66 which he has made to the President and to the Senate and House Committees on Education, Mr. Lane says that in 1910 there were more than five and a half million persons over ten years of age who were unable to read or write in any language. There are now nearly 700,000 men of draft age in the United States, who are, I presume, registered, who cannot read or write in English or in any other language." Formerly the United States Army would not enlist illiterates, but since April 1 last nearly 40,000 men have been drafted into the Army who cannot sign their names, cannot read orders posted on camp bulletin boards, cannot study their manual of arms, cannot read or write their own letters, and cannot understand the flag signals of the Signal Corps in time of battle. Secretary Lane visualizes this vast company of five and a half million illiterate persons in the United States in this vivid fashion: If these five and a half million illiterate persons were stretched in a double line of march at intervals of three feet, and were to march past the White House at the rate of twenty-five miles a day, it would require more than two months for them to pass. Over fifty-eight per cent are white persons, and of these 1,500,000 are native-born whites. If the power to read and write adds to the productive value of a man only fifty cents a day, a very conservative estimate, Mr. Lane figures that the country is losing considerably over three-quarters of a billion dollars a year through illiteracy. The Federal and State Governments are spending millions of dollars in circulating information about agriculture, and "yet 3,700,000, or ten per cent, of our country folk cannot read or write a word. They cannot read a bulletin on agriculture, a farm paper, a food pledge card, a Liberty Loan appeal, a newspaper, the Constitution of the United States, or their Bibles, nor can they keep personal or business accounts." We find, as we think our readers will, these facts astounding, but nevertheless they are facts and cannot be evaded. Americans have prided themselves in thinking that their country was the most intelligent in the world. Our pride is not well founded and we have got to get busy to make it good. Secretary Lane proposes one immediate way of getting busy-that is, support of the bill now introduced into the House "which provides for a modest appropriation for the Bureau of Education to begin and conduct a vigorous and systematic campaign for the eradication of adult illiteracy." CLAUDE DEBUSSY The French composer Debussy, who died on March 26, was a strange being, both as man and musician. With his high cheek-bones and his flat-topped head, Claude Achille Debussy looked less like a Frenchman than a Chinaman. In his earlier years he was unkempt and uncouth. It was in these penniless years, while he lived with his devoted wife, that he made his original contributions to musical art. Later he became well-to-do and fastidious; but he had deserted the wife who believed in him and attached himself to a woman with money. A portrait appears on another page. As a composer he seemed at first to those who listened to his works superficially to be as little French as he was in appearance. French art is nothing if not clear, precise, logical, defined. Debussy's music, on the other hand, was outwardly vague and chaotic. He was born near Paris in 1862, and lived in that city, preparing himself at the Conservatoire, where he was a fellow-pupil with Edward MacDowell. When he won the Grande Prix de Rome at the Conservatoire with his cantata "L'Enfant Prodigue," he went to Italy, and from there sent to France two works characteristic of all his future compositions. These were Spring" and "The Blessed Damozel." The French composers of that day sitting in judgment and among them were Gounod, Thomas, Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Delibes, and Reyer-pronounced these works "insufficiently precise," and condemned them for "vagueness." It is true that in Debussy's music there are no hard and definite lines. In this respect his music is like the painting of the Impressionists and has something in common with the sculpture of Rodin. It is a mistake, however, to regard Debussy's music as wholly lacking in precision, order, arrangement. A good painter or sculptor may clothe his figures in fleecy, shimmering robes; but he has first molded or painted the figure itself in accordance with the laws of anatomy. The skeleton of any one of Debussy's works is by no means a mere heap of bones. Of all his works his opera "Pelléas and Mélisande" is the most famous; but it still stands practically unique among musical compositions for the stage. On the other hand, his works for orchestra and for the pianoforte have had great influence. He has gone as far as any one in his explorations into new fields of music; but he has gone off into quite another direction from the equally adventurous musical explorers in Germany. He seems never to forget that the goal of the artist is some kind of beauty. Debussy's music will have lasting influence. It is likely, for example, to have an influence on pianoforte playing that may not unfairly be compared to Chopin's. His use of the wholetone scale and his employment of novel harmonic devices has enlarged the resources of music, especially as a means of painting moods. Debussy, however, will never be counted among the greatest of composers. His artistic character was too limited to enable him to produce works to be counted among the masterpieces of musical literature. His music is never a voice from the depths or the heights. In life, as in art, Debussy lacked the roots that might have connected him with the goodness of Mother Earth and the lofty branches that could feel the winds of heaven. It may be that his music was as lovely in its way as an orchid; but to compare Debussy with César Franck is to compare an orchid with an oak. CHILD PORTRAITURE Portraits of children have a perennial appeal. The most attractive pictures Velasquez ever painted were those of little Spanish infantas, childlike and flowerlike despite their absurd hoopskirts. In our time the painting of portraits of children has been attempted with success by such men as Sargent, Chase, and Alexander. This success has been added to by another and younger American painter, Maurice Fromkes. In his portraits of "grown-ups we trace the influence of the old masters, Rembrandt, Hals, and the Italians in the likenesses, for instance, of Cardinal Merry del Val, done in the Vatican, of Sir Edward Elgar, of Dr. Lyman Abbott, of the late Dr. Leipziger, of Madame Mazarin in her rôle of Electra, and of the composer Giuseppe Ferrata, whose portrait hangs in the present Fromkes Exhibition at the Reinhardt Galleries, New York City. Alongside it, however, are a dozen portraits of children (illustrations of two of these may be found on another page) and some remarkable studies of still life. All reflect not only the painter's feeling for color but the general feeling for color at this special juncture in our art life-an instinct for what one might call robust color. Whether recent Russian stage performances have inspired this or whether the increasing appreciation of Oriental art with its lacquers and brocades-never mind. And with the desire for a more robust, masculine color there has come a greater comprehension not only of its use as sheer decoration but also of any kind of decoration as a background for it. Of course this double appreciation with an artist like Fromkes, who understands children and how to "take" them, brings about striking results. Let no one seek in his canvases for the atmospheric portraits of the type of those painted by the late George Frederick Watts, for instance, where the subjects are really breathing an atmosphere. But to him who wishes to see child characters well portrayed and heads strongly lighted, dominating no matter what gorgeousness of environing color, these portraits are certainly worth while. FOOD MARKETING On March 28 the Federal Food Administration reported that loyal farmers had informed State Administrators that certain German farmers were refusing to market any of their wheat. The Administrators have been asked to investigate these cases and to direct such persons at once to market their wheat. No publicity will be given to individual cases unless this specific direction is refused and it should become necessary to requisition such parcels on behalf of the Government. The Food Law authorizes such requisitioning. It was also stated that wherever evidence supports suspicion that any withholding of food, on which may depend the outcome of the war, is due to dislovelty or profiteering, prompt action will be taken. Evidence obtained will be forwarded to Washing ton, where steps will be taken as the individual cases warrant. While no general order requisitioning wheat has been sent but by the Food Administration, it has instructed the various State Food Administrators to appeal to farmers in the Middle and Southern States to market their residue of wheat after seed requirements by May 1, and in the extreme Northern States by May 15. This is in order to provide for the continuous shipment of wheat to our allies. We are much behind in our programme of cereal export to them. With this condition confronting us, the Food Administration announced on March 29 that as a military measure it would request private homes to reduce wheat consumption to 11⁄2 pounds per person per week. There is no reason why we cannot subsist perfectly well on less than 11⁄2 pounds a week of wheat products. In all public eating-places the Food Administration will also rigidly enforce wheatless days (Mondays and Wednesdays); in addition, no person may be served at any one meal with an aggregate of breadstuffs, macaroni, crackers, pastry, pie, cakes, or wheat breakfast cereals containing a total of more than two ounces of wheat flour: Of course every intelligent person will respond to these necessary measures. Mr. Hoover has already received the personal assurance of several hundred hotel-keepers of their loyal adherence. This means another increase in the use of substitutes for wheat. Fortunately, there are many, and one in particular to which the Food Administration draws special attentionpotatoes. With improved transportation conditions the surplus of potatoes is now available. The object of their use is twofold: to save food for the Allies and to save the potatoes from going to waste. If the surplus potatoes of last year's crop are not used during the next fortnight, they will likely be counted as food loss. And just now, we may remember, every bit of food in the world is needed. FOOD RATIONING The beauty of the Food Administration's course is that there has been so little of the "You must" about it and so much of the "Will you?" That is the secret of its success. Occasionally we hear of the arrest of some ignorant restaurantkeeper, and now we have a warning to disloyal farmers. But a small display of force goes a great way. And the large display of politeness goes further. Another reason for success is the broad-gauge character and reasonableness of the Food Administration's statements and exhortations. For instance: We do not need to starve our own people. We have plenty for ourselves, and it is the firm policy of the Food Administration to retain for our people, by its control of exports, a sufficient supply of every essential foodstuff. We want nobody in our country to eat less than is necessary for good health and full strength, for America needs the full productive power of all its people. Much of the needed saving can be effected by substituting one kind of food for another. But the time has come to put aside all selfishness and disloyalty. The Allies need wheat and meat and fats and sugar. They must have more of all of these than we have been sending, more than we shall be able to send unless we restrict our own consumption. We can do it without harm, for, as a Nation, we are to-day eating and wasting much more food than we need. The whole great problem of winning the war rests primarily on one thing: the loyalty and sacrifice of the American people in the matter of food. It is not a Government responsibility, it is the responsibility of each individual. Loyalty in little things is the foundation of the National strength. Disloyalty in little things gives aid to the enemy. Do not limit the food of growing children. Eat sufficient food to maintain bealth; the Nation needs strong people. Co-operate with your local and Federal Food Administrators. Take their advice. Preach and practice the "gospel af the clean plate." DELAYS IN THE MAILS Signature For some weeks past we have been calling attention, through a brief notice on the first page of The Outlook, to the fact that delays in the mails, both in New York City and on the railways, were responsible for the late delivery of The Outlook to many of our subscribers, although we were doing everything in our power to facilitate the mailing. Our readers may be interested in knowing some facts regarding the serious delays to which the publishers are subjected even before they are able to deposit subscribers' copies in the post-office and get them started on the way to their destination, whether it be New York City or California. On Monday, March 18, a truck loaded with 186 bags containing copies of The Outlook left our bindery at twenty min utes after five o'clock in the afternoon for the post-office in the THE OUTLOOK Pennsylvania Terminal Station. It takes only one-half hour for the truck to reach the Pennsylvania Station after leaving the bindery. The congestion of mail matter was so great that the truck was obliged to remain in line with many other trucks similarly loaded with mail all of Monday night, and it was not until five minutes before noon on Tuesday that it was possible to have our mail weighed and unloaded. We took the matter up with the New York Postmaster, and in due course received a report from him which was substantially as follows: He stated that a careful investigation indicates that on account of the failure of the railway company to furnish sufficient cars to handle the matter as rapidly as it was received a blockade occurred in the publishers' wagons arriving at the Pennsylvania Terminal Station and resulted in a condition which it was not possible for his office to overcome. All second-class mail matter is weighed upon its arrival at the post-office in order to ascertain the amount of postage that shall be charged to the publisher. According to Postmaster Patten, the shortage of cars resulted in extreme congestion in the receiving department of the postoffice, so that the incoming trucks were held up in line for hours until mail already accumulated could reach the trains. The above incident was in connection with the mailing of our issue of March 20. On Thursday, March 21, a truck loaded with bags containing copies of the March 27 issue left our bindery at 3 P.M., and succeeded in making delivery to the postoffice at 9:30 P.M., after a lapse of six hours and thirty minutes. Another truck leaving at 7 P.M. was less fortunate, and delivery was not accomplished until 2:20 A.M., March 22. On March 23 another lot was started from the bindery at 1:30 P.M. and delivered at the post-office at 10:15 P.M., a lapse of nearly nine hours. It required fourteen trips between the bindery and the post-office to complete the mailing of the March 27 issue. Each one of these fourteen trucks was obliged to stand in line anywhere from three to nine hours, so that the amount of time lost amounted in the aggregate to a little over sixty-six hours, only six hours short of three entire days. May we not, therefore, ask the indulgence of our readers under these trying conditions, which we are powerless to overcome, if their copy of The Outlook is sometimes late in its arrival? THE GORE BILL A Montana farmer writes to us: Senator Gore's bill to make the price of wheat at the farmers' market is the fairest proposition I have yet seen. The farmers did their best to increase their fall wheat acreage with the minimum price of $2. But... our President steps in and shatters our hope of a price that would cover the cost of production. Our crops were bad enough. Few in this section were better than mine. Most were poorer, and hundreds of acres were not cut at all. . . . Must the farmers be made to sacrifice all they have by limiting their prices while others grow rich? In the present war there is special need of three products: coal, food, iron. To increase the production of the most needed food-wheat-the Government made a price last year of $2.20, and has done the same this year; this year's price being a compromise between $2, at which figure, according to last year's forecast, the price was to be in 1918, and $2.50, as desired by many farmers. Senator Gore's bill, which has passed the Senate, would guarantee farmers a minimum price of $2.50. In its ultimate analysis, the whole question is, of course, whether price-fixing is wise or unwise. If wise, then those who administer the law have to work out some kind of economic scheme by which production will be increased and yet the consumer kept quiet. The Food Administration and the Depart ment of Agriculture have supposed that they had worked out such a scheme. If price-fixing is unwise, we would then return to the natural ebb and flow of the laws of supply and demand. There is no question about the fact that there has been considerable injustice to farmers in the working out of a pricefixing policy for the whole country, because the raising of wheat in one section costs more than it does in another section. If the Senators really thought that this was reason enough for abandoning price-fixing and returning to the laws of natural supply and demand, they could have voted to suspend executive action. But they did not. They voted to increase the price because they 19 April thought that, with all its evils, it would increase production, and we must have increased production to win the war. If the Gore Bill should become law, however, its opponents say that there will be an increase in the price of flour of no less than $3 a barrel, which would mean a jump of twenty-five per cent in bread prices. These critics ask: Should the bread consumers- that is to say, all our people, as distinguished from the farmer class, representing fifteen per cent of the population -be forced to pay a fourth more for bread? The papers report that, should the House of Representatives concur in the Senate vote, the President will veto the legisla tion. Doubtless the first and principal reason why Mr. Wilson may oppose the Gore Bill is because, as a matter of principle, he wants to consider the consumers first, among whom are to be counted the great industrial classes of the cities, and the producers second. In addition, Mr. Wilson may be moved by the obtaining a still higher price. rumors that some farmers are hoarding wheat in the hope of A GENEROUS GIVER In these days when many people are finding it a trying self-sacrifice to pay their income tax, to subscribe to Liberty bonds, to help the Red Cross, to aid in the Y. M. C. A. drive, to contribute to the Knights of Columbus, and have anything left to give in support of the organized efforts to alleviate suf fering in France and Belgium, we should like to tell a little story that has come within the horizon of our own experience. During the last twenty-six months we have received from an employee of the Cleveland Post-Office twenty-six separate contributions, amounting in all to over seventy-five dollars. In each of his letters to us is inclosed three dollars, and in each one we are instructed to transmit one dollar to the American Ambulance in France, one dollar to the Serbian Relief Fund, and one dollar to the Fatherless Children of France. Here is one of his recent letters: Gentlemen: Please transmit the little amount I inclose to the following: $1.00 to the Serbian Relief Fund. As I am only a poor workman I am doing the best I am able to, and I regret every time I address you that I am unable to give more much more. Very respectfully yours, (Signed) C. Z., Cleveland, Ohio. P. S.-I love to read, but am unable to subscribe to magazines and must deny myself other pleasures and necessities. But I am doing my little bit to defeat the German pirates and murderers, and will remain in the ranks as long as I am able to work. In another letter our correspondent says, in response to our information that we were transmitting his contributions to the proper societies: "I thank you from my heart for your ind services and if I was religiously inclined would say 'God bless you." If he were religiously inclined! What he has been doing is evidence of religion. In reply to a letter of appreciation from us, he wrote another letter as follows: Your very kind and generous letter of the twentieth instant was received yesterday as I came home from work. I thought it was the usual acknowledgment of my little donation, but the contents proved a most pleasant and unexpected surprise. It cer tainly was one ray of bright sunshine so rare in my life, and what wonder that before I got through reading my eyes were moist. If I could only grasp your hand and press it to my heart. I thank you from the fullness of my heart, for reading is about the only pleasure I have; but the little I am able to do for the deserving sufferers should not expect reward, for that is the only religion I have. A friend of The Outlook, a Cleveland banker, writes to us: I know the circumstances surrounding this Mr. Z. When the war first broke out, he came in and stated that he wanted to help and bought a hundred-dollar Anglo-French Bond, when I knew he could not afford to buy an overcoat. I even remonstrated with him to the effect that it was not his duty to buy those bonds, but he insisted that he must do his bit. I understand he has since then been sending a stipulated sum for relief. This contributor bears a foreign name. We have not asked him about it, but we think it may be Polish, Bohemian, or a southern Slav name. We do not give our readers the name because we feel sure that he is acting upon the principle of not letting his right hand know what his left hand doeth. But his self-sacrificing generosity is an example to every loyal American. F THE UNITED ALLIES ROM the beginning of the war the Central Powers have fought as a unit under a single General Staff, and with a unified and homogeneous plan of campaign. They could do this because Germany could impose her will on Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria, and those countries were glad enough to submit themselves to the superior knowledge and training of Germany. The Allies, however, although working in sympathy and cooperation, have not fought as a unit. England, France, and Italy have had each its General Staff, its Commander-in-Chief, and sometimes each its plan of campaign. For months the military leaders of England and France, perhaps, too, of Italy, have felt that this division was a weakness. But a thorough military union has been hard to bring about. It required submission to authority and a yielding of personal prestige-two of the most disagreeable sacrifices that a nation can be called upon to make. Indeed, nations make such a sacrifice only in order to save their lives or their liberties. That is what has happened on the western front. England and France have found that in order to save their very existence they must unite under one General Staff and one Commander-in-Chief. The War Council at Versailles is the General Staff, and General Foch, the greatest strategist in France, is the Commander-in-Chief or Generalissimo. The question is often asked why this has not been done before. The answer is found in a phase of human psychology displayed in the commonest relations of life and recorded in history running as far back as the very origins of civilization. Vigorous characters are reluctant to give up their authority. How many quarrels and breakdowns in family life, business life, church life, club life, and political life are due to this very human disinclination to yield on a question of personal prestige or authority! It requires bigness of character to make such submission for the common good, and Great Britain has again shown her bigness in loyally accepting the authority of a French Commander-in-Chief. General Pershing's offer of all our American troops to the French command is a similar testimony to America's determination to fight in big, generous, efficient manfashion. This lesson of war unity was plainly taught in 1861-65 in our own Civil War. The South at the very outset chose her Commander-in-Chief and obeyed him, and during the first two years she was victorious. The North, however, was torn by dissensions and quarrels of personal prestige. General after general was tried and found wanting. The epistolary literature of the war is full of complaints of officers who chafed under the authority of their superiors. But finally, in the spring of 1864, after the war had dragged on its weary length for three years, Grant was made LieutenantGeneral, Commander-in-Chief, Generalissimo, and victories were won. General Sherman said that "it was not until after both Gettysburg and Vicksburg [both fought in the summer of 1863] that the war professionally began." And the following interesting passage from Rhodes's recently published one-volume history of the Civil War throws an interesting light on the crisis at the western front: "Shortly before he [General Grant] began his May campaign Richard H. Dana saw him in Willard's Hotel, Washington, and described him as 'a short, round-shouldered man in a very tarnished major-general's uniform; nothing marked in his appearance-an ordinary, scrubby-looking man, with a slightly seedy look.' Dana expressed his astonishment to see him talking and smoking in the lower entry of Willard's, in that crowd, in such times, the Generalissimo of our armies, on whom the destiny of the empire seemed to hang. But,' he went on, his face looks firm and hard, and his eye is clear and resolute, and he is certainly natural and clear of all appearance of self-consciousness.' Impressed with Grant's supremacy and his hold on the country, he broke out, 'How war, how all great crises, bring us to the one-man power!'" 6 THE PEOPLE'S WAR At the front the men of the Allied armies have no illusion about the strength of Germany, but they have no thought for any end but victory. This is a people's war, not merely a war of armies; we are all of us in the fight as a part of the indispensable reserves, and we have got to think, and talk, and act just as we would if we were at the front ourselves. The soldier who talks about a drawn battle is not fit to fight. Neither is a citizen. This German drive, of which we are seeing the beginning, makes weaklings quiver. It makes strong men exultant. It is a sign of strength in this country that this German drive is waking Americans up. To win victory this country must unite solidly its force, its skill, and its wisdom. Neither political partisanship nor personal partisanship must block the effort. In this the President must lead the way. an To lead, the President must place ability, fitness, and patriotism above adherence to his party and his person. When he put General Wood, an admittedly great military leader, into inferior position because of General Wood's early advocacy of that preparedness which the President now knows was eminently desirable, and when recently he refrained from calling upon General Wood upon his return from France to report to him personally at the first possible moment, the President failed in leadership. When, on the other hand, he sent Senator Root, a political opponent, to Russia, the President moved in the right direction. In England, no sooner had the war broken out than the political leaders Liberal, Conservative, Unionist, Home Rule, and Ulster threw party politics to the winds. Parties still existed, different war policies were advocated, but partisanship in war matters was abandoned. Perhaps we cannot have a coalition Cabinet here; but we can at least have from the President due recognition of the fact that earnest and able men of the other party like Senator Lodge, to take only one instance, men who are heart and soul for the vigorous prosecution of the war, are not his personal enemies, and that to point out what steps taken are wrong is helpful to the country's cause and an act of patriotism. To suggest remedies for existing failures is not hostility. It was not disloyalty to President McKinley to bring to light the "embalmed beef" scandal; it is not hostility to President Wilson to point out that the Committee on Public Information has made false statements about airplanes. Mr. Roosevelt never spoke a truer word than when in his speech in Maine the other day he declared: This is the people's war. It is not the President's war. It is not Congress's war. It is the war of the people of the United States for the bonor and welfare of America and of mankind. It is the bounden duty of the Republican party to support every public servant, from the President down, in so far as he does good and efficient work in waging the war or helping wage the war, and to oppose him exactly to the extent of his failure to do such work; for our loyalty is to the people of the United States and to every public servant in exact accordance with the way in which he serves the public. The right view of this matter is admirably expressed in an article by Professor George T. Ladd in the New York "Times" when he says: Let the red tape be cut; let partisanship be banished.. We must demand of our President and of our Government in all departments and operations bearing on this war the highest possible efficiency, utterly regardless of personal preferences, partisan considerations, the necessity of humiliating confessions of mistakes in the past, and the sacrifice of even a reasonable pride in past achievements, if these are to be employed in any manner or degree to cover up or atone for past deficiencies and mistakes. What Mr. Roosevelt and Professor Ladd say applies to Democrats and Republicans alike. Blind partisanship is unpatriotic. It is as unpatriotic to try to stifle criticism that will help to correct errors in the prosecution of the war as it is to indulge in criticism that merely impedes. At a football game the spectators are in no doubt as to the heartiness of the support of the team on the part of those who are shouting: "Get into the game! Why don't you put that |