opinion of the majority members of the House Committee on Military Affairs. Se RESTLESS GERMANY OMETIMES in a theater between the acts the spectator sees beneath the curtain the slippered or buskined feet of the actors passing to and fro and hears the noise of the carpenters and scene-shifters. He then knows that the management is preparing for a change of scene, and if he has observed the previous act and is familiar with other dramas he can surmise what the next scene is to be. To-day, behind the curtain which the German censor cannot keep perfectly closed or sound-proof, there is going on we hardly know what; but we know that when the curtain rises we shall see a different Germany from that of 1914 on which the curtain fell. teenth century as the Bourbons of France did in the eighteenth Does America's great war drama throw any light on the question, What is taking place behind the curtain? Every true American resents, and ought to resent, a comparison that would seem to put on the same moral plane any American leaders, Federal or Confederate, North or South, with the cruel and rapacious German militarists that have let loose rape, murder, and torture as allies of their armies in Serbia, Belgium, Poland, and northern France. Nevertheless that should not prevent us from learning the lessons of history or seeing certain historic analogies that are entirely consistent with deep moral contrasts. In 1860 a small but influential coterie of Southern politicians conceived the ideal of a new nation founded on slavery, extending from the Ohio River to the Isthmus of Panama and including Cuba. The great majority of the Southern people had no such design and scarcely knew of its existence. But the vituperation of the South by the Garrisonian abolitionists they resented; the futile and foolish raid of John Brown had alarmed them; half a century of political education had familiarized them with the conception of State sovereignty; and when seventy-five thousand soldiers answered the call of Abraham Lincoln to enforce the laws of the Federal Government in the Southern States the Southern people rose with practical unanimity to protect the sovereignty of those States. The result of their victory would have been the perpetuation of slavery, but the perpetuation of slavery was not their object. Their greatest leader, Robert E. Lee, had emancipated his slaves before the war began. The expectation of an easy victory over a divided North was not fulfilled; the carefully cultivated fears of a slave insurrection were allayed by the loyalty of the slaves to their masters ; the illusion that the Negroes preferred the comforts of slavery to the responsibilities of freedom was destroyed by their eager welcome of liberty when it came; the proposal by Mr. Lincoln of compensating emancipation mitigated the animosity of the plain people to him and the cause he represented; and, finally, the dream of a slave empire vanished with a proposal to arm the slaves to fight for their masters, since no one could imagine that slaves would fight to insure their own enslavement. Thus with the end of slavery came the end of the war. Yes. But the Germans do not care for liberty. America has had its Washington and its Lincoln, England its Cromwell and its Hampden, France its Lafayette and its Gambetta, Hungary its Kossuth, and Russia its hundreds of Siberian exiles who have laid down their lives in the sacred cause of freedom. But it would not be easy to name a single German patriot who has suffered any more serious inconvenience than exile to America that he might win for his country or for himself that right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for which every true American would willingly give all that he has yes, and life itself if need be. Is there any analogy between these conditions and those which now exist in Germany? We think there is some analogy, though the conditions are in very fundamental respects widely different. The plain people of Germany-the peasant farmers, small shopkeepers, stevedores on the dock, artisans in the factoryknew nothing and cared nothing for the dream of world domination. They were well housed, fed, and clad, as their fathers had been. This was enough. When they were told that the enemies of Germany had formed a conspiracy to destroy her, they believed it; when they were bid arm for the defense of their Fatherland, they obeyed. Obedience to constituted authority is the German's patriotism and the German's religion. Their first disappointment did not weaken the loyalty of the plain people of Germany. When the wounded came from inconclusive battlefields, when the war dragged on into the second year, when their own rations began to be shortened and mourning for sons was in every home and crape on every door, they attributed their sorrow to England's hate and repaid it with hate more bitter. This much is made clear to the spectator by such observers as Miss Doty, Mr. Curtis, and Mrs. Bullitt. Now the curtain has been lowered. What goes on behind it we cannot know, we can only surmise. But there are signs of a grow ing discontent in Germany with the German rulers. The mate rial prosperity which the Government gave the people it gives to them no longer. The secrets which the Government kept it can keep no longer. The people are beginning to learn that their army is farther from Paris than it was three years ago: that the Zeppelin raids have accomplished no victories and achieved but slight revenge; that the undersea boats have not starved England; that Russia has thrown off her Czar and become a Republic; that the United States has entered the war; that the French, English, and American leaders have declared that the Allies have no hatred for Germany and no wish to destroy her; that their only wish is to preserve for the rest of the world those principles of democracy which German Socialists have put in their political platforms, but have never shown a willingness to fight for or to suffer for. In a notable essay written before, but published just after, August, 1914, Professor Kuno Francke, of Harvard University, himself a German, described with great clearness the difference in the temperaments of the German and the American. The American desires self-possession; the German, self-expression. The American is willing to accept the responsibilities and inconveniences of self-government for the sake of liberty; the German is willing to forego liberty for the sake of escaping its responsibilities and inconveniences. The American resents interference by a superior authority; the German welcomes such interference because it leaves him free to follow his own impulses. The American wishes to steer and to paddle his own canoe; the German wishes to be one of the crew to row and go as the helmsman chooses, The American wishes to govern himself, even if he does it badly; the German wishes to be governed. And in the main the German has been well governed. The Hohenzollerns made no such mess of government in the nine There are indications that the fraternizing of the Russian and German troops has done more to weaken the loyalty of the Germans to the autocracy than to weaken the loyalty of the Russians to international democracy, and that the anarchy which the Bolsheviki have fomented is proving a greater peril to Kaiserdom than the autocracy which they have helped to overthrow. The peace programme of the German Democrats and the Russian Bolsheviki-peace without annexations or indemnities—cannot be and ought not to be accepted. The Allies can never return the African colonies to the control of a nation which has shown itself unfit to govern any people, even its own; and the wrongs to Belgium cannot be forgiven until the criminal has made some endeavor toward reparation. But the clamor for peace which grows louder every month is very different from the clamor for domination which sounded from the same stage, though not from the same throats, three prepared to meet revolution; the Russian Government was unprepared. But there is reason to hope that a decisive defeat of the German army in the field would destroy the weakened faith of the German people in the "predatory Potsdam gang and make of them allies of democracy. Make haste, America! For on our speed may depend the result of the spring campaign, and on that campaign may depend what goes on behind the curtain. If in that campaign a decisive victory is won over the German military forces in the field, followed by a collapse of the German military power at home, we may see, when the curtain rises again, a new Germany, sobered by calamity and purged of its self-conceit, its ambition for a world empire shattered, its policy of militarism discredited, its philosophy of the supremacy of force overthrown, and its Odin, god of lawless might, dethroned. mill, much to the excitement of every spectator that was not too sophisticated; but there are some who whenever they are reminded of "Ben Hur" will think of that star theme first. It consisted of a series of blossoming chords, chords that expanded, chords that grew in circles like the waves from a pebble thrown into the water, chords that descended as they expanded like radiating starlight. One reason why only a few hearers remember this theme is that most people when they recall music recall a tune, and there was no tune to this. It was not a melody in the popular sense of the term; it was a harmonic theme or motif; and there are a multitude of people who while enjoying harmonies do not know why they enjoy them and cannot carry them in their minds. So the star music in "Ben Hur served its purpose at the time, but was forgotten except by the few. Now this star motif is characteristic of Mr. Stillman Kelley's genius, because that genius is distinctively harmonic. His A STAR, A SYMPHONY, AND PILGRIM'S musical ideas naturally take not melodic but harmonic form. PROGRESS In one of G. K. Chesterton's detective stories a man is stationed to watch the entrance to a building. He knows that the criminal must pass through that doorway. He reports that he has seen no one go in or out, and he actually believes that he has reported truly. What happened, however, was that he saw a postman go in and come out; but he never thought of the postman as an individual. He simply ignored the postman because he took him, so to speak, for granted. Of course postmen go in and out of buildings, and nobody pays any attention to them. In this case it was the postman, or the man he took to be a postman, who was in fact the criminal that he was supposed to watch for. There is one kind of music that is very much like the postman. People take it for granted. They hear it, but they do not listen to it. They would notice its absence, but they do not notice its presence. They may regard it as indispensable, but they would hardly recognize it if they heard it a score of times. They enjoy it, and never realize that that is what they have enjoyed. If it were suddenly stopped in the middle, they might very possibly demand their money back at the box office; and yet because it is not stopped they can tell you nothing about it. Very possibly more people have heard the music of Edgar Stillman Kelley than have heard the music of any other American-born orchestral composer. Yet it is doubtful whether more than a small fraction of those who have heard his music have really listened to it. That is not because it is not good music. It is good music-very good indeed. That is not because they cannot enjoy his music. On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of those who have heard it have unquestionably enjoyed it. It was good music, and they enjoyed it, but they did not listen to it because while they were hearing it they were very much absorbed in something else. They were looking for the criminal, and so did not notice the postman. The music was not in the center of their attention; it was in what psychologists call the fringe of their consciousness. The majority who have heard Edgar Stillman Kelley's music have heard it while attending the performances of one of the most popular theatrical spectacles ever staged-the dramatization of Lew Wallace's Ben Hur." It was Edgar Stillman Kelley who wrote the “incidental music" to that spectacular drama. It was music extraordinarily well adapted to its purpose. It fitted in so well with the drama that most people who attended the perform ances simply found their interest in the spectacle heightened by the music, their thrills from the drama intensified by the music, and never once gave a thought to the music itself. Such is the fate of really good incidental music. Of the many thousands who heard this music to "Ben Hur,” by far the greatest number could not tell you whether there was any music played when the star shone that the Wise Men saw; but there can be no manner of doubt that in their imagination that star was shining more gloriously because the music that went with the star shone too. There is a musical theme or motif that accompanies the star; and the music radiates. The few who listen to the music will perhaps remember that theme as well as anything in the whole play. They cannot, of course, forget the chariot race, which real horses ran on a sort of tread His inventiveness is primarily a harmonic inventiveness. And when he discovers a harmonic sequence that he relishes, he likes to foster it, to see it grow and develop, to watch it repeat itself into a pattern, to send it on a journey of exploration among the various keys, and find its way through a series of modulations. It would seem from the internal evidence of his compositions that his musical ideas first occur as chord relations, and that it is out of those chord relations that his melodies grow; that whatever of tunefulness there is in his work is the by-product of his creation of beautiful or striking harmonies. Among those to whom music is as food and drink there is no inconsiderable proportion to whom the works of a musical composer of this type especially appeal. To such as these, harmonies speak the language of the deepest and profoundest emotions. They acknowledge the melodic loveliness of Gounod's "Ave Maria," or "Meditation," that soaring and ever popular religious song, that hackneyed musical beauty; but they deny to that melody the strength, the power, the profundity which they feel in the Bach Prelude which Gounod degraded into a mere accompaniment to his tune. They acknowledge Wagner's melodic gift; but they know that Wagner's hypnotic power lies in his employment of harmony. They know why Arnold Schoenberg merely excites curiosity, while Claude Debussy enthralls; it is not merely because Schoenberg is a modern German and Debussy a modern Frenchman, but because Schoenberg discards harmony, defies it, flouts it, wants none of it to interfere with the effect of melodic weaving, while Debussy has explored new harmonic regions and brought to them new harmonic wealth. They therefore feel grateful to any composer who comes to them with harmonic ideas of distinctive and original richness. This is what Edgar Stillman Kelley does. His harmonic ideas are his own. His nearest musical kinsman, on the harmonic side, one might perhaps guess to be his English contemporary, Sir Edward Elgar; but the family resemblance, though sometimes striking, is not very deep. To attempt to analyze the style that makes the man is not always very profitable; and besides it starts a technical discussion (for example, in the case of Stillman Kelley, on the use of the virile chord of the sixth) which is not very interesting except to the professional. It is enough to say that to any one responsive to harmonic appeals, there can hardly be any question that Edgar Stillman Kelley's harmonic personality is quite his own. These remarks, it might have been well perhaps to state at the beginning, are occasioned by two events-the performance in New York on February 1 of Edgar Stillman Kelley's "New England Symphony," and the very recent publication of his new work, "The Pilgrim's Progress: A Musical Miracle Play," Opus 37. Mr. Kelley's" New England Symphony," his second, has been performed a score of times. It remained, however, for the Philharmonic Orchestra, under the conductorship of Mr. Stransky, to produce it for the first time in New York this month. It was written for the Norfolk (Connecticut) Festival, and performed there for the first time anywhere in June, 1913. It bears the outward marks of programme music; but the programme is not very elaborate and is hardly more than a series of titles. It consists of quotations from the log-book of the "Mayflower" recording the experiences of the English pioneers who landed in New England in 1620. The quotation at the head of the first movement is as follows: All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties; and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable courages. learned to read in order to become familiar with the contents of "Pilgrim's Progress." In a book which he encountered as early as his sixth year there were illustrations which greatly excited his imagination. The rapidity with which he learned to read (as he recalls it, he learned in a week's time), he attributes to the little book by Jacob Abbott which he says was called Learning to Read"-probably the little volume of child stories entitled "Rollo Learning to Read." During all these years, therefore, he had a special feeling for Bunyan's great allegory, and for some years he has wished to treat this theme musically and has now finished his task. The work is now under rehearsal by the Cincinnati May Festival Chorus. That, it is to be hoped, indicates that it is to be performed at the Cincinnati Festival next May. The first theme of this movement is illustrative of what has been said here of Mr. Kelley's type of musical creativeness. It is distinctively a harmonic theme. In its simplest form it consists of only two chords. These are sounded solemnly in the slow introduction. The theme of the Allegro is simply these two chords repeated in sequence. The second theme of this movement is more distinctively melodic, but even in that what gives it character is its harmonic basis. The second movement, bearing the quotation, Warm and fair weather; the birds sang in the woods most pleasantly, is based almost entirely upon New England bird songs. This is the one part of the symphony that is most obviously descriptive, and consequently awakens from the ordinary audience the quickest response. The third movement, entitled Great lamentations and heaviness, is based on a psalm tune which an old Connecticut Yankee, Timothy Swan, born in 1757, set to the hymn, "Why do we mourn departed friends?" This old psalm tune (which is familiar to many of an older generation and ought to be familiar to all Americans) is as fine musical material as could be found in any land or any time; and Mr. Kelley treats it with reverence and power. The final movement, bearing as its title the following quotation, The fit way to honor and lament the departed is to be true to one another, and to work together bravely for the cause to which living and dead have consecrated themselves, repeats in new form and in new relations and with new effectiveness the themes of the earlier movements. Throughout the symphony it is not melodies but harmonies that serve as the principal themes. And the harmonic richness and originality are enhanced by the rich and original scoring for the orchestra. Like this symphony, Edgar Stillman Kelley's musical setting to Elizabeth Hodgkinson's text based on Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress is predominantly a harmonical composition. The composer does not (except perhaps in a few and unnoticeable instances) conceive of his themes melodically and vary them or develop them by changes in his harmonic treatment; he appears to have conceived of them harmonically, and whatever changes he makes in them he makes by recasting them in various keys or by giving them varying melodic accompaniment or by putting them over against one another in new musical patterns. This musical Miracle Play is so arranged that it can be given in costume and with scenery as a stage production or simply in concert form. It calls for chorus, soloists, and orchestra, though it could be given in part in a church, with an organ substituted for the orchestra. There is a rather interesting personal story connected with this new American composition. Edgar Stillman Kelley really When the postman puts off his uniform and wears citizen's clothes like other people, he becomes, according to the theory of Mr. Chesterton's unprofessional detective, Father Brown, conspicuous. It is the paradox of life that a distinctive garb is the very thing to destroy all appearance of personal distinction. Clothed in the garments of incidental music, Edgar Stillman Kelley's musical distinction has received too little notice. It is to be hoped that if "Pilgrim's Progress" is ever performed as a stage production it will not be the music, but the costumes and scenery, that will be incidental. THE POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT The Washington correspondence of the New York "Times" of February 2 contains the following paragraph : Eleven Democratic Senators, invited to the White House this afternoon, were told by President Wilson that he was absolutely opposed to the War Cabinet and the Director of Munitions Bills. He would accept no compromise, the President said. He advised that the discussion be eliminated altogether; but if this was not possible, that it be reduced to a minimum as far as Democratic Senators were concerned. In the President's view, as outlined to the eleven Senators, prolonged discussion would have the effect of showing Germany that we were divided, and would, in addition, create a bad impression upon our allies. If this report is true, the President is making a serious mistake. Under our Constitution, it is the business of Congress to decide what is to be done, and the business of the President to put that decision into effect. According to this report, the President is assuming authority to decide what is to be done, and to tell Congress what legislation is necessary for that purpose. His excuse is that "prolonged discussion would have the effect of showing Germany that we were divided." There is a Constitutional way to remedy prolonged discussion. It is to have legislation for reorganization of the administrative departments and the Government introduced into both houses of Congress and limitation put upon the debate. If the legislation passes both houses of Congress, then the President should accept it. The proposal attributed to the President by the correspondent of the Times" substitutes autocratic for democratic government. It is not necessary to substitute autocracy for democracy in order to make the world safe for democracy. NEW YORK CITY'S WOMAN POLICE COMMISSIONER OU can call me either Mrs. O'Grady or Commissioner O'Grady, but not 'The O'Grady," said the newly appointed Fifth Deputy Commissioner of the New York City Police Department, with a humorous twinkle in her eye, in response to a question by a representative of The Outlook. There had been a little doubt in the mind of the interviewer as to the proper style of addressing the new appointee, for on inquiring of the doorman at Police Headquarters for " Mrs. O'Grady," he had been rather sternly told that "the Commissioner was to be found in Room 211. This proved to be a large, well-lighted apartment, with an outer room presided over by a young woman secretary of pleasing manners and appearance, and an inner sanctuary in which the new Commissioner does her work and receives her callers. The new Deputy Commissioner is an attractive-looking woman of middle age, dressed well but simply, as befits an official, with a gold police badge on her breast, and wearing a small black hat which, she explained, she had become so accustomed to having on in court that she did not feel comfortable without it even in her own office. "I have hardly got accustomed to my new job," she said, in answer to a question. "So far I have given up most of my time to reporters and photographers, and I am hardly in a position to tell you what my duties are or what I plan to do. You know I have spent fifteen years in the courts as a probation officer. That is not strictly police work, and so it will take a little time for me to get accustomed to my new position.' In answer to some inquiries as to the number of women who might be under her leadership in her new work, and the number engaged in court work, Commissioner O'Grady, with a woman's dislike for statistics and a shrewd smile, suddenly asked her interviewer, ̈ Are you asking these questions to test my general intelligence?" Then she went on: "There is a big opportunity for capable women to help in these police departments of our cities. So far as I know, I am the first woman to occupy so important an official position in police work. What can I do in this new work? I can only refer you to what I have done. I have carried my probation cases through successfully in most instances. They were little things, perhaps; but if you learn to do little things well, it's the best indication that you can undertake a bigger job. But if you really want to know about my work in the past you will have to go to others. I have worked a good deal in Brownsville. That is a Jewish district, you know. There are some splendid Jews in official positions in the courts of New York, and I have had fine co-operation from them in every way. say this though I am an Irish-American-I came to this country as a baby, you know. Ask some of them about me or others who are equally familiar with what I have done." I This modest declination to sound her own praises on the part of Mrs. O'Grady seemed good to listen to, contrasting as it does with the usual attitude of men suddenly brought into prominence. Mrs. O'Grady continued: "I have just been out to investigate the case of a child who had disappeared. There are many such cases, and I could devote much of my time to them, though larger matters in connection with the welfare of women and girls will probably keep me busy." "Will the Department provide an automobile for your use?" It will be for the city's advantage if it does. A department ་་ you an official's time is too valuable for her to spend half a day waiting on street corners for cars. But let me tell incident. Soon after I was appointed, a fine-appearing young woman, with a real soldierly bearing, came to me and said, 'Our association has a large number of automobiles that we are going to devote without charge to the public service during these war times. Mrs. O'Grady, we want you to make use of these cars at any time when they may be useful to you.' Doesn't that show a fine spirit?" "One further question, Commissioner. Women all over the country are interested in the question of equal pay for equal service. Is New York's new woman Commissioner to be on an equal basis with the men Commissioners in this respect?" "I understand that to be the case." "And what is the salary, may I ask?" Here Mrs. O'Grady's quiet humor again came to her rescue in answering this personal question. "I don't know-I haven't got my pay envelope yet. But I have read in the newspapers that my salary is to be six thousand dollars a year." During the course of the interview, which The Outlook's representative felt should be as brief as possible so as not to embarrass a busy woman engaged in orienting herself in her new place, Mrs. O'Grady introduced pertinently a familiar quotation from Tennyson, beginning: "The old order changes, yielding place to new, That here was a police official who remembered and cared to quote a line suggestive of idealism in connection with the work of the Police Department seemed a happy augury of the good influence that would be exerted in that Department through the innovation of giving a woman a prominent place on its official staff. PASSING THE BUCK IN WASHINGTON BY JOSEPH H. ODELL ASHINGTON is a city of irregularities. The farther you go along an avenue, the farther you are from another avenue (or street, I forget which); and by the time you have reached Sixteenth Street you have forgotten whether the particular place you are seeking is at the corner of Eighteenth and F or Nineteenth and K. Washington, too, is like that, temperamentally and politically. The only spot in the city which seems fixed and ascertainable is the White House, flanked by the Navy and War Departments respectively. On paper, L'Enfant's plan of Washington is splendid. Actually, it is a city of geometrically progressive separations; politically it is that also. The mental, ethical, emotional, political, and administrative point of convergence is the White House. And the White House stands a long way back from the thoroughlong way back from the thorough fare. But that is another story, and will keep until next week. Every one who is hypercritical, or even and only constructively critical, tells you solemnly that what Washington needs is co-ordination. Official Washington is utterly sick of the word. The President is openly antagonistic toward the sugges tion. He seems to say: "I will furnish the co-ordination; you do not need a War Cabinet, and I beg you not even to discuss it." Nevertheless the critics, hostile and friendly, will persist in talking about co-ordination. Do they know what they mean? I doubt it. Several of them have drawn charts for me to illustrate how they would co-ordinate everything, and no two diagrams agree. One co-ordinates everything in a War Cabinet which still leaves everything co-ordinated in the President. Another focuses all power in a Ministry of Munitions, but is not certain whether to make the Ministry responsible to Congress, to the Secretary of War, or to the General Staff; nevertheless the President is Commander in-Chief of the Army and Navy, and insists that a Ministry of Munitions would do little beyond disrupting the excellent navy system of supplies. A third makes a chart which proves that a Ministry of Munitions is simply what the Administration has already done in the appointment of Mr. Stettinius as SurveyorGeneral-a clever bit of Administration camouflage in military parlance, or an astute "passing the buck"in current slang-a term, I am told, which has its origin in the game of poker, and signifies that some other man is responsible for the deal. There are many people in Washington who believe that the Administration's most successful accomplishment is the skill with which it has acquired the art of passing the buck. It has been said that Mr. Gregory, of the Department of Justice, passed the buck to Mr. Baker when he persuaded the Secretary of War to overrule Mr. Lane's agreement with the bituminous coal operators of June 28, 1917, in order to save his lawsuit against certain West Virginia operators for price-fixing (which the Attor ney-General did not save, anyway). Nearly every one agrees that Mr. McAdoo passed the buck to Dr. Garfield when he persuaded the Fuel Administrator to issue the fuel embargo, not to save coal, but in order that Mr. McAdoo might have a chance to straighten out the railway freight congestion and facilitate Government operation. A few of the more knowing ones in military circles swear that General Crozier passed the buck to four guileless bureaus, and slipped himself from the much-criticised Ordnance Department into the War Council; there are some who say that Mr. Baker passed the buck to General Pershing by testifying that it was the General who did not want the Lewis machine gun in the trenches; and there are even some who claim that President Wilson will pass the buck to the Senate Military Committee and to certain newspaper critics by sending Mr. Baker to France. Only the grand assize of |