in the sixty years from 1801 to 1861 there reigned the States' Rights Doctrinaires.

In 1861 came Lincoln, whose gentle hand adjusted the Federal bond of a united nationality and from his day to the present Federal control has gradually tightened its grip upon the direction of affairs.

But, as Omar reminds us, "a hair" does indeed "divide the false and true," and it is for us to determine to what extent Federal Control is false, and to what extent it may be true and beneficial.

It is easy enough to see where it is false, certainly false for us, by looking at Germany.

When the newspapers of a country have to ask the Federal authorities to "take charge of public opinion" we in America would think it was about time to get off this planet altogether. We are not political pigeons to be fed in such regurgitative fashion.

Men gladly die for freedom of religious thought and speculation as to future existence in a world to come; life would be insupportable to an American were he denied freedom of political thought and speculation as to his present existence in the world that is.

And yet this is exactly what the German Press has come to. The Times is authority for the statement that "A Radical organ, the Zeitung with beautiful naivete, begged the imperial authorities to "take charge of public opinion."

If the people of this country are going to let the Federal Government think for them, then it will be a Germanized Government we shall have and not at all the America that glowed in the visions of the federalistic Washington and Lincoln.

Let us not fool ourselves. It is all very well to say that we are a long way from Germanic ideas and ideals; perhaps we are, consciously, but are we, unconsciously? Government ownership, Government operation of railroads and many other signs of the times are evidence that for the last sixty years we have gradually swung more and more towards a demand for ultra Federalistic Control.

For us this is a lazy and dangerous habit of mind, because it is an unconscious assumption that we are nationally a finished product and that there is nothing new for us to do.

Government can only control that which already exists. The things that exist it can set in order, direct, re-arrange, sort out, regulate and administer. The older a country, the more completely filled up and developed, the greater the necessity for firm governmental regulation. But in all matters pertaining to a young country, still in the bright crescent of its youthful development, too much Federal control is positively a blight, a curse and, moreover, is sure to be partially repudiated when the tide turns, the sixty year tide, due in 1921.

It was realized in 1801 that the continental development of America would be hampered by too strict an adherence to the ideas and ideals of the Federalist Party, consequently that Party disappeared, "went into pralaya," as the Buddhists say.

What are our people perceiving now? A vision arises of developments far greater than the continental development our forefathers adumbrated in 1801.

Ours is the maritime development of America. Then it was simply America for Americans. Now it is the World for Americans, not the World to dominate, that were the false, the German way-but the World to serve, which is the true, the American way.

Therefore, seeing these things and arriving at their own conclusions what will those multiplied groups of 20,000 voters whom we have seen creating homes in the desert,

"With me along the strip of herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown." what will they and the other millions of thoughtful voters do? They will use their common sense just as the Americans of 1801 did and they will say, "Federal Control is all right to a certain extent, but keep the hand of Washington off personal initiative in foreign fields." They will say: "We must not rob each individual state of the driving force of

its own individual initiative and energy. We must encourage a generous rivalry and competition between each state to see which can do the most toward developing the maritime possibilities of the union. Above all things, the citizens of each state must know that they cannot depend upon the Federal Government alone to supply the nautical education necessary for the proper manning of our ships."

It

Many people think that the only way is "to let Uncle Sam do it." No greater error could possibly corrode the public mind. robs the citizen of his own mental backbone and weakens his will to do things. Had our country developed in any other way than by state growth and local control we could never have attained the power and wealth we now possess. The secret of American development lies in the fact that the seeds of selfgovernment were spread over forty-eight different localities. In each of these localities men, and now women, have learned to govern themselves, have developed the sense of political responsibility and each state has learned its own individual lesson of Empire and of growth from within outward. If, therefore, we were to attempt the rehabilitation of maritime thought by simply leaving the matter in the hands of governmental employees at Washington, D. C., we should subvert the whole principle of a growth which heretofore has made this nation the glorious entity it has now become.

Knowing these things to be true, The National Marine League, as set forth in the January issue of THE NAVY AND MERCHANT MARINE, submitted a pro forma Nautical Training School Act to the Governor and Legislature of each State. The response was most encouraging. It is comforting to know that from the great Inland States of the Union assurances come that the matter of training young men and boys for the new American Merchant Marine will be vigorously prosecuted. We knew it before, but it is intensely gratifying to be reassured.

Now there is only one way to succeed, and

that is to keep everlastingly at it, never to know defeat, never to know discouragement, but to be forever dinging away at it until you get it. Again, there is only one person to do it, and that is yourself, not some hypothetical "George" or Governmental "Uncle Sam," but you yourself. And this is how you do it. You buttonhole every man of legislative influence you know in any State of the Union, and like the Ancient Mariner you "hold him with your glittering eye until he listens like a three years' child," and you tell him no one wants his State's money to be spent, excepting by the State itself for the young men of the State in whatever locality the State may choose and for the good of the industries of the State as well as for the general economic welfare of the Nation.

The League will gladly furnish you with copies of the Enabling Act and of the memorandum explanatory thereof, free of all charge, also with any and all of the League's publications. There are no conditions. No one has to join The League if he does not wish to do so, nor need credit be given to The League for any of its work, nor need the name of The League even be mentioned. Our plea is that every American be earnest and sensible and do something to help in getting young men to learn to love and to profit by a knowledge of the sea and the Wide World that lies beyond.

Especially do we ask those of high degree, men of fortune and authority, men of great intellectual attainment, not to disregard this appeal because of its simplicity or because it is addressed to the universal, ubiquitous and offtime humble "You" of American life.

Great as a man may be, his country is still greater. Washington swarms with its Hurleys, its Hoovers, its Edisons, Tripps, Ryans and men really great in every kind of business endeavor. Many there are of equal driving force in other ways who cannot serve at Washington, but whose influence reaches far and wide all over the country. The help of such men we beg.

Advice, "tips," suggestions, "pointers," as

to friendly persons whom we should address. in any State, all will be welcome aids in our work.

One of two things must happen; either the War will continue for several years or it will quickly end. If it continues we must provide young men who will be ready for next year's work and the next year after that. If it ends soon, we must have officers and seamen wherewith to operate our new Merchant Marine, because when peace comes a large proportion of those now at sea will resume their land pursuits which they only abandoned temporarily for sea service during the war and no longer.

The National Marine League wishes to help by encouraging co-ordinated State action that shall supplement Federal activities in nautical training. The Country must be provided with a maritime personnel in order to win the War if it be protracted, and to serve our foreign commerce should War quickly cease. If we do not have men to operate our merchant ships immediately after the war, the resultant loss to American business will be incalculable. We shall have, as to all of the export products of the country exactly the sort of thing we are now having with regard to our fuel exports and cannot count with any certainty that in times of peace Federal authority will clear the jam.

There is no question about our Federal authorities having the power to do things, none whatever that the desire of the people is that Federal power shall be used; the real difficulty is that of transmuting Federal power into action.

In no department of life is the use of Federal power less effective than in educative endeavor. No Government machinery is powerful enough to pump educative desires into the hearts and minds of the average American youth. These come from the State and from the local springs of their own personal lives. In order to be effective, ideas must be promoted as local issues and developed from that starting point. Hence it is

that the maritime salvation and the economic development of our country depend not alone upon the efforts of Federal machinery, unavoidably slow in a country so large as this, but also upon the quick, live, instant desires of the States to perform their maritime duties.

Many of the Governors of our 48 States have already written to The League promising their help. These distinguished gentlemen recognize that "States' duties" are a finer efflorescense of the old root once labelled "States' rights."

Will you who read help to transmute your own individual desire into that form of group psychology herein set down as "States' desire?"

Do this and the rest will be comparatively easy and America will take her proper place in the family of Nations.

Save for the comparatively few congenital unfortunates who happen to have been born in the District of Columbia and to have lived there ever since, every citizen of the United States has two arms; a Federal Arm and a State Arm.

In the course of our history it has been our habit to over-develop, from time to time, one side or the other of our duplex powers. Whenever this has been the case serious results have followed.

Since governments and administrations are only the servants and the individual citizens themselves, are the masters, it depends entirely upon the intelligence and will-power of you and me and the other one hundred million "you s" and "me s" throughout our country to determine whether the conditions under which we live shall be sensible and well ordered or the reverse.

Inevitable tangles and mix-ups have occurred and will occur between Federal and State authority, but we must always remember that the time will come when our country, like a graceful skater, will have command of its members and carry itself proudly and surely over the slippery surfaces of life's great pond.

We regret to announce the retirement of Mr. Atherton Brownell as Editor of "The Navy and Merchant Marine."

Our readers can best appreciate the value of Mr. Brownell's services by comparing this issue of the magazine with that of a year ago. Rarely has any magazine shown so great improvement in such short time.

Mr. Brownell retires to take up other constructive and creative work of an important nature, in which we wish him every success.

Clayton Sedgwick Cooper, the new editor of "The Navy and Merchant Marine," brings to his office a world-wide experience as traveler, author, and investigator of international and industrial subjects. Not only has he visited virtually every State in the Union in connection with his study and writing, but he has also twice encircled the globe, becoming acquainted with Oriental peoples and problems; spent much time in Europe, studied life and conditions in Egypt and North Africa, and has recently returned from a year of investigation in South America.

Among Mr. Cooper's books which have attracted wide attention and interest are "American Ideals," "The Modernizing of the Orient," "The Man of Egypt" and "The Brazilians and Their Country."

With the March number the name of "The Navy and Merchant Marine" will be changed to "The National Marine Magazine"-a title comprehending the naval and merchant marine objective and also associating the magazine closely with The National Marine League, of which it is a vital and integral expression. P. H. W. ROSS,

President, National Marine League.

T

HE National Security League has offered a prize of $1,000 to be paid to the individual who, before February 15, shall submit to its committee the most feasible plan for placing truthfully the aims, purposes and ambitions of the United States in this war before the people of Germany. The theory is, of course, that if the German people can be made to know the truth of the combined purpose of the Allies, they, as reasonable beings, will side with us and become allies with us against their own autocratic government.

Whoever could accomplish this would be terribly underpaid with the reward of $1,000. To such an one the United States Government could well afford to pay not one thousand but one billion dollars or ten billion, and to him the world would erect monuments; but such a plan would have to go far beyond the mere distribution our propaganda literature among the German people, in order to be effective.

It is new-this method of warfare-to contemplate going to an enemy people and an enemy country to convince them that their cause is wrong, their leaders wrong and their contention wrong. It is only one of the many new principles that have developed since this war began, and, whether successful or not in this instance, we predict that it will be the forerunner of a closer internationalism between the peoples of the world when the war is over. Just now, however, we can scarcely believe that a people who have grown up under the education of the German Imperial Government are in a frame of mind to listen very intently to the words of President Wilson or any other individual leader. Rather do we feel that the educational note will be struck in Germany by Trotzky and the Bolshevists, who are close to the German people both geographically and in thought.

Though little actual reliance may be placed. upon the "news" that gets out of Germany, the

evidence is so cumulative as to be almost conclusive that the seeds of revolt are springing up in the German navy in which there lies a very great significance. Yet to reach the German people en masse we believe that the one sound idea that has been developed in this country is that advanced by the United States Chamber of Commerce and on which, at this writing, a referendum is being taken by its members. This is a proposition to notify. Germany, officially, that unless a satisfactory peace is forthwith made, with guarantees for the future, this country will thereafter and for a period of years boycott all German exports, thus depriving her of her greatest market. This would be a direct appeal to the strongest, though not the highest, instinct in Germanygreed. This action could not, perhaps, under other circumstances, wield such a power without provoking war; with war already provoked it is, perhaps, the surest way of bringing it to an end.

The only fault we have to find with the proposal of the United States Chamber of Commerce is that it does not go far enough and is not sufficiently comprehensive. Before this war was a month old this theory of the international boycott was advanced by the present writer in a work published in September, 1914, though written in the summer of 1913. It took the form of a play entitled "The Unseen Empire," and in it occurs an imaginary scene between an imaginary German Chancellor and an imaginary American Ambassador, war being at that time pending between Germany and Great Britain, the purpose of the United States being to prevent it. In that scene the American Ambassador brings to bear upon the Chancellor the threat of a boycott of Germany by this country in these words:

Your Grace, among men-mere individuals—it is necessary to conform to certain unwritten rules of behavior if you wish to maintain your place with them. Otherwise you are socially ostracized. You can get away to another country-change your name,

if you please and escape. But there is only one planet for the nations. The nation that offends cannot escape. In civilized countries we think murder is sufficient cause for execution; but wholesale murder among nations can only be stopped by some one nation or combination of nations having the power or the force to prevent it. The United States of America thinks it has that force, and it intends to exercise it. The United States will not fight with guns. It doesn't have to. But from the moment the first German gun is fired against England, Germany ceases to exist so far as the United States is concerned. You are no longer on our planet. Your postage-stamps will not be recognized. A small matter, perhaps. Your money will be refused in exchange. Your ships cannot enter or leave our ports. Your stocks and securities will not be dealt in. We will buy nothing from you. We will sell you nothing. Without our raw material your industries will be paralyzed. Without our food your people will starve. Don't fire that first gun, your

Grace. It isn't wise. Let us arbitrate!"

The principle is as true today as when the above was penned. The nations now in alliance and at war against Germany can dictate peace and enforce their decree whenever they will agree to concerted economic action. Were these principal nations-the United States Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Japan, China, Brazil and Cuba, joined, perhaps by the Argentine Republic, Chile-to declare unequivocally to Germany that such a post-war boycott would be levied, and if this information could be conveyed to the German people, particularly the all-powerful junkers-there would be a movement for peace at once.

The details of such a boycott would be as follows:

Refusal to admit Germany to the rights of the International Postal Union, and refusal to recognize her postage stamps. Refusal to recognize German money in exchange.

Refusal to deal in German securities. Refusal of the right of entry German ships to the ports of the allied countries, together with refusal to carry German goods in allied ships.