exports to Norway at $9,061,000, an increase of $4,300,000; and exports to Spain at $8,415,000, also an increase.

The proclamation of the President covered a very broad field of export trade; but there was no doubt that conditions fully justified it. The countries named included practically all that were reached by American trade, both belligerent and neutral. The necessity of such a measure had become sufficiently obvious. There was great danger of a shortage in Europe of the most essential supplies, so long as the war lasted, especially on the part of Great Britain and France, which had been for nearly three years engaged in this struggle, with a continual exhaustion of resources, or of the means of making them available. So far as food products and materials derived from the soil were concerned, very close calculation would have to be made, with prudent foresight and prevention of waste.

By July 9 it became obvious that there would be a billion bushels increase over last year's production in the principal food-crops, which was the response American farmers had made to President Wilson's mid-April appeal that upon them "rests the issue of the war and the fate of nations." The extent of the response was disclosed when a production of 6,093,000,000 bushels of principal food-crops was forecast in the Department of Agriculture's report. This year's corn crop was to be the largest in our history, except one. Four, and possibly five, other crops promised to make new high records. The corn crop showed an increase of 541,000,000 bushels over the previous year, with a total of 3,124,000,000 bushels. The total acreage was 14 per cent. larger. The combined winter and spring wheat crops would be 38,000,000 bushels more, with a total of 678,000,000 bushels.

One beefless day a week (not including the traditional piscatorial Friday), the issuance of "war-bread" to patrons as well as to employees, and the removal of cheese from the free-lunch dietary, were features of a plan presented to Herbert C. Hoover on July 10 by the Hotel Association of New York City. Among details agreed upon were these:

"Individual service of bread and butter of uniform weight; rolls to weigh an ounce or a little more. Adulteration of wheat bread and rolls by at least 10 per cent. of some other flour. Most of the

assorted rolls served at breakfast to be of flour other than wheat. Stale bread and trimmings from toast to be used in making warbread according to a specified receipt. Use of smooth bread instead of rough bread, which causes the use of too much butter. Printing of the following on the menus of all hotels: Mr. Hoover urges the use of less wheat, pork products, butter and all fats, also beef, and to substitute and use freely sea food, fresh vegetables, and fruits. Economy in the non-restricted foods is not necessary or desirable at the present time."

In a proclamation, issued early in August, upon the further restriction of exports, President Wilson repeated his statement of July 9 that there was to be "no prohibition of exports," and made it clear again that "the normal course of trade would be interfered with as little as possible." To avoid unnecessary interference, it was good sense to discriminate between the neutral European lands from which transshipments to Germany are easiest, and distant neutrals and nations at war with Germany. The new proclamation was not, strictly speaking, supplementary to the original one of July 9, but constituted a comprehensive order which definitely took its place. All the goods listed in July were listed again in August. Virtually all commerce had been brought under the Export Council.

In the summer more than one hundred neutral ships were waiting at Atlantic ports for export licenses. Four-fifths of them came from Holland. In New York Harbor a line of them extended for some miles up the Hudson River. A large majority had cargoes of wheat and fodder that had been placed on board before July 15, when our embargo became effective. The grain in them was rotting. The Dutch Government and the owners of the ships refused to unload it. They rejected our Government's proposition that they send the ships to Australia, where 150,000,000 bushels of wheat awaited transportation. These ships could not be permitted to carry cargoes of American grain to Holland, or any other European neutral country. This had been the decision of our Exports Council before Sweden's unneutral aid to Germany in the case of Argentina's ships was brought to light. These ships were not to receive clearances until they complied with American restrictions on the nature and quantity.

of their cargoes and furnished an attestation that their cargoes were not intended for Germany. Some of the Dutch carriers were in our ports for months. Most were anchored in midstream, because docks were scarce and dock-charges high.

In July, 11 of these grain ships made a successful dash for the sea, having resolved to take chances in running the blockade. They were supposedly loaded with cargoes that the British Government, and probably the American Government, would not let go through to neutral countries in Europe. In the second week of July, 60 steamships loaded with grain under the Dutch flag were waiting in New York Harbor alone for permission to sail for Holland via Halifax. The Holland-American Line owned ten of these steamships, whose tonnage ranged from 8,000 to 10,000, and had four more steamships waiting in Baltimore. Other vessels were owned by other Dutch steamship companies, and had been brought into the Atlantic trade from the Dutch East Indies and Southern American trades. Piers and anchorage space below Liberty Island in the Upper Bay were crowded with these delayed ships.

While our manhood in all States of the Union was taking up with determination our challenge of the Kaiser's armed forces, the sources of our strength continued to be menaced by Germans not in uniform, whose weapons were spying, sabotage, bomb-planting, incendiarism, murder, and many forms of insidious propaganda. To combat this menace, President Wilson, on November 19, issued a proclamation barring all male Germans of fourteen years and upward from the neighborhood of any place of military importance; commanding them to register and carry their registrationcards with them at all times; forbidding them to change their places of residence without permission from the Department of Justice: expelling them from the District of Columbia and the Canal Zone; excluding them from all boats except public ferries; and forbidding them to ascend in any airplane, balloon, or airship. It was estimated that this proclamation, which supplemented one issued April 6, would affect about 130,000 persons in New York, and about 600,000 in the country at large.

Early in the war Ambassador Dumba of Austria had declared that there were 250,000 German and Austrian reservists in the United States. Our own Census Bureau estimated that there were within our borders 4,662,000 Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Turks and Bulgarians, of whom more than 900,000 were males of twenty-one years and over. Since the beginning of war German agents and German sympathizers had destroyed in this country, by torch and bomb, millions of dollars' worth of war material intended for the Allies, sacrificing some hundreds of American lives in the process, and scarcely a week passed without some new item being added to this list of their crimes. But it had not been generally known, until the Chicago Herald published the fact that 600 persons had been convicted and imprisoned, and several shot, for criminal pro-German activities on and around the Great Lakes alone, and that only the Navy's vigilance had made possible the moving of 60,000,000 tons of ore through that artery of commerce. In the seven months since we entered the war, according to the Providence Journal, food-supplies to the value of more than $18,000,000 had been burned in the United States by German sympathizers. Along the Brooklyn water-front alone more than thirty fires had broken out under conditions. strongly suggesting enemy incendiarism. During a gathering of the American Federation of Labor in Buffalo, Samuel Gompers had declared that "German spies and Teutonic agents honeycomb this convention"; but their presence did not prevent the delegates from pledging loyalty to the Government in the war by a unanimous vote. Within twentyfour hours after President Wilson's proclamation was issued, two hundred Germans were rounded up in the saloons and boarding-houses of the Hoboken water-front and taken to Ellis Island, where they were interned for the duration of the war. The decree that an enemy alien "shall not enter or be found within the District of Columbia" revealed the fact that Germans held clerkships in many executive departments.6

• Principal Sources: The Literary Digest, The Outlook, New York; The Economist (London), The Evening Sun, The Times, The Journal of Commerce, The Sun, New York; Associated Press dispatches.

IV

THE VISITS OF BALFOUR, VIVIANI, AND JOFFRE,

FOL

AND OTHER WAR COMMISSIONERS

April 21, 1917-September 27, 1917

NOLLOWING our declaration of "a state of war" with Germany, there came to this country in April, May, June and August, successive groups of war commissions from the Entente Allies, which led to probably the most remarkable exchange of international greetings, congratulations, and understandings of which history has any record. The first to arrive were the British, headed by Arthur J. Balfour, the Foreign Minister and a former Prime Minister of Great Britain. A few days later came the French Commission, headed by M. Viviani, a former Premier of France, and now Minister of Justice, and Marshal Joffre, the respective dates of arrival being April 21 and April 24. These commissions came in almost immediate response to the declaration of "a state of war," so promptly had their countries recognized the motive and determination with which this country had entered the great conflict. News of the action of Congress had caused among the Entente Allies profound rejoicing. America was declared to have acquired a pivotal position in the war, largely because she came into the work freshhanded, and had such enormous resources in men and money, in inventive ability and in manufacturing facilities.

Within a fortnight after the declaration of "a state of war," newspapers in New York had given out rumors that eminent statesmen and soldiers were coming to this country on special missions from the Entente Allies-the first hint of any kind the public had of these historic visits. The rumors gave rise to the highest expectations, with predictions that the Commissioners would receive a welcome the like of which had been unknown in this country, save, perhaps, in the case of Lafayette's second visit in 1825. Within a few days, the rumors were well authenticated, altho nothing