Mr. Gompers on Government Operation of the Railways....

Cartoons of the Week
The Morgan Collection.
Mr. Barnard's Lincoln

The President's Address...

The War Aims of the Nations..
Experiments in Reorganization: Building
Over the War Department Machinery 91
The Spirit of Japan: A Vindication of
Japan's Foreign Policy by Marquis Okuma 92
An Interview by Gregory Mason

Heroes of Aviation.

22

94

By Laurence La Tourette Driggs "The Origin and Evolution of Life:" A Notice of Henry Fairfield Osborn's Book 97 By Theodore Roosevelt

Knoll Papers: The Children of the Church 99 By Lyman Abbott

Bill...

By Donal Hamilton Haines

Government Operation of the Railways: Has It Come to Stay ? The Larger View. The Probable Effect upon the Value of Railway Securities...

By Theodore H. Price

100

102

Current Events Illustrated..

103

Paul Kaplan: An East Side Portrait 108 By Henry Moskowitz

.....

A Munition Plant in Every Back Yard. 109 By Charles Lathrop Pack

园

The Fires (Poem)..

By Jean Brooke Burt

Here is a thorough, complete, simplified High School Course that you can complete in two years. Meets college entrance requirements. Prepared by leading professors in universities and academies. DON'T STOP GROWING! Keep on going! Train your brain! Broaden your mental vision! A high school education multiplies your chances for success in business or social life. Study this intensely interesting course in idle hours at home without interfering with your regular work. "Cash in " on your natural ability.

High School Book Free Send your name and address on a letter or post-card and get our new 24-page Illustrated Book. No obligation. It is absolute y free. Write today.

American School of Correspondence
Dept. P-9431
Chicago. Illinois

Dr. Esenwein

MASSACHUSETTS

SHORT-STORY WRITING

A course of forty lessons in the history, form, structure and writing of the Short-Story taught by Dr. J. Berg Esen wein, for years Editor of Lippincott's. 250-p. catalog free. Please address The Home Correspondence School Dept. 68, Springfield, Mass.

The Lady Jane Grey School for Girls admits to

Vassar, Smith, Wellesley, Mount Holyoke. General Courses
Special courses for High School graduates. Music and
Domestic Science. Exceptional home life.
THE MISSES HYDE, ELLA VIRGINIA JONES, A.B., Principals.

St. John's Riverside Hospital Training
School for Nurses

YONKERS, NEW YORK
Registered in New York State, offers a 3 years' course-a
general training, to refined, educated women. Require
ments one year high school or its equivalent. Apply to the
Directress of Nurses, Yonkers, New York.

BOOKKEEPER

GET OUT OF THE RUT:

become a certified public or cost accountant; go into business
for yourself; demand for expert accountants exceeds the
supply; our graduates earn over $5,000 yearly; have more
business than they can handle; learn at home in spare time
by our new easy system. Write for booklet and special offer.
We have no solicitors.
Universal Business Institute, 92 Pullman Building, New York

Important to
Subscribers

When you notify The
Outlook of a change
in your address, both
the old and
and the new
address should be given.
Kindly write, if possible,
two weeks before the

New York City change is to take effect.

THE

GENERAL CROWDER ON THE SELECTIVE DRAFT

The result of the reclassification of the men who are registered under the Selective Draft Law will not be definitely known for several weeks. It is interesting, however, to record General Crowder's estimate of the number of men who will be put in Class 1, and passed as physically fit. This number General Crowder sets as close to one million, and states his belief that this number will be large enough for any call in present prospect.

General Crowder advocates adding to those now liable under the Draft Law men who are arriving at the age of twenty-one, and estimates that this would result in a yearly increment of at least seven hundred thousand men. With such an increment, he says, "there is certainly no immediate necessity of going beyond Class 1 in future drafts. This is a consummation most to be desired. It removes from consideration the most troublesome problems of the draft, and places us in a most enviable position among belligerent nations."

We believe that General Crowder is right both in his recommendation and in his statement that this is a consummation to Le desired, but we believe that the country should not lose sight of the fact that this desire may not be realized. When we think of the depletion of man strength in England and France, we should be slow to prophesy that the war will be over before we are called upon to make a similar sacrifice, even though it may seem unlikely that the United States will have to draw as heavily on its men as France or England has done. This is not a counsel of pessimism, but a counsel of caution.

General Crowder also gives some interesting figures concerning the workings of the Draft Law. Half of the men called under the law claimed exemption, and seventy-eight per cent of these claims were granted, showing that a comparatively small per cent of fraudulent or inadequate claims were filed. Seventyfour per cent of those released were released on the ground of having dependent relatives, twenty per cent because of alien birth, and six per cent on vocational grounds.

THE DRAFT LAW DECIDED TO
BE CONSTITUTIONAL

The Supreme Court of the United States has unanimously affirmed the constitutionality of the Draft or Conscription Act requiring citizens to render their country military service in time of need. The Constitution of the United States provides that Congress has power "to declare war, . . . to raise and support armies, . . . to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces, . . . to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers." The contention that Congress has no

WEEK

power to exact enforced military duty by the citizen under this clause gets but scant respect from the Court. It says:

This but challenges the existence of all power, for governmental power which has no sanction to it and which can only be exercised provided the citizen consents is in no substantial sense such a power. It is argued, however, that, although this is abstractly true, it is not concretely so because, as compelled military service is repugnant to a free government and in conflict with all the great guarantees of the Constitution as to individual liberty, it must be assumed that the authority to raise armies was intended to be limited to the right to call an army into existence, counting alone upon the willingness of the citizen to do his duty in time of public need-that is, in time of war. But the premise of this proposition is so devoid of foundation that it leaves not even a shadow of ground upon which to base the conclusion. It may not be doubted that the very conception of a just government and its duty to the citizen includes the reciprocal obligation of the citizen to render military service in case of need and the right to compel it. To do more than state the proposition is absolutely unnecessary in view of the practical illustration afforded by the almost universal legislation to that effect now in force.

The Court finds in the history of England, the American colonies, and the Confederate States of America illustrations of and support for this fundamental right of the Government, which is indeed essential to its preservation. The illustration from the Confederate States is interesting because they carried the doctrine of political individualism to its extreme. Nevertheless :

The seceding States wrote into the Constitution, which was adopted to regulate the Government which they sought to establish, in identical words the provision of the Constitution of the United States. And when the right to enforce that instrument, a selective draft law which was enacted not differing in principle from the one here in question, was challenged, its validity was upheld, evidently after great consideration, by the courts of Virginia, of Georgia, of Texas, of Alabama, of Mississippi, and of North Carolina, the opinions in some of the cases copiously and critically reviewing the whole grounds which we have stated.

The official report of this decision has not reached us as we go to press, and our quotations are taken from the newspaper reports of the decision. It is difficult for us to conceive how any other view could ever have been seriously argued by any one familiar with Constitutional law or the Anglo-Saxon principles

of free institutions.

AMERICAN SOLDIERS AND FOREIGN DECORATIONS

A clause in the Federal Constitution, taken from the Articles of Confederation, reads: "No Person holding any Office

of Profit or Trust under them [the United States] shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State." Whatever right the American colonies, a century and a half ago, had to feel as they did has certainly been changed by existing events. Those (not "persons holding any office of profit or trust under them") who have been in the American Ambulance Service in France report the exceeding benefit not only to those who receive but to those who bestow the medals conferred by the French Government. We quote from a recent letter:

"The General commanding the 120th Division of Infantry cites, at the order of the division: —, American Volunteer of S. S. U. 29, has given proof, in the course of operations at Hill 304, of great devotion; he particularly distinguished himself on the 1st and 2d of August, 1917, in carrying out his duties as driver of an ambulance evacuating a large number of wounded over a road in view of the enemy and incessantly bombarded."

Yes, this is a citation, and in consequence yesterday, in view of the entire 38th regiment 3,000 men-I with five other Americans and several Frenchmen had the famous Croix de Guerre, with a little silver star on the ribbon, pinned on my chest. Mine was the second one awarded of the six, following the sous chef, and our lieutenant tells me I got the best citation. I suppose this sounds a bit egotistical to say the least, but it means a great deal to me, as it marks the culmination of a hope which began even before I sailed. . . . I hope it can mean as much to you all as it does to me.

I think I shall never forget yesterday-it will always stand out as a red-letter day in my memory. After the decorations they gave us a most signal honor, as the General ordered a special salvo of the "Marseillaise" by the regimental band for us, and then allowed us to stand beside him and review the entire regiment in full equipment. I think we were about the first representatives of the Field Service to be so honored, as such procedure is practically never followed except for decorations with the Legion of Honor or the Médaille Militaire. . .

I wish you could feel the thrill of the great French anthem and see hundreds and hundreds of men marching by. The latter you have seen in the movies, equipped in their regalia and steel helmets, but the real thing is many, many more times inspiring. Surely France and our other allies would feel more than ever drawn to us if by conferring decorations upon our actual soldiers in the field they might thus give expression to their gratitude for what we are doing for them. And, on our side, we might as well realize that it is sometimes as fine a thing to accept as to bestow. We would inevitably be drawn to our allies more than ever by their quick courtesy in conferring a decoration on our men where due.

For these reasons we are glad that Senator Lodge's bill allowing American soldiers in this war to accept medals and decorations from foreign governments has been reintroduced. It passed the Senate at the recent session. It should pass the House at this session and become law.

WHAT DO THE SOLDIERS READ?

The campaign to raise a million dollars for the use of the Library War Service of the American Library Association is an event recent enough to make the account of what is being done in one particular military encampment in the direction of providing reading matter for the soldiers of particular interest. At Camp Sherman, in Chillicothe, Ohio, there has been established in every Y. M. C. A. and Knights of Columbus building a library of from five hundred to a thousand books, managed just as any library would be, with a catalogue and a charging system, though, of course, of the simplest kind. There is a good supply of periodicals in each of these buildings-there are nine branch libraries in the cantonment-and copies of every newspaper published in Ohio and western Pennsylvania, so that the men have access at all times to news from home.

The library work at Camp Sherman has been in charge of Mr. Burton E. Stevenson, Librarian of the Chillicothe Public Library. His chief assistant has been the daughter of the major-general commanding the camp. Work was started in developing a library system in June, when the first troops arrived. At the present time there are over ten thousand books in the branch libraries, and as many more in the main Amer

ican Library Association building, which has recently been opened and which is the center of the whole camp library

system.

Of the books desired by the soldiers Mr. Stevenson says:

When I started this work in June, I had some very plausible theories about the kind of books the men would want, but I soon discarded them. We have had requests here for every sort of book from "some books by Gene Stratton-Porter" to Boswell's "Life of Johnson" and Bergson's Creative Evolution." We have had requests for Ibsen's plays, for books on the valuation of public utilities, on conservation, on sewage disposal; we had so many requests for " A Message to Garcia " that I had a supply mimeographed. In one building there were so many requests for books on religion and ethics that we set up a small reference collection there.

Broadly speaking, of course, most of the men read fiction; and most of them prefer exciting, red-blooded fiction-detective stories, adventure stories, and so on. But there is also a steady demand for Conrad and Wells and Hardy and Meredith. Poetry is also in demand, and good books of travel go well. The only kind of books we don't want are the salacious, risqué kind -they have no place in our camp libraries. And we don't care for unattractive, cheap editions, with yellow, muddy paper and flimsy binding. We want attractive books-nice, clean copies of good editions--and the more of these we get the better service we can give the men.

Mr. Stevenson recently conducted a test to determine the names of periodicals with the widest popular appeal for the soldiers. He posted a list of periodicals in each library building with the following note of instruction: Place one tally after those you would like to have in this building. Please play fair and do not tally more than twenty magazines." Thirty-one periodicals under this test received more than twenty-five votes apiece. Those that received more than forty votes, as arranged in alphabetical order, and including as nearly as possible half the list, are:

The "American Magazine," the "Army and Navy Journal," "Collier's Weekly," "Everybody's," "Judge."" Leslie's Weekly." "Life," the "Literary Digest," the "Metropolitan Magazine," "The Outlook," "Physical Culture," "Puck," "Review of Reviews," "Saturday Evening Post," "Scientific American," and "The World's Work."

Bridgeport, Connecticut, has since the outbreak of the great war been confronted by a housing problem of tremendous proportions. Thirty thousand or forty thousand people were added to the population of that city within a few months. Today, according to a report by the National Housing Association, not another laborer can be accommodated in that city. Yet on January 1 a new munitions plant, for which the United States Government has provided two millions and a half for the housing of its machinery, was expected to begin work. Unless additional housing is provided for the men of the new plant, the only way in which it can be operated is by taking men out of existing plants which are already working below capacity.

This is but a typical instance of the need of the adoption of an intelligent housing policy by our Government, a matter which has already received the serious attention of the Council of National Defense, but which has not yet passed beyond the stage of an official report.

The National Housing Association rightly believes that the situation demands immediate action, and definitely recommends that certain specific things be done. It advocates the establishment of a Housing Administration by the Federal Government, and the placing of this Administration in direct charge of the housing of all workers in the war industries of the country. It recommends that Congress empower the President to loan