reasonable price; use less candy and sweet drinks. Do not stint sugar in putting up fruit and jams. They will save butter. "SAVE THE FUEL.-Coal comes from a distance and our railways are overburdened hauling war material. Help relieve them by burning fewer fires. Use wood when you can get it. "USE THE PERISHABLE FOODS.-Fruits and vegetables we have in abundance. As a nation we eat too little green stuffs. Double their use and improve your health. Store potatoes and other roots properly and they will keep. Begin now to can or dry all surplus garden products. "USE LOCAL SUPPLIES.-Patronize your local producer. Distance Buy perishable food from the neighborhood nearest you and thus save transportation. means money. "GENERAL RULES.-Buy less, serve smaller portions. Preach the 'Gospel of the Clean Plate.' Don't eat a fourth meal. Don't limit the plain food of growing children. Watch out for the wastes in the community. Full garbage pails in America mean empty dinner-pails in America and Europe. If the more fortunate of our people will avoid waste and eat no more than they need, the high cost of living problem of the less fortunate will be solved." A final step to make complete the embargo which would prevent Germany or the northern neutrals of Europe from obtaining products of the United States, Canada, Mexico, or any of the South American nations that might aid the enemy, was taken on October 4 by the Exports Administrative Board which placed a ban on bunker coal. In an official statement it was asserted that the United States had failed to obtain the definite information it had asked of northern neutrals concerning their actual needs for home. consumption, and the status of the traffic in which they had engaged with the Central Powers. It was stated further that the Administration had adopted as definite the policy that it would in no way contribute to trade that would "accrue to the benefit of the enemy.' This policy was in line with the steps which had been taken by the Government to obtain an embargo combination against Germany and the northern neutral nations that were feeding and arming her, and was one in which all the countries allied against Germany would be involved, and would work in concert. It would end the practise which had been engaged in exten sively by some neutral shipping interests, of obtaining here the coal necessary to transport to Europe cargoes of foodstuffs, fodder, and other commodities which were refused to them by the United States. The step had been taken with the approval of all the Allies. It followed closely Great Britain's declaration of a complete embargo against the Northern European neutrals, and was designed to strengthen the embargo already put into force by the United States. Latin-American countries were the only other nations left BOOKS FOR OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE A familiar scene at the New York Public Library in 1917 and 1918. More than 700,000 books were here collected in the world from which Germany had a chance of obtaining foodstuffs and other necessaries through border countries. With this source cut off, allied statesmen felt that the ring around Germany was drawn so tightly by economic pressure, reinforcing the Allies' ever-growing military superiority, as to make the German people see that their cause was hopeless. Eighty-four Dutch ships were now lying idle at our ports. It must have been realized by the Dutch Government, which controlled by charter a majority of these idle ships, that what they had on board could not be carried to Holland. It was estimated that their expenses while lying in our ports had already exceeded $10,000,000. So much work attended the tabulation of subscriptions to the Second Liberty Loan floated in October that the final results were not known until ten days after the subscription's close. It then appeared that men, women and children to the number of 9,306,000 had "done their bit" by subscribing to $4,617,532,300 worth of bonds. The loan was for $3,000,000,000 but the Secretary of the Treasury had reserved the right to allot additional bonds up to one-half the amount of any over-subscription. As this amounted to $1,617,532,300, the total issue of the Second Liberty Loan would be $3,808,766,150. Of the subscribers, 99 per cent. contributed their share in amounts ranging from $50 to $50,000, the aggregate of such subscriptions being $2,488,469,350. The First Liberty Loan, which called for the issuance of $2,000,000,000 in bonds, had been over-subscribed $1,035,226,850, and there were approximately 4,000,000 subscriptions. The over-subscription of the Second Loan was approximately 54 per cent. for the whole country; in the New York district, with subscriptions of $1,550,453,450, it was 72 per cent. The actual subscriptions in each of the twelve Federal Reserve banking districts, with the quota of each on a basis of $3,000,000,000, were as below: The most gratifying thing about the loan was the actual number of subscribers or those in whose names subscriptions appeared and to whom the securities would be allotted. Approximately 9,400,000 persons was the figure given and was not much below one-tenth of the entire population of the country, men, women and children; and 99 per cent. of these subscribed in amounts ranging from $50 to $50,000, making an aggregate of $2,488,469,350. This the Secretary of the Treasury interpreted as "significant of the widespread interest of the people in the purposes of the war, and of their determined support of the Government in all measures required for its vigorous prosecution.' 999 9 Principal Sources: The Sun, The Times, The Tribune, New York; Associated Press dispatches, The Wall Street Journal (New York), The Times (London). A SALVATION ARMY RECRUITING STATION Here the purpose was to induce dwellers in New York to migrate VI THE ARRIVAL OF ADMIRAL SIMS AND GENERAL PERSHING IN LONDON AND PARIS May 7, 1917-July 7, 1917 OINCIDENT with the coming of the Entente Commis COING sioners, or following soon after their arrival home, important work had been done in Washington in preparing the United States for actual fighting. On May 4, the day on which Mr. Balfour addrest the House of Representatives, with President Wilson seated in the gallery, Admiral Sims, with a flotilla of American destroyers arrived in British waters, and began at once to participate in war on German submarines. Five weeks later, on June 8, General Pershing, who had been placed in command of the American forces sent to Europe, arrived in England, and on June 13 reached Paris. On April 19th, the first hostilities between Americans and Germans, in a real sense, had occurred at sea. On that day, being the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, Captain Rice, of the American liner Mongolia, caused to be fired for the United States the first gun in the World War that could be called official. The shot hit a German submarine, which was about to attack Captain Rice's ship in British waters. That one shot well-aimed from a gun which the crew of the Mongolia had named "Teddy Roosevelt," decided the submarine's fate. Aided by Captain Rice, who so maneuvered his ship as to secure a good shot, the naval gunners caught the submarine as she rose at a range of 1,000 yards and dropt a shell squarely on her before she had a chance. to launch a torpedo. A column of water, mixed with fragments of a periscope, flew into the air; there was an upheaval of black smoke and yellow gas-flames, and when these had settled nothing but a large oily patch was left on the water. |