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AN ANSWER TO A PROPOSAL OF PEACE

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ECENTLY in an American city the police were notified that murder had been committed in a club known to be a criminal resort. When they went to investigate, the door was barred against them and their demand for admission was met with rifle shots from the building, which killed one of the police. Attack on a brick building with clubs and rifles was impossible. The police brought a cannon from a near-by armory and threatened to batter the building down. Then the club members came tumbling out. But the club leader remained. He declared that he would not be taken alive. He was mistaken. He was found hiding in a neighbor's cellar, and is awaiting the judgment of the Court. The city authorities were probably to blame for the conditions which made the criminal club possible. The police probably were not saints. To disturb the repose of the city by the bombardment of one of its houses was a disaster to be avoided if it was avoidable. Nevertheless there was only one answer to the request for terms-unconditional surrender. We tell the story as we recall the report given in a daily newspaper. The parallel is plain, the meaning of the parable clear.

Three and a half years ago two criminal nations declared war against Europe. Their neighbors besought them to submit the issue to arbitration. They refused arbitration. Their neighbors besought them to confer in an endeavor to find a road to peace with justice. They refused conference. Austria made war on little Serbia; then Germany and Austria made war on Russia because Russia came to the defense of Serbia; then on France because France would not pledge herself not to come to the aid of Russia; then on Belgium because Belgium would not violate her pledge of neutrality; then on Great Britain because Great Britain came to the defense of her allies; then by treachery swept Turkey into the maelstrom despite the interests and without the consent of her people, and sought to incite her to a world-wide religious war-Mohammedanism against Chris

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we will tell the people-our own people, your people, the people of the world-what we want and what we do not want.

We do not want your territory. We do not want to govern your people. We leave your punishment to natural causes that is, to God. We leave you to reap as you have sown. That we cannot prevent. We do not wish to interfere with the management of your own affairs, and we shall not interfere except as interference may be necessary to undo the wrongs you have perpetrated and to protect other peoples from future aggression. We do not propose when this war ends to initiate a commercial war against you; but we mean to maintain, with or without your aid, the freedom of the seas.

We will not return your colonies to you. You are not fit to govern dependent peoples nor to prepare them for self-govern

ment.

You cannot undo the evil you have done. You cannot restore the dead to life, nor the fields you have devastated to fruitfulness, nor the cities, churches, and libraries you have in mere wantonness destroyed; nor put back into the mountains the coal and iron you have carried off. We do not demand of you the impossible. But you must restore the booty you have taken to enrich your own cities. You must repair, as far as reparation is within your power, the hideous wrongs you have committed; and you must be prepared to do whatever we think is necessary to protect the world's peace from you in the future. This will not be a matter for conference between us. It will be a matter for our decision and your acceptance.

Some of our contemporaries both at home and abroad desire the Allies to make official reply to the proposals which Austria has made to the Russian Bolsheviki. Such a reply might unify the forces of justice and disintegrate the forces of crime. Whether the German people have been deluded or terrorized, they have been apparently united in the past. They are certainly discontented now. As they do not enjoy the privileges, so they do not bear the responsibilities, of a free people. We ask no privileges for ourselves which we do not desire for them. We

In this war the chief criminal has violated the four funda- ask no more for the world than German freemen asked for mental laws of social morality:

(1) Thou shalt not kill: She has murdered in cold blood thousands of peaceful citizens.

(2) Thou shalt not steal: She has robbed industry, and what she could not carry off she has wantonly destroyed.

(3) Thou shalt not commit adultery: She has given military support, if not official sanction, to rape.

(4) Thou shalt not bear false witness. She has lied openly, flagrantly, brazenly.

She has been a robber on land, a pirate on the seas. Her crimes have been so efficiently, so courageously, so magnificently perpetrated that they have dazzled the eyes and dulled the conscience of some of our moral mentors. But they have not obscured the vision of the plain people.

But she has not succeeded. Her booty has not enriched her. She has impoverished herself while despoiling her neighbors. Her unsuccessful crimes have united all Christendom against her. Among the Christian nations she has not a friend. All peoples, including her own, are weary of the war. She now proposes to the mob which masquerades as a government in the Russian capital the restoration of peace without annexations and without indemnities. What answer should Christian civilization make to this proposal? The people may leave their Gov. ernments to put the answer of the nations in diplomatic terms. But if we understand the public sentiment of the men who are fighting the world's battles for liberty, and of the fathers and mothers who sent them to the field, their answers, in diplomatic phrase, would be something like this:

We do not want your promises. You break them.
Nor your treaties. You disregard them.

We cannot deal with you as a moral nation. Your most popular philosopher has declared that the moral law is not obligatory, and you have accepted and acted on the philosophy.

Withdraw your armed forces from all European territory which you now occupy. Withdraw your Zeppelins from the air and your submarines from the sea. Disband your armies. Dismantle your fleet. Then we will talk with you, not before. But

themselves in the futile revolution of 1848, no more than German Social Democrats have asked for themselves in the years that followed that revolution. But what they humbly asked for themselves, we imperatively demand for the world. Our quarrel is with their masters.

What Edmund Burke said nearly a century and a quarter ago is equally applicable to-day: "We are at war with a system, which, by its essence, is inimical to all other governments, and which makes peace or war, as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at

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With a power armed to enforce that doctrine on the civilized world, the power that Dr. van Dyke has rightly called the "predatory Potsdam gang," the civilized world neither can nor ought to make peace.

FREE POLAND

The story of Poland is one of the most romantic in the entire history of modern Europe. Less than two hundred years ago Poland was one of the great kingdoms of northeastern Europe. Without going into historical details, which would take far more space than we have at our command, it may be said that, partly owing to the clash of social forces like that which has so shaken Russia, and partly owing to the great military transformation in Europe just preceding the Napoleonic era, the Kingdom of Poland was divided into three parts in the latter half of the eighteenth century, one part being taken over by Russia, one by Austria, and one by Prussia.

The spirit of Poland since the Middle Ages has been a peculiarly democratic spirit. The kings of Poland, for example, were elected by the people. The assembly of the nobles which governed Poland was conducted on the principle which is familiar to Americans as the principle of the New England town meeting, where every individual came in, expressed his own views, and even to a remarkable extent had a veto power. After the first partition of Poland there was still a small section of the

country left independent, but the Constitution, indeed the whole tendency, of this small independent part was so liberal and democratic that the autocratic powers of Europe a century ago foresaw that it threatened danger to their institutions, and its independence was taken away. The result is that, while today there is no such thing as a geographical or a political Poland, there is a Polish nation with traditions, customs, and spirit founded in freedom and desiring to perpetuate freedom. It was believed by Russia, Prussia, and Austria-less by Austria, perhaps, than by the other two-that the partition of Poland would destroy its national spirit. By what was probably a tacit agreement, the autocratic powers of Russia and Prussia forbade the use of the Polish language in the schools, in public gatherings, and even in public prayers of the people. But, instead of crushing the national spirit, this method, as we have seen in recent times in Belgium, only increased the national spirit. Thus we have to-day what may be called the Polish question. That question is, What shall be the status of the Polish people as a result of the great European war?

Unfortunately, during the last century many of the histories that have been used in the schools of the United States and of England have been based on German sources. We now know enough about the influence of German autocracy upon the education of Germans during the forty years since the FrancoPrussian War to know that the purpose of German historians has been to teach that the Polish people are highly emotional, unstable, disputatious, and therefore incapable of governing themselves. Americans, unfortunately, have shared in this impression in spite of the fact that they were aware that in the field of literature and art and military gallantry Poland has produced many great figures. There comes to the mind of the well-read American in science the name of Copernicus, in music the names of Chopin and Paderewski, in literature the name of Sienkiewicz, in military courage in the cause of freedom the names of Kosciuszko and Pulaski-all Poles. It is clear that a nation which can produce such great figures as these is not so barbarous as to be incapable of self-government.

So we come to the present situation. Americans are deeply interested in justice to Belgium and to Serbia, for during the three years of the war they have begun to understand their situation. They ought also to have the same deep interest in the present plight and the desired future of Poland.

! To promote an understanding of the Polish question and so to direct the efforts of the Poles during the war that after peace may be declared Poland shall again take its place among the free nations of the world, a Polish National Committee has been formed, with its executive seat in Paris. The distinguished Polish artist Paderewski, who has won his way to the affections of the American people as one of the greatest musicians of modern times, is the representative of this Committee in the United States. Last autumn Mr. Lansing, Secretary of State, wrote to Mr. Paderewski a letter from which we quote the following sentences:

I beg to inform you that on October 19, 1917, the American Ambassador at Paris forwarded the request of Mr. Dmowski, President of the Polish National Committee there, that the United States Government recognize that Committee as an official Polish organization. On November 10, 1917, I took pleasure in instructing the American Ambassador at Paris to extend the desired recognition of the Government of the United States.

To this official recognition of the "Polish question" by the Government of the United States the Polish National Committee desires to add the popular recognition and sympathy of the people of the United States. The prime purpose of the Polish National Committee, and the Polish patriots who are co-operating with it, is to make it clear to the world that no just peace can be established until the Polish question is properly solved. That solution is the re-establishment of Poland by a reunion of the three parts now under Russian, Prussian, and Austrian domination. It is not a matter of importance at the moment whether this re-establishment of Poland shall take the form of a republic or a constitutional monarchy, but it is important that the Poles shall be united and free to determine for themselves what kind of government they will have. Through German sources of information there seems to have come a prevailing impression in the United States that the Polish nation

is small-one not larger in numbers and territory, for example, than Serbia. The fact is that Poland when reunited would be one of the most homogeneous peoples in Europe, for it would have a territorial area considerably larger than that of France; in it there would be over thirty millions of people speaking pure Polish, and in addition other ethnic strains like the Slovaks, who practically speak Polish. Is not the question whether thirty millions of people of the same racial stock and speaking the same language shall come justly to their own, which has been taken away from them by despotic military power, one of the great questions of the war?

The question may be raised as to why we say that there are thirty million people speaking pure Polish in the territory which should form an independent Poland when the figures in so good an authority as the "Statesman's Year Book" of England give the number of Polish-speaking people in what are commonly regarded as the Polish provinces of Russia, Prussia, and Austria as twenty millions. The explanation is simple. Polish statistics, as we have already intimated, largely come from German sources and it is to the political interest of Austria and Germany, as it was before the war to the Romanoff dynasty, to make the number of ethnically distinct Poles as small as possible. Moreover, the statistics in the "Statesman's Year Book "account only for Galicia (or Austrian Poland), Posen (or Prussian Poland), and so-called Russian Poland, often spoken of as the Vistula province. There are in addition the provinces of East Prussia (where all the peasants even under the strict control of Germany speak Polish), and Lithuania, Podolya, and Volhynia, the last three being under Russian control. If the inhabitants of these provinces, which should rightly form an integral part of the new Poland, are taken into account, the total number of Polish-speaking people in what is rightly Polish territory would undoubtedly amount to about thirty millions.

Americans have been puzzled somewhat by the fact that about a year ago Prussia announced that she had created an independent Polish kingdom. What she did was to organize a scrap of Russian Poland which she had captured from Russia into a fictitious or paper state for the sake of impressing her own people, and possibly the rest of the world, that she was in favor of Polish liberty. It was really nothing but an example of Prussian camouflage. She tried to organize an army of 500,000 Poles from the inhabitants of this conquered territory. After weeks of work and propagauda she obtained only five hundred recruits!

It is interesting to compare this deceptive and futile effort of Frussia with the work of the Polish National Committee in the United States, which has already gathered a contingent of ten thousand American Poles who, with the permission of the American Government, are now training in a camp at Fort Niagara in New York State and Niagara-on-the-Lake on the Canadian side. It was not a question with the National Polish Committee of how many recruits they could get, but how they could check the various volunteers who wished to join this contingent. For when Paderewski sounded the "call to arms" the volunteers were so numerous that there was neither equipment nor barrack camps to take care of them. It may surprise some of the readers of The Outlook to know that there are in the United States four million Polish-speaking people. Of these, fifty thousand have already either volunteered or responded to the draft and are in the service of the American Army. The Polish contingent in training at Fort Niagara and Niagara-on-the-Lake is composed of men who are not subject, because of age, to the United States service, although many are citizens of the United States. This Polish contingent, now in training under American, Polish, and Canadian officers, with the general supervision of the French Military Attaché in the United States, has been accepted by the French Government as a unit of the French The uniform is a French uniform of the bluish-gray cloth which is employed by France. But there are certain insignia on the uniform which mark the contingent as a Polish contingent. For example, the officers wear the Polish white eagle on the collar. On the arm, on a magenta silk brassard, magenta being the Polish national color, a silver white eagle is embroidered. This contingent will be under the command of the French General Staff, but as a mark of recognition of Polish nationalism by France and her allies the officers immediately in

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command will use the Polish language and the unit will carry and fight under the Polish banner of the White Eagle.

In view of these facts, how is it possible for the Government of the Entente Allies to take the peace proposals just made by Count Czernin, of Austria, seriously? For neither Austria nor Prussia has shown the slightest desire to relinquish despotic control over the millions of Polish people whom they govern wholly by conquest. Polish citizens and residents in the United States are confident that President Wilson and our Government are fully determined to accept no terms of peace which do not include a restitution of the rights of Poland. It is not alone humanity and justice that demand this, but also military expediency. For European peace can never be established on a firm basis until the Polish question is rightly solved.

HARBORING A FRIEND OF THE ENEMY

So long as we remain at peace with Bulgaria we are allowing Germany to keep an agent for propaganda and information at the very center of our Government. We are even surrounding Germany's agent with diplomatic privileges and immunities. The Government of Bulgaria wants Germany to win, and is helping Germany; and yet we allow the Government of Bulgaria to have its Minister at Washington and its consuls in various parts of the country. What kind of service the Bulgarian Minister is performing for Germany will be told next week in The Outlook in an article by Demetra Vaka. We ought to declare war on Bulgaria at once.

MAKING BRICKS WITHOUT STRAW

WHAT THE CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION INTO THE CONDUCT OF THE

WAR IS DISCOVERING

10 follow the trail of the Senatorial Investigating Committees which are trying to determine the wherefore of the undeniable shortage of supplies for our troops is like following a spider web from its outer edge to the home of its creator. Just as all the strands of a spider web lead at last to the center, so do all the lines of inquiry into the shortage of military supplies lead at last to the War Department at Washington and to the officials who have tangled their struggling subordinates in a web of red tape as securely as any spider ever entangled a fly.

It is of course not at all fair to charge the present Administration with the appointment to office of many of the men within the War Department who have, to say the least, conclusively demonstrated their inability to live up to the demands of the present situation. The Democratic Administration inherited the War Department bureaucracy from Mr. Wilson's predecessors in office. The country has a right to hold the Administration responsible for the continuance of incompetent officials in office in the face of an emergency which has tested our war-making powers as these powers were never, and never could be, tested in time of peace.

The cost of the state of unpreparedness permitted to exist even after the outbreak of the world war in 1914 becomes daily more painfully evident. Two striking instances of what this lack of preparedness has cost the country were recounted to a Senatorial Investigating Committee by Major-Generals William M. Wright and Edwin St. John Greble, commanding officers at Camp Doniphan, at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and Camp Bowie, at Fort Worth, Texas.

General Greble told of his efforts to secure from the War Department enough clothing to supply his troops with the minimum amount required to maintain their health. He told how he had warned the War Department that the lack of clothing would result in serious loss of life. In September he sent word to four War Department officials informing them fully of the conditions in his camp, but he failed to get any action before November 14. He recounted the fact that he had reported to the War Department that he was forced to put twelve men within tents designed to accommodate eight men. Any one who has slept in an army tent knows that the placing of twelve cots within its narrow walls requires the abandonment of practically the whole floor space to sleeping purposes. It neans that twelve men are compelled to sleep as closely together as though the whole tent were one large bed.

General Greble stated that he informed the War Department of the crowded conditions within his encampment on September 11, and that on November 14 he received a telegram from the Adjutant-General (in reply to his letter of September 11) telling him to put fewer men in the tents!

Figures make dull reading, but it is worth while to record here the percentage of equipment needed at Camp Bowie as compared with the actual amount of equipment provided for the troops stationed there. The shortage of equipment is made

clear by the following figures. The percentages given represent the amounts of material lacking:

Rifles, 59 per cent; bayonets, 65 per cent; pistols, 86 per cent; cartridge belts, 59 per cent; machine guns, none on hand (twenty Colts shipped); automatic rifles, 88 per cent; 3-inch guns, 88 per cent; 6-inch howitzers, none on hand; 1-pounder cannon, none on hand; artillery harness, 92 per cent; horse equipment, 81 per cent; infantry equipment (this includes haversacks, first aid pouches, and canteens), 78 per cent; small arms ammunition, 75 per cent; artillery ammunition, 90 per cent. In addition there are no live grenades and none of the special carts, including rolling kitchens.

Similar testimony was given by Major-General Wright concerning conditions at Camp Doniphan, Oklahoma. At Camp Doniphan are stationed some 24,000 men and nearly a thousand officers. At this camp serious shortage in clothing has resulted in an inexcusable number of deaths. Winter clothing has, however, now been provided and great improvement in the health of the soldiers has been noted. But the shortage of ordnance supplies still continues. Among the articles of equip ment lacking at present are more than 5,000 rifles, 10,000 automatic pistols, 9,000 bayonets, 160,000 bayonet scabbards, 16,000 haversacks, 12,000 cartridge belts, 56 batteries of artillery, and 234 machine guns.

The shortage of such equipment means a psychological loss almost comparable to the physical loss. A soldier must not only be supplied with equipment when he needs it for purposes of drill and instruction, but he is very much further along in his development as a soldier if he is provided with equipment which he can regard as his own peculiar property, and which he can cherish as such.

A writer in the New York "Sun" quoted a retired colonel in the United States Army as commenting upon the testimony which has recently been heard within the halls of the Capitol in the following language:

"I wish some of the Senators who were asking Greble and Wright why an enlisted man couldn't be trained as well with a broomstick as with a regulation rifle could know just a little bit what a West Pointer learns when he joins his first command.

"Let me tell you: An infantryman's rifle is to him what his favorite bat is to a baseball player. And then some. An enlisted man will fight even his bunkie quicker than you can drop a hat for monkeying with his rifle. He knows there is no other rifle just like it in the world. As a matter of fact, no two rifles are precisely alike, and a soldier finds more difference in rifles than a batsman finds in bats. He studies all its little peculiarities until he thinks of them as evidences of human temperament. He actually believes they are. . . .

"Broomsticks! Why, a recruit is not a soldier until he has lived a year with a rifle, and will fight for her reputation."

The shortage of overcoats which caused such suffering to the men at Camp Bowie and Camp Doniphan is even less excusable, perhaps, than the shortage of military equipment of a

more

technical variety. Any American familiar with our National disregard of military preparation can find a dozen reasons why we should not have been able to manufacture arms and ammunition upon an instantaneous demand-even though that instant happened to be nine months long. But in the matter of overcoats our civilian requirements have caused us to develop a vast machinery for the manufacture of woolen cloth which ought to have been available without serious delay for the creation of the necessary military supplies. We have, too, in this country a great industry devoted to the manufacture of readymade clothing of all kinds, an industry which, it seems to the lay mind, might have been mobilized for the present emergency with considerably less creaking of official wheels than has been manifest.

According to testimony given before an investigating committee, General Sharpe was generally empowered by the Secretary of War to let contracts on last April 4 for two million overcoats. Yet Senator McKellar has received telegrams from the commanding officers of eight camps stating that they are short some forty-six thousand woolen overcoats, and General Sharpe has himself admitted that the army is to-day short one hundred thousand overcoats of the number required for the clothing of the men now in the service. Orders have, it is said, been placed for overcoats for about a million and a half men, but the Senatorial investigation has so far developed no information of the existence of a really business-like plan within the War Department looking towards the actual co-ordination of the call which is bringing this large number of men into the service and an available supply of clothing necessary to keep these men in health.

In addition to the revelations before the Senatorial Committee of inadequate management within the War Department a striking instance of the workings of the bureaucratic mind was made manifest on a recent occasion to the citizens of the town of Raritan, New Jersey.

Into this town drifted the other day a number of recruits

from all over the country, stating that they had been ordered to report at an ordnance depot at Raritan for duty. The citizens of Raritan would have been very glad to provide these soldiers with the object of their desires, but, so far as they knew, no ordnance depot existed within the boundaries of their town. They did, however, take the soldiers into their homes and provide for them until the mystery was unraveled.

It later became known that the ordnance depot to which the men had been ordered was in process of construction at Metuchen, New Jersey, some miles from the town of Raritan, but situated on the Raritan River. It seems that the War Department had been under the illusion that it possessed an ordnance depot at Raritan for several weeks, for mail had been received at the Raritan post-office addressed to the nonexistent depot covering the period of nearly one month. Just as fast as it had been received it had been returned to the War Department marked "Misdirected."

When the War Department learned that it had no depot at Raritan and that the depot at Metuchen was not yet ready for the troops assigned to it, the War Department quickly decided to transfer its soldiers elsewhere and to telegraph the draft boards previously ordered to assign men to Raritan to regard these orders as canceled. General Crozier reported to the Senate that the explanation for the mistake was as follows:

One of the seven hundred of the younger ordnance officers who have been assigned to duty in the department evidently took too literally a promise that the barracks would be ready last week. I find that the word was communicated to the Draft Boards to send men to Raritan, so as to be on hand when the base is completed. They ought to have been directed to Metuchen instead. But I am told the barracks there are not quite ready. It was a mistake that was corrected as soon as we learned of the advance guard of soldiers arriving at Raritan.

We've headed the others off. They won't be sent there until the barracks at Metuchen are ready.

The explanation is published here for what it is worth.

THE RAILWAYS AND THE

THE GOVERNMENT

A POLL OF PUBLIC OPINION

OVERNMENT operation of the railways has been the subject of political discussion in America for many years. Now it has become suddenly an accomplished fact. Many Americans, naturally conservative, have regarded the proposal that the Government operate the railways as the sug gestion of a dangerous Socialistic experiment. Now war has created conditions which have made the transfer of the railways from private to public management a necessity.

In order to ascertain how this revolutionary change has affected public opinion in America we have sought for the expression of views from a representative Socialist organ, from representatives of organized labor, from railway operators, from newspapers and individuals who have the point of view of the capitalist, and representative newspapers of the North, the South, and the West.

THE OPINION OF THE SOCIALISTS

Concerning a change which only a few years ago would have been widely regarded as Socialistic, it is natural to inquire what the Socialists think. Perhaps as representative as any Socialist organ is the New York "Call." This paper is inclined to be slightly ironical in the course of its remarks. It says:

Labor-resentful, sullen, implacable labor! And those awful brotherhoods of railroad trainmen that have come so near upsetting society with their insatiable demands! Those children of the horse-leech, continually crying "Give!" What about them? Look at them now! All their greed and rapacity has fallen from them as filthy rags, and they now stand forth in the shining raiment of economic righteousness! Oppose Mr. McAdoo? No, sir! They are loyal and patriotic men, and they will make no demands that will embarrass the Administration. They will stand by Mr. McAdoo to the last man. They are confident that the Government will give them a square deal in the matter of wages. Slaves of the State? Nonsense! Labor accepts State control of the railroads with a joyful whoop.

In voicing the particular opinion of the Socialists the "Call" says of them:

Many of them object to that guarantee of the average of three years' big profits, but . . . here is a clause that . . .. will exact more admiration when its purport is more fully understood. As a matter of fact, most Socialists have not noticed it yet, and that is why we reprint it here [the italicizing is the "Call's"]:

"Regular dividends hitherto declared, and maturing interest upon bonds, debentures, and other obligations may be paid in due course; and such regular dividends and interest may continue to be paid until and unless the said director [Mr. McAdoo] shall from time to time otherwise by general or special orders determine."

The "Call" makes this comment:

Spoken like a real dictator!... A genuine dictator obligates himself to nothing. . . . Why should we Socialists not rejoice too? . . . The age of miracles is not past: it's just a-coming.. you will still see more wonders; things that you thought the Government could never do.

That the Government's taking over the railways is an episodic change which will be permanent and that better and more efficient service would result was stated by Mr. Henry Bruère, the former City Chamberlain of New York City, at the recent Intercollegiate Socialist Society's meeting as reported by the Boston "Christian Science Monitor." Government control of the roads, he said, would have also a great influence on city governments. Public control of street railways, food, fuel, and housing problems was predicted. Mr. Bruère foresaw a city composed of persons who would see that things got done and would regard the Government as an instrument to work with and not an outside thing.

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labor was inclined to oppose government ownership and operation of public utilities including railways. This was largely because the railway brotherhoods, who constitute the unions of railway employees, saw in government operation a menace to their accustomed freedom of action. The war, however, has brought about a change in the point of view of many railway presidents and other officials, and may have likewise changed the point of view of many railway employees. Whether it has actually done so or not it is too early yet to tell. Labor leaders are slow in expressing personal views before consulting the organizations they represent. At the time this issue of The Outlook goes to press no labor papers published since the President's proclamation have come to our notice.

THE OPINION OF THE RAILWAY OPERATORS

In seeking the opinion of railway managers, one naturally turns to the New York-Chicago "Railway Age." It says:

Railway facilities have now become inadequate because the various regulating bodies have refused to let the railways earn enough of return to raise the capital required to make facilities adequate. The breakdown is not a breakdown of railway management, but of railway regulation....

There is grave uncertainty as to whether the Government has proceeded along all or, indeed, most lines with real efficiency. And yet it is soberly contended that it should take over the operation of the railways in order to increase their efficiency.... The Government does other things badly, therefore it would operate the railways well.

Among railway presidents one might select at random MrE. P. Ripley, of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé, or Mr. Ralph Peters, President of the Long Island. As reported by the New York "Evening Post," Mr. Ripley says, in line with the Railway Age's" criticism:

...

As to Government ownership of railroads in the future, and what it would mean to the efficiency of railroad operation,. the United States Government has never yet transacted any business as economically or as efficiently as private interests have done. I say this advisedly and with full recognition of what it did in the case of the Panama Canal. ... The Government of the United States is a great political machine. The business of railroading is a science. The mixture of one with the other would destroy the science and corrupt the machine.

And Mr. Peters says:

I do not see Government ownership of the railroads in the future. In many States we have tried it and it failed and was costly. The people will not trust any one party with the great power of perpetuating itself in office that would surely result from Government ownership. Government ownership might mean full protection for the holders of railroad securities, but it means no continuous policy or responsibility for results, and it would not mean efficiency in railway operation nor wisdom in capital expenditure. Abroad it has resulted in freight rates twice as high as those here, and, if the wage scale be considered, foreign freight rates are four times as high.

According to the New York "Sun," other railway men have expressed themselves as follows: Mr. C. Stuart Patterson, a director of the Pennsylvania System, said: "The President has acted wisely. He patriotically has done that which he deems best for the entire country." And another director, Mr. T Dewitt Cuyler, asserted: "All will give the Government the fullest co-operation." The same paper reports Mr. Charles S. Mellen, former head of the New Haven System, as follows:

A single directing head for all the railroads of the country will serve to cut out the hauling of the thousands of cars empty one way-a waste of transportation effort which has been so prevalent under private ownership through the competitive warfare of the different railroads to get business. Now, under Government control, freight will be shipped by the shortest and most expeditious route without regard to which railroad benefits by freight revenue.

The Sun" also reports an opinion from Mr. Theodore P. Shonts, President of the Interborough Consolidated Corporation of New York City, who has had large experience in operating Western railways:

With the security-holders protected by the Government guarantee on a reasonable basis, and with the railroad systems of the country operated as a whole, I can see nothing but good as a result. The guarantee of security should encourage investors, and

the economies and increased efficiency from unified operation will greatly increase the transportation power of the country.

The most emphatically approving opinion of any railway president, however, seems to be that of Mr. Frederick D. Underwood, of the Erie System. He said, according to the "Sun :"

This is the best news that I have heard in many a day. It is the biggest and finest thing that has ever happened to our railroads. On the basis of the general announcement I would say instantly that it will be a grand thing for the country as a war-time measure, a grand thing for the railroads themselves, and a grand solution of the labor problem. . . . It will be accepted enthusiastically and of course loyally by the managements and stockholders.

THE OPINION OF CAPITAL

In obtaining the opinion of capitalists one naturally turns to the New York" Commercial and Financial Chronicle." Noting that the President's act has two distinct aspects-the one bearing upon the operation of the roads as a transportation system, and the other bearing upon the treatment of the security-holders-it thinks the latter in its immediate influence much the more important of the two aspects because of its intimate bearing upon the general financial situation. It proceeds:

Every one will accept the situation in a patriotic spirit... even though under Government control and management the efficiency of the roads . . . shall not be improved.... The Administration does not mean to repeat the mistake of the InterState Commerce Commission or continue the latter's destructive policy, a policy the failure of which has become so palpably evident at the present crucial period in the country's history. To this the well-known and influential New York " Journal of Commerce" adds:

There ought really to be improvement and enlargement of facilities during this period of government control and a stronger and more harmoniously working system thereafter....

"Wall Street" has come to be in many minds a sort of synonym of capital. Hence the opinions of men who work in or near Wall Street are significant. Mr. J. P. Morgan's name would occur first to many inquirers. He says, as reported by the New York “Sun :"

In my opinion, the President's action should be a great relief to the situation. The railroads, with every desire to help as much as possible in winning the war, have found themselves hampered by division of authority and by the competitive policy imposed on them by law. As this situation could be relieved only by Federal action, it is a great satisfaction to see that action taken. I am sure that Mr. McAdoo will have the heartiest co-operation from every one in the great task he is undertaking.

The "Sun" also reports Mr. Alexander J. Hemphill, Chairman of the Board of the Guaranty Trust Company, as calling the President's proclamation "the greatest constructive thing that has happend in years for the railroads."

And Mr. Charles H. Sabin, President of the Guaranty change but as saying in particular: Trust Company, is also reported not only as approving the

Perhaps the most cheering feature. . . is that this action means a quickening of our National efficiency for the winning of the war.

GENERAL OPINION

The opinion of the newspapers throughout the country is practically unanimous in approval. The editorials in the Springfield "Republican" are always read with respect, and it says:

Because of the absolute power which the Federal Government may now exercise over the routing of traffic. . . centralized control should be beneficial in various industries at an early day, especially in the transportation of coal.

The New York press is so emphatic in its approval that the Socialist "Call" pokes fun at it. "Even the New York 'Times,"" it remarks, swallows the previously supposed nasty medicine with a fairly good grace, and professes to find it quite tasty and not at all disagreeable." The "Times" itself declares:

President Wilson has put an end to a period of uncertainty and disquieting rumors by which quite enough harm has been done. It was time for the decision and the decision will be welcomed by the people and by the railways...

Director-General McAdoo appeals for the support of public sentiment. He was sure of it before his appeal reached the eyes

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