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have these places offered more wholesome amusement. Why close them and drive our men in khaki and our men in blue to other places? If there is to be closing, let it be first the closing of the saloons and more questionable resorts.

MORE FOOD FOR OUR ALLIES

The Food Administration is planning to ship ninety million bushels of wheat to our allies, although the country's estimated surplus had been shipped by mid-December. The country cannot ship abroad food which it does not have. Such a statement may sound almost simple enough to be foolish, but it might be a good plan to hang this statement over every dining-table in the country.

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Unless we still further limit our consumption of wheat we shall certainly not have enough for our own needs nor for our allies. If we do not limit our consumption of wheat voluntarily, we shall have to do so by law. The Food Administration is already considering legislation to make the saving of wheat compulsory, and has approved a bill drawn by Senator Pomerene, of Ohio, and Representative Lever, of Alabama, to enforce wheatless days. Representative Lever is one of the closest students of agricultural conditions in the lower house of Congress.

If we eat less wheat, we must eat more of something else. Part of the vacancy in our regular menus can be filled by the familiar South American tuber generally known as the Irish potato. Grocers are urged to inaugurate a “Potato Day" each week, selecting whatever day is slack in deliveries and making a special price for potatoes delivered on that day. Housewives are asked to buy a week's supply on each Potato Day. The Food Administration wishes to place the Irish potato every day in the year on every table in America. The sale of regular quantities of potatoes will equalize distribution for the next five or six months, will relieve railway congestion, and will encourage the production of a larger crop this coming year. Before this recommendation can be carried into full effect, however, the price of potatoes to consumers will have to be very much lower than it is at present. Five cents a pound for potatoes does not encourage the average city consumer to make the potato a popular article of diet.

SPEED UP THE WAR

At the Ohio Society dinner the other night in New York City Mr. Roosevelt thus referred to the present exposure of military shortcomings :

Our past lamentable failure in the speedy building of the indispensable implements of modern war, and of the great transport fleet which alone will enable us to utilize our giant strength after we have developed it, must merely spur us on to efficient action in the present and the future. To refuse to see and to point out these failures is both silly and unpatriotic.

It is no mere accident that has made all the pro-German organs in the press clamor against the men who dare point out our shortcomings, the speaker proceeded to assert, for the proGermans know well that our country's ruthless enemies, whom they serve as far as they dare, desire nothing so much as to see this country afraid to acknowledge and make good its shortcomings; and those pro-Germans cloak their traitorous aid to Germany under the camouflage of pretended zeal to save American officials from just criticism. "But there is an even lower depth," Mr. Roosevelt affirmed, "and this is reached by the men who treat the discovery of our shortcomings as a reason for relaxing our efforts to win the war."

Our one and whole-hearted immediate aim, Mr. Roosevelt concluded, must be to speed up the war in every possible way and at the earliest moment to make our military strength of decisive weight in Europe. Let us remember, he reminded his auditors, that "our troops fight abroad beside the Allies now so that at some future time they may not have to fight without allies beside their own ruined homes." This carried the twelve hundred diners to their feet, cheering.

As to the future, only vision and firm purpose in preparing to deal with our industrial and military problems will enable us to guarantee future peaceful development at home and immu

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This statement was made by Mr. Howard E. Coffin, Chairman of the Aircraft Production Board. He outlined the programme under seven heads:

First, the establishment and maintenance of a great system of training stations.

Second, an international standardization of aircraft. The Allied countries have already agreed on international specifications and a co-ordination of manufacturing facilities and policies.

Third, the construction of primary training machines. In this the production "will be in excess of the needs of the programme of January 20."

Fourth, the provision of trained and equipped fliers and mechanics. This is "progressing exactly on schedule."

Fifth, the provision of "raw and semi-finished material and finished parts, including motors, to insure the consummation of the augmented Allied aircraft-building programme. This has been and is being done."

Sixth (and very important)," to provide for the equipment of the American forces in France for the period of January to June, 1918, in large part by purchase of fighting machines manufac tured in Allied countries, and to supply the machine tools and raw and semi-finished materials necessary to insure their production." This is a subject on which we believed the country was specially entitled to information, for it is important to know whether our country was to withhold its blow against the enemy until it had developed its Liberty motor. Mr. Coffin's answer is reassuring. He says: "One of the first acts of the Aircraft Board, after the passage of the Appropriation Bill in July, was to authorize the placing by General Pershing of orders for sev eral thousand fighting machines in Allied countries. Many millions of dollars' worth of material and machine tools have been shipped from this country to aid this production."

Seventh, the provision of service machines (that is, aircraft for actual use in warfare) after the first of next July. Origi nally, advanced training was planned to be carried wholly on the other side of the ocean, near the theater of war, so there was no intent of providing any other than training planes on this side. Now, Mr. Coffin announces, it is planned to give advanced training also on this side of the ocean, and consequently "the delivery of advanced training planes will begin this month."

In further explanation Mr. Coffin says that "airplanes and engines of the very latest European development are going into production in the United States as quickly as...and in greater quantities than, in. Allied countries," and that "the feat of getting the twelve-cylinder U. S. A., or so-called Liberty, engine from the first scratch on paper in June to the beginning of production of quantity-manufacturing tools in November is one never equaled even among the spectacular performances of the American motor-car business."

Mr. Coffin is one of the most far-sighted of those patriotic citizens who helped to make preparation against war before our Government thought of doing so. What he says deserves the widest publicity; and the hard work he and his associates have been doing calls for the widest public approbation. More than that, public opinion must be kept alert to see that all the

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machinery of Government is made efficient for carrying out this programme and for "delivering the goods."

TWO GAINS FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE

By pure coincidence the House of Representatives at Washington and the House of Lords at London on the same day (namely, on January 11) passed legislation which has greatly rejoiced the advocates of woman suffrage in the two countries, and has also, at least so far as technical proceeding goes, in each case made a step toward the national adoption of suffrage for women.

The vote in our Congress was on an amendment to the Constitution. It is short and clear:

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of sex.

Section 2. Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provision of this article.

The resolution submitting the proposed amendment to the States was passed by the House by a vote of 274 to 136. This is precisely the two-thirds majority required by the Constitution. If the Senate passes the resolution, also by a two-thirds majority, and if three-fourths of the States ratify the amendment through their legislatures, it becomes law.

The division of the vote as to parties and sections was interesting. On the face of the vote the result was a victory of Republicans against Democrats; really it was a failure of the South to block the measure, for 83 of the negative votes came from the South. It is this opposition in the South which makes the fate of the measure in the Senate not altogether bright; in a full Senate 33 votes would defeat the measure, and it is pretty sure that, in addition to the votes of the Senators from those Southern States which voted in the negative in the House, a number of other negative votes will be cast in the Senate.

The action in the House of Lords ratified the passage at its second reading by the House of Commons of a bill which is expected to give the vote to about six million women. One formality only remains, namely, the third reading of the bill in the Lords, but no opposition is expected at that time. There is also a bill to be acted upon which would submit the whole question to a popular referendum, but that also is not regarded as a dangerous obstacle. The Lords vote was 134 to 69. We note with special pleasure the comment by Miss Christabel Pankhurst: The women of Great Britain now have only one idea, to assure victory for the Allies."

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The bill enacts that: "Any woman thirty years old, already entitled to vote at the municipal elections, or who is the wife of a man entitled to vote at such elections, is to be entitled to vote in the national elections for members of Parliament."

A BATTLE AT SEA

A fight at sea which recalls the stirring days of Paul Jones or of the War of 1812 has just been told officially. We give here only the bare facts and in our own words:

One morning last October an American destroyer got a wireless despatch. It was from the American merchant steamer J. L. Luckenbach. It said that a submarine was shelling the Luckenbach and asked for help. The destroyer said, in effect," We are coming." The merchantman asked, "How long will it take you?" "About two hours," said the destroyer. "It will be too late," said the other ship. "Don't surrender," said the destroyer. "Never!" said the Luckenbach.

It was more than two hours before the destroyer came into action. The merchantman had fought superbly and was still fighting. Its guns were commanded, if we understand the report rightly, by a simple naval seaman, not even a warrant officerhe has since been given a warrant by the Government. The submarine fired 225 shots, the Luckenbach 202. The American ship was hit over and over again; it had fire between decks; one shot had put the after gun out of commission; men were wounded and men were killed and still the ship fought on. The battle had raged for four hours. At 11:30 the destroyer

fired its first shot and the submarine submerged. The battered and helpless J. L. Luckenbach was saved, repaired, and escorted into port.

For the destroyer it was all in the day's work. This is the kind of thing our destroyers abroad are doing all the while. For the merchant ship, its officers, its sailors, and its gun crew, it was an exhibition of fortitude and manhood that deserves to live in American annals.

THE FUTILE PEACE PARLEYS

The British Labor party is quite right when it says in its message of January 15 to the Russian people that negotiations. at Brest-Litovsk have been interrupted because the Germans have refused to admit the principle of self-determination of peoples and the doctrine of no annexations. Nothing in the history of diplomacy could be more callously satirical than Germany's talk about "self-determination" of the future of Lithuania and other parts of Russia with German bayonets behind the polls. When the delegates reconvened at Brest-Litovsk, Germany first flatly refused to consider Russia's proposal to hold further peace "negotiations in a neutral country, and then announced that all her previous offers were withdrawn because Russia's former allies had refused those offers-terms which were too radically pro-German for even the Bolsheviki to consider! The probabilities of a separate peace treaty between Germany and Russia seem slighter every week.

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The above quoted utterance by the British Labor party (a political element of real strength in Great Britain) accepts the principle of self-determination for British dependencies, including even India, as to which it adds, however, that little reproach exists against the British record. It also advocates the principles of no annexations and no indemnities, but again urges international control for uncivilized peoples-as in Africa-a suggestion that should be carefully considered in the light of what happened to international control of the Congo.

In Petrograd the question of the moment last week was whether or not the National Constituent Assembly, summoned for January 18, would be allowed to meet, or whether the Lenine faction would substitute for it a national council of Peasants, Workmen, and Soldiers delegates. This would be quite in accordance with Lenine's recent printed argument that neither capitalists, bourgeoisie, nor "wealthy peasants" should have anything to do with framing the Constitution.

The armistice between Russia and Germany has been renewed by mutual consent. Meanwhile there are some indications that the Bolsheviki are gaining ground in the more remote parts of Russia, and that they are trying to gain the aid of the Cossacks in renewing war with Germany, if necessary.

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At Phelusiat (we do not find it on any maps in our possession), New Zealanders, the correspondent says, discovered the marble remains of two splendid churches, and at Shellal, near Beersheba, another fine church. Shellal, the correspondent affirms, means "Bubbling Springs." As the church was on the main road from Jerusalem to Egypt-the road taken by the Ethiopian when he met Philip and was baptized the corre spondent queries as to whether the baptism may not have taken place at Shellal. On the other hand, from the root meaning of the Arabic, we should expect Shellal to be a dry place rather than one of "Bubbling Springs." Again, unless the "Telegraph correspondent revises the text of the Book of the Acts, the place could not be the point at which the Ethiopian was baptized according to the Acts, it lies somewhere between Jerusalem and Gaza.

"

The third discovery was outside of Gaza. The Anzacs went up a high mound, on the summit of which a trench had been dug for a machine-gun emplacement. It revealed the edge of a

mosaic. The removal of some six feet of soil cleared a great mosaic floor. Fortunately the army engineers were also equal to archæological demands. With hot glue and linen canvas and plaster of Paris they removed and preserved about eight thousand small pieces of mosaic. The subject of the mosaic was found to be the words: "I am the true Vine; ye are the branches." The vine was growing from an amphora designed in many-colored marbles, circled by animals, who were making obeisance to a central chalice. There was also an inscription which has been thus translated by Mr. A. H. Smith, of the British Museum:

X (Sign of the Cross) this temple with spacious foundations (?) was built by our most holy (bishop or similar title and most pious George-in the yea: 622 according to (the year of Gaza ?)

The era of Gaza, the correspondent comments, commenced B.C. 61, which would give the date of the church as A.D. 561. The Rev. W. Maitland Woods, senior chaplain of the Anzac Mounted Division, says that the inscription elaborated would read something like this:

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X. And so he contributed generously to the building of this church here, he who was the most saintly of us all and the most beloved of God. George was his name and the building was erected in the 622d year after the Roman foundation of the city of Gaza.

Under this inscription were discovered the bones of a man. The right forearm had been broken but had been beautifully set. There were skilled disciples of Esculapius in those days, the Telegraph" man remarks. These bones were those of the "most pious George." Query: Was he the patron saint of England? At all events, the British captors of the bones handled them as reverently as if they had been those of their patron saint. The traditional point with which St. George of England is connected is Lydda, near Jaffa. But that St. George is always under the suspicion of being a reflex of the old heathen myth of the destruction by Perseus of the dragon at Jaffa to protect Andromeda. All these discoveries testify to the flourishing condition of Palestine centuries ago, and to the interest taken in Christianity there. They will be welcome in the study of Christian art.

HE PRACTICED WHAT HE PREACHED

Major Augustus P. Gardner, former Representative from Massachusetts, died on January 14, from pneumonia, at Camp Wheeler, Macon, Georgia. As a member of Congress Major Gardner rendered many conspicuous services. He was, for example, a leader in the Republican revolt which did much in 1910 to liberalize the machinery of the lower house. All his other services, however, were overshadowed by his bold and unflagging advocacy of Preparedness. He was an advocate of Preparedness when Preparedness was looked upon as "hysteria," and an unflagging critic of those whose false understanding of our military needs did so much to send our country unarmed into the great conflict.

Congressman Gardner not only advocated Preparedness, but he did it in a dramatically successful manner. He helped powerfully to make it a popular issue to the man on the street. It will be remembered that on one occasion he exposed the condition of our reserve forces by inviting the entire Reserve of the United States Army to sit with him at a dinner table. Only a small handful of men were entitled to accept this generoussounding invitation!

When the war broke out, Mr. Gardner, already a member of our Officers' Reserve, resigned his seat in Congress to enter the service of his country as a colonel. He asked that he might be demoted to the rank of major in order that he might be assigned as a line officer and sent to France. He was serving in the 121st Infantry at the time of his death.

That his transfer from the halls of Congress to the mili tary service did not damage his capacity for making succinct and telling phrases is proved by an incident which we find recorded in the New York "Times." In a speech in which he answered an attack on France that appeared in a Georgia newspaper he said:

The French have spilled as much blood as Americans have spilled ink. The French have fought more and talked less than

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any nation of which history tells us. Let us quit this business of criticising our allies.

It was not given to Major Gardner to see service in France, but he gave his life for his country as truly as though he had fallen in the trenches of Flanders or on the hills before Verdun.

I

WE SHOULD NOT BIND OURSELVES T is reported that some of the railway managers are urging Congress to limit the period of Government operation of the railways. They are asking that there shall be put in the bill which is to confirm the taking over of the railways by the Presi dent a clause specifically stating that they are to be returned to private management six months or a year after the war ends. This seems to us unwise both for the railways and the country. It is true that measures adopted solely for the prosecution of the war should apply only to the period of the war. But that is not to say that a measure adopted for the prosecution of the war, if it proves of general benefit, should be prohibited from outlasting the war. Government operation has been adopted under the Government war powers, and is consequently dis tinctly a war measure. The Government should not bind itself to continue it after the war; neither should the Government bind itself to drop it.

A statutory promise to abandon Government operation can do no good except to relieve the fears of those who do not approve of the change from private to Government management, and it may do a good deal of harm even to the railways' interests. Many of the wise railway men of the country have hailed with approval the taking over of the roads by the Government. The change has increased the market value of railway securities. Experts practically all agree that in this critical time the railways must be welded into one united whole. This is possible only under a system of Government direction and operation. No private banking system can be conceivably large enough to handle the finances of separate systems of railways, interchanging their cars, locomotives, and other equipment at will. The Government can do this by guaranteeing to each road, as it does, a fair return on its investment, paying the bills of operation and taking the earnings. It is conceivable and perhaps not improbable that a year after the war we shall find that railway concentration and combination are as useful in times of peace for industry and economic development as in times of war. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the railway investors of this country may prefer, a year after the war, to have a Government guarantee of interest on their bonds or dividends on their stock than a private promise to pay.

It is true that Government operation of all our railways is experimental, but that is the very reason why we should make no promise about it to-day, either pro or con. The country should wait to decide what it will do about the railway question in time of peace until that time comes. If Government operation proves to have been a failure, it will be abandoned by the country. If it proves to be a success, no statutory promise to-day will prevent the country from continuing a policy which has proved itself to be good.

The analogy is not quite exact, but to embody in the new Railway Act a promise to go back to the old system one year after the war is a little like, it seems to us, an attempt on the part of the National Banking Association to enact a clause in the Federal Reserve Act promising to go back to the old National banking methods after the first currency panic had been successfully managed by the Federal Reserve banks.

OUR PART IN A NEW WORLD

At the meeting of the New York State Bar Association, in the presence of a gathering of lawyers of distinction, two note worthy addresses were delivered and a noteworthy report of National significance was made by an important representative committee.

Mr. Charles E. Hughes, the President of the Association, in his opening address pointed out some of the social and political

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changes which this war would be sure to bring about in the Republic, involving a very large control by the Government over the life of the individual. The United States Supreme Court has established the Constitutional authority of our Federal Govern ment. The acts of the people have shown their readiness to exercise that authority when necessary. The problem for solution is how to transmute the Constitutional energy into actual achievement." The problems of the democracy of the future," he said, "will not be problems of power, but problems of administration... the problem how to so use our power as to get things done." This power once realized and once utilized will not be readily relinquished. The war has created "a new melting-pot." "Our young men of every race and condition are being fused in the heat of a common preparation and a common strife into a citizenry of inspiration and ideals."

With this has come a new sense of individual obligation to the Nation, and a new appreciation of the powers of a free government. If individual liberties and rights are maintained, it will not be because of a merely instinctive regard for them, but because of the developed conviction that the common interest will be better served by freedom of individual opportunity than by fettering it. We shall not treat as a crime in time of peace that cooperation which we have found necessary for our salvation under the strain of war. "We cannot tell what the present necessary action with regard to the railroads may portend. . . . But may we not expect that we shall at least have . . . a policy which will recognize that there is no adequate protection to the public interest which does not foster instrumentalities of commerce? Our Nation . . . is just at the beginning of its career. The dream of isolation is at an end. We are now to take our part in a new world, which we are assisting to create, a world where law is to be supreme, where force shall be only the ninister and agent of justice as expressed in law. . . . To the new order America could not escape relation if we would. We shall not relate ourselves to particular matters which do not concern us, but a concert to keep the peace, to establish the supremacy of international law-that is our common concern.'

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In harmony with the closing suggestion of Mr. Hughes's speech was the report of a committee on the advantages of a league to be formed at the close of the war for the purpose of encouraging co-operation in the enforcement of international law. This committee has had the sympathetic counsel of leading officials in the Governments of England and France, and its report gives sanction and approval to a scheme for substituting the appeal to reason for the appeal to force as a means for settling international disputes and proposes definite plans for the constitution both of an international tribunal somewhat corresponding to the Supreme Court of the United States and of an international council somewhat corresponding to a national parliament or congress. This plan has been worked out in some detail by the committee and is being seriously consid ered by statesmen in Europe and America. Readers who wish to learn more of the history of this movement will find it very briefly given in a little book by Theodore Marburg (Macmillan) entitled "League of Nations," and probably can obtain, by addressing the author, the specific programme recommended by the committee of jurists of which he was the chairman.

Sir Frederick Edwin Smith, Attorney-General of Great Britain, in a speech characterized by good sense and great caution, the object of which was to guard the two countries against the peril of adopting rhetorical phrases as a substitute for a detailed working out of a perplexing problem, indicated some of the difficulties in the way of realizing what he called "the great and splendid dream of an international tribunal administering international law." He did not overstate the difficulties which attend the proposal for a league to enforce peace, and, in our judgment, he was wise in counseling the country to consider these difficulties now. "Get the best minds of your country," he said, "working now to see whether this league of nations furnishes any practical prospect. Believe me, it will be far too late when the actual peace conference meets."

Among the difficulties which Sir Frederick mentioned were those of stereotyping the armed force of each country and of allotting the appropriate contingent for defense purposes in each

country; of putting any limit upon the ingenuity and the initia tive and energy of different nations in improving their respective navies, a difficulty which would perhaps apply equally to prescribing any limitations upon energy and initiative in improv ing munitions for land warfare; of guarding against the secret construction of airplanes, which might very easily be constructed in such numbers as to destroy an island community, or even a continental community; of stereotyping the present tenure and ownership of the world's surface, or of dealing efficiently with waxing and waning empires; of the construction and member ship of the international bodies, whether, for example, all nations shall have an equal vote in the tribunal or the council, and whether all nations, including Germany, shall even become. members of it.

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The British Attorney-General was careful to make it clear that he did not oppose an international league; that, on the contrary, he thought "it is worth while trying for an ideal;" that what he wished was that we shall, as far as assiduous attention and practical industry can do it, consider before the occasion actually arises whether such a thing is or is not in the range of human endeavor." We do not think that he has overestimated the difficulties in the way of realizing, or even making any approach toward, a United States of the World; but it appears to us that unless we can find some way to provide an international protection for all peacably inclined nations every nation must arm to defend its own citizens from unrighteous attack, and this will mean, as soon as we recover from this war, entering upon another period of competitive armaments in order to prepare for another world war. It is for this reason that for twenty years we have urged the hopeful study of the problem of creating some league of nations designed to substitute law for war as a means of establishing justice between the nations.

Where there is a will there is a way. Jealousies, suspicions, and conflicting interests have in the past prevented any will in the various nations for permanent international union. This war has done much to create such a will. It has made a melting-pot of nations who have been in the heat of a common strife and fused into something approaching a common citizenry. What twenty-five years ago was hardly an aspiration for international brotherhood entertained by a few prophetic souls has grown into a purpose animating the peoples of at least four great nationsthe United States, Great Britain, France, and Italy. It is not unreasonable to hope that this growing purpose will find a way to overcome the difficulty which Attorney-General Smith has so well presented.

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NOT FOR EDITORS ONLY How can a journal or newspaper best serve the country? The question sounds as though it might be meant for editors only, but it is one which vitally concerns every citizen who can read and write.

The country depends on its daily, weekly, and monthly press for the facts on which public opinion is based. The country depends on its daily, weekly, and monthly press not only for the publication of the facts, but also for the presentation of these facts in a fair and equitable manner. The function of editorship implies not only the publication and presentation of facts in a fair and equitable manner, but it also implies the equally difficult task of refusing to publish such facts as are unimportant or unrepresentative of the true conditions. Beyond the selection, publication, and presentation of the facts there lies perhaps the most important field of journalism-the field of interpretation. The importance of this field is immeasurably increased by the state of war.

In peace times there are three separate types of journals which fill three separate and legitimate wants:

The partisan journal interprets events from the standpoint of party policy. The function of a party journal is the function of the attorney for plaintiff or defendant in a law court.

The neutral journal, holding no brief for either black or white, is just as important as the court stenographer who impartially records the pleas of both plaintiff and defendant.

The independent journal sits like a judge on the bench, who

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