shall have a higher and a more effective democracy. 
 I think we will have learned from the Germans what it is to 
 try to have imperialistic policies spread over the world. Our own 
 imperialists will get ashamed of themselves, and want to make 
 this country really a democratic instead of an imperialistic coun- 
 try; and sorrowful as we are, of course, when people lose their 
 lives, we should welcome that outcome of the war. 
 
 Now, I am going to give you, — I do not want to be a pessi- 
 mist, — I am not a pessimist ; I am an optimist ; I have the utmost 
 confidence that everything will be better a hundred years from 
 now than it is to-day, and that everything will be more demo- 
 cratic than it is to-day. But I am not so sure of to-morrow, or 
 next year, or the next fifteen years, or twenty years. I am rather 
 a pessimist as to those periods. In turning a corner, I am some- 
 times afraid of seeing a ghost! I am an optimist, however, 
 along general lines ! 
 
 Now, I see a great optimistic outlook in something spoken 
 
224. AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE VVAU 
 
 of to-day by both the speakers. I refer to that Taft-Walsh 
 report. Let me tell you just a little more definitely about that 
 than they did. The Secretary of Labor concluded that during 
 this war we should try to bring about an end of strikes. In that 
 he was in harmony with even the biggest profiteers. They wanted 
 strikes stopped, too. He wanted it in the interests of the coun- 
 try. They wanted it, many of them, in the interests of their 
 pocketbooks. So he proposed there should be a commission, and 
 he turned to the Federation of Labor and said, "Name me five 
 men that best represent the capitalistic outlook to-day"; and 
 when those men were named he appointed them on a commis- 
 sion, — five men who represent labor, leaders in the labor move- 
 ment, presidents of large international or at least national or- 
 ganizations, and the others business men, every one of whom 
 had made his pile. Only one had ever been willing in his life 
 to deal with a labor union. I do not know why he did, but he did. 
 It seems that he was the only one. Now, the Secretary said to 
 these two groups of men, "Each of you choose a man to repre- 
 sent the public interests as distinguished from clashing capi- 
 talistic and organized labor interests." The labor group named 
 Mr. Walsh; the business group named Mr. Taft. Well, now, I 
 sat there in a back office wondering how things were going to 
 come out. I thought it was a splendid thing for the Secretary to 
 do. I am a little bit of a politician myself, but I never thought 
 that he could win out on any such proposition. I never sup- 
 posed that crowd would come together in a unanimous report. 
 Would you? Well, if you had seen the list of men, you would 
 not have thought so. Not if you had known them as well as I 
 thought I did. I did not think they would do anything unani- 
 mously. But, to my utter amazement, one day a messenger came 
 to my office and said that ex-President Taft and Mr. Walsh were 
 in the Secretary's office with a pile of papers in their hands. I 
 had thoughts of minority reports and all that sort of thing. He 
 said, "It looked rather harmonious." I asked him whether they 
 had arrived at any conclusion, and he said, "Yes, they have 
 agreed." I did not believe it, but to the astonishment of every- 
 body that knew anything about the situation, we found those 
 men really had agreed. Now, you have been told what they 
 agreed upon. I am going to trespass upon my time just a little 
 bit to tell you what they agreed about. It's all very well for 
 you to be told they agreed on something or other, as my friend 
 Morrison and my friend Gompers have told you, but I want 
 you to know exactly what they agreed upon. I will not read 
 you all the text. You can get it in the Department Bulletin of 
 April 9th. They agreed on this principle: 
 
AMERICAN STANDARDS OF LABOR 225 
 
 "That there be created for the period of the war a National 
 War Labor Board of the same number and to be selected in the 
 same manner and by the same agencies as the commission mak- 
 ing this recommendation. 
 
 "That the functions and powers of the National Board shall 
 be as follows : 
 
 "i. To bring about a settlement, by mediation and concilia- 
 tion, of every controversy arising between employers and workers 
 in the field of production necessary for the effective conduct of 
 the war. 
 
 "2. To do the same thing in similar controversies in other 
 fields of national activity, delays and obstructions in which may, 
 in the opinion of the National Board, affect detrimentally such 
 production. 
 
 "3. To provide such machinery, by direct appointment or 
 otherwise, for selection of committees or boards to sit in various 
 parts of the country where controversies arise, to secure settle- 
 ment by local mediation and conciliation. 
 
 "4. To summon the parties to the controversy for hearing 
 and action by the National Board in case of failure to secure 
 settlement by local mediation and conciliation. 
 
 "Principles and Policies. — There should be no strikes or lock- 
 outs during the war." 
 
 That last has been a principle of organized labor, not to 
 promote walkouts or strikes, though in the past our workers had 
 to strike as our country has had to go to war. They all agreed 
 on that on both sides. Then comes the right to organize. 
 
 "Right to Organize. — i. The right of workers to organize 
 in trade-unions and to bargain collectively, through chosen rep- 
 resentatives, is recognized and affirmed. This right shall not be 
 denied, abridged, or interfered with by the employers in any 
 manner whatsoever." 
 
 Why, sakes alive, that's what the labor unions have been try- 
 ing to get for years and years — the right to bargain collectively ! 
 That's all! Now, it is unanimously agreed upon by the very 
 employers who would not join in it before! Mr. Taft and Mr. 
 Walsh joined in that agreement. It comes out under their sanc- 
 tion, and Mr. Walsh is well trusted by labor organizations, and 
 Mr. Taft is well trusted by the fairer type of employer. 
 
 It gives the employers the same right. That is democratic. 
 No one wants to draw a line. Employers had the right all along. 
 They have claimed the right, and they never for one moment 
 
226 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 proposed to abandon their right to organize and act through 
 representatives. But now they have it; the right is given them 
 by this unanimous agreement. 
 
 "The right of employers to organize in associations of groups 
 and to bargain collectively." 
 
 That's what labor organizations have been trying to get for 
 ever so long, but employers would not agree to it. "No, sir, no 
 man shall come into my place and make a bargain with me for 
 my men." The chances were they said it through a lawyer. In 
 other words, they had their own representative on the ground, 
 but would not permit a representative of organized labor to deal 
 with him. But now the right to organize in groups and to bargain 
 collectively through chosen representatives is "recognized, and 
 affirmed." 
 
 "This right shall not be denied, abridged, or interfered with by 
 the workers in any manner whatsoever." 
 
 There you have it, what the workers have been trying to get — 
 a unanimous agreement with both sides, that they shall have the 
 right to organize and act through representatives. Furthermore : 
 
 "Employers should not discharge workers for membership in 
 trade-unions, nor for legitimate trade-union activities. 
 
 "The workers, in the exercise of their right to organize, 
 shall not use coercive measure of any kind to induce persons to 
 join their organizations, nor to induce employers to bargain or 
 deal therewith." 
 
 Then comes the matter of the open shop. You have heard 
 a good deal about the open and closed shop. Originally trade- 
 union men said a shop open to trade-unions was an open shop. 
 That was a pretty good word, and the bosses captured it. They 
 said a shop a trade-unionist could not work in was an open shop, 
 and the other was a closed shop. The men had the closed shop 
 when they succeeded in forcing employers to allow organized 
 labor to work there, and the men had the open shop when they 
 did not succeed in forcing employers to permit organized labor 
 to work there. But in fact we never had open shops, my friends. 
 There were only two kinds of shops. One was the shop that 
 was closed by the employers to union labor, and the other was 
 the shop that was closed by the unions to non-union labor. They 
 were both of them closed shops, the bosses' closed shop and 
 the workers' closed shop. Now we are to have real open shops. 
 Listen : 
 
AMERICAN STANDARDS OF LABOR 227 
 
 "Existing Conditions. — i. In establishments where the union 
 shop exists the same shall continue and the union standards as 
 to wages, hours of labor and other conditions of employment 
 shall be maintained." 
 
 That standard shall persist where it has been achieved. 
 
 "2. In estabHshments where union and non-union men and 
 women now work together, and the employer meets only with 
 employees or representatives engaged in said establishments, the 
 continuance of such conditions shall not be deemed a grievance. 
 This declaration, however, is not intended in any manner to 
 deny the right or discourage the practice of the formation of 
 labor unions, or the joining of the same by the workers in said 
 establishments, as guaranteed in the last paragraph, nor to pre- 
 vent the War Labor Board from urging, or any umpire from 
 granting, under the machinery herein provided, improvement of 
 their situation in the matter of wages, hours of labor, or other 
 conditions, as shall be found desirable from time to time. 
 
 "3. Established safeguards and regulations for the protec- 
 tion of the health and safety of workers shall not be relaxed." 
 
 And then on the question of wages, it was provided that 
 they shall be sufficient to maintain the worker and his family in 
 health and reasonable comfort. 
 
 My friends, that document, it seems to me, is a little like 
 Abraham Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg. Some of you may 
 remember the time that Lincoln delivered his great address on 
 the Gettysburg battlefield. There was not much mention in the 
 newspapers about it. They hardly gave Mr. Lincoln any men- 
 tion at all. The speech of the day was like mine in one respect, 
 altogether too long, by Edward Everett, who was the great 
 orator of that time, and his was the great speech of the occasion. 
 Mr. Lincoln "also said a few words." But after a while people 
 began to discover that the classic of that occasion was not the 
 oration of the great orator of the time, but the address, "the few 
 words added" by the then president of the United States. That 
 was the classic speech at Gettysburg, and so, similar to that in 
 some respects it seems to me, is this Taft-Walsh report. It 
 attracts but little attention now, but it is the beginning of an 
 epoch ; it is the culmination of a long struggle that wage-working 
 labor has had in order to place itself upon a basis of fair and 
 equal dealing with the people who employ the members of the 
 union that belong to it. I congratulate Mr. Taft and I con- 
 gratulate Mr. Walsh, and I congratulate Secretary Wilson, and 
 
228 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 I congratulate the President, on having adopted that program 
 as the future program during the war; and I trust and believe 
 that it will be the program of industry not only through the war, 
 but for long years after the war, and until a level of intercourse 
 between those who work for wages and those who direct their 
 work shall have been arrived at» 
 
THE PROBLEM OF FOOD 
 
 By Herbert Hoover, 
 Head of the United States Food Administration 
 
 I THINK that you are here in the endeavor to learn some- 
 thing of the problems of the government and the policies of the 
 government with regard to these problems. I am going to con- 
 fine myself strictly to my own work, that is, the food problem. 
 
 The primary function of the Food Administration is to feed 
 the Allies. We have often been represented in other lights, but 
 that is our one and sole object; and in so doing to carry on the 
 operations that are necessary to that work in such a way as to 
 cause the least inconvenience and the least injustice and the least 
 hardship on the American people. But, beyond and above all 
 things, it is our duty to keep our eye on the ball, and our ball is 
 food for the Allies. 
 
 You could get some appreciation of the world's food supply 
 if you could picture something of the world's geography in 
 your mind's eye. If we divided the world's food supply into, 
 say, three food pools, one of which embraces Australia and 
 Asia, the other South America, and the third North America, 
 there is ample foodstuffs in those three combined pools to take 
 care of all Allied demands without any restriction in any coun- 
 try. Our difficulty arises solely from the shipping situation. 
 The first pool that I have mentioned has practically been iso- 
 lated from Europe by the shortage in ships. It requires three 
 times the length of voyage to Australasia for food that it 
 does to North America. It therefore requires three times as 
 many ships to transport an equivalent amount of food, and in 
 these times of constantly shortening ships it has been necessary 
 to abandon Australasia generally as a source of food supply. 
 The South American food pool is in partially the same posi- 
 tion, for it requires twice the amount of voyage that it does to 
 North America and double the number of ships to transport 
 the same amount of food, and as we must increase the number 
 of soldiers in France we must accordingly withdraw Allied ship- 
 ping from the market. It is, therefore, a shortage of shipping 
 that gives us an acute food problem, and every pound, every 
 
 229 
 
230 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 ton of foodstuffs that we can provide from North America is 
 that much relief to the already short shipping of the world in the 
 necessity of going to the longer and far-distant markets. _ In 
 that aspect the increased export of foodstuffs from the United 
 States becomes practically a ship construction question, for if 
 we can save the number of ships that must go to farther ports 
 we are practically producing ships for Allied purposes. 
 
 We are also, in that same aspect, by increasing our food 
 exports from the United States, fighting the submarines. If we 
 can replace by the shorter voyage the losses due to the subma- 
 rine, we have given the American consumer and producer a 
 direct participation in the fight. 
 
 Now, this country is the largest of the food producing areas. 
 It is also the largest of the food consuming populations from 
 a per capita point of view. Our standard of living is higher 
 than that of any other country in the world. The consequence 
 is that we have two points of resiliency in our food supplies. The 
 first is that we consume from twenty to forty per cent, more 
 food of different commodities than are necessary to maintain the 
 public health and strength ; and we could, by repressing consump- 
 tion, produce for export purposes a very large quantity of food- 
 stuffs. And the second, we can reenforce in turn by an in- 
 creased production. Between these two resources, the resource 
 we have by way of decreased consumption and by increased pro- 
 duction, we are able to take care of the Allied demands. 
 
 There is no occasion for hysteria as to famine either here or 
 amongst the Allies. The sole problem is one of adjustment of 
 our surplus, of using the surplus out of our plenty to meet the 
 emergency. There is a sufficiency in margin between our neces- 
 sary consumption and our capacity of production to take care 
 of all our Allied people. 
 
 Now, when we came to the problem of reducing consumption 
 we tried in this work, as in all other government work, to keep 
 our eye solely on the object which we wanted to accomplish. 
 For over-seas transportation we required but a few commodi- 
 ties in number. Those commodities must be the most concen- 
 trated form of foodstuffs; they must be foodstuffs that stand 
 transportation and preservation to the best advantage ; they have 
 finally to be able to preserve under the stress of shipping and 
 under the commercial conditions of distribution, and under 
 those conditions they limit themselves to practically six commodi- 
 ties, that is, wheat, about an equivalent amount of other cereals, 
 oat products, beef products, a minor amount of dairy prod- 
 ucts, and sugar. 
 
 Now, those are the commodities which we must furnish for 
 
THE PROBLEM OF FOOD 231 
 
 the backbone of Allied feeding. We have not, therefore, con- 
 sidered that it was vital to us to interest ourselves in other com- 
 modities than those mentioned. All commodities, food com- 
 modities, react on each other. If we secure a reduction in con- 
 sumption of those particular staples which we desire to export, 
 the shortage created will more or less be filled by the other 
 commodities of which we have, in many cases, a surplus, as, 
 for instance, take the case of vegetables, where we have a sur- 
 plus and where our own people can quite well substitute them. 
 
 When we entered upon the war and entered upon actual 
 food administration last summer, we took more or less stock of 
 our larder and that of our Allies in order that we might have 
 in hand all the needs of the problem that we had to face. Last 
 year we did not get a harvest up to normal. Our corn crop 
 promised to be of the greatest dimensions in our national his- 
 tory. But, as you know, it failed, and the one crop which fur- 
 nishes nearly fifty per cent, of the fundamental food of the 
 American people was probably shorter in its actual food value 
 than at any time in the last ten years. We were also short in 
 our wheat. We were, therefore, faced with the necessity of 
 securing a considerable reduction in the consumption of 
 cereals. 
 
 Now there are three or four methods by which a reduction 
 in consumption can be effected. The European method is one 
 of rationing, that is, allotting each individual a certain amount 
 of food. That method requires an expenditure of probably mpre 
 than fifteen million dollars, demanding the employment of any- 
 where from five hundred thousand to a million people in order 
 to carry it out in its actual administrative detail. A second 
 method was to allow the purchase of Allied foodstuffs in the 
 United States in competition with our own population under 
 prices at such a level that some section of the population would 
 no longer be able to buy, and thereby curtail the consumption. 
 That is a favorite method of the reduction of consumption by 
 theoretical accounts. It is service for the rich and not for the 
 poor. That method is taking food from the people's nourishment 
 instead of taking it from their plenty. 
 
 We have the third method, which we have applied and on 
 which we were taking a great deal of national hazard as to 
 its success; that was to appeal to the American people purely 
 as a voluntary measure of each individual, that each man and 
 woman and child should themselves reduce their consumption of 
 certain definite commodities, and that they should not only reduce 
 the consumption of those commodities, but reduce the whole food 
 consumption in cutting down the daily food waste by every meas- 
 
23a AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 ure which every individual could himself employ. We felt that 
 it was taking a great deal of a risk to throw the whole hazard of 
 feeding the Allies on a measure of that type. Voluntary con- 
 servation had been tried in Europe and had been proven prac- 
 tically a failure. On the other hand, we felt that the American 
 people had a higher sense of self-sacrifice, had a higher average 
 of intelligence, and that we could count on the devotion of a 
 larger number of individuals in our population than in any other 
 population in the world. We have, therefore, for eight months 
 conducted a campaign of purely voluntary service. We have, 
 during this period, except for the difficulties of transportation 
 both on land and on the sea, supplied the Allies with all their 
 estimated needs. We have every prospect of being able to do 
 so until next August. As time goes on the pressure upon us for 
 one commodity or another may change, and it is necessary for 
 us to change the wishes that we put forward to the public. At 
 the present moment the pressure for wheat and cereals is 
 greater than any of the other commodities, and we are asking 
 more strongly than ever for a saving in those particular commodi- 
 ties above all others. 
 
 A question that so frequently comes to us is. Why do we 
 insist upon a shipment of wheat instead of the other cereals? 
 In other words. Why cannot the Allies themselves live upon corn 
 instead of asking the American people to do so in such a propor- 
 tion? That problem is purely one of commercial conditions. 
 The Allied people have never eaten corn, except in a very minor 
 degree. They have no facilities for the milling of corn. Corn 
 meal will not ship overseas in safety. It is not a durable flour, 
 such as wheat flour. What bread is used in Europe is baked 
 in bakeries. The population have but little knowledge of bread- 
 baking. They are unable to make similar bread at home, par- 
 tially from a lack of ovens, and partially from a lack of knowl- 
 edge of making bread of any kind; and also, just at this time of 
 the year corn itself will not stand shipment overseas because 
 it is now going through its annual germinating season. 
 
 Therefore, from a purely commercial, manufacturing stand- 
 point, and because of the habits of the people, if the Allies are 
 to be fed with breadstuflfs, we are practically compelled to sacri- 
 fice our wheat. 
 
 Now, there is but little sacrifice to the American people in 
 transferring their breadstuffs from wheat to corn. There is 
 no physiological reason why it should not be done. The Food 
 Administration, early in its work, summoned the ten or twelve 
 greatest physiological experts in the country and placed this 
 problem before them, and their unanimous agreement was that 
 
THE PROBLEM OF FOOD 23!^ 
 
 the value in nutrition and the value from every point of view of 
 com was practically equivalent to wheat. 
 
 The American people, of course, have some knowledge of 
 making bread out of corn. It is not as widely diffused as we 
 had originally anticipated, and we have had therefore to carry 
 out more or less of a cook-book propaganda; but in any event 
 the results have not only been satisfactory, but they have been 
 astonishing in the fidelity with which the American people have 
 followed these requests. 
 
 Now, it is one thing to make a request of that type, but 
 it is another thing to get an impression in the mind of each 
 individual that it is a national obligation. To consider for a 
 moment the method by which it is to be accomplished : There are 
 one hundred million people in the United States, and it is at 
 least necessary to instruct the dominant member of every family, 
 of which there are twenty million. They do not all read the 
 newspapers, and they do not all believe everything they read. 
 And therefore it has been necessary to carry on a fairly wide- 
 spread propaganda by way of publication, by way of commit- 
 tees, by way of county, state, township and other organizations, 
 by appealing to such bodies as your own to carry a definite war 
 message to the American people, in order that we may get this 
 impression and this necessity at every dinner table in the country. 
 
 That propaganda has cost a certain amount of money. I 
 presume that for our year's work in that direction we may have 
 spent a million dollars in printing and in traveling expenses, 
 and in committee expenses, and one thing and another of that 
 type. If, however, we accomplished our object, and accom- 
 plished it by the expenditure of a million dollars on propaganda, 
 we will have saved ten or fifteen millions of dollars and an 
 enormous local and incidental injustice and difficulty, from what 
 it would have cost if we had attempted to do this work by any 
 other method. 
 
 Our voluntary conservation has other aspects besides the 
 net results accomplishable in so many tons of foodstuffs. In 
 the first instance, these wars are not paid for out of the accumu- 
 lations of wealth. A war is the expenditure of labor and com- 
 modities. That expenditure goes on from the day war is de- 
 clared until it is finished, and the commodities and the labor 
 expended must be taken from the normal supplies of the people ; 
 and that is the price of war. It is not the money; the money 
 merely represents the media through which the distribution of 
 these commodities and this labor are taken. The consequence 
 is that if we are to afford the economic luxury of somfe ten 
 millions of men devoted to actual war and the support of the 
 
234! AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 war, if we are to take away from our normal consumption the 
 enormous amount of steel and iron and foodstuffs that would 
 otherwise go to consumption, we have to save somewhere; we 
 cannot carry on the war unless we can reduce consumption of 
 commodities and labor. If we can reduce this consumption 
 down to a point equivalent to our expenditure in those direc- 
 tions, we will have emerged as a nation from the war with no 
 economic balance. Therefore, we have felt that a voluntary 
 basis of food conservation would carry the message of saving 
 from the national point of view into every household more 
 effectively than any other way that message could be given to the 
 American people. 
 
 The actual concrete saving of foodstuffs amounts to a great 
 many tons, and it amounts actually to a surplus dedicated to 
 the war without economic damage to the country, so long as it is 
 saved from consumption. 
 
 The same thing will apply to the glass, the boots, the shoes, 
 the iron, the steel, and everything that we expend upon this war. 
 If we can secure a sufficient reduction in the consumption be- 
 low our normal to supply all our military purposes, we can 
 emerge from the war in exactly the same economic position in 
 which we entered it. 
 
 Furthermore, there is in conservation a certain spiritual 
 value, a hidden moral value, not only the moral value of simpler 
 living, but there is the moral value of stimulus to self-sacrifice. 
 
 Now, wars have such few compensations. They have no 
 complete compensation. Every war must be a loss. And except- 
 ing for the primary necessity of preserving our independence 
 and our institutions, there is only one compensation on the 
 right side of the book, and that is a stimulus to self-sacrifice, 
 a lifting of the ideals of the people. 
 
 Now, if we can spread any propaganda, if we can give any 
 basis of service to the American people which creates that stimu- 
 lation, we will have given to the American people some value 
 from the war far and above the actual agreed saving which was 
 effected for the moment. It is one of the greatest values of a 
 voluntary effort to a population. 
 
 Now, those three great values, the actual results we must 
 obtain for war purposes in so many tons of foods, the stimulus 
 of saving generally as a measure of keeping up the tax of the 
 war, and the uplift of the American people through some work 
 to do, through actual sacrifice to the ends of the nation, are the 
 basic reasons why we have placed food conservation on a 
 voluntary basis. 
 
 Now, next year we are hoping for a large production. We 
 
THE PROBLEM OF FOOD 235 
 
 have every reason to believe that we will have — every evidence 
 that comes to the Department of Agriculture and to ourselves 
 indicates a wider scale of planting, a wider scale of produc- 
 tion, than we have ever had before. On the other hand, with the 
 gradual shortening of shipping, week by week and month by 
 month, we may have to contemplate the complete isolation of 
 the South American market. In that case the tax upon us again 
 will be greater than even it has been during the past year; but 
 in the increase of production, or even in the estimate of our 
 normal production, I wish to assure you that there is a sufficient 
 margin in the possibility of saving by the American people to 
 carry out the entire war. It becomes purely a problem of 
 whether we can carry it on on the basis on which we have set 
 out, or whether we must adopt more drastic methods. I do 
 not believe that that latter will be necessary. It certainly will 
 not be necessary if we can secure a sufficient number of people 
 who will carry that message in all of its aspects morning, noon 
 and night to the American people ; and that is why we are anxious 
 to have your services. 
 
THE WORLD'S FOOD 
 
 By Alonzo E. Taylor, 
 
 Head of the Division of Utilities and Research, United States 
 Food Administration, and Member of Inter-Allied Conference 
 
 Mr. Hoover stated in one sentence the purpose of the United 
 States Food Administration, which is to feed the Allies and 
 protect ourselves. I should like briefly, but I trust in a clear 
 manner, to depict the actual food conditions of the Allies in order 
 that the measure of our obligation may be fully reahzed. 
 
 We do not ordinarily look upon this as an obligation as 
 critical and as essential as our obligations from the standpoint of 
 military importance, but as the matter is viewed closely, it is 
 apparent that it makes very little difference from the ultimate 
 standpoint whether we ship a certain weight of wheat or a cer- 
 tain weight of explosives to Europe; it has a certain final im- 
 portance in the trench and in the home of the man who is in the 
 trench — just about the same standing and importance. Europe 
 is producing less than its normal food supply for the simple 
 reason that it is impossible to maintain even the most essential 
 production on a normal plane when labor is deflected to the 
 extent that in Europe has been made necessary. 
 
 We speak in this country of labor shortage. Ladies and gen- 
 tlemen, we have not the faintest conception of labor shortage in 
 this country yet. We do not know what the word means. We 
 apparently have deflected from our industrial production, using 
 the term in the broadest sense, or will have deflected at the time 
 our forecasted draft is complete, about one-third of the men 
 classified as engaged in gainful occupations under the census, 
 and we have remaining two-thirds with which to maintain an 
 inflated, and, from the standpoint of war conditions, supernor- 
 mal standard of living. It is a fair comparative statement to 
 say that they have deflected from their same standard of living, 
 not one-third, but two-thirds of their effective productive forces, 
 illustrating to what extremes the deflection has attained. We 
 had apparently, if we were to apply the census calculations of 
 19 14 to the population of 1917, engaged in agricultural labor at 
 the outset of the war about fourteen million individuals, of whom 
 
 236 
 
THE WORLD'S FOOD 237 
 
 not more than a million and a half had families, and of whom 
 the total man value in terms of labor was probably twelve mil- 
 lions. Of these, two hundred and four thousand were drafted, 
 and an unknown number, possibly as many more, volunteered, 
 and there were deflected into manufacturing activities probably 
 as many as two millions more. In other words, the agricultural 
 labor of this country has been reduced by entrance into the war, 
 and participation in an industrial sense, about sixteen per cent, 
 in number, and about twenty-five per cent, in effectiveness. And 
 this represents the present condition of agriculture in the United 
 States to-day. Deplorable enough, it is true, but when you go 
 to France you will find that in place of having seventy-five per 
 cent, of the male farmers occupied with agriculture, there are 
 no males occupied with agriculture, except men over fifty-five 
 or sixty years of age, and that over sixty-five per cent, of the 
 entire work of agriculture is done by women. That is a fair 
 statement of the comparative conditions there and here as applied 
 to agriculture, and with equal force to almost every other do- 
 main of activities. 
 
 Under these conditions, deflection of labor has resulted in 
 almost a paralysis of the production of fertilizer and of cer- 
 tain kinds of machinery, etc. Because we have insufficient labor, 
 steel and coal, etc., cannot be exported from here, because we 
 cannot manufacture enough for ourselves at present. It is not 
 to be wondered at, therefore, that the production of Europe fell. 
 Not only this, but, of course, acreage has been abandoned. It is 
 not just a question of the women remaining in France as the till- 
 ers of the soil being able to maintain a fair percentage of output 
 from a normal acreage. For besides the loss of acreage in north- 
 ern France, there is the necessity of abandonment everywhere. 
 There must be, because it is simply impossible for the forces of 
 France to till the acreage of the pre-war figures. 
 
 This is equally true in Italy. It is not true in England to the 
 same extent, because they have continued a campaign for an 
 increase of acreage by turning their parks and estates in England 
 under the operations, not of hand labor but of contractual proc- 
 esses, so they have increased the acreage of England devoted to 
 grain. But they have lost in acreage in the allied nations for the 
 reason that labor could not cover the acreage it normally had. 
 
 On top of this, there was a very heavy winter in the sprmg of 
 1917, extending all over Europe, killing the winter wheat of 
 Russia, and this reflected itself upon the crops of the Allies for 
 the reason that it applied more heavily to the southwest than 
 to the north, and then, of course, as every practical farmer 
 knows, the untoward influence of climatic conditions is more pro- 
 
238 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 nounced on poor wheat than on good wheat. The imperfect 
 cultivation of wheat could not withstand cold. The result was 
 the crop was reduced to eight and six-tenths millions tons. The 
 loss in Italy was not as great as in Great Britain. The loss in 
 Great Britain was two-thirds of the expected result. This 
 involved bread grains, as the bread grains were the only grains 
 they had attempted to cultivate, because they had abandoned the 
 cultivation of fodder grains on account of lack of labor. The 
 result is that they became much more dependent on the other 
 three areas of the world's food supplies than anticipated, and, 
 of course, hoped for relief from those other sections of the 
 world; and the first result of that was constant drawing upon 
 the wheat supplies of the United States as being not only the 
 shortest haul, but the haul that came in before the others were 
 available. If you will take their present crop yields and cal- 
 culate them into months, you will realize when they would have 
 tapered off before the Argentine crops could have come in, 
 because it is impossible to lift those crops before March i. 
 They drew upon their own crops therefore heavily in the winter 
 months, and used our crops to tide over the hiatus until the 
 more distant crops became available; and that accounts for the 
 extreme need of Great Britain during the past three months and 
 during the next two months. 
 
 Not only this, but of course they have lost in other directions. 
 There used to be a rather large production of sugar in Italy and 
 France. Sugar requires much labor, and also potassium, for 
 successful cultivation. In peace times France and Italy imported 
 this from Germany. Now they have none, and the result is 
 the acreage has been reduced and the yield was also low. As a 
 matter of fact both of these were sugar importing nations before 
 the war. Great Britain was a very heavy importer of sugar 
 before the war, importing it almost entirely from the countries 
 who are now her enemies. She imported from Germany first, 
 Siberia second, Russia third, and drew from the overseas sources 
 later. Great Britain therefore was cut off from her supply, and 
 compelled to seek it across the seas, because even when Russia 
 was an active ally, she had ceased to be a supply of sugar. The 
 result is the Allies find themselves compelled to import sugar from 
 long distances or to go without. They have decided to do with- 
 out. The sugar allowance in Italy is one pound to each person 
 per month. Our normal consumption varies from seven to nine 
 pounds per month in the different parts of our country, and 
 represents the high sugar consumption of the world. Our Allies 
 drastically refused their sugar ration, deeming it less essential 
 than cereal to the bulk of their people. 
 
THE WORLD'S FOOD 239 
 
 Furthermore, their supplies in the direction of animal prod- 
 ucts has been also necessarily lowered because they never support 
 their animals from their own soil, but import seed in large 
 amounts from this country and elsewhere in the world — cotton 
 seed, linseed, and other forms of cattle feed, there to be con- 
 verted into dairy products and meats. They had cattle in ex- 
 cess of their ability to feed them. All of them they were feeding 
 foods that were imported. This has become impossible with the 
 scarcity of tonnage, and to-day with our Allies abroad not only 
 is there a definite ration for each man, woman and child, but 
 a definite ration for practically all domesticated animals, and 
 they are divided into classes; and it is prescribed just what the 
 horses shall receive, then the dairy cattle in proportion to the 
 amount available, and after that a small amount left for sheep, 
 etc., and the rest must be killed. That is the condition in the 
 animal supplies of the Allied countries that has been necessarily 
 produced by the cessation of importation of foodstuffs. 
 
 This illustrates the extreme reduction these people have placed 
 upon themselves, and in these reductions they place their final 
 dependence on cereals, the cheapest and most efficient form of 
 foodstuffs, and these must come from the United States. They 
 have taken into consideration the tonnage problem and reached 
 the decision that the mainstay must be cereals, and their own 
 cereal crop being short, they are dependent upon us, and this 
 places on us the obligation and privilege of giving them the cereal 
 in the denominated amounts. Now, of course, they used to im- 
 port foodstuffs in other ways from the food-producing nations 
 in Europe before the war — Holland and Denmark. Norway 
 was always a food-importing nation, since she was a nation 
 whose activities were largely directed to timbering, seafaring, 
 and fishing. England was an importing nation and slightly ex- 
 porting. Denmark was a heavy exporter of foodstuffs — per 
 capita the heaviest in the world. Holland was a moderate ex- 
 porter. Switzerland imported cereals and exported dairy prod- 
 ucts, all exported to our Allies largely, and in particular the peo- 
 ple of the United Kingdom drew their meat and dairy supplies 
 to large extent from these neutrals who had adopted a process 
 of agriculture to suit the British tastes. 
 
 Now, these nations that maintained their food production also 
 imported foodstuffs. In the year before our entrance into the 
 war Denmark imported one and one-half million tons of con- 
 centrated foodstuffs from everywhere in the world, which they 
 converted into beef and pork and sold particularly to the United 
 Kingdom and Germany. Holland and Switzerland did the same. 
 Under the present conditions, these nations are excluded by the 
 
240 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 terms of the Presidential blockade from further participation 
 in the feeding stocks of the world, in order that they might be 
 no longer an aid in the feeding of the enemy, though the shutting 
 off of this material carried also a reduction of food supplies 
 to the Allies. 
 
 This illustrates again why the shortage in mixed dairy prod- 
 ucts exists in these countries, because they have been deprived of 
 imported foodstuffs. We have excluded them by the terms of 
 our blockade from m|aintaining feeding yards for our Allies. This 
 again imposed upon us the more definite obligation to maintain 
 the stocks, since it was our directions, though a military necessity, 
 as an Ally, imposed upon us, that enforced upon them a certain 
 reduction. 
 
 Now, fortunately, the sum total of these various obligations 
 involving the food of our Allies does not place them near the 
 danger line. It does not place them at all under conditions of 
 jeopardy in connection with the normal available food supply 
 of the United States; and especially if these food supplies are 
 conserved in accordance with the Food Administration program, 
 there is food enough in this country to maintain a normal quan- 
 tity, if the game is played right, and still maintain the normal 
 nutrition of our Allies despite their reduction of production, and 
 despite the limitation of imports from the contiguous countries. 
 There is enough there and here, if divided properly. We ought 
 to regard the food supplies of our Allies and ourselves as divisi- 
 ble by two hundred and thirty-five millions, which is the combined 
 population, and it ought to be the ideal of our citizens to see that 
 every citizen in Italy, France and the United Kingdom has his 
 proper share. 
 
 Not only this, but when we realize how much harder they are 
 working in the mere sense of physical work, apart from the sac- 
 rifice of their lives ; when we reaHze the ardor of combat, and 
 when we reaHze their military situation, it ought to be our duty 
 and privilege to give them more than their share and their pick 
 in food. 
 
 Now, it is only fitting that we look into the food supplies of our 
 enemy. They occupy a similar situation, short of labor, short 
 of fertilizer — except potassium, which is not of value alone — 
 short of implements, short of imported food; just as Belgium, 
 Holland and Denmark, they have maintained a great stock of 
 cattle and have imported stuff with which to feed them. They 
 are now unable to maintain the nutrition of these animals and 
 have killed them off, and the total dairy supplies of the enemy 
 are reduced to a plane with the Allies. In all probability the 
 total situation of foodstuffs in Germany is from now during 
 
THE WORLD'S FOOD 241 
 
 the next three months to be compared to that of 1917 during the 
 same period of time, and in 1916 during the same period of time. 
 
 The food supplies of Germany are largely utilized after the 
 following fashion: They obtain their statistics in the field and 
 divide by twelve; set apart each of these for a month, and flat- 
 ter themselves there will be one-twelfth for each month. They 
 go on applying their rule to their population. But they can 
 sell the foodstuffs to the wealthy at a high price, producing graft 
 never seen in the world before. But they apply this in this way, 
 one-twelfth to each month, etc., until they get to March, but 
 then they discover they have only about enough for a week left, 
 because they have not played the game and have sold in excess 
 of the requirements. During each of these summers Germany 
 has been compelled to tide over a very serious interval in one of 
 two ways— through the establishment of the war gardens in 
 1916 and 1917, this contributing to tiding over until the food 
 supplies could be secured in 191 7. They were each time able to 
 conquer a country to the east or south, that still contained food- 
 stuffs, and by taking their crops that came to maturity a month 
 or two before the northern countries of Germany, they were 
 able to secure grain to tide them over. For example, they sub- 
 sisted on grain from the eastern countries and from Serbia and 
 from Roumania for a month during each of those years prior 
 to the oncoming of their own crop. Now it is of course the 
 hope of Germany that she can duplicate that performance this 
 year from the crops of Russia, but there is good evidence that 
 this cannot be so. We do not believe, and there is no evidence 
 to indicate from the testimony of the competent business men 
 returning now from Russia each week, that Germany will be 
 able to find anywhere in Russia any material quantity of food 
 supplies from the crop of 1917. 
 
 What shall be obtained from the new crop is a question for 
 the future, but in any event there is apparently no basis for the 
 hope on her part that she will be able during this summer to 
 cover, as she has covered during the two past years, by extorting 
 from a conquered people. 
 
 Under t^-^se circumstances, one may expect again that Ger- 
 many will at empt the method that has largely aided her in the 
 past, namely the establishment of war gardens; and this is a 
 development in food production worthy of emulation by every 
 nation, an extremely effective method of securing a large amount 
 of food supplies when most needed. Germany unquestionably, 
 during the months of July, August and September, during the 
 years 1916 and 1917, covered a third of her food requirements 
 by war gardens. Around every city in Germany the land for 
 
242 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 six or seven miles is divided into little areas, and each household 
 in the city of Berlin, for example, is assigned, if they have a 
 woman or old man in the household, one of these little _ plots, 
 and they have arranged the entire system of transportation to 
 enable people to get out before the regular working hours and 
 after the regular working hours and cultivate these plots; and 
 all over Germany all of the vacant land by state decree has been 
 cultivated in this way, and the war gardens thus become one of 
 the regular items of program of operation for the securing of 
 food. 
 
 In this country we have larger areas of vacant land around 
 our towns not depleted, and on practically every American farm 
 land untilled from the garden standpoint. If it is possible for 
 Germany to cover her needs during a period of stress, it is more 
 easily possible for the United States similarly, through forcing 
 of the war garden movement, to develop foodstuffs which will 
 from the standpoint of our national population and needs ex- 
 press a larger figure than in Germany. This is of particular im- 
 portance now, because every calory of wheat that can be sub- 
 stituted by vegetables makes the dependence of our people upon 
 substitute cereals during this period of time that much less acute. 
 Properly figured, we have about six pounds of wheat flour per 
 month for the balance of the crop, which means we must in- 
 crease that from four to five pounds for oats, rice, barley, corn, 
 up to thirteen or fourteen pounds per month. Now, if it be a 
 burden to increase the consumption of substitute cereals up to this 
 amount, the easiest way to reduce the burden is to raise vege- 
 tables in gardens and substitute them for the substitute cereals, 
 and thus make the transportation of wheat abroad greater dur- 
 ing this period of time and also render more easy our own 
 program of substitution. And if there ever were a situation that 
 called upon all the population, men, women and children, in 
 a way that is easily within the power of every one of them, 
 to exert a force directly applicable to the nutrition of our 
 own people and the Allies, it is in the development of the war 
 garden ; and from every point of view, from the international 
 point of view just as from the national point of view, it is to 
 be commended and urged that every force in every state in the 
 United States be utilized in this way. 
 
 The larger view as to the food and as to the relation of food 
 supplies to tonnage is one of course that depends almost entirely 
 upon climatic conditions. It is easily to be hoped for on the 
 basis of the present crop prospect in this country and abroad, and 
 on the basis of the present tonnage prospects in this country 
 and abroad, that with each succeeding month after the incoming 
 
THE WORLD'S FOOD MS 
 
 of the new crop, the food pressure may become lighter in a direct 
 sense, and provide with greater facihty for the lightening of ton- 
 nage. This means the American people would be afforded the 
 maximum opportunity for military participation in the war in the, 
 direct sense, without in the least lowering the necessity and the 
 opportunity for participation in the indirect sense, through food 
 conservation. It simply means that here as everywhere else in 
 any of the nations at war, the point of stress shifts, and in a par- 
 ticular period of a year it may be upon food here, or it may be 
 upon another commodity here, to shift back and forth. 
 
 Now, the point that the American people must visualize and 
 absolutely burn in their heart of hearts is the realization that all 
 these manifestations are military factors. We must realize that 
 the food program is just as much a military factor as the nitrate 
 program or the fuel program or the ship tonnage program. They 
 are all of great importance, and they have just as vital a military 
 meaning as anything else. Every American must realize that 
 the entire series of war processes are the chains that extend 
 from the humblest American citizens, men, women and children, 
 to the men in the trench along the battle lines of France; that 
 this series of processes is an endless chain, the entire length of 
 which is no stronger than the weakest link — food, ships, or any 
 other thing, but the entire chain is a continuous series of war 
 processes, and the individual who has it in his power always to 
 serve as a link in the chain of food conservation is just as essen- 
 ital a military agent or unit as the man who is casting shells or 
 the woman who is knitting shawls, or the boy firing the shells. 
 
 Only from this point of view does the food supply of our 
 Allies in Europe have any meaning for us, and only from this 
 point of view does the food conservation of the American peo- 
 ple have for them the meaning which history has given us the 
 privilege of fulfilling. 
 
FACTORS IN FUTURE COSTS AND PRICES 
 
 By Hekbert A. Emerson, 
 Expert in the Production and Prices of Food 
 
 It is a great pleasure to be here this afternoon with you in 
 this capital city in the greatest country that the sun shines on, 
 the country of our birth and the country of our pride. These 
 are trying days for America, but when it was my pleasure to 
 visit the other side one year ago I found that we here had every 
 reason to be extremely happy, that conditions were so much bet- 
 ter here than they were on the other side of the ocean. And 
 yet it gives me great pleasure to tell you that in old England 
 one scarcely realized a year ago last December that a world war 
 was on. Times have not grown better abroad ; times have grown 
 harder as the war has progressed. 
 
 And now your chairman has asked me to tell somewhat how 
 I look at the situation from a practical business standpoint, con- 
 cerning the feeding, not only of the folks abroad and the armies 
 abroad, but of our own people here in the homeland. 
 
 The people of this country have every reason to be a very 
 optimistic people. The great development of these United States 
 in the past forty or fifty years has left very little room for 
 pessimists. This country's development has been such that the 
 farmer folk of this country, if they are provided with good mar- 
 kets and a fair market price, can produce not only all the food 
 stuflFs that we need at home, but an abundance to ship to our 
 soldier boys and the civilians of all Europe, whether they be at 
 war or whether they be in times of peace. 
 
 It is a pleasure to speak this afternoon from the same plat- 
 form with that most excellent leader and this most excellent 
 man whom the President has named at the head of the food 
 business of this country — Mr. Hoover. We people in the food 
 business, and it has been my business for a lifetime — at the 
 present time I have directly under me one hundred and fifty 
 food stores located in New York City and the city of Chicago, 
 and these stores give us a very fine line on what is going on in 
 food distributing business, know that the people of the United 
 States have cut out luxuries. We find that these stores 
 
 244 
 
FACTORS IN FUTURE COSTS AND PRICES 245 
 
 are not moving luxuries and that the people have settled down to 
 necessities, and while at the first there was a general feeling 
 that it was a hardship to buy wheat flour and to be forced to take 
 a substitute with it, we find bitter complaint now if a single mer- 
 chant in one of these stores does furnish wheat flour without 
 forcing the taking of a substitute with it. The people of the 
 United States are anxious and willing to do their bit. As re- 
 gards what we may do during the coming summer there is 
 but one way for us to judge the future, and that is by the 
 past. 
 
 This country of ours has developed so rapidly that we in 
 the business heretofore have never feared a shortage. It was 
 always a question of a surplus. The farmer folk of this coun- 
 try have felt they produced so much food stuff that many times 
 tons of food stuflfs were rotting on the farms; while the people 
 in the cities have often felt the so-called middle men or dealers 
 in these food stuffs were taking an advantage of them and 
 charging them an excessive price for them. 
 
 At the present time prices have been regulated somewhat 
 from Washington. No great hardship has been put upon any- 
 body. An extremely low price has not been laid upon any food 
 stuff. The price for wheat is large enough to encourage the 
 farmer to go ahead and produce, not just as much as he has in 
 the past, but a great deal more. And when you have read the 
 reports of the coming wheat crop for the coming winter, I am 
 sure every American heart and the heart of every ally have 
 been given a great joy, for the prospects are for a much larger 
 crop this year than for the year preceding. 
 
 But if it were for a shorter crop we would not tremble with 
 fear; we have found that we can use the substitutes. We have 
 found that the bakers can bake a most excellent bread out of a 
 mixture which they did not make a year ago. And even if it 
 were a lesser crop, the people of these United States would 
 manage somehow to send a larger amount of wheat and food 
 stuffs to the soldier boys and allies on the other side ! There is 
 no particular necessity for wheat here. 
 
 There is the general anxiety that we eliminate waste. Mr. 
 Hoover, and the most excellent men that he has gathered about 
 him, have taken every opportunity to teach us thrift, to teach 
 us to sacrifice, to teach us to save these food stuffs, so that 
 the surplus may be large. 
 
 Our good friend, the chairman of this meeting, the man who 
 has done so much to bring you educators and you lecturers to- 
 gether, that you may go out and do the work here in the United 
 States that that great leader, Henry Ward Beecher, did over in 
 
246 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 England during the Civil War, comes from a state that has been 
 crying for — not so much for production, as for a market that 
 would justify California going ahead and producing all the food 
 stuffs that she possibly could. The greatest development per- 
 haps in the country, in a small way, that has taken place for 
 many years is in the Imperial Valley, in the southern part of 
 California. This marvelous country, brought into full produc- 
 tion through irrigation, has shown us the possibility of the 
 desert land of that flower of the country ; the citrus fruit coun- 
 try has never hesitated to produce all of the food that was 
 wanted. 
 
 Our good friend, Mr. Poole, now with Mr. Hoover, for 
 years has been studying, not how to produce more food stuffs 
 in that country, but how to find an adequate market for that 
 produced; and it will continue thus for a long, long time to 
 come. 
 
 As you go on further north up into the wheat country of the 
 San Jose Valley, there has never been a great effort to cultivate 
 every acre, but rather the question has been, how much can we 
 market of these food stuffs we are raising up here? Raisins 
 got badly frozen, and also the wheat further north, and the de- 
 ciduous fruits in the Sacramento Valley. We have had the prob- 
 lem of finding markets to justify us to urge more farmers to go 
 to California and produce more food stuffs. It is only two or 
 three years ago that the dried fruit prices were so low that 
 they would not bring the freight and price of package to New 
 York City. 
 
 When Germany was closed as an export country, it threw 
 nearly all these on the home market, which has never been a 
 great consumer of dried fruit such as Germany always was. 
 And Germany was looking forward, as she has been since 1871, 
 to this war, to this time when she would go out and rob her 
 neighbor countries of their wealth ; when she would destroy 
 their factories and their industries of every kind ; when she would 
 become the dominant factor in all the commercial world; when 
 she would hold by the throat all of her neighbors in every com- 
 mercial enterprise in which they might wish to enter. She has 
 always conserved and saved with that object in view, remem- 
 bering that Bismarck went to Piaris in 1871, and came back with 
 a bilHon dollars in gold — fifty carloads they had ; and waited for 
 the time when they might strike an unprepared France, an un- 
 prepared England, an unprepared Russia, an unprepared Italy, 
 and, worst of all, an unprepared United States, and not rob them 
 of a billion dollars, but rob them of ten times a billion dollars, 
 and rob them of every opportunity of commercial success in the 
 
FACTORS IN FUTURE COSTS AND PRICES 247 
 
 future, except under the domination of the most unscrupulous 
 robber nation that has ever been on the face of the earth — the 
 Huns of Germany. 
 
 We are looking forward, up in the northwest country, in 
 Oregon and Washington, where production has only just begun. 
 On north, across the line in British America, up in Canada, we 
 find a great undeveloped, unproductive country — Canada, with 
 more acreage than we have here in the United States. She only 
 has about eight millions of people, but, oh, they are God's peo- 
 ple! They are the best people that the sun shines on. I say 
 it with a personal pride, for my mother was born in Canada. 
 These splendid people up there have sent already six hundred 
 thousand soldiers out of eight million people to fight our fight 
 across the sea. When we people of these United States have 
 done as well, we will have sent across the sea ten million sol- 
 diers and sailors to fight for the freedom of all the people of all the 
 world. And before we allow the Huns to dominate the com- 
 mercial world, to dominate the religious thought, to dominate 
 the political energy, to dominate with the iron hand of militarism 
 every other people under the sun, we will send not only ten 
 million men, but ten million more with them to help them whip 
 the Beast. 
 
 And this land of Canada, away up in the Saskatchewan 
 country, away up in Calgary, away up in the Prince Albert 
 country, oh, oh ! you have not yet begun to develop that country ! 
 The little wheat they are producing is a mere trifle to what she 
 can produce. In fifty years Canada, if she develops as we 
 believe she will, will have nearly as many people as we have in 
 the United States, if not quite as many. She will be ready to 
 export one hundred times the amount of food stuffs that she is 
 now exporting. And then when we come back into our own 
 land, in the Dakotas, Minnesota, West Iowa, Nebraska and 
 Kansas, and on down into Oklahoma and Texas, we begin to 
 realize how little we have developed our own country, and that 
 the food means more and more to these United States as time 
 goes on. 
 
 We want men of vision ; we want men to look always to this 
 great agricultural development of this country and to the great 
 commercial development of this country, just as Mr. Van Horn 
 and other great men have looked forward to the railroad devel- 
 opment. In years gone by they dreamed their dreams, and then 
 James J. Hill and Mr. Van Horn, of Canada, went forward to 
 work out their dreams, and by the assistance of the splendid 
 people of the northland on the lines they were building, they 
 have developed the greatest railroad system of the world, here 
 
248 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 in North America, the youngest and best developed continent 
 of them all. 
 
 When that time comes that states like Iowa and Illinois 
 have intensified farming such as Denmark, Belgium and Ger- 
 many had prior to the war, those states will produce alone six 
 times as much food stuffs as ever before, and this development 
 will take place. 
 
 The manhood and womanhood of this country are just begin- 
 ning to get over the effects of overproduction. It is only a few 
 short years ago when the meanest thing one could say was that 
 some one was "as poor as a Kansas farmer." But, oh, this mar- 
 velous state of Kansas that two years ago produced one hundred 
 and eighty-five million bushels of winter wheat! So hard up 
 for a long time that they adopted prohibition a long time before 
 a lot of us quit drinking! High schools — more than any other 
 state in the Union ! And they gave the women a chance to vote 
 before the others ! And I am pleased to say they have never 
 regretted that they adopted prohibition and gave the women 
 the right to vote and express their womanhood ! Kansas has 
 only begun to develop. Just a little while ago from Hutchinson 
 on it was a desert. To-day it is a paradise. They had hot 
 winds and grasshoppers, but they stayed with the fight and to- 
 day they stand preeminent, close to the head of the list of all 
 the agricultural states of this Union. They have as many loyal 
 Americans per capita in that western country as in any other 
 state in the Union, or any other country of all the world. 
 
 As we come on to the eastern part of this country, we find 
 here and there abandoned farm lands. Over in New York where 
 I hve now, much of the land has gone backward. Many farmers 
 there have centralized their efforts in the production of milk. 
 For a long time the companies had it much in their own hands. 
 The farmers — many of them — felt they needed a leader to or- 
 ganize and lead them in an effort for a better condition. But 
 now all of these facts that have been moving forward to help 
 laboring people will be utilized to help the agricultural interests 
 of the country, if necessary. 
 
 But the farmer has been a highly intelligent individual. The 
 rural delivery has brought him his papers, almost daily. There 
 is nothing new said upon which he is not as well posted as the 
 city man. No longer is he "the man with the hoe." He rides 
 in an automobile. McCormick and Deering and others have in- 
 vented labor saving machinery to help the farmer do his work 
 expeditiously and well, the work that his forefathers had to do 
 by hand. When one stops to think it is only about fifty years 
 ago that people used the cradle, and that they could use that cradle 
 
FACTORS IN FUTURE COSTS AND PRICES 249 
 
 on only a few acres each year, he sees that the wheat crop of this 
 country could never have been large necessarily until better 
 machinery could be invented for harvesting. Then they begin to 
 realize the great change a few short years has brought about, 
 the wonderful improvement in agricultural methods. 
 
 And then when one studies the situation abroad and feels that 
 over there in Russia and Siberia they have black land and climat- 
 ic conditions such that they could raise the most magnificent 
 crops thereon, with a territory equal to eleven states as large as 
 the state of Iowa, and equally as good for the production of 
 grain, then they begin to realize what Russia will do in the 
 future. Russia has her opportunity, but she has not her choice. 
 Russia must either be led in the future by the American and 
 English speaking people, the people of France and of Italy, led 
 into the new life, led into a position where there is a little red 
 house on nearly every section of land in the country, or else be 
 controlled by the iron hand of Germany, placed upon her com- 
 mercial throat. And if Germany were to be successful in this 
 war — as she will not be — Russia would be one hundred years set 
 back from what she will be when the Allies have won the war — 
 as they will — and in much quicker time than most of you think 
 they will. 
 
 This constant shortening up in Russia and Siberia has been 
 a great blow to the German people in the food stuff line. The 
 year following the war Russia and Siberia produced only about 
 sixty-five per cent, of the dairy products that they had in the 
 year previous to the war ; in the followTng year forty per cent, of 
 what they produced in the first year of the war ; and at the pres- 
 ent time they are producing no surplus, nor anywhere near what 
 they need for their own requirements. 
 
 What Germany got when she went over to Russia was a 
 great land filled with an ignorant people who had no thought of 
 their obligations, not equipped with great elevators as the United 
 States, but without any elevators or cold storage plants as we 
 have here in the United States. And now we are awake to the 
 fact that with all our development during the forty years we have 
 had refrigeration, we are still forty years behind what we should 
 be in preparedness to take care of the surplus food stuffs in 
 seasons of plenty as against those of scarcity, which will occa- 
 sionally come. The building of these great industries in Russia 
 will be one of the coming enterprises after the war is over. 
 
 The rehabilitation of those far away lands leads us to think 
 of what we may do with our products in this country of ours. 
 These returning soldiers by the tens of thousands that are to 
 settle in Canada and the United States on the western land 
 
250 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 and the irrigated lands will tell the story of what the food de- 
 velopment will be. We will see this country move forward after 
 the war much more rapidly in a commercial way than ever before. 
 It is an old adage, and a very true one, that money has much to 
 do with development. The people in the United States must 
 advertise it. They must get a man like Mr. Flowers to adver- 
 tise for them. We must have our wares on sale in every one of 
 the South American Republics. We must be in the market for 
 the surplus food stuffs and the other desirable articles in those 
 republics. We are naturally a trading people. We must be in 
 the future a seafaring people. We must not depend entirely 
 upon the Norwegian and Scandinavian sailors, but we ourselves 
 will find these boys who are fighting on the other side at present 
 are not coming home to keep a stool warm in a bank. They 
 have red corpuscles in their blood, and they have left mother and 
 father and gone far oif . They are coming back filled with energy 
 and ambition. They are going to travel into all the different ' 
 countries of the world. American food stuffs will be on sale in 
 every market in the world. Our educators and our platform 
 speakers will be speaking in all countries in the world. Austra- 
 lia and New Zealand will be as near to us after the war is over 
 as is California to New York City at the present time. People 
 get into the habit of traveling, and when they do they want to 
 eat the same thing everywhere that they were accustomed to 
 eat at home. The people of the whole world will no longer be 
 satisfied with limberger and sauerkraut after the Kaiser is 
 whipped. They will want good food the same as we people in the 
 United States are accustomed to, and we will furnish it to them. 
 There are some people in those far-away lands who have felt 
 the grip of Germany for many years. The states lying back 
 of Germany have had to cross Germany with their food stuffs. 
 They have never had an open market. The forty-five millions 
 of people in Great Britain have depended on Russia and Si- 
 beria for dairy products in the past. In the future they must 
 look to the country still having dairy cows to produce this stuff, 
 and to the country that has the intelligence to produce the sur- 
 plus food stuffs they need, and that's the United States. They 
 will not go to the Argentine, for there are not enough people 
 down there. They will not apply to Africa and the colonies 
 there, for there are not enough people in those places. They 
 cannot go to Australia and New Zealand, for these countries 
 have been bled white of their manhood and womanhood with 
 this war. No one has given of its man power so much as have 
 Australia and New Zealand. These lands that were furnishing 
 so much of the dairy products, butter and cheese, going to Eng- 
 
FACTORS IN FUTURE COSTS AND PRICES 251 
 
 land previous to the war, have been almost wiped out of the 
 world's markets. The fact that they are six weeks by boat from 
 the London market is a great, great thing for them to over- 
 come. It is a great, great advantage for us of America that we 
 are only from a week to ten days from London market. 
 
 England, through necessity, has come to look upon the United 
 States as her food supply and store house, and we share with 
 her, sacrificing and giving her food now, but it is only a short 
 time till we will be advising and urging her to take much more 
 than we now send. 
 
 We Americans are never willing to sit still. We are going 
 forward. We are going to bring the Russian people to our side 
 through kindness and education. Germany wants to bring them 
 under her influence and to slavery with militarism and absolute 
 cruelty. 
 
 No American will ever say that he is satisfied until the work 
 of Grant at Appomattox has been repeated, and Germany has 
 unconditionally surrendered to the people of the United States 
 and her Allies abroad ! 
 
THE FOUR MINUTE MEN 
 
 By Bertram G. Nelson, 
 Associate Director of the Four Minute Men 
 
 The Four iMinute Men gladly avail themselves of the op- 
 portunity afforded by your gracious invitation, to present to you 
 their work. They consider it of importance that you, who are 
 expert in the shaping of public opinion by means of the spoken 
 word, who touch the lives of so many communities, and touch 
 them at such vital points, should know the nature, purpose, and 
 method of our organization. 
 
 There are a surprisingly large number of people in every 
 community who do not read ; there are others who read no Eng- 
 lish ; and a still larger number who read nothing but the head- 
 lines. The most enthusiastic, patriotic meetings get together 
 5,000 people in a city of 500,000; for every one who goes and 
 thrills and applauds there are five hundred who stay at home, 
 passive and ofttimes indifferent. These silent ones eat sugar, 
 bacon and wheat; their vacant minds become the ready recipient 
 of German Hes; their tongues become the ready transmitters of 
 German propaganda ; their grumblings are heard by the quick 
 ear of the politician ; they are ofttimes "the menace within the 
 walls." Yet their sons must help do the fighting; their minds, 
 wills, and hearts must become attuned to our national purposes. 
 
 How can we reach them? Not through the press, for they 
 do not read ; not through patriotic rallies, for they do not come. 
 Every night eight to ten milHon people of all classes, all degrees 
 of intelligence, black and white, young and old, rich and poor, 
 meet in the moving picture houses of this country, and among 
 them are many of these silent ones who do not read or attend 
 meetings, but who must be reached. 
 
 Early in the war a group of young business men in Chicago 
 under the leadership of Donald Ryerson, now an Ensign in the 
 United States Navy, conceived of the idea of making this great 
 democratic meeting place of the people an instrument for pa- 
 triotic education. The Four Minute Men came into being as a 
 local Chicago organization before the outbreak of the war. On 
 June 16, 1917, the Four Minute Men were taken over by the 
 
 252 
 
THE FOUR MINUTE MEN 253 
 
 National Government and made a division of the Bureau on 
 Public Information. So rapidly did the work grow that early in 
 November President Wilson addressed the organization as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 "The White House, 
 
 Washington, 
 November 9, 1917. 
 
 To the Fifteen Thousand Four-Minute Men of the United States: 
 
 May I not express my real interest in the vigorous and intel- 
 ligent work your organization is doing in connection with the 
 Commiittee on Public Information ? It is surely a matter worthy 
 of sincere appreciation that a body of thoughtful citizens, with 
 the hearty cooperation of the managers of moving picture the- 
 aters, are engaged in the presentation and discussion of the pur- 
 poses and measures of these critical days. 
 
 Men and nations are at their worst or at their best in any 
 great struggle. The spoken word may light the fires of passion 
 and unreason or it may inspire to highest action and noblest 
 sacrifice a nation of freemen. Upon you Four-Minute Men, who 
 are charged with a special duty and enjoy a special privilege in 
 the command of your audiences, will rest, in a considerable de- 
 gree, the task of arousing and informing the great body of our 
 people so that when the record of these days is complete we shall 
 read page for page with the deeds of army and navy the story of 
 .the unity, the spirit of sacrifice, the unceasing labors, the high 
 courage of the men and women at home who held unbroken the 
 inner lines. My best wishes and continuing interest are with 
 you in your work as part of the reserve officer corps in a nation 
 thrice armed because through your efforts it knows better the 
 justice of its cause and the value of what it defends. 
 Cordially and sincerely yours, 
 
 (Signed) Woodrow Wilson." 
 
 To-day, at the end of ten months, within two months of the 
 first birthday, there are 30,000 Four Minute Men scattered 
 through every state in the Union, Alaska, Hawaii, Phihppme 
 Islands, Porto Rico and the Canal Zone. The organization is 
 built upon three fundamental ideas: i. The ready-made audi- 
 ence; 2. A volunteer local speaker; 3. Direction from Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 I need not tell this audience how important a factor an audi- 
 ence is. During the Second Liberty Loan Campaign I was con- 
 nected with the Public Speaking Bureau of the Seventh District. 
 
254 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 We found it was no difScuIty to get speakers, but it was very 
 difficult to get audiences to listen to them. On the twelfth of 
 February I was sent by a certain organization to address "a 
 large, patriotic mass-meeting," at a point 300 miles distant from 
 my home. I traveled all night, waited at the hotel all day, caught 
 a train back at two o'clock in the morning, arriving late for my 
 daily duties, and addressed sixty-five people. That same night, 
 one block away, the local Four Minute Man, who left home after 
 dinner, traveled less than a mile, was away from home less 
 than an hour, spoke to 1,200 people. I appreciated what Presi- 
 dent Wilson meant when he said to the Four Minute Men that 
 they "enjoyed a special privilege in the command of their audi- 
 ences." The public speaking men know that every night there 
 is an audience of eight to ten million people awaiting their mes- 
 sage in the movie theatres of this country. For the privilege 
 of this ready made audience we are entirely indebted to the 
 movie theatre managers, who have been both courteous and pa- 
 triotic in their cooperation with our organization. 
 
 A letter from a theatre owner, written in Italian, was received 
 the other day by the Committee. The translation in part is this : 
 
 "I put my theatre completely at your disposal for the whole 
 time it may suit you. In the endeavor to combat the common 
 enemy I am ready to do everything. You may feel that you can 
 'command me." 
 
 This spirit is typical. 
 
 From the nature of our audiences and the fact that we exist 
 by courtesy of the movie theatre manager a rather arbitrary 
 time limit is fixed, and yet we find that four minutes is enough 
 to deliver a patriotic message ; it is not a great tax upon the audi- 
 ence ; nor does it seriously disarrange the theatre manager's pro- 
 gram. 
 
 There are two ways of reaching a community through the 
 spoken word — either by sending speakers from the outside (the 
 method which is followed by the Public Speaking Bureau of the 
 Committee on Public Information), or by using volunteer local 
 speakers (the method followed by the Four Minute Men or- 
 ganization). 
 
 These 30,000 local volunteer speakers are under a military 
 organization. At the head is the National Director, Mr. William 
 McCormick Blair, and directly under him are the Associate Di- 
 rectors, who have charge of large sections of the country, and 
 under these the State Chairmen, who in turn have authority over 
 the local chairmen in each community, under whom the Four 
 Minute Men operate. 
 
THE FOUR MINUTE MEN ' 255 
 
 The topics spoken upon by Four Minute Men are matters 
 of national importance connected with the war plans of the 
 government. They are assigned to the speakers, by the Director 
 in Washington, for a given period of time, usually from one 
 to four weeks. The topic to be used at any given time is de- 
 termined by a consideration of what is uppermost at the time, 
 and represents an agreement between the Director of the Four 
 Minute Men and the various government authorities who may 
 be concerned. 
 
 At the beginning of each new topic a Bulletin of Instructions 
 is issued, and sent to the Chairmen, in quantities to cover the list 
 of speakers. These Bulletins are immediately distributed to 
 the speakers in ample time to allow for thorough preparation. 
 Accompanying the Bulletin of Instructions is a Budget of Ma- 
 terial containing the facts necessary for the preparation of an 
 effective speech upon the topic, and an outline of the essential 
 points which the speaker is expected to establish in the minds of 
 his audience. 
 
 Many people get the idea that the Four Minute organization 
 is operative only during the Liberty Loan campaigns and Red 
 Cross drives. As a matter of fact, the organization is always on 
 duty and has during the last ten months conducted nineteen dis- 
 tinct campaigns, such, for instance, as 
 
 The Liberty Loan May 22 to June 15, 1917 
 
 The Red Cross Hundred Million Dollar Campaign, 
 
 June 18 to June 25, 
 
 Food Conservation July i to July 14, 
 
 Why We Are Fighting July 23 to Aug. 5, 
 
 The Nation in Arms Aug. 6 to Aug. 26, 
 
 What Our Enemy Really Is Aug. 26 to Sept. 23, 
 
 supplementary 
 
 Onward to Victory Sept. 24 to Oct. 7, 
 
 The Second Liberty Loan of 1917 Oct. 8 to Oct. 28, 
 
 The Food Pledge Card Campaign Oct. 29 to Nov. 4, 
 
 Maintaining Morals and Morale Nov. 12 to Nov. 25, 
 
 Carrying the Message Nov. 27 to Dec. 22, 
 
 War Savings Stamps Jan. 2 to Jan. 19, 1918 
 
 The Shipbuilder (securing recruits) Jan. 28 to Feb. 9, 
 
 Eyes for the Navy (requests for binoculars, etc.) . .Feb. 11 to Feb. 16, 
 
 Danger to Democracy Feb. 18 to Mar. 11 
 
 Income Tax Mar. 11 to Mar. 23 
 
 Farm and Garden Mar. 25 to Mar. 30 
 
 Theatre Bulletin Apr. i to Apr. 6, 
 
 Third Liberty Loan Apr. 6 to May 4, 
 
 Sixty thousand (60,000) of these Bulletins are ordinarily dis- 
 tributed, and of the Third Liberty Loan Campaign Bulletin over 
 120,000 copies have been distributed. 
 
256 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 While our first duty is to the movie audience, in many com- 
 munities which are not furnished with movie theaters we have 
 turned to churches, schools, lodges, farm sales, fairs, picnics, 
 and commencement exercises, as convenient places to reach the 
 public. 
 
 Another development has been the work with the military 
 and navy camps. Special bulletins are issued for the officers in 
 these camps to use as the basis of lectures to their men. 
 
 One of the most promising phases of our work is the Junior 
 Four Minute Men. Special bulletins are prepared on patriotic 
 subjects for the use of teachers in conducting speaking contests 
 among the pupils. A milHon and a half bulletins were so dis- 
 tributed in the War Savings Stamp campaign. The object is 
 not only to enlist the young enthusiasm of the student, but 
 through him to reach into the home and touch the life of the 
 parent. 
 
 The Four Minute Men organization, viewed from the Bulletin 
 activity, is one of the largest correspondence schools. From the 
 point of view of its speaking activities, it is doubtless the greatest 
 impetus toward direct and effective public speech that this coun- 
 try has ever known. These, however, are but by-products. The 
 immediate purpose of the organization is in the words of Presi- 
 dent Wilson, "to arouse and inform the great body of our peo- 
 ple." 
 
THE SCHOOL GARDEN ARMY 
 
 By John H. Francis, 
 
 Director United States School Garden Army, Department of the 
 
 Interior 
 
 The United States School Garden Army has for its purpose 
 increased food production. Its form of organization is military, 
 although it is democratic in its character. It proposes to or- 
 ganize the school children of America into an army, largely in 
 the cities, towns and villages, that will work the front yards 
 and the back yards and the vacant lots, before school, after 
 school and during the summer months. It has its first lieu- 
 tenant, its second lieutenant, and its captain, chosen from the 
 boys and the girls. It is proposed that one teacher be assigned 
 to each 150 pupils, and that her duty will consist largely in 
 gathering her company together, instructing them, especially in 
 going to their homes and supervising the home gardens, for 
 emphasis is to be placed upon the home garden. There are 
 other organizations at work along similar lines. They have been 
 doing good work and are doing excellent work now. The gar- 
 den army, however, is a school organization, and it can reach and 
 must reach millions of boys and girls who have heretofore not 
 been reached. For with all the excellence of the other organiza- 
 tions, they are not school organizations, and the boys and girls 
 of the city have not been given a chance to occupy their time 
 in the summer months in some legitimate and profitable way. 
 
 There are five regional directors, one for the northeast, one 
 for the south, one for the middle west, one for the southwest, 
 and one for the far west. It is their duty to write bulletins on 
 gardening and send them out. There will be more than a million 
 and a half of them sent to garden teachers, which will give 
 them technical information on how to garden, when to plant and 
 how to cultivate. 
 
 The immediate purpose, however, is only one of the purposes. 
 We live in a military time. I listened with rapt attention to 
 the speakers before me, the four-minute speakers, the fifty- 
 minute speakers, and far-away speakers, putting before the peo- 
 ple the most wonderful things that the world has ever thought of, 
 
 257 
 
258 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 and they do it well. But in it all I have yet to hear very much 
 talk about the child. If we are to fight Germany, we will have 
 to fight Germany as she fights the civilized world, through the 
 child. The reason Germany to-day makes the world tremble in 
 fear is because fifty years ago she was the first and practically 
 the only nation to recognize the fact that all great things are 
 worked out, not through men and women, but through children, 
 and she began the preparation of her children for the wrong 
 thing — but she succeeded. And if America to-day is to meet 
 the situation, she will arouse herself from her lethargy to the 
 startling fact that this war, like every other war, will be won, 
 not on the battle fronts altogether, nor mostly, but through the 
 schools and in the homes, with the children. And when we can 
 link up the children and get them to participate in this great 
 world struggle and become a part of it, to get under its pretense, 
 then our civilization must become safe. Our schools have not 
 been vitalized sufficiently to disturb any of the rights of the 
 country, vested or otherwise. But the school garden army gives 
 an opportunity to lead these children into participation with 
 things in addition to information about things. And after all, 
 participation is worth five thousand times as much as informa- 
 tion, and information is valuable only as it helps us to participate. 
 
 One thing we need to do is to get the children to participate 
 in the homes and in the schools and in society. 
 
 Another most significant phase of it is that it will give our 
 children something to do in the summer time. Do you know 
 that this nation faces her greatest danger right now in the un- 
 occupied time of our boys and girls in the cities? The great- 
 est weakness that this nation has to-day lies in the fact that 
 there are two, or three or four long summer months with nothing 
 to do in our great cities. And the third thing that is to come 
 from this movement is that the cities, with their crowded condi- 
 tions, have milHons of the best potential farmers in the world 
 who will never be good for anything because they will never 
 have a chance to discover themselves on the farm, on the soil. 
 We have been talking about and writing about back to the coun- 
 try, back to the farm. We will never get the city back to the 
 farm until we give the boys and girls in the city a chance to dis- 
 cover their powers and their liking for the soil. 
 
 And so out of the great war chaos of the world, out of 
 the unthinkable struggle that we cannot escape, we have to 
 recognize that we are fighting a nation that has achieved because 
 she understood the importance of the child, and that if we achieve 
 the things that we in our form of civilization ought to achieve, 
 it will be when we are awake, much more than we are now 
 
THE SCHOOL GARDEN ARMY 259 
 
 awake, to the problem that the child is the key-note to the situa- 
 tion, and that we must give the child a chance and study it. 
 For the problems that come after the war will be just as serious 
 as the problems to-day, and it is with the child that we must 
 leave the responsibility of solving these problems. And the school 
 course, along with the shops and the home economics and the 
 other vitalizing influences that are fortunately coming into the 
 schools, too slowly to be sure, must be the preparation for the 
 child to do the thing that he can do best and best loves to do. 
 We are coming to a new definition of education, a new concep- 
 tion of it, and it will be that every child has possibilities in some- 
 thing, and the problem is to find the thing in which he has possi- 
 bilities and give him a chance to develop that and not determine 
 his education by his academic achievements. 
 
THE SPEAKING DIVISION, COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC 
 INFORMATION 
 
 By Akthur E. Bestoe, 
 Director of the Division 
 
 The Speaking Division of the Committee on Public Infor- 
 mation has had certain tasks submitted to it in the making of 
 public opinion, and I do not need to say in this presence how 
 very important the mobilization of public opinion is, except to 
 point out that upon the enthusiastic loyalty of the entire body of 
 our population depends the morale which everybody is insisting 
 — our friends from across the sea are insisting — is the deter- 
 mining factor with respect to the war. 
 
 Many of you have been of very great service to the various 
 speaking divisions and the various public opinion-making divisions 
 in Washington, and I have emphasized, on every possible occasion, 
 in connection with the plans of the government, that during the 
 summer time, particularly from April to September, there are no 
 audiences in the country that can be reached as effectively as 
 those you are already reaching; that the government does not 
 need to do very much during the summer time in direct propa- 
 ganda, because the delegates who have come here to this confer- 
 ence, and others who have not been able to come, are going to 
 give the patriotic messages to the people of the United States 
 through the 6,000 Chautauqua audiences gathered together, used 
 to hearing these messages, and ready to hear what the govern- 
 ment has to say. And about all we can do here — the Food Ad- 
 ministration, the Committee on Public Information, or any other 
 of these great governmental agencies — the best thing we can do 
 is to put into your hands the material which is necessary for you 
 to have, and leave our speaking campaigns to you in the Chau- 
 tauquas during the summer. The Lyceum is only one agency of 
 many that will be employed during the rest of the year. We have 
 all considered, and I think increasingly — all the men in Wash- 
 ington holding positions of authority — that the morale of the 
 American people will be well kept up by the Chautauqua speak- 
 ers who go from community to community, and that the thing 
 that needs to be done is simply that we give to you and those 
 
 260 
 
COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION 261 
 
 associated with you, those who are not here, that kind of infor- 
 mation. And I am going to leave it, therefore, to my colleague 
 on the Committee, Professor Ford, who has been the editor of 
 all of the Committee's pamphlets and who has done such magnifi- 
 cent work in putting in black and white the material that all of 
 us are using constantly, to tell you how the Committee on Public 
 Information can cooperate with the Lyceum and Chautauqua 
 workers of the country. 
 
THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, COMMITTEE 
 ON PUBLIC INFORMATION 
 
 By Guy Stanton Fokd, 
 Head of the Department 
 
 We have before us the question of studying and holding the 
 morale and the intelligence of this nation, not only in the present 
 crisis, but in the coming crisis, and, fundamentally, this Commit- 
 tee on Public Information, in all that it has done, not only 
 through my division, but through every other division, has gone 
 on the single and sole principle that the soundest basis upon which 
 public morale and public patriotism can be based is full informa- 
 tion. And we have labored for no other purpose in this commit- 
 tee, and in everything that we have put out, than to tell the simple, 
 plain, exact truth ; and wherever in any way we have failed, it is 
 not because every effort has not been made upon our part. 
 
 In my own division, the scholarship of the United States — it is 
 no part of my work; I have not done it — the scholarship of the 
 United States has put itself at my disposal, and has given me 
 the benefit of work such as no other government has had in the 
 preparation of its publications. And the United States govern- 
 ment has done in this field what no other government has done 
 without any instrumentality, without any preparation, without 
 any avenues by which the hundreds of millions of people in the 
 country could be reached through known machinery. The Com- 
 mittee on Public Information had to build up its own machinery, 
 find its own avenues, and create its own media of communication. 
 It had to be organized at once, so the government could pass out 
 any information and study the effect on the nerves of the nation. 
 
 In England the situation was somewhat similar to ours, in a 
 want of preparation, but there instead of its being mainly di- 
 rected, as you know, through government agencies, it was han- 
 dled through some other agency working through some other 
 name. 
 
 The United States Government has come out directly in its 
 own name, and stated its own case, and put it fairly before the 
 people, in the profound conviction that if the country knows, the 
 country will not simply placidly say, "We are in it; we will see 
 
 262 
 
COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION 263 
 
 it through," but that they will say, "We are in it, and we ought 
 to be in it, and we will stay in it until the thing which we have 
 undertaken is done !" 
 
 That is all the Committee on Public Information is here for, 
 and so far as my division i& concerned the pamphlets and books, 
 and material that have been prepared are there at your disposal. 
 It is you who have the opportunity that we here in Washington 
 will not have. Before this summer is over you are going to face 
 situations which you alone can control through the spoken word, 
 for I have no illusions concerning the power of the printed word 
 over the word spoken to audiences. The steady assurance that 
 can come from your lips, as from no other source, is going to 
 carry this country through, I hope, not only with a firm faith in 
 its cause, but with a thorough conviction that the war is being 
 successfully conducted, and with a strong belief in the ultimate 
 purposes of the government and of its officials, and with a firm 
 faith in the righteousness of our cause. 
 
 We have published three series of pamphlets. Some of those 
 have already gone to you. The three series have consisted of the 
 Red, White and Blue Series, the War Information Series, and 
 the new Loyalty Leaflets. These now bring us to a bibliography 
 of something over thirty pamphlets, many of which have gone 
 into various languages. 
 
 We who started this work with no conception of what this 
 thing would grow into printed to begin with 20,000 editions ; but 
 we are now printing editions running up into the millions. And 
 that is our proof to anybody — I do not care whom he may be, 
 what carping critic — that our government is trying to do its work 
 with regard to public information thoroughly. 
 
 And when you have fathers and mothers, soldiers in the 
 camps, citizens from everywhere, writing in and saying, "Let us 
 have this information or that, we want to know more about the 
 American Cause in order that we may meet criticism and answer 
 arguments that may be advanced" — when these come into our 
 office, as they do now, in individual requests of from 20,000 to 
 30,000 a day, and our distribution per month runs into millions, 
 can anybody say there is not a place in the war work for the 
 Committee on Public Information in regard to the preparation of 
 this material? 
 
 If in any way, through you, this material becomes alive 
 through the spoken word, then we shall be very, very happy. We 
 ask you to be prepared with the facts, theories, arguments, to 
 bring the American Cause home to the hearts of the people. 
 Mere emotional appeals are not going to hold us steady, but the 
 facts, when known, will; and the motives and the ideals behind 
 
264. AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 this great conflict will have a potent influence in enlisting the 
 sympathies of the people. The more clearly you can see this 
 crusade, these issues, and all the facts back of them, the better 
 prepared you will be to do what life will never give you another 
 such opportunity to do as long as you live ; and this is your op- 
 portunity, as it is the opportunity of every man who in any way 
 reaches a public audience through the printed word or the spoken 
 word. And so far as we can uphold your hands and help you 
 in any way, we are at your disposal. If you will tell your audi- 
 ences this summer about this material, and tell them that if they 
 are meeting difficulties in answering arguments, here is the ma- 
 terial carefully prepared and distributed practically free, free 
 with the exception of one or two pamphlets, to any citizen of 
 the United States, you will have done for us, for yourselves, and 
 for our common cause some real service. 
 
 fVS 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
WHAT WE MUST DO TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 By Frederick A. Delano, 
 
 Member of the Federal Reserve Board, and l^ ice-Chairman 
 of the War Savings Committee 
 
 I HAVE just come back from a trip in Ohio and Michigan in 
 connection with the Liberty Loan campaign, and I was impressed 
 with a few things. One of them is that in the smaller towns 
 where you get away from the great newspapers and the big meet- 
 ings that stir up people's enthusiasm, there are a great many good 
 folks who really have not an appreciation of what is going on. I 
 am impressed with the truth of the old saying that large bodies 
 r^ove slowly; that in a country of the area of the United States 
 and v'ith a hundred and ten million inhabitants, it is to be ex- 
 pected that it takes a long time to get people aroused to the 
 seriousness of the problem before us. 
 
 In speaking to some of those small communities and calling 
 their attention to the tremendous battle that is now going on, the 
 greatest battle of Christendom, the battle which makes Waterloo 
 and Gettysburg and battles that we used to think were great seem 
 like little skirmishes, I found that the thing that interests people 
 most is drawing to their attention the salient facts for which we 
 are fighting. Others have well expressed many of those facts, 
 and I will not try to repeat them; but when we go back nearly 
 four years to when this European war began and think of the 
 beginnings of it — how it began with the savage demands on little 
 Serbia, a country about the size of the State of Illinois, with a 
 population of four or five million people, who were faced with a 
 demand which no self-respecting people, even if they were small 
 in population and in resources, could accept — I say, when we 
 think of that as the beginning, and then think of the next scene 
 of the drama, the march of the German army across Belgium, 
 when Belgium with her little army of forty-five thousand men 
 threw that army into the breach and said to the great imperial 
 forces of Germany, "You can not cross here!" — and then when 
 we think of the other scenes in that drama, and finally our own 
 entrance into this terrific war, it is beginning, with every week 
 and every month and every year of its development, to mean more 
 
 265 
 
S66 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 to us and we begin to see more truly than ever that we are fight- 
 ing for the principles which our f oi-efathers endeavored to estab- 
 lish in this country, and which, as Mr. Post has truly said, are 
 not final, but are a constant development. Now I say we all 
 realize, those of us who have been close to the problem from the 
 first, that it means a good deal for us who can't do the fighting, 
 for us who have stayed at home — it means that we must do our 
 share. I can't tell you all, but I will endeavor to tell you some 
 of the things that we can do. 
 
 The military men with whom I have talked and of whom I 
 have read seem to agree on one thing: that it is a matter of 
 hurry, hurry, hurry. We have got to get things done. We can 
 not wait and talk about getting the best thing always, but we have 
 got to accomplish something at once. You perhaps remember 
 the semi-humorous aphorism of General Lyon of the Civil War. 
 He was a great Southern cavalry general. He said winning a 
 battle was "getting there firstest with the mostest." Now, if we 
 had been on the other side in large numbers and well equipped 
 when this terrible battle broke, we might have ended this war by 
 now. It looks now as if it might last quite a good while longer, 
 and as though we would have to throw quite a good many more 
 men into the balance. Now, what those of us at home must do is 
 obviously to support the men who are at the front. 
 
 Mr. Hoover has told you how much will be required in the 
 way of saving food. I am interested particularly in the saving 
 of money. The saving of money, of course, is simple when com- 
 pared to the services of men, and the goods that are required on 
 the other side will be supplied. There will be men, although 
 their number is growing smaller and smaller, who will tell you 
 that "business should go on as usual"; that if the X Y and Z 
 department store does not do as big a business as it always did, 
 the proprietors can not make as large a contribution to the Lib- 
 erty Loan campaign as otherwise. Now, we do not expect that 
 if everybody did their utmost in economizing we would stop the 
 whole business of the X Y and Z store, or of any other store. 
 The necessities of life and clothing must be purchased, and the 
 selling will, of course, go on. But I need not tell you that if a 
 hundred people, instead of going into the X Y and Z department 
 store and each spending a hundred dollars, decided to economize 
 and only spent fifty dollars, and contributed the fifty dollars each 
 to the Liberty Loan campaign, there would be a great deal more 
 contributed to the government coffers than would be if the X Y 
 and Z department store simply sent in its profits. 
 
 I feel that the campaign that we are conducting in this coun- 
 try is one of the greatest value, because it is a campaign of edu- 
 
WHAT WE MUST DO TO WIN THE WAR 267 
 
 cation. It is a campaign in which every man and every woman 
 can help and do their part. You know how to reach some people 
 better than any one else does, and that is true of every individual. 
 The President has stated the reasons why we are at war as well 
 as can be stated by anybody, but just because he has stated them 
 so well that does not mean that nobody else should attempt to 
 state these reasons. I believe that it is worth something to the 
 public education that we should each try to understand this 
 problem and each try to state it to our neighbor in as efifective 
 a way as possible. As I said at the beginning, this is a very big 
 country; there are many people here; they are very much scat- 
 tered, and they do not all have the opportunities to meet together 
 in churches and school houses and cold hotel rooms and confer- 
 ences. They have to be reached by personal solicitation. 
 
 In my recent trip in the country west I was impressed by the 
 fact that there are two things that have done an immense amount 
 of good in this country. One is the application of the draft. 
 We often hear how badly some things are done here at the 
 capital. We do not often hear how well other things are done, 
 but I would like to have you just think of this question of the 
 draft, one of the most ingeniously conceived and carried out 
 pieces of work which has ever been accomplished. Suppose, as 
 was done in the latter years of the Civil War, that each state or 
 each state and county had received instructions from Washington 
 to draft one-tenth of its population at a certain age, and suppose 
 they had undertaken to do that? We would have heard all sorts 
 of complaints about unfairness and injustice and favoritism, even 
 if it had been done as well as the local communities could do it. 
 But this draft was not carried out in that way. By the in- 
 genious suggestion of a man or a group of men, everybody was 
 registered by number, and in every little community. And then 
 here in Washington were drawn by lot these numbers so that 
 just as number 256 was the first drawn here in Washington, it 
 was the first drawn for Maine, for Illinois, for Florida, for Idaho 
 — everywhere. There was no chance for anybody to say there 
 was unfairness. That is one of the great things that was carried 
 out all over this country. And in every community, in almost 
 every household, there are relatives of those households who have 
 been taken and drafted into the service of the United States. 
 
 Now, the other great thing that has been done that impressed 
 me is the publicity campaign in connection with this Liberty 
 Loan. I have seen some few communities where they have 
 taken the tax lists and know exactly what every little corpora- 
 tion and big corporation and individual can afford to give, and 
 if they do not "come across," as they say, why, those persons are 
 
268 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 given a yellow card or something to indicate that they are 
 "slackers." Well, that is one way of getting money, but I doubt 
 if that is really the best method. The thing that appeals to me 
 about the way the campaign has been carried out in most places 
 is that there has been an effort on the part of those who are 
 carrying it on to explain the purposes for which we are at war, 
 the reasons, to explain why the government needs this money, 
 what the government is going to do with the money, and why it 
 is necessary for us to economize to support the government. 
 Now, by reason of these things, we are becoming a united coun- 
 try, more united, I believe, in every way than we have ever been 
 before. We are going to come out of this war with a better 
 understanding of the problems that we have before us as a nation. 
 
THE PROBLEMS AND DUTIES OF INDUSTRY 
 IN WAR 
 
 By William C. Redfield, 
 
 Secretary of Commerce 
 
 I AM very glad that the subject is so large, because no one 
 would expect me to cover it all within the limits of a day, much 
 less within the limits of an hour. "The problems of commerce 
 and industry in war" are as numerous as the sands of the sea, the 
 stars in heaven, as varied as the stars are in size and color and 
 movement, as constant as the flowing stream, as regular as 
 the recurring of the seasons. We shall not be able to do more 
 than to look at a few of the underlying principles that lead to 
 these problems and suggest possibly certain ways of solving them. 
 
 First of all I should like to tell you a little, if I may, as to 
 what the Department of Commerce is. Strangely enough in 
 this country we lack means of knowing what our government is — 
 that is, we lack continued means operating regularly so that the 
 average citizen may learn what the vast machine is that he helps 
 create, whose bills he helps to pay, and concerning which he 
 speaks freely in criticism, not always with accurate knowledge 
 of the subject ! 
 
 I did not know myself all or perhaps sufficient as to what the 
 Department of Commerce was when I took charge of it. I re- 
 member certain very strenuous efforts to grasp the idea as 
 promptly as possible. It was the old Department of Commerce 
 and Labor, from which the Department of Labor was split off 
 on the fourth day of March, 1913, and to my great satisfaction, 
 because that department has since developed into a gigantic task, 
 doing through one of its great new services, its employment 
 service, a unique and an important work for the country to-day ; 
 but there remained quite sufficient to cover the round globe, and 
 quite enough for any man to do. 
 
 I think in this presence, I may bear this share of personal 
 testimony, that after something like thirty years spent in fac- 
 tories I never knew what it was to work until this particular 
 thing happened along! This afternoon I have had two calls in 
 the ordinary course of business, one to summon a man from 
 
 269 
 
270 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 New Orleans here that he might be given a problem requiring 
 study in Central America and dispatched there at once, the 
 other a call from one of the military departments to send a man 
 immediately to Japan to look into some manufacturing processes 
 there. That is quite in the day's work. The problems as sudden 
 as these two that I have mentioned — and both entirely unex- 
 pected at luncheon time — are not at all uncommon. 
 
 I should like you to think of an organization with a minimum 
 force of about ten thousand and the maximum force of about 
 fifteen thousand, whose operations cover the whole world, whose 
 men — one man, for example, circumnavigated Africa looking in 
 the native towns around the entire continent to determine the 
 kind of cotton goods the natives wore, their patterns, sizes, 
 prices, sources of supply, and brought home at the end something 
 over five hundred specimens of cotton cloth to be manufactured, 
 we hope, by American mills. Another man, or another group 
 of men, through Siberia and Scandinavia looking into the ques- 
 tion of the lumber supply possible to be had either from those 
 countries for the reconstruction of devastated Europe, or to de- 
 termine to what extent the United States would be called upon 
 to supply the need itself. You must think of other men travel- 
 ing through South America to determine the particular kind of 
 ladies' and men's shoes that the people there desire in order 
 that the American manufacturers may manufacture them; or 
 again, another negotiating with the Bolivian government in order 
 that Bolivian tin ore may be sent to America to be smelted, in- 
 stead of, as heretofore, going across the sea to London, thence 
 to come here. 
 
 I would like to tell you, if I may, of some of the little things 
 that come over the desk occasionally. One Saturday evening, 
 thinking the day's work all but done, preparing, I hoped, for a 
 quiet Sunday, the Acting Prime Minister of Canada was an- 
 nounced to make the modest request that we find him the ma- 
 terial and provide for the manufacture of one hundred and 
 twenty-two million cans of pork and beans, of which he said 
 he wanted fifty million cans by the first of July, and twelve 
 million cans a month thereafter, because it appeared that the 
 Canadian troops did not have it ; they had what they call "bully 
 beef" ; and in the field they had exchanged their cans, with 
 the result that the Tommies found pork and beans palatable and 
 made requisition through the Canadian government for this small 
 order, of which I speak to you. 
 
 It lay in the province of the United States to produce the 
 tin plate and the cans, and that leads perhaps to a suggestion as 
 to how complex commerce is. 
 
DUTIES OF INDUSTRY IN WAR 271 
 
 Let us look at the tomato can for a moment in imagination. 
 It seems relatively a simple thing. Many a vacant lot is un- 
 pleasantly covered or decorated by them. Nevertheless, let us 
 look for a moment at the can. The material, the steel in that 
 can, came from northern Minnesota, in all probability. But it is 
 probable the tin in the can came from Singapore or the Dutch 
 East Indies, or possibly from Bolivia, for we produce no tin 
 in this country. The tin came by the way of London, and in 
 the old days was smelted there. That was not sufficient. One 
 had to send to Africa for the palm oil to use in the manufacture 
 of the tin plate, because it is necessary to cover the plates with 
 palm oil in order to make the tin adhere. So we simply had 
 to go for your ordinary tin can to at least three continents in 
 order to get that commonplace article which we respect so little. 
 So that the simple article of commerce has in it sometimes some- 
 thing of a romantic interest after all. And many a tin can to- 
 day, if it knew its own parentage, would congratulate itself on 
 having escaped the German submarine on the way to its destina- 
 tion port! 
 
 An important part of our work is the great lighthouse serv- 
 ice which reaches completely around the country, providing 
 safety at sea for all who enter our harbors — something over 
 eleven thousand aids to navigation constantly reserved — a fleet 
 of one hundred and twenty vessels, always at work maintaining 
 service, and about six thousand men employed. I should like to 
 talk to you all evening about the lighthouse service and its ro- 
 mance. I should like you to think, if you please, some stormy 
 night — to-night, last night — of the men who are ten miles off shore 
 in lonely places with no one near by to see, with nobody to tell 
 the story of their endurance, with no advertising value visible 
 anywhere, with no inspiration of the touch of a fellow's hand, 
 and no crowd to see, and no one to care. I wonder how you 
 would like being on Bleak Rock Light, off the coast of Oregon. 
 When we built that light we found only sixty days in the year 
 on which you could land on the rock. When you visit it you 
 will be hoisted by a crane in your little motor boat, which is as 
 near as you can come. If the weather is at all rough, you would 
 be hoisted from the deck of the steamer by a crane to the light; 
 and there have been times when the Pacific Ocean has gone clear 
 over the top of the light. I do not mean spray — I mean the 
 Pacific Ocean waves ; and that light is I think one hundred and 
 eighty feet above the surface of the sea. You get a realistic 
 sense of the power of the ocean in that service. We have a light 
 house on the coast of California which is a very low tower, 
 twenty-four feet high on a cliff two hundred feet high. It has 
 
272 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 two times been broken by stones from the beach below thrown 
 up by the waves. 
 
 There are tragedies in the service. I wonder how many of 
 you remember only a few weeks ago the ice carried away the 
 lightship off the coast of Massachusetts. She disappeared — six 
 men with her. Nothing has ever been seen or heard from them 
 since. So, two or three years ago the lightship which is located 
 just off Buffalo on Lake Erie was seen for the last time at one 
 o'clock on a stormy night and never seen again until we found 
 her in sixty feet of water a year or more later. It has its 
 tragedies, its heroisms. I would love to tell you the story of the 
 little ship out in Honolulu that found a British bark three times 
 her size anchored on a lee shore, in a howling gale of wind, so 
 near the breakers that the rudder had been smashed, and how 
 the brave captain and his crew in the steamer Columbine worked 
 fifty-two continuous hours without sleep, in constant danger 
 of their lives every moment, only to bring the big disabled ship 
 safely into the harbor of Honolulu. And I would like even better 
 for you to know that when I wrote them a letter of commenda- 
 tion, because of the captain's modesty, I had definitely to order 
 him to have it framed and put up in his cabin, and the President 
 himself insisted upon writing the captain a letter, and insisted 
 that it be put up in the cabin. We have to write letters of com- 
 mendation for some act of heroism about twice a week to some 
 of the officers of the lighthouse service somewhere. 
 
 I would like you to think of the service as under keen dis- 
 cipHne. One young man not long ago felt sleepy, — one young 
 man who had recently assumed his duties felt sleepy one eve- 
 ning and realized that he was going to fall asleep on duty. The 
 rules required that he should touch the signal button to call 
 the assistant keeper, but he thought it would be but a moment 
 and didn't touch the button. The light was out for sixteen min- 
 utes, and the young man left the service for good and all. It 
 seems that it is the unforgivable offense, when the light is out, 
 even for the shortest time. The discipline is at the least military 
 in its strictness, and men and women have gone through cer- 
 tainly flood, if not German fire, to maintain the burning lights 
 under circumstances of great hardship and peril. 
 
 Then to change over to another service, for I have only 
 told you the barest outline of that one. I would like to go back 
 to the lighthouse service for a moment and tell you of the ship at 
 sea which steamed three hundred miles one year without leav- 
 ing her anchor, which is true. The lightship has a very long 
 chain, nine hundred feet long, and it hangs in a great loop sus- 
 pended by a submerged buoy between the ship and the anchor. 
 
DUTIES OF INDUSTRY IN WAR 273 
 
 and when it blows hard, in order to relieve the strain upon the 
 chain the ship starts her engine and steams up towards her 
 anchor and drifts back, steams up again and drifts back, 
 and one ship off Hatteras steamed three hundred miles that 
 year. 
 
 We had another ship whose anchor was gone and we didn't 
 know when, nor can we say how long the ship lay there held 
 by the nine hundred feet of chain and nothing else. 
 
 And I should like to tell you of the automatic wireless, 
 whereby, in darkness and storm and fog, you can get a signal, 
 "This is Boston light off Cape Cod," and by means of a new 
 direction finder can point to the directions until you reach the 
 point of silence, and then know you are pointing directly to the 
 light; so that coming in the fog, say into Boston^ you pick up 
 that little signal, "This is Cape Cod here," and' you pick up the 
 signal, "This is Cape Ann here," and you pick up the signal, 
 "This is Boston light here," and, having your two pairs of angles, 
 you know precisely where you are as clearly as if it were broad 
 day. There is a scientific side to it, which is very interesting 
 and fascinating, but I haven't time to tell you more than that 
 much. 
 
 I presume that all of you think that the old stories that those 
 of you who are as old as I — a few I see — read when you were 
 boys about shanghaiing and that sort of thing of sailors, is a story 
 of the past, based on the story of J. Fennimore Cooper, a story 
 of Captain Marriott. Oh, no ; it is not. We have to keep vessels 
 watching lest they do it all the time, and in the last three or four 
 years have put three captains into jail for drugging men and 
 taking them off to sea. 
 
 Two years ago twelve crews of oyster boats were landed on 
 the shores of Chesapeake Bay and told by the captains to "get 
 the hell out of here without your wages!" Fortunately, the 
 twelve captains are in jail. In the same way we found a schooner 
 on the Potomac River, I think it was only last winter, in which 
 two seamen were being obliged to sleep on mattresses which lay 
 in six inches of bilge water; and another case where one of our 
 vessels passing by was signaled to by the crew of a schooner, 
 whose captain left and came immediately over to our boat and 
 complained of his crew, — about a mutiny. We went aboard to 
 investigate, and when we got' on board the crew all commenced 
 to take their flannel shirts and pull them off over their heads, — 
 a strange procedure for men to do, — but the object was plain: 
 every man's back was marked with the blows from a wooden 
 club with which the captain had been enforcing discipline, and 
 within a hundred miles of the National Capital! So that there 
 
274 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 is something to be done, and the duty of enforcing the naviga- 
 tion laws is a real one and not altogether a fanciful one. 
 
 It would interest you very much to tell you what the Steam- 
 boat Inspection Service of our Department found on the Ger- 
 man ships when they were damaged. They were very skillfully 
 damaged. In one or two cases a brass pipe was very carefully 
 cut. Into the interior of the pipe a disk of brass was put which 
 just fitted the pipe, and then the pipe was put together again and 
 then carefully braised so that it looked as it did before, but when 
 you came to use the pipe it wouldn't work. And the cylinders of 
 the engines had V-shaped pieces broken out of the big castings 
 that made the cylinders, and there are only a few foundries, 
 either in the United States or Great Britain, that can make as 
 large castings as some of those were, and it was thought that 
 would make that ship somewhat difficult to manage, but some- 
 body, I don't know altogether who, conceived the idea that cast- 
 iron could be welded. It had never been done before but the 
 V-shaped pieces were put back, and a piece of wrought iron laid 
 over the exterior, and by means of the oxyacetyline burner 
 welded into place, and the steamers are running that way now. 
 And it's a rather interesting fact that at least two of them, to 
 my personal knowledge, made higher speed under Yankee officers 
 than they ever did under German ! 
 
 Then I suppose you would hardly think the Bureau of the 
 Census had anything to do with war. Well, the idea of the 
 selective draft originated in the Bureau of the Census, that is, 
 the idea of using the electoral machinery all over the country. 
 It was originally supposed that it might take ninety days to get 
 the registration made. As you recall, it was eventually done in 
 one day by using the regular election machinery which existed 
 all over the country. So, too, that service is at this hour engaged 
 in classifying the men who have sent in the answers to the ques- 
 tionnaire into something like seventy or seventy-two different 
 occupations, and it is making a census of commodities in order 
 that the United States may learn what it has to fight with, which 
 is somewhat of an important bit of information to know. 
 
 Now the Coast and Geodetic Survey is another portion of 
 our work. It does not sound very juicy, but you will find a 
 fine steamer whose headquarters are somewhere off our South 
 Atlantic coast belonging to that service, operating under the 
 Navy to-day, but under the command of Coast Survey officers, 
 and another one in which we take reasonable pride, acting as 
 the flag ship of the three-cruiser squadron located at New York; 
 and I think if you went to General Pershing's headquarters in 
 London, and asked for his chief wireless operator, he would tell 
 
DUTIES OF INDUSTRY IN WAR 275' 
 
 you that he came from the Bureau of Navigation of the Depart- 
 rnent of Commerce, for the Radio Service of the Merchant Ma- 
 rine is under our service, and every operator and every inspector 
 went before the war into the Naval service, and we have had to 
 replace them with an entirely new force since. 
 
 And last of all — we must not make it last because there is 
 one other service — I would like to speak to you about the Bureau 
 of Standards and of the Bureau of Fisheries. Why do you sup- 
 pose it is people don't eat good things when they are hungry? 
 This nation has been more or less hungry in the last year, and yet 
 there is a vast abundance of good food, which everybody else in 
 the world eats and which we always have left in the sea. Within 
 two years the Bureau of Fisheries has put upon the market and 
 sold and had eaten over fifty million pounds, twenty-five thousand 
 tons, of entirely new and unused fishes, abundantly good foods 
 eaten in other lands and not eaten here, but now eaten very 
 largely here, simply not used before because they were not used. 
 There was no reason for it, because they are good, and within 
 the last six months some of you have seen in the papers of the 
 introduction of whale meat. To-day the cook in my own house 
 does not know it was not beef she served for us, but it was 
 whale. She thinks to this hour it was beef, and there is not 
 enough whale meat to be had to meet the demand to-day. It is 
 regularly selling on the Pacific Coast in quantities. We get from 
 three and one-half to five tons of good beef out of a whale ! It 
 is beef in the sense that it is meat, and not fish. It is the flesh of 
 a warm-blooded animal, just as much of a warm-blooded animal 
 as the cow, and an animal which lives in a particularly cleanly 
 place and eats particularly cleanly food, and eats good food ; and 
 I venture to say if you were to have served to you a choice whale 
 steak or roast, there is hardly any one here who would know 
 what they were eating as different from beef But that is not all. 
 We get about three thousand square feet of good leather out of 
 a whale now, and I urge you, ladies, not to look too critically 
 into the origin and history of the long white evening gloves of 
 the future! For I am more than suspicious they will be made 
 from whales' intestines. An excellent variety of kid gloves ! Kid 
 gloves can also be made from the whale's stomach, and from his 
 peritoneum, which I can only describe to you as the place where 
 he would have peritonitis if he had it! The whaling industry, 
 as you know, is the oldest of our industries, or almost the oldest, 
 as old as any except chopping wood. I suppose, nevertheless, it 
 has waited one hundred years — one hundred and fifty years — to 
 make oil, for which we caught whales all this time, a by-product ; 
 for to-day the whaling companies are putting up canneries and 
 
276 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 tanneries, and oil is a less essential part of the product which 
 the whale gives us now. 
 
 One might go on and tell you fish stories, but I think we have 
 had sufficient ! 
 
 But now finally the work of the Bureau of Standards leads me 
 a little more nearly to my subject. This war is a war of science. 
 In that respect it is different from every other war. There is 
 one immediate difference between this contest and all others. 
 It is the war of the scientific man. Stop the laboratories be- 
 hind the armies and you stop your armies quickly. Now, every 
 conceivable kind of a thing is made in those laboratories. In the 
 Bureau of Standards we have a thousand scientific men at work, 
 and women, all the time on war problems of one or another kind. 
 
 I would like you to think of this particular problem. Every 
 battleship or cruiser in the English Navy and in the United States 
 Navy, when the war broke out, had on it binoculars certainly, 
 telescopes certainly, range finders, of course, whose lenses were 
 made in Germany. If three years and one-half ago you had 
 asked to have the lens of a range finder on an American ship of 
 war, or on an English ship of war replaced, to get a new lens, 
 the glass was made in Germany ; it was not made anywhere else. 
 They had made a great specialty of optical glass, as it is called, 
 the finer grades of glass, and you all know the great factories of 
 Germany furnish these specialized goods. If we broke a lens 
 in the American Navy three years ago, we had no place to re- 
 place it. If I had known I was going to talk to you about this, I 
 would have brought a chunk of glass that I keep on my desk 
 to show you. 
 
 Now what does it mean to make optical glass? We make 
 lots of window glass; we make lots of spectacle glass, I mean 
 glass which costs from four to ten dollars a pound to make. 
 When I speak of optical glass, I speak of glass of almost abso- 
 lute purity which will so refract light that looking at large black 
 letters through it you will not see them at all, because they ought 
 to be seen up yonder very far away. It took a year to make the 
 pot, to find the materials in the United States to make the pot in 
 such a way that the materials had not oxidized so that they would 
 color the glass. At the end of the year we had an empty pot. It 
 took another year to find the mixture in which to make the glass, 
 to hunt this country through to find the sand and silica in various 
 forms — and other chemicals necessary, which were pure, or, if 
 not pure, to learn how to cleanse them. At the end of two years 
 we knew what to put in the pot ; then it took six months or more 
 to learn how to treat it. At the end of two and one-half years 
 we had some very good glass. 
 
DUTIES OF INDUSTRY IN WAR 277 
 
 Now we have — and I am speaking of our own work now 
 carried on at Pittsburgh — now we have eight pots, one thousand 
 pounds each, running continuously, and are producing, as is a 
 large factory in private hands with our assistance there, and an- 
 other in Rochester — are producing as fine a grade of optical glass 
 as is made anywhere in the world. In that respect we were 
 wholly dependent. That dependence has gone. 
 
 We found when we entered the war some of our soldiers 
 would certainly be blinded, but we had no means of making arti- 
 ficial eyes for them, because the glass from which artificial eyes 
 were made was made wholly in Germany, and one of the prob- 
 lems we have recently solved is to make the peculiar yellowish 
 green glass that is the exact color of the human eyeball. That 
 has been met and solved also. 
 
 There are many problems of the kind, and one of the things 
 the war has taught us is that it is not always economical to buy 
 in the cheapest market, if that means national dependence upon 
 a source which may become unfriendly. Those who went through 
 what the textile industries of this country went through for lack 
 of dyes two years ago will be very hesitant in the future to buy 
 in the cheapest market without thinking whether it will stay the 
 cheapest market. Fortunately there are now several hundred 
 millions of dollars behind the American dyestufif industry. In 
 that respect also we are now independent of Germany. 
 
 The war brings other industrial problems with it. Aero- 
 planes are covered in Europe with linen, a light brown, thin, 
 strong linen cloth, and we bought some of it and have used some 
 of it; but we cannot get more, and there is no linen industry in 
 the United States. We raise flax for making linseed oil ; we do 
 not raise flax to make linen. It is a different kind of a flax, and 
 it is treated in a different way. What shall we do to cover our 
 aeroplanes? We are going to cover ours with a cloth made of 
 cotton. We have cotton— plenty of it; not the ordinary cotton, 
 but we use a grade of cotton that grows in the Imperial Valley 
 of California and elsewhere, and out of that we have devised a 
 cotton fabric which has stood every test, is at least as strong as 
 linen, is a good deal cheaper, and is wholly of American manu- 
 facture. 
 
 So also the war brings problems concerning tires. The tires 
 which you use in your several limousines is not the kind of a 
 tire that you put under a ten-ton truck, and yet a tire must be 
 made which will carry, if possible, a heavy load, not on bad roads, 
 but where there aren't any roads. And so it becomes necessary 
 to devise a new cotton fabric; and then it becomes necessary 
 
278 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 for us to put in a rubber mill in order to devise, or to help the 
 industry devise if we can, ways of making the rubber and the 
 fabric cohere so as to make the best possible tires. 
 
 It might interest you to know that, experimentally, not as 
 laboratory apparatus, we have to run a paper mill, a rubber mill, 
 a stone yard and a bronze foundry, and are putting in a textile 
 mill and a rolling mill, and eventually we hope to have working 
 units of each of the large industries of the country in order that 
 we may be able to solve for them the problems which arise in 
 these industries. 
 
 May I speak of just one of these problems as an illustration 
 of what it means? Suppose I asked each of you to bring me a 
 piece of something that was red. Would they be alike when I 
 got them? No, because you differ in your views as to what red 
 is and your eyes are not alike ; you do not see red the same way. 
 Now what are we going to do in an industry like the dye in- 
 dustry or the lithographic industry for lack of a standard color? 
 What is red, anyhow? Nobody knows. There is only one red 
 that everybody would agree is red, they would have to agree is 
 red — that is the red of the solar spectrum^ Now, big industries 
 depend upon that. For instance, all cotton oil is sold on the 
 basis of color. A good deal of butter has a marked relation to 
 color. The dairy industry is affected by it, printers' ink is af- 
 fected by it, the dyeing industry, the lithographic industry, every 
 industry that uses color is affected by it. Yet there was no 
 standard color. Now it happens the cotton oil industry did the 
 best it could a few months ago, and got the colored glasses which 
 \Aere made to give standard shades of yellow. Later they got 
 another set of those colored glasses. When they happened to 
 p'lt the two sets together they were not alike. There was not 
 any standard. So they came to the Bureau of Standards to help 
 that problem out. I think I am correct in saying that it took 
 nearly two years in the first place to teach the men to do the 
 work, that it took nearly or quite two years then to devise the 
 special instruments which the work was found to require, that 
 then it took another year at least to do the work, but at the end 
 of five years we had a little glass vial that can be put in the 
 salesman's pocket, which had a definite relation to the solar spec- 
 trum, and which nobody could say did not, because all they had 
 to do was to put a prism in the window and let the sun shine 
 light through it and see for themselves. And thus we had made 
 a standard of that color which was absolutely incontestable any- 
 where, and from which there was no appeal until the solar spec- 
 trum some day shall change. 
 
 And so in that way one can pass on into all the shades of 
 
DUTIES OF INDUSTRY IN WAR 279 
 
 color and make definite standard colors from them which no one 
 can contest. 
 
 But what, if you please, about color and light that no one 
 can see? That is one of the things with which in recent months 
 we have had something to do. Your eyes are very wonderful 
 instruments indeed. Remarkable instruments, but they are 
 neither extremely delicate nor extremely powerful. They aver- 
 age well, but there are light rays that you cannot see, not because 
 they are not light rays, but because your eyes and mine are not 
 fitted to see certain rays of light, which are known as the ultra 
 violet rays. They are rays of light, sure enough. If I had an 
 instrument here to produce them, and should put out all this 
 garish light (indicating lights in the hall), you would not see 
 anything very much; but if I stood and looked at you here and 
 asked you to smile, while there would be no light in the room 
 and it would be black dark, your teeth would shine with a pe- 
 culiar quality, for they have the peculiar quality of fluorescence, 
 and anything that is fluorescent has the quality of shining under 
 these violet rays. Now, that is a very astounding and interest- 
 ing truth of science, and one which is most fascinating. Sup- 
 pose I wished to signal by a light at a thousand yards, and have 
 here on the table some little apparatus emitting the ultra violet 
 rays, the street might be crowded on a dark night, and not a 
 single person see those rays, but yonder a thousand yards away 
 is a man with something in his hand which will fluoresce, and 
 all he has to do is to turn it in the right direction, and those rays 
 will light that thing up and yet nobody can see the rays ; nobody 
 on the street will know anything about the rays. They are in- 
 visible to the human eye until you strike the peculiar substance 
 which has the character of fluorescence. The possibilities of 
 such a thing in the way of signaling I am sure will appeal to 
 your imagination immediately. 
 
 These are just some of the more obvious works of science 
 which are going on in connection with this war. 
 
 But then this is not my subject. I am only leading up, too 
 slowly you think, to the problems of industry. Perhaps you 
 will see that one of the problems of industry is the art of 
 making entirely new things rather suddenly when the time 
 comes, the art of adjusting yourself very quickly to new and 
 entirely unforeseen conditions, as, for example, in making leather 
 from the hide of the shark. We have been producing leather for 
 some months now from the skins of fishes, and Mr. Shark is 
 really becoming a very useful member of society. A contract 
 has recently been made — or an arrangement has recently been 
 made with a man in Honolulu, to furnish four hundred shark 
 
280 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 skins a week, for the purpose of making leather out of them. 
 I never thought as well of the shark as I now do ! I am told by 
 my department people that they have in preparation a pair of 
 shoes for me out of shark skin, and I have in my hand a pair 
 of shoes for a small boy which he had worn three weeks, made 
 from shark skin, and which, wonderful to relate, he had not 
 been able to stub through at the toe ! A very excellent grade of 
 morocco leather has been made from the skin of the dog fish, 
 and also from the skin of shark, and in the whale hide we get 
 a leather which has the peculiar quality of resiliency, which will 
 stretch out and retract like rubber. 
 
 The truth is, ladies and gentlemen, this war has shocked us 
 out of a lot of placidity which was not healthy. We were a 
 good deal better pleased with ourselves than we had any business 
 to be, and there is one side of this whole thing, bought and paid 
 for at a fearful price maybe, which is going to be helpful and 
 strengthening to the country. There is no possible question 
 about that. 
 
 We will have to hunt America over to get enough more mag- 
 nesia to keep our steel industry going, which now requires much 
 more than we have had before. We still go to Brazil for mag- 
 nesia just as we go to Africa for oil, because while the good 
 Lord gave us most things. He did not give us everything in the 
 United States. We still have to get a few things somewhere 
 else, which is perhaps good for our conceit. 
 
 But now to get at the problems which face you and me and 
 mine; as we look at this war I am sure you will see, in the 
 first place, that these new conditions are wholly novel, and ad- 
 justments have got to be made to something that never hap- 
 pened before. 
 
 In the first place, you buy goods, and you can not get them 
 shipped to you. In the next place, you ship goods and you can 
 not get them delivered. You want goods from abroad, and the 
 government will not let you get them. You want to send goods 
 abroad, and the government will not let you forward them. You 
 want to run overtime, but you can not get coal. And in a hun- 
 dred ways novel things come to pass. You go down to your 
 factory one morning, and the shop next door has been comman- 
 deered. You have been making fine jewelry, and you are in- 
 vited to make fuses, and everything is strange and novel. The 
 law steps into your working affairs, and takes some of your 
 younger men. You have a competent chemist or engineer — he 
 finds employment in the Signal Corps or the Ordnance Bureau. 
 The whole thing, human and mechanical and financial, is al- 
 tered. You have laid up some money for a rainy day, and a 
 
DUTIES OF INDUSTRY IN WAR 281 
 
 man comes around who asks you to buy Liberty bonds. You 
 have laid something aside for an allowance for your daughter 
 and are requested to put it into war savings stamps. Everything 
 is new and strange — not humorous at all, sometimes very far 
 from it ; and the only way to face these problems with any certi- 
 tude is to find out first what it is all about, and second what the 
 situation requires in order to make an adjustment, because we 
 are all of us unconsciously readjusting ourselves every day to 
 something or other. 
 
 You are here, I take it, as lecturers to get readjusted to the 
 conditions as they are. Now, the readjustments this war re- 
 quires are based upon, first, what th- war is, and, second, upon 
 what it is all about, and the demands it makes. 
 
 Now, then, I think we can get at the philosophy of action 
 anyhow, if we can reduce it to absolute practice here to-night. 
 The war is a thing which demands all the power of the nation. 
 Now, let us get that clear, because it is not clear to a lot of 
 people. The war demands all the power of the nation — man 
 power, money power, woman power, boy power, girl power, re- 
 sources, water power, steam power, every kind of power of this 
 nation is called for — ^brain power, and last and greatest of all, 
 spiritual power — is called for in this war. 
 
 The Germans have a hideous phrase, "The will to power." 
 America says to its people, "You have the power to will, and we 
 wish you to will to use all your power." Now, that is absolutely 
 fundamental, and goes to the root of my problem. If you are 
 running a factory or running an industry it is not a question 
 whether you ought to readjust yourself to the war in part or 
 whether you ought to continue as you were before. The question 
 is this : "The nation needs all its power. How shall I turn that 
 share of national power that is in my possession or control to 
 help the nation ?" Your problem is half solved when you realize 
 what it is you have got to solve. We must do — you and I — all 
 we can, not a part of what we can. 
 
 Now, for example, to get an illustration of the two kinds. 
 I have a friend, a rich man, of large income, and this is the 
 way he uses it; taking his annual income, he put fifty thousand 
 dollars, and then another fifty thousand dollars, into Liberty 
 bonds ; then gave twenty-five thousand dollars to the Red Cross ; 
 then eight thousand dollars to the Knights of Columbus ; then ten 
 thousand dollars to one or another miHtary organization. Then 
 he said he had pretty much used up his annual income, and he 
 and his wife made up their minds that they started poor, so they 
 might just as well live poor. This year he agreed to get along 
 with one suit of clothes, and his wife agreed to get along with 
 
282 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 one dress. That is pretty nearly what is meant by all of one's 
 power. 
 
 Incidentally, his factory was running on government work. 
 That man took all his income, except what he absolutely needed 
 to get himself one suit of clothes and his wife one dress, and to 
 keep themselves going in a simple way. He did not run his 
 automobile ; he let that go. That was his conception of using "all 
 his power." 
 
 On the other hand, I know of a young woman, a nice girl, 
 who has had four new dresses this spring. She is a working girl. 
 It has not reached her yet. She does not have to use her earn- 
 ings to support herself wholly, and the conception of using "all 
 her power" hasn't come home ; so she had four, perhaps more, 
 certainly four, new dresses. She has not reached the ideal. It 
 has not yet gotten home to her that perhaps some of that shouldn't 
 have been spent upon herself. 
 
 Don't you see — don't you see — ladies and gentlemen, that if 
 "E pluribus unum" is a phrase, and only a phrase, we shall need 
 to say, "God help us !" 
 
 The only way in the world we can be sure that we can say 
 with certainty, "God bless us," is when "E pluribus unum" be- 
 comes a fact as well as a phrase. We cannot put it more con- 
 cisely, I think, than that. Are we "one out of many," or are we 
 not? If we are, there is no national power in all this planet 
 equal to that of America ; none, none whatever. But if it is 
 only a phrase, and we are not "one out of many," but still a lot 
 of disintegrated parts, an incoherent, non-cohesive aggregation 
 of people — if that is all we are, then America may not be able 
 to control her own destinies. Now, you see, that is what it comes 
 to. All the nation's power means certitude in this matter. It 
 means certitude, but anything less than that means uncertitude by 
 the degree by which it is less, and if you and I do continue in the 
 old, old way, to have the things, innocent in themselves and 
 proper, but which we can get along without, now, just to the ex- 
 tent we do so, we change certitude into uncertitude. Now, that 
 is plain, but it is the Lord's truth. 
 
 Now, that is the philosophy back of us, the philosophy of 
 sacrifice, the philosophy of using all our power. That means 
 power of speech, I think; it means power of temperate speech, 
 because I have the idea that the moment speech becomes intem- 
 perate it loses its power. It means power of influence. Why, do 
 you know there are working colored women in this town of 
 Washington, poor working women, who never dreamed of be- 
 coming investors, who are paying painfully a dollar and two 
 dollars a month for a Liberty bond, out of a spirit as fine as the 
 
DUTIES OF INDUSTRY IN WAR 283 
 
 widow when she gave her mite in the Temple. Now, if we 
 could do that all through America, if that spirit is alive from 
 San Diego to Bangor, then America is saved, no matter what it 
 may cost, nor how long it will last. You can help keep that spirit 
 alive, keep America using all her power, personally, financially, 
 mentaUy, morally, physically, keeping it used steadily. 
 
 This is the biggest test we have ever had, the biggest test. I 
 anj going to get to that in a minute. It is a different sort of a 
 test from any other. Can a democracy stand the test long, for a 
 purely ideahstic cause? Can the appeal of a spiritual fight be 
 deep enough to hold us to the line steadily to the end? Those 
 are the questions America has got to answer. I am perfectly 
 confident what the answer will be, because my judgment of 
 America is that she could not be held to a material line, and that 
 she could not be held to a political line, but she can be held to a 
 spiritual hne if our people hold her to it. 
 
 Then the problem in industry, in your shop, comes to this : 
 Shall I continue making what I am making? If I do, can it be 
 used for war purposes ? If I do not, what can I make that will 
 suit war purposes ? I said to a man making maps the other day — 
 he asked me what he ought to do — I said to him, "This is your 
 problem. You are bound because of your appreciation of the 
 situation; this is your problem, to do your share of the work. 
 Very good. Write to the War Department, write to the Navy 
 Department, tell them you are a map maker, that you have such 
 and such facilities, and ask whether they want to use them. If 
 they do, your problem is solved. If they do not, write to the 
 Red Cross, write to everybody else of that kind you can think 
 of, and ask them if they want to use your plant. Is the Treasury 
 Department getting out a new Liberty Loan? Can you make 
 posters? Write and tell them you can. You yourself get busy 
 with the war job, and see to it you leave nothing undone to let 
 it be known what you can do, and when and how. When you 
 have done it all, all and not a part of it, but all you can do, then 
 so long as you can, if they do not want you, run along on your 
 own way; but remember that your earnings now, save for nec- 
 essary living expenses, ought to go to help your country through 
 with that part of its financial power. Remember now to encour- 
 age your wage-working people, not discourage them. They are 
 doing a lot more than they had to do before, for what it costs 
 them to live. P'ay them enough, not merely to keep body and 
 soul together, and clothed, but pay them enough to do their share 
 of helping the financial power along too. And when you and 
 your men and women are all of you — all of you — contributing 
 all you can to the nation's power, you need not have your con- 
 
284 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 science worried any more, because what is left in the way of 
 excess profits the Treasury will take anyway !" 
 
 But, after all, the way in which you and I are going to deal 
 with these industrial problems, and they are very serious, will 
 depend wholly upon the idea inside of our heads as to what 
 the war is to be, how we look at it. In the last few weeks I 
 have had a very unusual experience. We sent out twenty-five 
 thousand letters to business men in this country, asking them to 
 write their business letters with a "Win the war" spirit. The 
 circular was headed, "Win the War Spirit in Business Letters." 
 I wish you could see the answers. They have been most inspir- 
 ing, and they came from all over the land by every mail. 
 
 There has been just one kicker, a man who did not get some- 
 thing he wanted, who announces that he's going to vote against 
 the Administration the next election. There is one man — just 
 one man — who made a vague complaint of something that he 
 wanted straightened out, and we wrote back for particulars, and 
 told him we would straighten it. But with these exceptions 
 every single letter was full of a perfectly splendid spirit, and 
 business and professional men are going out of their way to 
 boost in their business correspondence to help the country 
 through. It has been a most inspiring and delightful experience. 
 So the ordinary operations of the business office can be made a 
 way of helping the cause along. 
 
 That leads to this thought, that these problems of industry, 
 problems of commerce, multitudinous and troublesome as they 
 are, can only be solved with satisfaction if we have a clear un- 
 derstanding of the great causes that lie deep behind this thing. 
 And there let me close with a few words on that theme, because 
 it is vital and essential to the whole subject. 
 
 If you had crossed from the American ranks to the English 
 ranks at the battle of Bunker Hill, if the battle could have been 
 suspended so that you could have gone over and talked with the 
 enemy, you would have found that every one of the great simple 
 things of life, the basic things, the accepted things, were to him 
 what they were to you — home meant the same to the enemy that 
 it meant to you, and freedom meant the same thing to an Eng- 
 lishman, and government meant the same thing, and humanity 
 meant the same thing, and "honor thy father and thy mother" 
 was as much believed in by an English soldier as by an American. 
 If you had crossed in the midst of the battle of Gettysburg from 
 Meade's lines over to Lee's lines and talked with the Confederate 
 soldiers, you would have found the same thing too. Everything 
 basic and fundamental was accepted by them. Those were po- 
 
DUTIES OF INDUSTRY IN WAR 285 
 
 litical struggles. Now, if you cross from the lines of the Eng- 
 lish army, of the American army, to-day, over into the German 
 army and talk with the German soldiers, you will find something 
 very different, something altogether different. Within the ranks 
 of the Kaiser and the ranks of the Allied forces, there is an es- 
 sential difference, which was not there in the Revolutionary War, 
 and which was not there in the Civil War, in this country. The 
 great basic conceptions are different, and the more and more we 
 think of these essential differences, the more we see that here are 
 two great contending forces, each intolerable to the other, one of 
 which must survive and the other of which must die, for the 
 two can not live together on this earth. 
 
 The German philosophy is a philosophy which starts from 
 the top, from an assumed intimacy with the Godhead, and works 
 down to the bottom, imposing authority at every step upon the 
 men and the women beneath. It is a weight imposed from above 
 by autocracy upon the people beneath. Its high mandate is the 
 word, "Verboten" — "forbidden." It is all over the Empire, and 
 the state in Germany has no morals and no law save might. The 
 whole philosophy of life is a perfectly cold, dead spirit of evolu- 
 tion, a cosmic process, as they say, in which are no moral values 
 at all. No laws are binding upon the state, save the laws of 
 force and of power, and the whole conception of the community 
 at large is expressed in the phrase, "The will to power." That 
 is the exact reverse of everything that we believe. You go 
 back home, and if you think of it, the home is the foundation of 
 our state, and all that there is of county or town or state or gov- 
 ernment has, in its analysis, its relation to protecting the home. 
 The head of our nation does not impose his will upon the people 
 beneath, but only does righteously when he acts according to 
 their will ; for we say the process is upward, not downward, and 
 power is based upon the man and the woman in the home, and 
 grows out of their consent and action to the top. 
 
 The other process is the reverse. One is a living growth up- 
 ward like every plant and tree and human soul ; the other is a 
 weight crushing downward, and the two together can not exist 
 side by side. 
 
 It is just as true of a philosophy as it is of a religion that "by 
 their fruits ye shall know them." The fruit of Germany philos- 
 ophy has been sowed and reaped in Belgium and in France. We 
 have a right to say that these things which are thus done and 
 are not objected to, which are esteemed to be right if done in 
 the name of the state and for the perfection of German power, 
 are the normal result of the German philosophy, taken at its 
 worst, and when it is free to act. And we have therefore a 
 
286 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 philosophy which works itself out in the deliberateness of the 
 German commander in Poland. "Starvation is here," said he, 
 "and being here, we propose to use it, in order that we may re- 
 move these people, so that we may replace them in time with Ger- 
 mans." Conceive what your idea of starvation would be in a dis- 
 trict near you, a district which was perhaps uninhabited by any- 
 body whom you hold in high personal esteem or regard. You 
 would give freely of money, effort, struggle to relieve that starva- 
 tion. Reducing your antagonists through starvation, you do not 
 regard that as a legitimate use of power. It is abhorrent to you 
 and to me, and America, because of her standards. 
 
 Here are two antagonistic forces, one cold, deadly, unmoral, 
 if not deliberately and openly weak and devilish. If "by their 
 fruits we may know them," then it is pure deviltry set free with 
 power behind it. On the other side is a great nation deliberately 
 organized so that the individual man and woman shall have his 
 chance and her chance in the world. The whole state exists for 
 its people, not the people existing for the state, and we here still 
 believe that it is right to tell the truth ; and that gentleness is not 
 weakness ; and that sympathy is not silliness ; and we still beheve 
 that the man who would give a helping hand to a suffering neigh- 
 bor may be brave enough to die to protect the child, if need be. 
 Whereas, in the German thought that sort of thing is an essen- 
 tial exhibition of weakness, the "sign of weakness," they speak 
 of. They say in their own philosophy, "Weakness is the most 
 despicable of sins." We yet believe that to lift up the fallen and 
 the weak is one of the fine exhibitions of human character. 
 
 This is the essential difference, roughly and crudely, between 
 the two sides in this great war. If I have had an ability to make 
 it clear to you, it is this that I want you to see — that this is a 
 spiritual struggle ; it is a fight against the devil as truly as when 
 you and I resist our own passions and temptations to do wrong. 
 It is a fight of the spirit of men and the spirit of God, and if we 
 grasp the essential spiritual values of it all, certain great phrases 
 come back to us with a new light out of the old Book. We begin 
 to know why the Jews always spoke of the Almighty as the 
 Lord of Hosts. We understand the horror with which the old 
 Hebrew looked out upon the world of wickedness around him and 
 see how he could make his God say, "Vengeance is mine; I will 
 repay, saith the Lord of Hosts." These old spiritual concep- 
 tions, thank God, are coming back to us, not in any phrase or 
 creed or form! But something has happened, ladies and gentle- 
 men, something that you and I never saw before, to make the 
 Mohammedans and the Greeks, the Christians, the Roman Cath- 
 
DUTIES OF INDUSTRY IN WAR 387 
 
 olics and the Protestants, the Hindoos and the Confucianists, 
 and the Shintoists and the Buddhists all die side by side on the 
 same field of battle. 
 
 How is it that the Mohammedan of Morocco and the Indian 
 of Siam are fighting in the same trench, and with EngHsh armies 
 and with Buddhist armies, and with the Shintoists from Japan 
 in the fight too? How is it that the things that have separated 
 men all these long centuries through are now uniting men so that 
 side by side the African negro from the dark continent, the cul- 
 tured Frenchman from Paris, the Englishman and the Scotch- 
 man, the Portuguese and the Greek, the Italian, the Serbian, men 
 of all different races and conditions and colors are dying to- 
 gether side by side on the one field of battle ? Here is something, 
 if you please, beyond the accustomed, accepted values, beyond all 
 political values, something which we wholly fail to grasp, if we 
 speak of it in terms that are commonly used to measure stand- 
 ards and values between men and nations ; something beyond the 
 sobering influences that have held men together in the past, some- 
 thing that must be the universal uprising of the human conscience 
 against wrong. 
 
 Now, if we get that conception, can you not see how it runs 
 like a solvent through all our problems and difficulties? If this 
 is a simple question of right and wrong, how clear many things 
 become which otherwise are perplexing ! With a clear conscience 
 we can make this sacrifice; it is right. With a clear conscience 
 we can not make the selfish expenditure; it is wrong. Our 
 country stands at the head of a spiritual power, and we can call 
 the blessing of the Almighty upon our work when we seek in all 
 humility and without irreverence to do His will, as we see it. 
 We claim no tribal god in America. We are quite content to 
 worship the same God that the African and the Asiatic wor- 
 ship. They may call him by different names from that, but it is 
 the same Father of us all. We claim no special rights in His 
 presence. It is only the Kaiser that makes such claims as that ! 
 But as the good Book tells us to walk humbly with our God, so 
 we do, speaking the truth as we see it. 
 
 And so our boys go, oh — not quite in the spirit of militarism — 
 no. You remember how the Knights of the Round Table went 
 out to battle, in every case to redeem the oppressed, and undo a 
 wrong, and you remember the spirit in which the poet writes of 
 them, "The Holy Grail with them went to a spiritual contest and 
 a spiritual struggle." You remember the Shakespeare line, "If 
 thou dieth, thou dieth a blessed creature." There is that spirit 
 behind America ; there is that spirit abroad in the land. 
 
 I beg of you, make these truths clear to all people everywhere 
 
288 AGENCIES WORKING TO WIN THE WAR 
 
 you go. They are all haters of evil everywhere in America, and 
 it is evil we fight, not merely a government, not merely an army ; 
 we wrestle not with flesh and blood so much as with the spirit of 
 evil in high places. 
 
V: EDUCATION AND GENERAL WEL- 
 FARE DURING THE WAR AND 
 AFTER 
 
V: EDUCATION AND GENERAL WEL- 
 FARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 EDUCATION DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 By Geokge D. Steayer, 
 
 Professor of Educational Administration, Teachers' College, 
 
 Columbia University, Chairman Joint Commission on 
 
 Education, National Education Association 
 
 My topic is announced as "Education During and After the 
 War." The best way to begin any consideration of the problem 
 is to ask what the countries that have been at war the longest 
 have done about it. In England the tendency was in the begin- 
 ning to neglect education. There was laxity in the administra- 
 tion of the compulsory education law. There was a tendency to 
 expect that boys and girls could do their part to win the war by 
 neglecting education. They were allowed to go into factories 
 and on to farms to work. As a result of this policy and of 
 other conditions, there was an alarming increase in juvenile de- 
 linquency. As each successive year of the war passed, the delin- 
 quency of boys and girls of school age increased. But England 
 woke up ; the situation changed. A Parliamentary committee was 
 appointed and a report issued. A bill which is known as the 
 Fisher Bill was presented to Parliament. 
 
 In the report and in the provisions of the bill there is a recog- 
 nition of the necessity for increasing the period of compulsory 
 education. Whereas formerly boys and girls could, under certain 
 conditions, go to work at eleven years of age, they are compelled 
 under the provisions of the Fisher Bill to remain in school until 
 fourteen, and to work in continuation schools until eighteen. 
 
 Possibly the most significant item in the Fisher Bill is the 
 provision for continuation schools. Boys and girls who go to 
 work at fourteen must, according to the requirements provided 
 by this bill, attend school during daylight hours for eight hours a 
 week during the regular school term. Nor is it intended simply 
 
 291 
 
292 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 to supplement their industrial or commercial experience in these 
 schools. It is provided, rather, that training in citizenship and 
 training for leisure time shall be offered. Work in English liter- 
 ature, in music, and the like, are advocated. It is proposed, as 
 well, in the report vi^hich was submitted to differentiate types of 
 instruction given in continuation schools. For the abler group — 
 those who may be expected to become the noncommissioned offi- 
 cers of industry — a type of training involving some command of 
 the theory lying back of the processes is proposed. For a second 
 group a better understanding and more achievement in the skills 
 which are required in the higher types of work is provided ; while 
 still another type of training is offered for those who are to do 
 the unskilled work. 
 
 The clear recognition that democracy will be sound only if 
 all of the people are taught the history of their country or given 
 an opportunity to understand its institutions, are trained in the 
 ideals which characterize their group, and are given an opportu- 
 nity to enjoy in their free time the nobler sorts of reaction, is 
 the conviction which apparently prevails in England. It is most 
 interesting to know, as well, that there are Englishmen who be- 
 lieve that the success of their country depends upon the con- 
 servation of mentality, even to the point of providing mainte- 
 nance for boys and girls in secondary schools when their parents 
 cannot support them. The war will have done much for England 
 if out of it there grows this recognition of the necessity for pro- 
 viding education in terms of the varying capacities and abilities 
 of boys and girls and of making this education available regard- 
 less of the economic status of the family from which the chil- 
 dren come. 
 
 In this country we have tended to repeat the experience of 
 England. It has been proposed in all seriousness that we repeal 
 our child labor legislation, that we close schools early, and that 
 boys and girls be put to work because of the war emergency. 
 There has actually been a falling off in many of our high schools. 
 Boys have felt the obligation to work, even though in many in- 
 stances they might have served their country best by continuing 
 in school and preparing for the higher technical work which is 
 so much demanded. Last winter when there was a shortage of 
 coal, it was quite common to suggest that schools be closed. In 
 many communities schools were closed for from one to six weeks. 
 I submit that from the standpoint of winning the war and from 
 the standpoint of democracy it would have been better to close the 
 saloons. Many other industries engaged in the production of 
 non-essentials might better have been closed than to turn chil- 
 dren out of school. Let us hope that this next winter when we 
 
EDUCATION DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 may again face this emergency, there will be a public opinion es- 
 tablished which will require that all schools be kept open. 
 
 We are awakening in this country to a better realization of 
 our national needs, and are coming to appreciate the deficiencies 
 in our public school system. Before the war we knew, all of us, 
 of the situation which permitted boys and girls to be taught in 
 some tongue other than English. There are even now tens of 
 thousands of American boys and girls born in this country and 
 expecting to live here all their lives who are being taught in Ger- 
 man, in Polish, in French, in Swedish, or some other foreign 
 tongue. I believe that the time is rapidly approaching when we 
 will recognize the danger of this propaganda in our schools. 
 Teaching in the foreign tongue can result in nothing less than an 
 attempt to hand on to American boys and girls the traditions and 
 ideals of the country, the language of which is used as the instru- 
 ment of instruction. We cannot hope to hand on our ideals and 
 our traditions, or to develop the right sort of American citizens 
 in a school taught in a foreign tongue. The social inheritance 
 which we seek to transmit to American boys and girl's can be 
 understood and become a controlling factor in their thinking only 
 when it is transmitted in English. I confidently believe that 
 within another year every state in the Union will require that 
 instruction in the common branches be given in English only. I 
 believe, as well, that if the individual states do not act, the na- 
 tion must act for the welfare of us all. 
 
 There is another emergency situation which we have to face 
 which has become acute on account of the war. We have come 
 to realize that we have depended for the development of our 
 American democracy upon a teaching corps which is inadequately 
 prepared for the work which it has to do. You may wonder 
 that I stand here, a representative of that profession, and make 
 such a confession. You will not wonder about it so much, pos- 
 sibly, when I tell you that all of us who belong to the profession 
 have realized for a long time that a large proportion of those who 
 teach do not belong to the profession. The difficulty is not with 
 the teaching profession. The difficulty is, rather, with the public 
 that has been willing to accept for our schools those who are not 
 properly trained as teachers. I am informed, upon authority 
 which is entirely creditable, that there are to-day in American 
 schools five million boys and girls being taught by boy and girl 
 teachers who have less than a high school education. Now that 
 is an alarming situation, not simply from the standpoint of the 
 profession which I represent, but also from the standpoint of 
 the democracy which you and I represent. If we are to develop 
 a democracy which is to persist, if we are to lead among the 
 
294 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 democracies of the world in the achievement of those ideals which 
 President Wilson has placed before us, it will be because we have 
 replaced the boy and girl teachers with men and women trained 
 for that profession which is most important in democracy. These 
 men and women will be masters of the knowledge which they 
 are to teach. They will be mature, professional, skillful, able 
 to occupy positions of leadership in the communities in which 
 they are at work. They will be men and women of high ideals 
 and of deep appreciation of our institutions. 
 
 We cannot, of course, expect to get men and women of this 
 sort to teach the children in our schools unless we realize the 
 seriousness of the situation, and unless the American people, with 
 this situation clearly before them, are willing not only to demand 
 more training for teachers, but also to pay more for the work 
 which is done. It is not enough to talk about the ideals of 
 service which actuate those who teach. I take it that no pro- 
 fessional man continues in his field of work without such con- 
 trolHng motives. These ideals of service will not, however, pay 
 the bills that teachers have to pay. Under existing circum- 
 stances it is not possible to go into colleges and universities and 
 pick the finest men and women there are in order to give them 
 professional training in the field of teaching. We cannot hope to 
 attract the ablest men and women unless we are willing to pay 
 very much more in teachers' salaries. I look forward to an in- 
 crease from fifty to one hundred per cent, in the salaries paid to 
 teachers because of the recognition of our failure in the past to 
 provide men and women adequately trained in this field. The sit- 
 uation at the present time is even more acute than it was before 
 the war began. Many of our capable teachers have gone into 
 government service. Still others have been attracted by the 
 higher pay offered in other fields. There is at the present time 
 an alarming shortage of teachers, and unless more money is 
 paid and more training demanded, our schools will be even less 
 well taught than they have been in the past. 
 
 I wish I could make you appreciate the danger to our demo- 
 cratic institutions that this involves. The draft has revealed to 
 us the necessity for more careful provision for the physical wel- 
 fare of our population. In most school systems in which medi- 
 cal inspection has been introduced to date, it has amounted to 
 little more than inspection. A record has been written upon 
 a card, and in due time that card has been taken out of the 
 file and another examination made, only to discover that the 
 defects still exist. Any adequate handling of the problem which 
 confronts us will involve the use of school nurses, medical and 
 dental clinics, nutrition classes, and the like. We must not 
 
EDUCATION DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 295 
 
 only know what the defects are and what the history of the 
 child has been over a period of years, but must make provision 
 for the correction of defects and for the normal development of 
 the individual. Much must be done in the field of recreation. 
 Play is significant in child life not alone on account of the physical 
 gain, but quite as much in terms of the social development which 
 may be brought about through its instrumentality. In this field 
 we shall have to spend more money. A ten or fifteen cent per 
 child medical service is probably not worth the money it costs. 
 When we are willing to spend from one to two dollars per child, 
 we will do much to develop a virile population. 
 
 We have not done much in this country in the way of training 
 for national service. It is true that our schools have accomplished 
 something, but I have already suggested their weakness, es- 
 pecially from the standpoint of the training, maturity, and abil- 
 ity of a considerable proportion of the teaching corps. I am in- 
 terested in the possibility of training for national service be- 
 yond that which is involved in the usual school program. We 
 have deluded ourselves when we thought that giving an elemen- 
 tary school education to boys and girls would prepare them for 
 citizenship in a democracy. We know that the period during 
 which a boy or girl gets his ideals and has his purposes fixed — 
 the period during which he acquires those skills which are to 
 make of him a productive member of the community — is after 
 fourteen years of age. The period between fourteen and twenty- 
 one, during which the boy or girl gets fixed the direction which 
 his energies are to take, makes those associations, and develops 
 those ideals which are to determine whether or not he is to 
 serve or to exploit society, is of the greatest importance for public 
 education. It is during the period that we have thought of as re- 
 served for the fortunate that we must provide education for 
 all boys and girls. There must be compulsory education be- 
 yond fourteen. We must not discourage our young people from 
 school control. Those who go to work must be required to re- 
 port regularly to the school for instruction during daylight 
 hours. In these continuation schools, training for more effec- 
 tive work in the industries, in commerce, and for some, the 
 beginning of professional training must be undertaken. It must 
 be the time during which the public school seeks to discover 
 ability and to nourish it. There must be the possibility of 
 support for those who have unusual capacity. For all it must 
 be considered the obligation of the school to develop adequate 
 ideals of citizenship to make them acquainted with our democratic 
 ideals. The study of history and of civics, of literature and of 
 music, and the like, must provide an opportunity for the use of 
 
296 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 leisure time which will make for the health of the individual 
 and the welfare of the nation. No population can remain per- 
 manently sound that has to be amused, entertained, and stimu- 
 lated from the outside. 
 
 The war has made us conscious of our obligation to the 
 immigrants who have made their homes with us, and to that 
 part of our adult population which is still illiterate. These 
 groups, so long as they remain in ignorance, are a menace to our 
 free institutions. Provision must be made for their education 
 in reading and writing and for an even more significant educa- 
 tion in history, civics, and the like. They must come to under- 
 stand our institutions, and to accept our ideals, or we must 
 recognize in them a positive danger to our society. 
 
 From a consideration of all of the problems which I have 
 briefly presented to you, there grows the most significant thought 
 which I have to express. The war is giving a national conception 
 of education. We are growing away from our neighborhood 
 ideas of education and beginning to understand that it is the 
 business of the nation to provide adequate schools for the na- 
 tion's needs. We are coming to believe that if the nation is to 
 realize its ideals and its purposes, it must take account of the 
 weaknesses in the schools. We are no longer satisfied with that 
 misconception of the democratic ideal which says in effect that 
 it is democratic to allow a neighborhood to have just as poor a 
 school as it wants. I am looking forward to the time when we 
 will all recognize the fact that it is the business of the nation 
 to see that every American boy and girl gets that sort of educa- 
 tion which is to send him forth from the school sound physically, 
 trained intellectually, and grounded in an appreciation of the 
 ideals which lie on the very road of our democracy. I confi- 
 dently believe that this will be accomplished by adequate train- 
 ing for able men and women who will be glad to serve the 
 nation as teachers in her schools. I believe that there will come a' 
 realization of the necessity for multiplying our expenditures for 
 education in order to safeguard our democracy. 
 
 We have pledged our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred 
 honor to the cause of democracy in the world. I submit that 
 this cause cannot exist, and that free government among men 
 cannot exist except as we establish in this country a system of 
 public schools which will develop an intelligent, law-abiding, 
 liberty-loving citizenship. Our greatest safeguard is to be found 
 in a more adequate public school system. The hope of our 
 humanity — democracy — is to be fulfilled through the education 
 of our children. 
 
HOW SHALL WE EDUCATE FOR THE 
 DEMOCRACY OF THE FUTURE? 
 
 By Philandex P. Claxton, 
 United States Commissioner of Education 
 
 We are engaged in the greatest war that the world has ever 
 known. We have entered it on the highest plane that any peo- 
 ple has ever entered war; we have entered it on the plane of 
 idealism which characterizes the American people and the Amer- 
 ican government. You will remember that some one hundred 
 and forty or more years ago we were engaged in a war which 
 they thought great then, which in its results was great — the 
 war of the Revolution. It was in progress, however, for a 
 year before any one knew definitely what it was for, what it 
 was about. Then a committee was appointed and a report of 
 that committee was made which we know now as the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. From that time on we knew what it 
 was about. We were fighting for our rights as men, not as 
 English citizens. 
 
 Another seventy-five years went by, and we were engaged in 
 another war, until then one of the great wars of the world. 
 It had been going on for two years or more before we knew 
 definitely what it was for. In one section we thought it was 
 for the preservation of our rights under the Constitution. An- 
 other section thought it was for the preservation of the Union — 
 a high ideal, but on the dedication of the battleground of Get- 
 tysburg Lincoln told us and the world what it was for, "that 
 government of the people, by the people, and for the people 
 should not perish from the earth." It was a test whether de- 
 mocracy was to continue. 
 
 And the present war had been in progress for two years or 
 more, and we asked what it was for, and each nation that went 
 into it issued some kind of a statement in a white book or a red 
 book or a green book or an orange book or a yellow book, and 
 each one gave one satisfactory explanation that it was for the 
 defense of the country, and I came to call it a war of defense. 
 And finally we entered it, and then the clearest voice that has 
 spoken in all these years, speaking for the American people, 
 
 297 
 
298 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 or rather the American people speaking for themselves through 
 their representative, the President of the United States, told 
 us and the world what it was for, that the world may be made 
 safe for democracy, that all people may be free; or if we may 
 paraphrase the words of Mr. Lincoln, that government of the 
 people by the people and for the people shall extend to all the 
 earth ; or if we may paraphrase the words of Mr. Jefferson, 
 that nations, all nations are equal and free, or should be with 
 certain inalienable rights as nations, among which are life, lib- 
 erty and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of their size or 
 of their wealth. And we have entered the war for that purpose. 
 
 It is a costly war, and has already cost us more than all the 
 wars that we have ever engaged in from the beginning until 
 now, and it is only for us probably begun. It may cost us 
 twenty, forty, fifty, eighty or a hundred billions of dollars. We 
 may have to send one, two, three, four or five millions of men 
 across the seas. But cost what it will, to be paid in whatever coin 
 it must, it can not end until the purpose for which we have en- 
 tered has been attained and the world made safe for democracy. 
 All people shall be free ; and the world can not be safe, and there 
 can be no prospect of permanent peace so long as there shall 
 be in the world any irresponsible government, responsible only 
 to itself and not to the people, that can wield a nation as a 
 giant wields a club or an officer wields a sword, unreasoning 
 and unresisting — until that condition of affairs shall end, this 
 war must go on. 
 
 It is a fight between the past and the future, between dark- 
 ness and light, between militaristic autocracy on the one side 
 and democratic freedom on the other. And there are just two 
 problems, therefore, of supreme interest, or two tasks of supreme 
 importance for us as a people now in America. One is to win the 
 war for freedom, democracy and permanent peace, and the other, 
 while we are doing that, to preserve our own souls and to free 
 ourselves and our children for life and citizenship in the new 
 era which the war is ushering in. 
 
 It is not necessary that we should wear as good clothes as 
 we have been wearing; it is not necessary that we should eat 
 the same amount of food and waste the same; it is not neces- 
 sary that we should build better houses ; it is not necessary 
 probably that we shall have better automobiles ; it is not neces- 
 sary that at the hotel de luxe in Atlantic City, or elewhere, 
 there shall be servants in livery to open the door as you and 
 I pass through; we may use our own energies to get the door 
 open, and trust it to close after us ; it may not be necessary that 
 at the clubrooms there shall be servants to strike a match and 
 
EDUCATION— FUTURE DEMOCRACY 299 
 
 light the gentleman's cigar. He may be able to light his cigar 
 himself. And it may not be absolutely necessary that he shall 
 have the cigar ! I use these only as illustrations. You can 
 think of the thousands of luxuries that may be swept away. 
 We may have to clear the deck very completely for action. 
 
 But two things can not go — the strength, the preparation, 
 the cooperation to win the war, and the preservation of our 
 institutions of education that the war shall not be lost after 
 it is won. Mr. Jefferson was right when he said, "If we people 
 expect to be free and independent and at the same time ignorant 
 and illiterate, we will be much disappointed." That condition 
 has never obtained, and from the nature of the case it can not 
 obtain. He said the only thing he could think of in a democracy 
 worse than universal ignorance was that a very few should be 
 educated and the masses illiterate ; that the masses and the gulli- 
 bility of the masses would be a temptation to the highly edu- 
 cated to exploit the people, and all would be corrupted to- 
 gether. Better be ignorant together than have such a condition 
 exist. If any one doubts, look across the Rio Grande; if any 
 one believes that a democracy can be built with ignorance, look 
 at Russia, twenty millions of people unable to read and write 
 in their own language — approximately that many out of one 
 hundred and eighty million. 
 
 Democracy and democratic government are not easy things 
 to attain and to maintain. The most difficult form of govern- 
 ment in all the world is democracy, so difficult that Plato said 
 that democracy could not continue to exist, that every democracy 
 must finally go out in corruption and the rule of the mob. Two 
 hundred and fifty years proved the truth of his saying, presum- 
 ably. The Roman republic, partially democratic, was taken 
 over by the Empire, and for nearly two thousand years no one 
 was foolhardy enough to attempt to establish a democracy on 
 any large scale, and there is none in its present form to-day 
 one hundred and fifty years old. 
 
 Democracy requires universal intelligence. And when the 
 war is over and the great problems that will come to us have to 
 be solved, our democracy will require a preparation and a train- 
 ing far greater than anything that we have ever yet had in this 
 country. 
 
 Now, I want to talk to you to-day on the problems of edu- 
 cation, and I wish you would bear the message, as you will so 
 well, to your people. 
 
 First, unfortunately, the war is not yet over, and it may 
 not be over when you meet again here or somewhere else next 
 year, and probably not the next, nor the next, nor the next. We 
 
300 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 are beginning to understand it now. When it began, I suppose, 
 everybody thought that it would be a brief war. I remember 
 that within two months or less after the war began I was making 
 a commencement address for a college — in the autumn rather 
 than in the spring, and I said on the spur of the moment, "Ten 
 months from now, when this war is ended, and the world begins 
 to be readjusted, etc." But the ten months have gone by. Mr. 
 Kitchin said, "Probably three years will be required to finish the 
 war." Nobody believed him, but the three years have gone by. 
 And we heard it everywhere that our boys would not have to 
 go to France, that the war would be over before six months, 
 before Christmas, but the six months have gone by and twelve 
 months, and the war is not over yet; and the central empires 
 have vast control, far more than they had in the beginning, and 
 they are not yet exhausted. The great task is on. Russia has 
 fallen down, and fourteen millions of people, soldiers under 
 arms, are not longer threatening the eastern border of Germany. 
 The place that was weak has become strong, and it makes our 
 task all the more difficult; and before the war is over it may 
 shift itself down, as it has now shifted itself down, largely to 
 a problem of the engineering, and the task of the Allies in en- 
 gineering in its broad sense is at least ten times as large as 
 that of the central allies. France and Germany fight on some- 
 what equal terms — if they had equal resources, and an equal 
 number of men — because each faces the battle line, the diffi- 
 culty or the disadvantage to France being that it is on her terri- 
 tory, and not on the German territory, or the Austrian terri- 
 tory. But England must throw her soldiers, her men, her sup- 
 plies, her food, across the channel. They must come across the 
 sea from Canada, from Australia, from New Zealand; the same 
 for us across a continent, across a mountainous country, across 
 the seas, men, munitions, food to help win this war. If China 
 should come in, there would be more difficulty yet. 
 
 When the war began, you should not forget that when Eng- 
 land entered it she had made up her mind practically over night 
 as to whether she should fight, and having decided to do so, her 
 army had to be in France in the fewest days possible; and she 
 had no army, had to depend on volunteers, and, as is always the 
 case, those were the best trained men from the colleges and uni- 
 versities who responded, young men of high ideals. They vol- 
 unteered, men who had been trained in chemistry, in various 
 forms of engineering, very scholarly men, with their high ideals 
 volunteered, and entered the ranks as privates; and they made 
 a new kind of warfare, and in those first days the wastage was 
 very large, and it was a wastage of the best. And the same was 
 
EDUCATION— FUTURE DEMOCRACY 801 
 
 true of France. Within eighteen months three hundred and 
 fifty artists of France, of one kind and another, with world-wide 
 reputation, some of them, died in the trenches or as a result of 
 the war in the camps and hospitals; the same sort of things 
 was true in England. 
 
 The old type of warfare could be typified very well by a man 
 on horse back striking his spurs into his horse's flanks, dashing 
 down the line, flourishing his sword in the moonlight. This is 
 not of that type. These are the days of engineers, where the 
 mechanics are necessary, where high power explosives and pro- 
 jectiles that will go ten, twenty to seventy-six miles are used. 
 It has come about, with the airplane, with the submarine, with the 
 devices and discoveries of a chemical laboratory, with poisonous 
 gases and liquid flame, that simple courage and devotion and 
 bravery, valuable as they are, do not win against these things. 
 
 When we entered the war immediately the request was made 
 of us for twelve thousand engineers and skilled workmen to go 
 to France and to England and rebuild their means of transporta- 
 tion. We must build ships to carry our men and our food 
 and our supplies across the seas, and the ship yards must be 
 built, and the mines must be exploited. We have taken over 
 the railways. Those who travel over them know that they are 
 not in as good condition as two years ago, but we had, when the 
 war began, only about fifty thousand engineers in the United 
 States; thirty-six thousand, almost exactly, had graduated from 
 colleges, universities and technical schools in all forms of en- 
 gineering within the last twenty-five years before the war. In 
 chemical and hydro-electrical and other forms of engineering 
 thirty-six thousand graduates. Some go into the profession, but 
 many have died in the twenty-five years, and there were not 
 many graduates before that time — perhaps six thousand would be 
 the maximum. And how quickly will they be used up! 
 
 And we will be in the condition that England is in regard to 
 physicians. Three months ago no more could be spared from 
 England for the front. It was stated a little while ago that one 
 third of the physicians of Virginia had gone into the army, and 
 Virginia has but few more that can go. We shall have that 
 condition. What does it mean ? It means that if the war should 
 be long the men who are in school and college to-day must win 
 the war by their knowledge. It may come about that one trained 
 man out of college or technical school, or engineering school 
 of one kind or another, will be worth a thousand, that two will be 
 worth ten thousand of the men who can fight only with their 
 strength and their devotion in the trenches. I do not underesti- 
 mate the work of the common, ignorant soldier. I do not un- 
 
302 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 derestimate the value of the work that the ilHterate man may do, 
 but those of you who have studied this war, who have noted day 
 by day, know the value of these others. And it may be that 
 we shall have yet to build railroads into the heart of continents, 
 in order that food on new soil may be produced to be trans- 
 ported across the ocean to feed us. It does not behoove any 
 wise people to underestimate the strength and the power of the 
 enemy and the magnitude of the task. Therefore, as a matter 
 of immediate patriotism, as a matter of one possibility of win- 
 ning the war or losing it, I wish you would do what I know the 
 Administration would like you to do — urge every boy that you 
 speak to this year under twenty years of age if he be in school 
 to stay there ; if he be out of school to go to college ; if he is in 
 college, to remain in college until he is called to do something 
 which no one else can do quite so well as he. 
 
 Again, where you speak to college professors, and help make 
 sentiment, will you not urge that their colleges shall stay open 
 during the entire year, if possible. Ask them to adjust their 
 courses, to condense them where they can. Some things may 
 be eliminated from a college course at this time. It may not 
 be necessary that we shall do certain things, some things that 
 are desirable in times of peace, and yet which are not absolutely 
 necessary. It may be that the courses may be condensed; possi- 
 bly the engineering courses reduced to thirty months instead of 
 the thirty-six months, and those thirty months could come in 
 two and one-half calendar years, and a boy graduating at eighteen 
 may have finished his course in college and go out with what 
 training the college will give him in that kind of work by the 
 time he is twenty-one years of age. It would be unwise to 
 use up our reserves in the beginning of the battle. We shall be 
 very wise if we accumulate them. Probably certain other things 
 should be done. Just let me refer to a few of these. The first 
 draft brought into the army forty thousand and more men 
 unable to read and write. It is not a source of strength. 
 
 The Department of Agriculture and the Food Administration 
 are appealing that the country shall produce food and that it 
 shall be conserved, and we are printing by the millions of dol- 
 lars' worth bulletins and signs and posters and requests and ap- 
 peals to the people of the country, and five and one half mil- 
 lions of the people can not read a word of it in any language 
 whatever, and two million farmers can not read any appeal made 
 to them by the Department of Agriculture or any one else in 
 regard to the production of food. It would be very wise if now 
 we could begin a great campaign, nation-wide, for the teaching 
 of these grown up men and women, young men and women 
 
EDUCATION— FUTURE DEMOCRACY 303 
 
 some of them, at least to cultivate the ability to read and to write, 
 so that they might read the simple appeals made by the Food 
 Administration, so that they might read the directions in regard 
 to growing crops, concerning deep plowing, with regard to proper 
 fertilization, varying and rotating the crops, and other things 
 which might be written for them in simple English, so that they 
 could have it. For the future, it is very important. 
 
 We shall not gain strength now by disrupting our processes 
 of education, and I speak for the Administration when I say that 
 during the war we shall do everything possible to prevent any 
 lowering in the efficiency of our agencies of education, and that 
 we shall do all we can to keep all boys and girls under twenty- 
 one years of age in school during as large a part of the year 
 as we can. 
 
 There is being sent from my office this week a bulletin. It 
 is a little pamphlet signed by the Secretary of Agriculture, the 
 Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of War, the Secretary of the 
 Navy, and the Secretary of the Interior, the Chairman or Presi- 
 dent of the Civil Service Commission, and the Commissioner of 
 Education, saying that there is not any demand that any chil- 
 dren under twelve years of age shall be out of school at any 
 time for the purpose of engaging in any kind of productive 
 work; that practically none under fourteen should be at work; 
 that there is no reason, as we see it, that the child labor law 
 and the other laws for the protection of the interests of children 
 shall be disregarded, or the requirements lowered; that for city 
 boys and girls there is no reason why any under sixteen years 
 of age should be out of school either summer or winter. 
 
 But I was to speak to you especially about the preparation 
 for the democracy of the future. I said a moment ago that de- 
 mocracy requires universal intelligence. Democracy is govern- 
 ment by public opinion and popular sentiment. Democracy is 
 not government by personality, but by principle. Democracy re- 
 quires of all the ability to understand underlying fundamental 
 principles of institutional life. Democracy requires a habit of 
 mind and a power of assembling facts, of analyzing them, of 
 interpreting them, and arriving by the process of inductive rea- 
 soning at least at tentative conclusions and generalizations which 
 one can hold to. Democracy requires a type of education that 
 can not be given to small children in the period of childhood in 
 the fundamental schools. We hear so frequently, "Give me the 
 child until it is twelve years of age, and you may have the man or 
 woman after that." And that is all right in a government such 
 as Russia was where civic virtue consisted in unquestioning obe- 
 dience, where you were supposed to follow your leader and to do 
 
804 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 what you were commanded without question of right. For a 
 stratified society Hke that, where social authority consists in 
 knowing the duties of your position, and you have no desire 
 but to stay put, all right. In a feudalistic state, where all the 
 resources are in the hands of a few, and an overlord may direct 
 the great masses of his serfs or tenants as to when to plant and 
 how to cultivate and when and how to harvest, when they are 
 not supposed to know anything of the underlying conditions and 
 laws of nature, it would be all right. But in a country like ours, 
 democratic in everything, it is necessary that there shall be edu- 
 cation of a type that will enable one to understand the great 
 forces of nature, the structure of society, the form of government 
 in its underlying principles and give to all the power of self 
 guidance. And that is going to be far more necessary when the 
 war is over. 
 
 Have you tried to picture to yourself what will come then 
 of difficulty and of problem? They were all coming to us, and 
 many of us were beginning to have a consciousness of them. Al- 
 ready had we swept in this country far beyond where there 
 were any precedents. When state legislatures meet, and when our 
 national congress meets, they discuss problems for which and 
 for the solution of which there are no precedents. They have 
 swept far beyond where there are precedents, and in a govern- 
 ment like ours we may never appeal to personality. It is an 
 understanding of principle, and only an understanding of prin- 
 ciples can give freedom of power and adjustment. 
 
 So if the war had not come, the troubles would have been 
 more numerous and more difficult. Our population was increas- 
 ing rapidly. When I started geography down in the little 
 backwoods log schoolhouse in Tennessee, I learned that the 
 population of the United States was thirty-six millions of people, 
 and that its wealth was twenty billions of dollars — the figures for 
 eighteen seventy. Now the population between our double 
 oceans is a hundred and four millions or more, and our wealth 
 accounted a year ago at two hundred and fifty billions of dol- 
 lars, an increase of two hundred per cent, in these forty some odd 
 years in population, and an increase of more than a thousand 
 per cent, in the estimated wealth of the country. If in a like 
 period of time our population increases the same per cent, the 
 boys and girls who will hear you this summer will be in the 
 prime of life still when we shall have two hundred millions of 
 people and one city with at least ten millions of people in it; 
 when we shall have probably a thousand billions of wealth, more 
 than all the world has now. At present we have more than one 
 third of all of the wealth, one seventeenth of the population. 
 
EDUCATION— FUTURE DEMOCRACY 305 
 
 Can you imagine the problems that would have come any way 
 for the world of labor and capital, of transportation, of control, 
 of ownership of public utilities, and other things of the kind? 
 But those will be increased in importance and in difficulties be- 
 cause of the war. 
 
 We shall, when the war ends, be the creditor nation of the 
 world. We were the debtor nation when it began. We shall be, 
 in addition to that, the great commercial nation of the world, as 
 we were not. We did not have a foreign trade of our own. We 
 shipped our products and had much trade across the seas, but 
 for a century we had faced between oceans the problems of our 
 own development. We had our own forests to clear, our fields 
 to till, our prairies to break, our streams to bridge, our mountains 
 to develop, our mines to exploit, our roads to build, our cities 
 to build, and other things of all kinds, and we worked at the 
 task as no other people of the world had ever worked. In 
 a little more than a century we conquered a continent and built 
 here the richest civilization of the world. 
 
 Already we were beginning to face the other way, and when 
 the war is over our goods shall be carried in our own ships; 
 the product of our fields and mines and factories will be carried 
 in our own ships across all the seas to all the parts of the world, 
 financed by our own international banks under the direction 
 of our great world merchants; and it will be a new era for 
 us. 
 
 In addition to that, when the war is over we will be the 
 oldest of the democracies of the world. The nations of the 
 earth will turn to us. We are the people who have had the 
 experience in democracy, the only country of considerable size. 
 We are a democracy more than a few years old. We have 
 been able, with our good common sense and our general intelli- 
 gence to choose the course between autocratic organization on 
 the one side and disorganization on the other. We have held 
 against both sides to the middle road of democracy, of govern- 
 ment of the people, government by the people and for the people 
 by their representatives chosen for the purpose, according to 
 fundamental social contracts which they have themselves entered 
 into. We call them, constitutionally chosen, our own officers, 
 making our own laws, and then abiding by them ; and that is the 
 lesson that must be taught to all the world. Everything that we 
 do will be internationally interesting, whether it be in the slums 
 of the city, out on the prairies yonder, down in the swamps by 
 the sea, up in the mountain coves of the Rockies and the Alle- 
 ghenies. The boys and girls now in the schools will control the 
 policies of the nation and the destinies of the world. Will there 
 
806 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 be intelligence required for it? Will there be virtue needed of 
 a high order? Will there be need of power, or self-restraint? 
 Will there be a need that all men be trained that they may hold 
 their passions in leash ? Will there be need of their understand- 
 ing the fundamental principles of government, and holding to 
 their constitutional guaranties, thus doing, as Mr. Taft said was 
 necessary, protecting themselves against their moments of in- 
 sanity? It is a desirable thing, is it not? Now, what are some 
 of^the things necessary for that? 
 
 First, I am going to refer to what I mentioned a moment ago. 
 I can not conceive of us entering on that new era with five 
 millions of grown up men and women unable to read any word 
 in any book anywhere, with ten millions unable to read the 
 Constitution of the United States or of their own states. 
 
 Five millions there are now who can not read or write on 
 the ballot they would cast to determine the policy of state and 
 nation and the destinies of the world ; five million adult men and 
 women — five and one half million. Let us suppose on the eco- 
 nomic side of it that they are worth only ten cents a day less 
 for productive purposes than if they were educated. Is that 
 enough — ten cents a day ? It is more nearly a dollar. But count 
 it fifty cents — fifty cents a day is what? One hundred and 
 seventy-five dollars a year, and five million and a half times one 
 hundred and seventy-five is how much? We are losing that 
 much — which would buy up the Liberty Loans — the difference be- 
 tween a productive power of a people unable to read and write, 
 illiterate, and a people educated and trained. Somehow we must 
 do away with that. There is pending in the Congress of the 
 United States a bill known as the Smith-Bankhead Bill, pro- 
 viding a little fund of some fifty thousand dollars a year, to 
 enable the Commissioner of Education, through the Bureau of 
 Education, to start a campaign to devise plans and persuade peo- 
 ple, legislatures and others to undertake the teaching of these 
 grown up men and women until they can read their ballots and 
 read the papers and read the laws that they must obey. And 
 teach them to write so that they can write a letter to their chil- 
 dren. A woman out in Kentucky read a letter from her daughter 
 out in Ohio and wrote one back, and she said it was like getting 
 out of prison walls, like she had been set free. 
 
 Second, there are approximately five million people in the 
 United States who cannot speak the English language. They 
 have come with our permission from all the countries of the 
 world, largely from southern and eastern Europe. They may 
 or may not be enemies to us, but we are asking them if they will 
 volunteer and fight for freedom and for democracy; and they 
 
EDUCATION— FUTURE DEMOCRACY 307 
 
 can't understand what it is. We are learning now that it is a 
 source of weakness and not of strength. It is easy to carry on 
 disloyal propaganda among them. We should undertake to teach 
 them to read English now, a task not to be postponed for the 
 winning of the war and for democracy after the war ! That we 
 may be one people; that we may all speak one language. That 
 all may read the newspapers in the language of the country, 
 and the laws in the language of the country. That all may 
 know about the opportunities offered here. There are a half 
 million or more on the east side of New York who do not know 
 that there is anything of America beyond the Palisades. They 
 do not know of the wheat fields to the west, or the cotton fields 
 to the south, or the cattle ranges, or of anything except the in- 
 dustrial centers from which agents come to employ them. We 
 should assist them that they may know something of our in- 
 stitutional life, that they may know something of the men whom 
 we honor and who have helped to work out our institutions, 
 that they may know what America is and what it stands for. 
 We must grasp this opportunity of winning the whole of these 
 people for America, winning their intelligence and their co- 
 operation. 
 
 More than that, we must see to it that every boy and girl 
 in the United States gets not only a fundamental school educa- 
 tion, but a high school education. Farming to-day is no longer 
 taught by imitation. It is an understanding of principles of 
 fertility of soil. Chemistry, physics, the simple life history of 
 plants and animals, simple engineering, how to control the 
 stream running across the fields, to preserve the moisture in the 
 fields, and to drain them of water, the control of machinery and 
 its use under difficult conditions, are all things that should be 
 studied in our schools. The same kind of thing obtains in our 
 industrial plants of various kinds. I said a moment ago, you 
 can not teach the underlying principles of institutional life in 
 the fundamental schools, and democratic government is govern- 
 ment by principle and not by personality, by freedom and un- 
 derstanding, and not by authority from above. The character- 
 istic of a democracy is that it is alive in all its parts. It has 
 brains, an intelligent thing. Its brains are not centered in one 
 place. In an autocratic organization, from one center, a wire is 
 pulled, and this man rises and that one remains quiet, but in a 
 democracy the thing rises like mists from the ground, every- 
 where to come back in rain. To keep it all alive for that future, 
 the high school is necessary, and somehow we must bring about 
 the opportunity of universal high school education. 
 
 Now the high schools and the fundamental schools teach only 
 
308 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 what is known. It is the business of the university and the 
 laboratory and the experimental station to find the truth and to 
 test it out, so that it may be made the possession of all the 
 people through the agencies of education for the great masses. 
 We shall have to support and direct our institutions of higher 
 learning, as we have not yet done. If we are wise, we will have a 
 great national university. We will take the place that Germany 
 has held, and there will come to our shores, to our institutions, 
 from all the countries of the world the young men and the young 
 women of the highest caliber, those of the best ability, that they 
 may get the higher training. And it will be fortunate if they 
 can get the training here in this home of democracy and carry the 
 ideal back, when they return to their homes with their technical 
 knowledge. 
 
 There is great danger that there shall be lowering of the 
 efficiency of our schools through the fact that teachers are taken 
 by the draft into the army, young men of the best training, with 
 scientific knowledge, especially those who would teach technical 
 things. There is much argun-ent now as to whether, for in- 
 stance, we shall give technical training and make ourselves effi- 
 cient. I heard a man say the other day, an educator, "No, we 
 can not afford that. We can not follow Germany, for instance, 
 in efficiency of education." Now, the trouble with Germany is 
 not her strength. The trouble is her philosophy is wrong. Be- 
 cause a strong man with good muscles and strength and control 
 of his body may happen to be an evil man is no reason we should 
 all be sick and anaemic lest we may ourselves go wrong. What 
 we want to do for a man is to train him, develop him, give him 
 all of the physical power possible, all of the mental power, all of 
 the knowledge, and all of the skill, and then give him strong 
 purpose and good will, a right philosophy with it. Give us 
 more of industrial education, more of technical education, more 
 of the knowledge of the forces of nature and how to apply 
 them, so that we may get a better result for the energies that 
 we expend ; and then give to us, to all of the people strong pur- 
 pose, good will, working not for our own individual selfish pur- 
 poses, and not for the selfish purposes of the nation, because 
 Americanism does not mean that we shall put our own selves 
 above the other people of the world, except in service. We are 
 working now and fighting as never before, expending our money 
 and willing to expend all, that there may come to all the world 
 freedom and peace, and we will not forget that all the world in- 
 cludes all of its parts and all of its people. 
 
 We are not fighting because of hatred. We are fighting be- 
 cause of love. We are not fighting for destruction ; we are fight- 
 
EDUCATION— FUTURE DEMOCRACY 309 
 
 ing for construction and for development. We will not forget 
 what Americanism and democracy are, while we are fighting 
 for democracy and for the American spirit that it may come to 
 all the world. 
 
THE PROVINCE OF JOURNALISM IN WAR 
 
 By Talcott Williams, 
 
 Director of the School of Journalism on the Pulitzer Foundation 
 in Columbia University 
 
 War quickens all public consciousness. There never was a 
 time when journalism so quickened into consciousness of its 
 relation to the public as in the agony and exaltation of a war, 
 waking all the world. In peace, journalists study this lesson. 
 In war they learn it. They cannot escape it. News, editorials, 
 advertisements, all become representative of a public need and 
 bear a public relation. Every newspaper man learns. 
 
 There is a mystery in the soul of State 
 Which hath an operation more divine 
 Than breath or pen can give expression to. 
 
 In peace journalism may seek to be personal. In war it must 
 become national, serving, expressing, educating, illuminating the 
 public. Every working journalist through years of experience 
 knows how he began with the confident hope and desire that in 
 time, if success came, he would win a personal expression and 
 utterance. Each journalist learns that his professional work is 
 best done when he expresses what without him would lie dor- 
 mant in the souls of men. Even in the day's affairs the editorial 
 writer learns that his greater work is to interpret and render 
 visible the emotion, will and action of city, state and nation. 
 
 The press is always representative, interpreting and express- 
 ing the public, as much in peace as in international conflict. Its 
 work is only less apparent in peace, but not different. No ex- 
 posure brings reform unless the public is ready for it. An edi- 
 torial needs news as its text because the public has opinion only 
 as a cause for opinion exists. The perspective of news is but 
 another term for the public viewpoint. "Newspapers," said an 
 American statesman, Governor Tilden, "use issues ; they cannot 
 make them. Events and the acts of men, of parties and of 
 governments make issues." 
 
 When we talk of the "presentation of news" the substance 
 behind the phrase is the task of so writing the history of a day, 
 
 310 
 
PROVINCE OF JOURNALISM IN WAR 311 
 
 headline and story, first-page leaders to the last item, that the 
 final interest of the public as a whole shall be served by pub- 
 licity, so used that the public shall know itself, its good and its 
 evil, its act and its desire, its call to reform and its thrill at 
 achievement. When conflict comes, all this is a thousandfold 
 increased, and the journalist is forced to see the fiduciary and 
 representative character of his work. 
 
 Newspapers and the journalist create the consciousness in 
 which a great Republic rises equal to a great task. Recruiting 
 and the draft in a free people would be impossible without the 
 newspaper, and a press, American and English, printed in a 
 tongue far flung from the Orkneys across the American conti- 
 nent to New Zealand becomes the sentiment instrument of the 
 world's mightier fate. In this task every man on a newspaper 
 shares in uttering this deep note of determination throughout 
 the English-speaking race. 
 
 Through the American press the American people in 1914 ut- 
 tered its verdict on crimes against law and humanity with which 
 the war began. The condemnation of broken treaties, of violated 
 rights, of international law set at naught, was heard across the 
 ocean, prefiguring the sure and certain decision of posterity. 
 As a great journalist, Benjamin Franklin said: "If you would 
 know what posterity will say, a thousand leagues have nearly 
 the same effect with a thousand years." 
 
 Our government, following the policy of Washington, our 
 President when last all Europe was aflame, was silent. None 
 spoke. No officer of the government had a right to speak. No 
 public man raised his voice. Even Theadore Roosevelt — in 
 October, 1914, published an article taking the ground that Bel- 
 gium was outside our national jurisdiction. The American press 
 alone spoke for the nation. The dire reports from day to day 
 through those awful opening months of the war were laid be- 
 fore the people of the United States. The crimes of the Imperial 
 German Government were denounced. The diplomatic dispatches 
 which recorded the plot, the perfidy and the prostitution of all 
 principles in the policy, the preparation and the brutal acts of the 
 Central Powers were printed in our daily newspapers and these 
 newspapers, led by the New York Times, reprinted the "Blue 
 Books," "White Books," "Yellow Books," and "Black Books" as 
 issued by the belligerent governments. They had an astounding 
 circulation, greater even than in England and unknown in other 
 lands. The press of the belligerent lands was necessarily 
 held to stand by its country, as was fit and necessary. The 
 neutral lands were in a terror, justified by all that has come 
 since. The American press alone was free and it used its free- 
 
312 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTEE 
 
 dom with power and with imperial justice The great cause of 
 Law, Justice, Righteousness and Mefcy vs. The Imperial Ger- 
 man Government and its alHes was tried in the columns of the 
 American Press. Both sides were heard. Every important docu- 
 ment was laid before the American people. Nothing that the 
 two Central Powers said through rulers, ministers, universities, 
 press or people but came before the American people, the one in- 
 dependent, fearless and impartial jury left impanelled by Hu- 
 manity itself. There was neither haste nor hate. There was no 
 lack of advocates for both sides. Our own citizens were not 
 of one mind. There were those whose birth, whose descent, 
 whose training, and whose sympathy endeared Germany to them. 
 They were heard. No voice was silenced until the utterance of 
 yesterday became the treason of the day, because the American 
 people as a whole, having, through its press, heard all, considered 
 all known, all that could be said for all and for both, rose as one 
 man for the cause of Law, of Justice, of Righteousness and of 
 Mercy, and the great assize of Humanity was closed by a verdict 
 to-day unanimous, Law, Liberty and Democracy. 
 
 No greater service has been rendered to civilization by a free 
 press since the printing press cast off its first impression of a 
 newspaper. The cause of freedom was won through the freedom 
 of the press. The American newspaper impartially placed the 
 facts before the court. It presented every plea and every argu- 
 ment. Nothing was denied to the imperial criminal at the bar of 
 humanity. A verdict of guilty was rendered, and this great jury 
 of 100,000,000 has sent a Sheriff by the name of Pershing to 
 enforce judgment and execute the sentence with a posse whose 
 size is only to be measured by the fighting manhood of an em- 
 battled nation. 
 
 The press of the United States which prepare4 the land for 
 this righteous verdict prepared it also for war. Of all the Eng- 
 lish-speaking lands and dominions, the United Kingdom, Canada, 
 Australia, New Zealand and the United States, three years ago in 
 1915, none would have been deemed likely to pass a sweeping 
 draft act calHng on all its manhood from 21 to 31 to fall into 
 lines. All manner of predictions were rife that in this country 
 no draft could be enacted or, if enacted, enforced without resist- 
 ance. All were wrong. The American people has led all the rest. 
 England is still debating a draft for Ireland. This country has 
 more men of Irish descent than Ireland itself, but freedom, 
 justice and self-government make all national demands and du- 
 ties easily borne. No race has furnished more volunteers and 
 none better soldiers than Americans who look back upon Ireland 
 as the past home and look forward to her self-government as one 
 
PROVINCE OF JOURNALISM IN WAR 313 
 
 fruit of their service side by side with English troops in this war. 
 Canada hesitated until this year. Australia, New Zealand, and 
 the South African Commonwealth refuse a draft and find their 
 men running short. In its draft, the American people has led 
 all the English-speaking lands. 
 
 The press of the United States made possible this unanimous 
 decision of a great people. The United States has one-half the 
 newspapers, daily and weekly, in the world. With one-fifteenth 
 of the population of the world, it has nearly half of the news- 
 paper circulation of the world and considerably more than half 
 of the earth's daily issues. Its cities have three daily issues to 
 the family, where other cities have not one. Nothing like our 
 weekly country press exists the world over. It is present in 
 every hamlet. It enters every rural home, and our population is 
 one-half rural. The circulation of the press of a country is the 
 measure of its consciousness, its convictions and its capacity to act 
 as one. As all men and women read the news, know their na- 
 tional duty, and read the same appeals for its discharge, their 
 common united action is alone possible. 
 
 In war, the newspaper immeasurably increases the audience 
 of the speaker on the one universal subject. Through the press 
 the President has the nation and the world for an audience, 
 literally speaking urbi et orbi as no man, pontiff or sovereign ever 
 spake before. Each man upon the platform speaks through the 
 newspaper to more than any hall can hold if he understands and 
 practices the wisdom of the abstract as the key to the publicity 
 of the newspaper. The shortest speech will fill two columns. A 
 long discourse of an hour would cover a page. The argument 
 and logical plea of any speech can be put in 200 words. An 
 abstract of 600 will cover the essential utterance of any speech. 
 Such a summary, compact in thought and effective in diction, will 
 be printed when neither a speech nor an ordinary report will find 
 space in a daily. If pains be taken at this point and in this fash- 
 ion, the speech reaches a multitude whom no man can number. 
 
 The daily news of the daily newspaper furnishes also the 
 text and texture with which a ready speaker holds an audience. 
 Every morning has its momentous record ; every evening chron- 
 icles a great event. The stage of news is to-day held by the war. 
 Nothing so fixes the attention of an audience and so sets in the 
 memory of his hearers, the speaker's audience, as apt and apposite 
 reference to the day's chronicle. Instantly the audience is listen- 
 ing, recalling the event read, and understanding its interpreta- 
 tion. Speakers on the war roll on endlessly. They are, alas, but 
 too similar ! They repeat argument and emotion. The man can- 
 not hold an audience on the well-worn theme, heart-compelling as 
 
814 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 it is, unless by daily reading and fresh constant knowledge of the 
 day's and hour's news, a speaker finds there his argument and 
 his appeal. 
 
 Without newspapers, a democracy could not exist over a 
 continent, could not know as one, think as one, and act as one. 
 The newspaper, daily and weekly, has made our vast population 
 transparent. Our vast citizenship sees eye to eye, and common 
 news creates a common opinion, will, resolution and act. 
 
 The newspapers themselves feel and show the result of this 
 vast opportunity for the common universal action of 100,000,000 
 of the people. 
 
 The American press had small division as to the great issue 
 of this world war. But for the press in various languages, it 
 would have been practically one. All its language divisions will 
 in due time disappear. We know but one law and one allegiance. 
 The day will come when the American people will know but one 
 tongue in its press. But it is one of the rights of a free press 
 that adults should be on an equality in gaining news and forming 
 opinions, and the way to secure one tongue is to require one lan- 
 guage of all citizens, to forward this end through education and 
 patiently wait until it comes. 
 
 Practically united in their judgment on the issue of the war, 
 the English press was divided at the start and through two years 
 and more on our entrance into the war. In December, 1915, a sur- 
 vey of the files of the daily and weekly press, a costly task, 
 taking weeks, showed that the dailies in our greater cities and 
 other centers of urban population favored war by the United 
 States. The smaller dailies and the weekly press except in parts 
 of the East and on our borders were either opposed to this action 
 or urged delay. Through all of 1916, the press of the land was 
 slowly mirroring the change which took place in public sentiment. 
 The press led, the people followed, and as the people followed 
 the press advanced. Probably only the professional newspaper 
 man knows by how many channels of information a newspaper 
 knows the changing sentiments of its readers, leads, directs and 
 guides, moves a great community along a chosen path and is 
 itself aware how its news and editorials move and have been 
 moved by the vast tides of national action. A great people 
 rooted in peace, trusting that men are good and not evil, itself 
 without greed, ambition or selfish desire, awakes but slowly to 
 the great conspiracy and the vast plot which sought world do- 
 minion at Berlin. 
 
 The American press and the American press more than any 
 other agency awoke the American people to its duty. Great city 
 newspapers led. All read the news, and the news changed the 
 
PROVINCE OF JOURNALISM IN WAR 315 
 
 opinion of all as evidence visibly changes the expression and 
 opinion of a jury. In a year a land which had been in doubt 
 doubted no longer. Speaking as a journalist not in the active 
 work of his calling iDut sedulously observing the tides of opinion, 
 I firmly believe that from August, 1914, to the winter of 1915-16 
 the American people was in profound doubt as to its duty, seek- 
 ing the light, but not ready for war. The absence of decisive 
 action by either of the great parties made easier, sober, balanced 
 and impartial thought. By the opening of 1917, the set of the 
 tide was clear in our dailies and weeklies. I have during the 
 progress of the war addressed a number of State Editorial Asso- 
 ciation meetings, in which the weekly press was strongly repre- 
 sented, and I have seen the process in progress. It ended as the 
 sober thought of the American people, fed with the news and 
 enlightened by the editorials of its press, always will end, in the 
 triumph of the right. 
 
 This brought war, and war brought new duties to the Ameri- 
 can newspaper. Now, as in the Civil War, the need for the cen- 
 sorship of its columns came and the American daily has censored 
 its own news. The Civil War was marked by many and con- 
 stant indiscretions; but not this war. Never has a great call 
 better met a great duty and more unselfishly discharged. Only 
 men familiar with the newspaper, newspaper life, and newspaper 
 men can know how completely and with what whole-souled devo- 
 tion the American daily has excluded from its columns news 
 and criticism which were in analogous cases published by English 
 newspapers. Papers on the continent of Europe have always 
 been under a different regime. The American press, like the na- 
 tion, has closed up shoulder to shoulder, and forgotten self in the 
 larger national duty. News passing through the entire commu- 
 nity and known to the enemy has been jealously and patriotically 
 excluded. How much and how often the public it serves will 
 never know. 
 
 The English Government has been far more liberal in fur- 
 nishing personal news and in its treatment of the casualty list. 
 It has realized that national morale rests on national confidence 
 in national patriotism and that by the open and exact truth 
 strong nations grow strong in the house of battle and the stress 
 of war. 
 
 But it is not by news alone that nations are fed and inspired 
 in war and their best energies are best directed. Sound opinion 
 is also demanded or men are left without leadership. The great 
 peril of the future is that the American people will not realize 
 that every short-coming of the current day is due to the failure 
 of t"he American people to be equal to the great duty of pre- 
 
316 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 serving the peace of the world by a military establishment in 
 whose burdens and service all alike share. National duties can 
 only be discharged by national service. You can no more be 
 nationally secure without a national army than without a national 
 ballot. You can no more delegate national military duties to a 
 select few than you can delegate national political duties to a 
 select few. Every newspaperman easily learns that you can make 
 vigorous, efficient and vital only those things in which all share 
 and of which all know, and have experienced. It is hard enough 
 to keep these efficient. What would our schools be if only a 
 few people went to school? Nothing but universal attendance 
 saves them, and as it is, it is difficult to secure high standards. 
 Urge, argue, expound and predict future perils now come true, 
 as the newspaper might on the need of adequate military forces, 
 all fell on heedless ears in a land where a minute share of the 
 nation's manhood had experienced military service. This will 
 always be the case. 
 
 The duty of the hour for the newspaper is to show and prove, 
 and the proof is abundant and universal, that every lack to-day is 
 due not to men, system or individual short-coming but to na- 
 tional refusal to be ready and prepared. Never again must a 
 great nation watch in anxiety the possibility of great disasters 
 for lack of preparation. 
 
 No vigilance, no prescience, no skill, no argument will be 
 of avail from the newspaper unless it is addressed to a nation 
 where enough men have served to create a general public opinion 
 and criticism. You, as speakers, have no more important duty 
 than to make your audiences aware that they and they alone are 
 responsible for asking the impossible and expecting military effi- 
 ciency in war without military preparation in peace. 
 
 Unless the American people learns this, when peace with vic- 
 tory comes, it will be fruitless. We are fighting for no conquest 
 and no national advantage. The American people proposes to 
 create a new Heaven and a new Earth, a new heaven of justice, 
 and a new earth of equality and safety for small lands and large. 
 
 The greatest and most important function of a free press 
 and of a free people is to prepare it to discharge the coming re- 
 sponsibility of keeping the world's peace. We have shunned this 
 duty, we have dreaded to take our place in a world system which 
 required the world over Law, Justice, Righteousness, Order, 
 Mercy and Everlasting Peace. These things once won can be 
 maintained by a peace which relative to the task will be as pow- 
 erful as that which keeps peace of the union. 
 
 In 1787 we ran a ring-fence about 13 colonies to keep the 
 peace forevermore, and only a deadly evil over which we com- 
 
PROVINCE OF JOURNALISM IN WAR 317 
 
 promised prevented perpetual peace. The Monroe Doctrine ex- 
 cluded aggressive war and guaranteed outer peace for a hemi- 
 sphere. To-day we propose to put the ring-fence of peace around 
 the world and for this task the American newspaper can alone 
 prepare the American people. 
 
SOLVING PROBLEMS OF IMMIGRANT AND ALIEN 
 
 By Raymond F. Ckist, 
 Deputy Commissioner of Naturalisation, Department of Labor 
 
 The Bureau of Naturalization is carrying on one of the larg- 
 est nation-building undertakings to be found in any government 
 activity. This work consists in bringing together the public 
 schools of the United States and the adult foreigner and the 
 immigrant who is a candidate for citizenship honors. The public 
 schools in the United States have struggled over the problem of 
 securing the attendance upon their night classes of the adult 
 foreigner for years, but without success. The plan of the Bu- 
 reau of NaturaHzation has been pronounced to be the key to this 
 situation. Under the naturaHzation law the clerks of about 2500 
 naturalization courts all over the United States send duplicates 
 of all naturalization papers, monthly, to the Bureau of NaturaHza- 
 tion. From these papers the Bureau transcribes the name, ad- 
 dress, nationality, and a great deal of additional information re- 
 garding the candidates for citizenship and their wives, and sends 
 this information to the public schools in the communities where 
 these foreigners live. The public school authorities at once en- 
 deavor to get these ambitious foreigners into the public schools. 
 They have their attendance officers and others call upon these 
 immigrants and urge them to attend the citizenship classes which 
 they have organized during the last three or four years at the 
 instance of this Bureau for the instruction and preparation of 
 these candidates for citizenship responsibilities. At the same time 
 that these names are sent to the public schools by the Bureau of 
 Naturalization, it addresses a friendly, personal letter to each of 
 these candidates, telling them that the United States Government 
 is interested in their behalf and urging them to attend these 
 classes. 
 
 This work has been going on for the last three years be- 
 tween the public schools and the Bureau of Naturalization. In 
 the first scholastic year the Bureau started this work with 38 
 of the principal cities of the United States. In these cities the 
 superintendents of schools have agreed to establish night classes to 
 teach citizenship responsibilities to all of the candidates for citi- 
 
 318 
 
PROBLEMS OF IMMIGRANT AND ALIEN 319 
 
 zenship whom the Bureau would send to them. With the end of 
 the scholastic year over 600 cities and towns had joined with the 
 Bureau of Naturalization in this fundamental, patriotic uplift 
 work. This plan for the linking together of the public schools and 
 the Bureau of Naturalization was inaugurated before the outbreak 
 of the present European conflict. Since that time it has con- 
 tinued to grow. During the present year in over 1800 cities, 
 towns and small communities the superintendents of schools have 
 pledged their active cooperation with the Bureau of Naturaliza- 
 tion in this great constructive work in citizenship. Under the 
 law the Bureau of Naturalization has distributed an outline 
 course of instruction for the use of the public school teacher. It 
 is also authorized by law to distribute to the candidates for citi- 
 zenship in the public schools a textbook and without cost to the 
 immigrant. It is perfecting arrangements with the various 
 branches of the government by which it will secure motion-picture 
 films of various governmental activities and furnish these films 
 to the school authorities wherever motion-picture projectors are 
 provided. In this way the Bureau will present the activities of 
 the government to these foreign groups and enable them to see in 
 what manner "government by the people" is in fact "for the 
 people" — whether they be of native or foreign birth, whether they 
 be citizens or non-citizens. 
 
 This Bureau also has furnished the public school teachers 
 throughout the United States with the preliminary naturalization 
 forms for use in the class-rooms. In the hands of these teachers 
 of the public schools, these forms have been used in many, many 
 instances as the basis for securing the appHcations of all candi- 
 dates for citizenship in these classes. When it is understood that 
 eighty per cent, or more of the adult foreign-born students in 
 these night classes are not candidates for citizenship, it can read- 
 ily be seen that the greatest force has been set into motion for the 
 awakening in the breast of every foreigner of that ambition that 
 is or ought to be in the soul of every foreigner — the ambition to 
 become an American citizen. With the support which the public 
 schools are giving to this nation-building work of the Bureau 
 of Naturalization, every foreigner should be inspired to become 
 an American citizen, for in the class-rooms the school teachers 
 are imparting the spirit of the Constitution and laws of the 
 United States, as well as the mere words and form. This is 
 the first occasion in the history of America that the United 
 States Government has undertaken to inculcate the spirit and 
 principles, as well as the soul of America. Every other pro- 
 fession and calling, save the highest of all professions and call- 
 ings, has been given special thought and development during 
 
320 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 the decades gone by; the highest of all professions, the profes- 
 sion of self-government — the spirit which is necessary to awaken 
 in an individual to enable him to properly govern himself — 
 has lain neglected and has been completely ignored by these two 
 governmental agencies, the State public schools and the Federal 
 Government. All this citizenship instruction is being carried on 
 through the medium of what the foreigner calls "United States," 
 or, in American English; American institutions of government 
 and love for them is being imparted to these foreigners through 
 the medium of our tongue. The desire for the mastery of our 
 tongue constitutes the bond which is developed quickly between 
 the American-born school teacher and her foreign-born adult 
 student. 
 
SOME FACTS ABOUT NATURALIZATION 
 
 By 0. T. MooEE, 
 
 Chief Examiner, Department of Naturalization, Department of 
 
 Labor 
 
 The question may be viewed from more than one standpoint. 
 There are the problems of the alien question from the viewpoint 
 of the alien, and from the viewpoint of the government. From 
 the viewpoint of the alien, the problem resolves itself into a num- 
 ber of phases, primarily the securing of better employment, the 
 surrounding of himself with better conditions of living, better 
 educational facilities, and better sanitary conditions, and as a 
 final analysis of it, more self-respect. 
 
 From the government's viewpoint, from the viewpoint of the 
 general welfare of the country, it is resolved again into several 
 specifications. 
 
 One great problem confronting the government is the distri- 
 bution of the immigrants to this country. At the present time 
 probably seventy-five per cent, of all the immigrants arriving in 
 this country settle in a congested area, which might be described 
 by a circle with New York City as a radius, and the radius need, 
 be not more than two hundred and fifty miles ; in other words, 
 three-fourths of the entire number of immigrants living here are 
 found within two hundred miles of the city of New York. That 
 is a very great problem that the government has in the handling 
 of the alien question. 
 
 Another phase of the question is that a large number of the 
 aliens arriving in this country come from countries largely en- 
 gaged in agricultural pursuits. Those aliens are skilled in agri- 
 culture. They come to this country, settle in this restricted area 
 that I speak of, which is quite essentially not an agricultural 
 district. They settle in our larger cities and become engaged not 
 in agriculture, but in other forms of labor at which they are not 
 skilled. They are therefore not rendering the full, efficient 
 service that might be rendered if they were diverted to the occu- 
 pation in which they are more skilled. 
 
 Together with this settlement in this restricted area comes the 
 colonization which we find in all these eastern cities. In many 
 
 321 
 
322 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 of our eastern cities are found thousands of aliens congregated 
 in little Bohemia, little Poland, little Italy, etc. In each of our 
 larger eastern cities are numbers of such settlements. Within 
 those settlements can be found great numbers of aHens who have 
 Hved in this country for years without ever acquiring our lan- 
 guage. This is particularly true among the women. Women in 
 these colonized settlements are engaged in their home occupa- 
 tions; they are not thrown out among the people as the male 
 members of the family are. Their associates are members of 
 their own race ; and I have in many instances encountered women 
 who have lived twenty-five years in this country who are unable 
 to carry on a simple conversation in the English language. 
 
 One specific instance of that was in New Haven, Connecticut, 
 a noted center of learning in the United States. On the east side 
 of New Haven there is an Italian settlement in which hundreds 
 of foreign born citizens live who do not speak our language, who 
 have lived there for years. This is certainly not a satisfactory 
 way to assimilate and Americanize the alien who comes to our 
 shores. 
 
 With that goes the question of efficient citizenship. These 
 people up to very recent years were permitted to acquire citizen- 
 ship here. Very few restrictions were thrown about the acquir- 
 ing of citizenship until the last few years. As a consequence, 
 thousands of people have been clothed with citizenship who are 
 not qualified in any way to exercise the function ; hence a very 
 large inefficient citizenship resulted. The whole question might 
 be covered in two classifications : Americanization on one hand 
 and loyalty. In the final analysis, loyalty would be the object 
 to be accomplished. We must secure the absolute loyalty of all 
 the foreigners who come to our shores, and with that loyalty 
 necessarily goes efficiency. 
 
 Strange to relate, one great solution for both sides — for the 
 immigrant of all his difficulties and his problems and for the 
 country — is education. To the average alien who comes to this 
 country, and the most of them land in the city of New Ybrk, the 
 Statue of Liberty is typical of what he has come for. The most 
 of them have come to this country from countries where in many 
 instances they have been oppressed, and they have necessarily 
 built up a great ideal of democracy where they will go and be 
 taken in with open arms, and be given an opportunity to exercise 
 the functions of citizenship in a democracy. Unfortunately, in 
 our careless way of handhng things, there have been many rude 
 awakenings from this idealistic viewpoint. 
 
 We have permitted these foreign people to live here in ig- 
 norance of our language and customs, carrying on the language 
 
SOME FACTS ABOUT NATURALIZATION 323 
 
 and customs from which they come. As a result they are ready 
 prey to any clever propagandist who happens to come from their 
 native country and speaks their native language. They are very 
 easily approached by him, and they have no influence here that 
 would stabilize them and deter them from following his propa- 
 ganda. This is why the Bolsheviki of Russia and those work- 
 ing against the United States receive so much support. 
 
 One of the first attempts to solve the alien situation in recent 
 times dates back to the naturalization laws of 1906. Up to 
 1906 it was possible for thousands of men to be clothed with 
 citizenship annually, who had no conception of our form of gov- 
 ernment, and did not even speak the language of the country. 
 The only method whereby they were included in citizenship was 
 through crafty politicians of their own race to whom they were 
 very easy prey. It was commonly heard in years gone by that a 
 certain man with a foreign-sounding name was able to swing the 
 Italian votes of this town, and in another place a certain man 
 would be able to swing the Bohemian vote and the Polish vote, 
 etc. If it was necessary to carry an election and people were 
 careless as to the use of their money and citizenship at the same 
 time, it was possible to swing many wards by urging certain 
 gentlemen of influence to work among people of their own na- 
 tionality. 
 
 In one of the cities of northern New England ninety-five per 
 cent, of the voting strength of two of the principal wards of the 
 city are foreigners of one race. When you consider that that is 
 the balance of power politically in that city, it is very easy to 
 see how the improper use of this alien voting strength of the city 
 might be used. The Act of Congress of 1906 revised and codified 
 the naturalization law and placed the law under federal control. 
 It was the first time that the Federal Government had ever exer- 
 cised its control over naturalization in accordance with the provi- 
 sions of the Constitution of the United States. Every applicant 
 for citizenship at this time has an investigation of his application 
 by representatives of the government. A representative of the 
 government is present in court and either attends to or oversees 
 the admission of citizenship. The opportunity for wholesale 
 frauds in naturalization is therefore eliminated. Furthermore the 
 standing of the naturalization before the courts has resulted in 
 raising very materially the standards of citizenship as viewed by 
 the court. At the present time, in order to be admitted to citizen- 
 ship a man must satisfy the court that he is in every way qualified. 
 
 In the local court at the last hearing on naturalization last 
 Monday, out of forty-two men who applied for citizenship, six- 
 teen of the cases were continued for periods from three months 
 
324! WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 to one year, in order that the applicant might attend public night 
 school and become better qualified to exercise the duties of cit- 
 izenship, and that they might have a better understanding of our 
 system of government. Some were men unable to read; they 
 ■were advised to go to the public night school and learn how to 
 read. This particular judge thought that a man in order to ex- 
 ercise the functions of citizenship intelligently should be able to 
 read the language of the country. 
 
 I regret to state it is not a universal ruling, because it comes 
 under that specific interpretation of the law that the court must be 
 in every wise satisfied that the applicant is qualified for citizen- 
 ship. That is a matter of judicial discretion, and some of our 
 old-time politician judges are, — well, it is rather difficult to im- 
 press upon them the fact that an understanding of the language 
 and the customs of the country are necessary in order that an 
 applicant be in every way qualified for citizenship. 
 
 I have had many experiences in that particular where a man, 
 undoubtedly honest, respectable, law-abiding, had lived in the 
 country for years, but spoke very poor English, had made no at- 
 tempt to equip himself either with the language or an idea of 
 our customs or government. "Oh," the court would say, "he is 
 a good, honest old man ; let him in. It is going to do no par- 
 ticular harm to let this particular case in." But when that case 
 is multiplied by thousands, it very much depreciates the standard 
 of citizenship. 
 
 But, as I stated, the attitude of the courts seems to be more 
 and more towards the other viewpoint, and last year there were 
 a great many thousands of applications for citizenship continued 
 for the specific purpose that the applicant attend school and 
 acquaint himself with our system of government. 
 
 It is the opinion of the Naturalization Department that with- 
 out question every applicant for citizenship, every person ad- 
 mitted to citizenship, should be able to read and write and speak 
 the English language. The only standard of education outlined 
 in the naturalization law as it stands is that a man sign his 
 petition in his own handwriting, and that he be able to speak the 
 English language. Speaking the English language, under the in- 
 terpretation of some judges, is being able to say "Yes" as "Yah" 
 and "No," the sum total of his vocabulary not being more than 
 those two words. But I am very glad to state that is not universal 
 or uniform in any way, and is not extensive. It is very limited. 
 Only a few judges of my acquaintance are lenient in that re- 
 spect. The public schools are being equipped with night schools 
 for adult education, and the tendency is decidedly to the con- 
 trary. 
 
SOME FACTS ABOUT NATURALIZATION 325 
 
 A specific instance that I have in mind shows the necessity 
 for supervision, federal supervision of naturalization. In the 
 early stages of the European war, before the United States en- 
 tered the war, there was an applicant for citizenship in Balti- 
 more, a man of very fine appearance, intelligence, apparently of 
 very high standing in the community in which he lived at the 
 time, who wanted to acquire citizenship. As witnesses he had 
 two of the most reputable men of the city of Baltimore and of 
 the state of Maryland. One of the men identified with the matter 
 was at the head of one of the patriotic societies of the state. I 
 had an anonymous communication in regard to that man's case 
 with a question as to his intention, and a question as to his pos- 
 sible loyalty. I went to the witnesses, men I know to be of the 
 highest standing and of unquestioned integrity, and put the prop- 
 osition up to each of them. "Can you say without question that 
 this man intends to become a citizen in good faith and intends to 
 relinquish his former allegiance without any qualification ?" Each 
 said he could. I was not satisfied, and made a further investiga- 
 tion; but was unable to find anything, any cloud on which to 
 base an objection to the admission to citizenship of this man. 
 He was married to an American woman, had lived twenty years 
 in the United States, renounced his allegiance to the German 
 Emperor, stated that his great urgency in acquiring citizenship 
 at this time was to go to Denmark where he was to meet his 
 mother and bring her to this country. I told the court my doubts 
 in this case and the only basis I had for them. But after a final 
 consideration, he was admitted to citizenship. He acquired a 
 passport from our State Department, and inside of three weeks 
 he was on a German battleship and serving in the German navy. 
 Inside of three months he had been killed in the early campaign 
 in France. 
 
 I am asked, Are there any states where an unnaturalized alien 
 is permitted to vote ? I regret to state that that question must be 
 answered in the affirmative. There has been some agitation very 
 recently on that question, and a good deal of misinformation, I 
 think, has been given out regarding the question; but there are 
 some states in the United States where an alien can vote on what 
 is known as his first paper. If an alien who lands in New York 
 goes straight away to Indiana — I mention Indiana because it is 
 one of the states — he can file his first paper immediately. As 
 soon as he has complied with the local residence requirements, so 
 many months in the state, so many days in the country, and so 
 many days in the voting precinct, he can vote. And in the state of 
 Indiana thousands of aliens, who recently arrived in the United 
 States, have taken out their first papers in order to vote in the 
 
326 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 coming election, regardless of their desires toward the country; 
 their intention has never been proven. They just simply appear 
 before an officer and say, "It is my intention to become a citi- 
 zen," and by that act they are duly qualified voters of the state of 
 Indiana. And that same is true of Texas. I will not endeavor 
 to mention the states, but it is less than the ten that were given 
 in the newspapers throughout the United States. In the recent 
 agitation of that question Oregon was included and Alabama 
 was included. In neither of those two states can an alien declare 
 his intention and vote. 
 
 Nebraska is still one of the states. Legislation is pending in 
 South Dakota, legislation is pending in Texas, legislation is pend- 
 ing in Oregon, legislation is pending in Nebraska, but Wisconsin, 
 I beHeve, by an amendment to its constitution in 1912, left the 
 ranks, and Michigan by an amendment to its constitution in 
 1896. 
 
 The past bulletins of the Commissioner of Naturalization 
 have covered all of these various points. I believe it was Thomas 
 Jefferson who said that fundamentally education under a repub- 
 lican form of government is an inherent right. 
 
 In 1913 Mr. Raymond F. Crist, Deputy Commissioner of Nat- 
 uralization, began a campaign in his official position to encourage 
 — to have started in the cities throughout the United States night 
 schools for the education of applicants for citizenship. At the 
 close of the last school year two thousand cities and towns in 
 the United States had inaugurated night schools where alien 
 adults might attend school and learn to speak and read and write 
 English and to acquaint themselves with our system of govern- 
 ment. These night schools are all of them cooperating with our 
 Bureau in this particular. It is possible now for the judge of 
 this local court to say to an applicant for citizenship, "Yiou are 
 not at the present time qualified. There is no question about 
 your honesty, about your character, about the required period of 
 residence in your case, but you are not educationally qualified. 
 You do not understand sufficiently our system of government. If 
 you will go to night school for the next six months and come 
 back I will give you another opportunity to qualify for your 
 citizenship." And that sort of a statement from a court is pos- 
 sible from over two thousand cities of the United States to-day, 
 due to the campaign which was begun by Mr. Crist four years 
 ago. 
 
 The system followed is this : At the end of each month dupli- 
 cates of all applications for citizenships, both first paper and 
 second paper, are forwarded to the Bureau of Naturalization in 
 Washington. Immediately upon their receipt a letter is addressed 
 
SOME FACTS ABOUT NATURALIZATION 327 
 
 to each of these persons, and to the wife of each of these per- 
 sons, if they are married, advising them that there is a night 
 school conducted in their vicinity, that they will be able to se- 
 cure free at the public night school education that will qualify 
 them for admission later. At the same time a card is sent to the 
 head of the public institution in each of these cities, giving the 
 name and address and certain other facts regarding each of these 
 persons. In various cities they have various methods of appeal- 
 ing to these people. In some cities they work through the public 
 welfare department. In other cities through the associated chari- 
 ties of the city, and a great many agencies are brought to bear. 
 In some cities the church organizations are active ; in other cities 
 the patriotic organizations, the G. A. R., the commercial societies, 
 etc., are active. 
 
 Shortly after the naturalization reform law was passed, in 
 President Roosevelt's administration, I heard him say that it was 
 the greatest reform legislation of his administration. And I 
 want to say in closing that the present activities of the Bureau in 
 this educational campaign have the warm approval and endorse- 
 ment of President Wilson. 
 
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS 
 
 By Harvey D. Gibson, 
 General Manager of the American Red Cross 
 
 It was very difficult to get any idea at the time America en- 
 tered the war of exactly what the fields of relief would develop 
 to be. I do not think that any of us can ever be thankful enough, 
 — you, the people abroad and ourselves, in the organization of 
 the Red Cross, — that such a very happy selection was made as of 
 Mr. Henry P. Davison, the chairman of the War Council. 
 
 I say without any hesitation whatever that I do not believe 
 that there is another man in the world that could have had that 
 man's vision of what it was possible for the Red Cross organiza- 
 tion to do for good in the present war. 
 
 The work of the Red Cross abroad is just as varied and differ- 
 ent from any conception that any Red Cross society in the world 
 has had of Red Cross work in the past as one can possibly im- 
 agine. 
 
 Generally speaking, there are three big fields of relief which 
 have developed in this situation. The first field of relief, and the 
 field of relief which stands uppermost in our minds all the time, 
 is that of rendering relief to the American soldiers in the camps 
 and cantonments in this country and after they go abroad. This 
 field of relief has been developing greatly, and now with the entire 
 approval and hearty cooperation of the War Department we have 
 gotten a pretty good organization established at these various 
 camps. I will explain more about it later. 
 
 The second field of relief, almost equally important, it seems 
 to me, is what we know as civilian relief, that which has to do 
 with the famihes and dependents of the soldiers and sailors who 
 have gone to the front. We have developed a new name in con- 
 nection with this work which was not known before the war, 
 known as "Home Service." 
 
 The third field of relief is the work which we are doing in 
 some seven or eight foreign lands, particularly in France, Great 
 Britain and Italy, at the present time. 
 
 At the camps a very pretty situation for the Red Cross ex- 
 ists. It is somewhat of a show window for the Red Cross work 
 
 328 
 
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS 329 
 
 so far as this country is concerned. At each camp our head 
 man is what we call a camp field director. Now, first of all in 
 the Red Cross, we think of equipping and outfitting the soldier in 
 emergency cases, supplementing the army. So in each one of 
 these camps we have a Red Cross warehouse which has been 
 constructed for us by the War Department. In this Red Cross 
 warehouse we have, or where we have not, we shall have, a com- 
 plete supply of all kinds of emergency equipment which might 
 be used in emergencies to supplement the army equipment. This 
 also applies to the camps where the navy men are now in training. 
 In these warehouses we have fifty or sixty thousand sweaters, 
 fifty thousand pairs of socks, a lot of wristlets, mufflers, etc. We 
 have certain quantities of the various drugs which might not in 
 emergencies be had in the hospitals, or that might be wasted by 
 fire, — ether and quinine and things of that kind. Those things 
 are in these warehouses, and it would please the Red Cross if 
 we should never need to give out any of those things. But we 
 know that the American men and women want the Red Cross 
 to have these supplies there to answer the call should any calls 
 come. We also have blankets. We do not have them to give 
 to soldiers, but we have them to put out and loan to soldiers upon 
 the approval of the commanding officer of the camp should at 
 any time a soldier lose his blanket and be unable to get one for 
 the night; and he gives it back when he gets another one. We 
 think we have that pretty well covered. 
 
 The next most important work perhaps at the camps is the 
 home service work. Each camp director has under his supervi- 
 sion a director of the home service. This man has to do with 
 assuring the boys who are at the camp of the condition of their 
 families throughout the United States, wherever they may be 
 located. Suppose, for instance, a young man gets a letter from 
 his mother and hears that she is having great difficulty in getting 
 coal; or that she does not know how to go about it to fix up the 
 papers that may be necessary in relation to his insurance, or that 
 there is something that she must do in connection with getting 
 the proper amount of the boy's pay, and she is in terrible diffi- 
 culties, and that the little brother is also ill, — that young man 
 cannot be a good soldier, and cannot well go on with training 
 while those things are on his mind and he is worrying about his 
 mother and sister and all the troubles he has left behind that he 
 used to take care of at home. But everywhere in the camps are 
 placards posted up by the Red Cross which tell the boys that if 
 there is anything bothering their minds in the slightest about 
 the family at home, just to go right straight to the Red Cross 
 house and see the director of the home service department and 
 
330 WELFARE DURING THE W4R AND AFTER 
 
 he will help them out. The moment he goes to the house of the 
 director, the latter sends a telegram direct, not through any red 
 tape of the organization which we have to have to establish this 
 system, but as direct as he can to the home service committee in 
 the chapter which has jurisdiction in the territory where that 
 boy's family resides, and tells them what this young fellow de- 
 sires. They investigate the case, find out the facts, and send back 
 a telegram within twenty-four hours telling exactly what that 
 boy wants to know. He is happy in ninety-nine cases out of a 
 hundred ! 
 
 Now we have one of these home service men assigned to every 
 division of the American army. This work meets with the most 
 hearty approval, you can readily imagine, of the War Department 
 and of the government officials. Our men will start in with each 
 division of the regular army and will come to know these boys, 
 will have a record of all cases where home affairs may possibly 
 be troublesome, and that same man goes right along with them on 
 the steamer, goes to France and stays with the same division as 
 long as the war lasts. His place is taken by a new man in the 
 place where the division was. 
 
 Now the next work that will be interesting to you is the work 
 in and around the hospital zone, in each camp and cantonment. 
 There is a base hospital, and in connection with each of these we 
 are constructing, — we have let the contracts for some thirty of 
 them, and some are now in operation, — we are constructing con- 
 valescent houses there, a building the shape of the Red Cross 
 in construction, 'very attractive buildings. They are connected 
 with the hospital by an enclosed ambulatory. We have a large 
 assembly room and some parlors and a stage, moving pictures, 
 places for lecturers and any of the Y. M. C. A. or Knights of 
 Columbus entertainers who may be in the field on those nights 
 and are good enough to loan themselves to us. These houses 
 are so constructed that the patients, just as soon as they can 
 be wheeled around, can be pushed out from the surroundings of 
 the hospital and get into this nice, attractive, big room and enjoy 
 every possible comfort devised for them until they get well. 
 These houses are going to be run by the management of the hos- 
 pital or the Surgeon General's department, and they will be as- 
 sisted by various Red Cross workers in and around the locality 
 in connection with the chapter. 
 
 Now, another feature of the hospital work which is very im- 
 portant, and we have taken it by direction of the Surgeon Gen- 
 eral's office, is the matter of communications home, — home com- 
 munications. We will have a corps of people in each one of 
 these hospitals whose duty it will be, — for which they are held 
 
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS 331 
 
 responsible by the Red Cross and also by the Surgeon General's 
 office through the Red Cross, — to write home to the families of 
 every single patient that comes into these hospitals. The day a 
 new patient comes into a camp hospital a letter will be written 
 home to the father or mother stating he has entered the hospital 
 on such and such a date and such and such is the matter with 
 him, and each day they will write a letter home and tell the 
 family how the man progresses; and finally when he gets well 
 and leaves the hospital they write a letter and say he was dis- 
 charged on such and such a day. 
 
 Now, ladies and gentlemen, you can imagine what a respon- 
 sibility that we who are interested in the management of the Red 
 Cross have had placed upon us in that work, and you can see what 
 a satisfaction it would be to you to get those communica- 
 tions from the Red Cross and feel that some one was giving 
 you the real interesting facts in regard to the illness of your 
 boy. 
 
 This, in a general way, is about what we are doing in the 
 American hospitals. We are constructing in some cases houses 
 of different character for this purpose or that, but that is the 
 general program. 
 
 We have in addition little rest houses that we are building 
 for the nurses to make them comfortable, because no such place 
 is provided for them. 
 
 The home service department is perhaps the best organized 
 we have, but the one which has been less noticed by the public 
 because there has been very little home service work to be done 
 up to the present time. We have been laying foundations for 
 the great work which must of necessity be done hereafter. Every 
 single square inch of the United States is organized. There are 
 thirty-six thousand chapters, branches and auxiliaries throughout 
 the United States. There is no part of the United States which 
 is not covered by a chapter which has a definite allotted territory 
 assigned to it. Almost all of these chapters have home service 
 committees. These home service committees are prepared and 
 instructed to do work in and around the homes of these sol- 
 diers in the very best possible manner, according to a regulated 
 program laid down by our director general of civilian relief, 
 who is a very fine man in his line. That work has to do, as I 
 said, with the families, and I explained how it works in the 
 camps. Now, that same thing we carry on in Europe, and with 
 every division of the American army in Europe, and this will 
 continue until the war is over. We have a representative of 
 the home service section who is there at all times to give the 
 same assurance to the boys from home by cable communication 
 
332 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 as these boys do in the camps. Now the work of these home 
 service people is very much improved by their having a proper 
 knowledge of the best possible way to handle these various situa- 
 tions. Many, many times it is not a matter of money at all. It 
 is very interesting to see how much more one community spends 
 than another just because one knows so much more about how 
 this service should be administered. It is much more valuable 
 to take a mother to the moving pictures than to give her twenty- 
 five dollars, and so there are so many schemes and ways that they 
 must learn to administer this home relief that we have found it 
 advantageous to have institutes for home relief. So in twenty- 
 seven institutions of learning of the United States we run a reg- 
 ular course in home service work. The different ones go and 
 study the most approved methods of rendering this service to the 
 families throughout the country. These home service institutes 
 have been crowded with the chairman of home relief sections 
 throughout the United States. So that ground, it seems to us, is 
 extremely well covered. 
 
 Now, the work abroad in France is something beyond any 
 possible comprehension unless you could go there actually to see 
 it. We now have three thousand employees in that organization. 
 This week a steamer sailed, and we have fifty who could not go 
 on it. It is an enormous work. That end of the work is entirely 
 new. As you have probably heard speakers from abroad tell 
 you, it is very largely confined to doing everything that we can 
 to make everybody feel that they want to fight, and that the only 
 thing to do is to fight. And that America is in the war, as Mr. 
 Davidson said once, "Red Cross end first" ; and that we are there 
 to help them all we can and to relieve the minds of the men as 
 to their families, etc., until our troops can be trained and come 
 in to help out the French and English on that battlefront. It 
 is just as much a part. General Pershing says, of the whole war 
 program as any other part of the whole thing that we are now 
 engaged in. 
 
 One of the two things that has interested me most is the work 
 we are doing at the homes in France. As you know, when the 
 Germans crushed on through Belgium and northern France and 
 pushed back the French and English, the only people left behind 
 the lines were the old and infirm and the babies that could not 
 possibly go along with the rest of them. Now, after these sol- 
 diers and civilians that could be pushed were pushed back, these 
 poor people that were left there were used by the Germans just 
 as much as they could possibly use them. They wrung them 
 dry just the same as you would take a wash cloth and wring it 
 until you could not get any more water out of it. Then when 
 
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS 
 
 absolutely no good to anybody in the world, they started sending 
 them back into northern France, landing them at Amiens at the 
 rate of a thousand a day, two trains of five hundred each came 
 back there every single day, and every single one of those people 
 were either diseased with tuberculosis or with some other terrible 
 disease, or else they were crippled beyond any possible use, or else 
 they were babies or children up to six or seven years of age. 
 Now, those people had been taken from their own homes be- 
 cause their homes were all ruined and sent to an entirely new 
 country. There was nothing in the world to do with them. The 
 French Government was confronted with a terrible situation. 
 Some five hundred thousand were sent back, and the French 
 started to put them around in different families. They would 
 assign an old man to a family whose husband was at the front, 
 etc., and put them out as a government arrangement in these dif- 
 ferent families. Well, you can just imagine the effect on a sol- 
 dier when he comes back on a furlough from the front. He does 
 not come very often to his home, which has probably been all 
 torn to pieces anyway, and his family is probably living in the 
 cellar. He finds this old man or woman there with tuberculosis, 
 taking food out of the children's mouths, who have not enough. 
 When that man goes back to the front, he is a very, very unhappy 
 man. His morale is broken, and if you know the French, you 
 know they are either way up or else they are way down. Now, 
 the Red Cross saw that situation and at the request of and in 
 conjunction with the French Government they undertook to help 
 it out. So they have constructed dispensaries in one part of 
 France where there were devastated villages. And now we meet 
 these people at Amiens ; the Red Cross have a crowd there to 
 meet them and take the old men and women and diseased and 
 segregate them in these dispensaries. They use every means pos- 
 sible to find the relatives of those who have no place to go. The 
 result is that a large percentage of them are taken care of in that 
 way. That makes them happy and prevents the spread of disease 
 otherwise inevitable. 
 
 Then the little children are taken to children's hospitals. 
 They are all in terrible conditions; they have not been washed. 
 They take those children and get them straight on the right road, 
 and get them places where they belong. And the next time this 
 soldier comes back from the trenches, he comes to his home and 
 is told that the American Red Cross has taken the old gentleman 
 and fixed him up somewhere. He goes back to the trenches and 
 says, "We are going to win this war yet!" To me this is the 
 most impressive of any of our foreign work. I saw some mov- 
 ing pictures of this work the other day. The tears rolled down 
 
WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 my cheeks when I looked at them. It is the most wonderful work 
 that can be imagined. 
 
 I want to give just a fleeting picture of just one other item, 
 the canteen work. When these soldiers come back from the 
 front, they go to railroad stations, large numbers of them, and 
 there is no train. They may stay twelve or twenty-four hours 
 or longer, and there is no place to sleep except in the park. They 
 are dirty, and they have nothing to do. The morale is very, very 
 low. We realized this, and we have built at these junction points 
 at the railroads numerous canteens. One canteen — it is a building 
 much larger than this hotel — we have had painted in bright, 
 glorious red, white and blue, and other colors, painted largely by 
 German prisoners ! One fellow, who was an expert at making 
 plaster of paris baskets of flowers, helped decorate the place. 
 So we have a beautiful frieze around it, with flowers and fruit, 
 etc., one of the most attractive places you ever saw. We have 
 in this building a large corps of workers. A soldier gets off at 
 that railroad station; is met by these people and taken in there 
 and given a bath, if he wants it, not forced to, but given an op- 
 portunity to take a bath ; and his clothes are sterilized and all of 
 the vermin are killed. Then his underclothes are either washed 
 and mended, or he is given a new suit of underclothes. He is 
 shaved, and his beard trimmed, and he gets a haircut. His shoes 
 are mended or he is given a new pair, and all along the sides are 
 beds, and he can sleep as long as he wants to in his clean linen. 
 And when he gets up he feels much better than when he came 
 out of the trenches. Nobody likes to have his whiskers trimmed 
 up so much as a Frenchman, and when he goes home he is a 
 respectable human being, — all done by the Red Cross. Thirty 
 thousand a day are thus treated. We are extending the service 
 as much as possible and sending over strong American women 
 to take care of those fellows when they come to these canteens, 
 and the thanks they give these women is really pitiful. They 
 come to them and tell them how sorry they are that they have 
 to work so late at night. "How long must you work, all night?" 
 They do not think it quite right. 
 
 I use those two points to show what an immense thing it is 
 to keep the morale of the French at the highest pitch. They feel 
 that America is really there. The spirit of the work that the 
 Red Cross is doing abroad in France, Belgium, England and all 
 over the world can't possibly be better illustrated than by a little 
 story that Major Murphy told me when he was over here a short 
 time ago. He said that one day he was going through a hospital 
 in Belgium with the Queen of the Belgians, and they saw a little 
 boy there on a bed who was blind. It seems that when the Ger- 
 
THE AMERICAN RED CROSS 335 
 
 mans came through the town where this little boy lived, they blew 
 everything up ; they blew all the buildings up and made absolute 
 devastation, and this little boy, and everybody that could, fled 
 and hid in cellars, etc. This little boy got separated from the 
 crowd and hid in a cellar, and he peeped out through a cellar 
 window and saw the Germans going along in different places 
 and digging holes and burying little metal boxes. He thought it 
 was some sort of treasure they were burying, and that the Ger- 
 mans were coming back to dig them up later. So after the Ger- 
 mans had gone through the town and ruined everything and had 
 left the town, the people began to go out. This little Belgian boy 
 was one of them, and he told them about this box of treasure 
 that he saw these Germans burying not far away. They went 
 over with the little boy and he dug down for the little box. But 
 it was not a box of treasure, but a box of explosives, and it ex- 
 ploded in his face and blinded him. He did not know what had 
 happened to him, and at the time I speak of — this little fellow 
 sat there wondering why his eyes were bandaged and begging 
 the attendants frequently to take these bandages off his eyes so 
 he could see; but they had taken them off many times and the 
 little fellow had not been able to see. He sat there in his chair, 
 and when he heard any one coming up the corridor his face would 
 brighten up and he would hold out both hands so people could 
 touch him as they passed by. It seems that all that little fellow 
 wanted was to hold out his hands so people could touch him and 
 let him know that some friendly hand was near. Major Murphy 
 and the Queen came along, and the little fellow, as usual, stretched 
 forth his hands while his face lighted up with joy at the prospect 
 of finding new friends ; and Major Murphy took hold of the little 
 fellow's hands with a tender pressure. That's all the little boy 
 wanted, just to feel the touch of human hands. Now, it seems 
 to me that is exactly what we are doing in this Red Cross work 
 abroad. We are just touching their hands to assure them that 
 we are present to help them. It is not money they want. We 
 will, of course, give them all they need, but more than that we 
 must touch their hands, and assure them of our sincere desire to 
 be their friends. Now, we are not doing that as charity; that's 
 the farthest from what the Red Cross stands for. We are not 
 doing it because we want to make some return for Lafayette's 
 coming over here across the ocean during the Revolutionary War 
 and being our friend in the time of need. We are touching those 
 hands just because you and I and all of us are that kind of people. 
 We want to be their friends ; we want to help. That's all there is 
 to it, and we ought to thank God that we are that kind of people. 
 
THE PROVINCE OF THE RED CROSS 
 
 By John W. Davis, 
 
 Solicitor General of the United States 
 
 You are about to carry to the American people the story of 
 the Red Cross. I can imagine no more enthralHng theme on 
 which any speaker can address an audience. No matter what 
 angle of the subject he may touch, there is material to evoke all 
 the powers of eloquence and oratory that he may possess, whether 
 it be the history of the Red Cross, from its origin in the Crimea 
 on the battlefield of Solferino, its multitudinous activities, which 
 have made it a symbol of benediction throughout the world from 
 that date to this, or whether it be the purposes of the Red Cross, 
 the American Red Cross, in this war to act as the chain of com- 
 munication between the American people and their brave de- 
 fenders on land and on sea, to act as a guardian of the fireside 
 for those who have been called from you to their country's 
 service, or as common bond and union with our Allies, speaking 
 to them the message which the American people want to go to 
 them of unity, concord and common purpose ; or whether it be 
 the achievements of the Red Cross, wonderful as they have been 
 in these last twelve months, starting with a subscription which 
 exceeds any sum ever raised in all human history for a single 
 charitable and benevolent enterprise, and extending its activities 
 unto the four corners of the globe, over more kinds and varieties 
 of nations than has ever been previously attempted, — no matter 
 which one of those lines you choose to present to an audience, 
 you must and you will receive their heartiest response. 
 
 From the soldier? Yes, because the Red Cross gives to the 
 soldier what neither his Quartermaster nor his Ordnance Depart- 
 ment, nor his Supply can give. They may furnish him with ma- 
 terial aid, with weapons and assistance, but the Red Cross is the 
 mental commissary to preserve the spirit and the hope and the 
 courage of the Army. 
 
 And from the statesman, if you choose, because the Red Cross 
 has proven itself already to be the advance guard of diplomacy, 
 sowing in the seeds of foreign peoples those sentiments of friend- 
 
 336 
 
PROVINCE OF THE RED CROSS 337 
 
 ship and union, the fruits of wliich it is the province of the dip- 
 lomat to gather. 
 
 And whether it is the priest, shaken perhaps as most of us 
 are by this wonderful and disastrous conflict, doubting almost 
 whether the hand of God can be present in the midst of horrors 
 so extended, and yet realizing that here at least is one agency 
 serving with the noblest of all the gospel tenets and simplifying 
 the text, "Whoso beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up 
 the bowels of his compassion from him, how doth the love of 
 God abide in him?" 
 
 And the American patriot, eager and anxious, as every Amer- 
 ican is, to do his share and part, has here an outlet and channel 
 for his activities, something that he can do daily to make him feel 
 that he has borne his part in the great endeavor. 
 
 When the message goes to the American people, my friends, 
 it will go to them with the declaration of hope that hes behind 
 it, the only purpose that any freeman can entertain at this hour, 
 of set and deliberate purpose to win this war, cost what it may. 
 
 Sometimes I think it would be a good thing for our spirits and 
 our morale if we had more of the belief of predestination ground 
 into our systems than we have. They tell the story of a Scotch 
 corporal raised in the land of kilts and predestination, where they 
 take death somewhat more seriously than we do, and he had be- 
 come a proverb and a by-word in his company because of his 
 fixed conviction that he could not be hurt, wounded or killed 
 until his day had come, and when the order came to go "over the 
 top" he strapped on his revolver. Some of the men asked, "What 
 do you want with a revolver if you are not going to die until 
 your day has come?" "Well," he said, "I thought I might meet 
 a German whose day has come !" 
 
 Now we want that sort of predestination, and that sort of be- 
 lief in the inevitable. Gladstone once said that faint-heartedness 
 was the master vice, and in my judgment, my friends, the only 
 thing which can by any possibility lose the Allied cause is that vice 
 and no other. In men, munitions and in right the Allies are su- 
 perior, and if there be, as all men believe there be, a God of 
 justice, the cause of right must and will triumph. 
 
THE RED CROSS IN FRANCE 
 
 By Mks. J. Borden Haeriman, 
 Speaker for the American Red Cross 
 
 From the very minute that one lands in that wonderful coun- 
 try, England, as I did in the middle of last November, one comes 
 face to face with the Red Cross, and one marches shoulder to 
 shoulder with it through the different war zones, and up to the 
 time one takes the steamer to return to America. 
 
 In England the American Red Cross is cooperating and doing 
 splendid work now with the British Red Cross, helping out in 
 every way that it can, supplementing the work of the British 
 Red Cross in the British hospitals. It is such a privilege thus to 
 be able in any way to help these people of Great Britain. I do 
 not think any of us here realize until we go there and see it face 
 to face, what they have stood, what the stress has been in that 
 little island, how those men and women are consecrating them- 
 selves to the effort to win this war, how the capital letter "E" 
 for Endurance is written over the head of every man, woman and 
 child in that island. 
 
 Every one there is organized for war. Every woman that I 
 know, from the highest to the lowest, is doing her bit in some 
 form or other. She is doing it in the hospitals. The two daugh- 
 ters of an archbishop were behind the British lines. One was a 
 cook, and the other was scrubbing floors. They were members 
 of the volunteer aid department. Women who have never done 
 anything, — as one woman said to me, — but play tennis and golf 
 and enjoy themselves, are now doing something. 
 
 A Scotch girl had run away from home because her parents 
 did not want her to go out into the world and do what she felt 
 was her part and share in this great cataclysm. She had run 
 away from home and had entered one of the biggest factories, 
 where twenty-five thousand women were employed. She worked 
 at a machine, and in a short time showed such ability that she 
 became assistant manager of that great factory. Now the Min- 
 istry of Munitions has sent her to another government factory 
 where there are twelve thousand women, and she is the women's 
 superintendent, and has charge of all the women's work, of 
 
 338 
 
THE RED CROSS IN FRANCE 8S9 
 
 women making six-inch shells and eight-inch shells, and to-day- 
 are helping to make the Howitzer guns. That woman is twenty- 
 eight years old. She is only one of thousands that are doing 
 the same kind of thing. 
 
 And little twelve to fourteen-year-old girls in their brown 
 smocks are government messengers. You see them everywhere 
 in Westminster running from one government building to the 
 other with their little dispatch cases. 
 
 I stood in a large factory up on the border of Scotland where 
 two years and a half ago there was nothing but a great field. 
 To-day there is a city ten miles square, and it is where most 
 of the gun cotton is made for the Ministry of Munitions. While 
 I stood there with the welfare supervisor, three women in a short 
 time came in showing signs of emotion, one of them with the 
 tears pouring down her cheeks, and they asked for two days off 
 and whispered to the supervisor that a husband, or a son, or 
 some one belonging to them had "gone West" as they say when 
 one has been killed. They were given two days off, and the su- 
 pervisor said, "There is a constant stream of these all the time; 
 those women will be back in two days, and we will never hear 
 anything more about it ; they will not bid for sympathy." 
 
 And that same great spirit is shared by the British Tommies. 
 The British Tommy to-day is full of humor. The first night I 
 arrived in London I had to go to sign my name, as aliens all have 
 to do these days. I came out into that town so dark that without 
 a flashlight one could not see to step up on the pavement. I felt 
 instinctively a kind of depression and a wistful feeling for the 
 streets of New York. I got onto an omnibus, and I had not been 
 in the bus two minutes before I felt ashamed of myself. 
 There were two British Tommies with their blue uniforms and 
 scarlet ties, which is the uniform that the Tommy wears when 
 wounded. There were two Tommies, and between them they had 
 two legs, and they were cracking jokes with everybody so as to 
 amuse the other passengers. The feeling we had was that they 
 realized this depressing atmosphere, and their spirits were so 
 wonderful that they wanted to lift everybody else to their level. 
 The whole way uptown they never stopped their jokes. They 
 asked me how long I had been there, and if I was an American. 
 "Do you know much about the war? Do you know I got four 
 Boches on my bayonet the last time, but one of them wiggled 
 off?" I could give you endless stories of the way that they amused 
 their audience. 
 
 Then one crosses the channel and goes up to the British front, 
 and there sees the work of the British Red Cross in the hospitals — 
 the kind of work that is being started in our hospitals now, and 
 
340 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 which they will follow very closely in our own Red Cross hos- 
 pitals. After the work had been going on a year or more, the 
 surgeons found that the environment kept the British wounded 
 longing too much for "Blighty," which is England. Our men call 
 it that now. It is a Hindu word for "home." Cheerful sur- 
 roundings kept them from longing for "Blighty" — chintz cover- 
 ings and curtains. 
 
 I know there are lots of old army men brought up in the strict 
 discipline of the army who feel that it is perhaps pampering the 
 soldier to give him a red blanket instead of a brown one, but the 
 doctors found out a long time ago that tuberculosis patients, if 
 they were happy in their minds, and were in cheerful surround- 
 ings, were sixty per cent, cured. It was thus with the British 
 in the hospitals, and I must say that to go into one of these wards 
 with the walls painted a lively sea green, with bright flowers, 
 and pretty curtains, and cheerful colored blankets, was very help- 
 ful. It seemed to take away from the horror of the scene. 
 
 One of ovtr own hospitals had just been started at the British 
 front and had not yet been able to receive donations of that kind 
 from our Red Cross. It was a great contrast, and the doctor who 
 took me in to see it apologized. It was at Rouen, where there 
 are a great many British hospitals, and this doctor of ours, one 
 of our best surgeons, said, "It does not look so nice, but we are 
 hoping soon that the Red Cross will send us the things we have 
 asked for. We want to look as nice as our neighbors." 
 
 In one of these wards was one of the engineers from Cambrai, 
 the men who were caught with their shovels instead of guns. 
 One Irishman was sitting up in bed. He had been so badly 
 wounded, shot through the spleen, that they had doubt at one 
 time that they could pull him through. He was getting better 
 very fast. I often watched him. He was hoping to get better 
 in order to get back to the front. He could talk of nothing else. 
 He talked of how fast he ran, and concluded, — "And when I 
 saw the Germans coming over the hill the distance I used to make 
 in fifty-three minutes I made in eighteen." 
 
 He fell in with a Scotch lad with the Germans pursuing them. 
 He finally was shot down, and was taken back to the hospital. 
 He would look at the man next to him, "He has no legs. He 
 never will get back. But I will. That is why I didn't shuffle off. 
 I want to get back at the Huns for what they did to me I" 
 
 One day I went into Cambrai, into a station, not a dressing 
 station, but a clearing s'^ation. They do not allow women to go 
 any higher than that. Have you ever seen any one injured by 
 liquid fire? If so you can stand awful sights. I think I can. 
 They backed me into this room, and there I saw a British 
 
THE RED CROSS IN FRANCE 341' 
 
 Tommy. His condition was indescribable almost. He had been 
 burned with liquid fire. Where he had had hair he had nothing 
 but blisters. He was propped up for his turn to go on the oper- 
 ating table. The only thing whole about him was one eye. For 
 a minute I did not know what to say. "My poor man, you are in 
 hard luck." "No, madam, I am in good luck. I saved one eye !" 
 
 And that is the spirit of the men over there, the men whom to- 
 day we are reenforcing; that I feel perfectly certain, and every 
 one who has seen our men on the highways of France has also 
 felt perfectly certain, is going to be the spirit of our men. 
 
 General Pershing told me, after the first time or the second 
 time the men went over the top, "I had the highest expectations 
 for our men, but they have gone beyond them." And he added, 
 "A French general said to me, 'General, there is only one word 
 that describes your men, and that is "fierce !" ' " 
 
 There is only one thing in this war from a military stand- 
 point, and that is, kill Germans. It seems a horrible thing, but 
 that is all there is to it. Our men have seen some of these things 
 that I have seen. They have seen what those people have suf- 
 fered. Unless you have been there and have seen it yourself, 
 it is almost impossible to visualize it. They can't get into it 
 quickly enough. They want to get in, those young men, full of 
 life, full of good blood, and untired, those men that are in a 
 position to do what that little army of Great Britain did that 
 made that retreat from Amiens under the most horrible and heart- 
 rending conditions, going out with a thousand or eleven hundred 
 in a regiment and coming back one hundred or one hundred fifty 
 strong. And when they came to a village, their commander, 
 wearing a peasant's hat and patches wrapped around his legs for 
 boots, would turn around to his men and say, "Men, this is a 
 French village. Pull yourselves together !" And then they would 
 march through as if they were on parade! And those are the 
 men that we have gone to reenforce. 
 
 And the French poilus! We all love the French. We all 
 have heard so much about the French. The French appeal to 
 our artistic sense. They are so gay, they are so bright, we feel 
 that we understand the French, and the French understand us; 
 they have been just as brave in their way as the British. Only, 
 I think we all knew more of what the French were doing than 
 we did know of the British. 
 
 I shall never forget an early morning when I was taken to 
 the French front. I was three-quarters of a mile behind the line 
 in a beautiful old chateau. It was the most beautiful architecture 
 in France. It is gone now. There are only a few pillars left. 
 We were there and could see the French line and the German 
 
S42 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 trenches, and the French officer who was with us said, "Look 
 quickly," and a battery of seventy-five guns, all camouflaged, 
 came out and passed the chateau as another one came to go in 
 to take their places, field artillery, and I shall always remember 
 my complete astonishment at the perfect condition of the re-, 
 turning soldiers. The horses were well groomed and well fed, 
 the men looked well nourished and most beautifully dressed — 
 their uniforms were in perfect condition — and in front of every 
 two guns, which had four horses to drag them, rode a French 
 officer on a splendid high-stepping horse, with docked tail, and the 
 whole picture was one of a triumphant regiment going out to 
 maneuver, not that they had just come out of the line where they 
 had been under fire for days and days. The French believe in 
 sending their men into the trenches with good clothes. The Brit- 
 ish do just the opposite. They keep their good clothes for going 
 to town. I think that we are going to do as the French. The 
 idea is that it makes a good impression on the Germans if the 
 prisoners are not down at the heel. 
 
 I think that we have thought of the Red Cross as supplement- 
 ing the work of the army, but in France it is doing something 
 which is an innovation, in a way, in a foreign country, and has 
 been of tremendous effect, and that is taking care of the civilian 
 population. As I went to France I thought, "What best describes 
 this work of the Red Cross?" And there kept coming to my 
 mind "the shadow of a rock in a weary land." And that is what 
 the Red Cross stands for in France to-day, what it has meant to 
 the men of France who are at the front waiting for our men. 
 Our men who were welcomed with such joy last June, and who 
 were called, they supposed, "Sammies," but who were being called 
 "Nos amis," our friends; and our men were not quite sure they 
 liked it. It was the best thing the French could say. They were 
 waiting for those men to come and back them up. 
 
 Back of the lines friends of the French soldiers are helping 
 to take care of their wives and their children. Nowhere is that 
 more beautifully illustrated than at Avions, on the shores of Lake 
 Geneva. I went there the very last day that the refugees from the 
 northern provinces of France came in. That was the first part 
 of March. Germany was preparing for her great offensive, and 
 she didn't want to send any trains, did not dare to use any to 
 move any of the civilian population from Belgium, because she 
 needed all her trains for moving troops. Avions is a most beau- 
 tiful place, which lies on Lake Geneva, surrounded by snow-clad 
 mountains, where everything is smiling. At six o'clock in the 
 morning there came into the station, as it happened every morn- 
 ing at six o'clock for thirteen months, and again every afternoon 
 
THE RED CROSS IN FRANCE 343 
 
 for thirteen months, a train of 660 refugees from the northern 
 provinces of France, — all kinds of people. We are going to have 
 it all over nowr, because so many had gone back to those towns, 
 Noyon, Channy and other tow^ns the Germans had passed 
 through, which they had laid waste, where they had cut down 
 every tree. One of these returned refugees said to me, "O, ma- 
 dam, I do not like to see it ; my family doesn't like to see it ; but 
 they tell us it is all right. Those Germans did not cut every- 
 thing down for spite alone. They destroyed those houses and 
 those trees because they meant to come back, and they didn't 
 want anything left for the retreating army." Those people have 
 come back and are being taken care of by our Red Cross in this 
 Httle town of Avions. Twice a day 660 people are brought in, 
 old men, worrien and little children, with tickets around the neck, 
 giving the name So-and-so, trying to find some friends, little 
 stray children whose fathers and mothers had been taken pris- 
 oner or had been sent on in a different train. I think the most 
 pathetic thing of all was the people of the town trying to make 
 these people feel at home. They had hired a brass band which 
 would play familiar airs twice a day, and as the train drew up 
 you heard the strains of the Marseillaise and shouts of "Vive la 
 France," as the old men, women and children hung out of the 
 windows. It was the first time they had seen France since 1914. 
 The Germans found that they did not want them ; they were too 
 old. The young and strong ones, and the young women, were 
 kept because they were able to be of use to the Germans. 
 
 Those people come into Avions twice a day and they have 
 soup and bread, and the band plays twice a day and has done so 
 for thirteen months, and the mayor of the town has made the 
 same speech. One day he was making his speech with the tears 
 pouring down the cheeks of old and young, and they played the 
 Marseillaise ; they all stood up, when the Mayor said, "We have 
 with us a member of the American Red Cross, and you know 
 what the American Red Cross means to us, so we will have the 
 Star Spangled Banner," and they played the Star Spangled Ban- 
 ner. And when all that was over we went into a room, and saw 
 there hundreds of girls working many hours a day and pretty 
 nearly all night distributing letters to these refugees, taking their 
 histories, looking up any of their friends of the last thirteen 
 months that had passed through that clearing house at Avions, 
 and trying to bring them together again. 
 
 We have some of the best baby speciaHsts from this country 
 in France running baby hospitals, passing on the health of those 
 children, and deciding where they should go. It is only a clear- 
 ing house there, and they are passed on to the committee at 
 
S44 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 Lyons. It is the committee from Lyons that runs all this beauti- 
 ful work at Avions. It was started by a young woman of wealth 
 in Lyons, whose sister and five little children were among the 
 refugees or repatriates. She saw the dreadful plight of the peo- 
 ple coming in every day and asking for help, and she started this 
 great work. 
 
 In Lyons itself — where many of these people are sent to the 
 tuberculosis hospital if they have tuberculosis, and the babies to 
 the baby hospitals — in Lyons the American Red Cross has es- 
 tablished the only tuberculosis hospital. It is in charge of one 
 of our specialists. Everything is done as well as in any place 
 I have ever seen in this country. It has six thousand women, 
 repatriated women, and they are being taught to live. They do 
 not like to sleep with their windows open. They eat their meals 
 in bed. I saw them with their windows open, and our nurses are 
 taking care of them, and what is better than anything else, they 
 are educating those people to go home and teach other people 
 how not to spread tuberculosis. 
 
 The Red Cross has started near Paris, in conjunction with the 
 Rockefeller Institute, a little village where houses are built where 
 tuberculosis patients and their families may all live together, 
 which as you know means so much to the French people. Be- 
 cause the French woman's home is her world, and she frets so 
 that it is perhaps not altogether best to keep a French woman 
 away from home surroundings, in a hospital, and they are making 
 their quarters under the same roof, but separate for the patient 
 and the family. This is an experiment near Paris, but they hope 
 to duplicate it in numerous parts of France. 
 
 One comes back with the feeling that there is nothing large 
 enough to make it impossible for us all to cooperate, all to stand 
 shoulder to shoulder, all organizations, all individuals, and with- 
 out letting the personal element intrude, to stand behind those 
 men who have gone over there to fight our battle for us, as the 
 French and British have been fighting our battle since 1914. 
 
 And I assure you that when one sees the suffering on all 
 sides, one almost feels that it hurts not to suffer a little bit our- 
 selves. 
 
 The day I left France I took the steamer at Havre and came 
 across to Southampton, and the boat that started two hours ahead 
 of us across the channel, that is supposed to be the part freest 
 from submarines, was struck. Two hours out we heard, "The 
 captain wants every one to put on life preservers and come out 
 into the hall." There was a great commotion on deck, and every- 
 body was lined up in the halls, and as soon as I could possibly 
 do so I managed to go forward and get on the deck and see what 
 
THE RED CROSS IN FRANCE US 
 
 was going on. It was dark, no light except from flashlights. 
 Two destroyers were alongside of our little channel boat, and the 
 motion of the channel was making it rock, and across that plank 
 in a steady stream men were passing carrying other men on their 
 backs. 
 
 It was so dark I could not see who the other men were, or 
 what was going on any further than that. Another destroyer 
 kept circling around, and at last it stopped and the commander 
 called through the megaphone, "It is not safe for you to wait 
 here any longer. Go full speed ahead and we will take the rest 
 ourselves,'' and we went full speed ahead and arrived four hours 
 late in the morning. 
 
 Inside the boat there were two hundred very badly wounded 
 men. We were glad to give up our staterooms. There were 
 three men put into my stateroom. One man had no legs, another 
 had pneumonia, and the other had appendicitis. Many of those 
 two hundred men had come from Italy. They had been wounded 
 there and had been sent back to France where they have better 
 hospitals. But those men, in that desperate condition, very, very 
 ill, were being sent over to "Blighty" because the hospitals had 
 to be vacated to make room for the wounded men whom they 
 knew might be coming at any moment. 
 
 I went around among those men on that boat, and no one 
 could get a word out of any of them except, "Oh, it's nothing," 
 or, "It's lucky that none of us were lost." One would ask an- 
 other, "How are you, old top?" "Top hole!" In the old days 
 when they had a good dinner they had to let the belts out to the 
 top hole, and that has come to mean that one could not feel 
 better. 
 
 I think as long as I live I shall carry that scene with me of 
 these men who had been wounded for their country, who had 
 moved out of the hospitals for men who perhaps would be more 
 seriously wounded and were on their way home and had expected 
 to make that trip comfortably, but with perfect calmness had 
 taken the sinking of their ship by a submarine, and had never 
 uttered one complaint. 
 
THE FOURTEENTH DIVISION AND A STORY 
 
 Br Dr. F. M. Chapman, 
 Of the American Red Cross 
 
 I TAKE advantage of this occasion to introduce to you the 
 fourteenth division of the Red Cross, without some knowledge of 
 which we believe your acquaintance with the Red Cross work 
 would not be wholly complete. The Fourteenth Territorial Divi- 
 sion of the Red Cross was formed in answer to the insistent de- 
 mand from the four corners of the earth for recognition of 
 Americans living from one end of the world to the other, and 
 with the formation of this division and the sound of the Red 
 Cross call to colors ringing round the world, responses came from 
 Alaska to Argentina, from the West Indies to the East Indies, 
 wherever there is an embassy or a legation, or a consular office, 
 or an American counting house, or ranch or mine. The appeal 
 was sent to those exiled from their country at war, and the re- 
 sponse has been so thrilling in many ways, and in material ways. 
 Large sums of money have been sent, and supplies in such quan- 
 tities that the Fourteenth Division has been confronted by an ap- 
 parently insolvable problem in finding storage space. 
 
 To solve this problem, Mr. Cutler, the manager of the Divi- 
 sion, has been in New York hunting for a place in which we 
 might store these supplies which have come to us from the four 
 corners of the world. Turned from door to door, unwillingly, 
 because there was no space to be had, he finally in despair went to 
 a friend in the dry goods firm of Lord & Taylor. This organiza- 
 tion had a band of patriotic working men and women already 
 formed, and consequently they were fully prepared to meet our 
 requisitions for assistance, and at once responded to Mr. Cutler, 
 "We will give you space. We will give the Fourteenth Division 
 all the storage space that it may require, without charge. And 
 we will supply free truck service to and from the warehouse and 
 the shipping points." And when the meeting of the employees' 
 organization was called, the executives of the various depart- 
 ments volunteered, on their own time, to supervise our work, and 
 the employees themselves at this meeting took up a contribution 
 
 346 
 
THE FOURTEENTH DIVISION AND A STORY 347 
 
 and raised over one thousand dollars with which to employ an 
 expert packer for one year to superintend and oversee our work 
 continuously. At this meeting one Mrs. Brandow, head of a de- 
 partment, made a short address, which is so interesting, so re- 
 markable, that I have been asked to read it to you here. 
 
 She made no set attempt to appeal to the emotions of her 
 hearers. She was compelled to speak by what she had to say. 
 Fortunately she could adequately express herself, and she spoke 
 so simply, so sincerely, so eloquently, that what she said seems 
 to us to be a priceless human document ; and here it is : 
 
 "At one of the preliminary meetings of which Mr. Reyburn 
 has spoken to you I asked permission to speak. I wanted to speak 
 for myself and for those associated with me in my department. 
 
 "So many of you have spoken to me since the meeting that 
 was held Wednesday night that I feel to-night, confidently, that 
 I can speak not only for my department but for all of Lord & 
 Taylor. 
 
 "And so, Mr. Reyburn, I am not speaking to my fellow work- 
 ers; I am speaking for them to you. On Wednesday night I 
 asked if I might be given the privilege of rededicating my services 
 and the services of my whole department to my country. To- 
 night, I ask that I may be given the privilege of rededicating to 
 the service of our country all of the Lord & Taylor employees. 
 
 "Yiou know for a while I was very much troubled. When 
 Margaret Lytton was called to serve in France, and Christine 
 Mann was called to serve in Washington, and then Adelaide 
 Richardson was called to serve, traveling around the country, 
 visiting munition factories — all three women from my depart- 
 ment, I felt at first that I had been overlooked. Then I began 
 to feel there was nothing I could give to my country, nothing 
 that my country wanted to use, and I was troubled. But now I 
 see clearly, and I know that just as surely as Margaret Lytton 
 was called to serve by tending to the wounded and dying in 
 France, that just as surely as Dr. Mann was called to serve in 
 Washington, and that just as surely as Miss Richardson was 
 called to serve by visiting munition factories, just as surely am I, 
 Belle Brandow, called to serve here in this building. And I an- 
 swer that call just as they did, and I dedicate from this night on, 
 all that I have to give to the service of my country, and I interpret 
 that call to mean that I am to give every day, every working day, 
 six days out of every week, confidently, cheerfully ; that I am to 
 do whatever task that day may bring to my hand, to the glory 
 of my country. 
 
 "I had a brother, an only brother— my little brother. He was 
 
348 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 bigger than I ani physically, and very much bigger than I am 
 mentally, for he was a surgeon. He heard the call of his country 
 last year, and he went forth gladly, eagerly, and, oh, so gayly. 
 On the 27th of June he made the supreme sacrifice. They buried 
 him in his captain's uniform, but his cap lies on the top of the 
 book shelves in my father's library, and when I would see my 
 father I must go there, for he will sit -in no other place, and that 
 cap is a constant challenge to me. I have not brought myself 
 to the place where I can touch it, because once it rested on his 
 bonny head ; but every time I look at it, it says to me, 'I died for 
 this principle ; Sister, live for it !' And I am resolved that I shall 
 live for it day by day in this building, so that when I have earned 
 the rest which he now enjoys, I shall know by the glance in his 
 bonny brown 'e that he welcomes me, because I, too, have done 
 my share in order that this government of the people, by the 
 people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth. 
 
 "Do you know these words written by Lieutenant Colonel 
 Doctor John McCrea? To me they are one of the livest things 
 that have come out of this war : 
 
 In Flanders fields the poppies grow- 
 Between the crosses row by row 
 That mark our place ; 
 
 And in the sky, the larks 
 Still bravely singing fly. 
 
 Scarce heard among the guns below. 
 We are the dead ; short days ago 
 
 We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 
 Loved and were loved ; 
 
 And now we lie in Flanders fields. 
 Take up your quarrel with the foe. 
 
 To you from falling hands we throw 
 The torch. Be yours to bear it high ! 
 
 If ye break faith with us who die 
 We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
 
 In Flanders fields. 
 
 "Mr. Reyburn, I say to you for every last, loyal Lord & 
 Taylor employee that we will not break faith with those who die, 
 that we resolve that we will answer this call for service, at the 
 sales counter, at the packing desk, in the cashier's cage, in the 
 office, — every last office, and in every corner of every floor of 
 this building, we will keep faith with those who die. We hear 
 your call, your ringing call, to higher, nobler effort, and we an- 
 swer, 'Here, sir !' " 
 
GERMANY'S PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEXT WAR 
 
 By J. B. W. Gaediner, 
 Military Expert of the New York Times 
 
 It may seem strange that at this time, when the world is in the 
 midst of this great struggle which is tearing civilization to pieces 
 and decimating the white race, I should take up your time in a 
 discussion of a war of the future. My only reason for so doing 
 is that this future war is a necessary corollary of the present war, 
 unless we destroy its germs before they have time to develop and 
 fructify. It is stranger yet, that in view of the sorrow and the 
 intense suffering which the present war has caused, not only 
 among the Allies but in Germany as well, that there are leaders 
 of men so callous, so Satanic, as to even dream of launching upon 
 the world another such devastating, cataclysmic horror, but nev- 
 ertheless this is the case ; the evidence is conclusive, and it is this 
 evidence which I want to present to you so that we may all have 
 a clear conception of the true menace which threatens us. The 
 correct interpretation of this evidence and its proper application, 
 however, rests entirely on a clear conception of German aims and 
 ambitions, so that I must first ask your indulgence while I turn 
 from my subject for sufficient time to explain these aims and to 
 present the proof of my contentions. 
 
 The President of the United States, in an address some time 
 ago in Buffalo, referred to the German aims to construct a Berlin- 
 Bagdad railroad and to control the route through which this 
 railroad passes. Similar references have been current for the 
 past three years. But if this were all, we are not primarily con- 
 cerned, since German ambitions to expand eastward would not 
 affect us, our territorial integrity, our sovereignty or our form of 
 government. The President's statement is absolutely true; of it 
 there is not the slightest doubt, but it did not go far enough. 
 The doctrine of the Berlin-Bagdad route was the Pan-German 
 ambition of 1895. It is not the ambition of later years ; not the 
 ambition of 19 12 which led Bernhardi, the disciple of the apostle 
 of force, Neitzsche, to plead for world power. This latter amc 
 bition extended to the West as well as to the East ; it extended to 
 the coast of France and of Belgium as well as to the shores of 
 
 349 
 
350 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 the Persian Gulf. There is a great wealth of evidence bearing 
 on this point but time limitations do not permit it to be laid be- 
 fore you in full. I would discuss for the moment in this con- 
 nection only the bibliography of Pan-Germania, in order that you 
 may see the line which German thought of recent years has 
 followed. 
 
 Writing in 1905, Joseph Reiner has this to say with reference 
 to all of Germany's smaller neighbors: "Such false ideas of 
 internationalities, peace and race, are prevalent, that it is often 
 maintained that no breaking up of nations would be necessary 
 but that a Germanization in the mass of the nations in question 
 (Germany's smaller neighbors) would be sufficient." And the 
 same writer later on in his book entitled "Pan-German Ger- 
 many," from which the above extract was taken, makes this defi- 
 nite proposal, which, be it noted, strikes westward of Holland. 
 "We desire and must desire a world empire under the hegemony 
 of the German people. In order to secure this we must gradually 
 Germanize the Scandinavian and Dutch Teutonic States, de- 
 nationalizing them in the weaker significance of the term; break 
 up the predominantly un-Teutonic peoples into their component 
 parts, in order to take to ourselves the Teutonic element and 
 Germanize it, while we reject the un-Teutonic element." We 
 find further corroboration of this idea in a secret memorandum 
 sent by Chancellor Michaelis to Austria in 1915, which memoran- 
 dum a German Socialist deputy obtained and read in the German 
 Reichstag. This memorandum contains the following passages: 
 "The motive of all of Germany's acts is the lack of territory, 
 both for the development of commerce and colonization. Ger- 
 many has to solve two problems : the freedom of the seas and 
 the opening of a route to the Southeast. These two problems 
 can only be solved through the destruction of England. Our 
 object is the permanent securing of the German Empire in cen- 
 tral Europe and the extension of its territory. No one who un- 
 derstands the significance of this war can doubt that in spite of 
 our wish to be moderate, we shall not allow ourselves from ex- 
 tending the borders of the Empire and from, under all circum- 
 stances, annexing such territories as are fitted for colonizations 
 and are not subject to the influence of the sea power. We can 
 weaken Russia materially by taking away her border territory — 
 the Baltic provinces. By skillful policies the Baltic provinces 
 can easily be Germanized. They will be settled with Germans 
 and their population will double itself. That is the reason why 
 they must be annexed. 
 
 "In the Vosges, the boundary line must be improved by the 
 annexation of some valleys, so that the German frontier troops 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEXT WAR 351 
 
 can no longer be fired upon from French territory. France 
 will lose Briey and a strip of land west of Luxembourg. The 
 value of Briey, in an economic and military sense, is evident from 
 the fact that i6 million tons of iron ore are produced there. 
 For the safeguarding of the German and Luxembourg iron in- 
 dustries Belgium must remain in our hands." 
 
 In 191 1, to come nearer down to the present day, Maximilian 
 Hardman emphasized the German intention to spread towards 
 the Atlantic: "Since the Western Powers restrict our rights to 
 life, it is necessary that we should attach one of them to us or 
 that we should beat them out of our way by force." 
 
 Finally we come to the German plan in the present war, and 
 the considerations which led them to strike in the West rather 
 than in the East. From a purely military consideration, Ger- 
 many's logical move in 1914 was to strike Russia first with her 
 full force, eliminate Russia from the conflict and when Russia 
 had been disposed of and a separate peace enforced, to turn her 
 strength against the more powerful of her opponents — France 
 and England. Germany could have placed a strong guard at the 
 passes of the Vosges Mountains to guard the gap at Belfort, 
 Epinal and Toul, acted entirely on the defensive, while her full 
 strength was exerted against Russia. As was later proven at the 
 Battle of the Dunajec, Russia would have collapsed under the 
 pressure. Germany knew the situation in Russia before she de- 
 clared war. She knew Russia was slow, ponderous, and that it 
 would take her a long time really to get in action. She knew on 
 the contrary that France was already mobilized, and that, because 
 of the existing Entente between France and England, that an 
 attack on France would draw England into the war. German 
 diplomats could not have been so stupid as to ignore completely 
 this possibility. Had Germany elected to fight in the West 
 against her strongest opponents and to leave Russia to Austria 
 to take care of, if she did strike West then it was because of 
 the desire to establish herself west of her old boundaries, and at 
 least envelop the mineral supply of France. 
 
 From past experience, we are justified in the conclusion that 
 once Germany had her hand on this source of power and wealth 
 she would cling to it as long as her power remained. But Ger- 
 man aims in the West are still unachieved. She still falls far 
 short of her ambition. She has not yet reached the sea. More- 
 over, in spite of recent events in France, not only is she unable 
 to go further, but that which she has will certainly be taken 
 away and sooner or later she must fall back behind her own fron- 
 tiers. But if this were permitted to come about through a peace 
 compromise, the result would merely be an armed truce. Ger- 
 
352 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 man ambitions for western expansion would merely sleep, to 
 wake later in another and more terrible war. Therefore, I have 
 emphasized the Western situation since, because of its relation to 
 the future, it is most pregnant with danger. But German ambi- 
 tions, openly expressed, do not limit themselves to the continent 
 of Europe. She has been planning, in a way which is unmistak- 
 able, to get her grip on Latin-America, and use it as a ground 
 for future colonization. 
 
 She has sent out, under the direction of her foreign office, 
 large settlements in Brazil and Argentine, which are German, 
 which will always be German, and which have not the slightest 
 intention of permitting themselves to become assimilated with 
 the local population. She has honeycombed this country with 
 spies, with secret agents of all kinds, who stop at nothing, not 
 even at murder, so that when the war comes to this continent 
 we shall be utterly impotent. Careful lists have been kept of men 
 here, who have come from Germany, who can be counted upon to 
 work in her interest. The now famous Zimmermann letters, in 
 which Germany proposed to give to Mexico large stretches of our 
 territory in return for cooperative offensive measures against us, 
 is public property still fresh in our minds. We have had threat 
 after threat since the European War broke out, one of which came 
 directly from the Kaiser himself to Ambassador Gerard. But 
 there is more than this ; the Foreign Relations Committee in both 
 the House of Representatives and the U. S. Senate were authori- 
 tatively appraised of the fact that Germany was keeping a list of 
 all the men in her army who were alleged to be either killed or 
 wounded by American-made ammunition supplied to the Allies. 
 This list was translated into dollars and cents, the value of each 
 man being made to depend upon his rank and station ; this was to 
 be the indemnity we were to be made to pay after the war. By 
 January, 1917, it had reached an inconceivable sum — a sum suf- 
 ficiently large to pay the entire cost to Germany of the war, and 
 we may be certain that the alternative with which we would 
 have been confronted would have been to pay or fight. 
 
 I will not burden you longer with references to German ambi- 
 tions, but there is no question in the mind of any thinking student 
 on this subject that German aims extended not to Hamburg-Bag- 
 dad, but to Calais-Bagdad on the European continent and Latin- 
 America on this continent. 
 
 In presenting evidence of Germany's preparations for a future 
 war, I will not go into controversial matters but will offer for 
 your consideration only those things which are known to be facts. 
 From official Germany herself, through the medium of prominent 
 German officials, known and recognized as such over the entire 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEXT WAR 353 
 
 reading world, we have outspoken frank statements as to just 
 how the German mind is working at this moment. I would call 
 your attention particularly to the work of Lieutenant General 
 Baron von Freytag-Loringhoven, Deputy Chief of the German 
 General Staif, who ranks officially as the third soldier in the Em- 
 pire. This work the German Government attempted, while giving 
 it wide circulation within the Empire, to prevent crossing the 
 borders into neutral countries, but in this attempt they were un- 
 successful. Several copies have reached neutral nations, have 
 been translated and reprinted, and his deductions consist in the 
 application of this war's lessons to the next war, and the prepara- 
 tions which Germany must make so that the errors of the present 
 war may not be repeated. I will not go into the quotations from 
 this book, though the entire work is replete with references to 
 the war that Germany proposes to go into at some future date; 
 the book is on the market in America and can be read by any one 
 who wishes to follow the subject of this gentleman further, but 
 lest the position be taken that this is merely the doctrine of an 
 exponent of militarism, we may turn to the line of thought of 
 those in other occupations. In December, 1917, the Association 
 of German Manufacturers of Iron and Steel, and the Association 
 of German Metallurgers, with headquarters at Berlin and Dus- 
 seldorf, drew up a memorial which was addressed to the German 
 High Command, demanding that Germany annex the French iron 
 areas centering in Longwy and Briey because of their extreme 
 importance for German national economy and for the conduct of 
 future war. The following quotation is of interest in this con- 
 nection : "Let no one believe that Germany in peace time will be 
 able to assure herself iron reserves for a future war. We do not 
 have the right to count that in a future war we will have the 
 good fortune a second time to be able to exploit the territories 
 occupied and to increase our resources of first material." 
 
 We thus have from the highest military source, and from a 
 civilian source equally high, frequent and emphatic references 
 to what is in the German mind at the moment, and all of this is 
 further corroborated by Chancellor Michaelis' memorandum to 
 Austria. It is all indicative of a frame of mind which for years 
 had been brought up on war and trained to think in terms of war, 
 and all the German mind can see to-day is a peace which will 
 enable the state to wage most effectively the next war in which it 
 is engaged. "Peace," said Nietzsche, in his War and Warriors, 
 "we should love as a means to new wars and the short peace 
 rather than the long." 
 
 I have merely stated thus far the general line of German 
 thought ; the question that now arises is,— has anything yet been 
 
854 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 done to translate this thought into facts? Is there anything in 
 what Germany has actually done since the war began that can 
 reasonably be interpreted as bearing out the idea of preparing for 
 another great war? In this connection, the sequence of events 
 in both Belgium and France since 1914 is an interesting study. 
 The history of Germany's three years' occupation of Belgium 
 discloses three distinct phases. The first phase might be termed 
 the period of atrocities. These atrocities, however, were appar- 
 ently limited in area to the line of advance of the army. Arson, 
 rape and plunder were the rule in this pathway, but outside of 
 this but little destruction seems to have been carried on at that 
 time. 
 
 After the first battle of Ypres, however, when the war had 
 settled down into trenches, German tactics changed. Then the 
 German occupation became an established fact, and the German 
 problem, peace to be primarily military, became essentially one of 
 administration, although an administration solely for German pur- 
 poses and to serve German ends. The atrocities ceased during 
 this period, which is the second phase, and except for isolated 
 crimes, such as the execution of Edith Cavelle, and the murder 
 of Captain Fryatt, were heard of no longer. On the contrary, 
 Germany set about to re-constitute the Belgium industries which 
 had suspended operations and to restore, insofar as possible, the 
 ante-bellum commercial processes. Germany, at that time, ex- 
 pected to hold Belgium permanently as one of the terms of peace, 
 and, therefore, the German rule was, according to German lights, 
 decent and generally calculated to promote the welfare of the 
 country. This lasted only until the guns of the Allies pound- 
 ing on the Somme hammered into the German consciousness that 
 they were not to win, and not winning, could not retain Belgium. 
 The German tactics in Belgium immediately changed. Then be- 
 gan the process of complete economic and social destruction. 
 The first evidence of this was found in the Belgium deportafion. 
 Germany, when protests from civilized governments began to 
 pour in against this grossest crime of all modern history, wove 
 the usual network of lies in extenuation. Only the idle, she said, 
 were being deported, and these as an economic measure; but 
 Baron Adolphe von Bachofifen, a German official, who visited this 
 territory in the summer of 191 6, wrote in his report most enthusi- 
 astically of the work of the German civil administrators in reviv- 
 ing industrial and agricultural activity. At the time of his in- 
 vestigation, the agricultural output was not less than at any time 
 before the conquest. Over 70 per cent, of the coal mines were in 
 operation, and the percentage was constantly increasing. All of 
 the iron and steel works, the pottery workers, even the diamond 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEXT WAR 355 
 
 cutters, all were approaching normal. Therefore, there could 
 have been no great army of unemployed. As a matter of fact, 
 Germany herself created the unemployment by stripping the Bel- 
 gium factories of all machinery. This is evidenced by a semi- 
 official note which appeared in the Nord-Deutsch Zeitung of De- 
 cember i8, 1917 : "All measures taken in Belgium are inspired by 
 military necessity. It has become necessary to strip the Bel- 
 gium factories of their machinery and other fittings, because all 
 German industry is busy filling orders for material of war. Our 
 machinery and other equipment is tremendously overworked, and 
 must, from time to time, be replaced by new machines. The 
 machinery and equipment required for these purposes are brought 
 from Belgium factories. The destruction of whole factories for 
 the production of grape shot is affected in order to maintain at 
 its present level the supply of iron and steel in Germany or, if 
 possible, to raise it. The question of keeping up work in some 
 other factories of the occupied country must be subordinated to 
 consideration tending to spare the lives of German soldiers and 
 thus protect our national power." 
 
 There is on this point also a great wealth of evidence, all 
 tending to show how Germany deliberately set about to ruin the 
 economic and social life of Belgium, not only in the deportations 
 but through the absolute destruction of its factories. The net 
 results accomplished in Belgium then are first the impoverishing 
 of the country through outrageous levies of money; second, the 
 economic ruin brought about through stripping all factories of 
 their machinery ; third, the social and commercial destruction pro- 
 duced through the deportation of able-bodied male element in 
 the population. Belgium is but a shell ; its factories are but walls, 
 its population composed for the most part only of women, chil- 
 dren and old men. Its past commercial structure is in ruins. 
 Economic dependence is absolute, and it is the German intention 
 that it remain so. 
 
 In France there was the same general policy. In the early 
 days of the German invasion, there was an apparent regard for 
 the laws of war and no organized destruction. Indeed, during 
 the short period during which the Germans occupied Rheims, 
 they paid the French in gold and at a very good price for all 
 of the wine they drank. But this period was short. Once the 
 battle lines became established, occupied France was governed 
 as was Belgium in the second phase of occupation. But again 
 the Battle of the Somme intervened, and Germany learned that 
 she was not to be permitted to hold in the West any of the gains 
 she had acquired. Then came the German retreat. We have all 
 read of her general devastation over the path of the retreating 
 
356 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 army — a devastation which caused a wave of horror to pass over 
 the entire civilized world. The popular idea at the time was 
 that all this was but the outcropping of a lust for destruction, 
 and of the same spirit that had manifested itself in Belgium. 
 This might hold true, were these the acts of individuals, but 
 they were not. They were carried out in prosecution of a care- 
 fully considered, thoroughly organized plan. To assume that 
 such deeds were done wantonly, without thought, without mo- 
 tive, is to charge Germany with a thoughtlessness and careless- 
 ness entirely at variance with our knowledge of her character. 
 The German plan by which nothing was left of the great in- 
 dustrial region of North-Eastern France but the earth and the 
 sky was the same as that which Caesar wrote of the German 
 tribes in the beginning of the Christian Era. "The tribes deem 
 it an honorable distinction to have their frontiers devastated, to 
 be surrounded with immense deserts. They regard it as the 
 highest proof of valor for their neighbors to abandon their terri- 
 tories out of fear of them, moveover they have thus an additional 
 security against sudden attack." But Germany's idea even went 
 even further. It was to so reduce the possibility of French de- 
 fense of her borderland, that when Germany struck again France 
 would not be in her way. 
 
 There are three essential elements in waging war ; men, money, 
 material. Germany has proven that she has the material, par- 
 ticularly if she is permitted to retain Lorraine. Money, in a 
 sense, can be dispensed with by any nation at war which is not 
 engaged in foreign trade, since dealing with one's self does not 
 involve international exchange, and a piece of paper run through 
 a government printing press can be made to pass as currency, 
 locally, just as well as a piece of metal. As to the question of 
 men, Germany has lost heavily in the present war, and will lose 
 still more heavily before it is ended. Where, then, you may ask 
 will Germany obtain sufficient men to insure a victory, if she 
 launches a new battle in Europe. It is almost needless to say 
 that Germany has carefully considered this side of the question. 
 Germany has Austria completely in her debt by selHng her coal 
 and steel which were stolen from the mines of France and of 
 Belgium, and through this economic grip, Germany has complete 
 domination over the Austrian state. The relation of Turkey to 
 Germany is notorious; the Turks are a conquered people, con- 
 quered in soul and in body by the tyranny of the Kaiser. They 
 have no independence of plan or of thought; they are merely 
 slaves. In Turkey there is a population of about 20 milHon, 
 undisciplined, unorganized, unequipped, but innately possessed 
 of good fighting ability. From this force Germany can in one 
 
TREPARATIONS FOR THE NEXT WAR 357 
 
 generation produce a trained, organized army of at least 2 mil- 
 lion men. To this number Bulgaria will add a million more, 
 bringing the number of German trained soldiers east of Serbia 
 to 2j/^ million. It is to make use of this force that Germany 
 has destroyed Serbia and built for herself alone the bridge 
 which spans the gap between the Teutonic Empire and her near 
 Eastern allies. The recent arrangements with Russia, if these 
 be allowed to stand, give to Germany practical control of Ukraine, 
 Russian Poland, Courland, Lithuania, which combined, contain 
 a population of at least 50 million people. In the course of time, 
 these people can be moulded and fashioned just as Germany has 
 dona with her own population, and to a considerable extent be- 
 come in the next 25 years available for German use. This coun- 
 try alone can produce 3 million soldiers. 
 
 But Germany has gone much further even than this, and has 
 taken drastic measures to rebuild her own population. First, 
 consider Belgium. The men who have been deported from Bel- 
 gium will never return if Germany can prevent it. Rather, they 
 will either voluntarily, or through compulsion, form a liaison of 
 some sort, legitimate or illegitimate, with some of the surplus 
 women population of Germany, and in time produce off-spring 
 who will eventually be available for the so-called defense of the 
 Fatherland. There is, in addition, the systematic and authorized, 
 if not indeed, ordered, ravishing of the women of Belgium and 
 of France, and the sending of the off-spring from this beastial 
 debauchery back into Germany, where they are reared in German- 
 institutions for exactly the same purpose. 
 
 But Germany has gone one step further even than this ; not 
 content with debauching the women of other countries, she has 
 even advocated debauching her own. There is the question of 
 a lateral marriage, so-called, or secondary marriage, by which a 
 married man enters into a temporary arrangement with a married 
 woman, by which the two co-habit until a child is born. The 
 off-spring of these marriages, so-called, bear the name of their 
 Mother, and are handed over to the care of the state to be reared. 
 This is not rumor. Let me read you first from a copy of a 
 leaflet widely distributed and circulated among the soldiers at 
 the front, with the consent and active cooperation of the Ger- 
 man officers. 
 
 "Soldiers, a grave danger assails the Fatherland by reason 
 of its dwindling birth-rate. The cradles of Germany are empty 
 to-day ; it is your duty to see that they are filled. You bachelors, 
 when your leave comes, marry at once the girls of your choice. 
 Make her your wife without delay. The Fatherland needs healthy 
 
358 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 children. You married men and your wives sliould put jealousy 
 from your minds, and consider whether you have not also 
 a duty to the Fatherland. You should consider whether you 
 may not honorably contract an alliance with one of the million of 
 bachelor women. See if your wife will not sanction the relation. 
 Remember, all of you, the empty cradles of Germany must be 
 filled." 
 
 And on this same subject, permit me to read a copy of a 
 circular which is one of the many taken from German prisoners, 
 captured by the British during the last two years. I might say 
 that the copy which I obtained, was given to me by a member 
 of the British Intelligence Department, a major in the British 
 Army, who, himself, took it from a German prisoner at Ypres. 
 
 "On account of all able bodied men having been called to the 
 colors, it remains the duty of all those left behind, for the sake of 
 the Fatherland, to interest themselves in the happiness and health 
 of the married women and maidens by doubling or even trebling 
 the births. Your name has been given us as a capable man, and 
 you are herewith requested to take on this office of honor, and 
 to do your duty in a proper German way. It must here be 
 pointed out that your wife or fiancee will not be able to claim a 
 divorce. It is, in fact, hoped that the women will bear this 
 discomfort heroically for the sake of the war. You will be 
 given the district of . Should you not feel capable 
 
 of carrying on the task allotted to you, you will be given three 
 days in which to name some one in your place. On the other 
 hand, if you are prepared to take on a second district as well, 
 you will become 'vrek-offizier' and receive a pension. An ex- 
 hibition of photographs of women and maidens in the district 
 allotted to you is to be seen at the office of . You are 
 
 requested to bring this letter with you. Your good work should 
 begin immediately. A full report of results to be submitted by 
 you after nine months." 
 
 Proof, too, that these instructions are being carried out is 
 abundant. We may disregard, if we are so inclined, the testi- 
 mony of returned travelers; we cannot ignore the fact that the 
 number of illegitimate births during 1917 showed an increase of 
 25 per cent, over 1916. Again, there is a tremendous effort be- 
 ing exerted by the German Government to bring together un- 
 married women, or women who were widowed through the war, 
 so as to increase the population. The Burgomasters of the vari- 
 ous German towns have been instructed to obtain a list of all 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEXT WAR 859 
 
 war widows in the district presided over by them ; a list of all 
 cripples being furnished by the authorities. Advertisements are 
 then to be placed in papers known to be read by women -gener- 
 ally, for wives of the deserving cripples. Thus playing the roll 
 of Cupid, this beneficent government is trying to bring together 
 Venus and Adonis, and as is stated in official instructions, sow the 
 seed of a new generation, which will, in the fullness of its man- 
 hood, take upon its shoulders the national defense. All this 
 question of population may then be summed up by the statement, 
 that if Germany carries out her present plans, even by sacrificing 
 all that she has won in Belgium and in France, she will still 
 have at her command, a population of two hundred million people 
 from which between 15 and 20 million soldiers can be obtained. 
 Germany, her territory unscathed by the present war, will rapidly 
 recover from its effect, while her continental enemies, so bitterly 
 ravished by war sweep, will lag far behind in the process of re- 
 generation. Under these conditions, the mobilization of her man 
 power and that of her vassal allies will place an overwhelming 
 army, all German trained and German equipped, under the Ger- 
 man command, to be thrown against her weakened adversaries 
 in Europe. This time the Germans plan the struggle is to be 
 short. There will be no miscalculations ; no Marne, no Verdun. 
 Then will the real German aim, not Hamburg-Bagdad but Calais- 
 Bagdad, be achieved. The German system will be spread into this 
 continent, all over the colonies of her present enemies, deep into 
 the near and far East, and out of the present war will have sprung 
 the world-power of which the Pan-German league has been 
 dreaming since 1870, and of which Bernhardi wrote in 1912. 
 There are many who, preaching a propaganda plainly labelled 
 "made in Germany," would have us believe that if Germany wins 
 this war in Europe we are in no danger. They point to the so- 
 called traditional friendship which Germany has had for America 
 as proof of her good intentions, and that any hard feeling that has 
 apparently been engendered through this war is purely temporary. 
 This doctrine is not only the most wicked folly, but is the most 
 outrageous misstatement of facts. There has been no good feeling 
 in Germany for America. Let us not forget that the Monroe 
 Doctrine was our first answer to Prussian aggression on the 
 American Continent, and that this Doctrine was levelled first and 
 primarily against Prussia. This Prussia has always resented, 
 since it interfered with her efforts to stop the growth of Repub- 
 lican sentiment throughout the world. Since that time we have 
 had many instances of German hostility. We know full well, 
 if we but reflect, what Germany attempted to do in the Spanish- 
 American War. First, there was her attempt to line up against 
 
860 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 us a European coalition; either to take active steps against us 
 if we declared war on Spain or to prevent us from making such 
 declaration. The incident of Manila Bay, when Admiral Dewey 
 was forced into the position of practically declaring war on the 
 German fleet, is now authenticated history. The action of Ger- 
 many in the Venezuela case, when Theodore Roosevelt was Presi- 
 dent, is fully recorded by the late Secretary of State, John Hay, 
 and while speaking of Mr. Hay, I would mention one statement 
 contained in his Memoirs, as a result of his observance in China. 
 "I would rather," he said, "be the foot-stool of China than the 
 playmate of the Kaiser." Finally, there cannot be the slightest 
 doubt of what Germany's intentions would be on this continent, 
 in case this war ended in a manner which would leave her the 
 power to put into execution her plans for world dominion. 
 
 This is the true German menace, and in order that it may be 
 averted there is imposed upon us the present duty of carrying 
 the war to a victorious conclusion, though it take two, ten or 
 twenty years. This means suffering, privation, sacrifice on a 
 scale not even dreamed of in this country, and in order that the 
 country will stand without flinching the burden it will have to 
 carry, the way must be prepared by intelligent education. We 
 have two evils to combat — pacifism with its selfish, snug, ma- 
 terialistic idealism, and that other idealism which is engaged 
 in the useless task of lifting the war out of the realm of 
 fact and placing it amidst the clouds of lofty but untrue senti- 
 ment. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, the gospel of pacifism, this immoral 
 gospel with "business is business" as its text, is still being preached 
 indiscriminately, without let or without hindrance. It has estab- 
 lished a party, a cult, justifying itself in a fad which it has called 
 humanity, and has set this above and against patriotic inclina- 
 tion and national duty. It has kept dangling constantly before 
 our eyes our tradition — a policy of freedom from entangling al- 
 liances, of America for Americans and Europe for Europeans, so 
 that the mercenary, the mean of spirit, the barren of souls, pleads 
 the hypocrisy of uphft and joyfully sings— "I did not raise my 
 boy to be a soldier." This group of addlepated men, embracing 
 in its folds its Amos Pinchots, its Morris Hilquits, its Victor 
 Bergers, are advocating a peace without victory, a return to the 
 status quo ante, without annexations, without indemnities. 
 
 Where would such a step lead? Let us suppose the most fa- 
 vorable outcome — a return to the status quo ante — a restoration 
 of the situation out of which grew the present war. He would 
 be more than a sentimental idealist, he would be a fool, who 
 having seen a certain result spring from a certain cause or status, 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEXT WAR 361 
 
 would deny that the same cause or status would again produce the 
 same result. 
 
 _ Germany, Russia has shown us, is still treacherous, still prac- 
 tising deceit, still lying nationally, individually, collectively, with- 
 out compunction and without remorse. She is still the same Ger- 
 many who invaded Belgium in spite of existing treaties, the 
 same Germany who burned and pillaged and murdered at every 
 point touched by the army in 1914, the same Germany who 
 violated the neutrality of Luxemburg, who destroyed Serbia and 
 who turned Northeastern France into a desert waste during the 
 early spring of 1917. She is not chastened ; spiritually the war 
 has not touched her. She is still the arrogant, blustering Junker- 
 ridden Germany, who is determined to win the war at any cost. 
 Will all this be made right, will this hideous philosophy be 
 stamped out, will Germany and the German be humanized through 
 the act of some official in signing his name to a bit of parchment 
 and affixing thereto the seal of the German state ? Who is there — 
 aside from the pacifist — so fatuous as to believe it? It is not so 
 simple. There can be but one answer — the treaty of peace be- 
 tween the Allies and Germany must be such that even though 
 Germany may break it, the power to do evil through the breach 
 will not exist. There must be no peace without victory. 
 
 As regards the other idealism which I have mentioned, I 
 would first bring to your mind the character of our population — 
 this conglomerate heterogeneous mass which constitute the Amer- 
 ican people. There are literally millions who speak a foreign 
 tongue — millions who understand little about our underlying prin- 
 ciples of government and who care less. These people must be 
 reached and educated by a propaganda which will educate and 
 which will line them up squarely behind our war aims and give 
 them the willingness and the courage to suffer and sacrifice that 
 these aims may be achieved. They must learn first of all why 
 we are in the war; why this great peace-loving country of ours 
 has cast aside all of its traditions and is sending its sons to fight 
 and die in France. Have they been told ? Has the elemental fact 
 of self-defense been taught to them? If not, what have our prop- 
 aganda workers been doing? There are thousands of our draft 
 army who to-day, after a year at war, have not the slightest idea 
 why we declared war on Germany. We did not declare war for 
 democracy nor to confer its benefits upon the German people, nor 
 for humanity, nor for civilization. These may be among the 
 things we are fighting for but these did not lead us to a declara- 
 tion of war. Stripped of its fancy, our cause stands out clearly — 
 righteous self-defense. Utterly regardless of the stake or issue, 
 we tried to make ourselves feel that our position of distance and 
 
362 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 detachment would enable us to keep clear of the European cata- 
 clysm, but beginning with the sinking of the Lusitania, Germany 
 steadily brought the war nearer and nearer to our shores. We 
 saw our treaties broken, our ships sunk in violation of the law of 
 nations, our citizens in the legitimate exercise of their calling, 
 brutally murdered with all the savagery of an Attila. Plots and 
 counter-plots were laid against us ; German gold flowed like pol- 
 luted water among us and among our neighbors, bribing, cor- 
 rupting, debauching. Slowly but surely the way was being paved 
 for an attack on the Monroe Doctrine and an invasion of de- 
 fenseless America. If this war ended with America still neu- 
 tral, Germany would have the guns and we would have the money 
 and she would send her guns to get it. 
 
 Devoid of any of the finer sentiments which actuate man- 
 kind, Germany recognizes but one plea — brute force — the right 
 of might. We know what that might mean to us. Once the 
 Hun landed on our coasts, it would be but a short time before 
 our cities would be in flames, our citizens in terror, our women 
 turned into the playthings of beasts even as they wailed for their 
 butchered dead. Germany, her hands still reeking with the blood 
 of martyred Belgium and of ravished France, would tear our 
 heart strings, and the Connecticut, the ■ Susquehanna and the 
 Potomac would run to the sea as crimsoned with the blood of 
 her victims, as did the Lys, the Moselle and the Oise in 1914. 
 These were the things we suffered and the pictures we saw, 
 and to protect ourselves we declared war. The pro-German may 
 cry Wall Street, the pacifist humanity, the idealist democracy. 
 But if these were the propelling motives, we must acknowledge 
 ourselves to be the smallest visioned, the most narrow-minded, 
 the most thick-headed people in the world to-day. War broke 
 out in August, 1914. Were these things injected into the war 
 only in April, 191 7? Was not democracy threatened, humanity 
 attacked, civilization outraged, when Germany first marched 
 through Belgium, putting her cities to the torch and turning the 
 mailed fist of her soldiery against innocent children and defense- 
 less women? If we are waging war against Autocracy, why do 
 we only now declare war on Austria, why have we not declared 
 war on Bulgaria and Turkey? No, we declared war for the 
 highest of human motives, self-defense, the defense of our homes, 
 of our women, of our country's flag, of our nation's honor. And 
 surely the defense of these against a cruel unscrupulous ag- 
 gressor is enough for any man in whose soul there is even a 
 glimmer of decency and right to fight for. It is useless then, 
 because unnecessary, and food-hardy because dangerous, to cloud 
 an issue already so clear and so simple with a plethora of words 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEXT WAR 363 
 
 which destroy the substance and substitute therefor only an in- 
 tangibility which no one understands. 
 
 Again, we are told that this war is something with which the 
 German people have nothing to do. Indeed, our national propa- 
 ganda has been directed towards disseminating this dangerous 
 fallacy. Only recently, while loyal Americans were directing their 
 efforts to having German influences stamped out of our schools, 
 in order that the youth of our country might not be contaminated 
 with the immorality and rottenness of German philosophy, wide- 
 spread publicity was given to a defense of German kultur and 
 of this philosophy, which defense was in the form of a plea that 
 we were not at war with Germany but with the German Govern- 
 ment and German militarism. Will we never learn? Are we 
 to wander aimlessly through this war, our national consciousness 
 rocked in the cradle of silly sentimentality while sung to sleep by 
 the lullaby of the socialist and the pacifist ? Germany has drawn 
 into her military service since the war began at least ten million 
 men. Is this not an army of the German people? Are not the 
 actions of that army indicative of what lies beneath the veneer 
 of the people themselves ? We know the record of that army, how 
 it ravished and pillaged and raped — how it violated the sanctity 
 of every home, every law of God or of man — contaminating 
 whatever it touched. Did this army do all this because it was 
 foreign to its nature ? 
 
 But you might say this army and the German people them- 
 selves have been deceived into believing that they are all fighting 
 for self-defense — that they are a quiet simple home-loving folk, 
 who want only to sit by their fireside, sip their beer and play 
 with their children. We are asked to believe that they are in 
 sympathy with the war only because they have been misled by 
 their wicked overlords and that as soon as their eyes are opened 
 they will cast off the shackles which bind them and join the 
 ranks of the world's civilization. I may be wrong in condemning 
 a whole nation of 70 million people, I hope I am, but as I see 
 it this idea of the German people is basically,, fundamentally 
 wrong, that in spite of the sporadic outbursts of civilized genius 
 such as marked Schiller, Goethe, Wagner and Beethoven, they 
 are still barbarians, still gross materialists who greedily regard 
 any act not from its moral nature but only from the possible 
 profit involved. Let us see what happened in Russia. In the 
 subsequent action of both Germany and Austria we have been 
 given an excellent picture of the attitude of these powers that 
 has completely dispelled the myth as to the hostility of the pro- 
 letariat towards the leaders. Although Germany, we are told, is 
 waging a war of self-defense, although she desires nothing more 
 
364 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 than peace and the right to continue to live on terms of peace and 
 amity with her international neighbors, when Russia, naked be- 
 fore her attacks, offered peace on a basis which left Germany 
 with enormous conquest, did Germany acquiese in Russia's re- 
 quest for peace? Did her population, fighting only in self-de- 
 fense, be it remembered, rise up and demand that this war of 
 conquest cease? On the contrary. Both the German and the 
 Austrian populations, although hearing the appeal of the Russian 
 Bolsheviki, nevertheless submitted to the renewal of war on 
 Russia. They knew that Russia was not fighting, that she had 
 announced a state of peace and did not even offer resistance to 
 the invasion. But without a murmur these people stood still 
 and watched. They saw only a new gain, a new and rich land 
 unguarded, theirs for the asking. They saw their greedy leaders 
 stretch out their hands and take — and they applauded the taking. 
 It was the profit which appealed, regardless of how it was ob- 
 tained. 
 
 If the German people are tired of this war it is not through 
 any spiritual change ; it is not through condemnation of the fact 
 that war is being waged simply through the desire of their leaders 
 for power. It is through weariness of hunger, and privation, it is 
 because they were prosperous well-fed peasants before, and now 
 find themselves hungry, without sufficient clothing, and without 
 the other creature comforts to which they have been accustomed. 
 They have no sense of moral values, and, if the war should end 
 now, it would leave them just as they were before, ready and will- 
 ing to engage in war again when ordered to do so by him whom 
 they recognize as having the power to order. Of this their 
 inactivity in the case of Russia is the proof. 
 
 And if we would go further, let us see the trend of thought 
 in Germany since 1870. Since that year we have seen grow up 
 in Germany a school of philosophy which preached kultur through 
 militarism. For the past thirty years every professor in every 
 German university, e^-ery teacher in every German school, every 
 preacher in every German pulpit, has been preaching and teach- 
 ing the superiority of the German over all other peoples of the 
 world and of the singleness of intent and purpose of God and the 
 war lord. And the German people believe it, think it, and 
 glory in it. Have we not seen the visible proof? Their souls 
 are shriveled and shrunken, honor is a word without meaning, 
 decency, chivalry, anarchronisms. And it is these people who, 
 as the American Ambassador has testified, taught their young 
 to torture prisoners — and these prisoners were sons of Canada — 
 who saw in the frightful massacre of the Lusitania only an occa- 
 sion for a German holiday. These are the people — the kind. 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR THE NEXT WAR 365 
 
 simple, gentle folk — in whom we are to place our faith when the 
 Kaiser and his misbegotten sons have been removed from power. 
 If we wish to end this war in such a way as to minimize the 
 chances of the next, it is to the German people themselves that 
 we must carry the fight ; it is they who must be defeated if we 
 would make a peace rather than a truce. 
 
 The crimes that have been committed have not been those of 
 government alone — the people themselves must share the respon- 
 sibility, and the German people must pay. It is immaterial to 
 the Allies whether the German Government repudiates the debt 
 secured by domestically owned bonds. It is material that the 
 debt to Belgium, to France, to Serbia, be repaid to the last farth- 
 ing, and this debt can be repaid only through the sweat of the 
 German brow, drawn out through labor not for love nor for gain 
 but in expiation of the greatest crimes of which history contains 
 a record. 
 
 All this seems far from my subject. It is in fact most inti- 
 mately connected with it. If we are to fight this war to a finish, 
 we must know and realize the truth, we must know why and 
 whom we are fighting, so that we may have the courage to con- 
 tinue. 
 
 America must realize, unless she is a liar and a hypocrite, a 
 whited sepulchre in whom there is no jot nor tittle of honor, 
 that among nations Germany is a lecherous leper ; that she fouled 
 her own nest and violated her own honor when she crossed the 
 Belgian frontier; that she played the role of the savage and 
 the beast in her subsequent treatment of Belgium ; that her action 
 in France was an illegal, unjustified vandalism; that on the high 
 seas her submarine campaign has been a campaign of murderous 
 butchery; that there is not a covenant of the Hague Convention or 
 of any other international body to which Germany was signatory 
 that has not been deliberately, wantonly broken ; in short, that 
 Germany is a covetous, lust-filled beast trying to tear the world 
 to pieces that it may gorge itself on the flesh of civilization, that 
 Germany is the barbaric atheist, recognizing no God, no power 
 but that of the brute, trying to raze the citadels of Christianity 
 that she may erect on the altar of the Church of Christ the 
 monstrous idol of her own materialistic ambition — a world do- 
 minion. 
 
 We must realize that we are fighting a war of self-defense — 
 all of us alike — the defense of our women, our babies — of future 
 generations, of Christianity, of civilization itself. We have put 
 our hands to the plow and we shall not turn back. We shall 
 not permit the war to end until the Allies are victorious — until 
 Germany and the German people are beaten. We took up arms 
 
366 WELFARE DURING THE WAR AND AFTER 
 
 to destroy the hell of savagery, of cruelty, of barbaric bestiality— 
 that Germany had turned loose upon the world. Until these are 
 destroyed, until there is beaten into the dull sensibility of every 
 German mind and burned into every German heart the doctrine 
 that right and right alone makes for might, until egotism, ma- 
 terialism and the righteousness of brute force are stamped out of 
 the German philosophy, there shall be no peace. 
 
 Woe to that statesman of Europe, of Canada, or of America, 
 who, yielding to a false opportunistic idealism, consents, in the 
 name of his country to a peace which compromises but does not 
 settle, which compounds every form of felony, which leaves alive, 
 unscotched and unimpaired, the false brutal philosophy of Bis- 
 marck, which only perpetuates the power of the swashbuckler 
 and the Junker and their ability to tear again the heart-strings of 
 Christianity and the vitals of civilization. That man will have 
 launched a curse upon future generations more terrible than the 
 curse of Cain. He will have carved for himself, a niche deep 
 down in the hell of traitors so deep that it has never been reached 
 by but one man — in the life of the world — Judas Iscariot, who 
 also betrayed the Son of God. Beside him who betrayed the 
 Nazarene that man must also take his place. 
 
 The present and future safety of Europe and of the American 
 continent demands that the means, the power and the ability to 
 wage war be forever removed from Germany and from all things 
 German — from the quiet beer drinker of Munich as thoroughly 
 as from the war lord of the Wilhelm-Strasse whose hands and 
 whose soul are already dyed red with millions of Europe's dead ; 
 for this, gentlemen, are calling our women who are suffering, 
 our babies who are being made fatherless, our liberties which we 
 cherish, our God whom we worship — and by that God we must 
 answer. 
 
RESOLUTIONS 
 
 The following resolutions were offered by Lee Francis Ly- 
 barger of Pennsylvania, on Friday, April 12th, 1918, and were 
 adopted by the Conference unanimously. 
 
 Whereas, the utterances and messages delivered at this Na- 
 tional Conference of American Lecturers have vitalized the pa- 
 triotic impulses of the whole nation, and through the delegates 
 here assembled will continue to do so throughout the months 
 to come. 
 
 Therefore, Be It Resolved, That it is the sense of the dele- 
 gates here assembled that this National Conference of American 
 Lecturers should be made a permanent American institution to 
 continue not only during the period of the war but to meet annu- 
 ally year after year — a free non-partisan, non-sectarian forum 
 for the expression of great ideas and ideals, and as a means to 
 enable us the better to serve the people from the Lyceum, the 
 Chautauqua and the American platform. 
 
 Resolved, That the National Conference of American Lec- 
 turers continue Montaville Flowers as its chairman with power to 
 act and invite the associations named in the official call for this 
 first Conference to continue in the organization of the next Con- 
 ference. 
 
 Resolved, That the thanks of this Conference are Jiereby ten- 
 dered to the chairman, Montaville Flowers, whose vision, cour- 
 age, perseverance and tact made this Conference of American 
 Lecturers possible, whose masterly grasp of vital topics involved 
 in the war have resulted in the most remarkable program ever 
 assembled, a program on which there appeared Ambassadors, 
 Cabinet officials and other officials, scholars, thinkers and pub- 
 licists of national and international renown; and who presided 
 over the sessions of this Conference with a dignity and executive 
 ability worthy of the high aims and grand ideals which occupied 
 the attention and the discussions of this Conference. 
 
 Resolved, That our thanks are due to Miss Caroline L. Mc- 
 Cartney, Assistant Secretary of the International Lyceum and 
 Chautauqua Association, for the high order of intelligence, loy- 
 alty and untiring devotion which characterized her part in the 
 
 367 
 
368 RESOLUTIONS 
 
 great work of making this Conference the tremendous success 
 and world-wide influence which it has achieved. 
 
 Resolved, That for efficient service rendered in behalf of this 
 Conference our thanks are due also to George Creel and Arthur 
 E. Bestor of the Committee on Public Information; Herbert 
 Hoover and F. C. Walcott of the Food Administration; Miss 
 Julia C. Lathrop of the Children's Bureau Department of Labor ; 
 Paul M. Person, Chairman of the Committee on Attendance; 
 S. Eugene Whiteside, Chairman of "the Finance Committee; and 
 W. L. Radcliffe, Chairman of the Committee on Local Arrange- 
 ments. 
 
 Resolved, That we extend to the managers of the War Coun- 
 cil of the Red Cross, and especially to Orrin C. Lester, our ap- 
 preciation of the compliment they pay our membership in the 
 banquet they personally are giving to our members; and that 
 we pledge our full sympathies and energies to the work they 
 represent.